The Conversation -- July 21, 2025
Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: “Three liberal senators want to know whether there is any truth to ... Donald Trump’s claim that Paramount is actually paying him about $32 million to settle his lawsuit against the company, double what was announced by the CBS parent company.... Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) sent a letter Monday morning to the company’s chief executive, David Ellison, asking him to address Trump’s claims of a side deal.... The senators also reiterated their concern that Paramount — and its would-be owner, Skydance — could be seen to have bribed Trump to receive a go-ahead from the Federal Communications Commission to consummate its merger. The senators pressed Ellison, who was photographed in April with Trump, to reveal whether he has discussed the merger with him and whether he has agreed to 'make changes to Skydance’s content or Paramount’s or CBS’s content at the request of the Trump administration.'”
Shawn Hubler & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: “Pentagon officials will begin withdrawing 700 active-duty Marines who were sent to Los Angeles last month, the latest scaling back of the Trump administration’s contentious military deployment in Southern California. The withdrawal of the Marines follows the departure of nearly 2,000 California National Guard soldiers and a smaller contingent of about 150 specialized Guard firefighters. The troops had been dispatched to Los Angeles by President Trump starting on June 7, after protests erupted there over immigration raids. More than half will now have been ordered back to base; an 1,892-member brigade of military police remains. The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, framed the pullout as the natural closure of a successful military response that was needed to quell civil unrest in the nation’s second-largest city.... Democratic leaders in California have accused the Trump administration of provoking the protests by sending masked federal agents to carwashes and other sites to detain immigrants, and then using the subsequent public outrage over the raids as a pretext for military action. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles has compared the deployment to an 'armed occupation,' and Gov. Gavin Newsom has condemned it as 'a solution right now in search of a problem.' Both have called for the removal of all the deployed troops.”
Kenneth Chang of the Washington Post: “A public letter from NASA employees on Monday urges leaders of the space agency not to carry out deep cuts sought by the Trump administration.... It is addressed to Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, whom ... [Donald] Trump appointed this month as acting NASA administrator. Cuts to NASA programs have been arbitrary and in defiance of priorities set by Congress, the NASA employees said.... Prominent scientists outside of NASA, including 20 Nobel Prize winners, also offered their names in support.... Upheaval within NASA continued on Monday, when Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., announced she was 'stepping aside' on Aug. 1.”
Alan Blinder of the New York Times: “A federal judge appeared deeply skeptical on Monday of the Trump administration’s efforts to strip Harvard University of billions of dollars in research funding, suggesting the school might prevail in its legal battle against the government. Judge Allison D. Burroughs did not issue a ruling during a crucial hearing, which lasted more than two hours in her courtroom in Boston. But she did seem receptive to Harvard’s arguments, as both the school and the government sought to have the case decided in their favor without a trial. The judge unleashed a barrage of pointed questions at the lone Justice Department lawyer. She demanded to know, for instance, how the administration could reasonably tie withdrawal of medical research funding to concerns about the civil rights of Jewish people. And she appeared bothered by the administration’s hurried approach to attacking Harvard’s research funding, suggesting there were potentially 'staggering' constitutional consequences if the government could punish a university without due process.”
Mitch Smith of the New York Times: “A Minnesota state senator who was convicted of burglary said on Monday that she would resign from the Legislature by Aug. 4. Her departure would leave the chamber with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans until a special election can be held to fill her seat and break the tie. By stepping down, Senator Nicole Mitchell, a Democrat, is likely to avoid the possibility of being removed from office.... Ms. Mitchell was arrested in April 2024 and accused of breaking into her stepmother’s home. She maintained her innocence after her arrest, and for more than a year resisted calls by Republicans for her to resign or be expelled. Even so, she was limited to working on the periphery of the Legislature.... After a jury in Becker County convicted Ms. Mitchell on Friday of two felony charges, legislative leaders from both parties said they expected her to resign. Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, is expected to call a special election in the district, which is considered solidly Democratic.”
Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: “For a year and a half, experts have warned that Israel’s failure to plan for a power transition in Gaza would lead to anarchy, make it harder to deliver aid and stymie efforts to defeat Hamas. A sequence of shootings in Gaza over the weekend — one near Gaza’s southern border, another at its northern edge — have highlighted the accuracy of those predictions. On Saturday, Israeli soldiers opened fire on civilians near a food distribution site run by Israeli-backed private contractors. On Sunday, Israeli soldiers opened fire on civilians as crowds gathered near a convoy of food trucks sent by the United Nations toward areas controlled by Hamas.... Both aid systems are piecemeal responses to a failure by Israel to make detailed plans for a transition of power in Gaza, according to analysts and experts on aid distribution.... Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has also repeatedly decided against creating a system of transitional governance.... In particular, he has prevented the return of the Palestinian Authority, which governed the territory until Hamas seized power in 2007.”
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“Trump: Making America Alone Again.” Margaret MacMillan in Foreign Affairs: “... it’s hard to think of a case in which the leader of a major alliance has so casually and brutally cast aside allies that, for the most part, have been dependable.... The striking lack of historical precedents for such behavior does not suggest a clever Machiavellian policy to enhance American power; rather, it shows a United States acting against its own interests in bewildering fashion, undermining one of the key sources of that power. And this comes at a time when American global leadership and economic and technological dominance are already under growing pressure from China and other major rivals.... Alliances are hard work: their management requires patience, forbearance, skill, and ... repeated tending.... Publicly chastising allies on their supposed faults, as Vice President JD Vance did with the Europeans at the Munich Security Conference in February, barking out orders and insults on social media, as the president does almost daily ... only stores up resentments and makes future personal relations more difficult.” ~~~
~~~ Trump: Making Europe Great Again. Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s pledge to 'Make America Great Again' ... is bringing Europeans together again. The European Union was in bad shape at the start of the first Trump administration. Public trust in the bloc was at a historic low, Britain had just voted to leave, and the European economy was struggling to recover from the global financial crisis, which had set off a series of debt-related meltdowns across the continent. But things slowly started to improve from around 2016. In recent months, sentiment around the European Union has picked up further. Trust ratings are approaching a two-decade high. E.U. leaders are striking trade deals with fast-growing economies like Indonesia, standing up a defense plan that has garnered partnerships with nations including Canada, and even Britain recently struck a deal to reset relations.” And Putin is helping, too!
There is a world of global trade that is being built excluding the U.S. -- Sebastian Breteau, a retail business auditor ~~~
~~~ David Lynch of the Washington Post: “Major U.S. corporations and trading partners are scrambling to adapt to a new global economy, even as ... Donald Trump mulls the imposition of historic tariffs in less than two weeks.... Stung by Trump’s unpredictable demands, close U.S. allies including those in Europe are trying to develop alternative trade links that skirt the U.S. market.... Taxes on U.S. imports will likely stay much higher than they have been for several decades. And the American role in the global economy is undergoing a profound change, with consequences for the rest of the world.... At this early date, the tangible gains [from Trump's economic regimen] have been muted. Spending on new factories, which soared under the Biden administration, has fallen in five of the past six months, according to the Census Bureau. Manufacturing employment also is down slightly....”
Ben Bernanke & Janet Yellen in a New York Times op-ed: “As former chairs of the Federal Reserve, we know from our experiences and our reading of history that the ability of the central bank to act independently is essential for its effective stewardship of the economy. Recent attempts to compromise that independence, including the president’s demands for a radical reduction in interest rates and his threats to fire its chair, Jerome Powell, if the Fed does not comply, risk lasting and serious economic harm. They undermine not only Mr. Powell but also all future chairs and, indeed, the credibility of the central bank itself.”
Frank Kendall, former Secretary of the Air Force, in a New York Times op-ed: “Fear is the universal tool of authoritarians.... [Donald] Trump does not accept dissent and is using fear to try to suppress it.... The fear in the Pentagon today is palpable.... Both the targeted removals of senior military leaders and the mass firings of members of our federal civil service that are taking place are unprecedented and clearly designed to eliminate dissent, replace professionals with political loyalists and create a climate of fear.... The administration has threatened prosecutions against former government officials and private citizens. It has threatened companies with the loss of government contracts and threatened nonprofit organizations across the country with cuts to funding. This climate of menace and apprehension extends to companies’ willingness to employ or associate with those who criticize Mr. Trump or his administration. I am one of those people.... Mr. Trump’s use of fear as a weapon has been most pronounced with undocumented immigrants and communities of immigrants more broadly.”
Mike Baker & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: In 1996, Maria Farmer complained to New York police and to the F.B.I. about being assaulted by Jeffrey Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell. She repeated her complaints -- which included one involving her sister when the sister was a teenager -- in 2006. She described one incident in which Mr. Trump intimidated her and “hovered over her,” but did not assault her after Mr. Epstein told him, “No, no. She’s not here for you.” “In interviews this week about what she told the authorities, Ms. Farmer said she had no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Mr. Epstein’s associates. But she said she was alarmed by what she saw as Mr. Epstein’s pattern of pursuing girls and young women while building friendships with prominent people, including [Donald] Trump and President Bill Clinton.... The story of Ms. Farmer’s efforts to call law enforcement attention to Mr. Epstein and his circle shows how the case files could contain material that is embarrassing or politically problematic to Mr. Trump, even if it is largely extraneous to Mr. Epstein’s crimes and was never fully investigated or corroborated.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare on the colossal stupidity of suing the Wall Street Journal for publishing a story the plaintiff knows to be true. “Trump’s conduct throughout the recent flare-up over the Epstein case is so bizarre that I can only understand it as reflecting fear on his part — panic, really — that something is going to come out. Ironically, there’s no surer way to make certain that it does than to sue a newspaper over a document the president knows to be real.” MB: Wittes claims in his essay that Trump dropped his frivolous lawsuit against the Des Moines Register. That's misleading. As the Washington Post reported (July 1), “Lawyers for ... Donald Trump on Monday filed a motion to drop his federal lawsuit against longtime Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register newspaper, and refiled the suit in an Iowa state court.”
Here is Donald Trump's latest attempt to divert attention from his Epstein debacle, this one abusing the power of his office and aiming directly at his bro base: ~~~
Trump Insists D.C. Team Revert to Racist Name. Daniel Trotta of Reuters: "... Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to interfere with a deal to build a new football stadium in Washington, D.C., unless the local NFL team, now known as the Commanders, changes its name back to Redskins. The American football team dropped the name Redskins in 2020 after decades of criticism that it was a racial slur with links to the U.S. genocide of the Indigenous population.... 'I may put a restriction on them that if they don’t change the name back to the original "Washington Redskins," and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, "Washington Commanders," I won’t make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington,' Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform." Trump also wants the Cleveland Guardians to change their name back to "Cleveland Indians." The New York Times story is here. ~~~
~~~ More distraction, arguably also steeped in racism: ~~~
~~~ Joe Sommerlad of the Independent: “Donald Trump has posted a bizarre AI video of former president Barack Obama being arrested and thrown in jail. Trump ... posted the TikTok clip on his Truth Social platform on Sunday in which the Democrat is seen declaring in a rally speech that 'no one is above the law.' He is then seen being handcuffed by law enforcement during an Oval Office sitdown with a grinning Trump, created using real footage of the two men meeting at the White House in November 2016.... The Democrat is then led away and subsequently seen wearing an orange jumpsuit in a federal prison.... Trump appears to have been responding to comments made by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who ... accused Obama of orchestrating a 'years-long coup' to keep Trump from the White House.... The president posted about Gabbard’s claim 17 times over the weekend, drawing accusations that he was attempting to shift the national conversation away from his past relationship with [Jeffrey] Epstein....” ~~~
~~~ BUT. In Trump's version of events, he doesn't need an Epstein distraction, because the "Epstein Hoax" is making him even more popular. ~~~
~~~ Joe DePaulo of Mediaite: “... Donald Trump is boasting that his poll numbers have gone up 'significantly' amid what he’s calling the 'Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.' In a post to Truth Social on Sunday, the president crowed about his latest approval ratings and them chalked up to the Epstein story — despite polls showing widespread disapproval of his administration’s handling of the probe. 'My Poll Numbers within the Republican Party, and MAGA, have gone up, significantly, since the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax was exposed by the Radical Left Democrats and, just plain “troublemakers,”' Trump wrote. 'They have hit 90%, 92%, 93%, and 95%, in various polls, and are all Republican Party records. The General Election numbers are my highest, EVER! People like Strong Borders, and all of the many other things I have done. GOD BLESS AMERICA. MAGA!' Trump’s claims were largely backed up by CNN data guru Harry Enten on Thursday — although Enten’s dive into the Republican numbers shows Trump might have inflated them just a tad.... However..., Trump’s numbers with broader electorate are as low as they have been at any point in his second term.” ~~~
~~~ MAGA Reverts to Form. Erica Green of the New York Times: “... when The Wall Street Journal published a story detailing a decades-old letter with a lewd drawing that Mr. Trump allegedly sent Mr. Epstein..., Mr. Trump turned one of the most fractious moments for his base into one of the most unifying by tapping into other MAGA grievances: the deep mistrust of mainstream media, the disdain for Rupert Murdoch and the belief that the president had been unfairly persecuted by his political foes. Almost immediately, many of those who had been critical of the administration’s handling of the Epstein case cheered the president on as he vehemently denied the claims, sued The Journal and ordered his attorney general to seek the release of more information.”
On substantive matters, Donald Trump is the worst excuse for a president in U.S. history. He is cruel, corrupt, crass, ignorant and dictatorial. On unimportant matters, he is the saddest excuse for a president in U.S. history. ~~~
The Oval Office, then and now. pic.twitter.com/uCclHpveuF
— JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) July 16, 2025
~~~ Gilding the Oval. Matt Stopera of BuzzFeed, published by the Huffington Post: "Donald Trump has completely transformed the Oval Office into his own gaudy, gold fantasy land.... 'It's like the Dollar Tree version of Versailles,' one person joked." Do click on the link. Stopera has posted quite a few photos, pointing out all the new golden plastic.
Constitutional Failure. Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump and his appointees have been accused of flouting courts in a third of the more than 160 lawsuits against the administration in which a judge has issued a substantive ruling, a Washington Post analysis has found, suggesting widespread noncompliance with America’s legal system. Plaintiffs say Justice Department lawyers and the agencies they represent are snubbing rulings, providing false information, failing to turn over evidence, quietly working around court orders and inventing pretexts to carry out actions that have been blocked. Judges appointed by presidents of both parties have often agreed. None have taken punitive action to try to force compliance, however, allowing the administration’s defiance of orders to go on for weeks or even months in some instances. Outside legal analysts say courts typically are slow to begin contempt proceedings for noncompliance, especially while their rulings are under appeal. Judges also are likely to be concerned, analysts say, that the U.S. Marshals Service — whose director is appointed by the president — might not serve subpoenas or take recalcitrant government officials into custody if ordered to by the courts.”
A Journalist in Trump's Purgatory. George Chidi of the Guardian: “Prosecutors dropped the last remaining charges against Atlanta-area journalist Mario Guevara last week after he was arrested while livestreaming a protest in June. But the influential Salvadorian reporter remains penned up in a south Georgia detention center, fending off a deportation case, jail house extortionists and despair, people familiar with his situation told the Guardian. Donald Trump’s administration has been extreme in unprecedented ways to undocumented immigrants. But Guevara’s treatment is a special case. Shuttled between five jail cells in Georgia since his arrest while covering the 'No Kings Day' protests, the 20-plus-years veteran journalist’s sin was to document the undocumented and the way Trump’s agents have been hunting them down. Today, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, he’s the only reporter in the United States sleeping in a prison cell for doing his job.... Guevara is arguably the most-watched journalist covering Ice operations in the United States, a story that the English-language media had largely been missing, [Jerry] Gonzales [of GALEO Latino Community Development Fund] said.” (Also linked yesterday.)
The president is the most maligned and attacked political figure in the history of American politics..., but he’s also the most resilient. And you see at the same time, his approval ratings are skyrocketing. CNN had a story, I think, a day or two ago. He was at 90 percent approval rating. There’s never been a president that high. -- Speaker Mike Johnson, lying on CNBC last week ~~~
~~~ Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: “Overall, according to the Strength in Numbers presidential approval average, 42.6 percent of Americans approve of the president’s performance while 53.5 percent disapprove, for a net negative of -10.9 points, a low for his second term so far.... The House speaker’s assertion that Trump was at a '90 percent approval rating' is the kind of falsehood you might hear from authoritarian state media. It is a servile display of allegiance as much as it is an attempt to mislead viewers. It’s Johnson telling Trump he is his man.... To tell such egregious lies for the approval of some higher authority is to prostrate yourself — to show ... your lack of self-respect. This becomes all the more egregious when one considers that Mike Johnson, as speaker of the House of Representatives, is more an equal to the president, in the American constitutional order, than he is a subordinate. He should have the dignity, at least, to act as a peer and not a supplicant.”
~~~ MB Note/Update: The CNN poll, as Joe DePaulo of Mediaite notes in the story linked above, was a poll of self-identified Republicans. According to Gallup's most recent polling, only 28 percent of Americans say they are Republicans. So that's (nearly) 90 percent of about 28 percent of Americans, Mikey. ~~~
~~~ Marie: The Speaker has not only a duty to demonstrate that he leads a co-equal branch of the federal government, he also has an obligation to stand up for -- to speak for -- the men and women of the House of Representatives. The House is the body that by law and in fact most directly represents the people in this "government of the people." By subordinating himself to the president*, by grovelling to him, Johnson demeans every member of the House, and by extension, every American citizen whom they represent. Johnson's paradox is that he is so determined to keep his job that he has opted not to do it.
⭐ The Climate Has Changed, and We Have Not. Sarah Kaplan, et al., of the Washington Post: “From last year’s disaster in Asheville to this month’s catastrophic floods in Central Texas, the world has entered a new era of rainfall supercharged by climate change, rendering existing response plans inadequate.... The Post compared the response to Helene in western North Carolina with that of Florida’s Gulf Coast, where the storm hit first.... The fact that many North Carolinians remained in harm’s way ... resulted from a cascade of decisions all stemming from the mistaken assumption that hurricanes are mainly a coastal threat.... As Helene bore down on the Gulf Coast, years of investment and experience equipped officials there to take decisive action, issuing mandatory evacuation orders.... But most counties in western North Carolina ... lack the most basic tool: flood evacuation plans.... Though the National Weather Service correctly predicted that the flooding would be deadly, the warnings from local authorities were not forceful or specific enough to sway residents....”
⭐ Julien Berman of the Washington Post: “In the early 20th century, regardless of your family’s income, you could be fairly confident that enrolling in college would provide a solid bump to your wages a few years down the line. And back then, the returns were the same for both rich and poor students. That’s no longer the case. Wealthy college-goers now earn a premium nearly three times larger than the one earned by low-income students, according to economists Zachary Bleemer and Sarah Quincy.... For low-income students, those returns are half as large as they once were. In other words, higher education has become regressive, widening class divisions by delivering far greater returns to wealthy students than to their low-income peers. The primary reason for the shift: a decades-long policy failure that funneled poor students away from four-year research universities and into two-year community colleges and for-profit institutions.”
Marie: I'm not a fan of James Carville's nor of the "Democrats in disarray" theme song he likes to sing. But I do think in his New York Times op-ed, Carville hits many of the right notes.
Alex Horton of the Washington Post: “A passenger jet landing in North Dakota performed a 'go-around' to avoid colliding with an Air Force B-52, according to the commercial pilot’s comments posted to social media and the airline involved in the incident. SkyWest Flight 3788, acting as a Delta connection between Minneapolis to Minot, North Dakota, was cleared by the tower for landing on Friday, the airline said in a statement. But the pilot 'performed a go-around when another aircraft became visible in their flight path,' said SkyWest, which is investigating the incident. Air Force officials did not provide details of the incident, but they did say that a hulking B-52 bomber was performing a flyover at the North Dakota State Fair, which took place in Minot, home to a commercial airport and an Air Force base.”
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Israel/Palestine. Aaron Boxerman, et al., of the New York Times: “Israeli forces killed and wounded dozens of Palestinians on Sunday in the northern Gaza Strip, after crowds gathered near a crossing from Israel to try to seize aid from United Nations trucks entering the enclave, according to the Gaza health ministry and health workers. The episode was the latest in a string of deadly shootings as hunger and desperation have gripped Palestinians in Gaza during Israel’s nearly two-year campaign against Hamas. The latest attack took place near the Zikim crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. More than 60 people were killed while seeking aid in northern Gaza on Sunday, according to the health ministry and Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.... At least 32 people were killed on Saturday after Israeli soldiers began shooting near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site in southern Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Wafaa Shurafa, et al., of the AP: “Gaza saw its deadliest day yet for aid-seekers in over 21 months of war as at least 85 Palestinians were killed while trying to reach food on Sunday, the territory’s Health Ministry said. There was new alarm as Israel’s military issued evacuation orders for parts of central Gaza, one of the few areas where it has rarely operated with ground troops and where many international organizations trying to distribute aid are located.”
Japan. Martin Fackler, et al., of the New York Times: “Japan’s long-governing Liberal Democratic Party suffered a defeat in parliamentary elections on Sunday that saw new right-wing populist groups make gains, heralding what could be a tectonic shift in what has been one of the world’s most stable democracies. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed to stay on after his Liberal Democrats and their coalition partner lost 19 of their 66 seats that were up for re-election, depriving them of control of the less powerful Upper House. But he is facing calls to step down after the setback left the Liberal Democrats, who have led Japan for all but five of the last 70 years, a minority party in both chambers of the Diet, the country’s Parliament. Mr. Ishiba and his party failed to convince enough voters that they could resolve a host of challenges that included rising prices of staples like rice, tariff talks with the United States and the growing burden that supporting Japan’s aging population has placed on working-age people.”
Ukraine/Russia War. Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: “Russia overnight Sunday to Monday fired the latest in a series of huge missile and exploding drone barrages in Ukraine that have steadily escalated in recent months even as cease-fire talks began in the spring. At least one person was killed and several were injured in Kyiv, the capital.... In Kyiv, the engines of Russian exploding drones flying over the city were heard nearly continuously from after midnight until first light, interspersed with dozens of explosions. The authorities reported fires in four neighborhoods and one fatality.... While Kyiv has long been a target of Russian aerial assaults, recent attacks have also targeted western Ukrainian cities that until recently were havens from the worst violence of the war. Western Ukraine is also a center of military logistics for funneling Western weapons to Ukraine’s Army. The mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, a city near the borders with Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, reported the most intensive strikes of the war early Monday, with missiles and exploding drones.”
~~~ Constant Méheut of the New York Times: “Ukraine has been ramping up domestic arms production significantly, unable to rely as heavily as it once did on an increasingly uncertain supply of weapons from its allies.... [Donald] Trump’s inconsistent support for Ukraine has called into question the continued backing of the United States, Kyiv’s biggest arms supplier.... Rather than pleading primarily for arms, as it did early in the war, Ukraine is increasingly asking for the money to build its own weapons.... Now, it produces about 40 percent of the weapons used at the front, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, and it is looking to increase that amount sharply. The most striking example of this growing self-reliance is the use of drones, now omnipresent on the battlefield and produced almost entirely in Ukraine. 'This does not bring peace of mind, but it does provide greater moral confidence that we will not be left empty-handed,' Mr. Zelensky said in February of Ukraine’s booming defense industry.”
News Ledes
New York Times: “William L. Clay, who became the first African-American elected to the House of Representatives from Missouri, co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus and forcefully promoted the interests of poor people in St. Louis and beyond in his 32 years on Capitol Hill, died on Thursday in Adelphi, Md. He was 94.”
New York Times: “Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the actor who rose to fame as a teenager playing Theo Huxtable on 'The Cosby Show' in the mid-1980s, died in Costa Rica on Sunday. He was 54. Warner drowned while swimming at a beach on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, The Associated Press reported, citing the country’s Judicial Investigation Department.”
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Reader Comments (25)
Perhaps the best way to view the succession of lunacies spewed on the Pretender's social media platform is as the productions of a man so sick he really believes his every wish and impulse should be everyone else's too.
There is no space between his ego and his vision of the country, even of the world.
And we were stupid enough to put a man in charge of the country who wants an unlimited water supply for his shower and cane sugar in his Coke , so he thinks everyone ought to want and have the same.
He also thinks everyone should be white.
He is the antonym of "public servant."
@Ken Winkes: When I lived in Florida, I had a doctor who always made me wait at least 45 minutes after my appointment time to see me. After a dozen of these long waits, I very politely said that while I certainly understood that she occasionally had emergencies, the fact that I had to wait for close to an hour every time I visited her meant to me that her staff could use some training in scheduling patients' appointments. Despite the fact that I put the onus on her staff, the doctor got very huffy with me and told me I had no business telling her how to run her office. "Excuse me," sez I, "you're not really the boss here. You work for me."
Well, that set her off! She refused to see me again. She was on the staff of a large, multi-office medical service, and when I just as nicely complained to the owner of the business, he phoned me and apologized profusely and got me a better doctor from his group.
I'd sure like to tell "public servant" Trumpolini, "Excuse me, you work for me."
Peter M. Shane, in The Atlantic, on This Is the Presidency John Roberts Has Built
"What America is witnessing is a remaking of the American presidency into something closer to a dictatorship. Trump is enacting this change and taking advantage of its possibilities, but he is not the inventor of its claim to constitutional legitimacy. That project is the work of John Roberts.
....
The nation is now just six months into the experiment of what happens when a knows-no-bounds president takes office under a Court committed to a unitary executive. The results are alarming. As a matter of principle, anyone concerned with preserving robust constitutional checks and balances should be disturbed by a president’s overweening unilateralism, regardless of that president’s policy agenda. In Trump’s case, however, the threat to democracy is at its zenith because unitary-executive theory is being pushed to enable an authoritarian agenda on every front. Trump seems to believe he is effectively the unitary head not just of government, but of the nation."
In todays Bulwark Morning Shots, Tim Miller writes about the "hostage swap between the United States and the Nicolás Maduro regime"
Keeping Rage Alive
"It’s remarkable that our administration’s actions were so depraved that they somehow made Maduro seem like the good guy. We gave him a domestic public relations victory, so he can crow about the humanitarian aid he brought to Venezuelans who had been tortured by the capitalist American devil.
That is Marco Rubio’s legacy in this story. He became the despot enabler he claimed to hate. First by wrongfully imprisoning and permitting the abuse of people who, like his ancestors, had fled communism and come to America in the hope of finding freedom. And then by using them as pawns in a trade for Americans who had themselves been tortured in Venezuela. In the process, he handed a massive geopolitical win to the communist dictator whom he has said in the past should be toppled by military coup."
Also interesting in this post is a clipping of a Maureen Dowd puff piece from 1999? where she interviews t**** and his girlfriend Melania. I'm unsure of the point of it - perhaps included for this quote: "Trump: When Puff Daddy has a party...I'm the person they call", but gee thanks Maureen for (sort of) hunanizing him. (And he calls himself "The trumpster"?)
Just Cruel
"Ice secretly deported Pennsylvania grandfather, 82, after he lost green card
Family of Luis Leon say they were initially told by someone he had died, but they found him alive in Guatemala hospital"
"Former Intel Chief Banned From Dog’s Graduation Ceremony
Earlier this year, an adorable yellow Lab named Susan completed a CIA training program for “detection K9s.” She was a natural at sniffing out concealed explosives—think car bombs and suicide vests—and the agency was eager to put her to work protecting its personnel.
James Clapper, who had sponsored Susan through a nonprofit organization that helps place service dogs, was delighted. Clapper, 84, was one of the longest-serving and most experienced intelligence officers in U.S. history, and was the Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration. There was a certain professional symmetry in his pup ending up at the CIA, a place he both knew intimately and deeply admired. It was also bittersweet: Clapper named Susan after his late wife, a former National Security Agency employee who had been at his side during his five-decade career. Susan, a great animal lover, had volunteered at a local shelter and “doted on the family dog, Augusta,” according to her 2023 obituary.
Clapper was looking forward to attending the dog’s graduation ceremony at a CIA training facility in Herndon, Virginia. But the day before the event, in late May, he received an email from the nonprofit dog-training group: Clapper’s name had been scratched from the guest list, per an executive order from the president of the United States."
TrumpCare
"Pregnant Woman in Tennessee Denied Care for Being Unmarried (Updated)
The 2025 Medical Ethics Defense Act allows physicians to deny care to patients whose "lifestyles" they disagree with"
Rachel Wells
Zuckerberg
"On second day of trial, Meta shareholders and Mark Zuckerberg settle $8B Facebook privacy case
Shareholders of Meta have agreed to settle an $8 billion lawsuit after accusing Mark Zuckerberg and other company leaders of financial breaches for failing to protect users’ personal data ahead of the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018."
I wrote this comment earlier today, but its not posting, so trying without the link - "Keeping Rage Alive"
In todays Bulwark Morning Shots, Tim Miller writes about the "hostage swap between the United States and the Nicolás Maduro regime"
"It’s remarkable that our administration’s actions were so depraved that they somehow made Maduro seem like the good guy. We gave him a domestic public relations victory, so he can crow about the humanitarian aid he brought to Venezuelans who had been tortured by the capitalist American devil.
That is Marco Rubio’s legacy in this story. He became the despot enabler he claimed to hate. First by wrongfully imprisoning and permitting the abuse of people who, like his ancestors, had fled communism and come to America in the hope of finding freedom. And then by using them as pawns in a trade for Americans who had themselves been tortured in Venezuela. In the process, he handed a massive geopolitical win to the communist dictator whom he has said in the past should be toppled by military coup."
Also interesting in this Tim Miller post is a clipping of a Maureen Dowd puff piece from 1999? where she interviews t**** and his girlfriend Melania. I'm unsure of the point of it - perhaps included for this quote: "Trump: When Puff Daddy has a party...I'm the person they call", but gee thanks Maureen for (sort of) hunanizing him. (And he calls himself "The trumpster"?)
Ken,
Re: the Orange Monster’s seeming belief that his every whim, no matter how trivial or nonsensical, constitutes a command from the king.
One might think that the president of any country, never mind the United States, would have more important ways of spending his time than to threaten sports teams to change their names, or else.
But that’s just it. He has plenty of time for these sorts of racist masturbatory fantasies because he doesn’t actually do much. Unelected demon spawn douchebags like Himmler Miller and Project ‘25 Vought are making most of the governing decisions (such as they are) which gives Fatty plenty of free time to scroll through the fetid swamps of online extreme right-wing trolleries looking for any new conspiracy theories or white nationalist fever dreams he can inject into the nation’s discourse.
Granted, he didn’t have far to go to hate on name changes that address long simmering antipathies of Native Americans. He wants everything to be just the way he liked it as a little prick in his Queens mansion when minorities shut their mouths and the white man strode above it all like a colossus.
Somewhere in that tiny peanut brain he must realize that it’s a stupid and highly insulting idea to change those names back because he uses a version of his “everyone is saying” excuse, claiming that Native Americans are clamoring for the “Redskins” moniker to be restored.
I’m wondering how quick he’d be to demand that a sports team change its name back if it were formerly known as the “Stupid Fat White Billionaires”, or the “TACOs”, or maybe just the Washington Honkies” or the “Cleveland Crackers”.
So, no. He has nothing better to do. They put a piece of paper in front of him, wake him up, he scribbles his giant scrawl and goes back to sleep.
But still thinks he’s the king.
Laura,
Re: Little Johnny Roberts’ authorship of authoritarian assholism…
Don’t worry. Constitutional checks and balances will return within seconds of a Democrat getting elected president. Johnny and the Dwarfs will scream that they did too put the kibosh on Trumpian power grabs, as they deny a Democrat the right to nominate judges who aren’t to the right of Charlie Kirk.
In fact, they’ll find checks that were never there before. Hit Man Sam will point to the going’s on at Runnymede 900 years ago as precedent for not allowing kings to get their way in everything! Harumph! Try to put one over on ol’ Sam, no sirree Bob! Sneaky Democrats! We’re a nation of laws, ya know! Not men! Double harrumph.
Test…
Alien catnip or poison?
One of my favorite podcasts to listen to while walking Rocket is Twenty Thousand Hertz , nirvana for audio nerds, musicians, music design junkies, and anyone who has ever wondered about the backstory behind the famous Wilhelm Scream .
One recent podcast covered the sounds included on the Voyager Golden Record, launched into space in 1977. The sights and sounds included on the record, designed to give extra terrestrials it might encounter an overview of humanity, along with greetings from planet Earth.
Sounds include pieces by Bach, Chuck Berry, animal sounds, sounds of rain, footsteps, ocean waves, thunder, bird songs, and greetings in 55 languages. Images include biological depictions of the human body, scenes from around the world, famous cities, buildings, flora and fauna, and pictures of different nationalities.
Carl Sagan headed up the selection team charged with deciding what to include. A few years ago, copies of all this cool stuff were made available for sale in a boxed set. Don’t know if it’s still around, but it would be pretty neat to have.
That said, I wondered what would be included on a similar introduction to life on Earth if such a record were made by the MAGA mob and their Dear Leader today.
Shudder….selections made by Laura Loomer?
First of all, no pictures of any people of color. Lots of drooling, screaming MAGAts carrying Confederate flags and waving guns around, but mostly, it would be pictures of Donald Trump and scantily clothed young girls. Then… pictures of Trump surrounded by scantily clothed young girls.
Sounds? No Bach, no Chuck Berry, no Peruvian drummers or people saying hello in other languages, only English. Sounds would be of Trump gurgling through some word salad made up bullshit story. Other sounds? Lee Greenwood horrible You Ess Ay songs, probably cheerleaders, clips from Fatty’s favorite movies, “The Godfather”, “Goodfellas” (gangster movies, natch), the sound of a golf club swinging, a Fox newscast praising Fat Hitler, probably goose stepping Nazis, Junior snorting an eight ball, and maybe some automatic weapon sounds.
No pictures of the Taj Mahal or the Pyramids or the Grand Canyon. Plenty of shots of Fatty in his tricked out Oval Office with all the weird gold gewgaw things glued to the wall, shots of Fatty playing golf, and MAGAts cheering him like loonies.
Any aliens finding this crap would either think “What a backward low intelligence race”, and stay away, or they’d think “What a backward low intelligence race”and head here to take over. “Look, this planet has nothing but a fat old man, idiots, and girls with no clothes. We can conquer this fucking place in a day.”
Fatty: Making the world stupid again.
I’m not gonna bother with a list here. Youse guys know full well what that rotund racist moron has been up to. But the links Marie have provided today about how the world is moving on without the United States because of the backward buffoon in “charge” (but not really…other racist pigs are pulling his strings) got me thinking…
In a few words, the things that have made America great over the last 100 years, and especially in the post war period, innovation, economic growth, diversity of ideas, an open society (well, mostly open), soft power, strategic planning, scientific advancement, medical research, public education, a robust media, reliance on facts and a rejection of the krazy, a nation of laws, are things that Fat Hitler is throwing overboard with both hands as a quickly as a fat load can move.
If it’s healthy, if it’s good, if it’s smart, if it has the vaguest hint of legality and constitutionality, he’s against it.
Don’t know what it is he thinks he’s making great again, but it sure as shit ain’t America.
I agree with Ken that the Mango Murderer is a lunatic who cannot perceive of a world where he wasn't the biggest thing in it. There is no depth to his pitiful envy and perverted wish to be king in name and deed. He doesn't have a clue that he is a crackpot loser, because all those doofuses who voted for him (and why? They just wanna hate with him--) keep telling him how great he is. As a radical Democrat, I am proud if we have touched him in any way. I'm not sorry he has some (goofy?) ailment that real people have and don't have health insurance to help treat it, and like everyone I know and meet, await the golden day when he departs that silly, stupid, nonclassy, jerky, cheap piece of shit office he has ruined, both physically and morally and ethically. Every time I think I dislike him enough, it isn't enough. He is the most hated man in the world. More than any of the OTHER despots, because he doesn't shut up for two seconds, bragging and lying and smelling up the room... The others are on a second layer of hate, but we really are moving them up the chain.
Thom Hartmann has a list of some of Fat Hitler's "accomplishments" in undermining America.
Group Therapy
"Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein: A Quiz"
I recently came across what has been termed the most intelligent picture ever taken.
It’s not so much that the picture itself is smart, but it’s a group photo from 1927 of the world’s greatest physicists at the time, at a conference to discuss groundbreaking work in quantum theory such as the effect of radiation on black body materials and the wave-particle problem.
The photo includes giants like Niels Bohr, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac, and Werner Heisenberg. Galactic level brain power.
Then I wondered what might be the stupidest picture ever taken, or rather a picture of the biggest dumbasses in history. .
It wasn’t hard.
Fat Hitler’s Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Shithead sycophantic clowns discussing wanton theory, Dear Leader testicle smooching, how to banish black bodies from American history, and the problem of maximizing the grift.
This picture includes room temperature IQs, knuckleheads, white nationalists, crony moronic types, and an unnaturally pumpkin hued fat man.
The epitome and the nadir of human evolution. We’re closer to monkeys than many think.
AI Bots
"A MAGA bot network on X is divided over the Trump-Epstein backlash
Researchers have found hundreds of fake X accounts that support the Trump administration.
A previously unreported network of hundreds of accounts on X is using artificial intelligence to automatically reply to conservatives with positive messages about people in the Trump administration, researchers say.
But with the MAGA movement split over the administration’s handling of files involving deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the accounts’ messaging has broken, offering contradictory statements on the issue and revealing the AI-fueled nature of the accounts."
Test, again…
Akhilleus-
There are so many competitors for stupidest picture. Personally, I would go with something like this:
A bunch of white and blond people "praying for" donald trump"
Akhilleus-
There are so many competitors for stupidest picture. Personally, I would go with something like this:
A bunch of white and blond people "praying for" donald trump"
Laura,
Woof. That is certainly in the running for “stupendous is the stoopid”.
Praying for that ignorant monster. They pray for him. He preys on them. The MAGA Möbius strip. Fat Hitler Corruption and cynical sycophancy turns phony prayer into actual pud pulling
RAS,
Re: the Fat Hitler Jeffey the Rape Boy Quiz…
Yurts til it hurts. Or don’t hurts, or…something.
Me, I’ve never yearned for a yurt. I’m more a backpacking tent on a mountain trail kinda guy. But I’ll settle for that lean to at the top of the Northwest Basin Trail on Mt. Katahdin. Access to the New Thunder God’s Throne (an outhouse) is a plus. Bring your own mountain money (TP).
At least until Fatty bans mountain climbing and hiking as liberal DEI activities. Not that he could ever drag his fat ass over a half mile trail for kiddies.