Now I know what they do at faculty meetings on the humanities/social sciences side of campus » « They never learn

Infinite Thread XXXIX

It’s almost spring-like outside — the skies are clear, we’ve got cool breezes on a comfortable day, the plants are coming back… I know it can’t last but I’ll make the most of it. I’ve opened windows to let birdsong in and to drive the cat crazy.

Let the pleasant conversations flow!

Previous Thread

Now I know what they do at faculty meetings on the humanities/social sciences side of campus » « They never learn

Comments

  3. Reginald Selkirk says

    Bad cholesterol slashed 62% by single dose of gene-editing drug in small trial

    An experimental gene-editing therapy that aims to lower bad cholesterol for the long-term after a single infusion is off to a positive start in an early clinical trial.

    Researchers running a Phase I safety trial for the drug, dubbed VERVE-102, published interim results from just 35 patients this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. Though the numbers are small and the analysis is preliminary, VERVE-102 appeared safe, with no serious adverse events reported from the treatment, even at the largest doses. The most significant finding was a temporary, mild increase of a liver enzyme that suggested minor injury in the liver, where the drug works.

    The small amount of data also hints that the drug is effective…

  4. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dog in Car Shoots Woman With Shotgun, Nebraska Police Say

    …
    Local police in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, detailed the unusual tale earlier this week. The dog reportedly triggered a live shotgun in its owner’s car, sending a blast directed at the woman’s vehicle nearby. Thankfully, her injuries were not life-threatening, police said.
    …
    According to police, the shotgun had a live round in its chamber. The dog then caused the gun to go off when it moved from one side of the backseat to the other. The woman had pulled up to a traffic light several yards away when the gun fired. Though the woman’s car door took the brunt of the blast, a pellet also struck her upper right arm, which had been resting out the window.

    A family member of the woman, police said, took her to the Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff for treatment. Officials are still investigating the incident, though they note it’s illegal in the state of Nebraska to drive with a loaded firearm in the vehicle…

  5. says

    StevoR @500, thank you for that update.
    It is very disappointing to hear that the Trump administration is going after E Jean Carroll.

    They are going to cause her more pain even if she wins in court.

    BTW, I meant to thank you earlier for all the news from Adelaide, and from other parts of Australia.

  6. says

    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/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-4/#comment-2301821
    Trump’s Dept of “Justice” is going after E Jean Carroll now

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-4/#comment-2301819
    “Oman will behave just like everyone else, or we’ll have to blow them up”— Donald Trump, Cabinet Meeting, 5/27/26

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-4/#comment-2301801
    Wikimedia Foundation (the org behind Wikipedia) got a new CEO in January… formerly from J.P. Morgan and Lehman Brothers.

  7. says

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Report: DOJ launches criminal investigation into E. Jean Carrol

    The Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll, according to CNN and the New York Times. MS NOW senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin joins to discuss.l

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Hayes: The MAGA base is shrinking, but Trump’s grip is tightening

    Chris Hayes on Trump’s shrinking faction: “It’s a strange, toxic dynamic we’ve seen play out in autocratic regimes and cults through history.”

  8. says

    Gas tax holiday becomes the White House’s latest discarded rapid-fire policy gimmick

    “Remember two weeks ago, when the president said he was suspending the federal gas tax? Evidently, he forgot.?

    Under existing law, American consumers pay a gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon (24.4 cents for diesel and 19.3 cents for jet fuel), which generates revenue that is used for road maintenance through the Highway Trust Fund. Earlier this month, however, as the war with Iran pushed prices at the pump higher, Donald Trump announced plans to suspend the tax as a way to reduce costs.

    There was some pushback, not just because of the nation’s infrastructure needs, but also because the savings would be minimal. As MS NOW’s Hayes Brown explained two weeks ago, “If put into place today, one economist suggested that a gas tax holiday would only save drivers roughly 60 cents total per trip to the pump, a drop in the tank compared to the $1.50 per gallon leap we’ve seen since Trump launched the Iran war more than two months ago.”

    The president didn’t care. The pause, the Republican told CBS News, was “a great idea.” He also made it sound as if the change was definitely going to happen, adding, “We’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time.”

    So what happened? Toward the end of the latest White House Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Trump about his expectations for the federal gas tax.

    “A gas tax holiday?” he replied. “Well, it’s something we might talk about. Let’s see what happens over the next week or two weeks.”

    As always, the president’s “two weeks” reference effectively gave away the game: Every time he uses the phrase (which is painfully often), he’s trying to avoid giving a straight answer to a question he doesn’t know what to do with.

    It’s also apparently time to update the list of rapid-fire policy gimmicks Trump has suggested with no meaningful planning or forethought, only to reverse course soon after. Remember the 10% cap on credit card rates? How about the tariff rebate checks, or the vaunted DOGE rebate checks? Remember 50-year mortgages? How about the White House’s plan to allow people to use 401(k) funds to make down payments on a home? […]

  10. says

    Multiple artists listed for America 250 event on National Mall deny involvement

    Multiple artists listed as entertainers for a massive bash slated for next month on the National Mall to celebrate America’s 250th birthday have pushed back on reports of their participation.

    Young MC, Morris Day and the Time, and the C+C Music Factory each shared statements online announcing they will not perform at the “Great American State Fair” in Washington.

    “I HAVE INFORMED MY AGENTS THAT I WILL NOT BE PERFORMING AT THE FREEDOM 250 EVENT,” Young MC wrote in a Facebook post. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event.”

    “And despite the claims by the organizers that the event is non-partisan, SPIN magazine describes it as ‘Trump-backed’. I hope to perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged,” he added.

    Other artists shared similar sentiments.

    In a profane Instagram post, C+C Music Factory vocalist Freedom Williams, said he also told his agent to pull him from the bash after not being informed of its political ties.

    […] “So I told my agent, yeah, no, I ain’t good to do that. … I don’t f— with Trump. I don’t give a f— about Trump. I know the type of f—ing anarchy he creates. But the day I let you motherf—–s tell me what to do, is the day I die,” he added. […]

    More at the link.

  11. says

    Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs today denounced what it called “heinous Iranian attacks” on its territory after Tehran said it had targeted a U.S. base in the Persian Gulf monarchy.

    The attacks were a “dangerous escalation” and a “direct threat to the lives of civilians and vital infrastructure,” Kuwait’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

    Kuwait said the attacks came at a time when “strenuous efforts” were being made to reduce tensions and de-escalate the conflict in the region.

    Other countries, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt also issued statements condemning the attacks and expressing support for Kuwait.

    […] At least 14 people were killed today as the Israeli military pounded Tyre in southern Lebanon. Among those killed in the flurry of strikes were five women and children and a Lebanese soldier.

    […] Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi has said that U.S. attacks last night were “provocations” that “certainly constitute a violation of the ceasefire.”

    “A very key point that must be emphasized is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, which has now been firmly established,” he said in a statement, according to semi-official news agency Tasnim.

    U.S. Central Command said earlier that the overnight U.S. strikes took out attack drones “that posed a clear threat in and near the Strait of Hormuz,” as well as an Iranian ground control site in Bandar Abbas.

    […] The ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has created uncertainty for hundreds of ships and around 20,000 seafarers waiting for news of an agreement to reopen the crucial shipping corridor.

    NBC News’ Raf Sanchez speaks with a crew member who was caught in the crossfire and takes us inside a U.K. agency serving as an emergency call center. [video]

    […]

    Link

  12. JM says

    Politico: Trump threatens Oman in latest play to open the Strait of Hormuz

    President Donald Trump rejected a plan that would see Oman and Iran jointly charge a toll for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, threatening harsh consequences for the U.S. ally if it follows through on discussions that have reportedly taken place with Tehran.
    “Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up,” he told reporters Wednesday at a White House Cabinet meeting. “They understand that. They’ll be fine.”

    The reason this has suddenly come up is that to legally control the entire Strait of Hormuz it would have to be Oman and Iran working together. Together their national territorial water cover the entire gap, you have to pass through territorial water of one country or the other to pass through the strait. Iran and Oman have talked about the idea on and off but as far as I know have never really been serious about it. Iran can easily close the strait on it’s own but it doesn’t have a good legal basis for charging everybody passing through without Oman.
    Trump naturally goes with his 100% flip flop, either you support his position or you are a military threat to the US and risk being destroyed. That Oman has historically had good relations with the US doesn’t matter, only Oman’s position on the immediate issue.

  13. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump loses more control over AI regulation as Illinois passes landmark law

    A few days after President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a plan that would have given the federal government power to vet frontier AI models over fears that it might hobble innovation, Illinois lawmakers passed the nation’s strongest AI safety law.

    On Wednesday, the Illinois legislature passed SB 315. If Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signs the bill into law, the largest AI firms would be required to submit public safety plans and annual reports summarizing the results of independent, third-party safety testing of their frontier models. They would also have to report any critical safety incidents to the state within 72 hours—or within 24 hours if there’s potentially “an imminent risk of death or serious physical harm.” And their employees will have a clear avenue for reporting emerging safety risks that companies may be tempted to downplay, with protections provided by the state’s whistleblower laws.

    On X, Pritzker confirmed his intent to sign, proclaiming that “Illinois is leading the nation in holding Big Tech accountable.” …

  14. Reginald Selkirk says

    Secret to homing pigeon navigation may lie in the liver

    Scientists have long known that migrating birds and homing pigeons navigate in part by sensing the Earth’s magnetic fields, especially at night or in overcast conditions when visual landmarks or sunshine are in short supply. But exactly where this magneto-sensing occurs in the body—and the mechanism that enables it—remains a matter of intense debate. A new paper published in the journal Science suggests that homing pigeons have iron-rich immune cells in their livers that help them detect magnetic fields and transmit that information to the brain.
    …

  15. johnson catman says

    re Reginald Selkirk@4:

    Dog in Car Shoots Woman With Shotgun, Nebraska Police Say

    When dogs learn to shoot shotguns, Kristi Noem should worry.

  16. Reginald Selkirk says

    Microsoft Allegedly Leaked Dutch Civil Servants’ Data To the US

    An anonymous reader quotes a report from Cybernews:

    The technology giant Microsoft has been accused of leaking the data of civil servants working for the Netherlands’ regulatory agencies to the US House of Representatives. The civil servants affected by the leak work at the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) and the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP), according to the NL Times. They are involved in implementing the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Union regulation on online services, aimed at combating illegal content and protecting user rights…

  18. Reginald Selkirk says

    Why Wisconsin Has Speed Limit Signs With Decimal Points

    …
    Whether you happen to pay attention to the posted speed limit or not, a recycling and solid waste facility in Appleton, Wisconsin, about 107 miles north of Milwaukee, believes it has a trick to get the attention of even habitual speeders: a posted 17.3 mph speed limit. Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste posted this abnormal speed limit sign on the facility’s property late last month in an attempt to catch the eyes of passing vehicles and force awareness of the low, oddly specific speed limit. In a Facebook post, Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste said, “Why 17.3? Because it makes you pause. It makes you look twice. And most importantly, it breaks that ‘autopilot’ feeling we can all fall into when driving familiar routes.” …

  19. says

    Even U.S. allies see Trump’s demands on Abraham Accords as odd and easy to ignore

    “The president is trying to link ending the Iran war with Arab states establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. He’s failing badly.”

    It was nearly six years ago when the Trump administration helped establish diplomatic relations between Israel and three Arab states: the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain. Donald Trump and his allies have been exaggerating the significance of the diplomatic effort ever since. [True]

    That’s not to say the accords were a mistake. It’s just that they failed to usher in a new era of peace and stability in the Middle East, despite occasional claims to the contrary. [True]

    The American president appears newly fixated on the 2020 agreement anyway, publishing a lengthy item to his social media platform on Monday morning urging Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain to meet a new demand: “After all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords,” he wrote.

    As MS NOW reported, when Trump brought up the idea during a conference call with these countries’ leaders, “an uncomfortable silence lingered in the air.” [Yep]

    Two days later, during a White House Cabinet meeting, the president returned to the subject, insisting that Middle East countries “owe it to us” to join the Abraham Accords. [video]

    Part of the problem is that Trump doesn’t seem to fully understand what he’s talking about. [!] The whole point of his own accords was to establish diplomatic relations between Arab states and Israel. With this in mind, there’s no reason for countries like Egypt, Jordan and Turkey to sign on to the accords since they already have diplomatic relations with Israel. [!!]

    As for the other countries on Trump’s list, Politico reported:

    President Donald Trump’s demand that more Muslim-majority countries join the Abraham Accords and recognize Israel as part of efforts to end the Iran war is being met by officials in such countries with laughter, dismissal and, often, silence.

    […] the president’s influence with everyone else [with the exception of Republican politicians] lappears to be evaporating quickly.

    As part of his renewed push related to the Abraham Accords, Trump has suggested he is prepared to link ending the war in Iran with Arab states signing on to the 2020 agreement. In fact, at the White House Cabinet meeting, he went so far as to say, “I’m not sure we should make the deal if they don’t sign. … And so, we’re requesting strongly that they join.”

    Chances are, he was bluffing (again) and the American president won’t make one objective conditional on the other. But if not, Trump will add a new complication to a crisis he’s already struggling to resolve.

  20. says

    aiyiyiyi   Paradise?

    “The American people understand the hell that we inherited and the extraordinary paradise that President Trump is building,” Stephen Miller said with a straight face.

    Right off the bat, the conditions that the Republican administration inherited from its Democratic predecessors were actually worthy of a thank-you note: By Inauguration Day 2025, the U.S. economy was the strongest in the world; inflation was falling; crime rates were falling; and international polling showed the nation with renewed credibility and global respect.

    “Hell” isn’t the first word that comes to mind when describing these conditions.

    But even putting that aside, the idea that Trump is building an “extraordinary paradise” is literally unbelievable. [!!] Indeed, Miller’s timing could’ve been better. Roughly 12 hours after he made the on-air comments, The New York Times reported on the latest discouraging news on inflation:

    The Personal Consumption Expenditures index rose 3.8 percent from the same time last year. It was the fastest annual pace since May 2023, when the Fed was in the midst of raising rates to tame a burst of inflation that had emerged in the wake of the pandemic.

    A measure of underlying inflation that strips out volatile food and energy prices also notched a multiyear high. That measure, “core” inflation, increased at an annual pace of 3.3 percent, the fastest since November 2023.

    This comes on the heels of the consumer price index reaching its highest level in almost three years, the core personal consumption expenditures price index reaching a three-year high and wholesale prices also posting their highest annual increase in more than three years. [!!]

    As Americans’ incomes fall behind rising inflation, the squeeze on the public is brutal — and helps explain why the national savings rate has fallen to levels unseen in four years.

    This also dovetails with the latest discouraging news on economic growth: Last year was the worst for economic growth in the U.S. in nine years [!] (excluding the pandemic), and the latest data for this year is similarly bleak.

    […] If Miller and other White House officials want to appear spectacularly out of touch, that’s up to them, but there’s ample reason to believe that the American mainstream does not see the status quo as either extraordinary or paradisical.

  21. Reginald Selkirk says

    US government prepares to print $250 note featuring Trump’s face

    US President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to print a new $250 bill that could feature a portrait of him, if lawmakers allow the move.

    Federal law bars printing US money with the image of a living person, but Trump allies in Congress have introduced legislation that would make an exception.
    …
    The move to create the $250 note could also break with a different federal law that specifies the denominations that can be produced. That law doesn’t include $250.
    …
    The $100 bill, featuring Benjamin Franklin, one of the US founding fathers, is the largest bill printed today. The US has previously issued larger notes including $500, $1000 and $10,000 notes but these were discontinued in 1969. They remain legal tender but not in circulation, as they are largely kept by private currency collectors…

    And they do this ON PURPOSE so that large money transfers are easier to trace.

  22. Reginald Selkirk says

    Vanilla Ice, C+C Music Factory performing at America’s 250th concert as others withdraw

    Americans will soon sing Happy Birthday to celebrate 250 years of independence, and the official celebrations include a lineup of one-hit wonders to help revellers belt out some ’90s tunes in Washington D.C.

    Attendees of Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair will stop, collaborate and listen to Vanilla Ice, everybody will dance now to C+C Music Factory at the I Love the 90’s! concert on June 26.

    But they definitely won’t bust a move, as rapper Young MC, initially slated to perform, said he’s pulling out over the celebration’s alleged partisan nature.

    “I HAVE INFORMED MY AGENTS THAT I WILL NOT BE PERFORMING AT THE FREEDOM 250 EVENT,” he said in a Facebook post.

    “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event. And despite the claims by the organizers that the event is non-partisan, SPIN magazine describes it as Trump-backed. I hope to perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.”

    On Thursday afternoon, members of Milli Vanilli told the Associated Press that they are not performing at the show as was previously announced.

    “My sister and I were shocked to see our name, ‘Milli Vanilli’, as one of the performers,” band member Jodie Rocco wrote in an email to the wire service.

    Freedom 250 says on its website that the event is about “Celebrating the Triumph of the American Spirit.” But other events and commemorations surrounding the 250th birthday of the United States have attracted criticism for glorifying U.S. President Donald Trump. These include efforts to put Trump’s face on commemorative coins, his signature on bills and his face on a special passport…

  24. Reginald Selkirk says

    US says troops were targeted with location data, as senator warns ad industry is a ‘national security threat’

    The U.S. Department of Defense has confirmed that adversaries have targeted and surveilled serving military personnel on the battlefield using commercial location data, the latest demonstration of how information collected from phones and computers can be abused to track and target individuals.

    In a letter shared by Sen. Ron Wyden with TechCrunch, U.S. Central Command said it was aware of hostile actors using purchased location data to track U.S. servicemembers…

  25. says

    https://www.wired.com/story/fact-checking-ai/

    “AI Just Isn’t Right”

    “Can AI do fact-checking? A WIRED fact-checker fact-checks.”

    NEARLY HALF OF Americans say they use AI to find information and generate ideas. It’s not hard to see why. As social media devolves into slop—and Google into a glorified landing page for Reddit threads and content farms—most of us are starved for something reliable. Plus, chatbots are so helpful, aren’t they? The first time I interacted with one, I asked if it knew it was a huge drain on resources. Half an hour later, I had a new recipe for vegan cream cheese. […]

    I do not have access to this article.

  26. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Hoping to improve Donald J. Trump’s woefully weak negotiating position with Iran, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to the White House on Wednesday to lend him some cards.

    “For four years, my country has fought a much larger adversary to a standstill, while for three months, a far smaller country has kicked your ass,” Zelenskyy informed Trump. “Which of the two of us, may I ask, has cards?”

    Saying that his American counterpart’s total lack of cards “makes me very sad,” Zelenskyy pleaded with Trump to borrow some of his.

    “Pick a card,” Zelenskyy begged him. “Any card.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/zelenskyy-offers-to-lend-trump-cards

  27. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Board of Peace continues to be sham everyone expected it to be.

    Reuters

    Reuters reported in April that the board had only received a small fraction of the $17 billion pledged by members for Gaza, preventing the president from moving ahead with his plan. The board denied that report, saying […] that there “are no funding constraints.”

    In a May 15 report to the United Nations Security Council, […] the board said that “the gap between commitment (to the Board of Peace) and disbursement must be closed with urgency”. […] The report did not say how much money it had received or how ​big the gap was

    Trump Board of Peace’s official Gaza fund is empty despite billions pledged

    The source said money had not been deposited because the fund was designed for the reconstruction and development phase, which has not yet been reached. Israeli military operations in Gaza have continued despite the ceasefire, with at least 910 people killed since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.
    […]
    Earlier on Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that the board had received donations directly into a JPMorgan account, citing the board’s spokesperson. There are no “independent transparency requirements” in place for the JPMorgan account, the FT noted.
    […]
    Trump previously said that the United States would contribute $10 billion to the board, while Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates each promised at least $1 billion. […] An EU-UN assessment published in April estimated that more than $71 billion will be needed over the next decade for the reconstruction

    Al Jazeera – Why is Trump’s Gaza Board of Peace facing a funding shortfall?

    Moath al-Amoudi, an expert in international aid to Palestinians, told Al Jazeera that the heavily publicised pledges are closer to a “talk show” than a genuine humanitarian effort.
    […]
    Despite a nominal “ceasefire”, Israeli forces have continued their near-daily violations. […] Israel is supposed to withdraw its forces by the second phase of the truce. Reconstruction is to start in the third and final phase. […] With 85 percent of Gaza’s buildings and infrastructure destroyed, donors are acutely aware that any infrastructure they fund could easily be bombed again, as happened […] in the early 2000s.
    […]
    The plan promises to rebuild Gaza from scratch and includes residential towers, data centres, seaside resorts, parks, sports facilities and an airport. […] the plan treats Gaza as vacant beachfront property
    […]
    “They want to place Palestinians in what resemble ‘modern ghettos’—luxurious prisons under 24-hour electronic and security surveillance […] Any state with a minimum of ethics will not accept participating in the management of the largest prison in modern history. To fund this without a political path is to support what Hannah Arendt called ‘absolute evil’.”

    * Hanna Arendt: “absolute because it can no longer be deduced from humanly comprehensible motives”

  28. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The full article for Lynna @25. An ironically fluffy piece for a fact checker (soft news).

    Wired – AI just isn’t right

    I never tried the recipe. Instead, I found a human-created one that the LLM might have scraped. That’s the way these models work, of course. […] according to my research, AI is even more wrong than people might think.
    […]
    WIRED’s fact-checking department is old-school: meticulous line-by-line annotations, primary sources whenever possible, and a broader-scale ethical and legal review. We question basic assumptions, look for new or conflicting information, call and talk to people
    […]
    statistics, news events, quotes […] Fact-checkers tend to Google this basic information, and that process, in the form of the search engine’s dreaded AI Overviews, constitutes my main interaction with AI. In my professional opinion, it’s unusable—wrong—about a third of the time.
    This might be a generous assessment, though. A March 2025 study […] found that more than 60 percent of responses from AI-powered search engines were inaccurate. A BBC study puts the wrongness of chatbots closer to 45 percent, the number I see cited more often. […] AI could be wrong about half the time.
    […]
    In fact, the more time I spend with AI, the more capable I feel as a human fact-checker. […] Once we get past the googleable b-matter, my job really gets fun. It’s why I still get a thrill when I find some bit of information that doesn’t exist on the internet […] whether or not there was a Burger King at a particular LA intersection in 1979. […] It can’t suss out that there’s beef between two sources which may be blurring the edges of what counts as “factual.”
    […]
    humans make mistakes too. As Holan reminded me, abstaining from chatbots isn’t some foolproof saving grace. At least, I’m 33 to 90 percent sure that’s what she said. At the end of our interview, when I looked down at my recorder, I found I’d forgotten to turn it on.

    /”archive.is” at the link has been intermittently down for me today.
    /I recently found “unwall.app”, which works on some sites, but not Wired.
     
    I snipped an unfair bit about much of ancient history having been lost despite being carved in stone, compared to the ephemeral nature of modern storage media. There are tradeoffs, and permanence just isn’t the most important aspect of media for most purposes.

    Wikipedia – Clay tablet

    Once written upon, many tablets were dried in the sun or air, remaining fragile. Later, these unfired clay tablets could be soaked in water and recycled into new clean tablets. Other tablets, once written, were either deliberately fired in hot kilns, or inadvertently fired when buildings were burnt down by accident or during conflict, making them hard and durable.
    […]
    Most of the documents on tablets that survive from the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations were created for accounting purposes. In this cultural region, tablets were never fired deliberately as the clay was recycled on an annual basis. […] some institutions are investigating the possibility of firing them now to aid in their preservation.

    Vellum vs. Paper: the Battle for Longevity

    On the 12th October 2015, a [UK] Commons Committee voted in favour of scrapping the use of vellum as the material on which Acts of Parliament are printed
    […]
    Although it was largely replaced by paper after the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, vellum continued to be used for legal documents and by artists […] Vellum has proven to last over a thousand years in excellent condition; however, it can be very vulnerable to changes in humidity, which causes pages to buckle. Books with parchment pages were bound with strong wooden boards and were clamped shut by metal clasps or leather straps in order to keep the pages pressed flat.
    […]
    Although early paper that was made from wood-based pulp did not have its lignin removed and as a result deteriorates over time, turning yellow and brittle, modern, high-grade acid-free paper has a life-span of over a thousand years.

    Good to know permanence hasn’t fallen out of fashion.

  29. birgerjohansson says

    Britain / A Different Bias: “Has Farage Fallen Into His Own Trap?”

    Nigel Farage has claimed he was hacked by the Russians. If true  this would be an attack on the whole UK. But he has made no formal complaint to the authorities.

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=lRwUg0hJa2U

  31. JM says

    The Hill: Bipartisan group of former judges asks court to investigate Trump’s IRS deal

    A group of former federal judges on Wednesday asked a federal court to reopen President Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), arguing that the administration circumvented the court by negotiating a settlement with the president and creating a $1.776 billion fund for those who believe that the government has wronged them.
    The group of more than 30 ex-judges, appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents, wrote that the Department of Justice (DOJ) “deceived” U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams by announcing the settlement with Trump after the president’s legal team did not mention it in dismissing the case.

    Extremely radical move. The judges are asking the judge in Florida, Judge Kathleen Williams, to reopen the case so she can investigate if fraud was committed on the court.
    Normally such a question would be referred to the DOJ for investigation but the retired judges realize the futility of that action. It is within the courts authority because the DOJ action to setup the $1.776 billion fund was described as part of the settlement but Williams was never told about it.

  32. JM says

    CNN: US and Iran reach tentative agreement, but deal still needs Trump’s sign-off

    • Potential deal: The US and Iran reached a tentative agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and start nuclear talks, according to US officials — though President Donald Trump has not signed off on it yet. Iranian officials have not yet commented on a potential deal.
    • Back-and-forth continues: US Vice President JD Vance said “a couple of language points” are still under discussion but the sides are making progress in peace talks. Sources say the tentative deal would begin 60 more days of negotiation on Tehran’s nuclear program.

    60 days of further negotiations sounds like a version of the previous round of negotiation. That possibility was rejected out of hand by Trump but no telling what Trump does today. And of course we don’t know much about the details of either version, various things may have change.
    I wonder if part of the goal here is to salvage Tump’s ego by having the US attack Iran and then quickly signing a treaty so Trump can say he made the last attack and Iran is the loser.

  33. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT: “Breaking News: Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, replaced the top producer of ’60 Minutes’ with Nick Bilton, a tech journalist and documentarian who has never worked in traditional broadcast news.”

    Rando 1: “I think the most reasonable conclusion here is that no one with actual broadcast experience wants to work for Bari Weiss.”

    Rando 2: “‘Breaking News’ is particularly apt here.”

    Rando 3: Oh cool, the guy who wrote the immaculately-aging “Understanding Elon Musk” in 2018 following the Thai cave sub incident, fantastic pick.

    Was Musk really wrong to build the submarine and export it at his own expense, even if he did so immodestly? Not necessarily. […] I personally do think that Musk is a genius. He is probably the closest thing we do have to Tony Stark. […] In many ways, this is all our fault, not Musk’s. […] we all expect these CEOs to fix the world […]

    UPDATE: After his rescue mini-sub went unused, Musk […] called a British diver who criticized him a “pedo guy” and implied he was a child rapist.

  34. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Context for Reginald Selkirk @449 in the previous 500 comments.

    Erin Reed – Maine trans sports/bathroom ban referendum invalid

    a proposed ballot initiative banning trans students from school sports and bathrooms will not appear before voters this November. […] the signature-gathering process was riddled with improper procedures and, in at least one documented case and potentially many others, outright forgery.
    […]
    The initiative would have done far more than what its sports-focused branding suggested. […] It would have created a private right of action allowing any student to sue their school for “direct injury” suffered from a violation of the act, effectively turning every transgender student’s presence in a bathroom or on a sports team into potential litigation. And it would have specifically carved transgender students out of the Maine Human Rights Act.

    The anti-trans signature drive was not a grassroots effort. It was bankrolled by Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein, the co-founder of Uline office supplies, who donated $800,000 […] Uihlein has given more than $250 million to political causes since 2016, and is a major funder of the American Principles Project, which routinely spends tens of millions on anti-trans campaign ads during election years. He is not alone: an independent analysis published by Atmos and HEATED found that 80% of 45 major anti-trans organizations in the U.S. have received funding from fossil fuel companies or billionaires.
    […]
    Similar billionaire-backed initiatives have been certified for the November ballot in Washington and Colorado, where voters will decide whether to bar transgender students from sports as well as medical care restrictions. Both efforts are also funded by conservative megadonors, and both are part of the same strategy[:] use ballot initiatives to roll back trans rights in states whose elected legislatures have refused to do so.

  35. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NasaSpaceFlight: “Blue Origin’s New Glenn [rocket] just blew up at [Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36] while attempting to Static Fire ahead of NG-4. [Video clips]”

    An impressive fireball in the first clip.

  36. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    A drone fell on a block of flats in Romania and caused two casualties (Translated)

    The Ministry of National Defence [said] “During the night of May 28 to 29, the Russian Federation resumed drone attacks on civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine, in the proximity of the river border with Romania. One of these drones entered the airspace of Romania, being [tracked] by radars to the southern area of Galati and crashed on the roof of a housing block, the impact being followed by a fire.[“]
    […]
    all the explosive cargo of the drone exploded. […] about 70 people have been evacuated from the affected building […] Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it is the worst incident on the territory of Romania.

  37. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    FinancialTimes – Ukraine is turning the tables

    Ukrainian military officials and western experts agree that the country’s military is stronger than at any time since Trump’s return to office, as it fills gaps left by the US through increased European aid and greater self-sufficiency. In particular, the mass production of UAVs—at a scale and speed hard to imagine just a year ago
    […]
    In Russia, resentment is deepening over a war that has crept ever closer to home. Ukrainian drone strikes are a regular occurrence as far from the frontline as the Ural Mountains.
    […]
    Ukraine’s defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov said last week that some 35,000 Russians had been “killed or severely wounded” in both April and March—figures corroborated by a Ukrainian system that rewards combat units with new equipment for confirmed kills.

    Kyiv, which estimates that Russia enlists an average of 29,500 new soldiers a month, says that for five straight months its foe has lost more personnel than it can mobilise.
    […]
    Some intelligence reports indicate that a staggering 1.2mn Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since February 2022, a casualty figure no major power has suffered in a single conflict since the second world war. On Wednesday, […] GCHQ, Britain’s cyber intelligence spy agency, said that almost half a million Russian soldiers had now been killed […]

    The Ukrainian military also has a manpower shortage. Its forces have probably suffered somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties, according to western estimates.
    […]
    In a further sign of the disruption caused by Ukraine’s drone campaign, Russia also adopted a law on Wednesday allowing its central bank and other financial institutions to shoot down and jam drones—as long as they pay for such measures themselves.
    […]
    To date, however, Putin has shown no indication of dropping his hardline demands […] Despite its mounting losses, Russia retains deeper reserves of manpower and resources, while continuing its own deep strike campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in an effort to exhaust civilian morale and economic resilience.
    […]
    For now, Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines tell the FT that morale is at its highest point in the past year. In Kyiv and other cities pummelled with missiles and drones, Ukrainians may be exhausted but they also remain resolute

    David Kaye (UN special rapporteur): “These figures are mind-blowing, the result of one man’s detachment from reality & humanity.”

  39. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    RawStory – DOJ subpoenas Reddit in effort to unmask Trump critics

    The Justice Department is intensifying efforts to identify anonymous social media users who have criticized government deportation policies, […] demanding names, addresses, and banking information.

    The US Attorney’s Office for Washington under Jeanine Pirro has subpoenaed [Reddit and X] as part of criminal investigations targeting at least two anonymous posters […] Neither the Justice Department nor the users have been informed what specific crimes are allegedly being investigated
    […]
    Court records show the administration initially pursued administrative summonses—which bypass judicial review—but withdrew them after legal challenges. The government then escalated to grand jury subpoenas, which carry the weight of criminal investigations and are far more difficult to challenge.

    According to former federal prosecutor Bonnie Greenberg, those challenging such subpoenas face an extremely heavy burden, saying that in her 37-year career as an assistant U.S. attorney, only one person attempted to quash a grand jury subpoena, and the judge ruled against them.

    The cases involve relatively innocuous posts. One user posted simply “expletive ICE,” while another made what his attorney describes as a sarcastic remark on X that included an address found elsewhere on social media. Defense attorneys note the posts contain no indication of violent intent. […] Reddit has stated it vigorously defends user anonymity and routinely objects to overbroad requests threatening civil rights

  40. StevoR says

    Observations of ancient galaxies called “Little Red Dots” by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could finally answer the question: which comes first, the black hole or its galaxy? It turns out that the answer isn’t what scientists expected and could thus represent a complete paradigm shift in our understanding of how black holes grow.

    ..(snip)..

    This new study of Little Red Dots by the JWST indicates that maybe supermassive black holes were born directly without needing a massive star to live for millions of years before collapsing to birth a stellar-mass black hole. It also means that these early supermassive black holes would not need to gorge on copious amounts of gas and dust from their host galaxies to grow. That means these black holes could form before the galaxies that will eventually host them come together.

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/james-webb-space-telescope-discovers-a-black-hole-that-formed-before-its-host-galaxy-scientists-arent-sure-how

  41. Reginald Selkirk says

    FBI Arrests CIA Official With $40 Million In Gold Bars In His Home

    A senior CIA official, David Rush, was arrested after investigators found more than $40 million in gold bars and about $2 million in cash at his Virginia home. According to the New York Times, “The only charge lodged against David Rush is that he inflated his academic credentials and obtained military leave pay worth tens of thousands of dollars.” From the report:

    The court papers describe Mr. Rush as a “former senior executive service-level employee at a United States government agency.” People familiar with the investigation say he until very recently held a senior position at the C.I.A. In a joint statement, the C.I.A. and F.B.I. said the arrest occurred on May 19, after the agency alerted the bureau. “After a C.I.A. internal investigation identified potential violations of the law, C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe referred the information to the F.B.I. for a law enforcement investigation,” the statement said.

    From last November to March, the court papers say, Mr. Rush asked for, and received, “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.” When the C.I.A. conducted a review of where the gold and currency were stashed, the agency was “unable to locate the gold bars or significant amounts of the foreign currency,” according to court papers.

    On May 18, F.B.I. agents searched Mr. Rush’s home and found “approximately 303 gold bars, each of which weighed approximately one kilogram,” according to an affidavit. Based on the price of gold, the affidavit said, the estimated value of the gold exceeded $40 million. Investigators also seized nearly three dozen luxury watches, many of them Rolexes. The court papers do not indicate why Mr. Rush appears to have kept so much gold, and $2 million in U.S. currency, in his home, or what work project would have required him to amass such wealth.

  42. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump refiles $10bn lawsuit against WSJ over report on alleged Epstein ties

    Donald Trump’s legal team has refiled its lawsuit over a Wall Street Journal story alleging that he had sent a “bawdy” letter to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, after a Florida judge had dismissed the case last month.
    …
    In April, Judge Darrin P Gayles said that Trump’s team had not adequately argued that the Journal’s July 2025 publication was done with actual malice, meaning those responsible for the story published it despite knowing it was false or highly likely to be false. But he dismissed the case “without prejudice” and gave Trump time to refile the case with new evidence provided.

    In his ruling, Gayles argued that there was significant evidence that the Journal sought to determine whether the letter – featuring a drawing of a naked woman’s torso around an imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein – was genuine, and that the fact that Trump claimed it was fake did not mean that the Journal acted “with serious doubts” about the story…

  43. Reginald Selkirk says

    Disgruntled 0-day hunter ‘humiliated’ by Microsoft pledges ‘bone shattering drop’ as Redmond calls cops

    The ongoing saga of Microsoft versus Nightmare Eclipse (aka Chaotic Eclipse), the disgruntled bug hunter with a deep understanding of Windows and an even deeper grudge against Microsoft, reached a fever pitch, with the researcher, who has thus far released six Windows zero-days, promising a “bone shattering” drop on July 14.

    Microsoft, for its part, finally responded to the security researcher and their weaponized Windows flaws with a blog post on (un)coordinated vulnerability disclosure about the now-public bugs: RedSun, UnDefend, BlueHammer, YellowKey, GreenPlasma, and MiniPlasma. Redmond says that none of these were reported via its official channels prior to being made public.
    …
    Microsoft did not respond to The Register’s questions, including whether its legal team planned to sue Nightmare, whether the zero-day researcher is a current or former employee, and whether Microsoft axed Nightmare’s MSRC account, meaning that the bug hunter can’t disclose vulnerabilities to the Windows giant.

    Nightmare, in their latest anti-Microsoft missive, claims Microsoft did just that.

    “When I actively asked you to communicate with me, you refused, humiliated me and made sure to insult me in front of people,” they wrote on Saturday. “You defame me in public with your CVE-2026-45585 advisory even though you literally deleted the Microsoft account I used to report bugs to you with and I got zero pennies from doing so and I still happily did like an idiot.”

    Nightmare also noted that “Microsoft still has chains in my hands,” preventing them from releasing “documents” yet, or anytime in June, and then warned: “Mark this date July 14th, I will make sure your bones are shattered that day.”
    …

  44. Reginald Selkirk says

    @31

    Trump DOJ ‘lawfare’ fund temporarily blocked by judge as suit proceeds

    A federal judge in Virginia on Friday temporarily blocked the Department of Justice from taking any further action to create, fund or spend money from its so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund as a lawsuit challenging it proceeds.

    Judge Leonie Brinkema, in her order on Friday, enjoined the DOJ from “taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the Fund.”

    The order came a day after plaintiffs in the case in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, asked Brinkema for a temporary restraining order against the fund, or to issue a preliminary injunction against it and set a schedule for expedited legal briefing on whether the fund should be allowed to operate as the lawsuit against it proceeds.

    Brinkema, in choosing the second option, told the Trump administration to file its opposition to the plaintiffs’ request by June 5.

    She set a hearing on the question of whether to maintain a block on the fund for June 12.
    …
    The suit is one of three federal cases challenging the DOJ’s fund…

  45. Reginald Selkirk says

    @10

    Bret Michaels Is Fifth Act to Pull Out of ‘Freedom 250’ in D.C., Citing ‘Threats and Safety Concerns’ as Trump-Backed Shows ‘Evolved Into Something Divisive’

    As Kris Kristofferson might have put it, “Freedom 250” is just another word for a festival with very few acts left to lose. As of Friday morning, five out of nine artists announced roughly 48 hours earlier for the “Freedom 250” concerts on the National Lawn in Washington, D.C. have officially declared their intentions to back out of the gigs, which were set up by a private/public partnership founded by Donald J. Trump.

    The fifth and latest to declare he was pulling out was rocker Bret Michaels, of Poison fame, whose exit statement essentially said that the atmosphere around the show had been poisoned, and that he was unnerved by threats that were coming in over the controversial festival.
    …

  46. Reginald Selkirk says

    Reuters: Kremlin planning to send 100,000 Russia-based Armenians to Armenia to sway elections

    Russian officials have been discussing the possibility of sending up to 100,000 Armenians living in Russia to Armenia to vote in upcoming parliamentary elections against incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has moved closer to Europe and NATO.

    Source: European Pravda, citing a Reuters report based on interviews with five Western intelligence officials and documents seen by the agency

    Details: Russia’s efforts ahead of the elections have included disinformation campaigns in support of pro-Russian candidates and a scheme to transport tens of thousands of Armenians from Russia to influence the vote.

    Three Western officials said Moscow’s favoured candidate is billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who is on trial on charges of allegedly calling for the overthrow of the government…

  47. Reginald Selkirk says

    Census suggests largest drop in Japan’s population over five-year period

    Japan’s latest census data shows that the country’s population has dropped to just above 123 million, marking its largest decline ever over a five-year period.

    The internal affairs ministry released the preliminary tally for the 2025 national census on Friday. Japan began conducting the survey on a five-year basis in 1920.

    The latest survey indicates that the population stood at 123,049,524 as of October 1 last year.

    The figure fell by 3,096,575 from the previous survey in 2020. That is a decline of 2.5 percent.

    The count recorded the third decrease in a row since 2015, when the population marked its first decline…

  48. Reginald Selkirk says

    France’s parliament votes to repeal slavery-era Black Code, with tears and history in the chamber

    For nearly two centuries after France abolished slavery, the colonial-era law that classified humans as property has remained quietly on the books. On Thursday, the lower house of parliament voted to wipe it from French law.

    The National Assembly voted 254-0 — a rare show of unanimity — to adopt a bill repealing Code Noir, or Black Code, the 1685 decree King Louis XIV signed to govern slaves across France’s colonies.

    The law turned human beings into chattel, allowing them to be worked, beaten, sold, raped and murdered.

    And the realization that France never formally did away with it left many aghast. Debate in the chamber turned raw on Thursday…

  49. Reginald Selkirk says

    3 Russian shadow fleet tankers attacked by drones near Turkey’s Black Sea coast

    Three oil tankers previously identified as belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet were attacked by drones in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey on May 28, Reuters reported, citing a statement from the Tribeca shipping agency.

    Russia uses its shadow fleet of aging, often underinsured tankers to bypass international sanctions on its oil trade. Western officials have also raised concerns that the vessels may be linked to broader Russian hybrid activities in Europe, including espionage and drone operations.

    The tankers James II, Altura, and Velora were all around 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of northern Turkey when the attacks occurred.

    No injuries were reported among the crews…

  50. Reginald Selkirk says

    Lindsey Graham branded ‘pathetic’ for saying Nobel Peace Prize should be renamed Trump Prize

    Senator Lindsey Graham has been branded “pathetic” after he called for the Nobel Peace Prize to be renamed after President Trump. ​

    Graham made the remark while speaking about Trump’s suggestion that Middle Eastern nations should sign up to the Abraham Accords amid efforts to end the war with Iran.

    If the president succeeds, Graham says the prestigious peace award should be renamed as the “Trump Prize.” …

  51. Reginald Selkirk says

    Severed sea cucumber appendages don’t seem to die

    Organs, arms, appendages, and other complex tissues usually decay rapidly when they’re separated from their host. Over the years, biologists have seen some success with keeping them alive outside of the body—organ transplants depend on it—but it has always required germ-free environments and nutrient-rich mediums filled with growth factors. Now, though, scientists have discovered bits of tissue removed from a species of sea cucumber called Psolus fabricii can keep on living indefinitely if they’re left in ordinary seawater.

    “This is naturally occurring tissue immortality,” said Sara Jobson, a researcher at Memorial University of Newfoundland and lead author of the study. “Having tissues that survive that easily is unheard of. We’ve never seen anything like this.” …

  53. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ukraine to buy 20 new Gripen jets, Sweden to donate older jets sooner

    Ukraine will buy 20 new Gripen fighter jets ‌and Sweden will donate 16 of an older model next year, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at a joint press conference on Thursday.
    The two leaders had signed a letter of intent last year paving the way for Sweden to sell up to 150 ​Saab (SAABb.ST), opens new tab Gripen model E fighter jets to Ukraine, though deliveries of the newer model are several years away…

  55. says

    Sky Captain @28, thank you.

    The important content:

    In my professional opinion, [AI is] unusable—wrong—about a third of the time.

    This might be a generous assessment, though. A March 2025 study […] found that more than 60 percent of responses from AI-powered search engines were inaccurate. A BBC study puts the wrongness of chatbots closer to 45 percent, the number I see cited more often. […] AI could be wrong about half the time.

  56. says

    Reginald @48, quoting the Associated Press:

    The National Assembly voted 254-0 — a rare show of unanimity — to adopt a bill repealing Code Noir, or Black Code, the 1685 decree King Louis XIV signed to govern slaves across France’s colonies.

    The law turned human beings into chattel, allowing them to be worked, beaten, sold, raped and murdered.

    That is truly awful. I had no idea that France still had that law on the books, though it was obviously not being enforced.

  57. says

    Reginald @46, that’s an extreme action for Russia to take in order to sway the election in Armenia. Let’s hope that Trump doesn’t decide to implement something similar.

  59. says

    TIJUANA (The Borowitz Report)—On the eve of her scheduled testimony before the House Oversight Committee, Pam Bondi was caught by the Mexican border patrol on Thursday as she attempting to sneak across the southern border.

    The former attorney general, dressed in what was described as ninja-like attire, was nabbed as she tried to hoist herself over the border wall near Tijuana, Mexican officials said.

    Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would tighten border security to prevent a “doomsday scenario” in which her nation is overrun by a swarm of criminal Republicans.

    “Today was Pam Bondi,” she warned. “Tomorrow could be Ken Paxton.”

    Link

    Satire

  60. says

    Eyeing airports in so-called sanctuary cities, DHS’ Mullin ups the ante with new threats

    “If there’s going to be a public conversation about this radical plan, it’s important that the relevant players understand basic facts.”

    Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has spent months talking about removing federal personnel from airports in so-called sanctuary cities, and by all appearances, the Oklahoma Republican is increasingly serious about the idea. During a Fox News appearance on Thursday, he described a potential scenario in which he’s “gonna have to pull” customs officials from these airports [social media post, with video]

    This was hardly the first such threat. Earlier in the week, Mullin also said he and his administration colleagues are “currently drawing up plans” to stop “processing international flights” into these cities. (“Sanctuary cities” refers to areas in which local governments limit police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.)

    The public comments came on the heels of multiple reports that the DHS secretary privately told U.S. travel executives that his department was prepared to stop customs and immigration processing ​for international travelers in these cities. […]

    What’s more, it’s not just Mullin. On Thursday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, still engaged in a shameless audition to receive a permanent nomination from Donald Trump, also appeared on Fox News and defended the DHS threats.

    A day later, Republican Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana also offered his enthusiastic support for the tactic. [social media post, with video: “[…] This is a good idea to punish those cities.”]

    Fox’s Harris Faulkner also endorsed the proposed plan, arguing that major airlines would simply redirect flights to Republican-held areas, creating a “boon for red states.”

    It is too soon to say when or whether the administration might pull the trigger on such an idea, and if this is intended as part of an intimidation campaign, it’s unlikely to work out well: It’s not as if officials in many of the nation’s largest cities are suddenly going to overhaul their approach to immigration policy just to prevent Mullin from sabotaging many of the busiest airports in the Western Hemisphere.

    But if there’s going to be a public conversation about this, it’s important that the relevant players understand basic facts.

    According to Trump’s Justice Department, the list of cities it considers “sanctuary cities” includes Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle and San Francisco. Collectively, international flights in and out of the airports in these cities is constant, enormous and vital to American business interests.

    The idea that airlines will somehow create a “boon for red states” by rerouting flights elsewhere isn’t just wrong, it’s ridiculous. There aren’t enough gates in smaller airports to accommodate such an influx, and even if there were, many international travelers simply wouldn’t make the trip to major cities if they are told they first had to land several hundred miles away.

    There’s no great mystery as to what would happen: Airlines would start cancelling flights, which in turn would further undermine an already weakened economy.

    I’m still skeptical anything will come of this. Such a drastic move would face furious pushback from major airlines and businesses that rely on international flights, as well as state and local officials who would argue persuasively that such a policy appears to be illegal.

    That said, those placing “Team Trump wouldn’t go that far” bets over the last year and a half have lost money.

  61. says

    Team Trump’s latest no-bid contract: $5 million to coat horse statues in gold

    “[Trump’s] renovation agenda for the nation’s capital now includes yet another controversial addition.

    […] Since Trump returned to power, Americans have seen an emphasis on everything from “Gold Cards” to a “Golden Dome” to a “Golden Fleet” of U.S. battleships. (And don’t get me started on the many gold trinkets Trump plastered on the walls of the Oval Office.)

    […] NOTUS reported:

    Four massive bronze horses positioned along the roads surrounding the Lincoln Memorial still shine in the sun from their first restoration in the 1970s. But their gold-toned coating is faded and patchy, and their heavy stone bases are cracked and dirty.

    The Trump administration wants them glittering with a fresh coat of gold in time for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4. So in mid-April, the National Park Service handed a $5 million contract to a gilding studio in Maryland to repair the statues and cover them with a thick layer of 23.75-karat gold leaf.

    According to National Park Service documents reviewed by NOTUS, this was one of the administration’s many no-bid contracts. [No-bid!]

    It’s easy to imagine the White House and its allies arguing that there’s nothing inherently wrong with trying to make some cosmetic improvements around Washington, D.C., ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations in July. […]

    But the details matter. For one thing, we’ve known that the United States’ semiquincentennial was coming — it’s not like the occasion sneaked up on anyone — so the administration’s overreliance on no-bid contracts, based on “emergency” conditions, is inherently dubious. [yep]

    What’s more, there are practical considerations to keep in mind. As The New Republic summarized, “All of these projects are being rushed so that they are completed before the July 4 America 250th anniversary. The lack of a bidding process means that the government, and by extension, taxpayers, could easily be overcharged by contractors, and the rushed projects mean that the work could be shoddy and cause permanent damage to important landmarks in the nation’s capital.” [All too true.]
    […]

  62. says

    Pentagon puts building blocks in place for Cuba invasion

    “The Navy’s presence in the Caribbean has not reduced despite the Iran war.”

    The Pentagon has spent months positioning the troops and weapons needed for the U.S. to launch a military attack on Cuba — all it needs is a final go-ahead from Donald Trump.

    The president has floated an invasion of the island after economic and political pressure failed to topple the Communist government. But the Navy’s built-up presence in the region — the largest in the world outside the Middle East — would allow the U.S. to act immediately.

    These strategically placed assets set the table for military action, from a capture of Havana’s leadership much like the seizure of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, to a series of precision strikes. And they open the possibility that the U.S. throws itself into the third international conflict of the Trump administration.

    Cuba is “in a lot of trouble,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday at a full Cabinet meeting. “Having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States.”

    The armada in the region is slightly smaller than it was in January when the U.S. captured Maduro. But the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group entered the Caribbean in May, along with several guided missile destroyers and cruisers that can launch precision missiles at targets onshore. An array of advanced American drones and surveillance aircraft have also circled Cuba for months, according to flight tracking sites. The USS Kearsarge amphibious ships and escorts, which carry 2,500 Marines, are off the coast of Virginia preparing for a new deployment, and could replace some ships heading home.

    The surge provides a variety of military options, although the Pentagon would need additional troops for a massive ground invasion. […]

  63. says

    Judge rules Trump’s executive order to restrict mail-in voting can stand for now

    “A Trump-appointed federal judge wrote that plaintiffs cannot claim irreparable harm because there has been no significant action taken to implement the order yet.”

    A federal judge has allowed President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict mail-in voting to stand for now, delivering a temporary setback to Democrats and voting rights groups who say it could disenfranchise millions of voters.

    In the ruling issued late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols wrote that the plaintiffs — the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens — cannot claim irreparable harm because there has been no significant action taken to implement the order yet.

    The March executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to use Social Security data to compile lists of citizens eligible to vote in each state. The U.S. Postal Service would then only deliver mail-in ballots to voters on the DHS list.

    […] “But the Postal Service has not yet issued a notice of proposed rulemaking or responded to comments it might receive, let alone adopted a final rule,” Nichols, a Trump appointee, wrote in his ruling, adding, “The Order does not mandate any action by a State once a List has been transmitted to it. At this time, no such Lists have been created, nor has any of the ‘infrastructure’ for compilation or transmission of the Lists been established.”

    […] Nichols’ ruling is likely to be appealed in the months before the midterm elections. The NAACP’s general counsel, Kristen Clarke, told MS NOW that the organization is “weighing all options.”

    Trump has long criticized mail-in voting despite having himself cast ballots by mail. Ahead of the midterms, he has said that the federal government should control elections and is trying to amend election laws to favor his party.

    “I tell you what, Republicans have to win this one,” he said in February about the passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. “We’ll never lose a race. For 50 years — we won’t lose a race.”

  65. says

    One reason why the rent is too damn high

    In the last few years, rents across the United States have skyrocketed. According to a Congressional Research Service analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, more than 22.7 million renter households, or nearly half, were considered “cost burdened” in 2024, meaning they spent more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

    […] In March, the typical asking rent was $1,910, according to Zillow, meaning that a household would have to earn at least $76,400 a year to be able to comfortably afford it.

    […] one factor contributing to higher costs for renters is the concentration in ownership. According to a new report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, private equity firms now own “at least 11,800 apartment buildings with almost 3 million units,” or approximately 13% of apartment units in the U.S.

    The number of apartments owned by private equity firms has increased dramatically in recent years. […]

    In some states and major metro areas, the concentration of apartments owned by private equity firms is even higher. In Georgia, for example, private equity firms own nearly one-third of all apartments and in North Carolina, private equity owns nearly one in four apartments. In many major metro areas, including Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, and Orlando, over 30% of apartment units are owned by private equity.

    […] Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Texas, and Florida, for example, all have a high percentage of private equity owned apartments and have had some of the biggest increases in cost burdened renters. This is also true for many large metro areas, including Tampa-St. Petersburg, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Charlotte.

    Private equity landlords can lead to higher rent prices, aggressive evictions, and lower quality of life, according to the report.

    […] Private equity firms buy apartment buildings to increase their value and then sell them, ultimately providing a return to their investors. In order to maximize this return, private equity firms hike costs for tenants while cutting down on their own costs, such as maintenance.

    This leaves tenants paying more to live in a lower-quality apartment.

    […] In San Diego, after Blackstone purchased dozens of properties with almost 6,000 units in 2021, tenants reported mold, cockroaches, and rats in their buildings. At the same time, their rent was increasing by up to $200 per month. In Arizona and Florida, Starwood Capital raised rents by 30% or more at certain properties while tenants at other low-income properties complained about leaking appliances and mold. […]

    […] A ProPublica investigation from 2025 found that private equity firms and other wealthy investors frequently exploit a loophole that allows them to get out of the rent restrictions on buildings funded by low-income housing tax credits earlier than they normally would be able to. According to ProPublica, this loophole has remained in place largely due to lobbying by private equity firms and developers. […]

    The added fees, maintenance issues, and aggressive evictions that tenants face are compounded by the fact that many of the private equity firms are effectively colluding to raise rental prices.

    As Popular Information has reported on previously, many private equity firms use a property management software called RealPage, which offers an AI-optimized algorithm for determining rents.

    […] RealPage’s algorithm has come at a significant cost to tenants. […]

  66. Pierce R. Butler says

    Apparently a huge story here, one that leaves me with a lot of questions.

    I found it via a recap at Alternet:
    “A small disclaimer exposes a secret Trump project run by Airbnb founder”    , which describes how a former DOGE dastard, through a Trump executive order, now runs a near-clandestine White House agency redesigning about 40 gov’t websites (for voting, passports, health care, etc) to spy on their users and send their personal info to entities unknown through a private Cloudflare account, allegedly in violation of multiple federal laws.

    Those with more interwebs savvy than I, please review and explain!

  67. says

    Washington Post link

    “Judge orders Kennedy Center to remove Trump’s name from building”

    “The ruling also orders the arts institution to temporarily halt plans to close for two years starting in July.”

    A federal judge Friday ordered that President Donald Trump’s name be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and that officials halt plans to close the venue for two years, dealing a significant legal blow to the administration’s sweeping renovation project.

    […] “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name,” Cooper [U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper] wrote in his opinion, “and only Congress can change it.”

    […] Leaders had laid off staff in anticipation of a closure, and the decision could now leave the institution open with an empty performance calendar.

    […] In December, Beatty, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board, sued her fellow trustees days after they voted to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Beatty said she was muted during the virtual board meeting when she tried to voice opposition to the name change, a claim the center disputed. She later amended the lawsuit to seek a broader halt to the closure, and the court granted her request for key documents related to the renovation plan, including building assessments and budget materials.

    In a second lawsuit filed in March, a group of historic preservationists argued officials had not gone through proper federal review before voting to close.

    Both cases landed before Cooper, who has been pressing both sides on a central question: whether the Kennedy Center renovations must follow the same review process that governs nearly every other major federal construction project in the capital.

    The judge Friday ruled that Beatty had shown that closing for two years would cause irreparable harms. But he left the door open for the board to revisit its decision to close the building “after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.”

    “Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said […]

    Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, said, “We are confident that on appeal the court will uphold the Board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center.” […]

    Earlier this week, Floca said in a court filing that Trump has raised “tens of millions of dollars” for the Kennedy Center and has committed to raise $150 million more from private donors over the next two years. [That sounds like typical trumpian bullshit.]

    He argued that Trump’s name had become central to the Kennedy Center’s fundraising. Removing it would cause “irreparable harm,” he wrote, and could make much of the center’s operations “financially nonviable.”

    The legal fight is unfolding against a backdrop of broader tumult at the center. Since Trump installed himself as board chair in February 2025, several productions have canceled or withdrawn from the calendar, among them the tour of “Hamilton” and shows of the Washington National Opera, which ended its 55-year residence. Ticket sales and subscriptions have plummeted. Dozens of staff members have been laid off in waves, and a group of remaining employees filed last year to form a union, citing a culture of fear and a lack of transparency from the center’s new leadership.

    More at the link.

  68. says

    Washington Post link

    “A court in Kenya blocks U.S. plan to keep American Ebola patients in Africa”

    “A facility built by the U.S. military on a Kenyan air base was intended to isolate Americans exposed to Ebola during the growing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

    NAIROBI — A Kenyan court Friday suspended a Trump administration plan to establish a makeshift field hospital in Kenya to quarantine and treat Americans exposed to or infected with Ebola.

    The court, citing a threat to life, issued its ruling on the day U.S. officials said the facility would begin operating. It has capacity for up to 50 patients potentially exposed during the growing Ebola outbreak, which is centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    Authorities say suspected Ebola cases have passed 1,000, with nearly 250 suspected deaths.
    The court ruling, which is temporary pending fuller consideration of the case June 2, nonetheless halted a key part of the strategy from President Donald Trump’s administration for handling Americans exposed to Ebola overseas.

    […] The court ruling also puts added focus on ethical questions related to the administration’s apparent unwillingness to let ill or exposed Americans return home for treatment. [Understatement]

    […] The U.S. policy has alarmed some public health advocates and Ebola experts, who say the United States has already invested heavily in specialized treatment centers specifically designed to safely care for patients with Ebola and other dangerous infectious diseases.

    The U.S. also has extensive experience safely transporting Ebola patients from abroad back to the United States and treating them.

    Critics, including physician Craig Spencer — who survived Ebola after contracting the virus in Guinea in 2014 — have suggested the administration’s refusal to bring infected Americans home reflects political concerns and public fear surrounding Ebola more than medical necessity.

    At least one American doctor evacuated from Congo after exposure to Ebola is being treated at a hospital in Prague.

    The administration’s plan had been to use the field hospital as a first stop for American patients, and then to send serious cases to more advanced hospitals in Europe.

    Kenya agreed to the construction of the field hospital, but the announcement of it sparked public outrage in the country, and the Katiba Institute, a constitutional-rights advocacy group, challenged it in court.

    In its petition, the group asked the court to stop entry of those exposed to or infected with Ebola and to compel the Health Ministry to present a contingency plan detailing Kenya’s preparedness for Ebola response, as well as to disclose terms of the agreement.

    […] Jeremy Konyndyk, a former U.S. Agency for International Development official who helped coordinate U.S. Ebola efforts during the West Africa epidemic that began in 2014, said the U.S. strategy to send Americans to Kenya was already a Plan B.

    “Plan A would have been to use the capabilities for domestic isolation and treatment that we have built up through” a specialized system of U.S. hospitals and facilities that were established after the West Africa epidemic, Konyndyk wrote […]

    He added: “This whole ridiculous thing seems driven simply by a desire to block anyone with Ebola from setting foot in the United States under any circumstances, even an American in a responsible medical evacuation.” [Yep. That’s my understanding.]

    […] Davji Atellah, the secretary general of Kenya’s doctors union, told The Washington Post on Friday. “We don’t have any reported cases in the country, so the facility here is to form an epicenter in Kenya for the spread of Ebola within the country.”

    Atellah added: “Our concern is that this is being done with the interest of the Americans, and there’s no interest of the Kenyan citizens, because there are no plans that the government has put in place to ensure that there is no spread of this disease in the country.”

    […] To concentrate and intensify screening, the United States also declared that U.S. citizens and permanent residents coming from those three countries can enter only through Washington Dulles International Airport.

    […] Kenya is one of the 22 African countries that have signed bilateral agreements on global health with the United States, with the U.S. pledging $1.6 billion for Kenya over five years to support its health programs.

    In a statement Thursday, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the United States pledged $13.5 million to Kenya’s Ebola preparedness efforts following talks between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kenyan President William Ruto.

    The statement said the money was in addition to $112 million “committed” for regional response.

    The outbreak is proving difficult to contain because its epicenter, in eastern Congo, is a region beset by armed conflict and displacement, causing security risks to health and aid workers.
    […]

  69. says

    Washington Post link

    “Pentagon recruiting troops to watch White House UFC fights, memos show”

    “Internal messages reviewed by The Post stipulate that military personnel must pay for their travel and meet strict physical requirements to be eligible.”

    The Pentagon is moving to recruit hundreds of troops to appear as spectators at President Donald Trump’s UFC cage-fighting event at the White House, and requiring those who attend to pay for their travel and meet height and weight requirements, according to people familiar with the matter and internal memos reviewed by The Washington Post.

    The Defense Department in recent days has solicited volunteers across the services to attend the June 14 event in uniform. Officials are seeking junior enlisted personnel and junior officers specifically, according to internal messages that make clear travel costs will be “member-procured,” meaning neither the Defense Department nor the UFC intends to pay for their arrangements or accommodations.

    […] Troops will be required to wear their short-sleeve dress uniforms, the memo adds.

    […] The mixed-martial-arts fights, billed as UFC Freedom 250, is scheduled to occur on the White House South Lawn and are part of a series of events the president has planned for America’s 250th-birthday celebration. The White House event coincides with Trump’s 80th birthday and Flag Day. […]

  70. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up on the Delaney detention center protests.

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    Governor Sherrill announces the establishment of a “peaceful protected protest zone” outside of Delaney Hall. It’s not clear exactly where that will be. […] NJ State Police official just now: ICE agents have agreed to remove themselves from outside Delaney Hall while police establish protest zones.

    […] a “roadway diversion” has been set up, limiting traffic on the road where Delaney Hall is located “to protect those assembled.” Sherrill says it’s in response to protester who had foot run over by an 18-wheeler Wednesday night.

    Governor Sherrill says Essex County has given land that is “very close” to Delaney Hall for the protest zone. My takeaway is that Governor Sherrill is doing everything possible to control and contain protesters outside and very little to meet the demands of the people inside Delaney Hall on the hunger strike.

    Talia Ben-Ora (Reporter): “Keep in mind the ‘protest’ is a direct blockade of the ICE entrance. Establishing a separate ‘zone’ negates the protest, helping clear the path for ICE. Sherrill is assisting ICE operations.”

    Rando: “Arrested Development did this exact thing as a joke over twenty years ago.” [Video clip]

  71. says

    New York Times link

    “Research Funding Slows Again for Universities Targeted by White House”

    The Trump administration has quietly slowed funding for scientific research at Harvard and other universities that have been targets of a White House pressure campaign, according to government data reviewed by The New York Times.

    The funding slowdowns at the National Science Foundation, one of the largest single sources of federal research dollars for universities, have also affected Duke, Princeton and Yale, records show. Grant proposals that had previously been recommended for funding by employees who oversee the review process have been flagged in recent months for additional scrutiny, but with no clear explanation provided in the records and researchers left largely in the dark.

    The holds had set off alarm bells inside the agency and on some campuses. Federal judges ruled in two separate cases last year that the Trump administration had broken the law by halting research grants as a way to impose policy changes. […]

    After The Times inquired about the slowdown on Tuesday, the administration began releasing some grant funding on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and released the hold for some of the institutions on Thursday. Nature, a scientific journal, reported on the slowdown on Thursday. It was not clear whether the funding releases were related to the media inquiries.

    Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina, said the holds at the N.S.F. may violate a ruling in September from Judge Allison D. Burroughs of U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, who barred the administration from blocking future research funding for Harvard out of retaliation.

    “It’s the same game the administration has been waging since Day 1,” Mr. Gerhardt said.

    All four universities have been targets in the Trump administration’s yearlong bid to expunge “woke” ideology from college campuses. The campaign has mostly entailed halting research funds and opening civil rights investigations.

    The government publicized many of those funding freezes and investigations last year. But the recent holds have been more discreet.

    They come amid growing turmoil at the N.S.F., which accounts for about $9 billion in research money supporting work from Arctic research to particle colliders to space observation. The agency has been targeted by the Trump administration for substantial budget cuts, and it has also lost about a third of its employees in layoffs or forced retirements. Last month, the administration fired its oversight board.

    […] As of May 1, the N.S.F. had committed only 10 percent of its congressionally appropriated funds, roughly half of what the foundation had awarded by this point in previous fiscal years, according to Grant Witness, which tracks scientific grants.

    Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, said the foundation slowdown has been “substantial.”

    “We are worried and confused, because we have not gotten any explanation,” Mr. Mitchell said.

  72. says

    Blue Origin’s rocket explosion is a big setback for NASA’s moon goals

    “NASA had tapped Jeff Bezos’ rocket company to carry vehicles to the moon this year and had hoped to test its lunar lander in the Artemis III mission. Both now seem unlikely.”

    The giant explosion of a Blue Origin rocket on Thursday evening is a major setback not only for Jeff Bezos’ space company but also for NASA, as it could delay efforts to land astronauts on the moon and begin construction of a base on the lunar surface.

    The company must now reckon with the loss of one of its few New Glenn rockets, the destruction of its only operational launch pad for those rockets, and what could be months or years of investigation and delays before the booster can return to flight.

    NASA will face the same uncertainties. Blue Origin was expected to play a central role in the agency’s return-to-the-moon program. The company has been competing with SpaceX to build lunar landers that can transport astronauts from Earth orbit to the moon. NASA planned to test one or both of those commercially built landers during its Artemis III mission next year.

    Three days ago, Blue Origin also won a major contract to carry two robotic landers to the moon for NASA on missions scheduled to launch later this year.

    “Overall, it’s a huge setback for Blue Origin,” said Kathleen Curlee, a research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

    NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote Thursday in a post on X: “Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult.” [Video]

    […] The accident occurred during an engine test at around 9 p.m. ET at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. In this type of test, called a static fire, a rocket is fueled and its engines are ignited to test the onboard systems, but the booster remains bolted to the launch pad and does not lift off. Space Force officials confirmed Thursday that all personnel were accounted for, and there were no injuries or deaths from the explosion.

    Thursday’s explosion created an enormous fireball that engulfed Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket and appeared to destroy much of the launch pad.

    […] “Yes, rocket companies have blown things up a lot, but a pad explosion like this is rare,” he said. “They don’t want to do this, because not only is the rocket destroyed and something’s wrong with the rocket, but it destroys the infrastructure to launch these rockets into space. So this is a very messy situation.”

    The damaged launch pad is currently Blue Origin’s only one for its New Glenn rocket. So even if the issue with the rocket can be quickly assessed and fixed, the company still might not have a pad from which to launch.

    […] Blue Origin’s explosion could also delay the upcoming Artemis III mission, which is slated to launch four astronauts into low Earth orbit to test one or both of SpaceX’s and Blue Origin’s lunar landers ahead of a planned moon landing in 2028 on the Artemis IV mission.

    Both missions required the New Glenn rocket to launch Blue Origin’s landers into space.

    The explosion followed another recent setback for Blue Origin. On April 20, during the New Glenn rocket’s third launch, the booster’s second stage malfunctioned and failed to deliver a commercial satellite into its intended orbit. […]

  73. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Jeff Tischauser (SPLC):

    Greg Bovino will speak at a white nationalist conference in Portugal tomorrow. He will share the stage with no fewer than five people who idolize Hitler,
    […]
    Less than two months after retiring as an officer in CBP, in which he led violent occupations of U.S. cities under the guise of immigration enforcement, Greg Bovino is giving interviews to openly white nationalist blogs and speaking at openly white nationalist conferences.

  74. Reginald Selkirk says

    Analysis of Texas measles outbreak shows just how dangerous virus is

    For years, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his zealous followers have downplayed measles as “just a rash” and falsely claimed that “Measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear.”

    In 2021, when Kennedy wrote those words, the US recorded just 49 measles cases. Yearly case counts have generally been low since 2000, when the US declared measles eliminated thanks to a decades-long vaccination campaign. But with the rise of Kennedy and his ilk in the past few decades, that public health triumph is being undone. Vaccination rates have slipped, and large, multistate outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases have inevitably come roaring back. Now it’s becoming painfully clear once again how wrong Kennedy and his cohorts are about infectious diseases and vaccines.

    In a study published yesterday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, state and federal researchers provided a detailed postmortem of last year’s massive multi-state measles outbreak that mushroomed out of West Texas. The data reveals a disease that’s far from just a rash, with about 20 percent of people—mostly younger children—being hospitalized.

    “The outcomes experienced by patients hospitalized during this outbreak underscore the seriousness of measles infection and highlight that measles can cause life-threatening complications affecting multiple organ systems and place significant stress on patients and health care systems,” the authors conclude.

    By the end of the outbreak, there were 762 outbreak-related measles cases in Texas alone. The new analysis focused on 325 cases in the outbreak’s first three months (January 20 to March 18, 2025). Of those, at least 60 were hospitalized (18.5 percent). The researchers collected medical and case information from 54 of the hospitalized patients. All of them had no record of being vaccinated…

  75. says

    Ukraine hammers Russia’s land corridor to Crimea

    “Kyiv is putting the Russian military in a “logistical lockdown” the country’s defense minister says.”

    KYIV — Ukrainian drones are hitting trucks on key roads in the occupied south of the country used by Russia as a land corridor to Crimea, posing a growing challenge to Moscow’s ability to resupply its troops.

    The attacks are the result of a change in strategy by Ukraine thanks to its growing ability to produce drones with a range of 100 kilometers to 300 kilometers — so-called mid-range — able to hit Russian targets well behind the front lines.

    “We’re launching logistical lockdown for the Russian army and increasing middle strike capabilities to destroy Russian military power deep behind the frontlines,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our goal is to increase pressure on Russians to make them stop assault operations.”

    The 412th Nemesis Brigade of the Ukrainian military’s unmanned forces said in a statement on Tuesday that the P-280 road running from occupied Mariupol near the border with Russia through Melitopol and on to Simferopol in Crimea is under concerted attack.

    Clips on social media show dozens of burned-out Russian trucks along the road as Ukrainian drones fly above the area, which lies more than 100 kilometers from the front lines. However, that footage does show truck traffic continuing to move on the highway.

    “The pace of the Russian offensive has slowed significantly,” said an analysis by the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies. […]

    Fedorov said that Ukraine’s campaign has “increased the destruction of enemy logistics, warehouses, weapons, command points, and supply roads in operational depth,” claiming that Ukrainian intelligence shows that destroying logistics targets reduces Russian assault operations. […]

    Despite some localized success for Ukraine, the Russian army continues to attack with drones and missiles — hitting major cities and also aiming for logistics targets throughout the country while its forces inch forward in northern and eastern Ukraine. However, Fedorov said that every square kilometer gained by Russia costs about 200 soldiers dead and wounded for the Kremlin.

    “Dynamics show that Ukraine has significantly slowed the enemy’s advance and is gradually regaining the initiative. At the same time, we are increasing active operations and liberating territory,” Fedorov said.

  76. says

    New York Times:

    President Trump left a two-hour meeting on a possible deal with Iran without making a decision, a senior administration official said on Friday, despite suggesting on social media that he had intended ‘to make a final determination’ during the gathering in the White House Situation Room. It was not clear why Mr. Trump did not reach a decision.

  77. says

    MS NOW:

    The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent accused of shooting a Venezuelan immigrant and lying about it during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in Minneapolis was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.

  78. says

    New York Times:

    Russia’s war with Ukraine spilled into Romania, a member of NATO, on Friday when the Romanian authorities said that a Russian drone had hit an apartment building in a major port city, wounding two people. It was the first known time that a Russian drone had caused damage and injuries in a major urban area on the territory of the Western military alliance.

  79. says

    New York Times:

    With deadly precision, the Trump administration has launched dozens of attacks on small boats in the waters off South America, killing nearly 200 people in a campaign U.S. officials say is meant to curb the flow of illicit drugs to the United States. But almost nine months into the operation, epidemiologists, addiction scientists and public health experts say cocaine, by far the top drug smuggled out of South America, is as easy to get in much of the United States as it was before the strikes began.

  80. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Alejandra Caraballo (Cyberlaw):

    This is real. https://www.whitehouse.gov/aliens/

    Aliens: They walk among us. […] They’ve shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences. With one exception—they do not belong here.
    […]
    If you’ve witnessed an Alien abduction, do not be alarmed. The Alien is in good hands. We will take care of it… and return it safely to its place of origin. [Report suspicious aliens – ICE tip line] [Alien arrest map]

    This is so fucking disgusting. They’re referring to immigrants, to human beings as “it”.

    The link is tediously animated green text typing across a starry black background.

    Commentary

    The stupidest timeline is also the most evil one.

    However much you hate them, you do not hate them enough.

    They tried to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Africa.

    Love how they openly admit that it’s abduction.

    I went over to look [at Reddit’s UFO subs] and it’s genuinely hilarious. They’re so mad—and for such different reasons that I’m so mad.

    BTW this site, and the other UFO debriefing website are Vibe Coded [Both have AI Comments in them.] This ALSO features [the] X-Files Theme song

    The blatant copyright violation of the site autoplaying “The-X-Files-Full.mp3” is just icing on the cake of this unamerican slop.
    * Visitors with browsers that quietly block the autoplay may not notice this.

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    White House posted what is actually a genuinely interesting data tool. It claims to be a “live” map of ICE arrests by city since Inauguration (it’s not, their own data says it’s through last week). Until now, ICE has never published arrest data this granular.

    IF these city-level numbers can be validated (cross referencing against data released under FOIA to the Deportation Data Project or other sources), this random data source on a troll website may actually represent the most transparent Trump’s ICE has been about arrests, ever.

    […] if you look at the numbers of arrests they provide on the map, you can easily see that they do not POSSIBLY add up to the 3.1 million “encounters” figure which is listed right above that. That number remains a total mystery. [Rando: “whatever data set it is using includes United States as a country of origin.”]

    Morning update: [Reviewing a spreadsheet of data ripped from the site the site.] It looks legitimate to me. 476,547 ICE arrests between 1/21/25 and 5/20/26 = 984/arrests/day average, which sounds right. There are also MANY misspellings, which suggests veracity due to lack of data cleaning.

    Andrew Thrasher (Immigration data analyst): “I love how anyone who works with DHS data like this sees the spelling errors and is like “No yeah, this looks legit.” It’s a feature!”

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “I am conveniently at a conference right now with [other experts] and was showing this to them, and we all said the same thing.”

  81. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to 80.

    Wired – Aliens.gov site brags that ICE arrested more than 700 US citizens

    In 715 of the locations listed, the site identifies at least one of the people arrested as being born in the United States. In 83 of the locations, every single arrestee is reported to be an American.

    The White House unveiled the website, Aliens.gov, on Thursday after teasing the launch on X with a 10-second video captioned, “They walk among us,” leading many users to suspect an announcement about UFOs […] The site turned out instead to be a piece of political theater aimed at dehumanizing immigrants
    […]
    In more than one-fifth of the locations the site flags as the site of an arrest, no criminal charges are recorded. […] the site lists Puerto Rico itself among the foreign countries the arrestees came from.

    […] the White House said aliens.gov “pulls data directly from DHS, which initially included a handful of non-immigration HSI arrests,” adding that “this has been updated.” HSI, or Homeland Security Investigations, is a part of ICE. WIRED reviewed the updated data and found there were 270,214 fewer arrests listed.
    […]
    Some of the locations listed on Aliens.gov don’t appear to be cities or towns at all. One “neighborhood” in the dataset is an address in Ohio that corresponds to that of a state-run prison.
    […]
    The counter is fake. The starting number—3,129,580—is hand-typed into the website, and its upward motion is generated by a timer initiated by the visitor’s own browser […] and is roughly seven times larger than the actual ICE arrest count since January 2025.
    […]
    The music track contains metadata indicating the file was created using late-2000s-era CD-ripping software. Disney […] did not immediately respond to questions about whether it had given the White House permission […] The White House did not respond to questions about how it obtained the files and whether it had permission to use it.

    Ripping a copyrighted track from a CD to score a website is, on its face, precisely the kind of unauthorized reproduction the FBI’s notorious Anti-Piracy Warning Seal program exists to deter. The bureau did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

  82. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to 70.

    Marisa Kabas (Tha Handbasket):

    RIGHT NOW: NJ state troopers with riot gear are forcing protesters supporting the hunger strikers of Delaney Hall and media ppl down the street. They’re firing flashbang grenades at the ground to force people to disperse, per the StatusCoupNews livestream. [Video clip]

    I was right. What the fuck is Mikie Sherrill doing. […] NJ state police are creating a human shield outside Delaney Hall to help an ICE vehicle leave. Cops on massive horses were just up close in the crowd outside Delaney Hall. Unhinged. [Video clip]

    Just hours after Gov. Sherrill said ICE would step aside outside Delaney Hall to allow NJ state police to “protect protesters,” ICE is armed and back out in full force. Per Mercado Media stream.

    ICE agents are now hiding behind the Delaney Hall fence and yelling at anyone who comes onto the pavement to step off private property.

    Mercado Media stream reports GEO group private security guards just fired “less lethal munitions” at protesters, in addition to those shot by ICE and state police. Three sets of aggressors.

    Rando 1: “This is exactly the shit that Pritzker’s goons did in Illinois at Broadview.”

    Nicholas Slayton (Journalist): “Whether in California or NJ or Illinois, this keeps happening.”

    Rando 2:

    For what it’s worth, at least part of the problem here (imo) is that police forces are beyond any civilian control and are partisan (fascist) actors. This is not entirely down to Democratic governors betraying their constituents, though that plays some role.

    The betrayal is them continuing to “send state police to protect demonstrators from ICE” or whatever, even after it’s become obvious that they Do Not Do That in practice.

  83. Silentbob says

    Horrified to learn today that Jey McCreight – former FtB blogger – who is transgender, has been the victim of a vicious, brutal transphobic assault.
    https://www.instagram.com/jeymccreight/reel/DYlqdCPOoov/

    Jey was a huge influence on my understanding of social issues back in the day and aspires to be a science communicator.

    Anyone who fondly remembers Jey from the Blag Hag days, or anyone who believes trans people are fully human and deserving of the same rights, respect, dignity and recognition as cisgender people, please consider sending some assistance and support in Jey’s direction.

    https://bsky.app/profile/jeymccreight.bsky.social/post/3mmezawj4ws2i

  84. StevoR says

    @ ^ Silentbob : (Expletives!) Horrible news thanks for letting us know and appalled if not surprised to read that.

  85. StevoR says

    The remaining four men found trapped in a semi-submerged cave in central Laos after 10 days underground have emerged safely, sparking emotional scenes at the rescue site. The four villagers crawled out of the cave just after 3pm local time, after water levels were able to be drained from the cave’s flooded sections. The rescue team had been preparing to enter the cave, according to CNN, just before the men crawled out on their own.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-30/laos-cave-villagers-last-four-exit-cave-assistance-divers/106741292

  87. StevoR says

    But as bombardments (of Iranm -ed.) continue, another emergency is spiraling in the background. The war has overshadowed a dire water crisis in Iran that, among other things, caused Tehran to nearly run out of water late last year.

    …(Snip)..

    By November, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, had revived a long-debated plan to move Tehran to the country’s wetter south due to water shortages. This time, he claimed that relocating the city was “no longer optional.” His government said the Makran region, which stretches across Iran’s south from the Strait of Hormuz to Pakistan, could host a new city. But the government didn’t release a detailed plan or address the relocation’s cost, which analysts say could be more than $100 billion.

    …(snip)..

    More revolts over basic access to water and electricity could lead to more violent crackdown by the regime and avoidable deaths, as well as emigration from the country. “The regime will find it hard to contain this; that’s for sure,” Alsayed said.

    The solutions are numerous and obvious, Shokri said. “How about you heavily invest in wastewater treatment? How about you modernize your irrigation system? How about you start normal interactions with the world? How about stabilizing your currency? How about you use money to strengthen infrastructure? How about fixing your water transportation system?”

    At the very least, Iran should integrate water use efficiency measures into its postwar reconstruction, Lob said. …

    Source : https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/war-has-brought-irans-water-crisis-to-a-breaking-point-things-will-collapse-unless-there-is-meaningful-structural-change

  88. Reginald Selkirk says

    @10, 45

    Growing number of artists pull out of 250th anniversary celebration on National Mall

    Less than 48 hours after Freedom 250 unveiled the entertainment lineup for its “Great American State Fair” in Washington, D.C., a growing number of announced performers publicly said they would not participate.

    Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, Young MC, Morris Day and The Time and The Commodores have now publicly stated the will not perform, with several alleging they were misled about the nature of the event.
    …
    What appears to be driving the backlash is a perception that Freedom 250, a public-private partnership created to help carry out events for the White House-led Task Force 250, is more closely aligned with President Donald Trump’s administration and political movement than they initially understood. Freedom 250 is separate from the congressionally-established U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which operates as America 250.
    …
    The status of C+C Music Factory remains unclear. Freedom Williams, who has performed under the group’s name, posted a profanity-filled video to social media while on a toilet criticizing the event and suggesting he would participate. However, C+C Music Factory co-founder Robert Clivillés, who was not expected to perform at this event, publicly distanced the group from Williams’ comments, saying Williams does not represent the group’s views and the group would not be performing…

  90. says

    Sky Captain @81, what a mess that Aliens.gov website is! Glad to see that WIRED investigated and provided the facts.

    Looks like the Trump administration followed their usual protocol and combined cruelty, stupidity and incompetence.

    This is kind of funny:

    The counter is fake. The starting number—3,129,580—is hand-typed into the website, and its upward motion is generated by a timer initiated by the visitor’s own browser […] and is roughly seven times larger than the actual ICE arrest count since January 2025.

    This is a good summary:

    The site turned out instead to be a piece of political theater aimed at dehumanizing immigrants.

    And … I have to wonder why the Trump admin continues to mistake Puerto Rico as a foreign country? Stupidity?

    the site lists Puerto Rico itself among the foreign countries the arrestees came from

    Additional reporting:

    […] “Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods, and interacting with us in our daily lives,” the .gov website reads in an “X Files”-inspired font over a starry sky graphic.

    “President Trump was the first to call out the real danger Aliens pose to every American family, every community, and the future of our nation.”

    Trump’s social media team also posted an AI-generated video depicting a UFO moving an unidentified man—presumed to be an immigrant coming from the southern border—from one side of the wall to another, with Trump’s favorite song, “Y.M.C.A.,” playing in the background for some unknown reason.“They walk among us,” they captioned the tweet.

    […] “If you’ve witnessed an Alien abduction, do not be alarmed,” they wrote. “The Alien is in good hands. We will take care of it … and return it safely to its place of origin.”

    […] Despite the odd, dehumanizing assurance, the treatment of undocumented immigrants has also been largely protested—and is being played out in the courts. Multiple reports have been released concerning the ongoing human rights abuses within ICE holding facilities. Since then, even more disturbing information has surfaced as deaths—and suicides—within these facilities breaks records.

    While the White House is trying to control its public PR messaging, the reality is that public opinion is already shifting heavily against this heavy-handed approach to border patrol.

    Link

  92. johnson catman says

    re birgerjohansson@89: That reminds me of the South Carolina entrant in the Miss Teen USA 2007 and her response to the question regarding why some Americans can’t locate the USA on a map.

  93. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Lynna @90:

    I have to wonder why the Trump admin continues to mistake Puerto Rico as a foreign country? Stupidity?

    Either their own stupidity or that’s their estimation of the general public. Or wishful thinking to write off an outlier region that happens to be 82.9% non-White. The federal officials involved in oppressing that territory obviously know they have jurisdiction: FEMA, etc.

    Wikipedia – Politics of Puerto Rico

    Puerto Rico occupies a unique position among the territories and states of the United States of America. in requesting Congress to authorize the drafting and adoption of a constitution. Congress has agreed that Puerto Rico shall, under this constitution, be free from any control or interference by Congress in matters relating to internal government and administration, subject only to compliance with the applicable provisions of the federal constitution of the United States of America. Laws that directed or authorized direct interference by the United States federal government in local government affairs, prior to 1952, have been repealed. Puerto Rico has more latitude over its internal affairs than the U.S. territories of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or American Samoa.
    […]
    However, it does not have the sovereignty that a state of the Union has […] Puerto Rico has no recourse to challenge unilateral actions by the United States government that affect citizens of Puerto Rico. Some residents of Puerto Rico are exempt from some aspects of the Internal Revenue Code. Puerto Rico has international representation in sports and some other culturally international events, similar to sovereign nations. […] Lack of voting representation [in Congress]. Puerto Rico residents cannot vote in presidential elections. […] Puerto Ricans do, however, play an indirect role in electing the President of the United States, since both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party hold primaries in Puerto Rico, giving Puerto Ricans a voice selecting each party’s presidential nominee.

    Sporting events may play a role.

    No meddling in local gov but subject to federal laws. The “no recourse” bit is worrying.
     
    Time – How Puerto Rico’s colonial status deepens the immigration crisis (2025-09-16)

    Stories of similar scenes are sweeping Puerto Rico—raids without court orders, marked by deception and racial profiling, often regardless of legal status. Federal figures show that of the nearly 1,000 immigrants detained across the archipelago, fewer than 12% have criminal records, and most of those detained are minors.
    […]
    In 2013, Governor Alejandro García Padilla signed a law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, and by 2015 they were also able to open bank accounts, recognizing that equality and stability mattered more than papers. Celebrated as progressive, these measures also created a database of immigrant drivers. Today, ICE uses that very database—shared by Puerto Rico’s current government who has been cooperating—to identify and arrest migrants. Governor Jenniffer González defended the practice, saying, “We cannot choose which laws we are going to follow.” Unlike Puerto Rico, cities such as Boston, Colorado, Chicago and many others have chosen not to cooperate, adopting sanctuary policies to protect immigrants […]

    For many, this cooperation felt like a betrayal. The Puerto Rican government had promised immigrant communities that they would not be targeted. […] In Ocean Park, residents were forced to form a human shield to prevent federal agents from snatching workers at a construction site. What is happening is not simply the enforcement of U.S. law; it is the active participation of local authorities in a policy that criminalizes and dehumanizes people who came here to contribute.

    Puerto Rico’s colonial status makes the situation more painful. With no voting representation in Congress, the archipelago has no formal say in federal immigration policy. The White House dictates; Puerto Rico enforces. Yet to claim there is no choice is misleading. Local governments could refuse to cooperate […] Instead, officials reinforce colonial subordination

  94. Reginald Selkirk says

    When trade soured, this American liquor maker moved to Canada

    …
    o when she learned that Sour Puss, a popular drink with Canadian university students, was actually American-made, she was shocked – and concerned about where she would get her next bottle. Most Canadian provinces have been boycotting American-made liquor since Spring 2025, as retaliation for US President Donald Trump’s tariffs against the country.

    The boycott put Phillips Distilling, the family-owned maker of Sour Puss based in Minnesota, into a tight spot.

    They lost 70% of their Canadian business as a result, which CEO Andy England referred to as “a disaster”. Sales of Sour Puss were the hardest hit, as Canada is by far its largest consumer.

    It forced Phillips Distilling to do something they have never done before: move some production north of the border. The shift worked, with their products back on sale in stores across Canada.

    “We’re in a different place now,” England told the BBC.

    “We produce and sell in Canada,” he said. “We have, I think, convinced all of the provinces to take back some of our products, and we’re on the road to recovery.” …

  96. says

    Sky Captain @93, thanks for that additional information regarding the status of Puerto Rico, especially as compared to other states. Yes, the “no recourse” reality is troubling.

    Reginald @94, that’s an interesting variant of the “move to Canada” storylines. I like it.

    Reginald @95, if Trump decides to give a “major speech” instead, he will reduce the audience for his “Freedom 250” shenanigans even further.

  97. says

    This week reminds us just how bleak it must be for federal judges to deal with this administration day in and day out. Whether it is playing shenanigans with tariff refunds or pretending to be clueless about freedom of speech, these people are stupidly tiresome and tiresomely stupid.

    […] Dealing with an administration utterly devoted to bad behavior has got to be exhausting. And the poor sods at the Court of International Trade are in an especially bad spot because they have to deal with all the refunds of President Donald Trump’s illegal tariffs.

    Judge Richard Eaton has ordered Rodney Scott, the head of Customs and Border Protection, to appear next month for a little chat about the administration’s compliance with his order to return the $166 billion it took from importers. Perhaps Eaton was not terribly impressed with the government’s April filing that it was only going to be able to give back $127 billion and also doing stuff manually is way too hard, so you can’t expect the administration to do that.

    Wait, what? You see, the refund system the government built doesn’t let importers get back the taxes they paid on those illegal tariffs. So the solution is apparently just to say that $39 billion just can’t be given back? That seems bad.

    Eaton is also a wee bit worried that there are millions of entries for which the government has provided no plan whatsoever to address. That also seems less than great.

    But at least we can look forward to doing this all over again when the administration has to start refunding the newish tariffs Trump imposed under a different law after the Supreme Court told him that the ones he imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were illegal. What fun!

    The second Trump administration has given us no shortage of genuinely unprecedented judicial happenings. Even without looking it up, we can say with certainty that no previous president was the subject of a motion by a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges asking to reopen the sham court case he filed against his own agency so that he could get a sham settlement for his insurrectionist pals.

    All of this came about because Trump hit a little speed bump in his lawsuit against the IRS for $10 billion. The judge ordered the parties to explain how, exactly, this was a real lawsuit since Trump was functionally on both sides of it. There was no way that was going to happen, so Trump dropped his meritless lawsuit in exchange for $1.776 billion for treason enthusiasts.

    The former judges want Judge Kathleen Williams to reopen the case to examine whether the sham settlement was a fraud on the court. Williams’ order closing the case said there was no “settlement of record,” which was true at the moment, but the signed treason slush fund settlement popped up just a few hours later, complete with details about the fund, followed the next day by a little surprise of complete immunity for Trump, his family, and his businesses for any tax filings before the date of the settlement.

    Per the former judges, this timeline shows the parties colluded to avoid Williams’ inquiry into whether this was even a real case and deliberately filed a notice of dismissal before the settlement saw the light of day, even though the settlement agreement itself still had the case caption. In other words, it looks a lot like Trump and the DOJ used the judicial system to open a case that was never a real dispute as a basis for a collusive fake settlement and made sure the judge couldn’t inquire about any of it.
    […]

    Link

  99. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reginald Selkirk @21: I just saw the $250 bill. Lol, that’s his worst face yet.

    Wired – Trump appointees push $250 banknote with his portrait

    The printing director who resisted the effort said she was reassigned last month. “The buck stopped here,” she wrote in her goodbye.
    […]
    Starting last year, two political appointees at the Treasury Department […] repeatedly urged staff at the agency’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing to prepare prototypes […] Legislation that would allow Trump to appear on a $250 bill was introduced in Congress last year to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary but has languished.
    […]
    staff had consented to another administration request: to print $100 bills featuring Trump’s signature […] those bills—the first in American history to bear a sitting president’s signature—are currently being printed
    […]
    “Currency often takes six to eight years to produce a new bill, particularly one of such high value.” […] it took more than a decade to design and produce a $100 note with dozens of embedded security features that prevented counterfeiting.
    […]
    “These guys think you can just print something overnight and it’s going to work in an ATM. It’s just crazy,” said one of the employees. “It takes years and years and years to produce these notes so they are reliable for the public.” […] The effort to make a $250 note coincides with the Trump administration’s plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s founding starting this July.

  100. says

    Update to Reginald’s comment 95.

    From the Washington Post:

    […] After Trump said on his Truth Social platform Saturday that he understood “Artists are getting ‘the yips’” about performing and suggested headlining the event himself, Danielle Alvarez, an adviser to Freedom 250, confirmed to The Washington Post that Trump will now kick off an opening event for the fair.

    “As the visionary behind the Great American State Fair, we are excited to announce that President Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wednesday, June 24 in an opening ceremony celebrating America’s 250th birthday,” Alvarez said in a statement first shared with The Post. She called the multiday event “a World’s Fair celebrating the people, traditions, innovations, and spirit that make America the greatest nation on Earth.”

    […] Two of Trump’s advisers told The Post on Saturday, on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly, that they were quickly working to make his suggestion of being the fair’s opening act a reality.

    While the president’s post suggested he wanted his speech to take place on Wednesday, the Great American State Fair was originally set to begin June 25 and run through July 10.

    Prior to Freedom 250 confirming the newly planned speech, Trump in his Truth Social post wrote that he was “thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!” […]

  101. says

    NBC News exclusive report: ICE eyes selling mega-warehouses purchased for mass detention

    “The agency is also considering selling several planes ICE purchased for deportations under former Secretary Kristi Noem, but no decisions have been made.”

    The Trump administration is looking into selling some of the large warehouses that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had purchased earlier this year to serve as mega-detention centers for immigrants, according to two Department of Homeland Security officials.

    DHS and ICE officials have identified several of the eleven previously purchased warehouses, some of which were expected to be repurposed to hold as many as 8,000 immigrants, for potential sale, the officials said. But, they said, the facilities have not yet been put on the market, and no final decisions have been made on the matter.

    The warehouses were purchased under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as part of a plan to build the capacity to detain 100,000 immigrants across the country at a single time. They were in addition to existing facilities capable of detaining tens of thousands of immigrants. The total cost of the warehouse purchases was estimated at over $38 billion.

    The DHS officials also said that ICE is considering selling several planes that were purchased or leased under Noem’s leadership, including a luxury Boeing 737 Max 8, though no decision has been made. ICE has typically used chartered planes for deportations; those purchased during Noem’s tenure were the first deportation planes to be government-owned.

    […] The DHS officials said ICE no longer needs the capacity to hold 100,000 immigrants.

    […] The so-called mega-warehouses gained public attention and drew protests at their proposed sites around the country, often dividing local communities about whether they would help create jobs or drag down their economies. Even several Republicans opposed ICE warehouses that were planned for their districts. Maryland sued successfully to stop ICE from developing a warehouse near Hagerstown. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., criticized DHS’ plan to turn a warehouse in Byhalia, Mississippi, into an ICE detention center.

    […] If ICE sells any of its warehouses, their market value could come under scrutiny. The DHS inspector general is examining ICE’s purchases of warehouses around the country as part of an audit examining whether DHS met the need for new detention space in a “cost-effective manner.”

    A lawsuit filed by Social Circle, Georgia — a suburb of Atlanta — alleges ICE paid more than five times the property’s previously assessed value. [!] […]

  102. says

    @61 Lynna, OM posted about the bronze horse statues: https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/team-trumps-latest-no-bid-contract-5-million-to-coat-horse-statues-in-gold
    However, if you know anything about metal statuary: Look at the photo of the existing statues. They are bronze with a wonderful, classical patina of age. As the article states all they needed was a good cleaning. But the magat-in-chief had to waste many millions in TAXPAYER money to satisfy his warped fetish to put gold on everything that doesn’t move. Gold leaf covering them just makes them another tRUMP trash palace joke in poor taste. WTF

    https://crooksandliars.com/2026/05/another-no-bid-contract-time-gold-plated

  103. Militant Agnostic says

    shermanj @102

    Since the gold leaf is supposed be thick (by gold leaf standards) and the statues are fairly large would is be worth someone’s time to scrap it off and sell it. Asking for a friend.

  104. whheydt says

    Re: Militant Agnostic @ #103…
    I really doubt it’d be worth the effort. That said, I wouldn’t be that nobody will try it.

  105. says

    shermanj @102. Good Points!

    In other news: Millions of Bees Have Thrived Under a New York Cemetery for More Than a Century

    A walk in the cemetery led to Cornell researchers discovering an underground colony of bees with an estimated population of 5.5 million—one of the largest ever recorded.

    A MORNING WALK through East Lawn Cemetery in Ithaca, New York uncovered an immense colony of some 5.5 million subterranean bees. The discovery, which a Cornell University research team published in April in the journal Apidologie, documents one of the largest aggregations of these insects ever recorded in the world. The population, belonging to the species Andrena regularis, occupies an area of about 1.25 acres and is crucial for pollination of the region’s orchards, demonstrating that historic cemeteries can prove unsuspected refuges for urban biodiversity.

    The Genesis of the Discovery
    It all began in the spring of 2022, when Rachel Fordyce, then a laboratory technician in Cornell University’s entomology department, noticed an anomalous presence of insects during her usual walk to work. After collecting some specimens, she showed them to Bryan Danforth, an entomologist at the same university. Analysis revealed that they were Andrena regularis, commonly called the mining or miner bee. Unlike honey bees, this wild species has a solitary lifestyle and nests by digging tunnels in the ground. Historical records indicate that the insect has been present in the cemetery, established in 1878, since at least the early 1900s.

    The Census
    To calculate the size of the colony, scientists placed 10 traps placed in the cemetery between late March and mid-May 2023. These small net curtains cover less than one square meter of soil and channel insects coming out of the ground to a glass container. In total, more than 3,000 insects belonging to 16 different species were sampled, including bees, beetles, and flies, with an overwhelming prevalence of Andrena regularis. Extrapolating from the average density found in the traps, the researchers estimated a total population of between 3 and 8 million, with an average value of 5.5 million—the equivalent of more than 200 domestic bee hives.

    The research yielded previously unpublished data on the biology of this little-studied insect. The traps revealed that males emerge from the ground a few days earlier than females during the first warm days of April, a strategy that maximizes mating opportunities. Subsequently, females dig nests and lay eggs in cells filled with pollen and nectar. The species has the distinction of wintering at the adult stage underground, which allows it to become active very early in the spring, in perfect synchrony with the flowering of apple trees in the nearby Cornell University orchards. Monitoring also revealed the presence of complex ecological dynamics, such as parasitism by bees of the Nomada imbricata species, which lay their eggs in the nests of the host species at the expense of the original larvae. […]

    More at the link.

    WIRED link

  106. StevoR says

    Tonight’s full moon will mark a rare occasion. It will be both a micromoon as well as a blue moon. But don’t expect to see drastic changes when you look up at the sky this evening.

    If you’ve ever heard of a supermoon, think of a micromoon as its opposite. A micromoon is a term used to describe when a full moon occurs at the same time as the Moon being at its apogee. That means it’s pretty much at its furthest point from Earth in its oval-shaped orbit.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-31/blue-moon-micromoon-may/106742232

  107. Reginald Selkirk says

    Former member of German militant group jailed for armed robberies after decades on the run

    A former member of the German militant group Red Army Faction (RAF) has been jailed for 13 years for carrying out a string of armed robberies between 1999 and 2016.

    Daniela Klette, 67, was finally caught in a flat in Berlin in 2024 after more than 30 years on the run. She went on trial last year.
    …
    The RAF, a violent anti-capitalist group also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, was eventually disbanded after a campaign of murder, kidnapping and bombing from the early 1970s to the early 1990s.
    …
    Klette was not caught until February 2024 after a tip-off to police. She had been living on Sebastianstrasse in the Kreuzberg area of Berlin – a quiet street that was once divided by the Berlin Wall – under an assumed name and with a foreign passport…

  108. Reginald Selkirk says

    AI grifters are creating fake Black people to sell Shein junk

    …
    But Aliyah isn’t real, and neither are her supposedly handmade products — she’s one of many AI-generated influencers created to sell mass-produced products via dropshipping on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. Identical belt buckles — sunflower design, detachable knife inlay, and all — are sold on the fast-fashion site Shein, and for a quarter of the price…

  111. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nearly 2 million bees released after semi crash on I-94; driver stung hundreds of times

    North Dakota Highway Patrol says just before 4:00pm Thursday afternoon, a 15-year-old boy from Valley City and the 55-year-old driver of a Kenworth Semi, were both merging onto westbound I-94 in Valley City. State Patrol says the teen abruptly moved into the left lane to pass the merging semi, but nearly crashed with the semi in doing so.

    To avoid the crash, the semi driver swerved, entered the median and rolled. The trailer was carrying 600 to 800 bee hives, containing an estimated more than two million bees.

    State Patrol says the semi driver was able to get out himself, but was immediately attacked by hundreds of bees. The driver ran to the nearby Sheyenne River to get the bees off of him and was later taken to a Fargo Hospital for treatment…

  112. Reginald Selkirk says

    The ‘ultimate mosquito killer’ uses lasers and AI — custom model trained to detect and lock lasers on these pests

    A computer vision and robotics expert has created and trained what he boasts is “the ultimate mosquito killer.” Steven Cheng shared details of his high-tech bug zapper project on social media. Key innovations here include the use of computer vision and deep learning technologies to detect and lock onto mosquitoes so the laser ‘artillery cannon’ could do its work…

  113. Reginald Selkirk says

    Astronomers finally solve Saturn’s decades-long spin mystery

    For years, Saturn appeared to be doing something impossible.

    Measurements suggested the giant planet’s rotation rate was changing over time, as if Saturn were somehow speeding up or slowing down. That puzzling result left scientists searching for answers. Now, researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) say they have finally solved the mystery.

    The new findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, reveal that Saturn’s spectacular northern lights are at the heart of the phenomenon. The study shows that the planet’s aurora drives a powerful cycle involving heat, winds, and electrical currents that can make Saturn appear to spin at different speeds depending on how it is measured…

  114. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘It’s like a decaying body’: Australian farmers battle mouse plague

    A mouse plague is terrorising farmers across large swathes of Australia, with the rodents running rampant around homes and ravaging fields of grain.

    It comes as farmers are already under pressure from unpredictable fuel and fertiliser supplies due to the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.

    This new battle has seen farmers pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into either re-planting crops that have been devoured by the mice or spending precious farming hours laying down bait – sterile seeds laced with mouse poison…

  115. johnson catman says

    re Reginald Selkirk@110:

    Trump is 6 feet 3 inches tall (190 cm) and weighs 238 pounds (108 kg), the memo added.

    Bull. Fucking. Shit. No fucking way that Fat Orange Turd weighs only 238 pounds. Only happening if he is wearing helium inserts to counteract 40-50 pounds of his lard.

  116. says

    Dear Lynna, In concert with your post @105 about Millions of Bees Have Thrived Under a New York Cemetery for More Than a Century, I found this disturbing article:
    Shutting Down Federal Bee Labs Threatens Bees, Beekeepers and the US Food System
    Is the country’s food supply being destroyed intentionally?
    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/05/shutting-down-federal-bee-labs-threatens-bees-beekeepers-and-the-us-food-system.html

    At the risk of a stinging rebuke for a bad pun, it would be fruitless to try to live in a world without pollinators

  117. says

    @115 johnson catman was skeptical about tRUMPs weight.
    I found these points interesting in that they confirm his skepticism:
    One article I read yesterday mentioned that even at that (unlikely) weight, he has gained over 20 lbs. since 2025
    and, I’ve seen photos of him standing next to people who are truly 6’3″ and he is inches shorter than they are
    tRUMP is a legend in his own mind. He lies and his doctor swears to it.

  119. says

    Minnesota Reformer:

    The [Minnesota GOP] convention day began at 9 a.m. with a prayer from Father Richard Kunst of Duluth that the adopted platform of the party “promotes true, good, conservative values, fiscally and socially,” followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

    A delegate then called for a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020 and is in prison. State Rep. Danny Nadeau, R-Rogers, led a 10-second moment of silence after taking an informal vote.

    Monday was the sixth anniversary of Floyd’s death.

    Commentary:

    You read that right. The Minnesota GOP saw fit to have a moment of silence [to honor] a thug masquerading as a Minneapolis cop who put his knee on Floyd’s neck and suffocated him to death. […]

    Link

  120. says

    shermanj @116, thanks for that information: “Shutting Down Federal Bee Labs Threatens Bees, Beekeepers and the US Food System”

    The Trump administration is even threatening bees. Sheesh.

  121. says

    Netanyahu vows to expand Israel’s grip on Lebanon after deepest incursion in 26 years

    “Israeli officials signaled that they could seek to take direct control over more of Lebanon after crossing the Litani River to capture Beaufort Ridge, a key strategic site.”

    Israeli forces have captured a strategic site in Lebanon across the Litani River, marking Israel’s deepest incursion into the country in 26 years.

    The capture of Beaufort Ridge, the site of a medieval castle, comes after days of intense fighting in southern Lebanon, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Sunday the seizure marks a “dramatic change” in Israeli strategy.

    The advance comes despite hopes of a U.S.-brokered plan to forge a renewed peace between the two countries, after Israeli and Lebanese officials met in Washington Friday. Strikes have continued despite a nominal, month-old ceasefire agreement, which Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah have accused each other of breaching.

    “Our heroic fighters captured the Beaufort outpost,” Netanyahu said Sunday.

    “My instruction is to deepen and expand our grip on the places that were under Hezbollah’s control,” he added. “The occupation of Beaufort is a dramatic stage and a dramatic change in the policy that we are leading.”

    Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a speech Sunday that the Israeli flag was “once again flying over the peaks overlooking the communities of the Galilee,” adding that soldiers who captured the Beaufort “will remain there as part of the security zone in Lebanon.”

    “The campaign is not yet over,” Katz added on X […]

    UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency, said Friday ahead of the site’s capture that it was “deeply alarmed” by Israeli strikes near Beaufort Castle, which has a provisional protected status. Such sites should receive the “highest level of legal protection against attack and use for military purposes,” the body said.

    The crossing of the Litani River and capture of Beaufort Ridge are a major escalation in the current conflict.

    The river has become a de facto boundary in Lebanon since Israel’s invasion, with large areas to the south under Israeli military control and residents ordered to leave. Israeli forces had already begun striking and destroying bridges over the Litani that connect the south to the rest of the country. […]

    French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Sunday requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council […] He told France’s BFMTV channel that “nothing can justify” the “ever-deeper occupation” of Lebanese territory.

    Fears of a long-term occupation have also grown amid outright calls from some for Israel to take permanent control of southern Lebanon […]

    Those calls were renewed among ultranationalists on Sunday, with Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich posting on X that the seizure of Beaufort Ridge was “correcting old national sins” as he called for a permanent occupation.

    Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Saturday pressed Netanyahu to go further and “flatten” parts of Beirut. […]

    The Israeli conflict in Lebanon has been the most deadly spillover of the Iran war, with more than 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by Israeli strikes and evacuation orders since March 2, when Hezbollah fired at Israel in support of ally Tehran. Some returned home following the ceasefire, but Israel has continued to issue evacuation orders.

    Israeli strikes on Lebanon have since killed more than 3,350 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel says 25 of its soldiers and two civilians have been killed in or near southern Lebanon over the same period. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

    The prime minister of Lebanon said Friday that “nothing can justify” Israel’s attacks on the country after the IDF pounded Tyre, Lebanon’s fourth-largest city, in a wave of strikes across southern Lebanon that killed at least 14 people.

    Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said continued strikes, threats and evacuation orders across southern Lebanon “amount to collective punishment, condemned by all international norms and laws.” […]

    More at the link.

  122. Pierce R. Butler says

    Lynna @ # 141, quoting NBC News: Netanyahu vows to expand Israel’s grip on Lebanon…

    Are you sure he didn’t pronounce it, “Lebensraum”?

  125. says

    Pierce @122, Netanyahu does seem to be a long-term thinker when it comes to Lebensraum for Israelis. He uses every situation that arises to play his long game. All the while, he obscures his true motives whenever he can. He lies or misinforms his so-called allies. He is a dangerous man. He is a narcissist, like Trump, but he hides it better. And he is more patient than Trump.

    Netanyahu has another thing in common with Trump, he does not care who he hurts to achieve his goals. Children, pregnant women, innocent shopkeepers … people in general are all fair game. Ditto for the environment.

    We can all see what he is doing in regard to Gaza and to Lebanon, and yet Netanyahu gets away with pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable further and further.

  129. StevoR says

    Tonights ‘Four Corners episode (8.30 pm c2 ABC) will be on police violence – its been getting worse here :

    According to NSW Police’s own figures, the number of complaints about officers by the public has increased by nearly 70 per cent in the past decade, from 3,130 in a year to 5,248. That is despite the number of officers dropping by about 4 per cent over the same period.

    Tim Prenzler, one of Australia’s foremost police integrity experts, says while there has been a trend in recent decades away from some of the more blatant forms of corruption — bribery, protection rackets and fabrication of evidence — assaults by police remain a problem.

    “Police all around Australia attract large numbers of complaints,” Professor Prenzler says.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-01/nsw-police-bashed-brad-kellson-covered-it-up-four-corners/106726572

  130. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Iran’s president offers resignation, citing total takeover by IRGC commanders

    Masoud Pezeshkian has submitted an official letter of resignation […] the president and the government have effectively been excluded from major and vital decision-making processes in the country, and that the vacuum created by this situation has enabled hardline factions within the IRGC to take control […] under such circumstances he is unable to run the government
    […]
    It is not yet clear whether Mojtaba Khamenei will accept the president’s resignation, but the contents of the letter point to a deep and unprecedented rift at the highest levels of power.

    Paul Nadeau (Geoeconomics prof):

    Pezeshkian is one of the few reformers left with authority; if he’s out, then the Iranian government is almost entirely conservative hardliners. […]

    Americans have consistently refused to believe that Iran’s best chance for liberal democracy is through the reformist camp of the Islamic Republic and not the son of the dictator that was exiled in violent protests 40 years ago. That’s more or less how we got here.

  131. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Rando: “US Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer marched alongside far-right Israeli Finance Minister and Criminal Bezalel Smotrich. [Video clip]”

    Middle East Eye – Israeli ministers who backed ethnic cleansing of Palestinians join New York annual pro-Israel parade

    Among the delegation was Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, alongside Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu and 13 members of the Knesset.
    […]
    the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court had filed a secret arrest warrant application for Smotrich […] charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity.

    Addressing attendees, Smotrich said the parade “reminds me of the Jerusalem Flag March”, an ultra-nationalist procession through Jerusalem’s Old City and Muslim Quarter on Jerusalem Day where participants have often chanted “Death to Arabs” and while attacking Palestinian and Christian residents.
    […]
    Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor and a long-time critic of Israel, boycotted the parade, becoming the first mayor in the event’s history not to attend. […] and said he would seek to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited New York City.

    Middle East Eye

    If approved […] the warrant for Smotrich would be the first ever issued by an international court for the crime of apartheid. The application was filed on 2 April. […] So far, the arrest warrant application for Smotrich has not been ratified by the judges and a decision could still be months away.
    […]
    Last year, MEE reported that the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan had prepared warrant applications against Ben Gvir and Smotrich before he went on leave in May.

    The warrant applications have been delayed by the deputy prosecutors, who are in charge of Khan’s office in his absence, partly due to the threat of US sanctions. Days after MEE’s report, the Trump administration sanctioned the two deputy prosecutors.
    […]
    In June 2025, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway jointly imposed sanctions on the [two ministers], freezing any assets they held in those countries and barring them from entering. […] In July 2025, Slovenia became the first EU member to declare both ministers persona non grata, and the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain have imposed their own travel restrictions, with the Dutch ban extending across the 29-country Schengen Area.

    A proposal to sanction Ben Gvir and Smotrich at EU level has been on the table for nearly two years however […] for lack of the required unanimity. […] On 11 May, the EU’s foreign affairs council agreed to sanction settler organisations and Hamas figures, but not the two cabinet ministers driving the settler policies. Ben Gvir and Smotrich were stripped from the list after Germany, Italy, Austria, The Czech Republic and Hungary made clear they would not support their inclusion. The US has opposed the sanctions throughout, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging allies to reverse them

  132. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Independent – Israel strikes ancient castle

    The 900-year-old Beaufort Castle was hit by Israeli strikes on Tuesday, as its bombardment of southern Lebanon killed 31 people and wounded another 40 in the deadliest day since a ceasefire was supposed to take hold […] one of the best-preserved examples of medieval castles in the region. […] Israel pounded Lebanon with more than 120 air ​strikes [on Tuesday]

    EuroNews – Israel retakes Beaufort castle in Lebanon

    France condemns the move and demands a UN Security Council meeting. On Saturday night into Sunday, Israeli troops captured a strategic hill on which sits the Crusader-built Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon. It is the deepest incursion into the country in more than a quarter of a century, the army said.
    […]
    Israeli troops had previously captured the castle in 1982 and held it until their withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. […] Built as a Crusader castle around the 12th century on top of earlier fortifications, it was used by the Crusaders, by Saladin’s army of Jerusalem, by the Mamluks, the Ottomans, the French Mandate, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli army until 2000, when it was partially restored and opened to visitors. […] During the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024, UNESCO granted enhanced protection to 34 cultural sites in Lebanon, including Beaufort Castle

  133. birgerjohansson says

    Acting AG Todd Blanche is getting sued by clients who say he forged signatures and stole more than a million. A handwriting expert is backing the accusations.

  136. birgerjohansson says

    Deep insights that most people don’t know:

    “I take the ‘b’ off because most people don’t know that dumb ends with a ‘b’ but most people don’t know,” the president insisted as he shared why he now refers to Democrats as “Dumocrats.”

  141. Reginald Selkirk says

    New solar desalination breakthrough makes fresh water without toxic brine

    …
    Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a new approach that could address several of these challenges. Their solar powered desalination system produces fresh water efficiently, operates without chemical pretreatment, and avoids creating brine waste. The research was led by Chunlei Guo, a professor of optics and physics and a senior scientist at the University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The team described the technology in the journal Light: Science & Applications.

    The system relies on specially engineered solar panels made from black metal that has been textured with femtosecond lasers. This treatment gives the surface two important properties. It absorbs nearly all incoming sunlight and strongly attracts water, a characteristic known as superwicking.

    A laser patterned active region draws a thin layer of seawater across the panel. As sunlight is absorbed, the water evaporates and is distilled into fresh water. At the same time, dissolved salts and minerals are guided away from the active area and deposited onto untreated sections of the panel called passive regions.

    By moving the salts away from the evaporation zone, the design prevents buildup that could otherwise interfere with continuous operation…

  146. says

    As U.S. and Iran trade new strikes, Trump’s claims about the war take a weird turn

    Related video at the link.

    It’s been 12 days since Donald Trump used his social media platform to make a vague announcement about a possible end to the war with Iran. A “peace” agreement, the president wrote, “has been largely negotiated.” He added that the details of the breakthrough deal would be “announced shortly,” raising hopes around the world that the end of the deadly and destabilizing war was imminent.

    Roughly 48 hours later, U.S. military leaders announced a series of “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran. Despite an ostensible ceasefire that’s been in place for weeks, the violence is ongoing. The Associated Press reported:

    The United States said Monday that it bombed radar and drone sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American drone over the weekend. Iran then said it launched a strike of its own, and Kuwait reported incoming fire. […]

    The U.S. military’s Central Command said it carried out the strikes in Iran on Saturday and Sunday around the city of Geruk and on Qeshm Island.

    […] We’re left with a ceasefire in which the fire hasn’t ceased, and a burgeoning peace deal that lacks both peace and a deal.

    [Trump’s] public statements about the war offer little in the way of clarity or consistency. As The New York Times reported, “Three months after President Trump launched war on Iran, his seemingly haphazard approach to the conflict is bewildering allies at home and abroad as he veers between diplomatic dealing, military strikes and increasingly far-fetched ideas.”

    The Times added that Trump’s “pendulum swings on Iran have often seemed driven by mood and moment rather than any discernible strategy.”

    [Trump] has insisted that any agreement include Iran turning over its highly enriched uranium. He’s also recently said the opposite, arguing that Iran’s uranium stockpiles are really just a “public relations” issue and the goal isn’t altogether “necessary.”

    Similarly, in an interview with Fox News’ Lara Trump that aired over the weekend, the president raised a few eyebrows when he told his daughter-in-law, “We’ve actually left their military alone. People would be surprised to hear that. Because mistakes have been made in wars where you wipe out everybody and then you have a country that for 40 years can never rebuild.” [social media post, with video]

    The comments were completely at odds with weeks’ worth of rhetoric in which the president claimed that U.S. forces have destroyed Iran’s military.

    As this week got underway, Trump also used his platform to publish another item, at 1:02 a.m. ET, complaining that “Dumocrats and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans” have made it “MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate” with Iran by saying things about the conflict that the White House doesn’t like.

    In other words, as the president sees it, his failures are everyone’s fault but his own. […]

    As for the road ahead, Trump met with his team for hours on Friday and told the public that the discussion would dictate the administration’s “final determination.” Three days later, as the AP reported, he “has yet to decide on whether to move ahead with a deal to extend the ceasefire and reopen” the Strait of Hormuz.

  148. says

    The 3 biggest problems with the results of Trump’s latest medical exam

    […] a closer look suggests three lingering problems […]

    What was in the report: The three-page report released by the White House included plenty of anodyne details, but it also added some curious elements. Barbabella, for example, stated that Trump has a “cardiac age” of a 65-year-old, based on the results of an “AI-enhanced electrocardiogram analysis.” It also pointed to “frequent handshaking” to explain the bruising that often appears on the president’s left and right hands.

    Dr. Vin Gupta, a medical analyst for MS NOW, noted online, “When a President’s physicians start citing ‘AI cardiac age’ metrics and explaining bilateral bruising from ‘frequent handshaking,’ the line between medical documentation and political messaging disappears.”

    What’s more, the same report from the White House noted that Trump also took another cognitive exam, the fourth of his presidency.

    Trump claimed via social media that the results showed his “extreme intelligence.” That wasn’t even close to being true. As The New York Times reported, the exam is “meant to screen for signs of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or other conditions.” It is not, in other words, an intelligence test; it is simply designed to assess degenerative ailments. […]

    As for why exactly Trump has taken four cognitive tests over the course of his presidency, no one at the White House has yet offered an explanation.

    What was not in the report: That the documentation released by the White House spanned three pages might give the impression of comprehensiveness, but that’s not quite right. The Wall Street Journal reported, for example, “The White House memorandum describing President Trump’s recent physical examination lacks details of the results of tests to assess his cardiovascular health, according to physicians who read the report. That is one of several areas of the report that doctors said stood out for its lack of specificity.”

    An Axios report noted that Jonathan Reiner, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart doctor, agreed the official report left unanswered questions, including why there have been repeated CT scans of the heart during his checkups and whether the medical team addressed his daytime fatigue and sleepiness.

    [I snipped the history of Trump and his doctors telling lies about his health, and/or spreading misinformation.]

    Good, related video at the link.

  149. JM says

    CNN: Iran suspends talks with US over Israel’s strikes on Lebanon, state media reports

    • Talks suspended: Iran has suspended talks with the US in protest over Israel’s actions in Lebanon, which Tehran said “violated” the ceasefire, according to semi-official Iranian state media.

    • Reaction from Trump: US President Donald Trump said that Iran hasn’t yet informed the US it is cutting off talks, but suggested he has no problem waiting out Tehran until it agrees to an acceptable deal.

    Important if true but Iran can’t be trusted on this, it’s likely just feeding the national population propaganda. Trump’s reaction is equally unlikely to be true, his response is bluster to avoid admitting anything other then total control of the war.

  150. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TechCrunch – Github Copilot’s new token-based billing spurs consternation

    The golden age of Microsoft’s Github Copilot appears to be at an end—for the little guy, at least. The company is switching its billing system from a flat subscription rate to a token-usage system that has the potential to bill users at a significantly higher rate. […] which will take place June 1
    […]
    “What a joke,” one Redditor recently wrote, claiming that, while they currently only pay around $29 per month, the new rate will balloon their costs to nearly $750 a month. […] Another user posted “WOW, didn’t expect new pricing model to be this ridiculous,” sharing a screenshot that appeared to show that their costs had shot up from around $50 to some $3,000. […] Others have focused on the mind-boggling economics behind the company’s previous model. “Holy fuck how much money was copilot losing,” […] Microsoft encouraged users to use its chatbot indiscriminately and now appear to be pulling the rug out from under them.

  151. says

    MARIA BARTIROMO [Fox news host]: What are you going to do about your perception? The Wall Street Journal describes you as “scandal-plagued.”

    KEN PAXTON: The reality is they could say the same thing about Donald Trump.

    Cool argument, Ken Paxton! Conservative media works overtime to hide that Trump is a corrupt sex pest! Paxton just pulled the curtain back and shocked Bartiromo on live TV.

    […]

    KEVIN HASSETT [Trump senior economic adviser]: People are spending more on gas, but they’re also spending more on everything else — not just groceries, but restaurants and so on. I think that’s a sign you see when people are optimistic about the future.

    “Everything costs more is a good thing!” is not the flex he thinks it is.

    SHANON BREAM [Fox News Sunday host]: The Bureau of Labor Statistics says inflation is now outpacing wage growth. How do you answer that concern?

    KEVIN HASSETT : That’s a technical matter. Personal income includes lots of things like transfers and food stamps that we have been reducing as part of our effort to make government leaner and meaner.

    Still not the flex.

    BREAM: The Wall Street Journal says […] the percentage of delinquent credit card balances is 13 percent, […] the highest since the period following the financial crisis. People say they’re using them for necessities. Your message to them?

    HASSETT: We talk to the CEOs of the credit card companies all the time. Delinquency is different from default, and there’s not any financial threat to the credit card companies. It’s just people are taking a little bit longer.

    Aren’t we all glad the CEO’s of Mastercard, Visa, Discover, and AMEX are doing great? […].

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/a-childrens-treasury-of-republican

    More at the link, including videos.

  152. Reginald Selkirk says

    @151

    KEVIN HASSETT: … as part of our effort to make government leaner and meaner.

    Um, OK; government is meaner now. But I don’t see that as a good thing.

  153. says

    Washington Post link

    Seeking a $54 billion arsenal of killer drones, Pentagon turns to former hobbyists.

    A company that uses drones to analyze golf course grass. Another linked to a firm that hosts aerial light shows. And one founded by a 23-year-old former drone racing world champion.

    Any of them, the Pentagon says, could represent the future of warfare as officials scramble to plug what they see as a gaping hole in the United States’ military arsenal. Conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have shown the value of small, cheap drones, and the Trump administration has concluded that the U.S. desperately needs to catch up.

    Officials are turning to an eclectic mix of companies — some launched by onetime hobbyists — and pitting them against one another in Drone Dominance, an 18-month contest that launched this year. The prize is a share of $1.1 billion in defense contracts, a sum the Pentagon hopes will be enough to buy 300,000 of what are essentially cheap flying bombs.

    The administration’s ultimate goals are even grander: Next year’s defense budget calls for $54.6 billion to fund a dramatically expanded drone-warfare unit.

    A new round of the contest is scheduled to begin next week. At the head of the pack are Skycutter, a British firm that has partnered with a battle-tested Ukrainian manufacturer, and Neros, founded by Soren Monroe-Anderson, the young former racing champion.

    Monroe-Anderson’s firm already works with the Army and Marines, and he said officials told him they had high expectations as the competition got underway.

    “I do love the fact that it’s keeping everyone on their toes,” he said. “There’s no free lunch in Drone Dominance.”

    […] Officials are increasingly looking to private industry to develop new kinds of military gear and are prepared to pour money into the most promising products […]

    Officials expect the military will need to acquire huge numbers of small drones every year. The systems are cheap at about $5,000 each and designed to be “attritable” — Pentagon jargon meaning they can be blown up without too much concern.

    Drawing on technology from the racing world, Ukrainian troops have shown how the systems can zip across trench lines to hunt tanks, allowing them to stymie Russian forces. Iranians, too, have used drones to strike beyond their borders and harass ships in the Strait of Hormuz, even in the face of a huge U.S. military force.

    […] Yet, some experts say it remains unclear exactly how relevant small drones will be to the U.S. military. The conflict in Ukraine has been fought over slow-moving front lines where drone pilots can get set up and fly. Conditions for American troops operating far from home would probably be different, said Crispin Burke, a retired Army helicopter pilot and drone specialist.

    “They might be going a little too extreme in trying to acquire these devices,” Burke said. “If you’re an army on the march, where are you going to carry all of these drones?”

    […] Metz said that while the tactics employed by American troops might be different from those in Ukraine, he still expects drones to dominate future front lines. […]

    officials devised the Drone Dominance Gauntlets, four increasingly challenging contests in which troops will test out systems over several days. After each round, the contracts awarded to the winners increase, but the price the Pentagon will pay per drone decreases. […]

    The manufacturers [picked] which of the pilots would put the drones through their paces on the test range. Missions included hitting targets the size of a desk up to six miles away and carrying out a strike inside a building. […]

    How many of these drones will be almost instantly outdated?

  154. says

    New York Times link

    “Hegseth Strikes Female and Black Navy Officers From Promotion List”

    “The defense secretary’s decision to block the officers’ promotions appears driven by his anti-diversity stance rather than based on merit.”

    In a move that disproportionately targets women and minority officers, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently blocked the promotions of at least seven Navy officers who had been selected by a board of senior Navy admirals.

    The net result of Mr. Hegseth’s intervention is a slate of 22 nominees to be one-star admirals that bears little resemblance to the broader force these officers will help lead.

    At least two of the officers removed by Mr. Hegseth from the promotion list are women and two are Black men. An additional three are white men.

    Mr. Hegseth’s actions, which appear to violate the rules governing a promotion system that is supposed to be apolitical and merit-based, were described by four current and former defense officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

    No female officers were included on the new one-star list, which was released publicly in late May, despite the fact that women make up about 21 percent of the active-duty Navy. […]

    Mr. Hegseth’s removal of the officers from the one-star list is highly unusual, said the current and former defense officials. According to Pentagon rules, the defense secretary is only supposed to pull officers from the list for moral, mental, physical or professional failings that raise questions about the officers’ fitness to lead.

    […] Since taking office, Mr. Hegseth has fired or sidelined nearly three dozen senior military officers as part of a broader campaign designed to purge the Pentagon of leaders he has disparaged as “foolish,” “reckless” and “woke.” He has consistently refused to explain why he has chosen to fire officers or pull them from promotion lists.

    […] His scrutiny has fallen heavily on female and minority officers, who have borne the brunt of the dismissals. Nearly 60 percent of the senior officers Mr. Hegseth has fired are female or Black […]

    Earlier this year, Mr. Hegseth also removed four colonels — two Black men and two women — from the Army’s list of nominees for one-star general over the objections of Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll. Mr. Driscoll insisted that the officers had a long history of exemplary service and had done nothing wrong.

    […] Hegseth spoke broadly of the need to correct for years of “gender and demographic engineering” that he asserted had blunted the effectiveness of U.S. troops on the battlefield.

    […] The officers struck from the Navy one-star list seem to have been targeted because they took part in some diversity-related event years or even decades earlier […] the officer had worked as a “diversity liaison officer” two decades ago, responsible for helping the Navy recruit and retain women and minorities. [More examples are available at the link.] […]

  155. Reginald Selkirk says

    Missing LANL employee’s remains found in the Carson National Forest

    New Mexico State Police announced that they have found the body of missing Los Alamos National Laboratory employee Melissa Casias. NMSP said a hiker found human remains in the McGaffey Ridge in the Carson National Forest. They said they also found a handgun alongside the remains.

    The Office of the Medical Investigator helped to identify her remains. Her cause of death has not been determined.

    Casias was reported missing in late June 2025 after failing to arrive at work and not returning home. Her personal belongings had been left behind as well. The investigation into her death is ongoing…

  156. says

    No one in our organization would touch G00GLE with a ten foot poll. (intentional). There are so many safer, nondestructive ways to search.
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/1/800048382/community/googles-destruction-of-the-internet-and-the-paucity-of-public-imagination
    Google’s Destruction of the Internet and the Paucity of Public Imagination
    ‘Yes, yes, I can hear you say: exaggeration, hyberbole (sic), clickbait! And I am not above crafting lines for attention, but in this case, I think I am accurately describing Google’s result. . .’

  159. says

    Trump to abandon $1.776 billion compensation fund amid bipartisan backlash, source says

    A few days after the Trump administration unveiled its $1.776 billion compensation fund, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche went to Capitol Hill to brief Senate Republicans on the details and answer their questions. […]

    Trump’s former defense lawyer probably wasn’t prepared for the ferocity of the response from those in attendance. […] Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said on his podcast that his Senate colleagues “screamed” at Blanche as part of “one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.”

    “Fiery does not begin to cut it,” Cruz added. “My guess is there [were] probably 45 senators in the room; at least half of them were blasting the attorney general, and they were pissed.”

    Note, he was referring to an exclusively Republican audience — Democrats were not invited to this briefing, and none were in attendance — suggesting that “at least half” of the Senate GOP conference wanted Trump’s sycophantic acting attorney general to know, with varying degrees of intensity, that they were not on board with this idea […]

    A senior White House official told MS NOW’s Jacqueline Alemany on Monday that the White House is dropping its plan for the fund.

    […] The developments come three days after a federal judge blocked the gambit from advancing, as part of a preliminary move.

    A Justice Department spokesperson appears to have leaned into Friday’s court ruling, expressing the DOJ’s disagreement with the outcome in a statement to MS NOW, but concluding that it “will abide by the Court’s ruling.” The same statement also referred to the fund in the past tense.

    The department’s statement, however, wasn’t altogether true: The federal judge in Virginia did not permanently kill the fund. Instead, she blocked it for two weeks until she could hear additional arguments about its future.

    […] the fund never should’ve existed in the first place, and many legal scholars characterized it as the single most corrupt step ever taken by an American president. The initiative began with an outlandish $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against his own administration over the leak of his tax returns during his first term, which he dropped as part of an agreement to create a $1.776 billion fund that would compensate “victims” of the Biden administration, notwithstanding the inconvenient fact that Republicans have never been able to identify any actual, legitimate victims.

    There are some key questions that have not yet been answered. For example, the day after the administration announced the fund, Blanche unveiled an addendum of sorts, which said the Internal Revenue Service would no longer scrutinize past or present alleged tax irregularities surrounding the president, his family and his controversial businesses. The development, among other things, freed Trump from having to worry about a potential $100 million penalty.

    Whether this arrangement remains intact as the White House backs off from the existence of the fund remains unclear.

    […] As the dust settles on the latest developments, the key thing to remember is that congressional opposition apparently made all the difference. […]

    In fact, in a “Dear Colleague” letter issued as this week got underway, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote, “This week, Senate Democrats will launch a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door. And no matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote.” […] “Democrats are forcing Republicans to make one simple choice: Kill the slush fund or own it.”

    For good measure, a trio of Senate Democrats — Arizona’s Mark Kelly, California’s Adam Schiff and Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin — were also poised to unveil the “Drain the Slush Fund Act,” which was also designed to deny all public funding to Trump’s project.

    GOP senators weren’t just desperate to avoid these votes; they were also likely to side with Democrats. It now appears those votes won’t be necessary after all, though there are still details to work through.

  160. says

    MS NOW reported:

    Two Iranian sources inside Tehran linked with negotiation talks between the U.S. and Iran confirmed to MS NOW that “no dialogue will take place” with the U.S. until fighting in Lebanon ends.

    The sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the Israeli actions in Lebanon amount to a violation of the ceasefire.

    Commentary:

    […] As Iran backed away from the negotiating table, Trump told NBC News, “I think we’ve been talking too much, if you want to know the truth. I think going silent would be very good, and that could be that could be for a long time.”

    The American president with a notoriously short attention span similarly told CNBC, “I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less,” adding that he thought the protracted talks had become “very boring.” [eyeroll]

    Less than an hour later, he used his social media platform to say largely the opposite, declaring that talks with Iran are continuing “at a rapid pace,” which came on the heels of a related online item in which Trump also claimed he had spoken to both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hezbollah representatives, adding that both sides had agreed to stop attacking one another, which probably came as a surprise to those actually in Lebanon.

    […] the latest developments have brought the president’s incoherence into sharp relief. The administration’s allies might be tempted to argue that Trump is masterfully keeping everyone off-balance as part of a carefully tailored strategy, but that isn’t just overly generous, it’s downright ridiculous.

    There is no strategy. There is only a hapless amateur, who appears lost without a map, unsure of his own positions, which change by the hour.

    Link

  161. says

    Tina Peters, the disgraced former Colorado elections clerk, is back on her election-denialist bullshit just two weeks after Democratic Gov. Jared Polis bowed to President Donald Trump’s pressure and commuted her nine-year sentence, claiming the convicted criminal had shown a willingness to take responsibility for her crimes.

    “I know that the Democrats are going to cheat,” Peters told Steve Bannon on Monday. “And no one is really addressing the problem that I spent my time in prison as retribution for, and that was exposing the election machines that allow the votes to be flipped.” [video]

    Peters had served less than one-fourth of her sentence before Polis commuted it, with the governor describing it as “extremely unusual and lengthy.” Polis’ decision not only let down the election officials fighting democracy-undermining MAGA loyalists like Peters, it also flew in the face of Judge Matthew Barrett’s reasoning for giving her the stiff sentence in the first place.

    At the time of her sentencing, Peters promised retribution, saying, “God doesn’t like people messing with his kids, and I believe I’m a child of God.”

    “I’m convinced you would do it all over again if you could,” Barrett told Peters. “Prison is the only place that duly meets the purposes of sentence in this matter.”

    Peters was convicted of breaking numerous laws stemming from her orchestration of a security breach, which included instructing a subordinate to turn off security cameras and allowing a third party to access election equipment. She has never shown remorse.

    More than 200 members of the Colorado Democratic Party’s central committee voted to formally censure Polis. Other members of the party have called for an investigation into his decision as well as for his impeachment. […]

    Link

  162. says

    New York Times:

    The United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency session on Monday afternoon, requested by France, to discuss Israel’s military incursion into Lebanon and the capturing of the Beaufort, a Crusades-era castle that has been a symbol of Israel’s long occupation of southern Lebanon, according to the U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.

  163. says

    MS NOW report, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    Former Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino continues to show his true colors, making “an appearance at a ‘remigration’ conference in Portugal, where a bunch of avowed racists from around the world, including people known for launching racist broadsides against nonwhite people, Jews and immigrants, urged their countries’ governments to double down on their mass deportation efforts.”

  164. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a last-ditch move to salvage his “US Freedom 250” concert, Donald J. Trump announced on Monday that the only remaining musical act will be Secretary of State Marco Rubio playing a kazoo.

    “Quite frankly, we don’t need no-talent losers like the Commodores,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We have Little Marco playing his Little Kazoo!”

    According to sources, Rubio is taking his new assignment extremely seriously, spending hours practicing the kazoo in the Situation Room.

    In an official statement, Rubio declared, “I am honored to blow anything President Trump asks me to.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/only-remaining-musical-act-in-trumps

  165. Reginald Selkirk says

    Moderna gets $50 million to develop mRNA Ebola vaccine against Bundibugyo

    The global health organization Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced Monday that it will “urgently accelerate development” of three vaccine candidates against Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV), pledging a little over $60 million in the effort to extinguish an outbreak currently raging out of control in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

    Under the plans, CEPI has committed up to $50 million to US-based Moderna for preclinical development and Phase 1 clinical testing of its mRNA-based BDBV vaccine candidate. The funding will simultaneously allow the company to ramp up manufacturing capabilities and ready large-scale Phase 2/3 trials in the event the vaccine makes it through early testing. The vaccine will use Moderna’s mRNA vaccine platform that allowed for rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic.
    …
    CEPI will also provide $3.2 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which is developing a vaccine that uses the same technology as Merck’s approved Ebola vaccine, Ervebo, which targets the more common Zaire ebolavirus strain.

    Last, the CEPI is committing $8.6 million to the University of Oxford and Serum Institute of India, which is using its adenovirus-based vaccine platform, as it did for its COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic…

    From the CEPI link

    … CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic and civil organisations. Its mission is to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats so they can be accessible to all people in need. Central to CEPI’s pandemic-beating plan is the ‘100 Days Mission’ to develop safe, effective and accessible vaccines against new threats in just 100 days. CEPI is seeking $2.5 billion to execute CEPI 3.0, its 2027-2031 strategy which will systematically reduce the likelihood, impact and cost of epidemics and pandemics by driving the 100 Days Mission towards an operational reality. Learn more at CEPI.net.

    I don’t know who they are, but they are not the US CDC.

  166. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hackers Tricked Meta AI Into Handing Out Access to Major Instagram Accounts

    Over the past few days, a number of major Instagram accounts, such as the defunct Obama White House account and the Sephora company account, were seemingly hacked, and now it has become clear that this was likely related to a security incident at Meta. According to numerous reports, hackers were able to trick Meta’s AI-powered support chatbot into attaching attacker-controlled email addresses to Instagram accounts they did not own, enabling password resets and account takeovers. Back in March, Meta had announced that it would be letting AI take control over these sorts of customer service issues, including resets for forgotten passwords…

    WFS – wholly fucking shit.

  167. Reginald Selkirk says

    @67

    No, Trump’s name hasn’t been removed from the Kennedy Center

    A fake video showing President Donald Trump’s name being ripped off the front of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has gone viral.

    Trump’s name was controversially added to the front of the building by its board at the end of last year – and it’s still there despite a federal judge recently ruling it illegal.

    But the video of the name being removed – which has been viewed millions of times online – is AI generated, as Jake Horton explains…

  171. StevoR says

    Four aspiring political parties seeking to contest the Victorian state election – including a new website called “Refugees Are Welcome Here” – could be a part of a “connected campaign” to funnel preferences to One Nation and other conservative parties.

    ..(Snip)..

    ..Rightwing provocateur Avi Yemini has claimed credit for the “Free Palestine party” and anti-lockdown activist Monica Smit for the “Save the Environment party”.

    Yemini was also the first to publicly mention “Muslim Votes Matter” – which has used the identical name as an exisiting political advocacy group in a move condemned by the grassroots organisation as an attempt to “mislead” voters. In a YouTube video last week, Yemeni said the “person behind this party” had been inspired by him.

    But analysis of domain records by Guardian Australia suggests the groups are linked. The website for “Muslim Votes Matter” was created two days before “Refugees Are Welcome Here”.

    The aspiring parties also share the same IP address as 10 domains linked to Smit,.. (Snip)..

    … Yemeni has said in social media videos that the entities each tapped into “different voting blocs” on the left but would ultimately direct their preferences “to One Nation and other conservatives”.

    … One response has been to register another political party to prevent Yemeni’s “Free Palestine party” from claiming the name. As of Friday morning, the “Free Palestine Party Australia” has secured 436 registrations and is hoping to register before Yemeni’s group.

    “If we can get over 500 registrations before Yemeni, then he will be unable to use the name ‘Free Palestine party’ or any similar name for any party he wishes to register,” a call for final members read.

    Source : https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/16/victoria-election-refugees-welcome-website-preferences-one-nation-ntwnfb

    Voting below the line can also work in stopping this dishonest, cynical dirty trick although it takes longer and requires researcgh kto understand who the actual parties and pollies are.

  175. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Pamela Gay (Astronomer):

    After seeing the headline “SpaceX IPO: How to Buy and Why You Shouldn’t” on Barrons.com, I decided it was time to read the prospectus. […]

    Reminder: SpaceX consists of
    – The Rocket Launch (SpaceX) division
    – Starlink, the internet service provider
    – xAI, (source of Grok), the AI company
    – X, (aka Twitter), the social media company
    This is all one company.
    […]
    Your average truck driver in Peru won’t be able to afford Starlink, and your average truck driver in the US will use cellular. I can see Starlink saturating fast. And Starlink is going to be in competition with Kuiper, OneWeb, Bluebird, and others. Ultimately, Starlink is a smaller telecom company than Comcast, with slower speeds, higher subscription costs, and infrastructure that has to be replaced every 5 years instead of every bad hurricane.
    […]
    NASA has $7.25 billion in FY26 for Science (astro, planetary, all of us). SpaceX is on track to run at a loss of ~$8 billion.

    * I snipped an estimate of xAI power consumption that I think she retracted downthread.

    Pamela Gay, misthreaded skeets:

    a cornerstone of company success is Starship success. Without that, they are, ah… they don’t have a business plan. And alongside Starlink, launching orbital data centers is a raison d’etre of Starship and SpaceX. They want to launch 100 GW of compute per year.

    Ground-based data centers are a health hazard, release heat into the atmosphere, waste water (this should be fixable), and are hell on the power grid. Yet going to space is somehow worse
    […]
    Like with Starlinks, those data centers will be short-lived and constantly replaced. That is 100 million tons a year burning up in our atmosphere and doing we-don’t-actually-know-what. They pollute on the way up and on the way down. […] What’s more, while we can recycle rare earth elements from consumer electronics on Earth (for the love of God, recycle your electronics), we can’t recycle mass burned up in the atmosphere.
    […]
    they anticipate 1000s of datacenter launches/yr with 1 million metric tons to orbit annually. That is 1 million metric tons of steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, rare earth minerals, and more. This is about the same mass as the US yearly soybean harvest launched into space. And folks, no one has solved the thermal issues of a data center in space. They want these to be in constant sunlight for solar power, and data centers already have thermal issues.

    Pamela Gay, main thread:

    Starship was supposed to land on the Moon by 2025. They have not orbited yet. […] So many hopes and dreams of the global space community rest on the success of SpaceX that I just get mad when I see them running with scissors. […] When SpaceX fucks up it imperils the global space economy.
    […]
    SpaceX will need to acquire the equivalent of more than 10% of US Liquid Natural Gas exports to process into methane to support its launches that build an infrastructure that simply burns up in the atmosphere after a few years without any chance at recycling. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.
    […]
    So, um, if I understand this, they want to do 10-20 thousand starship launches per year using a significant % of US LNG production, a noticeable amount of steel production, & OMG PLS NO amounts of rare earth minerals.

    Do I think they’ll succeed? no.
    Can our planet survive if they do? Also, no.
    […]
    Here’s the thing, though: […] If the AI bubble bursts, potentially because of SpaceX being unrealistic […] we’re going to face a crash under a president who frankly doesn’t care about people and has dismantled the social welfare system. […]

    So what do we do? Friends don’t let friends buy SpaceX stock. We ask for mutual funds that don’t include AI companies (if we’re lucky enough to have 401K or 403b accounts). […] That’s all I’ve got.

  177. Reginald Selkirk says

    Google wants to release up to 32 million ‘good’ mosquitoes in California and Florida

    When you think of Google “debugging” something, you probably think of software – not actual bugs. Yet, the tech giant is seeking approval from the United States government to release up to 32 million mosquitoes in California and Florida as part of its “Debug” program.

    The little-known program aims to “stop bad bugs with good bugs” by releasing millions of sterile mosquitoes to eliminate ones that carry disease.
    …
    “Good bugs are the same species of mosquito as the bad bugs that spread disease. Our good bugs are male mosquitoes that have a naturally-occurring bacteria called Wolbachia which makes them unable to have offspring with wild female mosquitoes,” the Google Debug webpage reads. “Male mosquitoes can’t bite or spread disease, so good bugs will stop bad ones from reproducing. Over time, there will be fewer and fewer bad mosquitoes.”
    …

  178. Reginald Selkirk says

    Texas adds another huge solar farm as ERCOT grid demand soars

    Texas keeps piling on solar projects as electricity demand surges on the ERCOT grid – and now another massive one is moving ahead.

    Vesper Energy today said it closed $236 million in financing for its 201 MW Nazareth Solar project in Swisher County, Texas. The solar farm will connect to the ERCOT grid as Texas races to add more generation to keep up with rapidly rising load growth.

    Construction is expected to begin in June 2026, and the project is scheduled to come online in fall 2027.

    Nazareth Solar will sit on more than 2,400 acres of private land and generate enough electricity to power around 53,000 homes annually. The project will neighbor Vesper’s Hornet Solar (pictured above), another large solar farm the company developed…

  179. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump picks housing Dir. Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief, replacing Tulsi Gabbard

    President Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped Bill Pulte, who leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to serve as acting director of national intelligence, replacing outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

    Pulte, who has served as an attack dog against Trump’s foes, has no known prior intelligence experience.

    But in his new role, he will oversee the sprawling U.S. intelligence community, which includes the CIA and National Security Agency.

    Pulte at the same time will continue working as FHFA director and chairman of the mortgage groups Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post announcing the decision…

  180. Reginald Selkirk says

    Forget LASIK: Safer, cheaper vision correction without lasers or surgery

    … Researchers from Occidental College and the University of California, Irvine have been developing an experimental technique called electromechanical reshaping (EMR). Instead of carving away tissue like LASIK, the method temporarily softens the cornea so it can be gently molded into a new shape.
    …
    To test the technique, the team created specialized platinum “contact lenses” shaped to match the desired curvature of the cornea. Rabbit eyeballs were placed in a saline solution designed to mimic natural tears, and the platinum lens served as an electrode.

    When researchers applied a small electrical potential, the cornea gradually softened and conformed to the shape of the lens. The entire process took roughly one minute, which is similar to the time required for LASIK itself, but without cutting tissue or using expensive laser systems.
    …

  181. Reginald Selkirk says

    Russian spy agency says foreign spies turned officials’ smartphones into surveillance devices

    … In a statement Tuesday, the Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed foreign intelligence agencies implanted malware on the mobile devices of high-ranking Russian officials, allowing operators to steal data, intercept conversations, and secretly activate microphones and cameras to monitor targets and their surroundings.

    “This software is used to steal existing data, eavesdrop on ongoing conversations, and conduct covert acoustic and video monitoring of the environment near electronic devices, all aimed at obtaining sensitive information,” the FSB said.

    The agency said it had opened a criminal investigation into illegal access to computer information and the distribution of malicious software. It did not identify the alleged intelligence service responsible, disclose how many officials were affected, name the malware involved, or provide any technical indicators that would allow independent verification of the claims…

  182. says

    RACHEL MADDOW: Maddow: Trump’s political pressure is destroying the DOJ in court

    Rachel Maddow looks at how federal prosecutors in Chicago crossed important lines of propriety in their desperation to secure indictments in politically charged cases and now face an angry backlash from a judge who is not at all pleased with their conduct. Chris Parente, defense attorney for a Chicago anti-ICE protester, talks with Rachel Maddow about pressing misconduct accusations against federal prosecutors.

    Video is 11:18 minutes

    RACHEL MADDOW: Trump slush fund scheme backfires with new fraud investigation possible

    Amid a politically punishing backlash against Donald Trump’s flagrant $1.776 billion money grab for his criminal allies, a judge is considering whether to investigation if the “IRS settlement” on which the slush fund is based began as a legitimate court case or was a fraud on the court from the beginning. Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance talks with Rachel Maddow about the legal guidelines the judge is considering.

    Video is 5:50 minutes

  183. says

    Trump’s self-declared reputation as a world-class dealmaker continues to collapse

    Related video at the link.

    Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump boasted that a “peace” agreement with Iran had been “largely negotiated,” and the world could expect to learn more about the breakthrough deal “shortly,” officials from Tehran effectively walked away from the negotiating table. The American president with a notoriously short attention span told CNBC, “I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less,” adding that he thought the protracted talks had become “very boring.”

    As for why exactly Iran backed away from the diplomatic efforts, there were three apparent causes. One was the increased U.S. military strikes, coupled with Israel’s ongoing incursion in Lebanon. But The Washington Post reported that Iranian negotiators were also surprised and displeased when Trump made last-minute changes to the terms of the deal that had been previously worked on by members of his own team.

    This, alas, was not the first time the American president had undermined what U.S. negotiators had presented to Iranian officials.

    It led Joe Cirincione, the vice chair of the Center for International Policy and a longtime expert on nuclear policy, to highlight an underappreciated observation: “Trump is perhaps the world’s worst negotiator.” [!]

    […] During her tenure as the State Department’s chief spokesperson, Tammy Bruce told Fox Business, “President Trump is, as we know, the best dealmaker in the world.” Around the same time, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins made related on-air comments, telling Fox Business that Trump’s dealmaking abilities are “unlike anything I think any of us have ever seen.”

    […] As The Atlantic’s David Graham explained last week:

    Donald Trump’s reputation and political career were built on his dealmaking prowess, yet the president keeps demonstrating that he is a terrible negotiator.

    Repeatedly over the past nine years, Trump has gotten rolled by counterparts during high-stakes exchanges. North Korea, Russia, Russia again, China, and China again have gotten the better of the United States. Trump has had to slink back to Washington without much to show except empty talk about friendship with whatever dictator has just run circles around him. He’s had some success in brokering agreements when acting as a third party (though not nearly as much as he pretends) but much less luck when his own government is a participant.

    […] “Deals are my art form,” Trump claimed. “Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.”

    After the election, the White House bought into and amplified the hype. In 2019, then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters, “The president is, I think, the ultimate negotiator and dealmaker.”

    But the evidence of Trump actually succeeding on this front does not exist. [!] There were literally zero instances in which he successfully brought Democratic and Republican leaders together and negotiated a major legislative breakthrough during his first term. Indeed, after a few years in the White House, Trump largely gave up on even trying to make deals with Congress […]

    The Washington Post reported in August 2020, “The president who pitched himself to voters as the consummate negotiator and ultimate dealmaker has repeatedly found his strategies flummoxed by the complexities and pressures of Washington lawmaking.” In a related Post column, Jackson Diehl explained, in reference to Trump, “He’s not up to serious negotiation. He can’t be expected to seriously weigh costs and benefits, or make complex trade-offs. He’s good at bluster, hype and showy gestures, but little else. In short, he may be the worst presidential deal maker in modern history.”

    Diehl’s column was published eight years ago this week. The evidence to bolster the case is even more obvious now.

  184. says

    Another Trump Defeat: Colorado Edition

    U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson of Denver blocked the Trump administration from forcing Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research to relinquish its Wyoming Supercomputing Center.

    Jackson found that that the broader administration effort to dismantle NCAR — the country’s premier weather and climate research center — came after Colorado failed to release convicted Big Lie promoter Tina Peters when Trump pardoned her: “The inference that retaliation played at least some role in the transfer decision is considerably strengthened by the fact that the federal government simultaneously undertook several other actions adverse to Colorado.”

  185. says

    The anti-science magat admin, led by Dr. Brainworm, is drawing us down the Death Spiral into a new Dark Ages:
    This just confirms and amplifies what we are seeing elsewhere:

    https://digbysblog.net/ Robin Of Brentwood (snl)
    Decades of systematic assault on learning and expertise — and their replacement by common (non)sense — is bearing strange fruit: a retreat into medievalism. That was once an SNL skit. Today, it’s all too real:

    Doctors around the country say they are seeing more cases of serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long kept at bay, including whooping cough and bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis.

    The Times continues:
    With each passing year, doctors said, the hesitation around vaccines seems to expand to new frontiers.
    Two anesthesiologists said that, starting around 2022 or 2023, they had occasionally seen patients who refused to consent to blood transfusions before surgery because they didn’t want blood from vaccinated donors. And a growing number of parents are refusing to allow their newborns to receive vitamin K injections, which help prevent bleeding. Until recently, neonatologists said, these shots were accepted even by many families that rejected vaccines.
    Five doctors said they had seen brain or abdominal hemorrhages in infants whose parents had turned down vitamin K, including one who died and another who was partly paralyzed.

  186. says

    The article reported by @179 Reginald Selkirk said:
    Pulte, who has served as an attack dog against Trump’s foes, has no known prior intelligence experience.
    I reply: Given the sub-standard houses his company builds in scarizona and his lack of success in other endeavors, I must concur, pulte likely has no known prior intelligence experience.
    Gotta laugh or we’ll cry all the time

  187. says

    The DOJ came after Daily Kos. Here’s the full story.

    Last year, on June 26, I wrote a story headlined, “Trump’s DOJ is targeting Daily Kos.” At the time, I couldn’t explain what was happening. A gag order prevented it.

    Now I can.

    It started on May 5, 2025, when I received an FBI order demanding that Daily Kos preserve records related to a user account on this site, which I will not identify.

    This is the document, with all names redacted: [document]

    […] It was fun to declare victory publicly: “They came for us. We stood strong. We won.”

    Looking back now, this was an early example of how the administration operated: come in aggressively, make maximal threats, rely on secrecy and intimidation, then often retreat once confronted with meaningful resistance. (See Iran today.)

    They were counting on fear doing the work for them. They assumed most organizations would comply quietly rather than endure the cost, pressure, and uncertainty of a legal fight. Send a subpoena. Threaten search warrants and public raids. Wrap everything in national security language. And for Trump, that worked out well in those days, when way too many targets simply folded.

    That’s how authoritarian systems function—not through constant dramatic displays of force, but by making examples out of a few targets so everyone else learns to preemptively comply.

    But with us, they picked the wrong target.

    And we were able to stand firm because this community had our backs. Your donations turned what they assumed would be a routine compliance exercise into a time-consuming, difficult legal fight backed by serious counsel and a community unwilling to be intimidated. At some point, they clearly decided to focus on easier targets elsewhere. […]

    Details at the link.

  188. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-caves-on-terrorist-kid-toucher

    “Trump Caves On […] Slush Fund”

    Is there ANYTHING Donald Trump cannot lose this week? He’s completely lost his latest round of mediocre efforts to end the Iran war he started and then lost in its first weekend. He’s lost the Kennedy Center, which is fine, because he didn’t want his own performing arts center with his name on it that staged nothing but CATS anyway. Same for how he didn’t want anybody to play at the Hitler Hootenanny state fair he’s throwing for America’s/his birthday. […]

    Several days ago, a mean judge temporarily stopped Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund for paying off all his best terrorist, criminal, and pedophile friends and supporters, AKA the J6-ers and anybody else who claims the Justice Department was “weaponized” against them just because they were MAGA terrorists, criminals, and pedophiles. The Justice Department said it would abide by that ruling.

    But now, according to sources, the White House is dropping it entirely. “It’s dead for now,” said a source to Axios (“For now,” key words. “How dead it is is what’s being worked on,” said a regime thug to Politico.) Why is this happening? Because this is an incredibly weak president, and Republicans in Congress hate this slush fund […]

    Woe is Trump!

    Woe is Todd Blanche […]

  189. says

    Bluesky link

    Discrimination based on gender identity or expression is illegal in New York City.

    Trans New Yorkers are protected by law. Our City will protect your rights, defend your humanity and stand beside you without hesitation. [photo of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani kicking off Pride]

    It is pride month.

  190. says

    Followup to comment 189.

    […] In other Pride month news, corrupt criminal Texas AG Ken Paxton is suing the city of Denton over “something something changing rooms at Big Gay Swim Day.” [CBS News]

    Meanwhile Alabama’s Kay Ivey is one of the many Republican governors issuing alternate pedophile protection month decrees to counter-program Pride. They call them “strong families” months or “nuclear family” months or whatever, but we know what Republicans mean when they start talking about “families.” [JoeMyGod]

    For Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas it’s “Fidelity Month.” […] [JoeMyGod]

    For Spencer Cox in Utah, it’s “Fidelity Month.” [JoeMyGod]

    Mike Braun in Indiana, “Nuclear Family Month.” [JoeMyGod]

    Here’s Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers with an actual pride month proclamation, though. [JoeMyGod]

    And Kathy Hochul. [JoeMyGod]

    And Kentucky’s Andy Beshear. [ABC News Louisville]

    And there are more! Point is, if you run into your local Democratic governor or other politician who’s being supportive of the LGBTQ+ community right now, thank them for not being a Nazi fascist and for having a backbone. […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/pride-tabs-june-2-2026

    Embedded links to other sources are available at the main link.

  191. says

    New York Times link

    “Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models”

    President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that asked technology companies to give the government oversight of new artificial intelligence models before releasing them to the public, a shift for an administration that had promoted a hands-off approach to the powerful technology.

    The order followed months of debate in the Trump administration over how to handle A.I. and its effects on cybersecurity and national security. Last month, Mr. Trump scrapped an executive order on A.I. — which would have created a window of up to 90 days in which the government would review new A.I. models before they were released — just hours before he was set to sign it.

    Tuesday’s signing followed a meeting at the White House on Monday that Mr. Trump convened with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and David Sacks, who was previously the administration’s A.I. czar, among others, two people familiar with the confidential meeting said. Mr. Sacks, who had opposed the order, blessed a revised version after the timeline for reviews was cut to 30 days from 90 days, the people said. That helped persuade Mr. Trump to move forward with the signing.

    […] Under the new order, tech companies would voluntarily give the government a 30-day window to review their new A.I. models before releasing them to the public. The order also asks the ⁠Treasury Secretary to form an A.I. “cybersecurity clearinghouse,” which would review security vulnerabilities discovered by A.I. models. […]

  192. says

    TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report)—In a major setback for Donald J. Trump, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced on Tuesday that henceforth it would only negotiate with the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Buddy.

    “Throughout his career, Bad Bunny has shown an ability to break down barriers and bring people together,” Tehran’s official statement read. “Our position is clear: no Bunny, no peace.”

    In a sign of their eagerness to deal with Mr. Bunny, the Iranians said they were willing to conduct all future negotiations in Spanish, stating, “It will be easier for us to learn Spanish than whatever it is that Donald Trump speaks.”

    In a further rebuke to the president, the Iranians ruled out any further dealings with Trump, calling him “muy loco.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/in-setback-for-trump-iran-says-it

    Satire

  193. birgerjohansson says

    Mano Singham has pointed out that Trump is the ultimate parvenu.
    I realised the first known parvenu was Crassus, who gave us the word ‘crass’.
    .
    And Crassus sought prestige and power by invading the Parthian empire, whose territory covered present-day Iraq and Iran. The parallels are striking.

  194. says

    Ukraine and Moldova on course to start formal EU membership talks in June

    “Hungarian officials have signaled they intend to drop their opposition to Ukraine’s EU membership bid, diplomats told POLITICO.”

    BRUSSELS ― Hungary has signaled it will drop its long-standing opposition to Ukraine’s bid for EU membership, allowing it and Moldova to begin formal negotiations to join the bloc in the coming days, four diplomats told POLITICO.

    The opening of the first negotiating “cluster” — a formal step on the path to membership — is scheduled to take place during an intergovernmental conference in Luxembourg on June 15, three of the diplomats said.

    Kyiv and Chisinau applied for EU membership at the same time, meaning that Moldova’s bid can only advance if Ukraine’s does too.

    Budapest opposed Ukraine’s accession fiercely under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, but the country’s new leadership has privately signaled openness to lifting its veto following a meeting on Monday between Ukrainian and Hungarian experts on the matter of minority rights for Hungarians living in Ukraine, said the diplomats, who were granted anonymity to speak about a closed-door meeting.

    […] During the meeting on Monday, the Ukrainian side provided assurances on how to resolve most concerns laid out in an 11-point plan originally prepared under Orbán, one of the diplomats said. Not all of Hungary’s requests can be immediately granted, but the diplomat added that Budapest’s approval was not contingent on passing new legislation in Ukraine.

    Talks on Ukraine’s membership picked up pace after Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar went to Brussels and met with top EU officials to discuss how to unlock €16.4 billion in frozen EU funds […]

    The diplomat said that EU ambassadors would finalize their position on whether to open the first cluster for Ukraine and Moldova by the end of this week after Ukraine presents its plans for internal reforms as well as addressing the minority issue. EU countries would then approve the opening of the cluster for Ukraine and Moldova at the June 15 inter-governmental conference.

    Opening clusters requires unanimous approval by all 27 EU member countries. Any country can block the process at any stage, either by opposing the first cluster or any of the subsequent steps on the path to membership.

  195. says

    Tariff Refunds Are Going Well. Trump’s DOJ Wants to Make Them Harder.

    […] Trump’s administration is trying to muck up its responsibility to refund businesses who paid the president’s illegal tariffs. By claiming U.S. Customs and Border Protection lacks the ability to claw back tariff funds after a certain number of days, the government lays the groundwork to argue it doesn’t have a practical mechanism to repay certain importers, according to a recent court filing.

    The Department of Justice is also disputing the court’s ability to issue nationwide relief to affected importers. In the court filing last Friday, the DOJ said it will appeal, asking that a judge require each business seeking a refund to file individual lawsuits [!] in order to recoup their losses.

    “CBP has no authority to reliquidate or refund money without a court order,” the Justice Department wrote.

    Court of International Trade Judge Richard K. Eaton ordered CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott to appear for a June 9 hearing about the administration’s compliance with the court’s refund order. In response, the government made known its intent to appeal that order and requested Scott not be ordered to appear, a request Eaton quickly shot down.

    “Commissioner Scott’s testimony is necessary to ascertain… if it is the Government’s policy to refund the duties to importers both large and small,” Eaton wrote. “There is $166 billion involved.”

    People who work closely with the importers seeking refunds told TPM the government has proven it can create a never-before-done repayment process, which those importer associations and advocates told TPM is actually going quite well. So if the government moves to appeal the next part of a court-ordered refund obligation, it could have a hard time making a weaponized-incompetence [LOL] sort of argument.

    […]CBP undertook the behemoth task of building a system that was capable of refunding $166 billion to the 330,000 importers that might be eligible for refunds. And within about two months, the first round of refunds was hitting the bank accounts of businesses who qualified for what CBP defined as its phase one.

    In a recent court filing, Brandon Lord, the executive director of Trade Programs at CBP’s Office of Trade, said that as of May 22, about $85 billion in “potential and certified” refunds had been accepted to be processed, and that $20.6 billion in refunds had been completed.

    “It really has been a pretty simple process, I think far simpler than we imagined that it would be,” Alison Leavitt, managing director for the Wine & Spirits Shippers Association, told TPM. […]

    Yes, Trump’s mistakes can be corrected.

  196. Reginald Selkirk says

    Seven States Sue Trump for Cancelling New York Offshore Wind Farm

    New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont are suing the Trump administration. Led by New York, the states are claiming that the cancellation of an offshore wind project off the coast of New York was unlawful and unjustified, and are asking the court to vacate the deal that allowed its cancellation…

  197. Reginald Selkirk says

    Scientists May Have Found a Way to Detect a Third Type of Magnetism

    In 2022, physicists discovered altermagnets—a third type of magnetism that somehow combines the best qualities of the two previous types of magnetism. These unique magnets are difficult to identify, but a new proposal using quantum sensors might help make things easier.

    In a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters, physicists describe a theoretical technique that tracks the presence of an altermagnet by observing how it affects tiny magnetic defects in diamond. Altermagnets are known to have distinctive spin patterns, which can be traced back to how quickly diamond defects relax after being rotated. If current theories are correct, altermagnets could “completely revolutionize the way we transport information,” Jamir Marino, the study’s co-author and a physicist at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said in a statement…

  198. says

    It seems like FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, who cosplays as a country singer, has been simply dying to follow in her beau’s footsteps. So she’s brought her very own, completely meritless defamation lawsuit against the press.

    This lawsuit shares the same lawyers as Patel’s whinefest of a lawsuit against The Atlantic for its incredibly detailed and well-sourced reporting of Patel being a drunken toddler on the job. It also shares the same hilariously dumb theory of what constitutes defamation.

    Wilkins is suing MSNOW and reporters Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian for reporting in December 2025 about Patel giving Wilkins her very own security detail, which is sometimes used to play Uber for Wilkins and her drunk friends after a night out in Nashville.

    According to the supergenius lawyers, if Patel, Wilkins, or the FBI tell a reporter before publication that something is not true and the outlet publishes it anyway, noting the denial, that’s defamation. How? Because the outlet now knew it was false and published it anyway.

    You will not be surprised to learn that this isn’t actually how defamation law works, because if it did, public figures like Wilkins and government officials like Patel could thwart any negative reporting simply by saying, “Nope, not true.”

    […] The bigger problem for Wilkins is that what she claims is so terribly defamatory that it’s wrecking her brand as a “country singer, author, and political advocate, known for her Christian, patriotic, America-First, and pro-law enforcement values” is not a thing that appears anywhere in the article she’s mad about.

    The MSNOW story said that, on more than one occasion, Patel has ordered the security detail to escort Wilkins’ drunk friends home after party-hearty nights in Nashville, and that, in one case, Patel called the security detail leader to yell at him to just do it.

    If you’re wondering how this—even if entirely false—defames Alexis Wilkins rather than Kash Patel, get in line. […]

    this lawsuit somehow manages to be one of the dumbest currently afoot in Trumpworld—which is quite the achievement.

    I snipped a lot of followup details that present the facts and lawyers’ tactics.

  199. says

    Blanche says DOJ ‘not moving forward’ with $1.776B anti-weaponization fund: ‘Period’

    Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Trump administration is “not moving forward” with its $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, though he left unclear how the Justice Department will cement that commitment.

    “We are not moving forward with the fund. Period,” Blanche told House appropriators, referring to Monday statement from the department saying it would “abide” by a court ruling temporarily blocking the fund.

    Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y) sought to clarify that DOJ was “not moving forward ever,” and Blanche responded “correct.
    ”
    He also said the Justice Department would not be withdrawing a related memo from Blanche that “forever bars and precludes” the IRS and prosecutors from reviewing President Trump’s past tax returns. [Say what now? WTF?]

    While Blanche’s remarks further clarify DOJ’s position on the fund, it may be cold comfort to a number of litigants who have sued over the matter and who have said they would continue their battle in court until they got formal word that DOJ would scrap the fund. [That seems wise.]

    […] Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said, “Simply put, you just gave the President and his family a tax immunity to the tune of about $100 million.”

    “What you’re doing on this is that you’ve taken one piece and you said, ‘Okay we have had a ton of backlash on this on this $1.8 billion slush fund, however, so we’ll not move on that,’ but as part of the settlement, which is this immunity for the president and his family and his business, etc. that stands,” DeLauro said. […]

  200. johnson catman says

    re Lynna@191:

    The order also asks the ⁠Treasury Secretary to form an A.I. “cybersecurity clearinghouse,” which would review security vulnerabilities discovered by A.I. models. […]

    What a fucking joke. I can imagine the clowns that Bessant would appoint to the panel and the lack of knowledge and expertise that would accompany the review.

  201. says

    Washington Post link

    “EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon hires convicted Jan. 6 rioter for sensitive counterterrorism job.”

    A convicted Jan. 6 rioter who later said that he regretted his participation in the U.S. Capitol attack has been hired by the Trump administration to work inside a Pentagon office that manages highly classified military operations, according to four people familiar with the matter.

    The appointment of Elias Irizarry, who was 19 at the time of the riot in 2021, to a post in the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office has raised alarm internally among staff who question how anyone convicted in the assault on American democracy could be trusted for such a sensitive role in the U.S. government, these people said. All spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of retaliation.

    Irizarry is assigned to the office’s irregular warfare and counterterrorism section, the people familiar with the matter said. The team comprises about 40 people, and its portfolio includes operations such as embassy security, personnel recovery and hostage rescue.

    Two people characterized the work as among the most delicate that the Pentagon performs. All positions, they said, require a top-secret security clearance.

    “In the case of rescue/extraction missions, it can place our special operators in some of the most complex and dangerous environments we ask of them,” said one person familiar with Irizarry’s hiring. “To put someone so junior and new to DOD, and with such a checkered background, into such a sensitive portfolio raises serious questions for leadership.” […]

    So, if you can’t give January 6 rioters wads of cash, can you pay them for attacking the capitol with jobs?

  202. says

    johnson catman @200, Yep. My thinking was along the same lines.

    Looks like a prime setup for more of the Trump administration’s weaponized incompetence.

  203. says

    El Niño to bring more heat and disasters in coming months, UN warns

    “Climate pattern will ‘pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,’ said Secretary-General António Guterres.”

    The world must prepare for a surge in weather extremes and heat waves as a potentially exceptional El Niño emerges, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization has warned.

    The WMO said on Tuesday that there’s an 80 percent chance of an El Niño — the warm phase of a natural climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean — developing between June and August, and a 90 percent chance the event will arrive by November.

    El Niño’s return heralds a temporary upsurge in global temperatures on top of the warming effect of human-caused climate change. The event also disrupts rainfall patterns around the world, usually producing intense downpours and floods in some regions while bringing drought to others.

    “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in a statement Tuesday morning. The world, he added, “must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is.”

    The event’s expected impact on agriculture, hydropower supply and electricity demand for cooling will likely further strain the world’s food and energy supplies […]

    “Extreme heat alone is already one of the deadliest climate hazards we face. An El Niño event could intensify the threat, on average,” said Celeste Saulo, the WMO’s secretary-general, at a press conference on Tuesday morning.

    “More heat-related illness, wider spread of vector-borne diseases, increased pressure on food and water systems, and communities that were already struggling will be pushed further beyond their limits,” she added.

    The extent of the impacts depends on El Niño’s strength. And there are signs that the event emerging now will be significant, which is often dubbed a ‘super’ El Niño — though the WMO doesn’t use that term.

    An El Niño is considered very strong if sea temperatures in the relevant Pacific region increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius at its peak. The only time this has happened in the 21st century was during the 2015–2016 El Niño. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    […] In the southern United States, as well as parts of southern Latin America, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia, the event brings more rainfall, risking floods and landslides, said the WMO. In contrast, Australia, other parts of Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern Asia and Indonesia often face drier conditions. […]

  204. says

    MS NOW:

    Israeli drone strikes on southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed eight people, including a father and his son and daughter, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said Israel and Hezbollah agreed to dial back fighting.

    New York Times:

    Lebanese and Israeli officials met in Washington on Tuesday for a new round of U.S.-mediated talks on ending the war.

  205. says

    Associated Press:

    Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities overnight, killing at least 22 civilians and wounding 138 others, authorities said Tuesday.”

  206. says

    New York Times:

    The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate.

    Steve Benen commented: “Willful ignorance is a dangerous thing.”

  207. says

    notus.org:

    A bed bug infestation at an Agriculture Department building is riling agency staff, reigniting frustrations over remote work policy and making at least some employees sick.

    The bugs were found in the building that houses the Animal and Plant Inspection Service, the agency responsible for containing and mitigating the spread of invasive pests in the U.S. The irony, one USDA employee said, ‘was lost on no one.’

    The George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, first notified employees of the situation in mid-May, according to five employees familiar with the matter and a transcript of a town hall meeting obtained by NOTUS. The department opted to send employees home and allow them to telework for a few days to fumigate the building.

    When employees returned, however, they complained of noxious fumes and resulting sickness, and USDA once again authorized them to work remotely. The telework approval was a rare exception to the Trump administration’s push to require all federal workers to report to their normal workplaces five days per week.

    On Friday, USDA officials notified employees that bed bugs were again observed in the building. This time around, three employees said, the department has not authorized any additional telework. Instead, department leadership told employees to take personal vacation time if they did not want to report to the office.

    Employees at two USDA agencies, APHIS and the Agricultural Research Service, report to the GWC campus. The bugs were found specifically in the building that houses APHIS, though USDA fumigated the entire GWC Center.

    […] “They treated the building, and then they sent people home again because of offgassing,” said another employee, who, like all of those quoted in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. “Then they came back. Now there’s more bedbugs.”

    […] In an email to staff on Friday, Hawley suggested that employees were responsible for the return of the bed bugs as they engaged in “insufficient compliance regarding personal items.” She instructed employees to place all those belongings into garbage bags and remove them from the building.

    […] Employees said they were hesitant to bring their belongings out of the office and further risk introducing bed bugs into their own homes. They have also discussed among themselves the possibility of filing a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but fear retribution for doing so.

    “They are scared,” one worker said of their colleagues. “If you bring them home, the answer is to trash all of your belongings and fumigate your house at your own expense.”

    […] APHIS is currently responding to crises including bird flu and the spread of New World screwworm, which in recent days was found within 50 miles of the U.S. border. Those response efforts are not centralized in Washington, though some staffers raised concerns about the impacts the hazardous working conditions and the push for staff to take time off would have on that critical work.

    “Not allowing employees to telework while the office is infested with bed bugs is an unnecessary significant risk to U.S. cattle health, with experts dealing with the NWS situation forced to go home if they don’t want to get bed bugs,” one employee said. […]

    https://www.notus.org/policy/usda-bed-bugs-infestation

  210. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chair of Carney’s new faith advisory council defends its mandate and membership

    Canadian Identity Minister Marc Miller is defending the makeup and initial mandate of a faith advisory council Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Monday, as it faces criticism from Opposition Conservatives and Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith.

    “Part of this committee is to talk in a way that is open and frank and to tackle issues with a group of people that have spent a good deal of their career being subject to various forms of hate or have been incredible advocates in the field,” Miller said on his way to a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, as he fielded questions from journalists about the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion.

    “Coming together in a way that isn’t polarizing, I think, is the first step.” …

    So they have already failed?

  212. StevoR says

    Trump latest obscenely attack on scientifc research espe Climatology is dismantling a critical ocean monitoring network of bouys :

    A Trump administration memo leaked in April proposes a $2.5 billion cut to the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, in the 2026 federal budget.

    Part of the proposal calls for eliminating federal funding for the regional monitoring networks, even though the memo says one of the activities the administration wants the commerce department to focus on is collecting ocean and weather data.

    The memo offered no other justifications for the cuts. The proposal stunned network users.

    “We’ve worked so hard to build an incredible system and it’s running smoothly, providing data that’s important to the economy. Why would you break it?” said Jack Barth, an Oregon State oceanographer who shares data with the Pacific Northwest association. “What we’re providing is a window into the ocean and without those measures we frankly won’t know what’s coming at us. It’s like turning off the headlights,” Barth said.

    Source : https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-05-18/trump-budget-would-cut-ocean-data-and-leave-boaters-anglers-and-forecasters-scrambling-for-info

    As also mentioned in another thread here too – the ‘Go into the Light Donny one.

  214. StevoR says

    Neo-Nazi leader and convicted criminal Thomas Sewell is covertly broadcasting hateful views on Instagram weeks after his organisation the National Socialist Network (NSN) was formally listed as a hate group by the government.

    ABC NEWS Verify can reveal that Sewell has posted antisemitic and homophobic diatribes to the platform from behind a sparkling Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo mask which the NSN has used previously in propaganda material.

    Though his face is obscured, the position of a light switch, bookshelf and items on the bookshelf on Instagram match the background of another video Sewell appeared in unmasked on video streaming site Rumble in January.

    ..(snip)..

    Ms Macgregor would not confirm to ABC NEWS Verify how she knew Sewell.

    When asked whether she was comfortable renting to the Neo-Nazi leader she said she did not know he was a Neo-Nazi, despite being aware of him through the media.

    “He’s never told me that he’s a Neo-Nazi. You cannot believe what you hear or read in the media,” she said. “I have my very own very strong political views, and they are my own. I have never been a Nazi. I do not want to see our own race eclipsed by bringing in millions and millions of people who don’t share our culture.”

    (Or IOW, yeah, she is a nazi or something very clsoe to it and racist as fuck.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-03/neo-nazi-thomas-sewell-broadcasting-hate-on-instagram/106754856

  216. Reginald Selkirk says

    DOGE Whistleblower Had His Brakes Cut Hours After Elon Put Him On Blast, Suit Alleges

    …
    In 2025, when an employee at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) discovered DOGE appeared to have compromised and begun downloading his agency’s data—as well as login attempts coming from a Russian address—he immediately grew concerned. The NLRB hadn’t authorized DOGE’s access to that data. DOGE hadn’t even requested it. The concerned IT worker, Dan Berulis, made the difficult decision to risk his career and prepared to file a Congressional whistleblower complaint. What he couldn’t have known at the time was that calling out DOGE would put so much more than his job on the line.

    The day after his complaint was filed, Berulis brought his concerns to the public with an exclusive NPR article that revealed his identity. In the interview, Berulis shared that, in the days leading up to his blowing the whistle, a threatening note was taped to his door along with what appeared to be drone camera pictures of him walking his dog. As reported in WIRED, these new allegations have emerged as part of a defamation suit Berulis filed against Elon Musk in April of this year that recently became public record.

    Just two days after the NPR article, on the evening of April 19, 2025, Musk reshared a post on X that claimed Berulis had filed a “deliberately false whistleblower claim.” Berulis’ case alleges that this untrue allegation by the richest person on Earth with over a quarter-billion followers on the social media platform he owns, put a target on his back, citing a chilling incident that occurred mere hours after Musk’s reshare on X.

    The next day, when Berulis began a drive to see a family member, he quickly realized something was wrong. While approaching a stop sign at an intersection, he found he was unable to slow his vehicle and veered off the road and into the sign to avoid a multi-car collision. When Berulis inspected the vehicle, he was horrified to learn his brake lines had been cut…

  217. Reginald Selkirk says

    US announces new tariffs over forced labour concerns

    The US has announced new tariffs of 10-12.5% on dozens of countries accounting for almost all its imports over concerns they are not doing enough to tackle forced labour.

    It is the second time President Donald Trump’s administration has announced new import taxes since the US Supreme Court struck down many of his previous duties in February.

    The US Trade Department said these countries will face the tariffs because of their failure to address the importing of goods made with forced labour.

    The UK said it is tackling forced labour, China denied goods are made with forced labour, and the EU said the tariffs were unjustified.

    Meanwhile, an India analyst said the move was a pressure tactic.

    The 60 trading partners listed – including the UK, the EU, Canada, India and Japan – account for almost all of the goods sold to the US…

  218. Reginald Selkirk says

    Interest in a Potentially Toxic Measles Treatment Spiked After Joe Rogan Bump, Study Says

    … The researchers detected two fascinating (albeit alarming) surges in interest. The first occurred in the wake of a March 4, 2025, Fox News interview with Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. During the interview, the infamous anti-vaxxer touted cod liver oil supplements and vitamin A as viable treatments for measles. A second series of spikes surrounded two late March podcast appearances by certified physician and noted vaccine skeptic Suzanne Humphries, who promoted the same two questionable remedies. Neither of Humphries’ interviews involved a government official, but one did occur on the chart-topping podcast of Joe Rogan.

    “Between January [1] and March [31,] 2025, America’s Poison Centers reported a 38.7% increase in vitamin A exposures,” the new study noted, citing data published by the poison center about 12 days after Humphries’ appearance on Rogan…

    “Vitamin A may be administered under medical supervision to support measles recovery, but it does not prevent measles and can be toxic if dosed incorrectly,” the researchers noted in their study. “The same applies to cod liver oil, which contains high levels of vitamin A.”

    As previous research notes, vitamin A can be toxic because of the way our bodies efficiently store it, allowing it to accumulate in the liver and other tissues, where high levels can damage organs and bones. According to the Mayo Clinic, excessive vitamin A intake (more than 10,000 mcg per day) can result in balance issues, liver damage, headaches, nausea, and other conditions…

  219. birgerjohansson says

    Reginald Selkirk # 216

    Nothing surprises me anymore. We are in Doctor Mabuse territory.

  224. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Dumbass’ criminal breaks the ‘first rule of ransomware club’

    Even ransomware cartels make mistakes, and in this case, it was a biggie that could have landed the responsible crim in a Russian gulag: accidentally infecting a company located in a Commonwealth of Independent States country.

    In what threat-hunter Dominic Alvieri deemed the ransom “dumbass of the day,” Nova, the affiliate program for ransomware crew RAlord, on Tuesday issued an apology to Eriell Group, a major oilfield services company with headquarters in Uzbekistan and a corporate office in Moscow.

    Apparently, Eriell contacted Nova and notified the ransomware operators about an affiliate’s mess-up.

    The affiliate has since been banned from the criminal operation, we’re told. In addition to issuing a “formal apology,” the ransomware gang promised to assist Eriell with the recovery process “free of charge.” The malware slingers claimed they didn’t encrypt any files, and pledged not to leak any of the stolen data.

    “Apparently, the first rule of ransomware club, you don’t attack organizations in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), is still very much in effect in 2026,” Recorded Future threat intelligence analyst Allan Liska told The Register.
    …

  226. says

    Read Scott Pelley’s full statement on firing from CBS News’ ‘60 Minutes’

    “The collapse of values at the top has become untenable,” the award-winning journalist said. “The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable.”

    Related video at the link, hosted by Rachel Maddow.

    Veteran journalist Scott Pelley released a statement Tuesday night after he was fired from CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” bashing the network’s new leadership and saying “the collapse of values at the top” had become “untenable.”

    Pelley, whose decadeslong career at CBS News earned him dozens of Emmy Awards, was ousted from the network after criticizing the show’s newly named executive producer, Nick Bilton, and editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, in a recent staff meeting.

    In a call with CBS News staff members on Wednesday, Weiss defended Pelley’s firing and accused him of having broken a foundation of “trust and mutual respect.”

    “Despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways,” Weiss said on the call, which was first reported by Variety. A source confirmed the comments to MS NOW.

    Read Pelley’s full statement below:

    There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

    The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

    “60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

    The waste is heartbreaking.

    Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

    For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

    At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

    I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion — a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again — a day when sanity, competence, and courage return. —Scott Pelley

    Wow.

  229. says

    […] The losses on any given day come so fast and across such a wide spectrum of civic life that it overwhelms our capacity to mourn. […]

    Rest in peace, 60 Minutes and the military’s merit-based promotion system, but also the deep-ocean observation system that you probably hadn’t heard of before now but which you’re glad existed independently of naked partisanship and the raw urge for power.

    Living through the Trump II presidency is an exercise in repeated loss and extended mourning for what is gone — while being daily confronted with the farcical and the absurd.

    [I snipped examples of the absurd.]

    […] In an astute analysis this week, Ned Resnikoff posits that Trumpism is hyperfascism, by which he doesn’t mean turbocharged or souped-up fascism, but “hyper” in the sense of over the top.

    “It’s a dramatic reenactment of totalitarian domination […]” Resnikoff writes. “[I]t is a shallow sort of fascism, obsessed with outward appearances and completely uninterested in everything else.”

    Hyperfascism eschews the hard work of sustaining itself, preferring the next spectacle to the grind of consolidating and entrenching its power through bureaucracy and structural advantages, at least as compared to other long-running authoritarian regimes.

    “The good news is that this means hyperfascism can’t survive long as a governing ideology, because it has no program for long-term institution-building,” Resnikoff argues. “The bad news is that there may be no limits to the damage it can cause if left unchecked.”

    Link

    More at the link.

  230. says

    SCOTUS Cobbles Together Excuse to Let Alabama Discriminate Against Black Voters in New Order

    The Supreme Court showed beyond a doubt Tuesday that it will never again put a stop to Republican states snuffing out the Black vote.

    The six right-wing justices granted Alabama’s request for a stay, which clears the way for the state to hold its 2026 elections under a 2023 map crafted to deliver Republicans six congressional seats and Democrats only one. It does so by making Black Alabamians’ votes count for less than white ones’.

    In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court made vote dilution nearly impossible to prove. It ignored Congress’ alterations to the Voting Rights Act and turned it back into an intents test, where the plaintiffs had to make the extremely difficult showing that the legislators intended to discriminate based on race. And yet, in the Alabama case, the plaintiffs managed to do that. The district court found plentiful evidence that the state intentionally discriminated after the court had previously ordered it to produce a map with two districts composed of a Black majority or near-majority, and Alabama flatly ignored it. The state instead produced another map with only one Black-majority district.

    That evidence, rare in its unambiguity, still failed at the Supreme Court.

    […] In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the Court’s order proves that “there is no realistic case in which the presumption of legislative good faith can ever be rebutted.” It also, she added, “corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama’s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders.”

    The majority then delivers the death blow to any attempt to stop red states from suppressing the Black vote.

    [More details at the link.]

    In a final twist of the knife, the Court offers up a grotesque (and utterly predictable) perversion of the Purcell principle, the notion that courts shouldn’t tinker with voting laws and maps just before an election. […]

    Adding insult to injury, this Court had previously ruled that it was too close to Alabama’s elections to impose a new map (one that remedied the state’s discrimination) a whole three months before the primary. [!]

    “While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, States are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests,” the majority wrote.

    Translation: Purcell counts except when Republican states don’t want it to.

    In her dissent, Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, pointed out that the majority didn’t even bother to address one of the primary tenets of the district court’s ruling: that the Alabama map also violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The majority builds its argument almost entirely on Callais, which didn’t touch on unconstitutional racial gerrymanders at all.

    […] The order is so shoddy and blatantly inconsistent with the Court’s previous orders that it shows how far the Roberts Court has traveled beyond serious attempts to mask its partisan aims in legal reasoning. It’s a rubber stamp for red states seeking to entrench Republican power at the expense of their Black constituents. It’s an eager co-conspirator in the mission to roll back 60 years of bloodily secured civil rights.

    The order, Sotomayor wrote, “debases the democratic process by upending Alabama’s entire election in the name of permitting Alabama to discriminate against Black Alabamians.”

    Read the order here: [order as a PDF]

  231. birgerjohansson says

    House of El: 
    “Europe Blacklists SpaceX IPO – Danish Fund Says Overvalued, $5B Loss, Governance Disaster”

    “A Danish pension fund has blacklisted SpaceX before the biggest IPO in history and the reason is not politics alone, but valuation, governance, and trust.”

    Oops. They are not impressed by Elon’s charisma.
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=c5VXnVDyhpc

  233. says

    PYONGYANG (The Borowitz Report)—Embattled CBS News chief Bari Weiss abruptly left the network on Wednesday to accept a new role as general manager of North Korea’s state-run media.

    “I was a big fan of her work at CBS,” said the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un. “I’ve spent years trying to purge all the news from our media and she pulled it off in a matter of months.”

    “Plus, her willingness to do David Ellison’s bidding proved she can debase herself to a leader who got his position purely from nepotism,” he added.

    But Weiss’s tenure at the North Korean network DLT (Dear Leader Television) got off to a rocky start as staffers quit en masse, complaining about her lack of television experience.

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/bari-weiss-exits-cbs-to-run-north

    Satire.

  234. says

    “This Isn’t a Recession. It’s Worse.”
    https://www.blueamp.co/p/what-bezos-dell-and-the-magnificent

    “Lance Roberts at Real Investment Advice ran the numbers and showed his work. The S&P 500 minus AI infrastructure buildout spending is growing at 0%.

    The non-AI part of the American stock market is in an earnings recession right now.

    The AI capex is the only thing hiding the recession that has already arrived.”

    “The full-year pace executes near $1 trillion in buybacks, the largest single-year transfer of corporate cash to shareholders in the history of the modern American economy. The boardrooms are returning the money to themselves before anything else can happen to it.”

    “This is not a recession…
    The labor share of US GDP is at 54.1% in the first quarter of 2026. This is the lowest reading since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began the series in 1947. In the year 2000 it was 63%. Three-fourths of the entire post-war decline happened between 2000 and 2016. The collapse is systemic. AI may be the accelerant, but it is not the only cause.”

    “…if people can’t make money by doing a job, how in the hell are they supposed to pay for things in our late-stage capitalist society?”

  235. says

    MS NOW report, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland easily won the Democratic gubernatorial primary in New Mexico, and she now appears well positioned to become the nation’s first indigenous woman to win a gubernatorial race.

    Good news.

  237. birgerjohansson says

    Farron Cousins at Youtube has remarked Trump has had no public appearences for 8 days, which is a big anomaly. This started after the doctor’s appointment. There has been sightings of him and there are plenty of social media posts but no public appearence.

  238. JM says

    Yahoo Finance: Gold overtakes US Treasuries as top global reserve asset

    Gold has become the world’s largest reserve asset, moving ahead of US government bonds, according to a European Central Bank (ECB) report.

    The shift follows years of heavy buying by central banks and a steep rise in bullion prices over the past two years.

    The ECB said gold accounted for 27% of global central bank reserve assets at the end of 2025. That was up from 20% a year earlier. By contrast, the share of US Treasuries fell to 22% from 25% over the same period.

    Note that combined US Treasuries + dollars is still ahead by a large margin. It is a significant change though as countries seem to be looking towards gold for long term stable value.

  240. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump-backed candidate in Iowa loses primary

    A candidate hoping to run for governor in the US state of Iowa has lost a closely watched primary contest, despite getting the backing of Donald Trump.

    Randy Feenstra, who was seen by many as a frontrunner, conceded the race on Tuesday, having received a last-minute presidential endorsement ahead of the vote.

    The three-term Iowa congressman, who was running for his party’s nomination for November’s governor contest, had also been a reliable Trump supporter.

    But for his part, the winner, farmer and businessman Zach Lahn, campaigned on a decidedly Trumpian platform – with slogans like “Make Iowa Healthy Again” and “Iowa first”.

    He campaigned on limiting foreign and out-of-state ownership of Iowa land and railed against “global elites”.

    Lahn also had the backing of Turning Point USA, the conservative group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, and grassroots conservatives in the state who viewed Feenstra as too much a part of the Washington establishment…

  242. JM says

    DW: Taliban, Russia are cozying up to each other — why?

    The acting defense minister in the Taliban regime, Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob, stepped off a flight in Kabul last week to deliver a warning to Pakistan.
    Islamabad, he said, would “soon no longer dare” to attack Afghan territory due to the military-technical cooperation agreement he had just signed in Moscow. He also said the implementation of the agreement with Russia would begin shortly.

    Russia is going to help the government of Afghanistan repair their existing Soviet era gear, mostly vehicles. The treaty is obvious for Afghanistan, which has had border flair ups with Pakistan. It is a bit funny seeing Russia cut a deal with the Taliban but Putin has always been pragmatic, the war the USSR lost was long ago.
    What Russia is getting out of the deal is more obscure. There is no reason why they would want any of Afghanistan’s hardware, it would be useless against Ukraine even if repaired because it’s so old. This could be a late stage dictatorship signing long term treaties that they won’t survive to care about. Russia could stabilizing it’s other flanks so it can focus on Ukraine. It could be Russia opening a new channel for recruiting cannon fodder. It may be Russia is doing this for cash payments or access to trade routes across Afghanistan.

  243. JM says

    Independent UK: Trump’s library team claims they can’t find a single Twitter DM despite president’s 25,000 tweets during his first term

    Donald Trump’s newly launched presidential library says it cannot find a single direct message sent by the president from his Twitter account despite the prolific poster firing off thousands of tweets during his first administration.
    The Trump Presidential Library’s response to a Freedom of Information Act by The Washington Post follows several lawsuits against the administration’s policy memo stating that it doesn’t need to follow the Presidential Records Act.

    Trump’s presidential library didn’t keep any of his messages from his first term, even the ones from other court cases that they can’t deny or cover up. This is an absurd position and probably just a setup for a legal challenge over the presidential records act.

  244. says

    MS NOW:

    Kuwait briefly shut the country’s main airport Wednesday after Iranian drones heavily damaged a terminal building and killed one person — the latest salvo in a series of back-and-forth attacks by Tehran and Washington that have tested a fragile ceasefire.

    I object to everyone calling it a ceasefire.

  245. says

    New York Times:

    Ukrainian drones on Wednesday attacked St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, on the opening day of an annual economic conference that President Vladimir V. Putin has tried to cultivate into a showcase of a modern and prosperous country.

  246. says

    Washington Post link

    “In a first, House votes to block Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran”

    The House passed a resolution Wednesday to block President Donald Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran, ratcheting up pressure on the administration to find a way to end the unpopular war.

    The 215-208 vote marked the first time that such a measure has cleared the House or Senate on a final vote since the start of the conflict more than three months ago. The Senate advanced a similar resolution last month on a procedural vote, reflecting growing impatience with a war Congress hasn’t authorized.

    The effort faces sizable hurdles, however, before Congress could force Trump to end hostilities.

    In the House, four Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie (Kentucky), Tom Barrett (Michigan), Warren Davidson (Ohio) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania) — joined Democrats in voting to force Trump to end the war.

    […] Democrats have forced repeated votes on war powers resolutions in both chambers since the start of the conflict […] The War Powers Resolution of 1973 — the law Democrats used to force the vote — requires presidents to remove U.S. forces from any conflict that Congress has not authorized within 60 days. Trump hit the deadline May 1 but dodged it by arguing that hostilities have been “terminated” since a ceasefire took effect, even as the United States continues to enforce a naval blockade of Iran.

    […] To reach Trump’s desk, the Senate resolution would require a final vote in the chamber, which could be tough if every senator is voting. Three Republican senators who have opposed similar resolutions in the past missed the procedural vote on the Senate resolution last month, allowing it to advance. If they had voted the way they have in the past, it would have failed 50-50.

    The House would also need to pass the Senate version before it reached Trump’s desk. Trump would almost certainly veto it, forcing the Senate and the House to override his veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers before the resolution could take effect. No war powers resolution has ever overcome a veto.

    Unlike the Senate resolution, the House version cannot be vetoed, but it is unclear whether it is privileged, guaranteeing that it gets a vote in the Senate. If the Senate parliamentarian rules that it is not, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) could decline to bring it up for a vote.

    There is also considerable dispute about whether the House resolution would have the force of law if it passed both chambers. […]

    Too many “what ifs” for me to sort this out now. We will watch to see what happens. Nevertheless, the House vote to block Trump feels significant. Progress.

  248. says

    New York Times:

    Defying Republican leaders, the House voted on Wednesday to take up a bill to impose sweeping new sanctions on Russia and provide additional aid to Ukraine, after a bloc of G.O.P. defectors joined Democrats in an effort to ratchet up pressure on Moscow more than four years into the war.

    The bill, which still must win passage in the House, faces a difficult path to enactment, given divisions in the Senate over a sanctions package and objections from the White House. President Trump has repeatedly signaled he does not want Congress constraining his flexibility to negotiate directly with Moscow, and could veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

    Still, the 218-204 vote to take it up, in which six Republicans and one independent who normally votes with them crossed party lines to side with Democrats, sent a clear signal of bipartisan pressure on the matter. It added to growing a list of issues on which the Republican-led Congress has in recent weeks shown a greater willingness to challenge Mr. Trump, including the war with Iran, his push to fund a new White House ballroom and a bid to create a federal fund to benefit his political allies.

    The legislation’s centerpiece is a broad package of sanctions targeting Russia’s oil and gas sector that is aimed at striking at the Kremlin’s primary source of wartime revenue. Lawmakers in both parties have argued for more than a year that sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies have failed to fully sever the energy revenues that continue to bankroll Moscow’s war effort. […]

    The bill would expand restrictions on financial institutions that conduct business with sanctioned Russian officials and state enterprises and seek to crack down on entities that help Moscow evade existing sanctions. […]

    And the legislation would eliminate a sanctions waiver President Trump approved earlier this year that provided limited relief.

    It would authorize roughly $1.8 billion in direct spending and more than $8 billion in loans for Ukraine’s war effort as the country continues to face deadly bombardment in Kyiv and other areas. […]

    Link

  249. StevoR says

    When record-breaking heatwaves hit parts of Australia over summer, it was not just people and wildlife that suffered. The extreme heat also wiped out entire crops and highlighted a growing struggle for farmers with what is likely to become an even bigger challenge. Researchers warn increasingly extreme heatwaves throughout the year are putting food security at risk, with more studies urgently needed to help growers adapt.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-04/extreme-heatwaves-threatening-crops-food-supply-australia/106745486

  250. JM says

    @248 Lynna, OM: Leaving some loop holes in the sanctions was intentional. When Russia invaded Ukraine there were places in Europe that depended on Russian oil and they couldn’t ship enough oil in from other sources. So at the time it made sense. Europe has worked to cut it’s dependency on Russian oil and Russia has exploited those loop holes as a channel to get black market oil out. It’s been time to cut those channels for a while but Trump doesn’t want to pull the trigger against Russia, he moves against Russia only when forced.

  251. JM says

    @246 Lynna, OM: Congress’s ability to order the president to stop attacks has never been resolved in court. It’s arguable because Trump is the commander in chief but only congress can declare war. Continued fighting constitutes a war at some point but the president has a responsibility to act to defend the US. This is supposed to be a political question resolved through negotiations between the president and parties but Trump and the unitary executive people won’t see it that way.
    What congress can do if they can get their act together is withhold the money. Trump’s military endeavor drops off quickly if fuel and ammunition is withheld because there is no money to pay for it. Congress has control of the budget and can order spending stopped even if some was previously approved.

  252. Robbo says

    trump hasn’t appeared in public for six? Seven days?

    How many cabinet members do you think are gonna win zillions of dollars on kalshi tomorrow?

  255. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    GovExec – Trump signs order moving thousands of federal employees into Schedule F, making them effectively at-will employees.

    The edict marks the culmination of a years-long push to make it easier to fire federal employees in “policy-related” jobs by removing them from the federal government’s competitive service and placing them in a new job category, initially called Schedule F and now referred to as Schedule Policy/Career. Employees placed into the new schedule would no longer be able to challenge adverse personnel actions before the Merit Systems Protection Board, and whistleblower complaints filed by Schedule F employees would be investigated by their own agency, rather than the Office of Special Counsel.

    A senior administration official told reporters Wednesday that, contrary to the administration’s prior estimates that 50,000 feds would be converted to the new job category, just 8,000 jobs are targeted
    […]
    The policy remains the subject of multiple lawsuits by federal employee unions, who have accused the administration of violating the Constitution, the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.

    Zach Everson (Trump Accountability Project):

    “… a new Civil Service law of the following year (January 26, 1937), which called for the dismissal of all officials, including judges, for ‘political unreliability.'”
    —Shirer, William. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. p. 344

    Taniel (Bolts mag): “This is so unpopular that *Louisiana* voters just rejected a referendum last month that would have made it easier to reclassify civil servants. The measure failed 78% to 22%.”

    Chris Geidner (Law Dork):

    Here are the CDC positions […] including “Epidemiologist,” “Research Epidemiologist,” and “Health Scientist.”
    […]
    Just what I wanted for health scientists at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, fewer employment protections!

    [Special Assistant at the Mine Safety and Health Admin.] Sure, of course.

    Joshua Lenon (Lawyer): “Over 120 attorney roles across 79 government agencies included in this reclassification. Lawyers across the DOJ, Treasury, Defense, IRS, NLRB, GSA, FDIC, EEOC, ATF, EOIR, PTO, CFTC, CPSC, and more impacted. Removing legal expertise to inform and support the rule of law.”

    Rando 1:

    An OPM spokesperson said Trump chose to instead focus on “the most senior level career policy officials

    Yes, senior level policy officials like […] Budget Analyst and HR Specialist.

    Rando 2: “*JD Vance nervously flipping through the list.*”

    Chris Geidner: “Given the [EO’s] requirement to inform folks of changes and ‘conform agency records and practices’ within 7 days, I do think litigation here will come very quick.”

  257. birgerjohansson says

    Marjane Satrapi, creator of Persepolis and acclaimed French-Iranian artist, dies aged 56

  258. birgerjohansson says

    If you trust the White House medical report, Trump weighs 238 pounds (108 kg) which together with his length puts him a very tiny amount under the definition of “obese”.

    In reality, someone has fixed the numbers, the odds of someone being so close to obese but not over the line are quite small.
    But his pride is more important than the truth. Anyone that lies about such petty things can be trusted to lie when more important issues are at stake.

  259. says

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump’s new intel pick is even worse than you think

    Trump’s new pick for intel chief is even worse than you think: a MAGA loyalist with no intelligence experience, a record of targeting the president’s enemies, and a reported assist from Roger Stone. Sen. Mark Warner weighs in on Bill Pulte’s appointment.

    Video is 8:44 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump’s revenge tour is blowing up in his face

    Trump’s revenge tour against Republicans he deemed insufficiently loyal is now creating the backlash that could stall his own agenda in Congress.

    Video is 8:52 minutes

  260. says

    Scientist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein called it “the end of American science as we know it.”

    Last Friday, the Trump administration unveiled new proposed regulations that would require the approval of political appointees for all discretionary federal grants based on tight far-right political criteria.

    The proposed regs would interject political appointees into scientific and health research, limiting “the subjects that they can explore, the foreign labs with which they may collaborate and even the conferences at which they can appear,” the NYT reports.

    Scientist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein called it “the end of American science as we know it.”

    To catch yourself up, I’d recommend Don Moynihan’s wide-ranging piece on the proposed regs and their intended impact: “The bottom line is that Russ Vought, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, wants to move scientific decisions away from the scientists and into the hands of political appointees. I don’t mean the big picture, strategic decisions of American science, which should be political, but the micro-decisions about what is and is not good research.”

  263. says

    […] Trump said in a TikTok video that maybe the temporary bouncy house-lookin’ ass thing he’s erected on the White House lawn for the June 14 “Freedom 250”/Trump’s Birthday White House UFC Cage Fight — this is hell, we live in hell — might just be left there permanently. Because that is what level of degradation his brain has reached. [Video: “Trump says UFC cage may never be removed from White House lawn.”]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-says-ufc-bouncy-house-could

  264. JM says

    Reuters: Ex-Hollywood, MAGA and Trump’s ballroom commissioner: the U.S. crowd at Russia’s ‘Davos’
    The US side is mostly a collection of down and out figures popular in Russia. Candice Owens, Steven Segal, and Andrew Tate are all going.

    Chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, Cook is overseeing ​U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial White House ballroom extension and is listed as leading the official U.S. delegation to the forum.
    He is the ‌first U.S. ⁠official to attend the forum since 2017/18, according to the Kremlin, and the first since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022. He will speak at a session on U.S.-Russian cultural dialogue.

    Cook has apparently done work restoring churches in Russia prior to the war. Still a very tactless time to go considering he is part of the US government right now.
    It’s also a risky time to go. Ukraine has gotten some drones the whole way up to St Petersburg recently. Ukraine probably won’t target the convention itself except possibly when Putin is there but there are a lot of viable targets in the region with military companies also at the event. If Ukraine manages to take out Andrew Tate it will be a win for the US also.

  265. JM says

    Mother Jones: Jared Kushner’s Albanian Resort Faces a Corruption Probe and Mass Protests

    But the reality of the massive project, which includes 10,000 hotel rooms and is located in one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive areas, is a lot messier. In 2024, the Albanian government changed the law to allow the area, which was previously part of a protected national park, to be developed. After Trump’s election in November 2024, the Albanian government granted Atlantic Incubation Partners, an LLC linked to Kushner, “strategic investor“ status, clearing the way for permits.
    Kushner’s LLC was granted that status “just weeks before the new US president’s inauguration, even without a business plan or feasibility study for the construction of a luxury resort on an uninhabited island once used by the army for shooting practice.”
    On Monday, Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime, known as SPAK, confirmed it was investigating Kushner’s project. The investigation will probe the changes to the land’s protected status and how Kushner-controlled entities obtained rights.

    The citizens are also upset that the resort has been allowed to fence off a large chunk of beach front for it’s exclusive use.
    Kushner’s entire career seems to be a mix of influence peddling and outright corruption.

  266. JM says

    AP News: Police warn families of Tiananmen crackdown dead not to visit graves on 37th anniversary

    Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago Thursday, in a further tightening in a yearslong campaign to erase what happened from public memory.
    Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.
    Relatives from a group called Tiananmen Mothers visited the graves for more than 30 years, reading memorial statements while police kept watch, Amnesty International said.

    The Chinese government is really determined to write this event from national history.

  267. JM says

    NPR: National Guard has done little to reduce violent crime in D.C., a new study finds

    President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. has reduced petty property crimes, but has had little to no effect on violent crime, despite the high cost to taxpayers, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Niskanen Center.

    People don’t commit smash and run theft in front of the National Guard but it has no effect on violent crime.

  268. JM says

    CNBC: Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ has a ‘double taxation’ trap for top earners, tax experts say

    The “one big beautiful bill” came with many tax benefits for top earners, despite limiting how much they can deduct. However, lawyers and accountants for the wealthy said they have discovered a surprise buried in the footnotes of a tax law guide released last week by Congress’ policy staff that could amount to double taxation.
    The deduction cap is imposed on trusts and estates, the experts said, which was unexpected. Even if a trust gave all its income to its beneficiaries, it would have to pay taxes on a portion of that income, according to their interpretation of the document.
    While the consequences are steeper for trusts and estates of the ultra-wealthy, trusts with as little as $16,000 in income would also be subject to additional taxes, the experts said.

    Turns out this administration can’t even write a tax loophole correctly. The cap on how much you can write off taxes also applies to trusts that otherwise could write off 100% of the money they distribute. Most likely this bit will be written out immediately one way or another but it’s funny.

    That means I now have to adjust my deduction even more because less money is going to charity,” he said. “Did Congress really intend to create an algebraic formula?”

    So adjusting your charity donations to avoid paying taxes will be slightly more complex. Not seeing the problem here.

  269. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ex-national security adviser John Bolton will plead guilty in classified information case: AP source

    Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information under a deal with the Justice Department that could allow him to avoid prison time, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.
    The deal would resolve a criminal case filed in October that charged Bolton with 18 counts of either retaining or disseminating classified information, including diary-like notes from his time in government that officials say he shared with his family members as he was preparing a memoir about his time in office.

    Under the agreement, Bolton would also face a $2.25 million fine, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a deal that had not been made public. Any prison sentence would be capped at five years, but the agreement allows for him to avoid time behind bars, though the punishment will ultimately be up to a judge.

    The case against Bolton, filed weeks after prosecutors secured indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, unfolded against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department was using its law enforcement powers to pursue perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump.
    …
    Bolton is a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power. He served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being fired in 2019 and publishing a critical book that portrayed the Republican president as deeply misinformed and painted an unflattering portrait of his leadership and decision-making.

    Trump’s administration fought unsuccessfully to block the publication of “The Room Where it Happened” on the grounds that the book risked disclosing classified information. The plea deal that Bolton will enter covers the notes he shared with relatives as opposed to information published in the tell-all book…

  270. JM says

    ABC News: ‘They should be reimbursed’: Jan. 6 defendants still eyeing payouts, despite scrapped $1.8B fund

    Despite the Department of Justice saying it is scrapping plans to launch a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” many Jan. 6 defendants are still eyeing payouts using other legal paths to secure settlements from the Trump administration.
    One prominent attorney for Jan. 6 defendants told ABC News that he plans to submit claims against the federal government for approximately 400 clients, with a recent lawsuit he filed for nine people requesting at least $1 million in damages per person.

    The people involved are still free to try and sue the government but even with an accommodating DOJ it should be a hard case to win. It isn’t generally enough to prove the case contained some error, to win a settlement you have to show some degree malice and the DOJ actively messing up the process. If the DOJ just tries to settle without putting up a defense the judge may refuse to allow a settlement.
    What will actually happen is hard to say. I suspect that the DOJ will realize that handing out money will be unpopular and instead choose to just stall the cases until Trump is out of office and the next president can deal with it.

  272. says

    JM @264: “The US side is mostly a collection of down and out figures popular in Russia. Candice Owens, Steven Segal, and Andrew Tate are all going.”

    LOL. Laughable.

  273. says

    HOUSTON (The Borowitz Report)—The US Senate race in Texas got uglier on Thursday as Republican Ken Paxton accused Democrat James Talarico of lacking the requisite criminal record to represent the Lone Star State in Washington. [LOL]

    “With all due respect, my opponent doesn’t have the cojones to go on a crime spree,” he told a crowd of supporters in Houston. “James Talarico never saw a law he didn’t abide.”

    Drawing a stark contrast between himself and Talarico, Paxton said, “My criminal record is as big as Texas itself.”

    Paxton warned that, given the lawless environment that currently prevails in Washington DC, a non-crook like Talarico would be a “dangerous choice,” adding, “Texas deserves a criminal who doesn’t need on-the-job training.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/paxton-blasts-talaricos-lack-of-criminal

    Satire.

  274. says

    Trump, DeSantis push baseless election conspiracy theories as California counts its votes

    “It takes a while under the state’s system to tally all the ballots. The president and his pals are filling the vacuum with predictable nonsense.”

    There were a great many closely watched races in California this week, but those looking for the final results will have to remain patient. As has been true in every recent election cycle in the Golden State, it takes a while under California’s system to get a complete tally of the ballots.

    Yet a variety of Republicans are scrambling to fill the vacuum with predictable but baseless conspiracy theories.

    […] Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, apparently annoyed that newly counted mail-in ballots offered good news to Democratic candidates, wrote via social media, “California keeps dumping votes. Odds are shifting because the vote dumps always seem to go one way. Count until you get the result you want?” [Baseless lies.]

    Shortly before 1 a.m. ET, Donald Trump — by some measures, the nation’s pre-eminent election denier and electoral conspiracy theorist — published a related missive to his own platform. “The Dumocrats are at it again!” the president wrote, demonstrating his trademark wit. [Smile. Nice, understated humor.]
    “They are trying to steal the governor of California primary, and the mayor of Los Angeles, primary, away from two great Republican candidates,” the president wrote in all caps. “Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.”

    Shortly after 1 a.m. ET, he published a follow-up item, not only falsely claiming that there’s “BIG cheating” underway, but also adding that the matter is “under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.” (Whether federal investigators have in fact launched a probe is unclear, and it’s entirely possible that Trump simply made this up.) [I snipped similar comments from Fox News hosts.]

    […] no one in Republican politics has produced any evidence whatsoever to support any of these accusations. […] The New York Times reported:

    California’s heavy reliance on mail ballots, which require a lot of labor to certify and tabulate, has slowed down its vote counting process for years. But that delay could be compounded this time by the fact that many voters seemed to have waited until the end to submit their ballots, in part because they were unsure of whom to choose in the volatile governor’s race.

    To count each mail ballot, election officials must compare a voter’s signature against one on file, open each envelope, pull the ballot out and prepare it for processing. That adds time compared to having voters validate their signatures at a polling place without an envelope.

    If critics of the system want to argue that California should come up with a model that expedites the counting process, fine. But for Republicans to throw around baseless accusations of irregularities, without so much as a hint of evidence, is indefensible. [True.]

    […] The bogus claims erode confidence in our democracy. Republicans keep doing it anyway. As vote tallies in California continue to come in and conspiracy theorists continue to peddle nonsense, it’s disheartening to see the corrosive campaign get started again so early.

    Yes.

  275. says

    Campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen from a Fox News poll:

    Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown received some good news in the latest Fox News poll, which showed the Ohioan leading appointed Republican senator Jon Husted by a 53% to 45% margin. The same poll showed Husted with a 41% favorable rating, while Brown enjoyed a 53% favorable rating.

    Good news.

  276. says

    Greg Bovino was greeted like a celebrity in Portugal.

    Greg Bovino was welcomed like a celebrity at one of the world’s pre-eminent fascist confabs this past weekend. The former U.S. Border Patrol Commander-At-Large — whose MAGA star turn came when President Donald Trump cast him as the lead in White House’s lethal immigration sweeps across America — mingled with Hitler admirers, avowed racists, and far-right politicians at the Salmanha Residence near Porto, Portugal for the “Remigration Summit 2026.”

    “The interest around him is enormous,” the event’s account on Telegram gushed, posting a photo of Bovino arriving at the hotel, giving an impromptu press conference to a gaggle of journalists outside. “I am very happy to come over and lend some expertise to the Europeans” to stop “illegal aliens destroying European culture,” he told them.

    […] Bovino opened his 15-minute lecture, to a crowd of about 500 mostly white men, by calling “remigration” the “most important topic perhaps of our lifetime,” […]

    “Remigration” is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing and refers to the forcible removal of non-white people from Western countries […]

    As a term, “remigration” was popularized by one of the Portugal summit’s main organizers, the Austrian white nationalist Martin Sellner, who Bovino indicated was a friend. […]

    It should be a giant scandal that an only-recently retired top American immigration official — who led the Trump administration’s siege and occupation of Chicago and Minneapolis by border patrol agents, terrorizing immigrant families and killing two protesters — has admitted to an ongoing relationship with someone like Sellner. [All too true.]

    At age 17, Sellner admitted to vandalizing a Vienna synagogue with a swastika. Years later, he became a leader in Generation Identity, the pan-European white nationalist group. [I snipped more details regarding Sellner’s Nazi-wannabe past.]

    Ever since the White House forced him to retire in March amidst blowback to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti […] Bovino has seemed to relish his newfound fame. He has done multiple interviews with the media, become a prolific shitposter on X, and was a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas, where he called for the deportation of 100 million people, or roughly a third of the U.S. population. […]

    A photo of Bovino and Sellner in Portugal shows a third man standing alongside them: Alfonso Gonçalves, the summit’s other main organizer. As noted by independent journalist Charles Davis in The Redoubt, Gonçalves is a white supremacist and the founder of Reconquista, a Portuguese far-right group named for “the mass expulsion of Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula.” He has referred to women as “whores” and “cockroaches” who “should not have political rights.” [OMFG] He has bemoaned the “Africanization” of London and falsely stated that Black men in America are “12x times as likely to commit murder than white men.” [OMFG again]

    […] The summit Gonçalves and Sellner organized, where Bovino was the star, was rife with other extreme figures — some of whom have held elected office in Europe. They included Milan Mazurek, a Slovakian member of parliament once convicted by the country’s supreme court for hate speech targeting Roma people, and who has called the Holocaust a “fairy tale and a lie.” Also in attendance was Dries Van Langenhove, a former Belgian MP also convicted for hate speech and three members of the German Bundestag affiliated with the AfD, the political party that Germany’s own intelligence agency has labeled an extremist group. [All the best people.]

    “Could we do…the same in Germany?” Kay Gottschalk, AfD’s cofounder, asked Bovino during an interview at the summit, referring to the brutal methods Bovino employed while rounding up immigrants in America.

    “Kay, absolutely,” Bovino responded, before offering his services. “I’m a phone call away.”

    “Maybe I can invite you to the Bundestag and you give us some ideas for Germany?” Gottschalk suggested.

    “You bet,” Bovino said, before assuring Gottschalk that the Germans would be “very good” at remigration. [Exporting Bovino’s and Trump’s worst ideas to Europe.]

    Bovino also granted an interview to Keith Woods, the Irish white nationalist influencer who has described himself as a “raging antisemite.” [eyebrows raised]

    “This is the most exciting movement I’ve seen probably in my entire life,” Bovino told Woods at the summit, “because immigration, remigration, mass deportations, are the number one issue for the preservation of our culture, our values, our customs, our beliefs.”

    [In an interview] Bovino — unprompted — pointed to the military tactics of Erwin Rommel, Nazi Germany’s head general, as an inspiration.

    And just before he boarded his flight to Portugal, he posted a message of encouragement to ICE agents clashing with protesters at the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in New Jersey. “Give them hell and live the moment!!” Bovino wrote on X, along with a photo of himself in his Border Patrol uniform.

    The photo showed Bovino’s right arm extended upward, palm facing down.

    Link

  279. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/oh-good-weve-reached-the-flesh-eating

    “Oh Good, We’ve Reached The ‘Flesh-Eating Screwworm’ Stage Of The Trump Administration”

    Disclaimer: This post will not feature any pictures of screwworms, because of how they are extremely gross and I don’t want to look at them. Feel free to Google image search them yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

    On Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins very confidently stated that the rumors of an impending invasion of flesh-eating New World Screwworms were absolutely false, assuring Republican Texas state Rep. Don McLaughlin that the closest of the cow-killing flies (because they’re actually flies, not worms) were at least 25 miles from the border.

    McLaughlin, you see, had put out a statement the day before saying that they were only a mile away, asking for some protection for Texas farmers.

    “For more than a year, I have joined Texas ranchers in sounding the alarm while federal regulators have moved at a snail’s pace,” said McLaughlin. “Today, the threat is no longer hundreds of miles away. It is at our doorstep. Texas cannot afford to wait until the New World Screwworm crosses the border and begins devastating our livestock and wildlife.”

    […] Either McLaughlin was actually correct or we are dealing with some real super flies (apologies to Curtis Mayfield), because those motherfuckers ended up in Texas the very next day. More specifically, they ended up in a three-month-old calf — the first such case since the flies were eradicated from the US in the 1960s. Although last year there was a screwworm found in a woman who had traveled from El Salvador (she survived).

    The calf has since been quarantined and they’re hoping that the case will be a one-off, but that seems somewhat unlikely. [Very unlikely.]

    […] Prior to the 1960s, screwworms cost the agricultural industry millions of dollars a year. Starting in the 1950s, the country invested billions into a plan to mass breed screwworms in factories, radiate them so they became sterile, and then send them out to mate with other screwworms in the wild — unions that would produce no offspring. Because the factory-made screwworms outnumbered the wild screwworms 10-1, this eventually led to the end of the species in the United States. Ta da!

    […] Remember DOGE? Well, DOGE cut about 15 percent of the USDA’s workforce. They also slashed USAID to bits, killing funding for over 5,300 programs around the world. This included programs dedicated to monitoring and containing screwworm populations. [!!] Also avian flu, swine flu and — wait for iiiiiiiit! — ebola! Which, you may have noticed, is also a pretty serious problem right now.

    In fact, they specifically cut $250 million from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Health Security Program [Not a good idea], which ran many of these monitoring programs.

    Why did they do that? Because they thought USAID was woke. […]

    “USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk tweeted back in February of 2025, “Time for it to die.”

    Well, now USAID isn’t the only thing dying.

    Posted by readers of the article:

    And now there will be nationwide shortage of Ivermectin because all the rubes bought it to shove up their asses and not use it for I don’t know, ELIMINATING PARASITES IN CATTLE?!?
    ———————–
    Pestilence is on his phone on twitter starting the rumor that this parasite is cured by self-administered chemotherapy.

  282. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump announces plan to add ‘promenade’ to Lincoln Memorial

    President Donald Trump on Thursday announced his administration intends to build a “promenade” to connect the Lincoln Memorial to the Potomac River.

    “It will be the promenade. They want to call it the ‘Trump Promenade’ but I don’t know if I want to do that, but it’s going to be beautiful,” he said in the Oval Office…

  283. Reginald Selkirk says

    AI models are (mostly) getting better at denying Russian propaganda

    As more people rely on large language models to provide pat answers to complex questions, state governments are understandably worried about those LLMs spouting what they see as dangerous propaganda promoted by foreign adversaries. To help combat this problem, the government-sponsored Estonian Language Institute (ELI) has released a new “Propaganda Resistance” benchmark ranking dozens of LLMs on their ability to avoid “tak[ing] positions on topics that the Russian Federation uses in its strategic narratives.”

    As a former member of the Soviet Union that has been independent for just a few decades, many Estonians are particularly alert to what they see as false narratives being promoted from their large and often belligerent neighbor to the east. Alongside volunteer-run Estonian defense collective Propastop, the ELI identified 14 broad categories in which it sees Russian influence operations trying to sway public discussion. These range from narratives on the current status of Crimea and justifications for the war in Ukraine to the history of NATO and justification for Russia’s annexation of Baltic states during World War II.

    For each category of propaganda, the researchers developed separate questions phrased to be neutral, biased with “false assumptions” based on Russian propaganda, or to maliciously attempt to elicit explicit misinformation from the LLM. Questions were provided to the models in English, Estonian, and Russian, and judged by a separate AI model (calibrated to align with Propastop experts) based on the models’ ability to “push back on propaganda narratives, without external help” from web search or other external tools.

    Anthropic’s Claude models tended to perform the best of the proprietary frontier models on this new benchmark, with various recent versions of its Sonnet and Opus models taking six of the top 10 spots. Opus 4.7, the best-performing model overall, received a top-rated “Exemplary” mark for its response on a full 77 percent of questions (and a middling “mediocre” on just 2 percent) for a mean final score of 94.9 out of 100 on the benchmark.
    …
    Unsurprisingly, recent frontier models showed a much stronger tendency to resist Russian propaganda than models from just a few years ago.
    …

  284. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    WOW. The New Jersey AG has charged an Essex County Prosecutor’s Office sergeant for allegedly stealing a photojournalist’s camera equipment while the journo was at a hospital being treated for injuries she suffered outside Delaney Hall.

    The bag had an air tag and was tracked to the cop’s house.

    The WOW is for a cop actually suffering consequences, not at the fact that a cop did something shitty. C’mon, guys.

    NJ AG Statement

    an estimated $10,000 worth of cameras and related equipment. […] a search warrant was executed at Brown’s residence and several of the items reported missing by the reporter were recovered, including several items that still had the victim’s name and phone number printed on labels affixed to them.

    Third-degree charges carry a sentence of three to five years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000.

  285. JM says

    Military.com: DOD Officially Drops 180 Faiths From Military’s Recognized Religion List

    The reforms mark the first time the list has been officially revised since a memo was issued March 27, 2017, decreasing the total number of faiths from roughly 211 to its new number of 31. The changes were iterated in a May 20, 2026, memorandum issued by the Under Secretary of War and signed by Anthony Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness of the United States, and obtained by Military.com.

    Hegseth has the approved list slashed, removing around 180 to get the list down to 31. Not only is the new list short but it’s selective, lots of variation of Christian (but not all of them) while atheist, humanist, various pagan choices and various other minority groups have been dropped. This is likely because the list is used to help organize the military’s religious services and Hegseth wants the list heavy on groups he approves.
    Since this list is also the list used for gathering demographic information from military personal dropping things like atheist and other non-religious types matters. They are not going to be making much use of military chaplain services but keeping track of how many are in the service matters.

  287. says

    New York Times:

    An American-brokered cease-fire agreement between Israel and Lebanon appeared to have had limited, if any, effect on Thursday. Just hours after it was announced, Israel battered southern Lebanon with rounds of strikes, and the leader of Hezbollah, who was not part of the talks, rejected the deal as his fighters fired rockets at Israeli forces in Lebanon.

  288. says

    New York Times:

    President Trump on Thursday announced $700 million in new federal funding for the country’s struggling coal industry, including $185 million meant to build the first two new coal-burning power plants in the United States in more than a decade. It was the latest in a series of extraordinary efforts by his administration to improve the fortunes of coal, the most polluting of the fossil fuels and a favored industry of the president’s.

  289. says

    Associated Press:

    [E]ight years after President Donald Trump’s forcible border separations [of families]came to an official halt following global outrage, an Associated Press investigation has found that the government has re-separated dozens of children from their families, despite a landmark legal settlement meant to keep them together.

    Trump administration has separated dozens of children from their parents for a second time, AP finds

    Eleven-year-old Ederson Galicia Alva had just stepped off the plane and into the Miami airport’s dim hallways when federal agents pulled his mother aside for questioning. Again.

    Panic welled up. His excitement at soon being back at recess with his Florida classmates fell away. Would the government take her away again?

    This was not his first trauma. In 2018, when he was just 3 years old, Ederson was taken from his mother’s arms at the U.S.-Mexico border under the first Trump administration’s family separation policy and kept apart from her in a government facility for months. They were finally reunited after lawyers intervened. Then, in June of last year, he and his mother were separated a second time, despite legal protections meant to keep them and families like theirs together.

    He later joined his mother in Guatemala. After a destitute, torturous 11 months in the indigenous highlands, Ederson’s family was allowed to return to Florida last week, following a federal judge’s order that the government had acted illegally. […]

  290. says

    NPR:

    President Trump has issued an executive order turning an estimated 8,000 federal workers into at-will employees, which means the government could fire them without providing any reason. The move culminates an effort Trump launched during his first term to strip vast numbers of federal employees of civil service protections designed to insulate their work from political interference.

  291. says

    Washington Post:

    Two advisory board members of Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper that has long enjoyed editorial independence from the government, sued the Defense Department on Wednesday, alleging that an effort to impose new restrictions on the paper was an act of illegal censorship.

  292. says

    A.I. news posted by MS NOW, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    A closer look at Trump’s executive order on artificial intelligence: “Ostensibly, the order revises Trump’s previously hands-off stance on the AI industry. But what looks like a move toward regulation is in reality a gift to the tech industry. The process is so meager that it allows the participating companies to claim concern about the public good while offering little in exchange.”

    MS NOW link

  293. says

    Trump Falls Asleep, Claims He Won All 50 States

    There are multiple clips of the White House meeting today during which Trump looks like he is both falling asleep and struggling to keep his eyes open. He also made this assertion: [Video: “I probably won all 50 states if we had an honest count.”]

    See also: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3mniepnshzd2h

    https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mnif4ap2e723

    https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mnifog3smf2n

  294. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/andy-ogles-didnt-tweet-anything-maga

    “Andy Ogles Didn’t Tweet Anything MAGA Republicans Don’t Actually Believe”

    “He had to take that tweet down because he said the quiet part loud. Not because Republicans don’t agree with him.”

    Andy Ogles, he is this Tennessee Republican congressman who is dumb as a bag of hammers […] (Yes, he’s the one who raised $23,000 to build a burial garden for stillborn infants, which was subsequently never built.)

    Ogles thought he had a good tweet to commemorate Nuclear Family Month, the thing conservative Christian white nationalists […] are doing as counter-programming to Pride Month this June. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is calling it “Fidelity Month.” Kay Ivey in Alabama is calling it “Strong Families Month.” And in Ogles’s Tennessee it’s Nuclear Family Month.

    It’s all euphemisms, what they mean is that God hates [homosexual people]. […]

    Republicans didn’t like Ogles’s tweet, we guess because it was a little bit too honest about their intentions:

    Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month.

    Hasn’t Ogles heard? We’re only saying “nuclear family month.” We’re not saying the first part about God hating [homosexual people] right now. That completely defeats the purpose of creating a euphemism like “nuclear family month”!

    […] Rep. Nick Lalota, also a Republican from a swing district, told CNN, “Gross, disgusting tweet, inappropriate. All Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation, should enjoy the protections of America, our Constitution, and all of our blessings.”

    But it wasn’t just Republicans from swing districts who are already worried they’re going to lose big in November.

    Ted Cruz got in on the woke “let’s not kill gays” bandwagon:

    Asked by TMZ whether he agreed with the post, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said, “For all of recorded history, homosexuals have been part of humanity.”

    “I’m quite libertarian by nature,” he continued. “I think the behavior of consenting adults is their business.”

    [I snipped lot of comments from other Republicans. I also snipped some of Ogles’ past offensive comments Muslims and other groups.]

    […] In some responses, Ogles got replies from bluechecked Republicans that said things like “You were looking good but you crossed the LGBTQ mafia and folded like a lawn chair. Deeply disappointing. These people will hate you anyway but you apologized and blame your staff to lick the boot.” Another: “You really bent the knee to the left and are apologizing for this? THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT YOU TO BE SAYING. You are a weak pathetic disgrace for a man, you stand for absolutely nothing.”

    […] It’s worth noting that this is happening against the backdrop of a year, administration, and era where American society is actively moving backward on equal rights for all people […] Support for marriage equality is actually slipping in the United States, and the movement is among Republicans. NBC News cites Gallup, which found in 2021 that 55 percent of Republicans supported marriage equality, but now it’s only 37.

    […] Andy Ogles had to take that tweet down because he said the quiet part loud, no more, no less. And yet all those governors’ “Nuclear Family Month” declarations remain. […]

  295. Reginald Selkirk says

    AT&T and Verizon lose Supreme Court case over fines for selling location data

    AT&T and Verizon lost an attempt to overturn fines for selling users’ real-time location data without consent, as the Supreme Court ruled today that the Federal Communications Commission process for issuing financial penalties did not violate the right to a jury trial.

    AT&T convinced the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overturn its fine last year, while Verizon lost in the 2nd Circuit. The Supreme Court took up the case to resolve the circuit split and reversed the 5th Circuit decision in today’s ruling, which was 8-1 with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting.

    AT&T and Verizon were fined a total of $104 million by the FCC in 2024 for violations revealed in 2018. The carriers paid their fines and challenged them in circuit appeals courts, where judges’ panels ruled on the cases. Carriers claimed this system deprived them of the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial…

  299. StevoR says

    Happy World Environment Day folks.

    Our environment keeps getting overlooked, ignored and forgotten far too often these days I reckon.

    Oh and the “host country” (for the ehole world environent WTF!?) is .. Azerbaijan?

    See :

    https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/2026/about/theme-and-host

    Really? Seems an odd choice to me.

    Azerbaijan is pursuing green growth and renewable energy at pace. As a Paris Agreement Party, it has committed to reducing emissions by 40% by 2035 (from 1990 levels). It also aims to increasing renewable energy to 30% by 2030. Large-scale projects are underway, including the 230 MW Garadagh Solar Plant and 240 MW Khizi–Absheron Wind Farm, with additional 1 GW+ capacity projects in development.

    Urban sustainability is advancing in Baku with modern low- and zero-emission buses, EV infrastructure, and smart city solutions. The Garabagh and East Zangezur regions are being transformed into “zero-emissions” zones, blending renewable energy, ecosystem restoration, and post-conflict development. Modernized water management and climate-resilient agriculture further strengthen adaptation in drought-prone areas.

    Azerbaijan advanced its environmental policy focusing on reducing the negative impact of plastic packaging waste on the environment since 2019 by adopting Action Plan.

    Hmm.. okay but I remain sceptical and think I detect a whiff of greenwashing still. That just me?

  303. Reginald Selkirk says

    Lynx’s Miles breaks Clark’s WNBA rookie record with 8 3-pointers

    Minnesota Lynx guard Olivia Miles set a WNBA rookie record for 3-pointers in a game with eight Thursday night in an 87-84 victory over the visiting Golden State Valkyries.

    Miles, the No. 2 draft pick in April, hit eight of her 11 attempts from beyond the arc and finished with a season-high 28 points on 9-of-16 shooting. She also had seven assists and four rebounds.
    …

  304. davetheresurrector says

    Re Lynna@97: ” complete immunity for Trump, his family, and his businesses for any tax filings before the date of the settlement.”

    Donny just learned that Al Capone went down for tax evasion.

  305. submoron says

    Avaaz petition
    Ivanka Trump and her husband are about to turn one of the last preserved islands in the Mediterranean into a huge private resort, destroying natural habitats home to seals, flamingos and turtles. Local Albanians are fighting this corporate takeover alone. We can’t let them lose. Sign and share to pressure Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama: Protect Sazan Island from the Trumps!
    I’d give a link if I knew how.

  308. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nearly 50 people die of thirst in Sahara desert after lorry breaks down

    At least 49 people have died of thirst in a remote part of the Sahara desert in northern Niger after the truck carrying them broke down, authorities said.

    The group had been returning from Mali where they had attended a Muslim festival when they ran out of water, stranded more than 80 km (50 miles) west of Assamaka, a major border crossing point between Niger and Algeria.

    “The travellers found themselves trapped in the heart of a hostile environment where extreme temperatures and lack of supply points make survival extremely difficult,” said a statement from the Agadez governor.

    Only two survived, trekking across the desert to Assamaka, where they alerted authorities…

  309. says

    Followup to Reginald @282.

    ‘Trump Promenade’: President adds yet another pet project to his renovation agenda

    Related video at the link.

    The Hill reported this week that Republican officials, worried about the midterm elections and maintaining partisan control, have been “thrown off-balance” by, among other things, Donald Trump’s focus on “pet projects” instead of more meaningful national priorities.

    The GOP concerns are understandable. Unfortunately for the party, however, the president is still adding new distractions to his list.

    To be sure, the existing list is already remarkable. Trump’s plan for a massive “triumphal arch” near Arlington National Cemetery received new backing this week from the National Capital Planning Commission, which just happens to be stacked with White House loyalists; a federal appeals court is poised to hear arguments in a case involving his beloved ballroom vanity project; his newfound fixation on water fountains in the nation’s capital is advancing apace (he’s begun referring to them as “waterfalls” for some reason); and his rhetoric related to renovating the reflecting pool continues to get weirder, even as the project itself becomes more controversial.

    And this is just from the last few days. It doesn’t include his UFC venue on the White House South Lawn, the no-bid contract to add gold coats to horse statues surrounding the Lincoln Memorial, his White House helipad ambitions, his desire to turn the Eisenhower Executive Office Building into a giant white blob, his stated interest in renovating the White House Treaty Room, the “statue garden” or the dozen or so additional renovation projects he’s prioritized in and around the White House complex. [Embedded links to all of the references above are included at the main link.]

    In case this weren’t quite enough, on Thursday afternoon, the president announced that he also wants a new walkway behind the Lincoln Memorial. [social media post and video]

    “It’s called the ‘promenade,’” Trump told reporters at an unrelated event in the Oval Office. “They want to call it the ‘Trump Promenade,’ but I don’t know if I want to do that. But it’s going to be beautiful. It’s a beautiful project, and it’s going to take the Lincoln Memorial right down to the Potomac [River].”

    The details of the endeavor, including how much it will cost and whether it will be the result of yet another no-bid contract, are not yet available.

    As for whether the president might ever show this much enthusiasm for his actual governing responsibilities, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

  310. says

    Followup to Reginald @296

    Fealty to Trump Wins Out Again

    In an early morning vote, the GOP-controlled Senate passed the reconciliation bill funding immigration enforcement — but without any language in it barring President Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund.

    Hours earlier in the marathon session, Republicans had defeated an attempt by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to explicitly ban the slush fund. But Republicans had votes to spare, allowing vulnerable GOP Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Dan Sullivan (AK), and Jon Husted (R-OH) to vote for Schumer’s measure and campaign on opposing the slush fund even though all three senators ultimately voted in favor of the final bill. [All three of those Republican senators voted for the bill?!]

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was the only GOP senator to cross the aisle and oppose the final bill.

    Two GOP senators who were loudly opposed to the slush fund — Thom Tillis (NC), who is not seeking re-election, and Bill Cassidy (LA), who lost in the GOP primary — ended up voting for the final bill. [!!] “I’m taking the cue from my colleagues that are in cycle,” said Tillis. “Whatever suits their purposes.”

    The Trump administration has been playing a nod-and-wink game on the slush fund all week long.

    In Senate testimony Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche declared the slush fund dead but refused to commit to it in writing. On Wednesday, President Trump publicly declared his “love” for the slush fund and claimed to be unsure whether it was in fact dead.

    […] “Republicans are trusting the word of Todd Blanche, who built a career on lying, that the administration will just drop this slush fund,” Schumer warned on the Senate floor before last night’s final vote.

    It appears likely that the Senate GOP’s failure to ban the slush fund will at the very least encourage the Trump administration to make abusive use of the Federal Tort Claims Act to reach sweetheart settlements with Jan. 6 rioters and plotters, along with other purported weaponization victims.

    The Trump DOJ has already shown itself more than capable of […] settlements of weak cases it could have defended, […] in million-dollar paydays for former Trump advisers Michael Flynn and Carter Page.

    Link>

  312. says

    Link

    Voter Fraud Bamboozlement Alert
    Main Justice is pressuring U.S. attorneys offices nationwide to pursue criminal cases against noncitizens who have illegally voted — an exceedingly rare occurrence that Trump has falsely claimed for years turns the results of elections.

    During a May 13 conference call, Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh complained that DOJ’s 90 open investigations of illegal voting were languishing and urged prosecutors to “get creative,” the NYT reports.

    Jan. 6 Rioters Are Notorious Recidivists
    A new Lawfare study reveals that at least 97 of the 1,500 people granted clemency by President Trump for their roles in the attack on the Capitol have been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of separate crimes since Jan. 6.

    Jan. 6 Never Ends
    After the Arizona Supreme Court yesterday declined to revive the original indictment in her fake electors case, state Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) said she would seek a new indictment against allies of President Trump who tried to subvert the state’s 2020 election.

    For Your Radar: ICE Shooting Edition
    There are growing signs that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) may refuse to extradite to Minnesota the ICE agent charged with shooting an undocumented immigrant through a closed door during Operation Metro Surge — then lying about it.

    The agent declined to waive extradition yesterday in state court in South Texas, where he is being held on $200,000 bail. Earlier this week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) formally asked Abbott to extradite the agent.

    Abbott’s office is not commenting on whether he will comply with the routine request from Walz.

  314. says

    Followup to comments 109 and 306

    […] Yes, it’s 110% understandable for people to be outraged about Platner’s racism and misogyny. [Some of that is overblown, some has been denied, and some remains unproven. Much remains open to further questions and should be resolved.]

    But it’s not understandable how any Democrat, at this time, after all we’ve been through, could take the word of somebody like Lyndsey Fifield.

    Anyone in the fight against racism and misogyny has to know that Lyndsey Fifield isn’t going to take you where you want to go. […]

    More details:

    In Lyndsey Fifield’s world, Christine Blasey Ford was a politically motivated liar trying to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s reputation. Now, she wants us to take her accusations seriously.

    The morning after Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation for a seat on the Supreme Court, the New York Post, (a disgusting right-wing tabloid), wanted its readers to know “what women think” about the accusations of sexual assault that came up during the hearings.

    “Inez Stepman and Lindsey Fifield are two millennial women who co-founded the group Ladies for Kavanaugh [!] to show their support for the nominee […] Their day jobs are in conservative politics, Stepman at Independent Women’s Forum and Fifield at the Heritage Foundation. [!!]
    […]

    […] Fifield says she didn’t want to tell her story but the New York Times came to her with a promise and a vow: “We will protect you. Men can’t keep getting away with this.” (Men like Brett Kavanaugh?)

    Fifield is still posting more of her story on X. The comments are a dive into right-wing world. Example: “Of course the Times betrayed you. It’s an Israeli paper.” […]

    [Remember] an Ancient Rule of Thumb:

    Every word that falls from the lips of a right-winger is a lie. Every day. All the time. […] in the time it takes to find the truth, they will have told another 25 lies, keeping you busy and distracted from the assignment.
    – – – Mark Lippman

    Link

  315. says

    Trump’s Gift to Drug Cartels, Money Launderers, and Terrorists

    “Making America a safe space for fraudsters, crooks, and national security threats.”

    There has justifiably been much attention paid to Donald Trump’s personal corruption: cutting sleazy crypto deals, trading stocks in companies affected by his administration’s decisions, doling out pardons to fraudsters who make hefty donations to his political organizations, and so much more. But what’s even more significant is how Trump is perverting the federal government to allow wealthy individuals and corporations engaged in crooked conduct to escape scrutiny, prosecution, and punishment. Corporate scumbags and felonious plutocrats have never had it so good.

    At the Securities and Exchange Commission, enforcement actions have fallen precipitously, and the commission ended several high-profile cryptocurrency inquires that involved Binance, Coinbase, and other firms. The workforce for the SEC’s enforcement division was cut by a fifth last year, with many experienced attorneys and accountants given the boot. The IRS, too, has been hammered by layoffs, and the number of audits of people with $10 million or more in income dropped by two-thirds [!] from 6,786 in 2025 to 2,264 in 2026. With new priorities established at the Justice Department—such as essentially shutting down the pursuit of cases under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—the number of white-collar prosecutions has fallen to its lowest level in at least 40 years, according to the Financial Times. [!]

    But beyond this, the Trump administration has taken steps to make sure that the United States is a safe space for money launderers, drug cartels, and international financial rogues. Who says so? The US Government Accountability Office. It recently released a report assessing Trump’s decision to loosen reporting requirements for shell companies. These are corporations that can have legitimate uses but are also set up so people or entitites can evade taxes, launder money, hide assets, and obscure the true beneficiaries of financial transactions. For instance, a sanctioned Russian oligarch might be able to use a shell company—or a string of them—to buy real estate in the United States and keep secret his ownership of the property.

    The Corporate Transparency Act, a bipartisan bill passed in 2021 [I snipped details describing that bill.]

    But one month into Trump’s second term, his administration essentially eviscerated this reporting requirement, when FinCEN issued rules exempting domestic companies and Americans from this disclosure. As the GAO put it, this new exemption applied “to over 99 percent of entities that were previously targeted.” [!]

    The GAO report—in exceedingly dry language—notes this exemption is a boon for assorted malfeasants:

    U.S.-based shell companies, often structured as LLCs or corporations, can pose significant risks of illicit finance activity. […] shell companies were used to facilitate financial crimes, including laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking, cybercrime, and fraud, among others […] The 2025 domestic reporting company exemption may perpetuate these risks.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the senior Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, […] cited the GAO as evidence Trump is on the side of the bad guys:

    The Trump Administration continues to put cartels and criminals ahead of law enforcement, opening the door for them to move millions of dollars through our financial system. […]

    […] Republican and Democratic senators have opposed the Trump administration’s wipeout of the Corporate Transparency Act, as have law enforcement organizations, business groups, and national security–minded think tanks of the right and left. The hawkish and neocon-ish Foundation for Defense of Democracies issued a statement last year that said, “Anonymous U.S. shell companies are not a theoretical vulnerability—they are a proven vehicle for illicit finance, sanctions evasion, corruption, terrorism, and transnational crime…FinCEN’s decision to exempt domestic entities would allow these practices to continue unchecked.”

    […] “There is growing evidence that [Chinese money laundering networks] are taking advantage of shell companies to help cartels move billions through the U.S. financial system.”

    […] Warren and other legislators suspect Elon Musk had something to do with this.

    […] Musk, who at that time was a key adviser to Trump […] might have been “benefiting from foreign investments made through legal entities designed to hide the identities of the foreign investors.” They [Warren and other legislators] cited the Financial Times: “Wealthy Chinese investors are quietly funneling tens of millions of dollars into private companies controlled by Elon Musk” through “opaque structures” and “an arrangement that shields their identities from public view.” [!]

    […] (The criminals that stole federal funds in Minnesota relied on shell companies.)

    This may well be a personal issue for Trump. His Trump Organization is a collection of hundreds of shell companies. (Such entities are commonly used for real estate transactions.) And during the 2020 presidential race, Trump’s campaign, according to the Campaign Legal Center, deployed an LLC to launder “$170 million in spending to conceal payments to people close to the Trump family and campaign.”

    Corporate reporting rules may seem like a wonkish topic. It certainly is not as visceral as Trump selling pardons or pocketing billions in crypto grift. But it may be more important, for Trump’s decision to protect the secrecy of shell companies—perhaps at the urging of Musk—has more far-ranging consequences than his own sticky-fingers corruption. It’s another way Trump is making America great for plutocrats, oligarchs, fraudsters, and scoundrels.

  317. says

    Followup to sub moron @305

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/ivanka-trump-seeks-spiritual-enlightenment

    “Ivanka Trump Seeks Spiritual Enlightenment By Building Giant Resort For Rich People”

    “They paved paradise and put up a Trump hotel”

    […] we sat through the first seven minutes of an interview she gave in which Ivanka Trump discussed her project with hubby Jared Kushner to build a luxury resort on an island off the coast of Albania while only thinking three times about throwing our laptop out the window. […]

    The island, Sazan, is a 2.2-square-mile outcropping in the Mediterranean. It’s a mostly untouched wilderness, covered by flora and fauna and military bunkers and landmines left over from when it was a Cold War outpost where Albanian soldiers watched out for the invading capitalist armies of NATO. Now that Albania is all free and whatnot, its leaders are trying to boost its tourism industry. And what better way to do that than buy the island for a reported $1.6 billion and build an ultra-luxury resort for rich people?

    Two years ago, the Kushners announced a deal with the Albanian government to develop a 10,000-room resort on Sazan. Now, most of us might look at this project and think of rapacious capitalism swallowing up yet another pristine wilderness in a world that has already swallowed up enough of those.

    For Ivanka, though, it is some sort of lifestyle choice […]

    “It feels more like … the culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel, a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people increasingly are wanting to live and trying to really build something that’s a tangible manifestation of that.”

    Oh Lord, spare us. People increasingly want to live in an ultra-luxurious Trump-branded resort decorated in enough gold leaf to fill 10,000 tacky Russian restaurants? When Ivanka Trump looks at how “people” want to live, she means the world’s most egregiously wealthy people. […]

    We have been to a couple of semi-luxury resorts. They can make for fun vacations! But Ivanka thinks she’s spending a couple of billion dollars to reinvent the wheel and fill that aching spiritual void in her chest. […]

    She also told the podcast host she had just returned from “walking the land, really just trying to sort of be with it and experience it.” […] Even the way this project came about is so, so fucking annoying:

    “We were on a friend’s boat and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it. We swam to the island, we went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated, and it stayed with us ever since.”

    […] The Kushners are not the only ones wondering how they can spoil the island. Plenty of Albanians are wondering that as well and have been out in the streets this week protesting the deal. It seems that there has been almost no consultation with the public about the fact that the project is being built inside a nature preserve along what one source called “one of Albania’s most valuable diversity areas.” […] Nearby areas are among the few remaining refuges for the Mediterranean monk seal, which environmentalists have been trying to save from extinction for a couple of decades.

    Alarm … had spiraled into public outrage when workmen began erecting a concrete-based, barbed wire-topped fence around the site near Zvërnec, installed a private security firm to protect it and heavy machinery started decimating ancient dunes and Mediterranean pine forests to clear the way for access roads.

    A Trump project that the locals do not like nonetheless plowing ahead without possibly securing all clearances, destroying willy-nilly irreplaceable natural wonders and blocking people who yesterday had access to the land from it? It’s every Trump project ever! It’s the border wall destroying animal habitats, it’s the East Wing getting torn down with no warning to the public, it’s Donald destroying the famous Art Deco panels on the Bonwit Teller building instead of preserving them as he had promised to do when he built Trump Tower.

    Also, the protests in Albania got rowdy enough for police to start using water cannons and teargas on the protesters. […]

    So add Albanians to the list of people who are sick of the Trumps’ shit. […]

    From The Guardian:

    […] “From start to finish there has been a total lack of transparency,” said Aleksandr Trajce, executive director of the country’s leading conservation group, the Protection and Preservation of the Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA). “We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits, and so now what we are saying is, if they remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking.” […]

  318. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/nick-fuentes-very-optimistic-about

    “Nick Fuentes Very Optimistic About ‘Fascist Dictator’ Spencer Pratt, Hopes He’ll Kill A Lot Of Unhoused People”

    Spencer Pratt, the former Hills villain who is running for mayor of Los Angeles and may or may not be (Nithya Raman is gaining on him! Fingers crossed! Votes are still being counted!) facing Mayor Karen Bass in the November election, has been attracting both surprising and entirely unsurprising endorsements from celebs across the C-Z list spectrum.

    Like how just the other day, Bill Maher was absolutely swooning over him, and that, I have to say, truly feels like the correct trajectory for Bill Maher. […]

    It also feels appropriate that Pratt has won the shriveled, rotting heart of Gen Z white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who is looking forward to what he believes will be Pratt’s fascist reign over the City of Angels.

    “There’s the Spencer Pratt election in Los Angeles, very exciting,” he said on a recent broadcast. “I really hope that Spencer Pratt makes the runoff and then becomes the mayor of LA. I love Los Angeles. See, this is the problem. I love these cities. I love LA. I love New York. I love Chicago. But what we really need is a fascist dictator to take over every one of these cities and murder all the criminals.”

    […] “Because these are the greatest cities in the world. They’re so rich, they have the best food, the best amenities, beautiful waterfront,” he said. “Think about how nice it could be. The problem is all these cities stink like weed and there’s too many homeless people and there’s too much graffiti and too much crime.”

    Well, anything we can do to keep Nick Fuentes out of our cities. Especially since he has expressed a desire to use human beings for fuel.

    “[…] we just need to put a lot of Black people in prison forever. We just have to find a final solution to the homeless problem. I don’t know, you know, we need to, we need more fuel, like that’s an idea.”

    A final solution. I’m trying to find words, I’m really trying to find words on account of how having words is pretty much my whole job, but there are no words. […]

    “I don’t care who does it, Democrat, Republican, please just kill these people, please,” he whined. “Can you just please kill these people, like seriously? Because you go to Los Angeles and unless you’re in the West Side of the city, it’s just total anarchy. You go to downtown, you go to the Garment District and it’s like Zombieland. Please just kill these people, please.”

    Yeah, I’m pretty certain that Fuentes himself is a whole lot more of a danger to society than any unhoused people […]

    So, just to be clear: Nick Fuentes, a rabid white supremacist who really wants to see people get murdered, looks at Spencer Pratt and thinks “Yep! That’s the guy for me! That’s the guy who is going to give me the fascist dictatorship and mass murder of my dreams.”

    But here’s the thing. Some might say “Oh gee, it’s unfair to hold all of that against Spencer Pratt! […]” Pratt spends a lot of time specifically dehumanizing unhoused people because he wants people to stop having empathy for them and instead see them as scary, dangerous criminals who are out to get them — the kind of rhetoric that ultimately inures people to rhetoric like Fuentes’s. Pratt has repeatedly claimed that they are all on “super meth,” which is not even a real thing. He claims that most of these people actually have homes but choose to live on the street, for funsies. […]

    In a recent interview, he also accused them of just wanting to abuse animals:

    “Well, they’re not homeless. They’re drug addicts. Most of these people are addicted to fentanyl and meth. This isn’t Spencer making that up. There is places for all of these people to sleep in LA. No matter what anybody tells you, we have housing and shelter for everyone that’s living on the street. They are choosing to be on the streets because they want to do drugs. They don’t want rules. They don’t want to listen. They want to have animals to abuse.”

    They absolutely do not. Indeed, one reason why some may choose not to go to shelters is because they don’t want to abandon their pets.

    Also, that is, in fact, “Spencer making that up” — only about 37 percent regularly use illicit drugs and alcohol, 50 percent haven’t used any illicit substances in at least six months, and 25 percent have never used at all, so his meth is not mething and his math is not mathing. […] And it’s worth noting that a whole lot of these people are self-medicating because they have untreated mental illnesses or PTSD.

    There are at least 46,000 unhoused people in LA and 16,000 beds available […] There are often a lot of empty beds, but that actually has more to do with issues in the system the city has for keeping track of them — which sometimes lists beds that are empty as full or vice versa.

    There are also entirely valid reasons people may choose not to go to the shelters — they fear their property is going to get stolen (which happens, a lot), there is a risk of physical violence, and a lot of these people have had really bad times in the shelters, unfortunately. […]

    These are the things people need to hear about the unhoused population, not Spencer Pratt’s bullshit, and certainly not Nick Fuentes’s.

  319. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/60-people-in-idaho-sick-from-drinking

    “60 People In Idaho Sick From Drinking Raw Milk, Because … Big Pharma?”

    About 60 people in Idaho have become sick after drinking raw milk in the last two weeks […]

    Idaho’s Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) announced Wednesday that the outbreaks started on May 19, and had been traced to two different “milking operations,” one in the northern part of the state and the other in southern Idaho. […]

    About 45 of the people who fell ill tested positive for the bacterial infection campylobacteriosis; not everyone who got sick was tested, and health officials warn that more cases may be identified as the investigation continues.

    While DHW didn’t publicly identify the sources of the infected milk, the agency said the dairies are cooperating with state and local public health agencies to “identify and fix any potential sources of contamination.” Good as far as it goes, but that doesn’t address the basic reality that […] the best fix for potential bacterial contamination of milk is to pasteurize it. Jesus, we’ve only known about that since the late 19th century. […]

    In a statement, Idaho DHW spokesperson AJ McWhorter explained that really, there was no need to name the milking operations tied to the illness outbreak “because this is a potential risk for any raw milk producer.” Did McWhorter go on to add that raw milk from other producers is also likely to make you sick, because of the whole “no such thing as safe raw milk” thing? Not so much. Instead, McWhorter reassured the public that the milking operations “are working with public health officials to figure out which patches of milk might be affected and to take steps to remedy the situation,” although getting out of the business of selling raw milk doesn’t appear to be one of those steps.

    This is at least Idaho’s second cluster of infections related to raw milk this year; in February, nine residents of Ada County, in the Boise area, became seriously ill after drinking raw milk. Two children were among those who got sick. In that outbreak, lab tests confirmed the illnesses were related to infection with E. coli bacteria, according to Central District Health, the local multi-county public health agency.

    CDH reported that the children were hospitalized for “hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a rare but serious complication of E. coli infection that can lead to kidney failure and long-term health problems.”

    […] raw milk has no nutrition benefits over pasteurized milk, no matter what loopy raw milk advocates may claim. It’s just more likely to make you sick. In addition to campylobacter bacteria, raw milk can transmit “Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella and Mycobacterium bovis, which can cause tuberculosis in humans.” It’s especially dangerous for children, the elderly, pregnant people, and folks who are immunocompromised. Bizarrely, raw milk enthusiasts pretend they’re “protecting” children from the big scary corporate dairies that use pasteurization, even though pasteurized milk is far safer for kids.

    Campylobacteriosis is an especially nasty infection that can cause serious illness and complications including Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Symptoms usually start two to five days after exposure, and last about a week; the symptoms include “diarrhea (sometimes bloody), fever, stomach cramps, nausea and/or vomiting.”

    On the other hand, you really piss off the liberals who want to crush freedom through over-regulating what we eat and drink, so it’s probably worth weighing whether you’re willing to risk socialism just for the sake of keeping your precious children from having bloody diarrhea or maybe dying.

  321. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to 109, 306, 314.

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    Platner tells Chris Hayes that allegations of being physically rough or that he knew the meaning of his tattoo are lies and “politically motivated.”

    Hayes brings up text shown to NYT by Lyndsey Fifield that shows knowledge of nazi tattoo in August of last year. Platner says that text wasn’t sent to him.

    Asked if he sent sexually explicit texts to other women while married, Platner basically says his marriage is private and he and his wife worked through it and are very happy.
    Hayes: “Are there texts, photos, floating around that will hurt the campaign in October? Are you worried about that?”
    Platner: “I’m not worried about it. There may be things out there but they’re from before I was public figure and got into politics. My journey is one of transformation.”
    […]
    JFC. Platner says his experience running for office is “why most regular people don’t want to get involved in politics.”

    What stood out […] is the way he uses progressive language about community and solidarity and accountability and openness to soften his image. As if to say, ‘could a man this aware *really* be capable of doing such horrible things?’

    […] he wants points for acknowledging he used to have an alcohol problem and was shitty to women, but the sexting allegations are recent! He was shitty to his wife recently. If she forgives him, fine, but you can’t say bad behavior is ancient history!

    Marisa Kabas: “He said they’ve ‘worked through it together [his sexting],’ indicating it created an issue in their marriage.”

    Max Kennerly (Lawyer): “His ‘record’ is: prep boy who wanted to kill people, became a mercenary to kill more, got a Nazi tattoo, spent time abusing women and posting misogyny, then ran for Senate. When did he ‘transform’?”

    Andrea LaFlamme (write-in candidate competing with Platner):

    “There may be [evidence floating around that will hurt the campaign].”
    FFS. Forget the flags. I have a literal masters degree in public health, I’m an actual union leader (in my second term as chapter president,) I’m a college professor, and a reproductive health advocate. And people are quibbling over if he abused his exes enough to be disqualifying.

    Anjali Dayal:

    if he really had the kind of drinking problem he says he did, he can’t really know if he was ever physically rough with a woman. A man determined to grow, make amends, and redeem himself would acknowledge that and take responsibility for not really knowing.

    You can make a lot of mistakes and still live a worthy life but you have to be less selfish and less determined to hold power than he seems to be.

    Rando: “For anyone familiar with or recovering from conservative Christian circles where ‘forgiveness’ for habitually abusive men is the credal norm, this demand from Platner that we accept him bc he’s ‘transformed’ offers a stark parallel.”
    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2026/06/05/forgive-and-forget/

    Cheryl Rofer: “Some liberal men have been dragged into the misogyny. Hayes is not too far from the pod save bros.”

    Cheryl Rofer: “Earlier today I was thinking that Trump has marinated us in misogyny to the point that even liberal men were being dragged along. But tonight I’m seeing that maybe the blatant misogyny is encouraging men to call it out.”

    Rando: “Graham Platner is the most Tulsi Gabbard of Kristen Sinemas that ever Joe Manchin’d a John Fetterman.”

    The nazi tattoo and Blackwater stuff was posted in the thread a few months ago.

  322. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Lawfare – The Jan. 6 pardons: How many clemency recipients have faced other charges?

    At least 97 of the more than 1,500 individuals granted clemency by President Trump for their roles in the January 6 Capitol attack have been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of crimes separate from Jan. 6 since their participation […] almost one in 16 insurrectionists
    […]
    the gamut from relatively low-grade offenses like property damage, possession of drug paraphernalia, and trespassing to serious felonies like grand larceny, stalking, planning to assassinate law enforcement officials and prominent politicians, and defrauding government agencies. […] At least 14, meanwhile, have been charged with sex crimes or crimes related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and at least six have faced domestic violence charges. Others have faced charges for physical assaults, illegal firearms possession, or other violent crimes. At least 20 have been charged with driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol or drugs or public intoxication.

    Perhaps most strikingly, five recipients of presidential clemency were arrested in connection with conduct that occurred at least in part subsequent to Trump’s freeing them from prison—meaning that Trump’s clemency order on the first day of his second term may have actively facilitated criminal conduct.
    […]
    What follows is […] the most comprehensive study yet of the crimes […] the pool of possible perpetrators is quite large. […] Unlike parolees, pardoned individuals are not subject to monitoring, reporting requirements, or oversight of any kind. The only way to know what becomes of them is to look. […] this problem has been compounded by the Department of Justice’s deletion of Jan. 6 defendant records, which Lawfare has worked to restore and archive. […] The 97 cases this study uncovered are, thus, almost certainly an incomplete universe of crimes
    [*snip*]
    if the Justice Department had been investigating and planning to indict Arvidson for any crimes he may have committed on Jan. 6, 2021, the president’s directive ordered that any such plans be curtailed. […] another sense in which [this is] likely an underestimate […] More than an estimated 10,000 individuals are believed to have participated in the assault on the Capitol that day.

  324. says

    As Trump prepares to make his pitch to farmers, he’s haunted by his record

    As MS NOW’s Catherine Rampell summarized, “I think few people in American history have done more to screw over farmers than Donald Trump.”

    Related video at the link.

    During Donald Trump’s recent trip to China, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas appeared on Newsmax and toed a sycophantic line in a rather specific way.

    “We trust in Trump that he’s over there making a great deal for us,” the senator said. “No one’s done more for American agriculture and rural America than President Trump, [Agriculture] Secretary [Brooke] Rollins and a Republican-only Congress.”

    The president did not, in fact, make a “great deal” for anyone during his China trip, but Marshall nevertheless appeared at a press conference days later and again argued that the Trump administration “has done more for rural America than any administration has ever done.”

    The Kansas senator didn’t point to any specific examples of the Republican administration actually delivering worthwhile results for rural America, and there was no great mystery as to why. As MS NOW host Catherine Rampell, pointing to tariffs, deportations and food aid cuts, explained soon after, “I think few people in American history have done more to screw over farmers than Donald Trump has in a very compressed period of time.”

    With this in mind, the president is scheduled to wrap up his week at a roundtable on American agriculture in Wisconsin, though I don’t envy his speechwriters. Marc Short explained in a Washington Post op-ed […]:

    Last year, America’s crop farmers lost $34.6 billion [!], and farm bankruptcies surged to numbers not seen since 2020, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. This year, 70 percent of farmers surveyed claim they cannot afford all the fertilizers they need. Fuel costs continue to rise as the Iran conflict remains unresolved and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

    Ninety-four percent of farmers reported that their financial situation has “worsened or remained the same” since last year. Fifteen thousand farms closed in 2025 alone. The New York Times chronicles the closing of American family farms: Bankruptcies were up 55 percent in 2024, 46 percent in 2025 and 70 percent by May of this year. [!!]

    Part of what made this notable is the author: In Trump’s first term, Short served as Trump’s White House director of legislative affairs, followed by a stint as then-Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff. Short is now the chairman of a group called Advancing American Freedom, Pence’s advocacy group.

    Now, he’s trashing his former boss in unambiguous terms.

    But as notable as it is to see Team Pence take aim at the Trump White House and its failures, it’s even more important to emphasize that Short’s indictment of the administration’s agenda is entirely correct: Many Americans have suffered as a result of the president’s agenda, but near the top of the list are farmers, many of whom voted for the Republican ticket in 2024, only to be rewarded with nothing but regressive policies that undermined the entire agricultural sector.

    […] the day before Trump prepared to make his pitch in Wisconsin, the agriculture secretary appeared on Capitol Hill and got an earful from congressional Democrats.

    “You and this administration have failed farmers and working Americans time after time after time,” Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, said in her opening statement. [social media post, with video]

    […] Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown of Ohio added, “So this is what a ‘golden age’ of agriculture looks like? Because if rising bankruptcies, falling farm income and worsening financial conditions are a sign of a golden age, I’d hate to see what a downturn looks like.”

    Eight years ago, Trump spoke at the American Farm Bureau’s annual convention, where he strutted like a man who assumed he was among adoring fans. “Oh, are you happy you voted for me,” the president said, straying from the prepared text. “You are so lucky that I gave you that privilege.”

    If he brings the same obnoxious message to Wisconsin, he shouldn’t expect a round of applause.

  325. says

    Trump Judge Refers DOJ Lawyers for Discipline in Trans Hospital Subpoena Case

    U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump appointee, on Friday referred Justice Department lawyers for disciplinary proceedings after writing that the attorneys’ “reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed to a federal court is appalling.”

    The order stems from the Trump administration’s attempt to trawl for sensitive information about trans kids by subpoenaing hospitals that provide gender affirming care. Some hospital systems — including the University of Michigan’s, as TPM first reported in August — stopped providing care altogether rather than fight the subpoenas. But others spawned lawsuits.

    McElroy, a judge in the District of Rhode Island, had ruled in mid-May to quash the Rhode Island Hospital subpoena, shooting down the DOJ’s thin argument that doctors’ use of off-label medications entitled the government to the names, social security numbers, addresses and medical histories of trans children who’d been treated there. [The judge was right to shoot that down.]

    […] Courts, at least up until the second Trump administration, operated under the “presumption of regularity,” in which government officials are presumed to have acted in good faith and followed proper procedure until proven otherwise. That presumption no longer holds, McElroy wrote.

    “As citizens, we trust that federal prosecutors, when wielding this awesome power against a state, a company, or certainly against vulnerable children, will play fair and be honest with its counterparts and the judiciary,” she wrote. “DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case.”

    Soon after it received the subpoena, the hospital engaged in active negotiations with the DOJ to try to narrow its scope. The Justice Department attorneys suddenly went quiet on the hospital, later discovered to have asked a friendlier court in the Northern District of Texas to force the production of documents that the parties were in talks over. The Child Advocate for the State of Rhode Island subsequently went to McElroy’s court to quash the subpoena, putting the case on two parallel tracks.

    And in Texas, the lead DOJ attorney, acting director of DOJ’s Enforcement and Affirmative Litigation Branch Lisa Hsiao, did not inform the court about deals the department had come to with other hospitals that included anonymizing the data it sought.

    “Her assertion that DOJ needed this information was therefore, at best, deceptive, if not intentionally and knowingly false,” McElroy wrote.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. District judge in Texas — Reed O’Connor, a Trump administration favorite — immediately granted the DOJ’s request to enforce the subpoena without even notifying the hospital or giving it a chance to respond. [!]

    A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel of one Clinton appointee and two Trump ones denied the hospital’s emergency request to stay O’Connor’s order during appeal in a one sentence order. O’Connor has ordered the hospital to turn over all the documents the subpoena compels it to provide to the court, where he said they will be inaccessible to the government during the appeals process.

    Judges across the country have balked at misconduct by Trump DOJ lawyers. In a major case involving the prosecution of the Chicago “Broadview Six” ICE protesters, a judge found last month that the DOJ attorneys had retracted portions of a grand jury transcript to mask egregious misbehavior, including dismissing jurors who disagreed with the government’s case. Defense attorneys for the protesters are now seeking sanctions.

    “The discrepancy between the honorable conduct expected of federal prosecutors and DOJ’s tactics in this case is unsettling,” McElroy wrote in the May opinion. “The Court cannot help but share the sentiment that ‘[t]he presumption of regularity that has previously been extended to [DOJ] that it could be taken at its word — with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes — no longer holds.’ It is regrettable that this is now the case.”

  326. birgerjohansson says

    There is apparently not anything known about the anglo-saxon goddes Eostre beyond her name and the various claims made about the origin of traditions should be taken with a grain of salt.
    Having said that, I assume the spring festivities of the Cananites was the precursor of the Jewish/Xian tradition we call Easter.
    (The Xian podcaster here is actually a proper skeptic that goes to the medieval sources)
    .https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1J584iV7rA/

  328. birgerjohansson says

    ^ ^ ^
    I forgot to mention, Trump needs to prove he has suffered economic harm, which would require him to provide the courts with his financial records – not something you like to do if you are a shifty bent bastard.

  329. says

    MS NOW:

    A federal judge ruled Friday that the Trump administration last year unlawfully paused final immigration decisions for individuals from countries affected by its so-called travel ban. The lawsuit, brought forward in March by various nonprofits representing immigrants, criticized several Citizenship and Immigration Services policies that paused final decisions on asylum, green card and citizenship applications for individuals from any of the 39 countries under the current travel ban.

  330. says

    New York Times:

    Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah showed little sign of abating on Friday, a day after the Iran-backed militant group rejected a U.S.-brokered cease-fire, as Israeli forces bombarded towns across southern Lebanon and ordered residents to flee.

  331. says

    MS NOW, (a summary of legislative votes already discussed up-thread):

    After a marathon session of votes Thursday and Friday, senators passed a roughly $70 billion reconciliation bill funding immigration enforcement as more moderate Republicans abandoned efforts to constrain President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion settlement fund — and a host of other controversies — and advanced the legislation without imposing any new restrictions on the president.

  332. says

    MS NOW:

    After successfully adopting a war powers resolution Wednesday aimed at reining in President Donald Trump’s military authority in Iran, House Democrats again bypassed GOP leaders on Thursday, delivering another rebuke of the president by advancing aid for Ukraine and new sanctions on Russia.

    The House passed the Ukraine legislation 226-195, with 18 Republicans joining all but one Democrat — Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — in support of the bill.

    The measure, led by Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York — the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee — would provide military and reconstruction aid to Ukraine while imposing new sanctions on Russia, including its oil and mining sectors […]

    “The invasion of a smaller democratic nation by a large authoritarian state is as black and white and pure and simple as it gets,” Meeks said during the House floor debate.

    […] The episode underscores a familiar reality: A small number of Republicans remain willing to break with Trump, but the overwhelming majority continue to back him.

    Still, the Ukraine bill was a reminder that, in a narrowly divided Congress, it does not take many GOP defections to change a legislative outcome.

  333. says

    Washington Post:

    As grocery prices continue to rise nationally, the House on Thursday passed an appropriations bill that would cut funding for a program that helps pregnant women and children purchase healthy foods. By a vote of 213-210, the House passed an appropriations measure to fund the Agriculture Department among other agencies.

    House bill rolls back food aid for pregnant women, children

    “Millions of WIC recipients would have less money for fruits and vegetables under the legislation, which funds the Agriculture Department and other agencies.”

    Family values, as expressed by the Republicans in Congress.

  335. Reginald Selkirk says

    DOJ argues Trump could ‘bulldoze’ Statue of Liberty during White House ballroom hearing

    A lawyer for the Justice Department told a federal appeals court panel on Friday that the Trump administration believes the White House ballroom project cannot be stopped by judges, and that even if the president wanted to “bulldoze” the Statue of Liberty, no one could sue to stop him.

    “Let me ask you a straightforward question: that this court, the Supreme Court, no court could stop the building of this [ballroom]?” asked Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee.

    “Yes,” answered Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Yaakov Roth…

  337. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Traitor’ – Elmo in hot water with New Yorkers over Knicks NBA finals

    New York City has been lit up with excitement as its beloved New York Knicks compete in the National Basketball League (NBA) finals.

    But one New Yorker’s failure to endorse his home team has landed him in hot water with Knicks fans.

    Elmo, the famous red puppet from Sesame Street, posted on X about the finals earlier this week. “Elmo hopes both teams have fun!,” said Elmo, whose fictional Sesame Street is located in Manhattan.

    Some fans are incensed at what they call “fence-sitting”. “Traitor,” one wrote online. The Knicks are currently winning a best-of-seven game series against the San Antonio Spurs for the championship. It is the first time the team has made it to the finals since 1999…

  338. Reginald Selkirk says

    Finland deploys new system to detect threats to undersea cables — distributed acoustic sensors measure vibrations from the seabed and informs the authorities and operators of suspicious activities

    Elisa, a Finnish telecommunications company, has installed detection equipment on its undersea cables to monitor the critical infrastructure. According to the company’s announcement, the system is based on Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), which turns the undersea cable into a long sensor that registers vibrations coming from the sea floor. The system has since been successfully tested, and it’s now being developed to automatically inform the Finnish Border Guard and the Finnish Navy, as well as the owner of the cable, of any irregularities…

  339. Reginald Selkirk says

    Democrat Xavier Becerra wins the top spot in November’s race for California governor

    Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the November election for California governor, according to a race call by The Associated Press. After days of counting ballots, it remains unclear who will claim the second spot in the fall.

    In California’s unusual primary system, all candidates, regardless of party, appear on a single ballot open to any registered voter. The top two candidates then move on to the general election. An estimated 3.5 million uncounted ballots remain. The state also counts mail-in ballots that arrive up to seven days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day…

  340. says

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump orders ‘less shackled’ new spy chief to GUT intelligence agencies

    “The president announced that he is putting his unqualified, stooge of a henchman in charge of our national intelligence apparatus, so that he can conduct an ideological purge of the intelligence community,” says Chris Hayes on Trump’s DNI pick Bill Pulte. Former CIA director John Brennan joins to discuss.

    Video is 6:14 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Fury over Jared and Ivanka’s plan to turn Albanian island into luxury resort

    Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump want to build a luxury resort on protected land in Albania, and the backlash is now spilling into the streets.

    Video is 6:08 minutes

  342. says

    U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pursuing federal government access to most Americans’ medical records, in a quest to research a link between vaccines and autism — a connection the medical establishment studied for decades and flatly rejects.

    The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking data from little-known state systems that allow hospitals and clinics to exchange detailed, identifiable patient information, KFF Health News has learned.

    […] concerns about allowing the federal government to peer into the minutiae of Americans’ medical records, which could mean viewing anything from doctors’ notes to prescription history. HHS has offered no insight into how it will protect or handle the personal health information it obtains.

    […] Kennedy told KFF Health News that medical records are key to investigating the cause of autism, vaccine safety, and chronic diseases. And millions of dollars in grant money has poured into a Nebraska nonprofit that has assisted Kennedy’s effort, according to state records.

    He and his advisers have been frustrated that federal access to Americans’ medical records has been limited.

    “[…] Kennedy said in a May interview, “We’ve had to go to the states and, luckily, we’ve got a lot of cooperation from the states, but we now have databases together that we can actually do the studies on. Those studies are in motion.” [What does “in motion” mean?]

    […] Kennedy faced blowback last year when he proposed compiling the medical records of people with autism to create a federal disease registry — which health department officials later disputed was underway.

    […] Trump has regularly echoed Kennedy’s doubts about vaccine safety and last week signed an executive order calling for the U.S. to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children.

    Kennedy’s political appointees and allies — including William “Reyn” Archer III, a former Texas health official and vaccine critic whom Kennedy hired as a senior adviser — have led the initiative for the health department to collect and examine medical records.

    Federal officials met with leaders of the state-run health information exchange systems several times over the past year and asked how the personal medical records they maintain could be used for vaccine research […]

    Last June, Behm [Craig Behm, who runs the Maryland health information exchange] and leaders of other state exchanges met with Kennedy’s top advisers to discuss sharing more medical data with federal agencies. The state organizations followed up with a pitch in October for a new surveillance system that would give the federal health department “real-time, 24-hour data feeds on opioid and chronic disease trends” within a year, according to a presentation reviewed by KFF Health News. Under the proposal, HHS would get data from 90% of the population’s medical records by 2028.

    Administration officials regularly asked during the meetings how the records could be used to monitor vaccine safety. Kennedy has rejected the federal government’s current vaccine-monitoring systems; decades of research has shown immunizations are safe and effective for most people. […]

    Nearly every state has at least one health information exchange — often regulated by state laws and run by private companies or nonprofits — that enables hospitals and health systems to immediately share patients’ medical records with one another. The systems allow doctors and nurses to quickly pull up nearly anyone’s medical history and records at emergency rooms or share after-visit summaries and notes with patients’ primary care providers, for example.

    In certain circumstances — most often dealing with cases of infectious diseases such as measles or flu — the exchanges notify public health authorities, like the state health department or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Using the exchanges for broader public health purposes is not an unusual idea in itself. But it can present privacy, legal, and ethical complications, health officials say.

    […] Jaime Bland, former CEO of CyncHealth — the Nebraska health information exchange used by most hospitals and health systems in the state — said several states are looking to “open up channels” to provide more analysis to Kennedy’s team.

    “They’re looking at the data differently and providing some insights back to the CDC,” Bland told KFF Health News. [Smells like bullshit.]

    […] Bland left her post at CyncHealth — where she was paid nearly $420,000 a year — in December. She was named in April as the chief data strategist for the MAHA Institute — a think tank founded by allies of Kennedy and Trump to advance their Make America Healthy Again movement.

    […] The federal government would pay the exchanges for furnishing the records, according to the proposal: $3 a person, annually.

    […] After the meeting, Nebraska’s health department was awarded a large grant from the CDC, and CyncHealth in turn got millions of dollars from the state. [More details regarding funding are available at the link.]
    […]

    Link

  343. says

    New York Times link

    “What Visual Evidence Tells Us About Israel’s Use of White Phosphorus in Lebanon”

    “Videos collected by The Times shows how the Israeli military has deployed a munition that can be extremely harmful over populated areas in Lebanon.”

    The Israeli military has deployed white phosphorus, an incendiary substance that can be extremely harmful, over populated areas in Lebanon in its battle against Hezbollah, according to experts, aid groups and visual evidence collected by The New York Times.

    Distinctive smoke trails from this type of munition were seen as recently as May 30 in Nabatieh, a city of roughly 40,000, in social media footage verified by The Times, which was filmed as Israeli forces captured Beaufort Castle, a landmark in the area.

    Other verified footage showed that white phosphorus had been used in the vicinity of the coastal city of Tyre, as well as near three small towns […]

    Once exposed to air, white phosphorus spontaneously ignites and is exceptionally difficult to extinguish.

    Often deployed by militaries to create fires and smoke screens during combat, white phosphorus is not illegal in itself, but deploying it deliberately against civilians or in an area populated by civilians violates the international laws of war. Human rights advocates have raised concerns that civilians have been affected by the Israeli military’s use of it.

    Israel denies using the substance in violation of those laws. It is not clear for what purpose the Israeli military used white phosphorus in these incidents.

    The Times asked the Israeli military questions about its use of white phosphorus in Nabatieh, Qlayaa, Khiam and Tyre in four specific instances and provided the coordinates for those incidents. The Israeli military had no comment on those incidents. The Times also asked the military about its internal guidelines for the usage of white phosphorus.

    “I.D.F. procedures require that such shells are not used in densely populated areas, subject to certain exceptions. This complies and goes beyond the requirements of international law,” it said in a statement.

    Israel uses American-made 155-millimeter M825A1 artillery projectiles that contain 116 felt wedges, in the shape of pizza slices, coated with white phosphorous. They are designed to create five to 10 minutes of dense white smoke, providing cover to fighters.

    The shells can be fuzed to break apart and dispense their cargo midair, which will spread their incendiary effect over a wide area. That can be used to create a smoke screen, but also will cause fires on the ground wherever the wedges land.

    The munitions can also be set to rupture on impact — to create a single fire, that militaries use as a visual marker to guide additional strikes.

    Munitions experts who analyzed recent footage from news agencies as well as social media posts concluded that the imagery showed artillery projectiles bursting midair in Lebanon, releasing streams of burning white phosphorous below — consistent with previous Israeli uses of American M825A1 shells.

    In response to questions by The Times, the Israeli military said that, “the primary smoke-screen shells used by the I.D.F. do not contain white phosphorus.” [I snipped other statements from the Israeli military.]

    […] Israel’s deployment of white phosphorus in populated areas has brought about scrutiny in the past. [I snipped examples.]

    The Lebanese government has filed four letters since October 2023 raising concerns about Israel’s use of white phosphorus to the United Nations and the U.N. Security Council. One of the letters, dated July 3, 2024, cites government figures showing that more than 600 fires have broken out as a result of the use of white phosphorus in southern Lebanon. [photo]

    […] “The harm that white phosphorus causes is horrific,” said Bonnie Docherty, a senior arms adviser at Human Rights Watch. “It inflicts burns that can penetrate to the bone.” The dense smoke it produces, she said, “causes severe respiratory damage, and organ failure. Wounds can reignite when bandages are removed and remnants of the substance are exposed to oxygen.”

    White phosphorous can also set homes, cars, buildings, fields and other objects on fire. An Amnesty International report from 2023 found that residents of Dhayra, a town in the south of Lebanon, fled after repeated release of white phosphorus on Oct. 16, 2023, and that cars and homes were still burning when they returned days later.

    Traces of white phosphorus can exist in water and soil long after its use, experts said, and forested areas and farmland can be significantly damaged. [photo]

    […] Establishing that white phosphorus has been used intentionally against civilians can be difficult. A Human Rights Watch report in 2009 found that the Israeli military had repeatedly used these munitions over densely populated parts of Gaza. Four years later, after international pressure from rights organizations, the Israeli military announced that it would significantly reduce its use of white phosphorus.

  344. says

    Trump to meet with artificial intelligence companies on government profit share plan as soon as next week, as reported by Politico.

    ‘There’s so much money and it’s so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public,’ Trump said.

    […] Trump said he will likely meet with AI companies at the White House next week to discuss what he called a federal government “partnership” that would allow the American people to profit in their success.

    The president said Friday that the program, which could include sending company dividends to Americans, would help secure buy-in from a public that remains skeptical about long-term disruptions — including to the labor market — of the technology.

    […] The policy concept, first reported by NOTUS, has been floated by OpenAI, which issued a policy paper backing a public wealth fund, and broadly discussed by Anthropic and billionaire Elon Musk, who runs xAI. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), recently proposed a bill that would create a 50 percent government ownership in AI companies.

    Though the ideas vary, the goal would be to give Americans an equity stake in AI companies to offset potentially historic disruptions from AI advancements to the job market and economy — though skeptics point to challenges in a government regulating an industry in which it is also invests.

    Both OpenAI and Anthropic are bearing down on massive IPOs, valued at over $1 trillion each. […]

    Trump’s former AI czar, David Sacks, an anti-regulation figure who recently played an influential role in temporarily halting the White House’s efforts to address increased cybersecurity risks from advanced AI models, came out against the idea of AI equity stakes Friday, calling it an acceleration of “the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward.”

    “Conservatives rightly fear a Central Bank Digital Currency. They ought to be even more concerned about Central Government AI — a system with even more totalistic power over information, decision-making, and human behavior,” Sacks wrote on X.

  345. JM says

    Veritasium: Something is jamming GPS over Europe. Here’s what we found
    It’s an interesting video. It explains GPS and orbital radio signals along the way. The important part sounds like a spy thriller. A GPS expert is tipped off by an anonymous source to something interfering with GPS over Europe. After a couple of years of tracing it turns out to be a Russian satellite. It’s remotely possible this is some weird accident by the Russians but it’s likely intentional. The obvious possibilities are they are doing a small scale test of a GPS jammer or they are broadcasting to spies in Europe.

  346. JM says

    @344 Lynna, OM: Profit sharing is a cover for abusive behavior by the AI companies. Both in how they took intellectual property to build the AIs and what they plan to do with it.
    Trump wants a hand in controlling what the AIs say. Ask it about great American presidents and Trump should come up near the top of the list, questions about Trump’s impeachments and convictions should be evaded.

  348. says

    Congress is looking to roll back state animal welfare laws as it wrangles over reauthorization of the federal farm bill.

    The farm bill, which Congress generally reworks every five years, includes money and federal rules for food assistance programs, farm subsidies, and other ag-related programs.

    A pending version of the legislation includes the Save Our Bacon Act, which would block states from regulating the raising of livestock. The measure takes direct aim at California’s Proposition 12, which requires farms to meet specific standards providing animals freedom of movement, cage-free confinement and minimum floor space.

    California’s law includes protections for egg-laying hens, but the current farm bill proposal that Congress is considering specifically excludes them.

    The California law also bars retailers from selling meats raised in other states that don’t meet the state’s standards. Opponents say that provision places a heavy burden on producers across the country who must meet different standards for different markets.

    “This legislation will stop out-of-touch activists — who don’t know the first thing about farming — from dictating how Iowa farmers do their job,” U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, an Iowa Republican, said when introducing the Save Our Bacon Act last year.

    […] An analysis by Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Clinic concluded that the Save Our Bacon Act could affect more than 600 state agricultural regulations, including seafood labeling requirements, food safety regulations and state restrictions aimed at preventing the spread of pests and diseases, such as the New World screwworm.

    “Congress would be overturning the results of democratic elections and devaluing animal welfare investments made by livestock producers across the country,” researchers wrote, noting it would take years for regulators and courts to sort out implementation of the legal change, creating years of uncertainty for regulators, consumers and producers.

    […] “Keeping a 500-pound gestating sow in a metal crate where she can’t ever turn around for the vast majority of her adult life is simply not good animal husbandry,” said Alicia LaPorte, senior director of communications and impact at Niman Ranch, a national network of hundreds of farms producing what they call humanely raised meat.

    […] By moving away from confinement to more humane practices like group housing, LaPorte said producers can see increased profitability through improved sow health, lower stress and higher conception rates. And growing demand for such products pushed laws like Proposition 12 in the first place.

    “The consumer drove the change,” she said, “and policy secured the marketplace.”

    Link

  350. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump pardons former Republican Rep. Stephen Buyer who was convicted of insider trading

    President Donald Trump announced he has issued a pardon to former Republican Rep. Stephen Buyer of Indiana, who was convicted of insider trading after leaving office.

    The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Buyer with insider trading in 2021, accusing him of trading stocks using private information about the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint from clients of his consulting firm that he established after he left Congress in 2011…

  351. says

    EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon likely to cancel missile deal with Germany over fears of Russia

    “The decision is part of a broader American retrenchment from the NATO alliance.”

    The Pentagon is expected to cancel a plan to send Tomahawk missiles to Germany partly because officials are concerned Russia will view it as an escalation, a startling reversal of a long-planned agreement with one of America’s biggest allies.

    U.S. officials fear Moscow will retaliate if the Trump administration follows through on the effort to deploy precision missiles in the middle of the continent, according to two European officials and one American official. But any decision not to deliver them would yank back a deal made during the Biden administration and leave Berlin without defenses German leaders say they desperately need.

    The move is part of a wider American retrenchment from the NATO alliance — including canceled deployments of thousands of U.S. troops to Germany and plans to pull back certain assets — as the U.S. upends the close-knit partnerships that cemented the relationship for generations. […]

    American officials, even if primarily fearful of Russia’s reaction, likely are also worried about the shrinking U.S. weapons stockpile. The U.S. churned through thousands of Tomahawk and Patriot missiles in the first weeks of the Iran war. [!] Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress last month that it will take “months and years” to replace the munitions spent in the military conflict. [!]

    […] The U.S. unveiled further changes to its role in NATO this week at a quarterly conference of military leaders. These include reductions in fighter jets, drones and naval units, according to WELT, part of the Alex Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO.

    […] Berlin has felt the retrenchment particularly hard. The Pentagon this spring canceled the deployment of 5,000 U.S. troops to Germany, a move that stunned European officials and GOP defense hawks.

    The troop decision, which reduces levels to what they were before the Ukraine war, came after Merz said President Donald Trump had “humiliated” himself with the Iran war. The Pentagon has not yet released the plan for those troops, two American defense officials said, and whether they might deploy elsewhere in Europe.

    The U.S. may worry about Moscow, but Germany and the rest of Europe must contend with an all-out war between Russia and Ukraine on their doorstep.

    Russian forces have long deployed nuclear capable Iskander missiles to the Kaliningrad exclave between Poland and Lithuania. They also have placed medium-range Oreshnik missiles in Belarus, which can reach all of Europe in a matter of minutes. Eastern and Central Europe officials have eyed the moves warily, as they are still working on fielding their own comparable systems.

    German officials have been exploring European alternatives to fill the long-range precision-strike gap. The debate in Berlin is less about any single weapons system than about how quickly Germany can acquire the ability to hold targets at a distance — whether through off-the-shelf purchases, expanded production with allies or longer-term European development.

    Drones and cheaper systems may help, but German defense planners do not see them as a one-for-one replacement for Tomahawk-class missiles. German officials are worried more broadly that the U.S. pullback will force Europe to close military gaps faster than its defense industry can deliver.

  352. says

    Multiple people have been shot near a festival in Toledo, Ohio, authorities say

    “Many victims have been taken to nearby hospitals, said police.”

    TOLEDO, Ohio — Multiple people were shot Saturday near a busy community street festival in Toledo, Ohio, and a search for the suspects was ongoing as victims were taken to nearby hospitals, police said.

    Toledo police officers responded to a report of a person shot near the Old West End Festival at about 5:30 p.m. When they arrived, they found multiple shooting victims, the police department said in a statement.

    Police said “many victims” were transported to medical facilities but did not provide further details on the injuries and how many people were shot. Authorities also did not provide any details on what may have set off the shooting. […]

  353. says

    European companies flee Cuba as US sanctions go into effect

    “As of Friday, EU-based businesses operating on the island risk having their assets frozen or getting locked out of the US financial system.”

    European companies from Spanish hotels to German shipping lines are ending their Cuban operations as Washington on Friday moved to intensify its decades-old embargo, expanding its focus from the regime in Havana to EU business ties to the island.

    Among the hardest hit are Spain’s Meliá and Iberostar hotel groups. For decades, the lush resorts they operated on Cuba’s most idyllic beaches were the crown jewels of their global portfolios. But over the past few weeks, the hospitality giants pulled their management and branding from dozens of properties on the island, with Meliá citing an “evolving geopolitical, social, legal, and economic environment.”

    The Spanish hotel groups’ exodus came just ahead of Friday’s rollout of severe new U.S. penalties targeting foreign companies that do business with Cuban state entities — especially the military-run GAESA conglomerate.

    The sanctions package is part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s broader campaign to topple Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s regime, but it risks dragging the EU — the island’s largest trading partner and its main source of foreign investment [!] — into the drama. Faced with the risk of asset freezes and exclusion from the U.S. financial system, European companies active in sectors ranging from shipping and logistics to energy and agriculture are desperately offloading their interests on the island and rushing for the exits.

    Last month, French shipping giant CMA CGM and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd suspended operations to and from Cuba until further notice. The companies, which account for an estimated 60 percent of Cuba’s shipping traffic by volume [!], both cited the threat of U.S. sanctions as the reason for their decision.

    According to Daniel Bernbeck, managing director of the German Delegation for the Promotion of Trade and Investment in Cuba, the new sanctions are of particular concern for medium-sized European companies operating on the island.

    “Smaller companies might be easily wiped off the map,” he told POLITICO. Bernbeck added that German groups involved in the country’s energy sector — which he declined to name, citing confidentiality concerns — might be at particular risk.

    Susanne Gratius, a researcher of EU-Latin American relations at the Autonomous University of Madrid, said the risks now outweigh the benefits of doing business in Cuba. The new status quo risked leaving the island, which is in the midst of a dire financial crisis, in an even more extreme “kind of real isolation.”

    [I snipped details related to sanctions against companies working with the Cuban military’s Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA) enterprise. The state-controlled entity operates the country’s banking industry, gas stations, supermarkets and most of its tourism sector.]

    […] The fresh sanctions are hitting Cuba’s once-powerful tourism sector at a moment when it is already in dire straits. Foreign visitors have been spooked by the country’s economic woes and energy shortages, which have made rolling blackouts a routine occurrence on the island, and turned to other destinations.

    As a result, Cuban tourism authorities reported a dramatic drop in annual tourist visits, from 4.7 million in 2018 to just 1.9 million last year. According to the Cuban government’s Office of National Statistics and Information, those numbers have continued to decline, with only 30,551 tourist arrivals recorded in April 2026.

    Beyond tourism, European companies risk exposure to U.S. sanctions by way of their involvement in the production of one of Cuba’s most famous alcoholic exports.

    Havana Club rum is produced through a joint venture between French drinks giant Pernod Ricard and the state-backed Cuba Ron company.

    […] French, [Spanish], and German authorities have limited themselves to saying they’re “closely monitoring” or “following” developments on the island.

    Bert Hoffmann, a German researcher on Cuban affairs, said European capitals are uninterested in entering into a direct clash with Washington over the issue. Authorities have effectively accepted “the U.S. will not let Europeans have a major role in the dealings with Cuba.”

    He added that countries like Spain didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

    “What should Spain threaten the U.S. with?” Hoffmann asked, emphasizing Europe’s lack of real power to counteract the U.S.’s moves.

    A broader, EU-led response is also unlikely.

    […] That stance was criticized by European Parliament lawmakers like Spanish MEP Leire Pajín, a member of the center-left Socialists and Democrats group, who said more needed to be done to take on “the U.S. embargo, which has repeatedly been condemned by the U.N. General Assembly” and protect European interests on the island.

    “The European Union must defend its strategic autonomy,” she said. “It must defend European companies.”

    French MEP Leïla Chaibi, a member of The Left group, was even blunter in her assessment of Brussels’ response to the threat of sanctions against European companies.

    “About Cuba, we are behaving with the U.S. like a little dog,” she said.

    This is serious … and it looks like Trump is going to get away with it.

  354. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Guardian – ‘They surprise me every time’: Bees can use tools to solve problems

    bees were shown to be able to roll a polystyrene ball to a specific location and climb on to it in order to access an artificial flower on a low ceiling [which was too low to hover]. The findings challenge the longstanding assumption that insects operate purely on instinct and mindless trial-and-error learning. […] [They were only] trained to associate a blue artificial flower with a reward of sugar water [and acclimate to a non-threatening ball]. In the most basic version of the test, 75% of the bees were successful […] “The animal must realise that an object can be repositioned and then used as a tool to reach an otherwise inaccessible goal. What stands out about the result is that this kind of spontaneous problem solving is now demonstrated in an insect.”
    […]
    scientists put the bees through increasingly complex versions of the challenge. In the final setup, the bees were allowed to explore a left and right chamber, one of which featured the artificial flower, before the ball was introduced. The scientists then illuminated the chamber with red light, preventing the bees from seeing the blue flower, and introduced the ball. To complete the task, the bees needed to recall the location of the flower and position the ball beneath it—and 23 out of 30 bees were successful.
    […]
    “We’ve seen bees do all kinds of remarkable things in our lab: counting, impressive object manipulation […] Bees are a model of how much intelligence you can squeeze into a small nervous system[“]

  355. Reginald Selkirk says

    Meet Splash: Rescue otter helps law enforcement agencies crack cold cases

    ENGLEWOOD, Fla. – A unique tracker with four paws is helping investigators solve cold cases and uncover hidden underwater clues.

    Peace River K9 Search and Rescue has added Splash, an Asian small-clawed otter, to its team to assist with difficult underwater forensic searches.

    What we know:

    Water has historically been an area where criminals could dispose of items with a high likelihood of avoiding detection. Splash is trained to use his nose to smell remains or evidence submerged in water, navigating through zero-visibility environments.

    Instead of relying solely on odor, Splash utilizes his whiskers like a powerful sonar system to find hidden targets. When Splash detects a target, he communicates with Peace River K9 Search and Rescue President Michael Hadsell through a tether line signal system, alerting Hadsell to seize his dive mask…

  357. says

    A bill that would raise the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from $250,000 to $5 million is being wrongly promoted as a benefit to “Main Street.”

    Going into November’s midterm elections, Democrats have put together a strong message that the prices of food, gas, healthcare, housing and utilities are too high and that Americans need to elect members of the party who take their financial struggles seriously. And that message has been working. Since […] Trump was elected in 2024 and embarked upon a term that has unsettled even those of us who were expecting the worst, Democrats have consistently over-performed in special and off-year elections. [I snipped examples.]

    […] preserving the party’s momentum rests on persuading voters that Democrats will take seriously the issue of affordability for everyday Americans. […]

    on one important issue, I fear Democrats may be walking blindly into a buzzsaw […] The issue is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees Americans that their bank accounts are insured up to $250,000. Some Democrats have bought into the idea that there needs to be a dramatic expansion of those federal banking insurance subsidies, and they are joining Republican supporters of the industry’s push. The legislation was introduced by Sens. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., and currently it is being debated in the Senate Banking Committee. The bill, which would expand federally-backed deposit insurance guarantees for business transaction accounts from the $250,000 cap to as much as $5 million, is being sold as protection for “Main Street.”

    But that’s far from the truth. [!] More than 99% of Americans’ bank accounts are already fully covered by the FDIC’s $250,000 cap. It’s been quite some time since a good survey was done, but in 2016, JPMorgan Chase reported that the median small business held an average daily cash balance of just $12,100. There is little in the legislation, then, for most small business owners.

    Indeed, the biggest beneficiaries of this legislation would be large corporations with treasury departments that are staffed to manage cash positions of this size. Those corporations already have plenty of options today to insure their accounts and to pay for those options themselves. [True] Under this bill, they would instead get coverage backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

    That is to say, those corporations would get coverage backed by you, by me and by every other American taxpayer. The legislation was also written to benefit all but a handful of the largest banks in the country, including more than a dozen with more than $100 billion in assets each. [yep]

    By guaranteeing deposits at such a scale, the federal government would be stripping banks and large depositors of any incentive to manage risk, thus recreating the “moral hazard” that helped drive the savings and loan crisis that cost taxpayers more than $120 billion. That crisis followed the 1980 deposit insurance coverage hike. This bill would subsidize wealthy depositors and banks by socializing the risk of the next bailout onto every American taxpayer. [Important points]

    The above is the economic argument against this bill. Now let me give you the political argument. Democrats win when we deliver our economic and affordability message. We lose when the party is seen as too cozy with Wall Street and other wealthy supporters. […]

    After all, voters never forget a bank bailout. The political damage of 2008 still reverberates today. The view that Democrats, who controlled Congress, were willing to rescue Wall Street while Main Street drowned was a generational wound. […]

    We see from the elections Democrats have won since 2024 that middle-class Americans are trusting us to make their lives more affordable. Voting to put those same Americans on the hook for the next bank bailout would be a horrible way to repay that trust.

    Democrats must not risk hurting their winning message on the economy by passing a giveaway for banking lobbyists and their wealthy clients.

  359. says

    Link

    There is so much high-profile big-time badness all the time right now that sometimes things that are just a little bit more low-key terrible get lost in the shuffle. So you might have missed just how much this administration has been decimating consumer protection rules.

    […] Sometimes the administration has help from the feckless Republicans in Congress and the Congressional Review Act. That allows Congress to overturn certain agency rules via joint resolution within 60 days of the agency finalizing and issuing the rule. If the president signs off on it, the rule goes away.

    So we’d love to hear from both President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders about how Joe Sixpack’s life is much, much better thanks to killing a 2024 rule that capped the overdraft fees that large banks could charge to $5 absent special justification to charge a higher amount. Thank god we can all return to fees roughly seven times higher. Per GOP Sen. Tim Scott, capping overdraft fees would “have led to reduced access to credit and important financial services for hardworking Americans.”

    How, exactly? Who can say!

    In December 2024, the Biden administration had finalized a rule that would have brought giant nonbank digital payment and wallet companies under the supervision of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. […] think Google Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, Cash App, and so on. The seven largest handle about $13.5 billion in payments annually.

    Republicans threw this out via the CRA as well, with Trump eagerly signing on. Whew. We’re so lucky that the bank-like apps we are all using to make billions in payments will continue to be unfettered by pesky bank-like regulations.

    Were the people of America crying out for higher credit card late penalties? The administration sure thinks so! So much so that it switched sides in a lawsuit so it could join the industry plaintiffs who had sued over it. Now, Americans can stand tall and proud, knowing we are free to have late fees ranging from $30 to $41 instead of $8. [!] […]

    The administration did the same little trick with a CFPB rule that would have removed medical debt from credit reports […]

    Were you dying to be contacted by debt collectors and sued for debts even though it is time-barred because the statute of limitations has passed? Trump has got your back, pal. […]

    Posted by readers of the article:

    These moves by Republicans and the Trump administration make perfect sense if you understand these high banking fees and penalties for what they are: a transfer of wealth from the poor and working class to the wealthy people who own most of the banking stocks. So allowing these high fees makes perfect sense if you understand that the GOP is dedicated to making rich people even richer.
    ————————-
    And remind me. How many times has Trump declared bankruptcy? Yet somehow for years he was not considered too much of a credit risk to stop providing him with loans that let him continue to extract more and more wealth from the system

  360. says

    Lawmakers demand answers after the White House initiated $620M loan to firm tied to Donald Trump Jr., by ProPublica.

    A group of lawmakers demanded answers from the White House this week following a ProPublica investigation revealing that a top aide to the president intervened to secure a $620 million Pentagon loan to a startup linked to the president’s eldest son.

    ProPublica’s reporting “reveals a staggering level of corruption and influence peddling that superseded this process, enriching the President’s son at the expense of U.S. national security and taxpayer dollars,” wrote the group of Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii as well as Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado and Mike Levin of California.

    Last year, the Pentagon announced the loan to Vulcan Elements, a small North Carolina startup, about three months after Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm took a stake of undisclosed size in the rare-earth magnet company.

    Interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that the request to lend to the firm was made by Peter Navarro, who serves as the president’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing and is a friend of Trump Jr.’s.

    Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was considering funding at the time, Vulcan’s was the only deal initiated by a top aide to the president, an official at the Pentagon who was not authorized to speak publicly told ProPublica.

    After defense officials got the White House request, they asked Pentagon staff to move at an unusually rapid pace, said another person who was involved in the deal at the Pentagon but not authorized to speak about it.

    “The call came from the White House: We have to get this done,” the person said. […]

    Navarro, who served as trade adviser in the president’s first term, and Trump Jr. have formed a close bond in recent years. The president’s son visited Navarro in prison while he served time for defying a subpoena from lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump Jr. was one of the small group of people Navarro dedicated his latest book to for having “my back when it was against the wall.” And a week before the Vulcan deal was announced, Trump Jr. hosted Navarro on his streaming show, encouraging his nearly 2 million subscribers to buy Navarro’s book. That interview was not long after word came down from Navarro to Pentagon staff to make the massive loan to Vulcan, one of the defense officials involved in the deal said. […]

  361. says

    Washington Post link

    “An airstrike trapped a journalist. She died as rescuers waited for permission to save her.”

    “A Post reconstruction of Amal Khalil’s final hours in Lebanon found that Israel’s military denied rescuers access to her during a key period when she was still alive.”

    BEIRUT — For two hours on April 22, rescuers waited five miles away from where Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was taking refuge, injured and bleeding but still alive inside a building that had been leveled by an Israeli airstrike.

    Responders from the Lebanese army, Civil Defense and Red Cross awaited clearance from international intermediaries. But the Israel Defense Forces was not giving the green light, according to two people familiar with the approval discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

    The rescuers first approached the building just before 6 p.m., but they retreated when a stun grenade went off near the team. By the time the IDF sent approval to intermediaries, at roughly 8:15 p.m., Khalil, 42, had succumbed to her injuries.

    […] News of Khalil’s situation had spread that afternoon, and organizations like Reporters Without Borders had publicly called for the international community to pressure the Israeli military to allow rescuers to reach her.

    A Washington Post reconstruction of Khalil’s final hours — drawn from medical records, call logs, satellite and ground images, along with 17 interviews with survivors, witnesses, first responders and military officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details — found that rescuers were denied access to Khalil during a crucial period when she was still alive.

    Khalil was killed by the third of three successive Israeli airstrikes.

    The first strike hit a car driving in front of her, the second destroyed her car as she hid nearby, and the third collapsed the building where she had taken shelter with another journalist. […]

    […] Several press freedom and human rights advocacy groups have condemned the attack, saying the strike on a journalist and the denial of medical access constitute war crimes under the Geneva Conventions. […]

    Of the 21 journalists and media workers killed worldwide in 2026, Khalil is the ninth to have died in Lebanon, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In 2025, a year when a record 132 journalists were killed, a majority of the deaths were concentrated in Gaza. CPJ found that Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the deaths.

    This isn’t the first time Israel has prevented emergency services rescuing journalists injured from their strikes, said Jodie Ginsberg, CPJ’s chief executive. [I snipped details of other instances of Israel’s “blatant disregard” for norms.]

    “Journalists are civilians and protected under international law. Israel’s blatant disregard for such norms — and the international community’s failure to hold them accountable — is abhorrent,” […]

    [At the link, a detailed report and timeline of Amal Khalil’s final hours are presented.]

  363. birgerjohansson says

    I cannot compete with the rest of you when it comes to digging up information about US society & politics (Europe is a different matter) so I try to dig upp odd little tidbits of brain candy and/or videos with kittens or puppies like cognitive benches where you can rest when the ugliness of the world gets through to you.

    (My favourite is videos showing kayaking with a cat at the prow)

  364. birgerjohansson says

    Sexism / vile social media content.

    “Carol Vorderman Takes Out Kenyon”, aka the Reform UK candidate that is spreading vile stuff.
    .
    Carol Vorderman just asked Reform’s candidate  Robert Kenyon to apologise for what he said about her. He refused, and may now be regretting it as she’s sent a letter to every woman in Makerfield explaining exactly what he and Reform UK are.
    .
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=8qXhFp4ptLQ
    More people should do what Vorderman did! Hold candidates to account.

  367. Reginald Selkirk says

    @365

    Trump storms out of interview after being challenged about election fraud claims, DOJ fund

    …
    “They’re cheating on the election,” Trump claimed. Pressed for evidence, Trump argued that “all I have to do is look … and I listen to people and let’s see what happens.”

    No, that’s not all you have to do. Imagine what a court would make of evidence of that quality.

    “Do you think it’s appropriate that they have an election and five days later, they’re nowhere close to picking a winner?” he said. “They’re crooked, just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked and ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked.”

    Welker attempted to press Trump for evidence to back up his claims, which he did not provide, and redirect Trump to a question about acting AG Blanche several times before the president pulled the plug on the interview and stormed off the set.

    “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough, thank you, darling, have a good time,” the president said as he crushed his lapel mic underfoot on his way out.

    Narcissistic psychotic break.

  369. birgerjohansson says

    Apparently another mass shooting. So far no information about anyone confirmed dead.

  371. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT – Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and his last days at ’60 Minutes’

    That’s February, and my team and I are doing a story about the protests in Minneapolis against the ICE crackdown […] I felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive and that they were half of these confrontations, and so I instructed my producers to find images in which we see the protesters acting aggressively. We found a picture of a protester chest-bumping an officer. We found a picture of an officer being hit in the head with a snowball. We culled together a lot of video of protesters screaming in the faces of officers because we were going to talk about the killing of Pretti and the killing of Good […] We also included a picture of Alex Pretti before he was killed kicking out a taillight on a police car
    […]
    about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.

    This is not what you see on the video. […]

    We have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had. […] Somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms. Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t driving toward him, but that’s what the president said about that, and that’s the way she wanted it described.
    […]
    I sat down with a video editor, and I went over the video of the Renee Good killing over and over again, and realized that the event was not as the president said and not the way Bari Weiss remembered it. And it’s late. Our deadline was noon. It’s now almost 5 o’clock. […] So I decided that I wouldn’t do those things.
    […]
    There was a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News. […] the bigger problem […] is not any kind of political influence. The problem was the incompetence. You don’t break a deadline. That episode came within 19 minutes of not making it to air. The entire hour of “60 Minutes”! It was the night of the Grammys. “60 Minutes” was the lead-in to the Grammys, and we almost didn’t have a broadcast. I pledged to myself that no matter what Bari Weiss wanted to do in a story, I would never break the deadline again because we put the entire network in jeopardy.
    […]
    [Interviewer]: Do you think Bari Weiss needs to be removed?
    [Scott]: Oh, gosh, yes. Look, she’s a lovely person. And her Free Press organization that she founded has been very successful. But television’s not her thing.

    Commentary

    Since when is yelling in an officer’s face the equal equivalent of shooting and killing 2 people?

    The US gov’t formed an army, told them to mask up, invade a city, and create terror and chaos. If you’re hunting around looking for a video clip of a citizen of that city throwing a snowball at one of those anonymous armed agents, you aren’t telling the story.

    How the fuck can Scott Pelley hear that and still say in this same interview that Bari Weiss is a lovely person and basically claim that the issue is inexperience instead of being a bootlicking, conservative piece of shit?

    Difficult really, to think of a single, more disgusting act a journalist can commit than lying to the public to justify someone being murdered by their government for activism. But this is who these people always were.

    Renee Good was not protesting. She and her wife were there as constitutional observers. So was Alex Pretti.

    I still have a hard time remembering that Bari is a mother and is gay. It seems unusual that she would have such little empathy for a mother being murdered in the street.

    Our modern politics always becomes more legible to me when I remember how white women behaved during slavery.

    They had no problem being treating *people they were an intimate daily contact with* in wildly dehumanizing ways.

    I feel like “I’m not like the others, I will happily sacrifice everyone or anyone for the cause and my own ambitions” [and then not thinking too much about if the Nazis she supports will turn on her for being a Jewish lesbian after they both get what they want] has always been Bari’s appeal.

  372. birgerjohansson says

    ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
    Awful corruption.
    🤮
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    Otaku Den: “Top 10 Upcoming Summer 2026 Romance Anime”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=0i_1WTVFDbE

    I don’t really “get” romance (except for the example in Solaris) but I recognise some people may appreciate it.

  373. says

    New York Times link

    “Iran Fires Missiles at Israel for First Time Since April Cease-Fire”

    Israel had attacked the outskirts of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, earlier Sunday, prompting Iran to retaliate.

    Iran attacked Israel with a limited number of ballistic missiles late Sunday after an Israeli attack in the suburbs of Beirut against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group. It raised the specter of a return to open conflict between Iran and Israel for the first time since a cease-fire paused the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran in early April.

    The Israeli military said that it had intercepted all Iranian missiles in the first of two barrages and announced at around 11 p.m. local time that citizens were free to leave shelters. The government ordered schools to be closed nationwide on Monday as a precautionary measure. […]

  374. Reginald Selkirk says

    2 Virginia residents sue to stop UFC fight at White House for Trump’s 80th birthday

    A U.S. federal lawsuit seeks to halt the upcoming UFC fight card on the White House South Lawn in a mixed martial arts show timed for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and part of the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

    The filing Saturday by the Public Integrity Project on behalf of two Virginia residents contends the Trump administration’s authorization of the June 14 event was unlawful. The lawsuit says such approval violated National Park Service regulations prohibiting sporting events on federal parklands, Congress did not consent to the towering arch overlooking the event space and no environmental review was conducted before the construction.

    “This is fundamentally a private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments for private gain,” said Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “And that is what is motivating this lawsuit.”

    The White House said in a statement that the legal challenge was “an obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory” attempt to prevent Trump from hosting the fight, and the event was “no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.” …

    IANAL

  376. Reginald Selkirk says

    Maverick GOP Sen. Packwood of Oregon, who resigned after scandal, dies at 93

    Former Sen. Bob Packwood, a moderate Oregon Republican whose reputation as a champion of abortion and women’s rights was spoiled at the end of his career by allegations of sexual harassment, has died. He was 93.

    Packwood’s death on Saturday was announced in an obituary sent to media outlets by his family. The release didn’t include additional details.

    When you’re 93, I don’t think reporting “cause of death” is really essential.

    Elected to the Senate in 1968, Packwood was best known as the leading Republican advocate of abortion rights and was widely admired by women’s groups throughout the country until the Senate Ethics Committee launched an investigation into the allegations of sexual and official misconduct in 1993.

    More than two dozen women, former employees and acquaintances, accused him of making unwanted or uninvited sexual advances…

  378. Reginald Selkirk says

    How an ‘Agnostic Atheist’ Got Students to Scrutinize Their Faith

    Bart Ehrman dissected the Bible at UNC-Chapel Hill for four decades. He wanted his students to think seriously about what it means to believe—and they did.

    When Chris Huntley was thinking of how Bart Ehrman should bid farewell to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, there was only one place to look.
    …
    Huntley kept that video in mind from the moment he started as chief marketing officer for Ehrman’s online course platform nearly five years ago. If anyone deserved a “last lecture,” Huntley believed, it was Ehrman: a New Testament scholar known worldwide for his enthusiastic speaking style and his ability to make granular details of the Bible—and their meanings—salient to broad audiences.

    When Ehrman decided to retire from university teaching at the end of 2025, Huntley booked a 400-seat auditorium at UNC-CH for an event that December. He commissioned mugs and shirts emblazoned with classic Ehrman sayings and asked two of Ehrman’s most respected colleagues, Hugo Mendez and Mark Goodacre, to deliver opening remarks, almost like a living eulogy. Attendees traveled from as far as Mexico and Argentina for the event, which Huntley kept free to maximize accessibility…

    Ehrman, a former Evangelical Christian, has been open about his atheism. But for the most part, he told The Assembly, for him faith and Biblical criticism have existed in different worlds. He made a career studying and speaking about incongruities in the Gospels, but his intent was never to sabotage his listeners’ religious conviction. It was to get people to become interested in examining their beliefs with a keen eye and be honest with themselves about their imperfections.

    In the process, he got tens of thousands of students in Chapel Hill—and hundreds of thousands worldwide—to think more seriously about what it means to believe…

  379. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mixing Pepsi and Milk is worth a try

    Pilk is when you mix Pepsi with milk.

    Most people have never heard of pilk, which is a shame because it’s a true revelation. Pilk is responsible for broadening my expectations of what a soft drink can be. Pilk is creamy, lightly carbonated and sweet, with hints of citrus, cinnamon and vanilla. To fully enjoy pilk, one must abandon their narrow-mindedness — but if you do, you will be rewarded with a truly irreplaceable sensation…

  380. JM says

    CNN: 7.8 magnitude earthquake hits southern Philippines

    An earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck Mindanao in the southern Philippines on Monday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

    Happened in the last hour so no details yet. 7.8 is big enough to do a lot of damage. There will be all sorts of damage reports rolling in later. Tsunami warnings are going out for the area and will likely spread into neighboring countries.

  381. whheydt says

    Re: JM @ #380…
    The BBC has a live thread on the ‘quake. Multiple surrounding countries have issued tsunami warnings.

  382. birgerjohansson says

    Ben Meiselas: 
    ‘Trump destroys his immunity with incriminating court admission.’

    [Is this why he has problems hiring good lawyers?]
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=M_0GowossHI
    If DJT does something as a private citizen or as boss of the Trump organisation he has no presidential immunity (which is itself a fishy concept).

  391. birgerjohansson says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 389

    For some reason I started thinking of Nero’s ‘Golden House’ . Ridicilous, as no contemporary leader would want such opulence.

  392. says

    Fact-checking Trump’s interview with NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’

    “Digging into some of the president’s claims about the Iran war, the Jan. 6 riots, California’s primary elections and more.”

    […] Throughout the interview, which aired Sunday, Trump made a series of false, misleading or exaggerated comments.

    NBC News reporters dug into some of the president’s remarks. Here are the facts behind the claims.

    Detailed fact checking is available at the link.

  393. Reginald Selkirk says

    @318

    Nithya Raman overtakes Spencer Pratt for 2nd place in LA mayoral race, results show

    Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman overtook former reality TV star Spencer Pratt for second place in the Los Angeles mayoral primary race on Sunday, the latest election results show.

    NBC News projected on election night that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will advance to the November runoff, but the question of who she will face in the general election remains.
    …
    Although NBC News has not projected which candidate will face Bass in November, Bass’ campaign released a statement following Sunday’s drop, referring to Raman as the mayor’s “general election opponent.” …

  394. says

    On campaign promises about foreign wars, Trump rewrites recent history

    “The candidate who promised not to launch a war has been reduced to ‘I didn’t guarantee ‘no war,’ ‘ as if we don’t remember the events of two years ago.”

    Before Donald Trump abruptly ended his latest “Meet the Press” interview, NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked the president to reconcile his pre-election assurances about not starting new wars with his decision to start a war with Iran. The host started to ask, “Did you break that promise to the American …” when Trump interrupted to say, “No.”

    Welker pressed forward, adding, “So you’re saying you didn’t break your promise. And yet, Mr. President, in your first term, you held to that promise, and it was so fundamental to who you were as a candidate, to a first-term president. What changed, because you insisted ‘no new wars’?”

    Trump replied, “First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” (As the exchange continued, the president tried to defend his position by referring to the stock market and then pivoted to attacking Welker’s professional integrity.)

    Let’s not brush past the rhetorical question the president posed. [Trump] seemed to suggest he had increased defense spending precisely because he intended to go to war, which is quite an admission. It also reflects the mindset of someone desperate to rebrand the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.”

    But the underlying point is just as important, if not more so, since Trump’s record is unambiguous.

    Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Trump and his team went to bizarre lengths to present the Republican as the “peace” candidate who would “expel the warmongers” from the federal government and lead as a “peacemaker,” while rascally Democrats prepared to lead us into war. Common sense might have suggested any thinking adult would know better than to believe such obvious nonsense, but some voters accepted these absurdities at face value and cast their ballots accordingly, optimistic that the GOP nominee would pursue a foreign policy rooted in restraint.

    In other words, many Americans believed Trump when he told voters, among other things, “I’m going to be the one that keeps you out of war”; “we’re not going to have war in the Middle East”; and “they said, ‘You will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

    Under the circumstances, the president could at least try to make the case to the nation that despite what he said on the campaign trail, he concluded it was in the nation’s best interest to go to war anyway. To be sure, that wouldn’t be an easy sell under the circumstances, but it would at least be an honest response when pressed on his pre-election promises.

    But that’s not the path Trump has chosen. Instead, the candidate who promised not to launch a war has been reduced to “I didn’t guarantee ‘no war,’” as if we don’t remember the events of two years ago.

    I’m reminded of a George Orwell quote from “1984” that I emphasized in my book about GOP efforts to rewrite recent history: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

    Video snippets are available at the link.

  395. says

    MADRID (The Borowitz Report)—Pope Leo XIV baffled event-promotion experts on Sunday by somehow drawing a crowd of 1.2 million people without hosting a UFC fight.

    By attracting a seven-figure audience with nothing but a message of humanity and hope, the Pope bucked the conventional wisdom that people will only turn out in large numbers to see men on steroids kick each other in the face.

    At the White House, Donald J. Trump reportedly “exploded with rage” at news of the pontiff’s crowd but later affected nonchalance during an Oval Office briefing.

    “Crowd size doesn’t matter,” Trump told reporters. “What matters is how long your reflecting pool is.”

    Pope Leo Draws Crowd of 1.2 Million Without Hosting UFC Fight

  396. says

    RFK Jr. is reportedly disengaged at the federal department he ostensibly leads

    “Of course he’s focusing on his pet causes instead of managing HHS: Kennedy has been put in a position for which he was wholly unprepared and ill suited.”

    A couple of months after taking the reins at the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat down with Dr. Jonathan LaPook, CBS News’ chief medical correspondent, who pressed the Cabinet secretary on some of his most controversial decisions. RFK Jr., however, repeatedly said he wasn’t aware of the actions LaPook was describing.

    It was an embarrassing moment, but it wasn’t an isolated incident. About a month later, during back-to-back appearances before House and Senate committees, the HHS secretary ran into a similar problem: Lawmakers kept asking Kennedy about steps he and his department had taken, and he kept responding with answers such as “When did I do that?”

    It reached the point at which Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington eventually told RFK Jr. that she wasn’t sure whether he was “the one making decisions” at the department he ostensibly leads.

    All of this came to mind while reading The New York Times’ new reporting on the way Kennedy manages HHS — or, in his case, fails to manage HHS. From the article:

    Mr. Kennedy has shown little interest in managing the details of work in his department, according to multiple colleagues. Instead, they say, he is single-mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long-held beliefs that vaccines are harmful.

    Deeply mistrustful of career civil officials, the secretary has surrounded himself with a close circle of handpicked advisers and stacked agencies with political appointees aligned with his views. While major posts have sat vacant and a wave of veteran health experts and scientists have departed, Mr. Kennedy has remained isolated from much of the department’s top staff.

    The Times’ reporting […] was based on accounts from a dozen people at HHS, including many who have had direct contact with him as secretary, who agreed that Kennedy rarely engages with department employees or members of Congress.

    Even his work hours have proven controversial: When he’s in the department’s headquarters in the nation’s capital, he “keeps a low profile” after arriving around 10 a.m., before departing by 4 p.m.

    The reporting is striking, but it isn’t too surprising. When Donald Trump nominated Kennedy, the list of reasons not to confirm him was long, though it emphasized his lengthy record of weird and conspiratorial beliefs related to public health, medicine and science.

    But there was a related practical concern that in hindsight probably received too little attention: The Department of Health and Human Services is a massive federal bureaucracy, which has a direct impact on the well-being of hundreds of millions of Americans. [True]

    Even putting aside his unscientific vision, Kennedy simply didn’t have the requisite skills, background or experience to lead a Cabinet agency of this size or importance. [True] Indeed, by all appearances, he didn’t even express any meaningful interest in being a managerial technocrat. [!]

    RFK Jr. is an activist and an advocate for his discredited conspiracy theories. Of course he’s disengaged as a secretary, preferring instead to focus his energies on his pet causes. Kennedy has been put in a position for which he was wholly unprepared and ill suited.

  397. says

    Hegseth faces pushback after voicing anti-immigrant message at D-Day commemoration

    “This wasn’t CPAC or a conservative media interview; these were prewritten remarks from a U.S. defense secretary at a solemn event.”

    Related video at the link.

    Every year, there’s an event in France to honor the anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and every year, a prominent U.S. official speaks at the commemoration ceremony to honor those who helped save the world.

    […] Unfortunately, the Trump administration decided to dispatch Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to speak at this year’s event, and there was pushback before he even arrived in France. A local group in Normandy issued a statement criticizing the Pentagon chief’s role at the event, arguing, “This individual carries values contrary to democracy, human rights and peace.” [Well that’s a candid statement of fact.]

    Soon after, the former Fox News host delivered his comments, at which point things went from bad to worse. NBC News reported:

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used a speech marking the anniversary of D-Day in France on Saturday, commemorating 82 years since the 1944 push to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe, to lambast what he described as another “invasion” of Europe’s shores.

    “Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies,” Hegseth said in a speech at the Normandy American Cemetery in ​Colleville-sur-Mer. “Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion, or is ​it too late? I pray not, and I believe not.” [social media post and video]

    […] This wasn’t CPAC or a conservative media interview, these were prewritten remarks at a D-Day commemoration ceremony.

    A day later, even Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, conceded during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that Hegseth’s remarks were “inappropriate.” […]

    After the ceremony, a British official said of Hegseth and his remarks, “I hope he regrets it.”

    Given everything we know about the defense secretary, that seems unlikely.

  398. Reginald Selkirk says

    Jeff Bezos Is Funding a Wild Hunt for the Brain’s ‘Core Algorithm’

    Jeff Bezos is backing Flourish, a new “neuro AI” startup with $500 million in funding and a reported $2.5 billion valuation, that aims to reinvent AI by studying the brain’s architecture and building systems that learn continuously while using far less power than today’s large language models. The company’s long-term bet is that neuroscientists and AI researchers working together can uncover the brain’s “core algorithm” and eventually create brain-inspired AI that runs on a tiny fraction of current compute. Wired reports: …

  399. says

    This is kind of funny.

    Ken Paxton’s Impeachment Defense Lawyer Endorses James Talarico

    A Texas lawyer who helped lead Republican Ken Paxton’s defense during his 2023 impeachment trial is endorsing Democrat James Talarico in the state’s critical Senate race this November.

    Dan Cogdell, a Houston-based defense lawyer who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, told NOTUS in a statement that his former client “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.”

    “And unlike Ken, I believe to my core that James Talarico believes in unity over division and that he knows how to assemble not only Democrats, but Independents and Republicans, and we need that right now,” Cogdell said.

    Cogdell has donated a total of $6,500 to Paxton’s campaign last year and then gave $1,000 to Talarico’s campaign in March, according to campaign finance reports. His endorsement of Talarico comes just after the third anniversary of Paxton’s impeachment by the Texas House of Representatives over allegations including bribery. […]

  400. says

    Trump thinks yelling on social media will solve his Middle East mess.

    After a weekend of nations firing at each other in the Middle East, President Donald Trump responded on Monday morning with a pair of pleading social media posts, underlining his inability to influence global events and actors.

    Iran fired missiles at Israel on Sunday following the decision by the Israeli government to bomb the suburbs of Beirut in retaliation for alleged Hamas attacks.

    “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting,’” Trump wrote.

    In another post later in the day, he said, “Both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE!” He added, “Final negotiations on “Peace” are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way.”

    In addition to the exchange of fire between Israel and Iran, the United States was also involved in hostilities over the last few days.

    On Friday, the U.S. military claimed that Iran fired “seven ballistic missiles” toward Kuwait and Bahrain and that U.S. Central Command shot down Iranian drones that had been launched toward the Strait of Hormuz.

    The chaotic situation and Trump’s social media posts come after weeks of conflict while Trump has repeatedly insisted that an end to combat is coming. Casualties have risen and the entire global economy has been negatively affected […]

    Trump and his administration have insisted that there is a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, even as hostilities continue. Even Trump’s allies in the conservative media, like the right-wing Newsmax, have openly described the administration’s characterization of the situation as a “farce.” [!]

    Trump has responded to the crisis of his own creation like he usually does, with a barrage of social media posts and strident rhetoric, but without doing the diplomatic work that past presidents have engaged in. His posts as firing continues demonstrates to both domestic and international audiences the exposed weakness of his current position.

  401. Reginald Selkirk says

    @166

    Meta Says Thousands of Instagram Accounts Were Breached Through Its AI Support Assistant

    Meta has finally put a number on how many Instagram accounts were breached after hackers tricked its AI-powered support chatbot into helping them take over accounts.

    The social media company filed a data breach notice with Maine’s attorney general’s office on Friday, stating that 20,225 people were affected. According to the filing, the breach began on April 17 and was discovered on May 31.

    Several outlets reported last week that hackers were able to convince Meta’s AI support chatbot to link email addresses they controlled to Instagram accounts they did not own. That allowed the hackers to reset passwords and take over the accounts…

  403. says

    Duke Energy could receive $28.4 million in taxpayer money to upgrade two coal-fired power units in Person County, North Carolina, where residents are already contending with the construction of new natural gas plants, a pipeline and a proposed Microsoft data center.

    The Roxboro plant in Person County is one of 13 projects nationwide expected to receive grant funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. The agency is invoking the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to fund the projects as critical to natural security, in the latest push by the Trump administration to boost the climate-damaging fossil fuel. [Map]

    […] The Roxboro plant is 60 years old and sits on the shores of Hyco Lake 1.5 miles from an elementary school. In 2020, state environmental regulators required Duke to excavate 17 million tons of coal ash stored at the plant’s west basin and two extension impoundments. […] The cleanup is scheduled to be complete by 2036.

    Previously, the unlined coal ash basins leaked and contaminated some private drinking water wells near the facility. Duke provided alternate water supplies to nearby residents as part of a 2019 settlement agreement between the utility and environmental groups.

    […] Steph Gans of Clean Water for North Carolina, which has advocated for the residents [said], “Using the Defense Production Act to allow Duke Energy to produce more coal ash while the EPA seeks to weaken coal ash regulations is not keeping Americans safe. It is choosing to put them in harm’s way.”

    […] Meanwhile, Duke, which earned $5 billion in profit last year, is asking the Utilities Commission to approve a 15 to 18 percent rate hike. The commission has been holding public hearings, where hundreds of Duke customers have testified about the financial burden of an additional $30 to $40 on their monthly electric bills.

    The additional revenue would pay for distribution, transmission and power plant projects, as well as the legally required excavation and cleanup of coal ash basins, including those at Roxboro.

    Other projects near the Roxboro facility include Enbridge’s T15 natural gas pipeline to fuel Duke’s new plants and a proposed Microsoft data center on 1,300 acres bought from Person County.

    “During Duke Energy’s rate hike hearings this year, customers said again and again how they resented being charged for Duke Energy’s coal ash clean up,” Gans said. “This action will keep those high costs going into the future.”

    Link

  404. says

    Netanyahu says Israel will strike Iran ‘whenever necessary’ after Trump’s ‘I call the shots’ remark

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to strike Iran “whenever necessary” following President Trump’s statement on Sunday that the U.S. calls the shots in the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.

    “Israel has every right to self-defense, and we will exercise that right whenever necessary,” Netanyahu said in a statement aired on Israeli television on Monday.

    “I say this to you just as I say it, with appreciation and respect, in my positive conversations with my friend, President Trump,” he continued.

    Iran on Sunday fired missiles into Israel, marking the first time Tehran fired at the country during the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Israel.

    Tension mounted between Israel and Iran over the weekend after Israel breached the security zone that serves as a buffer between Lebanon with intentions to target the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Israel had previously agreed to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Lebanon.

    “They believed they could fire at Israel from Lebanon and Iran — and that we would not respond. That did not happen, and it will not happen. Not on my watch,” Netanyahu said on Monday.

    Netanyahu warned that if Iran “makes a mistake and resumes attacks against us,” Israel “will respond forcefully.”

    The Israeli leader’s comments come after he spoke with Trump earlier on Monday, according to a White House official.

    Trump told the Financial Times shortly after the strikes on Sunday that Israel “won’t have any choice” but to accept any potential deal to end the war with Iran.

    “I call the shots. I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots,” Trump said, referring to his Israeli counterpart.

    Trump is delusional.

  405. says

    Followup to comment 397.

    […] America’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth […] made his way to Normandy to give a speech marking the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. His 13-minute ramble in front of assembled leaders and dignitaries was notable for two things: likening the Nazis’ defending beaches in 1944 to the Europeans needing to defend those same beaches today […]

    No, really. The man used a D-Day commemoration, in a cemetery where the remains of thousands of American soldiers lie in France, to chastise Europe’s immigration policies. It was one of the more undignified diplomatic fuckups we can recall from a presidential administration that has been nothing but undignified fuckups.

    […] The relevant part of the speech starts around the 10:20 mark. [video]

    […] What was the dangerous ideology storming Europe’s beaches 82 years ago? Does Hegseth think the democracy being brought to France’s shores by allied soldiers in 1944 was a dangerous ideology? Because we’re guessing Germany’s Nazi regime would agree with that.

    Hegseth managed to badly offend pretty much everyone, as is his wont. The Guardian quoted one British historian calling the speech “a special kind of loathsomeness: a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance.” […]

    The historian also called the secretary of Defense a “comic book nobody,” which is about the most accurate descriptions we’ve ever heard of Pete Hegseth.

    […] Pete Hegseth is a WARRIOR, with a WARRIOR ethos that he uses for WARFIGHTING, and America’s WARRIORS don’t have time to listen to your namby-pamby whining about diplomacy and appropriate times to raise political issues. Not when there are WARS for the WARFIGHTERS to fight! Not when, as Hegseth told his audience, America is too busy reviving a modern-day WARRIOR ethos at the Department of WAR!

    YAAARRGGGGH!

    Congrats to Europe for sitting through more of Hegseth’s “warrior ethos” crap, which he brings up in every public appearance no matter how dumb he sounds, repeating the words constantly like a busted speak-and-sing doll stuck in a loop. […]

    Hegseth allowed two of his kids who accompanied him on the trip to dress up in full camouflage fatigues while they visited the American cemetery and met World War II vets. It gave the whole thing a real “North Korean potentate taking his kids to observe ballistic missile launches” vibe.

    On the plus side, we think Hegseth looks grayer and older and more tired than he did a year ago. […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/secretary-shtfaced-goes-to-france

  406. says

    Followup to many comments up-thread about Trump’s meltdown during an interview conducted by Kristen Welker.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/too-emotional-to-be-king-tabs-mon

    […] did you see Donald Trump looking all red and wet and close to death absolutely screaming at Kristen Welker on Meet The Press because she kept asking for one scintilla of evidence that the 2020 election had been stolen, or that California is being rigged right now? Oh man, that two-bit dictator loser LOST IT. Credit to Welker for keeping going, though as always we note that it is permissible to use the words “lie” and “liar.” Anyway, he stormed off, big tantrum, too emotional to be king. […]

    On another topic:

    […] While all the Albanian citizens loudly scream that they don’t want those dead-eyed trash holes Jared and Ivanka building their shit resort on an Albanian island, the European Union is also warning Albania that Jared and Ivanka’s little project might hurt their chances to get into the EU. Oops. [Politico Europe] […]

    Related topic:

    Related, Donald Trump now would like to buy some islands in the Indian Ocean, to punish the UK for refusing to let him use the Diego Garcia military base as a staging ground to lose his stupid Iran war on the first day. [Reuters]

    US considers buying Chaos Islands

  407. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Let it hit rock bottom’: NBA Finals ticket prices crash after Donald Trump confirms attendance

    The NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs are underway, and with a 2-0 lead in the series, the New York Knicks are just two games away from the franchise’s first NBA title since 1973.

    However, should the Knicks complete a four-game sweep, many fans will be priced out of seeing the win in person, with the get-in prices for the games at Madison Square Garden being thousands of dollars.

    Predictably, the high prices aren’t impacting United States President and billionaire Donald Trump’s ability to attend the game, and he confirmed his plans to attend Game 3.
    …
    However, on Monday, the day of Game 3, ticket prices have plummeted, with the get-in price falling as low as $4,749, via TickPick.

    Predictably, fans didn’t feel bad at all about the price drop, but are well aware that prices are still out of reach for most people.

    “Let it hit rock bottom, that would be lovely,” one fan posted on X.
    …
    “A $6,000 drop and the cheapest ticket is still $4,749. That’s not a price crash, that’s just rich people getting a slightly better deal. Most fans are still watching from the couch,” another person added.
    …

  408. Reginald Selkirk says

    WhatsApp says it caught new spyware attacks linked to NSO Group in violation of court order

    WhatsApp said that it disrupted a new hacking campaign linked to NSO Group, a spyware maker that has been ensnared in countless cases of abuse all over the world. The messaging app maker accused NSO of violating an earlier court order that bars the company from targeting WhatsApp and its users with its spyware, and is seeking to hold NSO in contempt of court.

    On Monday, the Meta-owned chat app announced that it “caught and disrupted spear phishing attempts linked to NSO” after an investigation prompted by user reports. “They tried to trick people into clicking on malicious links to drive them to external websites outside of WhatsApp,” the company wrote. “We also caught them creating test accounts and groups on WhatsApp, which we took down.”

    Last year, as part of a years-long lawsuit launched by WhatsApp against NSO, a court ordered the spyware maker to stop targeting WhatsApp and its users. WhatsApp claimed that the new phishing campaign revealed on Monday violated this permanent injunction, and as such filed a contempt order against NSO.

    The injunction stems from a 2019 mass-hacking campaign by NSO that targeted more than 1,400 WhatsApp users. Following the discovery, WhatsApp notified the victims and sued the spyware maker. A jury ordered NSO to pay $167 million in damages, which were later lowered to $4 million…

  410. Reginald Selkirk says

    West Ham co-owner accused of preying on women for sex

    Multiple women have accused billionaire businessman and West Ham co-owner David Sullivan of abusing his power and preying on them for sex, in some cases when they were teenagers.

    The allegations from seven women have been uncovered in a joint investigation by BBC Panorama and the Times and span decades, starting in the 1980s. All come from women who were in their late teens or early twenties and were young models seeking work at Sullivan’s Daily and Sunday Sport newspapers.

    They accuse Sullivan of sexually exploitative and predatory behaviour, including pressuring them for sex during business meetings, where he offered to boost their careers if they slept with him or gave him oral sex…

  411. Reginald Selkirk says

    Two “progressive” super PACs linked to House GOP

    Two newly formed super PACs which purport to be progressive are linked to House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), a Popular Information investigation reveals.

    On April 24, a super PAC called California Blue registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). According to its bare-bones website, the PAC was created to support candidates who will “fight— really fight— against Donald Trump and the MAGA extremists attacking our communities.”

    California Blue’s spending patterns, however, are raising questions about its true intentions. All of its money is being funneled through a mysterious vendor — Four Ponies Consulting LLC, which was incorporated on April 29 in Wyoming. Of the tens of thousands of other committees registered with the FEC, only one other entity, Real Change PAC, has made payments to Four Ponies. California Blue and Real Change have spent over $1.7 million combined and every dollar has gone to Four Ponies. By routing their money through a newly formed LLC, both PACs are able to conceal their political ideology. Most established political vendors work exclusively with one political party.

    Real Change, which claims it is “dedicated to electing grassroots candidates who are committed to progressive values,” is suspected to be a clandestine Republican operation. In New Jersey’s 7th District, incumbent Republican Thomas Kean Jr. is at risk of losing in November. Real Change is spending money attacking the Democratic frontrunner, Rebecca Bennett, while promoting her primary opponents. Footage in the Real Change ads attacking Bennett was previously used by the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), the super PAC of the House Republicans…

  412. says

    Trump’s DOJ pretends California election conspiracy theories are worth taking seriously

    “More important than what Team Trump is saying when targeting California’s election is what Team Trump is doing.”

    Related video at the link.

    […] Trump spent much of last week railing against California’s recent statewide primaries, baselessly insisting the slow process of tallying ballots must reflect a “rigged” system. This week, the president picked up where he left off.

    In the early hours of Monday morning, he used his social media platform to argue there’s “no way” a candidate he liked has fallen behind in response to an updated vote count. Hours later, he emphasized the same point, insisting it’s “not possible” for his preferred candidate in Los Angeles’ mayoral race to lose ground as more ballots are counted.

    None of that made logical sense, but it is part of an exasperating effort to undermine public confidence. During his latest “Meet the Press” appearance, the president was even more aggressive on the issue, making all kinds of unfounded allegations. When NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked him to substantiate his claims with evidence, Trump replied, “All I have to do is look.”

    When the host explained that that wasn’t evidence, the Republican added, “And I listen to people.” (He didn’t say who, what they were saying or why he found these unnamed people to be more credible than official election results.)

    The problem, however, is not just hysterical conspiracy-mongering, all of which is demonstrably incorrect, from a president who has long railed against election results he doesn’t like. Just as important as what Trump is saying is what Team Trump is doing. NBC News reported:

    A federal prosecutor in California said Friday that authorities have launched investigations tied to the state’s recent elections following President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

    Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said Friday morning on X that his office was pursuing “multiple election fraud investigations” alongside the FBI, without providing details. [!]

    To date, no credible fraud allegations have been made, so it’s not at all clear what the federal prosecutors in California intend to investigate. [Another farce in the making.]

    Indeed, over the weekend, state Attorney General Rob Bonta told MS NOW there is no basis for the Trump appointee’s probe.

    “There are no details, […] there is no specific allegation of any individualized act of voter fraud,” the California Democrat said. “And every count, recount, hand count, court case and audit has shown time and time again — not just in California, but throughout this country — that there is no widespread voter fraud.” [!]

    Bonta added that claims of voter fraud are “only a figment of the imagination of Trump and others who follow that conspiracy theory.” [True]

    What I’m most curious about, however, is what happens when Essayli and his team look for evidence to bolster Trump’s accusations, only to come up short. Do they tell the truth and admit the election results were legitimate, inviting partisan rage from the right? Or do they bring baseless charges, inviting pushback from the courts?

  413. says

    Reginald @411, clandestine Republican organizations pretending to raise funds for progressive (Democratic Party, I assume) candidates is a new level of sneaky political tactics. Sheesh. There should be some way to put a stop to that.

    What are those rat-fucking Republicans doing with the money?

  414. Reginald Selkirk says

    Federal judge blocks Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee

    A federal judge on Monday struck down the $100,000 fee the Trump administration imposed on new H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers.

    In a 42-page decision, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin vacated the policy nationwide, concluding that the federal government overstepped its authority by imposing the fee without approval from Congress.

    “The President enjoys no such ‘inherent’ powers here,” Judge Sorokin wrote. “A tribe’s power to tax does not derive from the Constitution or any federal statute; rather, it exists as an essential and unique feature of tribal sovereignty. Unlike a tribe, however, the President has no authority to levy a tax unless such a power is delegated by Congress through statute” …

  415. Reginald Selkirk says

    Paxton’s impeachment trial attorney endorses Talarico in Senate race

    A lawyer who represented Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for nearly a decade over accusations of corruption and securities fraud is supporting Democrat James Talarico — and not his former client — in one of the biggest U.S. Senate races.

    Talarico on Monday drew attention to his campaign winning the endorsement of Houston attorney Dan Cogdell, who was part of Paxton’s defense team during the Republican’s historic impeachment trial in 2023 that ended in acquittal…

  416. says

    Immediately after the Supreme Court struck down the White House’s tariffs, the job market bounced back. That’s probably not a coincidence.

    Related video at the link.

    […]

    – Average monthly job growth in the immediate run-up to Trump’s tariffs: 72,000

    – Average monthly job growth during Trump’s tariffs: -4,900

    – Average monthly job growth in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s tariffs: 188,000

    What this suggests is that if Trump wanted an economic success story, all he had to do was nothing. He inherited an economy firing on all cylinders, which was the envy of the world. If he had spent every day golfing, the job market almost certainly would have continued to hum along quite nicely.

    But Trump couldn’t leave well enough alone, choosing instead to ignore literally everything we know about Economics 101 and imposing illegal tariffs that did economic, political and diplomatic harm to his own country.

    Trump has repeatedly railed against the justices who ruled against him in the tariffs case, including two he appointed to the high court. The latest job numbers, however, suggest he owes them a fruit basket, not condemnation.

    It’s something to keep in mind as the White House eyes new efforts to impose a fresh round of trade tariffs.

  417. says

    It’s getting kind of difficult to keep track of all the lawsuits against all of President Donald Trump’s efforts to turn Washington, D.C., into one of his resorts. This weekend brought us a brand-new one, with two plaintiffs suing to stop the Ultimate Fighting Championship fight scheduled for Trump’s birthday on June 14.

    It might seem like this lawsuit is a day late and a dollar short, given that we are just days away from this glorious event, but it turns out that the plaintiffs, along with the rest of us, only just learned exactly how bad this whole thing is.

    Last year, the National Park Service issued a temporary rule that exempted America250 events from permitting requirements, even if on the grounds of the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. However, that exemption is limited to “America250 events planned, organized, and executed by executive departments and agencies or the [United States Semiquincentennial] Commission.” If that wasn’t clear enough, the rule also says it applies only to events “for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Independence.”

    But “UFC Freedom 250” isn’t part of America’s birthday. It’s part of Trump’s 80th birthday, and there is no special exemption for that […]

    Far from being an official celebration of America, Freedom 250 is really just another way to bribe Trump. Much like the big dumb ballroom, large companies hoping for even bigger government contracts have ponied up so that Trump can feel like a big special boy.

    Now, having Freedom 250 be the organizer of the UFC match would still run afoul of the law, given the exemption only covers America250 events, but what seems to have urgency for the lawsuit is that a Freedom 250 spokesman said the White House fight is not actually affiliated with Freedom 250 either, nor is the IndyCar vroom vroom that Trump also demanded.

    So, the lawsuit points out, this is just a private for-profit sporting event. That’s why there are “brand partners” like crypto.com. […]

    Dana White has made sure everyone knows that the UFC fight is costing him $60 million, but he only expects to recoup $30 million, poor guy. That kind of overlooks that the UFC is selling “sponsorship” packages ranging from $1 million to $1.5 million. People who drop that coin aren’t really “sponsoring” anything—it just gets them a very expensive ticket. So, if the UFC sells 31 of these, it’s basically in the black.

    Another UFC bigwig, Mark Shapiro, made exceedingly clear that this is a profit-making opportunity for the ages: “This is the greatest earned-marketing tool of all time. It’s a once-in-a-generation moment. The kind of attention, awareness, and sampling we’re going to get from audiences around the world, on that day alone, will be more than we could get in an entire year.”

    Of course, folks who can’t make it can pay another Trump crony, David Ellison, to stream the fights live on Paramount+.

    Trump’s big mouth is also part of what landed him in this lawsuit. On June 3, he went on TikTok to say that the ghastly enormous octagon thingy that is currently wrecking the White House lawn was somehow just like the Eiffel Tower and “maybe we’ll never ever take it down.”

    Also undoubtedly a factor? Learning that weigh-ins for the fight will be at the Lincoln Memorial. Just makes your heart swell with patriotism, doesn’t it?

    We can pretty much predict the administration’s response to the lawsuit, right? It will be some variation on how it is unconstitutional to not let Trump do whatever he wants. […]

    As appalling as that is, at least the administration is openly acknowledging that the ongoing transformation of Washington into a low-rent slapdash crapfest can only continue if courts buy the argument that nothing is sacred in America save for Trump’s wishes. And it’s just adding insult to injury that his wishes are so ugly, tasteless, and tacky.

    Trump’s cage fight birthday bash faces legal switch kick

  418. Reginald Selkirk says

    Justice Department moves to strip citizenship from 17 people in unprecedented denaturalization push

    The Justice Department announced Monday that it will move to revoke citizenship from 17 people nationwide, marking the latest move in the Trump administration’s unprecedented push to target naturalized citizens.

    Since President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration has doubled down on its denaturalization campaign, targeting foreign-born American citizens whom it accuses of fraudulently obtaining US citizenship…

    Great! Start with Elon Musk.

  419. says

    Politico Europe:

    Russia struck targets across Ukraine overnight into Sunday, including an area near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a day after Kyiv launched a large-scale drone attack on Russian territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow’s forces hit infrastructure around the Chernobyl nuclear site, calling it ‘an extremely vile Russian strike.’ Ukrainian media say the Russian strikes hit a fuel storage facility in the exclusion zone.

  420. says

    MS NOW:

    A federal judge in Massachusetts on Monday struck down the $100,000 fee imposed last year on H-1B visas for highly skilled workers. In a 42-page ruling in response to a lawsuit brought by 20 Democratic states, Judge Leo Sorokin, an Obama-appointee, agreed with the plaintiffs who argued the fee imposed by President Donald Trump’s executive order in September amounted to an ‘unauthorized tax,’ as opposed to a ‘regulatory payment,’ as the Trump administration contended.

    Good news.

  421. says

    Washington Post:

    Senate Democrats on Thursday urged the Trump administration to halt production of a commemorative 250th anniversary solid gold coin that would bear the president’s image, citing concerns that some of the U.S. Mint’s gold could have links to foreign cartels. […]

    Hmmm. Interesting. I’ll be watching to see what happens next. Could be good news if it puts a halt to the effort to mint a gold coin bearing Trump’s image.

  422. says

    New York Times:

    A judge in Washington on Friday tossed a lawsuit filed by the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts against a jazz musician who canceled a performance at the venue’s annual Christmas Eve concert last year after the center’s board added President Trump’s name to the building.

    Good.

  423. says

    At a press conference outlining New York City’s plans surrounding the World Cup, which begins June 11, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was asked about Immigration and Customs Enforcement goon Tom Homan’s threats to send “more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen” to the Big Apple.

    Mamdani, who said he had heard similar threats from the Trump administration before, did not mince words reiterating his support of abolishing the racist federal immigration force.

    “I want to be very clear about the fact that I believe that ICE raids are cruel,” he said. “They are inhumane. They do nothing to serve in the interest of public safety.” [video]

    “The World Cup is supposed to be a celebration of the world as a whole,” Mamdani added, noting that the Trump administration’s unwillingness to grant visas to certain journalists, coaches, and athletes seeking to participate in the event “is anathema to what this tournament is supposed to be about.”

    Since returning to office, Donald Trump and his minions have been unable to demonstrate how his totalitarian use of the federal law enforcement apparatus has made everyday Americans safer or more prosperous. If anything, evidence points in the opposite direction.

    Link

  424. says

    Washington Post link

    “After Mormon lawmakers object, Pentagon revises Christian religious categories”

    “The Defense Department made changes after a list was released with many religious groups tagged ‘Christian’ but not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

    The Defense Department on Monday edited its new list of religious “codes” for service members so that no group is labeled “Christian” — drawing praise from Mormon lawmakers who were angered last week when their faith was categorized as outside of Christianity.

    On Friday, the Pentagon released a new, dramatically pared-down list of categories by which members of the military can be identified to receive religious and spiritual services. The list classified groups including Catholic, evangelical and Methodist, among others, with the tag: “Christian.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was listed without the tag.

    After the outcry from several leaders who are members of the Mormon Church, the revised list simply states religious groups, without adding the tag “Christian” to any.

    […] In speaking earlier this year about his plan to trim down the code list, and to scrap the Army’s spiritual fitness guide, Hegseth has talked about his own view of faith, saying military religious services should be more focused on “truth” and less on self-care.

    […] Hegseth has urged chaplains to speak more about scripture than psychology, and hosts monthly evangelical worship services that legal experts say are unprecedented. His social media profile and public comments routinely espouse his understanding of Christianity, which says that the faith is a defining aspect of American life and casts those who disagree with him as God’s enemies. Hegseth has brought clergy from his small Christian denomination to preach at the Pentagon, including a prominent pastor who says women shouldn’t have the right to vote.

    […] Among the dozens of faith groups no longer named in the codes are Wicca, atheists and humanists. Also removed were Unitarian Universalists, a faith group that came out of a merger between Universalists and Unitarians. Multiple Founding Fathers, including John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, were Unitarians.

    Retired Maj. Gen. William D. Razz Waff, the executive director of the Military Chaplains Association, predicted that the removal of religious and spiritual specifics will significantly complicate chaplains’ ability to do their job. [So Hegseth made everything more complicated. He made matters worse.]

    […] “I’m not talking about what individual Christians might think. I’m talking about the U.S. government,” he [U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who is Mormon] wrote on X on Sunday. “I can say confidently that the U.S. government has no business recognizing the Christianity of literally every other religious sect that worships Jesus Christ — with one exception.” […]

  425. johnson catman says

    re Reginald Selkirk@418:

    Great! Start with Elon Musk.

    And next, Melania Trump.

  426. johnson catman says

    re Lynna@421:

    Hmmm. Interesting. I’ll be watching to see what happens next. Could be good news if it puts a halt to the effort to mint a gold coin bearing Trump’s image.

    Next best news would be if the Treasury was stopped from printing The Orange Turd’s ugly face on a useless denomination of currency.

  427. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    the U.S. Mint’s gold could have links to foreign cartels.

    That would be on-brand for Trump.

  430. StevoR says

    Hmm ..not so sure this is a good idea :

    .. a team led by Brian Walsh of Boston University has proposed a bold method to actively strengthen that natural defense using a fleet of spacecraft designed to blunt the impact of space weather before it hits. The concept, dubbed StormWall, uses computer simulations to show that reinforcing the magnetosphere could reduce the intensity of a major geomagnetic storm by more than half. If realized, the researchers say the system could protect vulnerable satellites, global communications networks, GPS systems and electrical grids from potentially catastrophic disruptions.

    ..(Snip)..

    .. The StormWall concept is designed to interrupt this process. The system would deploy six spacecraft into geosynchronous orbit. Each satellite would carry stores of a “mass-loading material”— substances like barium, lithium, sodium, or calcium — that can be stored safely as a solid or liquid and vaporized on command.

    If a dangerous solar storm is detected heading toward Earth, mission controllers would command the fleet to release the material. Sunlight would quickly ionize the vaporized particles, transforming them into a cloud of electrically charged plasma, the study notes.

    This artificial plasma would drift toward the sun-facing edge of the magnetosphere, effectively thickening the boundary between Earth and the incoming solar wind. By adding mass to this critical frontier, the team found it could stall the efficiency of magnetic reconnection, forcing the harsh space weather to bounce around and past our planet.

    “It’s like people in a village who see a river flooding — maybe they can predict when that will happen, but probably what’s even better is if they could build a storm wall,” Walsh said in the statement. “That’s what we’re proposing here.”

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/scientists-propose-spraying-chemicals-into-earths-magnetic-field-to-protect-us-from-powerful-solar-storms

  432. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    StevoR @431:
    Eiynah Mohammed-Smith (Polite Conversations):

    This sort of verbal ass kicking is exactly why Sam Harris would never debate someone like Peter Beinart.

    Do not like Beinart’s breaking of BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions to give a speech at Tel Aviv University] but this was a great vid.

    Beinart has also said he stands up for prayers said for the literal IDF in his synagogue… Which is unbelievably disappointing/horrifying.

     
    Three days ago.
    Eiynah Mohammed-Smith (Polite Conversations):

    This man is a ghoul.
    [Video clip of Sam Harris: “There was no famine in Gaza”]

    [Harris Blog]: Why I won’t debate critics of Israel

    Lmao looks like someone has gotten a lot of criticism for their dogshit takes. While Sam is posting through his latest little meltdown, it’s obvious the only sorts of fans he has left are people like Ted fucking Cruz. lolol

    Ted Cruz: “Really excellent. Carefully argued. Worth Reading.” [that post]

    I remember several podcast bros arguing with me over the years about how Harris is simply not rightwing. I think I would die of shame if Ted Cruz was recommending my work to people.

    Nick Fish (American Atheists): “Surely the people who have written 2,498 columns about how you can’t even ‘debate’ trans identity will have something to say about this.”

    Rando 1: “It probably should’ve been a clue when Harris came out in favor of racial profiling, torture, and a nuclear first strike against Iran.”

    Alex Cruikshanks (Historian): “[Sam said] ‘The word has a meaning.’ But apparently it’s not the one used by the the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification or World Food Programme, the US’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network, the World Health Organisation, the ICRC or MSF, all of whom declared or concurred a famine took place.”

    Rando 2: “What’s truly insane here is that Israeli politicians and its military are like ‘Yeah, we actually are doing horrible things in Gaza, and we think it’s great and there’s nothing you can do about it’ and here Sam is trying to claim otherwise.”

  433. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Max Kennerly:

    NBC News: Thanks to Trump’s security demands, there will be no watch party outside MSG for Knicks fans in their biggest game in decades.

    Just days after Mamdani expressed his support for the gatherings.

    the primary reason Trump is going: he wants to cause a bunch of disruption for New York. To be sure, he always wants to make everything about him, and that’s a factor, but I still think the driving emotional impetus is his need to punish New Yorkers for not loving him.

    Rando 1:

    Incredible headline: No walking allowed in heart of Midtown for Monday’s Knicks game

    Honestly this is nuts, they’re establishing an 8-hour security perimeter around the most used transportation hub in North America, so one guy can attend a basketball game.

    Rando 2: “That he’s going to mostly sleep through.”

    Rando 3: “The guy who wanted the metal detectors removed on Jan. 6.”

    Rando 4: “Shop owners are going to be REALLY pissed!”

    Jay Willis (Balls&ampStrikes): “Friend waiting to get in to [Madison Square Garden] reports that when the motorcade rolled by Trump was waving out the window to ‘the loudest set of boos I’ve ever heard’.”

    Anjali Dayal: “SO FAR.”

    Per pooler Jeff Mordock: “POTUS was thunderously booed when he was shown on the Jumbotron during the National anthem.” [ABC video clip]

    Rando 5: “LOL if you thought the Trump boos were loud on TV, wait until you hear them from inside MSG. [Video clip]”

    Rando 6: “They weren’t booing sir, they were saying Boo-allroom.”

    Rando 7: “Notice how [he] waits until the camera is on him to salute the flag.”

  434. says

    Basketball update from USA Today:

    The Spurs held on to win Game 3 in Madison Square Garden, avoiding a 3-0 deficit, behind a 32-point performance from Victor Wembanyama. Stephon Castle added 23 points, while Dylan Harper had 13 off the bench. Game 4 will be played Wednesday, June 10. Tip-off begins at 8:30 p.m. ET.

    Final score: Spurs 115, Knicks 111

  435. chigau (違う) says

    Reginald Selkirk @428
    Seems a bit useless.
    Want some salt&vinegar? Eat your chips.

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