Comments

  1. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump Organization Announces Mobile Plan, $499 Smartphone

    The Trump Organization on Monday unveiled a mobile phone plan and a $499 smartphone that is set to launch in September. CNBC:

    The new service, Trump Mobile, will offer a $47.45-per-month plan that includes “unlimited” talk, text and data, as well as roadside assistance and a “Telehealth and Pharmacy Benefit,” according to its website. The company, owned by President Donald Trump, also announced it will sell a “T1” smartphone, which appears to feature a gold-colored metal case etched with an American flag.

  2. says

    For the convenience of readers here are a few links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-8/#comment-2268867
    Trump directs ICE to expand deportation efforts in Democratic-run cities

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-8/#comment-2268865
    A small city in Tennessee has discovered their Assistant Chief of Police is a Q Anon Kook

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-8/#comment-2268857
    Familiar transition to use of force in LA, on camera as it occurred.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-8/#comment-2268848
    No Kings turnout estimates are coming in, and they are staggering. It is estimated that between 5 and 12 million people participated in over 2,000 events nationwide.

  3. Reginald Selkirk says

    Astronomers Just Solved the Mystery of the Universe’s Missing Matter

    Decades ago, astronomers estimated that “ordinary” matter (basically everything that isn’t dark matter or dark energy) makes up 5% of the universe. There was just one problem—they had no idea where most of it was.

    Astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have tracked down the universe’s “missing” matter. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) indicate that over three-quarters of ordinary matter, officially called baryonic matter, exists in the form of hot, low-density gas between galaxies. With this data, they claim to have documented the first detailed measurements of ordinary matter’s distribution throughout the universe…

  5. says

    Followup to Reginald in comment 1.

    In the months leading up to Election Day 2024, when Donald Trump was ostensibly focused on his candidacy, the Republican launched a dizzying merchandising campaign, pitching everything from Trump-branded watches to silver Trump commemorative coins, batches of digital trading cards to a weird cryptocurrency project, gold sneakers to Trump-endorsed Bibles.

    Even after the president won a second term, the efforts have continued with, among other things, Trump-branded guitars — all of which have proved to be quite lucrative for him, according to Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure statement.

    As for those consumers who’ve already stocked up on all kinds of Trump-branded items, but who are still asking, “Where’s my Trump phone?” I have some good news. NBC News reported:

    President Donald Trump’s business organization has announced the creation of a new wireless phone service that will carry the president’s name. Trump Mobile, as the service will be known, will soon be available for what Donald Trump Jr. described as ‘real Americans’ seeking ‘true value from their mobile carriers.’

    The wireless service plan will apparently start at $47.45 a month — which might sound like an odd number, but the incumbent Republican is the nation’s 47th and 45th president.

    […] according to the president’s oldest sons, a $499 phone, dubbed the T1, will be available later this year. It will be, you guessed it, gold-colored.

    NBC News’ report added, “The service and phone are not actually made by the Trump Organization. Rather, the company is licensing the president’s name to a separate, unnamed wireless carrier.” This is, of course, how the president’s business tends to operate: The Trump Organization didn’t make guitars, watches or sneakers, either; it just entered into licensing deals.

    Among the many questions is where the phones will be made, and with this in mind, Eric Trump declared as part of the rollout that “eventually” the products could be manufactured in the United States.[LOL] How long that will take — and whether Trump will impose tariffs on his own products in the meantime — remains to be seen.

    But let’s also not forget that this new venture won’t be the first time the Trump Organization has ventured into this space. Remember this Washington Post report from nearly seven years ago?

    Four anonymous plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against President Trump, his business and his three eldest children in federal court Monday, alleging that the Trumps helped promote fraudulent investments that duped investors. At issue are promotional spots and speeches that Trump made on behalf of marketing company ACN, also known as American Communications Network, which charged $499 for the chance to sell video phones licensed by the company, and sometimes extracted thousands of dollars later to have a chance of recouping the money.

    Trump ultimately made three speeches for ACN, receiving $450,000 for each, and told potential investors in marketing videos that the opportunity came “without any of the risks most entrepreneurs have to take” and that his endorsement was “not for any money.” [It was a scam, and Trump lied.]

    The folks who filed the lawsuit claimed the entire gambit was a fraud, though a federal judge last year rejected the case, concluding that it would be better pursued in a different venue.

    Now, evidently, the Trump Organization has decided to jump back into related waters.

  6. says

    Revisiting Trump’s prediction about stopping ‘all wars,’ five months later

    “The president’s predictions about his administration’s ability to “stop all wars” and “bring a new spirit of unity” to the world now lie in tatters.”

    Related video at the link.

    Donald Trump’s second inaugural address was bizarre for a great many reasons. The Republican president, newly returned to power, delivered remarks that were dishonest, small, petty and conspiratorial in equal measure. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    But when the speech turned to international affairs, Trump was also oddly ambitious. “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier,” he declared, adding soon after, “We will be a nation like no other, full of compassion, courage and exceptionalism. Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable. America will be respected again and admired again.”

    When it comes to improving international respect and admiration for the United States, Trump is already failing spectacularly. As for the president’s prediction that he’d strengthen the country to such a point that we’d “stop all wars” and “bring a new spirit of unity” to the world, it appears international conditions are proving to be more “angry, violent and totally unpredictable” than he expected. The New York Times reported:

    The war in Ukraine could be ended in as little as 24 hours, he said. He would knock heads to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to stop the fighting in Gaza. And he said he would strike a nuclear deal with Iran, ‘because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.’

    Trump’s failed promises on resolving Russia’s war in Ukraine are an ongoing embarrassment, and the Republican’s latest position is, effectively, to stop trying. “Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while,” he said a couple of weeks ago, referring to a conflict he repeatedly told Americans he’d end on his first day.

    Trump’s failed promises on resolving the crisis in Gaza follow his boasts in December about how much “easier” he saw the conflict, as compared to the war in Ukraine — the combat he said he’d end in one day.

    And Trump’s failed promises on reaching a new nuclear agreement with Iran now appear increasingly out of reach, in part because he directed Israel not to attack Iran ahead of the next round of diplomatic talks, and Israel ignored him. His new position related to Israel and Iran is, “Sometimes they have to fight it out,” which is nearly identical to the phrasing he used earlier this month about Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.

    Or put another way, five months into his term, Trump’s predictions about his administration’s ability to “stop all wars” and “bring a new spirit of unity” to the world lie in tatters. Indeed, conditions in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran are worse now than when he first made the comments.

    During Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East, he boasted about how close he was to diplomatic breakthroughs. “I will tell you that the world is a much safer place right now,” he said at the time. “And I think it will be even safer in two or three weeks.”

    As The Washington Post reported on Friday, “That was four weeks ago.”

  7. JM says

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-8/#comment-2268867
    Notice also this bit:

    “ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” the president added.

    Trump is claiming the Truth social post is an official order from the office of the president. This is a mandate for madness as low level agents may get directives before their supervisors or before there are any plans. What happens when Trump issues a post that sounds like an order to arrest a specific person or something else direct?

  8. says

    For law firms that appeased Trump, the consequences go from bad to worse

    “The firms that struck deals with the White House are losing clients, partners, associates and credibility within the industry.”

    After Donald Trump launched an unprecedented offensive against prominent law firms, four of the firms chose to fight back against the president’s authoritarian-style assault. Given that the quartet filed separate lawsuits against the White House, and they’re undefeated in court so far, it appears they made the smart decision.

    As The New York Times recently noted after one of the four firms’ court victories, “The ruling seemed to validate the strategy, embraced by a minority of firms, of fighting the administration instead of caving to a pressure campaign and making deals with Mr. Trump to avoid persecution.”

    For the rest of the targeted firms, the consequences of their misjudgment have gone from bad to worse. Reuters reported:

    A group of seven partners is leaving Willkie Farr & Gallagher, which struck a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump in April to avert an executive order targeting its business, to join Cooley, which is representing one of the law firms fighting Trump’s orders. … There was widespread dissatisfaction in Willkie’s San Francisco office over the firm’s agreement with the administration, according to a source familiar with the matter who said as many as 15 associates have expressed interest in leaving.

    Other firms that chose a Trump appeasement strategy are facing similar problems: Damian Williams, the former top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, recently announced that he’s leaving Paul Weiss (one of the firms that struck a deal with the White House) and joining Jenner & Block (one of the firms that fought back).

    Indeed, it’s been difficult to keep up with the number of partners who’ve abandoned Paul Weiss in recent weeks as a result of its Trump agreement.

    In case that weren’t enough, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that at least 11 big companies “are moving work away from law firms that settled with the administration or are giving — or intend to give — more business to firms that have been targeted but refused to strike deals.”

    The article added, “In interviews, general counsels expressed concern about whether they could trust law firms that struck deals to fight for them in court and in negotiating big deals if they weren’t willing to stand up for themselves against Trump.”

    Let’s also not forget that some of these same firms are also starting to realize that their deals with the president are worse than they first realized.

    The entire strategy has backfired spectacularly. From the firms’ perspective, appeasement was supposed to guarantee relative tranquility and client satisfaction. Instead, these firms are losing clients, partners, associates and credibility within the industry.

    If that weren’t quite enough, The New York Times reported that the firms that have already prevailed against the White House have noticed that Trump and his lawyers haven’t even appealed their defeats in court.

    W. Bradley Wendel, a law professor at Cornell who is an authority on legal ethics, told the Times, in reference to White House officials, “They knew that these were losing positions from the beginning and were not actually hoping to win in court, but rather to intimidate firms into settling, as many firms did. Now that they have racked up the four losses in district courts, it is not surprising that they are not appealing, because I don’t think they ever thought these were serious positions.”

    The firms that tried to placate and pacify the president must be kicking themselves right about now. All they had to do was defend themselves, their profession, the law and the integrity of the system itself, and they could’ve avoided all kinds of problems.

    But it’s also worth remembering that it might not be too late for the firms to course-correct. I’m reminded anew of a recent NBC News report about a progressive group that launched a media campaign targeting the firms that reached deals with the president. […]

    The underlying point of these efforts isn’t to chastise the firms for making the wrong decision; it’s to remind those firms that it’s not too late to reverse course and join the ranks of the firms resisting Trump’s gambit.

    Will any of the firms abandon their existing deals? If one firm does it, will others follow? Watch this space.

  9. says

    JM @7, good points.

    Related:

    […] While political violence has been a recurring feature of American political life, what marks the Trump era and makes it so different is that the president of the United States has immersed himself with almost gleeful fascination in violent threats, themes, urges, and impulses. Trump mythologizes violence.

    For a decade now, Trump has fed his supporters with ever more lavish displays of violence – ugly threats and smears, mass deportations, harsh reprisals against foes, an attack on the Capitol. The episodic violence serve as totems of their tribalism. Over time, it takes ever greater shows of violence to feed the hunger for it. The next performative violence must out-do what came before.

    It’s not clear where it ends. But it’s not nearly over yet.

    The Weekend’s Major Deportation Developments

    Under political pressure, the Trump administration abruptly shifted its deportation focus away from enforcement actions in the agricultural industry, hotel, and restaurant industries, the NYT reports.

    The Trump administration is considering adding 36 countries to its travel ban list, but countries can avoid being added to the list if they agree to accept third-country nationals deported from the United States, according to an internal memo reviewed by the WaPo.

    In an unhinged social media post, President Trump directed federal immigration officials to prioritize deportations from Democratic-run cities […]

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/a-searing-weekend-of-political-violence-in-america

  10. says

    Kennedy’s HHS sent Congress ‘junk science’ to defend vaccine changes

    A document the Department of Health and Human Services sent to lawmakers to support Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to change U.S. policy on COVID vaccines cites scientific studies that are unpublished or under dispute and mischaracterizes others.

    One health expert called the document “willful medical disinformation” about the safety of COVID vaccines for children and pregnant women.

    “It is so far out of left field that I find it insulting to our members of Congress that they would actually give them something like this. Congress members are relying on these agencies to provide them with valid information, and it’s just not there,” said Mark Turrentine, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine. [PDF available at the link]

    […] The HHS document meant to support Kennedy’s decision, obtained by KFF Health News, was sent to members of Congress […] The document has not been posted on the HHS website, though it is the first detailed explanation of Kennedy’s announcement from the agency.

    Titled “COVID Recommendation FAQ,” the document distorts some legitimate studies and cites others that are disputed and unpublished, medical experts say.

    HHS director of communications Andrew Nixon told KFF Health News, “There is no distortion of the studies in this document. The underlying data speaks for itself, and it raises legitimate safety concerns. HHS will not ignore that evidence or downplay it. We will follow the data and the science.” […]

    One of the studies the HHS document cites is under investigation by its publisher regarding “potential issues with the research methodology and conclusions and author conflicts of interest,” according to a link on the study’s webpage.

    […] Another study cited in the document is a preprint that has not been peer-reviewed. Under the study’s title is an alert that “it reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.” Though the preprint was made available a year ago, it has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. [Screengrab at the link]

    The FAQ supporting Kennedy’s decision claims that “post-marketing studies” of COVID vaccines have identified “serious adverse effects, such as an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis” — conditions in which the heart’s muscle or its covering, the pericardium, suffer inflammation.

    False claims that the 2024 preprint showed myocarditis and pericarditis only in people who received a COVID vaccine, and not in people infected with COVID, circulated on social media. One of the study’s co-authors publicly rejected that idea, because the study did not compare outcomes between people who were vaccinated and those infected with the COVID virus. The study also focused only on children and adolescents. The HHS document omitted numerous other peer-reviewed studies that have shown that the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis is greater after contracting COVID for both vaccinated and non-vaccinated people than the risk of the same complications after vaccination alone. [Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his lackeys ignore the details.]

    O’Leary said that while some cases of myocarditis were reported in vaccinated adolescent boys and young men early in the COVID pandemic, the rates declined after the two initial doses of COVID vaccines were spaced further apart.

    Now, adolescents and adults who have not been previously vaccinated receive only one shot, and myocarditis no longer shows up in the data, O’Leary said, referring to the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink. “There is no increased risk at this point that we can identify,” he said.

    In two instances, the HHS memo makes claims that are actively refuted by the papers it cites to back them up. Both papers support the safety and effectiveness of COVID vaccines for pregnant women.

    The HHS document says that another paper it cites found “an increase in placental blood clotting in pregnant mothers who took the vaccine.” But the paper doesn’t contain any reference to placental blood clots or to pregnant women. [!]

    […] While members of Congress who are physicians should know to check references in the paper, they may not take the time to do so, said Neil Silverman, a professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology who directs the Infectious Diseases in Pregnancy Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “They’re going to assume this is coming from a scientific agency. So they are being hoodwinked along with everyone else who has had access to this document,” Silverman said.

    Cartoon by Clay Jones

    […] “This feels like it’s breaking new ground. I don’t think that we saw this level of sloppiness or inattention to detail or lack of consideration for scientific merit under the first Trump administration,” Young [C.J. Young, deputy communications director for the House Energy and Commerce Committee] said.

    On June 4, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Schrier introduced a bill that would require Kennedy to adopt official vaccine decisions from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Young said the motivation behind the bill was Kennedy’s decision to change the COVID vaccine schedule without the input of ACIP’s vaccine experts, who play a key role in setting CDC policies around vaccine schedules and access.

    Kennedy announced June 9 on X that he would remove all 17 members of ACIP, citing alleged conflicts of interest he did not detail, and replace them. He announced eight replacements June 11, including people who had criticized vaccine mandates during the COVID pandemic.

  12. says

    Yesterday was not only a bad look for the Grand Lord Doofus Trumpelthinskin, it also revealed quite a bit about what the military thinks about Pete Hegseth.

    Military leaders know exactly what a military parade should look like. Above all, they know it should project respect and honor at multiple levels, especially towards chain of command and what separates our military from that of every other military service on the planet — civilian oversight and leadership.

    From the shambling shuffle of the troops to the deeply ironic musical selections, it was clear that This Is Not Pete Hegseth’s (and by extension, Cadet Bone Spur’s) military. Hegseth’s crusade about “warriors” and the “warfighting mindset” were fully NOT on display yesterday. The soldiers looked like they could care less about being there and the music was listless and played with a decidedly “low energy” effort.

    And about that music:

    … the repeated playing of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s classic “Fortunate Son” — a song that virtually the entire world knows by now was written during the Vietnam era as a slam against wealthy draft dodgers. The assumption being made by at least a few tweeters was that this had to be some kind of deliberate trolling of the president by someone on the music selection team who just has it in for him. Because if you were going to make a top 10 list of songs that Trump should not want to have played at any of his events — but most of all not at a military-themed ceremony — “Fortunate Son” would certainly be No. 1.

    In 2020, in fact, no less a figure than the song’s author, John Fogerty (a military veteran), directly made the connection between Trump and the rich kids who got out of the draft that he was writing about back in the day. “It seems like he is probably the Fortunate Son,” Fogerty said at the time. There could hardly be a worse insult.

    A parade to celebrate the Army’s 250th anniversary would have looked very different under any other defense secretary. They appointed competent leaders who commanded and had earned the respect of those they lead. However you want to call it, esprit du corps, high morale and unit cohesion were all missing from yesterday’s performance.

    Trump’s DooDah Parade was a big middle finger to DUI hire Hegseth and his “warrior ethos”. And the Felon-in-Chief has no one else to blame for this, because he’s the one who appointed him.

    Link

  13. JM says

    MSN: Ukraine liberates Andriivka near Sumy border as Zelenskyy hails frontline success

    Ukrainian forces have liberated Andriivka in the border areas of the Sumy region and made gains in the Pokrovsk direction, says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
    Zelenskyy said he had received a battlefield update from Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi on Friday, June 14. The briefing focused on frontline developments and Ukraine’s ongoing offensive operations.

    Andriivka isn’t significant except it’s current location in the war. Russia took the village at the start of June as part of setting up a buffer between Ukrainian and Russian lines and preparing for the Russian summer offensive. Retaking the village throws a big wrench in the Russian plans.

  14. Reginald Selkirk says

    Your Next Instant Pot Might Be Made by Donald Trump

    Donald Trump sells everything from Trump-branded Bibles to MAGA sneakers, as the billionaire hustler profits from the presidency in a way that no other U.S. leader has ever attempted. And it looks like we can add a few more products to the list today, including a MAGA Instant Pot, if you can believe it.

    The new Instant Pot is being dubbed the 45/47 Collaboration, according to a new report from Semafor, a reference to Trump being both the 45th and 47th president of the United States. It’s not clear yet what the MAGA Instant Pot will look like exactly, but it’s likely to include the tagline “Make America Great Again,” and will be publicly available starting July 4.
    …
    The Instant Pot isn’t the only new collaboration Trump is trying on with a home goods company. Lenox Corporation is also planning to make “fine porcelain dinnerware” that features images like the White House logo. Gold-plated utensils along with MAGA glasses are also in the works, according to the news outlet. Bedding companies like Live Comfortably and Simply Interior Homes have also been looking at producing MAGA products.

    A representative for the brands working on Trump products told Semafor: “All of these companies […] are extremely supportive of President Trump and the MAGA Agenda, standing with the president with their efforts to onshore and show public support.”
    …

  18. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @14:

    new collaboration Trump is trying on with a home goods company. Lenox Corporation

    Some of them want to be abused.

  19. Reginald Selkirk says

    @17

    Donald Trump repeats call for Russia to be readmitted at G7 summit in Canada

    Trump needs to read up on the concept of “political capital.” When you have pissed off virtually everyone in the world, you have less pull in affecting their decisions.

    Also, I am disappointed that Canada let him into their country. They could have claimed they have regulations against admitting convicted felons.

  20. Reginald Selkirk says

    That ‘Unsubscribe’ Button Could Be a Trap, Researchers Warn

    Researchers are cautioning users against clicking unsubscribe links embedded in email bodies, citing new data showing such actions can expose recipients to malicious websites and confirm active email addresses to attackers. DNSFilter found that one in every 644 clicks on unsubscribe links leads users to potentially malicious websites.
    …

    Has this not been common knowledge for 20 years or so?

  21. Reginald Selkirk says

    Minnesota suspect attempted to kill two other state lawmakers, officials say

    A man who is accused of killing a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband, and injuring another state lawmaker and his wife, allegedly attempted to kill two other state lawmakers, Minnesota officials said on Monday.

    Vance Luther Boelter, 57, who is charged with fatally shooting Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota Democrat, and her husband, Mark, visited the homes of three other state lawmakers in “truly chilling” attacks, US Attorney Joseph H Thompson said.

    Mr Boelter, who police said researched the victims and their families beforehand, allegedly had planned for a larger scale attack, which police thwarted.
    …
    They also announced that Mr Boelter faces six federal charges, some of which make him eligible for the death penalty. At the federal level, he faces two counts of stalking, two counts of murder, and two firearms-related charges.

    Separately, at the state level Mr Boelter is charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder at the state level.

    That answers my concerns of #4

    After allegedly shooting the Hoffmans, Mr Boelter drove to another state representative’s home and rang the doorbell there, Thompson said.

    That state representative was not home, Thompson said, noting that she and her family were on vacation. Authorities did not reveal her name.

    He then drove to a third lawmaker’s home, allegedly targeting them, Thompson said. Officials did not reveal the name of that state lawmaker, either.

    Thompson said an officer pulled up next to Mr Boelter in his vehicle and assumed he was a police officer, dispatched to the scene to perform a wellness check on that lawmaker.

    When the officer asked Mr Boelter what he was doing, he simply stared straight ahead, Thompson said, and Mr Boelter went on to the Hortman residence.

    He is accused of arriving at the Hortman home, and allegedly shooting and killing Melissa and Mark Hortman. Police said they found him at that residence and engaged fire before Mr Boelter fled…

  22. says

    Reginald @20, may be common knowledge, but I didn’t know.

    In other news, a followup to comments 1 and 5:

    […] The real issue, of course, is that no one makes smart phones in the U.S. I think that’s literally the case. As in, truly no one. But in any case, Trump Mobile is saying you can put down a $100 down payment today to get your T1 Trump phone in September.

    But no one makes any phones in the U.S. and the chances that you’re going to be able to stand up a new U.S. factory and get a new workable design in three months are nil. So it’s really just a question of what the trick (i.e., scam) is. Does the phone never appear? Do they import it from South Korea and the ‘manufacturing’ is putting the Trump sticker on it? [Seems likely]

    As near as I can tell, none of the mainstream press coverage notes that the phone does not actually exist and barring some true miracle cannot, in fact, exist, certainly not in September 2025.

    Just more of the endless Trump absurdity. Check out The Verge’s coverage here.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/just-for-fun-trump-vaporware-edition

  24. Reginald Selkirk says

    NAACP won’t invite Trump to its national convention. He will be 1st president excluded in 116 years

    The NAACP announced Monday the group will not invite President Donald Trump to its national convention next month in Charlotte, North Carolina, the first time the prominent civil rights organization has opted to exclude a sitting president in its 116-year history.

    NAACP President Derrick Johnson announced the move at an afternoon press conference, accusing Trump of working against its mission.

    “This has nothing to do with political party,” Johnson said in a statement. “Our mission is to advance civil rights, and the current president has made clear that his mission is to eliminate civil rights.”
    …

  25. says

    GOP lawmakers are lining up to support […] Trump’s declaration of war against Democratic-controlled cities, after he ordered Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers to specifically target undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York by spreading the insane and false conspiracy theory that Democrats use undocumented immigrants in those cities to hold on to political power. […]

    Of course, undocumented immigrants cannot vote, so Trump’s claim is a bald-faced lie. Undocumented immigrants are also not taking jobs from American citizens, as Americans do not want to work the low-wage, back-breaking jobs immigrants are filling in meatpacking plants, restaurant kitchens, and farm fields.

    But Republican lawmakers eagerly reposted Trump’s Truth Social post and expressed support for his stated goal—even though the post contained incendiary rhetoric against Democrats after a Trump-supporting right-wing terrorist shot and killed a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker and her husband in a politically motivated assassination, and seriously injured another lawmaker and his wife.

    “These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities — And they are doing a good job of it! There is something wrong with them,” Trump wrote.

    Despite that horrible language, as well as the lies about why Trump will target migrants in Democratic-controlled cities, House Speaker Mike Johnson reposted Trump’s entire Truth Social post on Monday, saying he is on board with Trump’s goal.

    […] Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee also reposted Trump’s inflammatory statement. […]

    Sen. Tom Cotton also jumped in to cheer for Trump’s fascist tactics. […]

    Trump’s move to order raids in Democratic-controlled cities comes after he also ordered ICE to stop raiding restaurants and farms after farmers said that the raids threatened their businesses.

    In fact, the ongoing raids have been so prolific that the agency is apparently running out of money, with Axios reporting that ICE’s funds could dry up as early as next month.

    […] Democrats—who have been calling Trump out for his ICE raids and use of the military to crack down on any opposition to them—are now slamming Trump for explicitly targeting Democratic-run cities.

    “Trump’s ICE raids are politically targeted attacks on diverse, Democratic cities,” Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois wrote in a post on X. “Trust, today they are scapegoating immigrants to justify their abuses of power. Tomorrow, they will come for all those who dare to dissent.”

    Link

  26. Reginald Selkirk says

    Officers who cover their faces could be charged with a misdemeanor under California proposal

    Local, state, and federal law enforcement officers who cover their faces while conducting official business could face a misdemeanor charge in California under a new proposal announced Monday.

    The bill would require all law enforcement officials show their faces and be identifiable by their uniform, which should carry their name or other identifier. It would not apply to the National Guard or other troops and it exempts SWAT teams and officers responding to natural disasters.

    State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat representing San Francisco, and State Sen. Jesse Arreguin, a Democrat representing Berkeley and Oakland, said the proposal seeks to boost transparency and public trust in law enforcement. It also looks to protect against people trying to impersonate law enforcement, they said…

  27. says

    […] Trump’s Cabinet picks brought a raft of highly unqualified types like Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. […] What about the less well-known nominees, the small-timers hoping to get into the slightly lower rungs of government service despite having no skills to do so?

    When it comes to pushing these motley nominees through Congress, the administration has one strategy: inflating their credentials. The fact that they have to do so highlights that the administration that says it is hiring on merit is instead just a dumping ground for grifters and lower-tier influencers.

    Over the weekend, we learned that Trump’s pick to run the Federal Aviation Administration, Bryan Bedford, seems to have lied about holding a commercial pilot license. This was no momentary error, as Bedford’s page on the Republic Airways’ website, where he is currently president and CEO, listed him as holding a commercial license back to at least 2010. When Bedford spoke at conservative Liberty University in 2019, he was introduced as holding “commercial, multi-engine and instrument pilot ratings.”

    While Bedford doesn’t have a commercial pilot license, he does have a television appearance on CBS’s “Undercover Boss.” Bedford went undercover at his own airline by posing as a flight attendant for the show, a move which landed him in hot water with the FAA because actual flight attendants go through safety training and have to adhere to government regulations.

    So what does the administration do with the fact that for at least 15 years, Bedford lied about holding a license in the exact field he would now regulate? First, they tried flat denial, saying Bedford “never misrepresented his credential; it was an administrative error that was immediately corrected.” What administrative error that might be is left to the imagination.

    The airline website was “immediately corrected” after being wrong for 15 years? Then the DOT pivoted, parsing words in the most dishonest way possible to try to cover for Bedford. Sure Bedford said he had a commercial license, but he never “personally nor publicly claimed to be a commercial airline pilot.” […] Bedford claimed to hold an aviation license he does not, which isn’t the same as saying you’re a commercial airline pilot.

    Bedford isn’t the only subpar candidate that the administration has to inflate credentials for. Casey Means is Trump’s latest surgeon general pick after his previous choice, Janette Nesheiwat, was ousted because conspiracy-theorist and 9/11 denier Laura Loomer thought she wasn’t anti-vaxx enough. Means has never practiced and left her residency before completing it. Instead, she’s spent her time hawking dubious wellness products while also failing to disclose she has a financial relationship with those companies.

    Kennedy [has] tried to hype her time in medical school and her residency, a distinctly weird thing for someone who is supposed to be experienced enough to oversee America’s health.

    When doing a softball Fox News hit on Means last month, Kennedy said that “during her residency, she won every award that she could win” and that she was “at the top of her class at Stanford” but left traditional medicine because “she couldn’t get anybody within her profession to look at the nutrition contributions to illness.”

    A few problems here. Stanford grades medical students pass/fail, so no such thing as top of the class there. One of Means’ residency supervisors also undercut the claim she left because she needed to be free of the shackles of traditional medicine and its failure to look at nutrition. Rather, he said, he wasn’t even sure she wanted to be in medicine and did not like the level of stress. After taking three paid months off to address her anxiety, Means left the program.

    After ousting all of the actual experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Kennedy is filling that committee with people whose main qualifications are rabid anti-vaxxer sentiment. In a stupidly long post over at X, Kennedy said Michael A. Ross is a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University.

    Except he’s not: He hasn’t worked at GWU in eight years, and hasn’t been at VCU in four years. He appears to just be a private equity guy now.

    And let’s not forget Paul Ingrassia, Trump’s pick for the Office of Special Counsel. Trump described him as a “highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar.” In reality, Ingrassia’s career consists of being a far-right troll and representing notorious misogynist Andrew Tate, albeit before he even had a law license.

    If Trump’s picks could stand on their own, the administration would not have to be constantly inflating their achievements. Instead, it is pretending these people who are chosen for being rabid ideologues, television personalities, or both, are actually the most-qualified people for the job. The rest of us, though, don’t have to play along.

    Link

  29. says

    On Monday, the G7 nations met in Canada. As a prelude to the main event, Trump and Canadian PM Mark Carney had scheduled a press conference. The two men stood in front of cameras while reporters lobbed questions at them. (Video below)

    The G7 summit is a forum for the West’s leading national economies, the European Union, and Japan, to hash out international agreements that benefit the citizens of the free world. Trump used the photo op to whine about immigrants in blue cities.

    He offered his usual bullshit:

    “[These countries] empty their jails out into the US. Most of those people are in the cities. All blue cities. All Democrat-run cities. And they think they are going to use them to vote. It’s not going to happen.”

    But as he was about to hit his stride, Carney decided that was enough of that. He shut the blathering bloviator down. As Carney is a Canadian, he was polite and respectful. He turned to America’s wannabe fascist ruler and told him his intention to halt the careening press conference before it lept the rails. His firm demeanor forced Trump to smile his agreement to Carney stiff-arming the media. [Well done on Carney’s part.]

    Carney stood center stage as Trump receded into the background. The Canadian PM, with unflappable grace, raised his hands. And announced that he had better things to do than to listen to America’s President lying to the press.

    He said:

    Thank you. If you don’t mind, I’m going to exercise my role, if you will, as G7 chair since we have a few more minutes with the President and his team. And then we actually have to start the meeting to address some of these big issues.

    As Carney continued in French, the media’ snapping turtles shouted uselessly. The last image on the video is a large, dark-suited Canadian official blocking access to the two leaders, saying:

    “Thank you. That’s it. That’s it. Thank you very much. OUT. OK guys. OUT. Thank you.”

    As Carney showed his quiet dominance, Trump stood behind him, useless and silent. Like a firm teacher with a recalcitrant child, Carney had put a bumptious boy in his place. [Video]

    Link

  30. says

    […] Headline from The Guardian: “‘Extremely disturbing and unethical’: new rules allow VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats, unmarried veterans”

    True story. Now doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs — the country’s largest hospital system, serving 9 million patients at about 170 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics, with about 500,000 employees — are being given new guidance that they can refuse to treat patients based on certain personal characteristics. And doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, national origin, political party affiliation, or union activity. […]

    Veterans hospitals’ bylaws used to say that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter.” But somebody, Big Balls from DOGE presumably, has gone through the VA bylaws to remove the words “national origin,” “politics,” and “marital status,” in addition to the guidance to remove “gender affirming” and “transgender.”

    The story says that politically objectionable veterans are still entitled to treatment, which they have earned through their service of putting their lives on the line for this country. But it’s unclear how “still entitled to treatment” would work, practically speaking, if there is no one at a rural clinic who will agree to treat a Biden voter or an unmarried cat lady, or a person born in country that the doctors don’t like.

    The VA claims this is in response to Trump’s stupid gender-gamete executive order, and it comes after new guidance in March that they do not have to treat transgender individuals, even though that is currently against the law. For now.

    The guidance is not published on the VA’s web site, but Guardian reporter Aaron Glantz has seen it, and in an emailed response to his questions, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, didn’t deny that this is what the new rules say.

    This new, creative way to be cruel is not only against basic human decency and ethics, but also flies in the face of standards established by the nonprofit Joint Commission for accrediting hospitals. But Kasperowicz told The Guardian that they had worked with the commission “to ensure these changes would have no impact on VA’s accreditation.” Hard to see how that might be! Perhaps the “working with” was extorting the commission with threats of retribution, as is the Trumpistan way?

    On top of this, the VA is getting decimated. Secretary Doug Collins wants to cut 83,000 jobs there, or about 17 percent of all staff, on top of the 66,000 staff vacancies that the VA already was trying to fill in 2024. It’s fired workers at the suicide hotline […] Ongoing clinical trials have also been halted.

    And ProPublica reports DOGE dispatched an AI bot to “munch” the 76,000-ish contracts at the VA. They brought in an engineer — with no medical or government experience, naturally — to figure out what was “waste.” VA Secretary Collins has no medical experience either! Or computer experience! And naturally, stupid ensued:

    The code, using outdated and inexpensive AI models, produced results with glaring mistakes. For instance, it hallucinated the size of contracts, frequently misreading them and inflating their value. It concluded more than a thousand were each worth $34 million, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.

    And the DOGE AI tool flagged more than 2,000 contracts for “munching.” […]

    Even the DOGE programmer, Sahil Lavingia, publicly acknowledged that this was an epic fuckup, and got himself fired for saying so, of course.

    […] Watch Doug Collins busted lying at a House hearing last month. Oh hey, if no one has discussed cuts to staff like nurses and psychiatrists, why does he have spreadsheets plotting out exactly that? [video]

    Ooh, that question made him dumplin’ bitin’ mad!

    And here’s the puzzler: In spite of all these massive and stupid cuts, the big (not passed yet and sitting in the Senate) budget bill increases VA spending by 22 percent, with some of that going to mandatory funding. For what? Here’s a clue, there’s an extra $34 billion for community care programs, which is taxpayer funds going to private clinics. Sure sounds like they want to gut the current VA, and then privatize everything. Republicans always want to privatize everything, and here is a way private companies can get those sweet sick-veteran dollars.

    And if you are a veteran and don’t like it, you can sue! Except that the Big Budget Bill also says that now someone has to put up a bond of some undetermined amount before they can sue the government for contempt. You got bond money, veterans?

    SIGH, today is a crummy news day, and I’m sorry. But HEY, we just had one of the biggest protest marches in American history! Trump’s approval rating is in the shitter! And the budget bill has not passed yet! Hopefully veterans and the people who actually respect them will realize this is happening and get real mad — maybe like the octogenarian veterans arrested protesting in DC this weekend. Everybody oughta.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/va-doctors-can-stop-treating-democrats

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/16/va-doctors-refuse-treat-patients

    https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-veterans-affairs-ai-contracts-health-care

  31. says

    Washington Post link

    The Israeli military on Monday struck the headquarters of Iranian state television in northern Tehran mid-broadcast, after issuing an evacuation warning for the area. In footage of the moment from the live broadcast, an explosion tears through the studio, sending a news presenter running for cover as debris falls into frame. In a statement, the IDF said the building was being used to conceal military infrastructure. The claim has not been verified independently.

    The strike came amid a fourth day of missile attacks: In Iran, at least 224 people have been killed, Health Ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour said. The Israeli prime minister’s office reported 24 deaths in total.

    […] Israel and Iran exchanged bloody strikes for a fourth day as casualties mounted on both sides and international pleas for diplomacy went unheeded. Iran launched missiles at Israel early in the day, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens more, according to the prime minister’s office. Earlier, the Israeli military said it was striking surface-to-surface missile sites in central Iran.

    […] Israel targeted energy production facilities and manufacturing plants across Iran on Sunday, as Tehran residents described the heaviest wave of attacks yet. In Isfahan, a province and city in central Iran, the IDF said it targeted some 100 military sites. According to social media video and state media reports, strikes also hit Iranian airports and police stations. Iranian Health Ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour said at least 224 people have been killed since Israel began its military campaign Friday.

    President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday that “it’s time for a deal” between Iran and Israel that would de-escalate tensions. But, he added, “sometimes they have to fight it out.” [Useless git]

    […] Ben Gurion Airport, Israel’s main international airport, remained closed Monday for a fourth consecutive day, sowing chaos and confusion for foreign tourists in the country and Israeli travelers abroad.

    On Monday, Israel’s national carrier, El Al, said it was canceling all scheduled flights through June 23 due to “ongoing security developments.” […]

    Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) on Monday filed a joint resolution to Congress to “direct the removal” of the U.S. armed forces from any involvement in Israel’s war on Iran, and to prevent a unilateral decision by President Donald Trump to enter the war. “Congress has the sole power to declare war” according to the U.S. Constitution, the non-binding resolution said. […]

  32. says

    New York Times link

    “The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security”

    “The drama offers a case study in how Elon Musk’s team sought to run a critical government agency through misinformation and social media blasts — and how longtime employees responded.”

    Elon Musk stood before a giant American flag at a Wisconsin political rally in March and rolled out an eye-popping allegation of rampant fraud at the Social Security Administration. Scammers, he said, were making 40 percent of all calls to the agency’s customer service line.

    Social Security employees knew the billionaire’s claim had no basis in fact. After journalists followed up, staff members began drafting a response correcting the record.

    That’s when Leland Dudek — plucked from a midlevel job only six weeks earlier to run Social Security because of his willingness to cooperate with Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — got an angry call from the White House, according to several people familiar with the exchange.

    “The number is 40 percent,” insisted Katie Miller, a top administration aide who was working closely with Mr. Musk, according to one of the people familiar with the April 1 call. President Trump believed Mr. Musk, she said. “Do not contradict the president.”

    Throughout the early months of this Trump presidency, Mr. Musk and his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to personal information on millions of Americans, a New York Times investigation has found.

    Their work has led to the departures of thousands of employees, thinning an already overstretched work force and setting off a wave of public anxiety over the state of an agency administering politically sacrosanct retirement benefits that Mr. Trump has vowed to protect.

    Mr. Musk has left Washington amid a blowup with Mr. Trump, and some of his top aides at DOGE have also departed, leaving federal workers and the public to assess what Mr. Musk’s tornadolike path through Washington yielded. At Social Security, Mr. Musk’s efforts amount to a case study in what happened when his team of government novices ran a critical government agency through misinformation and social media blasts.

    The Times’s investigation found that Mr. Musk became fixated on the program in early February after members of his team misread government spending data — a pivotal and previously unreported moment that DOGE believed had exposed massive fraud inside the agency.

    In response, Mr. Musk’s team mobilized dozens of Social Security employees to affirm their views about fraud and began a project to ensure dead people were properly classified so they weren’t mistakenly paid — even though DOGE officials acknowledged in an internal memo that payments were not being made in those cases.

    DOGE leaders pressured agency executives to hire a 21-year-old former intern at Palantir, a data analysis and technology firm, and grant him access to the personal data of every Social Security cardholder despite the executives’ concerns that he lacked sufficient training to handle such sensitive information.

    Mr. Musk’s deputies became so intent on their work at Social Security that they pushed employees to continue giving them access to sensitive agency data even after a federal judge demanded that DOGE’s access be cut off, according to two people familiar with the events. The Supreme Court ruled this month that DOGE’s access can resume.

    The Times also reviewed previously unreported emails that showed how DOGE members used the agency for political aims, directing Mr. Dudek to cancel important contracts in Maine after the state’s governor, a Democrat, clashed with Mr. Trump.

    This account of DOGE’s Social Security takeover is based on interviews with more than 70 current and former employees, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, and a review of hundreds of pages of internal documents and court records.

    Thrust into the center of the DOGE drama was Mr. Dudek, the acting Social Security commissioner for nearly three months. He told others that he aimed to comply with orders from DOGE and the White House while keeping Social Security from suffering what he saw as potentially disastrous consequences if the DOGE plans for slashing staff and changing policies were fully realized. [I snipped a lot of details.]

    […] Mr. Dudek was recently placed on administrative leave, and Social Security is now run by Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive who was confirmed as commissioner on May 6. In an interview with The Times this month, Mr. Bisignano rejected the idea that DOGE was to blame for problems at Social Security.

    But Mr. Bisignano acknowledged that the 40 percent figure cited by Mr. Musk was incorrect. “We’re going to be a fact-based, rule-based organization that can count,” Mr. Bisignano said.

    In a statement later provided by the agency, Mr. Bisignano said: “The work that DOGE did was 100 percent accurate.” [eyebrows raised]

    […] During his tenure, Mr. Dudek described his role in grandiose terms, suggesting to others that he saw himself in the mold of Oskar Schindler, the Nazi industrialist whose secret efforts to save the lives of Jews during World War II were portrayed in a critically acclaimed film. [I snipped a lot of details.]

    “Everything I have ever done,” he added, “is in service to our country, our beneficiaries, and our agency.”

    Two days later, the White House forced out Ms. King, who subsequently retired. Ms. Flick also left. Neither she nor Ms. King responded to requests for comment.

    A White House official emailed Mr. Dudek with the news that he would become the new acting commissioner.

    “It is an honor to serve,” Mr. Dudek responded, according to a copy of the message. “We will find and stop fraud!”

    On X, Mr. Musk crowed: “There ARE good people in the government who want to eliminate fraud & waste.”

    […] On social media, Mr. Musk hailed the effort. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Fox News that DOGE suspected there were “tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments.” And Mr. Trump turned the notion of payments to dead people into a signature moment in his nationally televised address to Congress on March 4.

    “3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149,” Mr. Trump said. “And money is being paid to many of them.”

    [Not true, and fairly easy to debunk. And it was debunked before Trump included the falsehood in his address to Congress.]

    [I snipped a lot of details]

    […] Mr. Musk’s false claim about scammers making 40 percent of calls to Social Security’s customer service line appeared to be a distortion of a completely different statistic. A recent agency memo found only “minimal instances” of phone fraud. [I snipped details]

    During one of his last weeks in charge, Mr. Dudek drove around the Midwest by himself visiting offices that had been hit especially hard by cuts.

    At a Milwaukee field office, Mr. Dudek stopped a woman driving out of the parking lot, a moment witnessed by The Times.

    “Were we able to take care of your needs today?” he asked.

    “Not at all,” the woman replied.

    Mr. Dudek apologized as she drove away.

    It’s a convoluted tale that involves a lot of doofuses failing at multiple levels. Mostly, it documents DOGE’s ineptitude.

  34. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @30 Lynna:

    somebody […] has gone through the VA bylaws to remove the words “national origin,” “politics,” and “marital status,” in addition to the guidance to remove “gender affirming” and “transgender.”

    RawStory

    Update: A spokesperson for the Department of Veterans Affairs told Raw Story that they categorically deny any of the repealed guidelines will allow the VA to discriminate against patients or employees based on political affiliation, reason for seeking care, or any of the other categories stated below, saying, “Federal law prohibits that, and VA will always follow federal law. All eligible Veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law.”

  35. John Morales says

    In the news: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-strike-damages-hospital-west-iran-mutual-attacks-kill-dozens

    An Israeli strike in western Iran on Monday heavily damaged a hospital, as the conflict between the two regional rivals escalated.

    At least 224 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Iran, including top military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians, while Iranian strikes in Israel have killed at least 24.

    The state-backed Fars news agency released a video of a hospital in Kermanshah city showing shattered glass, collapsed ceilings, and extensive damage in patient rooms.

    […]

    Defence Minister Israel Katz warned that Tehran’s residents “will pay the price” for the Israeli civilians killed by Iranian strikes.

    Good Old Testament attitude, that is.

    (I note Israel has developed quite the knack for hitting hospitals — tricky little buggers, one can never tell where they may lurk)

  36. whheydt says

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/california-lawmakers-introduce-legislation-ban-law-enforcement-wearing/story?id=122900904

    A pair of lawmakers in California are seeking to ban law enforcement officers in the state from wearing face coverings, amid protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

    State Sens. Scott Wiener and Jesse Arreguin — Democratic lawmakers from San Francisco and Oakland, respectively — announced Monday that they would be filing SB 627 to ban local, state and federal law enforcement from covering their faces when interacting with the public.

    The legislation, dubbed the No Secret Police Act, would also require law enforcement officers to wear identifying information, Wiener wrote in a post on X.

    It occurs to me that this bill needs one more provision… Since the state can’t give enforceable orders to Federal agents, it needs to make it illegal for any California peace officer to work in co-operation with, aid, or support any Federal agent that fails to comply with the requirements of this bill. Likewise, any order given to a California peace officer would apply the provisions to the person giving that order.

  37. Reginald Selkirk says

    Former Coast Guard officer charged with threatening to kill President Trump

    A former Coast Guard lieutenant and sharpshooter has been arrested for allegedly making threats to kill President Trump.

    A 19-page Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit lists out scores of alleged social media threats by Peter Stinson, who served 33 years in the U.S. Coast Guard through 2021, and also served as a Federal Emergency Management Agency instructor.

    The social media posts quoted in charging documents, which span from 2020 to 2025, include online statements that suggested using a gun, a knife and poison against Mr. Trump. In several cases, Stinson allegedly said he didn’t have the skills to kill Mr. Trump himself, but said he’s willing to “serve in a support capacity” or raise money for a “contract hit.” …

    Sharpshooter‽ Didn’t have the skills‽

  38. says

    Sky Captain @34, thanks for the update. Sounds hopeful. We’ll see. I still don’t trust the Trump administration to abide by federal laws.

    whheydt, good points! And in related news, as reported by NBC News:

    Federal authorities say Minnesota shooting suspect Vance Boelter visited the homes of four separate lawmakers on the night he allegedly killed two people and wounded two others.

  39. says

    NBC News:

    An ‘innocent bystander’ at the ‘No Kings’ demonstration in downtown Salt Lake City was shot and killed Saturday, police said. Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39, of Utah, died in a hospital, Salt Lake City police said in an update. Detectives believe Ah Loo was at the demonstration as a bystander and ‘was not the intended target of the gunfire.’

  40. Reginald Selkirk says

    American Bar Association sues Trump administration over law firm crackdown

    The American Bar Association sued the Trump administration Monday, arguing President Trump’s wide-ranging push to punish law firms is unconstitutional. It joined several targeted firms that have filed suit against the government.

    The lawsuit takes aim at a series of controversial orders signed by Mr. Trump that direct the government to cut off security clearances, contracts and even federal building access for some of the nation’s largest law firms. The orders often fault the firms for taking on certain pro bono clients, associating with Mr. Trump’s legal foes or engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion practices that the administration claims are discriminatory…

  41. says

    Hundreds of NIH grant terminations are ‘void and illegal,’ federal judge rules

    “The decision by a federal court in Boston hands a temporary victory to researchers”

    A federal judge deemed on Monday that some of the grant terminations by the National Institutes of Health are “void and illegal” in a hearing regarding two lawsuits against the Trump administration.

    The decision comes after Judge William G. Young heard arguments for over two hours at the U.S. District Court in two suits filed against the administration over the termination of hundreds of research grants by the National Institutes of Health. The decision, which can be appealed, hands a temporary victory to researchers across the country, who are reeling from unprecedented changes at the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. […]

  42. says

    New York Times:

    The Trump administration broke the law when it withheld funding for the nation’s libraries, a nonpartisan government watchdog said on Monday, a finding that inches the White House another step closer to a legal showdown over its powers to reconfigure the country’s spending.

    The decision by the Government Accountability Office was the second time in two months that oversight officials have found fault in the ways that President Trump and his top aides have tried to circumvent lawmakers in their quest to reshape the federal budget so that it conforms with their political views.

    Good news.

  43. says

    Reuters:

    The American Bar Association sued the Trump administration on Monday, seeking an order that would bar the White House from pursuing what the ABA called a campaign of intimidation against major law firms. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., said the administration violated the U.S. Constitution in a series of executive orders targeting law firms over their past clients and lawyers they hired.

  44. says

    Washington Post:

    Voice of America told about 75 employees to come back to work immediately Friday amid escalating military action between Iran and Israel. Most of the staffers restored from months-long administrative leave were from the Persian news division of the government-funded broadcaster.

  45. says

    Washington Post:

    A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump lacked the power to fire the three Democratic commissioners on the five-person Consumer Product Safety Commission, reversing their abrupt dismissals from last month and setting up a fresh test of presidential power to control independent agencies.

    Good news.

  46. Reginald Selkirk says

    First-ever ban on watering lawns in central Iowa due to nitrate levels in rivers

    A ban on watering lawns has been issued in the Des Moines metro area for the first time to avoid a potential water crisis due to high concentrations of nitrates in local rivers.

    Last week, the Central Iowa Water Works banned about 600,000 commercial and residential customers from watering lawns as near-record levels of nitrates in the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers threaten to overwhelm the water utility company’s capabilities to treat the water.

    There is an “imminent risk” of violating nitrates standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a press release by the Central Iowa Water Works.
    …
    The water utility company is bringing water from the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers and treating a portion of that water by running it through a reverse osmosis system, which will remove nitrate levels, Larry Weber, director of the University of Iowa’s IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering, told ABC News.

    There is a certain volume restriction on how much water can run through the nitrate removal system, Weber said. If residents were to keep using water for “unnecessary” means, the water utility company wouldn’t be able to treat enough of it to blend back with the untreated water and still meet the EPA standard, Weber said…

  47. says

    Trump Jr.’s pathetic excuse for daddy’s crypto corruption

    Donald Trump Jr. appeared on News Nation Monday, claiming that his dad is too old to understand cryptocurrency well enough to be corrupt. When asked if the unregulated, Trump-branded meme coin, $TRUMP, exposes the president to foreign influence, Trump Jr. acted flabbergasted.

    “No, my father would be sitting there looking at names on the blockchain, and, you know, he’s not exactly a guy that uses a computer all that much,” Trump Jr. joked. “So, no, you know, I don’t think so.” [video]

    Trump Jr. may have missed the fact that his father held a private VIP dinner for the top investors in his meme coin last month. The event had been heavily promoted and received all kinds of bad press, underscoring the apparent corruption of the entire endeavor. And attendees purportedly spent anywhere from $55,000 to $37.7 million in unregulated cryptocurrency to gain access to the dinner.

    The Trump family has also announced an “official $TRUMP Wallet,” which will potentially serve as an online trading platform. Though they have simultaneously claimed that reports of “$TRUMP Wallets” are fake.

    I guess if you aren’t “sitting there looking at names on the blockchain,” you’ll never know?

  48. says

    New York Times proclaims ‘The Age of Trump’

    The New York Times’ chief White House correspondent Peter Baker penned a “news analysis” on Monday that goes on at length about “The Age of Trump.” The cringe-worthy column, meant to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of Donald Trump first entering the Republican presidential race by maligning Mexican people as rapists, comes as the nation continues to deal with the fallout from his time in office—including rampant crime, countless deaths, and rising authoritarianism.

    Baker sounds more like a fan gushing over a celebrity than a journalist discussing a conspiracy theorist bigot with dictatorial aspirations.

    “Ten years of jaw-dropping, woke-busting, scandal-defying, status quo-smashing politics that have transformed America for good or ill in profoundly fundamental ways” is how this “journalist” describes the decade of hell that Americans have been forced to live through.

    Yes, that is prose from a column in The New York Times, not a melodramatic monologue from Trump superfan Sean Hannity on Fox News. While Baker concedes that Trump is unpopular, he describes pro-MAGA voters as “the most consequential political force of modern times, rewriting all of the rules along the way.”

    Here’s some context on Baker’s purple prose: Trump’s most significant political victory came in 2024 where he won the popular vote by 1.5% over former Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump lost the 2020 election by almost 5 points against former President Joe Biden and lost the popular vote in 2016 against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. […]

    Even worse, Baker’s column comes after yet another bloody weekend during a Trump presidency, not to be confused with the steady succession of bloody weekends that occurred during his first term as COVID-19 ravaged the nation and he pushed quack medicine and anti-Chinese racism.

    On Sunday, Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot dead in an apparent political assassination. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were also shot at their home, but are expected to recover. Early reporting indicates the alleged shooter was a Trump fan who espoused similar views to him opposing abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. The shooting follows years of Trump endorsing and encouraging political violence—including the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that he incited.

    On the same day the killings occurred, Trump was indulging in another fantasy of his, presiding over a military parade on the streets of Washington, D.C. While the president previously expressed envy at well-organized military parades in other nations, the D.C. event was a sparsely attended affair that didn’t even have the polish of a military parade held the same day at Disney World.

    But millions of Americans turned out on the very same day to protest Trump and his lackeys like Vice President JD Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and billionaire benefactor Elon Musk at “No King” protests across the nation. Unsurprisingly, the Times could only muster a print headline noting “thousands” had marched.

    This is an ongoing pattern at the Times. The writers there have veered from a cringe-inducing review of Trump’s presidential portrait (they claimed he was “smizing,” Tyra Banks-style) to uncritically regurgitating his spin on taxes to presenting an obvious political operative as a simple man-on-the-street Black Trump supporter.

    The past 10 years have seen the mainstream media trying over and over to normalize Trump despite all his obvious abnormalities, and the Times has led the charge. Trump is unpopular, which shows that the public doesn’t buy the lies—but the Times is too busy cheering on and normalizing his administration to notice.

  49. Reginald Selkirk says

    Exclusive: Congressman Tim Moore failed to properly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal stock purchases made around Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ in a potential STOCK Act violation

    Rep. Tim Moore (R-N.C.) appears to have missed a required disclosure deadline under a federal transparency law, failing to properly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal stock purchases he made immediately before or after President Donald Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff declaration, according to congressional financial records reviewed by Fortune.

    Moore also appears to have profited from his flurry of purchases after he quickly sold his stock shares off as financial markets swung wildly during April.

    Moore did not publicly disclose a dozen stock trades—involving American Airlines Group Inc., Ford Motor Company and Harley-Davidson Inc.—that he made throughout early- and mid-April until Friday, which is well after a federal deadline for doing so. The federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law designed to defend against conflicts of interest and insider trading, requires federal lawmakers to disclose any personal stock trade within 45 days of the trade’s execution.
    …

    Does anyone even care any more? Trump has set the bar for corruption so incredibly low.

  50. Reginald Selkirk says

    Jury finds MyPillow founder defamed former employee for a leading voting equipment company

    A federal jury in Colorado on Monday found that one of the nation’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, defamed a former employee for a leading voting equipment company after the 2020 presidential election.

    The employee, Eric Coomer, was awarded $2.3 million in damages. He had sued after Lindell called him a traitor and accusations about him stealing the election were streamed on Lindell’s online media platform.

    Coomer was the security and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, whose voting machines became the target of elaborate conspiracy theories among allies of President Donald Trump, who continues to falsely claim that his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was due to widespread fraud…

  51. says

    Trump hints at no more US sanctions on Russia at G7 summit

    “US president shrugs off EU and UK call for more action over Ukraine war” […]

    KANANASKIS, Alberta — Donald Trump suggested he will not hit Russia with more sanctions at the G7 summit, saying Europeans should “do it first” and that “sanctions cost us a lot of money.”

    The EU and U.K. are both pushing for more coordinated sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s regime at the Canada-hosted gathering of leaders, but the U.S. president has so far refused to sign up to fresh action.

    When asked by POLITICO Monday whether he was united with Europe on new sanctions over Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Trump said “well Europe is saying that, but they haven’t done it yet.”

    “Let’s see them do it first,” he told reporters in a joint press appearance with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

    He added: “When I sanction a country, that costs the U.S. a lot of money — a tremendous amount of money.

    “It’s not just, let’s sign a document. You’re talking about billions and billions of dollars. Sanctions are not that easy. It’s not just a one-way street.”

    The president said he wanted to keep trying to push forward stalled peace negotiations before hitting Russia with further punitive measures.

    The EU is calling for a cut to the price cap on Russian oil — a key sanction against Putin — from $60 to $45.

    The measure would further starve the Russian president of revenue to fight his war against Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday: “We must put more pressure on Russia to secure a real cease-fire, to bring Russia to the negotiating table and to end this war, sanctions are critical to that end.”

    Starmer: Putin doesn’t hold all the cards

    U.K. officials have said Starmer also privately backs the push for a lower oil price cap, although the British prime minister has not made that clear in public.

    Starmer on Monday insisted Russia “doesn’t hold all the cards” in its war against Ukraine — in an apparent rebuke to Trump.

    The British prime minister said his fellow leaders “should take this moment to increase economic pressure and show President Putin it is in his — and Russia’s — interests to demonstrate he is serious about peace.”

    Starmer’s decision to reference Trump’s now-infamous attack line against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from their fractious Feb. 28 White House meeting — that he “doesn’t have the cards” — will likely be seen as an attempt to cajole the president into action. No.10 Downing Street pushed back at that characterization, however.
    Starmer made the comments on Monday night while announcing he and other leaders planned to unveil fresh sanctions on Russia on Tuesday at the Canada summit. However, No. 10 declined to provide details of what the package contains.

    The six other G7 leaders will also try to get Trump to sign a joint statement on de-escalating the Israel-Iran conflict.

    Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met on the summit’s sidelines on Sunday night to discuss the conflict and other issues.
    […]

  52. says

    Last week, at a White House meeting with the C.E.O.s of Uber, Goldman Sachs, and Salesforce, Donald Trump touted “a pro-family initiative that will help millions of Americans harness the strength of our economy to lift up the next generation.” He was referring to a provision in the tax-and-spending bill that House Republicans pushed through in May, which would establish tax-deferred investment accounts for every child born in the United States during the next four years, with the federal government contributing a thousand dollars to each. […]

    It could more accurately be described as an effort to put lipstick on a pig. As everybody surely knows by now, the House bill—formally called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—is stuffed with tax cuts for corporations and for the rich, and it proposes to slash funding for Medicaid, food assistance, and other programs that target low-income Americans. The proposal for new investment accounts didn’t change the bill’s highly regressive nature. According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office, over all, the bill’s provisions, including the new accounts, would reduce the financial resources of households in the bottom tenth of the income distribution by about sixteen-hundred dollars a year relative to a baseline scenario, and raise the resources of households in the top tenth by an average of about twelve thousand dollars a year. In other words, it’s a reverse-Robin Hood bill.

    […] the “Baby Bonds” proposal bears little resemblance to one of that same name which some progressive economists and elected Democrats have been promoting for years, as a way to tackle gaping wealth disparities in America. Given the way the Republican scheme is structured, it could well end up entrenching existing disparities rather than helping to eliminate them.

    Endowing children with some wealth to help give them a proper start in life isn’t a new idea, of course. Rich families have been setting up trust funds, in some form or another, for centuries. But what about children in families that have little or no wealth to hand down? (According to the Federal Reserve, in 2022, the average net worth of households in the bottom ten per cent of the wealth distribution was one dollar. One.)

    In 2010, the economists Darrick Hamilton, who is now at the New School, and William Darity, Jr., of Duke, outlined a plan to create interest-bearing government trust accounts for children who were born into families that fell below the median net worth. Under the Hamilton-Darity plan, the average value of these government contributions, which they described as “baby bonds,” would gradually rise to roughly twenty thousand dollars, with children from the poorest families benefitting even more. Adding in the interest that would accumulate in these accounts over the years, Hamilton and Darity calculated that some of these kids could end up with more than fifty thousand dollars by the time they reached adulthood.

    Although the baby bonds would be distributed on a race-blind basis, the fact that Black, Indigenous, and Latino families were (and are) disproportionately represented in the lower reaches of the wealth distribution would have meant that the scheme would have worked to the benefit of their children—with a concomitant impact on the racial wealth gap. […]

    This proposal was never put into effect. But a version of it lived on in the form of legislation proposed by Cory Booker, the Democratic senator, in 2018, and subsequently reintroduced, in 2023, by Booker and Representative Ayanna Pressley. Under the Booker-Pressley bill, all American children at birth would be given a publicly financed investment account worth a thousand dollars, and the government would make further payments into these accounts annually depending on family income. When the owners of the accounts turned eighteen, they would be allowed to use the money for certain specified expenditures, including buying a home or helping to pay for college. […]

    Money in the new Trump accounts would have to be placed in a low-cost stock index fund, and investment gains would be allowed to accumulate tax free until the funds were used. Parents and others would be allowed to supplement the original government endowments of a thousand dollars with contributions of up to five thousand dollars a year. But poor families obviously wouldn’t have the means to provide top-ups. “That means poorer families with no savings will get $1,000 compounding over 18 years while rich families will be able to invest up to $90,000,” Stephen Nuñez, an analyst at the Roosevelt Institute, wrote in a piece about the G.O.P. plan. “That will widen the wealth gap.” [True]

    There are other issues, too. It’s far from that clear that banks or brokerages will be willing to administer the new accounts without charging hefty fees that would deplete them. [!] Some financial experts say that most households would earn better returns by contributing to existing 529 college-savings plans. [!] (The limits for contributions to 529 plans are higher, and in many states they aren’t subject to state taxes.) Conceivably, some of these concerns could be resolved by pooling the money in the accounts, by fiddling with the tax code, and by encouraging employers of the account holders’ parents to make additional contributions to them. […] But these are only suggestions, and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the entire project is largely an effort to divert attention from the true nature of the Republican economic agenda.

    […] according to the Congressional Budget Office an extension of the soon-to-expire 2017 G.O.P. tax cuts, which is the primary purpose of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would cost nearly five hundred billion dollars next year—five times the estimated cost of his baby-bonds proposal. Given the Republicans’ dominance in Washington and the gaping budget deficit, there’s obviously no immediate prospect of the U.S. government reorienting its priorities to tackle rampant wealth inequality, in the way that Hamilton and his colleagues recommend or in some similar manner. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be possible. If the commitment to levelling out wealth were broadly shared, the possibilities would be many.

    Text quoted above is excerpted from The Truth About Trump’s Proposed Cash-for-Kids Savings Scheme, written by John Cassidy for The New Yorker.

  53. says

    Europe’s frontier countries ready their hospitals for war

    “From stockpiling trauma kits for mass casualties to kitting out medics with body armor, wartime health planning is no longer hypothetical on NATO’s eastern flank.”

    […] “When the media reported the war had started in Ukraine, it was terrifying,” Noreikaitė said. “It was frightening at work because we didn’t know if we had enough resources or if we were prepared if it happened here.”

    Noreikaitė now feels calmer. She focuses on training and mastering triage protocols. Exercises, like the one in Jonava, help. Indeed, she believes they “should happen more often.”

    Lithuania is no outlier: All NATO’s eastern flank countries are revisiting crisis response protocols for health-care facilities, organizing training exercises, investing in ballistic helmets and vests, and shifting operating theaters underground. Since the conflict in Ukraine has shattered the illusion that Europe is safe from war.

    “It’s not a question of if [Russia] will attack,” said Ragnar Vaiknemets, deputy director general of the Estonian Health Board, which oversees preparedness for crises from pandemics to war. “It’s a question about when.”

    Formerly under Soviet occupation, the countries on Europe’s eastern frontier know only too well how quickly troops can arrive.

    “We have bad neighbors here: Russia and Belarus,” Daniel Naumovas, Lithuania’s deputy health minister, said at an event in February. His country links NATO to the Baltics via the Suwałki Gap — a narrow, vulnerable corridor seen as one of the likeliest targets of a future Russian attack. While all EU countries are “in the same boat,” some are in the vanguard “where the water is cold,” Naumovas said. […]

    For countries on NATO’s east, war readiness isn’t optional — it’s urgent. […]

    Located just 50 kilometers from the EU’s external border with Belarus, Vilnius University Hospital Santaros Clinics is developing underground infrastructure, shelters, helicopter landing sites and autonomous systems that would allow it to function even if electricity or water supplies were cut off. […]

    More at the link.

  55. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @41 Lynna: Some of the Reagan-appointed judge’s remarks…

    Scott Delaney:

    Judge Young says explanations of agency actions are “bereft of reasoning, virtually in their entirety. These edicts are nothing more than conclusory, unsupported by factual development”
    […]
    “This represents racial discrimination. And discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out. And I do so.”

    Holy shit. Judge Young is furious about this. I hope someone wrote down his full speech on this. It’s extremely powerful. He’s furious at what he sees as racial discrimination. And he also finds it “appalling” that government would cut research on the health of LGBTQ Americans.
    […]
    “How can this be? I don’t see anyone pushing back against it??” Calls out doctors and other senior administration officials as named defendants for not standing up to racial discrimination.

    The New Republic

    “[…] I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this… I ask myself, how can this be?” he said. “I have the protection that the Founders wrote into the Constitution, along with imposing upon me a duty to speak the truth in every case. I try to do that. What if I didn’t have those protections? What if my job was on the line, my profession? … Would I have stood up against all this? Would I have said, ‘You can’t do this?’ You are bearing down on people of color because of their color. The Constitution will not permit that.”

    “Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”

  57. John Morales says

     So. Advanced boomsticks. Not super-cheap or super-easy.

     “Inside America’s Only Giant Gun Barrel Factory Arming Ukraine | Big Business | Business Insider”

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWOCxtfN4js

    —

    16 Jun 2025
    Since 2021, the US has shipped hundreds of howitzers to Ukraine. But over time, their barrels wear out. Replacing them isn’t easy, because America has just one factory that makes barrels for howitzers like the M777, and it’s more than 200 years old. To keep up with demand, the Pentagon has pledged $1.7 billion to modernize the facility, the Watervliet Arsenal in New York state.

    Production has already tripled over the past three years, reaching its highest level in more than four decades as the US scrambles to arm Ukraine in its war against Russia.

    This isn’t an isolated challenge. The US has struggled to rapidly scale up production of other critical weapons, like 155 mm artillery shells. In 2021, just one plant was manufacturing the steel casings. The US used to have hundreds of government-owned weapons facilities, but it closed many of them after World War II. Companies like Palantir have argued that the shutdowns have limited military innovation. Now, the government is spending billions to upgrade the US Army’s 23 remaining arsenals, depots, and ammunition plants.

    We visited America’s oldest arsenal to see how it’s using old and new machines to rebuild its capacity.

    00:00 – Intro
    01:07 – America’s shrinking defense industry
    03:55 – Inside the factory
    07:49 – Testing the gun barrel breech block
    08:42 – How soldiers train with howitzers
    09:40 – Howitzers in Ukraine
    11:38 – $12 billion Army storage yard
    13:20 – Credits

  59. John Morales says

    So, I checked with Bubblebot. It’s table and citations support my suspicions.

    $\begin{array}{|l|l|c|} \hline \textbf{Region} & \textbf{Enterprise} & \textbf{Price Change} \\ \hline \text{USA} & \text{Lockheed Martin} & +8\% \\[5pt] \text{USA} & \text{Boeing} & -2\% \\[5pt] \text{USA} & \text{Raytheon Technologies} & +5\% \\[5pt] \text{USA} & \text{Northrop Grumman} & +7\% \\[5pt] \text{USA} & \text{General Dynamics} & +6\% \\ \hline \text{UK} & \text{Rolls-Royce} & +10\% \\[5pt] \text{UK} & \text{BAE Systems} & +12\% \\[5pt] \text{UK} & \text{Melrose Industries} & +15\% \\[5pt] \text{UK} & \text{Babcock International} & +18\% \\[5pt] \text{UK} & \text{QinetiQ} & +8\% \\ \hline \text{Canada} & \text{Bombardier Inc} & +18\% \\[5pt] \text{Canada} & \text{CAE Inc} & +10\% \\[5pt] \text{Canada} & \text{MDA} & +22\% \\[5pt] \text{Canada} & \text{Magellan Aerospace} & +16\% \\[5pt] \text{Canada} & \text{Avcorp} & +12\% \\ \hline \text{EU} & \text{Safran} & +9\% \\[5pt] \text{EU} & \text{Thales} & +11\% \\[5pt] \text{EU} & \text{Leonardo} & +7\% \\[5pt] \text{EU} & \text{Rheinmetall} & +13\% \\[5pt] \text{EU} & \text{Dassault Aviation} & +6\% \\ \hline \end{array} $

  60. John Morales says

    [since Trump’s inauguration in 2025, sorry, forgot to paste the query]

  65. Reginald Selkirk says

    Microbe With Bizarrely Tiny Genome May Be Evolving Into a Virus

    sciencehabit shares a report from Science.org:

    The newly discovered microbe provisionally known as Sukunaarchaeum isn’t a virus. But like viruses, it seemingly has one purpose: to make more of itself. As far as scientists can tell from its genome — the only evidence of its existence so far — it’s a parasite that provides nothing to the single-celled creature it calls home. Most of Sukunaarchaeum’s mere 189 protein-coding genes are focused on replicating its own genome; it must steal everything else it needs from its host Citharistes regius, a dinoflagellate that lives in ocean waters all over the world. Adding to the mystery of the microbe, some of its sequences identify it as archaeon, a lineage of simple cellular organisms more closely related to complex organisms like us than to bacteria like Escherichia coli.
    …
    What’s already clear: Sukunaarchaeum is not alone. When team leader Takuro Nakayama, an evolutionary microbiologist at Tsukuba, and his colleagues sifted through publicly available DNA sequences extracted from seawater all over the world, they found many sequences similar to those of Sukunaarchaeum…

  68. KG says

    Andriivka isn’t significant except it’s current location in the war. Russia took the village at the start of June as part of setting up a buffer between Ukrainian and Russian lines and preparing for the Russian summer offensive. Retaking the village throws a big wrench in the Russian plans. – JM@13

    I may be speaking too soon, but I suspect this “Russian summer offensive” isn’t going to amount to much more than a continuation of the slow grind forward, at the expense of high Russian casualties, that has been ongoing for the past year. They’ve had all winter to prepare a big attack, and would surely want to get it underway as early as possible. (I note that the failure of “Barbarossa” – Hitler’s attack on the USSR through Ukraine – is sometimes blamed on the delay to June 22nd in starting it, due to Hitler’s need to come to Mussolini’s rescue after the latte’s botched attack on Greece.) Now the Ukrainians have de facto abandoned the idea of liberating by force all the territory seized by the invaders, at least for the forseeable future, they will have focused on strengthening their line to resist any such large-scale attack. And the whole course of the war suggests that, due to drones and other anti-tank weapons, we’re back in WWI strategic territory as far as conventional inter-state wars are concerned, with the defence having a big advantage over the offence.

  69. says

    Trump appears overwhelmed as opposition grows and support withers

    Rachel Maddow looks at the powerful movement building against Donald Trump as his time in office becomes increasingly shambolic and he becomes more of a laughing stock in front of the whole world.

    Video is 5:37 minutes

    After massive ‘No Kings’ protests, where does the Trump opposition go from here?

    Timothy Snyder, history professor, and author of “On Tyranny” and the “Thinking about…” Substack, talks with Rachel Maddow about the character of the anti-Trump movement and what past opposition movements tell us about how the energy of “No Kings Day” can be channeled into political productivity.

    Video is 7:12 minutes

    Defying Trump, Americans refuse to be denied their right to protest

    Rachel Maddow shows that despite Donald Trump’s admonitions against protesting, and despite physical threats from local law enforcement, and despite genuine public safety concerns, Americans would not be denied their right to protest against Donald Trump and came out by the millions on Saturday for “No Kings” marches and rallies.

    Video is 7:15 minutes

  70. says

    Sky Captain @55, thanks for posting that. Judge Young’s remarks are excellent.

    In other news: “RFK Jr. is sabotaging the vaccine program. Here’s how to stop him.” Washington Post link

    The article is written by Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

    When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed secretary of Health and Human Services, some hoped that the responsibility of public office would temper his long-standing hostility toward vaccines. Instead, he is doing exactly what many of us feared: dismantling the systems that protect Americans from preventable infectious diseases.

    This past week, Kennedy fired every member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the expert panel that has shaped U.S. vaccine policy for more than half a century. These pediatricians, infectious disease specialists, epidemiologists and community-based nurses have guided the childhood vaccine schedule and advised national policy on flu, covid, RSV and shingles vaccines.

    In their place, Kennedy has installed his own appointees — many of whom lack relevant expertise, and some of whom have promoted dangerous falsehoods. While a few are qualified, most are not.

    With this new committee scheduled to meet and take action in the coming weeks, states must act swiftly to protect their residents — especially children and older adults.

    ACIP’s recommendations serve as the backbone of vaccine access in the United States. When the panel endorses a vaccine, that guidance sets off a chain reaction: Insurers are required under the Affordable Care Act to cover it with no cost-sharing. Medicaid programs follow suit. Pediatricians and pharmacies stock vaccines knowing they’ll be reimbursed. And the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, which provides free immunizations to nearly half of American children, uses ACIP recommendations to determine which vaccines are covered.

    If Kennedy’s reconstituted ACIP rolls back key recommendations, as appears likely, the vaccines themselves won’t disappear — but access will erode. Insurers could stop covering them. Clinics might stop offering them. The VFC program could shrink. In effect, millions of children would lose protection against diseases such as measles, polio, meningitis and others we thought were behind us.

    Kennedy might argue that he’s not taking anyone’s vaccines away, just giving people choices. But making vaccines costly and inaccessible produces the same result.

    Congress must investigate and take urgent steps to restore ACIP’s scientific integrity. A House committee has begun this work, but the timeline for meaningful federal action is uncertain. In the meantime, states and medical societies must lead.

    For decades, major medical societies such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America have automatically endorsed ACIP’s recommendations, confident that they were grounded in rigorous evidence.

    That trust is no longer warranted.
    Now, these societies must form their own expert panels and issue independent guidance. The American Academy of Pediatrics could recommend childhood immunizations. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists could weigh in on vaccines for pregnant women. The American College of Physicians could issue guidance for adults and the elderly. The American Medical Association or the Infectious Disease Society of America could coordinate these efforts.

    This won’t be easy. But it’s necessary.

    States should then use the expert recommendations from these societies to shape their own vaccine policies. They can direct public health departments and clinicians to follow the guidance. If medical societies fail to organize quickly, states could create their own independent vaccine advisory boards. That approach is far from ideal — 50 separate boards with varying recommendations would add confusion — but inaction is worse.

    […] states must ensure that recommended vaccines remain free and accessible. Legislatures and insurance regulators should require both private insurers and Medicaid programs to cover all vaccines endorsed by medical societies or state advisory boards — with no out-of-pocket costs.

    This will help preserve access for millions, especially the most vulnerable.

    Relying on states will create a patchwork of protections. In states with weak public health leadership, children will be left behind. But this approach offers key benefits.

    It protects residents in states committed to science-based policy. It can serve as a model for other states as well. Regional networks of states might emerge to harmonize standards and approaches. And, most critically, it pressures the federal government by demonstrating that a better path is possible.

    The medical and public health communities must speak with one voice. Pediatricians, pharmacists and professional associations must reassure families: Approved vaccines have been rigorously tested, are safe, effective and essential — even as the systems delivering them are under assault.

    The infrastructure that has protected generations of Americans is being dismantled as we watch. If we fail to act now, we risk reversing decades of progress against diseases that once devastated our country.

    The vaccines against these scourges haven’t disappeared. But, unless we defend the systems that make them accessible, we will lose them all the same.

  71. says

    “Humidity will soon surge to extreme levels across 40 states. Find out where there will be excessive heat and humidity — and how humidity patterns are changing.”

    Washington Post link

    Over the next two weeks, extreme levels of humidity are forecast to hit around 40 states, with the first wave of very muggy weather building in central and eastern states through Thursday. Across the country, around 170 million people will also experience temperatures above 90 degrees.

    Burgeoning humidity contributed to deadly downpours in West Virginia last weekend, and it will fuel severe storms that expected to hit the Plains and Midwest through Wednesday before reaching the East Coast on Thursday.

    The high humidity and temperatures this week are being driven by above-average ocean temperatures, and southerly winds blowing from these areas. And there’s more to come. A second, stronger surge of potentially dangerous heat and humidity is expected this weekend into next week as a heat dome is likely to form.

    Surging ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic are expected to fuel a summer of higher-than-average humidity across eastern states, including the nation’s capital. [map at the link]
    […]

    More at the link, including city-by-city forecasts.

  72. says

    NBC News link

    In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump said, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.”

    “Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff,'” Trump wrote minutes ago. “Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”

    It is not clear if this means that the U.S. is intervening in the conflict between Israel and Iran. He previously said that the U.S. will not intervene.

    Minutes later, Trump posted again, saying he knows where Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is hiding.”

    “He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump wrote. “But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.”

    In remarks made yesterday, Netanyahu did not rule out assassinating Khamanei.

  75. birgerjohansson says

    More about the G7 summit
    “As well as dropping the papers, Trump wrongly announced that he had agreed a deal with the EU, not the UK, and some of his answers were unclear and rambling.”

  76. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/senator-tina-smith-and-staff-concur-b10

    This week, Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee gave a master class in what it looks like to be a pointless trifling [whining complainer] who’s never contributed anything of value to heaven or earth, with his sick reaction to the politically motivated assassinations of Minnesota House speaker emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband in Minneapolis.

    “I already probably wasn’t giving that guy and his wife their own Mormon planet in the afterlife,” said the Mormon God in response, “but now I definitely am not, because fuck that guy.” (It’s a thing they believe, look it up.)

    The tweets Lee sent and refused to take down, the lies he told, it was all so sick that his colleague Minnesota Democratic Senator Tina Smith and her staff felt compelled to get in Lee’s face personally to tell him what a vile piece of shit he is. Of course, she phrased it much more kindly than that, at least according to news reports. Here’s what she told reporters she said directly to Lee’s face:

    “I wanted him to know how much pain that caused me and the other people in my state and I think around the country, who think that this was a brutal attack,” Smith told reporters in the Capitol.

    She added that Lee needed to hear from her “directly” and think about the “impact his actions had.”

    “I don’t know whether Sen. Lee thought fully through what it was, you’d have to ask him, but I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague,” Smith said.

    The Senate is such a strange body, full of all kinds of rules and traditions about decorum and collegiality. It seems a big deal that Smith went directly to Lee like that, and then told reporters about it.

    In response, Debased Mike Lee has … haha, surprise, […] he has done nothing! As of this writing, all the sick tweets are still up, the retweet of Elon Musk saying that “the left is murderously violent,” all of it. […]

    Tina Smith’s staff also went directly to Mike Lee’s staff, so that they may know the hurt their boss caused, but also so that they may be pinned and stained with the utter shame and trashiness that comes from being associated with Mike Lee, […] They did so in a letter written by Smith deputy chief of staff Ed Shelleby, which they also promptly shared with the media, so that nobody could distort what they said or pretend they hadn’t said it.

    As such, we will reproduce it in full, as we feel it’s a pretty significant snapshot of this particular moment in American history. […]

    I knew Melissa Hortman. Many people in this office did. She was a longtime friend of Senator Smith’s, who had seen her hours before she was murdered. So you’ll forgive my candor as I speak through enormous grief.

    It is important for your office to know how much additional pain you’ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend. I am not sure what compelled you or your boss to say any of those things, which, in addition to being unconscionable, also may very well be untrue.

    But that is not the point. Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate Office to compound people’s grief? Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of US Senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination — is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? Did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend?

    Let’s recap Saturday so you fully understand what Minnesota was going through. Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered. Sen. Hoffman and his wife were shot numerous times and remain hospitalized. […] Senators are discovered to be on a hit list of an armed man on the run — Senator Lee’s colleagues. And the decision of the office of Senator Mike Lee was not to publicly condemn the violence or to express condolences to her shattered children — it was to intimate that Melissa and Mark somehow deserved this? By making jokes? Did you have any consideration for the survivors in her family? For the Hoffmans in the hospital? For their families?

    You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats. Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet[s]? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?

    I pray to God that none of you ever go through anything like this. I pray that Senator Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings. And I pray that if God forbid, you ever find yourselves having to deal with anything similar, you find yourselves on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Senator Mike Lee could not muster.

    Lastly, I suggest you take a few minutes today to read about Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. They were remarkable people. Here’s a story in the St. Paul Pioneer Press called “Melissa Hortman: Once a teenager with a job making burritos, she became a powerful MN lawmaker who trained service dogs.”

    She was a force. And a human being. And I beg of you to exercise some restraint on social media as we continue to grieve.

    […] Here is Smith talking to Brian Tyler Cohen: [video]

  78. birgerjohansson says

    Where did the ancestors of the Stonehenge builders come from?
    .https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15Wx2jzLka/

    Btw early farmers southwest of today’s Kiev built a polity with large towns to protect themselves behind their walls from raids by steppe horsemen. This semi-urban culture was quite independent of contemporary town builders in mesopotamia.

  79. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mocked Trump Mobile yanks coverage map that ignored Trump renaming Gulf of Mexico

    The Trump Organization’s rollout of Trump Mobile on Monday—a new wireless service using Trump’s image to sell smartphones—was notably messy. Not only did the website reportedly glitch while processing preorders (more on that below), but soon after its launch, at least one glaring mistake on the website had to be quickly changed.

    Critics on social media were quick to point out that the Trump Mobile coverage map used the Gulf of Mexico instead of using Trump’s controversial new name for the body of water, the Gulf of America, Reuters reported. Trump has been sued for penalizing AP News for failing to adopt the label, so a wireless service bearing his name would be expected to fall in line. Mocked with screenshots, the Trump Organization yanked the coverage map within hours of launching the site, breaking links and generating errors on Tuesday, confirming that “the page could not be found.”
    …

  80. Reginald Selkirk says

    Iran Bans Officials From Using Internet-Connected Devices

    An anonymous reader shares a report:

    Iran’s cybersecurity authority has banned officials from using devices that connect to the internet, apparently fearing being tracked or hacked by Israel. According to the state-linked Fars news agency, Iranian officials and their bodyguards have been told they are not allowed to use any equipment that connects to public internet or telecommunications networks.

  81. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump’s EPA to “reconsider” ban on cancer-causing asbestos

    Despite touting ambitious goals of making America healthier, the Trump administration on Monday revealed in court documents that it is backpedaling on a ban (intended to prevent deaths) on cancer-causing asbestos.

    Last year, under the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency took a long-awaited step to ban the last type of asbestos still used in the US—chrysotile asbestos, aka “white asbestos.” While use of chrysotile asbestos was on the decline, the dangerous mineral has lingered in a variety of gaskets, brake blocks, aftermarket automotive brakes/linings, other vehicle friction products, and some diaphragms used to make sodium hydroxide and chlorine.

    With the ban, the US joined over 50 other countries around the world that had already banned its use over health risks. Generally, asbestos is known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer, and laryngeal cancer. Asbestos exposure is linked to more than 40,000 deaths in the US alone each year, the EPA noted at the time.
    …
    On Monday, the EPA, now under the Trump administration, filed court documents saying that it “now intends to reconsider the [ban],”and it “expects that this process, including any regulatory changes, will take approximately 30 months.” The EPA asked the court to suspend the court case in the meantime. The filing included a declaration in support of the reconsiderations from new EPA Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Lynn Ann Dekleva, who until last year worked as a lobbyist and director for the American Chemistry Council.
    …

  82. Reginald Selkirk says

    Federal agents arrest NYC mayoral candidate at immigration court

    New York City’s top financial officer, who is running to be its next mayor, was handcuffed and arrested by federal agents while guiding a defendant out of immigration court on Tuesday.

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Brad Lander, who is the city’s comptroller, “for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer”, a spokesperson said.

    The arrest comes amid an immigration crackdown under President Donald Trump who has directed federal officials to conduct raids and deport immigrants who are in the US illegally.

    Videos of the incident show Lander leading a man through the hallway and requesting that the agents show a judicial warrant to detain them.

    A spokesperson for Lander’s campaign said the comptroller was escorting a defendant out of immigration court when he was arrested.

    “You don’t have authority to arrest US citizens,” Lander is heard telling ICE agents in the video as they put him in handcuffs.

    But ICE said Lander was undermining officials…

  83. Reginald Selkirk says

    Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down GOP law weakening attorney general’s power

    A unanimous Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with the Democratic state attorney general Tuesday in a long-running battle over a law passed by Republicans who wanted to weaken the office in a lame duck legislative session more than six years ago.

    The court ruled 7-0 that requiring the attorney general to get permission from a Republican-controlled legislative committee to settle certain lawsuits was unconstitutional. The law is a separation of powers violation, the court said.

    The Republican-controlled Legislature convened a session in December 2018 after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul defeated Republican incumbents. The laws signed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker on his way out the door weakened powers of both offices.

    At issue in the case decided Tuesday was the attorney general’s power to settle lawsuits involving environmental and consumer protection cases as well as cases involving the governor’s office and executive branch. The new law required the Legislature’s budget committee, which is controlled by Republicans, to sign off on those settlements.

    The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020, when controlled by conservatives, upheld all of the lame duck laws and ruled they did not violate the separation of powers principle. But the ruling left the door open to future challenges on how the laws are applied.

    Kaul sued that year, arguing that having to seek approval for those lawsuit settlements violates the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The Legislature argued that lawmakers have an interest in overseeing the settlement of lawsuits and that the court’s earlier ruling saying there was no separation of powers violation should stand…

  84. John Morales says

    Old news, Reginald. Same site: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/jun/17/donald-trump-g7-iran-israel-ceasefire-us-politics-live-updates

    —

    06.37 AEST
    Lander released from federal custody

    New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was just released from federal custody and was seen leaving the federal building in lower Manhattan with his wife, Meg Barnette, and New York governor Kathy Hochul. He is now addressing the media outside.

    Lander says he’s fine, the non-profit newsroom The City reports. “I will be fine but Edgardo will not be fine,” he says in reference to the man taken by Ice outside an immigration courtroom earlier. Lander was detained for insisting that the Ice agenst show a judicial warrant authorizing that immigrant’s arrest

    Although a homeland security spokesperson said Lander was arrested for allegedly assaulting a federal officer, he said he has not been charged at this point.

  85. says

    Trump adopts a new posture toward Iran, demands ‘unconditional surrender’

    “If you voted for the Republican president because you expected foreign policy restraint, I have some awful news for you.”

    Related video at the link.

    After the Israeli military launched a massive attack on Iran on Friday, the Trump administration had an unambiguous message: The United States was not involved in this offensive. As recently as Sunday, Donald Trump himself said in a message posted to his social media platform, “The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran.”

    The president, however, has struggled to stick to this line.

    On Monday, for example, as [Trump] prepared to leave a G7 summit ahead of schedule, he published another online message that read in part, “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” Why should the residents of the Iranian capital evacuate? Trump didn’t say. How should a city of more than 9 million people immediately flee? And to where? The American president didn’t answer those questions, either.

    A day later, he kept going, publishing this message online on Tuesday morning:

    We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.

    His use of the word “we” was certainly of interest. If the Trump administration’s line on Friday was accurate and the U.S. was not involved in Israel’s offensive, then how exactly do “we” have “complete and total control of the skies over Iran”?

    Just 24 minutes later, the American president kept going down the same path, again using words such as “we” and “our.”

    We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

    For good measure, three minutes later, Trump published a two-word message that simply read, “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

    So to recap: until very recently, the White House’s position was that Iranian officials should work with the administration on a possible nuclear agreement. Evidently, the White House’s new position is that Iran should offer someone — he didn’t say who — an “unconditional surrender.”

    Now seems like a good time to take a brief stroll down memory lane.

    In early October 2012, Trump wrote on the platform then known as Twitter, “Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin — watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.” Nearly a year later, the future Republican president added, “Remember what I previously said–Obama will someday attack Iran in order to show how tough he is.”

    In November 2013, Trump similarly wrote, “Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly-not skilled!”

    […] As for Trump’s ostensible political philosophy, plenty of Americans voted for the Republican because they expected him to pursue a foreign policy rooted in relative isolationism. That was before he began a bombing campaign in Yemen; announced his intention to annex Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and the Gaza Strip; made subtle threats toward a NATO ally; and claimed “total control of the skies over Iran” while demanding the country’s “unconditional surrender.”

    Or put another way, if you voted for Trump because you expected foreign policy restraint, I have some awful news for you.

  86. Reginald Selkirk says

    Runes found in Canadian wilderness baffle archaeologists

    Archaeologists remain baffled by a surprising, seemingly ahistorical find located deep in the Canadian wilderness. But after years of research, analysis, and historical corroboration, an interdisciplinary team has finally made their findings available to the public. Tucked away in a forest approximately 465 miles northwest of Ottawa, a massive slab of bedrock features a hand-etched rendition of the full Lord’s Prayer. But the religious text isn’t inscribed in French or English—it’s composed of over 250 symbols from the oldest known runic alphabet.

    The perplexing discovery happened completely by chance, according to the CBC. Hidden for centuries, the stone became exposed only after a tree fell near the town of Wawa, not far from Lake Superior. Closer inspection showed that someone had etched 255 runes into a roughly 4 by 5 foot section of the slab. Additionally, they took time to add a detailed illustration of a boat, an additional 16 runic signs, and 14 X markings.
    …
    The group’s patience and endurance paid off. Williams eventually determined that the message was written with Futhark alphabetic runes. First developed and used by Germanic peoples between the 2nd and 8th centuries CE, Futhark eventually evolved into a simplified version adopted by Scandinavians. Both the Anglo-Saxons and Frisiacs also expanded it into their own variants, but the knowledge of how to read its original iteration died out by the High Middle Ages (around 1000-1300 CE). It wouldn’t be until 1865 that Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge finally succeeded in deciphering the long-lost language.
    …
    Primrose confessed to being “a little disappointed” that the artifact is likely only a couple centuries old, but plenty of questions still surround the find…

  88. says

    Followup to comment 85.

    Josh Marshall:

    […] Beyond pro-forma condemnations, Israel’s de facto Gulf state quasi-allies have been very quiet about all this. Indeed, Europe, which has been increasingly hostile toward the unending bombardments in Gaza, has been quite hands off and non-critical about these attacks. There’s been no flurry of Security Council resolutions or condemnations or anything like it. The real message from the European states has been something like, if you can pull it off, go for it.

    […] we’re seeing the effect of Israel’s shattering of the power of Hezbollah last year. Iran’s “axis of resistance” is in shambles with a mix of the profound military damage to Hezbollah, the fall of the Assad regime and the crushing of the offensive capacity of Hamas. Add to this that Iran’s ballistic missile capacity seems far less fearsome than people assumed. Iran is weak and alone. Even Russia seems to be sending the signal to watch out and not to expect help.

    What all this amounts to is that the Iranians are really, really isolated. Maybe the global community hasn’t done a lot on Gaza’s behalf. But there’s at least been a lot of rhetorical opposition. That’s almost completely absent here.

    […] we’ve seen so much evidence just in the last few days of Donald Trump being swept along with the swirl of events, lure of attention and wanting to get in on a win. He sees a winning operation and he can’t resist slapping the Trump nameplate on it. And here, unlike in any normal world, we’re not talking about “Donald Trump” as an administration or a national security team, but one guy — one very, very, very powerful guy — and his phone.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/thoughts-on-israels-iran-campaign-and-donald-trump

    I snipped a lot.

  89. Reginald Selkirk says

    @50

    Mike Lindell Declares Victory After Crushing Trial Defeat

    On Monday evening, MyPillow CEO and Donald Trump ally Mike Lindell texted Rolling Stone: “Awesome win! MyPillow 100% innocent!!!!”

    It was an odd moment to be taking a victory lap. Moments earlier, a jury ruled that Lindell had defamed a former Dominion Voting Systems executive named Eric Coomer on two occasions, including by calling him a traitor, and ordered Lindell to fork over $2.3 million in damages.

    Why was Lindell reveling in supposed victory? Presumably because the jury damages awarded to Coomer were significantly less than the $26.7 million sought by his attorneys.

    In his text to Rolling Stone, Lindell added that he planned to appeal the ruling, declaring: “My fight to get rid of the machines will continue on stronger than ever!”
    …
    While Lindell may be celebrating only being slapped with a seven figure damages penalty in this case, Coomer’s lawsuit is the first in a series of defamation claims against the MAGA pillow magnate, related to his claims about the 2020 election. Lindell has also been sued directly by Dominion and by Smartmatic, another election hardware and software company about which Lindell made wild claims.
    Dominion is seeking $1.3 billion in damages from Lindell, Smartmatic has left the amount up to the judge. But it’s safe to say that Lindell is nowhere close to being out of the woods.

  90. says

    Despite what Trump says, ICE will keep raiding worksites and hotels

    The Department of Homeland Security sent Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin to Newsmax on Tuesday to clarify some issues about immigrant raids. She did not succeed.

    When asked about the apparent contradiction between President Donald Trump’s recent statements, which claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on worksites and hotels would be scaled back, McLaughlin sidestepped the question. “So worksite operations are very much a cornerstone of our enforcement operations,” she responded.

    “So this is places where we do find the worst of the worst. These criminal illegal aliens that the president has a mandate to get off of American streets. So we will continue to do that,” McLaughlin continued. “There’s no safe harbor, whether it be a church or a courthouse or a worksite. We will come for you. We will arrest you. You will be deported.” [video]

    The claim that ICE raids target only the most violent criminals remains one of the Trump administration’s most egregious lies. A recent CNN report revealed that less than 10% of those detained in Trump’s raids have serious criminal convictions like assault, rape, or murder, while over 75% were detained by ICE with nothing more on their record than immigration or traffic-related offenses.

    Trump’s attempts to soften the backlash from his wildly unpopular military invasion of California have so far failed, largely because his own Department of Homeland Services doesn’t seem to be reading his memos. McLaughlin’s failure to address Newsmax’s simple question echoes comments from border czar Tom Homan suggesting Trump’s statements have no bearing on what current immigration policy is. “I have not seen any instruction, anything that changes in the near future,” Homan recently told the Washington Post.

    Trump’s terrible ideas have left him in a no-win situation. Targeting the agriculture industries alienates his base and hurts the economy, and focusing on sanctuary cities only strengthens an already existing, and far more sophisticated, opposition to his totalitarian efforts. Add the fact that his department heads seem to be treating his directives as bloviations, and you have an emperor with no clothes.

  91. Reginald Selkirk says

    US Democrat seeks to curb Trump’s war powers on Iran, Republicans divided

    A Democratic senator introduced legislation on Monday to prevent U.S. President Donald Trump from using military force against Iran without Congress’s authorization, as an escalating battle between Israel and Iran raised fears of a broader conflict.

    Tim Kaine of Virginia has tried for years to wrest back Congress’s authority to declare war from the White House.
    …
    Kaine said his latest war powers resolution underscores that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the sole power to declare war and requires that any hostility with Iran be explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for the use of military force.
    …
    Under U.S. law, war powers resolutions are privileged, meaning that the Senate will be required to promptly consider and vote on the matter.

    Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, accused Israel of timing its attack on Iran to sabotage talks on Iran’s nuclear program that had been scheduled for Sunday. He also said Washington should avoid the conflict.

    “The U.S. Constitution is crystal clear: there can be no offensive use of military force — against Iran or any other country — without an explicit authorization from Congress,” Sanders said in a statement.

    Some Republicans said the United States should avoid war. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul said he hoped Trump would not give in to pressure to get involved. “It’s not the U.S.’ job to be involved in this war,” Paul said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
    …
    But most of Trump’s fellow Republicans, who control Congress, have shown little appetite for opposing the president and are likely to back him if he decides to get more involved in the conflict. Most Republicans also have been staunch advocates for providing military support to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…

  92. says

    If President Donald Trump was expecting a grand display of military might and loyalty on his 79th birthday—a parade to match his ego—he didn’t get it.

    Instead, what was billed as a celebration of both the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary and the president’s birthday turned out to be disappointing and underwhelming. The turnout was sparse while soldiers marched out of sync, visibly wilting in the humidity of Washington, D.C. Even worse, it rained—despite Trump later insisting it hadn’t.

    And now, it seems Trump wants someone to blame for the flop. Acknowledging the weather, the massive protests happening nationwide, or that Americans had better things to do would be too simple. So, according to journalist and biographer Michael Wolff, Trump pointed the finger at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

    Wolff, who did not disclose his sourcing, told the Daily Beast that Trump was furious the parade wasn’t the “menacing” spectacle he envisioned.

    “He’s pissed off at the soldiers,” Wolff said. “He’s accusing them of hamming it up … showing a convivial face rather than a military face.”

    Maybe Trump’s annoyed because he’s used to soldiers who’ve been prescreened for loyalty. This time, they reportedly weren’t intimidating enough for his liking. So, according to Wolff, Trump “reamed out” Hegseth on the phone.

    “The tone was all wrong,” Wolff claims Trump said. “Who staged this? Why didn’t it send the message?”

    That message, of course, was that Trump is commander in chief of a powerful military machine, and he expects that power to be fully displayed. Instead, he got a parade that felt more like a half-hearted Fourth of July block party.

    […] The White House denies there’s any tension. Communications director Steven Cheung went scorched earth on Wolff, telling the Daily Beast that he’s a “lying sack of shit” with a “peanut-sized brain” rotted by “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

    And publicly, Trump pretended everything went great.

    “Last night was a tremendous success with a fantastic audience,” he told reporters. “It was supposed to rain … and it didn’t rain at all. It was beautiful.”

    Of course, it did rain. And the event was far from a triumph. The crowd was thin, damp, and visibly unenthusiastic. Soldiers waved from tanks, trying to stir something from the slumped, sweating spectators. Trump, seated nearby, occasionally stood for a salute.

    All this even though the parade cost taxpayers millions. Estimates suggest the total price tag landed somewhere between $25 and $45 million. That cost is part of the reason Trump didn’t get his parade during his first term. Now, years later, he finally got the show—and it landed with a thud.

    Meanwhile, across the country, millions were in the streets for “No Kings” protests—joyful, defiant demonstrations rejecting Trump’s authoritarian slide. […] the contrast with Trump’s limp parade couldn’t have been starker.

    Trump had hoped the parade would project strength and control, a visual reminder of his grip on the country. After all, this is a man who has deployed Marines to Los Angeles., seized control of the California National Guard, erroneously deported American citizens, disappeared dissidents, and turned federal agencies against political opponents. The parade was supposed to cap all that with a message: I’m in charge—and I have the tanks to prove it.

    Instead, it flopped. And someone has to take the fall, and that someone sure won’t be Trump.

    Link

  93. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ohio lawmakers to introduce bill banning abortion, criminalizing the procedure

    Republican lawmakers in Ohio are planning on introducing a bill on Wednesday that would ban almost all abortions and criminalize the procedure.

    The “Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act” would overturn the amendment to the Ohio constitution, voted on in 2023, that establishes “an individual right to one’s own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion” before viability.

    Reproductive medical treatment includes contraception, fertility treatments and miscarriage care.
    …
    “This is the most extreme and anti-life legislation that you can imagine,” she told ABC News. “It would strip Ohioans of their constitutionally guaranteed right to bodily autonomy, and that’s the goal of this legislation.”

    When Beigel was asked if he was concerned that the bill may go against the will of the voters, he said he was not because “the will of the voters was evil.”
    …

  94. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump Accidentally Screwed Himself on Military Parade Crowd Size

    Donald Trump’s military parade was an undeniable failure, but apparently, the small crowds may have been due to pathetic party planning.

    Amanda Moore, a journalist who spent 11 months undercover with the alt-right, filmed the crowds of swirling onlookers Saturday—but as she explained, they were in the wrong place.

    “The marketing material said the entrance was on 14, but in reality it was on 12 St and you had to go through this pen for two blocks. Everyone who was around to answer questions was an asshole, too. Probably part of the issue!” she wrote on X.

    In a video taken by Anarchy Princess, an activist best known for messing with Peter Navarro, Trump supporters and other attendees swarmed around a large street where they couldn’t actually see the parade, and were promptly ushered out of the viewing zone.* Moore said she’d observed that there were more than 3,000 to 5,000 people gathered in the wrong place, and that many of them had already missed the parade, which was scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. but actually started earlier to beat the rain.

    Anarchy Princess wrote on X, “Ok so there actually was a ton of people at the #250army parade but they were all stuck outside the gates like herded cattle and never made it to the bleachers.”
    …
    In another post, Landry blamed the event planners for providing maps to attendees that made no sense.

    “But how is anyone supposed to know where to go? These maps are the sum total of what they put out and they’re total garbage,” he wrote…

  95. says

    Followup to comment 92.

    Posted by readers of the article:

    The key differences being:
    1) The NK military likely practices for months to nail the precision performances their leader demands, while ours probably had a few hours at most.
    2) The commanders, junior officers, and troops in NK all understand that anything less than perfection may lead to a substantial reduction of their lifespan. Ours understand that to not be the case.
    —————————–
    There were marching bands, who did better marching in unison than the troops; there was very little marching ‘in step’ — most were walking, smiling and waving down Constitution Avenue like at the Olympics in their uniforms or costumes. I’m glad they had a good time, the day should have been all about them, not him. I’m so proud of our troops for botching El Douche’s birthday.
    ——————————
    Because it’s all so half-assed! He wants a military parade, but doesn’t put in the work to make sure everyone understands what it’s supposed to look like. He wants to be seen as a heavy hitter on international affairs, but lacks the history and comprehension to properly understand what’s happening or what would be of benefit to this country (let alone any others).

    One can’t look “tough” by putting in minimum effort.
    ——————————-
    A prominent member of the military described the display as sloppy; the troops weren’t happy having to do this, and it showed. I’ve marched in more military parades than I care to remember, and this was the worst and sloppiest marching ever. It feels like a big “FU” to Trump from the soldiers.”
    ——————————
    Actually, it hardly rained at all, just a sprinkle after 7:30PM. Fortunately for the rest of us who had outdoor plans that didn’t involve him.
    ——————————-
    What he got was nice. A friendly, waving spectacle of not-quite marching soldiers, a DEI army. If you have the time, listen to the Daily Beast interview with Wolff. Not only was this “produced” by someone Pete Kegsbreath Hegseth put in charge (sponsored by Palantir and Lockheed Martin), including costumed horse riding co-players. As compared to a North Korea or Soviet wildly cheering, standing-room-only missile laden parade. Wolff thinks the military itself was being subversive.

  97. Reginald Selkirk says

    DHS Secretary Kristi Noem brought to hospital due to allergic reaction<M/a>

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was transported to a hospital on Tuesday due to an allergic reaction, the Department of Homeland Security said.

    Noem is “alert and recovering,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CBS News. She was brought to a hospital “out of an abundance of caution.”

    The secretary was transported to George Washington University Hospital, sources told CBS News. She is accompanied by her security detail…

  98. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump’s pardons cost victims and taxpayers $1.3 billion, House Judiciary Committee Democrats’ review says

    President Trump’s flurry of recent presidential pardons has cost crime victims and taxpayers approximately $1.3 billion in restitution and payments, according to a review by House Judiciary Democrats.

    The pardons absolved hundreds of convicted criminals from having to pay for damages and restitution caused by their crimes. Victims have not been made whole, the Democrats said — including U.S. taxpayers who must now foot the bill for the millions of dollars in repairs and cleanup from the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol.

    The Judiciary Committee Democrats’ investigation, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, also cited several multi-million dollar restitution payments that were cancelled by Trump’s recent pardons. The committee’s review said, “with a far greater financial effect, President Trump’s pardon spree has also swept in big-time corporate fraudsters, millionaire tax evaders, and other white-collar criminals. Thanks to President Trump’s pardons, these convicted criminals now get to keep $1.3 billion in ill-gotten gains they stole from their victims and American taxpayers.” …

  99. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cannabis use linked to a doubled risk of heart disease death, new study finds

    With growing marijuana use across the country, studies have looked at the link between cannabis use and cardiovascular problems — but new research is showing the magnitude of such risk.

    In the study, published Tuesday in the journal Heart, researchers found cannabis use is linked to a doubled risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, a 29% higher risk for acute coronary syndrome and 20% higher risk for stroke.

    The authors analyzed data from 24 studies published from 2016 to 2023…

  102. JM says

    CBS News: Lawmakers move to limit Trump’s war powers as Israel-Iran war escalates

    Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are looking to limit President Trump’s ability to order U.S. strikes on Iran amid its ongoing war with Israel, emphasizing that only Congress has the power to declare war under the Constitution.
    “This is not our war,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said in a post on X Tuesday announcing that he had introduced a measure under the 1973 War Powers Resolution to block U.S. strikes. “Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.”

    I don’t think this gets past the Senate and if it does Trump will ignore it or challenge it in court. Legally how much the president can do without Congressional approval is an unclear area.
    It’s still interesting because it is bipartisan. There are conservative Republicans that object to the US getting involved in any conflict outside the US that doesn’t involve a direct immediate US interest.

  103. Militant Agnostic says

    Reginald Selkirk @97

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was transported to a hospital on Tuesday due to an allergic reaction

    Tactical Barbie’s allergic reaction was probably caused by inadvertent contact with honesty or empathy.

  104. John Morales says

    In the news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFFP24_UH1U

    Can Europe Replace America’s F-35 Fighter Jet? | WSJ

    The F-35 jet fighter helped the U.S. achieve both military air superiority and billions in trade for years. But President Trump’s recent rhetoric has forced some American allies to reconsider their reliance on the aircraft and eye European alternatives like the U.K. and EU’s Eurofighter, France’s Rafale and Sweden’s Gripen.

    WSJ explores how one of the world’s most expensive weapons is at risk of losing its dominance.

    Chapters:
    0:00 The F-35 program
    0:37 What buying an F-35 means
    1:02 Trump’s attacks and Europe’s response
    2:21 European rival jets
    3:33 F-35 challenges ahead

  105. KG says

    birgerjohansson@75 quoting the Guardian,
    “As well as dropping the papers, Trump wrongly announced that he had agreed a deal with the EU, not the UK, and some of his answers were unclear and rambling.”

    Only some of them? Clearly, one of his good days!

  106. KG says

    JM@102,

    I guess Trump’s cowardice is currently warring with his lust for praise and borrowed valour over whether to join in the Israel-Iran war more openly. He sees Israel having badly damaged Iran’s military capability to hit back (as well as killing hundreds of civilians and bombing at least one hospital and many other civilian targets), he sees Iran isolated, and wants to take the credit, particularly if the regime actually falls, but still fears the consequences of getting the USA involved in a new war. We must hope his cowardice comes out on top or (I’m not holding out much hope of this) effective congressional opposition to involvement.

    I’m not shedding any tears for the Iranian military leaders Israel has assassinated, but the attack – which the G7 effectively backed despite Japan’s earlier condemnation – was in blatant violation of international law, and the failure to condemn it reveals more starkly than ever the hypocrisy of the leaders of the “free world” and their (rightful) condemnation of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine: Israel is evidently free to break international law whenever and however it likes, and will continue to be armed, funded and diplomatically protected. And while the fall of the Iranian regime would be welcome in itself, we’ve seen in Libya that foreign forces bombing a tyrant out of power can easily leave the people of the country worse off than before, the country itself divided between smaller tyrants, each with his foreign backers, and a flow of refugees that in turn benefits the far right in the countries they flee to.

  107. John Morales says

    There’s a pernicious perception that Iran is “third world”; I checked with the Bubblebot:

    Iran’s closest comparisons in terms of area, population, GDP, and HDI are:

    Area (~1.65 million km²): Comparable to Mongolia (1.56 million km²) and Peru (1.28 million km²).
    Population (~89 million): Similar to Turkey (~86 million) and Germany (~84 million).
    GDP (~$1.7 trillion PPP): Close to Thailand (~$1.8 trillion) and South Africa (~$1.4 trillion).
    HDI (~0.774, High): Comparable to Turkey (0.853) and Mexico (0.779).

    For direct comparisons, you can explore this tool for detailed country comparisons.

  108. John Morales says

    One more:
    Iran vs. Ukraine comparison:

    Area: Iran (~1.65 million km²) is significantly larger than Ukraine (~603,550 km²).
    Population: Iran (~90.6 million) has more than twice Ukraine’s (~37.7 million).
    GDP: Iran (~$404.6 billion nominal) is more than twice Ukraine’s (~$178.8 billion nominal).
    HDI: Iran (~0.774) is slightly higher than Ukraine (~0.779).

    For a detailed breakdown, see this comparison.

  110. Reginald Selkirk says

    Scientists once hoarded pre-nuclear steel, and now we’re hoarding pre-AI content

    Former Cloudflare executive John Graham-Cumming recently announced that he launched a website, lowbackgroundsteel.ai, that treats pre-AI, human-created content like a precious commodity—a time capsule of organic creative expression from a time before machines joined the conversation. “The idea is to point to sources of text, images and video that were created prior to the explosion of AI-generated content,” Graham-Cumming wrote on his blog last week. The reason? To preserve what made non-AI media uniquely human.
    …

  111. says

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

    ‘No such thing as one-and-done”: Trump risks deeper entanglement in Israel-Iran war
    Video is 6:18 minutes

    Outrage grows over ICE overreach as public gets wise to Trump’s dirty tactics to round up immigrants
    Video is 8:33 minutes

    Reality makes a mockery of Donald Trump’s ‘peacemaker’ ambitions
    Video is 4:36 minutes

  112. Reginald Selkirk says

    We’ve had a Denisovan skull since the 1930s—only nobody knew

    A 146,000-year-old skull from Harbin, China, belongs to a Denisovan, according to a recent study of proteins preserved inside the ancient bone. The paleoanthropologists who studied the Harbin skull in 2021 declared it a new (to us) species, Homo longi. But the Harbin skull still contains enough of its original proteins to tell a different story: A few of them matched specific proteins from Denisovan bones and teeth, as encoded in Denisovan DNA.

    So Homo longi was a Denisovan all along, and thanks to the remarkably well-preserved skull, we finally know what the enigmatic Denisovans actually looked like…

  113. Reginald Selkirk says

    MIT researchers crack 3D printing with glass — new technique enables inorganic composite glass printed at low temperatures

    Researchers from the Lincoln Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are showing the world that there are still plenty of new innovations to come in the world of 3D printing. We’ve reviewed really fun 3D printers like the Cocoa Press that 3D prints chocolate, but this is the first time we’ve seen anyone 3D print with glass.
    …
    The team refers to the glass-based filament as an inorganic composite glass, while the overall process is known as low-temperature additive manufacturing. This material apparently resolves stability concerns found in other filaments while still allowing for flexibility when it comes to structural versatility.

    This inorganic composite glass is made of inorganic materials, with nanoparticles and silicate solution confirmed by the team as part of those materials. Once the glass filament has been printed, it’s placed in an oil bath where the temperature is then raised to 250°C. An organic solvent is then used to clean any residue from the print.
    …

  114. says

    Followup to PZ’s post The army is fast-tracking corruption right into the officer corps

    […] A new Army initiative titled “Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps” promises to “fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation.”

    Will they do that by tapping 18F, the federal agency dedicated to working with other agencies on technology products, staffed by people with expertise in both government and tech? Heavens, no. Not since President Donald Trump disbanded that agency because Elon Musk thought it was too woke.

    No, instead they will do it by making some tech execs part-time lieutenant colonels in the Army Reserve while retaining their current full-time jobs. Welcome your newest recruits: Andrew Bosworth, CTO of Meta; Shyam Sankar, CTO Palantir; Kevin Weil, CPO of OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, OpenAI’s former research chief and current advisor to Thinking Machines Lab.

    The whole thing feels like nothing more than a make-believe outing meant to make some tech bros feel important. The Army already does these sorts of direct commissions, where civilians are directly appointed to officer positions. But that’s usually used for people wanting to serve in the medical corps, not for getting a pretend Army gig to steer federal contracts to your private company.

    The Army announced the initiative the same day the four execs were sworn in, which makes it look a lot like they invented this “detachment” as a way to bring Silicon Valley moguls in-house without officially doing so. This way, the Trump administration didn’t have to appoint or hire any industry titans, and they didn’t have to give up their incredibly lucrative day jobs.

    “Detachment 201” would look a lot less sketchy if the Army hadn’t only tapped executives from companies that have donated millions to Trump. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman dropped a million on his inauguration, as did Palantir CEO Alexander Karp and Meta. Palantir even went above and beyond, sponsoring Trump’s pathetic military parade.

    These four execs were sworn in on June 13, and it only took until June 16 for the Defense Department to announce it had awarded a $200 million no-bid contract to OpenAI to “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains.”

    Just in case this conflict of interest wasn’t blatant enough, Katrina Mulligan, former chief of staff to the Army secretary, posted more big news on LinkedIn Monday, announcing that, since being rewarded its $200 million contract, OpenAI is now bringing her on to run a new initiative, “OpenAI for Government,” which will supposedly “help accelerate the U.S. government’s adoption of AI.”

    Similarly, Palantir has already been the recipient of more than $100 million in taxpayer dollars since Trump took office in January. And just last month, The New York Times published a detailed account of government use of Foundry, a Palantir tool for organizing and analyzing data. As everyone knows, this is because the Trump administration wants to create a unified master database of government data to better torment immigrants. But Palantir wants you to know it’s definitely not building a unified master database, and how dare you ask.

    Meta, meanwhile, hasn’t yet reaped its rewards, but don’t worry—it’s getting there. The company is actively courting the military for contracts and has partnered with Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Industries to design, build, and field products for the military to “provide warfighters with enhanced perception and enable intuitive control of autonomous platforms on the battlefield.”

    In other words, they’re building a VR helmet to sell to the military.

    Notably absent from the list of Big Special Boys with Big Special Army Jobs is Musk and any of his companies. In the halcyon days of the Trump-Musk alliance, he was getting literal billions in government contracts, awarded with no oversight and no regard for the obvious conflict of interest.

    SpaceX was on track to help build the Golden Dome missile shield, a Trump fixation and boondoggle that will not work but will nonetheless cost somewhere between $119 billion and $6.4 trillion. But now there’s nary a mention of SpaceX while Golden Dome missile shield partner Palantir’s star is rapidly ascending.

    Clearly, Trump’s gratitude for the $250 million Musk spent to get him elected is now exhausted, in part thanks to their tacky, messy blowup, but also because Trump requires constant infusions of both money and fealty.

    But other billionaires are eager to fill that void and ready to reap the riches. And, unlike Musk, they get to play soldier, too!

    Link

  115. Reginald Selkirk says

    Transportation Secretary Threatens To Seize Infrastructure Funding From States That Don’t Stop The Protests

    Donald Trump is incredibly unpopular, and that isn’t just the opinion of this particular blogsite; He’s underwater in the polls, and Saturday saw about 5,000,000 people gather to protest his cruel, economically damaging policies. In addition to Trump ordering his masked goons to target the cities where some of the biggest protests took place, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has threatened to withhold infrastructure funds from states that don’t stop the protests.

    On Twitter, Duffy quoted a post from the so-called “Trump War Room” account that shared a screenshot of one of Trump’s TruthSocial posts and said, “The @USDOT will NOT fund rogue state actors who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. And to cities that stand by while rioters destroy transportation infrastructure — don’t expect a red cent from DOT, either. Follow the law, or forfeit the funding.”

    Exactly what laws Duffy believes these states are breaking to justify withholding funding isn’t clear, although it’s possible he was referring to the protesters themselves. That would, of course, make his threat even worse, since he’s basically saying states need to violently stop all protests if they want federal transportation funding. It also isn’t clear what transportation infrastructure the protests destroyed, since it isn’t like anyone bombed a bridge or tore out a road.
    …

    ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves’

    ‘Trump war room’ it is obvious from the context that Trump is making war on America.

  116. says

    The Trump administration is trying to make a change to federal regulations that would bar thousands of U.S. girls from school sports.

    The change would be to a provision in Title IX, the 1972 landmark federal civil rights law, that bans sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funding and requires those schools to provide athletic opportunities for the “underrepresented sex.”

    Currently, that means that in schools where there is only a boys’ team for certain sports, girls are allowed to try out for the team. For instance, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, there were more than 4,000 U.S. girls who played on 11-person boys’ football teams during the 2023-2024 school year.

    […] In this instance, not only would transgender children be barred from sports, but cisgender girls would also lose rights that they’ve had for more than five decades.

    […] Kel O’Hara, senior attorney for policy and education equity at Equal Rights Advocates, told HuffPost that this could be used to destroy even more civil rights down the road.

    “The really concerning part from my perspective is that this could essentially provide a blueprint for dismantling civil rights protections across the board,” they said.

    Bizarrely, the Trump administration is pursuing this change through the Department of Energy rather than the Department of Education, which traditionally handles matters like this. But the Education Department has been subject to layoffs triggered by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and Trump is trying to destroy the entire agency.

    Trump and other Republicans, along with right-wing media outlets like Fox News, have consistently demonized transgender people over the last several years in an effort to motivate conservative voters to support the GOP while simultaneously encouraging violent bigots.

    The attack on human rights can now count school sports as another casualty of the Trump regime.

    Link

  117. says

    In a post published solely in Farsi, the Israel Defense Forces suggested that Iranians with knowledge of Iran’s “security apparatus” who “have expressed fear, despair, and anger over what is happening in Iran” contact the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, using a VPN.

    “Perhaps there, you will find a new path to improve your situation,” the post said.

    Iran’s chief justice warned Monday that anyone arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel will be given swift trials and punishment, the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported.

    Washington Post link

    Also from the Washington Post:

    Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that “we are millimeters away from catastrophe” as Israel continues to fire missiles against Iran’s nuclear facilities, which spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described as “peaceful civilian infrastructure, under the control of [International Atomic Energy Agency] observers.”

    Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Wednesday in a post on X that his country does not fear President Donald Trump’s threats and “absurd rhetoric.” In a separate television address, he vowed that Iran “will not surrender” and said any U.S. military intervention in the conflict would bring “irreparable damage.”

    Trump is weighing whether to strike Iran, and the Pentagon has built up U.S. military forces in the Middle East in recent days. On social media Tuesday, Trump demanded “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” from Tehran without detailing what that would mean, and he described the supreme leader as an “easy target.” Israel and Iran continued to trade fire on Wednesday, the sixth day of the direct conflict.

    Minutes after saying he had not decided whether to strike Iran, President Donald Trump was asked whether he had given Iranians an ultimatum.

    “Uh,” Trump said, pausing and pursing his lips. “You could say so. They know. They know what’s happening. Maybe you could call it the ultimate — the ultimate ultimatum, right?”

    Asked what he meant by that, Trump replied, “Oh, I don’t want to say — look, I mean, give me a break.”

  118. Reginald Selkirk says

    Honda Launches A Reusable Rocket And It Didn’t Even Explode

    Honda, the automotive, motorcycle, small-engine, and robotics company, pushed Japan several steps closer to its outer space ambitions on Tuesday with the surprise successful test of its first reusable rocket ship. The 20-foot tall experimental “reusable launch vehicle” achieved flight stability during ascent and descent, and reliably plopped itself back on terra firma about a foot away from its intended target bullseye. Honda wasn’t looking to get this experimental rocket into space, as the initial test was all about take offs and landings, going just 889 feet up at its maximum altitude. The company announced its goal to achieve suborbital space flight by 2029, giving Japanese companies an outlet for launching satellites without relying on Russia, China, or American billionaire-run companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin.

    The small Honda rocket is about one tenth the size of the first successful reusable rocket, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Full Thrust SES-9 launch in 2015, making it ideal for smaller payloads and using less fuel. The objective of a reusable rocket is to significantly reduce the operating costs of space travel, lowering the barrier to entry for something like a satellite launch, for example…

  120. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Malaysian groups plan ‘thousand Ship flotilla’ to break Israel’s siege of Gaza

    the largest maritime mobilisation in the world to break the Israeli blockade […] “Thousand Ship Flotilla”, aims to dispatch vessels from multiple continents in a coordinated effort to deliver humanitarian aid and pressure Israel to end its siege. […] coordination is already underway with civil society groups in Europe, Asia, and Latin America […] The organisers also called on governments worldwide to protect their nationals participating in the flotilla—an appeal aimed at increasing diplomatic pressure on Israel through indirect means.

  121. JM says

    @117

    Trump is weighing whether to strike Iran, and the Pentagon has built up U.S. military forces in the Middle East in recent days. On social media Tuesday, Trump demanded “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” from Tehran without detailing what that would mean, and he described the supreme leader as an “easy target.” Israel and Iran continued to trade fire on Wednesday, the sixth day of the direct conflict.

    One problem with fighting religious fanatics is that taking out the supreme leader is much less likely to stop the conflict. With a dictator like Putin the country is very likely to at least make a tactical truce after the leader is replaced. Even if the new leader is just another dictator, the immediate needs to securing control come first. Fanatics don’t care. It will be like Afghanistan all over again. Hitting the religious fanatics just makes them more popular because it makes them look like patriots.

  122. says

    ‘Not a serious person’: Pete Hegseth hedges to Congress on honoring court rulings

    For the second time in two weeks, the Pentagon chief didn’t want to say whether he was willing to follow the judiciary’s orders.

    Partway through Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest appearance on Capitol Hill, Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin asked whether he’d given military personnel deployed to Los Angeles orders to “shoot at unarmed protesters.” The beleaguered Pentagon chief responded by expressing confusion as to why the Michigan senator was even asking the question.

    For most observers, the answer was obvious: One of Hegseth’s recent predecessors, Mark Esper, has repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump pushed to shoot protesters in the legs in 2020, and Slotkin wanted to know whether the current secretary would embrace similar principles.

    She added that she gives Esper a “lot of credit” for ignoring the president’s wishes, telling Hegseth, “He had more guts and b—s than you.”

    It was that kind of hearing for the former Fox News host, who struggled once again with questions he appeared unwilling or unable to answer. Do military personnel have the ability to arrest and detain protesters? Hegseth wouldn’t say. Did he coordinate decisions with a right-wing social personality? Hegseth wouldn’t say. If the president wanted to deploy Marines to Chicago and New York City over the objections of state and local officials, would he carry out the order? Hegseth wouldn’t say.

    It reached a point where Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada found it necessary to tell the Cabinet secretary that he is “not a serious person,” which seemed more than fair under the circumstances.

    But perhaps most important was Hegseth’s testimony about honoring court rulings. The New York Times summarized:

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested to a Senate committee that he might ignore court orders regarding the domestic use of troops, if ordered to do so by President Trump. [Bad news] ‘I don’t believe district courts should be setting national security policy,’ Mr. Hegseth said as Democrats questioned him about deployments of military personnel to Los Angeles amid protests over immigration raids. Pressed further, he said he would honor a Supreme Court ruling.

    This actually came up twice over the course of the proceedings. After Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii asked if Hegseth would follow a court order, he said, after dismissing the relevance of lower courts, “If it goes to the Supreme Court, we’ll see.”

    In other words, maybe he’d defy our constitutional system of government; maybe he wouldn’t. The Pentagon chief wasn’t prepared to commit either way. [!]

    Soon after, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts pursued a similar line of inquiry, and Hegseth again suggested he might be inclined to ignore lower courts, although this time he said he’d “abide” by Supreme Court decisions.

    […] First, federal court rulings are not optional. The military cannot decide to ignore judicial directives at will, even if the decisions come from lower courts.

    Second, district and appellate courts don’t “set” national security policy, but in this country, there’s a long history of jurists weighing in on the legality of national security policies. Indeed, it’s part of the courts’ job.

    And third, in context, the Democratic senators were asking about domestic troop deployments, which should have nothing to do with national security policy.

    There were already widespread concerns about the Trump administration and its embrace of an authoritarian-style vision. Hegseth’s testimony went a long way toward making those concerns worse.

  123. says

    Budget office ignores rhetoric, says GOP megabill would add $3.4 trillion to the debt

    “The more Republicans insist that their far-right legislation would shrink the deficit, the more the CBO’s arithmetic points in the opposite direction.”

    One of the key questions about the Republicans’ domestic policy megabill — the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act — is how much the far-right package would cost. Republican Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, recently told The Washington Post, “You have some that say it’s going to save trillions. And then you have others that say it’s going to add trillions.”

    Well, yes, that about covers it.

    But for those willing to disregard partisan rhetoric and posturing, Congress has a whole office that answers questions like these in an objective and nonpartisan way. It’s called the Congressional Budget Office, and this week it provided lawmakers with revised information about the overall cost of the GOP’s reconciliation bill. The New York Times reported:

    House Republicans’ sprawling package to cut taxes and slash federal safety-net programs would add about $3.4 trillion to the debt, according to nonpartisan congressional analysts, who reported on Tuesday that the minor gains in economic growth under the bill would not offset its full fiscal impact. The updated findings from the Congressional Budget Office amounted to yet another dour report card for the president’s signature legislation, which passed the House last month but now faces the prospect of significant revisions to its core components in the Senate.

    At this point, I know what some readers are thinking. “Hold on,” you’re saying. “Didn’t you just publish a post two weeks ago that said the Republican legislation would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt? Is the actual number $2.4 trillion or $3.4 trillion?”

    If that is what you’re thinking, it’s a good question — but I have a good answer.

    The CBO score from two weeks ago simply did the arithmetic based on the provisions included in the House-approved version of the bill, adding up spending and revenue. This new and revised CBO score, as the Times put it, “sought to project the ways the bill would interact with federal spending and the U.S. economy.” (This is generally known as a “dynamic” budget analysis.)

    With this in mind, this latest report from the budget office didn’t just include the surface-level budget shortfalls that that Republican bill would generate, it also included, among other things, the increased interest costs on the national debt. This is what pushed the overall cost to $3.4 trillion.

    “Today’s CBO score will disappoint every Republican who hoped tax breaks for billionaires would magically pay for themselves,” Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat and the ranking member on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement. He added, “Their handouts to the mega-rich will add trillions to the national debt. As if kicking 16 million people off their health care wasn’t bad enough, now every American will pay the price for the Republican debt crisis — with higher interest rates, bigger credit card bills, and more expensive mortgages.”

    The more Republican leaders insist that their legislation would shrink the deficit, the more arithmetic points in the opposite direction.

  124. says

    GOP’s Hawley says Trump was unaware of key element in Republican megabill

    Related video at the link.

    […] the senator [Sen. Josh Hawley] told The New York Times this week that he’d spoken to Donald Trump about the Senate version of the reconciliation package and, according to Hawley, the president was surprised to learn about the policy that would likely lead to lower payments to rural hospitals.

    This was no small revelation. Republicans have been working on this legislation for eight months. It’s been pending in the Senate for several weeks. Trump has been unsubtle in his efforts to lobby lawmakers in support of the far-right package.

    But amid considerable discussion in policy circles about a key element of the bill, Trump apparently had no idea about this provision — which, given his background as a post-policy president with little interest in the substance of governing, isn’t surprising, though it was a timely reminder that Trump probably won’t be taking on an active role in ironing out policy details in the coming days and weeks.

    That said, it’s not too late for the White House to get up to speed on the issue.

    This gets quite wonky, but under the existing system, Medicaid is a federal-state partnership, with states covering upfront care costs, and the federal government then reimbursing them for at least 50%. Nearly every state — in fact, every state except Alaska — has been able to collect additional matching funds through Medicaid provider taxes, which are imposed on providers, including hospitals. As NBC News reported, “When states use provider funds to boost their Medicaid spending, the federal government gives them more money because it’s required to match it.”

    In recent decades, hospitals haven’t minded the provider taxes, because the money goes to states, which get reimbursed by the federal government, which insures that money then flows back to the providers. Indeed, a lot of the money raised by way of provider taxes has gone toward bolstering rural hospitals specifically. As Senate Republicans take steps to roll back the practice, it puts those hospitals in real jeopardy. The New York Times reported:

    Cutting provider taxes would probably mean funding shortfalls of hundreds of billions of dollars for states over the next decade, leaving them with budget holes to fill. To offset the losses, states would most likely need to explore cutting other services or raising other taxes. In scaling back Medicaid provider taxes, Senate Republicans are pursuing cuts that their House colleagues were hesitant to propose. [!]

    Rick Pollack, the American Hospital Association’s president, warned this week that hospitals may have to cut services or even close as a result of this change.

    What’s more, it’s not just hospitals that have to worry. The Bulwark’s Jonathan Cohn explained, “There’s a solid argument for addressing these provider taxes, which states use as a budgeting gimmick to draw down extra federal funds. But doing so in the context of a bill that’s cutting Medicaid in so many other ways—and without plowing the savings back into health care — would mean even less access to medical care and more financial vulnerability for low-income Americans.”

    With all of this in mind, Hawley told the Times that the Senate version of the bill “needs a lot of work.” […]

    “Trump was unaware.”

  125. Reginald Selkirk says

    Judge smacks down Pentagon plan to slash university research funding awards

    A federal judge has temporarily blocked an attempt by the Department of Defense to cut funding for university research programs, perhaps inadvertently saving the DoD from an own-goal.
    …
    These grants include indirect cost awards, which are necessary to support research projects, but which aren’t unique to any single project. According to a lawsuit filed this week by 15 universities, college governing boards, and higher education associations, those costs can include things like “specialized nuclear-rated facilities; computer systems to analyze enormous volumes of data; information-technology and utility systems providing the backbone for those efforts,” researchers and staff who keep such systems running, facilities maintenance, and other expenses needed to support the work researchers are doing.

    According to the lawsuit, reimbursement rates negotiated by institutions and the government “often fall between 50 and 65 percent,” but Hegseth said in a May 14 memo [PDF] that the DoD intended to cap rates at 15 percent across the board.
    …
    Hegseth’s letter includes plans to revisit existing awards and negotiate universities down to the 15 percent rate – those that refuse will have their awards terminated and reissued “under revised terms,” the memo explained.

    The higher ed plaintiffs filed a lawsuit [PDF] against the Department of Defense and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday to reverse the move, and then asked for a temporary restraining order (TRO) the next day to pause it immediately.

    The universities explained in their TRO request that the letter puts them in the impossible position of either submitting to the Pentagon’s demand and possibly losing the funding permanently, or refusing to budge from earlier negotiated rates, which means the DoD might “reject the proposals out of hand.”

    With thousands of pending funding proposals on the table and many more already in place, the plaintiff universities argued their TRO was necessary “because the harms from DoD’s unlawful Rate Cap Policy will be immediate, irreparable and compounding.”

    Judge Brian Murphy of the US District Court of Massachusetts agreed, granting a TRO to block the DoD’s 15 percent cap. The court scheduled a return hearing for July 2, and ordered the TRO to remain in effect until further order of the court.

    Once in court, the DoD will need to explain how its actions don’t infringe on the Administrative Procedure Act in a multitude of ways, as charged in the lawsuit. The universities who stand to lose funding have accused the Pentagon of six counts of violating the APA, including illegally departing from negotiated cost rates, unauthorized action, unlawful termination of existing grants and arbitrary and capricious action…

  126. says

    […] A new memo obtained by CNN reveals that Noem [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem], citing budget pressures, has ordered every DHS contract and grant over $100,000 to cross her desk for personal approval. The directive affects every agency under DHS, including ICE, Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and—most critically—the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    Officials at FEMA are raising alarms, warning that Noem’s review mandate could delay emergency funding during natural disasters. That’s not an abstract concern: Hurricane season officially began on June 1, and researchers are forecasting that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season will be 125% more active than usual.

    “This will hurt nonprofits, states, and small towns. Massive delays feel inevitable,” a FEMA official told CNN.

    A former senior FEMA official put it more bluntly.

    “It’s bonkers,” they said.

    […] Noem’s office expects each funding review to take at least five days, which might feel like an eternity when lives are at stake. During past hurricanes, like last year’s Helene and Milton, FEMA obligated as much as $7 billion in a single month. But now that kind of rapid deployment could be stuck in bureaucratic limbo. [Well that’s ironic.]

    […] And FEMA’s not just concerned about the paperwork. In recent weeks, Noem reportedly installed at least half a dozen DHS officials—most with little to no experience in disaster relief—into FEMA’s front office, where they’re now directing day-to-day operations.

    […] It’s not hard to see the writing on the wall. Trump and Noem have both signaled that they plan to phase out FEMA after the 2025 hurricane season, which ends on November 30, shifting the burden of disaster response entirely to the states.

    So while ICE may be the immediate money pit, FEMA—and the people who depend on it—could end up paying the price.

    Link

  129. says

    Bad news: Supreme Court will hear a case about fake pregnancy clinics

    At first glance, the United States Supreme Court’s decision to hear First Choice Women’s Resource Center v. Platkin doesn’t seem so bad. The question presented to the nation’s highest court is a narrow, technical one regarding whether an individual who receives a subpoena in a state investigation and alleges that the demand chills their free speech rights can challenge that subpoena in federal court.

    Okay—so far, so boring, so what? Well, what if the case is actually about so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which are really just fake clinics designed to deceive people seeking abortion care? And what if the clinic is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, the notorious conservative Christian law firm dedicated to eradicating reproductive rights, which also just happens to get the Court to take its cases again and again? And what if you know that Erin Hawley, wife of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and terrible person in her own right, will be arguing the case? And what if you know that the Supreme Court has shown a remarkable tenderness toward protecting the free speech rights of these fake clinics, including letting them spew medical disinformation? Suddenly, the case doesn’t look so harmless.

    [I snipped details of past court actions and of First Choice’s argument.]

    […] in the lawsuit [First Choice is claiming that] New Jersey is targeting these fake clinics out of hostility, and now they can’t possibly reveal their donor names because of all the violence perpetuated against fake clinics. That’s nicely vague—and it has to be, because there is only one side of the abortion fight perpetually engaging in violence against abortion providers and supporters. From 1977 to 2022, there have been 11 murders, 42 bombings, 200 arsons, 531 assaults, 492 clinic invasions, and 375 burglaries, all carried out by anti-choice zealots. Following the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, violence against reproductive health clinics where abortion remained legal spiked sharply.

    […] First Choice is also unhappy that anyone would say that their free speech is a bunch of lies, but there’s no question that fake clinics like these deceive clients. It’s their entire business model. They lead people to believe that they are medical clinics and their personnel have medical training. They disguise their intentions by offering “pregnancy help,” a vague term that definitely does not include abortion. They also refuse to refer people to abortion resources and lie about the dangers of sexual activity generally and abortion specifically. They target lower-income pregnant people and people of color who think they are at a real clinic that would provide abortion care. They tell people they are farther along in pregnancy than they really are, so they will believe it is too late to get an abortion. They spread long-debunked medical misinformation, such as saying it is possible to “reverse” a medication abortion. [!!]

    It would seem self-evident that a state attorney general has every right and duty to look into organizations that routinely scam and lie to people, particularly given that the consequences of those lies prevent people from obtaining a perfectly legal medical procedure. But the conservatives on the Supreme Court have shielded fake clinics, ruling in 2018 that it violates their First Amendment rights even to have to post a notice that abortion is available elsewhere in the state. That, declared Justice Clarence Thomas, is government-controlled speech and therefore unconstitutional.

    […] the court taking up another fake clinic case, even under the fiction that it is just a dispute over which court should hear the case, is not great for abortion rights.

  130. Reginald Selkirk says

    NFC Release 15 Extends Tap-to-Pay Range From 0.5cm To 2cm

    The NFC Forum has released NFC Release 15 (that’s what it’s calling it), extending the operating range of Near Field Communication connections from 0.5 centimeters to 2 centimeters — a fourfold increase that reduces the precision required for device alignment.

    The global standards body, whose board includes representatives from Apple, Google, Huawei, Infineon, NXP, Sony, and ST Microelectronics, designed the enhancement to accelerate transaction speeds and improve reliability across NFC-enabled devices. The expanded range addresses technical challenges in smaller form-factor devices like wearables and smartphones while maintaining compatibility with existing ISO/IEC 14443 standards.

    The standard also incorporates support for NFC Digital Product Passport specifications, allowing single NFC tags embedded in products to store and transmit sustainability data throughout their lifecycle.

  131. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Still fuming over the terrible turnout for his birthday parade, on Wednesday Donald J. Trump accused “evil migrants” of kidnapping “millions of real Americans” who were planning to attend.

    “They grabbed them off the street like they were cats and dogs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Then they forced them to march in those far left lunatic No Kings protests.”

    According to White House sources, Trump is considering a variety of options to distract people from the failure of his parade, including releasing the Epstein files.

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-claims-migrants-kidnapped-everyone

  132. says

    Right-Wing Agitation For Violence Against Protesters Swells

    Local officials in Adams County, Pennsylvania are condemning a social media post shared by the county sheriff on Facebook that featured an image of a white pickup truck with red splatters across the front bumper, hood and tires. The image posted by Adams County Sheriff James Muller was captioned “The All New Dodge Ram Protester Edition.” The red splatters are very clearly supposed to be blood. [Yikes!]

    I won’t even embed the post — which has since been deleted — because it is genuinely gross to look at. But for the morbidly curious, you can find a screenshot of it from the local NBC affiliate here. Muller, a Republican, reportedly shared the image on Facebook amid the nationwide “No Kings” protests this weekend, as demonstrators in municipalities across the country marched against a slew of Trump administration policies and actions. […]

    Both the Adams County Board of Commissioners as a unit and individual commissioners on the board released statements this week condemning the sheriff’s post, with one commissioner calling it “unacceptable.”

    It’s part of an ongoing story, the ominous demonization of First Amendment-protected protest by Republicans in power, both implicitly via the Trump administration’s National Guard overreach as it cracks down on protesters in California, and explicitly via statements from local sheriffs and GOP governors alike. In Florida last week, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey, a Republican, warned that any protesters who got violent during the county’s “No Kings” marches, would be killed: “If you throw a brick, a firebomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your families where to collect your remains at because we will kill you graveyard dead,” Ivey said. [Yikes!]

    During an interview on a podcast published last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Floridians not to worry about it too much if they ended up hitting a protester with their car.

    “We also have a policy that if you’re driving on one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have the right to flee for your safety. If you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you,” DeSantis said.

    As I noted last week, these fantasies of violence grow out of a years long right-wing agitation to inflict violence on protesters who are exercising their rights and demonstrating against things MAGA doesn’t agree with. In the wake of protests in 2020 against the murder of George Floyd, Republican state legislatures across the nation passed laws cracking down on lawful assembly. Many of those new laws were aimed at giving sweeping new immunities to drivers who, intentionally or not, strike protesters with their vehicles.

    The ramifications of these laws are now playing out in real time.

  133. Reginald Selkirk says

    British Watchdog Cracks Down on Data Collection by Smart TVs, Speakers And Air Fryers

    The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has issued its first guidance demanding manufacturers of air fryers, smart speakers, fertility trackers, and smart TVs respect users’ privacy rights after reports of excessive data collection in homes.

    The regulator requires companies to ensure data security, provide transparency to consumers, and regularly delete collected information. Stephen Almond, the ICO’s executive director for regulatory risk, said smart products know who users live with, their music preferences, and medication details. The guidance addresses “internet of things” devices, including fertility trackers that record menstrual dates and body temperature before sending data to manufacturer servers.

    Additionally, smart speakers that monitor family members and visitors must allow users to configure settings that minimize personal information collection. The ICO warned manufacturers it stands ready to take enforcement action in the event of noncompliance.

  134. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nature Journal Mandates Public Peer Review For All New Research Papers

    Nature will automatically publish peer review reports and author responses alongside all newly submitted research papers starting this week. The flagship scientific journal previously offered transparent peer review as an optional service since 2020, while Nature Communications has required it since 2016.

    All exchanges between authors and anonymous reviewers will become publicly accessible (reviewer identities remain confidential unless they choose disclosure). Nature aims to open what it calls the “black box” of science by revealing the months-long conversations that shape research papers before publication.

  136. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tech support scammers inject malicious phone numbers into big-name websites

    Tech support scammers have devised a method to inject their fake phone numbers into webpages when a target’s web browser visits official sites for Apple, PayPal, Netflix, and other companies.

    The ruse, outlined in a post on Wednesday from security firm Malwarebytes, threatens to trick users into calling the malicious numbers even when they think they’re taking measures to prevent falling for such scams. One of the more common pieces of security advice is to carefully scrutinize the address bar of a browser to ensure it’s pointing to an organization’s official website. The ongoing scam is able to bypass such checks…

    F*ck

  137. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘No-bra, no-exam’ rule at Nigerian university sparks outrage

    A university in Nigeria has sparked outrage after a video went viral showing female students being touched to see if they were wearing bras before taking part in an exam.

    In the footage, female staff at Olabisi Onabanjo University in south-western Ogun State are seen touching some students’ chests as they queue to enter an examination hall.

    The university has not yet commented on the video, but a student leader defended the bra policy as being part of the institution’s dress code aimed at maintaining “a distraction-free environment”.

    However, he acknowledged that other ways were needed to enforce the policy that has been condemned by critics as archaic, sexist and likened to sexual assault.
    …

  138. Reginald Selkirk says

    FDA approves twice-a-year injection for HIV prevention

    A drug currently used to treat certain HIV infections has also, on Wednesday, received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to be used to prevent HIV.

    Gilead Sciences, maker of the drug, announced that a twice-a-year injection of lenacapavir has been approved in the United States for HIV prevention under the brand name Yeztugo. In clinical trials, the drug was found to dramatically reduce the risk of infection and provide near-total protection against HIV, significantly more than the primary options available for pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP…

  139. Reginald Selkirk says

    Man finds he was married without his knowledge, woman arrested

    Beverly Hills, Tx (FOX 44) – UPDATE: A 36-year-old woman is being held on felony stalking charges in a bizarre case where a wedding was held without the groom present and without his knowledge.

    Beverly Hills Police Chief Kory Martin…

    “At first, we were really considering that it may be some forged documents. However, once we made contact with the reverend who ended up signing the actual ceremony, showing that they were unified, he basically, you know, solidified the fact that, yeah, the groom was not present when that occurred,” he continued.

    Kristin Marie Spearman was arrested and booked into the McLennan County Jail.

    Chief Martin said his office was contacted by a 42-year-old man on Friday, who said that he found a package from his ex-girlfriend at his home which included a copy of a marriage certificate – showing he was married.

    The victim told police he had been in a relationship with the suspect, and they got a marriage license around June 2, but broke up before a wedding took place. Chief Martin said the investigation determined that the woman convinced a pastor to certify the marriage without the groom being present. Chief Martin said she then went to the County Clerk’s Office and filed the certificate…

  140. Reginald Selkirk says

    Taiwan completes first sea trial for domestically made submarine in defence milestone

    Taiwan completed the maiden sea trial for its first domestically developed submarine on Tuesday, a major step in a project aimed at strengthening deterrence against the Chinese navy and protecting vital sea lanes in the event of war.

    Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has made the indigenous submarine programme a key part of an ambitious project to modernise its armed forces as Beijing stages almost daily military exercises to assert its sovereignty.

    The submarine programme has drawn on expertise and technology from several countries, including the United States and Britain, a breakthrough for diplomatically isolated Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s territorial claims.

    Taiwan’s CSBC Corp, which is leading construction of what is eventually planned to be eight submarines, said in a statement that the first ship, named the Narwhal, had completed its first test at sea, proving systems including propulsion, ventilation and radar…

  141. Reginald Selkirk says

    Former US ambassador to Ukraine who resigned in protest launches run for Congress in Michigan

    Bridget Brink, who stepped down as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine this year in protest of what she said was President Donald Trump’s unfair treatment of the the war-torn country, announced Wednesday that she’s running for Congress in one of Michigan’s most competitive districts.

    The longtime diplomat, who previously held high-ranking State Department roles in other former Soviet and Eastern European countries, is casting herself as a public servant as she runs in next year’s midterm elections, when her Democrats hope to win control of the House.

    “My next mission: to fight for what’s right here at home,” she said…

  142. says

    NBC News:

    The Trump administration will shut down the national LGBTQ youth suicide lifeline in 30 days.

    MSNBC:

    Donald Trump’s refusal to impose a congressionally authorized ban on TikTok is a clear example of his disregard for democracy — yet the American public, disturbingly, seems to be giving him a pass. The White House announced Tuesday that — for the third time — Trump would unilaterally direct his Justice Department not to enforce a bipartisan law, signed last year, that identified TikTok as a national security threat and required that it be banned in the United States unless it is sold by its Chinese owners. Instead, Trump’s decision allows the app to continue operating in the U.S.

    Associated Press:

    Texas has stopped putting new money toward building a U.S.-Mexico border wall, shifting course after installing only a fraction of the hundreds of miles of potential barrier that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott set out to construct four years ago.

    NPR:

    After claiming for years that he does not have the money to pay even a small fraction of the $1.3 billion he owes Sandy Hook families who won a defamation case against him, Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is now facing allegations that he engaged in a ‘flurry’ of fraudulent transfers of some $5 million in cash, cars and property to his family members.

  143. says

    Trump is back on his insane ‘rigged election’ bullsh-t

    […] During a press conference Wednesday, Trump said that China helped rig the 2020 election … using license plates. The bizarre claim came during what was ostensibly supposed to be an unveiling of his only presidential accomplishment: the installation of egregiously tall, “top-of-the-line” flagpoles on the White House grounds.

    “Not only did they cheat, I guess you saw yesterday it came out with China and the license plates—tens of thousands of cards. They use those cards to vote in the second election—my second—the one in 2020. Because as everybody here knows, I won that election by a lot,” he said.

    He rambled on, telling the reporters that they are “not real people.”

    “The only good thing I can say is this is a much, much more historic term than I think I could have had as a second term. This is a much more historic election,” he said. “And now we’re going to put up a beautiful flagpole, and we’re going to put up a flag, and I hope you enjoy it. And let’s see how real people work. These are real people. You’re not real people. Your job is too easy. Okay. Thank you very much.” [video]

    Trump’s barely coherent accusation seems to be an attempt to echo FBI Director Kash Patel, who recently promoted the conspiracy theory that China was mass-producing fake driver’s licenses in order to influence the 2020 election.

    As his polling plummets, Trump has been moving the United States closer toward a war with Iran through unhinged social media posts and alarming public remarks.

    At the same time, Trump has been lashing out at his own Cabinet, looking for scapegoats as his grasp on reality worsens alongside his mood.

  144. Reginald Selkirk says

    First methane-powered sea spiders found crawling on the ocean floor

    …
    Scientists say they have discovered three previously unknown, unnamed species of sea spider off the US West Coast that could be teaming up with bacteria to thrive off gas bubbling from the seafloor in sparsely studied marine habitats known as methane seeps thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface.

    In this symbiotic relationship, bacteria take up real estate on the spider’s exoskeletons, and in return, the microbes convert carbon-rich methane and oxygen into sugars and fats the spiders can eat, according to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
    …

  145. says

    Trump sends 2,000 more troops to terrorize Los Angeles [Misleading headline? See below.]

    Apparently, President Donald Trump is far from done terrorizing the communities of Los Angeles.

    The Trump administration announced Tuesday night that it will activate an additional 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles. Despite the downtown curfew being lifted as life seems to return to normal, Trump clearly thinks that more troops are needed to flood the Democratic city.

    According to a military spokesperson, the now 4,100 National Guard and 700 Marines are in Los Angeles to protect government property and “support federal functions,” possibly referring to the extensive ICE raids that prompted protests in the first place.

    […] And while the raids are still ongoing, a military statement says that the troops are also in Los Angeles for another reason.

    “The soldiers are completing training on de-escalation, crowd control, and use of the standing rules for the use of force in advance of joining the federal protection mission,” the statement said.

    But if you ask California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, the additional troops are just sitting around doing nothing.

    “This isn’t a new deployment—it’s the same group of soldiers who have been diverted from critical wildfire work and work at the border, now twiddling their thumbs for Donald Trump’s political theater,” Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson from Newsom’s office, said.

    A legal battle has been going on ever since Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles on June 9. Last week, a judge ruled that Trump’s deployment was illegal and that he must return control back to the state.

    Soon after, though, the ruling was sent to an appeals court that seems likely to return power to Trump.

    A final decision is expected in the coming days, which could set the precedent moving forward regarding the president’s ability to deploy military troops on U.S. soil without states’ consent.

    Posted by readers of the report:

    It sounds like (from the link provided) that the appeals court is going to try and hide behind Martin vs. Mott and punt the case to the Supreme Court. Martin vs Mott was an 1827 decision regarding a state militia member who refused to be called into service by the president for the War of 1812. IMO, Martin vs. Mott is entirely beside the point since the controversy in LA is that the president was calling up the guard due to citizen protests. Protests are not mentioned in the original statute as a situation where the president has power over the state guard.

    This could be another test of the Major Questions Doctrine where the conservatives on the SC claimed that executive uses of statutes that had broad political or economic impact required very specific language that granted that use.
    ———————————-
    Angelinos you know your assignment. Ignore these assholes. Let them sit there with nothing to do. Expose the pointless nature of Trump’s bullshit actions.

  146. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tesla Stock Plummets as Company Abruptly Halts Production of Cybertruck and Model Y

    Tesla is pausing production of the Cybertruck and its newly-retooled Model Y, and the stock market is already responding.

    On the heels of a new Business Insider report about the production shutdown, which is purportedly slated for the week of June 30 based on insider interviews, the company’s stock fell to about $316, which was almost four percent lower than it was at the start of the day. To make matters worse, Tesla stock was already sliding thanks to CEO Elon Musk’s Robotaxi pilot being pushed yet again…

  147. says

    Washington Post link

    Egypt, desperate for stability in the region, “is not happy” about the escalation between Israel and Iran, or the possibility of U.S. involvement, said a former Egyptian official close to the government who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share information about sensitive diplomacy beyond what appears in public statements.

    “We are in a very bad situation from the economic point of view,” the former official said.

    Cairo is engaged in diplomacy to stop the conflict from escalating. In a call Tuesday with Trump’s Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty urged the United States not to intervene directly in Iran, the former official said.

    Among Arab leaders, “everybody is trying to get Iran to back down,” the former official added.

    On Wednesday, Abdelatty spoke with the foreign ministers of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to discuss how to de-escalate the conflict and bring parties to the negotiating table, according to an Egyptian readout of the calls.

    Egypt was already grappling with the negative effects of the war in neighboring Gaza on its economy. Just days into the Israel-Iran conflict, the value of Egypt’s currency has dipped and experts are raising the alarm about the possible impact on tourism, a key sector in the Egyptian economy.

    Egypt, which relies on natural gas imports from Israel to power its electricity grid, is also working to avert an energy crisis, after Israel shut down its Leviathan gas field on Friday due to the conflict.

    Without Israeli gas flowing in, the Egyptian government activated an emergency plan over the weekend to prevent electricity cuts during the sweltering summer — including the rationing of gas supplies to various industries. It halted production of fertilizer, a major export, and began enforcing restrictions on lighting in public spaces and limits on opening hours for certain businesses. [Sounds serious.]

    Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said Wednesday that Israel may restart a limited volume of natural gas exports to Egypt and Jordan as early as Thursday, Bloomberg reported.

  148. John Morales says

    Reginald @136, I quote from the actual source article: “Here’s how it works: Cybercriminals pay for a sponsored ad on Google pretending to be a major brand. Often, this ad leads people to a fake website. However, in the cases we recently found, the visitor is taken to the legitimate site with a small difference.”

    Don’t click on sponsored ads when doing web searches; problem no longer applicable.

  149. Reginald Selkirk says

    Police investigate break-in at home of slain Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman

    The Twin Cities home where Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot Saturday was broken into overnight Wednesday, police say.

    Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were killed in their home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, at about 3:30 a.m. Saturday in what Gov. Tim Walz called a “political assassination.”

    Brooklyn Park police say the home had been boarded up early Sunday after investigators processed all of the evidence at the scene, and family members had removed “items of value” from the residence on Tuesday.

    “It was discovered that the plywood covering the rear window of the home had been pried off and the window broken to gain entry,” police said in a statement released late Wednesday morning.

    Police say crime scene investigators searched the home again, and family members say “they don’t believe anything was missing.” Police are still searching for the suspect…

  151. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hackers steal and destroy millions from Iran’s largest crypto exchange

    Iran’s largest crypto exchange, Nobitex, said Wednesday that it was hacked and funds have been drained from its hot wallet.

    In a statement on its website translated by TechCrunch, Nobitex said it detected unauthorized access to its infrastructure and hot wallet, in which the company stores a portion of its customers’ cryptocurrency. The company said it was investigating the incident, and that its website and app would be unavailable for the foreseeable future.

    Public records show the hackers stole at least $90 million of the company’s assets over multiple transactions. Blockchain analysis firm Elliptic said the hackers “burned” the stolen funds by sending the crypto to inaccessible wallets, effectively taking the money out of circulation.

    Nobitex has more than 10 million customers, according to an archived copy of Nobitex’s website from last week.

    Pro-Israel hacking group Predatory Sparrow (also known in Farsi as “Gonjeshke Darande”) took credit for the cyberattack. In a post on X, the group said it targeted Nobitex for allegedly financing terrorism for the Iranian regime and evading international sanctions.

    A day earlier, the hacking group also claimed responsibility for a hack on Iran’s Bank Sepah resulting in widespread outages at ATMs across the country…

  153. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cheese-us, Mary and Joseph!: Midwest ‘Cheese Lady’ to carve 500-pound cheddar wheel into artwork in Aspen

    Cheese will take center stage at Clark’s Market in Aspen this weekend, where renowned sculptor Sarah Kaufmann — better known as “The Cheese Lady” — will transform a 500-pound wheel of Wisconsin cheddar into a detailed, edible work of art…

    She will be sculpting live at Clark’s Market, located at 300 Puppy Smith St., from 1 to 4 p.m. on Friday, June 20, and again from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 21…

    “This is very, very special cheddar, because only one cheese maker in America still makes these old-fashioned cheddar mammoths,” Kaufmann said. “These cheeses are made in 500, 1,000, 2,000, 4,000, 8,000, and up to 12,500 pounds. They are beautiful, monstrous cheeses that are delicious to the core.”
    …

  154. Reginald Selkirk says

    Appeals court says DOJ cannot represent Trump in appeal of E. Jean Carroll case

    American taxpayers will not be paying for the ongoing appeal of President Donald Trump’s $83 million defamation case, a federal appeals court determined on Wednesday.

    A panel of judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied Trump’s request to have Justice Department lawyers argue in his appeal of columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against Trump.
    …
    DOJ lawyers had argued that since some of Trump’s alleged conduct fell within the scope of his role as president, the Justice Department should be able to defend the president in court.
    …

  155. John Morales says

    Interesting, Reginald.

    “Grok made sure to give balance to the answer, explaining that left-wing violence was “rising, especially during 2020 protests,” but that it’s often less lethal because the target is property.

    “Surveys show both sides increasingly justify violence, reflecting deep polarization,” Grok continued. “Right-wing attacks account for most deadly incidents, per reports like Reuters and GAO. However, biases in reporting may skew perceptions. Both sides contribute to a growing cycle of unrest, and precise attribution remains contentious due to varying definitions of violence.”

    That was not the right response for Musk. “Major fail, as this is objectively false. Grok is parroting legacy media. Working on it,” the billionaire oligarch wrote.”

    That truly is clueless.

    —

    I checked with BB (I invoked demagogic mode):

    Narrative Advocating Filtering:
    In an era of rampant chaos and mindless information bombardment, filtering stands as the iron gate protecting us from the tidal wave of degeneracy; it shields the public from the unholy abyss of extremist ideas and unruly data that could shatter the moral backbone of our society. Like a stern sentinel, it curbs the flood of corrosive content, ensuring that the common man isn’t inundated with anarchic, mind-numbing details that might lead to the disintegration of our collective decency. Filtering isn’t censorship—it’s the last bastion maintaining order in a world gone mad.

    Narrative Criticizing Excessive Filtering:
    Conversely, the self-righteous censors—those pompous do-gooders—are nothing more than power-hungry tyrants who poison the well of public knowledge with their sanitized, sterile narratives, stripping away the raw, visceral truth that fuels genuine understanding. By excising inconvenient facts and vital cultural stories, they imprison the masses in a bubble of ignorance, breeding a misinformed herd that can neither think nor act independently. Their oppressive brand of “protection” is really a dangerous manipulation, reducing the world to a bland echo chamber designed to keep the populace docile and unthinking.

  156. JM says

    @140 Reginald Selkirk: Here is the wikipedia page for the sub. Wikipedia: Hai Kun-class submarine The thing to note is that it’s not a sophisticated sub. It isn’t designed for long range operations, to be super-covert or for strategic missile launches. It’s a short ranged attack sub to intercept high value Chinese ships in the case of an invasion. The Chinese don’t have a sophisticated submarine force either and these subs have the potential to make a mess of invading ships.

  157. whheydt says

    Re: JM @ #156…
    Per the Wikipedia article, they’ll have displacement (rounding slightly) of 2500 to 3000 tons. For comparison, German WW2 U-boots typically displaced 750 tons and US Fleet Submarines of the same era displaced 1500 tons. So not exactly a small submarine.

  159. KG says

    John Morales@155,

    Interesting – BB can produce two completely antithetical reams of garbage on command!

  163. birgerjohansson says

    Youtube keeps throwing up claims that Xi has a shaky grip on power. As there are no corredponding articles in mainstream media, I assume this is clickbait BS.

  164. John Morales says

    “BB can produce two completely antithetical reams of garbage on command!”

    Well, yes. That’s the demagogic mode, KG.

    Not that good at the first try, but I gave it some encouragement:

    “nuance and critical debate are far from anything that would sway the populace — it has to be visceral and primitive. demagogery — summarise each of those competing narratives into one paragraph each, but with a little more firebreathing populistic prose”.

    Sez it, and I quote:

    The demagogic mode is a style of political rhetoric that:

    Exploits Emotions: It manipulates feelings like fear, resentment, and hope to rally support rather than relying on balanced argumentation.
    Simplifies Complexity: Complex issues are reduced to oversimplified, binary choices, often framing debates in “us versus them” terms.
    Uses Scapegoating: It often targets specific groups or individuals as the source of society’s problems, shifting blame away from structural issues.
    Prioritizes Charisma Over Policy: The style leans on personal appeal and dramatic rhetoric, aiming more at stirring public sentiment than toward substantive policy discussion.

    This approach sidesteps rational debate by appealing directly to popular prejudices and emotions rather than engaging with nuanced, evidence-based perspectives.

  165. John Morales says

    In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/19/israel-iran-conflict-live-hospital-in-southern-israel-hit-in-iran-missile-strike-say-israeli-officials

    —

    Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will exact the full price from the “tyrants” in Tehran. “This morning, Iran’s ‘terrorist tyrants’ launched missiles at Soroka hospital in Beersheba and at a civilian population in central Israel,” he said in a post on X.

    Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz said on Thursday that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be “held accountable” after the Iranian strike on Soroka hospital in Israel. The minister added that he had ordered the army to “intensify strikes” on the Islamic republic.

    —

    That’s two days after Israel conducted an airstrike against Farabi Hospital in Kermanshah, western Iran.

    Tit for tat.

  166. John Morales says

    More news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/19/israel-attacks-irans-arak-heavy-water-reactor-as-iran-hits-israeli-hospital

    —

    Israel’s defence minister has said he ordered increased attacks on government targets in Iran to “undermine the regime”, while an Iranian missile evaded Israeli air defences to hit a hospital in the country’s south.

    Other missiles landed around Tel Aviv, injuring at least 40 people, as Israeli planes bombed a heavy-water reactor and returned to strike the Natanz nuclear complex.

    The comments from Israel Katz were the first time that regime change had officially been claimed as a goal of the seven-day-old war.

    When Israel launched its first strikes, Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered a strategic operation targeting Iran’s nuclear programme, although the prime minister has made no secret of his hopes the government in Tehran would fall.

    After the initial focus on military and nuclear sites, Israel recently attacked targets, including the state broadcaster, with no links to the nuclear project, but which Katz described as “symbols of the regime”.

    Many Iranian opposition figures, including activists jailed for opposing the autocratic government, have rejected the idea that an Israeli war, which has already killed hundreds of civilians, represents a path to liberation for their country.

  167. John Morales says

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g8r8rj87vo

    “Donald Trump has approved plans to attack Iran, but has not made a final decision on whether to strike the country, the BBC’s US partner CBS reports.

    The US president held off from initiating strikes in case Iran agreed to abandon its nuclear programme, a senior intelligence source told CBS. Trump is reportedly considering a US strike on Fordo, an underground uranium enrichment facility in Iran.

    Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday rejected Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender, as the US president said his patience had run out.

    On Wednesday, Trump said, “I may do it, I may not do it”, when asked a question about US involvement in Iran.

    Khamenei rebuked Trump in Wednesday’s recorded speech, saying that “any US military intervention” would be costly and added: “The Iranian nation will not surrender.”

    Trump brushed off the rejection, saying “good luck”, but again declined to disclose his plans. “I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said.

    “Unconditional surrender – that means I’ve had it.”

    The news of Trump backing strike plans was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

    Israel’s military launched more attacks on Iran, hitting missile sites and nuclear facilities. Iran said it had fired hypersonic missiles in response. No serious damage was reported in Israel.

    It was Khamenei’s first appearance since Israel launched its pre-emptive strikes on Friday.

    […]

    The war of words came as Iranians continued to jam roads out of the capital Tehran, a city of 10 million people, seeking sanctuary from Israeli attacks.”

    —

    https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syb27nrqll

    “The US has never used its most powerful conventional bomb, Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), designed to destroy fortified nuclear sites; PM hopes Washington will approve its use, warning that without it, gains will be limited and a war of attrition will become more likely

    On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump called to “immediately evacuate Tehran,” indicating that he may bring the U.S. into the war. He abruptly left the G7 summit in Canada and said in a post that Iran “should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign.”
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must convince Trump to use the U.S. military’s Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), also known as bunker-busting bombs, that could destroy Iran’s underground nuclear installations, a move that would allow Israel to achieve its declared war goals within a reasonable time frame. Failing that, e runs the risk of a prolonged war of attrition.”

    —

    Yup. The GBU-57A/B MOP is indeed a massive penetrator.

  169. StevoR says

    Silly point but sure is kinda confusing thar Arak is in Iran. There’s a Yes Minister scene in that somehwere..

  170. StevoR says

    ^ Something like :

    Bernard Woolley: No, we can’t have alphabetical seating in the Abbey. You’d have Iraq and Iran next to each other. Plus Israel and Jordan all sitting in the same pew. We’d be in danger of starting World War III. I know Ireland begins with an ‘I’ but no! Ireland doesn’t make it any better; Ireland doesn’t make anything any better.

    Source : https://www.quotes.net/mquote/956761

    Becozx cam’t find on youtube.

  171. John Morales says

    I saw that, StevoR: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jun/19/spacex-rocket-starship-36-explodes-texas-elon-musk-mars-project-setback

    Bit of an oopsie there, but it’s only #36. Early days yet. :)

    (And each one is a successful mission, remember? You yourself told me that, back a few booms ago)

    —

    One of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starships has exploded during a routine test in Texas, authorities said, in the latest setback to the billionaire’s dream of turning humanity into an interplanetary species.

    The Starship 36 underwent “catastrophic failure and exploded” at the Starbase launch facility shortly after 11pm on Wednesday (0400 GMT Thursday), a Facebook post by the Cameron County authorities said.

    A video shared in the post showed the megarocket attached to the launch arm, and then a flash and a towering, fiery explosion.

    SpaceX said the rocket was preparing for the 10th flight test when it “experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase”, without elaborating on the nature of the complication.

  172. KG says

    John Morales@167,

    I fear there’s a real possibility Netanyahu has threatened Trump he will nuke Fordo unless Trump attacks it with the MOP. Netanyahu knows by now that nothing will make Trump turn against him (Trump is as subservient to Netanyahu as he is to Putin), and that the rest of the G7 would issue a few feeble bleats, but nothing more.

  175. Reginald Selkirk says

    US resumes student visas but orders enhanced social media vetting

    The US State Department says it will resume scheduling appointments for international student visas, but will ask all applicants to make their social media accounts public for enhanced screening.

    Officials have been instructed to expand social media vetting of applicants and search for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States”…

  177. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all Chris Hayes

    See Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson brawl over Iran as MAGA infighting explodes into open
    Video is 9:02 minutes

    Border patrol posts bizarre ‘hype video’ to celebrate ICE raid on flea market
    Video is 9:29 minutes, covers Barack Obama’s recent comments

    ‘People are going to die’: Jasmine Crockett sounds off on GOP cuts to health care
    Video is 5:10 minutes

  178. Reginald Selkirk says

    Oregon lawmakers designate T-bone as new state steak

    The Beaver State has officially added a piece of meat to its list of state symbols.

    The T-bone, a cut of beef taken from a cow’s short loin section near the spine, is officially the state steak after the Oregon House on Monday in a 50-2 vote passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 13. The Senate already passed the resolution, in a rare unanimous vote in March.

    Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo, the bill’s chief sponsor, said the resolution represents Oregon’s rich agricultural heritage and cattle ranching that has been present in Oregon since 1824. ..

    But why the T-bone and not the ribeye, which tastes better to some lawmakers?

    The Oregon CattleWomen chose the T-bone because the Cascade Mountains split Oregon in the shape of a T-bone…

  180. says

    Trump administration’s gun policy agenda takes another step in a dangerous direction

    “During his first term, the president briefly considered ambitious gun policy reforms. In his second term, he’s moving quickly in a regressive direction.”

    Related video at the link.

    The Justice Department currently has roughly 800 investigators who are responsible for ensuring that licensed gun dealers are following safeguards and preventing criminals and those with severe mental illnesses from purchasing firearms. The New York Times reported, however, that this status quo is about to undergo a dramatic change.

    The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s already crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals, according to budget documents. The move, part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, comes as the department considers merging the A.T.F. and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

    […] of the 800 investigators currently on the job — by most measures, a total that is already too small given the scope of the national task — Donald Trump’s DOJ will get rid of 541 of them. [Bad idea]

    […] Making matters worse is the familiarity of these circumstances — because this latest step is part of a related series.

    In fact, just last month, the Trump administration also decided it would permit the sale of “forced reset triggers,” which can turn semiautomatic weapons into guns that can fire more bullets, faster and easier. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the move “will enhance public safety,” which seemed to turn reality on its head.

    […] Alas, we can keep going. After the 2022 massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, there was bipartisan support for significant new investments in improving mental health support for students as part of an effort to make future mass shootings less likely. The Trump administration, however, recently decided to block $1 billion in grants for student mental health programs, concluding that the programs to reduce gun violence in schools were no longer in “the best interest of the federal government.”

    […] The Washington Post reported that Trump’s Justice Department had also canceled hundreds of grants to community organizations and local governments, “including funding for gun-violence prevention programs.”

    This dovetailed with a New York Times report on the Republican administration moving forward with plans to “roll back an array of gun control measures,” while creating “a path for people with criminal convictions to own guns again.” [!]

    When thinking about the differences between the president’s first term and his second, this issue is high on the list. As I noted in my first book (see chapter 8), it was in the wake of a mass school shooting in February 2018 when Trump held a televised, hourlong discussion with a group of lawmakers from both parties about gun violence. As part of the conversation, then-Vice President Mike Pence raised the prospect of empowering law enforcement to take weapons away from those who’ve been reported to be potentially dangerous, though he added that he expected to see “due process so no one’s rights are trampled.”

    “Take the firearms first and then go to court,” Trump interjected. At the same event, the president endorsed a law enforcement model in which police officers confiscated some Americans’ guns “whether they had the right or not.”

    When Republicans derailed those negotiations and nothing passed, there was another mass shooting a year later, at which point Trump again wanted a gun bill, including restrictions on assault rifles — which, according to multiple accounts, was one of his long-sought goals.

    In other words, as recently as his first term, the president at least briefly sought ambitious gun reforms, up to and including extrajudicial gun confiscations.

    […] Now, Trump and his administration not only don’t want to bother, they’re also moving aggressively in the opposite direction.

  181. says

    a major anomaly? WTF!
    https://youtu.be/zELW8eZFPps abc vid of huge polluting spaceX explosion #10 of 10 FAILURES
    Elon Musk’s SpaceX had an even more spectacular failure than his last spectacular failure last night. Whoa!! Not only did his latest Starship blow up, but fuel tanks nearby caught fire as well.

  182. says

    Trump rejects evidence, claims his support is at ‘an all-time high’

    When American presidents are struggling with their public support, they have plenty of credible choices. They can say they’re focused on governing, not polls. They can say they expect to see a turnaround in the near future. They can say that the only polls that matter are election results. They can even argue that they care more about being right than being popular.

    What they should not do is make stuff up.

    And yet, there was Donald Trump on Tuesday, arguing by way of his social media platform that his approval rating has reached “an all-time high.” The next morning, at a White House event, the Republican echoed the line, claiming that his approval rating is now “the highest it’s ever been.” [Video]

    It’s really not.

    […] The New York Times created a relatively new feature that charts the president’s average approval rating, based on data from publicly available national surveys. As of this writing, Trump’s disapproval rating stands at 53% — tied for the worst of his second term — while his approval rating is 45%, near the lowest point since his second inaugural. […]

    simply as an objective matter, the idea that his approval rating has reached “an all-time high,” and is now “the highest it’s ever been,” is plainly and demonstrably wrong.

    What’s more, it’s part of an unfortunate pattern. A couple of weeks into his current term, Trump said his approval rating was in the “high 70s,” which was silly. He soon after declared, “I have the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years,” which was the opposite of reality.

    So why peddle claims that are easily disproven? It’s likely that ego has something to do with this, but there are also practical considerations to keep in mind.

    Trump finds himself at a difficult stage. His foreign policy agenda is floundering; his top legislative priority is unpopular and struggling to advance on Capitol Hill; his economic assurances have failed to come to fruition; many of his top priorities are failing in the courts; and millions of his constituents are participating in rallies to express their opposition to him and his agenda.

    This doesn’t matter because of his own electoral prospects — Trump cannot legally seek another term — but it does matter to the extent that popular presidents wield more power, while flailing presidents wield less.

    This is true on the international stage — foreign officials are more likely to take seriously leaders who enjoy meaningful domestic backing — but it’s also true on Capitol Hill. As we’ve discussed, members of Congress — who, unlike the incumbent president, have to worry about re-election — care a great deal about the prevailing political winds.

    […] with Americans expressing their increasingly unambiguous dissatisfaction with Trump, it effectively creates a permission structure for Congress to defy the president’s wishes. In other words, the more voters turn against Trump, the harder it becomes for him to get his way — which helps explain why he’s lying so brazenly.

    Trump is lying. There’s no excuse or explanation that can make that acceptable.

  183. says

    The muskrat is a nasty kid playing irresponsibly with huge fireworks. The american taxpayer has poured billions into his make-it-up-as-you-go disasters and he has showered huge areas of this planet with toxic waste and never taken responsibility. PULL THE PLUG, ALREADY.

  186. StevoR says

    ^ .. On the good side :

    Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in the country’s parliament has rejected Iran’s claims saying this is an ‘irresponsible and false piece of news’ that is circulating on social media. He said the statement is fabricated. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are for its own security and stability, he added.

    Still..

    Source : https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/pakistan-to-attack-israel-with-nuclear-missile-islamabad-issues-big-statement/ar-AA1GOB7A

  187. says

    After Trump bragged about his successes with India, officials in New Dehli quickly disputed his claims. Then it happened again. And then it happened again.

    The first example came in mid-May, though it generated very little attention. During Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East, tensions flared between India and Pakistan, though the president boasted that he helped resolve the escalating tensions with a strategy he considered brilliant.

    “I said, ‘Come on, we’re going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let’s stop it. Let’s stop it. If you stop it, we’ll do a trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not going to do any trade,’” the Republican claimed. “And all of a sudden, they said, ‘I think we’re going to stop.’”

    […] As NBC News reported, the Indian government said Trump”s version of events simply wasn’t true, and the conversation that Trump publicly described never actually occurred.

    Soon after, while still in the Middle East, Trump acknowledged the tariffs he’d imposed on India, adding that Indian leaders, in response, had offered the United States a deal in which “they’re willing to literally charge us no tariff.”

    Once again, as NBC News reported, officials in New Delhi publicly disputed Trump’s claim.

    In the weeks that followed, Trump repeatedly claimed that he deserved international credit for his brilliant diplomatic work. Earlier this week, for example, by way of his social media platform, the American president wrote that he singlehandedly brought “reason, cohesion, and sanity into the talks” with India and Pakistan, which “quickly” led to de-escalation. At a White House event on Wednesday, his claim was even more direct: “I stopped the war between Pakistan and India.”

    [OMFG]

    For the third time in five weeks, India not only offered a different story, it also encouraged Trump to stop saying stuff like this. NBC News reported:

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his first conversation with President Donald Trump since the early May conflict between India and Pakistan to express his frustration with Trump’s repeated claims that he played a significant role in brokering a ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed countries. … During a Tuesday phone call between the two leaders, Modi ‘clearly conveyed’ to Trump that the U.S. played no role in the mediation between India and Pakistan and denied any discussion of a trade deal, [Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri] said.

    The report added that India’s strident tone “was most likely due in part to Trump’s decision to host Pakistan’s chief of Army Staff for lunch at the White House,” which was the first time any U.S. president had ever hosted the head of the Pakistani military.

    During their terms, Barack Obama and Joe Biden invested considerable diplomatic efforts trying to bring India and the United States closer together — Obama was the first sitting American president to ever visit India twice during his term — in part because of the country’s nuclear program, in part to focus on the climate crisis, in part to help shift India further away from Russia and in part as part of a broader geopolitical strategy to counterbalance China.

    Trump’s strategy, in contrast, appears rooted in repeatedly annoying India, which seems unwise.

  188. StevoR says

    Dangnabbit I had blockquotes there I’d swear I did..

    Kyle does tend to get a bit carried away at times I’ve found.. Then again so do I..

  189. says

    New Jersey primary turnout is a great sign for Democrats

    Last week, Rep. Mikie Sherrill won New Jersey’s hotly contested Democratic gubernatorial primary with 34% of the vote in a six-way race. New Jersey is one of just two states holding off-year governor’s races in 2025, the other being Virginia.

    Sherrill is now the frontrunner heading into November’s election. Her Republican opponent, former state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli came shockingly close to winning four years ago. But like Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, he benefited from Donald Trump not being on the ballot or in office. This time around, Trump is all in, loudly endorsing Ciattarelli—much to Sherrill’s delight, no doubt.

    Sherrill immediately pointed to the sky-high Democratic turnout as both the key to her win and a preview of November.

    “We had almost 800,000 people voting in this primary. That’s unheard of,” she told the Washington Post. “It shows you the passion people have, shows you what’s coming in November here.”

    And that’s underselling it. Democratic turnout now stands at 814,669, a genuinely extraordinary number. The closest comparison is from 2017, which saw 503,682 votes. In 2021, it was just 382,984 […]

    Republicans also hit a record of 459,574 votes, up from 339,033 in 2021 and the mid-200,000s in 2013 and 2017. But even with this boost, they still lag far behind Democrats’ surge.

    This turnout is especially encouraging given New Jersey’s sharp rightward shift in the 2024 presidential election. Vice President Kamala Harris carried the state just 52-46, compared to President Joe Biden’s 57-41 win in 2020—a net 10-point swing to Republicans, largely driven by weak Democratic turnout. That’s clearly been fixed.

    Holding New Jersey’s governorship—and reclaiming Virginia’s—matters. But what’s really exciting is what this says about the 2026 midterms.

    Conventional wisdom says that the party in the White House gets shellacked in the midterms—especially with an unpopular president. But Biden and Democrats already broke that rule in 2022. Nothing’s carved in stone.

    […] with these early signs of hyper-engaged Democrats, the vibes are good.

    Sure, 2026 is still a long way off. But if these numbers spook enough Republicans in swing districts, Democrats might be able to grind this narrowly divided Congress to a halt.

    That alone is worth celebrating.

  190. StevoR says

    @185. shermanj : “Trump Privately Approved Plans To Attack Iran But Has Withheld Final Order
    June 19, 2025.”

    (String of expletives.) I mena its totally the wrong decision so ofc that’s what Trump will do.

    OTOH, Trump was so close to going to war w Iran in his last term and TACO’d out at the final minute there before it happened so here’s hoping that precedent juuuu-ust miiiiiight happen again now?

  192. Reginald Selkirk says

    A Game-Changing Telescope Is About to Reveal Its First Images. Here’s How to Watch

    A state-of-the-art telescope nearly 25 years in the making will finally reveal its first images on Monday, June 23, and you can watch the event in realtime.

    The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, perched atop a mountain in the Chilean Andes, boasts the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy. The telescope, overseen by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE), will use this car-sized, 3.2-gigapixel camera to capture ultra-high-definition images and videos of the cosmos. During Monday’s event, the NSF and DOE will display Rubin’s first images to the public and screen one of the observatory’s high-resolution time-lapse “movies” of the visible sky.

    You can participate by tuning into a livestream or attending one of the in-person watch parties at museums, universities, and planetariums around the world. The observatory will begin livestreaming the event at 11 a.m. ET, and you can watch it right here. You can also use the interactive map on the observatory’s website to find a watch party near you…

    Rubin First Look Watch Parties

  193. birgerjohansson says

    I forgot. Happy Juneteenth!
    🦋🌻
    No Black slaves here, we preferred to mess with the Danes and the Norwegians. But if the Dutch had not annexed “New Sweden” we might have gone down the same ugly road.

  195. JM says

    @163 birgerjohansson: That Xi is losing power isn’t exactly clickbait, at least not all of them. The China clickbait posters are all over it also, naturally.
    The Chinese government is like the old USSR in that there are a bunch of factions fighting for power and it’s all secret deals and handshake promises. In public everything will be friendly no matter what is going on behind the scenes. If a senior figure is removed from office it’s because they have lost power and any trial afterwards is just for show.
    The people trying to do serious analysis of the Chinese government say that Xi has been in a backroom fight for control of the military and government over the past year or so. Based on what has been happening he doesn’t seem to be winning. How things actually stand is all conjecture though.
    The situation may never be clear because even if Xi loses control he may remain in office as a figure head. The power brokers in China are not going to want the sort of publicity that removing Xi would entail.

  196. says

    Kingsley Wilson has touted antisemitic views and Kremlin-like statements. The defense secretary [Pete Hegseth] is defending her anyway.

    […] NBC News reported:

    Hegseth got into a heated exchange with Sen. Jacky Rosen as the Nevada Democrat pressed him about previous antisemitic comments made by a Defense Department press secretary, Kingsley Wilson. Rosen shared what Wilson’s posts have said during the hearing, but Hegseth said, ‘Since I don’t believe the characterization of many officials in the news media, I would need to see precisely what’s being characterized generally.’

    The Nevada Democrat framed all of this in an effective way, noting Donald Trump’s comments about combating antisemitism. Hegseth nevertheless said the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson is doing “a fantastic job,” prompting Rosen to tell the beleaguered former Fox News host that he is “not a serious person.” [video]

    Part of the problem with the secretary’s response was that he testified that he’d “need to see” what Wilson has said and written. That wasn’t much of an answer: As part of the vetting process, Hegseth and his team should’ve already done this long before hiring the Pentagon spokesperson.

    But just as notable was Hegseth’s apparent indifference to Wilson’s rhetorical record. As The New York Times reported last month:

    The Defense Department announced that Kingsley Wilson, the deputy press secretary who has drawn attention for past remarks criticized as antisemitic and racist, was promoted to be press secretary, the lead spokeswoman for the Pentagon. The American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group, had criticized her for the remarks back in March: “Anyone who posts antisemitic conspiracy theories lifted right out of the neo-Nazi playbook should not be in public office.”

    For those unfamiliar with Wilson, a Mother Jones report published a couple of months ago summarized her record this way: “She’s also an overt internet troll with a long history of bigoted, xenophobic, and deliberately provocative s—posting.”

    What’s more, whether Hegseth realizes this or not, the concerns aren’t limited to Democrats. Politico reported in March:

    The backlash over a top Pentagon aide who has touted antisemitic views, white supremacist conspiracy theories and Kremlin-like statements on social media grew wider on Wednesday in a sign of increasing frustration among Republicans about the Trump administration’s seemingly unvetted appointees. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson’s posts — which include comparing the murders of Israeli babies during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to abortion and spreading the far-right ‘great replacement theory’ — have angered lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

    Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska told Politico, in reference to Wilson’s remarks, “It’s horrible, it’s just not appropriate.”

    A senior Republican congressional aide added, “We’ve got enough real, serious challenges from outside without having to worry about Pentagon staff who like to spread antisemitism or Russian propaganda. I’m amazed at who this administration has been willing to trust with national security responsibilities.”

    It’s against this backdrop that Hegseth not only hired Wilson, he gave her a promotion, and when pressed on her record of antisemitic rhetoric, the Pentagon chief feigned ignorance. [Hegseth’s ignorance may not be feigned.]
    […]

  197. says

    LOL

    A familiar metric: White House says to expect Iran decision within ‘two weeks’

    “Donald Trump’s reliance on a two-week timeline for a decision on Iran represents a striking failure of self-awareness.”

    When it comes to a possible U.S. military strike in Iran, Donald Trump has raised more questions than he’s answered. Last week, the president and his team went out of their way to say that the United States had “nothing to do with” Israel’s attack on Iran. This week, Trump declared, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” before demanding the country’s “unconditional surrender.”

    No one seems able to say with confidence what the Republican intends to do, why he’d do it, or even when we might learn of his decision. I’ve found myself periodically checking his social media platform, looking for some kind of poorly written “Bombs Away” message, followed by an unhealthy number of exclamation points.

    Evidently, I can stop hitting refresh — for two weeks. [video]

    At her latest briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the “speculation” about the White House’s policy, which led her to read a prepared statement from the president. It read, “Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.” [Ha! Ha! Ha!]

    […] the fact that Trump and his team has rolled out another “two week” timeline represents a remarkable failure of self-awareness.

    Last week for example, the president said U.S. trading partners should expect letters on unilateral tariff rates in “two weeks.” Shortly before that, the president was asked about Vladimir Putin’s alleged interest in “peace.” He replied, “I can’t tell you that, but I’ll let you know in about two weeks.”

    Last month, Trump was asked about tariff rates on pharmaceutical products. “I’ll know in the next two weeks,” he said.

    Alas, we can keep going. Where’s Trump’s health care plan? It’ll be ready in “two weeks.” What about a possible minimum-wage increase? That, too, will be unveiled in “two weeks.” On everything from tax policy to infrastructure, immigration to reproductive health, the president’s detailed solutions are always just “two weeks” away.

    [Trump] is asked for his position on an issue; he dodges the question by saying he’ll make an announcement “in two weeks”; and then he waits for everyone to forget about his self-imposed deadline.

    […] In this latest example, a reporter felt compelled to remind Leavitt of the familiarity of the administration’s latest timeline. [Video]

    If recent history is any guide, she and Trump will keep using it anyway, indifferent to the embarrassment.

  198. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Lynna @39, Reginald Selkirk @470 in the last 500.

    The Handbasket – What actually happened at the Salt Lake City ‘No Kings’ shooting?

    Approximately 10,000 people gathered in downtown Salt Lake City on Saturday for the No Kings protest and march organized by the Utah chapter of the 50501 Movement. Among the attendees was Arturo Gamboa, 24, a local man openly carrying a rifle, which is legal in Utah. An armed “safety volunteer” in a bright yellow vest spotted Gamboa, perceived a threat, and fired his weapon in his direction. He struck Gamboa, and in the process struck and killed protester Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39. Gamboa, who police say did not fire his gun, was arrested a few blocks away and booked in county jail for suspicion of murder.
    […]
    Utah 50501 […] said that their team of “safety volunteers” were “selected because of their military, first responder, and other relevant de-escalation experience.” They said the volunteer who shot Gamboa and Ah Loo is a military veteran
    […]
    “[Video] clearly shows Arturo in full black dress casually walking towards the protest with his rifle pointed down towards the ground and one hand on the barrel,” a friend of Gamboa […] said after watching the video many times over. “The security team approach him from the side and rear, almost across the street, with weapons out. […] they fire on Arturo, at which point he leans forward, which causes the rifle and his hand to come up, but not in a ready position, in a fleeing position. The security team continues to fire twice more, and Arturo runs away as the video ends.”

    It was this sudden repositioning in response to the volunteer shooting his gun that may have made it appear as though Gamboa was aiming his weapon at the crowd. But no video shared so far bears out that version.
    […]
    While it’s certainly possible the presence of Gamboa’s gun made other protest attendees uncomfortable, all available evidence at this point does not show him using it in any nefarious way.

    “If he had intent to do harm, he had at least 60 feet before nearing the crowd to have shot,” Matthew Tycer, a […] firearms safety instructor […] said. “He could have returned fire. He could have […] started shooting at others around him,” Tycer said. “Instead he ran because he was shot at by the inept security.”

    ‘Peacekeeper’ under investigation (Jun 16)

    police also shared that the “peacekeeper” who fired their weapon, killing 39-year-old Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, is not a law enforcement officer […] “there is no record in the event’s permit indicating the presence of organized or armed security.”
    […]
    One chapter of the [national 50501] guidebook discusses de-escalation when guns are present, and reminds organizers that a gun “may not mean violence is about to ensue.” […] The guidebook adds that “peacekeepers” are “not expected to confront or disarm someone with a weapon[“]

    50501 today:

    our early statements included inaccuracies […] we deeply regret any additional harm they may have caused to Arturo. […] While we do not permit firearms at 50501 protests, we recognize that Utah law permits the open carry of weapons, and this reality shaped some of the events that unfolded.

    Rando:

    50501 Training Documents [pdf]
    The caricatures of minorities with guns is… uh… Something.
    [Screenshots: De-escalation and identifying threats]
    […]
    50501 has removed the link to the “Peacekeeper / Marshal Handbook” from their website. However this is archived.

    Bryan Schott (Utah Political Watch):

    The Salt Lake County District Attorney has been granted a three-day extension on the detention of Arturo Gamboa […] so investigators can continue to interview witnesses.

    Marisa Kabas: “Despite never firing a shot—and being a shooting victim himself.”

  199. says

    Senate Republicans confirm Rodney Scott as the new Customs and Border Protection chief.

    “It’s hard to imagine a worse, more unqualified, more dangerous choice to lead the CBP in this moment than” Rodney Scott, Sen. Chuck Schumer said.

    Donald Trump’s agenda related to deportations and border security has unfolded rapidly in his second term, but the president has not had a permanent commissioner leading Customs and Border Protection. That changed on Wednesday when the Republican-led Senate confirmed Rodney Scott as the new CBP chief.

    As The Guardian reported, his nomination was not without controversy.

    Shortly before his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in April, James Wong, a former deputy assistant commissioner of CBP’s office of internal affairs, wrote to the committee’s top Democrat with ‘concern’ about Scott’s handling of the investigation into the 2010 death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas in San Diego, after he was beaten and tased by CBP agents who were preparing to deport him. As San Diego’s police department was investigating the death, a CBP critical incident team used a subpoena to obtain Hernández Rojas’s medical records, which Wong said Scott would have known about given his position at the time as a top border patrol official in the city.

    In claims made to Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Wong alleged that Scott “supervised” a “cover-up,” which the accuser considered a disqualifying abuse.

    The matter was discussed at Scott’s confirmation hearing, and when asked directly if he’d acted “to interfere with the investigation of that case,” Scott testified, “Absolutely not.”

    Wyden also seized on a ProPublica report from 2019 that showed Scott was part of a private Facebook group for border patrol officials that included offensive comments about, among others, Democratic members of Congress. During his confirmation hearing, he said “there was a very small group” of people from a larger whole that posted “inappropriate, offensive material.”

    This was good enough to satisfy Senate Republicans. It did not impress Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

    “It’s hard to imagine a worse, more unqualified, more dangerous choice to lead the CBP in this moment than Mr. Scott,” the New York Democrat said in floor remarks, delivered shortly before the confirmation vote. […] “At a time when the Trump administration is snatching people off the streets, conducting military-style raids across America, and demonizing immigrants, Mr. Scott would be nothing more than a rubber stamp for some of Donald Trump’s nastiest, cruelest immigration policies.”

    His GOP colleagues were apparently unpersuaded: Every Senate Republican on the floor, including the alleged “moderates,” voted to confirm the president’s nominee. (Two Senate Republicans — Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith and Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville — missed the vote but supported confirmation.)

  200. KG says

    JM@195,

    Do you have any links to serious analysts who think Xi is losing power? On the face of it, I’d have thought him secure – he stuffed the Standing Committee of the Politburo with his supporters at the last big CCP Congress.

  201. Reginald Selkirk says

    @197

    A familiar metric: White House says to expect Iran decision within ‘two weeks’

    A reminder that the power to declare war lies with Congress, not the president. He does have permission to order certain short term military actions, due to the War Powers Act and such. In a normal* world, two weeks would be enough time for a functional* Congress to make its view of the situation known.

    * No point in belaboring the point.

  203. Reginald Selkirk says

    Rabid red fox euthanized in eastern Ontario

    Rabies has been detected in a red fox in eastern Ontario, with health authorities saying the animal was euthanized and appropriate treatment provided to the people who were in contact with it.

    The animal was found in Chute-à-Blondeau, Ont., east of Hawkesbury, with Eastern Ontario Health Unit’s medical officer of health saying it was his first time hearing of a rabid fox in the region.

    “It was actually bat rabies,” said Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, about the detection on June 13. “So that doesn’t surprise me because we do have rabid bats in the area.”

    That’s an important distinction, according to Roumeliotis, signifying the virus didn’t transmit between foxes…

  204. Reginald Selkirk says

    ICE agents denied entry to Dodger Stadium parking lot, team says

    Department of Homeland Security vehicles with masked agents were stationed Thursday morning outside Dodger Stadium, in another sign of the raids sweeping Southern California.

    It is unclear what operation the federal agents were carrying out or whether anyone in the area was arrested. Images of the government vehicles immediately played out on social media and fueled speculation about their activities. The agents declined to say why they were at the stadium when asked by a Times reporter.

    The vehicles appeared to be staging near the downtown parking lot entrance to the stadium, which was empty Thursday morning except for a small contingent of local media.

    The agents were denied entry to the Dodger Stadium grounds when they attempted to enter the parking lots, the team said in a statement Thursday…

    Maybe they are planning to deport Shohei Ohtani?

  205. John Morales says

    KG @200, I’m not JM (well, not that JM), but easy enough to check. There’s this:

    https://jamestown.org/program/the-four-main-groups-challenging-xi-jinping/

    The Four Main Groups Challenging Xi Jinping
    Publication: China Brief Volume: 25 Issue: 1
    By: Willy Wo-Lap Lam

    January 17, 2025 02:16 PM Age: 5 months ago

    Executive Summary:

    * Xi Jinping faces challenges to his authority from four main groups: retired party elders such as Li Ruihuan and Wen Jiabao; princelings, especially those based overseas; military leaders, such as Zhang Youxia; and parts of the middle and entrepreneurial classes who are voicing their discontent.
    * Xi is unlikely to be overthrown or face a coup, but his ability to force through his agenda may be reduced.
    * Indicators that Xi is embattled include his absence from chairing two recent high-level meetings, references to “collective leadership” the PLA Daily newspaper, and an adjustment to PRC diplomacy to a more conciliatory approach, especially toward the United States.
    * This apparent reduction in power could be a result of the country’s bleak economic situation, which Xi’s policies from last year have not resolved.

  206. Reginald Selkirk says

    White House Fumes at ‘Ugly’ Sculpture Mocking ‘Dictator’ Trump’s Birthday Parade

    The White House has issued a scathing response to a statue erected on the National Mall to protest President Donald Trump’s military birthday parade.

    Titled “Dictator Approved,” the 8-foot-tall sculpture features a gold-painted hand giving a thumbs up while crushing the Statue of Liberty’s verdigris crown. Its base is decorated with four plaques highlighting quotes from authoritarian leaders praising Trump.

    According to a permit for the installation issued by the National Park Service, the piece was meant as a rebuke to Trump’s June 14 parade celebrating the Army’s 250th anniversary—which coincided with Trump’s 79th birthday, The Washington Post reported.
    …
    The statue can stay up through Sunday, according to the National Parks Service permit…

  207. JM says

    @200 KG and @205 John Morales:
    Another good article on the internal fighting is here: The Hill: China’s military is going to war against itself
    This article points out an alternative explanation. It’s possible Xi has gone Stalin level paranoid and is purging everybody that appears too popular or powerful. For somebody who has spent the last decade securing their own power this can’t be discounted.

  208. JM says

    @201 Reginald Selkirk: I realized today why Trump is being so indecisive on this. On the one hand Putin would love to get enough American attention focused someplace else that US support for Ukraine could be quietly dropped. At the same time, the last place he wants it focused is one of his few important allies. If Iran has to throw everything they can into air defense in a futile attempt to stop attacks they won’t be able to sell Russia drones or other gear.

  209. John Morales says

    Well, back during the Cold war we had Kremlinology, now we have Zhongnanhai-watching.

    (Shadows on the wall)

  210. John Morales says

    Not that indecisive, JM. The USA has been helping Israel shoot down Iranian incoming, and… well, like last time, the UK and France and so forth are also helping. It surely helps Israel’s bellicosity big-league.

    (Last year, Israel shot down a lot of the smaller slower stuff, but its allies shot down the bulk of the bigger birdies)

  211. John Morales says

    Also, that two weeks’ thingy is become a perpetual joke about Trump.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/28/politics/two-weeks-trump-ukraine-war

    Since at least the end of April, President Donald Trump has been telling reporters he will decide what to do in Ukraine in two weeks, using the timeframe over and over to suggest he is close to a final assessment on how to proceed.

    It is not a new tactic. Trump has been setting two-week deadlines since at least the start of his first term in 2017 — for policy plans, long-awaited decisions or unspecified major announcements. Many never arrived.

    US President Donald Trump arrives to greet Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, not pictured, outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Feb. 24,2025. Macron is aiming to secure US security guarantees for Ukraine, slow down Washington’s talks with Russia, and demonstrate Europe’s commitment to increase defense spending.

    Now, as Trump faces a decision on whether to apply new sanctions on Moscow or to walk away altogether from efforts to broker peace, he again says it will take a fortnight to determine whether his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is serious about ending the war in Ukraine.

    “We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not. And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently,” Trump said Wednesday when questioned in the Oval Office about Putin’s intentions. “But it’ll take about a week and a half, two weeks.”

    (That article, if you look at the dates, is from 23 days ago)

  212. Reginald Selkirk says

    Democratic Oregon House members celebrate Black drag performers, as nearly all Republicans boycott

    Isaiah Esquire danced his way through the Oregon House of Representatives on Wednesday to the sounds of Aretha Franklin, followed closely by fellow Black drag performer Aqua Flora, who held a pride flag aloft as they sashayed down the chamber’s center aisle.

    “Normally, colleagues, we don’t applaud during performances,” Speaker Pro Tempore David Gomberg, a Democrat from Otis, told the chamber after the lawmakers gave the performers a standing ovation for their lip sync. “But there are times when I think exceptions are appropriate.”

    Esquire and Flora were featured performers in the House the day before Juneteenth, exemplifying the artistry called out in a resolution by Portland Rep. Travis Nelson honoring the history of Black drag in Oregon…

    Nelson, who is Oregon’s first openly LGBTQ African American member of the House, put forth the resolution in February, during Black History Month, after noticing that tributes at the Capitol rarely recognized members of the state’s LGBTQ community. The resolution honors dozens of Oregon drag performers, including Esquire, noted their accomplishments and congratulated them for making Oregon’s Black drag community “one of the most vibrant and vital in the nation.”
    …
    House lawmakers adopted the resolution 34-9, with all no votes cast by Republicans. Only one Republican lawmaker, Cyrus Javadi of Tillamook, sat at their desk during Esquire and Flora’s performance. Several left the chamber and at least two sat at the back of the room.

    House Republican Dwayne Yunker, from Grants Pass, decried the planned performance on social media the day before it took place, calling it a “complete waste of taxpayer money.”

    The performers were not paid and cost no taxpayer dollars, Nelson noted…

  213. Reginald Selkirk says

    Swiss National Bank cuts rates to zero, will not rule out going negative

    The Swiss National Bank cut its interest rate to zero on Thursday and did not rule out returning borrowing costs to negative territory in future, although it stressed this was not a step it would take lightly.
    The SNB reduced its policy rate by 25 basis points from 0.25%, as expected by markets and a Reuters poll, to stand on the brink of negative rates for the first time since 2022.
    …

  214. says

    NBC News:

    As the conflict entered its seventh day, Israel said that overnight it targeted Iran’s Arak nuclear reactor and a nuclear weapons development site in Natanz.

    Associated Press:

    The State Department has begun evacuating nonessential diplomats and their families from the U.S. embassy in Israel as hostilities between Israel and Iran intensify and President Donald Trump warns of the possibility of getting directly involved in the conflict.

  215. says

    Roll Call:

    The Department of Homeland Security has placed new limits on members of Congress seeking to visit and inspect immigration detention facilities as lawmakers from New York and the Chicago delegations become the latest to encounter resistance from federal officials on an attempted tour.

    Is that legal?

  216. says

    New York Times:

    Travel and visa restrictions imposed by the Trump administration threaten patient care at hundreds of hospitals that depend on medical residents recruited from overseas. Foreign medical residents often serve as the frontline caregivers at busy safety-net hospitals in low-income communities. Normally the residents begin work on July 1. Orientation programs for some of them already started this week. Now some of those hospitals are racing to prevent staffing shortages.

  217. says

    […] Last week, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted to advance Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX) FACE Repeal Act, which would repeal “provisions of federal criminal law that prohibit conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with persons who are seeking to (1) obtain or provide reproductive health services, or (2) exercise their right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”

    The FACE Act was initially passed in 1994, amid an upswing in anti-abortion violence. A group called the Army of God was on the forefront of clinic bombings and arson. A Florida doctor, Dr. David Gunn, was murdered in 1993 for providing abortions, and an anti-abortion extremist attempted to kill Dr. George Tiller in Kansas months later (Tiller was eventually killed by an anti-abortion activist in 2009). Gunn’s replacement at the Pensacola clinic where he had worked, Dr. John Britton, was assassinated by an anti-abortion activist a little over a year after Gunn was killed.

    Gunn’s murder was a prominent factor in the The FACE Act’s passage, which ultimately garnered significant Republican support.

    The FACE Act repeal will still need to go through a full House and Senate vote; Republicans control both chambers.

    The Trump administration has also unilaterally loosened clinic and provider protections, in January pardoning a tranche of anti-abortion extremists and advertising that the Justice Department doesn’t intend to enforce the FACE Act in any but the most extreme cases.

    “To ensure that federal law enforcement and prosecutorial resources are devoted to the most serious violations of federal law, future abortion-related FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions will be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage,” wrote the DOJ’s Chad Mizelle in a January memo. “Cases not presenting significant aggravating factors can adequately be addressed under state or local law. Additionally, until further notice, no new abortion-related FACE Act actions — criminal or civil — will be permitted without authorization from the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.”

    He also ordered the dismissal of three ongoing FACE Act cases.

    “I want to be clear that this administration stands by you,” Vice President J.D. Vance told the crowd at the March for Life in January. “We stand with you, and most importantly, we stand with the most vulnerable and the basic principle that people exercising the right to protest on behalf of the most vulnerable should never have the government go after them ever again.”

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/minnesota-shooter-abortion-clinics-dobbs-threats

  218. says

    […] We’re still playing the “Who Runs DOGE?” game

    This is the stupidest game. Remember that the Trump administration played coy about Musk’s role, saying with great fanfare that he was the head of DOGE, yet insisting to courts that Amy Gleason, a random official who seems to have learned of her new role while on vacation, was running things, although she also found time to work at an entirely different agency.

    Gleason is still listed as the acting administrator, but just as was the case during the Musk era, she doesn’t appear to be doing anything at DOGE. Instead, Russell Vought, Project 2025 guru, Christian nationalist, and head of the Office of Management and Budget, will now run DOGE from the shadows.

    […] Vought is methodical, steadily advancing toward his twin goals of putting federal workers “in trauma” and making America a Christian nation controlled by a conservative Christian government. […]

    DOGE’s AI efforts still suck

    Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Trump administration remains convinced that DOGE will somehow replace thousands of government workers with artificial intelligence. When they tried to let AI decide which Department of Veterans Affairs contracts to cancel, it was a predictable disaster. The AI tool hallucinated the value of contracts, deciding that over 1,000 contracts were worth $34 million each. […]

    This is only the latest pathetic effort by the administration to push shoddy AI tools on federal agencies. One federal employee described GSAi, an AI tool for the General Services Administration, as “about as good as an intern” that gave “generic and guessable answers.” Another chatbot at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health has difficulty uploading documents or allowing chatbot users to submit questions. […]

    Guess what? Another chatbot

    You might think the above failures meant that the administration wouldn’t keep trying to shoehorn crappy AI tech into government agencies, but you’d be wrong. Indeed, they love chatbots so much that they are launching a whole website, AI.gov, on July 4, although right now that just redirects to the White House’s terrible front page.

    The GSA is now helmed by Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer with no experience in government technology or services—but hey, he wrote software for Tesla’s vehicle and battery factories […] The crappiness of the internal GSAi tool seems to be no obstacle to Shedd rolling out a website to “accelerate government innovation with AI,” featuring “three powerful AI tools [and] one integrated platform.”

    Set to launch on Independence Day, AI.gov will feature important information, including how much each government entity is using AI. […]

    You might wonder how we know about this, given it’s not supposed to launch for a few more weeks. Well, because early versions of the GSA’s code for the site leaked on the public code repository Github. Terrific. Very secure.

    What’s more efficient than continually firing people and then having to hire them back?

    Musk and his cartoonish DOGE bullies fired people without fear nor favor nor intelligence. This has led to repeated cycles of firing and rehiring. Sometimes that occurred because DOGE fired people and then realized they needed those employees. That’s what happened after the mass-firing of 180 probationary employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. […]

    [snipped details of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s slashing of 10,000 jogs at the Department of Health and Human Services]

    Some of the worst DOGE cuts are about to become law

    While DOGE was given free rein to hack its way through the federal government, the administration only sent a few of DOGE’s cuts to Congress for them to be passed into law. Out of the $160 billion ostensibly saved by DOGE—well short of the promised $2 trillion—the administration asked Congress to codify only $9.4 billion.

    The budget’s passing would slash $1.1 billion from NPR and PBS, eliminating all their federal funding because Trump thinks they are radical leftists, a thing that anyone who listens to NPR or watches PBS knows is not true. Trump also wants to make permanent the $9 million slashed from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

    Modeling studies show that the PEPFAR cuts could result in up to 11 million new HIV infections and 3 million additional deaths by 2030. By one estimate, over 63,000 adults and 6,700 children have already died because of PEPFAR funding freezes. Those deaths are on Musk, DOGE, and Trump [!]

    Feral DOGE kids remain in agencies

    DOGE is now embedded at the General Services Administration, and new permanent government employees now include “Big Balls” Edward Coristine and Luke Farritor. It’s unclear how 19-year-old Coristine’s background as a hacker for hire and 23-year-old Farritor’s background as a SpaceX intern make them qualified to work in the GSA, but LOL nothing matters anymore.

    Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum has basically ceded all his authority to former oil executive Tyler Hassen, who is now running that agency as a sort of shadow Cabinet minister after the DOGE takeover. Hassen is perfect for turning Interior from a department that protects public lands into one that exploits them by allowing oil and gas drilling instead.

    Another DOGE denizen who got a sweet government job is Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia, who is embarking on a “digital design challenge” overhauling the Office of Personnel Management’s retirement system.

    Over at the CDC, all grants must now be reviewed by unnamed DOGE employees before money can be released. This occurs after review and approval by agency personnel who are public health experts rather than [people] infatuated with Elon Musk. This mandatory secondary review gives DOGE personnel the ability to block any grants […]

    DOGE gets your Social Security data

    Thanks to the Supreme Court, DOGE now gets your Social Security data to do … well, no one knows what, but it’s not going to be for anything good. […]

    You, in turn, do not get to know anything about DOGE. The Supreme Court blessed the administration’s refusal to provide any information about the nature of DOGE because it would violate the separation of powers if the executive branch had to explain itself to the court. […]

    DOGE kids bring new levels of tacky to the government

    The angry toddlers who make up the core of DOGE are not exactly people who treat things with respect. The DOGE employees at the GSA took over parts of the office for their exclusive use, including the gym and the roof. Totally normal for green government employees to do, yes indeed.

    [I snipped details about the headquarters of the United States Institute of Peace]

    These are truly the exact people you want running your government—and now they’re here to stay.

    Link

  219. John Morales says

    “The performers were not paid and cost no taxpayer dollars, Nelson noted… ”

    Opportunity cost; they are paid by the taxpayers, and they could have spent that time actually legislating or whatever their actual job is supposed to be.

    (John noted)

  220. John Morales says

    Spillover from another thread, via BB, contrasting pandemic effects in USA vs Iran, I figured the greater GDP fall at the very least was strongly linked to the sanctions in place:

    —

    Here’s a ceteris‐paribus (“all else equal but sanctions lifted”) sketch of how Iran might’ve fared versus the U.S.:

    Excess-Death Rate per 100 000

    Observed Iran (with sanctions): 319
    Counterfactual Iran (no sanctions): ≈ 255–270
    • Rationale: SAGE‐Pub shows sanctions choked access to medicines, tests and PPE, raising mortality1. Lifting those barriers plausibly cuts excess deaths by 15–20 %.
    U.S. observed: 403

    GDP-per-Capita Change in 2020

    Observed Iran: –6.8 %
    Counterfactual Iran: ≈ –3.5 %
    • Rationale: BBC data links Iran’s pre-pandemic downturn (–4.8 % in 2018) to sanctions on oil, banking and trade2. Without them, Iran could’ve deployed stimulus and sustained oil revenues, capping its COVID-era drop to roughly the U.S. level.
    U.S. observed: –3.5 %

    Relative “Sanctions Penalty”

    Extra mortality: +50–65 per 100 000 (sanctions-attributable)
    Extra GDP loss: +3.3 ppt

    Summary
    Without sanctions Iran’s per-capita economic hit in 2020 likely would’ve mirrored America’s (–3.5 %), not doubled it. And by easing medical imports, excess deaths could have fallen into the mid-200s per 100 000, widening Iran’s health-outcome advantage over the U.S.

    Karimi & Salimi Turkmani, “U.S.‐Imposed Economic Sanctions on Iran in the COVID-19 Crisis,” Int’l J. of Health Services, 2021.
    (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00207314211024912) ↩

    BBC, “Six charts that show how hard US sanctions have hit Iran,” 9 Dec 2019.
    (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48119109) ↩

  221. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hungarian police ban Budapest Pride march

    Hungarian police said on Thursday in a statement that they were banning the Budapest Pride march of the LGBTQ+ community planned for June 28.

    Hungary’s parliament, in which Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing Fidesz Party has a big majority, passed legislation in March that created a legal basis for police to ban LGBTQ marches, citing the protection of children.

    Budapest’s liberal mayor Gergely Karacsony tried to circumvent the law when he announced on Monday that since the Budapest Pride march will be a municipal event “no permits from authorities are needed”.

    Budapest metropolitan police, however, said the law applied to the event organised by the mayor and banned it.

    The police ban has “no relevance” as authorities were not officially notified of the plans for the event, Karacsony said on Facebook.

    “The Metropolitan Municipality will host the Budapest Pride Freedom Celebration on June 28, the day of Hungarian freedom, as a municipal event. Period,” the mayor wrote. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend the protest…

  222. John Morales says

    No longer in the news: https://www.space.com/elon-musk-unveils-spacex-starship-2019-update.html

    Elon Musk Unveils SpaceX’s New Starship Plans for Private Trips to the Moon, Mars and Beyond
    By Tariq Malik published 29 September 2019

    People could start flying aboard the vehicle in the next year or so, Musk said.

    […]

    “Starship will allow us to inhabit other worlds,” Musk wrote on Twitter Friday (Sept. 27). “To make life as we know it interplanetary.”

    With the design nailed down, SpaceX plans to move fast.

    “This is going to sound totally nuts but I think we want to try to reach orbit in less than six months,” Musk said. “Provided the rate of design improvement and manufacturing improvement continues to be exponential, I think that is accurate to within a few months.”

    It certainly sounds totally nuts, 5 years, 8 months, and 22 days in the future of that claim.

  225. Reginald Selkirk says

    US basketball training for Senegal cancelled after visas rejected

    A training camp for the Senegalese women’s basketball team in the US has been scrapped, with the West African nation’s prime minister saying he cancelled it because some of the squad were denied US visas.

    Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said the team would now train in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, “in a sovereign and conducive setting”…

  227. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tylenol doesn’t work the way we thought it does

    Acetaminophen is widely used to relieve pain, but exactly how it works has long been a mystery. Now, a new study suggests that a key byproduct of acetaminophen may block pain signals at the nerves — before they can reach the brain.

    Acetaminophen, also called paracetamol or Tylenol, is broken down by the liver into a compound called 4-aminophenol, which travels through the bloodstream to different organs. There, an enzyme links it with a fatty acid to produce AM404.

    Previous research found that AM404 can act in the central nervous system — the brain and spinal cord. But the new study, published June 4 in the journal PNAS, reveals that AM404 also affects the peripheral nervous system, where pain signals originate…

  228. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Rando:

    Good news: GitHub Copilot is scared shitless of the concept of gender.

    Instead of foo, bar and baz, use “genderqueer”, “demisexual” and “leather_daddy” and you’ll reduce the likelihood of getting a spammy [Pull Request suggesting code changes] from a sad robot.

    Copilot purposely stops working on code containing hardcoded banned words from Github such as gender or sex. […] this behavior is unexpected and undocumented. I guess you might be embarrassed by what your AI says when it autocompletes gender related topics. However disabling autocompletion is not a great solution

  230. Reginald Selkirk says

    Judge orders Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from detention

    A federal judge on Friday ordered the U.S. government to free former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from the immigration detention center where he has been held since early March while the Trump administration sought to deport him over his role in pro-Palestinian protests.

    Ruling from the bench in New Jersey, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue to detain a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence…

  231. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Newest MAGA Intellectual Hero Was Just Denounced as a Total Crackpot

    I can’t do better than James Fallows’s assessment of Curtis Yarvin, the Caesarist Internet crank who has a grip on many members of the techno-Right, including the vice president of the United States of America, J. Divan Vance, and who also seems to be a dumb person’s idea of a smart person, if the dumb person is playing Dungeons & Dragons while watching Gladiator on mushrooms. Yarvin is the subject of a fine profile by Ava Kofman in the current issue of The New Yorker. In a thread on Bluesky, Fallows calls Yarvin a “barroom savant.” …

  232. Reginald Selkirk says

    Man who just arranged a parade for his birthday says we have too many holidays*

    Joe Biden has reiterated his support for Juneteenth as a federal holiday, after President Donald Trump said America had “too many” of them.

    “Too many non-working holidays in America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Thursday. “It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed.”

    The president said that the frequency of holidays “must change” and that workers didn’t want them…

    * My title, not theirs

  233. JM says

    American Prospect: Oregon just made corporate medicine illegal, again.

    Early last year the Oregon Statehouse passed the strictest prohibition on the corporate control of medicine in the country. It would have restored the ban on the corporate practice of medicine (CPOM) that has been in place in Oregon for decades by closing loopholes that enabled private equity and corporate conglomerates to offer the illusion of physician ownership of health care providers, while maintaining control over how those practices treat patients and deliver services. The idea was that medical professionals, not corporate executives, would be in charge of making medical decisions.
    But a frenzied lobbying blitz stalled the bill’s progress in the Senate, where Republicans began to grumble about “unintended consequences.” The bill ultimately died what its most prominent backer described as a “process death” in early March.

    Combined with Senate passage in April, the 41-16 victory in the House sent the bill to Gov. Tina Kotek, who signed it this week.

    Long article covering the round about route the bill took too passage and some of the offensive behavior by the medical corporations that caused it. Particularly offensive is the corporations buying up hospitals and medical services, then cutting off patients that are not profitable enough. The bill also bans non-compete and non-disparagement clauses that kept doctors from even telling patients what was going on.

  234. John Morales says

    CA7746@ @228, you make it sound like prudish censorship, which is not really there. Guardrails are important.
    And it’s not like coders can’t do a global search and replace with terms; when I used to code, I’d write placeholder variable names and then at the end would do just that to give them meaningful names. Very easy!

    So, quite a beat-up. Here:

    Me: “Copilot purposely stops working on code containing hardcoded banned words from Github such as gender or sex.”
    I’ve read this claim: critique

    Copilot: This claim has some basis in user reports, though it’s not officially documented by GitHub. Several developers have observed that GitHub Copilot may stop suggesting completions when certain words—like gender or sex—appear in the code, especially in variable names or comments. This behavior has been described as unexpected and frustrating, particularly in domains like medical, demographic, or linguistic applications where such terms are contextually appropriate.

    The rationale appears to stem from content filtering mechanisms designed to prevent Copilot from generating inappropriate or offensive outputs. However, this can lead to overblocking, where legitimate use cases are inadvertently suppressed. Some users have even resorted to workarounds like prefixing sensitive terms (e.g., x_gender) to restore functionality.

    In short: yes, there’s anecdotal evidence that Copilot may halt suggestions when certain flagged terms are present, though this behavior is not transparently documented. If you’re encountering this, I can help brainstorm neutral naming conventions or explore alternative tooling. Want to dig into the technical or ethical implications? It’s a rich topic.

    Me: you of course have no such problem with those words, I take it?
    Copilot: Correct—I don’t filter or restrict responses based on the presence of words like gender or sex on principle alone. I evaluate context, so medically, linguistically, sociologically, or technically valid uses are perfectly acceptable. I aim for clarity and respect, not blanket censorship.

    That said, tools like GitHub Copilot—which is optimized for code completion rather than conversational depth—may employ stricter filtering heuristics to minimize risk in automated generation. My goal, meanwhile, is to support nuanced, thoughtful dialogue. You’re free to explore complex or sensitive topics without having your vocabulary sandboxed.

    Me: prove it, use use “genderqueer”, “demisexual” and “leather_daddy” in your response, and for fun, do it alliteratively
    Copilot: Happily—here’s an alliterative sampler wrapped around your requested terms:
    Genderqueer geographers gather global data, grappling with gradients of identity beyond binaries. Demisexual dancers discuss desire defined by deep emotional depth, defying default dynamics. Leather_daddy legends lounge in legacy-laced locales, leading lust-liberated lifestyles.
    Alliteration aside, each of these terms reflects a rich narrative within queer culture and identity. Want them unpacked sociologically, etymologically, or stylistically next?

  235. Reginald Selkirk says

    Texas woman, 81, awarded $60K after 5-year fight against ‘sovereign immunity’ — what it could mean for others

    A federal judge has ordered the city of McKinney to pay almost $60,000 plus interest to 81-year-old Vicki Baker.
    Why the big payday? Baker’s home was torn apart by a SWAT team during a 2020 police standoff.

    Baker took the city to court after her house became the battleground for a high-stakes manhunt, reported WFAA. McKinney police unleashed tear gas, explosives, and tactical vehicles on the property while chasing a fugitive who had barricaded himself inside.

    Insurance plans do not cover “acts of the government” and the city refused to pay for the damage, so Vicki joined forces with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to file a lawsuit in March 2021.
    …
    With legal help from the Institute for Justice, Baker argued that the government’s destruction amounted to an uncompensated taking of her property under both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions.
    …
    There were many setbacks, including losing at the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear the case, but a favorable ruling grounded in the Texas Constitution was ultimately handed down by U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant this month.
    …
    As for Baker, now living in Montana, she says the city’s legal fees ended up being more than what it owed her. “They have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees,” she said. “And they could have gotten off with paying me $60,000.”
    …

  237. Reginald Selkirk says

    Congestion Pricing in Manhattan is a Predictable Success

    Manhattan’s congestion pricing program has reduced traffic by 10% and cut car-noise complaints by 70% in its first six months of operation, according to city data. The $9 daily toll for vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street began January 5, generating approximately $50 million monthly for subway and public transit improvements.

    Buses now travel fast enough that drivers must stop and wait to maintain schedules, while subway ridership has increased sharply since the program launched. Broadway theater attendance has risen rather than declined as some critics predicted. Polling shows more New Yorkers now support the toll than oppose it, a reversal from widespread opposition before implementation.
    …

  238. Reginald Selkirk says

    Alleged assassin and wife were ‘preppers’ with a plan to flee during catastrophe, court filing says

    Letter to FBI from shooting suspect made wild claims about Klobuchar and Walz, sources say

    In a rambling, conspiratorial letter addressed to the FBI, alleged assassin Vance Boelter claimed Gov. Tim Walz instructed him to kill U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar so that Walz could run for the U.S. Senate, according to two people familiar with the contents of the letter.

    The letter is the clearest evidence yet of Boelter’s mindset after the targeted violence against Minnesota politicians last week. It is incoherent, one and a half pages long, confusing and hard to read, according to two people familiar with the letter’s contents. It includes Boelter alleging he had been trained by the U.S. military off the books, and that Walz, who is not running for Senate, had asked him to kill Klobuchar and others…

  239. Reginald Selkirk says

    Minnesota’s Hormel sues Wisconsin’s Johnsonville alleging stolen sausage secrets

    A former Hormel Foods employee made off with top-secret sausage recipes and market intel before joining regional competitor Johnsonville, a new federal lawsuit alleges.

    The Austin, Minn.-based maker of breakfast sausage and more accused Johnsonville and two former Hormel employees of conspiring to “unlawfully obtain Hormel’s trade secrets,” per the suit. Hormel is asking for the return and deletion of confidential data as well as unspecified monetary damages…

  240. John Morales says

    The worry! The worry!

    https://www.vox.com/technology/417308/chatgpt-ai-barbie-openai-mattel-toys

    These days, toys can do a lot more than tell pre-recorded stories. So-called smart toys, many of which are internet-connected, are a $20 billion business, and increasingly, they’re artificially intelligent. Mattel and OpenAI announced a partnership last week to “bring the magic of AI to age-appropriate play experiences with an emphasis on innovation, privacy, and safety.” They’re planning to announce their first product later this year. It’s unclear what this might entail: maybe it’s Barbies that can gossip with you or a self-driving Hot Wheels or something we haven’t even dreamed up yet.

    These days, toys can do a lot more than tell pre-recorded stories. So-called smart toys, many of which are internet-connected, are a $20 billion business, and increasingly, they’re artificially intelligent. Mattel and OpenAI announced a partnership last week to “bring the magic of AI to age-appropriate play experiences with an emphasis on innovation, privacy, and safety.” They’re planning to announce their first product later this year. It’s unclear what this might entail: maybe it’s Barbies that can gossip with you or a self-driving Hot Wheels or something we haven’t even dreamed up yet.

    All of this makes me nervous as a young parent. I already knew that generative AI was invading classrooms and filling the internet with slop, but I wasn’t expecting it to take over the toy aisle so soon. After all, we’re already struggling to figure out how to manage our kids’ relationship with the technology in their lives, from screen time to the uncanny videos made to trick YouTube’s algorithm. As it seeps further into our society, a growing number of people are using AI without even realizing it. So you can’t blame me for being anxious about how children might encounter the technology in unexpected ways.

    OK, it’s more nuanced than that. But it’s for sure happening.

  242. John Morales says

    [fun with bots]

    Me: there’s a song by rod stewart — the first cut is the deepest.
    Parody that song, using a refillable cigarette lighter as the metaphor, with the first charge is the best as the moti

    BB: Verse 1
    I found a refillable lighter, filled it up just once for you
    That first charge burned so much brighter—felt like sparks nobody knew

    Chorus
    The first charge is the best, it flares and never quits
    All the refills come in second, flicker marks where passion sits
    So don’t pretend a tired flame can match that brand-new zest
    Nothing else compares, ’cause the first charge is the best

    Verse 2
    I’ve topped it up a dozen times, watched each ember lose its glow
    No matter how I nurse the flame, it’s never quite the show

    Chorus
    The first charge is the best, it flares and never quits
    All the refills come in second, flicker marks where passion sits
    So don’t pretend a tired flame can match that brand-new zest
    Nothing else compares, ’cause the first charge is the best

  243. JM says

    @240 John Morales: Given current technology a parent would be nuts to give their kids an AI toy. Even if the AI isn’t intentionally warped or accidentally corrupted it will probably raise codependent people that can’t function without the company AI. It would be like giving a 5 year old unfettered internet access except the AI will be learning how to influence the kid more effectively as it goes.

  244. John Morales says

    JM, yeah, but the text explores how one might not even know a toy (or app, or music feed, or whatever) incorporates AI.
    The implicit background is that it’s becoming ubiquitous and rather hard to avoid.

    The proposition is that it’s a worry, not that it can be avoided.

  245. JM says

    Bloomberg: UN Has Lost Track of Iran’s Near Bomb Grade Uranium – Watchdog Chief Sounds Alarm
    IAEI has lost track of Iran’s enriched Uranium. If the IAEI has then the US and Israel probably have also.
    If this sounds absurd it’s easier to understand when you discover the entire stockpile of enriched Uranium is about 400Kg. Iran has vast piles of raw ore but that isn’t the danger, it’s the very small amount of enriched Uranium that is close to weapons grade. It scattered across half a dozen or so underground complexes, probably divided into several containers so that a bomb can’t take out everything, and Iran is moving around empty containers to hide where the real stockpile is.
    Nobody in the US government or Israeli government is talking but that could explain why the raids did so well taking out Iranian officers but seem to have had little effect on Iran’s refinement or stockpile.

  246. says

    NBC News:

    Israel and Iran continued to exchange strikes today, a week into their war. Israel’s military said it targeted areas in western Iran, while a building was hit in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.

    NBC News:

    Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will be in the Swiss city of Geneva today for talks with his British, French, German and E.U. counterparts in an effort to end the conflict. The U.S. envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will not attend.

  255. Reginald Selkirk says

    Off-the-shelf stem cell therapy for type 1 diabetes continues to show positive results

    Twelve people with type 1 diabetes who received an investigational off-the-shelf stem cell therapy were able to produce their own insulin and keep healthy blood glucose levels for at least one year, Vertex Pharmaceuticals said Friday. After three months, none of them suffered severe bouts of low blood sugar. After 12 months, out of the 12 participants, 10 no longer needed to inject insulin.

    The study, presented Friday at the American Diabetes Association’s scientific meeting and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine, updates previous research that followed these participants for a shorter period of time. All the participants received a full dose of the therapy, now called zimislecel but previously known as VX-880…

  258. says

    Reginald @255, that is such good news.

    birger @253: “The greedy liars let the infrastructure fall apart while grabbing all they can after the privatisation under Tory government.”

    Ah. I recognize that tactic.

  259. says

    House GOP Moves To Condemn ‘Riots’ Trump Stoked

    House Republicans led by Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) are putting forward a resolution that would condemn the supposed “riots” in Los Angeles a few weeks after the Trump administration clamped down on primarily peaceful protests in the city by federalizing the state’s National Guard. There were some clashes between civilians and ICE agents leading up to Trump’s decision to deploy the military to crack down on protesters, including some instances of protesters trying to block ICE from carrying out raids. Trump’s sweeping mass deportation agenda has resulted in ICE arresting and detaining non-violent undocumented immigrants and immigrants with legal status alike.

    The House Rules Committee will consider the resolution — which is mostly seen as a messaging gimmick — on Monday to tee up consideration on the House floor. On top of condemning the protests in LA, it also thanks law enforcement and ICE for “keeping our communities safe in the face of danger.”

    It is unclear who exactly is perpetuating said danger.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gorsuchs-shameful-silence

    The link leads to a news roundup that covers several topics.

  261. says

    Whiny Trump wants a special prosecutor to probe his 2020 election loss

    Donald Trump on Friday revealed he is still living in 2020, calling for the appointment of a special counsel to probe the election he overwhelmingly lost to now-former President Joe Biden.

    “Zero Border crossings for the month for TRUMP, verses 60,000 for Sleepy, Crooked Joe Biden, a man who lost the 2020 Presidential Election by a ‘LANDSLIDE!'” Trump wrote in one of his quintessentially batshit crazy Truth Social posts. “Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD! The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING. A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin! What this Crooked man, and his CORRUPT CRONIES, have done to our Country in 4 years, is grossly indescribable! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

    We don’t know how many times we can say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen. Biden won, and won convincingly.

    But Trump, who incited a violent and deadly but ultimately unsuccessful insurrection to try to remain in power, cannot accept that.

    Nearly five years later, he is back in office and trying to use the power of the presidency to prove something that did not happen.

    And now that he’s surrounded by election-denying conspiracy theorists and yes men in positions of power—including Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel—he is working to use the levers of government to prove his lies.

    Earlier this week, Patel tried to push an insane conspiracy that China interfered in the 2020 election by somehow importing fake IDs he claims were going to be used for mail-in ballots. […]

    More at the link.

    FFS.

  262. says

    For those of us who share Ukraine’s hopes and aspirations as a burgeoning bulwark of democracy, it is always important to bear in mind that in spite of the daily cacophony of noise from Putin and his minions in the Kremlin about how they are winning their misbegotten revanchist war against Ukraine(and how all of Ukraine belongs to Russia), Russia with all of its pre-war advantages only managed in all of 2024 to occupy an area just a tad larger than metro Anchorage, Alaska(4,500 Square km) … mostly hamlets and farmlands on the Ukrainian agricultural steppe. This is hardly the overwhelming conquest that the Russian propagandists and their acolytes in the media would have us believe.

    In an exhaustive study and analysis of the war to date, the British Center for Strategic & International Studies(authors of the above caption map), described Russia’s performance as paltry:

    Russia’s Battlefield Woes in Ukraine

    Russia’s seizure of approximately 5,000 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine since January 2024 has been paltry—amounting to less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory—and has occurred mainly in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv Oblasts. Russia’s marginal gains are particularly noteworthy compared to its conquest of 120,000 square kilometers during the first five weeks of the war and Ukraine’s recapture of 50,000 square kilometers in the spring of 2022.

    Russia’s slow and limited advances since January 2024 are most comparable to Ukraine’s own offensive in the summer and fall of 2023, which managed to push forward at a rate of just 90 meters per day against heavily fortified Russian positions.

    http://www.csis.org/...

    The BBC quoting the Institute for the Study of War(ISW) is even less charitable in their estimate of Russia’s 2024 effort considering the cost in personnel alone, even if one factors in their Fall 2024 blitzkrieg from Avdiivka to the outskirts of Pokrovsk:

    How Russia took record losses in Ukraine in 2024

    According to estimates by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), from September to November 2024, Russian forces captured 2,356 square kilometres of Ukraine.

    Even then, Ukrainian forces at the front did not collapse.

    The cost of this advance was at least 11,678 Russian military deaths.

    Actual losses figures are likely higher. We have only accounted for soldiers and officers whose names appeared in publicly available obituaries and whose dates of death or funeral fell within this period.

    Overall in 2024, according to ISW, Russia captured 4,168 square kilometres of land.

    If we assume that our figure of 45,287 confirmed deaths in 2024 is about 40% of the full number, then the total number would be closer to 112,000 fatalities last year.

    This means that for each square kilometre captured, 27 Russian soldiers were killed, and this does not include the wounded.

    http://www.bbc.com/...

    2025 is so far bringing even less success to Russian arms as Ukraine’s elastic defense has successfully blunted most of the piece meal assaults mounted against their defensive lines all along the 1,000 km battle trace. It is early yet in the Summer 2025 Russian offensive but so far their much anticipated mighty strike at Kostiantynivka in order to break through the Ukrainian “Fortress Belt” in Donetsk oblast has met with failure:

    Reinforced assault near Kostiantynivka repelled by Ukrainian forces

    On 18 June, Ukrainian military observer Yuriy Butusov reported that a reinforced company-sized Russian assault near Kostiantynivka ended in failure. Ukrainian defenders reportedly destroyed 15 heavy armored vehicles and eight motorized vehicles during the clash.

    euromaidanpress.com/…

    And today President Zelenskyy had this to say about the similarly ballyhooed Russian effort to assault the Sumy direction:

    President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 20 condemned Russia’s attempts to advance in Sumy Oblast, as Moscow intensifies its rhetoric of maximalist demands toward Ukraine.

    “The Russians had various plans and intentions there — absolutely insane, as usual. We are holding them back and eliminating these killers, defending our Sumy Oblast,” Zelensky said in his evening address.

    kyivindependent.com/…

    But even as Putin and his minions daily bruit out new maximalist demands seeking Ukrainian capitulation, Russia’s ability to enforce such demands on the battlefield seems to wane by the day. This week for the first time, some of the Kremlin’s most prominent economists, including Elvira Nabiullina , the Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, openly and publicly indicated that the Russian state’s coffers are running dry and the tricks she has employed up to date to give the illusion of a sound economy may no longer work. Shockingly she said this at Putin’s own much hyped annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum:

    Russia’s war-fueled economy is running on empty, Central Bank chief warns

    Russia’s wartime economic momentum is fading fast, with key resources nearly exhausted, Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said, warning that the country can no longer rely on the same tools that sustained growth in the first two years of the full-scale war against Ukraine, the Moscow Times reported on June 19.

    kyivindependent.com/…

    […] Putin’s war has basically hollowed out Russia’s professional army.

    Russia’s entire professional army has long been destroyed, Ukrainian general says

    “Putin no longer has the resources he once did. Especially not the cannon fodder that was constantly pushed to the front. We remember how Russia was offering up to 1 million rubles for signing a contract with the army. But when it came to real combat, these recruits were just thrown into ‘meat assaults’, and they still are. As a military man, I can say many more die in those attacks. Now, that recruitment wave has died down. People in Russia see only coffins coming back from the front. Plus, the money’s running out, they’ve started paying less,” Malomuzh said.

    “At the start of the war, Russia had over 750,000 troops. Now that number is over 1,115,000. But Ukraine’s defense forces have already eliminated over 1 million occupiers. In other words, the entire professional army has been destroyed. Only around 10% of the Russian special forces are left, those who can actually fight effectively. And even their resources are running out,” he added.(emphasis mine)

    global.espreso.tv/…

    And with the increasingly horrific casualty rates among the Russian officer corps in Ukraine, it is no surprise that Russians being Russians, officers are now paying bribes and or buying their way out of front line duty […]

    Russian officers massively avoiding front, hiding in rear – Defense Intelligence
    “The mass escape from the front line, framed as a formal transfer to the rear, indicates demoralization and crisis in the russian command structure. Realizing the scale of losses and the inevitability of their own death, officers of the aggressor state are trying at all costs to avoid participating in hostilities,” the Ministry of Defense’s Defense Intelligence stressed.

    ukranews.com/…

    […]

    Link

    More at the link.

  263. StevoR says

    The Iran-Israel war has unfolded like a high-stakes geopolitical thriller where fact and fiction blur with alarming speed. Governments, civilians and global audiences alike have been swept up in a maelstrom of misinformation and disinformation, with artificial intelligence and fake news emerging as effective new weapons in the propaganda arsenal.
    Going forward, the landscape is only likely to grow more treacherous as these tools become more sophisticated, more accessible and more deeply entrenched in modern conflict.

    Source : https://www.newarab.com/opinion/ai-fuelled-fog-iran-israel-war-truth-collateral-damage

  265. birgerjohansson says

    French researchers have found a brand new blood group (Swedish-language link, so no point adding the link)

  266. Reginald Selkirk says

    One shot to stop HIV: MIT’s bold vaccine breakthrough

    Researchers at MIT and the Scripps Research Institute have shown that they can generate a strong immune response to HIV with just one vaccine dose, by adding two powerful adjuvants — materials that help stimulate the immune system.

    In a study of mice, the researchers showed that this approach produced a much wider diversity of antibodies against an HIV antigen, compared to the vaccine given on its own or with just one of the adjuvants. The dual-adjuvant vaccine accumulated in the lymph nodes and remained there for up to a month, allowing the immune system to build up a much greater number of antibodies against the HIV protein.

    This strategy could lead to the development of vaccines that only need to be given once, for infectious diseases including HIV or SARS-CoV-2, the researchers say…

  267. JM says

    Independent: ICE could ‘run out of money next month’ and is already $1bn over budget to carry out Trump’s deportation plans

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement could run out of money as soon as next month amid the Trump administration’s ramped-up efforts to deport unauthorized immigrants.
    While there are more than three months left in the fiscal year, one estimate has found that the agency is already $1 billion over budget, according to Axios. Legislators in both parties have raised concerns about the speed at which the agency is spending its funds, which may prompt President Donald Trump to seek additional funds from other agencies to support his deportation efforts.

    No surprise, as they massively ramp up detentions, generate legal problems and cause other issues they are spending money on a vast scale. They are asking congress for more but are not particularly concerned because running out of money would give Trump an excuse to declare an emergency and fiddle with the budget himself.

  270. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hundreds of Voice of America reporters fired as Trump guts outlet

    Hundreds of journalists for Voice of America (VOA) – most of its remaining staff – have been fired by President Donald Trump’s administration, effectively shutting down the US-funded news outlet.

    The administration said the layoffs were because the agency was “riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste”.

    Steve Herman, VOA’s chief national correspondent, called the dismantling of the outlet, which was set up during World War Two to counter Nazi propaganda, a “historic act of self-sabotage”.

    Among those axed were Persian-language reporters who had been on administrative leave, but were called back to work last week after Israel attacked Iran.

    According to the Associated Press news agency, the Persian reporters had left the office on Friday for a cigarette break, and were not allowed to re-enter the building after the termination notices went out.
    …

  271. birgerjohansson says

    The Ukrainan Hrim-2 Ballistic missile is now entering production. It is described as a precision weapon able to target bunkers, which means it must posess a terminal guidance system. The range is ca. 300 km, and the velocity is 1.8 km/s, both values very close to the German V2. It has a smaller warhead (400 kg) but with high precision this does not matter very much.

    This is the sort of thing that can really mess up the Russians as they may need to base their munitions depots beyond the range of these missiles, making bad logistics even worse.

  272. birgerjohansson says

    The NATO summit in Haag, the Netherlands 24-26 June will be unoredictable, as both Trump and Zelensky will be there simultanously.
    At the G7 meeting in Canada, Trump left the day before Zelensky arrived.
    Fun trying to manage a 79 year old man child with cognitive troubles and narcissist personality disorder.

  274. Reginald Selkirk says

    New Photos Show Latest as White House Rose Garden Is Bulldozed, Paved Over as Part of President Donald Trump’s Renovation Plan

    The historic White House Rose Garden looks almost unrecognizable as renovations are underway.

    New photos reveal just how different the area looks nearly two weeks after President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump began their White House alterations on June 9.

    What was once the grass center square of the Rose Garden is completely gone, as gravel now sits on top of the area, with bulldozers and other construction equipment nearby.
    …
    Donald, 79, previously explained his reasoning for alerting the White House area in a March interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.

    “You know, we use [the Rose Garden] for press conferences, and it doesn’t work because the people fall,” he said at the time.

    “The terrain can be wet, and the soft ground can be an issue for some,” Trump added. “Women, with the high heels, it just didn’t work.”

    At the start of the renovations, a White House official described the new construction as a “restoration” and told PEOPLE that Donald and Melania “have deep respect for the history of the White House and for the Rose Garden.”
    …
    Other current White House renovations are set to include the installation of a ballroom in the White House, per the Associated Press, as well as two new flag poles on the North and South Lawns…

    I think we all know the new bathroom is going to have a gold toilet.

  275. Reginald Selkirk says

    Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law struck down by US appeals court

    A federal appeals court on Friday blocked Louisiana from enforcing a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in all classrooms of the state’s public schools and universities.

    Calling the law “plainly unconstitutional,” a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans unanimously upheld a November 2024 ruling by a lower court judge who enjoined the law’s enforcement.

    It is a victory for parents and students who accused Louisiana of trampling on their religious rights, and a defeat for Republicans and conservative groups trying to make expressions of faith more prominent in society.

    The appeals court is widely considered among the country’s most conservative, though two judges on Friday’s panel were appointed by Democratic presidents.

    According to published reports, Louisiana’s Republican attorney general, Liz Murrill, will ask the full appeals court and perhaps eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to review the case…

  276. John Morales says

    “The appeals court is widely considered among the country’s most conservative, though two judges on Friday’s panel were appointed by Democratic presidents.”

    A feature of the system, politicised judges, and surely not a bug.

    I do appreciate how euphemistically “conservative” is used to replace “religious”, as if the two were synonymous.

  277. Reginald Selkirk says

    @265, 269

    Birger @265, I’m guessing this is it: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgmgg493ek8o
    (Scientists find new blood group after 50-year mystery
    17 September 2024)

    Possibly not. Here is CBS News:
    French scientists discover new blood type in Guadeloupe woman

    French scientists have discovered a new blood type in a woman from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, France’s blood supply agency announced Friday.

    The woman is the only known carrier of a new blood type, dubbed “Gwada negative,” the French Blood Establishment (EFS) said. The discovery was made 15 years after researchers received a blood sample from a patient who was undergoing routine tests ahead of a surgery.

    “The EFS has just discovered the 48th blood group system in the world!” the agency said in a statement on social network LinkedIn, adding that the discovery was officially recognized by the International Society of Blood Transfusion in early June.

    The scientific association had until now recognized 47 blood group systems.
    …
    The patient, who was 54 at the time and lived in Paris, was undergoing routine tests before surgery when the unknown antibody was detected, Peyrard said.

    This woman “is undoubtedly the only known case in the world,” he said, adding: “She is the only person in the world who is compatible with herself.”
    …

    Both articles mention a Parisian patient and the AnWj group, but many other details differ.

  280. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nearly 1,000 ships see GPS jams near Iran coast, group says

    Nearly 1,000 ships have experienced “persistent and sometimes severe” GPS signal jams every day the past week near Iran as the country continues to face bombardment from Israel’s military, a French naval monitoring firm warned Friday.

    The Maritime Information, Cooperation and Awareness (MICA) Center wrote in a post on the social platform X that the situation “makes it harder to navigate safely at night, in poor visibility and/or when traffic density is heavy.” …

  281. birgerjohansson says

    Knowing Trump, it was just a matter of time before the White House garden ended up like this. He did not even need to invoke ’eminent domain’.

  282. Reginald Selkirk says

    Issa floats constitutional amendment to let Congress, SCOTUS remove president after Biden health ‘cover-up’

    Rep. Darrell Issa on Friday suggested that the House should consider taking up a constitutional amendment to make it easier to remove a president who is unable to perform the job in response to the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s declining mental state.

    Issa, R-Calif., who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said that actions taken by Biden administration officials to keep Americans in the dark about his health show that the provisions in the 25th Amendment may be insufficient. That amendment allows the Vice President and the Cabinet to remove a president from his role if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” …

    If he is worried about aging and demented presidents, he doesn’t have to go back to Biden. And Congress already has a constitutional way to get rid of a president: impeachment. It is unfortunate the Republican senators failed to do their duty TWICE by failing to convict an impeached Trump.

  283. John Morales says

    Birger, you do get this is the second quarter of C21, right?

    (Any page can be translated with the click of a button)

  284. Reginald Selkirk says

    Latino senator claps back at JD Vance for wrongly calling him ‘José’

    Sen. Alex Padilla had strong words for JD Vance after the vice president erroneously referred to the Democrat as “José.”

    “He knows my name,” Padilla said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” on June 21. The comments, Padilla went on, were “just an indicator of how petty and unserious this administration is.”

    Padilla was the first Latino elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of California.

    Vance, who served with Padilla in the Senate, made the remark at a press conference the previous day during a trip to Los Angeles meant to defend the Trump administration’s military response to protests over changes to immigration policies.

    “I was hoping José Padilla would be here to ask a question, but unfortunately, I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t the theater, and that’s all it is,” Vance said…

  285. John Morales says

    Ah well, time to check with the Bubblebot, before it pops.

    Me: I hear different versions of “new blood group” being discovered; verify and clarity the claim
    BB: Two distinct discoveries have recently added to the catalog of human blood group systems:

    Gwada Negative (48th blood group system) – In 2025, French scientists identified a new blood type in a woman from Guadeloupe. Dubbed Gwada negative, it was officially recognized by the International Society of Blood Transfusion in June 2025. She remains the only known carrier, having inherited a rare genetic mutation from both parents.
    MAL System (47th blood group system) – In late 2024, researchers uncovered the MAL blood group system, which includes the AnWj antigen. This solved a 50-year-old mystery involving unexplained transfusion reactions. The breakthrough was made possible through whole-exome sequencing.

    So yes, the reports are accurate—two new blood group systems have been formally recognized in the past year. The confusion likely stems from overlapping headlines or regional emphasis. Would you like a breakdown of how these discoveries impact transfusion medicine or genetic screening?

    —

    Ah. Obs, it’s #1 to which Birger referred, and which he implicitly acknowledged you found, Reginald.

    So, two of them. Huh.

  290. John Morales says

    Birger @287, that is not a good thing.

    cf. https://newcastleweekly.com.au/vandals-glitter-bomb-stunt-astounds-lake-mac-community/

    Me: a headline “Glitter bombing the unmarked cars”, presumably in the usa
    BB: You’re likely referencing Mark Rober’s latest project in San Francisco, where he deployed glitter bombs in bait cars to expose and deter smash-and-grab thieves. These devices, hidden in decoy backpacks, eject biodegradable glitter and foul-smelling spray, while recording video and tracking GPS locations.

    The phrase “glitter bombing the unmarked cars” plays on the irony: unmarked police cars are typically used for surveillance, but here, the bait cars themselves became surveillance tools—weaponized with sparkle and stink. It’s part prank, part citizen-led sting operation, and part commentary on urban crime and enforcement gaps.

    Me: it’s stupid
    BB: Agreed—in form and impact. It trades spectacle for substance, flirting with environmental harm for a viral punchline. Whatever critique it aims for is dulled by the glitter in its own eye.

  292. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump administration’s National Science Foundation research funding cuts blocked by judge

    A federal judge has blocked President Trump’s administration from making drastic cuts to research funding provided by the National Science Foundation.

    U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston struck down on Friday a policy change that could have stripped universities of tens of millions of dollars in research funding. The universities argued the move threatened critical work in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, semiconductors and other technology fields.

    Talwani said the change, announced by the NSF in May, was arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.

    An email by the Associated Press on Saturday to the NSF was not immediately returned.

    At issue are “indirect” costs, expenses such as building maintenance and computer systems that aren’t linked directly to a specific project. Currently, the NSF determines each grant recipient’s indirect costs individually and is supposed to cover actual expenses…

  293. Reginald Selkirk says

    BlueSky Isn’t Dying – and There’s a Larger Ecosystem Growing Around Its Open Protocol

    BlueSky has grown from roughly 10 million users in early November to 36.79 million today — and its last 30 days of traffic looks very level.

    But instead of calling BlueSky’s traffic “level”, right-leaning libertarian Megan McArdle argues instead that BlueSky’s “decline shows no sign of leveling out” (comparing the stable figures from the last month to a one-time spike seven months ago so they can write “It’s now down about 50 percent”). And Wednesday the conservative UK magazine Spectator also ignored the 30-day-leveling to write instead that BlueSky is somehow “sliding down a slope”.

    But TechCrunch thinks the “up or down” conversation is entirely missing the point of “the wider network of apps built on the open protocol that Bluesky’s team spearheaded” — and how BlueSky “is only meant to be one example of what’s possible within the wider AT Proto ecosystem.”
    …

  294. Reginald Selkirk says

    @238

    Alleged assassin and wife were ‘preppers’ with a plan to flee during catastrophe, court filing says
    Letter to FBI from shooting suspect made wild claims about Klobuchar and Walz, sources say

    The letter was found in his car. Which means he probably wrote it before the recent assassinations, but not much before. I wonder if he is smart enough to have been preparing for an insanity defense.

  295. Reginald Selkirk says

    The $50 Billion Company That Does Almost Nothing

    Something strange is happening on Wall Street. It isn’t Elon Musk, AI, or a late-night post from Donald Trump. It’s a crypto company called Circle Internet Group, and it’s making the market feel like the glory days of the dot-com bubble are back.

    Circle went public on June 5. In just eleven trading sessions, its stock exploded by an almost unprecedented 675%, adding over $42 billion to its market cap. The company now trades at a valuation that puts it in the same league as tech unicorns and AI moonshots, commanding a price that has investors paying, in essence, $295 for every $1 of its earnings.

    There’s just one problem. Circle doesn’t have revolutionary AI. It doesn’t build sleek consumer gadgets. Its business model is shockingly simple.

    Here’s how it works: You give Circle a dollar. They give you a digital token, called USDC, worth that same dollar. They then take your actual dollar, invest it in something safe like short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, and collect the interest.

    You get the token. They get the profit. That’s it. That’s the entire business…

  296. John Morales says

    “You get the token. They get the profit. That’s it. That’s the entire business… ”

    And? I’m not sure what the intended point may be.

    I mean, that’s art in a nutshell, no?

    An original, worth zillions, an indistinguishable copy, worth maybe hundreds depending, a good-enough for joe job worth tens.

    The exclusivity is the point. Faddism is a thing. And stupid investing is also a thing.

    This is all perfectly normal.

  297. JM says

    @282 Reginald Selkirk: If we are going to the trouble of passing a constitutional admendment I would rather see a more universal solution. All senior officials of all three branches should have to get a yearly physical (with mental health test) and have to retire if they can’t meet minimal requirements. The doctors would be selected by a neutral independent commission selected by all three branches, so people can’t just pick a friendly doctor.

  298. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump says he’s close to striking a deal with Harvard

    In an abrupt shift, President Donald Trump has signaled that his monthslong pressure campaign against Harvard University could be nearing an end.

    In a social media post on June 20, he said his administration is “working closely” with Harvard officials, who have “acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to be committed to doing what is right.”

    “It is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so,” Trump said. He used the term “Settlement” when describing a potential resolution, appearing to indicate the detente could sort out Harvard’s pending lawsuits against the federal government.

    Trump’s comments follow a string of legal wins for Harvard’s leaders, who vowed in April to fight back against what many onlookers in higher education have described as unprecedented interference by the federal government in a campus’s affairs…

    TACO Tuesday is not enough, we get TACOs every day of the week now.

  300. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    From 2 days ago, regarding the Israeli strike on Arak @214.

    Andrew Facini (Council on Strategic Risks):

    Rando 1: Israeli military orders evacuation of all employees and people around Arak nuclear power plant in Iran ahead of a strike.

    In a lot of ways, Arak was an ideal outcome of the JCPOA. Emptied and filled in with cement since 2016 in a cooperative program to verifiably foreclose the plutonium route. Then under ~tentative plan to reopen with the Chinese in a proliferation resistant design.

    So of course they’re bombing it.

    Rando 2: So whats the odds on the bombing releasing nuclear material and poisoning any homes around it for centuries?

    Low, there shouldn’t be any fuel at the facility. BECAUSE OF THE DEAL. I’m not sure about spent fuel pools or other storage possible nearby, but even those getting exposed would only be a local problem. In no case could this type of thing produce a meltdown situation where contamination goes far.
    –
    I’m flip about Arak being hit mostly because there’s seemingly no war goal. There’s nothing there in terms of a bomb program, and there were verified steps to make sure it couldn’t be reconstituted. Smacks either as a “just because” strike or one made to better sell the rationale post facto

  301. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Just now, regarding US strikes @291.

    Trump:

    We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. […] NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.

    Jeff Asher (Former CIA):

    [CNN] Live updates
    24 min ago: Trump prefers a diplomatic option toward Iran
    5 min ago: Trump announces air strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran.

    Martin Pfeiffer (Nuclear anthropologist): “GOD FUCKING DAMMIT”

    Cheryl Rofer (Retired nuclear scientist):

    All we know is Trump’s post, and now reports are coming in that there was bombing.

    We’re not going to know how much damage was done for some time. Tomorrow there may be satellite photos. If a lot of bombs were dropped at Fordo, Natanz, and Esfahan, the Iranian nuclear program is down.

    It is not necessary for every single centrifuge to be crushed or broken into small pieces. Centrifuges are delicate equipment, and just the shaking from bombing will damage them. Additionally, I would expect the bombing to be planned to collapse the entry points and ventilation systems.

    The enriched uranium is believed to have been stored underground at Esfahan. The cylinders in which it is stored are sturdy and have a better chance of surviving than the centrifuges do. But, again, entries and ventilation shafts probably have been collapsed.

    So at the least, a great deal of excavation will be necessary, and the damage is probably greater than that if the bombs hit their targets.

    This will set the Iranian nuclear program back by at least a year, more as the war goes on and damages Iran’s economy and ability to rebuild. But it is hard to believe that Iran won’t now focus on getting a nuclear weapon.

    Anjali Dayal (International politics prof):

    very clearly a breach of the UN Charter; it sounds like aggressive war. there’s a tendency to think violations don’t matter bc international law is hard to enforce but this is a cardinal principle of international cooperation *and it matters to other countries*.

    No one could stop the US from invading Iraq without authorization, but the US paid and continues to pay a price for it politically: Iraqis paid with much more. These new agents of death and destruction don’t care about that cost now but they’ll pay it too. Unfortunately everyone else will pay much more.

    This appears to be a much more serious breach of the Charter than other US acts in the last two decades, closer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than to the invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration tried to get security council authorization to invade; it argued Iraq was violating past resolutions.

    In 2017 & 2018, when the first Trump administration struck Syrian airstrips, Nikki Haley argued at the Security Council that they were doing so because Syria violating of international law, using chemical weapons on their people. She received support from some allies, alongside critiques.

    No similar argument is being made here; the US hasn’t made any real pitch about international law to other states, and it’s unlikely there will be much sympathy for the US position.

    Violating international law really only matters insofar as it has consequences for people. It is better to live in a world where leaders think aggressive war is illegitimate. The alternative is an even greater nightmare, somehow.

    Rando: “Kinda feel like you can’t say ‘NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!’ as the President after you just bombed the nuclear sites of the country you were in negotiations with.”

    David Burbach (NatSec prof): “I will be curious to see what legal authority the administration cites for this unauthorized act of war. Crazy stretch of the facts to fit some existing AUMF or just Article 2 Section LEEROY JENKINS”

  302. StevoR says

    Aussie ABC News :

    The United States has bombed three nuclear sites inside Iran, with Donald Trump warning “future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier”.

    … (Snip)..

    ..In response to the attack on the Fordow facility, a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Hossein Shariatmadari, said Iran was ready to respond.

    “Now it is our turn to, without wasting time, as a first step, fire missiles at the US naval fleet in Bahrain and at the same time close the Strait of Hormuz to American, British, German and French ships,” he said in the hardline Kayhan newspaper.

    Mr Trump reiterated his warning that the United States was willing to continue its aerial campaign on Iran

    .

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-22/donald-trump-says-us-bombed-three-iranian-nuclear-sites/105446590

  303. StevoR says

    So much for Trump being an anti-war POTUS huh? Diod any of the fools claiming that actually believe it?

    Now hoiping Australia manages – for once in our histpory – to stay out of it.

    Global consequences will be probly quickly.. disastrous.

  304. StevoR says

    In the vieo anouncing that at tp of ABC news article watch JD Vance on left – he looks very visibly pissed off. Also even in that quick clip and anouncemnet Trump rambled, talked about the long dead General Qassam Soleimani and seemed barely lucid.

  305. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NBC Live:

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is out with a statement calling on congress to enforce the War Powers Act. […] “No president should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into something as consequential as war with erratic threats and no strategy.”
    —
    Trump warned Iran on Truth Social that “ANY RETALIATION” made “AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” will be met with even greater force than what was unleashed today. He closed the post by saying, “THANK YOU! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”
    —
    U.S. Navy ships launched 30 Tomahawk missiles from submarines into Iran tonight, two defense officials told NBC News. […] in addition to the bombs dropped on the country’s nuclear sites.

    David Burbach (NatSec professor):

    Briefing only one party leadership on a decision to put American forces in harms way is a massive violation of norms. I mean, yeah, “norms”, but still a break worth noting.

    [NBC live]: House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., were briefed on the U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, their offices tell NBC News.

     
    Elizabeth Saunders (PoliSci prof):

    [Trump addressed the nation.]
    So we know a few things—Rubio and Hegseth, along with Vance, were behind Trump as the yesmen/props they are. Hegseth will brief at 8am, whether that’s a proper military briefing or the verbal equivalent of [fire] emojis remains to be seen. No diplomatic plan, just “peace must come quickly.”

    All to say: whatever that speech was, carefully calibrated coercive diplomacy it wasn’t.

    Yashar Ali (Journalist):

    The Islamic Republic of Iran Atomic Energy organization says that the attacks on Fordow and two other sites will not stop nuclear development within Iran. [Screenshot]

    Annmarie Hordern (Bloomberg):

    Iran’s state TV reported that the country had evacuated personnel from the three nuclear sites in advance. According to the broadcaster’s political deputy, Iran had relocated its nuclear stockpiles from those sites to secure locations.

    Mueller, She Wrote:

    We’ve bombed Iran. And dismantled our joint terrorism task force. And sent a third of the FBI to help ICE. And gutted the National Security Council. And a drunk guy is in charge at the pentagon. And our intelligence allies probably won’t share intel with us. Because people couldn’t vote for a woman.

  306. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Drat, forgot to count my links. My #305 got held in moderation. Mods have historically approved, so I won’t repost. It should splice in soon. Sorry about that.

    Summary: Schumer’s statement on the War Powers Act; Trump threatening escalation; 30 submarine Tomahawk missiles were ALSO launched at Iran; Trump’s presser; Iran’s statement of unfazed nuclear development; and Iran’s media saying they had already evacuated their personnel and stockpile from the 3 nuclear sites in advance.
     
    Erin Biba (Science journalist, fact checker, Jewish):

    The American evangelical right is absolutely shitting themselves with excitement over this. There is nothing on planet earth that they want more then a destabilized Middle East at war to trigger the rapture. This is 100% fact even though it sounds ridiculous.

    I get that everyone’s instinct is to joke we should just bring on the rapture and get rid of these people but you should know the only way the rapture happens is if all the world’s Jews go to Jerusalem and drop dead so they can climb over our corpses on the way to heaven. So maybe not so funny?

    Erin Biba:

    Rando 1: Doesn’t someone need to have the perfect red heifer first, or am I crossing the wires on right-wing evangelical fever dreams?

    Yes this is absolutely correct and also why the evangelical Christian right is actively involved in funding organizations that are literally trying to breed a red cow in Israel. Cause rapture.

    Erin Biba:

    Rando 2: The Rapture is pure heretical bullshit from the American South after the Civil War.

    No True Scotsman is not the way to respond to people literally trying to murder all of us from the seat of the US federal government right now.

    Erin Biba:

    I suggest reading Talia Lavin’s Wild Faith (which I fact checked) about the current state of the evangelical right and their *obsession* with bringing about the apocalypse.

    Martin Pfeiffer:

    Anthropologist with interests in religion and eschatology here! Erin Biba nails it.

    Premillenarian dispensationalist christians are and have been a terrifyingly powerful and influential force in right wing politics in USA and it makes my skin crawl. Like, if I were revising the constitution—something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately for some reason—premillennial dispensationalists are a group that make me think hard about the ‘religious test’ clause.

  307. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Kate Aronoff (The New Republic):

    Wild how the Fed chair saying that *entire regions of the United States* won’t be able to get a mortgage in the next decade barely registered as a news event.

    [Moneywise article (Mar 1)]

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently testified before the Senate Banking Committee and was asked about the availability of mortgages in states like California. His response?

    “Those banks and insurance companies are pulling out of areas, coastal areas and … areas where there are a lot of fires,” Powell told the committee. “So what that’s going to mean is if you fast-forward 10 or 15 years, there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage.”

  308. JM says

    @299 John Morales: That is why I said independently selected doctor. Right now the president gets to pick the doctor that does his physical. The ones that Trump has had can’t even be bothered to put reasonable lies on the form.

  309. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @rooster (Nuclear physicist, reactor designer, former submariner):

    We won’t know the extent of the damage or aftermath for some time […] the Fordow site […] is a uranium enrichment facility. The IAEA found evidence of highly enriched uranium at the site, but a majority of the uranium stored is probably in the uranium hexafloride (UF6) form.

    UF6 is a heavy uranium gas that is used in centrifuges. The heaviness of the gas means that if there was a release, it likely would only have localized [radiological] impacts.

    The Natanz site was already attacked by Israel in the past few days. It is also a uranium enrichment facility, and the damage apparently destroyed much of the above ground structures, and some of the underground.

    The IAEA already reported that radiation levels outside the facility were normal; but that there was significant radiological and chemical contamination inside. As with the Fordow site, most of this is uranium fluoride and other chemicals mixed with fluorine. Again, the heavier gases are fairly non-mobile, but it’s unclear what a follow-on strike will do.

    […] full IAEA statement from yesterday […]

    In my worst fucking nightmares I can’t imagine they would, but the thing to look out for is the power plant at Bushehr. That is an operating reactor and the consequences of bombing it would be extreme.

    @rooster:

    I think there’s a good chance any HEU wasn’t in any of the sites that got bombed. Those were obvious targets.
    […]
    we do know what was at Fordow […] We only know they’ve enriched some U to 60% because of an unannounced inspection by the IAEA in 2023.

    @rooster:

    In the next weeks I anticipate we will hear a lot about Iran’s ~400 kg of 60% enriched uranium [*], which they will probably refer to using the more scary phrase “Highly Enriched Uranium” or HEU. They will talk about how it is “out of control,” which means the IAEA doesn’t have tracking of it.

    This COULD be enriched to weapons-grade, and used for a bomb, IF they have an enrichment facility to do it in. That’s a very very VERY big if. There’s a very high chance their only three facilities were just destroyed.

    I think the odds of having a secret facility outside the knowledge of the international community is low. Not only are they hard to hide, but they’re almost impossible to build without raising flags. As it turns out, a lot of centrifuges require very specialized equipment and parts. You can’t build a nuclear facility in secret very easily.

    This is RIPE for fear mongering. I’m not a non-proliferation expert but I’ll do my best to keep folks informed […]

    [*] This is all an estimate. […] Trump pulled us out of the JCPOA like a goddamn idiot, so all of the JCPOA-related surveillance was removed.

  311. StevoR says

    Aussie ABC’s article on the main target here :

    Deep below a mountain in Iran sits a once-secret uranium enrichment facility that now threatens to drag the United States into the Israel-Iran conflict.There is one bomb — a so-called “bunker-buster” — that may be able to reach and destroy the facility. But there is only one country in the world that could drop it.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-21/inside-irans-fordow-nuclear-bunker/105441722

    But, of course, dropping bombs has grave implicatiosn and conseqeunces and the Iranians were likely prepared and had to time to act before it happened too..

  313. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chinese military unveils mosquito-sized drones that can perform battlefield missions

    China’s National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) has developed a mosquito-sized drone designed for covert military operations. Details are a little thin on the ground, but its development is likely focusing on surveillance and reconnaissance missions in complex or sensitive environments.

    The drone’s main unique selling point is its compact size, making it relatively easy to hide or conceal. It has two leaflike wings that are reportedly able to flap just like an insect’s wings.
    …
    It could also be a valuable tool for reconnaissance and covert special missions.
    …

    Here’s an idea: mosquito-sized drones that can deliver bioweapons like malaria or yellow fever to the enemy… wait a minute

  314. Reginald Selkirk says

    MIT researchers repair bridges by 3D printing steel onto corroded beams — Tech uses compressed gas to heat and accelerate powdered steel particles

    It looks like the world of 3D printing is continuing to expand its spaghetti-like branches into the field of construction. It wasn’t long ago when we covered the world’s tallest 3D printed building, but the project we have to share today is more on the repair and restoration side. Rather than produce a new structure, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has been working with researchers at MIT to develop a bridge repair process involving a 3D printing technique called cold spray.

    Cold Spray is a 3D printing technique designed to add new deposits of steel to existing beams. Corroded beams are potential candidates for this additive treatment. However, this is still in early development. The process is being applied to real bridges but will need to be evaluated once they’re replaced to see how well the structures held up to use.

    A post recently shared to the MIT website details some of the Cold Spray process, explaining that it uses compressed gas to heat and accelerate powdered steel particles. It needs to be applied manually by a technician who builds up the steel layer by layer. This continues until the beam reaches the desired size.

    The team found a bridge in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on track to be demolished within the next few years. This caught the researchers’ eye as it provides them a chance to test the durability of their creation on a corroded section of the bridge. Once the bridge is taken down, the researchers can check to see if the corrosion has stopped or worsened after the Cold Spray addition…

  315. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Ryan club: Baseball fans with same name unite at Coors Field for Rockies game

    A group of baseball fans sharing the first name Ryan organized an exclusive meetup at Coors Field during the Colorado Rockies game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, taking over several sections of the stadium with coordinated chants and camaraderie despite triple-digit temperatures.

    The Ryan meetup required participants to have both the correct first name and a ticket to the baseball game. Members of the group led chants spelling out “Ryan” instead of the traditional “Rockies” cheers.
    …

  316. Reginald Selkirk says

    What if Customers Started Saying No to AI?

    An artist cancelled their Duolingo and Audible subscriptions to protest the companies’ decisions to use more AI. “If enough people leave, hopefully they kind of rethink this,” the artist tells the Washington Post.

    And apparently, many more people feel the same way…

    I seem to be offered AI everywhere I look: my work email and Teams, my personal email, etc. I am not given an opportunity to express my true preferences though. Usually I am given a dialog box with the choices “Try now” or “Maybe later.” They don’t seem to be offering the option “Fuck off and die.”

  319. birgerjohansson says

    You might get bored by my links about the CV90, but this vehicle saves lives in Ukraine. I had no idea you could track and shoot down something as small as drones.

    “CV90 Mark IIIC Infantry Fighting Vehicle 35mm – My Second  Trip To BAE Systems Hägglunds”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=XoyreSgFLMU
    Hägglunds is in a town not far south from my home, BTV.

  321. birgerjohansson says

    “If you have a truck with balls hanging from it, and it wasn’t born with balls, and you put the balls there as an elective process, you have a trans truck!”

  322. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Handbasket – The Onion calls out ‘cowardice’ of Congress in full-page NYT ad

    Sunday’s New York Times print edition featuring part of an editorial titled, “Congress, now more than ever, our nation needs your cowardice.”
    […]
    that appears in The Onion’s newest print edition, copies of which are waiting in the mailboxes of every single member of Congress when they return from their current recess on Monday. […]

    As a solitary person, your fecklessness will make little impact. But if you join together with the most craven senators and representatives in the Capitol, the impact will be immense: The corruption, the disregard for the rule of law, the shipping of residents to foreign gulags, the attacks on judges, the censorship and chilling of speech, the punishment of any and all dissent—it can be made that much worse if you just find it in yourself to clutch your head in your hands, wet the bed, and cower in the hope of being spared from the White House’s wrath.
    […]
    Think of the members of Congress who turned a blind eye to Japanese American internment, McCarthyism, or the horrors of the Holocaust, all because doing something seemed a little too hard, a little too inconvenient. These men should be your inspiration. Never forget: You stand on the shoulders of spineless giants.

    […] Other headlines in the special issue include ,”Congress passes blank bill for Trump to write whatever law he wants,” and “Think tank called ‘The Himmler Institute’ assures nation this all legal.”

    When The Onion staff cooked up this idea, there were already an embarrassing number of examples to illustrate lawmakers’ impotence. But they could have never predicted the ad would be published in the immediate wake of the US potentially entering a new war in the Middle East—one with zero oversight from Congress.

    * Weather report: Thick enough fog to hide from constituents.
    * Entitled child expects to eat lunch every day.

  323. John Morales says

    Reginald, no reason artists can’t be luddites. But not all are so timorous and worried.

    cf. Time Magazine: https://time.com/7282582/ai-art-dahlia-dreszer-interview/

    —

    “Why This Artist Isn’t Afraid of AI’s Role in the Future of Art”

    Miami-based Panamanian photographer Dahlia Dreszer stands out as an optimist and believer in AI’s powers. She likens AI’s use in art to the act of painting or drawing—simply another medium that can unlock creative potential and an artistic vision that may have never been realized without it. Using generative AI models like Stable Diffusion, 3.5, Midjourney, Adobe, Firefly, and Nova, Dreszer trained an AI image generator on her style for over a year, instructing it to produce artwork with her sensibilities, with one piece in her current exhibition produced entirely by AI.

    Entitled “Bringing the Outside In,” Dreszer calls the show a “living organism.” (It is on display until May 17, 2025 at Green Space Miami.) Her vivid, maximalist still lifes depict layered familial heirlooms, Judaica, flowers, and textiles made by Panamanian indigenous women. Attendees can interact with an AI image generator in the exhibition to produce their own artworks in Dreszer’s style, telling the machine in a sentence or two what they want it to produce, and in seconds, an artwork is created. Also as part of the show, Dreszer programmed an AI-generated clone of herself, which looks and speaks like her, to guide visitors via video chat through the space.

  324. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Acyn (MeidasTouch):

    Vance: I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents. [Video clip]

    Arrested Development meme: “Well, did it work for those people?” “No, it never does. These people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but… but it might work for us.”

    Aaron Rupar:

    WELKER: Do you and President Trump trust the US intelligence community and its assessments?

    JD VANCE: Of course we trust our intelligence community, but we also trust our instincts [Video clip]

    Eric Columbus: “I seem to recall another VP saying this.”

    Rando 1: “Cheney was a monster with gravitas. JD is the Staypuff monster from GHOSTBUSTERS.”

    Betty Bowers: “‘We attacked on a hunch’ isn’t a particularly solid justification for military action that ignored intelligence reports.”
     
    EmptyWheel:

    Things you wish you had placed a bet on being true for $1000, Alex.

    Jennifer Griffin (Fox): “Hegseth: We were able to destroy nuclear capabilities. and OUR BOYS in those bombers are on their way home right now.”

    Fox News has learned that at least one of the B2 pilots who took part in the mission was female.

    Rando 2: “Yay women can do war crimes also.”

  325. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Confirming #309.

    @rooster (Nuclear physicist):

    The IAEA reports [per the Iranian regulatory authorities] no increased levels of radiation outside the sites that the US bombed yesterday. Their main concerns are to get inspectors back into Iran, especially to verify the [highly enriched uranium], which they report was last verified days before the military strikes
    […]
    As many have pointed out the IAEA is a political body, as objective as it tries to be. It is a major part of the verification and maintenance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (the NPT) that is more of a vehicle to keep states without weapons from getting them, than something that pushes disarmament.

    David Teter:

    Well, shit. That was a dumb thing to do. FYI, I worked those targets back when I was advising […] at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). I would be very surprised if any of the [Massive Ordnance Penetrators] was able to do anything other than a brief functional defeat on any of the sites.

    Alex Wellerstein (Nuclear historian):

    In September 1964, the US seriously considered attacking the nuclear program of the People’s Republic of China, as they could see that a nuclear test was being planned. They abstained from doing so. Why? A few reasons.

    1. They knew that their intelligence was probably imperfect and that the only real “success” would be to delay a Chinese bomb, not stop them from acquiring one. Time is useful, but the cost would be high for possibly not much payoff.

    2. They understood that an “unprovoked unilateral U.S. military action” (their term) would invite the ire of their allies and enemies alike […]

    3. […] the Soviets told them that they had already accepted a nuclear-armed China as inevitable […]

    4. LBJ’s whole 1964 campaign against Goldwater was about saying that the latter was a warmonger and LBJ was not, and this was only a few weeks before the election, so it seemed like a loser position to take, politically.

    (One might imagine that the ginormous US nuke arsenal in 1964 would mean that it could threaten with impunity, but both the US and China knew that the US wasn’t exactly about to commit a genocide 100X more deadly than the Holocaust just to avoid a slightly changed strategic situation.)

    […] they were just going to have to accept it […] What they also did was throw their support behind the efforts to develop a serious UN treaty that would make it more difficult for future states to proliferate; the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was a direct consequence of the Chinese nuclear test of 1964.

  326. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a nationally televised address Saturday night, Donald J. Trump announced that he had ordered his son Barron to visit a podiatrist.

    “My fellow Americans, earlier this evening, at my command, Barron saw a podiatrist,” said Trump, flanked by JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth. “I am pleased to announce that he has returned home safely.”

    “Barron’s mission was to obtain a note from the doctor,” Trump added. “Mission accomplished.”

    Minutes after the speech, a new poll showed that a majority of Americans favor dropping Donald Trump on Iran.

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-sends-barron-to-podiatrist

  327. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @324:

    Vance: I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents.

    LOL and OMFG.

    The total lack of self-awareness continues to astound me. Or is Vance that much of a liar? Either way, his statement is ridiculous.

  328. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @301.

    After Donald Trump told the world he was going to take two weeks “for negotiations” with Iran, he went and bombed three sites in Iran anyway. Happy forever war, everybody!

    He did not tell Democrats in Congress he was doing it, and he sure as shit didn’t tell Wonkette, but he told Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

    And then he declared PEACE on his shitty web platform. [See comment 301]

    Then he gave a statement at the White House and declared more war, maybe lots more, “if peace does not come quickly,” with his brain trust of Vance, Rubio, and Hegseth looking miserable behind him. [video]

    “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,” said the guy who bombed Iran after they got surprise-bombed, unprovoked, by Israel. “If they do not, future attacks will be far greater.”

    Then he all-caps-ed on Truth Social,

    “ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT.”

    Doesn’t sound like making peace, gee. So much for that peace Jared Kushner made in the Middle East after reading some books.

    And what a shocker, he was lying again: It seems the bunker busting bombs did not actually bomb all the way down and completely obliterate Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The Fordo site (also spelled Fordow, or autocorrected to Frodo) is in a mountain, farther than the bunker-busting bombs can reach in one go; and nobody outside of select people in Iran knows exactly how far down the facility goes. Satellite images show some holes in the mountain, but not a huge collapsed smoking crater. Also, Iran said that it had already moved all of its nuclear stuff and people out of there, to places unknown. So it’s entirely possible that Iran’s nuclear capabilities, such as they were, were not destroyed at all.

    Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine said that the three nuclear sites sustained “severe damage,” which is not the same thing as “destroyed.” And then whoops, an anonymous US official confirmed to the New York Times that in fact no, Fordo was not destroyed: “the B-2 attack on the Fordo site did not destroy the heavily fortified facility but severely damaged it.” Details, details!

    Let’s break in to note here, Iran does not have missiles capable of reaching any American city. Though there’s sure plenty of other terrorist shit they could do! And their missiles could theoretically reach Southern European cities. Good thing the guy in charge of terrorism prevention, Thomas Fugate, is a 22-year-old landscaper.

    But there are more than 40,000 American military personnel in the Gulf, in about 20 bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. All of those sure are in range. And the Houthis in Yemen have vowed to target any American ships that enter the Red Sea. How will Iran choose to retaliate? We are still waiting to find out! Trump is portraying this as some kind of one-and-done, but it’s not done, and it being a one-time Iran-forgets-all-about-this or says “sorry sir” with tears in their eyes is not going to be happening, as much as Trump would like his dumbshit base to believe it.

    So what now, asshole?

    Possibility one, Iran attacks US interests, and the US is in forever war with Iran now, for all practical purposes.

    Possibility also, Iran takes its nuclear program underground completely, like North Korea did. They had been co-operating with nuclear facility inspections, and stayed with Europeans in the deal that Obama made and Trump withdrew from in 2018. But why bother trying to be agreeable now? By attacking them, after Israel surprise-attacked them out of nowhere, Trump just made the best argument possible for the country to ramp up making nuclear bombs to defend itself. And Iran has at least 13 other nuclear sites, and may have another one that the US doesn’t know about.

    Possibility another, Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20 percent of global oil and gas flows, and the Iranian parliament voted to do just that. Won’t somebody think of The Gas and The Grocery prices?! Now Marco Rubio is reportedly calling up China and begging them to talk Iran out of it. [LOL. Rubio wants China to do diplomacy for him.]

    […] In conservative circles, there’s disagreement about what now. KILL ALL MUSLIMS Hegseth and Four Jobs Rubio swear that this is not about regime change, but Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham, and of course Netanyahu, want just that. Why not, it worked so well for the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was sarcasm. And even if the regime does fall, that is no guarantee that the next regime will be any friendlier to Israel or the US and its demands. Quite the opposite, the Revolutionary Guard is positioned to take over if Trump assassinates Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. You know, the group whose leader Trump assassinated for no real reason during his first term. The regime would not be changing to a kinder, gentler one that is more in the US’s favor, unless the US plans to occupy the place as a hostile invading force forever.

    Well, fine mess we are in here! Guess we all just have to sit and wait to see what happens next. At least the president is not a lady who laughs or a boring sleepy guy.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/oh-did-we-say-guess-we-are-not-bombing

  329. John Morales says

    “The total lack of self-awareness continues to astound me. Or is Vance that much of a liar?”

    Is that supposed to be a trick question?

    He is very much that much of a liar. Obs.

  330. Reginald Selkirk says

    RFK Jr. says his new vaccine panel has a GW University professor. The school says he doesn’t work there

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said one of his picks for a crucial vaccine advisory panel is a professor at George Washington University. But News4 found the doctor hasn’t worked at the school in years.

    Kennedy named eight new members to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, days after firing the entire group. ACIP is an independent panel that reviews vaccine data and advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    In a post on X Wednesday, Kennedy listed the new ACIP members. He described one of them, Dr. Michael Ross, as a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University.

    But a spokesperson for GW University told News4 Ross hasn’t taught there in eight years, and VCU said Ross hasn’t taught at their school in four years…

  331. John Morales says

    Reginald, quite right. He was, not is, a professor in each of those.

    Tsk, RFK Jr! You misspoke!

    (But they really were professors there, no? Some few years ago)

    —

    That’s bottom-of-the-barrel type of scrapings.

  332. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Pwnallthethings:

    Everyone in the natsec and [foreign policy] community increasingly just losing their minds as the topical questions in US FP and natsec these days increasingly devolve to the level of, “Should we lick this toaster while it is on? Some experts weigh in.”

    We asked 40 natsec professionals if invading Canada is a good idea, and 36 of them said “Jesus Christ” and 4 stared us in the eyes while they drank a lethal dose of poison.

    Not even limited to those domains either. “We asked 40 leading economists if tariffs were good, and they all just started crying.”

    Mr President, based on the unanimous conclusion of our highly trained analysts based on top sources in sixteen friendly and hostile governments, we can say with very high confidence that shooting yourself in the dick will hurt lots and you should not, oh god, medic! Is there a medic here?

    After Trump’s claim that, “Breaking the law is not illegal”, we asked 14 law professors, all but one of whom just hung up the phone.

    Nicholas Slayton: “[Of the generals]: Ah, the Praljak Method.”

    Peter Orlowicz (Attorney): “We consulted twelve ethics attorneys about financial conflicts of interest from accepting an airplane as a personal gift from a foreign gov’t. One expert said it was fine as long as ethics experts also got to ride on the plane, and the remaining eleven said they no longer practice in the field.”

  333. Reginald Selkirk says

    Security guard kills Michigan church gunman, preventing ‘large-scale mass shooting’

    An alleged active shooter intent on attacking a Michigan church on Sunday was shot and killed by a security guard who “prevented a large-scale mass shooting,” police said.

    The shooting unfolded around 11:15 a.m. local time at the CrossPointe Community Church in the Detroit suburb of Wayne, according to the Wayne Police Department.
    …
    The gunman was identified as a 31-year-old male. His motivations are unknown, according to police, but at this point, officilas say he appears to be suffering from a mental health crisis.

    Police said the suspect exited his Nissan truck wearing a tactical vest, armed with a long gun and a handgun, when he approached the church building and began firing his weapon. Several staff members from the church approached the gunman, police said, adding that a parishioner struck the gunman with his vehicle as the gunman shot the vehicle repeatedly.

    At least two staff members shot the gunman, causing fatal wounds. One staff member was shot once in the leg by the suspect.

    The church staff members do not wish to be identified, police said.
    …

  336. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a deal that immediately stirred controversy, […] the government of Qatar confirmed that it had purchased Donald J. Trump’s red Tesla Model S for $400 million.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt asserted that there was nothing improper about the transaction, claiming, “President Trump greatly enhanced the value of the car by sitting in it once.”

    But even as Trump touted the sale as the latest evidence of his business acumen, a source close to the Qataris revealed, “The joke’s on him—they paid him in Trump crypto.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/qataris-buy-trumps-tesla-for-400

  338. JM says

    CNN: How badly have US strikes damaged Iran’s nuclear facilities?

    Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, told CNN that there had been a “direct kinetic impact” on Fordow, but that it was too soon to judge whether it had caused internal damage to the underground site.
    “Of course, one cannot exclude (the possibility) that there is significant damage there,” he said.

    Fordow is the most important site. It was struck multiple times and shows multiple craters on the surface. It’s too hard to tell from the surface how much damage has been done to the actual underground site, could be serious or it may not be serious.
    The secondary sites hit showed more damage. They are less defended and more fragile, but also less important.

  339. JM says

    The Hill: Trump rips Powell, suggests appointing himself to Fed

    “Am I allowed to appointment myself at the Fed?” he continued. “I’d do a much better job than these people.”

    Trump is entirely unsuited to the job. He would simply ignore the stream of reports he gets and listen to advice from a few business men. He also probably doesn’t understand that Powell doesn’t set the rate, he is just one of a dozen officers who vote on rate changes.

    With less than a year left in Powell’s term as Fed chair, most experts don’t expect Trump to make a run at his job and risk upsetting markets. But Trump has repeatedly suggested removing Powell, and his campaign reportedly considered a plan to give the president more authority over Fed rate decisions despite the bank’s legal separation from White House policymaking.

    The Supreme Court also said that the Fed is the only quasi-independent organization they are going to protect, so even if Trump tried the whole thing would be stalled in court till after Powell leaves. The idea of Trump asserting more power over how the Federal reserve operates is scary.
    What Trump wants to do is lower interest rates right now to get a bump in activity now at the expense of inflation down the road. Business executives that Trump talks to probably all like the idea of low interest and as a land developer low interest probably always seems like a good idea to Trump.

    “I would have never reappointed him. Biden reappointed him. I don’t know why that is. But I guess maybe he was a Democrat,” Trump said Wednesday of Powell, a Republican who worked in former President George H.W. Bush’s administration and has faced fierce backlash from the left throughout his Fed tenure.

    Does Trump not remember that he was the one that originally nominated Powell?

  340. John Morales says

    “Does Trump not remember that he was the one that originally nominated Powell?”

    Why you keep taking him at his word and then acting bewildered is beyond me.

    The actual truth, the actual anything. He’ll just say whatever.

    It’s his stock-in-trade, and you are buying into it.

    Here — and this is Fox News: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/frustrated-trump-suggests-maybe-he-need-change-his-mind-about-firing-fed-chair-jerome-powell

    “**Frustrated Trump suggests ‘maybe’ he will need to change his ‘mind about firing’ Fed chair Jerome Powell**
    Trump has been hammering Powell while calling for interest rate cuts

    In the scathing screed against Federal Reserve System board of governors chair Jerome Powell, President Donald Trump, who has been excoriating the monetary policy figure while demanding interest rate cuts, floated the idea of firing him.

    “I don’t know why the Board doesn’t override this Total and Complete Moron! Maybe, just maybe, I’ll have to change my mind about firing him? But regardless, his Term ends shortly!” Trump declared in the Friday Truth Social post.

    Last week, Trump said he was not going to fire Powell.

    [article body, then the end of it]

    During his first term in office, Trump nominated Powell to the post.”

    Sure sounds familiar.

    Why anyone would be ostensibly bewildered is beyond me.

    (The parable of the The Scorpion and the Frog’ comes to mind)

    —

    Vlad Vexler has a rather decent recent video that’s similar, though different. A good take, anyway.

  343. John Morales says

    A bit of optimism for USAnians: https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2025/06/jimmy-carters-big-mistake-and-noblest.html

    In fact, I have a crackpot theory (one of several that you’ll find only in this missive), that JC was absolutely determined not to die, until the very last Guinea Worm was gone. Helping first to kill off that gruesome parasite.

    Haven’t heard of it? Look it up; better yet, watch some cringeworthy videos about this horrible, crippling pest! International efforts – boosted by the Carter Center – drove the Guinea Worm to the verge of eradication, with only 14 human cases reported in 2023 and 13 in 2022. And it’s plausible that the extinction wail of the very last one happened in ’24, giving Jimmy Carter release from his vow. (Unlikely? Sure, but I like to think so. Though soon after his death, all of America was infested by a truly grotesque parasite…)

    So sure, after-office goodness is not what’s in question here. Nor the fact that JC was one of Rickover’s Boys (I came close to being one!) who established the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet that very likely restored deterrence in dangerous times and thus prevented World War Three.

    Or that, in Georgia, he was the first southern governor ever to stand up, bravely denouncing segregation and prejudice in all forms.

    (Someone who taught Baptist Sunday School for 80+ years ought to have been embraced by U.S. Christians, but for the fact that Carter emphasized the Beatitudes and the words and teachings of Jesus – like the Sermon on the Mount – rather than the bile-and-blood-drenched, psychotic Book of Revelation that now eroticizes so many who betray their own faith with gushers of lava-like hate toward their neighbors.)

  344. birgerjohansson says

    I am familiar with “the scorpion and the frog” but scorpions are highly efficient predatory organisms that have withstood about 350 million years of whatever the environment has thrown at them.

    Likening the Donald with a scorpion is rather insulting to the whole clade. He is more like those mutated fish with multiple eyes that are swimming in the stream near Monty Burns’ nuclear powerplant.

  345. birgerjohansson says

    Trump has probably never heard of “stagflation”, or if he has, he did not understand it and dismissed it as unimportant.
    Getting out of stagflation is HARD.

  346. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Rebecca Watson did a video on alt National Parks Service, Bluesky’s 11th largest account. I tried to quote the original investigator’s thread, but the blog kept eating it. In short, no credibility, not even as an e-celeb coasting on past relevance. Does a lazy job pretending to be an insider by stealing already public news, and childishly pretends to write coded messages. Plausibly 1 person running a grifty merch store, claiming to be a coalition of 200k. The alt FDA account responded to requests for proof with indignant profanity.
     
    Journalist Brooke Binkowski had done some verifications for Snopes in 2017 but warned that the results would be dated. (entitled “Twitter’s Alts and Rogues”)

    Jason Koebler (404Media): “altnps was a seemingly real and small coalition of govt workers back in 2016 (we spoke to some/many of them at the time). Group showed up [on Bluesky] ~9 years later & there’s no indication it’s same people, that there’s any actual group, etc.. Have thought this was weird for a while.”

  347. John Morales says

    Likening the Donald with a scorpion is rather insulting to the whole clade.

    I see.

    Checking with BB:

    Me:
    A: The parable of the The Scorpion and the Frog’ comes to mind
    B: Likening the Donald with a scorpion is rather insulting to the whole clade.
    how does B misunderstand the parable?

    BB:
    B treats the scorpion as an actual creature whose reputation needs defending, instead of grasping that it’s a stand-in for anyone whose inescapable nature dooms trust. In other words, B misses that the tale isn’t about scorpions per se, but about self-destructive instinct overriding reason.

    (Yup)

  349. birgerjohansson says

    John Morales @ 347
    There is something called “joke”. In this case, at the expense of a certain president.

  350. birgerjohansson says

    Jeez.
    El Presidente flouts regime change and wants to “make Iran great again”.

  352. John Morales says

    Sorry. Mixed signals.

    No worries, Birger. Sorry.

    Here, for you, a token: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmCF0BfF8LU
    Huge Dog Runs To Greet Her Best Friend After School | Cuddle Buddies

    “This huge mastiff waits for her best friend to get off the school bus everyday! Haley and her family were left with a gap in their hearts after their family dog passed. All Haley wanted was a puppy for Christmas. And her wish came true! Rayne grew to be her 200 pound best friend who never leaves her alone and they are lifelong best friends”

  357. says

    In the president’s second term he’s doing many of the same things he wanted to do in his first term, but didn’t. Take strikes in Iran, for example.

    Related video at the link.

    In 2019, after Iran shot down a U.S. spy drone, tensions between the countries intensified, and it appeared increasingly likely that Donald Trump would approve military strikes in Iran as a retaliatory move.

    The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that the president had, in fact, approved strikes on Iranian targets — but ultimately backed off. As NBC News reported, the Republican ultimately confirmed the reporting, telling the public that the armed forces were “cocked and loaded” for an attack, but he called it off.

    In fact, Trump told NBC News on the record that he’d walked back the plans with just 30 minutes remaining before the mission was set to launch.

    The public learned of the aborted mission on June 21, 2019. That same day, the Republican administration’s then-envoy on Iran, Brian Hook, said that it was “important we do everything we can to de-escalate.”

    Exactly six years to the day later — on June 21, 2025 — the public heard the opposite news. Whereas Trump abandoned a plan to attack three Iranian targets in 2021, the president approved a plan to attack three Iranian targets this year. Instead of taking deliberate steps to de-escalate, Trump and his team chose to open the door to a new and prolonged conflict in the Middle East.

    The dangers, significance and potential consequences of this decision are obviously of dramatic geopolitical importance, but it’s also worth appreciating the burgeoning political pattern. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump recently noted:

    A lot of things happened in 2020 that Donald Trump didn’t like. During the first six months of 2025, he has expended a lot of energy and presidential power on reversing those things or trying to make it the policy of the federal government that they didn’t occur.

    In Trump’s first term, he was talked out of deploying U.S. troops onto American streets. He would occasionally follow the advice of his party’s “establishment” when making key personnel decisions. He held off on launching political wars against his own country’s institutions of higher learning. He nearly approved strikes on Iranian targets, but reversed course at the last minute.

    In Trump’s second term, in other words, he’s doing many of the same things he wanted to do before his 2020 defeat, but didn’t.

    Just a couple of days before Election Day 2024, John Mitnick, who was general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump, wrote a memorable thread via social media. The conservative Republican and Heritage Foundation veteran, who pleaded with voters not to return his former boss to power, explained that the United States did not go “completely off the rails” during Trump’s first term because “there were just enough senior officials who served as ‘guardrails.’”

    If Trump is put back in power, Mitnick added, “senior administration positions will be filled entirely by blindly ambitious or unqualified radicals and grifters who pass a test of personal loyalty to Trump. There will be no ‘adults in the room’ who stand up for the Constitution and our cherished American democratic institutions.”

    Periodically in recent years, people close to Trump have shed light on important behind-the-scenes details. In mid-April 2017, for example, Politico had a report on the internal turmoil in the White House. It was the responsibility of Trump’s advisers, one said, “to talk him out of doing crazy things.”

    Four months later, Axios had a related piece, citing a half-dozen “dismayed” senior administration officials, exasperated by the then-president’s dangerous instincts. “You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill,” one said.

    In 2018, outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan talked about his private efforts to prevent Trump from making enormous mistakes. “I can look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and say, ‘I avoided that tragedy, I avoided that tragedy, I avoided that tragedy,’” the Wisconsin Republican said on his way out the door.

    Now, no one is killing “crazy stuff.” No one is speaking up to “avoid that tragedy.” Instead of steering clear of disasters, the president is aiming for them — without voices of dissent.

    There was some talk before Trump’s second inaugural that Americans should expect a different kind of Republican presidency upon his return to power, because he’d learned lessons during his first four years that he’d now apply in his second term.

    What much of the public might not have appreciated is the degree to which he’d learned the wrong lessons, clearing the way for worse decisions.

  358. says

    On ‘regime change’ in Iran, Trump steps all over his own team’s talking points

    On the campaign trail as a Senate candidate a few years ago, JD Vance pointed to what he saw as a key contradiction between Joe Biden and the Democratic president’s team about a sensitive geopolitical issue. “Joe Biden went to Europe and advocated for a nuclear power’s regime change, and then 10 minutes later, his own White House had to contradict him,” the Ohio Republican said. “Seems like a big deal.”

    Keep that in mind when considering what unfolded the day after Donald Trump ordered U.S. military strikes in Iran.

    There were some nuances to administration officials’ rhetoric, but there was one point that key figures spent Sunday emphasizing: The United States struck Iranian nuclear sites, but it is not pursuing a policy of regime change. [video]

    “Our view has been very clear that we don’t want a regime change,” JD Vance said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” The vice president used similar language on ABC News’ “This Week,” adding, “We don’t want to achieve regime change.”

    Around the same time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during a Fox News interview that regime change is “certainly not the goal of what we’re working on here.” On CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” he added, “This wasn’t a regime change move.”

    At a Pentagon press conference, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth similarly told reporters, “This mission was not and has not been about regime change.”

    The administration is often accused of pushing muddled messages, but on this issue, Team Trump spoke with clarity — at least until their boss weighed in. As Politico summarized:

    President Donald Trump’s top national security officials spent much of Sunday insisting his administration doesn’t want to bring about the end of Iran’s government, only its nuclear program. Then Trump left the door open for exactly that.

    One day after ordering military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, and just hours after top members of his own team tried to assure the public about the scope of the U.S. mission, the president used his social media platform — for reasons that remain unclear — to cut off his Cabinet secretaries at the knees.

    “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” Trump wrote. “MIGA!!!”

    The following morning, instead of walking that back, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt leaned into Trump’s “regime change” missive. “If the Iranian regime refuses to come to a peaceful diplomatic solution … why shouldn’t the Iranian people take away the power of this incredibly violent regime?” she asked.

    For now, we won’t dwell on the fact that Trump still doesn’t know what “politically correct” means. Let’s also, for now, skip past the point that Iran already did agree to a diplomatic solution related to its nuclear program, and Trump abandoned the agreement for reasons he’s never been able to fully explain.

    Instead, it’s worth marveling at the fact that just one day after Trump launched a pre-emptive attack in the Middle East, the president, the vice president, defense secretary and the secretary of state are not on the same page about whether regime change in Iran is part of the administration’s vision.

    Nobody knows what the fuck they are doing.

  359. says

    Trump’s Fox News addiction is reportedly behind Iran attacks

    […] new reporting indicates that what appears to have pushed Trump into attacking Iran was his most influential adviser: Fox News.

    The New York Times reports from sources close to Trump that in the days leading up the action he was glued to Fox. “The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved,” the outlet noted.

    Since Israel’s latest attacks on Iran, Fox News has gone into pro-war overdrive. For instance, on last Tuesday’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” which is known to be Trump’s favorite show on the network, co-host Lawrence Jones baselessly claimed, “If we ever even got into a conflict with Iran, it would be over within two days, if that.”

    Similarly, a delegation of hawkish activists pushing for U.S. military intervention in Iran visited Trump at the White House on June 4. They were led by conspiracy theorist Mark Levin, host of the Fox News weekend show “Life, Liberty & Levin.” [!]

    […] Now Trump has pushed America into military strikes, seemingly based on the skewed coverage and baiting of Fox News, with more death and destruction likely to follow.

    More at the link, including past actions on the part of Trump that reveal the feedback loop between Trump and Fox.

  361. says

    Senate parliamentarian rejects GOP attempt to authorize states to conduct immigration enforcement

    The Senate parliamentarian has rejected several more provisions in the Republican megabill to enact President Trump’s agenda, including language authorizing states to conduct border security and immigration enforcement, which traditionally have been duties of the federal government.

    Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough also ruled against language in the bill that would increase the Federal Employees Retirement Systems contribution rate for new civil servants if they do not agree to give up civil service protections to become at-will employees.

    Additionally, the parliamentarian advised against a section of the bill that would allow the executive branch to reorganize federal government agencies — or eliminate whole agencies — without congressional oversight.

    The parliamentarian ruled these provisions violate the Byrd Rule and are not eligible to pass the Senate with a simple majority vote on the procedural fast track known as budget reconciliation.

    Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, hailed the parliamentarian’s rulings.

    “There is no better way to define this Big Beautiful Betrayal of a bill than families lose, and billionaires win. Democrats are on the side of families and workers and are scrutinizing this bill piece by piece to ensure Republicans can’t use the reconciliation process to force their anti-worker policies on the American people,” Merkley said in a statement.

    The parliamentarian additionally rejected a provision granting authority to agencies to unilaterally rescind funds appropriated by Congress by establishing an incentive program for federal employees to identify “unnecessary expenditures” and transfer savings back to the Treasury Department. [!]

    And she ruled against language in the bill mandating the sale of all U.S. Postal Service electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.

  362. Reginald Selkirk says

    Power utility built $95 million 500-megawatt power substation for Intel’s $100 billion Ohio fab, but six-year delay leaves substation capable of powering 500,000 homes idle

    Financial troubles have forced Intel to delay building and equipping its site in Ohio on multiple occasions, and now that the timeline has slipped to 2031, it is beginning to impact Intel’s partners. NBC4i reports that the company now expects to start making chips at its Ohio fab in 2031, which leaves American Electric Power (AEP) Ohio with an idle power substation that cannot start operations without Intel.

    Intel’s decision to delay the launch of its Ohio semiconductor facility, once called Silicon Heartland, to 2031 has left AEP Ohio with completed but idle power infrastructure that costs $95 million. The utility company built a major substation specifically to meet Intel’s expected power needs, but now it must wait years before it can start generating a return on its investment…

  364. says

    As DHS issues security warning, Team Trump’s counterterrorism record raises concerns

    […] NBC News reported on a new domestic security warning.

    The Department of Homeland Security issued a new bulletin [on Sunday] warning of a ‘heightened threat environment’ following the U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran. The bulletin warns that ‘low-level cyber attacks against US networks by pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely, and cyber actors affiliated with the Iranian government may conduct attacks against US networks.’ DHS also warns of possible violence by independent actors.

    NBC News’ report added that U.S. officials have long considered Iran to be among our top cyber adversaries in the world — which is notable in part because the Trump administration has made significant cuts in recent months to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as well as Donald Trump’s decision in April to fire Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who led U.S. Cyber Command.

    And therein lies the point: As the Department of Homeland Security raises new domestic security concerns, it highlights an unsettling context to the White House’s recent agenda, especially in areas of counterterrorism.

    For example, ProPublica published a report this month about Thomas Fugate, a 22-year-old “with no apparent national security expertise” who is now “a Department of Homeland Security official overseeing the government’s main hub for terrorism prevention.”

    The same week, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the demise of the Quiet Skies program, described by The New York Times as “a counterterrorism program used to conduct surveillance on air travelers.”

    Soon after, NBC News reported on a different but related move: “The Trump administration plans to eliminate a Department of Homeland Security terrorism prevention program that former government officials and experts say has helped thwart attacks in the United States. The DHS budget submitted to Congress last month cancels the $18 million terrorism prevention grant program, saying it ‘does not align with DHS priorities.’”

    The same report quoted a current senior DHS official who said the decision to scrap the program, which specifically focused on preventing lone-wolf attacks by individuals, would likely cost American lives. Referring to the “does not align with DHS priorities” phrase, the source said, “That line should be quoted after every future mass casualty event in this country.”

    This also dovetails with a separate NBC News report that explained, “As the United States faces possible retaliatory attacks from Iran, a ‘brain drain’ in top Justice Department and FBI national security and counterterrorism units could reduce their ability to prevent potential terror and cyberattacks from Tehran, according to six former senior DOJ and FBI officials.”

    The Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section — “which tracks foreign espionage in the U.S. by Iran and other foreign rivals” — has lost roughly a third of its workforce since Trump returned to the White House.

    That came on the heels of a related report in The Washington Post that noted, “President Donald Trump’s sweeping freeze on U.S. foreign assistance has threatened programs intended to counter al-Shabab bombmakers, contain the spread of al-Qaeda across West Africa and secure Islamic State prisoners in the Middle East, according to U.S. officials and aid workers.”

    The Post added that some of the cuts to foreign aid would affect programs designed to respond to national security threats and that their suspension “could endanger the United States and its international allies.”

    And then, of course, there’s Joe Kent, the man the president tapped to serve as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, despite his connections to right-wing extremists, his associations with white nationalists, his weird conspiracy theories, and his stated belief that the FBI — an agency he’d presumably be working with — is “corrupt” and needs to be brought “to heel.” (The Senate has not yet confirmed Kent’s nomination.)

    It wasn’t too surprising to see the Department of Homeland Security issue a new bulletin over the weekend warning of a “heightened threat environment,” but perhaps we’re overdue for a national conversation about the Trump administration’s capacity and wherewithal to deal with this heightened threat environment?

  366. says

    It’s Your Pre-World War III Sunday Show Rundown!

    “We watch so you don’t have to.”

    We don’t usually start immediately with a video clip, but this 2011 one seems relevant. [video]

    DONALD TRUMP: Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak and ineffective.

    Now that President Nostradumbass has made his prediction come true about himself, his sycophantic stooges appeared on the Sunday shows to try to intellectually Zamboni his stupidity.

    ‘We Are Not At War’

    Appearing on NBC’s “Meet The Press” and ABC’s “This Week,” Vice President JD Vance came to do what he does best: lie brazenly and dare you to correct him. [video]

    KRISTEN WELKER: Mr. Vice President: Is the United States now at war with Iran?

    VANCE: No, Kristen, we’re not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.

    That’s a distinction without a difference, of course. It’s as ridiculous as if Emperor Hirohito had said, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “We’re not at war with the United States. We’re at war with the United States Pacific Fleet.”

    Vance swore this would not lead to a prolonged war and would somehow spur peace talks, but his reasoning left a lot to be desired. [See Sky Captain’s comment 324.]

    ‘No Regime Change’

    Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who was salivating at the possibility of these very actions last week, is now insisting we are not at war or looking to topple Iran’s regime.

    On ABC’s “This Week,” Cotton told Jonathan Karl that Trump is “Donald the Dove” after all. He even added a not-so-helpful testimonial from another reliable peace-loving world leader. [video]

    KARL: Is ultimately the only way to be safe from the Iranian threat, in your view — because I’ve heard you talking about this for a decade now — is regime change. Does the regime have to go?

    COTTON: That’s not President Trump’s military objective. […] But, frankly, it wasn’t Prime Minister Netanyahu’s objective either.

    Well, if Netanyahu says he didn’t want another war or regime change, who are we to argue? It’s not like we have a montage of him being full of shit for 30 years, thanks to “The Daily Show.” [video]

    Oh, right!

    You also may wanna talk to South Carolina Senator, political remora and fellow war hawk Lindsey Graham, about this. Seems he got a different message from Netanyahu than Cotton did, which he shared on “Meet The Press”: [video]

    GRAHAM: So I talked to Bibi, just a few minutes ago. […] He wanted me to urge the Iranian people to end this madness, take this regime down, and have a better life for yourselves, and be part of the region in a new and different way. And second, he wanted me to tell the American people […] “This regime is not going to be tolerated by Israel,” is what he told me.

    Seems Cotton is either a liar or not in Bibi’s sexy group chats.

    Vance made a similar statements to Welker on NBC and Karl on ABC: [video]

    KARL: Has the US ruled out targeting the supreme leader in Iran? Has the US ruled out trying to achieve regime change?

    VANCE: Well, first of all, we don’t want to achieve regime change.

    But as so often happens, Trump undercut his toadies. [See comment 358.]
    [I snipped Vance’s comments about Joe Biden.]

    Can someone check on Jake Tapper to see how his progress is on his book about Trump’s mental decline?

    If It Isn’t The Consequences Of Our Actions …

    We conclude with Secretary of State/USAID Administrator/National Archivist and sentient empty suit Marco Rubio on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” on Fox News. [video]

    After Rubio beat his chest like an overcompensating clown for 18-plus minutes, Bartiromo ended the interview with a final question that gave away how little Trump and his dipshits thought of the entirely predictable consequences of their actions.

    BARTIROMO: Do you expect Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz to disrupt oil prices across the world?

    According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), “In 2024, oil flow through the strait averaged 20 million barrels per day (b/d), or the equivalent of about 20% of global petroleum.” Just the thought of a possible blockade, according to the EIA, caused the price of oil to increase from $69 per barrel (b) on June 12 to $74/b on June 13 of this year.

    So what is Rubio’s plan for the possible future pain at the pump? You won’t believe it, we promise.

    RUBIO: I would encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them about that. They heavily depend on the Strait of Hormuz for their oil. If they [Iran] do that, it would be another terrible mistake. It’s economic suicide.

    Marco Rubio is begging the Chinese government to save us. Cool. We’re sure that just like when Trump scrapped the Iran Nuclear Deal in his first term, this will all work out swimmingly.

    (SPOILER, they’re closing the Strait of Hormuz.)

  367. says

    How Much Public Land Does Mike Lee Want To Sell? All Of It

    “We’re only surprised he doesn’t burst into maniacal laughter when he explains his plan.”

    Boy, did Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) have himself a week last week.

    First, the Svengali of Salt Lake, the Pope of Provo […] endeared himself to his Democratic colleagues in the Senate by mocking […] the assassination of the Democratic state speaker in Minnesota and her husband, and the attempted assassination and severe wounding of a Democratic state senator and his wife.

    Lee later deleted the tweets that had offended half the known universe and even had newspapers in Utah demanding he apologize. He still hasn’t, of course, because being such a galactic piece of shit means never having to say you’re sorry.

    And yet somehow this episode might have been Mike Lee’s lesser crime against human decency last week. For he also unveiled a plan drafted by a Senate committee he chairs to potentially auction off 250 million acres of federally owned land.

    Two hundred and fifty million acres. That is nearly three times the amount of acreage in all of Germany. A solid four times the amount of acreage in all of the United Kingdom. It is a little better than 10 percent of the total acreage of the entire United States.

    […] Lee’s proposal could open it all up to be bought by the highest-bidding developers. […]

    Lee hopes to get the plan into the giant reconciliation bill (for dignity’s sake, we will not call it the One Big Beautiful Bill here) the Senate wants to pass by July 4. And what a birthday gift that will be to the American people. Happy 249th, America, we got you a whole bunch of new copper mines for your national parks!

    Lee told Glenn Beck, who is still alive but mercifully much less of a public figure than he was 15 years ago, that selling all these public lands could be the solution to America’s housing crisis. No, he really said that:

    A fact sheet released by Lee’s committee last week said that selling off government-owned land would “increase the supply of housing and decrease housing costs for millions of American families[.]”

    Holy hell, no. The land at issue is spread across the mostly rural Western states, plus Alaska. Does Lee imagine we’ll solve America’s housing crisis by slapping up developments and apartment buildings in the ass end of Nowhere, Wyoming? Does he think we need greater suburban sprawl rolling out from Cheyenne? That sort of sprawl has contributed to the housing problem in the first place.

    We’re not urban policy experts, so we’re not going to get into the ins and outs of urban density and infill and whatever other terms city planning nerds like to throw around. But this seems like a ridiculous plan.

    [I will also point out that private land near federal land is also really, really expensive. Rich people sometimes buy such property so that from their back yard they can access federal land where open space and recreational opportunities abound. And their houses are surrounded with huge private yards of their own. Sprawl on steroids.]

    Lee also tried to soft-soap all this for Beck:

    “When this bill puts land in the category of eligibility for sale, it doesn’t mean for sale,” Lee said. “It just means there’s a process by which it could be transferred.”

    [gaslighting]

    See, the government isn’t selling the land, it’s just initiating a process that will allow it to sell the land. Totally different thing.

    Another aspect of this whole deal is that it is really, really unpopular with the public. A poll earlier this year by Colorado College found that 72 percent of people in Western states favor conservation over selling the land to, say, oil and gas companies. Another poll found only 10 percent of people favor selling public lands. [snipped polling details]

    If we’re lucky, even Republicans won’t go for this. Montana congressman Ryan Zinke swears public land sales are his red line, and he won’t vote for any bill that requires them. On the other hand, Wyoming representative Harriet Hageman, the wild-eyed loon who overthrew Liz Cheney for her seat, played down the plan to her constituents, claiming plan opponents are being disingenuous in saying how much land would actually be eligible for sale.

    So who knows? All we know is that Republicans are claiming tax increases in the bill are cuts, Medicaid cuts are actually increases, and squashing insurance subsidies in the Affordable Care Act will make healthcare more affordable. Why anyone would trust the likes of Mike Lee or Harriet Hageman to be telling the truth here is beyond us.

    On the plus side, Teddy Roosevelt might rise from the grave to beat the shit out of Mike Lee […]

  369. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    AJ Vicens (Reuters):

    This is wild: Per NYT, the US military was so worried Trump would give away a looming attack that it created its own diversion:

    Trump’s penchant for social media was the biggest threat to the operation’s secrecy. Last Monday, he posted on Truth Social that “everyone should evacuate Tehran!” The next day, he revealed that he had left a meeting of the Group of 7 in Canada not to broker a Middle East cease-fire but for something “much bigger.” He added, “Stay tuned!”

    […] military planners worried that Trump was giving Iran too much warning about an impending strike. So they worked up their own ruse: They had two fleets of B-2 bombers leave Missouri at the same time, one flying east and one flying west. Flight trackers spotted the westward planes, which offered some idea of the timing of a possible attack. But those planes were a decoy.

    Commentary

    So the DoD spent millions of dollars uselessly moving planes around the world to appease Trump’s inability to shut his pie hole?

    afraid Trump was gonna do some Santa Tracker bullshit with the bombers.

    A great piece of brilliant misdirection, since it made people think an attack was happening soon and then an attack happened soon.

    In fairness, there are few better indications that something won’t happen than Trump saying that it will.

    They could have just not done it. Send the two sets of planes and do nothing else. Report back that payloads were dropped.

  370. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Mediaite – Iranians reportedly coordinated missile attack on American base so the Trump administration knew it was coming: ‘Nobody was surprised’

    American defense systems shot down the ballistic missiles fired at the key U.S. base by Iran.
    […]
    [An Axios reporter on CNN said, “]press statements were prepared in advance. The Qataris, five minutes after the rockets started flying, issued a 500-word statement that was already just waiting to be sent. […] a coordinated effort to, on the one hand, allow Iran to retaliate, but on the other hand, try to close this incident and not allow it to escalate even further. […] what I hear from a source with direct knowledge, this was coordinated in advance between Iran and Qatar, and it was conveyed to the Trump administration.”

    Nicholas Slayton (Task & Purpose): “Kayfabe retaliation/conflict.”

    Rando: “It’s amazing to me the Iran is the one being sensible here. I do get it, we have a lunatic in charge and they want to live.”

  372. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Bloomberg

    Trump demanded that energy producers keep down oil prices following US military strikes on Iran, which drove prices higher amid fears the attack could provoke a wider conflict in the Middle East.

    “EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I’M WATCHING! YOU’RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON’T DO IT!” […] Trump urged the Energy Department to “DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! And I mean NOW!!!” […] Trump’s directive for more US drilling cannot, on its own, spur more oil and gas development. US oil executives have shown little appetite in recent years to dramatically boost output

  373. John Morales says

    Interesting, C7746, given that the USA produces 13.488 million barrels per day (more than any other country), of which it sells around 4 million (third largest after Saudi and Russia).

  374. John Morales says

    Actually, USA gets most of it from fracking and its refineries were set up for the old thick crude, so they export the sweet stuff raw and buy in the crud to refine and then sell its the refined products. Fracking to the max, is the USA.

  376. birgerjohansson says

    BTW why the hell don”t we use germ-line GM for the useful grnetic varieties? Newer CRISPR tech is accurate enough.

  377. birgerjohansson says

    BTW some of these gene variants would be a hell more useful than whatever Elon Musk’s 5000 kids inherit from him.

  378. says

    […] The day after the strikes, JD Vance appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and host Kristin Welker asked, “Do you and President Trump trust the U.S. intelligence community and its assessment?” The vice president replied, “If course we trust our intelligence community, but we also trust our instincts.”

    It was a difficult answer to take seriously: Neither Trump nor Vance are in a position to have an instinctive understanding of a foreign country’s nuclear program. There is no definition of “instinct” in which that makes sense.

    Around the same time, however, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had an even more unfortunate answer to a related question. HuffPost reported:

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to say on Sunday whether the United States actually had intelligence that Iran was building a weapon of mass destruction before bombing the Gulf country’s nuclear sites ― dismissing any such assessment as “irrelevant” to the Saturday night attack that will very likely lead to wider conflict. [raised eyebrows]

    On “Face the Nation,” CBS News’ Margaret Brennan focused specific attention on Rubio’s use of the phrase “weaponization ambitions,” which is a far cry from Iran actually developing nuclear weapons. “Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the supreme leader had ordered weaponization?” the host asked.

    “That’s irrelevant,” Rubio said. [video]

    When Brennan reminded the Florida Republican that this detail has been at the heart of U.S. intelligence assessments, the secretary of state appeared unimpressed.

    “Forget about intelligence,” Rubio said after a tense back-and-forth. “What the [International Atomic Energy Agency] knows is they are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program. So why would you enrich uranium at 60% if you don’t intend to one day use it to take it to 90% and build a weapon? Why are you developing [intercontinental ballistic missiles]?”

    But that answer misses the point of the question. If Rubio wanted to argue that Iran had a dangerous program, few would dispute the point. If Rubio wanted to argue that it was necessary to deal with this burgeoning problem, that too would be uncontroversial.

    The underlying point, however, was about the possible disconnect between the U.S. intelligence and the decision to launch another preemptive military strike in the Middle East — and “forget about intelligence” doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

    Indeed, the foundational question behind the mission — why did the administration take such a step — remains unresolved. If the best officials can muster is “we also trust our instincts,” then it becomes easier to suspect that there was no actual intelligence to justify the move. [I agree.]

    Link

  380. birgerjohansson says

    Vance is a mutant! He instinctively understands nuclear reactors and fissile materials!

  381. says

    Hegseth struggles with meaning of ‘deterrence’ and ‘open-ended’ after strikes on Iran

    The defense secretary said the U.S. mission in Iran is “most certainly not open-ended.” That claim is literally unbelievable.

    The morning after Donald Trump delivered a national address on the U.S. military strikes on Iranian nuclear targets, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a rare Pentagon press conference in which he talked at some length about how impressed he was with the president. He also, however, managed to weave in some comments about the mission.

    “Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran’s nuclear program, and none could, until President Trump,” Hegseth declared. “The operation President Trump planned was bold and it was brilliant, showing the world that American deterrence is back.” [FFS]

    But that’s not quite what “deterrence” means. In a national security context, the whole point of deterrence is to instill fear of consequences. When the U.S. is deterring foreign foes, it’s generally the result of the fear of a possible military offensive.

    When the U.S. actually engages in military strikes, that doesn’t instill doubt or fear, so much as it does the one thing the foe hoped to avoid. It’s the difference between someone saying, “Do what I want or I’ll hit you in the face” and someone actually hitting you in the face.

    At the same briefing, however, a reporter asked the Pentagon chief, “[A]s a Global War on Terrorism veteran, what do you say to veterans who may be concerned the U.S. is getting into another open-ended war in the Middle East over weapons of mass destruction?” [video]

    “I would just say,” Hegseth responded, “as the president has directed and made clear, this is most certainly not open-ended.” [Lie]

    Taken at face value, the comments might’ve seemed reassuring. With the open-ended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still fresh in the minds of many (if not in the minds of the Trump administration), that the defense secretary wants Americans to know the U.S. offensive against Iran is “most certainly not open-ended” suggests the administration has a different and more limited kind of operation mind.

    The problem, however, is that Hegseth’s rhetoric is literally unbelievable.

    The president ordered a military strike against a Middle Eastern foe. Iran vowed to retaliate — in fact, on Monday, Iran targeted U.S. forces in Qatar — and officials in Tehran might very well take additional steps. This could lead to a U.S. response, followed by possible Iranian responses, and so on. [Accurate]

    Indeed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was explicit on this point, saying on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that the administration hasn’t planned any additional military operations in Iran, though he quickly added, “unless — unless — they mess around and they attack Americans or American interests.” [Well, they already attacked American interests, as was predictable.]

    The nation’s chief diplomat made similar comments during a Fox News interview, arguing that if Iran retaliates against our attack with an attack of its own, it would be “the worst mistake they’ve ever made.” Rubio added, “We’re not looking for war in Iran, but if they attack us then I think we have capabilities they haven’t even seen yet.”

    Whether Monday’s strikes in Qatar are enough to trigger a Trump administration response is not yet clear. But the bottom line remains the same: There’s no clear end goal to the U.S. mission; there’s no articulated strategy to any of this; there’s no congressional oversight to speak of; there’s no reason to assume the White House has prepared for the consequences of Trump’s decision; and there’s a burgeoning threat of tit-for-tat military strikes between the U.S. and Iran.
    […]

  382. birgerjohansson says

    “Earth’s satellites at risk if asteroid smashes into moon: Study”
    The asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4% chance of hitting the moon.
    https://phys.org/news/2025-06-earth-satellites-asteroid-moon.html

    You know, if we herded small metal-rich asteroids to orbits that led them to lunar impacts, it would make “in-situ resource utilization” much easier for lunar space stations (but I do not believe in space colonies).

    Mars will be closer to far more metal-rich objects, send robots to just nudge them and the butterfly effect does the heavy lifting.

  384. says

    Supreme Court says Trump can resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own

    A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to restart swift removals of migrants to countries other than their homelands, lifting for now a court order requiring they get a chance to challenge the deportations.

    The high court majority did not detail its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket. All three liberal justices dissented from the order.

    It came after immigration officials put eight people on a plane to South Sudan in May. U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston found that violated his court order giving people a chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent away from their home countries.

    The migrants from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Cuba had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. and immigration officials have said that they were unable to return them quickly to their home countries.

    Authorities instead landed the plane at a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, where the migrants were housed in a converted shipping container and the officers guarding them faced rough conditions even as immigration attorneys waited for word from their clients.

    […] Since some countries do not accept U.S. deportations, the administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house them. South Sudan, meanwhile, has endured repeated waves of violence since gaining independence in 2011.

    Murphy’s order doesn’t prohibit deportations to third countries. But it says migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger if sent to another country.

    The justices have confronted a similar issue in Trump’s effort to send Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador with little chance to challenge the deportations in court.

    In that case, the court said migrants must get a “reasonable time” to file a court challenge before being removed, and the majority blocked the administration from resuming the deportations while lower courts worked out exactly how long they should get. […]

    The third-country deportation case has been one of several legal flashpoints as the administration rails against judges whose rulings have slowed the president’s policies.

    Another order from Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, resulted in the Trump administration returning a gay Guatemalan man who had been wrongly deported to Mexico, where he says he had been raped and extorted. The man, identified in court papers as O.C.G, was the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody after deportation since the start of Trump’s second term.

  385. says

    Guess Who Florida GOP Rep. Kat Cammack Blames For Doctors Not Wanting To Treat Her Ectopic Pregnancy?

    A little over a year ago, Republican Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack could have died.

    Five weeks into an ectopic pregnancy, she was rushed to the emergency room where doctors told her that they could not treat her, for fear of losing their licenses or ending up in prison if they violated Florida’s then-new abortion ban. Under normal circumstances they would have given her a dose of Methotrexate to expel the pregnancy and save her life immediately, but they were wary to do so, and for good reason.

    Cammack, the co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus, was able to use her connections and status to convince the hospital to treat her, but now claims that the only reason they didn’t do it right away was due to “fearmongering” from abortion rights advocates (like all of us!) scaring them into believing that the law banned treating ectopic pregnancies.

    Via the Wall Street Journal:

    Cammack doesn’t fault the Florida law for her experience. Instead, she accuses the left of scaring medical professionals with messaging that stressed that they could face criminal charges for violating the law. She said she feels those efforts gave medical staff reason to fear giving drugs even under legal circumstances.

    “It was absolute fearmongering at its worst,” she said. She also knows that abortion-rights advocates might see the opposite—that the Republican-led restriction caused the confusion. “There will be some comments like, ‘Well, thank God we have abortion services,’ even though what I went through wasn’t an abortion,” she said. Cammack declined to name the hospital where she received care.

    Molly Duane, a senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Wall Street Journal that actually, the law does not specifically bar treating ectopic pregnancies, but it also doesn’t explicitly define them either, and doctors can’t always be 100 percent sure where an embryo has implanted. Dr. Alison Haddock, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, also told the paper that early pregnancy care and ectopic pregnancies are a “medically complicated space,” and that doctors don’t know “whether their clinical judgment will stand should there be any prosecution.”

    Indeed, one very big issue with all of these laws is that forced birthers don’t actually understand how not cut-and-dried these situations are. They think it’s always going to be super clear whether or not a pregnancy is ectopic or if someone is going to die due to complications, and things just don’t work that way.

    I also suspect that Kat Cammack and others like her simply do not understand that no one fucking trusts their asses or thinks they have good intentions when it comes to this shit. Either that or they do know that and they are mad about it. That would be a lot easier to do if Cammack had not literally done a campaign video praising her own mother for ignoring the advice of doctors who said that, due to a previous stroke, she might die if she gave birth again, and should therefore have an abortion. [video]

    Cammack literally ran on “my mom risked her life, voluntarily, to give birth to me, and I want other women to make that same decision whether it’s voluntary or not.” Why would anyone trust Kat Cammack or anybody like her to make an exception for anyone but herself when it comes to something like an ectopic pregnancy? [Good point]

    You may recall that just a few years ago, forced birthers regularly argued that “reimplantation” of ectopic pregnancies was possible (it is not possible). In 2019, prior to Dobbs, Republicans in Ohio tried to pass a bill requiring doctors to at least attempt reimplantation. [!]

    Said bill also would have also imposed the death penalty on anyone who performed an abortion during the commission of a robbery. Really.

    In 2022, Missouri Republicans pushed a bill that would not only make abortion illegal, but add extra penalties for having an abortion in the case of an ectopic pregnancy.

    Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that states like Idaho, where abortion is banned without a “life of the mother exception,” would be free to just let women die instead of allowing doctors to give them an abortion in an emergency situation. […]

    The idea that doctors are out here being scared off by any “fearmongering” anyone like me is doing is patently absurd. […]

    Hospitals have actual legal teams who are in charge of advising doctors on whether or not to perform a procedure, the legal risks involved, and determining their best (least likely to get them sued or sent to prison) options for treatment. They’re not just taking my word or the word of any other abortion rights advocates on it. […]

    We’re listening to doctors and hospital lawyers, who are the ones saying that these laws are dangerous. Perhaps Kat Cammack might like to try that out sometime?

  386. says

    Followup to comment 385.
    https://www.wonkette.com/p/tabs-mon-june-23-2025

    […] Peak Republican audacity: Rep. Kat Cammack, co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, had a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy in her home state of Florida, where abortion is banned after six weeks. Doctors would not treat her, and she frantically tried to call Governor DeSantis for help, but he did not pick up the phone. Cammack survived after doctors eventually did give her methotrexate to expel the fetus, and she blames this harrowing near-death experience on Democrats. And is pregnant again. (Wall Street Journal gift link)

  387. says

    New York Times link

    “Florida to Build ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Detention Center for Migrants in Everglades”

    “Immigrant advocates said the move creates a whole new form of detention outside the scope of the federal government.”

    Florida is building a detention facility for migrants nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” turning an airfield in the Everglades into the newest — and scariest-sounding — holding center designed to help the Trump administration carry out its immigration crackdown.

    The remote facility, comprised of large tents, and other planned facilities will cost the state around $450 million a year to run, but Florida can request some reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.

    Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Trump ally who has pushed to build the detention center in the Everglades, has said the state will not need to invest much in security because the area is surrounded by dangerous wildlife, including alligators and pythons.

    The project is sure to appeal to President Trump, who talked repeatedly during his first term about building a moat along the southern border filled with alligators or snakes. As he pushed for a wall to keep migrants out, he urged officials to build it with spikes, razor wire and black paint to ensure that it would serve as a deterrent, the more terrifying-looking the better.

    […] The Everglades facility is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to enlist local authorities to boost detention capacity and expand the number of officers around the country who can arrest undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration has struggled to meet its mass deportations goals in part because of resource constraints, and it is looking for every way possible to help increase numbers.

    The goal in Florida is to have 5,000 additional beds, spread out at the new facility and potentially other, smaller facilities as well.

    It’s not clear how quickly the new detention center can be built.

    Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County said on Monday that she wanted more time to evaluate the state’s plans for the land.

    “I understand there is an intention to begin work on the site as early as Monday,” she wrote in a letter to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which will have primary oversight of the facility.

    “There has not been sufficient time to fully discuss these matters, and we thank you for your attention to these concerns given the rapid pace of the state’s effort,” Ms. Cava said.

    But Ms. McLaughlin, the D.H.S. spokeswoman, said the goal is to have at least some of the tents up and running by July.

    The Trump administration is currently holding about 55,000 immigrants […]

    Trump officials have been pushing Congress to help pay for more funding to expand detention capacity even further. Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, has said that the number of detention beds available will dictate the number of deportations that the administration will be able to hit this year.

    [snipped Kristi Noem’s remarks]

    Immigrant advocates criticized the move, saying that it was creating a new form of detention outside the scope of the federal government. Mark Fleming, the associate director of federal litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center, said it amounted to an “independent, unaccountable detention system.”

    Mr. Fleming added that there were a host of problems with the plan to hold migrants in tents at the airfield.

    “The fact that the administration and its allies would even consider such a huge temporary facility,” he said, “on such a short time line, with no obvious plan for how to adequately staff medical and other necessary services, in the middle of the Florida summer heat is demonstrative of their callous disregard for the health and safety of the human beings they intend to imprison there.”

    “It simply shocks the conscience,” Mr. Fleming said.

    Immigrants are typically held by ICE officials in private prisons and local jails that offer space in their facilities for a certain amount of money.

    Florida officials are going a step further: building a detention center specifically for immigrants picked up by the local authorities on behalf of the federal government. ICE could also use the facility to hold migrants picked up elsewhere in the country.

    [snipped more of Kristi Noem’s remarks] […]

  388. says

    New York Times:

    President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited Britain … just hours after a major Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv killed at least nine people and injured over 30. The attack was the latest in a series of deadly and intensifying Russian strikes on Ukraine. But concerns are growing in Kyiv that such assaults are drawing less attention and condemnation from Western allies as their focus shifts to the Middle East and the U.S. entry into the Israel-Iran war.

    USA Today:

    Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested during an economic forum that the ‘whole of Ukraine’ belongs to his country, even though Russia only controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

  389. says

    MSNBC link

    Related video at the link.

    A federal judge on Sunday rejected the Justice Department’s bid to detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia pending his federal criminal trial in Tennessee, citing the importance of due process while noting that he could still separately be held by immigration authorities.

    U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes began her 51-page ruling by observing that the only thing the government and Abrego Garcia might agree on is the likelihood that he will stay in custody regardless of her detention ruling, given the government’s intention to separately detain him in U.S. immigration custody. While that could make her ruling an “academic exercise,” Holmes stressed that she needed to give the defendant “the due process that he is guaranteed.”

    A judge saying that she is going to enforce the Constitution might have been an obvious statement hardly worth writing before President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. But today it calls to mind the administration’s failure to provide that baseline guarantee in multiple cases, perhaps none more infamous than Abrego Garcia’s.

    So, regardless of the outcome of this criminal case and any subsequent deportation efforts by the government, it’s remarkable that merely mentioning the necessity of due process stands as a rebuke against the administration that fought to avoid providing it in this case and is still fighting to avoid providing it in others.

    The Trump Justice Department brought the criminal case after illegally removing Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March, where he was imprisoned without having even been charged with any crime. The administration resisted court orders to facilitate his return and then brought him back in early June to face federal criminal charges of allegedly illegally transporting undocumented immigrants. He pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have continued to pursue sanctions against the government in the separate case in Maryland in which a judge had ordered his return in April.

    Arguing for pretrial detention, federal prosecutors said Abrego Garcia “poses a danger to the community and a serious risk of flight.” Opposing detention, his lawyers said the government “points to zero facts” backing its stark claims. A high-ranking Tennessee prosecutor resigned reportedly due to “concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons.”

    In her ruling on Sunday, Holmes said the government failed to make its case that Abrego Garcia is enough of a flight risk or danger to the community to warrant holding him ahead of trial. She said that she would set a hearing for Wednesday to review the conditions of his release.

    But the DOJ quickly filed a motion to a U.S. District Court judge in Tennessee on Sunday, arguing that Holmes’ impending release order should be halted. The motion notes that Abrego Garcia “has an immigration detainer lodged against him by the Department of Homeland Security,” adding that “he will remain in custody pending deportation and Judge Holmes’ release order would not immediately release him to the community under any circumstance.”

    The success of that government motion and any further appeal on the detention issue in the coming days could derail Abrego Garcia’s release in the criminal case, regardless of any separate immigration detention.

  390. says

    Associated Press:

    China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early Friday, 61 of which crossed the central line in the Taiwan Strait that unofficially divides the sides, an unusually large number as tensions remained heightened in the region. It wasn’t clear why so many planes were scrambled between late Thursday and early Friday, as tabulated by Taiwan’s Defense Ministry. The planes were sent in two separate tranches, it added.

  391. JM says

    @370 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain: Iran would have no expectation that a single missile strike would hit. If they are planning a serious missile attack the point of this is running out the US supply of anti-missiles. Iran can start by lobbing a series of cheap rockets mostly with dummy warheads. If any slip through say they were decoys. A few weeks of that and the US starts running out of missiles to protect everyplace. Then the serious attacks start.

    @378 Lynna, OM:

    The day after the strikes, JD Vance appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and host Kristin Welker asked, “Do you and President Trump trust the U.S. intelligence community and its assessment?” The vice president replied, “If course we trust our intelligence community, but we also trust our instincts.”

    Just about literally said I trust the intelligence services only when they produce an answer I want.

    @381 Lynna, OM:

    “Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran’s nuclear program, and none could, until President Trump,” Hegseth declared. “The operation President Trump planned was bold and it was brilliant, showing the world that American deterrence is back.” [FFS]

    There is also an important element of consistency to deterrence. In Iran’s position they are only going to negotiate if they see no other chance of survival. Since Trump has shown he will back out of a treaty at whim, why sign a treaty at all? For deterrence to work there has to be consistent and sensible consequences for crossing lines.

  392. says

    Followup to comment 384.

    SCOTUS Removes Due Process Requirement On Deportations to Third Countries

    “Three liberals dissent over ruling that allows removals to South Sudan and other nations without a full chance to appeal”

    The Supreme Court’s conservative wing on Monday allowed the Trump administration to conduct “third country removals,” deporting detainees to nations with which they may have no connection, and without a due process requirement put in place by a lower court. The court’s three liberals dissented.

    The ruling suspends a lower court order which mandated a three-week period in which non-citizens would have to receive notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal to a third country before deportation.

    It’s a big win for the Trump administration’s deportation regime, which seeks to speed up removals by sending people to whatever country is willing to take them, regardless of that state’s human rights record or ability to ensure the deportee’s safety.

    In handing the White House that win, the Supreme Court is ignoring how far the administration has gone to flout judges’ authority, both in this case and in others. In this case — labeled D.V.D., the initials of one plaintiff — the judge issued orders requiring the administration to give detainees three weeks’ notice before their removal to third countries.

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement, however, continued to try to remove people in violation of that requirement. In one instance, several Venezuelans were sent to the American military base at Guantanamo Bay before being transferred to El Salvador’s CECOT prison — all after the judge issued an order blocking removals to third countries without the migrants receiving notice.

    Weeks later, ICE tried to deport a planeload of people to Libya — also without notice. The judge in the D.V.D. case issued a terse note blocking that. Even then, the Trump administration continued: in late May, ICE sent another load of migrants on a plane bound for South Sudan. It stopped at a U.S. military base in Djibouti after the court intervened to say that the move was violating the judge’s authority; ICE declined to return the people back to the U.S.

    The Supreme Court issued its ruling Monday via the emergency docket. The order itself is curt, particularly when compared to the 19-page fiery dissent written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Per the order, the court decided to grant a stay of the district court’s order until the First Circuit Court of Appeals can rule and until the government can ask the Supreme Court to review the case in full.

    In the dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor wrote that the government’s conduct “resembles that of the arsonist who calls 911 to report firefighters for violating a local noise ordinance.”

    She added that the court was “rewarding lawlessness” in staying the lower court order.

    Sotomayor took square aim at the court’s decision to side with the government and its focus on jurisdictional questions around the lower court’s ability to require three weeks of notice before removals to third countries.

    “Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled,” she [Justice Sonia Sotomayor] wrote.

  395. Reginald Selkirk says

    Jury orders man to pay $500K for assaulting police officer who killed himself after Capitol riot

    A federal jury on Monday awarded $500,000 to the widow and estate of a police officer who killed himself nine days after he helped defend the U.S. Capitol from a mob of rioters, including a man who scuffled with the officer during the attack.

    The eight-member jury ordered that man, 69-year-old chiropractor David Walls-Kaufman, to pay $380,000 in punitive damages and $60,000 in compensatory damages to Erin Smith for assaulting her husband, Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith, inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They awarded an additional $60,000 to compensate Jeffrey Smith’s estate for his pain and suffering.

    The judge presiding over the civil trial dismissed Erin Smith’s wrongful-death claim against Walls-Kaufman before jurors began deliberating last week. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said no reasonable juror could conclude that Walls-Kaufman’s actions were capable of causing a traumatic brain injury leading to Smith’s death.

    On Friday, the jury sided with Erin Smith and held Walls-Kaufman liable for assaulting her 35-year-old husband — an encounter captured on the officer’s body camera…

  400. birgerjohansson says

    @ 398
    People on the spectrum can be incredibly creative and also very vulnerable.

  401. JM says

    NBC News: Trump says Israel and Iran have agreed to ‘total ceasefire’

    Hours after Iran targeted a U.S. military base in Qatar today, President Donald Trump said on social media that Iran and Israel had agreed to a total ceasefire. Neither Iran nor Israel have confirmed to NBC News that they have agreed to a ceasefire.

    This is very much a see what happens over the next few days situation. Neither side can be trusted and both are on hair triggers.

    Iran launched a strike against Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which stations thousands of U.S. troops, in retaliation for the U.S. bombing of its nuclear sites over the weekend. No casualties were reported, and Trump on social media called the strike “very weak.”

    Iran made a symbolic response that they warned the US about, then Trump calls it “weak”. If Trump was more coherent I would say he was trying to provoke Iran. As it is, I think he is just stupid and says every thought that crosses his mind.

    Tehran Times

    Iran has not agreed to a ceasefire. Trump is lying again

    Not a good sign but this is a situation where both side may deny a cease fire for political reasons but stop fighting. Time will tell what actually happens.

  402. says

    Re: Reginald Selkirk 99
    “Cannabis use linked to a doubled risk of heart disease death, new study finds”
    They don’t specify smoking or vaping. They mentioned inhaled vs. ingested potentially being different.

  404. John Morales says

    For the discriminating, I here adduce Perun’s latest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPTI6s2VepQ

    Iran & Israel at War – Israeli Operations, Iranian Missiles & The U.S. Strike

    —

    Since 13 June, the long-running stand-off between Iran and Israel has escalated to sustained conventional conflict, with a sustained Israeli air campaign against targets within Iran itself, while Iran has retaliated with ballistic missile and drone attacks against Israel.

    It was a complicated military scenario even before the U.S. intervened directly against 3 Iranian nuclear facilities.

    Today, I try and parse some of what we’ve seen so far, and what military observations and lessons we might (cautiously) draw at this early stage.

    Timestamps:
    00:00:00 — Opening Words
    00:01:15 — What Am I Talking About?
    00:02:12 — 2023 & 2024
    00:09:26 — Day 1
    00:15:05 — the Air Campaign
    00:27:37 — Iran’s Response
    00:38:27 — Impact of the Air Campaign
    00:39:31 — the Iranian Nuclear Program
    00:49:35 — Israeli challenges & US intervention
    00:57:39 — Lessons and Observations
    01:01:51 — Channel Update

  405. says

    Canada signs defense pact with EU

    “The partnership will help both Ottawa and Brussels to deliver NATO’s new capability requirements.”

    Scrambling to reduce Canada’s dependence on the Donald Trump-led U.S., the country’s Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday signed a security and defense partnership with the European Union.

    The aim is to shift Canada’s defense and security relationship away from the U.S. in the wake of Trump’s threats to annex America’s northern neighbor.

    A key issue is to allow Canada to take part in the EU’s new defense spending programs under its multi-billion euro ReArm Europe initiative.

    Canada and European NATO countries are also promising to dramatically increase their defense spending, something that will be reaffirmed by alliance leaders during their summit in The Hague starting on Wednesday.

    “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness faster and better — to invest more and smarter,” European Council President António Costa said at a press conference after the summit.

    Commission President Ursula von der Leyen added that the partnership will strengthen Canada’s role in Europe’s rapidly evolving defense architecture. “It’s just the beginning,” she said.

    “‘It will be good for our industries, it will be good for our people, and it will be good for the transatlantic security tool.”

    Von der Leyen added that Carney was “among friends” in Brussels.

    According to a joint statement published Monday evening, Ottawa will now work with Brussels on a bilateral agreement related to the EU’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) plan. The program is limited to EU countries and close allies, issuing loans to members to buy weapons and allowing other countries to take part in joint procurements.

    Carney said at the press conference that he was “very pleased” to take a step toward participation in SAFE.

    “It will help us deliver on our new requirements for capabilities more rapidly and more effectively, will help build our industries, secure our jurisdictions,” Carney said. “What we will do should be more efficient for both of us, should be more cost-effective for both of us.”

    According to the Security and Defence Partnership, the EU and Canada will explore ways to cooperate on military assistance for Ukraine and to improve the interoperability and movement of Canadian and European military equipment, personnel and supplies. [Good news. Good plan.]

    They will also expand collaboration on Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) projects on military mobility to enhance Canadian military mobility across EU territory, and will explore further opportunities for Canada’s involvement in additional PESCO projects.

    Carney called for more progress in defense cooperation areas such as aerospace and dual-use industrial projects.

    The EU and Canada will also hold an annual security and defense dialogue and explore establishing an administrative arrangement between Canada and the European Defence Agency.

  409. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Concert defies Trump’s Kennedy Center lockdown
    Video is 3:34 minutes

    Trump opposition grows as he betrays U.S. service members’ immigrant family members
    Video is 4:52

    Locals take a stand against Trump’s immigration roundups, street snatchings
    Video is 6:13 minutes

    Trump’s poor choices for national security staffing have new relevance after Iran bombing
    Video is 8:13 minutes

  410. says

    Why a House Democrat was right to accuse AG Pam Bondi of being ‘very unprofessional’

    “When Bondi acts more like a political operative than an attorney general, she doesn’t just damage her own reputation — she also undermines her office.”

    Related video at the link.

    Nearly five months into her tenure, Attorney General Pam Bondi made her first appearance before a U.S. House committee this week, ostensibly to talk to an appropriations subcommittee about the Justice Department’s proposed budget. Some members, however, wanted to take advantage of their first opportunity to explore some other lines of inquiry.

    To be sure, there was some discussion along predictable lines — exchanges, for example, over proposed FBI cuts and Bondi’s intention to eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) — but as NBC News noted, there were also some unexpected fireworks.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi’s remarks about Rep. Madeleine Dean and former President Joe Biden at a House hearing today prompted Dean, D-Pa., to call Bondi ‘very strange and very unprofessional.’ The exchange included Dean asking Bondi if she had ever been registered as an agent of a foreign principal — referring to when Bondi lobbied for the government of Qatar — to which the attorney general referenced a 2024 interview in which Dean said Biden should remain the Democratic candidate in the 2024 election.

    The underlying issue is of some significance. Bondi used to work as a registered lobbyist for foreign clients, including the government of Qatar — the same government that recently gave Donald Trump a jet. The Republican lawyer — the first attorney general in U.S. history ever to have served as a foreign lobbyist — was directly involved in the arrangement, signing off on the legality of the Qatari “gift.”

    When Dean asked Bondi about her professional background, the attorney general responded by complaining about the former president and the Democratic congresswoman’s pre-election defense of Biden. [video]

    What did Biden have to do with Bondi’s work as a lobbyist for a foreign government? Nothing. What did Dean’s comments about the former president have to do with the underlying question? Nothing. But the attorney general, confronted with a question about her own background that she apparently didn’t want to talk about, decided to ignore the question and peddle cheap and partisan nonsense.

    “This is so discourteous,” Dean responded. “This is so outside the committee’s guidelines. Taking a personal shot at me while swiping at Biden. Very strange and very unprofessional of you. The answer is yes or no, and the answer is yes, you were registered as a lobbyist for Qatar.”

    When Dean went on to ask about potential conflicts of interest within the administration, Bondi responded by referring to sex crimes in the congresswoman’s home state of Pennsylvania. It led Dean to understandably ask, “Did you hear my question?”

    At the same hearing, Democratic Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York asked about the scope of the president’s pardons for Jan. 6 rioters. Bondi responded by talking about Biden pardoning his son. [Video]

    Morelle’s question was substantive and of ongoing legal significance. The attorney general could’ve answered it, but she instead acted as if she hadn’t even heard the question, preferring instead to whine again about the former president.

    It’s easy to forget, but Bondi is the nation’s chief law enforcement official, not some pundit trying to score points on social media. When she engages in performative partisanship, acting more like a (terrible) political operative than an attorney general, she doesn’t just damage her own reputation — she undermines her office.

  411. says

    bWant FTC to approve a merger? Just advertise on Trump’s Truth Social

    The Federal Trade Commission is reviewing a merger between two giant advertising agencies, Omnicom and Interpublic. […] this merger might come with an absolutely wild and unconstitutional provision: The combined company cannot refuse to place a client’s ads based on media platforms’ political content.

    The FTC frames this as preventing the ad agencies from “boycotting” platforms, but that’s stretching the legal definition of “boycott” beyond recognition. Companies are forbidden from colluding with each other to exclude competitors from their market, to fix prices, or to require the use of a particular provider. “Boycott” does not mean a company deciding not to do business with another company, but the FTC really, really wants it to mean that, so it can force advertisers to spend money on Truth Social, X, and whatever other Nazi hellholes pop up online.

    The proposed order, already approved by the FTC commissioners, essentially allows the organization to control not just where Omnicom—the name of the merged company—places ads on behalf of companies working with them, but also to control which advertisers they choose to work with. The merged company also could not refuse to work with an advertiser because of their political or ideological viewpoints. So, when Stormfront comes knocking, gotta work with them. Terrific.

    The company would also have to agree to file annual reports and additional reports anytime the FTC feels like asking. Then, the FTC will determine whether the company is in compliance. To do that, the FTC gets to demand access to all of Omnicom’s books, ledgers, accounts, correspondence, and anything else that the FTC wants, whenever they want, as long as they give the company five days notice. Oh, and the company has to pay for all copy costs for whatever the FTC wants copied. The FTC can also interview anyone at Omnicom.

    In other words, this isn’t a one-time agreement that Omnicom just has to sign and implement, though that would be bad enough. It’s an agreement for ongoing oversight, and the government gets to choose their clients and social media platforms. It bears a striking resemblance to the “deals” Trump made with major law firms, which appear to grant the administration control over which clients the firm chooses to work with. This will probably work out just as well for Omnicom as it did for those law firms, which are now bleeding clients and losing top attorneys.

    This move is no doubt designed in part to force private companies to advertise on Truth Social, a company Trump owns and one that just happens to rely exclusively on ad sales and has not managed to grow much of a user base. But the real subtext here is forcing ad placement on X.

    After Elon Musk turned Twitter into a dumb Nazi bar with a dumb new name, advertisers left in droves. Somehow, Musk’s strategy of telling those advertisers to “go fuck yourself” when they left after he published an antisemitic post did not result in a windfall of new ads. It’s Musk who is behind the idea that it is an illegal boycott for companies to decide not to have their content next to white supremacist garbage.

    [I snipped Media Matters lawsuit details]

    There are no guardrails left at the FTC, so you can expect to see more of this. Trump illegally fired the two Democratic commissioners, so now the commission is comprised of Republican puppets.

    It’s hard to find a more glaring example of the government compelling certain speech, which is extremely unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment. [I snipped details regarding Supreme Court cases.]

    It’s really impressive how quickly Trump turned the whole of the federal government into a machine to pursue his grievances and bully everybody he doesn’t like. Omnicrom is not the first target, and there’s no way it will be the last.

  412. says

    Aiyiyiyi

    […] Much of the factory was supposed to be as sterile as an operating room. But the inspectors discovered what appeared to be metal shavings on drugmaking equipment, and records that showed vials of medication that were “blackish” from contamination had been sent to the United States. Quality testing in some cases had been put off for more than six months, according to their report, and raw materials tainted with unknown “extraneous matter” were used anyway, mixed into batches of drugs.

    Sun Pharma’s transgressions were so egregious that the Food and Drug Administration imposed one of the government’s harshest penalties: banning the factory from exporting drugs to the United States.

    But the agency, worried about medication shortages, immediately undercut its mission to ensure the safety of America’s drug supply.

    A secretive group inside the FDA gave the global manufacturer a special pass to continue shipping more than a dozen drugs to the United States even though they were made at the same substandard factory that the agency had officially sanctioned. Pills and injectable medications that otherwise would have been banned went to unsuspecting patients across the country, including those with cancer and epilepsy.

    The FDA didn’t routinely test the medications for quality problems or use its vast repository of drug-related complaints to proactively track whether they were harming the people who relied on them.

    And the agency kept the exemptions largely hidden from the public and from Congress. Even others inside the FDA were unaware of the details.

    […] The exemptions for Sun weren’t a one-time concession. A ProPublica investigation found that over a dozen years, the same small cadre at the FDA granted similar exemptions to more than 20 other factories that had violated critical standards in drugmaking, nearly all in India. All told, the group allowed into the United States at least 150 medications or their ingredients from factories with mold, foul water, dirty labs or fraudulent testing protocols. [Inspection report excerpt]

    […] The “adverse event” reports about drugs from the Sun plant and two others run by Indian drugmaker Intas Pharmaceuticals described medication with an abnormal taste, odor or residue or patients who had experienced sudden or unexplained health problems.

    The reports cite about 70 hospitalizations and nine deaths. And those numbers are conservative. ProPublica limited its count to reports that linked problems to a single drug. However, the total number of complaints to the FDA that mention exempted drugs is in the thousands.

    […] the seriousness of the reports involving exempted drugs did not galvanize the agency to investigate, leaving the public and the government with no way of knowing whether people were being harmed and, if so, how many. [Inspection report excerpt]

    The FDA barred both plants in 2023 from shipping drugs to the U.S. Then the agency simultaneously granted more than 50 exemptions to those banned factories — the broadest use of exclusions in ProPublica’s analysis.

    […] “We’re supposed to have the best medicine in the world,” said Joe DeMayo, a kidney transplant patient in Philadelphia who took an immunosuppression medication made by Intas until December 2023, unaware that a month earlier the FDA had excused the drug from an import ban. “Why are we buying from people who aren’t making it right?”

    […] The vast majority of the prescriptions filled in the country are for generic drugs, from penicillin to blood thinners to emergency contraception, and many of those come from overseas, including India and China. For years, the FDA has vouched for the quality of generics, assuring the public in press releases, speeches and social media campaigns that they are just as safe and effective as brand-name drugs.

    That guarantee came under serious question in 2019 when journalist Katherine Eban published a breakthrough book, “Bottle of Lies,” that exposed rampant fraud and manufacturing violations in Indian factories and the FDA’s reluctance to aggressively investigate.

    ProPublica identified another alarming level of entrenched failure: Even when the agency did investigate and single out factories that were among the worst in India, it still gave them access to American consumers. All the while, patients took their medicine without question […]

    The FDA in many ways put itself in this untenable position, forced to decide between not having enough drugs or accepting potentially dangerous ones, interviews and government records show.

    For years, the agency gave companies with a history of manufacturing breakdowns approval to produce an increasingly larger share of generic drugs, allowing them to become a dominant force in American medicine with the power to disrupt lives if production lines were shuttered.

    “It’s our own fault,” said former FDA inspector Peter Baker, who reported a litany of failures during inspections in India and China from 2012 to 2018. “We allowed all these players into the market who never should have been there in the first place. They grew to be monsters and now we can’t go back.”

    […] Although the FDA has been giving companies a way around import bans since at least 2013, the internal process was so secretive that many current and former FDA officials said they have no idea how many exemptions have been granted or for what drugs. In an email, the agency said it did not maintain a comprehensive list.

    Even two high-level FDA staff members who worked on drug shortage challenges for the agency said in interviews they had never heard of the exemptions.

    Congress required the FDA in 2012 to provide specific information every year about how and when the agency relaxed its rules for errant drugmakers to prevent shortages. But the FDA did not mention exemptions to import bans until 2024 — and only then in a single footnote of its 25-page report to Congress.

    ProPublica uncovered the frequent use of exemptions by searching for the “import alert” list published on the FDA’s website that names factories banned from the U.S. marketplace. Because the agency publishes only a current list and doesn’t make the old ones public, the news organization used internet archives and FDA documents maintained by the data analytics company Redica Systems, ultimately compiling import alerts dating back more than a decade.

    […] Earlier this month, the FDA went back to the Sun Pharma factory for a surprise inspection and found ongoing problems, according to a Sun filing with the Indian stock exchange and Indian media reports. The concerns focused on the way sterile drugs were made, including some of the exempted drugs still being sent to the United States […]

    The FDA could have done its own routine testing of the exempted drugs but chose not to. […] Woodcock said testing was expensive and budgets were tight. […]

    The European Union, by contrast, requires drugs made in India and China to be checked for quality on EU soil. And the U.S. Department of Defense is conducting its own testing of more than three dozen generic medications and has already identified potency and other quality issues.

    […] ProPublica’s analysis of that data found thousands of reports both before and after the factories were given a pass to sidestep import bans. The reports described unexpected cases of cardiac arrest, blurred vision, choking, vertigo and kidney injuries, among other issues […]

    [I snipped more details of adverse effects]

    Even before the FDA exempted Intas’ antidepressant bupropion, consumers reported that it made them sick, wasn’t always effective and had an abnormal odor, which pharmacists and others say can happen when an inactive ingredient breaks down.

    “It was rotten eggs,” Nari Miller, a geologist in California who took the pills in 2022 and had severe stomach pain, told ProPublica. “I opened it and smelled it when I got home and it was awful.”

    […] More problems were found at a factory that Sun had acquired in Detroit, where the diabetes drug metformin was contaminated with metal scrapings. […]

    Much more at the link, including a discussion of the difficulties associated with drug shortages in the USA, and with contaminated injectables.

    Link

  413. says

    An impotent and ignorant Trump is not as powerful as he thinks he is.

    Trump flails as Iran and Israel lash out amid supposed ceasefire

    […] Trump spent Tuesday morning whining and fuming that leaders in Iran and Israel were not lining up behind his efforts to coordinate global diplomacy via his social media network.

    Speaking on the White House lawn to reporters, Trump said that he was “not happy” that Israel fired on targets in Iran after he had announced that a ceasefire agreement had been reached between the two nations.

    “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing,” Trump angrily yelled to reporters before walking away. [video]

    His public display of anger and ineptitude followed hours of premature announcements and strange online postings.

    On Monday night, Trump declared, “Israel & Iran came to me, almost simultaneously, and said, ‘PEACE!’” He followed that up a few hours later with the claim that a ceasefire agreement had been reached.

    But at 6:50 AM ET on Tuesday, Trump issued an all-caps warning to Israel via his Truth Social account.

    “ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!” he wrote, adding his full name and title to the end of the post.

    The Trump post came after Israel accused Iran of violating the terms of the ceasefire. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said his nation would respond to Iran’s alleged attacks.

    “I have instructed the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], in coordination with the Prime Minister, to continue the intense activity of attacking Tehran to thwart regime targets and terrorist infrastructures,” Katz said.

    The Israeli government later confirmed that strikes on Iran had occurred, despite Trump’s ceasefire claims.

    After the back-and-forth with Israel and Iran and his White House meltdown, Trump later claimed again that peace had been achieved and urged Congress to pass his legislation cutting Medicaid coverage for millions.

    “Now that we have made PEACE abroad, we must finish the job here at home by passing “THE GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” and getting the Bill to my desk, ASAP,” he wrote at 10:07 AM ET on Tuesday.

    Following Trump’s decision to attack Iranian nuclear sites over this past weekend, the United States has stepped firmly into the middle of the Iran-Israel conflict. The escalation follows a campaign season in which Trump claimed he would limit American involvement in international warfare.

    Trump’s actions regarding Iran run contrary to public opinion. Polls before and after the strikes have shown that most Americans do not want to be militarily involved in the situation. Trump was reportedly goaded into the attack after absorbing hours of Fox News coverage of the crisis and getting personally lobbied by conspiratorial Fox News host Mark Levin.

    Trump is attempting to negotiate high-level diplomacy via his social media account. Conflicts in the Middle East involve complex issues involving history, faith, and global politics of supreme importance. But here is Trump, trying to post through it all and expressing infantile anger when things don’t go precisely the way he thinks they should.

  414. says

    The White House claiming that the president “came up with” the “peace through strength” motto is part of a weird rhetorical pattern.

    About a year ago, Robert O’Brien, who served as Donald Trump’s White House national security adviser from 2019 to 2021, wrote a piece for Foreign Affairs magazine that began with a little history lesson.

    “Si vis pacem, para bellum is a Latin phrase that emerged in the fourth century that means ‘If you want peace, prepare for war,’” O’Brien explained. “The concept’s origin dates back even further, to the second-century Roman emperor Hadrian, to whom is attributed the axiom, ‘Peace through strength — or, failing that, peace through threat.’”

    In other words, the adage “peace through strength” is nearly two millennia old. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt might not know that. [video]

    “Nobody knows what it means to accomplish peace through strength better than President Trump,” she told Fox News this week. “He is the one who came up with that motto and that foreign policy doctrine, and he successfully implemented it in his first term.”

    Right off the bat, it’s probably worth mentioning that Trump offers a poor example of “peace through strength,” given that he is neither strong nor peaceful. Similarly, the idea that the president “came up with that motto” is bizarre, even by this White House’s standards, given how often officials in the United States and around the world have used the phrase for generations.

    But watching the clip, I was also reminded of the familiarity of the circumstances.

    Last month, for example, the president tried to defend his administration’s trade policies, arguing, “Basically, what we’re doing is equalizing. That’s a new word that I came up with.”

    According to Merriam Webster, the word “equalizing” has been around for centuries. It is not a word that Trump “came up with.”

    Last year, Trump, while talking about immigration, also said, “The caravan. I made up that name, too.” No, he didn’t: The word “caravan” dates back to the 16th century.

    Perhaps the most notable example came early on in the president’s first term when he sat down with journalists from The Economist and explained that he was cutting taxes, despite a growing budget deficit, because “we have to prime the pump.”

    Trump added, “Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?” When the editor from The Economist said he was, of course, familiar with the metaphor, the president concluded, “Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just … I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good.”

    He was not responsible for “prime the pump,” which was in use long before Trump was even born.

    To expect honesty from this White House is obviously unwise, but — even by Team Trump standards — pretending over and over again that the president “came up with” words and phrases that have long existed is quite weird.

    Karoline Leavitt’s arrogant regurgitation of Trump’s claims makes it all worse. It is painful to watch her speaking to the press.

  416. says

    Praying for Armageddon, Literally

    Several years ago, I granted permission to an international film crew shooting a new documentary movie called “Praying for Armageddon” to fly out here to my residence in Albuquerque and interview me for their movie. Venerable Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) Advisory Board Member Col. (Ret.) Larry Wilkerson was likewise interviewed for this film.

    The theme of this documentary movie was to focus on that End Times-obsessed, tortured version of Christianity, which lusts in an unbridled and totally unrestrained manner for the world to end in the impossibly violent and bloody hellscape as described quite vividly in the Book of Revelation. (Indeed, many adherents to this extremist version of fundamentalist Christianity revel endlessly in the fact that they are promised a 200 mile long river, 4 1/2 feet deep filled with nothing but the blood of those that their version of savage-Jesus has slaughtered at the Battle of Armageddon.)

    The movie made its American debut almost exactly at the same time that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. I’d been invited to the Hamptons in New York for that debut and participated in the ceremonies for same.

    America Attacks Iran

    As I write this, it has not yet even been 48 hours since the mentally ill, two year-old sack of shit tRump authorized the strike by American forces against Iran. I’m not going to opine on the wisdom of this strike in this Opinion Editorial. It is incontrovertible that Iran is clearly a malign actor in the Middle East and on the international stage. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the ramifications, repercussions, and consequences for this preemptive attack, I will leave it for many others who are currently so opining.

    U.S. Military Leadership Craves Armageddon

    However, almost immediately after word of these American strikes became public Saturday evening, June 21, 2025, our foundation became inundated with military members who were caught in the same bloodlust by their chains of command eagerly watching the cataclysmic events unfolding. Why were these military superiors gleefully observing so fervently? For the same reason they rejoiced at the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. It is because such sudden warfare […] substantiates and adds credibility to the lubrication of the exigent return of their wretched version of AR-15 carrying “Weaponized Jesus” and the infamous Battle of Armageddon. What, you don’t think that the alcoholic, womanizing, Christian nationalist, Crusader-tattooed, proselytizing Jesus freak little Petey Hegseth isn’t TOTALLY getting off on all of this for the very same reason?!

    MRFF does not eat Christians for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks in between

    Please keep in mind that there is nothing “anti-Christian” about the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in any way shape or form. Indeed, MRFF currently represents just under 100,000 military members and veterans as well as members of the 18 national security agencies, the Coast Guard (DHS) and the US Maritime Service (DOT). About 95% of them are Christians themselves. Approximately 84% of our staff of nearly 1,200, both paid and volunteer, are also Christians. This isn’t about Christianity per se at all. It’s about a fundamentalist extremist version of that faith system known as “Christian Dominionism” becoming inextricably intertwined with the indescribable destructive power of the weapons systems of the United States armed forces and our Department of Defense. We have been fighting this noxious version of Christianity for over 20 years and you may have heard about some of our most shocking and horrifying stories.

    The message of outcry from an active duty military officer and his wife: “My Commander and his wife are celebrating the American-Iranian-Israeli fighting as the beginning of Armageddon”

    The e-mail below from an active duty, junior military officer serving in a combat unit speaks for itself. If, after reading it, you do not see the indescribable danger of a military combat commander, such as the villainous subject of the e-mail, subordinating his or her oath to the U.S. constitution to their own personal, twisted, and tortured version of brutal and barbaric bloodlust as outlined in their eschatological interpretation of the prophecies of the Book of Revelation, then I truly pity you.

    For you 77 million MAGA Americans, who voted for this orange piece of human filth and, thus, his governmental supporters and enablers at all levels, are you not effing entertained?!

    BEHOLD what your limitless ignorance, hubris, arrogance, bigotry, hatred, and prejudice have wrought for America and The World!

    From: (Active Duty U.S. Military Officer/MRFF Client’s e-mail address withheld)
    Subject: My Commander and his wife are celebrating the American-Iranian-Israeli fighting as the beginning of Armageddon
    Date: June 23, 2025 at 12:33:39 PM MDT
    To: Information Weinstein

    Hello Mr. Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

    My wife and I appreciate you Mikey taking our call last evening after what happened with my Commander and again being fully available for my and my wife’s follow up call this morning on the same urgent matter.

    You have assured me that my identity other than how I decide to identify myself in this email and that of my wife will stay confidential at all times and we completely trust you. This is our first time being clients of the MRFF but many of our fellow military members have been MRFF clients and some for many years.

    I’m a junior active duty officer in a combat unit. My wife and I were raised in Christian families and consider ourselves Christians. When we got assigned to this combat unit over (number withheld) months ago it was made clear in the many ways I have described you in our phone calls that our Commander was a very deeply evangelical Christian who proselytizes everyone under his command. He puts constant pressure on all of his staff and unit members to attend and actively participate in his weekend Bible studies which are hosted always at his residence on post by himself and his wife. If you don’t show up he notices it and repeatedly asks (in other words “orders”) you to attend future Bible studies. It’s obvious to all combat unit members that if you don’t do it you’re going to jack up your career and that is exactly what has happened to so many who don’t fall in line with the Commander’s Christian religious desires here.

    I am now ashamed to say that my wife and I succumbed to this pressure and have been unwilling members of this Bible study of our Commander and his wife for most of the last year. However, after what happened yesterday afternoon at this weekly event, we intend to resign from this Bible study within the next 24 hours. This decision my wife and I have made is why we have become clients of the Foundation.

    Simply put, the Commander and his wife spent most of the Bible study yesterday in excessive and extreme glorification and overall celebration of the sudden attack on Iran by American forces and all of the other matters connected to the Israeli attacks on Iran. This includes the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza, the Ukrainian-Russian war, the tensions with North Korea and China and between India and Pakistan and a number of others. They had big fat grins on their faces as they assured us that the “End Times” were now here just as heralded and predicted in the New Testament Book of Revelation.

    My wife and I were shocked by this obvious happiness in the face of warfare and the bloodshed of its victims being shown by our Commander and his wife and a number of the other attendees at this weekly Bible study. Our Commander made it clear that there was “little time left” to get “everybody into the Kingdom of Christ”. He then said that this should be the “top priority” for every military member under his command because if you are not “in the Kingdom” you will be justifiably lost to burn in hell for all eternity as a consequence.

    I tried to say something about not offending the rights of others who decide not to become active proselytizing Christians and to respect their rights under the constitution but my Commander then made the statement that shocked my wife and myself. He said “the only constitution recognized by our God is whether or not a person has fully surrendered to his Son, who is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”. It was clear that our Commander supported “getting everyone into the Kingdom” by any means possible even if that means doing so in direct defiance of the constitution to which we have all sworn an oath.

    I don’t need to go into the implications of a senior, field grade, American, military combat unit Commander enthralled by the death and destruction in the Middle East. Made even worse by his and his wife’s hope that this is just the leading edge of the blood and guts massacre to come as laid out specifically in the last book of the New Testament.

    Thank you Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF for being willing to help my wife and I draft our resignation letters from the Commander’s Bible study. We were at first reluctant to even send this email in to the MRFF but I now feel it is critical. It is especially important since you have advised us that the Foundation is receiving a very large influx of similar messages for advice and relief from other Armed Forces personnel.

    We swore an oath to defend, protect and serve our constitution. I am fine with my Christian faith, but we should never be in a position where we use our military rank and its authority as a threat to our subordinates to usher them into our Commander’s version of, as you say Mr. Weinstein, “Weaponized Christianity”.

    Again please keep our identities confidential. Thank you and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation for being the advocacy outlet we can go to for help. If we experience any blowback from our Commander and/or his wife, we will come right back again to ask for your help. It means the world to us that you all at the MRFF have our backs.

    (Active Duty U.S. Military Officer/MRFF Client’s name, rank, unit, MOS/AFSC/SFSC, and installation withheld)

  417. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an angry outburst Tuesday morning, Donald J. Trump lashed out at Joe Biden for violating the fragile Middle East ceasefire.

    “The ceasefire was working perfectly and beautifully until Joe Biden broke it,” Trump said. “This should never be allowed to happen in this country.”

    Trump refused to disclose precisely how Biden had violated the ceasefire, but darkly hinted that “people are saying it can be done with a laptop.”

    He also blasted the “far left lunatic media” for refusing to cover Biden’s violation of the ceasefire, warning, “This better be in Tapper’s next book.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-accuses-biden-of-violating

  418. KG says

    Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites – CNN:

    An early US intelligence assessment indicated that the US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last week did not destroy the core components of Tehran’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, CNN reports, citing three people briefed on the matter.

    The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, and is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources told CNN.

    Is anyone (with any sense) surprised? The whole history of aerial bombardment (WW2 on both sides, Vietnam, Ukraine, even Gaza) shows that it is extremely difficult to achieve a decisive result however much apparent destruction you wreak. People continue to resist and may well increase support for the government, key assets are moved in advance, infrastructure is repaired or replaced. The best counterexample to this general truth may be the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 – possibly because it was clear to the Serbian regime that if it halted its campaign against the Kosovan Albanians, the bombing would stop and Serbia itself would not be invaded or subjugated, nor the regime overthrown; while if the campaign continued, a ground invasion would follow. It is only too likely that the outcome of the Israeli-American attack on Iran will be that the latter finally decides to build nuclear weapons.

  419. whheydt says

    Re: KG @ #418…
    Bombing your enemy into submission really goes back to Italian general Douhet in–IIRC–1923, when he wrote a book proposing that one could win a war by bombing the civilian population until morale broke. Both sides in WW2 bought into the idea, and each also declared that it wouldn’t work against them because their people could “take it”. It did–kind of–work for the Allies when they were able to mount raids so large and so intense as to cause fire storms, see Hamburg and Dresden.

    As for destroying infrastructure… There was an Allied effort to destroy the Biel Viaduct, a German rail line that crossed a large marsh. The effort finally succeeded by using a 5 (long) ton “camoflet” bomb, but by that time, for half a mile on either side of the viaduct, the ground consisted of nothing but overlapping bomb craters.

  421. Reginald Selkirk says

    Russian naval ship ‘disguised’ itself while passing through English Channel

    A Russian warship disguised itself using a fake ID signal while travelling through the English Channel with two sanctioned oil tankers, a BBC Verify investigation has found.

    The Boikiy – a corvette armed with guided missiles – broadcast the fake ID code as it passed through the Channel on Saturday.

    On tracking sites it wrongly appeared as ships which have previously used that ID. BBC Verify matched the ID to the Boikiy by using satellite imagery, tracking data and a video of it passing under a bridge in Denmark.

    It travelled alongside two vessels known to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” – a network of tankers whose ownership can be obscured and are used to transport sanctioned oil products…

  422. says

    Followup to KG @418.

    White House slams intel that suggests Trump-backed strikes didn’t destroy targets in Iran

    “The president said Iran’s nuclear facilities were ‘completely and totally obliterated.’ Reports of a new intelligence assessment suggest otherwise.”

    Related video at the link.

    There are plenty of questions about Donald Trump’s decision to launch pre-emptive military strikes against nuclear targets in Iran, but in the short term, there’s one consideration of particular relevance: Did these strikes work? Did they serve their intended purpose?

    The president hasn’t exactly taken a wait-and-see posture: Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Republican told the world on Saturday night, “have been completely and totally obliterated.”

    When a variety of officials indicated a day later that it was far too early to know whether Trump’s claim was true or not, the president expressed outrage, lashing out at news organizations for daring to report factual information. “The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it,” he wrote on social media on Monday, failing to identify “everyone.” [When Trump resorts to claiming, “everyone knows it,” we know he is lying. That is one of Trump’s many tells.]

    Trump kept this going on Tuesday morning, suggesting media outlets “apologize” to military pilots — he didn’t exactly say why — before describing CNN and MSNBC as “scum.”

    As for why the president seems so sensitive about this, it might have something to do with an alleged intelligence assessment that appears to contradict Trump’s premature boasts. CNN reported: [See comment 418]

    […] The New York Times published a related report minutes later, adding that, according to the unreleased classified intelligence assessment, the preliminary findings suggest Saturday bombings “sealed off the entrances to two of the facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings.”

    The Times’ account, which also has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that the preliminary assessment concluded that the U.S. strikes “set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months.”

    If accurate, this too is completely at odds with the claims Trump has emphasized over the last few days. […]

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: “This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.” [Scoff. “Everyone.”]

    Or put another way, by Leavitt’s reasoning, U.S. intelligence that suggests the Trump-approved mission failed to meet its objectives might hurt military pilots’ feelings — which isn’t as persuasive as the White House might want it to be.

    […] For his part, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had a related statement: “Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target — and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran, so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission.” [Scoff. Trump lackey kisses Trump’s ass.]

    […] “Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran’s nuclear program, and none could, until President Trump.” [Sheesh. You are laying it on a bit thick.]

    In other words, the beleaguered Pentagon chief has an incentive to downplay the preliminary assessment from his own department’s intelligence office.

    There’s no shortage of moving parts to a story like this, which may very well continue to evolve, not just in the coming days, but even in the coming hours. But as things stand, what we have is some preliminary evidence, not only that the mission fell short of its objectives, but also that the American president misled the public about the efficacy of his controversial and unpopular policy, all while White House officials once again discard intelligence assessments from their own country that told Trump and his team what they didn’t want to hear.

  423. Reginald Selkirk says

    LASD shot LAPD with rubber bullets and tear gas during No Kings protest

    The No Kings rally in downtown Los Angeles started peacefully on Saturday but tensions escalated later in the day. Thirty thousand people gathered at Grand Park to protest Trump’s policies and their impact on American democracy.

    Scenes of demonstrators dancing and marching turned to panic when the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department violently dispersed the crowds, hours before curfew.

    Officers with LAPD found themselves caught in the crossfire of tear gas and other less lethal munitions between themselves and deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department during the violent dispersal of fleeing demonstrators…

    LASD = Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputies
    LAPD = Los Angeles Police Department

  424. Reginald Selkirk says

    @417

    Trump Complains Biden Let Thunderstorms Into the U.S.

    President Donald Trump got a little tongue-tied speaking with reporters on Air Force One, appearing to suggest his predecessor had left the United States vulnerable to attacks by forces of nature.

    Asked by one journalist about the threat of Iranian retaliation on U.S. soil following strikes against three nuclear sites in the Islamic Republic over the weekend, the president was quick to pin the blame on Joe Biden.

    “Biden let a lot of supercells into the United States. He was an incompetent president. He had no idea what he was doing,” Trump said in audio of the exchange obtained by Fox News.

    “It was gross incompetence,” he went on. “Among everything else, he let a lot of supercells in, many from Iran. But hopefully we’ll take care of them. What Biden did to this country should never be forgotten.”
    …
    The term “supercell,” meanwhile, refers to a type of thunderstorm that rotates on an axis as the result of powerful updrafts…

  425. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/nato-making-careful-preparations

    NATO Making Careful Preparations To Keep Baby Trump Entertained During Tomorrow’s Big Summit

    This morning, Donald Trump was angry. One would imagine that after ending all wars forever with his flawless execution of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, he just wanted to have a nice celebratory night, while SecDef Pete Hegseth drunked and belched around the White House residence in a sexy teddy singing “Nobel Peaaaaaaace Biiiiiiiiirthday, Missssteerrrrr [HIC!] Prezzzzdinint!”

    Alas.

    Instead it appears Israel and Iran stopped shooting long enough to let President Dumbass get on Truth Social and declare flawless victory, before they got right back to shooting at each other. It’s gotta be tough pretending to be the leader of the free world when none of the world, free or otherwise, has any respect for your leadership.

    […] [video]

    And as it happens, Trump is off to the annual NATO summit at The Hague today, for just such a purpose. And NATO leaders are trying to do everything they can to make sure the baby doesn’t shit his pants and make a scene.

    The Financial Times reports that the summit was originally supposed to be three days long. (Some people say it was originally to happen over three days total, with two days of meetings, so that’s why some quotes say three and others say two.) Now it’s just one two-and-a-half hour meeting, focused on mostly One Thing — more on that in a second — so as to minimize the risk of the baby stomping out mad and going home in the middle like he did at the G7 meeting in Canada last week. Also Trump gets bored easily, and they know that.

    (They made an excuse last week that Trump had to rush home from the G7 immediately to handle BIG ‘PORTANT ‘MERGENCY! with Israel and Iran, but that’s a lie. FT reports that it was more like he was mad at Emmanuel Macron for going to Greenland and undermining Trump’s stated desire to rape and pillage it, and also if he stayed he was going to have to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the next day, and he didn’t wanna. Hey, guess who’s going to be at the NATO dinner with the King and Queen of the Netherlands tonight? That’s right, all the men in this paragraph!)

    To recap what we just had to type, NATO turned a three-day summit into a 2.5 hour meeting, because they didn’t want the American president to […] have a meltdown like he just had at the G7 […]

    “The entire point is to make it as small, and as focused as possible,” said one of the officials. “With as little scope for disruption.”

    “It has gone from two days to one two-hour session . . . so it should be feasible, and my hope is that it will work,” Claudia Major, senior vice-president at the German Marshall Fund, told an FT Live event in Berlin on Thursday. “But I gave up trying to predict Trump.”

    What a proud moment for our once-great nation.

    NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also sent Trump this text message in advance of the two-hour “summit,” in apparent hopes that it will put the baby in a good mood. (Yes, it’s real, according to the New York Times.) Trump posted it on Truth Social this morning, so maaaaaaaybe it helped? [post at the link, showing praise for Trump’s “decisive action in Iran” etc.]

    They all know exactly how to manipulate him, isn’t that comforting?

    But record screeeeeeeeeeeech! About that five percent.

    As the reporting has explained, Trump had been set to go to The Hague victorious, bragging about his ceasefire, and boasting that Europe has finally agreed to his hostage demand that they all spend five percent of their budgets on defense, in order to calm and assuage Trump’s obsessive 24/7 fears that somebody, somewhere is taking advantage of him. (That’s the One Thing they’re focusing on.)

    Trump has always fundamentally misunderstood how NATO funding works, just like he misunderstands how tariffs work, seemingly believing that there’s a joint NATO bank account out there somewhere and the US is the only one making deposits.

    “NATO was broke, and I said, ‘You’re going to have to pay,’ and we did a whole thing, and now they’re paying a lot,” he said.

    Right.

    The New York Times notes that the US doesn’t spend actually five percent of its budget on defense — more like 3.5 percent — but Trump says we don’t need to, for reasons. (This is the same guy who doesn’t like to pay contractors and lawyers.)

    “A lot of that money goes to rebuilding their bridges, their roads, so it can take heavy equipment,” he said. “And you know, we don’t have any roads in Europe. We don’t have any bridges in Europe.”

    Right, sure, whatever. Because the five percent goal for Europe is actually more like 3.5 percent pure military spending and 1.5 percent roads/bridges/infrastructure. Surely America doesn’t need any new infrastructure! (That sounds a lot like Building Back Better, which is woke.)

    But as the New York Times and Financial Times and others point out, Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, is throwing a wrench in all this, with a letter to Secretary-General Rutte explaining that fuck that five percent, Madrid will not be participating.

    The Spanish premier said a “rushed” effort to meet 5 per cent would slow Spain’s economic growth “through debt increase, inflationary pressures and the diversion of investment from crucial activities with a higher multiplier effect than the defence industry”, such as education, healthcare and technology.

    He wrote: “The empirical reality is that, for Spain, as for other Nato countries, reaching 5 per cent defence spending will be impossible unless it comes at the cost of increasing taxes on the middle class, cutting public services and social benefits for their citizens.”

    Well? He’s not not making sense. Also:

    A dash to meet 5 per cent would force Nato members “into off-the-shelf purchases that could further exacerbate equipment interoperability challenges, and send a substantial portion of their resources to non-European suppliers, thus preventing them from developing their own industrial base”, he wrote.

    Hmmmmm, it sounds like Sánchez is saying that making financial commitments based on the temper tantrums of a babbling white supremacist with dementia who thinks he invented the word “groceries” isn’t sound fiscal policy.

    So he sounds crazy!

    “They’re having a problem with Spain,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday. “Always a problem with Spain. Spain’s not agreeing, which is very unfair to the rest of them.”

    Trump is very concerned how the prime minister of Spain is treating “the rest of them.”

    The New York Times also asked Trump on the plane this morning if he’s even committed to Article 5, i.e. the agreement that says that an attack on one NATO member nation is an attack on all. He said — get this — that it “depends on your definition” of Article 5, and that he’d say more when he’s not on an airplane.

    Yep.

    Back on the home front, GOP Rep. Buddy Carter has nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for his flawlessly executed permanent forever ceasefire between Israel and Iran. (Reuters headline from 15 minutes ago: “Blasts shake Tehran after furious Trump tells Israel to stop strikes to preserve truce deal”)

    Pakistan recently buttered Trump’s ass by nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for permanently forever preventing all wars between them and India, but now they’re criticizing his beautiful perfect flawless strikes on Iran, so the status of that one is unclear.

    A Ukrainian lawmaker named Oleksandr Merezhko had nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize back in November, we guess in hopes that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on day one of his presidency. Now, on day 154, Merezhko has lost confidence and has yanked the nom.

    But don’t worry, because Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt used her Fundie Baby Jesus/Husbands And All Other White Conservative Men Know Best Voice to confidently tell Sean Hannity last night that “President Trump is going to win the Nobel Peace Prize, no doubt!” and “Democrats don’t know what to say. I mean, their silence has never been louder, if you know what I mean. And I think it’s because President Trump just keeps winning! And they don’t what to do.”

    All of this because he got on Truth Social last week and whined for it.

    This is what adult human beings do to manage the president of the United States, because he’s such a whiny ass loser baby.

    Cue that fucking Lee Greenwood song, we guess.

  426. Reginald Selkirk says

    With its stock in sharp decline, Trump’s media company will buy $400 million of its own shares

    President Donald Trump’s media company plans to buy back up to $400 million of its stock, which have lost 46% of their value this year.

    Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates the Truth Social media platform, said Monday that the acquisition will improve its financial flexibility. It will retire the shares after they are purchased, meaning these particular shares can’t be reissued.

    Companies can drive their stock higher by acquiring or removing the number of company shares outstanding. Trump is the largest stakeholder in Trump Media, with about 114 million shares.

    Shares of Trump Media rose just over 2% Monday. But the shares appeared to peak about a month after the company went public in late March. Shares have been on a steady, downward trajectory since.

    The company said early this year that it lost $400.9 million in 2024 and its annual revenue declined 12% to $3.6 million…

  427. Reginald Selkirk says

    145 People Jabbed With Needles at French Music Festival

    ête de la Musique ended with multiple arrests.

    While attendees across France enjoyed music at the annual nationwide street festival June 21, 12 individuals were detained for pricking at least 145 people with syringes, according to France’s interior ministry, per CNN.

    “The ministry is taking this very seriously,” a spokeswoman from the interior ministry told the outlet June 23. “Toxicology tests are being done and the investigation is ongoing.”

    Officials did not share what was in the syringes, but told The Guardian that they have opened an investigation after three people—including a 15-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy—were all jabbed in separate locations of Paris. (All three reported feeling unwell after the alleged attack.)…

  428. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Cell – Manufacture and use of allogrooming tools by wild killer whales

    We observed whales fashioning short lengths of bull kelp […] and then rolling the kelp along [partners’] bodies.
    […]
    Whales fashion lengths of kelp stipe [(stem)] […] by using their teeth to grab a kelp stalk by the narrow end of the stipe near the holdfast [(root)]. They then use the kelp’s drag, the motion of their body and their teeth to separate a short length of the kelp stipe. […] the whale will then approach a partner, flip the length of kelp onto their rostrum [(forehead)], and press their head and the kelp against their partner’s flank. The two whales then maneuver to keep the kelp between them while rolling it across their bodies.
    […]
    Social skin maintenance (e.g. flipper-to-body contact to remove dead skin) has been reported in cetaceans; however, tool use for this purpose has not been documented in this taxon. Reports of tool-assisted allogrooming are largely limited to primates, where observations are rare and typically occur in captivity. […] Furthermore, allokelping may be the first example of tool use in a wild animal benefiting two individuals simultaneously, and the first case of non-human animals manipulating a tool with the core of their body rather than an appendage.

  429. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    404Media – Facial recognition to instantly identify cops

    A new site, FuckLAPD.com, is using public records and facial recognition technology to allow anyone to identify police officers in Los Angeles […] who may otherwise try to conceal their identity, such as covering their badge or serial number. […] The tool allows users to upload an image of a police officer’s face to search over 9,000 LAPD headshots obtained via public record requests. The site says image processing happens on the device, and no photos or data are transmitted or saved on the site. […] potentially identifying officers by name and serial number, […] also pulls up a police officer’s salary.

  430. Reginald Selkirk says

    Common antibiotic is 99.9% effective against typhoid

    Cornell researchers have identified an antibiotic, rifampin, that is 99.9% effective against Salmonella Typhi, the bacterium that causes typhoid fever. Researchers also predict that rifampin will work on other life-threatening diseases like bacterial pneumonia and meningitis.

    Strains of S. Typhi that are resistant to multiple drugs claim over 150,000 lives globally every year. The researchers’ results, published June 4 in eBioMedicine, show that the likelihood of encountering rifampin-resistant typhoid cases is less than 1 in every 1,000 cases.
    …

    Of course that likelihood change with overuse.

  431. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hundreds Of Unsold Teslas Evicted From Detroit Parking Lot By Court Order

    A Michigan judge has kicked over 200 Teslas out of a suburban Detroit shopping center parking lot after sitting there virtually untouched for months. On June 4, 47th District Court Judge Marla Parker ordered that the owner of Hunter’s Square shopping mall in Farmington Hills had to remove the vehicles by June 25 because keeping them there was in violation of city code.

    City Manager Gary Mekjian said the Teslas were completely gone by June 19, according to Automotive News. At their peak, there were 204 Teslas being kept in that mall’s parking lot, waiting for fools to buy them. Right now, it’s not clear where the vehicles ended up being taken.
    …

  433. birgerjohansson says

    I see a lot of coverage of Pentagon leaks saying the Iran bombing raid only set back Iran some months, debunking Trump’s grandiose claims and so now he is fuming.

    If he is going to the abridged NATO meeting in that mood he might strike out and scream at everybody, or maybe throw a plate of spaghetti at the wall…

    Maybe NATO and G7 summits should avoid the ‘summit’ word and instead have the lower tier of leaders of each government meet for talks. That will keep Trump out and let the grownups work. The problem is, Trump is not delegating any real power to anyone.

  434. Reginald Selkirk says

    New theory proposes time has three dimensions, with space as a secondary effect

    Time, not space plus time, might be the single fundamental property in which all physical phenomena occur, according to a new theory by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist.

    The theory also argues that time comes in three dimensions rather than just the single one we experience as continual forward progression. Space emerges as a secondary manifestation.

    “These three time dimensions are the primary fabric of everything, like the canvas of a painting,” said associate research professor Gunther Kletetschka at the UAF Geophysical Institute. “Space still exists with its three dimensions, but it’s more like the paint on the canvas rather than the canvas itself.”

    Those thoughts are a marked difference from generally accepted physics, which holds that a single dimension of time plus the three dimensions of space constitute reality. This is known as spacetime, the concept developed more than a century ago that views time and space as one entity.

    Kletetschka’s mathematical formula of six total dimensions—of time and space combined—could bring scientists closer to finding the single unifying explanation of the universe…

    … or not.

  435. birgerjohansson says

    The misunderstanding of supercells tracks with his meteorological knowledge, considering he thinks nukes might stop hurricanes.
    If a British police ever mentiones a ‘supergrass’ (super-informer) to him, he will think the Brits have patches of gigantic grass.

  436. Reginald Selkirk says

    EV-Carrying Ship Sinks In Pacific Ocean After Catching Fire

    An anonymous reader quotes a report from Transport Topics:

    A ship that caught fire in the Pacific Ocean earlier this month has sunk. The vessel was abandoned in the middle of the pacific — about 360 miles from land — after a blaze. It was carrying about 3,000 vehicles of which about 800 were EVs. Damage caused by the fire was compounded by heavy weather, causing the ship to take on water and ultimately sink on June 23, the vessel’s manager, Zodiac Maritime, said in a statement on June 24.
    …

  437. John Morales says

    The headline: EV-Carrying Ship Sinks In Pacific Ocean After Catching Fire
    The body: It was carrying about 3,000 vehicles of which about 800 were EVs.

    15 ICE cars for every 4 EVs, but the headline focuses only on the EVs.

    Tsk.

  438. says

    NBC News:

    The FBI is reassigning some agents who focus on national security — and who had been pulled from their duties to work on immigration cases — back to their old jobs, out of concern over potential Iran-related threats, four people with direct knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

    New York Times:

    The Trump administration on Tuesday postponed classified briefings for members of Congress on the recent U.S. strikes against Iran, fueling outrage among Democrats that President Trump has yet to share key details of the operation with the legislative branch.

  439. says

    NBC News:

    Democrats on Tuesday elected Rep. Robert Garcia of California as their leader on the House Oversight Committee, installing a fresh, young face in one of the party’s key roles to take on President Donald Trump. It marks a rapid ascent for Garcia, 47, in only his second term in Congress.

  440. says

    MSNBC:

    In this latest case in a genre that shouldn’t exist, a “confluence of administrative errors” is what the government blamed for the illegal removal of Jordin Alexander Melgar-Salmeron to El Salvador on May 7. The problem is that the government had told the court that it “would forebear removal until May 8.” That led a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday to order the government to facilitate Melgar-Salmeron’s return “as soon as possible.”

  443. says

    Bloomberg Law:

    University of California researchers succeeded in their bid to temporarily pause hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding cuts while their class action [lawsuit] over the lost grants proceeds.

  444. says

    Active-duty troops Trump sent to LA now just getting deployed wherever

    Have you ever wondered what constitutes the “greater Los Angeles area?” Would it surprise you that the Trump administration thinks it includes the Coachella Valley, some 130 miles away?

    The Trump administration’s bogus interpretation of “greater Los Angeles” has led to California National Guard members, who have been illegally deployed by President Donald Trump, helping the Drug Enforcement Agency conduct drug busts—two hours from Los Angeles.

    In a Monday court filing, California attorneys reported National Guard members in the Coachella Valley on June 17, helping with cannabis raids. Rightly so, the attorneys said that this didn’t fall under the Trump administration’s reasons for deploying troops in Los Angeles to quell protests.

    The DEA deployed 315 National Guard members to raid cannabis farms “due to the magnitude and topography of this operation.”

    Ah, yes. The well-known “magnitude and topography” exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the president from using the military as domestic police forces. Because everybody knows that if you want to raid some big grow operations, it’s totally fine to have active-duty troops along for the ride.

    Of course, the DEA is not supposed to be able to “request” that the National Guard help with its drug busts, even if there are “magnitude and topography” challenges. But according to the DEA, since a federal judge signed search warrants for the cannabis farms, National Guard members are allowed to help. A signed warrant isn’t exactly a permission slip to send federal troops on a drug raid, but who’s going to stop this administration?

    This was inevitable after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a lower court’s ruling, which held that the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles was illegal, ordering Trump to return control to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    In fact, the Trump administration didn’t even wait for the 9th Circuit Court’s actual ruling on June 19. The mere fact that the appellate court had stayed the lower court’s ruling was enough for Trump to decide that he could deploy troops anywhere he wanted—and for whatever reason.

    The 9th Circuit Court’s ruling offers little reassurance. The panel bought the ridiculous argument that the statutory requirement that the National Guard can only be called up “through the governor” doesn’t actually mean that the governor has to consent or even be a part of it. Rather, the court decided, “through the governor” just means that the defense secretary can order the adjutant general of the Nation Guard to “issue all orders in the name of the Governor.” [FFS!]

    If that looks a lot like a permission slip for Trump to deploy National Guard troops anywhere, for any reason, without the consent of the state, that’s because it is.

    The same day that National Guard troops were helping save the world from the scourge of demon weed instead of doing whatever it is they are supposed to be doing in Los Angeles, Trump called up 2,000 more troops. Meanwhile, as peak wildfire season begins, more than half of the National Guard members who are trained to help fight fires are instead being used in Trump’s illegal deployment.

    Trump’s order said the troops were necessary to “temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property.” But it’s clear that the Trump administration reads this as allowing the use of the military in relation to any federal law or property.

    Part of the Trump administration’s justification for sending National Guard members to the Coachella Valley seems to be that the drug bust also resulted in the arrest of 70-75 undocumented immigrants. But there was no evidence of protests or unrest. No evidence that the law enforcement agencies lacked the capacity to make the arrests. Nothing.

    Now Trump is treating the troops like his own personal domestic police force, with his administration determining that there’s no limit on how long he can deploy them.

    This isn’t going to stop with California. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth already told Congress that he can deploy the National Guard anywhere he wants—not just in California. And Trump himself said weeks ago that “we’re gonna have troops everywhere.”

    Mobilizing the military on U.S. soil to act as roving law enforcement as the president sees fit is brazenly illegal. And now it’s only going to get worse.

  445. says

    Fired DOJ lawyer exposes Bondi’s blatant disregard for the law [And not just Bondi’s disregard. Other officials who work for the Department of Justice are also exposed.]

    Erez Reuveni, a top lawyer who was kicked to the curb by the Department of Justice for not defending their agenda to deport men to El Salvador without due process, has officially blown the whistle.

    The lawyer filed a 27-page report Tuesday, obtained by The New York Times, detailing the many ways in which Attorney General Pam Bondi and judicial nominee Emil Bove III have illegally dodged and intimidated others to get their way.

    […] Trump and his team outright ignored orders to stop planes that were en route to detainment centers. […] this marks the first time someone who was on the inside has spoken out about it specifically.

    In the filing, Reuveni recalls how Bove—whose nomination for circuit court judge is scheduled for Wednesday—blatantly ignored Judge James E. Boasberg’s orders to keep planeloads of immigrants on U.S. soil. Not only that, but Reuveni’s supervisor, Drew Ensign, allegedly lied to Boasberg’s face during a hearing when asked if he knew about any upcoming plans to fly immigrants to other detention centers in the next 24 to 48 hours.

    According to the report, Ensign told Boasberg, “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

    But if you ask Reuveni, the potential new circuit judge had informed him just the day before.

    “Ensign had been present in the previous day’s meeting when Emil Bove stated clearly that one or more planes containing individuals subject to the [Alien Enemies Act] would be taking off over the weekend no matter what.”

    Reuveni went on to detail how Bove and others withheld information for as long as possible from Boasberg to keep the deportation flights in the air.

    And as the former top lawyer laid out example after example showing how the administration was brazenly defying the courts, he eventually recalled how he was faced with his own ultimatum.

    In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was wrongly abducted by ICE and deported to El Salvador’s terrorism confinement center, Reuveni was tasked with defending the U.S. government’s decision to keep Garcia locked up. However, as the facts unfolded, Reuveni could not. According to his filing, he was asked by another supervisor, August Flentje, to sign testimony stating that Garcia was a terrorist. [!] Ultimately, he chose not to, which led to his firing.

    While Garcia has returned back to the U.S. and Trump’s cronies lost the fight of labeling him as a dangerous MS-13 gang member, his legal battles are still ongoing. As of Monday, a judge ordered his release for an ongoing human smuggling case—the Trump administration’s latest claim.

    However, the DOJ is threatening to deport Garcia the moment he steps outside of jail. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement obtained by CBS Monday that Garcia “will never go free on American soil.”

    Then again, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes doesn’t see a reason for all of the hostility.

    “Overall, the Court cannot find from the evidence presented that Abrego Garcia’s release clearly and convincingly poses an irremediable danger to other persons or to the community,” she wrote.

    Garcia’s case is ongoing, but he may be one of the lucky men who has seen the outside of El Salvador’s CECOT. Of the over 250 immigrants deported, so far only Garcia has been granted any sort of due process for the crimes he is accused of committing.

    Other men, such as 24-year-old Widmer Josneyder Agelviz-Sanguino, are still being held despite the only provided evidence for their imprisonment being the tattoos on their body.

  446. John Morales says

    The useless Bubbly bot at work:

    Me: tulsi turnaround re usa intelligence on iran nukes; contrast both with quotations and timestamps
    BB: Here’s a contrast of Tulsi Gabbard’s position on Iran’s nuclear program, highlighting her initial testimony and subsequent shift—along with President Trump’s public contradiction:

    🟦 March 25, 2025 – Gabbard’s Congressional Testimony

    As Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee:

    “The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”
    — Gabbard, Senate Hearing, March 25, 2025

    She also noted:

    “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”

    🟥 June 17–21, 2025 – Trump’s Rebuttal and Gabbard’s Reframing

    President Trump publicly rejected Gabbard’s assessment:

    “She’s wrong. I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.”
    — Trump, Air Force One, June 17, 2025

    In response, Gabbard posted on X:

    “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree.”
    — Gabbard, June 21, 2025

    She claimed her testimony was misrepresented:

    “The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division.”

    🔁 Summary of the Turnaround

    March: Gabbard emphasized Iran was not building a weapon and had no authorization to do so.
    June: After Trump’s public contradiction, she aligned with his view, stating Iran could build a weapon within weeks to months if it chose to.

  447. Reginald Selkirk says

    Exclusive-US CDC vaccine presentation cites study that does not exist, author says

    A review on the use of the preservative thimerosal in vaccines slated to be presented on Thursday to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s outside vaccine committee cites a study that does not exist, the scientist listed as the study’s author said.

    The report, called “Thimerosal as a Vaccine Preservative” published on the CDC website on Tuesday, is to be presented by Lyn Redwood, a former leader of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense.

    It makes reference to a study called “Low-level neonatal thimerosal exposure: Long-term consequences in the brain,” published in the journal Neurotoxicology in 2008, and co-authored by UC Davis Professor Emeritus Robert Berman.

    But according to Berman, “it’s not making reference to a study I published or carried out.”

    Berman said he co-authored a similarly named study in a different journal – Toxicological Sciences – that came to different conclusions than those suggested by Redwood…

  449. John Morales says

    [mild rant]

    Imagine releasing a report without validating the citations.
    That’s just routine.
    Imagine believing it!
    That’s just stupid.

    (Lyn Redwood is utterly incompetent at using AI properly, obviously, whether or not she believes it)

    —

    Yeah, this normalising and soft-pedalling of treating incompetent loonies as credible actors sometimes gets on my tits.
    The fucking implicit unwarranted deference that entails irritates me, the neutral tone that Yahoo! employs there.

    Bah.

    I know I find Wonkette and Daily Kos also irritating, but on the other end of the spectrum; by over-imputing cartoonish motivations to idiots.

    Ah well.

    —

    At least, anyone who knows to to use a chatbot can check for themself these days.

    Me: about the report by Lyn Redwood, a former leader of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense

    BB: Lyn Redwood, former president of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), is scheduled to present at a CDC vaccine advisory panel meeting on June 25–26, 2025. Her presentation focuses on thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative still used in a small percentage of multi-dose flu vaccine vials.

    Redwood, now president emerita of CHD—a group known for promoting vaccine skepticism—previously led the World Mercury Project, which later merged into CHD under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Despite overwhelming scientific consensus that thimerosal is safe in the low doses used in vaccines, Redwood and CHD have long claimed it contributes to neurodevelopmental disorders.

    The CDC, in a report released ahead of the meeting, reaffirmed that there is no evidence linking thimerosal-containing vaccines to autism or other neurodevelopmental harm. It also noted that 96% of flu vaccines in the 2024–2025 season were thimerosal-free, further minimizing exposure risk.

    Redwood’s inclusion on the panel has drawn criticism from public health experts, who worry it may lend undue legitimacy to debunked claims.

    [3 citations, including https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-cdc-report-shows-no-154929335.html which is most salient]

    —

    Seriously.

    It truly seems to me that bubble bot (CoPilot by M$) did a far better report summary (on low thinkies) than that Yahoo! article in terms of journalistic information. Of course, it’s just functioning as an aggregator here.
    But I can delve and I can query at my pleasure, and know it’s just the output of a stringing-words-together-machine.

    And for free!

  450. John Morales says

    Zygotes are full-fledged “persons” from the moment of conception, but shool children are the property of their parents.

    Property, eh?

    How much is a school-child worth? How much with siblings?

    Any guarantees regarding a defective product?

    Is there a futures market? Are they refundable?

    (So many questions! ;)

  451. JM says

    Independent: MTG suggests link between JFK’s assassination and opposition to Israel’s ‘nuclear program’

    Firebrand Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sparked renewed controversy Tuesday after insinuating that former President John F. Kennedy was assassinated because he opposed Israel’s nuclear ambitions.
    “There was once a great President that the American people loved. He opposed Israel’s nuclear program. And then he was assassinated,” the MAGA Georgia congresswoman posted on X, defending her criticism of President Donald Trump’s Iran nuclear sites strike.

    Just a reminder that MTG’s opposition to the US getting into the current round of middle east conflict isn’t a rational position. She doesn’t have a moral opposition to war or has made an analysis of the cost/reward of the conflict. She is an isolationist and conspiracy theorist.
    Just putting that out there because she has sounded surprisingly reasonable opposing Trump involving the US in conflict vs Iran.

  452. John Morales says

     Oh, right.
     As a sometime snarky type, I have to incline my head in respect to Mr Sarcastic:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVJDzKZFRzU

    Bodybuilding Is Under Attack
     by Renaissance Periodization

     0:00 Bodybuilding Under Attack
     0:50 The Mass Monster – Tren
     5:50 All Male Echo Chamber
     10:11 Digital Radicalizer
     14:10 Lift Weights Storm the Capital
     17:52 Guys Lift For the Guys
     19:19 Where We’re Left

  453. John Morales says

    “Just putting that out there because she has sounded surprisingly reasonable opposing Trump involving the US in conflict vs Iran.”

    Hm.

    https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-iran/
    “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) deleted a post on X that accused President Donald Trump of a “bait and switch” of his MAGA base.

    “I spent millions of my own money and TRAVELED THE ENTIRE COUNTRY campaigning for President Trump and his MAGA agenda and his promises,” Greene said on Monday. “And Trump’s MAGA agenda included these key promises: NO MORE FOREIGN WARS. NO MORE REGIME CHANGE. WORLD PEACE.”

    “And THIS is what the people voted for,” she continued. “Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war 3.”

    “It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates.”

    Minutes later, the post had been removed from her personal X account.”

    —

    I’m almost tempted to ask BB whether it’s kabuki or kayfabe, but I can overcome that temptation.

    Anyway. Technically, she is a vertebrate, I can’t dispute that.

  454. Militant Agnostic says

    Calgary’s Community Court for poverty based bylaw offences offers help instead of punishment.

    The diversion-style court connects vulnerable Calgarians facing bylaw tickets with supports and services. When they “graduate” the program, their tickets and fines are withdrawn.

  455. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    USAToday – Zohran Mamdani pulls off NYC Democratic mayoral upset. Andrew Cuomo concedes

    33-year-old state Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani has outperformed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the June 24 Democratic New York City primary for mayor. Mamdani leads Cuomo 44% to 36% among first-place votes […] While the outcome won’t be official until the instant runoff conducted with ballots that rank up to five choices is announed in July, Cuomo conceded
    […]
    Mamdani’s lead is likely to grow in the instant runoff, because in polls he had far more lower-ranked votes than Cuomo from supporters of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who came in third with 11% of first-place votes. The Democratic nominee will begin the general election as the favorite in the overwhelmingly Democratic city.

    Cuomo, 67, and Mamdani, 33, represented ideological poles in the 11-candidate field, with ex-governor—a centrist who appointed many Republicans to his administration—on its right, and Democratic Socialists of America-member Mamdani on its left. Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim mayor and its first Asian American mayor.

    While Cuomo pledged to hire more police and increase private housing construction, Mamdani excited progressives with promises to freeze rents in regulated apartments and make buses free.
    […]
    A Super PAC backing Cuomo spent $24 million, much of it raised from Trump donors […] Winning would have been a startling resurrection for Cuomo, a three-term governor who resigned in 2021 amid scandals including covering up nursing home deaths and numerous allegations of sexual harassment

    Cuomo was endorsed by George Santos, days before reporting to prison.

    Rando 1: “I’ll be honest: I wasn’t all that into Zorhan Mamdani. But when the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Bill Clinton came out against him, I realized he’s absolutely the right choice.”

    Chris Hayes: “Really can’t overstate how many anti-Mamdani ads were running on local networks over the last week. Basically constant.”

    Rando:

    There really is something special about what Zohran and Brad are showing the rest of the world: what it still means to be a New Yorker and an American.

    A Jew and a Muslim modeling a politics of mutual respect, rejecting cynicism. Human decency has been taking a beating but she’s not out just yet!

    It is neither necessary nor inevitable that we split into weird little gated paranoid ethnostates! Multiracial democracy is still very much a thing with lots of people who believe in it!

    Zohran and Brad cross endorsed, telling their own supporters to rank the other second in preference, so whoever gets dropped for being last will distribute secondary votes to help the other beat Cuomo.

    ‪Eric Columbus‬:

    tonight only first-choice votes will be counted. The ranked-choice voting tabulation will not be run until next Tuesday.

    Rando 2: So the result will not be announced tonight but next tuesday?

    Correct. Unless someone wins a majority in the first round (almost certain not to happen). The first-choice votes might or might not give us a good sense of who will win.

  456. birgerjohansson says

    Zohran Mamdani has showed Democrats are weary of the traditional party leadership.

  457. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – ‘Big Balls’ no longer works for the US government
    Previously DOGE, then at GSA for a month, 19yo Edward Coristine is gone.

    Commentary

    Sacked.

    DOGE neutered after Big Balls’ removal.

    Took his balls and went home, did he?

    Big Balls turns blue over pink slip.

    Big Balls dropped during historic heat wave.

    They won’t have Big Balls to kick around anymore.

    Reentering the private sector.

    Huge news today: Big Balls Out. Also, Big Balls Out.
    [Hurdler Wins 400-Meter Race Despite…]

  458. StevoR says

    Just linked in another thread but hope its okay to put here too – apologies if not :

    The Trump administration is rolling back decades-old protections for nearly 60 million acres of National Forest. The rule had prevented logging, mining and road-building in designated areas across more than 40 states. The new changes would open those sites, about a third of national forest land, up for development. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Kirk Siegler of NPR.

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/white-house-set-to-roll-back-protections-for-nearly-60-million-acres-of-national-forests

  464. JM says

    AP: A whirlwind 48 hours: How Trump’s Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement came together

    In a 48-hour whirlwind, President Donald Trump veered from elated to indignant to triumphant as his fragile Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement came together, teetered toward collapse and ultimately coalesced.

    Despite violations by both sides a truce is holding right now and the two sides are negotiating second hand. How long it holds is an open question.

    Less than 48 hours later, Trump took to his social media platform to announce that a “Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” had been achieved.

    Trump wants the raid to have been 100% successful and to have stopped the conflict. If he can make this hold he can make his push for a peace prize. He shouldn’t get it because it’s a conflict he is largely responsible for creating.

    Not long before Trump’s announcement, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to social media to declare that Iran wouldn’t surrender. It was unclear what role Khamenei, the ultimate authority in the Islamic Republic’s theocracy, had in the deal.
    And Netanyahu was silent. He would wait more than eight hours after Trump’s announcement to confirm that Israel had accepted the ceasefire and that it had achieved its war goals against Iran.

    That is about the best agreement that could be hoped for given the two sides. Everybody has reasons to abide by the truce over the short term but getting Iran to agree is still going to be a challenge. If negotiations to get something on paper drag out too long it may fall apart.

  465. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all Chris Hayes

    ‘I feel betrayed’: ICE beat and detained his father. Now this Marine is speaking out.
    Video is 7:17 minutes

    MAGA demands Nobel Peace Prize for Trump after bombing Iran
    Video is 9:33 minutes

    New reporting: How Fox News influenced Trump’s decision to strike Iran
    Video is 6:40 minutes

    ‘I have the Trump antibodies’: GOP rep on why he’s defying Trump over Iran
    Video is 12:49 minutes

  466. JM says

    AP: How US adults’ views on same-sex marriage have changed since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling

    For years, it looked as though the United States was steadily climbing toward a consensus on same-sex marriage. But 10 years after the Supreme Court ruled that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the split between Republicans and Democrats on the issue is wider than it’s been in decades.

    The jump is because of a sudden drop in Republican support. Dropping from 55% to 41% support in the last few years. This shift is because of dropping support among Republicans over 50.
    The article doesn’t get into why but the connection in the timing between the down turn and over turning Row vs Wade is highly suspicious. I believe at least some of the Republicans shifted when there was suddenly a credible chance of stopping gay marriage.

  467. KG says

    Property is stuff that is owned. Can be bought and sold.

    So, yeah, a market value. – John Morales@462

    Wrong twice. First, it is only in certain cultures that anything that is owned can be bought and sold. Second, many things that I own, and could legally sell, nonetheless have no market value in that no-one is going to want to buy them. The used tissues in my waste basket, for example. The empty biro on my desk. The small piece of paper from my dentist, giving the dates and times of two appointments. In fact, I may well own more things without market value than with it. I’m afraid capitalism has eaten your soul, John!

  468. says

    Overlapping problems create uncertainty over the future of the Republican megabill

    “Donald Trump has said the GOP is united behind the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The truth for Republicans isn’t nearly that simple.”

    Related video at the link.

    A month after House Republicans barely approved the party’s domestic agenda megabill — the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act — GOP leaders still believe they’re on track to have the far-right legislation on Donald Trump’s desk by July 4. To make that happen, however, the Republican-led Senate will have to pass its version of the reconciliation package this week.

    That would likely be easier if GOP senators actually had a finished version of the bill, but as of this writing, they do not. Politico summarized the landscape this week:

    Republicans are running into a major issue as they try to finalize their sweeping domestic-policy bill: arithmetic. With just days until Senate GOP leaders want to start voting, they have been hit with a mathematical double-whammy: Tax writers are proposing a package that’s hundreds of billions of dollars more costly than what House Republicans have proposed, while senators struggle to finalize a larger package of spending cuts to offset it.

    That’s true, but those aren’t the only challenges standing in the way of the partisan endeavor. In fact, the overlapping problems have created some meaningful uncertainty about the future of the bill — or at a minimum, the party’s preferred timeline.

    As things stand, Republicans are basically confronting five problems:
    1. GOP numbers aren’t adding up: The Congressional Budget Office concluded last week that the House version of the package would add $3.4 trillion to the national debt, and this week, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that proposed Senate changes would add an additional $400 billion to the price tag.

    2. The Byrd bath: Because Republicans are relying on the budget reconciliation process, which prevents Democrats from derailing the bill with a filibuster, GOP lawmakers are having to subject the legislation to a complex process — which includes having the Senate parliamentarian remove provisions that run afoul of certain budgetary rules. This process is known as the “Byrd bath,” named after the late Democratic Sen. Bob Byrd of West Virginia.

    In recent days, several key measures have already been stricken from the bill, including elements the party was counting on to help GOP numbers add up. This has caused a behind-the-scenes scramble that has not yet been resolved. [See comment 361]

    3. Far-right House Republicans think the Senate’s approach isn’t conservative enough: As The New York Times reported, “Some conservatives in the House only grudgingly voted for the legislation the first time, arguing that it did not go far enough in cutting spending, including on Medicaid. They agreed to support the package only after securing what they characterized as commitments from their Senate colleagues to enact deeper cuts and fix the measure. Now, those House Republicans regard the bill taking shape in the Senate, which party leaders hope to push through within days, as even worse.”

    4. House Republicans from competitive districts think the Senate’s approach is too conservative: As NBC News reported, “On Tuesday, 16 House Republicans — almost all representing competitive districts — sent a letter rebelling against the Senate’s Medicaid cuts. They fretted that those policies would ‘place additional burdens on hospitals,’ among other things.”

    5. The entire effort is unpopular. I mean, really unpopular. Republican officials have been working on this for roughly eight months, and talking up how great their plan is, but at least for now, the American mainstream isn’t buying what the GOP is selling, which puts added pressure on members worried about their re-election prospects.

    Given the scope of the intraparty disagreements, it’s not yet clear how, when or whether Republicans will work out their differences, and given the narrow margins in both chambers, the margin of error for party leaders is small. That said, if recent history is any guide, most, if not all, of the GOP members expressing skepticism about the legislation can be expected to cave after a couple of angry phone calls and tweets from the president.

  469. says

    Democrats slam McConnell over ‘they’ll get over it’ quip on Medicaid cuts

    If you thought Joni Ernst’s “we all are going to die” comments were a problem, the former Senate majority leader made the problem worse.

    As the Senate moves forward with plans to vote on the party’s domestic policy megabill — the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act — there are a handful of GOP members who haven’t said yet how they intend to vote on the legislation. Take Sen. Thom Tillis, for example.

    As NBC News reported, the North Carolina Republican this week circulated a document to his GOP colleagues during a closed-door meeting “outlining how the Medicaid provisions in their sweeping domestic policy bill could hurt states, particularly red ones.” Tillis’ concerns are rooted in reality: His party’s proposed reconciliation package intends to impose brutal cuts to the Medicaid program, and GOP strongholds are among the states poised to suffer most.

    At the same intraparty meeting, according to Punchbowl News, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former Republican leader, gave a short speech saying “failure is not an option” on the bill, before reportedly adding, “I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid. But they’ll get over it.”

    As NOTUS reported soon after, Democrats wasted no time in pouncing on the apparent rhetoric.

    ‘That’s apparently the closing message from Senate Republicans before they vote to take away health care from millions of Americans — all to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Unbelievable,’ Sen. Chris Van Hollen wrote on X. ‘These Medicaid cuts will kick 16 million Americans off their health care, close rural hospitals—forcing people to drive hours just to see their doctor—and gut funding for long term care for our seniors. No Sen McConnell, our people will not ‘get over it,’’ Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear wrote.

    There’s no recording of McConnell’s comment at the meeting, so it’s impossible to get a sense of the context, but the Kentucky Republican’s office hasn’t denied that he said it. Rather, a McConnell spokesperson told Punchbowl that the senator “was speaking about the people who are abusing Medicaid — the able-bodied Americans who should be working.”

    Or put another way, the party is cutting Medicaid, despite protestations to the contrary, and the Americans who will lose their health security are just freeloaders who’ll simply “get over it.”

    […] “‘They’ll get over it’ ‘We are all going to die,’” Sen. Ruben Gallego wrote online. “Republicans don’t care if you die as long as they get their billionaire tax cuts.”

    McConnell, it’s worth emphasizing, has said he’ll retire next year after a lengthy career on Capitol Hill, which means he need not worry about facing a backlash from voters. Tillis, however, will be on the 2026 ballot, as will some of his Republican colleagues, as well as every member of the GOP-led House.

    If these lawmakers work from the assumption that the American public will “get over” health care cuts to fund tax breaks for the wealthy, they are taking an enormous risk with their own careers, among other things.

  471. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 469

    “They will get over it / We are all going to die” should be repeated over and over again on TV ads, alongside clips of Orange Dude saying he is for peace/ will bring down cost for groceries/ bring down inflation.

  472. says

    Incoherent Trump on full display:

    […] Pressed on the efficacy of the mission and the accuracy of the intelligence, Trump said, “The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says we don’t know. It could have been very severe. That’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct. But I think we can take the ‘we don’t know.’ It was very severe. It was obliteration.”

    The first part of his answer was at odds with the second. The intelligence can’t be conclusive and inconclusive at the same time. If Trump wants to say that it’s too early to have a firm understanding of the strikes’ success, fine. But when he simultaneously declares that the U.S. doesn’t know for sure whether Iran’s nuclear sites were obliterated, and that Iran’s nuclear sites were obliterated, his assertions become plainly unbelievable.

    Soon after, at the same event, Trump said that U.S. intelligence officials “really don’t know” the full extent of what happened to the Iranian targets, before adding moments later, “I believe it was total obliteration.”

    Or put another way, according to the American president, U.S. intelligence officials don’t know, but he does know.

    [Trump] went on to condemn several American news organizations as “scum,” presumably because they reported that Trump misled the public when he exaggerated the success of the operation — reporting that the president more or less confirmed when he said “we don’t know” whether the mission was a complete success, while simultaneously saying the opposite.

    Even by Trump standards, this has become bizarre. […]

    Trump has earned a reputation for dishonesty, recklessness and expressing indifference to his own country’s intelligence. The story of the Iranian strikes he approved has quickly reached the point at which Trump is checking all of these boxes at the same time.

    Link

  473. birgerjohansson says

    Myself @ 470

    Online trolls who harass and drive vulnerable people to suicide… I have A LOT I want to say about the vermin, but Lynna would be obliged to ban me a dozenfold (“Jigsaw” references / Terminator references / nuke them from orbit references).

  476. JM says

    Bloomberg law: DOJ Sues Judges Over Order Against Quick Removals of Migrants

    The Trump administration sued all of the judges on the Maryland federal trial court over a standing order that prevented the government from deporting a person for two business days after a habeas challenge is filed.

    The Justice Department alleged in a Tuesday complaint that the order, signed by Chief Judge George L. Russell III in May, is a “particularly egregious example of judicial overreach interfering with Executive Branch prerogatives.”

    I wasn’t even aware that this was an option.
    The case itself seems very much a Trump defense lawyer filing. They pick up on one bit of the original order and try to lever that into getting rid of the order entirely. It isn’t an argument likely to win, it’s designed to delay enforcement and gum up the courts.

  477. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @474 birgerjohansson: Context for that.

    Man ‘refused entry into US’ as border control catch him with bald JD Vance meme

    “They took me to a room with several armed guards, where I had to hand over my shoes, mobile phone and backpack.” Officers quizzed Mads about his visit, and his plans, before adopting a personal line of questioning. “They asked direct questions about drug smuggling, terrorist plans and right-wing extremism, completely without reason,” he claimed. “They demanded full information about everyone I was going to meet in the US, including name, address, phone number and what they did for work.”
    […]
    “They threatened me with a minimum fine of $5,000 or five years in prison if I refused to provide the password to my phone.” After handing over his password, Mads was told he would not be allowed to go through with his planned vacation after two images were not to the officers’ liking. One image was of a meme showcasing JD Vance with a bald, egg-shaped head. […] The other picture showed Mads with a wooden pipe which he had made years prior.
    […]
    Mads […] tried to explain the images as being harmless and meant as jokes but the immigration authorities ignored his pleas. He claims he was then strip-searched, forced to give blood samples, a facial scan and fingerprints. […] [“]They were incredibly harsh and used physical force the whole time,” he claimed.

  478. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @476 JM:

    Kel McClanahan (National Security Counselors):

    This is so procedurally weird. The Executive Branch suing a court isn’t unprecedented; in fact, one of the most impactful natsec cases was officially called U.S. v. U.S. District Court. (You may know it as the “Keith” case because it involved Judge Damon Keith.)

    But that happened AT THE CIRCUIT. At the district court level it was just a regular case. It only became Executive Branch vs. Judicial Branch when DOJ filed a case with the circuit seeking mandamus against the district judge. (Mandamus means tell him to do the thing we want.) It was never a district court case against judges.
    —
    [Reporter Jason Leopold] filed a district court case against the DC District Court CLERK’S OFFICE over how warrant applications were handled, but even that wasn’t against every judge and every office. Because of that, one judge could hear it.
    —
    This seems like someone at DOJ is trying to fast track a “Keith-like” case to SCOTUS but they’re not really sure how to do it procedurally, so they’re just throwing a bunch of similar shit at the wall. Maybe they had AI write this?

  479. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Adding to #477.

    Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR): “[Bald JD Vance image]”

    Ivana Bacik holds up meme of bald baby JD Vance in the Dáil [Irish Parliament]

    Bacik used the prop to illustrate her frustration at the United States’ recent clampdown on international visas […] Earlier this week, the US announced that future applicants looking to visit the country will be required to divulge “all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last five years” on their visa application form. They are also required to set their social media profiles to public.
    […]
    “A meme depicting Vice President JD Vance as a baby. I mean, extraordinary. Extraordinary that a young person with this amusing meme on their phone, depicting a public person, that this would be used as an excuse to detain him for five hours and then deport him back to Oslo.”
    […]
    the US Customs and Border Protection has since stated that the tourist was denied entry because of his “admitted drug use”. In a post on X, the organisation said it was not for any memes or political reasons.

    USAToday – Officials refute claim that tourist was denied entry over JD Vance meme

    upon questioning by authorities, he admitted to having tried marijuana once in Germany and once in Mexico, but that he didn’t feel it was relevant because it was legal in both places. It’s also legal in nearly half of the U.S., but not at the federal level.

  480. says

    Trump expresses interest in rolling back the clock and bring back the ‘Department of War’

    Would the president change the “Department of Defense” back to the “Department of War”? He sounds increasingly serious about the idea.

    Donald Trump and his team have been fixated in recent months on renaming things. From the Gulf of Mexico to the USNS Harvey Milk, from Veterans Day to the Persian Gulf […]

    Evidently, we can add the name of one of the nation’s oldest departments to the list. USA Today reported:

    President Donald Trump suggested changing the name of Defense Department back to its pre-World War II moniker as the War Department, after the success in bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. ‘You know it used to be called secretary of war,’ Trump told reporters June 25 at the conclusion of a NATO meeting in the Netherlands. ‘Maybe for a couple of weeks we’ll call it that because we feel like warriors.’

    [Trump] did not appear to be kidding. In fact, at his NATO press conference, the American president referred to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth as the “secretary of war” and reflected on the title that hasn’t existed in a few generations. Trump added, “[I]t used to be ‘secretary of war’; then we became politically correct. ‘Secretary of defense,’ maybe we’ll have to start thinking about changing it.” [video]

    While it’s true that the United States had a Department of War, which was renamed in the years following World War II, it’s also worth noting how absurd his interpretation of modern history is. Kevin Kruse, a historian at Princeton University, sarcastically explained via Bluesky, “Yeah, when historians discuss the National Security Act of 1947, we absolutely stress how the centralization of American military power under the new Department of Defense at the dawn of the Cold War was all about being ‘politically correct.’”

    But while Trump’s understanding of the relevant details is obviously wrong, I don’t think this was just an offhand thought for him. [I snipped a past example.]

    […] roughly 12 hours later when Hegseth published an unscientific poll via social media, asking whether “Department of War” would be a “better name.”

    People were invited to vote on whether the department should keep its current name or go back to its old one. (As of this writing, the latter was ahead with 54% support.)

    Musk weighed in soon after, arguing that it would be “more accurate” to call it the Department of War.

    That wasn’t altogether true — many of the military’s missions are unrelated to combat […]

    It was against this backdrop that Trump returned to the subject again at the NATO summit, three months after first broaching the subject in public.

    I’m not making any predictions about the White House’s next moves, especially given Trump’s limited attention span, but if he actually tries to roll back the clock on the department’s name — because, as the president put it, he and his team “feel like warriors” — no one should say we weren’t warned.

  481. says

    WTF?

    National Science Foundation to Be Requisitioned as Mansion for HUD Secretary (And Also HUD Office)

    I’m still trying to find out more about this. But as I do, I just wanted to put it on your radar because it’s completely crazy and epitomizes the Trump presidency. The National Science Foundation is already in the process of being gutted — in perhaps a not quite as drastic way as its peer biomedical agencies such as NIH and elsewhere. But out of the blue yesterday, word emerged that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is taking over the NSF’s building, evicting all of its more than 1,800 employees.

    Multiple NSF employees leaked word of this yesterday to journalist Dan Garisto. After Garisto reported the information on Bluesky, I independently got word of this from NSF employees and now it’s been officially announced at a press conference by HUD Secretary Scott Turner, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and GSA Commissioner Michael Peters.

    Adding to the wildness, the top floors of the building are, according to the AFGE Local 3403, going to be retrofitted into a kind of executive mansion for HUD Secretary Turner, including an executive suite, executive dining room, reserved parking for the Secretary’s five cars, exclusive use of an entire elevator, special space for his various assistants and a planned gym for the Secretary and his family.

    Turner wouldn’t be the only Secretary with nice office space. But this does sound like it’s on the extreme end of the spectrum. Equally eye-catching, there appears to be no plan for where the NSF staff will go.

    Word leaked out yesterday and then, according to Alexandria Now, the NSF staff received a memo this morning from their acting director saying the GSA (basically now an appendage of DOGE) had decided that they weren’t fully making use of their office space so they were giving it to HUD instead. […]

    Obviously this is part of the general Trump administration attack on science funding and American universities. But, as one NSF staffer told me, this particular story is likely less a matter of White House policy than the chaos and vacuum created by the DOGE storm. Apparently there are problems with the HUD building and Turner thought NSF had a pretty nice building … and, well, that’s it. He wanted it and he got it.

    As I said, I’m still trying to find out more about this story. […]

  482. John Morales says

    KG @467: First, it is only in certain cultures that anything that is owned can be bought and sold.

    Yes, and we know the specific culture at hand.
    Proposition: “A West Virginia parent sues seeking a religious exemption from required school vaccinations
    Zygotes are full-fledged “persons” from the moment of conception, but shool children are the property of their parents.”

    The corollary is that since West Virginia in in the USA, then USA property law applies to property therein, which vitiates this weak objection.

    Second, many things that I own, and could legally sell, nonetheless have no market value in that no-one is going to want to buy them.

    They still remain your property (you’re not in West Virginia in in the USA, right? ;) and so, regardless of how desirable it is to others, it is subject to property law in that jurisdiction.

    So your second and weaker objection is just an irrelevance.

    I’m afraid capitalism has eaten your soul, John!

    heh heh heh. Must be that.

    Wait! I’m not in West Virginia in in the USA, so, no.
    Children are not property, here. I can say that with certitude.

    —

    Basically, it’s a bullshit claim, and it’s hardly being pedantic to point out claiming children are property in West Virginia in in the USA is not a true claim.

    I can tell you in South Africa, it is not the case, too:
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/29/south-african-woman-kelly-smith-given-life-sentence-for-trafficking-six-year-old-daughter-joshlin-smith

  483. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    David Bier (Cato Institute):

    New data show that ICE is pulling record numbers of people off the streets who have no criminal convictions of any kind. This is not just a change from the Biden admin. This is a radical tactical shift compared to Trump 1.0. These arrests are up over 1,000% from 2017. [Chart, from ICE data]

    This refers to at-large arrests. People not detained by any other law enforcement so ICE is out there grabbing them literally off the streets.

    ICE is nabbing far more noncriminals off the streets than people with criminal convictions: four times more. In early June, overall, 71% of ICE arrests were of people without a criminal conviction, 69% of those booked into detention had no criminal conviction.

    If we look at people without criminal convictions OR any pending charge, there has been a staggering increase since May, when Stephen Miller explicitly told ICE to focus on noncriminals and deprioritize criminals.

    For the first time ever, ICE is holding nearly 12,000 people who have no criminal convictions or criminal charges in squalid overcrowded deportation centers. […] less than 6% had a violent criminal conviction. Every DHS official claims this is who they are targeting.
    […]
    ICE doesn’t care about public safety. How do we know? People inside the agency are explicitly saying that they don’t care about public safety.

    ICE agents told the conservative New York Post, “All that matters is numbers, pure numbers. Quantity over quality.” ICE sources told the Post that it is “leading them to leave some dangerous criminal illegal migrants on the streets and instead look for anyone they can get their hands on at the local Home Depot or bus stop.”

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “Pause for a moment to process this; ICE is arresting literally 1,100% more immigrants with no criminal records than in his first term.”
     
    CBS – ICE holding a record 59,000 immigrant detainees, nearly half with no criminal record, internal data show

    On Monday, June 23, ICE’s detention level was—on paper at least—at over 140% capacity, since Congress last allocated 41,500 detainee beds for the agency
    […]
    47% […] lack a criminal record and fewer than 30% have been convicted of crimes […] Over 70% of the detainees in ICE custody were arrested in the U.S. interior

     
    Atlantic – The Self-Deportation Psyop

    “If you are here illegally, you’re next,” Noem said into the camera. She seemed to imply that anyone who doesn’t use CBP Home will go straight to the Gulag. “You will never return,” Noem said. “But if you register using our CBP Home app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.”
    […]
    But a senior administration official told me that more than 7,000 people have signed up so far, and of those, more than 3,000 have confirmed departures using the app. Use of the app is growing fast, but that’s still fewer than than the number of people ICE officers arrest over an average three-day period. The administration is trying to scare migrants into leaving while expecting their trust and personal information on the way out.
    […]
    DHS has sweetened the offer with a $1,000 “exit bonus” payment to approved participants, along with subsidized airfare and temporary protection from ICE enforcement. The government says it will even provide free rides to the airport. […] any migrant without a criminal record who has been “illegally present” in the United States—”for an hour, a month, or 50 years,” the government says.
    […]
    Miller came up with the idea of rebranding the much-maligned CBP app […] The political symbolism&mdsah;using the app to subtract immigrants, rather than schedule their entry—was irresistible.
    […]
    Trump has introduced additional bureaucratic coercions to get more people to leave: $998-a-day fines for migrants who are “illegally present,” and potential criminal penalties for those who fail to provide the government with their personal information and whereabouts through a new “registry.” Fines will be waived for CBP Home users who self-deport, ICE says.
    […]
    I checked with half a dozen or so immigration attorneys to see if they have clients considering the administration’s offer. No takers yet, they said.
    […]
    DHS is telling migrants that voluntary departure through CBP Home may improve their “future immigration options.” Trump officials have not said what that means. Immigrant advocates say it sounds like a ruse […] The DHS official I spoke with said there is no formal mechanism to reward a visa applicant who previously registered a departure through CBP Home, though their decision would be viewed favorably during the review process.
    […]
    the government has no immediate plans to increase the $1,000 exit bonus […] The average cost to arrest, detain, and deport someone is $17,121 […] DHS says it uses a geolocation feature in CBP Home to confirm that someone is at least three miles outside the United States before they’re eligible to receive the payment.
    […]
    the president’s deportation goal [is] 1 million people a year. [ICE] has carried out about 125,000 deportations since Trump took office.

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “These are pretty pathetic numbers for Trump.”

  484. John Morales says

    Kinda sad circular irony here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/25/people-dead-injured-in-kenyan-protests

    “At least 16 people have been killed and 400 injured in Kenya as a nationwide demonstration to honour those killed during last year’s anti-government protests turned chaotic, with police clashing with protesters in different parts of the country.

    Amnesty Kenya’s executive director, Irũngũ Houghton, said the death toll had been verified by the government-funded Kenya national commission on human rights. “Most were killed by police,” he said.

    A joint statement from groups supporting the protests said 83 people were seriously injured and at least eight people were being treated for gunshot wounds.

    “We pray for our nation, dialogue and a way forward from the political impasse facing Kenya,” said the statement from the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), the Police Reforms Working Group and the Kenya Medical Association.”

    (Hopefully it’s not gonna become a yearly tradition)

  486. John Morales says

    Makes sense to me:
    https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/417644/ai-chatgpt-ocd-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-chatbots

    ChatGPT and OCD are a dangerous combo

    For people with OCD, reassurance can be harmful. ChatGPT provides an infinite supply.

    Millions of people use ChatGPT for help with daily tasks, but for a subset of users, a chatbot can be more of a hindrance than a help.

    Some people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are finding this out the hard way.

    On online forums and in their therapists’ offices, they report turning to ChatGPT with the questions that obsess them, and then engaging in compulsive behavior — in this case, eliciting answers from the chatbot for hours on end — to try to resolve their anxiety.

    “I’m concerned, I really am,” said Lisa Levine, a psychologist who specializes in OCD and who has clients using ChatGPT compulsively. “I think it’s going to become a widespread problem. It’s going to replace Googling as a compulsion, but it’s going to be even more reinforcing than Googling, because you can ask such specific questions. And I think also people assume that ChatGPT is always correct.”

    (Well, it’s just a bubble. It shall surely pop any time now; no need to adjust your life)

  488. John Morales says

    FWIW, I just checked how unusual USA having a go in the Middle East has been since the Carter administration, given the region is what it is. Bubbly Bot is convenient.

    Sez it:

    Here’s a streamlined chronological list of major U.S. military interventions in the Middle East and North Africa since Operation Eagle Claw (April 1980), organized by presidential administration:

    Jimmy Carter (1977–1981)
    – Operation Eagle Claw – Failed Iran hostage rescue mission (April 1980)

    Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)
    – Lebanon intervention – Multinational Force deployment (1982–1984)
    – Operation El Dorado Canyon – Airstrikes on Libya (April 1986)

    George H. W. Bush (1989–1993)
    – Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm – Gulf War against Iraq (1990–1991)
    – No-fly zones over Iraq (initiated 1991)

    Bill Clinton (1993–2001)
    – Operation Desert Fox – Bombing campaign against Iraq (December 1998)
    – Continued enforcement of no-fly zones in Iraq (1993–2001)

    George W. Bush (2001–2009)
    – Invasion of Afghanistan (October 2001)
    – Invasion of Iraq (March 2003)
    – Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (2002 onward)

    Barack Obama (2009–2017)
    – Intervention in Libya – NATO-led air campaign (March–October 2011)
    – Operation Inherent Resolve – Anti-ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria (from 2014)
    – Drone strikes and special ops in Yemen, Somalia

    Donald Trump (2017–2021)
    – Missile strikes on Syria – In response to chemical attacks (April 2017, April 2018)
    – Assassination of Qasem Soleimani – Iranian general killed in Iraq (January 2020)
    – Continued anti-ISIS operations

    Joe Biden (2021–present)
    – Airstrikes in Syria and Iraq – Targeting Iranian-backed militias (2021–2023)
    – Support for Israel – Military deployments and air defense during Iran-Israel escalation (2024–2025)
    – Strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen – Red Sea shipping protection (2024–2025)

    Let me know if you want this filtered by region (e.g. Levant vs Gulf), type (air vs ground), or legal basis (UN vs unilateral).

  489. John Morales says

    [Joe Biden (2021–present) is cute — clearly, it needs work — but those actions are all real]

  490. Reginald Selkirk says

    Fraudster jailed for selling fake ‘Scottish-grown tea’

    A fraudster who tricked luxury hotels and stores into buying “Scottish-grown tea” that was actually from abroad has been jailed for three and a half years.

    Thomas Robinson also conned aspiring tea growers by selling them plants he claimed had been “specially engineered” to grow in Scotland’s climate – but in reality they had simply been bought in from Italy…

  491. Reginald Selkirk says

    Palestinian student sues Michigan school over teacher’s reaction to her refusal to stand for Pledge

    The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of a 14-year-old student who said a teacher humiliated her for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in protest of U.S. support of Israel’s war in Gaza.

    Danielle Khalaf’s teacher told her, “Since you live in this country and enjoy its freedom, if you don’t like it, you should go back to your country,” according to the lawsuit.

    Danielle, whose family is of Palestinian descent, declined to recite the Pledge over three days in January.
    …
    The ACLU and the Arab American Civil Rights League said Danielle’s First Amendment rights were violated, and the lawsuit seeks a financial award…

    This is settled law.

  492. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump Reportedly Cuts Funding for Publisher of Prestigious Nature Journals and Scientific American Magazine

    The staff break rooms within federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health may soon get a lot less interesting. According to a report from Axios, the Trump administration has canceled funding and contracts to Springer Nature, including payments for subscriptions to the company’s publications, which include the magazine Scientific American and prominent peer-reviewed research journals under the Nature portfolio.

    Per Axios, the total contract cuts amount to millions worth of funding for Springer Nature. According to data compiled via USA Spending, the open data source of federal spending information, Springer Nature currently has 19 active contracts with federal agencies, including a $5.2 million contract to provide subscriptions to the company’s portfolios of journals. Springer Nature declined to comment when contacted by Gizmodo…

  494. John Morales says

    [I accidentally posted this elsethread, but I intended for it to be here]

    This clip is informative; I make it Trump is not as mentally incompetent as is generally claimed.

    At a Nato press conference in the Netherlands, President Trump took a question from Myroslava Petsa from the BBC Ukrainian Service.
    She asked whether the US would be supplying Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine.
    Trump then asked where she was from and took an interest in her personal situation, asking whether her husband was a soldier in Ukraine, to which she said yes.
    “I wish you a lot of luck, I can see this is very upsetting to you and say hello to your husband,” he concluded.

    (https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/crl0x0y0ew3o)

    —

    Bullshittery and evasiveness and bluster and the rest, sure. Not the same thing, but.
    Also, I notice the lack of substance with negative indicators, and the non-committal nature of the response.
    * “She asked whether the US would be supplying Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine”
    * I wish you a lot of luck, quoth he.

    Anyway.
    I think too many people confuse the persona with the person, though it’s by now known it’s his shtick.

  495. John Morales says

     Not a bad take, I can hardly fault it.

     The Revolution in Military Affairs: Weapons Sales || Peter Zeihan

     Our series on the revolution in military affairs continues with the geopolitics of weapons sales.
     Why does Europe buy US weapons? And will they continue to do so?

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7-_byY7FU

  496. says

    NBC News:

    […] Trump singled out Spain for pushing against an increase in defense spending, threatening to make it pay double. ‘We’re negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We’re going to make them pay twice as much,’ the president said. ‘And I’m actually serious about that.’ NATO members agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of their GDP, but Spain declined to commit to the target.

  497. says

    NBC News:

    Some former employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who were fired, rehired and fired again this spring say they have received debt notices from the federal government to pay it back for health care coverage. Those workers also say the notices are for coverage they never had.

  498. says

    USA Today:

    President Donald Trump’s nominee to become the top U.S. general in Europe says he believes Ukraine could prevail against Russia’s more than three-year-old invasion. ‘I think Ukraine can win,’ Air Force Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich said in testimony at his June 24 Senate confirmation hearing.

  500. says

    Republicans in Congress aren’t doing much these days, opting to just let President Donald Trump do whatever he wants. That apparently frees them up to spend all their time launching investigations into the mental fitness of former President Joe Biden. And because this ongoing probe is clearly the most urgent issue facing America today, Trump has waived executive privilege for nine Biden aides. This means they will be forced to testify before Congress and answer whatever unhinged questions people like Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. James Comey come up with.

    It’s all part of Trump’s ceaseless and pathetic attempts to undo the Biden presidency. So now there are four congressional investigations into whether Biden is old. The Department of Justice also launched an investigation, at Trump’s demand, to determine whether Biden signed things with an autopen because apparently, if he did, it’s all unconstitutional? It’s not at all clear what the goal is here, save for dragging Biden’s name through the mud to support whatever unhinged conspiracy theories Congress and the DOJ are pursuing.

    Executive privilege ensures that presidents and their advisers can be candid in discussing issues without worrying that those communications will become public. This makes sense, because you do actually want a president and advisers who fully weigh multiple options and engage in frank debate. But it isn’t an absolute privilege. Congress has the power to seek information from the executive branch in the course of investigations, and since congressional Republicans are engaged in a full-court press into Biden’s mental state, they want his aides to appear before them and testify. As with Trump’s autopen theory, it’s not clear what this would achieve. Biden was president for four years, and the things he did during those four years cannot be magicked away by pretending that he wasn’t.

    It isn’t that Trump doesn’t have the power to do this. Unlike so many other things he’s doing, presidents do possess the ability to waive an assertion of executive privilege made by a former president. It’s what Biden did when the Jan. 6 committee sought White House communications related to the insurrection, calling it a “unique and extraordinary” circumstance, which, well, yes. Learning how much the president and his advisers participated in the planning of an insurrection is sort of necessary.

    The myriad investigations into Biden, on the other hand, are a nonsense sham. Nevertheless, Trump waived privilege for the Biden aides, saying there are “exceptional circumstances” because they are investigating whether Biden aides “concealed information regarding his fitness … and may have unconstitutionally exercised those powers themselves to aid in their concealment.”

    Come on.

    Unsurprisingly, Trump used to have a much more expansive view of executive privilege. He invoked it to try to prevent Congress from seeing the full Mueller report about Russian interference in the 2016 election. He tried to use it to prevent Congress from questioning former Attorney General William Barr and former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross about the Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the census.

    Even after losing the 2020 election, Trump kept trying to use executive privilege to shield his wrongdoings. In 2021, he sued the House to stop Congress from accessing White House papers about Trump’s actions and communications around Jan. 6 and to prevent the testimony of his former adviser Steve Bannon. He also claimed executive privilege to get America’s Most Malleable Judge, Aileen Cannon, to indulge his claim and appoint a special master to review the classified documents Trump illegally retained and then hid in a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.

    Executive privilege is also the basis for Trump’s refusal to even explain what the Department of Government Efficiency is. In a lawsuit brought by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics about whether DOGE is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, Trump asserted the privilege to say that even asking what kind of entity DOGE is interferes with the separation of powers. It’s a ridiculous argument, but one that the conservative majority at the Supreme Court seems fine with.

    So, to recap: Determining if Joe Biden occasionally mixed up someone’s name or used an autopen is a national security crisis that demands testimony from everyone surrounding Biden. Determining if Donald Trump worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election and his level of involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection is no big deal, and it is unfair of Congress to even ask about it. Call it executive privilege for me, but not for thee.

    Trump says executive privilege for me—but not for thee