Monday, September 21, 2026

Now Do Stephen Miller

French doesn’t deserve to be on the TRRC. But Miller doesn’t deserve to be in the White House.

Miller is as bluntly and publicly racist as French. And he has the ear of the President of the United States.
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Did Donald Already Pay For This?

 Several problems here:

Belarus and Russia are major potash producers, but sanctions and the closing of a key port on Lithuania's Baltic coast have made those supplies expensive to ship to the US through Russia's Arctic. The US is still receiving potash exports from Russia, but the overwhelming majority of supply comes from nearby Canada.
Well, and:
Fertilizer analyst Josh Linville ​of StoneX said he ⁠doubts Belarusian potash will play a major role in either supplies for US farmers or in lowering prices that they presently pay.

"I'm afraid the impact would be ​limited. We have not struggled to find potash," he said. "We have more than ​enough to go ⁠around. It is phosphate and nitrogen that we need help with."

Even if Lithuania opened its port of Klaipeda to Belarusian potash exports, the relatively low current value of potash makes it hard to justify exports through the ⁠Baltic and ​across the Atlantic Ocean, Linville said.
Well, and:
Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Monday that there are no available volumes of fertilizer to send to the U.S. This came after President Trump announced that he was working on a “massive Deal” to buy potash from Minsk at a steep discount amid the trade war with Canada.

“Even if we wanted to supply [potash] to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes — everything is contracted,” Lukashenko said in remarks published by his office on Monday.
Trump likely doesn’t know potash from potlach. You have to wonder who his advisors are:
The Iran war has restricted nitrogen and ​phosphate fertilizer supplies, blocking most Gulf shipments of nitrogen fertilizer, natural gas and sulfur — a key component in phosphate mining.
Trump really is not to be believed; about anything. Which doesn’t make him dangerous. It just makes us dangerous, if we don’t realize how ineffective he is.
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Quick Question

How many people watch streaming TV? Not Netflix/HBO MAX/Paramount/Disney+Prime/Apple TV+, but stuff only available through a browser.  I have a smart TV, I can watch on it or my Apple TV, but I never use the browser function on the TV. More trouble than it’s worth. No keyboard, basically.

Of course, I don’t have cable, either; so I can’t watch CNN or Fox or MS NOW. Which is where Trump gets most of his attention.

Trump TV is not going to fill that need.
😈
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“Content Discrimination”

Trump: Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown "sources," shouldn't be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World. It is called the Oval Office, and it should be treated with Decorum, Respect, and Dignity, not defiled by Third Rate Clowns
Every accusation yadda yadda yadda. But then again:
“That is the absolute worst thing that you can do as the government when it comes to regulating speech,” he emphatically asserted. “It's not the case that the government can never regulate speech, it's not the case that the government can never regulate access for the media. But when the government chooses to open the people's house to the media, it cannot then pick and choose based on the perspectives, the viewpoint of that particular media organization, or the perceived perspectives of that particular media organization.”

"So when he says, because they're fake news, when he says purposely negative stories, when he says, ‘I don't have to let them’ — Freudian slip —into my, into the people's house, which is a pretty remarkable slip, if you think about it. He thinks it's his — it's not. This is the government of the United States, it’s the people’s house.”
It’s called “content discrimination,” something government cannot engage in. So helpful of Trump to say it over and over again, and put it into writing. ✍️ 

Dumb (with a “b”) as a bag of hammers.
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🤖🫠

🤖 is good for you!
“The same people that said, ‘We’ll all be dead in twelve years because of Global Warming,’ a name since ‘reborn’ to Climate Change, because the Planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead, are the people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us, that robots are going to attack us, and everything is a DISASTER,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“This is more of a Hoax than even that of RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, and Climate Change! Whoever wins AI, WINS! We are leading now over China, and everyone else, and I’m going to keep it that way! I’m not going to stifle Growth, of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet, itself.”
Please hold to that line. Maybe calling people “Luddites” would help.
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Why Am I Not Surprised?

Potash is not going to dig him out of this. Especially fictional potash.

One wonders if the media will cover this as assiduously as they did Trump tossing two cable networks and an online publication out of the White House.
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Speaking Of “We’re Not Aware Of…”

Deputy Representative to the UN Tammy Bruce on Trump's speech tomorrow: "We all know how he speaks, and we love him for his transparency and passion. That's in part why he's the president. There's no guess that this will be an inspiring speech. It'll be forward looking ... the American people voted in him in a landslide because they trust him. They know he knows things that we're not aware of."
Yeah, about that. Nobody’s going to see it, unless they can stream a European or other foreign news service. But that won’t assuage Trump. 

Or get his message out to America.

😈
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When It Comes To Voting….🗳️

... what matters first is that you vote.

America started as a country where the vote mattered. Every government official in the Constitution is elected, except Art. III judges, and they are appointed by the people we, the people, elected. Most Southern states, after Reconstruction, elect government officials down to dog catcher and street sweeper.

And yet every two years, and every local election, the vast majority of us can’t be bothered with our self-governance. And we leave it to the people who do care; and complain when we don’t get what we wanted.

I don’t care why people vote. We all act out of self interest at one time or another, if not all the time. Don’t judge why people vote, especially when their decision aligns with yours. Because if you judge, then you’ll be judged.

And I’m guessing you don’t want that. Especially if it puts your self interest under the microscope.🔬 
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Now Stay Out Of The Oval Office

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Abolish ICE

Start by voting in November (or earlier, if possible). Vote for Democrats. Vote against Trump. Vote against Republicans. Vote against incompetence and corruption and racism and illegality. What ever it takes. We have to stop this.
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Sunday, September 20, 2026

It’s Safe To Come Out Now

🫠
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Closing Out The Weekend

Assuming Trump ever bothers to consider the consequences of anything that won’t directly affect him. And even then he just thinks he’ll get away with it, and consequences will fall on somebody else.

This is what happens when you vote as ignorantly as a child, and vote for a child.
Will he take it to Mar A Lago with him when he leaves office? ICE refused him medical treatment until APD showed up and called an ambulance. I wonder if Homan and Mullin are going to deny that ever happens. I expect the polls, as usual, are going to see Democrats “over perform.”  If the arch doesn’t work, this certainly will: I mean, being anti-Sharia law worked so well in the GOP primaries, they nominated Ken Paxton and Bo French. And Tuberville is going back to Alabama. Or Florida. Or wherever he lives.

(You know, the “Arch” Trump undoubtedly uses as a reference point is the one Napoleon built as self-crowned Emperor, to memorialize his conquests. The sight lines of that arch, which makes it second only to the Eiffel Tower as an emblem of Paris, were created later, by Napoleon III. He created the “Paris” we all think of as Paris, by realigning the roads and lowering building heights. Trump III is not following along to make his Arch as memorable as that one.

Trump isn’t Napoleon. And nobody wants his stupid arch, anyway. It continues to be an irony that he threatens the JFK memorial with demolition, but thinks if he gets his vanity projects out of the ground, even Congress can’t reverse them. Too bad he doesn’t realize no one wants the memorials in D.C. torn down, because Congress approved them going up. Which means we, the people, put them up. Nobody wants to preserve something Trump put up. By January, people might actually pay for an opportunity to swing the sledgehammer.)
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Dear White House Press Corps

If you’re not covering this, you’re not doing any better from inside the room. And your absence doesn’t make a difference.

Do you want to make a difference? Or do you just miss the stenography access provides?
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Welcome To Life During Wartime

Says the guy who remembers daily “body counts” from the military (“body count” = number of enemies KIA) on the evening news. From embedded reporters who repeated what they were told about how we were “winning the war.” (The body count was all made up. Nobody was counting coup after encounters or bombing runs.)

The DOD lied. The “free and independent” press willingly reported those lies.  Widespread mistrust of government started with the Vietnam generation. If they learned that lesson too well, and paved the way for a narcissistic conspiracy nut, so be it. But never forget, in the end, the generals work for the White House.
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So Don’t Let It Matter

A) Do actual reporting instead of Oval Office stenography (while conveniently not reporting on the word salad that spews from Grandpa’s mouth. It’s all about access, right? Oops!)

B) Mount a boycott, and shame the news services that won’t leave. Trump values TeeVee uber alles. Get the networks out. Leave him with Fox and Newsmax. Unless you just run a live feed, with extensive excerpts of his rambling rants in prime time, there’s nothing newsworthy in his White House a-fire chats with the voices in his head.

Seriously. Quit playing the victim. That’s Trump’s schtick, and he’s wearing it out. If a free and independent press is so important, it’s time to be free and independent.
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Every Time You Think It Can’t Get Much Worse….

... for Republicans…..

Then again, if you put this on a billboard, everyone would say: “Who?” 

Not that the candidates are doing a whole lot better:
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Oh, Good

That was Fox.
WELKER: The president said in 2025 'I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America.' He's now limited reporters he doesn't like at the Pentagon and White House. Do these bans amount to government censorship?

BARRASSO: You've asked the question a couple times and I've answered

(Not a no!)
NBC
KARL: Do you support Trump banning news organizations because he doesn't like what they're reporting?

SCALISE: Look, Joe Biden removed the press credentials from over 400 different agencies

KARL: That's not true. 400 reporters who had credentials didn't reapply. They weren't banned from the White House. That did not happen.
ABC

The world is on fire; the press vigorously examines its navel.
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Boomers In The Sixties…

...said: "Why is this nation our parents said was so perfect and good, so unjust? Why are we at war? Why are we so racially segregated? Why are we so rich, with so many of us in poverty?’
El-Sayed: But it is on us to have the empathy to ask, what is it like to be young now? If you’re 26, you were one year old when 9/11 happened. Our country has been at war for most of your life.

In 2007, we had this catastrophic financial crisis for which the banks were not held liable. Chances are you or your family or a neighbor lost their home. Donald Trump came down the hideous golden escalator when you were 15 and has been a fixture of politics for your whole adult life. You are 26.

If you are young, think about it. We’re always like the young people do not seem to want to get engaged. If that is all I have ever lived, part of me is like, to what end?

We have to understand what it is like to be young these days and the incredible act of faith it takes to be invested in your politics, to believe that you can actually solve those problems.
Millennials, or Post-Millennials, or Amillenials, or Gen Z or Y, or whatever (fuck labels. I hate being called a Boomer.), look at the world they were born into and ask: “Why is everything so fucked up?”

There’s supposed to be a pitched battle between Boomers and everyone else. But it was the generations that turned the tide in Minneapolis against Trump’s authoritarian goons, and turned public sentiment against ICE and DHS and Miller. As Pound wrote to Whitman, it is time for us all to realize we come together as the sons and daughters of pig-headed fathers, and set that aside, and “Let there be a commerce between us.”

For the good and the healing of us all.
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Speaking Of Cagney

Fires are visible in multiple locations at the Kapotnya oil refinery in Moscow this morning (local time). Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces posted a fire emoji on X, a signal they have used before to seemingly imply responsibility without making an official claim.

No official confirmation has been issued by Ukrainian or Russian authorities.

The Kapotnya refinery, Moscow's largest, supplies roughly 35 to 40 percent of the capital's fuel market. It has been struck repeatedly since June 2026, including two major attacks within days of each other that damaged its primary crude processing units. Industry estimates put full repairs at up to a billion dollars, with some analysts projecting the facility may not be fully restored until 2027.

The extent to which the refinery is damaged is still being assessed.
The Big Story this morning is going to be Trump throwing some journalists out of the White House. I think the rest should walk out in solidarity and deny Trump his publicity supply. The man is like a drug addict.

On the upside, maybe the excluded will learn to do some real journalism.
If they ever quit whinging.
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Following The Money

The Iran war has cost $43.6 billion through September 3rd, according to a Pentagon breakdown given to Congress and shared with The New York Times. Munitions account for $28.1 billion of that.

The Air Force spent $6.6 billion, the Navy $2.2 billion deploying carriers and warships, and the Army $1.6 billion. More than 50,000 troops are assigned to the mission. The figure excludes $1.5 billion in additional costs being requested separately and repair costs for damaged facilities, like the Navy's base in Manama, Bahrain, which officials say could add tens of billions more.

The number tracks with some earlier estimates. The Congressional Budget Office put the cost at $38 billion through August 1st, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth testified in July it had reached $37.5 billion.
$43.6 billion. $28.1 billion of that, is munitions. Japan and Europe are being told it will be two years or more before promised weapons can be delivered. We need ‘em first.

This wasn’t even a major regional war. But now we might be getting one:
After a widespread State Department alert for the Middle East, U.S. President Donald J. Trump is set to return early from Camp David, citing the potential for significant escalation in the region due to the Houthi’s attacks against Saudi Arabia, the president will return early from Camp David.
Netenyahu was in America. He cut his trip short and flew back to Israel.
Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' joint military command, issued a warning aimed at the U.S. and regional countries. The statement claims the U.S. has been given a "green light" by unnamed regional countries at a joint meeting in Europe to resume action against Iran. It warns that any U.S. "mistake" against Iran will result in continuous, effective, and painful attacks on American bases and interests in the region, without restriction. The statement also warns regional countries aligning with what it calls the "Great Satan's aggression" against Iran that they will be treated as partners in that aggression and should not expect restraint from Iran's armed forces.
$43 billion, and this is what we got? Our leaders are fucking idiots.
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