Aaron Boxerman & of the New York Times: “People across the Middle East waited uneasily on Saturday for a decision from ... [Donald] Trump about a proposal to end the war with Iran, as the United States reaffirmed its resolve to emerge with a deal he finds acceptable. Mr. Trump said on social media on Friday that he was meeting with advisers at the White House Situation Room to make a 'final determination' about the proposed deal, but that meeting ended with no announcement. Mr. Trump has zigzagged on his positions during the negotiations, vacillating between talk of progress on a deal and threats of renewed strikes. Later on Friday evening, Iran said there was still “no final agreement” with the United States.... Some people in Iran who had hoped that the war could lead to the end of the Islamic Republic’s authoritarian rule said they were disillusioned and indifferent to the idea of a potential agreement.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Luke Broadwater, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has toughened the terms of a potential framework for a deal to end the war in Iran, and has sent those proposed changes back to the country for consideration, according to three officials. It was not immediately clear what changes had been made to the text of the agreement. Mr. Trump has been concerned about parts of the potential deal that would include unfreezing funds for the Iranians, two officials said. He has been harshly critical of President Barack Obama for doing the same in the more than decade-old agreement that was signed to curtail Iran’s nuclear program. The official added that Mr. Trump’s changes — a new, tougher proposal — were potentially intended to speed up the process by putting pressure on Iran to accept the framework already sent to Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, for approval.” ~~~
~~~ Mark Caputo & Barak Ravid of Axios: "Trump asked for several amendments to the deal his envoys reached with their Iranian counterparts during a Situation Room meeting on Friday.... Trump wants the deal and expects to finalize it soon, but is keen to strengthen several points that are important to him — particularly around Iran's nuclear material, two U.S. officials said. Trump's request has launched another round of back-and-forth between the parties that could last several days."
Meagan Vazquez of the Washington Post: “U.S. military forces fired a missile into a commercial ship in the Gulf of Oman that was attempting to sail toward an Iranian port, Central Command said in a statement, the latest effort to enforce President Donald Trump’s naval blockade designed to weaken Tehran’s economy as peace negotiations continue. Centcom said on Saturday that the Gambia-flagged merchant vessel was observed 'transiting international waters toward an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman and issued more than 20 warnings while informing the vessel it was in violation of the U.S. blockade.'”
Julian Barnes of the New York Times: “The U.S. military killed three men in a strike against a boat in the eastern Pacific that it said was transporting narcotics, U.S. Southern Command announced on Saturday. The United States began a campaign of boat strikes last year in the run-up to the military operation that seized Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela. The military has continued the operations in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, killing around 200 people it has said were involved in the narcotics trade. But narcotics experts say the boat strikes have failed to slow the smuggling of cocaine from South America to the United States. According to Brown University, the costs of the operation are now at $4.7 billion. Southern Command provided little detail about the Friday strike but noted that intelligence reports said the vessel was trafficking narcotics and traveling on a route used by drug smugglers.”
Here's how Trump's attorneys conspired to screw ordinary American taxpayers: ~~~
~~~ Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: “... the job of addressing the vexing problem of how to settle [a lawsuit Donald Trump filed against the government he controls] fell to a tight-knit group of lawyers, all of whom had allegiance to Mr. Trump. On one side of the talks was a Justice Department run by Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general who once served as Mr. Trump’s criminal defense lawyer. On the other were the president’s private lawyers, among them Boris Epshteyn, who was a former client of Mr. Blanche’s. Mr. Epshteyn played a significant role in moving forward the deal to end the suit, coordinating and holding discussions with all of the sides involved: Mr. Trump, the president’s personal lawyers and Justice Department officials.... In the end, the lawyers’ solution did not give Mr. Trump what his lawsuit had demanded, which was simply to move funds from the Treasury Department into his own pocket. But the agreement that was reached was still a big victory for the president and his allies: It set up a $1.8 billion fund to pay people deemed to have been harmed by so-called government 'weaponization' ... and released Mr. Trump and his businesses from potentially costly I.R.S. audits.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: The guy who released Trump's (and thousands of others') tax returns, Charles Littlejohn, worked as a contractor for the IRS in 2012-2013 during President Obama's administration, but Trump's Treasury Department rehired him in 2017, and it was during Trump's first term that Littlejohn released Trump's tax returns, the basis of Trump's $10BB complaint. During Joe Biden's administration, the DOJ successfully prosecuted Littlejohn. So Trump's Treasury Department employed the person who leaked Trump's taxes, Trump later sued his own Treasury Department, and his own Justice Department agreed to a super-generous settlement in Trump's favor. So Trump is (technically) responsible for initiating the original crime against himself, then he sued himself for the crime his subordinate committed, then he granted himself a generous settlement.
We can all stop fretting that no big stars will appear at the 250th celebrations in the capital and that even most of the D-listers who had signed up have dropped out. The great carnival barker himself has come to his own rescue:
~~~ Jesse Bedayn & Collin Binkley of the AP: “An upcoming celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, 'The Great American State Fair,' recently had several musical guests back out partly over the event’s ties to ... Donald Trump. Now, Trump himself is slated to headline the festivities, the organizers said Saturday. 'I understand Artists are getting “the yips” having to do with their performance,' Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social Saturday, adding that he was thinking of bringing 'the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate “Artists.’” The group organizing the June fair on Washington’s National Mall, Freedom 250, confirmed the billing in a statement, writing, 'we are excited to announce that President Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wednesday, June 24.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Oooh, Update. Humiliated, Furious AND Confused. Derrick Taylor of the New York Times: Donald “Trump on Saturday called for the cancellation of a concert series celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, after a wave of musicians pulled out. 'Cancel it,' Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding, 'We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain.'... At least five musicians [of the nine performers announced Wednesday] have since dropped out.... In an earlier post on Truth Social on Saturday, Mr. Trump had suggested that, rather than canceling the concerts, he should instead headline the event. Calling himself 'the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World' and 'the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime,' Mr. Trump wrote that he should 'take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate “Artists.’” In that post, Mr. Trump said he was ordering 'my Representatives” to explore 'the feasibility of doing an America Is Back rally,' where he would 'give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!'
“There was some confusion surrounding whether Mr. Trump was, indeed, referring to the concerts in the earlier post. There, the president referred more than once to an event 'on Wednesday.' The concerts announced by Freedom 250 are currently scheduled to take place across two Thursdays and Fridays and one Saturday.” MB BTW: This was still the top headline on the WashPo's main page Sunday morning at 5:00 am ET: “Trump to headline Great American State Fair after music acts cancel.” In fact, here's a gift link to the WashPo story. So you can read all about it, even though the unstable better-than-Elvis president* apparently has changed his mind about starring in is own crap show.
~~~ Marie: Gosh, I remember the day before Barack Obama was inaugurated. Not even a big ole sesquicentennial, just as ordinary presidential inauguration. Here's a list of who-all came to perform before a crowd of tens of thousands during the dead of winter. ~~~
Marie: To read an excellent/hilarious criticism of self-appointed film critics, do check out Akhilleus' commentary on Christopher Nolan's film "The Odyssey" in yesterday's thread. One might think, upon reading Akhilleus' take, that Elon Musk is a stupid racist. Akhilleus did make me wonder what ancient Greeks looked like. This is what Art Intel had to say: "Their appearance was characterized by olive to light skin, dark brown or black hair and dark eyes." Elon will be disappointed to learn that "The concept of race as we know it today (e.g., 'White' or 'Black') did not exist in antiquity; ancient Greeks categorized people primarily by language, culture, and geography rather than skin color." The White guy with the light brown hair and blue eyes pictured here is Matt Damon, who plays Achilles in Nolan's film. He doesn't look Greek to me, but in fairness, when Damon was a college student, he belonged to the Delphic Club, which for a few years in the 19th century was a chapter of Delta Phi. So Greek on Greek. The kid had aspirations.
Riley Rourke & Jacob Wycoff of CBS News: "A meteor exploded off the coast of Massachusetts, causing a loud boom that could be heard throughout the state Saturday afternoon, according to WBZ-TV chief meteorologist Eric Fisher. NASA said the energy released when the meteor broke up was equivalent to about 300 tons of TNT. It was heard around 2:11 p.m. Eastern Time, with people describing a sudden bang that rattled windows, startled pets, and even shook some homes. Dozens of phone calls came into the WBZ-TV newsroom reporting a loud explosion heard around Boston, as far as Ipswich and Johnston, Rhode Island."
~~~~~~~~~~
Maine Senate Race. Katie Glueck & Lisa Lerer of the New York Times: Last summer Democratic Senate candidate Graham “Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, told a senior campaign aide that he had been exchanging sexual messages with multiple other women. Genevieve McDonald, a former state legislator who was the Platner campaign’s political director before leaving in October, said Ms. Gertner reached out just days before a big Labor Day rally with Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and was concerned her husband’s behavior could become a political liability. Ms. McDonald said Ms. Gertner told her that her husband had been exchanging sexual messages with as many as a dozen women. A current Platner campaign official said Mr. Platner had been communicating with up to six women. The conduct had stopped, the official said, before the campaign launched. The current official said that the messages surfaced when Ms. McDonald asked Ms. Gertner if there was anything she wanted to share amid an internal vetting process. Ms. Gertner told the campaign that the couple had dealt with the issue in counseling, according to the official.... In a statement released by the campaign, Ms. Gertner suggested that she had been betrayed by Ms. McDonald, saying she was 'deeply hurt' and bothered by 'the invasion of our privacy.'” Politico's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: McDonald sounds like a plant to me. Just about every campaign does its own oppo research on its candidate, but obviously campaign personnel do not share their findings with the media. I doubt a review of Susan Collins' texts will turn up any extramarital sexting exchanges. Of course, you never know!
15 comments:
Marie,
Um, about Susan Collins…my source in her camp tells me that she is very CONCERNED™ that her secret sexting with a member of Fatty’s brain(less) trust might become public. Word is that she quit all of that because the object of her affectations (sic) was Stephen Miller, and his responses were so weird and asexual as to be almost inhuman. She decided a plain old vibrator was much preferred to a dead-eyed weirdo.
@Akhilleus: Hmm, vibrator v. Stephen Miller.
Good choice, Susan. I cannot imagine anything more humiliating than getting dumped by Stephen Miller. Well, maybe losing a "Jeopardy" round to Donald Trump.
Stain Remover
"instead of having overpriced singers"
So now he wants himself, a guy who is trying to steal billions from taxpayers and has already cost us billions more. Talk about over priced.
Weeknd Sermon, Part I
FANTASYLAND
Fantasy has always appealed to me. When I was younger, I read a lot of it. I encountered The Lord of The Rings trilogy when I was in junior high and gobbled it up. The Conan stories, with their firmly muscled barbarian hero who never lost a fight, were perfectly suited to an adolescent boy who had only a dim idea of the adult he would become. I read dozens more like them, featuring heroes with the physical or mental strength to defy long odds and win out in the end. Later, my grandchildren introduced me to Harry Potter, and I found I still enjoy slipping into a pleasant fantasy.
But despite the satisfaction of temporary wish-fulfillment fantasy brings, I always knew fantasy for what it is. Occupying that dreamy space between myth and the material world, fantasy’s attraction is real enough, but I've never confused those stories with reality. For me, the line between fiction and fact has always been so clear that I have given it a name. I call the territory between fiction and verifiable fact “the land of I don’t know.”
I’ve been thinking of that land a lot lately because I live much of my life there. If there’s verifiable evidence for something, it’s real. If not, it’s either fiction or all the votes are not yet in. And on many fronts, all the votes are yet to be counted.
Not everyone feels that way, of course. For them, the waiting alone is uncomfortable. Their urge to seek certainty leads them to leap over proven fact and healthy skepticism to unfounded belief. According to polls, about seven in ten Americans believe in guardian angels, around twenty percent believe the earth is no more than 10,000 years old, and thirty-one percent still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen (reuters.com). All beliefs lacking or contrary to evidence, still believed by many.
But certainty’s lure is not the only thing that muddles our thinking. As centers of our own universe, we naturally project our feelings onto the material world. When we feel we’re threatened, we look for the enemies we’re sure are out to get us. Our history is rife with such paranoid fantasies. The United Nation’s black helicopters. The Yellow Peril. The great Jewish conspiracy. The invasion of disease-ridden, drug-smuggling murderers and rapists at our southern border. It’s a long list, most marinated in a bath of racism to make them easier for many Americans to digest.
Beyond paranoia’s appeal is the satisfying sense of superiority and control that comes with knowing a secret. The implausibility of QAnon’s core belief that in his first term Donald Trump was bravely fighting a conspiracy of Hollywood, Democrats, and Deep State pedophiles didn’t deter 30 million Americans (news.harvard.edu) from believing QAnon’s rank absurdities.
Part II
To me, chasing conspiracies is wasted effort. Why spend time in the QAnon rabbit hole or worrying about those brown or black invaders we’re falsely told are here to steal our stuff (cato.org), when there’s plenty of cause for concern right in front of us? The American public is the victim of much it doesn’t control, but those forces aren’t hidden. They are in plain sight.
In Donald Trump’s second term the rule of law is being visibly shredded. He has pardoned more than 1200 convicted Jan 6, 2021, insurrectionists and dozens of fraudsters who bilked the public of billions of dollars they now won’t have to repay to the individuals, organizations, and taxpayers they’ve victimized (gov.ca.gov). The Trump Justice Department has also directly violated court orders thirty-one times and failed to comply with at least 250 more (theguardian.com). Perhaps most outrageously, last week before a court could rule on its doubtful legality, his Justice Department hastened to settle a Trump lawsuit over a federal contractor’s release of this tax returns by creating a $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to compensate those who felt mistreated by previous Justice Departments, many of them convicted of crimes in the Jan 6 insurrection. In short, not a reward for apprehending a criminal, but rewards for being one (nytimes.com).
In his second term, Trump’s personal profiteering has gone into overdrive. Conservative estimates show that by combining his presidential duties with his family businesses, he has increased his net worth by at least $3 billion (brennencenter.org). He has recently made large stock trades in businesses directly affected by his activities and remarks (popular.info), and Congress can’t tell how his opaque administration is spending millions of dollars they’re appropriated (notus.com). Unethical? No doubt. Illegal? I don’t know.
But fantasy? Not at all. Trump’s war on the rule of law (and on the American taxpayer) is as real as life and death.
Judge Aileen in the crosshairs:
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/trumps-past-is-catching-up-with-him
Maybe the reason Trump can't seem to focus and complete an agreement with Iran is that he spent his time Saturday writing or re-posting at least 50 (mostly crappy) posts on his social media platform.
https://x.com/harryjsisson/status/2060907024913678502?s=20
"“Donald Trump’s return to power is taking a deep toll on the American people’s psychological and overall health,” Salon’s Chauncey DeVega reported on Thursday:
According to the American Psychological Association’s recent Stress in America survey, more than half of American adults report feeling stressed, isolated and lonely. Societal division and the future of the country are sources of deep anxiety for 62% and 75% of adults respectively. Younger adults are experiencing the toll in “more profound” ways, with “nearly two-thirds of those ages 18–34 (63%) and more than half of parents (53%) [saying] they have considered relocating to another country due to the state of the nation.”
A recent Talker Research poll found that the most popular word to describe 2026 so far is “stressful,” followed by “challenging.” Nearly a third of Americans are experiencing a profound existential crisis and other challenges that have forced them to rethink the year ahead. Worries about money, careers, and the economy weigh heavily as well."
David Frum, in The Atlantic, on how T**** managed to turn our 250th celebration into A Day of T****
"You might have thought that presiding over such a celebration would be an easy success for Trump. He is a showman, after all. He loves parades and extravaganzas. It was all an easy layup, a gimme, a chance for a now-unpopular second-term president to reinvent himself as the leader of all of the American people. The only thing he had to do was—for once in his life—not act like an insane egomaniac.
He couldn’t do it."
So let me guess....the cognitive test President Amyloid Plaque took this time wasn't as hard as "man, woman, TV, camera". It was probably "money, money, money, money", which it only took him ten minutes or so to get right. And I'm guessing they gave him an octopus to identify, which after guessing "dog", "lion", and "horsey", he got right when someone pointed out the tentacles and hinted that there were EIGHT of them. But yeah...stable genius.
Still doing it!
Doncha love how the media INSISTS on making the First Dimwit sound eminently presidential? So here he is with this "deal" to end his idiotic war on Iran, going back and forth with his two condo salesmen standing in for actual negotiators for weeks and weeks, saying the war is over, it's not, it's over, we're gonna kill everyone!, the war is almost over, just a little bit more, oops, nope, they did this and that, KILL! Well it's almost a deal....
And then reporters, knowing all this, knowing EXACTLY how out of touch, how stupid, how lacking in the tiniest speck of the qualities and experience needed to put this thing to bed, STILL insist on describing Fatty as a chin stroking Winston Churchill who wants to "strengthen certain aspects of the deal" ("Harrumph!) and who is "carefully considering the details of a deal with Iran" (heard this on the radio).
NO! He's waddling in with remnants of the last Big Mac on his chin asking if everything makes him look good. Then it's back to rage tweeting. This guy is an imbecile who only really cares that he comes out of this not looking like a cheeseburger eating surrender monkey. But the press insists that he be treated as if he's fucking Dean Acheson personally negotiating conditions for the postwar Pax Americana, when he's still talking about "nuclear dust". Jesus!
Here we are, Akhilleus.
After starting a war whose announced aims he couldn't possibly achieve, the Pretender is now hoping to at least come away with a deal he can argue is better than the one he tore up. That's what all this waffling is about. And Iran knows that, so they're watching him squirm and liking it.
My take, anyway.
Ken,
You're not far off, brother. The mullahs are making the fat man dance. And unfortunately we have many in the media telling us he's giving a master class in the Viennese waltz when he's barely managing the funky chicken.
I think it's the "Chicken Dance." "Funky chicken" is way to coordinated and terpsichorean.
You are right about his bottom line ... it has to look better than Obama's solution.
Nevah hoppen, cholly.
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