⭐Honorable Citizens Stand Up to Crooked President*. Again. Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: “Federal prosecutors in Washington sought and failed on Tuesday to secure an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video this fall that enraged ... [Donald] Trump by reminding active-duty members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders.... It was remarkable that the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington — led by Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump’s — authorized prosecutors to go into a grand jury and ask for an indictment of the six members of Congress, all of whom had served in the military or the nation’s spy agencies. But it was even more remarkable that a group of ordinary citizens sitting on the grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington rejected the effort.... The move to charge the lawmakers — among them, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan — was, by any measure, an extraordinary attempt by prosecutors to politicize the criminal justice system....” ~~~
Ty Oneil & John Seewer of the AP: “Authorities investigating the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie released the first surveillance images Tuesday showing a masked person with what looked like a handgun holster on her porch the night she went missing more than a week ago. Video released by the FBI shows the person wearing a backpack, long sleeves and pants walking up to the door at the home [outside Tucson, Arizona,] of the mother of 'Today' show host Savannah Guthrie. The footage shows the person trying to cover a doorbell camera near the front door with their gloved hand before putting plants to block the camera’s view.... In the videos, the person appeared to be wearing the holster attached to their front waist area. Another video shows the person purposefully tilting their head down while nearing the front archway. [FBI Director Kash] Patel said the videos were pulled from 'residual data located in backend systems' after investigators spent days trying to find lost, corrupted or inaccessible images....” ~~~
Hailey Fuchs of Politico: “Rep. Ro Khanna [D-Calif.] took to the House floor Tuesday and read aloud the names of six 'wealthy, powerful men' whose names were originally redacted in the Jeffrey Epstein files It comes after Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) emerged from reviewing unredacted materials related to the late convicted sex offender and demanded that the Justice Department reveal these individuals’ identities to the public if their redactions did not fall under the terms established by Congress.... It’s not immediately clear who some of the individuals are, but Khanna identified Leslie Wexner as the billionaire former owner of Victoria’s Secret and other retail companies, and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem as the chief executive officer of DP World. Representatives for Wexner and bin Sulayem did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Other names include Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, and Nicola Caputo, who could not be reached for comment.” ~~~
~~~ Here's video of Ro Khanna's speech before the House. It's pretty good.
Maegan Vazquez of the Washington Post: “Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told members of Congress on Tuesday that he and his family had lunch with Jeffrey Epstein on his Caribbean island, but he denied any suggestion that he had a meaningful relationship with the convicted sex offender. The confirmation of the visit by Lutnick follows growing calls in Washington for his resignation from ... Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Lutnick, a former chairman of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald who was once Epstein’s neighbor, told the New York Post last year that he and his wife, Allison, decided to distance themselves from Epstein around 2005.”
~~~ Daniel Desrochers & Brendan Bordelan of Politico: “In the hearing, Lutnick also faced pointed questions from Democratic Sens. Chris Coons (Del.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) over his ties to Epstein.... 'You said casually, “Oh I looked at my name and how it appeared in them, as does everyone,’” said Coons. 'No. Everyone isn’t worried about their names being in the Epstein files.'... Merkley laid out eight instances where DOJ documents suggest Lutnick interacted with Epstein after 2005, when the Commerce secretary had previously claimed he cut off contact with Epstein.... Lutnick has faced bipartisan calls to resign after he appeared in a recent batch of files linked to Epstein.”
New Jersey Congressional Race. Tracey Tully of the New York Times: “Tom Malinowski, a former member of Congress, conceded on Tuesday to his main opponent, Analilia Mejia, in the Democratic primary to replace Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey in the House. The Associated Press has not officially declared a winner in the race. But Mr. Malinowski, who was battered by negative advertising from a pro-Israel group, congratulated Ms. Mejia for a 'hard-won victory' four days after polls closed on Thursday.... Mr. Malinowski said in a statement ... that he planned to support her in a special election in April against the Republican nominee, Joe Hathaway.”
There's a message here. ~~~
Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: “An immigration judge has found there were no grounds to deport a Turkish graduate student whose arrest by masked agents last year was an early salvo in the Trump Administration’s crackdown on migrants. The decision by the judge, Roopal Patel, came last month and was disclosed in federal court by lawyers for the student, Rumeysa Ozturk, this week. It effectively means that the government has no legal justification to deport Ms. Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University. Judge Roopal, who as an immigration judge is a Justice Department employee, blocked any further proceedings against Ms. Ozturk, but the government can appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: But, gosh, what fun it was to terrify a young woman by having masked thugs grab her and abduct her off the sidewalk in broad daylight, then continue to torment her with a series of cruel actions and threats.
~~~ The CBC's report is here.
Dan Diamond, et al., of the Washington Post: “A federal judge is expected to soon rule on whether ... Donald Trump’s planned $400 million White House ballroom project can proceed, zeroing in on whether the administration’s plan to rely on private donations allows it to bypass congressional approval. Trump has argued that the approach spares taxpayers the expense, but the dispute has instead highlighted a lack of transparency over how the project is being financed. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, congressional Democrats and watchdog groups have questioned an arrangement that relies on donations from corporations with business before the federal government, funneled through a nonprofit intermediary that stands to collect millions of dollars in fees, to fund the most significant alteration to the White House in decades.”
 |
| Don Colossus in Repose. |
~~~ If you would like to familiarize yourself with Shelly's "Ozymandias," here's its Wikipage, which includes the complete text of the sonnet.
Zak Keefer, et al., of the New York Times/Athletic: “A day after ... Donald Trump called the Olympian Hunter Hess 'a real loser' over the freestyle skier’s comments about representing the United States, two of the biggest stars at these Winter Olympics have spoken out in a Games that is becoming ever more politically charged. Freestyle skier Eileen Gu and snowboarder Chloe Kim were both asked Monday about [Mr.] Trump’s Sunday post on Truth Social in which he said it was 'very hard to root for someone like this,' in reference to Hess, a halfpipe specialist, who Friday said it was 'a little hard' to represent the U.S. amid a tense and divisive political climate back home. 'I’m sorry that the headline that is eclipsing the Olympics has to be something so …' said the 22-year-old Gu, a two-time gold medalist, before pausing to choose her next word carefully, 'unrelated to the spirit of the Games. It really runs contrary to everything the Olympics should be.' Kim, meanwhile, said that while she was proud to represent the U.S., athletes had a right to voice their opinions... Kim’s sentiments were echoed by her teammates....” Update: the link has been changed to one that might be a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: It's understandable that young Olympic athletes would understand the Games better than the POTUS* does, but they also understand the Constitution and American ideals better than he does. That is not acceptable.
Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald: “... Donald Trump has repeatedly maintained that he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes. But in July 2006, just as Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal sex charge became public, Trump called then-Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter to tell him that Epstein’s activities with teenaged girls were well known in both New York and Palm Beach. 'Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,' Trump told Reiter, according to a 2019 FBI interview with Reiter contained in the Justice Department’s Epstein case files. The interview, conducted in October 2019 and not previously reported, has shed new light on Trump’s involvement in the early stages of the 2006 Jeffrey Epstein investigation in Palm Beach, Florida. It also raises questions about how much Trump knew about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes. Reiter told FBI agents that Trump revealed that Epstein’s associate, Maxwell, was Epstein’s 'operative,' and that Trump said 'she is evil and to focus on her,' according to the report...
“That stands in sharp contrast to what Trump told reporters in July 2019 when he was asked if he had any knowledge that Epstein had molested girls. 'No, I had no idea. I had no idea,' Trump said at the time. Reiter, who retired as chief in 2009, confirmed to the Miami Herald that he was interviewed by FBI agents in 2019. He said the conversation with Trump happened in July 2006. An FBI official denied that Trump called Reiter.” Read on.
Kate Santaliz of Axios: "The Justice Department redacted the names of at least six men who are 'likely incriminated' by their inclusion in the Epstein files, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said after reviewing unredacted versions of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.... The lawmakers said they want to allow DOJ time to further unredact those files, but have also put sharing the names on the House floor on the table. The lawmakers would be protected by the House's speech and debate clause if they were to read them on the floor, providing them with immunity from civil or criminal liability. Massie told reporters that one of the men is 'pretty high up' in a foreign government, and another is a prominent individual." ~~~
~~ Julianne McShane of MSNOW: “Some of the Epstein files that the Justice Department invited members of Congress to view at a reading room at its headquarters have remained redacted, despite officials’ promises otherwise, according to two lawmakers who visited the room Monday.... 'They have been protecting some of these men,' [Rep. Ro] Khanna [D-Calif.] said. 'Maybe it was not intentionally, but the law is very clear. They need to comply with the law.'”
Ebony Davis of MS NOW: “Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded the Fifth Amendment virtually before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Monday as part of a high-profile inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein’s activities and the federal government’s handling of related files. Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for her role in aiding Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls and is in custody at a federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas. The co-conspirator was expected to invoke the Fifth Amendment on a 'blanket basis' and refuse to answer substantive questions during the deposition, according to a letter from Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., sent to Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.... Maxwell’s attorney, Davis Oscar Markus, told the committee that his client invoked her constitutional right and said that Maxwell would only answer questions if she is granted clemency by ... Donald Trump. 'She must remain silent because Ms. Maxwell has a habeas petition currently pending that demonstrates that her conviction rests on a fundamentally unfair trial,' he added.” (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marcy Wheeler: "Back in August, I argued that Todd Blanche’s interview of Ghislaine Maxwell was not intended to elicit useful information. Rather, it was an effort to lock in transparently false testimony that would minimize the damage she could do to Trump going forward.... Blanche used the 2-day interview to test whether and if so how Ghislaine would implicate various famous people, including Trump. After she declined to do that, even with testimony that directly conflicted with piles of records Blanche had in his possession, he rewarded her with a puppy and a transfer to Club Fed. And then records disproving her false claims showed up in the NYT, effectively locking in mutually assured silence for both Ghislaine and Trump.... And Ghislaine’s refusal, [Monday], to answer any questions from Congress — including how she came to be moved to ClubFed — accords with that argument."
MEANWHILE, in the U.K. “The reach of the Epstein files is truly international. Norwegian royals, French luminaries and globe-trotting businessmen have been caught in its net. But one country, America aside, is worst afflicted: Britain. There’s all the stuff about the former Prince Andrew, of course. But the latest revelations reach right into the heart of the government, threatening to bring down the country’s embattled prime minister, Keir Starmer — or at least accelerate his exit.... If there is one quality Mr. Starmer possesses, it is poor political judgment. Throughout his tenure, he has consistently failed to act until it is too late.” The writer explains how Starmer's government got to this state of affairs. ~~~
~~~ "When Accountability Is a Foreign Concept." Dan Rather: "There once was a time in this country when accountability mattered. The very thought of associating with, much less maintaining a close friendship with a known sex offender would be career ending — or something close to that.... Today? Not so much. Allegations are swept under an ever-growing rug. Names are redacted not for the victims, but for the victimizers. But some governments do still care about common decency. We’re seeing from them what it was once like in the United States: significant repercussions for those with close ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The largest Epstein file drop to date on January 30 sent heads rolling across Europe." Read on.
Our Lawless Nation, Ctd. Ann Marimow of the New York Times: “The Trump administration signaled on Monday that it would abandon its efforts to uphold the criminal conviction of ... [Donald] Trump’s longtime adviser, Stephen K. Bannon. Mr. Bannon has already served four months in prison as a result of his 2022 conviction for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. An appeals court upheld his conviction, and Mr. Bannon had appealed to the Supreme Court. But on Monday, D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, told the justices that the Trump administration had determined 'in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.' He asked the justices to send the case back to the lower court to be dismissed. The practical effect of the move is limited, but the government’s dismissal of the indictment against him would effectively wipe out the conviction. It follows a pattern of Mr. Trump using the Justice Department to punish his perceived enemies and protect his friends, including by repeatedly granting clemency to allies and supporters....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: This move undermines not only the rule of law, not only the Justice Department itself, but also the Congress. If Congress's subpoenas can be ignored without consequence, then its subpoenas are worthless.
Conservative reporter James Rosen has been busy. Yesterday, the New York Times (linked here yesterday), today Politico Magazine. MB: Again, I don't have time to read his report but the core of it is an interview with Sam Alito, who supposedly lets on how he got from Roe to Dobbs, with a little help from Anthony Scalia. The Politico article appears to be the product of research Rosen did for his book on Scalia.
Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: “A U.S. military boat strike, the third this year, blew up a vessel suspected of carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, killing two people and leaving a lone survivor, the Pentagon’s Southern Command said. Southern Command, or Southcom, said that it had notified the U.S. Coast Guard to begin search-and-rescue operations. The strike was the second authorized by Gen. Francis L. Donovan, a Marine who became Southcom’s new leader last week, overseeing U.S. military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. It was the 38th strike announced by the Trump administration in a campaign against drug trafficking from Latin America, particularly Venezuela and Colombia, which began in early September. The campaign began with strikes in the Caribbean but has most often targeted vessels in the eastern Pacific, according to a tracker maintained by The New York Times. The strikes have now claimed 130 lives.”
Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: “The Trump administration plans to rescind $600 million in public health funds from four states led by Democrats because it finds the grants 'inconsistent with agency priorities,' according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. The programs slated to be cut are in California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. They include grants to state and local public health departments as well as to some nongovernmental organizations. A list of the cuts was shared with relevant congressional committees on Monday. The funds are administered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Update: the link has been changed to one that appears to be a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Yesterday we were discussing how racism motivates Trump. So way down the page in Mandavilli's report, we learn this: “In September, the C.D.C.’s website was revised to detail the agency’s new priorities, including moving away from a focus on diseases that predominantly affect certain populations.” Now, I don't know what those “certain populations” are. They could be “populations” like “white fathers, aged 35-45.” But I'll just bet that's not the “population” whose funding is being cut.
Dr. Oz Gets Real. Teddy Rosenbluth of the New York Times: “Dr. Mehmet Oz has urged Americans to get vaccinated against measles, one of the strongest endorsements of the vaccine yet from a top health official in the Trump administration, which has repeatedly undermined confidence in vaccine safety. Dr. Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services director, told CNN on Sunday that there was a simple solution to the raging measles outbreak in South Carolina, which has infected more than 900 people and become the largest U.S. outbreak in recent history. 'Take the vaccine, please,' Dr. Oz said. He also pledged that there 'will never be a barrier to Americans getting access to the measles vaccine.' Dr. Oz’s comments are far more urgent than those from his boss, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose comments about the measles vaccine are often contradictory. He has said that the vaccine 'is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease,' but he also has raised safety concerns and said getting vaccinated is a personal choice. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is considered very safe and about 97 percent effective in preventing infection....
“'We don’t know the risks of many of these products because they’re not safety-tested,' Mr. Kennedy said last April. As the outbreak swelled and crossed state borders, he spoke of 'miraculous' alternative remedies and promised to explore potential new treatments for the disease.... During the interview with the CNN anchor Dana Bash [during which he begged people to get vaccinated], Dr. Oz also defended Mr. Kennedy’s track record. 'We’ve advocated for measles vaccines all along,' he said. 'Secretary Kennedy’s been at the very front of this.' 'Oh, come on,' Ms. Bash responded.” ~~~
~~~ Nicole Charky-Chami of the Raw Story: "Anti-abortion protesters who travelled to Washington, D.C. for the March for Life ended up at a measles super spreader-event, according to health officials. Thousands of pro-lifers came for the Jan. 23 march and concert at the National Mall and now the D.C. Department of Health has reported multiple cases of the potentially fatal disease reported in the weeks after, The New Republic reported.... 'Many on the right oppose vaccination, with some citing religious reasons, making the march a possible hotbed of measles infections.'... 'DC Health was notified of multiple confirmed cases of measles whose carriers visited multiple locations in the District while contagious,' the department said in a press release Sunday." MB: Yeah, they're rabidly "pro-life" but they're also rabidly anti-life-saving-protocols.
Blame It on the Supremes. Chris Cameron of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court allowed ... [Donald] Trump on Monday to move forward with ending deportation protections for more than 60,000 migrants from Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua, a victory for his administration’s push to curtail a program for migrants fleeing crisis at home. Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, has moved to end the Temporary Protected Status program for hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing instability and war in their home countries. In lawsuits challenging those policies, many district court judges have ruled against the Trump administration, finding that the termination of the deportation protections was preordained and driven by an intent to end T.P.S. But in a similar case last year, the Supreme Court allowed deportation protections to expire for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants. Judge Trina L. Thompson of the Northern District of California, who had overseen the court case for Nepalese, Honduran and Nicaraguan migrants, wrote in a withering order last year that Ms. Noem had perpetuated xenophobic stereotypes and racist conspiracy theories in her drive to suspend their T.P.S. protections. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed Judge Thompson’s ruling at the request of the Trump administration, pointing to the Supreme Court’s rulings in the Venezuelan case.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: So the court seems to have concluded that Noem is still xenophobic, racist pond scum, AND so are the majority of the Supremes.
Laurel Rosenhall of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Monday struck down California’s law prohibiting federal law enforcement agents from wearing face masks but upheld a companion measure requiring them to display identification. The split ruling allowed California Democrats and the Trump administration each to claim a partial win. Judge Christina A. Snyder of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles issued a preliminary injunction blocking the mask law. She ruled that it was unconstitutional because it exempted state law enforcement officers, making it discriminatory.... Attorney General Pam Bondi ... issued a triumphant statement on social media.... However, the judge rejected the Trump administration’s argument that California’s mask ban amounted to an unconstitutional regulation of the federal government. She suggested that the ban would be lawful if it applied to all officers, and she ruled that the state could enforce a separate law that requires all law enforcement officers to display visible identification. State Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat who wrote the mask law, responded to the ruling by swiftly drafting a new bill to include state officers in the ban.”
Marie: There are governments more malevolent than ours, and I suspect they are run by people like Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller & Russell Vought.
⭐The Plot to Destroy Earth's Climate -- “Close to Total Victory.” Lisa Friedman & Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “In the summer of 2022, Democrats in Congress were racing to pass the biggest climate law in the country’s history.... But behind the scenes, four Trump administration veterans were plotting to obliterate federal climate efforts once Republicans regained control in Washington.... Two of them, Russell T. Vought and Jeffrey B. Clark, were high-profile allies of Donald Trump. Mr. Vought, who has railed against 'climate alarmism,' and Mr. Clark, who has called climate rules a 'Leninistic' plot to seize control of the economy, drafted executive orders for the next Republican president to dismantle climate initiatives. The other two, Mandy Gunasekara and Jonathan Brightbill, were lesser-known conservative attorneys with long histories of fighting climate initiatives....
“Their efforts are now paying off. In the coming days, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to revoke a determination that has underpinned the federal government’s ability to fight global warming since 2009. That scientific conclusion, known as the endangerment finding, determined that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are supercharging storms, wildfires, drought, heat waves and sea level rise, and are therefore threatening public health and welfare. It required the federal government to regulate these gases.... 'We are pretty close to total victory,' said Myron Ebell, who helped the first Trump administration set up its operations at the E.P.A. and has been attacking climate science and policies for nearly three decades.” Update: The link to the story has been changed to one that appears to be a gift link.
Ken Sweet of the AP: “One year after the Trump administration took control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the consumer watchdog has largely retreated from enforcement and regulatory work, changes that consumer advocates and Democrats now estimate have cost Americans at least $19 billion in financial relief. In a report provided to The Associated Press ahead of its release by the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday, the authors say the CFPB harmed consumers by abandoning major consumer protections, stalling investigation and dismissing a number of lawsuits. 'Trump’s attempt to sideline the CFPB has cost families billions of dollars over the last year alone,' said Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, as well as one of the bureau’s fiercest defenders in Congress.” Russell Vought is in charge of the do-nothing CFPB. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Obviously this is an argument that should be woven into Democratic messaging. Unfortunately, Democratic messaging generally sucks.
Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: “As ... Donald Trump calls for sweeping changes to election law — including saying that Republicans should 'take over the voting' — Republicans in Congress are planning to vote this week on the SAVE America Act, which would make massive changes to how Americans vote ahead of November’s midterms. They want to require all Americans to prove they are citizens when registering to vote, and to show an ID when voting in person or by mail, as well as make mail voting more difficult.... The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center asserts the bill 'is harmful to our democracy and a threat to the freedom to vote for all Americans. … Its extreme documentation requirements would actually amount to one of the harshest voter suppression laws nationwide.'” ~~~
~~~ Julie Tsirkin & Melanie Zanona of NBC News: “The Trump administration continues to press congressional Republicans to add a provision to their voter requirements bill that would either ban mail-in-voting with limited exceptions or limit the way voting-by-mail can be used.... House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., confirmed to NBC News that Republicans are 'thinking and talking' about whether to restrict mail-in ballots but said no final decisions have been made.”
19 comments:
So The NY Times story about the Gordie Howe bridge says that Fat Hitler might try to stop the opening of the bridge "...if Canadian officials did not address a long and growing list of grievances, escalating diplomatic tensions between the two countries."
It would be really, wicked wicked nice if the Times could go out of their way to explain that this list of grievances and escalating tensions are all the direct result of one person and one person only. And what we're left with here is that it's all up to Canada to fix these problems they had no hand in creating. Any tensions emanating from the Canadian side stem from that country's responses to the childish and ignorant bullying of the fat man pretending to be a world leader.
Is it too much to ask that truth and accuracy accompany a story like this?
(Aside about Gordie Howe...when we were kids, we used to find ponds big enough and frozen enough to play hockey on. Boots served as the goals and you had to be careful not to skate over broken tree limbs poking through the ice. One pond we found to regularly fit the bill we'd hit anytime temps dipped low enough to put on the skates. We were all about 15 or 16 at the time and we'd often find an "older guy" skating around on the same pond. He'd join our game and we took to calling him Gordie, after Howe who, at the time, was the grand old man of hockey who seemed to have been around since forever. Funny how when you're 15 the world seems so different. That guy was probably about 20, but to us, he was old enough to be "Gordie". Thim was the days....)
Just send all of those Gordie Howe bridge tolls to my offshore account and
I'll gladly agree to let you open that bridge. Signed: Donald J. Trump and
family.
The knives are out!
Planet MAGA might seem monolithic but the mono part extends mostly to fealty to the Fat Fascist. The lithic part covers all the rocks that fill all the heads of the natives.
So here's good ol' Steve "Burn it all down" Bannon, whose big mouth and multiple layers of shirts can be regularly seen spouting his particular brand of MAGA bullshit and hatred. But along comes the revelation of what a good buddy he was to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and here's where we see the fissures on Planet MAGA, and boy oh boy, those suckers are deeeep.
"MAGA media mogul Steve Bannon is facing a reckoning over his relationship with deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Documents released by the Department of Justices have shed further light on the connections between Bannon and Epstein. On the very day that Epstein was arrested on charges of sex trafficking in July 2019, Epstein was texting with Bannon about a friendly documentary that the pair had planned to make about the former...
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, former DOGE showrunner, and a longtime enemy of Bannon, did not mince words in his condemnation of the ex-Trump White House chief strategist.
'Bannon is evil,' he declared in a viral, Monday morning post."
Which is rich coming from Satan's Little Helper, the South African Chainsaw Maniac, but he ain't the only one with the knives out for poor ol' Steve: Mark Levin, Roger Stone (another Satan Boy), Erick Erickson, and a whole bunch of other MAGA influencer types I'm not familiar with, not being a denizen of the fever swamps these vipers all swim in. These guys HATE each other.
I've heard that the Fat Hitler Blight House is an equally dangerous place full of backstabbing assholes all climbing over each other to see who can do a better job licking Fatty's bloated ass.
May they all drown in their own venom.
Not familiar with the details of that SAVE act the R's are trying to foist on the nation but my wonderment goes far beyond its legality. Some think there are distinct Constitutional issues involved. Who knows what the Supines think?
No doubt whatever its final shape, it will provoke lawsuits galore, but more practically I'm wondering what mechanisms it will put in place to supply acceptable IDs to everyone--and by November of this year?.
Passports cost money and issuing millions of them to those without out will cost a bunch. Could that be considered a poll tax? Or would the Supines think that kind of tax is just fine...Or will the R's pony up the dough for all who apply? All by November?
Reminds me of a Richard Scarry Tootletown children's story. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
So the other day I mentioned that were the Orange Monster to take control of the Olympics programming in this country, we would only see US athletes and sports he approved of, and no mention of "shithole countries" or nations he hated. We'd also be treated to goo-goo drivel from announcers gushing on a regular basis about how if only the Dear Leader were out on the ice or the slopes, he'd be better than anyone despite being a fat, waddling 80 year old stumblebum.
Mirabile dictu, as the nun who taught us high school Latin used to say!
Check this out. Some MAGA drooler came up with this image of the Orange Monster on the ice in a USA hockey sweater. But whoever came up with this picture is not the sharpest skate on the ice. We have Fatty with a hockey stick but he's getting ready to slap at a curling stone, a completely different sport. Or maybe the message is that Fat Hitler is strong enough to nail a slap shot of a 44 lb rock into the net a hundred feet away.
Forget trying to figure them out. The Trump cult washes brains clean of all reason.
Re the bridge, a para in WaPo's story has the salient fact.
"... The Gordie Howe International Bridge is set to absorb traffic from the nearby Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, which is owned by Detroit’s Moroun family and responsible for about a quarter of all trade between the U.S. and Canada. The owners have appealed to Trump to stop construction of the new bridge and sued the Canadian government for approving it, claiming it will infringe on their right to collect revenue. ..."
@Akhilleus: I think Cameron & Isai's entire article leaves the impression that the whole Trump threat is all Trump and no Canada. It's true that the reporters don't come out and say directly, "Trump is an ass and this is all his fault." But the report is peppered with sentences like, "Mr. Trump’s aggressive stance against Canada since returning to office has infuriated its government, enraged its citizens and significantly harmed economic ties between the two countries."
The report also mentions the Ambassador Bridge & the Moroun family's attempt to get Trump to close down the Gordie Howe Bridge -- a significant wrinkle @Patrick points out. So there may be a crossing of tiny palms we don't know about there. Ka-ching!
Gordie Howe is one of the few hockey players I can name, though I have to admit when I looked him up, his photos didn't look like what I thought he looked like. That's because I had him mixed up with Green Bay Packer linebacker Paul Hornung. How I remembered Hornung's name (I thought it was Hornug, but close) after all these decades, I don't know. But I did remember it, and when I looked him up, he looked just like what I thought Gordie Howe looked like. The real Hornung and the real Howe don't look much alike -- unless you think all White athletes look alike.
BTW, Hornung died of dementia, which he attributed to all those concussions he got playing football. And that's why I don't watch football anymore. Ever. I hate what it does to young men.
"“Uptick in Abductions”: ICE Ramps Up Targeting of Minneapolis Legal Observers
In one 30-minute stretch, three legal observers were arrested — as Trump’s Border czar Tom Homan calls on locals to “end the resistance.”
“National attention on Minnesota has waned with the departure of Bovino and rhetoric by Homan that things are de-escalating,” the group noted, but recent data and reports from commuters in the field did not support those conclusions. Despite orders to the contrary, the group continued, “Agents continue to draw their weapons and deploy chemical agents against observers.”
Meanwhile, the deportation pipeline out of Minnesota continues to flow, with 66 shackled passengers loaded onto a plane the night of Homan’s address — the highest total in nearly two weeks — according to evidence collected at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport.
Friday’s midafternoon disappearance of multiple commuters in quick succession provided visceral evidence that, despite the change in leadership, the struggle between President Donald Trump’s federal agents and residents continues."
Immigration
"The Children of Dilley
ProPublica went inside the immigrant detention center for families in Dilley, Texas. Children held there told us about the anguish of being ripped from their lives in the United States and the fear of what comes next."
Trump American
"“Lying in feces, throw up, urine… like animals in a cage at the zoo.”
A whistleblower recounts the horrific ICE detention center conditions in Baltimore — a similar story everywhere"
And the Megyn Kelly rant at the end of the Sullivan post is just one more piece of evidence in the it is all about racism theory.
The Megyn Kelly's "football is OURS" rant about her delicate ears being forced (by herself) into listening to thirteen straight minutes of spanish reminded me of how culturally closed off the Right is. Whole amazing foreign movies are in other languages that they will never experience because of their closed mindedness. Amazing musical artists like Bad Bunny and so many others can get you dancing or crying without understanding a single word. I was listening to an old playlist and came across a great song from a Brazilian artist Vanessa de Mata that I found years ago while exploring. My life would be poorer without all this culture from around the world. I guess that is why the Right's culture is so poor, they refuse to except all the beauty and inspiration that the world keeps trying to gift them with.
Marie,
Yes, the Times article about Fatty threatening to stop the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge (what I wouldn't give to see Gordie threaten to cross check this fat blob, he'd be crying like a baby) does eventually get around to pointing the finger at the Orange Monster. But it's not really clear until the ninth paragraph. The quote you mention doesn't come until the paragraph 15.
As we've pointed out many times, most readers never make to the fifth paragraph. In this time of dementia seasoned autocratic rule we need articles to come right out and say "This guy is a fucking menace--and he lies about everything!"
Margaret Sullivan, a frequent critic of Times sane washing takes time to direct attention to an article in the Gray Lady that does it right.
This is in regards to a piece on the Ape video:
"...the Times put it at the top of their website and mobile app. The next day it led the print edition, with this headline: 'Trump Posts, Then Erases, Racist Video of Obamas.'
There was no pussyfooting. There was no soft-pedaling. There was no 'some critics say' as a way to hint at the ugly truth. There was nothing about 'racially tinged.' Racism was called out clearly.
Here was the lede: 'President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, but he insisted he had nothing to apologize for even after he deleted the video following an outcry.'
And here was a particularly notable paragraph: 'The clip was in line with Mr Trump’s history of making degrading remarks about people of color, women, and immigrants, and has for years singled out the Obamas...'"
Yeah, baby! That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!
That "racially tinged' stuff kills me.This is the sort of "journalism" you might expect would take ICE agents to task in the Alex Pretti murder not for shooting the guy dead, but for being wasteful by expending too many bullets when one would have done the job very nicely, thank you.
Sullivan goes on:
"A sense of outrage radiated from all of this — headline, lede, placement, language. Kudos.
Why, though, is this so rare? Why, when it comes to other topics, such as vote suppression, or insults to journalists, or threats to longtime allies, does the Times revert to its tendency to pull on its kid gloves and phrase things so deferentially?
Why did it take so long for the media, in general, to say that Trump was lying? Why is he so often given the benefit of the doubt, as well as handed a megaphone to magnify his version of events?"
Exactamundo.
More of this direct, right to the point, no punches pulled reporting, please. We are not in normal times and normal reportage does us, and democracy, no favors. We are in mortal jeopardy and the monster bearing down on us deserves to be called out as such, not written about as if he were FDR having a bad day.
RAS,
Excellent point about the cultural navel gazing on the right. For myself, were I a MAGAt who despaired of music in any language other than English (or "sort of" English if you're talking about Fatty), I would have to kiss goodbye to any music with lyrics not in my native tongue: Mozart, Verdi, Puccini operas. Operas by Wagner, Gounod, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rossini, Donizetti, Strauss. All the Bach cantatas, his Mass in B minor, the Saint Matthew Passion, the Mozart Requiem, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the entire catalog of Schubert lieder, all that fabulous Tejano, Chicano based Tex-Mex music and Chicano fusion, rock, soul, and funk, the great Flaco Jimenez and his accordion. Folk songs from the Quebecois region of Canada, the McGarrigle Sisters, for example. All that wild choral music from the Bulgarian Television State Female Choir. That stuff is crazy good. And we're not even getting to any of the music from an entire continent, from African cultures that is absolutely required for so much American roots music, blues, jazz, rock and roll. MAGA favorites like Kid Rock and Ted Nugent would be playing with themselves if it weren't for the musical heritage of Africa.
It's not just racism and artistic near-sightedness, it's cultural deprivation on a massive scale.
But then again, if I were a MAGAt, I likely wouldn't give a shit about any of that anyway.
RAS,
That Vanessa da Mata clip is a blast. Thanks for that.
As with that winger concept of "I built all this without any help" that is still prevalent in MAGA circles, whether they like it or not, we as Americans owe a lot to cultures and peoples most of the Trump cult know next to nothing about. Even our language is a mix of different cultures. The founders were greatly influenced by thinkers like Cicero, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Aristotle, and Marcus Aurelius. Fatty is forever going on about how "we" won the war (WWII, or in his case, who knows? He could be talking about the Boer War). Yeah, but we brought that war to a close, saving perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives through the work of immigrants. The Manhattan Project that developed the bomb rested on the work of mostly European Jewish immigrants. Too bad Himmler Miller wasn't around back then, he could have had his ICE goons round them all up and then Megyn Kelly and all the other You-Ess-Ay types would be speaking German. Christ, the process of successfully splitting the atom, was figured out by a Jewish refugee from the first Hitler's attacks on Jews. Physicist Lise Meitner hit upon the solution while walking in the woods with her nephew. Of course, her work was stolen by others who walked off with a Nobel that should have been hers. Nonetheless, we owe her a great deal.
No one "does it all by myself". Fatty and his thugs love to believe in their own omnipotence, but like everyone else, they owe it all to other cultures, other people, other ideas. We're stronger together. Cooperation is what made the human species the most successful on the planet (besides bugs, I suppose--and microbes), but the goal of MAGA is to end cooperation, to attack other cultures and races, to make the world sicker, stupider, and less safe.
C'mon Darwin! Let's Natural Select the shit out of these morons!
When did the b****-a** Meghan Kelly turn into such a raging racist/xenophobic mistake herself?? She had a moment when she became somewhat civilized when she was a victim (...blood coming out of her whatever..." trained at her-- yikes. I guess this was the end result of marinating in the right-right-rightest of her cult-- the end of her "civilization" for sure. I love how the Ladies of the Sewer all curl their hair just so, but once their fat-plumped lips start to move, look out. Toxic sludge, everything she was screaming...
I love Margaret Sullivan-- she seems to have brains in her head. I had an encounter with her many years ago, and darned if I can remember why-- something I wrote as a comment in the New York Times hit home and she called me. We had a lovely chat and they printed whatever I wrote. ( It is probably down in a box somewhere in my horrible basement-- we are slated to move next fall and I started "downsizing" with my multitudes of Christmas boxes of decor stuff and ornaments-- it is hell. Anyone want my Lenox? None of the young people do...)
@Akhilleus: I do agree with your criticism of Trump's bridge threats. The story seems to written for someone like you or me: someone who already understands what a dick Trump is, so it isn't necessary to get right to it in the lede. But, like you, I think the "Trump's a dick" disclaimer should appear right up top if only because it's taken so long for the Times to at least partially once in awhile ever-so-subtly get off it's both-sides "journalism."
As for the Times article Sullivan praises, I agree with her. The authors of that story are Erica Green, Isabella Kwai and Zolan Kanno-Youngs. I'm not familiar with Kwai's writing, but I know Green & Kanno-Youngs don't mess around. Their analyses of Trump's shenanigans have been hard-nosed, no-nonsense critiques for awhile. I'm a particular fan of Green's because she was the first I noticed who really let Trump have it. I think she led the way out of the wilderness of both-siderism.
Accidentally admitting true history is the only thing that this administration can feel any shame over. And they have to throw their staff under the MAGA bus for someone actually knowing and acknowledging a genuine atrocity. Everything with these morons is ass backwards.
"Vice President JD Vance’s X account posted and then deleted a recognition of the Armenian genocide after he paid his respects at a memorial in the country on Tuesday.
The original post from the vice president’s account — which said Vance and second lady Usha Vance attended a wreath-laying ceremony “to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide” — broke from Trump administration policy, which does not use the word “genocide” to refer to the systematic killing and deportation of Armenians in what is now Turkey.
Except for former President Joe Biden, US presidents have avoided that term for fear of damaging ties with Turkey, a key regional ally, which is currently playing a mediating role between the Trump administration and Iran. An official with the vice president sought to blame the post on staff who are not part of the delegation traveling with Vance."
JoeMyGod has links and excerpts from NYT and ProPublica on
"QAnon Nutbags Behind Raid On GA Elections Office"
"An F.B.I. search warrant affidavit unsealed on Tuesday shows that a criminal investigation into 2020 election results in Fulton County, Ga., was set off by a leading election denier in the Trump administration and relied heavily on claims about ballots that have been widely debunked."
Poor Savannah Guthrie and her mum. If I thought I had to rely on Keystone Kash and Carry to perform an actual investigation to save my life, I'd be preparing my final thoughts in this world. This fuckin' clown would be lucky to figure out it was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.
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