ICE Agents (Allegedly!) Rough up a U.S. Citizen While Detaining Him. Matthew Eadie of Evanston Now: “Federal agents briefly detained and released a U.S. citizen on Sunday morning in Evanston on Howard Street east of Dodge Avenue, Evanston police chief Schenita Stewart confirmed Sunday. The man reported injuries to his head, neck and teeth, police said, and witnesses 'told officers that individuals they believed were U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had attempted to take him into custody.' In a post on social media, Mayor Daniel Biss said federal agents 'briefly detained and then released' the man, who he said was a U.S. citizen. He was transported by ambulance and treated for 'minor injuries' at St. Francis Hospital.” Thanks to RAS for the link.
Patrick de Haan, the Gas Buddy Guy, on BlueSky: "my live fuel clock showing Americans now have spent $70 billion more on filling up with gasoline since March 1 (vs same period a yr ago) and $44 billion more on diesel (same dates) for a total of ~$114.2 billion spent over this time." Thanks to RAS for the link. Where or not you drive a diesel-powered vehicle, you're paying those Trump-elevated diesel prices each time you buy something. Yes, it's hard on the carriers, who have to pay at the pump, but in most cases, they eventually are able to pass those charges on to consumers.
The New York Times is liveblogging developments in Trump's latest suppression of a free press. The link is a gift link. From the pinned item at 10:45 am ET: “Major television networks agreed to suspend their pooled coverage of the president on Monday as CNN, MS NOW and Politico said that they would soon file a legal challenge against ... [Donald] Trump’s order barring them from the White House grounds.... They will file a separate motion seeking an emergency order that would remain in effect while the litigation unfolds.... The White House press pool is a small group of correspondents, TV journalists and photographers who are the eyes and ears of the broader White House press corps for coverage of the president. Four other networks that shared the responsibility for providing television coverage of presidential events with CNN — ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC — said on Monday that they would suspend those efforts, which entail distributing footage that is carried by news organizations worldwide.” Thanks to Akhilleus of the link. ~~~
~~~ From a later pinned item: “The []banned outlets have asked the court to restore their access to the White House as quickly as possible and sought an emergency order that would remain in effect while the litigation unfolds. The federal judge assigned to the case, Timothy J. Kelly, handled a similar fight in 2018: He ordered the White House to reinstate the press pass of the CNN reporter Jim Acosta.” MB: Kelly is a Trump appointee.
Peter Baker: “For the first time in my 30 years of covering the White House, the president will not have a network TV camera covering his everyday official actions and travels.” The post is accompanied by a video short in which Baker looks downright shocked at what's transpired.
Erik Wemple: “CNN, MS NOW and Politico have now filed their lawsuit against the Trump administration....”
Michael Grynbaum: “The major TV networks did not bring cameras to Trump’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new helipad on the South Lawn. Watching the White House’s official YouTube stream, it was impossible to hear any of the president’s remarks. The audio is completely garbled.”~~~
~~~ Marie: Listen! Here's how the amateurs do it! ~~~
~~~ Marie: The question now is, who will blink first? The networks who are depriving themselves of clips of Trump saying stupid stuff or the narcissistic Newshog-in-Chief?
Marie: Early today, I mentioned how remarkably incompetent Pete Hegseth was and how dangerous that was to Americans and others. I understated the case: ~~~
Benjamin Mullin, et al., of the New York Times: “Paramount reached an agreement on Monday to resolve an antitrust lawsuit delaying its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to four people familiar with the negotiations, eliminating the last significant barrier to the creation of an entertainment and media colossus. A group of states, led by California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, a Democrat, sued Paramount in July, arguing that an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery would concentrate too much power over cable TV and blockbuster films under one company. After weeks of on-again-off-again negotiations, Paramount and the states agreed to a number of concessions to complete the deal, according to the people.... The entertainment giant has agreed to establish a board of journalists to ensure the editorial independence of CNN and CBS News and committed to distributing 30 movies in theaters every year. The company also pledged to spend an additional $1.5 billion on film production over the next five years. A completion of the blockbuster deal would create one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. It would pair Paramount’s movie studio with Warner Bros.... The combined company would also own two major streaming services, Paramount+ and HBO Max, and control both CNN and CBS News.” The link is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I think we can now feel assured that our costs of teevee-viewing will rise.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Betty Cracker of Balloon Juice has some thoughts on plans for up-and-coming Nazi-esque memorials to "a bug-fuck crazy autocrat." Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)~~~
~~~⭐AND here's the word from Tom Nichols of the Atlantic: "... Donald Trump is not an emotionally healthy man, and his obsession with monuments is not a mere diversion from the pressures of the job. His most recent tirade ... suggests a president who is now lost in a fantasy city in his mind, a capital where the buildings are festooned with his name, drenched in glitz, and bristling with weapons.... Trump’s imaginings of castle-like defenses on the Potomac move beyond mere bad taste to a place of genuine weirdness.... [In his latest description of it, the Arc de Trump] would also be a permanent storage facility for a lot of ammunition. What could go wrong? A space open to the public would also be a continuously operating military installation. Just imagine the sense of peace that visitors, tourists, and schoolchildren would feel standing atop an ammo dump full of ordnance.... Militarizing an arch in front of the Memorial Bridge is an even more dangerous and stupid idea than turning a ballroom into a bastion.... It will loom over [Arlington National C]emetery, insisting that instead of thinking of the honored dead, Americans think only of Donald Trump." Thanks to akaWendy for this gift link. Read on. The last grafs of Nichols' essay, IMO, are particularly important. (Also linked yesterday.)
Marie: I'm happy to see that the New York Times story titled "How President Trump Broke the Kennedy Center" (gift link) remained on the online front page all weekend and was still there at 5:30 am ET Monday. We wouldn't want any readers to miss a title like that.
Helene Cooper, et al., of the New York Times: Donald Trump “had wavered for weeks over the Saudi appeals for help in fighting the Houthis, who took advantage of the instability in the Middle East and reignited their war with the kingdom this summer. But things came to a head on Thursday: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader and a major ally in the Iran war, called the president to implore him, again, to step in to help blunt the rapidly advancing group, administration officials said. Mr. Trump had met with advisers just the day before and told them he did not favor strikes. But after speaking with the Saudi crown prince, he reversed himself and told the Pentagon to prepare for airstrikes against the Houthis. But by midday Sunday, the president appeared to have reversed himself again.... The gyrations reflect the quandary in which the president now finds himself: He is correct when he says that the Houthis have steered clear of attacking U.S. ships. But they have gone after Saudi Arabia, creating a dilemma for Mr. Trump.” The link is a gift link. MB: The real quandary probably has more to do with MBS's investments in Trump & Kushner enterprises.
Paul Krugman: "A little over a week ago Donald Trump, who has made many unreasonable demands on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, added a new one: 'Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel fuel.' Even for a New Yorker, the chutzpah was striking.... Trump has effectively created this situation by cutting off all aid to Ukraine, while in addition denying the Ukrainians even the ability to buy Patriot interceptors.... Trump’s actions were clearly intended to leave Ukraine defenseless. But the Ukrainians — with help from the democracies of Europe — have survived, responding to Putin’s attacks by using their own, home-grown, drones and cruise missiles to make effective strikes against Russia’s energy infrastructure.... Now Trump, having already betrayed Ukraine to Putin, is demanding that Zelenskyy commit strategic suicide.... Aside from the outrageous nature of his demands, Trump’s remarks were interesting because they reveal the extent to which refined products, especially diesel, have replaced crude oil as the key bottleneck in the global energy crisis." ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson: "Last week, CNN reported that fourteen Russian spy satellites moved over the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, used by the U.S., two days before a devastating March 27 attack by Iran. A CNN investigation showed that the spacecraft had access to a large spectrum of data. U.S. officials and international intelligence sources told CNN that the information the satellites gathered helped Iranian forces conduct some of its most precise attacks against American forces and assets." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Everything tells me that Donald Trump is not only the worst president* in U.S. history, but also is an intentional traitor to the country; that is, not a dolt who is too stupid to understand what he is doing but a Manchurian candidate whose allegiance is somewhere else, perhaps not exclusively to Russia but to a sort of "band of dictators" who intend to disrupt the functioning democracies of the world. ~~~
~~~ Marie: There is a reason the term SNAFU -- Situation Normal, All Fucked Up -- comes out of the military. It's the one reason you don't put a natural-born fuck-up like Pete Hegseth at the head of the Defense Department. Shit happens, especially in military ops where split-second decisions are common. You want to minimize the screw-ups, not cultivate them. In today's Comments, Akhilleus points to one major fuck-up (I linked a story on this last week), and RAS points to another (a Bloomberg story I can't access). Innocent people, a few of them Americans, are dying cruel and unnecessary deaths because Hegseth & Trump don't know WTF they're doing; even when they do know, they very well may be doing the wrong thing.
James Reynolds of the Independent: "Donald Trump is reportedly preparing sanctions against the International Criminal Court after the global tribunal issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sweeping sanctions could prohibit the court from carrying out transactions in dollars, cutting it off from the global financial system and drastically undermining its work, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for the court, which prosecutes war crimes and genocide worldwide. U.S. officials want the court to drop its arrest warrants against Israeli leaders as well as a past probe into American troops in Afghanistan. American officials told the WSJ the move could be finalised as soon as this week, during or just after the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which Netanyahu is expected to attend."
When is an agreement not an agreement?: when Donald Trump is one of the parties. Since Trump regularly reneges on his international agreements, other countries don't see to have much of a problem reneging on their promises to him. ~~~
~~~ Sui-Lee WeeNew York Times: “When ... [Donald] Trump met with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in May, the United States announced that China had agreed to sharply increase its purchases of American agricultural products. The pledge, one of China’s major commitments after the high-profile meeting, appeared to offer relief to U.S. farmers battered by the trade war between the two countries.... The White House announced in May that China would buy at least $17 billion a year of U.S. farm goods through 2028, with the target prorated for 2026. Soybeans were not included: China had already vowed separately to step up purchases from American farmers. Yet in the first seven months of 2026, China bought only $3.9 billion of U.S. agricultural products, excluding soybeans, according to the most recent Agriculture Department data. The amount was only slightly more than during the same period last year, when sales were at a six-year low as the two countries imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on each other.” The link is a gift link.
Ali Watkins of the New York Times: “The Trump administration removed CNN from its duties as the pool representative for television networks on Monday, days after barring journalists from the outlet, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. CNN said it had been scheduled for TV pool duties this week as part of a longstanding agreement among five major television networks to share responsibility for covering the president’s activities. But when the White House sent its daily guidance of the president’s schedule on Sunday night, no primary TV pooler was listed for Monday. The exclusion of CNN was widely expected as ... [Donald] Trump escalated his clashes with the news media.” The link is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Sara Fischer of Axios: "CNN, MS NOW, and Politico on Monday said they plan to file a First Amendment lawsuit against the White House, arguing the president and the administration violated their rights by blocking their access over the weekend.... The lawsuit is a historic show of solidarity amongst the banned outlets, as they and other newsrooms continue to face unprecedented pressure from The Trump administration." The New York Times story is here; this is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Steve Vladeck on Substack: "The Supreme Court has not always drawn the clearest lines when it comes to the First Amendment and press freedom. But this is just not a close case. Whatever other leeway the executive branch may have to restrict press access on national security grounds, hand-picking three outlets to exclude from what the Court’s jurisprudence calls a 'nonpublic forum' because of the President’s disagreement with the putative viewpoint of their reporting is about as close to a textbook violation of the existing precedents as it comes."
David Nakamura & Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: As of the end of June, “the Trump administration has authorized or pledged at least $410 million to facilitate agreements with 31 countries, mostly in Africa and Latin America..., [to accept U.S. deportees] even though the migrants are not their own citizens.... [The State Department diplomat who has been negotiated these agreements is named Christian Ehrhardt, and is now heads up the Office of Remigration.] The agreements have been secured under the orders of Stephen Miller..., White House deputy chief of staff. Current and former officials say that Miller, known for his relentless anti-immigration focus, has been able to push key appointments at the State Department that have allowed him to overrule other foreign policy objectives in his goal of achieving more deportations. Ehrhardt is 'considered a White House envoy' when he meets with foreign leaders, said a U.S. official familiar with his meetings.” The link is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Teo Armus of the Washington Post reports on how things have been working out for one of the earliest victims of Trump & Miller's deportation "plan": a young Iranian national sent to Panama, a country with "no functioning asylum system." ~~~
~~~ Here's a link to the Deportation Project, which bills itself as "a global investigation into the Trump administration's secret deals to expel people worldwide."
Christina Morales, et al., of the New York Times: “An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot an immigrant from Venezuela in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, local authorities said. It was the latest violent episode as the Trump administration pushes to increase deportations. The injured man, Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was taken to a hospital, but his wife was not allowed to see him during the afternoon, said Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an immigration lawyer who said at the hospital that she is now representing him and his family. On Sunday evening, the wife of Mr. Garces Perez was told by representatives of the hospital that he had been released, hours earlier, into ICE custody. Ms. Lincoln-Goldfinch added that they did not know where he was.... Local authorities said that many details about what led up to the shooting and the moments after it remained unclear.” (This is an update of a developing story linked yesterday evening.) The link is a gift link. The Texas Tribune story is here.
Elizabeth Dwoskin of the Washington Post on Tyler Hassen, one of the top boys on Elon Musk's DOGE team, who took on cutting the bloat out of the Interior Department because he didn't know anything about it. Before he got his government job, it seems he had a career as a Mitt Romney-sort of vulture capitalist. Hassen has written a memoir of his time "serving" the country. (MB: Oh, and he doesn't understand the first thing about macroeconomics. I am most feel sorry for smug bastards like Hassen; they don't know what they don't know, and they're proud of it.)
~~~~~~~~~~
They're in the Money. Dan Merica of the Washington Post: In the midterm elections, “... Republicans’ fundraising advantage remains undiminished, especially among committees and super PACs, and the party has taken full advantage of the recent Supreme Court decision that made it easier for certain groups to coordinate spending with campaigns.... In total, Republicans are set to spend around $140 million more on ads than Democrats are in the nine most competitive Senate races.... The disparity is especially yawning in the Senate contest in Texas, where Republicans have reserved $39.6 million in ads and Democrats have reserved just $5.1 million. On the House side, House Republicans’ campaign arm plans to run coordinated ads in 39 districts, with the committee reserving more than $24 million. House Democrats’ campaign committee, by comparison, plans to run coordinated ads in 14 districts. Money from MAGA Inc., Trump’s super PAC, is helping Republicans in key House races. The group has spent or reserved more than $75 million in House contests, according to the National Republican Congressional Committee. The cash disparity between the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee — a consistent issue for Democrats — remains so.”
Georgia Statewide Races. Ha Ha. (Thanks to RAS for the link.) ~~~
Ohio Senate Race. Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times: “The cryptocurrency industry, furious at Democrats for blocking the passage of a major business-friendly bill last week, is beginning to wage war on the party’s midterm candidates. The industry’s main super PAC, Fairshake, which is backed by some of the richest people in Silicon Valley, is starting to unspool a planned $30 million advertising campaign against former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a Democrat running again for the chamber, the group told The New York Times. The push is by far the crypto industry’s most aggressive move yet in the midterms, and it could have significant implications for the Ohio Senate race, one of this year’s top contests for control of Congress. Fairshake spent $41 million on advertising in 2024 to target Mr. Brown, a progressive critic of the industry who was then the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. He lost, and many Republicans credit the crypto industry for helping them win.” The link is a gift link.
Aaron Pellish, et al., of Politico: Some Republican candidates are steering clear of Donald Trump. Because "he's kryptonite."
Strange Bedfellows.
Michigan Senate Race. Okay, let's see why TuKKKer is defending Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed: ~~~
~~~ Tim Balk New York Times: “Tucker Carlson, the influential far-right podcaster, lives in Maine and spent more than three decades defending the Republican Party before leaving it this year over his opposition to the war with Iran. He is known for his nativist rhetoric and once said immigrants were making the United States 'poorer and dirtier.' Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a son of Egyptian immigrants, lives in Michigan and has spent his adult life pushing for progressive causes. Now Dr. El-Sayed is the Democratic Party’s nominee in a pivotal Senate race, running on a left-wing platform that calls for universal health care and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet, in a striking twist that underscores his shifting politics, Mr. Carlson has taken to defending Dr. El-Sayed. Both are vocal critics of the Israeli government and the war with Iran. In recent weeks, Mr. Carlson has repeatedly spoken in positive terms about Dr. El-Sayed and castigated his Republican opponent, former Representative Mike Rogers, a critic-turned-ally of ... [Donald] Trump with hawkish foreign policy views.” The link is a gift link.
South Dakota Secretary of State Election. Christina Morales of the New York Times: “South Dakota’s Republican secretary of state has endorsed a Democratic candidate to succeed her after she lost her primary race in June.... Monae Johnson, the South Dakota secretary of state, in a column ... praised the law enforcement and public policy background of the Democrat, Terrence Davis, a former state trooper. She also criticized the election tactics of many in her party. 'South Dakota deserves a Secretary of State who will strengthen confidence through performance rather than provocation; who will support election officials rather than burden them for political effect; who will protect voter access and election security without pretending those goals are enemies; and who will treat the office’s employees, voters, candidates, and business owners with dignity,' she wrote.” The link is a gift link. MB: Based on this thumbnail, you might think Johnson is as pure as the snow driving across the South Dakota Badlands and is bravely putting country over party. But if you read on, you'll see that she has a very mixed record. That includes being an election denier in 2020/21.
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Germany. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: “Friedrich Merz, the unpopular and increasingly embattled German chancellor, vowed on Sunday evening that he would remain in the job, after his party performed poorly in two state elections in eastern Germany. Mr. Merz’s center-right Christian Democrats, long the nation’s dominant conservative party, limped to their worst postwar showing in a state election, in the lightly populated coastal state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. In Berlin, the capital, they appeared on the brink of losing power after a surprisingly large loss to the far-left Die Linke party. 'It is a disaster,' Mr. Merz told reporters shortly after polls closed. The chancellor’s approval rating is falling toward single digits. He has faced mounting pressure to resign since his party was trounced in another eastern state earlier this month by the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. But he pledged on Sunday to stay and shepherd legislation meant to revive the German economy.” The link is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Fred Mertz there might be a jerk, but at the very least, he's a jerk who recognizes what a jerk Donald Trump is.
22 comments:
Full agreement with Betty Cracker, per RAS's link.
The stench of Trump, his lackeys, cronies, hangers-on, apparatchiks, and grifting idiot spawn must be eradicated as completely as possible once his fat ass is gone. That means tearing down the bordello-ballroom oligarch hidely hole for making deals in the dark, blowing up the Arc de Rump, with its sniper nests and storerooms for rifles, ammo, and drones. It means rebuilding the Kennedy Center after this uniquely disgusting terrorist-gangster of a president* knocks it.
But more importantly for Democrats, it means no more secret tea and crumpet meetings with Ku$hner or anyone else who is part of the Turd Reich. It means no fucking position papers on what we're gonna do and how we're gonna all sing Kumbaya and be as non-partisany as we can, and it means we are in no way shape or form gonna 'try to work with" Fatty over his last two years.
It means, if we take the House and Senate, that we don't put a single one of his picks for the federal bench into the judiciary. It means investigating the SHIT out of all this grifting and illegal, unconstitutional criminal activity going on right now that the legacy media is too scared to report on in any kind of depth. It means impeaching Drunk Pete, Todd Blanche, Polio Bob, and making sure to investigate, and if necessary, prosecute the Emil Boves and Stephen Millers of this astonishingly horrible nightmare of an administration.
it also means buh-bye to the Chuck and Hakeem show. Bye guys, it's been real and it's been nice but it hasn't been real nice. We need warriors to KICK ASS.
And here's why we need to tear down that fucking ballroom and that Arc de Rump, if it gets built, and also why we have to fumigate the shit out of DC, to eradicate as much as possible the stench of corruption and criminality brought to the capitol by the worst PERSON to ever shit in a White House toilet.
If we want to start fresh and try to recover our dignity as a nation, to rebuild our democratic institutions and to bolster them with new laws to help stave off the next Fat Hitler (Shady Vance, eg), we need to tear up the floorboards. We need to dig up the lawns and fields he has salted and defiled. You can't grow anything good in unclean ground. And leaving up those monuments to himself and his vainglorious criminally would be a sin against democracy and the American Experiment.
I don't care what it costs, and if Fox gets all weepy about investigations and starts whining about it, fuck them. The thing is, if this Blue Wave washes up on. our shores, we need to use it to wash all that Fat Hitler fuckery way out to sea. Voters will not be voting for Democrats to write policy papers, they'll be voting for them to MAKE THIS SHIT STOP.
Time to stop with the Mr. Niceguy bullshit. Time to put asses in prison and tear down obscene Trumpy monuments.
THEN we can start on whatever agendas seem the best for restoring the country. Also, to hell and gone with trying to mollify the MAGA horde. Fuck them starting to hell.
But first, we tear down every piece of gold gewgawed Golgotha themed grandiosity he has inflicted on us.
What he ^ said!!!
And among the many pieces of evidence included in impeachment proceedings for No Tab Pete, that drunken scumbag, is a question about how China got its hands on top secret military technology.
You know how Drunk Pete and Fat Hitler have been hiding the facts of the Iran War, which we've already lost, telling everyone it's all great, and we won, and Iran is dead? Well, here's something else they've been hiding.
"A shipment of F-35 parts bound for the United States for repairs was rerouted as it transited the Pacific Ocean from Australia, according to three people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The Pentagon confirmed the disappearance of some components."
Oops!
"The shipment included one of the jet’s canopies, which covers the cockpit and contains stealth technology that only the U.S. and its allies have access to, according to two of the people. An adversary could study the parts and potentially reverse-engineer the prized technology if it had one of the canopies."
This means, if China is now poring over these parts, that we have saved them billions and billions of dollars in R&D. Essentially handing over highly sensitive military technology to an enemy should warrant serious consequences. And it doesn't matter if the stuff was actually "handed over", losing track of a shipment of this magnitude then not telling anyone about it for months means someone needs to be spending many, many years in a federal prison, and since No Tab Pete is the strutting, preening, boss, making sure to polygraph test everyone he sees instead of DOING HIS FUCKING JOB, he should also be in line for an orange jumpsuit
The incompetence is breathtaking. And it's getting worse. What else are they hiding?
Amanda Marcotte, for Salon, asserts that James Talarico’s campaign could do lasting damage to the GOP
"White evangelicals have been the backbone of the GOP for decades not because they love tax cuts for the rich and environmental degradation, but because they have been told, repeatedly, that Democrats are demonic and there is no such thing as a liberal Christian.
This is why there’s a growing panic in the Republican ranks over the campaign of James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas, and it’s not just fear that he could beat Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general. Win or lose, Talarico — a seminary student-turned-politician — embodies an existential threat to the right’s long-standing myth that to be Christian must necessarily mean voting Republican. "
Fat Hitler's idea of militarizing his arch is stupid, but also dangerous. Both inside and out. It makes the arch a target for a terrorist attack for strategic and symbolic reasons which makes it a danger to be around. Usually these kind of arches are supposed to be tourists attractions, but we also have snipers on his and probably a bunch of drones that are meant to blow up or shoot at things. So they are making a giant potential bomb sitting in the middle of DC that people will be driving by. Maybe this administration's incompetence will get rid of the arch for us.
Government Campaigning
"With interest in populist economic policies surging ahead of the Nov. 3 elections, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is embarking on a 20-state road trip to urge voters to reject socialism and embrace capitalism as the “best pathway to opportunity and prosperity.”
The sprawling bus tour, dubbed the “Free Enterprise Express,” departs this weekend for stops in Pennsylvania and New York to support Republican candidates in three of the most competitive House districts in the country."
Fracking
"Nearly 3,000 acres of Ohio’s only national forest were leased this week for more than $11 million by the Bureau of Land Management to out-of-state companies for fracking.
The BLM auctioned off 40 parcels in Monroe and Washington counties totaling 2,776 acres in Wayne National Forest for $11.09 million during a quarterly oil and gas lease sale. “Leasing is the first step in the process to develop federal oil and gas resources,” BLM said in a statement."
Vote Your Bottoms and Ossoff
"Pentagon investigators have discovered that flawed intelligence, outdated imagery and an overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 children in Minab.
Within hours of a Feb. 28 missile attack that hit an Iranian school, some Pentagon personnel knew the US was responsible, according to officials involved in an internal investigation of the incident. That probe found what the officials now describe as a cascade of preventable failures.
Inside Centcom, which conducted the US attack, some personnel relied too much on the artificial intelligence embedded in Maven Smart System, the officials said. Maven, which is made by Palantir Technologies Inc., allows users to view and coordinate complex military operations —"
And another thing...
ICE. ICE needs to get gone and every one of those mask wearing, taser and AK carrying thugs needs to be released, "Your badge in this box, and your weapon over there. Take those masks off and go get a real job. Oh, except for the ones who have shot and or murdered someone. You are gonna be tracked down, arrested, indicted, and tried for murder. Now fuck off". The scumbags who murdered Alex Pretti and Renee Good need to stand trial for murder. There's no statute of limitation for murder. Those cowardly, strutting gangster fucks need to go to prison. And billionaires like Leon Black need to be tossed into the nearest black hole of Calcutta until they agree to abide by the law. The time of special hall passes for oligarchs and billionaires is over.
And once Democrats retake the congress, the first order of business is to say "We have an Article 1, motherfucker." And start doing their job. This means holding Fatty's cankled extremities to the fire on EVERY GODDAM THING HE WANTS TO DO. Stealing taxpayer money for his buddies and his nepotistic nimrod knuckleheads like Uday and Qusay? Nope. Get in line and file the paperwork, jack. We'll let you know. Oh, you wanted an answer yesterday? Oops. Looks like we're in recess. Sooooory.
The Justice Department must be restored, and if possible, we need to go after the South African Chainsaw maniac. He wiped out dozens of government departments and agencies and spent billions when he claimed he was saving trillions. Fuck him too.
But ICE needs to get got. Toot sweet.
And about that Arch....as RAS points out, turning it into some kind of military redoubt means it should effectively be off limits to citizens, and that means for a mile around it. And if you have sniper perches up top, so much for the Fatty Observation Deck he used to claim was his idea for making it a tourist attraction. And what the hell good are sniper nests overlooking that place? Will bad guys be invading Arlington National Cemetery? In fact, anyone trying to do something insidious will simply avoid the place altogether. "Hey, he's got snipers up there." "Okay, we'll just blow up something else." "Oh yeah, good idea".
Stupid is his stock in trade. But so is lying, This is all smoke and mirrors. The extent of his "militarization" of his Ozymandias arch thingie will be to have an armed guard sitting in a lawn chair at the base of the thing reading Stars & Stripes. Oh, wait. No they won't. Drunk Pete has killed Stars & Stripes for not treating him like General Fucking Patton.
Orange jumpsuits for all of them.
Bluesky post by Urban Land Rent
"One thing that I think about a lot is in “Wages of Destruction” Tooze describes how the Third Reich didn’t really have a theory about public policy or the economy. They limped from crisis to crisis their entire existence finding emergency stop-gaps to achieve short term priorities."
They have no original ideas.
DHS's response to NYT article linked here the other day about "Two men deported to Equatorial Guinea by the Trump administration were hooded, bound, beaten with guns and shoved down a flight of stairs recently by police officers at a remote hotel where immigrants are being held indefinitely,"
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"This poor excuse for a sob story from the @nytimes attempts to bury the fact that these two individuals are CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS with rap sheets a mile long."
Their lack of care for the law or human rights is a symptom of the broken and criminal culture that is widespread at the DHS and ICE. And it is why as Akhilleus said we need to prosecute every one of these criminals and dismantle ICE. Not only every thug who murdered or abused migrants and protesters, but every accomplice who lied on their police reports to cover for the criminals needs to find themselves on the side of the bars.
I wanted to pass along a brief interview with an American thinker I have been reading for years now, the moral philosopher, Susan Neiman. I first encountered her ideas in her book "Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy", about twenty years ago. She has a new book out called "Call it Evil: Understanding the Trump Era".
She points out that many on the left get a bit queasy talking about morality, feeling it to be too connected with religion. It's not.
"Moral concepts come before religious concepts in every culture. Religion is a way to express certain moral concepts. It’s an attempt to solve certain moral problems. But the initial feeling of evil—you can call it a sense of injustice—is something that children have in every culture—and according to some researchers, even primates and other higher animals like elephants. So, it’s not a religious term although religious people tend to feel comfortable with moral language. People worry that it’s polarizing, that it’s demonizing. And, by that worry, we leave the strongest weapons we have in the language in the hands of people who are least responsible in using them."
One of those least responsible types is, as she points out, Stephen Miller, who declares that strength, power, and taking whatever you want and fuck everyone else is an "iron law" of the world".
As Neiman makes clear, allowing this bullshit to go unchallenged is what happens when people are afraid to make a moral stand against monsters.
"And unfortunately, that is what many people today believe—that self-interest and interest in power is the only thing that motivates human beings to action, and we’d better just face it. Now, this is a philosophical idea. People treat it as a fact; it’s a philosophical idea. It’s a piece of ideology. And it’s a piece of ideology that we have been trained for a good century—or bad century, if you like—a good century to accept as fact."
And this is how monsters like Fat Hitler and Stephen Miller, and yes, oleaginous motherfuckers like Shady Vance operate and too often succeed. People don't think there's any way to stop them.
But, of course, there is. Evil as the saying goes, only thrives when decent people won't stand up to it.
The interview is on video as well. She also has some interesting things to say about the return of fascism in Germany, where she now lives.
Oops, the link .
Finally, some balls
"Major television networks agreed to suspend their pooled coverage of President Trump after the White House refused to allow CNN to serve as a pool representative on Monday."
Even newly Nazified CBS is involved in this, but we'll see how quickly Bari Weiss knuckles under. Nonetheless, nice to see some major networks giving the Fat Fascist some of his own medicine. But get the earplugs out. The baby screams will be titanic. "I can do that to you, but you can't do that to me. Not TO ME! Aieeeee! I'm the Great and Powerful Fatty!"
I was thinking a complete news ban on anything and everything Trump for a couple of days would be interesting. This ain't that, but it's something.
"John Oliver devotes the full episode to covering UnitedHealth Group"
If you haven't heard it, here is Macklemore's speech at MetLife Stadium that got him booted off the Ed Sheeran tour and attacked by Bob Kraft and the various groups who would prefer the Gaza Strip be bulldozed and those people just to drop dead or go out into the desert.
The fact that his cancellation has stupendously backfired is a very hopeful sign.
Are we being too hard on Drunk Pete and his pretend tough guy No Tab way of life?
You tell me. While the Chinese military is busy pulling apart American technology No Tab Pete's incompetence and indolent stupidity allowed to fall into their hands, he is preening and offering up a pas de deux of two professional nut kickers at the Pentagon.
Drunk Pete is giving Logan and Jake Paul, a couple of Trumpy "influencers" "actors" and "wrestler-fighter-boxer-nut kickers" the grand tour of the Pentagon and is holding them up as paragons of manhood, Manly Men who should serve as role models for his newly MAGAfied, unwoked troops.
Holy Unconditional Surrender, Batman, no wonder we lost a war to robed clerics in the desert.
As one commenter put it, "Are they enlisting? Then I don't give a shit."
Expect lots more pusillanimous performative pablum from these douchebags.
"Federal agents detained U.S. citizen Sunday morning"
Such an underwhelming headline for Feds confront wrong person, beat the shit out of them, find out they got the wrong person and then just drive off. Just another day in MAGAstan.
"Federal agents briefly detained and released a U.S. citizen on Sunday morning in Evanston on Howard Street east of Dodge Avenue, Evanston police chief Schenita Stewart confirmed Sunday.
Police said they responded to an adult male on the ground “with several people assisting him.”
The man reported injuries to his head, neck and teeth, police said, and witnesses “told officers that individuals they believed were U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had attempted to take him into custody.”
In a post on social media, [Evanston] Mayor Daniel Biss said federal agents “briefly detained and then released” the man, who he said was a U.S. citizen. He was transported by ambulance and treated for “minor injuries” at St. Francis Hospital."
gas buddy guy
"my live fuel clock showing Americans now have spent $70 billion more on filling up with gasoline since March 1 (vs same period a yr ago) and $44 billion more on diesel (same dates) for a total of ~$114.2 billion spent over this time."
The nihilistic Philistine fuck, Fat Hitler, is set to bulldoze the Kennedy Center and he will take down priceless artwork and architectural elements gifted to the United States by nations that used to respect us until this fat, churlish boor waddled into the Oval Office and proceeded to destroy everything he touched.
"The Kennedy Center's Grand Foyer is 630' long and 63' high. The crystal chandeliers were hand-blown by Orrefors and an official gift by the Kingdom of Sweden in 1971. The huge mirrors at left were a gift the Kingdom of Belgium on behalf of its people and nation...the magnificent 12,000 crystal lighting array at the Opera House created by J & L Lobmeyr, who also made chandeliers for the Vienna State Opera and Schönbrunn Palace. It's an official gift from the Republic of Austria, meant as a permanent memorial to President Kennedy."
Matisse tapestries were gifted from France and the massive curtain came from the Japanese people, a special loom had to be constructed because it was so large, the center's marble came from Italy.
All of this will be destroyed by the wrecking ball because an obese infant is pissed that no one will let him put his name on the building. This is beyond inasane, but it's nothing new. Recall that years ago, he destroyed two Art Deco friezes created by the artist Rene Paul Chambellan that graced the facade of the Bonwit Teller building, torn down to be replaced by the gaudy monstrosity, Trump Tower. The pieces were significant enough that the Metropolitan Museum of Art requested that they be saved for posterity to be displayed in the museum.
Trump agreed. But as everyone has since learned, a contract with Donald Trump is never safe. He considered saving the artwork, but only for a bit: "...the art that decorated the building was only of interest to the developer for a short time, when he believed that he could do some business with it and buff up his reputation, Trump’s eternal principle when it comes to art."
"In typical Trumpian fashion, Donald [backpedaled] on his offer to save the art, after realizing that it would take two more weeks and $32,000–chump change considering the tower cost $300, million to construct–to properly take the reliefs off the building."
So he decided to destroy the artworks. Because he could. Here's an eyewitness account of the destruction of art all to please a grasping, grifting churl.
"When I looked outside, I realized that a cluster of workmen were on a scaffold in the process of destroying the Art Deco limestone bas relief with masonry saws and jackhammers.
This piece of art and history being drilled to bits was destroyed right in front of my eyes.
Suddenly all the gallery goers in the room noticed too, going over to the large windows in disbelief, as we watched the demolition in absolute helpless horror. The sculptures fell to the ground to crack into smithereens.
Then someone in the room muttered loud enough for all to hear: “That fucking bastard.”
No one had to ask who he was referring to."
Pretty soon we'll have eyewitness accounts of spectators watching horrified as Fatty sics his bulldozers and wrecking balls on the Kennedy Center. And once again, no one will have to wonder to whom "That fucking bastard" refers.
He is just the sort of fucking bastard who rejoices in destroying things other people love, just to show them who's boss and to show them how little he cares about anything other than his personal glory and his fucking money.
When he's dead I will celebrate for a full year.
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