Marie: I added some new links up until about 10:15 am ET. There's more to do, and I'll do it this afternoon. I also changed some links I'd posted earlier to what I think are gift links.
The New York Times' liveblog of developments in the Iran war are here. From the pinned item at 8:35 am ET: “Hours [after Donald Trump said Iran would allow 20 cargo ships through the Strait of Hormuz], two Chinese-owned commercial vessels that had abandoned efforts to transit the strait on Friday successfully passed through the waterway, according to the ship-tracking platform MarineTraffic. The crossings offered an initial indication that Iran could be relaxing its de facto stranglehold of the Strait of Hormuz..... The fighting continued on Monday as Israel kept up its aerial bombardment of Iran, which fired volleys of ballistic missiles and drones across the region.... On Monday, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that 'great progress' was being made toward reaching an agreement with Iran. But if a deal isn’t struck, he warned, the United States would bombard Iran’s 'Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island,' from which Iran exports the majority of its oil.”
Eric Schmitt & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: “Several hundred U.S. Special Operations forces have arrived in the Middle East, joining thousands of Marines and Army paratroopers in a deployment meant to give President Trump additional options to expand the monthlong war with Iran, two U.S. military officials said on Sunday. The commandos, including Army Rangers and Navy SEALs, have not yet been assigned specific missions, the officials said....”
Helene Cooper of the New York Times: “The arrival of 2,500 Marines and another 2,500 sailors is keeping the number of American troops in the Mideast region at over 50,000 — roughly 10,000 more than usual — as President Trump decides on his next step in his month-old war in Iran. While it is still unclear just what the Marines, from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, will be charged with, U.S. officials say the president is weighing whether to try a larger attack, like venturing to seize an island or other ground as part of Mr. Trump’s effort to open the Strait of Hormuz.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Christiaan Triebert & John Ismay of the New York Times: “On the first day of the war with Iran, a weapon bearing the hallmarks of a newly developed U.S.-made ballistic missile was used in an attack that struck a sports hall and adjacent elementary school near a military facility in southern Iran, according to weapons experts and a visual analysis by The New York Times. Local officials cited in Iranian media said this strike and others nearby in the city of Lamerd killed at least 21 people. The Feb. 28 attack occurred the same day as a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile struck a school in the city of Minab, several hundred miles away, killing 175 people. In the case of Lamerd, though, it involved a weapon that had been untested in combat. The Times verified videos of two strikes in Lamerd, as well as aftermath footage from the attacks. Times reporters and munitions experts found that the weapon features, explosions and damage are consistent with a short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM (pronounced like 'prism'), which is designed to detonate just above its target and blast small tungsten pellets outward.” Update: the link has been changed to one that appears to be a gift link. ~~~
~~~ "Mistakes Were Made." Marie: It is fair, then, to say that either (a) our military is as irresponsible as our president*, or (b) our president*'s war-on-a-whim caught the military so unawares that its men and women made seat-of-the-pants mistakes that caused innocent civilians their lives.
Greg Miller of the Washington Post: “As U.S. and Israeli military commanders met to map out war with Iran..., it was clear ... that one grim mission would belong to Israel: hunting and killing Iran’s leaders. Israel has pursued this assignment with ruthless efficiency, killing Iran’s supreme leader in the opening salvo of the war and more than 250 other 'senior Iranian officials' since, according to a count maintained by the Israeli military. The latest blow came Thursday when Israel said it had killed the naval commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The decapitation campaign relies on an assassination apparatus that Israel spent decades building but transformed over the past several years to achieve new levels of lethal proficiency, according to senior Israeli military and intelligence officials.” MB: Now scroll on down the page to see what
Munir Ahmed, et al., of the AP: “Pakistan announced Sunday that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran, though there was no immediate word from Washington or Tehran, and it was unclear whether discussions on the monthlong war would be direct or indirect.... Pakistan later said the diplomats had departed for their home countries. The talks were originally scheduled to continue Monday. Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not answer questions, and Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment.... Earlier, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, dismissed the talks in Pakistan as a cover after some 2,500 U.S. Marines trained in amphibious landings arrived in the Middle East. He said Iranian forces were 'waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional partners forever,' according to state media.” MB: I don't know; it sounds as if everything is not going very smoothly.
He's Backpeddling as Fast as He Can. Amelia Nierenberg of the New York Times: Donald “Trump on Sunday suggested that 'regime change' in Iran had been achieved because so many of its top leaders have been killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks, as he sought to show progress in a war that has entered a second month. 'We’ve had regime change,' Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. 'The one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead,' he said. He suggested that Iran had moved onto its 'third regime,' and that American negotiators were speaking to 'a whole different group of people,' who have 'been very reasonable.'” ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is worse than TACO Time. This is Trump gingerly begging off his whimsical "little excursion" -- the one that caused destruction and the loss of thousands of lives across the Middle East and cost American lives and billions and billions of dollars in military operations. We won and whatever bad happened was not Trump's fault. On to the next TrumpenKatastrophe! ~~~
~~~ Trump Sounds Like a Madman. Sam Meredith of CNBC: “... Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. will 'completely' obliterate Iran’s electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island if the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz is not 'immediately' reopened and a peace deal is not reached 'shortly.' 'The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran,' Trump said in a post on Truth Social. 'Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched.”’” ~~~
~~~ Jon Gambrell & David Rising of the AP: “... Donald Trump openly mused about seizing Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal in the Persian Gulf and the United States and Israel kept up their attacks Monday on the Islamic Republic, even as there were signs of progress in nascent ceasefire talks. Tehran, meanwhile, struck a key water and electrical plant in hard-hit Kuwait, part of its ongoing campaign targeting the Gulf Arab states. As a diplomatic effort being facilitated by Pakistan toward ending the war moved ahead, Trump said Iran had agreed to allow 20 oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz starting Monday as 'a sign of respect.' At the same time, with 2,500 U.S. Marines now in the region and a similar sized contingent on its way, he raised the idea of taking Iran’s Kharg Island. 'Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t,' he told the Financial Times in an interview published early Monday. 'We have a lot of options.'” ~~~
~~~ Kyla Guilfoil of NBC News: "... Donald Trump said Sunday that he would like to 'take the oil in Iran' and is considering seizing the export hub of Kharg Island, which is responsible for more than 90% of Iran's oil exports. In an interview with the Financial Times, Trump said his 'preference would be to take the oil.' 'To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the U.S. say: "Why are you doing that?" But they’re stupid people,' he said." ~~~
~~~ Maira Butt of the Independent: “... Donald Trump is considering whether to launch a risky military operation to seize uranium from deep inside Iran, according to US officials, in what would represent a major escalation in the war. The American president is yet to make a final decision as the conflict in the Middle East enters its fifth week, but he is said to be open to the idea and weighing up the danger to US troops, according to The Wall Street Journal. On Sunday, Trump told reporters that Iran must give up its highly enriched uranium for the ongoing war to end.” ~~~
~~~ David Sanger of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said on Sunday night that Iran had agreed to release 20 more cargo ships of oil through the Strait of Hormuz starting on Monday, in what the president insisted was a 'tribute' to the United States and a 'sign of respect.'” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump's claim that Iran's allowing 20 tankers through the Strait was "a sign of respect" is straight out of "The Godfather." It's true that as a total narcissist, Trump is unable to imagine how other people think and feel. But he does have the imagination of a Walter Mitty; he's always able to imagine himself in some heroic or quasi-heroic role. However, the "real Donald Trump" is less like the Don Corleone in the clip linked above, and more like Fredo:
Michael Birnbaum & Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: “... the attack [Donald Trump] launched Feb. 28 has transformed the risks in the region. The Strait of Hormuz — which was open and secure before the fighting began — is now a danger zone. And many U.S. allies among the Arab states lining the Persian Gulf, who were skeptical about the war in the first place, now fear that a wounded Iran run by hard-line leaders imperils their populations.”
Suman Naishadham of the AP: “Spain has closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the Iran war, Defense Minister Margarita Robles said Monday, marking another step in the country’s opposition to the U.S. and Israel’s conflict in the Middle East. Spain had already said the U.S. could not use jointly operated military bases in the Iran conflict, which Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has described as illegal, reckless and unjust. Defense Minister Robles said Monday the same logic applied to the use of Spanish airspace in the conflict.”
On Palm Sunday, Pope Leo Rebukes Hegseth. Alex Nguyen of Mother Jones: “On Sunday, Pope Leo said that God refuses the prayers of leaders who have 'hands full of blood,' in what appeared to be a direct rebuke to many Trump administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who have invoked religious rhetoric to justify their war with Iran. 'This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,' Leo said to thousands of people attending his Palm Sunday mass at St. Peter’s Square. 'He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.'”
“... never has so much been seen, so precisely, by so many people who understand so little of what they are seeing.... This is the recurring illusion of overequipped leaders: Because they can map the battle space, they think they understand the war. But war is never merely a technical contest. It is shaped by grievance, sacred narrative, the memory of past humiliations and the desire for revenge.... What this war exposes, then, is a failure not only of strategy but of literacy. Literature and history, at their most serious, train precisely the faculties these leaders lack: the capacity to grant that other minds are not transparent to us, and are governed by purposes not our own.... Culture has increasingly ceded authority to systems that mistake information for understanding and speed for judgment.... The more technologically sophisticated war becomes, the more dangerous it is to place it in the hands of people untrained in irony, contingency and the darker constants of human nature.” MB: That is, Trump really doesn't know what he's doing. Update: I've changed the link to a gift link.
Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times: “Is Trump a freak of history or its fulfillment, an aberration or a culmination?... In the course of his presidency, Trump has revealed a much older malady: America’s unshakable faith in its ability to shape the world to its liking, indifferent to what others might want and supremely confident that its plan is the right one. Beyond Trump, it’s this disfiguring mentality we Americans must face.... Like America, Trump cannot fail; he can only be failed. Everything is always someone else’s fault. Handed the tools of the imperial presidency, he clearly regards America as identical with his person. He jettisons all pretense of constitutional order. He will know in his gut when wars are won, he’s said, and the only limits are his own sense of morality. In the Persian Gulf, that illusion has come face-to-face with material reality. Trump’s hope of a rapid collapse of the Iranian regime was always fantastical.... Trump has dragged America into a war completely unmoored from any pretense to virtue.”
Yesterday we learned that Russia had helped Iran pinpoint a U.S. air base, after which Iran struck the base, wounding U.S. troops. Today, we learn this: ~~~
If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem, whether it’s Russia … and if other countries want to do it.... ;It’s not going to have an impact... Cuba’s finished … whether or not they get a boat of oil, it’s not going to matter. -- Donald Trump, to reporters about AF1 Sunday
~~~ Jack Nicas & Eric Schmitt of the “The United States Coast Guard is allowing a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, delivering a critical supply of energy to the island nation after months of an effective oil blockade by the Trump administration, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter. The tanker, which is carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil and is owned by the Russian government, was within several miles of Cuban territorial waters on Sunday evening, according to MarineTraffic, a ship-data provider. At its speed of 12 knots, it could reach its expected destination of Matanzas, Cuba, by Monday night. The Russian ship’s arrival would shift the trajectory of a rapidly accelerating crisis in Cuba, buying the island nation at least a few weeks before its fuel reserves run out, analysts said.” The AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm all for getting oil and other goods and services to Cuba. Our treatment of Cuba has been despicable for decades. Our policy is all political, based solely on getting the Cuban American vote in Florida. Moral rectitude doesn't figure into decisions. BUT does the oil we allow through have to be Russian oil? Why not, say, Venezuelan oil, which has supplied Cuba since the fall of the Soviet Union? Trump may think he controls Venezuela and its oil sales, but -- as usual -- when Putin says jump, old Trump shows he's still got some jump in those bloated legs. ~~~
~~~ Update: Here's a more precise explanation: ~~~
~~~ “The Downstream Consequence of a Scattershot Foreign Policy.” Karen DeYoung, et al., of the Washington Post: “Brett Erickson ... of Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the U.S. decision not to interdict the [Russian-owned tanker Anatoly ] Kolodkin — itself under pre-Trump sanctions imposed against Russia over Ukraine — would likely embolden Moscow.... 'Seizing or boarding a Russian vessel while simultaneously managing an active military conflict in Iran would pour fuel on already volatile energy markets,' Erickson said. 'The geopolitical cost of direct confrontation with Russia right now may simply be a step further than Washington is willing to take. This is the downstream consequence of a scattershot foreign policy, when you’re overextended on every front, you lose the ability to enforce on any of them.'” MB: That is, he really doesn't know what he's doing. ~~~
~~~ Ed Augustin & Jack Nicas of the “The U.S. oil blockade on Cuba is fast exhausting the country’s supply of fuel, causing daily blackouts, food shortages, canceled classes and black-market gas prices approaching $40 a gallon. It is also crippling Cuba’s universal health care system, a state institution once considered a triumph for a poor nation, but is now struggling to provide basic care. In interviews, six Cuban doctors said that rapidly deteriorating conditions at hospitals and clinics across Cuba were causing deaths that would otherwise be preventable.... The blockade’s effects are cascading through the system. Hospitals are canceling surgeries and sending patients home because doctors and nurses can’t commute to work. Clinics are struggling to administer treatments like chemotherapy and dialysis because of power outages.” ~~~
~~~ Simon Romero & David Adams of the New York Times: “The [Castro] family’s new profile reflects a dynasty that never really exited the political scene, but instead evolved. Even as Trump officials increase pressure for sweeping economic changes in Cuba and press for the removal of [President Miguel] Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro’s handpicked successor as president, a family long vilified by U.S. leaders is positioning new generations of Castros as the nation’s ultimate power brokers.”
Jeffrey Gettleman & Maya Tekeli of the New York Times: “Members of ... [Donald] Trump’s circle, working in plain sight, have caught the eye of Denmark’s intelligence services for trying to make friends and cut deals on ... [Greenland]. Last year, Denmark’s national broadcaster delivered a bombshell of a story: Three Americans with ties to [Mr.] Trump, it reported, were running 'covert influence operations' in Greenland, the Danish territory that Mr. Trump covets.... It turns out that the figures at the center of the mystery have not exactly been hiding.... If the three have been running an influence campaign, it has been conducted in plain sight. They have all made public announcements about their attempts to further American interests in Greenland, sat for television interviews and appeared in countless social media posts. They are also clearly pushing interests of their own, in another demonstration of how those in the inner and even outer circles of Mr. Trump’s orbit openly use their proximity to power to forge opportune relationships and make deals.” Update: the link has been changed to one that seems to be a gift link.
I still don’t understand why the ceiling height has to be 40 feet. -- Phil Mendelson, chair of the D.C. Council & member of the National Capital Planning Commission ~~~
~~~ Welcome to the McBallroom. It's a Disaster. Emily Badger, et al., of the New York Times report that because Trump's grotesque ballroom has not gone through the review process that even minor public projects do, the Addition That Will Dwarf the White House is an architectural disaster in more ways that you are probably aware. By volume, the "addition" is three times the size of the building it purportedly enhances. The entire front double colonnade is superfluous and serves only to block the light and the view. It includes -- I'm not kidding -- a grand staircase to nowhere. Thank to Akhilleus for the link. The link is a gift link because you should see this. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ OMG! Update: See the Washington Post's thrilling update linked below: the stairs to nowhere are now gone from the plans!
~~~ Marie: My personal suggestion -- and I'm completely serious about this -- is that the minute Trump leaves the White House (one way or the other), the whole monstrosity be dismantled & sent up the Intercoastal to Atlantic City (where it might replace, say, the Taj Mahal). There it could be turned into a multi-story convention center AND it would be a hit with the kind of tourists who go to Atlantic City "for the ambiance," as one woman once told me. ALSO, see yesterday's Comments for akaWendy's great suggestion. ~~~
~~~ Dan Diamond & Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: “Speaking to reporters Sunday night aboard Air Force One..., Donald Trump began with an update about hostilities in Iran but soon pivoted to ... his planned $400 million White House ballroom. For five minutes, the president displayed new renderings, handed to him by Bill Pulte, a top administration housing official [MB: and all-around douchebag].... The new renderings revealed some changes to the ballroom’s design, including removal of stairs on its south side that some observers had criticized as extraneous.... The [ballroom's] design has been panned by architects and historic preservationists, who say that the 90,000-square-foot addition ... will overshadow the 55,000-square-foot White House. James McCrery II, Trump’s first architect on the project, clashed with the president over his plans to enlarge the ballroom, then was replaced. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which Congress charged with helping to preserve historic buildings, has sued to stop the project, saying that Trump failed to receive congressional authorization.”
Trump Relies on White Supremacy to Argue Supreme Court Case. Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: “Over a century ago, [former Confederate officer Alexander Porter] Morse was among a trio of thinkers who spearheaded a failed effort — steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism — to erase birthright citizenship. The Trump administration is reviving their arguments to make its case today, some legal scholars say. Trump administration attorneys cite Morse in their Supreme Court brief to argue the disputed idea that commentators in the 19th century widely agreed that the Constitution 'exclude[s] the children of foreigners transiently within the United States' from qualifying for citizenship. In addition to opposing birthright citizenship, Morse also advocated for limiting the other reconstruction amendments that abolished slavery and guaranteed Black people the right to vote. The campaign against birthright citizenship also relied on rising anti-migrant feelings. The push backfired in 1898 when the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that a man born to Chinese immigrants in San Francisco was a U.S. citizen, enshrining birthright citizenship as the law of the land.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: In nearly any other time in my lifetime, using white supremacists' Jim Crow arguments to make a case would have been so shocking and embarrassing that the prosecutor probably would have been forced to resign and the DOJ as well as the president would issue profound apologies. The Trump White House, by contrast, came out with an endorsement of the tactic.
Different Wardrobe, Same Goals. Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “In his first days as head of the Department of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin has stuck to a suit and tie, not the ICE-emblazoned bulletproof vest worn by his predecessor, Kristi Noem, in her debut video when she started the job. While Ms. Noem, cameras in tow, growled about 'getting the dirtbags off the streets,' Mr. Mullin has worked toward a less flashy debut: briefing members of Congress on the effects of the government shutdown, attending White House meetings and doing a video talking up the people he now oversees.... It remains to be seen whether the more diplomatic style of Mr. Mullin ... will help him achieve ... [Donald] Trump’s hard-line immigration policy and navigate the intense backlash triggered by the department’s deportation tactics. Mr. Mullin, 48, must now also look inside an agency that critics say was badly damaged under Ms. Noem, though she has said she worked with the full backing of the White House.... Mr. Mullin has already said he plans to keep the agency out of the headlines while still carrying out the president’s deportation policies.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: In the very last line of his report, Aleaziz lets a former ICE official during the Biden administration address the elephant in the room: Stephen Miller. Let's see if Miller still wears the pants at DHS.
Aishvarya Kavi of the New York Times: “Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could remain at U.S. airports, where ... [Donald] Trump had sent them to respond to a shortage of security employees during a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, even after those employees are paid again, Mr. Trump’s chief border official said on Sunday. 'It depends how many T.S.A. agents come back to work,' the White House border czar, Tom Homan, said on CNN’s 'State of the Union.'...”
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| "... a picture fitting for Fat Hitler's America," -- RAS |
~~~ Monica De Anda & Madison Weil of KABC (Los Angeles) News: "Police issued dispersal orders and made arrests hours after thousands of people gathered for a massive 'No Kings' protest in downtown Los Angeles.... After the peaceful rally and march ended, chaos erupted outside of the Federal Detention Center.... According to LAPD, protesters were attempting to tear down a chain-link fence blocking the Metropolitan Detention Center.... Video shows several agitators throwing objects over the fence. Around 5:30 p.m., officers began confiscating items from the crowd and using tear gas to get the crowd under control.... LAPD ultimately ... [took] several people into custody, including a woman dressed as Lady Liberty." (Also linked yesterday.)
Katie Robertson of the New York Times: “Politico announced on Sunday that one of its executives, Jonathan Greenberger, would become the publication’s next global editor in chief. Mr. Greenberger, 42, will take over from John Harris, who co-founded Politico in 2007 and returned to the top editing job in 2023. Mr. Harris, who had indicated at the beginning of this year that he would step down when a successor was found, will be elevated to chairman. Mr. Greenberger joined Politico in 2024 as executive vice president, reporting to both the chief executive and editor in chief to help build Politico’s brand and rethink its structure for growth. He was previously the Washington bureau chief for ABC News and executive producer of ABC’s 'This Week.'... Politico is owned by the German media conglomerate Axel Springer, which bought it for more than $1 billion in 2021.”
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25 comments:
Robert Kagan, in The Atlantic, declares America Is Now a Rogue Superpower
"Whenever and however America’s war with Iran ends, it has both exposed and exacerbated the dangers of our new, fractured, multipolar reality—driving deeper wedges between the United States and former friends and allies; strengthening the hands of the expansionist great powers, Russia and China; accelerating global political and economic chaos; and leaving the United States weaker and more isolated than at any time since the 1930s. Even success against Iran will be hollow if it hastens the collapse of the alliance system that for eight decades has been the true source of America’s power, influence, and security."
Just checked my calendar and there's no April Fools Day.
Instead, it says 'Trump's a Fool Day' but of course, that could be any day
or any time he opens his pie hole (or Big Mac hole).
Wait...what? A military bunker under Fatty's throne room?
On AF1, King Fat Hitler was screaming about the Times piece criticizing his throne room. Then he wails that there's also supposed to be a big military complex UNDER this monstrosity? Who authorized this? I'm guessing this is something else we're supposed to just shut up and pay for.
"Last week, Trump said there was a national security component in the construction of the ballroom that was 'supposed to be secret.'
'Now it’s no secret, the military wanted it more than anybody,' Trump said Thursday in a Cabinet meeting, discussing the ballroom’s construction.
'It was supposed to be secret, but it became unsecret because of people that are really unpatriotic saying things,' he said."
Oh well, since it's now an "unsecret", why not tell us all about it.
And not for nothin' but since this new military wouldja woo is part of the White House, the people's house we should have some say in this construction. In fact, the people's house should not be tainted with secret investor money. But everything is a grift with this fucking crook.
As horrible as he is at destroying the economy, America's standing in the world, starting stoopid nonsensical wars that kill innocents and upset the balance of power in the world, fracturing longstanding relationships and unending the world's oil supply, and running the concept of democracy out of town altogether, it's worth remembering all the little ways Fat Hitler's unlimited wanton corruption scars the American psyche and sticks it to everyone not included in his Insiders Club of Criminality.
Fatty's penchant for pardoning crooks and fraudsters amplifies all the original harm done by his criminal pals by not only letting them out of jail, dismissing any fines and orders to repay those they've scammed which allows them to keep their ill gotten gains, but also encourages them, once they're out of the slammer, to jump right back into their con games.
Here is one particularly nasty scumbag, one Trevor Milton who was convicted of a billion dollar scam and sentenced to prison. He scammed investors with a fake company that was supposedly building the world's first all electric 16 wheeler. He even had a video showing his prototype in action. Only problem was, it was an empty vehicle with no engine being rolled down a hill. But he hired Pam Bondi's brother, bribed Fat Hitler with a $2 million check, and PRESTO! Full pardon. He was originally ordered to repay the investors he bilked to the tune of almost $700 million, but Fatty told the court to fuck off, Milton didn't have to repay anyone. So he kept all that money.
Now he's at it again. He's raising a billion dollars claiming he's going to build a personal jet run completely by AI. Clearly a scam. He's just like Trump. A cheat and a liar. And he's been let out to prey on the public again.
Just like Trump.
Yeah, he fucks over the entire planet, but he also takes time to screw small investors as well.
What a guy!
"New WH “News” App Tracks Location Of Its Users
The Trump administration’s newly launched White House Official App has been flagged with a Community Note on X, just days after its 27 March 2026 release. The note appeared on a post promoting the app and stated that it ‘tracks users’ precise location every 4.5 minutes (foreground) via third-party OneSignal, syncing coordinates to external servers despite “no filter” claims.’"
Hanna Horvath
"You don't have to gamble for gambling to ruin your life
How gambling is eroding empathy, destroying relationships, and changing our culture — even for people who never bet."
From the Daily Mail, but
“Force Confrontations”
"During his 10am calls with immigration leaders, Miller was demanding agents be sent out to areas in Minneapolis where DHS knew there was a heavy presence of protesters to “force confrontations” two DHS senior sources told the Daily Mail. One official noted that Miller repeatedly urged agents to engage protesters so the administration could win the “PR battle.”
“So we need to engage these protesters, and we need to vanquish them by force of arms. They need to be vanquished by any force necessary,” Miller reportedly told immigration leaders, according to the source. Mere hours after immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, Miller called the victim an “assassin” on social media."
But remember that he claims to be "donating" his $400k salary.
"President Donald Trump’s golf habit has now cost taxpayers at least $101.2 million in travel and security expenses since his return to office, a figure that is two-thirds of his first-term golf total and has him on track to spend $300 million by the end of his second term, according to a HuffPost analysis.
Trump’s arrival at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday morning marks his 56th visit there since his 2025 inauguration and his 110th day on a golf course that he owns — meaning he has played golf on more than one-quarter of his days since returning to the presidency.
Trump needed two full years to hit the $100 million mark in his first term, during which he played golf a total of 293 days at his own courses at a cost to taxpayers of $151.5 million."
RAS,
Gee, I seem to recall Fatty describing Obama as 4/5ths of a traitor for spending time golfing while he was president (no asterisk needed). When asked if he would be hitting the links if elected, the Orange Monster gave one of his standard mendacious non-answer answers: “Oh, I’ll be too busy being president to play golf.”
Clearly, given the astonishing amount of time his royal rolly-poly spends golfing, not to mention the millions he swipes from taxpayers while doing it, he isn’t being a president. Hell, he’s not even a president* anymore. But we knew that.
And leave us not forget that we not only pay for this portly prick’s plethora of golfing holidays, we also line his pockets every time he waddles over to a golf cart. The dozens of secret service agents that must accompany Fatty as he cheats his way around the course all ride in their own golf carts he rents to them. Meaning he charges them for the use of the carts they use to protect his fat ass.
I read about some lady at one of the No Kings rallies who held up a sign with a picture of this bloated human barf bag with the caption “Cholesterol, do your job!”
Couldn’t hope for more meself.
Is Fatty looking to get vaccinated against Polio Bob and his coven of crazies?
If one considers the recent staggering ass licking performance by Roadkill Man at CPAC (Convocation of pricks, assholes, and cultists) it certainly looks possible.
It seems clear that RFKJ is desperately trying to hold on to the position that enables him to kill thousands of kids in order to justify his bonkers conspiracy theories. He goes to CPAC and says that not only is Trump not a barely literate nincompoop, he is a genius who demonstrates great mental and moral standards. According to Bob's fever dream, Fatty is an "empath" (hang on....hahahahahahahahaha....!!) who loves all human beings (named Donald J. Trump) and feels great sympathy for those mired in conflicts such as the poor Ukrainians. He feels their paaaaaiiiinnnn!
And if that didn't provide tongue insertion far enough up the Fatty bunghole, he shoved it in even farther, saying that he once saw the Orange Monster flip over a placemat and with a Sharpie (natch), quickly draw a perfect map of the Middle East, a map that would have sent the entirety of the Rand McNally and National Geographic cartography departments to their fainting couches, a drawing which included place names and the relative troop strength of each country on its borders, and he did it all in a few seconds.
Okay. There are dreams and then there are drug fueled hallucinations. So maybe Polio Bob has never really gotten off the juice. Did he have a needle sticking out of his arm when he said all this?
Or maybe it's just that Fatty is losing interest in this particular Kennedy and has found one he likes better
"The president, 79, has concluded that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine conspiracies and radical health policies are too absurd even for him, Michael Wolff claimed on The Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast.
'I know that he’s been calling around and saying to people, you know, ‘I hear people say, Bobby is crazy. You think he’s crazy?' Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles. 'And you know the answer he wants.'
Wolff said Trump has instead set his sights on former President John F. Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, a Democrat and outspoken Trump critic running for an open House seat in New York.
'He’s kinda enamored with this kid,' Wolff said. 'I’m sure the poor guy does not want a Trump endorsement, but it really sounds like Trump is tickled by this.'
Whatever the reason, it looks like Polio Bob may have to go back, anon, to dining on bear carcasses. Couldn't be too soon for me. But it's Trump after all. Who knows what the fuck he'll do next? Maybe draw a perfect map of Mars from memory, renaming all known topographic sites after himself.
Kennedy isn't the only Republican trying to kill Americans.
Gutting Healthcare Again
"Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement. New efforts to rein in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to election-year attacks that they’re cutting health care to pay for an unpopular war.
Top House Republicans are looking at health care offsets addressing fraud in federal programs, as they did during last year’s debate over the budget law that made deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending and imposed first-time work requirements."
NoKings in Boston
Had a memorial to the 165 Iranian schoolgirls killed by Fat Hitler's war.
Trump tweet for everything.
He called it, "tough guy" who has an "inability to negotiate".
Copied from Miss Cellania's site:
"... Years ago, Grant Woolard gave us a fine mashup of classical music by the world's greatest composers. It's still a treat to listen to! He followed it up with volume two. This one features a blend of 52 familiar classics by such diverse names as Mozart, John Philip Souza, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and Scott Joplin. They go together quite well. (via Digg) ..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fczH85-0BDk
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/us/politics/trump-administration-doj-watchdog-reuveni.html
The only watchdog the Pretender would allow is a deaf mute who can't write or sign.
This morning on NPR I heard a story reporting on US Conference of Catholic Bishops are responding to the Supreme Court's imminent decision that there is no such thing as birthright citizenship in order to fall in line with Fat Hitler's authoritarian, white supremacist tactics to disenfranchise as many Americans as he can.
The bishops write that "...birthright citizenship is consistent with Catholic church teaching that every human has inherent dignity. And they say the church teaches that public authorities, in order to be legitimate, must affirm and protect that human dignity. The bishops also say that the government should help smaller, more immediate communities, particularly the family, and denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. strips parents of the right to secure their children's place in society."
And they make another point I had not considered previously, that these children would then be stateless, not citizens of the United States, and not necessarily citizens of wherever their parents came from.
Right wingers' response to this is a huge knee slapper. They say how dare these bishops make an argument using religion. This just as Fat Hitler's Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State and pretty much everyone on Fox are making religious arguments for blowing Iran to smithereens. "Kill 'em all for Jesus!" sez Drunk Pete. The hypocrisy never ends.
And get this. It looks as if the traitors on the court may actually call up a previous Supreme Court decision to help Fat Hitler change the Constitution, no more looking for obscure legal maunderings carved into iron age stones by guys in animal skins, half buried on some blasted heath in England for precedence.
Back in the 1880's a Native American named John Elk applied for US citizenship. He was denied this right because....he was born a Native American. Pretty great, right? Sam Alito must be self-abusing like mad reading this opinion.
"...the Supreme Court, in an 1884 case called Elk v. Wilkins, ruled against him, saying that Native Americans born within the territory of the United States did not have birthright citizenship. They had the same status as 'the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government,' the court said.
President Donald Trump’s administration is now citing that case as it defends his plan to end automatic birthright citizenship, putting a new spin on the long-standing interpretation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case on Wednesday."
So the arguments being made by religious zealots on the Court will be 1. Religion doesn't count....in this case. And 2. people born in the United States are not citizens because a Native American--born in the United States territories--wasn't approved for citizenship by 19th century white supremacists, so...there. Harrumph!
Casuistry is one thing. This bullshit is something else altogether.
The best part of that musical mashup was the addition of John Cage....(see his 4'33"). Also funny how they put Liszt's additions in at F sharp major (the guy loved his sharps). But the John Cage rests...that was a roar.
Jacob Weisberg, for The New York Times, writes that "Every society that sustains a sharp divide between its professed standards and its lived arrangements will produce people whose business is managing it."
Weisberg terms these people Dark Connectors
"An obvious analogue to Mr. Epstein as dark connector is Roy Cohn. Mr. Cohn’s daily commerce during the Cold War era was in menace and gossip rather than flattery and philanthropy, but he played a similar role in high society, and in New York society in particular.
Both men [Epstein and Cohn] were opportunistic students of others’ weaknesses. Working as chief counsel for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare, Mr. Cohn learned that ambition and fear create levers. In post-Cold War America, Mr. Epstein understood that money, vanity and sexual desire do the same. Each built networks around his understanding of human vulnerability. That’s what distinguishes them from ordinary fixers or social climbers. The dark connector thrives on the illusion that he is the only one who knows how things really work, and he uses that illusion to bring powerful people into his confidence."
Weisberg also includes a link to Jmail, "a simulation of [epstein's] email inbox that lets users experience his slimy, typo-filled workflow. This searchable database — created by Riley Walz, a software engineer, and Luke Igel, an A.I. developer — performs the civic service of turning the Justice Department’s abridged and chaotic release of its investigatory files into a navigable archive. It’s illuminating and unsettling to contemplate the world from the dead creep’s perspective."
I have to say, Marie, that any discussion involving Steven Miller's pants may lead to an uptick of vomiting copiously. Just sayin'.
On a happier note on Stephen Miller,
Kevin M. Kruse
"I didn't think that Duke loss could possibly get any sweeter and then I realized Stephen Miller probably had a sad viewing party in the White House and, ah, yeah, that did it."
*for those who don't follow sportsball the NCAA basketball tournament is going on and Duke lost on a three point shot at the buzzer for a chance to go to the Final Four.
RAS,
I truly doubt Himmler Miller watches any sport the popularity and success of which relies significantly on the participation of talented non-white players. If he does, he’s sitting there with a clipboard furiously jotting down which black and brown kids need to be arrested, investigated, or deported.
Sport, for him, involves inflicting pain and suffering on minorities he fears and despises.
A perfect Fat Hitler attack machine.
Although I was pretty happy with the outcome of that game as native New Englander.
So Fatty sez he wiped out regime number one (didn’t know there are numerical regimes. Anywhere). Then he struck out the second regime, and now he’s on the third.
The definition of “regime”doesn’t account for a kind of batting order, like in baseball. But even if it was similar to a ball club’s batting order, you’re still playing the same team. It’s not like you strike out the first three Yankees then all of a sudden you’re playing the Cubs. So “striking out” the first two “regimes” doesn’t mean you’re all of a sudden dealing with an entirely new team.
There has been NO regime change, as much as Fatty and his morons want to claim.
This war is being run by idiots.
Ah c'mon Akhilleus, let me have my brief fantasy of Miller getting upset because the sports team he probably takes credit for turned a nearly sure win into a devastating loss. The Duke radio guy didn't take it well and called for a technical foul after it happened. And while it is true most Republicans and especially Fat Hitler's minions hate anyone of color they will tolerate it as long as they feel superior and believe that any minorities around them are contributing to their own power and know their place. MAGAs love lording the athletic prowess of their alma mater in the masculine discipline of sport because they like to believe that they play some part in there victories despite all evidence to the contrary and it makes them feel manly. Something that Miller I am sure is desperate for.
RAS,
Okay, okay. Any scenario that includes Himmler Miller having a sad and feeling his fragile faux manhood impaired in any way is fine with me. Your observation that racist MAGAts are okay with the darkies helping their team win as long as they know how to stepinfetchit and don't give the massas any trouble is right on the money.
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