WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Justifying his characterization of Chicago as a crime-ridden war zone, Donald J. Trump claimed on Monday that thousands of the city’s residents were seen “running for their lives” over the weekend.
“They were running like dogs,” he said. “You’d run, too, if you were being chased by Antifa.”
Trump said that thousands of people running in the streets was a common occurrence in “Democrat cities,” noting that what happened in Chicago over the weekend has also taken place in New York and Boston.
A photo of the Chicago Marathon accompanies this Borowitz Report.
In other news, as reported by the Associated Press:
Israel and Hamas moved ahead on a key first step of the tenuous Gaza ceasefire agreement on Monday by freeing hostages and prisoners, raising hopes that the U.S.-brokered deal might lead to a permanent end to the two-year war that ravaged the Palestinian territory.
Other news, as reported by The Washington Post:
Media across the ideological spectrum said they will not sign the Defense Department’s restrictive new press policy by Tuesday’s afternoon deadline. The Washington Post, the New York Times and CNN said they wouldn’t sign, as did Newsmax and the Washington Times.
At least eight people were killed across rural Mississippi after shootings broke out in three towns on Friday night and early Saturday morning during the heart of high school football season. Two of the shootings, in Heidelberg, Miss., and Rolling Fork, Miss., occurred on public high school campuses that were hosting games.
New York Times:
Four people were killed and four others critically injured after an early-morning shooting on Sunday at a bar on St. Helena, an island off the coast of South Carolina, according to the authorities.
The 21 museums operated by the Smithsonian Institution, many of them top tourist attractions in Washington, were closed as of Sunday morning as the federal government shutdown stretched into its second week.
The White House on Friday released a memo from President Donald Trump’s physician summarizing his visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center earlier in the day, which included a Covid vaccine booster and a flu shot.
As reported by ABC News, the pope quoted Hannah Arendt:
Pope Leo XIV encouraged international news agencies on Thursday to stand firm as a bulwark against the ‘ancient art of lying’ and manipulation, as he strongly backed a free, independent and objective press.
[…] Trump traveled to the Middle East on Monday to mark the first phase of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, in which Hamas agreed to release the final hostages held captive in Gaza in exchange for Israel releasing detained Palestinian prisoners.
And true to form, Trump made the day all about himself, basking in the praise of Israel’s far-right leaders, who lamented the fact that Trump did not win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, said Trump should have won the Nobel Peace Prize, declaring in a speech that Trump is a “colossus who will be enshrined in the pantheon of history.” [Scoff]
“What the world needs now are more leaders who are brave, resolute, strong, and bold. The world needs more Trumps,” Ohana added of the U.S. president who has sicced the military on his own citizens and has turned Customs and Border Patrol agents into masked goons who violently arrest anyone they think looks Hispanic.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, gifted Trump a golden statue of a dove—another hideously ostentatious trinket Trump can add to the White House he’s defiled with tacky gold ornaments. [Yuck]
And later, Netanyahu bragged in a speech before the Israeli parliament that he nominated Trump for the Nobel and said it’s “only a matter of time” before Trump gets it.
Then in Egypt, where Trump traveled for a “Peace Summit,” Trump whined about not winning the prize—which was awarded on Friday to a Venezuelan woman fighting for democracy who dedicated the prize to Trump anyway for his “decisive support.”
“We have Norway. Oh, Norway, aye aye aye! Norway, what happened? Norway, what happened?” Trump said in a speech at the summit, referring to the country that awards the annual award.
In the same speech, Trump also made Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif go up to the podium to “say what you said to me the other day”—which evidently was a boatload of over-the-top praise about how Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. [JFC]
“I would say that Pakistan had nominated President Donald Trump for Nobel Peace Prize for his outstanding extraordinary contributions to first, stop war between India and Pakistan, and then achieve ceasefire along with his very wonderful team,” Sharif said. “And today again I would like to nominate this great president for Nobel Peace Prize.” [video]
Before his whining that he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize, he gave a speech in Israel in which he bragged about the weapons he sent to Israel that were used in their war against Hamas.
“Bibi Netanyahu would call me so many times asking for weapons I never even heard of, but we got them here didn’t we? You used them very well,” Trump said.
Trump also embraces dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin […]
And he embraces other world leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban—who has silenced dissent in order to remain in power. On Monday, Trump even took time to praise Orban, who he called “fantastic” and a “great leader.” [sheesh]
Indeed, when giving out this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the award committee described why Trump will never win the award.
“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist. Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended—with words, with courage, and with determination,” the committee wrote.
[Trump is a] man who is trying to silence dissent, imprison his enemies, and ignore laws to remain in power[…]
On Monday, President Barack Obama returned for an interview on the final episode of “WTF with Marc Maron.” The comedian and podcast host asked the former president his thoughts on Canada’s ability to reconnect with its core values in resisting President Donald Trump, compared to the United States’ more ambivalent reaction.
“The question has always been, can we pull off this experiment in which people are showing up from all over the place?” Obama explained. “They’re not tied together by blood. They don’t necessarily worship God in the same way—or worship God at all. They speak different languages. They have all these weird foods. They show up with these odd customs. And some of them were dragged here in chains and some of them had their land taken from them and their culture destroyed. And out of all that, can we create a shared creed that allows us to live peacefully together and get stuff done?” [video]
South Australia’s premier has questioned the use of the word “toxic” to describe the state’s ongoing algal bloom, despite the word being used in government advice and by scientists researching it.
“A lot of people refer to the algal bloom as the ‘toxic algal bloom’ — it’s not toxic,” Peter Malinauskas told ABC Radio Adelaide.
For those who have forgotten or are unaware, stacks of dead sea life of all varieties have been washing up on South Aussie beaches for months now.
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #5….
The obvious solution is to ban high school football (and bars).
(Do I really need a sarcasm tag? Though to be fair, banning competitive high school–and college–football does have considerable appeal…)
StevoRsays
Deadly clashes between Hamas and a rival clan broke out in Gaza City on Sunday as the Palestinian armed group fought to restore order in the enclave, as Israeli forces withdraw from areas under its control.
Dozens of people were reportedly killed and others were wounded in gun battles between Hamas security forces and fighters linked to the powerful Doghmush family in the Sabra neighbourhood in the south of the city.
…(Snip)..
..In the days leading up to the ceasefire, Hamas fighters were reported to have clashed with members of the Al-Mujaida clan in Khan Younis.
Dozens of people were reported killed and injured in the violence on 3 October, which followed a series of tit-for-tat killings and kidnappings between the two groups.
Members of the Al-Mujaida family have ties with Hamas’s main Palestinian rival, Fatah.
Hamas has had an uneasy relationship with the Doghmush family since coming to power in Gaza almost two decades ago.
Clan members have associated with officials in Fatah and founded the jihadist group the Army of Islam, and Hamas has accused both families of collaborating with Israel.
SpaceX’s Starship , the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, aced a suborbital test flight today (Oct. 13), following up on a similar success in late August.
Today’s mission, which lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas, was the 11th overall test flight for the Starship program. It was also the final launch of the current version of the giant vehicle, which will soon be replaced by an even larger variant. And this swan song was a memorable one.
A “dark object” detected as an anomalous notch in the arc of a gravitationally warped section of space, could be the smallest clump of pure dark matter yet found.
If so, it would further validate the concept of cold dark matter and will help constrain the properties of dark matter particles as physicists and astronomers continue to hunt for what exactly the invisible substance is made from.
Jimmy Kimmel:
“Bill Murray on Turning 75, Performing with MC Hammer & Giving His Mom a Credit Card After He Got SNL ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=aXo9qAZ5TAk
BTW my pattern recognition function is flawed, I kept confusing Tom Hanks with Bill Murray (and many other pairs of celebrities).
The group, Alliance Defending Freedom, has taken its playbook to Britain and has rapidly established itself as a power broker between the country’s rising populist movement and President Trump’s Washington. They are catalyzing Reform U.K., Britain’s fastest growing political party that is seeking to upend the Conservative Party with an agenda centered on anti-establishment and anti-immigration sentiments. The A.D.F. is guiding its leadership even further to the right, on a conservative Christian agenda similar to the one that is sweeping through the United States.
I think the ADF are deluded if they believe a “conservative Christian agenda” is going to fly in the UK. Farage will gladly take their money, and he wants to reduce the time limit for legal abortion, but he’s not idiot enough to make it a central plank of Reform UK policy.
KGsays
Sorry, the quote @23 is from the NYT, quoted by Lynna, OM@486.
Trump picks a bad time to set vivid example of authoritarian self-dealing
Video is 7:04 minutes
Historic turnout expected for nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump overreach
Video is 5:18 minutes
Rambling Trump accidentally reopens questions about an election payoff
Video is 7:56 minutes
Rachel Maddow retraces civil rights leader Andrew Young’s legacy in new documentary
Video is 6:42 minutes
Maddow: Trump wants to terrify with indictments, but it will unify opposition
Video is 6:17 minutes
birgerjohanssonsays
Today marks 14 years since Barack Obama hit an American teenager with a missile.
Remember, Obama created the pecedent for murder without trial.
I despise US politicians.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/17E7nKHN8f/
birgerjohanssonsays
Trump IMMEDIATELY Chickens Out After Threatening China
“In several key recent decisions, Bondi was on the outside looking in, sparking new speculation about the White House’s control over Main Justice.”
When Donald Trump made it clear that he wanted the Justice Department to go after former FBI Director James Comey, the president faced a fair amount of resistance from officials who were ostensibly members of his own team.
For example, Erik Siebert, the Trump-nominated U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, refused to pursue the case. Career prosecutors similarly explained in detail and in writing that the evidence didn’t support charging Comey. Even John Durham, a Trump-appointed special counsel, reviewed the allegations and opted not to follow through on them.
But perhaps most notably, there were multiple reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi herself was not on board with charging the former FBI director and had voiced concerns behind the scenes.
The president orchestrated Comey’s indictment anyway. [True]
Two weeks later, Bondi was also apparently on the outside looking in when the next member of Trump’s enemies list was also charged. The New York Times reported:
Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy were not given notice that a Trump-allied prosecutor in Virginia planned to indict Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, for bank fraud on Thursday afternoon, according to people familiar with the matter.
[…] there were related reports from CNN and ABC News, both of which concluded that the attorney general was “caught off guard” when her own Justice Department indicted New York’s Democratic AG, thanks to the work of Trump’s handpicked U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, who apparently didn’t keep Bondi in the loop.
It’s possible, of course, that there were some breakdowns in communication within an administration known for chaos and incompetence, but a pattern does appear to be coming into focus:
– Bondi reportedly went to bat for Siebert, urging the White House not to fire the Trump-nominated U.S. attorney. The prosecutor was ousted anyway.
– Bondi reportedly cautioned against indicting Comey. He was charged anyway.
– Bondi reportedly wasn’t even notified about the indictment against the New York attorney general.
– It was Trump, not Bondi, who was reportedly responsible for choosing Halligan as the U.S. attorney in Virginia.
It was also Trump who barked orders at Bondi about the political enemies he expected the Justice Department to pursue.
– The Wall Street Journal reported that it’s the president, and not the attorney general, who “calls the shots” at the Justice Department. [!]
In recent months, there have been a great many questions about whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is actually in charge of his department, with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington suggesting during one recent hearing that he might not be the one “making decisions” at his agency. Soon after, there were related questions about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the degree to which the White House is in control at the Pentagon.
It hardly seems unreasonable to wonder whether Bondi belongs on the same list.
I come to the conclusion that Pam Bondi is almost powerless, that Trump is running the Justice Department … and that Trump’s lackeys like Bondi are still trying to suck up to Dear Leader.
“GOP officials in North Carolina aren’t just eager to make their gerrymandered map even worse, they’re also peddling a bizarre lie to defend the effort.”
Related video at the link.
By any objective measure, North Carolina Republicans have already imposed a heavily gerrymandered district map on the state’s citizens. Princeton University’s Gerrymandering Project recently gave the state’s map an “F” rating, and the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that North Carolina’s district lines reflect some of “the most extreme levels of partisan bias” in the country. [!]
Democrats still hold four of the state’s 14 congressional seats — despite relative parity on overall vote totals — which has apparently led GOP officials in Raleigh to conclude that a bad map can still be made worse. The New York Times reported:
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina announced plans on Monday to redraw the state’s already gerrymandered congressional maps to further favor their party. It’s the latest effort to help the Trump administration retain control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections next year. Phil Berger, the State Senate leader, and Destin Hall, the speaker of the State House of Representatives, said in a joint statement that they would hold votes next week on the rare mid-decade redistricting effort.
North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Josh Stein, was elected last fall, but he won’t have legal authority to block this partisan scheme: Under the state Constitution, a governor cannot veto redistricting plans.
In other words, if Republican state lawmakers want to follow through on their plan to abuse their power, there isn’t much of anything Democratic officials can do to stop them.
By way of a defense, the GOP chairs of the legislature’s redistricting panel issued a written statement to explain their motivation. “We’re stepping into this redistricting battle because California and the radical left are attempting to rig the system to handpick who runs Congress,” Republican state Reps. Brenden Jones and Hugh Blackwell argued. “This ploy is nothing new, and North Carolina will not stand by while they attempt to stack the deck. President Trump has called on us to fight back, and North Carolina stands ready to level the playing field.”
In other words, poor, unsuspecting Republicans are the victims of an outrageous Democratic assault, and North Carolina has a responsibility to help put things right.
This is, of course, shamelessly ridiculous.
While gerrymandering is a phenomenon that’s nearly as old as the United States — even predating the modern Democratic and Republican Parties — it was GOP officials in Texas, acting at Donald Trump’s behest, who got the ball rolling a few months ago on the latest redistricting fiasco, rigging the Lone Star State’s map to give Republicans five additional seats.
Democrats in California felt the need to respond and launched an effort (which has not yet passed) that would create five additional Democratic seats in the Golden State, specifically to match the Texas gambit.
Undeterred, the White House told Republican officials in Missouri to further gerrymander their map — predictably, they obeyed, resulting in one additional GOP seat — and Team Trump is still trying to orchestrate a related scheme in Indiana. [!]
So the idea pushed by North Carolina Republicans that “the radical left” is trying to “rig the system” and “stack the deck” is completely contradicted by reality. That GOP officials in the state are cynically trying to deceive the public with lazy lies does not, however, mean they won’t succeed. [Unfortunately true]
Realistically, North Carolina Republicans might be able to squeeze out another Democrat or two, which might seem like a lot of effort for a modest payoff. But let’s not forget that the GOP majority in the U.S. House is already tiny, and if historical patterns hold true, Democrats are likely to make meaningful gains in the 2026 midterm cycle.
And so a multifaceted partisan scramble is underway, with Trump and his allies targeting mail-in ballots, voter-ID laws, the census, voter registrations and indefensible gerrymandering — not because it’s responsible, and not because it’ll benefit the public, but because of Republicans’ desperation to hold onto power and prevent Democrats from gaining a toehold that might lead to some degree of accountability for the president.
The stakes, in other words, are high, and if the redistricting arms race can result in a net gain of a half-dozen or so seats for the GOP — in effect, ensuring wins before voters can even cast their ballots — it might very well keep Republicans in power for the rest of the decade, no matter what the American people actually want. [!]
“[Presdent Trump] was overheard arranging a meeting between Prabowo Subianto and Eric Trump, who runs the Trump’s family business.”
Related video at the link.
There’s always something special about “hot mic” incidents. Most public figures prefer to avoid self-imposed controversies, so they tend to be guarded and cautious in public, recognizing the importance of staying on message.
But when they’re overheard on a live microphone, the public gets to hear these prominent voices speak their minds, unaware that their comments will reach a broad audience. The result is something most of us rarely get from political figures: unvarnished candor.
This week offered a classic of the genre. Reuters reported:
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto asked U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday if he could meet with Trump’s son Eric, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, according to comments by the leaders picked up by a microphone after Trump had addressed a Gaza-focused summit in Egypt. Trump and Prabowo, who were also seen on video, appeared to be unaware that a live microphone was recording their conversation.
In context, Trump was in Egypt to deliver remarks to an international audience regarding the ceasefire agreement in Gaza. As part of the gathering, the American president interacted with a variety of global leaders, including Subianto — who apparently had a request unrelated to the topic at hand. [social media post and video]
The audio is a little tough to make out, but the Indonesian leader clearly asked the Republican, “Can I meet Eric?” Trump apparently responded that he’d have his son call Subianto.
[…] While their collective reluctance to talk about this was understandable, the circumstances were far from ideal: Eric Trump has no role in the United States government. There is no reason why the American president would use an international gathering to help arrange a meeting between one of his adult sons — who, incidentally, runs Trump’s family business — and the head of state of a foreign country.
What’s more, let’s also not forget that just 11 days before the Indonesian president said he wanted to “meet Eric,” Eric Trump posted an item to social media bragging about a resort called Trump International Lido, which he said “offers an unrivaled golf experience set against the most majestic mountains and backdrop in Indonesia.” [!]
What are the odds that congressional Republicans, who practically hyperventilated for years about business deals involving members of Joe Biden’s family, might take an interest in this? What do you suppose those same GOP members would do if a foreign head of state were overheard asking Biden at an international meeting, “Can I meet Hunter?”
[…] If North Carolina passes a new map, it would become the latest GOP-controlled state to abruptly redraw its lines in order to squeeze out more seats for Republicans—an effort to prevent Democrats from taking control of the House in the 2026 midterms.
Texas, Missouri, and Utah already redrew their districts to benefit Republicans.
Meanwhile, Ohio Republicans are expected to pass a new map before the end of November.
Kansas Republicans are also gearing up to try to redraw their House district lines, as are Republicans in Indiana, Florida, and Nebraska.
“The Republican president, at a moment he perceived as a triumph, traveled halfway around the world and smeared prominent Americans he doesn’t like.”
The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas is obviously a development worth celebrating. The details are still rather scarce; there’s still a lot of work left to be done; and there’s no shortage of uncertainty about the next steps; but hostages are now free and the deadly violence has been paused. That’s obviously good news.
With this in mind, Donald Trump started the week in the Middle East, claiming credit for the long-awaited diplomatic breakthrough. The American president could’ve seen this as an opportunity to position himself as a leading international statesman, but instead Trump decided to bring some of his worst habits to an international stage.
At a press gaggle in Egypt, for example, Trump boasted about a meeting he had with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi nearly a decade ago. “We knew each other from the beginning,” the Republican said. “The first time we met it was at a hotel and I was going to meet him and then Hillary Clinton was following me. You remember? Hillary Clinton. And he liked me so much he never even got to see Hillary. … [Sisi] didn’t want to waste a lot of time. He knew what was going to happen.”
The story was imaginary — at the time, Sisi met with Clinton before speaking to Trump [!], huddling with the then-Democratic candidate for more than an hour — but just as notable was that Trump thought it’d be a good idea to use this platform and this moment to peddle nonsense about his 2016 rival.
And then he did it again. At the agreement signing later in the day, Trump turned to the Egyptian president and asked if he’d heard of “crooked Hillary Clinton.”
The ugly rhetoric didn’t do the Republican any favors — he looked ridiculous on foreign soil attacking former foes back home in his own country for no reason — but it wasn’t his only rhetorical shot at Americans he doesn’t like. NBC News reported on the president’s addresses to the Israeli Knesset:
In an apparently unscripted aside, Trump denigrated two of his predecessors in the Oval Office. He referred to former President Joe Biden’s administration as the worst in U.S. history, then said former President Barack Obama was ‘not far behind.’ … He later accused both presidents of a ‘hatred toward Israel,’ faulting Obama for signing a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
As part of the offensive, Trump even whined about Obama doing “nothing” with the Abraham Accords. (The diplomatic agreements were reached in 2020. Obama did “nothing” with the accords because he left office in January 2017 and lacked access to a time machine.)
At this point, we could talk about how the international nuclear agreement with Iran actually benefited Israel. We could also talk about the fact that both Obama and Biden maintained strong ties to Israel throughout their terms. We could talk about the fact that Trump has already locked up the race for worst president in history.
We could also take a moment to note that while Trump was eager to brag about the release of Israeli hostages in recent days, it was Biden and his team who negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas five weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks two years ago, securing the release of 105 hostages — developments that have apparently been lost to memory. [!]
For that matter, we could even talk about the fact that Biden and his team drafted a credible peace plan between Israel and Hamas in January, which Trump and Israel ultimately squandered, leading to eight additional months of deadly conflict.
But as notable as each of these elements are, the one thing that I still can’t get over is that the Republican president, at a moment he perceived as a triumph, traveled halfway around the world and smeared prominent Americans he doesn’t like for no reason. […]
“Remember 11 years ago, when the right pushed a paranoid threat about the imposition of Islamic law on Americans? Evidently, the absurd fear is back.”
A couple of months ago, Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen held a public event with voters in his Oklahoma district, and the congressman delivered a curious warning about Islamic law. “You’ve got Sharia law trying to be established in America today,” Brecheen declared.
When I first saw this in August, I laughed to myself, made a note about GOP politicians who still think it’s 2014, and moved on.
What I didn’t realize was just how many other Republican officials were thinking along the same lines.
As this week got underway, for example, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama published an item via social media that read, “BAN SHARIA LAW. It has NO PLACE in America.”
Four days earlier, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also argued via social media, “Sharia law has no place in the USA and is incompatible with the Constitution.” The Republican governor’s missive appeared alongside a related item about a legislative effort in the Sunshine State to ban Sharia law.
Two weeks earlier, Republican Rep. Chip Roy, who’s currently running for state attorney general in Texas, argued during a Fox Business appearance, “I don’t think Texas should be subject to the advancement of Sharia.”
Two days earlier, even Donald Trump condemned Sharia law during his bizarre remarks at the United Nations General Assembly.
[…] between 2011 and 2015, the threat of “creeping Sharia law” became quite common in far-right circles, before eventually getting picked up by some Republicans eager to score points with the most rabid elements of the GOP base. (Newt Gingrich, for example, included an anti-Sharia provisions in his 2012 presidential platform.)
The basic idea behind this paranoid nonsense was that Americans needed to fear the demise of the separation of church and state, which would give way to the imposition of Islamic rules on the public against Americans’ will.
State-sanctioned Sharia law did not and does not exist (at least not in this country), and the idea that government officials would impose Sharia on the populace was obviously silly. But at the time, too many Republicans and their allies took all of this quite seriously, as part of a bizarre campaign to scare people and turn Muslim Americans into a threat in need of government action.
All of this, of course, predated Trump’s trip down the golden escalator, which ushered in a new era of Republican politics with a different cast of villains.
The fact that this anti-Sharia nonsense is apparently back suggests that the GOP’s existing list of boogeymen isn’t delivering the kind of results the party wants to see [LOL, true.], so at least some Republicans are turning back the clock, pointing anew to an old threat that still does not exist.
t was almost exactly a year ago, as Election Day 2024 approached, when House Speaker Mike Johnson unexpectedly targeted the Affordable Care Act, telling a Pennsylvania audience to expect “massive” health care changes in the United States if Donald Trump returned to power. “Health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda,” the GOP leader added.
The House speaker later claimed that he was taken out of context, but a video from the event didn’t do him any favors. When an attendee asked at the event, “No Obamacare?” Congress’ top Republican leader replied, “No Obamacare.”
A year later, the Louisiana congressman is still leaning into his opposition to the ACA. NBC News reported on developments on Capitol Hill as this week got underway.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., slammed the expiring Obamacare subsidies at the center of the government funding standoff as a ‘boondoggle’ as the shutdown approaches the two-week mark with no end in sight. … The speaker said Monday that at a minimum, ‘If indeed the subsidy is going to be continued, it needs real reform.’
The House speaker didn’t elaborate on what, precisely, “real” health care reform might look like, though given the larger context, he probably meant “reform that Republicans like.”
For good measure, Johnson went on to tell reporters that the ACA was created in a “really sinister” way, adding, “I believe Obamacare was created to implode upon itself, to collapse upon itself.”
I’ll confess, I’ve been covering the fight over the Affordable Care Act closely since its inception, and I thought I’d heard just about every GOP attack imaginable, but the idea that Democrats deliberately set up their own health care reform law to “implode” is new — creative and bonkers in equal measure.
Nevertheless, Johnson’s rhetoric came on the heels of his fellow Republican leader, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, declaring that for 90% of the GOP conference, the ACA is a “sinkhole” and a “failed product.”
For some readers, this might seem anodyne and predictable. After all, “Republicans don’t like Obamacare” isn’t exactly stop-the-presses news.
But let’s not miss the forest for the trees: As the ongoing government shutdown begins its third week, Democrats’ position boils down to: “We need to protect the Affordable Care Act from Republicans who oppose the system and want to undermine the needs of the millions of American families who rely on it.”
GOP leaders, meanwhile, are effectively replying, “Yep.”
As for the political impact, The Washington Post reported this week on the broader fight, noting that Republicans have tried more than 70 times over the past 15 years to weaken or kill the ACA — and their campaign against the popular and effective reform law “keeps backfiring.”
The article included this anecdote:
Longtime Florida insurance agent Alan Reynolds, 65, predicts many of his customers will allow their policies to lapse when the price hikes become clear. An independent who leans conservative, Reynolds, of Port St. Lucie, called the Affordable Care Act flawed but said he favors the continuation of the enhanced subsidies ‘and not pulling the rug out from under people.’
The Post’s piece went on to note that the insurance agent’s own family will likely be affected, with monthly coverage costs that will more than double for his family if Republicans refuse to protect the existing subsidies.
“I voted for Trump,” Reynolds told the Post. “I didn’t expect this.”
To hear him tell it, Gavin McInnes’ recent return to the site formerly known as Twitter is the result of a collaborative effort that included leading members of the British far right and Elon Musk.
[…] McInnes was originally suspended from Twitter in 2018 amid concerns about the activities of the group he founded, the Proud Boys, and other violent right-wing extremist organizations. The ban came after the Proud Boys, with their staunch support for President Trump and their trademark yellow and black polos, had become a nearly ubiquitous presence at street protests where they often brawled with political opponents.
Later that year, McInnes publicly stepped down from his position as leader of the group, in part due to a wave of prosecutions. The crackdown on the Proud Boys reached its peak after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, when several of the group’s leaders and members received lengthy prison sentences for their role in the violence.
Today, with Trump back in office, things are very different.
[…] In a pair of interviews with TPM, McInnes and another key Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio, discussed their roles in the organization, their recent connections with Musk and the president […]
Back Online
Few things illustrate the larger cultural shifts that have ushered in this new era for the Proud Boys as clearly as Musk’s transformation of Twitter.
[…] With the right wing ascendant […] McInnes has new high-powered allies, his social media account restored, and an emboldened public posture. […]
“There’s very little divide between the people already in politics and what the Proud Boys represent, which is political violence against dissenters.” —Andy Campbell, author of “We Are Proud Boys”
[…] On Sept. 18, eight days after the Charlie Kirk shooting, McInnes weighed in on the brief suspension of the late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! […] McInnes’ take on Kimmel and the broader effort to silence Kirk’s critics was, like so much of his output, a combination of hard-right politics, bravado, and violent threats. […] “Fuck you. You kicked me in the balls, I gouge out your fucking eyes.” […]
McInnes’ rant apparently struck a chord with many on the right — including Musk.
A few days before McInnes made his post, he attended “Unite The Kingdom” in London, a rally hosted by British nationalist Tommy Robinson that featured an unruly march with over 100,000 people and a video message of support beamed in from Musk. According to McInnes, he and right-wing vlogger Carl Benjamin connected at an afterparty for the event and Benjamin promised to “fix” his Twitter ban. As McInnes’ take on Kimmel gained traction in right-wing circles, Benjamin shared it in an X post addressed to Musk’s handle on the site.
“Gavin McInnes ought to be restored @elonmusk. He’s no more extreme than anyone else, and has been in the wilderness way longer than everyone else, too,” Benjamin wrote.
Some 30 minutes later, Musk responded.
“What’s his handle?” the billionaire asked.
By the next day, McInnes’ account on the site was reinstated. […]
McInnes was less certain about inviting Musk to drinks with the Proud Boys, noting one of the group’s initiation rites involves being repeatedly punched. […]
TPM pointed out that Musk previously claimed he was ready to fight his fellow billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. McInnes changed his tune.
“Oh yeah,” McInnes said. “Okay. He’s in.”
‘The Godfather’
Along with the return of their social media megaphone, several key leaders of the Proud Boys received something even more important in the initial months of the second Trump administration: freedom.
On his first day in office, President Trump granted pardons and commutations to nearly 1,600 people who were charged or convicted for taking part in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. This included six men who had been prominent Proud Boys at the time. One of them was Enrique Tarrio, who became chairman of the group shortly after McInnes stepped down.
Tarrio had received a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy and other charges after federal prosecutors successfully proved he played a role in coordinating the large contingent of Proud Boys who were present as the Capitol was stormed and were among the first people to breach the barricades. […]
The newfound freedom and platform have come at a pivotal time for the Proud Boys. Weeks after the Capitol attack, news broke that Tarrio had served as a government informant against multiple criminal operations in 2012 when he was facing fraud accusations. Those reports, along with fallout from the Jan. 6 arrests, helped fuel a divide in the Proud Boys, with more radical factions denouncing Tarrio and their national leadership. For his part, Tarrio claimed he had not hid this aspect of his past before it made national headlines. […]
The group ultimately split into so-called “standard” and “national” factions. […] Tarrio said the “standard” members are more extremist and were attracted by the notion the group was instrumental to the violence at the Capitol.
[…] “They’re not members of this group,” Tarrio said of James and the “standard” chapters. “They took the logo and they took the colors, and most of them were people that we kicked out.” […]
Many of the “standard” Proud Boys chapters maintain a presence on Telegram, an encrypted social network that is popular on the far right. These groups refer to themselves as “autonomous” chapters and dub those aligned with Tarrio the “Federal Proud Boys.” Along with Proud Boys regalia and denunciations of Tarrio, their pages are filled with explicitly violent rhetoric as well as white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. [!!]
[…] Amid these divisions, Tarrio and McInnes have been reasserting themselves in the group both publicly and privately.
[…] “You can’t just, like, come around and build a Proud Boy chapter without the consent of the presidents of the entire organization,” he explained. […] Tarrio indicated part of the inspiration for decreasing the visibility of national leadership came from the Oath Keepers, the other organization hit with seditious conspiracy convictions following Jan. 6.
[…] “It’s got very similar structure to the Hell’s Angels,” McInnes said when asked about the current shape of the Proud Boys.
[…] McInnes continued. “Hell’s Angels, if they do illegal activities, they do it as individuals. Yeah. There’s no, like, and there’s no top-down dictum.”
[…] While the chapters have a great deal of autonomy, Tarrio said both he and McInnes have “mediated some internal issues” and acted as a “voice of the club” in public. While no one in the group publicly holds the chairman title, McInnes had no objection when I asked him about prior reports that other members were describing him as the Proud Boys’ “godfather.”
“Sure. That works,” McInnes said of the title.
Tarrio, whose X account identifies him as the “shogun” of the Proud Boys, concurred.
“He’s the founder, the Godfather, as you say,” Tarrio said of McInnes. […]
‘Infiltrating Local Government’
Both McInnes and Tarrio want to see the Proud Boys more involved in traditional politics. McInnes pointed to members of the group in Miami who secured positions inside a local GOP organization as a potential model going forward.
“They were infiltrating local government,” he said, adding, “I think that’s a cool route to take.”
[…] McInnes said it was “false” to say they’ve appeared at rallies with white supremacists despite several documented instances of this. While the Proud Boys proudly identify as “western chauvinist” and politically incorrect, both Tarrio and Mcinnes maintain that the Proud Boys are not white supremacist or violent. They often point to the fact some members are people of color, including Tarrio, who is Cuban-American. […]
[…] Tarrio doesn’t “dispute” the term “far right” as a descriptor for his politics. Tarrio also didn’t deny that the group has appeared alongside extremist groups and even has white supremacists among its ranks. However, he blamed that on press coverage.
[…] Over on the “standard” side of the club, James agreed that truly staunch white nationalists and neo-Nazis would likely be uncomfortable in either version of the organization. However, he also said they would not be rejected from membership.
“[…] So, the white guys could be pro-white … there are guys who aren’t,” James explained. […]
“I see all of society right now — or at least half of society — going further to the right,” James said. “Some of that does entail white people being less apologetic about their views.”
[…] Perhaps the one clear thread in Proud Boy politics is staunch support for Trump. Tarrio noted that has persisted despite any internal discord with the more extremist elements. […]
“He’s just — he’s one of us,” McInnes said of Trump. “I love that he refuses to kowtow to this whole shame culture. He’s a Proud Boy in many ways.”
In May, Tarrio had the chance to meet Trump at the president’s private beach club in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.
“I went with a member to go have dinner. You know, obviously, I’m trying to see the president … and then I got the chance,” Tarrio said. “It was anywhere between a seven and 10-minute conversation.”
The meeting has previously been reported on. However, Tarrio revealed something new about the encounter. Along with thanking Trump for the pardon, Tarrio said he “was advocating for the pardon” for four of the other Proud Boys who received commutations of their Jan. 6-related sentences rather than full pardons.
[…] With Trump term-limited, Tarrio expected the group to actively support Vice President J.D. Vance — or any Republican nominee — in the 2028 election. […]
“My goal is a federal seat and, specifically, I’d love to be a congressman,” Tarrio said. “I’d love to represent my district.”
Back in the Streets
While Tarrio has his eyes on the campaign trail, he said the Proud Boys are also ready to get back to their more standard ground game — showing up on the scene of raging political controversies.
[…] Portland, specifically, was a key flashpoint during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, as Proud Boys and other far-right groups regularly brawled with demonstrators. Now, Tarrio said they will return to the city “at the end of the month.” [yikes]
[…] Prominent Proud Boys have often characterized their violence as solely a response to the left. […] However, moments later, McInnes also suggested the Proud Boys should continue staking out “Drag Story Hour” events. Tarrio also indicated such events are a “very specific situation” where they should try to “shut this thing down.”
[…] “It might appear that the Proud Boys and our other extremist groups have sort of lost their power and dwindled out. I think that the pardons will make them more emboldened, but I also think that the campaign of political violence that they were on in Trump’s first term is now part and parcel of Trump’s administration.” —Andy Campbell, author of “We Are Proud Boys”
James and the “standard” Proud Boys discuss the possibility of violence in more direct terms and are unapologetic about their desire to “step up and defend the country.” James said those chapters are also fixated on Drag Story hour. […]
“All this political shit, it ain’t like we’ll completely disengage from it, but we saw how Trump, like, wiped away everything that went on the last four years in 30 days. And our assumption is we’re caught in a cycle where that’s going to happen again,” James said. “While all that stuff is worthwhile and it can’t be ignored, we’re switching gears because we believe there’s a huge problem with pedophilia and sex offenders.”
[…] “It’s so weird to be fixated on this possibility of violence from the Proud Boys when … America has been up to its fucking neck in left wing rioting for years,” McInnes said. [Talking point that is misleading.]
Data has consistently shown that the right wing — not the left — has been responsible for more extremist political violence in recent years. [!]
Amid all the misinformation and efforts to distance himself from violence, McInnes framed the Proud Boys’ role in the new Trump era in distinctly militant terms. “The gloves are off,” he said. “We tried to play nice. You threw us in jail. … It’s a street fight now.”
[…] For his book on the Proud Boys, Campbell documented extensive instances of violence by the group. He also watched hours of McInnes’ online broadcasts.
“From the beginning … Gavin McInnes on his live show was not cautious about his desire for the Proud Boys to commit violence,” Campbell said.
Campbell offered his own prediction for what would happen if the Proud Boys return to the streets of Portland or anywhere else.
“They’re going to defend themselves in the same way that they always defended themselves, which is to say, march through the city attacking protestors, collecting propaganda, and facing zero consequences for it,” Campbell said.
[…] “Trump is saying he wants to attack the citizenry, and wants to lock up dissenters of American culture, and LGBTQ people,” Campbell said. “There’s very little divide between the people already in politics and what the Proud Boys represent, which is political violence against dissenters.”
Campbell also noted that Trump has federal troops at his disposal. […]
There are indications some of the most radical Proud Boys are moving to join those forces.
To carry out Trump’s mass deportation project, the Department of Homeland Security has launched an ICE recruitment drive accompanied by a social media push that has included nationalist themes and even imagery associated with online white supremacists. The extremist “standard” Proud Boys chapters, which maintain a presence on the encrypted social network Telegram, have taken notice.
On Aug. 12, a Telegram account for the Cape Fear Proud Boys in North Carolina posted ICE recruiting materials from the DHS X page along with its own note urging followers to sign up.
“An ad like this attracts exactly the type of man ICE needs,” the post said. “The ICE hiring window is still open. … Wanna deport illegals with your absolute boys?”
The post concluded with a link to the ICE jobs page. [This and other images are available at the link.]
On Sept. 18, James shared a message on Telegram claiming several of the group’s “standard” members had become ICE agents.
“Trump already gave so many of us jobs with ICE,” James wrote. […]
Yet, as McInnes and so many other Proud Boys often have, in his call with TPM, James insisted it was all just a joke.
On October 15, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais, a pair of consolidated cases that threaten what little remains of the federal government’s ability to protect voters from racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act.
The VRA is the 1965 federal law that finally effectuated the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee that the government would not deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race. […] Without exaggeration, the VRA allowed the United States to make its first plausible claim to being a multiracial democracy.
Opponents of multiracial democracy, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, have fought against the VRA ever since, misconstruing the act’s substantive protections and making them impossible to enforce. Callais is the conservative legal movement’s latest vehicle to persuade the Court to render the greatest triumph of the Civil Rights Movement a nullity nationwide.
[…] Under the Voting Rights Act, voters of color must have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. […]
Black voters in Louisiana sued […] a group of self-described “non-African American voters” sued to challenge that map, arguing that a map drawn to remedy an illegal racial gerrymander is itself an illegal racial gerrymander. If the Supreme Court agrees that there is no legal distinction between causing and curing race-based harm, Callais would rob actual victims of discrimination of the legal tools to do anything about it. [!]
The Court heard oral argument in Callais for the first time in March 2025, and considered two main questions: first, whether Louisiana lawmakers let racial considerations “predominate” when they drew the second map, and if so, whether they had a good reason for doing so. […]
But the Republican justices on the Court do not like the existing law. And now, they are rehearing the cases so they can have the chance to change it. [!!] Back in June, the Supreme Court unexpectedly ended its term without deciding Callais, and instead issued an unexplained order putting the cases back on the calendar for reargument.
[…] On August 1, the Court directed the Callais parties to file supplemental briefing on the question of whether the intentional creation of a second majority-Black district—as Louisiana lawmakers did here, in response to a court order—violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments. Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, a Republican, recognized this new framing for the gift that it is, and filed a brief on August 27 declining to defend the second map at all. Instead, she argued that the Voting Rights Act imposes an unconstitutional race-based mandate, and that the Constitution is “colorblind,” which apparently means “unwilling to recognize harm done to people of color.”
If the Court agrees, the result would compound the disempowerment of Black people across the country. […]
The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were expressly crafted to grant Black people equal rights as citizens in a democratic society. The Court is preparing to use those very Amendments to deny those rights instead. [!]
Conspiracy theorist and Trump superfan Alex Jones suffered another setback on Tuesday after the conservative-majority Supreme Court denied his appeal of the $1.4 billion defamation judgement against him after he promoted debunked falsehoods about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. […]
Nevada state regulators have accused Elon Musk’s Boring Co. of violating environmental regulations nearly 800 times in the last two years as it digs a sprawling tunnel network beneath Las Vegas for its Tesla-powered “people mover.” The company’s alleged violations include starting to dig without approval, releasing untreated water onto city streets and spilling muck from its trucks, according to a new document obtained by City Cast Las Vegas and ProPublica.
The Sept. 22 cease-and-desist letter from the state Bureau of Water Pollution Control alleged repeated violations of a settlement agreement that the company had entered into after being fined five years ago for discharging groundwater into storm drains without a permit. That agreement, signed by a Boring executive in 2022, was intended to compel the company to comply with state water pollution laws.
Instead, state inspectors documented nearly 100 alleged new violations of the agreement. The letter also accuses the company of failing to hire an independent environmental manager to regularly inspect its construction sites. State regulators counted 689 missed inspections. […]
More at the link.
birgerjohanssonsays
I love the razor-sharp Brit sarcasm and wit by the digital ghost of Christopher Hitchens.
“The Secretary of War is UNHINGED!!!” .https://youtube.com/watch?v=waNa5Iz-Lpk
Fox News has joined other major media outlets in rejecting and criticizing a new Pentagon press access policy put forward by President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who previously worked as a contributor and co-host at Fox News.
“The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections,” Fox News said in a statement emailed to Newsweek, which was joined by ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News.
No major news organization signed the Pentagon’s new press policy. Fairly embarrassing that Hegseth couldn’t even get Fox News to sign.
The original policy was even more abusive. requiring all news be submitted to the Pentagon for approval before being made public. There was too much push back on that so it was revised. The new policy just asserts there could be negative consequences for reporting unapproved information. This still amounts to “you will report the Pentagon press release as news” and is too restrictive.
Assembly Bill 1127, authored by state Assembly Members Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, and Catherine Stefani, D-San Francisco, were signed by the governor on Oct. 10.
The law bans new sales of “semi-automatic handguns that can be easily converted to a fully automatic machine gun with the use of a simple ‘switch,'” according to a statement from Gabriel’s office.
Politically and practically it’s probably a mistake. Practically because it’s a narrow piecemeal ban that will just be worked around. Glock can work around the issue if they care but it’s a small enough market they may not. It is one of the most popular guns globally, they may not want to make even a small change to suit California. The people making the conversion parts will just find another way to do it. The spread of metal printing is slowly making the whole issue pointless.
More cynically automatic pistols are so ineffective it may not even save lives. Shooters with the original semi-automatic version might be more lethal. I have never seen a study of that though so take that with a big grain of salt.
Politically it’s a fairly toxic issue. It isn’t going to move anybody already left or right but might turn some independents against Newsom.
“There’s a reason why every opposition movement to every authoritarian government focuses on the self-dealing and self-enrichment of the strongman leader.”
Related video at the link.
On Monday, shortly after Donald Trump gave a speech at the Israeli parliament, he traveled to Egypt to sign a memorandum related to the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire deal. While in Egypt, the president sat down with the country’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, and said something rather strange.
He told reporters that the reason Egypt was chosen as the location to sign this historic peace deal was because Sissi had been “very helpful” and was a “great leader.” The president also said he wanted to “thank” the Egyptian leader, who he said had “been my friend right from the beginning, during the campaign against Crooked Hillary Clinton.”
Now, you may be wondering: Why would Trump even mention Clinton in that moment?
Well, during his 2016 run against Clinton, Trump singled out Sissi, who came to power in 2013 by military coup, for all sorts of inexplicable praise. Just a few weeks before Election Day, as his campaign was running out of money and it appeared he was going to lose, Trump took a one-on-one meeting with the Egyptian leader. After the meeting, Trump called Sissi a “fantastic guy” and promised that, if elected, the United States would be a “loyal friend” to Egypt.
When Trump was elected, he made good on that promise. He brought Sissi to be one of his first guests at the White House and showered him with praise. He gave Egypt nearly $200 million that his own State Department opposed, then he gave them more than $1 billion after that. [!]
Last year, thanks to a bombshell report from The Washington Post, we learned that back in 2019, the Trump administration allegedly shut down an investigation involving a $10 million cash withdrawal from Egypt’s national bank. [!!]
According to the Post, classified U.S. intelligence indicated that Sissi “sought to give Trump $10 million to boost his 2016 presidential campaign.” The Post went on to report: “Investigators had also sought to learn if money from Sissi might have factored into Trump’s decision in the final days of his run for the White House to inject his campaign with $10 million of his own money.”
[…] In the end, what potentially could have been a bribe was never traced, and no one knows, to this day, officially, why Trump, all these years later, is still thanking the strongman leader of Egypt for something he did to help Trump in his campaign against Clinton. [We can make an educated guess.]
At that same event on Monday in Egypt, Trump was caught on a hot mic seemingly trying to set up a meeting between his son Eric Trump, who manages the family business, and the president of Indonesia.
Eric Trump has no job in the government; there’s no reason an American president should be arranging meetings for a family member with the head of state of another country. That said, earlier this month, Eric Trump was promoting the family’s brand new golf course deal in Indonesia, calling it one of the most “stunning golf destinations.” And now Trump, in his official capacity, appeared to be hooking up his son with the president of the country hosting the new Trump family boondoggle.
That’s not, of course, to be confused with the family boondoggle in Qatar, where the Trumps also plan to build a golf course and hotel.
You may remember that during Trump’s first term, he called Qatar “a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” However, this time around, on top of closing a deal for a Trump luxury development in Qatar, the country has given the president a $400 million luxury jet, which he says he plans to re-fit at taxpayer expense for his own use as president, and then keep for his presidential library after he leaves office.
Earlier this month, Trump announced that if Qatar is attacked, the United States will respond as if we have been attacked. He has basically given them fake NATO membership on his own say-so. And on Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the United States would host a Qatari air force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho.
Expectedly, Hegseth’s announcement was quickly met with backlash. The former “Fox and Friends Weekend” co-host then had to issue what he called an “important clarification.” Hegseth said that Qatar was not building its own airbase on American soil; instead, they would simply be allowed to use an existing airbase in Idaho, which would remain under U.S. jurisdiction.
But the president is keeping their plane and the family is building their big golf course and hotel, and presumably whatever else they want, because that’s the way the presidency works now under Trump: You put money in his pocket, and give money to his family, and he hooks you up with basically whatever you want out of the pockets of the American people from the U.S. Treasury, all while the federal government remains at a standstill.
It’s one thing to have the president leave the country and fly to another country during a shutdown, like Trump did on Monday, but it’s another thing to have the U.S. government fund another country’s government while we’re not funding ours.
Last week, Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, finalized a deal to send $20 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Argentina. We are bailing out their currency, for some reason. Argentina’s currency has dropped 27% in value already this year.
But don’t worry, it’s just a loan, right? We’ll get it back? I’m not too sure about that. The International Monetary Fund has had to bail out Argentina 23 times, and the country owes it more money than any other country on earth. The most recent IMF bailout was just in April, and even that wasn’t enough to keep their economy and their peso from continuing to tank. [!]
But Bessent, nevertheless, just gave Argentina $20 billion of your money to prop them up [!], even though we have almost no trade with them, and if their economy or their currency collapses, it would likely have no effect on us.
Even after the infusion, according to a report from CNBC, the markets have reacted in such a way that indicates the $20 billion may not be enough, which, presumably, best case, means we’ll never get that money back, or, worst case, we’ll give them even more.
[…] there are at least two billionaires who are very close to Bessent who have made big bets on the health of Argentina’s economy. So, for those rich guy friends of Bessent, including Bessent’s former mentor on Wall Street, they stand to make a lot of money if the U.S. taxpayer starts propping up that failing country, and they stand to lose a lot if we don’t.
There goes $20 billion of your money to buy nearly worthless pesos in Buenos Aires while Yellowstone shuts down, and people who work for the TSA don’t get paid, and American hospitals are white-knuckling it through a government shutdown with no end in sight. [!]
This is why every opposition movement to every authoritarian government everywhere on earth focuses on the corruption, self-dealing and self-enrichment of the supposed strongman leader, his family and his cronies.
What happens when you lose the rule of law? When you lose a professional government? When the democratic right to replace your leaders is taken away from you? What happens is that the strongman and his cronies get very rich, and they think they don’t have to answer to anyone ever.
They get everything for themselves, while for everyone else — for regular people — everything crumbles.
birgerjohanssonsays
After all this **** you need a palate cleanser from Hell.
So here is a re-run of Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews: “TOKYO GORE POLICE”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=zNj37djaGiM
You know, if the president was a cool over-the-top supervillain who grows weapons from his own organic tissue he would at least be entertaining.
birgerjohanssonsays
Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews: “SHOOT EM’ UP”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=z–6dDtDGX0
Clive Owen doing insane stuff is exactly what you need to tune out from a reality of slime monsters like Stephen Miller.
Sure, they said. Go take a job as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, even though you’re not qualified, they said. […]
By all measures, Lindsey Halligan is very much not having fun these days, just a month or so into her tenure at a job she holds not based on her skills, but instead on her willingness to prosecute and persecute Trump’s enemies. Sure, she got indictments against both former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, but apparently no one told Halligan that the indictment is only the beginning.
Now, to be fair, by securing indictments, Halligan is at least doing better than U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. Pirro is busy putting up unprecedented numbers of grand juries refusing to indict on the comically inflated charges she keeps bringing.
[…] On Sunday, Halligan filed a comically broad demand for a protective order, basically contending that Comey could never be left alone with discovery in the case for … reasons. The thing reads like a book report about protective orders, complete with one of Halligan’s justifications being that she looked up some other protective orders in criminal cases in the Eastern District of Virginia, and this was just like those!
Reader, it was not just like those.
By Tuesday, Halligan had her answer from the judge: LOL nope. The request that basically all material in the case be subject to a protective order and that Comey not be able to access it, save for in the presence of his attorneys, was far too broad, said U.S. Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff, and would hinder Comey’s ability to prepare for trial.
Halligan also tried another motion designed to slow-walk the government’s obligation to produce discovery [!] by pushing out a standard discovery deadline, and that didn’t work out either.
Halligan would be outmatched anywhere, but no more so than EDVA, the home of the rocket docket. Cases race through this district court. It’s a whole thing. Comey’s trial is already scheduled to begin on Jan. 5, 2026. If Comey had requested it, the court was prepared for an even earlier start date in December.
Well, at least Halligan did find some prosecutors to help her with the case. Sure, she had to go outside her own office [!]—the office she is literally in charge of!—and get two DOJ lawyers from North Carolina assigned to the case.
At least those two have some experience in prosecution, a thing Halligan very much does not. But hopefully, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gabriel Diaz and Nathaniel Lemons have some right-wing sinecure gig lined up for after this thing crashes and burns, because baby, it’s going to crash and burn.
Comey’s already said he is going to file a motion of unlawful appointment, arguing that Halligan is just as improperly in her office as two of Trump’s other top-tier picks, Alina Habba and Sigal Chattah. Both Habba and Chattah have been ruled ineligible to hold their U.S. attorney offices because the complicated machinations Trump has gone through to avoid submitting their nominations to the Senate are, well, illegal. [!]
Given that Halligan is also in her role via a shady temporary appointment rather than Senate confirmation, Comey’s move is in no way an empty threat.
Turns out that while it’s fun to do press conferences and get indictments on threadbare nonsense, it sucks to actually do the work of prosecuting. Does anyone want to lay odds on how long Halligan lasts?
birgerjohanssonsays
Let’s Talk Elections
“Democrats MUST Target These Senate Seats in 2026”
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York released a video Tuesday addressing the GOP’s Medicaid cuts that will raise health care costs for millions who are already struggling.
In the video, Ocasio-Cortez visits Stevenson Commons, a low-income apartment building in The Bronx, to speak with Milagros, a working New Yorker who relies on the state’s Essential Plan. The program, which covers more than 1.3 million residents, is directly threatened by the GOP’s cuts to Medicaid. [video]
Milagros explains that she currently pays about $20 a month for several life-saving medications. But without the Essential Plan, her costs would soar into the thousands.
“I’m not going to be able to pay,” she tells Ocasio-Cortez. “I got to get me three different jobs.”
Ocasio-Cortez then mentions how many GOP lawmakers she’s spoken to claim that people on Medicaid and programs similar to the Essential Plan have “nothing to worry about,” insisting that the cuts are only targeting fraudulent claims.
“That’s not what I see,” Milagros replies. “That’s not what I see every day.”
President Donald Trump’s son and crypto grifter Eric Trump was out hawking his new book on right-wing propagandist Benny Johnson’s show Tuesday. After complaining about the universe trying to “destroy” his father, Eric made an absolutely bonkers claim that his family is saving the country.
“I can’t tell you how many things are lining up. I mean, think about the fact that this book came out on Charlie Kirk’s birthday on the same day we have peace in the Middle East, you know?” he said. “The wildest author could not have scripted this book, and the trials and tribulations and twists and turns to get to where we are today. And look how much better humanity and our world is. You know, we’re saving Christianity, we’re saving God, we’re saving the family unit. We’re saving this nation.” [video]
This isn’t the first time Eric has tried to use Kirk’s death to move a few extra units, but it might be the first time he’s claimed that the Trump family saved Christianity and God—a kind of reverse theology from the more traditional “Jesus saves” branding.
POLITICO has just exposed the face of the Republican Party’s future leadership, and saying “it ain’t pretty” would be quite an understatement.
As reported by Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, writing for POLITICO, that publication obtained seven months’ worth of Telegram chats from Young Republican Leaders in ”New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont.” But I suppose we can safely assume these are characteristic of the groups nationwide.
Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
[Screen grab images]
It appears from the POLITICO article that many if not most of the chats directly relate to internecine conflicts within the party as groups vied for internal “supremacy” (no pun intended).
Oh yes, and there are many, many names. As Beeferman and Ngo report:
William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
Beeferman and Ngo note that the texts represent “an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening.”
Wouldn’t that be the same “new generation” that the media fell over themselves to lionize Charlie Kirk about “reaching?” OK, then:
Together, the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely — and where the Trump-era loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders.
There’s some real ugly stuff in the POLITICO article, way too much for Fair Use. Here’s a sample from one of these fine young men (and they appear to be mostly men):
“Minnesota – f—-ts,” he messaged, continuing: “Arkansas – inbred cow fuckers Nebraska – revolt in our favor; blocked their bind and have a majority of their delegates Maryland – fat stinky Jew … Rhode Island – traitorous c—s who I will eradicate from the face of this planet.”
According to the article, the texts were “shared among a dozen millennial and Gen Z Republicans between early January and mid-August, chronicle their campaign to seize control of the national Young Republican organization on a hardline pro-Donald Trump platform.”
You get the idea. These people are literally the future of the Republican Party.
The saddest thing is, none of this is really surprising.
[…] At least one person in the Telegram chat works in the Trump administration: Michael Bartels, who, according to his LinkedIn account, serves as a senior adviser in the office of general counsel within the U.S. Small Business Administration. Bartels did not have much to say in the chat, but he didn’t offer any pushback against the offensive rhetoric in it either. He declined to comment. […]
When Luke Mosiman, the chair of the Arizona Young Republicans, asked if the New Yorkers in the chat were watching an NBA playoff game, Giunta responded, “I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball.” Giunta elsewhere refers to Black people as “the watermelon people.”
[…] Jipson said the Young Republicans’ conversations reminded him of online discussions between members of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.
“You say it once or twice, it’s a joke, but you say it 251 times, it’s no longer a joke,” Jipson said. “The more we repeat certain ideas, the more real they become to us.”
Weeks later, someone in the chat staying in a hotel asks its members to “GUESS WHAT ROOM WE’RE IN.”
“1488,” Dwyer responds. White supremacists use the number 1488 because 14 is the number of words in the white supremacist slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” H is the eighth letter in the alphabet, and 88 is often used as a shorthand for “Heil Hitler.”
In another conversation in February, Giunta talks approvingly about the Orange County Teenage Republican organization in New York — which appears to be part of the network of national Teen Age Republicans — and how he was pleased with its young members’ ideological bent.
“They support slavery and all that shit. Mega based,” he said. The term “based” in internet culture is used to express approval with an idea, often one that’s bold or controversial. […]
[…] Trump held one of his trademark Cabinet sessions of fawning sycophancy Tuesday, during which he floated the idea that he could force Los Angeles to give up the 2028 Olympics because of his anger toward Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“If I thought L.A. was not going to be prepared properly, I would move it to another location,” he said. “Gavin Newsom, he’s got to get his act together because, had we not gone in at the beginning of my term, had we not gone in with a very strong, powerful force, they would have lost L.A.” [video]
After indulging in his well-worn authoritarian fantasy of “invading” California, Trump launched into another menagerie of lies, claiming he turned on the state’s water and saved it from wildfires.
[I snipped Trump’s actual remarks. They were ignorant when he said them, and remain so.] Every one of Trump’s illegal interventions in California has been predicated on lies and has achieved none of his purported results.
Meanwhile, Newsom remains a favorite GOP target, largely because his success in governing—as well as trolling MAGA—exposes the failures of Republican-led states.
Hamas is carrying out a wave of retribution executions and asserting its control in areas of the Gaza Strip where Israel has withdrawn, highlighting the challenge facing President Trump to get the group to give up its arms and power as part of his 20-point plan for peace.
Hamas has killed at least 33 people since the ceasefire went into effect last week, according to reporting from Reuters, with at least seven men dragged into Gaza City square on Monday.
The men, their hands bound were forced onto their knees and shot from behind in public view of dozens of people, Reuters stated.
Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Palestinian negotiator, said that Hamas has a head start on reestablishing its control in Gaza, absent an international security force and apolitical governing body.
“The longer the time passes, and the more that they [Hamas] establish themselves on the ground now in the security sphere, we’ll soon start seeing them also doing in the civilian sphere – they will start removing rubble and building a couple of schools, offering health care, all that kind of stuff – the harder it becomes to kind of dislodge them,” he said.
[…] Trump said from the White House on Tuesday that if Hamas refuses to disarm, “we will disarm them.” His peace plan says that if Hamas refuses to surrender completely, Israel can restart military operations in Gaza. When clearing an area from Hamas control, the deal allows Israel to hand over an area to an International Security Force (ISF) – though such forces are still being planned and do not exist at this point.
[…] Majed al-Ansari, senior advisor to Qatar’s prime minister and spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Fox News that phase two negotiations have started and mediating teams are “working around the clock.”
“The challenges ahead are not going to be easy,” he said.
[…] “The head start notion is exactly right,” said Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute.
“I think we’ll just see them [Hamas] taking this opportunity to avail themselves of all the space given to rebuild and regroup.”
The control center monitoring the ceasefire is expected to transition to helping train an International Security Force to deploy into Gaza and take control from Hamas.
[…] The senior U.S. official said on Oct. 9 that the U.S. is talking to multiple governments about setting up the ISF.
It’s not clear if the U.S. will pursue a United Nations Security Council resolution to authorize the deployment of an international peace keeping force. Doing so would legitimize foreign troops for a population already displaced multiple times over two years of war, and many who claim refugee status from Israel’s founding in 1948. […]
“The arrest of opposition leader Maxim Kruglov is a blow against the country’s last vestiges of democracy.”
Hardly a day goes by without another political arrest in Russia. Under Vladimir Putin, the scale of repression against those who disagree with the Kremlin has surpassed anything seen in our country since the death of Joseph Stalin. According to a recent United Nations report, some 60 politically motivated criminal cases are opened against Russian citizens every month. The number of known political prisoners in Russia (more than 1,700) already exceeds the respective figure for the whole of the Soviet Union — that is, 15 present-day countries together — in the mid-1980s. And the leading cause of political imprisonment in Russia is continuing protest against the war in Ukraine.[!]
[…] Earlier this month, Russian authorities arrested Maxim Kruglov, former member of the Moscow City Duma and deputy leader of Yabloko, Russia’s last remaining opposition (and anti-war) party. Elected in 2019 on a wave of opposition sentiment in the capital, Kruglov went on to lead his party’s caucus in the Moscow legislature. His term was marked by public opposition to the rushed (and illegal) constitutional amendments allowing Putin to stay in power in violation of term limits; by efforts to put up an official plaque in memory of the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov; and by attempts to organize street protests after Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kruglov was also persistent in his advocacy for political prisoners. […] it is impossible to overstate how important it is for a political prisoner to feel solidarity from the outside world and to know that they are not forgotten.
Kruglov is now a political prisoner himself. Placed under arrest by a Moscow district court, he was charged with “disseminating knowingly false information” about the Russian army, which, in the Orwellian speak of Putin’s Russia, means telling the truth about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. […]
Kruglov’s arrest brought the total number of Yabloko members who are under criminal prosecution to nine people, while another 11 had served administrative detention and 36 had been charged by police with “discrediting” the Russian army. […]
[…] “Russian society is exhausted by the war — and in the year [ahead] … that fatigue will only deepen,” wrote Ksenia Fadeyeva, former coordinator of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s movement in the Siberian city of Tomsk and a former political prisoner who was freed in the same exchange as me in August of last year. “So why would the authorities allow Yabloko, running on the slogan ‘For Peace and Freedom,’ to remain on the ballot?”
Putin’s anxiety is understandable. The Kremlin knows that public opposition to the Ukraine war is much greater than what its propaganda would admit. Last year, amid the staged circus of Putin’s reelection, the maverick anti-war presidential bid by former lawmaker Boris Nadezhdin elicited an extraordinary public response, as long lines formed at his campaign offices across Russia to sign petitions in support of his nomination. Nadezhdin was barred from the ballot, but the carefully crafted propaganda myth of universal support for Putin’s war was shattered in a matter of days. […]
Maxim Kruglov is being held in Kapotnya, Moscow’s quarantine prison, before being transferred to one of the capital’s pretrial detention centers. The outcome of his upcoming trial is not in doubt. What is also not in doubt is that people like Maxim — Russians who refuse to become silent accomplices to the Kremlin’s crimes — are saving our country’s honor amid this current darkness. And it will be they who will lead Russia back to normality and back to civilization once the drawn-out nightmare of Vladimir Putin’s rule is finally over.
Israeli officials and hostage families have accused Hamas of violating the new cease-fire deal by failing to immediately return the remains of many of the former captives still in Gaza.
The United States struck another small boat accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.
Those who died in the strike were aboard the vessel, and no U.S. forces were harmed, the Republican president said in a social media post.
It’s the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean as Trump’s administration has asserted it’s treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force.
Six months into President Donald Trump’s unprecedented gambit to impose sizable tariffs on imports, U.S. consumers are already shouldering as much as 55% of their costs, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs analysts. And with new tariffs most likely on the way, the cost burden could rise even higher, they said.
A spate of federal cuts are hurting a pillar of the higher-education system: community colleges. The schools, which educate about 40 percent of the nation’s college students, are contending with millions of dollars in lost funding for services such as campus-based child care, student advisement and academic support.
Kreator Psays
@Lynna, OM #46
As an Argentinian, I’m beside myself with anticipation for the upcoming election in less than two weeks, whatever the results. I want to know already if our president’s Trump-assisted gambit will pay off and his party’s recent electoral misfortunes will turn around, and what will happen if they don’t. Our situation (and our president) is so unstable that neither option bodes well.
whheydtsays
Re: Kreator P @ #61…
As a Californian, I’ll be watching the election coming in three weeks to see if Prop. 50, the counter-Texas redistricting measure, passes. It looks likely, so far, that it will…
Donald Trump has warned he could cut financial aid to Argentina if his ally Javier Milei loses crucial legislative elections later this month.
“If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” the US president said as Milei visited the White House to seek the Republican’s political and economic support. “I’m with this man because his philosophy is correct. And he may win and he may not win – I think he’s going to win. And if he wins we are staying with him, and if he doesn’t win we are gone.”
Nothing unexpected but put in terms far more blunt then they should be. Governments do this all the time, the US does it all the time and it’s a reasonable thing to do. We have no reason to help a country if they elect a government hostile to ours or supporting principles we don’t. A normal government doesn’t threaten to abandon a country simply for voting for a different political party though nor threaten to suddenly cut off support if a different person is elected. The new government is given time to lay out their policies and new agreements are negotiated. We might increase or decrease support based on the policy of the new government but sudden cuts offs are reserved for a government that is actively hostile to ours, not just having differing political and economic policy.
What Trump is really saying here is that he personally like Milei because Milei borders on the sort of corrupt authoritarian that Trump aspires to be. Argentina had better continue to support him or else.
Kreator Psays
Re: JM @ #61
Exactly right, and I’m not looking forward to finding out how many of my countrymen think that bending the knee is the better choice here. (Other, much less likely but still not completely impossible worries: electoral fraud, an eventual attempt at an authoritarian takeover if they lose).
The High Court has unanimously backed a decision by the government to refuse a temporary visa to conservative American commentator Candace Owens Farmer, who had planned a speaking tour to Australia in 2024. The visa was refused by Immigration Minister Tony Burke under the character test, on the grounds that Owens could incite discord in a section of the community, and her visit was not in the national interest. Her lawyers argued the decision placed an impermissible burden on the implied right to freedom of political communication, and the minister had adopted an incorrect interpretation of the law.
Today, the High Court found the law was valid and applied in circumstances where the person in question would stir up or encourage dissension or strife, risking harm to the Australian community.
Approximately 550 employees of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will be laid off, according to an announcement made on the agency’s website on Monday (Oct. 13).
The news comes in the midst of an ongoing U.S. government shutdown and the looming threat of the single largest funding reduction in NASA’s 66-year history. Due to those potential cuts, NASA has been forced to reshape many of its science and space exploration efforts. However, NASA has stated this latest wave of layoffs are unrelated to the government shutdown..
I know there’s been a few of these lately but,well, here’s another possible aurare opportunity alert :
A train of solar storms is barreling toward Earth, with four coronal mass ejections (CMEs) expected to hit over the next few days. Any potential impact could trigger impressive auroras in northern skies and possibly even at mid-latitudes.
Multiple CMEs launched from sunspot region AR4246 between Oct. 11 and 13 are forecast to reach Earth between Oct. 15 and 17, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center.
The strongest disturbances are expected late on Oct. 15 into Oct. 16, when geomagnetic storming could reach G1 (minor) levels. Though G1 is the mildest category on NOAA’s five-point space weather scale, it can still cause impressive aurora shows at high latitudes
The first half of 2025 logged the most damaging extreme weather on record in terms of cost, even after accounting for inflation, data shows.
This is partly because of a handful of extraordinary events, such as the Los Angeles wildfires. But the number of natural disasters that struck this winter was also “exceptional,” Paul Ullrich, a professor of regional climate modeling at the University of California, Davis, told Live Science.
All told, the first half of the year likely incurred $93 billion to $126 billion in damages, half-year estimates from insurance companies Munich Re, AON and Gallagher Re suggest. This total smashes the previous most costly first six months on record, of $57 billion (inflation-adjusted), set in 2023, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data.
NB. folks can just close the box to see the article.
StevoRsays
A new study published in Current Biology has rewritten the timeline of hippo history in central Europe, using radiocarbon dating on fossil remains from the Upper Rhine Graben, Germany—a fossil-rich site that serves as a natural archive of the continent’s climate past.
The researchers discovered that these massive mammals didn’t vanish when the climate cooled 115,000 years ago. The fossils were approximately 47,000 to 31,000 years old, suggesting that the mighty creatures held on far longer than expected, surviving deep into the last Ice Age.
..(snip)…
The hippos likely survived because the glacial period was not consistently harsh. Instead, there were periodic warm phases known as interstadials that created localized refuges in the Upper Rhine Graben, with enough unfrozen water and vegetation to support them. However, the genome revealed low diversity, indicating these hippos belonged to a small, isolated population rather than a large, interconnected one.
They have recognised the mess and are sensing which way the wind is blowing.
Since they are not elected officials, opportunism is easy.
birgerjohanssonsays
StevoR @ 70
If we get a Carrington Event, there is no central authority with the competence to sort out the disaster.
USA is essentially left to local leaders trying to get the grid working and repairing the damage.
“Why Were Chopsticks Invented? (It’s Not What You Think)”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=1ICp-Wu-Iv8
The original Chinese Joker probably used chopsticks as weapons to stab enemies in the eye.
birgerjohanssonsays
Instead of King Kong assaulting high-rise buildings Gary Larson suggested the horror film “The Giraffes IV – this time they are not coming for the acacia leaves.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Stephen Colbert:
“Meanwhile… Better When Drunk | States With The Most Gold Diggers | Swiss Guard gets a new look”
“The more Team Trump ousts federal prosecutors who’ve done nothing wrong, the more serious the scandal becomes.”
On the surface, Todd Gilbert seems like the kind of person the White House should like. Gilbert was a longtime Republican state lawmaker in Virginia who climbed the ranks and ultimately served as speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates up until last year. No one was especially surprised when Donald Trump tapped Gilbert a few months ago to serve as a U.S. attorney in the commonwealth.
His tenure, however, was short-lived for an unexpected reason. The New York Times reported:
Career prosecutors at the Justice Department do not believe criminal charges are warranted from an investigation seeking to discredit an earlier F.B.I. inquiry into Russia’s attempt to tilt the 2016 election in President Trump’s favor, according to people familiar with the matter. It leaves unclear what political appointees at the Justice Department might do, given the breadth of Mr. Trump’s demands that it pursue people he perceives as enemies.
[…] tough to summarize, but at issue is a ridiculous set of circumstances.
Senior officials at Trump’s Justice Department reportedly ordered Gilbert to open a grand jury investigation related to the FBI’s handling of Trump’s Russia scandal. Gilbert reviewed the matter and told his superiors he couldn’t find sufficient evidence of a crime.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (both of whom worked as defense lawyers for Trump) not only weren’t satisfied with Gilbert’s assessment, they also blamed a veteran prosecutor named Zachary Lee (who was appointed by George W. Bush) for swaying the U.S. attorney not to pursue a case.
So DOJ leaders ordered Gilbert to demote Zachary Lee, while simultaneously offering the U.S. attorney more resources to pursue a case that would make the president happy.
Told that he hadn’t sufficiently sidelined Lee, Trump’s Justice Department told Gilbert he would be fired after just two months on the job. He resigned soon after.
“Defense lawyers who have clients caught up in the case have expressed bafflement at what possible crime could have been committed,” [!] the Times added, “and one witness approached earlier this year was told the investigation was being conducted at the specific direction of [FBI Director Kash Patel].”
[…] Gilbert’s ouster deserves to be seen as a scandal in its own right, but it’s made worse when one considers how much company he has.
Shortly after Gilbert was ousted as the U.S. attorney in Virginia’s western district, Erik Siebert was also ousted as the U.S. attorney in Virginia’s eastern district because he wouldn’t bring baseless criminal charges against Trump’s political enemies.
Michael Ben’Ary, top national security prosecutor in Virginia, was fired after a pro-Trump activist peddled a baseless accusation against him; a federal prosecutor in Miami was recently fired because far-right activists discovered that he criticized Trump eight years ago while in private practice; and a federal prosecutor in California was recently fired because she urged immigration officials to comply with a court order.
[…] it was nearly two decades ago when officials from the Bush/Cheney White House executed a scheme in which they fired several U.S. attorneys who refused to politicize federal prosecutions ahead of congressional elections. As part of that scandal, Americans were introduced to the phrase “loyal Bushies,” a label applied to prosecutors the Republican White House perceived as allies.
The public also learned about Monica Goodling, who made the transition from opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee to scrutinizing applicants seeking nonpartisan positions at the Justice Department, testing their partisan purity. (In one notorious instance, Goodling blocked a career prosecutor from being promoted to a counterterrorism post because she discovered that the prosecutor’s wife had donated money to some Democratic candidates.)
That scandal lasted months, generated dramatic congressional hearings, led to a variety of Justice Department resignations and even played a role in the ouster of an attorney general. As a new U.S. attorney scandal unfolds, will there be any comparable response? Watch this space.
“For the vice president to suggest it’s “pearl clutching” to condemn those who were part of a racist group chat says a great deal about his judgment.”
[…] [I snipped details already posted in comment 53] The reporting is devastating, and it reinforces a series of profoundly important questions, not only about pervasive racism in Republican politics, but also about Donald Trump’s role in making overt bigotry more common in the GOP’s discourse.
The messages, Politico noted, “reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely — and where the Trump-era loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders.”
Common sense and common decency might suggest that prominent GOP leaders would rush to condemn the disgusting texts categorically and to make clear that the party will not tolerate such repulsive garbage. Indeed, it’s only fair to note that some Republicans did exactly that after the Politico report was published.
But JD Vance apparently had a different response in mind.
In Virginia, a former state lawmaker named Jay Jones is the Democratic nominee for state attorney general this year, and he recently found himself at the center of a major scandal after the public learned of violent texts he sent in 2022.
Referencing Jones’ texts, the vice president wrote via social media, “This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, [not a “college group chat” see details below] and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia. I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”
In other words, confronted with Republican texts that were racist and violent — complete with references to gas chambers — Vance’s first instinct wasn’t to condemn those responsible for those messages; his first instinct was to downplay the scandal and go after a Democrat.
To the extent that anyone might be persuaded by JD Vance’s unfortunate attempt at clumsy and unnecessary spin, it’s worth emphasizing that Politico’s report was about more than “a college group chat.” The participants in question weren’t just random teens popping off between classes: Some of these Republicans are in their 30s and are currently working for elected officials, ostensibly serving the public. One, Samuel Douglass of Vermont, is even a sitting state senator. (The state’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, wasted little time in calling for Douglass’ resignation.)
For Vance to suggest it’s “pearl clutching” to condemn those who were part of this group chat says a great deal about the vice president’s judgment.
StevoRsays
A special exemption allowed a NASA-funded weather balloon to launch as planned Oct. 1, despite the ongoing government shutdown that began that day. But news about the balloon, and an exoplanet-hunting experiment on board, got a little confused after touchdown.
When the balloon landed Oct. 2 in farmland in Hale County, Texas after a flight high in Earth’s atmosphere, several local news reports suggested the balloon had crashed (or landed unexpectedly) — but that’s not what happened, said experiment principal investigator Christopher Mendillo. “I’m sure they just had no information to go on and made some assumptions,” Mendillo, a University of Massachusetts Lowell exoplanet researcher, told Space.com. His team has been working on iterations of the planet-seeking experiment since 2005, launching on both sounding rockets and balloons.
Astrophotographer Brennan Gilmore has captured spectacular views of the solar wind stripping a vast section from C/2025 A6 (Lemmon)’s tail, as the icy wanderer continues to brighten ahead of its close approach to Earth on Oct. 21.
…(Snip)…
Gilmore released a stunning 60-minute timelapse of Comet Lemmon as a colossal section of its tail was buffeted and stripped away by the solar wind on Oct. 2, during a spectacular disconnection event.
…(Snip)…
Comet Lemmon continues to brighten, with some observations posted by the Comet Observation Database (COBS) run by the Crni Vrh Observatory in Slovenia, putting its brightness at +5.1, which would make it detectable as an extremely dim object to the unaided eye from a dark sky location.
Be sure to check out our finder’s guide if you’re hoping to lay eyes on Comet Lemmon as it brightens further in October ..
“As Jim Jordan and other GOP officials drag the special counsel back into the spotlight, the phrase ‘be careful what you wish for’ keeps coming to mind.”
Related video at the link.
Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory marked the beginning of the end of then-special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal cases. Almost immediately after Election Day, the prosecutor and his team grudgingly wrapped up their work — not because they wanted to or because they lacked compelling evidence, but because of Justice Department guidelines related to prosecuting a sitting president.
Left without options, Smith resigned and his criminal indictments against the president effectively evaporated.
In theory, Trump and his Republican allies could’ve celebrated the demise of Smith’s cases and moved on. In practice, it’s not quite working out that way.
The president continues to peddle baseless attacks against the former special counsel; the Trump administration continues to push out officials who worked with Smith; Republicans continue to target Smith with unhinged and easily discredited conspiracy theories; and GOP lawmakers continue to see the prosecutor as a worthwhile target. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]
Indeed, nine months ago, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said he was prepared to call Smith to testify, and this week, the far-right Ohio Republican followed through, sending a letter to the former special counsel, demanding his closed-door testimony.
[…] the timing of Jordan’s summoning is notable in its own right — because as the Judiciary Committee chair wants to hear from Smith, Smith appears to have quite a bit to say.
A few weeks ago, for example, the former special counsel, who’s maintained an exceedingly low public profile, delivered remarks at George Mason University and sounded the alarm about intensifying threats to the U.S. legal system. “My career has been about the rule of law, and I believe that today it is under attack like in no other period in our lifetimes,” Smith said.
Those were not his final words on the subject. The New York Times reported:
Jack Smith, the special counsel who twice secured indictments of Donald J. Trump, said it was ‘ludicrous’ to suggest he was motivated by partisan politics — and offered a scathing denunciation of the Trump Justice Department — in his first extended remarks since resigning in January. ‘The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case, or who got chosen, is ludicrous,’ Mr. Smith said during an Oct. 8 interview with the former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the University College London that was posted online Tuesday.
At the same event, the prosecutor added, “I think the attacks on public servants, particularly nonpartisan public servants — I think it has a cost for our country that is incalculable, and I think that we — it’s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us.”
[…] Smith is an experienced, credible and capable prosecutor, who’s familiar with the evidence from Trump’s criminal cases at a granular level. The more Republicans drag him back into the spotlight, the more Smith will be positioned to remind the public about alleged presidential felonies the party would probably prefer to forget.
The NYT had previously hinted at the reason behind the abrupt August resignation of former Virginia Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert as interim U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, but now the newspaper has compiled a fuller accounting of what happened.
Gilbert was forced to resign or be fired, the NYT reports, for refusing to can the top career prosecutor in his office, who had found insufficient evidence to pursue a cockamamie theory for investigating the investigators of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
The flimsy allegation is that the investigators themselves mishandled classified documents. FBI Director Kash Patel and deputy director Dan Bongino have seized on burn bags at FBI headquarters that contained classified documents from the case as evidence that senior officials were destroying documents to cover up or protect the former investigators. The more benign and plausible explanation — that the classified materials remain stored in digital form on FBI servers and destroying paper copies is a routine security measure — has been disregarded in favor of elaborate conspiracies that salve President Trump.
The case landed in Gilbert’s office ostensibly because his district includes a FBI classified document storage facility, but that appears to be at least in part a pretext for finding a more favorable jury pool outside of DC or Northern Virginia.
Gilbert was ordered by DOJ higher-ups to open an investigation into the matter shortly after taking over the post, but he “told his superiors that he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to justify a grand jury investigation,” the NYT reports.
From there things “quickly escalated,” as Gilbert put it in a memorable social media post of a meme from Will Farrell’s Anchorman:
Frustrated by that answer, aides to Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, blamed a senior career attorney in the office who they believed had swayed Mr. Gilbert: Zachary Lee, a veteran prosecutor with more than two decades of experience involving public corruption and narcotics, among other issues.
Justice Department officials ordered Mr. Gilbert to replace Mr. Lee with Robert Tracci as his deputy, these people said. After Mr. Lee was demoted, senior department officials suspected Mr. Gilbert was still primarily consulting Mr. Lee, whom they came to view as a holdover from the Biden administration, though he had been hired during the George W. Bush administration and promoted during the first Trump administration, these people added. […]
When Gilbert still didn’t bend, he was told he’d be fired, at which point he resigned.
A weak region in Earth’s magnetic field has grown by an area roughly half the size of continental Europe in the last 10 years.
That’s according to data collected by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Swarm satellite constellation over the last 11 years. Swarm has been monitoring a region known as the South Atlantic Anomaly since 2014, and scientists have just published a new study of the area that reveals that, not only has the anomaly expanded eastward, it has actually been weakening more quickly since 2020.
…(Snip)…
While Earth’s magnetic field appears to be weakening and growing over the South Atlantic Anomaly, there are other areas where it appears to be strengthening, according to Swarm satellite data. It has strengthened in an area over Siberia, growing by a volume comparable to the size of Greenland, but a separate strong region over Canada has shrunk by an area nearly the size of India.
DOHA, QATAR (The Borowitz Report)—In a major setback for Donald J. Trump, on Wednesday the Emir of Qatar demanded that the Idaho airbase his nation had been promised be built at Mar-a-Lago instead.
In a heated exchange, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani reportedly told Trump, “We gave you a 400-million-dollar 747. You’re not sticking us in some Idaho shithole.”
Just hours after Trump caved, national security experts expressed alarm at the Qataris’ move to Mar-a-Lago, warning that they would have access to highly sensitive classified documents stored in the club’s public bathrooms.
For his part, the Emir promised to make “major upgrades” to Trump’s club, starting by fumigating it for bedbugs.
It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that Reflect Orbital’s fucking stupid giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disasters, and destroy the night sky, is going to launch. A bunch of astronomers and I have sent out a fact sheet about them to a bunch of journalists, but very few are going to write about this.
[…]
Reflect Orbital […] wants customers to pay them to reflect beams of sunlight down from orbit. This is called “sunlight as a service.” Their initial plan is for each beam to be several times as bright as the full moon and at least 5 km in diameter on the ground. Due to the high speed needed to orbit Earth, each satellite will shine on one point for only a few minutes at most (Reflect Orbital says 4 minutes). If the mirrors cannot be stowed between pointings every 4 minutes, they will sweep across the ground as they move between one target and the next.
At their proposed size, a single RO satellite is orders-of-magnitude too faint to power a solar panel on the ground, thus many would be required to power solar panels. RO has applied to the FCC for their first satellite launch in mid-2026, stating they plan to launch thousands of these satellites.
[…]
Have you noticed how bright the sky is the last few nights with the very bright nearly-full moon? Now imagine a point source 4x brighter, and moving across the sky. That’s what they want to do.
[*Hazards to eyes, air traffic, astronomy, wildlife, space collisions.*]
The FCC never opened up a comment period on RO’s filing for launch, so there’s no official way to protest. They may open it up later? Absolutely no info on that.
DarkSky International is working on a petition to be delivered to RO’s misguided investors, I will share that as soon as its public.
[…]
Batteries! We need batteries, not space mirrors.
“A Plan to Rebuild Gaza Lists Nearly 30 Companies. Many Say They’re Not Involved”
A SWEEPING PLAN to reconstruct Gaza, which has been shared with Trump administration officials, features the names and logos of more than two dozen companies—some of which tell WIRED they had no knowledge they were named or involved.
The presentation outlining the plan was reportedly created by some of the businessmen who helped ideate what became the controversial nonprofit the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is currently leading aid distribution in Gaza, calling for the creation of a new entity called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation (GREAT) Trust.
In the presentation, logos from Tesla, Amazon Web Services, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) appear alongside bullet points about the benefit “private industry investment” may have in Gaza in terms of building out “key infrastructure” like data centers and “gigafactories.” On one slide, the logos of several companies, including Ikea, appear alongside descriptions of large-scale “infrastructure rebuild” and “peacekeeping (optional)” in Gaza.
WIRED contacted the 28 companies shown alongside proposals for construction, security, and private-sector investment in postwar Gaza—sectors that would be among the first to mobilize if the plans were to be set in motion. Of the companies that responded, zero said they were aware of their names and logos being used in this proposal.
[…] “This was surprising and new information for us,” Ikea spokesperson Arvid Stigland tells WIRED. “We have not approved the use of the Ikea logo in this context.”
“TSMC is not associated with this proposal and did not consent to the use of its logo,” a company spokesperson told WIRED.
InterContinental Hotels Group spokesperson Mike Ward tells WIRED that the company “has had no involvement in this document and is not pursuing any plans connected to it.” […]
Of the security contractors mentioned in the presentation, only G4S responded to WIRED’s query. It denied any association with any current or future group called “the GREAT Trust.” “We have had no communications thus far and have no plans to participate in security services in Gaza,” a G4S spokesperson tells WIRED.
[…] The presentation—which was first cited in July by the Financial Times and was published in full the next month by The Washington Post—was developed by the same people who proposed what would become the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the primary entity distributing food and medical aid in Gaza. Doctors Without Borders has accused the GHF, which was founded earlier this year, of attempting to bypass the UN’s existing systems for aid distribution. A former contractor for UG Solutions, which was hired to provide security for GHF, has also alleged that the foundation’s contractors shot at unarmed Palestinians. […]
Per the presentation, the GREAT Trust would lead a “US-led multi-lateral custodianship” over the Gaza strip. It says the GHF would play an essential role in hiring “private contractors to distribute aid security and build and operate temporary housing zones” in coordination with the Israel Defense Forces.
It’s unclear how Trump officials view the plans in the presentation, but the people who put it together appear to have significant sway inside Israel. Middle East Eye reported that the presentation was developed by Michael Eisenberg, cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Aleph; Liran Tancman, a tech entrepreneur and investor; and one other individual. (This person’s initials, “TF,” appear alongside Eisenberg’s and Tancman’s in the presentation, but TF has not been identified.) Eisenberg and Tancman are part of an informal network of businessmen who helped conceive and set up what became the GHF. Some people in this network, including Tancman, have joined the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the primary Israeli agency overseeing aid deliveries in Gaza and the West Bank.
[…] A Gaza Humanitarian Foundation adviser, who requested anonymity because they do not have permission to speak with the media, said that they had not seen the presentation prior to WIRED sharing it with them. They added that they had never discussed the presentation with anyone at GHF, and they do not believe that the foundation itself played a role in developing it.
[…] The proposal calls for large-scale construction of data centers and “gigafactories,” as well as a train system that would appear to connect Gaza with Neom, the megacity Saudi Arabia is constructing on its west coast. It also pitches an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone” for electric vehicles. Musk did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
[…] GHF is run by Johnnie Moore Jr., a former Trump official and evangelical Christian. It was originally headed by Jake Wood, a former Marine who founded Team Rubicon, an organization that deploys veterans to disaster zones. Wood resigned after about three months, claiming that he couldn’t oversee aid distribution at GHF while “adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”
[…] Former UK prime minister Tony Blair has been linked to the development of an alternative plan that was leaked to the Guardian and Haaretz. Among other things, the plan proposes creating a Gaza Investment Promotion and Economic Development Authority, which would be a “commercially driven authority, led by business professionals and tasked with generating investable projects,” according to various reports of the plan, but it does not mention any specific companies.
Another group called “Palestine Emerging”—made up of an international collective of business executives and consultants—also created a postwar Gaza blueprint. It does not get into detail about investments from businesses abroad but argues that there will have to be a “phased development strategy” in the short, medium, and long term in order to rebuild Gaza’s housing and economy. The blueprint also mentions that there were “about 56,000 businesses in Gaza” before October 7, 2023, which were subject to “historical constraints” that limited their success.
“These constraints include barriers to movement of people and goods from the West Bank and Gaza, restrictions on aquifer access, and limits on mobile communications standards,” reads one section focused on these constraints. “They also impose low-quota restrictions on banking activities (e.g., cash shekel transfers to Israeli banks).”
Compared to redevelopment, however, a much more immediate concern is increasing the amount of food and medical aid entering Gaza. For many months, Israel has been severely restricting the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a UN-backed system for addressing hunger, said in July that a “worst-case scenario” is playing out in Gaza.
[…] The primary barriers from an influx of aid, the adviser adds, are whether the prisoner exchange proceeds as planned and whether the Israeli military speedily approves new sites to distribute aid. […]
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on Tuesday threatened to sue House Speaker Mike Johnson if he doesn’t swear in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva.
[…] Grijalva won her U.S. House seat in a special election on Sept. 23 but has still not been sworn in by Johnson. Her victory was officially certified by Arizona election officials on Tuesday.
Johnson has made varying excuses for why he hasn’t seated Grijalva, none of which hold up to scrutiny.
Johnson has said he can’t swear Grijalva in because the House isn’t in session. […]
However, that is a lie. Earlier this year, Johnson swore in two Florida GOP lawmakers the day after they won special elections, even though the House was in recess.
But when reporters have pointed out that Johnson can still swear Grijalva in during a recess, he then said that those two Florida Republicans were given the oath because their families had flown in. […]
But when asked if Johnson would do the same for Grijalva if her family was in the Capitol, Johnson said no. “These are distractions,” he added.
Of course, the real reason Johnson is not swearing in Grijalva is because she would be the final vote needed to force a vote on releasing the government’s files on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Johnson clearly does not want that vote to take place, since President Donald Trump’s name reportedly appears numerous times in the files.
Johnson denies that he’s not swearing Grijalva in to avoid an Epstein files vote. […]
However, even Johnson’s own GOP colleagues say Grijalva hasn’t been sworn in because of the Epstein files situation.
“Contrary to what he says, [Johnson] is doing everything he can, including delaying the swearing in of the most recently elected member of Congress and spreading misinformation about the legislation, to block a vote in Congress on legislation to release the Epstein files,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who sponsored legislation to release the Epstein files, wrote in a post on X.
Grijalva, for her part, has been loudly campaigning for Johnson to seat her.
On Tuesday, she walked with fellow female Democratic lawmakers to Johnson’s office in the Capitol to demand she be sworn in.
“Speaker Johnson has exhausted every excuse to delay my swearing-in,” Grijalva said in a statement. “I am simply asking him to abide by the same precedent he set when he swore in his Republican colleagues within 24 hours of their special elections and during pro forma sessions earlier this year. Any further delay reveals his true motive: Speaker Johnson is stalling because he knows I will be the 218th signature on the discharge petition to release the Epstein files.”
On Wednesday, Democratic lawmakers held another news conference on Capitol Hill demanding Johnson swear Grijalva in. […]
PS. Anyone still follow that rando boat builder & blogger that some folks have cited n this blog who used to say that Starship would & could never suceed and know if he has apologised and admitted he got that totally wrong yet?
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@95 StevoR:
Why not [space mirrors]?
From the thread: “giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disasters, and destroy the night sky”
StevoRsays
PPS. Not that SpaceX and the Starship rockets success makes Musk any less’of a total nazi douchecanoe I know but the SpaceX workers sure how how to do rocket science even if that’s no credit to that nazi scum Musk.
Gotta separate the two. Musk ain’t his rocket or his private company which, well, I’d have said Cap’n Obvs and needless to say except it seems I still need to state it..
StevoRsays
@99. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : Okay. I didn’t see that & not sure I agree but will have to check that out later.
StevoRsays
^ Becoz I should already be asleep but obvs aren’t.. At least not entirely yet.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@100 StevoR:
Gotta separate the two. Musk ain’t his rocket or his private company
You keep saying that, but Musk and SpaceX gotta separate themselves.
/By all means, sleep. I’m just posting to remind myself where that had been mentioned before. It’s nothing new for you and not worth staying up for.
[Environmental damage is] something they need to address and fix […]
“SpaceX’s unsafe workplace, hundreds of unreported severe injuries and a death. The disregard extended beyond Musk to his deputies and managers.”
Likewise here on the issue of their employee and safety and harassment
Quoting a comment that mentioned the hostile workplace:
harassing comments from other coworkers that “mimicked Musk’s posts” from Twitter and “created a wildly uncomfortable hostile work environment.” […] workers collaborated on an open letter in 2022 raising concerns about his behavior and the company’s culture […] When a human resources official suggested conducting an investigation first, Musk replied “I don’t care—fire them,”
[…]
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell was quoted [saying] “Elon is one of the best humans I know.” […] SpaceX executives including Musk and Shotwell participated in a video “that mocks and makes light of sexual misconduct and banter,”
Current treatments for asthma largely involve controlling the inflammation of lung tissue using steroid inhalers. However, 4 people die every day in the UK from asthma related complications. [Researchers] investigated the scarring that occurs in lung tissue as a result of asthma and have been able to reverse these changes in animal models.
[…]
as well as inflammation, asthma also results in what has previously been considered to be irreversible structural lung changes. These changes include making the lungs stiffer and more scarred through increases in things like ‘extracellular matrix collagens.’
Using animal models that share features of severe asthma in people, the researchers found that preventing inflammation alone is not enough to reverse this tissue scarring. Instead, they found that blocking the action of specific protein molecules […] ‘remarkably reversed’ scarring in the lungs.
[…]
“Although a first step in a long process, our study suggests avenues for new treatments that may […] even reverse tissue scarring in asthma and many other diseases where fibrosis due to disorganized matrix formation is suggested to account for approximately 40% of worldwide mortality.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Xi directs quashing of Chinese feminists even as he praises advances at women’s conference
It was able to neutralize 98.5 percent of more than 300 different HIV strains, making it one of the broadest antibodies against HIV identified. In experiments with humanized mice—animals whose immune system has been modified to resemble that of humans—04_A06 permanently reduced the HIV viral load to undetectable levels. Most other HIV antibodies, in contrast, only achieve short-term effects in this animal model, as resistance develops quickly.
[…]
researchers examined blood samples from people referred to as ‘elite neutralizers’, whose immune system fights the virus with particular effectiveness. The researchers produced more than 800 antibodies […] One stood out: antibody 04_A06 surpassed all others […] The antibody has an unusually long amino acid chain that reaches areas of the viral target that are often difficult to access. These areas are highly conserved and likely difficult for the virus to change without losing the ability to function. This may explain why 04_A06 maintains its antiviral properties
“The administration began laying off federal workers last Friday.”
Related video at the link.
A federal judge on Wednesday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from laying off federal workers during the government shutdown, which has now stretched to two weeks.
Two unions sued the Trump administration last month ahead of the shutdown after the White House signaled a plan to lay off workers through “reductions in force” (RIFs) at federal agencies. At a hearing on Wednesday, a federal judge in the Northern District of California granted the unions’ motion to issue a temporary restraining order preventing the layoffs, which began on Friday.
“The activities that are being undertaken here are contrary to the laws,” U.S. District Judge Susan Yvonne Illston said. “You can’t do this in a nation of laws.”
Illston said that the Trump administration had “taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, the laws don’t apply to them anymore, and they can impose the structures that they like on the government situation that they don’t like.”
Illston said that she believed the plaintiffs can demonstrate that the Trump administration’s actions were illegal, in excess of authority and “arbitrary and capricious.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Themins Hedges argued that employment-related harms were “reparable” and that losing employment was not an “irreparable harm.”
But the judge issued a temporary restraining order, saying it would go into effect immediately. She said she plans to issue the order in writing later Wednesday.
[…] Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said that Trump “seems to think his government shutdown is distracting people from the harmful and lawlessness actions of his administration, but the American people are holding him accountable, including in the courts.”
The judge’s statements, Perryman said, “make clear that the president’s targeting of federal workers — a move straight out of Project 2025’s playbook — is unlawful,” adding that “playing games with their livelihoods is cruel and unlawful and a threat to everyone in our nation.”
Brown University President Christina H. Paxson sent a letter to the White House on Wednesday, rejecting the Trump administration’s demand that the school sign a ‘compact’ in exchange for preferential treatment.
Hamas released the remains of two more hostages on Wednesday, according to the Israel Defense Forces, and said it would require ‘significant efforts’ to retrieve the bodies of remaining hostages.
The Supreme Court appeared poised on Wednesday to upend a key provision of a landmark civil rights law by prohibiting lawmakers from using race as a factor in drawing voting maps, which could spark widespread redistricting efforts.
The Trump administration has secretly authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials, stepping up a campaign against Nicolás Maduro […]
The State Department said that it had revoked the visas of foreign citizens who had criticized Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist recently assassinated in Utah by what appeared to be a lone shooter. Top State Department officials had said they would revoke visas or reject visa applications of people who had criticized him, raising questions about First Amendment protections.
Five months before catastrophic floods swept through the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk on Sunday, tearing many houses off their foundations, the Trump administration canceled a $20 million grant intended to protect the community from such extreme flooding. The grant from the Environmental Protection Agency was designed to help stabilize the riverbank on which Kipnuk is built, protecting it from the twin threats of erosion and flooding.
Federal agents have moved about 20 migrants to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a Defense Department official said on Tuesday, repopulating the holding site for detainees designated for deportation for the first time in nearly two weeks.
Donald Trump was accused Monday of making a solemn ceremony, where he posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to assassinated right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, all about himself.
During his tribute to Kirk, who was fatally shot in September during an event at Utah Valley University, Trump went off-script to boast about his own skills in surviving the 2024 assassination attempt on his own life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Since right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was murdered at a Turning Point USA event in Utah last month, the vice president has filled in some on Kirk’s podcast — a production that Kirk’s friends and allies have kept up and running.
A few days after Kirk’s death, Vice President JD Vance hosted an episode of Kirk’s podcast from the White House to honor his friend. As my colleague Josh Kovensky reported today, other members of the Trump administration have now also made appearances on the show, which has morphed into a space for them to expand upon their vision for a domestic “War on Terror” waged against “antifa,” Democrats and people who espouse various common, left-coded ideas in America. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was among the latest to detail these plans this week, saying “we are operationalizing the Treasury, and we are going to track down who is responsible for this.” Josh Kovensky gets into the details in his piece, published today, below:
The memo directs Joint Terrorism Task Forces, groups that combine local law enforcement with the FBI, to examine advocacy organizations that the memo views as orchestrating political violence. But it also sets Treasury a significant task: to “identify and disrupt financial networks that fund domestic terrorism and political violence.” For that, it tasks offices traditionally used to track money laundering, sanctions evasion and foreign terrorist financing, among other things, with tracing “illicit funding streams” under the memo. […]
More at the link.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@98 StevoR:
that rando boat builder & blogger […] who used to say that Starship would & could never suceed and know if he has apologised and admitted he got that totally wrong yet?
Even if I am wrong, and Flight 10 is a wild success, with [Super Heavy Booster] and Starship making pitch-perfect landings, Starship is still far, far, far away from entering operations. This flight’s payload is just 10% of what was promised and is, in fact, smaller than a typical Falcon 9 payload. To take ten times more payload to space and make the entire Starship project worthwhile will require enormous work. The rocket will need more fuel and become far more robust, necessitating a near-total redesign. SpaceX is currently attempting this, with a far larger third generation of Starship in the works. […] going back to square one. […] So no, even if Flight 10 is a success […] it won’t move the needle forward for Starship.
From Manley’s Flight 11 video: “the promise of 100-150 tons to low Earth orbit, but today it would only be carrying maybe 6 tons of simulated Starlinks”.
@ 122. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : Seems to be a bit of goalpost shifting there from “it can’t work!!!1ty! “to “Oh okay it willwork but its not going to deliver sufficient payloads wahh!”
Well, thing is the SpaceX Starshipdid work – does work – and I’m sure it eventually will deliver sufficient payloads too.
Yeah, I don’t like the nazi scumbag Felon Musk either but that doesn’t mean that SpaceX isn’t exceeding expectations and hasn’t built an awesome and useful and incredibly impressive record setting rocket.(Seems I need to keep reminding folks of that.)
The rando boat builder blogger who some here for some reason thought was somehow more cedible than actual, literal rocket scientists incl NASA was simply proven wrong by the last two successful Starship flights as I predicted and knew he would be. Those that still consider him credible should probly adjust their views now in light of this reality.
StevoRsays
A 1.5-million-year-old set of hand bones, unearthed from a lake bed in Kenya, are the first to suggest an ape-like cousin of humans could use tools.
While the owner of the hands was a relative of modern humans called Paranthropus boisei, it was not a direct ancestor of ours.
But, according to a study led by researchers in the US and Kenya and published in Nature, the individual may have used tools, an ability some archaeologists doubted possible in this ancient species.
Tool use is a key milestone in the evolution of humans, study lead author and Stony Brook University anthropologist Carrie Mongle said.
“It represents a turning point in our behavioural and cognitive complexity.”
Of course, chimpanzees and gorillas have been known to use tools too but still.
StevoRsays
Yup. SCOTUS with Trump’s fraudulent treason Injustices in charge is going to end free and fair elections inthe USoA – no doubt in my mind on that and this discussion shows one way how that’s happening right now :
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled it could upend a central pillar of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The question at the heart of arguments is whether lawmakers can use race as a factor when drawing congressional districts. Ali Rogin discussed the case’s potential to reshape electoral maps with News Hour Supreme Court analyst and SCOTUSblog co-founder Amy Howe and David Wasserman.
On the bright side they have atyleats rejected Alex Jones appeal – not much consolation tho’really :
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and left in place the $1.4 billion judgment against him over his description of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as a hoax staged by crisis actors.
Satellites recorded the largest ocean swells ever seen from space, highlighting how massive waves can act as storm “messengers,” carrying a storm’s power across entire oceans.
Observations from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission allowed scientists to track waves born from powerful storms. These waves, driven by wind, generate swells that carry destructive energy to faraway shores — even if the storm itself never makes landfall.
…(Snip)..
..One storm in particular — Storm Eddie, which formed over the North Pacific in December 2024 — served as a natural laboratory for the study. During the peak of the storm, satellites observed open-ocean waves reaching nearly 65 feet (20 meters), or roughly the height of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Those are the highest ever measured from space.
Seems to be a bit of goalpost shifting there from “it can’t work!!!1ty!” to “Oh okay it will work but its not going to deliver sufficient payloads wahh!”
I can see how it could read it that way. Payloads had been the complaint back in March, and he was dissing the Starship program’s strategy of cutting safety margins to save weight from launch to launch, particularly when near 100% reliability is the goal. Individual rockets carrying fractional cargo without incident would not redeem the program.
Individual rockets failing, and their successor rockets failing to stop failing, would also be consistent with a doomed program.
the people of Rapa Nui likely used rope and “walked” the giant statues in a zig-zag motion along carefully designed roads. Lipo and his colleagues had previously demonstrated via experimental evidence that the large statues “walked” from their quarry to ceremonial platforms using an upright, rocking motion, challenging a theory that the statues were moved lying prone on wooden devices.
“Once you get it moving, it isn’t hard at all—people are pulling with one arm. It conserves energy, and it moves really quickly,” said Lipo. “The hard part is getting it rocking in the first place. The question is, if it’s really large, what would it take?[“] […] Lipo’s team created high-resolution 3D models of the moai and identified distinctive design features—wide D-shaped bases and a forward lean […] the team built a 4.35-ton replica moai with the distinct ‘forward-lean’ design. With just 18 people, the team was able to transport the moai 100 meters in just 40 minutes […] “What we saw experimentally actually works. And as it gets bigger, it still works. All the attributes that we see about moving gigantic ones only get more and more consistent the bigger and bigger they get, because it becomes the only way you could move it.”
[…]
Adding to the support for this theory are the roads of Rapa Nui. Measuring 4.5 meters wide with a concave cross-section, the roads were ideal for stabilizing the statues as they moved forward.
beholdersays
@98 StevoR
PS. Anyone still follow that rando boat builder & blogger that some folks have cited n this blog who used to say that Starship would & could never suceed and know if he has apologised and admitted he got that totally wrong yet?
Apologize for what? For not being a cheerleader for Elon Musk?
Hmm… I’m suspicious of Mearsheimer, Greenwald, and Rumble, but I must admit that was an interesting take on the Israel lobby. It’s hard to know how far the anti-Israel swing in public and even right-wing pundit/grifter opinion (which is what Mearsheimer says puts Israel in desperate straits because it threatens the USA-Israel special relationship*) affected Trump’s decision to do what he could have done at any point (after he allowed Israel to end the January 2025 ceasefire in March) – ordered Netanyahu to agree another. More important may have been Netanyahu over-reaching by bombing Doha, which Trump took as a personal affront. Mearsheimer’s point about Israel’s complete security dependence on the USA is well taken, and his assertion that it is this that has led to the Israel lobby acting with unusual openness in trying to control the media (e.g. consider TikTok, Bari Weiss).is plausible.
I’m not so pessimistic about the current ceasefire as M&G apparently are. It has given Hamas the opportunity to reclaim ground and prepare for any resumption of Israeli ground troops advancing. They will also get resupplied with food, medicine and other essentials. Eliminating a well-rooted** urban guerilla force is extremely difficult, and pulverising the place with bombs first doesn’t make it easier: it would cost a lot of Israeli soldiers’ lives. Israel could simply starve the entire population to death and Hamas (apart from prisoners in Israeli jails and leaders residing abroad) along with them – but that’s rather difficult to spin as self-defence.
Mearsheimer also says Israel has not done well against its adversaries, but that’s stretching it. OK, it hasn’t eliminated Hamas, but it has almost destroyed Hezbollah, bombed Iran more or less at its pleasure, seized more Syrian and Lebanese territory, and badly damaged the Syrian armed forces without loss.
**I don’t mean Hamas is popular – I have no idea whether it is or not. But it clearly has extensive support networks in Gaza, well beyond what any possible rival has.
“There were some indications that the president’s appointees were politicizing the agency in ways unseen since Watergate. The emerging picture is now worse.”
It’s been a difficult year for the Internal Revenue Service. Over the past several months, the tax agency has struggled with resignations, DOGE-imposed disruptions and the abandonment of a much-needed modernization initiative.
Complicating matters, there’s been a revolving door at the IRS administrator’s office: Seven different people have led the agency over the past 10 months, including the current IRS chief, Scott Bessent, who already has a full-time job leading the Treasury Department. (Bessent recently created a new job — the CEO of the Internal Revenue Service — and filled the vacancy with Frank Bisignano. Of course, Bisignano also already has a full-time job running the Social Security Administration.)
But just because things are awful at the IRS doesn’t mean conditions can’t get worse. The Wall Street Journal reported:
The Trump administration is preparing sweeping changes at the Internal Revenue Service that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily, according to people familiar with the matter. A senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that includes major Democratic donors, some of the people said.
[…] One of the first signs of trouble came six months ago, when The Washington Post reported that the Republican administration was “amassing influence over criminal investigations at the IRS,” in part by elevating Gary Shapley — whom the White House saw as a political ally because he raised concerns about Hunter Biden’s taxes in 2023.
The Post added in April that developments at the tax agency gave Trump political appointees “a direct line to tax investigations for the first time since Richard M. Nixon was president.”
Six months later, The Wall Street Journal […] advanced the story, noting that Team Trump is going forward with plans to install White House allies at the IRS Criminal Investigation division. The outlet reported that the move is in order to “exert firmer control over the unit” and “weaken the involvement of IRS lawyers in criminal investigations,” while opening the door to “politically motivated probes.”
In fact, the Journal added that Shapley is poised to lead the IRS’ investigative unit, and he has already “put together a list” of potential progressive targets.
Reading this, I was reminded of a recent column from The New York Times’ Jeffrey Toobin, who highlighted Richard Nixon’s Watergate-era enemies list. From the piece:
The Internal Revenue Service took some preliminary steps to investigate Mr. Nixon’s enemies, but Donald C. Alexander, who was Mr. Nixon’s commissioner of the I.R.S. in 1973, shut down attempts to use audits and other forms of harassment in that way. Mr. Alexander later wrote that he took the step because ‘political or social views, ‘extremist’ or otherwise, are irrelevant to taxation.’ Mr. Nixon stewed about Mr. Alexander’s intransigence, and Mr. Alexander later wrote that the president had tried to fire him, but the I.R.S. commissioner stayed in place for the rest of the president’s time in office.
When historians and other observers argue that Team Trump’s abuses are worse than what Americans experienced during Nixon’s Watergate era, there are ample reasons to take the assessment seriously.
“As the cost of the White House’s bailout package roughly doubles, the political risks for the American president appear increasingly unavoidable.”
As Donald Trump welcomed Argentinian President Javier Milei at the White House, a controversial policy hung over their meeting: The American president and his team recently approved a $20 billion bailout intended to help bolster the South American country’s economy as it confronts a possible crisis.
Asked how this fits into his “America First” vision, Trump conceded that the bailout wouldn’t “make a big difference” for the United States, despite the fact that American taxpayers were paying for it. Trump went on to say that the money is intended to “help a good financial philosophy,” adding that if Argentinian voters turned against Milei in upcoming elections, the White House would abandon the bailout package and allow the South American country to move closer to a crisis.
Or put another way, the American president made it sound as if he’s using a whole lot of taxpayer dollars to bolster a struggling foreign ally who’s facing an uncertain electoral future.
This wasn’t well received among many in Argentina — locals apparently aren’t altogether comfortable with American interference in their elections — and it probably won’t help in the U.S. that the price tag for the bailout is already climbing. NBC News reported:
The Trump administration is working on an additional $20 billion support package for Argentina. If completed, it would bring the total price tag of a U.S. backstop plan for Buenos Aires to $40 billion. … [Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent] said the United States would arrange funding commitments from banks and sovereign wealth funds to cover the second $20 billion tranche.
Put another way, Bessent envisions a model in which American taxpayers put up $20 billion, in the form of a loan that officials in Buenos Aires are unlikely to repay, and the Trump administration will arrange private financing to provide Argentina with an additional $20 billion.
That’s a dramatic amount of money. In fact, Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico noted via Bluesky, “The cost of holding down ACA premiums for a year is less than this.”
That comment was accurate […] House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “The Trump administration is giving $20 billion to bail out a right-wing wannabe dictator in Argentina, but Republicans are unwilling to spend a dime to provide affordable healthcare to working-class Americans. That’s unacceptable. […].”
The New York Democrat echoed the message soon after at a congressional press conference. [social media post and video]
[…] struggling families tend to wonder why there’s no rescue package for them — but Trump has yet to come up with a coherent explanation for why people in his own country should support the White House’s policy.
The political vulnerabilities for the president seem obvious.
“The president continues to lobby law enforcement officials to target his foes, brazenly and publicly, driven by a sense of grievance and entitlement.”
Before any of the officials said a word in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon, the visual alone was striking: The public saw the president standing alongside the nation’s three most powerful federal law enforcement officials — the attorney general, the deputy attorney general and the director of the FBI — ostensibly to announce something called “Operation Summer Heat,” which was never really explained in meaningful detail.
There was no pretense that the Justice Department and the FBI are independent of the White House. On the contrary, as Donald Trump seizes control over federal law enforcement and starts calling the shots at the DOJ, The New York Times reported that the White House event became “a diorama of power dynamics.” From the article:
[Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche and Kash Patel] left about an hour later, after President Trump tossed out, offhandedly, three names of people he wanted prosecuted: Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two criminal indictments against him; Andrew Weissmann, a former F.B.I. official who was a lead prosecutor for the team investigating the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia in the 2016 election; and Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The Oval Office press conference was, by any fair measure, bizarre. The public saw not only the elimination of the lines that separate the White House from prosecutorial priorities, Americans also watched a conspiratorial president throw a series of self-pitying mini-tantrums, while adding fresh names to his growing enemies list. [video]
“What they did was criminal,” Trump whined, pointing to vague illegalities that only exist in his imagination. “Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion is a criminal. … I hope they’re going to look into Weissman, too. Weissman is a bad guy. And he had somebody in Lisa who was his puppet, worked in the office really as the top person. And I think that she should be looked at very strongly. There was tremendous criminal activity.”
Again, the context matters: Trump wasn’t just peddling complaints via social media or during an interview on a conservative media outlet; he was endorsing prosecutions against his perceived political foes while standing alongside the attorney general, the deputy attorney general and the FBI director.
For good measure, the president soon after added, in reference to Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, “I hope they’re looking at ‘Shifty’ Schiff. I hope they’re looking at all these people,” before also endorsing a federal investigation into his election defeat in Georgia five years ago.
[…] the ongoing corruption of the process, unfolding before our eyes, is likely to get worse before it gets better. As the ridiculous Oval Office event neared its end, Trump claimed that he and his team have been, in his estimation, “very, very soft” in pursuit of his political opponents, and he’s prepared to become even more involved in targeting his foes at a time of his choosing. [!]
President Trump will speak Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a White House official confirmed to The Hill, one day before Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. […]
Zelensky will visit the White House on Friday to meet with Trump. Zelensky said he would also meet with defense companies, energy companies and members of Congress while in Washington.
“This is necessary – it was President Trump’s proposal – and I will meet with these companies because there are pressing needs linked to various formats of attacks, not even the attacks that Russia has already carried out. In any case, we must be prepared,” Zelensky posted on social platform X.
Update on two stories about Pete Hegseth […], which have come together to remind us all what an incompetent […] is running the Department of Defense of the United States of America.
First of all, they went through with it. [Hegseth’s] deadline came and went, and no networks had signed his Nazi fascist journalism pledge besides One America News — his former employers at Fox News ended up joining all the mainstream networks to tell him to fuck himself — therefore they all had to turn in their press passes, and now there is no Pentagon Press Corps.
(But take heart, Pete! Ginormous bootlicking loser Mollie Hemingway, editor of The Federalist, says they’re going to sign it. That’s right, all your stories from inside the Pentagon brought to you by […] OAN and The Federalist. […]
Anyway, it sucks that real reporters won’t be allowed in the Pentagon anymore, […] they’re making the gamble that if they work hard enough, the story will keep coming to them, press passes or no press passes. (The Guardian has a good piece on the challenges ahead, with lots of quotes from members of the press corps.)
And hey, speaking of the stories finding their ways out of the Pentagon walls and getting to journalists, remember that pathetic speech [Hegseth] gave where he summoned all the country’s generals (who outrank him) to Quantico so he could prancercise around the stage and talk about the proper way to do hair?
Well, prepare to laugh at it some more, because apparently [Hegseth], the one with the hilarious pull-ups, is prancercising around the Pentagon and demanding everybody verify that they have watched the video of his […] speech.
[…] Prem Thakker and Asawin Suebsaeng report for Zeteo — Mehdi Hasan’s outfit — that [Hegseth] has gotten the message out that everybody in the Pentagon has to watch his dork speech, or read it, and they are not allowed to say bad things about it or make fun of it, OR ELSE.
[…] everybody already made the joke about how it was the most pointless speech in the history of God and man, a waste of the time of every one of those generals whose life and career outshines Hegseth’s, so pointless that it could have been an email. […]
Thakker and Suebsaeng report that Hegseth’s flock of white boys with Little Man Syndrome “have actively monitored staffers, pressing them to confirm whether they had seen the speech.” They are asking for proof, say Zeteo’s sources. And they have made sure staffers know “there would be reprimands – if staff were caught lying or ridiculing the former Fox News host’s address.”
Sorry, we’re gonna let you catch your breath in case you’re laughing so hard […] that you need a minute. […]
Here are some quotes from the story:
“We have other things we need to work on,” one of the Defense Department staffers tells Zeteo. “When they told us we were required to watch the Hegseth speech, I did not realize they were going to throw this kind of manpower at enforcing the mandatory viewing of a Trump rally.” [!]
[…]
An internal email sent on Wednesday to the 1st Fighter Wing at Joint Base Langley–Eustis, a key Air Force installation in Hampton, Virginia, obtained by The Advocate, confirms the order. In it, Col. Brad S. Huebinger, the wing’s commander, wrote that “the Secretary of War has directed that all personnel will either watch the full recording or read the official transcript of his speech and review the policy changes no later than 31 October 2025.”
[…] Zeteo again:
At times, when subordinates have replied that they had watched the nearly hour-long speech in full, higher-ranking officials have immediately asked the staffers questions about the speech – as if to, in the words of one of the sources, “test” them and make sure they aren’t lying. […]
[…] In the interest of being of service to the brave men and women who serve our country […] here is a cheat sheet for any Pentagon staffers and troops who really want to watch the speech, totally, but they just haven’t gotten around to it […]
– OK well a really touchy sensitive man who looks like an oil rig exploded on a gay skunk strutted around the stage.
WARFIGHTER!
– OK, there was a really funny part where Hegseth got all dramatic and looked at the camera like he was doing a bit on Fox & Friends Weekend and “warned” our enemies that “[t]hey will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the War Department. To our enemies, F-A-F-O.”
– […] Remember to call it “WAR DEPARTMENT,” and to call the beclowned boss the “secretary of WARRRR,” […] He really thinks this makes him manly.
– WARFIGHTER!
– The system has been RIGGED! against entirely mediocre white man losers with generally unimpressive military careers, BUT NO LONGER!
– Girls are icky, ew!
– Fat people are icky, ew!
– Everybody who isn’t a white conservative Christian with daddy issues is icky, ew!
– “HIGHEST MALE STANDARD ONLY!”
– WARFIGHTER!
– stop saying “DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH!” Diversity is not our strength! Our strength is making sure Pete Hegseth is camera-ready for his next close-up!
– Please watch this video of Pete Hegseth doing his exercises.
– Rules of engagement are bullshit! So-called “war crimes” are bullshit! Telling Secretary Hegseth what to do is bullshit!
– WARFIGHTER!’
– “We are currently clean on OPSEC!”
– Remember to shave!
– Nobody clapped at the end.
The United States’ gross domestic product is about $30 trillion—roughly a quarter of the world’s total. China’s second, with a GDP of around $19 trillion, followed by a steep drop: Germany at $5 trillion, Japan at $4.3 trillion, and India at $4.1 trillion. Every other nation is below $4 trillion.
So when Trump boasts that he’s secured $17 trillion in domestic investment, it doesn’t pass the smell test. The world doesn’t have that kind of capital sitting around and waiting to be handed to a country that’s spent the past nine months antagonizing its trading partners.
But that doesn’t stop Trump from claiming it.
“‘We have over $17 trillion being invested now in the United States,’ Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday,” reported CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale. “On Friday, he said he thought the figure had ‘just cracked $18 trillion.’”
What’s funny is that Trump’s White House claims the number is $8.8 trillion—and even that’s garbage.
When you break down the supposed sources of those investments, it’s immediately clear that none of this is real money or firm commitments. It is smoke and mirrors—numbers invented for press releases, not grounded in signed deals or measurable economic activity.
[Multiple examples are available at the link.]
[…] The truth is, these supposed investment announcements were never serious. It’s doubtful that even Trump believes they’re real. He just wants something to brag about—some big, round number to throw around on camera […]
World leaders figured this out years ago. They learned that the easiest way to get Trump to back off his foreign policy was to flatter him. Offer a headline-friendly “deal,” let him tout some imaginary investment number, and he’ll walk away thinking he’s won. It’s a fantasy dressed up as a win. A New York Times subhead put it bluntly: “U.S. trading partners are committing to buy more gas than they need or than the U.S. can produce, at least in the short term.”
We’ve seen this movie before. In Trump’s first term, China supposedly agreed to buy $200 billion of additional U.S. energy by the end of 2021. That never happened.
“The scale of the delusion [of recent trade announcements] probably exceeds what Trump and China agreed in their … trade deal in December 2019,” wrote Reuters columnist Clyde Russell. “The reality is that China never even came close to buying that level, and its imports of U.S. energy didn’t even reach what they were before Trump launched his first trade war in 2017.”
China played Trump then, and the rest of the world is playing him now. But even after being humiliated on the global stage for years, he still can’t resist inflating his own fantasies into something even more absurd.
“A typhoon brought record-high water to two low-lying Alaska Native communities and washed away homes, some with people inside. At least one person was killed and two are missing.”
One of the most significant airlifts in Alaskan history is underway by helicopter and military transport plane, moving hundreds of people from coastal villages ravaged by high surf and strong winds from the remnants of Typhoon Halong last weekend.
The storm brought record high water to two low-lying Alaska Native communities and washed away homes, some with people inside. At least one person was killed and two are missing. Makeshift shelters were quickly established and swelled to hold about 1,500 people, an extraordinary number in a sparsely populated region where communities are reachable only by air or water this time of year.
The remoteness and scale of the destruction created challenges for getting resources in place. Damage assessments have been trickling in as responders have shifted from initial search-and-rescue operations to trying to stabilize or restore basic services.
The communities of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok near the Bering Sea saw water levels more than 6 feet (1.8 meters) above the highest normal tide line. Some 121 homes were destroyed in Kipnuk, a village of about 700 people.
Leaders asked the state to evacuate the more than 1,000 residents from those villages, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesperson with the state emergency management office.
About 300 evacuees were brought to Anchorage on Wednesday, about 500 miles (805 kilometers) east of the battered coastal villages, according to the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. People were being taken to the Alaska Airlines Center, a sports and events complex with capacity for about 400, Zidek said.
Shelter space closer to home — in the southwest Alaska regional hub of Bethel — was at capacity, with the food supply “near depletion,” officials said in a briefing Thursday.
Cell phone service had been restored in Kwigillingok, the report said, and restrooms were again working at the school in Kwigillingok, where about 350 people had sheltered overnight Tuesday, according to a state emergency management statement.
“Damage to many homes is severe, and the community leadership is instructing residents not to reenter homes due to safety concerns,” it said.
Damage was also serious in other villages. Water, sewer and well systems were inoperable in Napaskiak, and the Coast Guard on Thursday was expected to arrive in another village to assess a spill of up to 2,000 gallons (7,600 liters) of waste oil.
In Kwigillingok and Kipnuk, some homes cannot be reoccupied, even with emergency repairs, and others may not be livable by winter, emergency management officials said. Forecasters say rain and snow is possible in the region this weekend, with average temperatures soon below freezing.
Mark Roberts, the commander with the state emergency management agency, said the immediate focus was on “making sure people are safe, warm and cared for while we work with our partners to restore essential services.”
Zidek did not know how long the evacuation would take and said authorities were looking for additional shelters. The aim is to get people from congregate shelters into hotel rooms or dormitories, he said.
The crisis unfolding in southwest Alaska has drawn attention to Trump administration cuts to grants aimed at helping small, mostly Indigenous villages prepare for storms or mitigate disaster risks.
For example, a $20 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant to Kipnuk, which was inundated by floodwaters, was terminated by the Trump administration, a move challenged by environmental groups. The grant was intended to protect the boardwalk residents use to get around the community, as well as 1,400 feet (430 meters) of river from erosion, according to a federal website that tracks government spending.
[…] “What’s happening in Kipnuk shows the real cost of pulling back support that was already promised to front line communities,” said Jill Habig, CEO of the Public Rights Project. “These grants were designed to help local governments prepare for and adapt to the growing effects of climate change. When that commitment is broken, it puts people’s safety, homes and futures at risk.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
There’s an annual grant coming up for indigenous adults/families in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota: Collective Abundance Fund offers $25/50k for building generational wealth.
Apply Nov 5-19 with a spending plan for home, business, education, career, debt relief, landback, etc. and 3 letters of support. (Not for rent, emergencies, luxuries, or extractive biz)
Senate Democrats rejected for the 10th time Thursday a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits.
The vote failed Thursday morning on a 51-45 vote, well short of the 60 needed to advance with the Senate’s filibuster rules.
Apparently they are negotiating at this point but it’s not really gone anywhere yet. The public positions have not changed but it’s always unclear what is going on in private.
The important thing is that the Democrats are holding together as a block, the Republicans are not close to getting the vote they need. I agree with the Democrats, this is an issue worth making a stand on and the Democrats are not asking for something absurd. The Democrats are also right that they need to get what they want in the same vote, the current Republican party can not be trusted to keep any promise of future action.
KGsays
Anyone still follow that rando boat builder & blogger that some folks have cited n this blog who used to say that Starship would & could never suceed and know if he has apologised and admitted he got that totally wrong yet? – StevoR@98
JM @43: And also, the Democrats cannot trust any promises made by Republicans. For example, if Republicans say they will negotiate health care after the government shutdown ends, that is NOT a trustworthy promise.
Also, anything Congressional Republicans agree to do, Trump can, and probably will, just ignore it.
The deal, if any is to be made, has to be made now, while the Democrats have some leverage.
John Bolton, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Maryland. The 26-page indictment charges Bolton with 18 counts related to the retention and transmission of national defense information. […]
Related video at the link is hosted by Ari Melber.
[…] Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has maintained his client’s innocence and said Thursday in response to the indictment that the case was investigated and resolved years ago.
“These charges stem from portions of Amb. Bolton’s personal diaries over his 45-year career — records that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021,” Lowell said. He added that keeping a diary, as other public officials have, “is not a crime. We look forward to proving once again that Amb. Bolton did not unlawfully share or store any information.” […]
The former national security adviser — who also served in the George W. Bush administration — became a vocal critic of Trump after Trump fired him in 2019.
He is the third of Trump’s detractors to be charged with federal crimes in the last few weeks. Grand jurors in Virginia indicted former FBI Director James Comey, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to and obstructing Congress; and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, on charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. James denies the charges and is due in court next week.
Both of those investigations received pushback from career federal prosecutors who felt there was insufficient evidence to bring charges. Those cases were brought instead by Lindsey Halligan, formerly one of Trump’s own lawyers, shortly after she was installed as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia despite never having worked as a prosecutor.
[…] while Halligan presented the Comey and James cases to grand jurors by herself, the Maryland grand jury met with at least one long-serving career prosecutor, Tom Sullivan, who leads the office’s national security unit.
[…] The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.
I doubt that this meeting will go well for anyone but Putin:
President Donald Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Thursday that he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, Hungary, for a second round of in-person talks to end the war in Ukraine.
The University of Pennsylvania on Thursday became the third school to reject President Trump’s proposal to give funding preferences to institutions that agree to concessions, such as capping international enrollment and freezing tuition, and taking steps to protect conservative viewpoints.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that California will begin selling affordable insulin under its own label on Jan. 1, nearly three years after he first announced a partnership to sell state-branded generic drugs at lower prices.
Indian officials said Thursday they were ‘not aware’ of any conversation between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, appearing to contradict a claim by the American president that he had just secured a pledge from his Indian counterpart to stop buying Russian oil.
Re: birgerjohansson @ #151…
At least Sodium isn’t hard to find…there’s oceans of the stuff around all over the place…
Militant Agnosticsays
birgerjohansson @151
The thing that impressed me was the 90% capacity at -40. A couple of years ago I talked to someone who had driven a Tesla from Calgary to Vancouver during a -30 to -35 cold snap. They said range was about half of what it was during the summer. Now, some of the range loss was probably due to heating the interior of the car. – I assume that an EV doesn’t use waste heat to keep there interior warm unlike an Infernal Combustion Engine which uses waste heat from the engine coolant to heat the interior.
JMsays
@151 birgerjohansson: Sodium ion batteries are also heavier then lithium ion. CATL’s new battery is reported at 175 Wh/kg but most sodium ion are 100-150 Wh/kg, lithium ion is 200-300 Wh/kg. That would get in the way of the performance of EVs but if CATL can actually hit 175 Wh/kg at half the price of lithium it will begin to cut into EV markets.
Unauthorized pro-Palestinian political messages praising Hamas and attacking President Donald Trump and Israel’s prime minister were broadcast through public address systems in terminals at four airports in North America on Tuesday, disrupting operations and sparking investigations into the apparent hacks.
Videos posted by passengers on social media show the unauthorized recordings played at Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania.
Incidents were also reported at Kelowna International Airport and Victoria International Airport in British Columbia along with Windsor International Airport in Ontario, according to Transport Canada, which regulates airports in the country.
There is about a good chance this is a trivial hack. Often when things like wireless PA systems are installed their security is not properly setup, leaving their default settings active and taking them over took nothing but a little knowledge of what type of system they had. If that wasn’t the case then most likely it was an inside job, somebody who knew the security passed the security information to a hacker. Those two cover the majority of hacks like this.
Eric Cartman doing nazi stuff really did make a strong impressions on those Young Republicans. But they are just boys. 24-37 year old boys.
.
When Englishmen talked about an “old boys” network that liked fascism, it was in the 1930s. But I see England is coming around to it again, thanks to a certain Farage.
Next episode will arrive at Halloween.
(BTW this episode is so gross, it actually tracks with reality)
birgerjohanssonsays
Also… Peter Thiel is owner of a lot of surveillance conpanies. And at least part owner of J D Vance.
And he is reading what John of Patmos wrote about fire-breathing Jews and scorpion-horse-locusts to get information about the future…
Just saying.
So, most Anglicans don’t want gays to marry. Bye, don’t slam the door on your way out.
birgerjohanssonsays
There are speculations that mount Etna might be facing a catastrophic flank collapse, but I have not been able to find in-depth articles on the subject.
When the Supreme Court weighed in on Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo last month, the Republican-appointed justices cleared the way for federal immigration officials to use racial profiling. A concurring opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh proved to be especially important.
As the Trump appointee concluded, ICE agents can legally detain someone if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person might be undocumented. Kavanaugh envisioned a real-world model that was efficient and effective.
“[R]easonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status,” the justice wrote. “If the person is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter. … If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go.” [Delusional]
In legal circles, this quickly became known as “Kavanaugh stops.”
At first blush, some might see the process the justice described as reasonable: ICE agents stop suspects; the suspects prove they’re here legally; and the suspects then go about their day. What’s so bad about a “brief encounter”?
In practice, quite a bit.
The New York Times recently reported, for example, that “many” U.S. citizens have been taken into custody. “While many of those detained have immediately declared their U.S. citizenship to officers, they have routinely been ignored. … In some cases they have been handcuffed, kept in holding cells and immigration facilities overnight, and in at least two cases held without access to a lawyer or even a phone call.”
But how many is “many”? ProPublica tried to document the scope of the problem:
Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched. About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones.
According to ProPublica’s tally, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC, more than 170 American citizens have been held against their will because federal agents, acting at Donald Trump’s behest, suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.
“Among the citizens detained are nearly 20 children, including two with cancer,” the report added, while acknowledging that this tally “is almost certainly incomplete.”
Despite Kavanaugh’s confidence in a simple and efficient process, these Americans’ encounters with ICE agents were not “brief,” and officials did not “promptly” let these individual go.
Asked about this on Friday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he didn’t know anything about it. Maybe someone should show him a copy of the ProPublica report.
“Centuries after ‘L’État, c’est moi,’ Republicans are putting their own twist on the adage: ‘I am the state’ has effectively become ‘Trump is the state.’ ”
It’s not exactly a secret that in American politics, partisan officials distribute talking points to their allies. The purpose is obvious: Those in a position of authority have specific messages and phrases they want the public to hear, and so they encourage disciplined communications, to be repeated as often as possible.
Ahead of Saturday’s No Kings rallies, Republican officials haven’t exactly been subtle in what they want to convey. The Washington Post reported:
Ahead of thousands of anti-authoritarian ‘No Kings’ protests planned for Saturday across the United States, Republicans are trying to brand the demonstrations as ‘hate America’ rallies, ramping up their rhetoric about the millions of people expected to peacefully protest President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies as they did in June.
After House Speaker Mike Johnson used the line a week ago, claiming the No Kings protest scheduled in Washington, D.C., deserved to be seen as a “hate America rally,” I started taking notes on how many GOP officials embraced that phrasing.
Soon after, I had to give up. So many Republicans were pushing the same line that it proved overwhelming. [!]
The more Republican rhetoric about the No Kings events turns hysterical, the easier it is to believe that the party is panicking about the growing public backlash to its agenda. Just as notably, let’s not forget that a benchmark of any authoritarian movement is the delegitimization of political opposition and a crackdown on public dissent.
But looking specifically at the party’s choice of slander, it’s also worth emphasizing the degree to which Republicans are helping prove the progressive activists’ point.
There were plenty of ways for GOP officials to attack these protests. For that matter, Republicans could’ve simply ignored them or downplayed their importance.
Instead, the party settled on an unusual smear: To oppose Trump, they appear to argue, is to “hate America.” It’s a perspective rooted in the idea that the president is the embodiment of the United States, and as such, his critics are necessarily unpatriotic.
No Kings protesters couldn’t possibly love their country or its highest ideals, the Republican argument goes, because if they did, these progressive activists would join the cult of personality the GOP has built up around their party’s president.
“L’État, c’est moi” is a phrase attributed to 17th century French King Louis XIV. Now, 370 years later, Republicans are putting their own twist on the adage: “I am the state” has effectively become “Trump is the state.”
The party has been headed down this path for much of the year. Indeed, the president, not long after his second inaugural described himself as a “king,” which came just days after he similarly declared, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” a phrase often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. [social media post and “Long Live the King” image posted on the The White House X (formerly twitter) account.]
It was around this time when an official White House social media account released a portrait showing a grinning Trump wearing a crown.
Eight months later, his party has decided that anti-Trump protests deserve to be labeled “hate America” events.
If the goal was to discourage participation in the rallies, I have a hunch the GOP slurs will have the opposite effect.
“As the head of U.S. Southern Command steps down at a critical moment, a key senator is raising alarm about ‘instability within the chain of command.’ ”
Because the United States has long been the world’s preeminent superpower, the U.S. Armed Forces maintain combatant commands around the globe. Those who lead these commands might not be known to the public, but they hold unique and powerful positions.
The head of European Command, for example, coordinates U.S. military planning and operations in and around the continent. There are related posts for Africa Command, Central Command in the Middle East and so on.
U.S. Southern Command, which is responsible for overseeing Central and South America, has been of particular interest lately — in part because Donald Trump has ordered a series of deadly military strikes against civilian targets in international waters, and in part because the Republican president has escalated tensions with Venezuela to an unsettling degree.
[…] in recent days, the White House has authorized new intelligence operations in Venezuela and reportedly flown an elite Special Operations aviation unit near the Venezuelan coast. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported that Venezuela is “moving troops into position on the Caribbean coast and mobilizing what President Nicolás Maduro asserts is a millions-strong militia in a display of defiance against the biggest American military buildup in the Caribbean since the 1980s.”
[…] The New York Times reported:
The officer, Adm. Alvin Holsey, is leaving his job as head of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and South America. … It was unclear why Admiral Holsey is suddenly departing, less than a year into what is typically a three-year job, and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37-year career.
[…] The Times referenced two sources who said Holsey “had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.” CNN ran a related report, noting that the SouthCom chief had privately expressed reservations about the legality of the Trump-approved strikes.
[…] if accurate, it paints a rather dramatic picture. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a written statement, “At a moment when U.S. forces are building up across the Caribbean and tensions with Venezuela are at a boiling point, the departure of our top military commander in the region sends an alarming signal of instability within the chain of command.”
[…] just days before Holsey stepped down at SouthCom, the Pentagon chief fired Navy chief of staff Jon Harrison. (His ouster roughly coincided with two high-profile military retirements — Gen. Bryan Fenton, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, and Gen. Thomas Bussiere, a top Air Force commander […]
[…] in late August the defense secretary fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Rear Admiral Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversaw the Naval Special Warfare Command.
Four days earlier, Gen. David Allvin, the chief of staff of the Air Force, was also shown the door.
The broader purge also includes Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency; Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. James Slife, former vice chief of staff of the Air Force; Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard; Adm. Lisa Franchetti; Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short; Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, the Army’s top military lawyer; Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer, the Air Force’s top military lawyer; and Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only woman on NATO’s military committee.
[…] A scandal-plagued former Fox News host appears to be destabilizing the U.S. military.
Toward the end of his unsettling speech to the nation’s generals and admirals a few weeks ago, in which his argument boiled down to the assertion that testosterone is the key to modern warfare, Hegseth delivered an unsubtle message to his audience. “If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” the secretary said.
News summarized by Steve Benen from an NBC report:
With just 18 days remaining before Election Day in Virginia, Barack Obama is throwing his support behind former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s candidacy for governor, including starring in two digital ads for her campaign. […]
On a related note, the Democratic former president is also starring in a new ad airing in California in support of Proposition 50, which would allow Democratic officials to redraw the state’s congressional district map. [social media post and video]
[…] in North Carolina, where Republican state lawmakers are moving forward with a new gerrymandering scheme, GOP officials unveiled a draft district map this week that would give Republicans control over 11 of the state’s 14 congressional seats, up from the current 10.
Trump’s revelation came on the eve of the nationwide “No Kings” protests during an interview with Fox Business conspiracy theorist Maria Bartiromo that aired on Friday morning. [video]
Trump wants Americans to know that after months of embracing royal rhetoric and referring to himself as “king,” he doesn’t think of himself as one.
Trump’s revelation came on the eve of the nationwide “No Kings” protests during an interview with Fox Business conspiracy theorist Maria Bartiromo that aired on Friday morning.
Bartiromo asked him if he believed that the planned “No Kings” rallies are connected to the […] government shutdown.
“The king—this is not a king. They’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” Trump replied.
As is often the case, Trump was lying. It isn’t protesters who have referred to Trump as a king. In fact, the entire protest movement is about the notion that America is not a monarchy and that Trump does not have unchecked royal powers as he has so often asserted.
The No Kings website explains that “The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.”
Trump triggered much of the “no kings” rhetoric against him when the White House posted “long live the king” alongside a Photoshopped image of Trump wearing a crown in February. Trump also posted “he who saves his country does not violate any law” that same month, making it clear that he sees himself above the rule of law—like an out-of-control monarch.
More recently, Trump has declared himself America’s “chief law enforcement officer,” which is a falsehood asserted to justify prosecuting his political detractors. Last week he even bragged that “we took the freedom of speech away,” which is a constitutional right of every American.
Republicans have been attacking and smearing the “No Kings” protest movement nonstop, even absurdly asserting that the protests are violent with a “hate America” message and consist of “antifa-paid protesters.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has even repeatedly claimed that the movement was somehow responsible for the Republican’s government shutdown: “‘No Kings’ means no paychecks. No paychecks and no government.”
It was already clear that Republicans feared “No Kings.” Trump’s decision to crawl away from his own rhetoric before a single protester has shown up to this new round of events speaks volumes about his weak standing on the issue of executive overreach.
[…] Researchers say another false belief by those on the far right holds that people who received covid vaccines could shed the virus, causing infertility in the unvaccinated. There is no evidence of such a connection, scientists and researchers say.
More severe weather events due to global warming may be driving some of the baseless theories, scientists say. And risks occur when such ideas take hold among the general population or policymakers, some public health leaders say. Climate researchers, including Swain, say they’ve received death threats.
[…] There is no evidence that plane contrails cause health problems or are related to intentional efforts to control the climate, according to the EPA and other scientists.
The memo and focus at HHS on climate and weather control are alarming because they perpetuate conspiracies, said David Keith, a professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago.
“It’s unmoored to reality,” he said. “I expected there were documents like this, but seeing it in print is nevertheless shocking. Our government is being driven by nonsensical dreck from dark corners of social media.”
The text above is an excerpt from a longer article that details the breadth and depth of the conspiracy theories surrounding plane contrails, and of the alarming actions Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking:
HHS is expected to appoint a special government employee to investigate climate and weather control, according to Gray Delany, former head of the agency’s MAHA agenda, who said he drafted the memo. The agency has interviewed applicants to lead a “chemtrails” task force, said Jim Lee, a blogger focused on weather and climate who Delany said helped edit the memo, which Lee confirmed.
“Are You OK, Google AI? Do You Need A Policeman Or A Grownup?”
Yr Wonkette got an object lesson yesterday — as if we needed one — in why AI search results should be treated with skepticism set on fire. While Robyn was working on her story on the Trump administration’s ugly (and like so many administration ideas, almost certainly illegal) proposal to shift US refugee policy to helping out white people who are “oppressed” for being vile racists, she wanted to quickly review previous Wonkette stories on refugee policy. So she typed “Wonkette refugees” into Google, and while it did cough up Wonkette stories, those valid results were preceded by an AI generated “overview” that was completely insane. She posted it to the Wonkette Sekrit Chat Cave with the comment, “Um. I don’t think that any of this happened?”
In late 2024, the term “Wonkette refugees” emerged on social media to describe a group of writers and readers who left the political blog Wonkette following a controversy involving its owner, Rebecca Schoenkopf. This controversy centered on her behavior, which included firing several editors and writing a post critical of her former staff.
Key events leading to the exodus
• Owner’s post: On December 22, 2024, Schoenkopf published a post on Wonkette that was widely criticized for being a “hit piece” against former staffers. The article reportedly mocked and disparaged former contributors and included what many felt was a humiliating attack on a former intern.
• Criticism from readers and former staff: The post sparked significant backlash, with many readers and former writers condemning the owner’s behavior as cruel, unprofessional, and “mean-spirited”.
• Mass departure: In response, several writers resigned and numerous readers began to abandon the blog. This led to the creation of the term “Wonkette refugees” to describe those who were looking for a new online community.
• Search for new platforms: The “refugees” began migrating to other platforms, including the independent blog Your Dad’s Wonkette and various social media groups. The new blog was established by a group of former Wonkette editors and writers and offered a new home for the disaffected community.
Nope, none of us remembered any of that, either, because the entire string of events was hallucinated by Google’s algorithm. There was no mass exodus of writers and editors, and December 22 was a Sunday, so Rebecca wouldn’t have written anything that Google’s large language model could have even misinterpreted as a hit piece about people who are still mostly here. […]
all eight of the chatbots they tested “were generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn’t answer accurately, offering incorrect or speculative answers instead.” And paying for a premium service didn’t guarantee better results; instead, the premium chatbots actually “provided more confidently incorrect answers than their free counterparts.” […]
I clicked on the “dive deeper in AI mode” button, and Google started lying to me, a lot, confabulating staff departures that never happened and new spinoff blogs that don’t exist.
Because generative AI doesn’t like to tell you it simply can’t answer a question […], we started getting hallucinatory results when we kept poking at it. The stupid algorithm hallucinated even when it could have simply stuck to real information it should have been able to retrieve.
Among the surprise results, I learned that Liz Dye now has her own Substack titled “Lawyers, Guns, & Money,” which is actually a completely different place than Liz’s real newsletter/podcast Law and Chaos.
In analog reality, Evan is very much still here, and he also has a once-weekly substack of his own, “The Moral High Ground.” But not according to Google in AI mode, where he left and now has a newsletter called “The Hurst Report” […]
Just for the hell of it, I ran another AI search this morning and learned that his new substack is “God, a Fcking Guide*” — weird italics and asterisk provided by Google AI. […]
Robyn ran another search too, and the results went straight to Bat Country. This time, the AI said the switch to Substack “effectively shed much of Wonkette’s writing staff, including notable contributors like Doktor Zoom (Evan Hurst), Liz Dye, and Stephen Robinson.” Evan and I, I must emphasize, remain separate people. We have not been merged by some horrific transporter error. In Robyn’s second search, the AI said that “Doktor Zoom and Liz Dye, for example, teamed up to launch their own publication on Substack, which they named “Dispatches from the Formerly Great.”
[…] Google AI […] made up several new nonexistent blogs by former contributors, two of whom it didn’t bother naming. [Examples at the link]
[…] There actually is a podcast, active through at least June of this year, called “Dispatches From the Multiverse,” and it has nothing to do with any of us. And Jim Newell is not connected to any of the several blogs, podcasts, and at least one movie named “The Big Picture.”
Again, all that’s happening here is that LLMs are sophisticated guessing machines that are designed to string words together in what seem to us like plausible combinations based on all the texts they’ve crunched in training. [True] The AI doesn’t “know” anything, it just makes a probabilistic guess about what comes next. [True] When it doesn’t have details — and often even when it does — it riffs. But wowie, Google AI really seems to have it in for Yr Editrix, because not only did Robyn’s search turn up that terrible blog libelslander she never wrote, my own AI “deep dive” made that Schoenkopf woman seem like a terrible editor for a political humor blog, at least if she’d done any of the stuff it made up.
[…] Out here in meatspace, there was no editorial shift at Wonkette in 2024, so every question and answer going forward was a guess, often contradicting other information that the AI was able to find in other searches. We searched the first question, and got nonsense, with the AI claiming Ken Layne sold the place in 2024 (not in 2012, as happened in our universe) and that the “new ownership” — Rebecca somehow dropped out of the answers — “appears to have implemented changes that altered the site’s tone and content. This included an increase in article frequency and a more partisan approach, contrasting with the satirical style that had defined the site under Layne.”
[…] all the other suggested questions and answers went farther into madness, claiming that contributors hated the new, constricting editorial direction imposed by chasing clicks, so all the writers struck out for the territories where we could be funny again.
It’s pretty fucking weird to read this about your own pseudonymous persona, even when you know it’s just an algorithm plugging words into blank spaces:
Under the new ownership, contributors felt they had lost the editorial freedom that defined their work for years. This shift was a significant factor for writers like Dok Zoom, who was a popular and longtime contributor.
Bizarrely, having written reality completely out of the subroutine, the AI built a narrative where Wonkette became a hollowed-out “content mill,” like some zombie websites that have been bought by spam farmers, while “Dok Zoom” went on to do his thing […]
By the time Google assimilates this article you’re reading right now, and maybe after you filthy fuckaducks all run your own AI searches for “Wonkette refugees,” we may actually alter the fabric of time and space, or at least bring Skynet to its terrible final form.
“After Thursday’s phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Trump appeared to express doubts about supplying Ukraine with more powerful weapons.”
After weeks of rising tensions with President Trump, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia picked up the phone.
The Kremlin said Russia had initiated the call on Thursday between the two leaders, a telling acknowledgment of a Russian priority as important as any battlefield in Ukraine: appeasing Mr. Trump.
Even as Mr. Putin has pounded Ukrainian cities and waged grinding warfare in the country’s east, he has invested dozens of hours into flattering Mr. Trump, dangling the prospect of Russian-American business deals and sending the message that Russia is open to talks to end its invasion.
The tactic has helped Mr. Putin head off repeated deadlines and sanction threats by the American president without curtailing Russia’s war effort.
In June, a time when some Republican allies of Mr. Trump were pushing for sanctions against Russia, Mr. Putin called Mr. Trump to wish him a happy birthday; Mr. Trump said Mr. Putin had acted “very nicely,” and the sanctions never appeared.
In August, as Mr. Trump was threatening to enforce a 12-day deadline for Mr. Putin to end the war, the Russian leader hosted Steve Witkoff, the White House envoy and close friend of Mr. Trump, for a three-hour meeting that set the stage for the two presidents’ summit in Alaska.
This week, the cease-fire in Gaza gave Mr. Putin a new pretext to call — and praise — Mr. Trump. More relevant to Mr. Putin, however, was the fact that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was scheduled to visit the White House on Friday.
Thursday’s call, coming after Mr. Trump’s threats to send Ukraine powerful Tomahawk cruise missiles “if this war doesn’t get settled,” was Mr. Putin’s eighth phone conversation with the American leader this year. He has held five hourslong, in-person meetings with Mr. Witkoff.
[…] On Oct. 10, asked about Mr. Trump not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Putin told reporters the award had lost credibility. Mr. Trump posted the video of those comments to his Truth Social account the same day, writing, “Thank you to President Putin!”
By Friday, after his call with Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin was already preparing for another summit, while signaling that an end to the war in Ukraine was still a ways off.
[…] The Kremlin was also getting more creative in trying to appeal to Mr. Trump not only by praising him, but also by pitching business deals.
In February, Mr. Putin said American companies could help develop aluminum production in Siberia and help mine rare earth metals in Russian-occupied Ukraine. On Thursday, one of his senior aides, Kirill Dmitriev, posted on X that Elon Musk’s tunneling company could build a “Putin-Trump tunnel” between eastern Russia and Alaska.
“We also spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over,” Mr. Trump posted on social media after Thursday’s call. It was unclear what kind of trade was discussed.
From the Kremlin’s perspective, the charm offensive has been well worth the effort even though it has not yet resulted in business deals being announced, let alone in Mr. Trump’s conceding to Mr. Putin’s wide-ranging demands over Ukraine. But it appears to have succeeded in stopping Mr. Trump from significantly increasing American assistance to Ukraine. […]
And now, Putin has positioned himself to be in Trump’s ear both before and after Zelensky’s visit!
Susan Stamberg, a Longtime Voice of NPR, Is Dead at 87
“In 1972 she became the first woman to anchor a national evening news broadcast. She retired this summer after 50 years on the air.”
Susan Stamberg, a husky, familiar voice on NPR for over 50 years who in 1972 became the first woman to anchor a national evening news broadcast, “All Things Considered,” bringing her earthy informality to the pointed questioning of newsmakers, died on Thursday. She was 87.
Her death was announced by NPR, which did not specify a location or a cause.
Ms. Stamberg retired in September from the public broadcaster, where her last assignment had been special correspondent covering the arts. She served as host of “All Things Considered,” the weekday program of news, analysis and interviews, for 14 years, through 1986, and during that time it became NPR’s marquee broadcast, bringing prestige and seriousness to the network as it rapidly grew beyond its original 63 member stations.
Along with Nina Totenberg, Linda Wertheimer and Cokie Roberts, Ms. Stamberg was known in-house as one of NPR’s “founding mothers,” journalists who brought their distinctive female voices to radio news. The fledgling broadcast network was able to scoop up talented female journalists because the mainstream newsrooms of the day did not often hire them for hard-news beats. […]
“Asked if his party has a health care blueprint, JD Vance boasted, ‘We do have a plan, actually.’ Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”
As the ongoing government shutdown drags on, in large part over the fight to keep health care insurance affordable for Americans, Republicans have become increasingly unsubtle in their overt opposition to the Affordable Care Act.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise declared late last week that for 90% of his GOP conference, the ACA is a “sinkhole” and a “failed product.” Soon after, House Speaker Mike Johnson condemned the popular and effective system as a “boondoggle.” Around the same time, Rep. Byron Donalds, a leading Republican candidate for Florida governor, insisted that officials “have to repeal and replace” Obamacare, echoing the phrasing his party seemed to abandon years ago.
Of course, one of the obvious questions is what, exactly, the GOP would offer American families after they’re done repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNBC last week that the White House is looking for an overhauled system that costs less and does more for consumers. And while that certainly sounded nice — who would oppose a cheaper system that delivers higher quality care? — the South Dakota Republican said literally nothing about how his party would deliver such reform.
This week, the House speaker boasted to CNBC, “We’ve got pages and pages and pages of ideas of how to reform health care.” What are the ideas included on those pages? The Louisiana Republican didn’t say.
A day later, JD Vance appeared on Newsmax and was asked whether his party has a health care plan. “We do have a plan, actually,” the vice president replied. [social media post and video]
They don’t have a plan, actually.
Indeed, the more the Ohio Republican tried to answer the question, the more obvious it became that he wasn’t willing to share even the vaguest details about his party’s preferred blueprint.
The party has been stuck on this path for a painfully long time. In fact, it was on June 17, 2009, more than 16 years ago, when then-Rep. Roy Blunt made a bold promise. The Missouri Republican, a member of the House Republican leadership at the time, had taken the lead in crafting a GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and he proudly and publicly declared, “I guarantee you we will provide you with a bill.”
The same week, then-House Minority Whip Eric Cantor told reporters that the official Republican version of “Obamacare” was just “weeks away.”
That was 833 weeks ago. There’s still no bill. [!]
In April 2016, then-Republican Rep. Fred Upton, who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee at the time, told reporters, “Give us a little time, another month or so. I think we’ll be pretty close to a Republican alternative.”
That was 114 months ago. There’s still no alternative. [!]
And then, of course, there’s Donald Trump, who famously declared during last year’s campaign, “I have concepts of a plan,” following several years’ worth of rhetoric about the unveiling of his plan being just “two weeks” away.
It’s against this backdrop that Vance apparently wants the public to believe that he and his party “do have a plan, actually.”
Maybe we’ll see it right around the time Team Trump releases the Epstein files, the tape of border czar Tom Homan accepting $50,000 in cash in a Cava bag, the president’s tax returns and the administration’s evidence to bolster its deadly military strikes on civilian boats in international waters.
‘Yes, We Are Filthy Marxists’ And Other Tidbits From A Meeting Of The Democratic Base As Imagined By The White House
“The stuff of Karoline Leavitt’s fever dreams.”
“The Democrat Party’s main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” — Karoline Leavitt on Fox News, Oct. 16
[…] America is not going to turn into a dystopian socialist hellhole by itself, and I know you are all anxious to get out there and do your part.
First, though, we need to do roll call. Violent criminals?
(Sound of guns being fired straight up into the air […])
Illegal aliens?
(Cries of “Sí! Sí! Matar a toda la gente blanca!” with tinny sound of the Mexican Hat Dance playing on an iPhone)
Hamas?
(Loud ululating)
Did I miss anyone? Oh right. Marxist college students?
(Soft snickering, someone yells “Viva la proletariat!” in a mocking tone that draws a few laughs)
Marxist college faculty?
(Rustle of paper as thousands of professors wave their CVs in the air)
People with no defining associations but who just simply hate America?
(Wild cheering)
Anyone else I missed, I apologize. Please don’t come to my house and chalk anodyne slogans like “No white nationalism” on the sidewalk. Go do it at Stephen Miller’s house instead.
Oh, someone did? So we can cross that one off today’s agenda? Great job, whoever did that. Way to show some initiative. See me after the meeting to talk about a bonus.
All right, all right, no groaning! You’re all supposed to be a bunch of ruthless antifa terrorists. What’s stopping any of you from showing a little extra hustle?
So, first order of business! I’m noticing that hardly anyone has signed up for our field trip to Putt Putt next Saturday. Folks, so many of you said you wanted a miniature golf outing, so our Activities Committee worked really hard to set one up for you. Don’t let that be for nothing. If mini golf isn’t your thing, they also have an arcade. We’ve been promised that everyone can have an equal number of tokens.
Second, the bathrooms have gotten so putrid, they are practically hazardous waste sites. And we can’t do anything about hazardous waste sites until we retake the government and can use it for socialist projects like reconstituting the EPA.
[…] we’re setting up a monthly rotating cleaning crew. That way, everyone has to pitch in. Hamas, we were going to give you the first month now that you have at least a little more time on your hands. But then the executive committee was told you still are in a power struggle with local Gaza militias and it could be a huge distraction, is that correct?
Okay, that’s fine. We’ll have the antifa terrorists hiding inside giant frog costumes take the first month. Come on, you guys, we all have to do our part. I promise you the Portland ICE facility with the masked dipshits and their paintball guns will still be there in a month.
[…] Ah, thank you, rogue FBI agents who worked on January 6 investigations until they were sniffed out, baselessly accused of misconduct, and fired by Kash Patel. Much appreciated.
Final order of business: This weekend, as you know, is No Kings weekend, and there are now hundreds of events scheduled to occur all over America. There are even a bunch scheduled in European countries. Some are in countries that literally have kings. They are calling those “No Tyrants” rallies, which Mr. Soros is allowing so long as they pay us a licensing fee. Mr. Soros’s European division is making sure protestors there have all the beautiful signs with beautiful wood that they need.
Speaking of Mr. Soros, I have just returned from his volcanic lair, and I can tell you that he is very pleased with all the interest and enthusiasm everyone has shown about No Kings. He wanted me to make a point of noting to you just how flipped out the Republicans are.
It’s really something. They are calling it the “Hate America” rally, referring to all the participants as the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party. Roger Marshall, the Kansas senator, thinks his state should call out the National Guard because he’s so sure we won’t be peaceful. Greg Abbott is calling out his state’s National Guard, state police, Texas Rangers, and the Department of Public Safety, all of them “supported by aircraft and other tactical assets,” according to Politico. That’s just absolutely wild.
(loud laughter from crowd)
Oh, and Scott Bessent is trying to get the proletariat to blame us for anyone losing their job during the shutdown. “No Kings means no paychecks,” he keeps saying. I don’t know how he thinks he’s going to stop Mr. Soros from meeting the party’s payroll.
[…] Where was I? Oh right, the Republicans freaking out about No Kings. Best of all is all the sniveling Mike Johnson has been doing. He’s been blaming us for this government shutdown, saying the Democrats are too terrified of us to negotiate until after the rally. He has been telling any reporter who will listen that everyone at No Kings will be “pro-Hamas” and “antifa people” and the Marxists who have taken over the Democratic Party and want to turn America communist.
[…] No one knows how difficult it was to turn Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries into raging Marxists, how many mind-control machines we went through […] But we persevered, and here we are.
Great job, everyone! Give yourselves a hand.
[…] Meeting adjourned. See you next week!
[…] Oh no, Mr. Soros took Wonkette off the payroll! […]
Satire. But the comment from Karoline Leavitt is real.
President Donald Trump’s strategy for defending his tariffs in court is to make the case about himself as much as possible — and dare the justices to defy him.
The latest indication of that came Wednesday, when he revealed that he hopes to attend oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the legality of the worldwide tariffs he imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The hearing is set for Nov. 5, the morning after the off-year elections. “I think I’m gonna go to the Supreme Court to watch it,” he said at the White House. “I’ve not done that, and … I had some pretty big cases. I think it’s one of the most important cases ever brought.”
[…] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against Trump in August, but its order is on hold until the justices decide. Trump has already signaled to the justices that the case is of huge importance to him. The government’s brief submitted last month contains colorful language that is highly unusual in Supreme Court litigation. “With tariffs, we are a rich nation; without tariffs, we are a poor nation,” it says. [FFS]
You can almost hear the president dictating that to his lawyers. The brief even quotes Trump, who said in August, “One year ago, the United States was a dead country, and now, because of the trillions of dollars being paid by countries that have so badly abused us, America is a strong, financially viable, and respected country again.” It warns of a “1929-style result” — that is, a Great Depression — if Trump loses the case. [JFC]
Trump could have acted in a measured way to defend his signature economic policy, letting the technical legal arguments speak for themselves in the hopes that the conservative justices would regard it as a normal case involving presidential authority. Instead, Trump is emphasizing just how extraordinary the case is and how angry he would be if it doesn’t go his way. He is also leaning into the argument that invalidating the levies would cause so much chaos that the court should accept the status quo. […]
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a blistering comment on Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson accused participants in Saturday’s No Kings protests of “blatantly exercising their First Amendment rights.”
“When the framers of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment, they did not intend people to take it literally,” Johnson said. “And yet, that is precisely what the far-left lunatics and Antifa members are conspiring to do.”
Johnson said that he and his fellow Republicans would push for a repeal of the First Amendment to “prevent it from being exploited by evildoers in the future.”
“We’d be so much better off without the First Amendment,” he said. “The Second Amendment would move up to No. 1, which is where it belongs.”
@177 Lynna, OM: The Republicans will never have an alternative to Obamacare because it’s fundamentally a conservative Republican medical plan already. There is nothing further to the right that works. Obamacare is largely corporate driven and puts minimal restrictions on how companies spend their money.
The Republicans just want to kill the plan but in a way that not all of the blame can be pinned on them.
U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro has once again failed spectacularly, as she has been unable to charge the same D.C. woman in court four different times.
On Thursday, a jury found Sidney Lori Reid not guilty on misdemeanor charges of assaulting an FBI agent. Reid was accused of assaulting FBI agent Eugenia Bates back in July while being detained. Video shows Reid outside D.C. Jail filming Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who were waiting to arrest two people.
This is the cases where grand juries declined to bring a case 3 times. Pirro then brought a misdemeanor case because it doesn’t require a grand jury. She ended up failing to get a conviction on the misdemeanor charge.
“Seeking an indictment for a third time is extremely rare and usually only reserved for the most serious of crimes,” attorney Christopher Macchiaroli told D.C.’s local WUSA9 at the time of the felony indictment attempt. “If a governmental entity cannot convince a supermajority of grand jurors that there is a fair probability that a crime was committed, it is virtually impossible to believe that twelve jurors in the same relevant jurisdiction could unanimously at a future date find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard of proof under the law.”
It’s clear that Pirro’s office is vindictively overcharging in a desperate attempt to make an example out of someone, to have a headline to tout for President Trump. But regardless of how many resources and indictments they throw, it doesn’t seem to be working.
In a reasonable administration this case would be grounds for removing somebody from office, assuming they didn’t resign on their own out of embarrassment. In this administration it will be Trump complaining that the jurors in DC are too liberal and he should get to select the jurors for cases his administration brings.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @177:
This week, the House speaker boasted to CNBC, “We’ve got pages and pages and pages of ideas of how to reform health care.”
As many of my teachers used to say, “Show your work!” If you don’t show your work, you get no credit.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@162 birgerjohansson:
speculations that mount Etna might be facing a catastrophic flank collapse
I’m only seing YouTubers with clickbait headlines and no citations. Safe bet though.
Etna doesn’t only erupt from its summit craters. The volcano’s flanks are covered in eruptive cones and fissures that bear evidence of numerous historical flank eruptions. Every few decades, a new eruptive fissure opens somewhere on the flanks. Due to their sheer volume and lower altitude vents, lava flows produced in these events have frequently threatened and destroyed infrastructure and villages in the surroundings. While Catania is usually safe from lava flows due to the distance from Etna’s active zones, it was reached by lava in 1669.
Finally, though rather unusual for Etna, even Plinian eruptions can occur. These are the biggest category of explosive eruptions, with eruptive columns reaching all the way up into the stratosphere. In 122 BC, a Plinian eruption from Etna destroyed parts of ancient Catania.
[…]
It is this diversity in behaviour and the frequency of activity that make Etna and its ever-changing landscape so fascinating for scientists. […] As a result, Etna is one of the best-monitored volcanoes in the world
The models […] can help local authorities and communities by evaluating the potential for collapse long before ground may give way entirely and suddenly. […] Magma rising under a volcano can force slippage on existing faults—fractured areas where two blocks of rock can move relative to each other. Slippage in these spots can lead eventually to collapse. “If you have an idea of which area of the volcano is more susceptible to collapse, you could place ground-based sensors such as seismometers or GPS to monitor a risky flank on a minute-to-minute or hour-to-hour basis well before a collapse happens,”
Following the [Krakatau]’s collapse and eruption in December 2018, more than 400 people died amid a massive tsunami. Wauthier and colleagues also studied that event, finding the mountainside had been slipping for years.
Flanks can also experience more gradual lateral displacements, typically due to the repeated intrusion of dikes along volcanic rift zones, such as in Kilauea (Hawai’i, US) or Etna (Sicily, Italy). This can create a feedback cycle whereby flank slip facilitates dike intrusion and lava effusion, which increases gravitational loading of the flank, with recurrent intrusions facilitating slip on faults beneath the unstable flank. Such magma-faulting interactions are well known drivers of instability at volcanoes including Piton de la Fournaise (Réunion, France), Etna, and have most recently been proposed for Pacaya.
Donald Trump has been condemning people who disagree with him for quite a while, but the president’s rhetoric about Democrats has taken a rather hysterical turn lately. Earlier this month, for example, the Republican thought it’d be a good idea to push an online item that called Democrats “the party of hate, evil, and Satan.” About a week later, he said Democrats “have the devil’s ideology.”
That was, of course, the kind of ridiculous rhetoric Americans have never heard from a sitting president, but his over-the-top slander of his political opposition is spreading. Take the latest rhetoric from his chief spokesperson, for example. [social media post and video]
“[T]he Democrat [sic] Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News, continuing her party’s tradition of getting the opposition party’s name wrong.
Around this time nine years ago, then-candidate Hillary Clinton delivered some unscripted comments about the most radical elements of Trump’s base. To be “grossly generalistic,” she said, “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’”
More specifically, the former secretary of state lamented that so much of Trump’s core support was “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic [and] Islamaphobic” — an assessment that’s stood up pretty well to further scrutiny.
Nevertheless, Republicans became obsessed with Clinton’s phrase, and the media followed their lead. The conventional wisdom was that Clinton had gone too far: Criticizing rival candidates is fine, the argument went, but criticizing Americans (even bigoted Americans) was simply beyond the pale for someone in a position of leadership.
Nine years later, Trump thinks Democrats are the “party of Satan,” and the White House press secretary told a national television audience that the Democrats’ base is made up of terrorists and violent criminals (not to be confused with the violent felons her boss let out of prison just hours after his return to power).
[…] Given Leavitt’s casual condemnation of tens of millions of Americans, one congressional Democrat, Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, said the White House press secretary “should resign,” adding, “They try to make us hate each other to distract from the fact that they’re robbing us all blind. It’s sick.” [social media post and video]
A day later, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Leavitt is “out of control,” adding, “I’m not sure whether she’s just demented, ignorant, a stone-cold liar, or all of the above.”
[…] Trump once again revealed his pettiness during a Q&A with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday. When Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Zelenskyy to compare the diplomatic styles of Presidents Joe Biden and Trump, Zelenskyy opted for a measured response.
“President Trump has a big chance now to finish this war. President Biden, now, is not the president, so he doesn’t have a chance to finish this war,” Zelenskyy said, complimenting Trump in the context of the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. “It’s a big chance. And I hope that President Trump can manage it.” [video]
Trump then cut in, “I would say the biggest difference is one is extremely competent and the other one is grossly incompetent.”
Every time a world leader with integrity, like Zelenskyy, visits the White House, it only serves to highlight how narrow-minded, uncharitable, and incompetent Trump truly is.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to let it deploy the National Guard to the Chicago area amid President Trump’s push to send military troops into Democratic-led cities.
The Justice Department filed an emergency application at the high court Friday asking the justices to pause a judge’s order blocking Trump from sending hundreds of National Guard members into Illinois.
“This Court should stay the district court’s October 9 injunction in its entirety,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the administration’s request to the justices. “The injunction improperly impinges on the President’s authority and needlessly endangers federal personnel and property.”
It marks the first time the justices have been asked to wade into Trump’s aggressive use of the National Guard.
coffeepottsays
@186, Trump then cut in, “I would say the biggest difference is one is extremely competent and the other one is grossly incompetent.”
he’s almost right for once, though i wouldn’t describe Biden as extremely competent.
“RFK Jr. Is Very Concerned About The Teen Spermageddon”
“And, as usual … he’s wrong.”
[…] Americans do not believe that the policies of Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have made America healthy. In fact, only 42 percent of Republicans said that they believed this. [Poll results]
[…] Kennedy and others keep talking about how their goal is to restore the trust that was broken during the pandemic, on account of all of the people who decided to trust weird conspiracy theorists instead.
Clearly it hasn’t worked all that well, as only 19 percent of Americans believe his new line about Tylenol causing autism. But perhaps a rant about teen sperm might change their minds? […]
On Thursday, during an announcement about the administration’s concept-of-a-plan to make IVF more affordable (not free, as Trump had promised on the campaign trail) Kennedy took a moment for himself to go on a bizarre rant about teenage sperms.
“Today, the average teenager in this country has 50 percent of the sperm count, 50 percent of the testosterone as a 65-year-old man,” Robert F. Kennedy said. “Our girls are hitting puberty six years earlier, and that’s bad, but also our parents aren’t having children.”
Is this true? It is not! Parents are definitely having children, as this is what makes them parents in the first place (other than adoption, obviously). Teenage boys do not have “half the testosterone of a 65-year-old man,” and the idea that they might is entirely preposterous, as testosterone declines with age. It’s just not true. It is true that testosterone levels are decreasing — on average, young men today have less of it than the average 65-year-old man would have had as a teenager, and the average 65-year-old man has less than a man that age would have had several decades ago as well. We don’t know exactly why that is, yet, and it could likely be attributable to lifestyle factors, like the fact that people are simply more sedentary than they once were.
[…] Whether or not sperm counts are decreasing is a matter of some debate. In 2017, researchers put out a highly publicised meta-analysis of sperm count-related studies that came to the conclusion that sperm counts were decreasing over time. This is likely what he was referring to, although there is no study anywhere making the claim that teenagers have sperm counts 50 percent lower than 65-year-old men. However, many studies since then have found that this was not true, that the meta-analysis was flawed and that there were other, more likely, explanations for what those researchers found — such as the fact that we are more able to accurately count sperm than we were 50 years ago.
Additionally, the decreases in the meta-analysis all still fell within the “normal” range of sperm count and most scientists do not actually believe there is a relation between sperm count and fertility. [!]
[…] So that’s the menfolk. What about the girls? The girls who are going through puberty six years earlier?!?!
Also not a thing. On average, girls today now get their periods six months earlier than girls in the 1950s and ‘60s did. That is very, very different from six years. […] Actually, puberty in general starts around eight for girls and nine for boys, meaning that by Kennedy’s metrics, girls would be starting puberty at age two.
[…] This is far from the first time that Kennedy has made these claims, and the fact that he either hasn’t been corrected or has been corrected and ignored that correction is … well, it’s not great. […] [video]
“Where the U.S. Is Building Up Military Force in the Caribbean”
“About 10,000 U.S. troops and dozens of military aircraft and ships are in the region [!] as the Trump administration increases pressure on Venezuela.”
Map at the link.
Since late August, the U.S. military has carried out a steady and significant buildup of forces in the Caribbean, with about 10,000 troops at sea and on shore.
It is the largest deployment of U.S. forces in the region in decades and intended to bolster what the Trump administration says is a counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.
The United States has also carried out several lethal strikes on boats that the administration said were carrying narcotics. President Trump and other officials have posted videos of the strikes on social media.
Much of the military buildup is visible in commercial and scientific satellite images and in photographs shared on social media and by residents of the region. Some of the military flights can be seen on publicly available flight-tracking websites. The military has also posted details about U.S. activities in the Caribbean.
But officials have privately made clear that the main goal of the troop increase — which Mr. Trump said this week could also include covert C.I.A. operations — is to drive Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, from power.
About half of the U.S. force is aboard eight Navy warships, including about 2,200 Marines equipped with fighter jets. The other, slightly larger half of the force is mostly at air bases in Puerto Rico, and includes Marine Corps F-35 fighter jets, Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drones and a variety of other surveillance planes and support personnel. [map]
In recent days, there has been a dramatic show of aerial threats in the region. On Wednesday, at least two B-52 bombers from Louisiana flew for several hours off the Venezuelan coast in what one senior U.S. official on Thursday called “a show of force.” While the bombers flew in international air space, they were in an air traffic control region managed by Venezuela. B-52s can carry dozens of precision-guided bombs.
An elite Army Special Operations unit has also been conducting helicopter flights over the ocean between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. Farther south, residents revealed that U.S. Navy surveillance planes were flying over southern Trinidad and Tobago, only a dozen miles from the Venezuelan coast, by posting videos of them on social media.
The New York Times also identified the M.V. Ocean Trader, a vessel that can serve as a Special Operations headquarters and is primarily used in stealth missions. The ship was captured in satellite imagery about 85 miles northeast of Venezuela. [Images at the link]
Two large Navy replenishment vessels, which deliver fuel and supplies to warships, were also seen in Puerto Rico on Sunday.
U.S. military officials said the air and naval operations were, at least for now, training missions — not rehearsals for possible military strikes in Venezuela. But this type of military presence in the region speaks to the increased pressure on Mr. Maduro and gives Mr. Trump options for what to do next.
The U.S. military buildup has been most noticeable at sea, but the Pentagon has also quietly sent several thousand flight crews, maintenance specialists, security forces and other support personnel to bases in the region.
Puerto Rico is the main U.S. military base for its Caribbean operations. Rafael Hernández Airport in Aguadilla has been turned into a hub for armed drone flights. Satellite imagery shows that the United States built a new bunker last month to store ammunition for the drones. [image] […]
The European Union will press U.S. President Donald Trump to ensure that his ceasefire agreement does not undermine the future of a Palestinian state, according to a draft plan.
[…] officials are pushing to maximize the EU’s leverage in the implementation of the Washington-brokered agreement to ensure lasting peace.
With a growing number of European governments recognizing Palestinian statehood, there is a need to “reinforce a positive narrative on the two-state solution, including by highlighting the role of the EU,” the document states.
The diplomatic arm of the EU, the European External Action Service (EEAS), proposes to “further activate diplomatic channels towards the U.S.” to see it implemented in a way that does not “undermine the viability” of the Palestinian Authority.
[…] The EEAS is now seeking support from capitals to advocate for economic and financial barriers facing Palestinian institutions to be dropped and to increase pressure on Israeli settlers illegally annexing territory in the West Bank. It also proposes engaging with the Israeli government, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey “to continue leveraging the pressure on Hamas for a full implementation of the plan.”
By the end of the year, the document proposes ensuring the flow “of aid at scale into and throughout Gaza,” and redeploying its civilian Rafah border crossing assistance mission, EUBAM, as a third-party presence to safeguard the passage of people. If member countries give the green light, the EU will also seek to “explore the monitoring and advising on transfer of goods.”
Brussels also hopes to convince Israel to lift restrictions on humanitarian NGOs operating in the Palestinian territories.
In the longer term, the EU wants to play a role in the removal of landmines, the reconstruction of war-torn Gaza, investment and the facilitation of trade. […]
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in September that she would bring forward sanctions on Israeli ministers and seek to scale back economic cooperation with the country in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
However, POLITICO reported earlier on Friday, the plans are expected to grind to a halt in the wake of the American deal, with capitals expressing skepticism about the need for the move as a result of geopolitical developments.
A handful of countries that had pushed for a tougher stance expressed frustration over how long the EU had taken to put forward the plans.
South Carolina’s measles outbreak has grown to 15 cases, state health officials reported Friday, a small increase from a few days ago. … In Ohio, where five cases in the central part of the state have been reported within the last 2½ weeks, quarantine for 122 people was expected to end Friday. … In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, 118 kids are now back in school after they were exposed to an outbreak of 20 measles cases. Their quarantine ended Wednesday.
The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California on Thursday declined to sign President Trump’s proposal to give funding preferences to schools that agree to concessions, such as capping international enrollment and freezing tuition, and taking steps to protect conservative viewpoints.
The rejections raised the number of universities that have said no to the offer to four, reflecting mounting opposition to the deal.
More than 20 states sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, challenging the agency’s decision to cancel a $7 billion program that aimed to make solar power accessible to low-income households.
According to new data from NASA, our planet is reflecting less sunlight back into space than it did two decades ago. The difference is small in percentage but big in impact — a sign that the planet’s delicate heat balance is slipping further out of tune.
..(Snip)…
What’s behind the dimming? The short answer is climate change. The long answer is the slow unraveling of the planet’s natural reflectors — snow, ice, cloud cover — replaced by darker surfaces that soak up heat instead of bouncing it away. The Northern Hemisphere, in particular, has been hoarding sunlight like a bad habit.
Once, vast stretches of white Arctic ice and snow acted like a mirror, deflecting solar energy into space. Now, much of that has melted. What’s left are open seas and bare rock — both excellent heat absorbers. The cleaner air of recent decades hasn’t helped either. It sounds strange, but the smog that used to blanket much of the industrial world actually reflected sunlight. Fewer aerosols mean clearer skies — and more direct heat reaching the ground.
…(Snip)..
From orbit, that might not look like much. A slight drop in reflectivity, a few missing tenths of a percent. But from here, on the ground, it’s the kind of subtle change that moves the line between stability and crisis.
The Earth isn’t fading like a dying star. It’s dimming like a warning light — steady, quiet, and impossible to ignore.
A bright new solar system comet could put on a show in the October night sky as it zooms past Earth.
Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) was discovered on Sept. 10 by Ukrainian amateur astronomer Vladimir Bezugly. It has brightened significantly since then, raising hopes that it could become a naked eye comet around the time that it makes its closest approach to Earth later this month on Oct. 21.
Comets are very hard to predict but seems that like with Comet Lemmon we could get one at least visible t othe unaided skies this month which is some positive news for us all.
StevoRsays
Aussie political news and its farewellto Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson and good riddance (hopefully?) to Barnaby “Beetrooter” Joyce
Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has said he will not recontest his lower house seat of New England at the next federal election, saying his relationship with the current leadership has “irreparably broken down”.
Greens Senator for Tasmania Peter Whish-Wilson has also said he will not seek pre-selection for the next election.
MSNBC Films presents “Andrew Young: The Dirty Work,” executive produced by Rachel Maddow. The documentary retraces Andrew Young’s story — in his own words — as a trusted friend to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., behind-the-scenes architect of the Civil Rights Movement, and living legend who carried Dr. King’s dream forward into Congress, the White House, and beyond. Watch Friday, October 17th at 9pm ET on MSNBC. “Andrew Young: The Dirty Work” is a production from MSNBC Films, […]
[…] “Showing up to express dissent against an out-of-control administration, that’s as American as motherhood, baseball and apple pie,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Friday.
Saturday’s protests follow a series of June marches that coincided with the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary military parade in Washington, D.C., which also happened to be Trump’s 79th birthday.
The rallies are taking place amidst the government shutdown as well federal troop deployments across the country.
[…] The “No Kings” rally has begun near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
There are several speakers on the docket, including Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
[…] “We are here to protect our federal workers,” AFL CIO President Liz Shuler said. “Protect our health care. Protect our communities. But most importantly, protect our democracy.”
“This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans,” she added. “This is about working people.”
[…] Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a Thursday post on the social media platform X asked for people “who care about our democracy to march peacefully.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) directly addressed the “hate America rally” moniker used by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and others and said the motivation behind No Kings was “quite the contrary.”
“It’s a rally of millions of people who believe in American freedom and are not going to allow you and President Trump to turn us into an authoritarian country,” Sanders said in a video shared on social media.
Thousands of protesters are gathering in Times Square in New York City on Saturday. [photo at the link]
[…] A woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty attends a protest in Paris against President Donald Trump on Saturday. [photo at the link]
[…] Trump’s claims sure are nonsensical and falling apart more every day, about how these are some drug boats, and Venezuela is the real aggressor, somehow.
The boats are too small to be able to make it more than a thousand miles to the US. Footage of the boats speeding across the water before getting vaporized seems to show they aren’t loaded down with anything at all. What happens in international waters is not the US’s business. And if the boats are full of drugs, wouldn’t it make more sense to say, hang out in the Gulf of America and intercept them as they enter US waters, instead of committing war crimes against random people? If only we had some kind of guard for the national coastline! Or, one could intercept the boat to make sure there really are drugs, and then try and find out where the drugs are coming from and going to, if one wanted to actually try to put a stop to their coming and going. [Coast Guard!]
And as it turns out, some of the victims are not even Venezuelan. Two were from Trinidad and Tobago, one was Chad Joseph, a 26-year-old who had been living in Venezuela and had just told his family that he was taking a boat trip home to visit, and never arrived. Another was confirmed by the Colombian government as a Colombian citizen. And one of the men’s wives says he was just a simple fisherman. Did it never occur to the administration that these people might have families who miss them and could debunk the “drug lord” claims? Now the sixth boat attack, which Trump says was a “submarine” that was “loaded up” with drugs, has an unknown number of survivors, which the US has taken into custody. Can’t wait to see the evidence and hear what they have to say. Literally can’t, because it will be a miracle if we ever hear from those people again.
And the drug-smuggling thing is also a lie, of course. Venezuela is a transit point for cocaine, that is true, it is next door to Colombia. But about 90 percent of US-bound cocaine enters the country via Mexico, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration itself. And Venezuela is not a significant source of fentanyl, which is mostly produced in Mexico with Chinese chemicals. And the penalty for drug dealing in the US is not death.
Also a lie, the Venezuela “emptying prisons in America” line Trump loves so much, which he entirely invented and has been debunked many times. And, sigh, the gang thing. The US’s own assessment of the Tren de Aragua gang is as “loosely organized cells of localized individual criminal networks” that was so “decentralized” that it would be difficult for it to coordinate actions, and that it is not controlled by Venezuelan President Maduro.
[…] there’s the same reason colonialists have always had for colonizing, all of those sweet natural resources! The US has been meddling in Venezuelan affairs going all the way back to an 1895 boundary dispute between Venezuela and Britain. And since then, the US government has helped install and prop up the worst dictators, and subvert any democratic movements that might threaten their control. The US even trained Venezuelan forces in torture and repression at the notorious US Army School of the Americas. […]
Old-fashioned imperialist greed would sure seem to be the obvious answer. Blood for oil! BUT! Maduro has now reportedly promised Trump all of Venezuela’s riches, including opening up all existing and future oil and gold projects to American companies, giving preferential contracts to American businesses, sending Venezuelan oil to the United States instead of China, and tearing up his country’s existing energy and mining contracts with Chinese, Iranian, and Russian firms. What more could Trump want? Yet Trump was not interested, rebuffed him, withdrew all diplomacy, and then [Hegseth] went and blew up another boat. […]
So, guess Trump does want regime change, for whatever reason. And most Venezuelans did not vote for Maduro, he lost the last election but clung to power anyway, and his approval rating is at 18 percent. So maybe Trump will get his wish of an all-new Venezuelan dictatorship with a custom-installed puppet of his own! Or we will get another forever war with lots of dead American soldiers and Venezuelan civilians, because Pete Hegseth couldn’t command taking over a keg at a freshman dorm, and everybody he works with hates him.
“With shutdown cuts, Trump moves closer to eliminating Education Department”
“The administration is looking to shed workers and transfer some operations to other departments as it seeks to close the Education Department”
The prolonged government shutdown is helping the Trump administration advance its goal of closing the Department of Education […]
The agency had already reduced its staff by half earlier this year. Now, blaming the shutdown, the Education Department is trying to lay off another 465 people, cutting deeply into multiple offices. That includes federal officials who oversee special education programs and another round of slashing at the Office for Civil Rights.
Some parts of the agency would be nearly hollowed out.
“There’s something opportunistic about what we’re watching right now,” said Jim Blew, who served in a senior position at the Education Department during the first Trump administration. “These guys have very clear goals. When you give them an opportunity to achieve them, they go full bore.”
These staff reductions were temporarily frozen by a federal judge on Wednesday. But they follow a series of moves that have steadily eroded the agency. This year a string of grant programs were eliminated, hobbled or delayed. Contracts have been canceled. And officials have begun work to move pieces of the agency elsewhere in what could be a template to transfer out other parts of the department.
President Donald Trump has vowed to close the department, though top officials including Education Secretary Linda McMahon acknowledge that congressional action is required to do so. Lawmakers have taken virtually no steps toward this, partly because the legislation would require Democratic support to reach the required 60 vote threshold in the Senate.
Following deep staff reductions in the spring, critics argued — in court and elsewhere — that the Education Department was not capable of carrying out its statutory functions with such a small staff. […]Trump administration was attempting a de facto shuttering of the agency without congressional action.
In a statement on X, McMahon suggested the nearly-three-week-long government shutdown had forced her to reconsider what federal responsibilities “are truly critical for the American people.”
“Two weeks in, millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid, and schools are operating as normal,” she posted. “It confirms what the President has said: the federal Department of Education is unnecessary.” [yikes]
If allowed to go into effect, the layoffs would decimate the Office for Civil Rights, which was already cut in half earlier this year, and gut offices that oversee every major K-12 program. That includes the $15 billion Individuals with Disabilities Education Act program for students with disabilities and the $18 billion Title I program, which aids high-poverty schools. Smaller programs such as one that supports charter schools were also hit.
The people who work on grants to tribal colleges and historically Black colleges and universities were also let go, just weeks after the administration rerouted $495 million in grant funding to those schools. TRIO, a $1 billion suite of grants to support veterans and college students from low-income families, was gutted. […]
“Santos Is Released After Trump Commutes His Sentence”
“George Santos’s lawyer said the disgraced former congressman was freed from a New Jersey prison around 10 p.m. on Friday. He served less than three months on his fraud conviction.”
Former Representative George Santos of New York, the disgraced Republican fabulist whose lies made him an object of national scorn, was released from a federal prison on Friday night after President Trump commuted his seven-year sentence for fraud.
His lawyer, Joseph Murray, said that Mr. Santos was released from the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey after 10 p.m. on Friday night. “A great injustice has been corrected,” Mr. Murray said.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump suggested that politics had been a major factor in his decision, commending Mr. Santos for sharing his views and contrasting him with Democrats. Calling the former congressman “somewhat of a ‘rogue,’” Mr. Trump said that he believed that Mr. Santos’s sentence was excessive given the nature of his financial crimes.
The president also suggested he had been moved by Mr. Santos’s accounts of being in prison, which he had published in a regular column in a local Long Island newspaper.
[…] Mr. Santos claimed that he was descended from Holocaust refugees. His mother, he said, had been in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. He claimed to be a college volleyball star. And Mr. Santos boasted of extensive Wall Street experience that allowed him to report loaning his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars.
None of that was true.
As more of Mr. Santos’s claims were exposed to be false or misleading, his Republican colleagues grew increasingly uneasy. When he was indicted in 2023, prosecutors accused him of multiple criminal schemes, ranging from fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits and lying on official forms to using his political campaign to enrich himself, swindling money from donors for personal expenses and using one donor’s credit card to steal $11,000 for his personal use.
After a congressional ethics investigation found that Mr. Santos improperly spent campaign funds on Botox, designer fashion, cosmetics and OnlyFans purchases, more than 100 Republicans joined Democrats to expel him from Congress in December 2023.
He became the first person in history to be expelled from the House without being convicted of a federal crime or supporting the Confederacy.
[…] “Thank you @realDonaldTrump for commuting George’s sentence. It was the right thing to do,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, the brash Republican and MAGA adherent, wrote in a social media post late Friday night.
She said in the post that she had spoken with Mr. Santos. “He is extremely grateful to be released from prison and he and his family are overjoyed,” she wrote.
[…] “He lied like hell,” Mr. Trump said at the time. “And I didn’t know him, but he was 100 percent for Trump.” […] “at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!”
“Speaking with NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ after his visit with Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged he didn’t get what he wanted — but it could still happen.”
Related video at the link.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy struck a hopeful tone while on a trip to the U.S. on Friday, even though he had not sealed an agreement with President Donald Trump on the delivery of long-range Tomahawk missiles — weapons that could be a game-changer in the war against Russia.
“It’s good that President Trump didn’t say ‘no,’ but for today, didn’t say ‘yes,’” Zelenskyy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in an exclusive interview, which will air on Sunday.
Zelenskyy’s appeal for Tomahawk missile comes as Russia has been hammering Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with drones and missiles in the past week, leading to blackouts across the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently warned that supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would be a “qualitatively new stage of escalation.”
Zelenskyy told NBC News that a Ukrainian military equipped with Tomahawk missiles is a genuine concern for Putin.
“I think that Putin [is] afraid that United States will deliver us Tomahawks. And I think that he [is] really afraid that we will use” them, he said. […]
PROTESTS UNDERWAY: Crowds are starting to amass in cities across the East Coast and in Europe, where demonstrators gathered in solidarity with Americans who are protesting what organizers call President Donald Trump’s “crackdowns on First Amendment rights.”
SCALE AND SCOPE: Organizers said more than 2,500 pro-democracy No Kings rallies are planned nationwide today — from major cities to small, rural towns. Millions are expected to participate.
POLITICAL TENSIONS LOOM: Organizers emphasized that today’s events will be peaceful — a direct response to Republican and Trump administration claims that the protests could be unsafe. Supporters frame the marches as a patriotic defense of free speech, while critics call them anti-American.
FEDERAL AND STATE RESPONSE: Several governors have activated the National Guard, and Trump has expanded deployment to Democratic-led cities ahead of the protests. […]
Video snippets and photos are available at the link: including photos from Malmö, Sweden; Berlin; Madrid, Spain, etc.
Jeffrey Epstein had multiple appointments, phone calls and dinners with Matthew Menchel — the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office chief criminal prosecutor who spearheaded Epstein’s sweetheart deal in 2007, newly released documents show. A tranche of over 8,500 pages of records from Epstein’s estate — released by the House Oversight Committee Friday — show that Epstein’s calendars and emails reflect that Menchel, who left the DOJ in 2007, had multiple meetings or dinners with Epstein in 2011, 2013 and 2017. Lawmakers also referred to a photograph of Menchel on a ski trip with Epstein sometime in the 2000s, but didn’t produce the photo.
Menchel had left the DOJ when these meetings happened so probably not illegal but still contemptible and stinks immensely. Turns out that Menchel had also dated one of Epstein’s defense lawyers previously and had proposed the plea deal through her. Again, not illegal but the whole situation had huge red flags.
The House Oversight Committee on Friday released the transcript of testimony by Menchel’s former boss, Alexander Acosta, who testified Sept. 19 in front of the committee. Acosta, Trump’s former labor secretary, testified that he and other federal prosecutors, including Menchel, didn’t want to take Epstein’s case to trial because they considered it a “crapshoot.”
That is bull. The Epstein case might have been complex but mostly the challenge would have been figuring out which couple of dozen charges to bring against Epstein out of the mess of accusations.
A Polish judge has refused to extradite a Ukrainian citizen – suspected by Germany of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022 – arguing that if Ukraine was responsible for the attack, then it was a “just” act.
Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, who was brought to Warsaw District Court in handcuffs, was detained in Poland last month on a European arrest warrant.
Ukraine might have considered it necessary but attacks against 3rd parties not in the war is really pushing the concept of “just”. In any case I think it’s more likely there is a diplomatic deal to suppress the case. Nobody except Russia wants to see this case brought to court right now.
I am waiting for the total nationwide turnout to be calculated.
I hope it will be higher than the previous one, putting extra pressure on the R politicians who are realising Trump will not be around forever.
The Steady State, a network of nearly 350 former U.S. Intelligence Community officials, says its members have applied the tools of their professions to determine that the United States is headed toward authoritarian rule. Calling its overall findings “sobering,” the group points to President Donald Trump’s executive branch overreach as the “primary” cause, and warns that, without organized resistance, that rule could become permanent.
PS. The Zeteo live coverage linked in #219 has finishd now. Whole clip properly starts about 6 mins 50 secs in and goes for a whopping 7 hours plus some.
StevoRsays
Scientific American :
“As president, Donald Trump pretty much checks all the warning boxes for an autocrat. Last September Scientific American warned of Trump’s “nonsensical conspiracy fantasies,” that he “ignores the climate crisis” and has fondness for “unqualified ideologues,” whom he would appoint should he become president again. It’s now May and sadly, that all checks out.
The U.S. is in a bad place and, scholars warn, looks to be headed for worse.
Worse even than Trump’s relentless attacks on science have been his administration’s assaults on the law. His officials have illegally fired federal workers, impounded congressional appropriations and seized people off the street for deportations to foreign prisons, threatening the same for all U.S. citizens. “The depth and breadth of this administration’s disregard for civil liberties, political pluralism, the separation of powers and legal constraints of all kinds mark it as an authoritarian regime,” law professor David Pozen of the Columbia University School of Law …”
Seems a majority of Americans albeit only a slight majority – but back in March this year – have realised Trump is a dangerous dictator :
A majority of Americans in the poll described Trump not as a strong leader, but as a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy,” according to the survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
The poll, conducted from February 28 to March 20 among 5,025 adults, found that 52 percent of Americans agreed with that statement, while 44 percent said they see Trump as “a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.”
The numbers were split clearly across partisan lines with 87 percent of Democrats calling Trump as a threat to democracy, while 81 percent of Republicans said they think he is a strong leader. Independents leaned toward the threat, with 56 percent labeling Trump dangerous and 42 percent calling him strong.
The poll also carries signs of erosion within Trump’s base. Among voters who once supported Trump but say they now regret it, 55 percent said they view him a dangerous dictator. That number climbs to 68 percent among nonvoters who regret not participating in the election. Among all nonvoters, a majority—54 percent—now see Trump as a threat to democracy.
Well, if only those non-voters had realised that before the election & not fallen for Bothsiderist and Only-Unicorn-Will-Do bullshit.
Wonder what the percentage of third party spoiler voters now regretting their horrendously counter-productive and unethical decisions is?
StevoRsays
The Steady State, a network of nearly 350 former U.S. Intelligence Community officials, says its members have applied the tools of their professions to determine that the United States is headed toward authoritarian rule. Calling its overall findings “sobering,” the group points to President Donald Trump’s executive branch overreach as the “primary” cause, and warns that, without organized resistance, that rule could become permanent.
In the executive summary of their newly-published, 29-page report, “Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline,” The Steady State “concludes—with moderate to high confidence—that the cumulative effect of multiple reinforcing dynamics is placing the nation on a trajectory toward competitive authoritarianism,” which they define as “a system in which elections, courts, and other democratic institutions persist in form but are systematically manipulated to entrench executive control.”
Ah, now this is the one I thought I’d shared here already but hadn’t when I posted the #225 one instead. (Double checks, triple checks..) :
The president has been saying it out loud all along.
During his first administration, in 2019, US President Donald Trump said the Constitution gave him “the right to do whatever I want”. Five years later, the Supreme Court affirmed that view when it ruled the president has quasi-regal powers of immunity for “official acts”.
And then last week at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, Trump’s existential threat to American democracy escalated significantly.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had assembled around 800 of the United States military’s top leaders. Hegseth convened the conference in an attempt to impose an ex-National Guard major’s authority on America’s professional military leadership. He reduced professionalism to physical appearance and fitness standards dressed up as “the warrior ethos” and “lethality”.
… (Snip)..
From both Hegseth and Trump, the message was clear. The military leaders in the room – who have all sworn an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution (not, it should be noted, the commander-in-chief) – should consider themselves nothing more than obedient servants of the president.
That in itself would represent a radical shift in civil-military relations.
But Trump, as he always does, took things even further.
@230. & #229 Silentbob : No. Never have and still don’t and kindly stop misrepresenting and lying about me.
I think you owe me an apology for that – although you being you I’m not holding mybreath for one.
Nor does Kamala harris or even Joe Biden support genocide as I have previously explained with supporting evidence in past comemnst on this blog which you have continually ignored.
They covered the Trump voters regretting their vote already in the poll linked at #224 which you haven’t noticed. Do try to read for comprehensioon for a change.
Note that supporting Israel especially immediately after the worst massacre of jewish people since the Shoah is NOT the same thing as supporting its genocide. Netanyahu, as you very well know already, wanted Trump to win not the Democratic party nominee. Bien and Harris both caled for restraint, criticised some of Netanyahu’s actions and withheld weapons a swelas sanctioning extremist settlers – things that Trump notably did NOT do or reversed. As predicted by me, Mehdi Hasan and others pre-election.
Silentbobsays
@ Stevo
American electorate! You have a choice: We can drown babies, or drown puppies. What is your choice?
80 million people: Drown babies! Drown babies! Drown babies!
A handful of people: We’re anti-drowning! We don’t want to drown anybody!
*Mass drowning of babies begins*
StevoR: Wow those anti-drowning clowns really have egg on their faces! I bet they wish they voted for drowning puppies! How embarrassed they must be, lol. Look what they’ve done! They’re single-handedly responsible for all the drowned babies!
^ Accurate representation of “StevoR logic”.
StevoRsays
Clarity fix : Biden and Harris both called for restraint, criticised some of Netanyahu’s actions and withheld some weapons from the IDF as well as sanctioning extremist settlers – things that Trump notably did NOT do or reversed. As predicted by me, Mehdi Hasan and others pre-election.
So, NO, theDemocratic party was nowhere near as bad on the issue of Gaza
StevoRsays
@233. Silentbob : Starwman fallacy.
Totally and offensively inaccurate represenattionof my logic and thinking.
StevoRsays
Meanwhile in the real world rather than Silentbob’s hayloft of an absurd imagination; the choice in last year’s USoA election wasbinary and wasbetween Trump’s actually fascist party versus Kamala Harrisés NON-fascist Democratic party – and is having consequences that are literally killing real people & proving apocalpytic for the world we all share as I type.
Kamala and the Democrats of course were NOT in favour of drowining any puppies, babies or people. Trump’s Fascists OTOH, well, .. See recent Young Repugs leaked texts among so very much more including literal concentration camps and persecution of marginalised minorities.
StevoRsays
Oh & of course Silentbob like behodler -indeed even worse so – stillhas NOTanswered the quesions asked of him here :
Among other places. I think this indicates Silentbob is NOT commenting in good faith or engaging honestly here.
beholdersays
Another evening, another meltdown from StevoR.
You are not owed any apologies until you extend that same courtesy to others.
StevoRsays
@ ^ Who do you think I owe an apology to and why exactly?
As for those having “meltdowns” I think our respective comments above speak for themselves here.
I’ll note yet again because yet again it is pertinent here that you continue to refuse to answer the very simple question :
Who was the better choice for POTUIS out of the two and only two options last year – Trump or Kamala?
No, Jill Stein is NOT an answer and nor is anyone other than Trump due to the binary two party nature of USA politics which is the stark reality which I think we all agree we strongly dislike here. (Our dislike of this does not change that it is the reality – and, what if anything have you done to change that reality?).
Note that by your own chosen metrics Stein the spoiled needless spoiler was vastly less suitable, less popular and a truly terrible choice given she lost by about 99% garnering a mere 1% approx of the vote. Whilst Kamala by contrast won about half of those who voted and thus was obviously a considerably more electable and reasonable option given she got 48.3% of the vote vs Trump’s 49.8% setting aside for now the fact that voter suppression denied her victory over him and very possibly also Musk election rigging too along with that tiny fringe minority of third party spoiler voters.
For Lynna’s sake I’m not gunna say much more right now nor offer you the sort of unrequested, abusive mental health analysis you have erroneously suggested for me.
StevoRsays
PS. Have you apologised for and acknowledged your false claim about New Mexico being the worst USA state for education when that is actually deeply red Repug West Virginia yet beholder?
Also why did you single out the single, exceptional blue state amongst the top ten worst for education* thereby de facto defending & supporting the Trumpist red ones again? Your pattern of behaviours, focii and biases does NOT go unnoticed you realise and some of us will point it out and state what it implies.
. * 9 or even being very generous here 8 of the other ten being Repug states.
beholdersays
@240 StevoR
PS. Have you apologised for and acknowledged your false claim about New Mexico being the worst USA state for education when that is actually deeply red Repug West Virginia yet beholder?
Apologize for what? For being correct?
“Public School Rankings by State 2025”
worldpopulationreview (dot) com /state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state
Overall Public School Rank 2024: New Mexico: 49/51
K-12 Performance 2024: New Mexico: 51/51
School Safety Rank 2024: New Mexico: 51/51
Silentbobsays
@ Stevo
As I recall it, the claim was made that poor performance was due to being “red states”.
beholder debunked the claim. The onus is on those making the original claim to account for disconfirming evidence. Not on the skeptic to explain their “bias” in indicating disconfirming evidence.
Are you interested in truth or propaganda?
StevoRsays
Today, Trump’s new mandate regime for Gaza arises under different historical circumstances.
This empire, by his own reconning, needs to be “made great again” and has no shortages of significant challenges. In that respect, Trump’s plans for Gaza and beyond resemble the desperate efforts of an empire in decline, sliding about on a bloody marble floor, barefoot.
The project, run by a coterie of pranksters, playboys and predators speculating on bitcoin resemble the act of moving about deckchairs on a sinking super yacht.
@242. Silentbob : “As I recall it, the claim was made that poor performance was due to being “red states”.
Your recall is wrong – among other things Beholder specifically claimed in their #37 that :
“The Red states will do a poor job of educating, which they would do anyway. They usually anchor the bottom of whatever statistics you look at.” – Raven #2 on that Future Looks bleak thread -ed.
Not the bottom of education. We’ve been over this in the other thread, the one consistently at dead last is a blue state…the one (state -ed) consistently at dead last is a blue state.
(Modified w italics &word extra word bolded for clarity.)
Which I refuted and proved factually incorrect in my comment here :
West Virginia ranks last in educational attainment nationally, having the lowest share of adults with a bachelor’s degree (around 20 percent). Its high school completion rate (about 89 percent of adults) is slightly below the U.S. average (about 89.7 percent).
Note from its wikipage : “West Virginia is regarded as a heavily Republican, “deep red” state..
West Virginia NOT New Mexico dead last. Almost every state with the worst education status is a red state.
Beholder also falsely asserted :
it (education qualities -ed) doesn’t break down nicely along your outmoded red-state-blue-state dichotomy.
Which given the 9 /10 red states in the worst for education category it actually does break down like that with red states being worse with only a single exception. Maybe very generously 2 if we count Nevada as a purple state which, well, I think I’m done being overly generous to beholder & you.
PS. Your failure to answer the question there is noted so I’ll ask again here in the no doubt forlorn hope that you’ll have the decency to provide a straightforward answer -something I have noticed that you never seem to do :
Out of the TWO & only 2 actual options people had to choose from last election – either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris – which was the better choice in terms of being more rational, compassionate and mentally competent to become POTUS?
@241.Beholder : Apologize for what? For being correct?
No. You weren’t correct at all. Apologise for your error – whether inadvertent or deliberate outright falsehood – and your selective cherry-picking and singling out the one exception in the ten worst states as if that somehow refuted the broader reality that red states are, generally, almost always with very few exceptions indeed worse off educationally. 9 / 10 times in fact! You ignored my sources – plural – there which are accurate. Oh and answer the simple question above too.
StevoRsays
The world’s first commercial deep space astronomy telescope is set to search for stars that could host habitable exoplanets in their orbits.The Mauve telescope, developed by London-headquartered start-up Blue Skies Space, is the size of a small suitcase and carries an off-the-shelf ultraviolet spectrometer modified to monitor flaring stars. It is one of the payloads that will launch on SpaceX’s upcoming Transporter-15 mission, currently set for no earlier than November 2025.
Trump is a hodenkobold and his followers intelligenzallergikers.
Excerpts from a study of which kinds of insults/curses are most common, from several languages.
….
‘Germans more than tripled this with an average of 53 words ranging from from intelligenzallergiker, a person allergic to intelligence, to hodenkobold, or “testicle goblin”, someone who is being annoying.
…snip….
The Italians who were part of the study offered up more than 24 taboo words related to the church, including 17 different versions of what researchers translated as “fucking God”.
Sulpizio speculated it might be because of Italy’s proximity and longstanding relationship with the Vatican, as well as the enduring strength of Catholic tradition in the country. “So that’s an example of the impact of cultural or societal differences,” he said. ‘
beholdersays
@244 StevoR
it doesn’t break down nicely along your [raven’s, apparently also Stevo’s] outmoded red-state-blue-state dichotomy. — beholder
it actually does break down like that with red states being worse with only a single exception.
Careful, Stevo, you’re making a different claim there and it’s also not supported by the data. If I look at the top 10 states by K-12 performance in 2024, I see Utah at #4, Wyoming at #6, North Dakota at #7, South Dakota at #9, and Wisconsin at #10. All solidly red states. Just goes to show, educational opportunities don’t sort themselves nicely along partisan lines.
Apologise for your error
No, Stevo, I’m not indulging your break with reality. Silentbob had the relevant question: Are you interested in truth or propaganda?
KGsays
StevoR: Wow those anti-drowning clowns really have egg on their faces! I bet they wish they voted for drowning puppies! How embarrassed they must be, lol. Look what they’ve done! They’re single-handedly responsible for all the drowned babies!
Can you justify your claim that StevoR holds third-party voters single-handedly responsible for Trump’s return to power? Because if not, you are clearly misrepresenting his logic. And those who refused to vote for drowning puppies when it was the only electorally credible alternative to voting to drown babies would indeed have a share in responsibility for the baby-drowning. They might take the deontological position that it would still have been wrong to vote for drowning puppies, but denying that they did share responsibility for the baby drowning is moral cowardice.
KGsays
If I look at the top 10 states by K-12 performance in 2024, I see Utah at #4, Wyoming at #6, North Dakota at #7, South Dakota at #9, and Wisconsin at #10. All solidly red states. Just goes to show, educational opportunities don’t sort themselves nicely along partisan lines. – beholder@247
I haven’t applied the relevant statistical test, but my hunch is that #1, #2, #3, #5, #8 vs #4, #6, #7, #9, #10 would be a statistically significant difference. Whether this is “nicely” sorted or not is subjective: if I’m right, it shows that “blue” states have a real advantage over “red” states on this measure.
Calling it a “historic victory” with his usual unearned boastfulness, President Donald Trump announced a new effort to make in vitro fertilization—better known as IVF—more accessible.
“In the Trump administration, we want to make it easier for all couples to have babies, raise children and have the families they’ve always dreamed about,” Trump told the assembled press corps in the Oval Office Thursday.
IVF is a medical procedure that helps people struggling with infertility conceive a child by fertilizing an egg outside the body and then implanting the embryo.
Trump’s announcement amounted to two things: most-favored nation pricing on the drugs, and a polite request for companies to cover IVF in their health care plans, without any stick or carrot to compel them to do so.
If you wonder why Trump cares, this is part of the right wing’s creepy efforts to encourage white women to have more babies, a particular obsession of Elon Musk’s.
The most-favored nation part is actually good. Americans spend far more on the same drugs as consumers in other countries. Under this kind of policy, drug makers would be required to offer Americans the lowest price they charge in any other developed nation.
It’s an idea that’s been floated for years by both parties, including under the Biden and Trump administrations, as a way to push back against pharmaceutical price gouging. Americans routinely pay two to three times more for the same medications sold in Canada, Europe, or Japan. Proposals to let Americans import cheaper Canadian drugs have drawn bipartisan applause, but relentless industry lobbying—and similarly bipartisan cowardice—has always killed them off.
Lowering drug prices is a worthy goal, but when it comes to IVF, it barely moves the needle. The $15,000–$20,000 cost of a typical IVF cycle doesn’t include the necessary medications, so even a few thousand dollars in drug savings still leaves families priced out. It’s a modest discount dressed up as a miracle—and a far cry from Trump’s 2024 campaign promise to make IVF free.
“We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” he said at the time. “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”
It’s almost impressive how easily he promises everything without a plan to ever deliver.
That promise wouldn’t have come cheap.
“The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology says its member clinics performed 389,993 IVF cycles in 2022,” NBC reported at the time. “At a cost of around $20,000 apiece, that would come to $7.8 billion for that one year.” But that’s just a fifth of the $40 billion Trump is sending to Argentina to save his pal Javier Milei. (Of course, demand would soar if IVF were free, so maybe the cost might be … half an Argentina?)
The second part of his announcement, urging companies to cover the expensive treatments, is where the whole thing tips into absurdity.
According to NOTUS, the Departments of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services will provide “guidance” allowing a “new benefit option” that would permit—but not require—employers to offer IVF as a stand-alone benefit. And with no carrot, no stick, and no reason for any company not already offering this to suddenly start.
Asked why businesses should bother, one senior administration official said they should want to “bring a healthy baby into the world at the lowest possible cost.” Ah yes, let’s dig through those corporate charters for the part about “bringing healthy babies into the world”—at their own expense. […]
But really, if bringing healthy babies into the world is such a noble goal, why doesn’t Trump find the dollars for it the way he’s found them for Argentina? Because he doesn’t actually care. It’s easier to announce something that sounds compassionate than to spend a dime making it real.
Not much of a victory. Certainly not historic. Just more of the same Trumpian bullshit.
During President Donald Trump’s first term, Don Jr. was arguably the most high-profile of his misbegotten offspring, complete with a nice big role in Russian interference in the 2016 election. And who can forget Ivanka Trump, with her daddy claiming that she somehow created 14 million jobs?
Well, now it’s Eric’s turn to shine. And he’s going to shine by … having his daddy set up his deals.
During the recent Middle East “peace summit,” Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto was caught on a hot mic asking Trump, “Can I meet Eric?”
This led to Trump positively gushing, “I’ll have Eric call. Should I do that? He’s such a good boy. I’ll have Eric call.”
The pair also talked about looking for “a better place.”
Eric, of course, is in charge of the Trump Organization’s two big development projects in Indonesia. For some reason, we’re still pretending that Trump is not involved with his family’s private business and keeps everything in a trust.
But it’s so obvious that Trump is open for business that Subianto, while at a peace summit in his official capacity, didn’t even hesitate to approach Trump to ask for a personal business introduction to one of his adult sons.
The Trump Organization is also doing a $1 billion development in Saudi Arabia, which “in a nod to the US president’s New York real estate background will form part of a larger scheme dubbed ‘Manhattan.’”
And we can’t forget the endless crypto grifting, can we? Or Trump making sure that he got the presidential seal in the picture when pimping Eric’s book, which of course we all totally and completely believe Eric wrote himself, right?
But Eric’s explanation of the hot mic moment, such as it is, is that he is indeed a good boy.
So, a world leader asked your dad, the president, at an official event, to put him in touch with you, the president’s son, to do a deal with the president’s personal family business. This is magnitudes worse than any of the frenzied accusations the right lobbed at Hunter Biden.
But according to Eric, this is totally fine and not at all unethical because “I’ve never met the president of Indonesia.”
Eric also insists that the entire exchange between his dad and Subianto actually shows that “there’s a huge wall” between Trump’s presidency and his businesses.
Eric. Do we have to spell it out for you again and again? The Indonesian president asked your dad, the president, while at an official “peace summit,” to meet you, the person heading up the Trump Organization’s developments in Indonesia. And your dad—again, the president—fell all over himself, agreeing to set up a meeting.
That’s not a wall.
It’s no wonder, though, that the Trump family wants to vibe with Subianto, who has been credibly accused of war crimes, so much so that he was discharged from the military. He commanded the country’s special forces and ordered student activists to be kidnapped, and he was barred from even coming to the United States for years due to his record of human rights violations.
Huh. Come to think of it, he’d fit right in at the Trump administration.
[…] Trump has been active on social media while at his Mar-a-Lago resort this weekend. After millions of Americans gathered across the country on Saturday for the second “No Kings” protests against his administration’s actions, the president shared an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown while piloting a fighter jet and dumping brown liquid on demonstrators in New York City’s Times Square. […]
“EXCLUSIVE: Rubio promised to betray U.S. informants to get Trump’s El Salvador prison deal”
“To secure Washington’s access to El Salvador’s most notorious prison, the secretary of state made an extraordinary offer to President Nayib Bukele.”
In the days before the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, the president of that country demanded something for himself: the return of nine MS-13 gang leaders in U.S. custody.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a March 13 phone call with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, promised the request would be fulfilled, according to officials familiar with the conversation. But there was one obstacle: Some of the MS-13 members Bukele wanted were “informants” under the protection of the U.S. government, Rubio told him.
To deport them to El Salvador, Attorney General Pam Bondi would need to terminate the Justice Department’s arrangements with those men, Rubio said. He assured Bukele that Bondi would complete that process and Washington would hand over the MS-13 leaders.
Rubio’s extraordinary pledge illustrates the extent to which the Trump administration was willing to meet Bukele’s demands as it negotiated what would become one of the signature agreements of President Donald Trump’s early months in office. While the outlines of the quid pro quo have been public for months, the Trump administration’s willingness to renege on secret arrangements made with informants who had aided U.S. investigations has not been previously reported.
The deal between Rubio and Bukele granted the administration access to a sprawling foreign prison dubbed the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, that would be integral to Trump’s ongoing efforts to conduct the “largest deportation in American history.”
The deal would give Bukele possession of individuals who threatened to expose the alleged deals his government made with MS-13 to help achieve El Salvador’s historic drop in violence, officials said. For the Salvadoran president, a return of the informants was viewed as critical to preserving his tough-on-crime reputation. It was also a key step in hindering an ongoing U.S. investigation into his government’s relationship with MS-13, a gang famous for displays of excessive violence in the United States and elsewhere.
But in promising to terminate the informant arrangements, current and former Justice Department officials say Rubio threatened to undercut years of work by U.S. law enforcement to apprehend and secure the cooperation of high-ranking members of one of the world’s most deadly gangs.
“The deal is a deep betrayal of U.S. law enforcement, whose agents risked their lives to apprehend the gang members,” said Douglas Farah, a U.S. contractor who worked with federal officials to investigate and help dismantle the MS-13 gang.
[…] At least three of the MS-13 leaders Bukele requested had divulged incriminating information about members of Bukele’s government suspected of cutting deals with the gang, officials said. One of them — César López Larios, whom U.S. prosecutors charged last year with directing MS-13’s activities in the United States — was sent back to El Salvador two days after the Rubio-Bukele phone call. The others remain in the United States, waiting to learn whether they, too, will be handed over to the very government they were cooperating against.
[…] Thus far, Bukele has held up his end of the bargain, housing roughly 250 deportees in the CECOT prison before they were sent to Venezuela in the subsequent deal brokered between Washington, San Salvador and Caracas.
The same cannot be said of the Trump administration, which has returned only one of the nine men Bukele demanded: López Larios. Prosecutors moved to dismiss the case against him, citing “geopolitical and national security concerns” and he was deported to El Salvador in mid-March.
The other eight remain in U.S. custody. It is unclear if the Trump administration still intends to send them back and if so, whether it can prevail over legal hurdles that could prevent their deportations.
The administration began the process for deporting Vladimir Arévalo Chávez, an alleged MS-13 leader known as “Vampiro,” in April — but the effort has drawn scrutiny from a federal judge in New York, who imposed a delay.
[…] Reuters reported in late 2021 that U.S. authorities were preparing indictments against Carlos Marroquin, who ran the government’s social welfare agency, and Bukele’s deputy justice minister Osiris Luna. […]
U.S. authorities suspected Bukele’s government had used U.S. Agency for International Development programs to benefit MS-13’s leaders, according to three people familiar with the investigation, though it is unclear how much evidence investigators found to back up those claims.
“We were trying to follow the money, to locate who was involved in moving money and how the gang received money, and that’s where we started to find the connections to the political figures,” said Chris Musto, a former Homeland Security Investigations agent who worked on Vulcan until 2021.
A former State Department official said the U.S. government believed Canales Rivera could “provide a mountain of evidence that DOJ needed to pursue these indictments.”
If he were returned to El Salvador, as Rubio promised Bukele, “the entire case could fall apart,” one current U.S. investigator said.
[…] While the Justice Department’s investigation formally continues into the alleged agreements between MS-13 and the Salvadoran government, current and former officials said resources have been redirected to boost efforts elsewhere.
“No one is wanting to investigate anything related to El Salvador or Bukele, because the Bukele administration right now has a direct line to the White House,” said one former State Department official who was in El Salvador. “No one is touching that.”
“Israel Suspends Aid and Strikes Gaza After Accusing Hamas of Violating Truce”
“Israel said Palestinian militants attacked its forces across cease-fire lines and launched a wave of attacks on Gaza. Both sides still say they are committed to the truce.”
Israel on Sunday launched its heaviest wave of attacks on Gaza since a fragile cease-fire took hold a week ago and said it was suspending humanitarian aid to the territory after accusing Hamas of firing on its forces and violating the truce.
Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza on Sunday. Gaza’s health ministry initially reported 14 Palestinian deaths across Gaza on Sunday.
Both Israel and Hamas have now accused each other of violating the truce after repeated flare-ups of violence over the past three days. But both made clear on Sunday that they were still committed to maintaining the truce.
The transfer of aid into Gaza has been halted until further notice […]
Hamas’s military wing said in a statement that it was “unaware of any events or clashes taking place in the Rafah area,” saying they had lost contact with their fighters there.
It added that it has had no contact with its fighters in the Rafah area since an earlier, temporary cease-fire collapsed in March and therefore has “no connection to any events taking place in those areas.”
A Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, in a separate statement on Sunday accused Israel of continuing to violate the truce and of fabricating “flimsy pretexts to justify its crimes.”
On Friday, the Israeli military fired on a vehicle in northern Gaza, killing at least nine people, including four children, according to a Gaza rescue service that is part of the territory’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
[…] After Sunday’s violence, members of Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line government immediately called for a full resumption of Israel’s offensive against Hamas, the militant group that led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel that set off the war.
[…] Hamas has freed the last 20 living Israeli hostages and turned over the bodies of 12 captives over the past week, according to the Israeli government. A 13th body that Hamas handed over to Israel was found by forensic experts not to match any of the captives.
Israel has freed almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and sent the bodies of more than 100 Palestinians to Gaza. […]
The bodies of 16 other captives still remain in Gaza, according to the Israeli government.
Hamas has said repeatedly that it will be difficult to locate and recover all of them. Some are buried deep under rubble and require heavy equipment to extract them.
He’s beloved by some and reviled by others, but even if large numbers of people rise up in protest against him, he proved this weekend he is here to stay: Domingo, the irrepressible womanizer played by Marcello Hernández on “Saturday Night Live,” has now graduated from a recurring character on the program to being at the center of the opening sketch.
This week’s episode of “S.N.L.,” which featured Sabrina Carpenter as both host and musical guest, broke with the show’s tradition, in recent years, of opening with a topical political sketch and instead began with its latest entry on Domingo, the Lothario who is perpetually romancing Kelsey (Chloe Fineman) — much to the chagrin of her hapless new husband, Matt (Andrew Dismukes). [video]
[…] Don’t be too quick to dismiss this offbeat sketch, which begins as a parody of a video podcast by adolescent boys who share their slang-ridden reviews of their most- and least-favorite foods. It’s pretty funny — and eerily convincing — to see Carpenter, Fineman, Slowikowska and Jane Wickline play earnest young goofballs who debate whether Twizzlers are “washed” or “fire,” and which vegetables are G.O.A.T.-ed. (As Carpenter’s character so aptly put it, “Some vegetables are fire and some vegetables low-key be a fruit.”) [video at the link]
But of course there’s a twist: The podcast’s celebrity guest is President Trump, played by the resident impersonator James Austin Johnson, who, despite the strange milieu, ends up fitting right in.
[…] Alas, Bowen Yang was not on hand for this week’s broadcast — he was in Los Angeles as an honoree of the Academy Museum Gala, which meant he couldn’t reprise his recurring role as George Santos, the disgraced former congressman whose fraud sentence was commuted by President Trump on Friday. But Yang was still able to appear with Carpenter in a recorded music video about teenage students who find fully clothed (but still very inappropriate) ways to get intimate with each other at a school dance. [video at the link]
[…] Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on topics like President Trump’s commutation of Santos’s sentence and the fallout from a racist and homophobic group chat among young Republican officials and activists.
Jost began:
Yesterday President Trump finally released what everyone has been asking him to release. George Santos. The former Republican congressman who had pled guilty to fraud and something called aggravated identity theft, which I think is when you push someone into a closet and switch clothes with them, is now free and will face zero consequences. But Santos says that he’s a changed man, and he even released a photo of his new prison body. [His screen shows an image of what is obviously Santos’s head pasted onto a very muscular body.
Che continued:
Volodymyr Zelensky has said that if President Trump provides Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, he will nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. You know, the prize they give you for selling missiles. There was outrage this week over a leaked group chat between Republican leaders which praised Hitler and referred to Black Americans as “watermelon people.” The chat was named “Jost Family.”
Jost went onto say:While traveling on Air Force One to the Middle East to celebrate the cease-fire, President Trump told reporters, “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into heaven.” Then he paused for 10 full minutes waiting for someone to say, “That’s not true.” Because Trump can’t go to heaven. He’s far too busy down here, running hell.
Che added:
President Trump announced that another boat from Venezuela that he said was smuggling drugs was blown out of the water without warning. And you may not think that’s a big deal right now, but one day soon you’ll look at yourself in the mirror and realize you’re out of cocaine.
[video at the link] […]
The videos are also available on YouTube. YouTube link
birgerjohanssonsays
No King’s Day: I realise it takes a lot of time to add up estimates from 2500 demonstrations but it would be fun to know if the total exceeds the number of participants from this spring.
Re: birgerjohnasson @ #246…
My late wife–who had a degree in Linguistics–used to observe that, generally speaking, Protestant swearing is scatalogical, while Catholic swearing is blasphemous.
But things are even more difficult with Tesla, as even with much lower production, the automaker often ends up having inventory build-ups for the Cybertruck.
Elon Musk has a solution: he had his private companies buy hundreds if not thousands of Cybertrucks.
Several truckloads of Cybertruck were spotted being delivered to xAI’s offices this weekend.
Furthermore, SpaceX has taken delivery of hundreds of Cybertrucks at Starbase of the last week and it is expected to take delivery of hundres, if not thousands more in the coming weeks.
I would be surprised if the various companies owned by Musk didn’t buy from each other. This is a level way above that and obviously Musk making Tesla sales and inventory look better by taking Cybertrucks off their hands.
This also points out a problem with these various theoretically public companies that are effectively controlled by one person. The one person running the whole show has a good motivation to shuffle things around to make his finances look better at the cost of individual companies and their stock holders.
“The bloc also considers ‘targeting the provision of logistical support to shadow fleet vessels,’ according to EEAS document seen by POLITICO.”
[…] The issue of ships transporting Russian oil sailing under different flags to escape EU sanctions has wide implications for the bloc as those vessels not only help to boost Moscow’s war economy but also “pose threats to the environment and to navigation safety,” according to the five-page document prepared by the European External Action Service, the EU diplomatic arm.
The shadow fleet ships also are a risk for critical infrastructure and “can be used as platforms for hybrid attacks against EU territory,” the document states. The vessels are in some cases suspected to be launch pads for Russian drones used to reconnoiter critical Western sites and disrupt civilian airports.
[…] The draft declaration proposes “possible bilateral agreements between the flag states and the EU on pre-authorized boardings for inspections,” the EEAS wrote in the document.
The objective is to finalize the draft declaration by the end of November and to adopt it at the following meeting of EU foreign ministers.
Once the declaration is be supported by member states, the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas will “seek the authorization of the Council to open negotiations for bilateral agreements with identified flag states,” according to the document.
EU member states “increasingly demonstrate a renewed momentum for more robust enforcement actions tackling the shadow fleet,” according to the document, which makes the example of French soldiers that at the start of the month boarded an oil tanker, the Boracay, believed to be part of Russia’s shadow fleet, which was off the coast of Denmark when unidentified drones forced the temporary closure of several airports and also was anchored off western France for a few days.
[…] The EU is already reaching out to priority flag states and coastal states that provide or enable logistical support and bunkering services to the shadow fleet and, among other actions, it also “aims to mobilize its various tools to provide support and incentives to flag states to deregister sanctioned vessels,” according to the EEAS document.
Panama, the largest ship registry, “has agreed to deregister vessels sanctioned by the EU and recently decided to stop registering vessels older than 15 years,” the EEAS says in the document.
In terms of further sanctions, the EU “will continue to propose additional listings of vessels and shadow fleet ecosystem operators such as insurers and flag registries,” the document states, building on measures taken already in the current sanctions packages.
And “possible additional measures could include targeting the provision of logistical support to shadow fleet vessels, such as oil bunkering,” the document says.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday announced there had been another U.S. strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat days prior.
“On October 17th, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a Designated Terrorist Organization, that was operating in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Hegseth said in a post on the social platform X.
[…] According to Hegseth, the strike happened in international waters and the three passengers who were on the vessel were killed. Hegseth’s post also featured video of a boat moving through water, with an explosion occurring shortly after. […]
On Sunday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that recent strikes “go against all our tradition” in the U.S.
“When you kill someone, you should know, if you’re not at war, not in a declared war, you really need to know someone’s name at least,” Paul said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”
“You have to accuse them of something. You have to present evidence. So all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime,” he added.
As weird as it sounds, I think Trump’s shit-bombing video helps explain why protests have skewed older.
Older folks remember a time before the president posted this stuff. If you’re young and the past decade (maybe half your life) has included a president who posts diarrhea videos, that’s just life.
This applies to everything, not just social media content. Trump abolished USAID without Congress. His close advisor gave two Nazi salutes the day he was inaugurated. If that’s the baseline for normal politics, why get worked up? That’s just how the world works if you don’t remember much pre-2015.
Trump’s diarrhea video will probably benefit from the fact that it’s so gross TV news shows probably won’t want to air it for standards reasons alone.
Trump probably benefited from the same thing just a few days before the 2024 election when he pretended to blow a microphone and TV ignored it.
Matt Novak: Credit to Manu Raju and CNN, where they played Trump’s AI diarrhea video this morning to talk about how weird our president is.
Rando: “The amazing thing about the microphone moment is that it wasn’t even a sexist or homophobic joke. The entire context is that the mic was too low, and he suddenly realized that with his mouth above it like that, he could fellate it.”
It has been a fun week to see one of […] Trump’s latest superstars, interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, behaving like the dog who caught the car, but this week offered us so, so much more in the way of stupid legal tricks.
We’ve got former Trump adviser Steve Bannon running to the Supreme Court, Trump forcing out another of his own U.S. attorney picks, and Pete Hegseth’s personal attorney who is also a Navy attorney who is also a private practice attorney! Plus, special return appearances from both Brown University and … “Big Balls”?
Steve Bannon wants to find out if he has the juice
[…] Yes, it’s time for another installment of “Does SCOTUS Like Me As Much As They Like Trump?” Up next, Steve Bannon!
Bannon, ever the media-savvy nightmare, has been shopping around his petition for a writ of certiorari so that we could all see it before it was docketed on the court’s website. […] The Hill posted a copy of his petition this past Monday, and what it looks like is that Bannon would like his contempt conviction wiped out.
You’ll recall that Bannon is still sad there were consequences for when he refused to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Besides wiping his conviction off the books, Bannon would like the court to make it harder to bring contempt charges in situations like this.
Has Bannon thought this one through? Does he really want to be the guy who makes it harder for Trump to prosecute his enemies? Also, perhaps Bannon wants to take a gander at how little the court cared about conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his entreaties, and adjust his expectations accordingly.
Big Balls, no justice
Two of the teens who attacked a former staffer of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are getting off with probation.
Edward Coristine, who went by “Big Balls” online, took some time away from doing whatever racists teens do when they’re no longer employed by DOGE to whine that the other people who beat him had not been caught and to “think of your daughters and mothers.”
Dude, you don’t even work for the government any longer. Just go home. You already managed to be one of Trump’s excuses to overrun the nation’s capital with troops, so you’ve done enough here, thank you very much.
The many jobs of Pete Hegseth’s personal lawyer
Tim Parlatore has a sweet deal. He represented Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over accusations he had sexually assaulted a woman in 2017, complete with a gross threat to sue his accuser, and it netted him a Navy Reserve commission.
So, Parlatore’s day job is his ostensibly nonpartisan military job as a special adviser to Hegseth, the same person he has represented in his personal capacity. But Parlatore also kept his private attorney practice, including cases where he’s suing the Navy.
The Navy that he works for. Where he works for Hegseth. […]
Parlatore’s conflicting roles have been known for a while, but it burst back into the light this week when it turned out that Parlatore was the one who came up with the idea of trying to make the media sign away its First Amendment rights in order to report at the Pentagon. [!] […]
What if we run out of former Trump lawyers?
[…] While we were focused on Trump pushing out U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert so he could install Lindsey Halligan to bring bogus charges against Trump’s enemies, chaos was also reigning in the Western District.
There, Todd Gilbert, a longtime Republican whom Trump appointed, is out after he refused to punish a career prosecutor who said there were just no criminal charges to be had stemming from the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
No word on which sixth-tier, parking-lot lawyer Trump will find next for this role, but we’re sure they will be awful.
Brown finesses a way to say no after being stupid and saying yes
Brown University was one of the first nine schools offered the chance to enter into Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” in which schools essentially agree to end academic freedom and let the administration run the institution into a very racist grave.
It took a bit of dithering, but Brown turned it down.
The problem for Brown is it had already entered into one of those illegal “voluntary” agreements with the administration to restore $50 million in federal funds. And they needed to figure out a way to reject the compact without undercutting their earlier deal.
It’s a good result at the moment, but it’s also a reminder that there is nothing you can sign, no knee you can bend far enough, that will satisfy the Trump administration.
“Trump ends aid to Colombia and calls country’s leader a ‘drug leader'” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8xg1jve73o
This in response to the Columbian president, correctly, accusing the USA of committing murder with the strikes on boats.
johnson catmansays
re CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @268: My wife’s brother made a comment about The Orange Turd’s video. He said it shows that the wannabe dictator is literally losing his shit. So true. My reaction was that it just shows what a petulant child he is. Can you imagine any other president in the history of the US reacting like a spoiled pre-schooler when people protest his illegal actions?
Smaller crowds than previous hate marches the other month or so agao but still deeply worrying :
Tensions have boiled over as anti-immigration and counter-protesters took to the streets of Melbourne and other capital cities for the second time in as many months, with two Victoria Police officers hospitalised following the protests.
Hundreds of police officers, a group composed of both those in riot gear and mounted police, separated a March for Australia group estimated to be in the thousands, and a group of anti-racism protesters in Melbourne’s centre.
March for Australia protesters were clad in Australian flags, with some waving anti-immigration banners.
In contrast, counter-protesters carried a range of banners and signs with anti-fascist and anti-racist slogans, while others waved Palestinian, Somali and Aboriginal flags.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that a ceasefire in Gaza had resumed after an attack that killed two of its soldiers and prompted a wave of airstrikes that killed 26 people.
Aid into the enclave was set to resume on Monday following US pressure, an Israeli security source said, shortly after Israel announced a halt in supplies in response to what it said was a “blatant” violation by Hamas of the truce.
The Israeli strikes killed at least 26 people in Gaza, including at least one woman and one child, according to local residents and health authorities.
US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were expected to travel to Israel on Monday, an Israeli official and a US official said.
The Cybertruck is kind of useless as a pickup truck, so it won’t be doing much real work for Space X. It is really just a weird looking car. There was a Cybertruck (with obligatory “I bought this before Elon Musk …” sticker) that parked on the street near the ATB (Alberta Treasury Branch in Cochrane, Alberta where I do my banking. The last time I was there, there was a DeLorean parked in it its’ place. I guess someone likes ugly angular stainless steel cars.
birgerjohanssonsays
Drug combo cuts risk of death in advanced prostate cancer by 40%, clinical trial finds
I haven’t applied the relevant statistical test, but my hunch is that #1, #2, #3, #5, #8 vs #4, #6, #7, #9, #10 would be a statistically significant difference.
If the U.S. only had ten states, sure.
The list of all 50 is very noisy, not at all what is supported by Stevo’s implicit claim that every “red state” falls below the national median in education.
birgerjohanssonsays
II know J C is a bit of a mixed bag, but his comment about Nigel Farage is spot on
I think he was a Brexit supporter, but even an octagenarian can learn.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ae4qv6rmw/
For the non-Aussies here, Price is LNP scum and one of the big factors in destroying the Indigenous Vocie to Parlt a few years ago.
During a campaign rally in Perth on 12 April 2025, Price said she wanted to “make Australia great again”. When asked during a press conference if this was a nod to the “Make America Great Again” slogan most recently popularised by US President Donald Trump and the broader MAGA movement, Price claimed she “hadn’t realised” what she had said.[85][86] National Party leader David Littleproud called Price’s phrasing a “slip of the tongue”.[87]
However, one day later, The Guardian obtained a photo shared on Price’s Facebook page that showed her and her husband Colin Lillie each wearing “Make America Great Again” baseball caps while Price also held a Donald Trump Christmas tree ornament.[87] In response, Price claimed the picture to be “a stunt” and a “joke in her family”, and criticised reporters for digging through her private social media.[88]
In a heated election interview on the night of the 2025 Australian federal election, Price again distanced herself from the ‘Make Australia Great Again’ slogan after questions were put to her by Sarah Ferguson, on whether she was partly responsible for the Liberal Party’s’ shock landslide loss, and Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s defeat in his own seat of Dickson
Plus :
On 3 September 2025, Price claimed in an interview that the Labor government was giving preference to immigrants from particular countries, specifically India, expecting them to be likely to vote Labor. Price soon afterwards retracted this claim, acknowledging that Australian immigration law does not permit ethnic preference.[93][94]
Her party leader, Sussan Ley, affirmed the party’s respect for Indian-Australians and commitment to a non-discriminatory immigration policy, and said that Price had made a correction, but Price stated: “I don’t believe I have anything to apologise about.”[95][96] After calls from Indian-Australians for an apology, as well as divisions within the parliamentary Liberal Party,[97] shadow federal attorney-general Julian Leeser made an ‘unreserved’ apology to Indian-Australians in his constituency.[98]
On 10 September, she was removed from the shadow ministry by Liberal leader Sussan Ley after refusing to apologise for these comments and refusing to support Ley’s leadership.
“The homeland security secretary was already a controversial figure. Then her agency bought two private jets for her and other DHS officials.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has generated a great many controversies […]
Several months ago, Noem issued a memo requiring all Department of Homeland Security personnel to get her personal approval on all spending in excess of $100,000. In theory, the secretary said she was positioning herself as a responsible steward of taxpayers’ money. In practice, Noem quickly made DHS agencies slower, less responsive and less efficient.
This has been especially problematic at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where critically important FEMA resources have been slow to reach disaster-struck areas because of Noem-imposed bureaucracy. Even congressional Republicans aligned with the Trump administration are sick of it.
There’s one area within DHS, however, where money appears to be flowing quite freely. The New York Times reported:
The Department of Homeland Security has purchased two Gulfstream private jets for Kristi Noem, the secretary, and other top department officials at a cost of $172 million, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. The jets, which a department official said were needed for safety, are the latest expenditures on behalf of Ms. Noem to draw scrutiny from Democrats and other critics who have noted her lavish spending on living and other expenses during her time in public life.
[…] The Coast Guard originally requested $50 million to buy a jet to replace the plane Noem is already using. Now, however, DHS is spending $172 million to purchase two jets.
Two key House Democrats, Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, and Lauren Underwood of Illinois, the ranking member overseeing its homeland security panel, apparently want to know where the money came from.
[…] a community in Florida awaiting FEMA assistance found itself stuck in “bureaucratic purgatory,” right up until one of Noem’s wealthy supporters reached out to her, at which point the process dramatically improved.
A month earlier, The Washington Post reported that the secretary was living for free in a military home typically reserved for the Coast Guard’s top admiral. “Other Cabinet officials, including during both Trump administrations, have paid to use military housing that otherwise would be occupied by top generals and admirals,” the article added.
As for her tenure as governor, the Times’ report noted that Noem also used taxpayer money to remodel the governor’s mansion (she bought, among other things, a sauna) before having South Dakota taxpayers cover the costs of her pre-election travel in 2024, including a six-day trip to Paris.
“Trump said that he believed Ukraine could win back its territory from Russia and return the country to its original borders. Then he talked to Putin.”
Related video at the link.
[Earlier, Trump] said Ukraine would have no choice but to reward Vladimir Putin by letting the Russian leader keep Ukrainian territory he seized by force. It was, the White House argued, the only way to help bring the deadly and devastating conflict to an end.
Then the American president surprised many last month by reversing course: In unexpected declaration, Trump said that he believed Ukraine, with European Union assistance, could win back its territory from Russia and return the country to its original borders.
The reversal delighted much of the Western world, though it was an open question as to when or whether Trump, who’s reversed course several times on matters related to Russia’s war in Ukraine, would change his mind.
In the immediate aftermath of the American president’s comments, one European diplomat told Politico, “We just have to make sure Trump doesn’t speak to anyone else.” Another European diplomat added that Trump is “always one Putin call away from doing something not great.”
A few weeks later, Trump had a Putin call, at which point the Republican did something not great. The Washington Post reported:
Russian President Vladimir Putin put his relationship with President Donald Trump back on track with a phone call just ahead of Trump’s crucial Friday meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that was meant to include discussions of providing Ukraine with powerful new long range weapons. Up until the Thursday phone call, Trump had seemed ready to boost Ukraine’s arsenal and negotiating position with Tomahawk cruise missiles. But in its wake and after the subsequent meeting with Zelensky, Trump played down all talk of the missiles and instead focused on yet another summit with Putin.
[…] after Trump’s chat with the Russian leader, the American president hosted a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and according to a report in The Financial Times, Trump “adopted many of Putin’s talking points verbatim.”
[Trump] not only started hedging on providing Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles — weapons the administration appeared likely to provide, right up until Putin spoke with Trump over the phone — the American president also reversed his reversal on rewarding Russia with Ukrainian soil.
On Friday afternoon, Trump published a statement to his social media platform, suggesting Russia and Ukraine simply adopt the status quo as a way to “stop the killing.” The problem with that approach, of course, is that it would allow Putin to keep foreign territory he took by force as part of a policy that Trump appeared to reject a month earlier.
Soon after, the Republican sat down with Maria Bartiromo for his latest Fox News interview, and the host asked whether Putin might end his war “without taking significant property from Ukraine.”
Trump replied, “Well, he’s going to take something. I mean, they fought, and he has a lot of property. I mean, he’s won certain property.” [video]
Of course, his use of the word “won” made it sound as if this were some kind game or contest. It’s not. Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of a neighboring country, kicking off the largest war in Europe since World War II. Putin expects to keep some of his ill-gotten gains.
For Trump to endorse those wishes is to embrace the appeasement of a dictator.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, remains opposed to rewarding Putin with chunks of Ukraine. His position suggests that if the American president is serious about resolving the war that he vowed to end within 24 hours of his inauguration, he’ll likely need to reverse the reversal again.
A federal prosecutor who resisted President Trump’s demands to bring charges against Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, was fired along with her deputy on Friday evening, according to three people familiar with the matter. The dismissal of the prosecutor, Elizabeth Yusi, was the latest fallout from attempts by career Justice Department officials to pump the brakes on Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging efforts to seek retribution against his perceived political opponents.
The Times’ report noted that Yusi, who oversaw major criminal cases in the Norfolk office, told colleagues that there was insufficient evidence to bring a case against the New York attorney general. Trump, however, wanted his perceived political enemy to be indicted, and so his team made it happen, ignoring Yusi and her concerns about propriety and merit.
What’s more, MSNBC reported that Yusi was one of two criminal prosecutors in the Norfolk office who were ousted, not because of wrongdoing but because they expressed skepticism about filing a weak case against a presidential opponent.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. Erik Siebert was also ousted as the U.S. attorney in Virginia’s eastern district because he wouldn’t bring baseless criminal charges against Trump’s political enemies, and soon after Michael Ben’Ary, the top national security prosecutor in Virginia, was fired after a pro-Trump activist peddled a baseless accusation against him related to another case against one of Trump’s political enemies.
In other words, in this one office — the one that handles many of the country’s most sensitive national security cases — the president’s team has ousted at least four prosecutors, including a Trump-nominated U.S. attorney.
This is not to be confused with the ouster of the Trump-nominated U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, also for political reasons, which roughly coincided with the firing of a federal prosecutor in Miami because far-right activists discovered that he criticized Trump eight years ago while in private practice, or with the dismissal of a federal prosecutor in California because she urged immigration officials to comply with a court order.
For that matter, the full list of prosecutors caught up in the purge of federal law enforcement because they worked on cases the president didn’t like has been difficult to keep up with.
The corrupt motivations behind this political campaign against prosecutors is many things, but subtle is not one of them.
StevoR at 72, on the discovery of ice age European hippos
Thanks – that’s a topic I find highly interesting. Also thank you for quoting the key parts. I prefer to not go to Phys.org because I’ve found that site unreadable due to the ads.
There were indeed several brief, relatively mild interstadials between about 60,000 and 30,000 years ago. Still, I find it hard to believe that the Rhine wouldn’t freeze during winter back then. It’s been long known that hippos lived in Germany and England during some previous interglacial periods, when the climate was at least as warm as today. Presumably, they can survive with long, cool winters as long as the waters don’t freeze.
The Rhine was definitely freezing for many months a year during the first really cold episode of the last ice, about 70,000 to 60,000 years ago. It is perhaps possible that European hippos at the time survived as one or two small relict populations on the Mediterranean coast, which could explain the genetic bottleneck. The late glacial maximum around 20,000 years ago was even colder.
Presumably, ‘African’ hippos were widespread in North Africa, Middle East and (climate permitting) Europe during the Pleistocene. Just recently, I learned that there used to be another species of hippo in South Asia, which went extinct apparently by the end of Pleistocene, or soon after the arrival of modern humans. In Europe, a lot of temperate fauna perished from the combined effects of late glacial maximum and recently arrived modern humans. This presumably included the last hippos. However, I now wonder long hippos persisted in various parts of Middle East and North Africa, where the climate was warmer even during the late glacial maximum.
A few days before millions of his detractors held “No Kings” events in communities across the country, Donald Trump told reporters, “I hear very few people are going to be there, by the way.” From whom did the president “hear” this? He didn’t say.
Nevertheless, his allies quickly echoed the assertion. A day later, Republican Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania appeared on Newsmax and said of the “No Kings” protests, “They claim there is going to be hundreds of thousands of people. We shall see.”
We did, in fact, see. NBC News reported:
Crowds gathered Saturday in cities across the United States — and overseas — for No Kings rallies in protest of President Donald Trump’s administration and to call for the defense of First Amendment rights. Protesters from Los Angeles to New York — including in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas — flooded into streets chanting, marching and waving homemade signs, including some that proclaimed ‘We want all of the government to work’ and ‘Make America Good Again.’
According to organizers, roughly 7 million people participated in No Kings demonstrations, of which there were more than 2,700. It was, by any fair measure, one of the largest and most successful one-day domestic protests in modern American history.
[…] A great many GOP officials spent the run-up to the events smearing the rallies, their organizers and even their attendees, slandering the protests as “hate America” rallies. If the goal was to discourage participation, the ugly Republican rhetoric backfired.
Ezra Levin, co-founder of the liberal grassroots movement Indivisible that has co-organized the No Kings rallies, told The Washington Post that RSVPs “skyrocketed” after GOP leaders launched a coordinated effort to smear the events.
But to fully appreciate the scope of Saturday’s progressive breakthrough and the severity of the rebuke Trump faced, consider the reaction from the rallies’ intended target.
On Saturday afternoon, The New York Times asked the White House for the president’s reaction to the demonstration. “Who cares?” a Trump spokesperson replied.
What quickly became apparent, however, was that the president cared quite a bit. NBC News also reported:
President Donald Trump on Saturday posted an AI-generated video depicting him in a fighter jet dropping what appears to be feces on U.S. protesters. … The video shows Trump dropping the apparent fecal matter on someone who looks like left-wing influencer Harry Sisson and other protesters gathered in an area that seems to be Times Square in New York City.
The AI-generated video was, of course, disgusting and a timely reminder of the incumbent president’s juvenile and classless tastes, but it was part of a series of online postings, including another video featuring Trump in a crown.
A day later, aboard Air Force One following his latest weekend of golfing in Florida, Trump continued to whine about the “No Kings” events, characterizing the massive turnout as “very small,” despite reality. He went on to say that he and his team believe “radical left lunatics” were responsible for the demonstrations, adding, “We’re checking it out.”
[…]The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie noted in his latest column, “Nationwide protests with millions of people are a direct rebuke to the president’s narrative. They send a signal to the most disconnected parts of the American public that the president is far from as popular as he says he is, and they send a clear warning to those institutions under pressure from the administration: Bend the knee and lose our business and support.”
By all appearances, none of this was lost on Trump, whose over-the-top reaction to the “No Kings” events offered evidence of their success: They were intended to send a powerful message to an increasingly authoritarian figure, who appeared rattled by the national dispatch.
Trump also said that he looked at the people attending the protests and he could tell that they did not represent the people of America. He called the protestors “whackos,” and then repeated the slander that they were all radical left terrorists paid by George Soros.
Summarized by Steve Benen from an Associated Press report:
The latest national poll from The Associated Press found Donald Trump’s approval rating down to just 37% — the lowest support of his second term, down eight points from AP’s poll of two months earlier. The survey was conducted after the president played a role in negotiating a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
As North Carolina Republicans move forward with plans to gerrymander their state’s districts even more, Trump celebrated a newly proposed map, not because it would be fairer or more just, but because it would “elect an additional MAGA Republican in the 2026 Midterm Elections.”
The source for Trump’s statement is a Truth Social post.
[…] Trump’s mismanagement of America led millions of people to take to the streets in “No Kings” protests over the weekend, and now new information is surfacing showing that Trump’s failure extends to his handling of South American affairs.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has accused the U.S. of killing a “lifelong fisherman,” Alejandro Carranza, in a September attack on a boat that the Trump administration claimed was involved in drug trafficking.
“U.S. government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” Petro wrote on social media.
In response, Trump ranted on his Truth Social that Petro is an “illegal drug leader” and would halt aid to Colombia which has been used to fight drug trafficking. Without evidence, he accused Petro of encouraging drug production.
“Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely,” Trump added.
Trump has been under criticism from Democrats for repeated strikes against Venezuelan boats, which the administration has claimed to be involved in drug trafficking. Trump has a long history of blatantly lying and his allegations about these boats have not been independently verified.
Even Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican senator and Trump ally, has criticized the operation. “All these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime,” Paul told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
On a similar note, the Washington Post reported more sordid details of Trump’s actions with El Salvador’s leader President Nayib Bukele on Sunday.
The paper revealed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered up nine MS-13 gang members in U.S. custody to Bukele in exchange for the ability to send deported migrants to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison for holding. The prisoners being offered up were informants and part of an ongoing FBI investigation into possible ties between MS-13 and Bukele.
Douglas Farah, a contractor who worked with the government to prosecute MS-13 figures, told the Post, “The deal is a deep betrayal of U.S. law enforcement, whose agents risked their lives to apprehend the gang members.”
Despite Trump’s claims that he is getting tough on drug trafficking, the administration has been happy to work with Bukele, an authoritarian who many believe has benefited from MS-13 support. Bukele has previously been accused of trying to sabotage U.S. cases against MS-13.
Two weeks ago, Trump and other leading Republicans expressed outrage after Trump once again failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize. But he cannot even secure basic peace in his own hemisphere, let alone on the wider global stage.
“I think it’s a joke. I looked at the people. They are not representative of this country,” Trump said. “And I looked at all the brand-new signs paid for—I guess, it was paid for by [George] Soros and other radical left lunatics. It looks like it was. We’re checking it out. The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective. And the people were whacked out.”
Commentary:
[…] Republican lawmakers—who spent the previous week baselessly painting protesters as violent antifa terrorists—had a hard time defending their obvious lies after the protests took place and it was clear that the demonstrators were just average Americans furious at Trump’s lawlessness and the GOP Congress’ refusal to check his power.
In major city after major city, police reported that they did not make any arrests of “No Kings” protesters. On the rare occasion someone was arrested, they often turned out to be MAGA lunatics, including a South Carolina woman wearing a Trump shirt who was arrested after she allegedly pointed guns at protesters. [!!]
House Speaker Mike Johnson was confronted over his lies during his appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” when host Jonathan Karl asked Johnson why he’d label the protests as “’hate America’ rallies.”
“Well, there were a lot of hateful messages yesterday,” Johnson replied, without providing examples. “We have video and photos of pretty violent rhetoric calling out the president. … I don’t think it’s pro-American.”
On Monday, during a news conference on Capitol Hill, Johnson cherry-picked “No Kings” signs to try to paint the entire protest movement in a negative light, and said Trump can’t be a king because he allowed the protests to happen. How generous of him!
Then there were the Republican lawmakers and right-wing propagandists who, after fearmongering over “No Kings,” now say protestors were all lame old white people. [LOL]
“Nothing says ‘hip’ like rhythm-less boomers trying to dance—all while trying way too hard to look like they’re having fun,” Sen. Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, wrote in a post on X that featured a video of protesters dancing.
“These marches are free activities for nursing homes,” Benny Johnson, a right-wing grifter who was reportedly on Russia’s propaganda payroll, wrote in a post on X. “Think about it. Nursing homes need to come up with safe things for their residents to do. These old boomers are constantly banging on about their glory days in the 1960s and 1970s. What better way to shut them up than to roll them through a ‘No Kings’ protest so they can wave their signs and sing songs? Then the lib boomer residents come back and they sleep for two days.”
It’s unclear why conservatives would mock old white people, since such people make up a sizable portion of the Republican Party’s base. [True] […] midterm voters are usually older and whiter than voters during presidential years, so antagonizing that demographic is unwise ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“The brand new GOP position this morning, apparently, is that old white people suck. I kid you not,” George Conway, the ex-husband of Trump shill Kellyanne Conway, wrote in a post on X.
Many other Republicans who spewed baseless garbage about “No Kings” protesters were silent after the demonstrations turned out to be anything but the violent hellscape they had predicted. […]
KATONAH, NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—George Soros has been forced to declare bankruptcy after paying over seven million people to attend the No Kings protests, the billionaire confirmed on Monday.
“When I agreed to pay everyone who showed up at these things, I had no idea so many people were going to accept my offer,” Soros admitted. “But a deal’s a deal.”
The legendary investor said that paying No Kings participants had required him to liquidate his most prized holdings, including his share in the orbital lasers operated by the Rothschild banking family.
Soros revealed that paying the five million Antifa members at the rallies cost him “a pretty penny,” adding, “They may be anarchists, but they don’t work for free.”
Where things stand now
• Amazon says its services are recovering again after connectivity issues persisted Monday. But reports of problems with Amazon’s cloud computing services unit AWS continue.
• Before the latest round of issues, Amazon said it “fully mitigated” an earlier outage. Several popular websites and apps — including Snapchat, Facebook and Fortnite — were impacted. Banks and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and AI firm Perplexity also reported issues, as did US airlines Delta and United.
• One expert said the financial impact of today’s disruption could total hundreds of billions of dollars.
Mehdi Daoudi, CEO of internet performance monitoring firm Catchpoint, estimates the total financial impact of the AWS service disruption will be in the billions of dollars.
“The incident highlights the complexity and fragility of the internet, as well as how much every aspect of our work depends on the internet to work,” Daoudi said in a statement to CNN. “The financial impact of this outage will easily reach into the hundreds of billions due to loss in productivity for millions of workers that cannot do their job, plus business operations that are stopped or delayed — from airlines to factories.”
Already, the outage has resulted in delayed flights, prevented consumers from making purchases on certain apps or accessing financial services and caused issues for workers trying to do their jobs on Monday.
[…] The problem appears to have stemmed from a system designed to monitor how much load is on the network. Amazon said it recently took additional steps to help that system recover. It also said it’s working on allowing companies to create new instances of its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a virtual machine that allows customers to build cloud-based applications, which Amazon had throttled to help fix the broader problems. […]
“Pete Hegseth’s Marine Party Such A Blast It Exploded Shrapnel Onto JD Vance’s Motorcade”
Hoo boy, y’all. Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s GI Joe dress-up doll/Secretary of WAR, and Vice President JD Vance, decided to throw a big Marine Corps 250th birthday display at Camp Pendleton on Saturday, complete with “amphibious assault demonstrations.” Never mind that the anniversary of the Marines is not until November 10. It had to be last Saturday, maybe so that daddy Trump would be distracted from being crowned king of being the guy Americans want to say “Fuck You” to the very most. […]
And a bunch of squeaky tanks obviously wouldn’t do the trick this time. So Vance and/or Hegseth insisted on shooting LIVE FIRE AMMUNITION, 155mm M777 shells out of howitzers, as in fucking huge, blasting them from the sea and over Interstate 5 to explode some part of the base’s 125,000 acres. Behold, a demonstration of us bombing ourselves! […]
Here’s how big the shells are, just FYI: [Photo]
And, oops, one of the shells exploded early, OVER the freeway, raining shrapnel on a California Highway Patrol vehicle and motorcycle that were part of Vice President JD Vance’s protective detail. Gee, who could have predicted such a possibility?
The breathtaking levels of embarrassing incompetence of these people! [social media post, with photos]
[…] even the Marines themselves were baffled as to why live missiles launched across the freeway needed to be a part of this display. One told the New York Times that “the only howitzer training they had previously observed at Camp Pendleton had taken place at approved artillery ranges on the main side of base, east of the interstate, which they said were a much safer option for training.” Oh no shit, safer than firing over California’s largest freeway?
And not only that, California governor Gavin Newsom said Hegseth’s office refused to give him the most basic information about what the plans were, including safety details. He had to hear about the live fire through the grapevine. And once confronted, Hegseth and company reportedly kept insisting to Newsom’s team that it was perfectly safe to keep the interstate open the entire time missiles would be whizzing above it before for sure detonating on the other side.
This Xit sure aged badly: [social media post]
Stupid or evil? you ask yourself, for the gazillionth time (today). Look at the map and just meditate on how wildly stupid and/or evil this was: [map]
Thank goodness [someone]r told Newsom in time, and he made the wise decision to close down 17 miles of I-5. Which caused a traffic nightmare, but also very easily may have prevented a mass casualty event. Thank goodness the metal chunks fell on cars that weren’t driving, instead of the windshield of a tractor trailer going 65 miles per hour!
Later at a rah-rah event for the soldiers, Hegseth, looking greyish, lectured them about how diversity is bad, and how great it is that they get to “kill bad guys and break things for a living.” Then he made them OO-RAH on command.
Blergh, watch if you want. [video]
Vance […] got up there and reiterated that diversity was crap, and blamed the Democrats for the “Schumer shutdown,” blithely assuming that his audience is not discerning enough to know who is in control of all three branches of the government right now. And while the Pentagon moved money around to get military members paid last week, but there’s no plan for what will happen next pay period. [video]
[…] [Trump] barely noticed. Instead he spent the day fretting about the No Kings protests and posting AI slop of himself wearing a crown and dropping diarrhea missiles on everyone. […]
“White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump’s ballroom”
“The president had claimed construction of the $250 million ballroom wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure.”
Yikes! Very alarming photo at the link.
Demolition crews have begun tearing down part of the White House to build […] Trump’s long-desired ballroom despite his pledge that construction of the $250 million addition wouldn’t “interfere” with the existing building.
Construction teams Monday were demolishing a portion of the East Wing, with a backhoe ripping through the structure, according to a photo shared with The Washington Post and two people who witnessed the activity and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it.
A cluster of people, including members of the Secret Service, stood on the steps of the Treasury Department to watch the construction unfold, said one of the people. Sounds of construction were also audible on the White House campus.
Trump has long touted his plans for a 90,000-square-foot structure that would nearly double the footprint of the main building and its East and West wings. He had also suggested that the construction would not affect the existing White House.
“It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it — and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” Trump said during an executive order signing in July. “It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it.”
[…] “The East Wing was constructed in 1902 and has been renovated and changed many times, with a second story added in 1942,” the White House said in July.
[…] Trump last week also touted his planned ballroom during a dinner with executives from the tech, finance and defense industries, telling them that the project was fully financed after receiving donations as large as $25 million from dozens of companies, including Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Coinbase.
[…] Trump has said the ballroom will seat up to 650 people, more than triple the capacity of the East Room.
“Trump Administration Live Updates: President and Australian Leader Sign Document on Rare Earth Minerals”
Where Things Stand
White House visit: President Trump and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia on Monday signed an agreement related to the trade of rare earth minerals, critical materials for the production of microprocessors, weapons and other items. Mr. Trump said it was finalized just before the two leaders sat down at the White House. “We’re doing a real job on rare earth,” Mr. Trump said.
China trade: Rare earth minerals have been one element of Mr. Trump’s broad trade dispute with China, which restricted exports of such resources this month, prompting Mr. Trump to threaten to impose even heavier tariffs on Chinese goods. But Mr. Trump struck an optimistic tone about his trip to an economic summit this month in South Korea, where, he has said, he’ll meet with President Xi Jinping of China. He added that he intended to visit China early next year.
[…] The U.S. and Australia intend to invest a total of more than $3 billion in critical minerals projects over the next six months, which the two nations expect to result in projects worth an estimated $53 billion, according to a fact sheet released by the White House. [sound like made up numbers]
The Australian prime minister’s office has released a three-page document it describes as the “framework” it agreed to with the United States on Monday about critical and rare earth minerals. The document lays out in broad terms the two nations’ shared interests in securing the supplies of such materials, investing in mining and processing and other forms of cooperation, including in mapping mineral resources and protecting their markets from unfair trade practices.
According to the document, the framework sets out “a policy and programmatic action plan” but “does not constitute or create any legally binding or enforceable obligations, express or implied.” […] [Sounds a bit like smoke and mirrors.]
lumipunasays
Lynna at 303:
[Trump] barely noticed. Instead he spent the day fretting about the No Kings protests and posting AI slop of himself wearing a crown and dropping diarrhea missiles on everyone. […]
This fits very rather nicely in Wonkette’s usual bombastic hyperbole style (which I find entertaining and even quite impressive). If I didn’t know better (as in only knowing Trump’s general performance over the recent years), I’d absolutely assume that the abovementioned AI slop only features him wearing a crown, and the part about him dropping diarrhea missiles is a metaphor – a strong one though not novel, almost a cliche these days – referring to his usual verbal whining and barking on social media. How nice and normal that’d be!
robrosays
I can’t find this video anywhere else but FaceBook, but it’s worth a listen if you can stand a few minutes of FB. Peggy Seeger and Calum McColl singing “Sit Down, Sit Down”.
lumipunasays
StevoR at 393 on the previous page:
Saturn’s “death star” moon Mimas might well be on the ever growing list of icy worlds in our solar system with internal sub-surface oceans
That’s another interest of mine. I’ve actually sometimes wondered why Mimas doesn’t seem to exhibit much tidal heating despite being fairly eccentric and very close to Saturn. Enceladus, with its rampant cryovulcanism, is less eccentric, and somewhat farther, and only slightly larger than Mimas.
Mimas and Enceladus are in 1:2 orbital resonances with the larger, more outlying moons Tethys and Dione, respectively. This resonance is generally assumed to maintain their relatively large eccentricities, while having very little effect on the larger companions. It occurs to me that if Mimas has only recently entered a resonant relationship with Tethys, that might actually explain a lot. For example, if Mimas has been fully frozen until recently, and mostly frozen until present day, its tidal heating would be less efficient compared to Enceladus, allowing the accumulation of orbital eccentricity that’d otherwise be reduced by tidal dissipation. And if all the tidal heat production is currently spent on melting Mimas’s interior, that’d explain the lack of visible cryovulcanism.
BTW, I’ve recently often written about my astronomy hobby on the never-ending thread at Affinity (see the FTB blog list). I prefer to not do it here, because this thread flows too fast and gravitates toward political topics. The equivalent thread on Affinity is very quiet, almost dead without counting my own personal updates. It’d be nice to have someone else interested in astronomy over there. I’m also thinking Birger Johansson and Rob Grigjanis.
“New plan is the latest attempt to breathe life into an expansion process that is currently being blocked by Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and others.”
New countries could join the European Union without full voting rights, in a move that could make leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán more amenable to the likes of Ukraine becoming part of the bloc.
The proposal to change EU membership rules is at an early stage and would need to be approved by all existing nations, according to three European diplomats and an EU official with knowledge of the discussions. The idea is that new members would achieve full rights once the EU has overhauled the way it functions to make it more difficult for individual countries to veto policies.
It’s the latest attempt by pro-EU enlargement governments to breathe life into an expansion process that is currently being blocked by Budapest and a few other capitals over fears it could bring unwanted competition for local markets or compromise security interests. The European Commission, Nordic and Baltic states, as well as central European countries, have traditionally been favorable to enlargement.
The EU has made enlargement a strategic priority amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist agenda, although the push to increase the number of members from the current 27 to as many as 30 over the next decade is exposing the bloc’s internal divisions.
“Future members should be required to waive their right of veto until key institutional reforms — such as the introduction of qualified majority voting in most policy areas — have been implemented,” said Anton Hofreiter, chair of the German Bundestag’s European Affairs Committee. “Enlargement must not be slowed down by individual EU member states blocking reforms.”
The initiative would allow countries currently on the path to membership, such as Ukraine, Moldova and Montenegro, to enjoy many of the benefits of EU membership but without veto rights ― something that EU governments have always cherished as the ultimate tool to prevent EU policies they don’t like. […]
The push coincides with growing frustration in Eastern European and Western Balkan candidate states that have undertaken far-reaching internal reforms, but are no closer to membership years after applying. In the case of Montenegro, negotiations for joining the EU started in 2012. […]
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Taras Kachka, echoed those concerns, calling for “creative” solutions to unblock EU enlargement. Kyiv’s bid to join the EU is currently held up by a veto from Hungary.
“Waiting is not an option,” Kachka said in an interview. “So what we need [is] to have a solution here and now. This is important for Ukraine but also for the European Union … I think that as Russia tests European security with drones, the same is done by undermining unity of the European Union.” […]
lumipuna @306, as news of Trump shit-bombing protestors in an AI-generated video broke, I assumed at first that “shit-bombing,” or “diarrhea-bombing” etc. was hyperbole describing one of Trump’s usual social media rants and visual posts. Then I saw the video. Holy fuck.
Trump is plumbing the depths of classlessness. Apparently he has not yet hit bottom.
Federal prosecutors signaled Sunday that they may seek to boot Patrick Fitzgerald, James Comey’s lead defense attorney, because of Fitzgerald’s alleged involvement in disclosures to the media shortly after President Donald Trump fired Comey as FBI director in 2017.
In a submission Sunday evening, prosecutors suggested to U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff that Fitzgerald, Comey’s lawyer and close friend, could have an insurmountable conflict of interest as a result of the disclosures.
Stalling tactics being. Notice that they didn’t file to remove Fitzgerald, they said they may, giving them more time to dither before saying yes or no.
The prosecutors asked the judge to quickly approve a proposal for a “filter team” of lawyers to sift through evidence in Comey’s criminal case that could clarify Fitzgerald’s role in the 8-year-old disclosures — without breaching Comey’s attorney-client privilege.
Stalling tactic also. This matter has been gone over before and the DOJ determined there was nothing of interest. If Comey wanted to have a filter team to go over evidence so that previous conversations with Fitzgerald that are protected by client-attorney privilege are not available to the prosecution it would make more sense.
Prosecutors did not provide the judge with a copy of the Inspector General report, but offered a link to a version of it provided on the non-profit Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The DOJ Inspector General’s office reported earlier this month that its website was frozen and then taken offline due to the Trump administration’s effort to shutter an umbrella group, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.
Hilarious. The DOJ prosecutors want to reference official documents but they can’t because the website with the evidence has been shut down by the Trump administration.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lynna, OM @ 310.
Many of his core voters are elderly, who recall an era before this shitstorm of vulgarity. I do not think they will appreciate this.
In fact, I think groups like the Lincoln Project ought to run this – and similar gross Trump things – as ads aimed at the elderly demographic of Trump voters. The more prude, church-going senior citizens will not be amused and – together with the Epstein fiasco – may finally come to regret their choices.
A Town Called Panic was on Swedish TV (short episodes, not as a film) the rest are new to me. Most seem weird as f*ck.
Rob Grigjanissays
lumipuna @308: Thanks for the shout out. I’ll keep an eye on the never-ending thread in case I’ve anything interesting to say. Don’t hold your breath! ;-)
birgerjohanssonsays
Lumipuna @ 308
I hope you get an opportunity to travel to some site with dark night skies during the new moon so you may look for the comet.
“The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused a lower court’s order that had barred the deployment while the state’s challenge makes its way through the court system.”
A federal appeals court ruling Monday will allow the Trump administration to send National Guard troops into Oregon against the state’s wishes, hitting pause on a lower court’s order that had barred the deployment.
“After considering the record at this preliminary stage, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority,” the panel of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges wrote in a 2-1 ruling.
Justice Department attorneys had argued in a court filing that U.S. District Judge Karen Immergut’s ruling temporarily halting the deployment “improperly impinges on the Commander in Chief’s supervision of military operations, countermands a military directive to officers in the field, and endangers federal personnel and property.”
Immergut, a Trump nominee, said in her order that it appeared Trump was acting in bad faith with exaggerated claims of violence in the city, including that it was “war ravaged” with “ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa” and “crazy people” who “try to burn down buildings, including federal buildings” every night. [True]
“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” Immergut wrote. [True]
The two appeals court judges — also Trump nominees — said Trump’s position was entitled to more deference.
“Rather than reviewing the President’s determination with great deference, the district court substituted its own determination of the relevant facts and circumstances. That approach is error,” said the opinion by Judges Ryan D. Nelson and Bridget S. Bade.
“Even if the President may exaggerate the extent of the problem on social media, this does not change that other facts provide a colorable basis to support the statutory requirements,” they wrote.
The dissenting judge, Susan P. Graber, ripped her colleagues’ ruling.
“Given Portland protesters’ well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE, observers may be tempted to view the majority’s ruling, which accepts the government’s characterization of Portland as a war zone, as merely absurd,” Graber wrote. [LOL, true]
The ruling, she wrote, “is not merely absurd. It erodes core constitutional principles including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions.” [True]
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, said in a statement he would seek to have the full 9th Circuit weigh in on the case in hopes it would overturn the three-judge panel. [Doesn’t seem likely.]
“Today’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would give the president unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification. We are on a dangerous path in America,” he said.
[Snipped a White House statement]
[…] The Trump-appointed judges indicated during the hearing that they believed the state and the lower court judge were not showing enough deference to the president’s decision-making. [sheesh]
[…] Immergut referred to the California decision in her ruling but added that “’a great level of deference’ is not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground.” […]
Colombia said on Monday it has recalled its ambassador from Washington after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would raise tariffs on the South American nation and stop all payments to it, intensifying a feud stemming from U.S. military strikes on vessels allegedly transporting drugs. Trump also called Colombian’s leftist President Gustavo Petro an ‘illegal drug leader’ on Sunday, which Petro’s government described as offensive.
NBC News:
The two survivors of an American military strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel in the Caribbean will be sent to Ecuador and Colombia, their home countries, President Donald Trump said Saturday. The military rescued the pair after striking a submersible vessel Thursday, in what was at least the sixth such attack since early September.
Seven Tennessee officials sued on Friday over the deployment of the National Guard in Memphis, the latest lawsuit against the push to send troops to Democratic-led cities perceived as overrun with crime.
“Trump has hired a lawyer to oversee yet another investigation into his 2020 defeat, apparently because the original probes were too reality-based for him.”
Ed Martin, one of the nation’s more notorious “Stop the Steal” lawyers, has already been rewarded with powerful and influential positions on Donald Trump’s team. He will not, however, be the only such attorney working within the president’s operation. The Wall Street Journal reported:
A former Trump campaign lawyer who worked on the effort to overturn the 2020 election results has joined the administration to investigate that year’s election and voting-related issues, according to people familiar with the matter. Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who unsuccessfully pushed claims of voter fraud, has joined the administration as a ‘special government employee,’ some of the people said.
[…] Olsen will be working directly with the president. The lawyer has also reportedly taken an interest in voting machines, while “asking intelligence agencies for information about the 2020 election.”
[…] on a nearly daily basis, [Trump] continues to whine about his defeat five years ago, pretending that he secretly won despite the results and peddling discredited conspiracy theories intended to rewrite history. (Last week, for example, Trump brought up the 2020 race, unprompted, on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. This was not an especially unusual week.) [!]
Now, evidently, Trump has even brought on a lawyer to tell him what he wants to hear.
The trouble is, we’ve already been down this path. In 2023, The Washington Post reported on Trump’s political operation having hired the Berkeley Research Group to scrutinize the 2020 election. The purpose of the contract was obvious: The then-outgoing president and his team wanted the researchers to bolster Trump’s conspiracy theories about voter fraud and election irregularities.
That didn’t work out well: BRG couldn’t find any meaningful evidence. As my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown joked, Trump “must have really hated that his campaign spent over $600,000 to be told he was wrong.” [LOL]
We later learned that BRG wasn’t alone in tackling this endeavor. Months later, the Post published a related report on Team Trump paying $750,000 to Simpatico Software Systems, which was also tasked with finding evidence of 2020 voter fraud. That didn’t go well, either: The company was unable to tell Republicans what they wanted to hear because the evidence simply didn’t exist. [True]
Ken Block, the owner of Simpatico Software Systems, later wrote an op-ed in USA Today, published with a striking headline: “Trump paid me to find voter fraud. Then he lied after I found 2020 election wasn’t stolen.” [!]
In his opinion piece, Block, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate, explained that his investigation failed to turn up meaningful evidence of voter fraud, adding that rank-and-file GOP voters have been fed “a steady diet of innuendo, misrepresentations and outright lies” on the issue. [True]
I mention this because Trump has already initiated investigations into his 2020 defeat. These investigators were motivated to tell their client what he wanted to hear, but even they couldn’t provide Trump with proof that doesn’t exist. The same is true of state-based audits, which confirmed that the actual election results from that race were accurate. [True]
Now, the president has reportedly hired a lawyer to oversee yet another investigation, apparently because the original probes, including the ones he paid for, were too reality-based for him.
Whether Olson will be paid with public funds is not yet clear. Watch this space.
During Monday’s press conference on the GOP’s government shutdown, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas delivered a dog-whistle-laden rant filled with Christian nationalist boogeymen in a bizarre attack on the No Kings protests that took place over the weekend.
“The truth is, the Marxists, the radicals, and the Islamists the Democratic Party promoted this weekend—they cannot handle the truth,” Roy said. “The truth is that there is a king, and that king is Jesus. And the president has been willing to say it. His administration has been willing to say it. And Charlie Kirk was willing to say it, and he got killed for it.” [video]
Roy, who often positions himself as a maverick—though primarily an all-talk-no-substance figure within his party—is once again abandoning his role as lawmaker to enforce his own Christian nationalist beliefs.
“MAGA Declares Pope ‘Un-Christian’ For Being Too Nice To Poor People”
Of all the arguments I truly cannot believe people make anymore, I think the top one has to be that the only reason anyone is poor in the United States is because they don’t work hard enough. […] it certainly makes it easier to not care about poor people and to vote for things that hurt them — but at this point, you would have to be actively ignorant to …
On Friday, Pope Leo XIV did a very standard pope thing and dropped a tweet encouraging people to be more understanding of the circumstances faced by the poor.
“The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty,” he wrote. […]
But, because “X,” as it is now called, is now a right-wing MAGA cesspool of the worst humanity has to offer, the pontifex received approximately 2,600 responses from people who were more than a tad miffed to see their blindness and cruelty described as blindness and cruelty. There were several who said they were now considering leaving the Catholic faith entirely, and others who were eager to help him out with some lessons about how Jesus himself hated the poor and what the Bible says about how poor people are bad. [!]
“I no longer support you as my Pope. You have betrayed the Catholic faith,” said STATENDD2023.
The Bible is anti-welfare,” wrote Anthony Galli, who accessorized his post with a picture of a very buff AI Jesus hanging out in his wood shop, next to an American flag and a wooden cross that we can assume he made himself. Because, surely, if American Jesus had a wood shop, he would spend all day making souvenir copies of his own method of execution. [Image of jacked Jesus]
Galli, who seems to be unaware of the existence of the working poor, continued: “The OLDEST part of the New Testament is Thessalonians, which says, ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’ (3:10) The Church should say, ‘If you’re able-bodied we aren’t going to give you food, but we’ll give you a chance to work for it.’”
From what I can tell, this seems to be the most popular Bible passage for MAGA Americans who are somehow unaware that the vast majority of those living below the poverty line are, in fact, working.
[…] [I snipped several examples of doofuses replying to the Pope on X]
“You’re generalizing there popie. Many ARE poor simply because they have no internal drive – certainly in the United States they all have opportunity. Jesus didn’t drag people to it, they had to want it first. Maybe ‘I’ should be pope a while. Self-responsibility is still a thing,” said Equi Distant, who probably should not be pope.
“If you are the ‘poor’ in the USA throughout 1960s to late 2000s, you are poor by choice, or engulfed in a cycle of poverty bc that’s all you knew. There’s no chance, it’s called free will. Everyone here has the same exact opportunities to rise above. If you’re too lazy to chase that, that’s on you. You’re a victim BY CHOICE.,” wrote CHICK ON THE RIGHT, a self-professed Catholic who definitely understands how the world, and especially this country, works.
Forty-four percent of Americans do not make a living wage. They are not making the amount of money they need to cover the basic necessities of rent, bills, food and transportation. As productivity has increased over the decades, worker pay has not kept up, while executive pay has skyrocketed. So people are explicitly being less “lazy” than they ever have been, while still not being able to survive. [Graph at the link]
As we learned during the pandemic, the vast majority of the jobs that we actually need people to do, the jobs that are most “essential” for all of us to survive, are jobs that pay poverty wages. The people that provide the services most of us use every day, and which make our lives comfortable, are the people who are not being paid enough to live.
[…] the Right [is] are also, clearly, excited for Americans to replace migrant workers on farms, doing jobs that are frequently exempt from standard labor protections like minimum wage, overtime and the right to collective bargaining.
If we were a society of reasonable people, we would think something along the lines of, “Well, we clearly need people to work these jobs, so why don’t we make it possible for them to do so without starving to death or not having healthcare?” That, in fact, would be the most responsible thing to do — to figure out what we need as a society and then determine how to maintain that in the way that produces the most good for the most people. Or that is at least slightly less objectively cruel than the way we have decided to go about it.
The Pope is absolutely correct to say that “the poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate.” They’re not. They are there by design. They are there because that is how we have chosen to design our society. Would it be better if he could say it while not leading a religion that asks poor people to tithe 10 percent of their income to the Catholic Church while the Vatican is filled with endless riches? It sure would. But I guess we’ll take what we can get.
“Russians’ surrender to Ukrainian robot marks further transformation of war”
“Aerial drones once changed the fighting in Ukraine. Now it’s explosive-laden, unmanned vehicles.”
KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine — The Russian troops poked the piece of cardboard out of their foxhole, the words “WE WANT TO SURRENDER” scrawled on it in easy view of the Ukrainian drones flying above.
For weeks, the Russians had held firm to this sliver of tree line, despite repeated Ukrainian assaults. But a new enemy was perched outside their dugout — one they knew they couldn’t beat: a small, wheeled robot packed with 138 pounds of explosives.
The Russian surrender to a remote-controlled land drone along the northeastern front in June marked the first time Ukraine took a position and prisoners of war with help from such a device, said commanders from the Third Assault Brigade, which carried out the mission. […]
The mission, which was carried out by the brigade’s drone crews and ground troops, helped Ukraine retake a strategic position in Kharkiv region while preserving Ukrainian soldiers’ lives, the commanders said.
[…] Once a rarity, land drones are quickly reshaping the war not only by resupplying and evacuating frontline troops but also by directly participating in assaults. Although both sides are deploying the drones, Ukraine is designing them to fill some roles that officials say will reduce human casualties and preserve the country’s limited manpower as it faces a much more populous foe.
The drones range in price depending on size but are far more affordable and accurate than artillery. The model used in the June mission cost roughly $1,500 to build.
Russia’s full-scale invasion has transformed Ukraine into a testing lab for the future of modern conflict. There is increasing demand among frontline troops for the robots, which move on wheels or tracks and are controlled by radio signals like aerial drones. They can range in size from smaller than a microwave to large enough to carry multiple people. The number of tasks the robots completed across the front line nearly doubled from August to September, according to Ukraine’s top commander.
[…] “For me, the best result is not that we took POWs but that we didn’t lose a single infantryman,” said Mykola, 26, commander of the brigade’s land drone company who oversaw the June operation. Like other soldiers quoted in this article, he spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name or call sign, in keeping with military rules.
“The days in which I’m counting operations in human lives are done for me,” Mykola said. “That’s why I’m commanding robots.” […]
“The AI giant’s newest video generator was initially able to replicate the likenesses of public figures without consent, despite OpenAI’s rules against such content.”
OpenAI said it is cracking down on unauthorized content following outcry over Sora 2’s ability to replicate likenesses and copyrighted material without permission.
And public figures might have actor Bryan Cranston to thank for that.
During the Sept. 30 launch of Sora 2, the newest version of OpenAI’s advanced text-to-video model, the company said it would prohibit users from replicating real people’s likenesses without that person explicitly opting in through a “cameo” feature.
Despite this stated policy, videos of Cranston, who is best known for his role as Walter White in “Breaking Bad,” quickly started appearing on the Sora app alongside AI-generated videos of other celebrities, including deceased figures like Michael Jackson and copyrighted characters like Ronald McDonald.
Cranston subsequently raised the issue with SAG-AFTRA, the union representing more than 150,000 film and TV performers, which has resulted in a collaborative effort with OpenAI and several talent agencies to “ensure voice and likeness protections in Sora 2,” the companies said in a joint statement posted to X on Monday.
The statement said OpenAI has strengthened its original guardrails to ensure this type of content no longer slips through. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman noted that the company “is deeply committed to protecting performers from the misappropriation of their voice and likeness.”
[…] tensions between entertainment industry professionals and AI developers have remained high as artists express concern about the potential for such tools to steal their likenesses and take their labor. [video]
SAG-AFTRA’s attempt last year to funnel some compensation toward voice actors by striking a licensing deal with an AI company also faced backlash from some in the industry who opposed such cooperation altogether.
Before signing onto Monday’s statement, the talent agency CAA had slammed OpenAI for “expos[ing] our clients and their intellectual property to significant risk” by allowing Sora 2 users to generate videos containing copyrighted IP, such of depictions of famous fictional and animated characters.
Cranston also said in the post that he had brought up his concerns with Sora 2 to SAG-AFTRA after feeling “deeply concerned not just for myself, but for all performers whose work and identity can be misused in this way.” [I snipped some examples.]
Xi Jinping has launched yet another sweeping purge of the military, expelling nine top generals including the country’s second-highest-ranking officer in what can be called as one of the largest public crackdowns on the armed forces in decades.
The complex behind the scenes manipulation continues in China. Included in this lot was He Weidong, an ally of Xi and second in command of the military behind Xi, also the highest ranking official purged since the Cultural Revolution.
Some conflict is obviously going on going on in the power structure but China does a really good job of obscuring exactly what it is. Xi has purged a number of people he appointed and/or considered his allies in the military over the past couple of years but why is a point of contention.
about 30 minutes after opening, with visitors already inside, […] thieves rode a basket lift up the Louvre’s facade [where construction was under way], forced a window, [cut panes with a glass cutter,] smashed display cases and fled [on motor bikes] with priceless Napoleonic jewels
[…]
One object, the emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum […] recovered broken. […] Eight objects were taken
[…]
Daylight robberies during public hours are rare. Pulling one off inside the Louvre with visitors present ranks among Europe’s most audacious in recent history, and at least since Dresden’s Green Vault museum in 2019.
[…]
a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions say mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight routes and visitor flows meet.
[…]
Security around marquee works remains tight—the Mona Lisa sits behind bulletproof glass [but] protections are not uniformly as robust across the museum’s more than 33,000 objects.
[…]
“It’s unlikely these jewels will ever be seen again […] Professional crews often break down and re-cut large, recognizable stones to evade detection, effectively erasing their provenance.”
[…]
According to French media, there were four perpetrators: two dressed as construction workers in yellow safety vests on the lift, and two each on a scooter.
I just realised, with this video Trump has appointed himself the new Sterculius, the Roman god of feces!
birgerjohanssonsays
We have a human avatar of a Roman god.
“Sterculius, Roman god of feces (clip from Beavis and Butthead)”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=BhfXWtDaq5o
.
Idea: Can New York honor this former New Yorker president by naming the next big sewage treatment plant after him?
Sam seder Majority report
Trump Posts Weird Ai ‘Poop King’ Meme (12 mins long) Just try to imagine the reaction if Obama or Biden had posted anything remotely like this..
StevoRsays
Me and a lot of other Aussie sare facing some pretty severe storms and extreme weather soon..
The next 36 hours will serve up a smorgasbord of extreme weather across south-east Australia, from record October heat to dangerous thunderstorms and gale force winds.
The majority of severe weather will result from the passage of a powerful front, however for South Australia and Victoria on Wednesday, a deepening offshore low has the potential to generate winds equal in strength to a category 2 tropical cyclone.
In the meantime, out-of-control bushfires are possible in NSW, as wild winds combine with dry lightning and temperatures up to 16 degrees Celsius above average.
Get ready stargazers! The Orionid meteor shower peak begins tonight, welcoming a spectacular natural light show that could see a flurry of shooting stars spawned by Halley’s Comet brighten the dark, moonless sky.
The 2025 Orionid meteor shower peak begins overnight on Oct. 20-21, when 10-20 shooting stars may be visible streaking across the night sky from a point of origin known as a “radiant”, located close to the red star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion.
While tonight is the peak, Orionid shooting stars can be seen from Oct. 2 to Nov. 7 as Earth passes through the debris trail shed by comet 1P/Halley. During that time, particles cast off from that ancient body collide with our planet at speeds of up to 41 miles per second (66 kilometers per second), burning up in a magnificent display as they’re overwhelmed by the friction of atmospheric entry.
If you want to see two comets, your best chance will be early this week. After a year without any comets bright enough to be seen without specialist equipment, two — Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) and Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) — have come along at once.
Comet Lemmon may look more like a lime than its name suggests, but on Tuesday (Oct. 21), the dusty snowball from the outer solar system will reach its closest point to Earth and most likely shine at its brightest. It’s now reached magnitude 4.5, according to SpaceWeather.com — about the same brightness as spring’s Beehive Cluster (M44) and only a little dimmer than the Andromeda galaxy (M31).
While Comet Lemmon is technically visible to the naked eye in very dark skies, you’ll need binoculars to glimpse another, fainter icy visitor, Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN). Remarkably, Comet SWAN will get closest to Earth Monday (Oct. 20), the day before Comet Lemmon, but it’ll be about three times dimmer,
@ lumipuna : Thanks – staying inside and hoping it won’t be as bad as forecast. Hatches battened down and pets secure and sleeping.
Also, we’ve had space junk fall in WA from a Chinese rocket – rather even more dramatically than usual :
The smoking piece of debris was found on Saturday about 30 kilometres east of Newman, on a BHP mine access track.The Australian Transport Safety Bureau and WA Police are investigating, but Flinders University space archaeologist Alice Gorman said she believed the debris was from the fourth stage of a Chinese rocket called Jielong.
“The last launch was late September, so this has been barrelling around the earth and quite suddenly has got pulled back to the atmosphere,” Dr Gorman told ABC Radio Perth. She said during the course of a spacecraft’s orbit, it would discard several rockets and tanks which fell back to Earth in an effort to shed weight.
There’s some good photos in that linked article of that complete with smoke and fire.
I do think people under-estimate the issue of a possible Kessler Syndrome cascade and its potential impacts
StevoRsays
On a much less fun again note – not that the kessler Syndrom issue is fun exactly – PBS Newshour on the predicted Repug vote-rigging to stop African-Americans fromany any future say in the sham “elections” that may be coming up :
Republicans in North Carolina moved forward with a plan to redraw the state’s congressional map and eliminate its only swing district. It’s part of a GOP push to maintain control of Congress through maps that have the effect of diluting Black political power and diminishing the voting strength of communities of color. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Janai Nelson of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
In the Arctic tundra of Alaska, climate change is forcing an Alaska Native village to relocate. Rising temperatures are melting the underground permafrost. The melted ice then mixes with the soil, creating unstable land the Yupʼik people call Alaskan quicksand. Amalia Huot-Marchand and a team from the Medill School of Journalism report.
Edna Chase, Resident of Nunapitchuk, Alaska: The houses, it’s sinking. Every year, my floor falls six inches all around the house.Amalia Huot-Marchand:
Edna Chase, 60 years old, lives in the Alaskan village of Nunapitchuk. She’s been in this home for 53 years, but now, due to rising temperatures, the permafrost underground is melting. Her house is sinking in what they call Alaskan quicksand.
Edna Chase:
There’s no more foundation. It’s under the ground. I have got three floors, two underwater, and the top one can’t dry. Sometimes, I have to have five fans going. Man, it stinks in here.
Amalia Huot-Marchand:
She has to pump the water from under her house every 15 minutes to keep it from flooding. …
Via the Utahraptor Project fb page – 19th October 1.25 pm :
A few people accused me of posting a political post instead of science; they are absolutely correct. You’re damned right it’s political. Funding is political. Censorship of science is political. Public lands are political. Science education is political.
I worked for the federal government NPS for 20 years as a paleontologist and geologist. I worked through several administrations, red and blue, and experienced the first shutdowns and furloughs, but nothing like this.
Many of the paleontologists I know are threatened with losing their jobs outright, losing their funding and students, watching their research projects go down the drain. Done! Years of collaborations with people in other countries ended overnight.
Almost all the fossils you guys get excited about come off public lands, NPS, BLM, NFS, etc. Sell those lands off to the highest bidder and you can kiss off your precious fossils as they go to private hands of the wealthy. Privatize museums, same thing.
The current administration is trying to stifle science at every level which at its worst is responsible for children dying today from totally preventable diseases, and at the other end firing temporary museum employees who process fossils for minimum wage. Defunding anyone who does research.
The current administration is trying to censor scientific publications. Given their anti-science stand on everything, I can guarantee you they will be coming after anything that has the E word in it soon, and I’m not talking about Epstein files this time, we’re talking Evolution.
So yeah, I’m pissed off watching this administration shitting on science and jerking my fellow scientists around like they are a bunch of pawns. Musk and his clowns did nothing but disrespect a lot of very hard-working people dedicated to making this country better. Most of those fired workers could have made better money doing similar work for the private sector but instead chose the love of their profession. Now they are being punished for it and maligned for “not doing their jobs”. And then rehired… this is just cruel and stupid.
I am worried about Paleontology projects of all sorts losing funding and other support for good, museums big and small shutting down and the integrity of museum collections and research programs. But mostly I’m concerned about the current administration’s attacks on freedom of speech, censorship of publications and the misdirection of science towards political ends.
If you don’t want to see my opinions, then go somewhere else or start your own page; no one’s forcing you to read this.
A conservation charity known for its anti-renewables stance has made submissions to federal and state inquiries that name non-existent government authorities and a nonexistent windfarm, and cite scientific articles that the supposed publisher says don’t exist, a Guardian Australia investigation has found.
Two US-based academics and experts said Rainforest Reserves Australia’s (RRA) claims in submissions about their work were “100% misleading” and “absurd”.
In comments sent via RRA, the organisation’s submission writer has admitted using AI to help write more than 100 submissions to councils and state and federal governments since August 2024, and to also using AI to answer questions from the Guardian.
RRA came to prominence opposing a small number of windfarm projects in north Queensland, but has become more vocal against renewable energy generally and is a popular voice among conservatives and rightwing media.
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, last month celebrated RRA analysis on the extent of renewable energy installations around Australia.
Kessler syndrome isn’t being caused by these spent rocket stages. It was only in orbit for about a month.
It is much more likely that SpaceX is going to trigger a KS with all their Starlink satellites.
StevoRsays
@ ^ I’m very well aware of what the Kessler Syndrome is* and how it works. Putting Trump in charge as dictator and thus helping empower the open nazi scumbag Musk as you helped to do has, ofc, made things vastly worse there.
“With his Jan. 6 pardons, the president let a bunch of criminals back out onto American streets. Quite a few of them have ended up in legal trouble again.”
Donald Trump’s pardons for Jan. 6 rioters were wildly unpopular and controversial for a great many reasons, including a straightforward, practical consideration: The president let a bunch of criminals, including felons convicted of violent crimes, back out onto American streets.
Those concerned about these individuals committing other crimes were right to worry. The New York Times reported:
An upstate New York man pardoned by President Trump after taking part in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was charged last week with a new crime: threatening to assassinate Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, at an event in New York City. The man, Christopher P. Moynihan, 34, sent text messages to an unknown associate on Friday threatening Mr. Jeffries’s life, according to a criminal complaint issued by local prosecutors in Dutchess County, N.Y.
According to the evidence presented by local prosecutors, the man texted, in reference to the House minority leader, “I cannot allow this terrorist to live. Even if I am hated he must be eliminated. I will kill him for the future.” [!]
The man who wrote the text was among the first group of rioters to break into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and was later sentenced to 21 months in prison. Moynihan did not, however, serve his full term behind bars — because he was among the rioters Trump pardoned.
[…] the New York congressman added, “Since the blanket pardon that occurred earlier this year, many of the criminals released have committed additional crimes throughout the country. Unfortunately, our brave men and women in law enforcement are being forced to spend their time keeping our communities safe from these violent individuals who should never have been pardoned.”
While it’s obviously important to note that there was an apparent threat against Jeffries’ life, the minority leader’s observation about the larger pattern is worth keeping in mind.
Last month, for example, Robert Keith Packer, a pardoned Jan. 6 criminal best known for wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt inside the Capitol, was arrested in a dog-biting incident [dogs bit w people at an airport]. That came on the heels of another pardoned Jan. 6 criminal getting convicted on child pornography charges.
Two weeks earlier, another pardoned Jan. 6 rioter was convicted of plotting to kill FBI agents.
They have plenty of company. Zachary Jordan Alam, months after receiving a Jan. 6 pardon, was convicted last week in connection with a home invasion. Andrew Taake, weeks after receiving a Jan. 6 pardon, pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor. Emily Hernandez, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for driving drunk and killing a passenger in another car.
The Times’ report noted a variety of other examples, including Brent Holdridge, a pardoned Jan. 6 criminal who was arrested again in May in connection with a string of alleged thefts of industrial copper; and Matthew W. Huttle, who was fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy in January after he resisted arrest during a traffic stop, shortly after receiving a presidential pardon.
Occasionally, Trump boasts that under his leadership, “We are going to have law and order.” It might be a little easier to take such rhetoric seriously if he hadn’t given so many “get out of jail free” cards to so many criminals who proceeded to break more laws.
Demolition of the facade of the White House’s East Wing has begun. The demo is so Trump can build his big ballroom that is reportedly costing $250 million.
Acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan initiated a Signal chat two weekends ago with Lawfare reporter Anna Bower in which the newly-appointed federal prosecutor tiptoed to the verge of revealing grand jury information in the Letitia James case.
After Bower started reporting out the Signal exchange, including by calling Main Justice, Halligan sent Bower a final message late yesterday, more than a week after starting the chat: “By the way – everything I ever sent you is off record. You’re not a journalist so it’s weird saying that but just letting you know.”
The entire episode is madness. Halligan — who has no prior experience as a prosecutor — comes off as even less sophisticated than expected. She also seems peevish, self-consciousness, and in utterly over her head, in every possible way. You can read the entire exchange here.
Ironically, Halligan’s prosecution of former FBI Director Jim Comey is, in part, about Comey’s alleged contacts with the media, in his case through intermediaries. No intermediary here! Just Halligan herself recklessly bumping up against criminal case particulars with a reporter.
Bower recounted the whole crazy episode last evening: [video]
He was released by authorities in the South American nation.
QUITO — The survivor of a U.S. strike on a submersible vessel accused by the Trump administration of transporting drugs in the Caribbean was released by authorities in Ecuador after prosecutors said they had no evidence he committed a crime in the South American nation, a government official said Monday.
[…] the Ecuadorian man, identified as Andrés Fernando Tufiño, was in good health after medical evaluations.
A document from the Ecuadorian government obtained by AP said “there is no evidence or indication that could lead prosecutors or judicial authorities to be certain” of any violation of current laws by Tufiño.
[…] U.S. military personnel rescued both men after destroying the submersible on Thursday. Trump said on social media that U.S. intelligence confirmed the vessel was carrying “mostly fentanyl and other illegal drugs.”
There is little evidence to indicate that fentanyl is produced in the Andes, as the vast majority of it flows into the U.S. through Mexico. […]
[…] The attack on the submersible was at least the sixth of its kind since September. A seventh that occurred Friday, was reported over the weekend, bringing the total deaths from the attacks to at least 32. The strikes have set off tensions in the region, particularly between Trump, Venezuela and Colombia, once one of the American government’s tightest allies in the Western Hemisphere. […]
The federal government may still be shut down, but that hasn’t stopped Donald Trump from promising some eye-wateringly large checks.
How can Trump continue to fund his pet programs even though federal appropriations ran out roughly three weeks ago? As it turns out, Trump is often leaning on creative accounting and a slush fund that legal experts argue may violate federal law.
[…] Trump tasked Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought with finding ways to keep money flowing without congressional approval […]
“OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence,” the OMB wrote in an Oct. 14 post on X. “Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the [reductions in force], and wait.”
Trump made good on Vought’s threat this past Wednesday, when he signed an order authorizing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to pay the nation’s troops using funds that Hegseth “determines are provided for purposes that have a reasonable, logical relationship to the pay and allowances of military personnel, consistent with applicable law.”
But federal policy experts at the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense say that such a move likely violates the Antideficiency Act of 1888, which “prevents the government from spending money it doesn’t have.”
That’s of little concern to Trump, who knows that unpaid troops will quickly lose their patience with his destructive shutdown antics.
[…] clearly in violation of the enumerated powers of Congress.
[…] “We’ve been given two different explanations,” said Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, regarding paying troops during the shutdown. “One, is that it’s unobligated balances. One, is that it’s taken from certain research and technology programs. But we don’t have the specifics. We have asked for the specifics.”
[…] Last month Trump promised struggling American farmers a federal aid package, saying he’d fund it with tariff revenue—yes, the very tariffs responsible for causing those farmers this much pain. But Congress would have to authorize that move, and it hasn’t even formally debated it yet. [I snipped other examples.]
[…] Of course, Congress could stand up for itself, even going so far as to pass new laws explicitly criminalizing Trump’s creative accounting, but that would require a Congress willing to protect its own constitutional prerogatives. And that’s unlikely as long as MAGA-aligned Republicans control both chambers.
Trump’s latest federal shutdown has offered him yet another testing ground for the unconstitutional power grabs that define his second term. His administration has made clear it intends to press forward unless Congress or the courts stop them.
beholdersays
@343
Putting Trump in charge as dictator and thus helping empower the open nazi scumbag Musk as you helped to do has, ofc, made things vastly worse there.
Leaving aside your false allegation, I’m left wondering: how? How the number of satellites in orbit depends on the choice of U.S. president in 2024 is a stretch even for you, Stevo.
StevoRsays
FWIW. Local weather update – thunderstorm here for a bit but now seems to have passed over & be fairly calm right now..
For those who habla espanol which sadly does not include me –
Microcycas calocoma. Una anciana prehistórica – 35 mins long and would appreciate any translation / summaries / particular notable points if possible por favour.
StevoRsays
@ 352. Hey, you were the one you mentioned Musk in #342 so, remind me again who was Musk promoting, funding and advocating for voting and supporting again, dude?
Oh wait, that’s right you don’t do answering the actual questions asked of you.
So I’ll point out what everyone can confirm for themselves and note that’d be you. Musk was ahuge Trump fan and you inreality helped him by attacking the only alternatiev and voting against he only real alternative. Fact.
Just like the fact that West Virginia NOT New Mexico is the worst state education~wise. Something else you keep denying along with so much more reality you’d rather ignore but too many other less privileged people are forced to live in..
BTW. Of the two choices – Kamala or Trump – which choice was better for the world again?
No Stein ain’t an option. Never was. Definitleywas NOt alst year. Or 2016. But we allknow that yeah? Okay almost allodfus..
StevoRsays
The influence of anti-science deluded klowns here in Oz. This will have painful, awful consequences for too many people, of c :
KELLY HENNESSY: It’s not a water supply issue. It’s a health issue and really it should be returned to the state government at the state government level so that the people who make decisions about health are actually making decisions about this as well.
TOM HARTLEY: The Health Minister Tim Nicholls wouldn’t answer questions about the influence of anti-fluoridationists on public health decision making but backed his department’s advice to encourage local governments to “adopt and maintain the provision of water fluoridation.”
DOLLY JENSEN: We make decisions for rates, roads, and rubbish, not health. That’s a matter for state.
Obvs what they – the state, federal govt,whoever – make(s) the decisions based on – scientific evidence or bulldust Conspiracy excrement is a whole other issue.
StevoRsays
Israeli and Palestinian writers are struggling to articulate the anguish of the devastating war in Gaza. Amid a shaky ceasefire, the authors told their story at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
As of Sunday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has recorded over 68,000 people killed, the majority of them women, children, and the elderly, with around 170,200 wounded since the war began in October 2023.
At least 20,000 children are among the dead, making up over 30% of the death toll. Overall, more than ten percent of the pre-war population of the Gaza Strip has been killed or injured.
Violence at aid distribution points run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has also resulted in a large number of fatalities. Since late May, over 2,500 Palestinians have reportedly been killed while trying to obtain food.
Toll rising of c and then there’s the injured many of whoem have had their lives forever changed. Many of whoem will die from their injuries.
Plus those dead missing buried in the rubble.
Thwen trhgere’s almost certiabnly more and worse to come still.
Oh and the survivours if any have Global Overheating to look forward too.
beholdersays
@354
Hey, you were the one you mentioned Musk in #342
Did I? You’ll have to quote it, I don’t recall mentioning Musk in that post.
StevoRsays
Oh For ..pities..sake.. Thinking Kessler syndrome and losing the stars to light pollution..
California-based start-up Reflect Orbital has applied for a government license to launch a giant mirror to space next year. The mission is meant to be the first step in the company’s ambitious plan to operate a constellation of more than 4,000 solar reflectors to boost solar power production in twilight hours on Earth.
… (Snip)..
… But the project, which promises to help increase clean energy generation during peak-use morning and evening hours, has alarmed astronomers and biodiversity experts who are concerned about the effects of light pollution the constellation is going to produce.
@358. Scroll up. That ain’t hard – even for you I’d presume – or do you intend to insult everyone here’s intelligence even more than you usually do? FFS.
Anyone care to remind me whyfolks here have to put up with this sorta willful obtuseness?
StevoRsays
Beholder’s willful failure to answer the questions asked of them is yet again ad nauseam noted – see #354. Unwilling? Incapable? Both?
beholdersays
@360
Just admit you misremembered what I said, Stevo. You’re only insulting your own intelligence by insisting otherwise.
birgerjohanssonsays
Brian Tyler Cohen:
“WOW: Judge issues PUBLIC WARNING to OTHER judges about Trump”
Donald Trump hosted an event in the Oval Office last week that was bizarre, even by his usual standards. Over the course of roughly an hour, the public saw the president stand alongside the nation’s three most powerful federal law enforcement officials — Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel — and heard him talk about the political enemies he wanted them to pursue.
But if that weren’t quite enough, about halfway through the White House gathering, Trump also made an unscripted, offhand comment that went largely overlooked at the time.
After whining about the FBI’s court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago and peddling a variety of false and familiar claims about his classified documents scandal, the Republican said, “I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said I’m sort of suing myself.”
He quickly added, “I don’t know, how do you settle the lawsuit? I’ll say, ‘Give me X dollars,’ right?”
The comments went largely unremarked, although they’re suddenly relevant anew. The New York Times reported:
President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.
[…] this situation “has no parallel in American history.”
It’s an important detail. As bewildering as this might seem, we’re dealing with a dynamic in which federal officials pursued cases of alleged misconduct against a then-former president. The evidence was serious enough that the then-former president faced two federal criminal indictments and was charged with several felonies.
The defendant pleaded not guilty and mounted a defense, right up until 49.8% of American voters decided to return him to the White House, at which point the criminal cases effectively evaporated.
A year later, that former criminal defendant has seized control over the same Justice Department that tried to hold him to account, and if the Times is correct, he wants to pay himself roughly $230 million because he believes he’s entitled to the taxpayer money as repayment for the trouble he endured as a result of his own alleged crimes. [!]
Will such a gambit succeed? The Times’ report added, “According to the Justice Department manual, settlements of claims against the department for more than $4 million ‘must be approved by the deputy attorney general or associate attorney general,’ meaning the person who oversees the agency’s civil division.”
The deputy attorney general, it just so happens, led Trump’s criminal defense team before he was tapped to lead the DOJ. What’s more, the chief of the department’s civil division, Stanley Woodward Jr., also represented people in Trump’s orbit, including a Trump co-defendant and Patel (before the latter was confirmed to lead the FBI).
Bennett Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University, told the Times, “What a travesty. The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.”
He added, “And then to have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him […]. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”
[…] The attorney general — who also, incidentally, worked as a Trump defense lawyer — fired the Justice Department’s top ethics adviser in July.
“If you want to guarantee success against authoritarianism, research shows you need at least 3.5% of the country’s population on your side.”
On Saturday, nearly seven million people turned out nationwide for the “No Kings” rallies, making it one of the largest single-day protests ever in U.S. history.
Hundreds of organizers banded together to put on the protests, including the group Indivisible, which may sound familiar if you are a frequent viewer of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
For years, we have been talking to folks from Indivisible, and you might have noticed that every time we talk to them — going back to the very beginning — they tend to emphasize a key principle when it comes to protest: think local.
For example, for these “No Kings” rallies, Indivisible told protesters that if you have to travel more than an hour to find an event, then don’t. Instead, you should be organizing your own protest in your own community.
That is not generic protest advice. That is very specific to this movement — and it has specific consequences, which we saw in action this weekend. On Saturday, there wasn’t just one giant protest in one central place, but hundreds of different protests, in big cities and small towns and every nook and cranny across this country.
If that dynamic feels different to you, that is because it is. New research from the Kennedy School at Harvard University, titled “The Resistance Reaches into Trump Country,” found that during Donald Trump’s second term, the share of counties “hosting at least one anti-Trump protest has risen markedly … surpassing the historic spikes observed during his first term.”
The data also shows that in comparison with the president’s first term, there are more protests in what we traditionally think of as red, pro-Trump areas of the country. Researchers found that “the median protest county in the U.S. sent more votes to Trump in 2024 than Harris.”
One of the academics behind that new research from the Kennedy School is Erica Chenoweth, who is perhaps most famous for their research into something called the 3.5% rule.
Chenoweth has studied hundreds of movements from around the world over the past century to identify what makes for a successful popular campaign against an authoritarian government.
Chenoweth found that successful movements tend to share numerous things in common. No. 1: nonviolence. Nonviolent protest movements were twice as likely to prevail as violent ones.
Successful movements reach into uncharted territories and appeal to new constituencies, which is what makes the spread of the “No Kings” movement into Trump counties so important. Successful movements establish and maintain momentum, pushing people in positions of influence to change their behavior and priorities.
While Chenoweth’s research determined that all those factors are necessary for success, they are still not enough.
If you want to guarantee success against authoritarianism, there is one more thing you must do: You must grow until at least 3.5% of the population is out in the streets protesting.
That is the 3.5% rule. Along with all the other criteria, if you manage to get that 3.5% of the country out in the streets with you, the historical data suggests your movement will win.
In the U.S., 3.5% of the population amounts to almost 12 million people. Yes, that is a lot of people, but consider the trend line here: For the big “Hands Off” protests in April, Indivisible estimated the turnout at three million people. For the first “No Kings” rally in June, turnout was estimated at around five million. And on Saturday, Indivisible estimates nearly seven million people came out. Considering that growth, in just a few months, does 12 million really seem so far away?
“As the president files yet another lawsuit against a major news organization, consider what’s driving this unprecedented campaign.”
Related video at the link is hosted by Ari Melber.
Donald Trump’s approach to the freedom of the press has never been especially healthy — we are talking about a president who’s echoed Joseph Stalin while attacking journalists — but his campaign against the media has been especially outlandish lately. In recent weeks the Republican has suggested “evening shows” are “not allowed” to criticize him and argued that networks that give him “only bad publicity” risk losing their broadcast licenses.
At one point late last month, the president went so far as to claim that broadcasters airing evening news programs are doing something “illegal” if the White House disapproves of their coverage.
But arguably the most foolish element of the recent campaign came last month when Trump and his team filed a $15 billion civil suit (that’s not a typo) against The New York Times, claiming that the newspaper defamed him and tried to ruin his reputation. Four days later, a federal judge threw out the case — not because it lacked merit, but because the president’s lawyers’ court filing was simply too ridiculous. The smackdown was so brutal that Politico’s Kyle Cheney noted that the judge called Trump’s court filing “essentially garbage.”
U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday offered the president’s lawyers an opportunity to try again. They accepted. The Times reported late last week:
President Trump on Thursday refiled his defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and several of its reporters, again accusing the news organization of seeking to undermine his 2024 candidacy and disparage his reputation as a businessman. … Mr. Trump’s revised legal filing on Thursday evening was 40 pages, less than half the length of the original. … Many of the original complaint’s lengthy tributes to Mr. Trump, like a sentence that described his 2024 election victory as ‘the greatest personal and political achievement in American history,’ are no longer present.
The improvements suggest the litigation could last at least a little longer than Team Trump’s original attempt, even if the underlying case faces long odds. But as the process moves forward, a couple of broader dimensions to this are worth keeping in mind.
The first is the sheer volume of these cases. Trump’s case against the Times comes on the heels of other civil lawsuits he’s brought against The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, ABC News, The Des Moines Register and CNN, among others. (Note: The cases against the Register and CNN are separate, though I’m not permitted to separate them with an Oxford comma.) Trump also sued The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, although that case was recently thrown out.
This collection of cases might make it seem as if this has become routine, but the broader circumstances remain bizarre: Americans have never had a president who, while in office, sued independent news organizations and individual journalists for publishing reports the White House disapproved of.
[…] Trump can’t seem to stop suing independent news organizations and individual journalists for publishing reports the White House disapproves of.
The other part of this is the president’s rationale, which extends beyond his obvious contempt for the free press. Helping fuel Trump’s litigiousness is that some of these lawsuits have worked out rather well for the president.
When Trump filed a dubious case against ABC News, for example, the network and its corporate parent agreed to a $16 million settlement. When he filed an even weaker case against CBS News, Paramount also struck a $16 million deal.
In the weeks and months that followed, Trump repeatedly pointed to these highly controversial settlement agreements as evidence of his targets’ guilt, even as those networks denied any wrongdoing.
The result has created an unfortunate dynamic: The president appears to believe he has nothing to lose by filing suits like these. If the media outlets settle, he gets a sizable check. If not, he still gets the satisfaction of picking a fight with news organizations he hates, which he can brag about to his GOP base.
Put another way, Trump’s re-filed lawsuit against the Times is silly, but it’s unlikely to be the last.
“Two years ago this week, Donald Trump derailed the Minnesotan’s House speaker bid. Now, however, Emmer’s MAGA transformation appears complete.”
Ahead of the latest “No Kings” protests, Republicans launched a remarkably aggressive effort to slander Donald Trump’s critics, repeatedly insisting that the president’s opponents “hate America.” The usual suspects helped lead the smear campaign, but they were joined by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer — who acted like a congressman who had something to prove.
In the run-up to Saturday’s nationwide rallies, the Minnesota Republican was relentless in his attacks, insisting that the Democratic Party has a “pro-terrorist wing,” to which party leaders were catering. Those who prepared to participate in a public event criticizing Trump, Emmer added, “just do not love this country.”
As the protest drew closer, the congressman’s rhetoric got more hysterical. Emmer even appeared on Fox Business last week and said the government shutdown continued because Democrats feared parts of their “very violent” base. Around the same time, the Minnesotan started peddling conspiratorial claims about the 2020 election, while continuing to make bizarre claims about the Democratic Party’s “radical pro-terrorist wing.”
After the “No Kings” events, Emmer picked up where he left off. On Monday morning, Emmer again referred to Saturday’s “hate America” rallies. A day later, the member of the House GOP leadership described Democrats as “despicable,” before leaning once again into “terrorist” talk. [video]
To follow Capitol Hill is to hear all kinds of ridiculous rhetoric from radicalized members, some of whom are looking for attention, many of whom are true believers.
Emmer, however, wasn’t supposed to be one of Congress’ knee-jerk partisan bomb-throwers.
This might seem like ancient history, but it was exactly two years ago this week when Emmer secured the votes he needed to become the next speaker of the House. Just two hours after his intra-party victory, however, Trump issued a public condemnation of the congressman, labeling the Minnesotan “a Globalist RINO” who was “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters.”
Emmer had reached out to Trump directly ahead of the conference vote to make his case and apparently said he was Trump’s “biggest fan.” The lobbying did not have the intended effect: Trump trashed the GOP congressman anyway, in large part because Emmer did not vote to overturn the 2020 election.
A mere four hours after Emmer became the speaker-designate, he became the former speaker-designate as part of an unprecedented turn of events.
As the dust settled, Trump gloated about having taken down Emmer. “He’s done. It’s over,” the then-former president reportedly said in reference to the House majority whip. “I killed him.”
It was roughly at this point that Emmer had a decision to make. He could position himself as a principled congressman, who was able to maintain professional relationships with members of both parties — but that would put his career in Republican politics in jeopardy. After all, along that same path lie the careers of former lawmakers such as Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney.
And so Emmer made a different choice.
The Minnesotan held a fundraiser for Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He agreed to serve as the Minnesota state chairman of Trump’s 2024 campaign. He transformed into yet another tiresome partisan who peddles ridiculous talking points and helps lead smear campaigns against political opponents.
Emmer’s far-right transformation may very likely protect him from any kind of MAGA backlash. But the congressman’s reputation as a credible figure on Capitol Hill is clearly gone forever, and his indifference to this development speaks volumes about the contemporary GOP.
“MAGA Outraged At ‘Demon Worshiper’ Kash Patel For Being Hindu”
“In which he learns he belongs to a club that does not want him as a member.”
FBI Director Kash Patel has very likely spent the last few years thinking that he was fully accepted by MAGA Americans as one of them. That he’d made it as a member of that club. It probably hadn’t even occurred to him that they might be racist towards him or that they would discriminate against him on the basis of his religion. After all, these were concepts made up by liberals to make Republicans look bad and trick people of color and non-Christians into voting for them. Obviously! That’s why we don’t need DEI anymore.
But, as we probably could have told him, he was wrong. Very, very wrong. Because the whole White Nationalist/Christian Nationalist thing has never actually been the whimsical edgelording that some in the GOP have tried to convince themselves it is, but rather a viewpoint widely shared among their electorate.
On Monday, Patel — who is Hindu — tweeted “Happy Diwali – celebrating the Festival of Lights around the world, as good triumphs over evil,” along with an illustrated “Happy Diwali” card depicting the Ganges river filled with lit candles. An innocuous post for those of us who are not insecure raging bigots. [Social media post, with image.]
[…] Patel received nearly 3,000 responses, the vast majority of which informed him that it was illegal to be Hindu in the United States, that he should go back to India, and/or that he was a devil worshiper. […]
Let’s take a look at some of them, shall we?
The USA is all about worshiping and celebrating Jesus as God. US leaders never celebrate pagan gods. Now, I question your respect for Jesus | God, and for our Protestant Christian moral values
The leaders of our nation have a duty to promote the public good. Christianity is the only true religion and the ultimate public good. Our nation and their leaders must then promote the true religion. You are failing at this most important task. Please correct this.
Heritage Americans don’t want demon worship in our country. Christ is King.
If you are unfamiliar, “Heritage Americans” is the term MAGA now uses to mean White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
How about we don’t promote festivals to false gods in our nation.
Not the brightest idea, to promote foreign gods in the Christian Nation of America. Christ is Lord.
We don’t celebrate satanic rituals in America. Go back to India. Christ is King.
What? Dude we are a Christian nation. Assimilate or leave.
Fuck you [r-word]. America is for WHITE PEOPLE
Your paganism brings God’s Judgement on this country, and is a threat to national security. You should repent.
Pro tip: Americans don’t celebrate whatever this is nor should we be expected to know what a “Diwali” is.
So much for assimilating. We got a low iq grifter here begging to further pollute waterways with fake religious slop practices. Celebrate solo and keep your 3rd world holidays away from the rest of us.
I abhor demon worship and no American should celebrate it. Repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
It was a mistake to promote foreigners into our Government. We must go back to being a White Christian nation.
Pagan filth from a foreign country. You’re not an American and never will be.
That’s not a thing here. America has distinct European, Christian roots and everything outside of that is foreign. You can try to change it, but the American people will not go gentle into that good night.
Deport this cow shit eating motherfucker out of our country!
[Wow. Those are some extremely toxic Christian attitudes.]
[…] You know who else tried to put out a nice, innocuous “Happy Diwali” tweet? Fellow Trump acolyte Vivek Ramaswamy. He got about 3,300 responses, most of which were also pretty horrifying.
If I went to India, I would never be able to achieve a position of political notoriety. Even if I were, I’d never go onto their social media channels and scream “Merry Christmas!”. Be respectful you ass.
There are, for the record, about 30 million Christians in India, and it is their third most followed religion. There have, however, been attacks on Christians there from people who don’t think they should be allowed to practice their own religion — because they want a purely Hindu country. Personally, I would say that this is a bad thing and that no one should be attacked for their religion, and also that it is deeply, deeply creepy to want to have a country where everyone is forced to practice the same religion. […]
I honestly am at a loss for why an Indian is allowed to run for office in my country. Completely baffled…. if your parents/ancestors were not born here you shouldn’t even be allowed to vote.
Again, just very nice, decent, normal human beings who definitely know what the Constitution says about religion.
[…] about 62 percent of people in this country consider themselves to be Christians. That’s a majority, but it’s certainly not enough of one to declare this a “Christian” nation, even if it were constitutionally allowed, which it is decidedly not. It has been decreasing for years, likely driven in part by the sheer repulsiveness of people like this. In fact, among those born between 2000 and 2006 (the slender timeframe is because the survey, taken last year, was of adults born in the 2000s, and those born after 2006 aren’t adults just yet), only 46 percent identify as Christian … and only 38 percent say they believe in God with absolute certainty, and only 25 percent attend church regularly. [!’]
About 29 percent of the population identifies as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.”
So if these folks want to live in a country where everyone is white and Christian and they never, ever have to encounter a Hindu person or a non-believer, even in their own party, they are going to have to find a different one than the United States of America.
As for Patel and Ramaswamy, odds are that they will just ignore all of this and continue to try to belong to a club that clearly does not want them as members.
Change of plans? “White House says no Putin-Trump summit anytime soon”
“The decision came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Trump’s call for a ceasefire contradicted the understandings he reached with Putin”
The Trump administration said on Tuesday that there are “no plans” for President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet in the immediate future, marking an abrupt postponement of a meeting Trump said a few days ago would happen in Hungary.
The statement came hours after Russia’s top diplomat signaled a wide chasm between Moscow and Washington on ending the war in Ukraine. The Trump administration, in confirming the meeting’s postponement, made no mention of a diplomatic row between the longtime adversaries.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “had a productive call,” said a White House official, who was not authorized to speak to the media. “Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the secretary and foreign minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.” [Sounds like a bogus, cover-our-asses explanation to me.]
Russia on Tuesday rejected Trump’s call to freeze the fighting in Ukraine on the front line, signaling that the Kremlin has not significantly changed its demands for peace, after Trump said last week that he believed Putin wanted a deal.
Lavrov said Trump’s demand for “an immediate ceasefire, which has suddenly become a topic of discussion again,” was contrary to what was agreed at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska in August, when Trump abandoned his pressure on Putin to end the fighting ahead of negotiations.
“You see, if we just stop, it means forgetting the root causes of this conflict, which the American administration clearly understood,” Lavrov said. “I am referring to ensuring Ukraine’s nonaligned, nonnuclear status, which implies refraining from any attempts to draw it into NATO.”
He added that freezing the fighting now “would mean only one thing: a large part of Ukraine would remain under Nazi rule,” [Oh FFS] suggesting Russia’s continuing desire for regime change in Kyiv.
Trump on Saturday said both sides should stop fighting — after he abandoned his ceasefire calls following the August summit with Putin in Alaska — and said Kyiv and Moscow had to “stop the war immediately.”
“Both sides should go home, go to their families, stop the killing,” he said.
A joint statement issued Tuesday morning signed by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, as well as top E.U. officials, backed Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire along the existing line of contact ahead of any talks.
The statement also expressed skepticism about Russia’s negotiating efforts over the past nine months and its interest in ending the conflict.
“Russia’s Stalling Tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace,” the statement said. “We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction.”
[…] CNN reported that plans for a meeting between Lavrov and Rubio this week had been put on hold over differences in the terms to end the war and Russia’s hard-line position.
[…] Russia has also demanded a veto over Ukrainian security guarantees. It does want its own security guarantees, even though it is the aggressor in the war.
Ukraine and its European supporters have strenuously opposed these conditions.
At the Alaska summit, Trump accepted Putin’s rejection of a ceasefire, writing on Truth Social that it had been decided that the best way to end the war was to “go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere ceasefire agreement, which often times do not hold up.”
That freed Russia to ramp up it attacks on Ukraine, and it resisted Trump’s calls for a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to move the peace process forward.
In Thursday’s phone call with Trump, Putin again demanded that Ukraine surrender all of the Donetsk region, including territory not occupied by Russia, according to senior U.S. officials.
[…] But Trump still emerged from the meeting calling for a ceasefire along the front line, a stance that the Ukrainian president endorsed but appears to have incensed Lavrov.
[…] Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that whenever Trump appeared to be losing patience with Putin, the Russian leader reached out to offer peace — but strictly on Russia’s terms.
“Russia’s position has not changed at all — it is the same as six months or even a year ago,” she wrote on X. “They still want everything they have been demanding all along. So we are entering the third round of the same game.”
Putin, she said, would continue pushing Trump to force Ukraine to give up territory in Donbas to Russia — and then he would push for even more.
“That is only the starting point; the remaining demands will follow later,” she wrote. “The real question remains the same: how far will Ukraine be forced to go?”
birgerjohanssonsays
A bit of mild trauma dumping.
I did not find one of my two semi-feeal adopted cats during the evening.
1 AM I finally checked the stairs outside my apartment.
I chased her up and down the stairs four times until I risked her claws and carried her home.
At the door she panicked and sprayed urine in the hall.
I have now changed clothes and mopped up the mess. This is a reminder that pets (and politicians BTW) do not use logic, they just follow instinct when frightened.
Thank Ctulhu I am not a parent, kids having a chrisis would give me a stroke.
birgerjohanssonsays
Kat Abughzaleh is running for congress and seems very clever and funny.
Alien Super Show:
“Chicago Responds to ICE | No Kings Protests | Ft. Kat Abughzaleh”
“Trump’s Putin Summit BLOWS UP In Humiliation”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=eLCV-MZtpKo
Also, European allies no longer share intelligence with USA about Ukraine. The risk of the administration leaking to Russia – deliberately or by incompetence – is seen as too great.
-BTW China already has sodium- ion batteries in mass production with a somewhat lower power density than this version.
JMsays
Legal AF: HIDDEN Fatal FLAW in Comey Indictment REVEALED
Shan Wu covers the Comey indictment. He covers the well known parts about vindictive prosecution, selective prosecution and Halligan’s appointment being illegal. He also goes into some details that I have not seen other places.
Shan Wu explains one of the less well covered points that Comey raises in trying to get the indictment dismissed. That his answer is literally true. A witness giving incomplete answers or misleading answers that are literally correct is not illegal, that is a mistake by the prosecutors for not questioning the witness further. Comey’s answers to Ted Cruz before Congress are obviously not trying to explain things in detail, trying to pin any of it down is hard.
StevoRsays
Karine Jean-Pierre has a new book and some intresting things to say in her PBS Newshour interview:
In this time that we’re in, we need to have a conversation about what happened in 2024. How do we move forward? How do we protect our democracy? And there is something fundamentally wrong with the system that we’re — this political system. We need a two-party system in order to protect our democracy and in order to exercise our democracy.
And I feel like the two-party system isn’t working and I’m not the only one. I think millions of people feel that way. And we need to have that conversation in order to move forward.
Plus
You talk a lot about the sense of betrayal that you felt after that June debate, in which a lot of the party and people started to distance themselves from President Biden and the calls for him to step down began.
You wrote in the book: “He could have survived the debate setback, like Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, other incumbent presidents overcame their own weak first debates when they ran for reelection. Only the Democrats, Biden’s party, my party, didn’t seem to want to give him the chance.”
I think it’s fair to say, I mean, he lost a lot of public confidence too after that debate. You really think he could have survived after that? (Amna Nawaz – interviwer.)
Also :
So, here’s what I will say. And I said this at the podium and the president said this. He was aging. No one can deny that. They could see with their own eyes he got older. We all get older. He was definitely aging. He was in his early 80s.
So no one is denying that. And he would say, I don’t talk as — the way that I used to. I don’t walk as well as I used to. He would even make fun of himself. And so we always — you can’t hide that, right?
What I am saying when it comes to his mental acuity, when it comes to someone who understands policy and history, and I would banter back and forth with and answer questions that he had of me, he was someone who was very focused, very aware. And you can be in a room with him for a good amount of time and see, oh, this is the type of president that I want in this space right now in this moment continuing to run this country.
Personally, I think Biden should’ve stepped side and put Kamala in as POTUS halfway through his term and disagree with Karine Jean-Pierre here but still intresting to get her view.
StevoRsays
Salt marshes exist on every coast of the U.S., but these important wetlands are succumbing quickly to the effects of sea level rise caused by climate change. Grace Go of our journalism training program, PBS News Student Reporting Labs, has the story of how one young photographer from Massachusetts is fighting to protect these places.
As the Israeli Hamas ceasefire appears to be holding, Palestinians are grappling with what comes next in their quest for statehood and who will lead them. A popular pick is 66-year-old Marwan Barghouti, who led Palestinians during the first and second uprisings. But Israel views Barghouti as a terrorist and says he was involved in planning attacks. Leila Molana-Allen spoke with Barghouti’s son.
The American cattle ranching industry is blasting President Donald Trump’s proposal to purchase beef from Argentina in an effort to lower supermarket beef prices.
In other economic news, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:
A group of banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs is struggling to put together a $20 billion loan to Argentina without leaving themselves too exposed to the financially distressed South American country, people familiar with the matter said.
Update on Trump’s “compact” with which he tried to pressure universities, as reported by The New York Times:
Seven of the nine universities that the White House initially approached about a plan to steer more federal money toward schools aligned with President Trump’s priorities have refused to endorse the proposal. On Monday evening, an eighth signaled that it had reservations about it. Only one, the University of Texas, suggested it might be open to signing on quickly.
ACT I
President Donald Trump posts on Truth Social in March:
To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!
ACT II
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins says in April: There’s no one that’s going to fight harder or smarter or more strategically than @POTUS—for ALL Americans … we are going to put America FIRST; not China, not India, not beef from Argentina, not dairy products from Canada — but America first.
ACT III
Trump says in October:
Trump: “The only price we have that’s high is beef, and we’ll get that down. And one of the things we’re thinking about doing is beef from Argentina.
[…] American farmers don’t like this play. The people who most strongly supported Trump in all three of his elections are now crying about it.
“NCBA’s family farmers and ranchers have numerous concerns with importing more Argentinian beef to lower prices for consumers. This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” said Colin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a strongly pro-Trump organization.
[…] There’s a certain poetic justice in watching Trump’s most loyal supporters become his latest victims. Just months after his agriculture secretary promised to protect them from Argentinian beef in the name of “America First,” Trump threw them under the tractor.
[…] That’s the story of Trumpism, really—betrayal dressed up as populism—as he works to help his friends (in this case, Argentina’s right-wing president Javier Milei) at the expense of his country.
Now, the people who cheered him the loudest are finally learning what the rest of us already knew.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it “the nuclear option,” House Speaker Mike Johnson opted on Tuesday to enter a medically induced coma to avoid swearing in newly elected Democratic congresswoman Adelita Grijalva.
Johnson spoke to reporters at Walter Reed Army Medical Center moments before doctors administered pentobarbital through an intravenous tube connected to his left hand.
“I’m doing this as a last resort,” he said. “I was really hoping that people would forget about the Epstein files or that the Rapture would happen, but no such luck.”
A Republican colleague who visited Johnson’s bedside hours after he fell into the coma said that the Speaker “seemed like his usual self.”
Re: birgerjohansson at 315, on the comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon (which is reaching its highest apparent magnitude this week)
I tend to think any comet or such that isn’t bright enough to be visible from my local neighborhood park isn’t worth much excitement anyway. I hope there will one day be a real impressive comet in my lifetime, the sort that ancient people would’ve noticed without being told what to look for.
I didn’t see any Orionids last night, either. However, I’ve recently managed to see one small fireball (not the large one seen on the video I posted), some auroras and, for the first time, the Pleiades star cluster. It’s wild how that cluster looks like a small hazy cloud in the side eye view. Then when I focus directly at it, the haze disappears entirely (due to the lower light sensitivity of the central vision area) and there’s one or two tiny individual stars just barely visible. This was in the best viewing conditions I’ve ever seen here.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lumipuna @ 387
I am glad you got an opportunity to see the stars under optimal condotions. Once the eyes have adapted to the dark the experience is marvellous.
birgerjohanssonsays
10 Culture Shocks We Had in Sweden 🇸🇪 | German & American Couple React
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y0K_cL__ldo
Norway and Sweden tax all alchohol beverages heavily to keep consumption down. At the beginning of the 20th century, Scandinavians were drinking themselves to death. We did not have prohibition, but for 30 years alcohol was rationed.
lumipunasays
BTW, Finland did have a prohibition for alcohol, about the same time as the US did. It was a similar failure.
Some of my relatives at the time were fisherfolk on the island of Suursaari (Swedish Högland, currently Russian Gogland) in the middle of Gulf of Finland. One of them owned a speedboat (not common back then), and family lore suggests he was involved in smuggling spirit from Estonia. A century later, I’m spending my time on Twitter, scrolling through US political discussions on whether it’s appropriate to nuke boats from orbit for the crime of probably smuggling drugs or some other contraband.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lumipuna @ 390
Yes, there is a lot of lore from those days.
But as Sweden provided some alcohol as a safety valve, the situation did not get quite as bad as in USA.
It is rather like the Swedish COVID social restrictions – going all in is not at all “lagom” you need to find the optimal balance.
Zelensky has just landed in Sweden for talks with the PM. The meeting is in the SAAB office, the company is making a lot of high-tech military hardware.
birgerjohanssonsays
Diwali -celebrated yesterday – is a festival for hindus, sikhs, jainists and some buddhists.
You might argue it is literally the most aryan holiday in the world. It might predate the holiday the Romans made for the brown guy from Palestine.
This did not prevent some MAGA persons from freaking out.
KGsays
StevoR@379,
I’d say that being as generous as possible Karine Jean-Pierre saw what she wanted to see rather than what was there.
Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are quietly ramping up talks within their senior ranks and with White House officials over how to structure and advance a potential extension of key Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies before the end of the year, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the conversations.
One option under serious consideration is, once the government shutdown ends, attaching a revamped subsidy framework to a small bipartisan package of full-year funding bills or a long-term stopgap running through early next year, the people said. GOP leaders have been encouraged as some of their party’s most conservative members warm up to potentially passing an extension — albeit with major provisos.
Not much in the way of direct negotiations with Democrats and publicly the Republicans are still making their demands. Privately thought they are starting to work out what terms they would accept. In theory this would be a separate bill passed after the government opens but a likely case for reopening is something built in secret and tacked on the appropriations bill right before being presented for vote. That way Republicans can say it was sprung on them at the last minute and they didn’t like it but had to make a hard decision about reopening the government.
There is also a risk that Republicans will do this to Democrats. Work out something among Republicans without talking to Democrats, then tack it on the appropriations and take it to vote as fast as possible. I don’t think it’s a big risk in this situation though. Any bill with ACA extensions will have trouble getting enough Republican votes and that means less pressure on Democrats.
NEW YORK – At least five federal agencies were involved in a massive immigration raid on Canal Street in Manhattan on Tuesday. The huge, heavily armored federal law enforcement presence took what observers described as a mix of migrants and protesters off the streets in what both activists and local elected officials are calling an ominous escalation.
[…] Multiple demonstrators who said they witnessed the raid told TPM four protesters were taken by federal law enforcement along with several people who seem to have been targeted for immigration enforcement. […]
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin provided a statement to TPM detailing the number of agencies involved in the sweep, which included the Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation division. She also confirmed at least one person who she described as a “rioter” was arrested during the operation for “assault on a federal officer.”
[…] Williams, who is the city’s second-ranking elected official, said he believed there were “around nine arrests” made by federal law enforcement during the sweep. However, he said even elected officials had not been able to obtain specific information about the total number of migrants and demonstrators who were detained or the reasons for their arrests. He described this situation as alarming and “authoritarian.”
[…] Fallout continued for hours after agents swarmed lower Manhattan. TPM was on the scene as protesters subsequently gathered outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in nearby Foley Square, which is about six blocks from Canal Street. At points, Williams and other elected officials including Comptroller Brad Lander and multiple members of the City Council joined them. The crowds stayed well into the night to provide jail support for people, preparing food and other resources to provide to those who were released. Officers with the New York City Police Department made what Williams and demonstrators who spoke to TPM described as multiple arrests during the demonstration in Foley Square. […]
In Foley Square, many demonstrators were masked and those who spoke to TPM declined to give their full names, citing fear of federal crackdowns. According to several who said they had been present on Canal Street, over a dozen migrants were detained and four demonstrators were taken by members of the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations unit.
[…] Canal Street, one of the main thoroughfares in the Chinatown neighborhood, has long been home to a mix of licensed street vendors and unlicensed ones who sell knockoff goods. Local law enforcement regularly engages in crackdowns on the area’s bootleg scene.
For his part, Williams said he believed there was “no excuse” for the level of force deployed in the sweep. He also noted it does not appear in line with Trump’s insistence that dangerous criminals are the focus of his deportation push.
“The fact that you needed a military-style — it looked like a tank — and armed agents to deal with street vendors, it’s not the hardened criminals we were told,” Williams said. “This is about fear, and causing chaos, and harm. … It’s not about public safety and it’s about causing fear and chaos.”
[…] he described the chaos that unfolded on Tuesday as foreshadowing of what’s to come amid Trump’s promise of further crackdowns on blue cities.
[…] This is a developing story and will be updated.
Donald Trump’s decision to reduce a major chunk of the White House to rubble is shocking, but not surprising. Shocking, because no other occupant of “The People’s House” ever treated it as if it belonged to him; but not surprising, because the Trump family has a long history of desecrating landmarks
.
Trump learned everything he knows about real estate from his father, Fred Trump—and much of what he knows about wanton vandalism. Steeplechase Park was one of the most beloved amusement parks in Coney Island, Brooklyn. In 1966, after Trump’s dad acquired the property (accompanied by nineteen-year-old Donald at the signing ceremony), with plans to demolish it and build residential units, outraged citizens attempted to save it by applying to have it designated as a landmark.
Before Steeplechase’s landmark status could be certified, however, Fred Trump organized a “demolition party” at which he urged a mob to smash the glass facade of the park’s Pavilion of Fun. “Trump sent out engraved invitations and invited people to throw rocks and bricks through the Funny Face—it was a desecration of an icon, it was insane,” Charles Denson, the Coney Island History Project’s executive director, told the Brooklyn Paper. “Most developers are worried about making a profit, most wouldn’t throw a party to desecrate a stained-glass window.”
Donald Trump would continue his father’s proud tradition of gleeful destruction when he demolished the Bonwit Teller Building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to clear the site for Trump Tower. After saying he’d try to preserve the building’s priceless Art Deco friezes so that they could be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Trump discovered that it would cost $32,000 to remove them intact. As a clever solution to his problem, he had his workmen smash them to bits.
The trashing of the Bonwit friezes, as reprehensible as it was, is nothing compared to Trump’s most ambitious act of architectural desecration: the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. According to a report by the General Accounting Office, the January 6 assault resulted in property damage totaling $2.7 billion, a cost to be borne by American taxpayers.
Having taken a wrecking ball to the buildings housing two branches of government, one wonders if Trump’s next renovation project will involve destroying the Supreme Court. But John Roberts is already hard at work on that.
[…] For most of Russell Vought’s nearly three decades in Washington, D.C., he operated largely behind the scenes. He spent a dozen years as a congressional staffer before going to Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, the influential conservative think tank. In 2017, he returned to government, bringing his exhaustive knowledge of the budgetary process to the first Trump administration and becoming one of the president’s most loyal functionaries.
Over the past decade, this budget wonk and self-proclaimed Christian nationalist has quietly injected his ideas into the bloodstream of American politics. He was one of the chief architects of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and said he spent much of 2024 drafting the executive orders, regulations and other plans to use in a second Trump presidency. Since returning as the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget in January, he has led the president’s effort to dismantle large swaths of the federal government.
[…] In his second term as the president’s budget guru, Vought has tried to make good on his desire to put federal workers “in trauma.”
[…] The portrait that emerges from Kroll’s reporting is that of a man who is equal parts government technocrat, political operator and zealous iconoclast. Kroll [ProPublica reporter Andy Kroll] reveals how the seeds of Trump’s presidency in 2025 were planted early in Vought’s career, while uncovering how much Vought has shaped the trajectory of the Trump-era Republican Party from behind the scenes. He also raises questions of what’s to come as Vought leverages his encyclopedic knowledge of the federal government’s inner workings to achieve his goal of remaking the executive branch. As Vought told his supporters in a 2024 speech, “God put us here for such a time as this.”
“The Oregon Democrat was still speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday morning after delivering remarks for more than 16 hours.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is still speaking on the Senate floor after delivering remarks for more than 16 hours in protest of what he described as President Donald Trump’s “authoritarian” leadership and warning that the republic is facing “the biggest threat” since the Civil War.
“President Trump is shredding our Constitution. Is it okay for masked federal agents to arrest people off the street because of their skin color or their accent? No way, not in a free America,” Merkley said in his opening remarks around 6:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
The Democratic senator went on to rebuke the Trump administration for other actions, including weaponizing the Department of Justice to attack his political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and canceling research grants to universities in an attempt to gain control over what can be taught.
On Wednesday morning, the Oregon Democrat said he wanted the public’s takeaway from his comments to be that “Tyranny has already arrived. It is not down the street. It is not around the corner. It will not be encountered on the path tomorrow. It is here at this very moment.”
[…] Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., thanked Merkley for “standing up for the American people.” Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., wrote on X that the speech is “a reminder that our democracy is under attack. Democracy isn’t just your voice, your vote. It’s your right to stand up and not be silenced.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said on X that Merkley was sounding the alarm “on Trump’s lawless regime” and said, “There can be no business as usual.”
Meanwhile, the speech prompted criticism from Senate Republicans such as Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who said in a post on X that Merkley is forcing Senate staff and Capitol Police officers to work overnight while not getting paid because of the government shutdown.
[…] The government has been shut down for 22 days with Democrats and Republicans still at an impasse over their demands for funding. Merkley’s speech won’t delay or postpone any imminent actions on government funding as the Senate is currently working through nominations.
“The vote was the first of four needed to pass the law, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party did not support the legislation.”
A bill applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, a move tantamount to annexation of land which Palestinians want for a state, won preliminary approval from Israel’s parliament on Wednesday.
The vote was the first of four needed to pass the law and it coincided with the visit of U.S. Vice President JD Vance to Israel, a month after President Donald Trump said that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party did not support the legislation, which was put forth by lawmakers outside his ruling coalition and passed by a vote of 25-24 out of 120 lawmakers. A second bill by an opposition party proposing the annexation of the Maale Adumim settlement won by 31-9.
Some members in Netanyahu’s coalition – from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism faction voted in favour of the bill […]
Members of Netanyahu’s coalition have been calling for years for Israel to formally annex parts of the West Bank, territory to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties. The United Nations’ highest court in 2024 said that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible. [!]
Israel argues the territories it captured in the 1967 war are not occupied in legal terms because they are on disputed lands, but the United Nations and most of the international community regard them as occupied territory. […]
Netanyahu himself has not been explicit about annexation since a past election pledge was scrapped in 2020 in favour of normalising ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
The UAE, the most prominent Arab country to establish ties with Israel under the so-called Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office, last month warned that annexation of the West Bank was a red line for the Gulf state. [!]
“At Donald Trump’s behest, the system of inspectors general is now effectively broken, which necessarily opens the door to more corruption.”
On the first Friday night of his second term, Donald Trump took an indefensible step: The president fired at least 18 inspectors general who were responsible for rooting out corruption, ethical lapses and mismanagement in federal agencies throughout the government. Trump didn’t appear to have the legal authority to take such steps, but he did it anyway.
Nine months later, Trump’s purge against inspectors general is still ongoing. The New York Times reported:
Parisa Salehi was the kind of internal watchdog who had earned a strong reputation for digging up fraud, waste and abuse during her 15 years in government service. She had risen through the ranks at inspectors general offices at the State Department and U.S.A.I.D., eventually taking over internal investigations at the Export-Import Bank of the United States, where her office reported saving tens of millions of dollars. But last week, she got a notice that President Trump had fired her, effective immediately.
[!]
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who has traditionally taken these offices seriously, posted an item to social media a few days ago noting that the White House was legally required to notify Congress about Salehi’s ouster — a requirement that Trump and his team apparently decided to ignore.
[…] recent history suggests Grassley won’t follow through with anything more than some social media posts — but the senator appears to be correct about the process the president is flouting.
[…] Not only has Trump fired roughly two dozen inspectors general so far this year, but the White House has also defunded the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the umbrella organization for 72 inspectors general across the federal government, despite the fact that Congress had already agreed to fund the office.
[…] Inspectors general exist to ensure that federal agencies abide by applicable laws and institutional rules (among other reasons). The White House often likes to ignore applicable laws and institutional rules, so Trump and his team tend to see inspectors general as annoying hindrances in need of removal.
[…] There are still some inspectors general doing their jobs, but given recent events, they no doubt realize that their careers are subject to the whims of a president who has already fired many of their peers without cause.
The result is a system of inspectors general that is now effectively broken, which necessarily opens the door to more corruption, more mismanagement, more ethical lapses and more departments acting outside of legal limits.
“The news comes just days after President Donald Trump held a phone call with reluctant members.”
Indiana Senate Republicans say they do not have votes to pass mid-cycle redistricting despite a pressure campaign from the White House, according to a spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray – but President Donald Trump’s allies are still demanding the matter comes up for a vote in a special session.
“The votes aren’t there for redistricting,” said Molly Swigart, Bray’s spokesperson.
The news comes just days after Trump held a phone call with reluctant members of the caucus.
[…] Indiana state Senate Republicans’ latest move threatens to upend what has been a nationwide push from the White House to force red states to redraw maps ahead of the midterms. [Possibly good news.]
[…] people said Indiana Gov. Mike Braun was inclined to call a special session to redo the state’s maps— a move that could come as early as next week.
[…] Allies to the White House, such as Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), have warned control of the House rests on whether Indiana can produce two additional Republican-held congressional districts by re-doing the maps. […]
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strike killed two people.”
The U.S. military launched its eighth strike against an alleged drug-carrying vessel, killing two people in the waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday, marking an expansion of the Trump administration’s campaign against drug trafficking in South America.
The attack Tuesday night was a departure from the seven previous U.S. strikes that had targeted vessels in the Caribbean. Hegseth said on social media that the latest strike killed two people, bringing the death toll to at least 34 from attacks that began last month.
[…] “Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,” Hegseth said, adding “there will be no refuge or forgiveness — only justice.”
Republican President Donald Trump has justified the strikes by asserting that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and proclaiming the criminal organizations as unlawful combatants, relying on the same legal authority used by President George W. Bush’s administration when it declared a war on terrorism.
In a brief video Hegseth posted Wednesday, a small boat, half-filled with brown packages, is seen moving along the water. Several seconds into the video, the boat explodes and is seen floating motionless on the water in flames.
The administration has sidestepped prosecuting any of the occupants of the alleged drug-running vessels after returning two survivors of an earlier strike to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.
Ecuadorian officials later said they released the man that was returned to their country, saying that they had no evidence he committed a crime in their country.
The U.S. military has built up an unusually large force in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off the coast of Venezuela since this summer […]
The bulk of American overdose deaths are from fentanyl, which is transported by land from Mexico. While Venezuela is a major drug transit zone, about 75% of the cocaine produced in Colombia is smuggled through the eastern Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean.
The White House is demolishing the entirety of the East Wing to make way for President Trump’s $200 million ballroom, a construction project that is far more extensive than he initially let on, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.
The tear-down should be finished by this weekend, according to the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the plans.
When Mr. Trump first announced his plans for the ballroom, he pledged that the East Wing wouldn’t be touched by the construction.
“It’ll be views of the Washington Monument. It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it but not touching it,” the president said. “And pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”
But, upon further evaluation, the White House determined it was cheaper and more structurally sound to demolish the East Wing to construct the ballroom, rather than build an addition, the official said.
The new structure will also have enhanced security features, the official said.
Mr. Trump is raising tens of millions in private donations to fund the project, the official said. The president plans to contribute some of his own money as well, though the amount has not been determined, the official added.
johnson catman @409, yes, that’s what I thought. Trump doesn’t spend his own money. He is having grand time spending taxpayer’s money, and other funds he has grifted off of various people. He wants credit though, as if the lie about spending his own money were true.
Hours after a meeting planned for next week between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hungary was scrapped — at least for the near future — Russia hammered Ukraine in an overnight attack that stretched into the next day, killing seven people, including two children, and leaving parts of the country without power Wednesday.
The University of Virginia has agreed to abide by White House guidance forbidding discrimination in admissions and hiring, becoming the latest in a growing list of campuses striking deals with the Trump administration as the college tries to pause months of scrutiny by the U.S. Justice Department.
The agreement was announced by the Justice Department, which began investigating the admissions and financial aid processes at the Charlottesville campus in April. Federal officials accused Virginia’s president of failing to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices President Donald Trump has labeled as unlawful discrimination.
The mounting pressure prompted James Ryan to announce his resignation as university president in June, saying the stakes were too high for others on campus if he opted to “fight the federal government in order to save my job.”
Unlike some universities’ deals with the Trump administration, the Virginia agreement announced Wednesday does not include a fine or monetary payment, said Paul Mahoney, interim president of the university, in a campus email. Instead, the university agreed to follow the government’s anti-discrimination criteria. Every quarter, the university must provide relevant data showing compliance, personally certified by its president.
The deal, Mahoney wrote, preserves the university’s academic freedom and doesn’t hurt its attempts to secure federal research funding. And the university won’t have external monitoring by the federal government beyond quarterly communications with the Department of Justice.
If Virginia complies, the Justice Department said it would officially end its investigations.
Virginia’s settlement follows other agreements signed by Columbia and Brown universities to end federal investigations and restore access to federal funding. Columbia paid $200 million to the government, and Brown paid $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations.
[…] Much of the federal scrutiny centered on complaints that Ryan was too slow to implement a March 7 resolution by the university’s governing board demanding the eradication of DEI on campus.
As a public university, the University of Virginia was an outlier in the Trump administration’s effort to reform higher education according to the president’s vision. Previously, the administration had devoted most of its scrutiny to elite private colleges, including Harvard and other Ivy League institutions, accused of tolerating antisemitism.
Since then, the White House has expanded its campaign to other public campuses, including the University of California, Los Angeles, and George Mason University.
[…] The Justice Department expanded the scope of its review several times and announced a separate investigation into alleged antisemitism in May.
Among the most prominent critics was America First Legal, a conservative group created by Trump aide Stephen Miller. […]
Similar accusations have embroiled George Mason University, where the governing board came to the defense of the president even as the Education Department cited allegations that he promoted diversity initiatives above credentials in hiring. On Aug. 1, the board unanimously voted to give President Gregory Washington a pay increase of 1.5%. The same day, the board approved a resolution forbidding DEI in favor of a “merit-based approach” in campus policies.
The University of Virginia deal with the Justice Department did not include one of the investigations the federal government had launched into the college. The Education Department had included the Charlottesville campus in a March 10 list identifying 60 universities that were under investigation for alleged antisemitism. [Bogus excuse from the Trump administration.] […]
Three dozen members of Congress, including two Republicans, asked Wednesday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explain why the Pentagon has pushed back its cleanup of ‘forever chemical’ contamination at nearly 140 military sites nationwide.
[The Texas Tribune] asked [Gov. Greg] Abbott for his and his staff’s emails with Elon Musk and Musk’s companies. The governor’s office won’t turn them over, saying some contain ‘intimate and embarrassing’ information that is ‘not of legitimate concern to the public.
Yeah, that sounds like something Fox News would do.
On Wednesday, Fox News defended President Donald Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing, pointing to minor changes President Barack Obama made to turn a tennis court into a basketball court while he was in office.
Trump has come under fire from prominent Democrats and preservationists for the massive construction project. To rebut these complaints, Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy argued that Trump’s gaudy ballroom project is in line with other presidents’ modifications.
“In 2009, President Obama added a basketball court,” Doocy said, citing similar minor renovations to the White House, like Theodore Roosevelt’s construction of the West Wing and Franklin Roosevelt’s addition of a swimming pool. [video]
The Fox report was effectively a cut-and-paste regurgitation of the White House’s own spin, specifically a document released Tuesday complaining about “the latest instance of manufactured outrage” and “unhinged leftists and their Fake News allies” purportedly “clutching their pearls.”
The document also cites Obama’s basketball court and other projects illustrated by Fox.
But the narrative pushed by Fox and the White House is a complete exaggeration. Obama made minor modifications to an existing tennis court to add a basketball hoop. The court was then used for various events, including games with wounded military veterans.
It was nothing like Trump’s massive destruction of the East Wing.
The nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation sent a letter to the National Park Service on Tuesday, lamenting the changes and calling for a pause to Trump’s actions.
“While the National Trust acknowledges the utility of a larger meeting space at the White House, we are deeply concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself—it is 55,000 square feet—and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller, and lower, East and West Wings,” the letter said.
Of course, there was never a letter like this sent in opposition to Obama’s basketball hoop.
The East Wing destruction comes a few months after Trump paved over the historic Rose Garden, turning it into a gathering spot for wealthy donors reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago property.
Republicans have gone along with Trump’s radical changes to the White House, which is very different from 2001, when they were so mad for supposed destruction of White House property by the Clinton team—a prank involving the removal of a few “W” keys from keyboards to mess with President George W. Bush—that a federal investigation was launched into the matter.
But now as White House walls crumble and fall, Republicans remain silent—as do their propaganda allies at Fox.
“Today, I’m officially starting ‘Hot Girls For Cuomo,’ so if you are a hot girl for Andrew Cuomo, I want to hear from you,” preternaturally stiff conservative influencer and PragerU presenter Emily Austin announced in a video posted to Xitter on Tuesday.
From the amount of takers she got, you would almost think the guy had been credibly accused of sexual harassment by 13 women or something.
Indeed, it did not seem as though anyone, including people who said they backed Cuomo, thought this was an especially good idea. [social media post]
Unfortunately for Austin, she forgot to register a domain name before making her announcement, and some enterprising citizen decided to snatch it up themselves. Now, if you type hotgirlsforcuomo.com into your address bar, you will be taken to the 168 page summary of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into the sexual harassment claims against Cuomo that led him to resign from office. […]
The investigation summary reads:
We, the investigators appointed to conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, conclude that the Governor engaged in conduct constituting sexual harassment under federal and New York State law. Specifically, we find that the Governor sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees by, among other things, engaging in unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.
Our investigation revealed that the Governor’s sexually harassing behavior was not limited to members of his own staff, but extended to other State employees, including a State Trooper on his protective detail and members of the public. We also conclude that the Executive Chamber’s culture—one filled with fear and intimidation, while at the same time normalizing the Governor’s frequent flirtations and gender-based comments—contributed to the conditions that allowed the sexual harassment to occur and persist. That culture also influenced the improper and inadequate ways in which the Executive Chamber has responded to allegations of harassment.
You know who doesn’t have a 168-page investigation into sexual harassment of anyone? It is Zohran Mamdani, who would clearly be a much better mayor for the women of New York City (and, in fact, everyone in New York City) […]
The announcement itself was actually cut from a segment from the very first episode of Austin’s new YouTube show, in which she interviews Cuomo not about what he might do the for the city, but rather about the horrors that await New York should Zohran “Not A Sex Pest” Mamdani become mayor.
Asking what it would be like under Mamdani, Cuomo explained that no one really knows because there has never been a socialist New York. Except the thing is, we do actually know this because pretty much all of Europe is about as “socialist” as Mamdani is, and they’re doing okay!
[…] Austin then asked Cuomo what he would say to people who think “defund the police” is a good thing and what Manhattan would look like if the police were defunded — which would be a salient question if Zohran Mamdani actually planned to do that or if either Cuomo or Austin had the slightest idea what it actually means.
His take? It wouldn’t be as safe! Especially on the subways.
[…] I would point out that the things Mamdani wants to do — like making rent and food and transportation more affordable […] ’m not saying that all crimes are crimes of necessity, but it is a fact (and also just common sense) that socioeconomic stress is known to lead to higher crime rates. You just can’t put people in a situation where they feel scared and hopeless and think it won’t cause a certain amount of reckless behavior, because it will. If people are fed and clothed and warm and safe, they are going to be more likely to think straight than if they are not. Thus, you know, the entirety of civilization.
Austin then brought up that some people like ideas like freezing rent, free bus transportation and “groceries regulated by the state.” Cuomo responded by saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch, because he is just very original like that. He also seemed to be confused and thought that Mamdani was offering “free rent for 25 percent of the population,” which is not the case. It’s a four-year rent freeze, and it’s necessary because landlords can’t stop jacking up prices and people are struggling.
[…] guess what happens when people who work retail or who work in restaurants or salons or other such venues can’t afford to live in New York City? It means those places don’t have enough employees. It means there are fewer people to wait on the people who do have means. It means more crime, because the best loss prevention is just having people there, working and helping customers. […]
The average retail salesperson in New York City makes $41,000 a year. In order to afford a studio in the Big Apple, you need to make at least $150,000 a year. That’s a fairly big discrepancy. [!]
Cuomo also claimed that if you make transportation free, unhoused people will start living on trains and they will become mobile homeless shelters. I’d point out that a lot of those people can already scrounge up $2.90 for fare if they need to, and that perhaps people who aren’t actual monsters might look at that as an opportunity to get those people some help.
They both had a good laugh about how it was all just communism, and then moved to the subject of sports. Because it’s not like he has anything to offer himself, beyond just being “Not the guy who wants to help people be able to afford to live.”
And if there’s one thing “hot girls” — or let’s just say “women,” as it is just a tad less infantilizing — know or should know, it’s the difference between a guy who wants to give you a helping hand and a guy who just wants to put his hands on your ass without your permission.
The Treasury Department announced new sanctions targeting Russia’s oil sector Wednesday, the day after […] Trump confirmed that a planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Russia’s war with Ukraine was off.
“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine. Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump’s effort to end yet another war. We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”
The two companies being sanctioned are Rosneft and Lukoil and some of their subsidiaries, according to the statement.
Despite the war and battered Russian economy, Rosneft and Lukoil are worth more than $50 billion each and are two of the biggest companies listed on the Moscow Stock Exchange. [!]
[…] Last week, it appeared that relations between Washington and Moscow were warming after Trump held a call with Putin on Thursday and after Trump did not approve Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles in a meeting on Friday.
Trump’s latest peace push hit a roadblock during a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, according to senior figures on both sides.
Lavrov became “exercised” during the call, a Trump administration official told NBC News. He reiterated Russia’s refusal to agree to an immediate ceasefire before talks begin, a key demand of Kyiv and Europe that the United States has backed.
[…] Trump has been under pressure from Zelenskyy, European nations and members of Congress from both parties for months to intensify U.S. sanctions on Russia.
The nation’s second-largest measles outbreak this year is spreading beyond its epicenter along the Utah-Arizona border.
Most of the known measles cases — 123 as of Wednesday — are linked to a tight-knit community of twin towns: Colorado City, in Mohave County, Arizona, and Hildale, which is in Washington County, Utah. Within the past few weeks, there have been three cases in nearby, larger towns, such as Hurricane and St. George, Utah. Those exposures occurred in hospital and urgent care settings, according to the Southwest Utah Public Health Department.
There is no discernible border; residents live, work and worship [mostly Mormons there] interchangeably between the two towns.
Many of the clusters started in schools, said David Heaton, public information officer for the health department. “But now we have community spread,” he said.
Measles has also reached Iron County, just north of the current outbreak.
The new areas are popular tourist destinations in southwest Utah, which is also home to Zion National Park. [!!]
All three affected counties have vaccination rates far lower than the 95% experts say is needed for herd immunity.
According to an NBC News data investigation, the vaccination rate in Iron County is 82.4%. In Washington County, it’s 79.2%.
It’s even lower in Mohave County, Arizona, at 78.4%. [map at the link]
[…] Across the United States, 77% of counties and jurisdictions have reported notable declines in childhood vaccination rates, according to NBC News data.
And the percentage of kids who didn’t get their recommended childhood vaccinations rose again last school year, continuing the post-pandemic trend of people opting out of vaccinations.
During the 2024-25 school year, 4.1% of kindergartners — about 138,000 kids — had vaccination exemptions, surpassing the previous record high of 3.7% during the prior school year.
Nearly all exemptions are listed as nonmedical, meaning the kids aren’t getting vaccinations for religious or other personal reasons. [!]
Despite the government shutdown, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to tally national measles cases.
As of Wednesday, it reported 1,618 cases spread across 42 states, up from 1,596 last week. It’s the most measles cases in the United States in 33 years. [!]
birgerjohanssonsays
Trump Explodes After Question About Screwing American Farmers , absurdly claims his tariffs have ended eight wars.
“The recruits have had criminal backgrounds or failed drug tests or were unable to meet physical or academic standards, raising concerns about the agency’s rush to hire immigration officers, sources told NBC News.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed new recruits into its training program before they have completed the agency’s vetting process, an unusual sequence of events as it rushes to hire federal immigration officers to carry out […] Trump’s mass deportation policy, a current and two former Homeland Security Department officials told NBC News.
ICE officials only later discovered that some of the recruits failed drug testing, have disqualifying criminal backgrounds or don’t meet the physical or academic requirements to serve, the sources said.
Staff members at ICE’s training academy in Brunswick, Georgia, recently discovered one recruit had previously been charged with strong-arm robbery and battery stemming from a domestic violence incident [!], the current DHS official said. They’ve also found as recently as this month that some recruits going through the six-week training course hadn’t submitted fingerprints for background checks [!], as ICE’s hiring process requires, the current and former DHS officials said.
[…] the process was more strictly adhered to before a hiring surge that began this summer. […]
Since the surge began, ICE has dismissed more than 200 new recruits while they were in training for falling short of its hiring requirements […]
The majority of them failed to meet ICE’s physical or academic standards, according to the data. Just under 10 recruits were dismissed for criminal charges, failing to pass drug tests or safety concerns that should have been flagged in background checks before they arrived at training […]
The officials said there is growing concern that in the Trump administration’s race to expand the number of ICE agents to 10,000 by the end of the year, the agency could miss red flags in the backgrounds of some new recruits and inadvertently hire them. […]
The Department of Homeland Security told NBC News in a statement that most of its new recruits are former law enforcement officers and former ICE officers who go through a different process.
[…] “The vast majority of new officers brought on during the hiring surge are experienced law enforcement officers who have already successfully completed a law enforcement academy. This population is expected to account for greater than 85% of new hires. Prior-service hires follow streamlined validation but remain subject to medical, fitness, and background requirements.” [Not a good excuse for lax procedures when it comes to vetting, in my opinion.]
[…] ICE has been under pressure from the White House to increase hiring […]
ICE shortened the training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia from 13 weeks to eight. The training was later shortened to six weeks, the DHS official said.
Recruits also are supposed to attest that they can pass ICE’s physical fitness test, which includes situps, pullups and running 1½ miles in under 14 minutes, 25 seconds.
Darius Reeves, who recently left his position as ICE field office director in Baltimore, said he believes the agency’s Aug. 6 decision to waive age limits so older people can join has led to more recruits’ failing the physical test.
[…] Nearly half of new recruits who’ve arrived for training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center over the past three months were later sent home because they couldn’t pass the written exam [!], according to the data. The academic requirement includes an exam in which officers are allowed to consult their textbooks and notes at the end of a legal course on the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Fourth Amendment, which outlines when officers can and can’t conduct searches and seizures.
A slightly smaller group were dismissed because they failed the physical fitness test or had medical challenges […]
Fewer than 10 of the new recruits were dismissed because ICE training leaders learned from them during the training program that they had pending criminal charges or failed their drug tests […]
The three sources said ICE’s human resources office is overwhelmed with more than 150,000 new applicants who have applied since ICE began offering $50,000 signing bonuses in August. [!!] The HR office is rushing to clear new recruits, which they believe is leading to mistakes. […]
[…] The Defense Department on Wednesday announced the “next generation” of the Pentagon press corps, including mostly right-wing outlets, following the mass exodus of legacy outlets from the building who refused to sign the department’s restrictive new press policy.
More than 60 journalists, “representing a broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists,” have signed the Pentagon’s media access policy and will join 26 journalists from 18 outlets who already had building access and agreed to the new rules, according to chief spokesperson Sean Parnell.
In a statement to X, Parnell used the announcement to denigrate the outlets that refused to sign to keep their access badges as “self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon.”
He claimed the new batch of media outlets — the majority of which appear conservative or far-right — “have created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people.”
The Pentagon declined to release a list of the new media outlets to The Hill, but posts to social media on Wednesday indicate that the additional journalists work across far-right websites such as Human Events; its sister company, Canadian website the Post Millennial; the National Pulse; The Gateway Pundit; and LindellTV, started by MyPillow CEO and President Trump ally Mike Lindell. [!]
Also included are Just the News, right-wing podcast host Tim Pool’s Timcast, Turning Point USA’s media brand Frontlines, and a Substack-based newsletter called the Washington Reporter.
They will join the likes of One America News Network, the Federalist, and the Epoch Times, a handful of foreign outlets, and freelancers and independent journalists who already had a press badge, though only One America News Network regularly reports from the building.
Every major television network, wire, publication and radio outlet reporter — including for the conservative Fox News, Newsmax, the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner and the Daily Caller — refused to sign the policy, under which journalists could be deemed a vague “security or safety risk” should they ask DOD personnel for information deemed sensitive or unclassified that’s not authorized for disclosure.
The Pentagon Press Association issued a blistering condemnation of the policy, accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and defense leadership of trying to “stifle a free press” by sending “an unprecedented message of intimidation to everyone within the DoD.” [True]
The rules also follow a steady stream of directives out of Hegseth’s office that have sought to severely kneecap press access and accommodations in the Pentagon since the start of the year, even while insisting this is the “most transparent administration ever.” [!]
Former CNN reporter and longtime Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, who has criticized Hegseth over the press rules, on Wednesday called out Parnell over his comments, pointing out that the ousted reporters continue to cover the building.
“First we wish any legitimate journalist well on their journey to cover the news. But ‘your’ government announcement of a next gen press corps is shall we say beyond odd,” Starr posted to X. “The Pentagon press corps still is working every day no matter how afraid of it you all seem to be. ‘Self deport’? Naw. Too busy working!”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Via Greg Gbur (physicist), “about the new MAGA narrative that Trump is doing nothing unprecedented because hey Truman totally overhauled the White House too. In short: bullshit.”
also known as the Truman Reconstruction, was a comprehensive dismantling and rebuilding of the interior of the White House from 1949 to 1952. […] the Executive Residence portion of the White House Complex was facing near-imminent collapse, and it was deemed unsafe for occupancy. […] over the next three years, the White House was gutted, expanded, and rebuilt.
[…]
When the Trumans moved into the executive mansion in 1945, they found it badly in need of repair after twelve years of neglect during the Great Depression and World War II. In 1946, Congress authorized $780,000 ($11 million in 2020 dollars) for repairs. […] In June 1948, a leg of Margaret Truman’s piano crashed through the floor in her second floor sitting room and through the ceiling of the Family Dining Room below. Investigators found the floor boards had rotted, the main floor beam was split completely through, and the ceiling below had dropped 18 inches (46 cm). […] investigation concluded that the problem was a collapsing building, not just a floor, and “heroic remedies” would be required. […] investigators discovered that the foundations of the interior walls supporting the upper floors and roof were all but non-existent. As they sank into the ground, the interior walls and floors were pulling away from the exterior walls leaving large gaps. They determined that the interior of the house was sinking and in danger of collapsing inward
[…]
many of the interior items—from doors, trim, woodwork, and ornamental plaster—would be reused. Most were carefully dismantled, labelled, catalogued, and stored. Much of the paneling was reinstalled in the main public rooms, but other historic elements were simply copied to accommodate increasing cost and time constraints.
[…]
The reconstruction retained the historic exterior but removed most of the interior’s link to the past. […] Jacqueline Kennedy’s restoration a decade later sought to restore this link through the return of historic furnishings, artwork, and interior details. Bess Truman was responsible for creating the Lincoln Bedroom
[…]
To bring the White House’s history closer to the people, President Truman conducted the first television tour of the White House on April 22, 1952, and opened the mansion to public tours; previously tours were only by way of Congressional appointments.
He’s now demolished basically the entire East Wing of the White House. […] destroyed without congressional approval or oversight. It was done without any input from the people. Trump lied about it. That entrance of the east wing is an area where most tours entered […] So many people had memories of visiting the White House. The area that built those memories is now gone. […] Despite what MAGA will try to spin you, this is a disgusting thoughtless destruction of American history, and it is absolutely nothing like what Truman HAD TO DO to the White House to keep it from falling apart.
Trump administration officials confirmed to various outlets on Wednesday that the White House’s East Wing will be demolished “within days”, a revelation given the administration has not submitted plans for the new ballroom to the federal agency that oversees construction of federal buildings.
The Trump administration laid out plans for the demolition before getting approval for the construction afterwards some time ago. At the time it was likely meant as a way to put pressure on getting the construction approved. The approval committee is headed by a guy Trump appointed and had their rubber stamps in hand but there are procedures that take time.
The approval committee is not working due to the shut down. Now the administration is likely to just go ahead with construction and say they had no choice because the White House couldn’t be left with part of the building demolished.
“Rather than allowing that to hurt a very expensive, beautiful building,” he continued. “In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure.”
This is Trump naturally. The project is getting bigger and more expensive already, before the demolition of the existing building is done. What I have not seen so far is how Trump intends to personally extract some money from the project. Trump may be in this one just to put a personal stamp on the White House but I expect he has some scheme to extract money. This is one thing Trump is actually good at, having spent decades figuring how to personally profit from construction project money that was not meant for him.
n the last few years, video and other content created with artificial intelligence have begun to flood almost every part of the internet. It has appeared everywhere from Spotify to the Kindle Store. But on social media, it is almost unavoidable. William Brangham takes a deep dive into the world of “AI slop.”
Plus from the same program on the debate debate here :
The assassination of Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to the ways Americans debate and engage in political dialogue. Kirk was known for his back-and-forth conversations with students and moments that often went viral. Judy Woodruff reports on the spectacle that debate has become in the U.S. and what it means for our ability to disagree. It’s part of her series, America at a Crossroads.
[…] The New York Times reported from a Wednesday afternoon event in the Oval Office:
Trump, for the second day in a row, falsely said that grocery prices are ‘way down’ and that inflation was not affecting prices, except for beef. The last publicly available data showed inflation rising to nearly 3 percent in August. In addition to meat, prices also rose for fruits and vegetables, chicken, fish and eggs, new and used cars, and clothing.
It’s not exactly a secret that the president routinely tries to deceive the public, but he’s been especially eager lately to lean into his lies about groceries, repeating the line several times in the last week.
The obvious problem with the claim is that it’s plainly and demonstrably wrong. There are a variety of reasons grocery costs have climbed over the last year, outpacing inflation, but the bottom line remains the same: Trump’s repetition of the lie hasn’t made it true.
[…] American consumers go to grocery stores all the time, and they know that prices haven’t gone “way down.” Trump can’t simply wave his hand and Jedi mind-trick the public into being happy about rising costs.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week, “Inflation in the grocery aisle is picking up, and stinging consumers. Consumers said they are cutting back on purchases, stockpiling certain foods or exploring more-affordable stores.”
The same article quoted a clerk manager at a store in Chicago who said of his customers, “They’ll come in and say, ‘What the f—?’ It happens all the time.”
Common sense might suggest that any political leader would have the good sense either to avoid the subject or to express some degree of sympathy for angry consumers. But Trump, reluctant to acknowledge his long list of failures, has instead decided to tell grocery-buying Americans not to believe their lying eyes (or wallets).
If that weren’t quite enough, let’s not forget that Trump’s Department of Labor quietly warned that grocery prices are likely to get noticeably worse as the White House’s anti-immigration crackdown continues.
It seems likely the president would respond to those price hikes by insisting that actually prices were falling, but there’s no reason to believe those lies would work.
By its own admission, the Trump administration has expanded its lawless attacks on supposed drug-smuggling boats from the Caribbean to the Pacific.
The U.S. military has conducted two strikes that we know of in the Pacific, bringing the total number of attacks since the campaign began to nine, with a reported death toll of 37. The Pacific attacks took place in international waters, and at least one of them was off the coast of Colombia, according to reports. [map]
Throughout the weeks-old campaign, nearly all of the publicly available information about the attacks has come from the notoriously unreliable Trump administration. The campaign has also happened in parallel with an administration purging of the reporters who usually cover the Pentagon, most of whom gave up their press credentials rather than accede to a restrictive new media policy. What remains to cover the Defense Department on-site is a hodgepodge of mostly right-wing media outlets that agreed to sign on to the new restrictions.
The combination of fewer reliable reporters at the Pentagon and compromised news outlets taking their place could hardly come at a worse time given the administration’s own struggles with truth-telling. Well before Trump, the national security realm was one of the hardest to cover for journalists, and the structure and traditions of American government gave overwhelming deference to secrecy and security at the expense of transparency and accountability.
Even now, the campaign is being waged on the basis of a secret memo from the Trump DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, and the president has issued a secret presidential finding authorizing the CIA to conduct covert operations in and around Venezuela. Congress and the American public have been kept in the dark about the legal basis for the attacks, their ultimate goal, the larger strategy, and the endgame.
Similar practices in past administrations have created enormous historic tensions between democratic processes and military/intelligence operations. But no past administration has launched military operations at the same time it is conducting a vigorous, sustained, and broad-based attack on the rule of law, the constitutional order, and the professional military like President Trump is. [!]
It’s a bad combination at a bad time … something earlier opponents of government secrecy, deference to the military, and extrajudicial killings warned would eventually come back to bite us.
Late yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to rehear en banc a decision that paused a lower court order that blocked National Guard troops from being deployed in California. A total of 11 judges joined in a powerful dissent by Judge Marsha Berzon, TPM’s Kate Riga reports.
To make sense of the three big National Guard cases — California, Oregon, and Illinois — and the current legal status of each case, I’ll defer to Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck who does a bang-up job this morning of sorting out the various moving parts.
The full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to rehear a panel’s order allowing National Guard troops to deploy to California, prompting the dissenting judges to pen lengthy warnings about the danger the United States now faces.
“The democratic ideals our nation has consistently promoted for the last quarter millennium will be gravely undercut by allowing military force and weapons of war to be deployed against American citizens on U.S. soil on the flimsy grounds asserted here for this use of Executive power,” wrote Judge Ronald Gould, a Clinton appointee, in a separate dissent from the group’s.
[…] The dissenting judges, led by judge Marsha Berzon, a Clinton appointee, acknowledge the oddity of a request for rehearing of a preliminary stay granted before the case entered the merits stage. But, she wrote, the danger of erring so badly in favor of presidential deference has already snowballed, as Trump has sent soldiers into Portland, Washington, D.C. and Chicago over the objection of local officials and has promised to do the same to other blue cities imminently.
“We deal not with an armed uprising, a foreign invasion, a civil war, a state government’s refusal to enforce federal court orders, or a strike that threatens to bring the nation to a standstill,” she wrote. “Instead, the President’s purported basis for federalizing the National Guard is to respond to less than two days of sporadic protests involving low-level violence and property damage that state, local, and federal law enforcement was competently addressing. Never over the course of our long history has a President attempted to pass off such ordinary circumstances as an emergency justifying the domestic deployment of military forces.”
The same panel heard oral arguments in the case on Thursday. Elsewhere, a request for a rehearing at the same circuit court is percolating out of the Guard deployment in Portland. And the Trump administration has requested intervention from the Supreme Court, after a panel on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court order blocking the deployment to Chicago.
“The recent record of the Supreme Court does not give much reason to hope that they will take a careful approach to the legal issues here, or that they will consider reining in a President who has massively overstepped his authority,” Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, told TPM. “I expect a ruling from the Supreme Court, probably on the shadow docket, that is favorable to the federal government.”
Read the statement and dissent from the en banc dissenters here: [PDF is available at the link].
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump held a news conference in the Oval Office in which he bragged about tearing down the entire East Wing of the White House for his pet ballroom project. The cost of the endeavor, which started at $200 million over the summer, is now a whopping $300 million.
Holding up pictures of the gilded ballroom—so hideously ostentatious it would make Saddam Hussein blush—Trump again claimed that the project is “paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine.”
However, the White House is not releasing a full list of the donors, nor how much they are giving—making the whole thing reek of corruption and a possible pay to play scheme.
We do know some of the donors and how much they gave, such as Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, contributing $22 million. This was from a settlement for Trump being banned from YouTube after fomenting the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Other major company leaders attended a fundraising dinner at the White House for the project earlier in October, but it’s unclear just how much they ponied up to make Dear Leader happy to avoid possible retribution from the authoritarian wannabe occupying the White House. […]
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)— Mike Johnson had no comment on Thursday after Donald J. Trump demolished the House Speaker’s family home.
Johnson had reportedly been asleep when a backhoe came crashing through the wall of his master bedroom, sending the Speaker and his wife fleeing for safety.
At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt offered scant explanation for Trump’s decision to level Johnson’s dwelling, saying only that he “felt like it.”
After initially refusing to comment, Johnson told reporters that he was “sure the President had a perfectly good reason for doing it” and invited Trump to total his car.
“Inside the Trump Administration’s Bluesky Invasion”
“On Friday, after months of internal discussions, federal agencies began posting on the left-friendly social network. Within days, they dominated a list of the most-blocked accounts.”
[Since] February, the White House had considered creating a Bluesky account. What began as talk of setting up an experimental account turned into a more strategic decision last week. As the government continued into shutdown, members of the White House’s digital team decided to take its shutdown messaging to the predominantly left-wing platform as part of a coordinated blitz with several other federal agencies that officials described as an effort to “reach all audiences.”
[…] The White House is now on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Truth Social, TikTok, YouTube, and X. [I snipped some blather-ish statements from the White House, most of which were propaganda about informing all of the American people.]
[…] Instead of conscientious outreach across the aisle, the Trump administration’s Bluesky launch mixed trolling and partisan messaging, creating instant backlash.
“Give us a follow so we can update you on how the Democrats’ partisan shutdown is harming America’s national security,” read one of the State Department’s first posts on the platform. “We also heard this is a great place to research visa revocations.”
“We are new here,” the Department of the Interior said in one of its first posts on Friday. “Anyone want to talk about how climate change isn’t the biggest threat to our country and that it’s actually losing the AI arms race to China?”
[…] Asked about the tone of these posts, a White House official suggests the administration is using the same voice they’ve used online all year. […] The Trump administration has spent the year leaning into memes and trollish behavior on platforms like X. On Saturday, Trump posted an AI-generated video to Truth Social of himself piloting a fighter jet that dumped feces on “No Kings” protesters and liberal content creator Harry Sisson. […]
The coordinated launch sparked backlash from Bluesky’s user base, which created and shared lists making it easier for others to block all of the administration’s accounts at once. As of Tuesday, a dozen of the 20 most blocked accounts were created by the Trump administration last week. [Good]
The White House account has drawn only around 12,000 followers. More than 100,000 users have the account […] Vice president JD Vance, who registered in June, still holds the title of the most blocked account, with more than 166,000 users blocking him. [LOL]
[…] According to an administration official who was granted anonymity to speak freely, the decision to launch all of the accounts at once was deliberate. […]
“We welcome The White House and other government agencies to Bluesky,” a Bluesky spokesperson told WIRED. “We reached out to them right as they joined and verified their accounts.”
Billy McLaughlin, former White House director of digital content, defended the administration’s decision to join Bluesky. “The rollout was seamless, the intro video landed perfectly, and the digital strategy remains one of the most sophisticated in modern politics,” McLaughlin says.
A mandate from parent company Microsoft to hit a profit margin of 30 percent may be partly behind Xbox’s decision to lay off hundreds of workers and raise the price of hardware and its Game Pass subscription service in the last year.
30% margin is a looking for a reason to get rid of the division level. Companies have hit that in short bursts when producing a top tier hit game but nobody can do that reliably. It explains why the division has made some profit now/ruin the company down the road decisions.
As part of a huge company there can be some manipulation of where expenses are allocated but that may or may not work in the XBox groups favor. Rumor has had it that a bunch of executive at Microsoft want to get rid of the XBox division but the stock holders are not big on the idea.
In fall of 2023, chief financial officer Amy Hood reportedly set a company-wide goal of 30 percent “accountability margins.” According to Bloomberg, this is the term Microsoft uses instead of “profit margins.”
“Accountability margin” is some painful level of corporate jargon speech.
birgerjohanssonsays
NB!
Phil Moorhouse:
Trump’s Secret Gaza Plans Accidentally Revealed by Witkoff
Witkoff says the plan goes back two years- BEFORE Gaza was flattened!
And we know the peace deal between Trump and Netanyahu is exactly the same as the one Biden suggested a year ago, and Netanyahu was the only one who opposed it.
So Witkoff and Kushner had advance knowledge that the city would be flattened, and Netanyahu held off agreeing to the plan while Biden was in office, and while some buildings remained standing.
“Remember when Trump vowed to cut consumers’ energy costs in half? And then failed? He’s now making the same pitch again ahead of Election Day 2025.”
Desperate to return to power, Donald Trump made all kinds of outlandish promises to voters last year, including a rather specific vow related to consumers’ energy costs.
“We intend to slash prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months,” the then-Republican candidate said in August 2024. Trump went on to claim, “We’re looking to cut them in half, and we think we’ll be able to do better. … You will never have had energy so low as you will under a certain gentleman known as Donald J. Trump. Have you heard of him? So we think your energy bills will be down by 50% to 70%. How good would that be?”
In theory, it would have been quite good indeed. But as the first year of Trump’s second term nears its end, the president has failed spectacularly to deliver on his promise. As the editorial board of The New York Times recently explained, “Electricity prices are almost 10 percent higher than they were a year earlier, according to the most recent numbers.”
[…] the Times’ editors added that the Republican administration’s energy policies “are not helping — and will soon make matters worse.”
Economist Paul Krugman recently published a related analysis, adding, “Can we blame Trump for rising electricity prices? Not yet. The AI boom began well before Trump won the election, and the grid just wasn’t ready. Trump is, however, doing all he can to make the problem worse — boosting crypto and AI while blocking the expansion of renewable energy, which has accounted for the bulk of recent growth in electric generating capacity.”
That’s the context in which we should consider the remarkable message the president published to his social media platform on Wednesday afternoon. It read in read in part:
For all of those people voting in New Jersey and Virginia for Governor, Attorney General, or any other position, please remember this: A REPUBLICAN VOTE MEANS A DRASTIC DROP IN ENERGY PRICES AND ENERGY COSTS, A DROP LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE! … If you vote Republican, your Energy Costs are going to go down, tremendously! … SO, GO TO THE POLLS AND CUT YOUR ENERGY COSTS IN HALF! [blatant lies]
Yes, with less than two weeks remaining before Election Day in Virginia and New Jersey, where the Democratic gubernatorial nominees appear to have modest, but not overwhelming leads, this is the campaign pitch Trump is rolling out in support of his party’s nominees.
It’s identical to the pitch he brought voters a year ago, which has proven to be an extraordinary failure.
But the president expects voters to fall for the same absurd lie twice.
birgerjohanssonsays
This is going to TRIGGER the Trump supporters in red states
If New York and New England broke away, it would be one of the most economically strong nations in the world. The same goes for California.
The MAGA states would have to make do without the huge subsidies that are paid by blue states. I absolutely recommend rubbing this in the face of MaGAs who fantisize about seceeding from the librul North.
[…] Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering while heading the cryptocurrency exchange, the White House said Thursday.
The pardon of Zhao, widely known as CZ, came two months after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family’s own crypto venture, which has generated about $4.5 billion since the 2024 election, has been helped by “a partnership with an under-the-radar trading platform quietly administered by Binance.”
[I snipped blather from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. She provided bogus excuses for Trump’s corrupt actions.]
[…] “Deeply grateful for today’s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice,” Zhao wrote in a post on X.
“Will do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto and advance web3 worldwide,” he wrote […] [social media post]
[…] Zhao had been charged with violating the Bank Secrecy Act for failing to “implement an effective anti-money-laundering program and for willfully violating U.S. economic sanctions “in a deliberate and calculated effort to profit from the U.S. market without implementing controls required by U.S. law,” the DOJ said.
[…] He was sentenced in April 2024 to just four months in jail.
Federal prosecutors had asked a judge to sentence Zhao to three years in prison.
Leavitt noted that […] “The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”
On Wednesday, former President Barack Obama called out […] Trump’s push to gerrymander congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections and endorsed the California ballot initiative seeking to counter Trump’s power grab.
Obama appeared on a video call with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to support that state’s Proposition 50, which would pause independent redistricting and instead allow lawmakers to draw congressional maps in response to Republican gerrymandering in other states. [video]
“Our current president and his administration is explicitly saying that we want to change the rules of the game midstream in order to insulate ourselves from the people’s judgement,” Obama said.
Obama further noted that Republicans want to change the maps “before any election in which they’re worried they might lose—they want to tinker around to see if they can give themselves an advantage.”
Traditionally redistricting occurs on a ten-year cycle, following the census after which adjustments can be made to congressional districts based on population changes. Instead, Republicans are trying to accelerate the process and eliminate districts where voters have backed Democratic candidates.
Recent polling has shown strong support for Proposition 50 and GOP-aligned groups opposing the ballot measure have been scaling back advertising ahead of November’s elections.
Trump is still pushing strongly to lock in the current, narrow, Republican majority in the House that has refused to fill its constitutional role of providing oversight of his presidency.
[…] Democrats currently hold an aggregate lead of 2.6 percentage points over Republicans in polling of the generic congressional vote. In eight of the ten most recent national polls the lead has gone to the Democrats.
As Obama explained, the motivation for Republicans in pushing to rig the process is abundantly clear.
“EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Anglican Church archbishop accused of sexual misconduct, abuse of power”
“An attempted kiss, cash payments and other allegations roil the Anglican Church in North America.”
The Anglican Church in North America — forged from the headline-grabbing conservative revolt against the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop — is now confronting allegations by clergy and parishioners against two of its top leaders: One is accused of sexual misconduct, while the other allegedly abused his power by allowing men with troubling histories into the church.
The denomination’s senior-most official, Archbishop Stephen Wood, 62, has been accused by a former children’s ministry director of putting his hand against the back of her head and trying to kiss her in his office in April 2024. The incident allegedly occurred two months before he was elected to the helm, according to a new church presentment, which The Washington Post obtained in advance of its Monday submission.
The woman […] also accused Wood of giving her thousands of dollars in unexpected payments from church coffers before the alleged advance. Wood, a married father of four sons, remains the rector of St. Andrew’s Church in the Charleston, South Carolina, area, and a bishop overseeing a diocese of more than 40 churches across the South. [!]
If the presentment triggers an ecclesiastical trial, Wood could be defrocked and forced to step down. He is the first archbishop in the Anglican Church in North America to face a presentment, a denomination spokeswoman said.
[…] The presentment — a report that chronicles formal allegations of canonical offenses — is unfolding amid a protracted ecclesiastical trial against another leader, Stewart Ruch III, an Anglican bishop who oversees a diocese of 18 churches in the Midwest. Parishioners and clergy have accused Ruch, 58, of allowing men with histories of violence or sexual misconduct to worship or hold staff or leadership roles in his diocese. [!]
[…] Founded in 2009, the denomination has churches that span 49 states, plus several regions in Canada and Mexico. […] In the suburbs of D.C., the Falls Church Anglican in Virginia — with about 1,400 Sunday worshipers — is one of its largest and includes among its members the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, a federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump, and a former chief executive of a massive Republican super PAC.
The denomination, which identifies as a “province” of a global network of orthodox Anglican churches, anchors itself in the Old and New testaments and the Book of Common Prayer, while supporting causes embraced by political conservatives.
The Anglican Church in North America labels same-sex relationships as a sin and refuses to bless same-sex marriages or ordain “persons who engage in homosexual behavior,” according to the church’s canons. Women may serve as deacons and priests in some dioceses but are barred from becoming bishops or archbishops. The denomination also opposes abortion.
Beyond confronting the allegation of making an unwanted advance on his employee, Wood also faces complaints from priests that he plagiarized sermons and bullied and disparaged church staffers in the years before he became archbishop. [A bully who plagiarizes the work of others.]
In recent years, the denomination has been confronted by other controversies involving top leaders. [I snipped details of past judgements lodged against leaders.]
[…] “These are not simply lapses in judgment or isolated failures in leadership. They are symptoms of a structure designed, often unknowingly, to protect itself at all costs.”
[…] Wood preached sermons he did not write and tried to pass them off as his own work, Smith alleged. During staff meetings, Wood publicly shamed and cursed at colleagues, the letter said. Smith also questioned a $60,000 truck provided by the diocese for Wood’s church visits, noting that Wood mentioned the vehicle to him only in the context of Wood’s hunting trips.
[…] Wood frequently bragged about a woman from another church whom he said “he could have … anytime he wanted.” [So, he is a misogynistic asshole as well.]
“Changpeng Zhao helped finance the president’s stablecoin and helped put money in the Trumps’ pockets while lobbying for a pardon. Evidently, it worked.”
Related video at the link.
Just when it seemed Donald Trump’s pardons and commutations couldn’t become any more scandalous, the president appears to have dug a hole in the bottom of the barrel. The Wall Street Journal reported:
President Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the convicted founder of the crypto exchange Binance, following months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company. The president signed the pardon on Wednesday, people familiar with the matter said.
The closer one looks at the details of this story, the more corrupt it appears.
When Zhao was first prosecuted a couple of years ago, the federal case was joint effort launched by the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, who collectively argued that Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange “in part because of the crimes it committed.”
Then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen added that the company’s “willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform.”
Trump returned to power a year later, at which point Zhao, one of the wealthiest people in the world, and his allies began a campaign for a possible presidential pardon. The billionaire pursued a pardon in part by hiring lawyers and lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration; but just as importantly, Binance struck a business deal with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto start-up.
As The New York Times reported, “That deal alone is poised to generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trumps and the family of Steve Witkoff, the president’s top Middle East adviser.”
So Zhao helped finance the president’s stablecoin and advance a business deal that’s likely to put money in the pockets of Trump and his family, all while lobbying for a pardon.
Evidently, it worked.
In a written statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to defend the president’s intervention in the case by claiming that Zhao was a victim of the Biden administration’s “war on cryptocurrency.”
Among the obvious problems with this claim is that Zhao is a convicted felon who pleaded guilty to money laundering. [video]
Later during a press briefing, a reporter asked how the White House responds to fairly obvious criticisms about the apparent corruption behind Trump’s latest pardon. “The president is exercising his constitutional authority to grant clemency requests,” Leavitt replied.
[Trump is] corrupting the process; he knows he’s corrupting the process; he knows we know he’s corrupting the process […]
The Trump administration is opening up more drilling in a contentious Alaskan wildlife refuge that was restricted under the Biden administration.
It’s also approving two other contentious projects in Alaska: Ambler Road, which will enable copper and cobalt mining; and Izembek Road, which will cut through a wildlife refuge to give a remote community airport access.
The Interior Department said in a press release that it was issuing a final approval of a plan to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain for oil and gas development.
The Biden administration had limited the lands available to the 400,000 acres required by law.
The Trump administration also said that this coming winter, it will plan to auction off drilling rights there.
Opponents of such drilling have raised concerns about impacts to wildlife and tribal resources as the refuge is home to grizzly bears, polar bears, gray wolves, caribou and more than 200 species of birds and contains land considered sacred by the Gwich’in people.
However, drilling also has native proponents, who argue that oil and gas could help support the local economy.
[…] In addition, the Trump administration said it reissued the necessary permits to approve the Ambler Road project, which would provide mining access to an area with deposits of minerals including copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.
The White House has described the project as being “in the public interest” because of the need for “domestic critical minerals.”
The Biden administration had blocked the project, saying it was doing so to protect wildlife including the Western Arctic caribou herd.
The Trump administration also reapproved another road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge that would connect the remote community of King Cove to an airport — which supporters argue could be important for medical evacuations. […]
The move was met with pushback by environmental advocates and others.
“I worry every day about what’s going to happen to the brant and emperor geese if there’s a road in Izembek,” Chief Edgar Tall Sr. of the Native Village of Hooper Bay said in a written statement. “We need the brant and emperor geese because they’re nutritious and fatty from feeding in Izembek. … If the birds disappear because of the Izembek road, our community could disappear too.”
Trump calls off federal operation in San Francisco.
President Trump announced on Thursday that he has called off the deployment of federal immigration agents to San Francisco, just as they were beginning to gather at a Coast Guard base in the Bay Area.
Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he had stopped the federal action in San Francisco at the request of friends who live in the Bay Area and who vouched for the work of the city’s Democratic mayor, Daniel Lurie.
[…] Trump said Lurie had asked “very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around.” He also said tech leaders reached out to him, including Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, and Marc Benioff, the Salesforce C.E.O. and owner of Time magazine, to say that “the future of San Francisco is great. They want to give it a ‘shot.’”
“In a grim study, a team of nearly 50 researchers concludes that extreme ocean heat killed off two crucial coral species that had been building reefs in Florida since the Ice Age.”
Since the Ice Age, elkhorn and staghorn corals off Florida’s southern coast have been stacking their skeletons into elaborate, branching homes for parrotfish, eels and octopuses.
[…] researchers are using stark, new language to describe the status of the two species in Florida: functionally extinct.
“The numbers of individuals of these species that remain are now so low that they cannot perform their ecological functions in any meaningful way,” Cunning said. “This is the functional extinction of two incredibly important ecosystem engineers for coral reefs in Florida.”
Cunning and a team of 46 other researchers published a grim study in the journal Science on Thursday that assesses the damage caused by a historic 2023 marine heat wave in Florida. The findings are essentially an announcement that the two coral species have disappeared there because of extreme ocean temperatures.
The researchers determined that between 97.8% and 100% of these species’ colonies have died in the Florida Keys and near the Dry Tortugas islands. The findings came after divers from institutions across the state visited more than 52,000 coral colonies at nearly 400 sites.
[…] Heat stress has affected more than 84% of the world’s reefs in the last few years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch — a collapse so widespread that it is considered the world’s fourth mass bleaching event.
In a recent report, 160 scientists from 23 countries suggested that global temperatures have crossed a threshold for coral’s irreversible decline, the first key global “tipping point” triggered by climate change. Other tipping points include the collapse of ice sheets and rapid shifts to ocean currents.
Although that conclusion remains a subject of debate, the die-off of elkhorn and staghorn corals in Florida could bolster the argument. […]
“After months of investigating, federal prosecutors in Maryland have not produced enough evidence to bring charges, according to four people familiar with the investigation.”
The federal mortgage fraud investigation against Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, one of President Donald Trump’s chief political foes, has stalled, according to four people familiar with the investigation.
After months of investigating, the federal prosecutors in Maryland leading the probe have not produced enough evidence to bring charges, these people said.
One of the sources, a federal law enforcement official, said the investigation “came to a standstill.”
Kelly Hayes, the U.S. attorney overseeing the investigation, met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche earlier this week and asked him how to proceed, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting. The decision out of that meeting was for Hayes to pursue more evidence, and the case remains ongoing, those people said.
[…] Schiff served as the lead impeachment manager in the House during Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020. He has denied any wrongdoing in response to the Trump administration’s investigation into mortgage fraud allegations.
In a statement, Schiff’s attorney, Preet Bharara said: “It seems pretty clear that a team of career prosecutors have thoroughly reviewed the politically-motivated allegations against Senator Schiff and found they are unsupported by any evidence and are baseless.”
“The transparently vindictive effort to pursue the Senator has no merit, and if there is any justice left in the Justice Department, this should be the end of the matter,” Bharara added.
[…] in August that Attorney General Pam Bondi tapped Ed Martin, a conservative activist and former interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., to probe the allegations against Schiff.
Martin, who Bondi described as a “special attorney,” met with Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, who sent a criminal referral for the California senator to the Justice Department in May.
Pulte had also sent a referral for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who was indicted earlier this month on one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution related to the purchase of a home in Norfolk, Virginia. She has denied the charges. […]
“Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever agrees to European leaders’ fudged wording.”
Ukraine and Russia have dominated today’s talks, with Belgium playing hardball on the EU’s plan to use frozen Russian assets for a €140 billion loan for Ukraine.
Belgium, which holds most of the assets, fears legal and financial retaliation from Moscow and wants others to share the risk.
[…] the country’s leader, Bart De Wever, agreed to wording that delays a decision.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told leaders that Kyiv would prioritize domestic and European industry when spending money from the loan — but insisted on being able to buy American if needed. […]
— Ukraine is no closer to getting its reparations loan. After Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever took what one official described as a “surprisingly” uncompromising position on the use of frozen Russian assets, talks were thrown into disarray. Belgium has backed a compromise text but a draft seen by POLITICO shows the proposals have been effectively hollowed out, with the Commission simply invited to present “options” at the next Council meeting.
— That has left some delegations unhappy. “Nobody wants to be seen to be responsible for Ukraine running out of money — but there’s nothing [agreed] yet to actually send them any money,” said one diplomat. Now, the Commission will have to work with member countries (including, but not limited to, Belgium) if it wants to strike a deal at the next summit on Dec. 19.
— Viktor Orbán doesn’t care any more. The Hungarian Prime Minister wasn’t even in the room for discussions on Ukraine, only showing up later in the afternoon. He also dodged an opportunity to speak to the cameras on his way in to the meeting, where he wanted to focus minds on economic growth and cutting green rules.
— Climate proved less controversial than many thought. The draft conclusions were agreed without changes from earlier versions […] despite a number of delegations hinting the discussion could get feisty. The review of a new carbon tax and prospect of a green red-tape cutting omnibus exercise was enough to get it over the line, but the devil will be in the detail.
[…] the finalized wording simply asks the European Commission to present proposals at the next meeting of leaders in December.
That came after Belgium, which has legal control of the bulk of the funds, insisted its conditions had not been met amid legal worries.
“Political will is clear, and the process will move forward,” said one EU official, but whether a deal can reached in just over a month remains unclear.
“The three-way pact between Airbus, Leonardo and Thales would create a challenger to Musk’s SpaceX.”
Europe is finally firing back at Elon Musk.
Aerospace companies Airbus, Leonardo and Thales said Thursday they had reached a preliminary agreement to combine their space activities to create the kind of European champion that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has envisaged.
Announcing “a leading European player in space,” the companies said they would combine their satellite and space systems manufacturing into a €6.5 billion business that will employ around 25,000 people across Europe.
The three-way deal seeks to create a challenger to Musk’s SpaceX — especially in low-earth orbit satellites of the type that power his Starlink internet service. SpaceX’s projected 2025 revenue is around $15 billion.
[…] France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the U.K. will all have an interest in the new company, which will be headquartered in Toulouse in southern France but will be split out into five different legal entities to preserve sovereign interests. The governance structure mirrors that of European missilemaker MDBA.
Airbus, the European aerospace giant, will own a 35 percent stake, while Leonardo of Italy and Thales of France will own 32.5 percent each. There will be a sole yet-to-be-named CEO and managing directors for each country, an Airbus spokesperson told POLITICO.
[…] France and Germany have been vocal on the need to create continental champions — with industry chiefs from both countries recently issuing a joint appeal to Brussels to relax its merger rules to enable companies to gain scale and compete in a global setting.
In a twist of irony, the deal involves a company — Airbus — that is widely seen as the only European corporate champion ever built. With roots dating back to 1970, Airbus was created in its current incarnation through a Franco-German-Spanish merger in 2000. France and Germany each own 10 percent stakes and Spain 4 percent.
Italy has a 30 percent stake in Leonardo, which in turn owns 33 percent of Thales Alenia Space.
The new company will pool, build and develop “a comprehensive portfolio of complementary technologies and end-to-end solutions, from space infrastructure to services.” It is expected to generate annual synergies producing “mid triple digit million euro” operating income five years after closing, which is expected in 2027 […]
“Prime Minister Petteri Orpo tells POLITICO Ukraine must be equipped to match or exceed Russia’s capabilities because Vladimir Putin only responds to strength.”
Donald Trump should allow Ukraine to use America’s long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said.
In an interview with POLITICO, Orpo warned that Russia represents a “permanent threat” to European security and urged the U.S. president to grant Ukraine the weapons it needs to defend itself and bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
Orpo’s comments came as Trump announced sweeping sanctions on Russian state-owned oil firms, in the most significant step he has taken as president to put pressure on Putin over the Ukraine war.
“Putin believes only in power,” Orpo said as he arrived in Brussels for a summit of European Union leaders at a pivotal moment in Ukraine’s more than three-year war against Russian invaders. “If we want to stop the war we have to be on the same level or even stronger” than Russia, Orpo said.
After failing to persuade Putin to meet Trump for ceasefire talks in Hungary, the U.S. seems to be running out of patience with the Kremlin. On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions against Moscow’s biggest oil firms, Rosneft and Lukoil, citing Russia’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process.” [Trump could change his mind at any time. Trump has been wavering and/or inconsistent for years.]
“Today is a very big day in terms of what we are doing. These are tremendous sanctions,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “We hope that they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled.”
Trump displayed frustration with Putin’s foot-dragging in negotiations to end the invasion. “Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” he said.
But Trump added that he did not want to let Ukraine use American Tomahawks. It takes “a year of intense training” to learn how to fire the “highly complex” missiles, Trump said, and that’s too long to wait.
Finland is one of the EU’s most influential countries with Trump after its president, Alexander Stubb, bonded with the American leader on the golf course. The Finns are among the most hawkish in Europe on security as they share a 1,300 kilometer border with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy argues Putin only showed an interest in peace with Trump when he suggested he would let Ukraine use Tomahawks — and as soon as Trump took the cruise missiles off the table, Russia backtracked on peace.
So should Trump give Zelenskyy the missiles he wants? “I really hope that they can get the capabilities that they need to [counter]strike Russia and defend themselves,” Orpo said. “We know that this is a question between Zelenskyy and the United States and I really hope they can find a solution.”
[…] He added: “This is not only a question of Tomahawks. If we can find a solution on how we can finance Ukraine strongly and find a long-term solution using frozen assets it will be so strong a message to Putin that he understands that he cannot win this war. This can be a game changer.”
The U.S. flew Air Force B-1 bombers near Venezuela on Thursday, stepping up pressure on President Nicolás Maduro only days after other American warplanes carried out an ‘attack demonstration’ near the South American country. Two B-1 Lancers took off from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas on Thursday and flew near Venezuela, though they remained in international airspace, according to a U.S. official and flight tracking data.
North Korea performed its first ballistic missile tests in five months Wednesday, days before President Donald Trump and other leaders are expected to meet in South Korea.
On the big list of “worst things the administration has done this year,” the abandonment of mRNA research is a top contender: “Covid-19 vaccines, credited with saving millions of lives during the pandemic, set off a powerful alarm that rallies the human immune system against cancer and nearly doubles the median survival length of patients, according to a new retrospective study by researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Florida.”
The Washington Post report was summarized by Steve Benen.
The US State Department has removed an online portal for reporting alleged human rights violations by foreign military units supplied with American weapons. The Human Rights Reporting Gateway (HRG) acted as a formal ‘tip line’ to the US government.
In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet. It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year.
Trump is responsible. His Republican Party is not a fiscally responsible political organization.
The government shutdown is nearing its one month mark, and the pains are being felt across the nation, including inside national parks.
Retired national park leaders are fearful of how the bare-boned staffing and steady stream of park visitors might impact the long term well-being of these natural wonders. In response they penned an open letter to the Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum warning him of what’s to come.
“This summer, well before this shutdown, our parks were already being pushed to the brink by funding and staffing cuts,” the letter says, citing that parks had already been “significantly strained” prior to federal workers being furloughed. “The shutdown has made this bad situation far worse.”
Former staffers are demanding Burgum close the parks both for the safety of the visitors and for the long-term safety of the parks.
[…] though local economies are a concern, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks believes that shutting the doors to the federal lands will prevent future incidents.
On Oct. 12, a wildfire broke out in California’s Joshua Tree National Park that burned 72 acres. And in Yosemite, people taking advantage of the short staffing have snuck onto dangerous, permit-only trails while others are illegally BASE jumping from El Capitan, which is an illegal sport where one parachutes from the iconic rock formation
[…] staff morale is low as parks operate in reportedly confused and unclean conditions.
Human feces has been found outside of closed bathrooms, while wildfire monitoring—which may or may not have been in effect during the Joshua Tree fire—has been limited. [!]
Earlier this year, Trump offered a buyout to federal workers, including those staffing our national parks. At the time, more than 1,800 workers took the offer, according to The New York Times.
[…] “Our parks don’t run by themselves,” the former national park leaders wrote. “The dedicated staff of the National Park Service (NPS) keep them clean, safe, and functioning. And as these latest, and sadly predictable, incidents clearly demonstrate, our parks cannot operate without them.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Trump’s attmpt to grab a quarter billion $ hits a snag.
Oops, sorry. GJ 251 is a red dwarf with a luminosity of just 1.5 % that of the sun. So even though it is claimed the planet is within the ‘hospitable’ zone the tidal effects will be much stronger than for Earth. As the system is more than 6 billion years old, the rotation of the planet will long ago have slowed to the point it is locked with one side always facing the star and the other in darkness. When the red dwarf was young it will have stripped the atmosphere of any planets by intense flares and coronal mass ejections.
I understand news sites need to catch attention, but claiming worlds orbiting red dwarfs may host life is bordering to fraud.
For Oz and elsewhere too – helping and taking iunrefugeees isn’t just the right tjhing ethically but also pragmatically good for national economies :
Oxfam’s report, Stronger Together: The impact of family separation on refugees and humanitarian migrants in Australia, includes comprehensive modelling by Deloitte Access Economics, which shows that lifting the humanitarian intake from 18,750 now to 44,000 by 2022/23 will increase overall GDP, demand in Australia for goods and services, and the number of jobs.
Oxfam Australia Chief Executive Lyn Morgain said this report showed that not only could Australia do the right thing by people seeking refuge, but in the long run it would also benefit the Australian economy.
“The primary purpose of Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian intake is to provide refuge and support to people who have been forced to flee their home country in order to escape war, persecution, or a natural disaster,” Ms Morgain said.
“What this report and the modelling from Deloitte Access Economics shows is that accepting more refugees will boost the Australian economy as these new Australians settle in and become productive members of our society.”
New Oxfam-commissioned research conducted by Monash University concludes that keeping families together is the key to successful resettlement of refugees and humanitarian migrants in Australia, in terms of enhancing social inclusion, integration and cohesion.
Aroudn a red dwarf so instant big question mark but still
A super-Earth exoplanet in the habitable zone of its star has been detected less than 20 light-years away, putting it near the top of the list for best places to look for life beyond our solar system.
The planet, known as GJ 251c, orbits a red dwarf star 18.2 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini, the Twins. The planet’s mass is four times greater than that of Earth, making it a ‘super-Earth’ — a rocky planet larger and more massive than our own.
Plaid Cymru ousts Labour in Caerphilly byelection in Wales, rejects challenge from far-right Reform UK (Long live Free Wales! Throw out the Siche colonisers!)
Kilmar Abrego Garcia wants Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to testify at an upcoming hearing to support Abrego’s claim that his prosecution by the Trump Justice Department is unconstitutionally vindictive. The DOJ said Wednesday that it will move to quash a subpoena for Blanche and other DOJ officials.
A theme running throughout the DOJ’s opposition — and through litigation in Trump’s second term more broadly — is what’s known as the presumption of regularity. It’s a notion embedded in the law that the government acts normally and properly. The DOJ invokes that presumption here in seeking to limit the degree to which Abrego can probe official motivations and evidence.
Judges have already questioned the government’s entitlement to that presumption in Trump’s second term. Abrego’s case shows how irregular official behavior has been this year, and that’s just in one of several cases raising the rare claim of vindictive and selective prosecution. But whether these defendants can harness that irregularity to get their cases dismissed remains to be seen.
Nothing surprising here but it’s the start of an important argument. The government is leaning on the principle that the DOJ is acting properly and should not be questioned just because it’s reasons are not obvious to defendants or judges. Judges in several cases are not only saying the government is acting improperly but that it is doing so in general.
No idea how it will turn out. The prosecution of Abrego is obviously an attempt to punish Abrego for not giving in to the government and letting himself be deported. Winning vindictive prosecution is very hard. This argument is sure to bubble up to the Supreme Court over a couple of months.
For the 12th time, Senate Democrats blocked the Republican Party’s government funding legislation this week without a single senator switching his or her vote.
I have been surprised myself at how easily the Democrats seem to have held together. No Democrats holding press conferences to talk about how unsure they are of how to vote or unhappy they are with the situation. No Democrats flip flopping between yes and no with an eye towards how many yes votes they can have and still make the Republicans lose. They have stuck together as a voting block and kept a pretty consistent public message. The Democrats are standing on “This is our position and until the Republicans negotiate we are not changing it”.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told NBC News he’s taken aback by some of the Democratic posturing and rhetoric.
“I’m surprised at how open they’ve been about it,” Thune said in an interview Thursday. “That statement yesterday by that House member that they know the American people are going to suffer but this is their leverage? This isn’t about leverage. This isn’t a political game. It’s about people’s lives.”
Should have asked him if that means the Republicans will negotiate because American lives are more important then political games. Part of the reason this has worked so well against Republicans is that the Democratic position is simple and consistent. The Republicans have been all over the place trying to come up with a way to blame Democrats for what Republicans are doing. The Republicans have kept the Senate shut down and not doing anything while trying to blame Democrats for the situation.
The consumer price index showed a 0.3% increase on the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 3%, both lower than expected.
The BLS released the data specifically because the Social Security Administration uses it as a benchmark for cost-of living adjustments in benefit checks. Otherwise, the federal government has suspended all data compilation.
This report was only done because it’s needed for Social Security adjustments, which are important enough to be done even during a shutdown. The BLS then went ahead and released the report to the public.
The figures are not good but better then expected. Companies seem to have over did their initial reactions to tariffs and there has been less tariff activity recently. So companies are absorbing more of the recent shifts, leading to only higher then desire inflation, not dangerously high inflation.
Former special counsel Jack Smith is requesting that Congress and the Justice Department allow him to testify publicly, according to a new letter he sent Thursday to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
Smith says he wants to testify “in open hearings” because of “the many mischaracterizations” around his investigations that led to criminal charges against Donald Trump in 2023 for alleged mishandling classified records and actions related to the 2020 election results.
This would be a huge gamble by Republicans but a tempting one. Doing the hearing in public raises the stakes in term of favor from Trump and general publicity. The Republicans who are experienced at this know that Smith will be a very difficult witness to pin down but that they don’t really have to catch him at a lie or mistake, only to get him to say something that make a good sound clip.
Smith’s lawyers on Thursday told the Republican committee leaders, however, that he would need reassurance from the Justice Department that “he will not be punished” for testimony, since some of the facts of his special office investigations are still under seal in court or protected by grand jury secrecy rules.
Because of the amount of grand jury testimony it will essentially require approval from the DOJ. Normally the DOJ would likely reject this out of hand or limit the public part to only a few topics but I think the Trump DOJ is likely to go for it if Congress Republicans want to do it.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Maryland Democratic Rep. David Trone joined forces on an opinion piece in the New York Times calling for new limits on how long lawmakers can serve.
“Greater turnover would mean more politicians invested in the interests of their constituents — and the nation as a whole — over those of entrenched and influential advocacy groups,” DeSantis and Trone wrote. “It would go a long way toward restoring trust in our political institutions and reducing the influence of money in our elections.”
The talk of term limits right now is likely trying to change the topic to anything but what is happening in Congress. It will die as soon as Congress opens. Most real changes would take amendments which is a very difficult process.
I think term limits would be an improvement but there are even better alternative. It forces turn over in Congress but it wipes out the information in Congress also. Elected officials would have to turn to lobbyists to write laws even more then they do now.
Rather then a fixed term limit a system that allowed for unlimited terms but only 2 consecutive terms could be good. I also like the idea of a lottery, where some names are picked among the members holding seats for the longest period of time and capping their terms.
As for alternatives Instant run off voting is a better voting system and improves the elections with almost no downsides. It makes voting better represent what people want without overly complicating the system. Some of the reasons for term limits could be achieved by forcing physical and mental capacity tests, which I think should be applied across the government.
Tomboulides said entrenched incumbents also have a fundraising advantage.
“There is a very corrosive relationship between money and incumbency,” he said. “The special interests, the PACs, the lobbyists, they give about $10 to incumbents for every $1 they give challengers. It makes it almost impossible for outsiders to compete and get elected to Congress.”
This is one point in favor of term limits that is rarely talked about. It becomes harder and harder to replace officials that have served multiple terms. The whole system of campaign finance needs changed also but that will require the Supreme Court wising up and constitutional amendments.
“Pelosi suggested those who break the law should be held accountable, even if those people are federal agents. The attorney general wasn’t pleased.”
As this week got underway, Donald Trump’s decision to deploy federal forces to San Francisco was effectively a foregone conclusion. Though the president struggled to explain why, exactly, such a deployment was necessary, he nevertheless told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, “We’re going to go to San Francisco.”
As the week neared its end, those plans were shelved. According to a statement Trump posted to his social media platform, he reversed course in part because San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie asked him to hold off in ways the president found satisfying, and in part because Trump had heard from some billionaire “friends” who persuaded him to delay his intended “surge.”
This isn’t how federal policymaking is supposed to work, especially when it comes to deployments of armed personnel on American soil […]
Nevertheless, because officials still believed Trump’s original rhetoric, they started making plans accordingly. With this in mind, The New York Times reported:
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested on Wednesday that local police could arrest federal agents if they break California law while conducting immigration raids that were expected this week in the San Francisco Bay Area. With Border Patrol agents due to arrive, Ms. Pelosi issued the stark warning along with Kevin Mullin, a fellow Democratic representative, who represents the small slice of San Francisco that Ms. Pelosi doesn’t.
[…] Pelosi made the case that those who break the law should be held accountable, even of those people are federal agents.
Evidently, Attorney General Pam Bondi wasn’t pleased.
“If you are telling people to arrest our ICE officers, our federal agents, you cannot do that, you are impeding an investigation, and we will charge them,” the Florida Republican told Fox News. Bondi added, “You’ve got Pelosi out there saying to obstruct their investigation. You can’t do it, and we’re going to investigate her now.” [Well that’s a load of bullshit.]
To the extent that reality is relevant to the debate, the House speaker emerita didn’t tell anyone to arrest ICE agents or obstruct any investigations. Rather, the California Democrat endorsed the arrests of those who break state and local laws, which seems like the sort of statement a responsible attorney general would endorse.
[…] What’s more, it’s not just Bondi. Another former Trump defense lawyer, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, also threatened to prosecute California officials who support arresting federal immigration agents.
Pelosi has not yet publicly responded to the Justice Department’s posturing.
The Trump White House has rolled out a new version of a page on its official website about the history of the building to tout the president’s controversial ballroom project — while gratuitously trolling the last three Democratic presidents.
Based on internet archives, the longstanding webpage appears to have been updated yesterday, amid growing criticism of the demolition of the building’s East Wing. The updated version of the page calls it the “East Wing Expansion.”
The webpage includes a “Major Events Timeline” that purports to be a history of the White House itself. It begins normally enough with the building’s design and construction, its reconstruction after the War of 1812, and other historical highlights until … those come to a screeching halt in 1998: [Screen grabs]
From out of nowhere, the Monica Lewinsky scandal is slotted in as a key moment in the history of the White House. “The Oval Office trysts fueled impeachment for obstruction,” the caption reads, stretching to find the tie-in to the history of the building.
From there, it only gets worse. Much worse: [Disturbing screen grabs]
After the potshots at Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden, Hunter Biden, and trans Americans, the timeline has four entries for 2025 alone, all various gaudy additions by Trump. No mention of the East Wing demolition, which the timeline dubs as “renovations.”
As so often is the case with right-wing trolling, it is intended to get a rise from foes and knowing chuckles from allies. It isn’t some peel-back-the-curtain glimpse into the inner workings of the MAGA mind. It’s just an expression of its core asshole-ism.
Covering the trolling as news sometimes feels like a school newspaper reporting on the latest graffiti in the bathroom. And yet …
The White House website — like the East Wing (RIP) — is a public good. The staffers doing the trolling are public employees. The history of the White House as a building is a shared national story that parallels our greatest achievements, conflicts, and tragedies. Its history is our collective experience, which isn’t as tangible of a public good as the bricks and mortar, but can be vandalized just the same.
“[Trump] said he was motivated by an ad, paid for by the province of Ontario, that featured Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs in a 1987 radio address.”
President Trump said late Thursday that he was terminating negotiations with Canada over the high tariffs that he imposed on its steel, auto parts and other major exports, adding new uncertainty to the relationship with America’s second-biggest trading partner.
On Truth Social, the president said he was ending all trade negotiations with Canada because of a video ad […] that featured former President Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs.
“TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A.,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”
Mr. Trump claimed that the ad was fake and said that it had been placed “to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” which is currently considering a legal challenge to many of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada did not argue with Mr. Trump or refer to his decision to suspend negotiations. “We stand ready to pick up on those discussions when the Americans are ready,” he told reporters as he left for a summit in Malaysia that Mr. Trump is also expected to attend.
The quotes in the ad are drawn from a radio address that Mr. Reagan gave in April 1987, in which he urged Congress not to pursue protectionist policies against Japan and gave a blistering critique of the economic effects of tariffs. Although quotes are taken from different parts of Mr. Reagan’s speech and presented in a different order, there is no indication that they have been altered. [!] [social media post, with video]
It was unclear if the president had spoken to Mr. Carney or anyone in the Canadian government before announcing that he was canceling trade talks. But Mr. Trump’s Thursday missive was not the first indication that he had noticed the ad.
“I see foreign countries now, that we are doing really well with, taking ads, ‘Don’t go with tariffs,’” Mr. Trump told reporters in the White House on Tuesday. “They’re taking ads. I saw an ad last night from Canada.”
[…] On Thursday, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute said in a statement posted on social media that the Ontario ad had used “selective” audio and video from Mr. Reagan’s address. “The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address,” the statement said. The institute did not respond to a question about how the ad had misrepresented the address.
[…] “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs,” Mr. Trump wrote. [Trump is lying, or at the very least, overstating what the Foundation said.]
[…] The government of Ontario said it had spent 75 million Canadian dollars, about $53.5 million, to broadcast the ad. It began airing in the United States last week during a Blue Jays game against the Seattle Mariners, and it was scheduled to continue to air over the following two weeks.
“When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products,” Mr. Reagan is heard to say in the ad, over various images of economic activity. But, he warns, tariffs cause damage. “Markets shrink and collapse,” Mr. Reagan says, “industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs.” […]
[…] Trump said he was going to pay for the ballroom, but now that’s been dialed back to, “President Trump is generously donating his time and resources to build a beautiful White House ballroom, a project which past presidents only dreamed about.”
Thanks to O’Rourke’s [Meredith O’Rourke, one of President Donald Trump’s top fundraisers who is apparently in charge of this thing. She doesn’t work for the government. In fact, she literally works for Trump’s campaign] creative fundraising, where she—a private citizen—has partnered with the Trust for the National Mall—a private charity—which supports the National Park Service—a government agency—all of those delicious donor dollars can be laundered through the Trust, resulting in a sweet tax write-off.
Despite the Trust somehow being the conduit for hundreds of millions of dollars in ballroom donations, there’s nary a mention of the ballroom,Trump, or O’Rourke anywhere on its website.
Nonetheless, companies are falling over themselves to make donations to “The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House,” and it’s all thanks to O’Rourke.
As the government shutdown drags on, it has brought greater insight into what the Trump administration values and considers worth preserving and paying for. It’s certainly not the White House, […] his big dumb ballroom. And it also isn’t keeping our national parks functional.
Nope. It’s guns. Guns and people with guns.
Yes, while so many necessary federal workers remain furloughed, the administration has carved out another exception of workers it deems necessary for the nation’s continued functioning: the folks who make sure you can buy some of the most dangerous firearms.
Firearms examiners are now essential workers, and they are back on the job because the gun lobby said jump, and the administration asked how high.
Nothing has stopped you from buying most types of firearms during the shutdown. Americans have had no pause in their access to copious amounts of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and handguns. But if, for some reason, you needed silencers, short-barreled rifles, or pre-1986 machine guns, you were deprived of that core fundamental right for about three weeks.
But now the freedom to buy these guns—often known as “gangster weapons”—is back, baby.
These weapons are all deemed to pose an unusual danger, because well, obviously they are. Therefore, a special group of firearms examiners regulates them. And of course, because America is profoundly broken, these guns sell well.
These examiners were initially deemed nonessential and were furloughed, but conservatives couldn’t let that stand.
[…] the far-right America First Policy Institute yelled about how a gun purchase delayed is a gun purchase denied and also how Democrats are giving your health care to illegals. No kidding. This was in the gun-related press release:
Instead of focusing on reopening the government, some radicals in Congress are using the shutdown as leverage to push for taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens. The federal government should never prioritize unlawful taxpayer-funded benefits to non-Americans over its own citizens. It’s time that these radicals reopen the government and abide by the Constitution—not their own political games and egos.
[…] the America First Policy Institute couldn’t just pound the table and demand more guns. It also had to make it about those mean Democrats and those evil immigrants.
Given that the Trump administration was already making sure that federal workers who carry guns get paid, why not make sure all Americans have access to a truly staggering amount of unnecessary firepower in their private lives?
[…] In a pair of messages posted to his social media platform, Trump condemned the commercial as “egregious behavior” shortly before midnight, and in a follow-up missive published seven hours later, the president’s posture took a turn toward the hysterical.
“CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!” he wrote. “They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY. Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country.”
None of this makes any sense. The ad wasn’t “fraudulent”; Reagan did not love tariffs; the commercial wasn’t “illegal”; there’s little to suggest that the ad was intended to persuade Supreme Court justices; trying to persuade Supreme Court justices is not a crime; and the upcoming case over the White House trade policy isn’t even close to being one of “the most important” in American history.
Considered on the basis of its lie-per-word ratio, Trump’s screed was almost impressive in its audacity.
Nevertheless, on Friday afternoon, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who first launched the ad in question, announced that he’d pull the ad that sparked the president’s tantrum. Whether that will be enough to get the trade talks back on track is unclear. [social media post, with video]
Amid the uncertainty, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded in a measured way (in contrast with his American counterpart).
“We can’t control the trade policy of the United States,” he told reporters. “We recognize that that policy has fundamentally changed from the policy in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and it’s a situation where the United States has tariffs against every one of their trading partners. What we can control, absolutely, is how we build here at home. … What we can also control, or at least heavily influence, is developing new partnerships and opportunities, including with the economic giants of Asia.”
It sounds like Canada is looking for new friends to replace its old one. [yep]
This is the same prime minister who declared earlier this year that the Trump-led United States is “no longer a reliable partner.” Carney added, “The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over. … We will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States. We will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere.” [Practical and true.]
That pivot, evidently, is ongoing — and likely to keep spinning in response to Trump’s erraticism.
“President Trump and his administration have politicized disaster relief,” one governor said, “and our communities are the ones who will pay the price.”
[…] Trump published an item to his social media platform on Wednesday afternoon, announcing that he’d personally approved $2.5 million in disaster aid for Missouri. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have been especially notable as a national news story, but the context matters.
The president’s online statement didn’t just announce the relief funding, it also emphasized the number of times he won Missouri’s electoral votes, as if there were some kind of connection between his political support in the state and his eagerness to provide disaster aid. […]
Just one minute later, Trump published a follow-up item, touting his approval of $15 million for Nebraska. The minute after that, he added a third missive, announcing $25 million for Alaska — “which I won BIG in 2016, 2020, and 2024,” he wrote.
The president’s apparent eagerness to draw overt and direct connections between disaster relief funds and political considerations was ridiculous, but it was only part of a larger problem. The Associated Press reported:
President Donald Trump approved major disaster declarations for Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe late Wednesday, while denying requests from Vermont, Illinois and Maryland and leaving other states still waiting for answers. … The disaster declarations authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency to support recipients with federal financial assistance to repair public infrastructure damaged by disasters and, in some cases, provide survivors money for repairs and temporary housing.
The AP’s report added that the White House denied four requests, “including Maryland’s appeal for reconsideration after the state was denied a disaster declaration for May flooding that severely impacted the state’s two westernmost counties.”
Trump lost Maryland by 29 points last fall.
The state’s Democratic governor, Wes Moore, described the denial as “deeply frustrating,” adding in a written statement that “President Trump and his administration have politicized disaster relief, and our communities are the ones who will pay the price.”
Around the same time, Trump also denied a major disaster declaration for Vermont — a state he lost by 31 points — which suffered significant flooding damage in July. […]
President Donald Trump’s warping of the Justice Department into his personal attack dog is awful, so we have to take our joy where we can find it. And these days, you can take some joy from how the DOJ’s malicious prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey are hilariously incompetent.
On Friday, James pleaded not guilty in the DOJ’s frivolous mortgage fraud case against her. Her trial is set for Jan. 26—just 21 days after the scheduled start of Comey’s trial, on Jan. 5. And both take place in the Eastern District of Virginia, under the same unqualified prosecutor, interim U.S Attorney Lindsey Halligan.
In other words, Halligan has major trials of two of Trump’s biggest perceived enemies just three short weeks apart.
Halligan, who has her job solely to prosecute whomever Trump tells her to, had to race to the courthouse to indict Comey because the statute of limitations was running out, but there was no need to do that with James. Halligan had plenty of time to bring those charges, and an experienced prosecutor would have known to try to stagger those trials.
But Halligan is merely Trump’s goon, so she raced to indict James. And now it’ll be a hilarious pileup.
Halligan’s actions in the Comey case have been pathetic, particularly her trying to delay the proceedings, which you basically cannot do in the Eastern District of Virginia’s so-called rocket docket.
Also, Comey brought two motions to dismiss his case, which Halligan must address in the next few weeks. And James has also said she will be moving to dismiss her indictment and will, like Comey, challenge Halligan’s appointment as unlawful.
James’ attorney also filed a delightful “motion to enforce rules prohibiting the government’s extrajudicial disclosures and statements.”
This refers to Halligan recently texting Lawfare’s Anna Bower to complain about Bower’s social media post about a news article regarding Halligan’s prosecution of James. And only when it became obvious to Halligan that Bower would publish a story about the texts did Halligan demand to go off the record retroactively. (That’s not how “off the record” words, of course.)
As James’ attorney explains in the motion, it is actually an extrajudicial statement for a prosecutor to text a reporter and tell them they are wrong about something in the case! Halligan no doubt thought she was being slick by not revealing anything direct about the grand jury testimony, but it’s just as out of pocket to indicate that you, the prosecutor, have special knowledge from the grand jury that makes you able to say that reporting is wrong and the person you’re prosecuting is indeed guilty.
Halligan then added two additional extrajudicial statements. Her first—”Yes they did [get something wrong] but you went with it!”—refers to Bower commenting on and posting a New York Times’ article on X. And her second—”they are disclosing grand jury info—which is also not a full representation of what happened”—refers to the New York Times’ account of grand jury activity in Norfolk, Virginia.
Later messages from Halligan directly cite evidence that must have been presented to the grand jury, as it was also referenced in the indictment: “It says she received thousand(s) of dollars in rent.”
Come for the law, stay for the exquisite shade of the motion referring to Halligan as the “purported interim U.S. attorney” throughout.
Essentially, this motion is James telling the court to please enforce the rule that prevents the government from basically trying the case in public via dribs and drabs of confidential information no one else has.
And while Halligan is flailing on the East Coast, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is on the other side of the country, threatening to prosecute Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California for … reasons.
[…] A new poll from Quinnipiac University finds that 52% of voters say Trump is using the Justice Department to file unjustified charges against his perceived enemies. And a fresh poll from Reuters/Ipsos finds that 55% of Americans believe he’s using federal law enforcement to attack his enemies.
Trump wants to say this is justice, but America knows it isn’t. Halligan is in for a rough several months. We’re here for it.
Canadian provinces celebrate Thanksgiving?
.https://youtube.com/shorts/u9zwVtWJMFs
A photo of the Chicago Marathon accompanies this Borowitz Report.
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-claims-thousands-of-chicagoans
It’s satire, but not that much different from the delusional statements Trump makes about Portland of Chicago.
For the convenience of readers, here are few links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-1/#comment-2280451
I usually look for reasons to vote FOR specific candidates in primaries […]
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-1/#comment-2280513
New York Times: “An organization that fought abortion rights in the United States is now an unlikely conduit between MAGA Republicans and Britain’s ascendant Reform U.K. party.”
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-1/#comment-2280512
Airports in more than a half-dozen U.S. markets have declined to display a video in which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem blames congressional Democrats for the government shutdown and any related travel delays.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-1/#comment-2280510
The president is already lying about his record on grocery prices. But his administration expects his anti-immigrant agenda to make matters worse.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-1/#comment-2280501
Chinese goods getting 130 percent tariffs.
Comment #2 correction: “Portland OR Chicago.”
In other news, as reported by the Associated Press:
Other news, as reported by The Washington Post:
New York Times:
New York Times:
New York Times:
NBC News:
As reported by ABC News, the pope quoted Hannah Arendt:
Whiny Trump makes Israel-Hamas ceasefire ceremony all about him
Link
More at the link.
How ridiculuous :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-13/algal-bloom-not-toxic-sa-premier-says/105884118
For those who have forgotten or are unaware, stacks of dead sea life of all varieties have been washing up on South Aussie beaches for months now.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #5….
The obvious solution is to ban high school football (and bars).
(Do I really need a sarcasm tag? Though to be fair, banning competitive high school–and college–football does have considerable appeal…)
Source : https://www.newarab.com/news/hamas-clashes-see-dozens-killed-new-phase-gaza-begins
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/spacex-starship-rocket-flight-11-launch-success
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/dark-universe/this-might-be-the-smallest-clump-of-pure-dark-matter-ever-found
@Birgerjohannsson : Cheers for your linke d yt clip here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-1/#comment-2280532
Anti-fascist footballer Bruno Neri
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14KoVsDUJTB/
META works with Israel to delete accounts of palestinians that have documented the war in Gaza
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxZz25gZxIQt-rc62JI9ua_urpqya_tzeS
Jimmy Kimmel
“Trump Celebrates Ceasefire, Blames Biden for January 6th & RFK Claims Circumcision Linked To Autism”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=r-1ivAHjrw8
Jimmy Kimmel:
“Bill Murray on Turning 75, Performing with MC Hammer & Giving His Mom a Credit Card After He Got SNL ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=aXo9qAZ5TAk
BTW my pattern recognition function is flawed, I kept confusing Tom Hanks with Bill Murray (and many other pairs of celebrities).
This SMBC episode explains America
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/measurement
More SMBC
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/life-7
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/why-8
I think the ADF are deluded if they believe a “conservative Christian agenda” is going to fly in the UK. Farage will gladly take their money, and he wants to reduce the time limit for legal abortion, but he’s not idiot enough to make it a central plank of Reform UK policy.
Sorry, the quote @23 is from the NYT, quoted by Lynna, OM@486.
Re. Creepy crawlies.
We no longer go to the entomologist’s house for Halloween
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/treat-2
This Star Trek clip says it all.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1HvyxaC3AT/
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Trump picks a bad time to set vivid example of authoritarian self-dealing
Video is 7:04 minutes
Historic turnout expected for nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump overreach
Video is 5:18 minutes
Rambling Trump accidentally reopens questions about an election payoff
Video is 7:56 minutes
Rachel Maddow retraces civil rights leader Andrew Young’s legacy in new documentary
Video is 6:42 minutes
Maddow: Trump wants to terrify with indictments, but it will unify opposition
Video is 6:17 minutes
Today marks 14 years since Barack Obama hit an American teenager with a missile.
Remember, Obama created the pecedent for murder without trial.
I despise US politicians.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/17E7nKHN8f/
Trump IMMEDIATELY Chickens Out After Threatening China
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=rrrBeWjd9Xo
A typical yellow bully, on top of all his other personality malignacies.
KG @23, good points.
StevoR @11, yes that is ridiculous.
In other news: Pam Bondi is the attorney general, but is she calling the shots at the Justice Department?
“In several key recent decisions, Bondi was on the outside looking in, sparking new speculation about the White House’s control over Main Justice.”
I come to the conclusion that Pam Bondi is almost powerless, that Trump is running the Justice Department … and that Trump’s lackeys like Bondi are still trying to suck up to Dear Leader.
N.C. Republicans move to extend gerrymander, rewriting recent history at Trump’s behest
“GOP officials in North Carolina aren’t just eager to make their gerrymandered map even worse, they’re also peddling a bizarre lie to defend the effort.”
Related video at the link.
‘Hot mic’ catches Indonesian president asking Trump for a meeting with son Eric
“[Presdent Trump] was overheard arranging a meeting between Prabowo Subianto and Eric Trump, who runs the Trump’s family business.”
Related video at the link.
Phil Moorhouse
“Reform UK Just Broke Their Biggest Promise”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NBenMiDVqN0
D’Angelo, Grammy-winning neo-soul pioneer, dies aged 51.
Followup to comment 31.
Link
In the Middle East, Trump invests energy into misguided attacks on Democratic critics
“The Republican president, at a moment he perceived as a triumph, traveled halfway around the world and smeared prominent Americans he doesn’t like.”
The sudden Republican fixation on ‘Sharia law’ is getting increasingly weird
“Remember 11 years ago, when the right pushed a paranoid threat about the imposition of Islamic law on Americans? Evidently, the absurd fear is back.”
Democrats are effectively saying, “We need to protect Obamacare from Republicans who oppose the system,” and GOP leaders are effectively replying, “Yep.”
In the New Trump Era, the Proud Boys Are ‘Not Apologizing Anymore’
Louisiana v Callais: The Republicans Justices Are Getting Ready to Finish Off the Voting Rights Act
Alex Jones keeps losing
Good news.
More at the link.
Elon Musk’s Boring Co. accused of nearly 800 environmental violations on Las Vegas project, by ProPublica
More at the link.
I love the razor-sharp Brit sarcasm and wit by the digital ghost of Christopher Hitchens.
“The Secretary of War is UNHINGED!!!” .https://youtube.com/watch?v=waNa5Iz-Lpk
Newsweek: Fox News Rebukes Ex-Host Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon Press Access Policy
No major news organization signed the Pentagon’s new press policy. Fairly embarrassing that Hegseth couldn’t even get Fox News to sign.
The original policy was even more abusive. requiring all news be submitted to the Pentagon for approval before being made public. There was too much push back on that so it was revised. The new policy just asserts there could be negative consequences for reporting unapproved information. This still amounts to “you will report the Pentagon press release as news” and is too restrictive.
USA Today: Gov. Gavin Newsom signs law banning Glock pistols in California
Politically and practically it’s probably a mistake. Practically because it’s a narrow piecemeal ban that will just be worked around. Glock can work around the issue if they care but it’s a small enough market they may not. It is one of the most popular guns globally, they may not want to make even a small change to suit California. The people making the conversion parts will just find another way to do it. The spread of metal printing is slowly making the whole issue pointless.
More cynically automatic pistols are so ineffective it may not even save lives. Shooters with the original semi-automatic version might be more lethal. I have never seen a study of that though so take that with a big grain of salt.
Politically it’s a fairly toxic issue. It isn’t going to move anybody already left or right but might turn some independents against Newsom.
As Americans white-knuckle through a shutdown, Trump’s corruption takes center stage, by Rachel Maddow
“There’s a reason why every opposition movement to every authoritarian government focuses on the self-dealing and self-enrichment of the strongman leader.”
Related video at the link.
After all this **** you need a palate cleanser from Hell.
So here is a re-run of Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews: “TOKYO GORE POLICE”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=zNj37djaGiM
You know, if the president was a cool over-the-top supervillain who grows weapons from his own organic tissue he would at least be entertaining.
Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews: “SHOOT EM’ UP”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=z–6dDtDGX0
Clive Owen doing insane stuff is exactly what you need to tune out from a reality of slime monsters like Stephen Miller.
Trump’s newest attorney goon is in way over her head
Let’s Talk Elections
“Democrats MUST Target These Senate Seats in 2026”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=QmUWeVlKiV4
AOC speaks with Americans about GOP’s crushing health care cuts
Eric Trump concocts crazy sales pitch for his crappy book
POLITICO exposes what Young Republicans chat about when they think no one can hear them
See also: ‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat
Trump now thinks he’s king of the Olympics
Hamas reasserts power in Gaza with retribution campaign, clouding peace deal’s prospects
Washington Post link
“What Putin is crushing in Russia,” by Vladimir Kara-Murza
“The arrest of opposition leader Maxim Kruglov is a blow against the country’s last vestiges of democracy.”
New York Times:
Associated Press:
NBC News:
Washington Post:
@Lynna, OM #46
As an Argentinian, I’m beside myself with anticipation for the upcoming election in less than two weeks, whatever the results. I want to know already if our president’s Trump-assisted gambit will pay off and his party’s recent electoral misfortunes will turn around, and what will happen if they don’t. Our situation (and our president) is so unstable that neither option bodes well.
Re: Kreator P @ #61…
As a Californian, I’ll be watching the election coming in three weeks to see if Prop. 50, the counter-Texas redistricting measure, passes. It looks likely, so far, that it will…
The Humanist Report
“EXPOSED: Young Republican Leaders Admit EVERYTHING in Leaked Group Chats”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=VlOA6u6xT_A
The Guardian: Trump threatens to cut US aid to Argentina if Milei loses election
Nothing unexpected but put in terms far more blunt then they should be. Governments do this all the time, the US does it all the time and it’s a reasonable thing to do. We have no reason to help a country if they elect a government hostile to ours or supporting principles we don’t. A normal government doesn’t threaten to abandon a country simply for voting for a different political party though nor threaten to suddenly cut off support if a different person is elected. The new government is given time to lay out their policies and new agreements are negotiated. We might increase or decrease support based on the policy of the new government but sudden cuts offs are reserved for a government that is actively hostile to ours, not just having differing political and economic policy.
What Trump is really saying here is that he personally like Milei because Milei borders on the sort of corrupt authoritarian that Trump aspires to be. Argentina had better continue to support him or else.
Re: JM @ #61
Exactly right, and I’m not looking forward to finding out how many of my countrymen think that bending the knee is the better choice here. (Other, much less likely but still not completely impossible worries: electoral fraud, an eventual attempt at an authoritarian takeover if they lose).
#64, sorry.
A map of NoKings protests scheduled for Saturday, Oct 18.
Oz blocks candace owen from coming here :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-15/high-court-upholds-ministers-block-visa-candace-owens/105893248
Sackings announced at JPL despite shutdown..
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/nasa-lays-off-550-employees-at-jet-propulsion-laboratory-in-sweeping-realignment-of-workforce
I know there’s been a few of these lately but,well, here’s another possible aurare opportunity alert :
Soutrce : https://www.space.com/stargazing/auroras/aurora-alert-4-coronal-mass-ejections-are-racing-toward-earth-and-could-spark-impressive-northern-lights-this-week
Source : https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/extreme-weather-caused-more-than-usd100-billion-in-damage-by-june-smashing-us-records
NB. folks can just close the box to see the article.
Source : https://phys.org/news/2025-10-hippos-survived-ice-age-europe.html
David Pakman:
“Podcast bros suddenly running away from Trump”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NEHjQdZTPpU
They have recognised the mess and are sensing which way the wind is blowing.
Since they are not elected officials, opportunism is easy.
StevoR @ 70
If we get a Carrington Event, there is no central authority with the competence to sort out the disaster.
USA is essentially left to local leaders trying to get the grid working and repairing the damage.
Ori Goldberg, Owen Jones
‘Israel Is Vile’ – Israeli Analyst Exposes What Happens Next
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=rtlviw4rd70
Eminem – “Traitor” [Trump Diss]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Woceqe5fZZ8
History of Simple Things
“Why Were Chopsticks Invented? (It’s Not What You Think)”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=1ICp-Wu-Iv8
The original Chinese Joker probably used chopsticks as weapons to stab enemies in the eye.
Instead of King Kong assaulting high-rise buildings Gary Larson suggested the horror film “The Giraffes IV – this time they are not coming for the acacia leaves.”
Stephen Colbert:
“Meanwhile… Better When Drunk | States With The Most Gold Diggers | Swiss Guard gets a new look”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ra0YVCN2m-0
On the centenary of Thatcher’s birth, there have been calls for a memorial to her.
But Britain’s 2300 food banks fill that purpose already.
“Why do you have a dead foot?” | #TheRookie
.https://youtube.com/shorts/k0xJAujgqKo
-Is this Florida?
https://www.msnbc.com/all
Walz challenges Trump: Find a farmer who thinks this is okay
Video is 8:06 minutes
‘I love Hitler’: Leaked texts expose Young Republicans’ racist chat, Politico reports
Video is 7:17 minutes
Team Trump forced out another U.S. attorney who failed to toe the White House line
“The more Team Trump ousts federal prosecutors who’ve done nothing wrong, the more serious the scandal becomes.”
Followup to comment 53.
JD Vance tries to downplay leak of disgusting Young Republican chats
“For the vice president to suggest it’s “pearl clutching” to condemn those who were part of a racist group chat says a great deal about his judgment.”
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/did-a-nasa-exoplanet-hunting-balloon-really-crash-in-texas-not-according-to-the-scientist-behind-the-flight
Source : https://www.space.com/stargazing/solar-wind-tears-chunk-from-comet-lemmon-tail-new-astrophotography-images
I do love the youtube clip linked in that link there. Gorgeous.
As Republicans seek Jack Smith’s testimony, the former special counsel has plenty to say
“As Jim Jordan and other GOP officials drag the special counsel back into the spotlight, the phrase ‘be careful what you wish for’ keeps coming to mind.”
Related video at the link.
Followup to comment 83.
Link
Israel lobby panicking?
Prof. John Mearsheimer: “Israel is in DESPERATE STRAITS”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=La7dSCZCGmo
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/a-giant-weak-spot-in-earths-magnetic-field-is-getting-bigger-and-it-could-be-bad-news-for-satellites
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/qataris-reject-trumps-idaho-offer
Latest episode of Aussie ABC’s Planet America here – Is Trump’s Gaza ceasefire sustainable? (Plus more) – half an hour long.
Sam Lawler (Orbital dynamicist):
One WTF moment from the senile ramblings of the demented old .. President of the United States of America to the Israeli Knesset discussed here – Trump Says Megadonor (Miriam Adelson – ed) Loves Israel More Than US – just over a dozen minutes long.
@93. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : “Batteries! We need batteries, not space mirrors.”
Why not both?
WIRED link
“A Plan to Rebuild Gaza Lists Nearly 30 Companies. Many Say They’re Not Involved”
Rogue House speaker is stealing a vote from Democrats
Scott manley on the latest successful Starship flight (#11) here –
The End Of SpaceX Starship V2 – What Now? – 21 mins length.
PS. Anyone still follow that rando boat builder & blogger that some folks have cited n this blog who used to say that Starship would & could never suceed and know if he has apologised and admitted he got that totally wrong yet?
@95 StevoR:
From the thread: “giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disasters, and destroy the night sky”
PPS. Not that SpaceX and the Starship rockets success makes Musk any less’of a total nazi douchecanoe I know but the SpaceX workers sure how how to do rocket science even if that’s no credit to that nazi scum Musk.
Gotta separate the two. Musk ain’t his rocket or his private company which, well, I’d have said Cap’n Obvs and needless to say except it seems I still need to state it..
@99. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : Okay. I didn’t see that & not sure I agree but will have to check that out later.
^ Becoz I should already be asleep but obvs aren’t.. At least not entirely yet.
@100 StevoR:
You keep saying that, but Musk and SpaceX gotta separate themselves.
/By all means, sleep. I’m just posting to remind myself where that had been mentioned before. It’s nothing new for you and not worth staying up for.
StevoR (elsewhere in May):
Quoting a comment that mentioned the hostile workplace:
Scientific Frontline – Potential new therapeutic target for asthma discovered
Xi directs quashing of Chinese feminists even as he praises advances at women’s conference
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/15/xi-directs-quashing-of-chinese-feminists-even-as-he-praises-advances-at-womens-conference
“Purge, Merge, and Surge
Trump is creating a omniforce of armed loyalists to establish his police state”
https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/purge-merge-and-surge?utm_campaign=post&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Jon Stewart Starts His Talk Show Career | Late Night with Conan O’Brien
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=mAt5f6D7Wvk
Conan has not changed at all in all these years. Is he a vampire?
Very few regret a legal gender change in Sweden, study finds (this contradicts right-wing propaganda)
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-legal-gender-sweden.html
Daily Kos’s Good News Roundup to counteract some of the depression.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/14/2347841/-GNR-for-Tuesday-October-14-2025-Good-Resistance-news-from-Portland-and-much-more
@107 birgerjohansson:
Conan and Nina Dobrev make sexy vampire faces
Scientific Frontline – Antibody discovered that blocks almost all known HIV variants in neutralization assays
Judge blocks Trump’s layoffs during shutdown, calling them illegal [That’s good news.]
“The administration began laying off federal workers last Friday.”
Related video at the link.
Boston Globe:
NBC News:
New York Times:
New York Times:
New York Times:
New York Times:
New York Times:
Huffington Post:
Charlie Kirk’s Show Is Now the Trump Admin’s Forum for Detailing How It Wants To Target the Left
More at the link.
@98 StevoR:
This was addressed the last time you said that. Nothing recent on a spot check.
From Manley’s Flight 11 video: “the promise of 100-150 tons to low Earth orbit, but today it would only be carrying maybe 6 tons of simulated Starlinks”.
Trio of yt clips here, first Owen Jones Ceasefire Is OVER: Israel Killing, Bombing And Starving Gaza from 8 hours ago – 12 and a half mins.
Secondly, Caspian Report has this – Is Trump’s peace plan for Gaza doomed? which is under 15 mins.
Thirdly, Majority Report w Sam Seder’s Israel’s Next Move: Create ‘Six Little Gazas’ In West Bank | Jasper Nathaniel | TMR – here which goes for close to half an hour long.
@ 122. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : Seems to be a bit of goalpost shifting there from “it can’t work!!!1ty! “to “Oh okay it willwork but its not going to deliver sufficient payloads wahh!”
Well, thing is the SpaceX Starship did work – does work – and I’m sure it eventually will deliver sufficient payloads too.
Yeah, I don’t like the nazi scumbag Felon Musk either but that doesn’t mean that SpaceX isn’t exceeding expectations and hasn’t built an awesome and useful and incredibly impressive record setting rocket.(Seems I need to keep reminding folks of that.)
The rando boat builder blogger who some here for some reason thought was somehow more cedible than actual, literal rocket scientists incl NASA was simply proven wrong by the last two successful Starship flights as I predicted and knew he would be. Those that still consider him credible should probly adjust their views now in light of this reality.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-10-16/hand-fossil-toolmaker-bones-paranthropus-boisei-evolution/105893732
Of course, chimpanzees and gorillas have been known to use tools too but still.
Yup. SCOTUS with Trump’s fraudulent treason Injustices in charge is going to end free and fair elections inthe USoA – no doubt in my mind on that and this discussion shows one way how that’s happening right now :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-the-justices-signaled-in-a-supreme-court-case-that-could-reshape-electoral-maps
On the bright side they have atyleats rejected Alex Jones appeal – not much consolation tho’really :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/supreme-court-rejects-alex-jones-appeal-of-1-4-billion-defamation-judgment-in-sandy-hook-shooting
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites-record-largest-ocean-swells-ever-seen-from-space
@124 StevoR:
I can see how it could read it that way. Payloads had been the complaint back in March, and he was dissing the Starship program’s strategy of cutting safety margins to save weight from launch to launch, particularly when near 100% reliability is the goal. Individual rockets carrying fractional cargo without incident would not redeem the program.
Individual rockets failing, and their successor rockets failing to stop failing, would also be consistent with a doomed program.
Scientific Frontline – Easter Island’s statues actually “walked”
@98 StevoR
Apologize for what? For not being a cheerleader for Elon Musk?
Cats in an old illustration, being cats.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1CgU69HY7z/
birgerjohansson@89,
Hmm… I’m suspicious of Mearsheimer, Greenwald, and Rumble, but I must admit that was an interesting take on the Israel lobby. It’s hard to know how far the anti-Israel swing in public and even right-wing pundit/grifter opinion (which is what Mearsheimer says puts Israel in desperate straits because it threatens the USA-Israel special relationship*) affected Trump’s decision to do what he could have done at any point (after he allowed Israel to end the January 2025 ceasefire in March) – ordered Netanyahu to agree another. More important may have been Netanyahu over-reaching by bombing Doha, which Trump took as a personal affront. Mearsheimer’s point about Israel’s complete security dependence on the USA is well taken, and his assertion that it is this that has led to the Israel lobby acting with unusual openness in trying to control the media (e.g. consider TikTok, Bari Weiss).is plausible.
I’m not so pessimistic about the current ceasefire as M&G apparently are. It has given Hamas the opportunity to reclaim ground and prepare for any resumption of Israeli ground troops advancing. They will also get resupplied with food, medicine and other essentials. Eliminating a well-rooted** urban guerilla force is extremely difficult, and pulverising the place with bombs first doesn’t make it easier: it would cost a lot of Israeli soldiers’ lives. Israel could simply starve the entire population to death and Hamas (apart from prisoners in Israeli jails and leaders residing abroad) along with them – but that’s rather difficult to spin as self-defence.
Mearsheimer also says Israel has not done well against its adversaries, but that’s stretching it. OK, it hasn’t eliminated Hamas, but it has almost destroyed Hezbollah, bombed Iran more or less at its pleasure, seized more Syrian and Lebanese territory, and badly damaged the Syrian armed forces without loss.
**I don’t mean Hamas is popular – I have no idea whether it is or not. But it clearly has extensive support networks in Gaza, well beyond what any possible rival has.
https://www.msnbc.com/all
‘Kids telling edgy jokes’? Hayes shreds JD Vance’s defense of racist GOP group chat
Video is 8:38 minutes, the video provides good analysis.
Team Trump eyes changes at the IRS that would make weaponization far easier
“There were some indications that the president’s appointees were politicizing the agency in ways unseen since Watergate. The emerging picture is now worse.”
Price tag of Trump’s Argentina bailout set to double, creating Democratic opportunity
“As the cost of the White House’s bailout package roughly doubles, the political risks for the American president appear increasingly unavoidable.”
Trump pitches Justice Dept. and FBI leaders on a newly expanded enemies list
“The president continues to lobby law enforcement officials to target his foes, brazenly and publicly, driven by a sense of grievance and entitlement.”
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/pentagon-and-troops-better-watch
Trump’s bajillion-dollar fantasy
Followup to comment 118.
Alaska works to rescue storm victims by helicopter and plane in historic airlift
“A typhoon brought record-high water to two low-lying Alaska Native communities and washed away homes, some with people inside. At least one person was killed and two are missing.”
There’s an annual grant coming up for indigenous adults/families in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota: Collective Abundance Fund offers $25/50k for building generational wealth.
Apply Nov 5-19 with a spending plan for home, business, education, career, debt relief, landback, etc. and 3 letters of support. (Not for rent, emergencies, luxuries, or extractive biz)
AP: Senate Democrats, holding out for health care, reject government funding bill for 10th time
Apparently they are negotiating at this point but it’s not really gone anywhere yet. The public positions have not changed but it’s always unclear what is going on in private.
The important thing is that the Democrats are holding together as a block, the Republicans are not close to getting the vote they need. I agree with the Democrats, this is an issue worth making a stand on and the Democrats are not asking for something absurd. The Democrats are also right that they need to get what they want in the same vote, the current Republican party can not be trusted to keep any promise of future action.
Come off it, StevoR! Nothing that Will Lockett says is contradicted by the latest testflight. They did not even try to take Starship to orbit, let alone lauch 100 tonnes into LEO and return the final stage from orbit in a condition to be reused.
JM @43: And also, the Democrats cannot trust any promises made by Republicans. For example, if Republicans say they will negotiate health care after the government shutdown ends, that is NOT a trustworthy promise.
Also, anything Congressional Republicans agree to do, Trump can, and probably will, just ignore it.
The deal, if any is to be made, has to be made now, while the Democrats have some leverage.
MSNBC:
Related video at the link is hosted by Ari Melber.
Link
More details:
I doubt that this meeting will go well for anyone but Putin:
Reported by NBC News.
New York Times:
Associated Press:
Good news.
Washington Post:
“CATL’s New Sodium Battery Will Reshape the Entire EV Industry”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=-MkMgwf2lAs
Sodium instead of lihium, higher power density.
Re: birgerjohansson @ #151…
At least Sodium isn’t hard to find…there’s oceans of the stuff around all over the place…
birgerjohansson @151
The thing that impressed me was the 90% capacity at -40. A couple of years ago I talked to someone who had driven a Tesla from Calgary to Vancouver during a -30 to -35 cold snap. They said range was about half of what it was during the summer. Now, some of the range loss was probably due to heating the interior of the car. – I assume that an EV doesn’t use waste heat to keep there interior warm unlike an Infernal Combustion Engine which uses waste heat from the engine coolant to heat the interior.
@151 birgerjohansson: Sodium ion batteries are also heavier then lithium ion. CATL’s new battery is reported at 175 Wh/kg but most sodium ion are 100-150 Wh/kg, lithium ion is 200-300 Wh/kg. That would get in the way of the performance of EVs but if CATL can actually hit 175 Wh/kg at half the price of lithium it will begin to cut into EV markets.
CNN: Apparent hackers take over PA systems at 4 North American airports
There is about a good chance this is a trivial hack. Often when things like wireless PA systems are installed their security is not properly setup, leaving their default settings active and taking them over took nothing but a little knowledge of what type of system they had. If that wasn’t the case then most likely it was an inside job, somebody who knew the security passed the security information to a hacker. Those two cover the majority of hacks like this.
Young Republicans inspecting Trump’s victory arch at 3.20
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=y9qBp7XevOY
Eric Cartman doing nazi stuff really did make a strong impressions on those Young Republicans. But they are just boys. 24-37 year old boys.
.
When Englishmen talked about an “old boys” network that liked fascism, it was in the 1930s. But I see England is coming around to it again, thanks to a certain Farage.
“South Park Takes Aim At Trump & Fake MAGA Christians in Hilarious Takedown!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=AGBLGXNyJA0
Next episode will arrive at Halloween.
(BTW this episode is so gross, it actually tracks with reality)
Also… Peter Thiel is owner of a lot of surveillance conpanies. And at least part owner of J D Vance.
And he is reading what John of Patmos wrote about fire-breathing Jews and scorpion-horse-locusts to get information about the future…
Just saying.
Jimmy Kimmel:
“Trump Cashing in Bigly, GOP Calls No Kings Protest the “Hate America” Rally, JFK Jr Is Back.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=X7ZM7Htum0A
When the baby comes out of the platypus it is covered in tylenol.
BREAKING: Global Anglicanism Split in Two Today
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=IMxOLiS9DOo
So, most Anglicans don’t want gays to marry. Bye, don’t slam the door on your way out.
There are speculations that mount Etna might be facing a catastrophic flank collapse, but I have not been able to find in-depth articles on the subject.
Kiss guitarrist Ace Frehley has died at 74.
Republicans Don’t Get Jokes
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jr6w94YZH30
She is obviously in her fifties, and Republicans thought her abortion ‘plan’ was serious.
https://www.msnbc.com/all
‘The no’s are piling up’: MAGA overreach rejected by airports, colleges, jurors
Video is 12:19 minutes
Link
As Republicans slander No Kings rallies, the party is proving progressive activists’ point
“Centuries after ‘L’État, c’est moi,’ Republicans are putting their own twist on the adage: ‘I am the state’ has effectively become ‘Trump is the state.’ ”
Key U.S. admiral parts ways with Hegseth’s Pentagon amid controversial boat strikes
“As the head of U.S. Southern Command steps down at a critical moment, a key senator is raising alarm about ‘instability within the chain of command.’ ”
News summarized by Steve Benen from an NBC report:
Link
Summarized from an MSNBC report:
Followup to comment 167.
Trump wants Americans to know that after months of embracing royal rhetoric and referring to himself as “king,” he doesn’t think of himself as one.
Trump’s revelation came on the eve of the nationwide “No Kings” protests during an interview with Fox Business conspiracy theorist Maria Bartiromo that aired on Friday morning. [video]
Link
The text above is an excerpt from a longer article that details the breadth and depth of the conspiracy theories surrounding plane contrails, and of the alarming actions Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking:
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a chemtrail? New conspiracy theory takes wing at Kennedy’s HHS
More at the link.
FYI
How to watch the Orionid meteor shower, debris of Halley’s comet
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-orionid-meteor-shower-debris-halley.html
https://www.wonkette.com/p/are-you-ok-google-ai-do-you-need
“Are You OK, Google AI? Do You Need A Policeman Or A Grownup?”
More at the link.
Putin’s Trump Strategy: Lots of Flattery, and Talk of Business Deals
“After Thursday’s phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Trump appeared to express doubts about supplying Ukraine with more powerful weapons.”
And now, Putin has positioned himself to be in Trump’s ear both before and after Zelensky’s visit!
New York Times:
“In 1972 she became the first woman to anchor a national evening news broadcast. She retired this summer after 50 years on the air.”
More at the link.
Republicans, 16 years into Obamacare, pretend they have a health care plan (they don’t)
“Asked if his party has a health care blueprint, JD Vance boasted, ‘We do have a plan, actually.’ Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/yes-we-are-filthy-marxists-and-other
‘Yes, We Are Filthy Marxists’ And Other Tidbits From A Meeting Of The Democratic Base As Imagined By The White House
“The stuff of Karoline Leavitt’s fever dreams.”
Satire. But the comment from Karoline Leavitt is real.
Washington Post link
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/mike-johnson-accuses-no-kings-protesters
Satire.
@177 Lynna, OM: The Republicans will never have an alternative to Obamacare because it’s fundamentally a conservative Republican medical plan already. There is nothing further to the right that works. Obamacare is largely corporate driven and puts minimal restrictions on how companies spend their money.
The Republicans just want to kill the plan but in a way that not all of the blame can be pinned on them.
New Republic: Jeanine Pirro Fails for the Fourth Time to Charge Same D.C. Woman
This is the cases where grand juries declined to bring a case 3 times. Pirro then brought a misdemeanor case because it doesn’t require a grand jury. She ended up failing to get a conviction on the misdemeanor charge.
In a reasonable administration this case would be grounds for removing somebody from office, assuming they didn’t resign on their own out of embarrassment. In this administration it will be Trump complaining that the jurors in DC are too liberal and he should get to select the jurors for cases his administration brings.
re Lynna @177:
As many of my teachers used to say, “Show your work!” If you don’t show your work, you get no credit.
@162 birgerjohansson:
I’m only seing YouTubers with clickbait headlines and no citations. Safe bet though.
Karen Strehlow – Volcano Spotlight: Etna (Geohazard risk modeler)
New tool helps forecast volcano slope collapses and tsunamis (Oct 3)
Etna was mentioned in the Jul 25 paper.
Followup to comment 178.
I’ll go with “all of the above.”
Zelenskyy once again shows Trump what integrity looks like
Cartoon: Voting Whites Act
Trump asks Supreme Court to allow deployment of National Guard to Chicago
@186,
Trump then cut in, “I would say the biggest difference is one is extremely competent and the other one is grossly incompetent.”
he’s almost right for once, though i wouldn’t describe Biden as extremely competent.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rfk-jr-is-very-concerned-about-the
“RFK Jr. Is Very Concerned About The Teen Spermageddon”
“And, as usual … he’s wrong.”
New York Times link
“Where the U.S. Is Building Up Military Force in the Caribbean”
“About 10,000 U.S. troops and dozens of military aircraft and ships are in the region [!] as the Trump administration increases pressure on Venezuela.”
Map at the link.
More at the link.
Link
NBC News:
New York Times:
Good news.
Followup to comment 194.
The University of Virginia joined the list of schools rejecting the White House’s proposed “compact” on Friday afternoon.
NBC News:
I hope this cheers you up a bit.
“Have I Got News for You” S70E3 | Alexander Armstrong Hosts with Ross Noble & Helen Lewis
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=aTSH7RdR7KM
Secrets of Mushroom DNA | Danny Miller at GAMF 2025
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ReuzXHLqR7w
Source : https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nasa-warns-that-earth-is-getting-dangerously-dark/ar-AA1OeL6E
@ ^ Climatologist Paul Beckwith has a good 39 mins long discussion of that here – How our Darkening (Lower Albedo) Earth is Accelerating Climate Mayhem.
Source : https://www.space.com/stargazing/how-to-see-comet-c2025-r2-swan-shine-in-the-october-sky-2025
Comets are very hard to predict but seems that like with Comet Lemmon we could get one at least visible t othe unaided skies this month which is some positive news for us all.
Aussie political news and its farewellto Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson and good riddance (hopefully?) to Barnaby “Beetrooter” Joyce
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-18/barnaby-joyce-will-not-recontest-new-england-at-election/105907524
Middle East Eye Palestinians must reclaim their future by themselves | David Hearst – almost ten mins long.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Maddow: Older Americans bring energy, experience to anti-Trump activism
Video is 4:52 minutes
States reveal shocking health care cost spikes under Republican plan: report
Video is 5:47 minutes
Doors slam on weak Trump as pushback hardens at every level
Video is 9:30 minutes
See also:
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/-andrew-young-the-dirty-work-official-trailer-248685637537
Live updates: Protesters rally nationwide against Trump at ‘No Kings’ events
More at the link.
Followup to comment 191.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/admiral-in-charge-of-war-with-venezuela
Washington Post link
“With shutdown cuts, Trump moves closer to eliminating Education Department”
“The administration is looking to shed workers and transfer some operations to other departments as it seeks to close the Education Department”
New York Times link
“Santos Is Released After Trump Commutes His Sentence”
“George Santos’s lawyer said the disgraced former congressman was freed from a New Jersey prison around 10 p.m. on Friday. He served less than three months on his fraud conviction.”
EXCLUSIVE: Zelenskyy holds out hope Trump will still provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles
“Speaking with NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ after his visit with Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged he didn’t get what he wanted — but it could still happen.”
Related video at the link.
No Kings protests live updates: Rallies underway in NYC, D.C., Chicago and other U.S. cities
Video snippets and photos are available at the link: including photos from Malmö, Sweden; Berlin; Madrid, Spain, etc.
Miami Herald: Epstein had dinners with a top Florida prosecutor on his case, docs show
Menchel had left the DOJ when these meetings happened so probably not illegal but still contemptible and stinks immensely. Turns out that Menchel had also dated one of Epstein’s defense lawyers previously and had proposed the plea deal through her. Again, not illegal but the whole situation had huge red flags.
That is bull. The Epstein case might have been complex but mostly the challenge would have been figuring out which couple of dozen charges to bring against Epstein out of the mess of accusations.
BBC: Polish judge refuses to extradite Ukrainian Nord Stream blasts suspect
Ukraine might have considered it necessary but attacks against 3rd parties not in the war is really pushing the concept of “just”. In any case I think it’s more likely there is a diplomatic deal to suppress the case. Nobody except Russia wants to see this case brought to court right now.
Another Good News Roundup from Daily Kos
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/17/2348038/-GNR-for-Friday-October-17-2025-shutdown-day-17-In-Crisis-Lies-Opportunity
Also I attended the Tucson Arizona No Kings protest at the downtown courthouse. Turnout was great and Adelita Grijalva spoke.
Phil Moorhouse
“Is the AI Bubble About to Pop?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=0q7w3Lr9PSA
British English: “This is going to go tits-up very soon”
I am waiting for the total nationwide turnout to be calculated.
I hope it will be higher than the previous one, putting extra pressure on the R politicians who are realising Trump will not be around forever.
Hossenfelder alert
String Theory is “Fashion,” Penrose Said. We Finally Have a Response
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=UOiBMWMzosY
‘Cockroaches’ and Repo stress
Trump’s Economy is Crashing
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=8cHSOO-VDI8
The South Atlantic magnetic anomaly is growing.
Live No Kings rally coverage from Zeteo here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/18/the-morris-protest-march/comment-page-1/#comment-2281163
Trump is so thin-skinned he attacked Youtuber Jack Cocciarella by name today
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6ZHdSwK67_c
Source : https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/former-intelligence-officials-list-5-warning-signs-trump-cementing-authoritarian-rule/ar-AA1OGwAk
PS. The Zeteo live coverage linked in #219 has finishd now. Whole clip properly starts about 6 mins 50 secs in and goes for a whopping 7 hours plus some.
Scientific American :
Source :
@ ^ : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-tells-us-the-u-s-is-heading-toward-a-dictatorship/
Seems a majority of Americans albeit only a slight majority – but back in March this year – have realised Trump is a dangerous dictator :
Source : https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-poll-dangerous-dictator-2066852
Well, if only those non-voters had realised that before the election & not fallen for Bothsiderist and Only-Unicorn-Will-Do bullshit.
Wonder what the percentage of third party spoiler voters now regretting their horrendously counter-productive and unethical decisions is?
Source : https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/former-intelligence-officials-list-5-warning-signs-trump-cementing-authoritarian-rule/ar-AA1OGwAk
@ ^ Dóh! Sorry above is same as # 221. Mea culpa.
Another excellent Mehdi Hasan speech here – ‘You Will Not Silence Me’: Watch Mehdi’s Defiant Speech on Gaza .. & jouralism too. Just over a dozen mins long.
Ah, now this is the one I thought I’d shared here already but hadn’t when I posted the #225 one instead. (Double checks, triple checks..) :
Source : https://theconversation.com/trumps-tragedy-the-us-becomes-an-autocracy-and-the-presidency-a-dictatorship-266675
@ Stevo
Weird how it wouldn’t even occur to you to ask the ask the same question of people who, you know, actually voted Trump.
… and you continue to define “unicorn” as “anyone who thinks genocide may be bad actually”.
DW news
Are the “No King” protests putting Donald Trump under real pressure? – 11 mins long.
@230. & #229 Silentbob : No. Never have and still don’t and kindly stop misrepresenting and lying about me.
I think you owe me an apology for that – although you being you I’m not holding mybreath for one.
Nor does Kamala harris or even Joe Biden support genocide as I have previously explained with supporting evidence in past comemnst on this blog which you have continually ignored.
They covered the Trump voters regretting their vote already in the poll linked at #224 which you haven’t noticed. Do try to read for comprehensioon for a change.
Note that supporting Israel especially immediately after the worst massacre of jewish people since the Shoah is NOT the same thing as supporting its genocide. Netanyahu, as you very well know already, wanted Trump to win not the Democratic party nominee. Bien and Harris both caled for restraint, criticised some of Netanyahu’s actions and withheld weapons a swelas sanctioning extremist settlers – things that Trump notably did NOT do or reversed. As predicted by me, Mehdi Hasan and others pre-election.
@ Stevo
American electorate! You have a choice: We can drown babies, or drown puppies. What is your choice?
80 million people: Drown babies! Drown babies! Drown babies!
A handful of people: We’re anti-drowning! We don’t want to drown anybody!
*Mass drowning of babies begins*
StevoR: Wow those anti-drowning clowns really have egg on their faces! I bet they wish they voted for drowning puppies! How embarrassed they must be, lol. Look what they’ve done! They’re single-handedly responsible for all the drowned babies!
^ Accurate representation of “StevoR logic”.
Clarity fix : Biden and Harris both called for restraint, criticised some of Netanyahu’s actions and withheld some weapons from the IDF as well as sanctioning extremist settlers – things that Trump notably did NOT do or reversed. As predicted by me, Mehdi Hasan and others pre-election.
So, NO, theDemocratic party was nowhere near as bad on the issue of Gaza
@233. Silentbob : Starwman fallacy.
Totally and offensively inaccurate represenattionof my logic and thinking.
Meanwhile in the real world rather than Silentbob’s hayloft of an absurd imagination; the choice in last year’s USoA election was binary and was between Trump’s actually fascist party versus Kamala Harrisés NON-fascist Democratic party – and is having consequences that are literally killing real people & proving apocalpytic for the world we all share as I type.
Kamala and the Democrats of course were NOT in favour of drowining any puppies, babies or people. Trump’s Fascists OTOH, well, .. See recent Young Repugs leaked texts among so very much more including literal concentration camps and persecution of marginalised minorities.
Oh & of course Silentbob like behodler -indeed even worse so – stillhas NOTanswered the quesions asked of him here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/30/why-are-they-on-the-front-lines/#comment-2279245
Among other places. I think this indicates Silentbob is NOT commenting in good faith or engaging honestly here.
Another evening, another meltdown from StevoR.
You are not owed any apologies until you extend that same courtesy to others.
@ ^ Who do you think I owe an apology to and why exactly?
As for those having “meltdowns” I think our respective comments above speak for themselves here.
I’ll note yet again because yet again it is pertinent here that you continue to refuse to answer the very simple question :
Who was the better choice for POTUIS out of the two and only two options last year – Trump or Kamala?
No, Jill Stein is NOT an answer and nor is anyone other than Trump due to the binary two party nature of USA politics which is the stark reality which I think we all agree we strongly dislike here. (Our dislike of this does not change that it is the reality – and, what if anything have you done to change that reality?).
Note that by your own chosen metrics Stein the spoiled needless spoiler was vastly less suitable, less popular and a truly terrible choice given she lost by about 99% garnering a mere 1% approx of the vote. Whilst Kamala by contrast won about half of those who voted and thus was obviously a considerably more electable and reasonable option given she got 48.3% of the vote vs Trump’s 49.8% setting aside for now the fact that voter suppression denied her victory over him and very possibly also Musk election rigging too along with that tiny fringe minority of third party spoiler voters.
(See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election )
For Lynna’s sake I’m not gunna say much more right now nor offer you the sort of unrequested, abusive mental health analysis you have erroneously suggested for me.
PS. Have you apologised for and acknowledged your false claim about New Mexico being the worst USA state for education when that is actually deeply red Repug West Virginia yet beholder?
See :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/06/the-future-looks-bleak/comment-page-1/#comment-2280113
Also why did you single out the single, exceptional blue state amongst the top ten worst for education* thereby de facto defending & supporting the Trumpist red ones again? Your pattern of behaviours, focii and biases does NOT go unnoticed you realise and some of us will point it out and state what it implies.
. * 9 or even being very generous here 8 of the other ten being Repug states.
@240 StevoR
Apologize for what? For being correct?
“Public School Rankings by State 2025”
worldpopulationreview (dot) com /state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state
@ Stevo
As I recall it, the claim was made that poor performance was due to being “red states”.
beholder debunked the claim. The onus is on those making the original claim to account for disconfirming evidence. Not on the skeptic to explain their “bias” in indicating disconfirming evidence.
Are you interested in truth or propaganda?
Source : https://www.newarab.com/opinion/great-gita-inc-gaza-laboratory-maga-overseas-empire
@242. Silentbob : “As I recall it, the claim was made that poor performance was due to being “red states”.
Your recall is wrong – among other things Beholder specifically claimed in their #37 that :
(Modified w italics &word extra word bolded for clarity.)
Which I refuted and proved factually incorrect in my comment here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/06/the-future-looks-bleak/comment-page-1/#comment-2280020
Emphasis and italics original.
West Virginia NOT New Mexico dead last. Almost every state with the worst education status is a red state.
Beholder also falsely asserted :
Which given the 9 /10 red states in the worst for education category it actually does break down like that with red states being worse with only a single exception. Maybe very generously 2 if we count Nevada as a purple state which, well, I think I’m done being overly generous to beholder & you.
PS. Your failure to answer the question there is noted so I’ll ask again here in the no doubt forlorn hope that you’ll have the decency to provide a straightforward answer -something I have noticed that you never seem to do :
Out of the TWO & only 2 actual options people had to choose from last election – either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris – which was the better choice in terms of being more rational, compassionate and mentally competent to become POTUS?
@241.Beholder : Apologize for what? For being correct?
No. You weren’t correct at all. Apologise for your error – whether inadvertent or deliberate outright falsehood – and your selective cherry-picking and singling out the one exception in the ten worst states as if that somehow refuted the broader reality that red states are, generally, almost always with very few exceptions indeed worse off educationally. 9 / 10 times in fact! You ignored my sources – plural – there which are accurate. Oh and answer the simple question above too.
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplanets/could-the-worlds-1st-private-space-telescope-help-find-stars-with-habitable-exoplanets
Trump is a hodenkobold and his followers intelligenzallergikers.
Excerpts from a study of which kinds of insults/curses are most common, from several languages.
….
‘Germans more than tripled this with an average of 53 words ranging from from intelligenzallergiker, a person allergic to intelligence, to hodenkobold, or “testicle goblin”, someone who is being annoying.
…snip….
The Italians who were part of the study offered up more than 24 taboo words related to the church, including 17 different versions of what researchers translated as “fucking God”.
Sulpizio speculated it might be because of Italy’s proximity and longstanding relationship with the Vatican, as well as the enduring strength of Catholic tradition in the country. “So that’s an example of the impact of cultural or societal differences,” he said. ‘
@244 StevoR
Careful, Stevo, you’re making a different claim there and it’s also not supported by the data. If I look at the top 10 states by K-12 performance in 2024, I see Utah at #4, Wyoming at #6, North Dakota at #7, South Dakota at #9, and Wisconsin at #10. All solidly red states. Just goes to show, educational opportunities don’t sort themselves nicely along partisan lines.
No, Stevo, I’m not indulging your break with reality. Silentbob had the relevant question: Are you interested in truth or propaganda?
Can you justify your claim that StevoR holds third-party voters single-handedly responsible for Trump’s return to power? Because if not, you are clearly misrepresenting his logic. And those who refused to vote for drowning puppies when it was the only electorally credible alternative to voting to drown babies would indeed have a share in responsibility for the baby-drowning. They might take the deontological position that it would still have been wrong to vote for drowning puppies, but denying that they did share responsibility for the baby drowning is moral cowardice.
I haven’t applied the relevant statistical test, but my hunch is that #1, #2, #3, #5, #8 vs #4, #6, #7, #9, #10 would be a statistically significant difference. Whether this is “nicely” sorted or not is subjective: if I’m right, it shows that “blue” states have a real advantage over “red” states on this measure.
So much for Trump’s promise of free IVF
Cartoon: Jester Johnson
The family that grifts together:
Link
Classy as ever:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5562391-live-updates-donald-trump-no-kings-colombia/
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Rubio promised to betray U.S. informants to get Trump’s El Salvador prison deal”
“To secure Washington’s access to El Salvador’s most notorious prison, the secretary of state made an extraordinary offer to President Nayib Bukele.”
More at the link.
New York Times link
“Israel Suspends Aid and Strikes Gaza After Accusing Hamas of Violating Truce”
“Israel said Palestinian militants attacked its forces across cease-fire lines and launched a wave of attacks on Gaza. Both sides still say they are committed to the truce.”
New York Times link
Che added:
[video at the link] […]
The videos are also available on YouTube. YouTube link
No King’s Day: I realise it takes a lot of time to add up estimates from 2500 demonstrations but it would be fun to know if the total exceeds the number of participants from this spring.
LLMs Are A Dead End
Hossenfelder alert
“Current AI Models have 3 Unfixable Problems”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=984qBh164fo
Re: birgerjohnasson @ #246…
My late wife–who had a degree in Linguistics–used to observe that, generally speaking, Protestant swearing is scatalogical, while Catholic swearing is blasphemous.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI are buying Tesla’s unsold Cybertrucks
I would be surprised if the various companies owned by Musk didn’t buy from each other. This is a level way above that and obviously Musk making Tesla sales and inventory look better by taking Cybertrucks off their hands.
This also points out a problem with these various theoretically public companies that are effectively controlled by one person. The one person running the whole show has a good motivation to shuffle things around to make his finances look better at the cost of individual companies and their stock holders.
EU seeks to boost powers to board Russian shadow fleet vessels, document shows
“The bloc also considers ‘targeting the provision of logistical support to shadow fleet vessels,’ according to EEAS document seen by POLITICO.”
Hegseth announces another US strike on alleged drug trafficking boat
Marjorie Taylor Greene is suddenly talking sense.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=rUu_HQkEilc
What are the new allegations against Prince Andrew?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=8ySSpqoQR0g
The Dark Secret Behind Japan’s Ainu People Genetic Origins
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=DRgvL_shOGY
Cancer:
mRNA-based COVID vaccines generate improved responses to immunotherapy
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-mrna-based-covid-vaccines-generate.html
News from the Swedish-speaking part of Finland.
“Scientists Create Better Solar Panel Using Red Onions”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/Ippp_DvwyQ
Finland: Turku (sv. Åbo), Aalto univ. (in Espoo, sv. Esbo)
Matt Novak (Gizmodo):
Commentary
Matt Novak:
Matt Novak: Credit to Manu Raju and CNN, where they played Trump’s AI diarrhea video this morning to talk about how weird our president is.
Rando: “The amazing thing about the microphone moment is that it wasn’t even a sexist or homophobic joke. The entire context is that the mic was too low, and he suddenly realized that with his mouth above it like that, he could fellate it.”
Bumbling Trump lawyers, Steve Bannon—and ‘Big Balls’
“Trump ends aid to Colombia and calls country’s leader a ‘drug leader'”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8xg1jve73o
This in response to the Columbian president, correctly, accusing the USA of committing murder with the strikes on boats.
re CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @268: My wife’s brother made a comment about The Orange Turd’s video. He said it shows that the wannabe dictator is literally losing his shit. So true. My reaction was that it just shows what a petulant child he is. Can you imagine any other president in the history of the US reacting like a spoiled pre-schooler when people protest his illegal actions?
Disgusting strongmen behaving badly?
(Fan-made parody)
Mobile Suit Gundam ABRIDGED- The Origin I: Blue-eyed Casval
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=EMgKWTAtTxk
Smaller crowds than previous hate marches the other month or so agao but still deeply worrying :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-19/tensions-flare-melb-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-rallies/105908634
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-20/israel-says-gaza-ceasefire-and-aid-to-resume/105910598
JM @260
The Cybertruck is kind of useless as a pickup truck, so it won’t be doing much real work for Space X. It is really just a weird looking car. There was a Cybertruck (with obligatory “I bought this before Elon Musk …” sticker) that parked on the street near the ATB (Alberta Treasury Branch in Cochrane, Alberta where I do my banking. The last time I was there, there was a DeLorean parked in it its’ place. I guess someone likes ugly angular stainless steel cars.
Drug combo cuts risk of death in advanced prostate cancer by 40%, clinical trial finds
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-drug-combo-death-advanced-prostate.html
@249 KG
If the U.S. only had ten states, sure.
The list of all 50 is very noisy, not at all what is supported by Stevo’s implicit claim that every “red state” falls below the national median in education.
II know J C is a bit of a mixed bag, but his comment about Nigel Farage is spot on
I think he was a Brexit supporter, but even an octagenarian can learn.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ae4qv6rmw/
A famous president comments the No Kings protests
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1DABc2sCWH/
Hey, if you got paid with gold from ze joos, I want in on the action!
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-20/nt-clc-lesley-turner-sues-senator-jacinta-nampijinpa-price-court/105911056
For the non-Aussies here, Price is LNP scum and one of the big factors in destroying the Indigenous Vocie to Parlt a few years ago.
Plus :
Source : (a rather tooflattering if youask me) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinta_Nampijinpa_Price#%22No%22_campaign
Ha! British fascists can give American fascists a run for their money as far as incompetence and infighting are concerned!
beholder@277,
It was you who focused on the top ten states. They don’t support your claim. Admit it.
Clearly, The End Is Nigh!
birgerjohansson@258,
The stopped grandfather clock in my kitchen is sometimes right as well!
The sun was blocked by swarms of flying pigs.
Here is how to find a faint comet currently passing near the Big Dipper. Star Maps: Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) | TheSkyLive
.https://theskylive.com/planetarium?obj=c2025a6
I suggest you go away from brightly lit towns during the new moon and look for it using wide-field, low magnification binoculars.
Not anything like the Hale-Bopp comet but still possibly visible to the naked eye – not a common phenomenon.
YouTube link to coverage of the “NO KINGS” protests.
More than 7 million people. That’s about 2 million more than the previous No Kings day.
Democrats have some questions about DHS buying private jets to be used by Kristi Noem
“The homeland security secretary was already a controversial figure. Then her agency bought two private jets for her and other DHS officials.”
On rewarding Putin with Ukrainian territory, Trump reverses his reversal
“Trump said that he believed Ukraine could win back its territory from Russia and return the country to its original borders. Then he talked to Putin.”
Related video at the link.
Link
StevoR at 72, on the discovery of ice age European hippos
Thanks – that’s a topic I find highly interesting. Also thank you for quoting the key parts. I prefer to not go to Phys.org because I’ve found that site unreadable due to the ads.
There were indeed several brief, relatively mild interstadials between about 60,000 and 30,000 years ago. Still, I find it hard to believe that the Rhine wouldn’t freeze during winter back then. It’s been long known that hippos lived in Germany and England during some previous interglacial periods, when the climate was at least as warm as today. Presumably, they can survive with long, cool winters as long as the waters don’t freeze.
The Rhine was definitely freezing for many months a year during the first really cold episode of the last ice, about 70,000 to 60,000 years ago. It is perhaps possible that European hippos at the time survived as one or two small relict populations on the Mediterranean coast, which could explain the genetic bottleneck. The late glacial maximum around 20,000 years ago was even colder.
Presumably, ‘African’ hippos were widespread in North Africa, Middle East and (climate permitting) Europe during the Pleistocene. Just recently, I learned that there used to be another species of hippo in South Asia, which went extinct apparently by the end of Pleistocene, or soon after the arrival of modern humans. In Europe, a lot of temperate fauna perished from the combined effects of late glacial maximum and recently arrived modern humans. This presumably included the last hippos. However, I now wonder long hippos persisted in various parts of Middle East and North Africa, where the climate was warmer even during the late glacial maximum.
Phil Moorhouse:
Angela Rayner offered to de-nonce royalty
“LIVE: King Charles Should Have Listened to Rayner”
.https://youtube.com/live/um095puHYwA
King prince Charles has the planning horizon of a goldfish. Of course the wheels would come off, sooner or later.
Trump’s over-the-top reaction to the ‘No Kings’ events was proof of their success
Trump also said that he looked at the people attending the protests and he could tell that they did not represent the people of America. He called the protestors “whackos,” and then repeated the slander that they were all radical left terrorists paid by George Soros.
Summarized by Steve Benen from an Associated Press report:
Steve Benen:
The source for Trump’s statement is a Truth Social post.
Followup to Brony @270.
Link
Correction to comment 294.
What Trump actually said:
Commentary:
A biracial couple, and how the world is far from colorblind.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BMViKdBW2/
Trump’s Epstein Files Fixer Losing Control?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=IKzkCNLBSqQ
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/george-soros-declares-bankruptcy
Other media sources say “over seven million.”
Satire
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/pete-hegseths-marine-party-such-a
“Pete Hegseth’s Marine Party Such A Blast It Exploded Shrapnel Onto JD Vance’s Motorcade”
Washington Post link
“White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump’s ballroom”
“The president had claimed construction of the $250 million ballroom wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure.”
Yikes! Very alarming photo at the link.
New York Times link
“Trump Administration Live Updates: President and Australian Leader Sign Document on Rare Earth Minerals”
Lynna at 303:
This fits very rather nicely in Wonkette’s usual bombastic hyperbole style (which I find entertaining and even quite impressive). If I didn’t know better (as in only knowing Trump’s general performance over the recent years), I’d absolutely assume that the abovementioned AI slop only features him wearing a crown, and the part about him dropping diarrhea missiles is a metaphor – a strong one though not novel, almost a cliche these days – referring to his usual verbal whining and barking on social media. How nice and normal that’d be!
I can’t find this video anywhere else but FaceBook, but it’s worth a listen if you can stand a few minutes of FB. Peggy Seeger and Calum McColl singing “Sit Down, Sit Down”.
StevoR at 393 on the previous page:
That’s another interest of mine. I’ve actually sometimes wondered why Mimas doesn’t seem to exhibit much tidal heating despite being fairly eccentric and very close to Saturn. Enceladus, with its rampant cryovulcanism, is less eccentric, and somewhat farther, and only slightly larger than Mimas.
Mimas and Enceladus are in 1:2 orbital resonances with the larger, more outlying moons Tethys and Dione, respectively. This resonance is generally assumed to maintain their relatively large eccentricities, while having very little effect on the larger companions. It occurs to me that if Mimas has only recently entered a resonant relationship with Tethys, that might actually explain a lot. For example, if Mimas has been fully frozen until recently, and mostly frozen until present day, its tidal heating would be less efficient compared to Enceladus, allowing the accumulation of orbital eccentricity that’d otherwise be reduced by tidal dissipation. And if all the tidal heat production is currently spent on melting Mimas’s interior, that’d explain the lack of visible cryovulcanism.
BTW, I’ve recently often written about my astronomy hobby on the never-ending thread at Affinity (see the FTB blog list). I prefer to not do it here, because this thread flows too fast and gravitates toward political topics. The equivalent thread on Affinity is very quiet, almost dead without counting my own personal updates. It’d be nice to have someone else interested in astronomy over there. I’m also thinking Birger Johansson and Rob Grigjanis.
New EU members could join without full voting rights
“New plan is the latest attempt to breathe life into an expansion process that is currently being blocked by Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and others.”
More at the link.
lumipuna @306, as news of Trump shit-bombing protestors in an AI-generated video broke, I assumed at first that “shit-bombing,” or “diarrhea-bombing” etc. was hyperbole describing one of Trump’s usual social media rants and visual posts. Then I saw the video. Holy fuck.
Trump is plumbing the depths of classlessness. Apparently he has not yet hit bottom.
Politico: Prosecutors may move to oust James Comey’s defense lawyer
Stalling tactics being. Notice that they didn’t file to remove Fitzgerald, they said they may, giving them more time to dither before saying yes or no.
Stalling tactic also. This matter has been gone over before and the DOJ determined there was nothing of interest. If Comey wanted to have a filter team to go over evidence so that previous conversations with Fitzgerald that are protected by client-attorney privilege are not available to the prosecution it would make more sense.
Hilarious. The DOJ prosecutors want to reference official documents but they can’t because the website with the evidence has been shut down by the Trump administration.
Lynna, OM @ 310.
Many of his core voters are elderly, who recall an era before this shitstorm of vulgarity. I do not think they will appreciate this.
In fact, I think groups like the Lincoln Project ought to run this – and similar gross Trump things – as ads aimed at the elderly demographic of Trump voters. The more prude, church-going senior citizens will not be amused and – together with the Epstein fiasco – may finally come to regret their choices.
“7 BEST WEIRD MOVIES YOU’VE (probably) NEVER SEEN!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=EqzlY-RJ0-k
A Town Called Panic was on Swedish TV (short episodes, not as a film) the rest are new to me. Most seem weird as f*ck.
lumipuna @308: Thanks for the shout out. I’ll keep an eye on the never-ending thread in case I’ve anything interesting to say. Don’t hold your breath! ;-)
Lumipuna @ 308
I hope you get an opportunity to travel to some site with dark night skies during the new moon so you may look for the comet.
New decision from a Trump-appointed judge: Appeals court allows Trump’s deployment of National Guard in Portland
“The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused a lower court’s order that had barred the deployment while the state’s challenge makes its way through the court system.”
Followup to comments 270 and 297.
Reuters:
NBC News:
New York Times:
As the White House hires another ‘Stop the Steal’ lawyer, failure is inevitable
“Trump has hired a lawyer to oversee yet another investigation into his 2020 defeat, apparently because the original probes were too reality-based for him.”
‘There is a king’: House Republican loses the thread
https://www.wonkette.com/p/maga-declares-pope-un-christian-for
“MAGA Declares Pope ‘Un-Christian’ For Being Too Nice To Poor People”
Washington Post link
“Russians’ surrender to Ukrainian robot marks further transformation of war”
“Aerial drones once changed the fighting in Ukraine. Now it’s explosive-laden, unmanned vehicles.”
More details and videos at the link.
OpenAI strengthens Sora 2 guardrails after actor Bryan Cranston raises alarm
“The AI giant’s newest video generator was initially able to replicate the likenesses of public figures without consent, despite OpenAI’s rules against such content.”
More at the link.
Times of India: Purge unlike any other: Nine top Chinese generals expelled — Why Xi Jinping is cleaning house again
The complex behind the scenes manipulation continues in China. Included in this lot was He Weidong, an ally of Xi and second in command of the military behind Xi, also the highest ranking official purged since the Cultural Revolution.
Some conflict is obviously going on going on in the power structure but China does a really good job of obscuring exactly what it is. Xi has purged a number of people he appointed and/or considered his allies in the military over the past couple of years but why is a point of contention.
CNBC – Thieves steal crown jewels in 4 minutes from Louvre museum
Jon Stewart
“No Kings” Protests Defy GOP Expectations & Jon Gives Trump a Royal Inspection
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ggIBtdtypCw
Stephen Colbert
“7M Attend Peaceful “No Kings” Rallies | Trump Dumps On Times Square | George Santos Is A Free Man ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jkpEbRIExO4
I just realised, with this video Trump has appointed himself the new Sterculius, the Roman god of feces!
We have a human avatar of a Roman god.
“Sterculius, Roman god of feces (clip from Beavis and Butthead)”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=BhfXWtDaq5o
.
Idea: Can New York honor this former New Yorker president by naming the next big sewage treatment plant after him?
Skepticrat 258
Young Republicans Chat the Bed Edition
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=F5BiBHSigK0
Sam seder Majority report
Trump Posts Weird Ai ‘Poop King’ Meme (12 mins long) Just try to imagine the reaction if Obama or Biden had posted anything remotely like this..
Me and a lot of other Aussie sare facing some pretty severe storms and extreme weather soon..
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-21/winds-wild-storms-record-heat-for-south-east-australia-weather/105912462
Source : https://www.space.com/stargazing/meteor-showers/dont-miss-orion-meteor-shower-peak-oct-21-2025
Stay safe from the weather, StevoR.
I might try to look for Orionids tonight. Here’s a news story (with video) of a large fireball that was seen in Finland on Sunday:
https://yle.fi/a/74-20189219
@332. See also on video here – 3 mins long & note record breaking maximum temperature for October in Birdsville today too. Sigh. I am so dreading Summer here already.
Source : https://www.livescience.com/space/comets/double-comet-alert-comets-lemmon-and-swan-will-reach-their-brightest-this-week-heres-how-to-spot-them
@ lumipuna : Thanks – staying inside and hoping it won’t be as bad as forecast. Hatches battened down and pets secure and sleeping.
Also, we’ve had space junk fall in WA from a Chinese rocket – rather even more dramatically than usual :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-20/space-junk-chinese-rocket-jielong-newman-bhp-iron-ore/105912162
There’s some good photos in that linked article of that complete with smoke and fire.
I do think people under-estimate the issue of a possible Kessler Syndrome cascade and its potential impacts
On a much less fun again note – not that the kessler Syndrom issue is fun exactly – PBS Newshour on the predicted Repug vote-rigging to stop African-Americans fromany any future say in the sham “elections” that may be coming up :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-gop-led-redistricting-efforts-may-disenfranchise-black-voters
Also from today’s / yesterdays PBS newshour :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/permafrost-thawed-by-climate-change-threatens-remote-villages-in-alaska
Via the Utahraptor Project fb page – 19th October 1.25 pm :
Source : https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0GTPmHxmggXgdE6SnJvboTaaUbbrg5acS456cXAnL3BUd5UaYfzfaftX8ea4yLZNDl&id=100063478685244
Source : https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/18/queensland-anti-renewables-group-cited-nonexistent-papers-in-inquiry-submissions-using-ai-publisher-says
@337 StevoR
Kessler syndrome isn’t being caused by these spent rocket stages. It was only in orbit for about a month.
It is much more likely that SpaceX is going to trigger a KS with all their Starlink satellites.
@ ^ I’m very well aware of what the Kessler Syndrome is* and how it works. Putting Trump in charge as dictator and thus helping empower the open nazi scumbag Musk as you helped to do has, ofc, made things vastly worse there.
.* For those who aren’t as familiar with it : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
What Babylon 5 Teaches us about Fascism – 11 mins long.
I guess we all already know this but still again post-Kirk assassination and hopefully useful / intresting still : Sorry Conservatives, the Left is Less Violent | TDT – 25 mins long.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Maddow: ‘No Kings’ protests send message to Trump from every state in the nation
Video is 19:57 minutes
Excellent coverage in that video.
Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter charged with threatening Hakeem Jeffries, adding to pattern
“With his Jan. 6 pardons, the president let a bunch of criminals back out onto American streets. Quite a few of them have ended up in legal trouble again.”
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:aunpu65mdrhwfie7ynymlzeh/post/3m3pdtrv6ms27
Video at the link. 40 seconds.
Lindsey Halligan Gets Her Very Own Signal Chat Fiasco
Ecuador says it has no evidence that survivor of US strike in Caribbean committed any crime
He was released by authorities in the South American nation.
Trump’s shutdown spending spree should scare us all
@343
Leaving aside your false allegation, I’m left wondering: how? How the number of satellites in orbit depends on the choice of U.S. president in 2024 is a stretch even for you, Stevo.
FWIW. Local weather update – thunderstorm here for a bit but now seems to have passed over & be fairly calm right now..
For those who habla espanol which sadly does not include me –
Microcycas calocoma. Una anciana prehistórica – 35 mins long and would appreciate any translation / summaries / particular notable points if possible por favour.
@ 352. Hey, you were the one you mentioned Musk in #342 so, remind me again who was Musk promoting, funding and advocating for voting and supporting again, dude?
Oh wait, that’s right you don’t do answering the actual questions asked of you.
So I’ll point out what everyone can confirm for themselves and note that’d be you. Musk was ahuge Trump fan and you inreality helped him by attacking the only alternatiev and voting against he only real alternative. Fact.
Just like the fact that West Virginia NOT New Mexico is the worst state education~wise. Something else you keep denying along with so much more reality you’d rather ignore but too many other less privileged people are forced to live in..
BTW. Of the two choices – Kamala or Trump – which choice was better for the world again?
No Stein ain’t an option. Never was. Definitleywas NOt alst year. Or 2016. But we allknow that yeah? Okay almost allodfus..
The influence of anti-science deluded klowns here in Oz. This will have painful, awful consequences for too many people, of c :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-21/remove-fluoride-from-their-water/105918022
Obvs what they – the state, federal govt,whoever – make(s) the decisions based on – scientific evidence or bulldust Conspiracy excrement is a whole other issue.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/writing-with-trauma-israeli-and-palestinian-authors-speak-out/a-74421181
Specifically Palestinian writer Atef Abu Saif* & Israeli German journalist and author Sarah Levy who lives near Tel Aviv.
.* FWIW a star name too and one which from what I gather means “sword”” see : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saiph
Via New Arab :
Source : https://www.newarab.com/analysis/counting-dead-israels-genocide-gaza
Toll rising of c and then there’s the injured many of whoem have had their lives forever changed. Many of whoem will die from their injuries.
Plus those dead missing buried in the rubble.
Thwen trhgere’s almost certiabnly more and worse to come still.
Oh and the survivours if any have Global Overheating to look forward too.
@354
Did I? You’ll have to quote it, I don’t recall mentioning Musk in that post.
Oh For ..pities..sake.. Thinking Kessler syndrome and losing the stars to light pollution..
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/this-companys-plan-to-launch-4-000-massive-space-mirrors-has-scientists-alarmed-from-an-astronomical-perspective-thats-pretty-catastrophic
@358. Scroll up. That ain’t hard – even for you I’d presume – or do you intend to insult everyone here’s intelligence even more than you usually do? FFS.
Anyone care to remind me whyfolks here have to put up with this sorta willful obtuseness?
Beholder’s willful failure to answer the questions asked of them is yet again ad nauseam noted – see #354. Unwilling? Incapable? Both?
@360
Just admit you misremembered what I said, Stevo. You’re only insulting your own intelligence by insisting otherwise.
Brian Tyler Cohen:
“WOW: Judge issues PUBLIC WARNING to OTHER judges about Trump”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=X_4JxJx_XyQ
How everything evolved:
“Why Phosphorus Started The Cambrian Explosion—And Oxygen Didn’t”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4T8h1uB5pS0
Cartoon: Nobel Peace Prize 2026
Link
‘3.5% rule’: The anti-Trump movement is nearing an important threshold, by Rachel Maddow
“If you want to guarantee success against authoritarianism, research shows you need at least 3.5% of the country’s population on your side.”
Team Trump targets The New York Times with an outlandish lawsuit (yes, again)
“As the president files yet another lawsuit against a major news organization, consider what’s driving this unprecedented campaign.”
Related video at the link is hosted by Ari Melber.
Tom Emmer continues his smear campaign, offering a case study in modern GOP politics
“Two years ago this week, Donald Trump derailed the Minnesotan’s House speaker bid. Now, however, Emmer’s MAGA transformation appears complete.”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/maga-outraged-at-demon-worshiper
“MAGA Outraged At ‘Demon Worshiper’ Kash Patel For Being Hindu”
“In which he learns he belongs to a club that does not want him as a member.”
Washington Post link.
Change of plans? “White House says no Putin-Trump summit anytime soon”
“The decision came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Trump’s call for a ceasefire contradicted the understandings he reached with Putin”
A bit of mild trauma dumping.
I did not find one of my two semi-feeal adopted cats during the evening.
1 AM I finally checked the stairs outside my apartment.
I chased her up and down the stairs four times until I risked her claws and carried her home.
At the door she panicked and sprayed urine in the hall.
I have now changed clothes and mopped up the mess. This is a reminder that pets (and politicians BTW) do not use logic, they just follow instinct when frightened.
Thank Ctulhu I am not a parent, kids having a chrisis would give me a stroke.
Kat Abughzaleh is running for congress and seems very clever and funny.
Alien Super Show:
“Chicago Responds to ICE | No Kings Protests | Ft. Kat Abughzaleh”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=hFbAtnA1YNw
Mallen Baker:
“Trump’s Putin Summit BLOWS UP In Humiliation”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=eLCV-MZtpKo
Also, European allies no longer share intelligence with USA about Ukraine. The risk of the administration leaking to Russia – deliberately or by incompetence – is seen as too great.
Oh Yeah! God Awful Movies is back.
“GAM 529 The Suckling”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4yuJ9BWUmZQ
Let’s Talk Elections
“SHOCKING! Democrats LEAD in Alaska Senate Race”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=PP8t0Ac7e8c
“Tin Anode Breakthrough: US Invents Sodium-Ion Battery That Beats LFP”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=OOzyRzuZv-0
-BTW China already has sodium- ion batteries in mass production with a somewhat lower power density than this version.
Legal AF: HIDDEN Fatal FLAW in Comey Indictment REVEALED
Shan Wu covers the Comey indictment. He covers the well known parts about vindictive prosecution, selective prosecution and Halligan’s appointment being illegal. He also goes into some details that I have not seen other places.
Shan Wu explains one of the less well covered points that Comey raises in trying to get the indictment dismissed. That his answer is literally true. A witness giving incomplete answers or misleading answers that are literally correct is not illegal, that is a mistake by the prosecutors for not questioning the witness further. Comey’s answers to Ted Cruz before Congress are obviously not trying to explain things in detail, trying to pin any of it down is hard.
Karine Jean-Pierre has a new book and some intresting things to say in her PBS Newshour interview:
Plus
Also :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-independent-karine-jean-pierre-says-the-two-party-system-isnt-working
Personally, I think Biden should’ve stepped side and put Kamala in as POTUS halfway through his term and disagree with Karine Jean-Pierre here but still intresting to get her view.
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/young-photographer-documents-disappearing-salt-marshes-to-inspire-action
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/marwan-barghoutis-son-on-the-quest-for-palestinian-statehood-and-who-will-lead-them
Lynna @370
Another face eaten by a leopard. Even face eating leopards get their faces eaten by face eating leopards.
NBC News:
In other economic news, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:
Update on Trump’s “compact” with which he tried to pressure universities, as reported by The New York Times:
Trump sells out MAGA-loving farmers: A play in 3 acts
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/mike-johnson-opts-for-medically-induced
Re: birgerjohansson at 315, on the comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon (which is reaching its highest apparent magnitude this week)
I tend to think any comet or such that isn’t bright enough to be visible from my local neighborhood park isn’t worth much excitement anyway. I hope there will one day be a real impressive comet in my lifetime, the sort that ancient people would’ve noticed without being told what to look for.
I didn’t see any Orionids last night, either. However, I’ve recently managed to see one small fireball (not the large one seen on the video I posted), some auroras and, for the first time, the Pleiades star cluster. It’s wild how that cluster looks like a small hazy cloud in the side eye view. Then when I focus directly at it, the haze disappears entirely (due to the lower light sensitivity of the central vision area) and there’s one or two tiny individual stars just barely visible. This was in the best viewing conditions I’ve ever seen here.
Lumipuna @ 387
I am glad you got an opportunity to see the stars under optimal condotions. Once the eyes have adapted to the dark the experience is marvellous.
10 Culture Shocks We Had in Sweden 🇸🇪 | German & American Couple React
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y0K_cL__ldo
Norway and Sweden tax all alchohol beverages heavily to keep consumption down. At the beginning of the 20th century, Scandinavians were drinking themselves to death. We did not have prohibition, but for 30 years alcohol was rationed.
BTW, Finland did have a prohibition for alcohol, about the same time as the US did. It was a similar failure.
Some of my relatives at the time were fisherfolk on the island of Suursaari (Swedish Högland, currently Russian Gogland) in the middle of Gulf of Finland. One of them owned a speedboat (not common back then), and family lore suggests he was involved in smuggling spirit from Estonia. A century later, I’m spending my time on Twitter, scrolling through US political discussions on whether it’s appropriate to nuke boats from orbit for the crime of probably smuggling drugs or some other contraband.
Lumipuna @ 390
Yes, there is a lot of lore from those days.
But as Sweden provided some alcohol as a safety valve, the situation did not get quite as bad as in USA.
It is rather like the Swedish COVID social restrictions – going all in is not at all “lagom” you need to find the optimal balance.
“Trump Wrecks White House & New GOP Nazi Group Chat Drops | The Daily Show”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=CuWQKC4v_W0
“I’m not gonna touch the White House (CRASH!)”
Zelensky has just landed in Sweden for talks with the PM. The meeting is in the SAAB office, the company is making a lot of high-tech military hardware.
Diwali -celebrated yesterday – is a festival for hindus, sikhs, jainists and some buddhists.
You might argue it is literally the most aryan holiday in the world. It might predate the holiday the Romans made for the brown guy from Palestine.
This did not prevent some MAGA persons from freaking out.
StevoR@379,
I’d say that being as generous as possible Karine Jean-Pierre saw what she wanted to see rather than what was there.
Lyna, PM@367,
Oh dear – even Rachel Maddow is babbling about the “3.5% threshold” now! It’s based on research which has been criticised for misclassification and cherry-picking of examples. Her co-author, Maria Stephan, was working for the State Department at the time the research was carried out and published.
https://www.msnbc.com/all
NYT bombshell: Trump demands $230 million from his own DOJ for investigating him
Video is 7:57 minutes.
Fury grows over Trump’s White House demolition for $250 million ballroom
Video is 8:57 minutes
Politico: Republicans aren’t negotiating an Obamacare extension yet. But they’re getting ready.
Not much in the way of direct negotiations with Democrats and publicly the Republicans are still making their demands. Privately thought they are starting to work out what terms they would accept. In theory this would be a separate bill passed after the government opens but a likely case for reopening is something built in secret and tacked on the appropriations bill right before being presented for vote. That way Republicans can say it was sprung on them at the last minute and they didn’t like it but had to make a hard decision about reopening the government.
There is also a risk that Republicans will do this to Democrats. Work out something among Republicans without talking to Democrats, then tack it on the appropriations and take it to vote as fast as possible. I don’t think it’s a big risk in this situation though. Any bill with ACA extensions will have trouble getting enough Republican votes and that means less pressure on Democrats.
Federal Agents Detain Mix of Protesters and Migrants in Massive Manhattan Sweep
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/donald-trump-demolition-man
Cartoon: Government sh-tdown
Who is Russell Vought? How a little-known DC Insider became Trump’s dismantler-in-chief, by ProPublica
Video at the link. The video is 18:21 minutes.
YouTube link to the same video.
The video adds a lot of details that do not appear in the text quoted above. It also includes details that have never been published before.
Sen. Jeff Merkley warns ‘tyranny has arrived’ in marathon floor speech protesting Trump
“The Oregon Democrat was still speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday morning after delivering remarks for more than 16 hours.”
Israel’s parliament advances bill to annex occupied West Bank
“The vote was the first of four needed to pass the law, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party did not support the legislation.”
Why the White House’s systemic campaign against inspectors general matters
“At Donald Trump’s behest, the system of inspectors general is now effectively broken, which necessarily opens the door to more corruption.”
Indiana Republicans don’t have votes to back Trump’s redistricting, Senate leader spox says
“The news comes just days after President Donald Trump held a phone call with reluctant members.”
U.S. strikes eighth alleged drug-carrying boat, this time in the Pacific Ocean
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strike killed two people.”
New York Times link
re Lynna @408:
I would guestimate that it amounts to $1 or less.
SlainKnightly:
“Frieren DESTROYED the Modern Villain Redemption Trope”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZKxgIEsXLQ8
When two sapient species are inherently antagonistic (aka ‘the frog and the scorpion’)
Britain: Phil Moorhouse
Reform UK blasted by Labour in Pmq
“Reform UK Hurt British Business and Take Russian Money”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=VMhdRj8SSYc
MAGA Is Getting Caught Using Food Stamps (short)
.https://youtube.com/shorts/n7AAcSiIajY
Ukraine naval war
“Riding the CB90🔥 Soldiers Tell the Truth About Sweden’s Deadly Boat”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=0OF1iXVE-RI
johnson catman @409, yes, that’s what I thought. Trump doesn’t spend his own money. He is having grand time spending taxpayer’s money, and other funds he has grifted off of various people. He wants credit though, as if the lie about spending his own money were true.
Washington Post:
Bad news: University of Virginia strikes deal to pause Trump administration investigations
New York Times:
What new fuckery is this?
ProPublica:
Frieren is NOT Boring! | Yap Addict Explains
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=A7C4TOlY580
Sweden wants to sell JAS Gripen fighter aircraft to Ukraine, but I have not yet learned the result of the talks.
Yeah, that sounds like something Fox News would do.
Link
Robert Reich states what should be the progressive agenda
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxV32hBjZwCjTpGVvFFpdklw126NEmXwqO
Sheesh. Very cringe-worthy.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/hot-girls-for-cuomo-strangely-not
U.S. sanctions Russia’s two largest oil companies
Related video at the link.
Measles spreading beyond the center of the Utah-Arizona outbreak
Related video at the link.
Trump Explodes After Question About Screwing American Farmers , absurdly claims his tariffs have ended eight wars.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yj38igUyxfU
EXCLUSIVE: Some new ICE recruits have shown up to training without full vetting
“The recruits have had criminal backgrounds or failed drug tests or were unable to meet physical or academic standards, raising concerns about the agency’s rush to hire immigration officers, sources told NBC News.”
First Time Reaction
GOBLIN SLAYER Opening 1 & 2 AND Trailer
(note the dice)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=YKAvUm48gI8
Propaganda alert: Pentagon touts ‘next generation’ press corps of mostly right-wing outlets
Via Greg Gbur (physicist), “about the new MAGA narrative that Trump is doing nothing unprecedented because hey Truman totally overhauled the White House too. In short: bullshit.”
Wikipedia – White House Reconstruction
From Greg Gbur’s TikTok (9:17):
The Guardian: White House East Wing will be torn down ‘within days’ even as no plans filed for Trump’s new ballroom
The Trump administration laid out plans for the demolition before getting approval for the construction afterwards some time ago. At the time it was likely meant as a way to put pressure on getting the construction approved. The approval committee is headed by a guy Trump appointed and had their rubber stamps in hand but there are procedures that take time.
The approval committee is not working due to the shut down. Now the administration is likely to just go ahead with construction and say they had no choice because the White House couldn’t be left with part of the building demolished.
This is Trump naturally. The project is getting bigger and more expensive already, before the demolition of the existing building is done. What I have not seen so far is how Trump intends to personally extract some money from the project. Trump may be in this one just to put a personal stamp on the White House but I expect he has some scheme to extract money. This is one thing Trump is actually good at, having spent decades figuring how to personally profit from construction project money that was not meant for him.
I’ll take the good news.
“Most Americans say U.S. on wrong track on economy, immigration and more: poll”
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/22/poll-us-wrong-track-economy-immigration
“Group representing hundreds of former national security officials denounces ‘weaponization’ working group”
https://www.spytalk.co/p/alarm-raised-over-an-american-kgb
Via PBS Newshour
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ai-content-supercharges-confusion-and-spreads-misleading-information-critics-warn
Plus from the same program on the debate debate here :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-rise-of-viral-debate-videos-and-their-impact-on-our-ability-to-disagree
Why they hate John Brown and his heritage.
The contrast between him and their white ancestors exposes their cowsrdience.
https://www.facebook.com/share/19xCi9wVk2/
The ballroom should always be referred to as the Jeffrey E. Epstein Memorial Ballroom!
Why poverty is man-made.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BKWHYGATG/
Happy 77 years, Catherine Devenue.
Link
Link
Dissenting Judges Voice Dire Warnings for the Country As 9th Circuit Denies Rehearing of LA National Guard Stay
Link
A beautiful summary by a Brit of what Trump is.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FdYfxq7CX/
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/mike-johnson-has-no-comment-after
Satire.
WIRED link
“Inside the Trump Administration’s Bluesky Invasion”
“On Friday, after months of internal discussions, federal agencies began posting on the left-friendly social network. Within days, they dominated a list of the most-blocked accounts.”
Don’t Mind If I Sue
Stephen Colbert:
“How Low Can Donald Trump Go? | A Dubious Peace Prize | Failing The ICE Fitness Test ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=iZYolssub5Y
GameDeveloper: Microsoft’s demand for higher Xbox profits may be behind layoffs, price increases
30% margin is a looking for a reason to get rid of the division level. Companies have hit that in short bursts when producing a top tier hit game but nobody can do that reliably. It explains why the division has made some profit now/ruin the company down the road decisions.
As part of a huge company there can be some manipulation of where expenses are allocated but that may or may not work in the XBox groups favor. Rumor has had it that a bunch of executive at Microsoft want to get rid of the XBox division but the stock holders are not big on the idea.
“Accountability margin” is some painful level of corporate jargon speech.
NB!
Phil Moorhouse:
Trump’s Secret Gaza Plans Accidentally Revealed by Witkoff
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q7L7QYsWHlk
Witkoff says the plan goes back two years- BEFORE Gaza was flattened!
And we know the peace deal between Trump and Netanyahu is exactly the same as the one Biden suggested a year ago, and Netanyahu was the only one who opposed it.
So Witkoff and Kushner had advance knowledge that the city would be flattened, and Netanyahu held off agreeing to the plan while Biden was in office, and while some buildings remained standing.
On energy prices, Trump expects voters to fall for the same foolish lie twice
“Remember when Trump vowed to cut consumers’ energy costs in half? And then failed? He’s now making the same pitch again ahead of Election Day 2025.”
This is going to TRIGGER the Trump supporters in red states
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=7IVnVwUi31U
If New York and New England broke away, it would be one of the most economically strong nations in the world. The same goes for California.
The MAGA states would have to make do without the huge subsidies that are paid by blue states. I absolutely recommend rubbing this in the face of MaGAs who fantisize about seceeding from the librul North.
Trump pardons convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao
Link
Washington Post link.
“EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Anglican Church archbishop accused of sexual misconduct, abuse of power”
“An attempted kiss, cash payments and other allegations roil the Anglican Church in North America.”
More at the link.
Followup to comment 453.
White House struggles to defend Trump’s pardon for founder of Binance crypto exchange
“Changpeng Zhao helped finance the president’s stablecoin and helped put money in the Trumps’ pockets while lobbying for a pardon. Evidently, it worked.”
Related video at the link.
Trump approves contentious drilling, mining in Alaska
New York Times link
Trump calls off federal operation in San Francisco.
‘Functionally extinct’: After 10,000 years on the Florida coast, two key corals are dead</a.
“In a grim study, a team of nearly 50 researchers concludes that extreme ocean heat killed off two crucial coral species that had been building reefs in Florida since the Ice Age.”
More at the link.
Good news: The Adam Schiff criminal probe has stalled, sources say
“After months of investigating, federal prosecutors in Maryland have not produced enough evidence to bring charges, according to four people familiar with the investigation.”
EU punts deal on Russian assets for Ukraine to December
“Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever agrees to European leaders’ fudged wording.”
European giants strike deal on €6B space champion to rival Elon Musk
“The three-way pact between Airbus, Leonardo and Thales would create a challenger to Musk’s SpaceX.”
Finland to Trump: Now let Zelenskyy hit Russia with Tomahawks
“Prime Minister Petteri Orpo tells POLITICO Ukraine must be equipped to match or exceed Russia’s capabilities because Vladimir Putin only responds to strength.”
Wall Street Journal:
NBC News:
Washington Post:
The Washington Post report was summarized by Steve Benen.
BBC:
Associated Press:
Trump is responsible. His Republican Party is not a fiscally responsible political organization.
National Parks are more of a mess thanks to the GOP shutdown
Trump’s attmpt to grab a quarter billion $ hits a snag.
“Democrats To Investigate Trump’s ‘Theft’ Of $230 Million”
.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-230-million_n_68fa46e8e4b08cdeb45ddaec
Anton Petrov :
“500 Meter Tall Megatsunami in Alaska (Aug, 2025 Event) Confirms Something Important ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=_30glqHp5Ec
Muslims unfairly accused of posing threat.
Britain: “Maccabi Tel Aviv Lies COLLAPSE”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4BhwgyNYpoA
Night Sky News
A new method to measure the expansion rate of the Universe, meteor showers, the interstellar comet and other news
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=dNIXBLQtzPQ
First high-resolution structure of key herpes virus protein opens path to new antivirals
.https://phys.org/news/2025-10-high-resolution-key-herpes-virus.html
Newly discovered ‘super-Earth’ offers prime target in search for alien life
.https://phys.org/news/2025-10-newly-super-earth-prime-alien.html
GJ251c is on a 54-day orbit and is expected to have a mass of at least 4 Earths.
*This may be a K star rather than an M dwarf, in which case the environment is slightly more favourable)
Oops, sorry. GJ 251 is a red dwarf with a luminosity of just 1.5 % that of the sun. So even though it is claimed the planet is within the ‘hospitable’ zone the tidal effects will be much stronger than for Earth. As the system is more than 6 billion years old, the rotation of the planet will long ago have slowed to the point it is locked with one side always facing the star and the other in darkness. When the red dwarf was young it will have stripped the atmosphere of any planets by intense flares and coronal mass ejections.
I understand news sites need to catch attention, but claiming worlds orbiting red dwarfs may host life is bordering to fraud.
Must-read article for astronomy enthusiasts.
“Planetary scientists link Jupiter’s birth to Earth’s formation zone”
.https://phys.org/news/2025-10-planetary-scientists-link-jupiter-birth.html
Researchers find a new targeted approach to shut down prostate cancer growth
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-approach-prostate-cancer-growth.html
.
Scientists develop one-product-fits-all immunotherapy for breast cancer
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-scientists-product-immunotherapy-breast-cancer.html
Climatologist Dr GilbzWe’ve pushed our climate too far – a dozen mins long.
For Oz and elsewhere too – helping and taking iunrefugeees isn’t just the right tjhing ethically but also pragmatically good for national economies :
Source : https://media.oxfam.org.au/2019/08/accepting-more-refugees-good-for-australian-economy-and-society-report/
Aroudn a red dwarf so instant big question mark but still
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplanets/super-earth-less-than-20-light-years-away-is-an-exciting-lead-in-the-search-for-life
Plaid Cymru ousts Labour in Caerphilly byelection in Wales, rejects challenge from far-right Reform UK (Long live Free Wales! Throw out the Siche colonisers!)
.https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/24/plaid-cymru-wins-caerphilly-byelection-result
.
Ireland votes for next president as polls predict landslide for Catherine Connolly, leftwing independent
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/24/ireland-votes-for-next-president-as-polls-predict-landslide-for-catherine-connolly
StevoR @ 481
I initially shared your enthusiasm until I learned more.
See @ 476
Trump is churning out insults like a Gatling gun but has a hissy fit about a Canadian ad.
Trade talks with Canada has stopped.
“”⚡️Zelensky did NOT expect to see this in Sweden! Emotions are overflowing”
The aircraft in the video will be delivered to Ukraine.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=VCUBRMrj0U4
American Facebook comment: “Every day when I wake up, there is only one headline I want to see”.
Others adding: “If it happens, cholesterol should have the Nobel Prize”.
MSNBC: Justice Department wants to keep Todd Blanche off the stand in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case
Nothing surprising here but it’s the start of an important argument. The government is leaning on the principle that the DOJ is acting properly and should not be questioned just because it’s reasons are not obvious to defendants or judges. Judges in several cases are not only saying the government is acting improperly but that it is doing so in general.
No idea how it will turn out. The prosecution of Abrego is obviously an attempt to punish Abrego for not giving in to the government and letting himself be deported. Winning vindictive prosecution is very hard. This argument is sure to bubble up to the Supreme Court over a couple of months.
NBC News: The GOP expected Democrats to relent on the shutdown by now. That isn’t happening.
I have been surprised myself at how easily the Democrats seem to have held together. No Democrats holding press conferences to talk about how unsure they are of how to vote or unhappy they are with the situation. No Democrats flip flopping between yes and no with an eye towards how many yes votes they can have and still make the Republicans lose. They have stuck together as a voting block and kept a pretty consistent public message. The Democrats are standing on “This is our position and until the Republicans negotiate we are not changing it”.
Should have asked him if that means the Republicans will negotiate because American lives are more important then political games. Part of the reason this has worked so well against Republicans is that the Democratic position is simple and consistent. The Republicans have been all over the place trying to come up with a way to blame Democrats for what Republicans are doing. The Republicans have kept the Senate shut down and not doing anything while trying to blame Democrats for the situation.
CNBC: Inflation rate hit 3.0% in September, lower than expected, long-awaited CPI report shows
This report was only done because it’s needed for Social Security adjustments, which are important enough to be done even during a shutdown. The BLS then went ahead and released the report to the public.
The figures are not good but better then expected. Companies seem to have over did their initial reactions to tariffs and there has been less tariff activity recently. So companies are absorbing more of the recent shifts, leading to only higher then desire inflation, not dangerously high inflation.
CNN: Jack Smith asks Congress and the Justice Department to allow him to testify publicly
This would be a huge gamble by Republicans but a tempting one. Doing the hearing in public raises the stakes in term of favor from Trump and general publicity. The Republicans who are experienced at this know that Smith will be a very difficult witness to pin down but that they don’t really have to catch him at a lie or mistake, only to get him to say something that make a good sound clip.
Because of the amount of grand jury testimony it will essentially require approval from the DOJ. Normally the DOJ would likely reject this out of hand or limit the public part to only a few topics but I think the Trump DOJ is likely to go for it if Congress Republicans want to do it.
Scripps News: Bipartisan call for term limits in Congress grows during prolonged shutdown
The talk of term limits right now is likely trying to change the topic to anything but what is happening in Congress. It will die as soon as Congress opens. Most real changes would take amendments which is a very difficult process.
I think term limits would be an improvement but there are even better alternative. It forces turn over in Congress but it wipes out the information in Congress also. Elected officials would have to turn to lobbyists to write laws even more then they do now.
Rather then a fixed term limit a system that allowed for unlimited terms but only 2 consecutive terms could be good. I also like the idea of a lottery, where some names are picked among the members holding seats for the longest period of time and capping their terms.
As for alternatives Instant run off voting is a better voting system and improves the elections with almost no downsides. It makes voting better represent what people want without overly complicating the system. Some of the reasons for term limits could be achieved by forcing physical and mental capacity tests, which I think should be applied across the government.
This is one point in favor of term limits that is rarely talked about. It becomes harder and harder to replace officials that have served multiple terms. The whole system of campaign finance needs changed also but that will require the Supreme Court wising up and constitutional amendments.
AG Pam Bondi announces investigation into another Trump foe: Nancy Pelosi
“Pelosi suggested those who break the law should be held accountable, even if those people are federal agents. The attorney general wasn’t pleased.”
Link
More at the link, including a summary of recent developments in “The Destruction: East Wing Edition.”
Followup to birger @484.
Trump Says He’s Cutting Off Trade Negotiations With Canada
“[Trump] said he was motivated by an ad, paid for by the province of Ontario, that featured Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs in a 1987 radio address.”
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More at the link, including details showing how this “bribe Trump” scheme works.
Team Trump making sure we can keep buying the most dangerous guns
Cartoon: The list is long
Followup to comment 494.
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Trump approves disaster declarations for red states, as blue states go without
“President Trump and his administration have politicized disaster relief,” one governor said, “and our communities are the ones who will pay the price.”
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