Sunday, May 31, 2026

“What, My Lai?”

After My Lai, we have to “support the troops.”

This is what that looks like.
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When Does The Music Change?

And if Iran doesn’t agree this time, you’ll give them another chance? Or just keep negotiating? And making empty threats? And emptier demands?

When does the music change?
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“Exodus of Legal Talent” Is A GOOD Thing!

Are we in a “Twilight Zone” episode, Anthony?

Let's see:
The federal prosecutor who signed an indictment accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Trump by posting an image of seashells arranged as "86 47" is no longer on the case, according to court papers filed late Friday.

Friday's court filing requests that Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Petracca, who was listed as the government's lead lawyer on the Comey case, be removed from the docket. Federal prosecutor Timothy Severo was swapped in.

Petracca has also been taken off at least three other cases since last week, according to court filings, which do not specify why he is stepping aside.
Yeah, that’s very good. Right? How about the case of the Broadview Six?
[Judge] Perry flagged three problematic events in the grand jury. First, she said there was “vouching,” in which a prosecutor improperly put “her personal credibility and trustworthiness on the line in support of the charges,” according to the judge.

Second, Perry said a prosecutor crossed a line by having “substantive” communications with grand jurors outside of the grand jury room.

The judge said a prosecutor also excused grand jurors “who disagreed with the government’s case from the deliberations process.”

Finally, it turns out the case had once been rejected by grand jurors, a result known as a “no bill.” Three other Midway Blitz defendants were cleared last fall because of grand jury “no bills” — which were once considered an incredibly rare rebuke of prosecutors.

However, defense attorneys say the misconduct didn’t stop there. Boutros said he learned what happened in late April, when he said he made the decision to abandon the grand jury’s indictment and pursue misdemeanors through a separate charging document.

Boutros’ office moved forward toward trial, even as defense attorneys raised questions about the grand jury proceedings. They allowed Perry to speculate as recently as Monday that redacted portions of transcripts from the proceedings were simply related to “IT issues.”

Meanwhile, 90 potential jurors were expected to arrive Tuesday to possibly hear the case.

The assistant U.S. attorneys involved in the case were Sheri Mecklenburg, William Hogan, Matthew Skiba and Andres Almendarez. Mecklenburg served as the lead prosecutor when the case was indicted, but she left to serve as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Courtroom commentary Thursday indicated Skiba and Mecklenburg appeared before the grand jury, with Skiba as the junior prosecutor who had just joined the office in July.

Hogan filed his appearance in the case in February, roughly three months after the indictment. But he’s no stranger to such controversies. Claims of misdeeds during the prosecution of El Rukn street gang cases in the 1980s and 1990s led to Hogan’s firing in 1996.

He was rehired after an administrative judge cleared him of wrongdoing, according to previous reports in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Oh, that wasn't all:
Perry later ordered that a transcript of that proceeding be unsealed. It was released around 6 p.m., revealing specific details of what occurred.

The hearing was the result of a lengthy effort by defense attorneys in the case to pierce the secrecy of the grand jury. Specifically, they wanted to know how the conspiracy law had been explained to the panel. Alternatively, they suggested Perry take a look.

The judge agreed to do so, and prosecutors filed the transcripts with the judge. But they apparently gave her a redacted version. Not only that, but it turned out pages were missing from the transcript, according to Parente.

Perry called a hearing April 29 and told the feds to bring unredacted copies of the transcripts. However, moments into that hearing, Hogan said the indictment was being abandoned. Perry agreed that made the defense request “moot” — meaning there was no reason to read the unredacted transcript.

Defense attorneys continued to press, and Perry finally agreed on Monday to look again.
That’s right; the prosecutors redacted the transcripts so the judge wouldn’t know what they’d done. That’s “very good,” too, right? So good the judge is suggesting there may be sanctions for the prosecutors. After all charges had to be dismissed.

And what about the record number of grand jury no bills? The 37 arrests in the Chicago apartment house that were all dismissed? The DOJ has lost so many lawyers they’re putting law school graduates in the courtroom. Best of all, the DOJ has lost the presumption of regularity that it had deservedly earned.

Since Trump thinks all of that’s good, he’d probably be interested in this deed to the Brooklyn Bridge I could sell him.
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Keeping Up With The Joneses

According to @IranIntl_En , citing unspecified sources, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has reportedly tendered his resignation. Per the report, President Pezeshkian cited the increasing influence of a bloc within the IRGC and their growing overmatch over other top administrative divisions within the Iranian government in a letter that Iran International claims to have knowledge of.
BLUF: Pezeshkian’s Position🧵 While this has yet to be confirmed, there is certainly precedent for such a move. Since the start of the conflict, President Pezeshkian repeatedly drew the ire of more hardline factions within Iran’s top decision-making frameworks for statements and actions that they deemed to be apologetic or directly opposed to their current outlook. 1/3
Most notably, Pezeshkian drew public calls of condemnation from Iranian hardliners following his open letter to Iran’s Gulf neighbors during the conflict, where he called the IRGC’s targeting of their regional neighbors “irresponsible.” Subsequently, his active role in the decision-making process was repeatedly blocked by the IRGC, with said efforts being led by the current commander of the IRGC, Ahmad Vahidi. 2/3

These new reports come following assessments that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s increasing delegation of key roles to Iranian generals gave the IRGC, specifically Vahidi, a significant amount of decision-making power within Iran, that tipped the previous balance between hardliners and more moderate decision-makers that Khamenei’s father used to enforce.

End.
Well, Trump and Bibi did get regime change.
Ossoff: "Last week, yet more Americans were wounded in a war nobody voted for and nobody can explain. This war in Iran is the worst foreign policy blunder since Iraq, and just like the Iraq war, it's a war built on lies. Let's just update the record. On day one of the war -- day one -- the president said it was running 'ahead of schedule' ... "
Now if we can just get Congress to change.
Ossoff details "Prince Eric and Prince Don's" corrupt dealings in Kazakstan and says, "That's just the tip of the iceberg ... here's the bottom line. If you're involved in any of this, next year you'll raising your right hand and swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God in front of Congress"
That can’t start soon enough.
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How To NOT Read The Room

I mean, seriously.
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“Cancel it”

Holy shit, Trump is really crashing out. His latest unhinged screed: “We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain. Cancel it, just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN”
I missed that the first time around.
BASH: There are questions about where private funding is coming from for Freedom 250. It's not transparent. Should the public show know?

BURGUM: Transparency is always a good thing. I work for the president I think i most transparent ever

BASH: So you'll make the donors public?

BURGUM: It's not about the donors
I’m pretty sure it’s about the donors now.
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LOYALTY!!!!

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Sometimes 1000 Words Is Better Than A Picture

Trump had another mental health episode today and posted over 50 times online:

11:15 AM - Trump attacks judge who said he couldn’t put his name on the Kennedy Center
12:03 PM - Says he may perform and give a speech at the America 250 event instead of artists who cancelled
12:08 PM - Says Obama filled the Reflecting Pool with Garbage
12:09 PM - Attacks Biden
12:09 PM - Posts edited photo of Columbus Circle in DC with the caption “CLEAN”
12:10 PM - Attacks Biden again
12:11 PM - Posts AI photo of him and George Washington riding horses in front of the White House with a space shuttle and race car in the background
12:11 PM - Attacks Rosie O’Donnell
12:11 PM - Posts photo of him in front of the American flag
12:11 PM - Brags about his endorsed candidates winning
12:12 PM - Attack Obama and Biden over the reflecting pool
12:12 PM - Posts photo of him pointing at the camera
12:13 PM - Posts photo of the UFC event cage he’s building at the White House
12:13 PM - Posts an AI image of a “golden dome” for the White House
12:15 PM - Defends Jaxson Dart, calling him a “winner” and his critics “losers”
12:45 PM - Posts an AI image of him as a NY Knicks basketball player dunking on Governor Kathy Hochul
12:56 PM - Posts an AI image of him with Tom Brady
1:03 PM - Posts a garbage can labeling it “The Obama Presidential Library”
1:16 PM - Says America is back
1:16 PM - Says America is back again
1:16 PM - Says America is back for the 3rd time
1:55 PM - Posts an AI image of him golfing
2:55 PM - Says he’s in “excellent health” lol
3:17 PM - Promotes his Fox News interview with Lara Trump
4:33 PM - Attacks the Pope again
4:54 PM - Posts a weird image of him staring at Greenland (which he has posted already)
4:57 PM - Posts an AI image of the “drone port” he wants to build on top of the ballroom
5:33 PM - Attacks Biden
5:33 PM - Attacks Biden x2
5:34 PM - Attacks Biden x3
5:34 PM - Attacks Biden x4
5:34 PM - Attacks Biden x5
5:35 PM - Posts cartoon image of Governors Newsom, Pritzker, and Hochul saying they like crime (Trump is a felon)
5:36 PM - Posts meme about Republicans who voted to release the Epstein files losing their primaries
5:36 PM - Posts an old tweet of his where he attacks “disloyal” Republicans
5:37 PM - Posts an old tweet where he said he wants to stop the world from “killing itself”
5:37 PM - Posts a mock up of a “Trump Peace Prize” which may be the most useless peace prize known to man
5:37 PM - Posts a photo of a B-2 bomber with the caption “Trump energy 2026”
5:37 PM - Posts a photo of his face on Mount Rushmore
5:38 PM - Posts an image of him kissing the American flag (he’s the least patriotic president we’ve ever had)
5:39 PM - Compares himself to George Washington
5:39 PM - Says you were convinced to think a photo of a family sitting on a car is “evil” and billions were spent to do that (???)
5:50 PM - Says we should “physically audit” Fort Knox
5:50 PM - Posts an image of him cosplaying as a navy commander
5:51 PM - Posts another image of his face on Mount Rushmore
5:51 PM - Posts another photo of him and George Washington
6:09 PM - Attacks Biden again
6:09 PM - Attacks Biden x2
6:09 PM - Attacks Biden x3
6:09 PM - Posts an old photo of himself and King Charles
6:12 PM - Posts an old photo of himself and President XI in China
6:12 PM - Posts another photo of himself and President Xi
6:22 PM - Posts a photo of himself walking in China
6:48 PM - Says the U.S. should have a ballroom because China has one
7:03 PM - Says he wants to cancel his America 250 celebration and replace it with a MAGA rally
7:56 PM - Promotes Mark Levin’s show on Fox News
7:59 PM - Promotes his Fox News interview with Lara Trump

All in one day. This man is not well. Impeachment and removal NOW.
"Executive time.”

Although sometimes pictures are good, too.
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Saturday, May 30, 2026

Finally, We’re Getting Somewhere!

It’s bound to work this time!
U.S. President Donald J. Trump asked for several amendments to the deal his envoys reached with their Iranian counterparts during a Situation Room Meeting on Friday, strengthen several points, particularly around Iran’s nuclear material, according to a senior administration official and a second source briefed on the issue who spoke to Axios.
Axios! Now we know it’s reliable news! And speaking of reliable news! You don’t even know that. How many times does he have to do this in an interview before people notice? Everybody likes the smell of their own farts. Actually, most people aren’t that dumb. "It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Sun’s going down. Well, that’s why negotiations aren’t getting anywhere. No idea. Neither does he. So...they get nothing? The crowd you draw could probably fit in there; but no, that’s not going to happen.🙅‍♂️  He thinks that means “national security” and it makes the courts fold their tents and go away. But even if the military is involved, the construction still has to be authorized by Congress. So nothing changes. And where is that money coming from?
Okay....grandpa…. Time to go….
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He Likes To Look At The Pictures

A selection: What are the soldiers doing up there? Is he wiping his mouth on Old Glory? Who’s going to tell him there isn’t a blank space beside Lincoln? So Trump can’t stand the Pope meeting with anybody who’s not Trump? And that makes him think of the peace “deal” with Iran he still can’t make?

Anyway, it’s good to know Trump is focused on settling the Iran war today.
He works 12 hours a day, you know. Well, 2 hours is enough. I guess. Again: this is a job for Congress, not the weird imaginings of a demented narcissist. This is also all very normal and unremarkable.
Holy shit, Trump is really crashing out. His latest unhinged screed: “We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain. Cancel it, just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN”
"My time and money”? Whose money does he think he’s spending? And what makes him think his time is his own?
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🎶Man Thought He Was A Man, But…”🎶

His girlfriend is wearing a bandanna (effectively, in more than one sense of that term), so he is, too. Yet at least one reply on Twitter tried to call Talarico “gay” for the neckerchief (that’s what we called it in Boy Scouts). I caught a rerun of “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” where Steve McQueen was wearing one (in costume). I never thought of Steve McQueen as coding “gay.”

This crap is burning up its 15 minutes.
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The Knicks Are Getting Some Well Earned Attention

So Trump had to get some, too:
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“Rallying the Country forward…”

“Amy is totally wired into the Left System, from her husband down, and it is impossible for me to be treated fairly….He has a total Conflict of Interest, and should be brought up on charges for not revealing these facts. That is why The Kennedy Center will soon be closed, probably never to open again.”
Trump is pissed that he can’t keep running the Kennedy Center as his own personal playhouse. And he shows, again, that he has no clue how government works. The judge who ruled against him should be charged with the crime of conflict of interest, because of his wife. But that’s not a conflict of interest, and it’s not a crime. And there’s no “conflict of interest” when Alito and Thomas and the Sinister Six rule in his favor in blatantly political opinions. Either way, it’s not a criminal act. But Trump thinks anything that annoys him should be a crime he can charge against somebody.

He’s not unfit because he’s vindictive. He’s unfit because he’s stupid.
Trump: “I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance on Wednesday, so I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!”
I think Vanilla Ice would be greeted with more enthusiasm.
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For The Time Being

She’s a lobbyist, which could explain her reluctance to be publicly associated with Talarico.  Or more likely, it’s none of our business.  TBH, I stopped caring about a politician’s spouse with Hillary. Not because she was Hillary, but because she was right. She wasn’t going to the White House to bake cookies, and had no problem with her advising her husband. I might disagree with that advice, but I didn’t expect her to look “wifely” and do “women” things. To be fair, I really don’t care about Melania’s relationship with Donald, either. She should stay away from decorating the White House for Xmas, but otherwise….

So let’s get this all out of the way and move on to what the candidates want to do in office. You know, the shit that actually matters….
In the meantime, there’s that.
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Friday, May 29, 2026

This Is Just Pathetic

This, however, is just fucking delusional. Just pausing in our headlong rush to note this for the history books. He’s from Texas. I understand Tuberville is from Florida? Yeah, awareness is clearly not his strong suit.
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Lucy And The 🏈

Let me explain this.

Imagine a kid who takes the football from another kid and keeps it for his own. That is, until the kid’s mother finds out and tells her child to return the football. Which he does, through a friend, while ostentatiously declaring he has magnanimously decided to turn his football over to someone else.

The court’s ruling is that Trump doesn’t have authority over the Kennedy Center, never had it, and has to stop acting like he has it. So Trump is directing the Commerce Department to return the authority over the Kennedy Center to Congress; who never gave it up in the first place. 

Because, for the smart alecks who want to say Congress gave it up by default, it doesn’t work that way. This is not a situation where Congress has let the Executive get away with something for decades. This is something Trump did in the past few months, not something Presidents have been doing since Washington. Had Congress waited to assert its authority until 2027, it still would have been a valid assertion. The court is just refusing to let Trump claim executive privilege, or “unitary executive privilege,” or whatever. Might as be “King’s ‘X’,” in other words.

But Trump has to claim it’s his idea and his magnanimous decision. Because our President is a three year old. However, all that fear mongering about Trump ignoring the courts? Yeah; looks like that’s not gonna happen.

Trump just gave up the football and went home. He’s going to have to get used to this feeling. This is going to be the rest of his presidency.
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Yeah, Kinda What I Was Hoping For

 But: holy fucking shit, I did NOT see this coming.

In what the Times called a "striking turnabout," U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams revived the case just days after she had closed it. The Obama appointee said she wants to scrutinize the circumstances surrounding Trump's effort to settle the suit in a way that benefited him, his family, and his political allies — including the controversial $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund" that critics have blasted as a slush fund.

Williams ordered Trump's lawyers to respond by June 12 to two damning questions: whether "the court was the victim of a fraud," and whether the president colluded with his own government to settle the case "to avoid judicial scrutiny."

The ruling came in response to a bipartisan filing from 35 former federal judges earlier this week. The retired judges argued Trump improperly used the IRS suit to dole out taxpayer money "without constitutional or congressional authority" and to obtain "unlawful private benefits" for his family, including permanent immunity from tax audits.

If Williams proceeds, top Justice Department officials could face hard questions — including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who signed the audit shield, and Stanley Woodward Jr., the No. 3 DOJ official who signed the fund agreement.
Now, the interesting part of this is, there isn’t anyone on the other side to argue against this “settlement.” This is the court’s own motion. Essentially, this is a “show cause” order, where the court tells the party about to be held in contempt (usually criminal), to “show cause” why the court shouldn’t act. This time the court is telling anybody involved in this who isn’t the POTUS to show cause why they shouldn’t be deep in the shit. 💩 

Because right now, they are. And they aren’t likely to get out. 

🍿
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And A Splendid Friday Was Had By All

KUDLOW: Are we really gonna have a $250 bill with Donald Trump's picture on it?

BESSENT: So, for the 150th there was a Calvin Coolidge coin with his image on it. We are going to have the image of President Trump on a coin, and there is proposed legislation in the House to put President Trump on the $250 bill. President Trump should be on there.

KUDLOW: I'm sure the demand for them will be huge
There’s still a huge market for those Gerald Ford coins they minted in ‘76. Oh, wait….
Following the money:
"Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, said aides to the president should not be intervening in contracting and lending decisions by agencies, particularly in matters that financially benefit the president’s family."

"'This is our money they’re spending,' Painter said. 'This is corruption we pay for.'"
Crying “Wolf!” once too often.
Economy then vs now:

GDP growth:
2024 2.8%
2026 1.6%

Inflation:
2024 2.9%
2026 3.8%

Wages:
2024 rising faster than inflation
2026 rising slower than inflation

Unemployment rate:
2024 4%
2026 4.3%

Jobs added per month:
2024 >120,000
2026 76,000

Jobs vs Unemployed:
2024 7.6 million job openings vs 6.9 million unemployed
2026 6.8 million job openings vs 7.2 million unemployed

National Debt
2024 $35.5 trillion 2026 $39 trillion

Deficit
2024 $1.8 trillion
2026 CBO projection $2 trillion

Uninsured Americans:
2024 27 million
2026 CBO projection 30 million

Gas prices per gallon:
December 2024 ~$3.00
Today $4.43
Rich man pours oil on troubled waters. 🤣🤣🤣🤪🫠 (Trump was convicted on 34 counts if financial fraud.) It's been more than twice that: But for rich guys, twice nothing is still nothing. Now, the Lord’s gonna trouble the waters. And that’s a good thing: And the beat goes on:
A federal judge in Virginia has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from moving ahead with plans to create a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who it says were wrongly targeted by the government in the past.

The brief order from US District Judge Leonie Brinkema says the administration cannot take any action “pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the Fund.”

She set a hearing for June 12 to hear arguments over whether she should issue a more lasting pause on the government’s efforts to set up the fund, which is being challenged by a diverse coalition of critics and entities who say they’ve been targeted by the Trump administration and are ineligible to receive money from it.

Brinkema, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, said she was pausing work on the fund for now to maintain the status quo while she considers the legal challenge. She pointed to the fact that the Justice Department had not committed to holding off on transferring money into it or processing payments while initial court proceedings played out.
No word on whether a federal court in Texas will enjoin this injunction and insist it alone has jurisdiction of this case, any rulings of the appellate court to contrary notwithstanding.

🌮 
And worth paying attention to: After all: Low-T Trump?
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Coming Soon To Talarico Campaign Ads 🍿

After speaking with multiple Republican voters in Burlington, Texas, Einiger told host Chris Jansing, “They feel taken for granted and left behind by the very people they elected to represent them, whether it's at the local level, the state level, or in the White House. Of course, you know, this is an area where people are very conservative, Christian conservatives, and they blame the president, their governor, for creating a world where a lot of these AI data centers are able to come in there.”

“There's not a lot of regulation,” he elaborated. “These are unincorporated parts of central Texas. And, you know, these large tech companies come in there, they're able to negotiate tax incentives, tax abatements. They spend less in tax than they would perhaps otherwise. And in exchange, people are getting higher, you know, electricity rates because the point of these facilities is they just they just swallow up so much power because what they're doing is they have just millions of computers. They have to keep them cool. Cooling them takes power — it takes water. And so just the natural resources. And it's really, really upsetting a lot of the people who live nearby.”

Conservative voter Rena Schroeder told him, “Conservative Republicans feel like they're not being heard anymore. That was a big voice that I heard through the whole campaign. They're not being heard by Republican candidates and officials, elected officials. I'm very disappointed and I'm hurt, and I do not like to be lied to.”

Self-identified GOP voter Linda Polley agreed and added, “I'm just heartbroken. I mean, I am absolutely heartbroken. The public is now seeing through the illusion. They are now realizing that left and right has been nothing more than to keep us divided.”

GOP voter Cheryl Shadden was even more vehement when asked if she is going to vote for Democrat Talarico.

“Oh, absolutely. I will turncoat and vote for any Democrat that is championing the cause of the community,” she snapped.

Einiger told host Jansing, “Fascinating, right? And I asked that woman, I asked her in a different way. I said, so, you know, this is obviously the Senate race. It's a race [for a seat] been held by Republicans in 1993. You know, Ken Paxton just won the nomination. And and James Talarico is the Democrat in the race. And I said to her, I said, if you vote for Talarico and you want this Texas seat to flip to blue — that means you're willing to flip the Senate to the Democrats. And you have all these issues that you're conservative on that you believe in, you've been voting on for your whole life. You're willing to let them all, leave them all behind. She said ‘yes.’”

“And she knows a lot of people who feel the same way,” he added. “So look, Chris, this is anecdotal. This is a small number of people, it's not scientific, but there's something happening on the ground in this very ruby red area of a red state that is definitely worth watching.”
I wanna just repeat this: But tell me more about “Low-T Talarico.”
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A Concept Of A Plan

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Wasn’t “The Snake “ 🐍 One of Trump’s Favorite Songs?

An old, but apt fable:

A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: "I am sorry, but I couldn't help myself. It's my character." @Wikipedia
For like, a long time….
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👎🤖

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How It Is

 FoxNews wants to make fun of Talarico, and I was prepared to recall the Anne Richard’s campaign where her opponent spent his campaign mostly make juvenile comments about her. It’s the reason we called her “the Governor Miz Ann.” Schoolyard taunts really don’t work that well in Texas politics. 

But I decided to go a different route:

Houston is bluer than Austin (no InfoWars here. Historic home of the second full Pacifica Radio station). East Texas, just to the north, OTOH, is blood red. Talarico talks about Jesus, and that’s talking their language. (Paxton, OTOH, will be denying he has any mistresses.) Gotta get one of these for the gym. "Talafreako” is not going to save Paxton from this:
The family of a child who was repeatedly raped by a man who Ken Paxton let off with no new jail time is speaking out:

“The fact that Attorney General Ken Paxton allowed this man to get away with molesting and sexually abusing [our] son for three years is completely disqualifying.

Adam Hoffman could have faced life in prison. Instead, Ken Paxton and his office offered him a deal that kept him off the sex-offender registry and included no new jail time.”
Oh, and why is Talarico “dangerous”? Because Ken Paxton bought his impeachment acquittal in the Texas Senate: That impeachment trial was largely about that sugar daddy and the house Paxton had him outfit for Paxton’s mistress, the one (among many) he still insists he never had. Really looking forward to the “Biblical grounds” for that divorce case. Everyone assumes Mrs. Paxton meant adultery. I’ve gotta tell you, as a former Texas family lawyer, Mrs. Paxton must really want her pound of flesh to be taking her divorce to court. The toughest divorce fight I ever worked on involved mom getting pregnant during the pending divorce. Everybody agreed who the daddy was (her boyfriend), but she was going to give birth before the divorce was final, making the child presumptively the child of the marriage, and so the husband’s. Obviously that complicated child support issues. It was a procedural tangle only your humble host could love. That case dragged on for over 9 months because there were arguments over property settlements, but nothing anybody wanted to go to trial over.

I had another case where the teenage son had been beaten by Dad with a golf club. We had the photos of the scars on his back. We should have taken him to court and gotten the DA interested in criminal charges. But our client, the wife, adamantly refused to do so, and insisted on a quick settlement and divorce. I had to endure his lawyer berating my client on the phone as we worked out the settlement, all the while looking at those photos I couldn’t even tell him about. “Endure” because I wanted to tell him what a worthless son of a bitch his client was. I still pray that young boy found some peace in his adult life, and didn’t turn out like his daddy.

The point being, no fault divorce usually means going to court once. Most of my cases involved one court appearance, to enter the agreed judgment/divorce decree. Paxton’s wife doesn’t want that. And she doesn’t want at least some of his lies to go unchallenged. There is still time to settle, so she might.

Or she might want her pound of flesh. We’ll see.

 Adding: The contempt for Texas voters is palpable. “Obscure wide receivers from the 2000’s?” Ask Paxton to name one. And who the fuck cares? Texas politics may be conservative, but we never sent “Coach” Tuberville to the Senate. Low as they are, we have our standards.
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Being Anti-DEI …

FCC Chair Brendan Carr: "Disney has been embroiled for controversies for years now related to their DEI policies. There is reporting that suggests Disney's leadership went all in on what could end up being invidious forms of DEI discrimination. There is no 1st Amendment right to hold a broadcast license."
…has nothing to do with a broadcast license, either.

I harbor no love for Disney, but I’ve seen their lawyers at work; and I’ve seen the DOJ’s lawyers that the FCC will have to rely on in court.

I like Disney’s chances.
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Tell Me You Don’t Know Anything About Texas, Yadda Yadda Yadda

San Antonio and Dallas? Blue. Most of the fan base for those teams is in their home cities. Does Ken Paxton own a gun? Or a truck? Never seen him near either. Heard a lot about Sharia law in GOP primary ads. Nothing about guns and pickups 🛻 

You ain’t from around here, are you, Jesse?
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Thursday, May 28, 2026

You Know, NASA….

...used missiles (Redstone, Titan) for just this reason. That gave them time to develop the Saturn 1B and Saturn V.

I’m just saying, we’ve known how to do this for 60+ years. Why did we decide to farm it out to private enterprise?
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Time Marches On

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Noem: “Miss Me Yet?”

He knows those flights include returning Americans, right? And if CBP isn’t there, is he going send ICE to block the terminals?

Not, it turns out, an idle question:
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“I’m A Talafreako”

Reporter: Ken Paxton has taken to calling you ‘Talafreako’

@JamesTalarico : If Ken Paxton is worried about freaks, he should stop giving Epstein-style sweetheart deals to pedophiles. This is the guy who just released Adam Hoffman from jail, an admitted child rapist, after one of Ken Paxton’s wealthy lawyer friends got involved in the case.

Ken Paxton even kept him off the sex offender registry. Adam Hoffman was supposed to serve 25 years to life, but instead he served less than a month. As of this week, he’s now back on our streets because of Ken Paxton’s corruption.

Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America, and it is costing Texans, it’s endangering our children, and it must end. The Epstein class has no place in Texas.
The best selling t-shirt at Talarico’s campaign website is: “I’m a Talafreako.”
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Wednesday, May 27, 2026

This Is Literally All They’ve Got

😎 I mea, literally.
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It’s Not The System …

It's the voters. Well, you could argue a primary vote in March, with a runoff 2 months later, is a system problem. But Talarico won the Democratic nomination with 1.2 million votes. Neither Paxton nor Cornyn cracked 1 million in the primaries or the runoff. GOP voters just didn’t turn out; and primaries are always about the most motivated voters. In Texas, though nobody outside Texas has noticed, that included lots of ads (even Cornyn did it) about how the candidate would never allow elephants 🐘  Sharia law to plague Texas. A lot of those candidates won nominations for state offices last night.

Honestly, I’m starting to be nostalgic for the smoke filled rooms. A lot of the “reformer” energy that led to 50 primaries/caucuses, came from the left starting in the ‘60’s. Mostly because the “old men” were running everything, keeping the war alive and blocking the Civil Rights movement. (LBJ died aged 65. He was an “old man” in 1973. What a difference 53 years makes.)  The simple fact is, we’d have never had Trump under the party system that gave us LBJ or Nixon. (It was the GOP that pushed Nixon out two years after the greatest landslide victory in American history.) But the pressure for reform from the GOP side, angry with the trouncing of Goldwater, worked hard to get us precisely here.

Plenty of blame about the “system” to go around.
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The Feral Genius Of The Trump Administration

Of all the bad ideas floated by this Administration, this one ranks. It has got to be real; Mullin wouldn't waste time like this unless it is a serious distraction plan. Planes don't divert to other airports. The flights will be cancelled, disrupting blue and red voters, impacting the airlines, and having no impact on immigration policy. They are going to do it.
The stickers with Noem’s picture, captioned: “Miss me yet?” are coming soon.
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Let’s Bring This Back Up

She’s now divorcing him in “Biblical grounds.” He words. But the proceedings have been sealed. They both have political careers, after all.

I don’t think Paxton’s is going to last much longer.
The Paxtons owned, if memory serves, 3 houses at the time. She has a job (Texas legislators are only part-time state employees), while Paxton has been the full-time AG for quite a while now. Which means he lives in Austin, while she stays in the Dallas area, except for 6 months every 2 years. Funny thing about that, which we’ll come to momentarily. Funny thing about Paxton owning so many houses. Real estate in the Austin area is notoriously expensive. Paxton has been a government employee most of his life. The State of Texas is not known for its generosity towards government employees. Yet Paxton is a wealthy man. How does that happen? The impeachment trial explained it. And yet the Texas Senate refused to convict (despite the Republican House overwhelmingly impeaching), because birds of a feather. 🪶 

I’m not so sure the Texas electorate is going to see it that way. And the impeachment started because Paxton settled a suit brought by former AG employees, against Paxton personally.  He asked the Lege to pay the settlement, and it responded with impeachment. And never has agreed to fund the settlement.

Paxton was re-elected Texas AG in 2022. He was impeached in 2023. Why did he decide to run for the Senate this year? 🤔. I’m not sure it’s a strategy that’s going to work for him.
And according to a new Texas poll, in which most of the respondents had voted for Trump in 2024, 45% said they were likely to vote for Talarico, v. 38% likely to vote for Paxton.

I like our chances.
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