Comments

  1. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    FEMA’s most senior official Cameron Hamilton has been FIRED and walked out of the building […] He testified just yesterday that he didn’t think the agency should be eliminated, per Trump and DHS Sec. Kristi Noem’s wishes. Apparently the wrong answer.

    David Richardson, Assistant Secretary for the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, has been named the new Senior Official at FEMA.

    To recap, the head of FEMA was fired a few weeks before the start of hurricane season and replaced by someone with no emergency management experience.

    A DHS spokesperson said, “It’s at the discretion of [Kristi Noem] to have the personnel she prefers,”

    Put the nuke guy in to deal with hurricanes.

  6. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Catherine Rampell (MSNBC):

    CDC leadership just told staff on Monday that they could stop sending their “5 things I did last week” emails. Finally.

    Per source, people were mostly just sending the same things every week. Many folks added read receipts and were able to see that no one at DOGE was actually reading the emails.

    Also: remember how some HHS leaders were told they either had to accept job transfers to faraway Indian Health Service locations or quit? Well, a number of them said ok, send me to Alaska, but HHS never prepared IHS so there are no jobs for high level people at these places. Now they’re all on administrative leave getting paid their full salaries but unable to do their jobs.

    Rando: “At USDA they kept telling us to send them to full HR email inboxes (!). Underscoring the futile use of our best and brightest.”

  7. says

    Reginald in comment #500 (in the previous set of 500 comments in The Infinite Thread): “I’m not saying it isn’t broken, I’m saying that I don’t trust Trump and his army of sycophants to fix it.”

    I completely agree.

    Text quoted by Reginald in comment 498:

    A group of eight Republicans in the Minnesota House have introduced legislation (HF3219) that would designate certain vaccines and medical treatments as “weapons of mass destruction” and make possessing or administering them a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

    I have to say, “Oh, FFS!”

  8. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @6:

    […] Many folks added read receipts and were able to see that no one at DOGE was actually reading the emails. […]

    Ha! That’s an excellent tactic. I assumed long ago that DOGE was not actually reading those “5 things” emails. Neither was anyone else in the Trump administration.

  10. says

    Watching a bit of the wall-to-wall coverage of the new pope, (the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics have a new leader — Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, the first American-born pope), I was struck by the fervor and emotion evident in the crowds. People really do want to believe that there are at least some good men, and they really do feel good when they think they have found one.

    That need sometimes steers people way off course, as in when they start worshipping the likes of Donald Trump.

    Also, I think people were really happy to focus on news about the Pope as a welcome break from Trump being an ignorant doofus.

    The tidal wave of religious fervor around the Pope still gave me pause. He is just a man. He has made mistakes in the past. He will no doubt make more. So … some good, some bad. He offers hope, and he may occasionally live up to the task of continuing to provide hope to some people.

    He was against promoting women to leadership positions in his religious organization. Red flag. One of many.

  11. says

    John in comment 9: good point.

    In other news, as reported by The New York Times:

    India and Pakistan appeared to be dangerously escalating their armed confrontation on Thursday, as both countries said that their military sites had come under attack, and heavy shelling and strikes were reported overnight on each side of their border.

  12. says

    NBC News:

    […] Trump’s fight against the Houthis never dealt a crippling blow to the militant group, but it has cost America more than $1 billion since March, including the thousands of bombs and missiles used in strikes, along with seven drones shot down and two fighter jets that sank, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the cost.

  13. says

    MAGA Melts Down Over First American Pope

    As the white smoke cleared, Robert Prevost of Chicago became Pope Leo XIV, the first ever American pope.

    That revelation quickly gave way to an even more important one: Bob seems to have a Twitter account. Online sleuths quickly shared a February post from an account in his name sharing a National Catholic Reporter headline: “J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love of others.” The account also retweeted defenses of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a call for prayers for George Floyd and his family and a 2017 post from Jim Martin (a well-known liberal Jesuit I briefly worked with during an internship at America Magazine) reading: “We’re banning all Syrian refugees? The men, women and children who most need help? What an immoral nation we’re becoming. Jesus weeps.”

    At least one contingent of the right is happy; the executive director of the Pro-Life Action League sent around a statement highlighting a reported comment the pope made during a homily this year: “God’s mercy calls us to protect every life, especially those society overlooks — the child yet to be born and the elderly nearing their journey’s end — because each bears Christ’s face.”

    The political portrait that emerges is baffling to the American mind: liberal on immigration and the poor, conservative on abortion. It’s also a fairly typical Catholic profile, in a church that both urges social justice and care for the marginalized and also opposes abortion, women in the priesthood and same-sex marriage.

    The MAGAverse, though, isn’t waiting for confirmation that the Twitter account is Prevost’s. It has seen enough — and it doesn’t like the cut of the new pope’s jib.

    “MARXIST POPE!” bellowed Laura Loomer in response to the George Floyd retweet.

    “The new pope seems to be anti-Trump and pro-open borders,” tweeted Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist, reacting to Prevost’s alleged retweet of a Washington Post article headlined: “Cardinal Dolan: Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic.” Dolan, for what it’s worth, is a conservative who often cozies up to President Trump.

    “Here is the new pope attacking Trump,” Jack Posobiec, a far-right activist, lamented in response to the same retweet.

    “Is it too much to hope that some 20-year-old ran the new pope’s X account and he never looked at it?” grasped Megyn Kelly.

    “Nightmare,” Catturd tweeted gloomily.

    Many liberals loved Pope Francis not because he was “progressive” by American political terms — he maintained throughout his life that abortion is “murder,” and did not change doctrine forbidding same-sex couples from marrying in the church — but because he expressed warmth and acceptance towards LGBTQ people far beyond what his anti-gay predecessors had shown. He also championed the dignity of immigrants and refugees, advocated for environmental stewardship and appointed more women to senior Vatican roles than any other pope. For a worldview long boxed out of the highest ranks of Catholicism, Francis’ posture was a sea change.

    But MAGAism brooks no dissent, tolerates no heterodoxy. Any departure from or criticism of Trump’s worldview, even indirect, is grounds for excommunication.

    Kind of funny, while also eyebrow-raising.

  14. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up on Jeanine Pirro.

    SHOT
    WaPo – Fired DoJ official speaks out on her ouster and Mel Gibson (Mar 12)

    Elizabeth Oyer—whose responsibilities as Justice Department pardon attorney included working with the president to determine who should be granted clemency—described a culture at the department in which the advice of longtime career officials is ignored and everyone is expected to agree with Trump and his allies. “Dissent within the Department of Justice is just being aggressively silenced,”
    […]
    The Justice Department has denied her description of events […] “Her decision to voice this erroneous accusation about her dismissal is in direct violation of her ethical duties as an attorney and is a shameful distraction from our critical mission […]”

    CHASER
    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    Ed Martin “will be moving to the Department of Justice as the new Director of the Weaponization Working Group, Associate Deputy Attorney General, and Pardon Attorney.”

  15. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up on Utah’s pride flag ban.

    Salt Lake City adopts 3 new flags to bypass new state flag law

    The new flags would add the sego lily logo from Salt Lake City’s city flag to the Juneteenth, Progress Pride and transgender flags. All three flags were not included in the list of flags approved by law to be flown outside government buildings and schools. […] “These city flags represent the ideas and principles Salt Lakers know as core tenets—belonging and acceptance, or better stated: Diversity. Equity. Inclusion,” [the mayor] said
    […]
    The governor ultimately declined to sign the bill but also allowed it to become law, explaining in a letter that it passed with a veto-proof majority.
    […]
    Salt Lake City leaders raised a Pride Progress flag and lit the top of the Salt Lake City-County Building in rainbow colors […] City officials devised the idea […] noting there’s nothing in statute barring a city from having more than one flag and that the state has four official flags. […] “These are the flags that have flown above City Hall and Washington Square for years and years, and we’re just trying to find a way to make that continue,”

  16. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 10

    Seconded.
    In my teenage years, I fervently looked for leaders of different kinds on which I projected my need to see good people.

    I am reminded of the Rastafarians and their need to find some black leader on which they could pin their hopes. They settled on the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie aka Ras Tafari.

    Of course, if you are the descendants of slaves in a rabidly racist world in a poor country there are plenty of psychological reasons for acting this way.
    People in industrialised countries with access to schools and (most of them) health care have no excuse for being this desperate.

  17. birgerjohansson says

    Wow. I just watched LazerPig’s livestream from Putin’s victory day parade in Moscow.
    I know it was the middle of the night for Mericans, but you really missed something.
    Four bogus VFX sequences spliced into the live coverage.
    At the flypast, there was a sequence shot at a different day with different weather.
    Putin shook hands with North Korean officers, each carrying a hundred pounds of medals. All TV coverage of Putin was shot at an angle so you do not see how effing short he is.
    And as the Russian army is for manly men, you get the compulsory component: DRIVESHAFT CAM! Nothing says macho like a 50- ton missile truck displaying the spinning driveshaft underneath.

  18. Silentbob says

    @ ^

    Donald’s gonna be so jealous!
    “Ours will have gold-plated driveshafts!”

  19. birgerjohansson says

    Silentbob @ 18
    And the VFX sequence will have Trump in a Rambo outfit, driving a tank!

  22. coffeepott says

    @2, Reginald Selkirk, cheaper tesla model Ys:
    any word if a tacky ‘i bought this before i knew elon was CrAzYyYy!!’ bumper sticker comes in the standard package?

  25. Reginald Selkirk says

    Former US Supreme Court Justice David Souter dies at 85

    Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, a lifelong public servant, judicial moderate and advocate for humanities and civics education, has died. He was 85 years old.

    “Justice David Souter served our Court with great distinction for nearly twenty years,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement Friday. “He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service. After retiring to his beloved New Hampshire in 2009, he continued to render significant service to our branch by sitting regularly on the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for more than a decade. He will be greatly missed.”

    Souter was nominated in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, who praised him as “a remarkable judge of keen intellect and the highest ability.” …

  27. Reginald Selkirk says

    All 28 of the U.S.’s Largest Cities Are Sinking, Study Finds

    America’s biggest cities are slowly sinking—and not just the ones near the ocean, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Cities. The satellite-based study shows that all 28 U.S. cities with over 600,000 people are subsiding, putting infrastructure in fast-growing urban areas increasingly at risk.

    Researchers used satellite data to investigate the vertical land movements in large U.S. cities, finding that all of them are sinking to some extent. Groundwater extraction seems to be the most common culprit, and its impact on land movement has direct implications for the infrastructure in the country’s most populated neighborhoods…

  28. Reginald Selkirk says

    President Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden

    President Donald Trump abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on Thursday as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the president and his agenda.

    Hayden was notified in an email late Thursday from the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press. Confirmed by the Senate to the job in 2016, Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to be librarian of Congress…

  29. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ukraine says it uncovered a Hungarian espionage network, two suspects arrested

    Ukraine’s main security agency said Friday it had arrested two people on suspicion of spying for Hungary by gathering intelligence on Ukraine’s military in the west of the country.

    In a statement, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that two suspects, both former members of the Ukrainian military, had been detained and face charges of treason, which is punishable by life imprisonment. It was the first time in Ukraine’s history that a Hungarian espionage operation had been discovered, the statement said.

    The activities of the suspected spies were focused on the western Ukraine region of Zakarpattia, which borders Hungary and is home to a sizeable Hungarian ethnic minority. Budapest and Kyiv have clashed over the rights of Hungarians in Zakarpattia, most of which was part of Hungary until the end of World War I…

    The SBU said both suspected spies were overseen by a career officer of Hungary’s military intelligence, whose identity had also been established. That officer supplied the network with cash and a special device for covert communication to support the operation, and had attempted to recruit other individuals into the network, the SBU said…

  30. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/jen-psaki

    Trump scrambles for positive spin as tariff consequences loom for Americans
    Video is 7:37 minutes. Chris Hayes and Stephanie Ruhle join Jen Pskaki

    Trump’s ‘parade of failure’ marches on with another nominee collapse; distraction tactic is no help
    Video is 11:53 minutes

  31. StevoR says

    Via an fb friend apologies if been beaten to sharing this here :

    Now that I am back home I feel more comfortable sharing this story, thank you for everyone’s concern. On Tuesday afternoon I flew into Miami and as soon as I got off the plane, before the first escalator towards customs, there were 3 ICE agents. I walked past them and then stopped and watched for a few minutes. They were only targeting brown people and picking them out of the line as they came into the area. Mind you, I fly international about once a month and have made a lot of trips in the last 4 years, I have never seen this.

    The agents were in plain clothes, looking real frumpy I might add, and a single badge on their necks with no names on them. I approached one of them and asked if they were ICE and he responded, I don’t have to tell you that. I said, it seems you are racially profiling people and he responded no, we are not. I said, Im sure your family is very proud and turned to walk away. At that point he said, my family is very proud my mother is half Latina and I’ll prove to you that we are not profiling, give me your passport.

    This is where everything got scary. They took me down to the basement and the whole time we were walking they were asking me questions about where I was going, where I had been etc. They asked me what I did for a living and I told them I owned a media company. At one point he said to me, my wife is Latina and I looked at him with all of the disgust I could muster. They then searched my bags with a fine tooth comb, they were clearly disappointed not to find anything on me.

    Once they knew they had nothing on me they took me up to customs and had me wait. I was then told by a very snippy TSA that my Global Entry had been revoked and I was no longer a Trusted Traveler of the United States because “I refused secondary verification”. I didn’t refuse anything, I asked them to identify themselves and hurt his fascist feelings, that’s why I was targeted. The booklicker didn’t like what I had to say and he used his power to punish me.

    At this point I didn’t want to say anything, I just wanted to get out of there so I didn’t argue and left when they allowed me to. I was in Miami for one night and flying out the next day and really didn’t want to get stuck in Miami for any reason. When I arrived to the airport the next morning I was not flagged or screened more but I was informed that my TSA Pre has also been revoked. I kept my phone off, my head down and just bided my time to get on the plane and out of the country I will never again call home.

    Everything about that interaction was fear based. They used their power to silence me, and it worked. I wanted to say so many things but I was scared. In that moment I realized that I will not be returning to the US for the next 4 years, if ever again and how deep my privilege really is. All I wanted to do was get back to Costa Rica and I plan on staying here until everyone in this administration is in jail or out of office.

    The truth is, I was terrified… I still am. They have so much power over us and they can take everything from us in any moment. Losing flying status titles doesn’t mean anything, those are convenience items that I can certainly live without. It’s the fear that has stuck with me. I’m a blonde haired, blue eyed woman and they had no problem using fear and intimidation to silence me. I spent the next 24 hours on high alert and all I could think about is the absolute fear that so many immigrants in America must be feeling right now.

    It makes me so angry and so sad to know that the people who actually make America great, are living in fear. What happened to me was nothing compared to the devastation that so many people are feeling right now. Im so sorry. That kind of fear and insecurity is going to cause so much pain, nobody should have to live in fear and its happening all over the world. I’ve had PTSD the last 4 years because of the break in, I know what that did to me, and still does frankly.

    My heart aches knowing that so many people are living this every day just trying to go to work, or get their kids to school. I was on vacation, lucky me. It’s not ok, we have to protect those who cannot protect themselves. What they did was send a message, if you are white, stay quiet and stay out of the way or we will treat you the way we treat them.

    I have always tried to use my voice for good, and I’ve gotten it wrong many times and I am sure I will get parts of this wrong too. Some of you are thinking why did you say anything dummy, just keep walking but what the fuck is the point of having privilege if you don’t use it? Would it have been easier and smarter to keep going and mind my own business? Yes. Did less brown people get hassled by our current gestapo that day, yes.

    I will not be coming back to the US for the next 4 years, if ever. It might be a drop in the bucket but I will not spend another dime on flights or in airports and I will not be renewing my global entry ever again. I had to sit in that airport with Kristi Noem’s face on every fucking screen threatening people on repeat. If you don’t think the regime is here, you should fly somewhere and see for yourself. Airports have turned into missing children posters and the Trump regime on blast. The end is near.

    The Real ID situation, that is 100% intentional so they can separate us. Airports have devolved 10 years in 1 day from the new rules. In the news this week we were told to avoid Newark Airport because it is not safe and yet TSA is getting butchered and ICE are getting raises and harassing the people who are flying. My flight was from Jamaica, exactly how many illegal immigrants are taking vacations in Jamaica right now? Get the fuck out of here. Those agents were there to intimidate, threaten and silence us, and it worked.

    What radicalized me? Eric Garner broke my heart and it’s never recovered since. Every unfair death, every horrible video we see, all of that has cracked my foundation slowly over the years. In this current Trump regime its too much and too fast to process but I know where I will be putting my time, my voice, my resources and my skills for the next four years.

    What’s the point in owning a media company with 50k followers if I don’t use that access for good. I will fight from here because it provides me with a little false sense of security but the reality is if these young kids like Dean Withers and Parker can step up to the fight, so can I. Im still scared, I’m crying as I write this.

    America is on the brink of collapse. I know I am not alone in feeling very conflicted. So many of my friends want to pretend like everything is ok, and that is their journey and right to do so. But yall, we are fucked if we don’t mobilize immediately. The threat is so real. What I experienced in the grand scheme of things was an inconvenience but the message was clear.

    Do not ask questions or we will punish you.

    Is this the America you want to live in with your privilege?

    Is this who you want to be? Someone who looks the other way because its easier?

    When do you think they will come for you?

    There’s the story, Im sure you will all have different feelings about it and you are entitled to those feelings. But if this scares you, as it should, now is the time to do something because it will be you and your family next.

    Molly Ruland

    Disturbing reality.

  32. says

    Late Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump surprised much of the political world with an announcement: The president had decided to abandon Dr. Janette Nesheiwat’s surgeon general nomination, replacing her with Dr. Casey Means. In an online item, Trump insisted that Means has an “absolutely outstanding” record and has the “potential to be one of the finest Surgeon Generals in United States History.”

    Less than 24 hours later, Trump also said that he doesn’t know who Casey Means is. [Video at the link]

    When a reporter noted that his surgeon general nominee never finished her medical residency and is not a practicing physician and asked Trump why he picked her for the job, the president pointed the finger at Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Because Bobby thought she was fantastic,” Trump said.

    After touting Means as “brilliant,” he added, “I don’t know her.”

    Oh my.

    Right off the bat, for those concerned about Trump’s transformation into President Bystander, this rhetoric is hardly reassuring. For all intents and purposes, Trump made it sound as if RFK Jr. — a longtime proponent of ridiculous conspiracy theories and bizarre scientific ideas — told the president to nominate Means, at which point Trump effectively replied, “Okey doke.”

    […] But in case that isn’t quite enough, one day after the president announced his surgeon general nominee, the backlash wasn’t limited to the left. Politico reported, “President Donald Trump’s new pick for surgeon general — wellness influencer Casey Means — is already the target of MAGA vitriol, underscoring a split inside the president’s base over the future of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement.”

    Right-wing activist, radical conspiracy theorist and Trump confidant Laura Loomer was especially aggressive in going after Means, calling her a “total crack pot” who “DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN ACTIVE MEDICAL LICENSE.”

    The Washington Post reported that prominent anti-vaccine activists have also been quick to condemn Means, accusing her of not going far enough to oppose to vaccines. […]

    Link

  33. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @14.

    The Trump II Cancer Metastasizes At DOJ

    I hate to break it to you, but the failure of Ed Martin’s nomination to be D.C. U.S. attorney has not produced an outcome that looks appreciably better. That’s not to say Martin’s nomination should not have been opposed or that it’s pointless to fight the good fight. It’s merely to try to preserve a little sanity by acknowledging that in the dystopian Trump II world things can always get worse and often do.

    Instead of being a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney, Martin will now hold three significant roles at Main Justice that don’t require Senate confirmation:
    – associate deputy attorney general;
    – U.S. pardon attorney (the previous U.S. pardon attorney was fired after refusing to go along with restoring Mel Gibson’s gun rights following a domestic violence conviction); and
    – director of the Weaponization Working Group.

    Don’t let the Orwellian name of that last role, which has never existed at the Justice Department until this presidency, confuse the issue. Martin will be taking his bag of tricks as acting U.S. attorney – politicization, intimidation, and threats – to lead the weaponization of the Justice Department.

    With the blessing of the President through his weaponization executive order and of Attorney General Pam Bondi through her weaponization memo executing that order, Martin will be at the epicenter of turning the Justice Department itself into a threat to the rule of the law.

    Don’t Normalize Jeanine Pirro

    I’m still shook by how otherwise reasonable people treated Pam Bondi’s nomination as attorney general as normal, calling her qualified and a more traditional pick for the office. That was on the basis of her having served as Florida state attorney general and, critically, her having replaced the insanely unqualified and unfit Matt Gaetz as nominee. Those two attributes alone should not have been enough to obscure all of the other ways in which Bondi was not normal, including her deeply alarming confirmation hearing, but they did.

    The same dynamic is at play with Trump’s decision to replace Martin with Jeanine Pirro, the unhinged Fox News personality. This line from the WSJ story on Pirro is literally true but you can see the bar-lowering already underway: “Still, Pirro, who has experience as a prosecutor, is a more conventional choice than Martin, 54, who was a lightning rod from the outset.”

    Pirro hasn’t been a prosecutor in two decades. Since then, she became a unsuccessful political candidate then a right-wing media personality whose brain has pickled in the Fox News ecosystem. Her whole TV schtick is as an over-the-top, indiscriminate bomb-thrower, and I’ll concede it may not be a schtick. These are not the attributes one looks for in a prosecutor, let alone the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital.

    […] Quote Of The Day

    For many American citizens and organizations, then, the cost of opposition has risen markedly. Although these costs are not as high as in dictatorships like Russia — where critics are routinely imprisoned, exiled or killed — America has, with stunning speed, descended into a world in which opponents of the government fear criminal investigations, lawsuits, tax audits and other punitive measures and even Republican politicians are, as one former Trump administration official put it, “scared” out of their minds “about death threats.”

    –political scientists Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, and Daniel Ziblatt

    Link

  34. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tech Industry Warns US Investment Pledges Hinge on Research Tax Break

    An anonymous reader shares a report:

    Major tech companies lobbying to salvage a tax deduction for research and development are warning they may pull back from high-profile pledges of new US investments if Congress doesn’t fully reinstate the break.

    Big tech companies have pledged more than $1.6 trillion in investments in the US since Donald Trump took office, promising to build factories and data centers in alignment with Trump’s push to build in America. But industry representatives are signaling those promises will be imperiled if Congress doesn’t fully reinstate the R&D tax deduction, which was pared back to help offset the massive cost of President Donald Trump’s 2017 bill. At the time, it was estimated that limiting the provision would temporarily raise about $120 billion from 2018 to 2027.

    “A lot of those announcements are predicated on an expectation the administration and Congress will partner together on reinstating those R&D provisions,” said Jason Oxman, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group that includes among its members Amazon, Apple, Anthropic, Alphabet, and IBM. Lobbyists representing tech companies that announced US investments have made similar claims to congressional aides and lawmakers, according to people familiar with the conversations.

  35. JM says

    @34 Reginald Selkirk: This is a big tax play by these companies. The big companies depend on a constant stream of new technology to stay in their leadership positions. They are not going to change a key strategy that much based on a tax break. A tax break is a good idea because the US wants to encourage research but there is no need for a big one.
    I’m instinctively against it because Tommy Tuberville is proposing it. Really though I don’t have enough context to know how much difference the current proposal would make.
    Alabama reporter: Tuberville introduces bill to expand research, development tax deductions for businesses

  36. Reginald Selkirk says

    Watch: Trump misspeaks and calls toy firm Mattel a country

    Donald Trump has accidentally called toy firm Mattel a country while threatening further tariffs.

    The US president misspoke when saying tariffs are “misunderstood” in business. He cited Mattel, which is famous for making Barbie dolls, as an example of a country thinking about counter-tariffs.

    His comments came as the UK and US agreed a tariff deal on some goods traded between the two countries.

    Demented narcissistic fuckwit gets his facts wrong. Is it 11:00‽ Because here is the film.

  37. Reginald Selkirk says

    Top Liberian doctor struck off over qualification doubts

    The head of Liberia’s doctors’ association has been banned from practising medicine after a regulatory body said it did not have evidence of his initial medical degree.

    As part of a qualifications audit, the Liberia Medical and Dental Council (LMDC) asked Peter Matthew George to provide his professional certificates.

    In April, the LMDC told Dr George that it had revoked his licence as he had not given satisfactory proof he had graduated in medicine from the UK’s University of Hertfordshire as, it said, he had been claiming…

    He could always put his hat in for U.S Surgeon General.

  38. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Fed up’ crowd in Massachusetts swarms ICE agents attempting to arrest mother

    Harrowing new video footage reveals the moment a mob of angry Massachusetts residents descended on federal immigration agents and attempted to thwart their operation to detain a woman with her family.

    Neighbors spotted Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials intercepting a mother who was with her teen daughter and her newborn baby at about 11:15 a.m. Thursday on Eureka Street in Worcester. The father was detained by ICE on Wednesday, according to the local immigration justice network LUCE.

    The arrests come just weeks after ICE’s acting Director Todd Lyons announced the agency had been preparing for a second “surge” in arrests in the Greater Boston area, amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

    The dramatic video footage, which has since gone viral online, was captured by a witness at the scene and shows the woman clinging to her infant child as ICE agents attempt to arrest her.

    A swarm of 25 locals gathered, with one heard demanding to see identification and a warrant and calling to stop the chaos. “We don’t have to show you anything,” an ICE agent reportedly told the crowd…

  39. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: JM @35:

    They are not going to change a key strategy that much based on a tax break.

    Conversely…

    Common Dreams – The wealthy don’t leave when states tax the rich

    Look at what happened in Massachusetts and Washington. […] according to a new policy brief from the Institute for Policy Studies and State Revenue Alliance.
    […]
    A common counter to raising taxes on the rich is that they will simply flee their home states to jurisdictions with friendlier tax codes. While some tax migration is inevitable, the wealthy that move to avoid taxes represent a tiny percentage of their own social class. The top one percent are incentivized not to move because of family, social networks and local business knowledge.
    […]
    Not only did millionaires not flee the states imposing new taxes, but the states became richer. […] That experience contrasts with the failure of the Great Kansas Tax Cut Experiment that began in 2012. The Sunflower State lagged behind its neighbors in a number of economic categories and experienced revenue shortfalls. The experiment was abandoned five years later.

  40. says

    White House’s Stephen Miller: ‘We are actively looking at’ suspending habeas corpus

    “Miller claimed the U.S. can suspend the right to challenge the legality of a person’s detention ‘in time of invasion.’ ”

    In recent months, the radicalism of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda has come into focus, leaving many to wonder just how much further the Republican White House is prepared to go. It was against this backdrop that CNBC reported:

    White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller said Friday that the Trump administration is ‘actively looking at’ suspending habeas corpus, the right to challenge the legality of a person’s detention by the government. Miller’s comment came in response to a White House reporter who asked about President Donald Trump entertaining the idea of suspending the writ of habeas corpus to deal with the problem of illegal immigration into the United States.

    “The Constitution is clear — and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land — that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of invasion,” the presidential adviser said. “So, that’s an option we’re actively looking at.” [video at the link]

    As part of the same comments, Miller went on to say that the White House’s actions will be guided by whether federal courts “do the right thing or not.”

    In other words, if Miller and his colleagues are satisfied that judges are ruling in ways that satisfy the White House, then everything will be fine. If judges fail to make Team Trump happy, then Miller and his cohorts are “actively looking at” alternative ideas, such as suspending the writ of habeas corpus.

    There are legal experts who can speak to this with greater authority than I can, but the basic idea behind habeas corpus is that people who are taken into custody by the government have a legal right to challenge their detention. To suspend habeas — something that happened during the U.S. Civil War, for example — is to allow the government to lock people up without charges and without the ability to contest incarceration.

    This, according to Miller, is a point of discussion in the White House.

    When I spoke about this to my colleague Lisa Rubin, an MSNBC legal correspondent and a former litigator, she described Miller’s idea as “truly crazy,” adding, “Miller isn’t proposing suspending a statutory right; rather, what he’s talking about is triggering a specific constitutional provision, namely the Suspension Clause of Article I of the Constitution. That clause provides ‘The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.’”

    Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor, similarly explained that the Constitution’s Suspension Clause “doesn’t allow the President to unilaterally suspend habeas, especially when Congress is in session; applies only to cases of invasion or rebellion (this is quite clearly neither); and even then applies only ‘when the public safety may require it.’ (It doesn’t.)”

    This is precisely why it was relevant throughout the 2024 campaign that Donald Trump and his allies would reference the word “invasion” as part of their anti-immigration pitch.

    Time will tell whether the president is seriously prepared to pursue such an extreme approach, but that this conversation is even underway is a startling reminder of just how far the United States has gone down a radical path.

  41. Reginald Selkirk says

    Is the new pope a Cubs or White Sox fan? Everybody wants to know

    Naturally the next question on everyone’s mind was: Is the pope a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan? Local Chicago media ran with it, and there were some conflicting reports out there…
    Although he’s been invited by Cubs owner Tom Ricketts to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field, the White Sox have made their own claim to Pope Leo’s true allegiance based on that WGN interview, posting a photo of the center-field scoreboard at Rate Field countering: “Hey Chicago, he’s a Sox fan!” …

  42. says

    The Wheels Come Off Trump’s Attempt To Pass A ‘Big, Beautiful’ Bill

    The true extent of the confusion between the Trump White House and Republicans in Congress on Trump’s fiscal agenda came crashing out into the open this week.

    Amid brutal intraparty tensions over how exactly they will enact sweeping cuts to Medicaid, far-right members of the House Republican conference jammed things up substantially this week when they demanded their own “big, beautiful” budget bill not add to the federal deficit. President Trump reportedly issued his own befuddling directive to Congress that complicates his initial push for an extension of his 2017 tax cuts, while Senate Republicans signaled they’re not sure how they feel about most aspects of the bill being cobbled together in the House.

    But Republican handwringing over how to discreetly slash Medicaid remained the main hurdle.

    For the past two weeks, as House Republicans attempt to put together a reconciliation package, Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans have been working on finding $880 billion in cuts over 10 years to programs under their jurisdiction. It is no secret that most of those billions of dollars in spending cuts will likely come in the form of slashing federal spending on Medicaid, the program that provides health coverage for more than 70 million low income and disabled Americans.

    As they weigh their options, House Republicans have largely coalesced around what they see as a cost savings plan: imposing work requirements and stricter, more frequent eligibility checks and tightening rules to ensure that undocumented immigrants, who are already not eligible for the program, cannot receive any of its services.

    But in order to meet their massive target goal, Republicans have also been mulling other options that would effectively gut Medicaid as we know it, including reducing the 90% federal matching rate for the Medicaid expansion population brought about by the Affordable Care Act and implementing per capita caps.

    Per a new CBO estimate, both options would likely result in millions of low-income and disabled Americans losing their health care coverage as states would then have to figure out a way to take on the costs that the federal government has been covering up until this point.

    Vulnerable House Republicans, aware of how unpopular these cuts will be back home, have been publicly insisting they won’t support a reconciliation package that would include any of those options.

    Following a late night, closed-door Tuesday meeting with a group of them, Johnson said reducing the federal cost share is off the table.

    And on Thursday, he told reporters: “There’s still ongoing discussion about per capita caps, but it’s a sensitive thing.”

    MAGA influencer Laura Loomer threw a wrench into Trump and House Republican leadership’s plans this week when she took to social media to claim Trump never wanted to cut Medicaid and also suggested that those who support the extreme cuts are sabotaging Republicans’ prospects in the midterms. Up until this point, much of the rhetoric coming from Republicans on making cuts to Medicaid has been coded and vague, as they attempt to come up with a solution that will allow them to cut federal spending on the widely used social safety net without publicly acknowledging that the cuts will mean that people will lose their health coverage. The messaging around enacting work requirements is an example.

    […] “Medicaid you’ve got to be careful, cause a lot of MAGA’s on Medicaid. I’m telling you. If you don’t think so, you’re dead wrong,” Bannon said earlier this year.

    Meanwhile, Energy and Commerce Republicans met several times this week, also behind closed-doors, to try and work through the internal fight over how exactly they want to enact cuts to Medicaid.

    […] As leadership and vulnerable Republicans are mulling over what form the cuts will take, hardliners are demanding that leadership adhere to the strict spending cuts outlined in the budget resolution.

    Thirty two House Republicans, including members of the Freedom Caucus and the House Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to House leadership warning that in order to secure their votes “the reconciliation bill must not add to the deficit.” [Ha! Impossible demands.]

    If Republicans fall short on meeting their spending cut target, they will have to scale back on the tax predictions — meaning it will be that much harder for them to make the soon-to-expire 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent. To complicate matters, the Washington Post reported Thursday that Trump has instructed Republican leadership to, confusingly, raise taxes on the wealthy. It appears to be an effort to assuage hardliners who are worked up about the deficit. Just a day later, he seemingly reversed course, saying in a Truth Social post that Republicans “should probably not” boost taxes on the country’s richest, but he’s “OK if they do!!!” [clear as mud, confusion reigns]

    Despite all the disagreements, both House GOP leadership and President Trump are projecting confidence. [That’s not confidence. It is absurdist theater.]

    “We are making great progress on ‘The One, Big, Beautiful Bill,’” Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday.

    [,,,] Thune and Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID) reportedly said they want to consider lowering the federal match rate for the expansion population, even though Johnson had already told reporters that option was off the table the previous day.

    […] House and Senate Republicans will eventually have to agree on the cuts in order to pass their reconciliation package.

  43. says

    Alina Habba:

    The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon. He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

    https://x.com/AlinaHabba/status/1920918181951971563

  44. says

    Washington Post link

    “Trump shut out refugees but is making White South Africans an exception”

    “Federal and Virginia state officials are preparing to receive about 60 White South Africans at Dulles International Airport next week, government documents and emails show.”

    Months after the Trump administration ground U.S. refugee admissions to a halt, suspending a program that lets in thousands of people fleeing war or political persecution, it is preparing to restart that effort — but only for one group: White South Africans.

    Plans are underway to fly approximately 60 Afrikaners to Dulles International Airport on a State Department-chartered plane Monday, with federal and Virginia officials preparing to receive them in a ceremonial news conference, according to documents and emails obtained by The Washington Post, as well as three government officials familiar with the preparations.

    The arriving families, who are part of a group that President Donald Trump has said face racial discrimination, will then be resettled outside Virginia in ten states, according to those familiar with the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share details of the preparations.

    […] “This group in South Africa has faced racial persecution,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Friday. “The government there has vowed to take away their farmland that they own.” [video at the link]

    Refugees are a distinct class of people who have been forced to flee their home country after they have been persecuted or fear persecution — usually death — due to their race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a particular social group. Highly vetted, they are eligible for government services and a path to citizenship and must often wait up to several years to be screened and processed before coming to the United States.

    Last year, no South Africans of any race, ethnicity or linguistic group were vetted by the United Nations as meeting its criteria to be resettled as refugees, according to the organization’s data.
    State Department officials would not say why the 60 Afrikaners set to arrive Monday were granted refugee status. [I snipped the Elon Musk connection to South Africa.]

    […] Since apartheid ended in the early 1990s, South Africa has been wrestling with how to deal with the long shadow of the segregationist policy that had sown deep racial divisions in the country over four decades.

    One of those efforts, a land redistribution law signed in January known as the Expropriation Act, prompted Trump in February to cut all foreign aid to South Africa. He claimed without evidence that the law — which, so far, has not resulted in any land seizures — was an act of discrimination against White landowners.

    In his executive order, Trump also directed Cabinet officials to “prioritize humanitarian relief” for Afrikaners who are “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination.”

    But as the administration now seeks to offer Afrikaners safe haven in the United States — including through an accelerated process that skips over some typical steps in long-standing vetting procedures for resettlement — its efforts will rely on a system the president has effectively gutted. […]

  45. says

    Treasury Dept. asks Congress to raise debt ceiling before August to avert default

    “The Treasury secretary urged Congress to extend the debt ceiling by mid-July, before its annual August recess, raising the stakes for the GOP’s massive bill for Trump’s agenda.”

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told congressional leaders on Friday that the U.S. will likely run out of borrowing authority by August.

    In a May 9 letter, he urged them to extend the debt ceiling by July, before Congress leaves for its annual August recess, in order to avert economic calamity.

    Bessent said there is “significant uncertainty” in the exact date.

    “However, after receiving receipts for the recent April tax filing season, there is a reasonable probability that the federal government’s cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted in August while Congress is scheduled to be in recess,” Bessent wrote. “Therefore, I respectfully urge Congress to increase or suspend the debt limit by mid-July, before its scheduled break, to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”

    Republicans, who control the House and Senate, plan to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion or $5 trillion in their sweeping party-line bill to pass President Donald Trump’s agenda. That’s a tall order, as the party is struggling to unify on various components of that legislation with their narrow majorities. It’s far from clear they’ll pass a bill before August.

    If they fail in that timeline, they may have to deal with the debt limit issue separately and lean on Democratic support to resolve it and avoid an economic crisis that would likely result from a default on U.S. debt.

    “A failure to suspend or increase the debt limit would wreak havoc on our financial system and diminish America’s security and global leadership position,” Bessent wrote in the letter.

  47. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Context for #43.

    Justin Baragona (Zeteo):

    Fox chyron: Dems storm NJ facility holding MS-13 member.

    Interim NJ US Attny, Alina Habba: we have put the mayor Ras Baraka under arrest. […] The mayor has publicly for 3 days been saying that he’s going to break in. eventually did break in […] and has been detained and will be charged.

    Host, Martha MacCallum: Where is he being held?

    Alina: I’m not going to speak to that right now. He’s obviously in New Jersey.
    […]
    Martha: These two members of congress [Bonnie Coleman (D-NJ), Robert Menendez (D-NJ)], can you explain the description of breaking into this facility, exactly what they did?

    Alina: I’m not going to speak to things that are […] under investigation. […] There is a problem in this country with breaking the law for the purpose of grandstanding and political hierarchy. That will not stand […] If you wanna take taxpayer dollars and fly to Venezuela or wherever and meet with MS-13 gang members and use your name to encourage criminals in this country, that will not work here.

    * Grandstanding like for instance, Republican MoCs taking selfies in El Salvador.

    Marisa Kabas: “Disappearing an elected official.”

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “At least as of [3:39pm EDT], people were saying he was being held at the ICE HSI field office at 620 Frelinghuysen Ave, Newark.”

    Rando: “Translation: He was arrested for protesting because they denied him, the mayor, and three members of Congress from accessing what has become a concentration camp in the middle the largest city in New Jersey.”
     
    NJ.com (May 9)

    The mayor appeared at the gate of the facility on Tuesday and Wednesday. Civilian security guards had been stationed at the gate on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, Baraka was met by half a dozen armed ICE officers dressed in combat fatigues.

    The scene remained peaceful and cooperative, but Baraka said the officers’ presence was a show of federal might meant to intimidate city inspectors.
    […]
    [DHS Comms Asst Sec, Tricia McLaughlin said] “The Mayor has been informed that he is more than welcome to enter the facility, as long as he follows security protocols like everyone else,” McLaughlin added. “He keeps refusing to do so, presumably in an effort to stage press opportunities to help him in his bid for governor.”

    McLaughlin did not specify what protocols she was referring to or explain how the mayor’s appearances this week at the facility, Delaney Hall, posed a danger.
    […]
    In a lawsuit against the GEO Group, the city has asserted that the company must obtain a new certificate of occupancy, or CO, for Delaney Hall’s reopening as an immigrant detention center. […] the facility began holding detainees on May 1.

    NJ.com (May 7)

    a privately run immigrant detention center that began housing detainees last week, despite the city’s position that it was operating illegally.

    Baraka and other city officials were [there to try and serve] summonses that included refusing to grant access to the facility and failure to have an evacuation plan in place.

    “An initial inspection found violations,” the mayor told reporters […] “They were supposed to fix it, we were supposed to come back and review the violations. None of that happened. They won’t let us in the building. They have not applied for a CO. Their argument is they don’t need one. Our argument is they do need one.” […] Baraka said neither the GEO Group nor [ICE] should be allowed to defy state code enforcement and fire safety laws
    […]
    their attempt on Wednesday to serve the GEO Group with summonses played out like the one on Tuesday morning, albeit with the addition of the ICE officers standing by […] an unidentified representative of the GEO Group emerged from the facility and walked […] The man was met by Newark Fire Official Gwendolyn Saleem, who tried to hand him copies of the three summonses. But he walked back inside after refusing to accept the summonses
    […]
    City officials said the padlock [on the chain-link razor wire gate] was a safety violation in itself, and that it could trap GEO employees or others on the property in the event of a fire or other emergency.
    […]
    the company had been awarded a 15-year contract worth $1 billion to operate Delaney Hall as a 1,000-bed detention facility. Located less than two miles from Newark Liberty International Airport […] the facility quadruples the agency’s detention capacity in New Jersey.

     
    Brad Moss (Natsec attorney): “OK, that’s a ‘good trouble’ arrest, I’m not worried about that.”

    Prem Thakker (Zeteo): “[Video of the arrest]”

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    His arrest is seemingly for trespass.
    […]
    Members of Congress were also there, but were not arrested. One reason why? It’s literally illegal for DHS to bar any member of Congress from entering an immigration detention facility for the purposes of conducting oversight.

    The above provision obviously would not apply to Mayor Baraka or anyone else there. One bit I excerpted also makes clear that only Members of Congress have a right to do unannounced inspects. Their staff can be required to give at most 24 hours notice before being allowed to enter.

    DHS (May 9)

    Today, as a bus of detainees was entering the security gate of Delaney Hall Detention Center, a group of protestors […] stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility. [Reps Menendez and Coleman] and multiple protestors are holed up in a guard shack, the first security check point.

  48. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Context for #43.

    Justin Baragona (Zeteo):

    Fox chyron: Dems storm NJ facility holding MS-13 member.

    Interim NJ US Attny, Alina Habba: we have put the mayor Ras Baraka under arrest. […] The mayor has publicly for 3 days been saying that he’s going to break in. eventually did break in […] and has been detained and will be charged.

    Host, Martha MacCallum: Where is he being held?

    Alina: I’m not going to speak to that right now. He’s obviously in New Jersey.
    […]
    Martha: These two members of congress [Bonnie Coleman (D-NJ), Robert Menendez (D-NJ)], can you explain the description of breaking into this facility, exactly what they did?

    Alina: I’m not going to speak to things that are […] under investigation. […] There is a problem in this country with breaking the law for the purpose of grandstanding and political hierarchy. That will not stand […] If you wanna take taxpayer dollars and fly to Venezuela or wherever and meet with MS-13 gang members and use your name to encourage criminals in this country, that will not work here.

    * Grandstanding like for instance, Republican MoCs taking selfies in El Salvador.

    Marisa Kabas: “Disappearing an elected official.”

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “At least as of [3:39pm EDT], people were saying he was being held at the ICE HSI field office at 620 Frelinghuysen Ave, Newark.”

    Rando: “Translation: He was arrested for protesting because they denied him, the mayor, and three members of Congress from accessing what has become a concentration camp in the middle the largest city in New Jersey.”
     
    NJ.com (May 9)

    The mayor appeared at the gate of the facility on Tuesday and Wednesday. Civilian security guards had been stationed at the gate on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, Baraka was met by half a dozen armed ICE officers dressed in combat fatigues.

    The scene remained peaceful and cooperative, but Baraka said the officers’ presence was a show of federal might meant to intimidate city inspectors.
    […]
    [DHS Comms Asst Sec, Tricia McLaughlin said] “The Mayor has been informed that he is more than welcome to enter the facility, as long as he follows security protocols like everyone else,” McLaughlin added. “He keeps refusing to do so, presumably in an effort to stage press opportunities to help him in his bid for governor.”

    McLaughlin did not specify what protocols she was referring to or explain how the mayor’s appearances this week at the facility, Delaney Hall, posed a danger.
    […]
    In a lawsuit against the GEO Group, the city has asserted that the company must obtain a new certificate of occupancy, or CO, for Delaney Hall’s reopening as an immigrant detention center. […] the facility began holding detainees on May 1.

    NJ.com (May 7)

    a privately run immigrant detention center that began housing detainees last week, despite the city’s position that it was operating illegally.

    Baraka and other city officials were [there to try and serve] summonses that included refusing to grant access to the facility and failure to have an evacuation plan in place.

    “An initial inspection found violations,” the mayor told reporters […] “They were supposed to fix it, we were supposed to come back and review the violations. None of that happened. They won’t let us in the building. They have not applied for a CO. Their argument is they don’t need one. Our argument is they do need one.” […] Baraka said neither the GEO Group nor [ICE] should be allowed to defy state code enforcement and fire safety laws
    […]
    their attempt on Wednesday to serve the GEO Group with summonses played out like the one on Tuesday morning, albeit with the addition of the ICE officers standing by […] an unidentified representative of the GEO Group emerged from the facility and walked […] The man was met by Newark Fire Official Gwendolyn Saleem, who tried to hand him copies of the three summonses. But he walked back inside after refusing to accept the summonses
    […]
    City officials said the padlock [on the chain-link razor wire gate] was a safety violation in itself, and that it could trap GEO employees or others on the property in the event of a fire or other emergency.
    […]
    the company had been awarded a 15-year contract worth $1 billion to operate Delaney Hall as a 1,000-bed detention facility. Located less than two miles from Newark Liberty International Airport […] the facility quadruples the agency’s detention capacity in New Jersey.

     
    Brad Moss (Natsec attorney): “OK, that’s a ‘good trouble’ arrest, I’m not worried about that.”

    Prem Thakker (Zeteo): “[Video of the arrest]”
    https://bsky.app/profile/premthakker.bsky.social/post/3lor54zacc22o

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    His arrest is seemingly for trespass.
    […]
    Members of Congress were also there, but were not arrested. One reason why? It’s literally illegal for DHS to bar any member of Congress from entering an immigration detention facility for the purposes of conducting oversight.

    The above provision obviously would not apply to Mayor Baraka or anyone else there. One bit I excerpted also makes clear that only Members of Congress have a right to do unannounced inspects. Their staff can be required to give at most 24 hours notice before being allowed to enter.

    DHS (May 9)
    https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/09/members-congress-break-delaney-hall-detention-center

    Today, as a bus of detainees was entering the security gate of Delaney Hall Detention Center, a group of protestors […] stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility. [Reps Menendez and Coleman] and multiple protestors are holed up in a guard shack, the first security check point.

  49. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TO MODS: My first attempt had too many links and got held for moderation. Disregard ~47, I think? I posted again with fewer links. I don’t wanna screw up numbering if that redundant comment were approved.

  50. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Welp, my goof was approved promptly, which was the next best outcome. No number uncertainty now that it’s no longer in limbo.

  51. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Adding to #28.

    Kel McClanahan (National Security Counselors):

    So you know who the Librarian of Congress supervises, among others?

    The Congressional Research Service. The people who write those authoritative reports about anything a member of Congress asks them to. […] The ones without whom most members of Congress would have no familiarity with most issues they legislate about beyond whatever the Executive Branch tells them.

    Yeah, those guys. But I’m sure the new Librarian will completely leave them alone.

    Jennifer Elsea (Legislative attorney at CRS):

    The Librarian is statutorily directed to “to grant and accord” the service “complete research independence.” So, you see, it’s completely unthinkable that any sort of interfer—never mind.

     
    School Library Journal – Outrage and calls to action

    The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. An independent agency within the legislative branch, the president has the authority to appoint the head of the Library, with Senate confirmation.

    Rep. Joseph D. Morelle planned to introduce legislation that would ensure the Librarian of Congress is appointed by Congress.

    Rando 1:

    I’m freaking out that everyone is just… ACCEPTING this. How does the executive branch even have any jurisdiction here? Or did Doge just instruct Treasury to halt her salary? What’s to stop him from just doing the same for elected Dems? Talk me down.

    Kel McClanahan: “There there, it’ll all be over soon. That’s all I’ve got.”

    Rando 2: “As a copyright lawyer, I’m fuming over this.”
    Kel McClanahan: “Oh I’m sure nothing bad will happen to the Copyright Office. Interim Director Altman will take good care of it. /s”

  53. Reginald Selkirk says

    The WH says Trump is considering suspending habeas corpus. What would that mean?

    White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Friday that the Trump administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the right of a person to challenge their detention in court.

    If carried out by President Donald Trump, the suspension of habeas corpus would be a dramatic escalation of his administration’s immigration policy by significantly curtailing a right enshrined in the Constitution.

    “First, you know, President Trump has talked about potentially suspending habeas corpus to take care of the illegal immigration problem. When could we see that happen in the future?” a reporter asked Miller as he spoke outside the White House.

    “The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of invasion,” Miller answered.

    “So, it’s an option we’re actively looking at,” he continued…

  54. birgerjohansson says

    David Pakman Show.
    Trump calls Mattel toy company a “country”, knows nothing about new surgeon general,  then stacks superlatives on the same person.
    Also, for some reason rants about Buttigieg.
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hc1AP8kHG3w
    He is 79 years old but not in a good way. A comparison with Joe Biden would be to the advantage of Biden.

  55. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #48.

    Rando (8:22pm EDT)

    HAPPENING NOW: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is released as supporters chant “Power to the People!”

  56. JM says

    @51 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain:

    I’m freaking out that everyone is just… ACCEPTING this. How does the executive branch even have any jurisdiction here? Or did Doge just instruct Treasury to halt her salary? What’s to stop him from just doing the same for elected Dems? Talk me down.

    Congressional librarian is part of the executive branch and the President has authority to hire and fire. Despite the name the Congressional librarian has a weird smattering of jobs and does work for both the executive branch and Congress.
    Congressional research needs to be keep independent and the best solution would be to peel it and any other bits that are directly Congressional off into it’s own job hired by Congress. I don’t see this Congress taking that route.

  57. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re JM @56:

    Congressional librarian is part of the executive branch

     
    LoC.gov – History of the Library of Congress

    John Adams approved an act of Congress […] the beginning of the Library of Congress. A Joint Congressional Committee—the first joint committee—would furnish oversight. In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson approved a legislative compromise that made the job of Librarian of Congress a presidential appointment, giving the Library of Congress a unique relationship with the American Presidency. […] it was not clear during the Library’s early decades […] that it would evolve into more than a legislative institution, a role favored by the Joint Library Committee.
    […]
    Ainsworth Rand Spofford (Librarian of Congress 1864-1897) took full advantage of an emerging cultural nationalism to persuade the Congress to view its Library as a national institution and therefore the national library. […] Spofford successfully advocated a single, comprehensive collection of American publications for use by both Congress and the American people. The centralization of U.S. copyright registration and deposit at the Library of Congress in 1870 was essential for the annual growth of these collections.
    […]
    Librarian Mumford was well aware of the need to “balance” the legislative and national responsibilities of the Library, both which grew dramatically during his tenure. In 1962, in response to critics who suggested that the needs of the nation’s research libraries might be better served if the Library of Congress was moved from the legislative to the executive branch of government, he strongly defended the institution’s legislative branch location.

  58. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CBS – New FEMA head tells staff: “Don’t get in my way… I will run right over you”

    During his first all-hands meeting with agency personnel, acting [FEMA] Administrator David Richardson issued a striking warning […] according to a recording of the [17-minute] speech […] “I will run right over you. I will achieve the president’s intent.”
    […]
    “I can’t recall the full title, but essentially, I’m acting,” Richardson told staff on Friday, “I don’t need the full title. All I need is the authority from the president to put me in here as some degree of acting and I will make sure that his intent gets completed. I don’t stop at yield signs,” he continued.

    “I, and I alone in FEMA, speak for FEMA,” Richardson said.
    FEMA did not reply to a request for comment.
    […]
    “We’re going to find out how to push things down to the states,” […] “I have never read a book on leadership,” but contended that, “I’m fine operating in chaos and a very ambiguous environment.”
    […]
    he will begin his first day by “looking at all the laws and statutes that guide FEMA and making sure that we are only doing the things that are within the law.” He added, “If we’re not doing that, we are wasting the American taxpayer dollars.”

    Rando: “This is the person in charge of helping people after a disaster.”

    Ryan Grim (Journalist):

    The acting head of FEMA sounds like he’s melting down, per a FEMA source, telling staff things like “I am FEMA” and “everything goes through me” and he’s “suspending all agency authority.” He wants to shut down all payments.

    Things going well! He keeps telling people he led 11 Marines in Iraq.

    Brandon Friedman (MSNBC):

    sounds like he’s never led an organization of any kind, much less marines in combat. […] Also, just speculation, but the vagueness around his military experience is usually a sign of embellishment somewhere. [FEMA Bio article]

    Would love to hear the perspective of the person who’s missing from this sentence.

    He lives in Northern Virginia with his two sons.

  59. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: JM @56:

    the President has authority to hire and fire.

    It would appear so. I had to drill down into specific instances.

    Wikipedia – Librarian of Congress

    The librarian of Congress shall be compensated for his/her services with the equivalent of the rate of pay set by Level II of the Executive Schedule.
    […]
    From its creation until 2015, the post of the librarian was not subject to term limits and allowed incumbents to maintain a lifetime appointment once confirmed. Most librarians of Congress have served until death or retirement. There were only 13 librarians of Congress in the more than two centuries from 1802 to 2015 […] In 2015, Congress […] put a 10-year term limit on the position with an option for reappointment.

    Wikipedia – George Watterston

    the third Librarian of the United States Congress […] He opposed the election of President Andrew Jackson and upon Jackson’s election was replaced in 1829. Watterston fruitlessly sought reinstatement for years.

    Wikipedia – John Silva Meehan

    He served as the librarian of Congress from 1829 to 1861. […] Following the election of President Abraham Lincoln and the ensuing secession of the southern states in late 1860 and early 1861, Meehan’s position became increasingly unstable. […] rumors began to circulate of pro-Southern sympathies. […] John Gould Stephenson was able to convince Lincoln to choose him for the position.

  60. Reginald Selkirk says

    Yolk’s on you – eggs break less when they land sideways

    It might sound like common sense – and it’s echoed by science communicators and even ChatGPT – but it’s wrong. New research shows eggs are less likely to crack when they land on their side than on their end.

    According to research published in Communications Physics, a trial simulating the classroom science experiment found that the shell of a hen’s egg is better able to withstand the impact of a fall when it lands side-on.

    “Through hundreds of experiments and a set of static and dynamic simulations, we demonstrate a statistically significant decrease in the likelihood that an egg breaks when oriented horizontally as opposed to vertically, and offer a concrete and intuitive explanation as to why this is the case,” said the paper’s authors.

    MIT associate professor Tal Cohen and her colleagues dropped eggs 180 times from three different heights – 8, 9, and 10 mm – onto a hard surface. They observed that on average, eggs dropped vertically broke at lower drop heights…

  61. Reginald Selkirk says

    Lithium Deposit Valued At $1.5 Trillion Discovered In Oregon

    Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Earth.com:

    McDermitt Caldera in Oregon is attracting attention for what could be one of the largest lithium deposits ever identified in the United States. Many view it as a potential boost for domestic battery production, while local communities voice concern over the impact on wildlife and cultural sites. The excitement stems from estimates that value the deposit at about $1.5 trillion. Some geologists say these ancient volcanic sediments could contain between 20 and 40 million metric tons of lithium.

    The study is published in the journal Minerals.

  62. Reginald Selkirk says

    FBI and Dutch police seize and shut down botnet of hacked routers

    A joint international law enforcement action shut down two services accused of providing a botnet of hacked internet-connected devices, including routers, to cybercriminals. U.S. prosecutors also indicted four people accused of hacking into the devices and running the botnet.

    On Wednesday, the websites of Anyproxy and 5Socks were replaced with notices stating they had been seized by the FBI as part of a law enforcement operation called “Operation Moonlander.” The notice said the law enforcement action was carried out by the FBI, the Dutch National Police (Politie), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma, and the U.S. Department of Justice.

    Then on Friday, U.S. prosecutors announced the dismantling of the botnet and the indictment of three Russians: Alexey Viktorovich Chertkov, Kirill Vladimirovich Morozov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Shishkin; and Dmitriy Rubtsov, a Kazakhstan national. The four are accused of profiting from running Anyproxy and 5Socks under the pretense of offering legitimate proxy services, but which prosecutors say were built on hacked routers.

    Chertkov, Morozov, Rubtsoyv, and Shishkin, who all reside outside of the United States, targeted older models of wireless internet routers that had known vulnerabilities, compromising “thousands” of such devices, according to the now-unsealed indictment.

    When in control of those routers, the four individuals then sold access to the botnet on Anyproxy and 5Socks, services that have been active since 2004, according to their websites and the charging authorities…

  63. JM says

    Guardian: White House to take choice of Pentagon chief of staff out of Hegseth’s hands

    Hegseth had suggested giving the chief of staff position to Marine Col Ricky Buria after the first person in the role, Joe Kasper, left last month in the wake of a contentious leak investigation that brought the ouster of three other senior aides.
    But the White House has made clear to Hegseth that Buria will not be elevated to become his most senior aide at the Pentagon, the people said, casting Buria as a liability on account of his limited experience as a junior military assistant and his recurring role in internal office drama.

    In practice this will be yanking power from Hegseth. If your chief of staff has the job because of somebody else’s approval that other person will be getting a covert vote on everything you do. It makes clear that Hegseth is on the edge of being fired. This isn’t something you do to an officer that you really back, it’s a last resort you use on somebody that you have lost a lot of confidence in but don’t want to fire yet.

  66. StevoR says

    Ceasefire agreed between India and Pakistan. Nice to have some good news to report for once!

    India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire deal after the United States mediated talks to end their conflict.

    The announcement on Saturday ends the two countries most serious confrontation in decades that has left dozens of civilians dead.

    Pakistan has also announced its airspace has re-opened which was closed in the conflict.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-10/india-pakistan-confirm-immediate-ceasefire/105278284

  67. JM says

    NBC News: Trump envoy relied on Kremlin interpreter in meetings with Putin to end war in Ukraine

    President Donald Trump’s special envoy broke with long-standing protocol by not employing his own interpreter during three high-level meetings with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, opting instead to rely on translators from the Kremlin, a U.S. official and two Western officials with knowledge of the talks told NBC News.

    Idiot in action. Even if you speak the language unless it’s your native tongue you should always have an interpreter to make sure subtle points are understood.

  68. says

    The Guardian:

    Judge orders White House to temporarily halt sweeping government layoffs

    San Francisco district judge says Congress did not authorize large-scale staffing cuts and restructuring of agencies

    …US district judge Susan Illston in San Francisco sided with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments in blocking large-scale mass layoffs known as “reductions in force” for 14 days.

    “As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,” Illston said.

    The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    probably out at golf…

    NPR: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5393777/trump-rifs-court-mass-layoff-doge

    Federal judge temporarily halts Trump’s sweeping government overhaul

    A federal judge in San Francisco has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s sweeping overhaul of the federal government.

    The ruling from U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee, came after a hearing Friday in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions, nonprofits and local governments.

    The plaintiffs argue in their complaint that President Trump’s efforts to “radically restructure and dismantle the federal government” without any authorization from Congress violate the Constitution.

    … Illston issued a temporary restraining order pausing further implementation of Trump’s Feb. 11 executive order directing agencies to begin major reorganizations, as well as subsequent memos from his administration instructing agencies how to comply. Her order applies to 20 federal agencies, including the Departments of State,Treasury and Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Government Efficiency.

    Her order explicitly pauses the implementation of any existing reduction-in-force (RIF) notices, delaying while her order is in effect final separation for any employees who have received such notices.

    The Hill:

    Federal judge temporarily halts Trump admin’s mass layoff plans

    … U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of California issued a two-week pause, arguing that while the president can institute changes to federal agencies and conduct mass layoffs, he has to perform them in “lawful ways.”

    “The President has the authority to seek changes to executive branch agencies, but he must do so in lawful ways and, in the case of large-scale reorganizations, with the cooperation of the legislative branch. Many presidents have sought this cooperation before; many iterations of Congress have provided it,” Illston said in a 42-page order.

  69. says

    Followup of sorts to Reginald @36 and birger @54.

    I Hear They’re Holding POWs From the Trade War with Mattel at Alcatraz

    Friends, I know things seem grim, but I think I’ve finally worked out a solution. All we need to do is convince the folks who created the very first cognitive test to replace the “is this a moo cow or a horsey?” section with a couple of questions about how tariffs work, and who pays them. So if anybody’s got a time machine I can borrow…

    […] the trade war, though. No, that’s going swimmingly, at least for the billionaires with clearly designated bribe troughs. Elon Musk, for example, has stumbled into a lucrative side hustle, extorting Starlink contracts from developing economies desperate to get out from under the mad king’s tariff tantrum.

    Of course, the real money’s in meme coins […] Turns out, taking the global economy hostage is such a simple, effective get-rich-quick scheme, even a guy who bankrupted casinos can’t fuck it up.

    As for the rest of you filthy takers, you have until Monday to select your five favorite pencils; the rest will be personally collected by Tom Homan, who will probably eat them right in front of you.

    Then you are to report to your assigned position on the parade route, to celebrate the Agreement to Discuss Terms for a Non-Binding Arrangement Regarding a Potential Trade Deal Someday (or Maybe Not) with Great Britain. Thanks to the Art of the Deal™️, you get to pay a 10% tax on all British imports, which, dealtastically enough, actually works out to a competitive disadvantage for domestic auto manufacturers, who’re still stuck with the 25% tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico.

    Okay, only 184 “deals” left to go. Or, wait, now I see we’ve declared trade war on the great nation of Mattel, which…I dunno, man, the Mattelese are a proud people with a fierce warrior tradition, particularly the Masters of the Universe line. They don’t call it “the toybox of empires” for nothing, y’know.

    Still, today’s empty ports are tomorrow’s empty shelves, so unless doll rationing fever sweeps the nation over the course of the next few weeks, those already-tanking economic approval ratings face a plummet worthy of a Disney villain.

    Which explains why the great negotiator keeps unilaterally backtracking in exchange for absolutely nothing. “Did I say 145% tariffs? I meant 80%. Plus I’ll throw in Tiffany.”

    Incidentally, seems a certain sundowning septuagenarian caught an old Clint Eastwood movie on TV, so now he’s ordered the government to reopen Alcatraz. […]

    Oh, and we’re gonna tariff foreign films now, too. Just 10% on the first five samurai, but if you want seven, you gotta pay.

    We learned the Turd Reich hopes to expand its extralegal migrant deportation program to Libya, Rwanda, and any other place Kristi Noem picks out for her next fashy, fetishistic photo shoot. And if they have to suspend habeas corpus to do it, well, that’s a price Stephen Miller is willing to pay. (This is one of those times when it really comes in handy to have a boss who doesn’t know if he’s obligated to uphold the Constitution.)

    Anyhoo, Off-Brand Orbán got through his first Oval Office meeting with the shiny new Canadian Prime Minister without things escalating into a shooting war, and while I’m open to holding future presidents to a somewhat higher standard, I think we should just take the W here. And not to go all JD, but Carney really should’ve thanked him for the whole “destroying the global Right’s electoral prospects” thing.

    AI-generated images posted by official Shart House social media accounts managed to blaspheme against two of the world’s leading religions this week: Catholicism and Star Wars.

    There’s a new Pope, by the way, and he’s American, but the Children of the Candy Corn are all mad because he doesn’t hate migrants or minorities enough. Why, Laura Loomer and Catturd weren’t even invited to the Conclave! RIGGED!

    Instead of resigning in shame for mishandling classified intelligence, Pete Hegseth has decided to fire 20% of the military’s 4-star generals, and I’m starting to suspect life might not be fair.

    […] Popular Georgia Governor Brian Kemp somehow declined the opportunity to stand in the path of the massing Blue Wave set to crash into the GOP next November, either to avoid ending his career as the puppet of the anti-tree lobby, like Herschel Walker, or to maintain the frankly adorable delusion of leading a post-MAGA Republican Party back to sanity.

    I guess the Dotard’s original Surgeon General nominee was too qualified, cuz she got pulled in favor of some quack “influencer” who doesn’t even have a medical license. But even Casey Means isn’t kooky enough for the anti-vax crowd,who’re already worked up over that insufficiently hateful Pope.

    We can’t even have 24 hours to celebrate the end of Ed Martin’s staggeringly corrupt reign as acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, because his replacement turns out to be the smarmiest ragespigot remaining in the Fox Nooz stable, Jeanine Pirro.

    […] I hope nobody’s planning any 9/11s or anything, since we’ve apparently redirected all available intelligence resources, on presidential orders, towards…Greenland.

    Sigh.

    In the next James Bond movie, (starring Ben Affleck, thank you film tariffs) 007 goes undercover in Nuuk, trying to figure out why no one wants to hang out with JD Vance.

    As symbols of American decline go, you could certainly do worse than the threatening letter the disgraced wrestling promoter sent to Harvard. Maybe run your grammar by ChatGPT before you try to bully an Ivy League school, Linda.

    Kari Lake announced she’s outsourcing Voice of America’s “newsfeed services” to OAN, who somehow outbid RT and Alex Jones, despite that Dominion lawsuit payout. […]

    Things’ve gotten so bad at Newark Liberty International Airport that air traffic controllers are warning travelers it’s not safe to fly there, but never fear, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been working tirelessly, around the clock, to blame his predecessor during softball interviews with friendly media outlets.

    […] Oh, and “an anti-government group is making threats against weather equipment that it says is a ‘weather weapon’ controlled by the military,” which I only mention to give you a heads-up about the pardons that’ll be upsetting you in a year or so. […]

    Embedded links are available at the main link.

  71. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ayami Sato will make baseball history in Toronto — and blaze a trail for women in sports

    When Ayami Sato takes to the mound at Toronto’s Christie Pits park on Sunday, her first pitch will make history.

    Sato, 35, has come all the way from Japan to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs, one of nine teams in the Intercounty Baseball League (IBL) of southern Ontario. She’ll be the first woman to join a professional men’s league in Canada.

    The IBL is more than 100 years old and some of its players spent time on Major League Baseball teams or in other elite leagues.

    Sato is already considered a legend in women’s international baseball. As part of Japan’s national team, she helped her country win world championships and took home three MVP awards along the way…

  72. says

    America About To Get .00000000000001% Whiter As Trump Imports Future GOP Voters From South Africa

    South Africa is a nation of a little over 63 million people, and we are so, so proud that our own nation, the United States of America, can ease the suffering of 54 of the white ones. God bless the USA! And other Lee Greenwood lyrics.

    Yes, that’s 54 with no zeroes. At a time when America is chasing out by the tens of thousands anyone with skin a darker shade than Seashell Ecru, the ruling reich has also decided it is of utmost national importance that we bring in more white people who can’t stop wallowing in their own victimhood. As if we didn’t already have plenty of those.

    Therefore, welcome to America, 54 white South Africans who are allegedly arriving here on Monday as part of a Trump administration push to basically recruit them. Enjoy the complimentary gift baskets from the Aryan Nation.

    We have written before about Trump basing his South African immigration policy on whatever white supremacist screed his off-brand Himmler, Stephen Miller, read during his most recent feeding. He was barely two weeks into his second term before he put out an Executive Order called “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.”

    The EO claimed that the country’s majority-Black government had passed a law allowing it to seize the land of [white people.] [The EO] ordered Trump’s minions to “prioritize” bringing some of those people to America and resettle them through the United States Refugee Admissions Program.

    The EO also ordered a halt to any foreign aid the US was sending to South Africa. […]

    Needless to say, the South African government has not been seizing land from white landowners. It’s one of those racist myths that white supremacists, still smarting from the end of Apartheid three decades ago, have been pushing for years. They have managed to convince a lot of dumb people that it’s true, and there are none dumber than MAGAlytes. Miller and Trump have bought into this myth so thoroughly that you would need the Jaws of Life to wrench it out of their heads.

    […] Our government is really pulling out all the stops, too. It is flying the refugees to Washington DC on a State Department-chartered flight. And to Dulles, so they don’t even have to fly into the DC-area airport where planes and helicopters keep almost crashing into each other.

    The refugees — or perhaps we should say “refugees” — will be met by federal officials and government officials from the state of Virginia […] for a “ceremonial news conference.” The government is promising to help them secure places to live and resources to help them get settled. […]

    It has been a tough time to be a refugee in America lately. Thousands have recently seen their Temporary Protected Status revoked, which means they are supposed to leave the country unless they want ICE to drag them out of it. Thousands more who were on their way here had their trips cancelled when the Trump administration suspended the nation’s refugee admission program […] Yes, that’s the same refugee admission program under which the South Africans are being prioritized.

    The program’s suspension, by the way, left more than 100,000 people who had been cleared as refugees stranded in limbo in the countries they were trying to flee, or in squalid refugee camps in other nations. […]

    But there is none of that for the Afrikaners, who are getting bumped to the front of the line. Which is the sort of thing that conservatives usually complain about when it happens to people of a duskier hue, like the group from Venezuela that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis once trafficked to Martha’s Vineyard. […]

    By all accounts we can find, the general feeling amongst Afrikaners about this whole thing swings between rage and bemusement:

    Imagine my bewilderment when Donald Trump and his “first buddy”, South African-born Elon Musk, declared that we Afrikaners are a threatened species; that our black compatriots are engaged in a “genocide”; that we are victims of oppression and discrimination.

    Buddy, we’re right there with you.

  73. Reginald Selkirk says

    Redrawn Alabama electoral map intentionally discriminatory, court rules

    A federal court ruled on Thursday that Alabama’s Republican-led legislature intentionally discriminated against Black voters when it approved a new electoral map in 2023 that only had one majority-Black congressional district.

    In a 571-page ruling, a three-judge panel sharply criticized state lawmakers for drawing up a congressional map that mirrored one from 2021 that the judges and the U.S. Supreme Court had already concluded diluted the voting power of Black Alabamians in violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

    Rather than comply with a court order that the state craft a new map that include at least two majority-Black districts, the panel said the legislature “simply doubled down – it passed another map with only one Black-opportunity district.”

    The panel, which included two judges appointed by Republican President Donald Trump, said it was unaware of a state legislature ever having responded to a court order in litigation over electoral maps in such a way.

    “The Legislature knew what federal law required and purposefully refused to provide it, in a strategic attempt to checkmate the injunction that ordered it,” the panel wrote…

  74. says

    India accuses Pakistan of violating ceasefire deal hours after it was announced

    “Trump announced that the two countries had reached a “full and immediate ceasefire” following a series of escalating attacks.”

    Related video at the link.

    […] In a statement, India’s foreign secretary said that the ceasefire “is being violated by Pakistan. The Indian Army is retaliating and dealing with this border intrusion.”

    “This intrusion is extremely condemnable and Pakistan is responsible for it. We believe that Pakistan should understand this situation properly and take appropriate action immediately to stop this intrusion,” Vikram Misri, the Indian foreign secretary, added.

    The remarks from Misri come hours after President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced early Saturday that the U.S. had mediated a ceasefire deal between the two South Asian nations […]

    “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, shortly after Rubio issued a statement announcing that the two nations “have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.”

    Shortly after the ceasefire was announced, Tammy Bruce, a spokesperson for the State Department, said in a statement that Rubio “offered U.S. assistance in starting constructive talks in order to avoid future conflicts,” but did not indicate when those talks would begin or where they would take place.

    The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan confirmed the ceasefire agreement, with Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, writing in a post on X: “Pakistan and India have agreed to a ceasefire with immediate effect. Pakistan has always strived for peace and security in the region, without compromising on its sovereignty and territorial integrity!”

    […] Later Saturday, though, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, wrote on X that he heard explosions in Kashmir after the announcement of the ceasefire. The cause of the explosions was not immediately clear.

    […] India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Saturday minimized the United States’ role in mediating a ceasefire, saying in a post on X, “Stoppage of firing and military action between India and Pakistan was worked out directly between the two countries.”

    In a separate tweet, however, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump and the U.S. for “facilitating this outcome,” further sowing confusion about the Trump administration’s role in the ceasefire.

    […] In its statement, the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting also said that there was “no decision to hold talks on any other issue at any other place,” despite the U.S. State Department’s claim that the two nations had decided “to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.”

    […] India said at least 16 civilians had been killed since the attacks began, and Pakistan said at least 31 people died after India launched airstrikes Thursday in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

    Tensions between the two nuclear powers escalated after an April 22 terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people. Indian officials said the militant groups responsible for that attack have ties to Pakistan, which denied any involvement.

  75. says

    Xi and Putin vow stronger ties at Russia’s World War II Victory Day parade ahead of U.S.-China trade talks

    “Chinese President Xi Jinping’s presence at the parade gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a boost as he tries to show that he is not isolated on the global stage.”

    Russia marked the 80th anniversary of the World War II victory over Nazi Germany on Friday with a parade attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the two countries vowed to strengthen ties and “firmly” counter U.S. influence.

    Amid tight security after Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow this week, thousands of Russian troops marched on Red Square, with military units from China and 12 other countries also taking part.

    For Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the parade was an opportunity to show that he is not isolated on the global stage. It also casts a spotlight on the post-WWII, U.S.-led international order that […] Trump now appears bent on dismantling, leaving Russia and China to portray themselves as its defenders.

    Xi signaled his support for Putin in both actions and words, arriving on Wednesday for a four-day visit shortly after the Ukrainian drone attacks disrupted flights in and out of Moscow.

    “China will work with Russia to shoulder the special responsibilities of major world powers,” Xi told Putin on Thursday, adding that the two countries should be “friends of steel.”

    In a lengthy joint statement, Xi and Putin said they would deepen military and other ties and “strengthen coordination and jointly respond firmly to the United States’ policy of ‘dual containment’ against both countries.”

    […] Xi was among 29 world leaders expected to attend the commemorations, according to the Kremlin. Diplomats from other countries said the Chinese leader’s presence had factored into their decisions to come.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned world leaders against attending the commemorations, saying it would undermine some countries’ declared neutrality in the Ukraine war. But Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told NBC News that Zelenskyy had asked him to deliver a message to Putin calling for a sustained ceasefire. […]

    Lula insisted that standing with Putin in Red Square “will not strengthen” the Russian leader. “Brazil’s position has not changed,” he said in an interview Thursday. “Brazil is critical of Ukrainian occupation and we have to find peace.”

    Also in attendance was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who said in an interview that he shared a “common opinion” with Putin and Xi. “China will definitely be with Russia. We need to get used to this,” he added.

    […] Moscow does not look like a city that wants peace at any cost. Ahead of the parade, hotel workers, officials and many members of the public wore the orange-and-black ribbon of St. George, a Russian military symbol that especially since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has been associated with Russian nationalism and militarism. Streets were draped in the same colors. [video at the link]

    Huge billboards connected the World War II anniversary with Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, while others welcomed world leaders individually, including those of Cuba and Venezuela.

    […] China, Russia’s biggest trading partner, has strived to portray itself as neutral in the Ukraine war while supporting Russia diplomatically and economically.

    […] Xi told Putin on Thursday that he hoped for “a fair and durable peace deal that is binding and accepted by all parties concerned.”

    Xi will leave Russia on Saturday, as U.S. and Chinese officials meet in Switzerland to discuss mounting tariffs between the two countries that have rattled the global economy.

    […] Earlier this week, Beijing announced sweeping policy steps to bolster its economy, including interest rate cuts and measures to support employment and struggling sectors such as real estate.

    […] China said this week that the meeting was requested by the U.S. side and that while was it was open to talks, they “must be based on equality, respect and mutual benefit.”

    Trump suggested Thursday that U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports could go down as a result of the talks, telling reporters, “you can’t get any higher” than the current rate of 145%.

    But the talks are unlikely to lead to an immediate bilateral tariff reduction, the Economist Intelligence Unit financial forecasting service said in a note Thursday.

    “The two countries will continue to disagree over their preferred tariff rates and what concessions need to be made to allow for de-escalation,” it said. “Nonetheless, the exchange of positions between them will be constructive, in contrast to a standstill.”

  76. Reginald Selkirk says

    Marjorie Taylor Greene says she won’t run for Senate against Jon Ossoff

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced Friday she will not run in next year’s Georgia Senate race, a closely watched contest as Republicans hope to eject Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

    “I’m not running,” Greene, a Georgia Republican and staunch Trump ally, wrote in a post on X that excoriated Senate Republicans, saying she “won’t fight for a team that refuses to win.”

    Greene’s decision came days after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who was widely seen as a top contender for the Senate seat, chose not to seek the Republican nomination Monday, leaving the primary field largely open.

    Georgia GOP Rep. Buddy Carter entered the Senate race Thursday, branding himself a “MAGA Warrior” and a close ally of President Trump’s.

    The Georgia seat is important to both parties’ Senate ambitions. Republicans are looking to oust Ossoff to expand their 53-47 majority in the chamber, while holding onto the seat could be crucial to Democrats’ efforts to win control of the Senate.

    Recent elections in Georgia have been razor-thin, despite the state’s history as a reliably conservative state. Ossoff won his seat by less than two points in a 2021 Senate runoff. And Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock was reelected by under three points in 2022…

  77. JM says

    @75 Lynna, OM: Xi and Putin announcing a stronger alliance doesn’t really mean much. That they both have conflicts with the more powerful US and EU keep them playing friendly for public spectacle. They have been doing that on and off for years and have stabbed each other in the back whenever convenient. They both want a stronger alliance against the US but only if they can be in charge. They both want to open trade but only in ways that favor their country, not for a more generally free trade system.

  78. Reginald Selkirk says

    Alabama ex-officer insists he had ‘stand your ground’ right when he shot an armed Black man

    A former Alabama police officer who shot an armed Black man is trying to win back his claim to self-defense before his upcoming murder trial, and appealed a judge’s pretrial decision as a “gross abuse of discretion.”

    The appeal hinges on Alabama’s “ stand your ground ” law, which grants immunity from prosecution to anyone who uses deadly force as long as they reasonably believe they’re in danger and are somewhere they’re rightfully allowed to be.

    Mac Marquette, 25, is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Steve Perkins shortly before 2 a.m. in September 2023. Marquette and two other officers were accompanying a tow-truck driver to repossess Perkins’ pickup truck at his home in Decatur. When Perkins emerged from his house with a gun, Marquette fired 18 bullets less than two seconds after identifying himself as law enforcement, according to body camera footage.

    Court documents filed on Thursday said the judge erroneously ruled against Marquette based on his assessment that Marquette didn’t sufficiently prove he had a right to be on Perkins’ property. Alabama allows judges to determine if someone acted in self defense before a case goes to trial.

    The judge said Alabama law requires a court order for law enforcement to be involved in a vehicle repossession — which the officers didn’t have.

    Marquette’s lawyers say the judge should have given more weight to the fact that Perkins pointed his gun at the officer before he was shot. They say Marquette reasonably felt that running away from Perkins would’ve put him in more danger than standing his ground.

    The defense also says the officers had a legitimate reason to be there, based on the “custom, pattern, and practice of the Decatur Police Department” and because their supervisor authorized it…

    “We have always flouted the law, so we should be able to get away with it this time.”

  79. Reginald Selkirk says

    ICE Barbie’s Aide Threatens to Have Goons Arrest Members of Congress

    An aide for “Ice Barbie” Kristi Noem threatened to send Department of Homeland Security goons to arrest three Democratic members of Congress who tried to tour an ICE detention facility.

    Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, said on CNN podcast First of All that there exists “body-camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting our ICE enforcement officers.” She said the representatives were “body-slamming” the officials.

    Calling the lawmakers’ purported actions “disgusting,” McLaughlin said that her agency will release the footage soon…

    The three Congress members in question are New Jersey Democratic Reps. Rob Menendez, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and LaMonica McIver. The trio attempted to tour an ICE detention facility in their state on Friday and began to protest when they were not allowed in.

    Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was trying to join the representatives in their protest at Delaney Hall Detention Center, was arrested by ICE officers. He was released later on Friday night.

    Baraka, who was also interviewed for the CNN podcast, pushed back on McLaughlin’s claim that the representatives assaulted ICE officers.

    “None of those people body-slammed any officer,” he said, pointing out that Watson Coleman is 80 years old…

  80. KG says

    Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, said on CNN podcast First of All that there exists “body-camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting our ICE enforcement officers.” She said the representatives were “body-slamming” the officials.

    Calling the lawmakers’ purported actions “disgusting,” McLaughlin said that her agency will release the footage soon… – Reginald Selkirk quoting Yahoo@79

    Just as soon as it’s been manipulated to show what they want it to show.

  82. JM says

    CNN: Trump says ‘great progress made’ between US and China following first day of trade talks

    It was the first comment from Trump after a day of talks in Geneva between US officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and Chinese officials. A source briefed on the meetings told CNN talks will continue Sunday.

    This is the first real thaw, with high level officials and both sides saying they are negotiating. No telling what the end result will be. Even if it’s good this is likely to just set the stage for more negotiations later and/or be some symbolic reductions. Both sides want to open trade but neither side wants to appear to give in.
    To a certain extent both sides are playing economic chicken, figuring the other side will give in first. China’s economic situation is worse but being an authoritarian state they figure they can hold out longer.

  83. rorschach says

    @82,
    “This is the first real thaw, with high level officials and both sides saying they are negotiating.”

    Well I read that the container ports in the US are empty and that warehouses will run out of stock in 5-7 weeks. Maybe someone informed Trump of this fact.

  84. says

    Virginia Republicans are reeling — and they have no one to blame but themselves

    “Today’s MAGA-fied Republicans have entirely forgotten how to govern — or even how to police their own bad behavior.”

    Related video at the link.

    When Virginia voters elected businessman Glenn Youngkin as their governor in 2021, the Republican’s victory derailed years of Democratic gains across the commonwealth and even stirred speculation about Youngkin as a future presidential contender.

    Less than four years later, Virginia’s Republican Party is on the verge of disaster thanks to an explosive scandal involving the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor and Youngkin’s baffling decision to embrace Donald Trump’s sweeping layoffs of federal workers, even though the state is home to over 340,000 federal workers. […]

    The governor’s troubles are one more reminder that, despite playing the part of serious leaders, today’s MAGA-fied Republicans have entirely forgotten how to govern — or even how to police their own bad behavior. Youngkin’s GOP is turning off voters by the thousands and raising hopes of a Democratic blowout in statewide elections later this year.

    And Virginia Republicans have no one to blame but themselves.

    For many Virginians, the scandal dogging the GOP’s lieutenant governor nominee, John Reid, is a testament to Youngkin’s lack of influence within his own party. In late April, he privately urged Reid, Virginia’s first openly gay candidate for statewide office, to abandon his race after Republican research claimed to link Reid to a Tumblr account with pictures of nude men.

    Reid didn’t just refuse the governor’s request. He released a video on social media denying the allegations. Trump-aligned Republican voters rallied around Reid and his message of MAGA persecution. […]

    Then, late last month, Reid accused Matt Moran, Youngkin’s top political strategist, of defaming and extorting him in an effort to push Reid off the ballot. Moran strongly denied the claims, even providing a sworn affidavit individually disputing each of Reid’s accusations.

    Moran’s all-out defense barely lasted a day before damaging audio recordings emerged that showed Moran had, in fact, done exactly what Reid accused him of doing. […]

    […] Seven GOP state lawmakers represent districts Trump lost in 2024, while another seven serve in districts Trump barely won. In a normal election cycle, Democrats might struggle to recruit opponents for these Republicans. That’s not the case this year, when Virginia’s Democratic Party succeeded in fielding candidates for all 100 state House districts. That strategy is forcing Virginia’s Republican Party to spend more money than expected at a time when the party is engaged in a divisive, demoralizing Youngkin-Reid civil war. [Good news for Democrats.]

    If Democrats’ strategy pays off, it could provide the crucial votes to secure the passage of three critical amendments to the state’s constitution, which would protect reproductive rights, restore voting rights for released felons and repeal the state’s archaic ban on same-sex marriage.

    Reid’s presence on the ballot isn’t just Youngkin’s problem, it’s also threatening to tank the gubernatorial bid of the governor’s friend and planned successor, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Earle-Sears currently trails her Democratic opponent Rep. Abigail Spanberger by 7 points in new polling, and pollsters predict the rift between her conservative Christian base and Reid, who is gay, could be critical in putting Spanberger over the top in November.

    […] “The governor … just engaged the entire party in a circular firing squad,” said Phil Kazmierczak, the former president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Hampton Roads. “I think it’s going to damage his legacy.”

    […] Youngkin’s fall from grace is a dizzying drop for a man once floated as “the MAGA-lite future of the Republican Party.” […] Youngkin’s time in office has become a potent symbol of Trump-era Republican decline. Ignored by his own party and likely to preside over a huge Democratic comeback later this year, Youngkin no longer talks much about the future. His present is painful enough.

  85. says

    Why conservatives hate college

    This past week, the Trump administration continued to squeeze middle-class families with its decision to restart the process of collecting on student loans that had been paused during the pandemic. The administration said it was threatening to garnish wages even as borrowers and advocates expressed concerns about the ripple effect of a new financial obligation weighing down on Americans already grappling with Trump’s tariffs.

    The decision was just one of many in which Team Trump has targeted current and former college attendees, along with the schools themselves.

    Trump has authorized law enforcement agencies to abduct and detain college students expressing opinions he disagrees with. He has also cut federal funding for schools like Harvard and Columbia University and affiliated institutions while pressuring them to get rid of diversity programs and admissions, and he has pressured schools to exclude transgender athletes.

    Colleges are also set to be punished as part of the administration’s plan to destroy the entire Department of Education, which has existed in America since 1980.

    America doesn’t like Trump’s posture toward college and universities.

    An Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released on Friday found that 56% of those surveyed disapproved of Trump’s actions on higher education. […]

    Republicans in Congress fought against efforts by the Biden administration to relieve student debt, and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court significantly scaled back Biden’s relief program.

    Major Republican donor and multimillionaire Peter Thiel even set up a fund to pay students not to attend or to drop out of college.

    Why is conservatism so dead set against colleges and universities despite the public’s position?

    The right-wing movement has long seen college as a source of left-wing indoctrination. Conservatives have forwarded the notion that previously apolitical students are somehow brainwashed when they go off to college, returning to their families as left-wing radicals.

    This is of course, absurd, because if this were truly the case few people who attend college would become conservatives or Republicans—but millions of people who vote for the Republican Party are also college attendees or graduates.

    Conservatives are so concerned about this purported brainwashing that they have created groups like Turning Point USA, conservative pundit Charlie Kirk’s college activism group. The right has also created entire colleges devoted to cranking out right-wing thinkers at institutions like Hillsdale College. [Doofuses attending Hillsdale are probably already rightwing whackadoodles. And I would put “thinkers” in quote marks. Refusing to think is more like it.]

    What is really going on isn’t indoctrination, but a failure of conservatism to win the war of ideas. And as is so often the case with the right, when they can’t win a fair fight, they try to rig the system from the inside. […]

    Even when Republicans decisively win an election this is a battle they overwhelmingly lose. In the 2024 election Vice President Kamala Harris lost the popular vote and the electoral college, but among college graduates she crushed Trump 56% to 42%. Among voters of color with a college degree she won by even more, 65% to 32%.

    […] Republicans are using their power to bend colleges to their whims, and unfortunately in some instances these schools have given in to Trump—only to be pushed to give him more control and power. [Appeasement does not work.]

    Complex issues like taxes and tariffs and climate science require an educated populace to make informed decisions not only for themselves but for future generations. […]

  86. says

    Heather Digby Parton, writing for Salon

    Politics was immensely lucrative for the Trump family during the first term, but that looks like chicken feed compared to what they’re doing now. This time it’s no holds barred, straight-up grift and corruption in the billions, featuring foreign governments, sleazy scam artists and a big play in the arcane world of cryptocurrency.

    Eric Trump has been all over the region putting together real estate deals with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, countries whose relationships with each other may be fractious but are all crucial to U.S. foreign policy. Eric Lipton and other reporters at the New York Times have been tracking these ventures, as well as others and reported last week that the Trumps now have six projects planned in the Middle East, in partnership with a firm tied to the Saudi royal family… […]

    There’s so much grift going on in Trump-realm that it’s honestly hard to tell where the government ends and the family begins. One can only imagine what might happen in Trump’s supposed trade talks as various countries and private companies appeal for carve-outs. There are already reports that foreign governments are getting strong-armed to buy Elon Musk’s Starlink system if they want the tariffs lifted. That’s likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

  87. says

    […] “The U.S. Secretary of Health, RFK Jr., made false comments about autism, like people with autism are broken, that autism is caused by vaccines, and that people with autism will never have jobs or families,” said Teddy, a fourth grader from New Jersey whose statement at a school board meeting went viral earlier this month. [Awesome video at the link]

    “I have autism and I’m not broken,” Teddy said. “And I hope that nobody in Princeton Public Schools believes RFK Jr.’s lies.”

    The New Jersey schoolkid and autism awareness groups felt the need to speak out after Kennedy’s vile comments last month about U.S. autism rates, where he repeated his false claim that autism is an epidemic that “destroys families.” […]

    Link

  88. says

    WTF?

    Trump administration will accept a luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One

    “Trump is expected to discuss arrangements for the plane during his visit to Qatar this week, one source said.”

    The Trump administration is preparing to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar as a gift to be used by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One for presidential travel until shortly before Trump leaves office, according to four sources familiar with the planning.

    Two of the sources also confirm that ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation once the president ends his second term.

    According to one of the sources, the arrangement will be done according to U.S. and international laws, in observance of ethics rules. That official said it will take some time for the plane to be delivered to Trump but that the president will discuss the arrangement during his visit to Qatar this week.

    Another one of the sources said the idea of gifting Trump this specific plane has been under discussion for “quite some time” and that when the formal offer was made more recently, the president “happily accepted.”

    ABC News first reported the gift.

    It comes ahead of the president’s first foreign trip of his second term, in which he will travel to Saudi Arabia this week and also make stops in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

    While in Qatar, Trump is expected to deliver a speech and then talk with American troops at the Al Udeid Air Base, according to two U.S. officials.

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to accompany Trump during his stop at the base.

    This is the second time Trump has decided to visit Saudi Arabia for his first foreign trip. He chose the same nation as his first stop in 2017, during his first term.

  89. birgerjohansson says

    I am probably misogynic, because I am starting to confuse the various MAGA women politicians in my mind; the two weird ones in the House, Loomer in the White House and… a whole swarm at Fox that might be appointed to high posts any moment. And they all say the same predictable things.

    After some thought, I realise they simply lack the B-film villain vibes of their male colleagues: Miller obviously sleeps in a coffin, Bannon is a Mad Max liutenant of Immortan Joe. The guy in the Treasury is a slick villain that worked for J R Ewing. I will not describe J D Vance because it is gross.

    The beauty ideals make women conform to the same bland exterior as women on daytime television. And the GOP is shallow enough to not keep women beyond a certain age, like Sarah Palin.

  90. says

    Federal workplace safety workers say gutting their agency will lead to preventable deaths on the job

    “In a letter obtained by NBC News, current and former National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health employees say the wide-scale reduction will lead to injuries and deaths.”

    Related video at the link.

    More than 100 current and former employees of a federal agency charged with ensuring workplace safety warn that American workers face a greater risk of death and injury on the job as the Trump administration slashes the organization’s ranks.

    In a letter to Congress, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health employees say that the agency’s mission is at risk due to the administration’s actions over the past several months. […]

    The letter is being sent to all of Congress but is directed at Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and its ranking member, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., ahead of the committee’s scheduled meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to discuss […] Trump’s proposed HHS budged for the 2026 fiscal year.

    NIOSH is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the Department of Health and Human Services.

    […] The letter urges Congress to act to save the organization, especially at a time when the administration is calling for increased economic activity, including domestic manufacturing and mining.

    It says over 90% of NIOSH employees have received “reduction-in-force” letters placing them on administrative leave pending more permanent layoffs. […]

    While the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) polices industries involved in worker injuries, NIOSH is tasked with establishing a vision for safer workplaces by conducting research, maintaining databases, certifying workplace equipment and collaborating with worksites on preventive training and other measures.

    NIOSH oversees the health program for 9/11 responders and survivors […]

    If the reduction-in-force plans are carried out, the letter to Congress says, “nearly all of NIOSH’s functions will be ended permanently.”

    The document was signed by accomplished scientists in the field of workplace safety, including Micah Niemeier-Walsh, a researcher on the effects of exposure to lithium-ion battery fires; Gary Roth, an expert in nanotechnology’s tiny scale and how it can bypass traditional human and workplace protections; and epidemiologist Scott Laney of the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program, who has said the cuts have already resulted in coal miners’ X-rays for black lung going unexamined.

    […] The signatories hold out hope for congressional action to save the agency.

    “Please send a message to the Trump administration that today’s Congress still supports America’s workers by restoring and protecting NIOSH in its entirety and keeping it within CDC,” the letter states.

  91. JM says

    @88 Lynna, OM: Trump ordered a new Air Force One from Boeing during his first term (which actually needed done). The project is so delayed and over budget that it may not be delivered during his second term in office. He is unhappy about this because there are a bunch of changes he made to the design. He designed a new paint scheme for the plane himself and did design work on the inside so it would be more fancy and less useful.
    I expect the plane from Qatar fits his design goals well. Lots of gold paint and more of a luxury plane vibe then a mobile command center vibe. That it is bugged by several different countries doesn’t matter much to Trump.

  92. Reginald Selkirk says

    @84

    Moran strongly denied the claims, even providing a sworn affidavit individually disputing each of Reid’s accusations.

    Does that constitute perjury? Or would that be the case only if the affidavit was presented in court as part of a case?

  93. says

    JM @91: “That it is bugged by several different countries doesn’t matter much to Trump.”

    LOL.

    In other news: Astros’ Lance McCullers Jr. says disgruntled fans directing death threats at him and his children

    “I understand people are very passionate and people love the Astros and love sports, but threatening to find my kids and murder them is a little bit tough to deal with just as a father, I think,” the MLB pitcher said.

    Yeah, that’s a bit much. What the heck is wrong with people?

  94. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Who Needs Rust’s Borrow-Checking Compiler Nanny? C++ Devs Aren’t Helpless’

    “When Rust developers think of us C++ folks, they picture a cursed bloodline,” writes professional game developer Mamadou Babaei (also a *nix enthusiast who contributes to the FreeBSD Ports collection). “To them, every line of C++ we write is like playing Russian Roulette — except all six chambers are loaded with undefined behavior.”

    But you know what? We don’t need a compiler nanny. No borrow checker. No lifetimes. No ownership models. No black magic. Not even Valgrind is required. Just raw pointers, raw determination, and a bit of questionable sanity.

    He’s created a video on “how to hunt down memory leaks like you were born with a pointer in one hand and a debugger in the other.” (It involves using a memory leak tracker — specifically, Visual Studio’s _CrtDumpMemoryLeaks, which according to its documentation “dumps all the memory blocks in the debug heap when a memory leak has occurred,” identifying the offending lines and pointers.)

    “If that sounds unreasonably dangerous — and incredibly fun… let’s dive into the deep end of the heap.”

    “The method is so easy, it renders Rust’s memory model (lifetimes, ownership) and the borrow checker useless!” writes Slashdot reader NuLL3rr0r. Does anybody agree with him? Share your own experiences and reactions in the comments.

    And how do you feel about Rust’s “borrow-checking compiler nanny”?

    Sure, if you use best practices that have been worked out over the last half century, you can produce good code with C or C++. But the point is, with Rust you don’t have to count on the programmer doing that, because certain safeguards are built right into the definition of the language.

  95. Reginald Selkirk says

    Theranos Fraudster’s Partner Launches His Own Blood-Testing Startup

    “The romantic partner of Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes has launched a start-up that sounds eerily similar to the venture that landed his girlfriend behind bars,” writes The Daily Beast.

    He’s incorporated “Haemanthus” in Delaware a year and a half ago (though the company operates out of his neighborhood in Austin), according to the New York Times. Haemanthus appears to have around 10 employees.
    …
    The Times reports that Evan’s company “plans to begin with testing pets for diseases before progressing to humans, according to two investors pitched on the company.” …

  96. Reginald Selkirk says

    Moderna’s Super-Vaccine for Flu and Covid Works—Now Politics Could Sink It

    Moderna’s mRNA-based flu and covid-19 vaccine could provide the best of both worlds—if it’s actually ever approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

    This week, scientists at Moderna published data from a Phase III trial testing the company’s combination vaccine, codenamed mRNA-1083. Individuals given mRNA-1083 appeared to generate the same or even greater immune response compared to those given separate vaccines, the researchers found. But the FDA’s recent policy change on vaccine approvals, orchestrated by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, could imperil the development of this and other future vaccines…

  97. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump fires Copyright Office director after report raises questions about AI training

    President Donald Trump has fired Shira Perlmutter, who leads the U.S. Copyright Office.

    The firing was reported by CBS News and Politico, and seemingly confirmed by a statement from Representative Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee for House Administration.

    “Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” Morelle said. “It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

    Perlmutter took over the Copyright Office in 2020, during the first Trump administration. She was appointed by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who Trump also fired this week…

  98. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NBC

    during a traffic stop Monday, an officer returned to the vehicle to find the driver’s seat occupied by a pet raccoon with a glass methamphetamine pipe in its mouth […] When the officer took the pipe away, the raccoon pulled out another.

    Rando: “Another raccoon from Ohio: [Photo of JD Vance]”

  99. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Commentary on the Qatari jet @88.

    Ray Cunneff (CBS):

    The Constitution prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign states without approval by Congress. Attorney General Pam Bondi submitted a legal analysis claiming that the plane is being gifted to the Air Force, not one individual, so it doesn’t violate the Constitution.

    Norm Eisen (CREW):

    Overseeing the presidential gift rules was among my duties as White House Ethics Czar […] The AG & the WH Counsel oughtta be ashamed of themselves for allowing it. […] let me explain why this is forbidden.

    Trump expressed interest in it before it was offered. He is going to use & benefit from it a while in office. And he’s going to keep using it after he leaves! Functionally, it’s a gift to him & so it’s illegal.

    Rando 1: “The AG took a bribe from him to drop the Trump university case when she was in Florida. Pretty clear she was chosen for the job due to lack of shame.”

    Rando 2: “Bondi used to lobby Congress on behalf of Qatar, earning $115,000 per month.”

    Rando 3:

    When I was there, the City planning office wasn’t even allowed to accept boxed chocolates as Christmas gifts because it might look inappropriate… but sure, it’s totally fine that the Government of another whole ass country gives him a plane… uh huh.

    Missing the Point: “Show-off Qatar buys most expensive item off of President Trump’s online bribery registry.”

    Patrick Iber (Dissent Mag):

    It took more than four years to do it but [former prez] AMLO in Mexico sold the luxury presidential plane (to Tajikistan) and flew commercial
    […]
    It says something about the political cultures of both countries that AMLO’s argument was that a country with real poverty shouldn’t have leaders who live lives of excess, while Donald Trump’s is that the world owes us a big beautiful plane, and by “us” he means him specifically.

  100. says

    Followup to comments 88 and 99.

    Trump reportedly getting gift of luxury jumbo jet from Qatar, by Associated Press

    […] Trump reportedly is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar during his trip to the Middle East this coming week, and U.S. officials say it could be converted into a potential presidential aircraft.

    The Qatari government acknowledged discussions between the two countries about “the possible transfer” of a plane to be used temporarily as Trump’s Air Force One, but denied that the jet “is being gifted” or that a final had been decision made.

    ABC News reported that Trump will use the aircraft at his presidential plane until shortly before he leaves office in January 2029, when ownership will be transferred to the foundation overseeing his yet-to-be-built presidential library.

    The gift was expected to be announced when Trump visits Qatar, according to ABC’s report, as part of a trip that also includes stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the first extended foreign travel of his second term.

    But hours after the news, Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché, in a statement said, “Reports that a jet is being gifted by Qatar to the United States government during the upcoming visit of President Trump are inaccurate.”

    “The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense,” the statement said. “But the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made.”

    […] One expert on government ethics, Kathleen Clark of the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, accused Trump of being “committed to exploiting the federal government’s power, not on behalf of policy goals, but for amassing personal wealth.”

    “This is outrageous,” Clark said. “Trump believes he will get away this.”

    […] Air Force One is a modified Boeing 747. Two exist and the president flies on both, which are more than 30 years old. Boeing Inc. has the contract to produce updated versions, but delivery has been delayed while the company has lost billions of dollars on the project.

    Delivery has been pushed to some time in 2027 for the first plane and in 2028 — Trump’s final full year in office — for the second.

    Trump intends to convert the Qatari aircraft into a plane he can fly on as president, with the Air Force planning to add secure communications and other classified elements to it. But it will still have more limited capabilities than the existing planes that were built to serve as Air Force One, as well as two other aircraft currently under construction, according to a former U.S. official.

    […] The existing planes used as Air Force One are heavily modified with survivability capabilities for the president for a range of contingencies, including radiation shielding and antimissile technology. They also include a variety of communications systems to allow the president to remain in contact with the military and issue orders from anywhere in the world.

    The official told The Associated Press that it would be possible to quickly add some countermeasures and communications systems to the Qatari plane, but that it would be less capable than the existing Air Force One aircraft or long-delayed replacements.

    Neither the Qatari plane nor the upcoming VC-25B aircraft will have the air-to-air refueling capabilities of the current VC-25A aircraft, which is the one the president currently flies on, the official said.

    ABC said the new plane is similar to a 13-year-old Boeing aircraft Trump toured in February, while it was parked at Palm Beach International Airport and he was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club.

    […] Clark said the reported Qatari gift is the “logical, inevitable, unfortunate consequence of Congress and the Supreme Court refusing to enforce” the Emoluments Clause.

    Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, which is now largely run by his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, has vast and growing interests in the Middle East. That includes a new deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar, partnering with Qatari Diar, a real estate company backed by that country’s sovereign wealth fund.

    […] Administration officials have brushed off concerns about the president’s policy interests blurring with family’s business profits. They note that Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children and that a voluntary ethics agreement released by the Trump Organization in January bars the company from striking deals directly with foreign governments.

    But that same agreement allows deals with private companies abroad. That is a departure from Trump’s first term, when the organization released an ethics pact prohibiting both foreign government and foreign company deals.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked Friday if the president might meet with people who have ties to his family’s business, said it was “ridiculous” to suggest Trump “is doing anything for his own benefit.” [LOL]

  101. JM says

    @94 Reginald Selkirk: Rust may be a bit of overkill for game development, where game speed may be more important then a small memory leak and the trivial speed you give up vs C++. With a game you can just close the game, let the OS recover all of the memory, and restart the game. If _CrtDumpMemoryLeaks was really as good as the person is suggesting then Microsoft programs wouldn’t have so many memory leaks. There are problems that it can’t find or are difficult to find.
    Blocking memory leaks is not even the most important thing Rust does. It blocks buffer overflows and other potential security holes.

  102. says

    […] Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, one of the president’s biggest cheerleaders since Trump took office again in January, said reopening Alcatraz—which would take untold millions to make operational again—is a great idea from his Dear Leader.

    “Let’s have Riker and let’s have Alcatraz both open,” Mullin said on Fox News, butchering the name of the state prison off the coast of Manhattan that is being closed in phases. “So we got East Coast and West Coast both covered, and put our most notorious criminals in them so people understand we’re a nation of laws again, unlike under Biden.” [video at the link]

    Of course Rikers Island is a state prison, so Trump and the federal government would not be sending any inmates there.

    Mullin added that Congress would be happy to look into giving Trump the money needed to reopen the prison, throwing the idea of cost savings and efficiency to the wind.

    “The president said it. If they want to do it, we’ll look into it,” Mullin told Semafor. […]

    And Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois, best known for saying that Adolf Hitler was “right” about some things, gave Trump ideas of who she’d send to Alcatraz if it ever became operational.

    “The first person to be sent to Alcatraz should be Anthony Fauci,” Miller wrote in a post on X about the doctor and former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who spent his career trying to save others.

    Honestly, Republicans cheering on every stupid idea that Trump blasts out in social media posts is the true definition of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

    Link

  104. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    LGBTQNation – 20 police raided a gay bar

    Police raided Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ venue P Town Bar on [May 2] in the middle of a drag event. […] police directed patrons to exit the bar but did not explain why beyond saying it was a “compliance check.”
    […]
    But the patrons and performers refused to let the cops quash their spirit and instead created their own public performance space. […] the crowd belting Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club while Indica dances up and down the sidewalk, collecting tips.
    […]
    Police proceeded to allow 70 people to reenter the bar, saying it had been over capacity with the 130 people who were in attendance.
    […]
    “Dozens of state police, geared up with bulletproof vests […] We stood in the rain for maybe 30 minutes or so until most patrons were let back in. Fortunately the situation was calm and orderly, but they really just overtook this queer space with an entire fleet of police to ‘count heads’ […]”

    Advocate

    P Town’s management said […] that “officers acted professionally, to my knowledge, no patrons were mistreated.” […] [Attendees] were forced outside—but not before local drag artist Blade Matthews could finish a performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, making the officers wait through the six-minute song.
    […]
    sparked by their occupancy limit, which they have been [waiting] to receive an updated license for since renovating their space to accommodate more patrons during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. […] The City of Pittsburgh did not initiate the complaint […] but officials are currently working to determine where it came from.

    Mayor’s statement

    [The] compliance check was driven by a report to the city’s Bureau of Fire, specifically asking for a check on overcrowding; inspectors found that the bar, with an occupancy permit for 70, had 133 people inside. Liquor Control Enforcement, PLI and the Allegheny County Health Department identified a handful of additional violations.
    […]
    However, we need to be thoughtful about the fear that the sudden appearance of multiple armed officers can cause. […] I’ve asked [officials] to review not only this incident but the operation of the task force more broadly to ensure that we do our work with the greatest sensitivity to historical trauma and that we put any additional safeguards in place so that the process cannot be manipulated to harass any of our residents.

    Wearing bulletproof vests specifically to an overcrowding complaint.

  105. Reginald Selkirk says

    @102

    “So we got East Coast and West Coast both covered, and put our most notorious criminals in them so people understand we’re a nation of laws again, unlike under Biden.”

    There is no need for this. We already have accommodations for our most notorious criminals in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

  106. Reginald Selkirk says

    Canada’s Liberal Party one seat closer to majority after Quebec recount

    A single vote in a Quebec riding has brought Canada’s Liberal Party one seat closer to holding a majority in parliament.

    A judicial recount in the Terrebone riding declared Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste the victor with 23,352 votes, ahead of Bloc Québécois incumbent Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, who received 23,351.

    The result gives the Liberal Party 170 seats in the House of Commons, two seats shy of the 172 required for a majority.

    In a statement on social media, Auguste thanked the citizens of Terrebone for their trust and promised to “get to work”.

    Canada’s election rules require a recount if a candidates wins by less than 0.1% of the votes cast…

  107. Reginald Selkirk says

    These Canadian millionaires are asking for tax increases — but just for themselves

    A group of wealthy Canadians calling themselves “Patriotic Millionaires” is banding together to lobby governments to increase the amount of taxes they must pay, with a campaign patterned after similar movements in the United States and United Kingdom.

    But there is already pushback on the concept — even before the group officially launches in Canada — with the opposing view being that higher taxes would drive entrepreneurship away from this country.

    Speaking exclusively to CBC News in advance of the group’s Canadian launch, members of the Patriotic Millionaires say their organization is looking for broad changes to wealth taxes and capital gains in this country.

    The group says it believes lower-income citizens often pay tax on much of their income, while wealthier investors can leverage dividends, investments and capital gains to change what they pay and how…

  108. Reginald Selkirk says

    Princeton Student Newspaper Accuses Pete Hegseth of Plagiarism

    The newspaper for the alma mater of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth published a report on Saturday suggesting that Hegseth plagiarized elements of his senior thesis.

    The report in The Daily Princetonian alleges that Hegseth’s senior thesis, submitted in 2003, contained eight instances of “uncredited material, sham paraphrasing, and verbatim copying,” according to a review conducted by three plagiarism experts…

  109. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Michael Derby (Reuters):

    extremely hard to imagine any scenario on this earth in this small town [pop 7k] that would require cops to roll out like they’re going to war.

    The ICE arrests involved multiple unmarked vehicles, some heavily armed [masked] law enforcement officials and a drone.

    Seeing that one of the officers had a battering ram to break the apartment door down, the building’s maintenance director […] got his keys ready. But that turned out not to be necessary, he said. […] “They knocked on the door and he […] surrendered himself.”

    Elp (Immigration lawyer): “For those of you that are [Real Housewives] fans, Great Barrington is where Blue Stone Manor is. For context of how insane this gestapo rollout is.”

    Rando: “None of those ICE agents would wear a mask during the COVID pandemic.”

    Southpaw (Lawyer):

    It’s really striking how irregular the bands of mostly men conducting federal immigration enforcement are. They seem to have no particular uniform, they wear a variety of different agency initials on their tactical vests, or none at all, they’re inconsistent about displaying a badge. These guys look like they just rolled out of a TGI Fridays and put on a tactical vest.

    Anjali Dayal (Intl politics professor):

    These *are* irregular forces. Irregular abduction squads. They say they’re acting on behalf of the state, but without a clear and delineated chain of command and authority that leads back to the ultimate source of authority in this country—the people—we have no reason to believe that’s true.

    If for example Ras Baraka was allegedly trespassing—Newark police could have issued him a ticket, in the usual manner of things. Some ragtag group of unidentified armed men squirreling him away to an immigration detention facility is flagrantly extralegal even if they claim government authority.

    I’m not a lawyer (obviously) but analytically it strikes me as important that Donald Trump, the people’s elected executive, has literally no idea what is happening any time he’s asked about these kinds of ICE actions.

    To be clear I don’t mean that he’s not culpable [nor] engaged in some 4D chess of plausible deniability. My unacademic assessment is that this is because his brain is pudding. Save for his fanatical devotion to tariffs, he’s not actually running the government.

    Andrew Siegel (ConLaw prof): “Seems to me the obvious response is for Democratic mayors and governors to instruct their police forces to arrest these potential kidnappers on the street and to sort out their identities and immunity claims once they are incustody.”

  111. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The first link is a glorious call-out of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s gross buffoonery by Rep Melanie Stansbury (D-NM).

    Jimmy Kimmel – DOGE Hearing finger(s) segment (~2 min)

    Forbes – DOGE Hearing (full 3hrs)
    The finger call-out is at 53:56, though the not as well-framed as Kimmel’s footage.

    8:35, MTG: “I would like to start by playing a video of why we are here today. [*Trans athletes, panic!*]”

    18:21, MS: I wanna make clear that this hearing is actually not about oversight or DOGE […] It’s about bullying trans kids […] There is literally no oversight happening here in this committee […] In fact, my colleagues have failed to bring even a single administration witness […] They haven’t brought Elon Musk [or a cabinet secretary or anyone] to answer to the lawless and immoral behavior that’s happening inside the administration or anything that relates to the jurisdiction of this committee. […] Why take up airspace to bully […] 0.6% of the population? […] I make a motion to immediately adjourn this hearing.
    […]
    MTG: The NOs have it.
    […]
    MS: Chairman Comer is changing the rules so that now fencing hearings fall under DOGE!?

    MTG: This is the rulebook. […] “This subcommittee shall have responsibility for such other measures or matters as the chair of the committee refers to it.”

     

    1:02:23, MS: As you can see, this is a room of performance artists, not legislators. […] over 100 days ago when Republicans were clamoring to show Donald Trump and Elon Musk that they were going to carry their water here in Congress, they created this subcommittee to do Elon Musk’s bidding. But now that he is SO unpopular that 2/3rd of Americans are opposed to DOGE and Elon Musk […] they’re bullying trans kids. […] as they are literally over on the floor debating renaming the Gulf of Mexico this week. Because they have no real agenda other than tanking the economy, taking away healthcare, taking away food out of the mouths of children, and distracting the American people while they prepare the largest tax break for billionaires in the history of this country. […] Do really bad evil things and then distract […] by doing ridiculous things in public spaces like this.
     
    [Immediately after a pro-trans witness finishes, and MS says thank you.]
    1:07:32, MTG: [*bangs the gavel, almost 50 times per The Hill.*]
     
    1:38:32, Robert Garcia (D-CA): […] the government efficiency committee, debating a fencing tournament […] which received no federal dollars.
     
    1:48:33, Greg Casar (D-TX): […] Of the 500k [college] athletes in America, about 10 of them are trans. […] How many college fencers are there total in the entire United States? [1000] how many people rely on Medicaid in this country? [80 million] Social Security? [70 million]
     
    2:00:00, Jasmine Crockett (D-TX): […] Trump is on pace to spend more than a billion dollars just on golfing.
     
    2:51:49, Sara Jacobs (D-CA): […] The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights […] investigates discrimination against women and girls in sports in school. […] That protects women and girls against sexual assault. […] the Trump administration has already closed more than half […] of the Office of Civil Rights […] including [an office] that’s in the middle of an active discrimination investigation. […] this is also the office that investigates anti-semitism on college campuses, so remember that when my colleagues try to tell you they’re standing up for Jewish students.
     
    3:12:45, MS: thank you to our witnesses for sitting here in this toxic soup for the last 3 hours. […] This was a really good use of government time and money.

  114. birgerjohansson says

    BWEX-300 a Canadian small modular reactor will deliver 300 MW electricity. Four planned reactors will cost around 14.5 billion $, that’s a bit more than a billion per 100 MW installed electricity.
    [I am translating from Swedish currency, it will be some % off]

    If you use the coolant heat to provide hot water for a town for instance to heat it in winter you make further savings on oil/coal/gas.

  115. birgerjohansson says

    Do Trump and other government grifters have an Amazon gift list or something? It would be conveinent to know what Hegseth et al want.

  116. birgerjohansson says

    You know, we could just buy off Trump, maybe? Get billionaires who are sick of this mess to make a collection and offer him X billions if he just steps down and hands the shitpile over to J D Vance.

  117. JM says

    CNN: “90-day truce”: Analysts give cautious welcome to US-China agreement

    “This is a substantial de-escalation,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at consultancy Capital Economics, chiming with others. But he noted that US tariffs on China remain much higher than on most other major economies and that America “still appears” to be trying to rally other countries to introduce restrictions of their own on trade with China.

    US will have 30% tariffs on Chinese imports and China will have 10% tariff on US imports, for 90 days. Any specific market barriers remain. This is still higher then pre-Trump tariff numbers but should reopen trade. It looks like both sides decided not to take this trade war chicken too far, likely because both sides are facing worsening economic conditions even before factoring in the trade war.

  118. KG says

    Four planned reactors will cost around 14.5 billion $ – birgerjohansson@114

    Allegedly. I don’t know about the Canadian industry specifically, but the nuclear industry as a whole is notorious for its failure to deliver anywhere near on time and within budget. And does that $14.5 bn include the cost of decommissioning, and dealing with the radioactive waste? My guess is not.

  119. KG says

    Further on Starmer’s moral bankruptcy: Starmer claims soaring immigration has done ‘incalculable’ damage to UK, economically and politically.

    Various key sectors (agricuture, construction, retail, health, social care) depend heavily on immigrants – and unemployment is at historically low levels; another part of Starmeroid Labour’s lurge to the right is insisting that there are millions of people on sickness or disability benefits who should be working, ignoring the effects of both Covid, and the stress and depression affecting younger people in particular. Various reactions to his speech in the same live thread.

  120. KG says

    birgerjohansson@116,
    You think Vance (Peter Thiel’s protégé) would be an improvement? Given that choice, I’d stick with Trump, whose gross incompetence is in my view impeding the drive to dictatorship.

  123. rorschach says

    KG @119,

    “Further on Starmer’s moral bankruptcy”

    Fascinating (not in a good way) parallels between UK and Australia. Both have elected strong Labor/Labour majorities, and even if Labor in Oz has only been elected for a few days, the signs are there that the environmental vandalism and autocratic tendencies will continue. This is the party that invented immigration detention in pacific hellholes, after all.
    Labor in name only, these are hard right parties, with their progressive caucuses all but pushed out.

  126. birgerjohansson says

    Myself @ 125 OK this is not really recent news, while still serious.

  127. birgerjohansson says

    I read Mano Singham’s thread about meds that cost 25 cent per pill to msnufacture but costs a thousand bucks per month if you want to stay alive.

    Idea: The dogs at the border are trained to find illegal drugs. No way they can be trained to detect every single medicine for which the corporations are adding 10000 per cent on the cost.

    Time to do a Monty Burnes and fly a ‘Spruce Goose’ from Canada at treetop height. Or just walk past border officers who are looking for scary immigrants.

  128. JM says

    CNN: Trump defends Qatari jet “contribution”

    “I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’ But it was, I thought it was a great gesture.”
    Trump said the plane will “go directly” to his presidential library after he leaves office.

    His brain is going to mush and he doesn’t understand what bribery and emoluments are any more. Doesn’t understand that he is specifically bared from taking gifts exactly because he appreciates it. He thinks that only he will get to use the plane somehow makes it better, when it just makes it more clear it’s a gift to Trump no the President.
    It’s such a blatant thing that even some Republicans are objecting but no sign of them doing anything yet. If this falls apart it is more likely because Qatar backs out. Qatar has to look at keeping ties with the US down the road. There is also a chance that Rubio or Stephen Miller might ask Qatar to drop the deal so that Trump doesn’t have to publicly change position.

  130. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: birgerjohansson @115

    It would be convenient to know what Hegseth et al want.

    They want to hurt the people they don’t like (for either personal slight or demographic), to dominate people they interact with, to hold the limelight with spectacle, to enrich themselves without obligation in return, to disempower authorities that would inconvenience them, to indulge vices, to wallow in reassuring conspiracy theories, to cosplay power fantasies, and to avoid prison.

    If you facilitate those goals, they’ll be nice to you. Momentarily. No obligations to loyalty or consistency, or even long-term self-interest.

  131. StevoR says

    Via DW News – excerpt (meta – a really ugly word to describe a useful thing) :

    Birds, like humans, are also threatened by the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as storms. Strong winds can drag them down and kill them.

    Equally, climate change can impact how migratory birds behave.

    Warmer temperatures can remove the threat of food scarcity, leading birds to shorten their routes or not flying back to their original habitat at all.

    This, in turn, can lead to conflicts over food between migratory birds and resident animals. While some migratory birds, such as the Arctic tern, have compensated for strong winds by expending more energy on their journeys, other species have succumbed to the pressures of human activity.

    One such bird was the slender-billed curlew, which was declared extinct in 2024. Researchers believe the breed failed to adapt to habitat loss.

    Source : https://www.dw.com/en/how-climate-change-is-altering-bird-migration/a-72451216

  132. StevoR says

    NASA, her previous employer, published a feature article about her determination on its website. That story chronicles her journey from a poverty-stricken childhood in the Caribbean and years living unhoused, to pursuing her education and rising to become a NASA intern, which ultimately led to working at the space agency full-time.

    In January, that article vanished from NASA’s website. As an onslaught of executive orders and directives signed by President Donald Trump sent federal agencies into a frenzy of program cancellations and mass layoffs, NASA’s acting administrator Janet Petro began aligning the agency with the White House’s new laws of the land. That included eliminating any office or program associated with diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives.

    Note: This article mentions accounts of abuse and sexual assault.

    …(snip)..

    She said she immediately knew what was happening when she walked into her weekly one-on-one with her supervisor; the meeting had an unexpected attendee. An HR representative rose from a seat in the corner as Ferreira entered the office. She was told she was being let go because she wasn’t fulfilling her position’s responsibilities, “effective immediately.”

    “When I was about to open my mouth, she waved her hand at me, and was like, ‘No, we’re not doing that,'” Ferreira said. “I’m hearing ringing in my head.”

    “They didn’t let me speak in my own meeting.”

    Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/nasa-celebrated-this-employees-story-of-resilience-then-tried-to-scrub-it-from-the-internet-then-fired-her

  134. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @111:

    [Immediately after a pro-trans witness finishes, and MS says thank you.]
    1:07:32, MTG: [*bangs the gavel, almost 50 times per The Hill.*]

    Wow. Quite the tantrum on the part of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

  135. says

    Trump reportedly shrugs off intelligence briefings he needs, but doesn’t want

    “In his first term, the president blew off intelligence briefings that he needed to govern. The problem is even worse in his second term.”

    Among the many problems with Kash Patel’s embarrassing tenure as FBI director is his willful ignorance. NBC News reported last week that while FBI directors have, for decades, attended a daily 8:30 a.m. “director’s brief,” Patel is receiving these briefings only twice a week — in part because he kept failing to show up for work on time. He has also apparently abandoned a Wednesday afternoon teleconference meeting with bureau leaders in field offices.
    [Bolding of “willful ignorance” is mine, as is other bolding in the excerpts below.]

    Two current FBI officials told NBC News that Patel’s intelligence briefers have struggled to craft a briefing “that captures his attention.”

    This is not, evidently, limited to the hapless FBI chief. Politico reported:

    Since […] Trump was sworn into office in January, he has sat for just 12 presentations from intelligence officials of the President’s Daily Brief. That’s a significant drop compared with Trump’s first term in office […].

    Politico’s report […] “is troubling to many in and around the intelligence community, who were already concerned about Trump’s act-first-evaluate-after approach to governing.”

    It’s worth emphasizing that different presidents have approached these briefings in different ways. George W. Bush received intelligence briefings on a nearly daily basis. Barack Obama received briefings roughly every other day, but he was known to be a voracious reader of the written President’s Daily Brief (often referred to as the PDB). Joe Biden received an in-person briefing once or twice a week, but like Obama, he was also known to read the PDB briefing book.

    Trump, meanwhile, reportedly doesn’t read the PDB, and if the Politico report is accurate, he’s receiving in-person briefings roughly once every 10 days.

    […] Trump is dealing with serious national security challenges — war in Ukraine, a crisis in the Middle East, China expanding its global influence, domestic security threats, et al. — and the United States is being led by an incurious former television personality who desperately needs — but apparently isn’t getting — valuable information that would lead to better decision-making.

    […] Trump has always avoided intelligence he needs.

    [I snipped Trump’s past bluster and blather concerning intelligence briefings.]

    Things did not improve once he was in power. In early 2017, intelligence professionals went to great lengths to try to accommodate the president’s toddler-like attention span, preparing reports “with lots of graphics and maps.” National Security Council officials eventually learned that Trump was likely to stop reading important materials unless he saw his own name, so they included his name in “as many paragraphs” as possible.

    [I snipped then-White House National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster’s experience while trying to brief Trump on conditions in Afghanistan.]

    […] In early 2020, the Post reported that Trump missed the early alarms on the Covid threat, in part because he “routinely skips reading the PDB” and had “little patience” for oral summaries of the intelligence. Exactly five years ago next week, The New York Times had a related report:

    The president veers off on tangents and getting him back on topic is difficult, they said. He has a short attention span and rarely, if ever, reads intelligence reports, relying instead on conservative media and his friends for information. He is unashamed to interrupt intelligence officers and riff based on tips or gossip. … Mr. Trump rarely absorbs information that he disagrees with or that runs counter to his worldview, the officials said. Briefing him has been so great a challenge compared with his predecessors that the intelligence agencies have hired outside consultants to study how better to present information to him.

    It was an extraordinary revelation to consider: A sitting American president, in a time of multiple and dangerous crises, was so resistant to learning about security threats that his own country’s intelligence officials have sought outside help to figure out how to get him to listen and focus.

    Or, put another way, Trump’s indifference to intelligence is a problem, but it’s not a new problem.

  137. birgerjohansson says

    KG @ 118
    You have a valid point.
    My interest in nuclear power plants is as an ingredient in various systems to handle the periods when neither solar and wind produce energy.
    If cheaper catalysts can be found, we might theoretically get hydrogen from water in daytime and run them through fuel cells nighttime but I am very skeptic of this possibility.
    There is too much happening in ordinary battery development for me to cover it all, but it is still an unwieldy solution.
    Burn biomass for power generation? Possible, but requires huge areas growing energy crops.

  138. says

    The more Trump talks about Russian sanctions, the less Russia seems to care

    “For the fourth time in four months, Trump threatened Russia with sanctions. In each instance, Putin shrugged — and Trump failed to follow through.”

    Related video at the link.

    JD Vance raised a few eyebrows at the Munich Leaders Meeting in Washington last week, conceding publicly that Russia was simply “asking for too much” to end its war with Ukraine. A day later, the vice president elaborated, telling Fox News that Russia expected to be given Ukrainian territory that Russian forces hadn’t yet seized.

    In other words, under Vladimir Putin’s vision, Russia would get to keep parts of Ukraine it had seized by force, and it would receive additional rewards in the form of Ukrainian soil that Russia has so far failed to acquire.

    Hours after Vance’s comments, Donald Trump weighed in, threatening sanctions unless Russia and Ukraine agreed to a 30-day “unconditional ceasefire.” NBC News reported:

    ‘The U.S. calls for, ideally, a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. Hopefully, an acceptable ceasefire will be observed, and both Countries will be held accountable for respecting the sanctity of these direct negotiations,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘If the ceasefire is not respected, the U.S. and its partners will impose further sanctions,’ Trump added.

    Soon after, Moscow shrugged. “He is most welcome to do whatever he can do but we have our basic interests in this crisis,” Konstantin Kosachev, a member of Russia’s Federation Council told CNN, referring to the American president.

    If the circumstances seemed familiar, it’s not your imagination.

    Two days after Trump’s second inaugural, the Republican published a message to his social media platform, telling Russia that if it failed to end the conflict quickly, the White House “would have no other choice” but to impose new economic sanctions.

    Putin ignored the threat, and Trump failed to follow through.

    Roughly six weeks later, [Trump] did it again, declaring online that he was “strongly considering” new economic sanctions on Russia as a way to compel the Kremlin to agree to a ceasefire. Putin again ignored the threat, and Trump again failed to follow through.

    In late March, Trump once again said he was prepared to impose economic penalties on Russia. In keeping with the pattern, Putin ignored the threat, and Trump failed to follow through.

    Last week — for the fourth time in four months — [Trump] wrote online, “If the ceasefire is not respected, the U.S. and its partners will impose further sanctions.” For the fourth time, Russia expressed indifference.

    The problem isn’t merely that Trump keeps making threats without following through. The problem is made worse by the fact that Trump keeps coming up with new rewards for the Putin regime.

    […] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he would participate in direct negotiations in Turkey later this week — a position the Ukrainian leader adopted at Trump’s urging.

    This might’ve seemed like progress, but it was not: One day earlier, the Trump administration sided with U.S. allies in Europe on a plan intended to push Putin to accept a 30-day ceasefire. Less than 24 hours later, Trump rejected his own administration’s position, undermined U.S. allies in the process and embraced Putin’s preferred approach.

    […] The less charitable interpretation is that Trump was siding with Moscow — again.

    Even when Trump doesn’t obviously side with Moscow, he still manages to screw up negotiations … which redounds to Moscow’s benefit.

  139. says

    Don’t Get Conned By Trump’s Big, Beautiful Air Force One Boondoggle

    […] This whole episode has all the trademarks of another Trump boondoggle. While the apparent lawlessness of such an arrangement is alarming, there’s an emperor has no clothes aspect to the whole thing. Trump wants what he wants, and no one wants to tell him no. And so everyone pretends it’s possible, even to the point of entertaining wildly corrupt scenarios to make it happen. But in the end, the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own ridiculousness.

    Many more details are available at the link, including this: “The array of capabilities that Air Force One currently has are the nut of the contracting problem. There’s nothing to suggest that you can solve that problem merely by starting with a lux 747.”

  140. says

    Trump revives drug-pricing plan—but it’s mostly smoke and mirrors

    […] Trump is trying to revive a familiar campaign trick: cutting prescription drug prices. On Sunday, he announced plans to reintroduce a “most favored nation” policy aimed at capping U.S. drug costs at the lowest price offered in other countries.

    The executive order, signed on Monday, directs the U.S. trade representative and Commerce Department to go after foreign countries that “suppress” drug prices at America’s expense. It also instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to pressure pharmaceutical companies into offering their “best prices” to U.S. consumers, and calls on the Food and Drug Administration to consider expanding drug imports from nations with lower-cost drugs.

    If negotiations stall, Trump has tapped Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy to enforce the policy, which could set U.S. drug prices to match those paid by other wealthy countries. Trump, never one to understate things, suggested the move was a populist victory.

    “Our Country will finally be treated fairly,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before. Additionally, on top of everything else, the United States will save TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS.” [Wild exaggeration and bluster. Basically, it is a shouted lie.]

    But like many Trump policies, this one sounds better on paper than it works in practice.

    For starters, it’s unclear which drugs will be affected. Officials said the scope will be broader than Trump’s attempt to do this in his first term, which was limited to Medicare Part B drugs, but questions remain about whether the plan can legally reach into Medicaid or private insurance markets.

    […] If the policy ends up being narrow again, most Americans won’t notice much difference at the pharmacy counter. ABC News reported that common prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies likely won’t be impacted at all.

    And while Trump is now promising drug prices will fall by 59%, this is the same guy whose tariffs made flowers, groceries, and toys more expensive. […]

    Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a longtime advocate for health care reform, pushed back on the plan, saying that while he agrees that drug costs are too high in the U.S, “[t]he problem is not that the price of prescription drugs is too low in Europe and Canada. The problem is that the extraordinarily greedy pharmaceutical industry made over $100 billion in profits last year by ripping off the American people.” [True.]

    “Further, as Trump well knows, his executive order will be thrown out by the courts,” Sanders added.

    Naturally, the pharmaceutical industry is also pushing back. PhRMA, a major industry lobbying group, slammed the move as a “bad deal” for Americans and warned that cutting into profits could hurt future drug research and development. [I snipped PhRMA blather.]

    Analysts with the University of Southern California said the policy can’t override the basic economics of the global drug market, where U.S. consumers effectively subsidize the rest of the world. Their research suggests that many drug makers may pull out of less profitable overseas markets in order to keep their U.S. costs high. [Unintended consequences?]

    “In sum, everyone loses,” they concluded. [Yep. That seems to be a Trump specialty: concocting policies that make sure everyone loses.]

    […] when you peel back the layers, this looks less like serious policy and more like campaign theater. It may grab headlines—and could slightly boost his sagging approval rating—but it’s unclear whether it’ll actually lower your bill at the pharmacy.

  141. says

    NASA’s Webb Space Telescope captures bright auroras on Jupiter

    “The dancing colors observed on the solar system’s largest planet are hundreds of times brighter than those in Earth’s northern lights.”

    upiter’s dazzling auroras are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth, new images from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal.

    The solar system’s largest planet displays striking dancing lights when high-energy particles from space collide with atoms of gas in the atmosphere near its magnetic poles.

    Jupiter’s auroras and Earth’s Northern and Southern lights are all powered by high energy particles ejected from the sun during solar storms. But Jupiter’s lights are turned up even higher because the strong magnetic field of the planet also captures particles thrown into space from massive volcanoes on its moon Io. […]

    More at the link, including images.

  142. says

    Hamas releases American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander

    “The release came the day before President Donald Trump is set to travel to the Middle East in a trip that is expected to intensify ceasefire efforts.”

    Related video at the link.

    An American-Israeli soldier held hostage for more than 19 months in the Gaza Strip was released by Hamas on Monday.

    Edan Alexander, who is believed to be the last living U.S. citizen held captive in Gaza, was handed over to Red Cross representatives in the enclave’s southern city of Khan Younis.

    The 21-year-old was then transfered to to Israeli special forces inside the Gaza Strip, the country’s military said in a statement Monday. They subsequently returned him to Israeli territory where “he will undergo an initial medical assessment and meet with his family,” the statement added. […]

  143. birgerjohansson says

    I see the Orange One is trying to distract from his surrender to China by targeting the European Union next. Good luck with that.
    Also he got mightily irritated by questions about the $ 400 million briboplane from Qatar.

  144. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—As TV cameras were brought in for a White House meeting on Monday, a vicious battle erupted between Jeanine Pirro and Pete Hegseth over an eyebrow pencil.

    According to a witness, Hegseth was in the process of doing “a little touch up” when Pirro brazenly swiped the pencil out of his hand.

    A no-holds-barred wrestling match between the two former Fox hosts ensued, resulting in the pencil tumbling to the carpet and being pocketed by JD Vance.

    Reportedly, Hegseth was philosophical about losing the pencil since Pirro failed to abscond with the three minibar whiskeys hidden in his pants.

    Link

  145. says

    […] “I think it’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit,” Leavitt [White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt] argued. “He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service, not just once but twice.”

    Leavitt went on to claim, with a straight face, that Trump “has actually lost money for being president of the United States.”

    In response to a question about the meme coin controversy, Trump’s chief spokesperson added that the president “is abiding by all conflict of interest laws” and “has been incredibly transparent with his own personal financial obligations.”

    So, a few things.

    First, Trump didn’t leave “a life of luxury.” He lives in a presidential mansion, filled with a small army of people who call him “sir” and cater to his every whim, and spends most of his weekends at a glorified country club in Florida, where he’s surrounded by sycophantic supporters who pay handsomely to hang out at a playground for the rich.

    Second, Trump oversaw a real estate empire, but to call it “very successful” is, to put mildly, a real stretch.

    Third, given the frequency with which Trump has tried to profit off the presidency, I’d love for Leavitt to elaborate on why she considers this line of inquiry to be “ridiculous.”

    Fourth, if the White House believes Trump has been “incredibly transparent” with his finances, I have a follow-up question about the tax returns he has fought to keep secret.

    Fifth, Leavitt might want people to believe that Trump “is abiding by all conflict of interest laws,” but as she really ought to know, presidents aren’t bound by the most serious conflict of interest laws.

    Sixth, the idea that Trump “has actually lost money” while serving as president appears to be at odds with reality.

    To be sure, I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic. The president’s many grifts are the stuff of legend, and if I were his press secretary, I’d probably struggle to come up with a persuasive defense, too.

    But if Leavitt believes her talking points are going to end the corruption discussion, she’s likely to be disappointed.

    Link

  146. says

    While no one was watching Sunday night, House Republicans released their official plan to only partly pay for President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which will cut taxes for the rich and finance his evil deportations. As expected, the legislation will cut health care for millions of Americans.

    The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s legislation would cut $912 billion over the next decade, with $715 billion coming from Medicaid, the popular program that provides health insurance to more than 71 million Americans annually.

    […] The plan would make cuts to Medicaid by capping provider taxes, which states use to extract matching federal funds to cover Medicaid costs.

    The bill would also institute work requirements, which create headaches for states to verify residents’ eligibility and ultimately cause people to lose their coverage because of confusing paperwork.

    According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, work requirements are unnecessary because the vast majority of Medicaid recipients are either working, caregiving, not working because they are disabled or sick, or enrolled in school.

    The bill would also get rid of the expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits that Democrats passed in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan. This would force millions of people to lose their benefits and become unable to afford health insurance.

    Ultimately, the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency that analyzes legislation, reported that this bill would lead 13.7 million people to lose health insurance over the next decade.

    Republicans have been lying for weeks that their budgetary demand for the House Energy and Commerce Committee would not lead to Medicaid cuts. But the actual bill text shows that millions of people will indeed lose their Medicaid benefits if it passes—which at this point seems doubtful as warring factions within the GOP appear unhappy with negotiations.

    “This is not trimming fat from around the edges, it’s cutting to the bone. The overwhelming majority of the savings in this bill will come from taking health care away from millions of Americans. No where in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’—they’re cutting people’s health care and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires,” Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a news release.

    […] “If Congress cuts funding for Medicaid benefits, Missouri workers and their children will lose their health care. And hospitals will close. It’s that simple. And that pattern will replicate in states across the country,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri wrote. “Republicans need to open their eyes: Our voters support social insurance programs. More than that, our voters depend on those programs.”

    As the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

    Link

  147. Reginald Selkirk says

    Germ-theory skeptic RFK Jr. goes swimming in sewage-tainted water

    When you don’t believe in germ theory, the world is your oyster—or maybe your bathtub.

    Over the weekend, America’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., shared pictures on social media of himself fully submerged in the sewage-tinged waters of Rock Creek in Washington, DC. His grandchildren were also pictured playing in the water.

    The creek is known for having a sewage overflow problem and posing a health hazard to any who enter it. The National Park Service, which manages the Rock Creek Park, strictly bars all swimming and wading in Rock Creek and the park’s other waterways due to the contamination, specifically “high levels of bacteria.”

    A notice on the NPS website advises “Stay Dry, Stay Safe,” warning, “Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading, and other contact with the water a hazard to human (and pet) health. Please protect yourself and your pooches by staying on trails and out of the creek. All District waterways are subject to a swim ban—this means wading, too!”

    In images shared on social media, Kennedy can be seen getting fully underwater, including his head, and then splashing around with several of his grandchildren…

  148. says

    The American taxpayers have paid out at least $21 million to transport migrants to the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, between Jan. 20 (Donald Trump’s first day in office) and April 8. The information on the project, initiated by Trump, was released to Congress by U.S. Transportation Command, known asTRANSCOM.

    Currently there are 32 migrants being held at the facility, notorious as a detention site for suspected members of the al-Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban extremists of Afghanistan. The facility has held under 500 prisoners in total and never more than a maximum of 200.

    The number is a far cry from the 30,000 beds Trump in January instructed the Pentagon and the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare to hold migrants at the facility.

    According to TRANSCOM, military flights have cost taxpayers $26,277 per flight hour for over 800 flights so far. The federal government has also paid out $21 million for Guantanamo Bay flights under Trump.

    “Every American should be outraged by Donald Trump wasting military resources to pay for his political stunts that do not make us safer,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in a statement released Monday. […]

    Link
    More at the link.

  149. Reginald Selkirk says

    Arnold Schwarzenegger Riding a Dinosaur Is Somehow Normal in Wild Leaked Footage From Kung Fury 2

    Imagine a movie that features Arnold Schwarzenegger on a dinosaur, giant mech battles, time travel, David Hasselhoff as a talking Lamborghini, Michael Fassbender with a mullet, and an all-out war against Adolf Hitler. Now imagine that movie never coming out. Both are difficult concepts to fathom, but each applies to Kung Fury: The Movie.

    Written, directed, and starring David Sandberg, Kung Fury: The Movie (also referred to as Kung Fury 2) is a feature-length follow-up to a 2015 short film that you can watch on YouTube (or below). It’s a wild, tongue-in-cheek send-up of 1980s sci-fi action films that co-stars Jorma Taccone and David Hasselhoff. Based on that film’s success, a feature-length version was made that brought back Taccone and Hasselhoff, and added Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Fassbender, and Alexandra Shipp. However, a legal battle over the film’s visual effects has delayed it five years and counting…

  150. says

    Check out John Oliver’s epic takedown of this right-wing hate group

    On April 30, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, a case that addresses whether Oklahoma is required to provide public funding to the Catholic Church for operating a religious charter school.

    While the case is expected to be decided next month, John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” focused less on the case itself and more on the dodgy organization behind it: the Alliance Defending Freedom. Known as the ADF, it has been certified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group—and for good reason.

    Now led by far-right lawyer Kristen Waggoner, the ADF has flooded the court system with so-called “religious freedom” cases. Oliver began his exposé with a focus on the group’s founder, James Dobson, who many would remember for creating the anti-LGBTQ hate group Focus on the Family. Dobson infamously warned that same-sex marriage would lead to “marriage between a man and his donkey.” […]

    [video at the link]

    As detestable as it is, the ADF has played a significant role in shaping our country’s current legal landscape. This is the same group behind last summer’s legal attack on the abortion pill mifepristone, and the same group of reactionaries that successfully defended a Christian baker’s discriminatory practices against a same-sex couple he refused to make a cake for in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

    The group’s most devastating victory was the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and stripped federal protections for abortion rights for millions.

    Oliver summed it up […]

    “This is a group that will talk winsomely about personal liberty, all while fearmongering about softball players that don’t exist, shitty studies that don’t apply, and pedophile cakes that no one will ever order,” he said. […]

    So while most people would assume the upcoming charter school case to be a foregone matter of separation between church and state, the ADF’s egregious influence on our judiciary means the outcome is far from certain.

  151. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reginald Selkirk @147: That is a weird activity, curled up in fetal position in knee-deep water.

  152. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-reps-art-of-the-deal-selves

    “Trump Reps ‘Art Of The Deal’ Selves Into Caving To China AGAIN”
    “This is all so embarrassing.”

    Well, well, well, a waxen Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and tousle-haired trade rep. Jamieson Greer have emerged from a weekend of talking in a conference room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva […]

    Scott B. and JG ended up with a final offer of 30 percent for 90 days, after Trump had talked himself down to 80 percent on Friday. Hey, those tariffs were supposed to make us RICH RICH RICH and make all the little girls grateful! What happened to that?

    The 30 percent is 10 percent plus some 20 percent because of fentanyl-something, and the Chinese were like, sure, whatever, we said a month ago we would match whatever percent you do, so 10 percent on our side, and we’ll let you buy critical minerals again.

    Watch Jamieson and Scott B., both looking haggard and miserable, explaining that this is all China’s fault for reciprocating after Trump started the whole thing, leading to an effective embargoing of ourselves. Behold how Scott B.’s heavy pancake makeup is not blended with his neck or hairline at all while he tries to say this is all big strategery, we were just negging, us and China are still a couple! [video at the link]

    But China has already found new suppliers for its soybeans and such. It’s the economic equivalent of shoving pencils and Barbie legs up your nose because it feels so good to pull them out, but giving yourself a brain bleed in the process.

    Trump’s art o’deal is supposed to be about screwing the other guy, and surprise, America, you are the other guy! Thirty percent is still a massive […] regressive tax that will make for price hikes all over the place, and hit Joe Bigbox Shopper hardest of all. The tariffs are on pause for 90 days, and/but who knows with Trump, he could get a bug up his ass at any time, really.

    […] The dollar is surging and the Wall Street journal is gushing “Surprise U.S.-China Trade Deal Gives Global Economy a Reprieve,” but, how much of one and for how long remains to be seen.

    Will the slow boats from China start coming back into port with their ready-to-be taxed lucre? Will our stevedores be contenders again? Will voters properly blame Trump for making them pay 30 percent more for video games, car seats, cars, and sports equipment for their handsome little boys? [Slow boat to China video at the link]

  153. Reginald Selkirk says

    Donald Trump claims he invented ‘the best word.’ It’s been around since 1599

    …
    On Monday, the president claimed he invented a “new word” while talking about his proposal to lower drug prices by 80%.

    Basically, what we’re doing is equalizing. There’s a new word that I came up with, which is probably the best word,” he said.

    “We’re gonna equalize where we’re all gonna pay the same. We’re gonna pay what Europe’s gonna pay …” he continued.

    But “equalize” didn’t just enter the English vocabulary on Monday.

    According to Webster’s dictionary, “equalize” was first used in 1599…

  154. says

    Washington Post link

    “Ukraine works with Europe to ready new Russia sanctions after no ceasefire”

    “Russia has called for direct negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul, but Ukraine’s European allies maintain Putin needs to be pressured into a ceasefire first.”

    European leaders pushed forward their demand that Russia implement a total land, air and sea ceasefire in Ukraine by midnight Monday or face crippling sanctions. [Unlike Trump, European leaders will follow though on their plans to sanction Russia … to sanction Russia even more.]

    The Europeans reiterated their ultimatum after Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected the ceasefire and proposed holding direct negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul on Thursday instead. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready to meet Putin in Istanbul even though his Russian counterpart had given no indication he himself would be part of the process.

    Despite the U.S. and European ultimatum for a Monday ceasefire, Russia has continued to attack Ukrainian troops across the front lines, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

    “Moscow squanders another opportunity to put an end to the killings. This once again demonstrates that Russia’s only goal is to prolong the war,” he posted on X, after a virtual meeting with his European counterparts who had gathered in London. “We discussed strong steps that can be taken, including sanctions against Russia’s banking, central bank, and energy sectors, combined with new defense assistance packages for Ukraine.”

    European leaders traveled to Kyiv and issued a joint statement Saturday calling on Putin to introduce a 30-day unconditional ceasefire after months of U.S.-led talks with the Kremlin yielded no results.

    […] Although Moscow says there are no preconditions for negotiations, Russia is demanding that the talks on Thursday be based on a document that Russia proposed in Istanbul in 2022 that was never agreed to by Ukraine. The document was contentious because it slashed Ukraine’s military and gave Russia a veto over any future military assistance to it, as well as locking Kyiv out of NATO. [Yep. That sounds like Russian “diplomacy.”]

    The document would have left Ukraine incapable of defending itself from a future Russian attack.

    […] European leaders were noticeably irked by Trump breaking with their position less than 24 hours after it had been agreed. Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on social media shortly after Trump’s post that a ceasefire must happen before any talks. […]

  156. birgerjohansson says

    If RFK Jr. wants to expose himself to germs, I say “Go for it!”
    And please convert everyone around Trump to the same belief.

  158. Reginald Selkirk says

    Episcopal Church says it won’t help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status in US

    The Episcopal Church’s migration service is refusing a directive from the federal government to help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status, citing the church’s longstanding “commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.”

    Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe announced the step Monday, shortly before 59 South Africans arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington on a private charter plane and were greeted by a government delegation.

    Episcopal Migration Ministries instead will halt its decades-long partnership with the government, Rowe said…

    “In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” Rowe said. “Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.”

    Another faith-based group, Church World Service, said it is open to helping resettle the Afrikaners…

  160. Reginald Selkirk says

    CERN boffins turn lead into gold for about a microsecond at unimaginable cost

    The dream of every medieval alchemist – turning lead into gold – has finally come true thanks to some impractical physics at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

    Physicists at the multibillion-euro atom smasher near Geneva managed to transmute lead into gold during high-speed ion collisions, proving that you can defy nature if you throw enough money, energy, and hardware at the problem. Sadly – if you’re an alchemist, and less so if you’re a physicist – their golden bounty lasted for about a microsecond and weighed less than a fart in a vacuum.

    This glittery miracle occurred not through occult incantations or dodgy tinctures, but by aiming beams of lead at each other, travelling at close to the speed of light. Occasionally, instead of colliding head-on, the ions whizz past each other, close enough for their electromagnetic fields to get frisky. In rare moments of subatomic magic, a lead nucleus gets so rattled it ejects three protons, spontaneously reinventing itself as gold. Transmutation achieved…

  163. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    On Bluesky, Dana R. Fisher reported a DOGE stand-off at the Library of Congress today.

    Capitol Police contacted her to stop spreading misinfo: their agency hadn’t denied entry or escorted anyone out. That post was deleted, but Wired published the story, including the denial, but Wired hadn’t confirmed private security, etc. Capitol Police separately said “We are always there,” no denied entry, no arrests, no escort by them, and stood by their statements when asked about Wired.

    Allegedly, two men presented a document to LoC security claiming to be newly appointed Brian Nieves (deputy librarian), and Paul Perkins (acting director of the Copyright Office, as well as acting Registrar). Unclear if identities were confirmed.

    Per LinkedIn, Brian Nieves is deputy chief of staff for the Deputy AG, and a Paul Perkins is associate deputy AG at DoJ.

    Politico confirmed DoJ employees arrived at LoC and left when library officials resisted. Capitol Police was called then told they were unneeded.

    Robert Randolph Newlen (the deputy librarian under the departed Librarian Hayden) is currently acting librarian. He did not immediately recognize the validity of Trump’s pick for acting librarian, Deputy AG Todd Blanche. Newlen is awaiting direction from Congress. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wants to get the process done correctly and didn’t answer whether Trump has authority to name an acting Librarian inside the legislative branch. Politico framed this as rare push back from Republican leadership. Per CBS, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said a congressional commission should make the appointment.

    Blanche was a NY lawyer who failed to stave off Trump’s 34 felonies falsifying biz docs.

    Wired updated its story with confirmation from DoJ that Nieves and Perkins had been appointed to lead the Copyright Office, though not whether they had attempted to enter the Copyright Office today.
    —
    Mueller, She Wrote: “It’s weird to learn what the red lines are for congressional Republicans.”

    Eric Columbus: “Congress can solve this with legislation to make the Librarian of Congress a congressionally appointed position—it did the same in 2023 for the Architect of the Capitol.”

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “isn’t the Library of Congress not covered by the [Federal Vacancies Reform Act—to permit Prez-picked actings]? It only covers officers of an ‘Executive Agency,’ which the Library of Congress is not. […] Trump doesn’t appear to have any statutory authority to make this appointment.”
     
    NYT
    https://archive.is/L636y

    Representative Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration and a member of the Joint Committee on the Library, said the move to fire Ms. Perlmutter and Ms. Hayden amounted to a power grab by the executive branch
    […]
    Morelle led five other House Democrats in calling for an investigation into whether the library had given [DOGE] or other executive branch agencies unauthorized access to congressional or library data.

     
    CBS
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/todd-blanche-trump-attorney-librarian-of-congress/

    So I may have been mistaken @59 about the ability to fire.

  164. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Also from NYT @163:

    Staff members at the library called the U.S. Capitol Police as well as their general counsel, Meg Williams, who told the men they were not allowed access to the Copyright Office and asked them to leave […] Mr. Perkins and Mr. Nieves then left the building willingly, accompanied to the door by Ms. Williams. The library’s staff is recognizing Robert Newlen, […] Ms. Hayden’s No. 2, as acting librarian until they get direction from Congress

  165. JM says

    @163 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain: I did some reading and the position of the Librarian of Congress is a mess. The job has duties that should be legislative, executive and judicial. The Congressional Research Service should be part of the legislative branch, Congress needs it’s own information independent of the executive. The national library should be executive branch. The duties related to copy right and DCMA rules are judicial duties.
    The position is appointed by the President but there doesn’t seem to be clear rules for who can fire them. The Project 2025 people are likely pushing the issue in part because they feel that any job the President can appoint the President should be able to fire at will. They don’t like the idea of the semi and quasi independent agencies that don’t directly answer to the President.

  166. says

    NPR:

    The Trump administration has tightened its control over the independent agency responsible for overseeing America’s nuclear reactors, and it is considering an executive order that could further erode its autonomy, two U.S. officials who declined to speak publicly because they feared retribution told NPR. Going forward, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must send new rules regarding reactor safety to the White House, where they will be reviewed and possibly edited.

    What could possibly go wrong?

  167. StevoR says

    The defeated leftovers of the Leftovers that is the Aussie (misnamed – regressive) Liberal party has a new leader :

    Sussan Ley will be the new Liberal leader, beating conservative rival Angus Taylor to become the first woman to lead the federal party in its 80-year history. The 63-year-old former deputy leader, who was backed by the moderate faction, received 29 partyroom votes compared to Treasury spokesperson Mr Taylor’s 25.

    Ted O’Brien, who was most recently the party’s energy spokesperson and one of the key architects of the Coalition’s nuclear plan, will take the role of deputy leader, defeating Phil Thompson in the ballot 38-16.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-13/liberal-party-new-leader-sussan-ley/105285148

    Sussan Ley changed her name from Susan to Sussan because of numerology so, yeah, I don’t think she’s going to bring really rational decision-making to the table here – but I will admit I’m surprised they actually chose a relative moderate and a woman and, for once, she’s the better of the poor choices the Libs had.

    She’s an improvement over Scummo – our worst ever PM -and the Gestapotato Dutton – the most recent LNP leaders although that’s a very low bar to clear. I don’t think she’ll last or succeed as she’s been handed the metaphorical poisoned chalice but well, she’s the best leader they’ve had since Turnbull & it will be intresting to see if she can drag the Libs back a bit from their turn to the reichwing worst.

  168. John Morales says

    This has to be the most wholesome, family-friendly fantasy book I’ve read in years:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legends_%26_Lattes

    I mention it because, and maybe it’s just my perception, I get a very subtle but subversive LGBTQ+ vibe out of it; pareidolia perhaps, but given that I’m damn straight I think it’s there)

  169. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    404Media – Republicans try to cram ban on AI regulation into budget reconciliation bill

    “…no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10 year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act,”

    […] The text of the bill will be considered by the House at the budget reconciliation markup on May 13.

    Examples of current state regulations at the link.

    ‪Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “This is so vague that it could ban the regulation of any kind of algorithm whatsoever; ‘automated decision system’ is an extremely broad term!”

    Alan Mygatt-Tauber (Law prof): “does this mean credit checks would be illegal?”

    Missing the Point: “Did AI write the budget reconciliation bill?”

    Randos:

    “You’re not allowed to take away our revenge p*rn machine” is now official Republican Party policy.

    a ton of these models have been coaxed into bypassing their safety blocks and producing artificial CSAM

    This is way bigger than LLMs. This means that states can’t enforce anti-discrimination laws if an automated hiring platforms discriminates based on race or a credit card acceptance system discriminates against women. Even if the system intentionally discriminates.

    every single terrible social media bill is about regulating The Algorithm™, and this would just completely take that completely off the table. 95% of the potential implications of this are horrible and the other 5% are ABSOLUTE HILARITY.

    This would ironically ban states from using AI in any systemic way.

    Take robotaxis. The law is “human drives car”. Some states make exceptions but these are AI regulations. […] are all car laws void as applied to any car with adaptive cruise control?

    Doesn’t everything in the reconciliation bill have to have a budgetary impact? […] This feels like something the parliamentarian will just strip out. […] a Senator would have to challenge this under the Byrd rule. But boy, if not ONE Senator is willing to raise their hand on this, I’ll be shocked.

    The last time the Republicans had a problem with the parliamentarian, they simply fired them and appointed somebody who would go along with their bullshit.

     
    Rando: “In Biden’s first term, when Ds controlled Congress, they did not pass a bipartisan data privacy and protection bill because California Ds would not accept preemption of state law. Seems quaint now.”

    Brandi Bennett‬: “Preemption has been the primary faultline over and over [both with] Republicans and Democrats in federal privacy bills. Over 20 states have state privacy laws now bc the fedgov didn’t pass a fed privacy bill.”

    Brandi Bennett (Privacy and tech attorney):

    this would also preempt State Privacy Laws. This has been my nightmare since the GOP took Congress […] Privacy is FOUNDATIONAL to Free Speech, Protest, Association, Health, & so many other rights. Call your Reps.
    […]
    The 17 year old girl driving from Wisconsin to Minnesota to visit a Planned Parenthood needs Privacy.

    The 60 year old going to the doctor needs privacy so his employer doesn’t terminate him before retirement.

    The gay person living in your conservative town needs Privacy.
    […]
    WE ALL NEED PRIVACY.

  170. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    [Kristi Noem] is terminating Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan—meaning they may start deporting women and allies who protected our troops to the Taliban to be persecuted or killed!

    If Kristi Noem were to visit Afghanistan, she would be banned from even SPEAKING IN PUBLIC, and yet today she declares that deporting people to the Taliban is actually completely fine—while Trump welcomes a planeload of Afrikaners allegedly facing “persecution.”

    [CNN – Taliban bans the sound of women’s voices singing or reading in public (2024)]

    Another rule in that article: “It is forbidden for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.”

  172. birgerjohansson says

    John Morales @ 168
    Dire-cat? I must have that book.

    I would also recommend the graphic novel Rat Queens about a band of warriorettes with very varied backgrounds.

    An exchange at a city wall with an orch lady in the hostile army standing below:
    “-Are you the godsdamned Rat Queens?”
    “-We are the godsdamned Rat Queens, what do you want?”
    “You bastards killed my boyfriend!”
    “We have killed lots of people’s boyfriends, why do you think we killed yours?”
    (Points at guard standing at the side, trying to be inconspicuous) “He told me.”
    (Rat Queen group glares at him) “Great work, Mel”.

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