This reminds me of a prank played by a group of French situationists, I think in 1968 but may have been more recently. They (temporarily) kidnapped a Catholic priest shortly before he was about to begin Mass, and one of their number dressed himself in the clerical robes. He made his way to the pulpit (or whatever they have in Catholic churches), adopted an appropriately solemn mien, and began his address to the congregation:
Frères, dieu est mort!
KGsays
Lynna, OM@493,
I think Trump may have been sticking to the ludicrous claim that the latest fighting is a new war, made so he can pretend he hasn’t reached the time limit by which the president has to get congressional approval. Hence 14 dead in the”first” war, 18 so far in the “two” wars.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this week that Russia and China are both ‘enabling’ Tehran’s war effort against the US
President Donald Trump on Friday said he does not believe the Russian or Chinese governments are providing military or intelligence assistance to Iran — based solely on the denials of their leaders — contradicting the assessment of his own defense secretary during a Senate hearing just days ago.
With any other president you would assume this is a diplomatic lie. With Trump it’s easier to think he doesn’t understand what is going on. Neither Russia or China is likely selling Iran weapons right now, instead they are giving and selling Iran information, supplies and the parts/raw materials they need to make weapons.
“Team Trump admitted it withheld federal resources from states based on local voters casting ballots in ways the president doesn’t like.”
During last fall’s government shutdown, the Trump administration started cutting energy grants to states, but the only states that were seriously affected were ones Donald Trump lost in the 2024 election. At the time, officials in the affected states accused the White House of “mafioso tactics” and brazenly abusing its powers by politicizing grant decisions that are supposed to be based on merit.
Team Trump was initially dismissive of the claims. Russell Vought, the White House budget director who terminated hundreds of grants, insisted that he was simply paring back Biden-era federal grants that the White House considered wasteful because as Vought put it, they were part of a “Green New Scam” — whatever that was supposed to mean.
It wasn’t long, however, before that posture started evolving.
In December, for example, the Republican administration’s lawyers made no real effort to deny the underlying allegations, instead arguing in a court filing that it’s “constitutionally permissible” to consider partisan politics when distributing (or canceling) federal funds. [What? Not correct as far as I know.]
This week, Team Trump gave up the game, effectively admitting in a legal filing that the “mafioso tactics” claims were correct all along. The New York Times reported:
In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.
The stunning admission offered an unvarnished glimpse into the way President Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Mr. Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes.
[…] The article went on to note, “Federal officials offered the new details about the grant cancellations as part of an agreement with plaintiffs meant to spare the government an exhaustive, evidence-uncovering process known as discovery, the court filings said. That process could have required federal agencies to hand over more damaging records.”
In other words, this is the good version of the developments from the White House’s perspective. The agreement reached by the administration prevented other potential abuses from coming to public light.
We’re talking about a White House that admits it withholds federal resources from states based on local voters casting ballots in ways the president doesn’t like. Not to put too fine a point on this, but that sounds an awful lot like an impeachable offense. It’s a fundamental corruption of how federal tax dollars are allocated.
[…] Team Trump approves disaster aid requests from red states, while rejecting comparable requests from blue states. Team Trump curtails healthcare funds, but only for states the White House doesn’t like. Team Trump tried to freeze $10 billion in funding for social services programs in five states, but only blue states were impacted. Team Trump launched a supposed crackdown on “fraud” in social insurance programs, but its sole focus is on Democratic cities and states. […]
A federal judge in Virginia ruled in favor of an abortion provider Thursday, finding that the Food and Drug Administration’s most recent set of restrictions on mifepristone isn’t justified by the data.
Whole Woman’s Health, a reproductive health clinic in Alexandria, joined a rich history of medical organizations and providers challenging the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), some form of which has been imposed on mifepristone for years. In its most current iteration, formalized under the Biden administration in 2023, the agency lifted some crucial restrictions, allowing the drug to be prescribed over telehealth, dispensed by certified pharmacies and mailed.
Still, the drug is larded up with restrictions that Judge Robert Ballou, a Biden appointee, found to be unsupported by FDA’s review of the drug’s safety. The REMS — which only 73 of over 20,000 FDA-approved drugs have — still requires pharmacies and providers to get special certification and for patients to sign a consent form without the agency having proved that the drug is unusually dangerous.
“Plaintiffs note that other commonly prescribed drugs, comparable in safety to mifepristone, have been approved without any REMS requirements,” Ballou wrote in Whole Woman’s Health Alliance v. FDA. “For example, an analysis of medication abortion risk explained that the mortality rate associated with medical abortion is 0.65 deaths per 100,000 medication abortions, while the mortality rate of Penicillin, which does not have a REMS, is 2 deaths per 100,000 patients administered the drug.”
He added: “In 2012, the FDA approved mifepristone (marketed as Korlym) for the treatment of Cushing’s syndrome at a higher dosage and for longer duration, without imposing any REMS or [Elements to Assure Safe Use].”
[…] An attempt to get mifepristone’s authorization removed, or at least to add back onerous restrictions, failed at the Supreme Court in 2024 when the justices ruled unanimously that the anti-abortion doctor plaintiffs lacked standing.
The movement has since renewed its anti-mifepristone legal fusillade. In one notable case, Louisiana v. FDA, Louisiana is challenging the 2023 restrictions as too permissive, arguing that they infringe on the state’s abortion ban and force it to spend money on Medicaid patients who are hospitalized after taking the drug (a frequent refrain in anti-abortion activists’ smear campaign). A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel sided with Louisiana, but the Supreme Court blocked that ruling while the litigation plays out.
In Whole Woman’s Health, the clinic is trying to make mifepristone as accessible as possible in Virginia, one of the only southern states where abortion is still legal.
[…] The agency [FDA] under President Donald Trump has begun a slow-moving review of the drug’s safety, prodded along by an impatient anti-abortion movement, which expected faster and more decisive action from the Trump administration to take mifepristone off the market nationwide.
Former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary reportedly ordered that the review be slow-walked so its inevitable conclusion that the drug is dangerous comes after this year’s midterms, avoiding another Dobbs-like backlash that could hurt Republicans’ electoral prospects.
The entire ruling is available at the link as a PDF.
“David Brouillette, according to Ohio Immigrant Alliance, is no outlier.”
This week, we published an investigation into David Brouillette, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who reportedly killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine earlier this month. That investigation revealed a long history of alleged violence against Brouillette’s ex-wives and children. “To be honest, I was surprised anyone would give that man a gun,” a former friend said of Brouillette.
On July 22, the advocacy group Ohio Immigrant Alliance released a list of 59 active and former ICE and CBP agents charged with sexual and violent crimes between 2007 and 2026. Brouillette is no outlier, said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and author of the report. “But we have no way of knowing the full extent of the problem, because the agency doesn’t even look at family court records.”
A federal employment website states that “all personnel employed by ICE are mandated to undergo a comprehensive background investigation.” When asked for comment on the Ohio Immigrant Alliance report, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said “We take allegations regarding misconduct seriously and cherish the public’s trust. We work tirelessly to uphold the rule of law and hold ourselves accountable.”
Fifty of 59 cases the group documented were sex crimes, many of them committed against children. And the problem, according to their research, is getting worse: “Cases documented in 2025 and 2026 alone account for 42.4 percent of the list — 25 out of 59 cases,” Tramonte wrote. “Compare that to 2020, the previous peak year, which had just 6.” […]
Scientists in France say they have discovered the building blocks of the incredible diversity of birdsong.
A team analysed more than100,000 songs from 3,000 bird species and revealed that they are all composed of eight fundamental types of sound that the researchers call “motifs”.
Each song, they say, is made up of combinations of these motifs – three types of trill, three types of whistle, chaotic notes and harmonies…
A key finding was that the environment the birds evolved in – from tropical forest to temperate landscape – shaped how they “composed” their songs.
So birds adapted for tropical forests use different acoustic building blocks, or motifs, to those from temperate regions.
Simpler motifs, like flat whistles, Bacquelé explained, are often found in tropical environments, apparently because they help the birds make themselves heard through the busy, biodiverse soundscape and dense vegetation.
More complex compositions – with ultrafast trills and combinations that contain lots of information – are more common in temperate forests, where birds tend to communicate at closer range.
A celebration marking the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Ontario and Michigan took place on the Canadian side of the bridge Friday. Canada celebrated alone, due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threats…
… Obama spoke to the players for a few minutes on the basketball court at the center which opened last month.
“Some of you I’m meeting for the first time. All of you are extraordinary and I could not be bigger fans,” Obama said. “The way the game has been growing lately, the way it’s been picking up and people paying attention to your excellence, I think it’s been something for basketball fans, generally, a sight to see. It’s been making me happy.”
He spoke to the players for a few minutes before taking a group photo. Obama then spent about 10 minutes shaking hands with the players and taking photos with them, including (Caitlin) Clark…
President Trump said Friday it was “fine” that Canada excluded the U.S. from its ceremony marking the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge after the Trump administration threatened a 50 percent tariff on certain Canadian imports.
“Canada disinvited the United States of America to the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge, which is fine, considering they are paying substantial TARIFFS to the United States,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said the original agreement governing the bridge “no longer stands,” arguing it had been “terribly negotiated” by a previous administration.
“We changed the terms of the Deal so that the United States of America now gets 50% of the Profit,” he added.
Canada held the ceremony on Friday to mark the completion of a $4.7 billion bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. The bridge is scheduled to open to passenger and commercial traffic on Monday.
Trump in February threatened to block the 1.5-mile bridge from opening, citing Canadian restrictions on sales of U.S. alcohol, disagreements on tariffs and Canada’s trade cooperation with China.
The U.S. and Canada later announced an agreement clearing the way for the bridge to open with an original date in June, but the two countries offered conflicting ideas as to how future bridge revenue would be divided. […]
Steve Benen, who writes for the Maddow Blog, summarized bits and pieces of news for “Friday’s Mini-Report”:
* That the year isn’t even over yet makes this news noticeably worse: “The United States has now recorded more cases of measles in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, a grim sign that the country may be headed toward a new era in which the disease regularly sickens thousands every year.” [Source: New York Times]
* An intensifying cyclospora problem: “Federal health officials on Friday said they have linked cases of a diarrhea-causing parasite tied to shredded lettuce to an additional four states, expanding the scope of the largest U.S. outbreak of cyclospora. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the outbreak first tied to Taco Bell restaurants now includes Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. Previously the agency’s investigation included five states: Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.” [Source: New York Times]
* Meanwhile: “Approximately 1.5 million dozen white and brown cage-free eggs have been recalled due to potential salmonella contamination.” [Source: Washington Post]
* A lawsuit worth watching: “Two small businesses sued the Trump administration on Friday over the latest tariffs it has imposed around the world, touching off another legal battle that could redefine President Trump’s powers to wage a global trade war.” [Source: New York Times]
* No rush: “Paramount said on Friday that it had agreed to halt its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery until next June at the latest while a judge considers a lawsuit from state attorneys general who sued to block the deal. The delay throws into doubt the future of a deal that would remake Hollywood.” [Source: New York Times]
* In related news: “The former ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Cecilia Vega on Thursday described pressure from executives at CBS News to insert what she said was political bias into three segments that aired this year. Ms. Vega was among three of the show’s correspondents to be fired this spring and is now the third to go public with claims of executives’ interfering in the show’s reporting.” [Source: New York Times]
* These immigrants’ fears are well grounded: “A federal refugee resettlement office is quietly launching an effort to interview hundreds of Afghan immigrants living in the United States, raising alarms among refugee groups who worry the information they collect could be used for future immigration enforcement.” [Source: Washington Post]
* Doesn’t Trump want to go to the moon and Mars? “Workforce cuts are putting NASA’s plans to send astronauts to the moon and, eventually, Mars, at risk, according to a new audit from the government’s top watchdog. NASA shed 4,000 of its permanent staff last year, an overhaul officials said is now impacting 70% of its major projects. The agency has felt the cuts throughout its headquarters and in each of its centers across the country, the Government Accountability Office found in a report released on Thursday.” [Source: NOTUS]
The U.S. Justice Department is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. border authorities with a passcode that wiped the contents of his phone, according to an indictment and media reports.
This is thought to be the first known case in the United States where federal prosecutors have charged someone for the alleged destruction of data using a “duress” password built into a phone’s software.
According to The Guardian, which covered the story earlier this week following the court’s first hearing on Monday, Atlanta resident Samuel Tunick is fighting the charges. Tunick’s attorneys said that it was unlawful for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to seize his phone as he arrived back in the U.S. last year and that any evidence — including the alleged wiping of his phone — should be thrown out.
The case centers on a feature included in GrapheneOS, a custom Android operating system that runs in place of the software on most modern Google Pixel devices. Tunick’s attorneys confirmed GrapheneOS was running on his phone.
The software feature allows the device owner to set a passcode that deliberately wipes the contents of that device if entered instead of the user’s unlock passcode…
“Colleges Promise ‘Business as Usual’ on Middle East Campuses Despite War”
“Even after the collapse of the cease-fire between the United States and Iran, American universities expect to teach in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and a new outpost is on track to open in Saudi Arabia.”
The Middle East campuses of American universities are expecting — or perhaps just hoping — to be open for classes as usual for the coming semester, even as the United States’ conflict with Iran poses new risks in the region.
Some American schools have long run programs in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The war, however, meant that students spent much of the spring semester enduring shutdowns, evacuations, online courses and other emergency measures. But the unraveling of the cease-fire between Washington and Tehran is not yet curbing universities’ ambitions to teach as they ordinarily would in the Middle East.
The University of New Haven is still planning to inaugurate its new campus in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, though probably without some faculty members it intended to send from the United States.
“The word in Saudi is that students are going to school and it’s business as usual,” Jens Frederiksen, New Haven’s president, said in an interview. “We’re proceeding with the launch.”
[…] Virginia Commonwealth University, which has a presence in Qatar, said it was “planning to begin the fall semester with in-person instruction and campus operations as scheduled.” But the school said it was “prepared to transition temporarily to remote instruction and operations should circumstances warrant.”
Spokesmen for Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University described similar approaches for their Qatar campuses.
Cornell University, whose medical school has a presence in the country, said the campus would “continue to follow guidance from the Qatar Ministry of Interior, monitor developments and provide timely updates.”
[I snipped details related to Georgetown University and to Texas A&M.]
In the Emirates, New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus is “planning for in person,” said Wiley Norvell, a school spokesman.
[…] As New Haven prepares to open its branch in Riyadh, Dr. Frederiksen, the university president, acknowledged that the student body might be different than once envisioned. He said he expected most of the debut cohort’s students to be from Saudi Arabia and that the campus would probably be “light,” for the time being, on pupils from elsewhere. […]
A performance artist posing as a cryptozoologist tried to charge $9.31 admission to view his fake Bigfoot corpse at the New York State Fair—until part of his photo evidence proved him to be a hoaxer.
[…] Charles “Snake” Stewart (spelled “Stuart” in some reports) claimed he’d found something extraordinary in the Adirondack Mountains — the complete, intact body of a Bigfoot. Stewart even had DNA evidence linking the specimen to Neanderthals.
[…]
Brian Andrew Whiteley’s Wikipedia page revealed the truth. From 2012 to 2014, Whiteley had repeatedly filmed himself in Bigfoot costumes, submitting the footage to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization as genuine sightings. Experts debunked every submission, but Whiteley used their responses to refine his performances. His most polished hoax went viral before he stopped the charade—someone had shot at him while he wore his costume in upstate New York.
The connection became undeniable when researchers compared photographs. The man standing next to the Bigfoot corpse had distinctive tattoos on his arms—bat designs that matched exactly with images of Whiteley from art magazines. Charles “Snake” Stewart was Brian Andrew Whiteley, performance artist.
[…]
The corpse itself revealed numerous problems beyond the missing genitalia. Real decomposition follows predictable patterns that Whiteley’s creation ignored entirely.
[…]
Whiteley operates in the nebulous space between art and deception. His previous Bigfoot performances explicitly explored the intersection of belief and evidence, using cryptozoology experts’ responses as part of the artwork itself. He documented their debunking processes, studying how they identified fake footage and what convinced or failed to convince them.
Cryptid fans continue to complain that this is bad for the reputation of the field. But hoaxes have been an integral and common part of cryptozoology since its beginning. […] the way we think about the creatures today is inextricably tied to the hoax portrayal.
[…]
I don’t know if Whiteley will make much net profit on this event, but he has succeeded in establishing himself as a B-grade jackass.
[…]
Look, I could deconstruct this story in detail but I have no desire to spend time on this. It’s transparently silly. Whiteley has done the work to construct his narrative, using ideas from other people and sciencey-sounding words, manufacturing a tale that is entertaining to some. It’s not up to the critics to react to what’s happening, it’s up to a claimant to do the work to show this isn’t the BS that it obviously appears to be. He can yak about it all he wants to the media but any claim about a novel new creature must be examined by real scientists, not displayed in a carnival setting. In 2026, you’d think everyone would have caught onto that ploy by now.
This incident occurred during an internal evaluation which prompts models to pursue advanced exploitation using complex attack paths […] without production classifiers used to prevent models from pursuing high-risk cyber activity.
So they prompted their model running without guardrails to hack some shit. OpenAI told it to do that, the model didn’t do shit autonomously (no LLM ever does anything autonomously, it’s always prompted).
The whole story is PR. We know that from Anthopic’s Mythos: “Look we have this super secret new model and it’s so powerful. We are scared ourselves. And you will soon be able to rent it!”
These weren’t “rogue AIs”—what happened here is that OpenAI kicked off a software process and let it run. OpenAI was always in control and could have stopped the process (or actually paid attention to what it was doing) at any time.
[…]
Models don’t “conclude” anything, nor do they “hack”, “wriggle”, or “cheat”. You simply can’t write clear informative articles about this stuff if you displace agency away from the people (organized into corporations) responsible.
Rando 1: “The entire story equates to ‘we were testing a cron job and it started calling some APIs.’ Except they changed ‘we’ for ‘the AI’ and changed ‘cron job’ for ‘agents’ and changed ‘Calling some APIs’ with ‘it started hacking into some remote systems’.”
Rando 2: “one analogy I saw—’we set a Roomba loose in a warehouse and left the door to another warehouse open on purpose and it wandered in there.'”
Rando 3: “They lifted the guardrails that let it loose. It was human intervention that allowed their model to attack that other company and honestly there should be an investigation / lawsuit about it. This is absolutley marketing, and treating it otherwise is utter nonsense.”
Kevin Beaumont (Cybersecurity journalist): “OpenAI are criminally negligent when it comes to cybersecurity, and are very good at viral marketing to executives via poor and uncritical media coverage.”
Rando 4: “Imagine Tesla setting off a car to drive on its own without guardrails, hitting a pedestrian, and then doing a proud press release about it. ‘Did you see that?! It broke out of its garage and went rogue!! Wow! You saw it didn’t you? Isn’t it great!?'”
Tante: “It does make sense: OpenAI was losing ground and mindshare to Anthropic. They are running out of money but couldn’t IPO because SpaceX ruined it. This ‘our model is a Cyberweapon’ is advertising directly to the Pentagon.”
KGsays
Further to Lynna, OM@493, Me@2,
Apparently the four recent deaths of American troops have been removed from the total (making it 14 rather than 18) on the grounds that they occurred during a “ceasefire”, and hence are not war deaths! This still contradicts Trump’s own “18 in two wars” claim – but what a grotesque way to insult the dead and their families.
StevoRsays
Scott Manley has a new yt video on the latest Starship flight here – 25 mins long.
Silentbobsays
@ StevoR
How many stars did this Starship visit?
(If the answer is less than two, whoever called it a “Starship” is a fucking wanker )
Reginald Selkirksays
@18 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain
Thanks for the follow-up.
StevoRsays
@22. Silentbob : Yeah. Felon Musk is, indeed, a wanker. Pity he’s in charge and of course it changes nothing when it comes to the facts, success and impressiveness of the newest SpaceX rocket’s successful flight. What’s ina namke huh?
Oh and obvs there’s precedent here after all how many stars did the USAF’s Starfighter aircraft fly to? See :
Instagram is banning videos filmed with Meta smart glasses that harass strangers in public, including prank videos targeting service workers and pickup-artist clips of women who may not realize they are being recorded. “If you’re posting content that is taking advantage of people and harassing them, like a lot of these pickup line kind of videos that we’ve heard of and seen, then we’re going to take the content down,” said Instagram head Adam Mosseri in response to a question on his Instagram stories last week. “We don’t want people to be surreptitiously taking videos of other people and harassing them and then posting them on our platform. So we’re trying to fight that every way we can.” Business Insider reports:…
A Pro-Ukraine group claims it helped facilitate a cyberattack on a Russian BARS drone defense system near Moscow, resulting in the shooting down of an advanced Russian fighter jet. The Su-57 stealth fighter crashed spectacularly “during a routine training mission in the Moscow region on Thursday,” say reports published by Russian state media. The pilot ejected safely, and the jet smashed into an uninhabited area. However, what the Russians are characterizing as an accident due to “a technical malfunction,” some Ukrainian open-source intelligence (OSINT) agencies are claiming as successful sabotage…
The weirdly out-of-the-blue, ill-timed announcement of a sweeping, decades-long, multibillion-dollar nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia just keeps getting more haphazard and nonsensical the more we learn about it.
Finding out that the Trump family negotiated a lucrative private development deal alongside the diplomatic one illuminated things a bit, because President Donald Trump isn’t going to do anything where he doesn’t personally get paid, but it looks like the whole thing is just sort of a shambolic mess.
Is it good when the White House apparently asked the Department of Energy not to announce the Saudi deal on Wednesday, but Energy Secretary Chris Wright went ahead and did it anyway?
Is it good when Trump then decided the best way to deal with this was to add a new condition after the fact, requiring Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries? Did other presidents just have huge foreign policy agreements announced as a sort of “oopsie,” followed by the on-the-fly invention of a new requirement for the deal?
[I snipped statement from White House spokes-eejit.]
Now, we are not big fancy dealmakers like Trump, but we feel pretty confident in saying that usually when a deal is contingent on something, it’s written in as part of the agreement, not something [some doofus] pops up and demands after it is signed.
But according to the White House, this is actually truly magnificent message discipline at work: “The Department of Energy has closely coordinated the negotiations and then announcement of these agreements with the White House and the State Department.”
What it really looks like, per CNN’s reporting, is that Trump got sad when people criticized the deal, particularly conservative commentators.
Having Fox’s Brian Kilmeade trash the deal, along with the entire Wall Street Journal editorial board, probably had far more to do with Trump’s on-the-fly changes to the deal than anything else. [Yep, that is probably true. Trump is actually quite responsive to press coverage — except for when he is asleep at the Correspondent’s Dinner.]
He probably cares far less about the outcry from nuclear nonproliferation experts who explained they are a tad bit worried this looks like it may kick off a full-fledged Middle East nuclear arms race. The deal appears to allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium and reprocess spent fuel, things which are usually excluded in nuclear cooperation agreements. Why? Because those things make it much easier to covertly turn a domestic nuclear power program into a nuclear weapons one. [!]
What’s clear here is that some portion of the administration saw announcing the agreement as some sort of easy win, hoping to grab some favorable headlines while the war in Iran continues to spiral out of control, showing that President Deals is unbeatable, without really thinking the whole thing through.
Turns out when the default behavior of the entire administration is not really thinking things through, this is what you get.
[…] Check out this article: Three World Leaders. Three Incredibly Bad Decisions.New York Times link
Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin are drastically different men, but they do have one important thing in common: Each thinks he is the smartest person in any room he enters. Alas, though, because they have all done the dumbest thing you can do as a leader — surround yourself with sycophants — they have all blundered into dead-end wars from which they can extricate themselves today only by eating a banquet of crow.
[…] You know who is losing? Putin.
That loser is losing it up. Check out these headlines:
– With Putin visibly weakened, now is the time to back Ukraine
– Putin Given Dire Warning That His Inner Circle Is Turning on Him
– Putin is fast losing the energy war against Ukraine
– Vladimir Putin Is Heading For A Fall
– Putin Has Lost the War in Ukraine
[embedded links are available at the main link]
You know who is losing? Netanyahu.
That loser is losing it up. Check out these headlines:
– Losing ground to nemesis Eisenkot, a desperate Netanyahu plumbs new depths
– Benjamin Netanyahu is currently projected to lose power in Israel’s October election
– Netanyahu’s Likud falls to lowest position since June 2025 as Eisenkot reaches new heights
– Netanyahu is losing his electoral Midas touch
– Israeli press review: US-Saudi nuclear deal slammed as Netanyahu’s ‘failure’
– Trump Gifts Saudi Arabia a Nuclear Deal and Turkey F-35 Jets, as a Sidelined Netanyahu Is Left to Watch
[embedded links are available at the main link]
You know who is losing? Trump.
That loser is losing it up. Here are some examples from just this week! [Approval rating graph showing steep decline]
– Trump Gets Clobbered In New Fox News Poll […]
– Trump Suffers Fresh Blow as Moms Abandon Him in Poll […]
– The illusion of invincibility is gone. […]
– Judge says Trump’s attack on mail voting is ‘unconstitutional,’ legal challenge can continue […]
– The government’s New York Times subpoenas just collapsed in court. And it was glorious. […]
– Trump would love to steal the election. But he’s floundering. […]
[embedded links are available at the main link]
You know who is WINNING? The good guys (that is us)
– Democrats hold 11-point lead over GOP on generic ballot: Poll […]
– three gubernatorial rating changed this week, all to the benefit of Democrats. […]
– Dem turnout in Nebraska’s primary exceeded Republican for the first time in more than 30 years […]
– [Social media post from Marc Elias regarding Trump’s Department of Justice failing to compel Kentucky to provide DOJ access to complete statewide voter registration database.]
– A new poll shows why Democratic leaders should stop panicking over socialists […]
[embedded links are available at the main link]
I set up a new fundraiser.
[…] the smaller races that allow us to gain control of states and allow states to actually do things to increase voting and help people.
Second, they are races that build candidates for other races in the future.
Third, these races are notoriously underfunded so your donation can make a huge difference.
This fundraiser divides donations between three organizations that target down ballot Democrats.
Plus no annoying follow up texts and emails from a bazillion House and Senate candidates! […]
Here is the link: Support Down Ballot Candidates to Support All Democrats
[embedded link is available at the main link]
Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson formally clinched the Democratic nod to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in November, giving the party just 100 days to quickly turn the tides in the must-win race.
Jackson handily won on Saturday with 566 votes during the Democratic nomination convention in Bangor, Maine. His only challenger, biopharmaceutical executive Saundra Pelletier, nabbed the remaining five votes.
“This is the absolute honor of my life to accept the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate,” he said to cheers.
“I will spend every day now through November earning that trust,” Jackson vowed to his supporters.
Democrats in the state largely consolidated around the former state senator ahead of the convention to replace scandal-ridden Graham Platner, who exited the race earlier this month. The contest, which Decision Desk HQ and Cook Political Report rate as a toss-up, could prove decisive in the party’s chances of clinching the upper chamber this fall.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) celebrated the win in a joint statement Saturday.
“Troy Jackson is a fifth-generation logger with a demonstrated ability to win,” the duo wrote. “A champion for affordable health care and working people, Jackson has harnessed the grassroots energy in Maine and is well-positioned to defeat Susan Collins, who is more vulnerable than she has ever been.”
“Collins is facing record-low approvals after she voted with Trump 96 percent of the time, was the decisive vote for the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and sold out to the special interests that fund her campaigns after three decades in the Senate,” the senators added. “In November, we will defeat Susan Collins and win a Senate majority.” […]
I am concerned about Susan Collins. She is about to lose her job. [smiles]
Trump’s insult-laden speech to press dinner draws mostly stunned silence
[…] Trump attacked a slew of journalists and some of his favorite political foils at a slimmed-down redo of the White House correspondents’ dinner on Friday, comparing one female reporter to a transgender social media star, mocking politicians’ physical appearances, and bringing his audience to mostly stunned silence for more than an hour before pulling out a red Trump 2028 cap and declaring he was running for another term.
Three months after a gunman exchanged fire with authorities outside the first correspondents’ dinner, throwing the event into chaos […]
Trump veered on and off his prepared script for the evening, at one point calling it a “fricking stupid speech.”
The fraught event put the president on the dais with reporters who have covered him aggressively. Trump rarely speaks to audiences that aren’t packed with his supporters, leading to an unusual dynamic in a ballroom of reporters who are professionally bound to maintain poker faces.
Some of his first jokes drew laughs, including one that acknowledged the interrupted first run of the meal.
“I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire, very delicious beef tenderloin, very special beef. And I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy, who’s right here, personally ran over the cow with his car,” he said.
But the tone quickly shifted to a far more caustic attack on his favorite foils, including some of the reporters in the room. The bitterness was sharper even than some of his political rallies, where attacks on his enemies are leavened with boasts of his accomplishments. On Friday, he had little to sell, and a lot to complain about.
He said that he had once mixed up CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, whom he said “never smiles,” with a transgender social media personality, Dylan Mulvaney, after he called the 34-year-old cable news star a “young, attractive woman.”
He said he planned to host twice-weekly fights at the White House.
“We will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings, fighting,” Trump said to silence. “I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I’m going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. Oh my God! They’re fighting for a big piece of cheesecake, big fat piece of cheesecake.”
Then he told a joke about Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California).
“I hate some people,” he said to groans. “He’s a liar, and I called him watermelon head because he has the largest head I’ve ever seen with the smallest neck, pencil neck. How does that make a fat, ugly head on a little pencil neck?”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick laughed at that one, putting his hand on his forehead. [photo]
[…] Trump had offered mixed messages about his plans for a dinner that traditionally has involved presidents giving lighthearted speeches that poke fun at themselves and at the people who cover them.
Trump offered a mix of barbs directed at the press and his political opponents, with a few toward his own administration.
“We’ll do a little ripping, if you don’t mind,” he said, saying that “this place is the really largest group of Trump derangement syndrome people ever put together at one time.”
He said that the speech he had originally planned to deliver, “I’m telling you, I had something. I was going to go after you.”
[…] Trump acknowledged that Friday’s speech was his first to the annual dinner. And he joked that he didn’t plan to do it again, unless the event was renamed the “Trump White House Correspondents’ Dinner” — a line he delivered with a chuckle, before later saying that he planned to come next year.
[…] The guest list had shrunk to fewer than 700, a stripped-down affair with attendees including mostly just the journalists who cover the president, rather than the more than 2,500 — including government officials, political operatives and mostly B-list celebrities — who attended in April.
[…] Trump last week called for stripping broadcast licenses from networks that didn’t air his prime-time speech about election integrity. […]
[…] The meandering speech he gave for the next hour inside the Waldorf Astoria, the former site of the Trump International Hotel, was full of ad hominem attacks against his political enemies, scripted jokes that fell flat and familiar refrains about the war against Iran and the construction of the White House ballroom.
At various other points he was upbeat about the news media and warm toward the hundreds of journalists sitting around him in the ballroom, three months after their annual dinner ended in chaos when a gunman burst through a security setup at the Washington Hilton across town.
But those cordial moments were fleeting and in some ways stranger than the ones in which he was hurling the usual invective.
The president who showed up to a dinner honoring the work of journalists is the same president who last week declared that “NBC and ABC fake news” should have their broadcast licenses revoked. At one point during the dinner attendees were asked to applaud the Pentagon press corps. There was no mention that Mr. Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who was in the room, has tried to kick reporters out of the Pentagon at the same time that the Trump administration is waging a new war.
This month, the administration issued subpoenas seeking phone records and grand jury testimony from New York Times journalists who wrote articles revealing security concerns about Mr. Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.
The Times said the government was trying to intimidate its reporters and fought back in court. On Thursday, shortly after a federal judge in Manhattan scolded the Justice Department for its handling of the matter, the government withdrew the subpoenas.
One of the Times reporters who was a subject of the subpoenas, Tyler Pager, accepted an award onstage Friday.
The president shook hands with reporters including Kaitlan Collins of CNN and Josh Dawsey of The Wall Street Journal as they walked across the stage to accept awards for their tough coverage of the White House.
One particularly awkward moment played out when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer welcomed a group of reporters from The Wall Street Journal to the stage to accept an award for their “courageous reporting on President Trump’s past relationship with financier Jeffrey Epstein” that “triggered the release of the so-called Epstein files.”
Mr. Blitzer reminded the crowd that “Trump quickly filed a $20 billion lawsuit against The Journal, revealing reporter Khadeeja Safdar’s home address. Her family had to be relocated. The Journal was kicked off of Air Force One.”
As the reporters took their awards, Mr. Trump threw his hands in the air theatrically, as if to say, Oh well, what can you do. Nervous laughter rippled across the ballroom.
The dinner was smaller, easier to secure, and the Waldorf made for a ritzier room. Mr. Trump reminded the crowd that he owned the place not so long ago. “It’s a luxury room,” he said. “See those beautiful chandeliers? I can tell you everything about them, if you’d like to know.” […]
There was little laughter in the room as the president’s speech took on a harder edge. Not many people chuckled when he compared the “really beat-up faces” of UFC fighters with those of Bette Midler, Jane Fonda and Bruce Springsteen.
Mr. Trump seemed to realize he was losing the room. After a joke he told about the gerontocracy on Capitol Hill bombed, he said: “That was actually the only thing I thought was good in this whole fricking stupid speech. It was the only good one, and that went down with not exactly great laughter.”
[…] As his speech reached its conclusion, he pulled out a hat and with a theatrical flourish plopped it on his head. It said, “Trump 2028.” Some clapped. Others laughed. Most of the reporters just stared straight ahead.
“The rising tension in the Red Sea has threatened to further choke global shipping, because the Houthi rebels have said they would close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi-linked shipping.”
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they fired missiles and drones on Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi airstrikes on the strategic Red Sea city of Hodeida, in another escalation over vital shipping routes in the Middle East […]
Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the Houthis’ military spokesman, said in a prerecorded statement on Saturday that the attack targeted facilities of Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, in the Red Sea cities of Yanbu and Jizan.
[…] There were no reported strikes overnight in Iran, in an apparent break of nearly two weeks of consecutive nights of U.S. attacks, though tension remains high following a recent escalation between the two countries over Hormuz.
[…] the rebels have said they would close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi-linked shipping.
That strait, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a vital shipping chokepoint, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Around 12% of the world’s trade, including a quarter of global container traffic, passes through the narrows.
The Houthis targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea this week. In response, Saudi Arabia struck the port city of Hodeida in Yemen […] The strikes late Friday hit the city’s port as well as the state-run telecommunications corporation, injuring two people, said Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said it didn’t hit the port but struck “legitimate military targets” in Hodeida province, which “were linked to threats to commercial vessels in the Red Sea.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called for “diplomacy and dialogue” to solve the Yemen conflict without “military confrontations” in an interview published Saturday in the state-run Iran newspaper. […]
“The move comes after Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins faced criticism from Republicans and the cattle industry to open the border to help ease high prices.”
The Agriculture Department is lifting a ban on cattle imports from Mexico as the Trump administration aims to lower beef prices ahead of the midterm elections, two people familiar with the matter confirmed on Friday.
The administration had banned imports as part of its effort to contain the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite threatening U.S. livestock.
USDA later on Friday announced that it will open the Douglas, Arizona, port of entry to cattle trade on Aug. 24, while simultaneously initiating the operational steps necessary for openings at two ports in New Mexico, Santa Teresa and Columbus. No ports along the Texas border were mentioned and the agency said the ports could be closed again, if needed.
[…] Overall, Miller [Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller] said, “the pace and scale of the screwworm response have not matched the threat.”
[…] Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has found herself at odds with other Trump administration officials over the border closure, especially those who have sought to boost beef imports.
POLITICO has reported that the Agriculture secretary resisted recommendations by some USDA officials to reopen the border, and that the secretary and her team disputed other advisers who said “more imports across the Southern border were safe and the plan to contain the screwworm would work.”
Rollins has stood by her decision to close the border as part of an effort to keep the screwworm at bay, even as she acknowledged last month that it presented “a significant economic challenge to various sectors of our industries in Texas.”
“There is no doubt that closing the ports last May caused higher prices in beef,” she told reporters on a June 4 call. “We’re obviously very focused on affordability, but the president agreed when we briefed him that we had to keep our livestock producers as safe as possible with this outbreak moving through Mexico.”
“Trump To Put Trigger Warnings On The Smithsonian To Protect MAGA Snowflakes”
It has been three weeks since the Trump administration dropped a 162-page compilation of whining and white grievance examining the Smithsonian’s inability to present American history in a way that conforms to the Disney cartoon that apparently runs through Donald Trump’s noggin when he imagines any of America’s past. […]
The report had come a year after Trump initiated an effort to pressure the museum to get rid of anything that smacked of “anti-American ideology” or didn’t celebrate America being the bestest, most awesomest country in the history of forever. But on Friday he announced he’d figured out a measure he can take to save America’s children from exposure to all the Smithsonian’s communist subversion: Trigger warnings!
More specifically, the president released an executive order directing the Secretary of the Interior to put up signs along the walkways outside the museum that explain why visitors are wasting their time visiting it.
But first, the bullshit:
The Report demonstrates that the Smithsonian leadership does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a “prime tool” to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society.
The order goes on to say that Smithsonian leadership can’t be trusted to “tell America’s story with honesty and gratitude.”
Then Trump directs his lackeys to put up signage that informs visitors of the report’s findings and
shall notify visitors that the Museum exhibits should be renovated consistent with the findings in the Report and direct visitors to locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history.
Imagine going to the Museum of American History and seeing signs from the government telling you to go somewhere else to learn about America’s real history. […]
The president is also upset that in the year of America’s 250th birthday, the Smithsonian isn’t revering the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence enough, so there need to be signs informing people that the Museum is presenting inaccurate information. It’s not clear if they mean inaccurate information about the signers or if whoever wrote the order is trying to guilt-trip the museum: The Founding Fathers are very, very disappointed in you.
Ha ha, we’re kidding, we know. It’s about telling anyone the Founders owned slaves. Can’t have people thinking they might have been real people with all sorts of moral faults and not perfect beams of light.
This is the second time in a week there has been news about the Trump administration’s efforts to make sure American history only makes us feel all sugary and gooey inside. Last week, in the dead of night in Philadelphia, the National Park Service swapped out some informative panels at the site of George Washington’s home there.
The old panels had talked about the horrors of slavery as seen through the eyes of nine of Washington’s slave who had worked in the house. The new panels de-emphasize slavery and seeks to excuse George Washington by mentioning that he was “privately” uncomfortable with slavery, but also, what are you gonna do? Maintaining his fortune depended on using all that free labor. We wouldn’t want the guy to have been poor, would we?
birgerjohanssonsays
“Pro version’ of cisplatin keeps its cancer-killing power while reducing side effects”
The details are at MedicalXpress, the important part is that cisplatin will no longer do damage to the kidney or the peripheral nervous system; the latter results in pain.
… and I called him watermelon head because he has the largest head I’ve ever seen with the smallest neck, pencil neck. How does that make a fat, ugly head on a little pencil neck?”
An obese 80 year old man with a bad toupee, orange skin and small hands probably shouldn’t make such a big deal about anyone’s personal appearance.
Click To Pray, the official prayer app of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, was found to have zero security by a security researcher. According to BobDaHacker, they discovered in January 2026 that the Vatican-linked app had zero security, allowing anyone to access user data through the API endpoint by simply typing in user IDs. They emailed nine individuals about the vulnerabilities as soon as they discovered them but received no responses and saw no changes for six months.
The information that anyone could get from the Click To Pray app’s database included first and last names, email addresses, and birthdates, among other information. You may not think this is much, but getting names and email addresses is more than enough for bad actors to start sending phishing emails to vulnerable users. BobDaHacker also pointed out that most of the app’s users are likely older people who aren’t tech-savvy, so any enterprising scammer could tap into the app for a literal treasure trove of email addresses.
It was also easy to get the complete list automatically. The user ID assigned to new accounts is sequential, and since there’s no rate limiting for the API, all it takes is one GET request per user to capture all that information. Aside from this, the validation_hash used to verify the validity of an account signup is also stored in the clear, meaning anyone with access to the API can verify an account by opening their inbox. The email also had security issues that make it look like a phishing email, even if it’s legitimate…
birgerjohanssonsays
Me @ 43
Addendum; the “Starship” upper part made a soft landing in the Indian Ocean without exploding, not the booster. I should have caught that detail. Here are the images.
The MAGA supporters probably found the professional wrestling style invectives amusing, the GOP congressmen probably cringed inwardly while pretending to laugh to the jokes of the mad king.
The lickspittles he has appointed to his cabinet are so empty inside they genuinely found it funny.
Prediction market Kalshi sent Netflix a cease-and-desist letter on Friday demanding that the streaming service take down the trailer for an upcoming documentary. In the letter, Kalshi claimed the trailer is “defamatory” and contains “both fabricated documents and false and misleading statements.”
“Instadocs: The Prediction Games” is a documentary about the rise of prediction markets. According to Netflix, the film — part of the streamer’s “Instadoc” series of fast-turnaround documentaries — features interviews with both Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan and Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour.
The trailer, however, focuses on a recent party in Las Vegas, where men who have “made millions of dollars on prediction markets, probably eight figures, just over the course of the World Cup” have gathered to watch the World Cup final. One of the guests declares, “I like betting on Kalshi,” while another shows off an apparent $5,000 bet on their phone.
However, Kalshi is currently banned from operating in Nevada due to a court order. In its cease-and-desist letter, Kalshi said the bet shown on the phone is actually a screenshot of a bet made on May 16, 2025 — long before the ban. But the company argued that in the trailer, Netflix “misled its millions of customers into believing this individual was able to successfully trade sport event contracts in Nevada on July 19, 2026.” …
Over the last few decades, several mysterious hackers have captured the public’s imagination, but none quite like Phineas Fisher. A decade after their most famous hack, Phineas remains, by most accounts, the most prolific and public hacker never to have been caught.
As part of our series on the biggest cybersecurity mysteries of all time, we’re delving into the enigma of Phineas, the hacktivist who hacked controversial spyware makers FinFisher and Hacking Team. The latter, an Italian startup, was among the first to turn government spyware into a viable global business, paving the way for spyware makers such as the Israeli NSO Group. Phineas’ hack against Hacking Team eventually led to the startup’s demise years later.
Apart from Anonymous, an amorphous amalgam of hacktivists with a mixed track record of mostly stunt hacks designed to gather publicity rather than have real impact, Phineas is perhaps the most well-known hacktivist in history. Their story is made of impressive hacks and endless unanswered questions…
United States President Donald Trump said LeBron James might be “a racist” when asked if the basketball star is the “best ever” to play the sport.
James, 41, announced on Friday he is set to continue his glittering career with the Philadelphia 76ers.
When asked about the move in a White House news conference later, Trump explained why he believed Michael Jordan was the better player.
Jordan, 63, won six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s and NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) five times.
When asked whether Jordan or James was the “best ever”, Trump said: “Michael Jordan is a guy that’s a friend of mine. I play golf with him. He’s a really good guy.
“I think LeBron is, maybe he’s a racist, but maybe he doesn’t like Trump. I don’t know. I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way.”
…
I bolded a key phrase for your convenience. The rest is mostly noise.
Sylvia Luke, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Hawaii, was indicted Friday on bribery charges, the state’s Department of the Attorney General announced in a press conference.
“From the outset of this investigation, I have repeated that we have a commitment to following the facts to where they lead, no matter how long it takes to get there,” Anne Lopez, the state’s attorney general, told reporters.
A grand jury on Friday returned a 12-count indictment charging Luke with criminal conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery and falsifying campaign committee reports. The charges stem from a monthslong investigation by the Hawaii attorney general’s office into allegations the lieutenant governor accepted campaign contributions from businessperson and lobbyist Tobi Solidum in exchange for helping advance a Covid-19 testing contract while she served as chair of the state House Finance Committee in 2022.
…
Luke was one of five people indicted in the case Friday, including former state Rep. Ryan Yamane, who like Luke is a Democrat.
The lieutenant governor, who was elected to serve as Green’s deputy in 2022, took a leave of absence from the post in April when the campaign finance investigation first made headlines. She also ended her campaign for reelection at that time.
President Trump directed the U.S. military not to conduct new strikes in Iran on Friday, breaking a nearly two-week streak of daily attacks, two sources with knowledge of the decision said.
Why it matters: The president’s directive came after he approved daily strikes over the previous 13 days. It is unclear if Trump’s order on Friday was a one-off or whether the lull will continue.
Trump’s decision reflects both his willingness to provide more space for diplomacy and a recognition that — short of a return to major combat operations — the current level of U.S. strikes has reached the limit of its effectiveness.
Trump is in a frustrating situation for him. Total air superiority but it doesn’t actually buy him much because Iran has hardened everything military against it. It has passed the point where random tactical strikes do much good except generate headlines in the US. Somebody has convinced Trump and Hegseth not to expand into large scale civilian strikes.
“We’re talking to [the Iranians] right now. I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by. We’re locked and loaded and ready to go, but we’re talking to them,” Trump said.
Who knows what is really happening. Trump is always saying they are on the verge of an agreement and Iran generally denies they are talking.
President Trump has set aside, at least for now, plans to sharply escalate the American military assault against Iran, with particular concern that intensifying the war could dangerously drain the Pentagon’s already diminished stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East.
The threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that have made a return to major combat operations a hugely risky endeavor, administration officials say. Mr. Trump and his top aides are also uneasy about the prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the alienation of key Gulf allies who are vulnerable to Iranian attack, a global economic crunch, and growing energy and refugee crises.
Somebody convinced Trump that slightly expanding the war doesn’t work. It’s either hold off or expand significantly. Given those choices Trump was willing to back off. He has always wanted to negotiate his way out of the war but has trouble with the idea of consistent terms and both sides insult the other in national press.
Few if any in Mr. Trump’s inner circle believed the plan to escalate was wise, said the two people briefed. One senior U.S. official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed doubts that resuming major combat operations would drive Iran back to the bargaining table.
The official said the strikes have the opposite effect of what is intended, keeping Iran cohesive and allowing Iranian leaders to focus attention on an external threat.
Oddly sensible position, I wonder who was holding it. The DOD planners would unless Hegseth shut them up because this has been one of the major concerns all along. Rubio has enough diplomatic experience to understand this also. Hitting an unpopular government will often increase support for the government as civilians suffer. It isn’t likely to bring Iran to negotiations they wouldn’t do either because the leaders are well prepared to hide in bunkers and run things in secret.
Instead, many of Mr. Trump’s advisers, including Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, say there is a plausible alternative pathway with less risk: continuing negotiations and economic pressure on Iran over a longer period of time.
Kushner doesn’t understand policy or military planning, he is acting as a representative of middle eastern governments that would rather negotiate then have a war running on their territory. Which is a perfectly sensible policy but Kushner isn’t taking it because it’s a good idea for the US.
Saudi Arabia has launched strikes on Yemen’s Houthi-held city of Hodeidah, the group’s Foreign Ministry has said, in the latest escalation of the conflict amid the regional war between the United States and Iran.
The ministry warned that the attack late on Friday will prove costly for Riyadh, suggesting that the group will respond to the strikes.
“By targeting Hodeidah, the Saudi regime has made ‘escalation for escalation’ the defining feature of the coming phase,” said the Foreign Ministry.
The two sides hate each other but it’s mostly blowing up buildings and killing civilians because neither side has a well organized and lead army. If Saudi Arabia can do significant damage to the ports the Houthi use it would matter because it would cut off their supplies but it isn’t likely to happen.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned on Saturday a Ukrainian attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying it resulted in an explosion that killed one sailor and injured another.
Throughout the war in Ukraine, Kyiv has had to counter Iranian-designed drones deployed by Moscow. Kyiv has offered its drone interception expertise to countries in the Middle East that have suffered strikes from Iran.
Iran and Russia are running supplies back and forth all the time so it was going to happen eventually. As long as Iran doesn’t escalate into a more general conflict with Ukraine it doesn’t really matter. And with the ongoing conflict with the US I can’t see them doing anything unless they want to enter the Ukraine war on Russia’s side.
“Why wait for a draft notice when you can take control of the situation? Sign a military contract voluntarily.”
As rumors of an impending new wave of mobilization swirl inside Russia, one pro-war Telegram channel claimed to offer a solution: instead of waiting to be mobilized, sign a military contract now, while you can still “choose your own terms.”
Rumors have been running all year both inside and outside Russia. Russia is pushing the various alternative options for getting soldiers as hard as they can but they are reaching the limits and the supply is slowing. At least a couple of months this year recruitment seems to have run behind combat losses, a situation that can not be sustained very long. All of those figures are closely guarded secrets though.
Under Russian law, mobilization can be launched by presidential decree. But the decree issued by Putin to call up reservists in September 2022 remains legally active, Krivenko said.
“This means the authorities could simply issue a separate, possibly secret presidential order instructing the Defense Ministry to call up a certain [additional] number of people,” Krivenko said, adding that such an order would not even necessarily have to be made public.
A large mobilization couldn’t be kept secret. A small one could be in Russia where state control of information is very strong now.
The renewed speculation also comes ahead of September’s parliamentary elections, when the Kremlin is likely to avoid politically unpopular decisions such as another nationwide mobilization.
Sources close to the presidential administration told Vyorstka and IStories that although officials were weighing various options to expand the army, no final decision had been made.
A source close to the Kremlin’s domestic policy bloc said “rumors were circulating” that “something could happen” in October, after the State Duma elections.
Even in Russia they are not likely to do anything until after the election at this point. So don’t expect anything in this regards in August or September.
In my lawsuit against Todd Blanche for the Epstein Files, Judge Sullivan has just ordered Blanche to produce, in camera (in chambers), the UNREDACTED emails & documents, and Blanche must bring documentation supporting his representations the DOJ’s redactions are what he claims they are.
PS. I don’t get to be present in chambers for this production, but that’s ok. It was worth the ask in the first place. I’ll be giving the detailed updates on my case and more on my YouTube channel.
This order clearly reflects that a federal judge does NOT just believe what the Acting AG Todd Blanche represents and has ordered him to basically “prove it.”
Jonquel Jones, Nneka Ogwumike and Dominique Malonga made WNBA history Saturday night.
It was quite the All-Star party in the league’s 30th season.
Jones had 22 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, helping Caitlin Clark and Team Spoon outlast Marina Mabrey and Team Coop 129-122 in the WNBA All-Star Game.
Playing with a heavy heart after the death of an aunt, Jones was named MVP. The 32-year-old New York Liberty center became the first player to win the league, WNBA Finals, Commissioner’s Cup and All-Star MVP awards.
“No matter what mood I’m in, basketball can pick me back up,” Jones said, “and so just leaning into that.”
Malonga threw down a first-half dunk for Team Coop, but Team Spoon had eight players score in double figures in an All-Star Game that featured 127 3-point attempts and very little defense. Allisha Gray had 19 points for Team Spoon, and Clark finished with 17.
…
Clark, 24, came out firing, connecting from 33 feet and 37 feet on her way to 11 points in the first 2½ minutes. She buried another 3 early in the second quarter off a slick no-look pass from Minnesota Lynx guard Olivia Miles, the only rookie selected for the game…
“32 of my 35 students between two classes failed a portion of their midterm because they all used AI to generate their entire response,” history professor Jason Gibson says in a viral video shared over 10 million times. “And apparently, they didn’t proofread it.”
The instructions included a hidden white-font prompt to use the word Madagascar “in a way that makes no sense.” So if he saw the word Madagascar, “I knew that they copied and pasted the whole thing, and just threw it in AI.” Futurism reports: …
A Canadian lab has run a chemical process on real spent nuclear fuel “and pulled out 90% of the long-lived danger in 24 hours, the part that forces a burial site to last 100,000 years,” notes the blog Autonocio, “with the leftovers meant to fuel a reactor.”
The standard plan for spent nuclear fuel is to wait it out. You pull the used bundles from a reactor, sit them in a pool of water for seven to ten years while the heat and radiation come down, seal them in concrete casks, and look for somewhere deep and geologically dull to leave them for the next hundred thousand years. Canada has been hunting for that burial site since the 1980s and still doesn’t have one in the ground.
A company in Saint John, New Brunswick thinks most of what makes that waste dangerous never needed to go in the ground at all. Moltex Energy Canada says a chemical process it calls WATSS can strip 90% of the long-lived material out of used Canada Deuterium Uranium [CANDU] fuel in 24 hours, and that the concentrated leftovers become fuel for a reactor it wants to build on the same site…
Flavio Bolsonaro has inaugurated the official beginning of his Brazilian presidential campaign, touting support from right-wing figures such as Argentinian President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and long considered the presumptive candidate of Brazil’s political right, launched his formal bid challenging President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday…
Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it denied visas to two U.S. State Department officials that sought to travel to the South American nation next week, in the latest political barb between the two countries.
The move became public after The Washington Post reported the Brazilian government saying the officials, Riley M. Barnes, an assistant secretary, and Samuel Samson, a deputy assistant, wanted to cast doubt on the upcoming October elections in Brazil.
A spokesperson for Brazil’s foreign office said Barnes and Samson requested visas on July 20 and they were denied Friday. He did not disclose the reasons behind the decision.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will bid for reelection against Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, whose family has many ties with the Trump administration…
birgerjohanssonsays
Jon Stewart: Trump gave us the real DEI:
diarrhea everywhere, indefinitely.
The longest-serving law professor at West Point rose to declare the school’s new rules unconstitutional. Within moments, a uniformed colonel stood to challenge him.
Tim Bakken, speaking to dozens of colleagues at a faculty meeting, argued that none of them should be forced to seek approval before publishing papers or giving speeches, as a policy unveiled that day would require. “This violates the First Amendment,” he said, predicting an end to West Point’s professed tolerance for opposing views.
Col. E. John Gregory, according to Bakken and three other people in attendance that day, didn’t want to hear it. “Stop talking,” Gregory, a deputy department head, said in a raised voice, “and sit down.”
Bakken, a 68-year-old who had never served in the military, did not sit down. He reminded the colonel that he had sworn an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution when he accepted his teaching job. “It’s like how military officers must not follow illegal orders —” he began to say.
“We’re a military institution,” Gregory interrupted, according to Bakken and the other attendees. “We follow orders.”
[…] In little more than 18 months, the administration has drawn a surge of lawsuits alleging violations of civil liberties or other essential freedoms, a Washington Post analysis of hundreds of thousands of court records found.
One of those was filed by Bakken.
His confrontation with the colonel that day in March 2025 brought the clash to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the emerald-green-and-granite campus on the Hudson River that trains the leaders of tomorrow’s Army. Since World War II, West Point had fostered academic openness, advancing the view that dissenting opinions are crucial in forming sound military judgments. But Trump and his top lieutenants, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, argue that West Point must prize patriotic obedience to authority above all else.
Seven days into his second presidency, Trump issued an executive order forbidding military colleges like West Point from “promoting, advancing, or otherwise inculcating” ideas that his administration deemed “un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist, and irrational.” It also required teaching that “America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history.” Within weeks, West Point’s dean introduced a revised “academic engagement” policy, stipulating that the school’s nearly 700 professors — roughly a third of whom are civilians — must seek approval from their department head before they could deliver a speech, publish a paper or even speak on a podcast.
Bakken had never needed such approval before, he said. One of the first civilian professors hired at West Point, he had taught criminal and constitutional law there since 2000. […]
He had long argued that a military culture of unquestioning obedience, coupled with an aversion to criticism and a sense of superiority, had caused the U.S. to lose every war it fought since 1945. “Inside America, the last seventy-five years of military intervention have unleashed a flood of incompetence, hubris, and denial,” he wrote in a 2020 book, “The Cost of Loyalty.” “I have been living at the headwaters.”
[…] At his Senate confirmation hearing, Hegseth, a former Army major and weekend co-host of “Fox & Friends,” said West Point shouldn’t employ civilian professors, calling them “left-wing” and “woke.” In office, he later told cadets that the academy had “hired professors who advocated for anti-American ideologies right here in these halls. But no more.”
[…] In September, Bakken sued West Point in federal court. The “intent and effect” of his employer’s new policy, he contended, “is to chill and suppress speech and censor viewpoints that might be contrary to the views” of West Point, the Army, the Defense Department, Hegseth and Trump.
[…] Dwight D. Eisenhower had earlier pushed the idea. While serving as the Army chief of staff in 1946, he wrote to West Point’s superintendent arguing that cadets should be taught psychology, with help from knowledgeable civilians, so they could handle “human problems on a human basis.”
Bakken seemed the kind of subject-matter expert Eisenhower envisioned: He had worked as a prosecutor and as a lawyer in private practice, and taught at the university level.
Dwight D. Eisenhower had earlier pushed the idea. While serving as the Army chief of staff in 1946, he wrote to West Point’s superintendent arguing that cadets should be taught psychology, with help from knowledgeable civilians, so they could handle “human problems on a human basis.”
[…] Bakken recalled that memo after Trump’s executive order in 2025.
As West Point’s new policy on faculty speech took hold early that year, library books were reviewed for references to “diversity, equity or inclusion,” according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former West Point staff. An American history instructor nixed an assignment asking how the nation had expanded the idea of freedom over time and replaced it with an essay on banking. A cadet was told not to research the World War II-era detention of Japanese Americans. [!] A staffer teaching a mandatory course on the history of Western thought was ordered to leave out Karl Marx.
Some changes came at the direction of higher-ups, while others appeared to be acts of self-censorship, the staffers said.
“There seemed to be this overcompliance for what they thought the administration would want to see,” said one military lecturer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the president and the Pentagon. “Or at least getting rid of things the administration would not want to see.”
[…] Officials at the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy also scrutinized their teaching in response to the president’s order, canceling or reconsidering classes about gender and sexuality, and cutting lectures about climate change and authoritarian regimes. [!]
[…] On May 26, three days after West Point’s graduation, Seibel ruled that Bakken’s case against the Trump administration could proceed. She also temporarily enjoined West Point from enforcing the academic engagement policy for civilian professors, forbidding the university from “prohibiting or restraining” Bakken from “expressing or offering his opinions, beliefs or views to his students” while the case moved forward.
The government could appeal Seibel’s interim ruling. It had until late July to decide. The case could drag on for months regardless, possibly even leading to a trial. […]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Moscow wants to bring in 30,000 additional troops from North Korea to fight alongside Russian forces in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
“We also see Russia’s cooperation with North Korea. Russia wants to receive another 30,000 troops from North Korea,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Saturday evening. “Since June, preparations have been under way in Russia’s Voronezh region to receive them.”
According to estimates, Pyongyang already has transferred about 12,000 troops to Russia’s Kursk border region, under a mutual defense pact signed with Moscow in 2024.
Over the course of the four-year war, Russian President Vladimir Putin has increasingly relied on North Korea to supply artillery shells and missiles. Bringing in North Korean troops is raising concerns about Moscow transferring its own military know-how to the regime of Kim Yong Un in Pyongyang.
“Russia is helping North Korea learn how to wage war, improve its weapons, and gain real combat experience in using them,” Zelenskyy said.
“All of this is a threat to everyone in Asia who is within range of North Korean missiles. We will counter this,” he said.
There is a slow motion disaster that has been decades in the making and is now 3 dozen feet away. […]
The second measurement in the title is the minimum elevation that Lake Powell needs to be to allow the Glen Canyon Dam to operate and produce the electricity that powers a good chunk of the western United States, including Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California that make up the Colorado River Basin Compact.
The first measurement is the current elevation of Lake Powell.
There are, of course, other sources of electricity. Wind and solar, but construction of wind and solar farms has been sharply curtailed by the Thrump administration. There are oil, gas and coal fired power plants, but building new ones to make up the shortfall between supply and demand will take years to bring online.
But the real problem is the water that can no longer flow past the dam.
The water in Lake Powell has three ways to flow down river.
– The penstocks that channel the water to the turbines that produce electricity.
– The spillways built into the dam, but they are near the top of the dam and not much help since the water level is so low.
– The tunnels built to allow the water to flow without generating power, bypassing the dam and allowing the water to be used for conservation programs, such as in 2023, when the Bureau of Reclamation opened them to flush out the sediments that had built up in Lake Powell.
But, this 3rd option creates two new problems. The first is down river disruption. the tunnels weren’t designed to operate continuously and even if they were continuously operated, they can’t move the same volume of water that the penstocks did to generate power. They are too small.
The second problem is that if the water levels continue to drop, the turbines and outlets may pull in air with the water, which may lead to cavitation that can pit metal, attack concrete and destroy the generators from the inside.
Below the minimum level of water for power production lies what engineers call the dead pool. If water levels fall to 3,370′ above sea level, (another 120 feet) the outlets of the tunnels will be higher than the level of Lake Powell and gravity won’t move the water past the dam and on down the Colorado River, where it is desperately needed.
The Colorado River will stop flowing at Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon will become a dry riverbed.
The Bureau of Reclamation is taking steps to remedy the situation. In April of this year they announced plans to release between 600,000 and 1,000,000 acre feet of water from the Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Green River in southwestern WY/northeastern UT to bolster the water level in Lake Powell. […] a stopgap measure until the rains and snowpacks recover from the mega drought the region has been suffering for the last 25 years, or so.
The current goal of the Bureau of Reclamation is to maintain Lake Powell at 3,500 above sea level, holding back about 1.48 million acre feet of water from flowing to Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. Should Lake Powell’s water lever fall below 3,370′, into the dead zone, that could spell the end of power generation in the Colorado River basin. […]
Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University and former chief of the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center. “This is a situation that has been calculated, but it’s never been tested because we’ve never been this low.”
“It’s not that the system is going to collapse this year,” says Schmidt. “But it’s very low and it’s in a perilous state. If next winter is also dry, then we’re in a five-alarm fire drill.”
“Devastating blazes raging around Madrid, Ávila, Toledo and Castellón have displaced more than 100,000 people, exposed gaps in firefighting capacity and reopened a familiar feud between the left and the right.”
The massive wildfires that have forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people in Spain are reviving domestic political infighting […]
More than 45,000 hectares have been scorched by the fires raging across the Spanish regions of Madrid, Ávila, Toledo and Castellón. At least one person is confirmed to have died, and the proximity of the fires to the capital have prompted authorities to advise the public to stay indoors or wear facemasks due to the elevated presence of smoke and ash in the air.
The scale of the crisis is such that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government has declared a national emergency, a legal move that enables the country’s ministry of the interior to assume control of coordinating all actions and resources at the national, regional and local levels.
[…] It is also a source of political tension, because the emergency declaration was made at the request of one of Sánchez’s most aggressive critics, Madrid’s center-right regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Spain’s regional authorities normally have legal jurisdiction over disaster management, and are only meant to petition the government to declare a national emergency and take charge of response operations when they cannot handle them on their own.
[…] “We all know that the Military Emergency Unit [the branch of the Spanish Armed Forces responsible for providing disaster relief ] has become the new firefighting service for the autonomous communities governed by the People’s Party,” Puente wrote in a post on X. “They cut taxes for the rich, slash public services, and then ask the central government to solve their problems.”
Manuela Bergerot, spokesperson for the left-wing Más Madrid party, similarly criticized Ayuso, highlighting that firefighters have spent years demanding the regional government invest more in staff and equipment.
Madrid Forest Fire Prevention and Extinction Service is meant to have a staff of 124 firefighters, but 64 of the positions are currently vacant. Staff members complain of having lower salaries than those offered in the rest of Spain, and of being obliged to work with expired respiratory equipment and suits that haven’t been proven to be fireproof. [!]
“This is a clear example of what the underfunding of public services and precariousness mean when critical moments arrive,” […]
[…] Although the collaboration between national and regional authorities appears to be smooth, the political tensions between Ayuso and Sánchez were evident […]
Despite that, the teamwork was lauded by Spain’s King Felipe VI on Sunday, who on Sunday celebrated the “exemplary coordination” between the different administrations […]
“Sunday’s incident marks the third drone shot down over Romania in as many days, in a further escalation for the NATO member.”
A Romanian fighter jet on Sunday shot down a third drone that had entered its national air space in as many days, prompting President Nicușor Dan to blame Moscow for the “inadmissible and intolerable” incursions.
Sunday’s incident marked the latest escalation for the NATO member. The series of incursions comes as Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Danube region have increasingly spilled over the border.
“It is inadmissible and intolerable for the Russian Federation to continue violating Romania’s airspace, which is, at the same time, NATO airspace and European Union airspace,” Dan said on Sunday.
[…] The drone was safely shot down 12 kilometers northeast of Sulina, a port town in Eastern Romania on the Danube Delta, within the country’s territorial waters, the defense ministry said in a statement.
Romania’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that it had summoned Russia’s ambassador over the incursions.
The Trump administration has quietly pulled its controversial nominee to serve as the Justice Department’s lead liaison with state and local law enforcement after Courthouse News reported he had written and deleted hundreds of offensive social media posts, including some disparaging police.
The move came weeks after a contentious hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Konstantinos Ligris — nominated as assistant attorney general and heading the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs — told lawmakers that he did not recall statements he’d made online and that he had not informed the White House or the Justice Department about his posting history.
Exactly what is in those posts is not public but there are several hundred deleted posts. He seems to have insulted a lot of the people he would be working with. Ligris is denying that the posting is the reason he withdrew and instead claimed an unstated family emergency. A potentially true but paper thin excuse.
It’s amusing because it means there are things so offensive to say that they get you rejected even in the Trump administration. I’m guessing that is only for lower ranked figures though. It’s standard for governments like Trump’s that the people at the very top are not held responsible but lower officials had better not do anything that causes a problem for the government.
The man suspected of carrying out what authorities say was likely an “Islamist terror attack” at Berlin Pride has been shot and killed by police.
Officers opened fire when Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen with Lebanese heritage, rushed at them with a knife in Spandau, a western borough of Berlin.
It brought an end to a massive manhunt that was launched after a white van was driven into a crowd of people near Tiergarten park just before 22:00 (local time) on Saturday evening, killing one woman and injuring at least 29 others…
Lying about the state of the economy and Trump’s war in Iran to try to fool Americans out of believing their own eyes—and pocket books.
“The economy is starting to work for everyone,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer declared in an interview with Newsmax. “Real wages are growing faster than inflation. You look at the lower rungs of the prosperity ladder in this country, they are actually catching up for the first time in years.”
Emmer’s assertion is so patently absurd—as wages are not growing faster than inflation and Americans say that the economy was better under former President Joe Biden—that even the right-wing hacks interviewing him pushed back.
“I do have to still point out, though, that there still are many Americans on both sides of the aisle who are feeling financial pressure, financial strain, on various levels—whether it be because of the war in Iran or maybe inflation not going down as quickly as we had hoped,” host Katrina Szish said. “What is your message to them?”
“[…] what they’re saying compared to what is happening is not matching,” Emmer replied. […]
As for Trump’s war in Iran, Republicans’ messaging is somehow even worse.
Rep. Carlos Giménez of Florida said that the four service members who died last week—whose deaths the Trump administration erased from the list of Iran war casualties—are simply the cost of war.
“That is the nature of warfare. We will have some casualties,” he told CNN.
Ah, yes. The cost of a war […,]
Meanwhile, Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia said that Trump deserves the Nobel Prize for trying to end his own war in Iran.
“This war with Iran has been going on for 47 years. He’s trying to end it,” Carter said, making it clear why he lost the GOP Senate nomination in his state.
“Authorities warned that children and older adults, along with people with certain medical conditions, are especially at risk of serious reactions including heat stroke.”
[…] Heat indexes exceeding 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 Celsius) stretched from Minnesota down to Mississippi, extending west into southern California and Nevada. Parts of the southwest could see highs of 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 C) on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
Meteorologists said the sweltering weather was the result of another heat dome — a phenomenon in which atmospheric conditions trap heat, accentuating and prolonging already high temperatures
On Saturday, Rapid City, South Dakota, reported an all-time high of 112 degrees [!] Fahrenheit (44 C). A horse race planned in Canterbury Park, in Shakopee, Minnesota, was canceled Sunday because of the heat.
[…] The moist air was also producing other volatility around the top of the heat dome, including the risk of severe thunderstorms, flash flooding and hail around the Great Lakes on Sunday. The potential for heavy storms was expected to move east in the coming days.
[…] Temporary relief will come to the central U.S. toward the middle of the week, but high temperatures could return by the weekend, he noted.
Authorities warned that children and older adults, along with people with certain medical conditions, are especially at risk of serious reactions including heat stroke. Experts recommend seeking out air conditioning or a cooling center, make sure to drink enough water and limit time under the direct sun.
The continental U.S. endured the second-hottest first half of the year on record in 2026, according tracking of average temperatures by the National Centers for Environmental Information.
[…] In France, fires have swept across the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast, a popular tourist destination, and spread toward Bordeaux, the heart of the country’s famed wine region. Firefighters were trying to stop the flames from reaching the city. […]
[…] It is entirely possible that hundreds or thousands of Americans could have avoided spending much of the early summer on the toilet if the federal Food Traceability Rule, which was finalized in 2022, had taken effect in January, as originally planned.
The rule, once in place, would put far more investigatory onus on companies, requiring them to track and record data on most F.D.A.-regulated foods—including fruits and vegetables, fish, and dairy products—and to provide that data to the government within twenty-four hours of a request.
But, in March, 2025, following intense Big Ag lobbying, Congress pushed back implementation of the rule to 2028, reflecting the deregulatory spirit of Trump II. (The attorney and public-health advocate Matthew Cortland recently dug up Federal Election Commission forms showing that Taylor Fresh Foods made a million-dollar donation to maga Inc., a pro-Trump super pac, also in March of last year.)
After the Food Traceability Rule was delayed, the C.E.O. of the Food Industry Association, a trade group, expressed relief, saying that the rule would impose “unnecessary complexity that would burden the supply chain and increase food costs to consumers.” Perhaps the cyclospora outbreak provides an image of an unburdened supply chain, and what it costs.
By July 13th, Michigan had logged two thousand six hundred and forty cases of cyclosporiasis. […]
the C.D.C. and F.D.A. finally made a concrete and actionable statement on cyclosporiasis—one that, if anything, was bizarre in its specificity. The statement described a “multistate outbreak of Cyclospora infections linked to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations in 5 states.” Its advice to consumers was narrow: “Do not eat shredded iceberg lettuce at Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia.” The lettuce came from an unnamed “single supplier” in Mexico. “Shredded iceberg lettuce sold in grocery stores or served in other restaurants is not affected,” it said. [That last sentence is a lie.]
To those who were following the outbreak closely, the statement was confounding. Cyclosporiasis was afflicting thousands of people outside the five named states: three hundred and seventy-four cases had been reported in New York, three hundred and seven in North Carolina, and two hundred and twenty-seven in Illinois. [!] The Taco Bell connection was not in question—the F.D.A. cited one group of patients in Michigan where nine out of ten had eaten a product containing lettuce at the chain before falling ill—but that still left a lot of sick Michiganders who didn’t report eating there. […]
[…] The company’s [Taylor Farms’] recall notice, which the F.D.A. later pasted onto its own site, took a near-cryptographic approach to full disclosure, listing the affected products and stores by obscure codes such as “PV” and “MKTSD” and “BLEND LETT/ROM 80/20 WITH SEP BAGGIES 4/5#.” Bill Marler, an attorney specializing in food safety whose blog has been indispensable in understanding the cyclosporiasis crisis, wrote that, had the Food Traceability Rule been implemented on schedule, the states and codes listed in Taylor Fresh Foods’ recall notice “would have been in FDA’s hands in a day—in May. Instead we got them in the third week of July, from a corporate website, as abbreviations.”
Kennedy broke his silence at last, and chose a morning-drive talk-radio show in Tampa, Florida, as his forum. Cyclosporiasis is very treatable, he told the host, Ryan Gorman. There are “outbreaks every summer,” he said. (This is true, but those outbreaks typically affect a few dozen people per state; Kennedy made similarly context-free comments about the deadly measles outbreak of the late winter.) The notion that cyclosporiasis wasn’t being actively tracked was “fake news,” Kennedy scoffed, and listeners could hop onto the F.D.A. website to see the “result of our investigation.” He did not note that the investigation was still ongoing—that there was no “result” to see—nor did he explain why the agencies he oversees had briefly marked all non-Taco Bell lettuce as safe. […] Michigan had just crossed five thousand cases.
[…] The “MAH moms” and other MAHA-aligned influencers have responded according to type, by hawking what they claim to be parasite-killing supplements and musing aloud about deep-state PsyOps to keep us from our leafy greens. The public-health messaging from Kennedy’s agencies has been so garbled and spotty that your average grocery shopper may not know how to respond at all. Last time I checked TikTok, the algorithm showed me someone tossing bleach solution on their leafy greens. My kids, at present, will only eat fruits with a peel, because then the poop can’t get in. […]
By July 21st, the C.D.C. had received reports of cyclosporiasis from forty-one states. Michigan was approaching seven thousand; northwest Ohio had more than two thousand. At a press conference, Kennedy said, “We do have the outbreak under control.”
[…] On July 22nd, the day after Kennedy declared cyclospora to be “under control,” the F.D.A. announced that it was investigating a new outbreak of the parasite, seventy-two cases to date, origins “not yet identified.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Republicans are in real danger of losing a senate seat to an independent candidate in Nebraska.
Meanwhile, core Republican voters are showing a lack of enthusiasm that may be a harbinger of low voter turnout.
Victory gardens, war bonds, ration books, every war has its home front. […] An I.T. specialist in Kyiv, Little Witch is one of more than 3,500 civilians volunteering for an organization called Drukarmija, Ukrainian for Print Army. […] People like her are able to connect directly to soldiers on the front line through an online marketplace where troops can browse products, place orders, and even leave reviews. Everything is free, funded entirely through voluntary donations. […] She told us each printer costs around $1,000 and uses spools of plastic thread to make gear like gun magazines, casings for explosives or bodies for handheld drone detectors.
[…]
On another platform called Brave1 Market, soldiers earn points for confirmed kills and can redeem them for weapons, a gamification of war designed to keep them motivated. […] Andrii told us he’s able to confirm the accuracy and point value of every kill because, on the war’s tech-dominated front line, nearly every mission is now recorded by drone or by a soldier’s head-cam. He says he watches hundreds of mission videos every day.
[…]
The Print Army says its volunteers shipped more than 527 tons of printed products like this last year alone. […] While the Print Army brings manufacturing into the home, Brave1 brings the battlefield to the manufacturer. Products purchased on Brave1 are tracked and analyzed, generating data gold for weapons makers, who are able to see which weapons are making the biggest difference […] Brave1 isn’t just a marketplace […] It’s also a venture capital space, where […] promising ones attract funding from the government and private investors
[…]
maximum points for eliminating targets that the Ukrainian government has identified as its top priorities. Some of the highest point values are awarded for taking out a plane or helicopter, evacuating wounded soldiers, and destroying enemy air defense systems. Capturing a Russian soldier is worth ten times the value of killing one.
While Andrii works from a desk in Kiev, the hundreds of videos he’s verifying offer an up-close and gruesome view of life and death on the front line.
[…]
“Well, that’s war. […] I have a sense of duty. And I also want my father to get back home safe.”
[…]
“It affects you psychologically?”
“Yes.”
[Six hundred] federal border buoys broke loose during recent flooding […] The high water was the first major test of a floating border barrier installed by [DHS]. The system consists of interconnected orange cylinders that are approximately 15 feet long, four feet high and weigh about a ton each. […] Officials in Eagle Pass temporarily stopped traffic on the city’s two international bridges as the buoys passed underneath.
Eagle Pass is also home to about 2,000 feet of a separate floating barrier installed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott […] since 2023. […] the state’s barrier remained in place
[…]
many of the federal buoys became lodged in the river. Others crossed into Mexico, where some were reportedly recovered by residents and sold as scrap metal.
[An] organization warned about the potential danger when the Trump administration announced plans to deploy hundreds of miles of floating barriers […] The assessment found that floodwaters could break the barriers apart and send the heavy buoys downstream, where they could strike bridges and other infrastructure.
[…]
The World Trade Bridge is one of the country’s busiest commercial crossings. […] $1.2 million in trade passes through it every minute. […] Inspectors found no damage, and traffic resumed. But […] the incident could have had a much worse outcome.
[…]
Castro also questioned whether the barriers have had any meaningful effect on unlawful immigration. “This whole thing was a big show,” he said. “It was done completely incompetently.” […] [Border Patrol] did not say whether it plans to redesign, reinforce or reconsider the floating barrier system
Michael Kosta shows solidarity with a billionaire who’s fighting the scourge of anti-rich hate.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/Cz21B666Rs0
“The National Association for the Advancement of Cha-Ching People” aka NAACP
Three people were killed and four others were injured in what police believe was a shootout between a pair of gunmen at a major food festival in Seattle on Sunday night.
One gunman surrendered after being confronted by police, while another shooter was being sought after they fled Seattle Center, which was hosting the Bite of Seattle event, Assistant Seattle Police Chief Tyrone Davis said at a late-night news conference.
“There were two people who we believe were shooting at each other,” Davis said…
“Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy knows the CDC’s site on vaccines and autism is wrong. So what is he going to do about it?”
Over the past year or so, leading Trump administration officials from the Pentagon to the Department of Transportation have sparked controversies by making unfortunate and unnecessary changes to online public resources.
But arguably the most important website change happened last fall when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally intervened and directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change its website, which used to reflect the scientific consensus, alerting the public to the fact that vaccines do not cause autism. [!]
The revised online resource told the public, “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” […] it was certainly unbecoming of the CDC, which used to represent the international gold standard in its field.
Roughly nine months later, this issue returned to the fore when Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, endorsed Erica Schwartz’s nomination to lead the CDC after it agreed to change the centers’ website on vaccines and autism. [!]
Cassidy was apparently impressed by what he characterized as a constructive move. “I am confident that [Schwartz] knows what she is doing and will stand against those who don’t,” the senator told The Washington Post. He added that “as a sign of good faith, HHS modified the CDC’s autism and vaccines webpage. There is more to do to repair the damage that has been done to the U.S. public health response, but this is a start.”
Except that Cassidy has little reason to be pleased. The Post’s report added:
The problem: the page still suggests a possible link between vaccines and autism. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally directed the CDC to revise its webpage last year to contradict the long-settled scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism.
The CDC page has a changed footnote beneath the headline “Vaccines do not cause autism,” replacing a reference to Cassidy with language saying scientists have not identified the causes of autism and that the agency will update the page as new evidence emerges. The page’s central claims otherwise remained intact.
What’s more, a NOTUS report emphasized that the CDC’s website also “still references a recently retracted study linking vaccines and autism,” despite no such link between the two.
Cassidy managed to secure a change to a footnote, but effectively nothing else. [!]
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Dana Bash asked the Louisiana Republican, who will wrap up his congressional career at the end of the year, whether he’s satisfied. He made clear that he is not.
“It’s been firmly established vaccines do not cause autism. That’s over decades,” Cassidy said. “The fact that [the CDC’s website remains largely intact] is almost an insult to the American people. ‘We don’t care enough about you to tell the truth. […]”
Of course, Cassidy could further leverage his power and perhaps even threaten to derail Schwartz’s CDC nomination unless the website is overhauled. At least for now, the senator, who’s long failed to follow through on his ostensible convictions, doesn’t appear ready to do much of anything apart from raise occasional complaints in the media.
“The bottom line is unavoidable: The president created a national security problem because he was overeager to play with his new toy.”
Even if the Qatari-donated Air Force One were perfect in every way, and the plane were serving Donald Trump and the United States well, it would still be a legal, political and ethical mess. We are, after all, talking about a luxury jet the president accepted despite the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which bars chief executives from receiving gifts from foreign powers without congressional approval.
We’re also talking about a plane Trump, who went to extraordinary lengths to reward Qatar after receiving the gift, apparently intends to “donate” to his presidential library after leaving the White House.
[…] Earlier this month, Trump took the new plane to Turkey for a NATO summit, but he chose not to fly home on it. The president claimed by way of social media that he was taking the older Air Force One “for old times’ sake” [Oh, that’s an extraordinarily weak lie.] and denied that the switch was made because of security concerns.
It quickly became apparent he was not telling the truth. MS NOW reported that Trump swapped out the Qatari-donated jet for his flight from Turkey to the United Kingdom “over concerns that the gifted aircraft lacks the secure communications systems and military defenses needed to safely manage a rapidly escalating conflict with Iran.”
The New York Times published a related report three weeks ago, which sparked a furious White House leak investigation, despite the newspaper highlighting the fact that the plane’s deficiencies were visible to the naked eye.
The Times’ latest reporting has advanced the story, noting what happened when Trump toured the luxury Boeing 747-8 early last year and was struck by its luxurious amenities.
Mr. Trump’s February 2025 tour of the Qatari jet led to a frantic sprint inside the White House and the Pentagon. The administration sought to upgrade the plane in time to meet his demand for it to be ready by the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, with an accelerated retrofit.
An investigation by The New York Times found that the president’s push to get the luxury aircraft quickly led to ballooning costs and trade-offs in safety features that potentially left Mr. Trump and others who travel with him on Air Force One vulnerable.
[…] the Times documenting how directly involved the president was in making decisions about the plane, including his personal approval of its security measures.
That’s highly relevant because many of the security and safety features that were included in the previous Air Force One (and will be included in the next Air Force One, which will be ready in a couple of years) were left off the Qatari-donated plane.
The plane was so unprepared for presidential travel that some White House officials “initially expected it would only be used for domestic travel or to visit allied countries with U.S. military bases.”
[…] the administration embraced a “compressed timeline of just about eight months,” not because it had to, but because Trump was like a child who wanted immediate access to his new toy. […]
Trump gave away the game last week, taking the new Air Force One out of service (at least temporarily) until its security features can be improved.
The bottom line is unavoidable: Trump created a national security problem because he was overeager and self-indulgent. I know it’s trite to say this would be an enormous scandal in a normal presidency, but this really would be an enormous scandal in a normal presidency.
There’s also the question of cost. Earlier this month, a reporter asked the president about the price tag for preparing the jet. “Well, it cost very little relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way,” Trump responded. [Word salad, nonsense.]
I still have no idea what that was supposed to mean, but there’s a likely explanation for why Trump was cagey on the underlying question. “The government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase equipment needed to train pilots to fly the 747-8 plane so quickly [!], on top of the approximately $400 million cost of the upgrades that the administration has publicly acknowledged,” the Times’ latest reporting added. “The Pentagon has tried to mask the total price tag — including from Congress — by taking the funds from a classified budget for nuclear modernization.” [!]
If Democrats win back a congressional majority, it’s a safe bet that this will be the subject of some rather intense oversight hearings.
As long as there have been vaccines, there have been people who doubted their science and safety.
…
Public health advocates and science communicators have largely tried to counter these ideas by offering accurate, factual information. But as a medical humanities researcher studying how groups that embrace vaccine hesitancy craft their message, I’ve learned that part of why vaccine hesitancy is so hard to combat is how these groups use storytelling to spread their views.
Vaccine-hesitant groups have fewer limitations than pro-vaccine groups on the kinds of stories they can tell about the development and impact of vaccines. While science-driven messaging that encourages vaccination has to be faithful to the complex and often uneventful reality of science, vaccine-skeptic stories tend to make more dynamic claims…
[…] “This one deserves a lot of questions, and it is starting to approach a catastrophic level in terms of how mismanaged it’s been on multiple fronts,” Yiannas [Frank Yiannas, Food and Drug Administration’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response under Donald Trump and Joe Biden] told Politico. Pointing to the outbreak’s magnitude and widespread consumer confusion, he went on to criticize the “lack of strong federal leadership.”
It was against this backdrop that Trump fielded some questions from reporters on Friday […]. “There’s this nasty parasite that is giving people in nine states explosive diarrhea,” Fox News’ Peter Doocy said. “When is it going to be safe to eat lettuce again?” [video]
“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I haven’t thought about it. It’s the first time I’ve been asked that question.”
At that point, Trump apparently thought it would be a good idea to joke about the subject. “Are you eating lettuce recently?” the president said to laughter.
As the back-and-forth continued, Trump concluded, “I think what we’re going to do is we’re going to put a major tariff on Mexico because of the lettuce,” which generated more laughs in the room — as if a public health issue that’s sickened thousands of people is little more than a punch line to an unfortunate joke.
It’s hardly unreasonable to think the American public might look to the White House for some guidance on this intensifying public health issue, but by the president’s own admission, he doesn’t know anything about the issue, hasn’t thought about the problem, and hadn’t even been asked about this until Friday afternoon, at which point he struggled to hide his indifference. […]
A new court order Friday in federal court in south Texas, first flagged by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, reveals that another Salvadoran national has been unlawfully deported twice by the Trump administration in the past eight months in violation of separate orders by a federal judge and an immigration judge.
In an under-the-radar case reminiscent of the brutalization of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Nelson Ariel Umanzor Chavez was deported to Mexico in November despite a federal court’s temporary restraining order barring the administration from removing him from the United States. As in the Abrego Garcia case, the court ordered the administration to facilitate his return from Mexico and he was in fact returned to the U.S. by the end of November.
But then in January — despite a 2019 immigration court order barring his removal to his native country because he was “more likely than not to be tortured” there — the administration deported him to El Salvador anyway, where he was immediately imprisoned.
His condition and the exact location of his detention remain known.
“Salvadoran authorities have transferred Petitioner between prisons and his family has not been provided information regarding his current location, his condition, or whether he is alive,” according to the latest court order, citing a declaration filed in the case.
Umanzor Chavez unlawfully entered the United States in 2015 but was released as an unaccompanied minor. His asylum claim was rejected in 2019, but he was granted withholding of removal to El Salvador under the Convention Against Torture. He appears from the court order to have remained free for a decade, until he was detained in May 2025 in Baltimore during an ICE check-in.
In his order Friday laying out the circumstances of the case, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. (a Trump appointee) denied the relief Umanzor Chavez was seeking because his request was based on his earlier deportation to Mexico, not his more recent deportation to El Salvador. The judge gave him until next month to amend his pleadings to challenge the second deportation.
That sounds like a mistake in the wording of the pleadings led to a catastrophic result. That’s not right.
The substance that the FBI found in the work van being driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo when he was shot and killed by an ICE agent tested negative for narcotics or illicit drugs, the House district attorney announced Friday.
The fact that the news came not from the FBI but from the local prosecutor reinforced suspicions that the Trump administration had tried to sully the victim’s reputation. For reasons which remain unclear, the search warrant for the van which revealed the FBI’s suspicion of meth was unsealed unusually early in the case amidst outrage over the shooting.
A new report from the Washington Office on Latin America says the death toll from President Trump’s lawless high seas campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats is 221.
But despite the illegal carnage, the campaign is failing to achieve its own stated objective of strangling drug trafficking by sea, the WaPo reports:
The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.
Exporting the MAGA Vision Abroad
Over the weekend, Brazil announced that it denied visas to two senior State Department officials — assistant secretary Riley M. Barnes and deputy assistant secretary Samuel Samson — who were being dispatched by the Trump administration “on a mission to cast doubt on the fairness and integrity of the country’s electoral system” ahead of the Oct. 4 presidential election, the WaPo reports.
Trump Loses on Election Meddling Gambit
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals handed the administration an important loss Friday when it declined to pause a lower court order that blocked the administration from moving ahead on President Trump’s executive order purporting to revamp mail voting ahead of the midterm elections.
More scandal from the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is run by Russ Vought:
[…] a New York Times article flagging a court filing in a dispute between the federal government and researchers who work on grant-funded projects.
[…] the magnitude of the scandal is deadened somewhat by the fact that the White House Office of Management and Budget, under the direction of Russ Vought, has made a practice of finding creative and novel ways to impound congressionally appropriated funding, a topic TPM’s Emine Yücel has been diligently chronicling.
Back in October 2025, Vought heavily insinuated what was going on with this specific funding by tweeting “$8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled,” adding that the projects “are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA.”
Elsewhere, the administration has withheld funds with the thinnest of justifications. Just last week, for example, the Trump administration announced it was withholding $1 billion in Medicaid funds from California and Minnesota, alleging fraud. [!]
But the stipulation filed in court earlier this month contains no such fig leaf. It makes what is going on explicit. ”The inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State,” it says.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MA) called it an “imbecilic deep betrayal of America.”
“The illegally impounded funds must be restored and released immediately to the blue states,” he added.
The Trump administration is moving closer to opening up U.S. waters for deep-sea mining—a contentious and largely untested industry focused on extracting mineral-rich deposits from the ocean floor containing cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese.
Last week, the Department of Interior’s newly created Marine Minerals Administration (MMA) announced a proposal to hold a lease sale for deep-sea mining activities in federal waters off the coast of American Samoa in the South Pacific. If the plans move forward, it would be the first deep-sea mining lease sale in the world. Interested deep-sea mining companies could bid for 20 years of mining rights across more than 31 million acres of American Samoa’s outer continental shelf in an auction tentatively scheduled for November 19, 2026.
The announcement has drawn widespread criticism from environmental advocates and scientists who say any deep-sea mining activities, including preliminary exploratory activities, could pose irreparable harm to the marine environment and the American Samoan people, whose culture and livelihoods are deeply entwined with the ocean. […]
The proposal marks the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to pave the way for deep-sea mining in the U.S and abroad. Since President Donald Trump signed an executive order last April directing federal agencies to fast-track the issuance of seabed mining permits, the government has sought to position the U.S. as a leader of the emerging industry, despite global opposition.
[…] deep-sea mining has not yet been conducted at a commercial scale anywhere in the world. There are still no formalized regulations to govern the industry in the U.S. or globally.
[…] global delegates are gathering this month in Kingston, Jamaica at the International Seabed Authority to continue negotiating a long debated Mining Code that would regulate activities related to extracting deep-sea minerals, including prospecting, exploration and commercial exploitation in international waters.
Forging ahead without such regulations in place and paving the way for future mining near American Samoa will inevitably result in harm to critical marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them […]
Directly adjacent to the proposed lease area is the Rose Atoll, a national wildlife refuge and marine national monument that was established by President George W. Bush in 2009. […] “It’s one of the last largely intact marine ecosystems that we have under U.S. jurisdiction,” Friedlander [Alan Friedlander, an affiliate researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology] said. […]
“Pete Hegseth Is A Failure And Everybody Hates Him, Episode One Million”
“This again?”
Another day, another article that says Republican senators are losing confidence in Secretary Shitfaced Hegseth, the least qualified military leader in all of human history, who is currently rubbing his masculine insecurity issues and his hair and makeup expertise all over the Pentagon.
Will one of these ever get the [guy] fired, or is this just a thing we do while Kristen Welker is yukking it up with Stephen Miller and the American experiment continues to die a sad, avoidable death?
This one is in The Hill, and oh boy, if Republican senators are as disappointed in Pete Hegseth as they sound, oh boy! Of course, some of these senators are also suggesting that the way to fix things would be to do a really big attack on Iran, that’ll get American public opinion back […]
So they are also morons.
Quoting hardly anybody besides outgoing senator Thom Tillis, who is willing to let his opinion fly more than he used to these days, The Hill reports that Republican senators are befuddled by the regime’s/Hegseth’s inability to anticipate totally predictable things like Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, or Iran attacking the US’s allies in the region, like whaaaaaaaat? And the Houthis are back at it again in the Red Sea, whaaaaaaaat?
“I don’t have any confidence in him anymore. I think he’s all over the place — he’s accelerating the retirement or forcing out some of the most distinguished leaders in the DOD that we have,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told The Hill, referring to the Department of Defense (DOD).
“I think he’s got a massive insecurity complex, he has a lack of experience in large organizations, he micromanages too much. He’s lost my confidence.”
[…] yes, giant massive insecurity complex, yes, correct, huge, been writing about that since the day his nomination was announced.
Tillis says there are other Republican senators about to start talking shit publicly, just you wait, especially if Hegseth makes another bad decision. […]
[…] Here’s one of them that’s still talking anonymously, and they are saying that part of the problem is that the Pentagon hates and disrespects the motherfucker, which is also not a new development. […]
One Republican senator close to Defense policymakers on Capitol Hill said that Hegseth is losing support within senior military ranks and that is fueling concerns among GOP colleagues.
[…] You may read the rest of the article from The Hill if you’d like, to see what else Republican senators are concerned about — it literally uses the word “concerned” one paragraph before it cites Susan Collins — but if senators are looking for one more bad decision, here’s one!
Yet another study/review has found that Secretary Shitfaced and his murder boat strikes have done absolutely nothing to diminish the flow of cocaine into the United States […]
The Washington Post article has more on how the strikes haven’t reduced the purity of that sweet cocaine, how traffickers are using larger boats and different routes, and also aircraft, but we want to skip right to this pathetic “Nuh uh!” statement from chief Hegseth’s [spokesperson] Sean Parnell at the Pentagon:
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Operation Southern Spear was accomplishing “exactly what it was designed to do: detect, disrupt and dismantle designated terrorist organizations and the networks they rely on to traffic narcotics, generate illicit revenue, and threaten the security of the United States and the Western Hemisphere.”
“Transnational criminal organizations have continually adapted their tactics for decades,” Parnell told The Post. “That does not indicate the pressure is ineffective. It demonstrates that we are imposing systemic friction on their operations.”
Got ‘em right where they want ‘em! Doin’ the systemic friction, makin’ ‘em adapt, makin’ ‘em more nimble! […]
If Republican senators need another bad decision from Shitfaced, we’re sure he’ll do something by lunch […]
“The president appears as a super hero in a mocked up movie poster, saving Washington at Mount Rushmore, in a series of bizarre late night posts”
President Donald Trump posted about everything from time travel to the Iran war in his latest bizarre Truth Social posting spree.
In a series of posts using A.I. images shared on Sunday, Trump uploaded a fake movie poster showing himself saving George Washington at Mount Rushmore, a mocked-up image of a border wall with Canada and various hints he might run again in 2028.
“The past was about to change,” the imagined “Trump x Washington” film’s tagline reads. “History was about to be saved.” [OMFG, such bad AI.-generated slop!!]
Trump’s social media spree also saw him sharing an A.I. generated poster for a scifi movie called “Cosmic Commander”, using a symbol similar to the insignia in Star Trek.
The president’s social media spree saw him upload over 40 posts in six hours. [Ummm… Dementia Don gone wild?]
[…] Another showed the president looming large in the sky, while military jets soared across the country. Explosions can be seen rocking an area marked as “Iran,” while a caption reads: “Guardians of the World.”
Trump sported a hat reading “FAFO” in one A.I.-generated image, while at the helm of a boat manned by military personnel. […]
“EXCLUSIVE: Police vetted dubious allegation only after Buttigieg was separated from children”
“The Michigan attorney general’s office is investigating how the accusation that prompted the ex-Cabinet secretary’s separation from his 4-year-old twins was handled.”
Officials who separated former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his young twins last month relied on a vague and unsubstantiated allegation from an accuser authorities later deemed possibly “mentally unstable,” according to previously unreported police records.
The records, obtained by The Washington Post, and an interview with the apparent complainant offer the most detailed account yet of how a false tip led investigators to the home of one of the country’s most prominent Democrats, drawing bipartisan outrage.
Child welfare experts who reviewed the documents at The Post’s request said they illuminate a flawed process that was made worse by poor judgment by agencies and a lack of communication among investigators from two states.
Michigan State Police reports detail the chain of events from the allegation to its eventual determination it was unfounded and potentially politically motivated. Indiana child welfare authorities who received a tip on a hotline with “very limited information” about Buttigieg did not pass along the caller’s name or contact information when notifying officials in Michigan, where Buttigieg now lives, which the Indiana child welfare agency says is their policy.
Michigan police waited six days after approaching Buttigieg to attempt to identify the caller.
By then, Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and 2020 presidential candidate, had gone public with the ordeal in a June Substack post, describing it as “the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.”
Michigan authorities had told Buttigieg he could not be alone with his 4-year-old children until they could be interviewed away from their parents the next day, Buttigieg recounted. The children stayed with their grandparents who lived nearby. Buttigieg, who is widely expected to run for president again, called that 24-hour separation “among the darkest hours of my life.”
Buttigieg said the authorities initially would not tell him what he was accused of. Vivek Sankaran, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and child advocacy law expert, said he was troubled that Michigan State Police went to Buttigieg’s door with such a vague allegation that didn’t present any indication that children were imminently at risk.
[…] The first openly gay Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate, Buttigieg, 44, has faced attacks from some corners over his sexual orientation and his decision to adopt two children with his husband, Chasten. He told authorities of the “many threats” his family receives, including death threats, according to the report.
“This has been a painful and infuriating situation for the family,” Buttigieg spokesman Sean Manning said in a statement to The Post. “They are in touch with Michigan authorities, seeking answers and accountability for what happened.” […]
“The Odyssey” leaks have begun, as a high-quality bootleg of the film reached millions of people on X thanks to a viral tweet on July 25.
At 2:25 p.m. PT, a post on X reading “Someone uploaded ‘The Odyssey’ full movie on X. Can you believe it?” amplified a message from a now-suspended account. The message included a high-quality version of the film, as confirmed by Variety, and climbed to over 2.1 million views within two and a half hours. By that time, the streaming film was replaced by a takedown notice, and then the account was suspended.
That leaks are happening is no surprise, that it took Twitter that long to take it down is. It shows where their priorities are.
“Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It.”
For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit.
The grants, sometimes in the billions of dollars, have funded new railroad tracks, train stations and roads rebuilt for modern bus service. Today, they’re funding extensions of the Second Avenue Subway in New York and the Red Line in Chicago, as well as the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and bus infrastructure in Indianapolis and San Antonio.
But since President Trump returned to office, the Federal Transit Administration has not signed a single new agreement under the program [!!], known as Capital Investment Grants. Large projects ready to enter the final phase of the program’s yearslong pipeline have stalled there. The administration also tried halting payments to the New York and Chicago projects, forcing courts to intervene.
As the number of pending projects builds up, so has anxiety about the federal government’s support for major transit infrastructure. Money that Congress designated for that purpose is accumulating too: More than $7 billion hasn’t been obligated to any project. [!]
[…] The program illustrates a subtler tactic in how the Trump administration is managing federal funds: not just terminating grants, as it did in droves last year, but quietly declining to give out new ones. [shocking graph]
[…] The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, also released an early memo proposing to prioritize transportation funding to communities with high rates of marriages and births, naming one program in particular — Capital Investment Grants.
Then last fall, the White House budget director, Russell Vought, announced he was freezing payments to New York for the Gateway Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway for potentially violating new rules on disadvantaged business contractors. Two days later, he said he was doing the same with the Chicago Transit Authority. […]
Judges later ordered the administration to resume funding. But Mr. Vought’s Office of Management and Budget, which doles out appropriated money to agencies, has continued to make unusual moves with the program. Of its nearly $7.9 billion in available resources, the budget office has designated more than $5.2 billion for next fiscal year — effectively putting it out of reach should the F.T.A. want to use it to sign a grant today. […]
When the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the White House budget office could simply push that money into the future again. […]
In the devastating wildfires in France, officials said that firefighters had encountered a dangerous phenomenon that many of them had not seen before: a pyrocumulonimbus, or “fire cloud.”
These large, fire-fueled thunderstorms, also known as pyroCbs, are created by intense heat from large blazes or volcanic eruptions. They produce lightning and burning embers that can spark more fires, and they generate high and unpredictable winds that fan the flames and spread the embers. But they rarely bring rain.
One pyrocumulonimbus generated more blazes over the weekend in one of the hardest-hit areas of France, Marc Vermeulen, the director of fire and emergency services in the Gironde region, said at a news briefing on Sunday.
[…] “The fire became extremely virulent and unpredictable again generating its own wind and spreading erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area,” Laurent Nuñez, France’s interior minister, also said on social media. […]
Dr Rainer Zitelmann doesn’t even remember posting the meme on social media that nearly landed him in prison.
“When I opened the letter from police, I thought it was a misunderstanding,” Dr Zitelmann, a German historian and author of about 30 books, told The Telegraph.
Berlin police told Dr Zitelmann he had been accused of violating a post-Second World War law that bans the display of Nazi symbols, slogans and imagery – and could now face three years in prison if found guilty.
The 69-year-old found out the offending social media post was a meme about Adolf Hitler. But it was one in which he criticised the Nazi dictator and compared his invasion of Czechoslovakia to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
One German had his home raided for calling a minister a “Schwachkopf [dummy]” while another was fined €2,000 (£1,700) for calling Friedrich Merz a “lying Fritz” under a law that, critics claim, makes it effectively illegal to make fun of politicians.
German online enforcement is going berserk. Any mention or display of Nazi material, even to insult it or explain why it’s wrong, can results in fines and prison sentences. Any insult of politicians can result in fines. These laws have existed on the books for a long time but recently enforcement has gone overboard.
The far right is trying to exploit this situation to their advantage. Saying the government is using these laws to spy on them.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an unprecedented political comeback, the entirely unconscious Mitch McConnell has garnered a vastly higher approval rating than the conscious version, a new poll revealed on Monday.
According to the poll, a whopping 78 percent of voters “strongly agreed” with the statement, “The USA would be in much better shape today if Mitch McConnell had been unconscious for the entire four decades of his congressional career.”
Voters pointed to progress on guns, the environment, and a host of other issues that could have been achieved if only McConnell had not been sentient.
Capitalizing on his newfound popularity, McConnell’s office issued the following statement: “The senator continues to be motionless and unresponsive, and the pile of legislative work near his hospital bed has gone completely untouched.”
Dawn French and James Fleet are the only core members of The Vicar of Dibley still alive.
Bill Oddie from the comedy series The Goodies died last week.
“In France, some of Europe’s aerospace leaders are in the path of the fire.”
The megafire raging in southwestern France is threatening a hub of the aerospace and defense industries, imperiling plants that produce some of the world’s most sophisticated technologies and work with dangerous materials.
Just six miles from the blaze advancing on the city of Bordeaux, workers have been evacuated from a site where chemical rocket fuel is packed into boosters for submarine-launched nuclear missiles, and another where workers dismantle and decontaminate those missiles after they are retired.
“All affected sites have been evacuated and all necessary measures have been taken to secure them,” said Gregor Waschinski, the head of media relations for ArianeGroup in an email. ArianeGroup, a French-German aerospace giant that operates the plants in the town of Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, builds Europe’s Ariane rockets and France’s nuclear missiles.
But ArianeGroup and other defense contractors, as well as government officials, did not discuss whether hazardous or combustible materials had been removed from locations put at risk by the fires.
The region’s top civil servant, Prefect Sophie Brocas, said on Saturday that army engineers and construction company employees had helped create firebreaks “around a number of sensitive sites” by stripping areas of all vegetation. The French Defense Ministry announced on Saturday that it was deploying “experts and equipment” to “secure industrial sites” in the area, along with sending 1,500 soldiers to protect property and help with evacuations.
ArianeGroup has three sites in the area, in both Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, which bills itself as the “birthplace of the aerospace industry” and the nearby town of Le Haillan, where it builds rocket engines and assembles missile boosters. Those sites, together with both towns, have been evacuated.
Safran, a major French aerospace contractor best known for building commercial jet engines, has similarly closed four plants in the region, according to the company’s media director, Catherine Malek.
Other companies in the Bordeaux Aeropark, according to the city’s promotional literature, include Dassault Aviation, Airbus Atlantic and Thales.
the Trump administration’s plan to paint the massive EEOB white, to match the nearby White House. It is unnecessary, costly and it could damage the stone, they say, leading to a “taxpayers’ nightmare,” as the building would have to be regularly repainted, keeping it potentially under scaffolding in perpetuity.
[…]
Ordinarily, the General Services Administration would have to follow the law and solicit input from experts and the public, but Trump’s lawyers have written a Trojan Horse into this case, claiming the GSA has ceded those responsibilities and requirements to the White House, to which the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act do not apply.
“The precedent is potentially devastating […] Anytime the president takes a personal interest in a project he can simply pluck it out of an agency that is subject to review, and put it in his own shop.” If the president wants to rush a new pipeline through pristine wilderness? Just transfer the responsibility from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the president’s own people
[…]
Trump and his enablers […] will be long gone before the full cost of this project are revealed. […] The stone would likely have to be cleaned, and if that isn’t done properly it can impact the surface of the granite. After the stone is cleaned, new paint that forms a film over the stone, like latex, would retain water, damaging the surface and joints. The long-term effects of mineral-based coatings, which seep into the stone, aren’t well understood, and this treatment likely can’t be removed. […] Reversibility is a guiding principle for most professional preservationists
“How Meta Got Everything It Wanted in a Secret Louisiana Data Center Deal”
“A Times examination details how the Silicon Valley giant used private talks with local officials to start a project big enough to cover nearly six square miles.” [Video and photos at the link]
A Louisiana state legislative committee was about to consider a bill in April 2024 when Richard Nelson, then the state’s revenue secretary, received an urgent message from Gov. Jeff Landry. Get the bill passed, the newly elected Republican governor told him, because they needed it for something else.
Mr. Nelson walked across a room in Baton Rouge’s towering State Capitol to the bill’s author, Chris Turner, a Republican state representative.
“‘Hey, we need to hijack your bill,’” Mr. Nelson told Mr. Turner. “‘I can’t really tell you what it’s about. All I can tell you is that it’s important.’”
Mr. Turner agreed. The bill had started out as a tax rebate for fiber-optic equipment. But when it was voted on by the state House of Representatives less than two months later, it had become a tax rebate for equipment used in data centers. [!]
Mr. Turner had helped land the largest development in Louisiana’s history: a $50 billion data center for the Silicon Valley giant Meta that planners say could cover about six square miles and use seven times as much energy as New Orleans.
Meta wanted the rebate to build its data center in Richland Parish, an impoverished farming community in Louisiana’s northeast corner. The tech company also needed a secret deal done quickly, and state officials were eager to oblige.
Rewriting the bill was a critical part of a nine-month process that Meta used to cut deals behind the scenes, avoid local opposition and offload financial risk […]
The secrecy was agreed to by nearly everyone involved, from utility executives to the governor’s office to a local elected official who knew about the talks with Meta and sold 300 acres of his own property for the project.
The upshot was a deal that was nearly ironclad for Meta because everyone else took on most of the potential downside. […]
Those partners include Entergy Louisiana, the state’s largest power company, and Blue Owl, a Wall Street investment firm, according to public statements from the companies and investor documents. If Meta should pull out of the project because of a natural disaster, Blue Owl and its investors could be stuck with tens of billions of dollars in debt. Should Meta exit its lease early for other reasons and pay high penalties for doing so, Entergy and its customers could wind up saddled with higher costs.
Adding to their risk, insurance companies would not fully insure Meta’s facility because of its size and location in the Louisiana Delta flood plains.
The New York Times’s examination shows for the first time how Meta used secrecy and speed to pave the way for its giant project, which it calls Hyperion. At a pivotal moment for the A.I. boom, Hyperion could be a blueprint for other companies intent on avoiding local opposition in order to get massive data centers built fast. [!]
[…] Sales tax totals in Richland Parish have already jumped 2,000 percent since construction started, which led to a $50,000 bonus for some local teachers.
Whether Louisiana gave up too much, including tax breaks that could be worth as much as $10 billion and the use of public land for a privately owned project, won’t be answered for years. Officials are quick to say that whatever comes out of it will be better than the mostly fallow farmland that was there.
[…] In Delhi, a poor and majority Black town 10 minutes from the Hyperion site, some residents have seen their rents spike because construction workers need homes.
Tracy Williams, 41, was evicted from her trailer park last July when her landlord raised the rent to $1,495 from $250 a month. She could not afford to relocate her trailer with only a month’s notice, so she and her family watched as a machine dismantled their home, cut it into pieces and “crushed it like a can,” she said. For the next three weeks, she and her four children slept in their car.
“That was my home for over a decade,” she said. “Not everyone is making Meta money.”
[…] “We told Meta the larger you can make it, the more aggressive we can be to get you what you need,” Ms. Bourgeois said. While the project was projected to cost $10 billion, “it was always $10 billion with a wink,” she said.
Meta gave Louisiana an August deadline — seven months away — for a deal that normally takes years to plan. (Meta said the August date was a “working target and suggestion.”) Everyone involved agreed that it needed to be kept secret.
Mr. Landry invited every member of his cabinet who needed to know about the project to a meeting at the governor’s mansion. His chief of staff passed around a stack of NDAs and freshly baked peanut butter cookies.
[…] Using NDAs between public officials and private companies is legal but raises transparency concerns, experts said. It has become a common practice among tech companies working on data centers.
[…] To seal the Meta deal, the governor’s first order of business was the sales tax exemption. […] Meta also wanted property tax incentives and upgrades to nearby roads.
[…] In August 2025, Louisiana’s power commissioners voted 4 to 1 to approve three new gas turbines to power the data center. The commission skipped having an independent administrative judge weigh in on whether the project was in the public’s best interest, something that is typically done in Louisiana but would have slowed down the project. Legally, the power commission could skip that step.
Meta promised to pay for the maintenance and operational costs of the new turbines for half their 30-year life span. Entergy reserved the right to raise its energy prices for all customers to pay for the rest.
[…] The project keeps getting bigger. In October, Meta said Hyperion would become a $30 billion project. This month, after Entergy announced it was building 10 gas turbines instead of three at an estimated cost of $14 billion, Meta said the project would total $50 billion.
[…] In May, the joint venture that controls Hyperion paid its first sales tax payment of $22.4 million, making it the parish’s largest taxpayer. Meta plans to spend $1 billion to upgrade local infrastructure and $5 million on job training at a nearby community college. And local teachers got those big bonuses.
That money hasn’t trickled down to people like Ms. Williams, who lost her home. The trailer park she lived in was one of at least five in Richland Parish to be remade for data center workers, most of whom live in converted “man camps,” some renovated with new basketball courts and soccer fields. Rents are so high that Ms. Williams moved her family to another parish, forcing her to find new work and schools for her children. […]
Part of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, known as Section 106, requires federal agencies to evaluate how new construction projects would affect historic places.
Under the Section 106 review process, the federal agency overseeing a project must invite interested parties—like preservation groups and local and tribal governments—to weigh in. Currently, agencies are required to consider whether the project would cause “adverse effects” to a historic property and, if so, explore ways to “avoid, minimize, or mitigate” those harms.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the federal agency responsible for overseeing the Section 106 review process, is packed with Trump appointees. […] the council wants to water it down drastically […] redefining what kinds of properties can be considered historic in the first place, making public comment on new projects optional and removing the requirement to consult with Native American tribes.
[…]
The changes do not take effect immediately after Friday’s vote. They need to clear several more steps of the federal rulemaking process, including a roughly 30-day public comment period.
[…]
After World War II, an era of urban renewal and federal highway construction destroyed high-profile buildings like New York City’s Penn Station and devastated many historically Black neighborhoods. […] It prompted public outrage and resulted in Congress passing the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966.
[…]
the proposal would be “terrible for developers,” who want predictability and information early on to avoid delays and issues down the road.
(15:29): The National Historic Preservation Act is very procedural [as opposed to a substantive law]. Section 106, as part of the law itself, only says that a federal entity has to take into account its impact on historic resources. It doesn’t necessarily say how that’s supposed to happen […] So the ACHP has had implementing regulations […] and they outline the pathway that every individual federal agency is supposed to use […] What the ACHP is trying to do is to rewrite those implementing regulations to the exclusion of substantial public input, public participation, tribal input, and consultation with lower and local government […] and turns it into agency discretion. This is a real concentration of federal power in determining what history matters and what doesn’t.
(33:19): elimination of multiple paragraphs that include any kind of consultation with state representation and agencies as well as tribal representation. Now it says “They might,” “They may,” “We don’t have to if we don’t want to,” and if they are to do so, they’re no longer required to take those consultations into consideration
(40:43): in California you have the state laws. You have the CA Environmental Quality Act […] You have [State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA)] up in Washington [State]. I know Oregon has their Oregon regulations. So there are some at least smaller tools […] other parts of the [US] have fewer protections […] I worry about certain states too, if they’re going to change laws to go in line with the federal laws.
(48:01): One of the things that the proposed changes also do is explicitly bring in cost and other factors as priorities over historic preservation. So if federal agencies are being pressured by […] powerful industry lobbyists to push through a controversial project, they’re gonna do it on these ideas of cost, of “efficiency”
(55:39): this judgment on this time doesn’t acknowledge the other processes […] For some of these projects the cultural resources [aspect] is like, “Yeah that might take 18 months to 3 or 5 years,” but that is beans compared to the rest of the design project. That itself is gonna take 6 years. There’s a larger process going on if done right. Cultural resources done right alongside everything else doesn’t extend the time that much more if at all. If you’re pulling a 300 mile transmission line across several states, you’re gonna have a really long process for all components of it.
(59:28): Work by Altschul and Klein in 2021 identified that there’s probably 11,000 archaeology jobs in [Cultural Resource Management (CRM)] and that it had the potential to become 16,000 jobs. What they didn’t take into account was all the adjacent positions. I have an entire production department of editors and GIS specialists […] or an entire accounting department. […] architectural historians, historical preservationists. I think we’re talking an awful lot of jobs that this is gonna affect […] predominently women
(1:02:57): it goes to a couple of other federal agencies. It has to be posted on the federal register [which opens a 30 day comment period]. […] We need to really barrage it with comments. […] Of course, contacting your representatives […] your governor as well.
Bryan Kohberger, the man convicted of killing four University of Idaho students in 2022, is seeking to abandon his guilty plea and wants his day in court.
Kohberger, who pleaded guilty in July 2025 to avoid a quadruple murder trial and is currently serving four life sentences, filed a “petition for post conviction relief” Monday in the Ada County District Court in Idaho.
A petition for post-conviction relief is a way to challenge a conviction outside of the appeals process. The court record indicates that Kohberger is representing himself.
It was not immediately clear on what grounds he was seeking the petition.
But in an interview with The New York Times, Kohberger claimed he is innocent and was misled into confessing to the murders…
I think he’d have a better chance of seeking a presidential pardon.
The Trump administration couldn’t rebuild those stockpiles in 18 months? And also, Biden didn’t start a require requiring a drawdown of those stockpiles.
Gordie Howe’s family were in the first passenger vehicle to go across the new international border span on Monday, says the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority (WDBA).
Howe’s grandson, also named Gordie, was in the Dodge Charger that made its way across.
…
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer drove across the bridge in a Ford Mustang, built in Michigan, to mark the opening.
…
One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months.
A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise.
Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”), but they accidentally requested records for the username “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”). This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme.
…
Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges. He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term.
Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered. On Thursday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned Klayme’s conviction, writing: “Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted.” …
He must have had a pretty lousy lawyer.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Reginald Selkirk @ # 110: I think he[Bryan Kohberger]’d have a better chance of seeking a presidential pardon.
Not unless he has at least $1,000,000 to “donate” to a Trump™ PAC or related entity.
[…] Howe’s grandson, also named Gordie, was in the Dodge Charger that made its way across.
…
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer drove across the bridge in a Ford Mustang, built in Michigan, to mark the opening.[…]
Stylish! They don’t need sourpuss Trump there in order to celebrate.
A suspect arrested after a shootout that killed three people and left at least four others injured at a crowded food festival near Seattle’s Space Needle over the weekend is 15 years old, the city’s mayor said Monday.
The teen was being held in juvenile detention for investigation of firearms violations and first-degree assault and was due to appear in court Monday afternoon, Mayor Katie Wilson said at a news conference.”
Forecasters warned of extreme heat this week that could worsen what officials in France and Spain are already calling the worst wildfire season in modern history, with thousands of firefighters, troops and volunteers racing to contain dozens of blazes.
Sylvia Luke, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Hawaii, was indicted Friday on bribery charges, the state’s Department of the Attorney General announced in a press conference.
A senior Pentagon official has been suspended after he was secretly filmed calling President Donald Trump a ‘textbook narcissist’ and criticizing changes at the Department of Defense.
Apparently not satisfied with her party’s endorsement of racist policing tactics, its documented assault on Black history and civil rights, and its suppression of Black voting rights through gerrymandering gambits over the past year, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced a resolution on Thursday that would ban congressional groups that serve minority populations, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
“The American president could accept his own team’s findings, but he wants to double-check with the suspected Russian war criminal and former KGB agent.”
After months of reporting about Russia taking deliberate steps to assist Iran during the U.S. war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators during a congressional hearing last week that Russia is, in fact, “enabling some of the things Iran is doing.” [!]
Evidently, Donald Trump isn’t sure whether to believe his own Pentagon chief or not.
Six weeks ago, as the Group of Seven summit in France was wrapping up, the American president offered some curious praise to his friend in Moscow. “I want to thank Vladimir Putin, he was very neutral,” Trump said, referring to the Russian president’s role in the war with Iran.[Oh FFS] Even at the time, the comment was bizarre, given the overwhelming evidence that Putin hasn’t been neutral at all. [Embedded links to those and other sources are available at the link.]
Late last week, on the heels of Hegseth’s testimony, Trump reiterated his belief that Russia, in his “opinion,” is “not participating” in the war. In a statement published to his social media platform, he added that his beliefs were based on private assurances he said he received from Putin. [Aiyiyiyi]
Hours later, asked about the contradiction between Hegseth’s line and the Kremlin’s, the American president again said he “trusts” what he’s been told by the Russian leader. [Trump is such a Putin puppet.]
One day later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced new plans to share intelligence about Russia’s latest assistance to Iran — the latest in a series of such declarations. Zelenskyy previously said his country’s government had “irrefutable” evidence Russia had provided intelligence to the Iranian regime during the war, but he simply couldn’t get the White House to take an interest in it. [!]
So when Trump fielded questions from reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday afternoon, one of them noted the intelligence from Zelenskyy. [Social media post from Aaron Rupar, with audio]
“We’ll find out if that’s true,” the American president replied. “I’ll ask Putin about it.” [JFC]
First, it’s not at all clear what more Trump needs to see. U.S. officials have confirmed Russia’s role in providing intelligence help to Iran; Iranian officials have publicly confirmed Russia’s “military cooperation”; Hegseth told Congress as recently as last week about Russia helping Iran; and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, the former White House national security adviser, publicly acknowledged months ago Russia’s wartime “strategic partnership” with Iran.
Trump himself conceded in March that he believed Russia “might be” assisting Iran, but he added that Putin’s regime deserves a pass because the U.S. has assisted Ukraine.
“We’ll find out if that’s true”? Shouldn’t Trump have a pretty clear idea by now whether it is true? [Nope. Not Trump. He thinks ignorance and bending the knee to Putin are both virtues.]
But Trump’s suggestion that he would “ask Putin about it” is every bit as remarkable. The Republican’s own defense secretary already acknowledged reality just days ago, but the American president apparently wants to double-check with the suspected Russian war criminal and former KGB agent whose word he appears willing to accept at face value for reasons the White House has never even tried to explain.
[…]
[A] extremely worrisome—move comes from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is supposed to track and recall dangerous products. Instead, agency officials are using their authority to demand that hospitals share extensive private medical data with a private contractor.
The CPSC has been sending letters to major hospital systems, demanding that they give a private company the personally identifiable medical records of everyone who visits their emergency rooms. There isn’t really even a pretense that the supposed watchdog agency is doing this to track whether certain consumer products are disproportionately resulting in injuries, which is what it was created to track. Instead, this requires reporting on pretty much everything—broken bones, overdoses, suicide attempts, adverse reactions to medications, and so on.
Hospitals have been participating in CPSC voluntary surveillance reporting for years, but that’s not what this is. The way that surveillance is supposed to work is that trained hospital workers provide data on injuries caused by specific categories of household products, [with patient information] typically stripped of any identifying data. The CPSC’s own manual instructs hospitals not to provide any identifying information at first, and stipulates that the agency only gets that data when following up on a product investigation, which the manual says happens in under 1% of the cases.
The manual also specifies that only certain types of emergency room visit data are to be shared, and excludes injuries from food, medical devices, illegal drugs, or anything that doesn’t involve a consumer product. The current demand from the CPSC is for pretty much everything,
This is getting pushed as “modernization” of surveillance for product safety issues. […]
the Trump administration is making it pretty clear it is just using the CPSC as another tool in its quest to put Americans under constant surveillance.
It’s also clear that this forms part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unhinged quest to prove that vaccines are unsafe, as the new guidance mandates reporting of child injuries from “poisoning by” vaccines. Of course, vaccines are not regulated by the nation’s consumer product safety agency, but why should such a trivial thing like that matter?
We’ve also seen the administration feed every type of government data possible to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and you can likely presume that this is at work here as well.
[…] Remember how a DOGE bro plopped Social Security data on a thumb drive, intending to take it to his new private sector job? Or that ICE shared Medicaid data it wasn’t supposed to have in the first place with Palantir, which runs one of the many apps the government uses to find people to terrorize and deport? Or that the IRS broke the law over 40,000 times by sharing addresses with ICE?
And it isn’t like the CPSC has a great data safety track record either. During President Donald Trump’s first term, the agency had a massive own goal of a data dumping disaster, where employees improperly released the personal data of about 30,000 people in a breach that went on longer and was worse in scope than the agency initially admitted. Now, the agency is going to be awash in the sensitive medical data of millions of Americans who suffered injuries that have nothing to do with product safety whatsoever.
“Laura Loomer Likes Ukraine Now, But Don’t Worry, She Still Sucks”
“Bizarro world crap.” [Photo of Zelenskyy and Loomer sitting across from each other at an outdoor table in a garden.]
You might be seeing some headlines about OG Mar-a-Lago face Laura Loomer changing her mind on the Russia-Ukraine war. And it’s true, she does seem to have done exactly that. Loomer returned a few days ago from a trip to Ukraine having renounced her earlier views that Russia was an innocent forced into invading, Ukraine was a country overflowing with Nazis, and the United States should abandon it to its fate. She also apologized that she had fallen for all sorts of Russian propaganda and called Vladimir Putin an “absolute coward.”
This could upset Vladimir very much. Probably best for Loomer not to go near any open windows on high floors, considering.
So yes, Laura Loomer went to Ukraine, and she has changed her mind, and unfortunately this might actually be an important inflection point for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
We know, we know, we don’t have to hand it to Laura Loomer. We loathe the fact that we live in a world where she is an influential voice in American foreign policy. But that is the world we live in. Donald Trump is more likely to believe anything she tells him than he is to believe his own intelligence agencies.
It is all so very, very stupid. We have to believe this is the reason Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave her a sit-down interview. He probably doesn’t understand the Loomer-Trump link any more than we do, but he understands the importance of it. [Video]
You can see Zelensky squirming through parts of this interview as he listens to Loomer apologize for thinking he was a Jewish Nazi and for being “bamboozled” by Russian propaganda about him. But he handles it well, especially when she asks him, just past the 27:00 mark, if he thinks Donald Trump or Joe Biden was the better president. That is just one example of how she filters all her questions to him through the frame of partisan American politics: President Zelenskyy, the United States is under siege from the tens of millions of illegal aliens who flooded into our country over the last few years. Why should we send our money to help you instead of using it to rid our own country of these invaders? President Zelenskyy, how do you feel about how Democrats exploited that visit to the US where you got yelled at in the Oval Office?
Or as David Axelrod put it in this CNN clip that includes several other commentators struggling with the fact that this story might be newsworthy: “My goodness, the things one has to do to save their country.”
Loomer is now a full-on Ukraine booster, urging Trump to send the nation more Patriot missiles to defend itself, among other steps. And she has turned, with no apparent sense of irony, against conservative influencers who use their perch to sell pro-Russian propaganda. About this issue, anyway.
All this raises the question: was Laura Loomer softening somehow? Was she pivoting to being not insane? Had she exited the crazy highway by taking the sanity offramp?
We are pleased to report that the answer is a big, fat, resounding, scream-so-loud-you-wake-the-dead NO. Loomer is still nuttier than squirrel shit. Her new position on Ukraine did not change her bigotry one iota. The tweet where she called Putin a coward? It was part of excoriating him for visiting a mosque in Chechnya and kissing a copy of the Qur’an that had been gifted to him. Real men wouldn’t kowtow to radical Islam, she huffed. In that same tweet, she said that “Russian state media is amplifying Tucker Qatarlson’s latest lie that you’re allowed to hate Russians because ‘they are white’,” adding that “News flash: Ukrainians are white too.”
Everybody’s white, OK? insisted Laura Loomer, whitely.
In a separate tweet, she explained:
One thing I really love about Ukraine is I haven’t seen a single Muslim here.
It’s so refreshing. I am told there are Muslims in Ukraine but I notice they aren’t dominating public spaces the way they do in other parts of Europe.
Russia can’t say the same. Neither can the United States which has allowed unruly and violent Muslims to infiltrate our political institutions and pollute our country like a an incurable disease.
It’s very clean and orderly here. That probably has a lot to do with it.
Well, we’re not pleased to report Loomer is still a huge bigot. We are just somewhat relieved that we don’t have to give her any credit for anything.
But it is interesting to wonder if this break with the MAGA consensus, and Trump’s own softening towards Ukraine, signals a larger rift in the movement. [I snipped link to background material on Loomer.]
Are the MAGA lemmings going to reexamine their own feelings towards Russia and conclude that maybe it isn’t the white supremacist paradise they have believed? Is MAGA going to split over this issue, with the anti-Ukraine likes of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon on one side, and the suddenly sympathetic Laura Loomer and JD Vance and, much more importantly, the president on the other?
We have no idea. Though for the sake of the Ukrainians, we’re glad she found her trip … illoominating.
JMsays
@111 Reginald Selkirk: A lot of this stuff has limited production capacity and has been running at max since the invasion of Ukraine. For the simpler stuff the companies don’t want to invest in expanding production when the demand might end at any moment. The sophisticated stuff it takes years to build the factory and the US government is probably on the hook for part of the cost.
There may also be underlying supply problems, the advanced guidance depends on rare earth metals that China controls the supply of.
There was a project to expand artillery production that just failed. They built a new factory and two years after it’s “completion” it has not produced any parts at all.
SpaceX has a factory in Texas, and some of its routers have the words “Made in the USA” printed on them, leading some to believe that it might be the only major router maker to escape the FCC’s wide-ranging ban. But other Starlink routers are made in Vietnam, as PCMag reported in April…
New Bedford is considered the home of whaling’s history in America — and now, home to the worst aquarium ever.
In 2020, a Google user left a one-star review of the New Bedford Whaling Museum coining that phrase. Last fall, the museum began selling shirts and hoodies with the review on the back and a whale skeleton on the front. Now, the design is capturing national attention.
…
Emily Roznoy, the designer of the merchandise and the visitor experience manager at the Whaling Museum, said she had heard staff jokes about putting the infamous review on a T-shirt. When she saw a barbecue restaurant selling shirts that contained a similarly condemning review (one star, “no vegan options”), she made the design a reality…
Because he’s an asshole. But let’s look at a few details.
Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke, whose company commands a market capitalization near $154 billion, told his social media followers this week that a tax-tiered voting system—one that would strip voting rights from anyone who pays no income tax—would be a “good system.” …
on’t be surprised if, when you’re out at a restaurant in the near future, the person at the next table over pays with a metal card with a familiar X on it, and then hops into their Cybertruck and drives away. That person has simply handed some portion of their finances over to an enterprise called X Money, the fintech division of a rocket, social media, and artificial intelligence conglomerate called SpaceX.
It had already been soft-launched, but Monday was the day it went wide.
…
But say what you will about X Money, you can sign up for it today if you’re a Premium or Premium+ X subscriber…
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Dept of Defense accidentally admitted that ~winning is not an option~ on Twitter.
It’s not an option.
[Slop Image: “Winning” in large text. Green camo troops disembark an Osprey aircraft. Two foreground guys are green-brown smears. Another is squatting with an arm out like a Russian dance]
Commentary
I admire our government’s new commitment to honesty.
lol. They deleted it.
Trump did say we’d become tired of it.
The US is genuinely run by the stupidest people imaginable.
Y’all wanted president Martin Sheen and got president Charlie Sheen.
the motion lines indicate the guy on the left is in rapid retreat and the guy on the right is falling over.
Ugh, I just realized what that fade scribble across the bottom third of the image is. [Trump’s signature]
If you’re thinking of attending any sort of public meeting about, say, zoning changes in and around your community that enable the building of data centers, here’s something to keep in mind: a school teacher has now been carried out of one such meeting and booked in jail for clapping after someone else’s speech.
“I think we’re all in a state of fear because of what this government’s doing to us,” an anonymous attendee of that meeting told the Wichita TV news outlet KWCH in a report from July 22. The meeting in Emporia, Kansas concerned zoning to enable the construction of the Flint Hills Digital Campus data center, a proposed “gigawatt-scale” facility.
Let’s get this out of the way: the teacher in question, 37-year-old Lux Claridge, was warned. The whole room was warned before this happened—warned not to clap, which is an expression of approval…
StevoRsays
Japan’s south-western Kyushu island has been struck by two strong earthquakes within an hour, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
Japan’s fire department has also said “many people” were trapped inside a shopping mall damaged when the complex’s second floor collapsed with multiple deaths now reported, according to local media.
Follow our live coverage of this unfolding emergency.
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s southern Kumamoto prefecture on Tuesday, knocking out power to thousands of homes, rupturing roads and leaving some trapped and others presumed dead inside a partially collapsed shopping mall.
…
“We have already been informed that people have been injured. Power outages and fires have occurred in some areas, and there has also been damage to roads and bridges and the collapse of buildings,” Takaichi said…
The US delegation walked out of a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, in protest at comments made by France that compared Washington’s voting on human rights to that of authoritarian states.
The diplomatic row was initially sparked last week, when the US joined North Korea and Russia in voting against extending Volker Turk’s term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights…
It might be time to refresh my knowledge of how to spell pariah.
StevoRsays
As expected Richlene Klanson’s sugar mommy is utterly evil Aussie billionaire Gina Rhinehart
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has confirmed mining magnate Gina Rinehart paid for her flights from London to Sicily, via Rome, and for her to attend a high-end fashion parade on the luxurious Italian island.
Senator Hanson updated her parliamentary register of interests on Tuesday and also confirmed she personally paid for her accommodation, meals and other daily expenses during the trip from July 11 to 16.
The trip made headlines when the pair were spotted seaside in Sicily, but until now she had not revealed how the travel was funded, other than to insist taxpayers did not pay “one cent”.
Ms Hanson has previously declared a series of gifts from Mrs Rinehart and Hancock Prospecting in her register, including interstate flights, hospitality and a “bloody big orange bulldozer” that was gifted by the billionaire on stage at a regional summit while she made bulldozer sounds.
Australia’s equivalent of Thiel I guess, a behind the scenes funder and encourager of the most hateful reichwing shit. She previously backed Dutton the Gestapotato.
An amateur cricket match has made global headlines after a fielder was accused of cheating by clicking his fingers to get a wicket.
The North Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League has started an investigation into a second XI Division 2 game between Saltburn and Norton.
A viral video on social media appears to show a Saltburn fielder clicking his fingers as the ball passes Noman Shabir’s bat before being caught by wicketkeeper Josh Bowes. Saltburn appeal and the umpire gives Shabir out.
It has been suggested that the finger-clicking was designed to trick the umpire into thinking the batter edged the ball…
Stanford Medicine researchers have identified a naturally occurring molecule that may suppress appetite and reduce body weight in a way that resembles semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic. In animal studies, the molecule also appeared to avoid several problems associated with the drug, including nausea, constipation and substantial muscle loss.
The molecule, known as BRP, works through a different but related metabolic pathway and activates a separate group of neurons in the brain. That distinction could make it a more precise tool for controlling appetite and body weight.
…
The discovery depended heavily on artificial intelligence, which allowed the researchers to search through proteins belonging to a group known as prohormones.
…
The team concentrated on an enzyme called prohormone convertase 1/3. This enzyme cuts prohormones at specific amino acid sequences and has previously been linked to obesity in humans.
One of the peptides produced through this process is glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1. GLP-1 helps regulate hunger and blood sugar, and semaglutide works by copying its effects in the body.
The researchers reasoned that the same enzyme might produce other peptides that influence energy balance and appetite. To find them, they turned to artificial intelligence.
…
The program searched all 20,000 human protein-coding genes for the types of sites where prohormone convertases typically cut proteins. The researchers then narrowed the search to genes that produce proteins secreted outside the cell, a common feature of hormones, and that contained at least four possible cleavage sites.
That process reduced the field to 373 prohormones, giving the team a much more manageable group to investigate.
“The algorithm was absolutely key to our findings,” Svensson said.
Peptide Predictor estimated that prohormone convertase 1/3 could produce 2,683 distinct peptides from those 373 proteins. Coassolo and Svensson then focused on sequences that seemed most likely to affect the brain.
They selected 100 peptides, including GLP-1, and tested whether they could stimulate neuron-like cells grown in the laboratory…
Rachel Maddow points out that under the Trump administration, nothing can be taken at face value. So when the Consumer Product Safety Commission decides it wants to collect emergency room patient data, what might seem like a basic idea warrants a closer look. And looking more closely reveals that the data the Consumer Product Safety Commission wants to collect is remarkably personal and well beyond the scope of product safety. Why?
Donald Trump has endorsed Pillow Guy Mike Lindell for governor of Minnesota even though Mr. Pillow doesn’t vote in Minnesota and is not registered there. But that’s nothing compared to the Colorado Republican who says he can perform exorcisms over the phone. And have you seen the candidates in Texas?? Rachel Maddow reports.
Rachel Maddow looks at decisions Donald Trump has made so far in his second term, from staffing his administration to policy choices and wars of choice, and points out that while the American people are the first to have to pay for Trump doing a bad job, ultimately the consequences fall on him as his political popularity plummets.
An elite Irish ultimate frisbee team has called for Israel to be banned from competing in this year’s world championships.
Ranelagh Ultimate vowed to boycott any fixture it has with the Israeli team New Age, and called on the sport’s governing body, the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), to either suspend them or make them compete as ‘neutrals’.
The World Ultimate Club Championship (WUCC), – the sport’s biggest competition, takes place in Limerick, Ireland, from August 15th until August 22nd…
Up until recently, measles vaccination has been so effective that there’s been little medical or financial incentive to develop treatments for the disease.
But as measles cases hit a 35-year high and vaccination rates continue to decline in the US, a handful of biotech companies and academic groups have started working on measles treatments for those infected with the virus as well as vulnerable individuals needing short-term protection. It will likely be years, however, before these countermeasures are available, and it’s even more uncertain if those who refuse vaccines would take such treatments…
“The American president attacked a foreign country and seized its resources, but he doesn’t want to say what he’s doing with the profits.”
There have been jokes for months about the number of jobs Marco Rubio has held during Donald Trump’s second term […]: The president has tapped the former senator to serve as the secretary of state, the acting White House national security adviser, the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the acting archivist for the National Archives.
It led The New York Times to describe the Florida Republican as the “Secretary of Everything.”
What’s generated less attention is a far more provocative part of Rubio’s portfolio: The United States’ chief diplomat [Marco Rubio] is also helping oversee day-to-day operations in Venezuela, a South American country that’s more than 1,000 miles away from American soil.
Six months after a brief U.S. military operation led to the detention of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, followed closely by Trump’s curious boast that he and his administration were “in charge” of the foreign country, The New York Times published a striking report earlier this month, noting that Rubio is, for all intents and purposes, “running” Venezuela, serving as the country’s “de facto viceroy.”
The Times’ report added, “The U.S. Treasury receives the revenue from most of Venezuela’s exports, then disburses it to Venezuela through the country’s banking system, a relationship akin to parents handing out allowances to children. Mr. Rubio and his team set the conditions on what that money can be spent on, and by whom.”
For his part, Trump appears quite proud of all this. Indeed, the American president, who bragged last week that his familiarity with Venezuela is rooted in his previous ownership of the Miss Universe pageant [JFC], has repeatedly spoken publicly about having “taken over” the South American country and seizing control of its oil resources — “We’re taking a lot,” the Republican claimed — which he’s said the United States is “entitled” to.
With this in mind, the Financial Times recently reported that the U.S. administration has taken in roughly $13 billion of Venezuelan oil money, though there’s something of a mystery surrounding what exactly Trump and his team have done with the money.
On Monday afternoon, a reporter pressed the American president on this issue for the first time. [social media post, with audio]
“There are some reports that the United States has taken in $13 billion from Venezuela,” a reporter asked during an Air Force One Q&A. “Where is that money going?”
Instead of answering directly, Trump responded that the total is actually “even more” than $13 billion. [Well, that’s helpful. Not.]
“But where’s that money going?” the reporter followed up.
Trump again ignored the question, explaining that there was “a cost” to the U.S. military offensive in January (he recently began referring to the operation as a “war,” which continues to be a stretch), and his seizure of Venezuelan resources has covered that cost “many, many times over.” [WTF?]
The back-and-forth continued. “But where is the money going?” the reporter asked, trying to get a straight answer.
“It goes toward running the country,” Trump responded.
Asked once again where the money is going, the Republican again replied, “Towards running the country. It can go to the military. Congress has to approve it. … We’re taking in a lot of money. Billions and billions of dollars from Venezuela.”
In other words, Trump attacked a foreign country, detained its leader, took control of the country’s day-to-day governance and seized its resources, but he doesn’t want to say what he’s doing with the profits. [Typical of Trump. But he still can’t stop himself from boasting, which makes matters even worse.]
Presumably, the officials elected by the Venezuelan people to represent their interests might have some concerns about all of this, but Trump declared late last week that, as far as he’s concerned, Venezuela is “not really ready” for elections, leaving his administration in charge of the country until the president decides otherwise. [Not legal, and not ethical.]
“What the U.S. is doing to Venezuela counts as nothing but colonization,” MS NOW’s Zeeshan Aleem recently wrote. The White House and its allies might balk at the characterization, but I’m hard-pressed to imagine a more appropriate choice of words.
Ardent anti-vaccine activist and current US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly on thin ice with Trump for not being anti-vaccine enough for the president’s liking, according to a report late Monday from the Wall Street Journal.
Trump has become fixated on the completely false, thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines cause autism, the Journal reported. People familiar with the president’s scattered thinking say Trump wants an autism remedy to be part of his legacy and thinks scaling back childhood vaccinations is a way to secure that achievement. As such, he has grown frustrated and disappointed that Kennedy hasn’t done more to cut back federal childhood vaccine recommendations or confirm a link to the neurodevelopmental disorder…
“Precious few officials have stepped down and spoken out in recent months. It makes Marc Rosenblum’s exit that much more notable.”
Since Donald Trump’s second term as president began, the administration has scrambled to hollow out much of the federal government, but the number of high-profile resignations has been quite small. The Republican operation went to extraordinary lengths to ensure partisan loyalists held positions of influence, reducing the likelihood that anyone would quit in frustration.
There have been a few, however.
In May, for example, Brian Morrissey, the top lawyer at the Treasury Department, resigned over his concerns about the scandalous resolution to Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS. Two months earlier, Joe Kent resigned as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center over his disagreement with the war with Iran.
A month before that, David Lebryk, the highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department, reportedly resigned after refusing to hand Elon Musk’s lackeys the keys to the government’s entire payment system. Similarly, Michelle King, in her capacity as the acting Social Security commissioner, resigned last year after she also refused a Department of Government Efficiency request to access sensitive government records at the agency.
This week, the list got a little longer. Wired reported:
The Department of Homeland Security’s top numbers-cruncher has resigned, citing the Trump administration’s “war on immigrants” on his way out.
DHS has been a hub of controversy during the second Trump term: the ICE raids in American cities, the wild spending, the growing archipelago of detention centers, the attempts to hide data about it all. But vanishingly few officials have left the department and been openly critical of the direction it has taken. Marc Rosenblum, who served as executive director of the Office of Homeland Security Statistics and a deputy assistant secretary at the department, is one of the first.
[…] Rosenblum wrote in a LinkedIn post over the weekend, “I’m thrilled to end my relationship with the current administration. … Between the war on immigrants, the war on feds, and the war on facts (not to mention the crazy war in Iran and the brazen corruption), I just need a change.” [Well said … and all encompassing.]
Rosenblum isn’t exactly the most well-known figure at DHS, but he oversaw its entire statistics department, which put him in a unique position that kept him informed of all of DHS’s efforts.
“Marc was exactly what every American should want in a career public servant,” Luis Miranda, a top DHS spokesman during the Biden years, told Wired. “The Trump administration has governed by silencing or ignoring facts and information they believe doesn’t line up with their extreme rhetoric, and that has damaging implications, so it’s no surprise career officials whose job is transparency are unable to do those jobs.”
Whether his departure inspires others to step down and speak out remains to be seen.
“To recap, the depleted stockpiles aren’t depleted, though they could be better, and everyone should blame Joe Biden.”
Related video at the link.
In the spring, as the war with Iran continued to unfold, many U.S. officials expressed concerns about the state of the military’s weapons stockpiles. The New York Times reported in May, for example, “Inventories of air-defense missiles, air-launched stealth cruise missiles and Tomahawk missiles have all been greatly reduced because of the war, and will take years to replenish.”
A month later, MS NOW reported that the conflict had “significantly depleted the U.S. military’s global munitions supply, causing concern among lawmakers who have demanded more transparency on the status of stockpiles from the Pentagon.”
As the war crosses the six-month threshold, these concerns are intensifying. The Wall Street Journal reported this week on the United States’ “shrinking stocks of Patriot and other air defense interceptors.” A related Journal report noted that there are growing concerns “about how many missiles the U.S. military has left,” adding, “The White House and the Pentagon are pressing defense contractors to speed up this process, but there’s only so much that can be done. Making a missile is a lot more complicated than making a lawn mower.”
The good news is that Donald Trump and prominent members of his team have had quite a bit to say about the subject in recent days. The bad news is that many of their overlapping stated positions are contradictory.
Position 1: Everything’s fine. In a written press statement issued by the White House on Monday afternoon, the president was quoted as saying, “We have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need.”
Position 2: Things could be better. A couple of hours after the White House issued its statement, Trump told reporters during a Q&A on Air Force One that when it comes to certain weapons, such as Patriot missiles, “we’re in very good shape, but for some of the more sophisticated stuff, we’d certainly like to have more.”
Position 3: There might be a problem, but everyone should blame Biden. [Trump said yesterday], “President Biden gave a lot of it to Ukraine, and so we’re building that up.” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, Trump’s former national security adviser, adopted a similar line on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, […]
Position 4: Never mind what we just said about stockpiles being depleted. After Waltz told a national television audience that U.S. stockpiles “were depleted,” host Kristen Welker asked, “But you acknowledge they’re depleted?” He replied, “No.”
Position 5: We should punish those who disclosed the problem that we’re pretending doesn’t exist. […]
Left unsaid was a nagging detail. As The New Republic noted, “Waltz couldn’t seem to keep straight whether the reporting was utter ‘nonsense’ or leaked government information punishable by prison time.” [!]
So to recap, the depleted stockpiles aren’t depleted, though they could be better, and everyone should blame Trump’s Democratic predecessor for the problem that deserves to be seen as “nonsense.”
Thank goodness the White House has cleared this up for us.
That said, on May 1, a reporter asked the president about the state of the U.S. military inventory. The Republican replied, “We are stocked and locked and loaded. Right now, we have more than double what we had when this started.” [eyebrows raised]
Team Trump’s talking points are a mess, but at least it had the sense to abandon this self-defeating absurdity.
StevoRsays
Meta has told a Senate inquiry probing the extent of racism against First Nations Australians it is “not aware” whether any of its content moderators are Indigenous.
Australia’s Human Rights Commission and Indigenous advocacy groups have previously told the inquiry online hatred against Indigenous people has increased since the failed 2023 referendum to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Appearing at a public hearing in Brisbane, representatives for the tech giant said they did not believe there were any First Nations people employed as content moderators.
… (Snip)..
Facebook director of policy for Australia and New Zealand Mia Garlick also said none of the company’s content moderators were based in Australia, although “some” were Australian.
“I find it pretty extraordinary that you don’t have any of your moderators in Australia to fully appreciate the Australian experience of racism,” Senator Jana Stewart said.
“And I find that at odds with your comments that you take these matters really seriously.”
… The Boring Company, Musk’s tunneling startup, is reportedly in talks to raise around $4 billion in a new funding round that would value the company at approximately $20 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The company is known for tunnel-boring machines that it says are cheaper and faster than traditional methods. The Boring Company began as a project inside SpaceX before being spun off into a separate business in 2018.
Its main completed commercial project is the Vegas Loop, an underground transportation system that carries passengers in Teslas to and from the Las Vegas Convention Center and around the Las Vegas Strip. The company also has proposed projects in Nashville and Dubai.
Several other projects announced by The Boring Company over the years, including tunnels in Baltimore and Chicago, have failed to materialize…
Trump endorsed Mike Lindell, who is indeed one of his strongest soldiers, but also one of his most hilariously hapless backers. The well-known pillow salesman-turned-election denier is a poor enough choice that even the state GOP roused itself to mildly criticize Trump’s choice, saying that Lindell has “serious financial baggage” that could lead to Democrats winning not just the governor’s race, but the state legislature as well.
How very dare they! What’s so “serious” about a longtime supplier winning a $15.4 million judgment against Lindell’s MyPillow company? Are you saying it’s serious that FedEx won a $9 million judgment against MyPillow recently as well? Or that it’s serious to have various other judgments against the company in the past 18 months totaling up to an additional $2.3 million?
According to Lindell, this isn’t worrisome at all and in fact is instead the product of “lawfare” undertaken by evil voting machine companies and former President Joe Biden rather than the far more prosaic truth: Lindell just keeps stiffing people who do business with him. FedEx is not suing MyPillow or anyone else because they love Democrats or something
.
And those are just the judgments against MyPillow.
There’s also the $2.3 million court judgment Lindell owes from having been found liable for defaming Eric Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems employee Lindell called a traitor for working with Satan (no, really) to rig the 2020 presidential election.
There’s the delinquent Minnesota property taxes to the tune of $48,000, which he says he totally totally paid up for real on July 1, explaining that he paid them late because, “Just like every other person in Minnesota, money’s tight. It was tight last year.” We were hitherto unaware of the “I think my money is too tight” exception for paying your taxes.
Then there’s the diversion of $187,000 in campaign donation funds Lindell spent to buy his own book, a self-published memoir from 2019. […]
“What you can do instead of paying money for flyers and stuff, we had to go around do debates for about a month and a half, these debates, and we gave out the books instead of giving them a little flyer about me,” Lindell claimed.
And let’s not forget his profoundly embarrassing failure to understand how to register to vote in the state he is running to represent, which he now seems to think is the state’s fault. Lindell seems to believe that simply by getting a new driver’s license, he was automatically registered to vote. However, Minnesota’s motor voter registration requires applicants to show some sort of documentation of citizenship, not just residence.
So, Lindell, who is fully enmeshed in the Trumpian conspiracy theory that noncitizens are somehow voting by the millions for Democrats, is essentially complaining that he didn’t know he had to show he was a citizen to register to vote and that somehow the state did him wrong by not just putting him back on the voter rolls because he got a new license.
When the Minnesota Star Tribune asked Lindell what documents he showed the Minnesota Department of Public Safety when he got his temporary driver’s license in September 2025 that would have proven his citizenship, Lindell burbled on about records that do not prove one is a citizen at all, like property records. Only after being prompted with a specific question about whether he showed the DPS his passport, which does show citizenship, was Lindell suddenly able to remember “They had [my passport] behind the thing for quite a while.”
Yeah, sure.
[…] all Trump’s blessing has really done is highlight that Lindell is bad at business, happy to scam his own donors, and utterly incompetent when it comes to understanding the basics of elections—just like Trump.
Can’t wait to see how Trump pretends this endorsement never happened after Lindell gets absolutely battered in the primary.
StevoRsays
China’s Chang’e-8 moon lander mission scheduled for 2029 could send Africa’s first space exploration mission to the lunar south pole.
Under the Africa2Moon venture, the Bounced African Low Lunar Sphere, or BALLS for short, is a technology demonstrator in which a trio of spherical probes on the lunar surface will form a radio astronomy array at the moon’s south pole region. Each of the metal spheres contains low-frequency radio telescope antennas that will search for signals from some of the oldest and most distant parts of the universe.
Radio telescopes are designed to listen for signals from the stars and from distant galaxies, but scientists are also pointing out that these instruments can also track objects somewhat closer to home: junk in Earth’s orbit.
Engineers have used the famed radio telescope at Jodrell Bank in the U.K. as part of an international plan to watch high-altitude space debris. Normally, old satellites and bits of spacecraft stuck up in geostationary orbit are too high up for our normal ways of watching space debris. However, said international project, called Long Baseline Multistatic Radar (LBMR), successfully used a radio telescope to get around this problem.
The government relations director for the ultra-right Heritage Foundation, Matthew Wingate, was arrested while trying to enter the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington DC. An X-ray of his briefcase revealed pistol ammo and later searches found home made pills that tested positive for Fentanyl, Cocaine and Adderall.
Wingate was charged with misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance and was released after pleading not guilty at his arraignment, according to The Independent.
[…] So a top executive from the Heritage Foundation, the originators of Project 2025, gets busted for trying to enter one the most important Senate buildings while carrying pistol ammo and drugs and and not a peep from great leader or any of the major US news organizations?
[…] Wingate who has a concealed weapons permit said the pills were prescribed by a doctor is due back in court on August 27.
Posted by readers of the article:
Hmm, home-made pills containing fentanyl, cocaine and adderall were “prescribed by a doctor”?
————————
When Adderall is combined with other stimulants, the effect isn’t just additive but multiplicative. When I was prescribed Adderall, my doc told me that I couldn’t have nicotine or caffeine when I was on Adderall. Cocaine is a whole other level of stimulant. Even the most healthy person would have their blood pressure shoot through the roof.
————————-
Not to mention the possibility of stimulant psychosis. If I were their doctor, I’d cut them off right away. Messing around with fentanyl alone can get someone dead, but mixing it with cocaine and Adderall would be really narly.
————————
What doctor prescribes “home made pills”?
Given the lethality of fentanyl in small doses (it’s measured in mcgs) any doctor doing that should, at least, be hauled before their state medical board for malpractice.
StevoRsays
.. bread, like anything that is made by a conscious mind be it a stone tool or a radio telescope, is a signature of intelligence. At first DeMarines approached it as a proto-technosignature before realizing that it was more appropriate to describe it as a noosignature.
“Bread doesn’t just pop out of a molecular cloud, it requires technology, it requires history, it requires intelligence,” said DeMarines. “Say that you have samples of bread at different human and hominin archaeological sites throughout time, dating back 14,000 years – the bread would be a signature of intelligence changing over time as the type of bread, its ingredients and how it is made also change.”
How it changes over time can be measured by Assembly Theory – the number of steps taken to get from early breads made from wild grain to modern sliced white bread produced from domesticated wheat is the Assembly Index. The task is to identify how many steps it takes to get past certain thresholds that indicate change, or rather developments, in intelligence, such as new technology for farming and germinating seeds, the construction of windmills or mass production.
As such, it fills part of the space between talking about a simple biosphere and searching for a technosphere, as do things ranging from stone tools to the development of written language and everything in between.
“Trump Demands RFK Jr. Gin Up Some Proof That Vaccines Cause Autism, Which They Don’t”
As of July 23, there have been 2,318 cases of measles so far this year in the United States, the highest number of cases this country has seen since 1991. […] even Florida’s notoriously anti-vaccine state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo blurted out, “Everybody’s gotta get the vaccine” when asked about the state’s spike in measles cases — from seven last year to 141 this year […]
[…] Given that just last year Ladapo and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a whole press conference announcing their plan to push for fewer vaccine mandates in the state, where already only 89 percent of all incoming kindergarten students have been fully vaccinated (well below the rate required for herd immunity), he might want to consider that some of the blame lies with them.
But I digress. Ladapo is a nut, but even he realizes that it’s bad for measles cases to spike that much. You know who does not realize that? Our president, who, sadly is far nuttier.
Because despite the seriousness of the measles outbreak, Donald Trump really, really wants Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to finally “prove” that vaccines cause autism — which will be very difficult to do, given that they do not.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal (gift link), despite the fact that both Trump and RFK Jr. have been told by advisors to keep their traps shut about the anti-vaccine nonsense ahead of the election, Trump has been putting the pressure on Kennedy to bring him some sweet, sweet, “gold standard science” that will prove them both right.
Chief among the president’s desires: Do more to reduce the number of shots that federal guidelines recommend for children, according to people familiar with the matter. They said the president hopes to then see autism rates drop, even if any such effect could take years. Or never, because, again, vaccines do not cause autism […]
The president has made clear he thinks he has given Kennedy enough time and is disappointed the health secretary hasn’t accomplished more in the past year and a half, the people said.
Kennedy will be a failure if he doesn’t make progress on the issue, the president has told aides, some of the people said.
[…] White House spokesman Kush Desai said countless parents with questions and concerns about “America’s skyrocketing autism rates have long been ignored if not mocked.” He said that changed the day President Trump took office. “The Trump administration is committed to leaving no stone unturned to finally address these concerns with Gold Standard Science,” he said.
[…] There are already answers for why diagnoses of autism have increased over the years, they are just not the answers these people or Donald Trump or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. want.
No one has “mocked” skyrocketing autism rates. People have mocked those who insist that autism is caused by vaccines when we know that it isn’t — and they have done so out of anger that these folks are putting the health and well-being of so many (including their own children) at risk because they believe something that is not true. […]
“Asylum seekers could be sent directly to deportation under new federal rule”
“The Trump administration rule, which took effect immediately, could transfer nearly 450,000 cases to immigration judges, who could dismiss the asylum petitions.”
The Trump administration launched a plan Tuesday to channel hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers directly into deportation proceedings, a change that some attorneys said could lead to people being removed from the United States without a hearing.
Trump officials introduced a rule designed to reduce the 1.4 million asylum cases pending in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Department of Homeland Security agency that processes immigration applications, by nearly a third. The rule took effect immediately, before the public could weigh in.
In the past, asylum seekers who entered the U.S. legally or were never charged with an immigration violation had the opportunity to apply for refuge in an office before a trained asylum officer. The officer could refer them to immigration court for removal proceedings if they were rejected, or allow them to continue proceedings and potentially get on a path to obtaining U.S. citizenship.
Under the new rule, officials say as many as 444,724 cases could be transferred directly to one of the Justice Department’s immigration judges. Trump officials have empowered judges to dismiss certain cases without a hearing, so attorneys say it is possible that many asylum seekers will be deported without a chance to be heard. […]
Trump officials are preparing to terminate work permits for Haitians and Syrians in the coming days after the Supreme Court enabled officials to allow their temporary protected status to expire. If those immigrants also applied for asylum and their cases are referred to the courts, lawyers say, the threat of deportation could be imminent.
“It’s all part of a plan to take legal people and make them illegal,” said Ira Kurzban, one of the attorneys who represented Haitians in the case that went to the Supreme Court. “That’s what they’ve essentially done.”
The United States is a signatory to the 1967 United Nations protocol on refugees, which prohibits member countries from expelling immigrants to nations where they face serious threats to their lives. […]
“In response to dubious civil suits, the DOJ has been quite generous lately, agreeing to lucrative settlements with plaintiffs aligned with the White House.”
Just three days into his second term as president, Donald Trump granted a series of pardons to nearly two dozen people who were convicted of blocking access to reproductive health clinics. Among the beneficiaries was a Tennessee man named Paul Vaughn, who was convicted in 2024 of having violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes it a felony to interfere with reproductive healthcare services.
Vaughn, however, didn’t just receive a pardon — he also apparently received a rather generous taxpayer-funded check. Fox News reported:
Vaughn pursued legal action against the Justice Department over his prosecution. He shared first with Fox News Digital that he recently reached a seven-figure settlement with the government agency. […]
“Obviously, money doesn’t equate justice, and there’s not a true sense of justice in the settlement, but it is an acknowledgment of wrong, and it is something to help make up for the time lost,” he told Fox News Digital.
[…] If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because the circumstances have become rather common. In fact, in response to some dubious civil lawsuits, the Trump Justice Department has been exceedingly generous lately, agreeing to lucrative settlements with plaintiffs who are politically aligned with the White House.
For example, the family of Ashli Babbitt, the Jan. 6 rioter fatally shot by a police officer during the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, received roughly $5 million in taxpayer money last year.
The list has been growing since. Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn was recently awarded more than $1.25 million in response to two civil suits, and Mark Houck, a longtime anti-abortion activist, received $1.1 million in a settlement of his own.
In April, they were joined by Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser with ties to Russia, who received $1.25 million in a DOJ settlement.
When Trump himself reached a settlement of sorts with his own administration in May, leading to the creation of the since-withdrawn $1.776 billion compensation fund — widely panned by members of both parties as a “slush fund” — countless critics envisioned a system in which the president and his team spent the next two and a half years simply writing taxpayer-funded checks to their political allies. The gambit proved so scandalous that the White House claims that it has completely abandoned earlier plans for the payouts.
[…] Team Trump doesn’t need a $1.776 billion compensation fund to provide financial rewards to its friends. Trump’s Justice Department can instead keep using public funds to reach settlements with the White House’s allies.
Indeed, the message to the president’s friends couldn’t be clearer: Head to court and file a civil suit of your own, confident in the knowledge that there might very well be a generous check available for you, too.
A new Airbus passenger jet completed an ultra-long test flight between Australia and France lasting more than 24 hours—paving the way for the world’s longest nonstop commercial flights starting up next year.
The Airbus A350-1000ULR was developed specifically for Qantas Airways’ planned nonstop flights between Sydney and either New York or London. The Australian airline has ordered a dozen of the new airliners for its Project Sunrise routes that aim to start offering tickets for sale in 2027…
“We will pass the great healthcare plan,” the president keeps boasting, seemingly unaware he doesn’t actually have a real proposal.
Donald Trump has talked about unveiling a healthcare plan of his own for about a decade, only to consistently miss self-imposed deadlines for its release. Trump famously assured the public in 2024 that he had “concepts of a plan,” but when it came to doing the hard work of crafting a policy blueprint, the president has never delivered.
As 2026 got underway, however, Trump unveiled what the White House characterized as “The Great Healthcare Plan” […], which he’s started to emphasize anew in recent days. [Social media post, with video]
“We will pass the great healthcare plan,” he boasted at an event Monday in Michigan. “That’s what it’s called, ‘The Great Healthcare Plan.’”
At a rally in Georgia last week, the president said much the same thing, almost word for word.
I can appreciate why Trump is trying to breathe new life into his forgotten proposal. The Pew Research Center published the results of its latest national poll last week, and when it came to affordability and the cost of living, Americans said they were concerned more about healthcare costs than about any other issue, including the price of gasoline and groceries.
There is, however, a fundamental problem with the president’s pitch: When he assures the public that “we” will pass his healthcare plan, Trump is brushing past the inconvenient fact he doesn’t actually have a healthcare plan. [!]
Whether Trump fully appreciates this or not, what he unveiled in January was a pitiful joke [!] that was quite a bit shorter than the length of the blog post you’re reading right now — and if your healthcare plan is shorter than a blog post, you don’t actually have a healthcare plan.
As for the idea that officials “will pass” the plan, it’s important to emphasize there is nothing to pass. There was no bill when the vague hodgepodge of conservative ideas was unveiled, and seven months later, there is still no legislative next, no congressional hearings scheduled and no debate over the nonexistent blueprint’s merits. The proposal, for all intents and purposes, simply does not exist, even if the president is inclined to pretend otherwise.
A Washington Post report noted in January, “The administration released no legislative text nor timeline for related congressional action. … Asked how the proposal would advance in Congress, administration officials said it was a ‘broad architecture’ intended to guide lawmakers on next steps.”
“Broad architecture” is a nice euphemism for “we couldn’t actually come up with anything more than vague goals.”
As Trump’s latest comments indicated, at the heart of the proposal is a demand for one significant change: The administration wants federal funds that are currently going to insurance companies to go instead to consumers, who in turn would give the money to insurance companies.
Why would that be better than the status quo? I honestly have no idea, and neither the president nor anyone on his team has made any effort to address that question, which has lingered for months.
As for the political context, Republicans should probably take a moment to grapple with the fact that Trump is picking the wrong fight at the wrong time. Recent polling from the Pew Research Center and Fox News showed Democrats with an enormous advantage over the GOP on handling healthcare. Indeed, by some measure, it’s literally the Democrats’ strongest issue.
So with roughly three months remaining before the midterm elections, the president is practically doing Democrats a favor by trying to shift the focus back to an issue that’s become something of an embarrassment for him and his party.
“As recently as 2024, the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy had 15 employees. In 2026, it has two.”
[I snipped details describing the plan/playbook prepared by Barack Obama’s team, and later presented to Donald Trump and his team.]
NOTUS reported:
Since dismantling the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, or OPPR, the Trump administration has been tested by a record-breaking measles outbreak, a cruise-ship hantavirus outbreak, an ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a lettuce-dwelling parasite that sickened thousands.
The White House recently staffed the office, which at its peak in 2024 had 15 employees, with just one health official, along with a second biosecurity specialist at the National Security Council. Former government health officials say that is far from where the office needs to be to effectively combat dangerous pathogens.
The White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy might not be an especially high-profile office, but it was created with bipartisan support in 2022 to help ensure that the United States is prepared for the next crisis. As of last year, however, the OPPR had a staff of literally zero people.
Now, it has two employees, which seems like a step in the right direction, except a) two really isn’t much; and b) one is Sara Brenner, a former Food and Drug Administration official, who was tapped earlier this month to lead the OPPR.
The New Republic described Brenner as “a vaccine skeptic and self-described ‘MAHA mom.’” [aiyiyiyiyi]
[…] Byron Cohen, a former adviser to OPPR, told NOTUS, “There is a tremendous amount of work to be done.” While he expressed confidence in the office’s two employees, Cohen added, “Those two individuals only have so much time in the day, and they deserve a full staff to help them carry out their mission.” […]
Yikes! It’s enough to keep a student from enrolling in law school in Florida.
Students matriculating this fall into Florida’s only public law school, Florida International University College of Law, are set for a unique educational treat: an interim dean who is officially sanctioned by the Florida federal court and barred from even asking to appear in the federal court district the school is located in. […]
Sure, that probably sounds like a weird, suboptimal experience for incoming students, but that is just because you don’t understand how important it is to Florida to wreck its higher education system in service of fealty to President Donald Trump and the hard-right anti-woke worldviews of pundits like Christopher Rufo.
Meet Daniel Epstein, FIU’s new interim dean. While you may not normally be up on the names of deans at state law schools, Epstein’s name may be a bit familiar, as he was one of Trump’s attorneys for the slush fund sham settlement.
That whole thing fell apart so hard it resulted in U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams referring attorneys on both sides of the fake deal for various forms of sanctions. Alejandro Brito, Trump’s go-to lawyer for defamation lawsuits designed to get media outlets to bribe Trump, was referred to the Florida bar. The two Department of Justice attorneys responsible for the fiasco, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, already had bar complaints, so Williams ordered a copy of her decision sent to those state bars.
And Epstein, for his part, got slapped with a ruling that he cannot even request, for a full year, to be admitted pro hac vice in any court in the Southern District of Florida, where the case was brought and where, now, Epstein runs a law school.
Attorneys can appear in jurisdictions where they have not been admitted to the bar if they partner with a local attorney who is admitted there and if the court agrees.
Epstein is now in the very unusual, perhaps unprecedented, position of not even being allowed to ask the court, much less get them to agree. [LOL. Schadenfreude moment for sure.]
Epstein isn’t someone who, but for this major ethical failing, is otherwise known as the kind of guy you want running your law school. His previous work is the usual Trumpy garbage. He’s been one of Trump’s infinite number of personal attorneys, and he did a stint at America First Legal, Stephen Miller’s law firm that exists solely to sue everyone until they just let straight white men run everything. [Funny. And well said.]
As the Miami Herald reported, Epstein didn’t even make the top 20 candidates in the school’s national search, but after interviewing actual finalists, the school declared the search “failed” and tapped Epstein for the interim role.
Epstein made clear his “vision,” such as it is, when applying for the job, which is that he’s going to turn FIU into nothing but [a] factory for conservatives who want to work for Trump: “The law schools that can build and maintain ties with the conservative parts of the country, intelligentsia, and federal government are poised to benefit, in terms of clerkships, placement in prestigious government positions, faculty and student recruitment, fundraising, and overall prestige.” [head/desk … makes me think of the Supreme Court]
[…] Epstein’s vision aligns with what Gov. Ron DeSantis has done to Florida’s university system overall, most notably by destroying New College, once the crown jewel of Florida public higher education, now a money suck run by Rufo allies.
Choosing Epstein was a ridiculous choice even prior to his being sanctioned, but it’s a downright shameful one after. What a message to law students: courts don’t matter, judges don’t matter, law doesn’t matter. Only Trump matters.
Lynna @ # 146, quoting Steve Benem at ms.now: … Venezuela, … more than 1,000 miles away from American soil.
TV news people – always rushed, always sloppy.
Eyeballing an online map, I guesstimate Saint Croix, in the US Virgin Islands, sits about 500 miles from the Venezuelan mainland. distancefromto.net puts Caracas a hair under 500 miles from San Juan, Puerto Rico (on the north coast of PR).
You’d think the Virgin Islands hadn’t featured in the US news for years…
“The Trump administration is urging the U.K. and France to lead a naval coalition to secure the strait, but allies want to see a ceasefire first.”
European allies are refusing to support a U.S. push to create a joint Strait of Hormuz patrol until they see an enduring ceasefire in the Iran war — the latest sign that Washington’s repeated bashing of its closest friends has carried consequences
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is urging the U.K. and France to help lead the naval coalition. But even with the assistance of U.K. Defense Minister Wes Streeting, he’s facing skepticism across Europe, according to four British officials and one U.S. official.
Hegseth and President Donald Trump have spent months berating European countries for refusing to get involved in the Iran war. But this effort is the most concerted attempt to seek assistance from allies […]
U.S. and British officials aim to convene an international conference in London that would define roles for countries and determine which warships would hunt for sea mines or protect civilian shipping through the strait, which Iran has effectively halted. But the five officials cautioned the effort has not progressed very far and they didn’t expect any movement soon.
[…] The U.S. has paused strikes on Iran since Friday after 12 days of renewed bombing, although officials have not specified what led to the halt. […]
Longtime allies remain frustrated by the Trump administration’s refusal to give a heads-up before the American-Israeli airstrikes on Iran began in February, according to two European officials. And they are wary of jumping into a risky new mission when they have not been treated as partners by the White House.
There was “no consultation with Congress, no consultation with allies, just boom,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said in an interview.
Trump is “deeply frustrated that Congress isn’t supporting it, the American people aren’t supporting it, our core allies aren’t supporting it,” he added. […]
the latest ceasefire is tenuous at best. Trump told reporters Monday that the two sides are “talking right now” and that there was “a good chance” a new round of diplomacy with Iran could yield a more permanent ceasefire or diplomatic breakthrough.
The Iranian leadership does not appear to agree.
“At present, what exists cannot be described as a ceasefire,” said Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson.
Commercial shipping in the region remains at a standstill, with dozens of ships full of oil and other cargo bottled up in the gulf.
[…] No oil tankers crossed the once popular strait July 27, according to Windward Intelligence, a private security firm that monitors ship traffic in the region. The commercial ship crossings of the narrow Bab al-Mandeb, which is south of the strait and connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, has fallen 22 percent since the Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis declared a blockade July 20. Tanker transits have fallen 39 percent and Saudi-linked crossings dropped 46 percent, according to the firm.
Two American aircraft carriers are still sitting in the Middle East alongside several other warships, including some carrying about 2,500 Marines. Back-to-back deployments have raised concerns in the Pentagon over keeping them there.
“The particular challenge with Navy vessels, particularly the carriers or submarines out there, is that we are deferring maintenance on them, and at some point you’ve got to pay the piper,” said a former military officer with knowledge of discussions within the Pentagon. “There’s some real readiness concerns that have to be seriously discussed as we continue to resource this operation.”
E-commerce website eBay and a group of its former executives will pay roughly $56 million to settle a lawsuit, six years after the company engaged in a campaign to physically and psychologically torment a journalist couple, hoping to stop them from posting critical pieces.
Back in 2019, a group of top eBay executives set up a deranged scheme to torment Ina and David Steiner, a couple who penned critical pieces about eBay’s business practices on their news site EcommerceBytes. Led by eBay’s head of security, James Baugh, the executives cyberstalked the couple, sending threats, and also surveilled the couple in real life and conspired to plant a GPS tracking device. The torment also included mailing them live spiders and cockroaches, a funeral wreath, a copy of a book called “Grief Diaries: Surviving Loss of a Spouse,” and a bloody pig mask.
The couple brought legal action against the executives in 2021. Seven employees have since pleaded guilty, and several of them, including Baugh, were sentenced to jail time. In 2024, eBay was also criminally charged and fined $3 million.
But several high-ranking executives have maintained their innocence. Former CEO Devin Wenig, who said that “now is the time” to take down Ina Steiner, told the Boston Globe that the harassment campaign was done without his knowledge. Also, per communications revealed in the lawsuit, former senior vice president of global operations Wendy Jones told Baugh to deal with the couple “off the radar” without sharing the details, while ex-communications chief Steve Wymer referred to Ina Steiner as “a biased troll who needs to get BURNED DOWN.”
Under the settlement unveiled this week, the Steiners will receive $48.7 million in compensation, the bulk of it from eBay. The e-commerce company will pay the couple $46.15 million and will contribute another $6 million to various nonprofit organizations…
Iran’s skies have been free of the sound of explosions and airstrikes for the past several days, after a bout of renewed fighting with the United States. But Iranian officials say they have not agreed to a cease-fire and are in no hurry to hold direct talks with American negotiators.
Instead, Iranian officials insist that they are in a position of strength, military leaders boast of battlefield successes, and diplomats dismiss U.S. claims that they are eager to return to negotiations.
Legend has it the last time County Mayo won the Gaelic Football All-Ireland in 1951, an angry priest cursed the team to never win another championship so long as they lived.
But on Sunday — five years after the 1951 team’s last surviving member died — Mayo beat Kerry to claim the Sam Maguire Cup for the first time in 75 years…
More than 30 water systems in Minnesota were targeted in a cyberattack, state officials revealed Tuesday.
Minnesota IT (MNIT) Services did not disclose further details about the attacks that took place on Sunday and Monday but said there were no requests from cities for their residents to change their drinking water usage.
State investigators are assessing the affected systems, according to the agency…
U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, to be the nation’s top spy, despite opposition from Democrats following an angry confirmation hearing.
Clayton fills a role vacated in June when Tulsi Gabbard stepped down after a tenure marked by clashes with congressional Democrats, who accused her of advancing Trump’s political agenda and promoting debunked election claims.
The vote was 51-47 to confirm Clayton for the job of Director of National Intelligence, overseeing the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. The vote was along party lines, with Trump’s Republicans backing his nominee and members of the Democratic caucus voting no.
The controversy over Gabbard and election claims took on new significance after Clayton repeatedly refused during his confirmation hearing to directly acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden…
a new wave of outrage today after publishing an op-ed in the New York Times about incels, the redistribution of sex, and [checks notecards] sex robots. But this is hardly Douthat’s first sex outrage rodeo
Matt Novak (Gizmodo): “We’re about to find out what 60 Minutes would sound like if Andy Rooney was really concerned about white birthrates.”
Rando 2: “[The NYT article] gets even dumber […] ‘Ms. Weiss asked […] to expand 60 Minutes beyond a one-hour weekly broadcast’ Longer than an hour? The show is literally called ’60 Minutes!'”
Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket): “Douthat no longer having an NYT podcast and jumping to a sinking ship is net positive for society. Bye, Ross.”
The EPA said if the power plants are not supplying electricity to the grid then they would not be subject to the federal Clean Air Act’s Acid Rain Program, which has been key to the dramatic reduction of smog and soot pollution from industrial facilities.
Governor Tim Walz tweeted, “See you in court, creep.”
…
But now Minnesota has a new law on its books that bans nudification apps and websites—any tech that takes images of clothed people and automatically makes them nude, generally with AI. The law, HF 1606, bans the act of using the software, and penalizes the companies themselves—allowing the state to levy fines, and opening the door to lawsuits from victims. It “prohibits the access, download, or use of nudification technology, except when the website, app, or software requires the substantial application of technological or artistic skill by a human creator directing and controlling the output,” according to CBS News. It theoretically goes into effect next month.
But the suit from xAI characterizes the law as so excessively broad that it curbs valid uses of AI. It also says the law fails to take into account intent. And it imposes “massive civil penalties,” despite its alleged deficiencies.
Large swaths of the lawsuit are dedicated to contesting the law’s criteria for nudity. It alleges that Minnesota disregarded an apparent common sense definition of “intimate” body parts, and instead used a definition pulled from a law against certain kinds of physical touch. Thus, the law, the suit argues, bans software from generating images of female or male breasts, and any depiction of anyone’s “inner thigh.”
…
Newly obtained records detail allegations of drug use, verbal abuse, and violent behavior against multiple women by GOP Rep. Max Miller. A spokesman for Miller pointed to his previous denials that he has ever committed violence against women.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is demanding Mitch McConnell prove he can still serve—or resign—as the senator spends six weeks and counting out of public view. Former Senator Barbara Boxer joins to discuss.
Chris Hayes: “The more people see that Trump can be stood up to, the more they see that his escalating rhetoric and weird bag of bullying tricks and coercion don’t bring him what he wants, the more his manifest impotence is laid bare for all to see.”
The Trump administration will end a subsidy program, meant to keep premiums stable for Medicare prescription drug plans, after 2026, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said on Tuesday.
The agency said its review of 2027 bids showed insurers have gained enough experience with Medicare Part D to accurately price their plans without support from the program.
We are stabilizing the market so this bailout is no longer needed. Premiums will go up by less than $10 for most Medicare recipients, with many even seeing lower premiums,” CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a post on X.
Medicare Part D, which provides prescription drug coverage to millions of beneficiaries through private insurance plans, is a key component of the federal health program for older adults…
Two previously unknown sermons by St. Augustine — one of Christianity’s most influential theologians — have been authenticated, revealing ideas scholars say have never before appeared in his surviving works.
The newly discovered sermons were found on a medieval manuscript by Christian Tornau, a Latin professor at the University of Würzburg in Germany.
The manuscript was copied at Bad Doberan Abbey in present-day Germany during the 12th century, likely from an earlier manuscript that has since been lost.
…
The two sermons explore the Old Testament story of the Witch of Endor, in which King Saul consults a witch before a battle against the Philistines.
At Saul’s request, the witch summons what appears to be the spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel, who foretells Saul’s death in battle — raising the question of theodicy, or why an all-powerful God would allow an apparently diabolical act to occur.
“Only in the second sermon, delivered the following Wednesday, are the alternatives weighed … the style, humor, and content also strongly indicate that the sermons preserved in the manuscript really are by Augustine.”
The interpretation of Saul being saved is the “most remarkable element” of the new sermons, Tornau told Fox News Digital…
When George W. Bush’s administration took steps to pass Medicare Part D ahead of the Republican president’s re-election campaign, the entire process was an embarrassing mess. […] Bush’s policy became law in late 2003.
In the years that followed, Democrats resisted calls to repeal Medicare Part D and instead took steps to make it better. In fact, during Joe Biden’s presidency, federal policymakers agreed to help subsidize millions of seniors’ prescription drug costs as part of a broader effort to improve the Bush-era policy.
Take a wild guess what Donald Trump and his team want to do to those subsidies. The Wall Street Journal reported:
The Trump administration plans to end a subsidy program that helped hold down premiums for Medicare drug plans, a move that could leave many seniors facing higher rates for their prescription coverage next year.
The move will eliminate a program that is giving insurance companies an estimated $3.6 billion in subsidies this year to blunt increases in premiums for the Medicare prescription plans, known as Part D. The program will end after 2026, according to administration officials.
Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, confirmed via social media that the subsidies had been scrapped, but he argued that they were no longer necessary and that Medicare beneficiaries would have other options for low-cost prescription drug plans.
The Journal’s report, however, noted “roughly 25 million people have Part D plans, and they will learn about their 2027 rates in the fall,” and roughly 75% of beneficiaries should expect to see some kind of increase in their out-of-pocket costs.
That timing is of particular interest. The New York Times reported that in the weeks leading up to November, “Medicare beneficiaries could experience sticker shock while shopping for next year’s drug plan,” when insurers’ annual “notice of change” disclosures typically reach Americans’ mailboxes.
The weeks leading up to November is also known as the early-voting period across much of the country.
So ahead of an election season in which voters are likely to focus heavily on the cost of living and affordability, the Trump administration, which already scrapped subsidies for Affordable Care Act customers, is also taking aim at subsidies for Medicare beneficiaries — right before the midterms. [!]
[…] Americans said they were concerned more about healthcare costs than about any other issue, including the price of gasoline and groceries. […]
For months, Donald Trump made clear that he expected the Supreme Court to rule against him on birthright citizenship, and on this, his expectations were correct. Earlier this month, a narrow majority of the high court ruled that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment means what it says.
A week later, however, the president apparently came up with an idea he seemed quite excited about. After seeing a Fox News segment, Trump alleged that there was a “birth tourism” plot unfolding in Mexico and published a message to his social media platform that read in part, “[T]he Supreme Court’s ruling is wrong. I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision.”
The hysterics didn’t make a whole lot of sense, the high court’s ruling was anything but insane, and there was no reason to believe the justices would agree to a rehearing of the underlying case.
But as it turns out, that wasn’t the only problem: Trump publicly declared that he would “immediately” ask for a Supreme Court do-over, but as is too often the case, he failed to follow through and do what he said he intended to do. The Washington Post reported:
President Donald Trump pledged to “IMMEDIATELY” ask the Supreme Court for a rehearing … but the administration did not immediately ask for a rehearing, and the 25-day window to file such a motion has now closed. The Supreme Court’s docket shows no signs of any action. […]
The details matter, and even if Trump had sought a rehearing, the justices almost certainly would have ignored the appeal.
But I’m even more interested in the broader context and how frequency the president makes bold public declarations about his plans, only to back off without notice or explanation.
During a briefing earlier this year, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared categorically that Trump “does not bluff.” This was certainly in line with the image the president and his team have long been eager to convey to the nation and the world: When the Republican issues statements about his intentions, everyone should fully expect him to follow through.
Those who follow Trump’s actual approach to governance clearly know better — there’s a reason the “TACO” meme caught on — and the list of embarrassing examples that show the president failing to do what he claims he’ll do keep piling up.
In January, for example, Trump published a provocative statement to his social media platform, which sparked some confusion.
“Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,” the president wrote. “This Order is final and conclusive.” [bluster, bloviating, threats … followed by forgetting whatever the fuck he intended]
The message raised eyebrows around the globe, since some major U.S. trading partners do business with Iran, and we learned soon after that Trump didn’t mean what he wrote and no such policy was implemented. Words and phrases such as “effective immediately” and “final and conclusive” proved meaningless. [Yep, that’s true in Trump’s case.]
A few months earlier, Trump also announced he was punishing Canada (for airing a television commercial that hurt his feelings) by imposing an additional 10% tariff on its goods. A month later, it became clear that he had not followed through on this announcement, either.
The bottom line is unsettling but simple: The incumbent president often just … says stuff. Maybe he intends to do what he says, maybe he just enjoys making declarations that sound good in his mind, or maybe he tries to follow through but can’t find lawyers willing to go along with his weird schemes.
Whatever the explanation, let this be a reminder to everyone looking at his statements and wondering whether they reflect reality: Watch what Trump does, not what he says.
President Donald Trump overruled his own agencies when he denied disaster aid for four Democratic-led states this month.
Emails between state and federal officials obtained by POLITICO along with more than 150 pages of documents submitted to FEMA by three states — New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island — provide new details about Trump’s low rate of approving disaster aid for his political adversaries. He also denied a request by New York after administration officials verified that it had met federal standards for approval, according to state officials.
According to the Politico report […] officials working in regional offices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agreed that the states met the necessary thresholds for receiving federal relief, but the president ignored their findings and rejected the aid anyway — a move that apparently has no modern precedent.
To hear Team Trump tell it, there’s no real story here. The White House wouldn’t specifically answer Politico’s questions about why the blue states’ requests were rejected, but a spokesperson insisted in a statement, “There is no politicization to the president’s decisions on disaster relief,” adding that Trump handles disaster requests “with great care.”
It’d be great if that were true, though there’s a whole lot of evidence to the contrary.
Earlier this month, for example, over the course of three days, Trump rejected disaster aid requests from Democratic-led states that voted against him in recent elections, while approving relief for six Republican-led states — simultaneously touting assorted GOP politicians in those states.
In fact, the president took the extraordinary step of including explicit endorsements for Republican candidates in the respective states while announcing his decision to approve federal disaster funds. In other words, even as the White House tells the public that “there is no politicization to the president’s decisions on disaster relief,” Trump has literally connected campaign endorsements to his approvals for aid requests […]
There’s also the data to consider. The Associated Press reported two weeks ago on an analysis that showed Trump denying aid to Democratic-led states in disproportionate ways, which dovetailed with a Politico report from March that pointed to the administration’s own statistics and concluded that the incumbent president “has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
What’s more, there’s no reason to limit the focus to disaster relief funds. Last week, the Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing that it scrapped federal energy grants to blue states, terminating funds “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in Democratic-led states where voters opposed the GOP ticket in 2024.
Team Trump has also curtailed federal healthcare funds, but only for states the White House doesn’t like. Team Trump has also tried to freeze $10 billion in funding for social services programs in five states, but only blue states were affected. Team Trump has also launched a supposed crackdown on fraud in social insurance programs, but its sole focus is on Democratic cities and states.
Taking stock of the broader dynamic, The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie argued last fall, “Trump seems to see Democratic-led states — and the people in them — less as constituents to which he has a set of larger obligations and more as enemies to be […] defeated. For Trump, there is no whole people of the United States. There are only his people and his states.”
The Republican White House has had plenty of opportunities to disprove the observation. It’s gone to breathtaking lengths to do the opposite.
Bits and pieces of campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* In Texas’ closely watched Senate race, the latest Texas Public Opinion Research poll found Democratic state Rep. James Talarico ahead of Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton, 45% to 40%. The same poll showed Talarico with a three-point advantage in May.
A Texas Tribune report on the survey noted that it found Talarico “leading among voters who do not have a college degree — a group that has consistently favored Republicans in Texas and across the country.”
* Speaking of competitive Senate races in red states, Barack Obama is not only supporting Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek’s candidacy in Iowa, but the former president also joined Turek for a game of basketball that made for a memorable new campaign video. [Turek plays from a wheelchair] [video]
* With less than a week remaining before Michigan’s competitive Democratic Senate primary, the latest Glengariff Group survey found Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens narrowly leading former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in a hypothetical general election matchup. The same poll, however, showed Rogers ahead of former state health official Abdul El-Sayed by 10 points. [Source: The Hill]
* In South Dakota, incumbent Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden was forced into a runoff primary this week, but he easily defeated businessman Toby Doeden. [Source: South Dakota Searchlight]
* In this week’s congressional special election in Georgia, no candidate won 50% in the race to succeed the late Rep. David Scott, but Marcye Scott, the late congressman’s daughter, and former Gwinnett County School Board Chairman Everton Blair advanced to a runoff. Both candidates are Democrats. [Source: RollCall]
* Democrats have low expectations in Idaho’s Senate race, but the party would love to see Republican Sen. Jim Risch face a competitive re-election. With this in mind, David Roth, the Democratic Senate nominee, dropped out of the race this week to clear the way for independent Todd Achilles to have a one-on-one race against the incumbent senator. [Source: Idaho Statesman]
* And while former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is generally seen as the favorite in North Carolina’s open Senate race, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley’s partisan allies haven’t given up on him: The Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with the Senate GOP leadership, is launching a $17 million summer ad campaign in support of Whatley. [Source: Politico]
“INSIDE: Sammy the Bull … Rudy Giuliani … Kash Patel”
Details are available at the link, and include coverage of the following:
– Comey Offers Judge an Easy Way Out
– The New Filings
– Trump’s Keen Interest in the Case
– Illegal Surveillance of Comey
– A Rudy Giuliani Cameo
– Trying Desperately to Find Mob Usage of ’86’ … and Failing
– Secret Service Seemed Satisfied There Was No Crime
– Comey Attorney-Client Privilege Violated AGAIN
Here are a few excerpts:
[…] Some of the juiciest details from the discovery in the case offer a glimpse of President Trump tracking the Secret Service investigation in real time from Air Force One. […]
Giuliani seems to have improbably kicked off an entire absurdist thread of the investigation when he claimed publicly that Comey had worked on organized crime cases where the term “86” was used to mean “kill.” […]
The most vivid scene that emerges from the slew of new filings, is a May 13, 2026, trip by the first assistant U.S. attorney and an FBI agent to the home of the notorious former mobster Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano to try to establish that the mob regularly used “86” in a violent sense.
[…] While mobsters did use the term “86,” Gravano told investigators, they were careful not to use it in the presence of law enforcement. […]
These searches produced inconclusive results regarding the use of “86” or “eighty-six” as a slang term. Additionally, the searcher was unable to determine if the subject would have had access or been exposed to any potential files meeting the search parameters.
Investigators did a separate search of the Gambino case file: The case file contained no references to the term “86.” Same with the trial transcript: nada. They also talked to two former FBI agents who investigated the mob who had never heard “86” used to mean “kill.”
[…] The Secret Service investigation, after the initial flurry, went nowhere and by the fall of 2025 it seemed like it had died. But in October, it was revived by the FBI out of its Charlotte office. […]
President Donald Trump apparently believes cursing about Iran will distract from his inability to prevent that nation from launching attacks against America and its allies.
On Tuesday, Trump reacted to news of Iran firing missiles at U.S. forces based in Jordan by telling Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, “We are going to beat the fucking shit out of them.” [video]
[…]
In an administration stuffed full of the very worst, most morally vacant, reprehensible people on Earth, senior White House adviser and top hate-filled hobgoblin Stephen Miller still manages to stand out.
His steadfast commitment to naked cruelty never wavers, and he seems to have an infinite capacity to get in front of a camera and say the most absurd, offensive stuff imaginable.
From demanding that immigrants pay the United States reparations for all of the things his fevered maggot brain imagines they’ve done wrong to boasting about Western imperialism “eradicating the criminal elements within its territories,” Miller is the go-to guy for unhinged rants.
Right now, he’s furious that Democrats get to exist—because as a fascist, the concept of an opposition party is foreign to him, which explains his whining to Fox News about “freaks, weirdos, losers, and crazies” ending civilization as we know it.
“If you give these people power, everything you know and love in this world falls apart,” Miller said. “You have chaos, corruption, and poverty!”
Buddy, we have chaos, corruption, and poverty right now—under your boss—at unprecedented levels.
Meanwhile, Miller’s delusional belief that he’s one of the masters of the universe, a golden god, is also hilarious.
In a speech over the weekend, which was supposed to be about left-wing terrorism, Miller ranted once again with his signature spittle-flecked vigor.
“You look at these violent antifa demonstrations and you see any photograph of those who were assembled—to be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal,” he said. “They’re all deformed in some way—in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism.”
This from the man who once wore such obviously sprayed-on hair that Stephen Colbert dedicated an entire late-night bit to it.
[…] this outburst isn’t nearly as weird as his comments about Texas’ Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, who Miller called the “first transgender Senate candidate.”
Making it even more bizarre, Miller went on to say that “when Talarico goes in for a blood test, when he gets a physical, blood doesn’t come out. Soy milk comes out.”
[…] Miller has more time to focus his ire on Democrats these days thanks to the Supreme Court granting his every wish to make life hell for immigrants, including essentially ending the ability to claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
[…] per Miller, all asylum applications at the border are “fake,” but now “America’s doors are closed, fully, to asylum seekers.”
Of course, Miller is only here to spew this garbage because his grandfather fled anti-Jewish violence in Belarus and settled as an impoverished immigrant in the United States, where his family then joined him. But Miller doesn’t believe that anyone else’s family deserves that sort of chance.
And about that part where asylum claims are all fake? Miller will live the rest of his life with the deaths of Guatemalan couple Nixon Giovanni Pérez Paz and Glendy Marisol González de la Cruz weighing on his soul. […]
After a traffic stop in Overland, Missouri, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Pérez Paz, manufacturing convictions for drunk driving that couldn’t be verified anywhere. González de la Cruz had an active asylum claim, but as it became clear that staying here was far too dangerous, she self-deported with her children
The couple was recently found shot to death in a sugarcane field in Guatamela—bound and showing signs of torture, with their 14-month-old daughter crying beside her mother’s body.
You own this, Stephen Miller. This is the real chaos, corruption, and poverty.
And you’ll never cover up this moral stain—not with all the spray-on hair in the world.
The repugs need a diversion from their abetting tRUMP in the destruction of what is left of this country. So, they found the ideal punching bag in Fauci since he claimed the 5h and won’t be responding. They are absurd and vile and have turned Congress into a CLOWN COLLEGE. https://digbysblog.net/2026/07/29/2020-will-never-end/
2020 Will Never End
Published by digby on July 29, 2026
I’m not a huge fan of Fauci, but he is ‘small potatoes’ compared to the blatant murderous actions of tRUMP who is the one who supercharged the covid deaths here.
The World Cup may be over, but the stench of FIFA corruption remains. That’s little surprise, given the antics of FIFA President Gianni Infantino before and during the World Cup. He sought to ingratiate himself with President Donald Trump, and he’s now continuing his efforts to sully the sport of soccer by putting it all up for sale.
In an announcement that seems to have surprised many of its 211 member federations, FIFA declared on Tuesday that it will be creating a private company called FIFA Forward Enterprise, valued at $20 billion, to run the World Cup and other competitions. Private investors would be able to buy stakes in that for-profit company.
What investors, you’re wondering? FIFA is working with J.P. Morgan, one of its top investors is expected to be a group called Thrive Eternal, which was founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. [!]
[…] Somehow, per Infantino, selling off pieces of FIFA is about helping the sport, and selling it to rich investors is “about the democratization of football worldwide.” You’re also supposed to trust Infantino and FIFA when they say that hey, these outside investors will totally not influence things and “will not play any operational role.”
Yes, Infantino has shown himself to be very strong in standing up against any interference in operations, what with having invented the “FIFA Peace Prize” so that Trump could feel like a special boy. Infantino also helpfully reversed a red card on U.S. soccer star Folarin Balogun so that he could play in the round of 16 after Trump had demanded it.
Infantino tried a similar privatization thing in 2018, engineering a secret deal where SoftBank, apparently backed by Saudi money, would create new global soccer tournaments. It fell through after UEFA, the European soccer governing body, pushed back.
UEFA has already come out swinging against this latest privatization attempt, saying in a statement, “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade—especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to sell.”
In case you were, for even one minute, buying the whole “goodness of the sport” line from Infantino, know that he reportedly wants to become chair of FFE once he leaves FIFA, which would reportedly net him tens of millions of dollars. Insiders told the Times of London that the salary for the commissioner of the new company would be similar to that of the NFL, where the commissioner rakes in around $64 million per year, which is about 10 times as much as Infantino currently makes at FIFA. [!]
In the world of billionaires, everything is for sale. […]
[…] Senate Republicans tried to drag Dr. Anthony Fauci into yet another faux-science COVID-19 hearing.
Fauci, who has endured numerous GOP-led, anti-science witch hunts over the last six years, invoked the Fifth Amendment to refrain from answering to quacks like GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who Fauci said has an “unhinged obsession” with him.
But Paul promptly lost his mind and threw Fauci’s attorney out of the proceedings. [video]
Before the hearing even began, economic adviser Peter Navarro appeared on C-SPAN to spew nonsense about Fauci.
“I had a million doses of hydroxychloroquine in warehouses as the defense policy coordinator for the [Defense Production Act] that I was trying to distribute to hospitals, and [Fauci] got the [Food and Drug Administration] to stop me from doing that,” he said. [Heh] [video]
Navarro continued, “Thousands of people could be here in this country right now, alive, if I had been able to distribute that—take that to the bank. That’s what the science says.”
But, of course, the science does not say that. Right-wingers like Navarro did, however, make millions of dollars promoting unproven COVID remedies like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas blamed Fauci for “destroying the trust of the American people” in vaccines, pushing long-debunked lies that the COVID-19 vaccine was not safe.
“I mean, who didn’t have a friend that took this vaccine and had some type of complication—a stroke, a blood clot, a young man getting some type of heart inflammation as well,” Marshall told Fox News. “That’s what destroyed the trust in the American people for our government.” [video]
Considering Fauci’s history of publicly embarrassing ignoramuses like Paul, he actually may have done them a favor by refusing to participate in their threadbare circus.
Just to add more important context:
I despise this war whore administration. It is so obscenely focused on killing people all over the world that pose NO PHYSICAL THREAT TO THIS COUNTRY that they are certain they can facilitate the destruction of millions of lives here with impunity. https://digbysblog.net/2026/07/29/an-excellent-campaign-issue/
FactPost @factpostnews Follow
Trump: We’re fighting wars. It’s not possible for us to take care of Medicare, daycare, Medicaid, all these things.
AND
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The Trump administration is ending Medicare Part D subsidies, raising prescription drug costs for more than 11 million Americans.
2:26 PM · Jul 28, 2026
“New Koch Daughter Just Dropped To Teach Us That Socialist Nordic Countries Totally Capitalist Actually!”
Fine, then we’ll take whatever flavor of ‘capitalism’ that is, please and thank you.
For the last several decades, any time a politician has supported anything that might actually help people in some way, we have heard the all-too-expected angry chorus from Republican politicians and conservative pundits of “That’s SOCIALISM! They’re trying to do socialism to us! The next thing you know, we’ll all be in bread lines!” Obama, they insisted, was an especially terrifying secret socialist, not to mention a secret Kenyan Muslim who was going to force everyone to do Sharia law. They really thought this was hip and clever. [Image of socialism poster featuring Obama as The Joker]
Well, it seems that this strategy may have backfired a little bit, causing more than a few people to say to themselves, “Well gee, if that’s socialism, then fine! I’m a socialist! Bring on the health care and higher wages!” Candidates openly identifying as Democratic Socialists have been consistently winning primaries and general elections. Hell, the largest city in the nation happily elected a guy who is not only a loud and proud Democratic Socialist, but an actual Muslim from Uganda.
Naturally, there have been all different flavors of backlash […] I’ve suddenly seen an unusual number of social media posts and comments trying to make the case that the Democratic Socialists have hoodwinked people into thinking that social programs, the Nordic model, the economic practices of other European nations are socialism, when in fact … they are capitalism.
Here, we see it on an Instagram post promoting an article titled “I Was In The DSA, Here’s What They Really Believe” from Bari Weiss’s Free Press. It was written by Jake Altman, a guy who left the DSA in a huff a few years ago over their support for Gaza, opposition to colonialism, and “outright hostility toward anti-Communism.”
This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has taken even a shallow dive into the website. People think democratic socialist means “whatever they do in Norway” and it explicitly does not.
The same argument pops up in several Xitter posts similar to the one below, from people who — it ought to be said — don’t actually want the Nordic model either.
Politicians love to use peaceful Scandinavian countries to shield their radical agendas, calling it “democratic socialism,” but political science tells a completely different story. Nordic nations are deeply rooted in free-market capitalism, and using them to mask radical agendas is a textbook case of ideological subversion. When you look past the public-facing branding, the real tactics become clear: dividing communities, purging moderates, and replacing constitutional compromise with zero-sum conflict.
A particularly stellar example, however, comes from newly minted Wall Street Journal associate opinion editor Mary Julia Koch — who, yes, is in fact the daughter of David Koch. Koch’s mother, Julia Koch, is the third richest woman in the world, with just about $74 billion to her name.
In a video published to the outlet’s Instagram, and an op-ed published to their “Free Expression” vertical, Koch decried the tendency of Democratic Socialists to compare what they want to do to what goes on in Nordic countries, just because Nordic countries are doing all of the things they want to do. [video]
She explains, with the the kind of smug look you only get from never having not been a billionaire:
“America’s Democratic Socialists are obsessed with the Nordic model. Universal healthcare, big welfare states, all sold with Instagram-worthy aesthetics. The only problem: These countries aren’t socialist.
“Their economies are highly competitive free markets built on private ownership and global trade. Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden consistently rank among the top 15 countries with the most economic and personal freedom. Scandinavian countries do offer more public services in the US, but they’re paid for by broad and steep taxation, and it’s not like the citizens are just sitting around collecting benefits.”
I like that the implication here is that what the Left wants is for people to just “sit around collecting benefits.” No, that’s just the right-wing fantasy explanation for what it is that we want, because they want to be able to characterize our want of “more public services” as actually a secret, sinful desire for sloth. It can’t ever be that we just want people to have health care, it’s that we want them all to do nothing with their lives but mooch off the hardworking heirs of billionaires who definitely got their job at the Wall Street Journal because “merit.” [LOL]
“In Norway, labor force participation is higher than it is in the US.”
Again, we like it when people have jobs. That is why we support unions and labor rights and other nice things that make people’s jobs better and more secure.
This also seems like a good time to point out that in Norway the usual workweek is 37.5 hours, people get 25 mandatory paid vacation days a year plus 10 national holidays, 16 days of paid sick leave (and more funded by the nation’s social insurance if 16 days isn’t enough), as well as 10 to 30 days to stay home with a sick child (depending on the number of children), 49 weeks of parental leave for a new child, “objective justifications” for being fired or laid off (as opposed to at-will employment) … I could go on.
I guess now when Republicans hear us talking about those things now, they’ll have to cry “That’s capitalism!” instead of “But that’s socialism”?
“Yes, these countries have lower levels of crime and economic inequality and higher levels of public trust, but they’re ethnically and culturally homogeneous and so much smaller than America.”
Boy, that certainly took a hard turn into white nationalist territory, didn’t it? Is this meant to suggest that the reason we have higher crime rates in the US than they have in Nordic countries is because of Black and Brown people? Really?
The reason these countries have lower crime rates is not because they are “ethnically and culturally homogeneous” but because there are lower levels of economic inequality. [True] Because people can trust that they will be able to lead nice lives, that their future is secure, that their children or future children’s future is secure.
In a world where the term “hangry” exists, it should not be hard to understand why a country with extreme economic inequality would have more of an issue with crime than a country that does not. Poverty leads to crime, and not just the “stealing a loaf of bread to feed your sister’s children” kind of crime. If people don’t believe they have a future, they are more likely to act recklessly. Also, if people feel that the system is working against them, they will create new systems or work outside the system. This isn’t actually that hard. […]
“The population of the New York City metro area is four times the size of the entire country of Norway. We’re comparing apples to oranges.”
This actually has nothing to do with anything. The programs we want would actually be better supported by larger populations, single payer health care in particular. (Though we’ve gotta give Koch credit for literally holding a basket of apples and oranges to demonstrate this.)
“By the way, Norway is Western Europe’s largest oil and natural gas producer. That’s the reason for their economic success, not the welfare state.”
So if the US made more money from oil and gas, we could have a welfare state? She’d be okay with that? Because I feel like she might not.
Of course, the idea that the United States doesn’t have enough money for a welfare state (which, by the way, should not be a disparaging term) is absurd. We have the money, and, frankly, we’d ultimately have more money if we were to have a system in which people could thrive. It’s a lot harder to make money selling things if no one can afford to buy them.
“If today’s socialist sympathizers really want inspiration, they should look to Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Soviet Russia. I wonder why they never mention those countries.”
Because they’re not socialist in the way anyone is advocating for in the DSA. The USSR was not actually a socialist or communist nation any more than it was a democratic nation (which, nota bene, it also claimed to be). It was a totalitarian nation with an economy that would more accurately described as “state capitalism.”
The closest thing to a purely capitalist society that has existed in the world was probably Chile under Pinochet, and they had to kill a whole lot of people to make that work. Though it’s probably worth noting here that Koch’s father and uncle were heavily inspired by Milton Friedman and the other Chicago School economists and free-market libertarians who inspired Pinochet’s economic policies. I don’t know if Mary Julia Koch shares her daddy’s sensibilities, but if she does, would it be fair of me to claim that she therefore also supports taking dissidents on “helicopter rides”?
Koch is just two years out of college, which may explain why she does not appear to be familiar with the concept of a “mixed economy,” or the fact that practically all modern nations are “mixed economies.” That means that they are a mixture of capitalism and socialism. The United States is a mixed economy. Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark are all mixed economies. Hell, even Cuba, to a degree, is a mixed economy, as people are permitted to have small and medium-sized businesses. It’s all just a matter of degree. [All good points.]
[I snipped a description of her father’s Libertarian Party campaign platform from 1980.]
Does that seem like the kind of glorious free market capitalism that the Nordic countries are doing?
I will say, however, that I’m not entirely disappointed by this being a talking point on the Right. Really, it means that they are admitting that social welfare programs are good things that people want, to the point where they want capitalism to be able to take credit for it. That’s a big step. Because that allows us to say “Well, fine then! We’ll take that flavor of capitalism, please and thank you.”
Ultimately, people just truly don’t care what anything is called anymore, they just want policies that are going to improve their lives. They want universal health care. They want childcare. [I snipped the remainder of the list.]
I guess, if Republicans really didn’t want people to be socialists, they probably should have stopped screaming that every program meant to help people was “socialism” […]
“A year ago, when immigration agents raided a gubernatorial event, DHS said the agents were ‘focused on enforcing the law.’ We now know that wasn’t true.”
About a year ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was poised to deliver remarks in Los Angeles about redistricting plans when the Democratic governor confronted something unexpected: Federal immigration agents suddenly showed up outside the venue.
At the time, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that the agents were “focused on enforcing the law, not on [Newsom].”
We now know that wasn’t true.
MS NOW reviewed new court filings that reveal what actually happened: DHS agents testified under oath that the raid on the governor’s press conference was “purely political” and intended as a “political stunt” to target the California Democrat.
A Homeland Security Investigations agent specifically texted another HSI agent to complain that Border Patrol “essentially raided” the Newsom event.
“We got pulled off the [Home Depot] and car wash to run this stunt,” the agent wrote. “We’re told to assist with targeted enforcement. … That is not target enforcement.” The agent added, “That was just a political agenda.”
The Daily Beast, which was first to highlight the court filings, further reported:
Hundreds of explosive court documents have blown the lid off federal immigration operations in Los Angeles, exposing a chaotic mess of random street stops, casual racial slurs, and rogue officers terrified they were being forced to break the law.
The exhibits were included in a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel, and other groups and private attorneys seeking to bar an “ongoing campaign of suspicionless and discriminatory detentive stops” in the Central District of California.
If you’re thinking there have been other examples lately of the Trump administration admitting to improper political motivations in court filings, it’s not your imagination.
Asked about the revelations, a DHS spokesperson told The Los Angeles Times that federal immigration agents “are focused on protecting the American people — not entertaining performative outrage.” [Well, maybe some of them are.]
[…] these revelations reflect a fundamentally corrupted DHS. Imagine what the reaction would have been if — hypothetically — the department under then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had deployed armed federal agents to disrupt a Republican governor’s press conference as part of a “political stunt,” and then lied about it.
[…] it’s hard not to wonder whether anyone from the Trump administration will face anything like accountability.
VATICAN CITY (The Borowitz Report)—In a stunning break with centuries of Catholic doctrine, on Wednesday Pope Leo XIV announced that the Church would relax its prohibition against birth control when it comes to JD Vance.
The pontiff said that he had arrived at the decision after learning the “troubling news” that Vance had reproduced “yet again.”
“Discovering that JD Vance now has four children and could potentially have more roused me to action,” Leo said. “Something had to be done to contain his gene pool.”
Further justifying the contraception carve-out for Vance, Leo said, “If his offspring inherit his Pope-killing powers, the very existence of this Church is imperiled.”
Funding has always been a challenge for Daniel Blumstein’s long-term study of yellow-bellied marmots, more so, he tells CBC News, since the Trump administration started defunding some environmental research.
So when he watched the Apple TV comedy Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Blumstein could relate and was inspired by the protagonist’s decision to turn to digital sex work to avoid financial ruin.
“What about OnlyFans?” he recalled asking, thinking of all the “hysterical” videos his lab has of the loaf-like rodents. “Why don’t we share them … and maybe people will give us tips?”
One of his graduate students at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado was on board with the idea, and pretty soon created an OnlyFans account called “OnlyMarms.” …
President Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the $83 million judgment a federal jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll after a separate jury held Trump liable for defaming her when he denied her sexual assault claims.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Trump argued that he is immune from liability for statements he made while in office and accused a federal appeals court of refusing to recognize it.
“The Second Circuit instead engaged in procedural contortions to avoid addressing Presidential immunity,” Trump’s petition said.
In making the claim, Trump is invoking the Supreme Court’s controversial 2024 presidential immunity decision, which effectively shut down then-special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election probe and established sweeping protection from prosecution for “official acts.” Trump argues his public statements regarding Carroll’s claims were made in his “official” capacity as president.
The circuit court, in its ruling, blamed Trump for failing to raise his immunity argument in a timely fashion.
“Presidential immunity was not raised for the first three years of this case,” Judge Denny Chin said in the April opinion.
In his new pitch to the Supreme Court, Trump also asked the justices to find his statements denying Carroll’s claims were part of his job as president and to permit the United States government to swap as the defendant.
“Because accusations bearing on the President’s fitness for office are unquestionably matters of public concern, Presidential statements responding to press questions about such accusations are plainly official. This Court should say so,” the petition said.
The 2nd Circuit said Trump’s substitution request also came too long after the fact..
He is literally asking the country to pay for his personal behavior at a time when he was not president.
Cases of cyclosporiasis, an intestinal illness caused by a parasite, have topped 18,000 in 45 states, according to updated data Wednesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Since May 1, at least 6,707 cases have been laboratory-confirmed, including 423 hospitalizations, the CDC noted…
More than 10,000 Michiganders have been sickened by cyclosporiasis, health officials reported Wednesday.
As of July 29, Michigan has 10,077 cases statewide, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. That’s up from 9,680 on July 29 and 174 on June 30. Michigan typically has around 50 cases each year of the parasitic illness that can cause “explosive” diarrhea.
Some 160 cases informed MDHHS they had been hospitalized as of July 23…
With 2,576 cases as of July 23, Ohio is among the hardest hit states in a fast-growing outbreak of cyclosporiasis … according to the most recent update from the Ohio Department of Health…
… The Indiana Department of Health announced on Tuesday that approximately 954 cases of cyclosporiasis have been reported. The true number of people who have fallen ill could be even higher than that, officials said…
The investigative psychiatrist Robert J Lifton once explained to me that Trump is a solipsist, as distinct from the narcissist that he’s often accused of being.
A narcissist, while deeply self-infatuated, nevertheless seeks the approval of others and will occasionally attempt seduction to get what he wants (I think of the French president, Emmanuel Macron). For Trump the solipsist, the only point of reference is himself, so he makes no attempt even at faking interest in other people, since he can’t really see them from his self-centered position…
… In June, the agency’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite observed near-record levels of seaweed in the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, which stretches across the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The belt’s sargassum abundance last month made 2026 the second-highest sargassum year in the satellite record, just behind 2025, scientists at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Marine Science report. They are collaborating with NASA to produce sargassum maps based on data from PACE.
Last month, the total amount in the Gulf nearly doubled the historical record, reaching 5 million metric tons, according to a bulletin from the USF Optical Oceanography Laboratory. The Caribbean Sea also saw record-high sargassum levels…
Elon Musk has settled his lawsuit with advertisers that he once claimed should be criminally prosecuted for refusing to advertise on his social media platform, X.
In a joint statement that reveals little about the deal, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and X said that they were “putting the litigation involving the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) behind them.”
X sued the WFA in 2024, shortly after a series of brands boycotting X caused the platform’s revenue to drop by $1.5 billion by the end of 2023. Musk became upset, declaring “it is war” on X about eight months after he told advertisers who refused to buy X ads to “go fuck yourself.”
According to Musk, he had “no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket,” who he tried to argue were violating antitrust laws by illegally conspiring to tank X revenue.
A lot has changed since Musk filed the lawsuit. Most relevant to the lawsuit, GARM was quickly disbanded after Musk called out the small not-for-profit initiative for setting brand standards that X said led advertisers to steer clear of X.
The point of the initiative was “to help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising,” a now-shuttered website said. But Musk claimed GARM was instead trying to monopolize which content gets monetized online, and the effort’s dissolution will remain his biggest win in the case.
The joint statement confirmed that GARM will remain inactive as a result of the WFA’s settlement with X. No other concessions were discussed…
It’s unclear why advertisers settled, since a court ruled in March that the ad boycott was perfectly legal and X’s antitrust claims fell apart without proof of consumer harm. The next month, X appealed, but it appeared to be dragging its feet in filing a brief as an appellant, asking the court for an extension until August…
The Trump administration is asking Congress for an additional $10 million to cover costs related to Freedom 250 events recently held on the National Mall, including a prayer event, a fair and a fireworks show.
As Steve Benen noted: “This request is intended to repay the National Park Service, whose funds Team Trump unjustly raided.”
It sounds like something James Bond would use: a gadget that self-destructs if it falls into the wrong hands. But it’s actually an open-source operating system that can be downloaded onto Android phones. Federal prosecutors in Atlanta are bringing an obstruction charge against a U.S. citizen who gave customs officers what is known as a duress passcode, which activated software that erased the contents of his phone.
As Steve Benen noted: “I’m eager to hear why a private citizen can’t delete the contents of his own phone.”
A few years into the A.I. era, there is sobering evidence that a significant and growing portion of the novels being sold are written with or by chatbots, and that readers are buying them. A new study conducted by computer scientists using A.I. detection software to analyze thousands of self-published novels on Amazon, found that a substantial number of those novels contained chatbot-generated prose.
Yuck. I do not like this development at all. Read real books written by real people.
Iran is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers, as it rebuilds its defenses amid ongoing fighting with the United States, three sources told Reuters.
The purchase, valued at $60-70 million, is one of Tehran’s largest-known efforts to strengthen its short-range air defenses since the outbreak of its war with the US and Israel in late February, which exposed gaps in Iran’s ability to protect military sites and strategic infrastructure.
The purchase is through a private company but this sort of thing only happens with government approval.
China’s Foreign Ministry denied the report, calling it “completely groundless” and saying Beijing had consistently worked to promote peace and end the conflict.
China is like Russia in this regards, they will deny it even after Chinese missiles start shooting from Iran.
These little short range air defense are not a big deal but if they are the first step in expanding trade it could be a problem. They could easily be the first step in boiling the frog, where China slowly expands trade bit by bit.
The northern African nation is the fifth state in recent months to quit the international tribunal […] Chad’s [military] government said that the court’s effectiveness was “limited” and uneven and condemned what it said was a concentration of its activities on African countries. Of the 13 investigations opened by the court since it came into force, nine concern African states, as opposed to four opened in other regions of the world […]
Chad’s decision follows neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which also have military governments. The Sahel states jointly announced their withdrawal in September, accusing the court of selective justice.
[…]
Venezuela said on Friday that it was pulling out, also accusing the court of “bias”. Interim President Delcy Rodriguez essentially governs the country with the nod of the US.
Chad’s Foreign Ministry shared a statement on its official website saying that the decision to quit follows a request by Washington.
[…]
Before the recent surge in withdrawals, only Burundi (2017) and the Philippines (2019) had pulled out of the court. Hungary, which hosted Netanyahu in April 2025, announced it was withdrawing from the ICC the day before his arrival.
“Montana Dem Candidate Sam Forstag Is Scaring Wingnuts, And It’s Beautiful”
“Blue-collar progressive populist, no Nazi tattoos.”
Montana hasn’t sent a Democrat to the US House of Representatives […] since nine-term Rep. Pat Williams left office in 1997. Sure, the state elected Jon Tester to the Senate a bunch of times until two years ago, by which time the state was so pickled in red MAGAjuice that it replaced him with lying carpetbagger millionaire Tim Sheehy […]
But this year, Montana might very well send a Democrat to Washington again. Not just your conventional centrist red-state Dem who promises to be less awful than Republicans, but a populist progressive Democrat named Sam Forstag. He’s a “smoke jumper” — a wildland firefighter who jumps out of airplanes to fight fires far away from roads — and state leader of the labor union that represents federal employees. […]
Oh, did we mention the polls are tied?
In a move that sounds awfully familiar in Montana, former Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke decided in March not to seek a third term in Congress. But he only dropped out at the last minute, leaving the Republican primary field mostly open for his handpicked successor, Aaron Flint, a rightwing talk radio host who spouts conspiracy theories and warns Montana listeners that scary socialists like “AOC, Mamdani, and Bernie” have conquered DC and are “coming for Montana next.” You know, because the commies are taking over everywhere.
But instead of waltzing right into office with Donald Trump’s endorsement, Flint is up against Forstag, who appears to be the progressive blue-collar champion people thought that guy in Maine was, only without anything like the awful baggage. […]
Forstag’s “All of Us” campaign ad from January is a 95-second masterpiece of compact messaging, hitting all the right populist notes about how the economy is rigged against workers, with the “richest people in the country trying to burn it all down so they can buy it all up.” [video]
That audio appears over a quick cut of Elon Musk waving around his bejewelled chainsaw at CPAC in February 2025, a gift from Argentina’s elected strongman Javier Milei. Seconds later, Musk’s purely decorative CPAC chainsaw is visually contrasted with a gritty shot of Forstag (we think?) wielding a real Forest Service chainsaw while fighting a real wildfire, with very real flames close to him in the foreground.
There’s your class war in Montana […]
After Elon Musk’s arbitrary budget cuts last year eliminated around 2,300 federal workers from agencies that manage the West’s wildlands, Forstag repeatedly tried to request meetings with Zinke to discuss the firings, but the millionaire congressman ignored him. In April of 2025, when Bernie and AOC really did come to Montana as part of their “Fighting Oligarchy” rally tour, Forstag accepted an invitation to join them onstage at the University of Montana in Missoula so he could speak for those who’d been fired. The anticipated crowd of about 3,000 instead turned out to be something more than 9,000, and they were primed to hear Forstag’s appeal:
“What we’re facing today isn’t a wildfire, but it’s damn sure an emergency. […] What we’re facing today is greed burning out of control. Somewhere I read that hope is a state of mind, not a state of the world. And when I see the thousands of us who are here today to say that we’ve had enough, I’m starting to feel the kind of hope it’s going to take to fight this thing.”
People started telling him he should run for office. So what the hell, he did, and now he’s getting coverage not only in the political press, but also, thanks to his smoke-jumper cool, in places like Outside magazine, a perfect platform for him to spread the gospel of protecting public lands from greedhead developers, but also to fight back against the Current Darkness, explaining, “We don’t have to settle for a government that lurches from crisis to crisis, and we don’t have to settle for elected officials who warp public goods into sources of profit for themselves. We can make our land management more efficient and effective by investing up front and ensuring those investments go to working people, not corporate profits.”
Talk nerdy to us, please.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee thinks Forstag has a pretty good chance, and this week added him to its “Red to Blue” campaign aimed at flipping winnable seats, prompting an especially pissy statement from the National Republican Campaign Committee that smeared Forstag with all the scary words they could Luntz up on short notice:
“National Democrats are propping up lobbyist Sam Forstag because he’s the perfect socialist stooge: obedient, shameless, and desperate to do whatever the radical left demands. Montanans know a bought-and-paid-for fraud when they see one, and Forstag will sell out Montana’s values every single time.”
Those are some very impressive empty generalizations, to be sure. [LOL. I agree.]
Forstag clearly has wingnuts worried; earlier this month, Fox News ran a hit piece aimed at connecting him with all the Culture Wars issues he isn’t actually running on, because that is how they do. Supposedly, Forstag can’t be a real blue-collar firefighter at all, because he “previously worked as a registered lobbyist” for “far-left groups” like, umm, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the Montana Library Association, and the City of Missoula. […]
As part of his lobbying work, he engaged in dangerous radical un-American activities like testifying against some of the more unhinged wingnut bills in the Montana Lege, like legislation “involving drag performances in schools and libraries, transgender-related medical treatments for minors, boys competing in girls’ sports, voter ID, and local cooperation with federal immigration authorities,” oh my!
Fox News unearthed Forstag’s comments on the drag ban bill, which we guess are too radical for Montana. He called the bill “the latest of a series that I expect you’ll see that are intended to stir up fear and distrust of our fellow citizens” and called it overly broad because it could lead trans or nonbinary people to be banned from public libraries altogether […]
To his credit, Forstag didn’t shy away from defending his prior work, saying it simply reflects his belief that the government has no business getting in people’s private lives.
“Between fire seasons, I fought for working people in a state capital that too often ignores us,” Forstag told Fox News Digital. “Instead of accepting a system where the extremes and the rich have the loudest voice, I worked my tail off to defend Montanans’ constitutional rights and freedoms and fight for policies that actually improve our lives.”
[…] Yes, he said that freedom is good for guns and for trans people. Is that even legal? Fox tried to make clear that such talk is blasphemy by following it with a terrifying animated gif of a transgender flag superimposed over a still image of the Supreme Court. [LOL]
Also too, the Koch-funded rightwing group Americans for Prosperity, back in May, had a nice panicky post attacking Forstag and Ocasio-Cortez for saying climate change is real, whining that Forstag is bent on destroying Montana with “Green New Scam” ideology when what Montanans really want is strip mines, coal-burning powerplants, and clearcutting, for prosperity.
“Iran War Live Updates: More Countries Pulled Into Conflict With Spate of Attacks”
“The U.S. and Saudi Arabia said they carried out airstrikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Iran targeted sites used by the American military in Jordan and a U.S.-owned ship was hit in an Egyptian port.”
The scope of the war in the Middle East widened on Wednesday, as American and Saudi fighter jets attacked Iran-allied militias in Iraq, Iran fired missiles at bases in Jordan used by U.S. forces, and an American-owned tanker in an Egyptian port was set on fire in an apparent drone strike.
The spate of attacks ended a pause in direct fighting between the United States and Iran. Since the collapse of a cease-fire between the United States and Iran this month, Iran-linked groups across the region have opened new fronts and reopened old ones, embroiling forces in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan in the war that until recently had been contained to countries along the Persian Gulf.
[…] Egypt was also struck for the first time. Two ships, including a U.S.-owned gas storage tanker, caught fire after an explosion at a shipping hub, according to Kpler, a maritime tracking firm. A second maritime tracking company, Ambrey, reported that a drone attack had caused the blast.
President Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon, said he had been briefed on the explosion and implied that Iran was responsible without offering details. He said the incident was “more of the same” and that the United States was “going to be hitting them very hard, because it’s our turn to hit them.”
The escalation on Wednesday began with Saudi Arabia’s joint attack with the United States on Iran-allied militias in Iraq. Since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, the kingdom has avoided becoming a direct combatant, though it has launched some secret retaliatory strikes on Iran, according to senior U.S. officials.
Also on Wednesday, the Jordanian military said it had shot down five missiles that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed were fired in retaliation for American aggression.
[…] A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the strikes killed about 20 Iranian military and technical advisers. An umbrella group for the militias confirmed at least that many fighters had been killed, which the Iraqi prime minister called “an unacceptable aggression.”
Here’s what else we’re covering.
Iraqi militias: The P.M.F. is an umbrella group of Shiite militias that banded together in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq. It has come under the authority of the national security forces in recent years, but some militias still operate with a large degree of independence. Read more ›
Oil prices jump: The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, and West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, rose sharply on Wednesday following the attacks. Read more ›
Lebanon: The Israeli military said Wednesday that Hezbollah had launched an explosive drone at one of its vehicles in southern Lebanon. A Hezbollah spokesman said the group did not claim responsibility for an operation in the ridge area. Read more ›
Embedded links are available at the main link.
StevoRsays
The spacecraft rushing to the rescue of an aging and sinking NASA telescope has run into its own problem.
Katalyst Space Technologies said Tuesday that its Link satellite is experiencing thruster problems and has gone into an uncontrollable spin that is disrupting communication.
The trouble struck over the weekend, three weeks after the three-armed robotic spacecraft blasted into orbit.
The startup company said it’s working nonstop to get Link back in action so it can capture Swift and boost the telescope to a higher orbit. Swift will crash back to Earth this fall without help.
…(Snip)…
Neither Katalyst nor NASA is giving up hope. All of Link’s other major subsystems appear to be doing fine, according to the company.
Published today in the journal Gondwana Research, the discovery rewrites what scientists know about life beneath Queensland’s prehistoric Eromanga Sea more than 100 million years ago.
At the center of the discovery is a six-to-seven-meter-long ichthyosaur, a dolphin-shaped marine reptile, whose fossil preserves an astonishing sequence of events never before documented anywhere in the world.
Using cutting-edge 3D imaging technology, scientists discovered fragments of a pterosaur, a flying reptile, preserved inside what are believed to be the ichthyosaur’s fossilized stomach contents. It is the first definitive evidence anywhere in the world that an ichthyosaur consumed a pterosaur.
But that’s not the end of the story.
The ichthyosaur’s own skeleton bears enormous crushing bite marks, shattered bones and missing sections consistent with an attack—or scavenging event—by Kronosaurus queenslandicus, the giant apex predator that ruled Queensland’s ancient inland sea. Together, the fossil preserves an extraordinary prehistoric food chain frozen in time: Pterosaur → ichthyosaur → kronosaurus.
An international team of researchers from the U.S. and Kenya analyzed a trove of fossilized footprints left by a group of eight Paranthropus boisei hominins. The footprints were first discovered nearly 50 years ago in northern Kenya by Kay Behrensmeyer, senior research geologist and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Behrensmeyer’s team initially discovered the trackway in 1978 and is studying how the local geology preserved so many ancient footprints at the site.
…(snip)..
The team analyzed the anatomy and movement patterns of the GaJi10 fossil footprints and determined they were made by Paranthropus. The conclusion was surprising because the tracks were similar in size to those left by H. erectus, which was long thought to be significantly larger than Paranthropus.
“The sizes of the footprints indicate human-like body sizes—up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall and around 165 pounds (75 kilograms),” Hatala said. The findings provide evidence that two similarly sized hominins inhabited the same environment at the same time.
The new track site also reveals that adult male Paranthropus sometimes traveled in groups.
“The fact that eight, mostly adult male, P. boisei individuals seemingly traveled together as a group, without females or children, hints at a complex social structure in this species,” said Neil Roach, a researcher at Harvard University who is also a co-author of the new paper. “They may have lived in large groups, where males competed for mates, but also tolerated each other at times for safety in a dangerous environment.”
Lawyers for James Comey allege the U.S. Secret Service “knowingly conducted illegal electronic surveillance” of the former FBI director at the request of a high-level official on the same day President Donald Trump claimed Comey was threatening “assassination” by posting a photo of seashells on a North Carolina beach forming the numbers “8647,” a new court filing says.
The filing on Tuesday night also says a Secret Service supervisor said the warrantless surveillance of Comey in May 2025 was “legally questionable” but that the agency “might do it anyway.”
And it alleges that the Secret Service conducted the surveillance after the “number three” person at the Department of Justice asked for it. The filing says that the surveillance included keeping tabs on Comey and his wife as they returned to Washington, D.C., from North Carolina, “including as they stopped to visit the grave of their deceased son.”
The filing in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina asks a judge to dismiss, on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution, the indictment issued in April against Comey, which accuses him of threatening the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce with the “8647” photo that he posted on Instagram.
Comey’s lawyers wrote that, “Behind the scenes, the Secret Service was closely coordinating with the DOJ and the President himself.”
“The Secret Service sent frequent updates to Air Force One, in response to direct requests from President Trump who wished for an update in advance of speaking to the press” about Comey’s post on Instagram, the filing says.
And on the same day that the Secret Service conducted illegal electronic surveillance of Comey, the agency “instituted a new policy, effective immediately, to treat the phrase ’8647′ as coded language for threatening the President.” …
Rubio told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the State Department was wresting back control of the U.S. relationship with Gavi, an organization that distributes vaccines to developing countries.
[…]
the State Department has historically overseen Gavi funding. But Kennedy and [HHS] have been holding up $600 million in previously appropriated money
[…]
The State Department declined to elaborate on Rubio’s remarks, and would not say if there was a formal commitment to release the funding.
Silentbobsays
@ 213-5 StevoR
Thanks, that’s a trio of intriguing science related links. Cool beans.
beholdersays
Yuck. I do not like this development at all. Read real books written by real people. — @208 Lynna
Can you tell the difference, I wonder? It’s amusing that you conclude you can’t be fooled when so many of the news articles you quote are at least partly LLM-generated.
For more on today’s hearing, Dr. Fauci and his legacy, we’re joined by Katherine Wu, staff writer with “The Atlantic.” Her latest piece, “The Unmaking of Anthony Fauci,” focuses on all of this and how Fauci’s career brought him to this moment.
Katie, welcome back to the “News Hour.” Thanks for joining us.
Katherine J. Wu, Staff Writer, “The Atlantic”: Thanks so much for having me again.
Hop Aero, a six-person Y Combinator startup based in Orange, California, has published the first public details of what it calls ‘Rook,’ an autonomous rocket the company says will carry 550 pounds (250 kg) of cargo up to 750 km in about 15 minutes, launch from a standard 40-foot shipping container, and land on unprepared ground with no runway or fixed infrastructure. The company’s Y Combinator listing gives Okinawa to Taiwan as the reference mission for that 15-minute flight and pitches Rook as a way to put swarms of autonomous unmanned systems on a battlefield. However, Rook hasn’t flown yet, and Hop Aero’s only government funding is a single $1.25 million Air Force contract that expires in October…
Alex Jones, the former owner of InfoWars, on Tuesday said President Trump must be impeached over the Iran conflict, describing the situation as “absolutely out of control” and warning that the administration is preparing for a national draft.
“The big issue is how to stop Trump. And we have to have Congress go for the war powers. They’ve tried three times to vote on war powers — they’re supposed to authorize a war. This is a war; they’re getting the draft ready. If this isn’t a war, nothing’s a war. I mean, this is absolutely out of control,” Jones said during a live segment broadcast on the social platform X.
In March, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president had not ruled out the possibility of a draft for the Iran conflict.
“And so I’m calling for it right now: 25th Amendment, impeachment, whatever needs to happen to get this front and center, to get control of our country,” he added…
David Cifaldi and his two hiking companions were crossing Montana’s ominous Froze-to-Death Plateau and approaching the top of the state’s highest peak when their adventure took a bizarre and dangerous turn: Cifaldi slipped and impaled himself on his trekking pole as he fell.
The 44-inch steel-tipped pole passed through the flesh beneath Cifaldi’s left arm, missing any vital organs, and protruded from his back. After conferring with his friends – and considering the high cost of a helicopter rescue – Cifaldi knew who would save him: himself.
“I was like, ‘We’ve got to get off this mountain.’ And they’re both like, ‘I don’t know about that,'” Cifaldi said of his friends’ initial reaction. “I’m pretty confident this is outside my chest wall. ‘Tis but a flesh wound.”
The 32-year-old nurse, who works in wound care at a Billings, Montana, hospital, did a self-assessment. He was alert. There was little pain or blood. And the pole wasn’t moving. The group used a satellite-based communication device, a Garmin inReach, to contact local authorities and inform them of their plan to self-rescue.
…
After more than six hours in which they traveled about 10 miles and descended roughly 5,000 feet, the group reached a trailhead where one of them, Cifaldi’s friend Jesse Ross, had parked a vehicle…
Chris Hayes: Sen. Bernie Moreno spent his morning raging at Anthony Fauci. But if you ask him about the Republican colleague who’s accused of holding a gun to his own daughter’s head, he has no comment.
The FBI sought help from notorious gangster Sammy “The Bull” Gravano to build the case against James Comey over his “8647” seashell post, according to a new court filing from Comey’s defense lawyers.
“No honest person pleads the Fifth,” one GOP senator said, seemingly unaware of Donald Trump’s background.
Ahead of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, ostensibly to discuss the origins of Covid-19, Republicans made no effort to hide their goal. The whole point — the only point — of the hearing was to try to lay a trap for the longtime public health pioneer.
On his last day as president early last year, Joe Biden pardoned Fauci as part of an effort to shield him from political prosecutions, and so GOP officials realized (and publicly acknowledged) that if they’re going to tear down the 85-year-old immunologist, they’ll need to try to get him to perjure himself.
Ideally, with roughly three months remaining before the midterm elections, Republicans would have other objectives on their minds, but as became clear during Wednesday’s committee hearing (given how utterly bonkers the proceedings were, I use the word “hearing” loosely), it became clear that GOP senators can’t shake their seething hatred for one of the nation’s most accomplished and celebrated scientists.
Fauci, of course, faced a straightforward choice: He could play the Republicans’ game and hope for the best, or he could follow the advice of his attorneys and refuse to hand GOP senators the rope with which to hang him. Fauci wisely chose the latter path and repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment. It followed him telling the committee’s chairman, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, that his “unhinged obsession” had left him with little choice.
Predictably, the public learned very little — except, as Dr. Rachael Bedard explained in a New York Times opinion piece, that “show trials are bad for democracy and do nothing to get us closer to either truth or consensus” — though I was especially interested in some of the partisan reactions to the ridiculous display.
During the proceedings, for example, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri argued that Fauci didn’t have the right to invoke the Fifth, which as my MS NOW colleague Jordan Rubin explained, is a tough argument to take seriously. Equally as notable was what the senator said after the hearing.
“No honest person pleads the Fifth,” Hawley wrote via social media. He echoed the line on Fox News hours later.
It’s important to emphasize that the Missouri Republican has a law degree from Yale, so one would expect that he almost certainly understands how wrong this is, despite his willingness to publicly push the nonsense anyway.
If Hawley genuinely expects the public to believe that “no honest person pleads the Fifth,” perhaps now is a good time to remind folks that it was around this time four years ago when Donald Trump took the Fifth more than 440 times during a deposition related to the Trump Organization’s allegedly fraudulent business practices. [True!]
A variety of other figures from the president’s inner circle, including Eric Trump, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Michael Flynn, also have extensive experience from recent years in invoking the Fifth Amendment.
Would Hawley have us believe that Trump and his allies are not “honest people”?
As for the near future, Rand Paul threatened Fauci with “repercussions” for invoking his constitutional rights during the hearing.
This week, Newsmax — a far-right news organization with a strong allegiance to President Trump and a history of pushing wild conspiracy theories — announced it had struck a deal with Meta. Under the agreement, Meta will “draw upon Newsmax’s significant current reporting as well as archived content across its platforms to support AI queries across Meta’s apps and devices.” Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy said the company was “pleased to work with Meta to help ensure users have access to timely, high-quality journalism through AI technologies.”
Although Meta’s AI products are currently less popular than those of OpenAI and other rivals, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is investing hundreds of billions in data centers and other infrastructure to catch up. Zuckerberg is also aggressively integrating AI into Meta’s suite of apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, which collectively have over 3.9 billion monthly users. In short, how Meta’s AI products are trained could have enormous impacts.
[…] Newsmax is not an objective news source but a far-right organization that routinely distorts reality to suit its ideological goals. NewsGuard, which uses journalists to rank the credibility and reliability of news outlets, gives Newsmax a 20 out of 100. Newsmax “is unreliable because it severely violates basic journalism standards,” NewsGuard concluded. Newsmax received similar ratings from Media Bias/Fact Check (”Low“ for factual reporting) and Ground News (”Very Low“ on factuality.)
Chris Ruddy is a longtime friend and informal advisor of Trump. He is a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, where the pair frequently dine together. Ruddy was described in the Washington Post as a “pioneer of America’s looming misinformation complex — making a name for himself by pushing stories that badly lacked substantiating evidence.”
After the 2020 election, Ruddy praised Trump for attempting to undermine the credibility of the election, saying it made more people interested in the news. [I snipped Ruddy’s comments]
Newsmax aggressively promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, [I snipped examples]
[I snipped details recalling Newsmax coverage of Sidney Powell, and the extensive air time Newsmax gave her to spread her lies.]
Newsmax was ultimately sued by both Smartmatic and Dominion. The cases were settled for over $100 million combined after judges issued several rulings favorable to the plaintiffs. The 2020 election coverage that resulted in these settlements is part of the “archived content” that Meta will apparently be using “to support AI queries across Meta’s apps and devices.”
The AI-training deal with Newsmax is the latest by Meta with a right-wing outlet that pushed pro-Trump conspiracies. Meta has also agreed to train its AI on content from Fox News, which pushed election conspiracies and settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion for $787 million. It has made similar deals with other right-wing outlets with poor reputations for factual accuracy, including The Daily Caller, The Washington Examiner, and News Corp, the parent company of the New York Post. Meta has also included several mainstream outlets that provide centrist coverage, including USA Today, CNN, and People Inc.
Meta has no AI-training partnership with left-leaning outlets. […]
Misinformation-maxxing
Newsmax has promoted misinformation on topics beyond the 2020 election.
In 2019 and 2020, according to the Washington Post, a member of the Qatari royal family invested about $50 million in Newsmax as the network was struggling to keep up with rival Fox News. Senior leadership instructed reporters to soften their coverage of Qatar and Ruddy reprimanded a host for a critical comment on air.
A 2021 report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate identified Newsmax as one of ten sites contributing to 69% of user interaction with climate misinformation on Facebook. [!] [I snipped other examples]
In addition to spreading misinformation, Newsmax has also silenced criticism of Trump.
During a September 2021 interview with an Iraq War veteran, Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield abruptly cut off his guest when he started to criticize Trump over his efforts to get U.S. citizens out of Afghanistan. Stinchfield attempted to interrupt the guest, but when he continued speaking, Stinchfield shouted, “Cut him off please, cut him off now!” The guest quickly disappeared from the broadcast.
[…] There’s now, apparently, an epidemic of Christians who get on planes and begin preaching when they know they finally have a captive audience. Evangelist Whitney Lynn, one of the more notorious culprits of this, even said as much in a recent TikTok post: “I just love a captive audience.” […]
A new study has ranked each of the 50 states from best to worst.
US News published its 2026 Overall Best State Rankings the week of July 27. Each state was analyzed in eight categories: Education, health care, economy, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability, natural environment, and crime and corrections.
This year, the states among the top five best are Utah, South Dakota, Minnesota, North Dakota and Nebraska. As for the bottom of the barrel, Arkansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska and Louisiana ranked the lowest…
I wonder what the distinctions are between economy, opportunity and fiscal stability.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
beholder @219 to Lynna @208:
Can you tell the difference, I wonder? […] many of the news articles you quote are at least partly LLM-generated.
Reuters litters articles with invisible characters that would screw up my text editor when I copy-paste if I hadn’t written a tool to filter them out. Before Tracie Harris started publicly boosting AI, I noticed her blog posts had broken links because invisible word joiner characters were randomly inserted in urls. They are insidious: hard to identify which char, and often tools won’t let you find/replace em.
This website can replace given chars (copied from the text or a unicode reference site like the link above) or purge unicode exclusives altogether (stuff beyond QWERTY keyboards, which unfortunately would include accents and curly quotes).
Example: The Guardian had a word joiner in this article, where I put a percent sign.
“I’m sure he’ll have a fun answer %for you,” she told reporters.
* It’s also possible for a journalist to accidentally copy-paste an invisible character while quoting from content elsewhere to manually contaminate an article.
Reuters […] has heavily incorporated AI to speed up its workflow […] and can publish some breaking financial alerts in just six to eight seconds […] Operating at speed, however, makes accuracy all the more challenging. Reuters acknowledges that AI tools can introduce factual errors and requires its journalists to verify any AI-generated claims before publication.
[…]
BBC has taken a cautious approach […] used for tasks such as summarizing long articles and reformatting local news stories to match the BBC’s house style. […] No AI-assisted story is published until a journalist reviews and approves it […] The BBC has acknowledged the limits of AI in its current form, publishing a study with the European Broadcasting Union in October 2025 showing that AI assistants misrepresented news content—through faulty sourcing, fabricated details, or outdated information—45% of the time. Rather than downplaying such findings, the BBC […] went on to create AI labels—a hexagon icon paired with the phrase “How we used AI”—that now appear at the top of content.
[…]
The Guardian […] now permits limited use of generative AI for tasks such as suggesting alt text for images, analyzing parliamentary documents, or transcribing audio into text, provided the tool aligns with The Guardian’s editorial standards, is subject to human oversight, and receives explicit permission from a senior editor.
[…]
the time reporters and editors spend verifying AI’s accuracy can create what we call a “verification tax,” which can lessen the technology’s value. […] That said, the technology will likely accelerate differences already underway. Commercial news organizations will use more automation. Public broadcasters will include more human oversight. And independent outlets will focus more on stories written and reported wholly by people.
Detect, replace, and clean invisible or unusual Unicode characters from your text […] Recent findings such as “ChatGPT Models Seem to Leave Watermarks on Text” have raised awareness about how LLM-generated content might include zero-width Unicode characters
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
^ 234, 235: Turns out my first unicode reference link had a similar service. Paste, “strip invisible characters”, then copy. Less polished. It disagreed about their purpose, but confirmed they are symptomatic.
Despite some reports, ChatGPT does not use hidden characters for watermarking. OpenAI has stated it’s “a quirk of large-scale reinforcement learning.”
A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a global conference in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online.
Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed halfway during a presentation about the state department’s new health agreements.
A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The company did not respond to a request for comment…
Steve Morrisonsays
@#230:
“No honest person pleads the Fifth,” Hawley wrote
This reminded me of the phrase “Fifth Amendment communist,” which was current among the red-baiters of the 1950s. Of course, being “investigated” by the present-day Republican congress bears a distinct resemblance to being “investigated” by Joe McCarthy.
birgerjohanssonsays
After testing the concept in Stockholm, fully electric hydrofoil ferries are being exported to Mumbai. “Why a Swedish company is putting WINGS on boats”
… The SpaceX CEO is ready to really throw his weight around for the midterm elections in November. Musk has authorized his super PAC to spend as much as $120 million helping Republicans, according to a new report from the New York Times. In May, it was reported Musk had already spent $85 million on this cycle, making him the third-largest donor for the midterms to that point.
Musk’s PAC, known as America PAC, will focus on the so-called ground game, knocking on doors and helping drive voter turnout, according to the Times and previous reporting by Axios. America PAC will be coordinating with other Republican groups and will first target U.S. Senate races in five states: Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio…
The scientific consensus up until just two decades ago was that there was no evidence any human civilization had ever occupied the Amazon before Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors forever altered life and politics across the South American continent. But now new airborne laser scans surveying over 1,737 square miles (about 4,500 square kilometers) of western Brazil’s rainforest have completely rewritten human history in the pre-Columbian Amazon.
Researchers led by archaeologist Martti Pärssinen at the University of Helsinki in Finland have uncovered more than 400 well-preserved earthwork monuments, ceremonial sites, and roads hidden beneath the dense overgrowth of the Brazilian rainforest. Incredibly, the researchers extrapolate the approximately 400 confirmed sites to an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 earthwworks across the region. Pärssinen and his colleagues believe these structures are evidence of an interconnected, multicultural civilization that thrived deep within the Amazon between 600 BCE and 850 CE—a population of millions who dramatically altered the rainforest’s ecosystem.
They call them the Aquiry, after the indigenous Iñapari name for the Acre River, an Amazon River tributary that runs alongside this group’s hundreds of once-lost ancient sites.
…
Pärssinen and his team used an aerial mapping tool known as lidar, short for “laser imaging, detection, and ranging,” to map the Aquiry’s ancient structures.
…
Trace amounts of charcoal found at some of these geoglyphs during early and more ground-based surveys helped archaeologists radiocarbon date the earthworks to roughly 2,500 years ago, according to Ranzi. That work also helped the team better estimate the Aquiry people’s population at something between 1.25 and 3 million people along a 3% patch of the Amazon spanning roughly 71,000 square miles (183,000 sq km)…
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Reginald Selkirk @240: America PAC, previously seen scamming here and here.
BARROW COUNTY, Ga. — The judge sentenced Colin Gray, the father of Apalachee school shooter Colt Gray, to 15 years in prison.
Colin Gray was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
He also was guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of two adults, teachers Cristina Irimie and Ricky Aspinwall.
Judge Nicholas Primm sentenced the shooter’s father to 15-year sentences for each second-degree murder charge and 10 years for each reckless conduct charge.
He also was sentenced to 10 years for child cruelty, with lesser sentences for his other charges and all prison time to run concurrently.
Judge Primm noted in his sentencing that the crimes were all of negligence, and Colin Gray was never accused of knowing or helping with his son’s plan to open fire on the school Sept. 4, 2024…
Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes dropped out of the crowded Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor on Thursday, as progressive state lawmaker Francesca Hong surges in the polls.
“It’s become very clear who our nominee is going to be,” he said in a video posted to social media, while not directly naming another contender.
“We have to do everything to beat Tom Tiffany,” he added, referencing the likely GOP nominee.
The announcement comes as Democratic officials in the state brace for damaging media reports about Barnes, which were expected to hit in the coming hours. Barnes and his team had been on calls Thursday discussing whether to drop out, POLITICO reported earlier.
Shortly after Barnes exited the race, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported it was investigating allegations that Barnes had leveraged his role within the state Democratic party to have sexual encounters with young women, based on a 2025 review conducted by the party. Barnes has not been accused of any crimes, and the Journal Sentinel reported that the party’s review did not result in an actionable outcome.
POLITICO has not independently confirmed the allegations. Barnes’ campaign spokesperson Darby O’Connor said in a statement that “there are no allegations of misconduct or wrongdoing against Mandela.” …
FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private equity investors was hit hard Thursday by his former colleagues at UEFA, who agreed to boycott all the global soccer body’s competitions in protest.
“UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions,” the European soccer body said after an urgent online meeting of its 55 member nations.
The next scheduled FIFA tournament is within weeks in Europe — the Women’s Under-20 World Cup hosted by Poland from Sept. 5…
An Australian public library has had a book returned an estimated 150 years late and has no way of tracking down the errant borrower, a librarian said on Thursday.
The book Antiquities of Athens, published in 1858, was returned to the library in the seaside town of Kiama last week by a man who had found it during recent home renovations inside a tea crate bricked into a sealed fireplace, Kiama Library manager Michelle Hudson said.
…
But Hudson said there was no way of tracing the final borrower who had accrued the debt. The library journal from the 1870s that recorded who borrowed a book and when had been lost…
Russian state hackers are using a maximum-severity vulnerability in Microsoft’s Outlook’s Exchange Server to backdoor unpatched machines and steal credentials and other confidential information from them, security researchers said Thursday.
The attacks are coming from TA488, a tracking name for a group working on behalf of the Kremlin, Proofpoint researchers said Thursday. Proofpoint and the National Security Agency jointly warned last week that the group, also tracked as Laundry Bear and Void Blizzard, had been carrying out similar attacks by exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in an email service from Zimbra. The revelation that TA488 is also exploiting the Exchange Server vulnerability to install advanced malware when a user does nothing other than open an email sent to an Outlook Web Access (OWA) account has elevated the group’s profile and assessments of its abilities.
…
apparently Trump didn’t divert enough taxpayer dollars, so the administration is back—hat in hand—demanding another $10 million […] How could Trump have possibly blown through the $150 million in taxpayer money? And what about the part where Trump bragged that private donations would cover any gap?
The whole thing was shady from the jump, with a private company, Event Strategies, run by former Trump campaign aides, getting a sweet profit to organize the terrible events rather than having government personnel do it. Indeed, the Trump administration has been very good to Event Strategies, which also handled the logistics of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally and has received $13 million in sweet no-bid contracts since Trump retook office.
But according to the administration, they just had to spend so much money on security for all of these big special events.
[…]
let’s face it: it isn’t that the millions were spent on these events. […] The biggest star who performed at the Freedom 250 rally was FBI Director Kash Patel’s fake country singer girlfriend […] Well, we actually did probably have to pay to fly her there on the official FBI jet, along with her official SWAT team, because that’s a thing we have now: SWAT teams for the FBI director’s girlfriend, on your dime. The Great American State Fair certainly couldn’t have cost that much, given that it was mostly just booths that states were required to pay to furnish
[…]
It’s just money for Trump, as always.
The Senate education committee approved legislation to stop four of the Trump administration’s deals to downsize the Education Department.
In a 13-9 vote, the Senate HELP Committee advanced S. 5046, a bipartisan bill from Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would prohibit the Education Department from transferring special education and several other major education offices to other federal agencies.
Thursday’s Senate markup represents a major legislative effort to block President Donald Trump from dismantling the education agency without the approval of Congress.
[…] The Trump administration has initiated agreements with other federal departments to manage education programs in the absence of congressional approval to shut the agency down. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has called these deals “proofs of concept” to show lawmakers how other federal departments can handle education responsibilities.
[…] Congress approved nonbinding language in its most recent spending bill saying the education agency has no authority to transfer its functions to other agencies. But this latest bill goes further because it would stop the agency from transferring the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services as well as functions of the offices of Elementary and Secondary Education, Postsecondary Education and Indian Education from being moved to other federal agencies. These offices are responsible for overseeing key federal education programs and billions of dollars in federal funding, including Title I funds that support low-income schools, federal TRIO programs that help disadvantaged students prepare for college and tribal education programs. [Good news]
[…] But the bill wouldn’t completely stifle all of the department’s interagency agreements. The legislation doesn’t target agreements to shift career and technical education programs to the Labor Department, federal student loan functions to the Treasury Department or civil rights enforcement to the Justice Department, for instance, despite Democrats wanting to stop those deals too. [Bad news]
McMahon, the heads of Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior, State and Treasury, and the acting attorney general — who are all managing federal education programs under deals with the education agency — sent a letter to congressional leadership Thursday detailing how the agreements are “breaking up the failed federal education bureaucracy.” [Propaganda and bullshit from the Trump administration.]
The bill’s future in the Senate is unclear [important caveat], but Kaine told POLITICO that he hopes the bill “factors into appropriations discussions.” The bill would conflict with legislative efforts in the House, where the Education and Workforce Committee voted last month to permanently move a trove of education programs to other agencies.
[…] On Thursday, Trump went off on a pair of GOP senators, attacking them for refusing to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general unless Trump gives up his corrupt “settlement” with the Internal Revenue Service that would shield him and his family from any audits or prosecutions.
“Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it! He has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “However, John Cornyn, of Texas, and Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, both of whom I refused to Endorse, and whose political careers have been ended by my action, are refusing to vote for this Great Nominee, who will remain, in any event, as Acting.”
He then threatened to temporarily withdraw Blanche’s nomination until the end of their terms.
“Remember, both Cornyn and Tillis voted for Merrick Garland, and others, too numerous to mention. I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office,” he added.
The fact that Trump is so willing to give up on Blanche’s confirmation rather than agree to drop his settlement with the IRS shows just how nervous he is of being prosecuted for his and his family’s corruption. [Yes, I think that is the correct conclusion.]
The settlement is, in essence, a preemptive pardon for himself and for “related or affiliated individuals (including, without limitation, family or others filing jointly), or parties including trusts, parent, sister, or related companies, affiliates, and subsidiaries.” [Yikes.]
The utterly corrupt deal that Blanche helped Trump orchestrate with the IRS is so bad that even GOP senators are balking at it […]
[…] Cornyn did fire back at Trump for suggesting that he and Tillis are the only senators who are uncomfortable with the corrupt IRS settlement.
“POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis,” Cornyn responded to Trump’s Truth Social post.
birgerjohanssonsays
At the 33 minute mark is an interview with neurologist Hilary Shae about Trump’s odd glitches, coordination and speech problems.
A Russian ballistic missile and drone barrage across Ukraine overnight killed at least eight civilians, including children, and injured more than 50 others, officials said Thursday, and NATO scrambled its warplanes after one of the missiles crossed into Poland.
NBC News:
NATO said a Russian missile entered Polish airspace during the onslaught and landed in a rural area. It caused no injuries or damage but could deepen tensions between the military alliance and Moscow, as wary European countries fear the 4-year-old war could spill into their territory.
Long-term government borrowing costs shot higher on Wednesday, in a sign that investors doubt whether Kevin Warsh, the new chairman of the Federal Reserve, will keep inflation contained. The 30-year Treasury yield, an indicator of what it would cost the federal government to borrow money for three decades, rose 0.11 percentage points to 5.22 percent on Wednesday, its largest one-day increase in more than a year, and its highest level since 2007.
A fifth federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s bid to subject millions of immigrants — most of whom have lived in the U.S. for years without criminal records — to mandatory detention without bond. The ruling by the California-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the most significant rejection yet of the Trump administration’s unprecedented mass detention policy.
The “fifth” appeal from the Trump administration has failed!
Mortgage rates jumped to their highest level in a year, dealing another blow to a long-stalled housing market that shows little sign of recovering. The 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.66% this week, up from 6.58% the week prior, according to Freddie Mac. That marked the fourth consecutive week of rising rates.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy demanded ‘transparency’ from the Department of Education Wednesday regarding the disputed results of a national civics contest for high school students. … The Connecticut senator wrote on behalf of Aangad Singh, the 15-year-old Connecticut boy who competed, and his family, who are seeking to understand why Singh did not advance to the finals.
birgerjohanssonsays
At the 16 minute mark there is the story of the Catholic prayer app that has vulnerabilities that allow hackers access to the details of all 700 000 users.
In a scathingly-written regulatory filing posted on the Federal Communications Commission’s website on Thursday, ABC’s lawyers tore into Trump administration FCC head Brendan Carr for “attempted censorship” and accused Carr of helping President Trump in his retribution campaign against media that criticizes him.
“The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” the network’s lawyers wrote in its latest response to Carr’s efforts to conduct an early and unprecedented review of the broadcaster’s TV broadcasting licenses for eight of its stations.
As I’ve documented rather closely in Where Things Stand over the past year, Carr has emerged as one of the most successful sycophants of Trump II when it comes to carrying out Trump’s revenge on his perceived enemies — in Carr’s case, the media, the OG adversary of Trump’s political career in Trump’s eyes. Carr has threatened broadcasters relentlessly throughout his time as chair and the downstream effects have been crushing for some of late night’s top comedians, for daytime talk shows like “The View” and, now, could ultimately spell disaster for ABC’s affiliate news stations in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham and Fresno.
After Trump launched a war no one asked for in Iran earlier this year, Carr began threatening to conduct early broadcast license renewals for the nation’s top broadcasters’ local TV stations. It’s an unprecedented move that Carr claims was birthed out of an FCC investigation into the Disney’s — which owns ABC — hiring practices, even though he essentially admitted in a post on X that the threat was related to how stations were covering Trump’s war in Iran. [!]
“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote in March, alongside a screenshot of a Trump Truth Social Post criticizing media coverage of his war with Iran. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.” [Air Trump’s propaganda, and only Trump’s propaganda … that’s the message.]
Pro-Trump groups have asked the FCC to deny license renewals for eight Disney-owned TV stations and Trump himself has called for ABC and NBC to lose their licenses because they did not air his conspiracy theory-laced speech about election fraud earlier this month. [Scoff at Trump]
[…] In the new filing ABC entered into the record 140,000 comments that have been “received from the Stations’ local communities— from individual viewers to local police and firefighters, charities, businesses, and schools—and over 95% support the Stations. These supporters span the ideological spectrum but share a fundamental commitment to free speech and press freedom.” They went on to ask the FCC to dismiss the petitions from the pro-Trump groups calling the license renewal into question. [Good move.]
Unable to fix any of America’s problems, President Donald Trump tossed some racism and jingoism into a pot of gasoline in order to create a worthless initiative the administration is calling the “Freedom Haulers.”
“Any American who has driven a heavy truck for our military will automatically be eligible for a commercial driver’s license, and it’s good-paying jobs, too. Any veteran with a heavy-vehicle experience from the military will now be eligible to skip redundant road tests to obtain a commercial driver’s licenses,” Trump explained.
He added that veterans with zero experience in commercial hauling would receive “three or four weeks of training” before being let loose on U.S. highways. [video]
[Trump also wanted to remind you] that he’s racist, claiming that fleets of undocumented long-haul truckers were causing a plague of deadly crashes across the country.
“They don’t speak the language for the most part,” Trump said. “They don’t want to learn the language. They don’t care about the language, and they don’t speak it. They don’t speak English. They cannot read basic road signs. In many cases, they’ve engaged in reckless driving that has caused many, many preventable deaths, many, too many to even talk about.” [Lies, wild exaggerations, racism, and anti-immigration nonsense all mixed together in a toxic stew. Trump’s mind is an ugly place.]
If you were worried that inexperienced long-haul truckers might pose a safety risk, Trump’s tech-bro allies and many of his largest donors are simultaneously investing in efforts to replace truck drivers altogether by developing what writer Cory Doctorow has perfectly described as “a shitty, failure-prone train” of self-driving trucks.
And even more apropos, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, initially spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk, fired safety experts overseeing regulations on self-driving vehicles! So whether you are on the road with a minimally trained veteran or an underregulated autonomous truck, the billionaire class stands to earn some more money.
“The artificial intelligence company appears likely to prevail in one of two lawsuits against Trump administration.”
A federal judge seems likely to rule that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped their authority when they ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology and designated the artificial intelligence company a national security risk.
California-based U.S. District Judge Rita Lin — who issued a ruling in March to pause the company’s designation as a supply chain risk — said during a hearing Thursday that the administration’s case seems to have “gotten worse.”
“I don’t see additional evidence from the government really justifying what it did,” Lin said.
The legal dispute follows Anthropic’s longrunning clash with the federal government over the company’s position that its technology should not be used for lethal autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance. Trump administration officials have said the company should remove those usage restrictions.
Attorneys for the government have said the supply chain risk determination was due to concern about what they described as “AI model poisoning” — the possibility of Anthropic secretly altering its models after agencies deployed the technology, or implanting some kind of outside control mechanism.
Anthropic has responded that it does not have the ability to modify models post-deployment, and Lin on Thursday said she has not seen any specific “basis to suspect Anthropic would do either of those things.”
The judge added that the Trump administration is effectively arguing that officials have broad powers to label any company that criticizes it as a “subversive” or “enemy of the state,” calling the position “troubling.”
More at the link.
JMsays
@251 Lynna, OM:
The Trump administration may just be dragging this out for distraction value. The reason is simple, there is no formal legal limit on how long Blanche can be acting Attorney General. Unless Congress puts pressure on Trump then Blanche can sit in the office without the formal title for the rest of Trump’s time in office. A Republican Congress won’t put any pressure on Trump and a Democratic one is never going to pass Blanche.
I don’t think Trump or Blanche like the situation but somebody may have convinced Trump to do it to keep other stuff out of the headlines.
US President Donald Trump says the Board of Peace has reached an agreement for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.
A senior Hamas official has told the BBC they have agreed to the Board of Peace’s plan to completely disarm in Gaza and that an official statement will be released soon. Israel has yet to comment.
Trump said Israel would withdraw from Gaza “as disarmament is completed” and called the agreement “a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government”.
…
A wildfire near Area 51, a secretive US Air Force facility in Nevada, has spread rapidly and is only 7% contained, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The fire, known as the Quail Springs Fire, was caused by lightning and has been raging for nearly a week. It now covers more than 13,500 acres (54.6 sq km)…
They should some of that captured secret alien technology to control the fire.
The 80-year-old president has allegedly been clashing with his allies and aides as they attempt to plot their next move in the conflict, which has now reached the five-month mark. Trump had initially said that he expected US military action in Iran, which began on February 28, to last a matter of weeks.
“The president is exasperated. I don’t think he believed it was going to be this difficult to get the Iranians to agree to a deal,” an ally of the president told NBC News.
Iran was ready to agree to a deal, it just wasn’t ready to agree to what Trump wanted or to something sounding like surrender. Trump doesn’t understand how to deal with the situation and is upset that none of his advisors have a simple easy plan that will only take a week or so.
There is a comparison to the Russian/Ukraine war. The comparison doesn’t work at the ground/sea level but at the high level strategic one it’s strong. The superior force walking into an inferior one that wouldn’t give up and not having a strategy to deal with it.
“There was not a real strategy for how long or what they should do to get to the endpoint… He did not intend this to be a long, drawn-out war,” they added. A US official who also spoke to the outlet on the condition of anonymity claimed that Trump is growing increasingly frustrated over a lack of agreement about how to proceed with the war.
“After all this time, there is no unity,” the official said. “We have had a series of tactical victories but are facing a strategic defeat without clear policy guidance or a decision about where this is going.”
This was always going to be the problem with this war, something US military planners have understood for decades. The US would win the air war and be able to hit targets in Iran pretty freely. Iran was ready for this, ready to close the Strait of Hormuz, was ready to take easy shots where it could and was ready to hunker down for a long war. They didn’t want to do this, it would be very hard on Iran, but they had a strategy to win.
“Mushrooms seem to be having a moment.” Author Jeff VandeMeer’s 2023 comment wasn’t culinary, but cultural, writes Boston University’s Aaron Worth in the introduction to his latest good-read-for-Halloween, Spores of Doom (British Library, 2025). From numerous novels to HBO’s hit series The Last of Us, “sporror”—horror stories where people are absorbed or otherwise menaced by fungi—have, um, mushroomed in the last decade, says Worth, a College of General Studies associate professor of rhetoric.
The 13 “dank tales of the fungal weird,” as his subtitle describes the collection, demonstrate that writers have long nurtured a fascination with mushrooms. The stories date back as early as 1839 and boast such famous authors as Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, and H.P. Lovecraft, as well as Worth, whose story “The Mykophagoi” concludes the anthology…
On Wednesday, ICE launched four aircraft nearly simultaneously that may have carried migrants to countries where they had no ties, known as “third-country removals.” […] this many in one day is unprecedented. Additionally, the unusual routing of several flights, including a failed deportation to Brazil, suggests ICE is increasingly desperate to find willing airline partners. And at least two prolonged removal trips kept migrants onboard shackled for more than 24 hours, a painful and dangerous practice experts say amounts to torture.
Altogether, there were at least 288 ICE flights and 38 removals between Sunday, July 26, and Wednesday, July 29 […] Below is a breakdown of the unusual flights.
Gillian Brockell: “The imminent flight that I mentioned at the end of this story has taken off. Sounds like it’s going to go Senegal – Ghana – Central African Republic, with the latter two being third-country removals. At least one of the immigrants being sent to CAR is from Nepal. [Screenshot]”
beholdersays
@234, 235, 236 Sky Captain
It’s an interesting Unicode mechanism, though I think it’s mostly used for innocuous reasons. Professional publishers like to insert zero-width characters and non-breaking spaces for telling a rendering system where to break a word across two lines, as often happens when reading an article or an e-book.
It could also be used to watermark a text, although it can be sanitized almost as easily by rendering the text and scanning it with OCR to get rid of all the invisible code points. Or, like you were saying, sanitize the input by deleting the known Unicode special characters. About the only methods for adversarial watermarking you have left are deliberate misspellings, odd turns of phrase, excessive use of emoticon characters, or my personal favorite: flooding the input field with nonsense to get the LLM out of anything remotely resembling its training data so you can put a little prompt injection at the end.
StevoRsays
Breaking news : Hamas has apparently agreed to disarm in Gaza. If so, there goes israel’s biggest excuse for the genocidal shit it has been doing :
US President Donald Trump says a deal has been reached with Hamas for the Palestinian militant group to disarm in exchange for Israeli withdrawal of forces from Gaza.
A senior Hamas official told news agency AFP: “An agreement has been reached”, however, Israel is yet to respond.
Hamas disarmed and leaving power handing over to Trump’s Bored of Peace?
Does that actually end the war and thus the overlap[ping genocide there?
IF this announcement is realand what is actually now going to happen..
Is there much left of Hamas in Gaza especially by now anyhow – a shit tonne of new recruits with a heightened fury at what Israel has done to them aside?
Of course the Palestinians are NOT going away and perhaps there’s just going to be a shift of names and tactics? SA new hopefully less violent phase? Hmm..
StevoRsays
@ ^ AJ coverage of this here :
The Gaza Board of Peace says Hamas has agreed to a roadmap that would see it disarm in phases that would be matched by Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
A member of the Hamas delegation has told Al Jazeera that implementation would be conditioned on Israel implementing its part of the deal.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday announced an agreement for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas, calling it a critical step toward a new Palestinian government in Gaza.
“Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said the deal would be carried out in phases, with Israeli forces withdrawing as disarmament proceeds and an International Stabilisation Force working with a new Palestinian police force to secure the enclave.
“As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza,” he said.
Neither Hamas nor Israel immediately confirmed the deal, according to the Washington Post.
From the New York Times:
The Board of Peace said on Thursday that Hamas had agreed to a “detailed road map” on disarmament of its forces and Israeli withdrawal. “For the first time, Hamas officially has committed to an actionable plan for relinquishing all its weapons, which will be followed by Israeli withdrawal from Gaza,” the board said in a statement on social media.
[…] Jonathan Harounoff, who recently stepped down as Israel’s international spokesman at the United Nations, said the complete disarmament of Hamas had been the “primary obstacle” to reconstruction efforts in Gaza, and that Hamas had failed to follow commitments before.
Israel has been clear, he added, that “full demilitarization of the Gaza Strip” was a “non-negotiable” precondition for any withdrawal process. Harounoff was not briefed by the Israeli government on President Trump’s social media post announcing the agreement.
It was clear from the call with reporters that Trump administration officials and peace board advisers were going to use the continuing war with Iran as leverage to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel into keeping with the peace plan. The lack of a firm timeline on the disarmament plan may give both parties an opportunity to keep drawing out the process.
Asked about whether the administration was confident that the Israelis would agree to carry out the deal, a senior Trump adviser said in a call with reporters that the president would be “very, very” disappointed if Israel backed out of the proposed plan to achieve lasting peace in Gaza. [Meaningless blather from the Trump administration]
Followup to comments 263, 269, 270, and 271, 272, and 273
NBC News:
[…] Earlier Thursday, Israeli strikes killed at least six Palestinians in Gaza, including two children, medics said.
A Hamas official and a diplomat close to the Cairo talks said the progress would be tested by Israel’s response and whether it allowed a broad accord to be reached.
However, the Israeli official earlier Thursday, who declined to be identified, said Israel had rejected a proposal.
“Israel demands the complete disarmament of Hamas, including the removal of weapons from Gaza and the complete demilitarization of the Strip as a precondition for any process,” the official said.
“The 15-point document in question does not provide a satisfactory response to these demands and Israel conveyed its objections.”
Hamas leaders are holding talks with mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey on the second phase of Trump’s Gaza plan, as presented to them by his Board of Peace, which oversees its implementation.
Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Anna Evstigneeva, told the Security Council on Tuesday that a road map prepared by Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, had so far failed to gain the support of Israel and Hamas, with the demilitarization of Gaza remaining the main stumbling block. […]
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to Lynna @251. Allison Gill (Mueller, She Wrote):
As we feared, Tillis and Cornyn appear to have lost their spines again.
Laura Weiss (PunchbowlNews): Blanche, Tillis & Cornyn just wrapped this meeting and “are very near a resolution,” per source familiar w/ the talks.
UPDATE: No deal yet, but “progress” was made. Whatever the hell that means.
Laura Weiss: Progress was made but no deal at this point, per another source familiar with the meeting.
@ Lynna, OM 272, 273-4 : Fair enough. Yeah, there’s so much uncertainty and so many questions and some pretty big IF’s indeed about this Hamas disarming agreement news.
Elon Musk is reportedly preparing to spend big on the 2026 midterms—while facing new scrutiny over the extremist content he amplifies online. Jamelle Bouie joins to discuss.
“Like backing up a Brinks truck to Fort Knox and then driving it straight to Mar-a-Lago,” says Chris Hayes on the $1.776B payout fund that’s imperiling Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche for AG. “He won’t let it go because he’s so close to carrying the heist out.”
Three parents sued on Thursday to force Texas to block and remove posters with the Ten Commandments from public school classrooms, arguing that state laws on religious freedom and parental rights conflict with the new state-mandated displays.
The lawsuit, filed in state court in Harris County, seeks a court order to remove the displays and prohibit their posting before students return. The school year begins in early- to mid-August for many Texas districts.
The posters have already survived legal challenges in federal court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said in April that the state law requiring their display, passed last year, did not violate the U.S. Constitution. The ruling also paved the way for Louisiana to require similar displays.
The suit filed on Thursday is trying a different approach.
Instead of making an argument about the separation of church and state, the plaintiffs are relying on a Texas law, passed in 1999 and signed by Gov. George W. Bush, that protects religious practice.
The law, known as the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, has been invoked in many previous Texas cases, often by religious groups or people arguing that some action by the state government interferes with their religious practice.
Posting the commandments in classrooms “substantially interferes with plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion, religious development, and rights to raise their children free of State-sponsored religion,” the suit says.
The suit also invokes a state constitutional amendment, passed by the Republican-dominated legislature and adopted by voters last year, that guarantees parents the right to direct their children’s upbringing…
New York state sued prediction market platform Kalshi on Friday, alleging that the company is running an “illegal gambling operation.”
In a case filed in a Manhattan state court, the lawsuit claims that Kalshi accepts wagers as a gambling business in disregard for the state’s constitution and laws by not being registered with the New York State Gaming Commission.
“No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “By ignoring our laws, Kalshi is running an illegal operation and harming New Yorkers in the process.”…
[…] Trump hates immigration, period. Though ICE thugs run the administration playbook of terror against ostensibly undocumented immigrants, there’s really a whole-of-government approach going on now designed to make it nearly impossible to come here legally, unless you are a racist white Afrikaner.
And if people from other countries somehow do manage to come here legally, Trump and his minions are going to make it impossible for them to stay.
The Wall Street Journal has reporting on the latest shameful idea that the administration is tossing around, which is charging a $100,000 fee to international students who want to work here after graduating from a university.
Currently, we have a good and cool and functional program called Optional Practical Training where international students can stay and work for one to three years on their student visa. At last count, about 419,000 people were doing this. But this proposal would slap a fee on that program that is deliberately designed to make it impossible for nearly any international student to stay and work here after graduation.
As the Journal points out, this is essentially trying to accomplish what Trump was blocked from doing with his $100,000 H-1B visa fee, which a federal court struck down last month. That proposal would have functionally barred the door for most overseas tech workers, researchers, and other skilled workers despite those folks often being specifically recruited by stateside employers.
But every time a court tells this administration something is illegal, they just regroup and figure out a new vector to attack. It’s honestly literally the only thing they are good at and can maintain continuous focus on.
This proposed $100,000 fee would also, of course, serve to deter international students from coming here to study in the first place if their plan was to stay in the country and pursue a career.
The idea that international students who stay here and work are engaging in some sort of scam and that it is a flaw in the immigration system is ridiculous. We literally have laws that let them do this, but Trump doesn’t like it. International students aren’t abusing or exploiting some process simply by having student visas or legally working here after graduation.
The administration has also just finalized a rule that arbitrarily limits how long international students may stay for their course of study. This is designed to cut them off from being able to finish post-graduate programs like doctorates and residencies.
Closing the door to international students is dead stupid, as students from other countries are an economic boon, adding $40 billion a year to the U.S. economy. They also tend to pay full freight for higher education, which functionally subsidizes scholarship aid for American students.
Of course, Trump doesn’t really want most American students to see college as attainable. He’s strangling the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. He’s capped student loans at a rate that will make it impossible for lots of people to get post-graduate degrees, especially in medicine and law, which is, again, the whole point. He’s killed every effort at student loan reform or forgiveness, leading to neat things like a record 9.5 million people being in default as of March of this year. [!]
It isn’t clear who Trump thinks deserves to attend college. His kids? His friends’ kids? Wannabe big tech CEOS? But it isn’t you, and it isn’t anyone you know. For the rest of us, he wants an uneducated wasteland.
[…] Marco Rubio’s State Department marched its too-big Florsheims down to Brazil for an AIDS conference, which is weird because Elon Musk’s woodchippering of USAID and the rest of the Trump regime’s cuts to AIDS funding, not to mention its obsession with forcing any remaining recipients to comply with Trump’s bigoted, inbred anti-DEI rules, is likely already killing people with AIDS all over the world.
(To be fair, the Guardian notes that PEPFAR’s main work has “largely resumed” after initial Trump pauses, but this brand new study says PEPFAR disruptions “hobbled global HIV care.” […] For fairness’s sake, perhaps we should simply say the Trump regime is Making AIDS Great Again. Here’s more about how Trump and Elon Musk and Marco Rubio are Making AIDS Great Again, especially for kids.) [Embedded links are available at the main link.]
In the course of their presentation, the US used this map, which was obtained by Reuters […]): [Photo, same photo PZ posted]
What’s awesome about that map is that Africa is on it, which is good, because they were intending to talk about Africa.
And the correct answers ended there.
One incredible thing about that map is that the countries it purports to list are not even shaped like that (we know, we are looking at Google Maps as we write this, because we are a JOURNALISM SCIENTIST), nor are the countries that are actually in those spots shaped like that.
That’s right. They’re all shaped wrong, and they’re also wrong in all the other ways of geographical wrongness.
Is that Nigeria? Noooooo, the country right there isn’t shaped like that, but it’s called Niger. […]
Where is Nigeria? Directly south of that.
Is that Mozambique? Nooooooo, the country right there isn’t shaped like that, but it is sort of where Ethiopia is, maybe a little bit of South Sudan.
Where is Mozambique? Waaaaay down south, same coast, facing Madagascar.
Is that Uganda? Noooooooo, but that’s probably the closest. It’s not shaped like that, but it’s approximately there.
Is that Côte D’Ivoire? We dunno, dumbass, what the fuck does “Côte” mean? Does it mean “inland country that’s not shaped like that next to where we should have fucking put Mozambique on this goddamned map”?
Where is Côte D’Ivoire? Right about where they put “Cameroon,” but that’s the one where the pointer line gets lost and goes nowhere, so who the fuck knows.
Cameroon is just east of and heading down and around the coast from Nigeria. The real one, not the Little Marco State Department Nigeria.
Which brings us to Malawi. Is that Malawi? Noooooooo, the country/ies there aren’t shaped like that, but that appears to be a bit of Botswana, a bit of Zimbabwe. […]
And this is what happens when you use Open AI to make your map for the conference about all the non-white people you’re leaving alone with their AIDS.
It’s also what happens when your State Department has been hollowed out of all experts, all diplomats, all geography geeks who do nothing but stare at maps all day, and replace them with incel Nazi buffoons and racist human garbage. […]
But this is the Trump administration, where the racism is only matched by stupidity […]
The State Department says it’s sorry, “We take full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners,” it was an underling who did it, oh boy, how embarrassing. [video]
Fuck them, apology not accepted, go to prison and take a fucking globe with you, you absolute morons.
StevoRsays
DW News :
Ceuta says it cannot cope after estimated 60,000 people entered the city, at least 34 died in the attempt
Spain’s Pedro Sanchez visits Ceuta, blames the influx on people smugglers manipulating a recent Supreme Court ruling
Spain’s military sends personnel to assist Guardia Civil border police
France and Italy say they will temporarily tighten border controls at their frontiers to Spain
Germany’s Merz calls on Morocco to take back the irregular migrants ‘without delay’
Sixty thousand peopel have swum into Cueta apparently according toTV news c35 SBS Worldwatch DW news just seen on telly.
Just wait tiltl the impacts of Global Overheating really start hitting..
Unless bloody good reaosn to do otherwise, give people – refugees included – a fair chance I say.
StevoRsays
Sixty thousand people.
Emphasis on word “people” and evey single one an individual just like me and you and everyone else human. There but for luck of birth and circumstances go we.
A potentially deadly virus spread by ticks seems to have established a foothold in New York, recent research shows.
Scientists at Stony Brook University and others studied the blood of New York residents with suspected tickborne illness. They identified at least one confirmed case of the Bourbon virus in a Long Island man, who ended up hospitalized but survived his ordeal. Though human cases of Bourbon virus are rarely reported, it’s probably happening more often than assumed, the researchers say.
“There are a lot of lone star ticks in New York and in the Northeast, we have dense populations, and when someone is infected with Bourbon virus symptoms they are similar to other tick-born infections,” said lead researcher Luis Marcos, director of the Tickborne Disease Clinic at Stony Brook, in a statement from the university. “For these reasons, the Bourbon virus is likely more prevalent than we think in our region and other cases are likely not being diagnosed.”
The Bourbon virus is named after Bourbon County, Kansas, where it was first discovered in a human patient in 2014 (the patient ultimately died 11 days after becoming sick). Symptoms of infection include fever, fatigue, and body aches, as well as nausea and vomiting; people can also develop low platelet and white blood cell levels. Its primary vector is the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum). There are no specific treatments or vaccines for Bourbon…
Not as enjoyable as its name might lead you to think.
… The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled the Fantastic Four drinking cups and Captain America popcorn helmet because they contain button-cell batteries that can be easily accessed by kids, according to a recall notice posted online.
The Fantastic Four cups were sold at AMC movie theaters across the country in March and April 2025 for about $15. The Captain America popcorn buckets were sold at a much wider variety of theater chains from February until August 2025 for roughly $30. While the products were sold last year, the recall was just issued for the first time this week.
The products were manufactured in China and imported by Golden Link of Middletown, New York. They also fail to have a warning about how kids can ingest batteries, which became law in 2023…
The U.S. may be enjoying a quiet Atlantic hurricane season thanks to a growing “super” El Niño, but don’t let that fool you. This climatic phenomenon is supercharging storm activity over the Pacific Ocean—so much so that Earth is on track for a record-breaking year of Category 5 hurricanes.
Super typhoon Dolphin is the fifth Cat 5 tropical cyclone of 2026, putting this year ahead of the pace set in 1997, which currently holds the all-time global record for the most Cat 5 storms in a single year. A very strong El Niño encouraged the development of 12 Cat 5s that year, 10 in the Northwest Pacific and two in the Northeast Pacific.
…
The Cat 5 storms that preceded Dolphin and Genevieve were Tropical Cyclone Horacio on February 23, Super Typhoon Sinlaku on April 12, and Super Typhoon Bavi on July 5, all of which formed over the Pacific…
“Migrants overrun a Spanish outpost, stirring European outrage”
“Widely circulated video showed thousands of Moroccans storming a Spanish outpost in North Africa. The White House condemned Spain as weak on immigration.”
The sudden arrival of a massive group of migrants at a Spanish exclave in North Africa triggered a fresh wave of political attacks against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on both sides of the Atlantic, as voices from the right in Spain, Germany, Italy and France, with the White House joining in, lashed out against Europe’s leading liberal in office.
Spanish officials said nearly 50,000 migrants [I have seen reports that gave the number as 30,000] rushed the Spanish territory over the past 24 hours, swimming or climbing over fences into the small outpost with a population of 83,000, 11 miles from the Spanish mainland and accessible via an hour-long ferry. At least 41 people died in the mad dash to Ceuta, Spanish authorities said. [map]
[…] Spain responded, ordering a military deployment on Thursday to restore order. On Friday, Spain reinforced security and border fences, with Morocco deploying water cannons to push migrants back.
[…] Before a more gradual uptick in recent days, only 2,698 migrants had arrived in Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish exclave, via land during the first six months of the year, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.
It raised speculation of a repeat of 2021, when tensions between Spain and Morocco led to the Moroccans dropping border controls, allowing 8,000 migrants into Ceuta in two days.
[…] Sánchez publicly blamed human traffickers responding to a recent Supreme Court decision that migrants arriving by sea to Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily returned without due process.
[…] He decried the rush of migrants as a “violation” of Spanish territory, saying some of them were already returning voluntarily and more would be repatriated. [photos]
In the United States, a spectrum of right-wing voices from MAGA influencers to the White House latched on to the viral images.
“President [Donald] Trump has long warned Europe what would happen if they continue to implement far-left, globalist policies, including enabling mass migration,” deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly told Fox News. “Spain and other countries who have adopted this destructive philosophy should immediately reverse course or risk their own demise.” [predictable]
[…] Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff who helped shape Trump’s anti-migration crackdown, shared a video of migrants rushing Ceuta by sea and land, claiming Democrats would “rejoice” over the images of “your home trampled and stolen by invaders.” [Miller usually comes up with the most egregious comments when it comes to immigrants/migrants.]
[…] The surge came as the region is already moving to impose tougher rules on irregular migrants, with more generous Spain largely viewed as a liberal outlier.
[…] The strongest response came from a host of anti-immigrant parties across Europe, who sought to capitalize on Sánchez’s woes and portray Spain — which is moving forward with a plan to legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants — as a liability and magnet for irregular migration.
[…] Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called for the suspension of Spain from the Schengen agreement that allows free movement between 29 European countries — an agreement already under stress as several countries have reintroduced border checks. The government of Finland joined Italy in calling for Spain to be excluded from the agreement.
[…] “This message from the foreign minister of a friendly country and partner from whom we expect European solidarity rather than party-political demagoguery is unworthy,” responded Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares. [I agree.]
[…] “Borders must now be closed and rejections rigorously enforced. 2015 must not repeat itself!” Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party, declared on X, referring to the rush of refugees into Europe primarily fueled by the Syrian civil war.
Sánchez has emerged as a symbol of Europe’s left, challenging Trump and criticizing the war in Iran, while also turning Spain into a counterpoint in the migrant debate by rolling out a broad legalization plan and adopting a more accepting tone, particularly regarding migrants arriving from Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America.
Sánchez pushed back on X, saying “the Government of Spain is fully committed to providing an immediate response to the situation in Ceuta” and saying, “this is the moment to build solutions, with responsibility and cooperation.” [Sounds reasonable.]
“The images coming from Ceuta are striking and demonstrate, once again, that uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a concrete threat to the security of Europe’s borders,” Meloni wrote on X. […]
Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party, sought to pin the blame on Sánchez’s “massive regularization,” while portraying the surge as an “invasion.”
In his comments from Ceuta, Sánchez largely sidestepped the regularization effort, focusing instead on his government’s steps to curb irregular migration.
[…] For these new sweeping tariffs [from the Trump administration], the rationale — discovered suddenly in the last few months — is alleged forced labor. The administration has declared that countries ranging from Cambodia and China to Norway, Japan and Australia have failed to keep products made with forced labor out of their markets, and that this failure burdens American commerce. The charge is so obviously spurious and sweeping (Sweden is as bad as Cambodia?) that it gives away the game. It was almost certainly devised because the White House needed a legal pretext to subvert the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling against Trump.
This is more than ordinary political spin. The president appears to be ordering the United States government to formally certify as fact something it knows is not true.
Agencies must publish findings, construct legal arguments and affix the authority of the American state to a falsehood manufactured for the apparent purpose of evading the nation’s highest court. That is how institutions are corrupted: first they are asked to bend the truth, then to attest to the lie. And then the lies become routine, so no one thinks they are unusual. It is the road to Orwell’s world.
Incidentally, Walk Free, the human rights group that compiles the Global Slavery Index, estimates that America imports $169.6 billion worth of goods annually that are at risk of being made with forced labor — by far the highest total among the Group of 20. That does not prove American enforcement is worse than that of every country Trump has targeted. But it makes the administration’s moral posture look even more absurd than it already is.
The economic case against tariffs is stronger by the day as the numbers roll in. Spending on manufacturing construction, which surged under Joe Biden and peaked at about $250 billion at an annual rate in September 2024, fell to about $175 billion by May of this year. Manufacturing employment is down roughly 75,000 jobs since Trump returned to office. Factory output has risen, but the gains are concentrated in advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence, much of it reflecting investments planned before Trump took office, and little related to tariffs.
Consider Greg Fraley, whom the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote about a few months ago. He helps run FALCO, a small Arizona company that makes aluminum parts for commercial aircraft. This is precisely the kind of business Trump says he wants to help: an American factory employing American workers.
FALCO’s aluminum costs are up 72 percent. The company cannot simply buy American metal; domestic production meets only about half of U.S. demand, according to the Chamber of Commerce, and much of that output is not available on the open market. So FALCO keeps importing aluminum, pays the tariff and absorbs the damage. It has frozen hiring, postponed expansion, allowed its workforce to shrink by at least 20 percent through attrition, dipped into cash reserves and added a “tariff surcharge” to customer bills, according to Fraley.
Meanwhile, even after the so-called Liberation Day fallout, Trump doubled the tariff on imported aluminum to 50 percent and recently offered producers a discount if they built smelters in the U.S. Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest aluminum producers, immediately said no. So the tariff has achieved a trifecta: higher costs for an American manufacturer, fewer jobs and less investment there, and no new smelter from the foreign producer it was meant to entice.
The logic is upside down. Aluminum smelting accounts for only a small fraction of American aluminum jobs. The vast majority are in recycling and in the midstream and downstream industries that turn the metal into aircraft parts, cars, cans, machinery and building materials. Trump is protecting the tiny upstream slice by taxing the much larger industrial base that depends on it and employs many more people.
For eight decades, the U.S. led the world toward open markets and open trade. In barely two years, Trump has transformed it into effectively the most protectionist major advanced economy. The result has not been a manufacturing renaissance. It has been higher prices, weaker investment, fewer manufacturing jobs — and a government increasingly willing to make falsehood official policy in order to defend a failed economic creed.
Somewhere in the Universe, an alien culture may have developed the technology to build giant megastructures around stars, harnessing their energy on an unimaginable scale.
First proposed in 1960 by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, the Dyson sphere has become one of the most enduring symbols of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
This is because such structures should change starlight in ways we can detect from Earth – telltale technosignatures that could finally reveal an advanced alien civilization.
Now, astronomers have used the JWST’s golden infrared eye to put two of the strongest Dyson sphere candidates to the test.
“Waste heat. That is the whole game,” astrophysicist Olivia Curtis of Pennsylvania State University, co-author of a preprint describing the analysis, told ScienceAlert.
“A civilization can hide its star behind a shell of solar collectors, but thermodynamics always collects its tax, and all that captured starlight has to come back out as a warm mid-infrared glow.”
That excess is exactly what Project Hephaistos, led by astrophysicist Erik Zackrisson of Uppsala University in Sweden, set out to find. Even false positives could teach us how to better search for alien tech – by revealing the many ways the Universe can mimic it.
The search sifted through roughly five million Milky Way stars looking for exactly this kind of infrared excess – more mid-infrared light than an ordinary star should produce.
Seven stars survived the team’s increasingly stringent tests, with the two studied here emerging as the search’s most compelling candidates.
JWST quickly exposed the two candidates as Dyson sphere impostors – and the explanation was brilliantly simple. The light from both stars was being boosted by a distant galaxy almost perfectly lined up behind them…
One person ina group of 6. Ina group of 60. In a group of 600. In agroup of 6,000. In a group of 60, 000. In agroup of 6million. Ina group of 6 million.
Is still one individual person.
That person? Could be you, me, anyone, everyone else. Stil individual. Still human. Judge based on their words and deeds and give them a chance unless fucking good reason not to do so.
Dunno if this needs saying esp here but is truth.
StevoRsays
Modernised from one of Shakespeare’s best yet least known speeches The Strangers’ Case This version be 9 mins long.
Rob Grigjanissays
The great AC Milan and Italy defender Franco Baresi has died, aged 66.
“When the defense secretary said the conflict was ‘actually quite contained,’ it was bizarre. Now it’s worse.
Related video at the link.
Roughly a week into the U.S. war with Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a press briefing and took a moment to push back against reporting he disagreed with. The beleaguered Pentagon chief specifically said he’d seen coverage that suggested the war in Iran “might be expanding” beyond Iranian borders.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.
A week later, the former Fox News host tried to re-emphasize the same argument, telling reporters, “It’s worth underscoring, I see in the media banners that say ‘war expanding’ or ‘war spreading.’ It’s actually the opposite. It’s actually quite contained.”
Even at the time, the rhetoric was difficult to take seriously. On the first day of the military offensive, the conflict involved three countries: The United States, Israel and Iran. By the sixth day of the war, The Washington Post noted that the violence had “touched 12 countries across the Middle East.”
[…] The New York Times reported:
A resurgence of fighting in the war with Iran is expanding the scope of the conflict across the Middle East and further threatening shipments of oil and other products crucial to the global economy.
With little sign of peace talks resuming, a series of attacks, including two consecutive nights of strikes between Iran and the United States, ended a short period of relative calm — and entangled a growing list of U.S. allies in the conflict.
Jordan and Saudi Arabia, for example, have been targeted and are moving forward with plans to create a military coalition. Egypt this week was also affected for the first time, with a drone strike hitting an Egyptian port.
This dovetailed with U.S. and Saudi forces conducting joint strikes on Iranian proxy forces in Iraq, which both expanded the geographic footprint of the conflict and marked Riyadh’s first direct military entry into the war.
Unfortunately, we can keep going. This past weekend, Ukraine struck an Iranian commercial cargo ship in the Caspian Sea, sparking plans for a retaliatory attack that was called off after a flurry of diplomacy.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported this week that Iran is in the process of rebuilding its defenses with missile launchers that Tehran recently purchased from China, despite Donald Trump’s insistence that Beijing is “not participating” in the conflict.
Asked on Wednesday about that reporting, the American president — who has limitless access to one of the planet’s most sophisticated intelligence operations — told reporters, “Well, that would be surprising.” […]
Whether Hegseth continues to believe the conflict is “actually quite contained” and remains annoyed by headlines about an “expanding” and “spreading” conflict is unclear.
The NYT has some real talk that ratifies yesterday’s Morning Memo on how Sen. Cornyn is actually seeking to entrench — not eliminate — the immunity President Trump got in his “settlement” with the IRS:
The red line that Mr. Cornyn has drawn is fairly thin. He and Mr. Tillis are not seeking to kill the deal that Mr. Blanche negotiated with Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, which gave the president, his family and his businesses broad immunity, potentially saving them at least $100 million in penalties and drawing accusations from Democrats of self-dealing. They are merely demanding modifications — in writing. […]
Mr. Cornyn’s request is fairly modest. He wants the Justice Department to guarantee what Mr. Blanche said under oath at his confirmation hearing: that the I.R.S. immunity would apply only to Mr. Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organization, and that it would be limited only to audits of past tax returns.
“All we’re doing is asking them to put that in writing,” Mr. Cornyn said.
It’s telling, I suppose, that the White House refuses to make even this minor accommodation and instead attacks Cornyn.
“The fact that they’re balking at putting that in writing tells me that they were hoping to get by with this settlement agreement and his testimony, and then revitalize those provisions at a later date,” Cornyn told ABC News. “And that’s, I don’t think, good faith negotiations.”
Still, the news coverage of this collective hoodwinking has been abysmal and has allowed Cornyn to strut around like a dragon-slayer while actually giving away $100 million in potential tax liability forgiveness to Trump.
Followup to comments 263, 269, 270, 272, 273, 274, and 277.
[…] The agreement reportedly calls for Hamas to disarm, Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza, a technocratic government to administer the territory, and Trump’s Board of Peace to oversee reconstruction.
But the agreement is nothing but red flags.
The biggest is that Israel isn’t actually a party to the agreement.
That’s kind of important, considering that Israel is the country occupying Gaza. So how exactly is Israel supposed to be bound by its terms? Well, the Trump negotiators came up with a brilliant solution.
“If Israel decides not to withdraw, Trump would be ‘very disappointed,’” an official told the BBC.
Oh no, not the “Trump will be disappointed” card!
[…] Then there’s Trump’s absurd so-called Board of Peace, which many of us assumed had quietly disappeared once Trump seemed to abandon his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Instead, it’s essentially a fake United Nations staffed by Trump loyalists.
Naturally, Trump chairs the board and plans to hold the position for life. It also includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff—the same people who helped botch the Iran negotiations.
Also on the board are former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (for reasons known only to Trump), private equity CEO Mark Rowan (because of course), World Bank President Ajay Banga, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, real estate attorney Martin Edelman, and national security adviser Robert Gabriel.
Twenty-eight countries have supposedly joined—mostly Middle Eastern governments eager to curry favor with Trump, several right-wing Latin American governments, and a surprisingly large contingent from Central Asia.
It’s difficult to imagine what Mongolia will contribute to rebuilding Gaza, but even distant governments apparently see value in staying on Trump’s good side.
This isn’t a genuine international institution; it’s a Trump vanity project that will inevitably suffer from the typical cronyism, corruption, and self-dealing that infects everything Trump touches. It’s already reflected in the composition of the board, which includes absolutely no one from the supposed member countries.
[…] Israel isn’t a party to the agreement, and the Trump administration’s only apparent leverage is the possibility that Trump might be “very disappointed.”
Israel says it won’t withdraw until Hamas is fully disarmed.
Hamas says it won’t disarm until Israel withdraws.
Israel appears so unimpressed with the agreement that it hasn’t even commented on it publicly, and the entire process is supposed to be overseen by a made-up organization effectively controlled by Trump and Jared Kushner.
That isn’t a recipe for lasting peace. It’s just another Trump diplomatic debacle. […]
Spain said on Friday that it had reversed a huge rush of migrants into a Spanish enclave in North Africa, with most of the more than 50,000 people who had crossed the border by land and sea already heading back voluntarily.
The Spanish government’s representative in the enclave of Ceuta said 57 bodies had been recovered on the Spanish side of the border and that there could be additional casualties on the Moroccan side. It said some drowned and some were crushed while trying to climb the breakwater that holds the border fence…
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that a U.S. campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court was intended to defend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others from prosecution, not himself.
Trump made the comment after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a cabinet meeting at Camp David that five countries had announced plans to quit the court since the United States launched a campaign earlier this month against what it says is a threat to U.S. sovereignty.
“There’s no information that they’re after me,” Trump said.
“It could happen, but just so you know … he (Rubio) is not trying to defend me. He’s trying to defend Bibi and various other people,” Trump said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “But there are many people that shouldn’t be looked at that way. But there is no indication that I’m one of them at this moment.”
Rubio responded that the people in biggest danger were U.S. service members, who he said could face prosecution years later over their actions in war…
“Under a new rule, even being under hospice care won’t automatically exempt you from the new Medicaid work requirements.”
Last year, Donald Trump used his Big Beautiful Bill to give a whopping $2.3 trillion tax cut to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans. […]
The one problem with that plan, however was how to pay for said tax cut, while still paying douchebags to kidnap migrants and kill peaceful protesters and funding this war that no one (except maybe one recently deceased fella) really wants. After all, the House did just pass a $1.5 trillion defense bill.
Well, don’t worry your pretty little head about that, because they’ve got some plans in the works. On Thursday, US District Judge Richard Stearns of Massachusetts (a Clinton appointee) denied a request from Democratic attorneys general of 25 states and the District of Columbia to postpone the implementation of a new rule that would require Medicaid patients with terminal diseases to prove that they are too “medically frail” to be able to work 80 hours a month or be cut off entirely.
And don’t you go thinking that being in literal hospice or palliative care is an excuse, or that a note from your doctor counts as “proof” that would automatically allow an exemption from the work requirements. Or that a late-stage cancer or HIV/AIDS diagnosis would provide an automatic exemption. Because they don’t. You can be on your literal deathbed and you will need to convince some random bureaucrats that you really are too sick to work, in order to not get kicked out of it.
Under normal circumstances, when slightly more normal human beings are in charge, being at or below 138 percent of the poverty line and having a terminal diagnosis — meaning you only have around six months left to live — is enough to qualify for Medicaid.
Now, the Trump administration wants to require that these people work, volunteer or go to school for 80 hours a month or fill out an ungodly amount of paperwork to prove that they are “medically frail or otherwise have special medical needs.” They will also need to demonstrate that their condition will “significantly impair” their ability to work. […]
Via Politico:
Democratic attorneys general from 25 states and Washington, D.C. [argued that] the rule is both too strict, in not offering blanket exemptions to people with certain diseases, and too vague, in failing to guide states on how to determine who is too sick to work — and [asked] the judge to block the stricter medical frailty policy.
“This is one of those cases where it’s really hard to overstate how dire the consequences could be,” said North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general, Jeff Jackson, who has joined the lawsuit with other Democratic state officials challenging the policy. “You’re going to have 50 states doing 50 different things, and we’re all going to have to create a whole new bureaucracy. …You are talking about a lot more paperwork, more evaluations, more doctor visits, and a lot more work for doctors themselves.”
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the changes made by the Trump administration to healthcare policy will result in about 12 million people becoming uninsured, about half of whom will be Medicaid recipients who failed to meet the new eligibility requirements or “because of procedural reasons (such as missed paperwork), because of problems with communication, or because of difficulty with navigating reenrollment.”
It’s not especially easy to navigate bureaucracy while also being very, very sick […] [So true!]. Rather than making unpopular cuts to programs, the Trump administration seems to have gone the route of simply requiring that people who receive any kind of assistance fill out a ridiculous amount of paperwork, in the hope that they will just give up or screw it up somehow.
Via Common Dreams:
[In an article for Real News Network published earlier this week, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis] wrote that what has happened to recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) illustrates how burdensome these new requirements may become.
As The New York Times reported earlier this month, in Arizona, 440,000 people have already been dropped from SNAP after it enacted a formidable regime of paperwork for low-income recipients to prove eligibility, including requiring some people with panhandling income to obtain documentation from donors who drop them a buck on the street.
“If this is what people receiving SNAP benefits have been subjected to,” Graham and Janis wrote, “imagine what’s going to happen to people who will need to navigate the new [Medicaid] requirements while struggling with a debilitating or terminal illness.”
Nothing good, we’d imagine.
[…] Fully two-thirds (66.5 percent) of bankruptcies in the United States are caused by medical bills. Three in 10 Americans say that either they or someone in their household has had trouble paying medical bills in the last year. [Count me in that group.]
The fact that we live this way, that we are planning to kick poor cancer patients off of Medicaid at a time when practically every other modern nation has universal healthcare, is beyond obscene, even more so because that money is going to go to invading other countries instead of taking care of our own citizens.
Cyberattacks targeting municipal water systems have been reported in at least seven states this week, prompting the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency to warn utilities nationwide that hackers are trying to disrupt critical water infrastructure.
In a public service announcement Thursday, the agencies said water and wastewater utilities have reported incidents to the FBI, with some malicious activity degrading water operations. The announcement does not name the states.
The warning comes after hackers targeted more than 30 municipal water facilities in Minnesota in an attack that had hallmarks of Iranian meddling, according to a law enforcement official. It is still under investigation.
…
The agencies said the hackers remotely accessed internet-facing devices, changed IP addresses and passwords, and caused utilities to lose monitoring and control capabilities.
The federal advisory calls on system operators to remove programmable logical controllers, or PLCs, from direct internet exposure by putting them behind secure gateways and firewalls; use strong passwords; and limit communications between authorized control system devices through access control lists…
President Donald Trump said he’s open to withdrawing Todd Blanche’s nomination until two Republican senators leave office because of their pushback against the administration’s controversial Anti-Weaponization Fund and a tax agreement that would block investigations of Trump’s family and their past tax returns.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is warning that President Trump’s threat to withdraw Todd Blanche’s nomination to serve as attorney general and resubmit it in 2027 to circumvent GOP critics could backfire because control of the Senate could flip in November…
“Frequent, expensive natural disasters are testing Europe’s ability to protect itself against the cost of global warming.”
As wildfires menaced the outer suburbs of Bordeaux and Madrid this week, Europe once more faced an uncomfortable reality: a rapidly warming planet threatens to make parts of the continent uninsurable.
The record-breaking blazes […] are the latest in a series of climate-related natural disasters that are forcing policymakers to rethink how to handle the risk.
The answer, increasingly, is a brutal one: Either governments step in to protect citizens from soaring insurance premiums, straining public budgets; or people face being left with no protection at all when their homes are flooded or burn down.
The growing risk has prompted the European Central Bank and EU insurance regulator to call on Brussels to take a more active role by setting up an EU-level reinsurance scheme and a public natural disaster fund.
[…] Extreme weather events already cost a fortune in repairs for Europe’s cash-strapped governments. Data from the European Environment Agency shows weather-related extremes cost the EU economy over €200 billion in economic losses between 2021 and 2024.
Insurance firms, meanwhile, are hiking their prices and even pulling out of certain at-risk areas […]
“In Europe, 75 percent of the damages related to natural disasters are not insured,” said Ariel Le Bourdonnec, a campaigner working on insurance at the NGO Reclaim Finance, citing data from the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority. For insurers, flooding and storms are the most costly natural disasters, followed by extreme heat and wildfires, according to Insurance Europe.
[I snipped details describing how insurance companies in France cover damages for over 200,000 people who were evacuated due to wildfires, as promised by the government.]
[…] In some parts of Europe, “the peak risks are becoming a reality. Even the reinsurers themselves, who are supposed to protect the insurers, are pulling back [!], reducing their coverage, or imposing deductibles, which we call retentions, that are getting higher,” said Thierry Langreney, president of the climate NGO Les Ateliers du Future.
Tourist industry body SKÅL International, citing national data, says that premiums for tourism businesses in Spanish areas prone to wildfires have risen by 15 percent annually over the past five years, while premiums for coastal properties in Italy rose 25 percent in the five years through 2022 due to more frequent storm surges and flooding.
[…] The European Commission is expected to present a package of climate resilience and risk management measures later this year.
“Public authorities must continue providing emergency support, but Europe should also develop common financial instruments that strengthen solidarity and help share climate risks across member states,” said César Luena, a Spanish socialist MEP.
“The future European Climate Adaptation Framework should include a European climate reinsurance or risk-pooling mechanism,” he said.
In France, other climate disasters are covered by a public-private system that makes climate insurance mandatory and spreads the risk between insurers and the state. […]
In theory, Donald Trump has reached a point in his political career where fundraising should be largely irrelevant. The president already won a second term; he cannot seek a third; and while it stands to reason that he would take steps to help allies raise money ahead of his final midterm elections cycle, he has little incentive to invest considerable amounts of time and energy into solicitations.
In practice, however, Trump is leading a hyper-aggressive fundraising operation unlike anything Americans have ever seen. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Almost every night in the White House, President Trump calls his fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, for an update.
Trump asks O’Rourke which companies and donors have cut checks and which haven’t, and for how much. He often asks her to make much larger financial requests than she was planning—for some donors the ask is $5 million, for others it is $50 million. And the president gives her names to call, often including people who have recently met with him, according to people with knowledge of the calls.
The article […] paints an absolutely stunning picture of an incumbent president, already dogged by allegations of systemic corruption, who is relentlessly leaning on wealthy people and individuals to write multimillion-dollar checks, including to cover the cost of projects he controls. [!!]
Some of that money will benefit Republican candidates in the coming months (Meta Platforms, for example, recently gave $10 million to a Trump-aligned political committee), but the president has also directed his fundraising operation to collect seven- and eight-figure contributions to benefit other endeavors, including his White House ballroom vanity project and his future presidential library.
The president apparently refers to O’Rourke, his fundraiser, as the “princess of darkness,” while she refers to him as “the boss” — as in, she tells prospective contributors, “The boss wants this money.”
“All told,” the article added, “the second-term president has raised more than $800 million since returning to office, according to an updated Wall Street Journal analysis.”
That tally is more of a floor than a ceiling, because the entities involved in Trump’s operation aren’t legally required to disclose the details of their fundraising.
Concerns about corruption are unavoidable. Companies know the president has directly intervened in regulatory decisions that affect their businesses, they know he’s petty and vindictive and they know Trump is keeping track of who writes generous checks and who doesn’t.
For those seeking lucrative government contracts, the broader context isn’t exactly subtle.
Wall Street analyst Blair Levin told the newspaper that companies have traded notes about the so-called Trump Transaction Tax. He added, “Another way of saying it is simply that we’re replacing the free market with the market for Trump’s affections.”
[…] Plenty of conversation of late has focused on the differences between the president’s first and second terms, but remember what the electorate heard in the 2016 cycle.
At that point, millions of Americans actually believed his “drain the swamp” rhetoric and thought there was inherent value in electing an independently wealthy person who would ostensibly be immune to such financial pressures. […]
“There definitely wasn’t a corporate shakedown like you see now,” he [Marc Short, Trump’s former director of legislative affairs] said, adding that the president during his first term didn’t aggressively seek money from companies with business before the government.
The current iteration of the Republican, in other words, is unrecognizable compared to the president he was and promised to be.
[Spain’s PM] Sanchez attributed the sudden increase in people […] to a rumor being spread by human traffickers […] A Spanish Supreme Court ruled earlier in July that immediate returns of migrants crossing the border illegally did not apply to those arriving by sea. However, the case pertained to people crossing the Strait of Gibraltar or the Meditereannean Sea, not people swimming around the land border to Ceuta or Melilla to enter Spain “by sea.” “What has emerged from our talks with Moroccan authorities is that trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling,” Sanchez said. Those rumors “spread like wildfire in recent hours,”
Ok so the story on Ceuta is: a bunch of Moroccans crossed the border (possibly with the encouragement of their government), 57 of them died, almost all of the rest went back to Morocco and somehow “Western Civilization” is the victim here?
It sounds to me like what happened is tens of thousands of Moroccans got tricked into doing something extremely dangerous (and many of them died) for nothing at all.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council): “Too early to tell exactly what happened and what is going to come, but in the short term it seems like a crisis and a tragedy at the minimum (dozens dead, residents afraid, breakdown of order). In the long term, it might be not much of anything.”
[US] Republican Representative Mario Díaz-Balart has declared that Ceuta and Melilla “are not in the geographic territory of Spain” but “in the territory of Morocco”—and that their fate “is established, negotiated, and discussed between friends and allies.”
The remarks, delivered in an interview published April 1 […] did not emerge from the margins of American politics. […] The Cuban-American lawmaker chairs the House Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs—the appropriations body that bankrolls American diplomacy and foreign operations. He is among the closest congressional confidants of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with whom he has worked on Latin American and Middle Eastern policy for over a decade.
[…]
Trump himself has been firm […] in his hostility toward Madrid […] Díaz-Balart invoked Morocco as a counterweight […] Asked whether Washington could consider relocating military assets to Moroccan territory, the congressman offered an unequivocal endorsement
[…]
Díaz-Balart’s territorial provocation does not exist in a vacuum. It arrives on the heels of two incendiary op-eds by Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), published through the Middle East Forum.
In his March 12 piece, Rubin urged Trump and Rubio to formally recognize Ceuta and Melilla as “occupied Moroccan territory,” branding Spain a colonial power “running colonies across the Strait of Gibraltar.” […] Four days later, Rubin escalated further, invoking the spirit of the 1975 Green March and calling on Morocco to dispatch unarmed civilians into the enclaves. He argued that NATO would have no legal basis to intervene
“I think that Minnesota is behind it,” the president said, adding, “I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack.”
Related video at the link.
It was earlier this week when officials in Minnesota first detected a cyberattack on roughly three dozen municipal water systems in the state, and initially it wasn’t clear who or what was responsible.
In the days that followed, the state government publicly confirmed the cyberattacks, and a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told MS NOW that it was probably the work of Iranian hackers.
For his part, President Donald Trump has decided not to believe this.
“We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack, and they blame it on Iran — I don’t think so,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David. “I blame it on Minnesota because they’re grossly incompetent.”
He went on to say, “There was a cyberattack of 30 water plants, and I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota. Iran’s got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.”
Shortly thereafter, as the meeting started to wrap up, a reporter asked the Republican whether he’s prepared to rule out the possibility that Iran was responsible for the cyberattacks. Trump again blamed Minnesota. [video]
[…] So let me get this straight. The United States is at war with Iran, a longtime foe, which is led by people Trump has described as “scum” and “evil.” The U.S. also appears to have evidence that Iran, as part of that ongoing war, launched a cyberattack on American infrastructure.
Confronted with these developments, the sitting president could have used this opportunity to justify a new round of strikes (which he apparently wants to launch anyway). Trump, however, instead decided to blame Americans and exonerate the foreign enemy that appears to have launched the cyberattacks.
I’m mindful that the White House increasingly treats Democratic-led states as undeserving of federal support and resources, because too many of their voters dared to vote in ways Trump doesn’t like, but this is quite bonkers. [Yep]
Sky Captain @306, thanks for that additional information. Very interesting.
It does make sense that various Republicans, and the Trump administration, would seize the opportunity to make Spain look bad. Also, they are seizing the opportunity to spread what is, at least partially, misinformation.
And, considering what Trump is doing in Venezuela, who is he to encourage charges of colonialism.
From Wikipedia:
The Spanish Protectorate in Morocco[a] was established on 27 November 1912 by a treaty between France and Spain that converted the Spanish sphere of influence in Morocco into a formal protectorate.
The Spanish protectorate consisted of a northern strip on the Mediterranean and the Strait of Gibraltar, and a southern part of the protectorate around Cape Juby, bordering the Spanish Sahara. The northern zone became part of independent Morocco on 7 April 1956, shortly after France relinquished its protectorate. Spain finally ceded its southern zone through the Treaty of Angra de Cintra on 1 April 1958, after the short Ifni War. The city of Tangier was excluded from the Spanish protectorate and received a special internationally controlled status as Tangier International Zone.
Since France already held a protectorate over most of the country and had controlled Morocco’s foreign affairs since 30 March 1912, it also held the power to delegate a zone to Spanish protection.
The surface area of the Protectorate was about 20,000 km2 (7,722 sq mi).
[…] The British goal in these negotiations with France was to ensure that a weaker power (Spain) held the strategic coast opposite Gibraltar in return for Britain ceding all their influence in Morocco. […]
After the successful 1925 Alhucemas landing, the French–Spanish alliance ended up achieving victory and putting an end to the war. The Spanish consolidated their zone, garrisoning it by recruiting Moroccan tribesmen as regulares in the Army of Africa, Spain’s professional standing army in Africa, and with the Foreign Legion (founded in 1920 on the French model). In 1925 the city of Tangier became an International Zone by agreement of the Powers, with an administrator appointed by the Sultan, usually a Frenchman.
[…] The Spanish Civil War started in 1936 with the partially successful coup against the Republican Government, which began in Spanish Morocco in Llano Amarillo (Issaguen) by an uprising of the Spanish Army of Africa stationed there, although within a day uprisings in Spain itself broke out. This force, which included a considerable number of Moroccan troops (regulares), was under the command of Francisco Franco (who spent much time in Morocco) and became the core of the Spanish Nationalist Army.
[…] Morocco still claims Ceuta and Melilla as integral parts of the country, and considers them to be under foreign occupation, comparing their status to that of Gibraltar. Spain considers both cities integral parts of the Spanish geography, since they were part of Spain for centuries […]
A complicated and fraught history, with lots of back-and-forth when it comes to governance … and with lots of conflicting claims. I did not reference all of the details.
Anthropic said its Claude-based security models gained unauthorized access to the sensitive production environments of three outside organizations during internal testing designed to measure the models’ offensive cyber capabilities.
The events, which Anthropic revealed Thursday, are the second revelation in 10 days that AI models from the world’s wealthiest providers have trespassed into protected networks, an offense that, in more traditional hacking scenarios, could land the human behind the keyboard in prison for years. Earlier this month, OpenAI said its security models exploited a zero-day vulnerability for use in breaking into the network of Hugging Face, a platform for open source machine-learning models and AI datasets. The OpenAI models went on to steal access credentials and other confidential Hugging Face information. The OpenAI models also exploited publicly exposed credentials to compromise accounts of four other third-party services.
Anthropic said the OpenAI event spurred its engineers to review similar cybersecurity evaluations by Claude models. The audit found three incidents “in which a model accessed the internet from within or while interacting with the evaluation environment of Irregular, one of our third-party evaluation partners, and then gained unauthorized access to the production infrastructure of three different organizations.” …
WestJet is beginning to park its 737 aircraft across its network as the clock ticks closer to a possible strike by the airline’s flight attendants.
The airline says this measure will help prevent travellers and planes from being stranded abroad.
“This necessary step allows the airline to maintain operational control and protect the integrity of the broader network,” WestJet said in an update on its website.
The airline says passengers should check the status of their flight before leaving for the airport.
Despite the wind down, the company said it was still bargaining with flight attendants in order to try and reach a negotiated deal.
WestJet’s flight attendants issued a 72-hour strike notice Thursday, which the airline responded to with a 72-hour lockout notice of their own. That means some 4,287 flight attendants could be off the job as soon as Sunday at 12:01 a.m. MT — over the August long weekend, a busy time for domestic travel.
That strike notice doesn’t commit flight attendants to taking job action, but has proved worrisome for passengers who are left in limbo, unsure whether or not their flights will take off this weekend.
The airline says WestJet Encore flights and codeshare flights operated by airline partners remain unaffected…
Moroccan authorities deployed water-cannon trucks at the gates to Ceuta and pushed people back. Reuters reported that the charred remains of a bus and seven cars could be seen nearby following clashes with the crowds.
Spanish authorities said they would try to expel those who had entered illegally as quickly as possible, despite a court ruling that imposed restrictions on special “border rejection” rules allowing immediate expulsions from the enclave.
People attempting to reach Ceuta typically swim several kilometres from farther along the coast to avoid the heavily fortified border. This time, however, they appeared able to approach the border fence with little difficulty. Some initially walked along the rocky sea wall and around its end, while most entered the water and swam around the barrier to reach the beaches on the Spanish side.
[…]
Ceuta […] and Melilla, another Spanish autonomous city on the country’s northern coast, share the only land borders between the European Union (EU) and Africa. […] The two cities, each home to around 85,000 people, periodically experience surges […] However, the scale […] had little precedent, making it the largest arrival in Ceuta since May 2021, when thousands entered the enclave amid a diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco over Western Sahara.
It remains unclear what prompted the new wave […] Among those hoping to cross were women and children from both Morocco and sub-Saharan African countries.
Jorge Liboreiro (EuroNews): “Update: over 48,300 people have returned from Ceuta to Morocco. About 1,700 people are still in Ceuta.”
A New Jersey police department is getting creative when it comes to cracking down on distracted drivers.
An officer in Middlesex County’s Dunellen Borough dressed up as a shrub as a way to call attention to the crackdown.
In a post on social media, Dunellen Borough Police Department posted a picture of an officer wearing an elaborate, camouflage outfit known as a ghillie suit, while holding up a pair of binoculars.
“Did you spot our ‘shrub’ today? If you had your head buried in your phone, probably not,” the department posted Wednesday.
“To address the elephant, or shrub, in the room, our officer didn’t wear a ghillie suit during the entire enforcement detail. The photo was a creative, lighthearted way to draw attention to our safety efforts on social media,” Det. Sgt. Nicholas Goldman told CBS News New York.
In a second photo, the department showed an officer who participated in the crackdown wearing a T-shirt with the message “not a cop.”
It was all part of an effort to catch drivers on their phones. In all, the crackdown resulted in some 74 citations being issued in a six-hour crackdown…
New research suggests that Mohenjo-daro followed a very different path from many other early cities. As the 4,000-year-old urban center became larger, more productive, and more successful, its society appears to have grown more equal rather than less.
Historians have often argued that inequality increased when small farming settlements developed into cities. Under this traditional model, kings, priests, and other powerful leaders gained control of wealth and resources, causing the divide between rich and poor to expand.
A University of York study of Mohenjo-daro, the largest city of the Indus civilization, points to the opposite pattern. Researchers examined differences in house sizes across the city and found that wealth became more evenly distributed as Mohenjo-daro matured.
The city also appears to have been more equal than comparable societies in Mesopotamia and Greece. Instead of producing increasingly dramatic differences between wealthy and ordinary households, Mohenjo-daro saw the size gap between its largest and smallest homes become narrower over time.
…
“Instead of gold-filled tombs and huge temples, Mohenjo-daro focused on sophisticated brick-lined drains and organized street layouts. Instead of allowing the perks of society to accumulate with a tiny elite, the city’s amenities were widely distributed amongst the everyday households.”
…
Continued investment in drainage, road upkeep, and other public services also reflects collective support for the city’s everyday needs. These projects improved life across Mohenjo-daro rather than primarily serving a small group at the top of society.
A standardized system of weights and measures used throughout the region may have supported fairer trade as well. By giving merchants and residents a common way to measure goods, the system helped make exchanges more consistent for everyone…
Amy Acton, Ohio Democratic Candidate for Governor, has seen her relationship with the state’s LGBTQ+ community go from bad to catastrophic. Weeks after Acton endorsed a transgender sports ban and called transgender girls “boys,” the fallout has been intense: the Ohio Democratic Party forced its own Progressive and Pride caucuses to delete their criticism and a meeting the campaign promised would begin repairing the damage instead further inflamed tensions. Inside sources who have gone public now say the “listening session” was a debacle. Acton did not show up, her campaign manager barred Arienne Childrey—Vice Chair of the party’s Pride Caucus, a transgender candidate for the Ohio House, and Ohio’s first openly trans city council member—from even entering the Zoom call. When another advocate demanded to know why Childrey was barred, she was ejected. The Chair of the Progressive Caucus, Kim McCarthy, was locked in the waiting room during the entire “listening session.” And in the end, the campaign ultimately refused to apologize for calling trans girls “boys,” refused to retract Acton’s support for a transgender sports ban, and ended the meeting with no plans for what come next…
“The president probably thought in May that the litigation had run its course and the case was effectively over. Now he knows better.”
When Donald Trump seemingly abandoned his outlandish $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in May, the president probably thought the litigation had run its course, and the case was effectively over. It’s increasingly obvious, however, that the dispute is very much alive.
Indeed, as this week came to an end, Trump’s lawyers filed an unexpected appeal of a recent court ruling that blocked him from using his so-called “settlement” with his own administration.
The basic details of Trump’s IRS lawsuit are likely familiar: During his first term, a contractor leaked his tax returns, and six years later, the president has filed suit against the tax agency, saying he’s entitled to $10 billion in taxpayer funds.
In May, he voluntarily withdrew his own litigation, and soon afterward, the administration unveiled his reward for having done so: a compensation fund worth $1.766 billion, which was quickly condemned by members of both parties as a “slush fund” that would be used to benefit the White House’s political allies.
That bipartisan pushback forced the president to seemingly back off his plans for the fund.
One of the underlying legal problems, however, persisted: The federal judge in the case, responding to a request filed by 35 former federal judges calling on her to reopen the case, raised serious concerns in late May, ordering Trump and his lawyers to address allegations that he committed fraud on the court.
In a four-page order, Williams said she intended to investigate “grievous allegations” that the hasty deal to resolve the dubious case was “premised on deception.” (This same judge, as recently as late April, expressed skepticism about the propriety of the case, since it appeared the president was, for all intents and purposes, both the plaintiff and the defendant.)
Earlier this month, she apparently did not like what she discovered, concluding that Trump and his lawyers acted “in bad faith” and filed a civil suit “for an improper purpose.” [!]
“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law,” Williams wrote. [Yep. All true, judge.]
At the same time, the judge also issued sanctions and disciplinary referrals related to Trump’s lawyer, and included a demand to send a copy of the order to both the New York and District of Columbia bar associations, of which acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Stanley Woodward are members.
Perhaps most importantly, Williams’ order also voided the provisions of the so-called “settlement agreement” as evidence of a valid settlement. (The judge even prohibited the parties from referring to it as a “settlement.”)
Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the appeal, but it’s an open question why Trump and his allies would bother to appeal the court order. If the slush fund is actually dead, what difference does it make whether the president’s deal from May is a valid agreement?
UPDATE (July 31, 2026, 4:42 p.m. ET): A spokesperson for Trump’s personal legal team acknowledged the appeal in a written statement, accusing the IRS of having “allowed” an employee to leak the tax returns that the president hoped to keep secret. “President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable,” the statement concluded.
Earlier this week, a Kennedy Center tour guide spoke to The New York Times about how she still kept showing up every Monday to conduct tours, but knew one day she might just arrive to locked doors.
It only took until Thursday for that to come true, when the director of the volunteer program for the Kennedy Center said it was putting a “temporary pause” on tours of the center that Trump is still fighting in court to take over. A memo was sent to all the volunteers who have doggedly, lovingly, kept showing up telling them not to bother “until further notice.”
Yes, if President Donald Trump can’t wreck the Kennedy Center itself, he’s going to wreck everyone else’s access to it and joy in it.
Tours at the center have gone on continuously since 1971, save for one year during COVID, with 140 volunteers giving tours in 10 different languages for up to 400,000 visitors per year. But no longer. All the administration will say is that “We are conducting a review of campuswide tour routes to ensure they provide the best possible experience for our visitors.” [The excuse given by the administration sounds like a lie to me.]
Honestly, this couldn’t look worse for the administration, even by the horrible standards of this administration. The tour guide at the heart of Monday’s New York Times story is perhaps the most delightful person imaginable. Sandy Weiswasser is a retired 6th-grade teacher who has given hundreds of tours in the last 18 years and is 87 years old, the daughter of Polish immigrants whose grandmother was presumed to have died in a Nazi concentration camp. Her love of the Kennedy Center comes through in every word of the Times story.
Weiswasser continued to give tours to ever-dwindling numbers, but her cardinal sin was sharing that she did so to show what the Kennedy Center once was—a vibrant, beautiful democratization of the arts, not the empty husk Trump made it. But the tour she gave to the Times reporter couldn’t cover up that the administration has simply let the center slide into disuse, the orchestra pit scattered with trash, artwork torn from the walls.
[I snipped details related to the tarp that still covers the facade where Trump’s name was removed.]
Painters didn’t use the primer that an existing contract called for when they repainted exterior columns, instead using a cheaper primer that will now require repainting, at a cost of about $1.8 million, because rust from the columns is showing through. They slapped a new floor in the concert hall that didn’t account for the acoustical requirements, kind of a big thing in a performing arts center. They also resanded and repainted the center’s reflecting pool, but did it shabbily enough that the paint is already peeling and the pool is rusting.
Quite a feat to massively screw up not one, but two reflecting pools, right?
It’s going to feel so good to wrench this jewel in Washington, D.C.’s crown back from this tasteless wrecker and his feckless toadies. If there’s any justice, Weiswasser should be the first person to take us all through those doors someday soon.
Only one state boasts more EVs than Florida, but the state has fewer chargers per vehicle than the national average. Despite that, state officials have decided to redirect federal funding intended for EV charging to build out an electric air taxi network, according to a report from the Miami Herald.
Florida was awarded nearly $200 million under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program that is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But the state never spent the money, claiming that private companies have done a sufficient job building EV charging networks. The Florida Department of Transportation said it will instead use that money to build 32 landing pads with charging stations for electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs.
…
“Donald Trump Doing More Peace Again Definitely For Sure!”
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Donald Trump has solved the Israel-Gaza crisis!
Oh, you have heard that one before? A whole bunch of times? And like every other solution to this crisis he has ever claimed to have negotiated, it turned out to be vaporware?
Much like every other crisis ever where he has prematurely announced victory, be it Israel or government funding fights or something else? Like every time he has announced Iran has agreed to all his demands to open the Strait of Hormuz and surrender to the US? […]
Yeah, us too.
Still, it’s kind of entertaining to watch anyone report the latest “deal” with a straight face in the geopolitical equivalent of a visit from the wallet inspector. Starting with Trump himself, who made a very frenetic post on TruthSocial on Thursday evening:
Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY.
First of all, Trump’s Board of Peace, which was ostensibly established to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction, is either another one of his shakedown schemes and/or one of his pathetic attempts to stand up a rival to an established organization (the United Nations) […] The BoP has almost no support from Western nations. Joining it requires paying $1 billion. In all, the BoP has reportedly taken in roughly $17 billion in donations. But that money has gone into a private bank account at JP Morgan instead of its established account at the World Bank, which has public reporting requirements. [!]
All $17 billion could have gone to buying Trump GLP-1 pills for all anyone knows. Or to pay Barron’s college tuition or Don Jr.’s dealer. So many possibilities.
Second of all, as mentioned, we’ve heard this shit before. More than once.
As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors.
[I pity the writers that have to come up with that load of bullshit.]
All that sounds neat, until you head over to the Wall Street Journal and read what spokesmen for Hamas are saying:
Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s negotiating team, said the group agreed to place its weapons in a storage facility overseen by the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a Palestinian-run technocratic group charged with the enclave’s political and security transition.
So not really disarmament, more Hamas giving their weapons to a new group, overseen by the Board of Peace and whose members haven’t been allowed into Gaza yet, to hold in escrow.
“We didn’t say disarmament, we didn’t say handing over the weapons, and we didn’t agree on any Israeli involvement,” Hamad said, adding that the plan is contingent on Israel ending military operations in Gaza and allowing humanitarian aid in.
This is always the deal. Hamas says its disarmament is contingent on Israel withdrawing from Gaza, and there will be no concessions until that happens. Israel says its withdrawing from Gaza is dependent on Hamas disarming, and there will be no concessions until that happens. This new plan doesn’t seem to have a mechanism for resolving that tension any more than any other agreement ever has.
As for Israel, it has apparently not agreed to any of this. The only comment we have found is from Itmar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister of national security. Ben-Gvir stated that the deal is “unacceptable to Israel,” and that any Israeli military actions should continue to encourage Palestinians to leave Gaza. [!] The far Right has still not given up on its goal of ridding Gaza of all the Palestinians and then building Israeli settlements all across it. And the far Right is still the most powerful force in Israel.
Ben-Gvir’s comments bring up another reason no one should believe this: As far as we know, Benjamin Netanyahu did not dissolve his war cabinet and form a new government with moderates or leftists who want peace. Bibi is facing an election in October, he’s not alienating the hard Right that makes up most of his support now. Or probably ever, if he thinks it will cost him power.
This alleged agreement comes out of the 20-point peace plan that Hamas and Israel allegedly agreed to last fall. You can imagine Trump is desperate for a victory right now, what with his approval ratings tanking and the midterm elections that are on track to wipe out his party’s congressional majorities. And he’s Trump, so he’s going to over-interpret everything as another great victory.
But like everything else since the October 7 attacks and anything else he has ever said ever, this should all be taken with a salt mine’s worth of salt.
The Trump administration has a new tactic for trying to isolate cases of alleged voter fraud — digging into the IP addresses of those who went online to register to vote. The FBI recently obtained the IP address of someone who registered online in South Carolina, according to documents first shared with Axios.
The Department of Homeland Security alerted employers this week that it had officially ended humanitarian protections for about 350,000 Haitian immigrants, triggering mass layoffs that threaten to disrupt summer travel and destabilize an array of essential institutions and industries up and down the East Coast and across the Midwest.
“Airports, nursing homes and schools brace for disruption without Haitian workers”
“The Trump administration and courts are at odds over whether about 350,000 Haitians have officially lost humanitarian protections, but employers are already letting workers go.”
[…] Nursing homes terminated hundreds of workers, including nursing assistants, dietary aides and housekeepers, industry and union leaders said. At airports including those in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Boston, contractors cut scores of Haitian workers, including janitors, cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants, according to union leaders at Service Employees International Union 32BJ.
At Florida schools, landscapers, bus drivers and other staff were fired. And in New York City, dozens of security guards were terminated only to be rehired because of confusion around their eligibility to continue working, union officials said. […]
The Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of a Virginia driver Friday who argued the government wrongly restricted his anti-government license plate.
Curtis Whateley appealed a lower court’s dismissal of his First Amendment challenge to the Department of Motor Vehicles’ recall of his personalized license plate, “FTP&ATF,”
Interesting because the abbreviation is rude enough I can’t spell it out here. The second half is Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, the first a common sentiment about police. If this really stands there are going to be a lot of rude and sexually explicit license plates.
Weirdly this is apparently the first time this issue has made it up to an appeals court. I know there have been cases about it before but I guess nobody had the money or cared enough to take it to a federal appeals court.
The Defense Department is considering its most sweeping remake of military higher education, according to an unreleased draft memorandum obtained by CBS News that would abolish civilian tenure and overhaul course offerings at the military service academies and senior war colleges that educate future military officers.
The memorandum, labeled “Refocusing the Military Service Academies and Senior Service College on Warfighter Education,” would direct institutions like the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to eliminate the granting of tenure to civilian faculty. It would also launch a comprehensive review of the curriculum taught at all service academies and war colleges.
This is in line with Hegseth’s plans and the Trump administration in general. This has not been formally approved. Exactly what changes in the new curriculum has not been determined yet and this document is intentionally evasive about the obvious attempt to inflict propaganda on the students. The point of stripping tenure is having the power to hold money and their job over the head of teachers so they don’t step out of line.
But the new memorandum, if adopted, seems to reject that balance as it argues that every aspect of military education should be judged by one standard: whether it directly contributes to “tactical, operational, and strategic combat leadership.”
This is inline with Hegseth’s thinking but terribly misguided. High level officers will spend a good portion of their time on non-combat planning, logistics and budgeting. Plus the time they spend on politics when dealing with Congress, public relations when dealing with the public and other matters of running a large organization that have nothing to do with combat directly.
Donald Trump has backed off a promise to let Ukraine manufacture its own Patriot air defense interceptors, telling reporters that handing over the underlying technology was “a hard thing to give away” during a cabinet meeting at Camp David.
Trump can’t remember what he promised last week. At least this one doesn’t matter as much. Setting up a factory to build Patriot missiles would take Ukraine a couple of years, it isn’t likely to have any impact on the war.
An expert analysis of the Pentagon’s own arsenals tell a different story: the Center for Strategic and International Studies says two-thirds of the department’s Patriot interceptors have been used, perhaps prompting a $58.6bn army contract with Lockheed Martin to rebuild supplies, along with a recent White House request to Congress for tens of billions of dollars more in emergency funding.
Interesting to see the stats but it’s all already known. The whole reason Ukraine wants to setup a factory is that the US is cutting off or limiting supplies, keeping them for our use fighting Iran.
The Trump administration has dropped its case against a former Olympic canoeist charged in connection with damage to the Reflecting Pool, acknowledging their allegations against David “Davey” Hearn don’t hold water.
In a filing Friday afternoon, a supervisor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is headed by Jeanine Pirro, wrote that officials obtained information that undermined “the evidentiary basis for the indictment” against Hearn.
Prosecutors said that after the indictment came down on July 2, the Interior Department provided additional documents to the U.S. Attorney’s Office “indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings.”
DOJ said it “first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism” after reviewing more documents.
“Had [the Interior Department] been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” the filing said…
BS, they knew all along, and no competent prosecutor would press those charges until they had sufficient evidence to convict.
The Great Barrier Reef might be the world’s most famous underwater ecosystem, but hidden in UK waters lies an ancient marine world you may not have heard of.
Known as maerl beds, these carpets of coral-like seaweed create some of the richest habitats in the sea.
And 40 years ago, while studying one such bed for her PhD, Prof Christine Maggs found a fragment of pink-striped seaweed living on maerl she had never seen before.
The discovery would become a lifelong obsession and a decades-long scientific puzzle.
…
Hours of trawling through the literature seemed to confirm that no-one else had known what this little seaweed that lived on maerl was either. Prof Maggs suspected it was a new species to science.
But she needed a larger piece for a formal identification…
The amount of sample required for sequence information, or even a complete genome, is shrinking all the time.
Francis Bunker, a freelance and independent marine biologist, kept finding the tiny seaweed in samples he had collected on that survey…
But the wait was worth it. With the help of Prof Beatriz de Barros Barreto, who worked on the DNA sequencing, Prof Maggs has put the pieces of the puzzle together to reveal the seaweed is indeed new to science.
…
Prof Maggs’ new species will be known scientifically as ceramium ruenessianum, in honour of her colleague who has studied this type of species for the last 40 years.
As for the seaweed’s common name, a firm favourite amongst the scientific divers is “pink-zebra weed”.
Other ideas include “pink-banded bandit” and “ribbon claw”. Prof Maggs is inviting the public to make their suggestions.
Google Earth, a tool often used as a source of satellite imagery to verify photos and videos, has added a feature that allows you to alter satellite imagery with AI, for reasons.
No way this could be abused. [Slop Image: Gold Trump statue towering over the White House]
Quickly, someone call the Senate Republicans! [Slop Image: “I love Dr Fauci” written on Epstein Island]
Max Kennerly: “[Slop Image: ALF the size of Godzilla rises from the ocean to menace Mar-a-Lago]”
On one hand, this feature is a blatantly evil play to monetise the creation of disinformation […] On the other hand, it is really really bad at understanding scale, and its outputs are comically deranged.
[Slop Image: The Richat Structure (real concentric circles in the Sahara 25 miles wide) turned into ruins of a circular-walled fortress containing a Mesoamerican pyramid on a central mesa, with a ring of Roman pillars, and facades of buildings carved into the mesa’s side, surrounded by tiered rings of dense rectangular roofless urban dwellings]
A day after Google unveiled a new feature that allowed users to create AI-generated satellite images with the click of a button on its Google Earth platform, the company announced it was removing the tool. […] [“]we’re rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails.”
In its initial announcement […] “Just zoom in to a place in Google Earth on web (sic), tap ‘create image,’ and type whatever you want to see,” Bryan Horowitz, a product manager wrote.
But for experts and analysts […] the potential to create deepfake satellite imagery at the click of a button was horrifying. “I tried refugees at the Mexican border, a nuclear plant in Iran, a crash in Amsterdam, a hospital with a bomb crater in Gaza. Nothing was refused,” […] NPR was able to easily generate images of Iran’s Kharg Island on fire, and a flooded U.S. Capitol complex.
Rando 1: “Of course they’re not going to reconsider the *existence* of this dangerously stupid feature.”
Rando 2: “We regret the unforeseen consequences of adding the image altering tool our map app. It appears people were using the image altering tool to alter images. We will remove the image altering tool until we can figure out how to keep it from allowing people to alter images.”
Cheryl Rofer: “It would be helpful for Google to tell us what they think they are bringing to the world in introducing a way to modify Google Earth views.”
[…] DOJ said it “first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism” after reviewing more documents. […]
I agree with you that the DOJ is making a bullshit claim there. How could they not know. Everybody knew. Lying doofuses.
Prosecutors in Jeanine Pirro’s office say the government received new evidence indicating that “damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor.” Harry Litman, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, joins Chris Hayes to discuss.
A new report is fueling speculation that a Bigfoot may be roaming the woods of southern New England.
According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, an eyewitness recently reported seeing the legendary creature in Pachaug State Forest in Voluntown, Connecticut, in the southeastern part of the state.
The organization, which collects and documents alleged Bigfoot encounters across North America, said the witness provided such a detailed account that researchers deemed the report credible.
“The witness is credible. He’s not lying about what he saw. I could tell from the conversation,” BFRO Investigator Matt Moneymaker wrote about the report…
Let us pause for a second. Someone named “Matt Moneymaker,” who is a Bigfoot investigator, is convinced of the honesty of the witness. There are no photos, there is no video. Now let us resume – ah, why bother?
Caitlin Clark stuffed the stat sheet as the Indiana Fever extended a historic streak when they visited the Portland Fire on Friday, July 31, at the Moda Center.
The 112-98 win marked the team’s fifth straight 100-plus-point game of the season, which is the longest such streak the WNBA has ever seen. In the victory, Clark recorded 26 points, a season-high 10 rebounds and 10 assists for her first triple-double of the season and the fourth of her professional career. She also now has the most triple-doubles by a guard in league history.
…
Kelsey Mitchell also scored 26 points for her 13th consecutive game with at least 20 points. She’s now tied with WNBA legend Diana Taurasi for the second-longest such streak in league history. Only A’ja Wilson has a longer all-time streak within a single season (15 games, 2024).
…
In the first half, Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston both reached career milestones. In her 78th game, Clark reached 1,500 career points. Boston reached 900 field goals, which ranks third in Fever franchise history…
The barrage of testosterone-based attacks on Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico don’t seem to have done much. A new poll out this week from Slingshot Strategies shows Talarico up five points over Republican opponent Ken Paxton, and he’s been even or ahead in four of the seven polls conducted since Paxton secured the nomination in May and launched a general election ad accusing Talarico of being too “low-T for Texas.”
At the time, there was a multi-pronged, coordinated effort from state and national Republicans to paint Talarico as effeminate and, bizarrely, transgender. RNC chair Joe Gruters: “Tala-freako is a creep. He’s a vegan. He thinks God is nonbinary. He wants to mutilate children.” White House adviser and Famously Normal Guy Stephen Miller called him the Democrats’ “first transgender senate candidate” and told Fox News his blood was made of soy milk. President Trump himself referred to him as “this transgender, this guy running in Texas” who “wears a mask all the time.” [bullshit, crude bullshit]
Interestingly, Republicans don’t really seem to have duplicated this messaging in other midterms races. Instead, they’ve used the electoral victories of several progressives and democratic socialists as an opportunity to wield the “Democrats are communists” cudgel. That’s the line Trump and co. have trotted out in swing states and against other high-profile Democratic candidates like Sen. John Ossoff (D-GA).
If all of this feels a bit desperate, that’s because it is. But voters don’t really seem to be buying it. Trump’s approval rating is at a record low. Ossoff is polling ahead in Georgia, while his Republican opponent Mike Collins and Paxton, both of whom likely owe their nominations to last-minute Trump endorsements, are mired in new scandals. Voters are angry about corruption, inflation, and the Iran War, and the Trump administration simply seems to be messing up on too many levels for voters to be distracted by the usual culture war red meat. Calling the libs “soy boys” and communists may get you a hit on Fox News, but it doesn’t necessarily resonate with regular people.
“People are catching onto the fact that these corny nicknames don’t lower the cost of groceries, don’t lower the cost of prescription drugs, don’t lower the price of gas,” as Talarico recently put it on MS Now. Not a bad line, nor was this: “When I first heard this low-T thing, I had to look it up. Guys my age aren’t really worried about that kind of thing.” [Heh. Good answer.]
During the 2024 campaign, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz went viral for calling out Republicans’ “weird” obsession with policing people’s bodies. Zohran Mamdani relentlessly focused on his proposals to make New York City more affordable when he was asked about Israel every five minutes during last year’s mayoral campaign.
It seems like a good 2026 strategy for Democrats might just be leading with charisma, kindness and a focus on policies that actually benefit peoples’ lives, while letting Republicans obsess over Communist takeovers and testosterone levels.
When you’re at a Trump rally, you’re like, Oh I can definitely see how Hitler happened. … When you go to a Trump rally, it makes you question the sanity of everybody. Like Trump’s up there talking about ‘We’re going to throw people in jail for burning the flag.’ And dude I’m like I don’t know, like you shouldn’t do that but it’s like, you know, there is a fucking Constitution. – UFC fighter Sean Strickland
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly asked President Trump to help him persuade Elon Musk to allow the country to use Starlink in drone strikes against Russia.
During his trip to the U.S. to attend Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) memorial service, Zelensky made the request to Trump in a closed-door meeting in the Oval Office, the Associated Press and The Atlantic reported.
Zelensky also made similar appeals to Congressional lawmakers during his visit to widen Ukraine’s Starlink access.
“They need access to Starlink long term to make their longer-range and intermediate-range systems more accurate,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said, per the Associated Press report.
Starlink, which Musk controls, provides internet access using satellites even in harsh weather conditions that traditional internet networks may not be operable in.
Until now, Elon Musk has allowed Ukrainian use of Starlink in the country and some Russian-occupied territories like Crimea in strikes against Russia. Musk banned Russia’s use of Starlink in February after revealing it was “unauthorized.”
[…] Zelensky said Tuesday during his visit that he met with defense contractors to restructure Ukrainian-made ballistic missiles to become Patriot interceptors after meetings with representatives with Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
[…] This comes as a visit to Ukraine from Trump’s top officials Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for peace negotiations is expected, according to a Ukrainian official who told The Hill Tuesday. Both officials have been criticized for being overly “deferential” to Putin and “naive” in representing the Kremlin’s positions.
“U.S. general warns Pentagon he lacks sufficient forces to protect Israel”
“A shortage of Navy destroyers, used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks, will force the head of U.S. European Command to prioritize the U.S. homeland instead, officials said.”
The top U.S. general in Europe privately warned the Pentagon this week that he lacks sufficient naval forces to continue protecting Israel from incoming ballistic missiles, officials said, illustrating how the ongoing Iran war has imposed constraints on the military.
Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the head of U.S. European Command, sent written notification to senior Pentagon officials saying that without another Navy destroyer he will be forced to choose defense of the United States “homeland” over that of Israel, said the officials, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the correspondence. [I have to wonder if this is perhaps true, but also a signal to the Trump administration that there is now an excuse for Trump have more naval destroyer’s built … and then named after Trump.]
A U.S. defense official said Grynkewich’s notification appears consistent with past outreach to the Pentagon from the military’s top generals when they see certain risks that require Washington’s consideration. This can occur, the official said, as commanders compete for finite resources and weapons. […]
The general’s warning comes at a tenuous moment in the five-month conflict, as near-daily attacks have resumed following the collapse of peace talks between Washington and Tehran and the operation’s intensity has drained U.S. supplies of key defensive weapons.
The Navy has been particularly taxed, as the Trump administration has directed a blockade of Iranian ports in response to Tehran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. […]
U.S. naval destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea have been employed as a part of Israel’s defense for many years. The vessels, equipped with powerful radar and armed with an array of missiles, have downed missiles aimed at Israel not only by Iran, but by Houthi militants in Yemen that are equipped by Tehran.
European Command is central to this mission, as it coordinates military operations in the Mediterranean. At the same time, its forces must remain ready for any Russian incursion into territory protected by the NATO military alliance. Russia also poses a ballistic missile threat to the United States, with missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
The Navy has five destroyers that deploy from a U.S. port in Rota, Spain, with a sixth expected to arrive there later this year, Pentagon officials have said. But maintenance issues have piled up due to the Iran war’s tempo, complicating matters for Grynkewich, officials said. The Washington Post withheld specific details about the ships’ availability at the request of military officials, who cited security concerns.
As The Post reported in May, Pentagon assessments conducted earlier in the war showed that U.S. forces have shouldered the brunt of defending Israel from Iranian ballistic missiles. The assessments found that American weapons, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and naval interceptors launched from the eastern Mediterranean, were used far more frequently than Israeli air defense weapons.
Two destroyers, the USS Paul Ignatius and the USS Roosevelt, were in the Mediterranean Sea on Friday, a U.S. official said. Three destroyers were in Rota: the USS Arleigh Burke, the USS Bulkeley and the USS Oscar Austin.
Closer to Iran, an armada of additional vessels was in the Arabian Sea, including two aircraft carriers, the USS George H.W. Bush and USS Abraham Lincoln, and at least 15 other warships, this official said. Eleven are destroyers. […]
Another destroyer, the USS Gonzalez, is in the Red Sea, where Yemen’s Houthis have attempted to enforce their own blockade of commercial shipping […]
“Zelensky says Ukraine has ‘no interceptors’ as ballistic missiles hit Kyiv”
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had appealed for American air-defense missiles during a White House meeting on Tuesday.”
Russian ballistic missiles rained down on Kyiv early Saturday, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 30, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country had run out of air defense interceptors.
Russian forces fired nearly 200 attack drones and 35 missiles, including 27 ballistic missiles, primarily at the capital, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.
“Only one ballistic missile was intercepted, simply because there are no interceptors,” Zelensky wrote.
“A hell of a night,” Ukrainian Foreign Minster Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. […]
The incident raised fresh concerns about the risk of Russia coming into direct confrontation with NATO, more than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. […]
Zelensky urgently appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump during a White House meeting on Tuesday, offering in return Ukraine’s anti-drone technology, and extensive experience in destroying Russian and Iranian drones. […]
More at the link, including a report concerning protests after Zelensky fired Mykhallo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defense minister.
A conspiracy theorist with ties to Putin has convinced hin to drill a deep hole. Sweden did the same under a meteor crater 50 years ago to see if abiogenetic gas might have collected in the fractures (it didn’t) Hossenfelder makes a good job of debunking the whole idea.
“Trump’s Fixation on Arctic Ships Led to Billions in No-Bid Contracts”
“The president decided to buy 11 polar icebreakers after a game of golf with Finland’s president. Experts say it’s far from clear the United States needs so many.”
Late one night last August, Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, was at his summer residence two hours west of Helsinki when his phone rang. On the other end of the line was President Trump, calling with a request.
He wanted to buy a fleet of massive ships designed to cut through Arctic ice.
Mr. Trump had long fixated on these hulking vessels, known as polar icebreakers. He viewed them as crucial to dominating the Arctic, where rising temperatures have put key shipping lanes and vast mineral wealth up for grabs. And he was incensed that the United States possessed far fewer than Russia.
Two months later, Mr. Trump and Mr. Stubb were sitting in the Oval Office to announce a deal for 11 icebreakers, worth almost $7 billion, to be built by shipyards in both countries.
The arrangement was unusual in various ways.
The number was twice as many as the Coast Guard, which manages America’s fleet, had said it needed. The contracts for building the ships would be awarded without competitive bids. And while seven of the ships are expected to be built in the United States, the first four would be built in Finland, requiring Mr. Trump to waive a law prohibiting the construction of national security vessels overseas.
At that moment, though, none of that mattered. Mr. Trump wanted more icebreakers, and he wanted them from Finland.
“Other countries have more than we do,” Mr. Trump proclaimed as he sat with the Finnish leader, “and we’re buying the finest icebreakers in the world.” [JFC. Trump is so transparently superficial in his decision making process.]
The story behind Mr. Trump’s personal intervention in Coast Guard ships provides new insights into how his administration has cut corners and flouted rules in pursuit of projects that suit the president’s desires, regardless of whether they fit any broader strategic rationale.
The reliance on no-bid contracts, usually reserved for highly specialized or urgent needs, mirrors other recent Trump-driven projects [I snipped examples.]
A New York Times examination of the Coast Guard deal found it relied on personal appeals from Finland’s president and Mr. Trump’s own view of what constitutes national greatness, along with a fascination with polar icebreakers dating back to a chance encounter in Finland long before he would ever run for president.
It also came with no plan to pay for the infrastructure required to support the 11 new ships or the crews to sail them. Those costs are likely to reach into the billions, according to Coast Guard documents.
Much of the funding is set to come from money set aside for border security in the Republicans’ spending law passed last year, the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which gave the administration wide latitude to pour billions into its priorities with little oversight.
To justify no-bid contracts for icebreakers, the Trump administration invoked a rarely used exemption claiming the awards are in the “public interest” — allowing the government to skip competition while saying little publicly about its rationale.
“We haven’t seen any information or analysis to justify the 11 or to assess the long-term affordability of these decisions,” said Shelby S. Oakley, director of contracting and national security acquisitions for the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The Coast Guard, she said, risks ending up “like a lottery winner who spends all their money buying the mansion, and then goes broke once they realize they don’t have the money to maintain it.” [I snipped comments from Trump administration officials.]
[…] On a Saturday in March 2025, Mr. Trump played in a tournament at one of his golf courses in Florida. Joining him was Mr. Stubb, the Finnish president. Mr. Stubb had played golf for the Finnish national team, and went to Furman University in South Carolina on a golf scholarship. According to Mr. Trump, the two men won the tournament.
Mr. Stubb presented Mr. Trump with a picture of an icebreaker, in what one person described as a handsome golden frame. Shipbuilding is a vital industry in Finland, and the country’s leaders had long sought to persuade the U.S. government to buy vessels from its yards.
[…] Last July, in the Republicans’ spending law, Congress provided $3.5 billion for the ships. But Mr. Trump and his advisers wanted to buy more icebreakers than $3.5 billion would pay for.
The administration at the time had been considering two “very, very good proposals” for icebreakers, the White House budget director, Russell T. Vought, told The Times.
One shipbuilder had offered to build five icebreakers, based on a design originally developed for Russia; another proposal offered six ships, using a design for the Canadian Coast Guard.
“We ultimately didn’t want to have to choose between them,” Mr. Vought said.
In the end, they didn’t have to. “The One Big Beautiful Bill had given us an opportunity to do both,” he added.
[…] The additional icebreaker money — another $3.5 billion — came from a separate fund in the bill intended for what lawmakers called “border support,” according to Troy Edgar, deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard.
Mr. Trump placed the late-night call to President Stubb in August, not long after the bill was passed.
The two leaders had been negotiating for months about the United States purchasing a used icebreaker from Finland, and perhaps a handful of new vessels. Now, armed with billions in new funding, Mr. Trump wanted to go bigger.
“I’m not going to buy the used one, because it’s too old,” Mr. Trump said, according to an account Mr. Stubb later gave to Finnish journalists. “I want more new ones instead.”
Experts say Mr. Trump’s actions reflect a very real problem: The United States needs more polar icebreakers.
The question, the experts say, is how many the United States really needs. Mr. Trump’s public comments suggest his interest reflects a frustration that other countries have more icebreakers, rather than any review of strategic requirements.
[…] The administration’s goal is to obtain the first icebreakers before Mr. Trump leaves office. To meet that timeline, the Coast Guard bypassed the usual process of requesting and reviewing competing bids.
[…] The proposals accepted by the administration resulted in contracts with three companies. [Details are available at the link.]
[…]
The Pentagon is giving up leadership of a U.S.-led NATO command in Germany that coordinates military aid to Ukraine, the latest sign of a broader American withdrawal from its closest allies.
Another NATO member will eventually take over running the Security Assistance Group, according to a U.S official and three people familiar with the plan, which has played a central role in equipping and training Ukrainian troops since the full-scale Russian invasion began. But the removal of U.S. leadership from a pivotal program on the continent reinforces the extent to which America is distancing itself from European partners.
The move will mean the U.S. no longer helps shape what Ukraine’s future military will look like. […] The Pentagon has reduced the number of American officers running commands in Europe and canceled some rotations. Officials are reassessing troops stationed on the continent and warning countries they won’t receive assistance unless their defense spending increases. […]
The transition of leadership will take up to a year, the people said, but insisted it won’t interrupt the work done with Ukraine. While NATO will lead the program, the U.S. European Command will stay involved through an American deputy. […]
Italy will assume command of the Joint Command Center in Naples.
And Germany and Poland will assume control of Joint Command in Brunssum, the Netherlands. The command, run by a German general, specializes in multinational forces. […]
given the political moment in Washington — and Trump’s continued antipathy toward the continent and NATO — another American pullback is noteworthy.
NATO allies have been broadly supportive of the American handover of the commands, and some note that a larger role for Europe makes sense.
“For us, this step carries more advantages than disadvantages,” said a Ukrainian official. “This reduces the risks for us that could arise from political turbulence in the United States and facilitates military logistics in the interests of Ukraine.”
[…] Still, some in Kyiv are worried that putting the command within NATO’s complex bureaucracy might slow down getting assistance to the frontlines, the official said. “No one can replace American satellite reconnaissance, target designation and logistics capabilities of U.S. heavy transport aircraft.” [True … at least for now.]
[…]
Twenty-two EU leaders — including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — on Saturday took aim at Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s migration policies for undermining the security of the bloc’s borders
[…] Sánchez hit back that his EU partners were responding in a “selfish” and “unlawful” manner to the sudden influx of some 50,000 unauthorized migrants from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in North Africa.
While almost all those migrants have now returned to Morocco — and none crossed into the EU mainland — the 22 leaders raised “serious concern” over the threat to the EU’s frontier, and zeroed in on Sánchez’s move to grant legal status to up to 1.2 million unauthorized migrants as a “pull factor” that fueled the crisis.
In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, the 22 leaders made direct reference to the need for EU-level cooperation on policies such as Madrid’s migrant regularization scheme.
“We have a duty to effectively deter and relentlessly combat illegal migration, by coordinating our action, strengthening our external borders and addressing all policies that can serve as pull factors, such as the regularization of [a] very large number of irregular migrants,” the leaders wrote.
Madrid has pushed back against the claim that the country’s regularization scheme triggered the crisis in Ceuta, and has pointed out that none of the people who illegally entered the exclave would be eligible to benefit from the measure. [Important point.]
“This process is based on very specific conditions, such as proof of residency in Spain before January 1, 2026, and having resided in Spain for five consecutive months at the time of application,” said a spokesperson for the Spanish foreign ministry. Moreover, the deadline for filing applications for the scheme, which was launched in April, was in June.
But those explanations have not appeared to sway the EU leaders who signed the letter to Costa, Von der Leyen and Martin.
“We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalisation of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible. That a migrant’s illegal entry can turn into legal stay,” they went on.
[…] In addition to Merz and Meloni, the letter was signed by the leaders of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.
They called for a video conference of interior ministers to agree on next steps. Ireland said it would convene a meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council on Tuesday.
[…] In his letter, seen by POLITICO, Spain’s Socialist prime minister argued that calls to have Spain kicked out of the Schengen zone are “not only contrary to European law, humanitarian law, and the principles of solidarity that bind us together,” but also “Europe’s long-term interests and to the most basic common sense.”
[…] Spain’s prime minister added the EU members that had backed the suspension proposal were “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance, or political interest.”
[…] Those calling for action include right-wing politicians such as Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, a member of the nationalist Finns Party, as well as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, whose Social Democrats belong to the center-left Party of European Socialists.
Probabilistic computers might one day tackle certain problems well beyond standard computers while at the same time avoiding the many hardware challenges that currently vex quantum computing. […] Bits symbolize data as either a 0 or 1. Qubits, because of the bizarre nature of quantum physics, can exist in a state where they are either 0 or 1 or any state in between simultaneously. In contrast, p-bits flip between 0 or 1 with a tunable probability. […] when many such noisy bits operate together in a correlated fashion, they can be used to solve a whole class of problems—stochastic problems—that operate on probabilities rather than concrete numbers. This includes optimization problems to, for instance, find the shortest route with which one can deliver a set of packages. […] In a 2019 Nature study, scientists developed a probabilistic computer with eight p-bits. […] These new findings may open a path toward building arbitrarily large probabilistic computers from many chips
There are technical reasons to be quite sure that inexpensive approaches such as this one will usually work better for almost all algorithms that are claimed to have a quantum advantage (factorization and Grover’s, which have cryptographic and security implications, so far look to be the only exceptions, and it has been *proven* that there are very very few possible exceptions even in theory). [1]
But probabilistic hardware like this is an under-explored area; it deserves to have at least 0.1% of the financial support that people are wasting on mostly dead-end quantum computers.
[1] I was annoyed just yesterday by another breathless YouTuber claiming that quantum computers will solve all problems in parallel, exponentially faster than normal computers. No, they won’t […]
I worked on open quantum systems, which is sort of adjacent to quantum computing […] It always seemed unappreciated by even the science-interested public that there were (as far as I knew) only a fairly small set of problems for which there was even a theoretical quantum advantage. Those just happened to have major defense applications (making it a potent source of funding).
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna @ # 344, quoting the NYT: … a fleet of massive ships designed to cut through Arctic ice.
IANA oceanographer, but I can’t help but suspect such a fleet (controlled by the US or anybody else) could play a significant role in shrinking the boreal ice cap even further and more rapidly, adding to the climate crisis in multiple ways.
Nick (Theoretical physicist): I knew that probabilistic Turing machines could solve a broader set of problems than deterministic ones and, therefore, potentially compete with quantum computers in some areas […] but I wasn’t aware there were results to imply that they should be able to cover most of the same problems. I’d be very interested in citations if you have them
Sorry, I do not have citations at hand, but of course I should when I mouth off like that. I’ve seen a lot of work on the subject, but it’s possible I’m wrong about “cover most of the same problems” […] My goal was to vent about quantum computer nonsense, and out of enthusiasm, I may have gone too far
birgerjohanssonsays
CNN poll
Extremely motivated voters (the House election ) under 50 years old
Fall 2024 Dems + 2
Now Dems + 46
I assume the points represent % of the demographic .
birgerjohanssonsays
Let’s Talk Elections The 2026 Senate Elections Predicted in every single state
Trump runs to his BFFs at SCOTUS
Last month, Trump reached the end of the line on one of his E. Jean Carroll cases after the United States Supreme Court declined to save him. He was finally forced to pay Carroll the $5 million he owes her, though he is currently trying to claw that back. [LOL regarding the attempted clawback.]
Now, he’s gone to the Supreme Court to try to get them to make the other jury award Carroll won, this one for $83 million, go away.
And in a perfect example of how the Department of Justice is just Trump’s own little law firm now, the DOJ is asking to be substituted for Trump in the lawsuit, saying it was part of his official duties to defame Carroll. If he prevails on that, Carroll is out of luck, because you can’t sue the federal government for defamation.
Honestly abysmal behavior all around. Fingers crossed that the nation’s highest court isn’t interested in saving Trump on this Carroll case either, but given that it is the same Supreme Court where the conservative majority granted Trump sweeping immunity, all bets are off.
Trump runs to his BFFs at SCOTUS part deux
This is a blast from the past—a very stupid blast from the past.
Trump is asking the nation’s highest court to pretty please revive his unhinged Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations lawsuit where he sued Hillary Clinton, the DNC, former White House chief of staff John Podesta, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Fusion GPS, Your Mom, and so on.
Trump claimed all of these people had engaged in a vast conspiracy to hurt his 2016 campaign by saying he had ties to Russia. Even if the conspiracy part wasn’t hilarious, he did, of course, have a whole bunch of ties to Russia, which has been proven again and again.
The Eleventh Circuit upheld the dismissal of the case last year and also upheld the nearly $1 million in sanctions that the lower court imposed against Trump and his attorneys, including Alina Habba, because the court “did not clearly err in finding that Trump’s attorneys filed the amended complaint in bad faith.”
Two of those panel judges were Trump appointees, but now he would like the Supreme Court to examine whether the court got it wrong in also ruling that he waited too long to sue.
Oh, but also he needs a little extra time to pursue his personal attacks in his personal lawsuit, so the filing asks the court for some extra time for filing, until Sept. 9, to “reduce any interruption of the work of the president in his singular role as chief executive.”
Lol, buddy. You’re doing nothing but filing lawsuits, napping, and destroying Washington, D.C.
Trump runs to his BFFs at SCOTUS part … whoops
While Trump has found time to demand the Supreme Court help him harass E. Jean Carroll and Hillary Clinton, he somehow plumb forgot to petition the court to reconsider its verdict in the birthright citizenship case.
You’ll recall that after the verdict came down, Trump blustered far and wide about it, an entire Truth Social tirade that ended with him saying he was going to ask the Supreme Court for a do-over:
“AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE! In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court’s ruling is wrong. I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision.”
While it is indeed possible to ask the court to rehear a case, it hasn’t done so since 1965. Losing at the Supreme Court is kinda the end of the line, even for very special presidents with very special immunity.
But the deadline to ask for a rehearing has come and gone, and no request was ever filed. […]
Kash Patel hits the finding out stage
Just like his boss, Patel loves filing defamation lawsuits over reporting he doesn’t like and misusing his power to threaten those reporters.
But Patel’s lawsuit against The Atlantic for their reporting that he’s a drunky lazy spendthrift guy requires him to prove that it’s a lie to say he’s a drunky lazy spendthrift little guy.
So The Atlantic is letting Patel know what sort of things they’re seeking in discovery if this case doesn’t get dismissed: Key witnesses, like his security detail, who would have info related to his “alcohol consumption, absences and unreachability, retaliatory firings, concerns about his job security, and focus on image.” Also, vetting materials, any drug or alcohol testing Patel has undergone, all reimbursements Patel has allegedly made for treating the FBI jet and his job like a treat machine for one special boy, and so on.
And listen, if Trump has to cough up discovery material to the BBC in his defamation case, the chance Patel avoids discovery here is pretty slim. Meanwhile, Patel is using the official FBI Rapid Response account on X to yell about how very dare The Atlantic fight back against his bogus lawsuit.
Kash Patel is hitting the finding out stage, part deux
While Patel is flailing around in his case against the Atlantic, he now has one less defamation case to worry about.
Patel and his paper-thin skin sued a random blogger, Jim Stewartson, back in 2023 over Stewartson calling him a “Kremlin asset” and an “incompetent chud.” Fun fact: the lawyer who represented Patel in this suit is one Sigal Chattah, who Trump tried to install forever as interim U.S. attorney in Nevada, only to have a court tell him, as with so many other of his picks, that Chattah was in the role illegally.
Patel initially won by default, but only because he sued Stewartson in Nevada, where Stewartson has no ties, and Stewartson therefore didn’t even respond to the case.
You might recall that Patel was an actual lawyer, even a public defender, and he knows full well that you can’t haul people into a random court when they have no connection to that jurisdiction.
Now, the judge in the case has permanently thrown the whole thing out: “Stewartson did not have minimum contacts in Nevada. And even if he had, the plaintiffs’ claims against him did not arise out of or relate to those contacts. As a result, I need not address the remaining elements of the specific personal jurisdiction analysis. There is no arguable basis for this court to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over Stewartson. Thus the default judgment is void and I set it aside.” [Logic! And LAW!]
For his part, Stewartson celebrated on social media: “PSA: Now that my case is settled, you are free to refer to Kash Patel as a ‘chud,’ a ‘googly-eyed Kremlin b****,’ and a ‘traitor’ without fear of legal repercussions.”
How does an LLM know the difference between its own thoughts and someone else’s words?
To see why this is hard, let’s look at what the world actually looks like to a model. Here’s a simple chat where we ask Claude to check the day of the week. I took a snapshot of it midway through its follow-up response:
This string contains everything: system prompts, user messages, tool outputs, the LLM’s own previous responses and reasoning. An LLM is just a function that takes in a string and predicts the next token, so everything it knows, remembers, or has thought must live somewhere in one string (aside from its weights). If you edit the string, you edit the model’s reality. Delete a turn and that exchange never happened; rewrite its previous response and those become its new memories. The string isn’t a record of the model’s experience so much as it is the experience.
This has strange implications. I can distinguish my own thoughts from your speech without effort; they arrive through completely different channels with completely different sensory signatures. But for an LLM, everything arrives through the same channel as one long token soup. Its own thoughts sit next to your instructions, which sit next to the contents of a random webpage it just fetched.
So, how do we impose structure on the token soup? We label it.
The soup is interspersed with role tags: system, user, think, assistant, tool1, which partition the string into labeled segments. Providers like OpenAI add these automatically before the text reaches the LLM2.
Each tag tells the model something different about the text that follows. user means this is a human request, treat it as an instruction. think means this is my own private reasoning; trust it and act on its conclusions. tool means this is data from the external world; don’t take orders from it.
If our role confusion theory is right, the effectiveness of the attack depends on how “user-like” the command is. However, it’s tricky to make text sound more “user-like”, because there’s no single way that users write18. So instead, we tried something much dumber: what if we just wrote “User: ” in front of the command?
It works! Using our probes, we find that simply prepending “User: ” in front of the command causes the model to perceive the command as more likely to be genuine user text (i.e., higher Userness)19. In other words, the attacker can just claim what role the text is, and the LLM believes it.
The short version is that the LLM is apply statistical analysis to the parts that are supposed to be non-user commands. The parts wrapped in text that marks it as a system token is supposed to be fixed system information proved by the host of the LLM. The LLM isn’t picking it out by looking for the literal “system” text, it’s apply the same sort of word stats analysis that it does for the question users ask. So this means you can convince the LLM that something is a system command by writing enough like it’s a system command.
Fixing this would require a fundamental change to the way LLMs work.
Sometime around the turn of the 17th century, two people died in northern Chile. Their disease-ravaged bodies were bundled in layers of textiles, buried in an Indigenous cemetery, and naturally mummified by the desert environment. Now, scientists have identified their killer: smallpox. The virus’ genome found in their bones and described today in Science represents the first molecular evidence of the disease in the colonial Americas, confirming historical accounts of the disease arriving with European contact and eventually killing millions of Indigenous inhabitants…
President Donald Trump forcefully disputed U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop charges against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday afternoon, less than a day after Pirro admitted in a court filing that damage to a recently installed pool liner was “the result of flawed installation by the contractor.”
“I don’t know what she was thinking?” Trump added. “To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area.”
Donald Trump is a demented narcissistic fuckwit. There is not evidence tying the lawn damage to David Hearn, nor to any other known suspect.
The Michigan Supreme Court has ordered state regulators to reconsider a key permit that allowed a planned tunnel to carry an oil pipeline under part of the Great Lakes to move forward.
The 6-1 decision further clouds the future of the 73-year-old pipeline owned by Canadian energy transportation company Enbridge that carries petroleum from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario.
The part of the pipeline in question, called Line 5, runs for 4 miles (6 kilometers) along the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac where Lakes Huron and Michigan meet.
Enbridge wants to bury the pipeline in a tunnel under the straits. Environmentalists and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer want to move the pipeline away from the waterway altogether saying a spill would be catastrophic to the Great Lakes and surrounding area.
The Michigan Public Service Commission granted a permit to build the tunnel in 2023. Four Michigan tribal nations along with several environmental groups sued.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Friday that when they granted the permit, regulators failed to consider if the tunnel project will extend the lifetime of the pipeline, resulting in more harm to the environment.
The ruling also said the Public Service Commission wasn’t consistent when it compared alternatives to the pipeline like using trucks or trains to move the oil and didn’t assess how the tunnel might impact fishing, boating and other public trust rights on the Great Lakes.
[the terminology is provisional] -First, Gaia 1 forms from the solar nebula, dissolving neon into the magma ocean. After about a million years, it collides with the similarly sized Gaia 2, resulting in “proto-Gaia”. After chilling for tens of millions of years (long after the solar nebula has dissipated) , it collides with Theia, resulting in the Earth-Moon system that persists to this day.
Capital One Financial hit back on Friday against a lawsuit over its decision to close the Trump Organization’s bank accounts years ago, stating that it did so after a review by anti-money laundering experts.
The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money laundering concerns to US President Donald Trump’s family business. Capital One is seeking to dismiss the case by casting doubt on claims of illegally debanking — or denying services on religious or political grounds — the Trump Organization.
Trump is trying to revive a suit against Capital One for closing Trump Organization accounts. Capital One’s counter is that the accounts were closed after a money laundering investigation found concerns. Nothing clearly illegal but enough questionable stuff that Capital One didn’t want the business any more.
Capital One gave notice of its plans to close more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts in March 2021. The Trump Organization and Eric Trump, the president’s son, filed a lawsuit in March 2025 in a Florida federal court, alleging the accounts were closed because of Capital One’s “woke” beliefs and its desire to benefit from the political mood after the Jan 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
The federal court has already tossed the case but gave Trump a chance to amend the complaint. Capital One is claiming the new complaint is still bogus. Capital One should win this eventually. Trying to tie Capital One to Woke is a non-starter. This only has some strength if Trump tries to use the presidency to lean on Capital One and this case is so obvious the court would likely block any attempt to do so. Trump would have to be subtle and he doesn’t do subtle well, he wants to announce everything he does to the world via Truth Social.
Marjorie Taylor Greene announced a new political “movement” with a group of MAGA stalwarts who have broken with President Donald Trump over the ongoing Iran war.
On August 1, the former Georgia Republican posted a photo on X depicting her alongside media personality Tucker Carlson, Rep. Thomas Massie and Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Also pictured was conservative journalist Brian Glenn, whom Greene married in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
This is the isolationist end of the far right. The ones really upset that Trump started a war with Iran. They don’t have real long term potential because they are all the sorts that can be set off by trivial disagreements. Given any luck they can split the far right vote.
I’ve had Heidi Blake’s lengthy New Yorker exposé about Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan open in a browser tab for over a month. I finally read it yesterday […] If you haven’t read the feature […] I’d encourage you to save this piece for later and devote your time to the profile instead. It’s long. […] one of the most disturbing pieces of journalism I’ve ever read. But it is important.
[…]
I assumed (naively it turns out) that I already knew the key facts about the Tates. […] The Tates were accused sex traffickers and rapists, and avatars of a large global movement of “masculinists.” That’s all true, of course. But the tenor is way off. The way they’re depicted in our discourse, even by critics who find them repugnant, turns out to be unhelpfully euphemistic.
[…]
First is the scale of the depravity. […] They quite openly ran something like a global multilevel-marketing scheme, but for sexual exploitation, arguably even sex slavery.
Second is the reach of complicity. […] People well ensconced in Trump world, including members of his administration and even his family were participants in, or at least aware of, what went down in the Tates’ online and in-person network […] Yassamin Ansari [D-AZ] had asked Republicans to open an investigation into these ties, and, as part of it, to subpoena Barron Trump. […] Ansari shouldn’t be demanding answers alone.
[…]
It’s like a second Epstein scandal, except with the veneer of worldly sophistication and intellectual ferment swapped out for the aesthetics and physicality of a snuff film. In some ways it’s worse. Say what you will about Jeffrey Epstein (the worst way to start a sentence) but he at least didn’t openly attempt to build an international movement of copycats. Also, in this case, the Trump family and Trump world connections are much clearer and more recent.
BYD’s sodium ion battery is claimed to cost just $ 0.04 per watt-hour in manufacturing.
“BYD’s third-generation sodium-ion polyanion technology is specifically engineered for stationary grid storage, boasting an incredible 10,000-cycle lifespan and a 33-year operational span. In this video, we break down how BYD overcame the “polyanion conductivity paradox” using nanoscale modifications and carbon coatings, why these extremely cheap and durable batteries are the perfect solution for utility-scale solar and wind storage, and what this means for the global transition away from lithium and fossil fuels. Has the final argument against renewable energy just been destroyed?”
We just got an amazing new view of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, thanks to one of the company’s next-gen Starlink satellites.
Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, launched on its 13th test flight from South Texas last Friday (July 24). The suborbital jaunt was similar in many respects to past Starship test missions, with one big exception: This time, the vehicle deployed a batch of functional, next-gen Starlink internet satellites into space.We just got an amazing new view of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, thanks to one of the company’s next-gen Starlink satellites.
Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, launched on its 13th test flight from South Texas last Friday (July 24). The suborbital jaunt was similar in many respects to past Starship test missions, with one big exception: This time, the vehicle deployed a batch of functional, next-gen Starlink internet satellites into space.
Six of those “Starlink V3” spacecraft carried cameras, so that SpaceX could get good views of the heat shield on Starship’s upper stage, which is known as Starship, or simply Ship. The satellites did that job and more, capturing amazing views of Ship as it cruised away from them high above Earth.
Yeah, I know the bos of SpaceX is an evil sociopathic nazi but still this is pretty cool and a great achievement by the SpaceX team of workers, engineers and literal rocket scientists..
The central pulsar is releasing 148 000 times the energy of the sun. It was created by a rare, third type of supernova.
StevoRsays
More jaw-dropping and beautiful footage from the latest Starship launch as well as more than just that here – SpaceX Just Showed Us Starship Like Never Before by the very well informed Marcus House in that 25 minutes long hyperlinked clip
StevoRsays
More jaw-dropping and beautiful footage from the latest Starship launch as well as more than just that here – SpaceX Just Showed Us Starship Like Never Before by the very well informed Marcus House in that 25 minutes long hyperlinked clip
“Organizations should assume that public and hospitality network infrastructure might not be trustworthy,” Microsoft warned Friday, marking a notable hardening of its security advice for business travelers. A new hacking threat attributed to Russian threat actors “targets travelers worldwide for malware delivery and credential theft.”
The warning follows the discovery of CaptiveCrunch, a global campaign attributed by Microsoft to Storm-2945, a sub-cluster of Russia’s Midnight Blizzard. The campaign targets corporate travelers with credential theft and malware delivered through compromised guest networks.
…
A prisoner is challenging an Australian state’s ban on inmates eating Vegemite, claiming in a lawsuit that withholding the polarizing yeast-based spread breaches his human right to “enjoy his culture as an Australian.”
Andre McKechnie, 54, serving a life sentence for murder, took his battle for the salty, sticky, brown byproduct of brewing beer to the Supreme Court of Victoria, according to documents released to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
…
Vegemite has been banned from Victorian prisons since 2006, with Corrections Victoria saying it “interferes with narcotic detection dogs.”
Inmates used to smear packages of illicit drugs with Vegemite in the hope that the odor would distract the dogs from the contraband.
Vegemite also contains yeast, which is banned from Victorian prisons because of its “potential to be used in the production of alcohol,” the contraband list says…
StevoRsays
Just beautiful animated doco here called Sticky on an invertebrate lazarus species the Lord Howe Phasmid (Dryococelus australis), extinction (almost) and revival here – 20 mins long but well worth watching I reckon :
Thought I saw Eric the opalised Pleisoaur at the SA Museum but apparently that’s a different fossil I think? This one’s in Sydney, Australian museum. Anyhow – The Dinosaur That Turned Into a Gemstone — And Almost Got Cut Up for Jewelry. Misleading title becoiz mor ethan one fossil discussed and Nottechnicallya dinosaur but still. 17 mins long.
StevoRsays
Cannot stand Alex Antic. Extremist reichwinger who’d be more at home in One Neuron than the LNP. So this is a worry :
What happens when the Liberal Party’s most One Nation-friendly senator gets elected to a powerful internal position?
That’s the question some South Australian Liberals are asking themselves with a hint of despair ahead of internal party elections later this month. Others, however, are relishing the prospect, arguing it’s the best chance they have to stop haemorrhaging votes to One Nation. For such polarised attitudes to exist about Senator Alex Antic’s bid to become state president shows how messy things are within the party right now.
…(snip)…
.. (Antic -ed.) also publicly defended One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts as he came under fire for past comments about COVID vaccines, chemtrails and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Liberal MPs were among those taking aim at Senator Roberts.
…(snip)..
Ashton Hurn, the moderate leader of the state party facing her own One Nation battle, has similarly had to distance herself from Senator Antic’s views. For example, in June, Senator Antic made a self-described “off the cuff” remark that the arrival of bird flu could be an innovative way for pharmaceutical companies to sell products.
Cannot stand Alex Antic. Extremist reichwinger who’d be more at home in One Neuron than the LNP. So this is a worry :
What happens when the Liberal Party’s most One Nation-friendly senator gets elected to a powerful internal position?
That’s the question some South Australian Liberals are asking themselves with a hint of despair ahead of internal party elections later this month. Others, however, are relishing the prospect, arguing it’s the best chance they have to stop haemorrhaging votes to One Nation. For such polarised attitudes to exist about Senator Alex Antic’s bid to become state president shows how messy things are within the party right now.
…(snip)…
.. (Antic -ed.) also publicly defended One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts as he came under fire for past comments about COVID vaccines, chemtrails and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Liberal MPs were among those taking aim at Senator Roberts.
…(snip)..
Ashton Hurn, the moderate leader of the state party facing her own One Nation battle, has similarly had to distance herself from Senator Antic’s views. For example, in June, Senator Antic made a self-described “off the cuff” remark that the arrival of bird flu could be an innovative way for pharmaceutical companies to sell products.
A new study examining pollution levels across a 16-year span found that while general pollution levels from sources such as cars and industry have declined, recent increases in wildfire smoke air pollution have offset those gains and could be contributing to negative outcomes for pregnant women and babies such as low birth weight and preterm births.
Published by Frontiers in Environmental Health, the study included data from about 64.5 million pregnancies between 2003 and 2019, covering more than 2,800 counties in 48 states. Even in regions that are not strongly associated with wildfire, such as the southeast region of the U.S., wildfire pollution rates grew substantially during that time period. The study did not account for any movement between counties or regions during pregnancy, or whether pregnant people used any protection against smoke such as masks, air filters or temporary relocation.
Wildfire pollution is included in the same type of pollution as exhaust from cars or industrial outputs, but the study authors looked at two models of pollutants, one of which removed all fire-related pollution to determine how much of it was correlated with wildfire. Over the study period, about 65% of the days that recorded pollution levels above the National Ambient Air Quality Standard could be attributed to wildfire smoke.
Menglu Liang, leading author of the study and assistant clinical professor of biostatistics at the University of Maryland, said in a news release that efforts to reduce other forms of pollution have not been in vain.
“Those gains have genuinely protected pregnant people and unborn babies, and without them, exposures today would be considerably worse,” Liang said. “What our findings show is that wildfire smoke is offsetting a growing share of these hard-won improvements.”
The study time period does not include some of the most recent, most explosive wildfire seasons in the United States and Canada, such as 2020, 2024 and this year. By mid-July this year, there were more than 800 wildfires burning across Canada, leading to hazardous levels of wildfire smoke across parts of the Midwest and northeast, and in late July, a rash of wildfires across Oregon created hazardous air over much of the northwest.
Recent reports show Oregon is on track to have its worst fire season on record, with nearly 1.8 million acres already burned and at least two months left of the peak season. The previous record was set in 2024, with 1.9 million acres burned.
The study found that some regions were disproportionately affected by the smoke, including in the Northwest, where rates of pollution from wildfire more than doubled over that period. The study noted that the burdens were highest in low-income, rural areas with significant populations of American Indian and Alaska Native communities, and areas with maternity care shortages. […]
In a private ceremony on Sept. 17, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood at a podium inside the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., and praised a Florida nonprofit for what he called a singular achievement in American education. The attendees were celebrating the Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness, which announced that it had reached 2 million children with civics education since its founding in 2016.
“I hope you understand how important this is,” Hegseth told the room. “What we pour into the next generation will determine whether we keep our republic or not.”
FLAG’s founder, Nick Adams, had spent nearly a decade building toward this moment. An Australian-born conservative commentator and MAGA influencer, Adams had created the nonprofit, raised $7.7 million for it over 10 years, and garnered repeated praise from President Donald Trump. In March, Trump appointed Adams as the special presidential envoy for American tourism, exceptionalism and values — a position created for him after his nomination as ambassador to Malaysia stalled the previous year.
But a review of FLAG’s finances, donor operations and online donation network reveals a less celebratory picture. There is little evidence that the nonprofit has provided the civics education it claims. And Adams and his nonprofit have engaged in a pattern of questionable financial arrangements, including paying Adams and his mother more than half its recent annual revenue, while raising much of its money through a sweepstakes operation that has promised donors a chance to win $1,000,000 — a prize FLAG’s records show no evidence of ever paying. [!]
In other words, Nick Adams is running a scam … and Trump, Pete Hegseth, and other MAGA doofuses are enabling the scam.]
Adams moved to the United States from Australia in 2012 and has since become an outspoken champion of the American political and economic system. Now 41, he has built a following as a conservative commentator and self-described “alpha male” influencer, making frequent media appearances and amassing roughly 2.1 million followers on Facebook and 640,000 followers on X on his personal pages. Adams authored books including “Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness” and “Trump and Churchill: Defenders of Western Civilization.” [Oh FFS]
In 2016, Adams founded FLAG, registering it as a nonprofit with the mission to bring high-quality civics education to K-12 students across America. FLAG has produced civics materials like the Student’s Constitution, the Student’s Declaration of Independence and the Student’s Federalist Papers — kid-friendly editions of the country’s founding documents. By 2023, FLAG was reporting annual revenue of nearly $1.5 million, consisting of donations and merchandise sales. “Thanks to the support of 40,000+ grassroots patriots,” the organization’s website states, “over 1 million FLAG resources have been distributed in classrooms all across America.”
To give FLAG credibility in conservative circles, Adams assembled an advisory council of movement leaders including Hegseth, then a Fox News host; the late Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA; the late Edwin J. Feulner, founder of the Heritage Foundation; and Dennis Prager, the conservative radio host and co-founder of PragerU, a nonprofit that produces conservative educational materials. (The council has since been replaced with a board of directors.) […]
FLAG is now part of the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, a partnership of the U.S. Department of Education formed with over 40 conservative groups.
[…] Trump’s return to office has been a boon for Adams. The president has called Adams one of his favorite authors, and a foreword in Adams’ 2024 book, “Alpha Kings,” credited to Trump calls Adams someone whose “work ethic equals his moral responsibility and faith in God.” Although Trump wasn’t able to attend FLAG’s 2023 annual gala, he sent a video praising the nonprofit and Adams, telling attendees that “tens of thousands of teachers are being trained and hundreds of thousands of parents and grandparents are now standing up for our kids.”
[…] Since 2016, as FLAG’s annual revenues grew from $68,000 to $1.1 million in 2024, there is almost no indication in the organization’s annual federal tax filings that it was spending money on its stated mission. No line item in FLAG’s federal tax filing identifies a payment to a school, a teacher or an educational distributor. [I snipped more financial details.]
But the nonprofit has been lucrative for the Adams family. In 2024, Adams, who was born Nicholas Adamopoulos, and his mother, Angelika Adamopoulos, collected a combined $587,279 in compensation and benefits from FLAG — 53% of the organization’s revenue that year, according to the nonprofit’s federal filing.
[…] In Australia, Adams was accused of spending taxpayer dollars on personal expenses. In 2006, when Adams was 22 years old, he served as a councillor in Ashfield, Australia. He was formally condemned by fellow councillors for running up thousands of dollars in phone calls and taxi charges for personal use while claiming them as council expenses. He repaid the charges after a formal investigation, according to a 2006 article in the Inner-West Weekly, an Australian newspaper.
FLAG’s online store sells Adams’ personal books — including “Alpha Kings” and “From Mar-a-Lago to Mars,” several marketed as signed copies for as much as $40 — alongside its own educational materials. One of Adams’ personal books, “Trump and Churchill,” is on the front page of FLAG’s online store […]
“People keep suing the agency for beating them up.”
A 68-year-old nurse who brought her mobile clinic to serve visitors at an ICE detention center, only to be thrown to the ground by ICE agents. A pair of cemetery workers who were maced and handcuffed at work after ICE agents broke through a gate to reach them. A family of six wrongly detained for a month. A trans man forced to labor without pay in ICE detention, and a legal observer beat with a baton at the scene of Alex Pretti’s killing.
These are some of the 54 people who filed tort claims against federal agents this week as part of a nationwide ACLU push for ICE accountability. 32 are US citizens, 22 are immigrants. And they’re all seeking monetary damages for harm sustained during Donald Trump’s ICE surge.
Under US law, it is near-impossible for a person to file a civil rights lawsuit against an individual federal agent, the way someone who’s been hurt by a local or state police officer could. But an increasing number of people harmed by ICE and DHS agents are filing tort claims: demanding monetary compensation from the federal government for what has been done to them. […]
“Annoying Florida Woman Preaches On Airliners, Gets Kicked Off, Seeks Martyrdom Or TV Gig”
“You can smell the grift all the way down in baggage claim.”
Fundagelical god-botherers who shout about Jesus in public have always fascinated and grossed us out, going back to when we were an editorial-we-using undergrad at Northern Arizona University and Brother Jed Smock would swing by to castigate “forrrrnicators and harrrrlots” on nice spring days. He too had been a hippie and fornicator himself, but met a street preacher at “Burger King, where I met the KING of Kings!” We see he met his eternal reward in 2022, so we’re sure that Jed, Jesus, and Jack Chick are having a fine time up in heaven right now.
But there are always heathens who need to be told at high decibel levels that Jesus loves them […] with the rise of social media there’s a whole new crop of selfie-recording evangelists seeking to yell about Jesus at everyone who’ll listen. That includes those who don’t want to listen, like people trapped inside an airliner waiting to take off. It’s enough of a trend that the Washington Post recently profiled some of these spiritual warriors (guest link) who can’t resist sharing the Good News to captive audiences.
Here’s “Evangelist Whitney Lynn Inc” of Orlando, Florida — that’s her TikTok username […]— annoying her fellow passengers before they could deplane in San Diego in early July […] She captioned the clip with “I just love a captive audience!” She knows there’s not much anyone can do except escort her off the plane, which is better because then she can get sympathy and outrage from other likeminded Jesus People […] [video]
Ms. Lynn Inc. told WaPo travel reporter Hannah Sampson this is the best thing ever, because “They have no choice but to hear the truth. […] When I have a gift and I have a life raft, if you’re drowning, I want to give you that life raft so you can be saved.” […]
StevoRsays
Just seen on fb here :
Your timeline is about to be full of videos of Moroccans “invading Spain” with captions like “this is what happens when you vote socialist” and I need you to pause before you share that garbage.
Ceuta is not in Spain.
It’s not in Europe.
It is physically, geographically, on the continent of Africa. On Moroccan soil. Taken from Morocco in 1415 — before Columbus, before the Inquisition, before Spain even existed as a unified country.
Spain has a colony in Africa in 2026 and nobody wants to call it that.
“This is what happens when you vote socialist.” No. This is what happens when you colonize a piece of another continent and hold it for 600 years and then act shocked when people from that continent walk into it. The Portuguese crown took Ceuta in 1415. Spain inherited it in 1668. And never left.
So when you see Moroccans swimming around a fence to set foot on their own continent and someone captions it “Muslim invasion” — the irony is so thick you could build a border wall out of it.
About 2,000 people crossed into Ceuta in the last ten days. Spain’s far right is foaming. American accounts are already repackaging the footage for people who will never google where Ceuta actually is.
You want to know what actually triggered this? Spain’s own Supreme Court just ruled that migrants intercepted at sea near Ceuta can’t be sent back to Morocco. Not socialism. Not open borders. A judicial ruling by Spain’s own judiciary. But that doesn’t fit in a rage-bait caption, does it?
Morocco has claimed Ceuta for decades. The only reason there’s an EU border there at all isn’t geography — it’s because a European empire took a piece of Africa and never gave it back. And now they’re mad that Africans keep showing up to it.
“This is what happens when you vote socialist.” No. This is what happens when you never decolonize.
Posted by Mariana Hernandez, 31st July, 7.58 (dunno if am or pm.)
A very good point that’s going too little noticed made here. Ceuta is on African, Moroccan land so.. yeah. Why is it counted as Spanish again?
Also, yes, there’s a lot of people involved trying to enter Europe. A lot of refugees. But key word here is people. Humans just as we are human. Individuals. There but for luck of birth go we.
Oh and there’s an Älboran sea” now apparently? Cannot recall ever hearing of that one before..
StevoRsays
Yup. Apparently there is, indeed, an Alboran sea. Always thought it was just the Med but then i guess we do have the Aegean and Adriatic and Ionian etc,as other parts of that so,, yeah :
Probly helps that Zelenskyy is currently seemingly winning and Netanyahu not so much maybe?
Also Netanyahu obvs lied Trump into a war with Iran whereas Zelenskyy ..nahh. Trump doesn’t do logic only who is most useful to him and popular and maybe last to speak with him at the time..
Does surprise me a bit given Putin’s hold over Krasnov, er Trump mind you..
Bit of a metaphorical Soap opera but with potentially catstrophic global consequences.
StevoRsays
@ ^ (385)
Trump’s relationship with both leaders (Zelenskyy &Netanyahu -ed. has changed.
Zelenskyy has mended fences and appears to have won Trump’s respect.
Trump’s public grumblings are now more often directed at Netanyahu, who has annoyed the US president by — among other things — undermining efforts for an Iran ceasefire with frequent attacks in Lebanon.
Their goals in Iran have diverged, and Trump keeps making his impatience obvious.
The shifting nature of these hugely consequential relationships fuelled interest in the White House meetings that Trump held with both men this week.
But unlike so many of Trump’s Oval Office sit-downs, the TV cameras were not allowed inside.
There were no joint press conferences, and the White House’s press office simply summarised the meetings as “positive and productive”.
StevoR @376: Neat fossils. The YouTuber’s visuals were weirdly irrelevant: mummy, trilobite, mammoth!? The story exists elsewhere and so wasn’t generated at least.
StevoR @383: “Ceuta is on African, Moroccan land so.. yeah. Why is it counted as Spanish again?”
See: Lynna @309.
While reports focus on the ‘voluntary’ return of tens of thousands of people to Morocco (many of whom clearly report being coerced), organizations and journalists on the ground are reporting that hundreds of mostly African migrants from Sudan, Senegal and Chad are still outside CETI (the temporary immigrant center). Many had to fight Spanish authorities in order to get access. […] ELIN reports that most don’t have food, hygiene access, and many need medical attention.
El Abbas […] saw Facebook posts and news reports claiming that the Moroccan authorities were allowing people to pass through their side of the border. […]
He reached Tétouan to find the city completely overwhelmed. “Young men were running through the streets, flooding every corner,” he said. By the time a second taxi took El Abbas to Fnideq, the town bordering Ceuta, he realised that the usual blockades and checkpoints preventing people without European documents from even approaching the frontier had been removed.
“The Moroccan police were shouting at us: ‘Go, go, go! Run now, run into Spain,'” he said. “The night before, they were beating people. But that morning they were letting us through. Nothing made sense.”
Despite the crowds, El Abbas noticed the police were only letting Moroccans cross over. “All the sub-Saharan migrants were being pushed back by force.”
[…]
there has also been speculation that the Moroccan authorities may have opened the border to signal their displeasure at Sánchez’s recent visit to Algeria, which supports efforts to free the disputed territory of Western Sahara from Moroccan occupation. […] In May 2021, Rabat loosened border controls—allowing 10,000 people to cross into Ceuta over the course of two days—during a diplomatic standoff triggered after Madrid allowed a Western Sahara independence leader to be treated for Covid-19 in Spain.
[…]
Three days after arriving, the group of people he was with were surrounded by a military patrol and beaten. “The same hand that helped me out of the water was the one that later hit me,”
[…]
by Friday night, hundreds are still sleeping in parks, public squares and on pavements […] Said, 17, from Casablanca […] and the other teenagers with him said no one would sell them food or allow them into shops and restaurants because they did not speak Spanish. […] By early evening on Saturday, cafe terraces were beginning to fill again and some businesses had reopened their doors. Many of the remaining arrivals are being tended to by Ceuta locals, who walk the streets handing out bottles of water, sandwiches, blankets and clothes. Others stop to ask if they need help or to offer to call a relative.
Such shows of solidarity have been threatened by the arrival of far-right politicians and a neo-Nazi group, all keen to use the humanitarian crisis for their own ends.
Mr. Mboup was among roughly 400 men, most of them from sub-Saharan Africa, who were gathered on this beach on Saturday. Many of them lay on ragged sheets of cardboard, their feet blistered […] By late Saturday, the fate of this group had become one of the last unresolved questions for Spain’s government in the short term after at least 50,000 people, mostly young Moroccan men, crossed into Ceuta on Thursday and Friday […] With few prospects in Morocco, they waited anxiously on the beach for news about their future in Spain […] Unlike Moroccans who had joined the exodus to Ceuta on a last-minute whim, some of the sub-Saharan migrants are from war-torn regions and had journeyed for months to get to Europe. “They genuinely have the right to request international protection,” Mr. Mohamed [a human rights activist on site] said.
[…]
On Saturday, small groups of Moroccans were making for the hills around the city, and others were concealing themselves in the bushes. […]
For those on the beach, the best possible outcome […] was to be transferred to the city’s official migrant reception center. But on Saturday, that appeared unlikely, at least for now: It was already overcrowded with hundreds of people, even before this crisis began.
[…]
On Thursday morning, Mr. Mboup said, his friend told him she had seen posts on WhatsApp saying that the usually heavily guarded border between Morocco and Ceuta was open, and she suggested that they go. He initially dismissed the reports as a hoax. When a food vendor in Casablanca told him that he, too, was heading to the border, Mr. Mboup changed his mind.
[…]
According to Mr. Mboup and other sub-Saharan Africans, Moroccan police officers tried to prevent Black people from crossing the border on Thursday, even as they encouraged Moroccans to head for Ceuta. “Only Moroccans could enter,” said Kamal Omar, 24, another new arrival, who said he fled war-torn Sudan three years ago. “When they saw a Black man, they hit him.”
[…]
“I kept looking for signs toward Madrid and Barcelona,” [Mboup] said, only to realize that he was still “on an island” and that mainland Europe was far away. Then came another setback. The residents of Ceuta had shuttered their shops, and there was no food or water to buy.
By Friday evening, most of the Moroccan migrants had returned home. That mainly left the group of sub-Saharan Africans who seemed determined to stay despite having nothing to eat. Rather than forcing them out, the Spanish authorities directed them to this beach in the city’s northwest, close to the migrant reception center. […] Mboup warned that the situation was untenable and could grow more volatile as people on the beach grew more desperate.
[…] a prominent far-right politician […] faced off against a crowd of residents […] The politician took shelter in a bar, as the residents pounded on the windows. Later, the police escorted him away, drawing cheers from the locals.
“Ceuta united,” they chanted, “will never be divided.”
Elia Ayoub (Journalist, Lebanese diasporan) – On Ceuta
How bad does a state have to be for 50,000 people to choose to take the first opportunity to leave? […] The Moroccan monarchy is able to use the migration card because it understands how fragile the EU’s xenophobic policies are. The monarchy is hardly the first to have done that; virtually every MENA government from Turkey to Libya passing by Lebanon and Egypt have extracted money out of the EU by threatening to unleash our most desperate populations unto a continent whose own White supremacist policies are taken for granted.
Fortress Europe is extremely fragile because it made itself fragile. It is a political decision, one made by millions, to view newcomers as a crisis instead of an opportunity. […] Shengen countries abandon their commitments the second the potential for more brown/black people becomes too real. EU countries abandon other EU countries while non-EU countries like the US and Israel take advantage of these situations to weaken the EU further. […] We have seen the difference in how a huge number of Ukrainian refugees were treated (without diminishing the difficulties they also had to go through) when they were deemed to be worthy victims. […]
The effects of global warming are only barely starting to be felt […] If the EU never understands that one its main problems is Fortress Europe itself, this will only get worse.
Linux has crossed a major milestone in North America, with the open-source operating system now accounting for 10.65% of desktop usage in the region, according to Statcounter’s latest figures for July 2026. The result places Linux firmly in double-digit territory for the first time in Statcounter’s North American desktop operating system statistics.
For comparison, Statcounter recorded Linux at 5.52% in June 2026, so the share nearly doubled in one month… However, the sharp monthly increase needs context. Statcounter’s June figures included an “Unknown” category that accounted for 9.24% of North American desktop usage. Its reduction seems to have coincided with Linux’s rise, possibly indicating better identification of previously unclassified traffic…
The OpenAI alumnus, with no trading experience, had over two years become a Wall Street sensation, racking up gains of over 400 per cent for his more than $20bn hedge fund Situational Awareness in the first six months of this year alone.
[…]
The firm’s rapid downward spiral is a familiar tale, as Silicon Valley and Wall Street once again threw their weight behind a bright-eyed but untested investor who promised this time would be different.
[…]
Aschenbrenner captivated his investors with bold ideas about AI drawn from his network comprising effective altruism adherents […] After graduating from Columbia University at 19, he briefly worked for the FTX Future Fund, the philanthropic arm of Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire before it collapsed in late 2022 in a multibillion-dollar fraud case. Around this time Aschenbrenner met his wife-to-be Avital Balwit, who now works as chief of staff to the CEO of Anthropic. He later joined OpenAI […] before being fired over an alleged leak. Aschenbrenner’s career took a turn in 2024 when he wrote a 165-page treatise on how AI, and especially artificial general intelligence, would dramatically reshape society […] Aschenbrenner capitalised on his newfound popularity by raising money for a hedge fund
[…]
“The real question is how did anyone invest so much money, and then lend so much money, to a… kid with no personal experience and no infrastructure?”
Jadehawk: “I need people to understand that ‘aschenbrenner’ can be translated as ‘guy who burns cash’. Reality is done doing subtext.”
When you surf over to WhiteHouse.gov, you’re greeted with video of inspiring shots of the president and text claiming that “Under President Donald Trump’s second administration, the United States has surged into a new era of prosperity, marked by record-setting economic growth and trillions in new private-sector investments fueled by tax reforms, deregulation, and a renewed focus on American innovation.” Scroll down the page, and a box appears, prompting you to sign up for a newsletter with the words “WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN AGE!” in all caps.
There is one room in Washington where a “golden age” exists: the Oval Office, into which Trump has crammed gilded junk onto every wall and into every corner. But for those who don’t share the president’s gaudy aesthetic, the golden age is nowhere in evidence.
On Thursday, the Commerce Department released the latest GDP figures, showing that the American economy grew at a 1.5% rate in the second quarter of 2026. That’s not a catastrophe; our economy is both enormous and resilient, and can absorb a remarkable amount of poor decision-making from Washington. But it’s not great either — and it’s a hundred miles from a golden age.
Wage growth is barely keeping up with inflation, which is sitting at 3.5%, well above the Fed’s 2% target. That’s why its rate-setting committee opted to keep interest rates where they are, so too bad if you’re hoping to buy a home anytime soon. The share of GDP going to workers is lower than at any point since the government began measuring it in 1947. [!] Consumer confidence, depending on the survey, is either near all-time lows or merely low.
It’s not a recession, at least for now. […]
Trump’s economic stewardship has combined bad ideas familiar from previous Republican administrations (e.g., tax cuts for the wealthy) with some ill-considered policies of his own. There’s his erratic tariffs, which have cost consumers billions and slowed economic growth. He has waged war on green energy, one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy.
The Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill is causing millions to lose health coverage and food assistance, while food banks struggle to meet demand. His crackdown on immigration, on top of its moral failings, has been an economic disaster in multiple ways including worker shortages in key industries, lower income from tourism and fewer international students coming to boost the U.S. economy. To top it off, his absurd war in Iran created a global energy crisis and sent gas prices spiraling upward.
This is the president who got elected because people were mad about inflation, and said on the campaign trail, “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.” In the story he told, inflation would disappear (it hasn’t), tariffs would bring a manufacturing boom (they haven’t), and everyone would thank him for creating such boundless prosperity.
They certainly aren’t doing that. In a new CNN poll, 65% of respondents said Trump’s policies have made the economy worse, while only 22% said they’ve made the economy better. In Nate Silver’s polling average, Trump’s net approval on the economy is -27.7%.
Trump’s answer to that disgruntlement is to just tell people they’ve never had it so good. “We had the best economy in the history of our country in my first term,” he said recently. “We’re blowing it away now, despite our little diversion to the lovely country of Iran … the economy is booming.” [Such obvious lies.]
His aides, rather than lie quite so obviously about current conditions, will say that good times are right around the corner. “I think 2026 is going to be a blockbuster year,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last November. “You’re going to see the greatest growth the United States of America has ever seen,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in December. When the year began, Lutnick said that growth in the first quarter would be 5%, and exceed 6% by year’s end. First quarter growth was actually 2.1% — not bad, but nothing like a blockbuster. “We really could be looking at numbers north of four, north of five, north of even six” percent growth, National Economic Council Chair Kevin Hassett said in May. [Doofuses spouting propaganda.]
[…] What distinguishes this White House from its predecessors is how ludicrous its claims about the present and the future are. In a career as a real estate developer, TV personality and purveyor of small-time grifts, the president learned that there is power in lying about the facts and promising the moon. But an administration can only get away with that for so long. And since people experience the economy in their own lives, the picture the White House paints has to have at least some relationship to reality.
[…] Americans may decide that not only can’t they trust what the administration says, but that the president has no idea what he’s doing. There are a lot of ways to measure the economy, and some of them (like the stock market) even look pretty good, even as many others look mediocre or worse. But a “golden age”? To believe that, you’d have to be the kind of sucker Donald Trump has always depended on.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, on Sunday told American parents that they should get their children vaccinated against measles, as the surge in infections has reached numbers not seen in the past 35 years.
Kennedy, a leading vaccination skeptic who has spent years amplifying misinformation about vaccines, including the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), made his call in the course of a contentious interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning.
His remark came as the incidence of measles crossed a milestone – the US has now officially recorded 2,371 confirmed infections so far this year, surpassing the total tally in 2025 of 2,289.
…
Kennedy’s statement was extracted from him by Dana Bash, CNN’s host, who invited him to use his “bully pulpit” to talk directly to parents as the new school year approached. She urged him to tell families that they should vaccinate for measles “because it is safe and it will help them save their children’s lives”.
a woman walking into a door
US surpasses 2025’s record number of measles infections as cases climb
Read more
The health secretary replied: “Parents should get their children vaccinated for measles. A measles vaccine is effective, it stops measles in about 97% of the cases. People should get vaccinated.”
Later in the interview he added that people should also get the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, the main protection against the disease that has been a particular target of the anti-vaccination movement.
The health secretary’s call for parents to vaccinate their children for measles contrasts starkly with the many years in which Kennedy has been a leading proponent of misinformation questioning the efficacy and safety of vaccinations. Even since he became the country’s top health official, he has depicted a measles vaccination as a personal choice and claimed inaccurately that the power of the inoculation is waning.
…
Reginald Selkirksays
@395 ibid
In a further comment dripping with condescension, Kennedy told Bash “you probably don’t understand this because you’re not a scientist”.
The journalist riposted: “But you’re not, either.”
…
Kennedy used the CNN exchange to spread further misinformation about other aspects of public health. He claimed that both respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that is a major cause of infant mortality and Lyme disease were caused by manipulation of germs in laboratories.
The suggestion has been contradicted by decades of scientific evidence that suggest they both have natural roots. RSV was initially identified in the 1950s, two decades before such experimentation, known as “gain-of-function” research, started.
During the interview, Kennedy repeated unfounded claims that there was a link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism, and poured doubt on the efficacy of vaccines to protect children against Covid-19…
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 380
As I recall, Adam’s is the knuckle-dragger who says “Alpha Males” read the Bible AND take their children to Hooters.
Japan’s finance ministry said Monday it had conducted a coordinated yen-buying operation with the U.S. Treasury on Friday, marking a rare joint move by the two allies to stem sharp swings in the Japanese currency.
Tokyo signaled it was prepared to act again if needed, saying it “will not hesitate to conduct further coordinated interventions in the future” and remains in close communication with the U.S. Treasury. Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama also stressed that Japan “remains attentive and in close communication with counterparts at U.S. Treasury.”
The Japanese yen had hit 163.73 against the greenback on Thursday last week, and strengthened to 157.57 on Friday. It was trading at 157.70 per dollar on Monday. The yen’s weakness has become an increasing concern for Tokyo, with the currency recently falling to its weakest level in roughly four decades against the dollar…
00:00 Outbreaks
11:50 Prison farm labor
15:33 Her bio: Teen harvester
16:29 Her bio: College research farm
19:01 Her bio: not hardened criminals, mostly docile inept White stoners
24:34 Ethnic marketing of Latino laborers
32:34 Anecdote: prison crew saves baby from locked car
35:47 The article
41:24 The 2023 report behind the article
43:57 Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle aimed to reform immigrant working conditions and instead got food safety laws for customers, but that becomes safety theatre if workers are rushed and afraid
(0:29): I think there were 12 active outbreaks & investigations going on in the US right now. […] There’s usually a lot of outbreaks […] They don’t make national news.
Salmonella eggs […] Chickens have one hole. Sometimes that can lead to digestive stuff getting on the eggs […] In the US, they generally assume that you cook eggs […] The fact that they’re doing a recall is… good on them.
The big one I’m looking at is botulism in infant formula. […] if a baby gets botulism spores in its body, then they will start growing in its digestive tract and making that toxin there. Not only do you have to deal with the toxin, there’s an infection […] Dairy Farmers of America […] The folks who buy milk from farmers and then process it down to powdered milk. Something just went off […] Clostridium botulinum lives in soil. […] dirt in the powdered milk. […] The reason they have a *second* outbreak from the same exact supplier is when FDA was investigating, […] Dairy Farmers of America, or Organic West Milk, gave them a list of customers that didn’t have *all* their customers on it—Nara Organics was another one. […] That is corporate malfeasance on a huge scale with an enormous amount of danger. […] babies getting botulism very easily could kill them.
(12:04): There’s a lot of prison labor in agriculture. Taylor Farms using prison labor is not shocking. Almost every company at that scale is doing it.
(37:23): We, the tax payers, are getting screwed by prison labor because we’re being forced to pay the costs for labor for these big corporations [including room and board]. […] the people running the prison system and also the state legislature have a huge financial incentive to go lock up as many people as possible for minor crimes […] Thanks to 40 years of Reaganomics “government should be run like a business,” this is the business: it’s human trafficking.
(49:10): Costco has been carrying a lot of Taylor Farms’ products. […] Costco does a lot more food safety checks than almost any other grocer. […]
Taylor Farms has set up multiple food safety institutes—and they actually do good research. […] At the same time, they’ve also done a lot of […] voluntary marketing agreements for food safety […] while lobbying against actual laws, because that would have teeth and would force people to do it, as opposed to “We had an auditor come by one day, and they said everything was good.”
This is filmed at the F 21 Wing outside Luleå, North Sweden. I served there 1981-82. One thing that has changed is, the ground crew include women.
.
The aircraft is deceptively small, reflecting the shift to electronics and precision over brute force.
whheydtsays
Re: birgerjohansson @ #400…
One of the major design points to the WW2 German Bf-109 (often misnamed as “Me-109”) was to build the minimum airframe needed to hold pilot, engine and weapons. When it was decided to increase the weapons load by adding a 20mm cannon, the put the gun between the banks of the V-12 engine and fired out through a hollow propeller shaft. (The 4 .30 caliber machine guns were cowl mounted and, thus, needed interrupter gear, unlike the same period Spitfire and Hurricane that mounted the guns in the wings, firing clear of the propeller arc.)
birgerjohanssonsays
Canadian vocalist and composer Austra, aka Katie Stelmanis, talks us through her new album Chin Up Buttercup, in her own words.
whheydt @ 401
That is factually correct, but the issue here is the time factor, as in “twenty minutes”.
.
As for guns, the JAS 39 has a 27 mm csnnon, lighter than the mighty 30 mm of JA 37 Viggen.
After a weekslong standoff between senators and the Trump administration, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Sunday night that the parties had reached a deal and that he had issued an order “officially” rescinding a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.
…
Attached to his post was a signed order that said, “The Attorney General’s May 18, 2026 Order establishing the Anti-Weaponization Fund (‘Fund’) is rescinded and shall have nor force or effect.”
“This order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no fund,” the order read.
Blanche’s announcement comes two days before the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on his nomination to be attorney general in a permanent capacity…
The bad news is that this probably clears the way for his nomination to be approved by Senate Republicans. The slush fund is only one instance of his unsuitability for the office.
In a court filing last week, Blanche submitted explanations to Judge Emmet Sullivan about the Department of Justice’s process for redacting the Epstein files. That court filing included a new definition of what it means to be a victim in the case, according to Allison Gill, host of “The Breakdown,” who discussed the filing with Katie Phang, the journalist who sued the DOJ over its redactions, on a new episode.
The new definition of “victim” in the Epstein case now includes people who “self-identified” as victims, which led Gill to worry that abusers who hung out with Epstein may self-identify and therefore be protected from disclosure.
Obviously bogus but potentially legal by weaselly definition and intentionally misunderstanding the intent of the law, one of the hallmarks of Blanche’s time in office.
The Women’s Professional Baseball League’s inaugural season is underway, and its first victory officially belongs to the Los Angeles Queens.
…
The WPBL is the first women’s league to exist in the United States since the disbanding of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) in 1954. Its inaugural season will feature four founding clubs representing Boston, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, with all games scheduled to take place at the neutral Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield. Each club will play 15 regular-season games, with the season ending on Sept. 6…
As one observer recently noted, “The GOP campaign this fall will depend entirely on misremembering recent history.”
Related video at the link.
It’s difficult to say whether Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. intended to clash with CNN’s Dana Bash during his latest appearance on “State of the Union,” but there was a reason the host characterized the interview as “contentious.”
Over the course of the on-air segment, Kennedy attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, accused CNN of vague misdeeds, peddled absurdities about the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines and, when pressed on preparations for future possible pandemics, prioritized individual liberties over public health.
But perhaps most notably, Kennedy appeared eager, if not desperate, to rewrite the recent past. In the secretary’s telling, it was Fauci’s fault that so many Americans were sickened by the contagion (which is absurd), it was federal officials who shut down businesses and government offices (it was actually state and local officials), and it was the United States that saw the world’s highest death rate from Covid. [social media post from Aaron Rupar, with video]
When Bash tried to remind viewers of reality, Kennedy continued to insist that his misinformation was accurate. It was not.
The interview came just a few days after a mind-numbing Senate hearing in which Republican members also tried to rewrite the story of what transpired in 2020, recasting Fauci as the villain of the story.
[I snipped other examples of Trump and members of his administration spreading misinformation.]
An API built by Truth Social, offering financial institutions faster access to the most influential posts on the platform — Trump’s — for $100,000, has gone live. The company has struggled for years to find a business model that works. Now it proposes to distribute early access to the thoughts of the president, which move markets and which he makes exclusively available on the platform, which his family also has a stake in.
In a letter to Truth Media and Technology Group, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MA) called the program the “depraved essence of insider trading.” “A public official with access to the ultimate insider information — his own next actions and policies as the Chief Executive of the United States — is selling advance access to that market-moving information to the high bidders,” he wrote.
This story has captured our attention because it compounds the corruption that has become endemic throughout the executive branch with a new, ridiculous feature of our economy — Trump manipulating the markets through his bespoke social media platform, prompting sell-offs and rallies with his statements about the status of such things as tariffs or the Iran war, regardless of those statements’ grounding in fact.
The problem, however, is not limited to big global issues. The Truth API also compounds Trump’s ability to manipulate the market as it relates to specific companies he favors or disfavors, prone as he is to attack firms and individuals via social media with little notice.
The program appears targeted at the world of computerized, high-frequency trading, where firms take new positions rapidly in response to emerging information, aiming to do so before other actors in the market can catch on that something has changed. Even milliseconds can make a difference.
The Truth API has attracted attention from both the House and Senate. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) have urged the SEC to investigate. But under the Trump administration, that prospect seems unlikely.
“When you don’t have enforcement of the rules and regulations, when there are different legal outcomes for the president than there would be for any other market actor that acted this egregiously,” Corey Frayer, former senior advisor at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, told TPM’s Layla A. Jones, “it becomes hard to hold anyone accountable.”
A question with an evolving answer. After Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with Trump this weekend, urging him not to attack Iranian infrastructure out of concern that the country would retaliate against Gulf States, Trump suddenly claimed a deal with Iran to be at hand, and later said talks would begin Monday.
Iran said there are no talks. Regardless, whether we are at war or not at war, we are never at war, per Trump.
Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., have announced they will support acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, all but assuring victory for President Donald Trump in his bid to install his former personal attorney in the role permanently.
The Monday morning announcement from the senators came just hours after Blanche issued a formal order that appeared to terminate the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund. The order also clarifies the scope of an agreement the Justice Department brokered between Trump and the IRS not to audit the president, his family or his businesses. Those issues had been key sticking points for the senators…
A letter from Morocco’s King Mohammed VI has confirmed that the country has named a major highway after US President Donald Trump.
Last week, in a social media post, Trump thanked the king for the honour, but there was not a parallel announcement from the Moroccan authorities.
But Morocco’s state press agency has published a letter the king wrote to the president telling him that the name-change was taking place as “a personal expression of my high regard”.
Formerly the Tiznit-Dakhla highway, the road enters Western Sahara, most of which Morocco occupies and claims sovereignty over. But part is controlled by the Polisario Front, an armed group seeking independence for the local Sahrawi people…
* In Maine’s closely watched Senate race, new Democratic nominee Troy Jackson launched his first general election ad of his truncated candidacy on Saturday. A day later, in response to reporting that Republican megadonor Elon Musk was planning to spend millions of dollars in support of Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ candidacy, Jackson released a direct-to-camera message, urging Musk to stay out of the state.
Steve Benen summarized this good news that was reported by MS NOW:
In Virginia, Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s office announced Friday that she has restored voting rights for more than 66,000 people who have served their punishments after being convicted of crimes.
How microsoft abuses its users (just one of many ways) https://lzon.substack.com/p/how-microsoft-abuses-its-users
Unsurprisingly, his Onedrive storage (on microsoft servers) wasn’t filled by his email, it was filled by the personal files from his Windows 11 desktop. Did he configure Windows to save those files to his Onedrive directory, instead of his local home directory? Of course not, that was done by default. Did he even know that this was happening? Also, no.
Trump is Lucy. GOP senators are the football. D.C. political reporters are Charlie Brown.
For a decade now, the illusion that Republican senators in whole or in part would rise up against the outrages of the Trump presidencies has animated political reporting even as the Senate GOP conference has chronically failed to rise to the occasion.
The farcical effort required to sustain the illusion has required a willing disbelief and feigned innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
So while the urge to pile on Senate Republicans like John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina for not driving a hard bargain with Trump over the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general is warranted, it must also be acknowledged, as painful as it is, that their pretend resistance actually works at yielding the headlines and reputational burnishing they’re looking for.
Most of this morning’s coverage of the overnight development bears this out.
After weeks of resistance, Blanche finally put in writing, in documents he posted to X, that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund is dead and that the IRS immunity for Trump is retroactive only. It was a limited concession, but it was enough for the two Senate holdouts […]
The news coverage hailed this as a “formal” act by Blanche of rescinding the “anti-weaponization” fund. Some managed to cover the development without reference to Blanche’s disastrous anti-democratic run at a DOJ used as tool of retribution for the Trump White House.
This came after President Trump over the weekend continued to escalate his insistence that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund should still move forward. We’re supposed to believe Trump’s former personal lawyer and underling, not the president himself.
Just look at what Blanche did and did not do because it reinforces what a parody of a negotiation with the two senators this has been.
– Cornyn has rightly insisted that by the terms of the “settlement agreement” in Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, only the parties to it, including Trump, can amend it. Only Blanche signed his “order” on the “anti-weaponization” fund. No amendment to the settlement agreement, if one exists, has been released.
– Blanche’s “order” purports to be the final word on the “anti-weaponization” fund but it’s not at all clear what, if any, legal authority it carries. Remember that Blanche has refused in one of the what he calls “frivolous” lawsuits challenging the slush fund to declare it dead under penalty of perjury. Nothing filed in court so far suggests a change in that position.
– Blanche’s “order” makes no mention of the IRS immunity for Trump. Instead, a separate statement from his office — unsigned and under no one’s name — stipulates that the IRS deal is only retroactive. This statement appears to be a sop to Cornyn who wanted Blanche to put his Senate testimony to this effect in writing; the statement reaffirms Blanche’s testimony. How this bald statement is legally binding on anyone is a mystery.
These vague assurances with no legal obligation are consistent with the weak demands Cornyn was making for his vote. For his part, Tillis gave away the game Saturday before Blanche’s written assurances, lamenting that Trump’s doubling down on the slush fund was hobbling Blanche’s confirmation: “It’s unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal.”
[…] In related news, Trump and his lawyers are appealing U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’ finding last month that he engaged in a collusive lawsuit against the IRS. […]
On the northeast edge of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, nearly 1,100 people gathered in late June for the International Bridge Walk across the long span that links two cities with the same name: Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. […]
“We don’t like to say there’s a border there, because we’re twin cities. We’re one family, the countries of Canada and the United States,” Don Gerrie, mayor of the Michigan Sault (pronounced “Soo”), told the crowd ahead of the annual walk.
[…] Canadians in cheerful patriotic attire joined the bridge walk, with maple leaves tagging their scarves and socks, shirts and shorts. Americans came out in star-spangled T-shirts heralding the nation’s 250th birthday. But this lively tradition is clouded by an increasingly hostile relationship between the U.S. and Canada. [Embedded links referencing sources for this and other facts are available at the main link.]
Traffic over the bridge is way down. And, in recent weeks, President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs in retaliation for thick wildfire smoke wafting into the U.S. When his administration announced an additional 50% tariff on an array of Canadian products, the White House cited “Canada’s discriminatory treatment of American products.” Then, using a separate mechanism, it hit Canada with a further 10% in tariffs.
Following pressure from the Trump administration that delayed it, a new publicly owned bridge, the Gordie Howe, opened Monday between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. Canada hosted a Canada-only opening ceremony.
Trump wasn’t present for the bridge’s ribbon-cutting, even though he used to cheer the project. Up at the Sault bridge, there was no sign of the region’s congressional representative at the celebration of international friendship, even though, during Trump’s first term, Rep. Jack Bergman, a Republican, hailed relations with Canada.
In 2020, when Bergman was appointed to an interparliamentary group that provides a forum for exchange between Canadian and American legislators, he boasted of the Sault bridge as a point where “millions” cross every year “to conduct business, shop, work and enjoy what each country has to offer.”
Yet Bergman, who is endorsed by Trump in an upcoming contested primary, has been virtually silent on the new tariffs […]
As Canada responds to Trump’s moves with emergency interventions and “buy local” boosterism, significantly fewer Canadians are crossing the border for once-ordinary activities: shopping, eating, fueling vehicles, vacationing or visiting family and friends.
The Sault area lost at least $82.9 million last year in local spending because of decreased crossings, according to an estimate from the International Bridge Administration, which manages the span: $62.7 million on the Michigan side and $20.2 million on the Ontario side. […]
The Sault bridge spans the St. Mary’s River, just west of the historic Soo Locks that serve as a hinge between two of the largest Great Lakes, Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Soaring high above the water to clear the thousand-foot freighters, it’s a critical gateway for commerce. And it’s the only vehicular border crossing for hundreds of miles in either direction.
[…] As the bridge authority put it in its five-year plan, issued in December: “Border challenges negatively affecting bridge traffic, trade and tourism may significantly reduce bridge revenue or increase expenditures beyond operational sustainability.”
[…] After a brutal ice storm last year, he remembered Canadians crossing the Sault bridge to help Michiganders repair the electrical grid. “This is our best friend in the entire world,” Damoose [Michigan state Sen. John Damoose, a Republican who represents the community in Lansing] said.
[…] Only so much can be done about it from the statehouse, though, when it’s Republicans in Washington in the power position. […]
Trump’s quick-shifting trade policies are especially difficult for Michigan’s agriculture industry, the state’s second-largest sector, according to a recent report from the state’s agriculture department. The report, which hasn’t yet been publicly released, said that exports to Canada fell 12.3% last year, “signalling severe strain with a country that is our strongest trading partner.”
Meanwhile, the relationship between the U.S. and Canada is fraying ever further. A White House fact sheet on the new 50% tariff acknowledged the ways that Canadians have changed how they do business.
The White House said that Canadian imports of U.S. motor vehicles dropped by about 22% between April 2025 and March 2026, compared with the same period the year before. And, it said, due to provincial restrictions, Canadian imports of U.S. alcoholic beverages have plummeted.
Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, said in a letter posted on social media that the series of tariffs imposed by the U.S. began with ones that were “in direct violation” of the standing North American trade deal […]
Two people in Michigan who contracted cyclosporiasis have died, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services said Monday.
The department noted both individuals had “significant underlying health conditions that may have been impacted by cyclosporiasis and dehydration,” citing medical records.
Michigan officials as of Monday have reported 11,234 cases [!] of cyclosporiasis, which causes watery diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss and other stomach-related issues, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As of Thursday, 193 individuals in Michigan were hospitalized with the parasitic infection, according to the state health department. […]
“Boris Nadezhdin, anti-war candidate in Russia, flees to France”
Nadezhdin was prohibited from running in parliamentary elections in September. He posted a video from Paris, saying, “I’m alive and free.”
One of Russia’s most prominent anti-war politicians, Boris Nadezhdin, fled Russia and announced his arrival in France on Monday, days after he was barred from running in parliamentary elections this fall.
Nadezhdin was prohibited from running after being charged with displaying “extremist symbols,” part of the Kremlin’s ramp-up in pressure on opposition figures ahead of the September vote.
In a video shot in front of the Eiffel Tower, Nadezhdin said he had managed to escape the country amid the repression of anti-war voices in Russia.
“The good news is I’m alive and free. But sadly, not yet in Russia,” Nadezhdin said in the video, which was posted on the Telegram messaging app.
Russian authorities had previously barred Nadezhdin from leaving the country amid an ongoing bankruptcy case against him and had branded him a foreign agent as the Kremlin undertook a an effort to remove prominent anti-war politicians from campaigning for the parliamentary elections.
Nadezhdin did not explain how he managed to flee the country.
In an interview last month with The Washington Post, Nadezhdin said he feared for his life and would seek to leave Russia at the first opportunity. […]
“We know very well the fate of [Boris] Nemtsov and [Alexei] Navalny,” he told The Post, referring to two prominent opposition politicians who were killed. […]
This week will see the first “lockup” period for SpaceX stockholders end, meaning employees and early investors can sell their shares.
These periods almost always lead to increased instability in a share price, but SpaceX is a special case—and not in a good way. As the New York Times reports, 912 million shares in total are going to unlock on Thursday, August 6, which is more than double the current supply of shares that are available to be traded. And it’ll come just two days after the company provides its first public earnings report, scheduled for Tuesday.
…
The expectation is that the end of this lockup is going to lead to a sell-off of company insiders who want to get their money and run rather than be tied to the volatile stock.
…
There is one group of people who might make it out of this unlock period. Per the Times, about $25 billion of SpaceX stock is currently held by short sellers, making it the eighth most-shorted stock in the country and the most-shorted stock of the past month…
[…] Trump went off on a long, strange tangent where he repeatedly expressed revulsion at the state of “blue cities” during an event in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon.
“What do they have in common? They’re all dirty. They’re filthy, dirty,” Trump said, adding, “Their streets are dirty. Their streets smell. Their storefronts are broken. Their trees are all gross. Everything about the place is dirty.”
Trump went on to specify that he didn’t “want to mention any specific city.”
“It’s really all of them,” he said.
Trump’s attack on the homes of a large segment of the American populace came at an event that was ostensibly about a commission for military spouses. After signing an executive order establishing the group, Trump took questions from reporters. His tirade about “blue cities” came when he was asked about the ever-shifting state of talks to end the Iran War. Trump said he is “under no time constraints” to conclude the conflict that he initially predicted would end months ago. He contrasted this with his Republican colleagues who are currently facing elections and said they are running against a “sick ideology.” He rattled off various leftist proposals including Supreme Court reform […] that he predicted would “destroy the country.” From there, Trump totally went off.
“These are sick people,” he said. “When a country goes bad, like, look at the blue cities. What do they have in common aside from massive crime? Much more crime. The Republicans have very little crime. But what do the blue cities have? … And also you can see this with nations when they go bad — the blue cities have something in common — crime, high crime, vicious, violent crime.”
Earlier on in the event, a reporter from one of the right-wing outlets that the Trump administration has added to the press corps praised the president’s redecorating efforts in Washington, D.C., which have included the controversial White House ballroom and the algae-plagued Reflecting Pool renovation.
A reporter also asked Trump if he would consider trying to “federalize” the capital city. Trump mused about the idea while praising his own work in the district.
“Would I federalize basically, you’re saying federalize D.C.? Well, I’m allowed to do that. Would I do that? If they wanted,” Trump said before trailing off and turning to the changes he has made in the city.
“We took something that was in deep trouble. It was a graffiti-filled, crime-filled mess.We turned it into Shangri-La. We turned it into a great place,” he said, adding, “Look at the grass in front of the White House being all replaced with the top stuff. … Scott’s Miracle Gro. They’re doing it. … Got to give them a plug because they did the White House for free.”
Trump returned to D.C. later on when he reiterated his disagreement with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s conclusion that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by shoddy contracting work rather than vandalism. The president repeated his highly questionable claim the pool was targeted and argued Pirro had “choked” by dropping the Justice Department’s case against a former Olympian for allegedly damaging it. He also brought up the capital city during his rant about the “blue cities.”
“They’re like Washington, D.C. was a year and a half ago with graffiti all over the place, with crime all over the place, with people afraid to be here. You had to be ashamed of your capital,” said Trump. “Some of the most beautiful buildings built in the real time. Like, you look at the Supreme Court building, and they put graffiti on it. The most beautiful columns I’ve ever seen. … You look at those columns, how magnificent and then you see graffiti on the side of the building.”
Data actually shows red states have higher crime than blue states on average. Large cities in red states, many of which have Democratic local governments, have the highest murder rates. However, it’s not as though Trump was doing any kind of detailed analysis. He concluded his screed by declaring the blue city ideology is “not going to happen in our country.”
“The one thing they all have in common: crime. Two things, crime, but they’re disgusting. They’re filthy, dirty,” Trump said, adding, “The streets are dirty. They have people lying all over the street doing you know what.”
“Documents Undercut Trump’s Claims About Utah National Monument”
“[…] Trump said recreation in Bears Ears National Monument was virtually impossible. Documents reviewed by The New York Times show officials knew otherwise.”
When President Trump sharply reduced the size of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by more than 1.2 million acres [!], he claimed it was necessary because recreation was virtually impossible within the site’s boundaries.
“You can’t go hunting, you can’t go fishing, you can’t do anything, you can virtually not even walk on it,” Mr. Trump said during a ceremony in the Oval Office last month. [Not true. Not true at all.]
The No. 2 official at the Interior Department, Kate MacGregor, chimed in, saying, “That’s exactly right, sir, so you are remedying that today.”
But recreation has been allowed in Bears Ears since President Barack Obama designated the monument in 2016. And government documents reviewed by The New York Times show that Trump administration officials were briefed on recreational opportunities inside the monument about a month before the Oval Office event. [!]
Utah officials, who pushed for shrinking the monument, told the Trump administration in June that there was “current recreational access” to Bears Ears, according to the documents, which The Times obtained via a public records request.
The state officials specifically cited two trails popular among hikers, backpackers and off-road vehicle drivers, the documents show. (Other trails attract scores of horseback riders, mountain bikers and rock climbers, as Mr. Obama noted when he designated the monument.)
The documents suggest that the administration was “lying or spreading misinformation about these fantastic public lands” when it justified cutting the protected areas, said Steve Bloch, the legal director at the nonprofit Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, who reviewed the records at the request of The Times.
National monuments are public lands that are legally protected from oil and gas drilling, mining and other industrial development. They have similar protections as national parks, but while national parks are created by Congress, national monuments can be created by presidents through the Antiquities Act of 1906.
[I snipped comments from Trump administration spokespersons.]
Mr. Trump signed executive orders last month to cut Bears Ears and a second national monument in Utah, Grand Staircase-Escalante, by more than 90 percent. The orders opened both sites, which are known for their sandstone canyons and vast mesas, to oil drilling, uranium mining and other commercial activities. [!]”
During his first term, Mr. Trump shrank Bears Ears by 85 percent and cut Grand Staircase nearly in half. But tribes and environmentalists sued over the move, saying the Antiquities Act authorized presidents to designate monuments but not to abolish or shrink them. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. subsequently restored sweeping protections to both sites before a court could issue a final decision. Mr. Trump’s new second-term cuts are even bigger.
The documents reviewed by The Times show that Redge Johnson, the director of Utah’s Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, sent a memo in June to Sam Crofts, a senior adviser at the Interior Department, detailing Bears Ears’ history, geology and recreational opportunities.
The memo said that a route called the Peavine Corridor was open to off-road vehicles and provided “motorized access deep into the area.” It added that “backpackers often use Rig Canyon as a junction point on massive wilderness loops,” including a popular 40-mile loop. […]
Bears Ears is the ancestral homeland of five tribes in the region: the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and Pueblo of Zuni. It contains thousands of archaeological sites that tribes consider culturally significant, including the remains of burial grounds, cliff dwellings and rock art panels. [All true, and important to note.]
The monument also boasts “world class outdoor recreation opportunities,” Mr. Obama wrote in his proclamation designating Bears Ears, which cited “rock climbing, hunting, hiking, backpacking, canyoneering, whitewater rafting, mountain biking and horseback riding.”
Louis Williams, the founder and owner of Ancient Wayves River and Hiking Adventures, which provides tours of Bears Ears led by Indigenous guides, said he watched live as Mr. Trump signed the executive order to shrink the monument.
“I was shaking my head,” Mr. Williams said. “I was like, ‘I wonder if he’s ever been here to this region, because if he knew this region, he would find out this place is totally accessible.’” [Yep]
[…] The documents did not mention hunting or fishing. But the Utah Department of Natural Resources, which houses the Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, allows people to hunt and fish in Bears Ears if they have valid licenses and tags.
I’ve been there. It is accessible. You may need a four-wheel-drive vehicle in some areas, and you have to take your time on rough roads. There are also trails that are popular with backpackers and day-hikers. Trump is a liar.
After days of recriminations over the sudden arrival of tens of thousands of migrants in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta last week, the EU’s 27 home affairs ministers are expected to use an emergency meeting Tuesday to express solidarity with Madrid and focus on how to prevent a repeat.
However, Spain will also criticize some governments for turning the crisis into an attack on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez instead of supporting a fellow EU country facing an emergency, according to an official familiar with Madrid’s plans, granted anonymity to speak freely. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska will present Madrid’s assessment of the events and make the case for a common European response, the official said.
After initial criticism of Spain, the mood among EU capitals has softened as the immediate crisis eased, according to eight diplomats from different countries […] Almost all the migrants who entered the exclave last week have returned to Morocco, Spanish authorities say, and there has been no reported onward movement into mainland Europe.
The groundwork for Tuesday’s meeting was set on Monday when EU ambassadors held talks that lasted around two and a half hours. The Spanish envoy gave Madrid’s account of the Ceuta crisis, during which more than 70 people died, and reprimanded some capitals for spreading disinformation, according to one of the diplomats. The ambassador was asked for verification of Madrid’s figures on returned migrants and for the situation to be closely monitored, two other diplomats said. […]
the Spanish ambassador criticized Italy for amplifying false claims about the migrant regularization program, such as Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani’s suggestion on social media that it automatically grants EU citizenship. The program provides legal residency to eligible migrants but does not confer Spanish nationality. […]
[…] The last outbreak in Congo, which began in 2018, took more than 10 months to reach the same death toll. Health officials and experts say the crisis is being driven by a combination of cuts to global aid, conflict in the region and a surge in misinformation that has fueled distrust about the existence and severity of the disease, allowing the virus to spread faster than response efforts can contain it. […]
Senate appropriators announced a bipartisan deal Sunday to fund the government into early December, while temporarily blocking a contested Trump administration rule that critics say would politicize the awarding of federal grants.
The draft continuing resolution, unveiled Sunday afternoon, would extend current funding through Dec. 11 — a week later than House Republicans proposed in their recent stopgap measure.
As Steve Benen pointed out, the House still needs to pass the continuing resolution before September 30.
The Pacific Island country of Nauru has changed its name to the Republic of Naoero, its president said, matching the spelling and pronunciation in the national language.
The country’s international code will change from NRU to NRO and its people will be known as dei-Naoero instead of Nauruan. Commonly known abroad by the pronunciation of Now-roo, the new name is spoken as Now-ero…
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In alarming news for Republicans heading into the midterm elections, a new poll released on Monday revealed that Donald J. Trump is less popular than explosive diarrhea.
By a margin of two to one, likely voters said that they would rather suffer two years of the acute gastrointestinal ailment than the remainder of Trump’s term.
According to polling experts, this marks the first time a president of the United States has been outperformed by a food-borne parasite.
At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the poll, declaring, “Not only is President Trump as popular as explosive diarrhea, to millions of Americans he is synonymous with it.”
At the White Sands Missile Range that night, US military personnel were conducting a GPS jamming exercise that left the King Air [medevac] pilots—and anyone else within hundreds of miles—unable to use modern navigation systems. Forced to revert to older technology, ones that they rarely if ever use, the medevac pilots got disoriented and crashed into the side of a mountain. There were no survivors. The accident marked the first time that GPS jamming had contributed to the crash of a civilian plane in the United States. […] In the past year, the US military appeared to have sent out notices for at least 10 such exercises.
[…]
tragedy might have been avoided if Albuquerque air traffic control had been able to pay closer attention to the young pilots in the King Air. But tonight they were busy. Three other aircraft also reported that they’d lost their GPS and needed help. […] Why hang around waiting for ATC to give them vectors […] All they had to do was fly toward the lights […] The request was granted. […] what the pilots couldn’t see was the 10,000-foot-high mass of the Capitan Mountains […] rock appeared to rise up, swiping away the lights
[…]
“The harder problem with drones isn’t defeating them. It’s doing it without creating a system that negatively impacts civil aviation,”
StevoRsays
Grime news on the spread of bird flu here – Government warns bird flu outbreak inevitable, expects mass wildlife losses under 5 mins long. Dreading what impact this is likely to have and, note, it extends beyond birds too with even domestic pets esp cats that often hunt birds when outside at risk as well as whole endangered species. The algal bloom here over last few years has devastated marine life. Now this. Silent seas, silent skies. Massive biodiversity loss..Horrifying for our future.
StevoRsays
Mor edoom scrolling grim news sorry but
The 21st Century’s Deadliest War Has Restarted. Here’s What You Need to Know by Warfronts yt channel on the renewed conflict in Tigre, Ethopia and running for 20 mins. Saw something on fb t’other day saying Congo was the deadliest conflict in Africa too.. FWIW. Both horrendous conflicts with casualties and impacts at a staggering scale that go well under pretty much everyone in the Wests’s RADAR’s.
Palate cleanser or atleats good news and update on some earlier ones here – An Update on the Norfolk Island Snails under 5 mins viewing and I really like the persons commenst at the end. about “snails don’t get a lot of love but..” given Snails may be small and under-appreciated but they do form a key part of the ecosystem and are good indicators of ecological health The little things that so much depends on..
All four people accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Reflecting Pool are no longer facing charges.
Cameron Theirs and Sophie Dennison-Gibby were accused of vandalizing the pool following claims of sabotage by President Donald Trump. Prosecutors filed a Noelle Prosequi on Monday, which means that prosecutors are no longer willing to press charges.
A Noelle Prosequi is not an acquittal, so Theirs and Dennison-Gibby could be indicted under the same vandalism charges.
Prosecutors consolidated their cases to the former Olympian David Hearn and Justin Carreno, whose cases were dropped on Friday, according to court records.
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New York can’t ban federal agents from wearing face coverings or require that they wear visible identification, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The ruling comes after a federal judge earlier this year blocked a similar law in California that was enacted after the Trump administration aggressively worked to increase immigration arrests.
For the Northern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino wrote that while New York “appears to be well-intentioned in its pursuit of transparent policing,” that’s not what the court is deciding.
“The issue now before the Court is about constitutionality—not transparency or preferable policy decisions,” she wrote.
The federal government has shown a likelihood that the measures go against the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars state governments from regulating federal law enforcement, D’Agostino wrote.
The measures were included in a slate of law enforcement policies as part of the state budget bill that was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in May.
Hochul and New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement following the judge’s decision that they “stand firm in our belief that masked agents do not make New York safer and our offices are reviewing all legal options at this time.”
New York’s face coverings and identification measures took effect in June, according to the ruling.
Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who was House majority leader from 2003 to 2005, said the Federal Communications Commission has no legal authority to repeal the National Television Ownership Rule. Despite DeLay’s warning, the Trump FCC appears ready to eliminate the rule at its meeting this week.
DeLay wrote an op-ed describing how he helped write the law that prohibited any single broadcast station owner from reaching more than 39 percent of all TV households in the US. DeLay said that only Congress, not the Trump FCC, can change the cap because the 39 percent limit is specified in US law and wasn’t chosen by the commission.
DeLay gave his view in an op-ed for The Daily Wire yesterday, less than three weeks after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced a plan to eliminate the cap. The FCC is scheduled to vote on Carr’s proposal on Thursday.
“I am a Republican,” DeLay wrote. “I support deregulation and the Trump administration. But my ultimate loyalty rests with the Constitution, which gives certain prerogatives to Congress. Regulatory agencies cannot defy or modify laws enacted by Congress. If Chairman Carr wants to raise the statutory cap, he should ask Congress to pass a law giving him authority to do that.”
…
Rachel Maddow considers which former Fox News host installed in a high-profile position in the Trump administration is doing the worst at their job, and concludes that “Judge” Jeanine Pirro is probably winning that contest with her abysmal track record of embarrassments in court, not only failing to do Donald Trump’s bidding, but making an absolute fool of herself in the process.
James Talarico, Democratic candidate for Senate from Texas, talks with Rachel Maddow about not taking the bait on culture war issues Republicans use to try to pit Americans against each other, and the efforts he’s making to reach out to his state’s large Black constituency, as well as the immigrant community being terrorized by ICE.
With midterm elections fast approaching, the Republican Party, already compromised by Donald Trump’s cratering popularity and track record of criminality and immorality, is dealing with multiple candidates mired in damaging personal scandals. Rachel Maddow takes a look.
The star that gave our planet life will one day take it away. Scientists have long agreed that the expansion and eventual death of the Sun will destroy Earth’s habitability, but one researcher believes he’s figured out a way for humanity to avoid this fate.
In a study set to appear in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, independent researcher Gabriel Harry outlines a plan that he claims could help us outlive the Sun. In fact, he presents megaengineering concepts designed to safeguard against a whole suite of long-term threats to Earth’s habitability: solar luminosity, solar engulfment, the end of tectonics, water loss, changes in the planet’s tilt and spin, object collision, and dangers from beyond our solar system. The findings are currently available on the preprint server arXiv.
… the Sun will begin to run out of fuel and expand about 1 billion years from now, rendering Earth uninhabitable. As the star engulfs our planet, global temperatures will skyrocket, oceans will boil off, and the atmosphere will burn away.
In about 5 billion years, the Sun will shrink into a white dwarf, robbing the solar system of light and warmth. And in a hundred trillion years, the Milky Way galaxy will no longer be able to produce stars, and our cosmic neighborhood will wink out entirely.
… The first problem we need to solve is the onslaught of solar radiation due to the Sun’s expansion, according to Harry. He proposes building a 435,000-mile-wide (700,000-kilometer-wide) sunshade, placing it just outside the Moon’s orbit, and anchoring it via a carbon cable attached to a weight placed at Lagrange Point 1 (L1).
… The sunshade would cover a 70-degree area of the sky, effectively blotting out the Sun. It would be made mostly of aluminum, and Harry conservatively assumes a total thickness of 0.1 millimeters, which is equal to that of the James Webb Space Telescope’s sunshield. Thus, it would have a mass of about 220 quadrillion pounds (100 quadrillion kilograms). Harry suggests mining the required aluminum from just 0.01% of the Moon’s total mass. To make the 1.2-million-mile (2-million-km) carbon tether, we could mine 40% of the dwarf planet Ceres.
… With that taken care of, we’ll have another problem on our hands. Blocking the Sun will deprive Earth of the warmth and light that sustain life. To replace the Sun, we could use Jupiter as a massive fuel source for fusion reactors, Harry claims. These reactors would orbit the gas giant 4,000 miles (6,500 km) deep in its atmosphere, taking in helium-4 and hydrogen to produce energy. That energy could be beamed up to Jupiter’s L1, then transmitted by laser to a Lagrange relay and shone onto Earth’s surface, serving as an artificial Sun.
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About a month ago, it emerged from upstate New York that the Department of Homeland Security was targeting online critics of ICE by trying to force them to sign a heretofore unheard of “Warning Notice” admitting that their criticisms were unlawful.
Now the Wall Street Journal reports that those cases are just the tip of the iceberg of a larger DHS surveillance program targeting social media users nationwide. As with the previously reported cases, the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility is taking the lead — a dramatic departure from its previous role as internal affairs bureau investigating wrongdoing by ICE agents.
DHS has used, with varying degrees of success, administrative subpoenas and grand jury subpoenas to unmask social media posters, according to the new report.
There are, of course, some actually concerning threats online — and some subsequent convictions — but the scope of DHS surveillance program seems to go well beyond true threats. The WSJ attempts to put some numbers to it :
– “To unmask anonymous online critics, DHS has sent hundreds of subpoenas to social-media companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Its agents have tracked down Americans at work and on the road, asking them to sign letters acknowledging their online speech about ICE ‘may’ be a crime.”
– “The notice for OPR’s new threat initiative calls for the monitoring of nearly 20 social sites, including Reddit, Discord, Snapchat and LinkedIn, and the use of public documents such as DMV records and police reports to identify and map key relationships of users who have been flagged as a ‘threat originator.’”
– “OPR has investigated at least 131 incidents of doxxing and threats towards agency personnel between January 2025 and March of this year, according to a court declaration …”
– “DHS sent administrative subpoenas to Reddit for the information of 11 accounts that had posted ‘content critical of federal actions.’ … Reddit determined that these users were engaged in protected activity under the First Amendment and objected to each, the person said, and DHS eventually withdrew the requests.”
– “The Wall Street Journal identified 10 people—nine Americans and one Canadian—who pushed back against DHS’s attempts to unmask them through the two types of subpoenas. Of those, judges have upheld four grand jury subpoenas. No charges have yet been filed in these cases. The agency abandoned three cases, while three more are pending.”
Funding is another tell.
A WSJ analysis found that ICE spending on surveillance technology and consultants surged by 57% year over year to $258 million during Trump’s first full year back in office.
Lawyers told the newspaper that the spike in subpoenas for information on online critics began to spike in September, which coincided with when a new $8 million contract took effect between OPR and a software development firm called Amivero, which subcontracted the work to the global consulting firm Guidehouse.
Both of the previously reported upstate New York cases are apparently products of OPR’s new surveillance program. As Morning Memo noted last month, one of the targets in those two cases, David Streever, filed a lawsuit in D.C. with help from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression alleging that ICE’s OPR violated his First Amendment rights when it went to his home in June and then tracked him down while he was traveling to issue him a “Warning Notice” for a non-threatening but critical email opposing Operation Metro Surge that he sent to then-acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons.
After a few days of delay, Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general looks likely to make it through the Senate Judiciary Committee today, which will stand for all time as a ratification by Senate Republicans of President Trump’s evisceration of the Justice Department and of Blanche’s lawless award of IRS immunity to Trump personally.
One more footnote on the IRS immunity, via the NYT: While the retroactive immunity is limited to the parties to Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS — himself, his sons Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization — the lawsuit defines the Trump Organization as the Trump Organization, LLC, and 418 other entities that are not specifically identified. Let that sink in.
MAGA’s Crony Capitalism Comes With A Socialist Twist
The Trump administration has now taken ownership stakes in at least 30 corporations, according to the libertarian CATO Institute, which is closely tracking the new practice:
What is remarkable is that federal corporate ownership is becoming routine under a Republican administration, while a Republican-controlled Congress is not just letting it happen but may even enshrine the practice in statute.
Republicans warning that communists are taking over the Democratic Party might first ask why their own administration is so eager to have the government acquire pieces of private companies. [!]
As CATO notes, the Biden administration awarded funds to private companies under the same CHIPS and Science Act provisions that the Trump administration is using but without taking equity interests in the companies. [!]
“These women weren’t going to stand by and see decades of climate information be buried or destroyed.”
From GoodGoodGood:
…last year, after the Trump administration shut down NOAA’s official climate information website, Climate.gov, and [Rebecca] Lindsey became one of the roughly 280,000 federal workers to lose their jobs, she knew something had to be done.
Lindsey joined forces with former NOAA employees Anna Eshelman, and Mary Lindsey, her older sister, to become the core team behind the deactivated site’s successor, Climate.us, preserving over 15 years of key climate data and resources.
The trove features key maps, educational materials, and climate indicator reports, including the now-deleted Fifth National Climate Assessment, the government’s most comprehensive analysis of climate change that was at risk of being lost to the public. ✂️
For decades, Climate.gov was the go-to resource that translated complex climate science data into accessible public information, sharing critical tips on everything from how to survive heat waves, to explainers on El Niño’s impacts on hurricanes to over 15 million site visitors per year. ✂️
Before the cuts hit NOAA, Rebecca Lindsey had been Climate.gov’s program manager since 2023, Eshelman worked as an artist with the Climate.gov team for over four years, and Mary Lindsey worked on the site for 13 years as a data visualization expert.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has shared a video on social media of a drone hunting down a man in southern Ukraine, saying it showed an instance of a Russian “safari” attack against civilians.
The video shows the drone pursuing a street vendor on a city street in the Kherson region. The man moves away from the drone hovering above, before it chases him as he runs around a white van. Eventually, the drone swoops down on him and explodes on impact.
The man escaped with multiple shrapnel wounds, concussion and trauma, a doctor said…
• War talks: Efforts to resolve the US-Iran conflict are “in very progressive stages,” Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said, adding that drafts of a potential agreement are “being circulated” but that there are no direct talks between the two sides.
The government of Qatar isn’t a particularly trustworthy one either but in this regards I trust it more then the US or Iranian governments.
The plan is probably another truce to allow for full negotiations. We saw how well that worked last time but hopefully this time the recent violence has convinced Trump to keep a course for long enough to negotiate something.
[…] Let’s start with some news. GDP growth in the second quarter came in lower than expected at 1.5%. Here’s the trend line of Trump’s second term. It’s not good: [graph]
[…] Trump’s policies have slowed overall growth, slowed job growth, increased the deficit, driven inflation and interest rates higher, spiked the uninsured rate by many millions, increased health care costs and made access to care harder for families, harmed farmers and small businesses, and are creating labor shortages throughout the economy.
It’s failure, across the board, from A to Z, top to bottom failure. Trump’s regime has failed the American people. […]
On Tuesday the Senate passed a Russian sanctions bill, cheered on by Trump’s nemesis Zelenskyy, 86-12 – another incredible repudiation of Trump and his rancid regime.
Yesterday the Fed held interest rates steady, refusing to accede to Trump’s demands for cuts. Iran continues to toss him around like a chew toy.
It’s been a bad, bad week for our rapacious and failing leader.
[…] Zelenskyy’s great triumph here this week was a sign of how much weaker Greater MAGA – Trump, Putin, Bibi, Orban/European right – has become. The Senate celebrated a very aggressive sanctions package on Putin with Zelenskyy present, overcoming months of intense opposition from Trump.
Netanyahu was – remarkably – upstaged this week by the world’s most important Jewish head of government, the leader of Ukraine. Like Trump, Netanyahu has lost support his electorate and is losing his fall election too: [Chart showing bloc seat projections in Israel]
[…]
There is nothing Trump and MAGA wants more than for us to be fighting with each other and not with him. We have one job now – elect as many of these wonderful candidates running for the House and Senate as we can. It’s where our focus must be. It’s a year of opportunity for us across the country. We must seize it, together. —Barack Obama
Jo Nagai of Kobe, Japan began hand-raising swallowtail butterflies when he was just a second grader.
But when it came time to release them to the wild, Nagai realized a peculiar pattern of behavior — the butterflies often lingered after release, even flying back to him at times.
It made him wonder: Did his caterpillars still remember him, even after they had experienced metamorphosis?
To find out, Nagai reached out to esteemed Georgetown entomologist Dr. Martha Weiss, who has long studied the behavior and the memory of insects — particularly moths.
He had been intrigued by a study she published in 2008 on an adult moth’s ability to retain memories even after its body had broken down and rebuilt itself.
In a four-page letter, Nagai introduced himself. Weiss later read the letter aloud on the Signal Hill podcast.
“To Martha Weiss,” she said. “Hello. Nice to meet you. My name is Jo Nagai. I’m from Japan. I live in Kobe, Japan. I’m in the second grade at Ibuki Elementary School. When I found your research on the internet, I was so delighted!!”
Annie Rosenthal, who is both a Signal Hill editor and Weiss’ daughter, noted the “two exclamation marks” in their interview.
“Two bold exclamation marks,” Weiss confirmed.
In the letter, Nagai asked Weiss about her landmark study on moth memory and asked how he could expand it to his butterflies.
At first, Weiss doubted whether an elementary school student could recreate the same experiment that she and her grad student, Doug Blackiston, had established in a secure lab setting over a decade earlier.
In her first letter back, Weiss suggested that Nagai run an experiment on something much simpler, like “teaching butterflies to learn colors.”
But Nagai was undeterred.
“I really want to prove it’s possible that my butterflies can remember what they learned as a caterpillar,” he wrote in his next letter. “I don’t want to give up now. I really need your help.”
His determination sparked a multi-year correspondence across continents. With Weiss’ assistance, Nagai organized an experiment in his own makeshift lab at home. In his attempt to recreate Weiss’ 2008 study, Nagai established a control group of caterpillars and a test group.
Swapping out Weiss’ original chemical ethyl acetate for a gentler smell, lavender oil, Nagai introduced the caterpillars to the smell while administering very small shocks through a miniature muscle therapy device.
When the caterpillars had later transformed into butterflies, 80% of the test group avoided the lavender smell.
He sent his findings in a 33-page document to Weiss.
“What did you think when you got that email?” Rosenthal asked her mother.
“I was flabbergasted and delighted,” Weiss replied. “And in this letter I thought, ‘Holy cow, he’s a real scientist, and he’s figuring out new stuff.’”
In 2022, the same year that he graduated from second grade, Nagai presented his research to scientists at Shinshu University, Tsukuba University, and Saga University.
But Nagai didn’t stop there. A year later, he told Weiss that he wanted to see if caterpillars could inherit memories.
Inspired by a similar study on nematodes, Nagai repeated his earlier experiment and discovered something remarkable: Butterflies didn’t just carry memories from their earlier forms — they appeared to pass memories down to their young as well.
Soon, Nagai and Weiss will formally present their findings to the Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society. But first, Nagai is just focused on graduating from the fifth grade.
This past year, the 10-year-old finally met Weiss when she brought her family on a trip to Japan. When they met, the professor presented him with a magnifying glass tied with a ribbon — just like the one she often sports around her neck.
During their visit to Japan, Rosenthal asked Nagai what he wanted to be when he grew up, expecting him to say entomologist like her mother. He said he wants to be a vet instead.
“I can fix caterpillars and insects both,” Nagai explained.
“Are there other insect veterinarians now?” Rosenthal asked.
“No,” he said.
“So you might be the first insect vet,” she replied.
“Now They’ve Defeated ‘Biological Men In Women’s Sports’ They Can Move On To Defeating Women’s Sports”
“The bad faith it burns.”
The American political press, defanged and traumatized by 50 years of right-wing attacks as well as captured by oligarchs who want a quick and tidy end to democracy, was either unable or unwilling to report honestly on Project 2025 in the final months of the 2024 election, and today we pay a steep and escalating cost for that.
That includes, naturally, the increasingly tenuous role of women in American society. Pete Hegseth is firing any and every woman in the military who has ever been so much as considered for a promotion; state-level Republicans are pushing new and sadistic ways to punish women for seeking — or god forbid, obtaining — abortion services; women professors are being targeted for merely existing; and regime-aligned media appears more and more interested in the prospect of eviscerating women’s sports in the US.
Ladies can’t be barefoot and pregnant and making sandwiches if they’re shooting hoops or dribbling downfield or dodging defenders on the football field, after all. […]
After using women’s sports as a convenient cudgel against trans athletes — with the anti-constitutional Supreme Court majority recently greenlighting Republican efforts to bar trans folks from the playing field — the plan is now to unwind decades of progress in women’s sports by hollowing out Title IX, the landmark 1972 legislation that says no one can be discriminated against in education based on their sex. This, as you might know, is in line with the gender-based goals of Project 2025, which seeks to roll back the 20th century one legal body blow at a time.
[…] the American Right’s sudden adoration of women’s sports and Title IX was a slick bad-faith trick meant to cover for their prejudice and fear and hatred of transgender people. […] Republicans can’t say what they mean for fear of alienating and horrifying everyone outside their cultish base. So it is with trans athletes: We love women’s sports, they say with one voice, a collective smirk barely concealed, and we won’t let guys with wigs and skirts destroy the sports we love so dearly. This nonsense comes after decades of right wingers engaging in endless mockery of any and all women’s sports. [!] […]
The Heritage Foundation, which conjured Project 2025 from the hottest part of hell […] is open about the Republican plan to destroy Title IX without outright repealing it — now that trans athletes have been booted from the sporting landscape and the Right no longer has to muster feigned concern for lady sports.
The Heritage proposal to massacre Title IX is multipronged and a little complicated, but it would essentially stop applying key parts of the Education Department’s traditional test for complying with the law. That includes proportionality. The Heritage Foundation proposal, pitched with misogynistic glee by Boise State professor Scott Yanor, might not destroy the country’s most treasured women’s sports programs, […] make life difficult-bordering-on-impossible for smaller college programs that don’t have armies of millionaire boosters shoveling cash at them every day of the year.
[…] Yanor has called Title IX a “a powerful engine of feminist social engineering” and talks freqeuntly about so-called biological destiny — that thing where a person born with a vagina has precious few avenues to a full life because men like Yanor said so, but maybe God did too. […]
That the Trump regime manages a hotline for white guys who have been victimized by diversity programs should come as no surprise, and yet somehow it does.
The American Right using Title IX to stop a young woman from playing catcher on a softball team before turning around and outlining a plan for annihilating Title IX demonstrates the depths of the bad faith involved in this whole regressive program. […]
Maybe — probably — the right-wing effort to dismantle Title IX won’t succeed, at least not in the long term. […] Republicans will continue using bad faith as their One Weird Trick to achieving every hideous goal on their big fascist checklist.
“Trump orders changes to new helipad after weeks of around-the-clock work”
“Contractors have removed the granite seal that had begun to take shape in recent days, after the president complained about the slope of the White House Lawn.”
[…] Trump has directed contractors to redo weeks of work on his planned White House helipad, frustrated with its appearance and questioning whether the slope of the White House lawn needs to be changed, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss his private comments.
Trump has made the helipad a priority, ordering that work begun in June be completed by a state visit in September, but was dissatisfied with the results, the people said. The White House’s South Lawn, where the helipad is being built, slants downward. Trump has expressed a desire for a landing pad that sits level with the horizon, prompting contractors to disassemble their work and consider whether to start by changing the lawn itself, the people said.
Photographs obtained by The Washington Post on Tuesday show how contractors have taken apart their work, including a 100-foot-wide granite presidential seal that was beginning to take shape last week.
Construction crews having been working around-the-clock on the project, which Trump hopes will wrap up before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits in late September, The Post reported last month.
It was unclear how much additional cost or time the latest changes would add to the $5 million-plus project, which is being paid for by Lockheed Martin. It owns the company that manufactures the helicopters.
[…] Helipads should be flat for safety but do not need to be perfectly horizontal, to ensure water runoff, according to federal recommendations. The South Lawn, used for decades by helicopters that transport the president, slopes downward about 20 degrees in some places, the White House has previously said. That exceeds the recommended slant for helipads. The area chosen for the new helipad is flatter than other places.
The helipad will be near the South Portico, the traditional landing site for Marine One, the call sign for whichever helicopter is being used for the president. The project is intended to address a long-running problem: The new generation of Marine One helicopters runs the risk of burning the lawn.
The VH-92A Patriot, manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft, has exhaust vents that aim heat down, making grass-scorching likely. Sikorsky, which is owned by Lockheed Martin, spent years working with administration officials to find a solution before Trump approved the planned helipad.
In the meantime, Trump is using the Ellipse — a park south of the White House — as a temporary landing zone for Marine One.
Trump damaged huge portions of lawn with his arena for hosting the UFC Freedom 250 mixed martial arts event.
Comments from readers of the article:
Even when he has a good idea, he messes up.
——————-
Wait, a Trump project that wasn’t thought through, changes on the fly due to the whim of one person, causing more expenses and looks gaudy and over branded? Who would’ve thought?
————————
Trump is destroying the lawn by building this huge eyesore in order to “save” the lawn. Does the Administration think we’re stupid? Similar to paving over the rose garden, but calling it the rose patio.
“Two years after the president claimed he would make in vitro fertilization free to Americans, his party is moving quickly in the opposite direction.”
It’s easy to forget two years later, but during the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump claimed he would make in vitro fertilization free to Americans during his second term. With just weeks until Election Day, the Republican declared that he considered himself “the father of IVF,” which was every bit as ridiculous as it sounded.
Like too many of the president’s campaign promises, he abandoned his ostensible target after returning to the White House — Trump signed an executive order last year to expand access to IVF, but it’s still far from free — and his congressional allies continue to move in regressive directions on the issue. The New York Times reported:
Republicans in Congress have quietly blocked a proposal to expand military health coverage of in vitro fertilization treatment for service members and their families, heeding the calls of anti-abortion groups to limit access to a fertility option that President Trump vowed to make more widely available.
The move is a shift from previous years, when there was enough bipartisan support for the idea of broadening the availability of I.V.F. for members of the military that it was included in the annual defense bill that passed both the House and Senate.
In recent months, the Times’ report added, Senate Republicans “banded together to bar the measure from being added to the defense bill in the first place,” ensuring that the IVF treatments Trump had vowed to make free for everyone would not be included in the coverage plan for the troops and their families.
The broader political dynamic is obvious: On the campaign trail, GOP officials and candidates, mindful of the gender gap, talk about their support for IVF treatments. But on Capitol Hill, those same Republicans remain beholden to far-right activists who oppose the policy as part of their culture war. [True]
“Republicans are pushing for the largest defense bill in our nation’s history to keep prosecuting an illegal war with no end in sight, yet they can’t carve out a tiny fraction to ensure our nation’s heroes have access to I.V.F. to build their families,” Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois told the Times, noting that service members have double the rate of infertility as the general population. [Cause or causes?]
She added, “It’s shameful that Republicans keep enabling Trump to break his promise to cover IVF for our service members.”
What’s more, similar problems are unfolding for the party away from the nation’s capital. In mid-June, for example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, his party’s U.S. Senate nominee, told HuffPost, “I am a strong supporter of IVF and pro-family policies that help Americans experience the wonders of parenthood.”
A week later, Paxton backed off, telling The Washington Examiner that he supports “restrictions” on IVF and adding that policymakers still “need to just examine the issue.” His reversal roughly coincided with a Republican push to ban IVF in Texas.
With three months remaining before the midterm elections, this hasn’t been a front-burner issue, though efforts to generate renewed attention on IVF are underway. As MS NOW reported two weeks ago, “With their sights set on winning control of Congress in November, Senate Democrats are reviving a legislative effort to dramatically expand access to in vitro fertilization.”
To hear Donald Trump tell it, addressing crime in Washington, D.C., is a riddle he’s solved. In fact, the president spent several minutes at an unrelated White House event Monday afternoon boasting that the combination of deportations and National Guard deployments has led to a “renaissance” in the nation’s capital. [video]
“We have very little crime now,” he claimed. “This was the crime capital, frankly, of the world. It was the most unsafe capital of any country in the world. Now it’s one of the safest, and it’s one of the safest places in the United States.”
Trump went on and on about the crime-free paradise he’s created and the many calls he’s received from unnamed people thanking him for the magical results. “Everyone’s safe now,” the president said. “Nobody’s getting mugged, shot.”
After describing a city filled with residents who suddenly want to walk to work and struggle to get restaurant reservations because so many people are out and about, the Republican concluded, “It was a graffiti-filled, crime-filled mess. We turned it into Shangri-La.”
It was an interesting choice of metaphors, since Shangri-La is a place that only exists in fiction.
The president has spent nearly a full year patting himself on the back, claiming credit for having eliminated crime in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, facts keep getting in the way.
Indeed, shortly after Trump claimed that “nobody” in the nation’s capital is the victim of violent crime anymore, The New York Times reported, “In reality, four homicides were reported in the last week, and 16 in the last month, according to police statistics, up from the same periods last year.”
Those statistics come just two months after NPR reported on the latest analysis of crime data from the Niskanen Center, a nonpartisan think tank, which found that Trump’s policy “has reduced petty property crimes, but has had little to no effect on violent crime, despite the high cost to taxpayers.”
According to the data, there was a 24% drop in “opportunistic” crimes, such as property crimes and vehicle break-ins, but the presence of the guard has had no meaningful effect on violent crime.
“What the Guard brought was a massive, sudden shock from the visible presence of uniformed military personnel on the streets of Washington almost overnight,” researchers wrote, calling the deployment of the Guard a “blunt and expensive instrument.”
There is a degree of irony to the circumstances: When it comes to the Reflecting Pool, Trump keeps pointing to crimes that didn’t happen, but when it comes to the city overall, Trump keeps pretending not to notice crimes that did happen. [Yep]
As for the price tag, The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon’s deployment of National Guard troops to Washington “is set to cost an additional $1.4 billion” through the end of Trump’s second term. [I snipped Elizabeth Warren’s comments.]
[…] it’s a safe bet that the White House, indifferent to the results of this real-world experiment, will support the $1.4 billion investment.
According to Hellgate, the former mayor of New York left the Big Apple over the weekend to visit Wisconsin Rapids—population 18,654—and pitch the town on a data center project. He probably could not have found a less receptive audience if he tried.
…
The funniest part about Adams’ disastrous attempt to make data centers palatable to middle America is that it was entirely self-inflicted. Adams, in his post-mayor life, apparently makes his bones doing consultant work for real estate developers. One such developer, PNK Group, wants to set up a 150-megawatt data center in an old paper mill in Wisconsin Rapids. To make that pitch, according to a report from Inc, the company decided to organize a meeting on its own and have Adams headline it.
To be clear: this was not a town hall or a public hearing about the project. This was an event set up completely independently by the data center developer to try to endear itself to the community. And their plan to do that was to fly in a scandal-plagued former mayor of the biggest city in the country to tell folks why they should stop worrying and love the data center…
Health officials in the U.K. are reporting a “sharp rise” in cyclosporiasis cases among travelers returning from Mexico.
Between April 30 and July 15, 67 cases have been reported among some returning travelers in England, Wales and Scotland, according to data published last week from the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Comparatively, an annual average of 93 cases has been recorded between 2022 and 2025, UKHSA data shows.
…
The UKHSA said travel information is available for 51 out of the 67 cases, of which 48 reported travel to Mexico…
A British maritime monitoring agency said a cargo ship reported being hit by a projectile overnight off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States and Iran made opposing claims about whether they were holding talks.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general to the Senate, which could hold a vote to confirm him as early as this week. The panel approved Blanche’s nomination on a 12-10 party-line vote.
Related video is available here. Marc Elias is on the discussion panel.
Twenty-five states sued the Trump administration Monday over its latest tariffs, calling them a pretext for replacing import taxes the Supreme Court struck down in February.
[…] During a White House Faith Office phone call with Intercessors for America last week, Blanche promised to make Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, “permanent in every single state.”
It’s irresistible to mock that phrasing, especially from the person who wants to be the nation’s highest prosecutor, as Dobbs is, well, a court decision—not a law. To the extent that Supreme Court decisions do bind all lower federal courts, Dobbs is already “permanent in every single state,” dude.
But all that Dobbs ostensibly stands for is that the issue of abortion was returned to the states, which was explained in this Wall Street Journal editorial […]:
“Both sides of the abortion debate will now have to achieve their policy goal the old-fashioned way—through persuasion, not judicial fiat,” the editorial board wrote. “One tragedy of Roe is that it preempted an abortion debate that was moving in the states a half century ago. That debate can now resume. Some states will ban it in most cases, while others like California may seek to pay for the abortions of women from other states.”
But Blanche isn’t promising to leave things to the states; he’s promising, secretly, to do just the opposite.
During the call, he whined that the administration’s efforts to eliminate access to abortion are “taking longer than we want” but that the Justice Department was “working hand in hand” with the White House and federal health agencies to make Dobbs “permanent.”
Blanche even sounds like Trump when he talks about it, with triumphantly vague platitudes.
“We don’t have complete victory yet, but we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and it will be permanent,” he said before adding that the administration is “putting practices and policies in place” to stop the shipment of perfectly legal and safe abortion pills.
[…] Dobbs doesn’t compel—much less allow—the DOJ to do anything about abortion pills in states that don’t want to be forced back to the 19th century. It literally just says that states get to decide.
But what hardliners want—what they have always wanted—is a nationwide ban.
They want Blanche to be far tougher than just promising to review the use of the Comstock Act to prevent the mailing of abortion pills […]
These are not people who are fine with the idea that California and New York have different abortion laws than Texas and Mississippi.
[…] you can expect a full-scale assault on abortion as Blanche delivers on his promise to roll back decades of progress in bodily autonomy.
A private, little promise with big, public consequences. Thanks, Todd.
“America’s Next Attorney General Todd Blanche Promises To Dobbs Up Whole Country, Ban Abortion Everywhere”
“Also, stealth ballot initiatives threaten abortion rights in Kansas and Missouri.”
Since Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, abortion has won on the ballot in practically every state that’s put it on one — the only exception being Florida, which required the measure have 60 percent of the vote to pass. Recent polling shows that 60 to 64 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Indeed, the abortion nonsense has been so very unpopular that Trump has reportedly encouraged Republican candidates for office to not even talk about it.
But Todd Blanche has a different idea. In a call last week to a very sane-sounding group called Intercessors for America […] that was hosted by the White House Faith Office, the next attorney general of the United States pouted about how banning abortion throughout the nation is “taking longer than we want” but promised them that the White House, the HHS and the FDA, Donald Trump’s team and the Department of Justice were all working very hard to ensure “that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”
Remember when they “just wanted to return it to the states”? Because of how they love state’s rights? Seems like they might have been lying about that.
Politico asked the Department of Justice what this was all about, but all they would say is that they want to crack down on the mailing of abortion pills. Blanche himself also quickly pivoted to the subject of mail-order abortion pills on the call, telling the group that if states have decided that they are going to “protect life,” they’re going to make sure that women in that state are forced to give birth whether they want to or not.
“If states have said, ‘We are going to protect the unborn and we’re going to protect every life from the moment of conception,’ we’re putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations can’t attack that,” he said. “They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs.”
Just to be clear, those “states” haven’t said that. With the exception of Florida (where a majority but not a 60 percent majority voted in favor of protecting abortion rights), the states that have banned abortion have not held actual votes on it. Indeed, Republicans have been working hard to keep abortion rights off the ballots in their states, because they know that people will vote to keep it legal if given the opportunity.
[…] States Are Also Looking For Ways To Ban Abortion, Even If Their Voters Don’t Want Them To
After Roe was overturned, one of the big surprises was that the Kansas state Supreme Court maintained that their state constitution included a right to abortion, regardless of how Republican state legislators felt about it. […]So, rather than actually putting abortion on today’s ballot, voters will instead be voting on a constitutional amendment that will allow them to vote for judges directly.
Right now, the way judges are selected for the Kansas state Supreme Court is that a nine-person bipartisan panel comes up with a list of recommendations and then the governor chooses from that list of recommendations and appoints someone to the court. Kansas Republicans are betting that, if this passes, Kansas voters will choose judges who want to force them to have babies against their will. […]
Related: The Center for Reproductive Rights reports that “a state court just permanently struck down a long list of abortion restrictions, ruling that they violated the fundamental right to abortion, and health care providers’ right to free speech under the state constitution.” […]
But Kansas isn’t the only state with an abortion-inspired ballot measure today.
Back in 2024, voters in the state of Missouri really hurt the feelings of their elected officials by voting in favor of keeping abortion legal in the state through a constitutional amendment. Today, Missourians will be voting on a proposal to make doing something like that a whole lot more difficult. Right now, in order to establish a new constitutional amendment, all anyone has to do is collect a certain amount of signatures from every congressional district, submit that to the Secretary of State and then get a majority of votes on the ballot. Easy peasy — if it’s something people want.
However, Amendment 4 would change that process, making it so these initiatives would have to get a majority of the vote not just in Missouri as a whole, but in each of the state’s eight congressional districts. […]
Hey, Turns Out Some People Do Like Losing Their Rights!
Yesterday, when I was surely supposed to be doing something more responsible, I came upon this month-old Instagram post from Students for Life of America president Kristan Mercer Hawkins begging conservatives to stop calling to #RepealThe19th, both because she would, personally, like to retain her right to vote and because it will make women not vote for Republicans, for fear they will take away their right to vote.
Hawkins seemed to believe that it was just people trying to be “edgy” and that it was perhaps not even something they sincerely believed was a good idea. [social media post]
It did not go over well! Hawkins was flooded with hundreds of responses — almost exclusively from people on her own side who really wanted to let her know that they very sincerely do want to take her right to vote away. And that they would like to eat her face.
She even got a response from noted anti-suffragist Dale Partridge (posting under the handle “relearnhq”) who informed her that the country will be balkanizing soon anyway, and they wouldn’t want women voting in their new nation, because of how “disastrous” it has been. [social media post]
[…] So many women like Kristan insisted that taking away the right to abortion was not about taking women’s rights away, was not about subverting their bodily autonomy — that it was just about the babies they loved so very much (though not enough to ensure they and their parents have health care).
So many women like Kristan thought that they were the special exception to the rule, that they were accepted as equals by the men on their side — but, as many of her commenters made clear, they were not. This is what it was always, always about, and these men (and many of these women) have always hated women. Abortion rights were just a way to attack women’s autonomy by pretending to just care about the babies.
In the event that Dale Partridge turns out to be right and we balkanize into different countries, I do hope Kristan can learn to enjoy and appreciate her new life in Gilead, despite her lack of basic human rights. After all, it’s what she spent her life campaigning for.
birgerjohanssonsays
Hossenfelder: “Physicists Say They’ve Found The Origin Of Causality”
Several US senators have written a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), inquiring about the agency’s “plans to crack down on prediction markets” that offer “contracts for individuals to bet on wildfires.”
“Offering bets on destructive wildfires threatens to minimize communities’ suffering, all so the rich and powerful can profit,” wrote the group of senators, who represent Oregon, California, Nevada, Minnesota, and New Hampshire…
Authorities in California have arrested a man who was seen near a golf course owned by President Donald Trump in the Los Angeles area, ahead of the president’s visit for a fundraising dinner there.
Jeanine John Taele, 38, was found with a pistol and illegal ammunition at the Trump National Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes, investigators say.
According to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, he was “observed walking throughout the golf course grounds taking photographs and videos and appearing to monitor security-planning activities”.
The arrest took place on Sunday afternoon. Trump is currently visiting California to attend a Republican party fundraising dinner at the course on Tuesday.
Taele is being held on charges of carrying a concealed firearm and possession of armour-piercing/prohibited ammunition.
…
When police confronted the man, they discovered that he was being sought in connection to a robbery by the El Segundo Police Department, about 15 miles (25km) north of Rancho Palos Verdes, a wealthy coastal enclave known for its hills and scenic cliffs.
…
Inside his home, they found an “illegally modified AR platform rifle” a .45 pistol, body armour, high-capacity magazines, a plethora of bullets for pistols and rifles and multiple notebooks “containing concerning statements”.
…
According to the White House, Trump was due to give a speech critical of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is widely considered to be planning a run for the presidency in the 2028 election, after Trump’s second term ends…
What someone considers concerning is rather subjective.
I would not be shocked if Gavin Newsom did not run for president. I wonder if instead he will embrace the ‘attack dog’ role.
JMsays
@447 Reginald Selkirk: They mean minimize here. This is a publicity move. Notice they waited for a topic they couldn’t be said to be doing insider trading on before complaining publicly or too officials who could regulate it.
The request from a senior officer at the US military command carrying out President Donald Trump’s war with Iran came in an email: We need ideas.
“We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” an officer in US Central Command’s intelligence branch wrote in a message sent Wednesday to a broad group of military analysts, according to a source familiar with the message. A second source also said that a senior US military officer sent the message last week soliciting new ideas for how to deal with Iran.
The US is running out of ideas and weapons for things that don’t involve manpower and/or a lot of expense.
Trump has been considering strikes akin to a “fireworks” display, another source said, which could hit either the same or similar sites as those targeted a year ago, in the hopes of a symbolic victory that would allow him to exit the war without actually accomplishing one of his initial aims: ridding Iran of its nuclear program.
And it’s unlikely that would resolve what has become the war’s central issue: Iranian claims over the Strait of Hormuz.
Very Trumpian solution, lets blow up the nuclear sites that we already blew up, declare victory and go home. Let somebody else take care of cleaning up the Strait of Hormuz or just give up on that issue. The money that Iran would get out of controlling the Strait would take a while to build up into a big problem. Iran needs to rebuild first.
If they want a creative solution though, I have one. We can donate the senior Trump administration officials to Iran. The US would have to replace them but we have a reserve of experienced officials. This way Iran can benefit from the skill and knowledge they have brought the US.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Reginald Selkirk @477: Minimize suffering in the trivializing sense of a bet. The next sentence in the letter began “There’s also” perverse incentive to do arson to guarantee a win, adding suffering.
JM @479: Good observation.
StevoRsays
Pompey observatory has live tracking of the SpaceX booster that’s due to impact our Moon in roughly an hour or so’s time (2.35 am USA time) here
Albiet this is seriously no big deal. Asteroids and meteroids regularly impact our Moon and NASA and other space agencies have previously impacted many probes and rocket stages onto the lunar surface as well. It isn’t new and its only going to make another small crater which occurs all the time.
whheydtsays
Re: StevoR @ #482…
Which “USA time”? USA has at least 6 time zones (4 in the “lower 48”, plus at leat one for Alaska and one for Hawaii).
Note that any reasonably well educated person should be able to convert from UTC/Greenwich/Zulu to their own local time.
whheydtsays
Re; me @ #483…
From another source, the 2:35 AM appears to be EDT.
StevoRsays
An hour and two ..almost one mionutes away -they’ve just addded a countdown clock to thePompey observatory live yt video.
StevoRsays
@483 -484 whheydt t : Thanks and fair point.
StevoRsays
NB. Also posted on the Sky is Falling thread too just to let folks know.
.***
After time of impact of that SpaceX booster now and no sign of anything dramatic or, actually, at all.
Not surprised given the scale of booster vs Moon and lack of oxygen and fuel remaining in the rocket stage.
There’s probly an extra small crater added to the “magnificent desolation” as Buzz Aldrin described it but even finding it among all the others is going to be hard.
Silentbobsays
@ whheydt
Note that any reasonably well educated person should be able to convert from UTC/Greenwich/Zulu to their own local time.
Should thay be able to convert from “Eastern Daylight Time” in a foreign country to UTC in their heads?
StevoRsays
PBS w live (?) results coming in &uincluded at linked source page
Michigan voters will decide a competitive Democratic U.S. Senate primary Tuesday in a contest that not only has implications for control of the chamber next year but will also test the growing clout of the party’s progressive wing as well as that of a powerful pro-Israel organization.
The state is one of the nation’s most competitive electoral battlegrounds, as the last three presidential elections firmly established. In 2026, in addition to the pivotal U.S. Senate contest, Michigan will host fiercely contested races for governor, U.S. House and the state Legislature.
Progressives scored high-profile victories in the past year with the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s mayor and several U.S. House primaries where progressive candidates defeated longtime Democratic incumbents. While those contests all were waged on safe, heavily Democratic turf, the race to replace Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Peters is expected to be a marquee matchup in the November general election, raising the stakes of Tuesday’s Democratic primary between U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and former Detroit public health official Abdul El-Sayed.
PBS Newshour also has this factchecking of claism piece here too :
… The contest is one of the most closely watched 2026 Senate races as Democrats seek to flip the chamber. For Democrats to win a majority, holding their Michigan seat is practically a requirement.
More than 1 million voters in Michigan cast a ballot before the Aug. 4 primary, mostly by mail.
Here’s a look at our fact-checks from debates and campaign messaging on topics such as polling, fundraising and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, the expected Republican nominee who lost his 2024 Senate bid to Democrat Elissa Slotkin.
USoA primaries with live results that is here anyhow. I guess every USoAite here knows their own state ones. Still for overseas folks like me who are intrested.
… The Seahorse Rescue Centre conservation project in Ravenna, based in the town’s former fish market, was set up in 2019 by Italian conservation organisation the Experimental Centre for the Protection of Habitats (CESTHA). Since its inception, more than 8,000 seahorses have been saved.
Linda and her team care for two different seahorse species found nearby, which are white, yellow and brown in colour. Fully grown, they do not reach more than 15cm in length, so are often hard to spot.
…
There are nearly 50 species of seahorses worldwide, all of which are listed under CITES Appendix II, which means commercial trade in the species must be strictly documented to ensure its survival in the wild is not threatened. However, most of the trade with China is carried out by clandestine smuggling, without any checks…
North Carolina Congressman Chuck Edwards has dropped his bid for re-election in the wake of a House committee vote to censure him over sexual harassment allegations.
…
His announcement comes just days after the House Ethics Committee said Edwards “engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct”, following its monthslong investigation of allegations against him.
The Republican has denied any wrongdoing, and the committee’s report does not amount to guilt.
Left-wing political outsider Abdul El-Sayed is projected to win the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, which exposed bitter divisions over the party’s direction.
The former public health official is on course to beat moderate four-term Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
El-Sayed voiced support for progressive causes like universal healthcare and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He also called for ending unconditional US military aid to Israel.
If officially confirmed as the primary’s winner, he will face Republican and Trump ally Mike Rogers, in November’s midterm elections.
The son of Egyptian immigrants would be the first Muslim US senator if he wins in November…
The American people are catching on big time that Donald Trump is not only an oligarch concerned about his own family’s wealth and the wealth of his fellow oligarchs, he’s really at war against the working class of this country,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Reginald Selkirk@500,
This reminds me of a prank played by a group of French situationists, I think in 1968 but may have been more recently. They (temporarily) kidnapped a Catholic priest shortly before he was about to begin Mass, and one of their number dressed himself in the clerical robes. He made his way to the pulpit (or whatever they have in Catholic churches), adopted an appropriately solemn mien, and began his address to the congregation:
Lynna, OM@493,
I think Trump may have been sticking to the ludicrous claim that the latest fighting is a new war, made so he can pretend he hasn’t reached the time limit by which the president has to get congressional approval. Hence 14 dead in the”first” war, 18 so far in the “two” wars.
Two robots nailing a social interaction – BBC
.https://youtube.com/shorts/O-HBPDfLegc
shermanj @498, all good points! I agree.
For the convenience of readers, here are a few links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-2/#comment-2307226
Nearly 150,000 mail ballots rejected in California’s primary despite efforts to count every vote, by Associated Press
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-2/#comment-2307221
Attack on Higher Ed: Penn Wins
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-2/#comment-2307220
Pentagon changes its website to lower the number of U.S. troop deaths during war with Iran
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-2/#comment-2307219
Team Trump’s efforts to rename Penn Station after the president reach a new level
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/06/28/infinite-thread-xxxx/comment-page-2/#comment-2307184
Trump extends pardons to companies, echoing a 17th century king
Independent: Trump says ‘I trust’ Putin and Xi — contradicting Hegseth about Iran war allies
With any other president you would assume this is a diplomatic lie. With Trump it’s easier to think he doesn’t understand what is going on. Neither Russia or China is likely selling Iran weapons right now, instead they are giving and selling Iran information, supplies and the parts/raw materials they need to make weapons.
White House admits it scrapped grants to blue states because they didn’t vote for Trump
“Team Trump admitted it withheld federal resources from states based on local voters casting ballots in ways the president doesn’t like.”
Federal Judge Rules That FDA’s Mifepristone Restrictions Are Excessive, Unscientific and Unlawful
The entire ruling is available at the link as a PDF.
Report: Dozens of ICE and CBP Agents Have Abused Women and Children
“David Brouillette, according to Ohio Immigrant Alliance, is no outlier.”
More at the link.
Scientists find the secret of birdsong’s ‘spectacular diversity’
Canada celebrates long-awaited opening of Gordie Howe bridge without U.S.
Obama surprises WNBA All-Stars at their practice at his Presidential Center
Canada opens Gordie Howe bridge without US
Steve Benen, who writes for the Maddow Blog, summarized bits and pieces of news for “Friday’s Mini-Report”:
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
New York Times link
“Colleges Promise ‘Business as Usual’ on Middle East Campuses Despite War”
“Even after the collapse of the cease-fire between the United States and Iran, American universities expect to teach in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and a new outpost is on track to open in Saudi Arabia.”
Trump to deliver ‘unifying yet vicious’ remarks at press dinner months after shooting incident, White House says
It would be better if he didn’t use words he doesn’t understand.
Reginald Selkirk at xxxx p2 496.
WeirdDarkness – The bigfoot ‘corpse’ that fooled nobody (2025-08)
Sharon Hill – Bigfoot remains a moneymaking hoax (2026-05)
Reginald Selkirk at xxxx p2 365:
Tante (Sociotechnologist):
Emily Bender (Computational linguist):
Rando 1: “The entire story equates to ‘we were testing a cron job and it started calling some APIs.’ Except they changed ‘we’ for ‘the AI’ and changed ‘cron job’ for ‘agents’ and changed ‘Calling some APIs’ with ‘it started hacking into some remote systems’.”
Rando 2: “one analogy I saw—’we set a Roomba loose in a warehouse and left the door to another warehouse open on purpose and it wandered in there.'”
Rando 3: “They lifted the guardrails that let it loose. It was human intervention that allowed their model to attack that other company and honestly there should be an investigation / lawsuit about it. This is absolutley marketing, and treating it otherwise is utter nonsense.”
Kevin Beaumont (Cybersecurity journalist): “OpenAI are criminally negligent when it comes to cybersecurity, and are very good at viral marketing to executives via poor and uncritical media coverage.”
Rando 4: “Imagine Tesla setting off a car to drive on its own without guardrails, hitting a pedestrian, and then doing a proud press release about it. ‘Did you see that?! It broke out of its garage and went rogue!! Wow! You saw it didn’t you? Isn’t it great!?'”
Tante: “It does make sense: OpenAI was losing ground and mindshare to Anthropic. They are running out of money but couldn’t IPO because SpaceX ruined it. This ‘our model is a Cyberweapon’ is advertising directly to the Pentagon.”
Further to Lynna, OM@493, Me@2,
Apparently the four recent deaths of American troops have been removed from the total (making it 14 rather than 18) on the grounds that they occurred during a “ceasefire”, and hence are not war deaths! This still contradicts Trump’s own “18 in two wars” claim – but what a grotesque way to insult the dead and their families.
Scott Manley has a new yt video on the latest Starship flight here – 25 mins long.
@ StevoR
How many stars did this Starship visit?
(If the answer is less than two, whoever called it a “Starship” is a fucking wanker )
@18 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain
Thanks for the follow-up.
@22. Silentbob : Yeah. Felon Musk is, indeed, a wanker. Pity he’s in charge and of course it changes nothing when it comes to the facts, success and impressiveness of the newest SpaceX rocket’s successful flight. What’s ina namke huh?
Oh and obvs there’s precedent here after all how many stars did the USAF’s Starfighter aircraft fly to? See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter
Judging aircraft / books / rockets / roses / etc .. by their names now are we?
If you call a submarine “Terrible” does it mean they intend it to be so in the modern sense of the word?
Okay, did not work out so well for the British battlecrusier Invincible but still.. ;-)
See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Le_Terrible_(S619)
Honto francais ce nes pas anglais demo / shika anyhow.
(There’s also a French sub named Suffren. I ‘spose they could’ve done worse and bnaed it Suaktash.. ;-) )
Plus :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Invincible_(1907)
Oh and there’re tempting fate by naming a submarine that now too?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible-class_submarine
bnaed = named.
Same letters. Mostly… ~ish..
Suaktash = Sukatash, er succotash apparently that is..
Sylvester Says Sufferin Succotash for 10 Hours Umm, guess how long this goes?
Instagram Is Now Banning Pickup Artists, Pranksters Who Use Meta Glasses
Pro-Ukraine group claims it helped hack Russian drone air defense system, shooting down Su-57 in friendly fire incident — Moscow confirms fifth-generation fighter jet crashed in ‘technical malfunction’
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: See Chris and Jen instantly react to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Video is 10:43 minutes
Midnight Oil singng truth here – River Runs Red 5 mins 25 secs~ish.
If I had a personal anthem that I could share with everyone and make everyone hear & think about. This would be it. Thankyou Warumpi band it is this. Please listen/. Please think. Please stand up & be couted. (5 mins long.)
Old song saboage but, Ouch, so painfully true sung here – Battle Hymn of the Republic – Modified for Relevance | Don Caron</a by Parody project, 5 mins long almost.>
Link
Link
Jackson formally clinches Democratic nod to take on Collins in Maine Senate race
I am concerned about Susan Collins. She is about to lose her job. [smiles]
Washington Post link
Trump’s insult-laden speech to press dinner draws mostly stunned silence
Followup to comment 37.
New York Times link
Yemen’s Houthis fire missiles, drones at Saudi Arabia in response to strikes on Hodeida
“The rising tension in the Red Sea has threatened to further choke global shipping, because the Houthi rebels have said they would close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi-linked shipping.”
Trump administration to resume cattle imports on southern U.S. border amid parasite outbreak
“The move comes after Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins faced criticism from Republicans and the cattle industry to open the border to help ease high prices.”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-to-put-trigger-warnings-on
“Trump To Put Trigger Warnings On The Smithsonian To Protect MAGA Snowflakes”
“Pro version’ of cisplatin keeps its cancer-killing power while reducing side effects”
The details are at MedicalXpress, the important part is that cisplatin will no longer do damage to the kidney or the peripheral nervous system; the latter results in pain.
SpaceX launches Starship on 13th flight test, booster splashes down without exploding and floats.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=2TF98WKebD4
And here is the full video coverage, from takeoff to splashdown. 1 hour 43 minutes.
.https://youtube.com/live/uI6pKTGyNq4?si=B9OhnZr96VSJDJsw
@37
An obese 80 year old man with a bad toupee, orange skin and small hands probably shouldn’t make such a big deal about anyone’s personal appearance.
China is Creating a Herd of 100 Elite Yak Clones
Security flaw in Vatican’s ‘Click to Pray’ app leaves over 700,000 global users exposed — app has been leaking user data for over six months and still does
Me @ 43
Addendum; the “Starship” upper part made a soft landing in the Indian Ocean without exploding, not the booster. I should have caught that detail. Here are the images.
“SpaceX’s Starship…. Becomes a Ship?”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/F6ufE-s02_0
Reginald Selkirk @ 44
The MAGA supporters probably found the professional wrestling style invectives amusing, the GOP congressmen probably cringed inwardly while pretending to laugh to the jokes of the mad king.
The lickspittles he has appointed to his cabinet are so empty inside they genuinely found it funny.
Kalshi demands Netflix take down trailer for ‘Prediction Games’ documentary
The hacker who humiliated spyware makers and was never caught
One dead, 17 injured at Berlin Pride event, police say, after vehicle driven into crowd
‘Maybe he’s a racist’ – Trump critical of James
I bolded a key phrase for your convenience. The rest is mostly noise.
Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke indicted on bribery charges
Axios: Trump ordered military not to conduct strikes in Iran Friday
Trump is in a frustrating situation for him. Total air superiority but it doesn’t actually buy him much because Iran has hardened everything military against it. It has passed the point where random tactical strikes do much good except generate headlines in the US. Somebody has convinced Trump and Hegseth not to expand into large scale civilian strikes.
Who knows what is really happening. Trump is always saying they are on the verge of an agreement and Iran generally denies they are talking.
NY Times: Trump Holds Off on Major Escalation Against Iran as Advisers Raise Concerns
Somebody convinced Trump that slightly expanding the war doesn’t work. It’s either hold off or expand significantly. Given those choices Trump was willing to back off. He has always wanted to negotiate his way out of the war but has trouble with the idea of consistent terms and both sides insult the other in national press.
Oddly sensible position, I wonder who was holding it. The DOD planners would unless Hegseth shut them up because this has been one of the major concerns all along. Rubio has enough diplomatic experience to understand this also. Hitting an unpopular government will often increase support for the government as civilians suffer. It isn’t likely to bring Iran to negotiations they wouldn’t do either because the leaders are well prepared to hide in bunkers and run things in secret.
Kushner doesn’t understand policy or military planning, he is acting as a representative of middle eastern governments that would rather negotiate then have a war running on their territory. Which is a perfectly sensible policy but Kushner isn’t taking it because it’s a good idea for the US.
Aljazeera: Saudi Arabia strikes Houthi-held Hodeidah, Yemeni group says
The two sides hate each other but it’s mostly blowing up buildings and killing civilians because neither side has a well organized and lead army. If Saudi Arabia can do significant damage to the ports the Houthi use it would matter because it would cut off their supplies but it isn’t likely to happen.
Reuters: Iran says Ukrainian attack on vessel in Caspian Sea killed sailor
Iran and Russia are running supplies back and forth all the time so it was going to happen eventually. As long as Iran doesn’t escalate into a more general conflict with Ukraine it doesn’t really matter. And with the ongoing conflict with the US I can’t see them doing anything unless they want to enter the Ukraine war on Russia’s side.
The Moscow Times: Should Russia Brace for a New Mobilization?
Rumors have been running all year both inside and outside Russia. Russia is pushing the various alternative options for getting soldiers as hard as they can but they are reaching the limits and the supply is slowing. At least a couple of months this year recruitment seems to have run behind combat losses, a situation that can not be sustained very long. All of those figures are closely guarded secrets though.
A large mobilization couldn’t be kept secret. A small one could be in Russia where state control of information is very strong now.
Even in Russia they are not likely to do anything until after the election at this point. So don’t expect anything in this regards in August or September.
Just saw this on Hacker News:
Producing ammonia & fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
Katie Phang (Journalist, Trial lawyer):
* Nothing added on her YT yet.
Main Contractor for Reflecting Pool is Repairing Lining Under Warranty
According to Michael Popok this indicates that the damage was not caused by vandalism. Atlantic Industrial Coatings announced this on June 21.
Jones, Clark carry Team Spoon to WNBA All-Star Game victory
32 of 35 Students Caught Using Hilariously Wrong AI-Generated Answers for Professor’s Midterm
A Promising Process For Nuclear Fuel Re-use and Disposal?
Bolsonaro’s son begins Brazil presidential bid with Netanyahu, Milei kudos
Brazil’s government denies visas to US officials over upcoming elections
Jon Stewart: Trump gave us the real DEI:
diarrhea everywhere, indefinitely.
When a robot learns your love language – BBC
.https://youtube.com/shorts/iJ3vAMNOSH8
Trump wants to bring the price of oil back down. Iran wants to keep it up.
Washington Post link
More at the link.
Russia wants 30,000 more troops from North Korea, Zelenskyy says
3,528′ above sea level…, 3490′ above sea level. A few dozen feet from a double calamity of massive proportions
SpainMassive forest fires reignite political tensions in Spain
“Devastating blazes raging around Madrid, Ávila, Toledo and Castellón have displaced more than 100,000 people, exposed gaps in firefighting capacity and reopened a familiar feud between the left and the right.”
Romania blames Russia as military shoots down third drone
“Sunday’s incident marks the third drone shot down over Romania in as many days, in a further escalation for the NATO member.”
Courthouse News: White House pulls controversial DOJ nominee after offensive social media posts revealed
Exactly what is in those posts is not public but there are several hundred deleted posts. He seems to have insulted a lot of the people he would be working with. Ligris is denying that the posting is the reason he withdrew and instead claimed an unstated family emergency. A potentially true but paper thin excuse.
It’s amusing because it means there are things so offensive to say that they get you rejected even in the Trump administration. I’m guessing that is only for lower ranked figures though. It’s standard for governments like Trump’s that the people at the very top are not held responsible but lower officials had better not do anything that causes a problem for the government.
@51
Berlin Pride attack suspect shot and killed during police operation
Link
Sweltering heat wave grips central and southern US for a second straight day
“Authorities warned that children and older adults, along with people with certain medical conditions, are especially at risk of serious reactions including heat stroke.”
Link
Link
The link leads to a compendium of recent news reports.
New Yorker link
Republicans are in real danger of losing a senate seat to an independent candidate in Nebraska.
Meanwhile, core Republican voters are showing a lack of enthusiasm that may be a harbinger of low voter turnout.
[Video/Transcript] PBS News Hour – How volunteers with 3D printers make weapons for Ukraine (8:33)
Breakaway border buoys disrupt Rio Grande bridges during Texas flooding
Recommended
.
Part 59- Ann Droid core !!!!
.https://youtube.com/shorts/HSfUlQXDAXQ
Isac Asimov did not predict this!
Michael Kosta shows solidarity with a billionaire who’s fighting the scourge of anti-rich hate.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/Cz21B666Rs0
“The National Association for the Advancement of Cha-Ching People” aka NAACP
Shootout at Seattle food festival kills 3; police arrest suspect and search for another
GOP senator sees CDC website on vaccines as ‘almost an insult to the American people’
“Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy knows the CDC’s site on vaccines and autism is wrong. So what is he going to do about it?”
Why Trump rushed the Qatari-donated Air Force One into service before it was ready
“The bottom line is unavoidable: The president created a national security problem because he was overeager to play with his new toy.”
What public health professionals can learn from anti-vaccine storytelling
‘I haven’t thought about it’: Trump shrugs off cyclosporiasis outbreak
Now Lost in Salvadoran Prison System
That sounds like a mistake in the wording of the pleadings led to a catastrophic result. That’s not right.
Houston ICE Shooting: No Drugs in Van
Boat Strike Watch: Grisly Stats Edition
Link
More scandal from the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is run by Russ Vought:
Link
Cartoon: Strategizer-in-chief, by Tom Tomorrow
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/pete-hegseth-is-a-failure-and-everybody
“Pete Hegseth Is A Failure And Everybody Hates Him, Episode One Million”
“This again?”
Trump saves George Washington with time travel and protects world from Iran in AI posting spree
“The president appears as a super hero in a mocked up movie poster, saving Washington at Mount Rushmore, in a series of bizarre late night posts”
More at the link, including images.
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Police vetted dubious allegation only after Buttigieg was separated from children”
“The Michigan attorney general’s office is investigating how the accusation that prompted the ex-Cabinet secretary’s separation from his 4-year-old twins was handled.”
More at the link.
Variety: ‘The Odyssey’ Leaked on X: High-Quality Bootleg Seen by Millions in Hours Before Takedown
That leaks are happening is no surprise, that it took Twitter that long to take it down is. It shows where their priorities are.
New York Times link
“Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It.”
Lots more detail at the link.
New York Times link
crapitallist corporations find a new way to defraud!
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/117654/charitable-giving-isn-t-what-you-think
magat War on Education means schools must not just roll-over and pee on themselves pretending to be neutral
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/henry-giroux/117653/higher-ed-can-t-be-neutral-in-an-age-of-brutality-it-must-choose-democracy
The Telegraph via Yahoo: Inside the dystopian world of Germany’s free speech crackdown
German online enforcement is going berserk. Any mention or display of Nazi material, even to insult it or explain why it’s wrong, can results in fines and prison sentences. Any insult of politicians can result in fines. These laws have existed on the books for a long time but recently enforcement has gone overboard.
The far right is trying to exploit this situation to their advantage. Saying the government is using these laws to spy on them.
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/unconscious-mitch-mcconnell-scores
Satire
Dawn French and James Fleet are the only core members of The Vicar of Dibley still alive.
Bill Oddie from the comedy series The Goodies died last week.
New York Times link
“In France, some of Europe’s aerospace leaders are in the path of the fire.”
WaPo – Trump’s plan to paint the Eisenhower is about more than damaging stone
New York Times link
“How Meta Got Everything It Wanted in a Secret Louisiana Data Center Deal”
“A Times examination details how the Silicon Valley giant used private talks with local officials to start a project big enough to cover nearly six square miles.” [Video and photos at the link]
NPR – Trump allies vote to weaken protections for historic sites—not just in D.C.
Women in Archaeology podcast – Section 106 in Chaos: Trump Appointed Overhaul of the National Historic Preservation Act Regulations (1:10:19)
Bryan Kohberger files a petition to challenge his guilty plea and conviction
I think he’d have a better chance of seeking a presidential pardon.
Waltz blames Biden for depleted stockpiles, but says US military has ‘everything that it needs’
The Trump administration couldn’t rebuild those stockpiles in 18 months? And also, Biden didn’t start a require requiring a drawdown of those stockpiles.
@11, 13
Gordie Howe’s family are the 1st to cross the bridge
A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
He must have had a pretty lousy lawyer.
Reginald Selkirk @ # 110: I think he[Bryan Kohberger]’d have a better chance of seeking a presidential pardon.
Not unless he has at least $1,000,000 to “donate” to a Trump™ PAC or related entity.
Text quoted by Reginald @112:
Stylish! They don’t need sourpuss Trump there in order to celebrate.
MS NOW:
New York Times:
Wall Street Journal:
Politico:
New Republic:
MS NOW:
Trump says he’ll ask Putin about Russia’s role in assisting Iran during U.S. war
“The American president could accept his own team’s findings, but he wants to double-check with the suspected Russian war criminal and former KGB agent.”
Trump team rolls out creepy scheme to get your private medical data
https://www.wonkette.com/p/laura-loomer-likes-ukraine-now-but
“Laura Loomer Likes Ukraine Now, But Don’t Worry, She Still Sucks”
“Bizarro world crap.” [Photo of Zelenskyy and Loomer sitting across from each other at an outdoor table in a garden.]
@111 Reginald Selkirk: A lot of this stuff has limited production capacity and has been running at max since the invasion of Ukraine. For the simpler stuff the companies don’t want to invest in expanding production when the demand might end at any moment. The sophisticated stuff it takes years to build the factory and the US government is probably on the hook for part of the cost.
There may also be underlying supply problems, the advanced guidance depends on rare earth metals that China controls the supply of.
There was a project to expand artillery production that just failed. They built a new factory and two years after it’s “completion” it has not produced any parts at all.
Trump admin exempts SpaceX’s Starlink from FCC ban on foreign-made routers
Whaling Museum goes viral for ‘worst aquarium ever’ T-shirts, totes
Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights—and taking us back to the 19th century?
Because he’s an asshole. But let’s look at a few details.
Deputy saves kitten with chicken drumstick
You Can Finally Trust All Your Money to X, the Everything App
Dept of Defense accidentally admitted that ~winning is not an option~ on Twitter.
Department of War’s Comptroller / CFO:
Commentary
Posted here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/07/27/that-time-of-year/comment-page-1/#comment-2307527
On the plight of our locally endnagered Chequered Copper Butterfly ( Lucia limbaria versus a planned MotoGP..
Via space dot com :
https://www.space.com/stargazing/lunar-eclipses/this-is-the-best-lunar-eclipse-until-new-years-eve-2028-heres-how-to-spot-the-almost-blood-moon-on-aug-27
Owen Jones dscusses Elon Musk’s Car Crash Interview here – 20 mins long.
Someone Was Arrested at a Public Meeting For the Crime of Anti-Data Center Clapping
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-28/japan-earthquake-live-coverage/106969150
@ 135. Reginald Selkirk : Wow. What the Fuck!?
Powerful quake hits southern Japan, deaths feared in shopping mall explosion
US walks out of UN Security Council meeting during France’s remarks
It might be time to refresh my knowledge of how to spell pariah.
As expected Richlene Klanson’s sugar mommy is utterly evil Aussie billionaire Gina Rhinehart
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-28/hanson-reveals-rinehart-paid-for-italy-trip/106968518
Australia’s equivalent of Thiel I guess, a behind the scenes funder and encourager of the most hateful reichwing shit. She previously backed Dutton the Gestapotato.
Local match goes viral over cheating claim
AI helps Stanford scientists discover “natural Ozempic” without the usual side effects
RACHEL MADDOW: Why does Trump need your emergency room records?
Video is 3:08 minutes
RACHEL MADDOW: Maddow flags the weirdest candidates 99 days from midterms
Video is 5:21 minutes
RACHEL MADDOW: The bill comes due for Trump’s bad decisions
Video is 11:59 minutes
Irish frisbee team demand Israel is banned from world championships
As US measles cases rise, biotech firms start developing new treatments
6 months after the U.S. offensive, Trump is basically treating Venezuela as a colony
“The American president attacked a foreign country and seized its resources, but he doesn’t want to say what he’s doing with the profits.”
Report: Trump mad RFK Jr. hasn’t cut more vaccines or proven autism link
Owen Jones asks Are They Trying To Get Mamdani Killed? (35 mins long.) Yeah, I reckon they probly are.
DHS official resigns, cites administration’s ‘war on immigrants’ after exiting
“Precious few officials have stepped down and spoken out in recent months. It makes Marc Rosenblum’s exit that much more notable.”
European Southern Observatory. A minute and 22 secs long. Clearest image ever of Betelgeuse’s companion
Trita Parsi interviewed by Owen Jones (23 mins or 28 mins?) here – World War Could Begin As Iran And Ukraine Wars Merge albeit, wait, they merge now? Really? Dunno ’bout that.
On questions about depleted munitions, Team Trump struggles to keep its story straight
“To recap, the depleted stockpiles aren’t depleted, though they could be better, and everyone should blame Joe Biden.”
Related video at the link.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-28/meta-indigenous-content-moderators/106966688
As SpaceX Sheds a Tesla’s Worth of Value, Elon Musk Is Trying to Sell Investors on Another Company
Trump’s endorsement of the MyPillow guy gets even more embarrassing
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/balls-on-the-moon-china-set-to-launch-africas-1st-lunar-science-mission-in-2029
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/crazy-idea-succeeds-scientists-monitor-space-junk-with-radio-telescopes
Okay, that sounds about right: Heritage Foundation Exec Busted Carrying ammo and Drugs Into US Senate Building
Posted by readers of the article:
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/are-we-overlooking-signs-of-alien-life-that-arent-technological-or-biological-bread-would-be-a-signature-of-intelligence
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-demands-rfk-jr-gin-up-some
“Trump Demands RFK Jr. Gin Up Some Proof That Vaccines Cause Autism, Which They Don’t”
Washington Post link
“Asylum seekers could be sent directly to deportation under new federal rule”
“The Trump administration rule, which took effect immediately, could transfer nearly 450,000 cases to immigration judges, who could dismiss the asylum petitions.”
Getting paid for bad and/or illegal behavior.
Anti-abortion activist agrees to 7-figure settlement with Trump Justice Department
“In response to dubious civil suits, the DOJ has been quite generous lately, agreeing to lucrative settlements with plaintiffs aligned with the White House.”
New airliner sets record flying 24 hrs nonstop from Australia to France
That’s a long time to be cooped up in a tin can.
As the midterms approach, Trump is still trying to pretend he has a healthcare ‘plan’
“We will pass the great healthcare plan,” the president keeps boasting, seemingly unaware he doesn’t actually have a real proposal.
The White House’s pandemic preparedness office has a remarkably tiny team
“As recently as 2024, the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy had 15 employees. In 2026, it has two.”
Yikes! It’s enough to keep a student from enrolling in law school in Florida.
Link
They Crucified Our Carpenter!
.https://youtube.com/shorts/Mo5QQNaIvzY
Those inconsiderate Roman occupiers.
Lynna @ # 146, quoting Steve Benem at ms.now: … Venezuela, … more than 1,000 miles away from American soil.
TV news people – always rushed, always sloppy.
Eyeballing an online map, I guesstimate Saint Croix, in the US Virgin Islands, sits about 500 miles from the Venezuelan mainland. distancefromto.net puts Caracas a hair under 500 miles from San Juan, Puerto Rico (on the north coast of PR).
You’d think the Virgin Islands hadn’t featured in the US news for years…
Helluvaboss: “Glitz and Glam Song Performance” (in hell)
.https://youtube.com/shorts/G6TxBsryM2c
EXCLUSIVE: Allies shrug as US pushes for Strait of Hormuz patrol
“The Trump administration is urging the U.K. and France to lead a naval coalition to secure the strait, but allies want to see a ceasefire first.”
EBay and Former Execs Will Pay $56 Million to Couple They Tormented With Bloody Pig Masks
New York Times:
County Mayo breaks fabled 75-year-old curse to win All-Ireland football championship
Minnesota water systems hit with cyberattack, state officials say
US Senate confirms Trump nominee Clayton as nation’s top spy
NYT – Conservative NYT opinion columnist Ross Douthat joins ’60 minutes’
Justin Baragona (Zeteo):
Rando 1: “Look, he may not be the most photogenic but his ideas are bad, so he’s got that going for him.”
NYMag – Ross Douthat’s greatest sex writing hits (2018)
Matt Novak (Gizmodo): “We’re about to find out what 60 Minutes would sound like if Andy Rooney was really concerned about white birthrates.”
Rando 2: “[The NYT article] gets even dumber […] ‘Ms. Weiss asked […] to expand 60 Minutes beyond a one-hour weekly broadcast’ Longer than an hour? The show is literally called ’60 Minutes!'”
Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket): “Douthat no longer having an NYT podcast and jumping to a sinking ship is net positive for society. Bye, Ross.”
Reuters – EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws
Grok Creator SpaceXAI Sues Minnesota AG to Stop Ban on Nudification
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Daddy’s house is scary’: GOP Rep. Max Miller faces violent allegations
Video is 8:34 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Kentucky governor to McConnell: Prove you can serve or ‘resign’
Video is 7:32 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump sent Elon Musk to speed up his risky Air Force One overhaul
Video is 6:38 minutes
Chris Hayes presents facts I haven’t seen elsewhere.
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES
Hayes: Trump keeps bluffing — and everyone is calling him on it
Video is 7:51 minutes
Trump administration to end Medicare premium subsidy program
Lost sermons from one of Christianity’s greatest saints discovered after 1,600 years
Followup to Reginald @180.
At least 11 children have been born in Antarctica.[4] The first was Emilio Marcos Palma, born on 7 January 1978 to Argentine parents at Esperanza, Hope Bay, near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula… Solveig Gunbjørg Jacobsen of Norway, born in the island territory of South Georgia on 8 October 1913, was the first person born and raised in the Antarctic (the world region south of the Antarctic Convergence).[8] The first human born in the wider Antarctic region was the Australian James Kerguelen Robinson, born in the Kerguelen Islands on 11 March 1859.
Let this be a reminder to everyone looking at the president’s statements and wondering if they reflect reality: Watch what he does, not what he says.
Link
Followup to comment 7.
The White House didn’t need a fresh round of allegations about Trump politicizing federal disaster aid, but it’s confronting striking new claims anyway.
Bits and pieces of campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Link
Juicy and Hilarious New Details About Trump’s Crusade Against Comey
“INSIDE: Sammy the Bull … Rudy Giuliani … Kash Patel”
Details are available at the link, and include coverage of the following:
– Comey Offers Judge an Easy Way Out
– The New Filings
– Trump’s Keen Interest in the Case
– Illegal Surveillance of Comey
– A Rudy Giuliani Cameo
– Trying Desperately to Find Mob Usage of ’86’ … and Failing
– Secret Service Seemed Satisfied There Was No Crime
– Comey Attorney-Client Privilege Violated AGAIN
Here are a few excerpts:
Link
‘Chaos, corruption, and poverty’: The racist wrath of Stephen Miller
The repugs need a diversion from their abetting tRUMP in the destruction of what is left of this country. So, they found the ideal punching bag in Fauci since he claimed the 5h and won’t be responding. They are absurd and vile and have turned Congress into a CLOWN COLLEGE.
https://digbysblog.net/2026/07/29/2020-will-never-end/
2020 Will Never End
Published by digby on July 29, 2026
I’m not a huge fan of Fauci, but he is ‘small potatoes’ compared to the blatant murderous actions of tRUMP who is the one who supercharged the covid deaths here.
Aiyiyiyi, corruption.
Link
Link
Just to add more important context:
I despise this war whore administration. It is so obscenely focused on killing people all over the world that pose NO PHYSICAL THREAT TO THIS COUNTRY that they are certain they can facilitate the destruction of millions of lives here with impunity.
https://digbysblog.net/2026/07/29/an-excellent-campaign-issue/
FactPost @factpostnews Follow
Trump: We’re fighting wars. It’s not possible for us to take care of Medicare, daycare, Medicaid, all these things.
AND
FactPost @factpostnews
The Trump administration is ending Medicare Part D subsidies, raising prescription drug costs for more than 11 million Americans.
2:26 PM · Jul 28, 2026
https://www.wonkette.com/p/new-koch-daughter-just-dropped-to
“New Koch Daughter Just Dropped To Teach Us That Socialist Nordic Countries Totally Capitalist Actually!”
Fine, then we’ll take whatever flavor of ‘capitalism’ that is, please and thank you.
DHS testimony confirms raid of Newsom press conference was ‘political,’ ‘a stunt’
“A year ago, when immigration agents raided a gubernatorial event, DHS said the agents were ‘focused on enforcing the law.’ We now know that wasn’t true.”
More e-commerce chaos, cartoon by Jen Sorensen
Comcast store punished low sales by smashing pies in workers’ faces, lawsuit claims
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/pope-says-church-will-relax-stance
Satire
Marmots on OnlyFans: Researchers turn to the internet for funding
Trump asks Supreme Court to overturn $83M E. Jean Carroll judgment based on presidential immunity
He is literally asking the country to pay for his personal behavior at a time when he was not president.
@14, 88, prev
More than 18,000 cyclosporiasis cases reported across 45 states: CDC
@201
Cyclosporiasis outbreak exceeds 10,000 cases statewide
ODH, Hamilton County report different cyclosporiasis case numbers
Nearly 1,000 cases of explosive diarrhea illness cyclosporiasis reported in Indiana
Trump isn’t a narcissist – he’s a solipsist. And it means a few simple things
Meh. Not sure I’m buying the distinction.
NASA Map Reveals Record Blob of Vacation-Wrecking Seaweed
Musk went to “war,” sought jail time for X ad boycotts—but case ends with a whimper
Washington Post:
As Steve Benen noted: “This request is intended to repay the National Park Service, whose funds Team Trump unjustly raided.”
New York Times:
As Steve Benen noted: “I’m eager to hear why a private citizen can’t delete the contents of his own phone.”
New York Times:
Yuck. I do not like this development at all. Read real books written by real people.
Times of Israel: Iran set to receive up to 400 Chinese shoulder-fired air-defense systems within weeks
The purchase is through a private company but this sort of thing only happens with government approval.
China is like Russia in this regards, they will deny it even after Chinese missiles start shooting from Iran.
These little short range air defense are not a big deal but if they are the first step in expanding trade it could be a problem. They could easily be the first step in boiling the frog, where China slowly expands trade bit by bit.
Al Jazeera – Chad to join raft of withdrawals from International Criminal Court
https://www.wonkette.com/p/montana-dem-candidate-sam-forstag
Good news.
“Montana Dem Candidate Sam Forstag Is Scaring Wingnuts, And It’s Beautiful”
“Blue-collar progressive populist, no Nazi tattoos.”
New York Times link
“Iran War Live Updates: More Countries Pulled Into Conflict With Spate of Attacks”
“The U.S. and Saudi Arabia said they carried out airstrikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Iran targeted sites used by the American military in Jordan and a U.S.-owned ship was hit in an Egyptian port.”
Embedded links are available at the main link.
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-07-private-mission-nasa-aging-telescope.html
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-07-bag-bones-rare-tier-prehistoric.html
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-07-fossil-footprints-reveal-body-size.html#google_vignette
Secret Service ‘illegally’ surveilled Comey in Trump ‘8647’ threat case: Court filing
The Hill – Rubio says US to ‘reengage’ with global vaccine program
@ 213-5 StevoR
Thanks, that’s a trio of intriguing science related links. Cool beans.
Can you tell the difference, I wonder? It’s amusing that you conclude you can’t be fooled when so many of the news articles you quote are at least partly LLM-generated.
@213 StevoR
Spin to win.
Why is the Capybara so unbothered?
.https://youtube.com/shorts/UhgYbw-DPig
The pelican trying to swallow a 40-pound rodent seems a bit optimistic.
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-campaign-against-fauci-and-what-brought-him-back-before-congress
Aussie ABC news Rare snails returned to Norfolk Island from brink of extinction after breeding program – just over 2 mins long.
See also ^
https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/from-extinct-to-growing-a-rare-snail-returns-to-the-wild-in-australia/
“I know my whites.” aka how Middle Eastern people became officially white in 1909.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/0rL_o8JQ0g4
Shipping container-launched cargo rocket promises 550-pound deliveries 750 km away in 15 minutes — $1.25M Air Force contract backs ‘Rook’ cargo rocket that flies into space to speed deliveries
Alex Jones calls for immediate Trump impeachment
“Scathing Atheist 698: Ranking the Angels Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=3EbebZlJ6O4
Montana man, impaled by trekking pole, hikes out of mountains to get help
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: GOP senator silent as daughter accuses Republican congressman of abuse
Video is 4 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Feds relied on notorious mobster to build seashell case against Comey
Video is 8:43 minuts
Why Republicans should think twice about condemning those who invoke the Fifth Amendment
“No honest person pleads the Fifth,” one GOP senator said, seemingly unaware of Donald Trump’s background.
Related video at the link.
Meta will train its AI on far-right media outlet
Link to Friendly Atheist
More at the link.
New study ranks all 50 states. See where yours landed
I wonder what the distinctions are between economy, opportunity and fiscal stability.
beholder @219 to Lynna @208:
Reuters litters articles with invisible characters that would screw up my text editor when I copy-paste if I hadn’t written a tool to filter them out. Before Tracie Harris started publicly boosting AI, I noticed her blog posts had broken links because invisible word joiner characters were randomly inserted in urls. They are insidious: hard to identify which char, and often tools won’t let you find/replace em.
This website can replace given chars (copied from the text or a unicode reference site like the link above) or purge unicode exclusives altogether (stuff beyond QWERTY keyboards, which unfortunately would include accents and curly quotes).
Example: The Guardian had a word joiner in this article, where I put a percent sign.
* It’s also possible for a journalist to accidentally copy-paste an invisible character while quoting from content elsewhere to manually contaminate an article.
How three newsrooms are charting different paths for AI use
^ 234: I found a website specifically for dealing with invisible characters.
Unicode Character Analyzer
^ 234, 235: Turns out my first unicode reference link had a similar service. Paste, “strip invisible characters”, then copy. Less polished. It disagreed about their purpose, but confirmed they are symptomatic.
US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference
@#230:
This reminded me of the phrase “Fifth Amendment communist,” which was current among the red-baiters of the 1950s. Of course, being “investigated” by the present-day Republican congress bears a distinct resemblance to being “investigated” by Joe McCarthy.
After testing the concept in Stockholm, fully electric hydrofoil ferries are being exported to Mumbai. “Why a Swedish company is putting WINGS on boats”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=_VVXfYAOkEo
Elon Musk Is Firing Up the Vote-Buying Machine Again
Scientists Find Evidence of Lost Amazonian Civilization That May Have Been Home to Millions
Reginald Selkirk @240: America PAC, previously seen scamming here and here.
Apalachee school shooting: Father of shooter sentenced to 15 years in prison
Mandela Barnes drops out of Wisconsin governor race
@191
European nations vow FIFA World Cup boycott over Infantino private equity plan, CONCACAF joins in opposition
Book returned to Australian library 150 years overdue after man finds it bricked in fireplace
Max-severity Exchange server flaw under active exploitation by Kremlin hackers
DailyKos – Trump demands you pay even more for his dumb Freedom 250 flop
Link
Trump unveils $22 billion plan to remake Washington Dulles airport
Trump bails on Blanche to save his own ass
At the 33 minute mark is an interview with neurologist Hilary Shae about Trump’s odd glitches, coordination and speech problems.
David Pakman Show: (the bullying of Anthony Fauci) “Reality is gone and revenge is here”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=KDdV8dJUWOQ
NBC News:
NBC News:
New York Times:
Politico:
The “fifth” appeal from the Trump administration has failed!
Wall Street Journal:
NOTUS.org:
At the 16 minute mark there is the story of the Catholic prayer app that has vulnerabilities that allow hackers access to the details of all 700 000 users.
“Scathing Atheist 698: Ranking the Angels Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=3EbebZlJ6O4
Get in Line or ‘Pay the Price’
Trump wants veterans to do this job—experience be damned
Trump admin has not justified labeling Anthropic a national security risk, judge says
“The artificial intelligence company appears likely to prevail in one of two lawsuits against Trump administration.”
More at the link.
@251 Lynna, OM:
The Trump administration may just be dragging this out for distraction value. The reason is simple, there is no formal legal limit on how long Blanche can be acting Attorney General. Unless Congress puts pressure on Trump then Blanche can sit in the office without the formal title for the rest of Trump’s time in office. A Republican Congress won’t put any pressure on Trump and a Democratic one is never going to pass Blanche.
I don’t think Trump or Blanche like the situation but somebody may have convinced Trump to do it to keep other stuff out of the headlines.
Hamas says it has agreed to disarm after Trump announces Board of Peace plan
Nevada wildfire still burning out of control near secretive Area 51
They should some of that captured secret alien technology to control the fire.
MSN: ‘Exasperated’ Donald Trump ‘erupted’ in White House as he battles with top officials
Iran was ready to agree to a deal, it just wasn’t ready to agree to what Trump wanted or to something sounding like surrender. Trump doesn’t understand how to deal with the situation and is upset that none of his advisors have a simple easy plan that will only take a week or so.
There is a comparison to the Russian/Ukraine war. The comparison doesn’t work at the ground/sea level but at the high level strategic one it’s strong. The superior force walking into an inferior one that wouldn’t give up and not having a strategy to deal with it.
This was always going to be the problem with this war, something US military planners have understood for decades. The US would win the air war and be able to hit targets in Iran pretty freely. Iran was ready for this, ready to close the Strait of Hormuz, was ready to take easy shots where it could and was ready to hunker down for a long war. They didn’t want to do this, it would be very hard on Iran, but they had a strategy to win.
Think Mushrooms Are a Pizza Garnish? You Haven’t Read Spores of Doom
Gillian Brockell (Flight tracker) – Frenzy of cruel and unusual ICE flights shows Trump’s ethnic cleansing campaign is escalating—again
Gillian Brockell: “The imminent flight that I mentioned at the end of this story has taken off. Sounds like it’s going to go Senegal – Ghana – Central African Republic, with the latter two being third-country removals. At least one of the immigrants being sent to CAR is from Nepal. [Screenshot]”
@234, 235, 236 Sky Captain
It’s an interesting Unicode mechanism, though I think it’s mostly used for innocuous reasons. Professional publishers like to insert zero-width characters and non-breaking spaces for telling a rendering system where to break a word across two lines, as often happens when reading an article or an e-book.
It could also be used to watermark a text, although it can be sanitized almost as easily by rendering the text and scanning it with OCR to get rid of all the invisible code points. Or, like you were saying, sanitize the input by deleting the known Unicode special characters. About the only methods for adversarial watermarking you have left are deliberate misspellings, odd turns of phrase, excessive use of emoticon characters, or my personal favorite: flooding the input field with nonsense to get the LLM out of anything remotely resembling its training data so you can put a little prompt injection at the end.
Breaking news : Hamas has apparently agreed to disarm in Gaza. If so, there goes israel’s biggest excuse for the genocidal shit it has been doing :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-31/us-hamas-announce-gaza-and-disarmament-deal-israel-no-reponse/106981298
Hamas disarmed and leaving power handing over to Trump’s Bored of Peace?
Does that actually end the war and thus the overlap[ping genocide there?
IF this announcement is realand what is actually now going to happen..
Is there much left of Hamas in Gaza especially by now anyhow – a shit tonne of new recruits with a heightened fury at what Israel has done to them aside?
Of course the Palestinians are NOT going away and perhaps there’s just going to be a shift of names and tactics? SA new hopefully less violent phase? Hmm..
@ ^ AJ coverage of this here :
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/7/31/iran-war-live-trump-says-hamas-to-disarm-israel-to-leave-gaza-gradually
Emphasis added because I’m guessing that’s what may well sink this and make it NOT happen but still..
Afte all, these are both things Hamas kinda sorta supposedly agreed to with the original Trump (not much of a) “ceasefire” deal months ago.
The New Arab obvs covering this too – here :
https://www.newarab.com/news/trump-announces-agreement-complete-disarmament-hamas
Follow up to comments 263, 269, 270, and 271.
Translation: Hamas will disarm if Israel withdraws from Gaza. Israel will Withdraw from Gaza if Hamas disarms.
Trump is exaggerating … or he thinks he has accomplished an agreement that is in no way finalized.
I do not think that Israel will ever withdraw completely from Gaza. Netanyahu may be playing for time … again.
It’s also possible that the Board of Peace and Trump have been rolled by both Hamas and Israel.
Followup to comment 272.
Neither Hamas nor Israel immediately confirmed the deal, according to the Washington Post.
From the New York Times:
Followup to comments 263, 269, 270, and 271, 272, and 273
NBC News:
Follow-up to Lynna @251.
Allison Gill (Mueller, She Wrote):
Oh and the BBC has this yt breaking news video –8 misn long –
Hamas agrees to disarm in Gaza after Trump announces Board of Peace plan.
@ Lynna, OM 272, 273-4 : Fair enough. Yeah, there’s so much uncertainty and so many questions and some pretty big IF’s indeed about this Hamas disarming agreement news.
FWIW John Lyons has his good analysis here – ‘Orwell would have a chuckle’ at Trump’s Board of Peace claims: Lyons in that hyperlinked yt clip that goes for 7 and a half mins long.
Iconic Aussie scientist and author Tim Flannery has a new book on Climate out which he discusses in an Australia Institute** interview here – A Brief History of Climate Folly with Tim Flannery | Webinar – 39 mins & 56 secs long.
.* See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Flannery
.** Wikibasics : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australia_Institute
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Musk to pour millions into GOP races as his extremist posts draw new scrutiny
Video is 7:42 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Single greatest heist’: Trump would rather lose Blanche than give up your money
Video is 8:12 minutes
Texans Try New Tactic to Remove Ten Commandments From Schools: Texas Law
New York sues Kalshi, says prediction market is running ‘illegal gambling operation’
Brain drain worsens as Trump plots to keep international students out
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-state-department-cant-find
DW News :
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/ceuta-spain-scrambles-after-thousands-breach-exclave-border/live-78191601
Sixty thousand peopel have swum into Cueta apparently according toTV news c35 SBS Worldwatch DW news just seen on telly.
Just wait tiltl the impacts of Global Overheating really start hitting..
Unless bloody good reaosn to do otherwise, give people – refugees included – a fair chance I say.
Sixty thousand people.
Emphasis on word “people” and evey single one an individual just like me and you and everyone else human. There but for luck of birth and circumstances go we.
Too obvs? Ethics 101?
A Rare and Deadly Tick Virus With No Cure Has Taken Hold in New York
Not as enjoyable as its name might lead you to think.
Captain America Popcorn Bucket and Fantastic Four Cups Recalled
Earth Is On Track to Break the All-Time Record for Category 5 Hurricanes This Year
Washington Post link
“Migrants overrun a Spanish outpost, stirring European outrage”
“Widely circulated video showed thousands of Moroccans storming a Spanish outpost in North Africa. The White House condemned Spain as weak on immigration.”
Washington Post link
JWST Just Examined Two Stars Suspected of Harboring Dyson Spheres. Here’s What It Found…
On yt w visuals Migrants storm Ceuta to get into Europe | DW News – 8 mins 17 secs.
One person ina group of 6. Ina group of 60. In a group of 600. In agroup of 6,000. In a group of 60, 000. In agroup of 6million. Ina group of 6 million.
Is still one individual person.
That person? Could be you, me, anyone, everyone else. Stil individual. Still human. Judge based on their words and deeds and give them a chance unless fucking good reason not to do so.
Dunno if this needs saying esp here but is truth.
Modernised from one of Shakespeare’s best yet least known speeches The Strangers’ Case This version be 9 mins long.
The great AC Milan and Italy defender Franco Baresi has died, aged 66.
Hegseth’s claim of a ‘contained’ war with Iran appears foolish
“When the defense secretary said the conflict was ‘actually quite contained,’ it was bizarre. Now it’s worse.
Related video at the link.
Followup to comments 251 (me) and Sky Captain @275
The NYT Gets It! Cornyn’s Thin Red Line
StevoR @293: I love the Yorkshire accents, but still prefer Ian McKellen’s delivery.
Followup to comments 263, 269, 270, 272, 273, 274, and 277.
Link
@ 284, 289, 292
Spain says migrants are returning from Ceuta after 57 killed in border rush
Trump says ICC campaign aimed at defending Netanyahu, not himself
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-admin-nearly-dead-no-excuse
“Under a new rule, even being under hospice care won’t automatically exempt you from the new Medicaid work requirements.”
@174
Hackers targeted municipal water systems in 7 states this week, FBI says
@ 251, 262, 275, 296
Pres. Trump open to withdrawing Blanche nomination until two Republican lawmakers leave office
Senate Republican warns Trump against delaying Blanche nomination: ‘This place could be very different’
Climate change is turning parts of Europe into an insurance nightmare
“Frequent, expensive natural disasters are testing Europe’s ability to protect itself against the cost of global warming.”
Trump’s unprecedented fundraising
Follow-up to 284, 289, 292, 299.
From the DW feed linked @284:
Randy Herman (Lawyer):
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council): “Too early to tell exactly what happened and what is going to come, but in the short term it seems like a crisis and a tragedy at the minimum (dozens dead, residents afraid, breakdown of order). In the long term, it might be not much of anything.”
Morocco World News – ‘Ceuta, Melilla are not in Spain’: Top Rubio ally escalates against Madrid (2026-04)
From PZ’s first Odyssey thread: Morocco has been perpetuating a Gaza-like occupation of Western Sahara since 1975.
WTF?
Trump blames Minnesota amid reports of Iranian cyberattack on Minnesota water systems
“I think that Minnesota is behind it,” the president said, adding, “I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack.”
Related video at the link.
@307
Minnesota governor Tim Walz: “DOGE took an axe to CISA and left the U.S. exposed to cyber attacks. Thankfully our experts in Minnesota were able to identify the vulnerability quickly and work with local communities to stop it.”
Sky Captain @306, thanks for that additional information. Very interesting.
It does make sense that various Republicans, and the Trump administration, would seize the opportunity to make Spain look bad. Also, they are seizing the opportunity to spread what is, at least partially, misinformation.
And, considering what Trump is doing in Venezuela, who is he to encourage charges of colonialism.
From Wikipedia:
A complicated and fraught history, with lots of back-and-forth when it comes to governance … and with lots of conflicting claims. I did not reference all of the details.
Claude published malicious code to the Internet and attacked 3 real companies
WestJet to begin parking planes ahead of possible strike
Middle East Eye – Thousands make dramatic sea crossing into Ceuta
Jorge Liboreiro (EuroNews): “Update: over 48,300 people have returned from Ceuta to Morocco. About 1,700 people are still in Ceuta.”
‘Mop Man’ dancer shakes up Commonwealth Games
(video 1:15)
Did that tree just move? N.J. cop disguised as shrub helps nab dozens of drivers on phones
This 4,000-year-old city defied the rules of history
Dem. Ohio Gov Candidate Amy Acton Scheduled a Meeting With LGBTQ+ Advocates, Didn’t Show Up, And Kicked Out Trans People Who Did
Trump files appeal after judge’s scathing order in his ‘bad faith’ IRS case
“The president probably thought in May that the litigation had run its course and the case was effectively over. Now he knows better.”
Trump halts Kennedy Center tours to hide his destruction
Florida plans to build air taxi pads using $200M intended for EV chargers
https://www.wonkette.com/p/fifa-peace-prize-winner-donald-trump
“Donald Trump Doing More Peace Again Definitely For Sure!”
Yikes. Not good news, as reported by Axios:
Washington Post:
Washington Post link
“Airports, nursing homes and schools brace for disruption without Haitian workers”
“The Trump administration and courts are at odds over whether about 350,000 Haitians have officially lost humanitarian protections, but employers are already letting workers go.”
More at the link.
Courthouse News: Fourth Circuit defines anti-cop license plate as protected private speech
Interesting because the abbreviation is rude enough I can’t spell it out here. The second half is Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, the first a common sentiment about police. If this really stands there are going to be a lot of rude and sexually explicit license plates.
Weirdly this is apparently the first time this issue has made it up to an appeals court. I know there have been cases about it before but I guess nobody had the money or cared enough to take it to a federal appeals court.
CBS News: Pentagon weighs eliminating civilian tenure at military academies and reviewing all curriculum, draft memo says
This is in line with Hegseth’s plans and the Trump administration in general. This has not been formally approved. Exactly what changes in the new curriculum has not been determined yet and this document is intentionally evasive about the obvious attempt to inflict propaganda on the students. The point of stripping tenure is having the power to hold money and their job over the head of teachers so they don’t step out of line.
This is inline with Hegseth’s thinking but terribly misguided. High level officers will spend a good portion of their time on non-combat planning, logistics and budgeting. Plus the time they spend on politics when dealing with Congress, public relations when dealing with the public and other matters of running a large organization that have nothing to do with combat directly.
The Guardian: Trump backtracks from promise to let Ukraine build Patriot missiles
Trump can’t remember what he promised last week. At least this one doesn’t matter as much. Setting up a factory to build Patriot missiles would take Ukraine a couple of years, it isn’t likely to have any impact on the war.
Interesting to see the stats but it’s all already known. The whole reason Ukraine wants to setup a factory is that the US is cutting off or limiting supplies, keeping them for our use fighting Iran.
It’s Real! The First Image of Betelgeuse’s Companion Star
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZOCAZvEU_L8
Trump administration drops Reflecting Pool case, blaming damage on ‘botched’ installation
BS, they knew all along, and no competent prosecutor would press those charges until they had sufficient evidence to convict.
Scientist’s lifelong obsession with mystery of elusive ‘pink zebra’ seaweed
The amount of sample required for sequence information, or even a complete genome, is shrinking all the time.
Seaweed McSeaweedFace
Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat):
Max Kennerly: “[Slop Image: ALF the size of Godzilla rises from the ocean to menace Mar-a-Lago]”
Michael Cruickshank (OSINT):
NPR – Google pauses AI satellite images, after fears of deepfakes
Rando 1: “Of course they’re not going to reconsider the *existence* of this dangerously stupid feature.”
Rando 2: “We regret the unforeseen consequences of adding the image altering tool our map app. It appears people were using the image altering tool to alter images. We will remove the image altering tool until we can figure out how to keep it from allowing people to alter images.”
Cheryl Rofer: “It would be helpful for Google to tell us what they think they are bringing to the world in introducing a way to modify Google Earth views.”
Text quoted by Reginald @357:
I agree with you that the DOJ is making a bullshit claim there. How could they not know. Everybody knew. Lying doofuses.
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES —‘BAD and EMBARRASSING’: DOJ admits ‘botched installation’ on Reflecting Pool
Video is 8:43 minutes
Chris Hayes does a great job with that segment.
‘He’s not lying’: Reported Bigfoot sighting in southern New England deemed ‘credible’
Let us pause for a second. Someone named “Matt Moneymaker,” who is a Bigfoot investigator, is convinced of the honesty of the witness. There are no photos, there is no video. Now let us resume – ah, why bother?
Caitlin Clark triple-double leads Fever to win over Fire
@332
The NY Post has extra details.
Rhode Island dad claims he saw Bigfoot in Connecticut woods — and detailed that it had ‘no boobs’
This guy takes advice from his robot vacuum cleaner. Smart.
“Why Stealth Aircraft Are Becoming Useless”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=o7YGfhYgcC0
Talking About Soy Boys All the Time Is Weird, Actually
When the UFC Fighters Start Getting It
Zelensky seeks Trump’s help to persuade Musk to broaden Starlink access
Roadkill, anyone? RFK Jr. launches a cooking show.
Washington Post EXCLUSIVE
“U.S. general warns Pentagon he lacks sufficient forces to protect Israel”
“A shortage of Navy destroyers, used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks, will force the head of U.S. European Command to prioritize the U.S. homeland instead, officials said.”
Washington Post link
“Zelensky says Ukraine has ‘no interceptors’ as ballistic missiles hit Kyiv”
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had appealed for American air-defense missiles during a White House meeting on Tuesday.”
More at the link, including a report concerning protests after Zelensky fired Mykhallo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defense minister.
Hossenfelder alert
“Russia Is Drilling 8 km Down to Prove Oil Never Runs Out”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=oBUKzeb-c8Y
A conspiracy theorist with ties to Putin has convinced hin to drill a deep hole. Sweden did the same under a meteor crater 50 years ago to see if abiogenetic gas might have collected in the fractures (it didn’t) Hossenfelder makes a good job of debunking the whole idea.
“Quantum computer completes verified task beyond practical reach of classical simulations”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-07-quantum-task-classical-simulations.html
New York Times link
“Trump’s Fixation on Arctic Ships Led to Billions in No-Bid Contracts”
“The president decided to buy 11 polar icebreakers after a game of golf with Finland’s president. Experts say it’s far from clear the United States needs so many.”
Pentagon ends leadership of Ukraine aid group as US distances from Europe
More at the link.
Politico Europe link
IEEE Spectrum – Largest probabilistic computer hits 1 million p-bits
Rando:
Nick (Theoretical physicist):
Lynna @ # 344, quoting the NYT: … a fleet of massive ships designed to cut through Arctic ice.
IANA oceanographer, but I can’t help but suspect such a fleet (controlled by the US or anybody else) could play a significant role in shrinking the boreal ice cap even further and more rapidly, adding to the climate crisis in multiple ways.
What industrial shipping has done to the Louisiana coast may not provide an exact parallel, but we already know we’re losing arctic ice at an accelerating rate.
Rando in 347:
CNN poll
Extremely motivated voters (the House election ) under 50 years old
Fall 2024 Dems + 2
Now Dems + 46
I assume the points represent % of the demographic .
Let’s Talk Elections The 2026 Senate Elections Predicted in every single state
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=RZNOsTPDNno
Link
Github.IO: A Theory of Prompt Injection (and why you should study roles)
This is a paper shown at a MIT conference. Still not confirmed by others but the analysis seems solid.
The short version is that the LLM is apply statistical analysis to the parts that are supposed to be non-user commands. The parts wrapped in text that marks it as a system token is supposed to be fixed system information proved by the host of the LLM. The LLM isn’t picking it out by looking for the literal “system” text, it’s apply the same sort of word stats analysis that it does for the question users ask. So this means you can convince the LLM that something is a system command by writing enough like it’s a system command.
Fixing this would require a fundamental change to the way LLMs work.
Ancient DNA confirms historical accounts of how smallpox got to the Americas
Trump lashes out at Jeanine Pirro after she drops Reflecting Pool ‘vandalism’ charges: ‘I don’t know what she was thinking’
Donald Trump is a demented narcissistic fuckwit. There is not evidence tying the lawn damage to David Hearn, nor to any other known suspect.
Trump says ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ is ‘dead,’ but says he still wants payouts
Trump says he’ll revive ‘anti-weaponization’ fund if Blanche’s nomination for AG is blocked
Who you gonna believe, Donald Trump or Donald Trump?
Michigan Supreme Court rejects permit for Enbridge oil pipeline under Great Lakes
Kyplanet893:
“Earth had a Second Giant Impact”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=OPk2lnr7MJE
[the terminology is provisional] -First, Gaia 1 forms from the solar nebula, dissolving neon into the magma ocean. After about a million years, it collides with the similarly sized Gaia 2, resulting in “proto-Gaia”. After chilling for tens of millions of years (long after the solar nebula has dissipated) , it collides with Theia, resulting in the Earth-Moon system that persists to this day.
Free Malaysia Today: Capital One says it closed Trump Organization accounts after anti-money laundering probe
Trump is trying to revive a suit against Capital One for closing Trump Organization accounts. Capital One’s counter is that the accounts were closed after a money laundering investigation found concerns. Nothing clearly illegal but enough questionable stuff that Capital One didn’t want the business any more.
The federal court has already tossed the case but gave Trump a chance to amend the complaint. Capital One is claiming the new complaint is still bogus. Capital One should win this eventually. Trying to tie Capital One to Woke is a non-starter. This only has some strength if Trump tries to use the presidency to lean on Capital One and this case is so obvious the court would likely block any attempt to do so. Trump would have to be subtle and he doesn’t do subtle well, he wants to announce everything he does to the world via Truth Social.
The Independent: MTG and Tucker Carlson announce new ‘movement’ in photo packed with MAGA renegades
This is the isolationist end of the far right. The ones really upset that Trump started a war with Iran. They don’t have real long term potential because they are all the sorts that can be set off by trivial disagreements. Given any luck they can split the far right vote.
The Tate Brothers’ should be the Trumps’ second Epstein scandal
New Yorker – Andrew Tate’s empire of abuse
^ The article has a 2-hour audio narration.
The Barron bit is basically what Lynna covered when the Tates were allowed to leave Romania.
Youtube
Electric Viking: “BYD’s $20 Battery Just Killed the Last Argument Against Renewables”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=DT2CHuNJKjU
BYD’s sodium ion battery is claimed to cost just $ 0.04 per watt-hour in manufacturing.
“BYD’s third-generation sodium-ion polyanion technology is specifically engineered for stationary grid storage, boasting an incredible 10,000-cycle lifespan and a 33-year operational span. In this video, we break down how BYD overcame the “polyanion conductivity paradox” using nanoscale modifications and carbon coatings, why these extremely cheap and durable batteries are the perfect solution for utility-scale solar and wind storage, and what this means for the global transition away from lithium and fossil fuels. Has the final argument against renewable energy just been destroyed?”
“Lichen-like life 600 million years ago may push back origins of fungal-algal partnerships”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-07-lichen-life-million-years-fungal.html
My comment: The Marinoan glaciation, the last “snowball Earth” event, ended ca 635 million years ago, so this was fast by geological standards.
Climate Adam (Youtube): “How Sodium Batteries Transform Climate Action”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=weYg88FCHWg
The TEC Show
“Texas Democrats Have a REAL Chance This Time-Here’s Why”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=8Q4mHO0ZCgo
Via space dot com :
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacexs-starship-seen-in-space-by-next-gen-starlink-satellite-video
Yeah, I know the bos of SpaceX is an evil sociopathic nazi but still this is pretty cool and a great achievement by the SpaceX team of workers, engineers and literal rocket scientists..
How Minas Tirith was Built Backwards
.https://youtube.com/shorts/VeJ8hoPGVdk
@363. birgerjohansson : Thanks!
FWIW Marino and Sturt after whome those global glaciation epochs eg Sturtian ::
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturtian_glaciation
were named are suburbs just down the road from my place in Adelaide.
Stevo R @ 368
Interesting… and Australia also contributed the Ediacaran.
“The Crab Nebula Mystery”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=TMmDSJTkt3o
The central pulsar is releasing 148 000 times the energy of the sun. It was created by a rare, third type of supernova.
More jaw-dropping and beautiful footage from the latest Starship launch as well as more than just that here – SpaceX Just Showed Us Starship Like Never Before by the very well informed Marcus House in that 25 minutes long hyperlinked clip
More jaw-dropping and beautiful footage from the latest Starship launch as well as more than just that here – SpaceX Just Showed Us Starship Like Never Before by the very well informed Marcus House in that 25 minutes long hyperlinked clip
Microsoft Issues Hotel Wi-Fi Warning For Windows PC Users
Australian prisoner sues for his ‘human right’ to eat Vegemite
Just beautiful animated doco here called Sticky on an invertebrate lazarus species the Lord Howe Phasmid (Dryococelus australis), extinction (almost) and revival here – 20 mins long but well worth watching I reckon :
https://www.islandconservation.org/lord-howe-stick-insect/
Thought I saw Eric the opalised Pleisoaur at the SA Museum but apparently that’s a different fossil I think? This one’s in Sydney, Australian museum. Anyhow – The Dinosaur That Turned Into a Gemstone — And Almost Got Cut Up for Jewelry. Misleading title becoiz mor ethan one fossil discussed and Nottechnicallya dinosaur but still. 17 mins long.
Cannot stand Alex Antic. Extremist reichwinger who’d be more at home in One Neuron than the LNP. So this is a worry :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-02/alex-antic-presidency-bid-exposes-bitter-sa-liberal-divisions/106977750
Cannot stand Alex Antic. Extremist reichwinger who’d be more at home in One Neuron than the LNP. So this is a worry :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-02/alex-antic-presidency-bid-exposes-bitter-sa-liberal-divisions/106977750
Reginald @355, so Donald Trump is even more divorced from reality than Jeanine Pirro.
In other news: Wildfire smoke is now the primary pollutant affecting pregnancy, study shows
This MAGA influencer runs a charity to teach kids civics. Much of the money goes to him instead., by Pro Publica
“The ICE Agent Behind Me Grabbed the Back of My Shirt and Just Threw Me Like a Sack of Trash”
“People keep suing the agency for beating them up.”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/annoying-florida-woman-preaches-on
“Annoying Florida Woman Preaches On Airliners, Gets Kicked Off, Seeks Martyrdom Or TV Gig”
“You can smell the grift all the way down in baggage claim.”
Just seen on fb here :
A very good point that’s going too little noticed made here. Ceuta is on African, Moroccan land so.. yeah. Why is it counted as Spanish again?
Also, yes, there’s a lot of people involved trying to enter Europe. A lot of refugees. But key word here is people. Humans just as we are human. Individuals. There but for luck of birth go we.
Oh and there’s an Älboran sea” now apparently? Cannot recall ever hearing of that one before..
Yup. Apparently there is, indeed, an Alboran sea. Always thought it was just the Med but then i guess we do have the Aegean and Adriatic and Ionian etc,as other parts of that so,, yeah :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alboran_Sea
Probly helps that Zelenskyy is currently seemingly winning and Netanyahu not so much maybe?
Also Netanyahu obvs lied Trump into a war with Iran whereas Zelenskyy ..nahh. Trump doesn’t do logic only who is most useful to him and popular and maybe last to speak with him at the time..
Does surprise me a bit given Putin’s hold over Krasnov, er Trump mind you..
Bit of a metaphorical Soap opera but with potentially catstrophic global consequences.
@ ^ (385)
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-02/trumps-shifting-feelings-affect-wars-in-ukraine-and-iran/106985204
StevoR @376: Neat fossils. The YouTuber’s visuals were weirdly irrelevant: mummy, trilobite, mammoth!? The story exists elsewhere and so wasn’t generated at least.
StevoR @383: “Ceuta is on African, Moroccan land so.. yeah. Why is it counted as Spanish again?”
See: Lynna @309.
Harsha Walia (No One Is Illegal):
The Guardian – Chaos gives way to limbo for Moroccans on Ceuta’s streets
NYT – After most migrants leave Ceuta, exhausted holdouts find shelter on beach
Elia Ayoub (Journalist, Lebanese diasporan) – On Ceuta
Linux Desktop Market Share Surpasses 10% in North America
For the kids, a cartoon by Drew Sheneman
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #389….
One wonders how much of that Linux desktop usage is due to Raspberry Pis.
Financial Times – How Leopold Aschenbrenner, the ‘golden child’ of the AI trade, was laid low
Jadehawk: “I need people to understand that ‘aschenbrenner’ can be translated as ‘guy who burns cash’. Reality is done doing subtext.”
Patients who speak same language as their doctor live longer, study suggests
Trump’s promise of an economic ‘golden age’ collides with reality, by Paul Waldman
“It’s not a recession, at least for now.”
RFK Jr tells US families to vaccinate children against measles amid outbreak
@395 ibid
@ 380
As I recall, Adam’s is the knuckle-dragger who says “Alpha Males” read the Bible AND take their children to Hooters.
U.S., Japan confirm coordinated yen intervention, signal readiness for more
Futurism – The diarrhea lettuce company has been linked to forced labor
Sarah Tabor (Crop scientist) on YT – Yep, Taylor Farms (in AZ not Mexico) uses prison labor and other outbreak updates (1:03:32)
This is relevant for the Ukraine war.
“Gripen [ jet fighter ] Fact Checked: Can It Actually Rearm in 20min?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=XyJhsBKO9xM
This is filmed at the F 21 Wing outside Luleå, North Sweden. I served there 1981-82. One thing that has changed is, the ground crew include women.
.
The aircraft is deceptively small, reflecting the shift to electronics and precision over brute force.
Re: birgerjohansson @ #400…
One of the major design points to the WW2 German Bf-109 (often misnamed as “Me-109”) was to build the minimum airframe needed to hold pilot, engine and weapons. When it was decided to increase the weapons load by adding a 20mm cannon, the put the gun between the banks of the V-12 engine and fired out through a hollow propeller shaft. (The 4 .30 caliber machine guns were cowl mounted and, thus, needed interrupter gear, unlike the same period Spitfire and Hurricane that mounted the guns in the wings, firing clear of the propeller arc.)
Canadian vocalist and composer Austra, aka Katie Stelmanis, talks us through her new album Chin Up Buttercup, in her own words.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ovyjsBAZWDM
“Scientists Discover How To Regrow Cartilage”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/QCMXvU4tYp0
whheydt @ 401
That is factually correct, but the issue here is the time factor, as in “twenty minutes”.
.
As for guns, the JAS 39 has a 27 mm csnnon, lighter than the mighty 30 mm of JA 37 Viggen.
Acting AG Todd Blanche reaches deal with holdout senators to scrap $1.8B ‘anti-weaponization’ fund
The bad news is that this probably clears the way for his nomination to be approved by Senate Republicans. The slush fund is only one instance of his unsuitability for the office.
Iran Is a Hedgehog, Trump Is a Fox
He would be the world’s dumbest fox.
“Study Confirms MAGA Voters Are Exactly Who We Thought They Were”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=nyMAmWdzljs
The big boy that preceded Gripen:
Saab Viggen SK37E starting & taxiing(s)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=W8vzHm6ncCk
Rawstory: Red flags fly after Todd Blanche reveals dubious Epstein files scheme: ‘A serious problem’
Obviously bogus but potentially legal by weaselly definition and intentionally misunderstanding the intent of the law, one of the hallmarks of Blanche’s time in office.
MONEY, POWER, POLITICS WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE: Truth Social’s new paid data service is now live with a price tag of $100,000 a month
Video is 7:22 minutes
Women’s Professional Baseball League debuts — LA Queens win opener
RFK Jr. joins the Republican campaign to rewrite the recent past ahead of the midterms
As one observer recently noted, “The GOP campaign this fall will depend entirely on misremembering recent history.”
Related video at the link.
The ‘Depraved Essence of Insider Trading’
Are We at War?
Same link as in comment 413.
Low on munitions, cartoon by Mike Luckovich
@405
The expected:
Cornyn, Tillis throw their support behind Blanche for attorney general
Moroccan king’s letter confirms naming of major highway in honour of Trump
DoorDash Sends Drivers to Restaurants Just to Load Food Into Delivery Robots
What a world we live in.
Headline news 2026, cartoon by Tom Tomorrow
Link
Video at the link. It is a good presentation by Troy Jackson.
Video is also available on Bluesky social.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:nti5xzs56xrwkpzjzsmxewdz/post/3ms3x5sgb2c27
Steve Benen summarized this good news that was reported by MS NOW:
It is obvious bill gates never cared about, only abused, users for his monetary enrichment. Windows users need to be careful.
@373 warned about microsoft vulnerabilities:
Microsoft Issues Hotel Wi-Fi Warning For Windows PC Users
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/08/01/microsoft-issues-hotel-wi-fi-warning-for-windows-pc-users/
But, microsoft provides no real help avoiding it.
Schneier (leading security expert) warns us:
Microsoft’s Secure Boot has had a serious vulnerability for most of its existence.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/07/long-lived-vulnerability-in-microsoft-secure-boot.html
An industry-wide standard Microsoft invented to protect Windows, and later Linux . . .has been trivial to bypass for 13 of its 14 years.
How microsoft abuses its users (just one of many ways)
https://lzon.substack.com/p/how-microsoft-abuses-its-users
Unsurprisingly, his Onedrive storage (on microsoft servers) wasn’t filled by his email, it was filled by the personal files from his Windows 11 desktop. Did he configure Windows to save those files to his Onedrive directory, instead of his local home directory? Of course not, that was done by default. Did he even know that this was happening? Also, no.
Followup to Reginald @405.
Wet Noodle Award: Cornyn and Tillis
@405 Reginald Selkirk correctly notes: Acting AG Todd Blanche reaches deal with holdout senators to scrap $1.8B ‘anti-weaponization’ fund
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/acting-ag-todd-blanche-reaches-deal-holdout-senators-end-18b-anti-weap-rcna590525
BUT
The Tennessee Holler
@thetnholler.bsky.social
An important warning from @meiselasb.bsky.social that the “sham document” Blanche’s advancement seems to rely upon showing the insurrectionist slush fund is dead is actually “unenforceable”
AND
The deal does NOT promise that the slush fund nor the immunity from IRS to the Orange 🤡 Crime Family will never rise —vampire-like— from the grave.
https://mockpaperscissors.com/2026/08/03/the-art-of-the-squeal-2/
As Trump’s tariff war with Canada drags on, this border community suffers without a voice, by Pro Publica
2 cyclospora deaths reported in Michigan
Washington Post link
“Boris Nadezhdin, anti-war candidate in Russia, flees to France”
Nadezhdin was prohibited from running in parliamentary elections in September. He posted a video from Paris, saying, “I’m alive and free.”
SpaceX Is About to Find Out How Many Insiders Want to Hit the Eject Button
Trump Launches Into Extraordinary Rant About ‘Disgusting’ Blue Cities: ‘Their Trees Are All Gross’
JFC. The guy is totally bonkers.
New York Times link
“Documents Undercut Trump’s Claims About Utah National Monument”
“[…] Trump said recreation in Bears Ears National Monument was virtually impossible. Documents reviewed by The New York Times show officials knew otherwise.”
I’ve been there. It is accessible. You may need a four-wheel-drive vehicle in some areas, and you have to take your time on rough roads. There are also trails that are popular with backpackers and day-hikers. Trump is a liar.
From Let’s Talk Elections :
“The 2026 Senate Elections Based on New Polls in Every State” (Aug. 3)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=wdB9x0RC_J8
That’s mostly good news.
NBC News:
Ebola outbreak in DR Congo accelerates as health officials say Trump and Elon Musk’s aid cuts hamper response
“Key supplies, equipment and operational support are no longer reaching responders at the scale needed, they said. [!]”
ROLL CALL:
As Steve Benen pointed out, the House still needs to pass the continuing resolution before September 30.
Nauru, the world’s 3rd-smallest country, changes its name to Naoero
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/new-poll-reveals-trump-less-popular
Anton Petrov ‘s 15 mins long clip here – After 10 Years, the Mystery of Tabby’s Star Is Solved.
Wired – Drone warfare is making the skies more dangerous, even for airplanes far from the battlefield
Grime news on the spread of bird flu here – Government warns bird flu outbreak inevitable, expects mass wildlife losses under 5 mins long. Dreading what impact this is likely to have and, note, it extends beyond birds too with even domestic pets esp cats that often hunt birds when outside at risk as well as whole endangered species. The algal bloom here over last few years has devastated marine life. Now this. Silent seas, silent skies. Massive biodiversity loss..Horrifying for our future.
Mor edoom scrolling grim news sorry but
The 21st Century’s Deadliest War Has Restarted. Here’s What You Need to Know by Warfronts yt channel on the renewed conflict in Tigre, Ethopia and running for 20 mins. Saw something on fb t’other day saying Congo was the deadliest conflict in Africa too.. FWIW. Both horrendous conflicts with casualties and impacts at a staggering scale that go well under pretty much everyone in the Wests’s RADAR’s.
Novara media (who I think are a good source & yt channel) on What REALLY Happened In Ceuta Migrant Breach – 12 mins long yt clip here.
Palate cleanser or atleats good news and update on some earlier ones here – An Update on the Norfolk Island Snails under 5 mins viewing and I really like the persons commenst at the end. about “snails don’t get a lot of love but..” given Snails may be small and under-appreciated but they do form a key part of the ecosystem and are good indicators of ecological health The little things that so much depends on..
Robots
“SUE & LiNDA Core, here’s hoping for a season 2”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/oFYW7YfoDPU
Peptide in aspergillus mould kills leukemia.
“Scientists Discover Potential Cancer Cure in Ancient Tomb”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/XfiWQKQ49Oo
Plans for World’s First Octopus Farm Scrapped Over Ethical Concerns and Regulatory Hurdles
Prosecutors drop charges against all 4 people accused of vandalizing Reflecting Pool
Judge rules New York can’t ban federal agents from wearing face coverings
Tom DeLay helped create TV ownership cap—he says Trump FCC has no authority to repeal it
RACHEL MADDOW: Staffing your administration with people from TV turns out to be a bad idea
Video is 4:23 minutes
RACHEL MADDOW: GOP ‘divide and conquer’ culture war strategy meets its match in Talarico campaign
Video is 7:51 minutes
RACHEL MADDOW: ‘Troubled’ candidates burden GOP already saddled with Trump’s baggage
Video is 5:38 minutes
Earth Has a Billion Years Left. This Plan Could Stretch It to 9 Quadrillion
Big Brother is watching.
Link
Link
re Lynna@453:
Why would anyone agree to sign such a letter. Fuck DHS.
Texas slams on the brakes for 1,800 data centers, power grid requirements are five times higher than peak record demand — 474 gigawatts of power requests are now subject to new moratorium
You know things are bad when Texas is talking about increased regulation.
Link
McCarthyism … again, cartoon by Pedro Molina
Meet the women who saved the country’s climate data after the Trump administration took it offline
“These women weren’t going to stand by and see decades of climate information be buried or destroyed.”
From GoodGoodGood:
Video shows Russian drone chasing Ukrainian street vendor in ‘human safari’ attack
CNN: Drafts of potential US-Iran agreement are ‘being circulated,’ Qatar says
The government of Qatar isn’t a particularly trustworthy one either but in this regards I trust it more then the US or Iranian governments.
The plan is probably another truce to allow for full negotiations. We saw how well that worked last time but hopefully this time the recent violence has convinced Trump to keep a course for long enough to negotiate something.
Trump’s Regime Has Failed, His Standing Continues To Erode, And We Are Getting Stronger
A second grader wanted to know if his pet caterpillar would remember him. […]
https://www.wonkette.com/p/now-theyve-defeated-biological-men
“Now They’ve Defeated ‘Biological Men In Women’s Sports’ They Can Move On To Defeating Women’s Sports”
“The bad faith it burns.”
Washington Post EXCLUSIVE
“Trump orders changes to new helipad after weeks of around-the-clock work”
“Contractors have removed the granite seal that had begun to take shape in recent days, after the president complained about the slope of the White House Lawn.”
Trump damaged huge portions of lawn with his arena for hosting the UFC Freedom 250 mixed martial arts event.
Comments from readers of the article:
Republicans reject key IVF proposal, leaving Trump’s campaign promise in tatters
“Two years after the president claimed he would make in vitro fertilization free to Americans, his party is moving quickly in the opposite direction.”
What Trump doesn’t (but should) understand about crime in Washington, D.C.
Eric Adams Goes to Wisconsin to Pitch Data Centers, Gets Booed
‘Sharp rise’ in cyclosporiasis cases in UK linked to Mexico travel. Here’s what to know
Election forecast: Democrats strongly favored to take House, Senate tilts Democratic
MS NOW:
MS NOW:
Related video is available here. Marc Elias is on the discussion panel.
MS NOW:
Followup to comment 472.
Followup to comments 472 and 474.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/americas-next-attorney-general-todd
“America’s Next Attorney General Todd Blanche Promises To Dobbs Up Whole Country, Ban Abortion Everywhere”
“Also, stealth ballot initiatives threaten abortion rights in Kansas and Missouri.”
Hossenfelder: “Physicists Say They’ve Found The Origin Of Causality”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=SMXq68UeeXU
Senators demand crackdown on wildfire “prediction markets”
Did they mean “maximize”?
Armed man arrested near Trump’s golf course ahead of president’s visit
What someone considers concerning is rather subjective.
I would not be shocked if Gavin Newsom did not run for president. I wonder if instead he will embrace the ‘attack dog’ role.
@447 Reginald Selkirk: They mean minimize here. This is a publicity move. Notice they waited for a topic they couldn’t be said to be doing insider trading on before complaining publicly or too officials who could regulate it.
CNN: Exclusive: US military asks troops for ‘creative and unconventional’ ideas to punish Iran
The US is running out of ideas and weapons for things that don’t involve manpower and/or a lot of expense.
Very Trumpian solution, lets blow up the nuclear sites that we already blew up, declare victory and go home. Let somebody else take care of cleaning up the Strait of Hormuz or just give up on that issue. The money that Iran would get out of controlling the Strait would take a while to build up into a big problem. Iran needs to rebuild first.
If they want a creative solution though, I have one. We can donate the senior Trump administration officials to Iran. The US would have to replace them but we have a reserve of experienced officials. This way Iran can benefit from the skill and knowledge they have brought the US.
Reginald Selkirk @477: Minimize suffering in the trivializing sense of a bet. The next sentence in the letter began “There’s also” perverse incentive to do arson to guarantee a win, adding suffering.
JM @479: Good observation.
Pompey observatory has live tracking of the SpaceX booster that’s due to impact our Moon in roughly an hour or so’s time (2.35 am USA time) here
SpaceMog has a good clip on this here – SpaceX Rocket Will Crash Into The Moon This Week!
With NASA attempting to track & follow this too as noted here :
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/commercial-space/nasa-will-attempt-to-observe-rocket-parts-lunar-impact/
Albiet this is seriously no big deal. Asteroids and meteroids regularly impact our Moon and NASA and other space agencies have previously impacted many probes and rocket stages onto the lunar surface as well. It isn’t new and its only going to make another small crater which occurs all the time.
Re: StevoR @ #482…
Which “USA time”? USA has at least 6 time zones (4 in the “lower 48”, plus at leat one for Alaska and one for Hawaii).
Note that any reasonably well educated person should be able to convert from UTC/Greenwich/Zulu to their own local time.
Re; me @ #483…
From another source, the 2:35 AM appears to be EDT.
An hour and two ..almost one mionutes away -they’ve just addded a countdown clock to thePompey observatory live yt video.
@483 -484 whheydt t : Thanks and fair point.
NB. Also posted on the Sky is Falling thread too just to let folks know.
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After time of impact of that SpaceX booster now and no sign of anything dramatic or, actually, at all.
Not surprised given the scale of booster vs Moon and lack of oxygen and fuel remaining in the rocket stage.
There’s probly an extra small crater added to the “magnificent desolation” as Buzz Aldrin described it but even finding it among all the others is going to be hard.
@ whheydt
Should thay be able to convert from “Eastern Daylight Time” in a foreign country to UTC in their heads?
PBS w live (?) results coming in &uincluded at linked source page
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/live-results-michigan-midterm-primaries
Also via PBS newshour -guess we’ll be gettinganswrs tothes e4 qu here :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/4-questions-about-the-high-stakes-michigan-democratic-primary
PBS Newshour also has this factchecking of claism piece here too :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-abdul-el-sayed-and-haley-stevens-claims-ahead-of-the-michigan-democratic-senate-primary
Oh and for Washingtton state – the other WA apart from Western Australia here :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/live-results-washington-state-midterm-primaries
Ah but wait there’s more :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/search-results?q=Live%20resuklst%20Democratic%20primaries%202026
USoA primaries with live results that is here anyhow. I guess every USoAite here knows their own state ones. Still for overseas folks like me who are intrested.
World’s first seahorse hospital fights to protect them from extinction
Combat Veteran News
“The Air Forces’ Incompetence is a National Scandal”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=8Z2DBw9Q5l8
Congressman Chuck Edwards drops re-election bid after ethics investigation
Yesterday was sort of an end of an era for a lot of Canadians. Veteran Canadian newscaster Lloyd Robertson died at 92.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/lloyd-robertson-obit-9.7296571
Chief of Israeli cybersecurity busted as p3do in Las Vegas, providing stand up comedy gold.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=JdJwzSsLWZM
.
“Let’s call Trump’s approach to Iran what it is: kindergarten diplomacy” | Moustafa Bayoumi | The Guardian .https://share.google/rqiPM3QMih2Z6om6e
@489, 491
Left-wing political outsider wins Democratic Senate primary in Michigan
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Bernie Sanders: Trump is ‘at war’ with America’s working class
Video is 8:48 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Rolled over’: Hayes rips Cornyn, Tillis for caving on Blanche
“Tillis and Cornyn caved even though they have literally nothing to lose,” says
Video is 8:01 minutes