Tim Zadorozhnyy of the Kiev Independent: "A territorial dispute remains unresolved in efforts to end Russia's war against Ukraine, but Kyiv is not prepared to make concessions..., Donald Trump's envoy Jared Kushner said on Sept. 11.... 'President Putin laid out his line of what he wants to achieve,' Kushner said during a panel. 'If Ukraine wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, you know, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now does not want to do that.' The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected a ceasefire and demanded that Kyiv cede the partially occupied Donbas, a strategically important region in eastern Ukraine. Moscow is effectively demanding that Kyiv surrender territory that Russian forces have failed to capture militarily." MB: So, according to Jared, the "problem" is that Ukraine won't just give up & cede territory that Russia sought in an unprovoked war of aggression. Yeah, I thought it was all Ukraine's fault.
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Marie: I swear when I saw this headline -- “Trump Demands Smithsonian Install ‘Colossus’ George Washington Statue” -- I thought I had accidentally opened some satirical site and I was looking at an Onion-style spoof. I was not: ~~~
~~~ He Doesn't Know Much About Art, But He Knows What Kind of Schlock He Likes. Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times: “In his latest salvo against the Smithsonian Institution..., [Donald] Trump called on the organization to honor [link fixed] George Washington with a 30-foot 'Colossus statue' outside its National Museum of American History, along with a five-year exhibition about Washington’s legacy 'beginning now.' The proposed statue would replace 'Infinity,' an abstract sculpture by José de Rivera that was dedicated in 1967. The Smithsonian describes that work as the first piece of modern art commissioned by the federal government under the Art in Architecture Program for the National Mall in Washington. 'That strange modernist sculpture tells visitors nothing about America, inspires no one, and honors none of our Great American Heroes,' Mr. Trump wrote. 'George Washington does. He is easily America’s Greatest Hero. Without him, our Country and our Freedoms wouldn’t exist.' In an additional post on Friday, Mr. Trump said he was also asking the Smithsonian to install an 11-foot statue of Washington in the museum’s Flag Hall in time for Constitution Day on Sept. 17. The statue was created for the recent Freedom 250 IndyCar race.” The link is a gift link, because, by god, this is something everyone has got to know. MB: Wait. If Washington is “America's Great Hero,” where does that leave Trump, who rates himself a better president* than Washington? (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Gentlemen, Start Your Engines! The really wonderful thing about this statue of Washington is that the old boy came out for the "Freedom 250" race in just the classiest outfit ever donned by anyone who has directed traffic in D.C. I mean, just compare that flowing cape to the cheesy orange vests traffic cops wear when standing in traffic! Which looks better? And that cane or scepter or whatever it is: a traffic cop could use it to whack the windshields of drivers who disregarded his directions. My only question is: why would one want this statue stuck inside a building -- even a grand hall -- unless the intent is to have it point the direction to the restrooms. ~~~
~~~ Here is well-known public sculptor Barton Rubenstein saying how Rivera's "strange modernist sculpture" inspired him even when he was a child. The sculpture was not moving the day Rubenstein recorded the short video linked here, but according to Art Intel, the stainless steel ribbon still rotates on its base, completing a full rotation every six minutes. Here's the D.C. Preservation League's blurb about "Infinity." Maybe if President* Bobblehead had read just this brief description of the sculpture he would not have wanted to replace it with an embarrassing colossus of a man who already has one gigantic memorial on the Mall and doesn't need yet another in a city that is named for him. (P.S. I still find the sculpture "Blue" silly and not especially appropriate to display at a memorial to a slain president. In a public park for families? Yeah, fine. Kids may see the fun in it. AND, as a literally cubist interpretation of Tube Man, it says something -- what, I'm not sure -- about sleazy American consumerism. As always, eye of the beholder.... [See September 9 page for context.])
Does Anybody Brief This Bumbling Idiot? Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: “Shortly after setting foot in Dublin..., [Donald] Trump on Saturday said it would be 'fantastic' if Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland unified, breaking with decades of U.S. neutrality on an issue rooted in a long history of violence. 'I don’t want to cause any problem. I will tell you, I’d love to see it unified,' Mr. Trump said in Dublin alongside Micheál Martin, Ireland’s taoiseach, or prime minister. 'It’s going to happen eventually.' He later seemed to acknowledge that he had stepped into a politically problematic topic....
“The United States has long supported the U.S.-brokered 1998 Belfast Agreement, also known as the Good Friday Agreement, which brokered a fragile peace that ended roughly three decades of violence between those seeking a united Ireland and unionists who wanted Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Part of that peace agreement was that Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom until a majority of its people voted otherwise in a referendum. For the island to be reunified, a majority of voters in the Republic of Ireland would also have to cast ballots in favor of the initiative. Reunification is highly divisive in Northern Ireland, a nation carved out of the island of Ireland by the British after the Republic of Ireland became independent, because some fear a return to violence. And while a majority of citizens of the Republic of Ireland support the initiative, successive Irish governments have trod cautiously around the delicate issue.” The link is a gift link. The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Mack Liederman of the New York Times: “A Tudor-style home in Jamaica Estates, Queens, doesn’t stand out among rows of others with warm colors and brown brickwork on a tree-lined street. But the house on Wareham Place was ... [Donald] Trump’s childhood home until he was 4 years old. And since Mr. Trump’s first election in 2016, it has gone from a pricey Airbnb listing fashioned with a cardboard cutout of the president to a hangout for feral cats. After a full gut renovation, the five-bedroom, three-bathroom house sold for $1.93 million on Thursday, according to real estate records and the buyer’s agent. The seller, Tommy Lin, a real estate developer, bought the home in March 2025 for $835,000 at a significant discount after the property sat vacant for years.” The link is a gift link.
Nick Robertson & Lauren Kent of CNN: “The desperate pleas for air cover from Yemeni generals started coming mid-morning on Thursday. An advance by the Iran-backed Houthis toward Yemen’s strategic port city of Mocha was in full swing, and backup support from chief ally Saudi Arabia was nowhere in sight.... A senior Yemeni source ... said he contacted the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and was assured the US was 'watching the situation closely and that Saudi air support was coming.... But the air support never came,' the source said. 'And Mocha has now fallen.' Hours later, on Friday, the Houthis captured another key coastal asset, Perim Island, at the mouth of the Red Sea. The island splits the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in two, giving Tehran de facto control over another key shipping route.... Now, Yemen and the Red Sea have the potential to become a true second front in the Iran war....
“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke twice on Thursday with ... Donald Trump and urged him to strike the Houthis, another source familiar with the matter told CNN Friday. Trump declined to intervene, according to that source.... The swift fall of Mocha and the lack of resistance have led to finger-pointing and recriminations among US allies. 'The failure this time is not with the Yemenis,' a regional source told CNN on Thursday. 'It’s a disaster made in (Washington) DC and Riyadh.'... 'It’s a Saudi-American f**k up of epic proportions.'” (Also linked yesterday.)
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and political appointees in his department pushed for the two crew members of an F-15 who were shot down over Iran in April to participate in Sunday’s highly publicized '60 Minutes' report about the ensuing rescue operation, according to multiple sources.... Both airmen initially expressed reservations about doing the interview, with one even raising concerns about the prospect of being potentially ordered to take part in the segment, while military officials were also wary of revealing classified details of the rescue effort.... Political appointees in Hegseth’s office were adamant that both crew members sit for interviews.... But after the two survivors voiced concerns, Hegseth met privately with them and asked whether they wanted to participate rather than forcing their cooperation, the sources said. As a result, one of the pilots ... agreed to sit for an on-camera interview and discuss his experience, while the other ... declined to take part in the '60 Minutes' report.”
Washington Post: “In 2022, one of the greatest threats to elections came from activists like the armed men and women looming near drop boxes and questioning America’s voting procedures. This year..., officials across the nation are preparing for the possibility that the most serious risks may come from ... Donald Trump, his agencies and allies — including many now in power at the federal, state and local levels. Election officials are contemplating ideas that once sounded outlandish, such as troops seizing voting machines, the president dictating last-minute election rules or rogue officials blocking the certification of results. For the last year and a half, Trump and his administration have disparaged long-standing voting practices, dismantled federal agencies that protect elections, impounded ballots from past elections, amplified conspiracy theories, threatened to prosecute election officials, tried to limit mail ballots and pushed to require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Their efforts have touched on nearly every stage of voting....” Update: the link has been changed to a gift link.
Judge to DHS: You People Really Don't Know What You're Doing. Mack Liederman of the New York Times: “A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it ordered that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s work force be cut in half. In her ruling on Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California wrote that the Department of Homeland Security undercut the agency’s authority with an “arbitrary and capricious” plan to reduce FEMA’s work force by more than 11,000 agency employees by the end of September. Included in that number were thousands of temporary, full-time federal employees who help communities prepare for and recover from disasters around the country. 'Frankly, the FEMA staffing plan number appears as if pulled from thin air,' Judge Illston wrote. The administration did not ultimately carry out the full 50 percent reduction, though FEMA’s work force had already shrunk significantly. The American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union, had argued in a lawsuit that the department’s proposed cuts would deeply affect the agency’s ability to respond to emergencies.” The link is a gift link.
Mike Isaac of the New York Times: “Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development in a 3,800-word essay on Saturday, just days after one of the company’s employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology. The leaders of two other top A.I. companies quickly signed on to the effort. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, whose SpaceX rocket company has been ramping up spending on A.I., said in social media posts that they agreed on the need for a slower pace.... 'Over the last few months, I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence — not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up,' Mr. Amodei said.... Mr. Amodei has warned about A.I. safety risk for years. But his essay amounted to one of the most full-throated calls for urgent action from a leading A.I. company executive to date. He called for independent auditors to check the companies for safety standards and urged global cooperation in creating rules around A.I. development. The appeal for an industrywide pause follows months of escalating concerns across the technology industry....” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Evan Gorelick of the New York Times: “Former President Barack Obama warned during a recent private fund-raising event that artificial intelligence technology could be 'dangerous' if not properly managed, as he implored Democrats to aggressively develop political and governing agendas to prioritize the issue in the coming years. In his remarks on Thursday..., Mr. Obama urged House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, to assemble a clear framework for a public conversation about A.I. policy, should Democrats win back the House in the midterm elections, according to a partial transcript provided by Mr. Obama’s office.
“He also suggested that candidates running for president in 2028 ought to make A.I. one of their 'central agendas' and 'have a very clear plan' for responding to safety and economic concerns around the technology. The recommendations from the former president amount to some of his most detailed comments yet about A.I. as a political issue for his party. At a moment when President Trump continues to downplay concerns about the technology, some Democrats see an opportunity for the party to draw a clear contrast in the midterms and beyond on an issue of growing significance.” The link is a gift link.
Alex Stone of ABC News: "An alleged trespasser was stopped by private security at a Malibu property belonging to former Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday night, according to local authorities and a Harris spokesperson. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were not home at the time, and the person was stopped before reaching the home, according to the spokesperson.... Deputies were called to the property at about 10:30 p.m. local time Friday for a report of a suspicious person.... 'The individual who was outside of the property upon our arrival was warned and advised by deputies to leave the premises and left voluntarily without incident,' a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. No arrest was made."
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Texas Senate Race. Beth Reinhard & Lauren McGaughy of the New York Times take a look at the impeachment trial of Ken Paxton, “the defining episode in [his] scandal-plagued career.” The link is a gift link.
8 comments:
The question about whether anyone briefs this moron on basic information about the world that most reasonably intelligent high school students would know likely has to do the fact that he IS a moron.
From a piece on how Fatty has dismantled America’s intelligence services (because he believes they are deep state operations out to get Trump) and has instead shoved witless sycophants into positions of authority at the FBI, CIA, and NSA, here’s an example of the sad and dangerous reality of having such a fucking dimwit in the Oval Office:
“John Feeley, the former US ambassador to Panama, told The Guardian last month about an incident in which he first entered Trump's office, where the president demanded to know what Panama did for the United States. Feeley walked through all the ways that the East Coast is able to purchase affordable goods because the Panama Canal has ships that can shuttle goods from one hemisphere to the other more easily.
He recalled Trump's response was ‘Huh... Who knew?’
‘I kid you not, man,’ said Feeley. "And that's one of the things that contributed to my — I mean, all joking aside, that contributed to my unease about continuing to be his personal representative. This is a man who is so fundamentally ignorant…’”
Who knew?
How about just about anyone who has ever heard of the Panama Canal. All except this idiot.
He has no problem trying convince everyone that he’s an expert on things he has no clue about, but freely admits ignorance of things he SHOULD know about.
He has inhabited a bubble of wealth and privilege his entire life, a situation further compounded by intellectual indolence of the first order and crippling narcissism that allows him to forgo actual basic knowledge of the world in favor of believing he doesn’t have to know anything because he can get away with bullshitting and bullying his way through.
“Panama canal…who knew?”
This is why we have become a pariah state, have $5.00 gasoline, an economy in the toilet, a new forever war, and intelligence services run by dullards and bootlickers.
Muslim List
"For 20 years, a right-wing think tank has been quietly collecting information on thousands of Muslim individuals and organizations in a vast database. HuffPost reviewed the database maintained by Middle East Forum, a controversial group that civil rights organizations say has repeatedly spread misinformation about Islam and Muslims, last year.
At the time, the database had thousands of entries about Muslim Americans, including such data as names they go by, social media accounts and tax information, as well as thousands of entries about Muslim organizations, including schools, mosques and businesses. The file also included people and organizations MEF has deemed allies to the Muslim community."
Ku$hner sez "'If Ukraine wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, you know, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together..."
"We" meaning him, Witless, and Vlad the Impaler. If you didn't know any better you'd have to assume that the two stooges are working for Russia. Oh wait....
So what he means is Ukraine should just stop causing so much agita to his boss, Vlad, give up its sovereign territory and let Russia win. Then Ku$h and Witless can get whatever kind of deal they were offered as agents of Russian aggression.
Is this really what the MAGAts want? Grinding, grifting scumbags (who aren't even actual government employees OR actual negotiators) working for a foreign power against an American ally, all because their Dear Leader is a grinning, grifting scumbag as well? I know it's a broken record, but just imagine if Joe Biden sent his son somewhere and he was trying to work a deal for himself? But we already know the shitstorm that would have caused, right?
I guess what they like is conditional ethics and conditional patriotism. If we do it, it's perfectly fine, no matter who gets it in the neck.
It's not just the Orange Monster. It's the millions who voted for this fascist fuck and his crime family.
"How Trump Is Wielding Power to Stifle Speech
Almost 20 months into Mr. Trump’s second term, his long-running media clashes have grown into a sweeping campaign to control speech in America that stands out for applying so many levers, so fast, all at once. Driven by personal pique, fury over leaks and a determination to shape the political narrative to his advantage, Mr. Trump is deploying the might of the federal government and filing personal lawsuits — targeting not just journalists and liberal critics, but also comedians and talk show hosts, and the corporate entities behind them."
He Stopped the Hurricanes
"The White House has found itself the target of widespread mockery after appearing to credit Donald Trump with preventing hurricanes from forming.
This hurricane season has been unusually calm across the Atlantic.
On Saturday, the White House seized on the lull to heap praise on Trump. “Thank you, President Trump!” read a post from the official Rapid Response 47 account on X, shared alongside a report highlighting the absence of Atlantic hurricanes."
When Fatty told his horde of braindead followers to "Cheat like hell", they took it to heart, or whatever that blackened little thing is in their chests. Here's a Party of Traitors pol who cheats right out in the open.
In a debate betwee senate candidates Mary Peltola (D-AK) and Dan Sullivan (PoT-AK) both were asked a pretty technical question about the fishing industry in that state. Peltola had a quick response (ie, knew what she was talking about and had a definite position). The MAGA guy not so much.
"'Senator Sullivan, yes or no?' The moderator asked.
Sullivan then dropped his papers and looked up, but clearly needed some guidance on how to answer the question. So he turned to Peltola and looked at her paddle. Then, he too displayed a 'no' response."
Maybe if he gets elected, he can hire the Democrat to tell him how to vote on tough issues. Or, he can do what the Orange Monster does and just make shit up on the fly. That's how the country is being run right now, cheating and lying, right out in the open.
He's stopping hurricanes now? That Sharpie must be kick-ass! In fact, the quiet hurricane season in the Atlantic is likely the direct result of an even worse incipient climate-change related disaster, a monster El Niño out west. It's like saying "Hey, I fixed the unemployment problem. I shot half the people looking for work. Now worship me."
"Debate Crowd Brutally Boos GOP Sen. Roger Marshall" During Debate
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