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nationalepos
Det er vigtigt at være med på den sidste nye femogtyveøre. Og nu, da vi angiveligt svinger væk fra Det Internationale Perspektiv og skal til at kigge på vores “nationalkarakter” (når vi lige får overstået remigrationen), lad os da kigge på Det Nationale. Lad os se på, hvad der ligger i fundamentet til Den Nationale Selvforståelse. Med andre ord: – lad os kigge lidt på Nationalepos.
Efter sigende skulle musik-og-danseforestillingen “Elverhøj”, af Heiberg og Kuhlau, være Danmarks Nationalepos. Hvilket er en opfattelse, der ikke har slået rod i alle og enhvers nationale selvforståelse. Således mener flere og flere – måske i takt med Den Åndelige Oprustning og De Kristne Værdiers generhvervede fokalpunkter – at “Gesta Danorum” (Danernes gerninger) af Saxo Grammaticus er en langt bedre kandidat. Sommernattens kogleri versus Sværdets klang og krigens gny … – om man så må sige.
Men selvom det er vigtigt – og det er det altså bare! – at assimilere de til enhver tid gældende nationale værdier, så skal det jo ikke forhindre os i, at kigge på en række nationale eposser fra splitter andre lande, om ikke andet så for at bestyrke vor egne særkender og helt særlige kvaliteter, ikk’ sandt? Og lad os begynde nogenlunde så langt væk som vi overhovedet kan komme (og i denne sammenhæng tænkes der hverken på Månen eller Mars).
satellitfoto af Kerguelen
Okay, okay! Kerguelen, der er en ø i det allersydligste Indiske Ocean, er ikke nogen Nation, og den er iøvrigt totalt ubeboet, bortset fra hvalrosser og pingviner … og nogle meteorologer af fransk etnisk herkomst. Og alligevel har vor hjemlige Claus Deleuran lavet et udmærket lille epos om øen, i sin “Mikkeline på skattejagt”. Hvilket naturligvis er et sidespring, for intentionen var at besøge Kina.
Dette er Sun Wukong eller “Abe” eller “Abekongen” i beretningen “Rejsen mod Vest”, som er Kinas Nationalepos. Og det handler om Abes kamp mod Himmelkejserens tyranni og ikke mindst hans bureaukrati, der ikke lader hverken Det Nuværende Kina eller EU noget efter. Bortset fra en oh-so-cute kinesisk tegnefilm om marodøren, så har Milo Manara også været der:
– og hans udgave er nok tættere på forlægget i al sin anarko-revanchisme, uagtet den smålumre krydring og den ikke helt gennemtænkte kobling til vestlig kapitalisme. Men den er der, og den er værd at læse, når man har fået nok af tegnefilmens sødladne selvretfærdighed (og så fik jeg vist det hele med).
Næste stop er Indien. Og hér støder vi på noget, der skal komme til at forfølge os: – hvad er oprindelig tekst? Og vi husker, at elverhøj var Heiberg&Co, mens “Gesta Danorum” var Saxo og hans kildemateriale. Så Saxos funktion var altså “redaktørens”. Og med det indiske nationalepos, der umiskendeligt må være “Mahabharata”, er vi også stillet overfor det forhold, at det drejer sig om en samling af myter og legender, ofte mere end 3000 år gamle, der – på et eller andet tidspunkt – er blevet samlet til én beretning. “Den skyldige” skulle være en “Vyasa”, der egentlig blot betyder “samler”, “arrangør”, og vi har altså – igen – med en redaktør at gøre. Mere af det samme, lige efter pausen!
På vores vej vestover (“Rejsen til Vesten”), kommer vi forbi en guds velsignelse af lande, og det er ikke utænkeligt at nogen vil anføre, at “Tusind og én nats eventyr” vel må høre til et sted i nationaleposkanonen. Til hvilket der at svare, at igen har vi at gøre med en række fortællinger – ikke mindst om Sindbad Søfareren og Aladdin – der kommer fra disparate regioner i hele det arabiske område. Og de fik så en renæssance på euræisk grund, da først en fransk adelsmand og opdagelsesrejsende oversatte dem, engang i syttenhundredetallet, og senere da Sir Richard Francis Burton oversatte dem omkring 1870. Efter sigende skulle Sir Richards udgave være særdeles saftig. Det tror man gerne.
Ham hér, han skriver ikke puttenuttet, vel?
Idet vi må indse, at vi dybest set intet ved om afrikanske nationaleposser, næppe tiltænker Israel at havet ét, udover fortællingen om diasporaen, og faktisk intet ved om Tyrkiet, udover at det er en forpost for et osmannisk rige, der ikke eksisterer længere (og måske derfor?), når vi frem til Grækenland! Den vestlige kulturs vugge – hvabbehar’!
“Odysséen” handler om Helten Odysseus hjemrejse fra krigen mod Troja, beskrevet i “Iliaden” ( fordi “Troja” hed “Ilion” – forvirring fremmer forståelsen). Og det tager så Odysseus tyve år at komme hjem til Ithaca, hvor hans elskede hustru – Penelope – holder bejlerne fra døren (eller ihvertfald ægtesengen) – fast i troen og fast i kødet, overbevist om at Han nok skal komme hjem (“I’ll be back!” som man siger). Men Odysseus må gå så mange grufulde oplevelser og umenneskelige anstrengelser igennem, før han endelig kan slå alle bejlerne ihjel. Der kan man sgu’ tale om “Terminator”.
Både “Odysséen” og “Iliaden” tilskrives “digteren Homer”. Blot er der opstået diskussionen om, hvem Homer egentlig var, og i særdeleshed hvad har var, i forhold til de to værker der tilskrives ham. Var det virkelig ham, der sad og digtede disse hexametere i sit ansigt armsved? Var “han” i virkeligheden nome de plume for en række bidragydere? Var han redaktør af en række ældre fortællinger, der nu – pludseligt – blev fremlagt som en endelig fortælling om Den Store Helt – eventuelt som et in your face til Sparta, der jo havde beretningen om Leonidas og De 300 ved Thermopylæ?
Og således når vi, via Adriaterhavet, de italienske kyster. Igen: – hvad ved vi om Rumænien, Bulgarien, Makedonien, Albanien, Det Tidligere Jugoslavien? Eller man kunne sige: – researchen er endnu ikke nået dertil.
Egentlig er det lidt sært, at “Orlando Furioso”, skrevet af 1500-tals-digteren Ludovico Ariosto, skulle være Italiens Nationalepos. Man ville vel have troet, at et mere nationalnært klenodie kunne være Dante Alighieris “Guddommelige Komedie”. Men sådan er det! Og det sære ligger deri, at Orlando er den samme figur, som “Roland”, i det franske Nationalepos “Le chanson de Roland”, der led døden i bagtroppen efter Kong Karls tilbagetog, et sted i Pyrenæerne, i kamp med baskere (andre steder står der “saracenere” – vælg selv!) Og så trutter Roland i hornet “Olifant” og bliver dræbt. Hvilket jeg har udredt andetsteds i dette forum
Og når vi nu er hér i området: – en hurtig afstikker til England.
Hér forestiller man sig vel nok at Englands, eller måske ligefrem Storbritanniens Nationalepos må være fortællingen om “Kong Arthur og Ridderne af det runde bord”. Og det er det vel også. Men det er bare ikke særlig engelsk, idet “Le mort de Arthur” er en fransk digtcyklus, der blev redigeret af Thomas Mallory i 1500-tallet. Og i en hvis forstand kan man sige, at Tolkiens “Ringenes Herre” var et forsøg på, at skabe et ægte engelsk Nationalepos, befriet for fransk indflydelse, hvilket er pænt håbløst. F.eks kan man påpege, at de østerlandske tropper, der kommer i tredje bog rider på “Olifanter”, og iøvrigt er der ikke noget der hedder “England” i den tidlige middelalder: – der er små kongeriger, men fremfor alt er der normannere og “Danes” … Danelagen: – Danskernes Lov! På den måde er det måske korrekt med “Gesta Danorum”?
Med hensyn til Tyskland kan der næppe herske den store tvivl. Det Stortyske Nationalepos er naturligvis “Der Ring des Niebelungen” (Ringenes Herre), der i grunden er en genfortælling af en pan-germansk mytekreds. “Pan-germansk” i betydningen, at folkestammen germanerne var temmelig adspredt indtil folkevandringstiden i 4-500-tallet ifvt, og først fandt et fodfæste i det nuværende Tyskland, da Frankerriget opløstes indefra af evindelig arvestrid. I alle fald befinder vi distanceret i såvel tid som rum, nærmest en tiltrådt en mytisk fortid, når Siegfried og Hagen og Krimhild og Wotan indtager de skrå brædder og lader herr direktor Wagner forestå brag og ballade og trutterut og tjingtjing, mens embouchuren virkelig får noget at arbejde med.
(Hr Trampenberg elsker den gamle musik/ Med bomfaldera og kukkuk og dikdik/ Han døde igår/ Han blev dikket ihjel!/ NB: – begravelsen skér fra Bror Kalles Kapel)
Det officielle Sverige fastslår med stoisk ro, sikkert som resultat af en trang til at vise sig neutral i ethvert spørgsmål (as if), at Sverige ikke har noget egentligt Nationalepos. Man nævner i flæng flere forskellige muligheder, herunder “Erikskrönikan” , som er fra 1300-tallet, og hernæst Mobergs “Utvandrarna” fra 1950’erne. Noget af et spænd, tør man sige.
Det vil dog være rimeligt at påstå, at med “Niels Holgersens Forunderlige Rejse” præsenterede Selma Lagerlöf en pænt valgbar kandidat. For Niels rider på en gås gennem det ganske Sverige og beskriver det i al det herlig- og storslåethed. Der er intet øje tørt.
Norge er ligeså skarp som sine fjeldtinder: – Norges Nationalepos er “Heimskringla” af Snorre Sturlason … som var islænding! Men okay, okay, Snorre fortæller om de norske kongeslægter, og så skulle den jo bare være fjong-gongeli-gong!
Og så kommer vi til Finland, hvor det store opus er “Kalevala”, og det er noget med noget på. Der er en skabelsesberetning. Der er kampe mellem det gode og det onde. Der er kærlighed og kamp, mystiske og mytiske artefakter, troldkællinger og magiske eliksirer, troldmænd og kriger og hævn og had, og den sorte sø Tuonella, og smeden Ilmarinen og krigeren Vainamoinen, og det hele er en samling af lokale myter og legender, samlet af sprog- og folkemindesamleren Elias Lönnrot.
Alligevel er der så meget saft og kraft i Kalevala, at ikke nok med at det må kaldes Finlands Nationalepos, så fik det også maleren Axel Waldemar Gallén til at skifte navn til Akseli Gallen-Kallela hvorefter han malede en hel suite af billeder – eller illustrationer – til denne storslåede fortælling:
Så når vi, i vores mere eller mindre fibonniciske rundgang, til Rusland. Ikke “Sovjetunionen”, ikke “SNG”, ikke “Rusland”, som det fremstår i den nuværende geopolitiske internationale debat. Og man må vel nærmest tale om det, som et begreb.
Igen, ligesom med Danmark, står vi overfor to muligheder. Den romantiske og den mere krigeriske. Hvilket måske ikke er så mærkeligt, eftersom Danmark og Rusland faktisk har en lang fælles historie. Og man kan hér blot tænke på at Zar Peter den Store kom til Danmark for at lære at bygge orlogsskibe. Og man kan dernæst tænke på, at Volodomir, Wladimir og Valdemar er det samme navn, stavet på forskellig vis.
På den ene side er der den næsten Orfeus/Eurydike-agtige fortælling om “Ruslan og Lludmilla”, hvor Ruslan må møde og bekæmpe utallige farer og modstandere –
– før han endelig kan forenes med sin elskede Lludmilla, der er fanget af Iskongen.
Alternativet til denne beretning er fortællingen om Alexander Nevskij. Og se! Det er faktisk en historisk figur, nok bedst vakt til live i Eisensteins berømte film af samme navn:
Og musikken af Prokofiev er ganske indbygget i filmens koreografi.
Kort fortalt: – de teutonske riddere vil undertvinge det fredelige russiske folk, men dette folk går, med fyrst Alexander, til blodig modstand, og det hele ender i et frygteligt og dødeligt slag på Peipus-søen ved Pskov. Hvilket er vrøvl, men historien er god.
Med lys og lygte har researchholdet søgt, at finde et Nationalepos gældende for USA – eftersom det selv i disse nationaltider, at der kigges derhen. Men eftersom USA for det første er en samling af stater – man kunne kalde det nationer, med nogen ret – er der ikke rigtigt nogen fællesnævner. Hertil kommer, at Føderationen blev “født” nogenlunde samtidig med formuleringen af ideen om en nationalstat, så kan det volde vanskeligheder, medmindre man vil synke så lavt som til at sige:
Hér på kanalen vil vi måske nok mere pege på et par mulige kandidater til en fremtidig position. Man kunne forestille sig James Fenimore Coopers indianer-cum-frihedskæmper-romaner: Den Sidste Mohikaner:
Eller “Læderstrømpe” af samme forfatter.
Alternativet kunne være “Huckleberry Finn” eller “Onkel Toms Hytte”. Personligt, når nu skribenten har givet sig selv lov til at stå frem, vil jeg påstå at Det Sande Amerikanske Nationalepos er romanen og filmen:
fried green tomatoes at the whistlestop café
Der er 192 nationer repræsenteret i FN. 3 nationer er ikke. Den Vestafrikanske Republik er ikke, fordi “man” er tvivl om, hvorvidt der er tale om en nation eller blot et landområde diverse guerillabevægelser, lokale krigsherrer eller oversøiske “interesser” kæmper om. Den Palæstinensiske Stat er ikke med, fordi den ikke er anerkendt (!). Og Vatikanstaten er ikke med – fordi den ikke vil!
I dette indlæg har vi beskæftiget os med en tolv-tretten stater, i forhold til pågældende stats Nationalepos. – Det må siges at være et absolut mindstemål, omend ikke helt ubetydeligt. Så der er masser at gå igang med, hvis man føler for det eller er nysgerrig. God fornøjelse – og (selvfølgelig)
#Anmeldelser #dansk -
Philip José Farmer
ET ESSAY
Mit første sprøde møde med Philip José Farmer (amerikansk science fiction forfatter, 1918-2009) var novellen “Sejl videre! Sejl videre” i Jannick Storms antologi “Den elektriske myre” (Borgen 1972). Og der var ovenikøbet en lille artikel med, hvor PJF fortæller lidt om den “worldbuilding”, der ligger til grund for novellen.
Oven i ovenikøbet præsenterer Storm PJF som “avantgardistisk”. Og selvom jeg – i en alder af ti-tolv år – ikke forstod dét ord, så forstod jeg (noget af) meningen, og var i fuld sving med at skrive “koncepter” til historier, der tog udgangspunkt i myter og indsatte dem i en “realistisk virkelighed”. Og de noter måtte så vente 4-5 år, før jeg kunne sætte noget – mere eller mindre – fornuftigt sammen. Og fred med det – glemslen sletter alle spor. Men hvad nu, hvis der virkelig findes djinner i denne verden? Hvad nu, hvis stjernerne kun er huller i Olbers paradox? Hvad nu, hvis der virkelig fandtes galeoner, der sejlede gennem rummet på en ætervind?
I 1978 udgiver Ole Lindboe og Svend Kreiner Møller artikelsamlingen “Virkelige eventyr”
– i hvilken der – blandet meget andet godt – kan findes Palle Juul Holms “Ædle vilde – syge guder”, en fantabuløs introduktion til PJFs forfatterskab.
I en alder af de dér 15-16 år, hvor jeg havde brugt et par år på at læse John Carter på Mars og Lensman-serien af “Doc” Smith, udfra en antagelse om, at jeg lærte at læse engelsk ved at starte med noget nemt, ramte Holms artikel mig i såvel intellektet som gonaderne. Vold og sex i science fiction – HVAD giver De mig, Fru Heilbunth?
“Fisse mig hér og fisse mig dér! Forpulede piratbumser!” som Mikkeline udbryder i første bind af “Thorfinn”, da piratkokken – i tjaldet tilstand – “gør tilnærmelser”. Eller sagt på en anden måde: – det kommer vi tilbage til!
I “Ædle vilde – Syge guder” bruger Holm en del tid på PJFs to store romanserier. “The world of tiers” og “Riverworld”. Og især “World of tiers” “talte” til ét eller andet i mig – navnlig fordi Holm henviser til William Blake, der i sin næsten kierkegaardske søgen efter Den Rette Sandhed (ikke det æstetiske, ikke det etiske, men det religiøse – arme mand!) formulerede en helt ny mytologi, med dertil hørende guder der bærer interessante navne, ja, vi strejfer næsten H.P. Lovecraft: – Urizen, Enitharmon, Tharmas, Urthona, Orc. Og det er disse næsten-guder, som vor hovedperson, Robert Wolff, møder, da han går igennem et garderobeskab (!) og kommer til Den Lagdelte Verden. Og imens læste jeg Blake op til kvalmegrænsen, og af min forstående far fik bøger med Blakes “visuelle output”, om man så må sige.
Rudolf Broby-Johansen skriver om én af Blakes ætsninger, at manden (Blake) ikke har en stand forskid på anatomi, men tydeligvis selv tror på sine visioner, hvori der ligger en ubetinget styrke, der kommer beskueren til gode.
(dette kunne være en illustration til Cordwainer Smiths “A planet named Shayol”)
Nåmmen, alle disse næsten-guder, som Wolff møder, er alle søskende. De lever for evigt. De har ubegrænsede ressourcer til deres rådighed. De hader hinanden og de bygger mikro-kosmosser, der primært er fælder, mens de – hver og én – kun er besat af, at være “kalif i stedet for kaliffen”. Eller – i det mindste – slå konkurrenterne af banen. Sært genkendeligt!
Personligt nåede jeg at læse “sagaen”, indtil en tredjedel inde i “The lavalite World”. Så kunne jeg ikke mere. For PJF var tydeligvis også løbet tør for damp i et evigt forhindringsløb mellem verdener, der ikke gav udsigt til nogen som helst løsning på noget som helst. Men – MEN! – de tre-fire første romaner i serien er det rene guld, når man er lidt deprimeret over at være lønslave og prioritetsbestyrer. Man kan altid blive til Wolff/Jadawin – bror til syge guder, eller Kickaha – høvding over kentaurerne.
Bortset fra … – at det kan man ikke, for “Kickaha” er Paul Janus Finnegan: PJF!
-Som så – i anden inkarnation – hedder Peter Jairus Frigate, og optræder i PJFs “Riverworld”-serie, der er blevet tilstrækkelig eksponeret andre steder, hvorfor jeg ikke sér nogen grund til at gentage noget som helst. Bortset fra én – måske 2 – ting: – Ligesom i “World of tiers” løber PJF sur i “jagten på Skaberen”, når han skal udrede, hvad der foregår i Riverworld-universet. Og det begyndere mere og mere at ligne – ikke Philip José Farmer; men derimod Philip Kendred Dick. hvilket ikke er pænt sagt, men herfra set yderst korrekt. Og hertil kommer at PJFs forklaring på “sjælevandringen” i Riverworld, bliver en gennemskuelig bortforklaring, der på mange måder ligner Star Wars-universets “forklaring” på hvad The Force er: – det har et-eller-andet at gøre med Midi-chlorians, mitokondrier, something-agtigt, ikk’sandt? “It’s in your cells – don’t you understand?”
PJF havde to andre “serier” kørende: – “Dayworld” (1985), 3 romaner, og en lidt mere “hovsa-se-lige-hvad-jeg-kom-til-at lave” -serie om Brer John Carmody, en lægbroder i Sankt Jairus-ordenen. “Sankt Jairus” (se ovenfor 🙂 ). Og historierne (fem-seks noveller og en roman, “Night of Light” (1966)) handler om, hvordan Carmody fiser rundt i universet i en overbevisning om Guds eksistens, men hele tiden bliver konfronteret med tegn på det modsatte. (På en måde minder John Carmody mig om Frank Herbert “Jorj X Mckie” fra hans Conscienticy-univers … – hvilket skal forstås som en anbefaling)
And now to sex!
Philip José Farmer har fået ry for, at være manden der introducerede sex i science fiction. Ikke som et “påhæng”, en bemærkning om at “så bollede de”, men som en integreret del af fortællingen. Og netop “The Lovers” (novelle 1952, roman 1960) er et godt eksempel herpå. Kort handlingsref. med spoilers og hele molevitten: – Hal Yarrow ( hvilket betyder røllike, der er blevet brugt som lokalbedøvende middel!) lever i et teokratisk samfund, konstant overvåget af sin gapt, der hedder Pornsen (!), der skal sørge for at han holder sig på dydens smalle sti (der er så smal, at en linedanser ville blive svimmel). Men da Hal kommer til planeten Ozagen møder han Jeanette, en kvinde der får hans slumrende kønsdrift i omdrejninger, samtidig med at hans tillærte, oplærte, totalitært inducerede, moralkodeks giver ham hovedbrud og kvababbelser. Og finten er nu, at Jeanette ikke er et menneske. Hun er et insekt. Men ikke blot er hun et insekt, hun er en snylter på de insektoider, der bebor Ozagen. Og resultatet af Hals og hendes samlejer er, at hun bliver gravid – med nymfelarver af sin egen art … – hvorefter hun dør, da larverne æder hende op.
Samme år (1960) udgiver PJF romanen “Flesh”, der handler om den efter 800 år hjemvendte rumkaptajn, Peter Stagg (!), der bliver udnævnt til “Sunhero” og sat til at “imprægnere” den hele klodes kvindelige befolkning. Og det eneste jeg vil sige om dén, i dette oplyste forum, er, at den unægtelig minder om “Le Surmale” af Alfred Jarry. En konstatering jeg lige vil lade stå dér, men som jeg vender frygteligt tilbage til.
I 1968 giver PJF den fuld skrald med udgivelsen af to romaner om detektiven Herald Childe, der forvilder sig ind i et okkult-erotisk univers og undergår diverse forvandlinger, og alt drejer sig om penetrationer og sekreter. James Bond i BDMS-klubben med lykantropi i ascendanten. Til hvilket der er at sige, at de to romaner var bestilt som månedlige episoder i herremagasinet “Playboy”. Bunden opgave – men gode penge!
Farmer nævner et sted, at han har haft en “sexobiologiske fase” i sit forfatterskab. Og det må man sige “ja” til, hvis man eksempelvis læser novellesamlingen “Strange Relations”, blandt andet indeholdende den formidable “Mother”. Og – vil min påstand være – netop denne “ouevre” placerer PJF i et interessant spændingsfelt mellem Freud og Jung – og et strejf af Nietzsche … for smagens skyld.
Til gengæld føles det ret påklistret, når vi i “A Feast Unknown” bliver bekendt med, at vores hovedperson og helt, Lord Grandrith, har en gepard-hun med på sine raids i bushen. Jo! For hun – geparden – har anatomiske egenskaber, der gør hende lige så anvendelig som en kvinde (man må håbe, at det Grandrith, der taler og ikke PJF).
Og med Lord Grandrith er vi ovre i en “faible”, der er specielt Farmersk: – hans dybe og inderlige fascination af Tarzan-myten.
Tillad mig at springe mellemregningerne over (dem kan man gøre sig bekendt med i Palle Juul Holms artikel “Ædle vilde – syge guder”), når jeg påpeger at vi hér har at gøre med en civilisations- og kulturkritik. Og aldeles ikke fordi Edgar Rice Burroughs skabte sin Abernes Konge i en kulturpolitisk modus, men fordi Farmer stillede det ret interessante spørgsmål om Oplysningstiden – herunder Rousseau med “Emile” – gjorde os klogere på “den menneskelige tilstand”; eller om det blot var endnu et forsøg på, at knalde forudfattede meninger og “moralske” vilkår i fjæset på menneskeheden? “Naturens søn”? Javel, ja! Men kan han opføre sig ordentligt … ?
Palle Juul Holm anfører i sin artikel, at Farmer ikke har haft umiddelbar adgang til venstreorienteret tænkning, og slet ikke Marx. Og det er lidt sjovt, fordi PJF selv anfører at:
“I’ve written in many fields: – adventure, space operas, parallel worlds, pocket universes, psychological, political, sexual, biological, pastiche (!), religious, horror, time travel, ESP (det var dengang), “biographical”, metaphysical and marxistisk. Det sidstnævnte henviser til Groucho, Chico og Harpo. Ikke Karl!” og Farmer nævner i den forbindelse, at det har tilknytning til hans “polytropical paramyths”.
Så Farmer var udmærket bevidst om Karl – det havde blot ingen betydning i hans amerikanske univers. Hvilket ikke forhindrer ham i en samfundskritik, der kan virke dybt reaktionær, men dog har såvel historiske som politiske rødder.
Jeg nævnte tidligere, at “Flesh” godt kunne ligne Jarrys “Surmale”. Og det vil jeg nu “toppe” med, at PJF havde en trang til at emulere tidligere tiders “Kiosklitteratur” – herunder, som nævnt Tarzan-bøgerne. Og der kan man nævne “The Other Log Of Phileas Fog”, “The Windwhales of Ishmael”, “Greatheart Silver”, “Venus on the half-shell” samt “Ironcastle” – henholdsvis Jules Verne, Hermann Melville, Charles Dickens, “Kilgore Trout” og H. M. Rosny (den ældre) …. – ham med “jagten på ilden”.
Jeg ved ikke om jeg har fristet nogen til at give sig i kast med Philip José Farmers forfatterskab, bestående af jeg ved ikke hvor mange romaner – og sikkert firdobbelt så mange noveller.
Personligt er jeg dog ikke færdig med Farmer – der er så mange lommeuniverser, der stadig trænger til udgranskning eller genlæsning – også selvom manden kan være lidt besværlig. Og heldigvis for det –
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Philip José Farmer
ET ESSAY
Mit første sprøde møde med Philip José Farmer (amerikansk science fiction forfatter, 1918-2009) var novellen “Sejl videre! Sejl videre” i Jannick Storms antologi “Den elektriske myre” (Borgen 1972). Og der var ovenikøbet en lille artikel med, hvor PJF fortæller lidt om den “worldbuilding”, der ligger til grund for novellen.
Oven i ovenikøbet præsenterer Storm PJF som “avantgardistisk”. Og selvom jeg – i en alder af ti-tolv år – ikke forstod dét ord, så forstod jeg (noget af) meningen, og var i fuld sving med at skrive “koncepter” til historier, der tog udgangspunkt i myter og indsatte dem i en “realistisk virkelighed”. Og de noter måtte så vente 4-5 år, før jeg kunne sætte noget – mere eller mindre – fornuftigt sammen. Og fred med det – glemslen sletter alle spor. Men hvad nu, hvis der virkelig findes djinner i denne verden? Hvad nu, hvis stjernerne kun er huller i Olbers paradox? Hvad nu, hvis der virkelig fandtes galeoner, der sejlede gennem rummet på en ætervind?
I 1978 udgiver Ole Lindboe og Svend Kreiner Møller artikelsamlingen “Virkelige eventyr”
– i hvilken der – blandet meget andet godt – kan findes Palle Juul Holms “Ædle vilde – syge guder”, en fantabuløs introduktion til PJFs forfatterskab.
I en alder af de dér 15-16 år, hvor jeg havde brugt et par år på at læse John Carter på Mars og Lensman-serien af “Doc” Smith, udfra en antagelse om, at jeg lærte at læse engelsk ved at starte med noget nemt, ramte Holms artikel mig i såvel intellektet som gonaderne. Vold og sex i science fiction – HVAD giver De mig, Fru Heilbunth?
“Fisse mig hér og fisse mig dér! Forpulede piratbumser!” som Mikkeline udbryder i første bind af “Thorfinn”, da piratkokken – i tjaldet tilstand – “gør tilnærmelser”. Eller sagt på en anden måde: – det kommer vi tilbage til!
I “Ædle vilde – Syge guder” bruger Holm en del tid på PJFs to store romanserier. “The world of tiers” og “Riverworld”. Og især “World of tiers” “talte” til ét eller andet i mig – navnlig fordi Holm henviser til William Blake, der i sin næsten kierkegaardske søgen efter Den Rette Sandhed (ikke det æstetiske, ikke det etiske, men det religiøse – arme mand!) formulerede en helt ny mytologi, med dertil hørende guder der bærer interessante navne, ja, vi strejfer næsten H.P. Lovecraft: – Urizen, Enitharmon, Tharmas, Urthona, Orc. Og det er disse næsten-guder, som vor hovedperson, Robert Wolff, møder, da han går igennem et garderobeskab (!) og kommer til Den Lagdelte Verden. Og imens læste jeg Blake op til kvalmegrænsen, og af min forstående far fik bøger med Blakes “visuelle output”, om man så må sige.
Rudolf Broby-Johansen skriver om én af Blakes ætsninger, at manden (Blake) ikke har en stand forskid på anatomi, men tydeligvis selv tror på sine visioner, hvori der ligger en ubetinget styrke, der kommer beskueren til gode.
(dette kunne være en illustration til Cordwainer Smiths “A planet named Shayol”)
Nåmmen, alle disse næsten-guder, som Wolff møder, er alle søskende. De lever for evigt. De har ubegrænsede ressourcer til deres rådighed. De hader hinanden og de bygger mikro-kosmosser, der primært er fælder, mens de – hver og én – kun er besat af, at være “kalif i stedet for kaliffen”. Eller – i det mindste – slå konkurrenterne af banen. Sært genkendeligt!
Personligt nåede jeg at læse “sagaen”, indtil en tredjedel inde i “The lavalite World”. Så kunne jeg ikke mere. For PJF var tydeligvis også løbet tør for damp i et evigt forhindringsløb mellem verdener, der ikke gav udsigt til nogen som helst løsning på noget som helst. Men – MEN! – de tre-fire første romaner i serien er det rene guld, når man er lidt deprimeret over at være lønslave og prioritetsbestyrer. Man kan altid blive til Wolff/Jadawin – bror til syge guder, eller Kickaha – høvding over kentaurerne.
Bortset fra … – at det kan man ikke, for “Kickaha” er Paul Janus Finnegan: PJF!
-Som så – i anden inkarnation – hedder Peter Jairus Frigate, og optræder i PJFs “Riverworld”-serie, der er blevet tilstrækkelig eksponeret andre steder, hvorfor jeg ikke sér nogen grund til at gentage noget som helst. Bortset fra én – måske 2 – ting: – Ligesom i “World of tiers” løber PJF sur i “jagten på Skaberen”, når han skal udrede, hvad der foregår i Riverworld-universet. Og det begyndere mere og mere at ligne – ikke Philip José Farmer; men derimod Philip Kendred Dick. hvilket ikke er pænt sagt, men herfra set yderst korrekt. Og hertil kommer at PJFs forklaring på “sjælevandringen” i Riverworld, bliver en gennemskuelig bortforklaring, der på mange måder ligner Star Wars-universets “forklaring” på hvad The Force er: – det har et-eller-andet at gøre med Midi-chlorians, mitokondrier, something-agtigt, ikk’sandt? “It’s in your cells – don’t you understand?”
PJF havde to andre “serier” kørende: – “Dayworld” (1985), 3 romaner, og en lidt mere “hovsa-se-lige-hvad-jeg-kom-til-at lave” -serie om Brer John Carmody, en lægbroder i Sankt Jairus-ordenen. “Sankt Jairus” (se ovenfor 🙂 ). Og historierne (fem-seks noveller og en roman, “Night of Light” (1966)) handler om, hvordan Carmody fiser rundt i universet i en overbevisning om Guds eksistens, men hele tiden bliver konfronteret med tegn på det modsatte. (På en måde minder John Carmody mig om Frank Herbert “Jorj X Mckie” fra hans Conscienticy-univers … – hvilket skal forstås som en anbefaling)
And now to sex!
Philip José Farmer har fået ry for, at være manden der introducerede sex i science fiction. Ikke som et “påhæng”, en bemærkning om at “så bollede de”, men som en integreret del af fortællingen. Og netop “The Lovers” (novelle 1952, roman 1960) er et godt eksempel herpå. Kort handlingsref. med spoilers og hele molevitten: – Hal Yarrow ( hvilket betyder røllike, der er blevet brugt som lokalbedøvende middel!) lever i et teokratisk samfund, konstant overvåget af sin gapt, der hedder Pornsen (!), der skal sørge for at han holder sig på dydens smalle sti (der er så smal, at en linedanser ville blive svimmel). Men da Hal kommer til planeten Ozagen møder han Jeanette, en kvinde der får hans slumrende kønsdrift i omdrejninger, samtidig med at hans tillærte, oplærte, totalitært inducerede, moralkodeks giver ham hovedbrud og kvababbelser. Og finten er nu, at Jeanette ikke er et menneske. Hun er et insekt. Men ikke blot er hun et insekt, hun er en snylter på de insektoider, der bebor Ozagen. Og resultatet af Hals og hendes samlejer er, at hun bliver gravid – med nymfelarver af sin egen art … – hvorefter hun dør, da larverne æder hende op.
Samme år (1960) udgiver PJF romanen “Flesh”, der handler om den efter 800 år hjemvendte rumkaptajn, Peter Stagg (!), der bliver udnævnt til “Sunhero” og sat til at “imprægnere” den hele klodes kvindelige befolkning. Og det eneste jeg vil sige om dén, i dette oplyste forum, er, at den unægtelig minder om “Le Surmale” af Alfred Jarry. En konstatering jeg lige vil lade stå dér, men som jeg vender frygteligt tilbage til.
I 1968 giver PJF den fuld skrald med udgivelsen af to romaner om detektiven Herald Childe, der forvilder sig ind i et okkult-erotisk univers og undergår diverse forvandlinger, og alt drejer sig om penetrationer og sekreter. James Bond i BDMS-klubben med lykantropi i ascendanten. Til hvilket der er at sige, at de to romaner var bestilt som månedlige episoder i herremagasinet “Playboy”. Bunden opgave – men gode penge!
Farmer nævner et sted, at han har haft en “sexobiologiske fase” i sit forfatterskab. Og det må man sige “ja” til, hvis man eksempelvis læser novellesamlingen “Strange Relations”, blandt andet indeholdende den formidable “Mother”. Og – vil min påstand være – netop denne “ouevre” placerer PJF i et interessant spændingsfelt mellem Freud og Jung – og et strejf af Nietzsche … for smagens skyld.
Til gengæld føles det ret påklistret, når vi i “A Feast Unknown” bliver bekendt med, at vores hovedperson og helt, Lord Grandrith, har en gepard-hun med på sine raids i bushen. Jo! For hun – geparden – har anatomiske egenskaber, der gør hende lige så anvendelig som en kvinde (man må håbe, at det Grandrith, der taler og ikke PJF).
Og med Lord Grandrith er vi ovre i en “faible”, der er specielt Farmersk: – hans dybe og inderlige fascination af Tarzan-myten.
Tillad mig at springe mellemregningerne over (dem kan man gøre sig bekendt med i Palle Juul Holms artikel “Ædle vilde – syge guder”), når jeg påpeger at vi hér har at gøre med en civilisations- og kulturkritik. Og aldeles ikke fordi Edgar Rice Burroughs skabte sin Abernes Konge i en kulturpolitisk modus, men fordi Farmer stillede det ret interessante spørgsmål om Oplysningstiden – herunder Rousseau med “Emile” – gjorde os klogere på “den menneskelige tilstand”; eller om det blot var endnu et forsøg på, at knalde forudfattede meninger og “moralske” vilkår i fjæset på menneskeheden? “Naturens søn”? Javel, ja! Men kan han opføre sig ordentligt … ?
Palle Juul Holm anfører i sin artikel, at Farmer ikke har haft umiddelbar adgang til venstreorienteret tænkning, og slet ikke Marx. Og det er lidt sjovt, fordi PJF selv anfører at:
“I’ve written in many fields: – adventure, space operas, parallel worlds, pocket universes, psychological, political, sexual, biological, pastiche (!), religious, horror, time travel, ESP (det var dengang), “biographical”, metaphysical and marxistisk. Det sidstnævnte henviser til Groucho, Chico og Harpo. Ikke Karl!” og Farmer nævner i den forbindelse, at det har tilknytning til hans “polytropical paramyths”.
Så Farmer var udmærket bevidst om Karl – det havde blot ingen betydning i hans amerikanske univers. Hvilket ikke forhindrer ham i en samfundskritik, der kan virke dybt reaktionær, men dog har såvel historiske som politiske rødder.
Jeg nævnte tidligere, at “Flesh” godt kunne ligne Jarrys “Surmale”. Og det vil jeg nu “toppe” med, at PJF havde en trang til at emulere tidligere tiders “Kiosklitteratur” – herunder, som nævnt Tarzan-bøgerne. Og der kan man nævne “The Other Log Of Phileas Fog”, “The Windwhales of Ishmael”, “Greatheart Silver”, “Venus on the half-shell” samt “Ironcastle” – henholdsvis Jules Verne, Hermann Melville, Charles Dickens, “Kilgore Trout” og H. M. Rosny (den ældre) …. – ham med “jagten på ilden”.
Jeg ved ikke om jeg har fristet nogen til at give sig i kast med Philip José Farmers forfatterskab, bestående af jeg ved ikke hvor mange romaner – og sikkert firdobbelt så mange noveller.
Personligt er jeg dog ikke færdig med Farmer – der er så mange lommeuniverser, der stadig trænger til udgranskning eller genlæsning – også selvom manden kan være lidt besværlig. Og heldigvis for det –
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5/ War sehr interessant. Prof. Dr. Thomas Fischer (Vorsitzender Richter am Bundesgerichtshof a.D.) hat aus Strafrechtssicht kommentiert. Er hatte fünf Thesen und These 4 war:
Wenn es straflos wäre, hätte es keinen Sinn. Sie wollen strafbar sein, nur nicht bestraft werden.
Man ehrt den Täter dadurch, dass man ihn bestraft.Ich glaube, dass da was dran ist. Was er auch mehrfach erwähnt hat ist „Nötigung von Verfassungsorganen“.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__105.html
Das kam schon ganz am Anfang der ersten Blockaden auf Twitter mal auf. Dafür gibt es empfindliche Strafen.
Er stellte auch die Frage, wer bestimmt, was wichtig ist, was ein rechtfertigender Notstand ist. „Wenn es erlaubt wäre, würde es jeder machen. Auch die AfD.“
Ich denke, das widerspricht seiner These 4, denn es funktioniert nur, wenn es nicht erlaubt ist. Das ist ja der Teil mit dem #ZivilerUngehorsam.
Prof. Dr. Katrin Höffler (Leipzig) hat viel über Gewaltbegriff gesprochen. Sie hat gegen die Einstufung als #kriminelleVereinigung argumentiert. Die Instrumentalisierung des Strafrechts sei schädlich. Die Kriminalisierung der Umweltbewegung habe Tradition, siehe #Gorleben.
Sie meinte, dass in keinem anderen europäischen Land #Sitzblockade|n #Nötigung sei. Und das Zweitereihestrafrecht nicht funktioniere.
Freut mich immer, wenn das jemand von den Fachleuten sagt. Ich habe es nie verstanden. Die Richterin im Verfahren gegen Hennig Jeschke fand es ja auch merkwürdig ...
Dr. Jens Marquardt (Technische Universität Darmstadt) meinte, dass unter Streiks ja auch Unbeteiligte leiden würden. (den Punkt mit den Unbeteiligten machte Fischer immer wieder.)
Das ist ja auch die Diskussion, die ich mit Peer immer wieder habe. Bei jeder Demo wird jemand gestört.
Jens Marquardt hatte übrigens einen Fehler. Er meinte, dass LG nicht von Anfang an Autobahnen blockiert hätte, denn da war ja auch noch #EssenRettenLebenRetten. Das stimmt so nicht. Die LG hat am 12.11.2021 nach dem Gespräch mit Scholz (für Ende Januar) Autobahnblockaden angekündigt, sollte das Essen-Retten-Gesetz nicht schnell kommen. Es gab dann eine Aktion mit Containern am 08.01.2022 und dann gingen die Blockaden Ende Januar los.
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The Long Arc of Human History is Toward Planetary Thinking - Peter Leyden peterleyden.substack.com/p/the-long-arc… #AI #history #future #globalization #politics
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Kreisbrandmeister verabschiedet: Ein Feuerwehrmensch geht
Claus Baucks Nachfolger Henning Peters offiziell ernannt
https://www.ejz.de/lokales/kreisbrandmeister-verabschiedet-feuerwehrmensch-geht-id309615.html
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2/ Dazu haben wir gemeinsam mit Carlos Gaete Morales und unseren Kollegen @JJohrens und Florian Heining vom #ifeu-Institut in der Zeitschrift Cell Reports Sustainability @cellpress einen Fachartikel veröffentlicht, zu dem wir auch noch eine deutsche Kurzfassung als #DIW Aktuell herausgebracht haben.
Fachartikel: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100123
DIW Aktuell: https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.905786.de/publikationen/diw_aktuell/2024_0094/klimaschutz_im_gueterverkehr__batterieelektrische_antriebe_k___r_mit_erneuerbarem_strom_versorgt_werden_als_wasserstoff-lkw.html -
Two papers have been accepted at the ICSE 2026, taking place April 12-18, 2026.
“Same Same But Different: Preventing Refactoring Attacks on Software Plagiarism Detection” by Robin Maisch, Larissa Schmid, Timur Sağlam, Nils Niehues.
“The whos, whats, and whys of issues related to personal data and data protection in open-source projects on GitHub” by Anne Hennig, Lukas Schulte, Steffen Herbold, Oksana Kulyk, Peter Mayer.
Congratulations to the Authors! -
The #paper "From Matrix to Metrics: Introducing and Applying a Configuration Matrix to Evaluate DMARC Policies" by Tobias Länge, Fabian Ballreich, Anne Hennig, Peter Mayer, and Melanie Volkamer was accepted for presentation at the #Workshop Measurements, Attacks, and Defenses for the Web (MADWeb) 2026. In the paper, an utility-oriented #configuration matrix was developed that focuses on the anti-#spoofing effectiveness of different #DMARC configurations and provides clear recommendations for selecting the appropriate configuration. An analysis of the data from the Tranco Top-100k domains reveals over a period of eight month showed that domains move towards configurations that are more effective against email spoofing, however, still exhibiting a lack of knowledge with respect to different policy settings.
#MadWeb 2026 will take place as co-located event with #NDSS on February 27, 2026 in San Diego, USA: https://madweb.work/@Aryderwood@chaos.social @madwebwork -
The #paper “Fix It - If you Can! Towards Understanding the Impact of Tool Support and Domain Owners’ Reactions to SSHFP Misconfigurations" by Anne Hennig, Sebastian Neef, and Peter Mayer has been accepted for presentation at the @ACSAC_Conf! The paper sent notifications to domain owners with misconfigured #SSHFP records, investigating the effect of tool support. While the sender of the #notification itself has no effect, the results suggest that tool support might increase remediation when the sender of the notification is different than the institution providing the tool. By analyzing domain owners’ responses to the authors' notification, multiple reasons for non-remediation were identified, supporting the argument that remediation rate should not be considered a success measure for a notification campaign but instead individual challenges faced by domain owners should be taken into account. ACSAC will take place December 8 to 12, 2025, in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA: https://www.acsac.org/
@Aryderwood @gehaxelt -
Sketchnote on "Structured reasoning with language" - final keynote at #eswc2024 by Peter Clark
#LLMs #KnowledgeGraphs #beliefgraphs and LLM #agents -
Kreisbrandmeister verabschiedet: Ein Feuerwehrmensch geht
Claus Baucks Nachfolger Henning Peters offiziell ernannt
https://www.ejz.de/lokales/kreisbrandmeister-verabschiedet-feuerwehrmensch-geht-id309615.html
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Kreisbrandmeister verabschiedet: Ein Feuerwehrmensch geht
Claus Baucks Nachfolger Henning Peters offiziell ernannt
https://www.ejz.de/lokales/kreisbrandmeister-verabschiedet-feuerwehrmensch-geht-id309615.html
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Kreisbrandmeister verabschiedet: Ein Feuerwehrmensch geht
Claus Baucks Nachfolger Henning Peters offiziell ernannt
https://www.ejz.de/lokales/kreisbrandmeister-verabschiedet-feuerwehrmensch-geht-id309615.html
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Kreisbrandmeister verabschiedet: Ein Feuerwehrmensch geht
Claus Baucks Nachfolger Henning Peters offiziell ernannt
https://www.ejz.de/lokales/kreisbrandmeister-verabschiedet-feuerwehrmensch-geht-id309615.html
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The #paper "From Matrix to Metrics: Introducing and Applying a Configuration Matrix to Evaluate DMARC Policies" by Tobias Länge, Fabian Ballreich, Anne Hennig, Peter Mayer, and Melanie Volkamer was accepted for presentation at the #Workshop Measurements, Attacks, and Defenses for the Web (MADWeb) 2026. In the paper, an utility-oriented #configuration matrix was developed that focuses on the anti-#spoofing effectiveness of different #DMARC configurations and provides clear recommendations for selecting the appropriate configuration. An analysis of the data from the Tranco Top-100k domains reveals over a period of eight month showed that domains move towards configurations that are more effective against email spoofing, however, still exhibiting a lack of knowledge with respect to different policy settings.
#MadWeb 2026 will take place as co-located event with #NDSS on February 27, 2026 in San Diego, USA: https://madweb.work/@Aryderwood@chaos.social @madwebwork -
The #paper "From Matrix to Metrics: Introducing and Applying a Configuration Matrix to Evaluate DMARC Policies" by Tobias Länge, Fabian Ballreich, Anne Hennig, Peter Mayer, and Melanie Volkamer was accepted for presentation at the #Workshop Measurements, Attacks, and Defenses for the Web (MADWeb) 2026. In the paper, an utility-oriented #configuration matrix was developed that focuses on the anti-#spoofing effectiveness of different #DMARC configurations and provides clear recommendations for selecting the appropriate configuration. An analysis of the data from the Tranco Top-100k domains reveals over a period of eight month showed that domains move towards configurations that are more effective against email spoofing, however, still exhibiting a lack of knowledge with respect to different policy settings.
#MadWeb 2026 will take place as co-located event with #NDSS on February 27, 2026 in San Diego, USA: https://madweb.work/@Aryderwood@chaos.social @madwebwork -
The #paper "From Matrix to Metrics: Introducing and Applying a Configuration Matrix to Evaluate DMARC Policies" by Tobias Länge, Fabian Ballreich, Anne Hennig, Peter Mayer, and Melanie Volkamer was accepted for presentation at the #Workshop Measurements, Attacks, and Defenses for the Web (MADWeb) 2026. In the paper, an utility-oriented #configuration matrix was developed that focuses on the anti-#spoofing effectiveness of different #DMARC configurations and provides clear recommendations for selecting the appropriate configuration. An analysis of the data from the Tranco Top-100k domains reveals over a period of eight month showed that domains move towards configurations that are more effective against email spoofing, however, still exhibiting a lack of knowledge with respect to different policy settings.
#MadWeb 2026 will take place as co-located event with #NDSS on February 27, 2026 in San Diego, USA: https://madweb.work/@Aryderwood@chaos.social @madwebwork -
The #paper "From Matrix to Metrics: Introducing and Applying a Configuration Matrix to Evaluate DMARC Policies" by Tobias Länge, Fabian Ballreich, Anne Hennig, Peter Mayer, and Melanie Volkamer was accepted for presentation at the #Workshop Measurements, Attacks, and Defenses for the Web (MADWeb) 2026. In the paper, an utility-oriented #configuration matrix was developed that focuses on the anti-#spoofing effectiveness of different #DMARC configurations and provides clear recommendations for selecting the appropriate configuration. An analysis of the data from the Tranco Top-100k domains reveals over a period of eight month showed that domains move towards configurations that are more effective against email spoofing, however, still exhibiting a lack of knowledge with respect to different policy settings.
#MadWeb 2026 will take place as co-located event with #NDSS on February 27, 2026 in San Diego, USA: https://madweb.work/@Aryderwood@chaos.social @madwebwork -
Wednesday Reads: Trump Considers Attacks on Iran and Other News
Good Day!!
Trump is reportedly considering joining Israel in bombing Iran’s nuclear sites. He’s once again ignoring the findings of the U.S. intelligence community, which has assessed that Iran is not actively developing a nuclear weapon. In fact he’s angry at his DNI Tulsi Gabbard for reporting that finding.
Shouldn’t Congress be involved in a decision to go to war? Back in 2002, George W. Bush went to Congress for authorization to attack Iraq, and obtained two AUMF’s (Authorization for Military Force against Iraq) before beginning the bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq. After Trump’s bizarre behavior at the G7 meeting in Canada this week, I for one do not feel comfortable having this insane person making a decision that could start World War III.
War on Iran?
W.J. Hennigan at The New York Times: Trump Might Get Us Into Another War. Where’s Congress?
As President Trump considers pulling American forces into a risky and unpredictable new war in the Middle East, it’s time for the legislative branch to step up. U.S. lawmakers should insist the president obtain a new war authorization from Congress before U.S. forces take any military action against Iran.
While Mr. Trump has so far refrained from committing U.S. military support to Israel’s air campaign, he also hasn’t ruled it out. On Tuesday he called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” and mentioned the open possibility of killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a statement posted to his social media site.
Smoke plumes billow following an overnight Israeli strike on Tehran on June 17. Atta KenareAFP via Getty Images
The Pentagon has already been moving military hardware, including ships and aircraft, toward the Middle East to give Mr. Trump a wider range of options should he decide to join the war. The United States is supporting Israel through other means as well, including defending against Iran’s drone and missile attacks.
But it is Congress’ constitutional right to declare war — not the president’s — despite the wide latitude given to the White House in recent decades to use military force during the war on terror. As Mr. Trump seriously considers joining Israel in this war, it is essential for elected lawmakers to reclaim their responsibility and put their names on record with a vote as to whether they’re willing to send American troops in harm’s way in yet another war in the Middle East.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, presidents have depended on open-ended legal authorizations from Congress to use military force against a wide array of militant groups in at least 22 countries. Days after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and elsewhere, Congress passed a law known as an Authorization for Use of Military Force, or A.U.M.F., that President George W. Bush used to invade Afghanistan; a second A.U.M.F. was passed by Congress in 2002 to invade Iraq. President Barack Obama used those authorizations to expand the drone wars to places like Syria, Yemen and Somalia. President Joe Biden later used them to attack Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria nearly a quarter-century later.
Hennigan argues that it is past time for Congress to take back it’s power to declare war.
“The founders expected the United States to comply with international law and for Congress to check a president’s lawless rush to war,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a University of Notre Dame law professor and an expert on international law. “Without a discussion and vote in Congress, this restraining mechanism is lost.”
Mr. Trump has already spent days publicly contemplating whether or not to join Israel in the conflict. Dr. O’Connell compared the situation to the past decisions to go to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and against Iraq in 2003. In both cases, Congress passed a war authorization law.
Those laws granted the commander in chief sweeping powers to send troops into combat and launch military operations with few restrictions, putting the United States on an open-ended war footing ever since. It’s unclear what legal rationale the Trump White House would use if it does decide to take military action against Iran, but legal scholars are skeptical that current legislation is sufficient.
“He absolutely needs congressional authorization if he intends to use military force against Iran,” said Oona Hathaway, a former Pentagon lawyer and professor at Yale Law School. “That clearly would not fall within either of the existing A.U.M.F.s.”
I’m not holding my breath waiting for Trump to respect the limits of his power under the Constitution.
The New York Times: Iran Is Preparing Missiles for Possible Retaliatory Strikes on U.S. Bases, Officials Say.
Iran has prepared missiles and other military equipment for strikes on U.S. bases in the Middle East should the United States join Israel’s war against the country, according to American officials who have reviewed intelligence reports.
The United States has sent about three dozen refueling aircraft to Europe that could be used to assist fighter jets protecting American bases or that would be used to extend the range of bombers involved in any possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Black smoke billows from the headquarters of Iranian state television in Tehran following an Israeli attack on June 16, 2025. Kyodo AP
Fears of a wider war are growing among American officials as Israel presses the White House to intervene in its conflict with Iran. If the United States joins the Israeli campaign and strikes Fordo, a key Iranian nuclear facility, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia will almost certainly resume striking ships in the Red Sea, the officials said. They added that pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria would probably try to attack U.S. bases there.
Other officials said that in the event of an attack, Iran could begin to mine the Strait of Hormuz, a tactic meant to pin American warships in the Persian Gulf.
Commanders put American troops on high alert at military bases throughout the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The United States has more than 40,000 troops deployed in the Middle East.
Two Iranian officials have acknowledged that the country would attack U.S. bases in the Middle East, starting with those in Iraq, if the United States joined Israel’s war.
Iran would also target any American bases that are in Arab countries and take part in an attack, the two officials said.
CNN live updates: Iran says it won’t surrender in Israel conflict as Trump weighs US involvement.
What you need to know
• Trump considers his options: US President Donald Trump said his patience with Iran has “already run out,” but he declined to say whether he has made a decision on US military intervention as the Israel-Iran conflict escalates. CNN previously reported that Trump is growing increasingly warm to using US military assets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.
• Iran issues warning: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a national address that Iran will not surrender and warned that any US military intervention would result in “irreparable damage.” He also criticized Israel for launching its military campaign while Iran was engaged in nuclear talks with the United States.
• On the ground: Israel said its air force is striking military targets in Tehran. One strike occurred near a Red Crescent facility in the capital, according to Iranian state media. Meanwhile, Iran is experiencing a near-complete internet blackout, according to a watchdog organization.
Politico: Hegseth defers to general on Pentagon’s plans for Iran.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given an unusual level of authority to a single general in the latest Middle East crisis — an Iran hawk who is pushing for a strong military response against the country.
U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Erik Kurilla has played an outsized role in the escalating clashes between Tehran and Israel, with officials noting nearly all his requests have been approved, from more aircraft carriers to fighter planes in the region.
General Erik Kurilla
The pugnacious general, who is known as “The Gorilla,” is overruling other top Pentagon officials and playing a quiet but decisive role in the country’s next steps on Iran, according to a former and current defense official, a diplomat, and a person familiar with the dynamic.
Hegseth’s apparent deference to Kurilla undermines the image the Pentagon chief has sought to project of a tough-talking leader who has vowed to reduce the influence of four-star generals and reassert civilian control.
“If the senior military guys come across as tough and warfighters, Hegseth is easily persuaded to their point of view,” said the former official. Kurilla “has been very good at getting what he wants.” [….]
Kurilla’s arguments to send more U.S. weapons to the region, including air defenses, have gone against Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, who have urged caution in overcommitting to the Middle East, according to the four people.
Read more at Politico.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has the temerity to disagree with Trump on whether Iran is actively developing a nuclear weapon, and Trump not happy with her.
AP: US spies said Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon. Trump dismisses that assessment.
Tulsi Gabbard left no doubt when she testified to Congress about Iran’s nuclear program earlier this year.
The country was not building a nuclear weapon, the national intelligence director told lawmakers, and its supreme leader had not reauthorized the dormant program even though it had enriched uranium to higher levels.
But President Donald Trump dismissed the assessment of U.S. spy agencies during an overnight flight back to Washington as he cut short his trip to the Group of Seven summit to focus on the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump told reporters. In his view, Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear bomb.
Trump’s statement aligned him more closely with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has described a nuclear-armed Iran as an imminent threat, than with his own top intelligence adviser. Trump met with national security officials, including Gabbard, in the Situation Room on Tuesday as he plans next steps.
The Independent: Trump is ‘losing confidence’ in Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as he mulls removing her entire office, senior official says.
As he weighs joining Israel’s war against Iran, President Donald Trump reportedly finds himself at odds with his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, with one White House official saying that he has “just been kind of down on her in general” of late.
Tulsi Gabbard
The president was recently incensed, according to Politico, by Gabbard’s decision to post a three-minute video on X in the early hours of June 10 in which she warned that “political elite and warmongers” are “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” placing the world “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”
Trump is said to have been angered by the video, accusing Gabbard of going “off-message” and rebuking her for it in person.
One of the senior administration officials, quoted anonymously by Politico, said there is a growing perception within the West Wing that the former Hawaii Democratic congresswoman, who once ran for that party’s presidential nomination, “doesn’t add anything to any conversation.”
“I don’t think [Trump] dislikes Tulsi as a person,” said another. “But certainly the video made him not super hot on her… and he doesn’t like it when people are off message.” They added that “many took that video as trying to correct the administration’s position.”
More News and Opinion:
You undoubtedly heard that Kristi Noem has been hospitalized for an “allergic reaction.” People on social media have suggested this had something today with Botox or fillers, but that’s just mean.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was transported by ambulance on Tuesday to a hospital in Washington, DC, after an allergic reaction, the Department of Homeland Security said.
“Secretary Noem had an allergic reaction today. She was transported to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. She is alert and recovering,” said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
CNN observed several Secret Service agents posted at several entrances outside the emergency room at the hospital where the secretary was admitted.
Noem, 53, who previously served as the governor of South Dakota and represented the state in Congress, was tapped to serve as President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security secretary just days after he was elected for a second term, positioning her as a critical member of his cabinet after he made immigration a major part of his campaign. She was confirmed for the role by the Senate in late January.
Since returning to office, Trump has pushed for an aggressive crackdown on immigration — ranging from deploying troops to the border to evoking wartime authority to deport undocumented migrants — and Noem has carried out the president’s agenda.
Josephine Harvey at The Daily Beast: ICE Barbie Visited Biohazard Lab With RFK Jr. Before Hospitalization.
Kristi Noem was hospitalized for an allergic reaction one day after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared a photo of them both visiting a biosafety lab that was temporarily shut down due to safety concerns.
Kristy Noem at the Biohazard lab at Ft. Detrick
“With @Sec_Noem and @SenRandPaul inspecting the biological hazard labs at Fort Detrick,” the Health and Human Services Secretary posted, sharing an image of himself with Noem and GOP Sen. Rand Paul at the Integrated Research Facility in Frederick, Maryland.
On Tuesday, Noem was taken to the hospital by ambulance for an “allergic reaction,” DHS’ Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told the Daily Beast in a statement.
“She was transported to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. She is alert and recovering,” McLaughlin said.
It’s not clear what prompted the allergic reaction, and there’s nothing to suggest the incident was anything more than a bizarre coincidence.
More destruction from RFK Jr:
Apoorva Mandavilli at The New York Times: Why a Vaccine Expert Left the C.D.C.: ‘Americans Are Going to Die.’
In 13 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Fiona Havers crafted guidance for contending with Zika virus, helped China respond to outbreaks of bird flu and guided safe burial practices for Ebola deaths in Liberia.
More recently, she was a senior adviser on vaccine policy, leading a team that produced data on hospitalizations related to Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus. To the select group of scientists, federal officials and advocates who study who should get immunizations and when, Dr. Havers is well known, an embodiment of the C.D.C.’s intensive data-gathering operations.
On Monday, Dr. Havers resigned, saying she could no longer continue while the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dismantled the careful processes that help formulate vaccination standards in the United States.
“If it isn’t stopped, and some of this isn’t reversed, like, immediately, a lot of Americans are going to die as a result of vaccine-preventable diseases,” she said in an interview with The New York Times, the first since her resignation.
Dr. Havers, 49, cited an escalating series of attacks on federal vaccine policy by Mr. Kennedy. Three weeks ago, the health secretary announced in a minute-long video on X that the agency would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women.
Last week, he fired all 17 members of the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, saying without evidence that the group was beset with conflicts of interest and that a clean sweep was needed to restore public trust.
Mr. Kennedy went on to name eight new members, at least half of whom appear to share his antipathy to vaccines. Two have testified against vaccine makers in trials.
Trump appears to be winning his case against California over the National Guard.
The New York Times: Appeals Court Seems Inclined to Let Trump Control National Guard in L.A. for Now.
A federal appeals court appeared inclined on Tuesday to allow President Trump, against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom, to keep using California’s National Guard for now to protect immigration enforcement agents and quell protesters in Los Angeles.
Throughout a 65-minute hearing, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit signaled skepticism of the idea that the judiciary should second-guess Mr. Trump’s determination that deploying the state militia to Los Angeles is necessary to protect federal agents and buildings.
The hearing came at a time when local organizers have vowed to continue protesting against immigration raids, though demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles have quieted since the weekend.
A district court judge, Charles Breyer, determined last week that Mr. Trump’s use of the National Guard was illegal and temporarily ordered the president to return control of the forces to Mr. Newsom.
But the Trump administration immediately appealed the ruling, and the Ninth Circuit panel stayed the lower court decision while it considered the matter. It seemed likely on Tuesday that the panel, which consists of two appointees of Mr. Trump and one of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., would keep that stay in place.
The two Trump appointees, Judges Mark J. Bennett and Eric D. Miller, did the bulk of the talking. Both appeared skeptical of the Justice Department’s argument that courts have no ability to review Mr. Trump’s decision to invoke a statute allowing him to call up the Guard. But they also seemed inclined to find that the sometimes violent protests in Los Angeles were enough to defer to Mr. Trump’s decision.
Another Democratic politician was violently arrested by ICE yesterday.
Andrew Egger at The Bulwark: Trump’s Goon Squad Strikes Again.
Last Thursday, California Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security news conference, pushed to the ground, and handcuffed by authorities. If you thought the ensuing backlash might make federal agents more cautious about manhandling opposition politicians, you thought wrong.
Brad Lander being arrested by ICE goons
Yesterday, federal agents in New York City handcuffed another Democratic official: Brad Lander, the city comptroller and a current candidate for mayor. Video taken inside a New York immigration court showed Lander standing next to someone who ICE agents—some in plainclothes, some masked—were trying to take into custody. Lander repeatedly demanded to see a warrant, and kept an arm locked with the man as agents tried to take him away, walking in a scrum with them down the hallway. Moments later, agents placed Lander under arrest as well.
In a statement released after the encounter, the Department of Homeland Security preposterously claimed that Lander had been arrested “for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.” The latter claim was true; the former laughably false.
“No one is above the law,” the DHS statement went on, “and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.” The U.S. attorney’s office in New York seemingly disagreed. Lander—like Padilla last week—was released without being charged.
…the White House’s immigration enforcement mooks1plainly haven’t been instructed to avoid further high-profile clashes with Democratic officials. Lander—who, as we noted, is currently running for mayor—might well have been angling for a photo-op. But ICE agents were also all too happy to give him one, and DHS leadership was all too happy to lean into the story….on a similar note, the story continues the pattern of Trump’s federal law enforcement agencies publicly accusing people of criminal conduct that goes beyond what they’re willing to actually charge in court….
…put yourself in Lander’s shoes. Masked agents show up to whisk a migrant away. Maybe he’ll get to tell his family where he is, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll have the opportunity to speak to a lawyer or plead his case to a judge, maybe he won’t. And you think to yourself: Will there be a legal process? Or am I the very last person who has a chance to intervene on this person’s behalf?
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
#BiohazardLabAtFrDetrick #CaliforniaNationalGuard #CongressionalAuthorizationForMilitaryForce #GeneralErikKurilla #KristiNoem #PeteHegseth #RobertFKennedyJr_ #TulsiGabbard #vaccines
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Wednesday Reads: Trump Considers Attacks on Iran and Other News
Good Day!!
Trump is reportedly considering joining Israel in bombing Iran’s nuclear sites. He’s once again ignoring the findings of the U.S. intelligence community, which has assessed that Iran is not actively developing a nuclear weapon. In fact he’s angry at his DNI Tulsi Gabbard for reporting that finding.
Shouldn’t Congress be involved in a decision to go to war? Back in 2002, George W. Bush went to Congress for authorization to attack Iraq, and obtained two AUMF’s (Authorization for Military Force against Iraq) before beginning the bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq. After Trump’s bizarre behavior at the G7 meeting in Canada this week, I for one do not feel comfortable having this insane person making a decision that could start World War III.
War on Iran?
W.J. Hennigan at The New York Times: Trump Might Get Us Into Another War. Where’s Congress?
As President Trump considers pulling American forces into a risky and unpredictable new war in the Middle East, it’s time for the legislative branch to step up. U.S. lawmakers should insist the president obtain a new war authorization from Congress before U.S. forces take any military action against Iran.
While Mr. Trump has so far refrained from committing U.S. military support to Israel’s air campaign, he also hasn’t ruled it out. On Tuesday he called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” and mentioned the open possibility of killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a statement posted to his social media site.
Smoke plumes billow following an overnight Israeli strike on Tehran on June 17. Atta KenareAFP via Getty Images
The Pentagon has already been moving military hardware, including ships and aircraft, toward the Middle East to give Mr. Trump a wider range of options should he decide to join the war. The United States is supporting Israel through other means as well, including defending against Iran’s drone and missile attacks.
But it is Congress’ constitutional right to declare war — not the president’s — despite the wide latitude given to the White House in recent decades to use military force during the war on terror. As Mr. Trump seriously considers joining Israel in this war, it is essential for elected lawmakers to reclaim their responsibility and put their names on record with a vote as to whether they’re willing to send American troops in harm’s way in yet another war in the Middle East.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, presidents have depended on open-ended legal authorizations from Congress to use military force against a wide array of militant groups in at least 22 countries. Days after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and elsewhere, Congress passed a law known as an Authorization for Use of Military Force, or A.U.M.F., that President George W. Bush used to invade Afghanistan; a second A.U.M.F. was passed by Congress in 2002 to invade Iraq. President Barack Obama used those authorizations to expand the drone wars to places like Syria, Yemen and Somalia. President Joe Biden later used them to attack Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria nearly a quarter-century later.
Hennigan argues that it is past time for Congress to take back it’s power to declare war.
“The founders expected the United States to comply with international law and for Congress to check a president’s lawless rush to war,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a University of Notre Dame law professor and an expert on international law. “Without a discussion and vote in Congress, this restraining mechanism is lost.”
Mr. Trump has already spent days publicly contemplating whether or not to join Israel in the conflict. Dr. O’Connell compared the situation to the past decisions to go to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and against Iraq in 2003. In both cases, Congress passed a war authorization law.
Those laws granted the commander in chief sweeping powers to send troops into combat and launch military operations with few restrictions, putting the United States on an open-ended war footing ever since. It’s unclear what legal rationale the Trump White House would use if it does decide to take military action against Iran, but legal scholars are skeptical that current legislation is sufficient.
“He absolutely needs congressional authorization if he intends to use military force against Iran,” said Oona Hathaway, a former Pentagon lawyer and professor at Yale Law School. “That clearly would not fall within either of the existing A.U.M.F.s.”
I’m not holding my breath waiting for Trump to respect the limits of his power under the Constitution.
The New York Times: Iran Is Preparing Missiles for Possible Retaliatory Strikes on U.S. Bases, Officials Say.
Iran has prepared missiles and other military equipment for strikes on U.S. bases in the Middle East should the United States join Israel’s war against the country, according to American officials who have reviewed intelligence reports.
The United States has sent about three dozen refueling aircraft to Europe that could be used to assist fighter jets protecting American bases or that would be used to extend the range of bombers involved in any possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Black smoke billows from the headquarters of Iranian state television in Tehran following an Israeli attack on June 16, 2025. Kyodo AP
Fears of a wider war are growing among American officials as Israel presses the White House to intervene in its conflict with Iran. If the United States joins the Israeli campaign and strikes Fordo, a key Iranian nuclear facility, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia will almost certainly resume striking ships in the Red Sea, the officials said. They added that pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria would probably try to attack U.S. bases there.
Other officials said that in the event of an attack, Iran could begin to mine the Strait of Hormuz, a tactic meant to pin American warships in the Persian Gulf.
Commanders put American troops on high alert at military bases throughout the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The United States has more than 40,000 troops deployed in the Middle East.
Two Iranian officials have acknowledged that the country would attack U.S. bases in the Middle East, starting with those in Iraq, if the United States joined Israel’s war.
Iran would also target any American bases that are in Arab countries and take part in an attack, the two officials said.
CNN live updates: Iran says it won’t surrender in Israel conflict as Trump weighs US involvement.
What you need to know
• Trump considers his options: US President Donald Trump said his patience with Iran has “already run out,” but he declined to say whether he has made a decision on US military intervention as the Israel-Iran conflict escalates. CNN previously reported that Trump is growing increasingly warm to using US military assets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.
• Iran issues warning: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a national address that Iran will not surrender and warned that any US military intervention would result in “irreparable damage.” He also criticized Israel for launching its military campaign while Iran was engaged in nuclear talks with the United States.
• On the ground: Israel said its air force is striking military targets in Tehran. One strike occurred near a Red Crescent facility in the capital, according to Iranian state media. Meanwhile, Iran is experiencing a near-complete internet blackout, according to a watchdog organization.
Politico: Hegseth defers to general on Pentagon’s plans for Iran.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given an unusual level of authority to a single general in the latest Middle East crisis — an Iran hawk who is pushing for a strong military response against the country.
U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Erik Kurilla has played an outsized role in the escalating clashes between Tehran and Israel, with officials noting nearly all his requests have been approved, from more aircraft carriers to fighter planes in the region.
General Erik Kurilla
The pugnacious general, who is known as “The Gorilla,” is overruling other top Pentagon officials and playing a quiet but decisive role in the country’s next steps on Iran, according to a former and current defense official, a diplomat, and a person familiar with the dynamic.
Hegseth’s apparent deference to Kurilla undermines the image the Pentagon chief has sought to project of a tough-talking leader who has vowed to reduce the influence of four-star generals and reassert civilian control.
“If the senior military guys come across as tough and warfighters, Hegseth is easily persuaded to their point of view,” said the former official. Kurilla “has been very good at getting what he wants.” [….]
Kurilla’s arguments to send more U.S. weapons to the region, including air defenses, have gone against Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, who have urged caution in overcommitting to the Middle East, according to the four people.
Read more at Politico.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has the temerity to disagree with Trump on whether Iran is actively developing a nuclear weapon, and Trump not happy with her.
AP: US spies said Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon. Trump dismisses that assessment.
Tulsi Gabbard left no doubt when she testified to Congress about Iran’s nuclear program earlier this year.
The country was not building a nuclear weapon, the national intelligence director told lawmakers, and its supreme leader had not reauthorized the dormant program even though it had enriched uranium to higher levels.
But President Donald Trump dismissed the assessment of U.S. spy agencies during an overnight flight back to Washington as he cut short his trip to the Group of Seven summit to focus on the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump told reporters. In his view, Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear bomb.
Trump’s statement aligned him more closely with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has described a nuclear-armed Iran as an imminent threat, than with his own top intelligence adviser. Trump met with national security officials, including Gabbard, in the Situation Room on Tuesday as he plans next steps.
The Independent: Trump is ‘losing confidence’ in Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as he mulls removing her entire office, senior official says.
As he weighs joining Israel’s war against Iran, President Donald Trump reportedly finds himself at odds with his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, with one White House official saying that he has “just been kind of down on her in general” of late.
Tulsi Gabbard
The president was recently incensed, according to Politico, by Gabbard’s decision to post a three-minute video on X in the early hours of June 10 in which she warned that “political elite and warmongers” are “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” placing the world “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”
Trump is said to have been angered by the video, accusing Gabbard of going “off-message” and rebuking her for it in person.
One of the senior administration officials, quoted anonymously by Politico, said there is a growing perception within the West Wing that the former Hawaii Democratic congresswoman, who once ran for that party’s presidential nomination, “doesn’t add anything to any conversation.”
“I don’t think [Trump] dislikes Tulsi as a person,” said another. “But certainly the video made him not super hot on her… and he doesn’t like it when people are off message.” They added that “many took that video as trying to correct the administration’s position.”
More News and Opinion:
You undoubtedly heard that Kristi Noem has been hospitalized for an “allergic reaction.” People on social media have suggested this had something today with Botox or fillers, but that’s just mean.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was transported by ambulance on Tuesday to a hospital in Washington, DC, after an allergic reaction, the Department of Homeland Security said.
“Secretary Noem had an allergic reaction today. She was transported to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. She is alert and recovering,” said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
CNN observed several Secret Service agents posted at several entrances outside the emergency room at the hospital where the secretary was admitted.
Noem, 53, who previously served as the governor of South Dakota and represented the state in Congress, was tapped to serve as President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security secretary just days after he was elected for a second term, positioning her as a critical member of his cabinet after he made immigration a major part of his campaign. She was confirmed for the role by the Senate in late January.
Since returning to office, Trump has pushed for an aggressive crackdown on immigration — ranging from deploying troops to the border to evoking wartime authority to deport undocumented migrants — and Noem has carried out the president’s agenda.
Josephine Harvey at The Daily Beast: ICE Barbie Visited Biohazard Lab With RFK Jr. Before Hospitalization.
Kristi Noem was hospitalized for an allergic reaction one day after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared a photo of them both visiting a biosafety lab that was temporarily shut down due to safety concerns.
Kristy Noem at the Biohazard lab at Ft. Detrick
“With @Sec_Noem and @SenRandPaul inspecting the biological hazard labs at Fort Detrick,” the Health and Human Services Secretary posted, sharing an image of himself with Noem and GOP Sen. Rand Paul at the Integrated Research Facility in Frederick, Maryland.
On Tuesday, Noem was taken to the hospital by ambulance for an “allergic reaction,” DHS’ Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told the Daily Beast in a statement.
“She was transported to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. She is alert and recovering,” McLaughlin said.
It’s not clear what prompted the allergic reaction, and there’s nothing to suggest the incident was anything more than a bizarre coincidence.
More destruction from RFK Jr:
Apoorva Mandavilli at The New York Times: Why a Vaccine Expert Left the C.D.C.: ‘Americans Are Going to Die.’
In 13 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Fiona Havers crafted guidance for contending with Zika virus, helped China respond to outbreaks of bird flu and guided safe burial practices for Ebola deaths in Liberia.
More recently, she was a senior adviser on vaccine policy, leading a team that produced data on hospitalizations related to Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus. To the select group of scientists, federal officials and advocates who study who should get immunizations and when, Dr. Havers is well known, an embodiment of the C.D.C.’s intensive data-gathering operations.
On Monday, Dr. Havers resigned, saying she could no longer continue while the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dismantled the careful processes that help formulate vaccination standards in the United States.
“If it isn’t stopped, and some of this isn’t reversed, like, immediately, a lot of Americans are going to die as a result of vaccine-preventable diseases,” she said in an interview with The New York Times, the first since her resignation.
Dr. Havers, 49, cited an escalating series of attacks on federal vaccine policy by Mr. Kennedy. Three weeks ago, the health secretary announced in a minute-long video on X that the agency would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women.
Last week, he fired all 17 members of the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, saying without evidence that the group was beset with conflicts of interest and that a clean sweep was needed to restore public trust.
Mr. Kennedy went on to name eight new members, at least half of whom appear to share his antipathy to vaccines. Two have testified against vaccine makers in trials.
Trump appears to be winning his case against California over the National Guard.
The New York Times: Appeals Court Seems Inclined to Let Trump Control National Guard in L.A. for Now.
A federal appeals court appeared inclined on Tuesday to allow President Trump, against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom, to keep using California’s National Guard for now to protect immigration enforcement agents and quell protesters in Los Angeles.
Throughout a 65-minute hearing, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit signaled skepticism of the idea that the judiciary should second-guess Mr. Trump’s determination that deploying the state militia to Los Angeles is necessary to protect federal agents and buildings.
The hearing came at a time when local organizers have vowed to continue protesting against immigration raids, though demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles have quieted since the weekend.
A district court judge, Charles Breyer, determined last week that Mr. Trump’s use of the National Guard was illegal and temporarily ordered the president to return control of the forces to Mr. Newsom.
But the Trump administration immediately appealed the ruling, and the Ninth Circuit panel stayed the lower court decision while it considered the matter. It seemed likely on Tuesday that the panel, which consists of two appointees of Mr. Trump and one of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., would keep that stay in place.
The two Trump appointees, Judges Mark J. Bennett and Eric D. Miller, did the bulk of the talking. Both appeared skeptical of the Justice Department’s argument that courts have no ability to review Mr. Trump’s decision to invoke a statute allowing him to call up the Guard. But they also seemed inclined to find that the sometimes violent protests in Los Angeles were enough to defer to Mr. Trump’s decision.
Another Democratic politician was violently arrested by ICE yesterday.
Andrew Egger at The Bulwark: Trump’s Goon Squad Strikes Again.
Last Thursday, California Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security news conference, pushed to the ground, and handcuffed by authorities. If you thought the ensuing backlash might make federal agents more cautious about manhandling opposition politicians, you thought wrong.
Brad Lander being arrested by ICE goons
Yesterday, federal agents in New York City handcuffed another Democratic official: Brad Lander, the city comptroller and a current candidate for mayor. Video taken inside a New York immigration court showed Lander standing next to someone who ICE agents—some in plainclothes, some masked—were trying to take into custody. Lander repeatedly demanded to see a warrant, and kept an arm locked with the man as agents tried to take him away, walking in a scrum with them down the hallway. Moments later, agents placed Lander under arrest as well.
In a statement released after the encounter, the Department of Homeland Security preposterously claimed that Lander had been arrested “for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.” The latter claim was true; the former laughably false.
“No one is above the law,” the DHS statement went on, “and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.” The U.S. attorney’s office in New York seemingly disagreed. Lander—like Padilla last week—was released without being charged.
…the White House’s immigration enforcement mooks1plainly haven’t been instructed to avoid further high-profile clashes with Democratic officials. Lander—who, as we noted, is currently running for mayor—might well have been angling for a photo-op. But ICE agents were also all too happy to give him one, and DHS leadership was all too happy to lean into the story….on a similar note, the story continues the pattern of Trump’s federal law enforcement agencies publicly accusing people of criminal conduct that goes beyond what they’re willing to actually charge in court….
…put yourself in Lander’s shoes. Masked agents show up to whisk a migrant away. Maybe he’ll get to tell his family where he is, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll have the opportunity to speak to a lawyer or plead his case to a judge, maybe he won’t. And you think to yourself: Will there be a legal process? Or am I the very last person who has a chance to intervene on this person’s behalf?
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
#BiohazardLabAtFrDetrick #CaliforniaNationalGuard #CongressionalAuthorizationForMilitaryForce #GeneralErikKurilla #KristiNoem #PeteHegseth #RobertFKennedyJr_ #TulsiGabbard #vaccines
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This year's SOUPS Conference started Monday in Anaheim, California! This year, there are four #SECUSO representatives at #SOUPS2023: Benjamin Berens, Maxime Veit, Peter Mayer, and Anne Hennig!
Unfortunately, not all of us could make it, and not all could make it in time, but we finally managed to take a group picture 🥳🤩
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Literary Cats Along With Some News
Good Afternoon!!
Haruki Murakami with Kafka
It’s the end of another week in which lots of bad things happened. Frankly, I can’t keep track of everything anymore. Here are some of the stories that interested me most.
I’m still recovering from Tuesday’s insane performances by Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump in front of 800 military leaders whom they forced to travel to Quantico Marine Corps base from all over the world. Former Lt. General Mark Hertling writes about it at The Bulwark: Questions After Quantico.
THE SPEECHES ON TUESDAY IN QUANTICO—by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of Defense (or War, as he would have it) Pete Hegseth, and President Donald Trump—were over in just two hours. But for the generals, admirals, and senior enlisted who left that auditorium and started their long flights home to the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, those speeches were just the beginning. Because when Washington speaks—especially when it speaks with bluster, ambiguity, or hostility—it is the commanders who must translate to their troops, steady their units, and respond to the challenges of new orders.
I’ve been that commander. I’ve flown back overnight from Washington to Germany, walked into my headquarters in Heidelberg, and faced staff officers and soldiers who were waiting—not for a policy memo, not for another directive from the Pentagon, but for their commander to tell them what it all meant and to give them implementing instructions. After Tuesday’s meeting, they will want to know what things they will have to change, if their country still believes in them, if the oath they swore still anchors their service, if the mission they’re preparing for or executing still has clarity and legitimacy….
…[T]he shockwaves of the Quantico gathering are only now beginning to reverberate through bases in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East, and beyond. Because when those commanders and their enlisted advisors returned to their posts, bases, air wings, or carrier strike groups, the questions began.
As the speech was being publicly broadcast, female soldiers living on the Kasernes of Germany watching on the Armed Forces Network were asking one another: Does this mean our opportunities to serve in jobs we love are closing again? Will I still be allowed to compete fairly for assignments and promotions? Black soldiers, weary and wary of subtle slights and systemic hurdles, will wonder if the new emphasis on “appearance” and “discipline” means a return to the days when shaving profiles for painful and unsightly face “bumps” were treated as liabilities instead of as a need for legitimate accommodations. Sikh soldiers, who after long battles were only recently granted the right to wear turbans and keep beards as part of a commonsense accommodation for their faith, will now wonder if that right will again be questioned. For each of them, their unique individuality and love for service in uniform are inseparable.
And gay and transgender service members—many of whom finally felt able to serve openly over the last decade—felt the floor shift beneath them yet again. Do I need to start making plans to leave? one staff sergeant might quietly ask her first sergeant. Or do I just keep my head down and hope this storm passes? Keeping your head down is sometimes needed in combat when engaging with the enemy; it’s not something we want from our soldiers who are living their Army value of “personal courage.”
There will be broader, increasingly gnawing concerns for the staffs: Are we really being asked to prepare for missions inside our own cities? What happens if peaceful protesters are described as “enemies”? Where does that leave the oath we swore—to the Constitution, not to a man or a party?
These aren’t abstract policy questions. They will be whispered in barracks hallways, posed after hours in a motor pool, or texted late at night to a trusted squad leader. They are the lived reality of a military force watching politics intrude on their profession. And with each one, there is the question of degraded morale, an erosion of trust.
How will commanders handle these overwhelming questions? Read what Hertling has to say about it at The Bulwark.
Patricia HIghsmith with Ripley
I’m also still gloating about the latest exploit by Trump’s stupidest cabinet member (and that’s really saying something, considering that group of morons) Howard Lutnik. Lutnick gave an interview to a podcast hosted by Miranda Devine of the New York Post in which he told personal stories about Jeffrey Epstein, who was once Lutnick’s next door neighbor in New York City. Could there be anything more guaranteed to enrage Trump?
Josh Christenson at The New York Post: Howard Lutnick tells ‘Pod Force One’ ex-neighbor Jeffrey Epstein showed off massage room, made creepy comment during townhouse tour.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in a notable break with the Department of Justice, claimed late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” — and may have traded the feds video of his rich and well-connected associates getting massages from young women in exchange for a controversial 2008 plea deal.
Lutnick made the shocking allegations to The Post’s Miranda Devine on the latest episode of “Pod Force One,” out now.
The 64-year-old cabinet secretary said Epstein himself showed off his notorious “massage room” while giving Lutnick and his wife a tour of the infamous East 71st Street townhouse after the couple moved in next door to the since-disgraced financier in 2005.
“I say to him, ‘Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?’” Lutnick recalled. “And he says, ‘Every day.’ And then he gets, like weirdly close to me, and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’”
Lutnick said he and his wife quickly excused themselves and left Epstein’s home, “and in the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”
When asked by Devine whether Epstein’s rich and powerful associates — including the likes of Prince Andrew and Microsoft founder Bill Gates — “could hang around him and not see what you saw, or did they see it and ignore it,” Lutnick responded, “They participated.”
“They get a massage, that’s what his MO was. ‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video,” the commerce secretary went on. “This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.” [….]
Lutnick added: “I assume way back when they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18-month sentence, which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he’s a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? There must have been a trade.
“So, my assumption, I have no knowledge, but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos, because there were people on those videos,” he also claimed.
Hahahaha!! Trump has tried so hard to distract from the Epstein files. He was pals for years with the guy who nauseated Howard Lutnick after one brief interaction. Now Democrats in the Congress want Lutnick to testify for their committees. You can watch the video of the Lutnick interview at the NY Post link.
Gore Vidal with Caligula
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy at USA Today: Trump’s commerce secretary calls Jeffrey Epstein the ‘greatest blackmailer.’
For months, President Donald Trump has pleaded with his supporters to move on from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy − calling it a “Democratic hoax” − even as he faces growing calls from Congress and many in his own MAGA base for more disclosure on the jet-setting sex offender.
But Trump’s fellow billionaire and Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, apparently didn’t get the memo.
Lutnick held forth on a recent podcast about how he found Epstein, who was a close friend of Trump’s for more than a decade, to be “gross” and believed he was a “blackmailer.”
“He was gross,” said Lutnick, in a Oct.1 podcast interview with New York Post’s Miranda Devine. Lutnick described Epstein as the “greatest blackmailer ever” and suggested he had used compromising videos of prominent men to get a 2008 sweetheart deal in Florida amid a child prostitution investigation.
Those comments sharply differ from a memo released by the Justice Department and FBI in July which said that there was no “credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals” or that he kept an “incriminating client list.”
One more on Lutnick by Asawin Suebsaeng at Zeteo: ‘F***ing Dumbass’: Trump Officials Want Howard Lutnick Sidelined After Epstein Comments.
Top officials in Donald Trump’s administration are furious with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, knowledgeable sources tell Zeteo, after he went on a tabloid podcast this week and blabbed about the one sex criminal who Team Trump wants to talk about least: Jeffrey Epstein. Not only that, but Lutnick went off script and undermined the government’s entire story about the late Epstein.
For months, President Trump and the highest levels of his administration have been trying to sell the public and his MAGA supporters on their conclusion that Epstein, the notorious sex offender and former Trump pal,did not run a secret sexual-blackmail operation targeting wealthy, powerful elites.
Sylvia Plath with “Daddy”
On Wednesday morning, the New York Post published parts of its podcast sit-down with Lutnick, who was once Epstein’s neighbor. The Trump Cabinet member told the Post about his tour of Epstein’s townhouse, where Epstein showed him his “massage room.” Lutnick said he was quickly “disgusted,” before asserting that Epstein’s rich and famous associates not only knew about his bad behavior but “participated.” He called Epstein a “blackmailer,” something the Trump administration strenuously denies.
Several senior Trump officials, some of whom were responsible for carefully curating the messaging regarding the administration’s decision to end its Epstein investigation, were apoplectic on Wednesday, bemoaning to one another about why Lutnick is still employed by the president and why the commerce secretary is allowed to do media appearances, four senior Trump administration appointees tell Zeteo.
“That fucking dumbass,” one of the senior Trump administration officials told Zeteo on Wednesday, after seeing a clip of Lutnick riffing on Epstein. “I’ve worked with him and can tell you he doesn’t think he did anything negative… That’s not how he thinks. He just talks and talks, and doesn’t care what unhelpful bullshit comes out.”
Well, Trump appointed that dumbass, along with a bunch of other idiots in his cabinet.
In more serious news, Trump is still murdering people in small boats off the coast of Venezuela.
Kathryn Armstrong at BBC News: Four killed in latest US strike on alleged drug vessel near Venezuela.
US forces have killed four people in an attack on a boat off the coast of Venezuela that was allegedly trafficking drugs, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says.
“The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X.
It is the latest in a number of recent deadly strikes that the US has carried out on boats in international waters it says are involved in “narco-trafficking”.
The strikes have attracted condemnation in countries including Venezuela and Colombia, with some international lawyers describing the strikes as a breach of international law.
Hegseth said the attack took place in the US Southern Command’s area of responsibility, which covers most of South America and the Caribbean.
“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route,” Hegseth said about Friday’s attack.
“These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
US President Trump also confirmed the strike on his Truth Social platform, saying that the boat was carrying enough drugs “to kill 25 to 50 thousand people”.
However, the US has not provided evidence for its claims or any information about the identities of those on board.
An opinion piece from W.J. Hennigan at The New York Times (gift link): If We’re at War, Americans Deserve to Know More About It.
The Trump administration told Congress this week that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
The average American knows vanishingly little about what its government seeks to accomplish in this fight. Citizens aren’t in possession of the metrics by which to judge the administration’s pursuit of those goals.
George Bernard Shaw with Pygmalian
We haven’t been told which specific drugs they seek to stop. We haven’t been told much about which specific groups they seek to destroy. We haven’t been told much about what legal authorities they are acting on.
Withholding this information from the American public is the administration’s way to escape scrutiny. At the very least, the country deserves some evidence of whether the military operation is working.
If stopping the flow of drugs is the goal, the actions taken so far have been unpersuasive. American forces, at the direction of President Trump, executed a lethal airstrike on Friday on a boat off Venezuela, killing four people on board. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video of the attack on X, saying, “The vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” adding that it was “affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations.”
This is the sort of vague language the administration has used in its campaign over the past two months as it directs the military to sporadically launch airstrikes — now totaling four — against boats in the region that the government says are running drugs. No corresponding evidence has been provided to the public to support the actions. The operation amounts to extrajudicial executions, according to U.N. officials.
A bit more:
Without delving into the strikes’ questionable legality again, the bombing runs fall well short of decisive military actions. It would be hard to convince anyone that blowing up a few motorboats — and all the people aboard them — will prove conclusive in winning the half-century-old war on drugs.
For one thing, this isn’t how the Pentagon combats enemy networks. Say what you will about the many failures of America’s global war on terrorism, but it’s undeniable the U.S. military became frighteningly proficient at penetrating and taking apart organizations over the past quarter-century.
Instead of systematically killing low- and midlevel henchmen in pinprick airstrikes, U.S. forces learned that more information could be gleaned through capturing those suspects and gathering, bagging and tagging their personal electronics for intelligence analysis. A phone from a suspect’s pocket in Iraq, for instance, would often include enough information, such as phone numbers and text conversations, so that a follow-on raid on other operatives could be planned. This is how U.S. forces mapped out countless terrorist groups’ leadership ranks along with the fighters under their command.
The infrastructure for ship interdictions already exists in the Caribbean. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy have long interdicted vessels that they suspected of drug running.
Why the administration has opted to blow apart potential leads and sources instead of exploiting them is anyone’s guess.
These are serious questions, but Trump and Hegseth aren’t serious people. All they are interested in is blowing people and boats up and posting videos of the action. It’s disgusting that they are getting away with doing this in our name. You can use the gift link to read the rest of this thoughtful article.
The Abrego Garcia case is still going on, and there was a notable ruling yesterday.
Alan Feuer at The New York Times (gift link): Judge Finds ‘Likelihood’ That Charges Against Abrego Garcia Are Vindictive.
A federal judge in Nashville ruled on Friday that there was a “realistic likelihood” that the indictment filed against Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the immigrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March and then brought back to face criminal charges, amounted to a vindictive prosecution by the Justice Department.
The ruling was an astonishing rebuke of both the department and some of its top officials, including Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general. Mr. Blanche was called out by name in the ruling for remarks he made about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case on the same day in June he was returned to U.S. soil to face the charges in Federal District Court in Nashville.
Doris Lessing with Black Madonna
In a 16-page decision, Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. said there was evidence that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s prosecution “may stem from retaliation” by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Judge Crenshaw found that Trump officials may have sought to punish Mr. Abrego Garcia for having filed a lawsuit successfully challenging his initial “unlawful deportation” to El Salvador.
Moreover, Judge Crenshaw indicated how he was serious about getting to the bottom of the issue of vindictiveness. He said he intended to permit Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to pry, at least in part, into the Trump administration’s process of deciding to bring an indictment in the first place and how the charges related to the deportation case.
Vindictive prosecution motions are exceedingly difficult to win because of the high threshold required to prove that prosecutors acted improperly by filing criminal charges. Under the law, cases can be considered vindictive only if defendants can show that prosecutors displayed animus toward them while they were seeking to vindicate their rights in court, and that the charges would not have been brought except for the existence of that animus.
While Judge Crenshaw has not yet made a final decision on the issue of vindictiveness, the fact that he is even considering doing so in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case is a hugely embarrassing blow to the Trump administration. From the moment Trump officials acknowledged that they had mistakenly expelled Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, President Trump and his top aides began a relentless barrage of attacks against him, calling him a violent member of the street gang MS-13, a wife beater and even a terrorist, effectively blaming him for being the victim of their own administrative error.
The judge’s ruling highlighted the ways in which the habit many Trump officials have of speaking out of court about legal cases has — or could — come back to haunt them.
Use the gift link to read the rest if you’re intersted.
Trump has been talking about sending troops to cities governed by Democrats. Lately he’s been focusing on Portland, Oregon. This is just beyond belief. And we know about it because of another leak from Signal.
Catherine Bouris at The Daily Beast: Trump Goon Spills Bonkers Plan to Deploy 82nd Airborne to Blue City.
A senior White House official accidentally disclosed that the Trump administration was considering deploying an elite army strike force into Portland by using Signal in a public place.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported Friday that Anthony Salisbury, one of Stephen Miller’s top deputies, was observed discussing the plans via Signal in view of members of the public while traveling in Minnesota. The newspaper was then contacted by one member of the public who was troubled to see sensitive military plans discussed so openly.
Aldous Huxley with Limbo
In the messages, senior White House officials discussed the potential deployment of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, an elite unit that specializes in parachuting into hostile territory. The division has been deployed in both world wars, including the Battle of the Bulge, as well as Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Across several conversations, the Star Tribune reports, Salisbury spoke about a range of matters with Pete Hegseth adviser Patrick Weaver as well as other officials.
In one of the messages, Weaver revealed that Hegseth wanted Trump to explicitly instruct him to send soldiers to Portland.
“Between you and I, I think Pete just wants the top cover from the boss if anything goes sideways with the troops there,” Weaver reportedly said.
Noting the potentially disastrous optics around sending an elite division into an American city, Weaver told Salisbury, “82nd is like our top tier [quick reaction force] for abroad. So it will cause a lot of headlines. Probably why he wants potus to tell him to do it.”
Ultimately, Trump opted to send 200 National Guard soldiers into Portland, following a similar playbook used in other Democrat-controlled cities like Los Angeles and Washington D.C. Both the state of Oregon and the city of Portland have sued to stop the deployment.
More interesting reads to check out:
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Here’s How Trump Loses the Shutdown. God help us but Gavin Newsom is the only Democrat who understands power.
Jens Stoltenberg at The Guardian: ‘I’m leaving,’ Trump said. ‘There’s no reason to be here any more’: inside the meeting that brought Nato to the brink (Former secretary general Jens Stoltenberg recalls the rollercoaster ride of dealing with Donald Trump – and how close the US president brought the alliance to the point of collapse.)
The Independent: ‘It’s not a good place right now’: CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom.
The New York Times: Supreme Court Lets Trump Revoke Deportation Protections for Venezuelans.
The Guardian: Body slamming, teargas and pepper balls: viral videos show Ice using extreme force in Chicago.
Those are the stories that interested me today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
#82ndAirborne #catArt #caturday #deportations #DonaldTrump #droneStrikesOnBoats #extrajudicialExecutions #HowardLutnick #immigration #JeffreyEpstein #KilmarAbregoGarcia #literaryCats #MarkHertling #MirandaDevine #PeteHegseth #PortlandOR #SignalAppLeaks #Venezuela
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Literary Cats Along With Some News
Good Afternoon!!
Haruki Murakami with Kafka
It’s the end of another week in which lots of bad things happened. Frankly, I can’t keep track of everything anymore. Here are some of the stories that interested me most.
I’m still recovering from Tuesday’s insane performances by Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump in front of 800 military leaders whom they forced to travel to Quantico Marine Corps base from all over the world. Former Lt. General Mark Hertling writes about it at The Bulwark: Questions After Quantico.
THE SPEECHES ON TUESDAY IN QUANTICO—by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of Defense (or War, as he would have it) Pete Hegseth, and President Donald Trump—were over in just two hours. But for the generals, admirals, and senior enlisted who left that auditorium and started their long flights home to the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, those speeches were just the beginning. Because when Washington speaks—especially when it speaks with bluster, ambiguity, or hostility—it is the commanders who must translate to their troops, steady their units, and respond to the challenges of new orders.
I’ve been that commander. I’ve flown back overnight from Washington to Germany, walked into my headquarters in Heidelberg, and faced staff officers and soldiers who were waiting—not for a policy memo, not for another directive from the Pentagon, but for their commander to tell them what it all meant and to give them implementing instructions. After Tuesday’s meeting, they will want to know what things they will have to change, if their country still believes in them, if the oath they swore still anchors their service, if the mission they’re preparing for or executing still has clarity and legitimacy….
…[T]he shockwaves of the Quantico gathering are only now beginning to reverberate through bases in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East, and beyond. Because when those commanders and their enlisted advisors returned to their posts, bases, air wings, or carrier strike groups, the questions began.
As the speech was being publicly broadcast, female soldiers living on the Kasernes of Germany watching on the Armed Forces Network were asking one another: Does this mean our opportunities to serve in jobs we love are closing again? Will I still be allowed to compete fairly for assignments and promotions? Black soldiers, weary and wary of subtle slights and systemic hurdles, will wonder if the new emphasis on “appearance” and “discipline” means a return to the days when shaving profiles for painful and unsightly face “bumps” were treated as liabilities instead of as a need for legitimate accommodations. Sikh soldiers, who after long battles were only recently granted the right to wear turbans and keep beards as part of a commonsense accommodation for their faith, will now wonder if that right will again be questioned. For each of them, their unique individuality and love for service in uniform are inseparable.
And gay and transgender service members—many of whom finally felt able to serve openly over the last decade—felt the floor shift beneath them yet again. Do I need to start making plans to leave? one staff sergeant might quietly ask her first sergeant. Or do I just keep my head down and hope this storm passes? Keeping your head down is sometimes needed in combat when engaging with the enemy; it’s not something we want from our soldiers who are living their Army value of “personal courage.”
There will be broader, increasingly gnawing concerns for the staffs: Are we really being asked to prepare for missions inside our own cities? What happens if peaceful protesters are described as “enemies”? Where does that leave the oath we swore—to the Constitution, not to a man or a party?
These aren’t abstract policy questions. They will be whispered in barracks hallways, posed after hours in a motor pool, or texted late at night to a trusted squad leader. They are the lived reality of a military force watching politics intrude on their profession. And with each one, there is the question of degraded morale, an erosion of trust.
How will commanders handle these overwhelming questions? Read what Hertling has to say about it at The Bulwark.
Patricia HIghsmith with Ripley
I’m also still gloating about the latest exploit by Trump’s stupidest cabinet member (and that’s really saying something, considering that group of morons) Howard Lutnik. Lutnick gave an interview to a podcast hosted by Miranda Devine of the New York Post in which he told personal stories about Jeffrey Epstein, who was once Lutnick’s next door neighbor in New York City. Could there be anything more guaranteed to enrage Trump?
Josh Christenson at The New York Post: Howard Lutnick tells ‘Pod Force One’ ex-neighbor Jeffrey Epstein showed off massage room, made creepy comment during townhouse tour.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in a notable break with the Department of Justice, claimed late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” — and may have traded the feds video of his rich and well-connected associates getting massages from young women in exchange for a controversial 2008 plea deal.
Lutnick made the shocking allegations to The Post’s Miranda Devine on the latest episode of “Pod Force One,” out now.
The 64-year-old cabinet secretary said Epstein himself showed off his notorious “massage room” while giving Lutnick and his wife a tour of the infamous East 71st Street townhouse after the couple moved in next door to the since-disgraced financier in 2005.
“I say to him, ‘Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?’” Lutnick recalled. “And he says, ‘Every day.’ And then he gets, like weirdly close to me, and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’”
Lutnick said he and his wife quickly excused themselves and left Epstein’s home, “and in the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”
When asked by Devine whether Epstein’s rich and powerful associates — including the likes of Prince Andrew and Microsoft founder Bill Gates — “could hang around him and not see what you saw, or did they see it and ignore it,” Lutnick responded, “They participated.”
“They get a massage, that’s what his MO was. ‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video,” the commerce secretary went on. “This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.” [….]
Lutnick added: “I assume way back when they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18-month sentence, which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he’s a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? There must have been a trade.
“So, my assumption, I have no knowledge, but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos, because there were people on those videos,” he also claimed.
Hahahaha!! Trump has tried so hard to distract from the Epstein files. He was pals for years with the guy who nauseated Howard Lutnick after one brief interaction. Now Democrats in the Congress want Lutnick to testify for their committees. You can watch the video of the Lutnick interview at the NY Post link.
Gore Vidal with Caligula
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy at USA Today: Trump’s commerce secretary calls Jeffrey Epstein the ‘greatest blackmailer.’
For months, President Donald Trump has pleaded with his supporters to move on from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy − calling it a “Democratic hoax” − even as he faces growing calls from Congress and many in his own MAGA base for more disclosure on the jet-setting sex offender.
But Trump’s fellow billionaire and Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, apparently didn’t get the memo.
Lutnick held forth on a recent podcast about how he found Epstein, who was a close friend of Trump’s for more than a decade, to be “gross” and believed he was a “blackmailer.”
“He was gross,” said Lutnick, in a Oct.1 podcast interview with New York Post’s Miranda Devine. Lutnick described Epstein as the “greatest blackmailer ever” and suggested he had used compromising videos of prominent men to get a 2008 sweetheart deal in Florida amid a child prostitution investigation.
Those comments sharply differ from a memo released by the Justice Department and FBI in July which said that there was no “credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals” or that he kept an “incriminating client list.”
One more on Lutnick by Asawin Suebsaeng at Zeteo: ‘F***ing Dumbass’: Trump Officials Want Howard Lutnick Sidelined After Epstein Comments.
Top officials in Donald Trump’s administration are furious with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, knowledgeable sources tell Zeteo, after he went on a tabloid podcast this week and blabbed about the one sex criminal who Team Trump wants to talk about least: Jeffrey Epstein. Not only that, but Lutnick went off script and undermined the government’s entire story about the late Epstein.
For months, President Trump and the highest levels of his administration have been trying to sell the public and his MAGA supporters on their conclusion that Epstein, the notorious sex offender and former Trump pal,did not run a secret sexual-blackmail operation targeting wealthy, powerful elites.
Sylvia Plath with “Daddy”
On Wednesday morning, the New York Post published parts of its podcast sit-down with Lutnick, who was once Epstein’s neighbor. The Trump Cabinet member told the Post about his tour of Epstein’s townhouse, where Epstein showed him his “massage room.” Lutnick said he was quickly “disgusted,” before asserting that Epstein’s rich and famous associates not only knew about his bad behavior but “participated.” He called Epstein a “blackmailer,” something the Trump administration strenuously denies.
Several senior Trump officials, some of whom were responsible for carefully curating the messaging regarding the administration’s decision to end its Epstein investigation, were apoplectic on Wednesday, bemoaning to one another about why Lutnick is still employed by the president and why the commerce secretary is allowed to do media appearances, four senior Trump administration appointees tell Zeteo.
“That fucking dumbass,” one of the senior Trump administration officials told Zeteo on Wednesday, after seeing a clip of Lutnick riffing on Epstein. “I’ve worked with him and can tell you he doesn’t think he did anything negative… That’s not how he thinks. He just talks and talks, and doesn’t care what unhelpful bullshit comes out.”
Well, Trump appointed that dumbass, along with a bunch of other idiots in his cabinet.
In more serious news, Trump is still murdering people in small boats off the coast of Venezuela.
Kathryn Armstrong at BBC News: Four killed in latest US strike on alleged drug vessel near Venezuela.
US forces have killed four people in an attack on a boat off the coast of Venezuela that was allegedly trafficking drugs, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says.
“The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X.
It is the latest in a number of recent deadly strikes that the US has carried out on boats in international waters it says are involved in “narco-trafficking”.
The strikes have attracted condemnation in countries including Venezuela and Colombia, with some international lawyers describing the strikes as a breach of international law.
Hegseth said the attack took place in the US Southern Command’s area of responsibility, which covers most of South America and the Caribbean.
“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route,” Hegseth said about Friday’s attack.
“These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
US President Trump also confirmed the strike on his Truth Social platform, saying that the boat was carrying enough drugs “to kill 25 to 50 thousand people”.
However, the US has not provided evidence for its claims or any information about the identities of those on board.
An opinion piece from W.J. Hennigan at The New York Times (gift link): If We’re at War, Americans Deserve to Know More About It.
The Trump administration told Congress this week that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
The average American knows vanishingly little about what its government seeks to accomplish in this fight. Citizens aren’t in possession of the metrics by which to judge the administration’s pursuit of those goals.
George Bernard Shaw with Pygmalian
We haven’t been told which specific drugs they seek to stop. We haven’t been told much about which specific groups they seek to destroy. We haven’t been told much about what legal authorities they are acting on.
Withholding this information from the American public is the administration’s way to escape scrutiny. At the very least, the country deserves some evidence of whether the military operation is working.
If stopping the flow of drugs is the goal, the actions taken so far have been unpersuasive. American forces, at the direction of President Trump, executed a lethal airstrike on Friday on a boat off Venezuela, killing four people on board. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video of the attack on X, saying, “The vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” adding that it was “affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations.”
This is the sort of vague language the administration has used in its campaign over the past two months as it directs the military to sporadically launch airstrikes — now totaling four — against boats in the region that the government says are running drugs. No corresponding evidence has been provided to the public to support the actions. The operation amounts to extrajudicial executions, according to U.N. officials.
A bit more:
Without delving into the strikes’ questionable legality again, the bombing runs fall well short of decisive military actions. It would be hard to convince anyone that blowing up a few motorboats — and all the people aboard them — will prove conclusive in winning the half-century-old war on drugs.
For one thing, this isn’t how the Pentagon combats enemy networks. Say what you will about the many failures of America’s global war on terrorism, but it’s undeniable the U.S. military became frighteningly proficient at penetrating and taking apart organizations over the past quarter-century.
Instead of systematically killing low- and midlevel henchmen in pinprick airstrikes, U.S. forces learned that more information could be gleaned through capturing those suspects and gathering, bagging and tagging their personal electronics for intelligence analysis. A phone from a suspect’s pocket in Iraq, for instance, would often include enough information, such as phone numbers and text conversations, so that a follow-on raid on other operatives could be planned. This is how U.S. forces mapped out countless terrorist groups’ leadership ranks along with the fighters under their command.
The infrastructure for ship interdictions already exists in the Caribbean. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy have long interdicted vessels that they suspected of drug running.
Why the administration has opted to blow apart potential leads and sources instead of exploiting them is anyone’s guess.
These are serious questions, but Trump and Hegseth aren’t serious people. All they are interested in is blowing people and boats up and posting videos of the action. It’s disgusting that they are getting away with doing this in our name. You can use the gift link to read the rest of this thoughtful article.
The Abrego Garcia case is still going on, and there was a notable ruling yesterday.
Alan Feuer at The New York Times (gift link): Judge Finds ‘Likelihood’ That Charges Against Abrego Garcia Are Vindictive.
A federal judge in Nashville ruled on Friday that there was a “realistic likelihood” that the indictment filed against Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the immigrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March and then brought back to face criminal charges, amounted to a vindictive prosecution by the Justice Department.
The ruling was an astonishing rebuke of both the department and some of its top officials, including Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general. Mr. Blanche was called out by name in the ruling for remarks he made about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case on the same day in June he was returned to U.S. soil to face the charges in Federal District Court in Nashville.
Doris Lessing with Black Madonna
In a 16-page decision, Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. said there was evidence that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s prosecution “may stem from retaliation” by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Judge Crenshaw found that Trump officials may have sought to punish Mr. Abrego Garcia for having filed a lawsuit successfully challenging his initial “unlawful deportation” to El Salvador.
Moreover, Judge Crenshaw indicated how he was serious about getting to the bottom of the issue of vindictiveness. He said he intended to permit Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to pry, at least in part, into the Trump administration’s process of deciding to bring an indictment in the first place and how the charges related to the deportation case.
Vindictive prosecution motions are exceedingly difficult to win because of the high threshold required to prove that prosecutors acted improperly by filing criminal charges. Under the law, cases can be considered vindictive only if defendants can show that prosecutors displayed animus toward them while they were seeking to vindicate their rights in court, and that the charges would not have been brought except for the existence of that animus.
While Judge Crenshaw has not yet made a final decision on the issue of vindictiveness, the fact that he is even considering doing so in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case is a hugely embarrassing blow to the Trump administration. From the moment Trump officials acknowledged that they had mistakenly expelled Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, President Trump and his top aides began a relentless barrage of attacks against him, calling him a violent member of the street gang MS-13, a wife beater and even a terrorist, effectively blaming him for being the victim of their own administrative error.
The judge’s ruling highlighted the ways in which the habit many Trump officials have of speaking out of court about legal cases has — or could — come back to haunt them.
Use the gift link to read the rest if you’re intersted.
Trump has been talking about sending troops to cities governed by Democrats. Lately he’s been focusing on Portland, Oregon. This is just beyond belief. And we know about it because of another leak from Signal.
Catherine Bouris at The Daily Beast: Trump Goon Spills Bonkers Plan to Deploy 82nd Airborne to Blue City.
A senior White House official accidentally disclosed that the Trump administration was considering deploying an elite army strike force into Portland by using Signal in a public place.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported Friday that Anthony Salisbury, one of Stephen Miller’s top deputies, was observed discussing the plans via Signal in view of members of the public while traveling in Minnesota. The newspaper was then contacted by one member of the public who was troubled to see sensitive military plans discussed so openly.
Aldous Huxley with Limbo
In the messages, senior White House officials discussed the potential deployment of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, an elite unit that specializes in parachuting into hostile territory. The division has been deployed in both world wars, including the Battle of the Bulge, as well as Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Across several conversations, the Star Tribune reports, Salisbury spoke about a range of matters with Pete Hegseth adviser Patrick Weaver as well as other officials.
In one of the messages, Weaver revealed that Hegseth wanted Trump to explicitly instruct him to send soldiers to Portland.
“Between you and I, I think Pete just wants the top cover from the boss if anything goes sideways with the troops there,” Weaver reportedly said.
Noting the potentially disastrous optics around sending an elite division into an American city, Weaver told Salisbury, “82nd is like our top tier [quick reaction force] for abroad. So it will cause a lot of headlines. Probably why he wants potus to tell him to do it.”
Ultimately, Trump opted to send 200 National Guard soldiers into Portland, following a similar playbook used in other Democrat-controlled cities like Los Angeles and Washington D.C. Both the state of Oregon and the city of Portland have sued to stop the deployment.
More interesting reads to check out:
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Here’s How Trump Loses the Shutdown. God help us but Gavin Newsom is the only Democrat who understands power.
Jens Stoltenberg at The Guardian: ‘I’m leaving,’ Trump said. ‘There’s no reason to be here any more’: inside the meeting that brought Nato to the brink (Former secretary general Jens Stoltenberg recalls the rollercoaster ride of dealing with Donald Trump – and how close the US president brought the alliance to the point of collapse.)
The Independent: ‘It’s not a good place right now’: CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom.
The New York Times: Supreme Court Lets Trump Revoke Deportation Protections for Venezuelans.
The Guardian: Body slamming, teargas and pepper balls: viral videos show Ice using extreme force in Chicago.
Those are the stories that interested me today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
#82ndAirborne #catArt #caturday #deportations #DonaldTrump #droneStrikesOnBoats #extrajudicialExecutions #HowardLutnick #immigration #JeffreyEpstein #KilmarAbregoGarcia #literaryCats #MarkHertling #MirandaDevine #PeteHegseth #PortlandOR #SignalAppLeaks #Venezuela
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Literary Cats Along With Some News
Good Afternoon!!
Haruki Murakami with Kafka
It’s the end of another week in which lots of bad things happened. Frankly, I can’t keep track of everything anymore. Here are some of the stories that interested me most.
I’m still recovering from Tuesday’s insane performances by Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump in front of 800 military leaders whom they forced to travel to Quantico Marine Corps base from all over the world. Former Lt. General Mark Hertling writes about it at The Bulwark: Questions After Quantico.
THE SPEECHES ON TUESDAY IN QUANTICO—by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of Defense (or War, as he would have it) Pete Hegseth, and President Donald Trump—were over in just two hours. But for the generals, admirals, and senior enlisted who left that auditorium and started their long flights home to the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, those speeches were just the beginning. Because when Washington speaks—especially when it speaks with bluster, ambiguity, or hostility—it is the commanders who must translate to their troops, steady their units, and respond to the challenges of new orders.
I’ve been that commander. I’ve flown back overnight from Washington to Germany, walked into my headquarters in Heidelberg, and faced staff officers and soldiers who were waiting—not for a policy memo, not for another directive from the Pentagon, but for their commander to tell them what it all meant and to give them implementing instructions. After Tuesday’s meeting, they will want to know what things they will have to change, if their country still believes in them, if the oath they swore still anchors their service, if the mission they’re preparing for or executing still has clarity and legitimacy….
…[T]he shockwaves of the Quantico gathering are only now beginning to reverberate through bases in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East, and beyond. Because when those commanders and their enlisted advisors returned to their posts, bases, air wings, or carrier strike groups, the questions began.
As the speech was being publicly broadcast, female soldiers living on the Kasernes of Germany watching on the Armed Forces Network were asking one another: Does this mean our opportunities to serve in jobs we love are closing again? Will I still be allowed to compete fairly for assignments and promotions? Black soldiers, weary and wary of subtle slights and systemic hurdles, will wonder if the new emphasis on “appearance” and “discipline” means a return to the days when shaving profiles for painful and unsightly face “bumps” were treated as liabilities instead of as a need for legitimate accommodations. Sikh soldiers, who after long battles were only recently granted the right to wear turbans and keep beards as part of a commonsense accommodation for their faith, will now wonder if that right will again be questioned. For each of them, their unique individuality and love for service in uniform are inseparable.
And gay and transgender service members—many of whom finally felt able to serve openly over the last decade—felt the floor shift beneath them yet again. Do I need to start making plans to leave? one staff sergeant might quietly ask her first sergeant. Or do I just keep my head down and hope this storm passes? Keeping your head down is sometimes needed in combat when engaging with the enemy; it’s not something we want from our soldiers who are living their Army value of “personal courage.”
There will be broader, increasingly gnawing concerns for the staffs: Are we really being asked to prepare for missions inside our own cities? What happens if peaceful protesters are described as “enemies”? Where does that leave the oath we swore—to the Constitution, not to a man or a party?
These aren’t abstract policy questions. They will be whispered in barracks hallways, posed after hours in a motor pool, or texted late at night to a trusted squad leader. They are the lived reality of a military force watching politics intrude on their profession. And with each one, there is the question of degraded morale, an erosion of trust.
How will commanders handle these overwhelming questions? Read what Hertling has to say about it at The Bulwark.
Patricia HIghsmith with Ripley
I’m also still gloating about the latest exploit by Trump’s stupidest cabinet member (and that’s really saying something, considering that group of morons) Howard Lutnik. Lutnick gave an interview to a podcast hosted by Miranda Devine of the New York Post in which he told personal stories about Jeffrey Epstein, who was once Lutnick’s next door neighbor in New York City. Could there be anything more guaranteed to enrage Trump?
Josh Christenson at The New York Post: Howard Lutnick tells ‘Pod Force One’ ex-neighbor Jeffrey Epstein showed off massage room, made creepy comment during townhouse tour.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in a notable break with the Department of Justice, claimed late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” — and may have traded the feds video of his rich and well-connected associates getting massages from young women in exchange for a controversial 2008 plea deal.
Lutnick made the shocking allegations to The Post’s Miranda Devine on the latest episode of “Pod Force One,” out now.
The 64-year-old cabinet secretary said Epstein himself showed off his notorious “massage room” while giving Lutnick and his wife a tour of the infamous East 71st Street townhouse after the couple moved in next door to the since-disgraced financier in 2005.
“I say to him, ‘Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?’” Lutnick recalled. “And he says, ‘Every day.’ And then he gets, like weirdly close to me, and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’”
Lutnick said he and his wife quickly excused themselves and left Epstein’s home, “and in the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”
When asked by Devine whether Epstein’s rich and powerful associates — including the likes of Prince Andrew and Microsoft founder Bill Gates — “could hang around him and not see what you saw, or did they see it and ignore it,” Lutnick responded, “They participated.”
“They get a massage, that’s what his MO was. ‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video,” the commerce secretary went on. “This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.” [….]
Lutnick added: “I assume way back when they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18-month sentence, which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he’s a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? There must have been a trade.
“So, my assumption, I have no knowledge, but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos, because there were people on those videos,” he also claimed.
Hahahaha!! Trump has tried so hard to distract from the Epstein files. He was pals for years with the guy who nauseated Howard Lutnick after one brief interaction. Now Democrats in the Congress want Lutnick to testify for their committees. You can watch the video of the Lutnick interview at the NY Post link.
Gore Vidal with Caligula
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy at USA Today: Trump’s commerce secretary calls Jeffrey Epstein the ‘greatest blackmailer.’
For months, President Donald Trump has pleaded with his supporters to move on from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy − calling it a “Democratic hoax” − even as he faces growing calls from Congress and many in his own MAGA base for more disclosure on the jet-setting sex offender.
But Trump’s fellow billionaire and Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, apparently didn’t get the memo.
Lutnick held forth on a recent podcast about how he found Epstein, who was a close friend of Trump’s for more than a decade, to be “gross” and believed he was a “blackmailer.”
“He was gross,” said Lutnick, in a Oct.1 podcast interview with New York Post’s Miranda Devine. Lutnick described Epstein as the “greatest blackmailer ever” and suggested he had used compromising videos of prominent men to get a 2008 sweetheart deal in Florida amid a child prostitution investigation.
Those comments sharply differ from a memo released by the Justice Department and FBI in July which said that there was no “credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals” or that he kept an “incriminating client list.”
One more on Lutnick by Asawin Suebsaeng at Zeteo: ‘F***ing Dumbass’: Trump Officials Want Howard Lutnick Sidelined After Epstein Comments.
Top officials in Donald Trump’s administration are furious with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, knowledgeable sources tell Zeteo, after he went on a tabloid podcast this week and blabbed about the one sex criminal who Team Trump wants to talk about least: Jeffrey Epstein. Not only that, but Lutnick went off script and undermined the government’s entire story about the late Epstein.
For months, President Trump and the highest levels of his administration have been trying to sell the public and his MAGA supporters on their conclusion that Epstein, the notorious sex offender and former Trump pal,did not run a secret sexual-blackmail operation targeting wealthy, powerful elites.
Sylvia Plath with “Daddy”
On Wednesday morning, the New York Post published parts of its podcast sit-down with Lutnick, who was once Epstein’s neighbor. The Trump Cabinet member told the Post about his tour of Epstein’s townhouse, where Epstein showed him his “massage room.” Lutnick said he was quickly “disgusted,” before asserting that Epstein’s rich and famous associates not only knew about his bad behavior but “participated.” He called Epstein a “blackmailer,” something the Trump administration strenuously denies.
Several senior Trump officials, some of whom were responsible for carefully curating the messaging regarding the administration’s decision to end its Epstein investigation, were apoplectic on Wednesday, bemoaning to one another about why Lutnick is still employed by the president and why the commerce secretary is allowed to do media appearances, four senior Trump administration appointees tell Zeteo.
“That fucking dumbass,” one of the senior Trump administration officials told Zeteo on Wednesday, after seeing a clip of Lutnick riffing on Epstein. “I’ve worked with him and can tell you he doesn’t think he did anything negative… That’s not how he thinks. He just talks and talks, and doesn’t care what unhelpful bullshit comes out.”
Well, Trump appointed that dumbass, along with a bunch of other idiots in his cabinet.
In more serious news, Trump is still murdering people in small boats off the coast of Venezuela.
Kathryn Armstrong at BBC News: Four killed in latest US strike on alleged drug vessel near Venezuela.
US forces have killed four people in an attack on a boat off the coast of Venezuela that was allegedly trafficking drugs, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says.
“The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X.
It is the latest in a number of recent deadly strikes that the US has carried out on boats in international waters it says are involved in “narco-trafficking”.
The strikes have attracted condemnation in countries including Venezuela and Colombia, with some international lawyers describing the strikes as a breach of international law.
Hegseth said the attack took place in the US Southern Command’s area of responsibility, which covers most of South America and the Caribbean.
“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route,” Hegseth said about Friday’s attack.
“These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
US President Trump also confirmed the strike on his Truth Social platform, saying that the boat was carrying enough drugs “to kill 25 to 50 thousand people”.
However, the US has not provided evidence for its claims or any information about the identities of those on board.
An opinion piece from W.J. Hennigan at The New York Times (gift link): If We’re at War, Americans Deserve to Know More About It.
The Trump administration told Congress this week that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
The average American knows vanishingly little about what its government seeks to accomplish in this fight. Citizens aren’t in possession of the metrics by which to judge the administration’s pursuit of those goals.
George Bernard Shaw with Pygmalian
We haven’t been told which specific drugs they seek to stop. We haven’t been told much about which specific groups they seek to destroy. We haven’t been told much about what legal authorities they are acting on.
Withholding this information from the American public is the administration’s way to escape scrutiny. At the very least, the country deserves some evidence of whether the military operation is working.
If stopping the flow of drugs is the goal, the actions taken so far have been unpersuasive. American forces, at the direction of President Trump, executed a lethal airstrike on Friday on a boat off Venezuela, killing four people on board. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video of the attack on X, saying, “The vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” adding that it was “affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations.”
This is the sort of vague language the administration has used in its campaign over the past two months as it directs the military to sporadically launch airstrikes — now totaling four — against boats in the region that the government says are running drugs. No corresponding evidence has been provided to the public to support the actions. The operation amounts to extrajudicial executions, according to U.N. officials.
A bit more:
Without delving into the strikes’ questionable legality again, the bombing runs fall well short of decisive military actions. It would be hard to convince anyone that blowing up a few motorboats — and all the people aboard them — will prove conclusive in winning the half-century-old war on drugs.
For one thing, this isn’t how the Pentagon combats enemy networks. Say what you will about the many failures of America’s global war on terrorism, but it’s undeniable the U.S. military became frighteningly proficient at penetrating and taking apart organizations over the past quarter-century.
Instead of systematically killing low- and midlevel henchmen in pinprick airstrikes, U.S. forces learned that more information could be gleaned through capturing those suspects and gathering, bagging and tagging their personal electronics for intelligence analysis. A phone from a suspect’s pocket in Iraq, for instance, would often include enough information, such as phone numbers and text conversations, so that a follow-on raid on other operatives could be planned. This is how U.S. forces mapped out countless terrorist groups’ leadership ranks along with the fighters under their command.
The infrastructure for ship interdictions already exists in the Caribbean. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy have long interdicted vessels that they suspected of drug running.
Why the administration has opted to blow apart potential leads and sources instead of exploiting them is anyone’s guess.
These are serious questions, but Trump and Hegseth aren’t serious people. All they are interested in is blowing people and boats up and posting videos of the action. It’s disgusting that they are getting away with doing this in our name. You can use the gift link to read the rest of this thoughtful article.
The Abrego Garcia case is still going on, and there was a notable ruling yesterday.
Alan Feuer at The New York Times (gift link): Judge Finds ‘Likelihood’ That Charges Against Abrego Garcia Are Vindictive.
A federal judge in Nashville ruled on Friday that there was a “realistic likelihood” that the indictment filed against Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the immigrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March and then brought back to face criminal charges, amounted to a vindictive prosecution by the Justice Department.
The ruling was an astonishing rebuke of both the department and some of its top officials, including Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general. Mr. Blanche was called out by name in the ruling for remarks he made about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case on the same day in June he was returned to U.S. soil to face the charges in Federal District Court in Nashville.
Doris Lessing with Black Madonna
In a 16-page decision, Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. said there was evidence that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s prosecution “may stem from retaliation” by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Judge Crenshaw found that Trump officials may have sought to punish Mr. Abrego Garcia for having filed a lawsuit successfully challenging his initial “unlawful deportation” to El Salvador.
Moreover, Judge Crenshaw indicated how he was serious about getting to the bottom of the issue of vindictiveness. He said he intended to permit Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to pry, at least in part, into the Trump administration’s process of deciding to bring an indictment in the first place and how the charges related to the deportation case.
Vindictive prosecution motions are exceedingly difficult to win because of the high threshold required to prove that prosecutors acted improperly by filing criminal charges. Under the law, cases can be considered vindictive only if defendants can show that prosecutors displayed animus toward them while they were seeking to vindicate their rights in court, and that the charges would not have been brought except for the existence of that animus.
While Judge Crenshaw has not yet made a final decision on the issue of vindictiveness, the fact that he is even considering doing so in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case is a hugely embarrassing blow to the Trump administration. From the moment Trump officials acknowledged that they had mistakenly expelled Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, President Trump and his top aides began a relentless barrage of attacks against him, calling him a violent member of the street gang MS-13, a wife beater and even a terrorist, effectively blaming him for being the victim of their own administrative error.
The judge’s ruling highlighted the ways in which the habit many Trump officials have of speaking out of court about legal cases has — or could — come back to haunt them.
Use the gift link to read the rest if you’re intersted.
Trump has been talking about sending troops to cities governed by Democrats. Lately he’s been focusing on Portland, Oregon. This is just beyond belief. And we know about it because of another leak from Signal.
Catherine Bouris at The Daily Beast: Trump Goon Spills Bonkers Plan to Deploy 82nd Airborne to Blue City.
A senior White House official accidentally disclosed that the Trump administration was considering deploying an elite army strike force into Portland by using Signal in a public place.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported Friday that Anthony Salisbury, one of Stephen Miller’s top deputies, was observed discussing the plans via Signal in view of members of the public while traveling in Minnesota. The newspaper was then contacted by one member of the public who was troubled to see sensitive military plans discussed so openly.
Aldous Huxley with Limbo
In the messages, senior White House officials discussed the potential deployment of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, an elite unit that specializes in parachuting into hostile territory. The division has been deployed in both world wars, including the Battle of the Bulge, as well as Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Across several conversations, the Star Tribune reports, Salisbury spoke about a range of matters with Pete Hegseth adviser Patrick Weaver as well as other officials.
In one of the messages, Weaver revealed that Hegseth wanted Trump to explicitly instruct him to send soldiers to Portland.
“Between you and I, I think Pete just wants the top cover from the boss if anything goes sideways with the troops there,” Weaver reportedly said.
Noting the potentially disastrous optics around sending an elite division into an American city, Weaver told Salisbury, “82nd is like our top tier [quick reaction force] for abroad. So it will cause a lot of headlines. Probably why he wants potus to tell him to do it.”
Ultimately, Trump opted to send 200 National Guard soldiers into Portland, following a similar playbook used in other Democrat-controlled cities like Los Angeles and Washington D.C. Both the state of Oregon and the city of Portland have sued to stop the deployment.
More interesting reads to check out:
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Here’s How Trump Loses the Shutdown. God help us but Gavin Newsom is the only Democrat who understands power.
Jens Stoltenberg at The Guardian: ‘I’m leaving,’ Trump said. ‘There’s no reason to be here any more’: inside the meeting that brought Nato to the brink (Former secretary general Jens Stoltenberg recalls the rollercoaster ride of dealing with Donald Trump – and how close the US president brought the alliance to the point of collapse.)
The Independent: ‘It’s not a good place right now’: CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom.
The New York Times: Supreme Court Lets Trump Revoke Deportation Protections for Venezuelans.
The Guardian: Body slamming, teargas and pepper balls: viral videos show Ice using extreme force in Chicago.
Those are the stories that interested me today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
#82ndAirborne #catArt #caturday #deportations #DonaldTrump #droneStrikesOnBoats #extrajudicialExecutions #HowardLutnick #immigration #JeffreyEpstein #KilmarAbregoGarcia #literaryCats #MarkHertling #MirandaDevine #PeteHegseth #PortlandOR #SignalAppLeaks #Venezuela
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The May #syslog_ng newsletter is now available on-line:
- Streaming syslog-ng data to your lakehouse using #OTEL
- Central log collection - more than just #compliance
- Compiling syslog-ng on an old #Mac
Read more at:
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More interests I forgot to mention the first and second time around: #pinball #digitalpinball #retrogaming #adventuregames #sierraonline #lucasarts #smartwatches #johnhiatt #USCivilWar #tallships #maratimehistory #selfdirectedinvesting #milwaukeebrewers #projectgutenberg #eink
#ereaders #documentaries #lylelovett #brandicarlile #steveearle #naps #dietdrpepper -
More interests I forgot to mention the first and second time around: #pinball #digitalpinball #retrogaming #adventuregames #sierraonline #lucasarts #smartwatches #johnhiatt #USCivilWar #tallships #maratimehistory #selfdirectedinvesting #milwaukeebrewers #projectgutenberg #eink
#ereaders #documentaries #lylelovett #brandicarlile #steveearle #naps #dietdrpepper -
#Cocktail #Cocktails #Gin
Bee’s KneesI may or may not have had a couple of these while watching My Man Godfrey.
Hadn’t seen it in ages, and it’s as fantastic as ever. Really glad not to have watched anything Oscar nominated tonight.
#WilliamPowell #CarolLombard #MyManGodfrey #Cimemastodon -
#Cocktail #Cocktails #Gin
Bee’s KneesI may or may not have had a couple of these while watching My Man Godfrey.
Hadn’t seen it in ages, and it’s as fantastic as ever. Really glad not to have watched anything Oscar nominated tonight.
#WilliamPowell #CarolLombard #MyManGodfrey #Cimemastodon