The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues (Part 2)

[Monty]

@smithsb

For disease, I’m suggesting “The Vapours”

Isn’t that already endemic among the magaflatearthers? It’s more of a pavlovian reaction than a disease by now.

@Monty

When? “In two weeks!” of course.

WASHINGTON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump said on Friday his son, Donald Trump Jr., ‌has told him he would pay back a Russian oligarch ‌who bankrolled wedding celebrations for him in the Bahamas in May.

Democrats in the US Congress ​launched an investigation this week into reports that Umar Kremlev, a wealthy Russian businessman and president of the International Boxing Association, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the wedding festivities.

ProPublica, which first reported Kremlev’s involvement, said ‌he has close ties ⁠to the Russian government.

Trump told reporters on Friday that when he asked his son about the report, he ⁠responded, “‘No, I’m paying it back, Dad.’ And that was a while ago. So I heard he’s paying.”

Oh, he’s heard it, no doubt while people were saying it. Calling him sir. With tears in their eyes.

In other words: DIDN’T HAPPEN!

Wow. We’ve gone from will be paid back straight to has been paid back in a felon’s minute.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday defended his son’s recent wedding party being partially bankrolled by a Russian oligarch, but also said he’d been told the money would be paid back.

“It’s totally allowed. And a lot of people have parties and all,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, before adding, “But, as I understand it, he paid them back.” He also said, “I hear he paid them back” without elaborating.

Speaking of disease, another Republican officeholder is taking the felon to task.

Senate Health Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., on Wednesday criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the nation’s measles outbreaks, calling the recent deaths from the disease a “terrible legacy.”

“Misinformation and misguided policies are leaving children unprotected against diseases we know how to prevent,” Cassidy said during a confirmation hearing for three Department of Health and Human Services nominees.

The U.S. is experiencing its largest measles outbreak in decades, with cases surpassing a 35-year record. Pennsylvania officials said Tuesday that four people had died from measles-associated complications.

“No one should be hospitalized, much less die. By the way, CDC apparently is working on the definition of death by measles,” Cassidy said.

“Someone said we haven’t had to work on that for decades because no one has died from measles, and now we have people dying from measles. That’s going to be a terrible legacy for this administration.”

Cassidy, a physician, pressed surgeon general nominee Dr. Nicole Saphier on her views of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, telling her not to equivocate.

“I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles,” Saphier responded.

Asked what she would tell a mother concerned that the MMR vaccine causes autism, Saphier said, “I do not believe childhood vaccines cause autism.”

Boondoggle Border wall construction goes on.

New panels for the border wall are being installed in West Texas, marking the start of visible construction on a 47.3-mile project in the Big Bend region as President Donald Trump’s administration expands its barrier network along the southern border.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said the first panels for the Big Bend 1 project in Hudspeth County went up on September 15, the Associated Press first reported.

Work is beginning amid legal challenges and resistance from landowners concerned about the federal government’s plans for the remote region.

The development gives new significance to CBP’s Smart Wall map, which records 232.4 miles of various border infrastructure completed since January 20, 2025, and shows hundreds more moving through design or construction.

&

CBP said it is using $46.5 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to develop what it calls the “Smart Wall.”

Yet it’s still defeatable with, you guessed it, a dumb ol’ ladder.

California now has laws against the felon’s election takeover.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed legislation to increase security for the state’s voting systems and protect Californians’ ability to cast ballots in an effort to guard against potential interference in the Nov. 3 election, including by the Trump administration.

Newsom pointed to the Trump administration’s recent effort to restrict mail-in voting through the U.S. Postal Service, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the presence of federal monitors at California polls last year as evidence that Trump “will continue his efforts to interfere with the November election.”

“Donald Trump won’t stop until he can exert dictatorial control over your free vote and disenfranchise millions of people this November. California will stop him at every opportunity,” Newsom said in a statement. “We have no bigger task than fighting to protect the right to vote from interference and meddling — the future of democracy is on the line. These bills today build upon the wall California has built to safeguard our electoral process.”

Marines to expand freedoms as long as it’s about vaccines.

The Marine Corps issued interim guidance this week for accommodating religious beliefs involving uniform, grooming and vaccination standards, as well as dietary practices and religious holidays.

According to Wednesday’s announcement, Marines seeking such accommodations must submit a written request to their command, which will assess the sincerity of the religious belief and the request’s potential impact on mission readiness.

The guidance comes amid the Defense Department’s ongoing effort to narrow the list of recognized religions and limit permissions for facial hair in the name of mission readiness, while also loosening vaccination requirements to honor individual freedoms.

Under the new guidance, a Marine’s written request must explain how the religious belief conflicts with a service policy or regulation, or how the policy conflicts with the belief.

“Supporting information or evidence that demonstrates the religious belief is sincerely held, which may include, but is not limited to, personal testimony, participation in religious observances, or corroborating statements from religious leaders or community members,” the guidance says.

The Marine must also sign a sworn statement affirming the validity of the information provided and acknowledging that false statements could result in disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ.

Before approving an accommodation, commanders must determine whether the request is based on a sincerely held religious belief and whether granting it would affect mission requirements.

But, hey, if the unvaccinated Marine survives, they can then jump ever smaller hoops to get accommodations for their religious beliefs.

University not allowed to punish students for harassing others.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the University of California from enforcing parts of its transgender harassment policy against members of a conservative education group, finding they are likely to succeed on claims that the rules violate the First Amendment.

US District Judge Fred W. Slaughter issued a preliminary injunction preventing UC from punishing members of Defending Education for using, “in a commonplace way,” names or pronouns corresponding with a transgender person’s sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity, per the Los Angeles Times.

The ruling does not completely strike down UC’s Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment Policy and only protects members of Defending Education while the group’s lawsuit against the university system moves forward.

Finally, and to nobody’s surprise, White House staffers say the media ban was because there was no babysitter available.

Blindsided senior White House staffers learned of President Donald Trump’s media ban at the same time as the rest of the country, a new report alleges.

Trump’s directive to ban reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico came while Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was out of town, sources tell Politico, with many in the West Wing unaware of the move until they saw the president’s Friday afternoon announcement on Truth Social.

Trump baselessly accused the trio of news organizations of reporting “LIES” but did not point to a particular article that pushed him over the edge. Sources tell Politico that the president has floated the idea of a media ban previously and decided to act on it while his top adviser was not in the building.