Search
1000 results for “robert_said_what”
-
Lazy Caturday Reads: Epstein Files, Brown U. Shooter, and Trump Insanity
Good Afternoon!!
By Zakir Akmedov
The DOJ released a small portion of the Epstein files yesterday, with massive redactions. They seem to have tried to focus on Bill Clinton and conceal anything about Donald Trump. Democrats are angry, noting that the DOJ has broken federal law by holding back and selectively redacting the files that they released.
In this post, I will focus mostly on the Epstein files and reactions to the release. I also include stories on the Brown shooter and Trump’s insanity.
Sam Levine at The Guardian: Trickle release of Epstein files on a Friday signals move to bury Trump ties.
The justice department’s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday signaled how the agency is using a variety of tactics to try to bury and obfuscate Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
As the department raced towards a legally mandated Friday deadline to release its files, little emerged about what it planned to release. There never really seemed to be a doubt that the department would release the files late on Friday afternoon, deploying the well-worn Washington trick of burying unflattering news before a weekend.
Then, on Friday morning, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, went on Fox News to say that the department wouldn’t actually be releasing all of the files on Friday as required by the law. “I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said on Fox News. “There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim.”
By the time the department eventually did release thousands of pages of materials on Friday evening – not the hundreds of thousands Blanche promised – many of the documents had been heavily or completely redacted. Other than a few pictures, the materials made no mention of Trump, even though attorney general Pam Bondi reportedly told Trump earlier this year his name was in the files.
The release underscores how the Trump administration is trying to balance both the demand to release the files – something encouraged in large part by the Maga base – while also obfuscating with a slow trickle of document dumps to prevent any embarrassment to Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before they had a falling out. Blanche has said the department will continue to produce documents on a rolling basis in the coming weeks – a holiday period – a bet that Americans will simply tune out the story as it drags on.
Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the law to release the files, was one of many members of Congress to express outrage. He said on Twitter that the release “grossly fails to comply” with the statute….
Trump is mostly missing from the release.
While Trump barely made an appearance in Friday’s release, Bill Clinton appears in several images. The Daily Wire, a Trump-friendly site, obtained a photo of Clinton and Epstein on Thursday, a day before the release. Photos of Clinton lounging in a pool and a hot tub were among those released on Friday. Justice department and White House spokespeople were quick to highlight the images on Twitter.
By Magdalena Lobao-Tello
“Beloved Democrat president. The black box is added to protect a victim,” Gates McGavick, a justice department spokesperson, posted alongside a photo of Clinton in what seems to be a hot tub with another person whose face is redacted. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted another photo of Clinton with someone whose face is redacted and, quoting the song Jumpman by Drake and Future, wrote “them boys is up to something”.
Angel Ureña, a Clinton spokesperson, released a statement on Friday saying the Trump administration was using the former president to try to distract from Trump’s connection to Epstein.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever,” he said. “So they can release as many 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.”
Several other celebrities appeared in the images released on Friday, including Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Richard Branson, Chris Tucker, David Copperfield and Kevin Spacey. Like Clinton, none has been accused of any crime in connection to Epstein. But their immediate appearance in the files benefits Trump, creating the impression that it was not unusual for famous men to hang out with Epstein.
Liz Crampton and Andrew Howard Politico: Epstein files put Bill Clinton under scrutiny – and the White House wants him there.
The Trump administration, initially wary over the Justice Department’s release of Jeffrey Epstein documents, pounced on go-to villain Bill Clinton’s appearance in Friday’s trove of pictures, emails and interviews.
“I wonder why the Biden DOJ refused to release the files…,” DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin posted from his personal X account, alongside one partially-redacted photo of Clinton in a pool with an unidentified woman. Another swimming pool photo Gilmartin posted shows Clinton with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime co-conspirator who was convicted of sex trafficking charges in 2021….
Clinton has long been linked with Epstein, contributing to his status as MAGA’s favored boogeyman. Some high-profile members of the movement cited him in pushing for the release of the files, and continued that message after the DOJ made public a trove of documents from the government’s investigation into Epstein.
“Slick Willy! @BillClinton just chillin, without a care in the world. Little did he know…” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung posted to X.
“Here is Bill Clinton in a hot tub next to someone whose identity has been redacted. Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims and/or minors. Time for the media to start asking real questions,” White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson posted to her personal X account….
Clinton appears in photos posing with Epstein in coordinating shirts, interacting with a dancer, sitting with a redacted woman on his lap on what looks like an airplane and with someone who appears to be the late pop icon Michael Jackson. The music legend faced his own child sex abuse allegations as early as 1993, though he was never convicted of any crimes.
Edward Helmore at The Guardian: Bill Clinton says White House is using him as scapegoat after Epstein files release.
A spokesperson for Bill Clinton accused the White House late on Friday of using him as a scapegoat after pictures of the former president with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as with a young woman in a pool, were included as part of congressionally ordered release of government files.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton,” the spokesperson said in a statement on X.
“This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be,” the statement added.
Lady sitting with Siamese, Sharyn Bursic
It continued: “Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton,” it said, referring to comments made by White House chief of staff to Vanity Fair in which Wiles acknowledged that Clinton had not been on Epstein’s Caribbean island despite repeated claims by Trump to the contrary.
Clinton has long maintained that he cut ties with Epstein around 2005, before the disgraced financier plead guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.
In the statement, Clinton’s spokesperson Angel Ureña said: “There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that. Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats.” [….]
Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. He later travelled with Epstein on the financier’s private jet in the years after he left office in 2001, including to Asia and Africa, on trips related the Clinton Global Initiative. Clinton has never been formally accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Democrats were outraged. Zachary Schermele at USA Today: ‘Grossly fails.’ Lawmakers behind Epstein files’ release slam DOJ.
The Epstein files are out, and the lawmakers who forced their release are not satisfied.
High-profile Democrats are among the most enraged at the Justice Department’s decision to release hundreds of thousands of documents on a “rolling basis”about the late accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein .
“A fraction of the whole body of evidence,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York. To demonstrate his point, he highlighted how 119 pages of one document were entirely redacted.
“Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law,” Schumer said in a statement. “We need answers as to why.”
Schumer wasn’t alone in his criticism. Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member of House Oversight Committee, said on CNN that the Justice Department was “defying the Congress.”
The bipartisan authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act – Reps. Ro Khanna, D-California, and Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky – also accused the Trump administration of failing to comply with their law, which nearly unanimously passed Congress in November.
“It is an incomplete release with too many redactions,” Khanna said in a social media post.
“Unfortunately, today’s document release … grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law,” Massie added.
The law required the Justice Department by Dec. 19 to fully disclose all information in its possession related to its investigations of the well-connected financier who died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019. DOJ under the law is also required to make the files publicly searchable, but basic searches of what DOJ called the “Epstein Library” show that even basic queries – such as for “Trump” or “Clinton” – come up blank.
Read more at USA Today.
One more from Julie K. Brown, who researched and wrote the series on Epstein at the Miami Herald that forced new investigations into the sweetheart deal that Epstein got from the DOJ in September 2007.
From her Substack: The Epstein Files: My observations. Nothing to See Here.
Pages and pages of blacked-out documents. Photographs of Epstein’s mop closet and HVAC systems in house. Message pads, notes and other material from the Florida case that has been on the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s website since at least 2018. They didn’t even release the victim interviews; just pictures of the tapes of the interviews. Think about that. A photograph of a tape cassette.
This would be funny if it wasn’t about a crime involving the rapes of 14-year-old girls.
It’s clear that the Department of Justice is not only thumbing its nose at the public’s demand for transparency and accountability, it is not taking the crimes committed against children seriously. It’s as if they think we are so hungry for any crumbs about Epstein that stale bread will do.
What’s worse is that the documents and photos they did release were tossed up like a salad and served in such a mixed-up way that few people will even understand the significance of the material that was released on Friday.
Miss Kitty, a lazy afternoon, by Jan Panico
Imagine being a survivor who was raped by Epstein, and having to click, one photo at a time, through hundreds of photographs, just searching for something, anything, to explain how Jeffrey Epstein did what he did, hoping for some shred of hope that the FBI actually investigated your complaint — the story you painfully found the courage to tell.
There were few stories in the thousands of pages released Friday. Even victim Maria Farmer, who found some validation in the fact that her 1996 FBI report about Epstein’ was tucked into the mess, would learn that the FBI did nothing about it. Had they taken some steps, they may have prevented the sexual assaults of countless other girls and young women.
And what about Epstein’s clients? Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said there was no list. But Rep. Tom Massie has said he knows of 20 men who have been implicated in Epstein’s crimes. And what about Ghislaine Maxwell? Well, she filed a habeas corpus petition a few days ago that claims that 25 men arranged civil settlements with Epstein victims who could have “equally been considered as co-conspirators.” She adds: “None of them have been prosecuted.” [….]
Here is a link to the Epstein Files on the Palm Beach State Attorney’s website. You will learn more about the case here than what was released by the DOJ Friday: https://sa15.org/public-records/
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente
The Boston Globe: Brown campus shooter harbored resentment from time as a PhD student in the early 2000s, friend says.
Growing up in Portugal, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente stood out for his intellectual potential. In high school, he traveled to national and international physics competitions. He later graduated from Portugal’s top university for science and engineering.
But when he moved to the United States in 2000 to pursue a doctorate in physics at Brown University, his colleagues experienced an ill-tempered young man who felt that even an American Ivy League college was no match for his own intellect. Neves Valente complained the classes were too easy and left the school months after enrolling, apparently with hard feelings.
“He could be kind and gentle, though he often became frustrated — sometimes angry — about courses, professors, and living conditions,” said Scott Watson, a Syracuse University physics professor who befriended Neves Valente at Brown.
After authorities linked him to the mass shooting on Brown’s campus and the killing of an MIT professor earlier this week, Neves Valente, 48, was found dead by suicide Thursday night. In the immediate aftermath, a fuller picture of the suspect emerged: of a brilliant student whose academic promise seemed to dissipate abruptly, an angry genius with long-simmering resentment, a loner who painstakingly planned and executed extraordinary violence.
His death ended a frantic manhunt that began following the Brown shooting Saturday afternoon, according to police. He entered a storage unit in southern New Hampshire about an hour after shooting the MIT professor Monday night, officials said; based on an autopsy, authorities believe he died on Tuesday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound….
Investigators are still trying to determine what motivated his homicidal rampage after he seemingly abandoned the ambitions of his youth, what pushed him to finally act upon old grudges.
She and her cats, by Madison Moore
What’s clear is that he took careful steps to hide his identity and evade detection both before and after the shootings. Authorities believe he acted alone. They said he had been canvassing Brown’s campus for weeks, targeting a building where he spent significant time as a student in the early 2000s….
Both natives of Portugal, Neves Valente and Loureiro attended university together in Lisbon, authorities said. They graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico, a premier science institution that’s part of the University of Lisbon. Loureiro went on to pursue a lauded career as a professor and fusion researcher, with stops at Princeton University and in Europe; he joined MIT in 2016. Colleagues from across the world overwhelmingly praised his accomplishments and character, but none reported knowing Neves Valente.
More from Scott Watson, Valente’s friend:
Watson, his former classmate, said the two became friends despite Neves Valente’s standoffish nature.
“During orientation he was sitting alone, and I walked up and said hello. He was terse at first, but we eventually broke the ice and became close,” Watson told the Globe in an e-mail Friday, describing himself as essentially Neves Valente’s only friend at the university.
Neves Valente was a brilliant student, but he could be frustrated by the curriculum at Brown, which he found underwhelming, Watson said.
“He was by far the best graduate student in our class. Through our conversations, he was already ready to graduate when he arrived,” Watson said. “I don’t like the word genius, but he was.”
The Boston Globe: How a single anonymous tipster cracked the Brown University shooting case.
Information from a tipster who had a strange encounter with another man on a sidewalk outside Brown University was key to police identifying the suspect they believe killed two students at the school and then two days later gunned down a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
Known only as “John” in a Providence police affidavit, the source is being hailed by investigators as the key figure who gave law enforcement the details needed to determine who was behind the Brown shooting, as well as the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was shot in his Brookline home Monday.
Ever since a shooter unloaded more than 40 rounds inside a Brown engineering building, anxiety and frustration has plagued the Providence, Rhode Island, community as police appeared no closer to identifying the person.
Yet on the sixth day of the investigation, the case gathered steam, ending with police announcing late Thursday they had found the suspected gunman dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound….
“John” gave them the information they needed.
According to police, John had several encounters with 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente before Saturday’s attack. As police posted images of a person of interest — now identified as Neves Valente — John began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person and theorized that police should look into “possibly a rental” grey Nissan. Reddit users urged him to tell the FBI, and John said he did. The police affidavit said they learned about the tip on Dec. 16, three days after the shooting and a day after the tip line was created….
Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.
That detail led them to get more video of a Nissan Sentra sedan with Florida plates and enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety.
Bedtime Story, by Jeanette Lassen
The affidavit says John gave investigators additional critical details: he encountered Neves Valente in the bathroom of the engineering building just hours before the attack, where John noted the suspect’s clothing was “inappropriate and inadequate for the weather.”
John also bumped into Neves Valente outside, mere blocks from the building, where John watched Neves Valente “suddenly” turn around from the Nissan when he saw John. What ensued was then a “game of cat and mouse,” according to John’s testimony — where the two would encounter each other and Neves Valente would run away.
At one point, John says he yelled out “Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?”
“The Suspect responded, ‘I don’t know you from nobody,’ then Suspect repeatedly asked, ’Why are you harassing me?’” according to the affidavit.
John told police he eventually saw Neves Valente approach the Nissan sedan once more and decided to walk away.
I’ve quote a lot, because The Boston Globe doesn’t allow gift links or readers without subscriptions.
Trump Insanity Report
Jack Revell at The Daily Beast: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-complains-the-fbi-made-a-mess-of-melanias-panties.
No doubt Melania was thrilled with these revelations, which are likely just Trump fantasies.That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?President Donald Trump raged at the FBI for making a “mess” of his wife Melania’s “panties” during a raid on their Mar-a-Lago estate.
In a rambling speech delivered at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Friday night, Trump went off on a wild tangent about federal law enforcement agents, revealing how they had disturbed the First Lady’s underwear drawer during their 2022 search of the Palm Beach, Florida, property.
Her Quiet Companion, by David Arstamyan
“They went into my wife’s closet. I’ll say this. Number one, it’s very bad, but it sounds a little strange. They looked at her drawers,” Trump told the crowd while both himself and the crowd laughed.
“You have drawers, and then you have drawers. They looked at both,” he continued, miming the difference between the storage item and the undergarment.
The unprompted revelation of intimate details did not stop there, however, with Trump going full disclosure on the way his third wife likes to store her underwear.
“She’s a very meticulous person… Everything is perfect. Her undergarments, sometimes referred to as panties, are folded perfect, wrapped, they’re like so perfect. I say, ‘That’s beautiful,’” Trump continued.
“You know, that’s the part of the world she came from. Everything was perfect, no problem. Fold, fold, fold. I think she steams them just to make sure.”
#BillClinton #BrownUniversityShooting #catArt #caturday #ClaudioManuelNevesValente #DOJ #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #MelaniaTrump #TrumpInsanity
-
Lazy Caturday Reads: Epstein Files, Brown U. Shooter, and Trump Insanity
Good Afternoon!!
By Zakir Akmedov
The DOJ released a small portion of the Epstein files yesterday, with massive redactions. They seem to have tried to focus on Bill Clinton and conceal anything about Donald Trump. Democrats are angry, noting that the DOJ has broken federal law by holding back and selectively redacting the files that they released.
In this post, I will focus mostly on the Epstein files and reactions to the release. I also include stories on the Brown shooter and Trump’s insanity.
Sam Levine at The Guardian: Trickle release of Epstein files on a Friday signals move to bury Trump ties.
The justice department’s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday signaled how the agency is using a variety of tactics to try to bury and obfuscate Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
As the department raced towards a legally mandated Friday deadline to release its files, little emerged about what it planned to release. There never really seemed to be a doubt that the department would release the files late on Friday afternoon, deploying the well-worn Washington trick of burying unflattering news before a weekend.
Then, on Friday morning, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, went on Fox News to say that the department wouldn’t actually be releasing all of the files on Friday as required by the law. “I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said on Fox News. “There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim.”
By the time the department eventually did release thousands of pages of materials on Friday evening – not the hundreds of thousands Blanche promised – many of the documents had been heavily or completely redacted. Other than a few pictures, the materials made no mention of Trump, even though attorney general Pam Bondi reportedly told Trump earlier this year his name was in the files.
The release underscores how the Trump administration is trying to balance both the demand to release the files – something encouraged in large part by the Maga base – while also obfuscating with a slow trickle of document dumps to prevent any embarrassment to Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before they had a falling out. Blanche has said the department will continue to produce documents on a rolling basis in the coming weeks – a holiday period – a bet that Americans will simply tune out the story as it drags on.
Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the law to release the files, was one of many members of Congress to express outrage. He said on Twitter that the release “grossly fails to comply” with the statute….
Trump is mostly missing from the release.
While Trump barely made an appearance in Friday’s release, Bill Clinton appears in several images. The Daily Wire, a Trump-friendly site, obtained a photo of Clinton and Epstein on Thursday, a day before the release. Photos of Clinton lounging in a pool and a hot tub were among those released on Friday. Justice department and White House spokespeople were quick to highlight the images on Twitter.
By Magdalena Lobao-Tello
“Beloved Democrat president. The black box is added to protect a victim,” Gates McGavick, a justice department spokesperson, posted alongside a photo of Clinton in what seems to be a hot tub with another person whose face is redacted. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted another photo of Clinton with someone whose face is redacted and, quoting the song Jumpman by Drake and Future, wrote “them boys is up to something”.
Angel Ureña, a Clinton spokesperson, released a statement on Friday saying the Trump administration was using the former president to try to distract from Trump’s connection to Epstein.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever,” he said. “So they can release as many 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.”
Several other celebrities appeared in the images released on Friday, including Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Richard Branson, Chris Tucker, David Copperfield and Kevin Spacey. Like Clinton, none has been accused of any crime in connection to Epstein. But their immediate appearance in the files benefits Trump, creating the impression that it was not unusual for famous men to hang out with Epstein.
Liz Crampton and Andrew Howard Politico: Epstein files put Bill Clinton under scrutiny – and the White House wants him there.
The Trump administration, initially wary over the Justice Department’s release of Jeffrey Epstein documents, pounced on go-to villain Bill Clinton’s appearance in Friday’s trove of pictures, emails and interviews.
“I wonder why the Biden DOJ refused to release the files…,” DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin posted from his personal X account, alongside one partially-redacted photo of Clinton in a pool with an unidentified woman. Another swimming pool photo Gilmartin posted shows Clinton with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime co-conspirator who was convicted of sex trafficking charges in 2021….
Clinton has long been linked with Epstein, contributing to his status as MAGA’s favored boogeyman. Some high-profile members of the movement cited him in pushing for the release of the files, and continued that message after the DOJ made public a trove of documents from the government’s investigation into Epstein.
“Slick Willy! @BillClinton just chillin, without a care in the world. Little did he know…” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung posted to X.
“Here is Bill Clinton in a hot tub next to someone whose identity has been redacted. Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims and/or minors. Time for the media to start asking real questions,” White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson posted to her personal X account….
Clinton appears in photos posing with Epstein in coordinating shirts, interacting with a dancer, sitting with a redacted woman on his lap on what looks like an airplane and with someone who appears to be the late pop icon Michael Jackson. The music legend faced his own child sex abuse allegations as early as 1993, though he was never convicted of any crimes.
Edward Helmore at The Guardian: Bill Clinton says White House is using him as scapegoat after Epstein files release.
A spokesperson for Bill Clinton accused the White House late on Friday of using him as a scapegoat after pictures of the former president with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as with a young woman in a pool, were included as part of congressionally ordered release of government files.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton,” the spokesperson said in a statement on X.
“This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be,” the statement added.
Lady sitting with Siamese, Sharyn Bursic
It continued: “Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton,” it said, referring to comments made by White House chief of staff to Vanity Fair in which Wiles acknowledged that Clinton had not been on Epstein’s Caribbean island despite repeated claims by Trump to the contrary.
Clinton has long maintained that he cut ties with Epstein around 2005, before the disgraced financier plead guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.
In the statement, Clinton’s spokesperson Angel Ureña said: “There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that. Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats.” [….]
Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. He later travelled with Epstein on the financier’s private jet in the years after he left office in 2001, including to Asia and Africa, on trips related the Clinton Global Initiative. Clinton has never been formally accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Democrats were outraged. Zachary Schermele at USA Today: ‘Grossly fails.’ Lawmakers behind Epstein files’ release slam DOJ.
The Epstein files are out, and the lawmakers who forced their release are not satisfied.
High-profile Democrats are among the most enraged at the Justice Department’s decision to release hundreds of thousands of documents on a “rolling basis”about the late accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein .
“A fraction of the whole body of evidence,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York. To demonstrate his point, he highlighted how 119 pages of one document were entirely redacted.
“Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law,” Schumer said in a statement. “We need answers as to why.”
Schumer wasn’t alone in his criticism. Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member of House Oversight Committee, said on CNN that the Justice Department was “defying the Congress.”
The bipartisan authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act – Reps. Ro Khanna, D-California, and Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky – also accused the Trump administration of failing to comply with their law, which nearly unanimously passed Congress in November.
“It is an incomplete release with too many redactions,” Khanna said in a social media post.
“Unfortunately, today’s document release … grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law,” Massie added.
The law required the Justice Department by Dec. 19 to fully disclose all information in its possession related to its investigations of the well-connected financier who died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019. DOJ under the law is also required to make the files publicly searchable, but basic searches of what DOJ called the “Epstein Library” show that even basic queries – such as for “Trump” or “Clinton” – come up blank.
Read more at USA Today.
One more from Julie K. Brown, who researched and wrote the series on Epstein at the Miami Herald that forced new investigations into the sweetheart deal that Epstein got from the DOJ in September 2007.
From her Substack: The Epstein Files: My observations. Nothing to See Here.
Pages and pages of blacked-out documents. Photographs of Epstein’s mop closet and HVAC systems in house. Message pads, notes and other material from the Florida case that has been on the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s website since at least 2018. They didn’t even release the victim interviews; just pictures of the tapes of the interviews. Think about that. A photograph of a tape cassette.
This would be funny if it wasn’t about a crime involving the rapes of 14-year-old girls.
It’s clear that the Department of Justice is not only thumbing its nose at the public’s demand for transparency and accountability, it is not taking the crimes committed against children seriously. It’s as if they think we are so hungry for any crumbs about Epstein that stale bread will do.
What’s worse is that the documents and photos they did release were tossed up like a salad and served in such a mixed-up way that few people will even understand the significance of the material that was released on Friday.
Miss Kitty, a lazy afternoon, by Jan Panico
Imagine being a survivor who was raped by Epstein, and having to click, one photo at a time, through hundreds of photographs, just searching for something, anything, to explain how Jeffrey Epstein did what he did, hoping for some shred of hope that the FBI actually investigated your complaint — the story you painfully found the courage to tell.
There were few stories in the thousands of pages released Friday. Even victim Maria Farmer, who found some validation in the fact that her 1996 FBI report about Epstein’ was tucked into the mess, would learn that the FBI did nothing about it. Had they taken some steps, they may have prevented the sexual assaults of countless other girls and young women.
And what about Epstein’s clients? Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said there was no list. But Rep. Tom Massie has said he knows of 20 men who have been implicated in Epstein’s crimes. And what about Ghislaine Maxwell? Well, she filed a habeas corpus petition a few days ago that claims that 25 men arranged civil settlements with Epstein victims who could have “equally been considered as co-conspirators.” She adds: “None of them have been prosecuted.” [….]
Here is a link to the Epstein Files on the Palm Beach State Attorney’s website. You will learn more about the case here than what was released by the DOJ Friday: https://sa15.org/public-records/
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente
The Boston Globe: Brown campus shooter harbored resentment from time as a PhD student in the early 2000s, friend says.
Growing up in Portugal, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente stood out for his intellectual potential. In high school, he traveled to national and international physics competitions. He later graduated from Portugal’s top university for science and engineering.
But when he moved to the United States in 2000 to pursue a doctorate in physics at Brown University, his colleagues experienced an ill-tempered young man who felt that even an American Ivy League college was no match for his own intellect. Neves Valente complained the classes were too easy and left the school months after enrolling, apparently with hard feelings.
“He could be kind and gentle, though he often became frustrated — sometimes angry — about courses, professors, and living conditions,” said Scott Watson, a Syracuse University physics professor who befriended Neves Valente at Brown.
After authorities linked him to the mass shooting on Brown’s campus and the killing of an MIT professor earlier this week, Neves Valente, 48, was found dead by suicide Thursday night. In the immediate aftermath, a fuller picture of the suspect emerged: of a brilliant student whose academic promise seemed to dissipate abruptly, an angry genius with long-simmering resentment, a loner who painstakingly planned and executed extraordinary violence.
His death ended a frantic manhunt that began following the Brown shooting Saturday afternoon, according to police. He entered a storage unit in southern New Hampshire about an hour after shooting the MIT professor Monday night, officials said; based on an autopsy, authorities believe he died on Tuesday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound….
Investigators are still trying to determine what motivated his homicidal rampage after he seemingly abandoned the ambitions of his youth, what pushed him to finally act upon old grudges.
She and her cats, by Madison Moore
What’s clear is that he took careful steps to hide his identity and evade detection both before and after the shootings. Authorities believe he acted alone. They said he had been canvassing Brown’s campus for weeks, targeting a building where he spent significant time as a student in the early 2000s….
Both natives of Portugal, Neves Valente and Loureiro attended university together in Lisbon, authorities said. They graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico, a premier science institution that’s part of the University of Lisbon. Loureiro went on to pursue a lauded career as a professor and fusion researcher, with stops at Princeton University and in Europe; he joined MIT in 2016. Colleagues from across the world overwhelmingly praised his accomplishments and character, but none reported knowing Neves Valente.
More from Scott Watson, Valente’s friend:
Watson, his former classmate, said the two became friends despite Neves Valente’s standoffish nature.
“During orientation he was sitting alone, and I walked up and said hello. He was terse at first, but we eventually broke the ice and became close,” Watson told the Globe in an e-mail Friday, describing himself as essentially Neves Valente’s only friend at the university.
Neves Valente was a brilliant student, but he could be frustrated by the curriculum at Brown, which he found underwhelming, Watson said.
“He was by far the best graduate student in our class. Through our conversations, he was already ready to graduate when he arrived,” Watson said. “I don’t like the word genius, but he was.”
The Boston Globe: How a single anonymous tipster cracked the Brown University shooting case.
Information from a tipster who had a strange encounter with another man on a sidewalk outside Brown University was key to police identifying the suspect they believe killed two students at the school and then two days later gunned down a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
Known only as “John” in a Providence police affidavit, the source is being hailed by investigators as the key figure who gave law enforcement the details needed to determine who was behind the Brown shooting, as well as the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was shot in his Brookline home Monday.
Ever since a shooter unloaded more than 40 rounds inside a Brown engineering building, anxiety and frustration has plagued the Providence, Rhode Island, community as police appeared no closer to identifying the person.
Yet on the sixth day of the investigation, the case gathered steam, ending with police announcing late Thursday they had found the suspected gunman dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound….
“John” gave them the information they needed.
According to police, John had several encounters with 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente before Saturday’s attack. As police posted images of a person of interest — now identified as Neves Valente — John began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person and theorized that police should look into “possibly a rental” grey Nissan. Reddit users urged him to tell the FBI, and John said he did. The police affidavit said they learned about the tip on Dec. 16, three days after the shooting and a day after the tip line was created….
Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.
That detail led them to get more video of a Nissan Sentra sedan with Florida plates and enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety.
Bedtime Story, by Jeanette Lassen
The affidavit says John gave investigators additional critical details: he encountered Neves Valente in the bathroom of the engineering building just hours before the attack, where John noted the suspect’s clothing was “inappropriate and inadequate for the weather.”
John also bumped into Neves Valente outside, mere blocks from the building, where John watched Neves Valente “suddenly” turn around from the Nissan when he saw John. What ensued was then a “game of cat and mouse,” according to John’s testimony — where the two would encounter each other and Neves Valente would run away.
At one point, John says he yelled out “Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?”
“The Suspect responded, ‘I don’t know you from nobody,’ then Suspect repeatedly asked, ’Why are you harassing me?’” according to the affidavit.
John told police he eventually saw Neves Valente approach the Nissan sedan once more and decided to walk away.
I’ve quote a lot, because The Boston Globe doesn’t allow gift links or readers without subscriptions.
Trump Insanity Report
Jack Revell at The Daily Beast: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-complains-the-fbi-made-a-mess-of-melanias-panties.
No doubt Melania was thrilled with these revelations, which are likely just Trump fantasies.That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?President Donald Trump raged at the FBI for making a “mess” of his wife Melania’s “panties” during a raid on their Mar-a-Lago estate.
In a rambling speech delivered at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Friday night, Trump went off on a wild tangent about federal law enforcement agents, revealing how they had disturbed the First Lady’s underwear drawer during their 2022 search of the Palm Beach, Florida, property.
Her Quiet Companion, by David Arstamyan
“They went into my wife’s closet. I’ll say this. Number one, it’s very bad, but it sounds a little strange. They looked at her drawers,” Trump told the crowd while both himself and the crowd laughed.
“You have drawers, and then you have drawers. They looked at both,” he continued, miming the difference between the storage item and the undergarment.
The unprompted revelation of intimate details did not stop there, however, with Trump going full disclosure on the way his third wife likes to store her underwear.
“She’s a very meticulous person… Everything is perfect. Her undergarments, sometimes referred to as panties, are folded perfect, wrapped, they’re like so perfect. I say, ‘That’s beautiful,’” Trump continued.
“You know, that’s the part of the world she came from. Everything was perfect, no problem. Fold, fold, fold. I think she steams them just to make sure.”
#BillClinton #BrownUniversityShooting #catArt #caturday #ClaudioManuelNevesValente #DOJ #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #MelaniaTrump #TrumpInsanity
-
I am just about to wrap up my lunch break on this fine Tuesday-in-the-office. I have a few minutes before the next thing starts so I figured I’d come here and write something… anything…
Unfortunately, I have zero inspiration for any topics at all. Way to have an empty brain, Robert. Ugh.
So… here’s a topic. If the Dodgers win tonight they will complete the sweep of the Yankees and win the World Series. I freakin’ hate The Dodgers with the passion and fury of a thousand burning suns. Fortunately I hate the Yankees even more (with the passion and fury of a million, million burning suns) so that’s actually a good thing. As a lifelong Red Sox fan, watching the Yankees lose is fun for me. Watching them get humiliated by their (former) cross town rivals, The Dodgers, is even more fun. The only thing better would be watching them lose in humiliating fashion to The Red Sox… like they did in 2004. ‘Member that? Yeah, I ‘member!
What else I can I write about… hmmm… oh, here’s a quick topic worth mentioning. My step son, Harry, has been trying to get me to watch Better Call Saul for months now. He’s actually taking a class on the show at UVM and has been rewatching and loving the hell out of it. I told him I would start it this week, and last night I did. One episode down. Who knows how many to go. I did not see the twist at the end of that first episode coming, but when it happened I was all shit-eatin’-grins. I have to work episodes in around the shows that are currently airing, though most of my watch list is ending in the next week. There’s Daryl Dixon (which has been a little disappointing this season but this week’s penultimate season two episode was good) and The Penguin (which is excellent) and Only Murders in the Building (which is always fun) and Agatha All Along (which took a couple of weeks to suck me in but has turned out to be really good) and What We Do in the Shadows (which kicked off with three episodes last week, all of which were excellent). That’s a lot of TV. I’ll get to it all, somehow.
What else, what else… the Bruins have been pretty mediocre to start the season. They play Philly at home tonight and Philly has been pretty bad. Here’s hoping the offense wakes up. Also the defense. Also the goaltending. Yeah, it’s been a long first nine games here in Bruins nation. The same cannot be said for my old school, UMass Lowell. I actually saw a poll last night (I think it was US College Hockey Online’s poll but I’m not sure) that had them break into the top 20 teams in the country. They are 4-1 overall and 1-0 in Hockey East. The spanked Merrimack College last weekend (that’s my brother’s old school. Sorry, John). I should pay closer attention to my alma matter. Did I spell alma matter correctly? Google tells me I did not. It’s alma mater. There. Better.
Okay, folks. Time to go join a conference call or two. Hope you’re all having a good Tuesday afternoon. I hope you all had a good lunch. Hang in there, folks. Talk to you later.
https://robertjames1971.blog/2024/10/29/lunch-break-26/
#Baseball #betterCallSaul #BostonBruins #breakingBad #collegeHockey #Hockey #MajorLeagueBaseball #memberBerries #myOldSchool #ncaa #NHL #Television #umassLowell #umassLowellRiverHawks #worldSeries
-
Finally Friday Reads: TACO Tales
“The most transparent administration ever..” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m hoping we’re entering a Golden Age of Journalism because the number of stories floating around out there today indicates that we need more investigative journalists than ever before. Because of that, I cannot seem to play the Wake Forest Commencement by Sixty Minutes‘ Scott Pelley enough. His first statement rang true throughout the world. “Our sacred Rule of Law is under attack.” The Speech was entitled “The Meaning of You.”
The path to self-discovery starts with finding what kind of person you are when times get dark. As I’ve said before, these times are very dark. Do you shy away from speaking out? Do you take fighting action on whatever level you can? Do you melt away? Do you just go along or cheer it? I’ve come back to this speech this week because the headlines today show how important the press can be in exposing the dark times and the dark ones and their actions to light. It is then up to us to do something about it and to get our elected officials on it.
The New Republic’s Parker Molloy briefly discusses the importance of the Pelley Speech and the evil MAGA’s response. “Scott Pelley Warns Graduates About the Threats to American Democracy. The “60 Minutes” correspondent never mentioned Trump by name, but his call to defend democratic institutions was apparently too much for the MAGA crowd to handle.”
Earlier this month, journalist Scott Pelley delivered what should have been a fairly standard commencement address at Wake Forest University. The 60 Minutes correspondent spoke about seeking truth, defending democracy, and the importance of courage in difficult times—the kind of boilerplate inspiration you’d expect from a veteran journalist addressing graduates.
But because we live in very normal times, the speech went viral over Memorial Day weekend and triggered a conservative meltdown that’s been fascinating to watch unfold.
The fury started when a pro-MAGA account clipped portions of Pelley’s speech and shared them on X, writing “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest.”
What did Pelley say that sent the right into such a tizzy? Well, he had the audacity to suggest that “our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.” He warned of “insidious fear … reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America.”
And perhaps most provocatively, Pelley criticized the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, saying, “Diversity is now described as ‘illegal.’ Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.” He also referenced “masked agents” who “abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing.”
Pelley’s speech comes as Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over alleged “election interference” and CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon abruptly resigned, citing disagreements with the company amid the legal pressure.
What’s remarkable is how a fairly conventional call for civic engagement and democratic values could generate such hysteria. But then again, when you’re running an administration built on exactly the kind of authoritarian playbook Pelley described, I suppose any critique—no matter how measured—feels like an existential threat.
Reading the speech in full, it’s hard to see what’s so “unhinged” about urging graduates to be engaged citizens and defend democratic institutions. Unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in attacking those very institutions.
A complete transcript of the speech follows. Also, you may listen to and watch Paley’s address here. The headlines today may be bleak, but the important thing is that reporters and the people supporting the work investigate and can find unbelievable corruption, stark depravity, and many examples of bad human conduct, demeanor, and actions. Then expose it!
When I was born, and as I grew up and my family moved into the middle class, I was instilled with the importance of reading magazines and watching the news. My Grandfather on my mother’s side always sent me books for my birthday and Christmas. My Nana on my mother’s side sent my sister and me subscriptions to National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. We read the local newspapers and the Des Moines Register every morning and evening. When I asked my Dad while I was in high school if I could get a subscription to The Manchester Guardian and to Paris Match, he didn’t even hesitate. I can tell you my show and tell performance, as well as my reports from newspapers, were altogether different from my Council Bluffs and Omaha friends.
When I hit university, all the foreign students whom I continually sought out for all dorm meals originally thought I was from Canada. When my family travelled to Europe, I tried to blend in as much as possible and just observe. It is perhaps this that makes me blog today, even though the only journalism classes I took were in high school. I wrote for the school newspaper, an underground newspaper, and the junior high newspaper. I always assumed everyone was as news-hungry as I was growing up in some of the most boring and inane places on the planet. I couldn’t live with oatmeal after reading about Belgian waffles. Can you imagine what happened when I got my first bite of one?
Knowledge of news is important for good citizenship, it’s important for making decisions that impact your household, and it’s important just because things are moving faster than ever. So let me get down to my first suggested reads today.
One of the things I find most threatening these days is seeing my students, my university, and many places leave their brains behind and try to make things easy using AI. It may have a future, but presently, any good professor worth their salt can tell when someone uses it. You should get good at spotting it on the internet, and you will be annoyed when you’re making an important call about something or chatting with some company, and even when it’s given a name, you can tell by the idiosyncrasies and the lack of niceties of American English, this thing ain’t human.
I’ve noticed that the grammar check my University uses completely breaks down when dealing with nuances and colloquialisms. It seems to excel mostly at filling my writing with commas and catching typos. That’s okay by me and easy, but believe me, I can tell when a student overuses AI. We’re being trained at spotting it as well as teaching students how to use it correctly. However, someone who knows what they are doing from years of doing it can make a better decision about its use than those still on the learning curve.
I say this because I watched a news program where the new AI installed at the Social Security phone line repeatedly ignored the question they asked, then kept squawking “Can I help you with something else?” endlessly. This is the point where I hear my Nana’s voice telling little me, “Well, you can, but may you?” AI does not grok manners and polite conversations. It could be because human mutants like Elon Musk and his Dodge cluster have never quite figured that out either. Garbage in, garbage out. But, then maybe that’s what they want. Cease being polite and just be technically acceptable. Okay, it’s long but I’m getting there, I promise.
This phenomenon played out yesterday as one of RFK Jr.’s prodigal research adventures turned into something I wouldn’t even expect from an undergrad or, actually, even someone sitting in my high school or university composition class. He was, of course, a legacy student there because of his father. We also know he was the dorm’s drug dealer from my fellow Westside High School journalism classmate, Kurt Anderson. One thing Westside always turned out was students who knew how to write. That skill got me through all the rest of my degrees because, damn I could write a good paper. Evidently, RFK Jr. did not get that skill.
It’s rather interesting given the difficult times Harvard is facing in protecting its foreign students. Now granted, I helped many a colleague from distant lands to get their excellent research into prime American English form. Everyone always sent them to me before they were sent to a journal for publishing, which bought me a cheap pub. But, every one of them took me farther down the path of being a numbers and stats guru. Did you know kids in India start their calculus classes in like 5th grade? It was also easier for me to actually come up with a sweet hypothesis to test because I was taught to be both analytical and creative. That’s what a good public school can do for you. A good university exposes you to what’s possible and exposes you to all kinds of interesting thinkers. But, again, I guess RFK Jr. was too busy with drugs to take advantage of anything like that. That’s why he’s likely never going to be part of a blog community, a book club, or a group that goes to the Saturday Night Midnight movies.
Okay, I really am getting to the read now. At his advanced age, with his unlimited educational opportunities and his money, he cannot write a research paper. And yet, it showed up in the public sphere because he was trying to prove his very wrong hypotheses at any cost. He didn’t prove anything. He turned to all manner of things to argue his hypothesis. None of his antics were academically sound. At first, the White House’s dumbest Press Secretary announced there were “formatting” errors. But, how could that be when, after investigating sources, reporters found them either made up or seriously in error? The Make America Healthy Again report was just embarrassing.
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki derided White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report filled with errors and broken links.
NOTUS reported the paper, released under the administration of President Donald Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited at least seven sources that do not appear to exist. The news publication contacted epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who the MAHA report lists as the first author of a study it cited on adolescent anxiety, and discovered Keyes didn’t write the paper.
“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”
NOTUS also reported two other studies pertaining to direct-to-consumer drug advertisements for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids appear nowhere “to be found.” Reporters also could not validate another section claiming 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. Additionally, the author of a corticosteroids study’s the MAHA report cited to support its arguments denied writing the study.
NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright was in the White House briefing room Thursday and asked Leavitt: “does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted?”
“Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed.”
Psaki, a former White House press secretary herself, did not contain her scorn.
Well, the nation’s biggest and most disappointing media of record investigated and found some interesting things in the MAHA report. Let’s start with the Washington Post. “White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say. The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.” Well, that’s typical of a lot of students. If they can’t do it, they pay someone who can. You can always tell this, though, because if you’ve seen any previous work, you recognize their voice and you know when something is different. AI is the most recent example of buying a paper online, but with a lower cost and perhaps a lower chance of getting caught because you won’t find a cheat paper by searching it verbatim with your student’s work. Believe me, the discussion on this in teacher lounges and faculty clubs is de rigueur these days. Evidently, RFK Jr. didn’t even know the most tell-tale of the signs.
Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.
Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.
Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company.
A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate — as well as the tendency to “hallucinate” studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.
So, our Secretary of Health and Human Services is so bereft of research skills that he can’t even avoid the number one Rookie mistake. Does he have anyone around him who knew better and could catch this? I can tell you that a team of peers that checks every research paper headed to publication in an academically sound journal would never let this go through to print. If you’re the main author, you try to avoid any humiliating mistakes for serious journals.
AI technology can be used legitimately to quickly survey the research in a field. But Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington who studies AI, said he was shocked by the sloppiness in the MAHA Report.
“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” he said. “We deserve better.”
“The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addressed the root causes of America’s lagging health outcomes, was written by a commission of Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders. It was led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of misstating science, and written in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The New York Times published the first media review pointing out made-up sources. “White House Health Report Included Fake Citations, ‘A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.” Now, I’m not a scientist, but I lived with a Yale-educated Doctorate in Microbiology who published a lot of things on RNA transcription, ran a lab at a public university, and wound up with the NSF. I have no idea if he’s retired or if he went with the current purge of scientists. I read many of his works pre-publication, and he got published in all the big ones. I think the science journals are more nerve-wracking to write for than the Economics and Finance. Usually, it’s based on lab data rather than the Federal Reserve Beige Book or World Book data, which gets a pass even though the methodology and the model itself get the eagle eye. This report was a hot mess on all accounts.
The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.
But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.
“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.
The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.
Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.
Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”
Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”
The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.
“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this
So, after finding out about all of that, this should make you feel really at ease.
The Trump administration has quietly spread Palantir’s technology through U.S. agencies, paving the way to easily compile data on Americans. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since President Trump took office. nyti.ms/4dJfR0o
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-05-30T16:16:57.733Z
I think we can start making the Big Brother is watching you references now. This is the subheading, which is startling IMHO. “The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.” Getting your passport ready yet?
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.
Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information.
So, while all this is going on, we’re beginning to hear some interesting information on Elon Musk as he exists stage right. This is from Forbes Magazine. “Lucky” Susan Dorn got this assignment. “Musk Used Heavy Drugs Including Ketamine And Ecstasy While He Became Close To Trump, Report Says. Elon Musk used a copious amount of drugs—and travelled with a pill box that appeared to contain Adderall—last year as he ramped up his donations to President Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report that comes on his last official day at the White House.” He’s the Wolf of Austin, I guess.
Key Facts
- Musk told confidants he was taking so much ketamine it affected his bladder, according to The Times, citing unnamed sources who said he also took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.
- The Times also reported it obtained a photo that showed a medication box Musk travelled with containing about 20 pills, including Adderall.
- The alleged drug use overlapped with his campaign activity last year on behalf of Trump—with an endorsement in July followed by $250 million to help elect him.
- The report comes as Musk is set to exit the White House Friday after announcing Wednesday his time leading the Department of Government Efficiency had come to an end.
- Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to The Times’ request for comment, but Musk has said previously he was prescribed ketamine for depression.
The New York Times has more details. “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous, and his drug use was more intense than previously known.” Of course, they sent two women after this story, too. Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey were the assigned reporters.
As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according topeople familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
I’m not about to go to the Gossip Rag road, but there are rumors about Mush and Steven Miller’s wife if you’re interested. This is from the Independent. “Stephen Miller’s wife leaves the White House to work for Elon Musk ‘full time’, Kate Miller was working as an adviser for Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.” I should eat some lunch, and I really will not ruin it by going any deeper into these. BLECH.
So, we lose a clown and gain one. Seriously, none of these Trump men are strangers to make-up. This is from ABC News. “Trump taps former right-wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia for key watchdog post. Ingrassia would replace Hampton Dellinger, who opposed Trump’s mass firings.”
President Trump announced Thursday night that he was tapping Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an independent watchdog agency empowered to investigate federal employees and oversee complaints from whistleblowers.
The Trump administration has previously taken aim at the Office of Special Counsel, firing the head of the agency, Hampton Dellinger (a Biden appointee) in February. Dellinger expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees under DOGE-led cuts, noting that many had been fired or laid off without notice or justification.
Dellinger challenged his firing in court and was briefly reinstated to the post until a federal appeals court allowed for his dismissal. Dellinger decided to drop the challenge.
ABC News exclusively reported in February about how Ingrassia, in his role as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, was pushing to hire candidates at the DOJ who exhibited what he called “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. His efforts at DOJ sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, leading Ingrassia to complain directly to President Trump, sources told ABC News.
Ingrassia was pushed out of DOJ and reassigned as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, where he was serving prior to Trump announcing his new role, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.
In a post on X, Ingrassia wrote in response to his nomination: “It’s the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump! As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.”
For the Senate-confirmed five-year term, Ingrassia will likely face tough questions over his lengthy history of media appearances and posts on social media promoting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his ties to far-right media figures.
He was previously spotted at a 2024 rally hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has publicly praised figures like Andrew Tate — who has faced criminal charges for alleged sexual assault (Tate denies all wrongdoing).
All the best people, folks, all the best. So, I know you just want to know the latest information on the American Soap Opera “As the Tarrifs and the TACO Turns.” This is from CNBC. “Trump accuses China of violating preliminary trade deal.” Dan Managan gets all the serious stories, you know.
President Donald Trump on Friday said that China has “totally violated its” preliminary trade agreement with the United States, and suggested he would take action in response.
“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote in a social media post that said China had reneged on a deal that paused retaliatory tariffs between that country and the U.S.
Stock futures fell Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s statement.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a CNBC interview Friday morning, echoed Trump’s allegation, saying “we’re very concerned with” China’s purported non-compliance with the temporary trade deal.
The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” said Greer.
He called that “completely unacceptable and has to be addressed.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Fox News interview on Thursday, said that trade talks with China “are a bit stalled.”
CNBC has requested comment from China’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. and China on May 12 agreed to a 90-day suspension on most tariffs imposed on each other’s imports.
The agreement was reached after Trump slapped sky-high tariffs on imports from China into the U.S., and China retaliated in kind.
“Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger!” Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social on Friday.
“The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World,” Trump wrote. “We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
“Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!” the president wrote.
“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
Trump posted his screed two days after he lashed out at CNBC reporter Megan Cassella at the White House when she asked about the term “TACO trade,” which refers to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, suggests that stock pickers can make money by buying shares after markets fall on news of new tariffs imposed by Trump, knowing that he invariably will pause or reduce the tariffs, sending markets higher.
You had to know he had to have a bully story to cover up all the Court sha-la-la about his on-again, off-again tariffs. Wow, my Grammarly got really dash happy there! Actually, I did it but wondered if it would notice anything and it did. One missing comma. I evidently have a thing against commas.
So, at least it’s the weekend! Hope y’all have a great one! I say TACO, they say TACO!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DrugAddict #ElonMuskNAZI #kakistocracy #PalantirDataTheftSpecialists #ScottPelley #TACO #WhoAreYOU_ #WifeStealer
-
Finally Friday Reads: TACO Tales
“The most transparent administration ever..” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m hoping we’re entering a Golden Age of Journalism because the number of stories floating around out there today indicates that we need more investigative journalists than ever before. Because of that, I cannot seem to play the Wake Forest Commencement by Sixty Minutes‘ Scott Pelley enough. His first statement rang true throughout the world. “Our sacred Rule of Law is under attack.” The Speech was entitled “The Meaning of You.”
The path to self-discovery starts with finding what kind of person you are when times get dark. As I’ve said before, these times are very dark. Do you shy away from speaking out? Do you take fighting action on whatever level you can? Do you melt away? Do you just go along or cheer it? I’ve come back to this speech this week because the headlines today show how important the press can be in exposing the dark times and the dark ones and their actions to light. It is then up to us to do something about it and to get our elected officials on it.
The New Republic’s Parker Molloy briefly discusses the importance of the Pelley Speech and the evil MAGA’s response. “Scott Pelley Warns Graduates About the Threats to American Democracy. The “60 Minutes” correspondent never mentioned Trump by name, but his call to defend democratic institutions was apparently too much for the MAGA crowd to handle.”
Earlier this month, journalist Scott Pelley delivered what should have been a fairly standard commencement address at Wake Forest University. The 60 Minutes correspondent spoke about seeking truth, defending democracy, and the importance of courage in difficult times—the kind of boilerplate inspiration you’d expect from a veteran journalist addressing graduates.
But because we live in very normal times, the speech went viral over Memorial Day weekend and triggered a conservative meltdown that’s been fascinating to watch unfold.
The fury started when a pro-MAGA account clipped portions of Pelley’s speech and shared them on X, writing “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest.”
What did Pelley say that sent the right into such a tizzy? Well, he had the audacity to suggest that “our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.” He warned of “insidious fear … reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America.”
And perhaps most provocatively, Pelley criticized the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, saying, “Diversity is now described as ‘illegal.’ Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.” He also referenced “masked agents” who “abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing.”
Pelley’s speech comes as Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over alleged “election interference” and CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon abruptly resigned, citing disagreements with the company amid the legal pressure.
What’s remarkable is how a fairly conventional call for civic engagement and democratic values could generate such hysteria. But then again, when you’re running an administration built on exactly the kind of authoritarian playbook Pelley described, I suppose any critique—no matter how measured—feels like an existential threat.
Reading the speech in full, it’s hard to see what’s so “unhinged” about urging graduates to be engaged citizens and defend democratic institutions. Unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in attacking those very institutions.
A complete transcript of the speech follows. Also, you may listen to and watch Paley’s address here. The headlines today may be bleak, but the important thing is that reporters and the people supporting the work investigate and can find unbelievable corruption, stark depravity, and many examples of bad human conduct, demeanor, and actions. Then expose it!
When I was born, and as I grew up and my family moved into the middle class, I was instilled with the importance of reading magazines and watching the news. My Grandfather on my mother’s side always sent me books for my birthday and Christmas. My Nana on my mother’s side sent my sister and me subscriptions to National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. We read the local newspapers and the Des Moines Register every morning and evening. When I asked my Dad while I was in high school if I could get a subscription to The Manchester Guardian and to Paris Match, he didn’t even hesitate. I can tell you my show and tell performance, as well as my reports from newspapers, were altogether different from my Council Bluffs and Omaha friends.
When I hit university, all the foreign students whom I continually sought out for all dorm meals originally thought I was from Canada. When my family travelled to Europe, I tried to blend in as much as possible and just observe. It is perhaps this that makes me blog today, even though the only journalism classes I took were in high school. I wrote for the school newspaper, an underground newspaper, and the junior high newspaper. I always assumed everyone was as news-hungry as I was growing up in some of the most boring and inane places on the planet. I couldn’t live with oatmeal after reading about Belgian waffles. Can you imagine what happened when I got my first bite of one?
Knowledge of news is important for good citizenship, it’s important for making decisions that impact your household, and it’s important just because things are moving faster than ever. So let me get down to my first suggested reads today.
One of the things I find most threatening these days is seeing my students, my university, and many places leave their brains behind and try to make things easy using AI. It may have a future, but presently, any good professor worth their salt can tell when someone uses it. You should get good at spotting it on the internet, and you will be annoyed when you’re making an important call about something or chatting with some company, and even when it’s given a name, you can tell by the idiosyncrasies and the lack of niceties of American English, this thing ain’t human.
I’ve noticed that the grammar check my University uses completely breaks down when dealing with nuances and colloquialisms. It seems to excel mostly at filling my writing with commas and catching typos. That’s okay by me and easy, but believe me, I can tell when a student overuses AI. We’re being trained at spotting it as well as teaching students how to use it correctly. However, someone who knows what they are doing from years of doing it can make a better decision about its use than those still on the learning curve.
I say this because I watched a news program where the new AI installed at the Social Security phone line repeatedly ignored the question they asked, then kept squawking “Can I help you with something else?” endlessly. This is the point where I hear my Nana’s voice telling little me, “Well, you can, but may you?” AI does not grok manners and polite conversations. It could be because human mutants like Elon Musk and his Dodge cluster have never quite figured that out either. Garbage in, garbage out. But, then maybe that’s what they want. Cease being polite and just be technically acceptable. Okay, it’s long but I’m getting there, I promise.
This phenomenon played out yesterday as one of RFK Jr.’s prodigal research adventures turned into something I wouldn’t even expect from an undergrad or, actually, even someone sitting in my high school or university composition class. He was, of course, a legacy student there because of his father. We also know he was the dorm’s drug dealer from my fellow Westside High School journalism classmate, Kurt Anderson. One thing Westside always turned out was students who knew how to write. That skill got me through all the rest of my degrees because, damn I could write a good paper. Evidently, RFK Jr. did not get that skill.
It’s rather interesting given the difficult times Harvard is facing in protecting its foreign students. Now granted, I helped many a colleague from distant lands to get their excellent research into prime American English form. Everyone always sent them to me before they were sent to a journal for publishing, which bought me a cheap pub. But, every one of them took me farther down the path of being a numbers and stats guru. Did you know kids in India start their calculus classes in like 5th grade? It was also easier for me to actually come up with a sweet hypothesis to test because I was taught to be both analytical and creative. That’s what a good public school can do for you. A good university exposes you to what’s possible and exposes you to all kinds of interesting thinkers. But, again, I guess RFK Jr. was too busy with drugs to take advantage of anything like that. That’s why he’s likely never going to be part of a blog community, a book club, or a group that goes to the Saturday Night Midnight movies.
Okay, I really am getting to the read now. At his advanced age, with his unlimited educational opportunities and his money, he cannot write a research paper. And yet, it showed up in the public sphere because he was trying to prove his very wrong hypotheses at any cost. He didn’t prove anything. He turned to all manner of things to argue his hypothesis. None of his antics were academically sound. At first, the White House’s dumbest Press Secretary announced there were “formatting” errors. But, how could that be when, after investigating sources, reporters found them either made up or seriously in error? The Make America Healthy Again report was just embarrassing.
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki derided White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report filled with errors and broken links.
NOTUS reported the paper, released under the administration of President Donald Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited at least seven sources that do not appear to exist. The news publication contacted epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who the MAHA report lists as the first author of a study it cited on adolescent anxiety, and discovered Keyes didn’t write the paper.
“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”
NOTUS also reported two other studies pertaining to direct-to-consumer drug advertisements for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids appear nowhere “to be found.” Reporters also could not validate another section claiming 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. Additionally, the author of a corticosteroids study’s the MAHA report cited to support its arguments denied writing the study.
NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright was in the White House briefing room Thursday and asked Leavitt: “does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted?”
“Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed.”
Psaki, a former White House press secretary herself, did not contain her scorn.
Well, the nation’s biggest and most disappointing media of record investigated and found some interesting things in the MAHA report. Let’s start with the Washington Post. “White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say. The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.” Well, that’s typical of a lot of students. If they can’t do it, they pay someone who can. You can always tell this, though, because if you’ve seen any previous work, you recognize their voice and you know when something is different. AI is the most recent example of buying a paper online, but with a lower cost and perhaps a lower chance of getting caught because you won’t find a cheat paper by searching it verbatim with your student’s work. Believe me, the discussion on this in teacher lounges and faculty clubs is de rigueur these days. Evidently, RFK Jr. didn’t even know the most tell-tale of the signs.
Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.
Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.
Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company.
A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate — as well as the tendency to “hallucinate” studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.
So, our Secretary of Health and Human Services is so bereft of research skills that he can’t even avoid the number one Rookie mistake. Does he have anyone around him who knew better and could catch this? I can tell you that a team of peers that checks every research paper headed to publication in an academically sound journal would never let this go through to print. If you’re the main author, you try to avoid any humiliating mistakes for serious journals.
AI technology can be used legitimately to quickly survey the research in a field. But Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington who studies AI, said he was shocked by the sloppiness in the MAHA Report.
“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” he said. “We deserve better.”
“The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addressed the root causes of America’s lagging health outcomes, was written by a commission of Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders. It was led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of misstating science, and written in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The New York Times published the first media review pointing out made-up sources. “White House Health Report Included Fake Citations, ‘A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.” Now, I’m not a scientist, but I lived with a Yale-educated Doctorate in Microbiology who published a lot of things on RNA transcription, ran a lab at a public university, and wound up with the NSF. I have no idea if he’s retired or if he went with the current purge of scientists. I read many of his works pre-publication, and he got published in all the big ones. I think the science journals are more nerve-wracking to write for than the Economics and Finance. Usually, it’s based on lab data rather than the Federal Reserve Beige Book or World Book data, which gets a pass even though the methodology and the model itself get the eagle eye. This report was a hot mess on all accounts.
The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.
But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.
“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.
The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.
Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.
Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”
Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”
The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.
“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this
So, after finding out about all of that, this should make you feel really at ease.
The Trump administration has quietly spread Palantir’s technology through U.S. agencies, paving the way to easily compile data on Americans. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since President Trump took office. nyti.ms/4dJfR0o
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-05-30T16:16:57.733Z
I think we can start making the Big Brother is watching you references now. This is the subheading, which is startling IMHO. “The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.” Getting your passport ready yet?
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.
Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information.
So, while all this is going on, we’re beginning to hear some interesting information on Elon Musk as he exists stage right. This is from Forbes Magazine. “Lucky” Susan Dorn got this assignment. “Musk Used Heavy Drugs Including Ketamine And Ecstasy While He Became Close To Trump, Report Says. Elon Musk used a copious amount of drugs—and travelled with a pill box that appeared to contain Adderall—last year as he ramped up his donations to President Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report that comes on his last official day at the White House.” He’s the Wolf of Austin, I guess.
Key Facts
- Musk told confidants he was taking so much ketamine it affected his bladder, according to The Times, citing unnamed sources who said he also took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.
- The Times also reported it obtained a photo that showed a medication box Musk travelled with containing about 20 pills, including Adderall.
- The alleged drug use overlapped with his campaign activity last year on behalf of Trump—with an endorsement in July followed by $250 million to help elect him.
- The report comes as Musk is set to exit the White House Friday after announcing Wednesday his time leading the Department of Government Efficiency had come to an end.
- Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to The Times’ request for comment, but Musk has said previously he was prescribed ketamine for depression.
The New York Times has more details. “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous, and his drug use was more intense than previously known.” Of course, they sent two women after this story, too. Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey were the assigned reporters.
As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according topeople familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
I’m not about to go to the Gossip Rag road, but there are rumors about Mush and Steven Miller’s wife if you’re interested. This is from the Independent. “Stephen Miller’s wife leaves the White House to work for Elon Musk ‘full time’, Kate Miller was working as an adviser for Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.” I should eat some lunch, and I really will not ruin it by going any deeper into these. BLECH.
So, we lose a clown and gain one. Seriously, none of these Trump men are strangers to make-up. This is from ABC News. “Trump taps former right-wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia for key watchdog post. Ingrassia would replace Hampton Dellinger, who opposed Trump’s mass firings.”
President Trump announced Thursday night that he was tapping Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an independent watchdog agency empowered to investigate federal employees and oversee complaints from whistleblowers.
The Trump administration has previously taken aim at the Office of Special Counsel, firing the head of the agency, Hampton Dellinger (a Biden appointee) in February. Dellinger expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees under DOGE-led cuts, noting that many had been fired or laid off without notice or justification.
Dellinger challenged his firing in court and was briefly reinstated to the post until a federal appeals court allowed for his dismissal. Dellinger decided to drop the challenge.
ABC News exclusively reported in February about how Ingrassia, in his role as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, was pushing to hire candidates at the DOJ who exhibited what he called “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. His efforts at DOJ sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, leading Ingrassia to complain directly to President Trump, sources told ABC News.
Ingrassia was pushed out of DOJ and reassigned as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, where he was serving prior to Trump announcing his new role, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.
In a post on X, Ingrassia wrote in response to his nomination: “It’s the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump! As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.”
For the Senate-confirmed five-year term, Ingrassia will likely face tough questions over his lengthy history of media appearances and posts on social media promoting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his ties to far-right media figures.
He was previously spotted at a 2024 rally hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has publicly praised figures like Andrew Tate — who has faced criminal charges for alleged sexual assault (Tate denies all wrongdoing).
All the best people, folks, all the best. So, I know you just want to know the latest information on the American Soap Opera “As the Tarrifs and the TACO Turns.” This is from CNBC. “Trump accuses China of violating preliminary trade deal.” Dan Managan gets all the serious stories, you know.
President Donald Trump on Friday said that China has “totally violated its” preliminary trade agreement with the United States, and suggested he would take action in response.
“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote in a social media post that said China had reneged on a deal that paused retaliatory tariffs between that country and the U.S.
Stock futures fell Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s statement.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a CNBC interview Friday morning, echoed Trump’s allegation, saying “we’re very concerned with” China’s purported non-compliance with the temporary trade deal.
The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” said Greer.
He called that “completely unacceptable and has to be addressed.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Fox News interview on Thursday, said that trade talks with China “are a bit stalled.”
CNBC has requested comment from China’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. and China on May 12 agreed to a 90-day suspension on most tariffs imposed on each other’s imports.
The agreement was reached after Trump slapped sky-high tariffs on imports from China into the U.S., and China retaliated in kind.
“Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger!” Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social on Friday.
“The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World,” Trump wrote. “We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
“Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!” the president wrote.
“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
Trump posted his screed two days after he lashed out at CNBC reporter Megan Cassella at the White House when she asked about the term “TACO trade,” which refers to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, suggests that stock pickers can make money by buying shares after markets fall on news of new tariffs imposed by Trump, knowing that he invariably will pause or reduce the tariffs, sending markets higher.
You had to know he had to have a bully story to cover up all the Court sha-la-la about his on-again, off-again tariffs. Wow, my Grammarly got really dash happy there! Actually, I did it but wondered if it would notice anything and it did. One missing comma. I evidently have a thing against commas.
So, at least it’s the weekend! Hope y’all have a great one! I say TACO, they say TACO!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DrugAddict #ElonMuskNAZI #kakistocracy #PalantirDataTheftSpecialists #ScottPelley #TACO #WhoAreYOU_ #WifeStealer
-
Finally Friday Reads: TACO Tales
“The most transparent administration ever..” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m hoping we’re entering a Golden Age of Journalism because the number of stories floating around out there today indicates that we need more investigative journalists than ever before. Because of that, I cannot seem to play the Wake Forest Commencement by Sixty Minutes‘ Scott Pelley enough. His first statement rang true throughout the world. “Our sacred Rule of Law is under attack.” The Speech was entitled “The Meaning of You.”
The path to self-discovery starts with finding what kind of person you are when times get dark. As I’ve said before, these times are very dark. Do you shy away from speaking out? Do you take fighting action on whatever level you can? Do you melt away? Do you just go along or cheer it? I’ve come back to this speech this week because the headlines today show how important the press can be in exposing the dark times and the dark ones and their actions to light. It is then up to us to do something about it and to get our elected officials on it.
The New Republic’s Parker Molloy briefly discusses the importance of the Pelley Speech and the evil MAGA’s response. “Scott Pelley Warns Graduates About the Threats to American Democracy. The “60 Minutes” correspondent never mentioned Trump by name, but his call to defend democratic institutions was apparently too much for the MAGA crowd to handle.”
Earlier this month, journalist Scott Pelley delivered what should have been a fairly standard commencement address at Wake Forest University. The 60 Minutes correspondent spoke about seeking truth, defending democracy, and the importance of courage in difficult times—the kind of boilerplate inspiration you’d expect from a veteran journalist addressing graduates.
But because we live in very normal times, the speech went viral over Memorial Day weekend and triggered a conservative meltdown that’s been fascinating to watch unfold.
The fury started when a pro-MAGA account clipped portions of Pelley’s speech and shared them on X, writing “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest.”
What did Pelley say that sent the right into such a tizzy? Well, he had the audacity to suggest that “our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.” He warned of “insidious fear … reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America.”
And perhaps most provocatively, Pelley criticized the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, saying, “Diversity is now described as ‘illegal.’ Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.” He also referenced “masked agents” who “abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing.”
Pelley’s speech comes as Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over alleged “election interference” and CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon abruptly resigned, citing disagreements with the company amid the legal pressure.
What’s remarkable is how a fairly conventional call for civic engagement and democratic values could generate such hysteria. But then again, when you’re running an administration built on exactly the kind of authoritarian playbook Pelley described, I suppose any critique—no matter how measured—feels like an existential threat.
Reading the speech in full, it’s hard to see what’s so “unhinged” about urging graduates to be engaged citizens and defend democratic institutions. Unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in attacking those very institutions.
A complete transcript of the speech follows. Also, you may listen to and watch Paley’s address here. The headlines today may be bleak, but the important thing is that reporters and the people supporting the work investigate and can find unbelievable corruption, stark depravity, and many examples of bad human conduct, demeanor, and actions. Then expose it!
When I was born, and as I grew up and my family moved into the middle class, I was instilled with the importance of reading magazines and watching the news. My Grandfather on my mother’s side always sent me books for my birthday and Christmas. My Nana on my mother’s side sent my sister and me subscriptions to National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. We read the local newspapers and the Des Moines Register every morning and evening. When I asked my Dad while I was in high school if I could get a subscription to The Manchester Guardian and to Paris Match, he didn’t even hesitate. I can tell you my show and tell performance, as well as my reports from newspapers, were altogether different from my Council Bluffs and Omaha friends.
When I hit university, all the foreign students whom I continually sought out for all dorm meals originally thought I was from Canada. When my family travelled to Europe, I tried to blend in as much as possible and just observe. It is perhaps this that makes me blog today, even though the only journalism classes I took were in high school. I wrote for the school newspaper, an underground newspaper, and the junior high newspaper. I always assumed everyone was as news-hungry as I was growing up in some of the most boring and inane places on the planet. I couldn’t live with oatmeal after reading about Belgian waffles. Can you imagine what happened when I got my first bite of one?
Knowledge of news is important for good citizenship, it’s important for making decisions that impact your household, and it’s important just because things are moving faster than ever. So let me get down to my first suggested reads today.
One of the things I find most threatening these days is seeing my students, my university, and many places leave their brains behind and try to make things easy using AI. It may have a future, but presently, any good professor worth their salt can tell when someone uses it. You should get good at spotting it on the internet, and you will be annoyed when you’re making an important call about something or chatting with some company, and even when it’s given a name, you can tell by the idiosyncrasies and the lack of niceties of American English, this thing ain’t human.
I’ve noticed that the grammar check my University uses completely breaks down when dealing with nuances and colloquialisms. It seems to excel mostly at filling my writing with commas and catching typos. That’s okay by me and easy, but believe me, I can tell when a student overuses AI. We’re being trained at spotting it as well as teaching students how to use it correctly. However, someone who knows what they are doing from years of doing it can make a better decision about its use than those still on the learning curve.
I say this because I watched a news program where the new AI installed at the Social Security phone line repeatedly ignored the question they asked, then kept squawking “Can I help you with something else?” endlessly. This is the point where I hear my Nana’s voice telling little me, “Well, you can, but may you?” AI does not grok manners and polite conversations. It could be because human mutants like Elon Musk and his Dodge cluster have never quite figured that out either. Garbage in, garbage out. But, then maybe that’s what they want. Cease being polite and just be technically acceptable. Okay, it’s long but I’m getting there, I promise.
This phenomenon played out yesterday as one of RFK Jr.’s prodigal research adventures turned into something I wouldn’t even expect from an undergrad or, actually, even someone sitting in my high school or university composition class. He was, of course, a legacy student there because of his father. We also know he was the dorm’s drug dealer from my fellow Westside High School journalism classmate, Kurt Anderson. One thing Westside always turned out was students who knew how to write. That skill got me through all the rest of my degrees because, damn I could write a good paper. Evidently, RFK Jr. did not get that skill.
It’s rather interesting given the difficult times Harvard is facing in protecting its foreign students. Now granted, I helped many a colleague from distant lands to get their excellent research into prime American English form. Everyone always sent them to me before they were sent to a journal for publishing, which bought me a cheap pub. But, every one of them took me farther down the path of being a numbers and stats guru. Did you know kids in India start their calculus classes in like 5th grade? It was also easier for me to actually come up with a sweet hypothesis to test because I was taught to be both analytical and creative. That’s what a good public school can do for you. A good university exposes you to what’s possible and exposes you to all kinds of interesting thinkers. But, again, I guess RFK Jr. was too busy with drugs to take advantage of anything like that. That’s why he’s likely never going to be part of a blog community, a book club, or a group that goes to the Saturday Night Midnight movies.
Okay, I really am getting to the read now. At his advanced age, with his unlimited educational opportunities and his money, he cannot write a research paper. And yet, it showed up in the public sphere because he was trying to prove his very wrong hypotheses at any cost. He didn’t prove anything. He turned to all manner of things to argue his hypothesis. None of his antics were academically sound. At first, the White House’s dumbest Press Secretary announced there were “formatting” errors. But, how could that be when, after investigating sources, reporters found them either made up or seriously in error? The Make America Healthy Again report was just embarrassing.
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki derided White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report filled with errors and broken links.
NOTUS reported the paper, released under the administration of President Donald Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited at least seven sources that do not appear to exist. The news publication contacted epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who the MAHA report lists as the first author of a study it cited on adolescent anxiety, and discovered Keyes didn’t write the paper.
“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”
NOTUS also reported two other studies pertaining to direct-to-consumer drug advertisements for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids appear nowhere “to be found.” Reporters also could not validate another section claiming 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. Additionally, the author of a corticosteroids study’s the MAHA report cited to support its arguments denied writing the study.
NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright was in the White House briefing room Thursday and asked Leavitt: “does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted?”
“Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed.”
Psaki, a former White House press secretary herself, did not contain her scorn.
Well, the nation’s biggest and most disappointing media of record investigated and found some interesting things in the MAHA report. Let’s start with the Washington Post. “White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say. The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.” Well, that’s typical of a lot of students. If they can’t do it, they pay someone who can. You can always tell this, though, because if you’ve seen any previous work, you recognize their voice and you know when something is different. AI is the most recent example of buying a paper online, but with a lower cost and perhaps a lower chance of getting caught because you won’t find a cheat paper by searching it verbatim with your student’s work. Believe me, the discussion on this in teacher lounges and faculty clubs is de rigueur these days. Evidently, RFK Jr. didn’t even know the most tell-tale of the signs.
Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.
Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.
Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company.
A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate — as well as the tendency to “hallucinate” studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.
So, our Secretary of Health and Human Services is so bereft of research skills that he can’t even avoid the number one Rookie mistake. Does he have anyone around him who knew better and could catch this? I can tell you that a team of peers that checks every research paper headed to publication in an academically sound journal would never let this go through to print. If you’re the main author, you try to avoid any humiliating mistakes for serious journals.
AI technology can be used legitimately to quickly survey the research in a field. But Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington who studies AI, said he was shocked by the sloppiness in the MAHA Report.
“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” he said. “We deserve better.”
“The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addressed the root causes of America’s lagging health outcomes, was written by a commission of Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders. It was led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of misstating science, and written in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The New York Times published the first media review pointing out made-up sources. “White House Health Report Included Fake Citations, ‘A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.” Now, I’m not a scientist, but I lived with a Yale-educated Doctorate in Microbiology who published a lot of things on RNA transcription, ran a lab at a public university, and wound up with the NSF. I have no idea if he’s retired or if he went with the current purge of scientists. I read many of his works pre-publication, and he got published in all the big ones. I think the science journals are more nerve-wracking to write for than the Economics and Finance. Usually, it’s based on lab data rather than the Federal Reserve Beige Book or World Book data, which gets a pass even though the methodology and the model itself get the eagle eye. This report was a hot mess on all accounts.
The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.
But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.
“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.
The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.
Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.
Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”
Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”
The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.
“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this
So, after finding out about all of that, this should make you feel really at ease.
The Trump administration has quietly spread Palantir’s technology through U.S. agencies, paving the way to easily compile data on Americans. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since President Trump took office. nyti.ms/4dJfR0o
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-05-30T16:16:57.733Z
I think we can start making the Big Brother is watching you references now. This is the subheading, which is startling IMHO. “The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.” Getting your passport ready yet?
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.
Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information.
So, while all this is going on, we’re beginning to hear some interesting information on Elon Musk as he exists stage right. This is from Forbes Magazine. “Lucky” Susan Dorn got this assignment. “Musk Used Heavy Drugs Including Ketamine And Ecstasy While He Became Close To Trump, Report Says. Elon Musk used a copious amount of drugs—and travelled with a pill box that appeared to contain Adderall—last year as he ramped up his donations to President Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report that comes on his last official day at the White House.” He’s the Wolf of Austin, I guess.
Key Facts
- Musk told confidants he was taking so much ketamine it affected his bladder, according to The Times, citing unnamed sources who said he also took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.
- The Times also reported it obtained a photo that showed a medication box Musk travelled with containing about 20 pills, including Adderall.
- The alleged drug use overlapped with his campaign activity last year on behalf of Trump—with an endorsement in July followed by $250 million to help elect him.
- The report comes as Musk is set to exit the White House Friday after announcing Wednesday his time leading the Department of Government Efficiency had come to an end.
- Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to The Times’ request for comment, but Musk has said previously he was prescribed ketamine for depression.
The New York Times has more details. “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous, and his drug use was more intense than previously known.” Of course, they sent two women after this story, too. Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey were the assigned reporters.
As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according topeople familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
I’m not about to go to the Gossip Rag road, but there are rumors about Mush and Steven Miller’s wife if you’re interested. This is from the Independent. “Stephen Miller’s wife leaves the White House to work for Elon Musk ‘full time’, Kate Miller was working as an adviser for Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.” I should eat some lunch, and I really will not ruin it by going any deeper into these. BLECH.
So, we lose a clown and gain one. Seriously, none of these Trump men are strangers to make-up. This is from ABC News. “Trump taps former right-wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia for key watchdog post. Ingrassia would replace Hampton Dellinger, who opposed Trump’s mass firings.”
President Trump announced Thursday night that he was tapping Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an independent watchdog agency empowered to investigate federal employees and oversee complaints from whistleblowers.
The Trump administration has previously taken aim at the Office of Special Counsel, firing the head of the agency, Hampton Dellinger (a Biden appointee) in February. Dellinger expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees under DOGE-led cuts, noting that many had been fired or laid off without notice or justification.
Dellinger challenged his firing in court and was briefly reinstated to the post until a federal appeals court allowed for his dismissal. Dellinger decided to drop the challenge.
ABC News exclusively reported in February about how Ingrassia, in his role as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, was pushing to hire candidates at the DOJ who exhibited what he called “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. His efforts at DOJ sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, leading Ingrassia to complain directly to President Trump, sources told ABC News.
Ingrassia was pushed out of DOJ and reassigned as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, where he was serving prior to Trump announcing his new role, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.
In a post on X, Ingrassia wrote in response to his nomination: “It’s the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump! As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.”
For the Senate-confirmed five-year term, Ingrassia will likely face tough questions over his lengthy history of media appearances and posts on social media promoting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his ties to far-right media figures.
He was previously spotted at a 2024 rally hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has publicly praised figures like Andrew Tate — who has faced criminal charges for alleged sexual assault (Tate denies all wrongdoing).
All the best people, folks, all the best. So, I know you just want to know the latest information on the American Soap Opera “As the Tarrifs and the TACO Turns.” This is from CNBC. “Trump accuses China of violating preliminary trade deal.” Dan Managan gets all the serious stories, you know.
President Donald Trump on Friday said that China has “totally violated its” preliminary trade agreement with the United States, and suggested he would take action in response.
“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote in a social media post that said China had reneged on a deal that paused retaliatory tariffs between that country and the U.S.
Stock futures fell Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s statement.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a CNBC interview Friday morning, echoed Trump’s allegation, saying “we’re very concerned with” China’s purported non-compliance with the temporary trade deal.
The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” said Greer.
He called that “completely unacceptable and has to be addressed.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Fox News interview on Thursday, said that trade talks with China “are a bit stalled.”
CNBC has requested comment from China’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. and China on May 12 agreed to a 90-day suspension on most tariffs imposed on each other’s imports.
The agreement was reached after Trump slapped sky-high tariffs on imports from China into the U.S., and China retaliated in kind.
“Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger!” Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social on Friday.
“The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World,” Trump wrote. “We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
“Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!” the president wrote.
“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
Trump posted his screed two days after he lashed out at CNBC reporter Megan Cassella at the White House when she asked about the term “TACO trade,” which refers to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, suggests that stock pickers can make money by buying shares after markets fall on news of new tariffs imposed by Trump, knowing that he invariably will pause or reduce the tariffs, sending markets higher.
You had to know he had to have a bully story to cover up all the Court sha-la-la about his on-again, off-again tariffs. Wow, my Grammarly got really dash happy there! Actually, I did it but wondered if it would notice anything and it did. One missing comma. I evidently have a thing against commas.
So, at least it’s the weekend! Hope y’all have a great one! I say TACO, they say TACO!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DrugAddict #ElonMuskNAZI #kakistocracy #PalantirDataTheftSpecialists #ScottPelley #TACO #WhoAreYOU_ #WifeStealer
-
CW: Yet another example of Fox News covering for Trump and the GOP, and acting more like a cheerleader and ally, than a real news organization. Also, yet more examples of Trump and his lieutenants being in bed with and beholden to Putin. Putin did everything he could to get Trump elected and was hoping for a big payoff for his efforts. Treason was running through the highest levels of the Trump administration, including Trump. Yet, the GOP and their base turned a blind eye to all this so they could have power, control, own the libs and more tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy. They would sell out our entire country to get their way yet strut around like they are real patriots. They are just the opposite, they are treasonous and adversaries of our democracy! Trump Said He Might Have Let Russia “Take Over” Parts of Ukraine. Fox News Edited It Out.
Yet another example of Fox News covering for Trump and the GOP, and acting more like a cheerleader and ally, than a real news organization. Also, yet more examples of Trump and his lieutenants being in bed with and beholden to Putin. Putin did everything he could to get Trump elected and was hoping for a big payoff for his efforts. Treason was running through the highest levels of the Trump administration, including Trump. Yet, the GOP and their base turned a blind eye to all this so they could have power, control, own the libs and more tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy. They would sell out our entire country to get their way yet strut around like they are real patriots. They are just the opposite, they are treasonous and adversaries of our democracy!
Trump Said He Might Have Let Russia “Take Over” Parts of Ukraine. Fox News Edited It Out. – Mother Jones https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/03/trump-ukraine-hannity-fox-news-russia-take-over/
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPInBedWithPutin
#TrumpWasPutinsBitch"Last week, Donald Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he could have stopped the invasion of Ukraine by allowing Russia to “take over” parts of the country.
“I could have negotiated. I could’ve made a deal to take over something,” Trump said in a radio interview Monday. “There are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could’ve worked a deal.” The Daily Beast reported last week that Hannity left those newsworthy remarks out of excerpts of the interview that he played that night on his primetime show.
What seems most notable here is that Trump is explicitly saying he might have given Russian president Vladimir Putin something the leader has sought since 2016.
The deal Trump said he could’ve “worked” sounds a lot like the “peace plan” that Konstantin Kilimnik, who the Senate Intelligence Committee described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” pressed on Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chief, in a secret meeting in August 2016 at a New York City cigar bar. The two men continued to discuss the plan until 2018, according to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Manafort famously gave Kilimnik some of the Trump campaign’s polling data to pass on to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who was known to be close to Putin. What gets less attention is what else happened in the same meeting. Kilimnik also asked Manafort to seek Trump’s support for a plan to end fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists, along lines highly favorable to Russia. The idea was to create an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving the Kremlin sway over a valuable industrial area, along with continued control of Crimea, which Russian troops seized in 2014. Kilmnik later said in an email to Manafort that the plan needed only “a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push)” from Trump if he won in 2016.
Remember: Russia was helping Trump through its hack and leak of Democratic emails. (Kilimnik himself “may have been connected to the hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election,” the Senate Intelligence Committee report said.) The Trump campaign—both Mueller‘s investigation and the Senate’s found—worked to capitalize on Russia’s leaks. That makes Trump’s comments especially interesting. Andrew Weissmann, a Mueller deputy who prosecuted Manafort, later wrote that the plan for an autonomous republic outlined to Manfort by Kilimnik was the “quo” Putin wanted for the “quid” of assisting Trump against Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton..."
-
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is
refusing to consider Moderna’s application for a new flu vaccine
made with Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology.The news is the latest sign of the FDA’s heightened scrutiny of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
particularly those using mRNA technology,
which he has criticized before and after becoming the nation’s top health official.Moderna received what’s called a “refusal-to-file” letter from the FDA
that objected to how it conducted a 40,000-person clinical trial comparing its new vaccine to one of the standard flu shots used today.
That trial concluded the new vaccine was somewhat more effective in adults 50 and older than that standard shot.The letter from FDA vaccine director Dr. #Vinay #Prasad said the agency doesn’t consider the application to contain an
“adequate and well-controlled trial”
because it didn’t compare the new shot to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study.”
Prasad’s letter pointed to some advice FDA officials gave Moderna in 2024, under the Biden administration, which Moderna didn’t followAccording to Moderna, that feedback said it was acceptable to use the standard-dose flu shot the company had chosen
— but that another brand specifically recommended for seniors would be preferred for anyone 65 and older in the study.Still, Moderna said, the FDA did agree to let the study proceed as originally planned
The company said it also had shared with FDA additional data from a separate trial
comparing the new vaccine against a licensed high-dose shot used for seniors.The FDA “did not identify any safety or efficacy concerns with our product”
and “does not further our shared goal of enhancing America’s leadership in developing innovative medicines,”
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.
https://apnews.com/article/moderna-vaccine-flu-mrna-2fc551cb2fb45735e67db0a4e2e2b0fb -
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is
refusing to consider Moderna’s application for a new flu vaccine
made with Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology.The news is the latest sign of the FDA’s heightened scrutiny of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
particularly those using mRNA technology,
which he has criticized before and after becoming the nation’s top health official.Moderna received what’s called a “refusal-to-file” letter from the FDA
that objected to how it conducted a 40,000-person clinical trial comparing its new vaccine to one of the standard flu shots used today.
That trial concluded the new vaccine was somewhat more effective in adults 50 and older than that standard shot.The letter from FDA vaccine director Dr. #Vinay #Prasad said the agency doesn’t consider the application to contain an
“adequate and well-controlled trial”
because it didn’t compare the new shot to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study.”
Prasad’s letter pointed to some advice FDA officials gave Moderna in 2024, under the Biden administration, which Moderna didn’t followAccording to Moderna, that feedback said it was acceptable to use the standard-dose flu shot the company had chosen
— but that another brand specifically recommended for seniors would be preferred for anyone 65 and older in the study.Still, Moderna said, the FDA did agree to let the study proceed as originally planned
The company said it also had shared with FDA additional data from a separate trial
comparing the new vaccine against a licensed high-dose shot used for seniors.The FDA “did not identify any safety or efficacy concerns with our product”
and “does not further our shared goal of enhancing America’s leadership in developing innovative medicines,”
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.
https://apnews.com/article/moderna-vaccine-flu-mrna-2fc551cb2fb45735e67db0a4e2e2b0fb -
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is
refusing to consider Moderna’s application for a new flu vaccine
made with Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology.The news is the latest sign of the FDA’s heightened scrutiny of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
particularly those using mRNA technology,
which he has criticized before and after becoming the nation’s top health official.Moderna received what’s called a “refusal-to-file” letter from the FDA
that objected to how it conducted a 40,000-person clinical trial comparing its new vaccine to one of the standard flu shots used today.
That trial concluded the new vaccine was somewhat more effective in adults 50 and older than that standard shot.The letter from FDA vaccine director Dr. #Vinay #Prasad said the agency doesn’t consider the application to contain an
“adequate and well-controlled trial”
because it didn’t compare the new shot to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study.”
Prasad’s letter pointed to some advice FDA officials gave Moderna in 2024, under the Biden administration, which Moderna didn’t followAccording to Moderna, that feedback said it was acceptable to use the standard-dose flu shot the company had chosen
— but that another brand specifically recommended for seniors would be preferred for anyone 65 and older in the study.Still, Moderna said, the FDA did agree to let the study proceed as originally planned
The company said it also had shared with FDA additional data from a separate trial
comparing the new vaccine against a licensed high-dose shot used for seniors.The FDA “did not identify any safety or efficacy concerns with our product”
and “does not further our shared goal of enhancing America’s leadership in developing innovative medicines,”
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.
https://apnews.com/article/moderna-vaccine-flu-mrna-2fc551cb2fb45735e67db0a4e2e2b0fb -
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is
refusing to consider Moderna’s application for a new flu vaccine
made with Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology.The news is the latest sign of the FDA’s heightened scrutiny of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
particularly those using mRNA technology,
which he has criticized before and after becoming the nation’s top health official.Moderna received what’s called a “refusal-to-file” letter from the FDA
that objected to how it conducted a 40,000-person clinical trial comparing its new vaccine to one of the standard flu shots used today.
That trial concluded the new vaccine was somewhat more effective in adults 50 and older than that standard shot.The letter from FDA vaccine director Dr. #Vinay #Prasad said the agency doesn’t consider the application to contain an
“adequate and well-controlled trial”
because it didn’t compare the new shot to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study.”
Prasad’s letter pointed to some advice FDA officials gave Moderna in 2024, under the Biden administration, which Moderna didn’t followAccording to Moderna, that feedback said it was acceptable to use the standard-dose flu shot the company had chosen
— but that another brand specifically recommended for seniors would be preferred for anyone 65 and older in the study.Still, Moderna said, the FDA did agree to let the study proceed as originally planned
The company said it also had shared with FDA additional data from a separate trial
comparing the new vaccine against a licensed high-dose shot used for seniors.The FDA “did not identify any safety or efficacy concerns with our product”
and “does not further our shared goal of enhancing America’s leadership in developing innovative medicines,”
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.
https://apnews.com/article/moderna-vaccine-flu-mrna-2fc551cb2fb45735e67db0a4e2e2b0fb -
“URGENT NEEDS” by Peter Lingard
I’d been in this club, dancing with a number who’d seemed willing to get horizontal with me. She said she’d arrived with someone else and would see me outside. The fact that I believed her shit will give you an idea how drunk and stoned I was. Hope springs more than eternal when my mind is altered.
It was after three in the morning, the place had closed, the staff had gone somewhere else, and still I waited. The street was deserted, and it was raining. Well, not actually raining if I stood unmoving, but when I walked forward, I could feel little drops of cold gently colliding with my face. I stood still and allowed the influences I had absorbed to rock me backward and forward. They (those wonderful influences) enabled me to reason that I was conducting a scientific experiment to determine the quality of the rain, provided it was rain. I brushed my face with my hand and gained some satisfaction in feeling the wetness.
A phone rang. How could that be? I was amidst grey surroundings devoid of anything but the floating wetness and me. I became a mite miffed at the interruption, although it didn’t completely break my reverie because I looked about me, half expecting the scene to lose all colour (all that grey) and a director to urge me to run to the telephone kiosk I suddenly saw across the street. I looked around to confirm I was alone. Being alone meant nobody would know if I was fool enough to succumb to my curiosity. It was my night to act the fool. My second-to-last ex would pick it up. “You never know, it could be an emergency,” she would say. After another second or two of hesitation, I again wiped the rain from my face, suppressed my need to urinate, and ran to answer the call.
“Hello,” I said, slightly breathless from alcohol and exertion. “Oh,” said a flat, female voice. There was a pause, and then she said, “You’ll do. Thank God!”
“I will? Why?”
“I’m trapped and I need your help. Can you come and get me out of here?”
Maybe my second-to-last ex had a point. “You’re having a fuckin laugh, aren’t you?”
“No, please, I’m serious. My name’s Tess Bailey. Please help me.”
“This is a street phone. How come you called it?” There was a long pause. “I haven’t got all night.”
“Look! It’s not easy.”
“It’d better get easier if I’m gonna help you. For starters, you can tell me where you are.” There was another long silence. I banged the phone on the side of the kiosk in case the hearing part was faulty.
“Stop that!”
“No, you stop it. If you’re into long, dramatic silences, you’ve got the wrong man. I’m outta here.”
“No! Don’t go. Please. I … I met a guy last weekend and we arranged to meet again tonight … last night … whatever. We had a few drinks and then he invited me to his place. We came in a taxi and I paid more attention to him than to the route we took.”
“Can’t you remember the address he gave the driver?”
“No. Only …” she stifled a sob, “ … only Glen Waverley and I’m not even sure about that. I’ve been wracking my brain, but … enough of this shit! I’m here and I’m scared and I want you to do something about it!” She fell silent, perhaps wondering if her outburst had pissed me off. When she spoke again, she was calmer. “Look, I … I know I’ve been stupid and, believe me, it gets worse. I like to be tied up, and he had some handcuffs, so, well, you can imagine what happened.”
“So, where’s this guy now?”
“I think he’s dead. Oh God, this is so embarrassing. You have to help me.”
“Dead! He’s fuckin dead, and all you feel is embarrassed. How the fuck did he die?”
“I don’t know. I think he might have had a heart attack. We were playing a game, and he undid the left handcuff. He said he was going to get something. I sensed him feeling his way around the end of the bed when I heard him grunt and drop to the carpet. I’ve been trying to get his attention, but he isn’t responding. I remembered seeing a phone on the bedside table, and so I felt around and found it.”
“So why didn’t you call the cops?”
“And be found naked and handcuffed to a bed of a near stranger!” The woman’s voice was rising. I wasn’t sure if it was through anger or hysteria.
“But it’s okay if I find you, is it? This all sounds a bit far-fetched to me.”
“I’m serious!” she screamed. “I tried to punch out the number of a friend, but it’s not easy when one hand is restrained and you’re in a completely darkened room.” She gave her friend’s number. I looked at the number of the phone I was speaking into and saw she had only missed by a couple of close digits.”
“So why don’t you try again?”
“Because it’s totally black in here and I’m scared, and because I’ve got you, and you’re talking to me and … I don’t know … I need you to help me.” I decided to stay on the phone a little longer.
“How about you give me your number and I call your friend and tell her to call you?”
“I don’t know the number here.”
I’d have to think some more. “Ya try and call anyone else?”
“No! I thought of all the people I know, and there’s only one person I would allow to see me like this. I was trying to get her, not you.”
“If you say so. Exactly how dark is it?”
“I told you. Totally black. I enjoy a little sensory deprivation now and then, if that’s all right with you.” Her words could have been titillating, but the sneer in her voice made me feel like a voyeur.
“All right, all right. Enough with the snide. So, why don’t you hang up on me and try and call your friend again?”
“We just had that conversation and, shit that you are, I don’t want to lose contact with you.”
“Well, this shit needs a piss. Try your friend again, and if it doesn’t work, call me back.”
“How stupid are you! Look, I’m scared, and it’s very dark.”
“I thought you liked the dark.”
“Not when I’m handcuffed to a bed and alone with a dead man, I don’t!”
I could understand that, but I’d downed a lot of beer in the club and my need to drain off was growing urgent. “Is this a mobile phone?”
“No.”
“Do you have a mobile phone?”
“Yes, I have one! It’s in my handbag, which is with my clothes on the other side of the room.”
“You have one hand free. Can’t you get off the bed and drag it to where your handbag is?”
“I already tried that, well, I tried to get to Robert’s body. He’s…”
“Yeah, I can guess who Robert is. What’s his last name?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“So, you let a guy whose last name you don’t know handcuff you to his bed in a house at an address you don’t know. Ya wanna buy the Bolte Bridge from me?”
“Now who’s getting snide! I know I’ve been stupid, but there’s nothing I can do about that right now. Anyway, as I was saying, this bed must be made of cast iron or something because I couldn’t move it.”
“All right. I have a friend works for Telstra who could pinpoint exactly where you are if your mobile was switched on. Why don’t you try moving the bed again?”
“I’ve already tried several times, you shithead. I’m not going to put down this phone in order to try again.”
“Shithead? I guess your situation isn’t as bad as you would have me believe.”
“Jesus! Look, I’m sorry. It’s just … you pissed me off, is all.”
I stood on one foot and then the other as I looked around for a toilet. I didn’t see one. “Is there a lamp on the bedside table?”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried all this? I’d do anything to get out of this predicament alone, believe me. So, no, there is no lamp on the bedside table. I knocked a few things to the floor when I searched its surface, but I don’t think there was a lamp.”
I was switching feet so rapidly I felt like Bojangles performing a tap dance. “Okay,” I said, devoid of ideas. “What the hell do you want me to do? You don’t know where you are, you can’t get to your mobile phone, and I’m in desperate need of a piss. I’m calling for a short hiatus while I go for one.”
“No, please don’t hang up. Don’t leave me.”
“I have to.”
“No, don’t! I need you to stay on the line. Please talk to me at least til the sun comes up.”
“I thought the place was artificially dark.”
“It is, but …” She made a sob-like sound, and then apparently pulled herself together. “You stay right on this phone, you bastard! Take your piss while you talk to me.”
“Nah, I can’t do that. Look, I have to go. Instead of replacing the receiver, I’ll let it dangle while I go and relieve myself. When I’m done, I’ll come back. Okay?”
“Promise? Please don’t hang up.”
I let go of the phone. As I hurried to the wall of the club, I shouted over my shoulder, “I’ll be right back, luv. Don’t worry.” Maybe we could date. At the wall, I lived one of life’s greatest pleasures; emptying a seriously swollen bladder is happiness to the nth degree. I felt at peace with the world and forgot all its troubles. Steam rose as my urine joined the rain. I rocked forward and let my head bang against the wall. It didn’t hurt. I realised the wall, the ground, and I made a triangle. As the ground and the wall were at a ninety-degree angle, it was a right-angled triangle. Didn’t Pythagoras prove that the square on the hypotenuse was equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides? Yeah, that was it. I was the hypotenuse. I was close enough to six feet, so my square was thirty-six. My heels had to be about three feet from the wall, and that made a square of nine. If my head rested on the wall at about five feet from the ground, it would make a square of twenty-five. Twenty-five and nine is thirty-four. Shit! Nine from thirty-six is twenty-seven. What’s the square root of twenty-seven? Five point something. Who cares! My stream lessened. Getting into bed would be a delight. Oh, to be rid of my constraining clothes, especially my ill-fitting shoes. Cool sheets and a pillow waited for me; all I had to do was to get to them and surrender. My stream withered, then stopped. The pleasure had gone, but another one awaited me in my bedroom. I set out for the colourful lights of Main Street. A taxi would cruise by soon enough.
Copyright © 2026 Peter Lingard
#club #dark #death #drunk #handcuffs #night #phone
All Rights Reserved -
AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö: Sunnata – Chasing Shadows
By Dolphin Whisperer
“AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö” is a time-honored tradition to showcase the most underground of the underground—the unsigned and unpromoted. This collective review treatment continues to exist to unite our writers in boot or bolster of the bands who remind us that, for better or worse, the metal underground exists as an important part of the global metal scene. The Rodeö rides on.”
Does Poland evoke the heated and stinging breeze of the open desert to a lost mind? No? Sunnata likes to think otherwise, or at least it’s their life’s mission to expand on the ideas of exotic scales, eerie harmonization, and chanting repetitiveness to match the power of shifting sands in their homeland. Back in 2021, our very own Cherd had a tough time coming to terms with what these Eastern bloc mystics conjured on Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth. But now a few years wiser, ever iterating,1 and pursuant of their own self-produced visions, can Sunnata sway both our grumpy grandpa Cherd and his crack rodeo crew with Chasing Shadows? – Dolphin Whisperer
Sunnata // Chasing Shadows [May 10th, 2024]
Cherd: I wasn’t terribly keen on Sunnata’s 2021 record Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth, so I passed on reviewing their follow-up when it landed in the promo sump. Then Dolph decided to go and write a whole damn Rodeö about Chasing Shadows, so I figured I’d better give my two cents after all. Chasing Shadows is a definite step up, thanks to the heavy dose of 90s grunge these Poles have injected into their psych/stoner doom. I’m sure you’ll be sick of reading the name Alice In Chains by the end of this article, but good god do the vocal harmonies call them to mind. The strongest tracks, like “Torn” and “Saviour’s Raft” rely heavily on these. Meanwhile, when the band leans into their “exotic” side—vaguely Middle Eastern motifs—as they do on “Wishbone” and “The Tide,” the songs drag. There’s fat to trim across the album’s 60+ minutes, especially the throwaway closing quasi-dance track. That said, the eight-minute “Hunger” earns its entire runtime with a hypnotic tempo and the record’s best build up. There’s a lot to like in Chasing Shadows, even if there is some bloat. 3.0/5.0
Maddog: Sunnata’s Chasing Shadows is an hour of shameless psychedelia. Take Dvne riffs, add a pinch of Mayhem in Blue-era Hail Spirit Noir, and pour a bucket of fuzzy stoned melodies on top, and you get the gist. This recipe is a blessing and a curse. Chasing Shadows’ most well-formed pieces hit hard. When Sunnata focuses on developing melodies, they hold me transfixed, like on album highlight “Torn.” When Sunnata focuses on buildups, they whisk me out of the world and onto a dramatic ride (“Chimera”). When Sunnata focuses on rhythmic sections that hypnotize the listener, they conjure a beautiful soundscape, like the primordial chorus of “Hunger.” When Sunnata focuses on rock-solid bass lines, they add power and depth to their atmosphere (“Adrift”). But sometimes, Sunnata focuses on nothing. Even the strongest cuts overstay their welcome with meandering fuzz. As the album progresses, some full tracks get swallowed by tedium, and the moaned vocals become grating; neither undivided attention nor psilocybin can save songs like “The Sleeper” from fading into the background.2—Still, Sunnata has a talent for writing sludgy psychedelic passages that stand out from their peers. If they can trim some low-hanging fat and focus on their strengths, their next record could be a gem. 2.5/5.0
Dolphin Whisperer: Chasing Shadows seems to know exactly what it is—a dry, desert-wandering, bass-heavy affair that leans into psychedelia via shifting repetitions. And Sunnata seem to have figured out exactly how they want to explore this meditation—heavy and dark Alice in Chains vocal melodies, twangy stoner guitar refrains, and song drives that creep ever faster into their snaking swirl. Though, throughout this dusty adventure, guitar passages resemble less of the easy-to-digest percussive draws of a band like Kyuss and more of the modal and trilling explorations of similar sounds that you’d hear in an occult act like Sabbath Assembly. (“Chimera,” “Wishbone”). And on longer cuts, at least before Sunnata achieves maximum throttle, doom inflections, fat bass rumbling, and laser-pointing drone that bubbles and bakes and broils the experimental madhouse of Obake. But most importantly, as a fever dream like this sound, Chasing Shadows maintains a warping yet consistent tonality that slowly and sneakily lures as the rattle of a hissing pit viper to a lost and dazed traveler. It does, however, require a hefty dose of patience and practice to maintain a footing the whole way through its hour-long trial, its various interludes and strange darkwave closing adding little. To curious ears, though, Chasing Shadows will be an easy listen, despite its limited bag of tricks and hefty presence, and those who buy in fully to its tonal landscape may find even more rewards. 3.0/5.0
Itchymenace: Chasing Shadows reminds me of the Albert Camus story, The Adulterous Woman. In fact, the cover art seems plucked directly from the final scene in which the protagonist runs out into the Algerian desert a changed woman after realizing life with her husband will never fulfill her. The music provides the perfect soundtrack for the existential metamorphosis she goes through, or that anyone might go through when they peel back the delicate layers of life and search for deeper meaning. I did not expect to like this as much as I do, but Sunnata has created a masterpiece. This album drags you across a jagged desert landscape and drenches you in rich, dreamlike musical passages that leave you questioning your very existence. The music is complex, varied, heavy and meditative. The arrangements are deceptively simple to make the journey seem easy—until you realize you’re not in Kansas anymore. Especially noteworthy is how the bass guitar drives the compositions. Bassist Michal Dobrzanski’s tone is massive but somehow leaves plenty of room in the soundscape for Szymon Ewertowski and Adrian Gadomski’s intricate guitars and vocals. Drummer Robert Ruszczyk keeps a ritualistic tempo that seamlessly moves the caravan forward through the heart of darkness. If I were to try to describe this to a metalhead, I’d say imagine Alice in Chains trying to play Gorguts by way of Earth. Brilliant! Original! Frightening! And a new experience with every listen. 4.5/5.03
Mystikus Hugebeard: True to Sunnata’s desert prog premise, Chasing Shadows is a mirage: captivating, frustrating, and an incomplete vision of something spectacular. At sixty-two minutes long, the length will likely prove to be as controversial as it is intentional; repetition is key to Sunnata’s songwriting, as it weaves a surreal soundscape through thick, drawn-out riffs. Sometimes, it’s entrancing. Other times, I’m just bored. The more evolutionary tracks are where Chasing Shadows come to life. The off-key vocal layers and thick, fuzzy guitars are in “Chimera” and “Saviour’s Raft” take their time to progress into explosive riffs that feel earned by the buildup. Even a less progressive track like “Torn” works just by nature of how palpable the desert atmosphere is, with the chugging bass, elusive guitar lines, and hallucinatory vocals hypnotizing the listener. “Hunger” and “The Sleeper” also have a satisfying chug to them but feel emptier, with resolutions that are satisfying in the moment but still less memorable than those from earlier tracks. The worst offenders, “Wishbone” and “The Tide,” are almost completely aimless and are fully devoid of the strong atmospheric qualities that makes the rest work. The emulation of an endless trek through an endless desert is uncanny, and the aimlessness can work when paired with hypnotic songwriting like in “Torn,” but overall the lack of a meaningful destination or payoff within the already less engaging tracks only gets worse as the album drags on, and it slowly begins to drown out the parts that work well. I really love the thematic intent behind Chasing Shadows, which only makes the final result all the more frustrating that it falls short of being a truly great desert odyssey. 2.5/5.0
#2024 #AliceInChains #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo2024 #ChasingShadows #DoomMetal #Dvne #Earth #HailSpiritNoir #IndependentRelease #Kyuss #Obake #OccultRock #PolishMetal #PostMetal #PsychedelicDoomMetal #PsychedelicRock #SabbathAssembly #SelfRelease #StonerRock #Sunnata
-
AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö: Sunnata – Chasing Shadows
By Dolphin Whisperer
“AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö” is a time-honored tradition to showcase the most underground of the underground—the unsigned and unpromoted. This collective review treatment continues to exist to unite our writers in boot or bolster of the bands who remind us that, for better or worse, the metal underground exists as an important part of the global metal scene. The Rodeö rides on.”
Does Poland evoke the heated and stinging breeze of the open desert to a lost mind? No? Sunnata likes to think otherwise, or at least it’s their life’s mission to expand on the ideas of exotic scales, eerie harmonization, and chanting repetitiveness to match the power of shifting sands in their homeland. Back in 2021, our very own Cherd had a tough time coming to terms with what these Eastern bloc mystics conjured on Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth. But now a few years wiser, ever iterating,1 and pursuant of their own self-produced visions, can Sunnata sway both our grumpy grandpa Cherd and his crack rodeo crew with Chasing Shadows? – Dolphin Whisperer
Sunnata // Chasing Shadows [May 10th, 2024]
Cherd: I wasn’t terribly keen on Sunnata’s 2021 record Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth, so I passed on reviewing their follow-up when it landed in the promo sump. Then Dolph decided to go and write a whole damn Rodeö about Chasing Shadows, so I figured I’d better give my two cents after all. Chasing Shadows is a definite step up, thanks to the heavy dose of 90s grunge these Poles have injected into their psych/stoner doom. I’m sure you’ll be sick of reading the name Alice In Chains by the end of this article, but good god do the vocal harmonies call them to mind. The strongest tracks, like “Torn” and “Saviour’s Raft” rely heavily on these. Meanwhile, when the band leans into their “exotic” side—vaguely Middle Eastern motifs—as they do on “Wishbone” and “The Tide,” the songs drag. There’s fat to trim across the album’s 60+ minutes, especially the throwaway closing quasi-dance track. That said, the eight-minute “Hunger” earns its entire runtime with a hypnotic tempo and the record’s best build up. There’s a lot to like in Chasing Shadows, even if there is some bloat. 3.0/5.0
Maddog: Sunnata’s Chasing Shadows is an hour of shameless psychedelia. Take Dvne riffs, add a pinch of Mayhem in Blue-era Hail Spirit Noir, and pour a bucket of fuzzy stoned melodies on top, and you get the gist. This recipe is a blessing and a curse. Chasing Shadows’ most well-formed pieces hit hard. When Sunnata focuses on developing melodies, they hold me transfixed, like on album highlight “Torn.” When Sunnata focuses on buildups, they whisk me out of the world and onto a dramatic ride (“Chimera”). When Sunnata focuses on rhythmic sections that hypnotize the listener, they conjure a beautiful soundscape, like the primordial chorus of “Hunger.” When Sunnata focuses on rock-solid bass lines, they add power and depth to their atmosphere (“Adrift”). But sometimes, Sunnata focuses on nothing. Even the strongest cuts overstay their welcome with meandering fuzz. As the album progresses, some full tracks get swallowed by tedium, and the moaned vocals become grating; neither undivided attention nor psilocybin can save songs like “The Sleeper” from fading into the background.2—Still, Sunnata has a talent for writing sludgy psychedelic passages that stand out from their peers. If they can trim some low-hanging fat and focus on their strengths, their next record could be a gem. 2.5/5.0
Dolphin Whisperer: Chasing Shadows seems to know exactly what it is—a dry, desert-wandering, bass-heavy affair that leans into psychedelia via shifting repetitions. And Sunnata seem to have figured out exactly how they want to explore this meditation—heavy and dark Alice in Chains vocal melodies, twangy stoner guitar refrains, and song drives that creep ever faster into their snaking swirl. Though, throughout this dusty adventure, guitar passages resemble less of the easy-to-digest percussive draws of a band like Kyuss and more of the modal and trilling explorations of similar sounds that you’d hear in an occult act like Sabbath Assembly. (“Chimera,” “Wishbone”). And on longer cuts, at least before Sunnata achieves maximum throttle, doom inflections, fat bass rumbling, and laser-pointing drone that bubbles and bakes and broils the experimental madhouse of Obake. But most importantly, as a fever dream like this sound, Chasing Shadows maintains a warping yet consistent tonality that slowly and sneakily lures as the rattle of a hissing pit viper to a lost and dazed traveler. It does, however, require a hefty dose of patience and practice to maintain a footing the whole way through its hour-long trial, its various interludes and strange darkwave closing adding little. To curious ears, though, Chasing Shadows will be an easy listen, despite its limited bag of tricks and hefty presence, and those who buy in fully to its tonal landscape may find even more rewards. 3.0/5.0
Itchymenace: Chasing Shadows reminds me of the Albert Camus story, The Adulterous Woman. In fact, the cover art seems plucked directly from the final scene in which the protagonist runs out into the Algerian desert a changed woman after realizing life with her husband will never fulfill her. The music provides the perfect soundtrack for the existential metamorphosis she goes through, or that anyone might go through when they peel back the delicate layers of life and search for deeper meaning. I did not expect to like this as much as I do, but Sunnata has created a masterpiece. This album drags you across a jagged desert landscape and drenches you in rich, dreamlike musical passages that leave you questioning your very existence. The music is complex, varied, heavy and meditative. The arrangements are deceptively simple to make the journey seem easy—until you realize you’re not in Kansas anymore. Especially noteworthy is how the bass guitar drives the compositions. Bassist Michal Dobrzanski’s tone is massive but somehow leaves plenty of room in the soundscape for Szymon Ewertowski and Adrian Gadomski’s intricate guitars and vocals. Drummer Robert Ruszczyk keeps a ritualistic tempo that seamlessly moves the caravan forward through the heart of darkness. If I were to try to describe this to a metalhead, I’d say imagine Alice in Chains trying to play Gorguts by way of Earth. Brilliant! Original! Frightening! And a new experience with every listen. 4.5/5.03
Mystikus Hugebeard: True to Sunnata’s desert prog premise, Chasing Shadows is a mirage: captivating, frustrating, and an incomplete vision of something spectacular. At sixty-two minutes long, the length will likely prove to be as controversial as it is intentional; repetition is key to Sunnata’s songwriting, as it weaves a surreal soundscape through thick, drawn-out riffs. Sometimes, it’s entrancing. Other times, I’m just bored. The more evolutionary tracks are where Chasing Shadows come to life. The off-key vocal layers and thick, fuzzy guitars are in “Chimera” and “Saviour’s Raft” take their time to progress into explosive riffs that feel earned by the buildup. Even a less progressive track like “Torn” works just by nature of how palpable the desert atmosphere is, with the chugging bass, elusive guitar lines, and hallucinatory vocals hypnotizing the listener. “Hunger” and “The Sleeper” also have a satisfying chug to them but feel emptier, with resolutions that are satisfying in the moment but still less memorable than those from earlier tracks. The worst offenders, “Wishbone” and “The Tide,” are almost completely aimless and are fully devoid of the strong atmospheric qualities that makes the rest work. The emulation of an endless trek through an endless desert is uncanny, and the aimlessness can work when paired with hypnotic songwriting like in “Torn,” but overall the lack of a meaningful destination or payoff within the already less engaging tracks only gets worse as the album drags on, and it slowly begins to drown out the parts that work well. I really love the thematic intent behind Chasing Shadows, which only makes the final result all the more frustrating that it falls short of being a truly great desert odyssey. 2.5/5.0
#2024 #AliceInChains #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo #AngryMetalGuySUnsignedBandRodeo2024 #ChasingShadows #DoomMetal #Dvne #Earth #HailSpiritNoir #IndependentRelease #Kyuss #Obake #OccultRock #PolishMetal #PostMetal #PsychedelicDoomMetal #PsychedelicRock #SabbathAssembly #SelfRelease #StonerRock #Sunnata
-
The General Who Defied a President
Perhaps no period characterized chaos about the future of the Republic than the years 1866-1868. And perhaps no one individual did so much to save it in those years as the man who had labored so hard to preserve it from 1861-1865: Ulysses S. Grant.
Pres. Andrew Johnson (LoC)One would think that having put down a rebellion, the United States would be on a path to recovery and strength. Enter President Andrew Johnson. President by virtue of Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson was the worst man at the worst place at the worst time (oh, for an alternate universe where Lincoln kept amiable Mainer Hannibal Hamlin as VP in 1864). As a pro-Union Southerner, Johnson was not only conciliatory to the former self-declared Confederacy but downright magnanimous. And less than enthused about the prospect of abolition, to put it lightly. A dedicated enthusiast of the White race’s dominance in the U.S., Johnson would stand in the way of any civil rights legislation.
Scarcely had the guns stopped firing on the battlefield than Johnson began to show warning signs that the victory won on the field was about to be lost politically. Johnson welcomed former Southern congressmen back to the House – many of whom had just taken off their Confederate Army officer uniforms. As northern and Unionist congressmen watched their recent antagonists resume the seats in the government they had just tried to restore, their tempers exploded. In a simple act of bureaucratic procedure, the clerk of the House refused to read in the names of the Southern congressmen during roll call opening the 39th session of Congress in December 1865. The House remained solidly Unionist and abolitionist.
However, Johnson would not be de-fanged so easily. Even with a solid block of loyal Republicans in Congress, Johnson wielded his veto to try to strike down any civil rights legislation and any bills that would protect Southern Blacks from the “rebellious spirit” of Southern Whites, as George Armstrong Custer (of all people) called it. 1 He also attempted to withdraw U.S. troops from the South, the line of defense for freed people against terrorism, kidnapping, and brutality. Congress halted the withdrawal of U.S. Army troops in January of 1866. The Army was now very definitely in politics. And so was its general-in-chief.
Defender of the Republic (Again)
Ulysses S. Grant would not have described himself as a politician, but as General of the Army, he played a significantly political role. And for the first time, Grant found himself taking an opposite position from the president he was supposed to support and advise. Releasing General Orders No. 3, Grant directed the Army to protect loyal citizens and Blacks in the Southern states not just from physical violence, but from political violence – quietly letting commanders know that they were to obey orders coming from him, not the executive branch. The order directed commanders to protect African Americans from unfair prosecution by state and local courts. Unwilling to publicly challenge the popular general, Johnson let this slide. For now. But he marked that Grant had sided with Congress.
The summer of 1866 was marked by violence: physical, from Whites against Blacks in the South; and political, between the president and congress. As White mobs committed murders, rapes, and atrocities in towns and cities across the South, Congress pushed through the 14th Amendment and extended Federal judicial protection for freed people – all over Johnson’s attempts to veto. As Grant watched the president fight so hard against everything the war had been fought over, he became, as an aide said, “more & more radical.” Most of all, he would not allow the Army to become a “party machine.”2
For his part, Johnson realized that he would not get anywhere until Grant was out of the way. To test the General-in-Chief’s loyalty, Johnson had Grant accompany him on an August political tour of Northern states. Grant grew so disgusted at Johnson’s ranting against the 14th Amendment that he claimed illness and went home early, writing to his wife Julia that he looked upon the president as “a national disgrace.” Johnson openly wondered about using the military to purge his enemies from Congress, asking Grant which side the Army would take in such a trial. Grant sidestepped this by replying whichever side the law was on, while quietly ordering weapons moved out of arsenals in the South. Writing to his old friend and fellow Ohioan Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan, Grant confided his worst fears: “we are fast approaching the point where he [Johnson] will want to declare the body [Congress] illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary.”3
The Banishment to Mexico
William Tecumseh Sherman (LoC)Johnson resolved to get Grant out of the way before the autumnal elections. Governor Thomas Swann of Maryland requested federal troops to oust Republican voting registrars from Baltimore, where the city had just defeated a bill that would have granted voting rights to ex-Confederates. Grant had resisted this request, so Johnson resorted to the age-old method of removing a troublesome subordinate: appoint them to a diplomatic mission and get them out of the country. In this case, Mexico. Johnson directed William Tecumseh Sherman to come east to replace Grant, believing that Sherman would fall into line. Sherman came east, but refused to have anything to do with Johnson. Johnson even promised him the position of secretary of war. Nothing doing. As Sherman is said to have stated about Grant, “Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.” Once again, he stuck with Grant. Finally, Johnson ordered Grant to Mexico. But there was a problem. Grant refused.
Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman once said of Grant, ““[Grant] habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it.” To say he was stubborn is an understatement. Claiming that he lacked the diplomatic skills for such a mission and that the president would be better served with someone from the State Department, Grant dodged the assignment. Johnson ordered him to do so in a cabinet meeting, which caused Grant to answer, “I am an American citizen, and eligible to any office to which any American is eligible. I am an officer of the Army, and bound to obey your military orders. But this is a civil office, a purely diplomatic duty that you offer me, and I cannot be compelled to undertake it. … No power on Earth can compel me to do it.” Annoyed, Johnson sent Sherman to Mexico and asked Grant for troops in Maryland to “intervene on the governor’s side to prevent violence.” “This,” Grant observed, “would produce the very result intended to be averted.” He refused to send troops but did issue G.O. No. 44., ordering U.S. Army officers to enforce the Civil Rights Act. Johnson and Grant were now in their own conflict.4
Reduction by Promotion
The fall 1866 elections brought another veto-proof Republican majority back to Congress which began to execute Congressional Reconstruction, returning the South to military districts until each state met conditions of equality and adherence to the 13th and 14th Amendments. Congress also passed a rider in the military appropriations bill which removed presidential authority to give direct orders to the Army: all orders would have to go through, or come from, Grant. When in 1867 Johnson’s attorney general tried to reduce the authority of U.S. Army officers; Grant told district commanders that since the opinion did not come through military channels, they were free to use their own judgement.5
Gen. U.S. Grant (LoC)When Congress recessed for the summer, Johnson decided one more time to get rid of this troublesome general who kept interfering in his plans. This time, he would get Grant out of the way by suspending Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (another Ohioan who gave Johnson constant headaches via stubborn resistance) and replacing him with Grant ad interim. A reluctant Grant acceded, possibly to keep another more compliant person from occupying the position.
But the fall 1867 elections brought more Democrats into office and a surge of terrorist groups in the South, such as the Ku Klux Klan. Johnson moved swiftly to consolidate power, firing generals heading military departments. Notably, he fired Sheridan, further alienating Grant and inflaming the situation in the South where violence levels grew. As Maj. Gen. John Pope left command of the district encompassing Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, he noted to his replacement, Maj. Gen. George Meade, “the Rebellion is as active & so far as the people of this Dist. are concerned, nearly as powerful as during the War.”6
Congress entered the fray in January of 1868, setting the stage for Grant’s last battle with the president he served. Congress ordered Stanton’s immediate reinstatement. Johnson refused. Grant, then, was left with the thorny choice of disobeying the Senate and violating the Tenure of Office Act, or directly opposing his president. It probably comes as no surprise that Granted handed over the keys to the War Department to Stanton. This utterly enraged Johnson, who went off on Grant in a cabinet meeting. Johnson then tried Sherman again, offering him command of a special division to be headquartered in D.C. – a thinly veiled threat to Congress. A disgusted Sherman headed west. Johnson then gave the same offer to Virginian Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. He should have known better than to try to coopt a man who broke from his family and state to stay loyal to the Union in 1861. Thomas turned him down. An infuriated Johnson then fired Stanton, but that cantankerous cabinet member locked himself in his office and refused to come out. This was the last straw, and after three days of Stanton confinement, the House impeached Johnson.7
Conclusion
Civilian control of the military is a bedrock of American democracy, repeatedly enforced by Washington during the Revolution and embodied in law thereafter. Could any general other than Grant have gotten away with this resistance, and could Grant have done it if it had been any president other than Johnson? We will probably never know. Grant was a national hero and Johnson was vilified by half the country. The era was one of repeated constitutional crises, so gray areas were more common. What we do know is that Grant’s steadfast devotion to civil rights and stubborn commitment brought him to national political attention, and he was on the ballot as the Republican candidate for president in 1868. His nemesis, Johnson, did not even get the nod from his own party and did not appear on the ballot.
Yet another opponent who lost to Grant.
Sources:
- Robert Wooster, The U.S. Army and the Making of America: From Confederation to Empire, 1775-1903 (University of Kansas, 2021), 204. ↩︎
- Wooster, 210. ↩︎
- Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, General Grant Refuses President Johnson’s Diplomatic Request, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/general-grant-refuses-president-johnson-s-diplomatic-request.htm; David O. Stewart, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy (Simon & Schuster, 2010). Ivan Perkins, Vanishing Coup: The Pattern of World History since 1310 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). ↩︎
- Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, General Grant Refuses President Johnson’s Diplomatic Request; Wooster, 212. David Priess, “How a Difficult, Racist, Stubborn President Was Removed From Power—If Not From Office,” Politico (Nov. 13, 2018), https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/13/andrew-johnson-undermined-congress-cabinet-david-priess-book-222413/ ↩︎
- Wooster, 215. Priess. ↩︎
- Wooster, 215-217. ↩︎
- Ulysses S Grant National Historic Site, Ulysses S. Grant is Appointed Secretary of War Ad Interim, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ulysses-s-grant-as-appointed-secretary-of-war-ad-interim.htm; Wooster, 217-219. ↩︎
Enjoy what you just read? Please share using the buttons below.
The opinions represented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.
Rate this:
#AndrewJohnson #History #Military #Politics #Reconstruction #theGeneralWhoDefiedAPresident #USArmy #USGrant #UlyssesSGrant
-
The General Who Defied a President
Perhaps no period characterized chaos about the future of the Republic than the years 1866-1868. And perhaps no one individual did so much to save it in those years as the man who had labored so hard to preserve it from 1861-1865: Ulysses S. Grant.
Pres. Andrew Johnson (LoC)One would think that having put down a rebellion, the United States would be on a path to recovery and strength. Enter President Andrew Johnson. President by virtue of Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson was the worst man at the worst place at the worst time (oh, for an alternate universe where Lincoln kept amiable Mainer Hannibal Hamlin as VP in 1864). As a pro-Union Southerner, Johnson was not only conciliatory to the former self-declared Confederacy but downright magnanimous. And less than enthused about the prospect of abolition, to put it lightly. A dedicated enthusiast of the White race’s dominance in the U.S., Johnson would stand in the way of any civil rights legislation.
Scarcely had the guns stopped firing on the battlefield than Johnson began to show warning signs that the victory won on the field was about to be lost politically. Johnson welcomed former Southern congressmen back to the House – many of whom had just taken off their Confederate Army officer uniforms. As northern and Unionist congressmen watched their recent antagonists resume the seats in the government they had just tried to restore, their tempers exploded. In a simple act of bureaucratic procedure, the clerk of the House refused to read in the names of the Southern congressmen during roll call opening the 39th session of Congress in December 1865. The House remained solidly Unionist and abolitionist.
However, Johnson would not be de-fanged so easily. Even with a solid block of loyal Republicans in Congress, Johnson wielded his veto to try to strike down any civil rights legislation and any bills that would protect Southern Blacks from the “rebellious spirit” of Southern Whites, as George Armstrong Custer (of all people) called it. 1 He also attempted to withdraw U.S. troops from the South, the line of defense for freed people against terrorism, kidnapping, and brutality. Congress halted the withdrawal of U.S. Army troops in January of 1866. The Army was now very definitely in politics. And so was its general-in-chief.
Defender of the Republic (Again)
Ulysses S. Grant would not have described himself as a politician, but as General of the Army, he played a significantly political role. And for the first time, Grant found himself taking an opposite position from the president he was supposed to support and advise. Releasing General Orders No. 3, Grant directed the Army to protect loyal citizens and Blacks in the Southern states not just from physical violence, but from political violence – quietly letting commanders know that they were to obey orders coming from him, not the executive branch. The order directed commanders to protect African Americans from unfair prosecution by state and local courts. Unwilling to publicly challenge the popular general, Johnson let this slide. For now. But he marked that Grant had sided with Congress.
The summer of 1866 was marked by violence: physical, from Whites against Blacks in the South; and political, between the president and congress. As White mobs committed murders, rapes, and atrocities in towns and cities across the South, Congress pushed through the 14th Amendment and extended Federal judicial protection for freed people – all over Johnson’s attempts to veto. As Grant watched the president fight so hard against everything the war had been fought over, he became, as an aide said, “more & more radical.” Most of all, he would not allow the Army to become a “party machine.”2
For his part, Johnson realized that he would not get anywhere until Grant was out of the way. To test the General-in-Chief’s loyalty, Johnson had Grant accompany him on an August political tour of Northern states. Grant grew so disgusted at Johnson’s ranting against the 14th Amendment that he claimed illness and went home early, writing to his wife Julia that he looked upon the president as “a national disgrace.” Johnson openly wondered about using the military to purge his enemies from Congress, asking Grant which side the Army would take in such a trial. Grant sidestepped this by replying whichever side the law was on, while quietly ordering weapons moved out of arsenals in the South. Writing to his old friend and fellow Ohioan Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan, Grant confided his worst fears: “we are fast approaching the point where he [Johnson] will want to declare the body [Congress] illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary.”3
The Banishment to Mexico
William Tecumseh Sherman (LoC)Johnson resolved to get Grant out of the way before the autumnal elections. Governor Thomas Swann of Maryland requested federal troops to oust Republican voting registrars from Baltimore, where the city had just defeated a bill that would have granted voting rights to ex-Confederates. Grant had resisted this request, so Johnson resorted to the age-old method of removing a troublesome subordinate: appoint them to a diplomatic mission and get them out of the country. In this case, Mexico. Johnson directed William Tecumseh Sherman to come east to replace Grant, believing that Sherman would fall into line. Sherman came east, but refused to have anything to do with Johnson. Johnson even promised him the position of secretary of war. Nothing doing. As Sherman is said to have stated about Grant, “Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.” Once again, he stuck with Grant. Finally, Johnson ordered Grant to Mexico. But there was a problem. Grant refused.
Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman once said of Grant, ““[Grant] habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it.” To say he was stubborn is an understatement. Claiming that he lacked the diplomatic skills for such a mission and that the president would be better served with someone from the State Department, Grant dodged the assignment. Johnson ordered him to do so in a cabinet meeting, which caused Grant to answer, “I am an American citizen, and eligible to any office to which any American is eligible. I am an officer of the Army, and bound to obey your military orders. But this is a civil office, a purely diplomatic duty that you offer me, and I cannot be compelled to undertake it. … No power on Earth can compel me to do it.” Annoyed, Johnson sent Sherman to Mexico and asked Grant for troops in Maryland to “intervene on the governor’s side to prevent violence.” “This,” Grant observed, “would produce the very result intended to be averted.” He refused to send troops but did issue G.O. No. 44., ordering U.S. Army officers to enforce the Civil Rights Act. Johnson and Grant were now in their own conflict.4
Reduction by Promotion
The fall 1866 elections brought another veto-proof Republican majority back to Congress which began to execute Congressional Reconstruction, returning the South to military districts until each state met conditions of equality and adherence to the 13th and 14th Amendments. Congress also passed a rider in the military appropriations bill which removed presidential authority to give direct orders to the Army: all orders would have to go through, or come from, Grant. When in 1867 Johnson’s attorney general tried to reduce the authority of U.S. Army officers; Grant told district commanders that since the opinion did not come through military channels, they were free to use their own judgement.5
Gen. U.S. Grant (LoC)When Congress recessed for the summer, Johnson decided one more time to get rid of this troublesome general who kept interfering in his plans. This time, he would get Grant out of the way by suspending Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (another Ohioan who gave Johnson constant headaches via stubborn resistance) and replacing him with Grant ad interim. A reluctant Grant acceded, possibly to keep another more compliant person from occupying the position.
But the fall 1867 elections brought more Democrats into office and a surge of terrorist groups in the South, such as the Ku Klux Klan. Johnson moved swiftly to consolidate power, firing generals heading military departments. Notably, he fired Sheridan, further alienating Grant and inflaming the situation in the South where violence levels grew. As Maj. Gen. John Pope left command of the district encompassing Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, he noted to his replacement, Maj. Gen. George Meade, “the Rebellion is as active & so far as the people of this Dist. are concerned, nearly as powerful as during the War.”6
Congress entered the fray in January of 1868, setting the stage for Grant’s last battle with the president he served. Congress ordered Stanton’s immediate reinstatement. Johnson refused. Grant, then, was left with the thorny choice of disobeying the Senate and violating the Tenure of Office Act, or directly opposing his president. It probably comes as no surprise that Granted handed over the keys to the War Department to Stanton. This utterly enraged Johnson, who went off on Grant in a cabinet meeting. Johnson then tried Sherman again, offering him command of a special division to be headquartered in D.C. – a thinly veiled threat to Congress. A disgusted Sherman headed west. Johnson then gave the same offer to Virginian Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. He should have known better than to try to coopt a man who broke from his family and state to stay loyal to the Union in 1861. Thomas turned him down. An infuriated Johnson then fired Stanton, but that cantankerous cabinet member locked himself in his office and refused to come out. This was the last straw, and after three days of Stanton confinement, the House impeached Johnson.7
Conclusion
Civilian control of the military is a bedrock of American democracy, repeatedly enforced by Washington during the Revolution and embodied in law thereafter. Could any general other than Grant have gotten away with this resistance, and could Grant have done it if it had been any president other than Johnson? We will probably never know. Grant was a national hero and Johnson was vilified by half the country. The era was one of repeated constitutional crises, so gray areas were more common. What we do know is that Grant’s steadfast devotion to civil rights and stubborn commitment brought him to national political attention, and he was on the ballot as the Republican candidate for president in 1868. His nemesis, Johnson, did not even get the nod from his own party and did not appear on the ballot.
Yet another opponent who lost to Grant.
Sources:
- Robert Wooster, The U.S. Army and the Making of America: From Confederation to Empire, 1775-1903 (University of Kansas, 2021), 204. ↩︎
- Wooster, 210. ↩︎
- Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, General Grant Refuses President Johnson’s Diplomatic Request, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/general-grant-refuses-president-johnson-s-diplomatic-request.htm; David O. Stewart, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy (Simon & Schuster, 2010). Ivan Perkins, Vanishing Coup: The Pattern of World History since 1310 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). ↩︎
- Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, General Grant Refuses President Johnson’s Diplomatic Request; Wooster, 212. David Priess, “How a Difficult, Racist, Stubborn President Was Removed From Power—If Not From Office,” Politico (Nov. 13, 2018), https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/13/andrew-johnson-undermined-congress-cabinet-david-priess-book-222413/ ↩︎
- Wooster, 215. Priess. ↩︎
- Wooster, 215-217. ↩︎
- Ulysses S Grant National Historic Site, Ulysses S. Grant is Appointed Secretary of War Ad Interim, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ulysses-s-grant-as-appointed-secretary-of-war-ad-interim.htm; Wooster, 217-219. ↩︎
Enjoy what you just read? Please share using the buttons below.
The opinions represented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.
Rate this:
#AndrewJohnson #History #Military #Politics #Reconstruction #theGeneralWhoDefiedAPresident #USArmy #USGrant #UlyssesSGrant
-
The General Who Defied a President
Perhaps no period characterized chaos about the future of the Republic than the years 1866-1868. And perhaps no one individual did so much to save it in those years as the man who had labored so hard to preserve it from 1861-1865: Ulysses S. Grant.
Pres. Andrew Johnson (LoC)One would think that having put down a rebellion, the United States would be on a path to recovery and strength. Enter President Andrew Johnson. President by virtue of Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson was the worst man at the worst place at the worst time (oh, for an alternate universe where Lincoln kept amiable Mainer Hannibal Hamlin as VP in 1864). As a pro-Union Southerner, Johnson was not only conciliatory to the former self-declared Confederacy but downright magnanimous. And less than enthused about the prospect of abolition, to put it lightly. A dedicated enthusiast of the White race’s dominance in the U.S., Johnson would stand in the way of any civil rights legislation.
Scarcely had the guns stopped firing on the battlefield than Johnson began to show warning signs that the victory won on the field was about to be lost politically. Johnson welcomed former Southern congressmen back to the House – many of whom had just taken off their Confederate Army officer uniforms. As northern and Unionist congressmen watched their recent antagonists resume the seats in the government they had just tried to restore, their tempers exploded. In a simple act of bureaucratic procedure, the clerk of the House refused to read in the names of the Southern congressmen during roll call opening the 39th session of Congress in December 1865. The House remained solidly Unionist and abolitionist.
However, Johnson would not be de-fanged so easily. Even with a solid block of loyal Republicans in Congress, Johnson wielded his veto to try to strike down any civil rights legislation and any bills that would protect Southern Blacks from the “rebellious spirit” of Southern Whites, as George Armstrong Custer (of all people) called it. 1 He also attempted to withdraw U.S. troops from the South, the line of defense for freed people against terrorism, kidnapping, and brutality. Congress halted the withdrawal of U.S. Army troops in January of 1866. The Army was now very definitely in politics. And so was its general-in-chief.
Defender of the Republic (Again)
Ulysses S. Grant would not have described himself as a politician, but as General of the Army, he played a significantly political role. And for the first time, Grant found himself taking an opposite position from the president he was supposed to support and advise. Releasing General Orders No. 3, Grant directed the Army to protect loyal citizens and Blacks in the Southern states not just from physical violence, but from political violence – quietly letting commanders know that they were to obey orders coming from him, not the executive branch. The order directed commanders to protect African Americans from unfair prosecution by state and local courts. Unwilling to publicly challenge the popular general, Johnson let this slide. For now. But he marked that Grant had sided with Congress.
The summer of 1866 was marked by violence: physical, from Whites against Blacks in the South; and political, between the president and congress. As White mobs committed murders, rapes, and atrocities in towns and cities across the South, Congress pushed through the 14th Amendment and extended Federal judicial protection for freed people – all over Johnson’s attempts to veto. As Grant watched the president fight so hard against everything the war had been fought over, he became, as an aide said, “more & more radical.” Most of all, he would not allow the Army to become a “party machine.”2
For his part, Johnson realized that he would not get anywhere until Grant was out of the way. To test the General-in-Chief’s loyalty, Johnson had Grant accompany him on an August political tour of Northern states. Grant grew so disgusted at Johnson’s ranting against the 14th Amendment that he claimed illness and went home early, writing to his wife Julia that he looked upon the president as “a national disgrace.” Johnson openly wondered about using the military to purge his enemies from Congress, asking Grant which side the Army would take in such a trial. Grant sidestepped this by replying whichever side the law was on, while quietly ordering weapons moved out of arsenals in the South. Writing to his old friend and fellow Ohioan Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan, Grant confided his worst fears: “we are fast approaching the point where he [Johnson] will want to declare the body [Congress] illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary.”3
The Banishment to Mexico
William Tecumseh Sherman (LoC)Johnson resolved to get Grant out of the way before the autumnal elections. Governor Thomas Swann of Maryland requested federal troops to oust Republican voting registrars from Baltimore, where the city had just defeated a bill that would have granted voting rights to ex-Confederates. Grant had resisted this request, so Johnson resorted to the age-old method of removing a troublesome subordinate: appoint them to a diplomatic mission and get them out of the country. In this case, Mexico. Johnson directed William Tecumseh Sherman to come east to replace Grant, believing that Sherman would fall into line. Sherman came east, but refused to have anything to do with Johnson. Johnson even promised him the position of secretary of war. Nothing doing. As Sherman is said to have stated about Grant, “Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.” Once again, he stuck with Grant. Finally, Johnson ordered Grant to Mexico. But there was a problem. Grant refused.
Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman once said of Grant, ““[Grant] habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it.” To say he was stubborn is an understatement. Claiming that he lacked the diplomatic skills for such a mission and that the president would be better served with someone from the State Department, Grant dodged the assignment. Johnson ordered him to do so in a cabinet meeting, which caused Grant to answer, “I am an American citizen, and eligible to any office to which any American is eligible. I am an officer of the Army, and bound to obey your military orders. But this is a civil office, a purely diplomatic duty that you offer me, and I cannot be compelled to undertake it. … No power on Earth can compel me to do it.” Annoyed, Johnson sent Sherman to Mexico and asked Grant for troops in Maryland to “intervene on the governor’s side to prevent violence.” “This,” Grant observed, “would produce the very result intended to be averted.” He refused to send troops but did issue G.O. No. 44., ordering U.S. Army officers to enforce the Civil Rights Act. Johnson and Grant were now in their own conflict.4
Reduction by Promotion
The fall 1866 elections brought another veto-proof Republican majority back to Congress which began to execute Congressional Reconstruction, returning the South to military districts until each state met conditions of equality and adherence to the 13th and 14th Amendments. Congress also passed a rider in the military appropriations bill which removed presidential authority to give direct orders to the Army: all orders would have to go through, or come from, Grant. When in 1867 Johnson’s attorney general tried to reduce the authority of U.S. Army officers; Grant told district commanders that since the opinion did not come through military channels, they were free to use their own judgement.5
Gen. U.S. Grant (LoC)When Congress recessed for the summer, Johnson decided one more time to get rid of this troublesome general who kept interfering in his plans. This time, he would get Grant out of the way by suspending Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (another Ohioan who gave Johnson constant headaches via stubborn resistance) and replacing him with Grant ad interim. A reluctant Grant acceded, possibly to keep another more compliant person from occupying the position.
But the fall 1867 elections brought more Democrats into office and a surge of terrorist groups in the South, such as the Ku Klux Klan. Johnson moved swiftly to consolidate power, firing generals heading military departments. Notably, he fired Sheridan, further alienating Grant and inflaming the situation in the South where violence levels grew. As Maj. Gen. John Pope left command of the district encompassing Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, he noted to his replacement, Maj. Gen. George Meade, “the Rebellion is as active & so far as the people of this Dist. are concerned, nearly as powerful as during the War.”6
Congress entered the fray in January of 1868, setting the stage for Grant’s last battle with the president he served. Congress ordered Stanton’s immediate reinstatement. Johnson refused. Grant, then, was left with the thorny choice of disobeying the Senate and violating the Tenure of Office Act, or directly opposing his president. It probably comes as no surprise that Granted handed over the keys to the War Department to Stanton. This utterly enraged Johnson, who went off on Grant in a cabinet meeting. Johnson then tried Sherman again, offering him command of a special division to be headquartered in D.C. – a thinly veiled threat to Congress. A disgusted Sherman headed west. Johnson then gave the same offer to Virginian Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. He should have known better than to try to coopt a man who broke from his family and state to stay loyal to the Union in 1861. Thomas turned him down. An infuriated Johnson then fired Stanton, but that cantankerous cabinet member locked himself in his office and refused to come out. This was the last straw, and after three days of Stanton confinement, the House impeached Johnson.7
Conclusion
Civilian control of the military is a bedrock of American democracy, repeatedly enforced by Washington during the Revolution and embodied in law thereafter. Could any general other than Grant have gotten away with this resistance, and could Grant have done it if it had been any president other than Johnson? We will probably never know. Grant was a national hero and Johnson was vilified by half the country. The era was one of repeated constitutional crises, so gray areas were more common. What we do know is that Grant’s steadfast devotion to civil rights and stubborn commitment brought him to national political attention, and he was on the ballot as the Republican candidate for president in 1868. His nemesis, Johnson, did not even get the nod from his own party and did not appear on the ballot.
Yet another opponent who lost to Grant.
Sources:
- Robert Wooster, The U.S. Army and the Making of America: From Confederation to Empire, 1775-1903 (University of Kansas, 2021), 204. ↩︎
- Wooster, 210. ↩︎
- Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, General Grant Refuses President Johnson’s Diplomatic Request, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/general-grant-refuses-president-johnson-s-diplomatic-request.htm; David O. Stewart, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy (Simon & Schuster, 2010). Ivan Perkins, Vanishing Coup: The Pattern of World History since 1310 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). ↩︎
- Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, General Grant Refuses President Johnson’s Diplomatic Request; Wooster, 212. David Priess, “How a Difficult, Racist, Stubborn President Was Removed From Power—If Not From Office,” Politico (Nov. 13, 2018), https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/13/andrew-johnson-undermined-congress-cabinet-david-priess-book-222413/ ↩︎
- Wooster, 215. Priess. ↩︎
- Wooster, 215-217. ↩︎
- Ulysses S Grant National Historic Site, Ulysses S. Grant is Appointed Secretary of War Ad Interim, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ulysses-s-grant-as-appointed-secretary-of-war-ad-interim.htm; Wooster, 217-219. ↩︎
Enjoy what you just read? Please share using the buttons below.
The opinions represented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.
Rate this:
#AndrewJohnson #History #Military #Politics #Reconstruction #theGeneralWhoDefiedAPresident #USArmy #USGrant #UlyssesSGrant
-
The General Who Defied a President
Perhaps no period characterized chaos about the future of the Republic than the years 1866-1868. And perhaps no one individual did so much to save it in those years as the man who had labored so hard to preserve it from 1861-1865: Ulysses S. Grant.
Pres. Andrew Johnson (LoC)One would think that having put down a rebellion, the United States would be on a path to recovery and strength. Enter President Andrew Johnson. President by virtue of Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson was the worst man at the worst place at the worst time (oh, for an alternate universe where Lincoln kept amiable Mainer Hannibal Hamlin as VP in 1864). As a pro-Union Southerner, Johnson was not only conciliatory to the former self-declared Confederacy but downright magnanimous. And less than enthused about the prospect of abolition, to put it lightly. A dedicated enthusiast of the White race’s dominance in the U.S., Johnson would stand in the way of any civil rights legislation.
Scarcely had the guns stopped firing on the battlefield than Johnson began to show warning signs that the victory won on the field was about to be lost politically. Johnson welcomed former Southern congressmen back to the House – many of whom had just taken off their Confederate Army officer uniforms. As northern and Unionist congressmen watched their recent antagonists resume the seats in the government they had just tried to restore, their tempers exploded. In a simple act of bureaucratic procedure, the clerk of the House refused to read in the names of the Southern congressmen during roll call opening the 39th session of Congress in December 1865. The House remained solidly Unionist and abolitionist.
However, Johnson would not be de-fanged so easily. Even with a solid block of loyal Republicans in Congress, Johnson wielded his veto to try to strike down any civil rights legislation and any bills that would protect Southern Blacks from the “rebellious spirit” of Southern Whites, as George Armstrong Custer (of all people) called it. 1 He also attempted to withdraw U.S. troops from the South, the line of defense for freed people against terrorism, kidnapping, and brutality. Congress halted the withdrawal of U.S. Army troops in January of 1866. The Army was now very definitely in politics. And so was its general-in-chief.
Defender of the Republic (Again)
Ulysses S. Grant would not have described himself as a politician, but as General of the Army, he played a significantly political role. And for the first time, Grant found himself taking an opposite position from the president he was supposed to support and advise. Releasing General Orders No. 3, Grant directed the Army to protect loyal citizens and Blacks in the Southern states not just from physical violence, but from political violence – quietly letting commanders know that they were to obey orders coming from him, not the executive branch. The order directed commanders to protect African Americans from unfair prosecution by state and local courts. Unwilling to publicly challenge the popular general, Johnson let this slide. For now. But he marked that Grant had sided with Congress.
The summer of 1866 was marked by violence: physical, from Whites against Blacks in the South; and political, between the president and congress. As White mobs committed murders, rapes, and atrocities in towns and cities across the South, Congress pushed through the 14th Amendment and extended Federal judicial protection for freed people – all over Johnson’s attempts to veto. As Grant watched the president fight so hard against everything the war had been fought over, he became, as an aide said, “more & more radical.” Most of all, he would not allow the Army to become a “party machine.”2
For his part, Johnson realized that he would not get anywhere until Grant was out of the way. To test the General-in-Chief’s loyalty, Johnson had Grant accompany him on an August political tour of Northern states. Grant grew so disgusted at Johnson’s ranting against the 14th Amendment that he claimed illness and went home early, writing to his wife Julia that he looked upon the president as “a national disgrace.” Johnson openly wondered about using the military to purge his enemies from Congress, asking Grant which side the Army would take in such a trial. Grant sidestepped this by replying whichever side the law was on, while quietly ordering weapons moved out of arsenals in the South. Writing to his old friend and fellow Ohioan Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan, Grant confided his worst fears: “we are fast approaching the point where he [Johnson] will want to declare the body [Congress] illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary.”3
The Banishment to Mexico
William Tecumseh Sherman (LoC)Johnson resolved to get Grant out of the way before the autumnal elections. Governor Thomas Swann of Maryland requested federal troops to oust Republican voting registrars from Baltimore, where the city had just defeated a bill that would have granted voting rights to ex-Confederates. Grant had resisted this request, so Johnson resorted to the age-old method of removing a troublesome subordinate: appoint them to a diplomatic mission and get them out of the country. In this case, Mexico. Johnson directed William Tecumseh Sherman to come east to replace Grant, believing that Sherman would fall into line. Sherman came east, but refused to have anything to do with Johnson. Johnson even promised him the position of secretary of war. Nothing doing. As Sherman is said to have stated about Grant, “Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.” Once again, he stuck with Grant. Finally, Johnson ordered Grant to Mexico. But there was a problem. Grant refused.
Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman once said of Grant, ““[Grant] habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it.” To say he was stubborn is an understatement. Claiming that he lacked the diplomatic skills for such a mission and that the president would be better served with someone from the State Department, Grant dodged the assignment. Johnson ordered him to do so in a cabinet meeting, which caused Grant to answer, “I am an American citizen, and eligible to any office to which any American is eligible. I am an officer of the Army, and bound to obey your military orders. But this is a civil office, a purely diplomatic duty that you offer me, and I cannot be compelled to undertake it. … No power on Earth can compel me to do it.” Annoyed, Johnson sent Sherman to Mexico and asked Grant for troops in Maryland to “intervene on the governor’s side to prevent violence.” “This,” Grant observed, “would produce the very result intended to be averted.” He refused to send troops but did issue G.O. No. 44., ordering U.S. Army officers to enforce the Civil Rights Act. Johnson and Grant were now in their own conflict.4
Reduction by Promotion
The fall 1866 elections brought another veto-proof Republican majority back to Congress which began to execute Congressional Reconstruction, returning the South to military districts until each state met conditions of equality and adherence to the 13th and 14th Amendments. Congress also passed a rider in the military appropriations bill which removed presidential authority to give direct orders to the Army: all orders would have to go through, or come from, Grant. When in 1867 Johnson’s attorney general tried to reduce the authority of U.S. Army officers; Grant told district commanders that since the opinion did not come through military channels, they were free to use their own judgement.5
Gen. U.S. Grant (LoC)When Congress recessed for the summer, Johnson decided one more time to get rid of this troublesome general who kept interfering in his plans. This time, he would get Grant out of the way by suspending Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (another Ohioan who gave Johnson constant headaches via stubborn resistance) and replacing him with Grant ad interim. A reluctant Grant acceded, possibly to keep another more compliant person from occupying the position.
But the fall 1867 elections brought more Democrats into office and a surge of terrorist groups in the South, such as the Ku Klux Klan. Johnson moved swiftly to consolidate power, firing generals heading military departments. Notably, he fired Sheridan, further alienating Grant and inflaming the situation in the South where violence levels grew. As Maj. Gen. John Pope left command of the district encompassing Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, he noted to his replacement, Maj. Gen. George Meade, “the Rebellion is as active & so far as the people of this Dist. are concerned, nearly as powerful as during the War.”6
Congress entered the fray in January of 1868, setting the stage for Grant’s last battle with the president he served. Congress ordered Stanton’s immediate reinstatement. Johnson refused. Grant, then, was left with the thorny choice of disobeying the Senate and violating the Tenure of Office Act, or directly opposing his president. It probably comes as no surprise that Granted handed over the keys to the War Department to Stanton. This utterly enraged Johnson, who went off on Grant in a cabinet meeting. Johnson then tried Sherman again, offering him command of a special division to be headquartered in D.C. – a thinly veiled threat to Congress. A disgusted Sherman headed west. Johnson then gave the same offer to Virginian Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. He should have known better than to try to coopt a man who broke from his family and state to stay loyal to the Union in 1861. Thomas turned him down. An infuriated Johnson then fired Stanton, but that cantankerous cabinet member locked himself in his office and refused to come out. This was the last straw, and after three days of Stanton confinement, the House impeached Johnson.7
Conclusion
Civilian control of the military is a bedrock of American democracy, repeatedly enforced by Washington during the Revolution and embodied in law thereafter. Could any general other than Grant have gotten away with this resistance, and could Grant have done it if it had been any president other than Johnson? We will probably never know. Grant was a national hero and Johnson was vilified by half the country. The era was one of repeated constitutional crises, so gray areas were more common. What we do know is that Grant’s steadfast devotion to civil rights and stubborn commitment brought him to national political attention, and he was on the ballot as the Republican candidate for president in 1868. His nemesis, Johnson, did not even get the nod from his own party and did not appear on the ballot.
Yet another opponent who lost to Grant.
Sources:
- Robert Wooster, The U.S. Army and the Making of America: From Confederation to Empire, 1775-1903 (University of Kansas, 2021), 204. ↩︎
- Wooster, 210. ↩︎
- Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, General Grant Refuses President Johnson’s Diplomatic Request, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/general-grant-refuses-president-johnson-s-diplomatic-request.htm; David O. Stewart, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy (Simon & Schuster, 2010). Ivan Perkins, Vanishing Coup: The Pattern of World History since 1310 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). ↩︎
- Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, General Grant Refuses President Johnson’s Diplomatic Request; Wooster, 212. David Priess, “How a Difficult, Racist, Stubborn President Was Removed From Power—If Not From Office,” Politico (Nov. 13, 2018), https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/13/andrew-johnson-undermined-congress-cabinet-david-priess-book-222413/ ↩︎
- Wooster, 215. Priess. ↩︎
- Wooster, 215-217. ↩︎
- Ulysses S Grant National Historic Site, Ulysses S. Grant is Appointed Secretary of War Ad Interim, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ulysses-s-grant-as-appointed-secretary-of-war-ad-interim.htm; Wooster, 217-219. ↩︎
Enjoy what you just read? Please share using the buttons below.
The opinions represented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.
Rate this:
#AndrewJohnson #History #Military #Politics #Reconstruction #theGeneralWhoDefiedAPresident #USArmy #USGrant #UlyssesSGrant
-
CW: Disturbing portroyal of effect of human civilisation on the wider living ecosystem. Presentation of unsettling ecological facts. Mention of cruelty to and suffering of animals. Mention of death.
This post, while unarguably correct, reminds me of the Steve de Shazer quote “Problem talk creates problems, Solution talk creates solutions”.
Your “problem talk” words could lead the general public to believe that all is lost, that the worst of climate change is inevitable, that the problem is too big, that it is too late and that we might as well give up and walk into the burning forest now.
I would like to add some “solution talk”.
IMO, it’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE, to save planet Earth by becoming #EcoConciousConsumers https://www.thinkhousehq.com/features/climate-conscious-consumerism-what-is-it-and-how-do-we-do-it who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices: who we donate to, who we vote for, what we invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to switch from gas to electric; to reduce, reuse, recycle; & to consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action now - without asking anyone! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/28/climate-crisis-emergency-rebecca-solnit-terry-tempest-williams
The film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
Greta Thunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses. So, let’s do everything we can that doesn’t require their action.
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s But, these Oligarchs got rich by convincing us to buy products that we don’t actually need & that are harmful to our planet. So, stop buying those products!
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/ So people - stop demanding!
-
The quote "the earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those doing the killing have names and addresses" is very appropriate. The problem is that:
IMO, it’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE, to save planet Earth by becoming #EcoConciousConsumers https://www.thinkhousehq.com/features/climate-conscious-consumerism-what-is-it-and-how-do-we-do-it who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of: who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to switch from gas to electric; to reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action now - without asking anyone! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/28/climate-crisis-emergency-rebecca-solnit-terry-tempest-williams
The film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
Greta Thunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s But, these Oligarchs got rich by convincing us to buy products that we don’t actually need & that are harmful to our planet. So, stop buying those products!
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/ So people - stop demanding!
-
Have you considered that maybe it's up to us, We,the people, to solve the climate crisis?
UN Secretary-General António Guterres says; “The situation we are witnessing now is a demonstration that Climate Change is out of control! If we persist in delaying key measures that are needed, I think that we are moving into a catastrophic situation.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-world
Natasha Bulowski says: “If you’re not terrified, ‘you’re not paying attention’: Politicians, activist urge action amid record-breaking temperatures” https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/07/06/news/if-youre-not-terrified-youre-not-paying-attention-politicians-activist-urge-action
What are those “Key Measures”? Are you terrified yet? Is there anything that you can do without waiting on the ‘powers that be’?
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action now - without asking anyone! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/28/climate-crisis-emergency-rebecca-solnit-terry-tempest-williams
IMO, it’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE, to save planet Earth by becoming #EcoConciousConsumers https://www.thinkhousehq.com/features/climate-conscious-consumerism-what-is-it-and-how-do-we-do-it who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of: who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to switch from gas to electric; to reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
Greta Thunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s But, these Oligarchs got rich by convincing us to buy products that we don’t actually need & that are harmful to our planet. So, stop buying those products!
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/ So people - stop demanding!
I post to inform people who may not be aware of the above. So, boosts are appreciated.
-
UN Secretary-General António Guterres says; “The situation we are witnessing now is a demonstration that Climate Change is out of control! If we persist in delaying key measures that are needed, I think that we are moving into a catastrophic situation.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-world
Natasha Bulowski says: “If you’re not terrified, ‘you’re not paying attention’: Politicians, activist urge action amid record-breaking temperatures” https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/07/06/news/if-youre-not-terrified-youre-not-paying-attention-politicians-activist-urge-action
What are those “Key Measures”? Are you terrified yet? Is there anything that you can do without waiting on the ‘powers that be’?
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action now - without asking anyone! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/28/climate-crisis-emergency-rebecca-solnit-terry-tempest-williams
IMO, it’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE, to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of: who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to switch from gas to electric; to reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
Greta Thunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s But, these Oligarchs got rich by convincing us to buy products that we don’t actually need & that are harmful to our planet. So, stop buying those products!
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/ So people - stop demanding!
I post to inform people who may not be aware of the above. So, boosts are appreciated.
-
UN Secretary-General António Guterres says; “The situation we are witnessing now is a demonstration that Climate Change is out of control! If we persist in delaying key measures that are needed, I think that we are moving into a catastrophic situation.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-world
Natasha Bulowski says: “If you’re not terrified, ‘you’re not paying attention’: Politicians, activist urge action amid record-breaking temperatures” https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/07/06/news/if-youre-not-terrified-youre-not-paying-attention-politicians-activist-urge-action
What are those “Key Measures”? Are you terrified yet? Is there anything that you can do without waiting on the 'powers that be'?
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action now - without asking anyone! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/28/climate-crisis-emergency-rebecca-solnit-terry-tempest-williams
IMO, it’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE, to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of: who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to switch from gas to electric; to reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
Greta Thunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s But, these Oligarchs got rich by convincing us to buy products that we don’t actually need & that are harmful to our planet. So, stop buying those products!
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/ So people - stop demanding!
I post to inform people who may not be aware of the above. So, boosts are appreciated.
-
If you’re not terrified, ‘you’re not paying attention’: Politicians, activist urge action amid record-breaking temperatures
By Natasha Bulowski | News, Politics, Ottawa Insider | July 6th 2023
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/07/06/news/if-youre-not-terrified-youre-not-paying-attention-politicians-activist-urge-actionMaybe it’s time to declare a CLIMATE EMERGENCY! https://climateemergencydeclaration.org/
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action now - without asking anyone!
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
IMO, it’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE, to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of: who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to switch from gas to electric; to reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/ So people - stop demanding!
🕬 Boosts appreciated.
-
You don't need more scientists to solve the climate crisis - they already have? What we need is a way to inform everyone to stop expecting someone else (leaders, governments, & etc) and take individual climate action.
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action now - without asking anyone!
The film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
It’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE, to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices: of who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to degasifying & electrifying everything; reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less without waiting for anybody. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/ So people, - stop demanding!
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action now - without asking anyone.
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
It’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE, to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to degasifying & electrifying everything; reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/ So people - stop demanding!
Explain to everyone who is trying to figure out what they each can do to actually mitigate global warming that they should visit the following links!
“Eating our way to extinction” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaPge01NQTQ&t=10s
10 things you should know about industrial farming https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/10-things-you-should-know-about-industrial-farming
Meet the People Getting Paid to Kill Our Planet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOcLyyVyb6o&t=36s
Can healthy food save the planet? https://eatforum.org/learn-and-discover/can-healthy-food-save-the-planet-animation/The blindingly obvious truth is that earth cannot support 70B+ farmed animals *ANNUALLY* & the only way we can stop the breeding, confinement, drugging, slaughtering and processing of 70 billion land animals every year is by people choosing to drastically reduce their consumption of animal products (especially beef).
-
I am a fan of Project Drawdown & the work that they are doing. But:
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action - without asking anyone!
It’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to degasifying & electrifying everything; reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/
🕬 Boosts appreciated.
-
@the_Effekt @grinningcat @FantasticalEconomics @TonyStark
Great Post - A lot of important climate people are trying to get the message out that we, the people have to change if we are serious about mitigating Global Warming.
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action - without asking anyone!
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
It’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to degasifying & electrifying everything; reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/
🕬 Boosts appreciated.
-
Alex - I have to take exception to your assertation that ("we"- the actual people- have little power to make the decisions necessary to fix things). It is the opinion of many that if “we” the actual people don’t take individual action to reduce global warming then all is lost. Just take the food we eat for example:
“Cutting animal-based foods in US diet by half could prevent 1.6 billion tons of GHG emissions by 2030” https://news.umich.edu/cutting-animal-based-foods-in-us-diet-by-half-could-prevent-1-6-billion-tons-of-ghg-emissions-by-2030/
“15.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from animal agriculture, comparable to all transportation (cars, trucks, trains, planes) combined.” https://ffacoalition.org/facts/animal-ag-emissions/
“A human who follows a #plantbased diet, produces 50% less CO2, uses 1/11 oil, 1/13 water and 1/18 the land, compared to a #meat eater” https://www.cowspiracy.com/facts
Please watch *Eating our way to extinction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaPge01NQTQ&t=10sWhen it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action - without asking anyone!
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
It’s up to us – WE, the actual people, to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to degasifying & electrifying everything; reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
You are correct when you say “The small group of sociopathic billionaires driving the destruction would like nothing more than for us to blame ourselves for what they are actively doing to us, absolving them of blame.”
But that means only that “We, the actual people, must understand their motivation & then act in a way that helps the planet.
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15sWilliam Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/
-
Well said!
To me 'Own It' means that when it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action - without asking anyone!
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
It’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to degasifying & electrifying everything; reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/
🕬 Boosts appreciated.
-
Ha,ha,ha!
OK, why don’t we make it given that as Greta Thunberg says @gretathunberg says - “Politicians are not coming to the rescue of planet Earth” https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-guest-edit-politicians-rescue-planet & “Saving the world is voluntary…we need billions of #climate activists” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/08/greta-thunberg-climate-delusion-greenwashed-out-of-our-senses
When it comes to the #ClimateEmergency - It is not hopeless & we, the people are not helpless! If we take individual action - without asking anyone!
This must see short film: “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnyLIRCPajM tells us that “preventing run-away Global Warming is the single most important task in all of human history - and it is up to us to do it. If we don’t then everything else we have achieved in our lives will become meaningless”!
The United nation says: “Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference.” https://www.un.org/en/actnow/ten-actions
It’s up to us – WE,THE PEOPLE to save planet Earth by becoming #ClimateConsumers who actively mitigate global warming by our daily choices of who we donate to, vote for, invest/divest/bank in; what we buy, eat, drive/pedal; to degasifying & electrifying everything; reduce, reuse, recycle; & consume less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/
Robert Reich @rbreich Says “A handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_sjfchNsiM&t=15s
William Stanley Jevons said: “Value is created by the consumer, not the producer… the consumer is the ‘ultimate regulator of demand’” - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/how-humans-became-consumers/508700/
🕬 Boosts appreciated.