Ben Casselman & Ana Swanson of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has repeatedly promised that his steep tariffs would reduce U.S. imports, shrink the trade deficit and lead to a revival in American manufacturing. So far, the opposite has occurred. U.S. imports grew last year, and the trade deficit in goods hit a record high, data released Thursday showed, as Mr. Trump’s policies scrambled trade but did not halt it. That was consistent with other data suggesting that companies have rerouted orders and revamped supply chains to skirt tariffs but have not, so far, brought production back to the United States en masse. American manufacturers have cut more than 80,000 jobs in the past year. High tariffs and unpredictable policy drove huge swings in trade last year. Companies stockpiled products ahead of tariffs going into effect, then halted imports. American investors bought and sold large quantities of foreign gold as a hedge against volatile markets.” Thanks to RAS for the lead.
Surprise, Surprise! Darlene Superville of the AP: “The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a panel made up of ... Donald Trump’s appointees, on Thursday approved his proposal to build a ballroom larger than the White House itself where the East Wing once stood. The meeting was supposed to be on the design, with a final vote expected at next month’s session. But the chairman, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., made a motion to also vote on final approval, and six of the seven commissioners who were all installed by the Republican president since the start of the year voted in favor twice. One commissioner, James McCrery, did not vote because he was the initial architect on the project.”
Your Tax Dollars Going Down the Drain/Into Trump's Slush Fund. Laura Kelly of the Hill: Donald “Trump said Thursday the U.S. is committing $10 billion to the Board of Peace, the forum that was created to reconstruct the Gaza Strip but that the president wants to see broadened to tackle other foreign conflicts.... The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on where the funds were being drawn from.... The Board of Peace — chaired by Trump, who appears to have the ultimate decisionmaking power — directs where the money is dispersed.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Uh, Congress has to appropriate money for expenditures, and Congress hasn't appropriated a penny for this scam.
Lena Sun & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: “After pulling out of the World Health Organization, the Trump administration is proposing spending $2 billion a year to replicate the global disease surveillance and outbreak functions the United States once helped build and accessed at a fraction of the cost, according to three administration officials briefed on the proposal. The effort to build a U.S.-run alternative would re-create systems such as laboratories, data-sharing networks and rapid-response systems the U.S. abandoned when it announced its withdrawal from the WHO last year and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. While ... Donald Trump accused the WHO of demanding 'unfairly onerous payments,' the alternative his administration is considering carries a price tag about three times what the U.S. contributed annually to the U.N. health agency.” MB: They really don't know WTF they're doing. You can see why Trump went through something like six bankruptcies and even bankrupted some casino, which is difficult to do. ~~~
~~~ AND then there's this: ~~~
~~~ Ben Casselman & Ana Swanson of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has repeatedly promised that his steep tariffs would reduce U.S. imports, shrink the trade deficit and lead to a revival in American manufacturing. So far, the opposite has occurred. U.S. imports grew last year, and the trade deficit in goods hit a record high, data released Thursday showed, as Mr. Trump’s policies scrambled trade but did not halt it. That was consistent with other data suggesting that companies have rerouted orders and revamped supply chains to skirt tariffs but have not, so far, brought production back to the United States en masse. American manufacturers have cut more than 80,000 jobs in the past year. High tariffs and unpredictable policy drove huge swings in trade last year. Companies stockpiled products ahead of tariffs going into effect, then halted imports. American investors bought and sold large quantities of foreign gold as a hedge against volatile markets.” Thanks to RAS for the lead.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas of the Guardian: “U2 have released their first collection of new music since 2017 – a politically charged EP entitled Days of Ash, which focuses on a series of high-profile global deaths including the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents.... In an extensive interview in a fanzine accompanying the six-song release..., Bono characterised Good as 'a woman committed to nonviolent civil disobedience'. He said he was deeply troubled by her being dubbed a domestic terrorist by Kristi Noem, head of the US Department of Homeland Security. 'This was an attempt to assassinate meaning itself, the meaning of words, the meaning of truth,' Bono said. 'If you let people [get] away with that, you can kiss your democracy goodbye.' He called for an independent inquiry into Good’s death.” Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~
"The publication of 3.5 million documents linked to the sprawling case involving sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has confronted the French justice system with an unprecedented situation and a Herculean task.... On Wednesday, February 18, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced the opening of two investigations entrusted to five magistrates. One will focus on 'human trafficking,' covering what is commonly called solicitation or recruitment, and the other on 'financial offenses of money laundering, breaches of probity, or tax fraud.'" This story is subscriber-firewalled, but you can read this much of it & a bit more. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Again, I find it a-mazing that the English can actually put Prince Andrew in the can (as opposed to the old joke about tinned tobacco, "Do you have Prince Albert is a can?"), the Norwegians can bring charges against a former prime minister, and the French can launch two investigations -- yet Pam Bondi can't find a single clue leading to a single crime in all those 3 million -- or however many -- pages.
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~ Helene Cooper, et al., of the New York Times: “The rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East has progressed to the point that ... [Donald] Trump has the option to take military action against Iran as soon as this weekend, administration and Pentagon officials said, leaving the White House with high-stakes choices about pursuing diplomacy or war.... The drive to assemble a military force capable of striking Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and accompanying launch sites has continued this week despite indirect talks between the two nations on Tuesday, with Iran seeking two weeks to come back with fleshed out proposals for a diplomatic resolution. Mr. Trump has repeatedly demanded that Iran give up its nuclear program, including agreeing not to enrich any more uranium. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whose country would potentially take part in an attack, has been pushing for action to weaken Iran’s ability to launch missiles at Israel. Israeli forces, which have been on heightened alert for weeks, have been making more preparations for a possible war, and a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet was moved to Sunday from Thursday, according to two Israeli defense officials.” Update: the link has been changed to one that appears to be a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Jon Gambrell of the AP: “Iran and the United States leaned into gunboat diplomacy Thursday as nuclear talks between the nations hung in the balance, with Tehran holding drills with Russia and the Americans bringing another aircraft carrier closer to the Mideast.” ~~~
~~~ Barak Ravid of Axios: Donald "Trump convened his top advisers on Wednesday for a meeting on the crisis with Iran, two U.S. officials tell Axios.... The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize.... Trump's military and rhetorical build-ups make it hard for him to back down without major concessions from Iran on its nuclear program."
Juan Cole of Informed Comment: "The Wall Street Journal reports from three US government officials that the some 1000 remaining American troops in Syria will be completely withdrawn from the country over the next two months. Al Jazeera did follow-on reporting on this story, though it could not confirm from Trump administration officials the report of a quick and total withdrawal. The move is impelled by strategic considerations, but reflects ... Donald J. Trump’s longstanding antipathy to keeping US troops in theaters of war abroad. He put a great deal of effort in 2020 into withdrawing from Afghanistan, and agreed with the Taliban to do so in ways that tied the hands of the Biden administration. Thus ended America’s longest war, 2001-2021.... The Bush-era Neoconservatives dreamed of reviving the British Empire in an American guise, with large troop presences and forms of colonialism. Trump instead appears to favor Teddy Roosevelt-style gunboat diplomacy." ~~~
~~~ Carlotta Gall & Hussam Hammoud of the New York Times: “In recent weeks, Syrian government forces seized control of a wide area in northeastern Syria from the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F., a Kurdish-led force that had worked for years with a U.S.-led coalition to combat the Islamic State and to guard camps and prisons. The change has now made the problem of the prisoners one for President Ahmed al-Sharaa, testing his commitment to fighting extremism. It has also forced a rapid recalculation by the U.S.-led coalition and many other states of what to do with the thousands of detainees and families held in prisons and camps since the defeat of the Islamic State in 2019.” MB: This is a long, complicated story, short on definitive explanations of what is happening/has happened to those who were living in the prisons/camps.
Pope Says No to Trump's Board of Peas. Reuters, republished by NBC News: “The Vatican will not participate in ... Donald Trump’s 'Board of Peace' initiative, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s top diplomatic official, said on Tuesday while adding that efforts to handle crisis situations should be managed by the United Nations. Pope Leo, the first U.S. pope and a critic of some of Trump’s policies, was invited to join the board in January.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times demonstrates how Marco Rubio's conception of the United States is based on the same concepts that animated “antebellum Southern ideologues [who] saw their society as an extension of an idealized medieval past.... Part of what this entailed, ideologically, was a rejection of the Declaration of Independence, both as a statement of equality and as a decisive break with the past.... In this antipathy toward the egalitarian and universalist elements of the American founding — which is to say those parts of our national heritage that we owe to the liberal values of the Enlightenment — that the connection between the antebellum feudal obsession and the Trump administration’s vision of sovereignty and Western civilization becomes clear, if not obvious. Both are tied to a racial (and religious) conception of culture and bound up in notions of human hierarchy. The 'one people' threatened by migrants in the United States and Europe, by Rubio and Trump’s account, are people of direct European descent.... In other words, as white, first and foremost.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ On a more practical level ~~~
~~~ Massimo Calabresi of the New York Times: “Whatever the difference, if any, between the good cop routine delivered at Munich this year by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the bad cop version by Vice President JD Vance at the event last year, the effect of American policy is the same: The world is changing, for real, and the primary driver of that change is Donald Trump. It took a long time for many Americans to realize just how disruptive Mr. Trump is, but by now it is painfully obvious.... The outlines of Mr. Trump’s international disruption are already clear: the collapse of multilateralism, a shift away from the liberal democratic values established after World War II and an embrace of a might-makes-right approach to national security. Those may sound like abstractions, but the changes they engender are just as likely to be felt on the streets of America as Mr. Trump’s domestic upheavals.... As Americans have learned, Mr. Trump’s cure for long-running problems is often worse than the disease. Mr. Trump’s embrace of far-right nationalists across Europe, for example, casts German rearmament in a particularly troubling light.” The link is a gift link.
Hiroko Tabuchi & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: Donald “Trump issued an executive order late Wednesday aimed at spurring the domestic production of glyphosate, a widely used weedkiller that has figured in health lawsuits. The move immediately set off alarms among supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 'Make America Healthy Again' movement, and appeared to put Mr. Kennedy in an awkward position. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, which has been the target of tens of thousands of lawsuits that claim it causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In 2018, as a plaintiff’s lawyer, Mr. Kennedy helped win a landmark $289 million jury verdict against Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, in a case contending the company knew the weedkiller caused cancer. But in a statement issued through a spokesman Wednesday night, the health secretary said he supported the president.... Some of Mr. Kennedy’s supporters, as well as environmental groups, were furious....
“Mr. Trump’s order invoked the Defense Production Act, a 1950s-era law typically used in national emergencies to compel companies to produce certain materials or supplies that the president deems necessary for national security. Mr. Trump declared both glyphosate and phosphorus, used to manufacture the weedkiller, 'critical to the national defense.'” MB: IOW, because Trump has made the country less secure by embracing isolationism, antagonizing our friends, destabilizing trade routes and becoming a war president* (because Norway didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize), Americans will just have to get cancer.
Trump Gives Notorious International Drug Trafficker the Red Carpet Treatment. Keri Blakinger in ProPublica: "For months..., Donald Trump ... has used the scourge of drug trafficking as a rationale for dozens of military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, which have left more than 140 people dead. Last month, Trump cheered a military assault by U.S. forces that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and brought them to the U.S. to face charges related to cocaine trafficking.... But when it comes to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was tried and convicted in the U.S. in 2024 and sentenced to 45 years in prison for taking bribes and allowing traffickers to export more than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S., Trump has taken a decidedly softer tone.... On Dec. 1, Trump pardoned the former president after he served less than four of those 45 years.... [Following the pardon, and d]espite persistent budget and staffing shortages, prison officials paid a specialized tactical team overtime to drive Hernández from a high-security facility in West Virginia to the famed five-star Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City...."
Brendan Ballou in a New York Times op-ed: “Consider ... Trevor Milton, who was convicted of defrauding investors in his electric vehicle company. (Among other tricks: A video of his electric semi truck was allegedly forged by simply dragging the inoperable vehicle to the top of a hill and then letting it roll down.) Mr. Milton was sentenced to four years in prison. After he gave nearly $2 million to Trump-allied political committees, the president pardoned him. This meant that, among other things, Mr. Milton would not have to pay the $660 million that prosecutors demanded be returned to his defrauded investors.... [Milton's case is] part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to largely dismantle the infrastructure for prosecuting rich lawbreakers.... Illiberal governments tend to live or die by their ability to sustain corruption.... Criminals and government officials are barely hiding their schemes, and their brazenness is meant to make us feel helpless, to think that nothing can be done. That is false. We already have the legal tools to fight corruption.” Ballou suggests a few of those tools.
⭐AP: “Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former British prince who was stripped of his royal titles because of his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office. While Andrew has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with his friendship with Epstein, concerns about Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to the late financier have dogged the royal family for more than a decade. Thames Valley Police said that a man in his 60s from Norfolk in eastern England was arrested and remained in custody. The force, which covers areas west of London, including Mountbatten-Windsor’s former home, did not identify the suspect, in line with standard procedures in Britain, but pointed to the statement when asked to confirm if Andrew was arrested. Mountbatten-Windsor, who turned 66 on Thursday, moved to his brother King Charles III’s estate in Norfolk after he was evicted from his longtime home near Windsor Castle earlier this month.” ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's liveblog is here. The New York Times' liveblog is here.
Reuters, republished by the Guardian: “Millions of files related to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein suggest the existence of a 'global criminal enterprise' that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, a panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations human rights council has said. The experts said crimes outlined in documents released by the US justice department were committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption and extreme misogyny. The crimes, they said, showed a commodification and dehumanisation of women and girls.... The experts said the allegations contained in the files require an independent, thorough and impartial investigation, and said inquiries should also be launched into how it was possible for such crimes to be committed for so long.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: My, that's mighty odd because the highly-regarded crackerjack lawfirm of Blondie, Blanche, Bongo & Kash, Ltd., said long ago that there was no credible information in those files that Epstein had trafficked young women to anyone other than himself. Why, Kash himself testified as such before the United States Senate in September 2025. Indeed, I watched (on YouTube) old Chuck Grassley swearing in Kash at this particular Senate hearing; that is, Kash seems to have lied under oath about the contents of the Epstein files.
Annie Karni of the New York Times: “Leslie Wexner, the retail billionaire who helped Jeffrey Epstein build his wealth, did not refuse to answer questions during a six-hour, closed-door deposition on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee. But he may as well have, Democrats said after spending the day in his hometown of New Albany, Ohio, questioning him as part of the committee’s investigation into Mr. Epstein. House Democrats said that Mr. Wexner, the former chief executive of Victoria’s Secret and a prolific donor to Republican candidates, repeatedly denied having any personal relationship with Mr. Epstein and said he had been 'conned' by the financier and sex offender, but had done nothing wrong. In an opening statement he provided to the committee, Mr. Wexner, 88, described himself as 'naïve, foolish, and gullible to put any trust in Jeffrey Epstein.'” (Also linked yesterday.) An NBC News story is here.
Robert Draper of the New York Times: “In unsparing detail, the [Epstein] documents lay bare the once-furtive activities of an unaccountable elite, largely made up of rich and powerful men from business, politics, academia and show business. The pages tell a story of a heinous criminal given a free ride by the ruling class in which he dwelled, all because he had things to offer them: money, connections, sumptuous dinner parties, a private plane, a secluded island and, in some cases, sex.... [Epstein's] correspondence described a network of people whose high-flying lives belied the struggles of ordinary Americans. And at the center of that network was a sexual predator seemingly on top of the world.”
~~~ Marie: Draper dances around but still misses the main story: there is a vast cabal of world-class elites who jockey to control international economies & politics, but Epstein is not at the center of it. He's not even the B-list. The people he hung out with were wanna-bes like Trump, has-beens like Bill Clinton or second-tier royalty like the long-disgraced Prince Andrew. And the worst part of the cabal ops is not necessarily criminal; it's what these operators get governments to do. Trump & his Republican allies have placed almost all of the U.S. tax burden on the middle-income and upper-middle income people; billionaires like Trump & Bezos often pay no federal taxes at all. I suspect politicians (in both parties, but especially Republicans) have emphasized the criminality and disgusting immorality of the men who have abused girls because what they really, really don't want to highlight is their own critical participation in enabling the rich in other endeavors that harm & disadvantage ordinary people.
All the President*'s Lawyers. Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: “For reasons that remain unclear, Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump, abruptly instructed her team to seek an indictment of [six] lawmakers, all of whom had served in the armed forces or the intelligence community...' for issuing a video this fall reminding military and intelligence personnel that they did not have to obey illegal orders.... Their efforts failed last week in spectacular fashion as the grand jury roundly rejected the request for an indictment against Senators Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona and four of their colleagues in the House, a remarkable denunciation of a federal prosecution.... For now, [Ms. Pirro's] office has shelved the inquiry..., although that decision might not stop the Justice Department from seeking to reopen it somewhere else or pressuring her office to try again.... The botched attempt to prosecute the lawmakers ... stood as an example of the chaos that has roiled the department as it has grappled with the president’s increasingly erratic demands, even in the face of little evidence.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Amy Wang of the Washington Post: “Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, who has argued that wives should submit to their husbands, women should be denied the vote and Christian enslavers were on 'firm scriptural ground,' led a worship service at the Pentagon this week at the invitation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. An image of Hegseth praying with the self-described 'paleo-Confederate,' posted by the Defense Department on social media, drew rebukes from critics.... Wilson co-founded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, Hegseth’s denomination, and leads its flagship Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Women in CREC are barred from leadership positions. Hegseth has previously praised and amplified Wilson.” MB: I'm sure many of our national leaders -- even Republican ones -- are genuinely religious. Hegseth's religiosity, on the other hand, seems to be an excuse for his White nationalist beliefs.
Arelis Hernández & Teo Armus of the Washington Post: “The Department of Homeland Security issued a memo Wednesday stating that federal immigration agents should arrest refugees who have not yet obtained a green card and detain them indefinitely for rescreening — a policy shift that upends decades of protections and puts tens of thousands of people who entered during the Biden administration at risk. The new policy rescinds a 2010 memo that said failing to apply for status as a lawful permanent resident within a year of living in the United States is not a basis for detaining refugees who entered the country legally....
“The memo appeared in a court filing one day before a scheduled hearing in Minnesota federal court, where a judge temporarily blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late January from detaining 5,600 refugees in the state after several organizations sued. Immigration officers arrested dozens of resettled people from countries including Somalia, Ecuador and Venezuela for further questioning as part of an enforcement surge dubbed Operation PARRIS that the Trump administration has said was aimed at combating fraud. Immigration lawyers say many were quickly transported to Texas detention centers and later released without their identity documents. The International Refugee Assistance Project, one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, is asking a judge to declare the new refugee detention policy unlawful to prevent more refugees in Minnesota from being arrested.”
~~~ Marie: This sounds to me as if DHS hastily made up a "new rule" to try to rectify the fact that the department already had unlawfully detained at least 5,600 people in Minnesota alone. They really don't know WTF they're doing. Just grab people off the streets and make up excuses later.
As Akhilleus wrote in yesterday's Comments, "This is why fascists hate the arts." And damned if this troupe didn't perform right smack dab in front of No. 1 Fascist's co-opted (and now effectively defunct) center for the arts:
Movin' on Out to the Burbs. Jon Collins of Minnesota Public Radio News: “It’s been almost a week since the federal government announced that officials planned to 'draw down' the number of federal agents in Minnesota. While people on the ground are skeptical about the government’s statements, and Homeland Security isn’t releasing any updates on agent numbers or arrests, it does appear from anecdotal reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has shifted its activities from the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to the state’s suburbs, exurbs and small towns.... As ICE moves their activities outside the Metro area, there’s growing concern that some authorities in other parts of the state may cooperate more closely with the agency.”
In case you can't remember much about Tricia McLaughlin because you've tried to wipe her nasty lies from your mind, Marcie Jones of Wonkette is here to reprise the young lady's outstanding career in "public service." MB: Reviewing McLaughlin's résumé with Jones' help makes me think she would be an ideal leader of the other expert panel charged with reviewing Trump's scam ballroom design. (This and related stories also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Speaking of lies Tricia McLaughlin has told, here's a story about one of the many people she lied about ~~~
~~~ Devan Cole of CNN: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia cannot be re-detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, dealing the Trump administration another blow in its effort to keep him locked up while it attempts to deport him again.The injunction issued by US District Judge Paula Xinis, of the federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, follows an emergency order she handed down in December that similarly blocked officials from taking Abrego Garcia into immigration custody. But unlike the earlier ruling, the government can appeal the new one up to a Richmond, Virginia-based federal appeals court. Tuesday’s decision is the latest judicial rebuke of the government’s maneuvering in Abrego Garcia’s case, which has come to symbolize the administration’s hardline — and, at times, slapdash — approach to immigration enforcement. Abrego Garcia was unlawfully deported to El Salvador last year and, following a series of court rulings, brought back to the US to face federal human smuggling charges....” (Also linked yesterday.)
Mattathias Schwartz & Seamus Hughes of the New York Times: “A federal judge in Minnesota found a Trump administration lawyer in civil contempt of court on Wednesday, a significant escalation between the judiciary and the executive branch amid a ballooning caseload triggered by ... [Donald] Trump’s immigration raids and novel interpretations of law. According to the ruling, by Judge Laura M. Provinzino of Federal District Court in Minnesota, the government failed to return 'identification documents' belonging to Rigoberto Soto Jimenez, a detained immigrant whom she had ordered to be released with all of his property returned. The judge ordered a $500 daily fine imposed on Matthew Isihara, an administration lawyer, for each day the documents are not returned, beginning on Friday....
“'Judge Provinzino’s order is a lawless abuse of judicial power,' Daniel N. Rosen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota, said in a statement.... The government’s lack of respect for court rulings stemming from such petitions has been raised by judges in the District of Minnesota, where the chief judge compiled a list of nearly 100 violations of court orders in habeas cases since Jan. 1, and in New Jersey, where the Justice Department admitted 52 violations since Dec. 5.” ~~~
~~~ Mattathias Schwartz, et al., of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has violated more than 50 orders from federal judges in the District of New Jersey, all in cases involving immigrants’ challenging the legality of their detention, according to a court-ordered review conducted by a senior Justice Department official. The admission comes as federal judges around the country grapple with how best to address an emerging pattern of government noncompliance in immigration cases. Judges have castigated what they have described as the administration’s lawless approach in their rulings, summoned senior officials to their courtrooms to account for their lapses, and threatened to hold officials in contempt of court. In the New Jersey case, Judge Michael E. Farbiarz, who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., ordered the administration to detail every instance in which it had failed to comply with a judicial order in the district since Dec. 5. In a response last week, Jordan Fox, the chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, filed an 11-page declaration describing 52 separate violations across 547 cases, describing them as accidental. [A lawyer for one detainee who was deported in violation of a court order] took issue with the government’s claim that its lapse was unintentional.”
NIMBY. Madeleine Ngo, et al., of the “Across the country, the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to buy industrial warehouses and turn them into detention centers for immigrants are running into local resistance, including in communities ... that voted for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election.... Local officials and residents in at least a dozen areas have voiced opposition to the facilities, packing town hall meetings and expressing fears that the protests that recently shook Minneapolis could be unleashed in their backyards. Those who object to the facilities say that the sites would diminish property tax revenue, harm local businesses and strain water and sewer infrastructure. They have also expressed humanitarian concerns over converting industrial warehouses into detention centers that could hold people for an average of 60 days.”
Scott Dance of the New York Times: “The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week canceled employee travel — including some disaster response and recovery work — until a partial government shutdown ends, according to emails sent to staff.... In response to questions about the order, FEMA officials said travel related to 'active disasters' was not canceled. But that statement has confused many staff members, who received emails Tuesday and Wednesday showing that the travel restrictions affected some FEMA workers who were deployed to areas that were recovering from a disaster.” MB: They really don't know WTF they're doing. Seems to me I've said that somewhere before.
Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: “The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, will take on the additional role of acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two administration officials said on Wednesday. Dr. Bhattacharya will continue to run the N.I.H.... He will serve until Mr. Trump appoints a permanent director — a position that now requires confirmation by the Senate. The C.D.C. has run through a series of leaders since Mr. Trump returned to the White House last year.... Dr. Bhattacharya has no formal training in public health. But his research has focused on the well-being of populations, which is the core mission of public health, and thus the C.D.C.”
Christina Jewett & Rebecca Robbins of the New York Times: “The Food and Drug Administration has reversed its decision on Moderna’s flu vaccine and has agreed to review it for possible approval, Moderna announced on Wednesday.... Moderna said it split its application for the flu vaccine based on age, seeking a traditional approval for people 50 to 64 years old, and accelerated approval for those 65 and older. The company also said it agreed to conduct an additional study among those 65 and older once the vaccine reached the market. Moderna said on Wednesday that the F.D.A. set a deadline of August to decide whether to approve the vaccine. If it is authorized, it would be available for those older adults in the flu season that begins later this year. The vaccine uses messenger RNA technology, which Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly criticized as unsafe and ineffective.... Despite its development during the first Trump administration, mRNA uses have been extensively curtailed in the last year, sending shock waves through the vaccine industry.” MB: Remember, Junior Brainworm is not a quack but he plays one on teevee. (Also linked yesterday.)
Eileen Sullivan & Rebecca O'Brien of the New York Times: “New data about the federal agency responsible for workplace safety suggests a substantial drop in inspections in the months after ... [Donald] Trump returned to office last year. The internal data from the Labor Department raises concerns about the government’s ability to police workplaces and protect U.S. workers. The data, which was released by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, shows a 20 percent decrease in work site inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during a six-month period last year compared with the same period in 2024. The government has not publicly released data for the number of inspections for the entire 2025 fiscal year. But the decrease during that six-month period raises the specter among labor advocates that the Trump administration is relaxing oversight of companies and increasing the potential for serious injuries and deaths.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Marcie Jones of Wonkette on media (NYT) & MAGA attacks on Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez because she occasionally hesitated before answering complex questions about specific international situations: "You know what would be great? If the Times could print out the full transcripts of all of Stumbles McCankles’s moaning rambles, instead of summarizing and sanewashing them on his behalf every goddamn day." Thanks to RAS for the link. MB: Remember, too, that AOC not only had to convey what she thought about an issue, but she also had to make sure that her extemporaneous remarks were, well, prudent in an international setting. I will tell you that every responsible male does that, too; the ones who don't are Trump, JayDee and their ilk. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Ted Johnson of Deadline: “FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said that the agency 'has an enforcement action underway' on ABC’s The View after the show featured James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, as a guest. 'We’re taking a look at it,' Carr told reporters on Wednesday, but he declined to go into specifics. Fox News reported earlier this month that The View was under investigation for potential violation of the Equal Time Rule, which requires broadcasters who feature candidates to provide airtime to rivals if requested.... The show also has featured Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), one of Talarico’s Democratic primary opponents, as a guest, but not Carr’s comments follow Stephen Colbert‘s show on Monday, when the host said that CBS attorneys declined to allow an interview with Talarico to be broadcast out of concern of triggering the equal time regulation....
“The Colbert incident became a major political and media story on Tuesday, raising questions of whether CBS was stifling a candidate to try to remain on the good side of the Trump administration. Carr, though, said that he was 'highly entertained. I think it was one of the most fun days I’ve had in the job watching sort of the hilarity of how this story played out.'” MB: At heart, the MAGA crowd are all sadists, overjoyed to think they have caused hardships for others. ~~~
~~~ Politico has a related story here. ~~~
~~~ Here's Stephen Colbert, responding to the the network lawyers' statement rebutting his remarks about his interview of U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico. It's almost as if the suits don't have much of a sense of humor: ~~~
~~~ David Graham of the Atlantic: “I wrote in July that CBS’s leadership had lost the benefit of the doubt, and the network’s actions since its parent company’s merger with Skydance and the appointment of Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News have reinforced that. CBS deserves plenty of criticism for cowardice. But that doesn’t mean it’s incorrect to fear FCC action.... Last month..., [the FCC published a] new notice [which] states that 'the FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently would qualify for the bona fide news exemption.' [MB: i.e., would not be subject to the equal time rule.] ([FCC chair Brendan] Carr has not extended this reasoning to talk radio, which conservatives dominate.)...
“On day one of his administration, Trump issued an executive order that charged, 'Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve.' This is a good description of what Trump’s administration is doing now.” Thanks to akaWendy for this gift link.
~~~~~~~~~~
California. Evan Bush & David Li of NBC News: “Eight people were killed in an avalanche during a backcountry skiing expedition on the California side of Lake Tahoe on Tuesday, authorities said in an update Wednesday. One person is still missing but presumed dead, officials said, as searchers fight near-whiteout conditions. Six others in the party survived, ranging in age from 30 to 55 years old.... lacer County Sheriff Wayne Woo, whose deputies are assisting in the search, said it could be some time before all nine bodies can be recovered.” The New York Times story is here.
Illinois. Heather Cox Richardson recounts Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's state of the state speech. Video of the speech is here.
Texas. David Goodman & Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: “An aide to Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas sent a text message to a co-worker last April saying that she had an affair with the Republican congressman, according to the co-worker who shared the text exchange with The New York Times. The text message, first reported on Tuesday by The San Antonio Express-News, and then obtained on Wednesday by The Times, has thrown Mr. Gonzales’s re-election fight into turmoil just as voters in Texas have begun casting primary ballots. The aide who said she had the affair died by suicide five months after sending the text, when she lit herself on fire in the backyard of her home. 'I had affair with our boss and I’m fine,' the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, wrote last April 27, referring to Mr. Gonzales, a married father of six. The congressman, who has at times broken with President Trump but has the president’s endorsement, is locked in a tough primary fight with a challenger to his right, Brandon Herrera. Mr. Gonzales accused Mr. Herrera on Wednesday of being behind the release of the text message.” The Texas Tribune's story is here.
~~~~~~~~~~
South Korea. Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: “A court in South Korea sentenced former president Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison on Thursday, after convicting him of leading an insurrection when he declared martial law in late 2024. The judges could have sentenced him to death, by law the only alternative punishment. Yoon was found guilty of acting as the ringleader of an insurrection when he orchestrated a disastrous attempt to install a military-led government late on a December night. As the military descended on the National Assembly, lawmakers overturned Yoon’s decree. Martial law was lifted within six hours, but Yoon was impeached, ousted from office and criminally charged along with co-defendants who were also convicted in the insurrection case.” The AP story is here. MB: Hey, how come the leader of our insurrection isn't in prison? Mitch? Merrick?
27 comments:
More Wag the Dog. Brits arrest the king's brother? Holy shit! That Epstein stuff is a pain....Better bomb someone. Distract, distract, distract from Epstein, Epstein, Epstein and pukey poll numbers. Gotta look tough and presidenshul like.
So I see where Fat Hitler is conferring with his "advisors". Who might that be? Moe, Larry, Curly, Heckle and Jeckle, and Drunk Pete? And maybe the dreadful Li'l Marco? About dropping bombs on Iran?
I've been hearing (and reading) reports about all of this that make Fatty sound positively Churchillian. "The President is carefully considering all options. He has gone after Iran several times before with little or no pushback from the Iranians.. He might be considering regime change, but as always President Trump keeps everyone guessing. He is maneuvering his chess pieces."
When is that? Between "Sir" stories and Diet Cokes? None of this would be necessary if this petulant child hadn't torn up a carefully crafted nuclear agreement with Iran. Why? Because Obama. No darkie who made fun of Fatty is gonna show him up on the international stage, no siree! And now here he is with his big warships and war planes and all kinds of cool war stuff. Maybe this time they'll give him that Nobel medal when they see how he stops (after starting) another war.
The truly appalling thing here is that this is a fucking asshole who thrives on chaos and instability. And in this case, he has a lot to gain by threatening war with Iran, and that is more distraction from the mess he has made of the United States and the ongoing Epstein debacle which he cannot seem to control for anything. And so what if that causes turmoil in the rest of the world? Fuck them all. He is the only one who matters here.
And here we are once again with a dangerous lunatic making shit up on the fly to try to fix problems he himself has caused, and he is surrounded by the dregs of political advisors, that is, boot lickers who do whatever they can to make sure that any advice they give is exactly what he wants to hear. Only even he isn't sure what to do. So....drop a few bombs.
Gag me with a dense pack. Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, and Franz Kafka together couldn't outdo the absurdity and complete madness of where we are right now with a colicky and unstable infant at the wheel.
I'm sure Fox will make sure we all understand that all of this is Obama's fault. Or Biden's. Or Wokeness...anything but what it really is. The doings of a fat dementia patient.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the "diplomatic" option, emphasis on "dip" as in "dipshits". Fatty sent his experienced (not) diplomatic team of world class negotiators (Kushner666 and CondoMan Witkoff) to haggle with the Iranians, who must collectively be thinking "Allah take us! These guys are imbeciles!". Jared is still thinking about real estate options in Gaza and Witkoff is still marveling at his own encounters with Vlad the Impaler which were more like a little kid coming to the department store to see Santa, whose day job is Serial Killer.
Diplomacy has never been Fatty's forte. Diplomacy for Trump is "Do what I say, or else".
Which means....WAR! Which is what he wanted in the first place I'm guessing, because he's got nothin' else. Also there is that famous comic book character War Machine, aka Bibi, who is always looking for distraction from his massive fails and imminent corruption trials, plus a chance to get in on bombing some Iranians.
Can this get any more dangerid? (combination of dangerous and stupid).
We pause now for a message from Stoopid Eric, whose job title is Trump Family Corrupt Grifter Number 2 (Eightball Junior is Number 1).
I was reminded of this last night after espying a little note on the Verge site about that Trump Mobile scam. Remember that? The Trump Crime Family sometime last year promised a cheap, cheap, cheap mobile phone service and super-duper best ever in the world mobile phone. Fast forward eight months and the service and phone promised PINKY SWEAR! last September is nowhere to be found.
Oh, but some 590,000 idiots paid 500 smackers upfront for this super-duper phone which, it turns out, is a knockoff of a Temu $45 phone, just with a fancy T logo and spray painted gold. Oh yeah, and the other big selling point was that the Trump Mobile Phone was supposed to have been Made in 'Merica by all white guys, no sleazy immigrants, dang it. But instead, the phones made available for show and tell were Made in China. Oops!
As scams go, it's one of their better ones. I mean, they've done zip, zero, nada, and they made....let's see...590,000 times 500....carry the one....hmmmm....Oh...almost $300 million! Not bad for what it cost for their shitty web site and a few messages from Stoopid Eric.
Elizabeth Warren is on the job, demanding an investigation of this latest Trump Crime Family scam, but I'm thinking she should just cool it on this one. If 590,000 MAGAts were stupid enough to buy this load of crap, fuck 'em.
For shits and grins, check out the sad, stoopid timeline of this con, here.
From the "They Really Don't Know What the Fuck They're Doing Department" (thanks, Marie)....
It seems FEMA employees have been told they are under travel restrictions. Hmmm...what if there's like, ya know, a 'mergency, or sumptin'? I know! They can use that extra private jet the Gnome bought for herself. Oh, but they can't use the one with the blanky, that's for use solely by the Gnome and her mentally deranged boyfriend. Besides, given what they do under that blanky, who would want to use to after? I mean....ewwww.
Another obsession t**** shares with h*****?
Timothy W. Ryback, for The Atlantic, Hitler’s Greenland Obsession
"Greenland appears to have been a lifelong preoccupation of Adolf Hitler’s
....
By April 1934, Hitler’s government had inventoried Greenland: 13,500 Eskimo, 3,500 Danes, and 8,000 sheep, as well as the world’s largest deposit of a strategic natural resource—cryolite, a mineral essential to American aluminum production.
...
In a drive to move Germany toward economic self-sufficiency, Hitler had imposed draconian tariffs, refused to honor foreign-debt obligations, and sought to wean the nation off Norwegian whale-oil consumption. The problem was that Germany used whale oil not only for margarine, a staple of the German diet, but also in the production of nitroglycerin, a key component for the munitions industry. Whale-oil imports ranged from 165,000 to 220,000 tons annually, representing the country’s single largest foreign-currency expenditure. To replace Norwegian whale oil, it was proposed that “German ships with German fishermen using German equipment” could harvest “the riches of the sea”—or Fischreichtum—“without giving a single penny to foreign countries.” So Hitler mobilized a German whaling fleet that gradually depleted whale populations in the North.."
Liked the Heather Cox history and the Pritzker speech.
J B Pritzker is only 61 years old. He really sounds like presidential material, or
maybe he's too smart for that.
Check him out on Wikipedia. Most interesting reading.
Saw reporting saying Wexner claimed that the FBI never interviewed him despite him being on a list of suspected coconspirators. Maybe we should put someone other than Republicans at the top of the FBI if they can't get their agents to follow ups on the largest child sex trafficking ring investigation. Heck of a job Mueller, Comey and Ray.
Right v Right
"Fuentes: Don’t Vote In Midterms, F-Trump, F-MAGA, Destroy The GOP, I Want A Fascist In 2028"
Someone may have been drinking again
"Trump’s Man in Munich Completely Lashed Out at Mette Frederiksen: »Little Lady«
Trump’s close ally Lindsey Graham completely lost his temper in Munich. During a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, he yawned loudly and called her »little lady«, Berlingske has learned. But the Prime Minister kept her composure during the utterly bizarre incident at the security conference."
"Tesla's Texas Robotaxis Crash 4 Times More Often Than A Human Driver
Also now that Fat Hitler is about to start bombing Iran again and that Jared is in on the negotiations maybe the super secret whistleblower report that concerned Kushner and Iran may be relevant. I know it was like a whole week ago, but a little follow up may be in order.
Commerce Dept: 2025 Trade Deficit Was Record $1.2T
"The U.S. trade deficit for goods hit a record $1.2 trillion last year, even as the Trump administration pursued a trade agenda with aggressive tariffs and a staunch “America First” approach.
Fresh data released by the Commerce Department on Thursday morning showed the full-year total deficit combining goods and services was $901.5 billion, down a smidgen from 2024 but still one of the largest levels in decades. Exports of goods and services rose 6.2 percent to a record $3.4 trillion. Imports rose nearly 5 percent to a record $4.3 trillion."
U2 released a song tribute to Renee Good
"U2 have released their first collection of new music since 2017 – a politically charged EP entitled Days of Ash, which focuses on a series of high-profile global deaths including the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents. Good, a mother of three children who was killed on 7 January while protesting against ICE activity in Minneapolis, is the subject of the opening song, American Obituary."
So much to deal with on an every day basis. And too much of our daily brainpower, too much ink (I know, an archaic expression, but you get the point), too much collective energy is expended in a wildly overblown way, on the Fat Fascist who bobs at the center of the spider web. But that energy is necessary because of the ridiculous kind and amount of power vested in this single waste of human form.
Marie links a NYT story today about the mercurial (and always) dangerous events in Syria. She warns readers that it's a long and complicated story missing some important defining elements. True. But Syria offers a case study of why it's so vital that we have smart, informed, and experienced people acting on behalf of the nation, whether that is in advisory roles for the president, or as individuals tasked with implementing thoughtful policies.
I'm thinking back now to a 2005 film, "Syriana" which was based on the work of Steven Baer, a former CiA field agent who spent years in the Middle East. His experience there, which comes through in the film, is that of a highly complicated and complex web of conditions, history, personalities, economics, religion, and extremism--of several kinds. Baer points out that the term Syriana was bandied about in Washington think tanks as an expression of the desire to restructure a particular region to suit the economic requirements of outside forces, in this case the desire of big oil to control enough of the region to make oil extraction as profitable as possible and the incredibly complicated physical, political, and regional roadblocks to such a goal. Anyone trying to even make heads or tails of all of this cannot be stupid or naive, surely cannot be ignorant of the multiplicity of personalities and warring interests at hand.
I'm recalling another film, I think it was with Humphrey Bogart playing a newspaper editor who meets with a young wide eyed reporter who dreams of being a foreign correspondent and wants to be posted in Egypt (or some other exotic locale). Bogart has a little come to Jesus with the kid. "How are you on the history of this area going back, say, 6,000 years? Can you speak the language? Are you up on the various social mores and the competing political parties? Can you tell me that country's GDP for the last 50 years? Do you know what industries are important?
You get the idea. In order to properly understand a region well enough to make rational judgements, there's a lot you need to know.
Now think about the imbeciles surrounding the biggest imbecile, Fatty. I'm sure there were plenty of Bob Baer types working in intelligence fields for the US, but no more. They've been weeded out in favor of Trump loyalists. It's not important that they know the language or the customs or even how to spell the name of the fucking place, only that they work solely for the economic benefit and grandiosity of one person.
Remember Isaiah Berlin's theory of the Fox and the Hedgehog? The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one important thing. All Trump knows, or cares about, is his money and his personal glory, none of which works in favor of the nation he supposedly leads. He's certainly no fox. Nor is he a hedgehog, whose knowledge is practical and useful for daily survival. He's more like a rabid weasel.
And now this weasel is on the verge of taking us into a war with Iran, a country and a region he knows nothing about. Do you think Drunk Pete is an expert on the Middle East? All he knows is Muslims are there, and to Crusader Petey, they must all be killed for Jesus.
So this is where we are. Leaders unable to accommodate complexity can lead in only one direction. Backwards. Trump's goal of restructuring the world to suit himself has already had devastating consequences. We're about to add to that list.
So ICE Barbie commandeers an aircraft on a rescue mission in order to get her quota of immigrants destined for concentration camps. I'm thinking we should adjust the name. She's becoming less ICE Barbie and more Klaus Barbie. I'm sure that suits Himmler Miller.
The tariffs have always been a Pretender (Heritage Foundation) con. Replace progressive taxation with regressive tariffs in a fashion that obscures the politics of making the little people pay and in a manner accomplished by the Dear Leader's fiat. No muss; no fuss.
Akhilleus,
The next sermon is done. The following, I'm only toying with, thinking that, yes, the devil is in the details, particularly when those in charge don't know them or want to know them. The only outcomes are predictably bad. But details, the nuts and bolts of fact and reality, are also the stepping stones to salvation.
Unfortunately, as you say, we're in the hands of lazy idiots, or as I've often referred to them, the I'd-rather-not-know Party. And they'd rather not know to such a degree that they don't want anyone else to know either. No anthropomorphic climate change. No racism in our past or present...all the lies and denialism in the service of not knowing.
But as RAS pointed out the other day, there's a lot of money to be made from ignorance.
FARNOUSH AMIRI
"In an hourslong meeting, leaders from various countries, including Peru, Bahrain and Pakistan, spent most of their speaking time praising Trump and what they called his “unprecedented” ability to end conflicts around the world.
Pakistan called him the “savior of South Asia,” while others said that years of U.S. foreign policy efforts by his predecessor failed to do what Trump has done in the last year.
The glowing remarks that went around from each corner of the globe resembled the same format and tone of Trump’s Cabinet meetings, which involve less policy substance and more adulation for the Republican president."
Several articles linked today display what a total idiot Fat Hitler is with finances. His temper tantrum tariffs cost the US billions and gouged US consumers. He’s promising billions to this ridiculous collection of grifters, Emirs, and dictators because he’s bored of peas, and overall, the US economy is doing terribly because of his idiotic policies.
But he’s been a chiseling cheat for years. Marie referenced his four Casino bankruptcies, but Fatty counts those as yuuuge wins for himself.
“When pressed about the multiple bankruptcies at his Atlantic City casinos, Donald Trump routinely says the episodes highlight his business acumen. He made out well, he claims, at the expense only of his greedy Wall Street financiers. ‘These lenders aren’t babies,’ he said during a Republican primary debate last fall. ‘These are total killers. These are not the nice, sweet little people that you think, okay?’
Yet among those who suffered as a result of Trump’s bankruptcies were his own casino employees, who collectively lost millions of dollars in retirement savings when the company’s value plummeted.”
So according to Fatty, if he doesn’t like you, or thinks you’re a “total killer”, even if you lend him millions, he can stiff you and refuse to pay you back, pocketing a bundle for himself and letting everyone else hang.
But it’s not just his mismanagement and world class deadbeat status that should give Americans pause, it’s his sleazy con man approach to bilking those who trust him and believe his spiel.
“Trump’s company encouraged its employees to invest their retirement savings in company stock, according to a class-action lawsuit filed by employees against Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts following its 2004 bankruptcy. Then, when the stock price was near its nadir as bankruptcy loomed, the company forced the employees to sell their stock at a huge loss. More than 400 employees lost a total of more than $2 million from their retirement accounts, the lawsuit states.”
Just like those MAGA idiots who forked over hundreds of millions to Trump Mobile and got screwed, anyone, at this point who gives this snake oil serpent the benefit of the doubt deserves what they get,
The difference, of course, is that now, he gets to decide how much he’ll pull out of your pockets.
Where is that party of fiscal responsibility now? They’re no different than shills for the con, or mules for a drug kingpin.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-atlantic-city-bankruptcy/
Roger Sollenberger
"DOJ Removed Record of Multiple FBI Interviews with Underage Trump Accuser, Epstein Data Shows
The FBI spoke at least four times with a woman who credibly accused Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor, Epstein files show. That document is no longer accessible on the DOJ website."
The Onion - parody, for now
"Revised National Parks Webpage Describes Harriet Tubman As Human Trafficker"
Ken,
Your description of “the nuts and bolts of fact and reality” as “the stepping stones to salvation” also perfectly outlines the scientific method, which has taken us from examining chicken bones as harbingers of the weather and future events to a world wide collection of satellites and weather casting software to more accurately determine atmospheric vagaries and predictions that save lives. But Fatty has outlawed such “woke” paradigms.
Now we’re back to what makes the most money for his donors. I suppose a little more modern than chicken bones but arguably much more dangerous. It’s possible that chicken bone interpreters could be right on occasion. With Fatty’s version of weather, health, the economy, and safety, it’s ALWAYS what’s best for me and my billionaire pals. If poor, unconnected loser schmucks have to die for us to stay rich, so be it.
At least medieval bone readers weren’t making purposefully bad forecasts so they could get rich.
RAS,
RE: Harriet Tubman, don’t give them any ideas.
Helen Lewis, for The Atlantic, adds detail and color to the sad story of entitled men (and one woman) The Former Prince Andrew Never Should Have Forwarded Those Emails
"In the United States, the Epstein affair is still seen primarily as a sex scandal. The financier was well known as a man who could easily find women—“no one over 25 and all very cute,” he told Elon Musk—to go on dates with his rich friends. (“Pro or civilian?” Steve Tisch, a co-owner of the New York Giants, asked about one such woman.) But here in Britain, this is a corruption scandal—and not just because Andrew sent Epstein confidential information about investment opportunities in Afghanistan."
Brave, brave Sir Donald
Today, bragging about how he "won" affordability, Cadet Bone Spurs, a rank coward, felt obliged to tell those listening to his lates whoppers that he went to Iraq in 2018 and was just SO BRAVE that he thought he should have given himslelf the the Medal of Honor.
"'So, I decided to go to Iraq, and I flew to Iraq,' Trump said. 'And I was extremely brave. In fact, so brave, I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor. I said to my people, ‘Am I allowed to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor?'....
'And you know, I’ve given it out to so many guys that are seriously brave,' Trump continued. 'They come in with arms missing, the legs are missing, the stories are so unbelievable. And I said, ‘No, it’s a little stretch if I gave myself one.'"
So even though this mooing cow-sized coward went to Iraq with an enormous entourage and enough military protection and firepower to seize a small country, his "bravery" merited the Medal of Honor. This cowardly snowflake who whines at the drop of a Diet Coke. Of course he decides that even though a lot of recipients of the MOH are missing limbs, it would only be a little bit of a stretch for him to give himself the Medal. He was that close!
He adds that he was "only joking" but for my money, the Medal of Honor is not something one jokes about. "Haha...most of those guys don't have arms and legs but I wanted the same medal they got. Pretty funny, huh?"
Yeah, fuckface. Wicked funny.
Not sure what's more appalling, his extraordinary and unearned self aggrandizement, or his cavalier joking about men and women who have been severely injured, most of whom DIED in the service of their country, something he was too craven and scarified to do.
The rankest of disgusting pigs.
Akhilleus,
I saw that idiocy too. It was "only a joke", but he has also been thinking about what a brave little boy he was for EIGHT freaking years afterwards. How can someone without honor and who knows nothing about honor received a medal for something they never had nor ever will have? Also giving yourself a medal awarded by yourself is incredibly pathetic, but something a loser like FH would/will do.
Maybe the next real president can give out medal of honor awards to all the brave people of Minneapolis who came out in the streets and faced real danger from Fatty's murderous lunatic thugs for weeks on end.
The Pretender got something else wrong: What Obama really said about aliens. But what he said stirred him to release the long-classified ET files. Probably time-release files, though, like the Epstein lode.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/trump-alien-ufo-government-files-release-obama
BTW I do sometimes feel like I'm living among real aliens...
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