Sunday, September 27, 2026

Not Making “Fetch” Happen

“Mr. Trump’s cabinet of curiosities wears matching $145 Florsheim Oxfords, gifted by the president himself. They’re reportedly eating the same “living diet,” which consists almost entirely of hunks of meat and globs of sauerkraut. (Adherents are said to include: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Vice President JD Vance, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. himself). Mr. Trump’s favorite aide, Ms. Harp, passes the president positive news coverage and good polls like she’s the “Mean Girls” gossip Gretchen Wieners. Other White House staffers and cabinet members have begun to emulate the president’s leggy blond echo chamber cultivator, so much so that the White House has been overtaken by a kind of sycophancy Olympics; members of Trump’s inner circle never miss the chance to praise him in televised cabinet meetings.”
Nothing for, or against, Florsheims, but $145 was an expensive shoe back in the day (Trump is stuck in the ‘70’s). It’s the price of cheap sneakers, today. 

Of course, this is a guy who invited a basketball team to the White House, and fed them cold McDonalds food. So that seems pretty on point.

My only question is: why do these people want their jobs this badly? Is the White House just filled with sociopaths and losers? Is is shockingly low self esteem, covered by a thin shell of braggadocio and sheer ignorance?
"At long last, sir, have you no shame?”
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And Paying More…

And paying more for housing and gasoline and food and everything….
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Does It Involve Journalists At The White House?

No? Sorry, not interested.—American TeeVee News
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But It’s NOT A Political Ad!

It’s just selling Trump’s tired talking points and vague generalities nobody’s interested in anymore.

Except on Fox News. Which is just preaching to the choir. Even Abbott ran an ad denouncing Hinojosa on MTP this morning. Talarico has offered to debate Paxton on Fox News.
Now, why the fuck is the American government paying for this shitty stab at propaganda?
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We Need A Constitutional Catch-22

Wow -- a haggard-sounded Blanche crashes and burns on ABC while trying to defend Trump's ban on the free press

RADDATZ: The president said nothing about national security when he announced this ban, and clearly you're very interested in what the press says and how they say it

BLANCHE: What they say is exactly the issue when it comes to national security

RADDATZ: Give us an example

BLANCHE: You cannot be asking me that!

RADDATZ: But the judge decided this was not based on national security

BLANCHE: It is a privilege not a right to be in the White House
Ever so much more so:
“What [the media outlets] say is exactly the issue when it comes to national security,” Blanche told Raddatz.

Raddatz then bluntly asked Blanche to provide an example of how the media outlets’ reporting had jeopardized or threatened national security — a question Blanche sidestepped by interpreting it to be referencing general inaccurate reporting.

“I’m sorry, give you an example of when CNN doesn’t report accurately? You cannot be asking me that!” Blanche said.

“At some point, the complete misinformation and the inaccuracy and the one-sided news out of certain organizations does become a national security issue, and it’s not right for the people of the United States to have to put up with it!”

In an apparent attempt to gain insight on how the Trump administration may address the supposed national security threats from media outlets’ reporting, Raddatz asked how the matter might be handled.

“So are you saying you’re going to screen people before they get on a flight coming to the White House?” Raddatz asked.

Blanche was not pleased with Raddatz’s question.

“I did not say that!” Blanche snapped. “You don’t get to put words in my mouth, that’s not the way it works! I didn’t say that. You said I said something that I didn’t say!”
When the press accurately reports on what the administration says, it threatens national security, and that overrides the First and Fifth Amendments.* 🤷‍♂️ Blanche knows that’s not how it works, but he’s compelled to say it anyway. He likes his job too much.

Which alone is a reason for him not to hold it.



*No, Blanche’s “argument” is not even vaguely sound. Except in a “L’etat, c’est moi” system of government. And we don’t have that. 
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So He’s An Appalling Boor…

 … and a racist and a xenophobe …

Leavitt told the story on "Hang Out with Sean Hannity." Hannity had asked how "brutally honest" Trump is with world leaders.

"With Starmer, I remember we sat down for lunch," Leavitt said. She said she couldn't remember whether it was Windsor Castle or "the place where Keir Starmer lives," and noted that the trip was "a year ago today," because the memory had come up on her phone.

"We were sitting around the table and enjoying lunch in this beautiful place. The president began attacking him because of his policies," she said.

According to Leavitt, Trump told Starmer, "Your policies here are extremely stupid," and "You need to close your borders."

"He says it exactly like that," she said. "'You must deport these people who are in your country.'"

She said Trump told the prime minister that  the British people "hate what you do." Leavitt also pointed out where the scolding happened.
... abroad as well as at home. And he has his finger on his own pulse, and thinks he’s the vox populi, wherever he goes.

Good to know. Thanks for sharing.
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Saturday, September 26, 2026

The White House Insisted This Wouldn’t Happen

The booth conversation was hard to make out for several minutes. At one point, Fowler could be heard telling Herbstreit to stay quiet while technicians worked on the problem. Earlier, while Rutledge was speaking, ABC aired a graphic explaining "electromagnetic deconfliction" and the coordination of radio frequencies with the Secret Service protecting Trump as he moved around the stadium.

...

The broadcast issues came days after Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian claimed Trump's presence disrupted the College Football Playoff national championship in January. During a Thursday press conference, Sarkisian explained that whenever the president moves through a stadium, all communication has to be shut down. That includes links between coordinators in the booth and the sideline, as well as players' in-helmet communications.

Sarkisian said Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, a friend of his, told him that Miami lost communications on its final drive against Indiana because Trump was leaving the game early. Indiana won the title game 27-21.
The White House insisted that didn’t happen, either.
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All The Polls Say So

I’m very confused as to where the fraud is. And all insurance pools rely on people who pay the premiums but don’t use the coverage. This is why your auto insurance rates go up if you use it, but down (or at least not up much) if you don’t. Not using health insurance just means you don’t need it yet. Right? One way to make that happen. Or you can be like Trump, and hate everyone who isn’t just like you. All the polls say so.
amazing -- Karl Rove lists Ken Paxton's scandals: "You've got a guy who has multiple girlfriends and $200,000 worth of home improvements from a corrupt business guy for whom he does favors. My personal favorite is the Uber account in the name of David P. Since he drives around in a car that has [state] license plates, it made it a little difficult to have assignations with one of his mistresses, so the corrupt business guy gives him a fake Uber account and the records of that are now in his impeachment proceedings, so we know how often he went to have sex with Laura Olsen. I mean, can you make this shit up?"
Trump’s endorsee. And having inconvenienced everyone in the stadium with the requisite security measures: Laura Ingraham, but not CNN. Walls. Falling in.
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🤦‍♂️

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ Yes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.🌳  And we’ll use bees for money! And wear onions in our belts!

Meanwhile, watching Rick Steves visit Romania and talk about Ceaușescu's grand, and now empty, palace. And how his vanity projects led to his execution in a rebellion against his egotistical and oppressive rule.  Which somehow seems appropriate now. Not the revolution in the streets; but the one likely to happen at the ballot box.🗳️ 

The exchange unfolded Saturday as Trump spoke with reporters before departing the White House, according to video of the gaggle posted by the White House.

"Do you only want outlets that support you to be a part of the press corps?" the female reporter, who isn't visible on camera, asked.

"No, I want real news, not fake news like you," Trump replied, pointing a finger at the reporter as she tried to ask a follow-up question. "I want, listen, I want real news. I love an open, free press. What I don't like is a fake press where a group like CNN, you people watching, or MSDNC."

...

He continued his jab at MS NOW, saying, "They changed their name to 'NOW,' but you know why they changed it? Because their ratings were so bad."

While Trump tried to continue his rant about "fake news," reporters tried to jump in to ask another question. The female reporter he was answering started to ask, "Do you not want --" before Trump leaned in and told her "quiet" while holding a finger out at her.

"What I don't like is fake news," Trump went on. "And they're fake news, 100 percent. In two years, I doubt they did one good story, and I won the election in a landslide."

He then ended by saying, "What we don't want is we don't want," before pausing to extend his arm all the way out and point directly at the female reporter, and finishing, "fake news."
The walls aren’t closing in; they’re coming down. What Trump wants is for his narcissistic fantasy to match up with reality. Unfortunately for him, that’s not going to happen. Except it’s going to be made clear that Trump is on the ballot.
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ETTD

There’s a correlation here, but undoubtedly some causation, too. Either way, it eventually becomes so apparent you have to pay attention and reconsider your choices. Recognizing the demographics is difficult, but other issues are as hard to see, too; mostly because these issues are complicated; and Trump is a simple-minded man.

Consider Venezuela’s oil. Start with the claim that the Pentagon is vested with ownership of the oil. The idea is to reassure oil companies that America is protecting the oil fields of Venezuela so the companies will send people back in to work there. But there’s more to it than that. The question of security in the field is real; but what about the security of the investment? Oil production is a long term project, and a long term investment. So how does the American government have an ownership interest? The answer from the administration is: the Pentagon. But is it?
The Pentagon ownership has been one of the most puzzling parts of the deal, because the idea that the Department of Defense could own more than a third of a Venezuelan oil company, or any oil company, would have been unthinkable in any previous US administration. Prior to Trump, the defense department had never operated like a private equity fund that could directly own percentages of foreign companies.

But the Pentagon has been transformed. The OSC is under the authority of the deputy defense secretary, Stephen Feinberg, a powerful billionaire who wields the real financial power in the Pentagon and has surrounded himself with former employees from the private equity giant Cerberus, as the Guardian has reported. Feinberg installed a former Cerberus employee, David Lorch, as the head of the OSC.

The Trump administration is using a 1950s law called the Defense Production Act to allow the Pentagon to become a kind of giant investment fund. “It has turned them into a vehicle for ownership of substantial domestic and international companies,” said the former official.

A former Pentagon official familiar with the project said Feinberg and Lorch structured the financial end of Trump’s Venezuela deal. “It is absolutely a Feinberg project,” said the former Pentagon official.

However, the law that created the OSC actually didn’t authorize it to make equity investments, and the Pentagon’s spokesperson told Reuters: “The Office of ​Strategic Capital (OSC) ⁠does not take equity stakes in private companies” in August.

“Congress clearly doesn’t believe that it has given the power to OSC to make equity investments,” said Ashley Deeks, the vice-dean of the University of Virginia law school, who has written about US government ownership stakes in companies for the Harvard National Security Journal.

Since the OSC is not authorized to invest in shares of private companies, the Nabep ownership will be held by an entirely different Pentagon office, called Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (Ibas), according to the former Pentagon official.

But the mission of Ibas has nothing to do with oil. Its job, as it says on its website, is solely to “strengthen the US Defense Industrial Base”.

That incongruity is just one of the reasons major oil companies and investors privately say they are keeping clear of this deal, said Phil Gunson of the International Crisis Group, who has been briefed on the problem. “They are concerned about the irregularities. They are concerned about the terms of the deal. It’s the opacity of the agreement that has serious investors concerned,” he said.

“Whether the Pentagon has the authority to act in this way is debatable,” he added.
So the Pentagon owns the oil because Trump says so? Or somebody does? And that’s good for as long as Trump is in office? Or until Congress objects? Or it’s all a fiction? Who’s on first, here? All oil companies do know is that I Don’t Know’s on third.

"If foreign buyers learn that American diesel comes with a political cancellation clause, they're going to go looking elsewhere," he said.

He said the damage won't end with lost sales. Countries hurt by the ban could look for ways to hit back, and China already has one. Beijing has restricted exports of rare earths and other critical materials during past trade fights. Those minerals end up in "our cars, our semiconductors, our advanced weapons," Wolfers said.

"China's not going to need to cut off every shipment to make its point," he said. "It just needs to remind American firms that two can play at this game."

Wolfers compared the ban to the first round of Trump's trade war. In that round, U.S. import restrictions led other countries to retaliate with restrictions of their own.

"Now we're restricting exports," he said. "The end game of all this is we may not get the supplies we need."
Remember the farmers who lost soybean contracts to China because of Trump’s tariffs? Did they all get those back? How much did that cost them? Why don’t we do that again?

It’s popular to blame Trump voters for this. But Trump has really been even stupider, and surrounded himself with more incompetent people, than really could have been imagined. Well, by some people. It really doesn’t pay to be smug about “I told you so.”

Right now, the difficulty is to realize just how damaging Trump is. Because no matter how bad you think it is, it’s always worse. And nobody deserves this.

And a fourth example:
Who thinks a Democratic Congress is going to stop this stupid “war”? 🙋🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️
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Friday, September 25, 2026

With A “B”

Trump said he’s “on the ballot” only because he fears the inevitable: being a lame duck. Which he will be, starting the day after the election.🗳️ 

Although really, he is now. And his plummeting approval ratings and appeal to voters is just one more sign of his feral cunning.
This one never ceases to surprise me. Did they think Trump was right? Did the entire GOP collectively go dark in the attic, and think tariffs would bring in free money from foreign countries? That’s really the only conclusion I can draw. That, or they really are that dumb. With a “b”.

I would pay money to see Sen. Foghorn Leghorn on a TeeVee news set with any of those he mentioned. They’d lead him around like a dog on a leash. It’s not like he’s any smarter than Bill Maher:
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Every Word Is A Lie, Including “And” And “The”

About that 65 million barrels in Venezuela Trump keeps talking about:
Rystad Energy models Venezuelan crude output reaching 1.6 million bpd by 2028 and 1.8 million bpd by 2030 if capital, rigs and services scale up.

Chevron, Eni, Repsol, Shell and new entrants like GeoPark, Hunt Oil and NABEP are expanding under revised contracts, with NABEP's Lake Maracaibo output already jumping from roughly 90,000 bpd to nearly 200,000 bpd.

Venezuela had just two active drilling rigs as of August, far short of the roughly 50 rigs needed by 2028 and the Hydrocarbons Ministry's 93-rig target.
As well as the millions he says he’s already taken.

The Permian Basin currently produces over 6 million bpd. So Venezuela won’t be up to that level anytime soon. Or ever.
The success of the Trump administration’s blockbuster Venezuela oil deal is riding on fields that are aging, degraded or expensive to access.

The agreement last month with Alejandro Betancourt, an energy mogul with a controversial history, includes 17 fields and gives the US majority control of a huge amount of Venezuela’s oil wealth. Betancourt’s North American Blue Energy Partners has said it aims to more than double crude production, adding about 300,000 barrels a day in just over two years. But conversations with more than a dozen industry executives and analysts suggest that the company will struggle to reach that goal. The names of the 17 fields were identified by Bloomberg News but haven’t been officially listed.

A few legacy sites in the Lake Maracaibo region in northwestern Venezuela, the cradle of the country’s oil industry, have the best chance of rapid output gains. The rest are in the Orinoco Belt in central-eastern Venezuela, an area that’s difficult to drill because it’s remote and produces heavy, tar-like crude that must be extracted using specialized equipment.

Betancourt’s company is under pressure to deliver a quick boost to help calm oil markets upended by the Iran war, and generate enough revenue to win support on the ground. The deal with the US faces blowback from both sides of the political aisle in Venezuela, with some describing it as an abdication of sovereignty. But the Trump administration is betting that the pact will spur other producers to plow money into oil reserves that are now firmly within the US sphere of influence.

“Venezuelan oil production could help diversify away from other geopolitical hotspots, but growth will likely be too gradual to be the only solution given the extent of the Middle East supply disruptions,” Luisa Palacios, a senior research scholar at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said in an interview.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said the Trump-Venezuela oil pact “will greatly benefit both the United States and Venezuela for years to come. This historic deal marks a major step toward stabilizing Venezuela’s economy after years of hyperinflation and almost no new investment, while more than doubling the United States’ oil reserves.”

Among the 17 fields, a handful near Lake Maracaibo — the region that helped turn Venezuela into one of the world’s biggest oil producers and exporters by the middle of the 20th century — could add roughly 200,000 barrels a day in about two years without requiring massive investments, according to industry estimates. That’s still shy of NABEP’s target, and even some of the most promising assets will require rehabilitation after decades of neglect.
BTW, Venezuela produces about 1.2 million bpd. So 1.8 in two years is not a massive increase.

If Trump tells you it’s raining, go outside and see if you get wet.
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So, That Happened…

 First, calm down. The Supreme Court opinion is bad, for reasons the dissent lays out. I will warn you, it’s a legal argument, which means it’s technical. Two of the primary points are statutory interpretation, and equitable relief. You really don’t want me to give you a tutorial on those subjects, do you? Suffice to say I think Professor Vladeck got it exactly right:

This is a bad ruling for all of the reasons Justice Jackson’s dissent make clear. But as both the majority and dissent point out, it’s not likely to have major effects *this* cycle because we’re inside the 90-day NVRA purge window.
So, bad ruling, but what else do you expect? The majority doing the government’s bidding? What else is new? But this one can be corrected by Congress. As I said, it’s statutory interpretation, not a constitutional one. The Congress can more easily change the statute; and should. 

As the dissent points out:
Since 2005, States have used a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) database called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) to ensure that registered voters are American citizens. For most of its life, SAVE consisted almost entirely of immigration records from DHS. In 2025, however, DHS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) decided to connect SSA’s database of master files, including all its sensitive information, to SAVE. A group of organizations sued, arguing that the modifications to SAVE violated various federal privacy laws, and that the staleness of SSA’s citizenship records risked disenfranchising recently naturalized U. S. citizens. After months of litigation, the District Court agreed and vacated the modifications.
There’s a shadow docket critique there; a sting in the tail. It’s in the last sentence: the trial court went through months of litigation. The Sinister Six issued a per curiam order without arguments or briefs. The order stands until the case rises back on regular appeal. In, you know, a couple of years.

As Jackson says, this is not how the Court is supposed to work. But aside from that, DHS had the SAVE database for 20 years; until Trump decided to “weaponize” it and fuck it up. Reason enough to support the trial court ruling; but that’s an extrajudicial matter in this context. The issue here is that statutory interpretation depends on the statute. And Congress can change the statute to tell the Supremes that they got it wrong. Especially when Trump has fucked it up this badly.

I have serious questions about the authority of the Feds to oversee voter rolls.  I understand the value of a database for the states; but this database has proved wholly unreliable. The real issue is: how much authority does Trump try to exert over state election laws? He can’t do it except by going through the courts, and even the Sinister Six aren’t going to give Trump authority the law and the Constitution don’t give him. Not over elections, anyway. They didn’t do it in 2020, after all.

So the real harm of the decision is ultimately to the Supreme Court. Which is a serious problem. Just not the one anyone is looking at; although they should be.
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Checking In

Thanks, Trump—Texas Democrats
A super PAC backed by Senate Republican leaders has booked $117 million in ads to help Paxton and could spend as much as $200 million before Election Day, Punchbowl reported. The group, Texas PAC, is run and partly funded by the Senate Leadership Fund.

Republican spending in the race has reached $160 million, according to Playbook.

Senate Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars backing Cornyn in the primary, hoping to avoid spending hundreds of millions to carry Paxton through a general election, the report said. Meanwhile, Cornyn allies spent $90 million in the primary and runoff reminding voters of Paxton's ethical issues, from a messy divorce to a federal corruption probe.

Paxton emerged from the primary "deeply battered and broke," Punchbown observed, and Republicans now need the same voters to back him.
Paxton won the primary with Trump’s endorsement. Voters are more aware of Paxton’s corruption than ever before, thanks in large part to those primary ads. Talarico is leading in each of the last 10 public polls. And Paxton, it turns out, is a terrible campaigner. Trump in 2026: Speaking of dinner: Speaking of the future: Because the anti-Christ will have come by then? And finally, the Republicans winning message: “But! Joe Biden!”

🤡
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I Thought The Problem Was, The Immigrants Were Eating All Our Beef

But obviously the leopards eating faces, were supposed to eat only the faces of bad immigrants. Not the ones working in the cattle industry.
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People Invited To The State Dinner

... and how they paid for it. Documentary for Melania. Fluffers for Trump. 🤖  Roberts and Coney Barrett were also invited, as judicial bluffers for Trump. Which warrants a few words from Justice Jackson:
 "If we're not careful, the emergency docket can and will become an end run around the standard review process, a special avenue that certain privileged litigants can use selectively," she said, according to The Times. "Why is it that one party should get a fast pass to the Supreme Court of the United States when so many other parties are queued up, waiting patiently for the court's attention?"

She contrasted the current court with its predecessors, who she said "understood that very little good comes from taking an institution that is supposed to be operating outside of the political realm and routinely steering it into the fray."

The present court, she said, "has been noticeably less restrained, especially with respect to pending cases that involve controversial matters."
At this point, for this court, appearance at a state dinner is a political statement.
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Down The Rabbit Hole 🕳️

So:
MS NOW's Jonathan Lemire told "Morning Joe" that the 80-year-old president seemed confused Thursday that the press pool wasn't on the premises despite ordering crews from MS NOW, CNN and Politico banned from the White House, and two reporters from CNN and another from MS NOW were turned away from the state dinner arrivals despite a judge ordering their reinstatement.

"You know, a couple days ago when we had said that banning media outlets would only hurt the president, I mean, here's a perfect example of it," host Joe Scarborough said. "You had some hero shots that he could have had coming out of the White House – video, great video, you know, yeah, state dinners, red carpet. Yeah, but it just hasn't happened, and it hasn't happened because, well, he banned the media."

Lemire offered additional insight based on his sources at the White House.

"His impulsive decision a few days before not consulting with aides to ban three media outlets," Lemire said, and he agreed with Scarborough's assertion that aides disagreed with that move. "Right, no, because they understand that, first of all, he needs the media like he needs oxygen, like, so he would be the one to miss it. In fact, even yesterday I am told he was asking aides, 'Where are the cameras,' because there was no pool camera, and here's why."

"Just to refresh your memory, so yesterday we woke up to the news that the judge had ruled that CNN, MS NOW and Politico should have access restored to the White House, and it took a few hours for that to happen," Lemire added.
A) Trump is losing the thread in real time. He’s giving orders, and then forgets he’s given them.

B) Trump’s staff is doing what they want, without direction from Trump.

These are not mutually exclusive conclusions.
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Thursday, September 24, 2026

Does Trump Even Know What’s Going On In The White House?

Trump: "CNN and MSDNC’s Ratings have dropped considerably. The primary reason is NO CREDIBILITY! They only write badly about a man who won the Election IN A GIANT LANDSLIDE, winning all 7 Swing States, the Popular Vote, and 86% of the Counties, etc., and whose Popularity has grown because of the unprecedented SUCCESS our Country is having on both the World Stage, and at home. CNN and MSDNC, to show you how fake they are, today refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years, the arrival at the White House of the Highly Respected President of China, Xi Jinping, and his beautiful wife, Madam Peng. The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to “TRUMP,” they refused to be there. That’s why they have such poor Ratings. Tonight’s State Dinner at the White House, for President Xi, will be spectacular! The Media will be in attendance. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Or is his short term memory that bad?
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Petulant Toddler With A Shotgun

There are more serious problems with this administration; but this does seem to be a violation of the court order. On some as yet unknown technical point.

Although I fail to understand what part of “procedural due process” they continue to misunderstand.  (For the non-lawyers, essentially the court ruled there is a procedure that must be followed, and that obviates any imperious decision by the President made without notice or chance to appeal.) Again, this is more important for its apparent contempt of the court order than for how it inconveniences CNN.

The effect is to cut off the pool coverage (CNN was providing that feed). Maybe Trump decided this:
Video of rich people coming to a state dinner with the Chinese President was not a good idea, after all. Not while voters can’t afford groceries.

Not a good reason to ignore a court order, though.
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Impeach Todd Blanche

He needs to be at least disbarred:
A three-judge panel for the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals last week sided with a lower court judge who had found the Trump administration violated the law in attempting to deport migrants to countries other than the one they are from, determining they have a right to meaningful opportunity to contest and raise concerns.

But after their victory, lawyers for the migrants had to return to court to block one of the deportations at issue in the case.

Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said ICE “plainly stated that they were treating the decision as if it wasn’t in effect.”

“We filed that in response to the fact that they were clearly moving forward with third country removals, notwithstanding the 1st Circuit’s order and opinion on Friday,” she told The Hill.
Removing persons to third party countries where they have no connection is a clear violation of law, according to the trial court and the First Circuit. According to the DOJ, they could deport one of the parties because the First Circuit ruling hadn’t taken effect yet.
An email from a Justice Department attorney offered a more technical explanation: While the appeals court upheld Murphy’s ruling, it did not specifically lift their initial stay barring it from taking effect during trial.

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals “granted the government’s motion for a ‘stay pending appeal.’ An appeal does not conclude until the mandate issues under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 41 returning the case to district court,” that attorney wrote.

It’s a confusing claim, as the day the ruling was issued the case was remanded back to Murphy’s court.

“They kind of refused to acknowledge that they lost in court, so they came up with this technical point, and then the 1st Circuit took that excuse out from under them,” Realmuto said.

An emergency filing from Realmuto on Wednesday night was swiftly responded to by the court, who at 11:30 p.m. wrote that “consistent with this court’s September 18, 2026, Judgment, the March 16, 2026, stay pending appeal is dissolved.”
The legal term of art here is: “too cute by half.” Although that should be in law Latin (almost Latin), or law French (almost legal, but sounds Continental). 

It was the 11:30 p.m. rebuke of the DOJ that prompted Blanche to show such blatant disrespect for the court. Which is grounds for at least an ethics complaint to the appropriate Bar Association. Especially since he’s the Attorney General of the United States.

He’s making me miss Ed Meese.
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It’s All About Definitions

"Barbarians? Are they at the gate? Is the empire imperiled? Is Israel the only source of civilization in the Middle East?

“Barbarian” comes to us from the Ancient Greeks. It was a demeaning term for non-Greek speakers, comparing their languages to baby talk. The Greeks were civilized, the non-Greeks were…not. See, e.g., “Medea.” Euripedes knew the score. Greece v. the world. How’d that work out for them?
  I’ve seen tweets from people protesting the presence of Muslims in this country. They would happily persecute Muslims here. Trump is happily persecuting anyone here who’s non-white. Is that better because we’re “civilized”? Or because Trump went to war against Iran for Israel? Is it Bibi’s argument that the ignorant racists in this country are “civilized”?
A plug for Elmo, another white supremacist. Birds of a feather, I guess. Punching down and defining the slaughter of innocent people as a defense against genocide. I’m pretty sure that’s what the Nazis told themselves. It wasn’t a defense then, either. War is peace. And Israel needs lebensraum so it can have peace. Or it just needs to define its boundaries very broadly. And pick which of its neighbors get to…live.  🤦‍♂️
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Too Low For Zero

September 15:
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office separately said it had referred 117 cases of potential noncitizen voting to the Texas Attorney General’s Office for investigation. It also confirmed that 578 other registered voters flagged last year as potential noncitizens by a federal database are, in fact, U.S. citizens.
BTW:
Update, Sept. 21, 6 p.m.: On Friday, Sept. 19, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an additional arrest made in Texas. Mexican national Monica Carzoli, 46, a lawful permanent resident, “admitted to registering to vote and then voting in the November 2024 election. Carzoli was arrested on criminal charges in Del Rio,” according to a news release by federal officials.
No word on whether or not she voted for Trump, which would probably make it okay.

So, Nevada: 16,000 down to 185 down to zero. Texas: 2274 down to 117 down to…? 8 illegal voting cases, and 117 undecided. 8. And who did they vote for?

Meanwhile, the DHS “system” for finding non-citizen voters…sucks. Why do we have the DHS, again? Confidence in their work is so low it’s underground, now.
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When Someone Tells You Who They Are…

... believe them.

The man who says the whole world is lying, and only he is telling the truth, is not a man on the side of truth.
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AI Is Wholly Amoral

Without some idea of ethics, all ideas are equally contentless.

And that’s the problem. 🤖
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“I Am Holier Than Thou”

Go figure. No wonder Trump listens to this guy. I guess this is why the Ambassador from Israel wants Mamdani arrested.
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The Kind Of Polling…

...that makes Democrats want to vote, because maybe everyone else will.
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Suckers And Losers And Fake News

And elitist socialists. Nobody could have foreseen. That’s kinda the point.
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We Finally Have The Constitutional Crisis We Were Warned About…

And nobody is noticing.

But the press is very concerned about itself.
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Trump Mulls Export Ban

Yeah, do that.
"There isn’t one big, frictionless domestic oil and gas market for Trump to micromanage," wrote the board. In Houston, they continued, there is surplus production of diesel, "but infrastructure bottlenecks and regulatory barriers like the Jones Act make it difficult to easily transport it to, say, Boston and the rest of the East Coast, so we export the rest to buyers across the planet. Hang out in Galveston and you can watch those diesel-filled tankers sail across the horizon."

At the same time, the board wrote, East Coast states are reliant on importing diesel because they can't make enough to meet demand. "Banning U.S. exports would make those global prices skyrocket — sending the price at the pump along the Atlantic coast skyrocketing, too."

States and cities that produce a lot of petroleum might temporarily get relief at the pump, the board noted, but it wouldn't last: "Because we make more than we can use, stockpiles would build, storage tanks fill up, and refiners would have the untimely incentive to actually produce less. Meanwhile, the energy industry could be scared away from making any future investments in refining or export capacity."
So nothing would change before November; and then things would only get worse. The administration could waive the Jones Act, but diesel is still priced by the global market. Unless Trump imposes price controls and forces suppliers to ship from Texas to New England at an artificially suppressed price, nothing changes. And Trump needs congressional authority to do that. 

It would also be socialism, wouldn’t it?
And it will go down big in Texas.
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It’s A Representative Government

Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka: "Everybody is obsessing with the price of gas -- this is much bigger than the price of gas. Think about what would happen to the price of gasoline if those missiles were nuclear tipped. The idea that you're experiencing problems would be absolutely incomparable."
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You Know They Want To

Or Trump could put him on a small boat in the Caribbean.
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Wednesday, September 23, 2026

Stranger Than Fiction 🤡

 I thought this was a joke.

Mostly because of this: I didn’t think anybody could be dumber than Tuberville.

The race to the bottom continues.
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🥶Somebody’s Gonna Have To Explain It To Me

Why is Trump the only person in this picture who is dressed like it’s February? In Chicago.

Is he cold? The high in D.C. today was 66F. Even in Houston, that’s not considered cold.

Is he too fragile to handle 66F?
Or is he just too old?
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Geography Lesson

The only difference(s) between North Korea and Iran is(are):

North Korea is half a world away from Israel. And the Strait of Hormuz.

Oh, and North Korea actually has “nuclear tipped” missiles.
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“AMERICA! LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!”

Thought I’d heard the last of that in the early ‘70’s. Then again, I never thought I’d be hearing about Commies under the bed again. Old Boomers, man. They’re the worst.

Next up: Jane Fonda is “Hanoi Jane.” Again. Everything old is pointless and still old, again.
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So Many EO’s To Repeal….

I didn’t realize he’d decided all government documents must now refer to “SI.” 

He’s determined to make us all as stupid as he is.
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Survival Of The Fittest…

... and fairest.

Fuck the rest o’ y’all.
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Of Martial Law And 🦆🦆🦆

That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works! 😈
Ticktin, who went to military school with Trump as a teenager, told The Atlantic that one scenario this fall ends with Trump declaring martial law on or around Nov. 3. "Either martial law, or step aside," Ticktin said.

Asked about the prospect of riots if Trump tried to overturn the results, Ticktin said he wasn't worried. "Believe me, our armed forces are a lot bigger than they are," he said.
Ooh, tough guy!
Root, a LindellTV host and Gateway Pundit columnist, has pushed Trump to declare a "national-security emergency" to impose voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements, and the right-wing pundit told The Atlantic he sends his columns directly to Trump by email and text, and Trump regularly reposts them on Truth Social.

"I hope he takes orders from Wayne Allyn Root," Root said.
🤡
Trump apparently hasn't ruled it out. While interviewing the president last month on his radio program, Root floated the idea of declaring a national emergency to seize control of the election, and Trump sounded intrigued by the idea. "Let me just say that stranger things have happened, okay?" Trump said. "I'll leave it at that."

Experts say such a declaration wouldn't give Trump the power he'd need because emergency powers are limited to specific authorities granted by Congress, and none of them covers elections.
Too many kids who never grew up, learning about “law” from TV and movies.

“Martial law” is not a legal concept in Anglo-Saxon law. It is present in some European countries because of the Roman law of the Empire. Rome allowed for a diktator who could take full control in a time of crisis. Julius Caesar took control that way, and simply never gave it back.

Which is one cautionary tale about the office. The other is that the idea was to defend the empire in a crisis; and when the crisis had passed, the office dissolved. But, effectively, the diktator usurps the power of the sovereign. Even in Britain today the king has authority that cannot be usurped; well, not without a civil war. (England is sometimes more Catholic than the Pope in its historical and cultural allegiance to the long defunct empire. But not in this respect.) In America, we, the people are sovereign. To allow martial law would be to usurp our sovereignty.

The legal concept of a “national emergency” under our Constitution is a statutory one. There’s no provision in Article II that gives the president the powers of a diktator. And here’s the rub; elections in America are creatures of law. Creatures of statute, particularly. The constitution gives the states authority over national elections, with Congress able to exert limited control. 

The President has no authority over elections whatsoever. The President only has the authority to declare national emergencies based on the authority Congress has granted by statute. He has no authority to declare “martial law” because it’s not a legal concept under our Constitution or laws.

Since elections are creatures of law, they can only be challenged in courts of law. And the courts (well, excluding Thomas and Alito) are not going to recognize any declaration of “martial law” as valid. Nor is there any statute giving the President authority over elections. If there was, Trump would have simply decreed the 2020 presidential election invalid, and actually refused to leave the White House (another paranoid conspiracy, but from Trump’s opponents). He didn’t declare martial law, either; although he still insists evidence of fraud in 2020 is still being found.

So the real risk in November is for Trump. Nothing Congress does before January can’t be undone after January. Nothing Trump does can’t be overruled by Congress, including refusing to end the standoff (which is all it is) with Iran. Maybe Mike Johnson will try not to seat the next House. But when they are seated, will they expel him? Maybe John Thune will try to challenge the Democrats elected to the Senate. But when they are seated, how will they react to Thune?

Actions always have consequences. Extreme actions prompt extreme consequences. And fucking with representation in Congress, on purely partisan grounds, is not exactly party outreach material.

Republicans are already turning away from Trump in a panic as reality breaks down the walls of their assumptions. Are they really going to engage in a futile effort to protect Trump in January? Or are they going to leave him to the consequences of his actions?

People tend to act from self-interest, after all. And Trump is already a lame duck. 🦆 
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The Odds Congress Cancels That Ballroom Rise Daily

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Aiming For Father Of Dobbs

JUST IN: In a deeply embarrassing and un-American court filing, the Trump regime is now arguing that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico can be stripped of White House access in the name of “national security.”

In the new filing, DOJ argues that even reporting that is accurate but contains sensitive national security information can cause harm, and says limiting reporters’ physical access can reduce their ability to obtain such information.

The DOJ uses Donald Trump’s deranged Truth Social posts in the filing to make its argument.

The regime is asking the judge to reject the outlets’ emergency bid to restore their White House access and is also arguing that longstanding precedent protecting press access was “wrongly decided.”

In other words, the Trump regime is afraid of the American people learning the realities of the failed war in Iran and Trump’s disastrous presidency.
In other, other words, they’re aiming at Alito.

Trump has been perfectly clear about why he banned three media outlets from the White House: he doesn’t like what they say about him. There’s evidence for that. There is no evidence that any one of the three poses a serious national security risk by being in some areas of the White House.

What Trump’s DOJ wants to do is to essentially overturn the Pentagon Papers decision. But, as I say, there’s no evidence here that national security issues are involved. That’s supposed to matter.

Alito has made it clear the evidentiary record that makes it to the Supremes doesn’t matter at all. Then again, so has the whole court, when Alito gets to write the majority opinion.

The Supreme Court is supposed to rule on the law, after the fact record is settled by the trial court. There may be insufficient evidence for a legal ruling, but the appellate courts are bound by the evidence admitted in the trial court.

Alito isn’t. He’s notoriously steeped in MAGA conspiracy theories, as evidenced most recently by his dissent in the mail ballot decision. DOJ is trying to tee this up for Alito and Thomas, hoping they will bring along at least Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and Barrett. I think that’s a long shot, but it’s their strategy; that much is plain.

There should be some evidence on which to base a national security concern presented in the trial court. The DOJ has only vague hand waving about the White House being a secure building. That much is true. But that’s an argument for excluding the press and the public from the building (nobody walks blithely around Langley. For decades NSA didn’t officially have a building.). If you let the press in, even on the basis of press credentials, you can’t start excluding them because you don’t like what they say. Again, that eliminates the purpose of  “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” (Interesting the amendment focuses on Congress, when Trump thinks he can make laws. But if Congress can’t do it, neither can the POTUS.) So, will Alito dissent when this case reaches the Supremes? One can only hope he has to.
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Tuesday, September 22, 2026

How Does Health Insurance Work Again?

Dr Oz: "There are five times more people in parts of Obamacare in Florida than live in the state. It's impossible More than a third of people on Obamacare have never used the insurance policy once. If you were gonna pay your hard-earned money to buy insurance, would you ever use it? The answer is yes."
I’ve used my car insurance five times in 50 years. I’ve used my home insurance once (a drunk drove into my house). I still haven’t used my life insurance. 

Obviously I’m committing fraud. 

(I pay for my Medicare, and use it a lot more than I ysed health insurance before I went on Medicare. Probably has something to do with being 71 instead of 31. Ya think? Oz clearly doesn’t.)
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AI 🤖 And Greenland: Connecting Nothing With Nothing

Nope.
Cognizant of the rights and obligations deriving from the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, and

considering that Greenland through the Kingdom of Denmark has been a part of NATO since then;

Recalling the long history of cooperation between the Parties based on their deep respect for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, as well as the more than eighty years of close defense cooperation between them, which has contributed to strengthening the security and stability of the United States, Greenland, and the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty area;

Reaffirming the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark, and recognizing that the People of Greenland constitute a people pursuant to international law with the right to self- determination;

Noting that the procedure for Greenlandic independence is set out in Article 21 of Act no. 473 of 12 June 2009 on Greenland Self-Government;

Recognizing the Parties’ respective obligations and commitments under international law as well as national legal frameworks, including all existing agreements between the Parties;

Recognizing the need to protect the pristine environment of Greenland and reaffirming Article VI concerning Protection of the Environment in the 1991 Memorandum of Understanding, as well as the 2004 Joint Declaration;

Recognizing the economic, social, and cultural rights of the People of Greenland, including with respect to their lands and their way of life, including hunting, fishing, and other traditional, cultural, historical, future activities, and developments;

Considering that the Defense Arrangements have promoted stability and well-being in the North Atlantic Treaty area by uniting the Parties’ efforts for collective defense and preserved peace and security as well as developed their collective capacity to resist armed attack;

Recognizing the United States’ indispensable historical and ongoing contributions to the security and defense of Greenland and the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty area, including significant sacrifices and billions of dollars spent over the better part of a century, dating back to before World War II and the establishment of NATO, and the irreplaceable role the United States military plays in the defense of the territory of Greenland now and in the future;

Acknowledging the reopening of the U.S. Consulate in Nuuk and the U.S. contributions to mutual scientific and educational cooperation and exchanges, minerals cooperation, cooperation on economic development and business promotion, and cultural and local partnerships together with Greenland;

Acknowledging as well Greenland’s contribution to the Parties’ mutual security interests and its consequent sharing of the associated risks and responsibilities, and the commitment of the Parties to continuing close cooperation within NATO in ensuring North Atlantic security, as set forth in the 2004 Igaliku Agreement;

increased military activity and growing strategic interest in the region; Recognizing the Parties’ common goal of international peace and peaceful co-existence, and respecting the important contribution of Greenland to this goal;

Reaffirming the common goal of maximizing real, tangible, and substantial benefits to the People of Greenland from the Defense Areas;

Noting that the security situation in the Arctic is changing and that more efforts are needed to ensure security there in the future; Recognizing the Parties’ shared interest in allowing the United States to have military access to the territory of Greenland to the extent necessary to defend the North Atlantic Treaty area, Greenland, and the American continent, including through establishment of a Golden Dome defense system; and

Wishing therefore to further amend and supplement the Defense Arrangements, so as to strengthen them and reinforce their permanent nature, Hereby agree as follows:

...

This Agreement amending and supplementing the Defense Arrangements shall facilitate the ability of the Parties to take any measures necessary or appropriate to carry out expeditiously their respective and joint responsibilities in Greenland, including to defend the North Atlantic Treaty area, Greenland, and the American continent, while respecting the interests of and providing benefits for the Greenlandic society.

II.

NATO engagement

The Parties support a stronger NATO engagement in the Arctic, including as regards planning, presence, exercises, and joint intelligence gathering.

III.

Definitions

For the purposes of this Agreement:

“1949 North Atlantic Treaty” means the North Atlantic Treaty signed at Washington on April 4, 1949.

“1951 Defense Agreement” means the Agreement Pursuant to the North Atlantic Treaty between the Kingdom of Denmark and the United States Concerning the Defense of Greenland, signed at Copenhagen on April 27, 1951.

“1991 Memorandum of Understanding” means the Memorandum of Understanding between the Kingdom of Denmark, including the Home Rule Government of Greenland, and the United States Concerning the Use of Sondrestrom Aviation Facility, Kulusuk Airfield and Other Matters Related to United States Military Activities in Greenland, done in Copenhagen, March 13, 1991.

“2004 Igaliku Agreement” means the Agreement between the Kingdom of Denmark, including the Home Rule Government of Greenland, and the United States to Amend and Supplement the 1951 Defense Agreement, Including Relevant Subsequent Agreements Related Thereto, signed at Igaliku on August 6, 2004.

“2004 Joint Declaration” means the Joint Declaration on Cooperation on the Environment in Greenland between the Parties issued on August 6, 2004 in Igaliku.

“2020 Diplomatic Notes” means the exchange of diplomatic notes between the Kingdom of Denmark and the United States concerning contracting, dated October 27, 2020.

“Defense Area” means an area in Greenland where the United States establishes and/or operates a military base consistent with the Defense Arrangements.

“Defense Arrangements” means the 1951 Defense Agreement, together with subsequent amending and supplementing agreements and related non-binding arrangements between the Parties, as set out in Annex 1.
Six agreements since 1949, including and beginning with the NATO treaty. This agreement also confirms the independence of Greenland, and the importance of NATO to the regional security upheld by this agreement, and in general.

Did Trump even read what he signed? Never mind; silly question.
Confirmed, then: Trump has artificial intelligence. Just underlining the point.
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