Monday, June 01, 2026

Just So We’re All Clear

 Axios, a/k/a The Mouth of Sauron:

The Trump administration plans to drop its controversial $1.8 billion "weaponization" fund the president sought to compensate alleged victims of prosecutorial conduct under his predecessor, two senior administration officials told Axios.

"It's dead for now," one of the sources said.
As they say in those annoying ads about leaving property to someone after your death without a will: “Doesn’t count.” Pay attention to the DOJ, not some “anonymous source” in the administration.
The Department of Justice disagrees strongly with the decision on the Anti-Weaponization Fund put forth by the United States District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, wherein the Court stated that, under no circumstances, may the Department of Justice proceed with the Anti-Weaponization Fund recently established in order to make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to so many people. This Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise. The Department will abide by the Court’s ruling.
Does that sound like it’s over? As emptywheel points out:
Neither order tells the government that they can’t set up a Terrorist Slush Fund (though Williams could find that Woodward and Epshteyn engaged in fraud by even attempting to do so).

Nevertheless, Trump’s minions got Marc Caputo and Jake Sherman to claim that the judges’ rulings were the reason Trump decided to halt, “for now,” the Terrorist Slush Fund.
What they’re saying: “We’re planning to respect the courts,” one of the administration officials said.

“This has become a distraction,” a second administration official said. “The president believes government was weaponized against people — it wasn’t just him. But this isn’t the time and vehicle for it.”
So: not dead. This is just a head fake to get the Senate through reconciliation.
And once Trump has his brownshirts funded for the next several years, he’ll revert back to paying off terrorists, as an update to Caputo’s post describes he might do.
“The plan right now is to halt it. But the president likes the fund, he believes in it. So nothing is final until it’s final,” one of the sources said.
The lesson is: don’t rely on the courts, or Axios, or the Administration. Tell Congress to stop this shit. Vote ‘em out if they won’t.

"Maybe you have some information about what Speaker Mike Johnson might have said to the president when he was at the White House a little bit earlier today," Tur asked Sherman, referring to the recent meeting on the status of the reconciliation bill, which Republicans have debated updating with language limiting the fund.

Sherman acknowledged he didn't know exactly what was discussed there about the fund, but that his sources tell him "the administration is going to announce through DOJ that they are going to comply with the court order ... but the administration plans to say they plan to take no further action."

Despite that, he argued, this "is not going to be an immediate salve for Capitol Hill" because Trump could simply decide at a later date to restart it up again when the court order expires. "They're going to want to put language in ... the reconciliation legislation, which funds ICE and CBP, to make sure that the administration can't, at some point, return and do this again."

In other words, he said, Republicans will take a "trust, but verify" attitude and "put teeth into legislation to make sure that the administration doesn't, in a couple of months, say, actually, we've changed our minds. We're going to go back and set up this $1.8 billion fund."

Ultimately, though, he said, this is probably good news for Republicans because the administration's surrender means they can move forward with the broader reconciliation bill.

"This was the only path, Katy, to get this done," he said. "The administration would have been frozen up here for weeks, if not months ... if this weaponization fund was put in place, they would have had to deal with this on every single bill that the House and Senate were looking to pass." As a result, Trump had "no other option" but to throw in the towel on the slush fund.
I’ll believe it when it passes into law.
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“It Was Boring”

EAMON JAVERS Do you think the negotiations are over now, or is this a bluff?

PRESIDENT TRUMP I don’t care if they’re over, honestly. I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less. If they’re over, they’re over. If they’re not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring. They were giving us what we needed, but I think I think they handled the negotiations poorly. It took too long. I thought they were tapping us along that’s all. Yeah, they were.
The President of the United States is a five year old child with attention deficit disorder. Let us do that for you, Grandpa. Always has his finger on the pulse, huh?
EAMON JAVERS Have you talked to anybody in NATO about that? I mean, have they changed their tune on the strait?

PRESIDENT TRUMP They would, if I wanted them to, but they would. I want them to. We don’t need them. We don’t need NATO. They were very, very weak and very sad. What they said, they said we’ll help you as soon as the war is over. NATO, Europe has lost its way. They have a tremendous immigration problem, and they have a tremendous energy problem, because all they want to do is build windmills all over the place, so anyway.

Well, call me. You can call me tomorrow, and I’ll talk to you about it. Let’s see what’s going on - okay?
NATO will have a response if they can get that statement translated into coherence.

The point of getting Israel to stop bombing Lebanon was to get Iran back to the negotiations. But now Trump is bored. So, what next? Congress? Or more of the same into the foreseeable future?

Three guesses; first two don’t count.
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Remain Calm! All Is Well!

No, no, it’s (finally!) peace in our time! If you’re paying attention, Iran broke off talks. And Trump doesn’t say here that he’s spoken to Iran recently: Meanwhile: Wishing does not make it so. 
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The Art Of The Squeal

Iranian state-backed media outlets are now reporting that Iran has suspended ceasefire talks with the U.S. over the significant expansion of Israeli operations against Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) in Southern Lebanon. According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the success of U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks is contingent on Israel’s deescalation in Southern Lebanon, saying “a violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts.”
According to Iranian state-backed media outlet Fars, following Iran’s suspension of talks over Israel’s escalation in Southern Lebanon, the IRGC is now threatening to target Northern Israel if Israel expands their strike campaign to include Lebanese Hezbollah positions and infrastructure in the capital, Beirut.
Trump needs to tell the IRGC that they don’t have the cards.
According to Israel’s Kan News, U.S. President Donald J. Trump is on a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following Iran’s announcement that they suspended talks with the U.S. over Israel’s strikes and ground operations in Southern Lebanon. Earlier, President Trump said that he had not yet been made aware of the move by Iran.

This comes amidst reports that the U.S. pressured Israel to forego strikes on Lebanese Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon.
Saying you don’t know what’s going on is not the art of negotiation.
In a post on Truth Social, President Donald J. Trump stated that he had a "very productive" conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the situation in Lebanon, adding that any troops en route to Beirut have been recalled. President Trump also revealed he spoke with Hezbollah, who agreed to a potential ceasefire.
"Potential”. Is that a concept of a ceasefire?

My considered opinion is still that we fold our tents and leave. That’s the only way out of this.
Rinse, repeat. Until it finally gets through to Congress.
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Truth Is The First Casualty Of War

The BBC reports that at least 20 U.S. bases in the region around Iran were hit by Iran.
The US has sought to limit satellite analysis of the conflict by requesting Planet, a major provider, to impose an "indefinite" restriction on new images of Iran and most of the Middle East. The company justified the move, saying that it wanted to ensure its images were not used "by adversarial actors to target allied and Nato-partner personnel and civilians".

BBC Verify has used satellite imagery from other international providers combined with older images from Planet to track the damage caused by Iranian attacks. The facilities are in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain and Oman. The actual figure could be higher, with some analysts placing the number of bases hit as high as 28.
What was hit is perhaps more consequential:
Among the valuable hardware damaged were three state-of-the-art anti-ballistic missile batteries systems at the Al Ruwais and Al Sader airbases in the UAE and Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan.

The US is only known to operate eight of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, which are deployed at bases around the globe and cost around $1bn (£766m) to manufacture. Each battery needs a crew of about 100 troops to operate it while the interceptors it fires cost around $12.7m per round.

Vice-Admiral Mark Mellett, the ex-head of the Irish Defence Forces, told BBC Verify that the batteries are at the core of a "highly complex" regional defence network that cannot be "quickly or easily replaced".
One more factor in the equation of the extended ceasefire. Iran also has “the cards”:
The extent of damage caused to US facilities is difficult to quantify, but a May estimate by the Pentagon put the total cost of Operation Epic Fury at $29bn - with much of that likely to be spent on "repair or replacement costs for equipment" destroyed in the conflict. Democrats say this is likely an underestimate.

The report also found that at least 42 aircraft - including F-15 and F-35 fighter jets, 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones and an A-10 attack plane - have been destroyed or damaged since February.

By comparison to the expensive hardware used by the US military, Iran has reportedly made use of cheap, easily replaceable drones in its attacks on targets across the Middle East.
And the other unlearned lesson from Vietnam; call it the “little brown men in black pajamas” fallacy:
An analyst at MAIAR told BBC Verify that the US military "appears to have been guilty of a degree of early-war complacency" in failing to move aircraft out of the range of Iranian drones and missiles as Tehran's tactics evolved.

They said that in the case of Prince Sultan airbase the facility had previously come under fire before the aircraft were destroyed.
Really curious about why that THAAD facility wasn’t better protected, for one.

This doesn’t all speak solely to Trump’s stupidity in attacking Iran. Although maybe it speaks to the corruption of the chain of command, and Hegseth’s assault on it. Though I’m beginning to think the “sanctity” of the Joint Chiefs is more hagiography than biography, too.
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🦗🦗Everything Old Is New Again

It was the Vietnam War that got people yelling “AMERICA!  LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!” at the war protesters. Guess what: we finally walked away from that war. And the national manhood didn’t fall off or shrivel up.

And we didn’t do that so Stephen Miller could decide who stays in America, and who leaves.
Rep. Rick Crawford: "The War Powers Act is flawed in and of itself. If we're gonna address the president's authorities, we need to probably create another war powers act from whole cloth that does not impede his ability to continue to do what's necessary to defend this nation. We can't hobble the president."
Iran and Israel are doing a good enough job at that already, huh? Iran still seems to think they have a vote. I’d hate to see what “lack of control” looked like.

When does Congress do its Article I duties and say it’s time to cut our losses and leave? When we’ve got a new one that didn’t let Trump fail so disastrously?

Or, can we put Zelenskyy in charge of the war? He seems to have the cards:
Today, I presented state awards of Ukraine to the people without whom Operation “Spiderweb” would not have happened. We have no right to name them – everything remains absolutely classified and will remain so for a long time. This is already a historic operation by the Security Service of Ukraine, one that was carefully prepared, and on this very day one year ago, it entered its final stage – striking Russian military equipment. Farther than Ukrainian long-range capabilities had ever reached before. As precisely as no one in Russia expected. And as justly as the enemy’s strategic aviation deserves.

“Spiderweb” destroyed or at least damaged 41 aircraft. Never before had Russia lost such equipment, in such numbers, and as a result of strikes by drones that were incomparably cheaper. Ukraine has once again proved that it knows how to act asymmetrically, that it defends itself actively and truly creatively, and that Russia has no chance of overcoming Ukrainian courage. Ukraine will always be one step ahead – in technology, in bravery, and in the ability to capture the world’s attention and rally the support of millions of human hearts.

Ukraine is now applying long-range sanctions against Russia for this war literally every day. We did not start this war, we did not provoke it, and the only thing we wanted for Ukraine and Ukrainians was peace. But as long as the Russians choose the opposite, and as long as Russia does everything to drag out this war and expand it, Ukrainians will continue to find responses that will definitely work. I thank all our warriors for their precision! I thank the Security Service of Ukraine for its long-range leadership! I thank everyone who helps us! Glory to Ukraine!
Wait! As he says, they didn’t start that war. Better we just take the lesson of Vietnam, and leave.
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Yeah, About That 🦗

Yeah, about that: Chirp chirp.

🦗🦗🦗
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“It just shows that it’s all a question of priorities.”

"...it’s not a question of what’s possible.”

 Source:

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“Chirping”? 🦗

This is what’s bothering the President of the United States? The sound of crickets? 🦗 

Man, if you can’t stand the heat, get the fuck outta the kitchen.
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More Leaner And More Meaner

Rule changes for the SpaceX $SPCX IPO:

Index providers waived the profitability requirement and cut the seasoning window from 90 days to 5.

This forces over $30 trillion in passive 401k and retirement money to buy SpaceX at IPO valuations.

Bloomberg Intelligence estimates S&P 500 funds must absorb 19% of SpaceX's float within 6 months.

Russell 1000 and Nasdaq 100 funds will absorb 24%.

The rules built to protect passive investors:

1. S&P 500 has required 12 months of trading and 4 quarters of GAAP profitability since 2002. Both waived.

2. Nasdaq cut its inclusion window from 90 trading days to 15.

3. FTSE Russell cut its to 5.

All three benchmarks are now structured to buy SpaceX at IPO pricing.
Fuck your feelings. And your 401k.
Let's be clear about what this actually is. Index providers didn't change their rules out of goodwill. They changed them because SpaceX is too big and too politically connected to exclude. A $1.5 trillion company going public and not landing in passive funds immediately would be embarrassing for the index industry.

But the consequence is real: $30 trillion in retirement money gets forced into SpaceX at whatever valuation Elon and the bankers set. No price discovery. No earnings track record requirement. No seasoning period to let the market find fair value.

The rules that protected passive investors since 2002 were waived in weeks.

If SpaceX is overvalued at IPO, every 401k in America owns it at the top.
The world's richest centi-billionaire oligarch used his power to change the rules, so he could dump his garbage company (which is cartoonishly overvalued, unprofitable, and incinerating cash) on retail investors, using trillions of dollars in retirement funds as exit liquidity, all in order to become the first trillionaire.

This is the perfect metaphor for the US economy as a whole, which is entirely based on bubbles and scams.
From the people who sold you on 401k’s in the first place. (The Lovely Wife had a 403b through her employer (a school district). Fortunately she also had a pension through the state of Texas. She actually put more in the 403b than it had when she retired. She rolled it into an IRA, where it is gaining value through prudent investment. Which will never include SpaceX. We won’t die rich, but it isn’t wasting away any more.)
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“Time To Start Flipping Tables”

The title is one of Talarico’s “well rehearsed lines” that Cruz finds “dangerous.” Pilate found the original act dangerous, too. (“Cleansing the temple” at Passover was the trigger for the Roman governor ordering the crucifixion.)

Not to compare Talarico to Jesus, but it’s funny this time around how many of his political opponents find him so “dangerous.” I mean: this guy?

Time to start flipping tables, indeed.
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“Leaner And Meaner”?

Oh, you mean like this? Paying the two richest men on the planet to build toys that blow up? Making government “leaner and meaner” so that rich people get more money, and everyone else gets…leaner and meaner?
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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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