Obligatory Isaac Asimov quote from decades ago:
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Man, for a movie that was thought to be such an exaggerated satire of the devolution of our cultural (and actual) intelligence that its creator set it 500 years in the future, it sure has turned out to be scarily prescient-- and at a very accelerated timeline.
Comparisons and contrasts between trump and President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho have been pointed out many times before…
Comparison: Camacho was a “former five-time Ultimate Smackdown champion and porn superstar”. trump, while being neither champion nor superstar, has well-documented associations with both the WWE and with porn / sexual assault.
Contrast: President Camacho actually listened to his advisors, learned from his mistakes, and cared about the people he governed.
We’re on a worse timeline than the Idiocracy timeline, 480 years in advance… 
Just think how well this will go when the current crop of “All MAGA all the time” homeschooled droolers who’re age 10 right now become the main source of political activists in 20 years or political leaders in 40.
From post 3378 above.
She was released today. I should jolly well fucking hope so!!
Newlywed Wife of U.S. Soldier Released From Immigration Detention
The couple had gone to the husband’s Army base to complete paperwork so they could move in together. But within hours that plan derailed, and New York Times reporting about the case quickly spread.
…
On Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Ramos walked out of the detention facility and into her husband’s arms. Then Sergeant Blank put her wedding ring back on her finger, which Ms. Ramos had been told to remove when she was detained.…
Early Monday, the family and other supporters frantically called ICE offices, trying to ensure that Ms. Ramos would not be deported. They failed to reach anyone who would assist, according to Sergeant Blank.
My bold.
You don’t say? No one would help?? Imagine that!
That afternoon, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, where Sergeant Blank’s family is from, called him to say that he would push for Ms. Ramos’s release, according to Sergeant Blank and a spokeswoman for Mr. Kelly. But Mr. Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy captain, cautioned that it could take time.
A few hours later, according to Sergeant Blank, Mr. Kelly called again to say that he had spoken with Markwayne Mullin, the new homeland security secretary, and that Ms. Ramos would be released by Tuesday.
The spokeswoman for Mr. Kelly said he was encouraged to hear that Mr. Mullin had already been aware of the case.
…
My bold. My hero.
Okay, so Markiewaynie already knew about it, but would he have done anything if Mark Kelly hadn’t shoved a firecracker up his ass?
Note that Mark Kelly reached out to Sergeant Blank, not the other way around. 
Part of this is the know-nothing, anti-science instincts of Republicans, as discussed above.
But part of it is also the Republican credo that Government Should Not Do Anything That Private Enterprise Can Charge Money For.
The fact that private-enterprise testing for rabies, mpox, and other serious infections is bound to be not only too expensive for many, but hit-and-miss as far as reliability is concerned----leading to a much sicker US population overall----is a matter of indifference to Republicans.
Now, Pam Bondi is playing the “you subpoenaed me as the Attorney General, but since I’m not the Attorney General anymore I don’t have to show up” card.
Time for a new subpoena to her individually, then, eh?
In the linked article:
“Our bipartisan subpoena is to Pam Bondi, whether she is the Attorney General or not,” Garcia said.
Demonstrating yet again she doesn’t understand how the law works.
Perfect qualification for the chief law officer in the Trump cabinet, where no one knows anything about their area of responsibility.
ETA: One of the (former) strengths of the US system of government is tht cabinet secretaries were not elected members of parliament, but could be sourced from the best and brightest of the general population. Yeah, in the Trump era, it’s become something else entirely.
You can source your government’s people from the pure upstream mountain waters or from the cesspool at the other end of the water use cycle.
We’ve now seen how well the latter approach works.
In my job, I sometimes have to subpoena witnesses for trial. Sometimes those witnesses are police officers. They still have to testify even if they’ve since been fired from policing.
The fact of their dismissal might be a point of emphasis during the testimony, but it certainly doesn’t excuse the obligation to appear.
It’s utterly strange that Bondi or the DOJ would claim otherwise. It’s obviously just showing literal contempt for Congress.
It’s not that strange. You nailed it in the second sentence.
Yup. The bywords of Trump, and his toadies, are “we are above the law,” and “we answer to no one but ourselves.”
I think I’m going to put this in a couple of threads, but it certainly belongs here.
A bunch of folks with inside knowledge made a ton of money betting on a ceasefire.
It’s corruption all the way down. It’s estimated that insiders and billionaires have made a combined total of close to $1 trillion in Trump’s first year.
I bet a careful review of oil futures contracts bought and sold would reveal a lot more of the same.
And I bet further that a careful review of oil futures contracts will NEVER, EVER be done. Same with bets on the stock market minutes before major announcements.
The SEC is all but dead.
I don’t even get how that works. Someone bets that some crazy thing is going to happen and it does and he rakes in millions on … I don’t even know how much they bet in the first place to get that windfall … but, where do the winnings come from? All the people betting that that crazy thing won’t happen? And why would anybody put money up on that since the payout odds would basically be shit for them? And how many people actually put up cash on even-money or less bets to come up with those millions for the winners?
Fucking money confuses me.