This comes from the same place as “if we stop testing for COVID, our numbers won’t go up!”
You know … morons.
Monty
July 11, 2025, 11:40pm
6443
Who needs diplomats anyway?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. State Department fired more than 1,300 employees on Friday in line with a dramatic reorganization plan from the Trump administration that critics say will damage America’s global leadership and efforts to counter threats abroad.
The department sent layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with assignments in the United States, according to a senior department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Notices said positions were being “abolished” and the employees would lose access to State Department headquarters in Washington and their email and shared drives by 5 p.m., according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.
&
While lauded by President Donald Trump , Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their Republican allies as overdue and necessary to make the department leaner, more nimble and more efficient, the cuts have been roundly criticized by current and former diplomats who say they will weaken U.S. influence and the ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.
Of course, this comes after increasing the department’s responsibilities. (Same link, my bolding .)
The Second Felonial Era believes the constittuion prohibits rising egg prices.
The Trump administration is suing the state of California to block animal welfare laws that it says unconstitutionally helped send egg prices soaring. But a group that spearheaded the requirements pushed back, blaming bird flu for the hit to consumers’ pocketbooks.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California on Wednesday, challenges voter initiatives that passed in 2018 and 2008. They require that all eggs sold in California come from cage-free hens.
The Trump administration says the law imposes burdensome red tape on the production of eggs and egg products across the country because of the state’s outsize role in the national economy.
“It is one thing if California passes laws that affects its own State, it is another when those laws affect other States in violation of the U.S. Constitution,” U.S. Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a statement Thursday. "Thankfully, President Trump is standing up against this overreach.”
I try to put a pithy, or at least slightly humorous, title to the links I’m posting here. This is far too serious for that.
And the killings have commenced.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A California farmworker died on Friday from injuries sustained a day earlier when U.S. immigration agents raided a cannabis operation and arrested hundreds of workers, according to a farmworker advocacy group.
Dozens of migrant-rights activists faced off with federal agents in rural Southern California on Thursday. It was the latest escalation of President Donald Trump ’s campaign for mass deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
&
The Trump administration has made conflicting statements about whether immigration agents will target the farm labor workforce, about half of which is unauthorized to work in the U.S., according to government estimates.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that approximately 200 people in the country illegally were arrested in the raid, which targeted two locations of the cannabis operation Glass House Farms.
Agents also found 10 migrant minors at the farm, the statement said. The facility is under investigation for child labor violations, said Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott in a post on X.
&
The scene at the farm on Thursday was chaotic, with federal agents wearing helmets and face masks using tear gas and smoke cannisters on angry protesters, according to photos and videos of the scene.
Several farmworkers were injured and one died on Friday from injuries sustained after a 30-foot fall from a building during the raid, said Elizabeth Strater, national vice president of the United Farm Workers.
U.S. citizens were detained during the raid and some are still unaccounted for, Strater said.
Some citizen workers who were detained reported only being released from custody after deleting photos and videos of the raid from their phones, said UFW President Teresa Romero in a statement.
George Santos has an interesting _________________ (theory, assertion, fiction, nonsense he pulled out of his butt).
&
On Wednesday, he took to X, formerly Twitter, to warn his supporters not to believe anything negative that might get reported:
“I’m not suicidal. I’m not depressed. I have no intentions of harming myself, and I will not willingly engage in any sexual activity while I’m in there.
“If anything comes out suggesting otherwise, consider it a lie…full stop.
“The statistics around what happens to gay men in BOP custody are horrifying, and that’s exactly why I’m putting this out there now. So if something does happen, there’s no confusion.
“I did NOT kill myself.”
&
&
Santos then claimed that House Speaker Mike Johnson had somehow influenced President Donald Trump and nixed the pardon.
“Speaker Johnson Blocked it,” Santos claimed, without providing evidence.
Just goes to show, the felon-in-chief isn’t the only one fantasizing about his effectiveness.
Monty
July 12, 2025, 12:52am
6444
I just saw this on one of those still ads on YouTube.
Scrolling through that abomination, I kept thinking “Poor Barron, a boy growing up in that garish, sterile, ersatz palace. What kind of fun could he possibly have there?”Ah, I found this:
Some of Barron Trump’s childhood toys included a customized mini Mercedes convertible featuring a “BARRON” license plate, several life-size stuffed animals, and famously, a Louis Vuitton “soot-case ” that reportedly now retails for nearly $10,000. They resided in an entire floor of Trump’s apartment, which Barron apparently had all to himself, Melania told Entertainment Tonight
Looking at the photos in that article, it seems even the little boy’s “entire floor” was encrusted with the same overblown fanciness as the rest of the apartment. Was he ever allowed to be dirty and messy, to scribble on stuff, to clamber all over the furniture?
bobot
July 12, 2025, 2:38am
6446
It’s weird enough to think that Trump is president, but imagine if he was your dad.shiver
I close videos as soon as they open. To me, a ‘soot case’ would be a bag for carrying fireplace debris. So I don’t know what this is.
Well, trump wouldn’t be interested unless there was a bottle of ketchup in there, too.
Looked like a briefcase to me. Just what a five-year-old needs!
Spoons
July 12, 2025, 3:06am
6450
EddyTeddyFreddy:
Looking at the photos in that article, it seems even the little boy’s “entire floor” was encrusted with the same overblown fanciness as the rest of the apartment. Was he ever allowed to be dirty and messy, to scribble on stuff, to clamber all over the furniture?
That poor kid needs an Auntie Mame, to let him know that this is not what life is.
“Life is a banquet, and most poor bastards are starving.”
Monty
July 12, 2025, 4:58am
6451
Co-conspirator and avid connoisseur of conspiracy theories Kennedy might want to get on this. Maybe he can hire a piper or two.
A person in northern Arizona has died from a case of pneumonic plague, local health officials said.
The unidentified patient, from Coconino County, showed up to the Flagstaff Medical Center Emergency Department and died there the same day, Northern Arizona Healthcare said in a statement. It is unclear when the death occurred.
The hospital noted that “appropriate initial management” and “attempts to provide life-saving resuscitation” was performed, but “the patient did not recover.”
Rapid diagnostic testing led to a presumptive diagnosis of Yersinia pestis.
Coconino County Health and Human Services said testing results confirmed Friday that the patient died from pneumonic plague, described as “a severe lung infection caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium.”
This marked the first recorded death from pneumonic plague in the county since 2007, when an individual had an interaction with a dead animal infected with the disease, according to county officials.
FBI’s #2 is MIA!
The fallout from a Justice Department memo that appeared to close the Jeffrey Epstein case reached a fevered pitch this week amid reports that a top FBI official may resign.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino , the second-highest official at the bureau, didn’t come into work on July 11, various news outlets reported. What’s more, the former Secret Service agent and Fox News show host is weighing leaving the bureau altogether, less than four months after joining it, according to CNN and Semafor , which each cited sources familiar with the situation.
Co-conspirator Tom Homan loves profiling! (The bolding is mine.)
Nearly six months into his tenure as the White House’s “border czar,” Tom Homan has made a great many controversial public comments, about everything from due process to prosecuting news organizations to his curious focus on Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
But we’re often reminded that his rhetorical record is still growing.
In his latest Fox News appearance, Homan said: “Look, people need to understand, ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them. They just need totality of the circumstances, right? They just go through the observation, get our typical facts — based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance , their actions.”
The felon’s ICE efforts must be put on ice.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in seven California counties, including Los Angeles.
Immigrant advocacy groups filed the lawsuit last week accusing President Donald Trump ’s administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people in Southern California during its ongoing immigration crackdown. The plaintiffs include three detained immigrants and two U.S. citizens, one who was held despite showing agents his identification.
The filing in U.S. District Court asked a judge to block the administration from using what they call unconstitutional tactics in immigration raids. Immigrant advocates accuse immigration officials of detaining someone based on their race, carrying out warrantless arrests, and denying detainees access to legal counsel at a holding facility in downtown LA .
Judge Maame E. Frimpong also issued a separate order barring the federal government from restricting attorney access at a Los Angeles immigration detention facility.
The felon is still demanding Harvard provide information about international students.
The Trump administration is ramping up its attack on Harvard University. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Wednesday that it would subpoena the university for information regarding its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP ), a program that certifies schools to enroll international students.
Since April, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has made sweeping demands that Harvard provide information on its over 10,000 foreign students in the name of combating antisemitism on the school’s campus. In May, Noem attempted to terminate the university’s SEVP—and put substantially more of the school’s revenue at risk—for “[insufficiently ]” complying with her demands, despite Harvard’s claims that it turned over the information requested by the DHS. But the move was quickly blocked by a U.S. district court judge, allowing international students to continue enrollment until litigation over the issue has been resolved.
“We tried to do things the easy way with Harvard. Now, through their refusal to cooperate, we have to do things the hard way,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in response to the school’s repeated refusal to comply with “past non-coercive requests to hand over the required information” voluntarily. "Harvard, like other universities, has allowed foreign students to abuse their visa privileges and advocate for violence and terrorism on campus," she continued. “If Harvard won’t defend the interests of its students, then we will.”
What are you doing, Harvard?
Harvard just quietly dismantled its undergraduate school’s offices for diversity, equity, and inclusion amid the university’s ongoing battle with Donald Trump’s administration.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which houses Harvard College, announced internally Wednesday that it would shutter its diversity office and replace it with the “Office for Academic Culture and Community,” according to The Harvard Crimson .
The sudden concession came the same day that Trump’s departments of Education and Health and Human Services went to Harvard University’s accreditor claiming that there was “strong evidence to suggest the school may no longer meet” accreditation standards. If the accreditor agreed, that would mean the school would lose access to federal student aid.
The felon’s EPA chief and co-conspirator Zeldin is hot on the real cause of the floods in Texas. You’re going to love this. (The bolding is mine.)
President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief has thrown his weight behind right-wing conspiracy theories that have spread online in the wake of the Texas floods.
As the death toll from the tragedy continues to rise, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has fueled claims about weather manipulation and has tasked his agency to investigate them.
“Americans have questions about geoengineering and contrails,” Zeldin posted on Thursday, referencing a debunked idea that “deep state” actors are spraying chemicals from planes or using engineering techniques to manipulate the weather.
I have occasionally re-posted Trump’s posts from Truth Social on here. Always as screenshots, never linking to that retched place. But as of yesterday, you can’t look at the site without creating an account. So that’s right out. I thought he considered what he posts there to be official presidential remarks. It’s pretty unpresidential to restrict access to that. But now he can force journalists, political operatives and such to join and that means more money for him, so it does make sense. Always be grifting.
Monty
July 12, 2025, 11:23am
6454
Professional Liar Leavitte stuns even the pubbies. (The bolding is mine.)
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt managed to unite many on the left and right alike on Thursday with a claim about President Donald Trump so over-the-top that neither side was buying it.
Leavitt shared a link on X to a USA Today column arguing that Trump is deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize .
The text of Leavitt’s post on X was also the headline of the story: “Trump deserves Nobel Peace Prize. He’s achieved more than those who’ve won before.”
The rest of the article is mostly screen shots of xits from both left and right voters mocking that assertion.
The loyalty tests have gone high(ish) tech.
The FBI has reportedly stepped up its use of polygraph lie-detector tests on bureau staff, as Director Kash Patel allegedly hunts for agents who have criticized his leadership or leaked to the news media. Sources told The New York Times that dozens of FBI personnel had been questioned. That includes a senior employee, asked if they had said anything negative about Patel, and another who was subject to an interview as the bureau sought to discover who told journalists about Patel’s unusual request for a service weapon. The lie detector tests, the sources said, marked a break from precedent at the FBI, where such tests were more commonly used against those thought to have betrayed the country or to have committed major offenses.)
Another Biden program chopped by the felon.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it would restart interest charges for student loan borrowers enrolled in the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education plan, increasing bills for nearly 7.7 million people.
On August 1, the Department of Education will resume interest on SAVE payments, giving enrollees just weeks to figure out a personal financial plan after spending the last year relieved from making interest-free payments while litigation played out.
Borrowers can continue to defer payments but now those loans will accrue interest until forbearance ends. The education department previously said the temporary postponement would end in “Fall 2025” but the date remains unclear due to pending legal challenges.
Old McTraitor had a farm with a grift here…
In the days before President Donald Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement sent markets tumbling, two of his top advisors sold off at least $1.3 million combined in stocks, averting potential losses.
The trades, made by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino and White House Presidential Personnel Office Director Sergio Gor, were disclosed in ethics documents made public this month.
Both men sold off stock in Trump Media and Technology Group, the company that runs Trump’s Truth Social platform.
Gor sold between $15,000 and $50,000 in stock on March 27, while Scavino sold between $1 million and $5 million in stock on April 1, the day before Trump’s announcement.
Officials are generally only required to disclose value ranges of their assets on ethics documents, so the exact value of the stock when it was sold remains unclear.
The Second Felonial Era thinks they are on a mission from God.
This week the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted a controversial video that lionizes the work of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which it suggests is aimed at delivering divine justice to evildoers. The video quotes Isaiah 6:8, which describes the prophet’s acceptance of a mission from God, and includes an excerpt from the folk song “God’s Gonna Cut You Down .”
Critics of the video charged DHS with blasphemy for invoking the Bible and God’s will to sanctify CBP and, by implication, the Trump administration’s immigration policies . But the puzzles posed by the department’s propaganda go beyond its dubious claim of divine authority, especially when you consider the details of Isaiah’s mission.
Every Bible within a 10 mile radius must’ve spontaneously combusted.
Yabutt think of all the money they saved!
I mean, really? Field agents probably occasionally need firearms, even then that is mostly fiction. Why would the (incompetent) head of the FBI need a gun? He’s not busting doors and making arrests like the junior staff.
He sits in an office.
The rôle of the FBI is painstaking investigation, not wild-west shoot-outs. (That seems to be the purview of ATF, though the FBI did play a rôle in the Waco shitstorm)
Monty
July 12, 2025, 12:24pm
6457
He might be wanting to emulate Cruella de Vile and make strategic publicity stunts out of FBI raid like she’s done with ICE.
Monty:
Judge Maame E. Frimpong also issued a separate order barring the federal government from restricting attorney access at a Los Angeles immigration detention facility.
Hmmm .. That doesn’t sound like a white person’s name.
Monty
July 12, 2025, 12:30pm
6459
No kidding. Her parents are from Ghana.
Harrumph! A person like that obviously can’t be a judge who tells white people what to do.
Looking at your link: she is clearly an anchor baby who grew up to be appointed by Sleepy Joe Biden. There must be some way to send her and her parents back to Ghana where they belong.
