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

  1. says

    MS NOW:

    As the U.S. military blockades the mouth of the Persian Gulf and halts what little trade was still passing through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s major ports may be starved of their remaining trade. Although the strait has been nearly shut for most global trade since early March, some vessels, primarily Chinese-flagged ships, have been allowed to pass through unharmed.

  3. 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-1/#comment-2298111
    “Trump blockading thing that’s already closed in order to reopen that which was previously open.”
    And here’s Trump behaving like the literal antichrist as described in 2 Thessalonians and posting a meme of himself as Jesus: [social media post, with image]

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-1/#comment-2298107
    Trump II Spirals Deeper Into Madness in Bonkers Weekend

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-1/#comment-2298093
    Judge dismisses Trump defamation lawsuit against Murdoch, WSJ about Epstein letter

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-1/#comment-2298062
    Mexico’s Socialist president to roll out universal healthcare

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-1/#comment-2298058
    Scientists invented a fake disease. AI told people it was real.

  4. says

    NBC News:

    The U.S. military said Sunday that it blew up two boats accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of five people and leaving one survivor, as the Trump administration pursues its campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America […]

    Steve Benen reports that the number of boats blown up in this manner is now up to 48.

  5. says

    New York Times:

    It became one of the searing images of the Trump administration’s immigration operation in Minnesota earlier this year. After using a battering ram to break down the door of a home in St. Paul, federal agents handcuffed ChongLy Scott Thao and led him outside in subzero temperatures wearing only boxer shorts and slip-on shoes.

    On Monday, local law enforcement officials announced that they were weighing whether federal agents should face criminal charges, including kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, over the detention of Mr. Thao on Jan. 18.

  6. says

    Associated Press:

    The Trump administration said Monday it will resume flying a rainbow Pride flag on a federal flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, reversing course after removing the banner in February. The government revealed the decision in court papers as it agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ and historic preservation groups who had sought to block the removal.

  8. JM says

    CNN: Swalwell says he plans to resign from Congress amid sexual misconduct allegations

    Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell announced Monday he planned to resign from Congress following explosive allegations of sexual misconduct against him.
    The announcement from the California Democrat comes as he faced a just-announced House ethics investigation and mounting pressure on both sides of the aisle to step down. Swalwell, who has denied the allegations, had already suspended his California gubernatorial bid — though that did not tamp down the calls that he leave his job. The congressman was also confronting the prospect of a vote on the House floor to expel him.

    Not a surprise really, multiple independent accusations means he is probably guilty to some degree. I can see why a person would want to hold on to their congressional seat though, giving up the seat is probably the end of any real career.

  9. JM says

    CNN: Embattled GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales announces he’s stepping down from Congress

    Embattled Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales announced Monday that he would step down from Congress, just days before he faced the possibility of a high-stakes vote that could have made him the seventh member to ever be expelled from the House.

    Gonzales was on the verge of being ejected and figured going out on his own was at least a little cleaner. The evidence of his guilt is to great to pretend he didn’t have an affair.
    The Swalwell resignation seems to have prodded the Republican leadership into telling Gonzales to get lost. In the current environment it would be too much of a problem to let Gonzales stay after Swalwell had be pressed by Democrats into resigning. Politically it’s worse for Republicans then the Swalwell resignation is for Democrats but the public at large doesn’t see that as a reason to let him stay.

  10. Pierce R. Butler says

    I’ve opened windows … to drive the cat crazy.

    Seems a bit late for that.

  11. StevoR says

    A group of Palestinian human rights organisations are taking the government to the Federal Court seeking answers over Australia’s weapons exports to Israel.

    Represented by the Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ), they have launched legal action against the defence minister, calling for the release of documentation relating to dozens of military export permits to Israel that remained active throughout the war in Gaza.

    After a review, the Department of Defence last year acknowledged at least 30 permits for Australian companies to send “military use” items to Israel were cleared, and another 16 were still under “ongoing scrutiny”.

    But it has continuously refused to provide specific information about the nature of the exports.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-14/palestinian-legal-action-australia-weapons-exports-israel-f-35/106558340

  12. StevoR says

    Victoria Police has completed its preliminary investigation into an alleged Islamophobic attack where a man allegedly threatened to kill community members, and is weighing up what charges could be laid.

    On March 8, an uninvited man entered a community dinner in Ballarat, where he allegedly started punching guests, intimidating children and shouting racial death threats such as “f*** Allah, f*** Islam, death to Allah” and “go back to the s***hole where you come from”.

    Ballarat Police Acting Superintendent Jason Templar said if there was sufficient evidence, the man could be charged under hate speech laws.

    … (Snip)..

    The alleged intruder, a 37-year-old Ballarat man, has denied any wrongdoing and claimed he was attacked when he entered the Iftar dinner at a community hall to ask for help after his house was broken into by people unconnected to the dinner.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-14/victorian-muslim-community-waiting-for-charges-to-be-laid/106541178

  14. StevoR says

    “Leader” of the dregs of the leftover dregs of the LNP here in Oz :

    Social media screening of visa applicants would be ramped up and migrants who breach Australian values would be deported under a Coalition government proposal.

    Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will unveil the first part of his plan for a migration crackdown in a speech to the Menzies Research Centre on Tuesday.

    “Australians are fed up with politically correct preaching on immigration,” Mr Taylor will say.

    A key element of the plan would involve a social media review of anyone who applies for an Australian visa, similar to one rolled out in the United States.

    Limited details on the policy have been made available to the ABC ahead of the announcement.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-13/coalition-immigration-policy-angus-taylor-announcement/106559472

  16. StevoR says

    Just after NASA shows how valuable and inspiring it can be :

    A new White House fiscal year 2027 budget proposal for NASA is drawing sharp criticism from space advocates, who warn it could dramatically reshape the space agency by cutting overall funding by 23% and reducing its science programs by nearly half.

    The newly released FY 2027 top-line budget request for NASA reduces the space agency’s Science Mission Directorate from $7.25 billion to $3.9 billion, representing a 47% cut to science funding, coupled with a 23% cut to the agency’s overall funding. The nonprofit Planetary Society issued a statement in response to the budget proposal, urging that it is notable not just for its scale, but for how it departs from long-standing budget practices.

    “There are two things: the astonishing lack of transparency and the abject refusal to acknowledge political reality,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, told Space.com in an email, explaining that the request is a significant break from decades of precedent. “This is the least transparent NASA budget request I’ve ever seen — and I’ve literally looked through every single one since 1960.”

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/nasa-science-faces-very-serious-threat-from-new-white-house-budget-scientists-say

  18. birgerjohansson says

    “The Pope is weak on crime”. True. When he was commissioner of Gotham City he could not stop Two-Face and The Joker.

  19. Silentbob says

    @ 16 StevoR

    Just after NASA shows how valuable and inspiring it can be

    I assume you’re referring to spending $4 billion to re stage Apollo 13 fifty-six years later. Is that the “valuable and inspiring” thing?

  25. says

    RACHEL MADDOW: Surprise inspection catches shocking state of ICE immigrant prison

    Rachel Maddow tells the story of an ICE prison in Mesa, Arizona that would move immigrants out of the facility ahead of congressional oversight visits to conceal overcrowded conditions …until members of Congress dropped in unannounced. Rep. Adelita Grijalva talks about what she saw on a surprise inspection of the facility.

    Video is 8:25 minutes

    RACHEL MADDOW: Trump’s fear is palpable as authoritarian peer Orbán is resoundingly rejected in Hungary

    Rachel Maddow highlights some striking parallels between Donald Trump and the authoritarian regime his administration is modeled on, Victor Orbán in Hungary. Maddow notes that the basis for an authoritarian’s power is the sense that their continued rule is inevitable, so seeing Orbán tossed from power so handily by the voters of Hungary sends a clear and upsetting message to Trump, and an encouraging message to Trump’s opponents.

    Video is 11:37 minutes

  26. says

    Good news.

    Former Pence adviser Olivia Troye launches run for Congress as a Democrat

    “Troye, who resigned from the White House in 2020 and became a vocal critic of President Trump, will run in Virginia’s redrawn 7th Congressional District, which is Democratic-friendly.”

    […] She is positioning herself as “a proud Democrat” and “MAGA’s top enemy,” according to her announcement, someone who has “faced countless death threats from MAGA.”

    Troye will run in Virginia’s new 7th Congressional District, in anticipation that the state will pass a redrawn map to try to boost Democratic seats in the House. She faces a crowded primary field that includes Virginia’s former first lady Dorothy McAuliffe and multiple state lawmakers.

    […] Troye began her career in GOP politics working for the Republican National Committee and the George W. Bush administration. She became an intelligence officer and later was an aide in Pence’s office, working on national security and Covid-19.

    She left the White House in the summer of 2020 and became an outspoken Trump critic, eventually announcing she would vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden and appearing in an ad excoriating Trump and encouraging fellow Republicans to vote against him. The White House moved to discredit Troye and claimed she was fired, which she disputes.

    In her launch video Tuesday, Troye speaks of her childhood as “the daughter of a truck driver and a Mexican immigrant” — and her political evolution.

    […] “In 2016, I voted for Hillary, but after Trump won I kept showing up to work, because serving your country isn’t supposed to be partisan,” she says. “The evil I saw in that White House was staggering. In 2020, I finally said, ‘Enough.’ And they came for me. Kash Patel, Stephen Miller, even Trump himself.” […]

  27. says

    Trump focuses on arena for UFC fight at the White House

    “Two-thirds of Americans believe their unpopular president simply has the wrong priorities. He keeps proving them right.”

    The timing could have been better. On Saturday night, Americans saw JD Vance appear before reporters and announce that diplomatic talks with Iran had failed. At roughly the same time as the vice president alerted the world to the discouraging news, Donald Trump strolled into a venue in Miami to watch a mixed martial arts fight.

    The New York Times noted soon after, “It was unclear whether the president knew that negotiations had failed by the time he entered the arena for the U.F.C. event. … He wasn’t tapping away on his phone — he left that to Mr. Rubio, who at one point leaned over to show the president his screen — and he didn’t betray disappointment or anger.”

    Given the stakes and seriousness of the diplomatic efforts, one would ordinarily expect an American president to be at least somewhat engaged in the process. Trump, however, appeared more interested in his violent entertainment.

    This remained the case on Monday afternoon. The Hill reported:

    President Trump detailed new plans for a UFC fight the league is planning on the White House grounds in June.

    ‘I’ve been involved in a lot of big events, I have never had an event that has had more interest than the UFC fight we have right at the front door,’ Trump told reporters gathered outside the Oval Office on Monday.

    Pointing to the South Lawn, the Republican told reporters, “Right there, they’re going to start building a 4,500-seat arena, and then in the back, at the Ellipse, we’re going to have 100,000, maybe 50,000 to 100,000 people, I guess. They’re building tremendous stages, and we’re going to have massive screens of the fight. It’s a very popular sport.”

    Trump was referring to an upcoming UFC event at the White House, scheduled for his birthday, in June, which is something he brings up quite regularly.

    […] The president remains fixated on his long list of distractions and trivialities.

    Amid widespread concerns about the struggling economy, a deadly and destabilizing war that hasn’t gone according to the White House’s plans, and a burgeoning global energy crisis, recent polling has found that two-thirds of Americans are convinced that their unpopular president simply has the wrong priorities.

    Trump keeps proving them right.

    [Trump] is focused on UFC bouts. And cheap attacks against Bruce Springsteen. And promoting himself as some kind of American Jesus. And don’t even get me started on his obsession with his ballroom vanity project.

    What’s more, this keeps happening. At a White House event last month at the Kennedy Center, the president spoke at great length, not about the war he initiated in Iran, but about paint colors and his marble preferences.

    It came on the heels of related preoccupations, covering everything from the Super Bowl halftime show to his dissatisfaction with the Grammy Awards to his whining about which comedians are making fun of him.

    As part of the president’s appeal in the E. Jean Carroll case, his lawyers argued in a court filing that Trump is simply too busy to deal with the civil litigation, which was odd for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that Trump doesn’t seem focused on his weighty responsibilities at all. […].

  28. says

    JD Vance tries and fails to clean up Trump’s religious messes, scolds Pope Leo

    As this week got underway, the White House apparently wanted to focus on tax policy. Donald Trump made sure that didn’t happen, shifting the focus instead to his latest controversies related to religion.

    On Sunday night, the president not only publicly slammed Pope Leo XIV, but he also decided to use his social media platform to promote an image that appeared to present himself as some kind of American Jesus.

    As is often the case, it fell to JD Vance to try to help clean up the mess. Unfortunately for the vice president, that didn’t go especially well. [video]

    On the image that drew rebukes from many of Trump’s own political allies, Vance told Fox News, “I think the president was posting a joke. And of course he took it down because he recognized that a lot of people weren’t understanding his humor in that case. I think the president of the United States likes to mix it up on social media.”

    The problem with this sad defense is that we know it’s untrue. We know this for certain because Trump said so: Hours before Vance’s on-air comments, the president specifically told reporters that he wasn’t trying to be funny but rather promoted the image because, as he put it, “I thought it was me as a doctor. … It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better.”

    To be sure, that defense was quite bonkers given the relevant details, but it was also the opposite of the defense his vice president brought to a national television audience.

    It was at this point that Vance also decided to weigh in on Trump’s offensive against the pontiff. [video]

    […] what was notable was how Vance presented his case.

    After suggesting that policy disagreements between U.S. administrations and the Vatican are not “particularly newsworthy,” the vice president added, “I certainly think that in some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.”

    In case this isn’t obvious, the pope drew Trump’s ire by speaking out on matters such as a deadly and destabilizing war in the Middle East and the plight of immigrants seeking a better life. Whether Vance appreciates this or not, those are, by any reasonable measure, “matters of morality.”

    […] it was the latest in a series of humiliations for the beleaguered vice president.

  29. says

    It’s the Corruption, Stupid

    In the aftermath of Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary, a typically shallow conventional wisdom has already emerged that unless President Trump gets the economy turned around, Republicans are going to have hell to pay in the 2026 and 2028 elections.

    The NYT quotes the right-wing commentator Rod Dreher, who decamped to Hungary to work for an Orbán-funded think tank, as explaining the election result thusly: “When all boats aren’t rising, everybody looks at who’s on the yacht. In terms of MAGA, populism is great, but if you can’t deliver on the economy, none of it is going to matter.”

    That is abundantly true and yet terribly misleading because the economic mess we’re in is entirely of Trump’s own doing. [! True.]

    […] In historic fashion, Trump has torpedoed key pillars of the global economy by launching unprecedented trade wars and an unjustified elective war in the Middle East that has bottled up world oil supplies to such an extent that it threatens a recession. At home, he has dramatically throttled back the economic engine of immigration, targeted America’s world leading universities, and decimated its vibrant scientific and biomedical research base. [All, unfortunately, true.]

    Except for the racist assault on immigrants, all of these moves are not driven by ideological imperatives but by corrupt impulses. The economic damage Trump has done was crafted purposely to create opportunities for self-enrichment for him and his allies. [!]It generates its own currency which can be used to perpetuate his political power. What he dispenses he can take away.

    he AP sums up the Trump family kleptocracy succinctly:

    The family real estate business is undergoing the fastest overseas expansion since its founding a century ago, each deal potentially shaping everything from tariffs to military aid.

    Led by Eric, and his brother, Donald Jr., the family business has expanded into cryptocurrencies with ventures that brought in billions of dollars but raised questions about whether some big investors received favorable treatment in return.

    The brothers have also joined or invested in a number of companies that aim to do business with the government their father runs. Last month, they struck a deal giving them stakes worth millions in an armed drone maker seeking contracts with the Pentagon and with Gulf states under attack by Iran and dependent on the U.S. military led by their father.

    It always sounds a bit earnest to deplore corruption, but one of the practical reasons for eschewing corruption is because at best it acts like an invisible tax on economic growth. At worst, it corrodes the economic engine to the point that it doesn’t properly function any longer. […] the Trump DOJ has explicitly stopped enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and we’re now in a grubby race to the bottom.

    Any notion that Trump can get the economy “back on track” or dampen the economic shockwaves he has unleashed ignores the substance of what he’s done. Not only are Trump’s second term attacks on economic growth hard to reverse, let alone quickly, they’re deeply wired into who he is and what he’s about. [All too true.]

    The Economic Warning Signs
    – The Middle East conflict is causing oil scarcity and rising prices that are contributing to significant “demand destruction” which could lead to the steepest drop-off in demand for oil since the COVID slowdown, the International Energy Agency is forecasting in its latest outlook.
    – The International Monetary Fund warns that the Middle East conflict will slow economic growth, fuel inflation and raises the possibility of a global recession.

    Latest on the Middle East Conflict …
    – Israeli and Lebanese officials gathered in D.C. for rare direct talks — the first in a decade — as the Netanyahu government has seized on the wider conflict to advance Israel’s position on the ground in Lebanon.
    – Bitter irony alert: Talks between Iran and Trump administration are complicated by “the risk that any agreement that emerges may resemble the 2015 nuclear accord” that Trump abrogated in his first term, the NYT reports.
    – House Republicans have again abdicated their oversight roles by pushing off until at least May testimony originally scheduled for next week from senior Pentagon officials on the war in Iran.

    Lawless Boat Strike Death Toll: 170

    The U.S. attacked an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific on Monday, bringing the campaign’s overall death toll to at least 170. In announcing the attack, the U.S. Southern Command introduced new Orwellian language: “Applying total systemic friction on the cartels.”

    Meanwhile, the Trump administration is waging a pressure campaign against the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to squash a potential investigation into the boat strike campaign, The Intercept reports.

    Link

  30. says

    Good news.

    New York Times link

    “Threats to Library Funding End With Settlement by Trump Administration”

    “The American Library Association and a union of cultural workers filed a lawsuit arguing that cuts ordered by President Trump were illegal.”

    The Trump administration has reached a settlement with the American Library Association and a union of cultural workers, bringing to an end its yearlong effort to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency.

    The settlement, reached by the Justice Department last week, affirms that the agency will continue issuing grants and operating its programs, which provide support to institutions in every state and territory. The Trump administration reaffirmed that it had reinstated all previously canceled grants, in keeping with a separate legal ruling last year, and reversed all staff reductions. It also promised not to take any further steps to reduce the agency.

    Sam Helmick, the president of the American Library Association, said the threats had set off “a chain reaction” of cuts in services and called the settlement a victory for “every American’s freedom to read and learn.”

    “This settlement protects life-changing library services for communities across the country,” Helmick said. […]

  31. says

    WIRED link

    “Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated With Religion”

    ON EASTER SUNDAY, US Department of Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins sent out an email titled “He has risen!” to the entire agency. In the email, Rollins calls the story of Jesus Christ the “greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.” […]

    I don’t have access to the rest of this report.

  32. JM says

    @28 Lynna, OM:

    After suggesting that policy disagreements between U.S. administrations and the Vatican are not “particularly newsworthy,” the vice president added, “I certainly think that in some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.”

    Trump did this to both Vance and Pence, sticking them into corners where they had to pick between serving the president and following their religion. Pence stuck by his fringe religious beliefs hard. Vance appears to have given his up his religion instantly for a show of loyalty to the throne.

  33. JM says

    Raw Story: DoorDash PR chief hammered after company accused of staging pro-Trump stunt: ‘Crash out’

    On Monday, President Donald Trump was greeted at the White House by Sharon Simmons, a 58-year-old DoorDash delivery driver who handed off two bags of McDonald’s food to the president. During the encounter, Simmons championed the president’s no-tax-on-tips provision included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is set to expire at the end of 2028.

    It was soon uncovered, however, that Simmons had advocated on behalf of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act during a congressional hearing in 2025, leading critics to allege the delivery to have been “staged” to benefit Trump, and other critics to accuse Simmons of being a “MAGA-paid prop.”

    Not really a surprise, Trump having Door Dash delivered to him by a vocally pro-Trump delivery person in front of the press was obviously staged. The thing is, typical for this administration, their staged press event was staged badly. The Door Dash delivery person they had was flown in for the event and had advocated for Trump at congressional hearings in the past.
    The video is awkward. Trump wandered off script and the delivery person didn’t know how to handle the situation.

  34. JM says

    Reason: Federal Reserve: Without Tariffs, Inflation Would Have Dropped to Pre-Pandemic Levels During 2025

    Those tariffs have raised core goods prices by 3.1 percent, according to a new study by a trio of economists at the Federal Reserve. Those higher consumer prices were the result of retailers passing the cost of tariffs along the supply chain.
    As of February 2026, the tariffs “can explain the entirety of the excess inflation in the core goods category since January 2025,” the economists concluded. “Our estimates indicate that tariff effects on prices gradually build over time, with cumulative effects seven months after implementation consistent with our theoretical measures of full dollar-for-dollar pass-through.”

    This is last year and early this year, before the effects of the current climb in oil prices. The tariffs being entirely the reason for inflation is surprising but it was obviously the cause of a good bit. I suspect that uncertainty about the tariff and the desire to keep prices low to avoid drawing Trump’s attention caused it to take a long time for the price increases from the tariffs to kick in.

  35. JM says

    Reuters: Strait of Hormuz traffic barely affected on first day of US blockade, data shows

    The first full day ​of a U.S. blockade on vessels calling at Iranian ports made little difference to Strait of Hormuz traffic on Tuesday, with at least eight ‌ships including three Iran-linked tankers, crossing the waterway, shipping data showed.

    The US blockade has not changed much in a situation that is already messy. Only a few ships were crossing and still only a few ships are crossing. The US blockade isn’t trying to stop all ships, only certain ships, so a few ships crossing is expected. What real impact, if any, the US blocked is unclear. The US says it has turned away ships but have not said which ships.
    The biggest question is can the US enforce that blockade in a meaningful way? The US can easily turn away small ships from small countries but is the US willing to board a Chinese oil hauler making a transit without US approval? Who will try without US approval? Will anybody try without Iran’s approval? How will they get approval from either country?

  36. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/misogynistic-rape-enthusiast-andrew

    Details at the link.

    Content note: sexual assault, sex trafficking, misogyny

    Excerpt:

    […] Why am I telling you this horrible, horrible, deeply disturbing story? Because just recently, Andrew Tate — the violent, (alleged) sex trafficking misogynist who was in prison in Romania until the Trump administration freed him (no sex trafficker left behind!) and who makes a large portion of his money teaching men how to trick women into making them money as cam girls and allegedly inspired Kyle Clifford to violently murder three women — shot to the very top of Substack’s New Bestsellers list. Tate joined the site earlier this month and has since racked up 1.1 million followers … which is pretty incredibly depressing. ][…]

    Problems arise for other sites that are hosted on Substack:

    As a result, Substack ended up trending on social media yesterday, with many people (fairly!) saying that they would no longer support any site hosted on the platform. Who is a website hosted on the platform? Wonkette is a website hosted on the platform. Many users already left Substack when it was revealed that they hosted several anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi sites (and made money off of them, too). It’s likely that more will leave now.

    […] There’s an argument that could be made for allowing all speech, no matter how vile, but there’s not really one for allowing (and benefiting from) monetization.

    [I snipped a discussion of YouTube, TikTok and Meta.]

    […] Unfortunately, we are not in really a position to leave because (inside baseball!) we have 22 years of posts that would need to be transferred to a new site — something that took many months and tens of thousands of dollars the last few times we’ve done so. It would be a whole lot better for us if the platform would just not host and make money off of neo-Nazis and violent misogynists. It’s not actually that hard. If practically every other site on earth can do it, we think Substack can manage. […]

  37. says

    EXCLUSIVE: Musk’s Grok AI chatbot is still making sexual deepfakes, despite X’s promise to stop it

    “An NBC News review found dozens of AI-generated sexualized images of real women posted to X over the past month.”

    Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence software, Grok, continues to generate sexualized images of people without their consent, despite his company’s pledge months ago to halt abusive deepfakes after a public backlash and government investigations.

    A review by NBC News found dozens of AI-generated sexual images and videos depicting real people posted publicly on Musk’s social media app, X, over the past month. The images show women whose likenesses were edited by the AI chatbot to put them in more revealing clothing, such as towels, sports bras, skintight Spider-Woman outfits or bunny costumes. Many of the women are female pop stars or actors.

    The Grok software, created by Musk’s company xAI, made the images at the request of users who tried to break through undressing restrictions the service put in place in January. Grok, via its X account, or the users then posted the images to X.

    The images are similar to ones that sparked a firestorm of criticism in January, when Musk’s companies freely allowed people to undress others simply by uploading photos and typing prompts such as “put her in a bikini.” Musk’s companies had cheered on the idea, promoting the “spicy mode” of his AI chatbot. The flood of fake images, including some of children, prompted government investigations on five continents. […]

    More at the link.

  38. coffeepott says

    @36 i appreciate the abundance of wonkette posts shared here, i used to be a daily reader of that site. i considered becoming a paid subscriber countless times, and that it’s hosted on substack is what stopped me. eventually i stopped visiting any substacks.

    wonkette has been using the ‘it takes so long to transfer our historic posts’ excuse for months, and okay sure but you’ll keep losing readers by not at least getting the process started by posting new content elsewhere.

  39. says

    Follow-up to comment 31.

    Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission takes aim at the separation of church and state

    For Americans who expect the government to remain neutral on matters of faith, leaving religious decisions to Americans without political interference, Donald Trump’s second term has been unsettling.

    Federal agencies are pushing overt Christian messaging to the public while inundating federal workers with religious communications. Powerful cabinet secretaries have abandoned all subtlety in their embrace of Christian nationalism. Republican officials at the state level have passed laws to impose the Ten Commandments in public schools. [All too true.]

    The vice president has insisted that the United States is a “Christian nation,” raising unavoidable questions about whether people of minority faiths or no religious beliefs have been relegated to second-class citizenship. The president, who has claimed the ability to inform the public about God’s wishes and who has implored Americans to gather in groups of 10 to hold weekly prayers ahead of the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, recently used his social media platform to promote an image that appeared to present himself as some kind of American Jesus.

    If it seems as if Team Trump and its allies are opposed to the separation of church and state, it’s probably because it’s been quite explicit in its rejection of the constitutional principle. My MS NOW colleague Ja’han Jones highlighted the final hearing of the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission, which didn’t appear focused on religious liberty.

    To give you a sense of the tone, the commission’s chairman, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, went on a rant calling the separation of church and state ‘the biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding.’ Each speaker after him parroted a similar line, framing liberals as some kind of threat to free religious expression.

    The separation of church and state, however, is not a “lie”; it’s a bedrock principle of our system of government. [!] In fact, I’d refer Patrick to the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

    According to Thomas Jefferson, those 16 words created a “wall of separation between church and state” — and he’s a bit more credible in this area than the Texas Republican.

    […] If GOP policymakers are against the idea of government neutrality on matters of faith, it’s incumbent on them to elaborate on their preferred model. Do they envision a theocracy along the lines of Iran? Do they support a governmental system in which politicians base policy decisions on their interpretations of religious doctrines? Should those who are not religious or are members of minority traditions expect to be penalized by their own government?

    These need not be rhetorical questions. If the White House’s so-called Religious Liberty Commission wants to flaunt its opposition to the First Amendment, it should be prepared to offer its proposal for what should come next.

  40. says

    Zelenskyy will fix Druzhba oil pipeline as he counts on Hungary to lift EU loan veto

    “German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the €90 billion loan to Ukraine must now be ‘disbursed quickly.'”

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that the damaged Druzhba oil pipeline would be operational by the end of April, but there’s a trade-off.

    Zelenskyy expects Hungary to lift its veto on the €90 billion loan to fund Kyiv’s war effort against Russia, as he confirmed oil will flow through the conduit again by end of April.

    “We have promised that the [Druzhba pipeline] will be repaired by the end of April. Not completely, but enough for it to be operational,” Zelenskyy said during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin.

    “We believe this coincides with other commitments by European Union member states, particularly Hungary, which has blocked certain decisions that are important to us,” he added in reference to the loan.

    The Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil through Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia has been at the center of a spat between the European Union and Hungary. After it was damaged during a drone attack in January, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán retracted his support for the €90 billion loan that Kyiv needs to sustain its war effort as Russia’s full-scale invasion enters its fifth year.

    But Hungarian Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar’s landslide victory last weekend stemmed European leaders’ optimism about a quick turnaround in Budapest — with Magyar himself indicating Monday he’s ready to lift Budapest’s blockade.

    “We also want to quickly get the EU loan for Ukraine — agreed upon in December — up and running,” Merz said about the money. “The funds for military aid must be disbursed quickly now. Ukraine needs them urgently.” […]

  43. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hospital at centre of child HIV outbreak caught reusing syringes in undercover filming

    … They are two of the 331 children that BBC Eye has identified as testing positive for HIV in the city between November 2024 and October 2025.

    After a doctor at a private clinic linked the outbreak to the hospital, called THQ Taunsa, in late 2024, local authorities promised a “massive crackdown” and suspended the hospital’s medical superintendent in March 2025 – but a BBC Eye investigation can now reveal that dangerous injection practices continued months later.

    During 32 hours of undercover filming at THQ Taunsa in late 2025, we witnessed syringes being reused on multi-dose vials of medicine on 10 separate occasions, potentially contaminating the drugs inside…

  44. birgerjohansson says

    I realised something. DJT turns 80 this spring.

    The Swedish king turns 80 April 30.
    He is the exact opposite of DJT, as he does not seem really comfortable with being the center of attention, he takes an interest in his grandkids, he drives his own car and he likes to be in the outdoors without a goddamn golf car. The monarchy has remained popular because the members are seen as ordinary people, none of that imperial pomp surrounding presidents or British royals (The late president Carter likewise toned down the pomp during his tenure which makes him the most ‘Swedish’ of US presidents).
    .
    I am not turning into a royalist, but it is possible to be a chief of state for a lot of years without turning into a narcissistic asshole. And reach 80 years without sex scandals in the extended family.

  45. says

    In Hungary, the prototype of Trump’s autocratic power grab just crashed and burned, by Rachel Maddow

    Imagine you’re a small country, proud but little and not very rich. And at some point, you decide that it’s time to put in streetlights or upgrade them in places that need them to be fixed up.

    If you’re a town or village inside that country that wants in on this project, you get told that here’s how you do it: You must hire a consulting company, which will assess your needs and attest to what kind of streetlights you should receive, and then that’s what you’ll get.

    But it turns out that as the towns across the country start going through this process, they hire the same firm to help them get their streetlights, and that’s when a couple of things begin to emerge.

    First, that company — the one these towns have been told to use in order to get the streetlights — is owned by a guy who’s in business with the prime minister’s son-in-law. And the business he’s in with the prime minister’s son-in-law turns out to be a company that makes streetlights.

    So every little town all over your country has to hire this one guy’s company, and every time the company offers that assessment, they say “the only streetlights you can get are from the business owned by the prime minister’s son-in-law and me.”

    Well, the country where this actually happened turns out to be in Europe, and the funding for the streetlights was from the European Union.

    So when investigative reporters figured out this scheme, and the EU investigated, they realized that the project to put streetlights in this poor country had instead become basically just a project to make the prime minister’s son-in-law a millionaire.

    Although the company and the prime minister’s son-in-law say they did nothing wrong, the EU froze the funding in response.

    So how did the prime minister react to that? Well, he decided that he would just pay his son-in-law directly from his country’s already meager government funds.

    And that’s how Viktor Orbán’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz, made his first millions.

    Since then, over the course of Orbán’s 16 years in power, Tiborcz has become one of the wealthiest men in the whole country, worth at least hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of that money comes from his luxury hotels.

    The presidency of the EU rotates from country to country every six months, so when it rotated to Hungary a couple of years ago, that meant there would be lots of official delegations from other countries coming to Hungary to do business.

    What some of those other countries would soon find was that no matter what hotels they booked for these official visits, the Orbán government would somehow find a way to unbook them from the hotels where they wanted to stay and rebook them into one of the hotels owned by Tiborcz.

    That was uncovered by investigative reporting from two of Hungary’s independent journalism outlets, Direkt36 and VSquare.

    In 2025 the Financial Times reported that Tiborcz nearly doubled his net worth to almost 500 million euros just in 2024 alone.

    Ahead of the elections on Sunday in Hungary, which saw his father-in-law turfed out of power after 16 years and now facing potential prosecution for corruption and theft of public assets, Tiborcz reportedly relocated to the U.S.

    Now, this story of a leader’s son-in-law profiting from his father-in-law’s power may sound familiar. Trumpism in the United States is not just a personal thing. It’s not just a big political manifestation of the authoritarian personality of Donald Trump. For Trump himself, it might be just that. But, in terms of governance — in terms of what all those other people on the right and the far right like about Trump in power and what they want to do with him in power — it is actually based on something.

    More than anything else, it’s based on the rule of Orbán.

    When looking for inspiration for how conservatives should approach power and government, Orbán isn’t just a model of how to do that; he’s the model, according to the head of the Heritage Foundation, the group behind Project 2025, which mapped out what the Trump administration would do once it got into power.

    So even though Hungary is this tiny little country (its whole population is the size of New Jersey’s), the Trump movement has been obsessed with it. Vice President JD Vance recently called Orbán “one of the only true statesmen in Europe.”

    Here’s what that looks like: Under Orbán’s leadership, Hungary has become, by some measures, the poorest country in the EU, and it’s tied with Bulgaria for the most corrupt country. It has the highest cumulative inflation in the whole EU, double what it is in other member states. Its salaries are less than half the average of what people get paid elsewhere in the EU, and its unemployment is the highest it’s been in 10 years. The total economic growth in the country last year was an anemic 0.4%. (The United States’ economic growth at the end of last year was basically just as bad, at 0.5%.)

    So Orbán’s economic performance in office has been terrible for its citizens, but somehow his son-in-law becomes one of the wealthiest people in that part of Europe. And his close friend, a plumber, has somehow become the richest person in the whole country — rich enough that this summer the political opposition to Orbán started organizing field trips for ordinary people (they called them safaris) to go drive around the immense private zoo, full of exotic animals, that his best friend built for himself when the leader shoveled him so much money that he became a billionaire from government contracts.

    We have people dressed up in inflatable frog costumes at our anti-ICE protests here in the U.S., and people in Hungary are dressed up in inflatable zebra costumes to protest their leader’s corruption.

    Orbán is the model, the platonic ideal, of what Trump’s time in power is supposed to be. Trump is supposed to follow Orbán’s lead, to use the power of the state to change the rules and change everything so that he and his friends can never be removed from power — to make their regime election-proof.

    With guys like that — election-proof and entrenched in power in a Western country — you can break Europe, you can break the West, you can break NATO and chop up and divide the world among the permanent strongmen, who will rule forever. That’s the dream.

    But a really loud alarm just went off and woke those guys up from that dream.

    Sunday’s election proves that for strongman authoritarians like Orbán and like Trump, their ongoing rule is not inevitable. It is not a fate the country can’t escape.

    As the disciplined, nonviolent, big-tent, sustainable, growing resistance to Orbán started to coalesce, as he started to look like he was going to lose, his supposedly unbreakable base of support just collapsed.

    See, no one actually likes a corrupt despot. They all support him because they think he’s going to be in power forever, so you need to stay on his good side to get anything for yourself. When it becomes clear that the despot is not going to be there forever, it falls apart. In the end, no one is a true believer in a corrupt despot, other than his henchmen and his family, and sometimes not even them. (Did I mention that Orbán’s streetlight-millionaire son-in-law has apparently fled to the U.S.?)

    Far-right authoritarian parties like Trump’s, and ones that are supported by Trump, have lost in the past year in Germany, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

    But Orbán’s loss was even more significant. He was defeated in a wild, huge landslide election that just swamped everything he had done to make himself and his party election-proof. The prototype on which Trump and the Republicans built their entire rule of power just crashed and burned in spectacular fashion.

  46. says

    MS NOW:

    More than 5,900 people have died in the Middle East, nearly one-third of them in Lebanon, since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February. In Beirut and elsewhere, last week’s strikes, which Israel called its most intense of the war, killed more than 350 people in Lebanon, the Lebanese branch of the World Health Organization said.

  47. says

    MS NOW:

    U.S. Central Command said today that ‘no ships made it past the U.S. blockade’ of the Strait of Hormuz in the 24 hours after it was implemented, even as shipping data from MarineTraffic shows at least two vessels bypassed the blockade.

    U.S. Central Command has a credibility problem, or they have an internal communication problem.

  48. says

    Good news, as reported by The New York Times:

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia has signed into law a bill to end tax exemptions for a slate of Confederacy-related organizations in the state.

  49. says

    NBC News:

    Tests of intelligence and brain function showed the same results whether or not people drank fluoridated water growing up, a highly anticipated, long-term study found.

    RFK Jr. has been looking into banning fluoride.

  50. says

    Eyebrow-raising news, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    During JD Vance’s latest Fox News appearance, the vice president actually said, “What [Iranian officials] have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against the entire world. … As the president of the United States showed, two can play at that game.”

    JFC

  51. says

    Trump confronts a public conversation he hoped to avoid over his mental stability

    Last week, after Donald Trump issued genocidal threats toward Iran and made strange comments at the White House Easter Egg Roll, Rep. Jamie Raskin decided to contact the president’s physician, seeking a “comprehensive cognitive and neurological evaluation.”

    This week, the Maryland Democrat, who serves as the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, took another step down the same path, unveiling a proposal to establish a Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office. The measure, which was unveiled with 50 Democratic co-sponsors, [That is a lot of co-sponsors!] would be responsible for determining whether the president is incapacitated “either mentally or physically” and unable to discharge the powers and duties of office, as called for in the 25th Amendment.

    The effort comes just days after the president used his social media platform to promote an image in which he appeared to present himself as some kind of American Jesus and then said the AI-generated portrait showed him “as a doctor, making people better.”

    Few would argue Raskin’s effort stands a realistic chance of success. But arguably that’s not the point: A great many Trump critics hope to generate attention and public conversation about the president’s mental stability (or lack thereof), and proposals like these help advance that discussion.

    […] The New York Times published a striking report with an unsubtle headline: “Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate.” From the article:

    President Trump’s erratic behavior and extreme comments in recent days and weeks have turbocharged the crazy-like-a-fox-or-just-plain-crazy debate that has followed him on the national political stage for a decade.

    A series of disjointed, hard-to-follow and sometimes-profane statements capped by his ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ threat to wipe Iran off the map last week and his head-spinning attack on the ‘WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy’ pope on Sunday night have left many with the impression of a deranged autocrat mad with power.

    The Times highlighted a lawyer who used to work with Trump, who described the president as “a man who is clearly insane.” [!] It also noted a recent comment from Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary who worked for Trump in his first term, who wrote online last week that her former boss is “clearly not well.”

    The day after the Times’ report ran, The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols wrote a related piece, arguing, “The American people must not look away, as they have done so often in the past. They must pay attention to the president’s deterioration.”

    I am mindful of the debate about whether Trump has been unhinged for years and his latest signs of mental incapacity are simply more of the same, or whether his condition is actually getting worse.

    Indeed, I remember the Times publishing a front-page report in October 2024, about a month before Election Day, that highlighted a variety of situations in which Trump “seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality.” The same article added, “He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own ‘beautiful’ body.”

    […] this entire line of inquiry is a disaster for the White House. Trump is woefully unpopular; he has no idea what to do with a struggling economy; and the destabilizing war he started in Iran for reasons he’s unable to explain clearly isn’t going according to plan — to the extent that the president even had a rudimentary plan at all.

    It’s against this backdrop that the conversation about his mental fitness is getting louder.

  52. says

    DOJ Sides With Proud Boys, Oath Keepers: Asks Judge to Toss Seditious Conspiracy Convictions

    When Trump took office last year, he didn’t pardon everyone on Jan. 6. Some defendants who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, like Stewart Rhodes, Dominic Pezzola, and Ethan Nordean, had their sentences commuted — the slate was not entirely wiped clean, though they were free to go.

    That could be over now. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors working for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro asked the DC Circuit to throw out convictions in the seditious conspiracy cases against the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.

    That, should a panel of judges agree, will remove the convictions. Some in the greater Proud Boy community already hope that it’s a signal for something more: that their lawsuit demanding the DOJ cough up cash for damages over its prosecution of the group will bear lots and lots of money.

    Link

  53. says

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Veep-like week’: Hayes reacts to JD Vance’s recent ‘string of failures’

    From Orban’s defeat to stalled Pakistan talks to picking a fight with the Pope, JD Vance has had a rough week. Chris Hayes unpacks a brutal run of failed missions with Jon Lovett.

    Video is 9:09 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Really?’: Bernie Sanders rips Trump’s DoorDash stunt as families ‘go bankrupt’

    “It really, once again, shows you how far Trump and his oligarchic friends are from the reality facing working families,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders on Trump’s DoorDash stunt.

    Video is 7:04 minutes

    Also from the video featuring Senator Bernie Sanders:

    […] What we [Democrats] are going to do tomorrow is bring forth two resolutions, which basically say I think what the American people want Congress to do. […] We can’t continue to fund the extremist government of Netanyahu who has been waging an all-out war, genocidal war in Gaza, who started the war in Iran, was violating all kinds of international law in the West Bank — killing Palestinians there, knocking down homes — and is now at war, an expansionist war in Lebanon. […] has not only killed thousands of people, it has displaced over a million people […]

  54. beholder says

    @19 Silentbob

    Just after NASA shows how valuable and inspiring it can be — @16 StevoR

    I assume you’re referring to spending $4 billion to re stage Apollo 13 fifty-six years later. Is that the “valuable and inspiring” thing?

    Deprioritizing and then promptly forgetting how to go to the moon was shameful. I’ll have to agree with StevoR on this one, though, the fact that we pulled our know-how together just enough to learn how to do it again is inspiring, in its own way. Although we won’t really know if we learned to do it again until we establish a manned base on the surface.

  56. JM says

    @47 Lynna, OM:
    Lawyer grade careful wording.
    WSJ: Iran War, April 14, 2026: U.S. Enforces Blockade, Sends Tankers Back to Iran

    U.S. Central Command said no ships out of Iranian ports have gone through the U.S. blockade within its first 24 hours.

    That is only part of the blockade the US is trying to enforce but nobody violated that one specific bit. It’s also the easiest to enforce because those ships are all going to be Iranian flagged and military or sanctioned trade ships. The US is not going to bomb or capture a Chinese flagged ship without talking to their government first.

    U.S.-Iran talks are likely to resume, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said. Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan will meet their Turkish counterpart this week to discuss proposals presented to Iran.

    For this sort of international negotiations I would normally say the second round is more likely to achieve something. With the Trump administration who knows. They keep saying things almost designed to mess up negotiations but fit within the stupid nationalism view of many administration figures. Trump is all over the place, at times he seems ready to negotiate, at other times ready to bomb.

  57. whheydt says

    Re: beholder @ #54, quoting SteveR…
    NASA didn’t replicate Apollo 13 (and a damned good thing, too). They replicated Apollo 8.

  59. birgerjohansson says

    Another Soviet officer who saved the world was Stanislaw Petrov, in 1983.

  60. birgerjohansson says

    Bruce Springsteen and Ron Perlman are 76 years old but are physically and intellectually agile.
    Trump is 79 but seems like 86. And with views that would fit 1859.

  62. StevoR says

    Good.

    An American YouTuber has been jailed in South Korea for being a public nuisance after he filmed himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean war sex slaves.

    Johnny Somali was sentenced to six months in prison for displaying “severe” disrespect for South Korean law.

    The 25-year-old has gained notoriety for recording himself doing several provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan and streaming them on platforms including YouTube and Twitch.

    ..(snip)..

    Prosecutors had sought a three year jail sentence for the self-confessed “internet troll” who was also accused of harassing staff and visitors at an amusement park, disrupting a convenience store by blasting North Korean music and tipping over a cup of noodles onto a table. He also caused similar disruption on a bus and subway and distributed non-consensual deepfake videos..

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-16/youtuber-johnny-somali-jailed-for-disrespecting-south-korean-law/106569500

  63. StevoR says

    Solar wind in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, flows up to four times faster than scientists had thought, a study based on photographs taken by a solar eclipsing spacecraft revealed.

    The type of wind that the researchers studied forms very close to the sun’s surface and had previously been known to blow at speeds of 60 miles per second (100 kilometers per second). That’s considerably slower than the 480 miles per second so-called fast solar wind that blows from coronal holes — dark, cool regions with open magnetic field lines in the sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona. But images taken by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Proba-3 mission — a duo of satellites flying in a formation to simulate the solar eclipse — revealed that even the slow kind of solar wind can be much faster than expected.

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/sun/solar-wind-travels-up-to-4-times-faster-than-expected-eclipse-spacecraft-reveals

  64. says

    Mark Meadows seeks reimbursement from Trump’s DOJ for legal fees

    Mark Houck, a longtime anti-abortion activist and failed Republican congressional candidate, filed suit against the government following his 2022 arrest for allegedly shoving a 72-year-old clinic escort. His civil case did not fare well: A George W. Bush-appointed judge dismissed his lawsuit with prejudice.

    MS NOW confirmed this week, however, that Donald Trump’s Justice Department nevertheless agreed to a $1.1 million settlement with Houck. [JFC]

    If it seems as if the president’s DOJ has a pot of money it’s using to reward those politically aligned with the White House, it’s not your imagination. [!]

    It was nearly a year ago, for example, when Trump’s DOJ reached a settlement with the family of Ashli Babbitt, the Jan. 6 rioter who was fatally shot by a police officer during the attack on the U.S. Capitol. As part of the agreement, the Republican administration announced plans to give roughly $5 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Babbitt’s relatives.

    The settlement was awfully tough to defend, especially given the weakness of the civil case, but it was the first prominent example of the Republican administration offering generous, taxpayer-funded payments to those favored by the president. [taxpayer-funded payments from Trump]

    A few weeks ago, it happened again, when Trump’s DOJ also agreed to reward former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn with a $1.25 million check in response to an equally dubious civil suit.

    […] MS NOW reported:

    […] Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows recently renewed efforts to seek reimbursement from the Justice Department for his legal defense in Trump-related investigations […]

    Meadows first made the request to the Biden administration under federal law that offers protections for former government employees, but that administration took no action on it.

    Meadow’s lawyer, George Terwilliger, said the request is hardly unusual, adding that protections exist to protect those who “get entangled in lawfare cases, simply as a result of doing their jobs.”

    The trouble is, it’s tough to see Meadows as an innocent bystander who simply did his job. [So true.]

    Indeed, the former White House chief of staff has long been a central figure in the investigation into Trump and his efforts to seize power after losing the 2020 race. It was Meadows who was with Trump in the Oval Office during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. It was Meadows who was involved in the fake electors scheme. It was Meadows who was in frequent communication with far-right GOP lawmakers about efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

    It was also Meadows who allegedly (and quite literally) set fire to documents in a White House fireplace, several times, after having important post-election meetings, right around the same time that he reportedly told Cassidy Hutchinson, one of his top aides, that “things might get real, real bad” on Jan. 6.

    Naturally, federal investigators had quite a few questions for the former White House chief of staff, and Meadows racked up legal bills. If the latest reporting is correct, he now wants taxpayers to help pay him back for those bills, and if recent history is any guide, Trump’s DOJ likely will oblige.

    As for the broader context, a related NBC News report added that Meadows was charged in state cases involving the 2020 election in Georgia and Arizona, and he pleaded not guilty in both cases. The Georgia case was eventually dropped, though the Arizona case is still pending.

  65. says

    Mehmet Oz says Trump told him that diet soda might help kill cancer cells

    It’s not exactly a secret that Donald Trump has weird ideas about health and science. In fact, it was earlier this year when the president told The Wall Street Journal he routinely ignores the advice of physicians on daily aspirin use, in part because he’s “superstitious” and in part because he wants “nice, thin blood pouring through my heart.”

    This is the same Republican who also famously recommended research into treating Covid-19 patients with disinfectant injections and shining “very powerful” lights inside their bodies.

    So it doesn’t come a great surprise to learn the president also apparently believes diet soda possesses implausible health benefits. The New Republic noted:

    During the latest episode of Donald Trump Jr.’s ‘Triggered’ podcast, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the daytime television host the president picked to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, revealed some of the president’s unorthodox beliefs about health.

    ‘Your dad argues that diet soda is good for him because it kills grass, if poured on grass, so therefore it must kill cancer cells inside the body,’ Oz said.

    The former television personality went on to share an anecdote about seeing the president drinking an orange-flavored soft drink. Oz said the president “starts to, like, sheepishly grin. He goes, ‘You know this stuff’s good for me. It kills cancer cells.’ And then he tells me, ‘It’s fresh squeezed, so how bad can it be for you?’”

    Trump’s son, the host of the podcast, laughed at all of this, which was understandable. It was funny to hear fresh evidence of the president’s odd beliefs.

    Far less funny, however, is the person who harbors these bizarre ideas nevertheless claims broad authority on matters of public health, to the point that he’s urged Americans to follow his terrible advice. This is the same president, after all, who has offered public guidance on, among other things, how much Tylenol to take and what child vaccination schedules should look like.

    […] Oz’s anecdote is a timely reminder to the public that Trump’s judgment on matters related to health is better left ignored.

  67. says

    Vance draws embarrassingly small crowd at college event

    On Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance headed to Georgia, where he was supposed to sit down with Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk for an interview in an indoor arena near the University of Georgia. But rather than being greeted by a massive crowd, the event was sparsely attended, with only some of the chairs on the arena floor filled. [The arena was less than 25% filled.]

    Kirk didn’t even show up, with a Turning Point spokesperson claiming that “very serious threats” prevented her attendance, even though the vice president of the United States still turned up and has some of the best, if not the best, security in the world.

    […] Ultimately, it was just the latest in a series of embarrassing events for Vance, whose dismal approval rating and odious persona has made him a laughingstock rather than an asset for the Trump administration.

    It wasn’t just the crowd size that was embarrassing for Vance. He was also heckled by some of the few members of the audience over the Trump administration’s Middle East policy.

    “Jesus Christ does not support genocide!” an audience member yelled at Vance, likely referring to the attacks on the Gaza Strip.

    Soon after, a member of the audience shouted at Vance, “You’re killing children! You’re bombing children!” Indeed, the Trump administration is killing and bombing children, including nearly 200 girls at a school in Iran.

    While the paltry attendance on a large college campus was embarrassing for Vance, it is also indicative of the issues President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are now having with younger voters.

    After Trump made gains with the voting bloc in 2024, younger voters have quickly turned against Trump and the GOP. [I snipped polling details.]

  68. says

    Washington Post link

    “U.S. sends thousands more troops to Mideast […]”

    “The deployment includes sailors and Marines […]”

    The Pentagon is sending thousands of additional troops into the Middle East in the coming days, as the Trump administration attempts to pressure Iran into a deal that could end the weeks-long conflict there while considering the possibility of additional strikes or ground operations if a fragile ceasefire does not hold, U.S. officials said.

    The forces moving into the region include about 6,000 troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and several warships escorting it, said current and former officials, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military movements. About 4,200 others with the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and its embarked Marine Corps task force, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, are expected to arrive near the end of the month.

    The infusion of firepower appears likely to coalesce with warships already in the Middle East just as the two-week ceasefire is set to expire April 22. […]

  69. says

    Russia ramps up ‘destructive’ cyberattacks on Europe, says Sweden

    “Moscow behind attack on Swedish heating plant last year, Swedish minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said.”

    Russia-linked hackers are increasing cyberattacks targeted at Europe’s critical infrastructure, Sweden’s defense ministry said Wednesday.

    “Over the past year, Russia’s methods have shifted,” Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said at a press conference in Stockholm. “Pro-Russian groups that once carried out denial-of-service attacks are now attempting destructive cyberattacks against organizations in Europe,” he added.

    Bohlin warned of more aggressive tactics and said Swedish targets are increasingly in the crosshairs. He pointed to a foiled attempt on energy infrastructure last year as a sign of Russia’s increasingly aggressive playbook.

    The minister said a group with links to Russian intelligence targeted a heating plant in western Sweden in spring 2025. The facility’s security systems stopped the attack, he added, declining to name the plant in question or give further details.

    Norway and Denmark have faced similar challenges, Bohlin said. “Taken together, this points to a change toward riskier and more reckless behavior which could potentially lead to damaging effects for society.”

    A group tied to Russian intelligence was blamed for a large-scale attempted attack on Poland’s power grid in December 2025 — one of the most significant strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure in years.

    Western agencies this month also exposed a sweeping campaign by the GRU-linked hacking group Fancy Bear, which infiltrated poorly secured Wi-Fi routers to siphon off passwords, emails and sensitive data from governments and militaries across Europe and North America.

  70. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—After JD Vance failed to strike a deal on Iran’s nuclear program over the weekend, on Tuesday former President Barack Obama offered to help Donald J. Trump reach such a deal, sources said.

    “I hear you’re having trouble keeping Iran from getting nukes,” Obama reportedly told Trump. “I have some ideas about how you might get that done.”

    “Just spitballing here, but it would be good to put limits on uranium enrichment,” he said. “And you’d want to set up regular inspections and monitoring to make sure they’re complying.”

    Although Obama thought he could be of assistance in crafting a nuclear deal with Iran, he added, “I don’t know how you’ll get them to stop blocking the Strait of Hormuz. It was totally open when I was president.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/obama-offers-to-help-trump-craft

    Satire

  71. says

    Our organization’s principles exceed being just secular humanist. We have always seen that, for centuries, the roman catholic corporation has been one of the most murderous, hypocritical, superstitious organizations. The pope is the head of that crime syndicate. However, he has uttered some very decent, moral statements recently. And, that imbecile vancehole has NO RIGHT to threaten the pope.

    Also, this article uses strong words, but backed by many truthful, credible links, they are not hyperbole:
    https://www.commondreams.org/further/the-terrifying-ridiculous-spectacle
    Abby Zimet Apr 13, 2026

  73. says

    Pressed on controversial FEMA official, Trump asks, ‘What does teleport mean?’

    “[Trump] finally commented on Gregg Phillips and his highly unusual claims about his experiences. The FEMA official’s job appears to be in doubt.”

    Even before recent revelations, Gregg Phillips was a poor choice for a leadership role at any federal agency. We are, after all, talking about a far-right activist who has spread baseless conspiracy theories and used violent rhetoric about his political opponents. What’s more, Phillips is an enthusiastic election denier who played a key role in the discredited “2000 Mules” project.

    Phillips was nevertheless tapped to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Response and Recovery, and he’s served in the role since late last year. (He’s a presidential appointee who did not need to be confirmed by the Senate.)

    In recent weeks, however, Phillips has become still more controversial. CNN reported in late March that the FEMA official has claimed, more than once, that he was involuntarily teleported, including an incident in which he said he was sent to a Waffle House restaurant 50 miles away.

    “Teleporting is no fun,” he said on a podcast last year. “It was real.”

    In a follow-up report a week later, CNN noted that the FEMA official continued to insist on the validity of his claims.

    This week, Donald Trump finally commented on the burgeoning controversy. From CNN’s latest report:

    In a brief interview with CNN on his cellphone Thursday morning about Phillips, President Donald Trump said, ‘What does teleport mean? Was he kidding?’

    Told that Phillips was not kidding, Trump responded: ‘I don’t know anything about teleporting. … It just sounds a little strange, but I know nothing about teleporting or him, but I’ll find out about it right now.’

    The network’s reporting […] added that the White House contacted the Department of Homeland Security and urged officials to either “remove Phillips or keep him out of public view.” [“Keep him out of public view?” Sheesh.]

    […] Let’s also not forget that this guy was not rewarded for his political loyalties with some obscure position deep within the federal bureaucracy. On the contrary, CNN’s original report noted that despite his weird beliefs, Phillips is currently in one of “the most consequential” positions at FEMA, leading an office that makes decisions involving “search-and-rescue operations, emergency aid, infrastructure restoration and ultimately distributing billions of dollars in disaster assistance.”

    Will Phillips soon be teleported to some other job? Watch this space.

  74. says

    Even the dumbest senator knows the GOP is cooked

    In a shocking turn of events, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama blamed his own party for the GOP’s bleak midterm prospects.

    “Hell, we ain’t done anything in the majority,” he said during an appearance on “The Benny Johnson Show” Wednesday. “Why should we keep the majority? We’ve got one bill passed.” [videos]

    What Tuberville failed to mention is that the GOP’s projected midterm losses may stem from broader issues within the party. Even as President Donald Trump posts historically low approval ratings, he remains far more popular than the rest of his party.

    And Trump’s repeated lies about ending wars, disastrous trade policies, and inflation-inducing Iran war have caused costs for everyday Americans to skyrocket.

    When you couple that with a job market that has been steadily grinding to a halt, it doesn’t take a political scientist—or even an ignorant Alabama senator—to understand why voters are desperate for change.

  75. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-made-up-fake-power-ranger-fairy

    “Trump Made Up Fake Power Ranger Fairy Princess Rambo Barbie Job Just To Distract Kristi Noem”

    Donald Trump may be a senile dumbass who knows so little about literally every subject that he’s too stupid to even grasp what he doesn’t know. But he does have a certain degree of gut smarts, the kind that knows how to be a conman, the kind that knows how to bullshit, and he knows how to use those powers on people who are every bit as daft, conniving, grifty, power-hungry, and vain as he is. Sometimes he uses those powers like one uses a laser pointer to distract a cat.

    When Trump fired Nazi Barbie Kristi Noem from the Department of Homeland Security, he made up a job for her. […] [social media post from Rubio]

    […] This report comes from PunchUp, a Daily Beast newsletter from veteran reporter Tom Latchem (paywall, that we paid, so that we might tell you things):

    President Donald Trump invented a senior government role for Kristi Noem to stop her from running for a seat in the Senate this year, administration sources tell PunchUp,

    The title of “Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas”—announced on March 5 by Trump, 79, as he publicly fired Noem from her role as DHS secretary—was effectively fabricated to ensure she missed the filing deadline for the South Dakota Senate race and would thus be unable to challenge incumbent Sen. Mike Rounds, according to multiple sources.

    “It was made up to keep her busy,” one source close to the administration told PunchUp of Noem’s new role. The source said the White House’s private view was that Noem had become so toxic it needed to “put her out to the glue factory”—and so invented an opening that kept her on the government payroll and off the ballot, but with no real power.

    […] What’s amazing is that this clearly did distract her, if this reporting is correct. She’s so irredeemably vapid, craven, and narcissistic that it sounds like she was like “YES I WILL BE PRINCESS OF THE SHIELD!” and literally nobody in her life was willing to tell her that wasn’t a thing. […]

    The Trump regime people apparently were scared that she could pose a challenge to Mike Rounds in deep red South Dakota, and it’s not like team Trump is known for loyalty, especially to Republican senators, so it must be because they realized that if she beat him in a primary, she’s such a complete joke now that she could lose a Senate seat in the ruby red state where she used to be the governor.

    There were whispers about this in Republican circles, reportedly. There was a deadline a-comin’. Quick, Trump, invent the Shield of the Americas and declare Kristi Noem its high priestess!

    To secure a place on the primary ballot, Noem would have needed to collect 2,171 petition signatures and file them by 5 p.m. on March 31.

    She had 26 days but no time, as she threw herself into her new job, with sources saying that Noem felt she had no choice but to show her willingness to toe the president’s line.

    Latchem’s sources say Trump really threw that shit together. Made up an event at Trump National Doral, got whichever Latin American leaders were willing to hop on planes we guess for the sole purposes of honking horns and jangling keys to make Kristi Noem laugh and distract her until the filing deadline passed. Rubio was there, Secretary Hegseth, plus the leaders of Argentina, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

    And then she got to go on a trip, around Latin America! Yay! And Corey […] got to come with […]

    The White House panicked as they realized Noem was treating the role as substantive rather than symbolic. “They didn’t expect her to take it so seriously,” the administration source said.

    So they had created a monster, one under the impression that it had been sent on a secret mission.

    […] They tried to unring the bell by having her report to one of Rubio’s underlings instead of Rubio himself. That guy, Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, “has now nuked the whole thing,” says Latchem’s source in the administration.

    She tried to bring 10 staffers along to her fake job. Three have already been fired, from even more fake jobs. […]

    And now Kristi Noem will probably have to be Cricketed to death from her new (fake) job because oh boy, they really did not think she would be taking this so seriously, oh boy, this sure did get out of hand!

    Well, if all else fails, she can always run for president. It’s not like it’s gonna be JD Vance.

  77. StevoR says

    @57. whheydt : “NASA didn’t replicate Apollo 13 (and a damned good thing, too). They replicated Apollo 8.”

    They went further than Apollo 8 and in a new much improved and larger spacecraft.

    The Artemis program will eventually replicate and improve on Apollo and its achievements. Which was the most extraordinary thing our species has ever done.

  78. hillaryrettig1 says

    We lost a good one:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/us/ishmael-jaffree-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bFA.aQga.rkEVwnEq2ol8&smid=url-share

    One afternoon in 1981, Ishmael Jaffree’s son came home from kindergarten and asked about God.

    Mr. Jaffree, a lawyer in Mobile, Ala., was agnostic, and he recoiled when his son and his two older children, both second graders, told him that their teachers had been leading their classes in prayer. The Supreme Court had banned mandatory prayer in public schools in 1962, but a series of recent laws in Alabama had made it easier to bring religion into the classroom.

    Mr. Jaffree complained to the teachers, then the principal, and then the district superintendent. His objection was about more than principle: When his kindergartner son refused to pray along, his classmates bullied him.

    After Mr. Jaffrey failed to get any answers, he filed a federal lawsuit in 1982, charging that the Alabama laws violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

    In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in his favor, restricting states from allowing anything more than a belief-neutral “moment of silence” in classrooms.

  79. whheydt says

    Re: SteveR @ #77…
    Artemis, like Apollo 8 had a “free return” orbit (that is, without any active measures, they would return to Earth). Apollo 13 was NOT in a “free return” orbit. Without the use of the Lunar Lander descent engine (with the ascent engine as a backup), they would not have come back to Earth. Since the recent Artemis mission did not, so far as I know, include a lander, had they had the sort of problem that happened to Apollo 13, it is a very good thing they had a “free return” orbit. And, indeed, without the life support capabilities of the Apollo 13 lander or equivalent, a similar incident might well have doomed the crew altogether.

    Granted, Artemis II went farther from Earth that Apollo 8, or–for that matter–any Apollo mission, the profile was otherwise far more similar to Apollo 8 than Apollo 13.

  80. whheydt says

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/former-trump-attorney-john-eastman-disbarred-california-2020-election-rcna332076

    John Eastman, a former attorney for President Donald Trump who helped engineer a last-ditch strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, was disbarred in California on Wednesday over his efforts more than five years ago.

    The California Supreme Court said in a filing that Eastman could no longer practice law in the state, upholding a State Bar Court recommendation, and ordered him to pay $5,000 in sanctions.

    An attorney for Eastman, Randall A. Miller, said in a statement that Eastman will seek review of the case before the U.S. Supreme Court to “repudiate this threat to the rule of law.”

  82. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    birgerjohansson @2:

    Oxford Study EXPOSES USA: Americans Twice as Poor as Europeans
    […]
    does this seem legit? I know about PPP, but… average 63 minutes to earn a dollar?

    First some text that was the basis for the video. Then an assessment.

    I haven’t seen an explanation for that particular statistic. Olivier Sterck’s paper this month frequently cited World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. A dollar every 63 minutes is $8343 per year. “Earn” may not be the right word, as it includes households’ children and unemployed adults, but also includes safety net income.

    Olivier Sterck at The Conversation – Measuring poverty on a spectrum instead of an arbitrary line conveys a more accurate picture of inequality

    Having spent more than 15 years researching poverty as an economist, I believe that whether the government ought to draw this line at $33,000, $100,000 or $140,000 is not the real issue. […] there is no magic threshold below which you are poor and above which you’re doing fine. […] all public debates, research and policy treat poverty lines as legitimate—as if this threshold really exists. […] Even among experts, there is little agreement on where the poverty line should fall. As a result, debates about poverty lines often reveal more about the choice of threshold than about poverty itself.
    […]
    poverty can be defined as the inverse of income, and its unit is simply inverted. If incomes are measured in dollars per day, poverty is measured in days per dollar. […] The time to get $1 refers to a day of life for anyone at any age and in any circumstance, not just the hours worked by someone with a job. […] My proposed measure casts the U.S. in a strikingly different light from traditional poverty statistics. In the U.S., I’ve calculated that it takes 63 minutes on average to get $1 in income. That’s much slower than in many other high-income countries: United Kingdom: 34 minutes. France: less than 31 minutes. Germany: about 26 minutes. This indicates that average poverty is substantially higher in the U.S., even though U.S. average incomes are higher than in most Western European countries.
    […]
    this seems paradoxical. How can a rich country’s economy grow and yet get poorer? […] the U.S. has one of the most unequal economies in the world, and by far the most unequal among rich countries. […] income distribution has been getting more unequal even as the average income has risen.

    Olivier Sterck at VoxDev – Global poverty trends through a new lens

    All mainstream poverty measures share the same fundamental feature: they ignore everyone above the chosen line. With the extreme poverty line of the World Bank ($2.15/day), someone earning $2.16/day is treated as equally non-poor as someone earning $10, $100, or $1,000/day. Billions of low-income people—who most would agree still live in poverty—are therefore excluded from the statistics. And because there is no consensus on where to set the line, it is tempting to pick the one that tells the story you want.
    […]
    In the US, average poverty increased by about 1.2% per year since 1990, as inequality growth (2.3% per year) outpaced income growth (1% per year). […] while in Ghana, strong income growth more than offset rising inequality, leading to substantial poverty reduction.

    And the assessment.
    /r/AskEconomics Teammember:

    It would not be surprising to find a measure of poverty that is higher in the US than in European countries given that the US welfare state is much less generous than other high income countries. Having said that, I don’t think their measure is saying what […] the article is saying.

    I think what is happening is that because the measure is something like:

    (1/n) * \sum_i (1/y_i)

    where n is population, i indexes a person, and y is income. You’re basically calculating an intensity-weighted poverty measure. So someone who is rich gets basically zero weight, and someone who is poor gets weight increasing to infinity. At the extreme, if someone in your population makes zero dollars you have infinite poverty.

    The fact that the US experienced increases during the 1990s, when welfare reforms moved money from the very poor to the really poor (the earned income tax credit, for instance, is weird amongst anti-poverty tools in that it has a phase-in, meaning the lowest income receive nothing).

    The COVID drop then makes sense because stimulus checks would be the single best thing to do by this measure because reducing extreme poverty counts more than anything else.

    So what the measure is telling you is that the US has a larger number of people who have very, very low incomes. I don’t think that tells you much about what the “typical” american is, relative to say median incomes.

  83. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Militant Agnostic @81.

    Wikipedia – List of Amazon worker fatalities

    On December 27, 2022, Rick Jacobs, aged 61, died of cardiac arrest. Employees claimed that a makeshift barrier of large cardboard bins was erected around the deceased while business at the warehouse continued as normal.

  84. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Lynna @31: “I don’t have access to the rest of this report.”

    Wired – Government workers say they’re getting inundated with religion

    One USDA employee called the email “grotesque” […] “This has never happened before,” […] The employee says that this behavior would not even be normal for military chaplains, for whom faith is part of their work.
    […]
    The USDA is not the only agency espousing overtly religious rhetoric: At the Department of Health and Human Services, the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Labor, federal employees have been alarmed to watch Christianity’s creep into the government since President Donald Trump’s return to office.
    […]
    faith offices have sprung up across agencies […] A July 2025 memo from the Office of Personnel Management titled “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace” permits federal employees to essentially proselytize to their colleagues, so long as trying to “persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views” doesn’t cross the line into harassment. The memo also permits workers to “encourage” their colleagues “to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer.” […] At the Department of Labor, […] the director of the agency’s faith center, hosts monthly worship services. A DOL employee […] says that these prayer services are “very abnormal.” [“]This is very explicitly Christian, and even within the realm of Christianity, a very narrow representation of that.”
    […]
    “I’ve thought about complaining, but I would worry about some form of retaliation if I were to do that, to be honest,” the employee says. […] Another DOL employee […] says that “the vibes are bad and people don’t like it,” […] [An SBA employee said] “Honestly, I don’t know anyone who actually went to them because they are optional but it’s still uncomfortable to know that there’s a Christian prayer service happening in a government building, which is supposed to be religiously neutral.” The employee says the emails instructed workers not to share the invitation or the link to a video of the service with anyone outside the agency.
    […]
    Last year, HHS lent full support to religious exemptions for vaccines; in February, the agency announced the expansion of funding for “faith-based” addiction treatments. […] Kennedy recently authorized HHS employees to leave work early on April 3 “in observance of Good Friday,” […]

    “From executive orders to agency-wide directives to even early dismissal emails, it is abundantly clear that this administration is not so much proudly Christian as it is belligerently so,” says one HHS employee
    […]
    the Pentagon has hosted a monthly prayer service featuring well-known evangelicals like Franklin Graham and his son Edward Graham, as well as Doug Wilson, a Christian Nationalist preacher who has argued for the establishment of a theocracy and said that women should lose the right to vote. […] On Good Friday, the DOD hosted a prayer service only for Protestants. […] Hegseth has repeatedly framed the US war in Iran as a “holy war,” calling Iranians “barbaric savages” and called on Americans to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

    Hegseth, a guy obsessed with unconstrained lethality and disses elite education, calls others barbaric savages while he bombs their UNESCO World Heritage sites.

  85. KG says

    The Artemis program will eventually replicate and improve on Apollo and its achievements. Which was the most extraordinary thing our species has ever done. – StevoR@77

    If we’re talking about positive things, I’d nominate wiping out smallpox. But even in the area of space exploration, there are a number of things I’d put above the Apollo landings, which were primarily a Cold War political stunt.

  86. KG says

    Kirk didn’t even show up, with a Turning Point spokesperson claiming that “very serious threats” prevented her attendance, even though the vice president of the United States still turned up and has some of the best, if not the best, security in the world. – Lynna, OM@67 quoting Daily Kos

    I’d guess the “very serious threat” was being associated with Vance, whose star is clearly waning after his failures in Hungary and Pakistan, while Kirk thinks hers is still rising.

  88. StevoR says

    @79. whheydt : “Granted, Artemis II went farther from Earth that Apollo 8, or– for that matter – any Apollo mission, the profile was otherwise far more similar to Apollo 8 than Apollo 13.”

    Yes – fair point. There are other more ambitious Artemis missions to come of course.

    …without the life support capabilities of the Apollo 13 lander or equivalent, a similar incident might well have doomed the crew altogether.

    Also true altho’ I’m unsure whether the Artemis crew needed to stir their oxygen tanks or not and suspect the tech has likely improved in that regard as well as so many others.

    Plus the Lunar lander will be coming for later Artemis missions too starting so I gather with their next one.

  89. JM says

    Newsweek: People Ask if Pete Hegseth Just Quoted Quentin Tarantino’s Version of Bible

    Viewers watching a Pentagon worship service this week noticed something familiar about a prayer recited by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: its language closely echoes a monologue made famous by the 1994 film Pulp Fiction.
    During the service at the Pentagon complex on Wednesday, Hegseth explained that the prayer—known as “CSAR 25:17”—had been recited by “Sandy 1” to combat search‑and‑rescue crews ahead of CSAR missions, including a recent operation involving two U.S. Air Force crew members who were shot down over Iran.

    This is Ezekiel 25:17. It’s a real bible verse but is just 2 sentences, the long monologue in Pulp Fiction is a made up elaborate version. Hegseth’s quote follows the long version from Pulp Fiction. This isn’t really Hegseth’s fault if the military is actually using a prayer that follows the made up version. Still a little funny for a guy who takes his religion so seriously to mention a made up bible quote as if it’s real.

  90. says

    Sky Captain @84, thank you.

    In other news: ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Outrageous’: American journalist detained in Kuwait after posting Iran war video

    “This is the most clear-cut example of criminalizing journalism and speech. It is outrageous,” says Chris Hayes on Kuwaiti-American journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin’s ongoing detention in Kuwait after sharing a publicly available, verified video.

    Video is 6:46 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘George Santos with a gun’: GOP Rep. Cory Mills faces new calls to resign

    Congressman Cory Mills is facing growing pressure to resign over a range of conduct issues. Roger Sollenberger joins to discuss the man one Capitol Hill Republican described to him as, “George Santos with a gun.”

    Video is 10:32 minutes

  91. says

    Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter to plead guilty in child sexual abuse case, adding to pattern

    “Trump’s pardons for Jan. 6 rioters were already indefensible. As many of them run into fresh trouble with the law, the move continues to look even worse.”

    New, related video at the link.

    It’s been quite difficult to keep up with the number of pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who have run into fresh trouble with the law, even after receiving clemency from Donald Trump, in large part because the list keeps growing. NBC News reported on the latest in an ugly series:

    Another Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by President Donald Trump will plead guilty in a separate case involving child exploitation of multiple victims, according to federal court records.

    David Daniel has reached a plea agreement in connection with a pending charge of sexual exploitation of a minor and possessing sexually explicit images of children in federal court in the Western District of North Carolina.

    Daniel was first arrested in 2023 for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, and he ultimately admitted he assaulted law enforcement personnel during the attack. He was among the many to receive a Trump pardon anyway.

    But as the NBC News report added, as part of the probe into Daniel’s role in the pro-Trump riot, investigators also uncovered evidence of child sexual abuse and filed charges, and now Daniel is prepared to plead guilty.

    The developments come three weeks after a different Jan. 6 rioter who received a presidential pardon was sentenced to four years in prison on child pornography charges. [!] Earlier in the month, a different Jan. 6 rioter, who was also rescued by Trump, was sentenced to life in prison for molesting two children. [!]

    […] In February, a different pardoned Jan. 6 rioter was convicted in Florida of child molestation and exposing himself to children. [!] (The man, Andrew Paul Johnson, attempted to bribe one of his victims by saying the administration would send him money as part of restitution for those who attacked the Capitol.)

    […] Last fall, Robert Keith Packer, a pardoned Jan. 6 criminal best known for wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt inside the Capitol, was arrested in a dog bite incident. That came on the heels of another pardoned Jan. 6 criminal being convicted on child pornography charges. [!] Two weeks earlier, another pardoned Jan. 6 rioter was convicted of plotting to kill FBI agents. [!]

    They have plenty of company. Zachary Jordan Alam, months after receiving a Jan. 6 pardon, was convicted in connection with a home invasion. Andrew Taake, weeks after receiving a Jan. 6 pardon, pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor. [!] Emily Hernandez, weeks after receiving a Jan. 6 pardon, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for driving while drunk and killing a passenger in another car.

    A recent report in The New York Times noted a variety of other examples [I snipped details]

    What’s more, this growing list doesn’t include John Banuelos, a Jan. 6 rioter who was arrested in October on kidnapping and sexual assault charges. [!] Banuelos wasn’t pardoned, but he saw his Jan. 6 criminal case dropped by the Justice Department the day after Trump’s second inauguration.

    To be sure, when making a list of the worst things the president has done since returning to power, the competition is fierce, but his decision to pardon Jan. 6 rioters, including violent felons, is near the top. But the fact that so many of these recipients continue to run into legal trouble makes Trump’s move look even worse.

    […] the editorial board of The Times recently published a notable opinion piece that argued, “The American public deserves to understand the mayhem that the Jan. 6 pardons have unleashed.”

    Given the circumstances, the appeal was hardly unreasonable.

  92. says

    Tulsi Gabbard impresses her audience of one […]

    “The director of national intelligence is engaging in pitiful antics because her job likely depends on it.”

    New and related video at the link.

    Last summer, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard unveiled a report with a title that read, “Declassified Evidence of Obama Administration Conspiracy to Subvert President Trump’s 2016 Victory and Presidency.” [FFS]

    In an accompanying press release, the hapless DNI added, “The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.”

    In reality, the report showed no such thing, and independent analyses characterized Gabbard’s report as “ludicrous.” An analysis from The Bulwark explained, “[E]ven a cursory look at the actual substance of Gabbard’s dramatic claims shows … a nothingburger. There is no actual substance.” Officials from Democratic and Republican administrations urged the public to recognize Gabbard’s conspiracy theories for what they were: obvious nonsense.

    The DNI sent her findings to Donald Trump’s Justice Department nevertheless, and wouldn’t you know it, the hyper-politicized DOJ took Gabbard’s vacuous findings quite seriously. [JFC]

    Eight months later, a suspiciously similar process is unfolding. MS NOW reported:

    Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to a former intelligence community inspector general and a whistleblower whose complaint helped trigger the first impeachment of President Donald Trump. [Not good]

    The whistleblower complaint, deemed credible at the time by then-Inspector General Michael Atkinson, set off a chain of events that culminated in Trump’s impeachment in 2019 for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate his then-political rival Joe Biden. The Senate later acquitted Trump in a largely party-line vote.

    […] Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, responded to the developments with a written statement that read, “The whistleblower who made Congress aware of Donald Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine and falsely smear his opponent followed all the rules and demonstrated courage and principle. No amount of sycophantic lickspittle will erase the fact that the ‘perfect’ call was released, and the American people could see Trump’s corruption and abuse of power firsthand.” [All true, and well-phrased.]

    […] As this week got underway, Gabbard took aim at the extortion scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment, claiming that nefarious “deep-state actors within the Intelligence Community” secretly conspired to “usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected president of the United States,” whom she characterized as a poor and unsuspecting victim.

    […] the point wasn’t about exposing actual wrongdoing. Rather, Gabbard — no doubt aware of scuttlebutt about her possible firing after 14 months of failures, controversies and embarrassments — was likely trying to impress her audience of one.

    There’s reason to believe it worked.

    On Wednesday night, the president used his social media platform to tout the DNI’s latest partisan antics [of course he did], which followed two items posted earlier in the week, both of which were built around the idea that Gabbard’s latest foolishness should help the president’s crusade to “expunge” his first impeachment — a priority he’s pushed intermittently for years. [Another one of Trump’s delusions on display.]

    […]

  93. says

    Steve Benen comments on a report posted by Reuters:

    Insert obligatory “imagine if this were Hunter Biden” comment here: “Donald Trump’s son Eric, who oversees the family business empire, will accompany the U.S. ​president on his trip next month to China, a spokeswoman for the family organization told Reuters on Tuesday.”

    Signs of corruption expanding in the Trump family.

    Steve Benen comments on a report posted by The New York Times:

    Probably the best possible outcome given the circumstances: “The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which had been set to shut down in May, will keep publishing after all. A nonprofit journalism organization has stepped up to acquire the newspaper, which has survived for more than two centuries.”

    Yes, that is good news.

  94. says

    Follow-up to JM @89

    Hegseth Compares Press to the Pharisees

    A thin-skinned and prickly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went off on journalists in his press conference this morning, resorting to the classic “attack the messenger” defense to a unpopular war going poorly.

    It’s not the first time Hegseth has succumbed to blaming a lack of patriotism among reporters for unfavorable headlines and critical reporting on a Middle East conflict ignited by the Trump administration. But today’s screed was striking for how it mixed the old worn-out reflexive questioning of the loyalty of reporters with biblical references that reflect Hegseth’s personal Christian nationalism: [social media post, plus video]

    “Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on,” Hegseth said. “It’s incredibly unpatriotic.”

    […] Questioning the loyalty of journalists — or any regime critics — harkens to earlier dark eras of America history and to authoritarian regimes worldwide. But Hegseth’s diatribe came with a strong Christian twist, as he compared journalists to the Pharisees who rejected Jesus in the Bible:

    “The Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to record, but their hearts were hardened, even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter,” Hegseth said.

    “They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him, how to destroy him,” he continued.

    “I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees, not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,” he added.

    Hegseth — callow, reactive, driven by a warped theology of nationalism, and poorly grounded in history — personally represents a dramatic break from decades of training, education, and refining of a professional officers corps. In 15 months in office, Hegseth has done more to politicize the military than any secretary of defense in at least the last half century.

  95. JM says

    The Military Show: INSANITY… Russia Is Throwing Tank Units Into Battle WITHOUT Tanks
    Russia has reached the point where they are sending soldiers from tank units to infantry assault units. Part of it is that Russia doesn’t have the tanks and there is no sign of them being replaced any time soon. Entire tank units exist only on paper because they are waiting for replacement tanks and Russia has begun sending those soldiers to the front on foot. The second part is that tanks are less important to the Russian military. The Ukrainian defense is built on drones, defensive fortifications and a contested ground zone as much as 20KM wide. Russian tanks struggle to reach the front, they are being kept at the rear to intercept any Ukrainian units that penetrate the front and that just isn’t as important for the Russians.

  96. says

    Steve Benen summarizes campaign news, as reported by the Texas Tribune:

    While there’s no need to treat every quarterly fundraising report as national news, there are some exceptions: In Texas’ Senate race, Democratic nominee James Talarico raised $27 million in the first three months of the year. The Texas Tribune noted the haul is “the largest-ever sum for a Senate candidate — in any state — in the first quarter of an election year.”

    Good news for Democrats.

  97. says

    Debunking Trump’s lies about tax refunds:

    […] Trump and congressional Republicans have been boasting that Americans received large tax refunds this year due to the “One Big Beautiful Bill” the GOP passed last year.

    “This is a tax season unlike any other because three big things are happening: lower taxes, bigger refunds, and more money in the pockets of hardworking Americans,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote Thursday morning in a post on X. “Thanks to Republicans’ Working Families Tax Cuts, Americans’ tax rates are reduced permanently.”

    However, this year’s tax refunds were actually far smaller than expected, according to an analysis from Heather Long, the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.

    “The White House (and many economists) expected $700 to $1,000 higher refunds, on average,” Long wrote in a post on X, adding that “the reality is closer to $375” for members of her credit union.

    The IRS’s own data shows a slightly smaller average refund increase of $346.

    What’s more, rising costs elsewhere have eaten into whatever additional refunds Americans received, making for a net loss in most cases.

    For example, the One Big Beautiful Bill slashed health care subsidies that millions of Americans used to afford their Affordable Care Act health insurance plans. In many instances, insurance costs more than doubled.

    And Trump’s idiotic and illegal tariffs and boondoggle of a war in Iran have raised the price of goods and gasoline, additional costs that eat into whatever refund Americans may have gotten.

    “So far, the refunds aren’t coming in as high as expected,” Long wrote in a post on her Substack. “Yes, the refunds are up. Yes, this is likely to be the largest tax refund season ever. But there’s a difference between a $1,000 boost to the typical American household’s income and a $375 boost. It means less spending. It means less of a growth boost. And that’s before factoring in higher gas prices eating up a lot of the tax refund.” […]

    Link

  98. says

    RATS, as of 1145 AZ time, bluesky site is down. No embeded articles will show on other sites. I haven’t been able to find out why.

  100. whheydt says

    Re: shermanj @ #98…
    There was a link embedded in a comment to today’s “Russian Stuff Blowing Up” on Daily Kos indicating that the BlueSky problem started around 3 AM (EDT) with a DDoS attack. Reports in the article are that major feeds are down, but individual feeds are working better.

  103. birgerjohansson says

    Considering that the House was only one vote away from reclaiming the war powers from the president – one Dem joined the Republicans – it is time to start demanding purity tests from candidates. The Republicans fear their voters. The Democrats despise them.

    .
    And Chuck Shumer disgraced himself as the Senate voted to keep supporting Israel.

  105. says

    MS NOW:

    Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, which President Donald Trump said will begin today at 5 p.m. ET. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he agreed to the truce ‘to advance’ peace efforts with Lebanon.

  106. says

    New York Times:

    The United States military said it had struck a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, killing three people that it accused of smuggling drugs. The U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the strike on social media.

    That’s the third strike in three days. Number of strikes overall? 51.

  107. says

    New York Times:

    Russia launched a vast missile and drone attack across Ukraine overnight and early Thursday morning, killing at least 18 people and destroying any thought that the temporary Easter truce announced by President Vladimir V. Putin meant anything more permanent.

  108. says

    New York Times:

    Pope Leo XIV is not backing down. Amid a growing dispute with the Trump administration over the legitimacy of American attacks in Iran, Leo used a speech on Thursday in Cameroon to express ‘woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.’

  109. says

    Associated Press:

    The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, broke the U.S. record Wednesday for the longest post-Vietnam War deployment, a nearly 10-month span that saw it take part in both the military raid in Venezuela and the Iran war.

  110. says

    EXCLUSIVE: Drugmakers raised prices on hundreds of meds despite Trump deals

    “The findings raise questions about whether the administration’s ‘most favored nation’ deals are having a meaningful impact on patients.”

    […] Trump has repeatedly said his deals with drugmakers would bring down prescription drug prices in the U.S. But a report released by Senate Democrats finds prices have continued to climb — in some cases, sharply.

    The report — released Thursday by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, ahead of a hearing focused on drug prices — found that companies that signed drug pricing deals with Trump have raised the cost of hundreds of medications and launched new ones at an average price of $353,000 a year.

    “American people continue to pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, and that was true before President Trump was president. In most cases, it is even more accurate today,” Sanders said at the hearing.

    The price hikes include expensive gene therapies, cancer medications and multiple sclerosis drugs.

    The report also said the companies that signed deals with Trump have made huge profits during his second term in office. In 2025, the companies made a combined $177 billion in profits, up from $107 billion the year before.

    […] The findings raise questions about whether the administration’s “most favored nation” deals — which Trump said would lower U.S. drug prices to match those in other wealthy countries where drugs are often far less expensive — are having a meaningful impact on patients. […]

    “One of the more frustrating aspects of recent drug pricing announcements has been the lack of transparency into the so-called deals that are being made by the administration,” said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. “In fact, once you dig into the details, it appears that the administration’s efforts to date have mostly served to help drug companies.” [yep]

    […] As a part of the deals, drugmakers agreed to offer some of their products for a discounted price for people paying with cash, not insurance, on TrumpRx.gov, a discount prescription drug platform. Many of the discounts are the same as those found on GoodRx, another discount site. [!]

    […] the list price of Keytruda, a widely used cancer treatment made by Merck, rose by 6% to about $210,000 a year in the U.S., far higher than prices in countries like Japan ($37,900) and France ($88,100), according to the report.

    Novartis’ Kesimpta, a multiple sclerosis drug, increased by nearly $10,500 to $141,000 a year, according to the report. The annual price of Kesimpta in Germany is $17,300 and the yearly price in Canada is $23,500.

    The annual list price of Opdivo, Bristol Myers Squibb’s immunotherapy, rose 4% to $260,000, more than double the price in other countries, including France ($90,300) and the United Kingdom ($113,000).

    […] while average brand-name list prices declined in 2026 for the first time, that shift was largely driven by policies from the Biden administration, including Medicare drug pricing negotiations.

    […] The report also found that companies that negotiated deals with Trump launched new medications, many of them cancer drugs, with six- to seven-digit price tags.

    According to the report, Johnson & Johnson’s cancer drug Inlexzo launched at a price of about $1 million; AbbVie’s cancer drug Emrelis is about $719,000; and AstraZeneca’s Datroway is about $419,000.

    Novartis’ Itvisma, a one-time gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy, has a list price of about $2.59 million. Another gene therapy from Novartis — Zolgensma, for spinal muscular atrophy — increased by nearly $200,000 to more than $2.5 million for a single course of treatment, according to the report.

    Pfizer increased the price of its lung cancer drug Vizimpro by about 5% to about $208,000 a year, according to the report. […]

  112. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: whheydt @100, shermanj @98.

    (PDS, Personal Data Server, is like running your own blog to compose posts, which Bluesky then scrapes and relays to everyone else.)

    mcc:

    Bluesky is down today. “Hah”, I think, “since I use a self-hosted PDS for posting and Blacksky for viewing posts, I can go on using the service just fine.”

    Blacksky can’t show me my own posts. I can make them and they show up on my PDS, but my profile shows none more recent than last night. I wonder if Blacksky is coincidentally having server problems, or if Blacksky has a still-undisclosed dependency on Bluesky services. (It *does* have disclosed use of Bluesky moderation; maybe that’s it.)
    […]
    P2P is a world where naturally the more people use it, the faster and more resilient the network becomes. Load gets distributed. Working nodes talk to each other and ignore nonworking nodes. That’s how the primitive, BitTorrent era systems worked.

    Bluesky somehow applied superfancy alien future technology to invent P2P traffic jams. When one node goes down, the others go down because they depended on it. Because it’s a mesh of interoperating microservices by different providers, not federation.

    This appears to be the explanation:

    Rudy (Blacksky CEO): Even their relay seems down(?) Trying to switch some things to use [a Blacksky relay].

    In Bluesky, the PDS talks to the relay talks to the appview goes to the client. Blacksky set up all four last year. But they only deployed their PDS and client, at first. They used Bluesky’s relay and appview. This wasn’t clearly disclosed. Then there was a censorship scare, and they switched to their own appview. But apparently they’re still using Bluesky’s relay. This wasn’t clearly disclosed. Now relay death can screw Blacksky.

    Now, interestingly, this means that Blacksky users can continue talking to Blacksky users. I can read Rudy’s posts on Blacksky. Because that bypasses the relay. But¹ to read my *own* posts, *on a self-hosted PDS*, Bluesky is apparently required, because Blacksky relies on Bluesky’s “relay” to scrape my PDS before it gets added to the Blacksky appview database. […]

    And it’s extremely relatable why Rudy took this shortcut of “build out our own stuff, but rely on Bluesky’s components until we’re forced to drop it”: *Because standing up your own Bluesky stack is nightmarish!* It is a borderline miracle that a team his size made this work at all; I’m not sure a third team could replicate to the extent Blacksky has […]

    Because this is the other “we used future alien technology to make it worse” thing about Bluesky. In the “natural”, Hobbesian form of P2P, the more nodes you add the less work per node you need to do, because of work sharing.

    But Bluesky’s “federation” is like blockchain. When you create a second “instance”, that instance must duplicate *literally all the work* of the first instance. It must scrape all the posts itself. It must archive all the posts itself. It must CSAM-scan the posts itself.

    This is why I believe Bluesky was never meant to be federated. To create a Bluesky “instance”, like Blacksky is heroically attempting, you have to perfectly duplicate every server Bluesky runs. But Bluesky is a business operating at a loss by burning unlimited-for-now VC cash.
    […]
    ActivityPub [the protocol behind Mastodon, etc.] has problems, but not these.
    […]
    Updates
    – Over the last two hours the problem has gone from “I don’t see my posts” to “I see my posts 1 hour after I make them” to “17 minutes” to “3 minutes” to “it’s fixed(?)”. I interpret this as the relay firehose pointer, whatever relay is in use right now, gradually catching up.

    – I need to stress the above thread is a mix of fact (ATProto federation is duplicative and often brittle) and conjecture (I can’t know what relay is being used internally by Blacksky except if Rudy tells us).

  116. Silentbob says

    @ ^

    I think it’s hilarious how you just inserted “Man.” in there. X-D

    Why do you think it’s relevant Stevo?

  117. JM says

    StudioBinder Academy: The Poor Man’s Process (How Movies Fake Driving Scenes)
    Little video on the Poor Man’s process, how films do driving scenes fairly cheaply. Shows why you see so many scenes from inside cars where the background can’t be seen. Essentially a good illusion of movement can be created by moving lights without a visible background.
    The channel itself has a lot of videos that are on how to use the StudioBinder software but there is more interesting stuff about film process and interviews mixed in.

  118. JM says

    CNBC: Iran declares Strait of Hormuz open to shipping; Trump says U.S. blockade still active

    Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz open to all commercial ships following the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.
    However, vessels must transit through a “coordinated route” announced by Iran’s maritime authorities, Iran’s foreign minister said.
    President Donald Trump thanked Tehran for opening the strait, but said the U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports remains in effect.

    I take it coordinated route means that Iran isn’t removing sea mines yet, removing the blockade does mean that Iran has given up on charging for transit for the moment. Iran is happy about Israel and Lebanon but likely also wants to stop angering everybody globally and would like to get it’s ports open. They have made their point about being able to close the Strait of Hormuz and can use that in negotiations.
    Trump says the US will continue it’s blockade of Iran’s ports while allowing shipping through the Strait until there is a deal. This follows the Trump administration policy of max leverage under all situations no matter how counter productive it may be. Iran in turn will likely shut down the Strait at some point if there is no deal because it’s the only leverage they have.

  119. says

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Democrat Analilia Mejía joins Chris Hayes after defeating Republican in N.J. special election

    AP projects Democrat Analilia Mejía to win the special election to replace Gov. Mikie Sherrill. Congresswoman-elect Mejía joins Chris Hayes to talk about her victory in New Jersey.

    Video is 5:17 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Pope slams ‘tyrants’ who spend billions on wars days after Trump attacks

    “Pope Leo is not scared of Donald Trump,” says Chris Hayes, on the Pope’s pointed remarks in Cameroon on Thursday. Father James Martin joins to discuss.

    Video is 7:36 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Hayes: Trump pushed us into the ‘worst possible sustainable equilibrium’

    “This is what Trump does. He lights our national house on fire. He lets it burn for 15 minutes before he shows up with a fire hose. And then he demands a prize for putting out the blaze while the rest of us stand here in the smoldering ruins,” says Chris Hayes.

    Video is 8:29 minutes

  120. says

    Seven weeks into the war with Iran, the White House doesn’t want to talk about the price tag

    “The questions are going to keep getting louder, and Russell Vought’s reluctance to disclose the cost details is likely to prove unsustainable.”

    […] What exactly is this war of choice costing American taxpayers?

    Roughly a week after Donald Trump launched combat operations, congressional sources with knowledge of the matter said the war was costing the United States an estimated $1 billion a day. A week later, a congressional source told MS NOW the administration, during a private briefing for lawmakers, revised that number to $1.6 billion a day. [!]

    More than a month later, the questions persist, but the White House apparently doesn’t want to answer them. The New York Times reported:

    The White House declined to estimate the cost of the war with Iran at a congressional hearing on Thursday, prompting some Senate Democrats to criticize the Trump administration for its lack of transparency.

    In a second appearance on Capitol Hill this week, Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, sidestepped questions about the price tag of the U.S.- and Israel-led conflict.

    At one point, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, suggested Vought, instead of giving lawmakers a precise dollar amount, could share with the committee a general range of the cost. He refused. [!]

    At the same hearing, Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon asked whether the administration has spent $50 billion on the conflict, as some media reports have indicated. Vought, who was in a position to know the answer, said he didn’t want to “make a characterization.”

    Merkley later told The Hill that Vought was trying to “hide” the cost of the war for political reasons, adding, “He doesn’t want a number to be out there because it’s a big number and it’s very disturbing to Americans.” [!!]

    Murray also made her dissatisfaction clear.

    “You’re just not going to tell us, because you don’t want us to know how much is being spent,” she told the White House budget director during the proceedings. “We have a responsibility here; Senator Merkley mentioned that. We have to know how much is spent so we can put our budgets together, so we can make our annual appropriations. And I just find it outrageous that as director, you’re not willing to tell us what those costs are. It’s your job to know.”

    To state the obvious, fair-minded observers would agree the most important cost in any war is the human cost, and this avoidable conflict has already taken a brutal toll.

    […] it’s also important to acknowledge the fact that this is an election year, and many […] have already seized on the growing financial costs of the unpopular war.

    These questions, in other words, are going to keep getting louder, and Vought’s reluctance to disclose the details is likely to prove unsustainable.

  121. says

    Wall Street Journal:

    The House passed a bipartisan measure Thursday that would reinstate temporary legal protections for Haitian immigrants living in the U.S. …

    The 224-204 vote marks a rare GOP rebuke of President Trump’s agenda. Trump maligned Haitian immigrants on the campaign trail and moved to strip their legal protections, known as Temporary Protected Status, soon after taking office. The bill will next head to the Senate, where the prospects for a vote are unclear.

    Some Republicans went against Trump’s directives in order to pass the bill in the House of Congress. And that’s on one of Trump’s signature issues: immigration.

  122. says

    […] Team Trump seems to realize that it has a problem. Whether it knows what to do about that problem is another matter entirely.

    […] Donald Trump’s approval rating for his handling of the economy fell to just 31% — the lowest across both of the Republican president’s two terms — while 27% of Americans approved of his handling of inflation. […]

    When Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, for example, was asked Thursday about public attitudes, he replied, in reference to American consumers, “in their heart of hearts they feel good,” regardless of what they tell “the survey people.” [LOL] [video]

    […] Trump’s message was hardly better. During a brief Q&A with reporters at the White House on Thursday afternoon, the president was asked how much longer consumers should expect to see high gas prices. Trump challenged the premise of the question. [video]

    Prices at the pump, Trump replied, are “not very high,” [Oh JFC. More bitter laughter.]. At the same gaggle, he claimed that he inherited the worst in inflation in American history — an absurd assertion that, as the president surely knows, has been discredited many times. He added that as far as he’s concerned, inflation is “still low” right now [eyebrows raised]

    The president soon after hosted an event in Las Vegas, where he argued that the U.S. economy is the best it’s ever been (yet another absurdity), while denouncing “fake inflation,” driven by the war he launched in Iran. [head/desk]

    Taken together, it seemed as if Trump and his team decided the way to change public attitudes is to try to pull some kind of Jedi mind trick, telling people upset about the economy that the economy is great, telling people upset about high gas prices that gas prices are low, and telling people upset about inflation that inflation is “fake.” […]

    Link

  123. says

    The Christian Nationalist Project

    Sarah Posner in TPM: “The Trump regime has a preferred religion — a bellicose, nationalist Christianity — but its expression, as we saw this week, can be very erratic and often theologically incomprehensible. But one thing is clear from all the chaos. The Trumpist establishment of religion is made up of various fiefdoms within the federal government, all aimed at protecting, and even justifying, the regime’s impunity.”

    Judge Scoffs at Trump’s New National Security Rationale for Ballroom

    U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of D.C. has once again blocked above-ground construction of Trump’s vanity ballroom project on top of the ruins of the demolished East Wing of the White House. An appeals court shipped the case back to Leon for clarification on Trump’s spurious new claims in the case that the ballroom construction is driven by national security imperatives.

    Leon was having none of it. “National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity,” he wrote, as he allowed below-ground construction of bunkers and other security measures to continue.

    Link

  124. says

    […] The goal of the Christian nationalist project is to subvert democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

    In Trump’s second term, both the White House and federal agencies have been bludgeoning federal employees, the press, and the public with religious pronouncements of moral superiority to perceived enemies.

    Vance has been Catholic for seven years and starts fights with the pope over his anti-war statements (even as Vance leaks to the press, with an eye to 2028, that he was against the war).

    Through his prayer meetings and press conferences, Hegseth aims to compel Americans to embrace his Christian nationalist bloodlust and war crimes, and this week compared reporters to Pharisees for insufficiently cheerleading for the military.

    The scandal-plagued Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer — who is under investigation for, among other things, ordering staffers to bring wine to her hotel room while traveling on government business, and for her husband’s and father’s alleged predatory behavior toward agency employees — has promoted her Catholicism in prayer meetings modeled on the ones Hegseth hosts at the Pentagon.

    The Department of Justice released a highly deceptive report, accusing the Biden administration of anti-Christian bias because of its prosecution of anti-abortion protesters under a federal law protecting patients from harassment and violence at abortion clinics.

    Now, the DOJ is using that same law to prosecute journalists covering and activists attending an anti-ICE protest at an evangelical church in St. Paul — seeking to criminalize both a free press and activists who are motivated by a Christianity opposed to ICE’s lethal immigration crackdown.

    All these moves are designed to crush dissent, marginalize other Christianities and religions, and empower government officials to violate the law. […]

    Congress, too, and particularly House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), has rooted its conduct in biblical imperatives about how government is supposed to work, laying bare the willingness of congressional Republicans to relinquish their constitutional duty of checks and balances. Johnson believes that government is a “design of God,” so he is answering to an authority that he considers higher than the Constitution. (Yes, Trump.) […]

    Link

  125. JM says

    @118 JM: CNN: Iran declares Strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ for remainder of truce

    US President Donald Trump said Iran committed to never closing the waterway again, but that a US naval blockade will continue until a deal with Iran is “100% complete.”

    Not sure if Trump is lying, didn’t understand what Iran promised or if Iran just plans to break a promise if need be. Which is the case that statement isn’t worth anything, if Iran feels that it is necessary they will close the Strait.

    Officials are hoping a broader deal to end the war could be finalized as early as this weekend, though areas of disagreement remain, sources tell CNN. The Trump administration is considering unfreezing $20 billion in Iranian assets as part of ongoing talks, sources say. Trump also said the US will acquire Iran’s enriched uranium and that no money would “exchange hands.”

    It’s sounding more and more like Trump is negotiating his way back to the Obama deal with some slight rewording so it isn’t so obvious.

  126. says

    Baffled by his own ‘corner store’ reference, Trump’s problems with groceries persist

    “The president can wax rhapsodic about his marble preferences and his affection for Corinthian columns. ‘Corner store,’ however, left him badly confused.”

    […] As The New York Times noted, the president ran into fresh trouble during an event in Las Vegas on the economy.

    Trump was touting tax cuts for small businesses when he came across the term ‘corner store’ as he read off prepared remarks. ‘What is a corner store? I’ve never heard that term. I know what a corner store is, but I’ve never heard it described a corner store,’ said Trump. He looked up sharply and said, ‘Who the hell wrote that?’

    Evidently, he didn’t familiarize himself with the text that someone else had written for him ahead of the event. [video]

    After years of struggling with this issue, it’s amazing he hasn’t yet familiarized himself with the basics. Early in his first term, for example, Trump insisted that consumers need to show identification while buying groceries, including cereal and bread. (None of this was true.)

    In 2019, during a government shutdown, the Republican also argued that supermarket owners would allow furloughed federal employees to buy groceries on credit, because “they know the people.” (That didn’t make any sense.)

    In his second term, his approach to the issue has grown weirder, to the point that he even began characterizing “groceries” as an exotic word last year.

    “It’s such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term: ‘groceries,’” Trump said last April, as if he were introducing the public to foreign terminology. “It says ‘a bag with different things in it.’”

    More recently, the president also said he’d had enormous success in lowering grocery prices, even as grocery prices climbed.

    But his remarks in Las Vegas managed to break new ground. Trump, who used to live in a gold tower in Manhattan, and who now splits his time between a presidential mansion and a glorified country club in Florida, can wax rhapsodic about his marble preferences and his affection for Corinthian columns, but confronted with the words “corner store,” he was utterly baffled. […]

  127. says

    New York Times link

    […] The Punchiest Punchlines (Arc de Trump Edition)

    “But it’s an idea Trump lifted from the Arc de Triomphe of Paris, which was commissioned to honor French war heroes. The Arc de Triomphe has the names of generals who fought and died for France engraved on its face. Ours will have the name of the draft dodger who killed America on it.” — JIMMY KIMMEL, on the new ‘Triumphal Arch’ President Trump hopes to build near Arlington National Cemetery

    “Trump’s arch is opposed by a lot of people, including a coalition of veterans and preservationists. They are his arch archnemeses, if you will.” — JIMMY KIMMEL

    “It’s going to be beautiful. It strikes the perfect balance between Scientology and Liberace that we have come to expect from our president.” — JIMMY KIMMEL

    “It will be situated near Arlington National Cemetery, the burial site of thousands of American soldiers whose fathers weren’t leasing office space to a podiatrist.” — JIMMY KIMMEL

    “Arlington, it’s a beautiful place. It’s set up uniformly so that each grave is given equal significance. Until now. Now, this will loom above it all.” — JIMMY KIMMEL […]

    Video at the link. Many more jokes in the video.

    Video is also available here: YouTube link

  129. says

    Europe to accelerate effort to secure Hormuz despite Trump’s order to ‘STAY AWAY’

    “More than 30 leaders joined a video conference call on Friday to map out an international mission to secure the Strait of Hormuz.”

    uropean leaders pledged to rapidly ramp up a multinational effort to secure the Strait of Hormuz after Iran said it would reopen the vital waterway to maritime traffic, even if Donald Trump doesn’t want their help.

    French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the prime ministers of Italy and the United Kingdom, Giorgia Meloni and Keir Starmer, jointly announced Friday that they would be spearheading what Starmer called a “defensive” mission to ensure freedom of navigation in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas travels.

    “We agreed to accelerate the military planning, I can confirm that France and the U.K. will lead a multinational mission to protect freedom of passage as soon as conditions allow,” said Starmer, adding that details would be shared at a military planning conference in London next week.

    The United States, however doesn’t appear inclined to accept that assistance.
    After announcing that Tehran had agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz following Israel and Lebanon’s agreement on a 10-day ceasefire, Trump wrote Friday on his Truth Social account that his NATO allies were “useless” and weren’t needed.

    “I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help. I TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL,” he wrote.

    Trump and other top U.S. officials have expressed deep frustration in recent weeks with allies who have refused to either back U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran or assist in ensuring the freedom of navigation in international waters while the fighting was still ongoing.

    France and the United Kingdom have promised to help secure the waterway only once a ceasefire is reached between Washington and Tehran. Friday’s meeting was an opportunity for European leaders to showcase that they can contribute effectively to either keeping the peace or ensuring the stability of global trade flows.

    “Our mission is defensive and comes after the ceasefire,” said Starmer. “We will see how we will play our part, but we want no tolls and no restrictions.”

    […] After the meeting in Paris on Friday, which included leaders from more than two dozen countries via videoconference, Meloni offered to deploy Italian frigates to the region. Germany on Thursday said it would contribute minesweepers.

    It’s going in the right direction, even if the opening of Hormuz is conditional to coordination by the Iranian authorities and the United States has said it is going to maintain a targeted blockade,” Macron said.

    “Recent developments are encouraging but we must take them with caution,” the French leader added.

    But Europeans are at odds about whether the United States should be included in the mission, with France insisting the mission should only include non-belligerent countries, and Germany keen on including an American contingent.

    On Friday, that rift still looked open. Merz said it would be “desirable” to include the U.S., while Macron insisted the coalition should be “neutral and separate from the belligerents.”

  130. says

    Good short summary from MS NOW:

    The Iranian foreign minister said this morning that the Strait of Hormuz has been reopened for passage in line with the 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, which went into effect yesterday. President Donald Trump followed the announcement with a post on Truth Social saying the U.S. blockade of Iran’s key ports remains in effect.

    Meanwhile, as reported by MS NOW:

    An Israeli strike in the area of Kounine in central Lebanon hit a car and a motorcycle, killing one person and wounding three, including a Syrian citizen, Lebanon’s health ministry said Friday. It was the first airstrike and first fatality reported since a 10-day truce between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah took effect overnight.

    Also from MS NOW:

    Trump told Axios today that he expects a deal with Iran ‘in the next day or two.’ U.S. and Iranian negotiators are expected to meet this weekend in Islamabad, though that has not yet been confirmed, where Trump said he believes the two sides will come to an agreement.

    Sounds like wishful thinking from Trump, and/or an attempt to influence the stock market before it closes for the weekend.

  131. says

    Reuters:

    A federal judge ​on Friday rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s bid to force Rhode Island to ‌turn over non-public data on nearly 750,000 registered voters so the Trump administration could probe ‘election integrity’ in the Democratic-led state. The judge in the case went on to accuse the Justice Department of trying to conduct a ‘fishing expedition.’

  132. says

    MS NOW:

    Amid the White House’s ongoing political attacks on Pope Leo XIV after he rebuked the president’s deadly and economically destructive war with Iran, the administration has canceled an $11 million contract it had with Catholic Charities, a faith-based nonprofit that helps unaccompanied migrant children.

  133. says

    Trump’s buildingpalooza BS continues unabated

    One “triumphal” arch isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Three arches.

    Or so thinks one of the Donald Trump-appointed weirdos on his Commission of Fine Arts. Rodney Mims Cook Jr. is as obsessed as Trump is with big beautiful arches, and began bothering lawmakers about erecting the structures in our nation’s capital 30 years ago.

    Weirdly, he’s an actual architect, unlike some other people Trump stuffed into the commission, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t full of terrible Trumpy ideas.

    On Thursday, the extremely agreeable commission members approved the giant arch with relatively minimal requested changes. [!] The very rigorous deliberation process seems to have consisted only of looking at Trump’s little flipbook of renderings, basically, because this is how government works now.

    But Cook wants more.

    “I think the president should do three,” he declared.

    Why three? Because Cook thinks that three arches would fulfill the L’Enfant plan, architect Pierre L’Enfant’s design for the capital, and Trump is the man to do it.

    “He wants to complete the L’Enfant plan,” Cook claimed. “No one has.”

    That sounds fine until you learn there is no evidence whatsoever that the L’Enfant plan referenced arches anywhere. Cook’s logic is that since L’Enfant’s design drew from other cities with arches, he implicitly somehow planned to build three arches in Washington, D.C. It’s neat that Cook can commune with L’Enfant from the grave […]

    Of course, the public does not share Cook’s enthusiasm for even one arch. Most Americans oppose it, and, per the panel secretary, of the almost 1,000 messages the commission received about the arch, “One hundred percent of the comments were against the project.” [LOL]

    […] A group of veterans has already sued to stop this thing, and there is no question whatsoever that Congress must approve the arch. However, the administration is currently making the unhinged argument that when Congress approved a bridge design in 1925, it also somehow implicitly approved the arch 100 years later. So Trump is not going to Congress for approval. [eyebrows raised]

    He’s also not going to Congress to get approval for his bribe-funded White House ballroom, but he is going to Truth Social to rant about it.

    U.S. District Judge Richard Leon continues to bedevil Trump and just will not buy his argument that the entire ballroom is a national security necessity, a “shed” for all the Top Secret stuff underneath.

    Last week, Judge Leon blocked above-ground construction, but carved out an exception for anything necessary for national security. Trump promptly decided this included the entire ballroom, because it would stop drones and missiles and keep Trump and his family safe and cover up the secret lair below.

    This, unsurprisingly, led to the plaintiffs asking Judge Leon to clarify his injunction, which he did on Thursday, saying that his order stopped all above-ground construction, but not below-ground construction. Leon pointed out that all along, the White House had argued that national security applied only to the below-ground construction, so shifting to the claim that the whole ballroom was also a national security need was not really a persuasive argument.

    […] [Trump is] supposed to be shifting to focusing on the midterm elections, touting how great his tax cuts are in the hopes of suckering voters into preserving a GOP majority in Congress. Instead, he spent quality time yelling about the ballroom, calling Leon a “Trump Hating” judge, blathering about how the ballroom is now, ok, wait for it, because this gets long:

    “Safe and secure large scale Meeting Place, or Ballroom, one with Bomb Shelters, a State of the Art Hospital and Medical Facilities, Protective Partitioning, Top Secret Military Installations, Structures, and Equipment, Protective Missile Resistant Steel, Columns, Roofs, and Beams, Drone Proof Ceilings and Roofs, Military Grade Venting, and Bullet, Ballistic, and Blast Proof Glass.”

    Where … where will all this be?

    Trump also said straight-up that he doesn’t believe Leon’s decision binds him at all.

    “Too much hard work, time, and money spent in order that a Judge can claim that he ruled against ‘DONALD TRUMP,’ something which I have gotten very used to, BUT WILL NOT ACCEPT!” […]

    He also complained that Judge Leon’s decision means that he wants taxpayers to pay for the ballroom instead of Trump’s bribe-y “donors.” But all Leon has ordered at this point is to get congressional approval for the project, which Trump simply refuses to do.

    And in case you were wondering if Trump was planning some additional new ugliness? Of course he is.

    Trump wants to paint the granite facade of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with what he calls “magic paint,” a secret formula that will strengthen the granite, prevent staining, and rarely require repainting. Actual experts say this is totally not a thing, [!] in no small part because paint requires primer, so any magic paint would not be binding to the granite.

    […] If we had to have a megalomaniac remake D.C., it would have been nice to have someone with a bit more taste.

  134. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/doj-asks-court-to-pretty-please-un

    A few days after Donald Trump whined that the Pope is “weak on CRIME,” Trump’s Justice Department on Tuesday filed paperwork asking the federal appeals court for the DC Circuit to vacate the convictions of members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers terrorist groups for seditious conspiracy and other federal treason crimes.

    The move will wipe away the criminal convictions of the handful of Trump-loving seditionists whose sentences were commuted by Trump right after he took office, but who weren’t among the more than 1,500 January 6 criminals who received full pardons. Trump instead commuted the sentences of the 14 people convicted of seditious conspiracy to time served, letting them out of prison, but leaving the convictions in place.

    Once the requests from “US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro” — a phrase that still makes us snort-laugh in disbelief — are approved, They’ll erase the only remaining criminal convictions of people involved in the January 6 coup attempt/tourist visit. The requests will almost certainly be approved, because as the Washington Post lawsplains, “prosecutors have broad discretion to pursue or drop criminal charges, even after defendants have been convicted.” […]

    Because they’ll no longer have felony convictions against them, they’ll again be free to own guns. [!!] Lots and lots of guns […] Some of those poor persecuted lambs are also suing the Capitol and DC Metro Police for having defended the Capitol, so the inevitable settlement with the DOJ may bankroll the rebuilding of rightwing militia arsenals.

    Among those who’ll benefit are Oath Keepers founder and head Oaf Elmer Stewart Rhodes as well as other Oafs and Proud Boys who were convicted of seditious conspiracy. They include Dominic Pezzola, the Proud Boy who was first to breach the Capitol by smashing a window with a riot shield taken from a cop. [I snipped the rest of the list.]

    Trump fully pardoned Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio on his first day in office, even though Tarrio was given the longest prison sentence — 22 years — of any of the seditionists.

    In the court filings, Pirro didn’t attempt to explain why the dozen seditionists deserve to have all their January 6 crimes erased […] She simply said that the “United States has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.” […]

    The Post points out that there was some very convenient timing here, too

    The Justice Department’s request came one day after Tarrio and Rehl had publicly accused Pirro and her office of fighting their efforts to overturn the convictions.

    “We shouldn’t have to fight Jeanine Pirro for the truth that everybody already knows,” they wrote in an essay published by Gateway Pundit […] “The President … knows these cases were a farce. Yet his own DOJ is still counter-signaling him.”

    […] We’ll also point out that Rhodes’s estranged family has long dreaded the possibility that he’ll again have access to firearms, fearing that he will come after them for revenge. […]

    As Judge Amit Mehta noted at Rhodes’s sentencing, there’s every reason to consider Rhodes, based on his own statements about the need to pursue armed insurrection against the government, presents “an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the Republic and the very fabric of our democracy.” [!]

    […] a bunch of the top leaders of Trump’s last coup attempt will now be able to buy all the guns they want in advance of the 2026 midterms.

  135. says

    New York Times link

    “A Stunning New Verdict Rewrites the Rules of Corporate Morality” By M. Gessen

    .As the judge read her verdict in Paris Criminal Court on Monday, police officers walked to the defense table to arrest Bruno Lafont, the 69-year-old former chief executive of one of the world’s largest cement manufacturers, Lafarge, and Christian Herrault, the 75-year-old former deputy head of operations. They would begin serving their prison sentences immediately: six and five years, respectively, for financing terrorism in Syria and beyond. [Amazing]

    […] but the big news was something else: For the first time in France, and possibly for the first time ever, anywhere, an entire corporation had been put on trial and found criminally liable for enabling terrorism. [..] Also exceptional was the scathing tone of Judge Isabelle Prévost-Desprez’s verdict, which took almost four hours to read.

    The court had concluded that between 2013 and 2014, the cement maker paid about $6.5 million to the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria, to facilitate the company’s operations there. Lafarge […] will have to pay about $1.3 million in fines for the crime of financing terrorism and $5.3 million for violating international sanctions. In another case, Lafarge is facing charges of complicity in crimes against humanity. If that case goes to trial and Lafarge is again found guilty, a new chapter in the prosecution of war crimes may begin.

    In the best-known war crimes prosecutions — at Nuremberg, in Jerusalem, in The Hague — most of the defendants were military or paramilitary officers. But at Nuremberg, industrialists who had aided and abetted the Holocaust were also put on trial. These cases largely fizzled, in part because the defendants successfully claimed that they had merely been doing what businesspeople do, which is try to maximize profits, and that they hadn’t known what kind of atrocities they were enabling.

    Eighty years later, Lafarge executives attempted the same basic defense strategy. Prosecutors showed extensive email correspondence documenting agreements with terrorist organizations to help secure the Lafarge cement plant’s continued operations in Syria. [I snipped details.]

    […] Documents showed that Lafarge executives knew they were paying groups classified as terrorist organizations by the United States and international agencies. And in an email message that was introduced into evidence, Herrault observed: “You don’t need much research to see that, internationally, they are hard-core terrorists.” But a lawyer for Bruno Pescheux, the former director of the Lafarge plant in Syria, claimed ignorance on her client’s behalf: “Your court says that everyone knew who ISIS was, and I say to you: Not Mr. Pescheux!”

    […] The defendants had known, the judge concluded, that staying in Syria would require cooperation with terrorist groups. That made Lafarge complicit — not only in atrocities committed in Syria but also in acts of terrorism that the Islamic State carried out in France. […] Judge Prévost-Desprez [said] “I am trying to make you understand how choices made in your offices, thousands of kilometers away, turned into Kalashnikov bullets, into blood,” the judge said.

    […] Prévost-Desprez wrote. “Thus, by knowingly paying extremely large sums over many months to three terrorist organizations, Lafarge SA enabled them to expand their influence and fuel their deadly campaigns, ultimately leading to attacks committed abroad as well as on French soil.”

    […] Prosecuting corporations is particularly difficult for at least two reasons. One is the problem of intent, which is essential to determining guilt in a criminal trial. Does a corporation have a mind? Can it have intent? The defense in the Lafarge trial claimed that the company’s and its executives’ only intent was to keep the Syria plant in operation; the judge concluded that the executives’ exclusive focus on this goal was itself incriminating, since it could be achieved only by cooperating with armed groups terrorizing and plundering Syria. [!]

    But the bigger problem with prosecuting corporations, in Hamilton’s [Rebecca Hamilton, a war-crimes lawyer who is now a law professor at American University in Washington] opinion, is resource disparity. “These cases are mind-bendingly complex, involving subsidiaries, across different countries, regulated by different laws,” she wrote to me. “They take decades. The defendants in these situations are multinational corporations with effectively unlimited resources to throw at a lawsuit. On the other side, we have victim communities and their nonprofit lawyers urging public prosecutors — who may have had no previous exposure to international crimes — to bring charges.” […]

    […] By convicting both the executives and the corporate entity itself, the court made it harder for Lafarge either to blame its misconduct on a few individual bad actors or to treat the financial penalty as the cost of doing business. [!!]

    In October of last year, a federal jury in a civil trial in Manhattan found BNP Paribas, an international bank, liable for aiding atrocities in Sudan. (The bank is appealing.) A verdict in the Lundin trial in Sweden is expected this year. The second Lafarge trial — on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity — may get underway in France. And last summer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, released a report that laid out <b<the role of corporations in the genocide in Gaza with unprecedented clarity. (Albanese was immediately subjected to U.S. sanctions.) […]

    The court in Paris has just ruled that cynicism and an exclusive focus on profits can constitute a crime. [!!] We are not in Paris, of course. But one reason it was so gratifying to watch Lafarge be convicted and its executives, in their stiff-collared shirts and well-cut suits, be placed under arrest is that these men had surely never imagined that they could be punished for what they did.

    More at the link.

  136. StevoR says

    @116. Silentbob : “I think it’s hilarious how you just inserted “Man.” in there. Why do you think it’s relevant Stevo?”

    Because otherwise it would read “Owen Jones interviews a Jewish. Iranian. Anti-War. Meet Etan Mabourakh.” which doesn’t really make sense. I could’ve uysed perosn but Etan Mabourakh is a man and I thinka biut of alliteration is nice being memorable and flowing better.

  137. StevoR says

    Slowly, the issue of the state of the US president’s mind is becoming the subject of serious discussion, rather than just the butt of the jokes of late night talk show hosts.

    As it should.

    The New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker wrote a lengthy piece this week about the mental capacities of the nation’s commander-in-chief in a time of war.

    “A series of disjointed, hard-to-follow and sometimes-profane statements, capped by his “a whole civilisation will die tonight” threat to wipe Iran off the map last week, and his head-spinning attack on the “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” pope on Sunday night have left many with the impression of a deranged autocrat mad with power,” Baker wrote.

    There has been a hesitancy to discuss the state of Trump’s mind in much of the media, let alone on the international political stage, even as his behaviour has become increasingly erratic, and as it has become dangerous for the entire world.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-18/fallout-iran-war-spreads-focus-donald-trump-mind/106576096

  138. StevoR says

    @116 & #137. Fix : I could’ve used person but Etan Mabourakh is a man and I think a bit of alliteration is..

    ” Jewish. Iranian. Anti-War” are adjectioves and a noun was required to specify what – in this case who – was Jewish. Iranian and Anti-War.

    Not hard to figure out or unreasonable.

  139. JM says

    The Guardian: Newly unsealed records reveal Amazon’s price-fixing tactics, California attorney general claims

    Hundreds of previously redacted records reveal how Amazon has put pressure on independent sellers using its platform into raising their prices on the sites of competitors such as Walmart and Target, so that Amazon can appear to have lower prices, California authorities allege.

    We shall see how it fares in court but the basic of the allegations is that if you sold on Amazon then Amazon would monitor the price from other stores and punish you if it was cheaper anyplace else.
    It’s a tricky situation legally because Amazon is allowed to try and convince companies to offer better deals on Amazon. There are limits to what they can do and Amazon wasn’t stupid enough to just drop companies. Instead they would punish individual products, reducing their search priority and making them harder to buy in the interface.

  140. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    StevoR @138: “a noun was required”
    “a Jewish anti-war Iranian” would’ve saved a word.

    In search of meaning, I’d considered “Jewish. Iranian. Anti-War. Man.” as a possible series of oppositions: to regimes of Israel, Iran, and the flamboyant toxic masculinity of the US gov. But that was a stretch.

  142. says

    “Discipline means organization, chain of command, and logistics.” — Master Sun Tzu

    In “The Art of War,” his famed treatise on military strategy from the 6th Century B.C.E., the legendary Chinese strategist Sun Tzu spends much of his time on the need to keep armies well fed and supplied. It appears America’s self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth skipped over those parts of the ancient manuscript.

    On Thursday, USA Today reported that U.S. service members on board ships deployed to the Mideast as part of the war in Iran are facing food shortages. Family members of troops in the region told the newspaper military personnel are rationing their supplies and are out of fresh produce amid prolonged deployments and President Donald Trump’s frenetic dealmaking. The report included grim photos of meal trays sparsely filled with chunks of greying processed meats provided by family members whose efforts to supplement the supplies with care packages from home have been stymied by disruptions in mail service.

    While Hegseth seemingly hasn’t spent too much time on the basics of effective battlefield strategy, he has been focused on sermonizing from behind the Pentagon podium. Over the past week, the former “Fox and Friends Weekend” co-host showed off his unique brand of Christian nationalism in attempts to complain about unflattering media coverage and rally the troops. [I snipped details which were already posted in comments 94 and 124]

    [Hegseth’s comments] came on the heels of Trump repeatedly posting AI images of himself with, let’s say, messianic overtones […] On Wednesday, during a prayer service at the Pentagon, Hegseth quoted a prayer that was apparently used by a team involved in a rescue mission in Iran. Critics quickly pointed out the militaristic version of a Bible verse more closely matched a memorable scene from the movie “Pulp Fiction” than the King James Version.

    Hegseth’s prayer may not draw on ancient treatises on strategy or actual Biblical doctrine. However, he’s not letting any of that get in his way. As he sermonized on Wednesday, before dipping into the gospel of Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson, Hegseth quipped about his own lack of expertise.

    “I’m not a theologian,” Hegseth said, “But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

    Link

  143. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/kash-patel-often-too-drunk-to-show

    Well if we don’t have egg on our face. Here we’ve spent the last year making crack after crack about Defense Secretary and beau ideal of white man mediocrity Pete Hegseth being the biggest drunk in Trump Town. But it turns out that […] another high-level Trumpist was boozing it up […] (ALLEGEDLY!)

    […] The Atlantic published a story that reads as if every knife that administration officials had out for FBI Director Kash Patel. got planted into his back at once. Benders, unexplained absences from the office, meetings that had to be rescheduled because he was too drunk to attend them […] [Yikes.]

    Even the lede is fantastic. The piece’s author, Sarah Fitzpatrick, claims that just recently, Patel was having trouble logging into an FBI computer system. Anyone who has ever worked with a company computer network — which is to say, everyone in America under the age of 90 — knows that there are a gazillion dumb reasons for such a problem: incorrect password, some administrator somewhere checked a box that was supposed to remain unchecked, gremlins, whatever.

    Patel, however, is paranoid and worried about his job security. When he couldn’t log into the computer, he assumed he had been canned:

    [H]e panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”

    […] Patel had not been fired. Fitzpatrick has two sources who say the problem was a technical issue that was quickly fixed. But that’s just the sort of tantrum that makes us feel so secure about the temperament of one guy who the nation really needs to stay cool during a crisis.

    The story does not get better from there. We are told that Patel is known to “drink to excess” at a private club in DC and The Poodle Room in Vegas, where he spends whatever weekends he’s not flying the FBI jet to listen to his girlfriend sing the national anthem at D-list wrestling events.

    Then there is this:

    On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated […] A request for “breaching equipment”—normally used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings—was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request.

    Let us repeat that: The director of the nation’s largest law enforcement agency was so blackout drunk that his security detail had to knock down a door like the SEALs entering bin Laden’s compound just to make sure that he, soused to the gills, hadn’t choked to death on his own vomit.

    Needless to say, actual FBI agents […] are worried that Patel’s behavior is a threat to public safety. One agent told Fitzpatrick that since Trump launched his war on Iran, the possibility of a domestic terrorist attack happening when Patel is snookered “keeps me up at night.” […]

    As of Friday night, the administration was standing behind Patel. White House Spokesdip Karoline Leavitt told The Atlantic that “crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years,” implying that Patel had something to do with that. (He didn’t.) The public affairs office at the FBI denied everything, calling it “one of the most absurd” stories they had ever heard, and promised a lawsuit.

    But the best denials were from Patel, who told the magazine if they printed all these alleged tall tales, he would see it in court and it should bring its checkbook [social media post]

    […] Is Kash Patel in danger of getting fired? Who knows. Trump still likes how aggressive the FBI director has been in pursuing his enemies and firing every agent with even the remotest connection to any of the investigations of the president from the last decade. But even Trump is going to have his limits with the bad press. And there has been so, so, so very much bad press.

    For our money, we kind of hope Patel stays. […] we’d rather have his bumbling, stumbling, drunken ass doing a poor job than some competent hard-right MAGA guy who can do the job of pursuing retribution against Trump’s enemies with ruthless efficiency. That is a lot scarier to us than having an FBI director who’s a useless lush.

    Neither option is good.

  144. says

    Washington Post link

    “Iran says it has closed the Strait of Hormuz again, citing U.S. blockade”

    “Iranian forces also opened fire on a tanker attempting to cross the strait Saturday morning […]”

    Iran’s military announced Saturday that it was closing the Strait of Hormuz, citing a continued American blockade, leaving the status of access to a vital waterway unclear a day after President Donald Trump and the country declared it open. A tanker attempting to cross the strait also was reported to have come under fire from Iranian forces […]

    Trump told reporters Saturday that the United States remained engaged in “very good conversations” with Iran and acknowledged that Tehran “wanted to close up the strait again.”

    “They can’t blackmail us,” Trump said of Iran, adding that he would have more information on the talks with Tehran “by end of day.”

    Iranian forces Saturday morning also opened fire on a tanker attempting to cross the strait, according to the British military. Two gunboats affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps opened fire on a tanker about 20 nautical miles northeast of Oman, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO), a monitoring agency that is part of the British Royal Navy. The agency said all crew members were reported safe.
    The incident was also reported by ship tracking firm TankerTrackers.com, which said a crew member aboard the tanker radioed Iran’s military for help as it was under attack. In the distress call, the crew member claims the tanker had been given permission to cross the strait and asks Iran to allow the tanker to turn back, according to the report.

    UKMTO also reported two other incidents that appear to be attacks on vessels in the strait. A container ship was hit by an unknown projectile, causing damage to some of the containers, and a cruise ship reported seeing a nearby splash.

    […] The U.S. will continue its naval blockade of Iranian ports until there is a peace deal with Iran, Trump said. But on Saturday, Iran accused the U.S. of “banditry and piracy under the guise of a so-called blockade.” [Hmmm. WTF?]

    “Until the United States ends its interference with the full freedom of movement for vessels traveling to and from Iran, the status of the Strait of Hormuz will remain under intense control and in its previous state,” said the statement published on Iran’s semiofficial Fars media outlet.

    […] Israel Defense Forces claimed in a statement Saturday that it had identified several incidents it considered ceasefire violations in southern Lebanon, warning that the “IDF is authorized to take the necessary measures in self-defense against threats, while ensuring the security of Israeli civilians and the soldiers deployed in the area.” […]

  145. says

    Follow-up to comment 144.

    US military prepares to board Iran-linked vessels

    The U.S. military is readying to board ships linked to Iran and seize commercial vessels in international waters in the coming days as President Trump looks to expand a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, a source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal military planning, told The Hill on Saturday.

    The planning comes as the military is already enforcing the naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman, turning back 23 vessels that attempted to leave Iranian ports on Monday.

    The expanded enforcement could come as Iran has effectively closed the strait […]

    Iran has reportedly attacked several vessels in the channel, a day after its foreign minister claimed the waterway was “completely” open for commercial ships following the temporary truce reached between Lebanon and Israel. The move caused oil prices to drop dramatically on Friday. […]

  146. JM says

    The Moscow Times: Leningrad Region Asks Veterans to Join New Air Defense Units After Drones Smash Oil Export Terminals

    Authorities in northwestern Russia’s Leningrad region announced Friday a recruitment campaign for military reservists to bolster air defenses following a recent uptick in Ukrainian drone strikes on critical oil and export infrastructure.
    Governor Alexander Drozdenko said new “mobile fire groups” will be stationed at key facilities to counter aerial threats. He urged veterans of the war in Ukraine, as well as former Soviet and Russian soldiers, to sign three-year contracts to man the units.

    The Russian government is looking for people to man new air defense units. I don’t expect that the soldiers that have gotten out of the Russian army are interested. Anybody motivated by patriotism or money has already joined and criminals would know that they are likely to be transferred to front line infantry. It also shows how desperate the Russian army is, so much of the army is committed to the front that they can’t get units in the rear.

  147. JM says

    Euromaidan Press: Either Russia’s air defense doesn’t work, or NATO is launching drones, says Russia’s Shoigu

    Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu has stated that Russia “will defend itself” in response to Ukrainian drone attacks. According to Moscow’s version, these drones may be based on the territory of Finland and the Baltic states, TASS reports.
    He presented two possible interpretations of the drones’ origin: either Russia’s air defense is ineffective, or neighboring countries’ airspace is allegedly being used for the attacks.

    The problem is that Russia’s air defense is failing. Ukraine making deep strikes with long range missiles has forced Russia to spread it’s air defense thinner. At the same time they are running out of radar and missiles, to the point they have begun pulling air defense from some areas not considered important enough.
    Shoigu can’t admit that of course and is instead making lightly veiled threats.

  149. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Stat – Don’t believe headlines saying that vaccine skepticism is widespread

    On Monday, Politico published a poll on vaccine attitudes titled, “More Americans doubt vaccine safety than trust it, Politico Poll finds,” followed by the subhead, “Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s views are commonplace across the land.” […] Within hours, other credible outlets ran headlines such as “Vaccine skepticism now the norm for many Americans.”
    […]
    Here is the actual question from the poll:

    “Which of the following comes closest to your view?: The science on vaccines is clear and it is damaging to question it | The facts on vaccines are still up for debate and it is damaging to enforce their uptake.”

    […] Did you notice the problem? You weren’t asked about one thing; you were asked about four different things simultaneously.
    1 Is the science on vaccines clear?
    2 Is it damaging to question vaccine science?
    3 Are the facts on vaccines still up for debate?
    4 Is it damaging to enforce vaccine uptake?
    […] Survey methodologists call this approach a “double-barreled question.” This question has four barrels.
    […]
    research from the last several years show a slow erosion in confidence but remarkably resilient support for vaccines. A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted in February found that 84% of Americans, including 81% of Republicans, said vaccines like the measles, mumps, and rubella shot are safe for children. Seventy-four percent said the government should require children to be vaccinated to attend school. A February poll from the Partnership to Fight Infectious Disease found that 89% of Americans—including 82% of Republicans—said vaccines are essential for public health.
    […]
    the weight of the evidence says vaccine support remains the norm. But that reality is not immune to the stories we tell about it. […] If enough people hear a misleading message that most of their neighbors are skeptical about vaccines, some will start to doubt, too. Unfortunately, this week’s poll became the raw material for that normalization.

  150. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Former Democratic Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife and himself

    Both of the pair’s teenage children were home at the time of the murder-suicide. Their son was the one to call 911. […] They were in the midst of contentious divorce proceedings
    […]
    Justin Fairfax was lieutenant governor of Virginia under Gov. Ralph Northam. He was elected in 2017 and his time in office was marred by scandal and several sexual assault and rape allegations.

  151. JM says

    The Guardian: First trailer released for western starring AI version of Val Kilmer

    A trailer has been released for the first film to star an authorised generative AI version of a major Hollywood actor.
    Val Kilmer was cast in western As Deep As the Grave before his death in April 2025. Production delays meant he never shot any scenes, but the creative team worked with UK-based company Sonantic to create an AI speaking voice based on his old recordings.
    His estate and daughter Mercedes collaborated with the film-makers on the visual deepfake of the actor.

    As long as it has the actor’s or family’s approval I can’t see a reason to stop it but I probably won’t be seeing the movie either. I don’t want to support this happening on a large scale.
    One reason is that actors need to be replaced, otherwise it just turns into eternal money generation for whoever owns the rights.

  152. JM says

    Bleeping computer: WordPress plugin suite hacked to push malware to thousands of sites

    More than 30 WordPress plugins in the EssentialPlugin package have been compromised with malicious code that allows unauthorized access to websites running them.
    A malicious actor planted the backdoor code last year but only recently started pushing it to users via updates, generating spam pages and causing redirects, as per the instructions received from the command-and-control (C2) server.
    The compromise affects plugins with hundreds of thousands of active installations and was spotted by Austin Ginder, the founder of managed WordPress hosting provider Anchor Hosting, after receiving a tip about one add-on containing code that allowed third-party access.

    Obvious possible attack but the first time I have heard of this being done in the real world. The attacker, currently unidentified, purchased ownership of the code in the EssentialPlugin package. This let them add backdoor code through normal plugin updates. They slowly did this over a year to give it a chance to spread widely before using the backdoor.

  153. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Elia Ayoub (Journalist, Lebanese diasporan):

    Day 1 of the “ceasefire”. Israel has already bombed Lebanon at least twice today. At least 1 killed and 3 injured. This comes as Trump said Israel was “PROHIBITED” (in all caps) from bombing Lebanon.

    This is day 2 of the “ceasefire”. Israel detonating what’s left of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon. They were already destroyed. Israel is obliterating everything. [Video clip]

    Middle East Eye – Israeli army says attacks in Lebanon fall under ceasefire terms

    Al Jazeera reported continued artillery, shelling and machinegun fire on several villages, along with two air strikes
    […]
    Israel said […] the actions did not violate the ceasefire, which allows it to act in “self-defence” under terms released by the US State Department.

    Eiynah Mohammed-Smith (Polite Conversations): “Israeli understanding of a ceasefire is quite literally that everyone else ceases and they fire.”
     
    Al Jazeera

    The US president has taken to his Truth Social platform to praise Israel. “Whether people like Israel or not, they have proven to be a GREAT Ally of the United States of America,” he wrote. “They are Courageous, Bold, Loyal, and Smart and, unlike others that have shown their true colors in a moment of conflict and stress, Israel fights hard, and knows how to WIN!”

    The comments come a day after he told Israel that it is “prohibited” from bombing Lebanon and “enough is enough”.

    Al Jazeera – Israel says established a ‘yellow line’ in Lebanon, as it has in Gaza

    Since a “ceasefire” in Gaza took effect in October, Israel’s so-called “yellow line” has divided the Palestinian territory into separate zones, with an eastern area controlled by the Israeli military and a western area where Palestinians face fewer restrictions on their movement. Israeli troops routinely fire on anyone approaching the line, and they have demolished hundreds of homes in the zone under their control. Israeli attacks have killed at least 773 people and wounded more than 2,000 since the start of the “ceasefire”.

    […] the Israeli military’s announcement of a “yellow line” in Lebanon appeared to represent the “continuation of the ‘Gazafication’ of southern Lebanon”.

  154. StevoR says

    It has been about a year since the pale octopus began disappearing from an area they were once in abundance.

    Leon Van Weenen, South Australia’s only commercial Octopus pallidus fisher, has been catching the species for 14 years.

    Throughout that time Mr Van Weenen has averaged 350 kilograms of the nocturnal species per trip on the lower Spencer Gulf.

    But for the past year, despite operating 20,000 of the 24,000 traps in the state, Mr Van Weenen’s average catch has dropped to as low as a handful of octopuses.

    “We went out in January, February, and in March [2025, and] we noticed the decline in the catch,” Mr Van Weenen said.

    “The next month when we went out, it went from 15 kilograms (which is about 45 octopus) down to like eight octopus.

    “It was a drastic change, and it got to the point where it was unviable to even go and have a look.”

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-19/octopus-pallidus-disappearance-spencer-gulf-south-australia/106573138

  155. says

    What Clarence Thomas doesn’t understand about democracy

    “The Supreme Court justice’s insistence that rights come from God, not government, couldn’t be more wrong.”

    Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave a speech Thursday at the University of Texas at Austin attacking progressivism as the enemy of all that America stands for — or at least what he believes it ought to stand for. “Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government,” he said, because “it holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from government.”

    […] while Thomas may cast himself as the truest defender of the American system, what he actually revealed was his contempt for the foundations of our democracy — one that is all too common among conservatives today.

    The idea that rights come from God, not government, couldn’t be more wrong. And as someone who routinely wields the power of government to deprive Americans of their rights, Thomas ought to know.

    Thomas began his speech by citing Thomas Jefferson’s line in the Declaration of Independence asserting that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Deploying the essay-writing technique familiar to mediocre middle-school students everywhere, he added, “The American Heritage Dictionary of English Language defines self-evident as obviously true and requiring no proof, argument, or explanation.” […]

    As proof, Thomas offered his own history growing up in the Jim Crow South. “When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment,” he said, “it was obvious that your rights or your dignity did not come from those governments, but rather from God.”

    So who was it who delivered the nation from the cruelty and injustice of Jim Crow? It was not a divine light of heaven sweeping across the land. It was government — or more specifically, democratic citizens who worked tirelessly to change the laws, and eventually forced those with power in the courts, legislatures and the executive branch to join their cause.

    And it’s the laws passed and enforced by the government that guarantee those rights. To repeat, Thomas knows this perfectly well, since he and his conservative colleagues on the high court are in the process of destroying one of the key pillars of that effort, the Voting Rights Act.

    Thomas never asks why, if God is so intent on providing all of us with these political rights, he took so long to offer them to almost anyone. Few citizens anywhere were guaranteed their supposedly God-given rights until a mere 250 years ago (and even then, it would be almost 200 years more before they were truly available to all Americans). God decided to allow thousands of generations of human beings to live from birth to death with no political rights, subject to the whims of kings, warlords and potentates — and yes, religious leaders, whose history of sins against fundamental rights is long and bloody.

    Whatever support one might find in a selective reading of scripture for ideas such as universal equality (and one does have to cherry-pick rather aggressively), it wasn’t until the Framers created a government capable of guaranteeing those rights that they eventually became real. […]

    And critically, rights are more than vague notions about “equality” or “dignity.” Rights are specific and procedural, or else they are meaningless. God does not grant you the right to equal protection under law, or a fair trial if you are accused of a crime or the freedom of speech; it’s government that does that. Indeed, freedom of religion itself existed almost nowhere until the Constitution — a plan for government — created it. Even today, it is absent in many places, God’s supposed wishes notwithstanding.

    Listening to Thomas’ speech, one can’t help but notice it comes at a moment when not only does his Republican Party hold a grip on national power, but the Trump administration he has done so much to support has brought to our government an aggressive and exclusionary Christian nationalism. [I snipped examples.]

    Americans know that when their rights are being trampled on, it is not God who will come to their rescue. Only government can do that — and it only does so when we as citizens demand it and have the power to ensure it.

  157. says

    Trump Threatens War Crimes in Iran Again

    In a Truth Social tirade on Sunday morning, […] Trump claimed that Iran violated their ceasefire agreement with the US by firing shots at ships in the Strait of Hormuz and again threatened to commit war crimes by taking out the country’s energy infrastructure.

    “Many of [the bullets] were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom,” Trump contended about Iran’s targeting of the ships, without evidence. “That wasn’t nice, was it?”

    The US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire in early April. The agreement is set to expire later this week, and the US continues to negotiate next steps around access to the Strait—the world’s most important oil transit corridor. “We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it,” Trump wrote in the same social media post. “If they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” [JFC]

    International law experts consider strikes on infrastructure—even if they qualify as military targets—to be war crimes because they cause disproportionate harm to civilians. [Social media post from MeidasTouch.]

    On Saturday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations organization, developed by Britain’s Royal Navy, reported two incidents of ships being hit in the Strait of Hormuz. Those ships, along with several others, turned back. The two vessels appear to both belong to India, according to India’s ministry of external affairs.

    This reported attack took place the day after Iran re-established an effective closure of the strait on Saturday, overturning its announcement less than 24 hours before to “completely open” the shipping waterway during the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire.

    According to Al Jazeera, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy explained on Saturday that the nation decided to close the strait until the US withdraws its blockade on all ships entering and leaving Iranian ports. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, said in a television interview that the blockade, which began last week, was “a clumsy and ignorant decision” and violated the ceasefire agreement. [!]

    Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened that ships attempting to cross the strait during Iran’s closure would be considered in “cooperation with the enemy” and “any violating vessels would be targeted.” That same day, reports began to come out of the two ships hit in the strait.

    Trump announced in the same Truth Social message that US officials will arrive in Pakistan on Monday to resume negotiations with Iran. According to the Associated Press, Iran did not immediately confirm whether they would send representatives to meet the US delegation. […]

  158. says

    Trump’s executive order on psychedelics research could make some rich men richer.

    […] Trump signed an executive order on Saturday calling for the acceleration of research on certain psychedelic drugs as treatments for depression and other conditions. Podcaster Joe Rogan stood with him as he signed the order—and Trump indicated that Rogan was a major inspiration behind the push to fast-track legalizing ibogaine, which is used outside the United States to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Rogan has championed ibogaine for years. A year ago, on his podcast, he said “Ibogaine, in particular, has helped a lot of people. It gives you, like, a review of your life, apparently.” Two weeks ago, he interviewed the CEO of Americans for Ibogaine, who also stood by as Trump signed his order to ease access to the drug.

    […] Rogan’s texts to Trump, he told reporters, were what brought this to fruition: “Sounds great, do you want FDA approval?” Rogan said Trump responded. “It was literally that quick.”

    Rogan isn’t the only nationally prominent figure pushing psychedelics. The drugs’ path to legitimacy is fueled by early-stage investors hoping to stake their claim to a market many view as the next cannabis.

    Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel has spent the better part of the past decade investing heavily in psychedelic pharmaceutical companies. He’s a major backer of Compass Pathways, a British company seeking to commercialize psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, in particular for therapeutic use. He’s also invested in AtaiBeckley, a German company working on hallucinogens. On Thursday, the stocks of both companies spiked on news that Trump would likely be giving his stamp of approval to ibogaine this weekend.

    Another financial beneficiary might be the state of Texas, which announced it would be conducting its own ibogaine clinical trials in late March, to the tune of $50 million. And then there’s the Mercer Family Foundation, a major conservative grantmaker that helped get Trump elected, which has donated over $1 million toward psychedelics-related treatment for PTSD in combat veterans.

    At the White House Saturday, Trump didn’t talk much about the money behind all this. Instead, he asked if he could get some ibogaine.

    “Can I have some, please?” he said. “I’ll do whatever it takes…I don’t have time to be depressed. If you stay busy enough, maybe that’s what works too, that’s what I do.”

  159. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/robert-f-kennedy-jr-nowhere-near

    “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Nowhere Near As Good At Bullsh*tting As He Thinks He Is”

    “He’s got the NYT fooled, but not anyone who actually pays attention to him.”

    As if things have not been batshit enough as of late, we got to end the work week with not one, not two, but three RFK Jr. hearings — before the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday and before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Friday. This meant that I got to watch at least six hours of America’s least favorite gravelly voiced, raccoon-dick-cutting, anti-vaccine, conspiracy theorist be impossibly condescending to anyone trying to get a straight answer from him about anything.

    Naturally, The New York Times made a heroic effort to sane-wash Kennedy, breathlessly reporting that he had “shifted his tone” during the hearings on Thursday by “admitting” that the measles vaccine is safe “for most people” and that getting measles is not good, writing:

    In back-to-back hearings on Capitol Hill, Mr. Kennedy testified that the measles vaccine is safe and effective “for most people” and agreed it was safer than getting measles. Under questioning, he also allowed that the vaccine might have saved the lives of two unvaccinated children who died of measles in Texas earlier this year.

    His comments, while carefully couched, stand in stark contrast to his previous statements about vaccination. Coupled with Mr. Trump’s announcement of Dr. Erica Schwartz, a deputy surgeon general in his first administration, as his new pick for C.D.C. director, they provided the latest evidence yet that Mr. Kennedy is trying to publicly put his efforts to overhaul American vaccine policy behind him. [bullshit]

    Is he though? I think we can be pretty sure he is not.

    This is the same “tone” he puts on every time he’s forced to talk about his nonsense in front of people who are not of his tribe. It’s the same “tone” he used to convince Sen. Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor, that he totally wouldn’t mess with vaccines or claim they cause autism during his confirmation hearing, which he obviously went on to do. The “for most people” is a dog-whistle, and the anti-vaxxers know exactly what he means when he says that. It means that “Sure, it will be fine for most, but some kids will become autistic and you need to decide for yourself whether or not that is a risk you want to take.”

    There was also not a tone-shift in his defensiveness or in his condescension to Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pennsylvania), to whom he was responding. [video]

    He even tried to claim that the increase in measles deaths was not on him, as many of the children who contracted the virus were around five or so years old. Rather, he says, it was because people lost trust in vaccines after COVID. Of course, the reason that happened was because of people like Kennedy fear-mongering about it.

    […] the decrease in children getting vaccinated means that herd immunity is far more difficult to maintain, so unvaccinated children are more likely to get it than they would be in an environment where a high percentage of people were vaccinated.

    Additionally, saying “it’s possible” that the measles vaccine would have saved the lives of those children is not some kind of major admission, either. [..]

    In the past, Mr. Kennedy has said vaccination should be a personal choice, and advised parents of newborns to “do your own research” before deciding whether to vaccinate children. During the measles outbreak, he acknowledged that the vaccine was the best way to prevent transmission, but steered clear of pronouncing it safe and effective.

    […] Far less easy to fool than The New York Times was Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama, who had some questions for Kennedy regarding a 2024 interview he did on the YouTube show High Lvl Conversations, hosted by “wellness” influencer 19Keys, in which he had some real interesting ideas about sending Black children to rural “wellness farms” to get “reparented.” [video]

    Via The Daily Beast:

    At one point during the conversation, Kennedy, 72, said that if elected, he would create “Wellness Farm” rehabilitation facilities in rural areas all around the country.

    “Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRI, benzos, which are known to induce violence. And those children are going to have a chance to go somewhere to get reparented,” said Kennedy, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s health secretary.

    During a congressional hearing Thursday about his department’s budget, Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama read Kennedy’s comment back to him and asked if he had ever parented or “re-parented a Black child.”

    Naturally, Kennedy just insisted that he had never said any such thing and didn’t even know what that meant […]

    Conveniently, however, the recording is online and it even has subtitles. He actually brought it up twice, so it’s hardly as though he misspoke. If he now does not know what he meant by that, perhaps he’s got some cognitive issues of his own to deal with.

    “So, you are not a doctor, have no formal medical training, and you’ve never parented a Black child,” Sewell said. “And yet you are suggesting that the federal government should take Black children away from their families and ‘reparent’ them, and send them off to some wellness farm instead of providing them with evidence-based…”

    Clearly averse to the phrase “evidence-based,” Kennedy immediately interrupted her and accused her of having made it all up, which she did not. She attempted to ask him several more questions about those statements, and he kept accusing her of making up the whole thing and insisting that he doesn’t even know what reparenting is. Except he clearly did know what he was talking about when he did that interview, because he went on for some time about how the plan would be to send adolescents who are “addicted” to either street drugs or the medications prescribed by their doctors to farms in order to “rehabilitate” them with child labor, organic food, and lack of access to “screens.”

    I would like to point out, by the way, that Black children and adolescents are actually medicated at far lower rates than are white children [!]— and, in fact, are underdiagnosed and undertreated for mental and behavioral health issues [!], thanks to the usual disparities in our healthcare system. […]

    During his hearing before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Friday, Kennedy continued his assault on psychiatric medications and ceased any attempts to “shift his tone” on the subject of vaccines.

    Indeed, when asked by Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Michigan) about the ways he’d attempted to restrict access to vaccines, his tone was somehow even more condescending than it was on Thursday.

    “You questioned the effectiveness of the measles vaccine, and then in September, your handpicked vaccine panel voted against recommending the combined measles vaccine for children under 4,” Stevens said.

    “It was dangerous,” Kennedy responded, incorrectly [!]. He then asked her if she thought we should be giving children vaccines that were not “safety-tested,” which is not true of the MMR vaccine. It has been in use for decades and we know that it is safe and far, far less of a risk than actually getting the diseases it prevents.

    Both Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Georgia) and Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Connecticut) asked Kennedy about the gun violence epidemic, which he insisted was not his problem at Health and Human Services.

    Rep. Hayes, pointing out that funding for various gun violence prevention programs like the Safer Communities Act had been cut, asked the secretary what he had done to keep children safe from gun violence.

    […] “We did a study on school shootings, looked at what the shooters have in common, what medications they may have been receiving, whether they were on SSRIs, whether they were on benzos. [aiyiyi, such a bullshit “study”] We’re expanding that now across the, across the agency to do even more of those,” Kennedy told Rep. Hayes.

    Will someone please tell this man that doctors are not going around indiscriminately prescribing “benzos” to teenagers? Only 1.8 percent of anyone under 18 has ever been given a single “benzo” by a doctor, and almost exclusively for epileptic seizures or truly acute anxiety attacks.

    Rep. McBath, who lost a son to gun violence, pointedly asked Kennedy to estimate how many kids last year died from “fluoride toxicity” versus gun violence, pointing out that gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and adolescents. Failing to get the point, he merely whined that her question was absurd because he never said fluoride kills people. [video]

    […] As far as Black maternal mortality was concerned, Rep. Summer Lee asked Kennedy how he intended to deal with the fact that Black women are disproportionately likely to die in childbirth if no one is allowed to say “Black” because of the administration’s anti-DEI nonsense that eliminated funding for all studies and interventions mentioning the word “Black.” [video]

    […] “[…] why aren’t you putting forth serious policies that actually address the health crises in this country instead of just these unserious conspiracy theories and this wellness influencer mess?” she asked.

    Kennedy responded by insisting that his plans to address maternal mortality for all women without regard to race were sufficient, which they are not.

    […] One thing RFK Jr. has certainly made clear during his tenure at HHS is that he has no problem putting the health of anyone at risk so long as he gets to see his pseudoscientific dreams come true. [!] He doesn’t care if people get sick from raw milk, if kids die from measles, if pregnant mothers suffer in pain without the only painkiller it is safe or them to take, if kids get shot, or if their teeth fall out. [Unfortunately true.]

    […] He does not care about real problems or health consequences, he cares about getting his own way, and he does not care how many people have to die in order for that to happen.

  160. says

    A follow-up of sorts to comment 159.

    “8 children killed in Louisiana shooting, police say”

    “The victims ranged in age from 1 to about 14, police said. The shooter, who was related to some of the children, is dead.”

    Eight children were killed Sunday in a shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana, that police say appeared to be linked to a domestic disturbance.

    Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said that the victims ranged in age from 1 to about 14 and that a total of 10 people were shot. The gunman, who was shot by police, is also dead, Smith said.

    Officials said they were still gathering information Sunday afternoon at the crime scene, which extended across multiple residences. Smith said some of the children killed were related to the gunman.

    This is a developing story and will be updated.

    Washington post link

  161. birgerjohansson says

    It is 71 years (and one day ) since Albert Einstein died.

    It is 30 years since From Dusk Till Dawn was released.

  163. says

    GOP gaslights on gas prices

    Republicans know that surging gas prices caused by […] Trump’s boondoggle of a war in Iran will impact what were already shaping up to be devastating midterms this November.

    But instead of doing anything to stop the war or the impending economic doom, Republicans are still praising their Dear Leader and trying to gaslight Americans into thinking that the pain they’re feeling at the pump is a worthy sacrifice.

    Get a load of Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina who, as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is tasked with crafting messaging to protect the GOP’s Senate majority.

    He made this doozy of a comment on Fox Business when asked how he’ll prevent rising oil prices from sinking the GOP’s chances in November.

    “Well, they’re still lower than they were under President Biden, so that’s good news,” Scott said. “No. 1, yes, affordability will be solved. No. 2, the gas prices are coming down. And No. 3, we can thank President Trump and Republicans for doing both.” [Whoa! What a load of lies.]

    […] Other Senate Republicans made similarly ridiculous excuses for rising gas prices.

    “I’m sorry that gas prices are going up, but help is on the way, and your national security is even more important than your pocketbook,” Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said on Fox News, even though polls show that Americans believe that the war is actually making them less safe. [Yep]

    Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming also spewed a load of bullshit on Fox News, saying that the people he speaks to aren’t mad about rising gas prices, even though polling says the exact opposite.

    “They love the president, support the president in what he’s doing, specifically with Iran,” Barrasso said. “Gas prices are on their minds as they always are for our producers—our farmers and ranchers and people that drive long distances in Wyoming. They also understand that what the president is doing is an effort to provide stability in that part of the world will have good long-term impacts in terms of energy prices.”

    He continued, “They also understand that Republicans are the party of energy dominance. Democrats like high gas prices because of their radical climate agenda. So people understand what the president is doing, agree with him, and know that we need peace and stability and need to protect America long term.”

    Other Republicans also seemed to try to convince themselves that rising gas prices won’t hurt them.

    “No one is willing to trade lower gas prices for Iran becoming a nuclear state,” Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio wrote on X. […]

    Ultimately, Republicans are panicking about gas prices behind the scenes, as they have increased more than $1 per gallon on average since Trump’s war began. […]

    Even Trump seems to understand that, whining on Fox News that the midterms are looking bleak for the GOP.

    Leave it to the so-called party of personal responsibility to refuse to take accountability for their actions.

  164. says

    New York Times link

    “Iran War Updates: Tehran Pushes Back After Trump Announces New Round of Talks”

    “President Trump said U.S. negotiators would head to talks mediated by Pakistan, but Iranian state media said no meeting had been confirmed. The two-week cease-fire is set to expire this week.”

    Just days before a two-week cease-fire between the U.S. and Iran was set to expire, President Trump and Iranian officials disagreed on Sunday over whether top officials would meet this week in Pakistan for a second round of negotiations to end the war.

    Hours after Mr. Trump said American officials would attend talks in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, Iranian state media said Tehran had not yet agreed to any such meeting. […]

    A White House official said Vice President JD Vance was expected to lead a U.S. delegation, accompanied by the top Trump aides Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. [Same inexperienced team of doofuses that failed before!]

    […] the economically vital Strait of Hormuz remained all but closed, a move Mr. Trump characterized in a social media post on Sunday as a “total violation of our cease-fire.”

    […] Mr. Trump’s announcement of U.S. participation in the talks came with a renewed threat to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure if the strait is not reopened and an extension of the cease-fire is not reached.

    […] In recent days, Mr. Trump had repeatedly said Iran had assented to nearly all of his demands on the country’s nuclear program. Iranian leaders vehemently denied that claim, dampening hopes for an immediate agreement.

    […] Strait of Hormuz: Iranian forces were maintaining their tight grip on the strait, […] Iranian officials said the strait would stay closed in retaliation for Mr. Trump’s blockade of Iran’s ports. Even if the strait opened fully, it would take weeks for oil and gas prices to recover.

    Pakistan: Pakistan appeared to be readying for a fresh round of talks between the U.S. and Iran, an indication that the talks were likely to go forward even as the two sides sent conflicting public messages. Islamabad, the capital, went on a security lockdown on Sunday night and officials said they would deploy 10,000 extra security forces in the city.

    Lebanon: Thousands of displaced Lebanese families were making their way back home to Lebanon’s south on Sunday soon after a 10-day cease-fire went into effect. The head of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, said this weekend that the group was willing to cooperate with the Lebanese authorities to end the war with Israel and laid out a series of conditions for a lasting truce. […]

  165. says

    Trump says U.S. seized Iranian ship as tensions rise amid ceasefire

    Related video at the link.

    […] Trump said Sunday that U.S. forces had seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that allegedly attempted to breach a U.S. naval blockade.

    In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the nearly 900-foot cargo vessel TOUSKA was intercepted by the Navy destroyer USS Spruance in the Gulf of Oman after ignoring warnings to stop. He said the ship was disabled and boarded, and that U.S. Marines now have custody of the vessel. Iran has not publicly commented on the reported seizure.

    The incident underscores how fragile the ceasefire remains, with both sides accusing the other of violations and at odds on when to resume peace talks.

    […] Iranian officials have pushed back Trump’s announcement of new talks. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency denied reports of a second round of negotiations in Islamabad, saying there is “no clear prospect” for talks under current conditions. It cited what it described as excessive U.S. demands, shifting positions and the continued naval blockade, which Iran views as a violation of the ceasefire.

    […] Iranian officials said Saturday that new U.S. proposals were under review. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said progress has been made toward a peace deal, with some issues “concluded,” but he warned Iran still has a “complete distrust” of the U.S. negotiators.

    Speaking on state TV on Saturday night, Ghalibaf, who also serves as Iran’s chief negotiator, said officials had “stated our demands firmly,” adding: “Some issues in the negotiations have been concluded, while others have not. There is still a distance to a final agreement.”

    […] Ghalibaf said the strait had been closed because the U.S. was only “partially implementing the ceasefire,” adding that it will remain closed if the “naval blockade against us continues.”

    “If the ceasefire is not implemented, we will not continue negotiations, and we will start the war,” he said.

    […] Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday that Trump was seeking to deny Iran its “nuclear rights” and that Iran was trying to end the war “with full dignity.”

    “If a human being does not defend himself, he is dead,” he said. “They attacked us, and we defended.”

    The Trump administration said its blockade of Iranian ports remains in force, with more than 20 ships turned back since Monday.

    Following a summit of 51 countries that was co-chaired by France and the U.K. on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “called for the unconditional, unrestricted, and immediate re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz.”

    They also announced a joint neutral mission to provide reassurance to merchant vessels in the region.

  166. Militant Agnostic says

    Lynna @159

    Apparently the opinions of a Kennedy trump the facts provide by less famous people.

    “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
    Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

  167. StevoR says

    Aussie ABC Iran war live updates :

    US President Donald Trump says the US Navy has opened fire on an Iranian-flagged cargo ship which tried to get through the Strait of Hormuz, in an attempt to break the American blockade of the shipping channel.

    Earlier, Iran had rejected a second round of talks with the United States in Pakistan, state media is reporting.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-20/iran-war-live-updates-blockade-hormuz-us-negotiations/106581706

  168. JM says

    The Independent: Trump believed coming across as ‘unstable and insulting’ in controversial posts could ‘bring the Iranians to the table,’ report says

    President Trump reportedly adopted a strategy of intentionally acting unstable and insulting towards Iran, in the hopes that it would push the U.S. adversary to negotiate an end to the war.
    The unorthodox tactics were reportedly behind a string of controversial posts the president made this month about the vital Strait of Hormuz, administration officials told The Wall Street Journal.

    I really wonder who is behind this strange attempt to cover for Trump’s behavior. His behavior has not been that unusual for Trump, other then the really oddly placed “Praise be to Allah” ending one post. Erratic and insulting is standard for Trump’s posts and was for his first them also. They have gotten even more erratic and badly informed in his second term in office but that seem more general mental decay.
    In addition, if he had talked to any informed individuals they should have turned him away from this course of action. The last thing you want to do with a defensive authoritarian state like Iran is seem unstable or insult them. A far better tactic would have been to say nothing in public at all.

  169. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NPR – Virginia joins a national effort to ensure only popular vote winners become president

    A national effort to circumvent the Electoral College has gained another state. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed a bill [last] Monday that adds the state to the National Popular Vote Compact, an agreement among states to award their presidential electoral votes to the nationwide popular vote winner.

    With Virginia, the total number of states signed on to the interstate compact is now 18, plus the District of Columbia, for a total of 222 electoral votes. The compact doesn’t go into effect, though, until there are enough states signed up to reach the required 270 electoral votes

  174. birgerjohansson says

    “The Surprising Success of Gondola Transit Systems”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=a5126u88E7E

    The video brings up both advantages and disadvantages, and shows the conditions necessary for success. I can certainly see Norwegian towns curled around fjords finding gondola transit systems better than numerous expensive bridges. Note that the London failed gondola transit system was planned under a certain Boris Johnson. 

    Considering the endless problems with building tunnels under Boston I can see other places where gondola transit systems would be a simple straightforward alternative, if tunnel building runs into complex substrates.
    .
    Question: are there any cities with very hilly geography in USA? Scotland? The greater Hong Kong area?

  175. JM says

    Yahoo new: Three U.S. Navy Aircraft Carriers Will Soon Be In The Middle East

    The record-length deployment of the United States Navy’s newest and largest operational nuclear-powered supercarrier continues. The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) has been at sea for 299 days as of Sunday, surpassing the post-Vietnam War-era record of 294 days of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) set during that aircraft carrier’s 2019-2020 deployment.
    U.S. Navy officials have indicated that USS Gerald R. Ford could be deployed for up to 11 months, equaling and even surpassing the 332-day deployment of USS Midway (CVA-41), which lasted from April 10, 1972, until March 3, 1973, at the peak of the Vietnam War. That mission has remained a benchmark for long-term carrier operations, for which CVA-41 received a Presidential Citation.

    The real trick will be if the US Navy can keep them functionally supplied.

    On Saturday, the U.S. Navy also sought to dispel rumors that the crews of the USS Abraham Lincoln and the America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA-7) were facing food shortages due to their lengthy time at sea.
    In a post on X, the U.S. Navy wrote, “Fresh meals. Full service. Mission ready. Sailors aboard USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Tripoli continue to receive regularly prepared meals at sea—no interruptions, no shortages.”
    There had been reports last week that sailors were given unappetizing, meager rations.

    This falls into the category of things more likely true if the government is formally denying them. There have also been reports that mail is delayed, with months of delay. The USS Ford has known problems with the ships sewage systems that leaves crew members with hour long lines to get into the bathrooms.
    All of which is terrible but won’t get in the way of operations unless there is an outbreak of disease. The open question is if the US can supply enough jet fuel and weapons if they have to be regularly active against Iran. One likely possibility is that the Navy can but only by flying in supplies with multi-stop trips through multiple countries, which will be ridiculously expensive.

  176. KG says

    birgerjohansson@174,

    Well, Edinburgh is fairly hilly (it’s built on and around an extinct volcano), and there is a coast and a canal, but most parts of the city are nowhere near either! No tunnels seem to be needed, either.

  177. whheydt says

    Re: birgerjohansson @ #174….
    Hilly city in the US? San Francisco is rather well known for that sort of terrain.

  178. says

    Team Trump reverses its reversal, gives Russia another break on oil sanctions

    “Enough is enough,” key Senate Democrats said. “President Trump needs to stop letting Putin play him for a fool.”

    Shortly after Donald Trump launched the war with Iran, the president’s administration confronted a crisis in the energy sector that it appeared wholly unprepared to address. In early March, the Republican operation said part of its response would be temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil, allowing money to flow into Moscow as part of a larger effort to contain prices.

    Pressed for an explanation, U.S. officials insisted that the shift would be brief and that sanctions would quickly return. It was against that backdrop that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced last week that the administration had agreed to end the policy, restoring the sanctions on Russian oil.

    Two days later, Team Trump made Bessent look quite foolish. The Associated Press reported:

    The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday extended its pause on sanctions on Russian oil shipments to ease shortages from the Iran war, days after Secretary Scott Bessent ruled out such a move.

    The so-called general license means U.S. sanctions will not apply for 30 days on deliveries of Russian oil that has been loaded on tankers as of Friday. It extended a similar 30-day license issued in March for Russian oil that had been loaded by March 11. The extension underscores how the fallout from the Iran war has boosted Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports, which had been restrained since the invasion of Ukraine.

    Almost immediately, three top Senate Democrats — Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — issued a joint statement condemning the move as “shameful.”

    “Make no mistake, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of President Trump’s war against Iran, as Russia saw oil revenues nearly double in March,” the Democratic senators said. “Enough is enough. President Trump needs to stop letting Putin play him for a fool and impose additional sanctions on Putin, who is clearly not feeling sufficient pressure from this president.”

    The political pushback was clearly warranted given the circumstances, but the Trump administration’s latest favor for the Kremlin was the latest in a recent series. The president and his team have also recently:
    – Shrugged off compelling evidence that Russia has helped Iran target American assets in the Middle East
    – Allowed Russia to bypass a U.S. oil blockade intended to smother the Cuban government
    – Vouched for Putin’s trustworthiness
    – Echoed Kremlin talking points
    – Bragged about curtailing U.S. aid to Ukraine, which is still trying to defend itself in response to Russia’s invasion
    [Embedded links to resources for the points listed above are available at the main link.]

    The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Putin “can barely conceal a smirk” as the war continues, and there’s no great mystery as to why.

    It’s worth emphasizing that all of these developments have unfolded over the past couple of months, and this list doesn’t include the many steps Trump and his team took that benefited Russia in 2025, including a humiliating attempt at direct diplomacy with Putin during a failed summit in Alaska […]

    The next time the American president brags about how “tough” he is with Putin, be sure to keep all of this in mind.

  179. says

    Link. The link leads to a compendium of recent news reports.

    The Corruption: Trump Library Edition

    As The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reports, Democrats have been chasing down what happened to the corporate donations to Trump’s presidential library that were part of corrupt lawsuit settlement agreements with him — especially since the fund created to receive donations was dissolved last year. [!]

    ABC, Paramount, Meta, and X have now all confirmed they made the settlement payments, but it’s not clear where the monies ended up going.

    “Not one of these companies can say with any clarity where their multi-million-dollar donations to Donald Trump’s library slush fund are, or where they will go,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told TNR.

  181. says

    […] The New York Times got the memos on how Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts made himself king of America via the Shadow Docket, blocking Obama’s climate policy (possibly bitter because Obama voted against Roberts’ confirmation, saying he “far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak”), while letting Trump get away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. Christ, what an asshole. (New York Times report) […]

    “‘If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,’ Trump had said in March. ‘What a mess.’” Don’t worry, sir, your disaster is already MUCH YUGER! Biggest Iran blunder of all time! The stink of failure and desperation coming off that guy sure is getting rank!

    […] Air Canada is suspending flights to JFK, citing soaring fuel costs, dearth of passengers wanting to set foot in the US. [Associated Press report]

    […] 🔥SEN. @ossoff.senate.gov
    “Ivanka’s husband Jared Kushner’s on the Saudi payroll for $2 BILLION— as he leads 🇺🇸 diplomacy + asks sheikhs for billions more… Never have we seen so little effort to hide so much corruption. The Mar-a-Lago mafia taking corruption to spectacular new heights.” [The Tennessee Holler report] […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/tabs-mon-april-20-2026

  186. birgerjohansson says

    Dang! I am sorry I borked the link. Lynna, to avoid slowing the thread loading, feel free to delete the post.

    Other news. Is there any debate at all about the latest mass shooting?

  188. birgerjohansson says

    Ironically, the secretary that just had to leave the administration might be one of the least venal members.

  189. says

    MS NOW:

    An Iranian delegation, led by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, will travel to Islamabad for peace talks with the U.S. on Tuesday only if Vance is present, a foreign diplomat in Tehran who is in close contact with Iran’s parliamentary speaker and indirectly involved in the peace talks, told MS NOW.

    Well, that’s weird.

  190. says

    MS NOW:

    A man killed eight children, including seven of his own, and shot two women in an attack in a Shreveport, Louisiana, neighborhood that was the nation’s deadliest shooting in more than two years, authorities said.

    […] Police said the man shot a woman at one home in the neighborhood south of downtown, then drove to the second location.

    Seven children were killed inside the second house, and one was found dead on the roof after apparently trying to escape, police spokesperson Chris Bordelon said. Another child jumped off the roof and was expected to survive after being taken to a hospital.

    State Rep. Tammy Phelps said some children tried to get away through the back door. “I can’t even imagine what the police officers, first responders actually dealt with when they got here today,” she said at a news conference.

    […] The children who were killed were 3 to 11 years old. They were three boys and five girls, according to the Caddo Parish Coroner’s office.

    […] The gunman, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, died after a police pursuit that ended with officers firing on him, according to Bordelon. Authorities did not say what may have set off the violence, but Bordelon said detectives were confident the shooting was “entirely a domestic incident.”

    Elkins had been arrested in a 2019 firearms case, but Bordelon said officials were not aware of any other domestic violence issues.

    Elkins and his wife were in the middle of separating and were due in court Monday, according to Brown. She said the couple had been arguing about the separation before the shooting.

    “He murdered his children,” Brown said. “He shot his wife.”

    Elkins had four children with his wife and three children with another woman who lived close by and was also shot, according to Brown. All the children were together at one house, she said.

    The shooting in Shreveport, a city of about 180,000 residents, was the deadliest in the U.S. since January 2024, when eight people were killed in a Chicago suburb, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

    Link

    There are some reports that the man tried to get help to address mental illness, but never was able to get treatment. I haven’t seen confirmation of that.

  191. says

    WCNC:

    Law enforcement in North Carolina responded Monday to a deadly mass shooting at a park in Winston-Salem that escalated from what authorities said was a planned fight. One 17-year-old and another 16-year-old were killed and five others were wounded. Those wounded range in age from 14 years old to 19 years old. The condition of those wounded ranges from minor injuries to critical condition. […]

    Link

    New York Times:

    Five people, including three University of Iowa students, were injured in Iowa City after shots were fired during a fight at the downtown pedestrian plaza early Sunday morning, according to the city. No arrests have been made. […]

  192. says

    New York Times:

    In the months leading up to the midterm elections, hundreds of accounts have emerged on social media featuring A.I.-generated pro-Trump influencers posting at a rapid pace about the ‘radical left’ and ‘America First.’ They tend to appear as ordinary — if very good-looking — men and women, gazing flirtatiously at the camera while pontificating about the war in Iran, abortion or Bad Bunny. […]

    Link

    Alarming examples are available at the link.

    […] In one TikTok video, a blonde films herself with a group of women at a racetrack. “If you support Trump, you just made a friend,” she says.

    In another video, it’s a brunette, this time with a group at a stadium. “If you support Trump, you just made a friend,” she says.

    In a third post, a redhead is with a group at a basketball court. “If you support Trump, you just made a friend,” she says.

    Each video features an identical, grammatically awkward caption: “I’m new here and love God, America,and Trump!!” […]

    President Trump has reposted content from at least one of the accounts — a platinum blond avatar making unfounded claims about California’s governor.

    The New York Times began tracking MAGA-boosting, A.I.-generated TikTok posts in January and discovered at least 304 accounts sharing the content, some of which have since disappeared. Researchers with the Governance and Responsible A.I. Lab at Purdue University, known as GRAIL, found another dozen accounts across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Eric Nelson, a special investigations analyst from Alethea, a digital threat mitigation company, identified another nine accounts on YouTube.

    Several accounts have already amassed more than 35,000 followers. Some of the posts have more than half a million views. The accounts reviewed by The Times were not identified as A.I.-generated.

    It’s not clear who created the A.I. accounts, and determining whether they are the product of a hired content farm, a foreign influence operation, an experiment or something else is difficult, experts said. They all agree, however, that creating such avatars is becoming easier, especially for contractors and marketing companies that now specialize in developing and dispatching A.I. avatars in bulk for increasingly low prices. […]

  193. says

    ‘ICE is out of control’ as agency targets military wives

    Despite serving this country for 27 years, an active-duty U.S. Army sergeant is facing a crisis forged by President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

    Sgt. First Class Jose Serrano, who previously served in Afghanistan, is scrambling to stop his Salvadoran wife from being deported to Mexico.

    Deisy Rivera Ortega was arrested on April 14, while attending an immigration appointment in El Paso, Texas. […]

    “I don’t really understand why, because she followed the rules of immigration by the T since day one,” Serrano told CBS News Sunday. Rivera Ortega had an active work permit at the time of her arrest.

    “I love the Army. (The) Army helped me out for almost 28 years. It’s not the Army, sir. It’s ICE,” Serrano said later in the interview. “ICE is out of control right now, sir, taking away rights, as soldiers, that we have.”

    Should his wife be deported to Mexico, he would be unable to see her due to regulations surrounding active military members and our neighbor to the south.

    “Since this happened, I’m sleeping only two hours a day, two hours a night,” Serrano told CBS. “We don’t know nobody in Mexico. Plus, as a military, we’re not allowed to go to Mexico.”

    Upon entering the U.S., Rivera Ortega was granted a protected status that forbade the U.S. from deporting her back to El Salvador.

    This isn’t the first active military member, or veteran, to fall victim to increased ICE action across the U.S..

    Decorated service members have been detained, while the spouses of military members preparing for deployment have had to shift their attention to their wife’s impending deportation.

    But the third-country deportations, which describes when an immigrant is deported to a country other than their home country, were only recently allowed to continue again. In this case, immigrants are subject to “fast” deportations, which can take away their opportunity to raise any concerns about their safety.

    Originally, the ban was called last year following the deportation of over 250 Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador without due process. This was briefly lifted in 2025, allowing eight men to be deported to South Sudan. The U.S. government currently advises Americans not to travel to South Sudan for “any reason” due to “unrest, crime, health, kidnapping, and landmines.” [video and social media post]

    Over the weekend, 15 South American immigrants were taken to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. […]

  194. says

    Tim Cook Will Step Down as Apple C.E.O.

    The longtime leader of the iPhone maker will be replaced by John Ternus, the company’s head of hardware engineering.

    New York times link

    Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said on Monday that he would step down after nearly 15 years running an operation that rode the wild popularity of the iPhone to become one of the most influential and valuable companies in the world.

    Mr. Cook, 65, will move into a new role as Apple’s executive chairman in September and be succeeded in the company’s corner office by John Ternus, the 50-year-old head of Apple’s hardware engineering.

    The retirement of Mr. Cook will end one of the most successful management runs in the history of American business. During his tenure, Apple’s annual profit quadrupled to more than $110 billion, while its value ballooned more than tenfold to $4 trillion.

    Mr. Cook replaced the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs shortly before Mr. Jobs’s death in 2011, having earned a reputation for perfecting the nuts and bolts of a global consumer electronics business. Apple has since defined how a modern technology company operates, with products assembled in a supply chain that stretches from the giant operations that Mr. Cook helped create in China to India and Brazil and a popular retail business that operates on five continents. […]

  195. JM says

    NBC News: Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigns

    Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has resigned according to two sources with knowledge of the decision, making her the third Cabinet member to depart during President Donald Trump’s second term.
    Chavez-DeRemer had been facing a probe from the Labor Department’s inspector general for potential misconduct. That investigation has already resulted in multiple of her top staffers being placed on administrative leave and then ultimately leaving their posts.

    She quit before the inspector general could get to her. One of the figures you didn’t hear much from under Trump because her job was largely to not do anything, not protect people, not enforce labor laws, not try to stop corporations abusing employees, etc.
    I would assume she bailed because Trump wasn’t going to raise a finger to protect her. Trump cared about Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi and they got fired only when their issues rose to the level of bothering Trump directly. With labor issues Trump just doesn’t want to hear about them or the Department of Labor.

  196. JM says

    @193 Lynna, OM: The consequences of ICE agents having quotas and getting large bonuses for the number of people they pull off the street, not any measure of the importance of who they grabbed or the consequences of the arrest.
    ICE agents are sitting outside schools and grabbing children, grabbing people out of courts, grabbing people from government offices when they come to see about their case, any sort of easily traceable target.
    The actual violent criminal illegal aliens are hard to find because they know all law enforcement is looking for them and are hiding from everybody.

  198. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT – The Onion has a new plan to take over Infowars

    When Infowars […] came up for sale two years ago […] That sale was scuttled by a bankruptcy court. Now, The Onion has re-emerged with a new plan: licensing the website from Gregory Milligan, the court-appointed manager of the site. […] $81,000 a month to license Infowars.com and its associated intellectual property […] for an initial six months, with an option to renew for another six months. The licensing deal has been agreed to by The Onion and the court-appointed administrator. But it is not effective until Judge Guerra Gamble approves it, and Mr. Jones could appeal any ruling. […] Infowars remains in limbo until the court rules, probably sometime in the next two weeks. Mr. Jones continues to operate Infowars.com
    […]
    In August, Judge Guerra Gamble ruled that a court-appointed administrator would take over and sell Infowars’ assets, reopening the door to The Onion. […] Mr. Jones is expected to lose access to his studio and equipment as part of the deal […] The Onion plans to turn Infowars into a comedy site with satirical echoes of the fringe conspiracy theories that Mr. Jones is known for. […] The Onion also plans to sell merchandise and share the proceeds with the Sandy Hook families.

  205. StevoR says

    In the depths of far west NSW, one of Australia’s rarest reptiles hides.

    For the past 25 years, researchers have been studying the kungaka, a rare skink that has only now been formally identified as its own distinct species.

    Found in the Mutawinji National Park, kungaka means “hidden one” and was named by Wiimpatja, the traditional owners of the land about 130 kilometres north-east of Broken Hill.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-16/rarest-reptile-kungaka-skink-found-mutawinji-national-park-nsw/106567310

  214. JM says

    AP News: Southern Poverty Law Center says it faces a Justice Department criminal probe over paid informants

    The Southern Poverty Law Center says it’s the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and faces possible charges over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.

    “Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement.

    Another case I expect will eventually disappear but will be an expensive trip to nowhere. Normally I would say wasting the SPLC’s money is the point but with the Trump administration you never know. Somebody around Trump might think they have a legitimate case against the SPLC.

  215. says

    JM @196, all too true.

    In other news: RACHEL MADDOW :‘Another one down’: Wheels coming off Trump’s clown car Cabinet

    Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Donald Trump’s secretary of labor, is resigning in a cloud of scandal, extending a string of high-level departures from the administration. Rachel Maddow surveys the landscape of Trump’s Cabinet.

    Video is 11:16 minutes

    RACHEL MADDOW: Alex Jones’ Infowars to become a joke on purpose as accountability finally catches up

    Depraved political commentator, conspiracy theorist and online huckster Alex Jones is finally having to pay for his unforgivable smear of Sandy Hook families with the satire site The Onion obtaining the intellectual property rights to Jones’ Infowars. Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion, talks with Rachel Maddow about plans to to turn the Infowars site into a parody.

    Video is 6:43 minutes

  216. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Amid allegations of heavy drinking, FBI Director Kash Patel is hoping to seem sober by scheduling a joint appearance with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, sources close to Patel revealed on Tuesday.

    “I need to hold a press conference with Pete after he’s been on an epic bender,” Patel reportedly told his staff. “If you can’t find him, get Jeanine Pirro.”

    Appearing with Hegseth carries with it certain risks, however, as Pentagon staffers have reported that merely standing next to him has made them drunk.

    But Patel told sources he is desperate to “do anything” to save his job, sobbing, “I can’t go back to flying coach.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/patel-hopes-to-look-sober-by-scheduling

  217. says

    11 years later, the Senate Republicans’ open letter to Iran is relevant anew

    “Remember in 2015, when Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 of his GOP colleagues wrote to Iran in order to undermine their own country’s negotiating position?”

    As part of a series of online rants, Donald Trump complained on Monday afternoon that congressional Democrats “are doing everything possible to hurt the very strong position we are in with respect to Iran.” The president didn’t refer to any specifics, which wasn’t too surprising, since Democratic lawmakers haven’t had any success in curtailing the White House’s policy.

    But as the next round of talks with Iranian officials prepares to get underway, it’s worth appreciating the fact that if Democrats were prepared to deliberately try to undermine the administration’s negotiating position, I suppose they could write a letter to Iranian leaders, encouraging them not to trust the United States — which is what Republicans did 11 years ago.

    Remember this report from The New York Times in March 2015?

    The fractious debate over a possible nuclear deal with Iran escalated on Monday as 47 Republican senators warned Iran about making an agreement with President Obama, and the White House accused them of undercutting foreign policy. [Yikes! I had forgotten that.]

    In a rare direct congressional intervention into diplomatic negotiations, the Republicans signed an open letter addressed to ‘leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran’ declaring that any agreement without legislative approval could be reversed by the next president ‘with the stroke of a pen.’ The letter appeared aimed at unraveling a framework agreement even as negotiators grew close to reaching it.

    At the time, the international talks among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and Iran had reached a delicate stage, and an agreement over the future of Tehran’s nuclear policy was within sight.

    But as the seven-nation talks reached a critical stage, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, just two months into his term in the upper chamber, recruited 46 of his Senate GOP colleagues to write an open letter to Iran, hoping to undermine the historic diplomatic opportunity.

    As part of an apparent sabotage attempt, the 47 Senate Republicans effectively told Iranian officials not to trust the United States as part of the talks. (Then-Sen. Marco Rubio, a decade before he became secretary of state, was among the signatories. The Florida Republican then turned his role in the fiasco into a fundraising appeal.)

    The U.S. Senate Historian’s Office explained soon after that it could not find a comparable example in the institution’s history in which “one political party openly tried to deal with a foreign power against a presidential policy, as Republicans have attempted in their open letter to Iran.”

    The reactions from abroad were even more dramatic: U.S. allies said that the Republicans’ letter actually helped Iran’s negotiating position, further undermining the senators’ own country.

    The Cotton-led effort was quickly denounced by Democrats, veteran diplomats, editorial boards, pundits of every stripe and even some Republicans, but to date, none of the signatories has expressed regret for their role in the unsuccessful sabotage campaign. […]

  218. johnson catman says

    re JM@214:

    The Southern Poverty Law Center says it’s the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and faces possible charges over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.

    So, is the DOJ going to go after the FBI for doing the same fucking thing?

  219. says

    EXPOSED: 2 CIA Officers Die After Anti-Drug Op in Mexico

    Sheinbaum: ‘We Were Not Informed’

    A rather unusual series of events over the past 48 hours has exposed the extent of the CIA’s involvement in counternarcotics operations in Mexico.

    A brief timeline to catch you up:

    Sunday: Four government investigators — two from Mexico and two from the United States — were killed around 2 a.m. local time in a car accident in the northern state of Chihuahua while viewing newly discovered drug labs, according to Mexican officials. A government convoy was navigating the rugged highlands of the Sierra Madre Occidental when the lead vehicle plunged about 200 meters down a cliff and caught fire, killing all four occupants, the NYT reported. The two Americans were “training officers assigned to the United States Embassy in Mexico,” according to the report.

    Monday: The story took on a surprising new dimension when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum demanded an explanation for the operation in which the investigators were killed, the AP reported:

    “It was not an operation that the security cabinet was aware of,” Sheinbaum told journalists. “We were not informed; it was a decision by the Chihuahua government.” She said they must have authorization from the federal government for such collaboration at the state level “as established by the Constitution.”

    Adding to suspicions of something being afoot, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico declined to identify who the U.S. investigators were or which agency they worked for, saying only that they were “supporting Chihuahua state authorities’ efforts to combat cartel operations,” according to the AP.

    Tuesday: The reasons for the initial secrecy and vagueness became clear when the WaPo reported this morning that the two dead U.S. investigators worked for the CIA “ [!] as part of a significantly expanded role in battling narcotics trafficking in the Western Hemisphere”[1]:

    The four died as they were returning from meeting with Mexican officials in the aftermath of the operation to dismantle a clandestine drug lab in a remote area. Chihuahua’s attorney general, César Jáuregui Moreno, told Mexico’s El Universal newspaper that the Americans did not directly participate in the Mexican raid on the lab, which he called “perhaps one of the largest ever located.”

    Looming over the story is Mexico’s extreme sensitivity to historic U.S. violations of its sovereignty. So you have President Sheinbaum insisting that “there are no joint operations on land or in the air,” only sharing of information within a “well-established” legal framework. And you have the attorney general of Chihuahua rushing to offer assurances that Sheinbaum was not notified about the operation because the CIA personnel were only involved in training and not in the raid on the drug lab, which involved only Mexican agents:

    He said the Americans, whose agency affiliation he did not identify, were doing training work “about eight to nine hours away” from the location of the operation against the drug lab. After that operation, they met with personnel from Chihuahua’s state investigation agency, known as AEI, which participated in the raid, Jáuregui told El Universal. The accident occurred hours later, he said.

    The Trump administration doesn’t have a good track record of recognizing let alone abiding by these kinds of finely drawn lines, as evidenced by its lawless high seas campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific. It has not offered its own account of the incident in Mexico.

  220. StevoR says

    @208. birgerjohansson : Well, there’s quite a few intriguing and potnetially habitable possibilities that the JWST has not entirely ruled out for some of the Trappist -1 planets particularly e.

  221. says

    ‘The Literary Find of a Lifetime’

    A bound volume of original love letters from John Keats that was stolen from the Whitney estate sometime before 1989 has been recovered after a man showed up at a Manhattan rare books store last year trying to sell it.

    The story is cinematic in its details, including the British-mystery-TV-show-style involvement of rare book dealers in getting their hands on the long-lost volume and alerting law enforcement.

    I was also gratified to learn that there is an Antiquities Trafficking Unit in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. I clearly missed my calling.

    Link

  222. says

    Alan Dershowitz has written a letter to the Wall Street Journal. He has become a Republican.

    Yes, we know, with the way he is always whining about how nobody wants to invite [him] over for dinner on Martha’s Vineyard, they way they are cancel culturing him from his hard-earned right to enjoy dumplings at the farmer’s market, how he thinks the town librarian is a real breath of fresh poot; with how he was Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer but he suh-wears he kept his panties on during that massage at Jeffrey’s house; with how he is on Fox News every four seconds [complaining] about something; and with the way he hasn’t rested his jaw for a minute in the past decade defending white fascist little baby Hitler wannabe Donald Trump, we know many of you probably assumed he was a Republican already.

    You were wrong.

    Haven’t you heard every time Alan Dershowitz speaks he’s always like “I am a liberal Democrat, and even I, Alan Dershowitz, the most liberal Democrat, support [insert sick Trump traitor behavior here]”? Or “I, Alan Dershowitz, am a card-carrying member of the I Have Met Hillary Clinton Club, and even I agree that there is a witch hunt against Trump”?

    It’s at least 72 percent of his personality, at least until right now.

    […] HE ALAN DERSHOWITZ ALWAYS SELLS OUT THE FREE SERIES AT THE LIBRARY, EVERYBODY KNOWS HIS NAME, ALAN DERSHOWITZ.

    […] Here we go:

    I am a lifelong Democrat. I started campaigning for the party’s local candidates as a teenager in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been a registered Democrat for 67 years, made speeches for John F. Kennedy as a college student, and can count on one hand the number of Republicans I’ve ever supported for any office. […] I still disagree strongly with the GOP on abortion, the separation of church and state, immigration, healthcare and taxes, among other things. Yet I’ve decided to bite the bullet and register as a Republican.

    […] The Democratic Party has become the most anti-Israel party in U.S. history. Last week all but seven Senate Democrats voted for an arms embargo against the Jewish state,

    Oh for fuck’s sake. The fact that more Democratic senators than ever are at last giving side-eye to American funding and participation in thug authoritarian Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest expansionist adventures means they all hate the very existence of Israel now. Cool. Guess we’re doing that. (Don’t start fights in the fucking comments, this is a making fun of Alan Dershowitz post, that is what we are doing today.)

    and an avowed enemy of Israel, Abdul El-Sayed, is gaining ground in the Democratic campaign for U.S. senator from Michigan.

    Alan Dershowitz saw that they’ve allowed another Muslim to participate in American politics, and Alan Dershowitz is not OK with that.

    Anyway — we are not excerpting this entire thing — Alan Dershowitz says being “anti-Israel” is mainstream for Democrats now. He says, “Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.” Note how he uses the words interchangeably.

    Also it’s kind of weird, since Donald Trump is just about the most antisemitic president in recent American history, consistently, angrily telling American Jews that they’re ungrateful, that they don’t say “thank you” to him enough, blaming them for not “admiring” him, saying if they don’t vote for him, then they hate their religion. Alan Dershowitz knows this, because here he is way back in 2022 when he was a Democrat, defending Trump’s antisemitism. [selection of past news reports]

    Meanwhile, Trump’s administration is collecting lists of Jews in the name of “fighting antisemitism,” using “fighting antisemitism” as a cynical tool to silence free speech on campuses and everywhere else while protecting literally zero Jewish people, using “fighting antisemitism” as their catchall excuse for punishing people who speak out against the Trump regime, people who don’t share the white Christian nationalist goals of sick fucks like Mike Huckabee, while completely excusing antisemitism as long as it comes from Trump’s white nationalist Christian supporters. You know, like the Nazis he likes to invite to dinner at Mar-a-Lago. [selection of past news reports] [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    Trump and MAGA Republicans don’t love Jews, they cynically and obviously use Jews. And they only like the Jews they believe are the good ones, AKA those who share their Christian fascist goals. As Jerry Nadler said last year in the context of Trump’s attacks on universities, “Trump obviously doesn’t give a damn about antisemitism, this is just an expression of his authoritarianism.” Evergreen fucking statement.

    Anyway, here is Alan Dershowitz’s [manifesto] against the Democrats:

    I intend to work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate, and I urge those who share my concerns about the increasing influence of radicalism in the Democratic Party to vote, campaign and contribute for continued Republican control of Congress. I will contribute money to Republican candidates, campaign for them, make speeches at Republican events, and urge pro-Israel Americans to change party affiliation or at least vote against Democrats. Until something changes, I will vote Republican for representative, senator and president.

    We’re sure noted influencer Alan Dershowitz is going to move all kinds of needles with this announcement.

    I wish I could designate myself as a “foreign-policy Republican,” but there’s no such option, so I have to go whole hog. By registering as a Republican rather than an independent, maybe I can have some influence on moving some Republican policies toward the center.

    We’re sure he’ll be just as effective of an opinion-maker for the Republicans as he’s been for the Republicans Democrats all these years.

    If the Democrats pay a heavy electoral price, perhaps they’ll wise up and move back to the center, where I (and others) could rejoin it. I don’t know if that is a realistic possibility, but it’s worth a try.

    Oh wow, that “(and others)” is doing a lot of hard work in that sentence. Are “(and others)” in the room with us right now? Can Alan Dershowitz see them? Are they the ones who attend his now-banned sold out free concerts at the Martha’s Vineyard library?

    In summary and in conclusion, this is the greatest loss for Democrats since John Fetterman became a Republican oh wait he hasn’t done that yet?

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/alan-dershowitz-is-not-a-democrat

  223. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/new-york-times-shocked-shocked-that

    “New York Times Shocked, Shocked That Democrats Fighting Back After Trump Ordered Gerrymanders”

    “OK sure, Trump started it, but shouldn’t Dems do the honorable thing and lose?”

    Virginians are voting today on an initiative to redraw voting maps, in response to Donald Trump’s push to make states with GOP majorities add Republican congressional districts before the midterms. If the mid-decade reapportionment plan is approved by voters, 10 of Virginia’s congressional districts would have a Democratic advantage, a big change from the state’s current delegation of six Democrats and five Republicans. [That’s a big change! Detrimental to Democrats.]

    Today’s special election would not be happening at all if Trump hadn’t ordered Republicans last summer to create gerrymandered maps that gave the GOP a further advantage beyond what they’d already gerrymandered. It was clear even then that people were starting to get sick of him and his party, and Trump already admitted to Republicans in January that “You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.” And of course he keeps fantasizing about canceling the elections altogether, or at least making sure they’re run only by his party. […]

    So far, new (further) rigged electoral maps have been adopted by Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina, with Florida set to hold a special session starting April 28, to give Republicans an even greater advantage than the state’s existing majority of 20 GOP and eight Democratic seats.

    So hell yes, Virginia is looking to join California in pushing back against the Trump gerrymanders, at least until some semblance of sanity is restored (and we can pass a national law eliminating gerrymanders. Remember when that was almost possible?)

    And right on cue, the New York Times is fretting that Democrats have abandoned their usual opposition to gerrymandering, and isn’t that remarkably hypocritical of them? The headline, “Democrats Once Loathed Gerrymandering. Now They’re Pushing for It,” doesn’t include the words “Tut-tut” or “most unseemly,” but hardly needs to.

    […] Politics reporter Nick Corasaniti does at least acknowledge that Trump started the redistricting war, but constantly suggests that Democrats are the ones behaving badly by trying to offset Trump’s map rigging. […]

    According to Corasaniti, this isn’t about attempting to balance out the Trump gerrymanders, it’s a matter of personal pique on the part of Democrats:

    In deep-blue California, the politics of redistricting in 2026 turned out to be quite simple: Democrats may dislike gerrymandering, but they despise Trump more.

    Whether that is also true of voters in lighter-blue Virginia will be the big question on Tuesday night.

    Look, guy, Californians certainly do despise Trump, but if he hadn’t demanded gerrymanders in Republican-held states, they wouldn’t have needed to take action to offset them.

    We’re told that Democrats and independents suddenly became very alarmed about gerrymandering last summer, when “the issue became a political football,” and that Democrats opposed partisan redistricting by 81 percent in an August Reuters/Ipsos poll. (Independents were 66 percent against, too.)

    Oh sure, there was a bit of a partisan skew in the poll, the Times notes:

    Just 36 percent of Republicans said the same, perhaps because of the news coverage of Texas’ redistricting plan at the time. But the party appeared hesitant on the issue: Only 38 percent of Republicans supported the redistricting push, and 25 percent were unsure. Broadly, 59 percent of all Americans were opposed.

    In strict compliance with “Murc’s Law,” Corasaniti explains that Republicans had a good reason to be happy with gerrymandering, so they get a pass, especially since their distaste for gerrymandering is already low. But when Democrats decide they’ll get their hands dirty and fight back, that’s a shocking reversal, not simply realpolitik. [Double standard. It’s okay if Republicans do it.]

    California’s November referendum to redraw maps to balance out the Texas gerrymander passed with 64 percent of the vote, but Corasaniti explains that was just how Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats “framed the redistricting push.”

    Again and again, the piece suggests the election was about animus against Trump, not a rational effort to balance out the Texas gerrymander. Look at how mean those Californians were!

    Liberal supporters of the California referendum ran ads arguing that the gerrymandering was necessary because of Trump. Each of the top five most-aired ads in California supporting the referendum centered on the president.

    “You have the power to stand up to Donald Trump,” Newsom said in one ad, where he was joined by former President Barack Obama, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and other Democratic luminaries.

    Even the temporary nature of the measure supposedly reflects personal distaste toward Great Leader, we’re told: “The California measure is also temporary, expiring in 2030 with the new census — and, conveniently, after Trump leaves office.”

    Gosh, Californians hate Trump! Or maybe they’re a bunch of crazy optimists who hope that once he’s gone, it won’t be necessary to counter his malign efforts to skew the vote for his party.

    In Virginia, Democratic proponents of today’s ballot initiative are very clear-eyed that this isn’t mainly about disliking Trump, it’s about restoring balance after he’s plopped down his mass on the teeter-totter:

    “We didn’t start this fight, but I’m saying to Virginia, we need to finish it,” Delores McQuinn, a Democratic member of the House of Delegates, told CNN at a rally in the final days of the redistricting campaign. “We can help level the playing field.”

    We do, however, sorta wish the Times had accompanied its Very Concerned Analysis with this Associated Press map (it’s interactive on the AP site) of the states that have actually voted to give themselves a partisan advantage. (Why they made Utah blue is anyone’s guess; maybe they didn’t want California to be lonely.) [Map of states considering redistricting]

    […] it sure looks to us like Republican states have done a lot more redistricting than Democratic ones, even considering the size of California’s electorate. As the AP story notes, the redistricting efforts could net the GOP nine new seats in Congress, and Democrats six. [!] But that’s only if you assume the same voting patterns as 2024, which is looking unlikely, especially in new districts where the Republican advantage is pretty slim.

    So far, polls in Virginia suggest the referendum will be far closer than in California; […] turnout will be everything. Given the overwhelming rejection of Trumpism in last fall’s election, there’s every reason to be hopeful that voters will show up again today.

  224. says

    Iran won’t confirm it will attend peace talks; Trump ready to resume bombing ahead of ceasefire deadline

    […] “No final decision” has been made on whether Iran will take part in peace talks with the U.S. in Pakistan, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Esmail Baghaei, who spoke to state media television outlet IRIB.

    “The reason is clear, this is not a matter of indecision. Rather, it is because we are faced with contradictory messages, inconsistent behavior, and unacceptable actions from the American side,” Baghaei said.

    This includes U.S. attacks on Iranian vessels and its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, Baghaei added.

    “These actions by the United States constitute maritime piracy and state terrorism, particularly in relation to the two Iranian vessels involved,” he said, adding that the U.S.’ actions “call into question” its “intent and seriousness.”

    “The diplomatic process must be result-oriented, and whenever the Islamic Republic of Iran reaches such a conclusion, it will take the necessary decision,” Baghaei said. […]

    It’s unclear whether or when Vice President Vance will depart Washington for Islamabad at this point, but he will head to the White House for meetings today to discuss what might happen next, a White House official said.

    But things remain quite fluid, the official stressed.

    “Additional policy meetings are taking place at the White House in which the Vice President will participate,” the White House official said.

    The White House and President Trump indicated that Vance would be leading the U.S. delegation to Pakistan, but the timing was never nailed down. At one point yesterday, Trump implied that Vance was already on his way, which was not the case.

    There’s also no clarity on when the two-week ceasefire technically expires. Trump claims it ends Wednesday evening, Washington time, but Pakistan has said it expects it ends at 4:50 a.m. PST (Pakistan Standard Time) on April 22, which would mean 7:50 p.m. ET tonight (April 21). The White House has yet to clarify that discrepancy. […]

  225. says

    Tucker Carlson says he will be ‘tormented’ for ‘a long time’ over his support for Trump

    “The former Fox News host apologized for ‘misleading’ people and expressed regret for having previously backed the president.”

    Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson expressed regret over supporting President Donald Trump, saying in a video released Monday that he would “be tormented by it for a long time” and apologized for “misleading” people.

    “I do think it’s like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences,” Carlson said on “The Tucker Carlson Show,” […] “You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be, and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional.” [Smells like bullshit. Carlson lied for Trump. And he lied repeatedly.]

    […] “It’s not enough to say, ‘Well, I changed my mind,'” Carlson said during the show, during which he interviewed his brother, Buckley Carson. “Or like, ‘Oh, this is bad. I’m out.’ It’s like, in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us for the reason this is happening right now.” [What?]

    […] Reached for comment, the White House pointed to an April 9 Truth Social post from Trump, who said that Carlson and other Trump allies-turned-critics “have one thing in common, Low IQs.”

    “They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” Trump said in the lengthy post.

    After Carlson criticized Trump’s handling of Iran earlier this month, Trump told the New York Post that he believed Carlson was “a low-IQ person” who has “absolutely no idea what’s going on.”

    [I snipped details related to other high-profile Trump supporters withdrawing their support.]

    I’m glad to hear that Tucker Carlson is withdrawing his support for Trump, but I’m still wary of Carlson. He may not be sincere, but he is good at testing the political winds and noticing that, according to Trump’s ratings in the polls, MAGA is losing followers.

  226. says

    Journalists push for ‘forceful defense of freedom of the press’ at dinner attended by Trump

    “It is, shall we say, awkward that this president will attend an event that is supposed to honor and celebrate the free press in this country.” By Rachel Maddow

    On Saturday, journalists will gather in Washington, dress up all fancy and get together to celebrate the First Amendment at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. (No, I’m not going. […])

    The point of the event is to put a spotlight on the importance of the free and independent press in this country. The dinner also funds scholarships for journalism students.

    It has been a tradition for decades that the sitting president attends the dinner and gives a speech. Every president since Calvin Coolidge has attended at least one of the dinners.

    That is, except the current president, Donald Trump, who has skipped the dinner every year he has been president.

    Traditionally, the dinner involves lots of jokes at politicians’ expense — particularly at the president’s expense. We all know Trump cannot stand anyone making fun of him, and so he has avoided the dinner.

    Until now. This year, he says he is going.

    And it is, shall we say, awkward that this president will attend an event that is supposed to honor and celebrate the free press in this country.

    Remember, this is a man who has repeatedly sued, or threatened to sue, news networks in this country because he did not like their coverage of him.

    He has blocked The Associated Press from the White House. He has repeatedly ridiculed and belittled individual journalists by name. His administration has pulled press access to the Pentagon. It has tried to defund public broadcasting and strip TV networks of their broadcast licenses.

    At this point, it is hard to keep track of all the ways that this president has been threatening and hostile to the free press in this country. [True] Luckily, ahead of this weekend, someone made a list.

    More than 250 veteran journalists signed on to a petition urging the White House Correspondents’ Association to protest at the event on Saturday, against what they call the president’s efforts to “trample freedom of the press.” [Embedded links are available at the main link.]

    The petition includes a handy bulleted list of all the ways this president has tried to block the First Amendment in this country. [!!]

    In light of that list, the petitioners say the association should offer, from the stage this weekend, a “forceful defense of freedom of the press and condemnation of those who threaten that freedom” and should do so “in front of the man who seeks to undermine our country’s long tradition of an independent, strong, and free press.”

    As I said, more than 250 veteran journalists signed this petition. I wonder what will happen on Saturday.

    Watch this space.

  227. JM says

    The Guardian: Trump extends US-Iran ceasefire indefinitely at request of Pakistan

    Donald Trump announced in a social media post on Tuesday that he was indefinitely extending a ceasefire with Iran at the request of Pakistan, which has been mediating talks, until the country responded to the United States’ negotiating positions or until talks reached a dead end.

    Trump isn’t lifting the blockade of Iran, only saying no bombing or invasion. So not exactly a universal ceasefire. We shall see what actually happens. I expect it will hold for at least a little to give talks a chance, with some possibility that Israel intentionally kicks over the ant hill immediately.

  228. JM says

    Reuters: FBI Director Kash Patel sues the Atlantic claiming false reporting about drinking, absences

    FBI Director Kash Patel filed a defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic and its reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick following the publication of an article on Friday alleging the director had ​a drinking problem that could pose a threat to national security.
    The magazine’s story, initially titled “Kash Patel’s Erratic Behavior Could Cost Him His Job,” cited more than two ‌dozen anonymous sources expressing concern about Patel’s “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences” that “alarmed officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice.”

    The lawsuit alleges the Atlantic ignored the FBI’s denials and did not respond to a Friday letter from Patel’s lawyer Jesse Binnall to senior editors and the Atlantic’s legal department asking for more time to refute the 19 allegations the reporter told the FBI’s press office she would be publishing.

    Kash Patel has carried through with his threat and sued the Atlantic and the author Fitzpatrick for the article they published about him. The thing to note is that Patel’s lawer is Jesse Binnall, who has made a career of filing losing lawsuits for right wing figures. Lawsuits that exist only to put pressure on the target, for publicity or because the people involved feel obligated to sue. I suspect that is what is happening here, having made public threats Patel can’t back out or he will look like a coward to Trump. So he has to launch a suit that he knows will eventually get thrown out. The only way Patel wins is if he can show the evidence was faked on a large scale, otherwise there are simply too many sources. No accusation of fraud or malice will hold up when the author has 10+ different sources.

  230. says

    JM @227, that’s the sixth time Trump has extended his version of a ceasefire.

    MS NOW link

    Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has emerged as the key mediator between the U.S. and Iran, underscored his commitment to facilitating peace talks in a statement published after Trump announced a ceasefire extension.

    “On my personal behalf and on behalf of Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, I sincerely thank President Trump for graciously accepting our request to extend the ceasefire to allow ongoing diplomatic efforts to take their course,” Sharif wrote in a statement on X.

    “With the trust and confidence reposed in, Pakistan shall continue its earnest efforts for negotiated settlement of conflict,” Sharif said. “I sincerely hope that both sides will continue to observe the ceasefire and be able to conclude a comprehensive ‘Peace Deal’ during the second round of talks scheduled at Islamabad for a permanent end to the conflict.” […]

    The president says the U.S. is extending its ceasefire with Iran for a sixth time. In his post, Trump said it will remain until “such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other.” […]

    Related News:

    The Trump administration has requested the largest year-over-year increase in defense spending since World War II while declining to disclose how much it has spent on the war with Iran. Administration officials have said those costs will be included in a separate, future funding request to Congress.

    […] damage to U.S. military bases from Iranian missiles and drone attacks is far more extensive than the administration has publicly revealed.

    As part of its proposed $1.5 trillion fiscal 2026 budget request, administration officials created a new defense spending category called “presidential priorities,” such as President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense system, the effectiveness of which has been questioned by some experts.

    […] The new budget also includes a request for $74 billion in U.S. drone spending, triple the amount the Pentagon currently spends. It also includes $30 billion to replace depleted critical munitions, such as missile interceptor systems that use missiles, which cost millions of dollars each.

    […] “There has been vastly more damage to American equipment and bases than the DOD has made public,” Blumenthal told MS NOW. “I also believe that the costs have been underestimated generally.”

    MS NOW link

  231. says

    MS NOW:

    The Justice Department on Monday night began withdrawing several subpoenas that had been issued just days prior in a criminal probe of former CIA Director John Brennan and a purported conspiracy by the Obama administration to embarrass President Donald Trump, according to three people familiar with the matter.

    What the heck? Hoping to find out more about this.

  232. says

    Virginia voters approve redistricting plan that could boost Democrats’ seats in Congress, by Associated Press

    Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting plan Tuesday that could boost Democrats’ chances of winning four additional U.S. House seats in November’s midterm elections that will decide control of the narrowly divided Congress.

    The constitutional amendment backed by voters bypasses a bipartisan redistricting commission to allow the use of new districts drawn by Virginia’s Democratic-led General Assembly. But the public vote may not be the final word. The state Supreme Court is considering whether the plan is illegal in a case that could make the referendum results meaningless.

    The Virginia redistricting referendum marked a setback for President Donald Trump, who kicked off a national redistricting battle last year by urging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts. The goal was to help Republicans win more seats in the November elections and hold on to a narrow House majority in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party out of power during midterm elections. […]

  233. says

    Trump’s latest TACO saves Vance from another Iran embarrassment

    Wednesday is the big day when President Donald Trump’s two-week shambles of a ceasefire deal with Iran was supposed to expire. And as you can expect, the administration moved with all due haste to ensure that this needless war gets resolved.

    Okay, that’s a lie—and we all know it. Instead, Trump dragged his feet, issuing threats that he wouldn’t extend the ceasefire and declaring on social media that “Iran has Violated the Cease Fire numerous times!”

    Then, after puffing out his chest all day, he decided late Tuesday to extend that ceasefire indefinitely for reasons only known to him.

    Turns out Trump didn’t need our lead negotiator, the absolutely hapless and congenitally unlikeable Vice President JD Vance, to have anything to do with this triumph of peacemaking. Yes, Vance was apparently no longer allowed to go to Islamabad for peace talks with Iran.

    […] Things disintegrated for ol’ JD pretty quickly Tuesday. At first, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. delegation was delayed because it had to stick around for “additional policy meetings.”

    Imagine pretending that there’s any policy or strategy at work here whatsoever, much less one that requires additional meetings. But within the hour, we learned that Vance’s trip was entirely off—ostensibly because Tehran hadn’t responded to any U.S. offers.

    We also really had no idea what the status of the Iranian delegation actually was. The New York Times had reported that senior Iranian officials were already planning to travel to Islamabad to attend talks with Vance. But that was followed by The Associated Press reporting that Iran hadn’t decided whether it would attend at all.

    Meanwhile, even as Trump was saying that it was “highly unlikely” that the ceasefire would be extended [Yes, he did say exactly that.], he was apparently negotiating to extend the ceasefire. Or he extended it unilaterally, based on vibes. Either way, Vance was once again ghosted from the whole process.

    […] Meanwhile, Vance is either cooling his heels, flushed with relief that he didn’t have to go. Or he’s getting over the adrenaline rush of pumping himself up, telling himself that once they turn him loose, it’s over for those suckers

    Oh, wait. Remember the last time we sent Vance to negotiate, he lasted a marathon 21 hours before throwing up his hands and going home?

    To be fair to Vance, it isn’t like Trump really seems to have a negotiation strategy—it’s just threats and ever-shifting demands. Vance should feel lucky to be sent to his room on this one while Trump pulled a TACO yet again.

    Lucky break, JD.

  234. says

    House Democrats dragged Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a hearing on Tuesday in which he attempted to defend President Donald Trump’s latest budget proposal. While last week’s hearings focused on RFK Jr.’s failures to protect public health, this round focused on his complicity in the corruption of the administration’s health care policies.

    Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York led the charge, highlighting the contradiction between Kennedy’s rhetoric and his recent policy decisions—specificially, sending billions to major health insurers he has previously accused of fraud.

    “United [Healthcare], CVS, Aetna—they’re defrauding the American public to the tune of $80 billion a year,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And so I was surprised to see, about two weeks ago, you had decided to give them another $13 billion, and it was used through the mechanism of the MA [Medicare Advantage] reimbursement rates, but I want to know, why did you do that?” [Video]

    Link

    More at the link, including additional video.

  235. says

    Texas can require public schools to display Ten Commandments in classrooms, U.S. appeals court rules

    “The ACLU said the decision ‘tramples those rights” of families ‘to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction.’ ”

    Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday, in a victory for conservatives who have long sought to incorporate more religion into schools.

    The ruling sets up a potential clash at the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue in the future. Arkansas and Louisiana have passed similar laws, which have also been challenged in courts. […]

    The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said in the decision that Texas’ law did not violate the First Amendment, which protects religious freedom and prevents the government from establishing a religion.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, called the ruling “a major victory for Texas and our moral values.”

    “The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day,” Paxton said.

    Andrew Mahaleris, spokesperson for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, also a Republican, said the mandate from the state was a “commonsense law, consistent with our history and tradition.”

    Organizations representing the families who challenged the law, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement that they were “extremely disappointed” by the decision.

    “The court’s ruling goes against fundamental First Amendment principles and binding U.S. Supreme Court authority,” the statement said. “The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction. This decision tramples those rights.”

    The ruling reverses a district court’s judgment that had blocked school districts from displaying the commandments. […]

  236. birgerjohansson says

    Non-politic feel-good interlude.

    We weighed Luna the panther after winter and were a bit shocked” 🙈 (ENG SUB)

    Luna the black leopard and Venza her rottweiler adopted sister are living a good life (Luna is a rescue animal that has grown up in captivity and cannot be rewilded).

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=IxImxVX9jUs

  240. birgerjohansson says

    Recommended.

    “The Apothecary Diaries and Gachiakuta are changing how we discuss SA in Anime ”

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

    (BTW I want to defend the anime Goblin Slayer. In the first episode, cannibalism and SA are implied but not explicitly shown. This is to establish early the horrors the rural population is facing as the central authorities do not give their protection priority. A society where commoners must spend their meagre resources to hire ‘sellswords’ for defence.)

  244. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, you can delete the post with the link that will slow down the loading of the thread. I will try again.

  246. birgerjohansson says

    BTW as I often go without sleep altogether, I sometimes bork the comments as attention slips. My apologies)

    TACO TUESDAY 
    Jimmy Kimmel: “Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire Again, Reads from Bible & Tucker Carlson Apologizes For Supporting Him”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=TS6WWmzcCpA

    I am impressed Jimmy Kimmel tracked down the old lady Trump keeps quoting in his speeches. A heartwarming, wholesome story.

  249. says

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Kash Patel ‘on the run’ amid mounting scrutiny, says Raskin

    “This is a guy who the public has understood for a long time is just not qualified for the job and is nothing but a political sycophant and flunky for Donald Trump,” says Rep. Jamie Raskin on FBI director Kash Patel.

    Video is 7:29 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Virginia approves Democratic-drawn map, AP projects

    Virginia approves the adoption of a new, Democratic-drawn congressional map for the remainder of the decade, AP projects.

    Video is 3:06 minutes
    Trump didn’t expect Democrats to fight back. Trump said, in response to redistricting efforts in Virginia, “I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but “gerrymandering” is a bad thing.” LOL

  250. says

    Follow-up to JM @214 and johnson catman @218.

    […] The colossally corrupt indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center shows just how powerful a politicized DOJ can be in the hands of a rogue president — and how difficult it is even this late in the game for the press and the public to have a clear-eyed view of retributive prosecutions.

    While the SPLC has long been a tormenter of extremists and therefore targeted by the right, it has not been subjected to the kind of drumbeat narrative against it from President Trump that would help to elevate the bogus nature of the prosecution more clearly in the public mind. So there was a lot of “let’s wait and see what they’ve got” in yesterday’s coverage of the new federal indictment out of Alabama. […]

    But let’s be clear: They got nothing. Period. Full stop.

    The indictment reads like what you would expect a bunch of young conservative lawyers who fancy themselves as clever and who have an axe to grind against an anti-white supremacy organization to come up with. It’s too cute by half. It insists that up is down.

    SPLC payments to informants to get intel on extremist group activities that it then shared with law enforcement were, in this telling, funding white supremacism. Setting up shell entities to protect the informants by shielding the origins of the payments is recast as a money laundering conspiracy. Running the payments through normal banking channels somehow turned the banks into victims and gave rise to a slew of wire fraud and false statement charges.

    I watched the full press conference by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, and it was breathtaking how little they have against the SPLC and how ill-prepared they were to address the most obviously troubling questions that the case raises, like what was the fraud precisely? […] [video]

    In a telling moment, Blanche let slip that the SLPC investigation originated under Trump I, was shelved under Biden, and then reanimated in Trump II.

    For context and history plus a real unpacking of the indictment, I recommend:
    – Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama: “At first blush, these allegations feel like an extension of the revenge docket and the attacks on universities and law firms, an effort to delegitimize and marginalize an organization that is pushing back against the administration. We’ll have a chance to study the charges as we learn more about the government’s evidence. The government’s core theory is that the SPLC paid high-ranking white supremacists, but they seem to ignore the reason—that the use of paid informants was essential to the intelligence the Center was gathering on the groups they were members of, including intelligence that was shared with the FBI.”

    – Chris Geidner, who shows how the facts pleaded in the indictment itself belie Blanche’s claims during the press conference, where he went well beyond the indictment by alleging that the SPLC “was not dismantling these groups, it was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose.”

    The underlying danger here goes well beyond the SPLC. Not every vindictive prosecution is going to be as open and obvious as those against James Comey, Letitia James, John Brennan, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, etc. Even a well-respected, longstanding organization with a distinguished history of fighting the Ku Klux Klan and right-wing extremism […] is easily placed under a pall of suspicion and doubt by the most transparently bad faith DOJ in our history.

    The Latest DOJ Travesty Is a Dire Warning of the Grave Dangers Ahead

  253. says

    JM @251, thank you. That explains a lot.

    In other news: Washington Post EXCLUSIVE, Trump fought to keep the ballroom fundraising contract secret. Here’s what’s in it.

    “The agreement governing hundreds of millions in private donations was kept secret until a watchdog group sued and a judge ordered it disclosed.”

    The Trump administration’s contract governing hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations to build President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom shields donors’ identities, excludes the White House from conflict of interest protections and was disclosed only after a lawsuit and a judge’s order, records obtained by The Washington Post show.

    The agreement establishing the legal and financial framework for the planned $400 million undertaking — the most significant change to the White House in decades — was signed in early October, less than two weeks before demolition crews started destroying the East Wing. Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, sued to obtain the contract between the White House, the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall, the nonprofit managing donations for the project, and shared the document with The Post.

    “The Trump administration’s failure to disclose this contract was flatly unlawful,” said Wendy Liu, a Public Citizen attorney and lead counsel on the lawsuit, filed after the Park Service and the Interior Department failed to fulfill a public records request for the document. “The American people are entitled to transparency over this multi-million-dollar project.”

    […] White House officials have declined to disclose the total amount raised, the identities of all donors or, until recently, basic details about the building’s design. Court documents show Trump knew he was going to tear down the East Wing at least two months before doing so, but he never told the public. [!!]

    The contract provisions, taken together, allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public. [!]

    […] The contract resembles templates used by the Park Service for more routine fundraising partnerships — with several notable differences: Provisions peppered throughout the agreement prevent the signatories from revealing the identities of anonymous donors, and a review process for detecting conflicts of interest with the Park Service and Interior Department makes no mention of doing the same for the president, other White House officials or the 14 other executive departments he oversees. [White House ballroom fundraising agreement]

    Dozens of the project’s known donors — which include Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Palantir and Google — collectively have billions of dollars in federal contracts before the administration. […]

    “At every turn, President Trump has sought to conceal the facts about his monstrous multimillion-dollar ballroom,” Blumenthal said in an statement to The Post. “His Administration has kept the contract under wraps, the identities of big dollar donors secret, and the American people in the dark about what big corporations have to gain by funding this boondoggle.” […]

    A federal judge last month also criticized the Trump administration’s approach to soliciting private donors through its contract with the Park Service, calling it a “Rube Goldberg contraption” that allowed the president to avoid congressional oversight while building the ballroom. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled last month that construction must be halted on the ballroom until Congress authorizes the project. The Trump administration has appealed that ruling, and a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has allowed construction to continue while the case proceeds. […]

  255. says

    Washington Post link

    “What a 5,000-mile-long marine heat wave means for summer in the U.S.”

    “It could worsen heat and humidity in the West this summer, and also boost the risks of Pacific hurricanes as well as wildfires in the region.”

    A massive ocean hot spot is stretching across a 5,000-mile swath of the Pacific — from Micronesia to the coastal waters of California. Across this zone, waters are as much as 6 to 8 degrees above average.

    […] Climate scientist Daniel Swain described this increasingly extreme marine heat wave as an “exceptional event” that’s breaking records.

    The unusual ocean anomaly — the largest on the planet — could expand and intensify to cover the entire Pacific coast of North America by late summer, he wrote.

    The development of this ocean hot spot, which is linked to a forming El Niño, also follows record warmth and a historic lack of snow in parts of the West earlier this year. Such conditions could worsen as the warm waters influence weather patterns in the coming months. [NOAA animation showing marine heat wave growing and intensifying.]

    This marine heat wave is expected to be a key driver of conditions this spring and summer and it “could yield a summer quite different in California and the Southwest than we’ve seen in quite some time,” Swain said.

    […] Over the coming weeks, the West will experience unsettled conditions and variable temperatures. That’s due to an enhancement in the subtropical jet stream — partly because of the marine heat wave. This will bring some beneficial moisture to the parched Intermountain West.

    But these milder effects won’t last.

    As summer approaches, the marine heat wave will probably contribute to elevated overnight temperatures, leading to reduced relief from hot daytime conditions.

    There’s also increased potential for uncomfortable humidity levels — something that is unusual in the West. Warmer ocean waters increase evaporation, which can raise atmospheric moisture levels, especially along the coast. [Two animations based on data: one is moisture]

    Then, later in summer, the marine heat wave and a forming El Niño could join forces to boost monsoonal thunderstorm activity across the West. This could enhance fire risks in the region […]

    According to the National Interagency Fire Center, there’s above-average wildfire risk across several Western states during June and July. […]

    This year’s marine heat wave — a persistent and extensive area of well above-average sea temperatures — is being driven by the Pacific Meridional Mode (PMM).

    […] It typically develops from winter into spring through a series of atmospheric patterns that cause winds to weaken, which reduce evaporation and cause ocean warming. Once warm water from the PMM nears the equator, it can help feed a growing El Niño, with Amaya describing it as a precursor to that climate pattern, which can have much wider, global impacts.

    […] Last fall, a record-breaking marine heat wave extended from eastern Asia into the North Pacific — and it still hasn’t fully faded. Its intensity was amplified by the planet’s long-term warming trend.

    This year’s record-breaking marine heat wave is feeling that same tailwind of rising global temperatures.

    More at the link.

  256. says

    EU confident €90B Ukraine loan will be unlocked on Thursday

    The EU will unlock its €90 billion loan to Ukraine on Thursday if, as officials now expect, oil flows restart via the Druzhba pipeline by then, according to five EU diplomats.

    The breakthrough hinges on the restoration of crude shipments through the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline linking Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia — a condition that outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government used to block the loan. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Tuesday that the line has been repaired. [important point]

    European Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said the latest developments had cleared the path for the money to be set free. “The oil is flowing in the Druzhba pipeline — this means that … we will be able to release the €90 billion loan,” she said Wednesday at the EU-Ukraine Business Forum.

    Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul celebrated the news, too, writing on X that “The €90 billion for Ukraine … are coming now,” since “Hungary is back in the European family.”

    After initially agreeing to the loan in December, Budapest blocked it in February as a dispute flared over the pipeline. Orbán accused Zelenskyy of slow-walking repairs to the infrastructure in retaliation for Hungary’s friendly relations with Russia.

    Zelenskyy sounded optimistic the cash would finally reach Ukraine. “The unblocking is the right signal under the current circumstances,” he wrote on X on Wednesday.

    EU ambassadors gave preliminary backing to the package, according to Cyprus, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, after Ukraine’s repairs and the westward flows resumed.

    […] Hungary and Slovakia made clear their support depends on oil physically reaching their territory, according to three of the diplomats. “Some caution is needed as there might still be technical issues,” one diplomat said.

    […] If the loan is approved this week, Kyiv would be set to receive the money in May, offering relief to Ukraine’s war-battered economy as it continues to fend off Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its fifth year. Once Hungary lifts its veto, the European Commission would be able to disburse the funds after completing technical checks expected to take a few weeks.

    Good news, except for the delays.

  258. says

    TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report)—In a major setback for Donald J. Trump, Iranian negotiators warned on Wednesday that having to spend “even one more minute” with JD Vance would be considered “an act of war.”

    “We spent twenty-one hours with this odious loser and refuse to endure such excruciating torture ever again,” the Iranians’ statement read.

    According to White House sources, Trump hopes that the mere specter of being trapped in the same room as Vance will compel Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and abandon their nuclear program.

    But his strategy could run afoul of the Geneva Conventions, which consider a human repellent like Vance a biological weapon.

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/iran-warns-it-considers-having-to

  259. says

    Trump floats pitiful conspiracy theory about Virginia race ahead of midterm elections

    “The president’s latest nonsense is notable because of the degree to which it’s a sign of things to come.”

    The political world was heavily focused on this week’s redistricting race in Virginia, and for good reason: It would open the door to a new congressional map in the commonwealth that would push Democrats closer to a House majority.

    […] Virginia voters narrowly approved the Democratic plan. Republicans, who started a partisan redistricting arms race last year without a strategy of success, will go from holding five of the state’s 11 congressional districts to one.

    The finger-pointing in GOP circles was as swift as it was inevitable. Politico reported on party insiders, eager to assign blame, turning their ire on the state and national party, among others.

    Donald Trump, however, went in a more typically Trumpian direction. On Wednesday afternoon, the president published an item to his social media platform that read in part:

    A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA! All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory! … Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.’ [Utter bullshit]

    He went on to argue that the specific language of the ballot measure was difficult to understand, adding, “As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person [JFC], and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they!”

    The missive was tiresome and predictable. The election in Virginia wasn’t “rigged,” nothing about the race was “crooked,” this wasn’t a “travesty” of justice and few seriously believe the incumbent president is “an extraordinarily brilliant person.” The Democratic campaign was expected to win narrowly, and that’s precisely what happened.

    As for his observation about “ballot drops,” as anyone with even a basic familiarity with elections understands, it takes longer to count ballots in high-population areas, and in Virginia, high-population areas tend to have a lot of Democratic voters. There’s nothing nefarious about any of this, which is why even the Virginia Republicans who are furious about the outcome made no effort to question the propriety or legitimacy of the result. [All true.]

    [Trump’s] latest nonsense is notable, however, because it’s an indelible sign of things to come. The midterm elections are 28 weeks away, and Trump is already doing what he’s done ahead of every election cycle for a decade, namely, taking steps to undermine public confidence in the integrity of the system to justify his rejection of results he doesn’t like.

    Democrats are positioned to fare well in the fall, and the president’s reaction to Virginia tells us everything we need to know about what he’ll say and do in response to likely Republican defeats later this year.

  260. says

    SpaceX says it can buy AI coding tool Cursor for $60B later this year

    “Cursor, made by San Francisco startup Anysphere, is a popular AI coding assistant.”

    SpaceX says it has the rights to buy artificial intelligence coding tool Cursor for $60 billion later this year as Elon Musk’s space exploration and AI company looks for ways to compete with rivals Anthropic and OpenAI ahead of a planned Wall Street debut.

    SpaceX announced the deal Tuesday on the social platform X, which along with the AI chatbot Grok is part of a constellation of properties that Musk has merged into his rocket company.

    Cursor, made by San Francisco startup Anysphere, is a popular AI coding assistant. What SpaceX describes as Cursor’s wide “distribution to expert software engineers” is likely part of what makes it attractive to Musk’s company, giving it access to a new customer base. […]

  261. says

    WIRED link

    “New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations”

    “A WIRED review of permits for data center projects using natural gas and linked to OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI shows they could emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases per year.”

    NEW GAS PROJECTS linked to just 11 data center campuses around the US have the potential to create more greenhouse gases than the country of Morocco emitted in 2024. Emissions estimates from air permit documents examined by WIRED show that these natural gas projects—which are being built to power data centers to serve some of the US’s most powerful AI companies, including OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI—have the potential to emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases per year. […]

  262. says

    Trump trips over his ignorance while trying to talk about the basics of inflation

    “Maybe if the president understood the rudimentary details about economic data and recent events, he wouldn’t be failing so spectacularly?”

    It’s hardly a secret that public concerns about inflation, affordability and the cost of living are a major concern for much of the country, so it’s important for Donald Trump to at least try to understand the issue at a basic level. So far, the president hasn’t even cleared a low bar. [video]

    During his latest appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” host Joe Kernen, widely recognized as a conservative voice, noted that the inflation rate “was down to about where it is now, about 3%,” by the time Joe Biden’s term came to an end. Before the host could even get to his question, Trump interrupted.

    “No, it wasn’t,” the president insisted. “It was down to 5%.”

    Trump went on to argue, “And the reason it was down was because I had won the election, and it started falling after I won the election, and I started getting prices down from right after Nov. 5.”

    Fortunately, none of this is subjective. We’re talking about knowable and specific details. It’s very easy to check and see whether the president was right or whether he was clueless.

    Take a wild guess where I’m going with this.

    As the global economy started recovering in earnest in the wake of the pandemic, inflation roared in every advanced economy on the planet. Unfortunately, the United States was no exception, and in June 2022, the inflation rate reached 9%. Conditions gradually improved in the months and years that followed, and by November 2024, the consumer price index had slid from 9% to 2.7%.

    When Trump said the inflation rate “started falling after I won the election,” he was wrong: The monthly rate actually went up a little in the final two months of 2024, not down, as the Republican prepared to return to the White House.

    By January 2025, as Biden’s presidency ended, the CPI stood at 3% (slightly better than the 3.2% from last month). Trump said it was 5%, but reality proves otherwise.

    The basic factual information that Kernen referenced was accurate, and when the president tried to contradict the host, Trump peddled demonstrably untrue claims.

    To be sure, “Trump lies about a thing” is a daily occurrence, but I emphasize this because of the larger context: The latest Associated Press poll found the president’s approval rating sinking to a woeful 33%, but when respondents were asked about affordability, only 23% — less than 1 in 4 Americans — approved of the Republican’s efforts to address the cost of living.

    Maybe if Trump understood the rudimentary basics about the economic data and recent events, he wouldn’t be failing so spectacularly?

  263. says

    Blockchain billionaire Sun takes Trump family’s crypto firm to court, by Reuters

    “Justin Sun alleged in the lawsuit that World Liberty secretly installed tools to ‌prevent the sale of his tokens.”

    Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun on Tuesday sued World Liberty Financial, the digital currency venture co-founded by U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons, ​alleging that World Liberty illegally froze his holdings of tokens issued by the company.

    Sun alleged in the lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California, that World Liberty secretly installed tools to ‌prevent the sale of his tokens after they became tradeable in September 2025. The lawsuit also alleges that World Liberty threatened to “burn” — or permanently delete — his holdings, even while they were in Sun’s digital wallet.

    Sun, the Hong Kong-based founder of the Tron cryptocurrency, bought $45 million of WLFI tokens — some 3 billion — and was later awarded a further 1 billion tokens after being named as an advisor to World Liberty, the lawsuit said.

    Sun’s portfolio of 4 billion WLFI tokens is worth roughly $320 million, according ​to Reuters calculations based on the latest WLFI price.

    Zach Witkoff, World Liberty Financial’s chief executive and a co-founder, said in a post on X on Wednesday that Sun’s legal claims “are entirely meritless, and World ​Liberty looks forward to getting the case thrown out promptly.”

    “He engaged in misconduct that required World Liberty to take action to protect itself and its users,” ⁠added Witkoff, who is the son of Steve Witkoff, U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Missions.

    Eric Trump, a son of the president and also a World Liberty co-founder, also posted to X on Wednesday. He wrote “The only thing ​more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending $6 million on a banana duct-taped to a wall,” a reference to Sun’s November 2024 purchase of a piece of art called “Comedian” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. […]

    World Liberty is the most prominent of several lucrative crypto businesses co-founded or controlled by the Trump family, which has already made more than $1 billion from World Liberty, according to a Reuters analysis. World Liberty’s bylaws state that 75% of the ​revenue from WLFI token sales is routed to the Trumps. [!]

    World Liberty is under increasing scrutiny from some of its investors […]

    In the lawsuit, Sun described himself as “one of World Liberty’s anchor investors.”

    World Liberty’s structure means that the WLFI tokens Sun bought in 2024 are not equivalent to ‌standard company ⁠shares. The tokens do not carry ownership in the company and holders are not entitled to dividends, although they do gain a limited say in the company’s governance.

    The lawsuit caps a dramatic deterioration of relations between Sun and World Liberty. [Aww. Sad. The grifters are fighting among themselves.]

    [Sun] alleged in a post that World Liberty had secretly embedded what he described as a “backdoor blacklisting function” in the blockchain-based contracts used for the tokens.

    That gave World Liberty “unilateral power” to “freeze, restrict, and effectively confiscate the property rights” of token holders without cause or recourse, Sun wrote on X.

    World Liberty at that time ​responded to Sun’s allegations with a post on X ​that said: “We have the contracts. We have the ⁠evidence. We have the truth. See you in court pal.”

    The lawsuit said Sun “has long been (and remains) an ardent supporter of President Trump and the Trump family.”

    The lawsuit alleges that World Liberty representatives “repeatedly contacted and pressured” Sun to invest additional capital in the venture between April and July 2025, including requests to commit to ​acquiring $200 million in a separate World Liberty stablecoin token and to acquire an equity stake in the company. [That sounds about right. The usual Trumpian approach to business.]

    Sun said in a post on X on Wednesday ​he had “tried in good faith” ⁠to resolve his complaints with World Liberty, […]

    A measure proposed by the company last week would restrict early investors holding a combined 17 billion tokens from being able to trade all of their tokens until 2030, a year after the president is scheduled to leave office. [!!]

    […] Sun has also invested heavily in President Trump’s so-called meme coin. […]

    In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled a 2023 lawsuit against Sun for $10 million. The lawsuit had alleged fraud, selling unregistered crypto securities and hiding payments to celebrities to promote his products. Sun made no admission of ​wrongdoing.

  264. says

    MS NOW:

    Iran ‘has not yet decided whether it will participate in the new round of peace negotiations with the United States scheduled for later this week,’ Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on state television today.

    MS NOW:

    Crude oil futures for June delivery surged past the $100-per-barrel threshold after Vice President JD Vance’s expected travel to Pakistan for a second round of peace talks was canceled yesterday […]

  265. says

    Washington Post:

    A report showing the efficacy of the covid-19 vaccine that was previously delayed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been blocked from being published in the agency’s flagship scientific journal, according to three people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The report showed that the vaccine reduced emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half this past winter.

  267. says

    New York Times link

    “Judge Halts Trump Actions Aimed at Throttling Renewable Energy” — Good news.

    “The Interior Department had imposed restrictions on wind and solar projects across the country, prompting developers to sue.”

    A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a series of decisions that wind and solar developers say have throttled hundreds of renewable energy projects across the country.

    Judge Denise J. Casper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit that a coalition of renewable energy developers filed against the Interior Department in December. The developers argued that the Trump administration was unlawfully discriminating against wind and solar power, impeding projects on public and private land.

    […] The ruling marked the latest legal setback for the Trump administration in its efforts to thwart wind and solar power. In five different cases this year, federal judges have struck down efforts by the Interior Department to halt construction of wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean.

    […] In July, the agency [Interior Department] issued a memo saying that a wide array of federal decisions and consultations on wind and solar projects that are typically carried out by career employees would be subject to new layers of review by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s office. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also issued new restrictions for renewable energy projects.

    Those actions brought federal permitting for many renewable energy projects to a standstill, developers have said. Career staffers were unsure how to move forward with once-routine work such as approving plans for access roads. Former Interior Department officials said it was unworkable for the secretary to review each of the hundreds of small decisions needed to approve projects, creating lengthy delays.

    While fewer than 5 percent of solar and wind projects are on lands directly overseen by the Interior Department, even developers that build on private land often need federal approvals. If, for instance, a solar or wind farm is going to disturb nearby wetlands, the developer may need a water permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which in turn often consults with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to gauge the effects on sensitive habitat.

    The renewable energy developers gave examples of numerous projects that had been blocked by the permitting slowdown. One planned wind farm in Illinois had been delayed indefinitely while waiting for wildlife and water permits, the filings said. The project lost its spot in line to connect to the electrical grid after its developer had already invested $10 million.

    The Interior Department had also barred wind and solar developers from using a taxpayer-funded database known as IPaC, which they needed to document the effects that projects might have on wildlife, even though that data was often required for projects to get federal permits. […]

    We do not yet know if the Trump administration will appeal the ruling.

  268. says

    New York Times:

    After halting a U.S. resettlement program for Afghans who helped the American war effort, President Trump is in talks to send as many as 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of Congo, an aid worker briefed on the plan said Tuesday. The group includes interpreters for the U.S. military, former members of the Afghan Special Operations forces and family members of American service members. More than 400 children are among them.

  269. says

    Propaganda princess struggles to keep spinning Trump’s war in Iran

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked who, exactly, the Trump administration is negotiating with in Iran, and her answer was as vague as you’d expect.

    “Well, we obviously know who we’re negotiating with because our negotiating team has sat down with those individuals in person,” Leavitt said. “But obviously there’s a lot of internal fraction and internal division, which, again, just proves the effectiveness of Operation Epic Fury in the first place.” [video]

    There’s a good chance that having to spin President Donald Trump’s bullshit is taking its toll on his propaganda princess. Saying “obviously” twice in a matter of seconds doesn’t exactly instill the confidence that Leavitt might think it does.

    Having repeatedly moved the goal posts on the supposed goal for his war, Trump found himself extending the ceasefire indefinitely.

    The White House’s stumbling attempts at finding a way out of their own mess has been hampered by the fact that they clearly did not understand the extent of this war in the first place.

  270. KG says

    Lynna, OM@256,

    Perhaps the most bizarre feature of the Ukraine War is that oil has continued to flow from the invading country through the invaded country to third parties. One must wonder whether Putin will now order the bombing of the pipeline in a final attempt to prevent the EU loan to Ukraine being approved. Particularly as Russian advances on the front have practically halted.

  271. KG says

    Live updates: Iran seizes ships in Strait of Hormuz after Trump extends ceasefire – Lynna, OM@252 citing NBC News

    The supposed justification for the indefinite ceasefire extension is that internal disagreements in the Iranian regime are preventing them returning a unified response to Trump’s latest proposals (which will undoubtedly be unacceptable to them). So if they could rely on Trump to stop changing his mind – such as it is – every five minutes, all the Iranians have to do to keep the ceasefire going is not to give such a response. Of course, there’s still the stalemate over rival blockades strangling the global economy, but it seems clear Trump does not dare resume bombing. The wild card is Netanyahu, who certainly doesn’t want to stop killing people – does Trump have the intestinal fortitude to tell him “No”?

  272. StevoR says

    @ ^ KG Does Netanyahu have a copy of the Epstein files or other significant kompromat on Trump?

  273. KG says

    “On my personal behalf and on behalf of Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, I sincerely thank President Trump for graciously accepting our request to extend the ceasefire to allow ongoing diplomatic efforts to take their course,” Sharif wrote in a statement on X. – Lynna, OM@232 quoting MS NOW

    Worth noting that Munir is the real ruler of Pakistan; Sharif is just his errand-boy. “Other countries have armies. Pakistan’s army has a country”.

  274. KG says

    StevoR@272,

    I would guess not, although it’s possible. I think Trump is just intimidated (as with Putin), by a bigger bully.

  276. KG says

    “I do think it’s like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences,” Carlson said – Lynna, OM@225 quoting NBC News

    Carlson was referring to his long-time support of Trump. I predict that Carlson will win that wrestling match and continue his campaign of bigotry and lies (rather than withdrawing from public life in entirely justified shame), whether or not it suits his interests to continue distancing himself from Trump.

  277. whheydt says

    For those who like classical music, the announcer on KDFC (San Francisco classical station) just said that conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has died.

  278. says

    KG @270, Russia has already attacked that pipeline multiple times. Zelensky pointed out earlier that even if he repaired it, Putin would sabotage it again. You make a good point.

    In other news: ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Navy secretary fired amid naval blockade in Strait of Hormuz

    As the U.S. Navy conducts a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, MS NOW reports that the head of the Navy has been fired. Sen. Mark Kelly joins to discuss.

    Video is 8:22 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘The wheels are coming off’: Trump already less popular than after Jan. 6

    Chris Hayes: According to some polls, Trump is currently less popular than when he led a violent, insurrectionist mob to try and overturn the results of the election he lost.

    Video is 9:28 minutes.
    “Trump had a truly brutal day yesterday.”

  279. says

    Follow-up to Chris Hayes’ “The wheels are coming off” video, referenced in comment 278.

    Even worse than Trump: Disapproval for Republican-led Congress reaches 86%

    “There’s one thing the vast majority of Americans can agree on: This Congress sure is awful.”

    On most of the major issues of the day, Americans of different parties and ideologies tend not to see eye to eye, but I’m pleased to report that there’s one thing 86% of the country can agree on: This Congress sure is awful.

    Gallup reported on its latest national survey:

    Americans’ approval of Congress has fallen to 10%, barely above its all-time low of 9%, while disapproval has climbed to 86%, tying the record high for the institution. […]

    Congress’ approval ratings have been mostly underwater since 1974, averaging 28% approval and 65% disapproval. More recently, approval has remained below 30% for most of the past five years, with sustained stretches in the teens.

    […] The only other time in the past half-century when Congress had a lower approval rating was in the fall of 2013, when Republican leaders shut down the government and threatened a debt ceiling crisis that would’ve crashed the economy on purpose. At that point, Gallup showed Congress’ support falling to just 9% — a point lower than the pollster’s latest findings.

    As recently as March 2025, Gallup showed the institution’s approval rating at a relatively high 31%, fueled largely by support among GOP voters for the Republican-led House and Senate, but that support has slid sharply over the past year, as approval for Congress among Republican voters has dropped from 63% to 20%. [!!] (Among independent voters, approval is down to 11%, while among Democratic voters, it now stands at just 3%.)

    […] Though there’s still time for lawmakers to do something worthwhile before the end of the year, this has been a Congress marred by scandals, inactivity, resignations and shutdowns. What’s more, this a Congress that has voluntarily surrendered many of its responsibilities and prerogatives to the White House while proving itself to be an exceedingly dysfunctional and unproductive institution. [All too true.]

    […] All things considered, it’s a little surprising the 86% disapproval rating isn’t higher.

  280. says

    WTAF

    In March, the FBI began investigating New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson after her February story on the use of bureau resources by Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend.

    The unprecedented move to target a journalist for politically damaging reporting proceeded on the flimsy premise that her coverage of Alexis Wilkins, a country music singer, was potentially in violation of federal anti-stalking laws.

    Among the affirmative steps that the FBI took against Williamson: It “combed through the bureau’s databases to determine whether the federal government had any information on Ms. Williamson to help make the argument that she deserved further scrutiny.”

    The NYT notes that Williamson spoke with Wilkins on the phone once and never met her in person. [Important point!]

    After that initial inquiry, FBI agents “recommended moving forward with a preliminary investigation,” but ran into concerns at the Justice Department, where even Trump DOJ officials “determined there was no legal basis to proceed with the investigation,” the NYT reports. [Correct]

    The FBI denied it ever investigated Williamson but confirmed that “investigators were concerned about how the aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking. The FBI has since dropped the investigation and is not pursuing a case against Williamson.

    A key unanswered question: Did Patel sic the FBI on the reporter or did FBI officials take the initiative to do on their own?

    Link

  281. says

    Trump DOJ Watch

    – Bloomberg: Ahead of the midterm elections, the Trump DOJ has dismantled a centralized election week command post at the FBI, discontinued mandatory election law training for prosecutors, and restricted access to threat briefings for state officials. [Trump is dismantling electionoversight.]

    -The Bulwark: How The Blaze’s crackpot reporting on the Capitol Hill pipebombs prompted a wild, unnecessary FBI raid.

    – Bloomberg: President Trump has nominated Don Berthiaume, a veteran federal watchdog attorney, as the DOJ inspector general. He has been serving as the acting DOJ IG.

    From the same link as shown above:

    Mass Deportation Watch

    – Senate Republicans overnight used the budget reconciliation process to push through a blueprint for $70 billion in additional funding for immigration enforcement and reopening DHS. [aiyiyiyi!] The 50-48 vote saw only Republican Sens. Rand Paul (KY) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) break party ranks.

    – In a ruling yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a California law requiring federal agents to wear identification. [bad news]

    – The Trump administration is considering sending more than 1,000 Afghans who aided the anti-Taliban effort to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the NYT reports. The group, which includes interpreters and family members of U.S. service members, have been languishing in Qatar since they were evacuated from Afghanistan for their own safety. [Bad news … and a betrayal of Afghans who helped U.S. forces.]

  282. says

    Link

    Quote of the Day

    Andy Craig:

    In an autocracy—most vividly in overt monarchies but also many modern dictatorships—the state is embodied in the sovereign ruler. Their face is on the money; institutions and governments are denominated “royal”; infrastructure projects are named in their honor; and their birthdays are public holidays. The nation is, quite literally, theirs. “L’État, c’est moi.” …

    A republic, with symbolism tracing back to antiquity, deliberately inverts these trappings of personal rule. The institutions belong to the public—res publica, in which all have a stake. The people, and not the rulers, are sovereign. The officeholder is a temporary steward, not a proprietor. When a president stamps his name and likeness on federal buildings and government programs and the national currency, he is asserting the monarchical claim: that these things are extensions of himself.

    This is not something to be shrugged off as incidental. It is corrosive of America’s fundamental principles.

  283. says

    Link

    De-Trumpification

    Gregg Gonsalves in The Nation:

    The scope of the damage, and the enormous amounts of money, time, and energy that will be required to bring us just back to 2024 levels, boggles the mind. I am not sure anyone has really wrapped their heads around what this means, given that so many other areas of public life will need Marshall Plans of their own. Trump, in his malfeasance, malice, and incompetence, is running up quite a tab, and we, our children, and our children’s children, will be left with the bill.

  284. says

    Rather disingenuously, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has proclaimed that the Senate will now fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through legislation that, he contends, has hardly anything in it to fear. He called the DHS budget reconciliation bill he anticipates soon passing the Senate “anorexic,” a strange term, […] but in context the majority leader apparently meant to convey the bill was thin, skeletal, near-empty, and utterly without threatening contents.

    Do not let Thune’s description fool you. The plan hatched by Senate and House Republicans, backed by President Trump, to ram a bad if not pestilential bill through by wielding the mighty budget process is a virtual coup.[…]

    The DHS reconciliation bill, Republican leadership has said, will go far beyond the expected year’s funding for ICE. As a result, the bill will cloak ICE from congressional reform for three years — not one, but three, explicitly for Trump’s whole term — armoring officers against any future attempts, by, say, a Democratic House after January, to deal with its abuses. The legislation, as described, would swell two immigration police machines, ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to a combined size more than double that of any other federal police force.

    It would launch a massive, cruel empire of detention and deportation to catch and imprison hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of almost entirely innocuous and helpless people. If congressional Democrats — and hopefully a few Republicans — are going to do their best to wage a battle against this, then, given the forced pace of the budget process, there is no time to lose. […]

    Link

    More at the link.

  285. says

    Borowitz, but not satire, sadly.

    Pete Hegseth’s Zero Tolerance for Competence

    Warning: The following post is 100% factual. Sadly.

    The recent allegations about FBI Director Kash Patel’s drunken antics are regrettable in that they briefly shifted focus away from the man who, until now, had been the most notorious boozer in Trump’s Cabinet: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

    […] Pete didn’t have the sense to lie low this week, and instead drew attention to himself by continuing to implement his zero-tolerance policy for competence in the US armed forces.

    Earlier this month, Gen. Randy George, the army chief of staff, joined the swelling ranks of highly-esteemed military leaders whom the former “Fox & Friends” weekend host kicked to the curb in a frenzy of febrile paranoia, cementing his reputation as secretary of defensiveness.

    Yesterday, it was Secretary of the Navy John Phelan’s turn to get the chop. Now, to be clear, Phelan is no Randy George. In fact, he shares two unfortunate resume items with the current commander-in-chief: zero military experience and a link to Jeffrey Epstein. (Phelan never boarded an aircraft carrier, but he did ride on the Lolita Express.) So I can’t say that I mourned Phelan’s departure—that is, until I found out who was replacing him.

    America, meet your new Acting Secretary of the Navy: Hung Cao.

    Who, you might be wondering, is Hung Cao?

    In 2024, Donald Trump anointed Cao to be the Republican nominee in Virginia’s US Senate race. On the campaign trail during his (unsuccessful) run for Congress in 2022, the former Navy captain didn’t think bragging about his military service would suffice: at every opportunity, he told voters that he’d been “blown up” multiple times.

    “I’m 100% disabled, you know, because just from being blown up in combat many times and everything else, you know, knee, shoulders,” he said. “I’ve got more surgeries than you could possibly imagine.”

    The key word here is “imagine,” as USA Today discovered when it investigated Cao’s military record. Despite Cao’s claim of “getting shot at and blown up in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia,” the newspaper reported, “Four retired Navy and Army officers who reviewed Cao’s service record said it was unusual for a sailor severely wounded in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan not to have received a Purple Heart or the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon.”

    [Cao] compared abortion to Nazi atrocities and claimed that Wiccans had seized control of Monterey, California. He referred to himself as an “African-American” because he spent a few years in Niger as a child. As for his ideal Navy recruit, he declared, “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat ‘em and ask for seconds.” [JFC!]

    It’s hard to see how disemboweling and then eating oneself would improve one’s performance as a sailor—but If that nugget of wisdom eluded Virginians, he tried to win them over by handing out campaign coins bearing the catchy slogan, “I Want My Senator to be Hung.” Voters who shared that icky sentiment proved to be rare: he lost to the Democrat, Sen. Tim Kaine, by 9 points.

    This is the man Pete Hegseth has chosen to oversee the Navy just as the US’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz falters and more troops head for the Middle East.

    What could go wrong?

  286. says

    Follow-up to comment 235.

    Trump purges Navy secretary, war be damned

    President Donald Trump pushed out Navy Secretary John Phelan on Wednesday night, adding to the chaotic global situation caused by his decision to wage war against Iran. [Interesting that this report frames the decision as being Trump’s, and not Hegseth’s decision.]

    The major personnel decision comes amid the Navy’s central role in the conflict, particularly in intercepting ships attempting to navigate the Strait of Hormuz […]

    The Washington Post and New York Times report that internal sources attribute Phelan’s ouster to clashes with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over internal Navy matters, such as shipbuilding. Hung Cao, the Navy’s under secretary, will take over for Phelan in an acting role. [See comment 235]

    Hegseth has demonstrated an intense temper, with repeated angry outbursts during public events. This has apparently contributed to clashes with senior officials.

    The Wall Street Journal reported that Hegseth was frustrated by Phelan’s “close relationship” with Trump, and that Phelan was purportedly in constant contact with the president, including via late-night texts. [Oh dear.]

    Phelan was apparently pushed out for his clash with Hegseth and not because of the revelation that he was listed as a passenger on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane in 2006. […]

    “I am concerned it is yet another example of the instability and dysfunction that have come to define the Department of Defense under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth,” said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a military veteran, in a statement.

    A multimillionaire businessman based in Florida, Phelan likely came to Trump’s attention by donating hundreds of thousands to his 2024 presidential campaign. Phelan was later rewarded with the nomination to lead the Navy, despite having had no prior military experience. [!]

    One of Phelan’s top priorities in the Navy was presiding over the construction of so-called “Trump-class” battleships being built at massive taxpayer expense. [Sheesh]

    Trump has burned through Navy secretaries at a rate higher than any recent president. [!] In his first term, he had seven different men serve in the position. By contrast, former President Barack Obama had three secretaries for his entire eight-year administration […]

    In ordinary times, this level of chaos would be detrimental to national security. It’s even worse that it is happening at wartime.

  287. says

    Is Trump rushing to clean his Cabinet for a reason?

    […] Trump is on a rage-fueled firing spree, soothing his frustration with his dismal approval ratings and his inability to end the idiotic war he started in Iran by axing members of his Cabinet and other top-level administration officials.

    In the last few weeks, Trump has sacked Attorney General Pam Bondi, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Navy Secretary John Phelan. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer also left, but given the horrific allegations made against her and her husband, it’s unlikely that her resignation was of her own volition.

    And Politico reported on Thursday that more firings could be on the horizon, listing off bumbling fool Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Russian asset Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and drunken loser FBI Director Kash Patel as potential targets of Trump’s ire.

    But what caught our eye in the Politico piece is not that these imbeciles could be next on the chopping block, but that Senate Republicans are telling Trump that if he wants to make changes he should do it now, as Republicans could lose their Senate majority and be unable to get his nominees through.

    […] Senate Republican incumbents and nominees are being vastly outraised by their Democratic counterparts, a sign that GOP donor enthusiasm is tanking.

    And a Republican super PAC with ties to Majority Leader John Thune reserved the most money for races in red states that Trump easily carried in 2024. If Republicans have to spend tens of millions defending seats in Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska, things are really bleak for the GOP.

    What’s more, Senate Republicans are also publicly nudging their aging right-wing Supreme Court justices to retire this summer, yet another sign they fear their majority is on the rocks and thus would be unable to confirm Trump’s picks to the courts.

    Ultimately, Republicans are in trouble this fall. And they know it.

  289. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/elon-musk-says-pedro-sanchez-did

    “Elon Musk Says Pedro Sánchez Did HIGH TREASON! Against … White People?”

    There’s more fallout this week from what looks like it was just an amazing conference in Barcelona, the first-ever Progressive Mobilisation Conference. It was progressive leaders from all over the world! They mobilised! With an “s,” because the conference happened in Europe […]

    Point is, Elon Musk, that patriotic American, has accused Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón of España of, um, well, treason, on account of what he said at the […] conference in Bar-thay-lo-na. […] What do words even mean? [Social media post]

    As you can see, Elon was responding to notable famous political thinker “Humble Flow,” who posted part of Sánchez’s speech, calling it “the worst betrayal in European history.” (You can peruse their Twitter account to see what other things they consider “betrayals” in European history. You will be not surprised!)

    And Elon said, “Dirty Sánchez is guilty of high treason.” High treason! Against what? Against America? Against Spain? Europe? Or just against white supremacists. Haha spoiler, that is it.

    Did you know you can “treason” white supremacists? Well the Trump Department of Justice does, which is why they are arresting the Southern Poverty Law Center for it!

    Here is what Sánchez said […]

    “Le quiero decir a la derecha y a la ultraderecha que se oponen que España es hija de la migración y no va a ser madre de la xenofobia.”

    ¿Claro?

    Now this time in English:

    “I want to tell the Right and the far Right who oppose this that Spain is a child of migration and will not become the mother of xenophobia.”

    Damn fuckin’ right, it’s claro.

    As Spanish news radio website Onda Cero explains, Sánchez was defending his new program to “regularize” approximately 500,000 undocumented immigrants. He calls it an “act of justice” and also just a good thing for Spain, an effort to “acknowledge the reality of nearly half a million people who already form part of our everyday lives.” There are of course requirements and guidelines for how and when one must apply — they have to show that they have lived in Spain for more than five months, and that they aren’t criminals, por ejemplo — but yeah. American MAGA Nazis have their ways of handling immigration, Sánchez has a different one.

    (It’s notable that, while the American Right has fearful fantasies of Europe being completely overrun by Muslims, and while there are indeed lots of Muslim immigrants in Spain, the largest number of undocumented migrants, by far, is from Latin America. Just to drive the point home that we’re looking at two responses to what is in many ways the exact same issue.)

    Onda Cero notes that for poor, oppressed, pasty-white man-booby Elon Musk […] this is not remotely the first time he’s called Sánchez a traitor, or even that he’s made his exact same “dirty Sánchez is a traitor to Spain” remark. […]

    In February, Elon responded to a tweet from British racist anti-migrant extremist Tommy Robinson […] whining that Sánchez “should be arrested,” back when he announced the migrant regularization plan. And Elon said: [social media post]

    Spanish Treason Law Understander Elon Musk, checking in!

    Also two weeks before, this time with a poop emoji: [social media post]

    This time Sánchez was a tyrant and traitor, to the people of Spain. But why? Well, if you expand that tweet:

    First, we will change the law in Spain to hold platform executives legally accountable for many infringements taking place on their sites.

    Second, we will turn algorithmic manipulation and amplification of illegal content into a new criminal offense.

    Third, we will implement a hate and polarization footprint system to track, quantify, and expose how digital platforms fuel division and amplify hate.

    Fourth, Spain will ban access to social media for minors under the age of 16. Platforms will be required to implement effective age verification systems — not just checkboxes, but real barriers that work.

    Fifth and last, my government will work with our public prosecutor to investigate and pursue the infringement committed by Grok, TikTok, and Instagram.

    This was when the European investigations were really getting going into Twitter/X, for the Grok Holocaust denial and the Grok kiddie porn deepfakes and the interference in nations’ politics, etc. France had just raided X’s Paris office. Elon was really aggrieved that week.

    Holding tecnoligarcas accountable for letting hate and other sick shit spread on their sites, tracking and exposing hate networks, depriving the world’s sickest people of access to kids under 16 … yes, we can see why the owner of the largest Nazi Bar in the world might be upset by those rules. Especially when that owner is also a guy who appears in the Epstein Files in emails, seemingly pathetically begging for invites to “the wildest party” on Epstein Island.

    […] Sánchez looks strong! He looks bold! He looks like a clear moral voice! Especially when you stand him up next to […] Trump or Musk.

    In related news about Tim Walz doing treason at the Progressive Mobilisation Conference and Pedro Sánchez doing treason at the Progressive Mobilisation Conference, it appears that Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy also did treason there, and additionally on Twitter! […]

  290. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/rfk-jrs-medical-misery-tour

    “RFK Jr.’s Medical Misery Tour”

    On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrapped up a string of seven (7) hearings with various House and Senate committees, ostensibly to explain and justify the Trump administration’s 2027 budget proposal, which would if adopted […] shift massive amounts of federal spending to the military, while chopping another 12 percent from HHS, on top of the huge cuts to public health and research Trump’s Wreck America crew has already made.

    Kennedy said it’s sad we can’t have health or science anymore, but the cuts must be endured to bring the federal debt under control. (No, the proposed cuts won’t offset the giant boost to military spending exploding the deficit, because you can’t increase spending while cutting taxes, you shitheads.)

    But since Kennedy hasn’t bothered showing up to testify to Congress in ages, Democrats on all the committees grilled him on a wide range of his decisions in the first year of the Trump administration, which prompted him to lie shamelessly and loudly about a wide variety of topics, as is his wont.

    […] Kennedy frequently responded to criticism from Democrats by just shouting lies at them […]

    One thing we like about working at Wonkette is that we can just call a lie a lie, and we won’t ever pretend that Kennedy has “shifted his tone” when he gives a vague answer that’s framed to disguise his utter contempt for science and evidence, like saying the measles vaccine is safe “for most people” or agreeing that vaccinations “could have” prevented the deaths of children in recent outbreaks.

    Robyn covered the lies and strategic misdirection Kennedy spewed in last week’s hearings, so we’ll focus on this week, although we’ll warn you in advance that some of it was just rehashing lies he’s already told, such as his favorite lie of all, the claim that “I’ve never been anti-vaccine,” which he repeated several times this week. What he always means is that in theory, he’s all for vaccines that are “safe and effective” — but he doesn’t believe any such vaccines exist. [Yep, good summary of Kennedy’s lies and evasiveness.]

    […] On Tuesday, Kennedy continued to insist that his own anti-vaccine advocacy, which doesn’t exist, has nothing to do with the rash of measles outbreaks (ahem) in the US, because during the pandemic, people just stopped trusting vaccines and medicine altogether, for some reason that has nothing to do with anti-vaxxers like himself.

    As HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery points out, Kennedy has in fact continued, even as HHS secretary, to downplay the seriousness of measles and to lie about the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine.

    In his role as the nation’s top public health official, he has minimized the seriousness of measles outbreaks in Texas, emphasized the importance of personal choice over science, baselessly claimed the measles vaccine leads to “deaths every year” [!] and misleadingly suggested the vaccine “causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes.” [!]

    In Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan) said that changes to the vaccine schedule pursued by Kennedy’s anti-vaxxer-filled vaccine committee were already leading some of her constituents to believe bullshit, which she said is one of the reasons behind a measles outbreak in Michigan. […]

    Kennedy insisted, “It has nothing to do with me,” […] other people lied in addition to Kennedy, so we can’t prove it was specifically RFK Jr.’s lies that caused people to stop vaccinating their kids, so he is utterly blameless for contributing to the disinformation around vaccines.

    Kennedy then insisted that the problem isn’t US anvtivaxxers like him or his HHS, but instead recycled a favorite old rightwing lie. Oh, sure, Americans aren’t vaccinating their kids, but the real problem is those dirty diseased foreign immigrants bringing all the diseases with them! “If you’re worried about polio and tuberculosis, you should look at the immigration policies in this country,” Kennedy lied. “‘Cause the place where it’s occurring are the place[s] where the immigrants are going, because they’re not vaccinated.” This is of course bullshit, but it’s very attractive bullshit to Trumpers.

    It also, as Elizabeth Jacobs noted on Bluesky, echoes Nazi propaganda, isn’t that a surprise?

    […] In that same hearing, Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Washington), the first pediatrician elected to the US House, pointed out that the climate of distrust Kennedy promotes is hurting children well beyond his claims about vaccines, and that thanks to fear of doctors and shots, there’s been a decline in parents authorizing Vitamin K shots for newborns. It’s a vital, completely safe shot that prevents potentially fatal brain bleeds in babies.

    Schrier didn’t pull any punches, telling Kennedy, “Vitamin K prevents catastrophic brain bleeds, and now that you’ve made parents distrust doctors and shots, some parents are now refusing the Vitamin K shot and other routine care, putting these babies at risk for bleeding out. This has a name, it’s called the ‘RFK Jr. Spillover Effect’.”

    Here’s video of that exchange, in which Kennedy seems confused about what she’s even talking about, asking whether she means the hepatitis-B vaccine, which he has discouraged, or maybe Vitamin B, which is also different.

    Kennedy refused to say that Vitamin K should be given to newborns, and huffily complained, “I literally never said anything about it.”

    Schrier shot back, “That’s exactly the point. You don’t say anything about it, but the doubt you’ve created about all of medicine and science is causing parents to make dangerous decisions.” […]

    On Wednesday, during RFK Jr.’s final hearing of the tour, Sen John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado) asked Kennedy why HHS has largely defunded MRNA vaccine research. Instead of admitting he was indulging the conspiracy theorists who think MRNA vaccines alter human DNA (they don’t!), Kennedy lied some more, claiming, “I terminated the COVID vaccines because they didn’t make any sense. COVID is gone, and the mRNA vaccines have a limited efficacy against respiratory illnesses.”

    Neither part of that answer is remotely true [!!], of course, although Kennedy did at least acknowledge the promise that MRNA treatments hold for finally fighting pancreatic cancer.

    Also, Kennedy offered his own amusing metacommentary on healthiness by wheezing loudly into the mic again during his testimony. Stay healthy, America! [alarming video]

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

  292. johnson catman says

    re Lynna@291: Well, you can kinda see the tennis team back there. I don’t know why ANY team would accept an invitation to the White House at this time. Bunch of sick fuckwits.

  293. says

    After ICE, Minnesota enters the next chapter of loving your neighbor

    When Jody Abramson enlisted in the resistance, volunteering to ferry kindergartners to and from school, she knew little about the experiences of new immigrants in her community.

    One afternoon an Ecuadorian boy fell asleep in the backseat of her old Toyota, so there was Abramson, a stranger, gently carrying him over a snowbank and returning him to his rental house in north Minneapolis.

    On his doorstep, she knocked, holding his tiny hand. No answer. She knocked again, her panic rising. What would happen if nobody came to the door?

    Someone finally did. A woman opened the door a crack, peering out. Abramson was startled. Why could this person barely show her face?

    Over the next five months, as she deepened her relationships with immigrant families, Abramson would come to intimately understand the visceral fear in the woman’s eyes and the broader terror sweeping Minneapolis.

    Her work started in mid-December, after federal agents began to flood Minneapolis as part of the largest immigration crackdown in U.S. history. Now, Abramson — one of countless Minnesotans who’ve stepped up to drive scared kids to school, shuttle families to immigration hearings and doctor’s appointments, and raise cash to pay their bills — is wiser to the journey of her neighbors and what it means to genuinely care for them.

    “It only took a week of driving kids for me to see what has most definitely been in my backyard all along,” Abramson said.

    Now that most of the roughly 4,000 federal agents have receded from Minnesota, Abramson and other volunteers who’ve spun a grassroots web of crisis-response networks are entering the next stage of loving their neighbors. It’s trickier, because the needs are different and the media spotlight has shifted, but the fear is still there.

    So, too, are the bonds. They are the silver lining in the aftermath of a federal operation that killed two U.S. citizens, terrified residents and fractured families. The social fabric of Minnesota emerged from the winter stronger because of the friendships forged.

    Ashley Fairbanks, a Minneapolis native who runs the mutual-aid website Stand With Minnesota, said the crisis changed how people give. She said even after a racial reckoning and outpouring of money following George Floyd’s murder, most Minnesotans snapped back to old routines and thought patterns. Fairbanks, who now lives in San Antonio, says that’s not possible this time.

    “You can’t really snap back because you’ve been driving them to work for a month, or you’ve been driving their kids to school and you’ve gotten to know them,” she said. “When you’re delivering groceries or bringing them hot dish, you’re building a relationship that’s lasting.”

    The interconnection of these lives, Fairbanks said, is the most radical aspect of the resistance. There’s no turning back. […]

    More good news at the link.

  294. says

    johnson catman @292, exactly. And did you notice that Trump is standing on the platform so that he can look taller? And Trump is blocking more of the women’s team.

  295. says

    Not good news. Sounds like escalation of the war from Trump.

    Trump orders U.S. military to ‘shoot and kill’ Iranian boats mining Strait of Hormuz

    “The U.S. also boarded another tanker it said was involved in smuggling Iranian oil, as the intensifying maritime standoff leaves a crucial global trade route at an effective standstill.”

    The U.S. military says it has boarded another tanker involved in smuggling Iranian oil, as the intensifying maritime standoff between the two countries leaves the key Strait of Hormuz trade route effectively shut. Tehran attacked three commercial ships and seized two of them yesterday and said the U.S. naval blockade is a “main obstacle” to new peace talks.

    MINE-CLEARING HORMUZ: President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” any Iranian boats laying mines in the strait, adding that the U.S. would intensify its efforts to clear mines that have helped choke off global shipping. […]

  296. says

    10 people injured in Mall of Louisiana shooting, suspects still at large

    “The shooting in Baton Rouge happened about 250 miles from Shreveport, where eight children were gunned down on Sunday.”

    Gunfire erupted at a Louisiana shopping mall on Thursday, leaving 10 people injured, authorities said, in the latest Bayou State mass shooting.

    The attack unfolded at about 1:22 p.m. local time near the food court at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, city police said.

    There were no immediate arrests as “shooter(s) were still at large,” according to a Baton Rouge Police Department statement posted shortly after 2:30 p.m. CT.

    Surveillance video showed it was a “targeted” attack as “two groups of people got into an argument inside the food court and started shooting at each other,” Baton Rouge Police Chief Thomas Morse Jr. told reporters.

    “Unfortunately, there were some innocent people that were in the area that might have also [been hurt],” Morse added.

    “Right now, we have 10 victims at local area hospitals, some transported by EMS, and some arriving by private vehicle,” he said.

    Morse said it was no longer an “active shooter” situation. […]

  297. JM says

    @287 Lynna, OM:
    Yahoo News: Donald Trump Reportedly Wants Director of National Intelligence to Resign

    President Donald Trump has reportedly urged Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to step down before the midterm elections later this year.

    Despite the mixed public endorsement, the private signals suggest Gabbard’s position remains precarious. Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard, maintained that she “remains committed to fulfilling the responsibilities the president placed in her.”

    Trump wants Gabbard out before midterms but has been warned he needs somebody lined up to replace her. If he fired her and can’t find anybody to take the job it will be a problem that will take up his time*. It’s isn’t a job with a lot of publicity so it isn’t appealing to the TV and online personalities he has surrounded himself with. The politicians and career Republican officials that might otherwise be interested consider Trump toxic at this point.

    I would also say it makes him and Republicans look bad but that would be least of their problems right now.

  298. says

    EU forges ahead with membership for Ukraine and Moldova after Orbán’s exit

    “Key negotiating ‘clusters’ will be unblocked, opening the path to the two nations joining as members of the bloc.”

    Ukraine and Moldova will be able to move forward with the process of joining the EU following Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s election defeat, diplomats and officials said, ending a four-year stalemate over their applications.

    The two countries have seen their path to membership delayed after being granted candidate status in 2022, with Orbán vetoing the formal initiation of negotiating “clusters” — the groups of reforms and undertakings candidate countries have to achieve before joining. Those discussions should begin shortly, said four EU officials and diplomats with knowledge of the negotiations, granted anonymity to discuss confidential talks.

    After the EU finally managed to unlock its €90 billion loan to Ukraine, “now it’s time to look forward” to the “next step” which is its EU membership bid, European Council President António Costa said on the way into a summit of EU leaders in Cyprus on Thursday, after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The first legal step on Kyiv’s path to joining the EU, the opening of cluster one, has been blocked by Hungary for years, but could finally move with a new government in Budapest, officials said. […]

    More at the link.

  299. Fred Guest says

    johnson catman @292 and Lynna @294

    You are reading way too much into the arrangement of the people in that image. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation in the comments for why the men are in front.

    To be fair, I doubt any of those women would agree to having any of those men stand behind them. You want to keep them where you can see them at all times

  300. says

    Follow-up to comments 285 and 286.

    Video shows new Acting Navy Secretary Hung Can warning that a wave of Wiccan “witchcraft” is taking over American and threatening Christianity.

    Link

    Excerpt:

    During one 2023 interview, Cao said witches had “taken over” a California city, and he wanted to prevent similar problems in the commonwealth.

    “We can’t let it turn like this,” he said during an interview with a Christian pastor. “There’s a place in Monterey, California, called Lovers Point. The original name was Lovers of Christ Point, but now it’s become — they took out the ‘Christ,’ it’s Lovers Point, and it’s really — Monterey is a very dark place now, a lot of witchcraft and the Wiccan community has really taken over. We can’t let that happen to Virginia.”

  301. says

    Campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    * One day after Virginia voters approved a redistricting referendum, a state judge blocked Virginia officials from certifying the results. The state attorney general’s office said in a statement that it plans to immediately appeal the decision. [Source: MS NOW]

    * Speaking of the redistricting fight, a growing number of Republican officials are feeling buyers’ remorse after their party launched a crusade without thinking through the potential consequences. When MS NOW asked Rep. Richard Hudson, the current chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, whether the crusade was worth the effort, the North Carolinian replied, “Not for me to decide that. Wasn’t my decision.” [Source: MS NOW]

    * Nevertheless, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham responded to the latest developments by arguing that his home state of South Carolina should also consider a newly gerrymandered district map. Currently, Republicans control six of the state’s seven congressional districts, suggesting the senator wants a clean partisan sweep. [Source: The Hill]

    * Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. represents New Jersey’s most competitive congressional district, but he’s been absent from Capitol Hill for the past month, and no one seems to know why. Politico reported, “The other two Republicans in the New Jersey delegation, Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, said they have called and texted Kean out of concern for his health. But so far, neither said they have heard from him. Van Drew said it’s been ‘radio silence.’” [Source: Politico]

    * In Georgia, where Democratic Rep. David Scott passed away this week, it will fall on Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to announce plans for a special election to fill the vacancy, though the date of the race is uncertain. [Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution]

    * On a related note, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has some leeway when it comes to scheduling a special election to replace Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who resigned this week. Given that this is reliably blue district, the expectation is that the governor will drag out the process as long as possible. [Source: NBC News]

  303. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Lynna @300 quoting the Acting Navy Secretary:

    they took out the ‘Christ,’ it’s Lovers Point […] We can’t let that happen to Virginia.

    Too late. Virginia Is for Lovers Also…
     
    Rando on /r/MontereyBay:

    It’s Lovers Point, not Lover’s Point and the “Lovers of Christ (or Jesus) Point” is almost certainly incorrect.

    From Donald T. Clark’s Monterey County Place Names, p. 284:

    Two mild controversies over the “correct” name for the point have existed for some time. First: should it, or should it not, have an apostrophe? Should it be Lover’s Point, Lovers’ Point or Lovers Point? For me, I follow the practices of the United States Board on Geographic Names and skip the apostrophe… Second: should it actually be called Lovers of Jesus Point? This question, it seems to me, has been settled by Jeanne McCombs in her well-researched article of 1986, parts of which I quote:

    Over the years, Lover’s Point has been a popular host to both religious worshippers and amorous young people. As a result there have evolved two widely differing versions of its etymology. Over the past thirty years, the popular variation has held that Lover’s Point was once known as “Lovers of Jesus Point” owing to the outdoor services held there. The story goes on to say that for unknown reasons the name was abbreviated to “Lover’s Point” sometime before the turn of the century. While this account has great charm, it is probably not true.

    There is no question that “Seaside Services,” as they were called, were occasionally held at Lover’s Point … But … the official site for the outdoor “Preacher’s Stand” [was down the road] near what is now Jewell Park at Central and Forest Avenues. Physical considerations aside, it is extremely unlikely that, within two short decades, Pacific Grove’s reverent Methodist community would have struck the name of the Lord so casually from its primary place of worship. The American Guide series’ Monterey Peninsula is probably quite correct in stating that Lover’s Point was “named by legend and designed by nature as a trysting place for sentimental youth.”

    If, indeed, “Lover’s of Jesus Point” was ever known as such, by 1885 the shortened “Lover’s Point” had found its way into the written record in Watson & Curtis’ Monterey Handbook. In 1890, a newspaper article appearing in the Pacific Grove Review reported, “If that rocky headland known as Lover’s Point… had only kept a day book of notes, or rather a night book of observations, how sensational would have been its chronicles … By 1900, student poetry from Pacific Grove High School’s Sea Urchin confirms that for smitten teenage couples, “Lover’s Point” was an institution…”

    To which I add, Cao is an idiot.

    Joe Livernois (Reporter) – The Myth of Jesus at The Point […] Hung Cao is a damn weirdo (2024)

    Clark and McCombs also pointed out that the location had a bunch of other names over the years, including Point Aulon, Laboratory Point, Organ Point, Spooney’s Point and simply The Point. But it never went by Lovers of Jesus Point until suddenly, out of the blue, random weirdos started saying it was once its proper name.

    Searching through local newspaper databases, I found hundreds of references to “Lovers Point.” But “Lovers of Jesus Point” never popped up until 1968. […] Soon after, the name seemed to take hold, especially within evangelical elements of the community, though no action was ever taken to formally change the name. The Pacific Grove Tribune went through a period in the 70s and 80s when it exclusively referred to the place as Lovers of Jesus Point, but the Tribune was rarely a bastion of credibility.

    So that’s it. It’s Lovers Point. Not Lovers of Jesus Point. And certainly not Lovers of Christ Point.

    Joe Livernois yesterday: “Given his ignorance about something as simple as Monterey County geography, I sure hope he can find the Strait of Hormuz on a map.”

  304. says

    Sky Captain @303, thanks for the history and etymology lessons. I agree that Cao is a damn weirdo and an idiot. Perfect Trump/Hegseth choice, I guess, but very scary when it comes to having responsibilities of any kind in the Navy.

    Good bit of humor, as you noted: Joe Livernois yesterday: “Given his ignorance about something as simple as Monterey County geography, I sure hope he can find the Strait of Hormuz on a map.”

  305. says

    Autocorrect keeps changing “Cao” to “Can.” Annoying.

    In other news, as reported by MS NOW:

    President Donald Trump told MS NOW on Thursday morning that Iran has ‘no idea who their leader is’ at this moment, an assessment experts on Iran have said is incorrect.”

    […] Experts on Iran have disagreed with Trump’s claims about the country’s leadership, telling MS NOW that its government is not divided and that claims of deep divisions in Iran or the emergence of a new regime are false.

    […] A New York Times article based on interviews with 23 people in Iran, including senior officials and those with ties to the Khamenei family, reported that Iran’s government is not, in fact, divided and that there is no new regime.

    “In reality, the Islamic republic has not been toppled. Power is now in the hands of an entrenched, hard-line military, and the broad influence of the clerics is waning,” Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi wrote. “At every juncture, [the generals] have taken the lead in deciding strategy and the use of resources.”

    Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was named his successor in March. Experts have said the 56-year-old’s ascension to supreme leader signaled that the regime’s hard-liners remain in charge despite the damage to its top leadership.

    […] It’s also unclear what role the supreme leader has played in talks to end the war. The first round of negotiations was led by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Iran has not yet confirmed its delegation for the expected second round of talks, which are currently on hold.

  306. says

    Absurdity from Trump, as reported by MS NOW:

    Trump said he has ordered the U.S. Navy to ‘shoot and kill any boat’ that is laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the vital maritime shipping route that has become central to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. ‘There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine ‘sweepers’ are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!’ Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social this morning.

    “Tripled up?”

  307. says

    MS NOW:

    The White House will host the second round of peace talks between Israel and Lebanon later today, a U.S. official told MS NOW. Trump is expected to welcome both representatives upon their arrival, the official said. The talks come as the 10-day ceasefire is set to expire in the coming days. The initial round of direct talks took place last week at the U.S. State Department.

  308. says

    RollCall:

    The Senate adopted a GOP-written budget resolution early Thursday morning that marks a critical first step toward providing roughly $70 billion for immigration enforcement for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term. After a marathon ‘vote-a-rama’ on amendments that stretched through the night, the Senate voted 50-48 for a budget blueprint laying the groundwork to pass a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation bill for immigration enforcement funding. That bill could bypass Democratic opposition and help end a record-breaking partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

  310. birgerjohansson says

    Sidetrack Adventures

    “The Ghost Town Where They Lived Underground in the Mojave”

  320. says

    With just one approval, Trump’s ‘Gold Card’ program is off to an embarrassing start

    About a month into his second term, Donald Trump unveiled plans for a visa program that he said would be similar to green cards “but at a higher level of sophistication.” The president added that the point was to allow “very high-level people” to enjoy a new route to American soil while giving the government $5 million.

    Late last year, the Republican administration launched the program, making Trump “Gold Cards” available for international consumers. For just $1 million, foreigners can buy their way into the country, jumping the line, and legally live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

    So how’s the project going? The Associated Press reported:

    President Donald Trump’s ‘gold card’ visa, where a foreigner can shell out at least $1 million to legally live and work in the U.S., has been approved for one person, said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Thursday — appearing to fall a bit short of an earlier claim.

    The secretary didn’t identify the one individual who’d ponied up the $1 million.

    […] Lutnick acknowledged the single “gold card” transaction during a congressional hearing, when he was under oath and faced consequences for lying. During a recent podcast appearance, however, the beleaguered commerce secretary boasted about having sold 1,000 “gold cards” immediately upon making them available to international buyers. [OMFG]

    Around the same time, Lutnick also claimed that the Republican administration had made $1.3 billion from the program. [JFC]

    How does the secretary explain the gap between his public boasts and his sworn congressional testimony? The AP report added, “Lutnick did not address the apparent discrepancy.” [bitter laughter]

    Second, let’s not forget that at a White House Cabinet meeting last year, the president told reporters that by his estimation this program could generate “$50 trillion.” [[eye rolling]

    With one sale of a $1 million card, it will probably take several millennia before the windfall reaches the $50 trillion mark. [LOL

    It’s also worth noting for context that just two months ago a coalition of immigrants working with an academic labor union filed a lawsuit against the “gold card” initiative, which may very well create a new headache for the White House. Watch this space.

  321. says

    ‘I Stand By Every Single Word’

    The Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick talks about her exposé on FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged drinking on the job and his subsequent defamation lawsuit against her and the publication: “One of the things that has most gratifying immediately after the story published was I have been inundated by additional sourcing, going up to the very highest levels of the government, thanking us for doing the work … providing us with additional corroborating information.”

    TPM link. The link leads to a collection of news reports.

    Video at the link.

    So … Patel filed a lawsuit against The Atlantic. I wonder how that will go?

  322. says

    The Purges: Trump DOJ Edition

    Via a FOIA request, Reuters has tallied some of the staffing losses that DOJ and its components have suffered under Trump II:
    – DOJ National Security Division: -38%
    – ATF: -14%
    – FBI: -7%
    – DEA: -6%
    – Bureau of Prisons: -6%

    In total, DOJ employees 11,200 fewer people than it did during the ​fiscal year that ended three months before Trump began his second term, according to Reuters.

    Same link as in comment 321.

  324. says

    36 years ago: NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope

    On the morning of April 24, 1990, NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. [Video]

    The following day, the state-of-the-art telescope was deployed from the shuttle into low Earth orbit. [Video]

    More than three decades later, Hubble remains in operation, having completed more than 195,000 orbits of Earth and capturing more than 1.7 million observations—covering roughly 0.1% of the sky.

    According to NASA, the telescope’s “pointing accuracy” is comparable to “shining a laser beam on President Roosevelt’s head on a dime over 200 miles (320 km) away.”

    Here’s a view of the “UFO Galaxy,” as captured by Hubble: [Images] […]

  325. says

    […] Politico reported Thursday that some House Oversight Committee Republicans are open to Trump granting Maxwell clemency—which would end her 20-year prison sentence—in order to secure Maxwell’s testimony in their sham of an Epstein probe.

    Republicans called Maxwell to testify, but she said that she’ll only talk if she’s pardoned.

    Politico asked House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer if he thinks that would be a fair deal.

    “A lot of people do,” he replied, suggesting that multiple of his fellow Republicans support a pardon. “My committee’s split on that. I don’t speak for my committee.”

    […] Trump, for his part, has said that he’s considering pardoning Maxwell. Indeed, his administration has already rewarded Maxwell with a prison upgrade after she claimed that Trump wasn’t involved in Epstein’s crimes.

    And last week, Maxwell’s attorney told Politico that there’s “a good chance and for good reason that she would get a pardon.” [OMFG]

    But it’s truly hard to fathom a less popular move.

    […] if Trump does pardon Maxwell, that would once again put the Epstein scandal back into the news. And that’s bad for Trump, as Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of his handling of the Epstein files. […]

    Link

  326. says

    Israel strikes Lebanon after Trump announces ceasefire extension

    Israel on Friday carried out air strikes in Lebanon amid their ceasefire and after President Trump announced that the ceasefire was extended by three weeks.

    The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire in a post on the social platform X. The IDF said it “struck Hezbollah military structures in the areas of Kherbet Selem and Touline in southern Lebanon.” They added that it was a response to Hezbollah rockets fired on Thursday.

    […] IDF strikes and other operations have continued after the U.S. brokered a 10-day ceasefire deal last week, which was expected to expire on Sunday before the extension went into effect. One of these attacks in southern Lebanon on Wednesday killed five people, including Al Akhbar reporter Amal Khalil, Al Jazeera reported.

    Lebanon’s Information Minister Paul Morcos accused Israel of targeting Khalil, adding that targeting “journalists is a heinous crime and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, which we will not remain silent about,” according to an X post translated from Arabic. […]

  327. says

    all hail Preznit Fuckwit, who just heroically saved the lives of eight imaginary women

    “it’s all so shittacularly stupid”

    […] here’s one dead giveaway: are you ruled by a Mad King who craps out blatant dumbfuckery on a daily basis […]

    the first item on today’s agenda needs to come with its own trigger warning, because it’s so fucking idiotic that you might end up dumber just from having encountered it. [video]

    “only President Trump could saves the lives of these eight beautiful Iranian women.”

    what the fuck is Karoline Lie-vitt blithering about?

    never before in the entire history of the multiverse has the question ‘are these eight beautiful Iranian women in the room with us right now’ been a more appropriate thing to ask — because in fact, these eight women have never been in the room with anyone, ever. they don’t exist.

    they’re the figment of the imagination of some bot, and Donny swallowed it — hook, line and sinker — like the swamp-brained nincompoop he is. [social media post from Trump]

    “To the Iranian leaders, who will soon be in negotiations with my representatives: I would greatly appreciate the release of these women. I am sure that they will respect the fact that you did so. Please do them no harm! Would be a great start to our negotiations!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

    this is so shittacularly stupid, it hurts my head to even type this out.

    some complete rando on the internet had an AI gin up a bunch of fake images of nonexistent women he claimed were about to be executed by Iran’s regime. he then posted them to Elon’s Nazi Bar and Child Porn Emporium, where they came to the attention of our Moron-in-Chief, who decided on the spot to use them as a start to the next round of peace negotiations. [social media post from David S. Bernstein on Bluesky]

    but wait — it gets stupider. the next day, out of the clear blue, Donny proudly proclaimed that he had saved the lives of these eight imaginary women. [social media post from Trump]

    “Very good news! I have just been informed that the eight women protestors who were going to be executed tonight in Iran will no longer be killed. Four will be released immediately, and four will be sentenced to one month in prison. I very much appreciate that Iran, and its leaders, respected my request, as President of the United States, and terminated the planned execution. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

    where is Donny getting his information from? because — and I cannot stress this enough — THESE WOMEN DON’T EXIST.

    it’s so monumentally stupid that even Iran ended up mocking Donny, right to his big, dumb pumpkin face. [social media post from Iran Embassy]

    […] imagine that Joe Biden’s autopen had done anything like this when he was in office. the press would have had a fucking field day. the New York Times would have run seven hundred overheated editorials about Joe needed to resign immediately, for the good of the country.

    but because we live in the shittiest possible timeline, the worthless scribblers of the corporate-controlled press took Donny’s fever-swamp hallucination as fact, and printed it verbatim. [Examples, including headlines from The Hill, Arab News, News Nation, and Fox News]

    […] every time you start a story with ‘Donny says,’ you’re just enabling and normalizing his dementia-fueled delusions.

    finally, to cap it all off, Karoline Leavitt showed up on Fox News to praise Dear Leader […] [Video]

    we have a cognitively-impaired imbecile president who says stupid shit twenty-four-seven, while grown adults pretend it’s the most perfectly normal thing in the world. nothing to see here, move along.

    […] shithole countries don’t become shithole countries all by themselves. they need people like Karoline Leavitt — aided and abetted by the worthless scribblers of the corporate-controlled press — to help them come to fruition.

    […]

    “It’s really an honor to be with you,” Trump said with Cao to his right. “Thank you. And we’re gonna be with this man. This is a great gentleman. I love his name — Hung Cao. I love that name. And that name alone should get you elected, right?”

    spoiler alert: Hung Cao’s name didn’t get him elected in 2024, because Hung Cao is a fucking crackpot who ran for Senate because, quite frankly, somebody needed to do something about all these witches. [video]

    […] and now, your heroes of the day: the Ukrainian officials who proposed renaming part of the Donbas region to ‘Donnyland,’ in order to curry favor with America’s Narcissist-in-Chief. [map]

    it’s so fucking eternally embarrassing. the entire world has figured out that Dear Leader is so childishly vain that he can be won over by naming something in his honor, or by handing him some completely bogus ‘prize.’ [photo]

    thank you, Ukraine, for taking this trend to its logical — and hilarious — conclusion. […]

    The women that Trump claimed he saved look very much like A.I. constructed Mar-a-Lago females with botox and fillers injected in their faces.

  328. says

    Team Trump turns on contractor after it failed to bolster election conspiracy theory

    “The more the evidence tells the president’s team that 2020 election theories are wrong, the deeper it digs in against reality.”

    In their pursuit of assorted election conspiracy theories, Donald Trump and his team have occasionally used outside contractors to lend a hand. After the president lost in 2020, for example, he hired the Berkeley Research Group to uncover evidence of widespread voter fraud and election irregularities. This did not go well because there was no such evidence to find.

    Trump then he hired Simpatico Software Systems, which also failed to turn his fantasies into reality for the same reason.

    This week, a third such example is coming into focus, though the reactions to this contractor’s findings have been a little different.

    While Kurt Olsen’s name is probably unfamiliar to most Americans, he’s in a position the public ought to care about. The former Trump campaign lawyer and prominent election denier was brought onto the president’s team last year and given the title of “Director of Election Security and Integrity,” charged with helping to prove Trump’s discredited conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat. Politico reported in February that the president has even directed top U.S. spy agencies to “share sensitive intelligence” with Olsen to help in his endeavors.

    Reuters reported this week that Olsen and his colleagues set out to prove discredited conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems machines, which he apparently suspected had been infected with some kind of malicious Venezuelan code. Trump administration officials even scrutinized Dominion machines in Puerto Rico, looking for evidence that never emerged. [sheesh, and double sheesh]

    Team Trump even tasked a cybersecurity contractor to help, but it, too, couldn’t uncover evidence that didn’t exist. Left with little choice, Olsen moved on.

    No, I’m just kidding. Olsen seems to have decided instead to incorporate the cybersecurity contractor into his broader conspiracy theory. From the Reuters article:

    Confronted with the results, Olsen turned on the contractor, Virginia-based Mojave ​Research Inc. in a September message to Trump, the three sources said. Infuriated, Olsen accused the firm of blocking his work, serving the ‘deep state’ and secretly taking money from billionaire George Soros, a Democratic donor and frequent right-wing target, they said. [sheesh]

    Mojave had been brought on by Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to ‌search for vulnerabilities in the machines Puerto Rico used during its 2024 gubernatorial elections.

    According to the Reuters report, the president “took Olsen’s deep-state allegations about Mojave seriously,” […]

    The company said in a statement that Olsen’s Soros theory is “patently absurd and ridiculous,” and the article added that Mojave “opened its books to show ​it took no money from Soros.” [!!]

    If the reporting is accurate, it offers a peek into an extraordinary worldview: When the evidence shows a conspiracy theory is wrong, then the evidence, by definition, must also be wrong — because the conspiracy theory must be right. [An endless loop of willful ignorance and stupidity.]

    It also serves as a timely reminder that while Trump continues to peddle absurdities about his loss from nearly six years ago (as recently as Thursday, he again said “they” are finding proof that the 2020 election was “totally rigged”) [OMFG] White House officials are doing a lot more than just saying preposterous things. They also doing preposterous things. [!]

  331. says

    Trump’s case against Jerome Powell collapses, proving the value of fighting back

    “The president went after the Fed chair with a vengeance, trying everything to get Powell to yield. But he didn’t.”

    From the outset, Donald Trump’s legal crusade against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was as transparent as it was brazen. The president wanted Powell to lower interest rates, regardless of the impact on inflation, and when the Fed chair resisted, the Republican who appointed him started using the levers of power against him.

    That effort failed in multiple ways. Even after Trump’s Justice Department launched a misguided criminal investigation, for example, Powell ignored the pressure, as he had a responsibility to do. This also led to a political pushback that proved swift, broad and bipartisan, with several congressional Republicans agreeing it was a mistake to pursue the Fed chair with trumped-up charges.

    It was also a legal fiasco. In March, a federal judge quashed the DOJ’s subpoenas targeting Powell, emphasizing the fact that prosecutors “produced essentially zero evidence.” [!!]

    With a key GOP senator making clear he’d block Kevin Warsh, Trump’s new Fed nominee, unless the White House abandoned its absurd crusade against Powell, it was in Trump’s interest simply to drop the matter, but by his own admission, he didn’t want to. As recently as Tuesday, the president appeared on CNBC, effectively admitted that he was helping steer the case and peddled new and evidence-free allegations against Powell. [On Tuesday, more lies from Trump.]

    One day later, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and an unflinching Trump loyalist, said she would forge ahead with the case against Powell, the facts be damned.

    On Friday morning, however, she reversed course and seemed to throw in the towel. MS NOW reported:

    The Justice Department has closed its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over the renovation of the central bank’s headquarters […]

    U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, a close Trump ally, said in a statement on social media Friday that the inspector general for the Fed is instead conducting an inquiry into the building’s renovation costs.

    It’s worth emphasizing for context that Pirro, a former Fox News host, left the door open to pursuing Powell again at some later date, but for all intents and purposes, the foolish case appears to have collapsed. With the Fed chair scheduled to retire next month, it seems unlikely to return. [True]

    […] Any time prosecutors abandon a case that was little more than politically motivated abuse, it’s encouraging, but as the dust settles, there are broader lessons to be learned here.

    Specifically, Powell didn’t flinch. The president of the United States went after him with a vengeance, trying everything he could think of, up to and including misusing the DOJ, to get the Fed chair to yield.

    But he didn’t. Powell just kept doing his job, without making any effort to appease Trump, cater to his ego, accommodate his demands or offer some compromise.

    The pressure was intense, but the Fed chair, who was awarded a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award last month, did the right thing anyway.

    Let this be a lesson to the larger political world: The only way to lose a fight against Trump is to pursue a course rooted in appeasement. It’s true when it comes to news organizations; it’s true when it comes to law firms; it’s true when it comes to higher education; and it’s true when it comes to those in positions of authority who stand their ground in the face of presidential bullying and corrupt prosecutorial attempts at intimidation.

    Senator Mark Kelly is also standing up to Trump.

  332. says

    Hmmm. MS NOW reports:

    White House press secretary Karoline] Leavitt told reporters outside the White House this afternoon that Vice President JD Vance ‘is on standby’ and could be dispatched to Pakistan this weekend ‘if we feel it’s a necessary use of his time.’ Earlier today, Leavitt said on Fox News that [Steve] Witkoff and [Jared] Kushner will go to Pakistan tomorrow ‘to engage in talks, direct talks, intermediated by the Pakistanis.’

  333. says

    MS NOW:

    A federal appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump does not have the authority to suspend asylum access for migrants, a crucial piece of the president’s immigration enforcement agenda. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that the presidency does not afford Trump the power to circumvent the federal immigration laws that allow for migrants to apply for asylum at the border.

  334. says

    NBC News:

    The European Union on Thursday approved a 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) loan package to help Ukraine meet its economic and military needs for two years after oil began flowing through a key pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia, ending months of political deadlock.

    Good news.

  335. says

    New York Times:

    Republicans and Democrats in Congress condemned a plan President Trump is weighing to send Afghans who aided the American military campaign against the Taliban to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    It is good news that the condemnation was bipartisan.

  336. says

    New York Times:

    Two government watchdogs sued President Trump and the White House on Friday over internal guidance that instructed that some text messages exchanged between officials could be deleted, despite a law generally mandating the preservation of presidential records.

  337. says

    New York Times:

    Two partners are leaving Paul Weiss, the latest blow to the prominent New York law firm that reached a widely criticized deal with President Trump last year, according to two people familiar with the matter.

  338. says

    Trump, still mired in distractions, turns his attention to the reflecting pool in D.C.

    “Two-thirds of Americans believe the president has the wrong priorities. As he focuses on another renovation project, he keeps proving them right.”

    Related video at the link.

    Amid widespread concerns about the struggling economy, a deadly and destabilizing war that hasn’t gone according to the White House’s plans and a burgeoning global energy crisis, recent polling has found two-thirds of Americans are convinced their unpopular president simply has the wrong priorities. […]

    [Trump] appears far more interested in assorted renovation projects than his actual governing responsibilities. The New York Times reported:

    Next up on President Trump’s renovation tour of Washington, D.C.: the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, which he called ‘filthy’ and ‘dirty’ and in need of a major upgrade.

    Mr. Trump said on Thursday that the project was already underway to renovate the reflecting pool, which is more than 2,000 feet long and has been the site of many historic events, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

    At a White House event ostensibly about health care, Trump strayed from the topic to talk about the reflecting pool between the Washington and Lincoln memorials, taking time to argue that he “actually had more people” when he spoke at a July 4 event at the reflecting pool than MLK did when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. (“I have pictures of Martin Luther King’s crowd and my crowd,” the president said.)

    Why make such a claim? Because Trump is who he appears to be.

    The president went on to describe a situation in which he, relying on his experience as a developer who has built many swimming pools, rejected a contractor’s claim that removing the pool’s granite and replacing it with stone would take three years and cost $300 million.

    “I said, ‘No, there’s a better way of doing it,’” Trump said, reflecting on a conversation that may or not have happened in reality. “I said, ‘What we’re going to do is, I’m going to call all three of these people that have worked for me in the past doing swimming pools.’”

    He added that he told the contractors to “give me a good price,” and one agreed to do the job quickly for “less than $2 million.”

    It’s difficult to know how much of the story is true, but according to the president, work is already underway as part of an apparent no-bid contract that he worked out, with specifications he chose, with an unnamed company he claimed to be familiar with. He didn’t explain where the money came from, whether proper federal contracting procedures had been followed or whether any element of the endeavor has been or will be subject to any kind of oversight.

    An Associated Press report added, “Trump brought up the project unprompted and spoke about it for several minutes.”

    This latest renovation project is not to be confused with the president’s preoccupation with his ballroom vanity project, his crusade to build a “Triumphal Arch,” his apparent excitement about the construction of a temporary White House arena for an upcoming UFC fight, his desire to turn the White House Executive Office Building into a giant white blob, his stated interest in renovating the White House Treaty Room, his specific marble and paint preferences for the Kennedy Center or the dozen or so other renovation projects Trump has prioritized in and around the White House complex.

    Two-thirds of Americans believe their unpopular president simply has the wrong priorities. He keeps proving them right.

  339. JM says

    AP News: Justice Department drops criminal probe of Fed chair Powell, likely clearing the way for Warsh

    The Justice Department has ended its investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, clearing a major roadblock to the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as his successor.
    U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said on X Friday that her office was ending its probe into the Fed’s extensive building renovations because the Fed’s inspector general would scrutinize them instead.

    Pirro also said on X, “I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.” Powell has previously asked the Fed’s independent inspector general to investigate the cost overruns.

    Part of the point of prosecuting Powell was to make a threat to the members of the treasury board that didn’t line up behind Trump. This still works after Powell leaves, so the prosecution may restart after Warsh is approved. That would be contemptible and obvious but compared to much of what the Trump administration has done it’s a blip on the screen.

    The move could lead to a swift confirmation vote by the Senate for Warsh, a former top Fed official whom President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated in January to replace Powell. Powell’s term as chair ends May 15. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, had said he would oppose Warsh until the investigation was resolved, effectively blocking his confirmation.

    Could but it isn’t entirely a given. Warsh did badly during questioning but the Republicans will probably line up to approve him.

  340. JM says

    CBS News: Witkoff, Kushner to head to new Iran peace talks in Pakistan, White House says

    Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are heading to Islamabad on Saturday for peace talks with Iran, the White House says. Iran’s foreign minister arrived in Pakistan’s capital on Friday. The U.S. said it is ready to hear a plan for peace from Iranian officials through Pakistani intermediaries.

    It isn’t clear if there will be talks, Iran has publicly said things about refusing. The presence of Iran’s foreign minister in Pakistan suggests there will be at least some level of talks.
    If they will go anyplace.is another question, the two sides seem to have been talking past each other so far. Vance will apparently not be at this round of talks. Not clear why, up until now the Iranians had requested Vance but it was never clear why they wanted him at the talks in the first place.
    The whole thing is a bit vague and the reporting itself is unclear. Neither side can be trusted, both sides have put out statements that don’t agree and the Trump administration is being less vocal then usual.

  341. says

    Follow-up to JM @214, johnson catman @218, and me @250.

    […] Using his social media platform in the early hours of Friday morning, [Trump]t amplified anti-SPLC messages while adding some written thoughts of his own. Trump wrote:

    The Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the greatest political scams in American History, has been charged with FRAUD. This is another Democrat Hoax, along with Act Blue, and many others. If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter.

    By any fair measure, this is basically gibberish. The indictment is dubious, and it doesn’t accuse the civil rights organization of any actual “hoaxes.” What’s more, the indictment has literally nothing to do with the 2020 presidential election and doesn’t implicate the SPLC in having done anything wrong with regards to the 2020 race.

    But Trump, in apparent desperation, started making ridiculous jumps anyway: The SPLC is facing dubious criminal allegations … and the SPLC is generally seen as a progressive organization … and progressive organizations opposed Trump in 2020 … and Trump lost in 2020 … ergo, the election results “should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect.”

    The chain of inferences barely tracks as word association, much less as logical reasoning.

    The DOJ’s critics have suggested in recent days that the SPLC case was cooked up for political reasons. Trump just bolstered the accusations.

    Link

  342. says

    Follow-up to JM @340.

    No meeting planned between Iranian and American officials in Pakistan, Iran’s foreign ministry says.

    There is no meeting planned between Iranian and American officials in Pakistan, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaie, said in a post on X.

    “We arrive in Islamabad, Pakistan, for an official visit. FM Araghchi will be meeting with Pakistani high-level officials in concert with their ongoing mediation & good offices for ending American imposed war of aggression and the restitution of peace in our region,” he wrote in the post.

    Baghaie added, “No meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the U.S. Iran’s observations would be conveyed to Pakistan.”

    The text above is an excerpt from NBC News live coverage.

    Link

  344. StevoR says

    Oh and thsi year the dawn Service paying tribute to the victims of that war was disgracefully interupted :

    An opening address and Welcome to Country by Whadjuk Noongar Elder Di Ryder, a female veteran, was disturbed by some booing from the crowd at the Perth Dawn Service.

    Following her address, MC Stephen Barton, CEO of RSL WA, reacted, saying the booing was one of the most disgraceful things he had ever heard, eliciting loud applause from the crowd.

    “Di, on behalf of RSL and veteran community I offer my heartfelt thank you for that acknowledgement to country, it [the booing] was one of the most disgraceful things I have ever heard.”

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-25/anzac-day-2026-marches-services-live-updates/106597328

  345. StevoR says

    On the good news side of things at leats someof thsoe booing where confronted :

    A Melbourne man who confronted hecklers at the city’s dawn service has described their booing as disgusting and vile.

    Rod Salan was at the service with his family when at least one man nearby began booing during the Welcome to Country ceremony.

    “It sort of got very emotional,” he said.

    “I thought that I would stand in — it’s time to step up and be a voice and start shutting these people down.”

    Asked what he said to those booing, Mr Salan said: “Just to shut up, leave it alone. You know, for two hours of the day, let it rest and enjoy the morning.”

    Plus arrested :

    The 24-year-old man arrested at the Martin Place Anzac Day Dawn Service has been charged with commit nuisance on a war memorial. He’s been granted conditional bail to appear before Downing Centre Local Court on June 3.

    Police allege he booed while at the Cenotaph site. No-one else has been charged.

    With massive public & official condemnation of them

    The NSW premier has condemned the behaviour of a heckler who disrupted a Welcome to Country delivered by Indigenous pastor Uncle Ray Minniecon this morning.

    During the Dawn Service at Sydney’s Martin Place just after 4:30am, the acknowledgement was interrupted by boos before police arrested a man from the crowd.

    Chris Minns said he was disappointed by what he saw.

    Although I think the NSW Premier should’ve used a much stronger word than “disappointed” about it.

  349. StevoR says

    @345 -344 ABC article on this here :

    Attendees at the Melbourne Dawn Service told the ABC they were moved by the stories of veterans and the “selflessness of what people offered our country”.

    One described the booing as “confronting”, while another said the crowd’s decision to clap the hecklers was “beautiful, emotional”.

    “I just clapped, clapped louder. That’s all I felt I could do,” another said.

    Following the service, another attendee told the ABC she felt “sick to the stomach” during the booing.

    “I came thinking that could happen but really hoping it wouldn’t,” she said.

    “I just couldn’t believe how long it went for, but I was pleased then to hear the vast majority of the crowd just do a very slow clap to drown out that terrible booing.”

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-25/anzac-day-booing-heckling-melbourne-sydney-condemnation/106605674

  350. says

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Rich New Yorkers vs. Mamdani: Mayor confronted over new tax plan

    As part of “ALL IN America: Mayor Mamdani,” Chris Hayes sits down with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and two wealthy New Yorkers for a debate over his new “tax the rich” plan, second-home taxes, and whether higher taxes will make New York more affordable or drive people out.

    Video is 9:20 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump voter presses Mamdani: ‘Show me what I’m paying for’

    As part of “ALL IN America: Mayor Mamdani,” a Republican New Yorker who voted for Trump challenges Mayor Mamdani on taxes and public services. Mayor Mamdani responds.

    Video is 7:34 minutes

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘We don’t have exceptions’: Mamdani on Trump paying new NYC tax

    For “ALL IN America: Mayor Mamdani,” Chris Hayes asks Zohran Mamdani about his relationship with Donald Trump, and Mamdani makes clear that under his proposed pied-à-terre tax, even the president would not get a special exemption. The mayor also discusses “pothole politics,” record-low crime rates, the ICE crackdown, and more.

    Video is 13:16 minutes

  351. JM says

    AP News: Iran’s foreign minister leaves Islamabad without meeting US envoys, Pakistan officials say

    Two Pakistani officials say Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has left Pakistan without meeting U.S. officials.
    Senior Pakistani officials were at an airport near Islamabad to see him off. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
    Araghchi had met with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and other senior officials about matters including Iran’s red lines in negotiations.

    The last line is the important one. No direct talks but it looks like some second hand negotiations took place. Iranian officials talk to Pakistani officials who talk to US officials and back. This is diplomatic stupidity but sometimes necessary when the two parties won’t be in the same room with each other. This probably works in the US’s favor because it keeps the US delegation from saying anything too stupid.

  352. JM says

    NBC News: Judge questions legal basis for Trump’s $10 billion case against IRS

    A federal judge is asking the Justice Department and President Donald Trump’s private attorneys to explain whether his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, an agency he oversees as president, is the type of dispute federal courts can hear.
    In a Friday order, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams questioned whether an actual disagreement exists, writing that a case can only stand if there is “adverseness” between the parties.

    The judge is questioning if there can be a real case when Trump is suing an organization that he runs at the moment. Under a normal US administration I would say this is possible but Trump meddling directly in everything it’s hard to see an independent case here. There is a reasonable chance the court will sue in Trump’s favor but it’s funny that both sides will have to go into court and explain how and why Trump is suing himself.

  353. StevoR says

    Visible – or technically temporarily NOT visible notably – later tonight for those in the USA so I gather :

    If you live in the middle Atlantic or southeast part of the United States, you’ll have an opportunity tonight (April 25), to see a 70% illuminated waxing gibbous moon gradually drift toward and ultimately hide the 1st-magnitude star, Regulus, the brightest star of the constellation Leo the Lion.

    This event is called an occultation, a word that is derived from the Latin occultāre, which means literally “to conceal.” And if you are fortunate enough to live in the zone of visibility for this event (see below), that’s exactly what you will see

    Source : https://www.space.com/stargazing/a-bright-star-will-disappear-for-up-to-an-hour-on-april-25-heres-why

    Occultation of Regulus – the closest B type star to our solar system. 78 light years away.

  354. says

    Finally, Pope Leo XIV has permission. [LOL]

    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Friday conceded some authority to the pope. “The pope’s gonna do his thing, that’s fine,” Hegseth said, answering a question about the pontiff’s criticism of the administration’s war on Iran. As far as temporal authority goes, Hegseth added, “We know what our mission is, we know what authority we have. The orders of the president — we’ve got lawyers all over the place.”

    Of course, Hegseth has spent past several weeks justifying the war in divine terms. He cited “the providence of our almighty God” in an interview with 60 Minutes. At a monthly prayer service at the Pentagon in March, he called on God to “grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence.”

    “Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans and break the teeth of the ungodly. By the blast of your anger, let the evil perish,” Hegseth added. [Hegseth’s] pastor, Doug Wilson, runs a Christian sect that uses military language to describe its plans to convert as many people as possible. The church was founded by Wilson’s father, a Navy veteran who wrote a book that sought to apply military principles towards establishing a Christian America, calling it “strategic evangelism.”

    Leo, who Trump famously dismissed as “weak on crime,” has denounced all of this. Hegseth, a Protestant, at least has a way to ignore the Vatican. That has been harder for Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert who urged his spiritual leader earlier this month to be “careful” if he was “going to opine on matters of theology.”

    For Leo, it’s one of a few ways in which he’s distanced himself from the Trump administration. Last year, one pontiff-watcher noted, he likened our own era to that of the industrial revolution with Big Tech playing the role of 19th century robber barons. As far as Iran goes, there seems to be something of a truce: Leo denied last week that there were tensions between him and the administration. Vance, for his part, conceded as well that the pope is the pope.

    Link

  355. says

    Justice Department readopts firing squads in US federal executions, as reported by Reuters.

    Justice Department to allow firing squads for executions in move to ramp up capital punishment, as reported by NPR.

    The Justice Department will adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases, officials said Friday.

    The Justice Department is also reauthorizing the use of single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital that were used to carry out 13 executions during the first Trump administration — more than under any president in modern history. The Biden administration had removed pentobarbital from the federal protocol over concerns about the potential for unnecessary pain and suffering.

    The moves were announced as part of a broader push to step up federal executions after a moratorium under the Biden administration. Only three defendants remain on federal death row after Democratic President Joe Biden converted 37 of their sentences to life in prison, though the Trump administration has so far authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants.

    […] The federal government has not previously included firing squad as a method of execution in its protocols, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Five states currently allow executions by firing squad: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.

    The pentobarbital protocol was adopted by Bill Barr, attorney general during Trump’s first term, to replace a three-drug mix used in the 2000s, the last time federal executions were carried out before Trump’s first term in office.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland in the final days of the Biden administration withdrew the pentobarbital lethal injection policy after a government review of scientific and medical research found there remains “significant uncertainty” about whether its use causes unnecessary pain and suffering.”

    In 2020, under Barr’s leadership, the Justice Department published a rule in the Federal Register to allow the federal government to conduct executions by lethal injection or use “any other manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence was imposed.”

    A number of states allow other methods of execution, including electrocution, inhaling nitrogen gas or death by firing squad. […]

  357. says

    Trump is bringing back firing squads. Yes, really.

    On Friday, the Department of Justice announced that it is not only going to once again seek the death penalty, but that it will also bring back barbaric ways to kill death row inmates, including the use of firing squads, electric chairs, and gas chambers.

    The announcement came from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who released a report that said the Trump administration does not view firing squads, electric chairs, and gas chambers as cruel and unusual punishment. The report added that the DOJ should use those methods to expedite executions, as shortages of lethal injection drugs delay executions. [I snipped Trump’s blather about the Biden administration.]

    […] former President Joe Biden put a moratorium on executions when he was in office, and even commuted the sentence of 37 death row inmates—removing them from the execution list but ensuring they would instead spend a life behind bars.

    But Trump loves the death penalty, so much so that he accelerated a host of executions in 2020 before he unwillingly left office after losing the 2020 election—knowing that Biden would not have carried out the killings. In his first term, Trump was the “most prolific execution president in more than a century,” according to the BBC.

    Of course, Blanche’s claim that Trump will once again pursue and carry out executions because he supports victims is garbage. […] I mean, he’s mulling pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, his former buddy who was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes.

    He’s also pardoned Jan. 6 rioters, many of whom have gone on to commit more crime after being granted clemency—including arrests for soliciting minors for sex and plotting to assassinate law enforcement officers.

    Ultimately, allowing for the use of barbaric execution methods is just the latest in a string of disgusting and inhumane moves Trump’s corrupt administration has made in recent days. [I snipped examples]

    […] Of course, the cruelty is and has always been the point for Trump, who appears to get pleasure in other people’s pain.

  359. birgerjohansson says

    Stevo R @353

    The intrinsically brighter stars are more “kind” to planets potentially having life,
    [less solar storms, no tidal locking]
    but they evolve too fast for advanced life to emerge before the star enters the red giant phase.

    Occultations would potentially be useful for spotting planets, but they do not last enough time to collect many photons.

  360. JM says

    How Money Works: America Added 178,000 New Jobs Last Month… But How Is That Possible?!
    Nice discussion of the problems with the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. Essentially the methodology is increasingly outdated. The BLS company survey counts how many payroll totals a company processes. Companies are using more complex corporate structures and single employees may be multiple payrolls as their job is counted against multiple companies, divisions and locations. Gigwork throws off the totals, a critical one being that people who take up gigwork because they lost their full time job still count as a payroll even if the person thinks of themselves as looking for work. Private contractors often don’t get counted at all.
    The BLS is aware of these problems and tries to make adjustments. The increasing disconnect between actual employment and payrolls leads to larger adjustments and these delayed adjustments leads to larger swings.

  361. birgerjohansson says

    About priorities…while the civil war was approaching, president Buchanan was more intererested in building a big brick horse barn in Washington DC.
    (Is it called “barn” when it is for horses? English agricultural terms are different from the Scandinavian ones).

  362. birgerjohansson says

    In theory, you could have a space telescope a million km off Ceres or some other asteroid to create an occultation. Problem: Asteroids are not perfect spheres, but have plenty of bumpy terrain that make it difficult to predict when the occultation will start or finish.
    .
    To observe other stellar systems you might instead have a “starshade” flying in formation with a space telescope.
    But the precise manouvers required will be problematic.

  365. says

    Note: link in comment 364, it’s not an SSL url, it opens fine in any browser that is truly html compliant. But, occasionally the site doesn’t load when they are updating it.

  367. birgerjohansson says

    Whheydt @ 363

    The word “stable” should from now on not be used in conjunction with presidents.

  368. JM says

    @361 birgerjohansson: More likely it was called a stable if meant for horses. Generally a building meant for keeping horses is called a stable. A general storage building is a barn. A building meant for animals other then horses might be either.

  369. birgerjohansson says

    The Nordic countries are NOT the same: Drinking culture 🍺

    .https://youtube.com/shorts/lGeTLCahFDY
    150 years ago, Scandinavians were drinking themselves to death, hence the restrictions. BTW the temperance movements and the evangelical churches were a training ground for people in grass-roots organisations who then moved on to the early labour movement.

  370. says

    Not one, not two, but three federal circuit courts of appeal covered themselves in glory this week. [satirical comment] The Fifth Circuit is here to erode the separation of church and state, the Eleventh showed up to reward Florida’s bad behavior, and the D.C. Circuit is gonna let Trump do whatever Trump wants to do. [Yep. That’s a good summary.]

    The Fifth Circuit is developing a very unique view of the First Amendment

    Cases about whether public schools can be forced by the government to display not just a Judeo-Christian text, but only one government-approved, enshrined-in-law evangelical Protestant version of that text, should be slam dunks.

    Indeed, those same public schools have instructed generations of schoolchildren that one of the foundational premises of American democracy is the separation between church and state. But these days, we’ve got the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just wilding out and saying that a Texas law requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments somehow doesn’t violate that separation for … reasons.

    Per one of the Trumpiest judges to ever do it, in his majority opinion, Judge Kyle Duncan huffily declared that a law requiring every public school classroom to display a poster with the King James Version text of the Ten Commandments “looks nothing like historical religious establishment.”

    It doesn’t?

    Per Duncan, the separation of church and state is only implicated if the state tells churches how they could worship or punishes someone for rejecting the Ten Commandments or takes your tax dollars to support clergy. It also “does not co-op churches to perform civic functions.”

    Come on, man. This is impossibly, deliberately slippery. No, the law didn’t say “we hereby outsource evangelical churches to perform the civic function of education,” but it did say, essentially, “the civic function of education now must include a specific religious text with the specific religious language used by specific, conservative, evangelical churches.”

    Red states keep passing these laws, knowing full well that they will get blocked by lower courts that are actually honoring the Constitution. That’s what happened here with the Texas law and what recently happened with Arkansas’s similar nonsense last month. But what they’re counting on is that, much like with abortion, an openly unconstitutional law will make its way to the highest court so that the theocrats running the place can explain that our whole understanding of the separation between church and state is just wrong and that actually, a mandatory display of the Ten Commandments is what the founders wanted all along.

    Heads, Florida and the feds win. Tails, everyone else loses.

    The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals just rewarded both the state of Florida and the federal government for the little reindeer game they’ve been playing about Alligator Alcatraz.

    Here’s how it works: you can’t sue the federal government over the Everglades environmental disaster/concentration camp, because it is entirely Florida’s responsibility and therefore the federal environmental review requirements don’t apply. Sure, Trump and the dearly departed former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have said that Florida got a $600 million FEMA grant for the project. But you see, said the 11th Circuit, the state paid upfront and was going to seek reimbursement from the federal government, but they just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

    Sure, nothing about this means that Florida can’t just ask for that sweet $600 million another time, at which point both DeSantis and the Trump administration will have to figure out a new way to say that there is no federal control of the facility clearly built exclusively for federal immigration control. It’s a neat trick that means the prison will continue to stay open while lawsuits proceed, despite horrifying conditions. [Sneaky and unethical shenanigans.]

    […] Trump still has a lot of free time for his personal litigation efforts

    You’d think being responsible for a war, spiking gas prices, a crashing economy, and his own catastrophically low approval ratings would be enough for Trump to shoulder these days, but never fear—he’s carved out some “me time” to pick fights in his personal lawsuits.

    […] this is a rare lawsuit against Trump, and it isn’t all that surprising that he’s fighting tooth and nail on this one, as it’s the last remaining case stemming from Jan. 6. Trump insists he shouldn’t have to provide any discovery in this civil case brought by Democratic lawmakers and Capitol police because he has very special immunity from criminal consequences, an immunity U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta recently told him does not actually apply here.

    Given that Trump’s stance on Jan. 6 is that it was a noble, peaceful endeavor, why wouldn’t he want to provide testimony and documents showing it in all its glory? Instead, he’s just running to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to try and get them to stop it. […]

    The ballroom deal is worse than you thought

    The ballroom deal is worse than you thought

    On any given day, it’s a toss-up as to what is happening with Trump’s ballroom bribe palace.

    Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon blocked further construction, except for anything related to national security, until Trump obtained congressional approval. The administration promptly decided that this included all construction, because one day the drone-proof glass on the ballroom could save the president’s life, or something.

    When the plaintiffs asked him to clarify his order, Judge Leon issued a “did I stutter?” kind of order, saying that invoking national security was not some blank check to just keep building and barring any aboveground construction.

    Enter the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals emergency panel, swooping in again to say that the real harm is if anything stops Trump while courts are deciding whether what Trump is doing is legal. So, Trump now gets to keep building for several more weeks, since oral arguments in the case won’t even happen until June 5. It’s terrific to have a system where the only harm that seems to matter is that to Dear Leader.

    Meanwhile, we’ve learned a little bit more about the contract for this monstrosity, but only after Public Citizen had to sue to force the Most Transparent Administration In History to give it up. As you might expect from an effort helmed by Trump’s favorite personal fundraiser, rather than an actual government agreement, it’s ridiculously scuzzy.

    Donors can remain anonymous, because you wouldn’t want everyone to know how eager you were to bribe the president, right? There are conflict of interest provisions that apply to the Park Service and Interior Department, but none for the White House or Trump.

    Secret donations! Secret contracts! No conflicts! Totally how democratic government works!

  371. says

    National Science Board members told by Trump administration they were terminated

    The Trump administration on Friday told several scientists on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) board that they were terminated from their roles, The Washington Post reported.

    […] “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I’m writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately,” the message seen by the Post reads.

    Board member Marvi Matos Rodriguez told the outlet that she was reviewing an 80-page report for her board work this week when she learned she was terminated. She started her role in 2022.

    “The idea of having six-year terms is you get to do something significant, impactful and go beyond administration, political administrations,” she told the outlet.

    […] Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, called the terminations “the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation.”

    “The NSB is apolitical,” she said in a statement released on Saturday. “It advises the president on the future of NSF. It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the Foundation. Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won’t stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries? […]”

    The Trump administration has canceled or suspended nearly 1,400 of the agency’s grants, citing changing policy priorities, since Trump returned to the White House last year. Changes within the foundation have led to less grants being issued […]

    Former NSF directors and organizations representing grant recipients have warned that dismantling the agency would hurt scientific innovation in the U.S.

    President Trump’s 2027 budget request seeks to cut NSF funding by more than 50 percent. An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson previously told The Hill that the cuts reflect “a strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment.”

    […] In October, The Planetary Society Chief Ambassador Bill Nye “The Science Guy” called on Congress to intervene with efforts to cut funding to the NSF and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

    “We’re not talking about delays in scientific exploration, we’re talking about the end of it,” Nye told reporters on Capitol Hill at the time, ABC News reported. “While we’re checking out, our competitors are checking in.”

  373. birgerjohansson says

    40th anniversary – Chernobyl disaster – Wikipedia 
    .https://share.google/SseuS8WXPbeMSUDWG
    You may be too young to remember this. The first time people outside the Soviet Union noticed something was in Sweden, when routine measurements outside a nuclear power plant registered higher levels of radiation. At first it was assumed to be a local leakage, and the civil defence authority was notified. Soon it was realised the radiation came from elsewhere, and when the wind directions were backtracked the Soviets could not keep it secret anymore.

  376. birgerjohansson says

    The world was tragically deprived of the wise comments by Donald Trump as some nut fired shots outside the building of the journalist’s dinner, causing administration members & president to evacuate.

    The perpetrator was quickly apprehended. I wonder if USA might have too many firearms around?

  377. Jean says

    The fact that there is no apparent victim and that the presumed shooter was captured alive and quickly in addition to the fact that there was a huge amount of security making it very hard for someone to get a gun close to the president all make me wonder if this was all staged. Hopefully, we’ll know more quickly and I hope my initial feeling is way off base.

  379. Reginald Selkirk says

    Florida man armed with lit torch and samurai sword arrested for starting fire in preserve: Sheriff

    A Florida man faces multiple charges after allegedly using a lit torch to ignite a fire in a preserve while also armed with a samurai sword, authorities said.

    The “disturbing series of events” began Wednesday night in Jensen Beach, according to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office.

    The suspect — identified as 22-year-old Morgan Grante Lentz of Melbourne, Florida — allegedly poured gasoline on a motorcycle outside a bar and then fled when confronted by the owner, according to a probable cause affidavit. A witness described him as being “dressed as a pirate,” according to the affidavit.

    Lentz had also allegedly attempted to pour gasoline on vehicles in the area, according to the sheriff’s office.

    Multiple witnesses then reported seeing the suspect carrying a “burning stick” or “tiki torch” and setting grass on fire in the Savannas Preserve State Park, according to the affidavit…

  380. says

    Follow-up to birger@376/

    ‘Pop. Pop. Pop.’: Inside the room at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

    “The annual gathering of journalists, with Trump in attendance, began as it had in years past — until Saturday’s security scare.”

    Related video at the link.

    Before Saturday, the routine at the many White House Correspondents’ Association dinners I’ve attended since 2000 has been the same. It’s “nerd prom” weekend in D.C. Before the dinner itself, journalists attend pre-parties wearing black tie. Then we file into the ballroom and chit-chat with friends, colleagues and others as we all find our tables.

    Inside the Hilton ballroom, there’s the announcement of the vice president. Then, most years, there’s the announcement of the president of the United States and the first lady. With President Donald Trump in attendance Saturday night, this was how everything began. Like normal.

    Until it wasn’t.

    After the president and vice president entered, there was the trooping of the colors by members of the armed services with their flags and battle banners to the dais. The national anthem was sung and the colors were trooped out of the room.

    A few remarks and then the dinner was underway. I was seated next to my MS NOW colleague Carol Leonnig. And then … POP, POP, POP, POP.

    All of us dove for the floor. I don’t recall any screaming. How much of the silence in that room was learned behavior? This nation has endured hundreds of mass shootings just in the 20-plus years I’ve been attending this dinner — from politically or racially motivated events to other horrific slayings, like the deaths of eight children in Louisiana just last weekend. But I had never personally experienced a shooting event like this. Yet I intuitively knew what to do. Drop to the floor. Get under the table.

    The few people who tried to drum up a “USA, USA” chant were shushed down. After I noticed that I was no longer hearing pops, I peeked over the table and grabbed the cellphone that I had left on the tabletop. I got video of various security teams whisking their protectees out of the room, away from the threat. And then, hands shaking, I tapped out text messages to my husband and my mom, letting them know that I was OK. After that, once we were allowed to go, I got out of the room.

    Once out of the hotel, I found myself walking under the covered portico not far from where a gunman tried to take President Ronald Reagan’s life on March 30, 1981. Then I spotted the presidential vehicle still sitting outside the Hilton — the two Cadillac limousines adorned with the U.S. flag, the presidential flag and the presidential seal on the doors. I took a photo at 8:53 p.m. to mark the sadly historic moment. Trump was still inside the hotel.

    By the time I got home, I saw that the president had said he wanted the show to go on. He wanted to return to the ballroom. But law enforcement protocols prevailed. Trump decamped to the White House, addressing the nation from the briefing room.

    A few facts stand out even as investigators work to identify the background and motives of the man who charged a security checkpoint and was arrested Saturday: If it turns out the suspect was indeed trying to get to the president, it will be the third such attempt since July 2024. Whatever one’s politics, we should all be able to agree: Gun violence is a scourge on this nation. There were 408 mass shootings in the United States last year, according to the Gun Violence Data Hub. That counts incidents in which four or more people — excluding the shooter — were injured or killed. But mass shootings are a tiny fraction of gun incidents in this country. There were more than 14,000 shooting deaths in the United States in 2025 and even more injuries.

    Once again, we have been reminded that even the president of the United States, the most protected individual in the world, is not immune from attempted gun violence. And those of us in the room with him Saturday were also not out of its reach.

  381. says

    Terror overtakes Trump’s first White House Correspondents’ Dinner

    “Tension was expected to center on First Amendment speech protections. Instead, the night was derailed by gun violence, another growing threat to America’s democracy.”

    Related video at the link.

    […] Suddenly, multiple loud bangs rang out from behind the closed doors of the oval underground ballroom in the Hilton Hotel. Journalists, friends, lawmakers, congressional staffers, and members of Trump’s Cabinet and other administration officials — dropped to the ground. Plates shattered, and chairs toppled over as people took cover under tablecloth-covered tables.

    MS NOW reporter Julia Jester, who had reported on air from the red carpet leading up to the event, had briefly gone to an upper level of the hotel and returned to see her fellow journalists crouched on the floor.

    “Just as someone said there was a shooter, an officer shouted to ‘get down and stay down,’” Jester recalled. “Not long after, a Secret Service agent ran into the area shouting, ‘Everyone out, this is now an active crime scene.’ Anyone who tried to run back to grab belongings was warned to leave or face arrest. They were not playing around.” [video]

    […] Tension was expected to center on First Amendment speech protections. Instead, the night was derailed by gun violence, another growing threat to America’s democracy.

    Outside the ballroom, a man — later identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California — had attempted to run through a security checkpoint with two guns, along with multiple knives, according to Jeffery Carroll, D.C. interim police chief. Several MS NOW reporters, producers and executives were seated in the ballroom, a below-ground space with notoriously poor cellphone service.

    “It wasn’t until we were all outside that I remembered how odd, and mildly concerning, I thought it was when no one screened me — or my bags — when I arrived on the terrace-level hours before [most attendees] to cover the red carpet,” Jester said. “The reality sunk in: as jarring as tonight was, it could have been far worse.”

    Inside the room, Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana was seated near the center aisle. He estimated he was 50 to 75 feet from the back doors, when “all of a sudden,” he said, “we hear these large gunshots.” [video]

    MS NOW “Way Too Early” anchor and senior congressional reporter Ali Vitali heard shouts of “shots fired.”

    “Someone behind me shouted ‘get down’ and I hit the floor, grabbing Symone Sanders next to me and telling her to get under the table,” she said. “I worried we couldn’t find cover because of how tightly packed the chairs and tables were. One of the servers also dropped down near us.”

    […] Multiple Secret Service agents sprinted to the stage, where Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt were seated along with the board members of the White House Correspondents’ Association. As the guests on the dais crouched down and then were evacuated from their table, heavily-armed officers stood guard on the stage. […]

    “We actually left the exit where Ronald Reagan was shot just over 40 years ago,” MS NOW’s senior White House reporter Vaughn Hillyard told viewers on air as law enforcement officials asked him to move further back from the scene.

    […] Kari Lake, who has overseen a gutting of the government-funding international news agency Voice of America into a pro-Trump media organization, expressed disdain for journalists in the room as she exited in an interview with Newsmax, a conservative streaming service., moments after the shooting

    “I saw so many people from all of these news outlets,” Lake said, accusing journalists of spreading falsehoods. “They’re part to blame of this,” she claimed moments after the shooting occurred and only as an investigation was just underway.

    Back inside the ballroom, MS NOW’s Traylor reported that the president was safe and that he still intended to deliver a speech from the dinner, citing a White House official.

    The president posted on social media that he wanted to “LET THE SHOW GO ON.” He praised law enforcement’s swift response and announced a press conference at the White House after it was determined that, following security guidance, he would leave the premises. Attendees were soon asked to leave the hotel as law enforcement investigated what had become a crime scene.

    Trump posted a photo of a man handcuffed on the carpeted floor of the hotel and then shared video of a person charging through a security checkpoint. Shortly after, he addressed journalists — many still dressed in gowns and tuxedos — from the White House briefing room, saying the posts were part of an effort to create transparency as law enforcement worked to learn more about the suspect and possible motives.

    “It’s always shocking when something like this happens,” Trump told reporters. “Melania was very cognizant, I think, of what happened. I think she knew immediately what happened. She was saying, ‘That’s a bad noise,’ and we were whisked away.”

    MS NOW “The Weeknight” anchor Symone Sanders recalled on air riding a scooter up to the driveway of the Hilton, describing her ability to arrive that close to the entrance as “unusual” compared to previous dinners. She questioned the hotel’s overall security after attending numerous events where presidents and vice presidents were present.

    “I have been with a protectee, then the vice president of the United States of America, when they have had to be evacuated. What happened tonight, in terms of protocol, from what I know, having experienced it myself, was not protocol,” Sanders said late Saturday, referring to her time as a senior adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris. […]

  382. says

    Trump unharmed after shooting incident at White House correspondents’ dinner

    By Associated Press:

    […] Generally, the Hilton hotel, where the dinner has taken place for years, remains open to regular guests during the correspondents’ dinner, and security has typically been focused on the ballroom and rather than the hotel at large, with little screening for people not entering the dinner itself. In past years, that has created openings for disruptions in the lobby and other public spaces, including protests in which security moved to remove guests who unfurled banners or staged demonstrations.

    In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. outside the Hilton — an event that prompted redesigns of the property that increased security and added a special presidential suite near the entrance where chief executives could be taken. Trump was dispatched there briefly after the incident Saturday night. […]

    Afterwards,Trump used the occasion to promote his ballroom.

  383. says

    Why Trump clings to the racist belief that Black people are dumb

    […] Trump absolutely loves to declare that Black leaders and other notable figures, especially Black women, have low intelligence.

    This past week he asserted that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman in U.S. history to serve on the highest court in the land, is “low-IQ.” He has said the same thing about former Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black person to be elected to that position.

    He called House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries a “totally low-IQ person” (in response, Jeffries said Trump was the “dumbest person ever to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”) and hurled similar insults towards Reps. Jasmine Crockett and Maxine Waters, who are both Black women.

    Trump even said that all Somali people are “low-IQ.”

    While he has thrown the “low IQ” barb at some white people, a disproportionate number of his attacks have been leveled at Black people throughout Trump’s time in the public eye. [true]

    The president’s choice of racist attack is especially glaring because his history of public statements shows that Trump is consistently one of the dumbest public figures in American history, exceeding former President George W. Bush’s well-earned reputation for gaffes, non-factual assertions, verbal malapropisms, and just plain stupid statements.

    [I snipped examples] Trump is guilty of public stupidity at an unprecedented rate, far outstripping the people he loves to call “stupid” and “low-IQ.”

    When Trump calls Black people stupid he is echoing hundreds of years of the white supremacist belief that nonwhite populations are inherently less intelligent. This is the mindset that led to widespread international colonialism as well as the spread of slavery.

    In more recent times, racists have tried to argue that disparities in IQ tests between Black and white people are based on genetics—ignoring the systemic racism in countries like the U.S. that deprived Black people of access to basic education, let alone advanced education. […]

    Republicans and the wider conservative movement have consistently embraced debunked scientific racism, assertions of racial differences and disparities that explain systematic racism by insisting that some races are inherently inferior. […]

    Trump in particular is a die-hard believer in these theories and has mostly looked to Black people as a source of amusement, not as a people capable of achieving greatness. It was Trump after all who was the public face of the racist birther movement that sought to delegitimize former President Barack Obama, the first Black person elected president of the United States.

    […] Trump has also made boneheaded moves that drew wide condemnation, like posting a video that depicted the Obamas as apes as well as an AI-generated image that depicted Trump as Jesus Christ.

    Former first lady Michelle Obama famously noted during the 2024 election that Trump fumbled when attacking immigrants for taking “Black jobs.” [video] […] “I want to know: Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs?’”

    Trump is a born-rich white man without the intelligence to understand the enormity of his position, so he waves away his failures by insisting that everyone else is stupid—especially Black people.

  385. says

    Live updates: Suspect displayed anti-Trump sentiment and described his targets as administration officials in writings

    “The alleged gunman’s brother notified police in Connecticut after the suspect sent family members his writings, a senior administration official told NBC News”

    Related video at the link.

    […] Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a top Trump ally, said in a post on X today that he plans to introduce legislation tomorrow that would approve and fund Trump’s White House ballroom.

    “I will be introducing standalone legislation tomorrow to authorize and appropriate money to fully fund the White House presidential ballroom — which over time will provide adequate security for this president and future presidents for events like the White House Correspondents Dinner,” he wrote. [Yeah, that’s about what I expected from Trump supporters: it’s a push for the ballroom.]

    […] The board of the White House Correspondents’ Association will meet to discuss the path forward after last night’s events, WHCA President Weijia Jiang said in a statement today.

    […] U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who was at the WHCA dinner last night, said there was a “security failure” that allowed the shooting incident to happen.

    Lawler pointed out that no identification was required for entrance into the event, that there was no list to verify attendance or access to the building, “no real inspection of the tickets,” and “no magnetometers when entering the building or the first two levels,” where pre-dinner receptions were held. Hotel guests also “had full access to much of the building,” according to Lawler.

    […] Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters blamed a “radicalized left” for the incident at the White House Correspondents’ dinner last night.

    “Last night’s attempted assassination of President Trump and members of his administration is the inevitable result of a radicalized left that has normalized political violence,” Gruters said in a statement.

    […] Cole Allen’s brother notified police in Connecticut after the suspect in last night’s shooting sent family members his writings, a senior administration official told NBC News.

    The official characterized the writing as displaying anti-Trump sentiment and describes his targets as administration officials, not guests or hotel employees. Allen apologizes to family and friends in his writing and says he does not expect forgiveness, according to the official.

    Allen’s sister described him to law enforcement as having a tendency toward making radical comments as well as constantly referencing a plan to fix issues with the world, the official said.

    She confirmed to investigators that Allen had purchased two handguns and a shotgun but that her parents were unaware he was keeping the weapons inside their home, according to the official.

    […] Trump described the suspect in last night’s attack as someone with “a lot of hatred in his heart” and anti-Christian sentiment, referencing a reported written statement from the man.

    The president was asked about the alleged shooter during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing” this morning. The suspect had an alleged “manifesto,” according to Trump, in his hotel room. NBC News has not independently verified information regarding a document written by the suspect.

    “The guy is a sick guy,” Trump said. “When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians, that’s one thing for sure. He hates Christians, a hatred.” […]

  387. says

    New York Times:

    […] Buckingham Palace said on Sunday that it was assessing plans for this week’s scheduled U.S. visit by King Charles III and Queen Camilla in light of the shooting on Saturday at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C.

    The palace said in a statement that discussions would take place “throughout the day” to consider “to what degree the events of Saturday evening may or may not impact on the operational planning for the visit.” It expressed the king’s relief that no guests were hurt.

    […] In a post on Truth Social, President Trump again used the attempted security breach at the White House correspondents’ dinner to make the case for the giant ballroom project he wants built on the grounds of the White House.

    “This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” he posted on Sunday.

    Trump made the same argument at a news conference after returning to the White House on Saturday night, only hours after he was rushed from the stage at the event.

    […] Investigators have determined that the suspect took a train from Los Angeles to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Washington, where he checked into the Washington Hilton a day or two before the hotel hosted the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, acting attorney general Todd Blanche told “Meet the Press.”

    […] The Secret Service officer who was shot has been released from the hospital, Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said. At a White House news conference late Saturday, President Trump said that a Secret Service officer had been shot but was protected by a bulletproof vest.

  394. says

    Predictable:

    The U.S. Attorney General’s office is pressuring legal opponents of a new White House ballroom to drop their lawsuit challenging its construction in light of the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday night.

    The Washington Hilton, where the dinner has been held for more than 50 years, is “demonstrably unsafe” for the president, but is the only venue large enough for such gatherings, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote in a letter to attorneys for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the U.S., which filed the lawsuit.
    Shumate called the litigation a “frivolous” effort that puts the president “at grave risk.”

    “The White House ballroom will ensure the safety and security of the President for decades to come and prevent future assassination attempts” at the Hilton, Shumate wrote.

    Unlike state dinners and other official functions, the correspondents’ dinner is a private event hosted by a private organization. Republican lawmakers, commentators and officials and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) have joined the Trump administration in invoking the shooting to argue for the ballroom.

    Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) wrote on X that she is drafting legislation to guarantee the ballroom is built and Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Montana) said he will try to do the same thing through unanimous consent in the Senate this week, though it is likely to be blocked by Democrats.

    Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the Department of Homeland Security funding deal moving through Congress should “provide for construction of a secure ballroom.”

    Washington Post link

  396. says

    Two former Israeli prime ministers agree to merge parties against Benjamin Netanyahu

    “The two leaders have served in coalition before and will seek to unite a fragmented opposition with little in common — beyond a shared hostility toward Netanyahu.”

    Two Israeli political heavyweights on Sunday said they would join forces in upcoming elections in a shared effort to unseat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid served as prime ministers in a rotation agreement as part of a coalition government they formed in 2021. They now plan to merge their parties into single faction headed by Bennett.

    “The move is intended to unite the bloc, put an end to internal divisions and focus all efforts on winning the critical upcoming elections,” Lapid’s Yesh Atid party said in a statement.

    […] The 2021 coalition agreement ended 12 years of Netanyahu rule. Bennett served as prime minister for the first year until their coalition fractured. Lapid then held the top job as caretaker prime minister for the final six months until new elections brought Netanyahu back to power.

    […] The two men have ideological differences. Bennett is an Orthodox Jew with hard-line views toward the Palestinians, while Lapid is secular and seen as more moderate. But they enjoyed a close working relationship during their short-lived coalition.

    Their alliance is aimed at uniting a fragmented opposition […]

  402. birgerjohansson says

    Stanislaw Petrov saved the world September 26, 1983.
    It is as if nuclear doctrines have a big flaw.

  406. JM says

    The Guardian: Iran ‘offers to end chokehold on strait of Hormuz’

    Iran is offering to end its chokehold on the strait of Hormuz without addressing its nuclear program, two regional officials with knowledge of the proposal said Monday.

    The new proposal, passed to the United States by Pakistan, likely won’t be supported by US president Donald Trump, who wants to end Iran’s atomic program as part of an overall deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz and make the ceasefire permanent.

    New proposal but it isn’t likely to get anywhere. Both sides still seem to feel they hold a lot of negotiating power and want the other side to concede. There are probably some non-public things attached to the deal also that we can’t see so I can’t really evaluate how reasonable it is but what I can see looks OK.

    It comes as the country’s foreign minister made a visit to Russia he said was an opportunity to consult with Moscow regarding the war against Israel and the United States.

    Iran calling Trump directly might work after Iran’s diplomats got a briefing from Russia on how to manipulate Trump. The problem for Iran is that the Republican Guard won’t buy into a deal that publicly admits to Trump’s greatness and privately involves Iran coming out ahead.

  407. Reginald Selkirk says

    22 Buddhist monks arrested at airport after record drug bust

    Twenty-two Sri Lankan monks returning from Thailand were arrested on Sunday at the main international airport with a record 242 pounds of powerful cannabis, officials said.

    A Sri Lanka Customs spokesman said the group, returning home after a four-day vacation in the Thai capital, had Kush — a potent, plant-based strain of cannabis — hidden in their luggage.

    “Each carried about five kilos of the narcotic concealed within false walls in their luggage,” the spokesman said, adding that the monks had been handed over to police.
    …

  409. says

    As reported by the Miami Herald, and summarized by Steve Benen:

    Despite Florida’s constitutional prohibition against gerrymandered district maps, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday morning released a new proposed district map intended to boost his party. Of the Sunshine State’s 28 congressional districts, the GOP already controls 20, but under the governor’s plan, that total would grow to 24. DeSantis initially released his plan, which needs legislative approval, exclusively to Fox News.

    Related video is available here.

    MarcElias warns DeSantis amid GOP pressure to redraw Florida map: Pass an illegal map, get sued

    As reported by The Hill and summarized by Steve Benen:

    On a related note, in Mississippi, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is also moving forward with plans for a special session to consider a new map in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling on redistricting.

  410. Reginald Selkirk says

    @409

    MarcElias warns DeSantis amid GOP pressure to redraw Florida map: Pass an illegal map, get sued

    DeSantis doesn’t care if he gets sued. He only cares which map is actually used during the elections. Look for legal injunctions about what happens while the case works its way through the courts.

  411. says

    Follow-up to JM @406.

    Trump and Putin; Iran and Putin:

    There were some hopes that U.S. and Iranian officials would try to advance the diplomatic process over the weekend, but neither country sent a delegation to Islamabad. This leaves an uncertain dynamic in which the hot war is paused, but hardly any meaningful efforts are underway to work toward a resolution.

    Iran’s foreign minister is expected to travel to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin on Monday, and the conversation is likely to be of interest to the White House. With this in mind, Trump spoke to Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich on Sunday morning for a live telephone interview, and the host asked whether he’d spoken with the Russian leader recently. “I have,” the president replied.

    As the exchange continued, Heinrich added, “What was the last conversation you had with Putin?” [social media post with video]

    “Well, I don’t want to reveal that,” Trump replied, failing to explain why he believes their conversation needed to be kept secret.

    Let’s not forget that the White House routinely discloses interactions between the president and world leaders, and Trump frequently uses his social media platform to boast about his conversations with foreign heads of state, including recent talks with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

    But asked about his latest chat with Putin, Trump didn’t want to “reveal” that, for reasons he also didn’t feel the need to share.

    If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because it happens with some regularity. During an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity just days after Trump’s second term began, the host asked if he’d spoken to Putin. Trump replied, “I don’t want to say.”

    Weeks earlier, Time magazine asked Trump, “Have you spoken to Vladimir Putin since your election?” All he had to do was say yes or no. He did neither.

    “I can’t tell you,” Trump replied. “I can’t tell you. It’s just inappropriate.”

    There was, of course, nothing “inappropriate” about the president disclosing conversations with foreign leaders, which, again, he does all the time.

    [I snipped additional examples of Trump refusing to discuss his conversations with Putin.]

    […] Trump’s relationship with his benefactor in Moscow was, to understate matters, problematic. After all, Trump hardly ever responded with “no comment” to any question on any subject. He loved (and continues to love) to comment, even when he has no idea what he’s talking about. But asked whether he’d had direct interactions with Putin, Trump suddenly had nothing to say.

    […] In 2019, The Washington Post reported that Trump and the Russian leader had a series of undisclosed chats during the Republican’s first term in the White House. Bob Woodward’s latest book also alleged that Trump and Putin had direct conversations “as many as seven times” after he left office after his 2020 defeat. […]

    [Trump] boasted that it would be “a smart thing” if he had secret communications with the Russian autocrat.

    Evidently, those attitudes persist.

  413. says

    Trump’s take on the gunman at the Hilton:

    Referring to the alleged gunman, the president argued, “Well, see, the reason you have people like that is you have people doing No Kings.” In other words, as Trump sees it, Americans gathering peacefully in communities nationwide to denounce his abuses necessarily creates conditions for political violence.

    That’s plainly absurd, but more important, it reflects Trump’s apparent belief that the proper response to an incident such as the one the world saw on Saturday night is to take steps to stifle dissent — again.

    As part of the same exchange, the president quickly made the transition from condemning No Kings protests to condemning the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization Trump’s Justice Department began prosecuting last week, which the president seized on as part of a weird attempt to justify nullifying the results of his 2020 election defeat.

    It led to this harangue that Trump delivered during the “60 Minutes” interview:

    I see these No Kings, which are funded just like the Southern Law, you saw all that? Southern Law is financing the KKK and lots of other radical, terrible groups. And then they go out and they say, ‘Oh, we’ve gotta stop the KKK.’ And yet they give, you know, hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. It’s a total scam run by the Democrats. It shows you that, like Charlottesville. Charlottesville was all funded by the Southern Law. That was a Southern Law deal too. And it was done to make me look bad, and it turned out to be a total fake. It basically was a rigged election. This was a part of the rigging of the election. [What the actual fuck?]

    The meandering train of thought was impossible to follow, largely because it was incoherent. As part of an interview about a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump managed to leap from the gunman, to the No Kings rallies, to the Southern Poverty Law Center, to unnamed Democrats, to Charlottesville, to the “rigged election” that wasn’t rigged.

    […] When O’Donnell asked, “Political violence has touched so many people in that room. Is there something that you, as president, can do? What can be done to change the trajectory …”

    Before the anchor could finish the thought, Trump jumped in to argue, “I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is very dangerous. I really think it’s very dangerous for the country.”

    The Republican best known for accusing his opponents of being “evil” and members of “the party of Satan” went on to whine about Joe Biden and push a conspiracy theory about his Democratic predecessor.

    Not quite 24 hours after the dangerous incident, in other words, when Trump wasn’t talking about his ballroom, he focused his attention on denouncing those who dare to criticize or disagree with him, as if they somehow bore responsibility for the developments.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed that the president is “at his strongest in times of crisis and turmoil.” Given Trump’s actual post-crisis record, I’m left to assume the Louisiana Republican was referring to some other president.

    Following correspondents’ dinner shooting, Trump takes steps to stifle dissent (again)

  414. says

    A quick analysis of last night’s shooting

    “So far, it appears the system worked as intended.”

    […] I wanted to share instead some quick thoughts on presidential security that might be useful to understanding what happened.

    […] During a different era, when the event was merely laughable, I attended the White House Correspondents Association dinner itself multiple times and covered the event and the parties around it for more than a decade. Plus, during my Washington career, I’ve been to probably just shy of a hundred dinners and galas inside that same ballroom at the Washington Hilton, which is known universally in Washington as the “Hinckley Hilton,” in reference to the 1981 shooting of President Reagan there. Also, I’ve spent a lot of time reporting on presidential security over the years, including writing a book on “continuity of government” and presidential evacuation protocols.

    […] What we know so far is that gunfire could be heard inside the dinner around 8:30 p.m., and that Secret Service and protective details swarmed the stage and room about 15-20 seconds later. Vice President JD Vance and President Trump were rushed from the stage and in the audience Cabinet members and congressional leadership similarly evacuated. Outside the ballroom, a 31-year-old named Cole Tomas Allen from Torrance, California, had tried to rush the ballroom armed with both guns — perhaps a shotgun and handguns — as well as knives. Trump finally headed back to the White House around 9:30 and, alongside other officials, addressed the events from the White House briefing room. Across Washington, the after-parties mostly continued as planned, albeit depleted by the reporters and anchors who rushed to cover the unfolding events.

    We normally don’t get to see the massive hidden security footprint that surrounds the president like we did last night, when members of the Secret Service Counter-Assault Team (CAT) actually stormed the stage and we saw countless security details rush their protectees from the room: [photo]

    In the hours since, I’ve seen a lot of arm-chair-quarterbacking about how the whole hotel should have been behind the security cordon or how shocked shocked shocked guests were that security seemed so lax at the entrances, etc., etc., but most of those critiques misunderstand two major things:

    (1) You always have to have an outer security perimeter; and

    (2) The goal of the Secret Service isn’t to prevent any incident at a high-profile event — it’s to prevent an incident that could harm the president.

    Yes, you can always push the security checkpoints out further, but there will always have to be a first moment where the unvetted and unsecured public approaches a security check. […]

    As far as I can tell […] security at the Hilton was basically the same as it has been in past years.

    Some background: The Washington Hilton has some 1,100 guest rooms spread across ten floors and several main public levels — including the main lobby level and then, an escalator flight down, the level of the ballroom, which is accessible too from a lower street entrance on the side of the building, which is where the red carpet for the correspondents dinner is located. Its giant “pillar-less” ballroom is the main venue for large events in Washington — including not just the correspondents dinner but other large conventions and gatherings like the National Prayer Breakfast — because it can seat around 2,600 people at banquet tables.

    The size and scale of the hotel — or any major hotel in Washington, really, where presidential events occur — is such that there are hundreds of people in the hotel who have no connection to the dinner and are going about entirely unrelated activities.

    […] following the shooting of President Reagan, the hotel installed a secure entrance facility for VIPs and there’s a special secure green room and secure path to and from the stage for a president. […]
    The evening events at the Hilton involve both the dinner itself but also a whole host of cocktail receptions and parties, big and small, at the hotel by various news organizations, and there are many hundreds of people who attend only those parties and then go elsewhere […]

    There’s usually — as there apparently was last night — a very rough outer security check at the edge of the property to try to determine whether someone has business in the Hilton that night. You have to be a registered guest in the hotel, or have an invitation to the party inside, or some such, but the goal with that security check is less about weapons and more about crowd control — trying to minimize the number of people who crowd into the hotel’s public spaces to gawk. It’s not the goal of this checkpoint to definitively ID and cross-check every person attending — it’s to manage the crowd flow inside.

    The Secret Service at some fundamental level doesn’t really care who is merely inside the hotel. Instead, the Secret Service only cares about securing the area where the president will be and where people will be able to see the president. […]

    […] the Secret Service sets up magnetometers — usually staffed by some combination of uniformed Secret Service officers and TSA officers — that screen guests before they file into the ballroom itself. At that point, there’s (usually) a much tighter circle of security — double-checking names and invite lists as well as screening for weapons.

    According to video and photos that Trump posted on Truth Social afterward, this is evidently the security checkpoint that the suspect charged and where he was stopped — and, because of the geography of the hotel, he was stopped before he even made it to the floor where the ballroom was: [photo]

    (One question I do have: The TV audio of the incident appears to show far more gunshots than have been explained so far — we know one Secret Service agent or officer was hit in his bulletproof vest, but it’s unclear who fired what shots at whom.)

    […] (Another question I have: I was surprised that apparently Trump remained in his motorcade on-site for the better part of an hour before organizers and the Secret Service finally decided to cancel the remainder of the evening and he departed for the White House. I would have imagined that the goal of the Secret Service would have been to get him out of the site as fast as possible once the shooting occurred, particularly since it wasn’t or wouldn’t have been initially clear whether the attacker was acting alone.)

    Overall, knowing only the scattered reports we still know about 12 hours later, this mostly appears like presidential security working as it is intended. It’s not — and shouldn’t be — the job of the Secret Service to secure the whole building. There was a threat to the president and it was stopped well before it could pose a threat to the president. Screening everyone who enters the outer perimeter of even a high-profile event like the correspondents dinner for weapons and then re-screening everyone who attends the actual dinner would be a massive operation and require more than a multiple of the security resources already committed to an event like this.

    […] so far as we know right now, this seems like the system basically working as designed amid the always necessary trade-offs of security in a free society.

    I’m glad everyone is okay. Political violence is never the answer.

  415. says

    The Poverty of the DOJ Indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, by Andrew Weissmann

    Bringing an indictment against a person or organization should be serious business. At the federal level, it is supposed to involve preparing a detailed prosecution memorandum, setting out the facts and law, addressing weaknesses in the case and defenses, and why the case is or is not righteous. Under long-standing DOJ internal rules in the Justice Manual, prosecutors should never seek a grand jury indictment unless they have evidence that would probably be sufficient to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and to sustain that verdict on appeal […]

    The latest work out of Todd Blanche’s Department of Justice bears none of the indicia that this searching review occurred. The case is United States v. The Southern Poverty Law Center, in which the Center is charged with 11 criminal counts.

    Structure of the Indictment
    The charges fall into two main buckets.

    The first comprises six counts of wire fraud. A simplistic way of describing those charges […] is that the organization raised money from donors who were led to believe that the Center was fighting anti-hate groups, but was actually spending money to perpetuate the work of those groups. […]

    The second group of charges involves allegedly lying to banks by using “fictitious” companies to create bank accounts. Those accounts would then make it appear that the money emanating from the Center was coming from these companies, thus serving to hide the true source of the funds going to allegedly support the hate groups. (The final charge is money laundering conspiracy, which piggybacks on, and requires the validity of, the first bucket of fraud charges.)

    […] nothing in the speaking indictment against the Center appears to meet the legal standard required of the two sets of legal charges. […]

    The DOJ wire fraud charges
    The government’s theory of the case […] is that the Center was secretly promoting racist organizations. The fraud was taking money from donors who were intentionally led to believe that the Center was fighting such groups.

    Here is a hypothetical that can help clarify why this theory of prosecution seems exceedingly far-fetched and belied by facts the government itself knows.

    Suppose the U.S. repeatedly paid a member of ISIS to disclose information about upcoming ISIS terrorist plans concerning American people and places. The U.S. obtains such information and uses it to thwart these attacks. Would it be correct to say the U.S. is trying to promote ISIS and its attacks? Of course not.

    […] [There] is a possible fraud only if the Center actually was seeking to promote – as opposed to dismantle – such groups. That the Center is known to have provided information about such groups to the FBI so that the government could take action against the groups will be powerful, if not dispositive, proof against the government’s theory. […] there appears to be no doubt whatsoever that it sought to weaken these alleged hate groups.

    And what makes this so much worse is that the DOJ (and its FBI component) know all this, as they received from the Center itself the negative information about these groups. The Department was doing so at least until the beginning of the second Trump administration when Patel terminated the Bureau’s receiving such information from the Center. […]

    All this makes Blanche’s contention at his press conference that the Center was intending “to stoke” racial hatred by these alleged hate groups so disturbing. […] The indictment is devoid of any allegation that that was an actual intended goal of the Center […] But Blanche’s assertion is consistent with the far-right talking point that it was the “left” that was behind the events in Charlottesville and J6 [!]– a contention that is devoid of proof, and makes little sense in any event since this Administration does not condemn either event. [!]

    […] The legal question is whether the donors were intentionally misled into believing their money would be used for only certain purposes and not others, and nonetheless those people used the money for that impermissible purpose. But none of that is alleged in the indictment.

    […] The indictment speaks about millions of dollars being used to pay informants for information, and suggests a scheme awash with donor money for almost a decade, from “2014 to 2023” […]. But when you get to the actual wire fraud charges, the amounts dwindle to a combined total of a paltry $13,905 on a single day in 2023. [!!]

    […] The bank fraud charges
    The indictment contains four bank fraud charges, based on the averment that the Center had various accounts opened in “fictitious” company names to make it appear the funds being paid to informants were coming from these companies and not from the Center.

    […] although the indictment calls the companies “fictitious,” it is unclear why exactly that is so. The indictment says the entities were sole proprietorships with “fictitious” names. There is nothing illegal about the mere creation of companies and partnerships, or even shell companies with fanciful names. But the indictment does then allege that the paperwork for the proprietorships contained “false and misleading” information about the “ownership and control” of the companies, but it oddly does not say what that false and misleading information is. […] A pass-through partnership may be perfectly legitimate or could be a part of a fraud, but none of that would make the company “fictitious.” […]

    At the very least, the Center should be able to get what is called a Bill of Particulars, requiring the government to set out what it contends is the fraud here.

    […] What makes this all highly problematic is an apparent gaffe in the charging language. Section 1014 only makes “false” statements criminal, not “misleading” statements. The Supreme Court said as much […] The government may have proof of false statements, but if it was counting on using misleading statements to meet its burden to establish the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, it is in for a surprise.

    What’s Next
    The indictment pointedly notes the role of senior people at the Center who made the 2021 representations to the bank about these companies, and so it is a good bet that those individuals are the intense focus of this Department seeking to flip them, something that this case appears to sorely need. Indeed, there is little sign that there is any insider witness cooperating with the government, as well as any donor who says they were misled by anything that was represented orally or in writing by the Center.

    On its own terms, the indictment is frail and deficient. […] defective legal and factual charges have been brought by a government institution that is no longer seeking, as its name would dictate, justice.

  416. says

    Follow-up to comment 415.

    White Nationalists Mock MAGA Spin on SPLC Indictment

    “ ‘Conservatives are dumb, and they come to the wrong conclusion and they come to a very self-serving conclusion,’ says Unite the Right organizer Richard Spencer.”

    Prominent white nationalists, including those who planned Charlottesville’s deadly “Unite the Right” rally, are mocking MAGA figures for their efforts to spin the Trump administration’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    Those reactions from the people with the most knowledge of the events in question follow repeated claims by MAGA figures in recent days that the indictment of the legendary civil rights group proved that it created what were essentially “false flags” for fundraising purposes.

    “I’m beginning to feel that the #SPLC indictment is much more like the Epstein Binders than a real criminal case,” said Richard Spencer in a post on X.

    “In other words, it’s a convenient conspiracy theory or limited hangout served up by the government to allow conservatives to indulge in victimization.”

    Spencer, one of the organizers of the 2017 gathering of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups, included a photo of far-right influencer Jack Posobiec holding up his copy of the much-anticipated Epstein Binders. In fact, it turned out that the binders released by AG Pam Bondi were nothing new.

    Since news of the indictments broke on Tuesday, Posobiec has been among those far-right and MAGA figures who have falsely claimed that the indictment showed Charlottesville was “staged by the SPLC.” The group had previously reported on the influencer’s white supremacist connections.

    Among those also latching onto such conspiratorial interpretations were MAGA figures who have long been critical of SPLC’s decisions over the years to classify certain conservative organizations under the label of “hate.”

    Evangelical Megan Basham falsely claimed that the indictment said the legendary civil rights group paid people “to organize protests and transport [people] to those protests.” Federalist co-founder Sean Davis argued “the SPLC funded and organized [Unite the Right] while pretending to be scandalized by it.”

    In fact, the DOJ indictment only says that SPLC paid an informant who was a “member of the online leadership chat group” and who had “helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees.” It also claimed he “made racist postings under the direction of the SPLC.” […]

    In a separate post, the white nationalist also mocked FBI Director Kash Patel, calling him a “clownish figure.”

    “It’s difficult to take anything he signs off on seriously,” he added.

    […] Later, in a podcast interview, Spencer said: “Conservatives are dumb, and they come to the wrong conclusion and they come to a very self-serving conclusion.”

    Appearing alongside Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Spencer derided suggestions that the Southern Poverty Law Center or anyone else on the left was pulling the strings on the “Unite the Right” rally. [video]

    […] Another Charlottesville figure, who now goes by the name Augustus Sol Invictus and was convicted for his role in the rally, was equally adamant.

    “Every ‘right-wing’ influencer pushing this lie that Unite the Right was an SPLC psyop is dead to me,” he wrote in a lengthy post on X. [social media post]

    […] “The SPLC was not trying to prop up the racialist movement via funding,” the post said. “They were trying to destroy it by bribing traitorous r*t*rds, thereby leading to the downfall of the groups they were involved with.

    “This is a hugely important distinction.”

    He added, “The fact that a group has an informant within it does not mean that group itself is a honeypot. Unfortunately, just about every group will end up with an informant in it at some point….” […]

    It looks like Blanche and Trump are out on a limb that is about to be cut off. Even White Nationalists are mocking them and their ill-founded lawsuit.

  417. coffeepott says

    @412
    cool! i was just being a smartass, was not expecting this.

    maybe i should hold out posting this, wait to be post 420…

  418. says

    As reported by The New York Times:

    [paraphrase] […] three more people were killed Sunday in the eastern Pacific in the seventh U.S. strike this month against alleged drug-smuggling boats, bringing the death toll to at least 185 since the campaign began last summer.

  420. JM says

    The Military Show: Russian Losses Are WORSE Than Anyone Imagined… But the Real Crisis Is Just Beginning
    Russia is having increasing trouble meeting recruitment goals, nothing new or unexpected. They are lowering standards and offering bigger bonuses and it isn’t enough to keep up with losses.
    The monstrous bit is towards the end. The central government has leaned on Russian universities and they have been given military recruitment goals. This is leading to universities pressuring students with bad grades, late papers or other trivial problems to sign up with the military or face expulsion. This is massively self destructive behavior for Russia that will do huge lasting damage as young people begin avoiding college.

  421. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trumps-i-am-not-a-rapist-t-shirt

    “Trump’s ‘I Am Not A Rapist’ T-Shirt Has People Asking Questions […]”

    Because we love you, we subjected ourselves to Donald Trump’s entire 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night so that you could spare yourselves. Anyone who wants to subject themselves to the 40-minute extended version that the show posted on its YouTube page is welcome to watch it or read the transcript. We recommend making sure your affairs are in order first. [embedded links are available at the main link]

    The interview was hastily thrown together in the wake of the shooting during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night. One can almost imagine CBS news honcho Bari Weiss, seen here breaking into a Rodgers and Hammerstein medley at Vanity Fair’s WHCD party, texting every senior White House official in her contacts while she was still hiding under CBS’s table in the Washington Hilton ballroom. Let’s do the fucking news, indeed. [embedded links are available at the main link]

    Norah O’Donnell got the unlucky assignment of trying to get Trump to answer questions like a human being with feelings and empathy for 40 minutes. It went how these interviews always go with our beignet-brained president: like crap piled atop a mountain of crap. Like a garbage barge caught in a hurricane. Like the hazardous waste disposal dumpster […]

    […] But there were some funny moments. Early in the interview, O’Donnell walked him through those moments when the gunfire was going off just as Oz Pearlman, the mentalist hired to provide the evening’s what we suppose some would call entertainment, was trying to guess the name of Karoline Leavitt’s unborn child. Here is that moment: [video]

    We must hand it to First Lady Melania Trump: we didn’t think she was capable of that level of expressiveness. We assumed Mar-a-Lago Face had frozen her more solid […]

    As for Trump, we don’t know when he first realized something was going on, but based on the look on his face, it sure wasn’t at the same moment everyone else did. […]

    O’Donnell tossed Trump a softball about whether, while everyone around him was hitting the deck and the smell of gunpowder wafted into the ballroom, he worried about people getting hurt:

    “I wasn’t worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world.”

    Thank you, Stupid Yoda. Shit, happens it does.

    O’Donnell asked Trump if this incident would in any way change his relationship with the press. This was a perfect opportunity for him to give the answer the self-important WHCA would love: something along the lines of We have our disagreements, but at the end of the day we’re all patriotic Americans who love our country, I respect the First Amendment, blah blah blah.

    Trump went with this:

    “I’m very strong on crime. It seems like the press isn’t. It’s not so much the press, it’s the press plus the Democrats because they’re almost one and the same.”

    O’Donnell asked if Trump thought he had any responsibility to tone down the heated rhetoric that leads to political violence. Naturally, Trump denied there was any more hate speech than there was “500 years ago.” Unfortunately, he kept talking before O’Donnell could ask him if he was referring to Rodrigo de Bastidas being stabbed to death by his own men.

    “I do think the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is very dangerous.”

    More dangerous than Trump calling Democrats traitors and treasonous and demanding the death penalty for his enemies? Which he does a lot.

    Can everyone in the press stop wondering if something that can be classified as a near-death experience will change Trump’s attitude about anything yet? […] he’s still the same old jackass. Please stop trying to make his humanity happen, he doesn’t have any.

    […] All this led up O’Donnell reading parts of the manifesto the alleged gunman emailed his family just before he charged the ballroom. And that’s when everything almost went off the rails: [social media post with video]

    “I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re– you’re he– you’re horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I’m — I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”

    “Oh you think– do you think he was referring to you?”

    First, we have to give credit to O’Donnell for that exaggerated reaction and that deadpan “Oh, do you think he was referring to you,” as if that was the first time it had occurred to her. A+ trolling, ma’am. Infinite cry-laughing emojis!

    Second, he is an adjudicated rapist. Ask the New York state courts or the judge who presided over the E. Jean Carroll trial. […]

  422. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/hungary-begins-de-viktor-orbanification

    “Hungary Begins De-Viktor-Orbánification, At Long Last”

    Little more than two weeks ago, the voters of Hungary removed their gloves, went to the polls, and delivered unto Viktor Orbán’s “illiberal” ruling Fidesz party a stinging 10-finger slap and a fuck on off, assholes. Then Budapest exploded in celebratory jubilation! [video]

    The incoming parliament — dominated by the more moderately conservative Tisza party — and new Prime Minister, Péter Magyar, are expected to be sworn in around May 9, details pending. And they sure have a rocky road to hoe, undoing 16 years of an Orbán-ified government, wherein he and his party captured the legislature, the judiciary, the civil service and media, thought-purged them all, and did their rank and sweaty best to dilute the opposition’s influence, dismantle the country’s checks and balances, and suck up to Russia and Donald Trump. […]

    And while their power is not yet official, the writing is on the wall. Magyar has been urging remaining Orbán loyalists to self-deport to the private sector. Hungary dropped its opposition to a $106 billion loan from the European Union to Ukraine last week, helping clear the pipeline for a funding lifeline as its war with Russia — and Trump’s starving Ukraine of defense funds while begging for its anti-drone technology at the same time — drags on. But Hungary has now also fixed a literal pipeline so Ukraine can get in some more oil, yay!

    […] Magyar and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk have reportedly been having bro-chats about how to go about repairing Hungary’s relationship with the EU. Tusk is like, just call up Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, she’s cool! Maybe tell her you’ll be glad to welcome some incoming briefcases from the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to go after the dirty grifters? […]

    Magyar also claims that right now, as you read, Orbán’s billionaire pals are attempting to make off with tens of billions in filthy lucre, bound for locales without extradition treaties, such as the UAE, Uruguay and Dubai. Magyar “called on the National Tax and Customs Administration to immediately freeze assets he claims were illegally acquired. […]

    Donald J. Trump et al. might want to PAY ATTENTION TO THAT MATTER! Consequences ahoy! All the Heritage Foundation’s biggest-brained men, JD Vance’s infectious charms, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s finest AI slop-a-ganda, having control of most of Hungarian media, years of anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ+ hate and fearmongering, none of that was enough to keep together the base of the strongman’s ruling coalition.

    […] It turns out that no matter how many hate and fearmongering campaigns Orbán and Fidesz threw at voters, they could not help but to notice that Orbán had never delivered on any of his promises of draining the swamp of corruption, delivering cheap prices, or more affordable housing. Even better, it also seems that in the end it was not The Gas or The Groceries that voters ultimately refused to tolerate any longer. Pre-election, most voters cited “politics/government” itself, specifically “Government spending/debt, corruption, taxes” as their biggest concern, even more so than the economy.

    Though of course those two are related. As the saying goes, when a rising tide fails to lift all boats, it is easier to spot the yachts!

    […] The European Union halted billions in loans until the country got its corruption sorted out […], and while Hungary’s money is still on hold at the moment, Brussels is now open to engaging on reopening the cash path. It seems being a pariah on the world stage isn’t as romantic as it might sound. (Benjamin Netanyahu, you might want to take some notes here too, golly, look at all those protesters hitting the streets in Israel again and Netanyahu’s rivals retrying that coalition thing!)

    Hungarians also do not agree with Orbán that “Brussels” was the cause of all of Hungary’s issues, and most have always supported Hungary remaining a member of the European Union. […] Or the way Orbán came up as a politician opposing the Soviet government, and what a nimble flip-flop with a double-pike twist he made, to allegedly asking and getting propaganda help from Russia!

    Either way, it seems a strongman can’t keep the dizzying shell game of failure twirling around forever. […]

    The Peace Train is riding again, and commuters at the hate depot can buy a ticket to the Equal Protection of Laws, or a one-way to Uruguay with final destination, Hell for Lying Liars.

    We don’t make the rules.

  424. says

    New York Times:

    Every year, the United States Mint sells more than $1 billion of investment-grade gold coins. Each is stamped with an icon like the bald eagle, signifying the government’s guarantee, required by law, that the gold is 100 percent American.

    […] But a New York Times investigation has found that the government’s program of gold sales is based on a lie. The Mint is actually the last link in a chain that launders foreign gold, much of it illegally mined, for an insatiable market. […]

  425. says

    New York Times:

    For decades, immigrants who have followed the rules and have not broken the law have had hopes of earning a green card, a document that allows them to live legally in the United States and gain a path to citizenship.

    […] under new guidance issued by the Trump administration, immigrants can now be denied a green card for expressing political opinions, such as participating in pro-Palestinian campus protests, posting criticism of Israel on social media and desecrating the American flag, according to internal Department of Homeland Security training materials reviewed by The New York Times. […]

  426. says

    Trump’s Justice Department agrees to a second settlement with Michael Flynn

    “The first settlement with the former White House official was described as ‘a miscarriage of justice.’ The second settlement adds insult to injury.”

    Of all the White House allies who have received lucrative settlements from the Trump Justice Department in response to highly dubious civil lawsuits, the DOJ’s deal with former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is among the most outrageous.

    It also apparently has a sequel. Lawfare’s Anna Bower reported:

    The Trump administration has agreed to a second settlement with former national security adviser and Trump ally Michael Flynn, according to a court document filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

    The settlement relates to a civil suit Flynn brought against the United States government, in which he alleges that the U.S. Army illegally garnished his retirement pay.

    It’s not yet clear exactly how much this second settlement will be worth. The latest court documents, filed Friday, said the two sides “have agreed to a settlement in principle,” though they’ll “need more time to finalize and implement the agreed-upon settlement.”

    These developments come on the heels of an earlier settlement agreement that was worth $1.25 million, and the fact Flynn is walking away with any taxpayer money at all is awfully tough to defend under the circumstances.

    […] After Flynn was first charged by federal prosecutors — accused of lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian government, lying to investigators about being a paid foreign agent and acting illegally as an unregistered foreign agent while working on Trump’s 2016 campaign — he admitted he lied, pleaded guilty twice in open court and became a cooperating witness with then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

    Flynn later changed lawyers, however, at which point he stopped helping the Mueller probe and decided he was no longer guilty of the crimes to which he had already pleaded guilty. [!] Soon after, then-Attorney General Bill Barr took an interest in the case, and the DOJ announced it was dropping all of the charges against Trump’s former aide.

    As difficult as it was to believe, Barr’s DOJ concluded it could not prove Flynn was guilty of crimes to which Flynn had already pleaded guilty. (A retired judge examined what transpired and ultimately accused the DOJ of exercising a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power.”)

    Late on a Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving 2020, Trump quietly pardoned Flynn. It was among the most corrupt moves the president made during his first term.

    The pardon, however, apparently wasn’t enough. Flynn wanted a payout, too, claiming federal law enforcement subjected him to malicious prosecution when they charged him with crimes — and I can’t emphasize this enough — he had twice pleaded guilty to. Trump’s hyperpoliticized Justice Department agreed, in a development Mary B. McCord, an MS NOW legal and national security contributor, described as “a miscarriage of justice.”

    The second settlement, in a separate but related case, will add insult to injury.

    There was a point between Trump’s first and second terms when he suggested that, should he return to power, he might very well bring Flynn back to the White House. It increasingly appears, however, that Flynn doesn’t need a job, since the president’s team keeps agreeing to send him taxpayer money.

  427. says

    Kash Patel and Todd Blanche:

    Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel held a press conference about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting that created a lot more confusion than clarity.

    […]Blanche said the Justice Department was “still looking” into who fired the shot that allegedly wounded a Secret Service agent.

    “I don’t want to overstate because we are still looking at this, that there were five shots that law enforcement fired. We are—we have—all the evidence is being examined very carefully and expeditiously, and we’ll know more soon.”

    Patel, perennially over his skis, didn’t sharpen the picture.

    Regarding law enforcement partners in the Department of Homeland Security and the Metropolitan Police Department, he said, “All of us on there put us in a unique position, but all of us also acted uniquely.”

    “Unique” is one way to describe things, I guess? Maybe Patel is having a hard time seeming competent because, according to him, nobody is sleeping these days.

    “Agents sprung into action, got out of bed, and haven’t slept since,” he said. “These prosecutors haven’t slept since, and I promise you they’re not going to be sleeping.” […]

    Link

    Video snippets at the link.

    I am not reassured.

  433. birgerjohansson says

    ^ ^ ^
    The Scandinavian state churches are surprisingly reasonable and down to earth (even if I do not believe in the faith).

  438. says

    RACHEL MADDOW: Americans thwart Trump’s immigrant prisons plan by making it too hard

    The Trump administration “would prefer to do things that are easy,” Rachel Maddow points out. And so, by making the implementation of a nationwide immigrant prison system not at all easy, and, in fact, quite hard, Americans pushing back against Trump’s plan are winning, and Trump’s prisons are not opening.

    Video is 8:13 minutes

    RACHEL MADDOW: Scope of Trump’s immigrant prison plans suggests ulterior motive

    Michael Wriston, co-founder of Project Salt Box, and Miles Taylor, former DHS chief of staff, talk with Rachel Maddow about their new project, GTFOICE.org, which is designed to help Americans mobilize against the construction of immigrant prisons in their local area.

    Video is 4:35 minutes

    RACHEL MADDOW: Maddow: Security breach adds new layer to crisis at Trump’s DHS

    Rachel Maddow points out that the to the extent that the security breach at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is a crisis for the Secret Service, it is only one of many crises that have come to characterize Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.

    Video is 7:05 minutes

  439. says

    Hegseth faces pushback after giving Kid Rock ‘joy rides’ on Apache helicopters

    “Why is Pete Hegseth spending your taxpayer dollars to give Kid Rock ‘joy rides’ on Apache helicopters?” one Democratic lawmaker asked.

    It was about a month ago when an entertainer named Kid Rock, who had one Top 10 hit nearly a quarter century ago, shared videos via social media of Apache helicopters doing a flyby at his home in Nashville, Tennessee. The clips showed the entertainer, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, saluting and applauding the troops.

    The unfortunate stunt obviously wasn’t an appropriate use of military resources, and the Army quickly did what everyone expected it to do: It suspended the crew members and temporarily barred them from flight duties pending a review of the incident.

    Even Donald Trump conceded that the helicopter pilots “probably shouldn’t have been doing it” since “you’re not supposed to be playing games.”

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, however, came to a very different conclusion about the value of playing games, reversed the crew members’ suspension and abruptly closed the Army’s investigation. The New York Times reported that the moves represented “a remarkable intervention from the highest level of the Pentagon,” adding that the decree “was another indication of his contempt for legal guardrails in the military.”

    Common sense might have suggested Hegseth would exercise at least some greater caution going forward. In the Pentagon chief’s office, however, common sense is apparently in short supply. The Associated Press reported:

    Kid Rock and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth both flew in Army Apache attack helicopters at a base in Virginia on Monday, weeks after military pilots drew scrutiny for hovering near the entertainer’s Tennessee home.

    On social media Monday night, Hegseth posted photos of himself and Kid Rock at the base. … Drop Site News was first to report Monday’s flights in Virginia.

    For good measure, the former Fox News host also posted a photo of the entertainer speaking to a group of service members in the Pentagon press briefing room. [WTF?]

    The AP’s report added that an Army Apache helicopter costs about $7,000 per hour to fly, which naturally led to a fresh round of questions about wasting public resources for, to borrow the president’s phrasing, “playing games.”

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, for example, asked via social media, “Why are taxpayers paying to fly Kid Rock around on $100 million helicopters?” Another Democrat, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who’s also a former Army Ranger, similarly asked, “Why is Pete Hegseth spending your taxpayer dollars to give Kid Rock ‘joy rides’ on Apache helicopters?”

    These need not be rhetorical questions.

    At a press briefing last week, the beleaguered defense secretary was asked whether he feels like he’s “on a power trip.” Hegseth dismissed the line of inquiry, though with the Kid Rock incidents in mind, concerns along these lines are likely to linger.

  440. says

    Oh, no.

    Republicans scramble to impose White House ballroom costs on American taxpayers

    In October 1994, the week before the midterm elections, a man standing among tourists in front of the White House pulled an assault rifle from beneath his coat and fired roughly 30 shots at the presidential mansion and the West Wing. Remarkably, no one was hurt in the incident.

    In the aftermath, political figures and officials condemned the violence. They did not, however, call for the East Wing to be replaced by a giant ballroom to the benefit of Bill Clinton and his successors.

    Years later, during Barack Obama’s tenure, the Democratic president faced repeated threats, including a September 2014 incident in which a man jumped the White House fence and ran through much of the main floor, dashing past a stairway that led to the first family’s living quarters.

    Again, the incident received careful scrutiny, but it didn’t seem to occur to anyone to respond to the developments by demanding the construction of a fortified new structure attached to the White House for assorted parties and social gatherings.

    But in the aftermath of the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which an armed gunman attempted to breach, countless Republicans — from the White House to the halls of Capitol Hill, from the Justice Department to every available media platform — cried out in unison, shouting one word to anyone who would listen: “ballroom.”

    Several GOP lawmakers didn’t just throw their support behind the vanity project that Donald Trump has obsessed over, they also unveiled new legislative proposals related to the initiative. Roll Call reported:

    Senate Republicans are pushing for passage of legislation that would back the Trump administration’s planned White House ballroom in the wake of a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.

    Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama and Eric Schmitt of Missouri announced plans to fund the ballroom project with tax dollars. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, meanwhile, said he plans to ask for unanimous consent Tuesday to pass a bill to authorize the ballroom’s construction without funding it. Both bills are expected to be released Tuesday.

    […] A Politico report added that “it’s not going to be simple” to push such a measure through Congress, since Republicans would likely need to overcome a 60-vote hurdle in the Senate.

    But that’s really just part of a longer list of problems. The proposed ballroom project is still unnecessary. It’s still unpopular. It would still sit empty most of the year. The process through which it’s being pursued is still legally dubious. Even if it existed, it wouldn’t host the White House Correspondents’ dinner anyway.

    […] As for the ongoing legal dispute, Trump’s DOJ, reinforcing its reputation as an extension of the Oval Office, demanded on Sunday that the National Trust for Historic Preservation drop its lawsuit against the construction of the ballroom. The organization quickly made it clear that it would ignore the DOJ’s demands.

    Department leaders, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, nevertheless filed a new motion in the case [!], which was a poorly written rant that Trump apparently dictated himself, complete with weird and juvenile phrases that often appear in the president’s social media missives. {1}

    Writer Julian Sanchez noted in response, “I knew the administration was scraping the bottom of the barrel for legal talent, but dear God. This reads like someone just transcribed Trump muttering incoherently and filed it in court.” [!]Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and an MS NOW legal analyst, described the filing as “a disgrace.” [!]

  441. says

    White House wants critics to stop echoing Trump’s rhetoric, flunking self-awareness

    “Karoline Leavitt referred to specific words and phrases and characterized them as beyond the pale. They’re the same words and phrases the president has used.”

    In the aftermath of the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, an event that an armed gunman attempted to breach, it was widely assumed that Republicans and their allies would immediately blame Donald Trump’s critics for what transpired. To the surprise of no one, that’s precisely what happened, with countless voices on the right insisting that incendiary rhetoric from the left necessarily leads to political violence.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt helped lead the charge, though she did so in a surprising way on Monday: The president’s chief spokesperson didn’t just complain about Trump critics in a general sense; she helpfully referred to specific words and phrases that she characterized as beyond the pale. [social media post and video]

    “This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat [sic] Party and even some in the media,” Leavitt said. She added, “Those who constantly falsely label and slander the president as a ‘fascist,’ as ‘a threat to democracy’ and compare him to Hitler to score political points are fueling this kind of violence.”

    It remains important that the White House appears desperate to stifle dissent — a step Republicans reject when the victims of political violence are on the left — and Leavitt was clearly irresponsible in suggesting that criticizing the administration is tantamount to endorsing violence.

    But I was especially interested in the press secretary’s three specific examples.

    Those who label Trump a “fascist”: Putting aside the debate over whether the Republican has earned the label, it’s worth reminding the public from time to time that Trump himself has routinely described his political opponents as fascists. In fact, around this time two years ago, during the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump described the Biden administration as a “fascist government.” [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    After Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign, Trump proceeded to call then-Vice President Kamala Harris a “fascist” several times. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    What’s more, let’s also not forget that it’s not just Democrats, scholars and prominent political observers who have used the same word to describe the incumbent president’s radicalism: Retired Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff; retired Gen. Mark Milley, Trump’s handpicked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Mark Esper, Trump’s handpicked former defense secretary, also publicly said they consider Trump a fascist. [All true, and a good point to make.]

    Those who describe Trump as “a threat to democracy”: Again, putting aside the question of whether the president is in fact a genuine threat to democracy, it was curious to hear Leavitt raise this specific point, given the frequency with which he’s lashed out at perceived foes as “a threat to democracy.” [True]

    Those who compare Trump to Adolf Hitler: I’m not aware of any leading Democratic officials who have compared the president to Hitler, and Leavitt didn’t point to any examples. But for the record, the most prominent political voices that have made the comparison are JD Vance, Trump’s vice president, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s health and human services secretary. [LOL. All true.]

    As the day progressed, other Republicans zeroed in on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries having used the phrase “maximum warfare” in the context of redistricting efforts, seemingly unaware of the fact that the New York Democrat borrowed the phrase from a Trump White House official. [!]

    What we’re left with, in other words, is a bizarre political dynamic in which the White House publicly called on its critics to stop using the same words and phrases that Trump and his colleagues have used repeatedly, without regret or apology.

    Indeed, the entire line of argument reflected a striking failure of self-awareness. Whatever one thinks of the president, there can be little doubt that he’s pushed the rhetorical envelope in radical ways that were once unthinkable in this country. Trump has not only repeatedly called Democratic leaders “fascists,” he’s also condemned his perceived political foes as “enemies of the people,” “the enemy within,” “threats to democracy” and “evil.” [All true.]

    As recently as last fall, Trump labeled Democrats the party of “hate, evil and Satan,” and a month later, after a group of Democratic veterans urged service members to reject illegal orders, the president falsely accused them of engaging in “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” [Yes, Trump said “punishable by death.”]

    […]

  442. says

    Follow-up to comment 440.

    […] The Trump-dictated filing, which Chris Geidner was all over last night when it was first filed, begins by calling the the National Trust’s name “FAKE” in all caps, declares it “very bad for our Country,” and accuses it of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly called TDS”: [Excerpt available at the link.]

    […] the thwarted attack at the White House Correspondents Dinner has catalyzed Trump’s pre-existing obsession with the ballroom. Woodward [the No. 3 official at DOJ, Stanley Woodward] does what he can to integrate Trump’s bombast into the staid confines of a legal filing, but fails miserably

    […] All caps are the other Trumpian giveaway:
    “FAKE”
    “STANDING”
    “FREE OF CHARGE AS A GIFT TO THE COUNTRY!”
    “DONALD J. TRUMP”
    “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME”.
    [More excerpts from the deranged court filing from the Department of Justice.]

    […] Just a reminder that the issue here isn’t the grotesqueness of the monstrosity Trump wants to build or the safety and security of the head of state. It’s the constitutional allocation of the spending power to Congress, and the related issue that the president doesn’t own the White House or any other federal property. He is merely a caretaker, at most.

    Is Trump Now Personally Dictating DOJ’s Filings?

  443. says

    New York Times link

    “U.S. Gas Prices Hit Highest Level Since Beginning of War in Iran”

    “The jump on Tuesday of 1.6 percent was the highest percentage increase in more than a month.” [Graph at the link]

    Gasoline prices in the United States rose on Tuesday to their highest level in four years as peace talks between the United States and Iran appeared at an impasse.

    The average cost for a gallon of regular gasoline is $4.18, according to the AAA motor club. The price at the pump has not been that high since April 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. Tuesday’s jump of 1.6 percent was the highest percentage increase in more than a month.

    Oil prices continued to climb on Tuesday, with negotiators deadlocked over proposals to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic and restrict Iran’s nuclear program.

    The price of crude oil has risen steadily over the past week, as talks have stalled during an uneasy cease-fire. Brent crude, the international benchmark, has posted gains in six of the past seven trading sessions and remains more than 40 percent higher than it was before the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February. […]

    More at the link.

  444. says

    The Guardian link

    “Orbán associates rush to move wealth out of Hungary after election defeat”

    “Incoming PM Péter Magyar accuses Fidesz-linked figures of trying to shield their wealth from accountability”

    Along the banks of the Danube, news that the Viktor Orbán era had come to an end set off an hours-long party. The joy echoed across Hungary as people traded hugs and high-fives. For some, however, the landslide loss set off a frantic scramble.

    Private jets allegedly laden with the spoils of those whose wealth swelled during Orbán’s 16 years in power have steadily been taking off from Vienna, while other individuals are racing to invest their assets abroad, sources have told the Guardian. Meanwhile, high-level figures close to Orbán have been looking into US visa options, hoping to find work at Maga-linked institutions.

    It is a glimpse of the upheaval that has gripped Hungary as it prepares to turn the page on Orbán’s rule. Since he took power in 2010, a small circle of associates aligned with the leader and his Fidesz party have amassed vast fortunes, partly due to their expanding control over the country’s economy and EU-funded contracts for public infrastructure.

    Since the election, the Guardian has learned of three members of this inner circle who have begun moving their assets abroad. The wealth is being moved to countries in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE – while others have their sights set on Australia and Singapore, two Fidesz sources said.

    […] Magyar said those expected to leave the country included the family of Lőrinc Mészáros, one of Orbán’s closest friends, whose trajectory from gas fitter to Hungary’s richest man was fuelled in part by public procurement contracts. […]

    “I have also been informed that several oligarch families have already left the country,” Magyar added. “According to reports, several influential oligarch families have already withdrawn their children from school and are arranging trusted security personnel for their departure.”

    The race to move wealth abroad was first reported by independent journalists in Hungary […]

    Their efforts could be stymied by the many bureaucrats and law enforcement officials who have partial knowledge of all that took place during Orbán’s time in power, Vsquare noted, “setting the stage for what could be a years-long efforts to recover allegedly stolen public wealth and arrest those who committed financial crimes”.

    Since the election, Magyar has repeatedly said his government will work to crack down on the corruption and cronyism that, in his view, characterised Fidesz’s years in power. […]

    The incoming leader has repeatedly alleged that potentially incriminating documents are being destroyed during Orbán’s last weeks in power. […]

    […] The EU’s longest-serving leader is expected to head to the United States around the same time as the Fifa World Cup kicks off and will probably spend several weeks there, a Fidesz-linked source told the Guardian. The source said the trip had been planned long before the 12 April election.

    Where Orbán will travel to exactly is unknown, though his eldest daughter and son-in-law moved to New York last summer.

    The son-in-law, István Tiborcz, burst into public view in 2018 when the EU’s anti-fraud office, Olaf, said a two-year investigation into contracts to supply Hungarian towns with EU-funded street lamps had found “not only serious irregularities in most of the projects, but also a conflict of interest”. […]

    […] Days after the election, one of Hungary’s most prominent investigative journalists, Szabolcs Panyi, said sources had told him the US had long been seen as a plan B for many who were connected to Orbán, despite the questions that continue to swirl over Orbán and his government’s connections to Moscow.

    “As long as the Trump administration is in power, even the United States could become a safe haven for the top echelons of the Orbán regime,” Panyi said.

  445. JM says

    @437 birgerjohansson: It isn’t a helicopter, it’s a form of tilt rotor. It converts from VTOL to conventional flight. The 6 engine design seems complicated but it also keeps each engine small, which probably helps with noise. Electric air travel has been prevented so far because the weight of the batteries kills distance but for short taxi service it may work.
    Electric tilt rotor might have an advantage also, as the batteries can be mounted in the body and a cable run to the tilting motor. This means less tilting parts then a mechanical tilt rotor. Tilt rotors have stability problems when switching flight modes, I wonder how they deal with that.

  446. says

    United Arab Emirates says it will leave OPEC in a blow to the oil cartel, by Associated Press.

    The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it will leave OPEC effective May 1, stripping the oil cartel of one of its largest producers and further weakening its leverage over global oil supplies and prices.

    The UAE’s decision had been rumored as a possibility for some time, as it pushed back in recent years against OPEC production quotas it felt had been too low — meaning it wasn’t able to sell as much oil to the world as it had wanted.

    “Having invested heavily in expanding energy production capacity in recent years, the bigger picture is that the UAE has been itching to pump more oil,” Capital Economics wrote in an analysis. “The ties binding OPEC members together have loosened,” it said, particularly after Qatar withdrew from the cartel in 2019.

    Regional politics are also likely at play. The UAE has had increasingly frosty relations with Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, over political and economic matters in the Mideast, even after both came under attack by fellow OPEC member Iran during the war.

    The UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC won’t necessarily have any immediate effects in markets. That’s because world oil supplies are sharply constrained by the war in Iran, which has closed off the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil supplies — including much of the UAE’s — is transported. On Tuesday, Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded above $111 a barrel, or more than 50% above its prewar price.

    […] The UAE made the announcement via its state-run WAM news agency, saying it also would be leaving the wider OPEC+ group as well, which Russia had led in order to try to stabilize oil prices. […]

    The UAE’s withdrawal removes one of OPEC’s few members with the ability to quickly increase production, the mechanism through which the cartel manages oil prices, said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy.

    “A structurally weaker OPEC, with less spare capacity concentrated within the group, will find it increasingly difficult to calibrate supply and stabilize prices,” he said. “Losing a member with 4.8 million barrels per day of capacity, and the ambition to produce more, takes a real tool out of the group’s hands.”

    […] The UAE’s push to likely pump and sell more oil also comes after it hosted the United Nations COP28 climate talks in 2023.

    Those talks ended with a call by nearly 200 countries to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels — the first time the conference made that crucial pledge. Scientists have called for drastically slashing the world’s emissions by nearly half in the coming years to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial times.

    But the UAE as a whole still plans to increase its production capacity of oil to 5 million barrels a day in the coming years as it pursues more clean energy at home, a move decried by climate activists.

    “The demand for power is going to go up and up and up,” U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told an Abu Dhabi oil conference in November. “Today’s the day to announce that there is no energy transition. There is only energy addition.”

    He drew widespread applause from his Emirati hosts.

  447. says

    Kimmel roasts Trump family’s attempt to censor him

    immy Kimmel isn’t bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, who have both called for the comedian to be censored and removed from hosting his late-night show on ABC.

    Melania Trump falsely alleged in a social media post that a joke from Kimmel about her being an “expectant widow” was pro-violence, and cited as evidence the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which occurred two days after Kimmel’s broadcast.

    In the opening monologue to his Monday show, Kimmel described the Trumps’ demands as part of a “Twitter vomit storm” and noted that his joke “was about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.” [video]

    “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel added. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination, and they know that.”

    Kimmel said he agreed that “hateful and violent rhetoric is something that we should reject,” and suggested that “a great place to start” would be for Melania Trump to “have a conversation with your husband about it.”

    Trump has constantly engaged in hateful, pro-violence speech, both before he became a politician and particularly after.

    Kimmel concluded, “I am sorry that you and the president and everyone in that room on Saturday went through that. I really am. Just because no one got killed doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic and scary. We should come together and be best.” referring to the first lady’s murky “Be Best” initiative.

    Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump White House, was apparently incensed by Kimmel’s defiance.

    “Jimmy Kimmel is a shit human being,” Cheung wrote in a social media post. He went on to falsely claim that Kimmel made a “disgusting joke about assassinating the President” and had doubled down on it. Cheung concluded, “ABC needs to fire him immediately and he should be shunned for the rest of his life.”

    In the immediate aftermath of the call for his removal, Kimmel received support from FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat left in her position at the agency.

    “As we have seen after previous acts of political violence, we cannot allow this tragedy to become a pretext for silencing speech, even speech we find objectionable. An event meant to honor the freedom of the press must never become a justification for undermining it,” she said in a statement posted to social media.

    The Committee for the First Amendment, a free speech advocacy group led by actor Jane Fonda, said in a statement, “The right to mock, to challenge, and yes, to offend those in power, is foundational to democracy. From late-night television to political cartoons, comedy has long served as a powerful tool to expose hypocrisy, provoke debate, and drive accountability.”

    Trump keeps trying to get rid of Kimmel, who has mocked him at every step of his political journey. But even the administration’s attempt to use government power has so far failed to accomplish this goal.

    In fact, trying to censor Kimmel has led to more people supporting him and viewing his work, with the original roast video now past 4.4 million views. Kimmel keeps winning.

    Trump himself actually does call for people to be put to death. See comments 421 and 441.

  448. JM says

    RFU News: Tables turned: US is now buying $50 BILLION in Ukrainian weapons
    The US is going to buy up to $50 billion in drones and drone technology from Ukraine. Small Ukrainian drones are cheaper and better then any low end US drones.
    After working to develop our own for some time the US is now going to buying drones and drone technology. This is likely under pressure from the Iranian war, which has given a sudden need for drones in the field. The US can’t produce enough of our high end systems fast enough to keep up and is focused on anti-drone and anti-missile system. Ukraine has offensive drones they can provide. For Ukraine this both connects them to the US tighter and gives them cash they can spend on other immediate needs.

  452. says

    Let them eat bootstraps, says Trump agriculture chief

    While Republican lawmakers seek to pump a third of a billion in tax dollars into President Donald Trump’s vanity ballroom, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wants you to know the administration is also trying to kick millions off of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

    “Under [former President] Joe Biden, the SNAP program—the food stamp-program—grew by more than 40%. Of course, I believe they were buying votes for the election, putting as many people on as they could,” Rollins said, pushing her monstrous idea that feeding millions of Americans was merely part of the Democratic Party’s diabolical plot to win elections.

    “We now have moved 4.3 million Americans off of the food-stamp program,” she added triumphantly. “A lot of that is fraud. A lot of it is people taking the program that shouldn’t have been. And then a lot of it is just a better economy.” [video]

    Rollins also claimed that mostly only red states were sharing fraud data [Minnesota, for one, shared fraud data], citing context-free examples like “more than 144 that were receiving food stamps were driving Porsches.” [Oh FFS!]

    Of course, many, many more than a couple hundred people have been kicked off federal food assistance since Trump signed his tax law in July 2025. Rollins herself touted SNAP losing 4.3 million participants. And those losses have been felt across every state in the nation, according to a new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

    The idea that slapping stricter work requirements onto federal food assistance—a key aspect of Trump’s law—magically produces stable employment is also false. Similarly, though Rollins cited a supposedly “better economy” for the lower SNAP participation, she is ignoring the very real, quickly rising costs crushing working people.

    If this is what the GOP sees as success, the real question becomes: success for whom?

    Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is a mean, mean woman. She is sneering at poor-to-low-income people, and she is arrogant.

  453. says

    James Comey indicted over ’86 47′ post that officials say constituted Trump threat, by Associated Press

    Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on Tuesday in an investigation over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat against President Donald Trump, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and confirmed the indictment to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The charge or charges against Comey were not immediately known.

    It’s the second criminal case the Justice Department has brought against the longtime Trump foe, who said he assumed the arrangement of shells he saw on a walk, reading “86 47,” was a political message, not a call to violence. [Correct. Comey was calling for voting against Trump.]

    Comey is among multiple foes of the Republican president to come under scrutiny by the Justice Department over the last year, including as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche aims to position himself as the right person to hold the job permanently.

    Comey was interviewed by the Secret Service in May after Trump administration officials asserted that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president. Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

    […] Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by The Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.” [!!]

    Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview in May, accused Comey of knowing “exactly what that meant.”

    “A child knows what that meant,” Trump said. “If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”

    The fact that the Justice Department pursued a new case against the ex-FBI director months after a separate and unrelated indictment was dismissed will likely spark defense claims that the Trump administration is going out of its way to target Comey, who had overseen the early months of an investigation into whether the Republican president’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election.

    The former FBI director was indicted in September on charges that he lied to and obstructed Congress related to testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorized inside information about an investigation to be provided to a journalist. He denied any wrongdoing, and the case was subsequently dismissed after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who brought the indictment was illegally appointed.

    […] the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president — an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

    Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

    The department, for instance, is also pursuing a criminal investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan, another key figure in the Russia investigation — one of Trump’s chief grievances and a saga that he and his supporters have long sought retaliation for. […]

  455. birgerjohansson says

    A question: will the layoffs of people in the veteran administration be 6000 or 60 000 this year?
    I want to double check so I do not spread misinformation.

  456. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/uks-king-charles-iii-queen-camilla

    “UK’s King Charles III, Queen Camilla Arrive To Charm Trump Into Being Less Of Daft Prat”

    Heavy is the head of the man forced to go to Washington DC and try to talk President Donald John Trump down from his Iran-attacking, Russia-hugging, NATO-hating, world-pariah-dom frenzy! And from Monday until Thursday, that head shall be King Charles III’s, he has tootled over for a state visit. And at 3 p.m., Charles is scheduled to make history as the second British monarch who has addressed Congress since his Mummy did in 1991, and then heading to a state dinner in the evening.[…]

    Watch the show live below: [video]

    Never mind that maybe the whole visit should have been delayed for a security review following Saturday night’s melee at the Hinckley Hilton. But Trump picked himself off […] and immediately took to the nearest keyboard, podium, and phone line to direct attention to his grievances.

    Short version of relevant part: Unless you want BUNKER BABY to die to death, he needs his ballroom, and FUCK NATO for not offering up the HELP in Iran he never needed AND DOES NOT NEED actually yet asked NATO for, but just as a shit-test, and p.s., Europe is all a bunch of [P-word] losers, fuck James Comey, fuck any laws that might keep secret courts and FISA from spying on everybody, fuck Ruthless Records and fuck Eazy-E! GIVE BUNKER BABY BALLROOM!

    But Trump only meant, like, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. That guy, for that jerk Trump will maybe tear up the UNFAIR US-UK trade deal. But not King Charles III though! Trump looooovvves himself some King Charles III. Or rawther, loves his trappings […]

    […] following the couples’ arrival from Joint Base Andrews, and before attending a garden party hosted by the British Embassy, with a guest list that included “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, British Olympic diver Tom Daley, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Ted Cruz, among others” […] Behold the rare scene of Trump standing up straight, after assertively gripping poor Charles’s tender water-colouring hand! [video]

    Not pictured, the macho planes buzzing the sky, and guns bangy-banging the air. How good Trump feels showing dominance over a literal king, the living human embodiment of white-man hierarchical western cultural tradition! […] It is all even better than Trump’s state visit to London in 2018, when he walked in front of Chuck’s mom Liz […], or last September, when he brought one of the family’s life-long stalkers, Rupert Murdoch, along to a dinner at the family home, probably just to singe their crumpets.

    Yet if anyone on earth has a shot at calming Trump to heel […] it is Charles, the yin to Trump’s old-family-moneyed-white-man yang. […] Trump, new money motormouth striver, fighting tooth and nail his entire life so as to force as many people as possible to respect him, at the end of a sword if necessary, never able to get any closer to the British royal family than Ghislaine Maxwell before he got elected.

    […] They’ve been through some shit, King Charles and Queen Camilla, and still here they are, trying to distract Donald John Trump with horns, hats, dinners, and genteel garden parties before he destroys all of Iranian civilization, Western civilization, and makes everybody’s lorry-petrol cost five pounds a litre. They may be tired, but consider it their born and chosen duty before NATO, decency and/or their Anglican Lord!

    […] So as for Trump’s unsettling security issues, double-C shall stiffen upper lips, ignore the fact that Charles is suffering from some sort of cancer, and press on, with stops to come in New York and Virginia, concluding Thursday. […]

  457. says

    Some stuff Trump said that, for the most part, did not make it into media reports that sane-washed it out of Trump’s comments:

    “When you have lines of oil, through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships which has happened to them, what happens is that line explodes from within. Both mechanically and in the earth. Something happens where it just explodes, and they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never rebuild it the way it was. In other words, it will always be — if you rebuild it, it’s hard to rebuild it all, but it would only be about 50 percent of what it is right now. So it’s a very powerful thing that takes place. sort of having to do with nature. When that gets clogged at the end, in other words, you have to turn it off because you have no place to store this oil, either put it on ships or storage plants which they are just about finished with, an already bad thing’s going to happen.”

    […] “So I think they’re under pressure, but I think the big pressure is we’ve really, militarily, our military is incredible. I will rebuild our military. We’re asking for is — $1.2 is and $1.5 trillion. We have the greatest military in the world, so we’ll see what happens. I hope they’re going to be smart. And if they’re not smart, we’re to going to win anyway. Yeah Jacqui [Jacqui Heinrich, a host on Fox’s Sunday Briefing show], so three days from now approximately their oil production system could explode. Obviously, that would be a great challenge to the main source of revenue and have a big impact on the trajectory of things.”

    […] But it’s just, you know, one of these things that we’re going to get it, we’re going to win. But NATO was not there for us. And I would ask, would you like to join us? And they said, sir, we don’t want to get involved. Yeah, they said we don’t want to get involved. […] UK said, oh, no, we’ll send ships as soon as the war is over. That’s not good. We just can’t have that. So we are not happy. Let me put it way, we are not happy with NATO. NATO did not serve us well. We’ve been serving them for many years spending trillions of dollars, and when we wanted a little help, they were not there. I settled eight wars. This is one that I thought I would have had easiest time.

    […] I do have conversations with Putin, and I do have conversations with President Zelenskyy. […] I settled these wars, including India-Pakistan. That could have been a nuclear war. I settled it at the very beginning the prime minister of Pakistan said I saved from 30-50 million lives, it could have been more than that. […] We’re working on the Russia situation and Ukraine, and hopefully, we’re going to get it. […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/you-are-not-ready-for-trump-and-iran

    Much more at the link.

  458. birgerjohansson says

    “7 Things That Surprised Me About Sweden and Swedish Culture”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=XM9rgltvvhU

    My comment: In larger cities we see less of the trust-based shopping.

    I must correct a misunderstanding. There are no tariffs on products from other EU  nations. There is a general sales tax for all products. The prevalence of Swedish brands is in part because of transport costs.

    The Swedish concept of a welfare state, “folkhem” (literally “people’s home”) goes back to the 1920s and to a tradition of compromise and consensus building with minimal labour conflicts that saved Sweden from the growth of fascism. The rebuilding of society really took off with the post-war boom and stable political alliances.
    The last century, we have had strong grassroots movements, “folkrörelser”, and at least three political parties has been “folkrörelse”- partier rather than the small, top-heavy parties that are more common.

    As mentioned elsewhere, getting a work permit in Sweden is complicated for non-EU people.
    BTW the other Scandinavian countries are also pretty good places to live. The Norwegians, Danes and Finns are lovely people.

  459. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Trump quote at #457: “you can never rebuild it the way it was. […] if you rebuild it, it’s hard to rebuild it all, but it would only be about 50 percent”

    But Venezuela’s oil fields, three months ago, those he’ll rebuild for huge profits. /s

  460. says

    Washington Post link

    “Alleged gunman at correspondents’ dinner led Christian group in college”

    “Ex-classmates who knew Cole Tomas Allen, 31, at the California Institute of Technology say they were shocked by a message in which he appeared to use biblical teachings to justify violence.”

    Elizabeth Terlinden hoped it was a case of mistaken identity. Why would the guy she knew to be deeply Christian plot to kill the president? But as she read the accused gunman’s alleged email screed, she recognized her former college classmate’s voice.

    “Yeah,” she thought to herself, “that’s Cole.”

    His tone — methodical, peppered with what she interpreted as gallows humor — was eerily familiar nine years after they’d lost touch. Terlinden had served as a co-leader of the Caltech Christian Fellowship with Cole Tomas Allen, the 31-year-old man charged with attempted assassination after bolting toward a glitzy press gala where President Donald Trump was set to speak Saturday.

    […] Now the onetime STEM major who’d applied his hyper focus to Bible study at the California Institute of Technology was twisting the faith he held dear, she said, “like an engineer optimizing a design problem in terms of targeting people.”

    In a note authorities said he’d sent to family members just before he allegedly tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, armed with a shotgun, handgun and knives, and exchanged fire with Secret Service agents, Allen had apparently referenced Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.

    That message was first reported Sunday by the New York Post. Two law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation later confirmed its authenticity to The Washington Post.

    “Objection 1,” the missive read, “as a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.”

    The author went on to reject that idea, claiming those he intended to execute were harming others.

    “Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior,” the message read. “It is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”

    […] Allen’s religious background has attracted a national spotlight, with Trump and members of his administration describing the suspect as anti-Christian. [Nope, not exactly true. Not accurate.]

    “The guy is a sick guy. When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians,” Trump said Sunday on Fox News. “That’s one thing for sure, he hates Christians, a hatred.” [Nope. Trump is wrong.]

    Several of Allen’s former classmates, however, remember him as genuinely devout. In his writings, he thanked his family, “both personal and church,” for loving him. His objection-and-rebuttal format invokes the Gospel in what reads to some religious scholars like an attempt to justify bloodshed.

    Allen seemed to embrace Christian teachings while gravely misinterpreting them, said Ed Stetzer, dean of the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in Southern California.

    Jesus’s call to “turn the other cheek” was about de-escalation, Stetzer said. No part of that sermon, he added, rationalizes assassination.

    […] Allen’s screed seemed to center on “enemy elimination.”

    [I snipped details about Allen’s father, an elder at Grace United Reformed Church.]

    The former member recalled Allen as an enthusiastic participant in group discussions but not domineering. She did not remember Allen ever sharing strong political views.

    Allen did mention coming from a Calvinist background. In those days, the group occasionally wrestled with key tenets of that theology — especially the “election of the church,” or the idea that God chose to condemn some human beings and save others.

    […] She knew him to oppose homosexuality and remembered him backing a proposal to ban fellowship leaders from dating members of the same sex. But after hearing pushback, he changed his mind. He knew her to be bisexual, Terlinden said, yet treated her like everyone else.

    So he seemed flexible. But flexible enough to eventually turn to murder?

    “I could see him dying for his beliefs,” she said. “I just couldn’t see him killing for them.”

  461. birgerjohansson says

    There are countless videos about other European countries, I concentrate on my own as I can comment on details. I would encourage people from other European nations to post here for the benefit of the curious.
    .
    “Why Sweden Feels Better Than the U.S. (as an American Abroad)”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=mmvsaregY7A
    The “fika” culture (taking breaks for coffee/tea with biscuits and cookies) can add to your weight! If you are an introvert that do not want to talk all the time, the northern parts will be perfect.
    .
    A detail not mentioned in the videos is, a lot of people use their right to vote. This makes it harder for Trumpists and suchlike to establish a foothold. As we have seen in Britain and USA, low voting attendance opens the gates for the vandals.

  462. Militant Agnostic says

    Trump quoted by Lynna @457

    “When you have lines of oil, through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships which has happened to them, what happens is that line explodes from within. Both mechanically and in the earth. Something happens where it just explodes, and they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never rebuild it the way it was. In other words, it will always be — if you rebuild it, it’s hard to rebuild it all, but it would only be about 50 percent of what it is right now. So it’s a very powerful thing that takes place. sort of having to do with nature. When that gets clogged at the end, in other words, you have to turn it off because you have no place to store this oil, either put it on ships or storage plants which they are just about finished with, an already bad thing’s going to happen.

    I am a retired petroleum engineer who spent the majority of my career analyzing pressure buildups of shut-in wells. All I have to say about this is WHAT A FUCKING IDIOT!! Oil wells and fields get shut in-in all the time. The worst thing that can happen is that some flowing wells may need help to resume flowing because the pressure due to the column of liquid that has accumulated in the wellbore is equal to the reservoir pressure.

  463. johnson catman says

    re Militant Agnostic@262: Is there ANYTHING that comes out of the mouth (or his fingers) of The Orange Turd that doesn’t make you say “WHAT A FUCKING IDIOT!!”?

  465. Militant Agnostic says

    johnson catman @463

    I am sure there is the occasional short phrase that is to small to contain any idiocy.

  466. says

    Washington Post link

    “Image of Trump to be featured inside new passports to mark America’s 250th”

    “The president’s likeness — along with Declaration of Independence text and the American flag — will be on an inside page of at least some new passports.” [Images at the link]

    The State Department will begin offering a new version of U.S. passports featuring an image of President Donald Trump inside, said two U.S. administration officials, the latest effort to cement Trump’s brand on the nation.

    A picture of Trump — surrounded by the text of the Declaration of Independence and the American flag — will be included on one of the inside pages of the new passports, with the president’s signature in gold appearing below it, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence, said officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the program before its unveiling.

    Another page will include a picture of the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence, according to images from the State Department.

    It was not immediately clear whether Americans signing up for new passports or renewing their old ones would automatically receive the passports with Trump’s face in them or have a choice for the traditional design. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said there would be a “limited number” of specially designed passports released for America’s 250th anniversary in July. [Will they charge a bigger fee for the specially designed passports?]

    “These passports will feature customized artwork and enhanced imagery while maintaining the same security features that make the U.S. Passport the most secure documents in the world,” Pigott said in a statement.

    The commemorative passports would be yet another instance where Trump has placed his name or likeness — or both — on an institution, initiative or government good since the start of his second term as president. He has proposed naming everything from tax-advantaged investment accounts for children to a new class of Navy battleships after himself. [“Commemorative passports” sounds like the beginning of a marketing campaign.]

    In October, Trump administration officials proposed minting a $1 coin featuring Trump’s image on it, also to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. According to draft images confirmed as real by U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach, one side of the coin would feature Trump’s profile, along with the words “LIBERTY,” “IN GOD WE TRUST,” and “1776-2026.” The other side of the coin would feature Trump standing with a clenched right fist in front of an American flag and the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT” — a reference to his chant after the 2024 assassination attempt at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. [social media post, with images]

    Trump’s face also appears alongside George Washington’s on some 2026 national parks passes, which typically feature nature photography highlighting one of the parks. Passholders have been warned that covering Trump’s face with stickers or otherwise altering it somehow could void their passes.

    In December, Kennedy Center board members, who were installed by Trump, voted to change the name of the performing arts center to include Trump’s name. In less than a day, it had been added to the building itself. That same month, the administration also renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace to the “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.”

    In February, a large banner with Trump’s face on it and the words “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN” was hung on the facade of the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington.

  467. says

    Militant Agnostic @462, thanks for that additional information! Trump imagined a fact-free scenario and then he spouted that as if it were true. Yes, Trump is a fucking idiot.

    In other news: Ukraine says it shot down 33,000 Russian drones in March, a monthly record From the Associated Press, as posted by NBC News.

    “Ukraine has developed cutting-edge and battle-tested drone technology that has proved essential in holding back Russia’s bigger army and has drawn military interest from around the world.”

    Ukraine used interceptor systems to shoot down more than 33,000 Russian drones of various types in March, a record monthly figure since Moscow launched its all-out invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine’s defense minister claimed.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s domestically developed long-range attack drones struck a Russian oil refinery and terminal on the Black Sea for the third time in less than two weeks, prompting the evacuation of local people and a Russian warning of possible “environmental consequences.”

    Ukraine has developed cutting-edge and battle-tested drone technology that has proved essential in holding back Russia’s bigger army and has drawn military interest from around the world.

    Interceptor drones as part of a comprehensive air defense system are now being sought by Middle East and Gulf countries amid the Iran war, according to Ukrainian officials.

    Ukraine is scaling up supplies of interceptor drones to thwart Russian aerial attacks, and its military has introduced a new command within the air force to boost the country’s capabilities, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in a post on Telegram late Monday.

    Ukraine says its deep-strike range is growing

    Ukraine’s offensive capabilities have also improved, with the Defense Ministry saying Tuesday that the country’s forces have more than doubled the range of their deep-strike capabilities since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

    At that time, Ukrainian forces were able to hit military targets about 630 kilometers (400 miles) away, it said. They are now striking targets as far as roughly 1,750 kilometers (1,100 miles) behind enemy lines, the ministry said in a statement.

    That improvement has allowed Ukraine to hit Russian oil installations that provide crucial revenue for Moscow’s war effort. It has also targeted manufacturing plants that supply Russia’s armed forces. […]

  468. says

    Hospital CEOs defend charging patients more at facilities

    “Facility fees were a major focus during a hearing on the high costs of hospital care.”

    Hospital CEOs came under fire at a House hearing Tuesday, with congress accusing them of overcharging patients and exploiting the system.

    Executives from HCA Healthcare, CommonSpirit Health, New York-Presbyterian and ECU Health testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, defending their pricing practices — including that they should be able to charge higher prices for the same services compared with what patients might pay at independent practices.

    Hospitals accounted for nearly one-third of U.S. healthcare spending in 2024 or about $1.6 trillion, according to a report in the journal Health Affairs. Another study, published in JAMA Health Forum, found that patients tend to pay more for the same doctor’s visits when their doctor is part of a hospital or private equity firm. […]

    Throughout the hearing, Republicans cited instances of hospitals in their states charging high prices at outpatient facilities affiliated with the hospital. These prices are often inflated by so-called facility fees, which are not related to the care provided but instead help cover expenses like staff and equipment.

    Rep. David Kustoff, R-Tenn., pointed to an example of an independent ambulatory surgical center in his state that charged a facility fee of $656 for a colonoscopy, while an unnamed hospital outpatient facility charged a $1,222 facility fee. […]

    Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., said patients in his state are charged significantly more at hospital-owned outpatient clinics than at clinics owned and operated by physicians. [I have personal experience that corroborates this.]

    “How can you justify facility fees on outpatient facilities when there is no meaningful difference in the care delivered or the quality of the care?” Steube said.

    The hospital CEOs pushed back, saying the higher fees are because hospitals are often reimbursed below the cost of providing the care, particularly by government programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

    They also said the higher prices reflect the higher quality of their care, the cost of treating sicker patients and a federal requirement for hospitals to care for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. Privately owned clinics and facilities can generally have the right to choose what patients they see and can demand payment up front.

    “We’re the only participants in the healthcare value chain that have that obligation,” said Michael Waldrum, the CEO of North Carolina-based hospital system ECU Health. “Doctors, nurses, insurance companies, drug companies do not.”

    Democrats were far more muted in their criticism of the pricing practices of the CEOs who appeared before the committee, accusing Republicans of using the hearing as a distraction from the impact of Medicaid cuts, which Republicans passed as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill last year.

    “This is more a deflection hearing than a hospital hearing,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said.

    Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the committee’s ranking member, said Republicans “keep trying to convince people that it’s about just the providers,” adding that “it’s about many of their policies as well.”

  469. says

    Zelenskyy threatens Israelis with sanctions over stolen grain

    “The announcement underscores escalating tensions between the 2 nations, whose ties have been strained by Israel’s ongoing relationship with Russia.”

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy threatened to sanction Israeli individuals and businesses buying grain produced in regions occupied by Russia.

    The Ukrainian government is preparing a sanctions package targeting both the people transporting the grain, as well as those on the other side of the transaction in Israel, Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Tuesday.

    His announcement heralds escalating tensions between two nations that are both broadly in the same Western camp. Ties, however, have been strained by Israel’s continued relationship with Russia. [embedded link to source is available at the main link]

    Two vessels allegedly carrying looted Ukrainian wheat were headed toward Israel this week to dock in Haifa and unload their cargo. Israeli newspaper Haaretz previously reported that four shipments of stolen grain from Ukraine have already been unloaded in Israel to date.

    According to Zelenskyy, Kyiv had taken “all necessary steps through diplomatic channels to prevent such incidents,” but that had not been enough to halt the deliveries.

    “This is not — and cannot be — legitimate business. The Israeli authorities cannot be unaware of which ships are arriving at the country’s ports and what cargo they are carrying,” he added.

    The two sides already traded barbs Monday, when Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accused Ukraine of not providing evidence for the allegations.

    That came in response to remarks by his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, who said it was “difficult to understand Israel’s lack of appropriate response to Ukraine’s legitimate request.”

  470. says

    James Comey agrees with our forecast that here in northern Scarizona it’s going to be 86 this afternoon and overnight it will reach 47

  471. says

    Seriously, I’ve read in many places and heard on NPR (Nothing Pertinent Reported) about UAE leaving OPEC. HOWEVER, none of these useless mainslime news outlets have mentioned that it’s because they are now puppets of israel who has given them ‘iron dome’ defense tech. and israel will buy their oil. WTF

  472. says

    Follow-up to comment 453.

    Comey’s second indictment shows the lengths Blanche will go to please Trump

    “The latest indictment of the former FBI director is ridiculous, but it’s part of an unsubtle pattern from the acting attorney general.”

    Related video at the link. Good discussion from the guest on the MS NOW segment, including Carol Leonnig.

    When Donald Trump’s Justice Department first indicted former FBI Director James Comey last year, it was a devastating moment for American law enforcement. MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian reported that within the DOJ, many insiders believed it was “among the worst abuses” in the history of the institution. Describing the circumstances as “shocking,” Dilanian added, “It’s hard to overstate how a big a moment this is.”

    Indeed, among the most striking things about the Comey indictment was it had barely a pretense of propriety. A failing, desperate and unpopular president wanted a critic to be charged, without regard for merit; he publicly demanded the indictment; and he found officials who were willing to feed his appetite for revenge. […]

    Alan Rozenshtein, a former DOJ official who now teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School, told The New York Times, “What we are seeing is the almost wholesale collapse of the Justice Department as an organization based on the rule of law.”

    The case ultimately collapsed, but not before a federal judge blasted prosecutors for what he described as an “indict first, investigate later” [accurate description] attitude in the criminal case against Comey. Around the same time, a bipartisan group of former federal prosecutors and judges wrote in a court filing that the case was an “assault” on the justice system.

    In theory, Trump’s DOJ should have been chastened by the condemnations and by the case’s failure. In practice, the shamelessly weaponized department decided to give it another try. MS NOW reported:

    The Trump Justice Department has charged former FBI Director James Comey again, following the dismissal of his first indictment due to the illegal appointment of the prosecutor who secured it.

    The new indictment involves allegations that Comey made threats against President Donald Trump in a May 2025 social media posting of a picture of shells on the beach that spelled out “8647″ […]

    […] While plenty of political figures from both parties have used “86” over the years as a shorthand for rejecting foes, the president and his team argued in apparent seriousness last spring that the former FBI director had used Instagram to call for violence against Trump by way of a seashell-related code.

    Nearly a full year later, it’s led to a head-spinning criminal indictment.

    […] acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was in a position to either green light the indictment or to quash it. The former Trump defense lawyer apparently chose the former.

    […] Amid speculation that Blanche wants Trump to nominate him as Bondi’s permanent successor, the Republican lawyer’s campaign has not exactly been subtle.

    Over the course of a few weeks, the Blanche-led DOJ has prosecuted a progressive group the president hates, intensified a politically motivated purge, advocated firing squads as a method of federal execution while slamming Joe Biden in gratuitous ways, intervened in support of Trump’s ballroom crusade and indicted a former aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci (a leading figure on the White House’s enemies list) before indicting Comey (another leading figure on the White House’s enemies list.)

    At an official event this week, the acting attorney general offered such sycophantic praise for the president he seemed to be auditioning to star in a Trump campaign ad. [Video]

    […] Blanche’s actions are about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

    […] Blanche recently told reporters, “If President Trump chooses to keep me as acting [attorney general], that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and I go back to being the [deputy attorney general], that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’”

  473. says

    USA Today reported:

    President Donald Trump endorsed changing the name of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to National Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Truth Social post on Sunday, April 26.

    The name change would convert the agency’s acronym from ICE to NICE.

    As Steve Benen pointed out:

    Trump eyes an ICE rebranding effort, mistaking a substantive problem for a PR mess.

    Whether the president understands this or not, giving ICE a “NICE” makeover won’t fix the agency’s systemic problems. […]

    the president argued that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE needed to “start talking” about their work, at which point the American public will learn what agents have been up to and be duly impressed.

    The reality, however, was that the American public already seemed well aware of what ICE agents were up to. That was the problem. To conclude that the agency was struggling with a public relations crisis was to overlook the inconvenient fact that DHS and ICE have been guided by the wrong policies, not the wrong talking points.

    That’s a challenge that a “NICE” name change won’t address. […}

    Link

  474. says

    PERSIAN GULF (The Borowitz Report)—Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was “caught red handed” trying to establish his own tollbooth in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard reported on Tuesday.

    Unsatisfied with the billions he has extracted from an array of Gulf states, Kushner had hoped to cash in on the Hormuz bonanza before he was nabbed by the Iranians.

    “Why should you guys be the only ones who get in on this grift?” an irate Kushner shrieked at the Revolutionary Guards as they zip-tied him.

    Asked to comment on her husband’s detention in Iran, Ivanka Trump said, “It is what it is.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/iranians-catch-jared-kushner-trying

  475. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Militant Agnostic @462: “Oil wells and fields get shut in-in all the time. The worst thing that can happen is that some flowing wells may need help to resume flowing”

    Coal mines OTOH…

    Wikipedia – Centralia mine fire

    a coal-seam fire that has been burning in the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962. Its original cause and start date are still a matter of debate. It is burning at depths of up to 300 feet (90 m) over an 8-mile (13 km) stretch of 3,700 acres (15 km2). At its current rate, it could continue to burn for over 250 years. Due to the fire, Centralia was mostly abandoned in the 1980s. There were 1,500 residents at the time the fire is believed to have started, but as of 2017 Centralia has a population of 5 […] In 1992, Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey invoked eminent domain on all properties in the borough, condemning all the buildings within. […] In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service revoked Centralia’s ZIP code […] The Centralia mine fire also extended beneath the town of Byrnesville, a few miles to the south. The town had to be abandoned and leveled.

    The Centralia area has now grown to be a tourist attraction. Visitors come to see the smoke and/or steam on Centralia’s empty streets […] Increased air pressure induced by the heat from the mine fires has interacted with heavy rainfalls in the area, which rush into the abandoned mines to form Pennsylvania’s only geyser

  478. birgerjohansson says

    Good news for a change.
    The actor Sam Neill (Jurassic Park and the Lovecraftian ‘In the Mouth of Madness’) is now officially cancer-free. Every New Year’s Eve it is a tradition Swedes watch him in the film Ivanhoe.

  481. says

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Jimmy Kimmel targeted by Trump again as FCC opens sudden ABC review

    After Trump and Melania publicly demanded Jimmy Kimmel be fired over a joke, Trump’s FCC suddenly launched a review of ABC licenses. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez reacts.

    Video is 8:21 minutes, and is an excellent presentation.

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Hayes: He wants a ballroom. He wants revenge. You’re paying for it.

    “We all know Trump’s kingly demands. He wants a ballroom built and his enemies persecuted,” says Chris Hayes.

    Video is 8:43 minutes. Good presentation.

  482. says

    Pointless bureaucratic chest-thumping is misguided. Asking Americans to pick up the tab for expensive bureaucratic chest-thumping is worse.

    Related video at the link.

    To hear Donald Trump and his team tell it, the Department of Defense’s name has already officially been changed to the “Department of War.” That’s never been true.

    As the president’s own directive on this makes clear, he’s “rebranded” the department with what is effectively a secondary nickname, but the gambit, launched last summer, was largely about symbolism and political theater. It takes an act of Congress to change the name of federal departments and agencies, and since that hasn’t happened, the Defense Department is still the Defense Department, whether the White House and Secretary Pete Hegseth want to play make-believe or not.

    […] Nearly eight months after the rebranding effort was first launched, it appears the Pentagon wants lawmakers to codify the administration’s priority. The Hill reported:

    The Pentagon has asked Congress to codify its ‘Department of War’ renaming, saying it will cost nearly $52 million [!!] to complete and will not have a ‘significant impact’ on President Trump’s fiscal 2027 defense budget request. […]

    The request would make around 7,600 changes to the federal law, including officially changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War, Secretary of Defense to Secretary of War, among other updates.

    In case this isn’t obvious, the proposed name change remains an entirely unnecessary priority, which sends all of the wrong messages to the world about the United States and its intentions. Career military leaders didn’t ask for this, and for the last several months, the proposed change did little more than annoy Pentagon insiders.

    What’s more, it’s tempting to think Hegseth and other DOD leaders would put aside trivial pursuits like this during an ongoing war in Iran, which, two months in, has no end in sight.

    But there’s also the question of the price tag.

    The Pentagon doesn’t just want Congress to embrace the rebranding, it also wants lawmakers to spend almost $52 million in taxpayer money. What the request neglected to mention is that the actual costs are likely to be even greater. [!]

    As The New Republic noted, the department has already spent roughly $50 million in adopting the new name [!], and according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, the whole endeavor would likely end up costing as much as $125 million. [!] […]

  483. says

    The case against Comey will almost certainly fail. For Trump, that’s not the point

    “The new indictment against the former FBI director checks a set of boxes for the president, none of which has anything to do with securing a conviction.”

    Related video at the link.

    It might seem like ancient history, but nine years ago, Donald Trump saw James Comey as a political ally. In fact, in January 2017, just two days into his first term, the president appeared to literally blow a kiss at the then-FBI director at a White House event, thanks in part to Comey’s role in undermining Hillary Clinton’s 2016 candidacy.

    The affection did not endure. Days later, Trump told Comey he expected “loyalty,” and after Comey instead did his job, the president fired him in the hopes of derailing the FBI’s investigation into the Russia scandal.

    When Comey, a lifelong Republican, went public with his concerns and criticisms about Trump, the president came to see the ousted FBI chief as one of his most important enemies, and in April 2018 he started demanding that Comey be prosecuted for crimes that Trump struggled to identify.

    It took several years, but the president is seeing the results he’s long sought.

    Months after Trump’s Justice Department brought absurd criminal charges against the former FBI director, in a case that ultimately collapsed, prosecutors secured a second indictment against Comey this week, claiming that he used Instagram to call for violence against Trump by way of a seashell-related code.

    […] Legal experts are reportedly “shell-shocked” over how preposterous the case is, and for good reason: No fair-minded observer could defend or take seriously such spurious charges.

    […] In her latest column, Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for Michigan and an MS NOW legal analyst, explained:

    Even if the Justice Department cannot convict Comey, prosecutors can make his life miserable for several months by forcing him to pay for a lawyer, occupy his time and attention, emotionally exhaust his family and disparage his reputation.

    I don’t doubt that the president and those who are doing his bidding would be delighted to see Comey found guilty, but given how pitiful the case is, that’s unrealistic.

    […] Trump appears eager to make it clear he can orchestrate federal prosecutions based entirely on his whims and petty desires, without regard for merit or evidence. […]

    Trump is sending an unsubtle signal to other federal prosecutors who might be inclined to prioritize the rule of law over the White House’s wishes. Indeed, when it comes to the pursuit of the former FBI director, the prosecutors who chose not to bring charges against Comey were replaced with those who would follow political instructions.

    As a second set of charges moves forward, the message to other prosecutors couldn’t be clearer: Play along with the revenge campaign or face unemployment. [And Trump is using taxpayer money to pursue his revenge campaign.]

    […] the Comey prosecution allows the president to demonstrate he can force his perceived enemies to endure legal, personal and financial hardships as a direct consequence of their defiance of him, even if the indictments are a joke and the defendants are ultimately acquitted.

    Trying to convict the former FBI director is largely irrelevant. The corruption is the point.

  484. says

    Washington Post link

    “Supreme Court limits key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act”

    “The decision could touch off a scramble by Republicans to redraw minority-majority congressional districts, especially in the South, that could cost many Black Democrats their seats.” Bad news!

    The Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply weakened a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act, a ruling that limits the consideration of race in drawing voting maps and could usher in Republican gains in the House.

    The decision is expected to touch off a scramble by Republicans to redraw minority-majority districts, especially in the South. New districts could shift the balance of power in Congress by imperiling the reelection prospects of some Black Democrats, possibly as soon as November’s midterms in some instances.

    The court’s conservative majority found Louisiana unlawfully discriminated by race when it created a second majority-Black congressional district to comply with the VRA. But the court did not strike down the provision, known as Section 2, as unconstitutional as many voting rights advocates had feared.

    The ruling carries significant symbolic weight, effectively scaling back the last major pillar of a 60-year-old law long considered one of the marquee achievements of the civil rights era. The Voting Rights Act bans discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes, and has helped greatly increase minority representation in state and federal offices.

    In an ideologically divided 6-3 ruling, the conservative justices created a higher bar for the law’s powerful provision that allows states to use race to draw maps that help minority communities elect candidates of their choice. Section 2, as it is known, is aimed at combating discriminatory gerrymandering that weakens the power of Black, Latino, Native American and Asian voters.

    […] Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the opinion for the majority.

    “Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act … was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” Alito wrote. “Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s [Section] 2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

    The decision came over the sharp objections of the court’s three liberals. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the dissent from the bench, signaling strong disagreement.

    “Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote in the dissent.

    The decision continues a trend by the court’s conservative majority to roll back race-conscious efforts to redress discriminatory practices. It comes two years after another major decision to restrict race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

    […] Professor Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, said Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act still stands but is all but eviscerated.

    “The opinion weakens application of the Voting Rights Act to make it a much weaker, and potentially toothless, law,” Hasen wrote on his blog. “It is hard to overstate how much this weakens the Voting Rights Act.”

    NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement the ruling is a major strike to minority political power.

    “Today’s decision is a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities,” Johnson said. “The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy. This ruling is a major setback for our nation and threatens to erode the hard-won victories we’ve fought, bled, and died for.” […]

    This is a developing story. It will be updated.

    More at the link, including the history of the dispute over Louisiana voting districts.

  485. says

    Alito Pens Decision That ‘Eviscerates’ The Voting Rights Act

    The Roberts Court finally achieved its years-long goal of killing the Voting Rights Act Wednesday, publishing a ruling that, the liberal justices say, will make proving racial discrimination in redistricting virtually impossible.

    […] “Of course, t{he majority’s opinion] is understated, even antiseptic,”Justice Elena Kagan continued in her dissent. “The majority claims only to be “updat[ing]” our Section 2 law, as though through a few technical tweaks. But in fact, those ‘updates’ eviscerate the law…”

    Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by all five other justices in the bench’s right wing. Kagan was joined in her dissent by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Clarence Thomas also wrote a concurrence joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

    Alito defangs the law by unilaterally cancelling out congressional fixes to it — primarily, that plaintiffs bringing claims of racial vote dilution no longer have to prove that the legislators drawing the maps did so to purposefully discriminate. This bar had proved so difficult to overcome, especially as legislators became more adept at using facially neutral language, that Congress adopted amendments to the VRA asserting that if the maps have a discriminatory effect, that’s enough. Chief Justice John Roberts, then working in the Reagan administration, spearheaded the unsuccessful effort to doom the passage of those amendments.

    Alito hand waves this history away, in part, by echoing Roberts’ reasoning in an earlier decision that eviscerated the VRA’s preclearance requirement, which required jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination in voting to submit changes in election laws to the federal government for clearance before they could take effect. Roberts, in Shelby County v. Holder, said that the country had made such great strides in racial equality that the preventative measure was no longer necessary — ushering in a flood of new voter restrictions, particularly in the states that comprised the old Confederacy.

    “Vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, which have made great strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination,” Alito wrote. [mostly bullshit … “great strides” left a lot racial discrimination in place]

    He also grounds his ruling in the 15th Amendment, a grotesque perversion of the Reconstruction Amendments to justify an opinion that will disenfranchise Black voters and, likely, severely diminish Black representation in the south.

    […] In her dissent, Kagan traces the Roberts Court’s unrelenting hostility to the VRA, from Shelby County in 2013 to Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee in 2021, which essentially ended plaintiffs’ ability to use the VRA to overturn discriminatory voting practices, and now to Louisiana v. Callais, which destroys the law’s last remaining weapon.

    Today’s finding, she wrote, is the “last, and surely the hardest, for just three Terms ago the Court upheld a vote-dilution challenge to a districting map in a case much like this one — preserving Section 2 as a tool to prevent racially discriminatory redistricting.”

    She adds: “It avails itself again of the tools used before to dismantle the Act: untenable readings of statutory text, made-up and impossible-to-meet evidentiary requirements, disregard for precedent, and disdain for congressional judgment.” [All true.]

    The majority doesn’t bother to explain how a Section 2 case under the new requirements could possibly be won. How can plaintiffs draw a map that advances a red state’s partisan goals while also creating minority districts that will likely vote Democrat? How do they prove racially discriminatory intent? Do they need leaked emails or phone conversations in which legislators voice their desire to disempower Black voters?

    […] Any distaste for parties picking their own voters has fallen away completely from the majority’s view, in which Alito asserts that it is states’ ironclad right to further their political aims by contorting their districts to ensure that their preferred candidates cannot be beaten. [!]

    “Today, though, the majority straight-facedly holds that the Voting Rights Act must be brought low to make the world safe for partisan gerrymanders,” Kagan quipped.

    Read the opinion here: [PDF is embedded at the main link]

  486. says

    Russia, aided and abetted by the Chinese industrial juggernaut stole a march on the Ukrainians in swarming the battlefield with fiber-optic cable assisted drones which cannot be hampered or thwarted by electronic warfare interference systems. The Chinese have continued to put a massive thumb on the supply chain scale in order to give Russia an advantage over Ukraine, thereby creating a significant imbalance in short-range tactical drone warfare capabilities. In August 2025, Russia received 328,000 miles of cable, while Ukraine received just 72 miles. This cable, as well as the associated lithium batteries is crucial for controlling drones that evade electronic jamming.

    According to: https://militarnyi.com/en/news/china-supplied-more-than-500-thousand-km-of-fiber-optic-cable-to-russia-in-august/ […]

    Not only that, but China has also gone as far as now prohibiting NATO allies from supplying Ukraine with drone components, closing the workarounds Kyiv used to sustain its drone warfare against Russia. According to Euromaidan […]

    the Ukrainians announced just last month that Ukraine has achieved a major milestone in 2026 by producing drones without relying on Chinese components, significantly reducing risks from export restrictions and securing supply chains. While early in the war, nearly all drones were Chinese-made, by 2026, domestic production and European suppliers have largely filled the gap, enabling “China-free” drone assembly.

    yesterday(April 28, 2026) Ukraine announced that not only are they making most of their tactical FPVs domestically but eight Ukrainian manufacturers have produced and tested new tactical FPVs with decidedly cutting edge envelope-pushing electronic warfare(EW) defeating attributes … no fiber-optic tether cables needed […]

    Link

  487. says

    The forecast for today for northern Scarizona it’s going to reach 86 this afternoon and overnight it will drop to 47.

  488. says

    SCROTUM 6 destroyed voting for us all. Can anyone factually dispute that?
    I’m so angry at all the increasing malicious magat destruction of what’s left of this country.
    The following is not the best answer. But, it has become a reality now: https://www.rsn.org/001/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-a-dictatorship-the-americans-queueing-up-to-renounce-their-citizenship.html
    I was compelled to speak.. But, out of respect for Lynna’s work, I’ll not post any further comments today.

  489. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Igniting an international incident on Tuesday, Charles III of the United Kingdom angered GOP lawmakers by delivering a speech riddled with complete sentences.

    The offensive sentences, characterized by an incendiary deployment of subject-verb agreement, drew howls of outrage from congressional Republicans.

    “Speech bad,” said Ron Johnson.

    “Sucked,” said Lauren Boebert.

    “Urgggh,” said Tommy Tuberville.

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/king-charles-alienates-republicans

    Satire

  490. says

    Fed’s Powell surprises, announces intent to stay on the board ‘for a period of time’ after his term ends

    “Trump won’t be pleased with the Fed chair’s announcement, but the president has no one to blame but himself for the developments.”

    Headed into this week, it was widely assumed that the Federal Reserve would agree to leave existing interest rates intact, as the nation grappled with rising inflation and slow growth, and that’s precisely what happened: In what was widely seen as Jerome Powell’s final meeting as Fed chair, the Federal Open Market Committee did exactly what everyone expected it to do.

    There was, however, one significant surprise that soon followed. [social media post, with video]

    “After my term as chair ends on May 15, I will continue to serve as a governor for a period of time to be determined,” Powell said at a press conference.

    Powell can hold his position until 2028, but Fed chairs nearly always step down at the end of their term, unless they’re reappointed, especially as their successor prepares to take the reins.

    The incumbent Fed chair, however, has decided to stick around — for now.

    That’s not what Donald Trump, who has spent the entirety of his second term publicly and privately raging against Powell, wanted to hear, but the irony is that the president is directly responsible for the surprising announcement. CNBC reported:

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday said he will stay on the Board of Governors for an indefinite period while a probe into the renovation of the central bank’s headquarters continues. [!]

    “I’ve said that I will not leave the board until this investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality, and I stand by that. I’m encouraged by recent developments, and I’m watching the remaining steps in this process carefully,” Powell said near the beginning of his post-meeting news conference.

    In other words, the White House launched a legal, political and procedural fight, and Powell feels compelled to stick around until that fight has been fully resolved, even as Senate Republicans prepare to confirm Kevin Warsh as his successor. (A Trump-backed criminal case against the Fed chair collapsed late last week.)

    Time will tell what, if anything, the president has to say about this, but let’s not forget that just two weeks ago, Trump told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo that he will “have to fire” Powell if the Fed chair does not step down.

    It’s not at all clear that the president has that authority, should he try to exercise it. Watch this space.

  491. says

    Amid energy crisis, administration uses tax dollars to scuttle renewable energy projects

    “American consumers will pay for the privilege of paying more to turn on the lights, all while polluting our own air during an energy crisis.”

    The war with Iran and its broader effects have caused shocks and chaos across the energy industry, offering a timely reminder that it’s in Americans’ interest to embrace renewables as quickly and as robustly as possible, not only because they’re cleaner and cheaper, but also to help shield U.S. consumers from international turmoil.

    It’s a basic idea the Trump administration doesn’t want to understand.

    Last month, the Republican administration announced it had agreed to pay a foreign company almost $1 billion in American taxpayer money to abandon two wind farm projects that would have produced enough electricity to power more than 1.3 million homes and businesses across New York, New Jersey and North Carolina. [!]

    At the administration’s insistence, the company will instead proceed with different energy projects that will cost more and pollute more — or put another way, thanks to a model imposed by Donald Trump, American consumers will pay for the privilege of paying more to turn on the lights, all while polluting our own air during an energy crisis.

    This month, it happened again. The New York Times reported:

    The Trump administration will pay energy companies hundreds of millions of dollars to abandon their plans to build two wind farms off the U.S. coast [!], the Interior Department said Monday […]

    The firms will forfeit their leases in federal waters for the two wind farms. … In exchange, the companies have pledged to invest that money in oil and gas projects. [WTF?]

    A related report from The Associated Press puts the price of the shift in total at almost $900 million.

    I’m mindful that the president has been on a personal crusade against wind power since he lost a fight a decade ago to block a project visible from one of his golf courses in Scotland. This generated such hysterical hatred for wind power that Trump, in 2019, publicly suggested that the sound generated by wind turbines “causes cancer.”

    But that doesn’t make the latest developments any easier to defend. At a time when the U.S. would benefit from more renewable energy projects, the Trump administration is using roughly $2 billion in taxpayer money to scuttle renewable energy projects.

    It’s a detail consumers should keep in mind the next time they’re writing a large check to their utility company.

  492. says

    The White House ups the ante, characterizes Trump as a ‘king’ again

    “When the president isn’t promoting the idea that he’s Jesus, he and his team have been eager to present him as a monarch.”

    Related video at the link.

    On Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump’s State Department confirmed that a newly redesigned U.S. passport would soon be available with a picture of the president’s face superimposed over the Declaration of Independence. It was emblematic of the Republican administration’s ongoing effort to glorify Trump, as if officials were members of a personality cult, celebrating a monarch.

    Around the same time, MS NOW reported:

    As [British King Charles] delivered remarks to Congress, the official White House X account posted a photo from the monarch’s visit to the White House earlier today. The image shows Trump and Charles laughing, with the caption “TWO KINGS.” [Social media post]

    Trump has often likened himself to royalty and “No Kings” has become a frequent rallying cry against his executive overreach.

    Subtle it was not.

    The message, obviously part of a trolling exercise, was a familiar one for those who keep an eye on the White House. Indeed, when the president isn’t promoting the idea that he’s Jesus, he’s appeared eager to present himself as a monarch.

    Shortly after his second inaugural, the Republican described himself as a “king,” which came just days after he similarly declared, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” a phrase often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.

    It was around this time when an official White House social media account also released a portrait showing a grinning Trump wearing a crown. [social media post, with photo]

    Months later, the president also apparently thought it’d be a good idea to post an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet and dropping a plane-load of excrement on his critics.

    Trump has already made his hostility toward democracy clear. The more he and his team “joke” about him being a king, the more they reinforce broader concerns about the president’s animosity toward his own country’s system of government.

    It’s against this backdrop that The Atlantic published a new report on Trump’s private conversations with confidants, in which he seems to think of himself as a world-historical figure along the lines of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon, as opposed to American giants like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

    The report […] added, “The tendency to self-aggrandize is as fundamental a feature of Trump as his sculpted hair and overlong red ties. But it has become even more important in setting his priorities and steering his actions as he hurtles through his final term in office. He no longer has to worry about the judgment of voters and can instead focus on what he’s decided really matters: ascending to become one of history’s so-called great men and leaving an enduring — and, in many cases, physical — imprint.”

    It’s reporting like this that makes it tougher to shrug with indifference when the White House repeatedly refers to Trump as a “king.”

  493. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nine held in religious group modern slavery raid

    Nine people have been arrested over allegations of serious sexual offences, forced marriage and modern slavery among members of a religious group in Cheshire.

    More than 500 officers took part in raids at three addresses, as part of an investigation of the group in Crewe called the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (Arpol), started by followers of Shia Islam at the start of the century, but whose beliefs have been rejected by Shiism…

  495. birgerjohansson says

    Shermanj @ 488

    As of now, any Democrat running for the presidency must be forced by the grassroots to commit to expanding the supreme court to nullify the GOP court stacking.
    Joe Biden started his presidency by promising he would NOT expand SCOTUS and we know how that turned out. No more spineless BS.

    Democrats keep thinking they are living in the era of Bill Clinton and it is up to the activists to vet the candidates and weed out the useless ones.

  498. says

    New York Times:

    U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday accused a Mexican governor and nine other current and former Mexican officials of participating in a broad conspiracy to help a powerful Mexican cartel import drugs into the United States. In an indictment, U.S. prosecutors said that the governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, had protected the Sinaloa cartel from investigations in exchange for bribes and help in getting elected.

  499. says

    MS NOW:

    Two months after the U.S. began a punishing air assault on Iran, President Donald Trump has scarcely progressed past the same spot he was at on Feb. 28: waiting for Iran to surrender.

  500. says

    MS NOW:

    A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can’t indefinitely detain noncitizens awaiting immigration proceedings or removal without regard for their criminal history or date and point of entry.

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