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.”

  205. birgerjohansson says

    “Scathing Atheist 646 Gone with the Sinned Edition”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=fnmg1xgp6DI
    In this week’s episode, Texans thank God for drowning their children, the weather in Oklahoma is cloudy with a chance of space lasers, and we’ll put the ‘fun’ in funeral once again.

  206. says

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

    Ex-AG Holder: The White House, not Pam Bondi, is withholding the Epstein files
    Video is 12:22 minutes

    WSJ: Trump birthday note to Epstein says, ‘May every day be another wonderful secret’
    Video is 9:47 minutes

  207. says

    @158 Lynna, OM reported the lying WH spokes-bimbo talking about how the swelling of tRUMP’s extremities is no big deal, lots of older people get it and he remains in excellent health
    I reply to the xtian terrorist spokes-bimbo: you saying ‘no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease’ is an obvious deflection from the real possibility of venous, not arterial, disease and ignores ALL other possible problematic diagnoses (see NIH warning in the post). A relative of mine, age 60’s, had the same swelling of the extremities (edema), the doctor said it is often a precursor of progression toward congestive heart failure, which she developed ~1yr later. Also, maybe excellent ‘physical’ health, but, I think we all see all the times when tRUMP demonstrates severely compromised mental health.

  208. says

    shermanj @207, yeah, the White House spokesdoofuses are lying to the public about Trump’s health. Same as it ever was.

    In other news: ‘Hating’ Democrats apparently wasn’t enough: Trump says political foes are ‘evil,’ too

    “With increasing frequency, Trump has begun referring to journalists and political opponents as ‘evil.’ Such talk is unusual, radical and dangerous.”

    A couple of weeks ago, at a political rally in Iowa, Donald Trump took a moment to talk about his Democratic foes in ways Americans rarely hear from a president. Referring to opposition to Republican Party’s far-right megabill, Trump said: “They wouldn’t vote only because they hate Trump, but I hate them, too, you know? I really do. I hate them.”

    This week, at a White House Faith Office luncheon, the president went even further — condemning Democrats as “evil.” [video]

    “They’re evil people in many ways,” the Republican told attendees, adding, in reference to his American political opponents: “We’re against an evil group of people.”

    Trump occasionally used the same word during his first term — after Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, the president said the jurist’s critics were “evil” — but his reliance on the word appears to have become even more frequently lately.

    Last week, for example, at an event in Texas regarding deadly flooding, a reporter asked about his message to local families who said flood warnings didn’t reach the public quickly enough. “Only an evil person would ask a question like that,” Trump responded.

    In late June, the president said journalists at The New York Times and CNN have “evil intentions.” Around the same time, he said a reporter at Forbes magazine also had “evil intentions.” In April, he said former Democratic mayors in Chicago and New York City were responsible for “evil.”

    As the New York Times noted in an analysis published this week, “evil” is a word “getting a lot of airtime in the second Trump term.”

    It is not enough anymore to dislike a journalistic inquiry or disagree with an opposing philosophy. Anyone viewed as critical of the president or insufficiently deferential is wicked. The Trump administration’s efforts to achieve its policy goals are not just an exercise in governance but a holy mission against forces of darkness.

    […] it’s not normal for a White House to explicitly go to the public with a message rooted in the idea that its political opponents represent forces of unholy malevolence.

    As for why the public should care, the Times’ analysis added: “The characterization seeds the ground to justify all sorts of actions that would normally be considered extreme or out of bounds. If Mr. Trump’s adversaries are not just rivals but villains, then he can rationalize going further than any president has in modern times.”

    Different political scientists define the nuances of authoritarianism in different ways, but I think most would agree that a hallmark of any despotic regime is the delegitimization of political opposition.

    It’s against this backdrop that the incumbent president […] wants the public to believe that journalists and his partisan opponents are not only worthy of “hatred,” but should also be seen as “evil.”

    Such rhetoric is dangerous, and it fuels the kind of radicalism that has become the new normal at the White House.

  209. says

    Update on rescissions:

    House Republicans passed President Donald Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package Thursday night after Senate Republicans made minor changes to the bill.

    The package passed on a largely party line 216-213 vote. All Democrats and two Republicans — Michael Turner (R-OH) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) — voted against the bill. The vote was held up for hours as Republicans fought with one another about a vote on a non-binding resolution asking the Trump administration to release files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s case.

    The rescissions package effectively authorizes actions the White House has already taken to claw back billions in foreign aid and public media funding that was previously authorized by Congress. In rubber stamping the rescissions package without specifics on where exactly the cuts will come from, the vote also sends the message that congressional Republicans are largely unbothered by the Trump White House’s constitutionally backwards targeting of Congress’ power of the purse.

    The executive branch had already been withholding many of the funds in question long before it even attempted to seek Congress’ approval. The rescissions package is part of an effort to give the Department of Government Efficiency’s rampage through the federal government some legitimacy by allowing Congress a vote on it.

    […] Republicans added new language in the package vowing that areas related to food aid, maternal health, malaria and tuberculosis wouldn’t be impacted by the cuts and that certain food assistance programs would be protected.

    Now, Trump will need to sign the recissions bill before the end of Friday, in order to avoid running out the 45-day clock that starts with a formal rescissions request.

    Meanwhile, the director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought told reporters Thursday that the White House is planning on sending Congress another rescissions package. [!]

    The White House has indicated it may try in September to cut funds for good without congressional approval. The untested, questionable maneuver — “pocket rescissions” — would require the Trump administration to wait until closer to the end of the fiscal year to once again formally ask Congress to claw back a set of funds. That request would start another 45 day clock, in which the president is legally allowed to delay spending the funds in question as it waits for Congress to make a decision on cancelling the previously appropriated spending.

    But even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the freeze in place would ultimately allow the Trump administration to not spend the money until it expires at the end of the fiscal year, Vought has claimed. [!] Such an attempt would likely draw challenges in court.

    Link

  210. says

    Donald Trump celebrates CBS’s end to Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’

    Related video at the link.

    President Trump said Friday morning that he was thrilled by the news that CBS is canceling the decade-running “Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

    “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social. “His talent was even less than his ratings.”

    The president also took aim at ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and NBC’s “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon, while praising Fox News’s Greg Gutfeld, whose talk show “Gutfeld!” airs an hour earlier than the major late-night shows.

    “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!” Trump wrote. “Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”

    The comedian has helmed “The Late Show” since 2015, when he took over for longtime host David Letterman. The program is the most-watched talk show during the 11:35 p.m. timeslot, averaging nearly 2.5 million viewers during the second quarter of this year. […]

    The company’s decision has raised eyebrows because it came just days after Colbert publicly took CBS parent company Paramount Global to task for settling a $16 million lawsuit with Trump.

    CBS, in its announcement Thursday, called the Colbert cancellation “purely a financial decision.”

    […] Colbert said during Thursday’s episode that he was made aware of the move Wednesday.

    “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS. I’m not being replaced,” he said. “This is all just going away.” […]

  211. says

    Followup to comment 143.

    Voting in the dead of night […] the House of Representatives passed a $9.4 billion package of cuts to federal spending, most of which went to defunding almost all foreign aid, but also eliminating the $1.1 billion budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for the next two years. The vote brings to fruition the beloved dream of rightwingers to defund public TV and radio stations, which Republicans in Congress have hated forever.

    […] For an excellent, detailed look at how public media funding works in practice, check out this January episode of WNYC’s “On the Media,” which includes a profile of KYUK, a public radio station in Bethel, Alaska, that primarily serves Native Alaskan villages where there are no other local TV or radio, and where internet service is spotty to nonexistent. The network’s winter broadcasts, in English and Yup’ik, have literally saved lives as well as providing a community forum.

    In an amendment to the Senate version of the bill, a small portion of funding — $9.4 million — was preserved to partially fund two dozen Native American radio stations around the country. But that won’t be CBP funding; instead, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) says he got an agreement from White House budget director Russell Vought to shift the money from the Interior Department. […]

    However, the funding only helps radio stations run by tribes; other rural stations serving Native American audiences, including KYUK, are still going to have their budgets hammered.

    “We aren’t tribally owned, so frankly, it’s unclear whether or not those potential funds could even benefit a station like KYUK,” said station manager Kristin Hall.

    The funding secured from another source is “not an apples-to-apples replacement for the funding for tribal stations,” said Hall. “Although it may support a small portion of us for a limited amount of time, with the limited details that I have, it doesn’t seem like a viable replacement for the entire network.”

    KYUK is facing a $1.4 million cut, about 20 percent of its budget. Alaska Public Media president Ed Ulman said the statewide network would work with donors to help fill the budget hole for KYUK and other rural stations, but it won’t be easy. Hall pointed out that with a staff of around a dozen people, losing even one of them would be “devastating.”

    Hall said her top priority in the face of the cuts will now be making sure the station can broadcast emergency alerts. In what was either a coincidence or an indication that tectonic plates have a grim sense of irony, a few hours before the Senate vote at 2 AM Thursday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in the Aleutian Islands triggered a tsunami warning, which was transmitted on public radio stations across coastal Alaska. The tsunami warning was soon cancelled, so really, who needs emergency alerts?

    And that’s now going to be the situation faced by small public TV and radio stations around the country: scrambling to find donors and to decide what cuts can be made so they can stay on the air with at least minimal services for a year or three longer. Maybe some party that gives a shit will be elected and can reverse some of the damage.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/looks-like-the-rightwing-wet-dream

  212. says

    New York Times link

    “Trump Says He Doesn’t ‘Draw Pictures.’ But Many of His Sketches Sold at Auction.”

    “The president disputes reporting from The Wall Street Journal that he drew a picture for Jeffrey Epstein, but as a real estate mogul, he often sketched for charity.”

    […] a review of the president’s past reveals that, for years, Mr. Trump was a high-profile doodler — or at least suggested he was. In the early 2000s, he regularly donated drawings to charities in New York.

    “It takes me a few minutes to draw something, in my case, it’s usually a building or a cityscape of skyscrapers, and then sign my name, but it raises thousands of dollars to help the hungry in New York through the Capuchin Food Pantries Ministry,” he wrote in his 2008 book, “Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success.”

    After Mr. Trump was elected president, some of the drawings he signed were auctioned off for thousands of dollars — even as he wrote in his book that “art may not be my strong point.”

    The president has a long history of denying reports — only for them to later be confirmed by audio or photos, such as his comments captured on “Access Hollywood” in which he bragged about grabbing women’s genitals, or photos of him flushing documents down the toilet.

    The focus on Mr. Trump’s drawings comes as many of his most ardent supporters are calling for transparency around the investigation into Mr. Epstein, who was in a Manhattan jail cell awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges when he died by suicide in 2019. On Thursday night, Mr. Trump said he was authorizing Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of Mr. Epstein.

    The president vehemently denied the reporting from The Journal and threatened to sue the company, but the report raised new questions about his ties to Mr. Epstein.

    Here is a look at some of the other sketches that Mr. Trump has drawn — or at least signed his name to — that have been auctioned over the years: [images at the link]

  213. says

    Some deportees are leaving El Salvador’s hellish megaprison

    Around 230 Venezuelans deported to and imprisoned in El Salvador’s brutal CECOT prison are being sent to Caracas, Venezuela, Daily Kos can confirm.

    In exchange, Venezuela will release five U.S. citizens and five U.S. permanent residents into custody of the American government, according to Reuters, which was the first to report the news through government sources.

    “This nightmare is finally coming to an end. Unbelievable,” Gris Vogt, a San Francisco-based education specialist for the blind who has spent the past four months assisting families of the imprisoned men, told Daily Kos.

    Since March, Vogt has worked with families in Venezuela, serving as a lifeline for their access to the American Civil Liberties Union and helping them communicate across the geopolitical gaps of Venezuela, El Salvador, and the U.S.

    At least one planeload of prisoners arrived in Caracas on Friday afternoon, she told Daily Kos.

    “I’m happy for them, I’m happy for everybody,” she said. [video]

    […] While around 230 Venezuelans are to be sent to their home country, the U.S. has deported over 250 Venezuelans to El Salvador. It is unclear which men will be sent to Venezuela and who will stay. Some of those deported to CECOT do have criminal histories, and it’s possible they will remain in that prison. […]

  214. says

    Nigel Farage’s DOGE firebrands are already at war

    “Reform UK is mounting an Elon Musk-inspired bid to slash state ‘waste.’ The fireworks have already begun.”

    MAIDSTONE, England — Half an hour into a Kent County Council meeting, council leader Linden Kemkaran has already taken aim at trans women in a “wig and a skirt” and migrants “invading” Britain.

    This is the Garden of England — home to farmers, commuters, vineyards, seaside poverty, rich London escapees, and the beaches where tens of thousands of migrants have landed in inflatable dinghies — and it now belongs to Reform UK.

    Nigel Farage’s populist right-wing party ended decades of center-right Conservative rule here in May’s local elections, winning 57 of 81 seats. Novice Reform councilors took over nine other English councils; in others it is the largest party, including Warwickshire, whose proposed leader is just 18 years old. If Reform’s national poll lead lasts, Farage could become prime minister in 2029.

    It echoes a rise in the populist right across Europe — and Kemkaran, a blunt and hitherto obscure former BBC journalist (she was on staff until 2008), gives a taste of the raw politics to come.

    She told a council meeting last week that women were in “grave danger of violence and sexual abuse” due to “hordes of men from deeply misogynistic and dare I say unenlightened cultures … invading our county.” She slammed politicians who believe a “man can somehow magically turn into a woman because he wears a wig and skirt.”

    […] The firebrands have been forced into office jobs.

    Reform councillors are running vast budgets on a platform to slash state “waste,” with little to no experience of local government. [Well that sounds familiar.] Senior Reform figures are already accusing council officers of underhanded opposition to their efficiency drive.

    This is where the hard part starts — and the fireworks have begun.

    “All the council lawyers are engaged in order to try to find ways to resist,” Zia Yusuf told POLITICO in an interview.
    Yusuf, a combative former luxury concierge tycoon and Reform’s ex-chief executive, now leads a party unit calling itself the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — which aims to mimic its Elon Musk-founded U.S. namesake. It is in talks with Kent, Lincolnshire, Durham, Worcestershire and Northamptonshire.

    […] While Kent’s £1.5 billion annual budget may appear ripe for cuts, much of it is tied into the provision of statutory services such as social care. Reform’s examples of waste so far have either been heavily disputed or form only a small proportion of the total.

    And Yusuf has a more immediate problem: Reform-run councils still haven’t handed DOGE the reams of internal data that he wants in order to find waste. There are data protection hurdles, and Kent’s most senior lawyer and chief executive are still in talks with Reform HQ.

    […] there are no cuts to be seen yet in the thorniest and most politically sensitive areas — home-to-school transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and social care for vulnerable adults.

    […] Kent’s “DOLGE” is run by three elected Reform councilors, but no council officers are working on it full-time and it is — self-evidently — not an impartial audit by an accountancy firm. Instead, the trio of councilors “have got free rein,” Kemkaran said. “They can go into any department. They can ask any questions.”

    […] The more Reform councilors learn about the fine print, the more they risk getting cold feet. Barrett said he would not support cuts in home-to-school transport if they “fail to allow any child to go to school” who uses the service now. Yusuf may feel differently.

    […] One Tory politician in Kent said: “They’re blundering around trying to make big bold statements but finding the minutiae of local government rather tedious and difficult.” […]

  215. says

    Durbin: FBI agents were told to ‘flag’ Epstein records that mentioned Trump

    Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he has received information that Attorney General Pam Bondi “pressured” about 1,000 FBI personnel to comb through tens of thousands of pages of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and flag any mention of President Trump.

    Durbin made the explosive allegation in three letters that he sent Friday to Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino seeking more information about the administration’s handling of files related to Epstein and asking why senior officials were allegedly focused on looking for documents connecting Trump to Epstein.

    Citing “information my office received,” Durbin said Bondi “pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division” on 24-hour shifts to review about 100,000 Epstein-related records as part of a broader effort to release documents publicly by what Durbin called “an arbitrarily short deadline.”

    Durbin says his office was told that FBI personnel were “instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned.”

    […] He asked Bondi, Patel and Bongino if they have personally reviewed all the files in the Department of Justice’s possession related to Epstein and whether the FBI has other Epstein-related records that Justice did not review.

    And Durbin questioned why FBI personnel were told to flag records mentioning Trump and what happened to those records.

    “Is there a log of the records mentioning President Trump? If yes, please transmit a copy of the committee and the OIG,” he wrote, referring to the Judiciary panel and the Office of Inspector General.

    Durbin is also seeking clarification about Bondi’s statement in February during a Fox News interview when she said a list of Epstein’s clients is “sitting on my desk right now to review.”

  217. says

    Washington Post:

    They are nurses, mechanics, sanitation workers and executives. They’ve fallen in love, bought houses and raised children. They’ve opened restaurants and construction companies, paid taxes and contributed to Social Security, living and working legally in the United States since 1999. Now more than 50,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans stand to abruptly lose their legal status as the Trump administration seeks to end their protections, in place since the Clinton era, under the temporary protected status program, or TPS.

  218. says

    The Trump administration is doing an outstanding job of obliterating every last shred of affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. But they can’t do it alone.

    Enter America First, the legal group founded by current White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, here to lend a helping hand. So, the group just filed a complaint with the Department of Justice demanding an “immediate investigation and enforcement action” into Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

    You can pretty much guess what the letter says, because it’s just the same ghoulish racist rhetoric that Miller has been engaging in since he was a teenager. Per America First, Johns Hopkins is discriminating on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, and “other impermissible immutable characteristics.”

    The complaint pretends that the real concern of the professional racists over at America First is the safety of Americans. Yes, they are just looking out for you, because if medical schools admit anyone but white dudes, basically, they are going to become subpar physicians, and that “endangers public trust in the medical system itself.”

    But the eroding of public trust is already happening. The administration is currently letting Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. trash public health efforts, instead pushing his anti-vaccine quackery. Cuts at the National Institutes of Health are endangering cancer research, because everyone knows that fighting cancer is woke, or something.

    Normally, it wouldn’t be logical or fair to attribute those actions of the administration to a private legal group like America First. But America First is nothing but an extension of Miller’s work in the administration. So the private law firm founded by Miller can tee up complaints so that the administration can “investigate” those complaints. Indeed, the group’s complaint is essentially the same as the administration’s announcement back in March—that it was investigating Johns Hopkins over DEI.

    Procedurally, it’s glaringly obvious that the complaint was filed as a fig leaf to give the DOJ another tool to attack Johns Hopkins. The administration has been targeting the school for months, sending the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism to Johns Hopkins and nine other schools.

    […] That’s not just cynical speculation. It’s basically what the administration already did by filing a sham lawsuit against the state of Texas over its law granting in-state tuition to undocumented students. The state settled with the DOJ the same day the suit was filed, with Texas declaring its own law unconstitutional.

    It isn’t clear if America First quite intended to say the quiet part out loud, but their racist screed takes a step that was inevitable, but is still disgusting. The argument is that if Johns Hopkins considers socioeconomic status in admissions, that’s actually still affirmative action because “wealth and income gaps vary significantly between racial groups, with Black and Hispanic households possessing a fraction of the wealth held by White and Asian households. By leveraging these disparities, Johns Hopkins masks racial preferences behind income thresholds.”

    Yes, that’s an argument Johns Hopkins is doing forbidden DEI by admitting students with lower incomes, because the poors are all Black or Hispanic. To grant America First’s demands here, Johns Hopkins would have to stop admitting students from lower-income families. Well, unless they’re white, of course.

    This is in keeping with the overall thrust of the Trump administration to make it harder for anyone except rich white people to obtain advanced degrees. The “One Big, Beautiful Bill” capped student loans at an amount that makes it impossible for a lower- or average-income student to go to medical school. Johns Hopkins, for example, costs about $72,000 per year, or $288,000 total, but graduate student loans are capped at $100,000 total. The administration is also functionally killing Public Service Loan Forgiveness, so anyone who chooses a lower-paying public service job will be absolutely hobbled by their loans forever.

    Just like the administration, America First pretends that if you simply eradicate all efforts to attract anyone except white, straight, moneyed men, then you will get people chosen on pure merit. […]

    Link

  219. says

    Israel and Syria agree to ceasefire, U.S. ambassador to Turkey says

    “Israel launched airstrikes in Damascus earlier this week”

    U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said Friday that Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and neighbors.

    On Wednesday, Israel launched airstrikes in Damascus, while also hitting government forces in the south, demanding they withdraw and saying that Israel aimed to protect Syrian Druze — part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.

    “We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Barrack said in a post on X

  220. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Intercept – ICE lawyers are hiding their names in immigration court

    “We’re not really doing names publicly,” said Judge ShaSha Xu—after stating her own name and those of the immigrants and their lawyers. It was the first of two separate instances The Intercept identified in which judges chose to withhold the identities of the attorneys
    […]
    “I’ve never heard of someone in open court not being identified,” said Elissa Steglich, a law professor
    […]
    [Immigration judge] Shirley Lazare-Raphael [said] the new phenomenon of occluding ICE attorneys’ names has not been formalized via a directive or rule. “It’s up to the judges whether or not they want to do it,”
    […]
    Veronica Cardenas, who was an ICE prosecutor for six years before quitting in 2023, told The Intercept that she thinks the real threat these lawyers face is shame. […] Cardenas came to realize the people she was seeking to deport were a lot like her family. Cardenas now works as an immigration defense attorney and counsels other ICE lawyers who want to leave their jobs

    Anne Applebaum (Atlantic): “I have never heard of lawyers being allowed anonymity, anywhere.”

    Olivia Messer (BarbedWire):

    I’ve covered a LOT of court hearings at various levels. Never once, in any kind of case, was this allowed. Child victims of sex crimes are even frequently identified by name in court for the record when they testify. As a press corps, we don’t publish their names, but we still see them. This is wild.

    Popehat (Attorney):

    This is not the act of a legitimate government.

    I represented the government prosecuting white supremacists, some of who LIVED IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, and street gang members, and freeman on the land movement people, and members of the Mjahedeen-Fucking-E-Khalq, and I said my goddamned name. What’s with these spineless creeps?

    Incidentally, Judge ShaSha Xu, who permitted this in the example above, was appointed in 2023 by Executive Office of Immigration Review. Not clear on how EOIR works so not sure how accurate it is to call that a Biden administration appointee.

  232. says

    Oh great, another top government official thinks Trump should be king

    Russ Vought, the Project 2025 architect/ghoul who now runs the Office of Management and Budget, is pretty sure that when Americans voted for Donald Trump, they were enthusiastically endorsing the idea that Trump can single-handedly decide how taxpayer money is spent. This tramples on the separation of powers, but it’s also just a comical reach to say that people who pulled the lever for Trump gave him infinite power.

    On Thursday, during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting, Vought explained his vision of how the government should work to reporters. First, bipartisanship has got to go, because “literally no one” ran and won “on an agenda of a bipartisan appropriations process.”

    Buddy, no one ran on that because everyone else understands that the budget process is, of necessity, bipartisan. It’s that whole thing where Congress sets spending, and spending bills need 60 votes to pass. But per Vought, he doesn’t even have to talk to congressional Democrats because he is going to “change the paradigm” of budgeting.

    Somehow, cutting Democrats out of the budgeting process will make things better, according to Vought: “I actually think that over time, if we have a more partisan appropriations process—for a time—it will lead to more bipartisanship.” [!] Yep, that is definitely how things work.

    Vought grudgingly acknowledged that Congress has the power of the purse, but he has a very … unique … understanding of that: “It is one of the most constitutional foundational principles, but that power of the purse does not mean—It’s a ceiling. It is not a floor.”

    Wait, what? That word salad sounds a lot like Vought thinks that Congress can pass a budget, but then Trump can cut whatever he wants. Actually, yes, that’s precisely what Vought means: “It is not the notion that you have to spend every last dollar.” If Trump can unilaterally refuse to spend money Congress has appropriated, then Congress no longer controls spending power, period.

    Vought’s actions are in keeping with Trump’s view that Americans elected him to be a king, and by electing him, affirmatively agreed to anything he wants to do. It’s also in keeping with Trump’s February executive order, which essentially said that OMB gets to tell agencies what to do, and they just have to do it.

    Letting Trump unilaterally cut spending is actually restoring the constitutional balance, per Vought, because it means that the executive branch is “not cowing to a legislative branch’s understanding of its own authorities and powers.”

    Sure, except the plain language of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution could not be clearer about where spending power lies: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.”

    Vought doesn’t care for your pesky thoughts about the Constitution, though. He’s a Christian nationalist who espouses a theory of “radical constitutionalism.” That theory is indeed radical, as it essentially requires you to throw out the whole Constitution and just say that the president is a king and Congress cannot place limits on him.

    The administration’s belief that all power rests with Trump has been, unfortunately, backed by both the Supreme Court and Congress. Since both of those branches have abdicated their duties to act as a check and balance on the executive branch, there is no one to stop Vought from implementing his vision […]

    In case you are wondering, Vought’s vision also means even more cuts. The administration is planning on sending additional rescission packages to Congress, continuing to cut spending even though Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” already cut the whole of government to the bone to fund tax cuts for the rich and shower money on Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    It’s hilarious to watch Vought pretend to be rooting out fraud and finding savings when his boss just added at least $2.4 trillion to the national debt to fund those tax cuts. It’s hilarious to pretend that Trump should be the arbiter of spending when he’s really terrible with money. It’s hilarious to pretend that the administration’s actions have saved Americans money when Elon Musk’s antics with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have cost the government $135 billion, which far outstrips the ostensible savings achieved by DOGE

    [“Hilarious” and depressing. Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    None of these people should be in charge of a children’s checkbook, much less the federal government.

  233. says

    32 Palestinians shot dead trying to reach U.S. group’s food distribution sites, Gaza authorities say

    “Amid widespread hunger and a collapsing aid system, Palestinians continue to risk their lives for food.”

    DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli troops opened fire Saturday toward crowds of Palestinians seeking food from distribution hubs run by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed group in southern Gaza, killing at least 32 people, according to witnesses and hospital officials.

    The shootings occurred near hubs operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which launched operations in May. The U.S. and Israel seek to replace the traditional U.N.-led aid distribution system in Gaza, asserting that Hamas militants siphon off supplies. The U.N. denies the allegation.

    While the GHF says it has distributed millions of meals to hungry Palestinians, local health officials and witnesses say that Israeli army fire has killed hundreds of people as they try to reach the hubs. GHF’s four sites are in military-controlled zones.

    Israel’s army, which is not at the sites but secures them from a distance, says it only fires warning shots if crowds get too close to its forces. The military on Saturday said it fired warning shots near Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah after a group of suspects approached troops and ignored calls to keep their distance. […]

    In a statement, the GHF said there were no incidents at or near its sites and added, “we have repeatedly warned aid seekers not to travel to our sites overnight and early morning hours.”

    Witnesses allege indiscriminate fire

    Most of Saturday’s deaths occurred as Palestinians massed in the Teina area, around 2 miles from a GHF aid distribution center near the southern city of Khan Younis.

    Mahmoud Mokeimar said he was walking with masses of people, mostly young men, toward the hub. Troops fired warning shots, then opened fire.

    “The occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately,” he said. He said he saw at least three motionless bodies on the ground and many wounded people fleeing.

    Akram Aker, another witness, said troops fired machine guns mounted on tanks and drones. He said the shooting happened between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. The GHF had called on people not to approach before 6 a.m. Saturday, citing potential military activities.

    “They encircled us and started firing directly at us,” Aker said. He said he saw many casualties on the ground.

    Sanaa al-Jaberi said there was shooting after the site opened as people seeking aid broke into a run. “Is this food or death? Why? They don’t talk with us, they only shoot us,” she said, and showed off her empty bag.

    Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received 25 bodies. Seven other people, including one woman, were killed in the Shakoush area, hundreds of meters (yards) north of another GHF hub in Rafah, the hospital said. Gaza’s Health Ministry confirmed the toll.

    Dr. Mohamed Saker, head of Nasser’s nursing department, said it received 70 wounded people. He told The Associated Press that most people were shot in the head and chest.

    “The situation is difficult and tragic,” he said, adding that the facility lacks medical supplies. Some of the wounded, including a child, were treated on the floor. One boy stood patiently, holding up a blood bag for someone on a stretcher. […]

    Humanitarian crisis

    Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians are in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Distribution at the GHF sites is often chaotic. Boxes of food are stacked on the ground and crowds surge in to grab whatever they can, according to witnesses and videos released by GHF.

    In videos obtained recently by the AP, GHF contractors are seen using tear gas and stun grenades to keep crowds behind metal fences or force them to disperse. Gunshots can be heard.

    […] Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks in Qatar, but international mediators say there have been no breakthroughs.

    West Bank church attack

    In the occupied West Bank, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited the Palestinian Christian village, Taybeh, where residents say extremist Israeli settlers set fire to the Church of St. George on July 9.

    Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who is normally strongly supportive of Israel, condemned the attack.

    “To commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship — it’s an act of terror and it’s a crime,” he said.

    The West Bank has experienced a surge in settler violence since the war in Gaza began. Palestinians say Israeli security forces have done little to stop the violence, and few settlers have been punished.

  234. JM says

    Raw Story: ‘Petty’: Trump order barred ex-CIA chief from party for dog named for late wife

    In a move blasted by The Atlantic’s Shane Harris as sheer “pettiness,” President Donald Trump prohibited the former Obama administration spymaster from attending the graduation ceremony of a bomb-sniffing dog he sponsored and which was named after his late wife.

    Trump issued an executive order to bar Clapper from going to a graduation ceremony for a bomb-sniffing dog he sponsored. That is bad comic book villain level pettiness.
    The claim that it was an executive order is second hand and a bit doubtful. It’s possible the executive order yanking Clapper’s security clearance also bars him from CIA property. More likely Trump or somebody under him just ordered Clapper off the guest list, there is no need for an executive order here.

  235. says

    I was just applying for financial aid too :(.
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-big-bill-student-loans_n_687a9e24e4b06b3f48ab0f1e
    “The bill changes student loans in three major ways: removing most of the existing income-driven repayment plans, making repayment more difficult for lower-income graduates; creating loan limits for graduate students and parent borrowers, which will make some higher-cost programs like medical school less accessible for people who can’t pay for them out of pocket; and denying federal funds to cover certain programs if their graduates don’t meet a certain income threshold.”

  236. John Morales says

    Story from The Wall Street Journal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCBdcNA_FsI

    China’s Dark Factories: So Automated, They Don’t Need Lights

    Ford’s CEO says China’s EV industry poses an existential threat to global automakers. The country’s dark factories, which have robots run 24/7 with limited human interaction, aim to further widen the gap between Chinese car manufacturers and everyone else. As China grapples with overproduction and Trump’s trade war with Beijing continues, one big question remains: who will buy all these vehicles?

    WSJ visited Zeekr, a Chinese luxury EV-maker, to learn about China’s hyper-automation.

    Chapters:
    0:00 China’s dark factories
    0:40 China’s labor costs
    1:19 Inside Zeekr
    2:21 China’s automation
    3:13 U.S. playing catchup
    4:13 Challenges in the Chinese economy

  237. says

    These 3 Trump picks could be absolute poison for the justice system

    Everybody hates Emil [not everybody, Trump likes him]
    What’s it like having more than 900 former employees from your current job write a letter saying you shouldn’t get to be a judge? Does it feel worse or better than over 75 former state and federal judges writing a letter saying that you shouldn’t be a judge? Emil Bove gets to find out which stings more, since both letters were sent to the Senate in opposition to Bove’s nomination to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. How dare they interfere with Bove’s reward for having been one of President Donald Trump’s many criminal defense attorneys?

    Regrettably, we’re long past the point where Bove’s track record of allegedly demanding his employees defy federal court orders would be enough of a reason for Senate Republicans not to confirm him. However, the GOP knows full well that Bove is an absolutely appalling candidate and the best approach was to simply break the rules and jam Bove through the Senate Judiciary Committee by refusing to let Democrats even air their objections, so this now moves to the whole Senate. There, the GOP will likely confirm Bove, because they will do whatever Trump wants and have given up on the whole advice and consent thing.

    Trump’s D.C. prosecutor pick not exactly a champion of law enforcement
    Jeanine Pirro, last seen pitching a fit about bottled water, (in provided written answers ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing as Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C). Her answers did not exactly instill confidence that Pirro, who is vying to be the top prosecutor, backs the blue. Or perhaps it’s just that Pirro has an incredibly faulty memory, which also seems like a suboptimal feature for a United States attorney.

    “I am also not aware that ‘rioters who were convicted of violent assaults on police officers’ were given ‘full and unconditional pardons,’” she said in her written statement, regarding the cases around the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

    Huh. You’d think she’d have seen that, what with it being covered everywhere and her having had a job in TV news.

    Pirro also apparently couldn’t recall saying, on her own radio program, that DOJ prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases should be criminally charged.

    Ultimately, none of Pirro’s shortcomings mattered to the Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as they advanced her nomination to the full Senate. Going to be so terrific to have another election denier in the administration, right?

    DOJ working on what really matters: forced assimilation
    Given that it isn’t really enforcing civil rights or voting rights, the DOJ has plenty of time for a project that is sure to increase efficiency and should definitely be a top priority: overseeing a government-wide effort to eliminate multilingual services.

    You may be thinking this doesn’t sound like something the DOJ should be overseeing, what with its job as the nation’s top cop and enforcer of civil rights, but somehow folks at the DOJ have time on their hands, despite the fact that they’ve lost thousands of employees. Nonetheless, they’re making the implementation of Trump’s racist, nativist executive order proclaiming English as the official language of the United States.

    According to the DOJ, eliminating multilingual services will force people to assimilate, but it sure looks intended to make it harder for non-English speakers to navigate the government.

    Judicial ethics, DOJ style
    The Trump administration is continuing its quest to frame lower courts as a threat to the rule of law. The rest of us know that the only truly lawless court here is the U.S. Supreme Court, which is giving Trump whatever he wants and kneecapping the lower courts in the process.

    This time around, it’s the DOJ whining that a judge said something true about the administration’s actions.

    At the March 2025 Judicial Conference, the policymaking body of the federal courts, a leaked memorandum obtained by hard-right rag The Federalist alleges that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg told Supreme Court Justice John Roberts that his colleagues were “concern[ed] that the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis.”

    Well, yes? Like, multiple times? Like, in front of Boasberg just about a week later, when they defied his court order to turn around the deportation planes bound for Venezuela? A DOJ whistleblower provided emails showing that Emil Bove, currently on the threshold of a lifetime seat on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, told DOJ attorneys they would need to weigh telling the courts “fuck you” and ignore a court order.

    To be scrupulously fair to conservatives—a grace they extend to no one else—Boasberg’s reported comments at the Judicial Conference slightly predated the plane-deportation case. However, by the time of Boasberg’s reported remarks, there was already litigation about Trump’s illegal removal of members of independent agencies, challenging the administration’s expedited removal process and funding freezes. With the administration fighting those every step of the way, often relying only on the assertion that if the president does it, it’s legal, it isn’t surprising that judges were concerned about the possibility of defying court orders.

    Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, another of Trump’s former criminal defense lawyers, is running around framing Boasberg’s mild comments as evidence that judges are biased against Trump. […]

    New Trump-appointed judge will keep bigotry alive
    The Senate on Monday confirmed Whitney Hermandorfer as Trump’s first judicial appointee, so the next day, she finally withdrew as counsel for Tennessee in their amicus brief supporting Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. Hermandorfer’s other hits include defending abortion bans and attacking the Biden administration for the sin of trying to ease discrimination against transgender people. In other words, she’ll fit right in with the rest of Trump’s appointees.

    You can be sure she’s ready to jump right into pushing the Trump agenda by the fact that she won’t say Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.

  238. says

    Trump administration prepares to drop seven major housing discrimination cases, by ProPublica

    The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is preparing to shut down seven major investigations and cases concerning alleged housing discrimination and segregation, including some where the agency already found civil rights violations, according to HUD records obtained by ProPublica.

    The high-profile cases involve allegations that state and local governments across the South and Midwest illegally discriminated against people of color by placing industrial plants or low-income housing in their neighborhoods, and by steering similar facilities away from white neighborhoods, among other allegations. […] HUD officials had determined that the defendants had violated the Fair Housing Act or related civil rights laws. […] Under President Donald Trump, the agency now plans to abruptly end all of them, regardless of prior findings of wrongdoing.

    […] In the short term, closing the cases would allow the local governments in question to continue allegedly mistreating minority communities, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. In the long term, they said, it could embolden local politicians and developers elsewhere to take actions that entrench segregation, without fear of punishment from the federal government. […]

    Three of the cases involve accusations that local governments clustered polluting industrial facilities in minority neighborhoods.

    One concerned a protracted dispute over a scrap metal shredding plant in Chicago. The facility had operated for years in the largely white neighborhood of Lincoln Park. But residents complained ceaselessly of the fumes, debris, noise and, occasionally, smoke emanating from the plant. So the city allegedly pressured the recycling company to close the old facility and open a new one in a minority neighborhood in southeast Chicago. In 2022, HUD found that “relocating the Facility to the Southeast Site will bring environmental benefits to a neighborhood that is 80% White and environmental harms to a neighborhood that is 83% Black and Hispanic.” […] (The new plant has not opened; its owner has sued the city.)

    […] In another case, a predominantly white Michigan township allowed an asphalt plant to open on its outskirts, away from its population centers but near subsidized housing complexes in the neighboring poor, mostly Black city of Flint. […]

    Still another case involved a plan pushed by the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, to build a water desalination plant in a historically Black neighborhood already fringed by oil refineries and other industrial facilities. (Rates of cancer and birth defects in the area are disproportionately high, and average life expectancy is 15 years lower than elsewhere in the city, researchers found.) […] Construction of the plant is expected to conclude in 2028.

    Three other cases involve allegations of discrimination in municipal land use decisions. In Memphis, Tennessee, the city and its utility allegedly coerced residents of a poor Black neighborhood to sell their homes so that it could build a new facility there. In Cincinnati, the city has allegedly concentrated low-income housing in poor Black neighborhoods and kept it out of white neighborhoods. […]

    The last case involved a Texas state agency allegedly diverting $1 billion in disaster mitigation money away from Houston and other communities of color hit hard by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and toward more rural, white communities less damaged by the storm. The agency has disputed the allegations.

    All of the investigations and cases are now slated to be closed. HUD is also planning to stop enforcing the settlement it reached in the Chicago recycling case, the records show.

    The move to drop the cases is being directed by Brian Hawkins, a recent Trump administration hire at HUD who serves as a senior adviser in the Fair Housing Office, two agency officials said. Hawkins has no law degree or prior experience in housing […]

    The list does not offer a legal justification for dropping the cases. But Hawkins also circulated a memo that indicates the reasoning behind dropping one — the Chicago recycling case. The memo cites an executive order issued by Trump in April eliminating federal enforcement of “disparate-impact liability,” the doctrine that seemingly neutral policies or practices could have a discriminatory effect. […]

    The case closures at HUD would be the latest stage in a broad rollback of fair housing enforcement under the Trump administration, which ProPublica reported on previously. That rollback has continued in other ways as well. The agency recently initiated a plan to transfer more than half of its fair housing attorneys in the office of general counsel into unrelated roles, compounding prior staff losses since the beginning of the year […]

    The officials fear long-lasting ramifications from the changes. “Fair housing laws shape our cities, shape where housing gets built, where pollution occurs, where disaster money goes,” one official said. “Without them, we have a different country.”

  239. says

    @233 Lynna, OM posted about:
    NBC reporting 32 Palestinians shot dead trying to reach U.S. group’s food distribution sites, Gaza authorities say. . .

    We get these (deliberately?) small numbers every few hours. That brings up a morbid, but important, question that I can’t find a satisfactory answer to.
    How many Palestinians has Israel murdered in total to date? The last figures I saw were from weeks ago and I think it was somewhere around 60,000.
    Add to that: Ukraine, Syria, and all the other death traps around the world (including the united states) and I must posit that human society is a murderous failure and it’s only going to get worse. Some say ‘despair is not an option’, but I feel despair is a reality.

  241. says

    We are not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or any sort of mental health specialist. So take this opinion for what it’s worth, because it is in no way any sort of clinical diagnosis. Still, we offer it in all seriousness: Donald Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, is a goddamn sociopath.

    Really, how else do you describe someone who calls his job slashing federal spending to the bone “fun,” when those cuts include research to find treatment for cancers and other diseases, or programs to feed starving people? What kind of a […] asshole finds that fun? Even Elon Musk didn’t want people to think he and DOGE were cutting cancer research, even though they absolutely were.

    Yet this is what Vought told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Thursday. According to HuffPost, he specifically cited the National Institutes of Health, which is the “premier biomedical institution in the world,” but has nonetheless lost 1,400 employees and seen its budget slashed by 40% since Trump returned to the White House […]

    Vought, as director of the OMB, played a role in those cuts, and he is not done yet. He made it clear at the breakfast that he is very excited to keep clear-cutting the federal government […] Asked by someone at the breakfast what he meant by having fun, Vought answered, “What’s not fun?”

    Ha ha ha, thousands upon thousands of people have lost or will lose their jobs, lives have been upended, millions will lose access to affordable healthcare, promising disease research has been halted in its tracks, students will lose access to loans to pay for college, parents with special-needs children will lose programs designed to help those kids at school, foreigners will starve to death and die of preventable illnesses because we’ve cut foreign aid and are instead literally setting food on fire rather than distribute it, and on and on and on. But what’s important here is that this sociopath Russ Vought is having fun!

    […] Vought also made clear on Thursday that […] Congress is an advisory board whose decisions he will take as suggestion. He also told the reporters that the appropriations process “has to be less bipartisan,” and the damn Democrats better get in line:

    Vought said he was “willing to work with Democrat appropriators if they conduct themselves with decorum” but that he’s seeking “a great relationship with” Republicans on the House and Senate spending panels.

    […] Karoline Leavitt later interpreted this for the press corps as Vought saying “this process should be more bipartisan?” […]

    […] Even Republican senators were unimpressed. West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito called the comments “not helpful. Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated that appropriations bills will have Democratic input because math. Of course they might hold this stance only as long as it takes Donald Trump to bring them to heel, but even if he does, the math problem remains.

    One irony of Vought singling out the National Institute of Health is that his daughter, who has cystic fibrosis, has reportedly been greatly helped by a cutting-edge drug manufactured because of research funded by grants provided to … wait, let us check our notes … the National Institute of Health. Is it a cheap shot to mention this? Probably! Do we still think it worth pointing out that this jerk is enthusiastically pulling up the ladder behind his family so that no one can benefit from medical research as he has, and has proudly announced that he’s having a hell of a good time doing it? Definitely!

    But it’s fun! Isn’t this all just repeatedly-kick-you […] fun? Fun fun fun!

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-lickspittle-russ-vought-really

  242. says

    New Yorke link

    “Another Doctor Is Dead in Gaza,” by Clayton Dalton

    “In February, Marwan Sultan showed me the wrecked hospital where he worked. In July, an Israeli missile killed him.”

    Five months ago, when I was on a medical mission in northern Gaza, a Palestinian cardiologist named Marwan Sultan showed me what was left of the Indonesian Hospital, a hundred-bed facility that had been shelled and raided by Israeli forces. The building was riddled with shrapnel scars; its hallways were dark and cluttered with debris, and a cold wind blew through broken windows. Sultan, who directed the facility, was wearing a long white coat, a necktie, and rectangular glasses. He pointed out the twisted remains of the hospital’s generators. The operating rooms were being repaired, he said, but had no anesthesia.

    Sultan was welcoming, but, after more than fifteen months of Israeli military operations in Gaza, he seemed profoundly worn down. I filmed with my smartphone as he pointed out a row of dialysis machines whose screens had been smashed in. Upstairs in the I.C.U., he showed me numerous other pieces of equipment that had been destroyed with bullets. He shook his head, speechless, with his palms turned up. When I described the damage to the Israeli military, or I.D.F., for a story published in April, a spokesperson said, “Claims that the IDF deliberately targets medical equipment are unequivocally false.”

    A few months later, I gave a talk about what I witnessed in Gaza. I didn’t understand how destroying medical devices could advance any military objective. A dialysis machine isn’t a weapon, I said. A man in the audience raised his hand and asked, “How long can someone who needs dialysis live without it?” Days to weeks, I told him. “I think that’s how you turn a dialysis machine into a weapon,” he said.

    On the afternoon of July 2nd, Sultan was killed by an Israeli missile along with his wife, a daughter, a sister, a niece, and a son-in-law. At the time, they were displaced from their home, staying with other families in a multistory apartment building near the Mediterranean. A surviving daughter, Lubna, has said that the “missile was dropped on his room exactly, on his place, on him precisely.” The rest of the apartment was intact, she said. In photographs of the damage, a gaping hole is visible at the site of the strike.

    When I asked the Israeli military about Sultan’s killing, the I.D.F. said in a statement, without providing evidence, that it had “targeted a senior Hamas terrorist operative.” It refused to say whether Sultan was the target. “The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians and takes all feasible precautions to minimize harm to uninvolved civilians,” the statement said. Sultan’s family has said that he had no association with any political group. “My father was just a doctor, just a human caring for patients,” his seventeen-year-old son, Ahmad, told an NBC News crew.

    Sultan, who worked as a professor of medicine at the Islamic University of Gaza, was reportedly one of only two heart specialists left in northern Gaza. Colleagues described his killing as catastrophic for the medical community, particularly for medical trainees, who have kept the territory’s remaining hospitals running. […]

    During my time with Sultan, in February, there were reasons to be hopeful. Gaza was protected by a ceasefire, and aid was flowing in […]

    A month later, Israeli authorities blocked further aid from entering Gaza. On March 18th, Israel ended the ceasefire and resumed military attacks. In April, one of Sultan’s colleagues, a twenty-seven-year-old Egyptian surgeon named Mahmoud Abu Amsha, who was volunteering in Gaza, was killed in an air strike. Sultan texted me to say that he wasn’t sleeping because of nightly blasts. “We miss [a] very brave colleague,” he wrote. “Medical staff suffered a lot.”

    A few weeks after that, the World Health Organization reported that the Indonesian Hospital was “out of service due to continued military presence.” A staff member was killed, the W.H.O. said, and almost all of the facility’s patients had to be evacuated. Generators that had been repaired were destroyed again. […]

    According to Healthcare Workers Watch, a Palestinian non-governmental organization that has been cited in medical journals and international media reports, Sultan was the seventieth health-care worker killed in the Gaza Strip in the past fifty days alone. The organization called his killing “part of a wider pattern.” Israeli forces have killed or detained at least one director from every hospital in northern Gaza, it said. In total, more than fifty-seven thousand Palestinians have lost their lives in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s health ministry. […] that figure includes more than fifteen hundred health-care workers: two hundred physicians, seventy of whom were top specialists in their fields; a hundred and eighty pharmacists; two hundred and twenty paramedics; and many others. […]

    More at the link.

  246. says

    Thanks, @ 240 John Morales. That is a credible source and good info. I did find they said ‘Between 7 October 2023 and 9 July 2025, the MoH in Gaza reported that at least 57,680 Palestinians were killed, which is close to what I’d found a while ago.
    I am so heartsick from all the ongoing increase in torture, kidnapping and murder everywhere with no end in sight.

  249. John Morales says

    Centenarians tend to look as old as they are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzQhtsTdHhM

    Life Lessons From 100-Year-Old Americans Who Didn’t Expect To Live So Long | Business Insider

    What does it take to live more than a century? Five centenarians shared the lessons they’ve learned about love, health, and money after 100 years of life. They reflected on the challenges they faced, the transformations they witnessed, and the habits that kept them strong as the world changed around them. They offer advice for younger generations on how to live longer and stay positive through it all.

    00:00 – Introduction
    01:06 – Early Life Of Five Centenarians
    03:24 – Love And Marriage Advice
    04:19 – Challenges About Reaching 100
    06:45 – How The Internet Has Changed The World
    08:28 – Health Advice
    10:06 – Staying Active Through Games And Friendships
    11:21 – Money Lessons Learned Over A Century
    12:17 – Secrets to Longevity and a Happy Life
    14:52 – End Credits

  250. John Morales says

    In Australian news (well, Tasmania, but that’s near Australia): https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-20/dean-winter-jeremy-rockliff-crossbench-minority-government/105552384

    Dean Winter, Jeremy Rockliff both start talks with crossbenchers as they look to form government

    In short [Obs, AI synopsis]:

    Following Tasmania’s snap election, the Liberals are predicted to win at least 14 seats, Labor is predicted to win a maximum of 10. Both parties are short of the 18 seats needed to govern in their own right.

    The Liberal and Labor leaders have both started talking to crossbenchers as they consider the path to government.
    What’s next?

    The final make up of Tasmania’s next parliament will not be known for more than a week.

    —

    Some people still imagine Australia has a 2-party system, which it kinda does, but in a rather roundabout way these days.

  252. birgerjohansson says

    About immigration: The refugees in Britain are a tiny fragment of the total number of immigrants. You notice them because they are concentrated in a few big UK facilites. If the Starmer government had less cognitive inertia, they could process the asylum applicants in Calais, pulling the rug from under the xeno populists. One good thing about that government: They are getting serious about penalties for politicians accepting foreign money aka bribes.

  253. birgerjohansson says

    As I lack standard thermoregulation I start to suffer the heat at a modest 72°F. At 80°F I am useless. The hottest air will recede next Saturday; do not expect any deep philosophical insights before then.
    .
    Meanwhile, I will look for science or medicine news. I will try to forward less political news as that tends to feed depression.
    There was some cool news about tracking platypus populations, that should not trigger anyone.

  257. says

    Trump’s fans keep calling him ‘daddy.’ But there’s a dark side to this metaphor.

    […] Donald Trump took over his father Fred’s real estate business and adopted Fred Trump’s strict “winners and losers” mentality. He’s a father of five kids by three mothers. And he’s convinced his supporters that he’s something of a surrogate father to them — and to the country — in a troubling use of rhetoric.

    At first, the framing was just about Trump returning to the White House, which was unsettling but made a bit of sense. At a pre-inauguration event, musician Kid Rock added the words “daddy’s home” to the song he was performing. Around the same time, die-hard MAGA Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida said on a Fox News panel “Daddy’s back,” Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado tweeted “Daddy’s home,” and conservative influencer Charlie Kirk posted, “Dad is home.” [Yuck]

    Things heated up in June. When discussing Trump’s expletive-laden comment on Israel and Iran, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte used a metaphor: “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.” Trump ate it up with a spoon, imitating it for the cameras later. “He did it very affectionately, ‘Daddy, you’re my daddy,’” he said. The White House then posted video of Trump set to Usher’s song “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home),” while the campaign sold red T-shirts with the word “DADDY” beneath his mug shot.

    But for some of Trump’s fans, there’s a darker undercurrent to the rhetoric.

    After the California wildfires burned down his home in Malibu, conservative actor Mel Gibson described Trump visiting the state as “like Daddy’s arrived, and he’s taking his belt off.” [!] At a 2024 campaign rally, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson compared the U.S. to a defiant 15-year-old girl whose angry father has come home go give her a “vigorous spanking” for being a “bad little girl.”

    […] This frame explains a lot about Trump’s political agenda. Just as the strict father defends the family against outside threats, Trump pledges to protect the country from immigrants that he casts as violent criminals. His cuts to everything from foreign aid to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Medicaid are framed as “tough love” that will teach self-reliance. And, of course, strict fathers expect total obedience from their children — which has unsettling implications for the future of American democracy.

    […] For people seeking favors from Trump, it makes sense to play it up. Rutte, who is surely hoping to keep the United States from leaving or otherwise disregarding NATO, earned a lot of goodwill from the president with that one remark. The downside is that this only encourages Trump to see himself this way […]

    […] Lakoff [cognitive linguist George Lakoff] recommends instead “shifting the frame” to a new one, but this particular one is so ingrained in American politics that may not be so easy.

    […] Trump is not like a beneficent father, but more like a dad who doesn’t live up to his obligations […]

    Trump is demanding obedience now, and all too often getting it. But there will likely be a cost to that down the road, for both Trump and the country.

  258. says

    The Trump administration’s last-minute snub of the Aspen Security Forum this week betrays a growing animosity between the U.S. government and wider national security community.

    The Pentagon on Monday pulled senior Defense Department officials from the annual event —only a day before the start of the four-day summit in Colorado — claiming the bipartisan gathering “promotes the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country, and hatred for the President of the United States.”

    […] “The Trump administration doesn’t like dissent, I think that’s pretty clear. And they don’t like dissenting views at conferences,” a Republican political strategist and frequent forum attendee told The Hill. “Causing a stir about perceived criticism of the Trump administration makes people afraid to cross them and lose access to the administration. They might be cut off from people who are implementing policies.”

    But the shunning of events on the national security and foreign policy circuit does no favors for the administration’s national security goals, experts say, as they lend a platform to potentially different viewpoints that could be useful for Washington.

    Case in point, those that gathered at the mountain retreat were described as “bewildered” by the decision due to the forum’s well-known bipartisan agenda, with several former Trump administration officials slated to speak, according to the political strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    “It was a surprise because most of us were traveling to the conference when the announcement occurred,” they said. “I think most people who attend the event frequently never viewed it as being partisan or anti-Trump. So it was bewildering and I think a little bit concerning.”

    The Aspen Security Forum, described as the “premier national security and foreign policy conference,” is among the most high-profile such events and for years has attracted Republican and Democratic administration officials, business leaders, and analysts.

    During Trump’s first term, several top officials including then-CIA chief and later Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended the forum. […]

    More than a dozen pulled administration officials were set to appear on several panels, including Navy Secretary John Phelan. But the Pentagon suddenly declared they would not attend and would not do so moving forward as “their values do not align with the values of the DoD,” according to spokesperson Sean Parnell.

    Link

  260. says

    @255 birgerjohansson wrote: (Of course, solar and wind power must be supplemented with other sources).

    I reply: my organization has studied self-contained home power since the early 1980s. Back then,for years there was even a magazine called ‘home power’. We know many people who, on just a couple of acres, have a mix of wind and photovoltaic power, need no outside power, and have NO connection to the grid. It is cost effective. Advanced lead-acid or lithium batteries are used to provide 24 hour power. A few have a propane generator that is not used and is just in emergencies. And, in the first decade of the 1900’s there were solar powered Stirling heat engines that could charge batteries. So, your statement has already been proven largely false.

  261. says

    It’s tough to keep track of all the ways in which billionaire Elon Musk has enriched himself with your tax dollars. But that windfall seemingly wasn’t enough for Musk, whose brain-chip company Neuralink reportedly lied on federal forms, falsely calling itself a “small disadvantaged business.”

    The outlet Musk Watch unearthed the filing, dated April 24, which was when Musk was still a “special government employee” of the federal government. Hello, DOGE? Here is some apparent fraud and waste for you to discover!

    To qualify as a small disadvantaged business, the majority ownership of a company must be held by members of a “socially and economically disadvantaged” group. According to the Code of Federal Regulations, socially disadvantaged people are those “subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias within American society.” Economically disadvantaged individuals are those with a net worth of less than $850,000.

    As of midday Friday, Musk’s net worth is over $413 billion. He’s a white, straight man and is not subject to any prejudice, which means he meets neither prong of the SDB requirements.

    […] This doesn’t appear to be a onetime error, either. Musk Watch found that Neuralink has claimed this same designation in 11 different federal filings since 2017. […]

    All of this is especially ironic given that Musk otherwise actively scorns diversity efforts.

    Things at Tesla, his electric vehicle company, have allegedly been so racist that last year a California state judge ruled that 6,000 of its Black workers could jointly sue the company as a class because they alleged Tesla had a “pattern or practice” of failing to address and prevent discrimination against Black workers.

    Additionally, under then-President Joe Biden in 2023, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Tesla for allegedly tolerating racist harassment and retaliating against workers who opposed the harassment. It’s unclear what will happen with that suit, but Tesla already got a gift from the Trump administration, which reportedly dropped a Department of Labor investigation into discrimination at the company.

    Musk has also been eager to attack any diversity efforts and has gleefully slashed funding for related initiatives. He turned Twitter into X, a neo-Nazi hangout […]This is not a person who believes the government should lend a helping hand to people who have suffered racial, ethnic, or cultural prejudice.

    That said, Neuralink’s reported actions make perfect sense within the paradigm of the Trump administration. In that worldview, the people who actually qualify for the small-disadvantaged-business designation don’t deserve it, because they weren’t chosen on the basis of merit. To them, the real racism is anything that doesn’t reward white people. So why shouldn’t Musk’s company seemingly engage in a little light fraud to get the advantage it believes it so richly deserves?

    Link

  262. says

    EXCLUSIVE: A MAGA bot network on X is divided over the Trump-Epstein backlash

    A previously unreported network of hundreds of accounts on X is using artificial intelligence to automatically reply to conservatives with positive messages about people in the Trump administration, researchers say.

    But with the MAGA movement split over the administration’s handling of files involving deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the accounts’ messaging has broken, offering contradictory statements on the issue and revealing the AI-fueled nature of the accounts.

    The network, tracked for NBC News by both the social media analytics company Alethea and researchers at Clemson University, consists of more than 400 identified bot accounts, though the number could be far larger, the researchers say. Its accounts offer consistent praise for key Trump figures, particularly support for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

    As often is the case with bot accounts, those viewed by NBC News tended to have only a few dozen followers, and their posts rarely get many views. But a large audience does not appear to be the point. Their effectiveness, if they have any, is in the hope that they contribute to a partisan echo chamber, and that en masse they can “massage perceptions,” said Darren Linvill, the director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, which studies online disinformation campaigns.

    […] All were created, seemingly in batches, around three specific days last year. They frequently punctuate their posts with hashtags, often ones that are irrelevant to the conversation. They post almost exclusively by replying to other users, often to people who pay X for verification and by repeating similarly worded sentiments over and over in short succession. At times, they will respond to someone’s post by repeating it back to them verbatim.

    […] The bots have posted support for conservative figures since 2024, including supporting Trump and other Republicans on the ballot in the lead-up to the election, and then afterward posting that they were excited for Trump to take office. Though they would occasionally mix their messages — some have professed affection for MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, for instance — their messaging was consistently in favor of MAGA figures until the recent Epstein files controversy.

    A core constituency of Trump supporters voted for him on the belief that Trump, a former friend of Epstein’s, would expose a list of supposed rich and powerful clients and bring justice to Epstein’s victims.

    It’s only since earlier this month, when Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she would not release additional Epstein files, that the accounts’ messaging has become so split, with some accounts telling different users opposite opinions almost concurrently.

    During the same minute last Saturday morning, for example, one account in the network both cautioned a MAGA supporter from judging Bondi too harshly and told another that Bondi or FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino should resign over the scandal. [Examples of bot posts]

    When Bondi first said she would not release additional files, another declared that she “comes out clean as the DOJ confirms no Epstein client list found, while reaffirming his death by suicide.” Since then, it has since told multiple people on X that they should engage in full revolt against the Trump administration.

    “Retweet if you believe that Trump & his cronies are lying to the public and treating us like we’re stupid. We won’t be fooled by their games,” it posted Friday. [Examples of bot posts]

    While it’s unknown what the accounts’ prompts are, they appear to be trained on real MAGA social media accounts, whose messages tend to be more unified, said C. Shawn Eib, Alethea’s head of investigations.

    “This split reaction mimics the organic reaction among supporters of Trump’s second administration,” Eib told NBC News. “It’s possible that the behavior of these automated accounts is influenced by content posted from prominent influencers, and this shift is reflective of the general change in tenor among many of Trump’s supporters.” [Examples of bot posts]

    For years, social media has been infested with inauthentic accounts designed to sway popular opinion, whether they’re marketing firms pushing products or foreign governments and domestic groups pushing political propaganda. But that has become turbocharged with the rapid proliferation of AI chatbots that can write and post convincing messages without human intervention, and exacerbated by social media companies scaling back their moderation.

    […] The researchers believe X is likely rife with inauthentic accounts, though it’s impossible to tell the scope. Last year, researchers found a different network of AI-driven pro-Trump accounts on X. But there is no way to grasp the scale of their presence on the network. X disbanded much of its trust and safety team when billionaire Elon Musk bought the site in 2022 and has since made it significantly harder for researchers to access data.

    Kind of fitting that MAGA bot posts on X are sowing contradictions, confusion and misinformation as they supposedly support Trump.

  263. says

    Japan’s ruling coalition appears set to lose majority in upper house amid far-right gains

    Japan’s ruling coalition is poised to lose its majority in the country’s upper house of parliament — the House of Councillors — according to projections after polls closed Sunday.

    The NHK public broadcaster predicted it “may be difficult for the ruling coalition to maintain their majority” as initial results came in, with the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior coalition partner, the Buddhist Komeito party, were forecast to lose seats. The LDP has governed Japan for most of the country’s modern history.

    NHK also projected that the main opposition party, the liberal Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), would “expand its seat count,” while the populist conservative Democratic Party for the People and the far-right Sanseito also registered “significant gains.”

    Sanseito ran an anti-immigration campaign under a “Japanese First” slogan.

    Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told a press conference that he was “aware of [his] responsibility,” but said he planned to stay on as head of government. Ishiba is in talks with Washington in an attempt to avoid a 25 percent U.S. tariff scheduled to take effect Aug. 1. U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized Japan for not importing more American rice despite a domestic shortage and for resisting calls to increase its spending on defense.

    Sunday’s electoral setback comes just a few months after the ruling coalition lost control of the lower House of Representatives in October. The lower house is the more powerful of the two, as it selects the prime minister and can override the upper house on budgets and legislation. […]

  265. says

    In my comment @260, I should have added that a number of the people we know had self-contained power systems that consisted only of photovoltaics and batteries.
    As energy costs continue to increase (corporate greedflation), self-contained power systems, dumping any grid connection, will become every more practical and responsible.

  267. birgerjohansson says

    Shermanj@ 260

    I don’t want to quarrel as we are both hoping to get away from the current energy systems. The conditions vary with geography: Sweden has a lot of hydropower and heritage nuclear power but lacks solar power during winter. Lots of (intermittent) wind power.
    GM energy crops would be an interesting way to support farmers and reduce oil consumption.
    “Heat pumps” are already reducing dependance on fossil fuel for heating.
    .
    I am not certain of the English term, we have urban powerplants run on garbage, biofuel etc that convert 25% of the energy to electricity and 60% to heating water that is pumped into a circulating network extending across the municipaly for heating apartments and heating tap water.

  268. says

    @266 birgerjohansson directed us to an article “Vaccinated people aren’t the only ones who benefit from the flu shot, study finds”
    I reply: That is a good idea to make that info widely known and accepted. And, as a corollary, medical masking benefits more than the wearer. You won’t give me any disease and I won’t give you any disease. And, it really helps with allergies.

  269. says

    @267 birgerjohansson pointed out that energy production can ‘vary with geography’
    I reply: I understand and agree. My organization (and I) are sometimes considered ‘purists’ on that issue. We don’t want to see any further ‘clean coal’ crap, fracking, new nuclear plants, etc. The garbage to energy idea is very good. Many years ago, in oregon, a landfill collected and used the methane generated to power an ‘infernal’ combustion engine/generator set that powered a lot of the facility.

  275. says

    […] Immigrants […] play a crucial role in home-based child care, as well as America’s broader child care system of more than 2 million predominantly female workers. […] Caregivers are notoriously difficult to find and keep, not only because the work is difficult, but because of poverty-level wages and limited benefits. Nationwide, immigrants make up nearly 20 percent of the child care workforce. In New York City, immigrants make up more than 40 percent of the child care workforce. In Los Angeles, it’s nearly 50 percent.

    The Trump administration’s far-reaching war on immigration, which includes daily quotas for immigrant arrests, new restrictions on work permits and detainment of legal residents, threatens America’s already-fragile child care system. Immigrant providers, especially those who serve immigrant families, have been hit especially hard. […] In America, 1 in 4 children under the age of 6 has at least one foreign-born parent. Some kids who could benefit from experienced caregivers are now instead at home with older siblings or elderly relatives […] Some immigrant workers, regardless of status, are too scared to come to work, exacerbating staffing shortages.

    “Anti-immigrant policy can and will weaken our entire caregiving infrastructure,” said Karla Coleman-Castillo, senior policy analyst at the National Women’s Law Center. Home-based programs in particular will feel the squeeze, she said, since they tend to serve more immigrant families. “Anything that threatens the stability of families’ ability and comfort accessing early childhood education — and educators’ comfort entering or remaining in the workforce — is going to impact an already precarious sector.”

    [I snipped a lot of details from personal stories.]

    In the child care sector, that’s problematic, experts say. Immigrants in the industry tend to be highly educated and skilled at interacting with children positively, more so even than native workers. If a skilled portion of the workforce is essentially “purged” because they’re too afraid to go to work, that will lower the quality of child care, said Chris Herbst, an associate professor at Arizona State University who has studied immigration policy’s effect on child care. “Kids will be ill-served as a result.”

    […] Before the second Trump administration began, the child care landscape looked bright in New Mexico, a state with a chronically high child poverty rate. In 2022, New Mexico started rolling out a host of child care policy changes. Voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to early childhood education, with sustained funding to support it. The state now allows families earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or nearly $125,000 a year, to qualify for free child care. That includes the majority of households in the state. Among the other changes: Providers are now paid more for children they enroll via the state’s assistance program.

    The increase has been helpful for many providers […]

    Child care advocates in New Mexico are concerned that immigration policy will affect the industry’s progress. “I am worried because we could be losing early childhood centers that could help working families,” said Maty Miranda, an organizer for OLÉ New Mexico, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “We could lose valuable teachers and children will lose those strong connections.” Immigration crackdowns have had “a huge impact emotionally” on providers in the state, she added.

    […] Many local early educators are scared due to more extreme immigration enforcement, as are the children in their care, Miranda said. They are trying to work regardless. “Even with the fear, the teachers are telling me that when they go into their classrooms, they try to forget what’s going on outside,” she added. “They are professionals who are trying to continue with their work.” […]

    Link

  282. John Morales says

    In Australian news: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/jul/21/australia-news-live-tasmania-election-labor-liberal-coalition-anthoney-albanese-sussan-ley-south-australia-algal-bloom-ntwnfb

    Queensland Greens founder mulling legal options after official expulsion from party

    The founder of the Queensland Greens is considering both his legal and political options after being officially expelled from the party over what it considers his pursuit of speech harmful to trans people.

    The decision to terminate Drew Hutton’s life membership of the Greens was upheld by delegates of the state branches on Sunday, who voted to back the findings of the party’s Constitution and Arbitration Committee’s (CAC) and reject Hutton’s appeal that sought to reframe the issue as one of free speech. Queensland Greens convener Gemmia Burden said in a statement:

    This decision reflects the Greens’ position as endorsed by its membership – that trans rights are non-negotiable human rights, a position publicly reaffirmed in 2022. No one should be subjected to violence or hate speech on the basis of their gender, nor their race, sexual identity, ethnicity, or religion.

    It is disheartening to see that Mr Hutton has prioritised his perceived right to free speech over the safety of others.

  283. StevoR says

    1969 July 20th / 21st depending on your timezone,

    Our species most extraordinary achievement. The first of the six Apollo lunar landings.
    A massive collaborative, collective, competitive human effort spurred by the race with the Soviet empire. They came in peace for all Humanity & we learnt so much.

    When will we return?

    Who & from where will be next to return – & then go further, explore more, learn more?

    A day and event I think we don’t appreciate & commemorate enough.

  284. whheydt says

    Re: SteveR @ #283…
    Agree about the date and event being neglected.

    Personal anecdote… I was working in the (US) Federal Summer Employment program, specifically tab machine operator at the 11th Naval District Supply Center in San Diego. As a Federal employee, I got a paid day off work in honor of the landing. (The only favorable thing Richard Nixon ever did for me.)

  287. John Morales says

    West germany/east germany, West/east Europe, West/east UDA?

    (It’s facebook, and you’re putting money in Meta’s pocket)

  289. birgerjohansson says

    “Why German Genetic Origins is Different”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=AfAvyzx2ZgE

    This rather glosses over the role of yearsina pestis in the big demographic replacement. It is hard to see how the Yamnaya descendants could have moved into Britain if the neolithic Stonehenge polity had been intact. 

  290. John Morales says

    An economics perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc-jai0uObc [15m]

    Iran’s Economic Dilemma

    Iran boasts vast oil reserves, a strategic trading position, and a skilled workforce; however, sanctions and internal issues hinder its progress. From black-market oil to power outages, discover why this energy giant struggles to thrive. Can it break free from its economic troubles?

  292. John Morales says

    Iran of course can be seen via a political context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFaqQkL6Spc

    —
    Iran’s Political Hierarchy Explained

    Iran’s political system blends theocracy with unique power structures, from the Supreme Leader’s authority to the Guardian Council’s control of elections. Discover how Ayatollahs, the president, and bonyads shape a nation full of potential yet complex decisions. Watch to understand Iran’s hierarchy and if change is possible!

  293. John Morales says

    Birger, I was mildly curious, so I selected the prompt, context-clicked search, and found:

    Roger Ebert @ebertchicago
    “Give a Republican a fish and he’ll think he learned how to fish. Teach him to fish and he’ll call you socialist.” — @LOLGOP
    12:15 PM · Jul 8, 2012

    (https://x.com/ebertchicago/status/221789521732304896)

    Droll.

  294. birgerjohansson says

    Ha! Netanyahu has apparently bought a hot dog from “cut me own throat” Dibbler and is sick with food poisoning!
    Knowing Dibbler, he probably guaranteed it was fresh, high-quality kosher stuff.

  295. birgerjohansson says

    John Morales @ 293
    I considered linking to another couple of First Dog On The Moon, but you have probably already seen them.
    .
    BTW I doubt there are any real Epstein lists, bur as DJT has put himself in this situation I am willing to pretend they exist, and post “Release the lists!” on conservative web sites.

    We have 30°C which Mericans may regard as chilly, but I am melting.

  296. birgerjohansson says

    I assume you already know the Orange Blob has published an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested?

  297. birgerjohansson says

    Two days ago: Trump denies scrawling a juvenile thing on a card sent to Epstein.
    Today: Trump publishes a juvenile AI-generated video.
    Time to send grandpa to the nursing home.

  299. birgerjohansson says

    Philomena Cunk:
    “-why do people have to believe into something bigger than ourselves?
    Is it so we will not feel so fat?”

  301. says

    The demise of Trump’s lawsuit against Bob Woodward offers a reminder to his other targets

    “The demise of the president’s case against the journalist offers a broader lesson about the benefits of fighting back — and the folly of appeasement.”

    Late Friday, Donald Trump announced a new lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal’s publisher, corporate parent and individual reporters who wrote an article about Jeffrey Epstein that the president didn’t like. The civil suit — which the Republican described as “a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit” for reasons unknown — marked a historical rarity: There’s no modern precedent for a sitting U.S. president suing a newspaper over an article.

    But as it turns out, right around the same time that Trump’s lawyers were filing their WSJ case, their client received some related news. NBC News reported:

    A federal judge on Friday dismissed President Donald Trump’s nearly $50 million lawsuit against the journalist Bob Woodward for publishing tapes from interviews for his 2020 best-seller ‘Rage’ as an audiobook. The decision by U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan is a victory for Woodward, his publisher Simon & Schuster and its former owner Paramount Global.

    In case anyone needs a fresher, it was in early 2023 when the Republican first filed a civil suit against Woodward and his publisher, claiming that the longtime journalist did not get his consent to release audio recordings of their interviews. Trump sought nearly $50 million in damages.

    He’ll end up with nothing but legal bills. (The judge in this case was appointed by George W. Bush.)

    The outcome was hardly unfamiliar. When Trump sued CNN and demanded $475 million, the case was thrown out; when he sued The Washington Post, the case was thrown out; and when he sued The New York Times, seeking $100 million, the case was thrown out.

    In each instance, the Republican and his legal team filed highly dubious, politically motivated cases, each of which was based on claims that can charitably be described as “thin,” and in each instance, the journalists and their employers fought back — and won.

    To be sure, there are some notable exceptions. When Trump filed a similarly weak case against ABC News, the network agreed to a controversial $15 million settlement with the president. More recently, in response to a bizarre lawsuit from the president, CBS News’ corporate parent agreed to an even more controversial $16 million settlement.

    The broader lessons should be obvious. For one thing, those wildly unnecessary out-of-court settlements only emboldened Trump, effectively encouraging him to sue other news organizations that bothered him for one reason or another. Indeed, the president explicitly referenced the ABC News and CBS News payments when outing his new civil suit against The Wall Street Journal.

    For another, the recent pattern suggests the only way to lose in a fight against Trump is to pursue a course rooted in appeasement. It’s true when it comes to law firms; it’s true when it comes to higher education; and it’s true in his court fights against news organizations.

  302. says

    Anchorage Daily News reported:

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she feels ‘cheated’ after she won a concession in the recently passed tax and spending law to protect wind and solar projects, only to see the president and his administration issue recent orders that she said seem designed to quickly quash such projects. ‘I feel cheated,’ she said in an interview Friday. ‘I feel like we made a deal and then hours later, a deal was made to somebody else.’

    Commentary:

    It’s probably worth backing up for a minute to review how we arrived at this point.

    By Murkowski’s own admission, her party’s megabill — the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act — was a mess. She told reporters she didn’t the like the bill; she considered it unfinished; she insisted the bill was “not ready for the president’s desk”; and she declared publicly that the legislation was “not good enough” for the American public.

    Murkowski then voted for it anyway, hoping that House Republicans would make necessary changes. They soon after said they wouldn’t even try to improve the package, making the Alaskan’s gamble look even worse.

    Murkowski did not, however, walk away empty-handed. As part of the backroom deals, her home state won a series of special breaks that were unique to Alaska.

    What’s more, the senator thought she’d also negotiated an agreement to protect a 12-month window for solar and wind projects to continue to receive tax credits. As the Anchorage Daily News report added, she quickly learned otherwise:

    [D]ays after the concession passed in the megabill, Trump issued an executive order that could lead to a rewrite of federal rules to limit the award of the tax credits for some solar and wind projects. … Next, the Interior Department issued a directive requiring that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum personally sign off on even routine activities for wind and solar projects on federal land and waters. Some fear the move will slow or halt development even for projects on private land that need access from federal areas.

    The senator told her local newspaper the White House’s policy “just pulls the rug out from underneath the deal” she’d made.

    Whether Murkowski intends to do anything about this apparent treachery remains to be seen.

    Link

  303. says

    New York Times link

    The Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday that it would eliminate its scientific research arm and begin firing hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, after denying for months that it intended to do so.

    […] Government scientists have been particular targets of the administration’s large-scale layoffs.

    The decision to dismantle the E.P.A.’s Office of Research and Development had been widely expected since March, when a leaked document that called for eliminating the office was first reported by The New York Times. But until Friday, the Trump administration maintained that no final decisions had been made.

    The E.P.A.’s science office provides the independent research that underpins nearly all of the agency’s policies and regulations. It has analyzed the risks of hazardous chemicals, the impact of wildfire smoke on public health and the contamination of drinking water by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Its research has often justified stricter environmental rules, prompting pushback from chemical manufacturers and other industries.

    Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, has boasted about cutting dozens of environmental regulations, saying he wants to make it cheaper and easier for industries to operate.

    […] The science office “is the heart and brain of the E.P.A.,” said Justin Chen, president of A.F.G.E. Council 238. “Without it, we don’t have the means to assess impacts upon human health and the environment. Its destruction will devastate public health in our country.”

    […] “It is dismantling a world-class organization, and the American people are not going to be well served by this,” said Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, who worked at the E.P.A. for 40 years and led the research office under the first Trump administration. “These actions are very shortsighted, and the way they’re going about it is very callous and very cruel.”

    […] The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, had criticized the E.P.A.’s science office in Project 2025 […]

  304. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/alberta-claims-top-spot-for-measles

    Alberta Claims Top Spot For Measles, Sorry American MAGA States!

    There’s a famous scene from Aaron Sorkin’s newsroom drama “The Newsroom” — a far inferior show to an earlier Canadian comedy of the same name — where jaded anchorman Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) argues America actually isn’t the greatest country in the world as advertised.

    “We lead the world in only three categories,” he says in a clip that went viral on both the show and in real life. “Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies.” [video]

    This was back in 2012 when Barack Obama was in charge and the country still had international allies aside from Israel, but you’d think if there was anything America is nowadays leading the world in apart from imposing suicidal tariffs or kidnapping innocent brown people, it would be for something like the number of preventable measles cases. Instead, the sad distinction currently goes to the landlocked, largely MAGA-adjacent Canadian province of Alberta.

    Not the number of cases per capita in a place with a population of under five million, but overall, with 1,314 confirmed cases since March and despite outbreaks in other regions such as Ontario and Texas starting months earlier. That’s 26 more than recorded across 39 states by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention […] That number is likely going to get a lot higher since symptoms of the highly contagious disease typically develop 10 to 12 days after exposure, and the city of Calgary just wrapped up its superspreader Stampede week […]

    You’d think if anywhere would be capable of maintaining herd immunity, it would be a place that prides itself on raising cattle, and there’s no small amount of irony that the hurtin’ Albertans uninterested in protecting their kids from preventable diseases are probably the same ones who DO want to protect their kids by banning books […]

    Back in 2019, a total of 1,282 measles cases were the worst the US had seen in a quarter century, and it was enough for New York and Washington states to declare public health emergencies. Mandatory shots were backed by the threat of fines, and Dear Leader — who had previously bought into a debunked study that childhood vaccinations can lead to autism because of course he did — came around to encouraging parents to help make America great again by not letting their kids die from a disease that’d previously been wiped out nationwide. (“Measles elimination status” is achieved by a country when there hasn’t been sustained transmission of the virus in at least 12 months.)

    “They have to get the shots,” he told CNN at the time. “The vaccinations are so important. This is really going around now. They have to get their shots.”

    At least nobody in Alberta has died from the outbreak yet, although a baby born prematurely who got it from their unvaccinated mother passed away in Ontario last month […]

  305. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/icky-creeper-howard-lutnick-would

    It’s been a weird week.

    From Donald Trump being revealed to be the reported Doodler-In-Chief in Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book to Trump definitely NOT bribing CBS to cancel Stephen Colbert to Trump telling weird tales about the Unabomber because maybe he’s senile, it’s no wonder most of Trump’s allies seemed to skip the mainstream political Sunday shows. But we still are on our watch, and there’s still Howard Lutnick.

    Trump’s Commerce secretary appeared on CBS’s “Face The Nation” to once again try to sell the notion that tariffs are great and Trump is a great negotiator. [video]

    He even said the “magic phrase.”

    LUTNICK: Oh, they’re going to love the deals that President Trump and I are doing. I mean, they’re just going to love them. […] This will go a long way to fixing the trade deficit. And that’s gotten these countries to the table. And they’re going to open their markets, or they’re going to pay the tariff. […] [T]he next two weeks are going to be weeks for the record books. President Trump is going to deliver for the American people.

    We assume that Lutnick’s use of “two weeks” is similar to how pets take on traits of their owners. And “two weeks” is just short enough to seem imminent, but long enough for news to move on or reporters to forget.

    But Trump has used this arbitrary and artificial deadline so much that there’s even a compilation of how many times he’s said things were happening in “two weeks.” [video]

    As late night host (as long as it pleases Dear Leader) Jimmy Kimmel has pointed out, “for a guy whose catchphrase was ‘You’re Fired,’ no one has given more two-week notices than Donald Trump.”

    Host Margaret Brennan followed up with previous statements that said that no matter what “deals” are made, Trump is imposing tariffs on everyone. Even with countries we have specific free trade agreements with [!]

    BRENNAN: But back on what the Canadian prime minister, the man you’re negotiating with, said, he’s assuming there’s going to be a tariff here. There’s already this baseline 10 percent tariff that we are seeing from the administration. Is that set in stone or is it going to go to like 15 or 20 percent?

    LUTNICK: Well, I think what you have got is, you should assume that the small countries, the Latin American countries, the Caribbean countries, many countries in Africa, they will have a baseline tariff of 10 percent. […]

    BRENNAN: OK, so just quickly, are you going to renegotiate that free trade deal the USMCA?

    LUTNICK: Oh, I think the president is absolutely going to renegotiate USMCA. […] But that’s a year from today. […] Today, of course, 75 percent comes in free. But, of course, should you expect us to renegotiate it? It makes perfect sense for the president to renegotiate it.

    Of course it does! Why wouldn’t you renegotiate a disastrous and idiotic trade deal, negotiated and signed into law by [checks notes] Donald Trump in his first term?

    […] Brennan helpfully reminded Lutnick that other countries could impose reciprocal tariffs on US goods, but Lutnick had a foolproof answer for that.

    BRENNAN: Well, OK, let me ask you about Europe. Boeing airplanes, Kentucky bourbon, these are some of the things that the Europeans are looking to target if we get into a trade war as retaliation by them.

    LUTNICK: We’re not – they’re not going to do it. They’re just not going to do it.

    Ahh, yes, the old “no hit back” strategy. I remember how well and how honored this was when playing tag as a child. Truly a masterful gambit, good sir.

    Lutnick then extolled the virtues and benefits of tariffs in helping pay our ever-increasing debt, but Brennan pointed out an obvious fatal flaw of this strategy.

    LUTNICK: You got to remember, this is going to pay off our deficit. This is going to make America stronger. […] We are finally protecting America.

    BRENNAN: Well, you will have that income if you keep them in place. But if you’re negotiating them away, then they won’t be there. So that is contradictory to me.

    Right! Tariffs cannot be both a negotiating threat and our country’s revenue source. If they are a threat, then they can be negotiated down or away. But if they are a critical source of revenue, then you can’t take them away, and you remove the usefulness as a negotiating tactic. Lutnick kinda conceded this when admitting that every country would still keep paying a 10 percent minimum tariff, no matter what is negotiated.

    But the problem with tariffs has always been who really pays the tariffs. And once again, Lutnick refuses to acknowledge these basic economic facts that literally everybody who’s ever taken Econ 101 knows.

    BRENNAN: And American corporations are just going to swallow that and not pass that price increase on to consumers? What is your projection?

    LUTNICK: What, what’s so interesting is that you’re worried about the importers. How about the people who build and employ Americans …

    BRENNAN: No, I’m asking about people who go to the store to buy. […] I was asking you about consumer prices, what people will pay when they go to the store.

    But in – since you don’t want to answer…

    LUTNICK: Oh, I think they will be low. I think they will be low, shockingly low. […] Seriously.

    BRENNAN: The Consumer Price Index doesn’t currently reflect that, though, that the trend is towards higher.

    LUTNICK: Well, it just went up. What did it go up, a tenth of a percent? Look, the dollar has declined …

    BRENNAN: Two-tenths on the core.

    Lutnick wouldn’t know how much a banana costs, much less that we can’t just grow them here. […]

  306. says

    […] Pete Hegseth just can’t seem to get or keep good help, and there’s reportedly been nonstop fighting in the war room. Now a sixth person has left his office, 33-year-old “senior” advisor Justin Fulcher. […]

    Last week the Washington Post reported a “tense” confrontation between Fulcher and his supervisor, Yinon Weiss, both minions from Elon Musk’s DOGE service. Reportedly on April 4, Fulcher and Weiss got into some kind of fight, and then Fulcher stormed into Hegseth’s office, tattling that Weiss had called Pentagon police and demanded that they remove him from his office. […]

    Fulcher had been in charge of some vital stuff: finding out who was leaking to the press that Hegseth was incompetent at his job, and fixin’ to let Elon Musk see top-secret information about China.

    And Fulcher was reportedly the one who told Hegseth’s personal lawyer Tim Parlatore and then-chief of staff Joe Kasper that “he knew of warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) that had identified the leakers.” But he was only going to tell them who the leakers were if he was allowed to be in charge of the investigation!

    And so the wildly credulous pair reportedly said “sure!” and jumped right on his preposterous tale with both feet, oblivious to how the NSA spying on the Defense Department would be a much bigger, worse, illegal-er scandal than Elon Musk being able to access top-secret intelligence to try to get market advantage for his failing car business.

    Tim Parlatore got right on the horn to the White House to crow that Hegseth and company had found the “smoking gun” incriminating three aides, based on that NSA wiretap, and that Hegseth had already fired the guilty. And the director of the NSA who also oversaw the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, Gen. Timothy Haugh, and the civilian deputy director, Wendy Noble, were quickly fired too.

    Except, there was no NSA wiretap. [!] Fulcher, or somebody, made it all up in a ham-handed attempt to quell Hegseth’s rage. Fulcher denies that any of this happened […]

    Why is Hegseth’s personal lawyer hanging around the Pentagon in the first place? What does the lawyer who previously defended the president and Hegseth’s accused raping know about military law?

    Anyway, of course, the leaking-est boy all along was Hegseth, the guy who put war plans for Yemen on a Signal chat with Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Greenberg, and staged a press photo op with Musk while he strutted around the Pentagon […] Just like Hegseth himself was the one who stood before a podium and admitted that the bomb the US dropped on Iran only damaged their nuclear program, but didn’t destroy it, and then attacked the media for reporting what everybody just heard him say. [video]

    It’s been one fail after another for […] Pete; the only thing he’s succeeded at is driving people away. The Houthis are back to bombing ships in the Red Sea, and Israel has taken over bombing them. Israel did quit bombing Iran, but then started bombing Syria. […]

    And last week the GOP-led House of Representatives Armed Services Committee delivered unto him a rare slap, voting to keep Hegseth from renaming military bases after Confederates. You’ll recall he never had authority to rename bases, but he […] did it anyway, renaming them to have the same last names as the original Confederate names that had been changed after 2020, but for different people with the same last names. Fort Benning was renamed Fort Moore in 2023, after Hal Moore, a highly decorated (white male) Vietnam-war hero, and then Hegseth re-named it back to Fort Benning, but supposedly this time after Fred Benning, a soldier who served in the Army in the first world war, instead of for Confederate officer Henry L. “Old Rock” Benning. […] Now even the GOP has told him to fuck on off with his stupid bullshit.

    And Hegseth invoked the president’s ire with that low-energy military birthday parade where the soldiers marched out of step, the crowds were sparse, and old poppy appeared to even doze off. [photo]

    Hegseth’s National Guard invasion of Los Angeles was a flop, with hundreds of troops deployed away from home only to be stuffed into a tent city, bored and demoralized, and mostly standing around idly while ICE wilded out all over Southern California.

    And speaking of the National Guard, apparently Chinese hackers have been breaching the National Guard’s systems for nearly a year? Ooops, maybe it’s a bad time to have fired the head of Cyber Command?

    The Supreme Court did greenlight his trans military ban, so he’s got that going for him: thousands of willing, able and highly, expensively trained professionals leaving the service. And he has ousted the Naval Academy’s first female superintendent, Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, probably because, as he wrote in one of his books, “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.” And he’s purged the Academy’s library of books that weren’t white-male-supremacist enough. Is America safe yet?

    Yep, everybody hates Hegseth! Except for his third wife who follows him everywhere […] And as Alina Habba taught him and all the rest of us, if he can fake looking pretty for Sir, he doesn’t have to bother faking looking smart!

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/pete-hic-hegseths-underlings-still

  307. says

    Last Thursday, at a town hall in Jonesborough, Tennessee, a 35-year-old woman shared her story: she was denied prenatal care by her physician because they objected to the fact that she wasn’t married nor did she plan to be. She’d been with her partner for 15 years and they have a 13-year-old child.

    While going through her medical history, the physician told her that because she was unwed, they didn’t feel comfortable treating her, because it went against their values and she should seek care elsewhere. At the time of the appointment, the woman believed she was about four weeks into her pregnancy.

    Now, she’s traveling out of state to Virginia to receive prenatal care.

    This is the first reported case of a woman being denied prenatal care for being unmarried in the state of Tennessee. It’s also the first reported case of a woman being denied prenatal care for being unmarried in the country.

    On April 24th, Tennessee’s 2025 Medical Ethics Defense Act went into effect. It gives physicians, hospital systems and insurers, among others, the legal right to deny healthcare to patients based on religious, moral or ethical beliefs. There are no protections for people in rural areas with limited options. There’s no requirement to refer patients elsewhere. And there’s no legal recourse. The woman at the town hall explained that her representatives are not responsive to her questions, even as she repeatedly calls Sen. Marsha Blackburn. When she reached staff at Sen. Bill Hagerty’s office, they told her, “he’s not obligated to listen to his constituents.”

    The woman agreed to speak to me on the condition of anonymity. As we sit down, she warns me her two dogs are attempting their version of WrestleMania. She’s level-headed, angry and yet calm as she tells me more about her story. I’m in awe of her grace. She can’t imagine life without her partner. Her family means everything to her. […]

    Less than three months after the Medical Ethics Defense Act became law, at her first prenatal visit, her provider suggested she seek care elsewhere due to differing values. She was shocked. It all became real.

    […] She has since filed complaints with the Department of Commerce and Insurance and the American Medical Association. She said she does have experience navigating the world of healthcare and Medicaid and explains she feels privileged in this way — a way most others wouldn’t be, especially being a white woman and employed.

    […] She references Tennessee’s total abortion ban and explains that just being pregnant and the idea of giving birth here terrifies her. She recalled what happened to Adriana Smith in Georgia and worries it could happen to her.

    “The fear for me is if something [high risk] happens, I can’t guarantee that the provider I see is going to value my life over the life of this fetus,” she said. “And while we do very, very much want this baby, I have one here already who very, very much relies on me.”

    […] She never intended to share her personal story at the town hall last week. She had planned to go and talk about how drastic the Medicaid cuts were going to be for their community. After she heard others eloquently echoing the same remarks, she decided instead to talk about how dangerous the Medical Ethics Defense Act is.

    She’d never spoken in public before. […]

    Last Spring, House bill sponsor Rep. Bryan Terry (R–Murfreesboro) claimed the law would help Tennessee recruit and retain physicians, according to Nashville Scene. That’s false. The state has seen a decline in OB-GYNs since Tennessee’s total abortion ban went into effect. Tennessee has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country and ranks among the worst for infant mortality. [!]

    […] And now, thanks to the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” 300,000 Tennesseans may lose health insurance, and nine rural hospitals across the state are at risk of closure. […]

    So, why Tennessee? Why are we denying care to pregnant women who want to have babies?

    “It’s absolutely not ‘pro-life’ — and not very Christian either,” said Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), as she shared the woman’s story after the town hall. “And who else are they not going to treat? I had a friend say: what about someone who’s addicted to drugs or alcohol, or who’s struggling with mental health? If you can just refuse treatment to anyone whose lifestyle you disagree with — that’s not medical ethics. That’s fascism.” […]

    https://wellsrachelm.substack.com/p/pregnant-woman-in-tennessee-denied

  308. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Responding to Donald J. Trump’s posting of a fake AI-generated video of Barack Obama being arrested, on Monday the former president posted an actual video of Trump being criminally prosecuted in 2024.

    The video shows Trump outside the Manhattan courtroom where he was charged with 34 felony counts and ultimately convicted on all of them.

    “To be honest, I wanted to come up with some kind of crazy AI video to respond to his, but I’m no good with all of that tech stuff,” Obama said. “Fortunately, there was real video of him when he was on trial, so I guess I lucked out.”

    At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted Obama’s post, stating, “Sharing actual footage of events that really happened is something that President Trump would never do.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/obama-posts-video-of-trump-actually

    The Borowitz Report is satire.

  309. says

    PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—In a stunning development, a group of fifth graders on a school trip to Mar-a-Lago stumbled upon the Epstein list in one of the club’s public bathrooms, the group’s teacher confirmed on Monday.

    “The kids were really surprised to find the list,” said Carol Foyler, who traveled with her summer school students from Daytona Beach. “They wondered how it made it all the way from Pam Bondi’s desk.”

    Liam Dorrinson, 11, said that he and his classmates plan to publish the Epstein list in their school’s newspaper, and dismissed concerns that Donald Trump might sue them.

    “I wouldn’t do that if I was him,” the fifth grader said. “We also found his taxes.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/school-group-visiting-mar-a-lago

  310. lumipuna says

    Hello.

    At 436 on the previous page, StevoR linked to a YT video by the creator Kyplanet (correct spelling). I just watched some of their other videos on Solar System and related astronomy topics. One particularly interesting video, on the formation potential of habitable exomoons, was based on (and linked to) this open access preprint paper:

    https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18144

    Part of the abstract:

    <

    blockquote>…In fiducial simulations, a 10 Jupiter-mass planet orbited a solar analog star at distances of 1-5 au. To determine the habitability of the synthetic moons, we calculated the stellar irradiation and tidal heating flux on these moons based on their orbital and physical parameters. The individual moon mass is found to be higher when the host planet orbits at a smaller stellar distance. However, moons leave the circumplanetary disk due to the stellar thief effect, which is stronger closer to the star…>/blockquote>

    In short, they simulated the formation of moons around giant planets 10 times the mass of Jupiter – near the upper mass limit of gas planets before they become brown dwarfs. The resulting moons are commonly larger than Mars, and sometimes near Earth sized, presumably large enough for earthlike habitability. This is much more likely if the planetary system forms in the habitable zone (ca. 1 AU distance from sun-like star), compared to outer parts of the stellar system (Jupiter and Saturn orbit between 5 and 10 Au). I half understand this would be because a giant planet forming closer to the star would be forming only from the dense central part of an even larger protoplanetary disk, while the outer parts are dispersed by the star’s tidal perturbation.

  312. lumipuna says

    From 305:

    Tariffs cannot be both a negotiating threat and our country’s revenue source.

    … while also causing manufacturing to return to America…

  313. says

    lumipuna @312, good point.

    In other news: At the six-month mark, Trump claims he kept promises he never actually made

    Six months after his second presidential inaugural, Donald Trump seemed eager to put aside his historically low approval rating and to pretend instead that his second term has already been a great success.

    In an item published to his social media platform, for example, Trump claimed he was responsible for “ending numerous wars of Countries not related to us” — a highly dubious claim. He added, “One year ago our Country was DEAD, with almost no hope of revival. Today the USA is the ‘hottest’ and most respected Country anywhere in the World.”

    All of this was in quotes (I’m not sure why, since he appeared to be quoting himself), and it was completely wrong. A year ago, the economy was stronger than it is now; job growth was better than it is now; and the United States’ international standing was vastly better than it is now.

    Trump, in other words, was desperate to take a victory lap, but in order to do so, he had to turn reality on its head.

    But it was a related item that Trump also published online that stood out for me. After writing that he and his team “have fulfilled so many of our promises,” the president listed six legislative successes from recent months:
    – One Big Beautiful Bill
    – Laken Riley Act
    – TAKE IT DOWN Act
    – Rescissions Act of 2025
    – HALT Fentanyl Act
    – GENIUS Act

    To be sure, if Trump wants to brag about signing these bills into law, that’s hardly unreasonable.

    But to put them in the “promises made, promises kept” category isn’t just wrong, it’s also a reflection of why the incumbent president is so unpopular.

    The GOP’s unpopular, right-wing megabill, for example, was a major legislative breakthrough for the president and his party, but it’s plainly not an example of a promise he kept. At no point during his two-year national campaign did Trump ever tell the electorate, “Vote for me and I’ll deliver massive tax breaks for the wealthy, paid for in part with the largest cuts to federal health care spending in American history.” [True!]

    Similarly, Trump might be excited about the White House rescissions package overcoming bipartisan opposition and reaching his desk, but the president never told the public, “In my second term, I’ll refuse to spend money allocated by Congress for USAID, indifferent to the consequences for those desperate for that aid.” [True!]

    Yes, the president signed these six bills, but none of them was a key part of his campaign message, and none of them was integral to his successful campaign.

    The New York Times has a frequently updated graph, reflecting polling averages, and it currently shows 54% of the public disapproves of the president, while 44% approve. That 10-point gap is the worst of Trump’s second term. If he has any questions as to why his support is faltering, he might consider that he’s simply not delivering what voters thought they were getting, his misguided claims about promises fulfilled notwithstanding. [True]

  314. says

    […] The Republican lawmaker [House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer] didn’t explicitly mention any of the jurists by name, but in context, the segment began with a lengthy focus on Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — Biden’s only appointee to the high court — and Comer could be seen on camera shaking his head in an apparent disagreement in response to the justice’s public comments.

    [Social media post: Fox Host: Most importantly Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson… Are you looking into Biden’s judicial appointments as well?

    Comer: Absolutely… … I think all of these are in jeopardy of being declared null and void in a court of law and that’s a biggie for The Trump Administration.]

    Comer added that, as part of his conspiracy theory [that other people used an autopen to sign Biden’s documents, and that Biden was unaware of that], he believes it’s an open question as to whether Biden’s judicial appointments, each of which was confirmed by a majority of the U.S. Senate, “are legal.”

    The Kentucky Republican added, “I think all of these are in jeopardy of being declared null and void in a court of law.”

    In reality, it’s difficult to take any of Comer’s rhetoric seriously, but given that these bizarre comments are coming from the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the GOP congressman is at least letting the public know where his misguided investigation is likely to go next.

    Link

    Sheesh. Comer is such a doofus.

  315. says

    Trump has been unsubtle in his ambitions, directing GOP state legislatures to redraw an already gerrymandered map in the hopes of delivering another five U.S. House seats for the party.

    […] [Texas] has gone down a similar path before. For generations, there’s been a standard approach to decennial redistricting: Once every 10 years, after the U.S. Census is complete and states know how many congressional seats they’ll have, state legislatures draw up new district lines, ostensibly to remain in place for a decade.

    But more than 20 years ago, at then-Republican Rep. Tom DeLay’s behest, Texas Republicans launched a radical mid-decade redistricting gambit […] The partisan dispute was fierce — Democratic legislators literally fled the state to deny the quorum needed to conduct legislative business — but the GOP scheme ultimately succeeded, and the party secured an additional six seats in the U.S. House [!]

    That partisan split has remained largely intact ever since, and under the current map, Republicans in Texas tend to get roughly 55% of the vote but end up with roughly two-thirds of the state’s U.S. House delegation. [!]

    The president has decided the existing gerrymander is not quite good enough: Trump envisions a map in which the GOP controls 30 of the state’s 38 seats, instead of the current 25, which would give the party nearly 80% control over Texas’ U.S. House delegation. [!]

    Why is this a story with importance far beyond the Lone Star State? Several reasons, actually.

    1. Control of Congress is on the line: The Republican majority in the House is already narrow, and if historical patterns hold true, Democrats are likely to make gains in the 2026 midterm elections. If, however, Texas manages to execute this district map scheme, it will make it that much more difficult for Democrats to claim a majority, long before voters even start casting ballots.

    2. This is a radical abuse: It is not illegal to engage in abuses like these, but such efforts are clearly at odds with democratic norms and appear to make a mockery of the Voting Rights Act. […]

    3. The Texas gambit might backfire: In order to make this scheme work, the GOP-led state legislature will have to rig the map by moving boundary lines around. In some instances, however, that will mean taking some voters in districts currently held by Republicans, which would necessarily make those GOP incumbents a bit more vulnerable in 2026 and beyond.

    In fact, The Associated Press reported that some Democrats believe the Trump-inspired redistricting plan might even hurt Republicans and help Democratic recruiting. The American Prospect’s David Dayen recently published a related analysis, explaining that Texas’ gerrymander could very well become a “dummymander” that threatens more GOP incumbents than Democratic ones. […] [I would not count on the Republican plan backfiring.]

    4. Other red states might follow. The current focus is on Texas, but the president has already indicated that he’s eyeing similar efforts to rig district maps in other states [!] […]

    5. Blue states might follow, too. If Texas Republicans pursue such a gambit, what’s to stop Democrats in blue states from engaging in comparable schemes? Nothing. In fact, some Democratic leaders have already expressed an interest in tit-for-tat retaliation, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently writing online, “Two can play this game.”

    The broader fight, however, is just now getting started, but the endpoint is not close.

    Link

  316. says

    The White House is removing the Wall Street Journal from the pool of reporters covering the president’s weekend trip to Scotland, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told POLITICO.

    The move follows the Journal’s report alleging that President Donald Trump sent a sexually suggestive message to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. […]

    Tarini Parti, a White House reporter for the Wall Street Journal, had been scheduled to serve as the print pooler for the final two days of Trump’s four-day trip to his golf courses in Turnberry and Aberdeen, Scotland.

    But the White House, which earlier this year took over control of pool rotations from the White House Correspondents’ Association, removed her from the trip manifest, Leavitt said.

    Parti was not one of the two bylines on the Epstein story.

    “As the appeals court confirmed, the Wall Street Journal or any other news outlet are not guaranteed special access to cover President Trump in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, and in his private workspaces,” Leavitt said in a statement. “Due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct, they will not be one of the thirteen outlets on board. […]”

    Link

  317. says

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent bizarrely attacked the Wall Street Journal for failing to grasp the “sophisticated” mind of President Donald Trump.

    Bessent made the laughable claim on CNBC Monday, when asked to address a Wall Street Journal report claiming he had to talk Trump out of—probably illegally—firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

    “I think the problem with stories like this is I’m not sure who the leaker was, but the problem with leakers is they only have partial information,” Bessent said. “And I think the other problem, too, is that newspapers like the Wall Street Journal are not used to a high-functioning executive president. They’re used to, you know, perhaps President [Joe] Biden, perhaps President [Barack] Obama, who was not as economically sophisticated as President Trump.” [video]

    […] Bessent, who is no stranger to flubbling easy questions about the administration, seems to have confused “sophisticated” with “incoherent.”

    Link

  319. John Morales says

    Australian PM most certainly not having a dig at Trump: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/jul/22/australia-politics-live-australia-end-gaza-war-israel-china-xi-jingping-anthony-albanese-penny-wong-mark-latham-ntwnfb

    —

    Albanese did not answer the question of whether the Chinese leader would take a phone call from him in the event of a crisis blowing up over Taiwan or whether Albanese could try to discourage Xi from invading or blockading Taiwan.

    He described his encounter with Xi as a “moment of trust”.

    Anything that he has said to me has been fulfilled. There haven’t been any breaches on personal commitments that he has given to me. That doesn’t mean he’s agreed with everything that I’ve put forward, far from it, but I’d rather that than someone on an international level saying, ‘Yep, we can do all that,’ and then doing the opposite.

  320. John Morales says

    Oh, yes — https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/media-release/joint-statement-behalf-26-partners-occupied-palestinian-territories

    —

    Joint statement on behalf of 26 partners on the Occupied Palestinian Territories

    We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now.

    The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.

    The hostages cruelly held captive by Hamas since 7 October 2023 continue to suffer terribly. We condemn their continued detention and call for their immediate and unconditional release. A negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing them home and ending the agony of their families.

    We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life saving work safely and effectively.

    We call on all parties to protect civilians and uphold the obligations of international humanitarian law. Proposals to remove the Palestinian population into a “humanitarian city” are completely unacceptable. Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law.

    We strongly oppose any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The E1 settlement plan announced by Israel’s Civil Administration, if implemented, would divide a Palestinian state in two, marking a flagrant breach of international law and critically undermine the two-state solution. Meanwhile, settlement building across the West Bank including East Jerusalem has accelerated while settler violence against Palestinians has soared. This must stop.

    We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. Further bloodshed serves no purpose. We reaffirm our complete support to the efforts of the US, Qatar and Egypt to achieve this.

    We are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.

    This statement has been signed by:

    The Foreign Ministers of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK
    The EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management

  321. John Morales says

    Good ol’ Meta: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/21/meta-idf-drone-ads-israel

    —

    Meta allows ads crowdfunding for IDF drones, consumer watchdog finds

    Paid ads hosted on Facebook, Instagram and Threads seem to violate Meta’s stated policies yet remain active

    “We are the sniper team of Unit Shaked, stationed in Gaza, and we urgently need shooting tripods to complete our mission in Jabalia,” one ad on Facebook read, first published on 11 June and still active on 17 July.

    These paid ads were first discovered and flagged to Meta by global consumer watchdog, Ekō, which identified at least 117 ads published since March 2025 that explicitly sought donations for military equipment for the IDF. It is the second time the organization has reported ads by the same publishers to Meta. In a previous investigation from December 2024, Ekō flagged 98 ads to Meta, prompting the tech giant to take many of them down. However, the company has largely allowed the publishers to start new campaigns with identical ads since then. The IDF itself is not running the fundraising calls.

    “This shows that Meta will literally take money from anybody,” said Ekō campaigner Maen Hammad. “So little of the checks and balances the platform ought to be doing actually takes place and if it does, they’ll do it after the fact.”

  323. says

    Washington Post link

    “In 1965, the government tried replacing migrant workers with high-schoolers. It was a disaster.”

    “The U.S. government didn’t renew a farmworker program that year, so the Labor Department recruited high school athletes.”

    Roy McNutt was 17 when he spent a summer picking pickles for America.

    “It was lousy,” he said.

    McNutt, now 77, joined thousands of high school teens harvesting cucumbers, melons, strawberries and carrots during the summer of 1965. That was after Congress cut off the pathway for millions of migrant workers from Mexico to cross the border and bring that food to the nation’s tables.

    The Mexican Farm Labor program had been created in 1942 to address the World War II labor shortage. Known as the bracero program, it allowed generations of manual laborers to work in the United States and was set to expire in 1964. A revival of the program, the Bracero 2.0 Act, was introduced in Congress last week.

    […] U.S. officials were convinced that unemployed, domestic workers would fill those jobs. They did not.

    The fields of unpicked produce began rotting.

    […] The government plan was for thousands of athletes to sign up for “Join A-TEAM” (Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower). The Labor Department urged the coaches to become field supervisors and bond with the players, who would surely get stronger and more disciplined toiling in the hot sun. As the school year ended, hometown papers ran glowing stories about the boys, capturing their toothpaste smiles as they prepared to set off on a noble adventure.

    […] The labor was slow, and growers quickly complained that the cucumbers grew faster than the boys could pick them and got too big to pickle.

    “That’s a truckload of garbage I’ve got,” Hank Keytylo told the Detroit Free Press that August, pointing to a load from his 20-acre cucumber patch.

    Meanwhile the boys, stunned at the living conditions and the backbreaking work in fields from Michigan to Texas to California, complained.
    “They were fed food that was unfit for human consumption,” Rep. Teno Roncalio (D-Wyoming) said of his state’s A-TEAM members who were sent to Salinas, California. In a speech on the House floor on June 29, 1965, he said that they “lived in beds filthy with bedbugs […]”

    At least one of his colleagues was thrilled with this testimony.

    “I am delighted to hear the gentleman from Wyoming give this report to the House, because the conditions he described are the conditions I and others have been describing and deploring over many years as they applied to other workers,” said Rep. Jeffery Cohelan (D-California).

    […] boys all paid their own way back to Wyoming, and Roncalio wanted the growers or the government to pay them back.

    […] And because America’s corn-fed boys complained about working conditions, the nation finally listened to the grim reality about the way food gets to the table.

    “In denouncing these conditions as unacceptable for U.S. workers, Roncalio failed to acknowledge that braceros had endured these exact conditions since 1942,” Flores wrote in “Grounds for Dreaming,” her book about Mexican workers and immigrants in the California farmworker movement.

    “It had taken young citizen athletes complaining of similar sufferings to alert him and others to the mistreatment of farmworkers,” she said. [Photo]

    That was just as Cesar Chavez was beginning to organize farmworkers to protest the low pay and deplorable working conditions they faced.

    […] During the late 1800s, most farmworkers in the U.S. came from China, Japan and the Philippines. Xenophobic hysteria spawned the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the U.S. turned to Mexico and South America to replace the banned Chinese workers.

    During the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of nearly 2 million migrant workers who had come from Mexico. The creation of a border patrol in 1924 tightened the U.S.-Mexico border.

    Then, during World War II, the government changed its mind. Farm labor was desperately needed to harvest the crops, which is what spawned the bracero program to bring Mexican laborers to the U.S. on short-term contracts. It lasted until 1964, when America again became averse to migrant labor. [image of letter to the Department of Justice]

    […] Many of the boys [high school boys from athletic teams] said they were never paid.

    “Not a dime,” said McNutt, the pickle picker.

    After most of the crew of boys from Wichita quit, one of the bosses was circumspect about the program. He said that part of the failure was undervaluing the work of the braceros.

    “It takes skill,” Bill Pihl told the Beacon. “It’s cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon. It’s rough work.

    “And for kids who never did it, it’s impossible.”

  324. John Morales says

    Israel (of course) denies everything: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/israel-rejects-the-joint-statement-published-by-a-group-of-countries-21-jul-2025

    “Israel rejects the joint statement published by a group of countries, as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas.”

    This bit amused me: “There is a concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal, and Israel has repeatedly said yes to this proposal, while Hamas stubbornly refuses to accept it.”

    (Russia also has a concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal (with Ukraine), and Russia has repeatedly said yes to this proposal; of course, the proposal is basically for unconditional surrender and total capitulation in each case)

  325. says

    Dead children, malnutrition and a lack of aid: Gaza’s humanitarian crisis worsens

    “Hundreds of Palestinians in the enclave have been killed trying to collect aid, while dozens of people, including children, have died from malnutrition.”

    Related video at the link.

    The hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip has soared “alarmingly” in recent weeks, health workers have warned, with a growing number of children dying of malnutrition while thousands of people across the besieged Palestinian enclave suffer from a dire lack of adequate food.

    “Even we, the young ones, can barely walk due to lack of food,” said Walid Abu Mohsen, a father of seven from Khan Younis. He told NBC News’ crew on the ground Sunday of his relief after plucking a sack of flour from the few trucks that arrived to offer relief to rushing crowds in the city. In another desperate corner of Gaza, footage captured the deadly aftermath after scores were killed waiting for supplies that might have let them feed their families.

    “Famine is now striking Gaza alarmingly and terrifyingly,” Dr. Mohammed Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, told NBC News’ crew as he warned of hospitals being “overwhelmed with waves of patients suffering from malnutrition.”

    He said that at least two children had died at Al-Shifa on Saturday alone.

    Nineteen deaths were recorded in Gaza due to malnutrition within the last 24 hours, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the territory said Monday. NBC News was not immediately able to independently confirm the figures.

    They add to more than 70 deaths related to malnutrition since the war began, according to Salmiya, with more than 50 children dying of malnutrition since Israel launched a blockade restricting aid into Gaza in early March, according to the World Health Organization.

    While that blockade was lifted in May, Israel has since allowed only limited aid into the enclave, largely distributed by the controversial U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation under a system that has seen hundreds of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces while making their way to collect food.

    According to Dr. Travis Melin, an anesthesiologist from Oregon volunteering in Gaza, the evidence of widespread hunger is clear in hospitals, where malnourishment runs close to “100 percent” among patients. […]

    More at the link, including photos.

  326. says

    NBC News:

    Russia unleashed one of its largest aerial assaults on Ukraine in recent months, only hours before the U.K. and Germany are to chair a meeting to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for NATO allies to provide Ukraine with weapons. The attack killed two people and wounded 15, including a 12-year-old, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

    Wall Street Journal:

    The European Union agreed to impose its toughest sanctions on Russia since its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, blocking attempts to revive the Nord Stream gas pipelines, lowering a price cap for Russian oil sales and hitting banks from third countries in a move that could exacerbate tensions with China.

  327. says

    New York Times:

    Pentagon officials will begin withdrawing 700 active-duty Marines who were sent to Los Angeles last month, the latest scaling back of the Trump administration’s contentious military deployment in Southern California. The withdrawal of the Marines follows the departure of nearly 2,000 California National Guard soldiers and a smaller contingent of about 150 specialized Guard firefighters.

  328. says

    Associated Press:

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says bases in Indiana and New Jersey can house detained immigrants without affecting military readiness — a step toward potentially detaining thousands of people on bases on U.S. soil. Hegseth notified members of Congress from both states this week of the proposal to temporarily house detained immigrants at Camp Atterbury in Indiana, and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.

  329. says

    New York Times:

    The Trump administration intends to use funds from a decades-old federal program that provides birth control to low-income women to ramp up efforts to help aspiring mothers get pregnant, signaling a shift in policy that will appease both religious conservatives and adherents of its Make America Healthy Again agenda.

  332. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Quoted Wonkette @305:

    BRENNAN: And American corporations are just going to swallow that and not pass that price increase on to consumers? What is your projection?

    LUTNICK: What, what’s so interesting is that you’re worried about the importers. How about the people who build and employ Americans…

    […] Lutnick wouldn’t know how much a banana costs, much less that we can’t just grow them here.

    A callback to June 5th.

    Aaron Rupar:

    [Video clip of Rep Madeleine Dean (D-PA) and Howard Lutnick]
    DEAN: What’s the tariff on bananas?

    LUTNICK: Generally 10%.

    DEAN: Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas by 8%.

    LUTNICK: If you build in America, there is no tariff.

    DEAN: We cannot build bananas in America.

    * Technically the US can, just not at scale.

    Wikipedia – Banana production in the United States

    0.01% of world production in 2009, mostly Hawaii.

  335. StevoR says

    Also via SciNews – Betelgeuse has a newly discovered companion star that hasn’t yet fully formed – and may never get the chance to do so :

    The analysis of the companion star’s light allowed the astronomers to determine the companion star’s characteristics.

    They found that it is six magnitudes fainter than Betelgeuse in the optical wavelength range, it has an estimated mass of around 1.5 solar masses, and it appears to be an A- or B-type pre-main-sequence star — a hot, young, blue-white star that has not yet initiated hydrogen burning in its core.

    The companion is at a relatively close distance away from the surface of Betelgeuse — about four times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

    This discovery is the first time a close-in stellar companion has been detected orbiting a supergiant star.

    Even more impressive — the companion orbits well within Betelgeuse’s outer extended atmosphere, proving the incredible resolving abilities of ‘Alopeke.

    Source : https://www.sci.news/astronomy/betelbuddy-image-14081.html

  337. birgerjohansson says

    CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ 332
    Lutnick…I wonder if he is aware of the impression he makes? Is he completely delusional or just a cunning grifter?

  340. birgerjohansson says

    Malcolm Jamal Warner (aka Theo Huxtable) has died in a drowning accident in Costa Rica. He was 54 years.

  341. StevoR says

    DOCO ALERT : For those living in Oz tonight. c2 ABC. 9.35 pm at least in South Australia.

    Program info for tonights ep via ABC TV guide : https://www.abc.net.au/tv/epg/#/

    Earth
    Tuesday, 22 Jul
    Series 1 | Episode 1 | Inferno
    9:35 PM – 10:34 PM [59 mins]
    gCCAudio Described (AD) Repeat | Repeated on Saturday 26 Jul at 3:25 PM, ABC TV
    In Inferno, we explore one of the darkest periods in Earth’s history: the worst mass extinction the planet has ever seen, when as much as 90% of all species died, 252 million years ago.

    Seen before and would highly recommend. Three part series which I found very informative, entertaining and well done.

  344. KG says

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent bizarrely attacked the Wall Street Journal for failing to grasp the “sophisticated” mind of President Donald Trump.

    Bessent made the laughable claim on CNBC Monday, when asked to address a Wall Street Journal report claiming he had to talk Trump out of—probably illegally—firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

    “I think the problem with stories like this is I’m not sure who the leaker was, but the problem with leakers is they only have partial information,” Bessent said. – Lynna, OM@317 quoting Daily Kos

    The last sentence is Bessent admitting the leak was true.

  346. StevoR says

    A message from Suhair Nafal from Ramallah just seen on fb :

    🚨FINAL WARNING FROM GAZA🚨

    “This is it. Consider this the last episode.

    There’s no food left. Nothing. People are starving to death — and in the next 48 hours, we’re about to witness a level of death from hunger the world has never seen.

    I’m begging you — do something. Anything. Stop what you’re doing. Go out into the streets. Speak up. Scream. Protest. Act.

    Please.

    Don’t let it end with you. We’ve reached the point of no return. If we don’t move now, there’s no point in acting later.

    Forget your slogans. Forget waving the flag. Forget the talk of liberation — right now, we just want food to enter Gaza. By any means necessary.

    Fill the streets. Shake the world. This is no longer political — this is survival.

    For the first time in my life, I’m desperate for a video to reach every corner of this planet.

    For the love of anything you hold dear… don’t scroll past this. Don’t stay silent. Don’t let it stop with you.
    Just let the food in. We’ll handle the rest later. Just let the food in.”

    #Gaza #FamineInGaza #LetTheFoodIn #ActNow #GazaGenocide #48Hours

    Source :

    https://www.facebook.com/suhair.nafal/posts/pfbid0kdzvLWXKcMd9V6L5rNyGw9AnTYuYsu6YNJvCof1FXjydo3kKdM8XJ6dd6kMycWPCl

    Posted a day ago.

  348. says

    In my personal experience, in the past, universities were places where open factual discussion of difficult topics occurred. Now, they are sellouts to bigotry and ignorance to protect themselves from the knuckle-dragging forces of murderous plutocracy.
    https://www.juancole.com/2025/07/protesting-georgetown-sanctioning.html

    The drooling imbeciles trying to destroy science and critical thinking
    Report Details 400+ Attacks on Science in First 6 Months of Trump 2.0
    Hey, PZ, the photo is of a defend science rally in St. Paul Minn.
    https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-attack-on-science

    Hey, PZ, Minneapolis Dems Endorse Democratic Socialist Fateh for Mayor Over Incumbent Frey
    https://www.commondreams.org/news/omar-fateh

  349. says

    FEMA search and rescue chief resigns after frustration with Texas flood response

    The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue branch, which runs a network of teams stationed across the country that can swiftly respond to natural disasters, resigned on Monday.

    Ken Pagurek’s departure comes less than three weeks after a delayed FEMA response to catastrophic flooding in central Texas caused by bureaucratic hurdles put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the disaster response agency.

    Pagurek told colleagues at FEMA that the delay was the tipping point that led to his voluntary departure after months of frustration with the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. It took more than 72 hours after the flooding for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to authorize the deployment of FEMA’s search and rescue network.

    After spending more than a decade with FEMA’s urban search and rescue system, including about a year as its chief, Pagurek said in his resignation letter, obtained by CNN, that he was returning to the Philadelphia Fire Department […]

    […] The Department of Homeland Security has defended its response to the Texas floods. A department spokesperson stressed that Noem initially tapped into other DHS assets, including rescue teams from the US Coast Guard and Border Patrol, and over time, as a need for FEMA resources arose, those requests received the secretary’s approval.

    […] Some FEMA officials have balked at sweeping changes to FEMA under the Trump administration, more than a dozen agency sources have told CNN, which they believe have stripped the agency of its autonomy and undermined its ability to respond to disasters quickly and efficiently.

    Pagurek, who declined to comment, joins dozens of high-ranking officials to leave FEMA since Trump took office, as the agency undergoes a major overhaul and faces plummeting morale and a brain drain from the departure of longtime leaders.

    Established by Congress in the early 1990s, FEMA’s urban search and rescue system, or US&R, includes a network of 28 highly trained state-managed teams stationed across the country, ready to rapidly deploy to a wide range of disasters – from collapsed buildings to catastrophic storms.

    Annual congressional funding ensures these task forces are equipped for the nation’s worst emergencies and paid when FEMA deploys them – though local fire departments and emergency management offices house and staff the crews and maintain their readiness.

    Cost controls
    As CNN first reported, FEMA leaders were unable to quickly mobilize some critical resources, including these elite teams, in the crucial first hours of the Texas floods. The holdup stemmed from a new rule imposed by Noem, who continues to require her personal approval for every contract and grant over $100,000 before funds can be released – a threshold that FEMA officials called “pennies” during a disaster response.

    Some FEMA teams, which are involved in large area searches, water rescues and finding human remains, didn’t arrive in Texas and begin field work until a week after the flood. [!]
    […]

    New internal process
    FEMA is now rolling out a new internal review process aimed at speeding up the approval of “lifesaving” resources during disasters, according to multiple internal memos obtained by CNN.

    In recent days, FEMA has established the Disaster Funding Adjudication Task Force to process and track more urgent contracts and mission assignment requests during emergencies, the memos show. […]

    Multiple agency officials told CNN the task force was already in development before the Texas floods, as FEMA works to fulfill its rapid response mission while complying with Noem’s new rules.

    However, the task force will still ultimately route those requests through acting FEMA administrator David Richardson – installed by Noem after she fired his predecessor in May – and then to Noem for her personal approval, the memos state, raising questions about whether the updated process will truly speed up disaster funding. [!]

    “DHS keeps talking about reducing hurdles but at every turn they’ve made it more difficult for the agency and the people left here to do our job,” a longtime FEMA official told CNN. “It’s just a shotgun approach to guidance that we are constantly reacting to, and then trying to build internal process on the fly, to make sure we can answer the bell when it’s rung.” […]

  350. says

    Consequences:

    Two of the largest automakers, which each employ thousands in the U.S., are saying that President Donald Trump’s tariff policies have lost them billions in profits in the first half of 2025. The news highlights ongoing economic problems caused by Trump’s tariffs, despite the improving economy that Trump inherited.

    General Motors said on Tuesday that it had lost $1 billion in the second quarter of 2025, compared with its profits at the same time last year. A year ago, when Joe Biden was in the White House, GM had profits of $2.9 billion, but this year, under Trump, that was down to $1.9 billion. The company also saw a 2% drop in sales this year.

    Stellantis, which oversees brands like Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge, reported similar bad news on Monday. In an announcement that shocked Wall Street, the company said it estimated that it would experience a net loss of nearly $2.7 billion in the first half of 2025. The company attributed much of the problem to the early effects of Trump’s tariffs.

    […] In addition to the hit on automakers, other businesses are shutting their doors under the weight of tariffs, including Howard Miller, a 100-year-old furniture manufacturing business in western Michigan—a state Trump won in the 2024 presidential election. When they’re not going under, businesses like Amazon are instead passing on the price hikes caused by tariffs on to the consumer.

    Meanwhile, a recent report by congressional Democrats revealed that China has benefitted from the chaos, swooping in to sign economic agreements while America has walked away from global commerce and erected new trade barriers. […]

    Link

  351. says

    Washington Post link

    “House largely grinds to a halt over Epstein files”

    “Republicans on the House Rules Committee continue to oppose allowing any legislation to reach the House floor for a vote this week. That’s because they fear Democrats will introduce amendments related to Epstein. Democrats on the panel did so twice last week, and Republicans faced blowback from constituents and the MAGA base for voting against releasing the files.”

    […] Rules Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) told reporters Tuesday morning that the panel may not meet again until “possibly” September, meaning the House will not vote on any legislation this week that isn’t overwhelmingly bipartisan.

    Moments later, leadership announced that the House would start its August recess as soon as Wednesday.

    Lawmakers across the ideological spectrum, including the conservative House Freedom Caucus, have since protested a decision by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) not to vote on a nonbinding resolution expressing their concerns over the Epstein matter before they head home to their districts. Johnson said during a news conference Tuesday that he continues to be for “maximum transparency,” but he clearly expressed frustration with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who continues to press for a vote on releasing the files.

    […] But other Republicans are making clear they want action sooner rather than later when lawmakers return in September.

    Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) introduced a motion to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and a convicted sex offender now serving time in federal prison. The motion was unanimously adopted by the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday.

  352. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Commentary for 349.

    Samantha Montano (Emergency Management professor):

    Taking 72 hours for Noem to personally approve search and rescue teams can be a literal death sentence. […] We often say many responses really only last around 72 hours—because that’s usually about as long as you have to find people alive. You can’t waste a second.

    Even on our best day, getting teams deployed can be a huge challenge just because of the logistics of the situation. This is part of why you are more likely to be rescued by someone you know during a disaster than a formal rescuer. But also these are the teams that have the expertise that your random neighbor doesn’t have—how to coordinate searches, figuring out where people are likely to have ended up, and the technical knowledge of how to get them out. They have the equipment and resources to save people that in any other time or place would be dead.

    These disasters cost billions of dollars. These search and rescue teams are a drop in the fucking bucket. Barely a line item. This is all just in the name of cruelty.

    Samantha Montano: “I continue to not fault anyone choosing to leave FEMA right now but also Jesus Christ there really is going to be no one left.”

  353. says

    Chinese hackers race to target Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability, tech giants say

    “A flaw in the platform has prompted a range of hackers to find victims among Microsoft clients who haven’t updated their system”

    A newly discovered critical flaw in Microsoft’s SharePoint platform has spurred a mad frenzy from hackers — including some working for the Chinese government, Google and Microsoft say.

    The identities of which organizations have been hacked are still not public, but they are increasing and include multiple government agencies around the world, Charles Carmakal, the chief technology officer at Mandiant, Google’s cloud security service, told NBC News.

    SharePoint works as a shared version of Microsoft Office, letting people in the same organization directly collaborate.

    The flaw in the software — initially classified as a “zero day,” because there was not a patch for victims to defend themselves when it was first discovered — lets hackers gain significant access to the computers of organizations that host SharePoint. Cloud customers were not affected.

    Microsoft announced Saturday that the flaw was being exploited but only made a downloadable fix for it available Monday, prompting a scramble for organizations to patch it while capable hackers hurried to find additional victims who hadn’t protected themselves. […]

  354. JM says

    MSN: Russia’s solution for its labour shortage? 1 million workers from India

    Russia plans to accept up to 1 million workers by the end of this year to address labour shortages in its highly industrialised regions, a Russian business leader said. Andrey Besedin, head of the Ural Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told the RosBusinessConsulting news agency that about 1 million specialists from India would come to Russia, including the Sverdlovsk region.

    Officials in Russia have also denied the deal so we shall see what happens. Russia is cautious about this sort of thing because they have already restive Muslim minorities and they don’t want to import more Muslims. There is little native Hindu population though and a lot of desperately poor in India that would be willing to take bad jobs as long as they get paid and don’t get dragged into the military.

  355. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 354

    Russians are pretty racist. Those people are going to treated like absolute shit.

  356. JM says

    Newsweek: Ironmouse, VShojo Controversy Explained

    Twitch star and VTuber Ironmouse has announced that she is parting ways with VShojo, a VTuber talent agency which was founded in 2020. In a video shared to YouTube, Ironmouse alleges that she was misled over finances by VShojo, and that the charity the Immune Deficiency Foundation is also owed funds.

    VShojo has lost a bunch of top stars, it’s probably toast. There seems to be issues with VShojo but most of the idols that have left have been closed mouth about why. It may have hit the point that the successful idols feel they need to abandon ship before the company goes down.
    Hololive and smaller idol companies have also lost stars. As being an independent vtuber has become easier and more respectable it has become harder for the idol companies to hold on to them.
    I also find it interesting that virtual stars has become a big enough business to get noted in Newsweek.

  357. says

    Alina Habba’s troubled tenure as a federal prosecutor ends with a whimper

    “As Trump’s former defense attorney gives up her U.S. attorney post, it’s worth remembering that she never should’ve been appointed in the first place.”

    It was nearly four months ago when Donald Trump made an unfortunate announcement: [He] appointed Alina Habba, one of his controversial defense attorneys, to serve as U.S. attorney in New Jersey on an interim basis, overseeing a large prosecutorial office.

    Interim federal prosecutors invariably realize that their tenures will be short-lived, but there is a way for interim U.S. attorneys to stick around for a while longer: If the federal judges in a given district vote to keep a prosecutor in place, he or she can remain at the post beyond the usual time frame.

    With this in mind, as Habba’s appointment neared its end, there was still a chance that federal judges in New Jersey would allow her to hang on to her job. As NBC News reported, that didn’t happen:

    Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba has been replaced as interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey after serving the maximum of 120 days on the job. Trump had officially nominated her for the position, but her nomination became stalled in the Senate. Federal judges could have authorized her to remain on the job, but they instead named her top deputy, Desiree Leigh Grace, as her replacement.

    As Habba weighs her career options and her unfortunate tenure wraps up, there are a handful of angles to this story that are worth keeping in mind.

    Habba never should’ve been appointed in the first place: I realize that the incumbent president tends to reward his former lawyers with powerful legal positions in his administration, but Habba was spectacularly unqualified for this position. Not only did she have no experience as a prosecutor, but Habba is perhaps best known for helping file a bizarre lawsuit targeting Hillary Clinton and several other Democrats in 2022, which proved so ridiculous that a judge imposed harsh sanctions on Habba for bringing “political grievances masquerading as legal claims” to court.

    Habba’s tenure was a fiasco: The New York Times reported this week that Habba, since taking office, “shattered morale inside the U.S. attorney’s office and left many prosecutors looking for a way out, according to 16 close observers.” The same report noted that Habba disbanded the office’s Civil Rights Division, killed the office’s longest-running prosecution just days before it was scheduled to go to trial, and installed three framed pictures of herself in the office’s conference room. [LOL]

    Habba maintained an explicitly partisan focus: “We could turn New Jersey red. I really do believe that,” Habba said in an interview with a conservative podcast host shortly after her appointment. “Hopefully while I’m there, I can help that cause.” With this goal in mind, the Republican lawyer targeted several New Jersey Democrats with threats, prosecutions and investigations. […]

    Habba is reportedly facing an ethics investigation: NOTUS reported earlier this month, “Alina Habba, once President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and now the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, has quietly been under investigation by the state’s professional regulators for more than a year — putting her license to practice law at risk.”

    The same report added, “NOTUS obtained documents detailing the investigation, which since January 2024 has been probing what happened when a young waitress at Trump’s Bedminster golf club tried to sue over sexual harassment by her manager.”

    Habba faces an uncertain political future: Despite (or perhaps, because of) her disastrous tenure as an interim U.S. attorney, Trump has nominated her to fill that same position on a permanent basis. That said, the Republican-led Senate has, to date, ignored her nomination […]

  358. says

    Another day, another breathless statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio about how he’s keeping us safe by forcibly deporting our friends and neighbors on the flimsiest of pretexts.

    On Monday, the Trump administration moved to strip permanent lawful status from Haitians it alleges are collaborating with Viv Ansanm, the gang controlling most of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. If this sounds like a repeat of the administration’s antics with MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, that’s because it is. […]

    Would you like to know how the administration plans to identify these individuals, or what exactly would constitute a deportable offense? Well, you can’t. While Rubio is big on bellicosity, he’s light on details so far.

    […] Rubio won’t say how many people the administration is planning on deporting under the rubric of this new gang panic. That lack of detail is no doubt deliberate since it gives the administration the flexibility to say that anyone it wants to deport are gang members, based on whatever things the administration declares signify gang membership. […]

    The Trump administration’s decision to remove protections from Haitians is racist—and very dangerous for Haitians. Sending people back to Haiti poses a great risk, per Rubio’s own State Department, which advises Americans not to travel to Haiti because of the risks of kidnapping, terrorist activity, and civil unrest.

    Given the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, the United Nations has even been begging the U.S. to stop deporting people to the nation. And speaking of the U.N., the U.S. in February also froze funding to the international security force combating armed gangs in Haiti, so it doesn’t seem like we care much about those gangs—save using them as a way to justify deportations.

    Expect the administration to do exactly what we’ve seen with allegations of support for Hamas or MS-13 or Tren de Aragua—an ever-expanding rationale that not just allows swift deportation action but also requires it. […].

    Link

  360. says

    FFS.

    While speaking with reporters Tuesday, […] Trump was asked if he thought anyone should be criminally investigated by the Department of Justice for the “treasonous conspiracy” that Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.

    National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard recently claimed that President Barack Obama orchestrated a massive conspiracy during the 2016 election cycle to ruin Trump.

    “The leader of the gang was President Obama—Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him?” Trump said, naming President Joe Biden and former FBI Director James Comey as co-conspirators.

    He went on to say, “He’s guilty. It’s not a question. You know, I like to say, let’s give it time. It’s there. He’s guilty. This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody’s ever even imagined, even in other countries.” [video]
    […]

    Link

  361. says

    FFS.

    While speaking with reporters Tuesday, […] Trump was asked if he thought anyone should be criminally investigated by the Department of Justice for the “treasonous conspiracy” that Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.

    National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard recently claimed that President Barack Obama orchestrated a massive conspiracy during the 2016 election cycle to ruin Trump.

    “The leader of the gang was President Obama—Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him?” Trump said, naming President Joe Biden and former FBI Director James Comey as co-conspirators.

    He went on to say, “He’s guilty. It’s not a question. You know, I like to say, let’s give it time. It’s there. He’s guilty. This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody’s ever even imagined, even in other countries.” [video]
    […]

    Link

  362. says

    Golden Dome set to get another $13B as project leader takes helm

    […] Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense project officially has a new team lead and gained potentially another $13 billion, setting the effort on a race to hit its ambitious three-year timeline.

    The office will be led by Vice Chief of Space Operations Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as the first Golden Dome for America Direct Reporting Program Manager, according to a Pentagon statement released Tuesday.

    Guetlein, who Trump named as the Golden Dome lead in May, will be “responsible for developing the Golden Dome portfolio of capabilities,” and report directly to Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg.

    “Golden Dome for America requires a whole-of-nation response to deter and, if necessary, to defeat attacks against the United States,” the Pentagon said in the release. “We have the technological foundation, national talent, and decisive leadership to advance our nation’s defenses. We are proud to stand behind Gen. Mike Guetlein as he takes the helm of this national imperative.”

    Intended to protect the skies over the continental United States, Golden Dome promises a network of space-based missiles launched from satellites to intercept missiles launched from the ground, an expensive, untested technology.

    […] To fund the effort, $24.4 billion was included for the project in the One Big, Beautiful Bill, signed by Trump on July 4.

    Then on July 17, the House voted to pass the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, which includes roughly $13 billion for advanced initiatives to support Golden Dome.

    But the purported price tag, also announced by Trump in May, is far below estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, which pegged the figure at more than $500 billion over 20 years to develop. Other estimates have placed the cost at $1 trillion.

    What’s more, missile defense experts highly doubt a Golden Dome system as Tump has described can be created in under three years.

    Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) last month called out “the physics” of Golden Dome, pressing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to seek out viability analysis from scientists instead of defense and space firms.

    “This idea, you know, might not be fully baked,” Kelly, an engineer by trade, told Hegseth during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on June 18.

    “You’ve got to go back and take a look at this. . . . You could go down a road here and spend hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money, get to the end, and we have a system that is not functional,” Kelly added.

    In its statement, the Pentagon said Golden Dome would establish partnerships with industry, academia, national labs and other government agencies to rapidly develop and field the system, with an architecture to be developed within the next 60 days.

  363. birgerjohansson says

    NOOOOOOOO!
    Ozzy is dead!
    😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪

  364. whheydt says

    Re: birgerjohansson @ #363…
    Meh. Only interesting bit is that he was the same age I am.

  365. says

    […] And now Stephen Colbert, fired by all reasonable appearances for correctly saying that CBS’s parent company Paramount had just agreed to pay a $16 million bribe to settle Trump’s loathsomely stupid lawsuit over the “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview that stole the election from Trump — in his heart, if not in reality, since he actually won that election we guess — by making her look too good. […]

    nobody believes the officially stated reason […]

    Perhaps it is just a coincidence that Paramount chief Shari Redstone is desperate for Trump’s administration to allow her conglomerate to merge with a company called Skydance, which is controlled by another of his sycophants. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that Skydance’s chief met with Brendan Carr, the little MAGA [person] who runs Trump’s FCC, just before the firing.

    Perhaps it is just a coincidence that Stephen Colbert had referred to […] payoff in the “60 Minutes” lawsuit as “A BIG FAT BRIBE” just days before.

    Perhaps we are just living in a land of coincidences!

    Last night was Colbert’s first real show since the announcement, the first one where both the host and the audience had had time to really let it sink in.

    Colbert’s monologue was everything it needed to be, and more. It’s getting a lot of attention, the way Colbert looked directly at the camera and told Donald Trump to “go fuck yourself,” but that was just the beginning. [Video!]

    “For the next 10 months, the gloves are off,” said Colbert, giving a preview of the remaining time before the show’s cancellation takes effect. And we hope they are. Donald Trump might be frantically trying to send his fixer Todd Blanche at DOJ to bribe Ghislaine Maxwell/find out what she knows about what Trump and his best friend Jeffrey Epstein used to like to do together in their extracurricular time, what kinds of things they liked to share, but if Stephen Colbert wants to turn the next 10 months into the vicious nightly exposé of Trump that Democrats are scared to do, BRING IT.

    […] CBS thought it had the top-rated late night show before? (It did. The show it just canceled for purely financial reasons is the top-rated late night show.)

    […] In last night’s monologue Colbert made fun of Paramount’s $16 [bribe] again, before immediately launching in to the other big story of the day: “The president was buddies with a pedophile!” And he told chapter and verse of the new Wall Street Journal story about Trump’s birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein, upon which Trump reportedly signed his name to look like pubic hair. Colbert did a dramatic reading of the sicko pervert imagined dialogue that was on that birthday card, about “may every day be another wonderful secret” and all the rest.

    He made fun of Trump’s brain “pooling up around [his] swollen ankles.”

    He made fun of the $10 billion clown lawsuit Trump has filed against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal over the story. […]

    Colbert made fun of that one “party” Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had in 1992, the “calendar girl competition” at Mar-a-Lago where the entirety of the “guest list” was, um, Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

    Yes, it could be a fun next 10 months for all of us! It’ll be ratings gold!

    It could also be 10 months that absolutely humiliate Shari Redstone and the rest of the Paramount and Skydance brass, if it doesn’t force her to publicly fire him earlier. […]

    As Jon Stewart said during his show last night:

    “The fact that CBS didn’t try to save their number one-rated network late-night franchise that’s been on the air for over three decades is part of what’s making everybody wonder, was this purely financial?” Stewart said. “Or maybe the path of least resistance for your $8 billion merger was killing a show that you know rankled a fragile and vengeful president, so insecure […].”

    He continued, “Look, I understand the corporate fear. I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with $8 billion at stake. But understand this, truly, the shows that you now seek to cancel, censor and control, a not insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from those fucking shows.”

    […] We imagine Colbert will make the next 10 months count in ways that’ll make these piece of shit motherfuckers’ heads spin.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/colberts-final-10-months-gonna-make

  366. JM says

    @362 Lynna, OM:

    Intended to protect the skies over the continental United States, Golden Dome promises a network of space-based missiles launched from satellites to intercept missiles launched from the ground, an expensive, untested technology.

    It’s a pointless one also. The war in Ukraine has shown that the future is drones, not ballistic missiles. When Canada goes to war with the US it’s going to be hundreds of short ranged drones hitting targets in the northern 1/4 of the US, not a handful of expensive ballistic missiles that can hit anywhere in the US.
    The Iron dome has worked for Israel because Hamas concentrated on cheap ballistic missiles while the launch area and target areas are both small.

  367. says

    Images from Gaza are ‘unbearable,’ von der Leyen says

    “Over 100 people have starved to death due to lack of aid, local authorities say.”

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated EU calls for Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, as health workers warned Palestinians were facing “forced starvation.”

    “The images from Gaza are unbearable,” von der Leyen said. “Civilians in Gaza have suffered too much, for too long. It must stop now.”

    In 24 hours, 15 people — including four children — died of starvation, Gaza’s health ministry said Tuesday morning. The latest deaths bring the total figures, according to local hospitals, to 101 people in Gaza, including 80 children, who have died from hunger since the start of the war.

    Israel has blocked most aid from entering Gaza since March, with the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation taking over its distribution since May. At least 1,000 people have been killed seeking food from GHF and aid convoys since then, the U.N. Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) estimates. Israel has previously disputed the number of casualties.

    “The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible,” EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday, noting she spoke with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to “make clear the [Israel Defense Forces] must stop killing people at distribution points.”

    Kallas and von der Leyen’s statements come as foreign ministers across Europe and the Commonwealth area accused Israel of denying assistance to the civilian population in Gaza in a joint statement on Monday. Twenty EU countries, alongside the U.K., Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Hadja Lahbib signed on to the statement.

    […] French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot also demanded on Tuesday that Israel let journalists into Gaza, a day after the journalists’ association at newswire Agence France-Presse said their colleagues in Gaza were starving to death.

    Health crisis spirals
    “This is not hunger, this is not malnutrition. This is forced starvation, this is torture,” Saira Hussain, a British-Australian doctor currently working in Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, said.

    “We’ve really not seen anything quite like this before,” said Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation and an expert on famine. “It’s genocidal starvation.”

    On July 10, Kallas announced a deal with Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian aid, saying Israel agreed to open more aid crossings and let more food trucks into Gaza.

    But these measures aren’t sufficient to reverse the humanitarian crisis, de Waal warned. “Think of this as a slide into mass starvation … they’re not addressing the downward slide, they’re just addressing the velocity.”

    According to aid workers and health care professionals on the ground, the situation has turned increasingly desperate.

    “I walked through the market yesterday searching for food, but sadly returned empty-handed. There isn’t a single grain of flour to be found,” said Mai Elawawda, a spokesperson for NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians in Gaza.

    Health workers in Gaza report being overwhelmed with mass casualty incidents from the aid centers. On Saturday, there were “hundreds and hundreds of wounded” brought in with gunshot injuries from a GHF site, Hussain said.

    Children with burn injuries and chronic diseases are suffering the most from the lack of food, Hussain said: “If you’re malnourished, your tissues don’t heal … All children suffer here, but when you think of the children who also have chronic conditions and chronic diseases that would be easily treatable in any other country, the situation is absolutely intolerable.”

    Newborn babies are also struggling to survive as malnourished mothers cannot breastfeed, said Graeme Groom, a British orthopedic surgeon who returned from his most recent trip to Gaza in June. “There is some formula milk for normal babies, but the lactose-intolerant babies just die,” he said.

  368. says

    JM @366: “The war in Ukraine has shown that the future is drones, not ballistic missiles.”

    Yes. That’s a good point. Trump just likes the sound of “Golden Dome.” He is clueless.

  369. birgerjohansson says

    “Republicans have confirmed an anti-abortion judge with help from an independent senator.
    Divine, 35, will now hold a lifetime seat on a U.S. district court in Missouri. He drew strong opposition from Democrats and civil rights groups over his long record of litigation against women’s reproductive rights, including leading a major challenge to the FDA’s decades-long approval of mifepristone, better known as the abortion pill. In 2010, he also argued in favor of bringing back literacy tests for voting, a practice banned in the 1960s for being racially discriminatory.

    Divine was expected to be confirmed along party lines, but he picked up an unexpected supporter: Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who joined Republicans in voting for him. It’s not clear why he did, as King caucuses with Democrats and supports abortion rights and voting rights.”

  370. says

    House GOP moves to rename Kennedy Center Opera House after Melania Trump

    The Kennedy Center’s famed opera house could be renamed to honor Melania Trump, if House Republicans have their way.

    House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to the interior, environment and related agencies annual spending bill that would rename the opera house in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts the “First Lady Melania Trump Opera House.”

    […] It remains unclear when GOP leaders plan to put the legislation, with the amendment, on the floor for a vote of the full chamber. […]

  371. John Morales says

    In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/22/israeli-cruise-rerouted-after-aegean-islanders-protest-gaza-war

    —

    Israeli cruise ship turned away from Greek island by Gaza war protest
    Tourists greeted on Syros by banner saying Stop the Genocide and prevented from disembarking

    A cruise liner carrying Israeli tourists has been forced to reroute to Cyprus after being turned away from the Greek island of Syros after a quayside protest over the Gaza war.

    Around 1,600 Israeli passengers on board the Crown Iris were prevented from disembarking amid safety concerns when more than 300 demonstrators on the Cycladic isle made clear they were unwelcome over Israel’s conduct of the war and treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. A large banner emblazoned with the words Stop the Genocide was held aloft alongside Palestinian flags.

    A statement from the protesters also took issue with Greece’s increasingly close “economic, technological and military” relationship with Israel. “As residents of Syros but more so as human beings, we are taking action that we hope will contribute to stopping this destruction from the genocidal war that is taking place in our neighbourhood,” it said.

    Some passengers on the vessel reacted by raising Israeli flags and chanting patriotic slogans, eyewitnesses said.

  373. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna, OM @ 368
    JM @ 366

    Trump can only comprehend things he learned as a young man. He comprehends ballistic missiles, oil and coal.
    Things like drones, photovoltaic power or wind turbines are post-1970 and therefore BS. No matter how well they work or cheap they are. He heard about tariffs when he grew up, but without understanding them.
    He heard about strongmen, but not soft power. And he never understood how epidemics work.

  374. John Morales says

    Me, 50 comments ago: Meta allows ads crowdfunding for IDF drones, consumer watchdog finds

    Paid ads hosted on Facebook, Instagram and Threads seem to violate Meta’s stated policies yet remain active

    “We are the sniper team of Unit Shaked, stationed in Gaza, and we urgently need shooting tripods to complete our mission in Jabalia,” one ad on Facebook read, first published on 11 June and still active on 17 July.

    You, Birger, just now: .https://www.facebook.com/share/v/%5Bitem%5D/

    —

    You got served advertisements when you looked at that.
    Those advertisements earned money for Facebook, just by being served to you.

    I shan’t be clicking on FB posts, myself. I don’t want to support Meta.

    Easy enough to find the story elsewhere: https://www.google.com/search?q=Israelis+burning+their+draft+papers.

  375. says

    MSNBC:

    It’s not unusual for prosecutors to meet with criminal defendants who may have valuable information to trade for beneficial treatment. But we may be witnessing one of the stranger instances of this phenomenon unfolding in real time, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announcing Tuesday that he intends to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell.

  376. says

    NBC:

    The United States announced Tuesday it will again pull out of the U.N.’s educational, scientific and cultural agency because of what Washington sees as its anti-Israel bias, only two years after rejoining.

  377. says

    NBC:

    A federal judge struck down a provision in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ related to Medicaid funding. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts ruled the Trump administration must continue to provide Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood member health centers for birth control, annual checkups, STD testing and other medical services.

  378. says

    New York Times:

    Miami city commissioners violated the Florida Constitution when they voted last month to postpone this fall’s election to November 2026, a state judge ruled on Monday, saying that such a change required voter approval.

    Commentary from Steve Benen:

    I still can’t figure out what officials in Miami were thinking.

    More from the New York Times:

    City commissioners said the move was meant to save money and improve turnout. Critics noted that it would give some city officials an extra year in office. […]

  379. says

    ProPublica:

    The Trump administration is considering slashing rules meant to protect the environment and the public during commercial rocket launches, changes that companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX have long sought.

    A draft executive order being circulated among federal agencies, and viewed by ProPublica, directs Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to “use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite” environmental reviews for launch licenses. It could also, in time, require states to allow more launches or even more launch sites — known as spaceports — along their coastlines.

    The order is a step toward the rollback of federal oversight that Musk, who has fought bitterly with the Federal Aviation Administration over his space operations, and others have pushed for. Commercial rocket launches have grown exponentially more frequent in recent years.

    Critics warn such a move could have dangerous consequences. […]

    Link

  380. birgerjohansson says

    Trump: “I have not made a drawing in my life”

    John Stewart: Produces a video with a lot for drawings signed with ‘pubic hair’.

    JS: “Trump; Another world leader we wish had just stuck at art!”

  381. says

    The military is spying on bathrooms—and you’re paying for it.

    The Trump administration has found a new way to harass transgender military members.

    A newly surfaced Defense Department memo, which 404 Media unearthed via Freedom of Information Act request, revealed that taxpayer dollars are being used to monitor military bathrooms out of fear that transgender people are using the facilities.

    The memo details the department’s efforts to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which he signed on Day 1 of his second term.

    The department assured the Office of Personnel Management that it’s working to “monitor intimate spaces” to comply with the order and that it “updated signage to reflect biological sex, removing any references to gender identity.”

    The GOP has engaged in anti-transgender bigotry under the guise of protecting women […]

    The most visible manifestation of the right’s transphobia has been the decision to ban transgender people from serving in the military. Under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump’s orders, the military is now working to withdraw transgender troops, even after being deployed.

    Another notable manifestation was House Speaker Mike Johnson’s November decision to segregate Capitol Hill bathrooms by “biological sex,” a blatant attack on Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, who is the first openly trans person to serve in Congress. […]

  383. birgerjohansson says

    “Congress advises evicted americans to just relocate to second home”

    Yes, it’s The Onion. But it might be true.

  388. John Morales says

    No worries, Birger. I do get a bit emphatic, sometimes.

    I think we both get that by now, anyone who cannot see the deliberateness of the genocide at work is in denial, and I’m pleased to see that extends to (some) Israeli youths, despite the media manipulation domestically and globally.

    —

    Domestic: cf. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/israeli-mainstream-tv-ignores-gazans-suffering-these-outlets-expose-surveillance-brutality-and

    As Israeli mainstream TV ignores Gazans’ suffering, these outlets expose surveillance, brutality and war crimes
    Journalists from Israel’s Haaretz, +972 Magazine and Hamakom Hachi Ham Bagehenom explain how they report on the conflict for a reluctant audience

    [preface]
    Since 2022, Israel has plunged from 86th to 112th on RSF’s Press Freedom Index score. Since Hamas’ attacks on 7 October 2023, almost 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and the country is seeing increased media censorship, government boycotts and restrictions of editorial independence.

    As this project from our Journalist Fellow Davide Lerner thoroughly documented, jingoism has dominated Israeli TV and Palestinian suffering has often been ignored. Smaller publications have covered the war more critically, but their impact is often limited and don’t reach the massive audiences TV channels command.

    Despite the global backlash against the thousands of casualties caused by Israel’s bombing campaign, most Israelis seem to be fine with news coverage of the conflict. A recent poll by the aChord Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggested that 64% of Israelis said domestic media coverage on Gaza was balanced and did not require broader reporting on the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

    I wanted to understand how Israeli mainstream media are reporting on Gaza, what kind of media coverage most audiences are exposed to, and how smaller outlets work to fill the gaps left by major news brands. So I reached out to six journalists who work for global and domestic publications to learn more about their work, the work of their colleagues and Israel’s media landscape more broadly.

    —

    Global: cf. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/7/18/israels-narrative-cannot-survive-the-truth-so-its-silencing-the-world

    Israel’s narrative cannot survive the truth, so it’s silencing the world
    As Israel kills tens of thousands, its defenders go after anyone who dares to speak out – from Francesca Albanese to Omer Bartov.

    We are living in truly extraordinary times.

    We recently witnessed the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, being sanctioned by the United States for doing her job – that is, documenting Israel’s abuses against Palestinians during its ongoing military assault on Gaza.

    But with more than 58,000 Palestinians killed to date in Gaza, the case for Israel is weaker than ever. So, for Israel’s sake, we need to silence and ban everything.

    Of course, silencing and censorship have been the modus operandi of the pro-Israel camp since October 2023.

    In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel, they came for all those who insisted that the history of Palestine and Israel did not begin on October 7, 2023, and for pointing to the longer history of occupation, settler colonialism, or the siege of Gaza since 2007 – they were silenced, censored, and punished.

    Those were the days of the now‑discredited reports of “beheaded babies”.

  390. birgerjohansson says

    The bogus “true” MLK statements @389 are only slightly more clumsy than real lies by the administration.

    ‘Here is a speech by Dr Martin Luther King Day we found on this 1963 iPod ‘

  391. StevoR says

    Around a red dwarf star so that puts an automatic question mark over it given the nature of red dwarfs however :

    A team led by UdeM researchers confirms a fifth potentially habitable planet around L 98-59, a red dwarf 35 light-years away.A team led by the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) at the Université de Montréal has achieved the most precise study to date of the L 98-59 planetary system, and confirmed the existence of a fifth planet in the star’s habitable zone, where conditions could allow liquid water to exist.

    ..(snip)..All planets in the system have masses and sizes compatible with the terrestrial regime. The innermost planet, L 98-59 b, is only 84% of Earth’s size and about half its mass, making it one of the rare sub-Earths known with well-measured parameters.

    The two inner planets may experience extreme volcanic activity due to tidal heating, similar to Jupiter’s volcanic moon, Io, in the solar system. Meanwhile, the third, unusually low in density, may be a “water world,” a planet enriched in water unlike anything in our solar system.

    The refined measurements reveal nearly perfectly circular orbits for the inner planets, a favorable configuration for future atmospheric detections.

    Source : https://phys.org/news/2025-07-team-potentially-habitable-planet-red.html

  393. says

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

    ‘Looks like bribery’: Elizabeth Warren questions Colbert cancellation, Trump-Paramount deal
    Video is 6:47 minutes

    ‘Sweetheart deal 2.0?’: Concerns swirl as Trump DOJ meets with Ghislaine Maxwell
    Video is 10:30 minutes

  394. says

    Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s misinformation problem goes from bad to worse

    “The problem isn’t just that the Utah senator amplified obvious misinformation. The bigger problem is that Mike Lee keeps amplifying misinformation.”

    Donald Trump has made no effort to hide his desperate wish that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell would resign, and according to some in far-right circles, the president got his wish on Tuesday, as a fake resignation letter from the Trump-appointed Fed chair made the rounds.

    Most of those who fell for the obviously bogus letter were assorted activists, influencers and media personalities, but as The New Republic noted, they were joined by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.

    Among other eyebrow-raising details, the letter includes an abundance of end-of-line hyphens, as well as punctuation errors … and an awkward line break causing an apostrophe-s to appear alone at the beginning of a new line. Most egregiously, the words encircling the seal of the Federal Reserve System at the bottom of the letter are largely gibberish — ridden with the glitchy characters one often finds in AI-generated images containing text.

    Whoever created the fake resignation letter didn’t invest a lot of time in making it appear authentic. The wording on the Federal Reserve seal included the words, “Elerebal Reserve Oedo of Goveryaeb,” whatever that means.

    And yet, there was the senior GOP senator from the great state of Utah promoting the fake document via social media alongside text that read, “Powell’s out!”

    Powell was not, in fact, out.

    Lee soon after deleted his tweet and told reporters, “I don’t know whether it’s legit or not.”

    Of course, that led to a related question that he didn’t address: If the Utahn didn’t know whether the fake document was legitimate or not, why did he present it to the public as though it were real?

    But stepping back, the problem isn’t just that the senator amplified misinformation. The bigger problem is that Lee keeps amplifying misinformation.

    Indeed, it was just five weeks ago when the Republican senator generated a national controversy and widespread pushback after he promoted misinformation in the immediate aftermath of deadly shootings in Minnesota.

    Before that, Lee promoted misinformation about Jimmy Carter’s death. And about Hurricane Helene. And about U.S. border security. And about the CIA. And about Joe Biden’s health.

    The Washington Post’s Benjy Sarlin joked this week, “I feel like I could walk up to Mike Lee and tell him I’m a space alien and he’d consider it for a good five minutes at least.”

    Many have fallen for misinformation once or twice, but with Lee — who’s been a senator now for 14 years — he appears incapable of learning from instances in which his judgment has failed him. Every time he amplifies obvious nonsense, it’s tempting to think, “Well, he won’t make that mistake again” — except he invariably does make that mistake again.

    Ideally, Lee would act like a United States senator, but if that’s asking too much, the Utah Republican could at least try acting like a functioning adult with a modicum of critical thinking skills.

  395. says

    […] A written statement issued from a spokesperson for the former president [Barack Obama] spanned just six sentences, though it said quite a bit.

    “Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,” the statement read. “But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.

    “Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”

    The “document” that Obama’s office referred to was, of course, the bizarre report from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, issued last week, which alleged that Trump’s Russia scandal was the result of a “treasonous conspiracy.” The document was quickly discredited, with independent analyses characterizing Gabbard’s report as, among other things, “ludicrous.”

    As for Team Obama’s reference to Rubio, this, of course, reminded the public that just five years ago, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee published devastating findings about Trump’s Russia scandal, at one point literally describing a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.”

    If Gabbard and her allies want to argue that Trump’s secretary of state, who led the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, was part of a “treasonous conspiracy” against Trump, they’re welcome to try, though this doesn’t seem like an especially smart idea.

    Or put another way, the Obama statement worked because it had reality on its side.

    The incumbent president, however, doesn’t seem to care. On Monday, Trump amplified a fake video that appeared to have been created with AI that depicted Obama being arrested in the Oval Office. A day later, in the Oval Office, the Republican explicitly endorsed the Justice Department targeting Obama, suggesting that the former Democratic president is “guilty” as part of a scheme that Trump considers “treason.”

    Trump falsely claimed that Obama “has been caught directly” of unspecified crimes, added that his administration found “proof” — which, again, does not exist — that Obama was “seditious” and “trying to lead a coup.” [FFS]

    The incumbent concluded, “Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people. Obama’s been caught directly. So people say, ‘Oh, you know, a group.’ It’s not a group. It’s Obama.”

    It’s not Obama. The underlying claims are fiction. Trump’s entire conspiracy theory is rooted in a delusional foundation.

    What’s less clear is what might happen next. Under normal circumstances, a sitting president accusing his predecessor of “treason” would be a stop-the-presses moment in American politics, but the reaction to Trump’s meltdown was largely muted, in part because so many observers worked from the assumption that the Republican routinely makes bonkers claims, which amount to very little, and his latest absurdities are little more than a clumsy effort to distract attention away from his Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

    Perhaps. But with the White House pulling the strings at the Justice Department, and Attorney General Pam Bondi effectively positioning herself as a political operative who’s a little too eager to make the president happy, it’s hardly outlandish to wonder whether federal prosecutors might actually try to build a case against the former Democratic president.

    Around this time four years ago, Charlie Sykes said during an appearance on MSNBC, “A clown with a flamethrower still has a flamethrower.”

    It’s a quote that came to mind anew this week.

    Link

  396. says

    On prescription drug costs, Trump flunks arithmetic in embarrassing fashion

    “The president apparently intends to lower the cost of prescription drugs by up to 1,500%, which is badly at odds with how numbers work.”

    In Donald Trump’s first term, the president routinely talked about his efforts to lower the costs of prescription medications, but he failed, and drug costs continued to climb. Trump’s second term, however, was supposed to be different.

    In fact, just a couple of months ago Trump appeared on Fox News, claimed he’d been “studying” the pharmaceutical industry […] and declared, “I figured it out.” Around the same time, the president signed an executive order ostensibly about lowering drug costs, though the directive didn’t do much.

    Two months later, however, Trump is still talking about his ambitions on the issue. [video]

    At a White House event, the president boasted to a group of Republican allies, “We’re gonna get the drug prices down — not 30% or 40%, which would be great. Not 50% or 60%. No, we’re gonna get them down 1,000%, 600%, 500%, 1,500%.”

    Trump added that this is “something that nobody else can do,” concluding that he intends to produce “numbers that are not even thought to be achievable.” [LOL]

    […] I can appreciate why some people struggle with math, but as the president really ought to understand, his claims were at odds with how arithmetic works.

    If you go to a store and find a product that’s 50% off, that means the cost has been cut in half. If the product is 100% off, that means it’s free.

    Trump, however, apparently intends to lower the cost of prescription drugs by up to 1,500%, which means that the medications wouldn’t just be free, it would also mean that pharmaceutical companies would be paying consumers quite a bit of money to take their products.

    […] The rhetoric was certainly embarrassing, but there’s also a larger significance to this. For one thing, Trump appears to be so confident in his mathematical expertise that he’s come up with international trade tariff rates based on formulas that only exist in his head. […]

    Complicating matters, when it comes to his administration’s and his party’s approach to the underlying issue (i.e., making prescription drugs more affordable), Trump conveniently overlooked some relevant details. The New York Times reported earlier this month:

    The sweeping Republican policy bill that awaits President Trump’s signature on Friday includes a little-noticed victory for the drug industry. The legislation allows more medications to be exempt from Medicare’s price negotiation program, which was created to lower the government’s drug spending. Now, manufacturers will be able to keep those prices higher.

    The Times cited an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that found the Republican-imposed change will save the industry — the one the president claims to have “studied” — nearly $5 billion over the next decade. [!]

    Trump didn’t mention any of this as part of his discussion of medication costs.[…]

  397. says

    Followup to comment 357.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately canned the career federal prosecutor New Jersey federal judges had named U.S. attorney to succeed Alina Habba when her 120-day interim term ended. In explosive language, Bondi ripped the “rogue” judges, even though the chief judge was a Bush II appointee and the practice of judges naming U.S. attorney replacements is enshrined in the law. Bondi deputy Todd Blanche went farther, accusing the judges of “backroom” collusion and pursuing a “left-wing agenda.”

    Habba’s nomination for the permanent position is stalled in the Senate. It’s not clear what the White House’s next move will be to fill the position. The interplay of various laws that govern filling the U.S. attorney position is exceedingly complicated. [Link to source of more info is available at the main link.]

    Desiree Leigh Grace was the first assistant U.S. attorney under Habba before the judges elevated her to the top spot. She wasn’t just removed as U.S. attorney by Bondi but fired from the Justice Department entirely, Politico reports.

    Link

    The link leads to a “morning memo” that includes many news reports.

  398. says

    Followup to comment 350.

    […] Trump announced late on Tuesday that he and Japan reached a trade agreement, which will slap a 15% tariff on Japanese imports in exchange for Japan investing $550 billion in the U.S.

    The so-called deal is another shit sandwich for Americans, especially U.S. car manufacturers. That’s because Japanese cars imported into the U.S. will face a 15% tariff rate—lower than the 25% tariff American car companies currently face for imported auto parts. And that 15% rate is less than the shocking 25% tariff Trump had threatened against Japan if a deal wasn’t struck.

    That’s why Japanese car stocks rose on Wednesday, with Toyota up about 13%.

    “Toyota is up +8% on the news of a 15% tariff. Why? It’s simple,” Spencer Hakimian, founder of the hedge fund Tolou Capital Management, wrote in a post on X. “Ford, GM, Tesla, and all the other American manufacturers are going to be paying 50% more for their steel, 50% more for their copper, 25% more for their Canadian production, 25% more for their Mexican production, and 55% on their Chinese production. Toyota only has to pay 15% more and they’re done with all the shenanigans. Ford has to pay much more than that. A lot more in fact.

    “We’ve given a Japanese car company an advantage over American car companies. All in hope of bringing auto jobs back to America,” he added.

    The American Automotive Policy Council—which represents General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—said on Wednesday that the Japanese trade agreement is a “bad deal for U.S. industry and U.S. auto workers.”

    American automakers have already said Trump’s tariffs have dealt a massive blow to their companies.

    General Motors reported Tuesday that it lost $1 billion from April to June ,attributing the losses to Trump’s tariffs. And Stellantis, which manufactures American brands like Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge, said it lost a whopping $2.7 billion in the first half of 2025 because of Trump’s trade levies.

    But Trump’s trade policy is not hurting just automakers.

    Goldman Sachs on Tuesday said that U.S. economic growth will slow in 2025 because of Trump’s tariffs. The bank’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius, wrote in a memo to clients that the tariffs “will eat into real income, at a time when consumer spending trends already look shaky.” Hatzius added that consumer spending appears to have slowed in the first half of the year, which he said “rarely happens outside of recession.”

    Indeed, prices are on the rise for American consumers for everything from beef and chocolate to household products sold on retail giant Amazon.

    Meanwhile, the Aug. 1 deadline Trump put on other countries to make trade deals is rapidly approaching. And if deals aren’t reached, tariffs will soar to 30% for imports from major American trading partners, including Mexico and the European Union.

    And if the deals are as crappy as the one just announced with Japan, Americans are in for a world of hurt.

    Link

  399. birgerjohansson says

    Huffington Post:
    Trump claims he will lower drug prices by 1000%
    “https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-tariffs-white-house-latest_n_686ec29fe4b09bd98fe4be7e/liveblog_68802bc5e4b0f277db44d572

  400. Militant Agnostic says

    Lynna @394

    Many have fallen for misinformation once or twice, but with Lee — who’s been a senator now for 14 years — he appears incapable of learning from instances in which his judgment has failed him. Every time he amplifies obvious nonsense, it’s tempting to think, “Well, he won’t make that mistake again” — except he invariably does make that mistake again.

    He is a regular Sir Arthur Streeb Greebling – the only thing he has learned from his mistakes is how to repeat them.

  401. says

    Trumpt’s highly dubious effort to prosecute one of his Democratic targets [Senator Adam Schiff] keeps getting worse.

    […] “It looks like Adam Schiff really did a bad thing,” Trump said, referring to the Democratic senator from California. “They have him. Now, let’s see what happens. It’s not up to me. I stay out of it, purposely. But it’s mortgage loan fraud. That’s a big deal.”

    Right off the bat, it’s important to emphasize that Schiff has already responded to these allegations; he’s insisted that he’s done nothing wrong; and the evidence to the contrary appears difficult to take seriously.

    Nevertheless, The Washington Post reported this week that a criminal case against the senator — a longtime Trump target, dating back to the president’s first impeachment — has been referred to the Justice Department by Fannie Mae.

    What’s more, it was striking to see Trump claim on Tuesday afternoon that he’s “purposely” staying out of the matter, given the degree to which he’s already done the opposite.

    Indeed, exactly one week earlier, the president used his social media platform to accuse Schiff of “mortgage fraud” and being “a Crook.” Soon after, Trump declared on camera that he would “love” to see the Californian “brought to justice.”

    In the days that followed, the president asserted as fact that Schiff “falsified” documents and is now “in BIG TROUBLE.” The Republican published a related item over the weekend in which he similarly declared, “Adam Schiff is a THIEF! He should be prosecuted.”

    So much for staying out of it.

    But stepping back, the fact that Trump is peddling dubious claims against one of his favorite targets — all while pretending he’s maintaining a healthy distance from a story he’s obviously directly involved in — isn’t the biggest problem. In fact, what makes this controversy all the more important is how it came to exist in the first place.

    The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reported this week that the Fannie Mae Crimes Unit and the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) referred this to prosecutors as part of a complex process described by experts as “highly irregular,” “extremely unusual” and “extraordinarily unusual.” [embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link]

    It led Sargent to wonder whether Trump is “corrupting the bureaucracy … by seeding it with loyalists at all levels who are willing to manipulate it to carry out his crazed vendettas.”

    I have a hunch we haven’t heard the last of this one.

  402. says

    Washington Post link

    “EXCLUSIVE: Hegseth Signal messages came from email classified ‘SECRET,’ watchdog told”

    “The revelation contradicts the Trump administration’s longstanding claims that no classified information was shared by the defense secretary’s account during the “Signalgate” scandal.”

    The Pentagon’s independent watchdog has received evidence that messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal account previewing a U.S. bombing campaign in Yemen derived from a classified email labeled “SECRET/NOFORN,” people familiar with the matter said.

    The revelation appears to contradict longstanding claims by the Trump administration that no classified information was divulged in unclassified group chats that critics have called a significant security breach.

    The messages about the bombing campaign, posted in at least two group chats using the unclassified messaging app Signal, are the focus of an inquiry by the Defense Department inspector general’s office requested in April by Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

    The strike plans had been shared in a classified email with more than a dozen defense officials by Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the top commander overseeing U.S. military operations in the Middle East, and then were posted in the unclassified group chats by an account affiliated with Hegseth on March 15, shortly before the United States began attacking Houthi militants, the people familiar with the matter said.

    The “SECRET” classification of Kurilla’s email, which has not previously been reported, denoted that the information was classified at a level at which unauthorized disclosure could be expected to cause serious damage to national security. The “NOFORN” label means it also was not meant for anyone who is a foreign national, including senior officials of close allies of the U.S.

    In accordance with government regulations, Kurilla sent his sensitive message over a classified system, the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, or SIPRNet, four people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal by the Trump administration.

    The message included a rundown of strike plans for the day, including when bombing was expected to begin and what kind of aircraft and weapons were to be used. The disclosure of the sensitive information drew both criticism and bewilderment because the group chat inadvertently included a journalist from the Atlantic magazine who is a frequent critic of President Donald Trump.

    The scandal has caused numerous Democrats and at least one Republican to call for Hegseth’s firing, and dogged the defense secretary through a series of congressional hearings in June. Senior administration officials have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared on Signal, though national security experts and former top military officials have said that is highly doubtful.

    Administration officials doubled down on those claims in new statements to The Washington Post, touting its actions in the military campaign against the Houthis in Yemen earlier this year and more recently in strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

    “The Department stands behind its previous statements: no classified information was shared via Signal,” said Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, in an emailed statement. “As we’ve said repeatedly, nobody was texting war plans and the success of the Department’s recent operations — from Operation Rough Rider to Operation Midnight Hammer — are proof that our operational security and discipline are top notch.” [Gaslighting]

    […] Such information, before an operation, would generally always be classified to protect the U.S. troops involved, security experts have said. Retired Adm. William McRaven, the Navy SEAL officer who oversaw the raid that killed al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, said in April that Hegseth’s team has not handled the controversy well and “clearly, the information broadcast on Signal was classified.” […]

    More at the link.

  403. Militant Agnostic says

    Lynna @398

    It is in fact possible to cut prescription drug prices by 1500%. If you are picking up a prescription that would preciously have cost. you $100, now the pharmacy will give you $1400 for taking the medication off their hands. You are simply incapable of appreciating Trump’s mathematical brilliance.

  404. says

    Delusion … and possibly self-delusion:

    President Donald Trump lied to congressional Republicans on Tuesday night, falsely claiming his approval ratings have increased since his administration’s failure to release government files on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. In reality, Trump’s ratings have tumbled since the scandal heated up last week.

    “I have the best numbers I’ve ever had,” Trump said during a White House reception for Republicans. “You know, it’s amazing I watch people on television: ‘Well, what about Donald Trump’s polling numbers?’ Yeah, they’re the best numbers I’ve ever had.

    “And with this made-up hoax they’re talking about, my numbers have gone up 4 and 5 points—they want to do anything to get us off the subject of making America great again, and we’re not going to put up with it,” he continued. [video]

    It isn’t true. Polling has shown a noticeable Epstein-related dip for Trump and his handling of the story.

    In 15 of the most recent public opinion polls collected by The New York Times, Trump has a net-negative approval rating in 14 of the polls, with most showing a double-digit disapproval rating on net. [Graph]

    […] An overwhelming majority of independents (83%) and Democrats (92%) were dissatisfied with how the administration has handled the Epstein case. Meanwhile, Republicans were almost evenly split: 50% were satisfied with the administration’s handling of the case, while 49% weren’t.

    The Trump administration is also over 30 points underwater on its handling of the Epstein investigations, according to an Economist/YouGov poll released on Tuesday. That finding was corroborated by a Quinnipiac University poll released on July 16, in which 63% of voters disapproved of his administration’s handling of the case.

    Trump’s lie highlights his desperation to blunt criticism on his ties to Epstein and his handling of the case, controversy that has ensnared his presidency for weeks. Congressional Republicans, who shut down Congress instead of facing Epstein-related votes, are also feeling the fallout from the story, while Democrats continue to push for further disclosures.

    Trump has now resorted to throwing out multiple distractions—conspiracies about former President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for instance—in an attempt to drown out Epstein-related headlines.

    But it isn’t working, and his approval is nowhere near “the best numbers” he’s ever had.

    Link

  405. says

    Militant Agnostic @403, LOL. I wish that were true now. Today I picked up prescription medications. Ouch.

    In other news: We need to talk about Medhi Hasan vs the MAGA Neo Nazis

    I doubt you haven’t seen this yet because it’s blowing up in the interwebs, but former MSNBC host Medhi Hasan appeared on the Jubilee Webcast “Surrounded” and took on 20 “Far Right Conservatives.” During the Broadcast, Medhi eventually discovered that several of these people were not just far right, they were out-and-out Neo-Nazis Fascist who worshipped Franco and believed in implementing a Catholic Theocratic Autocracy on America.

    I’m not going to show the entire broadcast because it’s fucking vile, and long, but here are a few clips via the Damage Report. [video]

    […] They think immigrants are criminals. They think they are free-loaders who are “draining the blood of this country.” They think they’re “eating the cats, eating the dogs” and of course “Rapists” who engage in human trafficking just like Jeffrey Epstein.

    What they don’t see is that the world isn’t zero-sum. They don’t see that immigrants are a net benefit, generating over $100 billion in tax revenue, while they aren’t allowed government benefits like SNAP, Medicaid and Section 8. Hasan points out that Migrants are 80% more likely to start businesses that will generate $9 trillion in GDP over the next decade. They enrich our country and unless you naturally speak Chumash, Cherokee or Oglala Sioux — everyone else here is an Immigrant or one of their descendants.

    But most importantly, they don’t seem to understand that progressive values don’t take anything away from them; they only add to the whole.

    Since the above clip aired it turns out that that particular chowder-head has lost apparently his job. [video]

    […] Naturally, he whines that this is unfair “political discrimination” and that it’s “Cancel Culture”. Yeah, Boo Hoo. Some punks deserve to be cancelled. Laughing hysterically about 6 Million Jews, Gypsies and LGBT persons being gassed and acid bathed is not legitimately humor. It’s fucking genocide.

    There is a line; you crossed it, buddy.

    […] This is part of a fairly illuminating discussion about the entire situation that Hasan had with Tim Miller of the Bulwark. [Video]

    […] I think they cover some interesting ground. First, obviously, it can no longer be said that there isn’t a direct common cause between MAGAs and Nazis. They really are practically indistinguishable. […]

    A few days ago you had Greg Gutfeld trying ironically to repurpose the term “Nazi” in the same way “THE BLACKS” have redefined and repurposed the “N-Word.” [video]

    […] You had one person who told Hasan he should “leave the country” even though he’s an American citizen.

    Another young lady came up to him and said, “Do you support Immigrants or Americans?” Hasan responded with “I’m an immigrant and an American”, and then she goes, “Americans are born here.” The discussion goes on and off the rails when she admits her parents are immigrants who became naturalized. So she calls them “Americans”, but she won’t say that about Hasan, even though he’s been naturalized too. This is more of the standard cognitive dissonance were used to from MAGAs. The reason she can’t admit Hasan is an American is because she’s a fucking racist, but unlike “Connor,” she can’t quite admit it out loud, or even to herself. […]

    More at the link.

  406. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-labor-dept-to-help-more-workers

    “Trump Labor Dept To Help More Workers Earn Less Than Minimum Wage, Also Maybe Die?”

    “The new party of the working class is about to kill 60 worker protections”

    Should those who profit off of the labor of others be required to pay them a fair wage and provide them with a safe place to work? We’d say yes, but the Trump Labor Department just isn’t so sure.

    The Republican Party has not been able to shut up for some time now about how it is “the party of the working class” — though it seems they might have confused that for “the party of the employers of the working class,” as the the Trump administration’s Department of Labor (DOL) is looking to kill more than 60 labor rules and regulations they have decided are “obsolete.”

    Don’t worry, it’s nothing important. Just some old-timey rules like “adequate lighting for construction sites,” “mine safety,” “literally any labor protections at all for migrant farm workers” and “home health care workers should get paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour,” which I would like to note is, in fact, less than I got paid to babysit when I was in high school.

    “The Department of Labor is proud to lead the way by eliminating unnecessary regulations that stifle growth and limit opportunity,” said Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer — who we’d like to remind you was endorsed by Teamsters president Sean O’Brien. Chavez-DeRemer’s statement touted the “most ambitious proposal to slash red tape of any department across the federal government.”

    […] When labor laws were first crafted in this country, certain workers were specifically and pointedly left out — including domestic workers and farm workers. By sheer coincidence, these happened to be jobs that were largely held by people of color. Also, by sheer coincidence, many of the regulations this administration thinks are simply too burdensome for employers to comply with are rules that apply to these jobs.

    For instance, one of the new rules will reverse changes made under the Obama administration in 2013 that require the companies that employ the nation’s nearly 3.7 million home health care workers to pay them the federal minimum wage and overtime for taking care of our sick and elderly. Now, they can be paid maybe two, three dollars an hour with no overtime, working 50-60 hours or even more a week making meals, wiping asses, lifting people into wheelchairs, and otherwise caring for those who can’t care for themselves.

    The Trump Labor Department is also bringing back sub-minimum wages for workers with disabilities, despite the fact that eliminating that ridiculous rule actually led to greater employment of those with disabilities under the Biden administration.

    The Labor Department also seeks to invalidate rules protecting H-2A visa migrant workers that were finalized last year. These include things like having seatbelts in vehicles meant to transport them and requiring those vehicles to be safe, not firing or otherwise retaliating against them “for filing a complaint, testifying, or exercising [their] rights in any way or helping others to do so,” and more.

    Michael Marsh, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, was very pleased by this, telling the Associated Press that the new regulations were just too much for simple farmers to keep up with.

    “Can you imagine a farmer and his or her spouse trying to navigate 3,000 new pages of regulation in 18 months and then be liable for every one of them?” he asked, which would be a fair question if anyone were asking them to do that. While I was unable to find 3,000 pages of anything anywhere, I was able to find this helpful one-page poster explaining exactly what labor rights farm workers have, along with multiple FAQs, webinars, and other resources designed to help employers understand what is expected of them.

    The Department is also looking to undo a provision that requires adequate lighting on construction sites so that workers don’t, well, die.

    “There have been many fatalities where workers fall through a hole in the floor, where there’s not adequate lighting,” Rebecca Reindel of the AFL-CIO told the AP. “It’s a very obvious thing that employers should address, but unfortunately it’s one of those things where we need a standard, and it’s violated all the time.”

    The DOL holds that this rule is unnecessary and covered under the general duty clause, meant to protect workers from known safety issues. Naturally, they are also looking to upend the general duty clause so that it no longer covers workers in “inherently dangerous” jobs — so that employers in certain industries will no longer be held responsible for worker injuries or deaths. […]

    Additionally, the administration is looking to undo Biden-era provisions that protect employees from extreme heat, because that’s just too inconvenient for employers.

    For a full list of all of the rules the DOL is looking to kill, check out The Century Foundation’s analysis of the new changes.

    Unfortunately, as much as some people want to believe that we have endless regulations with no point to them whatsoever, which exist only to annoy “job creators,” that’s really just not the case. It may be annoying to employers to have to allow workers to take water breaks in the shade or to have to pay people more than $7.25 an hour, but those protections exist for a reason. Mostly because some of us think it’s bad for workers to starve or die. […]

  407. Militant Agnostic says

    Naturally, they are also looking to upend the general duty clause so that it no longer covers workers in “inherently dangerous” jobs — so that employers in certain industries will no longer be held responsible for worker injuries or deaths.

    Inherently dangerous jobs like oil/gas drilling which I thought they were in favour of.

  408. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @407 Militant Agnostic: They’re in favor of dangerous industrialists. Coal CEOs, not miners. “industries will no longer be held responsible for worker injuries”

  409. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Science – Engineers transform dental floss into needle-free vaccine

    he stumbled across a paper that said the gingival sulcus—the pockets of gum between the sides of your teeth—could absorb molecules extremely well. […] “If it is highly permeable, could we not use it for vaccination?”
    […]
    [They] had to do something no scientist had done before: Try to floss a mouse. It was a “quite difficult” two-person job, Gill says: One scientist gently pulled the mouse’s jaw down with the metal ring from a keychain while the other administered the floss. […] the engineers added an inactive flu virus—a common vaccine component—to the floss […] researchers flossed 50 mice with the coated floss every 2 weeks. Then, 4 weeks after the final dose, they infected those mice with the real flu virus. All the mice that were flossed three times survived, whereas all the unvaccinated mice died. […] Overall, the immune response to the floss resembled the response to vaccines that are sprayed into the nose, such as FluMist.

    To gauge whether the method could work in humans, the researchers asked 27 healthy volunteers to floss with dental picks coated with colored food dye. On average, roughly 60% of the dye was delivered to the participants’ gums. […] clinical trial testing is needed to definitively say whether this proof-of-concept approach is viable.

  410. Rob Grigjanis says

    And now for something completely different…

    Some fantastic matches in the knockout stages of the women’s soccer Euros. Of the matches played, and the many players who impressed, I’ll just mention two of the players; the Germany goalie Berger*, and the England youngster Agyemang.

    Spain vs England in the final, on Sunday.

    Berger will, of course, be vilified for letting a near-post goal in against Spain, because vilification is cheap and easy, and keeps commentators well payed. She did absolutely nothing wrong, and was brilliant throughout the tournament.

  411. says

    Justice Department reportedly told Trump in May that his name is in the Epstein files

    “A new Wall Street Journal report said the president’s name “appeared multiple times” in the Jeffrey Epstein files — and he was told that during a briefing.”

    In early June, as Donald Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk deteriorated, the Republican megadonor targeted the president in a rather provocative way. “Time to drop the really big bomb: [Trump] is in the Epstein files,” Musk wrote online, adding, “Have a nice day, DJT!”

    Nearly two months later, the tweet is gone, but the claim is relevant anew. The Wall Street Journal reported:

    When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a ‘truckload’ of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times, according to senior administration officials. In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files, the officials said. Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told.

    Some caveats are in order. Right off the bat, this reporting hasn’t been independently verified by other news organizations, including MSNBC. What’s more, the fact that the president’s name reportedly appeared in the Epstein files is notable, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that he and others who were included in the materials were involved in wrongdoing.

    As Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor and an MSNBC legal analyst, explained via Bluesky, “Lots of people’s names end up in an investigative file. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve done anything wrong.”

    That said, Vance added, what “makes it interesting” is that Trump still won’t agree to release the files — the ones he’s apparently included in — after suggesting the opposite during his 2024 presidential campaign.

    What’s more, it was just last week when a reporter asked the president whether Attorney General Pam Bondi told him that his name appeared in the Epstein files. “No, no,” he responded. [video]

    Trump acknowledged at that point — I believe for the first time — that he’d received a personal briefing on this case, which was notable in its own right, but the exchange appears even more important now.

    Indeed, if the president was briefed on the investigation and told that his name did appear in the files, it would raise new questions about why Trump felt the need to lie to the public.

    What’s more, three days after the president made those on-camera comments, NBC News also reported that Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, relying on information from a protected FBI whistleblower disclosure, alleged that FBI personnel were instructed to “flag” any records that mentioned Trump as part of their handling of the Epstein files.

    Steven Cheung, a White House spokesperson, responded to the new WSJ reporting by saying, “The fact is that the president kicked [Epstein] out of his club for being a creep. This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.”

    Of course, that wasn’t a denial, per se.

    For their part, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also said in a written statement, “The DOJ and FBI reviewed the Epstein Files and reached the conclusion set out in the July 6 memo. Nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution, and we have filed a motion in court to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts. As part of our routine briefing, we made the president aware of the findings.”

    That wasn’t a denial of the underlying reporting, either.

    Finally, there’s FBI Director Kash Patel, who used to promote Epstein conspiracy theories before changing direction, who responded to the WSJ with a written statement of his own: “The memo released on July 6th is consistent with the thorough review conducted by the FBI and DOJ. The criminal leakers and Fake News media tries [sic] tirelessly to undermine President Trump with smears and lies, and this story is no different.”

  412. says

    Supreme Court allows Trump to fire members of product safety agency

    “A judge had reinstated three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal agency set up by Congress to be independent of political pressure.”

    The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed President Donald Trump to fire members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal agency set up by Congress to be independent of political pressures.

    The justices, granting an emergency request filed by the Trump administration, blocked a Maryland-based federal judge’s ruling that reinstated Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr., all of whom had been appointed by then-President Joe Biden.

    Without the three members in place, the five-member commission would for now lack the necessary quorum to fulfill its obligation to protect consumers from defective products.

    Under existing law, members can only be removed for “neglect of duty or malfeasance,” but Trump went ahead and fired members anyway, as he has done at other agencies with similar restrictions as part of his aggressive efforts to reshape the federal government.

    The Supreme Court in May allowed him to fire members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, casting aside precedent dating back to 1935 that upheld removal protections.

    The unsigned order on Wednesday said that the latest case was “squarely controlled” by what the high court decided then.

    As in the previous case, the three liberal justices on the conservative-majority court dissented.

    “Once again, this court uses its emergency docket to destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan.

    […] Trump in May moved to fire the three Consumer Product Safety Commission members. A month later, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Maddox ordered that they be reinstated and they returned to their jobs while litigation continued.

    The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put Maddox’s ruling on hold.

    The commission, set up in 1972 by Congress, oversees a wide variety of consumer product issues, including safety standards and research into injury prevention.

    In order to insulate the commission from politics, Congress gave the members staggered seven-year terms, stipulated that only three could represent the same political party and said the president could not fire them at will.

    All five members are appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate and expected to have expertise on consumer product safety issues.

    Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in court papers that Maddox’s ruling has “sown chaos and dysfunction” at the agency, with the reinstated members moving to undo actions that the commission took after they were initially fired.

    Lawyers for the commission members wrote in their own filing that the court would be adding to the disruption if it allowed their clients to be removed from office a second time. In some cases, the three commissioners have been “undoing actions that the CPSC unlawfully took” during the time they were prevented from working, the lawyers added.

  413. says

    Trump EPA will propose repealing finding that climate change endangers public health

    The Trump administration will propose the repeal of a landmark 2009 determination that climate change poses a danger to the public, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said Wednesday.

    “EPA has sent to the Office of Management and Budget a proposed rule to repeal the 2009 Endangerment Finding from the Obama EPA,” Zeldin told Newsmax.

    “Through the Endangerment Finding there has been into the trillions worth of regulations including tailpipe emissions and including electric vehicle mandates,” he added.

    In 2009, the Obama administration made a formal determination that greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and methane posed a threat to public health. It found emissions from vehicles contributed to the problem.

    The finding provided a legal basis for EPA regulations on these planet-heating gases, including for its rules requiring automakers’ to cut emissions from their vehicle fleets. […]

  414. says

    Mark Epstein, the older brother of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, refuted the White House’s claims that President Trump never visited the disgraced financier at his office.

    “That’s just another blatant lie,” the older Epstein said during a Tuesday appearance on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

    “Because he was there. People that worked for Jeffrey in his office, they could testify that they saw Trump in Jeffrey’s office on numerous occasions,” he continued, “So for him to say he wasn’t there, all I can say is that’s just just another lie.”

    Later on the show, Epstein accuser Maria Farmer appeared and gave her account of the future president’s visit to the wealthy businessowner’s office decades prior to his death.

    Mark Epstein has repeatedly alleged his brother was killed while in prison. A joint memo issued earlier this month from Trump’s Justice Department and the FBI concluded there is no evidence to support allegations Epstein was murdered, rather than dying by suicide, and that he did not keep a “client list.” […]

    Link

  415. John Morales says

    #414 reminds me of this recent opinion from Slate, done from a legal perspective:
    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/07/trump-suing-wsj-epstein-story-backfire-bigly.html

    —

    Donald Trump Might Have Just Made the Epstein Story a Hundred Times Worse

    When Donald Trump sued the Wall Street Journal last week for libel after the paper published an article about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, he was likely anticipating a rerun of his suit against CBS: bellicose threats followed by a Trump-friendly settlement, perhaps with a side order of censorship. Why else demand $10 billion in damages—an amount roughly the GDP of Togo?

    But the Journal suit is potentially a different beast from the CBS suit. Not only does the president face significant barriers to any actual win on the merits of the case, at least under current law; the legal process may prove politically costly because the mechanics of ordinary civil litigation will likely imperil Trump’s ability to control the narrative of the Epstein affair.

    […]

    Crucially, discovery in a libel action is bilateral. The plaintiff and defendant get to make demands for information and documents from the other side. As the nation’s leading expert on libel (and former counsel for Dow Jones) Robert Sack has explained, defendants often use discovery to “establish the truth of some portions of the article and thereby remove them from contention.” (Full disclosure: Twenty-three years ago, I worked as a law clerk for Sack, who became a federal judge.)

    Carefully reading the complaint, the Journal’s lawyer must already realize that this provides an extraordinary range of inquiry.

    Obviously, many of the factual questions at issue in the libel suit concern the letter from Trump to Epstein purportedly sent for the latter’s 50th birthday. The Journal can seek information related to Trump’s authorship of that note, including a deposition in which the president may be required to testify under oath. And it can seek any and all documentary information about Trump’s relationship with Epstein around that time—again, under threat of penalty.

    Trump’s complaint, however, opens the gate for discovery even wider: It calls “unsubstantiated” and “false” the assertion that the president has been a “friend,” a “pal,” or “family” of Epstein. In effect, the complaint here invites the Journal’s lawyer to use interrogatories and depositions to plumb the entire relationship between the two men. Indeed, it positively drives those attorneys, simply as a matter of zealous advocacy, to assume a robust and admissible record of the entire arc of the Trump-Epstein relationship.

  416. JM says

    Pravda: Putin allows Russians to run for office and vote in Belarus, Belarusians granted same rights in Russia

    Russian ruler Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying a protocol that grants Belarusian citizens the right to vote and stand for election in local government bodies within Russia, with Russians receiving the same rights in Belarus.

    Another step in the process of making Belarus a puppet state. Putin probably wants Belarus to remain a separate state for purposes of international politics but finding locals to hold office that will take orders is a lot of work.

  417. JM says

    Politico: Why are Ukrainians mad at Zelenskyy?

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday approved a law that placed previously independent anti-corruption agencies under executive control.

    The reforms, the latest move by the presidential office to consolidate power within a circle of loyalists, have critics fearing Zelenskyy and his team could abuse their special wartime authority.

    Hundreds protested in central Kyiv and other cities around Ukraine on Tuesday for the first time since Russian leader Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, upset by the move to ram through the legislation.

    Not a good situation. Zelensky is justifying this on the grounds that NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau) was being influenced by Russia. The government has provided some evidence of this but it’s sparse. However, the NABU is supposed to be the independent organization. There is no other independent source for evidence or investigations.
    The complaints and protests are wide spread enough that Zelensky is already proposing reversing course. How much remains to be seen.

  419. birgerjohansson says

    “Trump’s complaint, however, opens the gate for discovery even wider”

    And WSJ is Murdoch-owned, with no future corporate merger that requires government approval. Murdoch gets the advertising profits of Fox News, while simultaneously embarrassing Trump in the courts.
    BWAHAHAHAHA !!!

  420. John Morales says

    Birger, no end to the rabbit-hole.

    Me: who was ghislaine maxwell’s father; one paragraph summary of it and the relationship

    BB: Ghislaine Maxwell’s father was Robert Maxwell, a Czech-born British media tycoon who built a vast publishing empire including the Daily Mirror and Macmillan. Born Jan Ludvik Hoch, he escaped Nazi persecution, fought for Britain in WWII, and reinvented himself as a powerful, controversial figure in business and politics. Known for his authoritarian style and volatile temper, Robert was both feared and admired. Ghislaine, his youngest and favorite child, was deeply entwined in his world—he named his yacht Lady Ghislaine after her and relied on her as a social emissary. Their relationship was intense and complex: she was doted on, indulged, and reportedly shared a private language with him, including meowing during phone calls. After his mysterious death in 1991—falling from that same yacht—Ghislaine relocated to New York, where she soon became involved with Jeffrey Epstein, a shift many biographers link to her father’s influence and legacy.

  423. birgerjohansson says

    Farron Cousins:

    You awful libruls have caused the president’s swollen ankles. Obama and Biden created the Epstein files that do not exist. And the George Floyd protests 2020 was the work of Joe Biden, who had not been nominated at the time. You people are really a naughty bunch.
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=oSkNSilBbHc
    .
    (Unlike Peter Griffin I would never use the phrase “you people” when addressing Black men participating in the Million Men March. He was referring to gender, but it was poorly received)

  426. KG says

    John Morales@420,

    Maxwell was often referred to by the nickname “Captain Bob”. After his mysterious death (did he fall, did he jump – quite likely, as he was about to be exposed as a criminal, having robbed his company’s pension fund, and go to jail – or was he pushed?) someone, I can’t remember who, amended this to “Captain Bob-bob-bob”.

  427. KG says

    And with this made-up hoax they’re talking about, my numbers have gone up 4 and 5 points – Trump quoted by Daily Kos quoted by Lynna, OM@404

    Makes you wonder why he’s telling everyone to shut up about it.

  428. KG says

    Trump falsely claimed that Obama “has been caught directly” of unspecified crimes, added that his administration found “proof” — which, again, does not exist — that Obama was “seditious” and “trying to lead a coup.” – Maddow Show quoted by Lynna, OM@395

    In fact, Trump claimed Obama was “sedatious”, not “seditious”. Since it’s a word he made up, I suppose it can mean whatever he wants it to mean, for example “a brilliant orator”, and so the claim could be true!

  429. KG says

    Whoever created the fake resignation letter didn’t invest a lot of time in making it appear authentic. The wording on the Federal Reserve seal included the words, “Elerebal Reserve Oedo of Goveryaeb,” whatever that means. – Maddow Show quoted by Lynna, OM@394

    Huh, what a coincidence! “Elerebal Reserve Oedo of Goveryaeb” is one of the many titles of the hero of my as-yet-unwritten 12-volume Romantasy epic!

  430. KG says

    Israel’s narrative cannot survive the truth, so it’s silencing the world
    As Israel kills tens of thousands, its defenders go after anyone who dares to speak out – from Francesca Albanese to Omer Bartov. – John Morales quoting al Jazeera@388

    In the UK, the government recently proscribed the direct-action group “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorist legislation. This is considered by many independent legal experts and civil liberties groups to be both absurd and sinister – the most its members have done is to spray paint and use crowbars on two aircraft they believe were involved in spy andor refueling flights in support of Israel’s campaign of genocide in Gaza – for which they could simply be charged under laws against criminal damage. The proscription makes it a terrorist offence, punishable by up to 14 years imprisonment, to belong to or express support for Palestine Action. The police in some areas now appear to be arresting, or threatening to arrest, people bearing placards on which the words “Palestine” and “action” both appear. In a recent case, a retired teacher was arrested, handcuffed, and held for six hours (he was later informed no furher action would be taken) for holding up a copy of a cartoon published in the satirical magazine Private Eye. You can see the placard at the link. It’s headed “Palestine Action explained”, followed by:

    Unacceptable Palestine Action:
    Spraying military planes with paint
    Acceptable Palestine Action:
    Shooting Palestinians queueing for food.

    When it was explained to him that the cartoon had been published and no action taken against the publisher, an inspired plod said that in print it was OK, but holding it up in public was against the law.

    I’d better say no more, since I don’t particularly want Inspector McKnacker to come and break down my door.

  431. says

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

    ‘Just wild’: Dem senator baffled by No. 2 at Trump DOJ meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell
    Video is 6:45 minutes

    Trump caught on camera denying Bondi told him he’s in Epstein files despite WSJ report
    Video is 11:44 minutes

    Madness’: Hayes says ‘the people of Gaza are running out of time’
    Video is 4:14 minutes, excellent report, full of new details

  432. says

    After Columbia agrees to a deal, McMahon acknowledges larger political motivations

    “Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s demands. Education Secretary Linda McMahon called it ‘a monumental victory for conservatives.’ ”

    As Donald Trump’s second term got underway, and the Republican White House’s aggressive offensive against higher education intensified, Columbia University in New York was one of the first schools to embrace a strategy rooted in appeasement. Indeed, in March, Columbia agreed to several of the White House’s demands in the hope that the president would restore $400 million in federal funding that the president and his team had cut off.

    Initially, it didn’t work. Not only did the school fail to get its money back, but the administration escalated matters last month, threatening the university’s accreditation status.

    This week, Columbia cried “uncle.” NBC News reported:

    Columbia University will pay $200 million to the federal government to restore the majority of funding that was cut by the Trump administration over allegations it violated anti-discrimination laws. … Columbia said in the Wednesday statement that under the agreement ‘a vast majority of the federal grants which were terminated or paused in March 2025 — will be reinstated and Columbia’s access to billions of dollars in current and future grants will be restored.’

    As part of the deal, the university — which did not admit to any wrongdoing — agreed to, among many other things, establish a “a jointly selected independent monitor” and provide regular reports to the Trump administration about its “continued compliance with applicable federal laws and regulations pertaining to admissions, hiring, and international students.”

    Not surprisingly, Education Secretary Linda McMahon was delighted with the developments, and made some conservative media appearances to celebrate the morning after the agreement was reached. [video]

    “I think this is a monumental victory for conservatives who wanted to do things on these elite campuses for a long time because we had such far left-leaning professors,” she told Fox Business, adding: “I’m really pleased with this victory. It wouldn’t have happened if Donald Trump weren’t president.”

    She added that the administration’s fight against Columbia was part of a larger political effort to ensure that “the viewpoints need to be balanced” on college campuses.

    But that’s not what the education secretary was supposed to say. The whole point of the administration’s efforts regarding the university was, according to the official line, about protecting students from antisemitic harassment and combating antisemitism in higher education. That wasn’t a side goal; it was the reason for the dispute in the first place.

    And yet, there was McMahon, boasting to a national television audience the day after the agreement was reached, touting “a monumental victory for conservatives,” taking a rhetorical shot at “left-leaning professors” and prioritizing “balanced” political viewpoints.

    […] it was striking to hear the Cabinet secretary accidentally admit that effort wasn’t just about combating antisemitism.

    Several years ago, Michael Kinsley famously wrote, “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.” The line came to mind anew watching McMahon on Thursday morning.

  433. says

    Appeals court finds Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship unconstitutional, upholds block

    A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Wednesday that […] Trump’s order seeking to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, affirming a lower-court decision that blocked its enforcement nationwide.

    The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after Trump’s plan was also blocked by a federal judge in New Hampshire. It marks the first time an appeals court has weighed in and brings the issue one step closer to coming back quickly before the Supreme Court.

    The 9th Circuit decision keeps a block on the Trump administration enforcing the order that would deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily.

    “The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order’s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,” the majority wrote.

    The 2-1 ruling keeps in place a decision from U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle, who blocked Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship and decried what he described as the administration’s attempt to ignore the Constitution for political gain. Coughenour was the first to block the order.

    […] The Supreme Court has since restricted the power of lower court judges to issue orders that affect the whole country, known as nationwide injunctions.

    But the 9th Circuit majority found that the case fell under one of the exceptions left open by the justices. The case was filed by a group of states who argued that they need a nationwide order to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship only being the law in half of the country.

    “We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief,” Judge Michael Hawkins and Ronald Gould, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote.

    […] The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment says that all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens.

    Justice Department attorneys argue that the phrase “subject to United States jurisdiction” in the amendment means that citizenship isn’t automatically conferred to children based on their birth location alone.

    The states — Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon — argue that ignores the plain language of the Citizenship Clause as well as a landmark birthright citizenship case in 1898 where the Supreme Court found a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil.

    Trump’s order asserts that a child born in the U.S. is not a citizen if the mother does not have legal immigration status or is in the country legally but temporarily, and the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. At least nine lawsuits challenging the order have been filed around the U.S.

  434. says

    The popular animated show “South Park” came gunning for President Donald Trump in the premiere of its 27th season on Wednesday night.

    The episode depicted Trump in bed with Satan and tackled the president’s ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. […]

    […] It features a scathing PSA attacking both Trump and the show’s own corporate backer, Paramount. The two-minute video begins with the animated characters agreeing to settle a lawsuit with Trump, a jab at the recent embarrassing deal CBS—which Paramount owns—made with Trump. The rest of the video is a satirical, computer-manipulated takedown of Trump that you’ll have to see to believe.

    The video, it must be said, is not safe for work. [Video]

    This bold bit of satire comes on the heels of Trump critic Stephen Colbert’s popular late-night show on CBS being abruptly canceled, with its final episodes airing next May. And the PSA’s use of “synthetic media,” as the video’s YouTube page describes it, is particularly fitting because of Trump’s penchant for reposting inflammatory, AI-generated material.

    Link

  436. says

    Fox News is doing its best to ignore the scoop uncovered by its sister outlet, the Wall Street Journal, that President Donald Trump was reportedly told in May that his name appears in the government’s files about accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

    After the Journal published its story on Wednesday afternoon, a TV Eyes transcript search of Fox News content suggests that it was mentioned in any detail only on “Special Report,” during a brief segment with anchor Brett Baier.

    […] Fox hosts like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Greg Gutfeld effectively censored information damaging to Trump, hiding the report from their audiences.

    Fox News’ main website has also buried the story. A search for “Epstein” on the site appears to show no reporting on the Wall Street Journal’s story, and at the time of this story’s publication, the front page of the site was focused on other unrelated stories.

    Similarly, the New York Post—which, like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, is owned by Rupert Murdoch—did not feature the Epstein story on the front page of the Thursday edition, even though that paper has a long history of hyping scandals involving sex.

    […] Opinion polling on the Epstein issue has been overwhelmingly negative for Trump […] Trump has high negative ratings on how he is handling the Epstein scandal, and even among Republicans, the disapproval is in double digits.

    The decision by Fox—Trump’s most valued media ally—to bury the latest embarrassment shows an awareness that the storyline is a political liability for the administration. […]

    Instead of covering the Trump-Epstein story, Fox has busied itself with pushing hours of coverage of a phony scandal involving former President Barack Obama and Russia. Fox and Trump are well known for pushing false and typically racist stories about Obama.

    Fox works by hiding stories that are damaging to Republicans, especially Trump, but it is extremely unlikely that their strategy will pan out this time.

    Link

  439. says

    Tulsi Gabbard’s ‘Russia Hoax’ mistake: She’s pushing the wrong answer to the wrong question

    “[…] The director of national intelligence’s absurd claims fall apart […]”

    For nearly a decade, there have been two core questions at the heart of Donald Trump’s Russia scandal. The first was obvious: Did Vladimir Putin’s regime target the U.S. political system in the 2016 presidential race? The second was complex: Did the Republican campaign partner with Russia during its attack?

    […] Americans heard the president repeat the phrase “no collusion” obsessively throughout his first term. The partisan line has never been persuasive — the evidence showed that the Republican campaign welcomed, received and benefited from Russian assistance — but since there is no legal or statutory definition of “collusion,” much of the conversation landed in an “eye of the beholder” box.

    Most objective observers, taking a good-faith look at special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings and the reports from the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, would likely agree that there were scandalous levels of contacts between Team Trump and Russian operatives in 2016. Nevertheless, for nine years, the president and his confederates focused much of their time, energies and political resources trying to provide an answer to the second of the two foundational questions — insisting that the GOP campaign did not partner with Moscow in 2016. Gradually, the dubious assertion became an article of faith among far-right partisans.

    Recently, however, Team Trump pushed its luck. It decided answering the second question was no longer good enough. Instead, it took aim at the first question.

    In recent days, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has made a great many mistakes, releasing a bizarre report that accused the Obama administration of a “treasonous conspiracy” and a “years long coup” that, in reality, never existed.

    But the foundational mistake was the effort itself: Gabbard is trying to convince everyone that Putin didn’t actually target the U.S. political system to elect Trump at all. Not only was there no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian operatives responsible for the attack, the DNI has argued, but there was also no attack.

    […] The problem with this line isn’t just that it’s demonstrably wrong. As a CNN report noted, Gabbard is also contradicting Republicans […]

    Her argument is full of holes, as even critics of the Russia investigation such as the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy have noted. (Basically, the whole thing conflates Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election with nonexistent attacks on election infrastructure that changed votes.) But just as notable is that Gabbard’s move to cast doubt on Russia’s 2016 interference is wholly at odds with several top Trump administration officials, most especially [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio, along with a pair of congressional investigations spearheaded by Republicans.

    [snipped more details outlining history of investigations]

    As recently as two weeks ago, Trump’s handpicked CIA director, John Ratcliffe, released the results of an investigation that endorsed the agency’s earlier conclusions about Russia targeting the U.S. elections. [!]

    The DNI [Tulsi], leaning on discredited findings and claims that have been fairly characterized as “ludicrous,” is trying to convince the world that everyone, including Trump’s Republican allies, have gotten the entire story backwards, based on evidence that’s already collapsed. […]

  441. says

    Texas [Man] Signs Up For Russian Army, Is Surprised To Be Put On Front Lines

    […] Derek Huffman, 46 and a father of six migrated to Russia earlier this year from Texas with his wife and their three youngest children. They were seeking a better life, meaning one with no rainbow flags, books with two daddies, or drag queens […] And now Derek’s in the Army!

    You might be wondering how he got there! Huffman was one of a handful of Americans and Canadians who move to Russia every year with poor-to-nonexistent Russian language skills who got persuaded by God and/or online Russian propaganda that the West is a sinking, sinful cess-hole. […] [Russian propaganda video, no subtitles]

    The Russian government even allotted land to build a safe-space village outside of Moscow for Americans fleeing “liberal gender norms,” though the government withdrew from the project after Huffman and one other family were the only takers.

    Huffman believed in the promise of Russia so much that he even joined the Army there, so he could get citizenship faster and without passing the language and Russian civics and history test, believing for some reason that he wouldn’t be sent into combat. He’d hoped his welding skills could be put to use making weapons […], or his vlogging skills would get him a job as a war correspondent.

    He also thought that he was only signing up for a one-year-tour. But oh baby, there’s no one-year tour in Russia! And either because the Russians deceived him (they would never!) or because his Russian language skills were bad, the Russian Ministry of Defense sent him directly to the front lines with barely any training and all of it in Russian, to serve a combat tour […]

    “He feels like he’s being thrown to the wolves right now, and he’s kind of having to lean on faith, and that’s what we’re all doing,” she said on their YouTube channel, HuffmanTime.

    Reports the Telegraph UK,

    Since then, there have been no new images or videos of Mr Huffman. The family commented on their YouTube channel that he was “doing fine”.

    However, a link on their channel, which has since been deleted, directed users to a Telegram group titled “Save that little girls”.

    Created on Sunday, the group contained one message: “We are asking the United States government to save this family,” along with a photo of Mrs Huffman and her daughters crying in the street.

    It is unclear if the family created the group. […]

    And then their channel was deleted.

    Also deleted, Patriot missiles going directly to Ukraine. Trump will be now selling, not giving, American weapons to NATO countries to pass along, at some point, after the details of the deals get finished, no big hurry, not like it’s life or death or something. And remember those extra sanctions Trump said Russia should get after Putin ignored the ceasefire ultimatum Trump gave them? Would you believe he’s chickened out yet again?

    Just like he has with Russia in every single encounter, ever since they meddled in the 2016 election to help him. Flashback to when he himself acknowledged that they did that! [video]

    Jeffrey Epstein had some interesting ties to Russia, including a possible spy who took money from him for “female empowerment” and hung around his mansion.

    […] the Senate, in some rare bipartisanship, was all set to pass new sanctions on Russia. But then yesterday Trump told the Senate to back off with that so he could have even more time to sweet-talk Putin. He’s just a sucker […]

    Russia and Ukraine are meeting in Turkey for their third round of talks, but Russia says not to expect any “miracles,” and is keeping on at bombing civilians, even targeting children with drones at playgrounds, hospitals and on the street. Because they are desperate, evil, and losing, weaker than ever, holding less Ukrainian ground now than in 2022.

    So, sounds like Derek Huffman’s tour of duty is going to be a long one, or a short one for very bad reasons. (A fake news making the rounds yesterday said it was “confirmed” he’d already been killed in action. That does seem to have been a fake news, and if he had been, it would be nothing to laugh at!) Hopefully it will end better for him than it did for Michael Gloss, the 21-year-old son of a CIA official who signed up to fight for Russia and died within months, or Russell “Donbas Cowboy” Bentley, the former Texan who joined the Russian army and then got tortured and killed allegedly by Russian forces who thought he was a spy. Then they blew up his body.

    Sometimes it does seem to turn out for expatriates, though. Remember those Canadians, the Feenstras, who fled Canada with eight of their kids because of the woke pride flags, and had to take down some of their complaints about having their bank account frozen?

    They’re still alive and posting, and daddy Arend is building a barn, and complaining, now that the government is not helping him buy a hay baler. [video]

    Not very communist of them.

    But here’s a tip, don’t believe everything you slooshish on the Internet, and if the Russian government ever hands you a contract, and you don’t read Russian, don’t sign it. Or do, because maybe the reason God called you to Russia is because He hopes to see you sooner! Or to haveth thou serve as a warning to others. […]

  442. says

    U.S.-funded contraceptives for poor nations to be burned in France, sources say

    “The supplies comprise contraceptive implants and pills, as well as intrauterine devices to help prevent unwanted pregnancies.”

    U.S.-funded contraceptives worth nearly $10 million are being sent to France from Belgium to be incinerated, after Washington rejected offers from the United Nations and family planning organizations to buy or ship the supplies to poor nations, two sources told Reuters. [!]

    The supplies have been stuck for months in a warehouse in Geel, a city in the Belgian province of Antwerp, following President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze U.S. foreign aid in January.

    They comprise contraceptive implants and pills as well as intrauterine devices to help prevent unwanted pregnancies, according to seven sources and a screengrab shared by an eighth source confirming the planned destruction.

    The U.S. government will spend $160,000 to incinerate the stocks at a facility in France that handles medical waste, according to four of the sources with knowledge of the matter, following Trump’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

    […] U.S. lawmakers have introduced two bills this month to prevent the destruction of the supplies but aid groups say the bills are unlikely to be passed in time to stop the incineration.

    The Belgian foreign ministry said Brussels had held talks with U.S. authorities and “explored all possible options to prevent the destruction, including temporary relocation.”

    […] The supplies, worth $9.7 million, are due to expire between April 2027 and September 2031, according to an internal document listing the warehouse stocks and verified by three sources.

    Sarah Shaw, Associate Director of Advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, told Reuters the non-profit organisation had volunteered to pay for the supplies to be repackaged without USAID branding and shipped to countries in need, but the offer was declined by the U.S. government. [!]

    “[…] We were told that the U.S. government would only sell the supplies at the full market value,” said Shaw.

    […] “This is clearly not about saving money. It feels more like an ideological assault on reproductive rights, and one that is already harming women.”

    She added that many countries in sub-Saharan Africa had relied on USAID for access to contraception and that the aid cuts would lead to a rise in unsafe abortions.

    The United Nations’ sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, also offered to buy the contraceptives outright, three sources told Reuters, without disclosing the financial terms of the proposal.

    However, negotiations broke down, a source with knowledge of the talks said, in part due to a lack of response from the U.S. government. […]

    […] MSI, which says on its website that it fights for a future where everyone can access contraception and abortion, accused the State Department earlier this month of being “hellbent on destroying life-saving medical supplies, incurring additional costs for the U.S. taxpayer in the process.” […]

    One of the two sources who told Reuters the stocks of contraceptives were being trucked to France said it would likely take dozens of truckloads and at least two weeks to move the supplies out of the Geel warehouse, with a third source also confirming the scale of the operation. The French government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    […] An internal USAID memo, sent in April, said a large quantity of contraceptives was being kept in warehouses and they should be “immediately transferred to another entity to prevent waste or additional costs”

  443. says

    Zelenskyy U-turns on anti-corruption agencies power grab after public outcry

    “Ukraine’s president introduced a bill reversing controversial changes to the agencies’ independence, two days after he signed them into law.”

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday backtracked on his controversial changes to the country’s anti-corruption agencies after outcry at home and abroad.

    On Tuesday, Zelenskyy signed into law a bill placing Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies under the authority of the president’s loyalist prosecutor general, which agencies said effectively destroyed their independence.

    Two days later, Zelenskyy introduced another bill reverting the changes, after he said Wednesday night that he “heard the public opinion.”

    The bill still has to be passed by the parliament, where, some activists warn, it risks being stalled by Zelenskyy’s own MPs.

    The course reversal comes after Ukrainians poured onto the streets for the first anti-government protests since the beginning of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, and European partners — similarly for the first time since 2022 — decried Kyiv’s actions.

    European officials warned that kneecapping anti-corruption agencies could cost Ukraine its financial aid and bid to join the European Union.

    Earlier on Thursday, Zelenskyy was still insisting that anti-corruption agencies were inefficient and needed protection from “Russian influence” — citing allegations that some agents collaborated with Russia, which critics argue were merely a pretext to undermine the agencies’ independence.

    Thursday’s bill strips the prosecutor general of the new powers over the agencies and introduces minor safeguards for law enforcement, such as additional polygraph tests for agents. […]

  444. says

    EPA’s Zeldin flunks the basics on carbon dioxide and the climate crisis

    “Carbon dioxide is essential for life, but despite what the EPA chief said, too much carbon dioxide does enormous damage. It’s not complicated.”

    In 2009, as congressional Democrats tried to advance a cap-and-trade system to address the climate crisis, then-Rep. John Shimkus made a memorable argument during a House committee hearing. Reducing carbon emissions, the Illinois Republican said, was a bad idea because it would mean “taking away plant food from the atmosphere.”

    A year later, then-Sen. Kit Bond pushed a similarly misguided claim. “Without carbon, my trees would die,” the Missouri Republican said. “Carbon occurs naturally.”

    At the time, GOP officials and industry lobbyists successfully pushed back against Democratic efforts — which, had they been enacted at the time, would’ve left the world in a better position now. Nevertheless, 15 years later, the deeply unfortunate talking point apparently hasn’t gone away. [video]

    During an interview with a conservative media outlet, Republican former Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Trump-appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, argued this week, “You have many on the left who will say carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and they won’t talk about all of the many reasons why carbon dioxide is actually quite essential for life here on our planet.”

    The New York Times recently noted that the EPA chief, who wasn’t considered especially radical during his congressional career, has evolved into a “full MAGA warrior,” and this quote helps demonstrate the point.

    What struck me as amazing about Zeldin’s comment is the degree to which an EPA administrator should know better.

    For one thing, no one is talking about banning carbon dioxide. The point, rather, is that as people pump too much carbon pollution, it creates a planetary environmental crisis.

    For another, the concept of “too much of a good thing” really isn’t that difficult to understand. Medicines can be incredibly powerful medicinal tools, but too much medicine can do dramatic harm. Giving people access to water is a good thing, but giving people too much water too quickly can be life-threatening.

    With this in mind, Zeldin is correct that carbon dioxide is essential for life on Earth. But despite what he told a national television audience, too much carbon dioxide does enormous damage.

    […] Does the head of the EPA genuinely not understand this […]

  445. says

    ‘That’s bullsh-t’: Pete Buttigieg slams Trump’s anti-DEI crusade

    Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on “The Breakfast Club” radio show Thursday to address the New York Post’s inflammatory claims that air traffic control upgrades were delayed because the Biden administration spent $80 billion on grants for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

    “Obviously, I think that’s bullshit,” Buttigieg said. “We’re talking about transportation funding that they’re now getting rid of. So, Milwaukee, 6th Street: We funded a project—$34 million—to help make a set of improvements to a very dangerous street where there’ve been a lot of crashes, and that has divided the community.

    He continued, “They’re also going to improve the sewer while they’re at it. I mean, this is bread-and-butter stuff that’s going to make the city better off. The Trump administration killed that grant because the application talked about ‘equity.’ It talked about one of the reasons for funding this project being that that neighborhood had been underinvested in.”

    Buttigieg went on to call out exactly what the Trump administration means when it calls something “DEI.”

    “When they talk about ‘DEI grants,’ often they’re talking about fixing roads and bridges that happened to go into a Black neighborhood or a low-income area,” he said. [video]

    Buttigieg continued to list a number of ways that the Trump administration’s racist application of “DEI” is unsafe for communities in need of infrastructure upgrades. He also noted that the NY Post article provided no evidence supporting its $80 billion claims.

    Buttigieg, who has gained a reputation for excelling in new media forums, also pointed out that his replacement at the Department of Transportation, former reality TV star Sean Duffy, was previously an airline lobbyist—while Buttigieg was a more stringent regulator of the airline industry.

    There’s a stark difference between an administration that believes the government should make everyday Americans’ lives better and one that aims to deify the wealthy.

  446. says

    The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked an appeals court ruling that would gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. [Hey, that is some limited good news.]

    The decision grants an application brought by Native American tribes, putting on hold the decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Justice Brett Kavanaugh had temporarily blocked the lower court ruling a day before it was due to go into effect, giving the justices more time to decide what next steps to take.

    The brief, unsigned order noted that three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch, would have denied the application.

    The case in question concerns a challenge by Native American tribes to a North Dakota legislative map that they claim violates the landmark 1965 voting rights law, which protects minority voters.

    But the appeals court ruled that private plaintiffs like the tribes cannot sue to enforce Section 2 of the law, an interpretation that would have far-reaching effects.

    If the Supreme Court were to embrace that approach and issue a ruling that would apply nationwide, it would mean only the federal government could bring such claims. But the decision to block the ruling suggests the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, may not be inclined to do so.

    Litigation will now continue in lower courts, with the case likely to again reach the justices at a later date through the normal appeals process.

    Lawyers for the two tribes, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and Spirit Lake Tribe, and three individual plaintiffs argue that the 2021 state redistricting map diluted the voting strength of Native Americans by packing a large proportion of those voters in one district and distributing others around several other districts, an approach known as “packing and cracking.”

    Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits such conduct, and a federal judge initially ruled in favor of the tribes in 2023. A new map was adopted for 2024 and three Native American candidates, including one of the plaintiffs, Collette Brown, were elected.

    But in May this year, the appeals court reversed course and declined to put its ruling on hold.

    The tribes’ lawyers had warned that if the Supreme Court did not block the ruling, Brown’s status as an elected representative would have been brought into question because if the 2021 map were reimposed, she would no longer live in her district as is required. […]

    Link

  447. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @438 birgerjohansson:

    Before his pro-Trump stuff, I might have been mildly sorry to see a part of the background of my youth disappear.

    How Hulk Hogan helped prevent Jesse Ventura from starting a wrestlers union

    “The Body” was able to join the Screen Actors Guild due to his role in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Predator” and wanted to bring that to his fellow wrestlers. […] “The next night I got a call from Vince who basically threatened to fire me if I ever brought it up again and read me the riot act,” […] Hulk Hogan had told him.
    […]
    “This was my friend. And I thought, ‘Hogan betrayed me? Hogan called Vince and ratted me?'” […] “Hogan continued to lie and said he didn’t do it. Well, in the trial, we got the records of WrestleMania III, the big one. Him and Andre.” Ventura continued, “Well, Hogan made more money than all of us combined, including Andre. So naturally, he didn’t want a union.”

  449. says

    NBC News:

    Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell as his department seeks the release of grand jury transcripts from the case against the late financier and convicted sex offender.

    I’m waiting for more new reports. What were the results of this unusual, and probably unethical interview?

  450. says

    Politico:

    A Trump-appointed judge on Wednesday dealt a blow to the White House’s bid to kick out labor unions from an array of federal agencies. Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas said that the Trump administration lacks the legal standing necessary to pursue the case it filed against the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest labor union representing federal workers.

  451. says

    New York Times:

    Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday formally rescinded federal recommendations for all flu vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that the anti-vaccine movement has falsely linked to autism.

  452. says

    New York Times:

    The Trump administration illegally withheld funding from a roughly $12 billion federal child care program known as Head Start, according to congressional investigators, who said that President Trump and his top aides had wrongly interrupted the flow of money enacted by Congress.

  453. says

    WTF?
    Reuters:

    Donald Trump ally and MyPillow.com chief executive Mike Lindell on Wednesday persuaded a U.S. appeals court to throw out a judge’s order requiring him to pay $5 million to a software developer who said he debunked Lindell’s 2020 election fraud claims. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis said an arbitration panel improperly interpreted the rules of a contest Lindell set up and oversaw challenging anyone to disprove his claims that Trump won the election.

  454. says

    John Roberts In Court Filing: I Manage the Judiciary, Not the President

    “The chief justice told a nonprofit founded by Stephen Miller that he would not cede control of the courts to Trump.”

    Back in May, a nonprofit with close ties to the Trump administration filed a curious lawsuit. It sued John Roberts and the body that operates the federal court system, dryly informing both the chief justice and the courts that they were mistaken in their belief that they controlled themselves: actually, the suit claimed, the White House controls them.

    America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 2021 by Stephen Miller to act as a MAGA version of the ACLU, concealed the claim in a FOIA lawsuit: it asked a judge to order the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and the Judicial Conference of the United States, the bodies that manage the federal judiciary, to comply with a records request. To achieve that relatively humble ambition, America First wanted the judge to make a wide-reaching finding: that the court system is in fact managed by the executive branch, and is therefore subject to FOIA requests.

    Roberts responded to this on Thursday, asking the judge to dismiss the case. He said what you might expect: that in fact he is the one who gets to manage the court system, not the White House.

    […] Congress acted very clearly, Roberts said: it gave the judiciary the authority to manage itself. Any argument to the contrary “is antithetical to Congress’s legislative purpose in creating those entities in the first place and should therefore be rejected.”

    Elsewhere, Roberts pushes back against various claims America First made when arguing that other features of how the courts are constructed and run mean they should be considered a part of the executive branch.

    Thursday’s filing is the kind of wholesale rejection of the claim that one might. expect. But it comes with some irony attached.

    Roberts and the Republican-appointed majority on the court have spent this year rejecting similar arguments when applied to independent executive branch agencies. As they’ve dismissed those arguments, granting more power to President Trump, they’ve carved out exceptions that make sense practically but which legal experts criticize as incoherent: the National Labor Relations Board may not be an independent agency, the court ruled in May, but the Federal Reserve is. (The conservative majority provided little legal reasoning for how this could be, and, in a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan archly noted “the creation of a bespoke Federal Reserve exception” among a host of agencies that had, to that point, been considered similarly under the law.)

    […] America First Legal was asking Roberts to apply the logic that had been used to decimate executive branch independent agencies to the agencies that manage the judiciary and, by extension, to himself. In another case, America First Legal used a similar FOIA claim to argue that the Government Accountability Office, a legislative branch agency, is actually an executive branch agency.

    In the background of all this is the administration’s ongoing campaign to intimidate the court system. It spent the first several months of the administration flouting court orders in high-profile cases and subverting them in lesser-noticed ones. […] DOGE threw a wrench in court operations and sent out mass emails to judges and other court staff demanding a list of their weekly accomplishments.

    When I showed the lawsuit to a series of law professors and other experts in this area in May, they reacted with a mixture of derision and horror, but emphasized one thing: the claim was as ridiculous as it was trollish. But, they said, its source — a nonprofit with close ties to the White House — and its aping of right-wing legal thought made it hard to ignore.

  455. birgerjohansson says

    Hulk Hogan vs Jesse Ventura

    Wikipedia:
    “Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends,[41] but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura’s attempt to form a labor union in 1986 before WrestleMania 2.[41] After a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, Ventura left the WWF in August 1990.”

  456. John Morales says

    Something different: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAXPUOFL12s

    Child Prodigy Hears “Crocodile Rock” (Elton John) For The First Time

    Watch as Jude Kofie hears one of Elton John’s most iconic tracks for the very first time – and brings it to life with his signature joy and creativity. Join us as he faces the challenge head-on, coming up with a piano part on the spot without ever hearing the song before.

    About Jude: Born with an extraordinary gift, Jude is a self-taught piano prodigy who is on the autism spectrum and has stunned the world with his natural ability and infectious energy. After being discovered online, his story captured the hearts of people around the world – and with the support of the music community (including a generous donation from a local piano tuner), Jude is now thriving with access to a home studio and mentorship from Pianote.

    Chapters:
    00:00 – Intro
    00:42 – Jude Hears Crocodile Rock for the First Time
    02:01 – Learning The Song
    03:10 – Jude Having Fun
    04:17 – Final Performance
    09:02 – Jude Hears the Original Track
    10:19 – Jude Learns Who The Artist Is
    11:01 – Bloopers

  457. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    @434 Lynna:

    DailyKos: The popular animated show “South Park” came gunning for President Donald Trump in the premiere of its 27th season

    The plot of that episode was a mess.
    The Teeny tiny peen PSA comes out of nowhere at the end.

    Trump is depicted in the style they did Saddam Hussein, another of Satan’s bedmates. Satan says they’re exactly alike.

    B Plot:

    Cartman: You’re not gonna believe this: the president of the United States cancelled NPR. […] the funniest show ever where all the lesbians and Jews complain about stuff. […] I’m worried about what this country’s coming to. […] suddenly woke stuff is off-limits.
    […]
    I think I know what’s happening. I think woke is dead. […] You can just say r—d now. Nobody cares. Everyone hates the Jews. Everyone’s fine with using gay slurs. […] it’s terrible cuz I don’t know… what I’m supposed to do.
    […]
    I’m not special anymore. So what’s the point in me even existing? I’m saying that it’s the end, Butters. […] If [woke] doesn’t come back by like Tuesday, I’m killing us both.

    [Idling in Butters family’s electric car with a hose in the window]
    Butters: I think I might be goin’.
    Cartman: Yep, sweet death is about to come.
    [Credits]

    A Plot: Jesus shows up in school; Randy’s kid is forced to accept him; town sues.

    News anchor: More protests today as the government pushes harder for Christianity in our nation’s schools. The president stated earlier today that the spirit of Jesus is important to our country, and he will sue anyone who doesn’t agree with him.

    Randy: What the hell is this president doing? He doesn’t even act like a Christian. Why is he pushing it on our kids?
    […]
    Darryl: I voted for him to get rid of all the woke stuff, but now that r—d f—t is just putting money in his own pockets!

    Gerald (lawyer): Are we just gonna sit here and let him break every rule of freedom?

    Randy: Well come on! Let’s go get that sob!

    Clips: Canada tariffs and a painting | There’s money in Christ | Walking the desert

    Clip: 60 Minutes and Sermon

    Randy: We aren’t gonna be told what to do by anyone.

    Darryl: We all know the woke stuff went too far, but the answer isn’t going too far the other way!

    Stephen: It’s not a bad thing to have a little compassion for people. It’s not a bad thing to care a little for the environment!

    ^ Jesus convinces the town to cave on their lawsuit, “or we’re going to get cancelled.” He too had been bound by Paramount’s agreement to show up at school because someone backed down, and now the president can do whatever he wants. It leads into the phone settlement and the PSA.

  460. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WaPo – ICE moves to shackle some 180,000 immigrants with GPS ankle monitors

    In a June 9 memo, ICE ordered staff to place ankle monitors on all people enrolled in the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program “whenever possible.” About 183,000 adult migrants are enrolled in ATD and had previously consented to some form of tracking or mandatory check-ins while they waited for their immigration cases to be resolved. Currently, just 24,000 of these individuals wear ankle monitors. One exception would be pregnant women, who would be required to wear wrist-worn tracking devices
    […]
    The expansion will drive business to Geo Group, the […] private prison conglomerate that previously employed at least two of Trump’s top immigration officials and donated over $1.5 million to the president […] The tracking program is entirely run by BI Inc., a subsidiary of Geo that got its start in the 1970s by selling a device farmers used to monitor their cattle. […] agency officials recently began looking for additional technology vendors because BI’s capacity may not be able to meet the agency’s full needs
    […]
    under [ATD], the vast majority, or 84 percent, are required only to check in virtually to a mobile app called SmartLINK, which uses facial recognition to confirm their identity and GPS to confirm their location at the time of their check-in, according to BI’s website and ICE data as of July 12. Ankle bracelets are used on just 13 percent of ATD participants
    […]
    At six ounces, it’s about the same weight as an iPhone. The devices are prone to glitches, have poor battery life, and sometimes leave bruises or rashes […] the metal band also came with a psychological burden. […] given a geographic area they cannot leave, which could be as small as a few-mile radius or as wide as several states.
    […]
    Much of [Geo’s] supply of the devices is old and in poor condition. […] With each case manager already overseeing as many as 300 participants at once, [BI’s staff] are already stretched thin [as of 2022].
    […]
    [One immigrant said] her 6-year-old son asked her about the black box he noticed strapped around her ankle. She told him it was nothing serious—knowing she couldn’t tell him the truth. If she loses her asylum case, she knows, the ankle monitor “makes it easier for them to find me and deport me.”

    Marisa Kabas: “Especially galling when the government is run by literal criminals.”

  461. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Correcting myself @457: Town of South Park calls Trump, upset about Jesus in school and wanting answers. Trump sues the town for protesting and making him look bad. Town settles.

  462. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Lynna @397.

    Kyle Cheney (Politico):

    Trump has withdrawn Alina Habba’s nomination […] part of a multistep maneuver intended to keep her in the position as acting US attorney beyond an initial Friday deadline. Here’s how it works:

    1) Habba resigns as interim US attorney, ahead of a Friday deadline.
    2) Trump withdraws Habba’s nomination to take the job permanently.
    3) AG Bondi appoints Habba First Assistant US attorney.
    4) Habba automatically becomes acting US attoreny bc of the vacancy.

    The reason Trump has to withdraw her nomination is because the Federal Vacancies Reform Act prohibits the nominee for a Senate-confirmed office from holding the post on an “acting” basis.

    ‪Steve Vladeck (Law prof):

    It says more than that. The President can’t appoint the “first assistant” to be the acting officer if her nomination was *submitted*, not just if it’s *pending*. Withdrawing the nomination doesn’t change the fact that it was submitted. This will be challenged.

     
    Mueller, She Wrote: “I think this is what he did with Sarcone in Albany.”

    NYT – Spurned U.S. Attorney clings to job by being appointed his own assistant
    * From a NYT article linked therein: “(Mr. Trump has not formally nominated Mr. Sarcone for Senate confirmation.)”

  464. StevoR says

    NASA scientists and engineers are demanding Congress help turn down the heat on an agency whose current leadership, they say, is burning down American dominance in space and science.

    A group of NASA employees, contractors, their families, friends and other supporters gathered across from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on July 20 — the anniversary of humanity’s historic first landing on the moon. Nearly 100 showed up Sunday to protest deep budget cuts and mass layoffs within the nation’s space agency, and to urge Congress to take expedient action to reverse or minimize further losses.

    “We are here because NASA is under attack,” said one of the protest’s organizers, NASA contract employee Marshall Finch. “And we are its defense.”

    Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/nasa-is-under-attack-space-agency-employees-and-lawmakers-protest-mass-layoffs-science-cuts-amid-budget-turmoil

  465. StevoR says

    Due toevo;lving and changing Dark Matterleading to a Big Crunch in this idea :

    Tantalizing evidence hints that dark energy might be evolving, leading some cosmologists to suggest that our universe will collapse in a “Big Crunch” sooner than expected.

    Over the past year, massive surveys of galaxies by both the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) have revealed that dark energy — the mysterious force that’s accelerating the expansion of the universe — might be changing with time. If this observation holds, it would be a paradigm-shifting result because it would mean our simplest model of dark energy, called the cosmological constant, is wrong.

    Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/astronomers-calculate-that-the-universe-will-die-in-33-billion-years-much-sooner-than-we-thought

  471. birgerjohansson says

    The Guardian
    UK ban on Palestine Action at odds with international law, says UN rights chief 

    .https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/25/uk-ban-palestine-action-odds-international-law-un-rights-volker-turk

    Cleo Laine, Britain’s most successful jazz singer, dies aged 97 |

    .https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/25/cleo-laine-britain-jazz-singer-john-dankworth-dies
    She became the only female artist to be nominated for Grammy awards in pop, jazz and classical categories; few singers have the versatility to deliver atonal Arnold Schoenberg pieces and
    to have duetted with Ray Charles.

  473. says

    Trump administration greenlights Paramount’s $8 billion merger with entertainment group Skydance

    Related video at the link.

    Trump administration regulators have approved Skydance Media’s $8 billion bid to acquire CBS News parent company Paramount, paving the way for a tectonic shift in ownership of one of America’s three major networks.

    The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that it had approved the acquisition, with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr adding in a news release that the move would bring change to the company’s news coverage. Paramount owns CBS, which includes CBS News.

    “Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change,” Carr said. “That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network. In particular, Skydance has made written commitments to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.”

    “Today’s decision also marks another step forward in the FCC’s efforts to eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination,” Carr added.

    In recent days, Paramount’s new owner made a number of concessions to the FCC, including agreeing to not implement any diversity, equity or inclusion programs. Skydance also said it would “undertake a comprehensive review” of CBS and “will commit, for a period of at least two years, to have in place an ombudsman.” That role would report to the president of the new company.

    A number of companies that have billion-dollar transactions pending before Carr’s FCC have also backed off of DEI programs, including Verizon and T-Mobile. […]

    More at the link.

  474. says

    Trump struggles with facts as Fed Chair Jerome Powell corrects him in real time

    “It was not a flattering moment for a president who routinely makes up figures but who is rarely fact-checked by his appointees on camera.”

    To an unprecedented degree, Donald Trump has lobbied his handpicked Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates. The heavy-handed tactics, which have unfolded in recent months in public and private, haven’t had much of an effect, which in turn has generated no shortage of frustration in the Oval Office.

    [Trump] has resorted to juvenile taunts and name-calling, publicly condemning Powell as, among many other things, a “moron” for failing to follow Trump’s misguided demands.

    Having exhausted his usual bullying tactics, the Republican and his team began exploring alternative ways to gain leverage over the largely independent Fed chair. Recently, this led the White House in an unexpected direction: Team Trump decided to focus on building renovations at the Federal Reserve, with the president suggesting that cost overruns might constitute grounds to fire Powell, who has ignored calls to resign.

    So on Thursday Trump made a historically unusual visit to the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., presumably to add a fresh round of pressure. This did not go as well for the president as it could have.

    During the visit, for example, Trump flubbed basic details about developments at the European Central Bank, which he pretended to know something about. Around the same time, Trump made specific boasts about the impact of a rate cut, which were quickly discredited.

    But those comments only set the stage for the pièce de résistance. As The New York Times reported:

    The chair of the Federal Reserve closed his eyes and shook his head. He was about to do something that few senior government officials ever do, at least in public: fact-check President Trump in real time.

    This is one of those stories in which watching the video is necessary to fully appreciate what transpired. [video]

    During brief remarks with reporters, the president, with Powell standing just inches away, declared that cost overruns on the project have reached “about $3.1 billion.” The Fed chair could be seen immediately and rapidly shaking his head, making clear to those in attendance that Trump was citing a number that wasn’t true.

    “I’m not aware of that,” Powell interrupted. The figure, the Republican responded, “just came out.”

    Moments later, Trump tried to justify his claim, pulling a document from his jacket pocket and handing it to the Fed chair. Powell quickly reviewed the data and noticed an important flaw.

    “You just added in a third building,” Powell said.

    “It’s a building that’s being built,” Trump replied.

    “No, it was built five years ago,” the Fed chair reminded him. “It’s not new.”

    Oops.

    It was not a flattering moment for a president who routinely makes up figures but who is rarely fact-checked by his own appointees on camera. Indeed, one of the more notable elements of the exchange was that Powell didn’t seem to care at all about Trump’s delicate ego or fear of public humiliation.

    As for the underlying issue, it’s true that the renovation project is over budget, but as The Associated Press reported last week, it was Trump appointees, not Powell, who pushed for elements that raised costs. [LOL and LOL again.]

  475. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @462. You were right.

    She’s Baaack! Trump Re-Installs Alina Habba as U.S. Attorney

    We’re not rid of Trump’s utterly unqualified former personal lawyer after all.

    By withdrawing her nomination to the permanent position, President Trump was able to reinstall Alina Habba as the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, where she can serve another 210 days. This maneuver allows Trump to bypass the choice of the federal judges in the district: a career prosecutor who was promptly fired by the Trump Justice Department when the judges elevated her. It also allows Trump to avoid having to get a nominee through the Senate confirmation process for what will end up being at least 330 days.

    The workaround is a bit complicated but probably legal. The key thing to know is that there are multiple legal bases for appointing an interim U.S. attorney. Habba’s 120-term, which ends today, was under one legal authority. Under another law, the chief deputy U.S. attorney is automatically elevated to the top spot for 210 days … but only if they themselves are not the nominee to the permanent position.

    So after Trump withdrew Habba’s nomination, Attorney General Pam Bondi made her the chief deputy in the office, which means as soon as Habba’s 120-day term expires, she is elevated to the permanent position. It’s a merry-go-round of Alina Habbas. Or a Russian nesting doll of Alina Habbas. Either way, it’s too much Alina Habba.

    A system that produces this outcome is, shall we say, problematic. And yet it’s another example of how holes in the system may be innocuous for years or decades until you get a bad faith rogue actor exploiting the system for their own gains with a powerful cult of followers unwilling to hold them to account.

  476. says

    Republican Con Artist From Queens Reports to Prison

    Former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) reported to federal prison on Friday, after pleading guilty in 2024 to identity theft and wire fraud, stemming, in part, from a spectacular straw-donor scandal that was dwarfed by his still-more-spectacular “entire life story” scandal.

    […] he has hinted in recent days that he may be killed in prison for what he knows. I don’t wish that on him, of course, but also don’t take it very seriously. Before becoming the first member of the House to get expelled from the chamber in more than two decades, he’d spent barely enough time in Washington to know where the Speaker’s Lobby is—let alone where the bodies are buried.

    […] When the New York Times first exposed Santos’ biography as largely fictitious after the 2024 election, a lot of people spent a lot of time asking how someone like this could win. There was, of course, a major failure from Democrats in New York to pick up on basic red flags over the course of two successive campaigns. And there was a failure by Republicans’ vaunted Nassau County machine to do the same before twice giving their official imprimatur to a man who lied about being both Jewish and the producer of the Broadway musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. These were fair questions, but they also tended to obscure a larger one.

    Some of the loudest voices in favor of expulsion were Santos’ fellow New York Republicans, eager to cast out their colleague as a MAGA imposter and condemning his lies and transgressions with unusual directness. It’s that age-old, never-quite-true maxim: This is not who we are. Because Santos was a relative nobody, his colleagues could be honest about who he was in a way that for nearly a decade they have never been about their party’s leader or, frankly, themselves.

    Santos’ fleeting ascent is no great mystery if you view it in the larger context of a party leadership that’s desensitized to scammers and a party base that’s uncommonly susceptible to them. His claims to have played varsity volleyball at a college he never attended are not so different from the president’s recent claim to have an uncle who taught the Unabomber at a college the Unabomber never attended. The president, of course, was convicted on 34 felony counts in 2024 of falsifying business records to circumvent campaign finance laws. His administration seems to lie about everything, as a matter of course. It requires more than a little bit of credulity to blame the rise of a transparent a grifter like Santos on bandwidth issues at the vetting department; “How could a con artist from Queens make it so far in Donald Trump’s Republican party?” is a question that seems to answer itself. […]

  477. says

    Deportation flights have begun to leave Florida’s immigration detention center, also known as “Alligator Alcatraz”, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Friday.

    Three flights operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have already taken off, DeSantis said. The first one had 100 detainees on board. It is not clear where the flights are going.

    “The flights are going, I think the cadence is going to increase, I think you’re going to see the numbers really go up dramatically,” said the governor at a press conference.

    […] “I don’t want it to be where illegals are just stored there, and then just kind of sitting. I want it to be where illegals are here, there’s an aggressive processing and an aggressive deportation schedule,” he continued.

    “Alligator Alcatraz” has been open since July 1 and now holds up to 2,000 undocumented immigrants. The center gets its name because it is located in the middle of the Florida Everglades and is surrounded by dangerous wildlife. It holds a 2-mile runway to facilitate deportation flights.

    Democrats have called to the facility to close, citing “cruel and inhumane stunt.” Other reports state that some cells contain up to 30 people crammed together.

    […] There is also speculation that undocumented immigrants are not receiving due process before being deported.

    When asked about immigration lawyers not having access to their clients, DeSantis answered, “The idea that somehow you need some elaborate process in some of those situations, it’s just not factually true in terms of the law.” […]

    Link

  478. says

    Angus King Learns Taking Advice From Josh Hawley Maybe Not Best Idea

    On Tuesday, Maine Senator Angus King did something fairly out of character — he voted to confirm 35-year-old anti-abortion-rights/anti-LGBTQ-rights nutter Joshua Divine to a lifetime federal judgeship. Why? Well, quite possibly for the worst reason anyone could do anything — he did it on the advice of Missouri Senator Josh Hawley.

    Of all people!

    “I took Josh Hawley’s advice,” King told Huffpost. “In retrospect, I think it was a mistake, from what I’ve learned about Mr. Divine since. But sometimes, you rely on your colleagues.”

    Sure, sometimes you rely on your colleagues! The ones with whom you agree on most things, the ones whose advice you generally respect! But is there ever, ever a good reason to rely on the advice of Josh Hawley? I guess if for some reason you were trying to arrange your face to make it look like you smell something bad literally all of the time? [Photo]

    Or if you were writing a dystopian novel about living in a Christian nationalist hellscape and needed someone on whom to base some sort of mid-tier villain? I could see that. Or advice on how to escape a rabid mob you’ve just fist-pumped before they went on to attack Congress? But a lifetime judgeship? That needs to be a hard pass.

    When asked if he was aware of Divine’s less-than-divine record on abortion rights, King said “not fully.”

    Divine, who had previously been Hawley’s chief counsel, will now sit, for the rest of his life, on a US district court in Missouri. He has a long history of having worked against reproductive rights and LGBTQ protections while solicitor general of Missouri — two causes that King has, historically, been on the right side of.

    Via Huffington Post:

    As solicitor general of Missouri, he led a major challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s decades-long approval of mifepristone, aka the abortion pill. He also defended his state’s efforts to block Planned Parenthood from getting Medicaid reimbursements, and defended his state’s extreme requirements for accessing abortion care, including making women endure mandatory waiting periods, ultrasounds and pelvic exams.

    Divine has gone after LGBTQ+ rights, too, when he defended Missouri’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors and represented the state in a case trying to challenge conversion therapy bans.

    As if that were not all bad enough (and it definitely is), he previously advocated for, swear to God, bringing back literacy tests. [!] [Screengrab]

    Literacy tests were, of course, banned in the 1960s because they were very clearly being utilized to keep Black people from voting.

    To be fair, Joshua Divine didn’t need King’s vote to get confirmed, as he had enough Republican votes anyway […]

    King is an independent who caucuses with Democrats […]

    Part of the reasoning behind voting for independents (at least in New England, where “registering as independent but still voting D all the way down” is a way of life) is the perception that they will more seriously consider each vote rather than just going along with whatever everyone else is doing.

    This would be the exact opposite of that.

  479. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/inside-new-york-citys-immigration

    A slew of federal agents and press have been waiting outside the doors of the immigration courtrooms in New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Federal Building for the past several weeks. The agents come from the alphabet soup of federal bureaucracy — Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and those are just the ones I could confirm on one day.

    The reporters are mostly freelancers, like myself, trying to tell some kind of story through print, still images, and video.

    […] Starting at 8 a.m., people classified as non-citizens of the United States start lining up on Broadway. They all have a piece of 8×11 paper. A court summons. Some carry folders, weathered attaches, or those cheap, brown accordion-style document holders. […]

    Outside the waiting room are about a dozen federal agents, photographers, and video journalists practically standing on top of one another in a narrow hallway. Some of the agents talk about protein shakes and supplements. Some of the photographers talk about past gigs.

    “Second I heard about this,” says one masked agent wearing an ill-fitting green CBP uniform. He snaps his fingers and says, “Mmmm!”

    The green man says he is from Florida, and that he is excited to be in New York. He is eager to see a concert with two storied punk bands, The Dropkick Murphys and Bad Religion.

    “I might skip Dropkick though,” he mutters.

    The mindless small talk is broken when one agent begins shouting, “Make a hole!”

    Suddenly there’s a frantic chaos. Agents surround a person and quickly lead them 50 feet from the waiting room over to Stairwell B. Sometimes they’re crying. Sometimes they’re angry. Sometimes they’re confused. The photographers, pressed against the wall, clamor to get the shot like paparazzi.

    “No, no, no, no, please no,” a woman tries. She digs her heels and drags her feet on the speckled white tile floor. It doesn’t matter. She’s pushed through the door to Stairwell B anyway.

    And when the door catches the latch, the camera shutters stop. The mindless chatter continues right where it left off. […]

    But if you listen closely, and tune out the noise, you can still hear the sobbing from Stairwell B. [photos]

  480. says

    Armed clashes set off by a century-old border dispute mark the worst fighting in decades between Thailand and Cambodia.

    At least 16 people have been killed in armed clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, as tensions over a century-old border dispute spiral into the worst fighting between the two Southeast Asian nations in more than a decade.

    Since fighting began Thursday, the two sides have been progressively involving heavier weapons, including artillery and rocket systems, with clashes expanding to 12 locations from six. Both blame the other side for starting the conflict, which acting Thai Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai warned Friday “could escalate into a state of war.”

    At least 14 civilians and one member of the military have been killed, the Thai Health Ministry said Friday, and more than 130,000 residents have been evacuated to temporary shelters. Cambodia reported one civilian death in the border area.

    Thailand has accused Cambodia of deliberately targeting civilians, while Cambodia accuses Thailand of using widely prohibited cluster munitions. On Thursday, Thailand, which has a far superior military, used a U.S.-made F-16 fighter jet to carry out an airstrike on a Cambodian military target.

    The United States, a longtime treaty ally of Thailand, has called for an “immediate cessation” of attacks. […]

    The conflict has its roots in the disputed 500-mile border drawn largely by France, Cambodia’s colonial ruler until 1953.

    Cambodia and Thailand have fought several deadly skirmishes since the border was delineated in 1907, particularly in the area surrounding the ancient 11th-century Hindu temple of Preah Vihear, which both sides claim as their own but was affirmed as Cambodian by the International Court of Justice in 1962 and again in 2013. Thailand rejects the court’s jurisdiction. [map]

    More at the link.

  481. says

    On Epstein, Senate Republican admits the party is trying to give Trump ‘cover’

    As observer asked, in reference to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, “What exactly do Trump and his administration need cover for?”

    Related video at the link.

    When it comes to transparency and disclosures in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, arguably no Senate Democrat has been as aggressive as Sen. Ruben Gallego. In fact, last week, the Arizonan became the first senator to push a resolution to formally demand the release of documents from the Justice Department.

    But because Gallego is in the Democratic minority, he had limited options to force a vote. He took the only credible step available to him: Last Thursday, Gallego went to the Senate floor and sought unanimous consent on his proposal. He knew, of course, that the effort would fail if only one Republican objected, and one did: Oklahoma’s Markwayne Mullin, an ardent Trump ally, balked.

    Seven days later, as NBC News reported, the two faced off again:

    Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., reintroduced a resolution [Thursday] afternoon calling on the Justice Department to release its files related to the Epstein probe. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., also on the Senate floor, objected to Gallego’s resolution and introduced his own nonbinding measure calling for unsealing all grand jury materials in the investigation of Epstein — which Gallego then objected to.

    In other words, Gallego rejected a narrow and toothless Republican alternative after Mullin rejected a more meaningful Democratic effort. [True]

    As part of the back and forth, however, Mullin made an off-hand comment that stood out. [video]

    “I’m sure this would be handled just like any other thing [the Democrats] have tried to go after like the baseless impeachments. Or the baseless special counsels. Or the unbelievable amount of charges they tried to file against the president,” Mullin said. “I’m sure this would be handled the exact same way. What we’re simply wanting to do here is give [Trump] cover.”

    For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that Trump’s impeachments weren’t “baseless.” Let’s also skip past the fact that the incumbent Republican president faced investigations from two special counsels — Robert Mueller and Jack Smith — and neither was “baseless.”

    Rather, I’m interested in the GOP senator’s acknowledgement that “we” are trying to give the president “cover” in the Epstein scandal.

    As The New Republic asked, “What exactly do Trump and his administration need cover for?” […]

  482. birgerjohansson says

    God Awful Movies just released the Patreon bonus episode about the “Hurry Up Tomorrow” film.
    Topic: “How lonely it is to be a rich concert musician and play to large audiences and have to sleep with his hot fans”.

  483. says

    The Trump Admin Gets Ready to Seize Congress’ Power of the Purse

    The Trump White House is […] hoping to extract a legislative stamp of approval for its efforts to impound funding that was previously authorized by Congress.

    This new request would come on the heels of congressional Republicans approving the administration’s first rescissions package, which made official $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting cuts and effectively rubber-stamped the Trump White House’s constitutionally backwards infringement on Congress’ power of the purse. […]

    But looming over the whole rescissions process are administration officials’ repeated threats to challenge the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) in court and to try out a maneuver that Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought has repeatedly previewed: so-called “pocket rescissions.” [Red flag]

    The term describes a loophole Vought and his allies believe they have found in the budgeting process that, they claim, allows them to declare congressionally approved funding rescinded if a rescissions package is sent to Congress close to the end of the fiscal year when funds will expire.

    A formal rescissions request starts a 45-day clock in which the executive branch is allowed to withhold the cash in question they asked to claw back. But if the request came in 45 days before the new fiscal year is set to begin on Oct. 1, Vought contends, the White House could withhold the money for that timeframe, regardless of whether Congress takes action on the package, and then claim that the funding is expired with the end of the fiscal year. [Sneaky!]

    “Normally Congress needs to say yes, unless you ask too late at the end of the year?” Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, asked sarcastically, summarizing the logic of pocket rescissions. “Like, give me a fucking break. It’s obviously illegal.” [Yes, it is.]

    […] The GAO, a nonpartisan legislative branch agency tasked with deciding if the president is impounding funds in violation of the ICA, has previously declared that pocket rescissions violate the law, and that “affirmative” congressional action is required to make any cuts official. A 2018 GAO report states, “amounts proposed for rescission must be made available for prudent obligation before the amounts expire, even where the 45-day period for congressional consideration provided in the ICA approaches or spans the date on which funds would expire.” [Yes]

    It is “illegal to do a pocket rescission, full stop” Kogan, who served in the Biden White House as adviser to the director of the OMB, told TPM. “It would undermine the entire intent of the law for it to be legal,” he said, referring to the Impoundment Control Act.

    ‘A Mistake’
    Some Senate Republicans are also advising Vought and the White House to steer clear of another rescissions package and to instead allow lawmakers to work within the appropriations process to make changes to federal spending.

    […] Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are saying the move is an attempt for Trump to grab more power and upend the historically bipartisan government funding process.

    “There’s a serious question about the legality but also a question about what the White House is trying to accomplish,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told TPM on Thursday in the Senate basement. “OMB Director Vought has said he thinks there’s too much bipartisanship in Congress and that he wants to use rescissions more aggressively as a way for the White House and only the White House to determine what laws are enforced in America. That’s not what the Constitution says.”

    […] And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said last week during a floor speech that Republicans “are using pocket rescissions to poison the bipartisan appropriations process” and “to break the law to steal funds that Congress appropriated.”

    “Worse, they’re letting Donald Trump decide for himself which programs to defund, and that puts everything at risk — health care, education, food assistance, public health,” Schumer added. “Everything — everything — becomes at risk.”

    The Prospect of the ‘Impoundment King’
    […] any package sent over to Congress over the next two months could be used by the White House to test its ability to do a pocket request due to how close we are to the end of the fiscal year — September 30.

    Kogan told TPM even if pocket rescissions were legal or one were to make the argument that they were, they would still be “unconstitutional” because they violate appropriations legislation that has been signed into law.

    “It would be unconstitutional because it would be granting the president the ability to change a law after the fact,” Kogan said. “In the line item veto act case the Supreme Court said you actually may not grant the president the power to unilaterally change laws after the fact.”

    […] “Allegedly, what we’re going to see is they’re going to cut education,” Kogan said, referring to a possible second rescissions package. “And any of the school districts or states or local governments that should have gotten the money will sue.”

    From there, the case is bound to end up in the hands of the highest court, he said.

    “It will go to the Supreme Court, and then hopefully the Supreme Court will rule the correct way,” Kogan said. “Hopefully the Supreme Court will not say that the President is an impoundment king, an appropriations king.”

  485. says

    The key detail about interest rates that Republicans should know, but don’t

    Monetary Policy 101 isn’t that complicated: If the economy is “hot” and “booming,” the Fed shouldn’t lower interest rates. Republicans keep flubbing this.

    In recent years, a surprising number of Republicans have forgotten who was president in 2020. Assorted GOP voices have insisted that Joe Biden was in the White House in 2020, but he wasn’t — a straightforward detail that the former Democratic president’s critics flub all the time.

    But this week, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner went even further, suggesting that Biden was also president in 2018. [video]

    “In 2018, [Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome] Powell brought down interest rates during the Biden administration, and then now he won’t even bring it down when the economy is thriving,” the HUD secretary said. “And so, I don’t understand it.”

    As the Cabinet secretary probably should’ve known, the Biden administration began in 2021, not 2018. Similarly, to suggest that Powell, who was appointed by Trump, has made rate cuts based on partisan considerations, instead of economic conditions, is wrong.

    But Turner’s other point was of even greater interest: He suggested it was inexplicable for the Fed not to lower interest rates “when the economy is thriving.”

    This has come up with surprising frequency of late. Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on CNBC and declared: “My opinion is that we should reduce interest rates. The American economy is hot.”

    This week, Donald Trump told reporters, “We want to see interest rates come down. Our country is booming.” A day later, Russell Vought, the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget, similarly endorsed lower interest rates during an appearance on CNBC, before adding: “America is hot right now.”

    […] Trump wants lower interest rates, and he wants the public to believe he’s delivering an economic miracle, so he’s pushing two contradictory points. Those who serve at his pleasure — or in the case of the House speaker, those who act like they serve at his pleasure — likely feel the need to stick to the presidential script for fear of being fired.

    But Monetary Policy 101 isn’t that complicated: If the economy is “hot” and “booming,” the Fed shouldn’t lower interest rates because it would cause the economy to overheat and push inflation higher. If, on the other hand, the economy is struggling and needs a boost, then the Fed should lower interest rates.

    Republicans, in other words, have a choice: They can either admit that the U.S. economy is falling short under Trump, creating a need for a rate cut, or they can claim that the economy is soaring, which would make a rate cut unnecessary.

    To argue both points simultaneously, however, is incoherent.

  486. says

    Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump’s war on homeless people

    Even in an era where every new presidential executive order is a body blow, […] Trump’s “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” is particularly awful. Ostensibly about “making America safe again and ending homelessness,” per the ever-mendacious White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, it’s nothing but criminalizing homelessness, substance use disorders, and mental health issues.

    And, like so many things in the Trump era, the right-wing justices on the Supreme Court cleared the way for this cruelty.

    The first part of the order purports to be about “restoring civil commitment,” which is nothing but a call for mass institutionalization of people experiencing substance use issues or a mental health crisis. […]

    Every state has laws providing for involuntary commitment, but those generally have far higher barriers to entry than those preferred by conservatives. What this boils down to is that right-wingers haven’t yet managed to figure out a way to arrest and imprison people simply based on their diagnoses, so they need a different approach. The approach here is just to demand that states lock people up anyway, albeit under the guise of “civil” commitment.

    But what to do with people who aren’t suffering an acute mental health crisis but are unhoused? How can Trump impose some sort of cruel incarceration on them as well? Well, by trying to force states and cities to criminalize urban camping, “loitering,” and “squatting.” The latter two are inflammatory terms meant to make it sound nefarious that the unhoused get to be out in public, standing around. [video]

    And here’s where the Supreme Court comes in. In 2024, the court decided Grants Pass v. Johnson. There, the conservative majority ruled that cities could impose criminal penalties on people sleeping or camping in public places, even if there were not enough available shelter beds. As repugnant as that decision was, it obviously couldn’t force states or municipalities to adopt those criminal penalties, and executive orders aren’t law, as much as Trump wants them to be. […]

    Never fear, though. The order has a solution. For grants from the Departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, or Transportation, priority will be given to states and municipalities that adopt policies making it easier to arrest the unhoused.

    That approach is unforgivable on its face, but it’s also bad policy. Any pretense that the administration cares about anything except cruelty is belied by the fact that it has already slashed billions from programs that help people.

    Conservatives loathe “Housing First” policies, which prioritize getting people into secure and sustainable housing where things like treatment options are available, but not mandated. Instead, they want people forced into a cycle of forced treatment and incarceration, their vision of the appropriate “punishment” for poverty. Housing First efforts result in better results for the whole community by providing housing stability.

    Conservatives also hate harm reduction efforts, which focus on lessening the harmful effects of substance use with efforts like providing fentanyl test strips or clean needles. Exposing people with substance use disorders to as much danger as possible should not be a viable policy position, but it is one held by a majority of conservatives. […]

    But hey, wait, conservatives love the troops, right? Surely they want to make sure that struggling vets get housing? Not so much. They’ve slashed programs that help vets pay for housing. And while Trump made a big splash demanding that the Department of Veterans Affairs house 6,000 unhoused veterans in West Los Angeles by the end of his term, there are no real details or money attached to making that happen. Also, good luck with that, given that overall cuts to the VA will help grind that agency’s effectiveness to a halt.

    Always money for cruelty, never for compassion. It’s the hallmark of the Trump era.

  487. says

    Education Department releases $5 billion to schools after monthlong hold

    The Department of Education announced Friday the release of more than $5 billion of funding to schools after an almost monthlong pause.

    At the beginning of July, the Trump administration paused the typical release of almost $7 billion in funding to schools that went toward after-school and summer activities, classes for English learners and adults and teacher preparation programs, among other things.

    Last week, the administration released more than $1 billion for after-school and summer programs but declined to say when the rest would be released.

    “OMB has completed its review of Title I-C, Title II-A, Title III-A, and Title IV-A ESEA funds and Title II WIOA funds, and has directed the Department to release all formula funds. The agency will begin dispersing funds to states next week,” said Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications for the Education Department.

    […] “Exciting news to announce! All frozen education funding for the upcoming school year have been released, following my letter to the OMB! It helps centers like @KidsCanOmaha and our schools!” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) posted. [snipped details regarding other Republican who supported release of the funds]

    The White House argued the funds were paused because some money was going to a “radical leftwing agenda.”

    […] The move received bipartisan pushback, with a letter from 10 Republican senators and a lawsuit from Democratic-led states demanding the funds be released.

    The pause in funds led to delays and closures in some programs and layoffs at schools in Alaska. […]

  488. says

    Merz and Starmer weigh Israel action after Macron turns up heat

    Pressure built on the U.K. and Germany to toughen their stances on Israel after Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize the Palestinian state.

    Leaders in London and Berlin are now seriously considering their own substantive action, despite the backdrop of conflicting domestic pressures — with a quarter of the population in Gaza facing famine-like conditions, according to a U.N. World Food Programme official.

    “The time has come to end the war in Gaza,” the leaders of the U.K., France and Germany said in a joint statement Friday. The “most basic needs of the civilian population, including access to water and food, must be met without any further delay.” An expected call between the three leaders Friday was postponed until the weekend.

    But while they are united on the urgent need for a ceasefire, any closer coordination remains difficult. Britain’s Keir Starmer and Germany’s Friedrich Merz have so far declined to follow suit on recognizing the state of Palestine — though both are searching for new ways to exert pressure on Israel.

    One way for Merz’s government to increase pressure on Israel would be a reassessment of blocking EU proposals to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which provides for close ties on trade and other areas of cooperation.

    The chancellor’s spokesperson told reporters Friday he is “prepared to increase the pressure if progress [on issues such as a ceasefire and humanitarian aid] is not made.”

    The U.K. has already imposed sanctions on members of the Israeli government, but Starmer is facing growing demands — including from a cross-party group of over 200 MPs — to join France in backing recognition of Palestine.

    Some believe Starmer’s caution is linked to his desire to maintain good relations with U.S. President Donald Trump, who is arriving in Scotland Friday on a visit to two of his golf courses. The U.S. has provided extensive military, financial and diplomatic support to Israel throughout the war.

    While Berlin indicated it may be ready to follow through with concrete measures against Israel for the first time and Starmer seeks to catch Trump’s ear, the question remains whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will heed any of these diplomatic levers. […]

    More at the link.

  489. says

    Scottish newspaper ‘welcomes’ “Convicted US Felon” Trump to Scotland

    Image at the link.

    […] The National newspaper, the voice of Scottish independence greeted Trump’s arrival with an an accurate potted biography of America’s most famous criminal. Here’s how they announced the arrival on Twitter: [social media post]

    The article itself is behind a paywall. […]

    Posted by a reader of the article:

    The Telegraph reports other examples of trolling trump with Epstein:

    Protesters sabotaged Donald Trump’s golf course in Aberdeenshire with a placard that claimed the luxury resort was “twinned with Epstein Island”.

    The stunt was staged by the political campaign group Everyone Hates Elon as the US president faces renewed scrutiny over his past links to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and sex offender who died in 2024.

    […] The group also claimed responsibility for placing an image of Mr Trump alongside one of Epstein at a bus stop in Nine Elms, London, near the US Embassy last week.

    It posted a video of the image being installed, saying: “It would be such a shame for Donald if this photo of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein appeared absolutely everywhere on his tour of the UK. It would truly be such a huge shame if everyone donated to make that happen.”

  490. says

    Third court blocks Trump birthright citizenship order nationwide after Supreme Court decision

    A third court ruled Friday that President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order cannot go into effect across the country, following the Supreme Court’s decision last month clawing back nationwide injunctions.

    U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, an appointee of former President Obama, found that the nationwide injunction he granted to more than a dozen states remains in effect because “no workable, narrower alternative” would provide the plaintiffs full relief — an exception laid out in the Supreme Court’s ruling.

    “Despite the defendants’ chosen path, the Court — aided substantially by the plaintiffs’ meticulous factual and legal submissions — undertook the review required of it by CASA and considered anew whether its original order swept too broadly,” Sorokin wrote in a 23-page opinion, referencing the high court decision.

    “After careful consideration of the law and the facts, the Court answers that question in the negative,” he said.

  491. says

    NBC News:

    Doctors, aid groups and Palestinians say the long-running hunger crisis has reached a tipping point, with deaths from malnutrition surging. In the past 24 hours, hospitals in Gaza recorded nine deaths from malnutrition, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Friday in a statement, bringing the total number of deaths from malnutrition since the start of the war to 122, including 83 children.

  492. says

    NBC News:

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to send $608 million to states to construct immigrant detention centers as part of the Trump administration’s push to expand capacity to hold migrants. FEMA is starting a ‘detention support grant program’ to cover the cost of states building temporary facilities, according to an agency announcement. States have until August 8 to apply for the funds, according to the post.

  493. says

    Reuters:

    U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said on Thursday he may initiate disciplinary proceedings against Justice Department lawyers for their conduct in a lawsuit brought by Venezuelans challenging their removal to a Salvadoran prison in March.

    Washington Post:

    It’s been nearly a week since Dahud Hanid Ortíz, sentenced by a Venezuelan court to 30 years in prison for a gruesome triple murder, was last seen publicly — grinning triumphantly as he arrived in Texas, having been freed through an expansive deal brokered at the behest of President Donald Trump.

    Since then, as the disturbing details of Hanid Ortíz’s past have come to light, the Trump administration has refused to disclose his whereabouts or explain why a convicted killer was included in a prisoner swap touted by the White House as fulfillment of Trump’s promise to liberate Americans wrongfully detained abroad.

  494. whheydt says

    Relatively minor, very local news…
    https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/rats-vallejo-ferry-terminal/

    The Vallejo Ferry Terminal has seen a rat infestation that has prompted an outcry from residents and ferry passengers on social media.

    Rats have been spotted in the trees and vegetation around the terminal and in the parking lots, passengers told CBS News Bay Area. Social media posts claim rats are often flattened by vehicles as they cross Mare Island Parkway in front of the terminal.

    On Thursday, one ferry passenger confirmed seeing two rats crossing the parkway as she and her sister sought a parking space.

    “Big ones. Running, crossing the street,” said ferry passenger Irma Urquidi, as she held up her hand to indicate the length of about a foot. “I said to my sister, ‘Two! Look at that, running!”

    Another ferry rider agreed with the size estimate and said they are attracted by the food selections available at the terminal and the trash left behind.

    “Big rats,” said the rider who identified himself as Terrance Doughboy Fresh. “They’re in the bushes, they climb up the trees, they come down the trees, they’re all in these bushes … If they were to cut this one down right now, you’ll see a whole colony.”

    The City of Vallejo issued a statement on social media Thursday acknowledging the severity of the infestation.

    “The City is actively monitoring this matter and recognizes the seriousness of the situation,” the statement said. “City staff are currently evaluating the issue, and they are working with a pest control contractor to provide a formal assessment.”

    The statement added that the pest company had to reschedule their appointment for Thursday, and the city was working to have them on site as soon as possible.

    They need some ball-bearing mousetraps. Some varieties can handle rats.

  495. John Morales says

    Get some cats in.

    If the cats become problematic, then get some dogs in.

  496. whheydt says

    Re: John Morales @ #495…
    Do you know what a “ball-bearing mousetrap” is?

  497. birgerjohansson says

    Much needed mental relaxation:

    “Goblin Slayer Abridged Movie: Gawblin’s Crown!!”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=gBq1WFTa8Ig

    A fan-made parody that is (mostly) without the original darkness and PTSD of the protagonist. All the members are gloriously messed up. The lizard priest is big on recycling dead people into skeletal warriors.

  498. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NBC – Kennedy considering firing members of preventive services task force

    considering removing all 16 members of a highly influential advisory committee that offers guidance about preventive health services, such as cancer screenings, HIV prevention medications or tests for osteoporosis, according to two people familiar with the plan.
    […]
    Earlier this month, Kennedy caused alarm among task force members after he abruptly postponed a scheduled meeting that was set to focus on heart disease and prevention. At the time, task force members weren’t given a reason for the cancellation or whether the meeting would be rescheduled.
    […]
    The task force plays an important role in protecting access to screenings and tests because the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, mandates that most private insurers provide the services that the group recommends to patients at no cost.

  499. John Morales says

    “Do you know what a “ball-bearing mousetrap” is?”

    No idea whatsoever, they’re usually spring or lever gravity powered, but cats for sure are a type of mousetrap.

    (They like their bit of torture, of course, but still)

  500. John Morales says

    Ah. Punnish — male cats have testicles. Right?

    (Thing is, female cats are also cats and also rat-traps — maybe depending)

    —

    Perhaps the pooches from the start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tff9l4r9NTo

    Fast action ratting with terriers

    1,294,886 views 27 Apr 2013
    Andy Crow is clearing the barn of straw which has become home to lots and lots of rats – and he wants them off the farmyard. As a final effort to get rid of as many as possible Andy has enrolled the help of a couple of terriers, a lurcher and a lab/springer cross. As he moves the bales the dogs and sticks start flying.

    This film was first shown in Fieldsports Britain episode 177. To watch the whole show go to http://Fcha.nl/fieldsportsbritain177

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