Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: “The Kennedy Center on Monday removed ... Donald Trump’s name from its website, although the front of the venue still read: .The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.' The change came more than a week after a federal judge ruled the center’s board of trustees had illegally renamed the venue and ordered the restoration of its title, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. On Thursday, the center ordered staff to erase Trump’s name from official materials, giving them until this Friday to restore the website and make all other changes.”
George Chidi of the Guardian: “Donald Trump nominated Todd Blanche to serve permanently as attorney general on Monday, lining up his former personal lawyer to be the country’s top law enforcement officer.... Under Blanche, federal prosecutors have pursued a series of controversial actions, including the unveiling of criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director, representing an escalation of its investigation into former CIA director, John Brennan, and the removal of press releases about prosecutions of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6. Blanche’s close personal connection to the president has been fodder for Democratic attacks.... As an important Trump ally in the department, Blanche also played a key role in the effort to create a $1.8bn secretive fund to compensate Trump’s allies, as part of the administration’s broader policy attacking the 'weaponization' of the justice department. Blanche also signed the justice department memo attached to the anti-weaponization settlement permanently blocking the IRS from auditing or pursuing past tax claims against President Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization.”
Jennifer Millman of NBC News 4 New York: "Sorry, Knicks fans: No Madison Square Garden watch party tonight. You won't even be able to walk close. The NYPD and U.S. Secret Service announced another spate of street closures and security measures in anticipation of ... Donald Trump's historic trip to the Knicks' NBA Finals game. No sitting president has ever attended an NBA Finals. And the security will be pretty historic, too. Starting at 4 p.m., 30th to 35th streets will be closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues. That means no vehicular traffic -- and no pedestrian traffic either." ~~~
~~~ Allison Detzel of MS NOW: Many Knicks fans are not happy that Trump and his security requirements are interfering with the game. “One fan said the president should be prepared for those unhappy with his visit to make their feelings heard during the game. 'Hey, let him come. We’re gonna boo the f[uck] up out of you, bro,' he said.”
Kyle Cheney of Politico: “A federal judge has blocked ... Donald Trump’s bid to slap a $100,000 fee on employers who seek to hire foreign workers for specialized roles, labeling the policy an unauthorized 'tax' that required congressional approval. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin concluded that the president’s proposed payments for so-called H-1B visa applications, part of a September 2025 proclamation quickly implemented by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, violated the separation of powers.”
Of Course They Did. Molly Redden & Avi Asher-Schapiro of ProPublica: "Trump administration officials earlier this year killed a federal criminal investigation into the coal empire owned by Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican from West Virginia and a close ally of the president’s. The investigation examined potential criminal violations of the Clean Water Act by the multistate mining operations largely run by Justice’s son, Jay, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter. The criminal probe was a significant escalation in the yearslong effort to police serial pollution offenses by Virginia-based Southern Coal and dozens of affiliated mining operations controlled by the family.
"In the past decade, Southern Coal and other Justice corporations have racked up tens of thousands of alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and have been sued repeatedly by state and federal prosecutors over their failure to properly follow environmental laws at their mining sites. The investigation shuttered by the Trump administration was a joint effort by prosecutors and investigators with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Virginia to probe whether the incessant violations of antipollution laws had risen to the level of criminal behavior, people familiar with the matter said. People familiar with the investigation told ProPublica that prosecutors believed they had a strong case."
Michelle Boorstein & Sammy Westfall of the Washington Post: “The Defense Department on Monday edited its new list of religious 'codes' for service members so that no group is labeled 'Christian' — drawing praise from Mormon lawmakers who were angered last week when their faith was categorized as outside of Christianity. On Friday, the Pentagon released a new, dramatically pared-down list of religious groups. It classified groups including Catholic, evangelical and Methodist, among others, with the tag: 'Christian.' The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was listed without the tag. After the outcry from several leaders who are members of the Mormon Church, the revised list simply states religious groups, without adding the tag 'Christian' to any.”
Texas Senate Race. An Unusual Endorsement. Stephen Neukam of NOTUS: “A Texas lawyer who helped lead Republican Ken Paxton’s defense during his 2023 impeachment trial is endorsing Democrat James Talarico in the state’s critical Senate race this November. Dan Cogdell, a Houston-based defense lawyer who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, told NOTUS in a statement that his former client 'has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.... And unlike Ken, I believe to my core that James Talarico believes in unity over division and that he knows how to assemble not only Democrats, but Independents and Republicans, and we need that right now.'... Cogdell has donated a total of $6,500 to Paxton’s campaign last year and then gave $1,000 to Talarico’s campaign in March, according to campaign finance reports.” The New York Times story is here.
~~~~~~~~~~
At Long Last, Welker Did Her Job. Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: “... Donald Trump stormed out of a Meet the Press interview Sunday — after moderator Kristen Welker repeatedly fact-checked his claims on a variety of topics including; Jan. 6, his 'anti-weaponization' fund, and election fraud. The heated six-minute final block of the interview began with Welker pressing Trump about the $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization' fund he continues to promote — despite his administration officially abandoning its efforts to launch the fund. Welker pressed — attempting to confirm that Trump is indeed throwing in the towel.” The rest of Christopher's report lays out the dialog, including his repeated insults of Welker, a woman of color. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Katie Rogers of the New York Times: Donald “Trump, who campaigned on a central promise to keep the United States out of overseas wars, denied in an interview aired on Sunday that he’d ever made the pledge.... Mr. Trump eventually ended the wide-ranging interview after being repeatedly pressed by Ms. Welker about claiming, without evidence, that recent elections in California were rigged.” (Also linked yesterday.)~~~
~~~ Marie: Well, thank you, Ms. Rogers, for that exemplary job of first-class sane-washing. Yes, Trump did "eventually end" the interview. He did it after repeatedly shouting at Welker in a rage, interrupting her, insulting her and the network, lying to her again and again, then tearing off his mic & tossing it on the ground, struggling to stand up, grabbing Welker's shoulder to steady himself, then lumbering off, stoop-shouldered, in a huff. This is not serious reporting. Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post does a much better -- i.e., more honest and accurate -- job of reporting Trump's meltdown. ~~~
~~~ I don't believe we would be in the horrible mess we're in if not for "journalists" like Rogers, if not for White House staff, if not for family & friends, and if not for members of Congress who never stop indulging Trump's lies. If you watch the interview embedded above, I think you'll agree that Trump seems to believe his own ludicrous, long-disproved assertions. That's at least partly because no one ever challenges him to his face. When Welker confronts him with a couple of well-established facts, he is outraged. He calls her "either crooked or stupid." He's a monster, but everyone who gets near him aids & abets his monstrous behavior. ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson noticed, “Weirdly, [Trump] kept referring to the U.S. as 'your' country when he was speaking to Welker, and to 'your' elections. It was almost as if he was a foreign observer offering criticism of the U.S.” Marie: So this fits rather neatly into my mostly-facetious theory that Trump is a foreign agent, either because some foreign entity (say, Putin) is blackmailing him or -- more likely --because there are payoffs for his agency. To be candid, I would not be slightly surprised if it turned out that Trump had a network of overseas friends with benefits, not because he is anti-American but because he lacks any moral compass whatsoever. Whatever it is (okay, within some unknown limits), if there's something in it for Trump, he'll do it.
~~~ Jane Timm of NBC News: "Throughout the interview..., Trump made a series of false, misleading or exaggerated comments. NBC News reporters dug into some of the president’s remarks. Here are the facts behind the claims." ~~~
~~~ The "Red Mirage." Marie: Here's why the Lying Liar Who Lies insisted to Welker that the California election was "rigged" and why he has sent Department of Injustice thugs out to "investigate" the election. More often than not, late-counted votes favor Democratic/liberal voters. Unlike Republican voters, Democrats have no fear and loathing of mail-in ballots. For obvious reasons, it takes longer to hand-count mail-in ballots than it does to automatically tabulate voting machine results. So mail-in ballots are reported later. These later-counted votes that move reported totals from Republican candidates to Democrats (as from Trump to Biden in 2020) have caused Trump either to believe or to say he believes that it's "not fair" to count votes after midnight on election night. (This, again, is as aspect of his babyish peek-a-boo belief that if you cover your eyes nobody can see you): ~~~
~~~ Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: “Nithya Raman, a progressive member of the Los Angeles City Council, pulled ahead of the reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the Los Angeles mayoral primary on Sunday, as a surge in the vote count signaled a potential shift in the race for second place. Five days after the election deadline, it remained officially undetermined who will face Mayor Karen Bass, the incumbent, in the November contest to decide who will lead the nation’s second most populous city. The Associated Press, which estimates that about 80 percent of the vote has been counted, has not determined a winner. But late returns have trended heavily in favor of the liberals who make up an overwhelming majority of the city’s electorate. Ms. Bass, 72, a former Democratic congresswoman who has already advanced to the November runoff, remained in the lead with 34.7 percent of the vote, according to the updated tally released by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office.” The NBC News report is here. MB: Trump endorsed Pratt, who is MAGA-esque.
Sean James of Mediaite: “... Donald Trump said Israel has 'no choice' but to accept whatever peace deal he strikes with Iran during an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday. The president said Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu — his longtime ally and friend — has no say in the matter, either. 'I call the shots. I call all the shots,' Trump told FT. '[Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots.'” MB: Really, Donald? Scroll on down to the bottom of today's page. You'll find that Bibi is not the obedient servant of our Dear Leader.
Zach Montague of the New York Times: “A political activist and a Vietnam veteran represented by an anti-corruption organization filed a lawsuit on Saturday challenging what it called the 'night of cage fights' that ... [Donald] Trump planned to hold at the White House as part of the celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary. The case was filed just over a week before the event, which is scheduled for June 14 and is being organized by the mixed-martial arts promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship. The White House has been overshadowed in recent weeks by the construction of the venue for the fights, which includes a 600-ton steel arch on the South Lawn. The lawsuit argues that the transformation of the grounds was never authorized by Congress, and that the event will serve as an extraordinary use of government space to benefit both the chief executive of U.F.C., Dana White, and Mr. Trump, who is an investor in U.F.C.’s parent company.... Beyond the procedural claims that the lawsuit skipped an environmental review and took over federal spaces for an event without the approval of Congress, the case focuses heavily on questions of improper financial gains.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I don't suppose this suit doesn't stand much of a chance, but a temporary restraining order -- one that ran at least through the 14th -- would be sweet. After all, there's no possible "national security" pretense that the White House must host a cage fight on Trump's birthday.
Sean James of Mediaite: “Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for ripping the 'invasion' of Europe by Muslim immigrants during a speech honoring D-Day veterans, with the Texas conservative calling it 'inappropriate.'... 'Well, as the son of a D-Day veteran, look, there’s a time and place for these issues of immigration,' McCaul told ['This Week'] co-host Martha Raddatz. 'That was not the day, the anniversary of D-Day.'”
First, Do No Harm? Hah! Do Nothing But Harm. Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: “[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] has shown little interest in managing the details of work in his department, according to multiple colleagues. Instead, they say, he is single-mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long-held beliefs that vaccines are harmful. Deeply mistrustful of career civil officials, the secretary has surrounded himself with a close circle of handpicked advisers and stacked agencies with political appointees aligned with his views. While major posts have sat vacant and a wave of veteran health experts and scientists have departed, Mr. Kennedy has remained isolated from much of the department’s top staff. He rarely engages with members of Congress, colleagues said, unless he is asked to testify. He has made just one known visit to the C.D.C., after a gunman opened fire on its headquarters and killed a police officer last August.”
Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times Magazine interviews Scott Pelley in his first sit-down interview since CBS News fired him. Includes video of the interview. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Adeel Hassan of the New York Times extracts five "takeaways" from the Pelley interview.
~~~~~~~~~~
Iran/Israel., et al. Lior Soroka & Sammy Westfall of the Washington Post: “Israel said it struck military targets in Iran, hours after Tehran fired a barrage of missiles toward the country for the first time since a ceasefire took effect in early April. The exchange of fire threatened to further complicate efforts to broker a lasting peace deal to end the months-long U.S.-Israeli war with Tehran and raised the prospect of a return to open conflict. The Israeli Air Force hit sites in western and central Iran, its military said on social media early Monday local time, without providing further details. Iran’s attack on Sunday followed Israeli military strikes on what Israel said were suspected Hezbollah positions in Beirut’s southern suburbs earlier in the day.” The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: My, my. Looks as if Bibi is not following Donald's instructions: ~~~
~~~ Barak Ravid of Axios: Donald "Trump will call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and press him not to retaliate for Iran's missile attack, Trump tells Axios. 'I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate. Each of them had their fun. Israel had its strike, and Iran had its strike. We don't need another one,' Trump said."
17 comments:
The Pretender is just jealous of Iran and Israel. As Marie says, he's not in charge, not centerstage.
"They each had their fun," and he's not getting any. It's almost as if he's been relegated to the sidelines, benched in fact....
Those who know him...
"A Texas lawyer who helped lead Republican Ken Paxton’s defense during his 2023 impeachment trial is endorsing Democrat James Talarico in the state’s critical Senate race this November. Dan Cogdell, a Houston-based defense lawyer who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, told NOTUS in a statement that his former client “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.”"
"American Economic Liberties Project and Groundwork Collaborative released a 10-page report, “The Price of Corruption: How Trump’s Pay-to-Play Administration is Driving Up Costs for Working Families”, that outlines nine policy areas "that have been warped by Trump's corruption."
The policy areas covered are Health Care, Tariffs, Gas Prices, Energy, Air Travel, Tax Filing, Corporate Misbehavior, Credit Bureaus and Loan Rates, and Digital Assets and Prediction Markets."
"Trump Wants Lawyers’ Files On Migrant Children
The Trump administration is withholding pay from legal aid groups while demanding they share confidential case data about unaccompanied migrant children fighting to remain in the country, according to records reviewed by The Lever.
For months, the records show, the primary legal services provider for unaccompanied migrant youth has been locked in a standoff with the federal government over these unprecedented demands,[...]
As a result, legal clinics across the country that provide a critical lifeline to migrant children, shepherding them through the byzantine immigration court system that they would otherwise face on their own, have not been paid for their work since December, threatening their existence."
The business of actively aligning with crazy authoritarians
"All the Ways Europe Is Ditching American Technology
A WIRED timeline shows how dozens of governments, companies, and other organizations across Europe are moving, or planning to shift, away from US Big Tech.
The long list of Europe’s other concerns includes governments and companies not being in control of their own data; changing international relationships; dependence on tech from a small number of companies; potential access to data under the US CLOUD Act and FISA; and the closer-than-ever relationships between Big Tech firms and the Trump administration. “Citizens, companies, and organizations are energized to take their digital future into their own hands,” Schaake says. “Untangled from billionaire interests as well as Trump’s policies.”"
Welker did her job, but the DOJ likely won't.
https://www.notus.org/2026-election/public-integrity-unit-doj-election-safeguards
DiJiT suggests that now that Israel and Iran have exchanged tit for tat attacks this week, the scales are balanced and both sides should be satisfied.
He clearly does not understand the weights and measures that apply in the region. Your great uncle killed my grandfather's goat during the 1953 Iran coup, and a Jewish witness laughed because the goat had only one horn. Therefore I must always seek every opportunity to destroy Israel. And the Jewish witness' granddaughter by his third marriage joined the IDF with the specific hope that one day she could drive an F16 to bomb the goat's village in Iran.
Silly, but not unreal. These guys never forget that Amalekites must be eliminated at every opportunity.
Patrick,
Yeah, one of the gazillion things the Orange Monster doesn’t understand. But this one is odd. Here’s a barely literate lunkhead with a fourth grade vocabulary and pre-school emotional development who nonetheless remembers every real or imagined slight, who lives for revenge. One would think this would be the sort of thing he would instantly recognize.
He’s like the guy with Irish Alzheimer’s: forgets everything but the grudges.
Of course understanding why all Amalekites must die presupposes a rudimentary knowledge of regional history, or at least some familiarity with the Hebrew Bible, of which he has neither. This oafish ignoramus doesn’t even command a simplistic understanding of American history of the last 10 years. So…1953 goaticide in Iran?
Nope.
"Are you calling my dog a liar?"
"Kyle Clark asked Colorado GOP candidate for governor Victor Marx whether voters should believe he’s lived "one of the most extraordinary lives in human history," or whether he’s "a liar and a fraud.""
@Patrick & @Akhilleus: Speaking of "60 Minutes" as we have been, I recall decades ago that Bob Simon did a "60 Minutes" report on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The only part of the segment I remember is Simon's interview of an Israeli woman dressed in what I would call peasant garb. She bent down and picked up a handful of dirt to show to Simon. "God gave us this land," she said emphatically.
I understood then that, at best, it would be generations before the West Bank conflict could be resolved. Patrick has his weights & measures right. And it isn't just about the one-horned goat. It's about God's will. Or, in the land of the one-horned goat, God is king.
Unfortunately, Yahweh has one opinion & Allah has another.
Because they don't care about real people.
"Majority of US’s new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land
Guardian analysis finds facilities to be built in some of the driest areas as outcry grows over water needed to power AI
A record-shattering drought has racked much of the US. But the artificial intelligence industry is pushing ahead regardless, with the majority of planned datacenters set to be built in drought-ridden locations, a Guardian analysis has found.
About two-thirds of upcoming datacenters, which typically require a large amount of water to operate, are set to be built in places that have been among the driest in the country over the past year."
The Oracle of the North envisions "...a huge -- but 'eco-sensitive' -- Trump-Kushner resort in the Chagos' future."
I think what Ms. Oracle meant was an ego-sensitive Trumpy-Kushy half assed, overpriced, gaudy monstrosity of a resort type thingie on Chagos.
Of course, this all has to wait for some kind of sovereignty settlement between the UK and Mauritius. Adding to the twistiness of the whole thing is the fact that, as the linked Guardian article points out, Mauritius is an ally of China and there are concerns that the Diego-Garcia airbase on one of the Chagos islands could be a target for Chinese surveillance. Funnily enough, because we have such a fucking dolt of a president who has made the US both a laughing stock and an unreliable partner (in anything), there will be far more Chinese al lies in the near future as the world's center of influence sways eastward.
Mauritius has gone back and forth over the last couple of centuries from early Dutch traders to the French, to the British and after some time, ending up as its own republic. My entree into the history of that area came through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, specifically, "The Mauritius Command" which, although foregrounding the doings of fictional characters, is solidly based on the struggle for control of that part of the world in the early 19th century. And here we are in 2026, except now, as with all things Trumpy, the goal is more in line with how to make more money for the Trump Crime Family.
And whether or not Fat Hitler tries to build one of the family's cheap-ass pseudo-luxury shacks on Chagos, Princess Ivanka and 666Jared are dilettanting their way to another project. Ivanka claims she and Jared "discovered" an island off Albania and are now planning a billion dollar pseudo-luxury resort.
Albanians are not happy.
"Sazan Island has been there for thousands of years. It was a secret communist military base during the Cold War. It’s in a UNESCO-adjacent protected environmental zone full of flamingos and sea turtles. Albania has known about it forever. Italy has known about it forever. Every sailor in the Adriatic has known about it forever.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner sailed past it on a yacht, swam to shore, walked up a hill with no shoes on, and decided they discovered it. Now they want to build a billion-dollar luxury resort on it and the entire country of Albania is in the streets protesting.
Nobody gives a shit that you hiked barefoot to the top of a hill. That’s not a discovery. That’s a vacation. You didn’t plant a flag on the moon. You walked on a beach that fishermen have been using for centuries and decided it would make a great spot for a hotel.
Albanians have been protesting for seven consecutive days and counting. They’ve dubbed it the 'Flamingo Revolution' because the island and surrounding Vjosa-Narta protected zone are home to flamingo habitats, sea turtle nesting grounds, and other wildlife that environmentalists say will be destroyed if the resort development goes forward.
The protests escalated when excavators and bulldozers showed up on site without any public consultation. No community meetings. No transparency. No development permits made available to the public. One day there were pristine dunes and nesting sites. The next day there were bulldozers cutting trees and ripping up the landscape. Footage of an activist being dragged away from the construction went viral. Thousands have been marching in Tirana every night since."
Oh well, another country that now hates us. Silly Albanians. This is the Trump Way. Do whatever the fuck you want, screw laws, the environment, the locals, history, every fucking thing. All that matters is what they want.
So...ego-sensitive it is.
By the way, here's that video of an Albanian protester being literally dragged off for daring to interfere with Princess Ivanka's fantasy. Silly Albanians. The Trumps don't care that it's your land.
as seen on BlueSky, a summary of the Meet the Press interview The Four Stages of Being Confronted Wiith Your Own Lies
Jimmy Kimmel
"You'd think Trump would be rooting for the Spurs, right? It's what got him out of Vietnam,"
Third Wave Trumpism
"Trump, of course has always been Trump. But his first term — Trump 1.0 — had some rational folks. As Trumpist as that first term may have felt, there were still grownups in the room — John Kelly, Jim Mattis, even Bill Barr — who would on occasion tell Trump “no.” Trump 2.0 has been far more radical: staffed with hard-core loyalists who are completely bonded with MAGA. But loyalty is no longer enough.
But the Third Wave Trumpists are the whole package. They will go along with Trump no matter what.¹ Blanche will indict the former director of the FBI over seashells; he will sign off on a deeply corrupt slush-fund and IRS immunity bargain. Pulte has abused his position as housing czar to target Trump’s political enemies; Paxton has already demonstrated his willingness to help Trump overturn elections. And Trump? He is not content merely with pardoning the J6 rioters; he still wants to pay them off. Some of rioters have even been given sensitive positions within the government itself.
[…]
We keep saying that we’ve seen the worst of the worst. But Trump is saying “Hold my beer, I have people who are even more willing to be accomplices in my criming than ever before.”"
The Triumph of Stupidity excerpt from LG&$.
"That said, Mencken in this regard, was still, it’s fair to say, a veritable prophet:
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
That the majority of people are terrible at thinking is the kind of fact that pious paeans to democracy must tactfully overlook or ignore. Yet the idea that the beliefs and opinions of the average person should decide anything important is obviously insane if you think about it for ten seconds, which is why nobody does.
[...]
The mental demands and intellectual complexities of the world in which we now live are in many ways overwhelming them. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, too dumb for the type of society that has come into existence. These people on some level sense this, while resenting and denying that same sensation. Increasingly, such people are being organized into a powerful populist electoral army by other people, who for their own reasons hate contemporary society, even though that society has created all of the financial and technological power they now enjoy."
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