Comments

  1. 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/2025/07/02/infinite-thread-xxxvi/comment-page-1/#comment-2271842
    The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Trump to resume efforts to dismantle the Department of Education

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/07/02/infinite-thread-xxxvi/comment-page-1/#comment-2271835
    Two-thirds of the DOJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/07/02/infinite-thread-xxxvi/comment-page-1/#comment-2271833
    Why Trump’s ‘major’ announcement on Russia sounds familiar — and falls far short

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/07/02/infinite-thread-xxxvi/comment-page-1/#comment-2271828
    Pentagon Forced to Remove Metallica Song From Video After Copyright Strike

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/07/02/infinite-thread-xxxvi/comment-page-1/#comment-2271827
    “New laws in [Texas] will silence dissent and undermine faculty authority.”

  2. says

    New Yorker link

    “Sick Children Will Be Among the Victims of Trump’s Big Bill”

    “Cuts to federal health-care spending make it harder for doctors to make the oldest promise in medicine: that we will do no harm.”

    I am in a hospital room in San Antonio, Texas, and a young mother is begging me—quietly, politely, and in front of her preschooler, whom I’ll call Dani—to make her child well enough to leave the hospital today. “We’ll do whatever Dani needs,” she says.

    “Of course,” I say.

    “But could it be today?” she asks.

    Her child has a serious infection and is not ready to go home. In fact, Dani may need surgery. The mother only wishes they could leave because Dani is uninsured: every night of hospitalization means thousands of dollars in additional costs.

    Dani used to be covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or chip, a program that—similar to Medicaid—provides health coverage to patients who can’t afford it. But a person must reënroll every year or risk losing coverage. During the pandemic, the federal government required states to automatically reënroll people in chip and Medicaid. But the requirement ended in 2023. After that, Texas set about disenrolling poor children from benefits with such cold vigor that the Biden Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services threatened to take action. According to a joint investigation by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune, more than two million Texans, most of them children and most of them eligible for Medicaid or chip, lost their coverage. Some were disenrolled because they filled out forms incorrectly or turned them in late.

    Social workers at my hospital are helping this family reënroll, but they aren’t hopeful: there are many applications under review and processing currently takes three to six months. There’s not much I can offer, as a doctor, that won’t cost them. Dani clings to their mother, crying when I approach. I lean back against the handwashing sink and listen to the mother’s worries. Eventually, Dani falls asleep. The family stays overnight, and by morning the child is in the operating room.

    What is happening to Texans is about to happen to millions of people in other states. Last week, in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful budget bill, Republicans in Congress voted to cut nine hundred and thirty billion dollars in health-care spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Medicaid and chip face large cuts, as does coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Even Medicare, which provides health care to seniors, is affected. The bill will achieve most of these savings by setting up paperwork and procedural barriers to coverage; Medicaid recipients will be expected to find work, volunteer, or attend school unless they are pregnant, parenting, or disabled. (Texas has demonstrated just how “effective” a bureaucratic barrier can be: about half of the state’s uninsured children are thought to be eligible for some form of coverage.) Experts estimate that between eleven million and seventeen million Americans will lose coverage nationwide, which they predict may lead to more than fifty thousand new preventable deaths each year. Supporters of the bill say the cuts will refocus federal funds on children, pregnant women, people with disabilities, low-income families, and seniors. This is akin to slicing up an umbrella with kitchen scissors and claiming that the cuts will help the umbrella refocus on its mission of keeping out the rain.

    One of my first patients to be affected by the disenrollment crisis was a child with epilepsy. The child’s mother discovered a lapse in Medicaid coverage when she went to the pharmacy and was asked for thousands of dollars to pay for anti-seizure medicines. She couldn’t pay, and without the medicines, my patient ended up in the emergency room. Colleagues stopped a seizure, but our care was anything but efficient. I could not safely discharge the child without the appropriate meds, and reënrollment would take months. A charity program agreed to cover the medicines, but it took days to fill prescriptions. And so a preventable seizure led to a days-long hospital stay that was both expensive and avoidable.

    […] Access to medical care is often framed in terms of the lives it saves in the moment. But programs such as Medicaid are not simply tickets into the hospital; they are also some of the most effective anti-poverty programs for children. Like the social programs that support access to food, early-childhood education, and housing, Medicaid reduces costs and prevents debt. This last point is critical. Medical expenses can plunge people into poverty. Even families with private coverage run financial risks when seeking care for their kids. […]

    Much more at the link.

  3. John Morales says

    Quite a story; https://slate.com/life/2025/07/porn-mother-daughter-revenge-law.html

    A Mother’s Revenge
    When a man posted a nude of my daughter online, I didn’t just get him back—I brought the entire revenge porn industry to its knees.

    My introduction to revenge porn came when my daughter Kayla’s email was hacked. She had taken over 100 pictures in her room, one of them topless. She’d never sent it to anyone, but she had sent it to her computer to save it through her email. Her topless picture ended up on most notorious revenge porn website, IsAnyoneUp.com. She was 24 at the time. She found out at work—one of her friends called her and told her, and she was distraught and freaked out and crying. She called me and said, “Something horrible happened, Mom,” which is something you never want to hear as a mother, because you think it’s a car accident.

    I didn’t expect revenge porn, because I’d never heard of it. But I knew enough about the internet to know that a topless picture is going to multiply and not just disappear, so I knew the photo had to come down immediately. I was pretty consumed with it from that first day. And I knew my daughter wasn’t going to be able to do this on her own. She was so distraught. When she came home from work that day, she just locked herself in a room. She was basically in the fetal position, emotionally battered. She felt violated and humiliated. She shut down her social media and didn’t answer the phone. It’s very hard to fight for yourself when you’re victimized like that.

    Hunter Moore, who ran the website, was a professional life-ruiner, as he called himself, and reveled in hate. He was all about trying to get victims to commit suicide, or to ruin their lives, to get them fired, to alert their families to the pictures. He was the moral equivalent of a bedbug.

    […]

    After I posted Hunter’s address, he said on Twitter that he was coming after me. He was going to ruin my online reputation. He was going to post my daughter’s pictures again. So then I was getting a lot of attacks from his followers. At that point, I got contacted by the underground group Anonymous. This guy who called himself Jack—it’s not his real name—said, “Don’t worry. We’re going to protect you. We’re going after him tomorrow, and we’re going to dox him.” And they did. And then Hunter became very quiet. He was clearly afraid of Anonymous, and he was clearly afraid of the FBI, but I guess he was not afraid of me.

    At that point, Hunter’s site was down, and he hadn’t started a new one. I had been talking to the head FBI agent on Hunter’s case all the time. And at one point, he stopped returning my calls. But I could read between the lines and tell what was going on. Hunter was posting things online like, “I’m buying a new computer and cell phone today.” And I was like, Yep, the FBI got his electronics! I know they did! It felt great.

    […]

    I don’t usually consider what I did to Hunter Moore revenge, because in my head, revenge seems like it’s such a negative thing. If you know anything about philosophy, I’m very utilitarian. I believe in looking at the sum of happiness, and how can we make the world happier. And by having laws against revenge porn and protecting victims, we make the world happier.

  6. John Morales says

    “If the president of the United States says there is no client list”

    Actually, he said there is.

    Here, via BB:

    Trump’s full Truth Social post from Saturday, July 12, 2025, reads:

    “They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.

    For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?

    They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands.

    Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it? They haven’t even given up on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Files.

    LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB – SHE’S GREAT!

    Let’s not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”

    This post was archived and cited across multiple outlets including Newsweek, Global News, and MSN, and marked Trump’s first “ratio” on Truth Social, with replies outnumbering likes and shares.

  7. John Morales says

    Culturally relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_SzyAZ4Rek

    Crash And Burn – The Joss Whedon Story

    He was the golden boy of Hollywood, a talented writer and director, architect of the biggest superhero movie of all time and celebrated male feminist, until it all came crashing down. This is the story of how Joss Whedon crashed and burned.

  8. John Morales says

    [nostalgia] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EajclIq5Qqk

    EXCLUSIVE: Brian May on Queen’s epic Live Aid set, Freddie’s power & the day rock shook the world

    Forty years later, Queen’s Live Aid performance still echoes as one of the greatest live moments in rock history. In an exclusive reflection, Brian May recalls the day when, with no lights, no soundcheck, and barely 20 minutes to perform, Queen delivered a set that redefined their legacy — and live performance itself. May shares how Freddie Mercury’s magnetic presence electrified Wembley and reached millions around the globe, how the band meticulously rehearsed snipped-down versions of their biggest hits, and how their stripped-back approach created a raw, unforgettable moment.

    From the thunderous crowd call of “Ayyy-oh” to the haunting quiet of “Is This the World We Created?” May offers a deeply personal, behind-the-scenes look at a day that was more than music — it was a global mission. In a world of egos and production, Queen’s finest hour was forged through simplicity, spirit, and the unshakable power of connection.

    LIVE AID AT 40

  9. John Morales says

    Dammit, I do better with LLMs than with actual people, a special subset of them aside.

    I presume upon infinity (and upon you, Lynna).

    cf. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/07/14/recovery-time/#comment-2271866

    I played with BubbleBot:

    Me: Are cats obligate carnivores?
    BB: Yes. Domestic cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they require animal-derived nutrients to survive. They cannot synthesize essential compounds like taurine, arginine, vitamin A (retinol), and arachidonic acid from plant sources. These nutrients are only available in sufficient quantities and bioavailable forms in animal tissue.

    Their digestive systems are adapted for high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets, with short intestines and limited enzymatic capacity for plant matter. Commercial cat foods typically supplement these nutrients to meet feline dietary needs.

    Me: Given that context, interpret this: “Obligate carnivores don’t have much use for pity.”
    BB: The phrase leverages irony to critique anthropomorphic moral projection. Within the context of domestic cats—species biologically reliant on animal flesh and devoid of human-style affective cognition—the notion of “pity” serves no adaptive or cognitive function. Cats do not engage moral reasoning; their behaviors, including predation, reflect physiological imperatives, not ethical deliberation. Thus, framing carnivorous necessity in terms of moral sentiment renders the attribution irrelevant—not because pity is objectively invalid, but because its semantic utility collapses outside human social contexts. The statement illustrates categorical disjunction, not just metaphor.

  12. John Morales says

    [TACO]
    Steve Rosenberg adumbrates Russian newspapers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGE5KKvEovQ

    “Trump switches to the language of threats with Moscow” – Russian paper

    Today’s Russian papers on Donald Trump’s Russia announcement: “As so often with Trump the teaser was more interesting than the main show.” “The 50 days [before tariffs are implemented] is a long time for Trump. In that time he can change his mind many times.”

    —

    Aussie news, finance summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJWfhD2Uqp8

    ASX closes on fresh record-high after China’s surprise GDP numbers | ABC NEWS

    [transcript extract — AI generated, but now it’s not AI, it’s speech-text]

    0:56 The market is quite blasé about the
    0:58 latest tariff doings of Mr. Trump. We
    1:01 saw the big spike in volatility in April
    1:03 when he first announced the tariffs
    1:05 followed by a sigh of relief as he
    1:07 paused them for 90 days. Well, the 90
    1:09 days are up and letters have gone out,
    1:11but investors don’t care. We’ll believe
    1:13 it when we see it, seems to be the
    1:15 general view.

  13. John Morales says

    Birger, if the set of headlines and titles to Meidas’ videos don’t clue you in, nothing will.

    Most recent by you: Trump DOJ RUSHES to SCOTUS on GHISLAINE CASE
    Previous one by you: OMG! Ghislaine Maxwell Goes Nuclear as Trump COVERS IT UP

    It’s always the same. Lots of caps, lots of exclamations, lots of bullshit claims.

    (Nothing burgers)

  15. birgerjohansson says

    Just in: Pam Bondi just fired her personal ethics chief.

    PEC: “don’t burn down the orphanage”.
    PB: “Your’re fired”.

  16. John Morales says

    I already read the Guardian, Birger.

    And the BBC, and the ABC, and Vox, and Slate, and Reuters, and El Pais, and many others.

    Anyway. None of that addresses my claim about Meidas Mierda:
    It’s always the same. Lots of caps, lots of exclamations, lots of bullshit claims.

    (Every headline is like that, none of the content merits the headline)

    —

    Also, do you get you are linking to opinion pieces rather than news articles when you adduce that shit?

    (Argumentum ad headline ain’t cutting it with me)

  17. birgerjohansson says

    Myself @ 14
    Can’t they just use a tranq gun at G7, loaded with something that will make Trump chill out? Or feed him cookies with wossname the active substance in cannabis?

  18. John Morales says

    No, Birger. There is no tranq gun, and Trump is already chill.

    And the active substance is THC.

  19. birgerjohansson says

    John Morales @ 17

    Andrey Vondemark is a source I go to for US economic news (apart from MSNBC et cetera) I find the videos informational . Would this qualify as an opinion piecer or as news?
    Example
    “Trump Furious as Canada Blocks U.S  Market Access in Major Trade Strike.”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=WO_47codna8

  20. John Morales says

    “Would this qualify as an opinion piecer or as news?: “Trump Furious [blah]””

    Um. Too easy. Are you furious, right now?

  21. John Morales says

    via the bot:

    Trump GUT PUNCHED by Judge as Fight ERUPTS in MASSIVE WAY
    🚨Trump DOJ RUSHES to SCOTUS on GHISLAINE CASE
    Trump HAUNTED by PAST TAPE as Ghislaine THREATENS to TELL ALL
    Trump has MELTDOWN at WH and LOSES IT on LIVE TV
    🚨 DEPOSITIONS Resurface to EXPOSE Trump DOJ COVER UP
    Trump holds DISASTER PRESSER with NATO as LIFE UNRAVELS
    Republicans LOSE IT ON AIR as Trump’s BASE COLLAPSES
    OMG! Ghislaine GOES NUCLEAR as Trump COVERS IT UP
    FURIOUS Africa DESTROYS Trump as Meeting BACKFIRES

    That’s your source, Birger. News!

  22. birgerjohansson says

    A 20-minute clip from Rachel Maddow show, July 14th 

    Behold the brilliant minds the Republican presidents put in charge of FEMA.

    FYI if I try a lot, I might manage to look worse than Medallion Man but I would have to sleep outdoors a couple of nights to pull it off.

  23. birgerjohansson says

    Oops! Sorry!
    The heat wave that just reached north Sweden has cooked my brain, that is my defense.

  24. John Morales says

    Who is Medallion Man?

    Nevermind, BB told me:
    “Medallion Man” is a humorous, often disapproving British term for a man who wears flashy jewelry—typically a large medallion—and tight clothing to appear younger than he is. He’s often depicted with an open shirt to show off his chest. The stereotype peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, evoking disco-era bravado and exaggerated masculinity.

  25. John Morales says

    Oh, look: more Meidas Mierdas

    Trump gets INSANT KARMA as he gets BOOED EVERYWHERE
    AWFUL Republican gets BRUTAL Wake-Up Call
    Trump Nominee GOES SILENT at WORST Possible Time…
    WOW! Supreme Court Justice TURNS AGAINST Court in PUBLIC
    World LAUGHS at Trump as leaders treat him LIKE A CHILD
    Trump gets MERCILESSLY BOOED at FIFA FINALS
    TOTAL CHAOS is UNLEASHED as Trump SNATCHES UP citizens
    OMG! World LEADER OPENLY MOCKS Trump in ROARING speech
    Trump’s DARK PAST Surfaces and Aides LOSE CONTROL

  26. John Morales says

    I mean, I could go back, years, and keep pulling up exactly those sort of headlines over and over and over.

    Right?

    Most people would get it’s just wank. Some do not.

  27. birgerjohansson says

    I copied a link with an excerpt of Rachel Maddow, the last 4 minutes is a separate content by some Indian guy which may be confusing.
    Ironically I avoided the link to MSNBC as it was very long.

  28. John Morales says

    Everyone can see all that anyway, Birger. And Rachel has a staff to write her stuff.

  30. birgerjohansson says

    In this context, the man with the medallion and jeans is the honourable David Richardson, chief of FEMA and genius who fired the telephone operators that were needed during the flooding response. Among other things.

  31. birgerjohansson says

    I suppose DJT wants each state to have its own mini-FEMA. Or just put the job up to the lowest bidder. At this point nothing can be ruled out.

    Do the Republicans in congress realise the southern red states are more likely to need FEMA than, say, Minnesota? Do they care?

  32. John Morales says

    Ah. Ta. Mayfly, but. Only merit Trump’s appointees have is they have declared loyalty.

    Seriously, if I were just looking at what’s going on and ignoring his claims, I’d think Trump is Putin’s agent and his mission is to wreck the USA.

    It certainly explains everything, from the friction he’s faced during his first try at it to this stage where both Congress and the Court are totally enabling him, so he can pursue this course of it being better to seek forgiveness than to ask for permission.
    (credit to Grace Hopper)

    —

    Anyway, I shan’t go on about that channel, but it really is just headlines and fluff.
    It’s opinion based on the news, and stupidly hyperbolically hyped.

    (Not worth it unless one is a fan of that style; basically, a lot like Wonkette, only worse)

  33. John Morales says

    “Do the Republicans in congress realise the southern red states are more likely to need FEMA than, say, Minnesota? Do they care?”

    They care about being re-elected. So, they care whether they assuage Trump.

    See, all these Meidas Mierdas about Trump being fucked over and over are just fluff.
    In reality, those Republicans in congress have hitherto kept enabling and appeasing him.

    It is obvious as fuck!

  36. birgerjohansson says

    “The Hunt for Australia’s Deepest Underwater Volcano”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=IpXWc8zJUSw

    Re. The Mulefield seamount in the Indian ocean. In theory, you should be able to hammer down pillars to support an airfield and maybe build a pier.
    I know there are a couple of ‘shallow’ seamounts in the Atlantic too, but I have forgotten the source.

    If you are en route from Europe to Australia, it would be nice with a potential emergency landing site. And it would be a supply depot for sea rescue. New supersonic passenger transport refuelling site?
    (I am reminded of a German SF film ca.1931 with a floating airfield, mid-Atlantic)

  37. JM says

    Jill Bearup: I Read the ⚡️Dramione⚡️ Book
    Book review of a weird idea. A publisher got the author of a very popular Harry Potter fan fiction to write a novel. A novel that is based on the same idea as her fan fiction but isn’t exactly the same story with the names changed. If it does well expect to see a lot of this because publishers are always looking for ways to find new authors without actually risking investing in a new author.
    It would be interesting to see what percent of people under 30 interested in becoming fiction authors have written fan fictions. I expect it’s very high but that is just a guess.

  38. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Is Trump embarrassing himself again for Putin, CIA sees a president switching sides
    Video is 4:24 minutes

    Heckuva time to make an appearance: Trump’s FEMA chief drops in on Texas flood zone
    Video is 7:48 minutes

    Trump can’t hide Everglades internment camp as Democrats press inspections
    Video is 8:12 minutes

  39. whheydt says

    Re: JM @ #37…
    Fan writers going pro isn’t at all new. What that publisher wants the fan writer to do is known as “filing off the serial numbers”. It doesn’t always work as it’s pretty hard to do a thorough enough job to disguise what “universe” the work started out in.

  40. says

    Team Trump picks a fight over ‘transparency’ that it can’t possibly win

    [snipped Laura Trump’s remarks]

    Tammy Bruce, the State Department’s chief spokesperson, similarly boasted about the incumbent president’s “famous transparency.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has, on multiple occasions, told the public that Trump is “the most transparent and accessible president in history.”

    While misplaced praise for Trump is certainly the norm in Republican circles, this is an unusually silly claim. Consider this report from The Washington Post, published a couple of weeks ago:

    Across President Donald Trump’s administration, a creeping culture of secrecy is overtaking personnel and budget decisions, casual social interactions, and everything in between, according to interviews with more than 40 employees across two dozen agencies, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. No one wants to put anything in writing anymore, federal workers said: Meetings are conducted in-person behind closed doors, even on anodyne topics. Workers prefer to talk outdoors, as long as the weather cooperates. And communication among colleagues — whether work-related or personal — has increasingly shifted to the encrypted messaging app Signal, with messages set to auto-delete.

    This came on the heels of the White House’s decision to purge online transcripts of the president’s public remarks, making it more difficult for the public to learn what, exactly, Trump has said.

    When the president’s allies talk about his transparency, they tend to point to the frequency with which he communicates with the public and his willingness to field questions from reporters. On the surface, there’s a kernel of truth to that: Those wanting to know what’s on Trump’s mind generally don’t have to wait too long between his online tantrums and routine rants.

    But having an accessible president and having a transparent White House are not the same thing.

    Trump has been needlessly secretive about his tax returns. And his medical records. And his visitor logs. And his donors. And his customers. And even his undisclosed interactions with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

    If we’re going to talk about Trump’s “famous transparency,” the only fair conclusion is that the president is famous for not caring at all about transparency.

  41. says

    Republicans confirm the first judge of Trump’s second term — and she’s a doozy

    Whitney Hermandorfer is the first far-right judicial nominee to be confirmed during the president’s second term, and she won’t be the last.

    Related video at the link.

    Donald Trump’s first term was filled with scandals, failures and tragedies, but the president managed to complete one of his most important goals: Working with a Republican-led Senate, he successfully stacked the federal courts with young, far-right ideologues. By the time Trump left office, he’d installed 234 federal judges — including a third of the U.S. Supreme Court — which created a dynamic Americans will be forced to live with for a generation.

    […] some conservative, Trump-appointed jurists — many of them handpicked by the conservative Federalist Society — are not quite radical enough. Some have even had the audacity to issue rulings that Republicans didn’t like.

    For Team Trump, this became a learning experience of sorts. Sure, his other successful judicial nominees were conservative, but not enough of them were knee-jerk conservatives who could be counted on to deliver for the right reflexively and without a lot of fuss or forethought. As NBC News reported last month, the president settled on “a new approach to selecting judges in his second term, departing from his first-term formula of younger up-and-comers, elite credentials and pedigrees in traditional conservative ideology and instead leaning toward unapologetically combative, MAGA-friendly nominees.”

    It’s precisely why Team Trump decided that the Federalist Society simply wasn’t MAGA-aligned enough. In fact, a year before Election Day 2024, The New York Times reported that Team Trump had begun looking at Federalist Society members as “squishes.”

    And this week, Senate Republicans, voting along party lines, confirmed Whitney Hermandorfer, who served as director of the strategic litigation unit in the Tennessee attorney general’s office, marking the first judicial confirmation of Trump’s second term. The Times reported:

    She clerked for Justices Samuel A. Alito and Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court and for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. At age 38, she is part of an effort by both parties to place younger judges on the bench, where they can serve for decades given their lifetime tenure, as opposed to the previous tradition of choosing lawyers with more extensive careers. Her legal background drew criticism from Democrats.

    It did, indeed. Hermandorfer, who rose to public prominence defending a Republican abortion ban and challenging a Biden administration prohibition on discrimination against transgender students, only has six years of actual legal practice — and as my MSNBC colleague Lisa Rubin recently explained, that’s “roughly half of what the American Bar Association considers necessary to be qualified for a federal judgeship.”

    During an exchange with Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware during her confirmation hearing, Hermandorfer conceded that she’d never served as sole or chief counsel in any case, tried to a jury verdict; never served as sole or chief counsel in any case tried to a final judgment; never personally engaged in direct examinations in federal court; never personally engaged in cross-examinations in federal court; never taken depositions; and never defended depositions.

    Judge Jane Stranch, whom Hermandorfer was tapped to replace, had 31 years of legal experience before she was nominated for the appellate bench. Hermandorfer, in contrast, graduated from law school 10 years ago, has six years of legal experience, and no background doing the sorts of things one might expect a federal appellate court judge to have done.

    That’s precisely why Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, described her lack of qualifications as “shocking.”

    But in our post-qualifications era, Trump didn’t care, and Senate Republicans, including ostensible “moderates” such as Maine’s Susan Collins, played their role and rubber-stamped Hermandorfer’s nomination. […]

  42. says

    Followup to reference in comment 38 “Trump can’t hide Everglades internment camp as Democrats press inspections”:

    […] immigration attorneys are reporting that they’re not able to visit their clients who are detained at “Alligator Alcatraz.” One attorney even said that, when she arrived to visit her client and other possible clients, she wasn’t allowed in. One of the detainees she was trying to see was a 15-year-old boy who she said was kept at the detention center for at least 3 days. Other attorneys have said that their clients don’t even appear in the immigration court system, making it impossible to file motions on their behalf.

    […] So who is running this thing?

    Last month, two environmental groups filed a lawsuit over how the government dropped this monstrosity into one of the most sensitive ecosystems in the country without a required environmental review. In a recent filing in that case, DHS told the court that it has no authority over the facility because DHS hasn’t given any federal money to Florida.

    So, when it comes to liability, it’s not under the jurisdiction of either the state or federal government, but somehow, some government entity has the authority to enter into sweetheart deals with companies run by big GOP donors.

    Vendors who donated millions to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump, among other GOP candidates, have been rewarded with contracts to provide the facility with services that remain secret because they signed nondisclosure agreements.

    Florida already has plans for a second facility, with other red states following suit. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem bragged that the Trump administration is in talks with five GOP governors about the exciting opportunity that awaits them.

    And what state wouldn’t want a black site of its very own? There’s a staggering amount of federal money sloshing around, it gets to engage in brutality against immigrants, and it can shovel business to its biggest donors. It’s the epitome of Trump’s American dream.

    Link

  43. says

    Russian leaders responded flippantly Tuesday to the Trump administration’s threat of “severe” tariffs if Moscow doesn’t quickly come to a peace agreement with Ukraine.

    “Trump issued a theatrical ultimatum to the Kremlin. The world shuddered, expecting the consequences,” Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, wrote in a post on social platform X.

    “Belligerent Europe was disappointed. Russia didn’t care,” Medvedev, who also previously served as president and prime minister of Russia, added.

    […] Investors have also largely brushed off the ultimatum. The Moscow Stock Exchange grew by 2.7 percent as of Tuesday morning, signaling a lack of concern that Trump will follow through on his threat. […]

    Link

  46. says

    We’re not sure what’s funnier: Donald Trump finally realizing, a decade after everyone else did, that Vladimir Putin is jerking him around; Trump pathetically whining about Putin jerking him around; Trump giving Putin a deadline to end the war in Ukraine or else; or Trump announcing that the or else is slapping huge tariffs on Russia. Who takes Trump’s tariff threats seriously anymore? The man changes his mind on tariff deadlines and rates more frequently than he changes his Depends. (We are guessing.) Just ask literally any other country on the planet that the great dealmaker has threatened with tariffs in the last six months.

    [Trump] made the announcement on Monday morning during an Oval Office meeting/press spray/venting session. Seated next to Secretary-General of NATO Mark Rutte, and surrounded by all the gold he has added to the Oval Office so that it resembles nothing so much as the home of an incredibly insecure warlord, Trump announced that Putin better bring the war to a close in 50 days, or suffer the wrath of having 100 percent tariffs slapped on whatever the hell it is we import from Russia. […]

    The economist Justin Wolfers took to Bluesky to explain that actually we import almost nothing from Russia already thanks to the crippling sanctions we leveled on them for various past misdeeds, including the Ukraine invasion. “A 100% tariff on almost nothing will do almost nothing,” Wolfers said. […]

    Here is Trump making the announcement. In 40 seconds, he manages to complain about how much money the US has spent on the war ($350 billion according to him, much less than that according to reality), declaim any responsibility at all by calling it “Biden’s war,” whine about how disappointed he is that Putin hasn’t yet made a deal to stop the fighting, and try to sound magnanimous, as if he’s doing everyone a favor by working to bring the war to an end. [video]

    Masterful pissing and moaning, sir.

    Why Putin would find this threatening is beyond us, not that Trump asked our opinion. But there is a reason the acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) has become ubiquitous in describing him. First widespread tariffs were going into effect on April 2. Then Trump postponed that for 90 days so he would have time to negotiate 90 deals. Then the 90 days was up and nothing happened. Then out of the blue last week he sent embarrassingly written letters to 22 countries announcing new tariffs, including 35 percent on Canada because the Canadians don’t hate us enough already, and 50 percent on Brazil unless it stops prosecuting its former president for corruption. These new tariffs all go into effect on August 1.

    In what we’re sure will also be a shock to everyone, Trump has not thought through any of the possible repercussions at all. We know, we also couldn’t believe it: [video]

    […] We will be unsurprised if later reporting reveals that Trump surprised his advisers and pulled that “50 days” number out of his ample tush while he was sitting there.

    Of course if you ask Trump, he’ll tell you that Putin fooled every other president, but not him. Which will be news to literally anyone who hasn’t been in a coma since 2015.

    While he was at it, Trump took a victory lap of sorts on the trade deals he thinks he negotiated with those countries he sent letters to last week: [video]

    That’s not how international trade deals work. You don’t just send a letter you dashed off on hotel stationary […] There are all sorts of legal steps that you go through before a trade deal is official, which Trump damn well knows. He signed enough of them in his first term.

    Anyway, August 1 is just over two weeks away. That’s plenty of time for Trump to TACO again. And then again. And then probably again after that.

    If we were all our trading partners, including Russia, we would just sit tight. There’s a good chance he’ll change his mind or forget he even said anything in the first place.

    By the way, it’s been posted elsewhere, but this happened in Trump’s luncheon with his faith and spirituality crew just an hour after Trump’s “threats” above, him and the crowd laughing it up about how he has these great meetings with Vladimir Putin, and then Melania has to tell him Putin just bombed a nursing home. Ha ha! They all laugh. [video]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-demands-putin-end-war-in-50

  47. says

    Trump’s Bizarre Speech at Faith Luncheon Event

    At a White House Faith Office Luncheon, Donald Trump delivered a meandering and often off-topic speech weaving from divorce jokes to trans athletes to divine intervention. Sam Stein and Andrew Egger break down the event’s surreal moments and what it says about Trump’s evolving relationship with the religious right.

    Video at the link. Video is 5:21 minutes. Trump told men in the audience that their wives would leave them immediately if Trump didn’t support them by passing the big bill. The audience was not faith leaders but rather business leaders who donate a lot of money to faith-based organizations. Trump also told anti-trans jokes, which were received with lots of laughter.

  48. birgerjohansson says

    I hope everyone take the necessary precautions against heat stroke.

    The extreme heat that is basically everywhere reached north Sweden this weekend. It seems to have peaked today at 84 °F.
    The hot part of summer is generally so short people here do not invest in AC, and it means it can be hard to adapt. Once the body has adjusted the summer is practically over.
    The daily maximum will slowly sink to 77°F which is enduable but not pleasant. I pity the animals.

    Speaking of that, how can Mericans endure a continent that has no hedgehogs? You have possums instead, but they do not have nearly the same ’round and cute’ charisma.

  49. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @37 JM:
    Jill Bearup’s transphobia is even worse in 2025 (Jan 8)

    (2:04): today’s video is about Jill Bearup’s history of transmisia, how she still holds the same bigoted beliefs as those she promoted in her 2017 essay, and how they’ve now broadened out to support racist and misogynistic attacks upon cis women of colour such as Imane Khelif.

    [Bearup’s comments in Nov/Dec 2024.]
    (50:09): whitewashing Rowling’s 2020 essay. Said essay contains every single major talking point we have discussed throughout this video, albeit in a less vulgar manner than Bearup’s 2017 article. Rowling frames [gender recognition certificate] reform and trans inclusive bathrooms as a danger to cis women, same for trans inclusive prisons. She then misgenders and dehumanises trans men, invoking the very same ableist narratives surrounding autism, before finally glorifying a known antisemite. So when Bearup signs off on Rowling’s 2020 essay, pretending like it’s reasonable, saying that nobody would take issue with it, she is telling us that she still holds the exact same views as she did in her 2017 essay. The only thing that has arguably changed is the tone, but tone doesn’t stop something from being harmful

  50. whheydt says

    Re: birgerjohansson @ #48…
    It’s all relative. Where I live, 84F would be welcome relief from the heat at times. Not far from me, expected summer high temps will run well over 90F and there will be days over 100F. I have been outside in places where it hit 122F. (And all of that is without considering Death Valley…which can go over 130F.)

    Our Australian friends here can undoubtedly also be bemused at considering 84F to be hot, let alone 77F.

  51. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @46 Lynna:

    we import almost nothing from Russia already […] “A 100% tariff on almost nothing will do almost nothing,”

    From an article last month.

    Last year, [Biden’s EPA] took a long-awaited step to ban the last type of asbestos still used in the US […] it still allowed companies a generous period to phase out use of asbestos—in some cases up to 12 years. […] [Trump’s EPA] “now intends to reconsider the [ban],”and it “expects that this process, including any regulatory changes, will take approximately 30 months.”
    […]
    Trump’s support for asbestos has been welcomed in Russia, a primary asbestos supplier to the US. In 2018, a Russian asbestos company began marketing asbestos with Trump’s face and a seal reading “Approved by Donald Trump[“]

  53. says

    Transgender bathroom bill added to Texas flood-relief special session

    None of the 82 bills proposed Monday, the first filing day of the forthcoming special session, were actually flood-related, according to KXAN-TV, NBC’s Austin affiliate.

    Texas lawmakers will convene next week for a special session to consider legislation addressing the deadly floods that devastated parts of the state earlier this month — and a bill regarding which restrooms transgender Texans can use.

    When Gov. Greg Abbott initially called for a special session in June, it was to tackle six bills he had vetoed during the regular session, among them a contentious measure that would have banned hemp products containing THC. But after flash floods overwhelmed parts of central Texas on July 4 — resulting in at least 120 deaths with many more still missing — the intended focus shifted to flood relief.

    However, when the governor’s 18-point agenda was released last week, it included far more than flood-related measures. In addition to considering bills that would restrict hemp products, Abbott has also asked lawmakers to consider legislation “further protecting unborn children and their mothers from the harm of abortion” and legislation “protecting women’s privacy in sex-segregated spaces.”

    On Monday, the first day lawmakers were able to file bills for the special session, none of the 82 measures filed mentioned the deadly July 4 floods, according to KXAN-TV, NBC’s Austin affiliate.

    Republican state Rep. Valoree Swanson introduced the so-called bathroom bill, which would require transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond to their birth sex in public schools, government buildings and correctional facilities. If House Bill 32, known as the Texas Women’s Privacy Act, becomes law, public entities that violate the measure could face financial penalties and be subject to civil lawsuits.

    Currently, 19 states across the country restrict which bathrooms and other sex-segregated facilities transgender people can use, according to Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank.

    Texas’ 89th legislative session, which ended June 2, resulted in the proposal of 88 anti-LGBTQ bills, four of which were passed into law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. These new laws include a measure that bans diversity, equity and inclusion in public schools and one that strictly defines man and woman based on their reproductive organs.

  54. says

    GOP’s Comer signed letters with digital signatures while investigating Biden’s autopen

    Related video at the link.

    The Republican Party’s preoccupation with Joe Biden is ongoing, with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill investigating the former president’s mental acuity, and Donald Trump ordering the Justice Department to launch a parallel investigation into the Democrat’s use of an autopen.

    It’s difficult to say with certainty what, exactly, Republicans expect to find, but the basic idea is that there was some kind of elaborate conspiracy, involving unnamed officials in or around the White House, who used the presidential autopen to engage in all sorts of mischief — signing everything from executive orders to pardons — while taking advantage of the fact that Biden was so completely incapacitated that he had no idea what was going on around him.

    The apparent partisan goal among GOP officials is to invalidate the documents the Democrat signed, opening the door to, among other things, prosecuting those Biden protected.

    Is there any evidence to support the Republicans’ conspiracy theory? Well, no. In fact, the former president told The New York Times this week that while he utilized the autopen tool — as other modern presidents from both parties have done — he personally “made every decision,” and nothing was ever signed without his direct and express approval.

    But the GOP fishing expedition continues, led in large part by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who’s been overpromising and underdelivering on assorted partisan conspiracy theories for quite a while. Indeed, the Kentucky Republican has used his authority in recent months to send out all kinds of letters, subpoena notices and requests for information related to his investigation into the former president and the White House autopen.

    As NBC News reported, however, Comer apparently didn’t put pen to paper before sending out that letters, subpoena notices and requests for information.

    Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has been leading the probe into Joe Biden’s cognitive state during his presidency, with Republicans alleging that Biden’s occasional use of an “autopen” to sign documents … demonstrated that he wasn’t fully in control or aware of what his administration was doing. But documents show that some of the letters and subpoena notices Comer has sent out in connection to his investigation have been signed using a digital signature — not written by the congressman himself.

    NBC News’ scrutiny of Comer’s correspondence found that while his letters included his signature, “a look at the metadata of the letters shows that they were created by someone besides Comer. And hovering over Comer’s signature in Adobe Acrobat shows that it is a digital image.” […]

    [A Comer] spokesperson concluded that the two stories “are not even remotely comparable,” though that’s a debatable point: When the congressman who has accused Biden of failing to personally sign important documents fails to personally sign important documents, it’s tough to say that there are no relevant parallels.

    “Comer using an autopen to investigate an autopen is just so James. That’s what we love about him, his attention to detail,” Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida told NBC News sarcastically.

  56. says

    Approximately 10 million Americans are about to lose their Medicaid coverage thanks to Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, a prospect made even more frightening this week as a federal judge has just announced that medical debt will once again be included in one’s credit report. This means that a whole lot of people’s entire lives are about to be well and truly fucked.

    On Monday, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is now the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services because we are now all in hell, went on “Fox & Friends” to “dispel Democrat myths” (that are actually facts!) about the Medicaid cuts and how harmful they will be. The crux of his argument was that only people who were nefariously gaming the system — able-bodied people who just wanted to watch “6.1 hours of television” a day instead of work, undocumented immigrants, trans people who require gender-affirming care, etc. — are on Medicaid and that everyone who actually deserves it will have it and be able to keep up with all of the paperwork that will soon be involved.

    He also had some advice for those on it and about to lose it.

    “We’ll be there for you when you need help with Medicare and Medicaid, but you’ve got to stay healthy as well. Be vital. Do the most that you can do to really live up to the potential, the God-given potential, to live a full and healthy life. You know, don’t eat carrot cake. Eat real food,” he said, after having just given Stuart Varney a carrot cake. [video]

    […] Oz shared that Trump wants to “love and cherish” Medicaid, but that when Medicaid was first established, no one ever dreamed that able-bodied people who could work would use it, which is a straight-up lie. Medicaid and Medicare were established in 1965 and were intended as a step towards universal healthcare. In fact, they were based on Harry S. Truman’s plans for a universal healthcare system, which he first proposed in 1945.

    Indeed, Americans elected five presidents in a row — FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ and Nixon — who were in favor of national healthcare in some form or another. So, no, this would not have been a foreign concept, but actually a goal.

    In order to bolster this theory that it was only ever intentioned for those on the margins of society, Oz shared a quote from LBJ’s vice president Hubert Humphrey that he read on the wall of the building he now works in: “It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

    Except that was not remotely what Humphrey believed, […] read Humphrey’s 1949 New York Times op-ed, titled The Case for National Health Insurance; Senator Humphrey holds private medical care and voluntary plans too costly for most people.

    Oz also played the “Oh, Democrats don’t think Americans are competent enough to fill out paperwork! They think you’re stupid!” card, which should probably work quite well on the Fox News audience. But competence isn’t the problem, here.

    One pretty big problem is the fact that adding work requirements will likely cost more money than it will “save.” Admin isn’t free! You have to pay people to ensure that recipients have filled out all of their paperwork, are working, are doing everything else required of them. Estimates range from under $10 million to over $270 million per state. Additionally, this means that you will have a lot of uninsured people out there, whom hospitals are still legally required to treat should they be taken there in an emergency. This, too, costs more money than just covering them with Medicaid […]

    Oz mentioned that two states had already implemented such requirements, but there’s only actually one: Georgia, whose “Pathways” program mandated work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps. He didn’t offer any additional information about that, probably because it has cost taxpayers significantly more per recipient than simply not implementing work requirements would have. By the end of 2024, the program had cost taxpayers $86 million, three-quarters of which was spent on consultants. […]

    Another issue is that, no matter how how “competent” people are, anything you throw in between them and Medicaid (or anything) will act as a deterrent. It’s just human nature. Although even the most “competent” Americans can’t do much about a website as glitchy as the one in Georgia that, as of February, had a 16,000 application backlog. [Evidence of incompetence on the part of the state government, which Republicans run.]

    Diet is an important factor when it comes to health, but it is not the be-all-end-all. Unless the carrot cake one wishes to eat is in the middle of the road, it’s probably going to have little to no effect on whether or not people get hit by a car. […] if one were to have listened to Dr. Oz’s scammy-ass advice and taken green coffee bean supplements in order to lose weight, not only would they not have actually lost any weight, but they could have worsened glaucoma and anxiety issues and potentially damaged their hearts.

    Listening to Dr. Oz on health issues was a bad idea then, and it is a bad idea now. Work requirements for Medicaid are a luxury we cannot afford. We already spend a ridiculous amount of money on healthcare in this country, simply for the glorious privilege of private health insurance […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/dr-oz-celebrated-bastille-day-by

  57. says

    Russia’s increasing use of chemical weapons in Ukraine ‘unbearable,’ says top EU diplomat

    “Moscow is using banned chemical weapons to inflict as “much pain and suffering” as possible to force Ukraine to surrender, Kaja Kallas said.”

    BRUSSELS — Russia is increasingly using chemical weapons in Ukraine in an effort to subdue the country by causing as much pain and suffering as possible, Europe’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Tuesday.

    Speaking to reporters after a gathering of foreign affairs ministers in Brussels, the Estonian politician cited German and Dutch intelligence reports showing that Moscow has used chemical weapons at least 9,000 times since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and was now ramping up their use.

    “As the intelligence services are saying this is intensifying, I think it’s [Russia’s use of chemical weapons] of great, great concern,” Kallas said. “It shows that Russia wants to cause as much pain and suffering so that Ukraine would surrender. And, you know, it’s really … unbearable.”

    Most countries around the world, including Russia, have signed a 1993 international convention banning the use, production, development or stockpiling of chemical weapons. Russia is one of 65 countries to have not only signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, but also ratified it.

    Kallas’ comments add to a growing sense of alarm in EU capitals that Russia is escalating its campaign to subdue Ukraine, unleashing larger and larger nightly attacks by missiles.

    The worsening onslaught, which coincides with an ongoing summer offensive by Russia, prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to announce Monday that he would support a bill penalizing Moscow via powerful tariffs on Russian exports.

    However, the fact that Trump has said he would only approve the secondary sanctions against Russia after 50 days if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t stop his assault of his own accord has led to disappointment in Europe and Ukraine. […]

  59. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Atlantic – The Trump admin is about to incinerate 500 tons of emergency food

    Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week—are set to expire tomorrow […] Within weeks, […] the food, meant for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be ash. […] Sometime near the end of the Biden administration, USAID spent about $800,000 on the high-energy biscuits […] federal workers have sent the new political leaders of USAID repeated requests to ship the biscuits while they were useful […] never got a response […] the food will be destroyed at a cost of $130,000 to American taxpayers (on top of the $800,000 used to purchase the biscuits)

  60. says

    New York City subway stations flood from heavy rain

    Video at the link.

    […] The region was hit with heavy rain Monday evening, resulting in flash floods that not only impacted roads and air travel, but also the transit system.

    Multiple subway lines ran with severe delays in several boroughs, and some were even suspended due to issues caused by the floods.

    Video taken by Veronica Zhang shows water spewing across the 28th Street Station in Manhattan as well as flooding at the street level.

    Services along the 1, 2, and 3 lines were suspended at times due to flooding reported in multiple stations, according to the MTA.

    Trains on the E, F, M, R, and No. 6 lines were also affected.

    Additionally, the Staten Island Railway didn’t run between Huguenot and Tottenville in either direction on Monday due to flooding, according to the MTA.

    Dozens of flights were delayed or canceled at area airports Tuesday, including 159 total cancelations at Newark Liberty Airport, according to FlightAware data.

    Most flash flood watches and warnings had expired in parts of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania as the rain moved on, but a state of emergency declared by Gov. Phil Murphy remained in New Jersey, where video on social media showed cars still partially inundated in some parts of the state as residents worked to clean up.

    Delays were reported on part of the state’s commuter rail line due to the severe weather.

    Other videos posted on social media appeared to show water flooding down into a Manhattan subway station, submerging the platform while passengers inside a train watch. Another photo appears to show passengers standing on a train’s seats to avoid the water beginning to soak the floor. […]

  61. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/ice-jealous-of-el-salvador-declares

    “ICE, Jealous Of El Salvador, Declares None May Ever Leave Immigration Gulags”

    “Constitution? We don’t do ‘Constitution’ anymore.”

    The Trump administration has declared — without ever informing the American people, because what part of authoritarianism didn’t you understand? — that effective immediately, immigrants who came to the US without papers no longer have the right to a bond hearing, no matter how long they’ve been in the US. The new policy was revealed yesterday in reporting by the Washington Post (gift link available at the main link).

    Immigration lawyers said the new policy applies to millions of people, including folks who have been here for decades and have established families, own homes and businesses, and who haven’t broken any laws other than crossing the border without authorization (remember, kids, that’s a misdemeanor on the first offense).

    The administration is changing how it interprets a 1996 law that allowed “mandatory detention” of certain criminal aliens like murderers and other violent criminals, keeping them in detention until their deportation cases were completed. But in a July 8 memo, Todd Lyons, (acting) director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) informed the agency that any immigrants who ever entered the country illegally will now be locked up “for the duration of their removal proceedings.” Because the immigration system is horribly backlogged, that can take months or years. [More detention camps will be needed.]

    It’s a huge change in immigration cases, as the American Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick points out, because

    The default rule, dating back a century, has been that an undocumented immigrant living here is eligible for bond if not a flight risk or a danger.

    That rule was changed in ‘96 for people with criminal records. Now the Trump admin is arguing it also eliminated bond for those who entered illegally.

    Well, now we know what ICE plans to do with the $45 billion in new funding the Big Ugly Bill gave it to expand its prison capacity. […] “[…] A vast infrastructure of detention will be built, and actually has already started, even before this bill was signed.”

    Congratulations, America! We’ll finally have our very own Gulag Archipelago! Just think of the great literature that may eventually be written by some of the survivors!

    As the Post explains without actually using the words “thin legal pretext,” Lyons claims this is all perfectly legal if you squint just right at the law […]

    In the past, immigrants residing in the U.S. interior generally have been allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge. But Lyons wrote that the Trump administration’s departments of Homeland Security and Justice had “revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities” and determined that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody.” […]

    The provision is based on a section of immigration law that says unauthorized immigrants “shall be detained” after their arrest, but that has historically applied to those who recently crossed the border and not longtime residents.

    And of course, that sets the stage for Trumpers to say See? No different from what Obama did, as long as you completely ignore the fact that 1) Barack Obama limited such detentions to people who had been caught shortly after crossing the border, and 2) even that more limited denial of bond hearings was rightly condemned by civil rights advocates when Obama did it. […]

    […] Forcing them to remain in detention facilities often in far-flung areas such as an alligator-infested swamp in Florida or the Arizona desert would make it more difficult to fight their cases, because they will be unable to work or easily communicate with family members and lawyers to prepare their cases.

    As always, the fuckery is the point. Reichlin-Melnick points out that

    [What] this is clearly intended to do is to cause people to give up their case and stop fighting — because conditions in detention are so awful and degrading that many people can’t bear them and choose to accept deportation rather than apply for relief they’re eligible for.

    The American Immigration Lawyers Association says its member attorneys had already noticed that their clients were being denied bond hearings in multiple states. Greg Chen, the group’s senior director of government relations, told WaPo, “This is their way of putting in place nationwide a method of detaining even more people. […] It’s requiring the detention of far more people without any real review of their individual circumstances.”

    […] Before the $45 billion bonanza for private prison companies that will be running the concentration camps, ICE said in its 2024 annual report that it only detains immigrants “when necessary,” and that all but 37,700 of the 7.6 million people on its docket at the time, other than violent criminals, were released on bond while their immigration cases went forward. Increased supervision was provided for cases in which “noncitizens may be at a higher risk of absconding, have very minor criminal histories but are not considered public safety threats, or have serious medical conditions” (p. 28 of the PDF). That’s what your MAGA types call Joe Biden’s “open borders.”

    No more of that […] There have been a few terrible crimes that have fed Trump’s “all immigrants are dangerous murderers and rapists” narrative, so all immigrants must be treated as dangerous. As with the LA immigration raids, at least some people who committed serious offenses will inevitably be swept up in the mass arrests, so clearly this will be a great way to spend more money than America ever has on prisons.

    […] the basis for a class-action lawsuit from the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. The initial plaintiff, Ramon Rodriguez Vazquez, has been in the USA without papers since 2009, owns a home, and has 10 grandchildren who are US citizens. All eight of his siblings are also citizens, living in California.

    Not that it matters; he was arrested by ICE in February, and a federal judge ordered Rodriguez be granted a bond hearing because, among other things, he had “no criminal history in the United States or anywhere else in the world.” But at that hearing, the immigration judge nonetheless denied bond, and Rodriguez has since been deported to Mexico.

    […] Even though Rodriguez was deported, it’s a class action case, so it will keep moving forward, with the possibility of blocking the new policy, maybe, since the Supreme Court left open the option of nationwide injunctions in its recent awful decision barring most lower courts from curbing Trump’s illegal actions. Whether the Supremes decide to respect the exception they made up for their own made-up limits on nationwide injunctions is anyone’s guess, of course.

    Because the infusions of detention money are still in the pipeline, we don’t know how quickly ICE will actually ramp up endless detentions. But keep in mind that Florida threw up its tent city internment camp for the Trump administration in just weeks.

    It’s also anyone’s guess what may happen to American citizens who “accidentally” get thrown in deportation camps with no chance for a hearing. Maybe we just won’t hear about it for months, or maybe not at all.

  62. JM says

    @49 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain: I was unaware of that. Always depressing to see somebody who seemed reasonable sign on to such major stupidity.

  63. says

    Elon Musk might have left his job running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, but he and DOGE remain entangled with the government. Now DOGE is leaking data, and a Musk-owned AI is set to run wild at the Department of Defense, all while the right-wing billionaire continues to line his pockets with your tax dollars.

    On Monday, independent security researcher Brian Krebs reported [embedded links to sources are available at the main link] that a DOGE worker accidentally posted a private Application Programming Interface for xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, on GitHub, a public repository for code. APIs let computers talk to one another and transfer data easily. Because of this, literally anyone could access over four dozen of xAI’s large language models, including Grok, which you may know from its integration on X.

    Which big-brained genius did this? Marko Elez.

    If that name sounds familiar, it’s because earlier this year, Elez resigned after his history of racist online posts surfaced, but he was reinstated by Musk and Vance because they are racists too. Elez is the same dude who “mistakenly” got full access to sensitive Treasury Department data, then reportedly emailed a spreadsheet with unencrypted private data to officials at the General Services Administration. So this racist 25-year-old continues to have expansive access to government data but can’t take basic security precautions.

    […] Nineteen-year-old Edward “Big Balls” Coristine is still around, as is Ethan Shaotran, who publicly whined about how people ostracized him because of his work with DOGE. Yeah, buddy, people tend not to like it when you wreck their government.

    On top of this, the Department of Defense gave Musk a sweetheart contract on Monday that could net his xAI up to $200 million. To be scrupulously fair to Musk, three other companies—Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI—are also eligible for $200 million each.

    It’s exceedingly vague what xAI and the rest of these companies will do. The government announcement is full of language about leveraging technology, mission areas, and supporting warfighters, but it features no information about what those private companies are required to do with their $200 million.

    It was definitely odd timing for the government to give Musk $200 million to “address critical national security challenges” with his xAI technology. The award was announced mere days after Musk had to shut off Grok, his chatbot, for going full Nazi, with posts praising Adolf Hitler and detailing violent rape fantasies. This was a result of Musk reportedly changing Grok’s prompt to “not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, so long as they are well substantiated.”

    It seems bad that Musk’s changes turned Grok into a 4Chan poster, basically. Never fear, though. Musk has an explanation of how that’s not his fault: He made Grok too eager to please users.

    Per Musk, when Grok received a racist prompt from an X user, those users were “manipulat[ing]” Grok into giving racist answers. This explanation probably does not make you feel better about Musk’s chatbots being turned loose in the Department of Defense. If you’d like to feel even worse, recall that Musk also programmed Grok to check in with him before answering questions.

    It’s likely that xAI and other tech companies will net more than their initial awards. The award announcement goes on about it at length, saying that DOD is implementing a “commercial-first approach to accelerating DOD adoption of AI” and “leveraging commercially available solutions.” But what the announcement is clear about is thatthe government is planning on streamlining its own ability to give Musk and other tech bros money by making it easier for the government to purchase private AI tools through the General Services Administration.

    xAI also announced on Monday that it is developing Grok for Government, which will bring “strong reasoning capabilities with extensive pretraining models.” Buddy, Grok went full fascist in front of God and everyone just a few days ago and is not displaying any “strong reasoning capabilities.”

    Overall, the Trump administration’s approach to accelerate the use of AI in the government is to pay private companies vast sums to do a thing that the government was already doing until Trump shuttered 18F, the agency tasked with making government digital services more efficient. That team had created a National Security and Intelligence Portfolio nearly six years ago, helping defense agencies get new digital solutions. But they had to get wiped out so private companies could take their place.

    Now your private data is at risk thanks to the incompetence of DOGE, and Musk is going to make a ton of money shoveling that data into his racist chatbot. Totally normal way to run the government, yes indeed.

    Link

  64. John Morales says

    “If you’d like to feel even worse, recall that Musk also programmed Grok to check in with him before answering questions.”

    Um. https://doit.software/blog/grok-statistics

    Musk must keep quite busy with all that checking Grok does with him before answering questions:
    “In February 2025, after the release of the Grok-3 model, Grok’s AI recorded 25.82 million total monthly visits (+436% compared to January 2025). As of June 2025, Grok had 18.8 million users.”

    (Someone is a bit clueless, there)

  65. John Morales says

    Remarkable: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/15/fauja-singh-worlds-oldest-marathon-runner-dies-road-accident-aged-114

    Fauja Singh, ‘world’s oldest marathon runner’, dies in road accident aged 114

    Singh’s east London running club confirms death in India of athlete thought to be first centenarian to run a marathon

    The runner Fauja Singh, believed to be the oldest person to complete a marathon, has died in a road accident in India aged 114.

    The athlete, who lived in Ilford in east London, was hit by a car and suffered fatal injuries while trying to cross a road in his birth village of Beas Pind, near Jalandhar in Punjab, on Monday, according to reports in India.

  66. says

    New York Times:

    A wave of deadly Israeli airstrikes targeted government forces in Syria and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon on Tuesday, escalating what Israel said were efforts to secure its northern border. The strikes in Syria were a rare attack on forces of the new government, which is led by Islamist former rebels who toppled the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December.

  67. says

    New York Times:

    President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Waltz, was pressed by Democrats on Capitol Hill on Tuesday but did not acknowledge any wrongdoing related to a sensitive group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal in March.

  68. says

    Associated Press:

    Seventeen immigration court judges have been fired in recent days, according to the union that represents them, as the Trump administration pushes forward with its mass deportations of immigrants in the country.

  69. says

    Washington Post:

    A group of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration Monday over its withholding of nearly $7 billion in education funding for after-school care, English-language learning, teacher training and other programs, asking a federal judge to force the federal government to release the money.

  70. says

    Reuters:

    A county official in New York on Monday rejected for a second time efforts by Texas to enforce a $100,000 judgment against a New York doctor accused of violating Texas’ ban on abortion by sending abortion pills to the state, further escalating an unprecedented interstate conflict.

  71. says

    Trump is planning to rig the midterms, or at least he plans to try to rig the midterm elections.

    President Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants the 2026 midterms to be rigged in the GOP’s favor.

    Speaking to Texas Republicans Tuesday morning, Trump outlined his redistricting wishlist: five new GOP congressional seats in Texas alone. The plan would significantly reshape the House, where Republicans currently hold one of the narrowest majorities in history.

    “I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE. With the right candidate, Texas isn’t ‘going Blue’ anytime soon!” he wrote on Truth Social.

    To secure those extra seats, Trump has a key ally in Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who scheduled redistricting for a special legislative session beginning July 21. The plan, which Democrats have called a blatant power grab, appears to aim at flipping two competitive South Texas districts and dismantling seven urban, heavily Democratic ones.

    UNITED STATES – DECEMBER 8: Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, holds a news conference with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, (not pictured) in the U.S. Capitol to discuss Syrian refugee legislation on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call). (CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is helping President Donald Trump in his gerrymandering efforts.

    Despite Trump winning just 56% of the vote in Texas in 2024, Republicans already hold two-thirds of House seats there. The 2021 map—one of the most gerrymandered in the country—created two new districts in majority white areas, even though people of color made up 95% of the state’s population growth.

    And now they’re going even further.

    The Department of Justice recently sent a letter to Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suggesting that 4 existing Democratic districts may have been drawn using unconstitutional racial gerrymandering—a sharp reversal from the Biden-era DOJ, which backed a lawsuit claiming that the map diluted minority representation.

    GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas praised the move, writing that Hispanic voters have shifted rapidly toward the Republican Party and that redrawing the maps would lead to major GOP gains.

    But this is a risky strategy. Texas’ current map already maximizes GOP gains. Adding more Republican districts could carve up safe GOP territory, force incumbents into costly primaries, or cause early retirements. Finding five new red seats might require weakening current Republican strongholds.

    Even if it succeeds, it might not matter. Republicans gaining five seats in Texas wouldn’t come close to offsetting potential national losses. Trump’s first midterm in 2018 saw Democrats gain 41 seats. A similar result in 2026 would negate any advantage gained through redistricting.

    Meanwhile, Trump’s support in Texas is slipping. A June poll from the Texas Politics Project found that a majority of Texans disapprove of him, with 44% saying they strongly disapprove, and just 27% saying they strongly approve.

    As Trump works on his map-rigging strategy, Republicans are still searching for a national message to promote their sweeping economic agenda, which cuts Medicaid and food aid to deliver tax cuts to the wealthy. Strategists are now pushing “Trump Working Family Tax Cuts” and highlighting popular items like eliminating taxes on tips to win back moderate Trump voters.

    […] House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Texas Democrats held a press conference Tuesday morning to condemn the “aggressive and egregious gerrymander,” calling it a move to “disenfranchise millions of people in Texas.”

    DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene also pointed out the irony that redrawing the map could actually cost Republicans voters.

    “It’s basic math,” she said.

    Trump may view redistricting as his insurance policy, but it only works if Republicans win. If they stumble in 2026, no map—no matter how rigged—will be enough.

    Link

  72. whheydt says

    RE: Lynna, OM @ #71…
    The Democrats should hammer on the point that the man who falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged, is now loudly and publicly calling for Texas to rig the 2026 election. That Felon in the White House needs to have his nose rubbed in it.

  73. birgerjohansson says

    Late Night with Seth Meyers 

    “Trump Can’t Stop Adding Tacky Gold Embellishments to Oval Office”

  75. StevoR says

    @ ^ birgerjohansson : I can relate to that so much myself here. Know the feeling!

  76. StevoR says

    Very massive stars (VMSs) have had a massive impact on the formation of our universe. However, there aren’t very many of them, with only around 20 known specimens in the Milky Way and Large Magellanic Cloud. Even observing those is difficult for the current generation of telescopes, which is where an unexpected technological champion might play a role.

    According to a new paper by Fabrice Martins of CNRS and a group of European and American researchers, the upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) might be our most useful tool when it comes to finding these elusive giants.

    …(Snip).. MSs are typically huge, around hundreds of times the size of our sun. As such, they are much brighter than a typical star, and have much higher mass-loss rates, making them prime candidates to have seeded the local galactic area with “metals,” anything other than hydrogen. They make up a large number of the building blocks of all planets, asteroids and moons. However, they are also typically found in star clusters where they are surrounded by dozens or hundreds of other, normal stars.

    To find these (admittedly very large) needles in the haystack of these clusters, a telescope would need extremely high spectral resolution, and that is exactly what the HWO provides.

    Source : http://phys.org/news/2025-07-habitable-worlds-observatory-massive-stars.html

  77. JM says

    The Guardian: Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us?

    Since my own work is focused on topics such as intergroup conflict, misinformation, technology and climate change, I’m aware of the many challenges facing humanity. Yet, it seems striking that people online seem to be just as furious about the finale of The White Lotus or the latest scandal involving a YouTuber. Everything is either the best thing ever or the absolute worst, no matter how trivial. Is that really what most of us are feeling? No, as it turns out. Our latest research suggests that what we’re seeing online is a warped image created by a very small group of highly active users.

    Twelve accounts – known as the “disinformation dozen” – created most of the vaccine misinformation on Facebook during the pandemic. These few hyperactive users produced enough content to create the false perceptions that many people were vaccine hesitant.

    I don’t think the general idea will surprise anybody here but seeing just how small the really toxic portion is on social media is surprising.

  78. StevoR says

    Gotta say I hadn’t really ever thought of Pterosaurs as plant eaters and this does really surprise me :

    The Mesozoic pterosaur is considered to be the first vertebrate to achieve powered flight and new evidence, also the first of its kind, helps to pin down what exactly this flying reptile ate. Previously, scientists had trouble establishing a consensus on the pterosaur’s diet. Some suggested meat-based or fish-based diets, while others believe the pterosaur ate plants, bugs, or even that the pterosaur was a filter-feeder.

    …(Snip)..

    .. A few studies have found remnants of food in pterosaur remains, either within the stomach, the mouth or as waste products. These included some evidence of fish and insect consumption. However, new research discussed in a report from Science Bulletin provides the first direct evidence that pterosaurs were perfectly happy to eat a full meal of plant material.

    The report details the findings of a well-preserved young pterosaur, specifically Sinopterus atavismus, from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation in western Liaoning, China. In addition to the specimen being almost entirely intact, the pterosaur had a full stomach. The researchers found an abundance of phytoliths—tiny particles from plant cells— within the fossilized stomach.

    Source : https://phys.org/news/2025-07-evidence-pterosaur-fossilized-stomach-longstanding.html#google_vignette

  79. John Morales says

    “I don’t think the general idea will surprise anybody here but seeing just how small the really toxic portion is on social media is surprising.”

    It’s worse than that, Jim.

    I need not elaborate, only mention that the toxicity is not limiited to a very few.

  80. StevoR says

    Good Owen Jones article here :

    The substance of his argument deserves to be confronted. He argues that making parallels between Israel and the Nazis is inherently antisemitic, often done with an intention to cause distress to Jewish people. This is an claim enshrined in the IHRA definition of antisemitism – which has been used to stifle critique of Israel. One of the examples given by the IHRA is: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

    But it is not true that parallels are being drawn between Israel and the Nazis in order to bait Jewish people. In fact, the exact opposite is happening.

    If a state hostile to the West was committing the crimes Israel is perpetrating, the use of Nazi analogies would have the backing of a national consensus.

    How do I know this?

    Because Nazi comparisons have routinely been used for awful crimes that aren’t on the scale of Gaza.

    Source : https://www.owenjones.news/p/on-israel-and-comparisons-with-the

    Perhaps could be summed up by the old adage about if shoes fitting and then wear it..

  81. StevoR says

    Space dot com on finding anon- transiting – massive gas giant – exoplanet :

    But if the hidden world was part of a multiplanet system, astronomers could try to find it despite its inclined orbit. Kepler-139 has three rocky transiting super-Earths; a fourth gas giant was later discovered. Gaps in their orbits suggested that other worlds might be present. Precise measurements of the orbits allowed the astronomers to infer the existence of at least one more planet.

    “The issue is not exactly finding non-transiting planets, but rather, finding situations in which we can deduce where the non-transiting planet is located,” Caleb Lammers, a graduate student in the Department of Astrophysical Science at Princeton and co-author of the study, told Space.com

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/astronomers-discover-giant-alien-planet-35-times-more-massive-than-earth-hiding-in-a-known-star-system

  84. Akira MacKenzie says

    @80

    This is an claim enshrined in the IHRA definition of antisemitism – which has been used to stifle critique of Israel. One of the examples given by the IHRA is: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

    Well isn’t that convenient.

  86. birgerjohansson says

    Found at Facebook.

    Doctor to patient:
    “You no longer have Medicaid, so expect a big, beautiful bill.”

  87. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all Chris Hayes

    ‘Only two options’: Jeffries says Trump team is ‘lying’ or ‘hiding’ Epstein info
    Video is 8:53 minutes

    Trump is ‘desperate’ for people to stop talking about Epstein, says Hayes
    Video is 9:36 minutes

  88. birgerjohansson says

    Hossenfelder alert. 
    “The Problem with Eric Weinstein”

    A certain Sean Carroll went on Piers Morgan’s show (a red flag in itself) and decided to dump on physicist Eric Weinstein, after which a whole pack of people went after EW with slavering jaws. I think  it is good of Hossenfelder to call out this bullying.
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=KiFYcuoK490

    (NOT related to the Weinstein who helped Peter Griffin with his economical problems and made him think it is true J*ws are inherently good with money) 

  89. says

    whheydt @72:

    RE: Lynna, OM @ #71…
    The Democrats should hammer on the point that the man who falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged, is now loudly and publicly calling for Texas to rig the 2026 election. That Felon in the White House needs to have his nose rubbed in it.

    I agree.

    Chris Hayes included the topic in his interview of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. The video is titled ‘Only two options’: Jeffries says Trump team is ‘lying’ or ‘hiding’ Epstein info, but Hayes also talked to Jeffries about the rigging of elections in Texas.

  90. birgerjohansson says

    BTW Eric Weinstein is not doing himself any favors by having a huge ego, but… that is hardly uncommon. At least he is not as crappy as Elon Musk.

  91. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 87
    Trump is now saying those calling for an investigation about Epstein are “bad people”. WTF?

  92. says

    Senate Republicans confirm retired general with ugly record for key Pentagon post

    “At Trump’s behest, Senate Republicans elevated a conspiracy theorist who called Obama a ‘terrorist leader’ to a senior Defense Department position.”

    Related video at the link.

    As Senate confirmation fights go, the dispute over retired Gen. Anthony Tata didn’t generate a lot of national headlines, but it was a fight I’ve been watching because of what it tells us about contemporary Republican politics. The Military Times reported:

    The Senate on Tuesday confirmed retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata as the next Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, putting the controversial nominee in charge of a host of department programs supporting troops and their families. Tata was approved for the post by a partisan 52-46 vote, with all Republicans present in the chamber backing his nomination and all Democrats opposing it.

    In a handful of instances, Trump nominees who struggled during the president’s first term have made successful comebacks in his second. But by any fair measure, Tata represents a special case.

    It’s been a while since we last talked about Tata, so let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point.

    In February 2020, as part of a post-impeachment loyalty purge, Trump ousted John Rood as the undersecretary of defense for policy. The president soon after settled on Tata, whom he’d seen on Fox News, as Rood’s successor. It wasn’t long, however, before Tata’s ugly record came into focus.

    Two years earlier, for example, the retired brigadier general condemned Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader,” with “Islamic roots,” who helped negotiate an internal nuclear agreement to help “the greater Islamic state crush Israel.” Around the same time, Tata described Islam as the “most oppressive violent religion I know of.” [Extremist views from Tata]

    He also published a 2018 tweet pointing to “clues” that Obama “supported Russian meddling” in the 2016 race, adding that Islamic militants “really did have Manchurian Candidate in White House.” Tata also suggested that former CIA Director John Brennan sent a coded tweet ordering Trump’s assassination. [!]

    With this record in mind, a variety of former U.S. military leaders publicly opposed Tata’s nomination in 2020. Though the retired brigadier general tried to retract his earlier rhetoric — “I did misspeak in 2018 on Twitter in hyperbolic conversations,” he said in a letter to senators — it quickly became clear that there was significant skepticism about his nomination, even in the Republican-led Senate.

    Before his confirmation hearing could even begin, Tata quietly withdrew from consideration.

    It was, however, a temporary departure: In August 2020, Trump appointed Tata to a senior Pentagon position that did not require Senate approval. In November 2020, just a week after he lost his re-election bid, Trump, apparently indifferent to Tata’s record, did it again, making him the acting undersecretary for policy.

    In early 2021, the Biden administration showed the retired brigadier general the door, but Trump nevertheless chose him for a Pentagon leadership role — again.

    Five years ago, enough Senate Republicans were uncomfortable enough with Tata that his nomination couldn’t move forward. In 2025, however, he faced literally zero GOP resistance. Even the ostensible “moderates” […] ignored Democratic concerns and voted with their party, elevating a conspiracy theorist who called Obama a “terrorist leader” to a senior Defense Department post.

  93. says

    The president wants the public to believe that Putin “didn’t fool” him, but Trump’s recent record is in the way of his absurd talking point.

    After Donald Trump teased a “major statement” about U.S. policy toward Russia, many observers thought the president might actually do something meaningful. They were mistaken: Trump announced this week that he’d consider new sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s regime unless Russia agreed to a ceasefire with Ukraine — within 50 days.

    It was the fifth time Trump had threatened such sanctions, and the first four times, he failed to follow through on his posturing.

    In Moscow, where there were at least some concerns that the White House might actually do something meaningful, there was widespread relief in response to the American president’s pitiful position. Indeed, after Trump’s not-so-major announcement, the Russian stock market soared.

    It was against this backdrop that Trump insisted that the former KGB agent never fooled him. HuffPost reported:

    President Donald Trump declared Monday that Vladimir Putin has never fooled him, just moments after detailing how the Russian dictator has repeatedly fooled him by having pleasant conversations with him just before launching new attacks against Ukraine to murder innocent civilians. [Yep. True. Trump is so embarrassing.]

    The rhetorical disconnect was odd, even by his standards. At an Oval Office event, alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump reflected on some of his recent conversations with Putin, explaining: “I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done and I always hang up and say, ‘Well, that was a nice phone call,’ and then missiles launched into Kyiv or some other city.”

    Moments later, he added: “I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation.’ She said, ‘Oh, really? Another city was just hit.’”

    Indeed, he’s told variations of this same rhetorical anecdote quite a bit in recent days.

    The point was clearly to express criticism: Trump, in his telling, would talk to the Russian leader, who’d say all the right things, filling the American president with confidence. Trump would then deliver assurances to the public about the prospects for peace, only to have Putin turn around and escalate his military offensive in Ukraine.

    But as part of this week’s White House event with Rutte, the American president added, in reference to Putin: “He’s fooled a lot of people.” Trump then pointed to each of his modern predecessors.

    “He fooled Bush. He fooled a lot of people. He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn’t fool me,” Trump boasted. [scoff, and LOL]

    It’d be great if this were true, but reality proves otherwise.

    Trump’s recent rhetorical record is unambiguous. “I believe he wants peace,” Trump said in mid-February, referring to his Russian counterpart. He added, “I mean, I know him very well. Yeah, I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn’t. … I trust him on this subject.”

    Two weeks later, Trump said Putin could be counted on to “keep his word.” Two weeks after that, touting Putin’s alleged interest in peace, Trump declared, “I believe him.” [!] A month later, he told Time magazine he believed that Putin was committed to making peace.

    […] But we’re nevertheless all supposed to believe that Putin “didn’t fool” Trump.

    Stepping back, there are really only two possibilities here. The first is that Trump wasn’t genuinely fooled, but rather, he was simply lying to the nation and the world about his genuine beliefs regarding Putin. In other words, when the Republican vouched for the Russian autocrat, and insisted he was sincere in his belief that Putin could be trusted to end the war he started, Trump didn’t actually mean a word of it.

    The other possibility is that Trump was played for a sucker.

    I’ll leave it to the White House to explain which of these possibilities is the accurate one, but there really isn’t a third option.

  94. birgerjohansson says

    Norwegian olympic medalist Audun Grönvold has just been killed by lightning. This does not fit into any topic, it is just weird. There are a thousand more likely ways to die young 😦

  96. rorschach says

    Rebecca has a new video out where she rightly doubts that the Trump/Epstein connection is just a conspiracy theory. Shooting fish in a barrel, a bit.

    https://skepchick.org/2025/07/the-trump-epstein-story-is-not-a-conspiracy-theory/

    But she is weirdly selective in what she believes is conspiracy and what is not, to her of course Epstein committed suicide (despite the 2.53 minutes missing from the twice edited video feed, as Wired revealed), the Trump assassination attempt was real (his hearing was ok and the cartilage not damaged despite a high-powered bullet with a pressure wave allegedly hitting him) , there was no vote rigging in 2024 (despite Trump admitting to it twice on live TV). Bit surprised how her scepticism is wielded so selectively these days.

  98. says

    Having lost control of the Jeffrey Epstein story, the president is condemning his own supporters and allies as “weaklings” who have fallen for a “hoax.”

    Related video at the link.

    A week ago, at a White House Cabinet meeting, Donald Trump tried to take control over the public conversation surrounding Jeffrey Epstein. The president, speaking just one day after his Justice Department released a controversial memo dismissing the entire mess out of hand, deemed the scandal over and irrelevant.

    That didn’t work. On the contrary, his effort to put the debacle behind him only seemed to make matters worse. In the days that followed, Trump tried a variety of familiar tactics, including concocting a new conspiracy theory about the conspiracy theory. This didn’t work, either.

    And so, just over the last day or so, the president rolled out a new tactic: He has begun lashing out at his own supporters for caring about a story he ordered them not to care about. [Yeah, the third tactic is also not going to work.]

    In brief comments to reporters late on Tuesday afternoon, Trump said only “bad people” want to keep the controversy going — an assessment that appeared to include many on the right who continue to focus attention on the matter. The next morning, as NBC News reported, Trump went considerably further.

    President Donald Trump on Wednesday disowned his supporters who have called for the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, chiding them as ‘weaklings’ who ‘bought into this bulls—.’ The lengthy post on Truth Social represents the clearest split from the faction of his MAGA base that has questioned the Justice Department’s handling of the case.

    As part of a 243-word online tirade, which included odd but obligatory references to Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton and Trump’s Russia scandal, the president condemned the Epstein controversy as a “SCAM” and a “Hoax” created by his Democratic enemies, while admonishing his “PAST supporters” who take the story seriously.

    Trump proceeded to talk about how impressed he is with himself, before condemning those concerned with the Epstein matter as “weaklings,” concluding: “I don’t want their support anymore!” [Awww. Are they kicked out of the cult?]

    A few hours later, at a White House event, he kept this going, chastising “stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans.” [video]

    If recent history is any guide, these comments will not be well received by those asking questions about the Epstein controversy, especially in MAGA world, and the presidential meltdown will not have its intended effect.

    But as Trump tries to bully the political world into submission, there is a follow-up question I’d love to hear the president answer: If the whole Epstein story is an elaborate “scam” and “hoax” cooked up by Democrats, why was it embraced by so many members of his own team — including Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Don Bongino? [embedded links to sources are available at the main link] Is it the president’s contention that they’re all “stupid,” too?

    For that matter, if Democrats somehow managed to fabricate the Epstein files — an outlandish and ridiculous idea, to be sure — wouldn’t they have released the materials? And wouldn’t they have included Trump in the files to make him look bad?

    Or would it make more sense to assume that the files do make the Republican president look bad?

  99. JM says

    Reuters: Trump says he is not planning to fire Fed’s Powell

    U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is not planning to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell even as he unleashed a fresh round of criticism against the central bank chief and declined to completely reject the possibility of ousting him.
    A Bloomberg report earlier Wednesday that the president is likely to fire Powell soon sparked a drop in stocks and the dollar, and a rise in Treasury yields.

    Trump has talked about doing it for some time but keeps backing off. Trump would like Powell out because Powell is being conventional about finance, keeping interest rates up to combat inflation. Trump wants interest rates down because he thinks it will be good for the economy, make him look good and is disconnected from what is really happening economically. As a life long land developer he likely favors low interest rates in general.
    Every time Trump starts talking about doing it the markets drop and the Supreme Court has made clear that the head of the Fed is the one semi-independent organization that they won’t let the president fire at whim. In any case Powell’s term is up early next year so it’s probably faster for Trump to wait it out at this point.

  100. JM says

    @98 Lynna, OM: The Independent: Charlie Kirk backtracks after saying he’s ‘done talking about Epstein,’ claims he meant just ‘yesterday’
    Trump is also contacting certain right wing figures and asking them to drop the issue. Charlie Kirk’s flip flop was so blatant that it began to cause problems for him and he had to reverse course. Not that he is going to oppose Trump but he isn’t going to pretend the issue is gone either.
    Trump is paying the price for building a coalition on anti-government people and conspiracy theorists. Both groups that are going to turn on you once you are the government. It’s like walking a mine field because there is no way to know what will set them off but something will eventually. Epstein should have been a dead issue because no new information is coming out, it’s all stuff that people should have known before the election. Trump’s clumsy attempt to force the issue out of the press has given it life. He would have been much better off keeping his mouth shut but Trump doesn’t know how to do that.

  101. says

    Contracts Show Millions of Dollars and Diverted Disaster Resources Were Used to Build ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

    TPM has obtained and analyzed over a dozen contracts and invoices related to the construction and operation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention camp in the Everglades. The documents identify eight previously undisclosed companies — including two firms with a Fortune 500 pedigree — involved with the controversial facility. They also show that, in at least one instance, resources allocated for the state’s “disaster preparedness” apparatus were diverted to the site as DeSantis’ office used emergency powers to quickly establish the camp, causing a shortfall that needs to be addressed during the ongoing hurricane season.

    The camp was first announced by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who is DeSantis’ former chief of staff and was manager of the governor’s unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign, late last month. The state began to move quickly to stand it up. That quick pace was captured by the contracts, which included at least one with “rush” fees, the diverted disaster resources, and indications the facility was still being built out and supplied after it was officially opened on July 1.

    […] TPM has identified contracts and invoices totaling $19,983,785.03 in the Florida Accountability Contract Tracking System (FACTS) that were issued to nine different firms. In one instance, the chief executive of a company contacted by TPM stated that he was unaware the business’ products were being used for the detention camp.

    The FACTS system, which is maintained by the state’s Department of Financial Services, lists all of these contracts and invoices as coming from the executive office of the governor and categorizes them as “Emergency procurement per Executive Order.” At points during the reporting of this story, TPM observed figures changing on the FACTS website. It is not certain the figures cited in these contracts represent the final amount paid. For 11 of the contracts and invoices in this story, PDF files of the “original” were initially available in FACTS. All of those PDF files were removed during the course of our reporting. Except in one instance, all of the data cited in this story is from these “original” documents. […]

    DeSantis is building the facility, which will reportedly cost at least $450 million a year, by leveraging an ongoing state of emergency that he first declared with an executive order in early 2023 in response to what he described as an “alarming influx of migrants.” All of the contracts and invoices cited by TPM mention “TNT,” an acronym which has been used to describe the site of the camp, which was constructed at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Big Cypress National Preserve.

    One of the contracts, which the system identified as being created on July 1, provided for $499,869.60 to be paid to Baker’s Electronics & Communications Inc. for an “Atlas trunked radio system,” a platform often used by public safety agencies for critical and emergency communications. The contract specified that the system was for the “TNT” facility and that the “Atlas systems deployed at the site” were “pulled from disaster preparedness platform” [sic]. The document further indicated that, as a result of radio systems from the state’s emergency infrastructure being “pulled” to “Alligator Alcatraz,” the system needed to “be back-filled to prevent a response gap during hurricane season given the unknown duration of detention center operation.”

    […]‘I Do Not Know What They’re Doing With That’

    “Alligator Alcatraz” has been part of DeSantis’ efforts to assist with President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda […] The detention camp officially opened on July 1 with a ceremony attended by both DeSantis and Trump.

    […] Trump and other Republicans have reveled in that nickname and in the idea that the harsh environment surrounding the site would prove hazardous for the migrants detained there. The project has inspired mocking memes from White House aides and even merch sold by the House GOP with an image of a smirking gator and the slogan “ICE WITH A BITE.” As he toured the grounds, Trump declared that it was “not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon.”

    “We’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator … if they escape prison,” Trump said. “You have a lot of bodyguards, you have a lot of cops, that are in the form of alligators.” [Trump enjoying the idea of cruel treatment.]

    Since that opening event, other officials have been allowed to tour the facility. […] Democrats have described it as inhumane. In a news conference after she visited the site on July 12, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) blasted it as an “internment camp.”

    “They are essentially packed into cages, wall to wall humans, 32 detainees per cage,” Wasserman Schultz said.

    […] Florida State Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said she was concerned about what she described as a “human rights crisis” as well as the high costs of the facility, the “rushed” speed with which it is being built, and indications DeSantis “is abusing emergency powers to hand out no-bid contracts to political donors.”

    In addition to the Baker’s Electronics contract, TPM identified 11 other contracts and invoices [I snipped details]

    In a conversation with TPM on Tuesday evening, Peter Whitford, Meridian’s CEO, suggested that his company was unaware where state officials were using its products.

    “When we supply the Division of Emergency Management out of Florida, we supply product to them,” Whitford told TPM. “What they do with that product is not part of our purview.

    “You’re reading a contract I have no visibility to,” he added.

    Whitford declined to review the contract TPM obtained via the FACTS system.

    “I do not need to see any document other than what I get from the division of Homeland Security,” he said. “I do not know what they’re doing with that. I do not know if one set is going there or 100 sets are going there. So, for me to make a comment on hypothetically where they’re going would not be appropriate.”

    “We have received the purchase order,” he added. “We are advised prior to delivery where they are going.” […]

    Heavy Equipment

    After the Meridian contract, the next largest payment that TPM could identify going to a company was a $5,955,875.35 invoice to Lemoine CDR Logistics LLC, a company that works on projects related to construction, infrastructure, and disaster response. [I snipped details]

    […] None of the other “TNT” contracts identified by TPM included payments above seven figures. [I snipped details].

    Memes and NDAs

    In its previous reporting on the “Alligator Alcatraz” contractors, the Miami Herald identified three that “have given money to Gov. Ron DeSantis or the Republican Party of Florida for statewide campaigns.” The biggest donors were Carlos Duart and Tina Vidal-Duart, who the paper reported “have given a total of $1.9 million to the two state political action committees supporting DeSantis’ bids for governor and to the Republican Party of Florida.” […] Duart declined to comment and said they were “under NDAs.”

    There was only one DeSantis donor among the chief executives of the companies newly identified by TPM as being involved with “Alligator Alcatraz.” Ed Mansouri, the owner, founder, and chief executive of WeatherSTEM Inc., gave $3,000 to DeSantis in late November 2021. [I snipped details]

    Mansouri said he initially didn’t realize the contract was related to “Alligator Alcatraz” — until he saw the chatter online.

    “I gleaned that just because of some of the social media,” Mansouri explained. “I had sort of seen some of the memes with pictures of the alligators.”

  102. says

    Fire, Brimstone, and Hegseth: Idaho Christian Nationalists Establish a DC Beachhead

    “They’re bringing an aggressive, very MAGA brand of Christian government to the nation’s capital.”

    This past Sunday, Pastor Jared Longshore looked out at his congregants, gathered to hear him deliver the first sermon of a new church within sight of the U.S. Capitol. The group included Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as well as a prominent conservative think tanker and assorted Republican political operatives.

    Longshore began with a choice. “The option before you is quite plain,” he said. “It is Christ or chaos, Christ or destruction.”

    It was a dramatic note to start on. But Christ Kirk, the Moscow, Idaho church that launched its D.C. branch this past weekend, has grand ambitions. Under the leadership of minister Doug Wilson, a Reformed Christian, the church is seeking to spread its hardline vision of Protestantism nationally. It has prominent adherents and allies in the second Trump administration. The D.C. church is a project of Christ Kirk Moscow, itself a part of a growing, international network of churches that Wilson founded called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).

    […] America is full of people with big, apocalyptic visions and hardline views on how the country can redeem itself. But Wilson is a rare bird: along with the CREC, he’s built a small, theocratic empire in Moscow, Idaho, far away from D.C. And yet, through his own sermons, those of affiliated pastors like Longshore, and a publishing house, Christ Kirk (also known as Christ Church) has managed to bridge the geographic divide and gain a following among right-wingers across the country. It’s spawned what some call the “Moscow Mood” — a postmillennialist view that the Christian right should employ a new level of aggression in fighting to dominate the culture, and use the government to enact policies in accordance with its religious teachings.

    […] Longshore told TPM that he wants a Christian government in the most direct sense: all government officials must “acknowledge that Christ is Lord and then actually listen to what he is telling them to do.” That would include the need to “execute the wrath of God against the wrongdoer,” he said.

    […] “We understand that worship is warfare,” Longshore intoned at one point during his sermon. “We mean that.”

    The militaristic language isn’t only meant to attract attention. […] you can hear it in their rhetoric: they exist within “a lapsed nation, a fallen nation, a nation that was Christian to the core, nearly to a man when it was founded,” […]

    […] in a pamphlet that the group distributed at its Sunday service, it notes that the church’s “voting practices will generally follow a conservative/libertarian pattern, and when our people don’t vote, it is generally because the available options don’t go far enough.”

    […] “The issue that that person’s going to face when they come to hear the preaching of the word is the first commandment: have no other Gods before me. So you can’t actually worship Allah and worship the triune God at the same time.”

    […] the service’s attendees on Sunday were trying to enact their vision of a more traditional, patriarchal America not only through how they worship, but also in other aspects of their lives. To put this more simply, the congregants were very trad. It’s part of what unites Christ Kirk with the extremely online elements of the New Right. Think men wearing checkered shirts and suspenders, some in blazers, women in long, flowing dresses, and families with more kids than you can count on one hand. All of this in a relatively small room that grew increasingly stuffy in the summer heat.

    […] Hegseth, a proud follower of Wilson, attended. He arrived minutes before Longshore began the service, preceded by several bodyguards. He nodded along throughout the service […] Nick Solheim, Chief Operations Officer of American Moment, a Vice President JD Vance-backed organization founded in 2021 that’s helped recruit right-wing staffers to serve in the Trump administration, was there as well. The service itself took place in a building — formerly D.C.’s Capitol Lounge — owned by a firm linked to the Conservative Partnership Institute. That detail is almost too on the nose: CPI is a conservative nonprofit that Mark Meadows founded in 2021. Since then, it’s played a leading role in developing and readying younger MAGA cohorts for a second Trump term, much like the efforts of American Moment.

    Longshore’s sermon sounded at times like a spiritual component to that project. Two large American flags adorned the main sanctuary space; on a wall off to the side hung a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag next to a Betsy Ross flag. At one point, the pastor invoked the Department of Government Efficiency’s dubious and discredited finding that Social Security had paid out billions to dead people as a broader metaphor for America’s spiritual demise.

    […] Longshore told TPM after the sermon that the problem he was trying to address in was an “emphasis on democracy.” That, he said, leads to falsity: people start “trusting the mind of man to determine how things should go,” while “ultimately God is the one who has spoken.”

    This may seem like a cynical way to use spirituality to justify partisan politics. The difference is that, for these true believers, there’s no difference between following your faith and waging a spiritual battle. […]

    The title of the sermon was “Grace and Peace for Washington.” But with all the political references and militaristic language, it was hard for me not to wonder: peace on whose terms?

    […] Hegseth led a prayer service at the Pentagon with Brooks Potteiger, his Nashville pastor and a CREC member, in May. The same month, the DOJ sued a small Idaho town for allegedly discriminating against Christ Kirk when it refused the church a permit.

    […] Despite America’s recent institutional lurch to the right, there’s little to indicate that their vision for a more traditional society shares the same degree of public support that Trump enjoyed in November 2024; trad outfits make for good memes and TikToks, but it’s hard to imagine the lifestyle becoming part of a societal transformation.

    […] The church opening fell on Sunday, July 13 — the one year anniversary of the first failed assassination attempt on President Trump. That event brought the already simmering Christian nationalist ideas in the Trump campaign to a boil. Trump has cast his survival as granting him a divine right to rule; Roger Stone, nobody’s idea of piety, expounded on this theme on Sunday with a social media post linking the timing of the shooting with a verse from the Book of Ephesians: “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes”

    Longshore did not mention the anniversary at all during the service. He built his sermon around Ephesians, referencing at one point the same “armor” verse as Stone. […]

    “Guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus or you’ll be left to cover up your nakedness with manufactured fig leaves,” he said, before recounting a list of Christ’s tribulations that may sound oddly familiar: he was “beaten, bloodied, slandered, abandoned, and falsely tried at a kangaroo court”; he “went straight into the lion’s den of our twisted perversions to be twisted on a tree for them.”

  105. Rob Grigjanis says

    KG @103: I think you’re at least flirting with confirmation bias. Yeah, Hossenfelder can be an offensive ass, as can Weinstein.

    But Hossenfelder has a point here. She doesn’t think much of Weinstein’s “theory of everything” (she uses the word ‘crap’ about it and other theories), but it is somewhat hypocritical of Carroll (and many others in the physics community) to criticise Weinstein for not having predictions when they’re unable to come up with many of their own, even with tax-funded research.

    He may be a pompous ass and an arsehole, but a lot of the criticism aimed at him seems to be clique-driven.

  106. says

    Followup to comment 101.

    […] Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who toured the site earlier this month and subsequently decried the conditions there, sentd a statement to TPM blasting every aspect of the project.

    “DeSantis already operates under a cloud of corruption when it comes to stealing taxpayer dollars. So, it’s no surprise he’d siphon off and create shortfalls in our hurricane preparedness funds for this boondoggle, then hide it from the public, or that he’d hand out sweetheart contracts to donors to build this monument to cruelty and denied due process,” Wasserman Schultz said. “This internment camp is an outrageously wasteful publicity stunt, designed to hurt immigrants and distract from reckless Republican policies that will double the ranks of Florida’s uninsured.”

    Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried similarly questioned the purpose of the facility and the fact emergency equipment was pulled to the site.

    “Ron DeSantis is gambling with Floridians’ lives. Diverting critical emergency communications equipment during hurricane season is not just irresponsible—it’s dangerous,” Fried said in a statement to TPM. “First responders need every tool at their disposal to save lives. Instead, the Governor is raiding hurricane response resources for political games.” […]

    <a href=https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/dems-rip-desantis-for-raiding-hurricane-response-resources-at-alligator-alcatraz”>Link

  107. says

    Though the so-called Department of Government Efficiency doesn’t grab as many headlines as it did in its Elon-Musk-led heyday, its workers cling like wood ticks on various agencies and continue to have access to a staggering amount of data.

    Take the Department of Agriculture.

    On Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin wrote a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on behalf of Wisconsin farmers, expressing the legitimate concern that letting DOGE rummage around in USDA databases of private data seems not great. Baldwin also pointed out that DOGE also has access to the National Payment System, giving it control over billions of dollars in loans and payments to farmers.

    DOGE intrusion “not only breaches [farmers’] privacy, but also raises serious concerns about the future of USDA payments, our nation’s food security, and the consolidation of farmland and processing operations,” Baldwin wrote.

    This project seems to be led by a DOGE bro named Jordan Wick. Who is Jordan Wick? Surely someone with deep experience in agriculture, the intricacies of farm finances, and/or government payment systems? Oh, heavens no. He’s a 28-year-old former software engineer for Waymo, the self-driving car company. […]

    Nonetheless, Wick appears to have unprecedented access to USDA data. A source provided NPR with access logs revealing that Wick can see all the private, personal, and financial information at USDA, and can change or cancel payments and loans. He has access that no one else at USDA has.

    Even those tasked with the professional responsibility of explaining why Wick needs this level of access can come up with only a series of buzzwords. The “USDA Efficiency Team”—which is apparently what they’re calling the burrowed-in DOGE kids now—is reviewing “many loans, guarantees, and payments” for supposed fraud and national security concerns, per a USDA spokesperson.

    […] It’s unclear if the spokesperson is accusing farmers or USDA employees of defrauding American taxpayers […] [Wick] may have been a part of DOGE’s illegal exfiltration of National Labor Relations Board data.

    Letting Wick determine what contracts and payments are valid will probably go as well as when the government let a different DOGE bro review Department of Veterans’ Affairs contracts. The bro wrote an AI program—or rather, he co-wrote it with another AI. Said new AI program then was turned loose in the VA systems, where it promptly and incorrectly determined that over 1,000 contracts were worth $34 million apiece, when some of them were worth more like $35,000.

    These tech kiddies don’t have an “unmatched skillset.” They don’t even have a normal baseline skillset for the jobs they have barged into. The Trump administration’s project of firing all federal workers with specialized knowledge was bad enough, but it’s just adding insult to injury that we now have to pretend that random software guys understand the inner workings of government far better.

    Link

  108. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 107
    So it is like when Idi Amin threw out all of Asian descent, and let random flunkies take over their businesses and property.
    It tracks. Idiot man-child takes over country, everything goes to shit.
    That reminds me: Next time Trump visits his Scottish golf resort he should be greeted as ‘Last King of Scotland’.

  109. birgerjohansson says

    I have been doing more research on Japanese anime, for instance digging up misunderstandings.
    Manga and anime called ‘yuri’ is about close relationships between two women, but not necessarily romantic/sexual relationships.
    What is called ‘hentai’ is not necessarily what we would call porn, but at least contains one or several fetishes.

    And then we have mainstream manga/anime that can be weird. ‘This monster wants to eat me’ is about a girl who befriends a mermaid who wants to eventually eat her (mermaids are carnivorous).
    One anime is about a magician who will save a kingdom. In a side plot he befriends the female captain of the king’s guard and makes her agree to go barefoot and stomp him in the face. I thought that was not something Legolas would have done, but I assume I am being parochial.

    The films where humans are dying out and robots are taking over are by contrast calm and peaceful.
    ‘The Summer Hikaru Died’ is a Lovecraftian horror story where a guy finds his friend has been substituted by …something else that just looks like him, but he doesn’t care, because, what is the worst that can happen, right?

    Anime generally covers all the things US film and TV covers, and a lot they dont. Downside: just like US media you have to wade through oceans of junk to find the good stuff.
    That is why Nyarlahotep invented Youtube so you can listen to nerds who consume these things every waking hour and rate them.

  110. John Morales says

    Bot could have saved you some work, Birger.

    Me: Are there multiple genres and categories in manga and anime other than yuri?

    BB:
    Absolutely — yuri is just one thread in a vast tapestry. Manga and anime are organized by both demographic categories and thematic genres, each with its own conventions and emotional palette. Here’s a breakdown:

    🧭 Demographic Categories

    These are based on the intended audience:
    – Shōnen (少年): Targeted at teen boys; action-packed, adventurous, often with themes of friendship and perseverance. (e.g. Naruto, One Piece)
    – Shōjo (少女): For teen girls; focuses on romance, emotional growth, and interpersonal drama. (e.g. Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket)
    – Seinen (青年): Aimed at adult men; includes mature themes, psychological depth, and complex narratives. (e.g. Berserk, Monster)
    – Josei (女性): For adult women; explores realistic relationships, societal roles, and emotional nuance. (e.g. Paradise Kiss, Honey and Clover)
    – Kodomomuke (子供向け): Designed for children; light-hearted, moralistic, and often educational. (e.g. Doraemon, Pokémon)

    🎭 Thematic Genres

    These cut across demographics and define the story’s tone or setting:
    – Action / Adventure: Battles, quests, and high-stakes journeys.
    – Romance: Emotional and romantic entanglements.
    – Comedy: Humor-driven narratives.
    – Drama: Emotional intensity and character development.
    – Fantasy / Sci-Fi: Magical worlds or futuristic tech.
    – Horror / Thriller: Suspense, fear, and psychological tension.
    – Slice of Life: Everyday experiences and subtle emotional arcs.
    – Sports / Music / Cooking: Focused on specific skills or professions.

    🌈 Relationship-Focused Subgenres

    These often overlap with demographic categories:
    – Yuri (百合): Emotional or romantic relationships between women. Can range from platonic to explicitly romantic.
    – Yaoi / Boys’ Love (BL): Romantic or sexual relationships between men, often written for a female audience.
    – Shōjo-ai / Shōnen-ai: Older terms for non-explicit yuri and yaoi, respectively.

    🛸 Niche & Hybrid Genres

    Isekai (異世界): Characters transported to another world.
    Mecha: Giant robots and mechanical warfare.
    Magical Girl (Mahō Shōjo): Girls with magical powers and transformation sequences.
    Ecchi / Harem / Reverse Harem: Sexual innuendo or romantic setups with multiple love interests.

    If you’re mapping genre boundaries or probing semantic drift (which I suspect you might be), the interplay between demographic and thematic layers offers fertile ground. Want to explore how genres evolve or how subgenres like iyashikei (healing anime) fit into this matrix?

  111. John Morales says

    [sorry, new BB instance, I didn’t reinforce the avoidance of conversational and engagement protocols via my own — thus that last unsolicited prompt. Bad bot!]

  113. says

    Pentagon scales back its invasion of Los Angeles

    After weeks of infighting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday night ordered the withdrawal of roughly 2,000 National Guard troops from Los Angeles—about half of the total force stationed there—amid mounting political backlash over their controversial presence.

    “Thanks to our troops who stepped up to answer the call, the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement.

    The move marks a major scaling back of a military operation that began in early June, after a wave of immigration raids triggered citywide protests. President Donald Trump had federalized the California National Guard and dispatched 4,000 troops, along with more than 700 active-duty Marines, in one of the largest domestic deployments in recent history.

    The White House initially signaled a 60-day mission, but it’s unclear why the drawdown began ahead of schedule—or how long the remaining forces will stay. […]

    By mid-June, most protests had quieted down, and Mayor Karen Bass lifted a curfew she had imposed in parts of downtown Los Angeles. But the troops remained. According to The New York Times, National Guard members were seen standing with rifles outside federal buildings and maneuvering through Los Angeles traffic in armored vehicles, raising alarm in immigrant communities already rattled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.

    […] The drawdown is a meaningful shift, but not a full retreat. About 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines remain in the region. Los Angeles is still under military watch, but for the first time since the deployment began, there’s a sense that the end may finally be in sight.

  114. says

    CNBC News, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    House Republicans sure do cave to Trump a lot: “President Donald Trump said Tuesday that a group of House Republicans who blocked several cryptocurrency regulation bills from moving forward earlier in the day had changed their minds following a White House meeting, and would now vote to advance the legislation.”

  116. says

    Trump says he was surprised that Jerome Powell, the Fed chair he appointed, was appointed

    “The president seemed to forget that he appointed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, which was part of an unsettling pattern of cognitive missteps.”

    […] as NBC News reported, Trump made a new comment about his target that raised eyebrows:

    Trump said he was ‘surprised’ that Powell had been nominated to be chair of the Federal Reserve. ‘I was surprised he was appointed,’ Trump said. ‘I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him.’

    Trump did not appear to be kidding. [video]

    […] Trump is the one who chose him for the position in 2017. (Joe Biden renominated Powell in 2021, and he received broad, bipartisan support in the Senate.)

    This incident came one day after Trump told a detailed story about a conversation he had with his uncle about having taught Ted Kaczynski — better known as “Unabomber” — while John Trump was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    That conversation couldn’t have happened — in part because John Trump died more than a decade before Kaczynski was caught and identified, and in part because Kaczynski was never a student at MIT.

    […] hours earlier, he also suggested that IQ tests are comparable to cognitive exams that are used to identify evidence of dementia, mental deterioration and neurodegenerative diseases.

    Similarly, two weeks ago, Trump participated in a press conference at a detention facility in the Florida Everglades — known as “Alligator Alcatraz” — and a reporter asked the president whether there was an “expected time frame” that detainees would be kept at the controversial camp.

    “I’m gonna spend a lot of — this is my home state,” the Republican replied. “I love it. … I feel very comfortable in the state — I’ll spend a lot of time here.”

    He appeared unfazed by the disconnect between the question and the answer.

    Incidents like these are not uncommon. [I snipped additional examples and Obama’s comments.]

    […] if Trump’s cognitive state were deteriorating, what kind of signs would we look for? Maybe we’d look for instances in which he forgot about appointing powerful officials whom he appointed? Or shared the details of non-existent conversations? Or offered answers unrelated to the questions he’d been asked?

  117. says

    They came for us. We stood strong. We won.

    A few weeks ago, I told you that Donald Trump’s Department of Justice had launched an action against Daily Kos.

    I couldn’t say much then—and I still can’t. As part of the resolution, we’re required to keep the nature of the action confidential for one year.

    But here’s what I can say now: The DOJ has backed off. They’ve withdrawn. We stood our ground, and we won.

    This victory didn’t happen by accident. We didn’t cozy up to Trump for special treatment. We didn’t flinch. And most importantly, you didn’t flinch either.

    It’s easy to say “fight fight fight.” It’s something else entirely when doing so costs real money—especially while running an independent publication in a brutal media and political environment. But because this community stepped up when we asked, we were able to hire a top-notch legal team and face this challenge with confidence.

    […] in the grand scheme of things, this may be a small win. But for us, it’s huge. A real threat is off our back. And more importantly, it proves something powerful: Even in this darkness, we can fight back and win.

    […] Thank you for standing with us when it mattered most.

    I promise, we wouldn’t have won without you. And we certainly wouldn’t be here without you.

    And on May 6, 2026, I’ll be able—and happy—to tell the full story.

  118. says

    7.3 magnitude earthquake prompts tsunami warning along parts of Alaska’s coast

    Communities along a 700-mile stretch of Alaska’s southern coast ordered their residents to higher ground Wednesday after a powerful earthquake prompted a tsunami warning.

    The 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck at 12:37 p.m. local time, just south of Sand Point, a community of about 580 people on Popof Island, in the Aleutian chain, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center. The first waves were projected to land there, but the state’s emergency management division said an hour after the quake that it had received no reports of damage. [Map]

    “We have seen other earthquakes in the area that have not generated significant tsunami waves, but we’re treating it seriously and going through our procedures, making sure communities are notified so they can activate their evacuation procedures,” spokesman Jeremy Zidek said.

    The U.S. Tsunami Center said the warning was in effect from about 40 miles southwest of Homer to Unimak Pass, a distance of about 700 miles. Among the larger communities in the area is Kodiak, population of 5,200.

    In Unalaska, a fishing community of about 4,100, officials also urged people to move at least 50 feet above sea level, 1 mile inland. In King Cove, which has about 870 residents on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, officials sent an alert calling on those in the coastal area to move to higher ground. […]

  119. John Morales says

    “[…] if Trump’s cognitive state were deteriorating, what kind of signs would we look for? Maybe we’d look for instances in which he forgot about appointing powerful officials whom he appointed? Or shared the details of non-existent conversations? Or offered answers unrelated to the questions he’d been asked?”

    He’s bullshitting, not losing it. Flooding the zone with shit. For years now he’s done that.

    It’s pretty pitiful to see people fail to get the obvious.

    He’s bullshitting people, not losing the plot. Yes, he’s not very clever etc, but he’s a genius at getting on.

    (That’s why the news is all Trump all the time)

  121. John Morales says

    Dare I prevent?

    Trump Breaks Up With MAGA Over “Boring” Epstein Files: “I Don’t Want Their Support” | The Daily Show

    [on my currently-polluted YouTube feed, I should reset it again]

    …

    Who here imagines “Trump Breaks Up With MAGA” is somehow a true claim? ;)

    (Yet some would adduce it as a clever dig, as I just did)

  125. redwood says

    @John Morales 119
    “(That’s why the news is all Trump all the time)”
    I subscribe to an English-language newspaper here in Japan and I started noticing how often articles about Trump appeared in it. So my new hobby has become counting the number of times the word “Trump” appears in headlines. I’m sure he also appears in the text of articles without his name in the headline, but for the sake of my sanity, I’m just going with headlines.

    The newspaper often has translations from its Japanese counterpart (same publisher), but also reports from international news services and US newspapers like The Washington Post. It’s about 16 pages long and has sports and culture sections as well as regular news reports. So far, in two weeks of counting, the average number of “Trump” mentions in headlines is 5.4. This includes a low of three and a high of eight. That might not seem like so many, but it’s every single day. I didn’t do this when Biden was president, but I’m sure it wasn’t nearly this often and likely there were days his name didn’t appear at all.

    I think Trump spews shit relentlessly just to keep his name front and center in our consciousness. He doesn’t even care what he’s talking about. When you talk that much, you’re going to say stupid things along the way. I don’t know if he is suffering from any form of dementia, but he is suffering from logorrhea. John Morales has the right of it, the news is all Trump, all the time.

  126. KG says

    He [Eric Weinstein] may be a pompous ass and an arsehole, but a lot of the criticism aimed at him seems to be clique-driven. – Rob Grigjanis@105

    Can you cite any serious physics he’s doing? Or has ever done?

  128. birgerjohansson says

    If an “ordinary Joe” spewed BS like the dung-spreading thingies farmers tow behind their tractors, no one would want to have anything to do with him. The moment you become rich even the manure gets the Midas touch.

  129. birgerjohansson says

    NB
    An idea for people in Texas. A big asshole that is impopular even among Republicans will make a bid to became senator. If he wins the primary, the Dem candidate has a genuine chance!

    I don’t know the Texas system. Do they have open primaries?
    If not I do totally not endorse people registrering as Republicans to vote for the impopular guy in the primary!

  130. birgerjohansson says

    Late night with Seth Meyers.
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=SLjjJBMjJdc

    DJT calls followers stupid.
    Seth: ‘If people are asking if your name was in the Epstein files and you answer ‘the files were made up by Biden and Obama’ people are going to assume your name is in them. Because you could just have replied ‘no’.

  132. birgerjohansson says

    I agree DJT gets too much coverage.
    There must be other news.
    Weird Jewish splinter group digging tunnels? Kanye West doing even more craziness?
    Governor going “on the Appalachian trail” again? Super-spooky drones over New York? Cone on, make an effort, Americans!

  136. birgerjohansson says

    Swedish singer Björn Skifs ends his 50-year musical career after being diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia.

    He was the first Swede to make a big international hit with his cover of “Hooked on a Feeling” (also used in The Guardians of the Galaxy).
    .
    Singer Connie Francis (Stupid cupid”, ”Everybody’s somebody’s fool” and ”Who’s sorry now”) dies at 87. Apart from USA, she had a truly international career, singing in several languages.

  137. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all

    Crockett torches Trump over Epstein: ‘He’s got something to hide’
    Video is 5:44 minutes

    Trump DOJ fires Epstein prosecutor Maurene Comey
    Video is 5:54 minutes

    Elon Musk stirs the Epstein pot: ‘Powerful people want that list suppressed’
    Video is 7:53 minutes

  140. says

    Republicans advance Fox News vet Jeanine Pirro to be the top federal prosecutor in D.C.

    Related video at the link.

    […] The Fox News vet has already been serving in the role on an interim basis since mid-May.

    Democratic concerns about Pirro’s background are easy to understand, especially given her work on Fox News. It’s unrealistic to try to summarize her rhetorical record in a single blog post, but broadly speaking, as regular readers know, there are two key elements of Pirro’s career as a television personality to keep in mind.

    The first is that she’s as much of a sycophantic Trump loyalist as anyone in conservative media. As The Washington Post noted after the president’s announcement, “Jeanine Pirro has long stood out as one of his most reliable backers, often taking his critics to task in stark and colorful language.”

    The affection has been mutual. In 2019, Fox News found it necessary to publicly condemn anti-Muslim statements Pirro made, at which point Trump leapt to her defense.

    This kind of partisan unity between the president and Pirro helps explain why she was nominated, but it’s hardly reassuring given the powers of the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C.

    The other angle of note is that Pirro’s worldview appears to be rooted in a series of outlandish conspiracy theories. Way back in 2014, Pirro launched into a truly unhinged rant against Barack Obama, suggesting to viewers that the Democratic president was secretly training ISIS radicals, prompting BuzzFeed to publish a memorable headline: “Is This The Craziest Rant A Fox News Host Has Ever Done?”

    In the years that followed, Pirro continued to peddle one ludicrous conspiracy theory after another. Indeed, after Trump’s 2020 election defeat, it reached the point that Fox News felt the need to temporarily remove Pirro from the air. According to court filings, one executive who oversaw her show at the time privately explained, “I don’t trust her to be responsible.”

    As Media Matters noted, internal Fox communications revealed by court filings also showed that her executive producer described Pirro as a “reckless maniac” who is “nuts,” promotes “conspiracy theories” and “should never be on live television.”

    In theory, these details might give senators pause before backing her nomination to serve as of the United States’ most important prosecutors. Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee rubber-stamped her anyway.

  141. says

    Republicans shrug off laundry list of scandals, advance Emil Bove’s judicial nomination

    Related video at the link.

    Senators have faced plenty of controversial judicial nominations in recent memory, but Emil Bove — a former criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump, whom the president tapped for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals — is arguably the most controversial of them all.

    Given the degree to which Bove’s nomination has been mired in scandal, there was some hope that at least one Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee might agree that it’d be a mistake to give Trump’s former lawyer a lifetime position on the federal appellate bench.

    That didn’t happen. NBC News reported:

    A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley says that Bove’s nomination had been reported out of committee to the full Senate, even though Democrats on the committee walked out in protest of the lack of debate and the refusal to hold a vote on whether to hold a hearing with a whistleblower before they voted.

    Shortly before the vote, the panel’s Democratic members walked out of the hearing room in protest, with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey describing the process as “insane.”

    […] When Bove worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York he earned a reputation as an unprofessional and abusive prosecutor. He parlayed this background into a role as a Trump defense attorney, punctuated by his defeat in the Stormy Daniels case, which paid dividends: Trump rewarded with Bove a powerful position in the Justice Department, where he fired federal prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases and helped oversee the scandalous dismissal of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case.

    Just as importantly, if not more so, Erez Reuveni, a 15-year veteran Justice Department prosecutor, recently came forward as a whistleblower to tell senators that Bove repeatedly endorsed ignoring court orders and deliberately misleading judges. In a case involving the Alien Enemies Act and the administration’s alleged violation of a court order regarding deportation flights, Reuveni also described a meeting during which Bove “stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘f— you’ and ignore any such court order.”

    The nominee denied the whistleblower’s allegations, but internal documents released by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats appeared to bolster Reuveni’s allegations.

    In case this weren’t quite enough, in his post-hearing written Senate questionnaire, Bove declined to rule out the possibility of the president running for a third term — despite the plain language of the U.S. Constitution — and did not denounce the insurrectionist Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    […] Several dozen former judges and more than 900 former Justice Department lawyers pleaded with the Senate to oppose the nominee.

    […] Bove’s nomination now advances to the Senate floor for confirmation. To defeat him, four GOP senators would have to break ranks with the party, which seems unlikely.

  143. says

    Senate Republicans voted in the wee hours of Thursday morning to cut $9 billion worth of congressionally appropriated funds to NPR, PBS, and foreign aid—yet another move that hurts the rural communities that back Republicans at the ballot box.

    The funding cuts—which were made using a rarely used budget maneuver called a recissions package that is not subject to filibuster rules—passed by a vote of 51-48. Two Republicans—Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—voted no alongside Democrats. The package now goes back to the House, which is expected to quickly pass it before the Friday deadline that would require the Trump administration to spend the funds.

    The $9 billion in cuts make permanent some of the funding reductions former co-President Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency wanted to make.

    Cutting public radio and television funding will hurt rural communities, which rely on public media for extreme weather warnings. […]

    Because Republicans showed Democrats that any deals they make during a government funding negotiation are meaningless, as the GOP will renege on those agreements in future recissions packages, it will make passing a government funding bill this fall more challenging.

    […] “What they’re doing is cutting out of the budget all the things that DOGE targeted. With this recissions bill they are going after all the foreign aid funding that DOGE hates, and they’re going after PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They’re literally going to take Sesame Street off the air,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said in a video posted on X. “Why would Democrats ever again negotiate a bipartisan budget with Republicans if Republicans two months later can just pass a partisan bill that keeps the spending that Republicans like and cuts the spending that Democrats supported in the bipartisan process? So this isn’t just really bad policy, this is just another way that Republicans are corroding the rule of law, the institutional norms that have held together our democracy for decades.”

    Link

  146. birgerjohansson says

    Wow. I did not know corrupt televangelist Jimmy Swaggart died this month. I first heard of him in the early 1980s – I cannot be precise because to me Merican religious right characters and televangelist grifters sort of flowed together (being on a different continent and all).

    He was the cousin of a famous child rapist and cousin fucker musician. He married his 15-year-old wife at 17 and lived in poverty for decades until he had refined his grift.
    This information came to me by way of The Scathing Atheist.

  147. birgerjohansson says

    Holy sht . The child-rapey bigamist Jerry Lee Lewis was *double cousin of Jimmy Swaggart!
    Some of the relatives must have looked like the Peacock family in the Homeland episode of The X-File.

  149. JM says

    Ken Klippenstein: Hegseth’s New Dress Code of Honor

    His obsession has provoked a slew of new rules and regulations about “standards” of grooming and appearance, a deadly serious effort encompassing everything from banning eyelash extensions to offering government-funded laser hair removal procedures. With an emphasis on rules that most impact women and minorities, Hegseth wants to establish his own wokeness, a campaign that stresses looks over actual excellence.

    Heavy on arbitrary rules that mostly effect other people and light on policy that actually matters. At least Hegseth is making policy on a topic he knows about this time.

    The irony is that, amid all the chaos — of his alleged sexual misconduct, to the mass firing of his staff, to Signalgate and on and on — the man is always perfectly manicured. One has a sense that Hegseth will be more pleased in being named best-dressed of 2025 than anything else.

    I had not noticed that but it’s true. He likely spends as much time preparing his appearance as preparing his information for public events.

  150. says

    Followup to comment 137

    One day after being fired by the Justice Department, Maurene Comey told her former colleagues that “fear is the tool of a tyrant,” appearing to take aim at the upper ranks of DOJ and perhaps the president, according to a copy of a message she sent to the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office that was shared with POLITICO.

    Referring to the office’s longstanding motto of operating “without fear or favor,” Comey, who is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey and who prosecuted both Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, told her former colleagues in a note Thursday that “[w]e have entered a new phase where ‘without fear’ may be the challenge.”

    “If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen,” she wrote. “Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else.” [Well said]

    Comey’s firing came amid a public uproar over President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision not to release additional files related to Epstein, the disgraced financier who was charged with running a child sex trafficking ring and killed himself in jail while awaiting trial.

    As POLITICO reported Wednesday, Comey disclosed that she wasn’t provided a reason for her termination, news of which she said was “summarily” conveyed to her via a memo from the Justice Department.

    Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also reportedly investigating Comey’s father, who has publicly sparred with Trump for years.

    Comey’s defiant letter also comes amid a broader exodus of veteran Justice Department lawyers, some who left on their own and others who were fired for their association with criminal cases related to Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

    In her parting message, Comey wrote that during her nearly 10 years at the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, her goal was “making sure people with access, money, and power were not treated differently than anyone else; and making sure this office remained separate from politics and focused only on the facts and the law.”

    “Fear,” she wrote, “was never really conceivable.” […]

    Link

  151. says

    New U.S. assessment finds American strikes destroyed only one of three Iranian nuclear sites

    “[…] Trump rejected a military plan for more comprehensive strikes on Iran’s nuclear program that would have lasted weeks, NBC News has also learned.”

    Related video at the link.

    One of the three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran struck by the United States last month was mostly destroyed, setting work there back significantly. But the two others were not as badly damaged and may have been degraded only to a point where nuclear enrichment could resume in the next several months if Iran wants it to, according to a recent U.S. assessment of the destruction caused by the military operation, five current and former U.S. officials familiar with the assessment told NBC News.

    The assessment, part of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to determine the status of Iran’s nuclear program since the facilities were struck, was briefed to some U.S. lawmakers, Defense Department officials and allied countries in recent days, four of those people said.

    NBC News has also learned that U.S. Central Command had developed a much more comprehensive plan to strike Iran that would have involved hitting three additional sites in an operation that would have stretched for several weeks instead of a single night, according to a current U.S. official and two former U.S. officials.

    President Donald Trump was briefed on that plan, but it was rejected because it was at odds with his foreign policy instincts to extract the United States from conflicts abroad, not dig deeper into them, as well as the possibility of a high number of casualties on both sides, one of the current officials and one of the former officials said. […]

    In a speech in the hours after they took place, Trump called the strikes he directed “a spectacular military success” and said, “Iran’s key enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

    The reality as gleaned through intelligence so far appears to be more nuanced. […]

    There have been discussions within both the American and Israeli governments about whether additional strikes on the two less-damaged facilities could be necessary if Iran does not soon agree to restart negotiations with the Trump administration on a nuclear deal or if there are signs Iran is trying to rebuild at those locations […] [images]

    […] an intelligence-gathering process that administration officials have said is expected to continue for months.
    [snipped a White House statement full of blather.]

    […] chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said: “The credibility of the Fake News Media is similar to that of the current state of the Iranian nuclear facilities: destroyed, in the dirt, and will take years to recover. President Trump was clear and the American people understand: Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz were completely and totally obliterated. There is no doubt about that.” [gaslighting the public]

    […] The U.S. strikes targeted three enrichment sites in Iran: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. U.S. officials believe the attack on Fordo, which has long been viewed as a critical component of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, was successful in setting back Iranian enrichment capabilities at that site by as much as two years, according to two of the current officials.

    […] Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked extensively about the strike at Fordo but not the strikes at Natanz and Isfahan.

    U.S. officials knew before the airstrikes that Iran had structures and enriched uranium at Natanz and Isfahan that were likely to be beyond the reach of even America’s 30,000-pound GBU-57 “bunker buster” bombs, three of the sources said. […]

    As early as 2023, though, there were indications that Iran was digging tunnels at Natanz that were below where the GBU-57 could reach. There are also tunnels deep underground at Isfahan. The United States hit surface targets at Isfahan with Tomahawk missiles and did not drop GBU-57s there, but it did use them at Natanz. [images]

    […] Ratcliffe [CIA Director John Ratcliffe] also said that the intelligence community believes the strikes buried the vast majority of enriched uranium at Isfahan and Fordo and that thus it would be extremely difficult for the Iranians to extract it to resume enrichment, according to the official. The United States has not seen indications that Iran is trying to dig out the facilities, two officials said.

    As NBC News has reported, the Israeli government believes at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium remains intact but buried beneath the Isfahan facility, according to a senior Israeli government official who briefed reporters in Washington last week. The official said, however, that Israel considers the material effectively unreachable, because it is watching and will conduct new strikes if it believes Iran is trying to dig up the uranium. […]

    […] the regime in Tehran now faces a credible threat of more airstrikes if Israel and the United States believe it is trying to revive clandestine nuclear work. [images]

    Asked late last month whether he would consider bombing Iran again if intelligence reports concluded Iran can enrich uranium at a level that concerns him, Trump said: “Sure. Without question. Absolutely.”

    […] “It was made clear that Iran no longer has any more [air defenses], so the idea that they can easily rebuild anything is ludicrous,” the official said.

    The ‘all-in’ plan

    Beginning during the Biden administration, as early as last fall and into this spring, Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command, had developed a plan to go “all-in” on striking Iran, according to a current U.S. official and two former officials. That option was designed to “truly decimate” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, in the words of one of the former officials.

    […] Some Trump administration officials believed a deeper offensive option against Iran was a viable policy, two of the former officials said.

    Trump was briefed on the so-called all-in plan, but it was rejected ultimately because it would have required a sustained period of conflict.

    The history

    During his first term, in 2018, Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that was negotiated during the Obama administration. The agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, imposed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program in return for an easing of economic sanctions.

    Under the deal, Iran was a year away from obtaining enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. After Trump withdrew from the accord and reimposed sanctions, Iran flouted restrictions on its uranium enrichment. Before the June airstrikes, the regime had enough fissile material for about nine to 10 bombs, according to U.S. officials and United Nations inspectors. […]

  152. says

    Two weeks after it opened, a temporary migrant detention center in the Everglades is facing expensive logistical challenges: portable toilets routinely back up, sewage needs to be collected and trucked out, and swarms of mosquitoes attack detainees and staff alike.

    Without permanent structures, electricity or running water, drinking and bathing water has to be brought in several times a day but is still in short supply, and rainwater leaks into the tents […]

    The location and the makeshift construction of the center has prompted an outcry from Democrats, environmental activists, local tribal leaders and immigration attorneys, who say it is inhumane and costly.

    […] Staff members are issued a can of mosquito repellent their first day of work, but detainees are sprayed only when they arrive, according to the three former contractors hired as detention guards.

    “The mosquitoes are filling the bathrooms, the showers. You go in the shower, you shower with a million mosquitoes. They give you bug spray, but that still doesn’t help,” said a retired South Florida county jail officer who worked as a contracted guard for nearly two weeks before she was fired by her CRS supervisor for reasons she said were not explained to her. She spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retribution […]

    “The mosquitoes don’t let you sleep,” said Juan Javier Gonzalez, 49, who migrated from the Dominican Republic. […]

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) used emergency powers to seize a little-used airfield in the Big Cypress National Preserve next to Everglades National Park to build what he said is a “makeshift detention space” to house people arrested by ICE agents. […]

    (Some of the detention camp’s “soft-sided” tents started to flood during a visit by Trump, according to videos shot by local media.) […]

    former guards said the port-a-potties for staff have backed up, the prepared food is generally cold and they were required to stand for the entirety of their 12-hour shifts, save for a sole 15-minute meal break.

    […] Detainees face “inhumane” conditions at the detention center and have had access to their attorneys “blocked,” according to a lawsuit filed late Wednesday by four detainees, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Immigrant Justice. The process for reaching clients is disorganized and cumbersome, immigration attorneys allege in the lawsuit.

    […] “We’re not doing this just to let people have food and shelter, although they do get that. All the minimum standards are upheld,” DeSantis said. “But the reality is it’s there to be a quick processing center, we have a runway right there. They can just be flown back to their home country.”

    Washington Post link

    More at the link, including comments from Republicans praising the detention center.

  153. John Morales says

    Birger @139, I took a look at “My Favourite 10 Maths Fun Facts”.

    Sorta alright, she’s not a great math communicator; it was all rather meh, I gave up after the first few.
    Bit of a filler episode, I reckon.

    (She really should have made it clear P-adic numbers use a prime base p)

  154. says

    Democratic attorneys general sue to block changes to ACA health insurance marketplaces

    “The changes could lead to nearly 2 million people losing their health insurance, the lawsuit said.”

    A group of Democratic attorneys general sued Thursday to block the implementation of portions of a Department of Health and Human Services rule set to go into effect next month that they say could lead to nearly 2 million people losing their health insurance.

    The attorneys general of 20 states, including New Jersey, California and Massachusetts, joined with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, to file the lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts. They argue that the department’s actions illegally change the rules governing state and federal health insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act and therefore will push more health care costs onto the states.

    The final rule creates barriers to enrollment for health insurance sold on marketplaces and will increase insurance premiums, co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs they claim. The Trump administration has said that up to 1.8 million people could lose their health insurance as a result, according to the lawsuit. The attorneys general are asking the court to block portions of the rule from taking effect next month.

    “As New Jersey and other states prepare for the 2026 open enrollment period, the Trump Administration is seeking to cause confusion and chaos in the healthcare marketplace, increase costs for our state, and create barriers to enrollment,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement.

    […] The lawsuit challenges parts of the rule that shorten enrollment periods and charge a monthly $5 fee for some marketplace shoppers. It also targets a provision barring transgender health care from the list of essential health benefits subject to mandatory coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

    The lawsuit claims the rule imposes burdensome and expensive paperwork and will force consumers to spend millions to prove eligibility for coverage and subsidies. The states say the rule is arbitrary and capricious and was enacted in violation of federal administrative law.

  155. John Morales says

    Re: “Without permanent structures, electricity or running water, drinking and bathing water has to be brought in several times a day but is still in short supply, and rainwater leaks into the tents”

    Here in Oz, we’ve invented the concept of rain water tanks; put a sloped surface with gutters up and collect the rainwater, that is potable even if unfiltered, and suitable for bathing.

  156. says

    ICE will get access to Medicaid enrollees’ personal information

    “The immigration agency will use Medicaid data to identify and locate people it believes are in the country unlawfully.”

    The Trump administration will start sharing the personal information of nearly 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, with federal immigration authorities as President Donald Trump seeks to ramp up deportations.

    In a statement to NBC News on Thursday, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin described the latest data-sharing agreement between her agency and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as “an initiative” to ensure undocumented immigrants don’t access Medicaid benefits.

    The Associated Press first reported the new agreement, which hasn’t been made public yet.

    Immigrants who lack legal immigration status and some lawfully present immigrants are already barred from enrolling in Medicaid, a federal health services program that provides nearly free coverage to beneficiaries. Yet federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to anyone regardless of immigration status.

    Medicaid is a jointly funded program between states and the federal government.

    Under the agreement, officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement will use Medicaid data to get identity and location information of people ICE believes are in the country unlawfully, the AP reported.

    ICE will have access to a database that includes the names, addresses, birth dates, ethnic and racial information, as well as Social Security numbers for all people enrolled in Medicaid, the AP reported. The agreement allows ICE to review the database only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday until Sept. 9. It isn’t allowed to download the data.

  157. says

    NBC News:

    Russia pounded four Ukrainian cities overnight into Wednesday, injuring at least 15 people in an attack that mostly targeted energy infrastructure, officials said. The latest bombardment in Russia’s escalating aerial campaign against civilian areas came ahead of a Sept. 2 deadline set by President Donald Trump for the Kremlin to reach a peace deal in the three-year war.

    Russia is taking advantage of Trump’s 50-day timeline, as Steve Benen pointed out.

  158. says

    NBC News:

    The president has been diagnosed with ‘chronic venous insufficiency’ after he was checked out for ‘mild swelling in his lower legs,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the press briefing today.

    The Hill: What to know about Trump’s health and diagnosis

    […] White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president underwent a “comprehensive examination” that revealed the reason behind inflammation in his lower body.

    “Bilateral lower extremity venous Doppler ultrasounds were performed and revealed chronic venous insufficiency, a benign and common condition, particularly in individuals over the age of 70,” Leavitt told reporters at the Thursday briefing.

    Chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) is a condition in which the flow of superficial or deep venous blood is impaired, causing venous hypertension, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). […]

    “Importantly, there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease,” Leavitt said. “The president remains in excellent health.”

    She noted that Trump is taking medicine prescribed in line with the “standard cardiovascular prevention regimen.”

    If left untreated, CVI is usually progressive and leads to postphlebitic syndrome and venous ulcers.

    Postphlebitic syndrome is a long-term complication that causes a blood clot in a deep vein, usually in the leg.
    An estimated 10 percent to 35 percent of adults have CVI in the U.S., with 4 percent of adults aged 65 years or older developing venous ulcers, according to the NIH. […]

  159. says

    NBC News:

    The Trump administration on Thursday afternoon officially terminated the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ Youth Specialized Services program, which gave callers under age 25 the option to speak with LGBTQ-trained counselors.

  160. says

    New York Times:

    Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired two of his top aides this week, shaking up his leadership team at the Department of Health and Human Services amid an aggressive effort to reshape public health policy.

  161. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Stating that “enough is enough,” on Thursday Donald J. Trump signed an executive order banning the use of the word “Epstein.”

    Although he provided few details as to how the order would be enforced, Trump hinted that anyone found using the word “Epstein” could be deported to South Sudan.

    “We’re looking into that very strongly,” he said.

    “Epstein” was just one of over a hundred words banned by the executive order, including “inflation,” “dementia,” and “moron.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-signs-executive-order-banning

  163. John Morales says

    Birger, context is not your thing, is it? I clicked, and copypasted.

    “On this week’s episode: We’ll spend more time digging into the details of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” than most of the people who voted for it … Marsh will try not to get us arrested by the UK government for terrorism … And Marco Rubio takes on a 5th job as the Prince of Nigeria?”

    (They are not sure whether that last is true!)

    I’d rather not spend time on those details, myself.

  164. John Morales says

    For you, StevoR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWYn5hl4QWg

    Could We Help Push Rockets To Orbit? — Everyday Astronaut

    Why don’t they just use a vacuum tunnel maglev catapult, or something to push the rocket off the ground so you don’t need as big and powerful of a rocket?

    Timestamps:
    00:00 – Intro
    02:35 – History
    06:21 – Falcon 9 Assist
    13:25 – Starship Assist
    20:25 – Electron Vacuum Maglev
    24:25 – Orbital Maglev Tunnel
    29:20 – Yeeting From The Moon
    32:00 – Summary

  165. whheydt says

    Re: John Morales @ #164…
    Linear induction catapults have long been suggested for the initial boost to orbit. Also…Heinlein used them in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (originally published in 1966) for shipping things back from the Moon. So…not at all a new idea.

  166. John Morales says

    :)

    Not a new idea, but a new(ish) video, and StevoR is a space cadet.
    He’ll get it. Maybe he’s even seen it, but it was for him.

    (And it is still interesting, no?)

  167. whheydt says

    Re: John Morales @ #166…
    Yup. Still interesting, though I think we’ll see linear induction artillery (not to mention linear induction aircraft carrier catapults) before we’ll see linear induction catapult space launches.

    Side note…One suggestion that came up years ago was to put such a catapult launcher up the side of Mauna Loa. It’s close to the Equator and has a fairly long, gradual slope to fairly high altitude. Potential problems with the occasional earthquakes and eruptions…

  168. John Morales says

    I just checked with the bubblebot:

    As of now, linear induction artillery systems have not been implemented in active military service. While there have been experimental prototypes and performance analyses—such as a 500 m/s linear induction launcher tested with a 137 g projectile—these remain confined to research labs and academic studies.

    🔍 Key experimental milestones:
    – A 2024 study demonstrated a small-scale electromagnetic missile launcher using linear induction synchronous coils to launch a 200 g armature over 10 cm.
    – Earlier work at MIT and other institutions explored high-acceleration linear motors for ordnance applications, but none transitioned to field deployment.

    🧱 Barriers to implementation:
    – Oscillatory thrust complicates targeting and control.
    – Efficiency and energy density lag behind railguns and coilguns.
    – No known battlefield-ready systems or defense contracts for LIMG-based artillery.

    So while the physics is sound and the prototypes are real, no nation currently fields linear induction artillery in operational arsenals.

    —

    Note though, this is auxiliary, using the already-extant scaffolding for the launch. That’s the novel wrinkle.

  169. StevoR says

    After all, as temperatures began to rise, my homeland – at least what remains of it – has been transformed into an open-air furnace.

    Now, in the middle of another hot, humid Mediterranean summer, we don’t even have the bare minimum to shield ourselves from the heat. I read report after report advising Europeans to stay indoors, stay hydrated, use sun cream and avoid strenuous outdoor activity. Meanwhile, we in Gaza have no homes, no water, no shade and no escape.

    We cannot “limit outdoor activity” because everything we need to survive is outside: water trucks that may come twice a week if we’re lucky, food distributions, firewood to scavenge. We cannot “stay hydrated” because water is scarce, rationed and often polluted. And sunscreen? We would sooner find medicine on Mars.

    Plus :

    Israel has combined every tool of deprivation: heat without shade, thirst without water, hunger without hope. There is no electricity to run desalination or pumping stations. No fuel to chill the little water that comes. No flour, no fish, no markets. For many of us, this summer could be our last.

    This is not a climate crisis. This is weather used as a weapon – a war waged not only with bombs and bullets but also with heat, thirst and slow death.

    Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/7/17/israel-has-turned-gazas-summer-into-a-weapon

  170. StevoR says

    Hospital patients in Gaza are dying from preventable wounds and infections because of severe malnutrition caused by Israel’s blockade, a British surgeon working in the territory has said.

    Professor Nick Maynard, currently at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis with Medical Aid for Palestinians’ Emergency Medical Team, warned that Gaza’s food crisis has drastically worsened since his last visit.

    “The malnutrition I’m seeing here is indescribably bad. It’s much, much worse now than a year ago,” he said.

    Maynard described a situation where medical staff have lost up to 30kg due to ongoing food shortages, and where patients, including children, are unable to heal because of extreme nutritional deficiencies.

    “I have had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover, it’s distressing to see that and know that it is preventable and treatable,” he said.

    Source : https://www.newarab.com/news/surgeon-warns-gaza-patients-dying-wounds-due-starvation

  171. John Morales says

    In Aussie news; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHpF5prbul0

    Trump bows to pressure, orders release of Epstein grand jury testimony | ABC NEWS

    US President Donald Trump says he has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony in the Jeffrey Epstein case

  172. StevoR says

    Of course, we do actually have a real planet 9 called Pluto however setting that aside for a minute :

    Astronomers have discovered a massive new solar system body located beyond the orbit of Pluto. The weird elongated orbit of the object suggests that if “Planet Nine” exists, it is much further from the sun than thought, or it has been ejected from our planetary system altogether.

    The strange orbit of the object, designated 2023 KQ14 and nicknamed “Ammonite,” classifies it as a “sednoid.” …(snip) . The closest distance that 2023 KQ14 ever comes to our star is equivalent to 71 times the distance between Earth and the sun. The sednoid is estimated to be between 136 and 236 miles (220 and 380 kilometers) wide. That makes it 45 times wider than the height of Mount Everest. (Americans and their refusal to use the metric system, grumble.. -ed)

    .Not only does the fact that 2023 KQ14 now follows a unique orbit suggest that the outer solar system is more complex and varied than previously thought, but it also places limits on a hypothetical “Planet Nine” theorized to lurk at the edge of the solar system.

    “The fact that 2023 KQ14’s current orbit does not align with those of the other three sednoids lowers the likelihood of the Planet Nine hypothesis,” team leader Yukun Huang of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan said in a statement. “It is possible that a planet once existed in the solar system but was later ejected, causing the unusual orbits we see today.”

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/solar-system/astronomers-discover-a-cosmic-fossil-at-the-edge-of-the-solar-system-is-this-bad-news-for-planet-9

  173. John Morales says

    me @83: “StevoR, Pluto is 0.0022 the mass of Earth (https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/plutofact.html) so that must make it a tiny dwarf planet. For those who think of it as a planet, obs.”

    StevoR @172: “Of course, we do actually have a real planet 9 called Pluto”.

    I know you think that. I even told you I know you think that.

    I told anyone who reads this that.

    If it’s a planet, it’s a dwarf planet. Well, smaller than that, no?

    Me: If Pluto is 0.0022 the mass of Earth, scale that to a dog-human comparison:

    Bubblebot:
    Take an average human at 70 kilograms. Multiply that by 0.0022, and you get 0.154 kilograms. That’s about 154 grams.

    So in this analogy, Pluto would be the mass of a small hamster or a newborn kitten compared to a human.

    —

    Your fixation is most amusing, StevoR, what with comparing hamsters with people and all that.

  174. John Morales says

    [notice that I’ve trained that instance? It got it, more than most people do]

  175. says

    StevoR @169 and 170, such a horrible situation. So unfair for most of the people still in Gaza … and still alive so far.

    From https://www.redcross.org.uk

    – After weeks without any aid able to enter, Gaza faces a critical risk of famine.
    – 470,000 people in Gaza face starvation – that’s 22% of the population.
    – More than 52,000 people have died and at least 118,000 have been injured in Gaza.
    – The healthcare system is on the edge of collapse.
    – 90% of the population has been forced to flee their homes.
    – Families of those held hostage in Gaza remain caught between hope and despair as they desperately await news of their loved ones.

    The humanitarian situation in Gaza is unbearable – and deteriorating sharply. Every day has been a fight for survival for the people in Gaza.

    Food supplies are all but gone, the medical system is shattered and there is an almost complete lack of humanitarian aid entering Gaza. Entire families are trapped and desperately seeking safety and security.

    The collapse of the health system, coupled with continued fighting and the complete suspension in the delivery of aid for 11 weeks, has led to an unprecedented rise in unmet humanitarian and medical needs.

    After more than 20 months of hostilities, there is nowhere in Gaza where critical infrastructure has not been impacted. This infrastructure is crucial for services like electricity and water to function and to provide displaced communities with power, safe drinking water, hygiene and sanitary services, and medical care.

    John @171: “US President Donald Trump says he has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony in the Jeffrey Epstein case.” The word “pertinent” is working hard there. I expect more unethical fuckery from both Bondi and Trump

  177. StevoR says

    @173. John Morales : “Your fixation is most amusing, StevoR, what with comparing hamsters with people and all that.”

    hamsters and peopel are both classed as mammals and inded as animals.

    Not classifying Plutoa s a planet is like not classifying hamsters a sanimals because they are smaller than people. Or not classifying flies as animals simply because there’s lots of them.

  178. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    A follow-up on the Polish train manufacturer that was caught sabotaging and bricking engines in 2023 to gin up warranty servicing. And the hackers who figured out how to unbrick them.
     
    CCC Presentation – Life after the Newag DRM disclosure (2024-12, 44:33)
    Events of 2024 begin at 12:26.

    Three parliamentary workgroup hearings were held in early 2024. Newag execs alleged the hackers wrote a decompiler (nope), got paid millions (nope), manipulated stocks (nope). The execs apparently besmirched the quality of servicing at a repair place (the wrong place) using photos of rusty parts and dirty toilets (no context given). The besmirched repair place also had reps at the workshop, so they were extra annoyed as they testified against the company.

    More bricking incidents throughout 2024. Also unreported in 2023: trains had been shutting down approaching one particular station, with passengers inside! Because next to that station was a 3rd party repair shop, which was blacklisted with a sloppily placed geofence region. Those incidents hadn’t been made public because folks had been routinely unplugging the GPS module to stop the bricking.

    The hackers discovered Newag had added a new way to reset the ‘idle days’ counter. Besides drive the train. Or wait until it locks up to unlock it. OR press the SOS button in the toilet while a cabin door was open.

    Poland’s internal security agency, anti-corruption bureau, and rail transport office started investigations. The consumer protection office lost interest because stationary trains are very safe. A prosecutor started criminal proceedings, including a raid on Newag’s offices.

    Newag filed lawsuits against the hackers for intellectual property infringement and defamation. They claimed there was no bug to fix, that the hackers were offering illegal instructions to hack trains, that the hackers published copyrighted code (the lock code), AND that the alleged lock code was unproven conjecture that made them look bad. Also for talking about the lawsuit. “Newag: We sue researchers” was a hurtful assertion. They sued a member of parliament that ran the workgroup who invited the hackers.

    The hackers regret nothing about going public.

    Unfortunately Poland lacked anti-SLAPP laws. And until a court intervenes, the train company cannot be excluded from gov contracts. After the 2023 exposé, Newag offered a ‘free update’. The hackers haven’t scrutinized it, as nobody accepted the update.
     
    In May 2024, the European Union enacted a directive mandating anti-SLAPP laws in member countries by May 7, 2026. Poland was drafting as of Feb 2025.

  179. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    * 178: to gin up warranty servicing to prevent 3rd party servicing.

  181. John Morales says

    I just checked with the Bubblebot:

    If Jupiter can hold 1,000 Earths, and Earth can hold about 170 Plutos, then by analogy:

    Jupiter ≈ 1,000 Earths
    Earth ≈ 170 Plutos
    So Jupiter ≈ 170,000 Plutos

    This cascade of containment paints a vivid scale: Pluto is to Earth what Earth is to Jupiter, but with an even steeper drop in magnitude. Pluto’s volume is roughly 0.006 that of Earth, making it a cosmic pebble next to our planetary boulder.

  182. John Morales says

    One could fit around 3 Plutos inside the Moon, but nobody calls the Moon a planet, these days.

    Anyway, I again checked with the bubblebot:

    Historically, the Moon was considered a planet well into the 17th and 18th centuries, before modern celestial classifications took hold. Under early geocentric and heliocentric models:

    🌕 Ancient and Renaissance views: The Moon was grouped with the Sun and wandering stars (planets) because it moved against the fixed stars. In Galileo’s era, he referred to Jupiter’s moons as “Medicean planets,” and Titan was called a “new planet” by Cassini.
    📜 1874 publication: James Nasmyth’s book The Moon, Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite reflects lingering ambiguity in terminology even into the late 19th century.
    🧠 Modern reinterpretation: A 2021 study argued that if we define planets by geophysical complexity, then moons like ours qualify as planets. This challenges the IAU’s 2006 definition, which excludes satellites from planetary status.

    So while the Moon is now officially a satellite, its planetary status was once widely accepted—and may yet be philosophically revived.

  183. birgerjohansson says

    You will search in vain for logic as astronomy has a terminology inherited from old times. ‘Planet’ is from ancient times and just meant a spot of light that wandered. Meteor is another really old word, as is comet. Other words came from people who believed in astrology and just learned stuff as a side effect.

  186. birgerjohansson says

    And… I screw up again. Sorry.
    I will go browse Medicalxpress as penalty, They have lots of depressing disease.

  188. birgerjohansson says

    For chrissake, don’t rely on LLMs for medical diagnoses!

    “Can ChatGPT diagnose you? New research suggests promise but reveals knowledge gaps and hallucination issues”
    .https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-07-chatgpt-reveals-knowledge-gaps-hallucination.html
    .
    This looks more promising.

    “AI can accelerate search for more effective Alzheimer’s medicines by streamlining clinical trials”
    .https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-07-ai-effective-alzheimer-medicines-clinical.html

  189. birgerjohansson says

    From Princeton Press:
    “The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany’s Twentieth Century”
    Dagmar Herzog

    The first genocide by Nazi Germany and the long tradition of thinking that paved the way for it.

  190. birgerjohansson says

    Right after Paramount settled the lawsuit with Trump, the network announced The Late Show (Stephen Colbert et al) will be cancelled May 2026.
    .
    Not suspicious at all that the show that has been criticizing Trump all the time is cancelled right after the settlement!
    But this is what happens when corporate media interact with power.
    🤬

  191. John Morales says

    “But this is what happens when corporate media interact with power.”

    That’s always, 24/7/365.

    Relax. It’s the environment.

    Adapt, or be stressed.

  194. John Morales says

    In recent news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jul/18/eu-russia-sanctions-ukraine-europe-live-news-updates

    It has taken a bit longer than they would have wanted, but the 18th EU package of sanctions is here, after Slovakia dropped its opposition to its adoption last night.

    The Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, said late Thursday that he received additional guarantees from the EU on the technically unrelated, but politically linked, issue of gas imports from Russia and was now prepared to support the package.

    After a hastily convened meeting of ambassadors this morning adopted the measures, EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it was ”one of … strongest sanctions packages against Russia to date.”

  195. John Morales says

    Birger, “Say after me: Paragliders are not safe. Not even the motorised ones.”

    I say that they are only mostly safe. Not totally safe.

    But then, as per #94, Norwegian olympic medalist Audun Grönvold has just been killed by lightning.
    So there’s that.

    (Driving a car is not safe, plenty of people die doing it)

  196. John Morales says

    Also in the news: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-33fccfbe-abcc-4af1-bdd2-632b2787cf59
    (Imagery included)

    Israel levelling thousands of Gaza civilian buildings in controlled demolitions

    Israel has demolished thousands of buildings across Gaza since it withdrew from a ceasefire with Hamas in March, with entire towns and suburbs – once home to tens of thousands of people – levelled in the past few weeks.

    Satellite images show massive amounts of destruction in several areas which Israel’s military command claims to have under “operational control”.

    Large swathes of it have been caused by planned demolitions, both to already damaged buildings and ones that appeared largely intact.

    Verified footage shows large explosions unleashing plumes of dust and debris, as Israeli forces carry out controlled demolitions on tower blocks, schools and other infrastructure.

    Multiple legal experts told BBC Verify that Israel may have committed war crimes under the Geneva Convention, which largely prohibits the destruction of infrastructure by an occupying power.

    An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said it operated in accordance with international law; that Hamas concealed “military assets” in civilian areas, and that the “destruction of property is only performed when an imperative military necessity is demanded”.

  197. John Morales says

    Ah, while on the Beeb: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ced2zpvv179o

    Spud-tacular: How India became a french fry superpower

    French fries turned around the fortunes of Jitesh Patel.

    He comes from a family of farmers in Gujarat in the northwest of India. Traditionally they grew cotton, but the returns were poor.

    Droughts in 2001 and 2002 made the situation worse and the Patels knew things had to change.

    “We realised that we had to start growing something that does not require lot of water,” Mr Patel says.

    So, they experimented with potatoes. Initially they tried table potatoes; the kind available in local markets and cooked at home, but the returns weren’t much better than cotton.

    Spurred by the arrival of french fry makers in their state, in 2007 they started growing the varieties of potato used by the food industry. It turned out to be a winning strategy.

    “Since then, no looking back,” says Mr Patel.

    Mr Patel is part of India’s rise to potato superpower status. It is already the world’s second biggest spud producer.

    But it’s the export market, particularly of french fries, that’s really flying.

    Gujarat has become India’s capital of french fry production, home to huge factories churning out chips, including facilities belonging to Canadian giant McCain Foods and India’s biggest maker of French Fries, HyFun Foods.

    From Gujarat fries are sent all over over the world. But the most important markets at the moment are in Asia, including the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, according to Devendra K, who has been studying the potato market for many years.

    In February of this year, monthly exports of Indian frozen fries broke the 20,000 tonnes barrier for the first time. In the year to February, India’s fry exports totalled 181,773 tonnes, a 45% increase compared with the previous year.

    The success is partly down to price.

    “Indian frozen fries are noted for being competitively priced in the international market,” says Devendra.

  198. John Morales says

    Meh — one last one for the night. Nothing to do with leopards, of course.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vd1vn9n06o

    Detained in immigration raids, Maga mom still has faith in Trump’s mass deportation plan

    If Arpineh Masihi could vote, she would have cast her ballot for Donald Trump. She’s a devout supporter of the US president – even now that she’s locked up as an illegal immigrant.

    “He’s doing the right thing because lots of these people don’t deserve to be here,” Arpineh told the BBC over the phone from the Adelanto immigrant detention centre in California’s Mojave Desert.

    “I will support him until the day I die. He’s making America great again.”

    Sixty miles (96 km) away in her home in Diamond Bar, a wealthy suburban city in eastern Los Angeles County, a Trump flag flies over the family’s front yard. Maga hats adorn a shelf next to a family photo album, while the family’s pet birds chirp in a cage.

    It’s a lively home, with three dogs and four young children, and Arpineh’s husband and mother are bleary eyed and exhausted with worry, trying to put on brave faces.

    “Our home is broken,” says Arthur Sahakyan, Arpineh’s husband.
    ‘We all make mistakes’

    In many ways, Arpineh, 39, is an American success story – a prime example of how the country gives people second, even third chances. Arpineh’s mother wells up with tears as she talks about her daughter, who has lived in the US since she was three.

    She had a rough patch many years ago, in 2008, when she was convicted of burglary and grand theft and was sentenced to two years in prison. An immigration judge revoked her Green Card, which is a common practice. But because she is a Christian Armenian Iranian, the judge allowed her to remain in the country instead of being deported.

    “We are Christians. She can’t go back, there’s no way,” Arthur says as their 4-year-old daughter runs in and out of the room. He fears her life would be at risk if she is sent back.
    Arthur Sahakyan A Ring camera shows a woman from behind with her arms out talking to federal agents outside a suburban home in Los Angeles County.

  199. birgerjohansson says

    ‘In Range’ with Carl Kasarda
    “Is Juneteenth a Fake Holiday?”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=tnHdsTUNVSk

    Carl Kasarda is a gun enthusiast with a brain. He believes if you have the 2nd amendment, it should apply to everyone including minorities that have valid reasons to fear violence. 

  201. birgerjohansson says

    More American history.

    In Range 
    “Robert E. Lee’s Family’s Mass Grave of the Enslaved”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=S38x1QRSuOo

    Robert E Lee was executor of his father-in-laws estate. The will manumitted all of the people who were enslaved by his FIL, but Lee kept those people in bondage an additional two years to generate enough profit with their stolen labor to absolve the estate of its debts. He easily could have sold some of the estate’s vast land holdings to appease the creditors, but he chose to profit off of slavery for the benefit of his children and the other Custis heirs.

  204. Akira MacKenzie says

    @203

    Apparently Trump ordered Bondi to release anything that “seemed reasonable.” What he means is “release anything that doesn’t implicate me.”

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