The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues

[ekedolphin]

ICE is buying access to a service that will allow it to see hundreds of millions of phones’ location data. What could possibly go wrong?

Very Soon, ICE Will Know Exactly Where You Are All the Time

[aurora_maire]

@Fiendish_Astronaut

I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel recommenced their military operation the day after the Nobel Peace Prize is announced.

I imagine that when he doesn’t get the peace prize, Trump will lose interest in that. And whoever has been searching the world for “wars” for Trump to “end” in countries he has never heard of will lose his job.

[Coriolanus]

Answering my own question: The Nobel Prizes voting closes in January yet I hope trump doesn’t know that and thinks he’s been iced again and goes ballistic on his media and trashes whomever wins.

OTOH Netanyahu (at least) nominated him for next year. If things go to plan, Gaza should be peaceful other than the tractors building Trump’s casino and golf course(s) so that’s a kind of peace (or was that the West Bank?) In any case, how long does it take his son-in-law to set up several shell companies that he won’t really be the CEO of but really will be the CEO of.

[Superdude]

At this point, I’m surprised that Trump hasn’t created his own Peace Prize and awarded it to himself, like he does golf championships.

[Monty]

@Superdude

At this point, I’m surprised that Trump hasn’t created his own Peace Prize and awarded it to himself, like he does golf championships.

I beat you to it!

@Monty

And “Board of Peace”? What the everloving fuck? Let me guess. One of its first official and public duties is to present to his favorite president a peace prize.

So how much are undocumented folks costing the taxpayer for medical care?

Emergency Medicaid for undocumented immigrants made up only 0.4% of total Medicaid spending in 2022, a new study finds.

Researchers from Emory University; University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora; and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health looked at financial management report data for fiscal year 2022 from the Medicaid Budget and Expenditure System.

Of the 38 states that had data and Washington, D.C., the team found that emergency Medicaid spending for undocumented immigrants amounted to about $9.63 for every resident in those states, according to the research letter published Thursday morning in JAMA.

Less than a Hamilton.

It’s not just the Tylenol!

WASHINGTON – Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expanded his crusade against using Tylenol with a warning: boys who were circumcised were twice as likely to be diagnosed with autism later.

“There are two studies that show children) who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism,” Kennedy said Oct. 9 at President Donald Trump’s Cabinet meeting. “It’s highly likely because they’re given Tylenol.”

Kennedy and Trump set off a political firestorm Sept. 22 when they urged pregnant women not to take Tylenol because of the unproven risk that its active ingredient acetaminophen increases the risk of autism.

So, what’s the new recommendation, Killer Kennedy? Don’t have sex with circumcized men? (Didn’t one of the unlamented banned posters here harp on circumcision? Could they be Killer himself?)

It seems not all is quite peaceful with “the deal”.

Israel will not include Marwan Barghouti, its most prominent Palestinian detainee, in its hostage-for-prisoner exchange with Hamas.

The 66-year-old is understood to have been at or near the top of the list of detainees Hamas wanted freed as part of a ceasefire deal that would see the release of the last remaining hostages held in Gaza.

By far the most popular political figure among Palestinians, Barghouti is serving five life sentences after being convicted of orchestrating terror attacks that killed five people in 2001 and 2002. He has been behind bars for more than 23 years.

Despite his conviction, he is viewed as a unifying figure who has long accepted Israel’s right to exist alongside a Palestinian state. His supporters have often described him as the “Palestinian Nelson Mandela”.

There’s not going to be a prisoner exchange with just the concept of an end to the war.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the group will not release hostages unless the Israel-Hamas war fully ends in an interview with Qatar-based Al Araby TV.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan stated that the terror group would not conduct a “prisoner exchange” unless an agreement is reached to fully end the Israel-Hamas War in an interview on Qatari-owned Al Araby TV on Thursday.

“Prisoner exchange” is a term used by the terror organization to refer to the release of Israeli hostages held in captivity, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners currently being held in Israeli prisons under suspicion and charges of terror activity.

And of course the felon’s touted “board of peace” isn’t happening either.

A senior Hamas official has rejected Donald Trump’s proposal for a transitional “Board of Peace” to oversee Gaza’s post-war administration.

Under the US president’s plan, the board would be headed by Mr Trump and Sir Tony Blair, the former prime minister.

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official who has been involved in previous negotiations between the terror group and the US, said that no Palestinian faction would accept such a plan.

“All the factions, including the Palestinian Authority, reject this,” he told Qatar’s Al Araby television network on Thursday.

And now he wants to ban China’s airlines from flying over a different country!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration on Thursday proposed banning Chinese airlines from flying over Russia on flights to and from the United States, saying the practice puts American carriers at a disadvantage.

U.S. airlines have long criticized the decision to allow Chinese carriers to fly over Russia on some flights because it which gives them the advantage of decreased flying time and burning less fuel.

The U.S. Transportation Department said on Thursday in its proposed order “this imbalance has become a significant competitive factor.” USDOT said it was proposing to bar Chinese overflights “to level this competitive disparity amongst U.S. and Chinese air carriers.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not have an immediate comment.

Russia has barred U.S. airlines and other foreign carriers from flying over its airspace in retaliation for Washington banning Russian flights over the U.S. in March 2022 after the country invaded Ukraine.

The decision could impact some U.S. flights operated by Air China, China Eastern, Xiamen Airlines and China Southern.

And he’s proudly announcing his vengeance plans.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that his administration will “only” cut programs popular with Democrats as the government shutdown stretched into its ninth day.

While speaking during his eighth Cabinet meeting, Trump said he will be “making cuts that will be permanent” amid a partisan standoff in the Senate.

“I hate to tell you, because that makes sense, but we’re only cutting Democrat programs. But we’re going to start that,” Trump said. “…They wanted to do this, so we will give them a little taste of their own medicine.”

That dude, Mister Corpus, is still giving him grief.

Donald Trump was asked at Wednesday’s White House roundtable that included far-right content creators ― and had Trump’s antifa bogeyman as the subject — if he’d “given any more thought to possibly suspending habeas corpus to not only deal with these insurrectionists across the nation but also to continue rapidly deporting illegal aliens.”

“Yeah, uh, suspending who?” the president replied.

Have I mentioned the felon is proud of trashing the constitution?

President Donald Trump, who insists he’s not a dictator, boasted Wednesday that his administration had “taken freedom of speech away,” while defending his executive order directing federal prosecutors to target people who burn or desecrate the American flag.

Speaking Wednesday at a roundtable with handpicked MAGA influencers, Trump was joined by senior adviser Stephen Miller, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others. The meeting, billed by the White House as a discussion on antifa, featured Trump’s characteristic mix of grievance and defiance.

“We’ve made it a one-year penalty for inciting riots,” Trump said. “We took the freedom of speech away, because that’s been through the courts. When they burn a flag, it agitates and irritates crowds … we’re looking at it not from free speech, which I always felt strongly about, but from one that the courts never passed.”

I wonder how many of that crowd had the courage to tell him he’s in the wrong doing that. (Actually, I don’t, not even a little.)

The new plan: deport Garcia to Ghana.

he Department of Homeland Security said it now plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Ghana, according to a notice from the agency to his attorneys.

DHS previously said it was planning to deport Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador and then brought back to the U.S., to Eswatini and Uganda.

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia will be in court on Friday for an evidentiary hearing in which government witnesses are expected to testify about the steps taken to remove him to Eswatini or elsewhere.

Beside not even being on the same freaking continent as his family and even his country of citizenship, it’s yet another country in which he has not committed a crime because, of course, he’s never been there.

The felon and the fool aren’t on the same page regarding military pay.

President Trump said Wednesday that a stand-alone bill to pay military service members during a government shutdown “probably will happen,” contradicting comments from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) earlier in the day.

“Yeah, that probably will happen,” the president told a reporter when asked if he would encourage Congress to pass stand-alone legislation to pay troops.

“We have to worry about it yet. That’s a long time. You know what one week is for me, an eternity? One week for me is a long time; we’ll take care of it,” Trump told journalists at the White House. “Our military is always going to be taken care of.”

I know exactly how long a week is. It’s one half the time period you hope your marks will have forgotten about your promises.

I also knonw that it’s not just their pay the military need to support their families. They need, as I mentioned upthread, certain on-base services which are closed for the duration. One of those is the commissary. Other things are the base daycare centers.

But, felon, have you listened to your flack in the House?

Johnson indicated opposition to bringing stand-alone legislation to pay military service members during the ongoing government shutdown, an apparent shift from Tuesday.

Norway’s worried about the fallout when the felon doesn’t win.

(Bloomberg) – Norway is bracing for the aftermath of the Nobel Peace Prize announcement on Friday as the Nordic nation has faced increasing pressure from Donald Trump and his administration to award it to the US leader.

Trump’s aggressive push to secure the prize, including public declarations he deserves it and calls to Norwegian officials, has intensified with a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and a possible peace deal. At the same time, the decisionmakers at the Norwegian Nobel Committee have signaled that this pressure has been futile.

In a social media post overnight Thursday, Trump’s son Eric asked his followers on X to “retweet if you believe @realDonaldTrump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.” The White House official account on X posted a photo of Trump calling him “The Peace President” at about the same time.

And later Thursday, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office with his Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb, Trump again pushed his track record in peacemaking.

Don’t have enoug air traffic controllers on duty now? Solution: Fire some!

As the ninth day of the government shutdown wears on, the focus is on how many air traffic controllers show up to work tonight.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported staffing shortages for controllers dealing with airspace in 11 different places Thursday evening, according to a publicly available planning document.

&

The cause of the staffing problems was not immediately apparent, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said early Thursday on Fox Business a “small fraction” of controllers were “lashing out” because of the government shutdown and not going to work.

&

“I think what’s happening here, 90% of the controllers, they show up, they come to work, but 10% of them are lashing out,” Duffy said, blaming Democrats in Washington for the shutdown.

Monday night, the Hollywood Burbank Airport control tower closed when too many controllers there called out sick. Tuesday, flights in Nashville were delayed and part of the air traffic control operations had to be shifted to another facility across the state when workers took unscheduled time off.

If controllers keep not showing up, Duffy will fire them, he said.

Why does every management decision with this cluster remind me of “The beatings will continue until morale improves”?

[Pardel-Lux]

@Monty

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expanded his crusade against using Tylenol with a warning: boys who were circumcised were twice as likely to be diagnosed with autism later.

Remember when feminists complained about men thinking with their penisses? If I ever disagreed, it would be harder to argue against now after this scientific and intelectual break through.

[Coriolanus]

I was circumcised on very-Jewish Long Island and I never asked my parents about it - whether they were asked or what. I certainly was not a briss (?”) so it was likely routine with newborns in the mid-60’s.

I didn’t even know what circumcision was till I saw porn videos.

They don’t sell “Tylenol” in the UK. Bunch of other names for Acetaminophen. For injuries, I prefer Ibuprofen yet what is this “Advil” you speak of. Yet today I bought some Aspirin which is called Aspirin here.

Kennedy can feel free to tweet or shout from the top of a box yet ought not be part of the government. I hated, hated during Trumps “how great am I” joint speech before congress he said “He’s a Kennedy, you should like him” and only some Dem paddles were raised.

It’s easy to blame the Dems for everything: They sigh, raise paddles, file lawsuits that will be heard in 2029.

[Spoons]

Quoted by Monty from a news source:

@Monty

WASHINGTON – Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expanded his crusade against using Tylenol with a warning: boys who were circumcised were twice as likely to be diagnosed with autism later.

“And the T.D. Lysenko Award for Science goes to … the envelope please … Robert F. Kennedy, Junior!”

[Coriolanus]

Didn’t want to make a new thread, yet the Independent did not do the little research I did in that the voting was over this past January:

Trump fails in bid for Nobel Peace Prize as Venezuelan politician Maria Corina Machado wins 2025 award

Ehh, he still failed so let him deny it. Even if you don’t outright trash her, make it about yourself.

Dunno how many wars she’s claimed to have stopped. And she’s in hiding now because of threats to her life.

María Corina Machado

[Coriolanus]

Drat, it was only recently they made the decision, so he certainly, definitely was iced and failed.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee pointedly said on Thursday that it had reached a decision about who would be named 2025 peace prize laureate on Monday, several days before Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire under the US president’s Gaza plan.

I don’t know much about Venezuelan politics, yet whoever is in charge is likely pals with Trump which therefore means this woman is on the other side. It’s still early in the US so we’ll have to wait a bit for Trump’s well wishes and considerate discourse on the choice.

[Der_Trihs]

@Coriolanus

I don’t know much about Venezuelan politics, yet whoever is in charge is likely pals with Trump which therefore means this woman is on the other side.

No, Trump hates him too.

[Coriolanus]

WH replies:

“President Trump will continue making peace deals around the world, ending wars, and saving lives,” said Steven Cheung, White House Director of Communications, in a post on X reacting to the news that Maria Corina Machado had won the Nobel Peace Prize 2025.

"He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.

“The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”

The “sore loser” last line means he best do something truly remarkable in the next 51 weeks as I am sure the Nobel Committee has a long memory.

Save up your money now for the Kennedy Center’s inaugural gala to celebrate the great Cheesemaker Peacemaker DJT!

[Pardel-Lux]

This peacemaker? Or rather this one? Neither looks like good peace Nobel prize credentials to me.
Anyway, María Corina Machado Parisca seems like a good choice to me: a woman, latina, sharing a common enemy with trump: Nicolás Maduro and the chavista regime. I guess he is fuming. The prize could be spun as an endorsment of his policies, but his brown-nosers are too dumb to do so. I feel sorry for the ketchup bottles.

[Gyrate]

@Pardel-Lux

This peacemaker? Or rather this one? Neither looks like good peace Nobel prize credentials to me.

How about this one?

[joebuck20]

@Coriolanus

Save up your money now for the Kennedy Center’s inaugural gala to celebrate the great Cheesemaker Peacemaker DJT!

He’ll be the first recipient of the Donald J. Trump Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Peace.

[Pardel-Lux]

Oh, yes! The coveted gold plated DJTAFOAITFOP! I want one too.

[Horatius]

@Monty

deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Ghana

Somebody needs to make “Kilmar Abrego Garcia World Tour” shirts. At this point, he’s going to hit every continent by next May.

[Gyrate]

Have they tried sending him to Sweden yet?

I remember when this was funny because it was so ridiculous. Nowadays - not so much.

[Horatius]

@Gyrate

I remember when this was funny because it was so ridiculous.

I said years ago, any suggested policy that’s already been mocked in a comedy should be automatically rejected, but here we are…

[kenobi_65]

@Coriolanus

They don’t sell “Tylenol” in the UK. Bunch of other names for Acetaminophen. For injuries, I prefer Ibuprofen yet what is this “Advil” you speak of.

Both acetaminophen and ibuprofen (as well as naproxen sodium and aspirin) are decades out of patent protection in the U.S., and are available in generic versions at pretty much every store you can think of. But, the brand-name versions: Tylenol, Advil, Aleve, and Bayer aspirin, are still also widely sold here, and apparently still sell well, despite generally being at a significant price premium.

A lot of people use the brand names for them in common speech, even if those people are only buying the generic versions; the names are probably easier to remember.