I’m glad he clarified that since one could believe the meeting was between Putin and “myself, as a dictator lapdog”.
I don’t see an actual statement from the felon explicitly denying that he believes president of the United States of America is also dictator’s lapdog.
Has Putin been welcomed in this country before?
Hugh Thompson famously intervened to end the My Lai massacre. 29 years later he and two others were awarded the Soldier’s Medal
Anyone want to lay odds against me that these medals will be rescinded by January 20, 2029?
Tell me this wasn’t intentional.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced last week that it would shut down after Congress voted to claw back over $500 million of federal funding from the organization. The announcement imperils local PBS and NPR stations around the country that have provided news and educational content for kids for nearly half a century.
Amid the stripping of these federal funds, last month, the White House debuted a new educational partner at its launch event for its new Founders Museum exhibit: PragerU, a nonprofit organization that specializes in creating right-leaning educational short videos for adults and children. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon introduced the partnership, followed by PragerU CEO Marissa Streit.
The felon’s lending his investment acumen to *everyone’s" 401(k).
Thanks to President Donald Trump, your retirement plan could soon include a mix of stocks, bonds, and private equity investments.
According to White House officials, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that will make it easier for several alternative investments to be added to 401(k) accounts. The list includes private equity, which was previously reserved for sophisticated investors.
It’s a proposal that’s raising red flags among some investment experts, who say a 401(k) should typically be a simple and relatively low-risk investment vehicle. Private equity investments, meanwhile, are often concentrated in a small number of portfolio companies, are less liquid than stocks and bonds, and carry valuations that can be difficult to measure day-to-day.
Trump’s green light doesn’t surprise those monitoring the private equity space, but it’s concerning nonetheless.
“Private equity kind of always gets what it wants in Congress, but I think it’s a bad idea,” Jeffrey Hooke, professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, said. “It’s illiquid, the fees are very high. Private equity funds, for the most part, don’t beat the stock market.”
“I don’t think it’s a good investment for the rank and file retail market,” Hooke added.
And the clencher?
“It’ll make the retirement plans suboptimal,” Hooke said. “When people retire 20 to 30 years after investing in private equity, returns are going to be a little less than one would expect.”
By now, it’s become a party game: Sharpied or Not Sharpied? (The bolding is mine.)
Two months into the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have updated their forecast, predicting slightly fewer named storms. The new outlook released Thursday says there is a 50% chance of above-normal activity, a decrease from 60% in the agency’s May forecast.
NOAA, the federal agency in charge of weather and climate predictions, now expects 13 to 18 named storms, five to nine of which could become hurricanes, including two to five major hurricanes. The previous ranges were 13 to 19 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes and three to five major hurricanes.
The adjusted predictions include the four named tropical storms so far this season.
As President Donald Trump’s global tariffs go into effect, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva remains staunchly opposed to making deals with the U.S. The South American leader has been an outspoken critic of U.S. tariffs, which he sees as a bullying tactic.
“The day my intuition says Trump is ready to talk, I won’t hesitate to call him,” Lula told Reuters. “But today my intuition says he doesn’t want to talk. And I won’t humiliate myself.”
Bom trabalho, Senhor Presidente! (Good job, Mister President!)
The cruelty is not only the point, it’s the very reason for the action.
Alyx, a transgender woman who has served in the Air Force for 15 years, was approved in May for early retirement due to the Trump administration’s policy prohibiting trans people from serving and enlisting in the military.
On Wednesday, that retirement was revoked under a new Air Force directive. She said she wasn’t provided any reason other than that her retirement was “prematurely" approved, according to documentation she provided to NBC News.
“Being told that I would be discharged for a decision on somebody’s part was hard, but then being offered the retirement that I feel I’m owed, that my service is owed, that helped, and then having that yanked away for no reason, with no recourse … that is complete and utter betrayal,” said Alyx, who is based in Virginia and asked to only use her first name due to fear that she and her family could face harassment.
Multiple federal judges initially blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order barring trans troops, but the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect in May.
As a result of the ban, trans service members were required to choose between voluntary and involuntary separation. Voluntary separation included double the lump payout than an involuntary separation and wouldn’t require the service member to pay back any bonuses they had received.
Trans airmen who served at least 20 years could apply for retirement, and those with 18 to 20 years of service could apply for early retirement under the Temporary Early Retirement Authority, or TERA. In late May, the Air Force announced in a memo that airmen with 15 to 18 years of service could request early retirement under an exception to TERA.
Now, I’m by no lawyer, but I think the following tidbit of information from the article shows the administration did not act in good faith. (The bolding is mine.)
On Wednesday, that decision was reversed for Alyx and about a dozen other service members who were approved for early retirement.
“In accordance with DoD Guidance, the Department of the Air Force approved service members with 18-20 years of honorable service who self-identified to retire under the Temporary Authority for Early Retirement (TERA) program,” an Air Force spokesperson told NBC News. “Although service members with 15-18 years of honorable service were permitted to apply for an exception to policy, none of the exceptions to policy were approved.”
To me that means that they were lied to about exception to policy.
The Kremlin’s Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed the meeting in Alaska, adding that it “seems quite logical” for such an important summit to take place in Alaska with the Russian delegation simply flying over the Bering Strait and the two countries’ maritime border.
Oh, really? Are Putin & Co in Kamchatka? The distance from Moscow to, say Anchorage (they haven’t said) is about 4,400 miles and a “great circle” (direct) flight will fly just south of the north pole and then well north of the Bering Strait.
So I hope they bring lots of extra fuel if “Captain” Ushakov is piloting and simply flying over the Bering Strait.
Alaska makes no sense and there’s plenty of other places they could have chosen to not invite Zelensky.
ETA: Dulles in DC to Anchorage is only about 3,300 miles and is more or less a straight shot across the Big Beautiful Flyover Territory.
Sevastopol in Crimea woud have really sent a message. And Trump loves boats and submarines: “Amazing port, the Russians have done such a good job building it in what, 10 years?”
But not a place where Putin can rub in this message: This place used to belong to Russia, punk. Look what I’m doing to another place that used to belong to Russia, punk. Think long and hard before you decide to say nyet to me, punk.
It would be awesome if Putin even mentions Russia selling Alaska for chump change (even before goid and oil were found there).
And partly because the British were about to put a deposit down.
Seward’s Folly indeed. Takebacks are allowed if Putin wants to.
ETA: And the Russian Empire really needed some cash after a crushing defeat in the Crimean War (which Putin would be about as likely to mention)
Trump: There was a war here. Not many people know that. And Russia won and got Crimea. And three other Empire’s weren’t empires anymore except Russia, because of beautiful American Dollars.”
And it’d be some major schadenfreud for state since in the last three elections, the state carried the felon.
Okay, well if they don’t change their mind and go to Crimea, I just hope that Trump says it was during his hero Andrew Jackson’s term they bought Alaska (It was Andrew Johnson).
Alaska seems like a really bad idea for a summit. Maybe it’ll be so bad the next election in six or seven years or so, the Vance/Noem ticket won’t carry the state.
Maybe his lovely sons want to go hunting? Unnecessary murder seems a Rump hallmark. Maybe they’ll hold up the head of a dead Inuit and brag, “Oh, isn’t it a beauty?”
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Maybe he’s loading up AF-1 with all of his stolen goodies ( like the Declaration of Independence? ) and is going to try to make a beeline for the nearest Russian airbase for a quick refuel and a “Ha-ha…! I Robbed you Blind, Suckers…!” tweet.
Maybe he’ll sign over Alaska to Putin, claim he’s now on Russian territory, and defect. He’ll sign the ‘Big Beautiful Neener-Neener’ treaty.
Hegseth loves him some misogyny, hates him some women’s rights.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The man who oversees the nation’s military reposted a video about a Christian nationalist church that included various pastors saying women should no longer be allowed to vote.
The extraordinary repost on X from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, made Thursday night, illustrates his deep and personal connection to a Christian nationalist pastor with extreme views on the role of religion and women.
In the post, Hegseth commented on an almost seven-minute-long report by CNN examining Doug Wilson, cofounder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or CREC. The report featured a pastor from Wilson’s church advocating the repeal of women’s right to vote from the Constitution, and another pastor saying that in his ideal world, people would vote as households. It also featured a female congregant saying that she submits to her husband.
“All of Christ for All of Life,” Hegseth wrote in his post that accompanied the video.
So it’s not just the fourteenth amendment to the constitution the felon and his flock hate. Actually, it’s the entire document.
I hope I quoted that right. Long time reader, first time quoter…
Anyways, I just wanted to say that these people are fucking terrifying. In fact, they post this CNN video, which is NOT flattering to Wilson, at all, as a sign of valor or a badge of accomplishment, or something. I’ve had a front-row seat, in fact. A guy that I grew up with is actually a member of that church. He moved from New Jersey to Idaho, in fact, just to join. He also gleefully reports that he is a Christian Nationalist, and fails to acknowledge any of the fault in that statement or tag.
Make no mistake, Wilson and his ilk say that they want a “Christian Nation, a Christian World,” and they want to make that a reality through peaceful means, but they are absolutely oblivious to the fact that other dissenting worldviews are just as valid as their (In my opinion…) truly fucked up worldview.
I have asked Joe (My friend) point blank what his opinion would be if it were, say, Zoroastrians who were attempting to impose their rules and regulations on everyone else, and he quite literally scoffs it all away with a “Well, they are wrong and we are right” statement that would make Jesus himself cringe.
Christian Nationalism needs its own thread…probably in the Pit.
My apologies for the hijack.
It is my understanding that for the past year or more the Russian TV talking heads have been claiming that Alaska was only “leased” to the US and we need to give it back or else.
Yes, this reminds me of the people who scream loudly whenever there is some (supposed, and usually fictitious) attempt by some Muslim group to “impose sharia law”. But of course they want to impose their version of “sharia law” on everyone, under the justification that their rules are right.
That little tidbit might be the only thing that stops Trump from selling Alaska to Russia.
Since defaulting on our lease is exactly the kind of thing Trump would relish.
This is fascinating and alarming. Given that “it’s really Russia” is precisely the same argument that launched the annexation of Crimea and the war in the rest of Ukraine, I have the following questions:
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Why have American media ignored this development? It seems worth keeping an eye on.
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How bad would things have to be in Trump’s America for life to be better in Putin’s Аляска than Trump’s Alaska? As recently as January, I would have said of COURSE they’re better off in America, but when it becomes a comparison of two corrupt, inefficient, far-away authoritarian governments, well, at least Russia has healthcare and still believes in science. I suppose the answer depends on how fast and how permanently Trump mangages to wreck this country.
Lysenkoism may be all the rage with RFK Jr. Q-Onanists today, but it is actually a Soviet idea.
And healthcare in Russia is awful if you are not truly rich, in which case you try to fly to the USA or Swizzerland for treatment.
I know the USA is bad and getting worse, but Russia is still much worse. And beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg? You can’t even imagine.
Oh, I know it’s worse NOW. Nobody sensible in America is hankering after life in Russia. My question is, how bad do things have to get in the US before it’s no longer worse, but comparable?
It’s more of a thought exercise to help realize what we still have and where things can be shored up against a bad leader.
I suppose this has been asked already… but imagine you’re an Alaskan: big rough tough… carries a .44 just when they walk their dogs.
Imagine that the Rep you voted for was the deciding vote in the ‘Big Beautiful Rape America’ bill.
Imagine that in a week, you wake up in your lake cabin and hear that all the land west of you to the sea and all the land east of your clear to Canada, is now Russian… and they’ve decided to take every single thing you own: Money, boat, house, cars, snow mobiles, dogs, guns ( in the ‘gun club” :eyeroll: ). Maybe your kids too.
And you can either be shot dead where you stand… learn Russian fast… or pray to God that Canada takes refugees.
Thanks, Murkowski. Thanks, Rump.