Aaand that’s the end of all our birthday and Christmas gift-giving to people back in the States.
Thanks, Trump!
Edit to add: and we’re not alone!
And of course you need the 'ma deuce to take out the roving gangs.
A free tour of the world! When are we going to start building concentration camps in Antarctica? Oh… shhhhhh.
I mentioned just above the Trump DeSantis federally-controlled state administration losing in court with Alligator Auschwitz. So, of course, they’re going with…
DeSantis is doubling down on immigrant detention centers in his state – including the announcement of a new immigration detention facility he dubbed “Deportation Depot,” which can hold as many as 2,000 detainees.
I’m shocked, stunned, astounded, and appalled at this from the Second Felonial Era.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff inadvertently helped Vladimir Putin troll the grieving family of an American man who was killed while fighting for Russia.
Michael Gloss was killed in Ukraine last year after traveling to Moscow and volunteering for the Russian military after dismissing criticism of their invasion as “Western propaganda.”
The 21-year-old, who reportedly struggled with severe mental health problems for most of his life, was later revealed to be the son of Juliane Gallina, the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation, and Larry Gloss, an Iraq war vet and CEO of a security tech firm.
During a meeting with Putin on a trip to Moscow earlier this month, Witkoff was presented with an award for Gloss by the Russian president and instructed to present it to Gloss’ grieving family—a move considered by many to be a diplomatic slight, given his parents’ line of work.
Yet Witkoff, a real estate friend of President Donald Trump who had no diplomatic experience before becoming his special envoy to the Middle East and special envoy for peace missions, instead took Putin at his word and delivered the medal to Gloss’ relatives, with an administration source telling CNN he considered the matter to be one that transcended geopolitics.
During a meeting with Putin on a trip to Moscow earlier this month, Witkoff was presented with an award for Gloss by the Russian president and instructed to present it to Gloss’ grieving family—a move considered by many to be a diplomatic slight, given his parents’ line of work.
Yet Witkoff, a real estate friend of President Donald Trump who had no diplomatic experience before becoming his special envoy to the Middle East and special envoy for peace missions, instead took Putin at his word and delivered the medal to Gloss’ relatives, with an administration source telling CNN he considered the matter to be one that transcended geopolitics.
Yes, the young man made a terrible choice, evidently due to his mental health conditions, but to mock or taunt his surviving family is reprehensible.
And, of course, it shows exactly how horrid the entire administration is. I’m curious now; do the rules of the House of Representatives permit a single impeachment motion including every one of these idiots, you know, to increase efficiency in government?
I reckon this is explained uprhread - yet how the fuck does the USA own stock in Intel or any company? The Treasury?
I’m not standing in the way of Newsom doing what he wants - yet the hammer & sicl;e were meant to represent the worker and peasants. Clearly a higher ideal than it ever really came to represent.
Newsom lost a lot of respect when he didn’t use whatever legal measures were available to prevent Trump using the National Guard.
This has been done before: back during the financial crisis in 2008-9, when the U.S. government bailed out General Motors and Chrysler. As a result of the bailout, and GM’s bankruptcy restructuring, the U.S. Treasury wound up owning 60% of the restructured GM, and the Canadian government owned another 12.5%. By 2013, the Treasury had sold off its stake in GM (I’m not sure if the Canadian government still has a stake).
It’s harder to know what the outcome in Court would have been than it would be to anticipate what Trump’s position would have been (“EMERGENCY!!! INVASION!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!”):
It was a good day for tech stocks. Trump’s message is timed at 5:04 PM yet INTL stock went nuts around 2PM, triggering sales both high and low. Dunno when this news hit CNBC yet even in post-close trading, INTL is at its highs. Did they just create stock which would dilute total shares., yet now somehow made up by a 6% increase? I can’t tell if their market cap of 108 Billion is inclusive of this.
I cam think of even more diabolical things the President can do to manipulate stocks (and inform his fellow oligarchs to buy up lots of short term call options). Yet it seems like when he’s not distracted by Putin, he’s got a handbook for fucking with Wall Street. Wonder if he lets Putin in on it.
ETA: The USA is becoming something unlike any other than any -ocracy, or -ism or even dictatorship or monarchy. Trump this time is way beyond the Clusterfuck of Felon 45. He’s not the brains behind it all - a notion which is scary.
So TrumpySantis have Alligator Auschwitz and Deportation Depot. They should just go all in and reopen Andersonville prison.
It’s definitely exceptionally American.
Oddly, the term exceptionalism was coined (WRT to the USA) by Joseph Stalin yet really embraced by Ronny Reagan. “Born in the USA” means national pride, even if the song itself is about how the USA let down veterans and workers.
It certainly looks good on paper that the treasury has 11 billion (worth of) shares of stock that are worth 6% more just today. Is that good for America? Are the tariffs paying off by reversing NAFTA and outsourcing lots of other things to Asia, particularly China?
Where can I look for the Union Label? Sucks that the economy in the 70’s and 80’s wasn’t so terrific, yet the USA sold out on whatever exceptionalism it had. (ETA: Other than military)
The felon’s already reopening a American federal concentration camps.
FORT BLISS, Texas – Americans of Japanese heritage say they hear echoes of their families’ forced internment in the Trump administration’s newest immigrant detention site.
Homeland Security officials say President Donald Trump’s sweeping mass deportation campaign requires a build-up of detention centers to bridge the gap between arrests and removals. They’ve turned to the U.S. military and private contractors to get the job done, including erecting the nation’s largest immigrant detention site on Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
But stewards of Japanese American history, including the children and grandchildren of those who were held in detention, are criticizing the use of Fort Bliss and the plans to expand immigrant detention on American military bases.
Fort Bliss was a “cog” in the United States Japanese internment machine, said Brian Niiya, a historian and content director at Densho, a nonprofit that chronicles Japanese American internment.
And didn’t the felon promise to cut spending. Check out how much it’s costing to run this horror.
At a cost of $1.2 billion, the camp has capacity to detain 5,000 people. Roughly 1,000 men were being held there in mid-August, according to U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat whose district includes Fort Bliss.
The governor of Illinois knows what he’s talking about. (The bolding is mine.)
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) on Friday pushed back on President Trump’s threat to target Chicago next in the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime following a sweeping takeover in the nation’s capital.
“As Donald Trump attempts to create chaos that distracts from his problems, we’ll call it out for what it is,” Pritzker wrote in a lengthy thread on social platform X “Trump and Republicans are trying to distract from the pain they’re causing — from tariffs raising the prices of goods to stripping away healthcare and food from millions.”
“After using Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach, Trump is now openly flirting with the idea of taking over other states and cities,” he wrote in a subsequent post, just hours after Trump turned his sights on the Windy City during a speech from the White House.
Later, the Democratic governor added, Trump’s goal is to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts — all to create a justification to further abuse his power. He’s playing a game and creating a spectacle for the press to play along with.”
Pritzker wrote in another post, “We don’t play those games. Our commitment to law and order is delivering results.”
The felon still thinks our government is his lousy old television show.
Moments after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s closely watched speech at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday, President Donald Trump dramatically escalated his ongoing assault on the central bank’s leadership by threatening to fire governor Lisa Cook if she does not resign. The extraordinary move punctuated an already tense week for the central bank, as Trump has been criticizing Cook following allegations of mortgage fraud leveled by Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a Trump appointee.
As reported by CNBC, Trump made the threat on Friday, during an impromptu visit to the People’s House, a White House–focused educational museum. “What she did was bad,” he told reporters. “I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign.”
The felon cannot remove her from office because he doesn’t like her policy stance. CNN covers how she can be removed here.
According to Section 10 of the Federal Reserve Act, the president can remove any member of the Fed’s Board of Governors “for cause,” which is broadly interpreted to mean malfeasance, neglect of duty or inefficiency. But they cannot be removed for policy differences, such as Trump’s disagreement with the Fed’s wait-and-see approach on interest rates.
Earlier this month, Donald Trump spoke with CNBC about his administration’s trade policies, and he became especially animated about a specific part of an agreement between the United States and the European Union: $600 billion the E.U. had agreed to give him as a “gift.”
“That’s a gift,” the Republican president claimed. “That’s not like, you know, a loan, by the way. That’s not a loan that, ‘Oh, gee, three years comes up. We have to pay it back.’ There’s nothing to pay back. They gave us $600 billion that we can invest in anything we want.” Asked about the details, Trump went on to argue: “There are no details. The details are $600 billion to invest in anything I want. Anything. I can do anything I want.”
At the time, the claim appeared bizarre, but since the White House hadn’t presented the public with any details about the trade deal, it was difficult to say with certainty exactly what he was talking about, and the degree to which it was true (or not).
Two weeks later, officials finally shared some substantive information about the agreement’s framework, and wouldn’t you know it, Trump’s boast isn’t holding up especially well. From the White House’s official summary:
The United States and the European Union share one of the world’s largest economic relationships, supported by mutual investment stocks exceeding $5 trillion, and intend to promote and facilitate mutual investments on both sides of the Atlantic. In this context, European companies are expected to invest an additional $600 billion across strategic sectors in the United States through 2028.
So, no. There’s no gift. And the money the EU will invest will not be used however the felon wants.
Also, why does anyone believe a convicted fraud? He was convicted for lying!
The felon melted down over the Gov’s tweaks tweets.
President Donald Trump has finally responded to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who has been relentlessly trolling him on social media in recent days.
Newsom has made it his mission to “put a mirror to Trump” — launching a full-blown parody campaign that mimics the president’s signature social media rants and even using AI-generated images to mock the GOP and Trump supporters such as Kid Rock.
“I know there are some people who are offended by our all-caps parody of Trump, but I thought it’s time to put a mirror to Trump,” Newsom told MeidasTouch Network’s Adam Mockler.
It seems the trolling worked.
Talking to reporters Friday, Trump didn’t hold back when asked about the California Democrat.
“The governor is incompetent,” he said. “I know Gavin very well. He’s an incompetent guy with a good line of bullshit — and he doesn’t get the job done.”
Newsom quickly fired back on X, formerly Twitter, simply saying, “Such low energy. SAD!”
But the best troll of the twerp is this one:
On Wednesday, the online feud spilled over to Truth Social, where the president kept the attacks coming.
“Gavin Newscum is way down in the polls,” he wrote. “He is viewed as the man who is destroying the once Great State of California. I will save California!!! President DJT.”
Newsom responded by screenshotting the post and adding just one word: “Triggered.”
Grand Canyon University gets the circus felonius imprimatur to continue what they’ve been doing. (The bolding is mine; the hypcrisy is from the university and circus felonius.)
The largest Christian college in the United States has been cleared of federal allegations after university officials said the school was unjustly targeted by the Biden administration.
Grand Canyon University announced last week that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted unanimously to drop its lawsuit against the school.
In 2023, the FTC under the Biden administration filed suit in federal court against GCU, its marketer Grand Canyon Education, Inc., and its president and CEO, Brian Mueller, claiming the defendants used deceptive advertising and engaged in illegal telemarketing. In addition to providing marketing services, Grand Canyon Education, Inc., provides recruiting and support services to the university.
“This case, which we inherited from the previous administration, was filed nearly two years ago and has suffered losses in two motions to dismiss,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said. “These losses are compounded by recent events: Grand Canyon secured a victory over the Department of Education in a related matter before the Ninth Circuit; the Department of Education rescinded a massive fine levied on related grounds; and the Internal Revenue Service confirmed that Grand Canyon University is properly claiming 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation designation.”
The Biden FTC previously complained that the Arizona-based school misled prospective doctoral students about the amount of time it would take to finish its accelerated program, deceptively marketed the school as a nonprofit, and illegally called prospective students who submitted their contact information on the school’s website but requested not to be contacted.
The Department of Education under the Biden administration denied GCU’s nonprofit recognition after it was approved by the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education, the Internal Revenue Service, the State of Arizona, and the Higher Learning Commission.
Mueller said the FTC dropping the charges ends “years of coordinated lawfare by government officials under the Biden Administration against the largest Christian university in the country.”
The bolded part is the real reason because, of course, those so-called Christians are going to continue their nonsense, especially now they have the implicit (explicit?) permission of the federal government.
The felon is a vulgarian (no surprise there). (The bolding is mine; and, as always, the tackiness is the felon’s.)
President Donald Trump made an off-color joke about the FBI going through his wife’s “drawers” as he sought to distance himself from the raid against his former national security adviser John Bolton.
Speaking in the Oval Office hours after agents descended on Bolton’s Maryland home on Friday morning, Trump once again insisted he had nothing to do with the investigation against his longstanding nemesis.
But the President also brought up the raid that the FBI conducted on his Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022, when the then Republican candidate was the subject of a Biden Justice Department probe into the alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Trump was livid about the agency executing the search warrant at the time, claiming that FBI officers had “rummaged” through First Lady Melania Trump’s clothing and personal items and then left the area in a mess.
But as he recounted the episode on Friday, the president made a somewhat off-color quip, telling reporters: “They went through everything they could, including my young son’s room and my wife’s area. They went through her drawers, as the expression goes.
So this means the felon and his main squeeze are living separately although under one roof?
Killer Kennedy’s chased off yet another group of real medical professionals. (The bolding is mine; the credulity is all Killer’s.)
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on Friday reaffirmed support for Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy, becoming the second major professional medical association to break from current US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations this week.
“While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently removed its recommendation that pregnant and lactating individuals receive updated COVID-19 vaccines, ACOG’s recommendations have not changed,” according to the updated practice advisory. “The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists continues to recommend the use of updated COVID-19 vaccines in individuals contemplating pregnancy and in pregnant, recently pregnant, and lactating individuals.”
In May, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that Covid-19 vaccines will no longer be among the recommended vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children in CDC immunization schedules. The abrupt decision bypassed the government’s normal process for evaluating and recommending vaccines, and Kennedy did not offer scientific evidence to justify the change to the recommendations.
I am waiting for more information on the Garcia case. Today’s Sunday here and, of course, I have to return to work tomorrow to prep for the next semester. During what little breaks I get, I’ll check, and post whatever update I see at the time.
I must admit I am quite conflicted by this one. On one hand, I know (or think I know) what the root reason for her comments are; on the other hand, she’s right about what she actually said.
Here’s the source of my current conflict.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) on Saturday upped her crusade against conditions in the Gaza Strip following a declaration of famine in the region by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
“U.S. taxpayers fund Israel $3.8 billion annually for military aid. That means every U.S. tax payer is contributing to Israel’s military actions,” Greene wrote in a Saturday post on X.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to pay for genocide in a foreign country against a foreign people for a foreign war that I had nothing to do with. And I will not be silent about it,” she added.
The Georgia Republican lawmaker has urged her colleagues to raise their voices on the topic and urge the Trump administration to shift its stance on repeated strikes on Palestinians in the region.
Several world leaders have spoken out against the Israeli government’s actions and said they would take the necessary steps to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed their decisions and maintains that the government’s object is to eliminate Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel during an Oct. 7, 2023, music festival.
“The innocent people in Gaza did not kill and kidnap the innocent people in Israel on Oct 7th,” Greene wrote on Saturday.
“Just as we spoke out and had compassion for the victims and families of Oct7, how can Americans not speak out and have compassion for the masses of innocent people and children in Gaza? Is one type of innocent life worthy and another type of innocent life worth nothing?” she asked.
She told her followers, “God sees all innocent lives the same” after slamming the State Department for halting the approval of Gazans’ U.S. visitor visas for groups seeking medical treatment.
And check out the responses from the Greed of the Puppet party:
“Why are you advocating for GAZANS to come to the US? How is Islamic immigration ‘America First’?” Laura Loomer wrote Saturday on X.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) weighed in on Greene’s statements in May, brushing aside the genocidal narrative.
“I [honestly] don’t care what crazy pants thinks,” Fetterman replied. “And why is that news and her views on that right now?”
“It’s not a genocide, you know, that’s just not the case. And she’s entitled to her opinion, but I’m entitled to not really care what her views on that is,” he added later.
Sorry about quoting the whole thing, but it’s a rather short article.
In my wife’s hometown of Busan, South Korea, on the bridge going from Samnak Station to Samnak Park, there’s a nifty little spot with a giant heart frame and a post box. The spot is called Propose Zone. Apparently, you get someone to take a picture of you as you take a knee (see what I did there?) and make a proposal to your lass. The picture, of course, is one of those new Polaroid style ones which you can slap a stamp on and drop in the post box right there to memorialize the oh so sweet moment. Evidently Alaska has something similar!
President Donald Trump on Friday showed off a photograph he said Russian President Vladimir Putin sent him of them standing side by side a week ago in Alaska.
Trump brandished the picture in the Oval Office as he announced the 2026 World Cup draw will be hosted in Washington at the Kennedy Center.
“I was just sent a picture from somebody that wants to be there very badly,” Trump said. “He’s been very respectful of me and of our country, but not so respectful of others.”
“I’m going to sign this for him. But I was sent one, and I thought you’d like to see it,” Trump continued. “That’s a man named Vladimir Putin who I believe will be coming depending on what happens. He may be coming and he may not, depending on what happens. We have a lot of things happening over the next couple of weeks.”
“But I thought it was a nice picture of him. Okay of me, but nice of him. So, that was very nice that it was sent to me,” Trump added.
Isn’t that adorable? I think I’ll go puke now.
Come to to think of it, if either the Alaska state government or Anchorage municipality governement wants to capitalize on this, they can renovate the place, but instead of a heart frame, they’ll need to put up a big fat anus.
I mean the Alaska or Anchorage government can renovate their place, not the one in Busan.
Marjorie ‘Jewish space lasers’ Greene? Anti-Semitism.
Russia hosted the World Cup in 2018. I still have the plushy wolf mascot my wife brought over, “Zabivaka” (“The one who scores”). So, Putin wants to come to DC to see the draw for the World Cup? I don’t believe Russia can be eligible again (even if it was just the 7 year thing). Is Trumps formerly known as KC staging the non-gay, non-union Cats?
Putin can fly the same Russian Territory to Magadan route (stop: need jet fuel), then skipping over the Aleutians, then hanging a right at Alaska his 4 engine Ilyushin might make it without another fuel stop.
Clearly, Putin does not want to fly over large bodies of water. The short route from Moscow to DC goes West and flies over 4/5 Scandinavian Countries and all of them if you still count Greenland. Trump just dearly misses his brother of another mother. Do other heads of state commonly come to this World Cup draw? Will Xi be there, waving a little Chinese flag? Lushenko, Starmer?
i expect to hear lots of “Football’s coming home” in the UK next year.
Wow, Trump’s joining the young hip crowd by getting on TikTok! Despite the legal reasons why it’s bad (that they’ve championed in the past)! Really scrambling for a distraction from Epstein.
Yet another absurdity as the Russian national football team is currently banned from international competitions.
Am inclined to use the newly minted term “White House Capitalism”
The only unique thing I see about this situation is how such a bad liar and faithless actor could actually get into a position of such power. Normally even crooks have their standards. If you screw everyone all the time, sooner or later you will be stopped by someone. Even in the low level gangster sphere, I’ve heard of people who never moved up in the world precisely because they were seen as too ambitious and back-stabbing.
Other than that, it seems like a run of the mill kleptocracy.
On the “faithless” front, a lot of semi-autocracies and even some full ones listen to their people if there is a strong enough sentiment for change in a certain direction as long as it doesn’t interfere with their power. They say they will do things and then they do them some of the time. Since you wouldn’t want to be known as an inveterate liar. As opposed to this administration which revels in it.