Thursday, June 05, 2025

This Just Gets Better And Better 🤣🤣”

 Guess who?

The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!
That’s all you got?

Weak sauce.
The petulance of children.
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Lutnick v Trump

Lutnick: Trump: The fight is over who is the stupidest member of the Administration. 

Trump wins. Barely.
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🤦‍♂️ /🍿

🤦‍♂️  (No, I don’t generally approve the sentiment. Yes, sometimes it is the only thing you can say.) 🍿 
Posted by at 1 comment:

GOP Inaction

Fuck the poor. Fuck all y’all.

 
 
Old times there are not forgotten….
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🌮

TACO stands firm:
“I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal,” Trump posted.

“The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries.” The president added, “There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products.”

“Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined. We will be represented by Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Jamieson Greer,” he said.
Once they decide on a place, they can decide on the size and shape of the table. And the seating arrangement. (Talks like this should be handled by staff. Name players should only show up for the cameras and signatures. And then it has to go to Congress. So really, this is an announcement about nothing. And China knows it. Trump doesn’t.)
Trump noted, “During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated. As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing.”
How nice for you.
On a global note, Trump said, “The conversation was focused almost entirely on TRADE. Nothing was discussed concerning Russia/Ukraine, or Iran.”
How single-minded you are.
His last stream-of-conscious thought from the lengthy post was, “We will inform the Media as to scheduling and location of the soon-to-be meeting. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
There is no spoon. But Trump desperately wants us to see one, anyway.
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Polls Are Useless: A Continuing Series

 

 That’s the chart; this is the text:

Here's the one chart you need to see:

- Abrego Garcia deported
- SCOTUS ruling gets press
- News coverage shot up
- Google search traffic shot up
- Trump approval fell down

and then

- News media moved on
- Trump immigration approval went back up

Exactly as predicted by the survey experiment.
First: who is surprised.? “News” is what is “new information.” It eventually, isn’t, which is when it stops being news. Abrego Garcia is “old news,” which is an oxymoron more than a noun. What is meant is that it is no longer “new,” therefore no longer “news.” The error is in our use of the word “news.”

“Faith” is a similar case. Faith is a synonym for “trust.” “Trust” can be a legal arrangement, and in that case it’s a noun. Usually, though, it’s a verb; it’s something you do. So should faith be: an activity, not an object. But people want to say they “have faith,” the way I have this phone I’m typing on, in my hand. I can say, rather archaically, that I have trust in my friends, but if I said I had faith in them, my meaning might be taken differently. If I say I have faith in God, and trust in God, I’m taken to mean two very different things. To me, the sentences are interchangeable. But to most people, “faith” is a synonym for “belief.” Likewise, especially on social media, “news” is understood as a synonym for “most important information.” But really it just means “newest information.” Which is mostly just gossip.

So the “news media” moved on from Abrego Garcia. Yes, and? Polls reflect this? How? Ask a different group of people the same question, get a different answer, and…you’re surprised? Pollsters never ask the same question of different cohorts back to back to back. They ask the question, publish the results, and declare they voice the vox populi. Oh, there may be multiple polls about who’s winning the horse race in campaign season. That’s where their money is. But polls about public sentiment? That just to provide fodder for news stories. Once the question is answered, it’s no longer news, it’s “settled fact.” Or, ask the same questions later to a different group and: hey, presto! Public sentiment has changed! New settled fact!

They might as well be reading chicken entrails and tea leaves. And that might be news: that everything old is new again.
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Wednesday, June 04, 2025

Time Marches On

 A few days ago a CNN pollster (?) was appalled at the Democrats for letting people think and poll (per a new poll) that Trump was doing a good job with the economy.

But economies change, and polls are a snapshot of the past. Economies are constantly moving into the future:

Generally, Erin, furniture, footwear, toys, and clothing," said Seroka. "Seasonally, we've blown right past summer fashion. Now our eyes are set on back to school, and that product should be here on the docks right now. Then Halloween to follow. As you and I have talked about before, May, that we just closed out, is usually the time where orders go into factories in Asia for the all-important year-end holiday seasons. I'm not seeing that happen right now."

"So is it fair to say — I mean, where are we in this process, you know, when the the tariffs on China were 145 percent and then Trump cut them to 30 percent and, you know, things have been all over the map, but any kind of reprieve that some would have expected we're going to get, that we would have gotten from that, you're saying you haven't seen it?" said Burnett. "So are we at a point where we're not far away from there being shortages of certain things or prices going up sharply for what is here?"

"We're cutting it close," said Seroka. "And realistically, what we'll probably see are fewer selections on store shelves and online buying platforms and likely higher prices. And you're exactly right that with this flow of cargo now, we're coming up really close on some very key arrival dates that aren't happening. And as a leading indicator to the U.S. economy, we see this activity three months before the ground truth happens here on the shores. And it's slow."
That’s port of Los Angeles executive director Gene Seroka. Sadly, that future is liable to leave a mark.
Posted by at 2 comments:

Anxiety Strikes Deep

KENNEDY: What's the purpose of reciprocity then?
Economic anxiety has entered the chat in the Senate. And afflicted the Secretary of Education. It was a big day for anxiety in Congress. Put a pin in that one. Secretary McMahon did not have a good day.
Takano: Is it legal for you to punish a private entity for having a different viewpoint than the administration?

McMahon: I don’t know what you mean by punish
Put a pin in that one, too. It was a treat to best your feet in the Mississippi mud?
Lee: How about the book from Ruby Bridges?

McMahon: I haven’t read that

Lee: Have you learned about Ruby Bridges?

McMahon: If you have specific examples—

Lee: That was a specific example
Can she explain what she means by “accurately”?
McMahon: There are issues within states they should look at

Ansari: That sounds like a yes
I guess she didn’t have a card for that one. Neither did MTG. Sen. Kennedy is anxious to eat his cake and have it, too. I always like to end on a lighter note.
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I’m Gonna Say It

 Oliver Willis:

If the people we hired to fight republicans are bad at the job it’s our duty to say so 

emptywheel replies: 

Oliver keeps outsourcing his agency.

Not
His
Job

It's pundits like this that explain why Dems will never match right wing online pushback.
"Online pushback” is a sign of being terminally online, just like Beltway gossip (e.g., “Trump is mad at Elmo” or “Jake Tapper wrote a book”) is terminally out of touch with America. Both imagine an America (or a Texas, a California, a take-your-pick,) that exists only in the established narrative, and every two years they fit the last election into that narrative; whatever it takes.

But that’s not to say ew is wrong.

Oliver replies to ew:
Lol apparently it’s my job to fight the Republican Party instead of it being the job of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Barack Obama and others. My job is to advocate for progress in America. That means fighting the right and calling out their Democratic Party enablers.
ew...
Oops!!!

That "instead of" is the tell.

Dude. You're not just a citizen but you're a pundit.

Start acting like one instead of outsourcing all your agency to other people.

EVEN MERE CITIZENS are doing more than you are.
...replies to Oliver:
Right wingers manage to serve as assignment editors for vast swaths of journalism.

And left wingers? Whine and demand only elected politicians do the hard work.
Both sides here seem to think the re-election of Trump is a sign of cosmic, if not apocalyptic, doom looming on the horizon; rather than mere unfortunate circumstances. In hindsight Biden really should have followed LBJ’s example and bowed out of the race for another term altogether. LBJ didn’t get the credit he deserved for improving America; and until Biden’s administration, I thought that was due to Vietnam. But a lot of what LBJ did created the country we accept as a given, now. It took a long time for PBS and Medicare/Medicaid and fair housing and civil rights and, basically, our modern world, to become “normal” and “given.” The same country Trump is trying to disassemble, which is why so many voters have buyer’s remorse. What LBJ and Biden did wasn’t/won’t be apparent for years; and as Nixon followed LBJ (voters rejected HHH, his VP, too), Trump followed Biden. And when Nixon couldn’t buffalo North Vietnam and end the war quickly, he struck the deal that ended with the helicopters leaving people behind in ‘75 (Ford’s term, as it turned out), and kept the war going just so that didn’t happen until he was re-elected.

In some ways, Trump is just a more useless Nixon. Except “Trump” doesn’t rhyme with “Nixon.”

The Democratic Party was fractious and broken in ‘68, amid the deaths of MLK and RFK, and Daley’s police riot in Chicago, and “Clean Gene” trying to rally a youth vote that couldn’t yet vote. It got worse in ‘72 (McGovern carried Massachusetts; and no other state). Carter lasted one term; Clinton had two. Obama defeated Hillary; and Biden defeated Trump, and convinced himself he alone was the Trump killer.

And now Democrats are winning every special election being held; but Dems are in disarray, because they don’t listen to people with BlueSky or Twitter accounts. Very Serious People who think Pundits are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

And if there is a simple summation, it’s this: that “idea” is how we got MAGA.

The country doesn’t need an anti-Trump. It doesn’t need yet another attempted takeover of the Democratic Party (‘68; ‘72; ‘88; 204-2008. Been there, done that; bought ALL the t-shirts.). Candidates win elections. Not Big Ideas. Not Big Concepts. Candidates. The absolutely ONLY thing Trump did right in 2024 was deny all knowledge of PROJECT 2025. It’s the only thing that would have stopped him. Otherwise he didn’t really campaign, and voters didn’t really pay attention to the ineptitude of his campaign. They just refused to vote for the Black woman, despite how qualified she was. Kamala Harris could never overcome being black and female. Maybe she could after another 4 years of Trump. (I’m pretty sure that’s how Obama won, TBH.)

We’ll see if she even gets the chance.
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.02%

If I’m doing my math right. Powell doesn’t set interest rates. A committee of the Federal Reserve does. And the Supremes made it clear even a unitary executive can’t fire the Fed Chair. So mad Lear rages in the hurricane in his mind.
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Tuesday, June 03, 2025

Does This Look Funny To You?

Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to. Or is it never answer a question you don’t know the answer to? Meanwhile, somewhere outside Austin: Tr: “PLEASE BUY MY CARS! PLEASE?!🙏"
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Let’s Catch Up On The “BBB”

Is he always this confident? Or does he have no clue whatsoever how to govern? This looks problematic. Maybe Stephen Miller should give them his “pep talk.” He could start with MTG: And why not check on Lindell while we’re here? No, “It’s only words” is not a good defense to libel. Because libel is “only words.” But everything Lindell said and what he was going to say in court was never going to happen. The court was never going to allow information irrelevant to the claims, or the defense, to get before the jury. 
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I Wondered When We’d Get To

...non-brown people.* Bo French is:
Chairman Tarrant County GOP. The largest red county in America. Father. Entrepreneur. CEO. Investor. Making Tarrant County inhospitable to democrats.
And to non-white people in general.

He seems like a nice guy. You know…almost human.
Or maybe too human. Because, really, only humans are so disgustingly inhumane.

*Yes, they are all U.S. citizens. This is just GOP essence of Stephen Miller. Joni Ernst is indefensible as a public servant; but this is the real cancer in the body politic.
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Dear College Students:

Leavitt: That’s what I was talking about. There were formatting errors. Those errors were updated by the proper policy components. So, exactly what I said took place
Don’t try this at home; or in the classroom.

It won’t work.
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It Probably…

 …cost Elmo Tesla. But it doesn’t matter that DOGE cost government money, rather than saving it:

The "Morning Joe" host predicted that Musk's cuts would fall far short of the $2 trillion in savings promised by Musk, and he gloated at new reporting that shows DOGE fell far short of those lofty goals — and had actually added another layer of bureaucracy to the federal government.

"I've got to tell you, really, it is, it's actually a scene out of a comedy, except, of course, the consequences are very real, very real, they're very significant," Scarborough said. "But again, this is what happens when you go into a government organization thinking you can wield a chainsaw and change things in two, three, four weeks.

"Again, not a great deal of cost savings. In fact, many people believe the consequences of the cuts will end up costing more than the proposed cuts themselves, the ones that are actually real. But in this case, who would believe it? DOGE creates a new layer of bureaucracy."

"These are all things that we all predicted before," Scarborough added. "When Donald Trump, you know, reportedly turns and says, was this all just BS, the saving of a trillion? Yes it was. Yes, it was BS. We told everybody it was BS."

Many of the cuts imposed by DOGE were undone by the courts, and the legal challenges cost taxpayers millions, and thousands of workers endured pain and uncertainty while those lawsuits played out, and MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilemann said the saga would likely play a major role in next year's elections.

"I think when the whole thing is said and done, it's going to net-net out," Heilemann said. "Not only that, the savings have been have been minuscule. In fact, they're not, they're not going to be savings. They're not going to end up having cost the taxpayer a ton of money, having gone through this exercise. But the most interesting thing is the thing you said about Donald Trump. Because all that, all I'm focused on now is what happens between now and next November. There is no doubt that Elon Musk and DOGE are going to be at the center of the Democratic attempts to retake the House."

"Are Elon Musk and Donald Trump going to stay together, or are we seeing the signs of an increasingly growing split? That question, was he always just full of BS?" Heilemann added. "That's the first stage of not just the separation, but a divorce, I think, between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and when these two turn on each other, God knows what's going to happen to the politics for the Republican Party."
DOGE is still there:
Picture this: You’re a researcher who has spent years developing a grant proposal, gone through layers of expert review, and received National Science Foundation (NSF) approval. Then some kid barely out of college — whose main qualification appears to be founding a company that puts ads on the blockchain — logs into a Zoom meeting, pays more attention to his fingernails than the discussion, and kills your grant with an uninterested thumbs down.

Welcome to science under DOGE.
Elmo has left the building. That ignorant kid is still there.

Hell, Elmo is still there:
DOGE is still turning thumbs down on things it doesn’t understand (what, you thought shutting down nuclear security was a one off?). Elmo has contacts in the government (and contracts with them, for Starlink and Spacex). His face is gone, his access remains. Repeat any gossip you want about Trump and Musk’s “relationship.” The fact is, Trump has no interest in governance and Elmo is the rats in the government walls, the better to fatten his pockets. Hell, he’s got the FTC investigating companies that won’t advertise on Twitter (something an ordinary FTC wouldn’t touch with a club). He’s got the State Department pressuring countries to buy Starlink. He may yet run Tesla into the ground, but his reputation as a tech mogul genius remains as impervious to facts as Trump’s reputation as a brilliant businessman and politician. 

The Morning Joe crew is clueless. This is a brave new world of government corruption, and you don’t need to be seen to remain a player. You can thank technology for that, but this remains America, which runs on one motto: “Money Talks.”
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Monday, June 02, 2025

Did We Do This To Ourselves?

Or are these people just a bunch of idiots? I hope his lawyers got paid in advance.

Remember what I said about what a hell the Administration must be with Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff?
Stephen Miller summoned 50 senior ICE officials from around the country for a bonkers emergency meeting about deportation numbers, according to a new report from the conservative Washington Examiner. One official after the meeting: “They’ve been threatened, told they’re watching their emails and texts and Signals. That’s what is horrible about things right now. It’s a fearful environment. Everybody in leadership is afraid. There’s no morale. Everybody is demoralized.”

… “Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. ‘You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.’ He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down. Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?'”

… One official stood up and told Miller that DHS and the WH said they were only supposed to be focused on migrants who had criminal records: “Miller said, ‘What do you mean you’re only going after criminals?’ Miller got into a little bit of a pissing contest. ‘That’s what Tom Homan says every time he’s on TV: ‘We’re going after criminals,'” the ICE official told Miller.”

… Apparently what they say to the public is not the same as what they are saying internally to senior ICE officials.
Now I think when Miller dies, Satan is going to move out of hell. Oh, and I found out what Lindell blamed on Satan. Probably not what you think:
Outside the courthouse, Lindell was asked who masterminded the alleged theft of the 2020 election from Trump: “Who’s behind it all? Satan. This is a nation that’s turn its back on God.” He then claimed that he is being railroaded because the state of Colorado deleted all the evidence that he needed to prove his innocence. Things are going well.

He’s a former cocaine addict, you know. 

Maybe we did do it to ourselves:

I am not a lawyer so I don’t know what it would take to use the 25th amendment, but as a psychologist, I could put together one heck of a report of factual evidence that would indicate this person does not have the mental clarity to have a job where he wasn’t closely supervised.

Not even vaguely how the 25th works. 

The 25th allows the President to declare himself unable to do his job; or the VP and a majority of the Cabinet Secretaries tell the President Pro Tem of the Senate, and the Speaker, that the President can’t do the job. If the President tells them he can do the job, and the VP and the majority of the Cabinet beg to differ, the matter goes to Congress. Have you seen the Congress conduct an impeachment inquiry? Or trial? And this would be the whole Congress, at once. Not half, and then half.

I mean, it ain’t gonna be a court of law.

Not that I doubt that Trump “does not have the mental clarity to have a job where he wasn’t closely supervised.”

Speaking of “closely supervised”:

I'm writing a piece abt AI. But I don't actually use AI at all. Not really for any ideological reason when it comes to basic search type stuff. I just haven't. So i tried asking a few questions to ChatGPT and I asked for suggestions of books on a topic. out of 8 at least 1, the first one I ...

2/ checked because the title seemed weird to me turns out not to exist. This is a pretty basic AI thing obviously. So I was seeing how quickly I could get to one. And that was pretty quick.
Which means AI is already as sentient as the average college student. But it’s hardly going to be taking over the world anytime soon.
Posted by at 2 comments:

🤦‍♂️

The man convicted on 34 felony counts and found liable for civil fraud in his business dealings going back years is the man re-establishing our allegiance to justice? What fundamental allegiance to the concept of justice and our system of justice do we owe? Is ours a government of laws? Or of a man? But Stephen Miller told him that’s what the Constitution says, so the courts can fuck right off. If they don’t, the blame is on them.
"If the Courts somehow rule against us on Tariffs, which is not expected, that would allow other Countries to hold our Nation hostage with their anti-American Tariffs that they would use against us," Trump wrote in a social media post. "This would mean the Economic ruination of the United States of America!"
All Trump understands is that nothing is ever his fault. Ever. And like the hypothetical man without fear who stumbles needlessly into danger, the man who can’t be responsible for his actions needlessly creates danger for others which he’ll never accept he caused.

And we’ve made that man POTUS. Again. Same song, second verse; a little bit louder, a little bit worse. Do we expect the world to go back to normal like everything was before, after we’ve done this twice? And this time with malice to the world economy? A world rapidly making arrangements to work around us. Do we understand that? Are we aware of the consequences of our concerns for Joe Biden’s age and the price of eggs, and the fact we wouldn’t dare elect a woman POTUS? Are we aware we may have royally fucked ourselves for a generation?


Sometimes I blame Trump. Sometimes I just think “we, the people” are just too stupid to be a democracy.  I mean, I thought Brexit was stupid. Now I’m beginning to see America said: “Hold my beer.”🍺 Except we don’t even accept that we did that.

Makes Trump almost our avatar, doesn’t it?
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Fear Of A Brown (or Just Non-Authoritarian) America 🇺🇸

Stephen “Who let these brown people into my country?” Miller.
The Washington Examiner (the conservative news outlet) reports that Stephen Miller screamed at ICE officials: "What do you mean you're going after criminals? Why aren't you at Home Depot? Why aren't you at 7-Eleven?" Kinda blows up the narrative that they care about public safety.
Stephen “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” Miller.
I wondered how long it would take to reconsider a law firm that made such concessions so quickly. If we didn’t have so much trade, we wouldn’t have a trade deficit. Hey! Presto! 🪄
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“Life’s A Bitch, And Then You Die”

 The GOP platform, 2026.

And what are the Democrats doing about it?

Obama can do it, but mean wins against anyone but another Obama. Just like no one but Trump is going to lead MAGA.

Although I’m not sure calling a bully a “bully,” or a xenophobic racist a racist xenophobe, is “being mean.”

Chuck Schumer was on MSNBC this morning, full of righteous indignation over the attack on marchers in Boulder, and the rise of violent antisemitism in America, and rightly so. Don’t see why that same indignation can’t be directed at TACO Trump. 🌮
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Living In Interesting Times

 Senate Republicans might force a serious fight over Trump’s “big, beautiful bill, which could mean it never passes, because the House passed their version by only one vote.

But would the Senate (and the House) show as much resolve if this happened?

Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters that “the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at.” During a recent congressional hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem incorrectly defined habeas corpus as “a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their rights.”
("Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller”? What a hell that White House must be.)

One problem:
The suspension clause can only be invoked by Congress, not the president, despite what the Trump administration has said. It also specifically limits the circumstances under which habeas can be suspended, rather than revoking habeas corpus in its entirety, because the founders wanted to ensure that judicial review of detention cases could still continue even in a true emergency. The reality is that the Trump administration is likely hoping that “no one actually pays close attention to the text,” Vladeck said, “because it’s not just that we’re not actually being invaded by anyone right now, it’s that even the suspension clause does not authorize suspensions by the president, ever.”
Miller, of course, thinks his white country is being invaded by brown people. I honestly think he has plans in place to deport the blacks next, but he’s gotta somewhere.

So, usurping Congressional authority to fuck with the courts and claim monarchical power? Grounds for impeachment and removal, or nah?

I really hope we don’t have to get an answer to that question.
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Trump Is Exploring The Depths Of His Ignorance

And deep inside Russia is deep.
"SBU drones are targeting aircraft that bomb Ukrainian cities every night. At this point, more than 40 aircraft have reportedly been hit."

Video footage filmed by a Ukrainian reconnaissance aircraft and shared by the official appeared to show Russia’s Belaya airfield, located in south-eastern Siberia some 5,500km east of the frontline, in flames.
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Sunday, June 01, 2025

Having Been…

... a pastor and a family law practitioner and a college teacher and an employee and alive for 70 years, I didn’t have to write a book to not be shocked. 

Thinking is hard. Ignorance is easy. Like a teacher I had once said, people are like electricity: they will always follow the path of least resistance.

Does no one remember how one minute that war in Europe was none of our fucking business because the Founding Fathers had the wisdom to not make us have a standing army or get involved in foreign affairs? And the next day we were in it to win it. As Churchill said, you can trust Americans to do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else.

Usually more succinctly put as: “Even a blind hog finds an acorn.” Or, my favorite: “God looks out for drunkards and fools.” On what evidence, I have no idea.

Path of least resistance. Stubbornly ignorant. Sure. Every time. We’ve always wanted to pursue happiness. And always told ourselves it would be easy. All we really need is a better mousetrap.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Mike Lindell Is The Client From Hell

Or the bed person possible to sue for defamation.
“The biggest thing I plan to say on the stand is that I didn’t know who this guy [Eric Coomer] was — so why are you picking on MyPillow and Mike Lindell? What did I ever do to him? I didn’t even know who the guy was!” Lindell says, adding that he wants to go on the offensive and explain how much Coomer’s defamation lawsuit against Newsmax and the right-wing network’s subsequent settlement hurt his company.
The Donald Trump “I don’t even know this guy!” defense. Works every time! Said nobody, ever.

But he won’t stop talking.
Those numbers don’t lie, and I plan to show them in court, and show what he did to MyPillow, or my lawyers might do it … Eric Coomer’s settlement with Newsmax has cost MyPillow in sales over $20 million dollars because Newsmax will never have me on to talk about MyPillow products anymore! … I’m going in there [to testify] to help save our country, and help get rid of these electronic voting machines. I got vocal cord surgery a month ago. In 2016, I had my first surgery, and I couldn’t talk for 45 days straight. … But I’m not gonna stop talking.”
Dominion is begging Lindell to take the stand. He asked for this; literally, on Tucker Carlson’s show in 2021. He has no idea what this lawsuit is about:
“I will never stop until we go back to paper ballots,” he insists. “I’m gonna be there every day. … I believe it’s one of the most important cases in history. … I’ll be there every minute of every day until the last minute of the trial! … I’m going to list every single [expert I’ve talked to] on the stand.”
Do I have to explain trials don’t work that way? Even on TeeVee?
George Conway, a former fixture of the conservative legal elite who emerged as a strident MAGA critic during Trump’s first term, doesn’t think it’s such a good idea for Lindell to testify: “If there were an insanity defense to defamation, sure, I’d put him on the stand,” he says. “But apart from that, I probably wouldn’t want him anywhere near the courtroom.”
What George said.
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International Sign Of Distress

The Eagle has landed on its head. Too much gilding.
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“The Moon Will Turn Blood Red!”

"And the skies will burn and the ground will become like marshmallows! Women will wail and rend their garments! Strong men, BIG Strong Men who never Cry will have Tears in their eyes, as their children gnash their teeth and clutch their three Dolls in their Arms! And everywhere will be heard weeping and lamentation as the stars go out one by one and the seas turn into BLOOD and Everybody blames Joe Biden!

“All because the judges worship the false God of Leegill Nollij and won’t recognize that TRUMP ALONE can save Us All!!!

“The Word of the Lard (Butt).”

Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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Later That Same Day….

That is all he knows, and all you need to know.

And no, it’s not evidence; not even in the loosest sense of the word. But what he means is: poor people are getting money/help, and they don’t deserve it. Because they’re poor.
Time considered as a helix of semi-precious stones. Or a river. Or something that allows this sentence to make sense. When you’ve lost Margaret Brennan… But when are Democrats gonna do the thing I said they should do?
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And “Groceries” Is A Beautiful Word No One Uses Anymore

A) What does he think the DMV is?*

B) Has he ever been there?

*Bonus point: Elmo lives in Texas now. There is no “DMV” in Texas. Never has been. The Department of Public Safety issues DL’s (and does it pretty efficiently these days). County Tax Assessor-Collectors issue license plates for cars, and take new car registration. Even in Texas, most of this is done on-line now. (Once upon a time I went annually to a county office to pay registration and license fees for my car. Now I do it through an app. I even had to go to DPS to renew my DL and get a federally verified one. They had an office set up just to print out my birth certificate for that purpose, so I could get the temporary DL that day. Time was when that would have taken months. Honestly, what the hell is Elmo talking about?)
That’s how Trump explains it  I don’t want to think Comer is this stupid, but he’s not leaving me any choice. "Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. And btw, I got mine, fuck you all.” ETTD.
Brennan: He said it last Sunday on this program.

Bessent: He said that's the cbo scoring.

Brennan: No, he said that sounds right.
When all the lies start running into each other.
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Slicing The Baloney

But it still has two sides:
In the clip [OMB Director Russell Vought] can be heard stating, "“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.”

"Is that your goal as OMB director?" Bash asked.

"Look, I love how you jerry, jerry-picked (sic)the quote on trauma," he parried. "What I was referring to there was the bureaucracy. We do believe there is weaponized bureaucracy. We do believe that there are people who have been part of administrations that are fundamentally woke and weaponized against the American people."

"I have great people at OMB. There are great people at the FAA. There are great people a the NIH who are doing hard work and important public service activities and I think it's important to provide the full context of what people like me have said in the past," he pushed back. "But we're not going to be pushed, receive push-back, from the notion that we're going to dramatically change the deep woke and weaponized administrative state. "
Yeah, leopards eating faces, “good” immigrants v “bad.”  This takes me back to an old and racist joke from my childhood, when the favored football team would be losing, and it was because “their n—-ers are beatin’ up on our black boys.” The joke was at least self-aware. 

Vought is not. He’s all but claiming the “Deep State” lives, even as he declares “his” bureaucrats aren’t as bad as “those” bureaucrats, and therefor defended from his calumny.

It’s not as shameful as racism, but the ignorance makes racism and Vought’s attitude kissing cousins.
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😷 ☠️

Yes, apparently so:
"Mercy Culture Preparatory, which is a private school in my district, also happens to be where I send my kids to school, he said they are the least vaccinated school in the state of Texas," [Tex. State Rep. Nate Schatzline (R-☠️)] observed. "Now, I was incredibly concerned for a couple different reasons. I was concerned that, number one, we're just finding out about this. Because the second concern is, why haven't we celebrated this sooner?"

"Look, I am so excited to say that Mercy Culture Prep is celebrating medical freedom where we honor the wishes of moms and dads over any type of health official like Rachel Levine or so-called public health expert like Bud Kennedy."
Bud Kennedy is the reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram who first noted Mercy(less) Prep was not requiring vaccinations. 

In rational times, we’d shut down that school and quarantine everyone involved. Of course, I’m old enough to remember victims of polio (adults, in my younger days), and the first oral polio vaccine. My parents had lived through the childhood diseases, seen friends die from them. They made sure I got every vaccine available. RFK, Jr. is a shill peddling quack remedies* because the family money isn’t enough. Best I can tell, Schatzline is just an idiot.

Who thinks the measles epidemic in West Texas is far enough away from Fort Worth as to be in another country. Or he really is just that stupid.

As Molly Ivins often said, it’s a representative government.
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Saturday, May 31, 2025

Stephen Miller, LL.D.*

"Not people who have any right to be here.” Gives away the game, doesn’t it? Those whom Stephen Miller declares “illegal aliens” (not a legal term of art) are not persons, as in:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
And:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
And the courts decide what the law is. Not the POTUS. Not an advisor to the POTUS. They decide the law starting, in this case, with the plain language of the law. “No person” does not leave room for “illegal aliens are NOT people.” It certainly leaves no room for: “I don’t like what the courts say, so I have the authority to say’Fuck the courts.’” Although I will say you are pushing hard for an impeachment if you get Trump to take that line. Impeachment AND removal, especially if you make it grounds for who the voters choose in 2026.

I don’t see anything here that says you’d wait until after the midterms to trot out this Constitutional crisis you are hankering for.
Yes, they do. Until the appellate court says they don’t, or the Supreme Court says they don’t. That’s the way a federal court system works in this country; and has since Congress established it. Funny thing, but we don’t have laws for persons in only one party of the country, and wholly different laws for persons in another part of the country. Or state by state, for that matter. See Section I of the 14th Amendment, above, for further information. Trump has never worked hard a day in his life.✅

Trump wouldn’t know what “right” was if it walked up and kicked him in the nuts. ✅

Trump is a scammer and a grifter, and has been all his life. ✅

Trump is getting rich off being POTUS, and is openly running a pay for play Presidency. Put enough money in his hand, he’ll give you back something that costs him nothing, but that he’d never give away for free. ✅

Trump is a criminal, in accordance with the laws if the state of New York. And he is getting away with everything. ✅

If illegal aliens were getting rich, they’d be hiring better lawyers, and getting their citizenship, like Elon Musk did before he was The Richest Man In The World.

Every accusation is a confession.

Except for the ones that are completely insane:


*The “D” is for “deranged.”
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Of Pictures And A Thousand Words


 🐁 ? Even the mice are confused. 😵‍💫 

If they quit trying to change mice 🐁 gender we’ll have less need for HIV vaccines for mice. Or something. 🐁🐁
I still don’t understand what those law firms thought they were doing.
Contempt findings can’t come soon enough.
Biden really should have had the foresight to protect the constitution from the voters. And I’m pretty sure the Roberts Court actively expanded unaccountable executive power all by its 6-3 self.
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The Tooth Fairy 🧚 Could Not Be Reached For Comment

Condescending evangelism is never a good look. 

But it’s surprising how often you run into it.

I have to say, “I sincerely apologize that all you snowflakes got your delicate fee-fees hurt by what I said, but you better get right with God before you go to hell,” is not the strategy I expected.
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