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I said it before, I'll say it again and again: I don't consent to this. I get nothing, absolutely nothing for it, while corporations make bank on my work and the work of my colleagues.
I will never ever use whatever dumbass tool Microsoft or #TaylorandFrancis will make. I won't learn anything from their tools, which will only ever be derivative garbage, and now my work is fuelling the climate crisis all the more so my kid will suffer, too.
(to say I'm angry about this is an understatement.)
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The simple truth is that Kamala Harris should be promising an arms embargo on Israel because Netanyahu is conducting a nearly year-long genocide in Gaza, he's doing it with U.S. funded and supplied weapons he couldn't accomplish this goal without, and said arms embargo seems like it's the only way to get Israel to stop bombing hospitals and sniping children in broad daylight. There can be no question about these facts, and America's continued material support for Israeli's militarized campaign of extermination makes U.S. leaders culpable for these crimes against humanity. As I've also pointed out repeatedly however, the fact that the Democratic Party probably can't beat Trump without winning my home state of Michigan, and that state has an extremely large population of Muslim Americans who may not just "shut up and vote" for a government actively helping to exterminate Palestinians, is also another pretty good damn reason for an immediate arms embargo by the U.S., on Israel.
Muslims Were Reliably Democratic Voters. With US Gaza Policy, That’s Changed.
"Vice President Kamala Harris and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are virtually tied, with about 29 percent of Muslims planning to vote for each candidate, according to a survey of 1,159 voters conducted shortly after the DNC. Another 4 percent plan to vote for Cornel West, the unaffiliated antiwar candidate who is still fighting to be on the ballot in multiple states.
Just over 11 percent plan to vote for Republican Donald Trump, and 16 percent remain undecided. Only 8 percent said they are not planning to vote in November.
“This is showing that Muslim voters who traditionally in the last election voted over 60 percent for Biden, that 60 percent has evenly split now between two candidates who have two very different messages that are addressing their concerns,” said Robert McCaw, CAIR’s director of government affairs, during a press conference Thursday."
Look, I know some people (including "progressive" political darlings like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) are going to read that quote and reflexive start bitching about what a fraud Jill Stein is, and I'm certainly willing to concede that she's no friend of mine. By that same measure however, if you give people a choice at the ballot box between genocide, and more genocide, you probably shouldn't be at all surprised when folks whose friends and relatives you're helping to exterminate start casting around for another option.
If you read this whole article, it's clear that these folks are not committed Stein voters, so much as outraged at the crimes against humanity Harris is effectively refusing to take action against even if she wins the election. The Democratic Party hasn't lost Michigan yet, and inexplicably there's still time to turn this around; but given the paper-thin margins polling in the state is presenting, Muslim Americans in Michigan probably aren't a constituency Harris can simply ignore. The best time to slap an arms embargo on Israel was over ten months ago; the second best time is right now, and even if Biden refuses, Harris can promise that she'll do so if and when she wins the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. Refusing to do that is not only criminally inhumane, but a staggering example of political malpractice by a campaign that keeps swearing up and down that *the* most important thing to save America is stopping Trump, as well.
Furthermore, with recent polling showing that as many as seventy-five percent of Democrat voters now oppose Israel’s war on Gaza, there would appear to be no political downside at the ballot box for Harris if she promised to end it; if anything she'd likely attract more voters by doing so, particularly young and nonwhite voters who were a vital and likely irreplaceable part of the coalition that stopped Trump and got Biden over in 2020. If Harris is serious about winning this election and stopping Trump from potentially ending what passes for American democracy, the choice here could not be clearer; she needs to side with everyday voters, and against fascist apartheid states, Biden's ongoing support for a genocide, and weapons contractors - not just because it's the right thing to do, but because she's not going to win in 2024 without Michigan and other former "blue wall" states in the Midwest, and they demand action.
If you don't want to see a second Trump presidency that will almost certainly result in a right wing attempt to install a permanent, overtly fascist political order in America, you need to stop yelling at people online to "shut up and vote" and start telling Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party that you demand they do what it takes to actually win this election; and they can start by promising an arms embargo on Israel that will come into effect on day 1 of her presidency at the latest.
#USPol #Harris #Election2024 #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #Biden #ArmsEmbargoNow #MuslimAmericans #Michigan #Imperialism #Colonialism
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The simple truth is that Kamala Harris should be promising an arms embargo on Israel because Netanyahu is conducting a nearly year-long genocide in Gaza, he's doing it with U.S. funded and supplied weapons he couldn't accomplish this goal without, and said arms embargo seems like it's the only way to get Israel to stop bombing hospitals and sniping children in broad daylight. There can be no question about these facts, and America's continued material support for Israeli's militarized campaign of extermination makes U.S. leaders culpable for these crimes against humanity. As I've also pointed out repeatedly however, the fact that the Democratic Party probably can't beat Trump without winning my home state of Michigan, and that state has an extremely large population of Muslim Americans who may not just "shut up and vote" for a government actively helping to exterminate Palestinians, is also another pretty good damn reason for an immediate arms embargo by the U.S., on Israel.
Muslims Were Reliably Democratic Voters. With US Gaza Policy, That’s Changed.
"Vice President Kamala Harris and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are virtually tied, with about 29 percent of Muslims planning to vote for each candidate, according to a survey of 1,159 voters conducted shortly after the DNC. Another 4 percent plan to vote for Cornel West, the unaffiliated antiwar candidate who is still fighting to be on the ballot in multiple states.
Just over 11 percent plan to vote for Republican Donald Trump, and 16 percent remain undecided. Only 8 percent said they are not planning to vote in November.
“This is showing that Muslim voters who traditionally in the last election voted over 60 percent for Biden, that 60 percent has evenly split now between two candidates who have two very different messages that are addressing their concerns,” said Robert McCaw, CAIR’s director of government affairs, during a press conference Thursday."
Look, I know some people (including "progressive" political darlings like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) are going to read that quote and reflexive start bitching about what a fraud Jill Stein is, and I'm certainly willing to concede that she's no friend of mine. By that same measure however, if you give people a choice at the ballot box between genocide, and more genocide, you probably shouldn't be at all surprised when folks whose friends and relatives you're helping to exterminate start casting around for another option.
If you read this whole article, it's clear that these folks are not committed Stein voters, so much as outraged at the crimes against humanity Harris is effectively refusing to take action against even if she wins the election. The Democratic Party hasn't lost Michigan yet, and inexplicably there's still time to turn this around; but given the paper-thin margins polling in the state is presenting, Muslim Americans in Michigan probably aren't a constituency Harris can simply ignore. The best time to slap an arms embargo on Israel was over ten months ago; the second best time is right now, and even if Biden refuses, Harris can promise that she'll do so if and when she wins the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. Refusing to do that is not only criminally inhumane, but a staggering example of political malpractice by a campaign that keeps swearing up and down that *the* most important thing to save America is stopping Trump, as well.
Furthermore, with recent polling showing that as many as seventy-five percent of Democrat voters now oppose Israel’s war on Gaza, there would appear to be no political downside at the ballot box for Harris if she promised to end it; if anything she'd likely attract more voters by doing so, particularly young and nonwhite voters who were a vital and likely irreplaceable part of the coalition that stopped Trump and got Biden over in 2020. If Harris is serious about winning this election and stopping Trump from potentially ending what passes for American democracy, the choice here could not be clearer; she needs to side with everyday voters, and against fascist apartheid states, Biden's ongoing support for a genocide, and weapons contractors - not just because it's the right thing to do, but because she's not going to win in 2024 without Michigan and other former "blue wall" states in the Midwest, and they demand action.
If you don't want to see a second Trump presidency that will almost certainly result in a right wing attempt to install a permanent, overtly fascist political order in America, you need to stop yelling at people online to "shut up and vote" and start telling Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party that you demand they do what it takes to actually win this election; and they can start by promising an arms embargo on Israel that will come into effect on day 1 of her presidency at the latest.
#USPol #Harris #Election2024 #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #Biden #ArmsEmbargoNow #MuslimAmericans #Michigan #Imperialism #Colonialism
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The simple truth is that Kamala Harris should be promising an arms embargo on Israel because Netanyahu is conducting a nearly year-long genocide in Gaza, he's doing it with U.S. funded and supplied weapons he couldn't accomplish this goal without, and said arms embargo seems like it's the only way to get Israel to stop bombing hospitals and sniping children in broad daylight. There can be no question about these facts, and America's continued material support for Israeli's militarized campaign of extermination makes U.S. leaders culpable for these crimes against humanity. As I've also pointed out repeatedly however, the fact that the Democratic Party probably can't beat Trump without winning my home state of Michigan, and that state has an extremely large population of Muslim Americans who may not just "shut up and vote" for a government actively helping to exterminate Palestinians, is also another pretty good damn reason for an immediate arms embargo by the U.S., on Israel.
Muslims Were Reliably Democratic Voters. With US Gaza Policy, That’s Changed.
"Vice President Kamala Harris and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are virtually tied, with about 29 percent of Muslims planning to vote for each candidate, according to a survey of 1,159 voters conducted shortly after the DNC. Another 4 percent plan to vote for Cornel West, the unaffiliated antiwar candidate who is still fighting to be on the ballot in multiple states.
Just over 11 percent plan to vote for Republican Donald Trump, and 16 percent remain undecided. Only 8 percent said they are not planning to vote in November.
“This is showing that Muslim voters who traditionally in the last election voted over 60 percent for Biden, that 60 percent has evenly split now between two candidates who have two very different messages that are addressing their concerns,” said Robert McCaw, CAIR’s director of government affairs, during a press conference Thursday."
Look, I know some people (including "progressive" political darlings like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) are going to read that quote and reflexive start bitching about what a fraud Jill Stein is, and I'm certainly willing to concede that she's no friend of mine. By that same measure however, if you give people a choice at the ballot box between genocide, and more genocide, you probably shouldn't be at all surprised when folks whose friends and relatives you're helping to exterminate start casting around for another option.
If you read this whole article, it's clear that these folks are not committed Stein voters, so much as outraged at the crimes against humanity Harris is effectively refusing to take action against even if she wins the election. The Democratic Party hasn't lost Michigan yet, and inexplicably there's still time to turn this around; but given the paper-thin margins polling in the state is presenting, Muslim Americans in Michigan probably aren't a constituency Harris can simply ignore. The best time to slap an arms embargo on Israel was over ten months ago; the second best time is right now, and even if Biden refuses, Harris can promise that she'll do so if and when she wins the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. Refusing to do that is not only criminally inhumane, but a staggering example of political malpractice by a campaign that keeps swearing up and down that *the* most important thing to save America is stopping Trump, as well.
Furthermore, with recent polling showing that as many as seventy-five percent of Democrat voters now oppose Israel’s war on Gaza, there would appear to be no political downside at the ballot box for Harris if she promised to end it; if anything she'd likely attract more voters by doing so, particularly young and nonwhite voters who were a vital and likely irreplaceable part of the coalition that stopped Trump and got Biden over in 2020. If Harris is serious about winning this election and stopping Trump from potentially ending what passes for American democracy, the choice here could not be clearer; she needs to side with everyday voters, and against fascist apartheid states, Biden's ongoing support for a genocide, and weapons contractors - not just because it's the right thing to do, but because she's not going to win in 2024 without Michigan and other former "blue wall" states in the Midwest, and they demand action.
If you don't want to see a second Trump presidency that will almost certainly result in a right wing attempt to install a permanent, overtly fascist political order in America, you need to stop yelling at people online to "shut up and vote" and start telling Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party that you demand they do what it takes to actually win this election; and they can start by promising an arms embargo on Israel that will come into effect on day 1 of her presidency at the latest.
#USPol #Harris #Election2024 #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #Biden #ArmsEmbargoNow #MuslimAmericans #Michigan #Imperialism #Colonialism
-
The simple truth is that Kamala Harris should be promising an arms embargo on Israel because Netanyahu is conducting a nearly year-long genocide in Gaza, he's doing it with U.S. funded and supplied weapons he couldn't accomplish this goal without, and said arms embargo seems like it's the only way to get Israel to stop bombing hospitals and sniping children in broad daylight. There can be no question about these facts, and America's continued material support for Israeli's militarized campaign of extermination makes U.S. leaders culpable for these crimes against humanity. As I've also pointed out repeatedly however, the fact that the Democratic Party probably can't beat Trump without winning my home state of Michigan, and that state has an extremely large population of Muslim Americans who may not just "shut up and vote" for a government actively helping to exterminate Palestinians, is also another pretty good damn reason for an immediate arms embargo by the U.S., on Israel.
Muslims Were Reliably Democratic Voters. With US Gaza Policy, That’s Changed.
"Vice President Kamala Harris and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are virtually tied, with about 29 percent of Muslims planning to vote for each candidate, according to a survey of 1,159 voters conducted shortly after the DNC. Another 4 percent plan to vote for Cornel West, the unaffiliated antiwar candidate who is still fighting to be on the ballot in multiple states.
Just over 11 percent plan to vote for Republican Donald Trump, and 16 percent remain undecided. Only 8 percent said they are not planning to vote in November.
“This is showing that Muslim voters who traditionally in the last election voted over 60 percent for Biden, that 60 percent has evenly split now between two candidates who have two very different messages that are addressing their concerns,” said Robert McCaw, CAIR’s director of government affairs, during a press conference Thursday."
Look, I know some people (including "progressive" political darlings like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) are going to read that quote and reflexive start bitching about what a fraud Jill Stein is, and I'm certainly willing to concede that she's no friend of mine. By that same measure however, if you give people a choice at the ballot box between genocide, and more genocide, you probably shouldn't be at all surprised when folks whose friends and relatives you're helping to exterminate start casting around for another option.
If you read this whole article, it's clear that these folks are not committed Stein voters, so much as outraged at the crimes against humanity Harris is effectively refusing to take action against even if she wins the election. The Democratic Party hasn't lost Michigan yet, and inexplicably there's still time to turn this around; but given the paper-thin margins polling in the state is presenting, Muslim Americans in Michigan probably aren't a constituency Harris can simply ignore. The best time to slap an arms embargo on Israel was over ten months ago; the second best time is right now, and even if Biden refuses, Harris can promise that she'll do so if and when she wins the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. Refusing to do that is not only criminally inhumane, but a staggering example of political malpractice by a campaign that keeps swearing up and down that *the* most important thing to save America is stopping Trump, as well.
Furthermore, with recent polling showing that as many as seventy-five percent of Democrat voters now oppose Israel’s war on Gaza, there would appear to be no political downside at the ballot box for Harris if she promised to end it; if anything she'd likely attract more voters by doing so, particularly young and nonwhite voters who were a vital and likely irreplaceable part of the coalition that stopped Trump and got Biden over in 2020. If Harris is serious about winning this election and stopping Trump from potentially ending what passes for American democracy, the choice here could not be clearer; she needs to side with everyday voters, and against fascist apartheid states, Biden's ongoing support for a genocide, and weapons contractors - not just because it's the right thing to do, but because she's not going to win in 2024 without Michigan and other former "blue wall" states in the Midwest, and they demand action.
If you don't want to see a second Trump presidency that will almost certainly result in a right wing attempt to install a permanent, overtly fascist political order in America, you need to stop yelling at people online to "shut up and vote" and start telling Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party that you demand they do what it takes to actually win this election; and they can start by promising an arms embargo on Israel that will come into effect on day 1 of her presidency at the latest.
#USPol #Harris #Election2024 #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #Biden #ArmsEmbargoNow #MuslimAmericans #Michigan #Imperialism #Colonialism
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Wednesday Reads
Good Afternoon!!
Will there ever be another slow news day in the U.S.? Every day we see more stunning news–violent incidents, embarrassing, chaotic, and illegal behavior from our “president,” shocks to the economy from Trump’s tariffs and mass deportations, and more. We have to survive 3 more years of this insanity. There are some hopeful signs. Trump is very unpopular and his poll numbers are dropping rapidly. There are also signs that he is having health challenges. But I think he has changed our country long-term by inflaming his followers with lies and disinformation. There is definitely a core group of about 30 percent of the population that clings to him no matter what. And one of the biggest dangers is the behavior of the Trumpists on the Supreme court. Anyway, on to today’s news and comment.
First, the breaking news. There has been a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas.
Bullet casings from the Dallas shooting.
NBC News: Live updates: 2 dead, including suspect, in shooting at Dallas ICE facility.
What we know about the shooting
— Three people were shot at an ICE facility in Dallas this morning, an ICE spokesperson confirmed to NBC News.
— Two people are dead, including the shooter, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Dallas police said in a news conference. No ICE officers were hurt in the shooting.
— Round found near the shooter, who was dead when police arrived, contained messages that were “anti-ICE in nature,” Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI Joe Rothrock said at a news conference. He added that the attack was an act of “targeted violence.”
— The victims’ identities will not be released at this time, but Rothrock said no law enforcement personnel were hurt during the attack.
— The shooter fired multiple rounds from a nearby roof or an elevated position down into the field office’s sally port, an ICE spokesperson confirmed.
— The motive behind the shooting, or what the shooter was targeting, is not immediately clear.
According to FBI Director Kash Patel, “Anti-ICE” was written on one of shell casings. This story is still developing.
Paul Krugman is the latest writer to argue that Trump’s fascist takeover can be thwarted. From his Substack: Is the Jimmy Kimmel Saga a Sign that the Tide is Turning?
It’s irrefutable now: Trump is nakedly following the playbook of autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban. As his poll numbers fall, he is rushing to lock in permanent power by punishing his opponents and intimidating everyone else into submission. Craven congressional Republicans and a complicit Supreme Court have abetted Trump’s destruction of our democratic safeguards and norms.
Yet Trump has a significant problem that neither Putin nor Orban faced. When Putin and Orban were consolidating their autocratics, they were genuinely popular. They were perceived by the public as effective and competent leaders. Just nine months into his presidency, Trump, by contrast, is deeply unpopular. He is increasingly seen as chaotic and inept. As David Frum says, this means that he is in a race against time. Can he consolidate power before he loses his aura of inevitability? Will those who run major institutions – particularly corporate CEOs – understand that we are at a crucial juncture, and that by accommodating Trump they have more to lose than by standing up to him?
To put it bluntly, is the Jimmy Kimmel affair the harbinger of a failed Trumpian putsch?
Krugman notes that Trump’s role models, Putin and Orban were popular during their takeovers, in contrast to Trump.
Trump’s net approval, by contrast, turned negative within weeks after taking office and has just continued to fall.
As G. Elliott Morris points out, his position looks even worse when you consider intensity. Almost half the public disapproves “strongly,” twice the share with strong approval.
Jimmy Kimmel
It’s clear that if Trump were subject to normal political constraints, obliged to follow the rule of law and accept election results, he would already be a political lame duck. His future influence and those of his minions would be greatly reduced by his unpopularity. But at this juncture he is a quasi-autocrat. He is the leader of a party that accommodates his every whim, backed by a corrupt Supreme Court prepared to validate whatever he does, no matter how clearly it violates the law.
As a result, Trump has been able to use the vast power of the federal government to deliver punishments and rewards in a completely unprecedented way. He has arbitrarily cut off funding to universities, refused to spend Congressionally-mandated funds, threatened to take away broadcast licenses, fired officials who are supposed to have job security, pardoned J6 insurrectionists, defied the lower courts, retaliated against those who have tried to hold him accountable, and enriched his family. This has created a climate of intimidation, with many institutions preemptively capitulating to Trump’s demands as if he already had total power.
But the fact is that Trump has not yet locked in his autocracy. Timid institutions are failing to understand not only how unpopular Trump is, but also how severe a backlash they are likely to face for surrendering without a fight.
Disney figured it out; we’ll see what happens with Sinclair and NexStar. Read the entire post at the link.
Politico Playbook on Kimmel’s return:
An unbowed Jimmy Kimmel took aim at President Donald Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr last night in a blistering, emotional return to ABC. Kimmel tore into the Trump administration for its “dangerous … anti-American” bid to have him canceled, and heaped praise on the conservative politicians and commentators who spoke up for freedom of speech. “This show is not important,” Kimmel said. “What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
Kimmel blended humor with invective. “I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours,” he deadpanned, “me or the CEO of Tylenol.” Robert De Niro made an appearance, playing a mafioso-style Carr issuing threats to ABC. And addressing the expected sky-high audience for last night’s show, Kimmel said: “You almost have to feel sorry for [Trump]. He tried his best to cancel me — instead he forced millions of people to watch the show … He might have to release the Epstein files to distract from this.”
Kimmel came close to tears as he partially addressed his own comments — about Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer — which sparked the initial backlash from the right. “I want to make something clear,” he said, voice wavering. “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.” Later, he hailed the words of forgiveness that Erika, Kirk’s widow, delivered at Sunday’s memorial. “It touched me deeply,” Kimmel said. “If there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that. Not this.”
Catch-up service: Watch the whole opening monologue
Naturally, Trump wasn’t happy that ABC brought Jimmy Kimmel back last night.
Ed Mazza at HuffPost: Trump Loses It Over Jimmy Kimmel’s Return In Unhinged New Rant, Then Threatens ABC.
President Donald Trump threw a fit on social media on Tuesday night as late night TV nemesis Jimmy Kimmel headed back to the airwaves.
He said Kimmel should “rot in his bad Ratings,” called his show a “major Illegal Campaign Contribution” to the Democratic National Committee and threatened legal action against the “true bunch of losers” at ABC.
“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website about an hour before Kimmel’s return to television. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!”
Despite Trump’s claim, Kimmel’s show was suspended ― not canceled ― over comments the host made about the suspect in the public assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” he wrote. “He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution.”
Then, he threatened ABC with another lawsuit after settling with the network last year in a defamation case.
Maybe because Kimmel is more popular than crybaby Trump?
Yesterday, Trump embarrassed himself and all Americans in an unbelievably bad speech to the U.N. It was truly horrifying, and a historic stain on our country.
David Rothkopf at The Daily Beast: Trump’s UN Address Was a Tragedy of Shakespearian Proportions.
Instead of a traditional public address from a world leader, U.S. President Donald Trump tilted back his badly-dyed hair-sprayed coif and howled at the moon for the better part of an hour during his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday morning.
Well, not the better part. Definitely not the better part.
To describe the speech as insane, while accurate, would distract from just how extraordinarily packed with lies it was. How profoundly ignorant it was. How much damage it did to the United States’ standing in the world—it clearly marked a low point in America’s relationship with the United Nations and the international order we helped create in the wake of World War II.
From a purely U.S. political perspective, emphasizing how haggard and low-energy our rapidly declining president was is key. He made a point to note that an apparent mechanical issue with a UN escalator was an insurmountable problem, for example—most of the rest of us who are in fairly reasonable shape might have noted a stalled escalator is actually just a stairway that we could have walked right up.
But it would nonetheless, be a mistake, to ignore just how crazed the speech was. It was apparent from Trump’s opening moments when he railed about the UN’s broken teleprompter to the point later when he brought it up again in his broader condemnation of the UN as also broken, highlighting what he saw as its uselessness in not coming to his assistance in solving the famous seven global conflicts that we all know he did not solve. It was apparent in the fact that he argued that he deserves the Nobel Peace prize while noting he also takes great pride in discussing the attack he authorized on Iran, and those he has ordered against boats he claims without evidence were trafficking in drugs on the high seas.
The speech contained the most extensive condemnation of green energy and what Trump considers the climate change hoax that we have ever heard from a public official since possibly the invention of the steam engine. Science be damned. Oligarchs love fossil fuels or what Trump noted that he demands White House staffers refer to as “beautiful, clean coal.” Windmills, windmills on the other hand, are the pinwheels of Satan. (Someday we will get to the bottom of Trump’s anemomenophobia. Clearly, he had a bad experience with something that blew him the wrong way as a child. Or more recently.)
He defended his irrational, lose-lose global trading system destroying tariffs which in and of itself will soon be listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as an extreme symptom of economic psychosis. He downplayed civilian casualties in Ukraine and explained this war wouldn’t have happened if there had been good leadership in the country—in front of President Volodymyr Zelensky, no less.
And there was so much more. He even claimed that he had settled 7 global conflicts and that everyone thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Read more at the link.
Steve Benen at MaddowBlog: With bizarre remarks at the U.N., Trump embarrasses himself and the United States.
Seven years ago this week, Donald Trump addressed the United Nations and began his remarks with an absurdity. “In less than two years,” the American president said, “my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” The boast, of course, was plainly false.
But just as important at the time was that everyone in attendance at the U.N. General Assembly recognized the rhetoric as silly — and some of the diplomats in the room started audibly laughing. The laughter caught the Republican off-guard and left Trump in a position he’d long hoped to avoid: the target of international ridicule.
In some ways, the Republican’s address was a handy encapsulation of where Trump stands in the fifth year of his White House tenure.
The Trumps struggle with a UN escalator.
Over the course of his remarks, he told strange lies about foreign investments in the U.S. He generated murmurs in the hall by declaring, “Our message is very simple. If you come illegally into the United States, you’re going to jail or you’re going back to where you came from — or perhaps even further than that. You know what that means.”
He pretended that he’s ended seven wars, while pointing to approval ratings that exist only in his mind. He renewed his pathetic lobbying for a Nobel Peace Prize, falsely claiming that “everyone” wants him to get one. He took pointless shots at ostensible U.S. allies in NATO and at the United Nations itself. He told unnamed officials that their countries are “going to hell.” He bragged about campaign swag sales. He attacked clean, renewable energy, while insisting that climate science is an elaborate “con job” and a “hoax” concocted by nefarious people with “evil intentions.”
And for good measure, he claimed that unnamed “environmentalists” want to ban cows.
Perhaps most importantly, Trump told one of his favorite lies, bragging that international respect for the U.S. has reached all-time highs now that he’s back in power.
Read more at the MSNBC link.
You might also want to check out this piece by Zachary B. Wolf at CNN: Trump’s ‘your countries are going to hell’ speech, annotated.
One more from AP: After mechanical challenges, UN says Trump’s team to blame for nonworking escalator and teleprompter.
President Donald Trump broke from his prepared remarks at the United Nations on Tuesday to bemoan an inoperable escalator and a defective teleprompter, using the incidents to portray the global body as dysfunctional.
“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle,” he mused, chopping the air with his hand.
But it turns out the cause was closer to Trump.
Stephane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said a videographer from the U.S. delegation who ran ahead of him triggered the stop mechanism at the top of the escalator.
“The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing,” Dujarric said in a statement. “The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function.”
On the Teleprompter:
As he began his speech, Trump also noted that the teleprompter wasn’t working. He joked that whoever was running the teleprompter “is in big trouble.”
A U.N. official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue contributed that one to his side as well, saying the White House was operating the teleprompter for the president.
The day before yesterday, Trump gave an insane “health” press conference with RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz. JJ, in which they claimed that Tylenol as well as vaccines are causes of autism. JJ covered it in yesterday’s post.
Today, STAT has a response to Trump’s “medical” advice: Trump’s ‘tough it out’ to pregnant women meets wave of opposition by medical experts Doctors explain the medical consensus on autism, leucovorin, and Tylenol for fever.
Federal health officials are telling Americans no, they shouldn’t take Tylenol during pregnancy for fear of autism and yes, they should try a drug used in cancer care to treat children who have developed autism. The medical world disagrees.
“We were actually pretty alarmed by some of the output that was coming from the administration,” Marketa Wills, CEO and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, said in an interview. At a remarkable White House briefing on Monday, President Trump and his top health and science officials said Tylenol use in pregnancy caused some cases of autism in children and said leucovorin, a form of vitamin B9, could treat the disease.
RFK Jr. and Trump claim to have found causes for autism.
The event has drawn a flood of pushback from medical societies, autism organizations, and pediatric experts through official statements, interviews, and social media. Much more research is needed on the claims about Tylenol and leucovorin in particular, experts emphasized.
Until more research is conducted, Wills recommends that doctors rely on professional societies, peer-reviewed research in medical journals, and resources like UpToDate and the Washington Manual for guidance on how to talk with patients.
John Whyte, CEO of the American Medical Association, pointed out that there were discrepancies between the bold statements from the president and other government guidance. “If I ignore the press conference, and I listen to what the FDA wrote to providers, I would say — you know what? It’s talking about the lowest dose for the shortest period of time, and that’s not a bad thing,” White said. “That’s different than what I heard at the press conference.” [….]
While President Trump repeatedly told women to “tough it out” rather than take Tylenol for fever or pain during pregnancy, medical experts said there are good reasons to consider the medication.
An untreated fever can cause serious harms in pregnancy, including neurodevelopmental injuries to fetuses such as spina bifida, they told STAT.
“Brains are impacted by fever,” Joia Crear-Perry, an OB-GYN and founder and president of the National Birth Equity Collaborative, told STAT.
There are also studies suggesting fever is associated with the risk of autism spectrum disorder, but it’s unknown whether treatment decreases that risk, Brenna Hughes, interim chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine, wrote in an email to STAT.
There’s much more information at the STAT link.
The New York Times has published a shocking investigation about Elon Musk’s family, by Kirsten Grind and John Eligon (gift link): Elon Musk’s Father Accused of Child Sexual Abuse.
Elon Musk has not been shy about putting much of his life on public display. The tech billionaire posts daily on his social network X, has cooperated with two biographies and often speaks on podcasts and at conferences.
But there is one part of his life that he has not revealed much about — his longtime estrangement from his father, Errol Musk, who has become increasingly outspoken about his family and business ventures tied to the Musk name.
Errol Musk
A New York Times investigation found that a significant factor in Elon Musk’s rupture with his father stems from accusations against Errol Musk of child sex abuse. The allegations have repeatedly spilled over into Elon Musk’s life as relatives have contacted him for help and he has sometimes taken action to intercede, according to personal letters, emails and interviews with family members.
The family’s troubles have entangled Elon Musk in a painful three-decade multigenerational saga that continues to trail him. The fallout has kept the 54-year-old mogul tethered to South Africa, where he was born and where Errol Musk lives, even as he has built a business empire in the United States and briefly ascended to political power as a close adviser to President Trump.
The allegations against Errol Musk involve five of his children and stepchildren, whom he was accused of abusing in South Africa and California, according to police and court records, personal correspondence, social workers and interviews with family members.
The earliest accusation was in 1993 when Errol Musk’s stepdaughter, then 4 years old, told relatives he had touched her at the family house. A decade later, the stepdaughter said she caught him sniffing her dirty underwear. Some family members have also accused Errol Musk of abusing two of his daughters and a stepson. And as recently as 2023, family members and a social worker attempted to intervene after his then 5-year-old son said his father had groped his buttocks.
Three separate police investigations were opened, according to police and court records, as well as family members. Two of the inquiries ended, while it’s unclear what happened in the third. Errol Musk, 79, has not been convicted of any crime.
The abuse allegations have caused strife within the Musk family, with some relatives turning to Elon Musk — who is Errol Musk’s eldest child — for help. Around 2010, one relative wrote Elon Musk a five-page letter about some of the accusations and implored him to intervene.
“We really need your advice, help and guidance in these matters because we daily see these children suffer,” the relative wrote in the letter, which was viewed by The Times.
Use the gift link to read the rest.
Those are my recommended reads for today. What stories have you been following?
#Autism #DallasICEShooting #ElonMusk #ErrolMusk #JimmyKimmel #leucovorin #Tylenol #UNGeneralAssembly #UnitedNations #vaccines
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Wednesday Reads
Good Afternoon!!
Will there ever be another slow news day in the U.S.? Every day we see more stunning news–violent incidents, embarrassing, chaotic, and illegal behavior from our “president,” shocks to the economy from Trump’s tariffs and mass deportations, and more. We have to survive 3 more years of this insanity. There are some hopeful signs. Trump is very unpopular and his poll numbers are dropping rapidly. There are also signs that he is having health challenges. But I think he has changed our country long-term by inflaming his followers with lies and disinformation. There is definitely a core group of about 30 percent of the population that clings to him no matter what. And one of the biggest dangers is the behavior of the Trumpists on the Supreme court. Anyway, on to today’s news and comment.
First, the breaking news. There has been a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas.
Bullet casings from the Dallas shooting.
NBC News: Live updates: 2 dead, including suspect, in shooting at Dallas ICE facility.
What we know about the shooting
— Three people were shot at an ICE facility in Dallas this morning, an ICE spokesperson confirmed to NBC News.
— Two people are dead, including the shooter, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Dallas police said in a news conference. No ICE officers were hurt in the shooting.
— Round found near the shooter, who was dead when police arrived, contained messages that were “anti-ICE in nature,” Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI Joe Rothrock said at a news conference. He added that the attack was an act of “targeted violence.”
— The victims’ identities will not be released at this time, but Rothrock said no law enforcement personnel were hurt during the attack.
— The shooter fired multiple rounds from a nearby roof or an elevated position down into the field office’s sally port, an ICE spokesperson confirmed.
— The motive behind the shooting, or what the shooter was targeting, is not immediately clear.
According to FBI Director Kash Patel, “Anti-ICE” was written on one of shell casings. This story is still developing.
Paul Krugman is the latest writer to argue that Trump’s fascist takeover can be thwarted. From his Substack: Is the Jimmy Kimmel Saga a Sign that the Tide is Turning?
It’s irrefutable now: Trump is nakedly following the playbook of autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban. As his poll numbers fall, he is rushing to lock in permanent power by punishing his opponents and intimidating everyone else into submission. Craven congressional Republicans and a complicit Supreme Court have abetted Trump’s destruction of our democratic safeguards and norms.
Yet Trump has a significant problem that neither Putin nor Orban faced. When Putin and Orban were consolidating their autocratics, they were genuinely popular. They were perceived by the public as effective and competent leaders. Just nine months into his presidency, Trump, by contrast, is deeply unpopular. He is increasingly seen as chaotic and inept. As David Frum says, this means that he is in a race against time. Can he consolidate power before he loses his aura of inevitability? Will those who run major institutions – particularly corporate CEOs – understand that we are at a crucial juncture, and that by accommodating Trump they have more to lose than by standing up to him?
To put it bluntly, is the Jimmy Kimmel affair the harbinger of a failed Trumpian putsch?
Krugman notes that Trump’s role models, Putin and Orban were popular during their takeovers, in contrast to Trump.
Trump’s net approval, by contrast, turned negative within weeks after taking office and has just continued to fall.
As G. Elliott Morris points out, his position looks even worse when you consider intensity. Almost half the public disapproves “strongly,” twice the share with strong approval.
Jimmy Kimmel
It’s clear that if Trump were subject to normal political constraints, obliged to follow the rule of law and accept election results, he would already be a political lame duck. His future influence and those of his minions would be greatly reduced by his unpopularity. But at this juncture he is a quasi-autocrat. He is the leader of a party that accommodates his every whim, backed by a corrupt Supreme Court prepared to validate whatever he does, no matter how clearly it violates the law.
As a result, Trump has been able to use the vast power of the federal government to deliver punishments and rewards in a completely unprecedented way. He has arbitrarily cut off funding to universities, refused to spend Congressionally-mandated funds, threatened to take away broadcast licenses, fired officials who are supposed to have job security, pardoned J6 insurrectionists, defied the lower courts, retaliated against those who have tried to hold him accountable, and enriched his family. This has created a climate of intimidation, with many institutions preemptively capitulating to Trump’s demands as if he already had total power.
But the fact is that Trump has not yet locked in his autocracy. Timid institutions are failing to understand not only how unpopular Trump is, but also how severe a backlash they are likely to face for surrendering without a fight.
Disney figured it out; we’ll see what happens with Sinclair and NexStar. Read the entire post at the link.
Politico Playbook on Kimmel’s return:
An unbowed Jimmy Kimmel took aim at President Donald Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr last night in a blistering, emotional return to ABC. Kimmel tore into the Trump administration for its “dangerous … anti-American” bid to have him canceled, and heaped praise on the conservative politicians and commentators who spoke up for freedom of speech. “This show is not important,” Kimmel said. “What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
Kimmel blended humor with invective. “I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours,” he deadpanned, “me or the CEO of Tylenol.” Robert De Niro made an appearance, playing a mafioso-style Carr issuing threats to ABC. And addressing the expected sky-high audience for last night’s show, Kimmel said: “You almost have to feel sorry for [Trump]. He tried his best to cancel me — instead he forced millions of people to watch the show … He might have to release the Epstein files to distract from this.”
Kimmel came close to tears as he partially addressed his own comments — about Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer — which sparked the initial backlash from the right. “I want to make something clear,” he said, voice wavering. “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.” Later, he hailed the words of forgiveness that Erika, Kirk’s widow, delivered at Sunday’s memorial. “It touched me deeply,” Kimmel said. “If there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that. Not this.”
Catch-up service: Watch the whole opening monologue
Naturally, Trump wasn’t happy that ABC brought Jimmy Kimmel back last night.
Ed Mazza at HuffPost: Trump Loses It Over Jimmy Kimmel’s Return In Unhinged New Rant, Then Threatens ABC.
President Donald Trump threw a fit on social media on Tuesday night as late night TV nemesis Jimmy Kimmel headed back to the airwaves.
He said Kimmel should “rot in his bad Ratings,” called his show a “major Illegal Campaign Contribution” to the Democratic National Committee and threatened legal action against the “true bunch of losers” at ABC.
“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website about an hour before Kimmel’s return to television. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!”
Despite Trump’s claim, Kimmel’s show was suspended ― not canceled ― over comments the host made about the suspect in the public assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” he wrote. “He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution.”
Then, he threatened ABC with another lawsuit after settling with the network last year in a defamation case.
Maybe because Kimmel is more popular than crybaby Trump?
Yesterday, Trump embarrassed himself and all Americans in an unbelievably bad speech to the U.N. It was truly horrifying, and a historic stain on our country.
David Rothkopf at The Daily Beast: Trump’s UN Address Was a Tragedy of Shakespearian Proportions.
Instead of a traditional public address from a world leader, U.S. President Donald Trump tilted back his badly-dyed hair-sprayed coif and howled at the moon for the better part of an hour during his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday morning.
Well, not the better part. Definitely not the better part.
To describe the speech as insane, while accurate, would distract from just how extraordinarily packed with lies it was. How profoundly ignorant it was. How much damage it did to the United States’ standing in the world—it clearly marked a low point in America’s relationship with the United Nations and the international order we helped create in the wake of World War II.
From a purely U.S. political perspective, emphasizing how haggard and low-energy our rapidly declining president was is key. He made a point to note that an apparent mechanical issue with a UN escalator was an insurmountable problem, for example—most of the rest of us who are in fairly reasonable shape might have noted a stalled escalator is actually just a stairway that we could have walked right up.
But it would nonetheless, be a mistake, to ignore just how crazed the speech was. It was apparent from Trump’s opening moments when he railed about the UN’s broken teleprompter to the point later when he brought it up again in his broader condemnation of the UN as also broken, highlighting what he saw as its uselessness in not coming to his assistance in solving the famous seven global conflicts that we all know he did not solve. It was apparent in the fact that he argued that he deserves the Nobel Peace prize while noting he also takes great pride in discussing the attack he authorized on Iran, and those he has ordered against boats he claims without evidence were trafficking in drugs on the high seas.
The speech contained the most extensive condemnation of green energy and what Trump considers the climate change hoax that we have ever heard from a public official since possibly the invention of the steam engine. Science be damned. Oligarchs love fossil fuels or what Trump noted that he demands White House staffers refer to as “beautiful, clean coal.” Windmills, windmills on the other hand, are the pinwheels of Satan. (Someday we will get to the bottom of Trump’s anemomenophobia. Clearly, he had a bad experience with something that blew him the wrong way as a child. Or more recently.)
He defended his irrational, lose-lose global trading system destroying tariffs which in and of itself will soon be listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as an extreme symptom of economic psychosis. He downplayed civilian casualties in Ukraine and explained this war wouldn’t have happened if there had been good leadership in the country—in front of President Volodymyr Zelensky, no less.
And there was so much more. He even claimed that he had settled 7 global conflicts and that everyone thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Read more at the link.
Steve Benen at MaddowBlog: With bizarre remarks at the U.N., Trump embarrasses himself and the United States.
Seven years ago this week, Donald Trump addressed the United Nations and began his remarks with an absurdity. “In less than two years,” the American president said, “my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” The boast, of course, was plainly false.
But just as important at the time was that everyone in attendance at the U.N. General Assembly recognized the rhetoric as silly — and some of the diplomats in the room started audibly laughing. The laughter caught the Republican off-guard and left Trump in a position he’d long hoped to avoid: the target of international ridicule.
In some ways, the Republican’s address was a handy encapsulation of where Trump stands in the fifth year of his White House tenure.
The Trumps struggle with a UN escalator.
Over the course of his remarks, he told strange lies about foreign investments in the U.S. He generated murmurs in the hall by declaring, “Our message is very simple. If you come illegally into the United States, you’re going to jail or you’re going back to where you came from — or perhaps even further than that. You know what that means.”
He pretended that he’s ended seven wars, while pointing to approval ratings that exist only in his mind. He renewed his pathetic lobbying for a Nobel Peace Prize, falsely claiming that “everyone” wants him to get one. He took pointless shots at ostensible U.S. allies in NATO and at the United Nations itself. He told unnamed officials that their countries are “going to hell.” He bragged about campaign swag sales. He attacked clean, renewable energy, while insisting that climate science is an elaborate “con job” and a “hoax” concocted by nefarious people with “evil intentions.”
And for good measure, he claimed that unnamed “environmentalists” want to ban cows.
Perhaps most importantly, Trump told one of his favorite lies, bragging that international respect for the U.S. has reached all-time highs now that he’s back in power.
Read more at the MSNBC link.
You might also want to check out this piece by Zachary B. Wolf at CNN: Trump’s ‘your countries are going to hell’ speech, annotated.
One more from AP: After mechanical challenges, UN says Trump’s team to blame for nonworking escalator and teleprompter.
President Donald Trump broke from his prepared remarks at the United Nations on Tuesday to bemoan an inoperable escalator and a defective teleprompter, using the incidents to portray the global body as dysfunctional.
“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle,” he mused, chopping the air with his hand.
But it turns out the cause was closer to Trump.
Stephane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said a videographer from the U.S. delegation who ran ahead of him triggered the stop mechanism at the top of the escalator.
“The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing,” Dujarric said in a statement. “The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function.”
On the Teleprompter:
As he began his speech, Trump also noted that the teleprompter wasn’t working. He joked that whoever was running the teleprompter “is in big trouble.”
A U.N. official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue contributed that one to his side as well, saying the White House was operating the teleprompter for the president.
The day before yesterday, Trump gave an insane “health” press conference with RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz. JJ, in which they claimed that Tylenol as well as vaccines are causes of autism. JJ covered it in yesterday’s post.
Today, STAT has a response to Trump’s “medical” advice: Trump’s ‘tough it out’ to pregnant women meets wave of opposition by medical experts Doctors explain the medical consensus on autism, leucovorin, and Tylenol for fever.
Federal health officials are telling Americans no, they shouldn’t take Tylenol during pregnancy for fear of autism and yes, they should try a drug used in cancer care to treat children who have developed autism. The medical world disagrees.
“We were actually pretty alarmed by some of the output that was coming from the administration,” Marketa Wills, CEO and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, said in an interview. At a remarkable White House briefing on Monday, President Trump and his top health and science officials said Tylenol use in pregnancy caused some cases of autism in children and said leucovorin, a form of vitamin B9, could treat the disease.
RFK Jr. and Trump claim to have found causes for autism.
The event has drawn a flood of pushback from medical societies, autism organizations, and pediatric experts through official statements, interviews, and social media. Much more research is needed on the claims about Tylenol and leucovorin in particular, experts emphasized.
Until more research is conducted, Wills recommends that doctors rely on professional societies, peer-reviewed research in medical journals, and resources like UpToDate and the Washington Manual for guidance on how to talk with patients.
John Whyte, CEO of the American Medical Association, pointed out that there were discrepancies between the bold statements from the president and other government guidance. “If I ignore the press conference, and I listen to what the FDA wrote to providers, I would say — you know what? It’s talking about the lowest dose for the shortest period of time, and that’s not a bad thing,” White said. “That’s different than what I heard at the press conference.” [….]
While President Trump repeatedly told women to “tough it out” rather than take Tylenol for fever or pain during pregnancy, medical experts said there are good reasons to consider the medication.
An untreated fever can cause serious harms in pregnancy, including neurodevelopmental injuries to fetuses such as spina bifida, they told STAT.
“Brains are impacted by fever,” Joia Crear-Perry, an OB-GYN and founder and president of the National Birth Equity Collaborative, told STAT.
There are also studies suggesting fever is associated with the risk of autism spectrum disorder, but it’s unknown whether treatment decreases that risk, Brenna Hughes, interim chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine, wrote in an email to STAT.
There’s much more information at the STAT link.
The New York Times has published a shocking investigation about Elon Musk’s family, by Kirsten Grind and John Eligon (gift link): Elon Musk’s Father Accused of Child Sexual Abuse.
Elon Musk has not been shy about putting much of his life on public display. The tech billionaire posts daily on his social network X, has cooperated with two biographies and often speaks on podcasts and at conferences.
But there is one part of his life that he has not revealed much about — his longtime estrangement from his father, Errol Musk, who has become increasingly outspoken about his family and business ventures tied to the Musk name.
Errol Musk
A New York Times investigation found that a significant factor in Elon Musk’s rupture with his father stems from accusations against Errol Musk of child sex abuse. The allegations have repeatedly spilled over into Elon Musk’s life as relatives have contacted him for help and he has sometimes taken action to intercede, according to personal letters, emails and interviews with family members.
The family’s troubles have entangled Elon Musk in a painful three-decade multigenerational saga that continues to trail him. The fallout has kept the 54-year-old mogul tethered to South Africa, where he was born and where Errol Musk lives, even as he has built a business empire in the United States and briefly ascended to political power as a close adviser to President Trump.
The allegations against Errol Musk involve five of his children and stepchildren, whom he was accused of abusing in South Africa and California, according to police and court records, personal correspondence, social workers and interviews with family members.
The earliest accusation was in 1993 when Errol Musk’s stepdaughter, then 4 years old, told relatives he had touched her at the family house. A decade later, the stepdaughter said she caught him sniffing her dirty underwear. Some family members have also accused Errol Musk of abusing two of his daughters and a stepson. And as recently as 2023, family members and a social worker attempted to intervene after his then 5-year-old son said his father had groped his buttocks.
Three separate police investigations were opened, according to police and court records, as well as family members. Two of the inquiries ended, while it’s unclear what happened in the third. Errol Musk, 79, has not been convicted of any crime.
The abuse allegations have caused strife within the Musk family, with some relatives turning to Elon Musk — who is Errol Musk’s eldest child — for help. Around 2010, one relative wrote Elon Musk a five-page letter about some of the accusations and implored him to intervene.
“We really need your advice, help and guidance in these matters because we daily see these children suffer,” the relative wrote in the letter, which was viewed by The Times.
Use the gift link to read the rest.
Those are my recommended reads for today. What stories have you been following?
#Autism #DallasICEShooting #ElonMusk #ErrolMusk #JimmyKimmel #leucovorin #Tylenol #UNGeneralAssembly #UnitedNations #vaccines
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Gangsters of Capitalism
Author: Jonathan M. Katz
Completed: July 2025 (Full list of books)
Overview: The story of the pacifist Quaker who joined the Marines and rose to the rank of Major General only to become one a the loudest anti-war voices in the run up to World War 2 was long and winding. I remembered many of the entanglements the US was involved in at the turn of the twentieth century in Central America and Asia but was a bit surprised that one man happened to be in almost all of them. His insight from all those battles was that much of the US fighting was based on what was best for monied/corporate interests. A century later, despite so many protests against this fact, it seems little has changed as we invade Venezuela and Iran mainly for their oil.
Highlights:
- “Imperialism,” on the other hand, is a foreign-sounding word. It brings up images, if it brings any at all, of redcoats terrorizing Boston, or perhaps British officials in linen suits sipping gin and tonics in Bombay. The idea that the United States, a country founded in rebellion against empire, could have colonized and conquered other peoples seems anathema to everything we are taught America stands for.
- “Imperialism,” on the other hand, is a foreign-sounding word. It brings up images, if it brings any at all, of redcoats terrorizing Boston, or perhaps British officials in linen suits sipping gin and tonics in Bombay. The idea that the United States, a country founded in rebellion against empire, could have colonized and conquered other peoples seems anathema to everything we are taught America stands for.
- As a candidate and then as president, Donald Trump preyed on American anxieties by combining the worst excesses of those early-twentieth-century imperial chestnuts—militarism, white supremacy, and the cult of manhood—with a newer fantasy: that Americans could reclaim our sense of safety and supremacy by disengaging from the world we made; by literally building walls along our border and making the countries we conquered pay for them.
- In 1741, the British vice admiral Edward Vernon captured the bay and renamed it Cumberland Harbour. Vernon’s crew was full of sailors from Britain’s North American colonies who wrote home encouraging their friends and relatives to rush down to the bay—“now or never for a plantation on the island of Cuba.” Disease and local resistance ended the brief occupation. But one of Vernon’s crewmen, Lawrence Washington, was so inspired by the voyage that he named his new Virginia plantation after its commander. Washington died soon after; the plantation—Mount Vernon—ended up in the hands of his half brother George.
- American society was becoming particularly obsessed with manhood. The United States was transforming from a country of manual laborers into one where people rode machines to office jobs. Electricity and plumbing would soon mean less chopping and hauling at home. The Civil War generation was retiring, taking tales of courage and honor with them. Women were campaigning for, and in a few states had already won, the right to vote. As the historian Kristin L. Hoganson has argued, male leaders feared that all these trends portended national feminization and ruin. “War, they believed, would return the nation to a political order in which strong men governed and homebound women proved their patriotism by raising heroic sons.”
- Clouds of steam were evaporating off the lights. It was like the empire in which we’d trapped ourselves and millions of others in places like that a century before: Too dangerous to turn off. Too dangerous to keep on.
- Knowing Congress was unlikely to approve a third overseas war in two years, McKinley made a fateful decision: he became the first president in U.S. history to order the full-scale invasion of a sovereign country without seeking legislative approval.10 Congress did not challenge him.
- Before going to war, Butler had dreamed of getting shot—“not too seriously, but sufficient to leave a scar.”30 He hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.
- American soldiers chasing these guerrillas were pulled ever deeper into the hinterlands. Along the way, they picked up local words. Bundók—Tagalog for “mountain”—was given an American twang and made into slang for any wild and remote place. It was only by going to the “boondocks,” the soldiers learned, that you could get the measure of a country.2
- To finance the insurgency, the soldiers on Luzon seized the supply of the islands’ most valuable export: a strong, flexible fiber harvested from a cousin of the banana plant known as abacá. Americans called it “Manila hemp,” and before synthetics came along, it drove the global economy. Shipbuilders used its fibers to weave ropes and sails. Electric companies ran abacá belts through their city-powering generators. The oil boom minting millionaires in Texas and California depended on miles of “Manila drilling cable” pulsing through the derricks. Even the people counting the money needed abacá to make their office supplies: they’re called “manila envelopes” for a reason.
- The U.S. government formally recognized Panama the next afternoon. It took longer than that for most on the isthmus to learn they were living in a new country.
- They called themselves Sandinistas, in honor of their anti-imperialist hero. The name was itself an act of rebellion, Baltodano told me, because the dictator had tried not only to bury Sandino’s body but “to make his story disappear as well.” The story of Sandino’s resistance had been rediscovered by Carlos Fonseca, a radical librarian who became a leader of the anti-Somoza uprising.
- the number ultimately needed for construction was equivalent to more than one-eighth the new republic’s entire population. That left the U.S. government to rely, as the French had, on workers from the Caribbean. Their stories are mostly absent from the better-funded museums, which focus on celebrating the technological feats and leaders involved. But in the humid basement of the Afro-Antillean Museum, at a table covered with a vinyl cloth, the librarian handed me a bound blue volume. The faded gold embossing on the cover read: Letters from Isthmian Canal Construction Workers.
- They tried to pressure the Canal Zone’s governor, Maj. Gen. Robert J. Fleming, U.S. Army, into rescinding the order. But Fleming had neither the power nor inclination to do so. He had come to resent the chauvinism of the Americans he oversaw. “They’ve been isolated so long they’ve developed a reactionary mentality,” Fleming told the Saturday Evening Post. “It’s the perfect place for the guy who’s 150 percent American and 50 percent whiskey.”
- The future president lied profligately about the history of the canal, claiming falsely that “our Navy did not intervene to bring about the secession of Panama,” that the Panamanians “knew what they were doing” when they let Bunau-Varilla give away their rights in the Zone, and implied that Americans—as opposed to Caribbean conscripts—had done the actual digging.47 (Conservative Republican Senate candidate S. I. Hayakawa said, more cheekily: “I think we should keep it. We stole it fair and square.”
- On the other side of the water stood the skyscrapers of the Panama City financial district. The banking system housed in those towers—the system first set up in Panama by financiers such as Ramón Arias and their American friends—ultimately eclipsed the value of the canal itself. The bankers who occupy those buildings have outdone Noriega, not to mention the gangs of El Chorrillo, in brazenness: much of an estimated $7.6 trillion in worldwide hidden offshore holdings—8 percent of the world’s wealth—flows across the isthmus under the cover of generous bank secrecy laws.
- In an attempt to build a stable coalition, the victorious Madero appointed some of Díaz’s technocrats to be his advisers and ordered his revolutionary army to lay down its arms. The commanders who had helped Madero oust Díaz in the name of land reform and redistribution felt betrayed. The most radical—Francisco “Pancho” Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south—declared the revolution would continue against him. But just as the rebels were preparing to move against Madero in February 1913, he was overthrown by someone else—the belligerent conservative Gen. Victoriano Huerta.
- But, as Huerta would not be the last to learn, the trouble with doing business with the United States was that, while Americans subverted democracy abroad, they still practiced a limited form of it at home.
- But concern had risen over the high numbers of opium addicts among the U.S. soldiers occupying the Philippines. Lawmakers were also looking for ways to criminalize new behaviors to feed an increasingly profitable system of underpaid prison labor, which had arisen in part to replace the free labor provided by enslaved African Americans. In that atmosphere, rumors spread freely that drugs such as cocaine would lead some, especially Black people in the South, to “disregard the barriers that society had established between different races,” as the Mexican historian Gabriela Recio has written.
- Butler would tell a radio audience around 1935. “But I feel it more to the point, in these times, to look for the oil deposits when you are trying to get at the bottom of deep international intrigue.”
- Throughout late 1914, the Navy Department drew up detailed plans for an invasion and occupation of Haiti, down to where to build the baseball fields that off-duty Marines would use and where to buy rum. Taking over foreign cities had become so old hat for the U.S. military that it was developing an actual template: some of the plans were simply repurposed from the recent invasion of Mexico, with instructions reading: “REWRITE LETTER INSERTING PORT AU PRINCE FOR VERA CRUZ, MEXICO WHEREVER IT APPEARS.”
- Butler’s insights became the key to securing America’s imperial foothold in Haiti. Though Butler did not realize it at the time, he was helping invent a new approach to warfare. It would eventually be dubbed counterinsurgency: the combination of military, political, and psychological methods employed by an occupying power with the goal of holistically defeating an armed resistance.
- Most of the carnival-goers were understandably not happy to see the invaders. Someone offered them food; another warned, too late, that the bread had been poisoned. Over the next few days, as Marines fell ill, the flying column temporarily decamped to the nearby plantation of the American-owned Central Ansonia Sugar Company. All recovered. But for the rest of the trip, Butler wrote, “my stomach was absolutely no use to me.”
- The border on Hispaniola is proof of the political philosopher Frantz Fanon’s dictum that “the colonial world is a compartmentalized world.”36 It was drawn at the behest of an imperial power, formalized in the interests of foreigners, and consecrated in blood by a dictator empowered and trained by the Marines. Those officials knew, as do their successors today, that for capital and elites to flow freely, subject peoples cannot. Fears of uncontrolled movement are why, a century after Butler complained about the lack of a clear border on Hispaniola, the U.S. government still helps fund, train, and equip border patrols across the world, from Jordan to Kenya to Peru.
- covering his tracks, Butler ensured there would be no accountability for the occupation’s actions from either the Haitian or American publics, and that the story would be pushed to the margin of both countries’ histories for generations to come. With the legislature now abolished, the U.S.-written constitution was placed before a popular plebiscite in the summer of 1918. Polling places were overseen by Butler’s rifle-toting Gendarmes, who were encouraged to actively campaign for the constitution’s passage.27 Less than 5 percent of Haiti’s population voted. It passed overwhelmingly. In addition to the key clause permitting foreigners to own land, the final draft vested the legislative powers of the dissolved parliament in a “Council of State” appointed by the puppet president. It also contained a special article declaring: “All the acts of the Government of the United States during its military occupation of Haiti are ratified and legal.”
- But in 1990, the first free election since the occupation was held. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an anti-Duvalierist Catholic priest who promised land and economic redistribution, won—only to be overthrown by the army nine months later. Several of the putschists had been on the CIA’s payroll. At least two of the coup’s leaders were trained by the U.S. Army.
- Butler could not see the irony: that the imperialism he had helped foster was a direct catalyst of the World War.4 The conflict erupted in 1914 as a fight between empires: Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side; Britain, France, and Russia on the other. All had spent decades in a complex global struggle for colonies, resources, and prestige—a struggle that the Americans (and Butler personally) had been parties to. The older empires, especially the British, were filled with anxiety over new competitors to their global supremacy. The Germans, as the United States’ fellow latecomers to global expansion, were reading Alfred Thayer Mahan’s tracts on sea power and empire when they declared: “We demand a place for ourselves in the sun.”
- The brass was so pleased with Butler’s administrative skill that they awarded him both the Army and Navy Distinguished Service Medals—the former pinned on him personally by General Pershing.
- Philadelphia’s police department was founded in 1854, making it one of the oldest in the United States. Until then, the streets of William Penn’s city, like most in the North, had been patrolled by ad hoc committees of night watchmen and private guards, charged at first with keeping Native Americans from venturing into town. (In the South the first organized law enforcement patrols were built on similarly racist grounds: hunters tracking Black people trying to escape slavery.)
- As residents of MOVE’s new middle-class neighborhood accused the group of harassing and beating them, the mayor called the commune “terrorists” and promised to take action.43 A renewed standoff ensued. On the late afternoon of May 13, 1985, Police Lt. Frank Powell dropped a bomb of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex out of a helicopter. It exploded on impact, igniting drums of gasoline the commune stored on the roof. Police commissioner Gregore J. Sambor—a former Army Reserve major who had risen to power under Rizzo—gave the order: “Let the bunker burn.” Veterans compared the inferno to scenes they had witnessed in Korea and Vietnam. By morning, two city blocks were destroyed. Six adults and five children were found charred to death in the wreckage of the home.
- Furious and betrayed, Sun wrote an open letter in which he asked the question that had reverberated through Havana and Manila decades before: “When we first started our revolution … the United States was our model and inspiration. Now we wonder … has the nation of Washington and Lincoln abandoned the ideal of liberty and regressed from a liberator to an oppressor?”
- As the months wore on, the U.S. envoy in Beijing, MacMurray, insisted the Marines be ready to fight their way in and evacuate his staff if the old imperial capital fell to the Nationalists. Butler publicly demurred. “I shall consider our expedition to have been entirely successful only if we finally withdraw from China without the spilling of any blood, either American or Chinese,” he told a New York Times correspondent. “This country belongs to the Chinese, and I tolerate no clashes between my men and the Chinese people. If a man so much as slaps a rickshaw coolie or lays a hand upon a servant, he gets a general court-martial.”
- The lack of action left his younger Marines confused. “We didn’t know what the mission was,” David M. Shoup, a future Marine commandant, later recalled thinking as a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant in China. “But we landed at the Standard Oil docks and lived in Standard Oil compounds and were ready to protect Standard Oil’s investment. I wondered at the time if our government would put all these Marines in a position of danger, where they might sacrifice their lives in defense of Standard Oil. Later I discovered that of course it would, and did.
- Why do we expend so much time and money preserving the memory of the short-duration wars in which European powers were involved; and so little, relatively speaking, remembering the kind of wars Butler fought—protracted, decades-long conflicts in the Americas, Asia, and Africa that have been the most common mode of warfare throughout U.S. history? And why does America celebrate its generals who oversaw death and destruction on a massive scale, while forgeting the exceptional few who spent their later years trying to stop them?
- The story he told was essentially a parable: the bankers and the industrialists were among the racketeers. The American people—the “lads in the trenches,” the loved ones worried sick at home—were the dupes and victims. The racket could only be smashed, Butler concluded, “by taking the profit out of war.”
- A year later, in 1941, Franklin Roosevelt imposed an oil embargo on the Japanese in retaliation for their invasion of the French colonies in Indochina. That gave Emperor Hirohito two choices: give up on his dreams of becoming the dominant empire in East Asia and the Pacific, or seize the oil reserves in the Dutch East Indies, risking war with the United States and Britain. His war cabinet decided to strike first, simultaneously bombing Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and the British garrisons in Malaya, Hong Kong, and Singapore on December 7 and 8, 1941.
-
Gangsters of Capitalism
Author: Jonathan M. Katz
Completed: July 2025 (Full list of books)
Overview: The story of the pacifist Quaker who joined the Marines and rose to the rank of Major General only to become one a the loudest anti-war voices in the run up to World War 2 was long and winding. I remembered many of the entanglements the US was involved in at the turn of the twentieth century in Central America and Asia but was a bit surprised that one man happened to be in almost all of them. His insight from all those battles was that much of the US fighting was based on what was best for monied/corporate interests. A century later, despite so many protests against this fact, it seems little has changed as we invade Venezuela and Iran mainly for their oil.
Highlights:
- “Imperialism,” on the other hand, is a foreign-sounding word. It brings up images, if it brings any at all, of redcoats terrorizing Boston, or perhaps British officials in linen suits sipping gin and tonics in Bombay. The idea that the United States, a country founded in rebellion against empire, could have colonized and conquered other peoples seems anathema to everything we are taught America stands for.
- “Imperialism,” on the other hand, is a foreign-sounding word. It brings up images, if it brings any at all, of redcoats terrorizing Boston, or perhaps British officials in linen suits sipping gin and tonics in Bombay. The idea that the United States, a country founded in rebellion against empire, could have colonized and conquered other peoples seems anathema to everything we are taught America stands for.
- As a candidate and then as president, Donald Trump preyed on American anxieties by combining the worst excesses of those early-twentieth-century imperial chestnuts—militarism, white supremacy, and the cult of manhood—with a newer fantasy: that Americans could reclaim our sense of safety and supremacy by disengaging from the world we made; by literally building walls along our border and making the countries we conquered pay for them.
- In 1741, the British vice admiral Edward Vernon captured the bay and renamed it Cumberland Harbour. Vernon’s crew was full of sailors from Britain’s North American colonies who wrote home encouraging their friends and relatives to rush down to the bay—“now or never for a plantation on the island of Cuba.” Disease and local resistance ended the brief occupation. But one of Vernon’s crewmen, Lawrence Washington, was so inspired by the voyage that he named his new Virginia plantation after its commander. Washington died soon after; the plantation—Mount Vernon—ended up in the hands of his half brother George.
- American society was becoming particularly obsessed with manhood. The United States was transforming from a country of manual laborers into one where people rode machines to office jobs. Electricity and plumbing would soon mean less chopping and hauling at home. The Civil War generation was retiring, taking tales of courage and honor with them. Women were campaigning for, and in a few states had already won, the right to vote. As the historian Kristin L. Hoganson has argued, male leaders feared that all these trends portended national feminization and ruin. “War, they believed, would return the nation to a political order in which strong men governed and homebound women proved their patriotism by raising heroic sons.”
- Clouds of steam were evaporating off the lights. It was like the empire in which we’d trapped ourselves and millions of others in places like that a century before: Too dangerous to turn off. Too dangerous to keep on.
- Knowing Congress was unlikely to approve a third overseas war in two years, McKinley made a fateful decision: he became the first president in U.S. history to order the full-scale invasion of a sovereign country without seeking legislative approval.10 Congress did not challenge him.
- Before going to war, Butler had dreamed of getting shot—“not too seriously, but sufficient to leave a scar.”30 He hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.
- American soldiers chasing these guerrillas were pulled ever deeper into the hinterlands. Along the way, they picked up local words. Bundók—Tagalog for “mountain”—was given an American twang and made into slang for any wild and remote place. It was only by going to the “boondocks,” the soldiers learned, that you could get the measure of a country.2
- To finance the insurgency, the soldiers on Luzon seized the supply of the islands’ most valuable export: a strong, flexible fiber harvested from a cousin of the banana plant known as abacá. Americans called it “Manila hemp,” and before synthetics came along, it drove the global economy. Shipbuilders used its fibers to weave ropes and sails. Electric companies ran abacá belts through their city-powering generators. The oil boom minting millionaires in Texas and California depended on miles of “Manila drilling cable” pulsing through the derricks. Even the people counting the money needed abacá to make their office supplies: they’re called “manila envelopes” for a reason.
- The U.S. government formally recognized Panama the next afternoon. It took longer than that for most on the isthmus to learn they were living in a new country.
- They called themselves Sandinistas, in honor of their anti-imperialist hero. The name was itself an act of rebellion, Baltodano told me, because the dictator had tried not only to bury Sandino’s body but “to make his story disappear as well.” The story of Sandino’s resistance had been rediscovered by Carlos Fonseca, a radical librarian who became a leader of the anti-Somoza uprising.
- the number ultimately needed for construction was equivalent to more than one-eighth the new republic’s entire population. That left the U.S. government to rely, as the French had, on workers from the Caribbean. Their stories are mostly absent from the better-funded museums, which focus on celebrating the technological feats and leaders involved. But in the humid basement of the Afro-Antillean Museum, at a table covered with a vinyl cloth, the librarian handed me a bound blue volume. The faded gold embossing on the cover read: Letters from Isthmian Canal Construction Workers.
- They tried to pressure the Canal Zone’s governor, Maj. Gen. Robert J. Fleming, U.S. Army, into rescinding the order. But Fleming had neither the power nor inclination to do so. He had come to resent the chauvinism of the Americans he oversaw. “They’ve been isolated so long they’ve developed a reactionary mentality,” Fleming told the Saturday Evening Post. “It’s the perfect place for the guy who’s 150 percent American and 50 percent whiskey.”
- The future president lied profligately about the history of the canal, claiming falsely that “our Navy did not intervene to bring about the secession of Panama,” that the Panamanians “knew what they were doing” when they let Bunau-Varilla give away their rights in the Zone, and implied that Americans—as opposed to Caribbean conscripts—had done the actual digging.47 (Conservative Republican Senate candidate S. I. Hayakawa said, more cheekily: “I think we should keep it. We stole it fair and square.”
- On the other side of the water stood the skyscrapers of the Panama City financial district. The banking system housed in those towers—the system first set up in Panama by financiers such as Ramón Arias and their American friends—ultimately eclipsed the value of the canal itself. The bankers who occupy those buildings have outdone Noriega, not to mention the gangs of El Chorrillo, in brazenness: much of an estimated $7.6 trillion in worldwide hidden offshore holdings—8 percent of the world’s wealth—flows across the isthmus under the cover of generous bank secrecy laws.
- In an attempt to build a stable coalition, the victorious Madero appointed some of Díaz’s technocrats to be his advisers and ordered his revolutionary army to lay down its arms. The commanders who had helped Madero oust Díaz in the name of land reform and redistribution felt betrayed. The most radical—Francisco “Pancho” Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south—declared the revolution would continue against him. But just as the rebels were preparing to move against Madero in February 1913, he was overthrown by someone else—the belligerent conservative Gen. Victoriano Huerta.
- But, as Huerta would not be the last to learn, the trouble with doing business with the United States was that, while Americans subverted democracy abroad, they still practiced a limited form of it at home.
- But concern had risen over the high numbers of opium addicts among the U.S. soldiers occupying the Philippines. Lawmakers were also looking for ways to criminalize new behaviors to feed an increasingly profitable system of underpaid prison labor, which had arisen in part to replace the free labor provided by enslaved African Americans. In that atmosphere, rumors spread freely that drugs such as cocaine would lead some, especially Black people in the South, to “disregard the barriers that society had established between different races,” as the Mexican historian Gabriela Recio has written.
- Butler would tell a radio audience around 1935. “But I feel it more to the point, in these times, to look for the oil deposits when you are trying to get at the bottom of deep international intrigue.”
- Throughout late 1914, the Navy Department drew up detailed plans for an invasion and occupation of Haiti, down to where to build the baseball fields that off-duty Marines would use and where to buy rum. Taking over foreign cities had become so old hat for the U.S. military that it was developing an actual template: some of the plans were simply repurposed from the recent invasion of Mexico, with instructions reading: “REWRITE LETTER INSERTING PORT AU PRINCE FOR VERA CRUZ, MEXICO WHEREVER IT APPEARS.”
- Butler’s insights became the key to securing America’s imperial foothold in Haiti. Though Butler did not realize it at the time, he was helping invent a new approach to warfare. It would eventually be dubbed counterinsurgency: the combination of military, political, and psychological methods employed by an occupying power with the goal of holistically defeating an armed resistance.
- Most of the carnival-goers were understandably not happy to see the invaders. Someone offered them food; another warned, too late, that the bread had been poisoned. Over the next few days, as Marines fell ill, the flying column temporarily decamped to the nearby plantation of the American-owned Central Ansonia Sugar Company. All recovered. But for the rest of the trip, Butler wrote, “my stomach was absolutely no use to me.”
- The border on Hispaniola is proof of the political philosopher Frantz Fanon’s dictum that “the colonial world is a compartmentalized world.”36 It was drawn at the behest of an imperial power, formalized in the interests of foreigners, and consecrated in blood by a dictator empowered and trained by the Marines. Those officials knew, as do their successors today, that for capital and elites to flow freely, subject peoples cannot. Fears of uncontrolled movement are why, a century after Butler complained about the lack of a clear border on Hispaniola, the U.S. government still helps fund, train, and equip border patrols across the world, from Jordan to Kenya to Peru.
- covering his tracks, Butler ensured there would be no accountability for the occupation’s actions from either the Haitian or American publics, and that the story would be pushed to the margin of both countries’ histories for generations to come. With the legislature now abolished, the U.S.-written constitution was placed before a popular plebiscite in the summer of 1918. Polling places were overseen by Butler’s rifle-toting Gendarmes, who were encouraged to actively campaign for the constitution’s passage.27 Less than 5 percent of Haiti’s population voted. It passed overwhelmingly. In addition to the key clause permitting foreigners to own land, the final draft vested the legislative powers of the dissolved parliament in a “Council of State” appointed by the puppet president. It also contained a special article declaring: “All the acts of the Government of the United States during its military occupation of Haiti are ratified and legal.”
- But in 1990, the first free election since the occupation was held. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an anti-Duvalierist Catholic priest who promised land and economic redistribution, won—only to be overthrown by the army nine months later. Several of the putschists had been on the CIA’s payroll. At least two of the coup’s leaders were trained by the U.S. Army.
- Butler could not see the irony: that the imperialism he had helped foster was a direct catalyst of the World War.4 The conflict erupted in 1914 as a fight between empires: Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side; Britain, France, and Russia on the other. All had spent decades in a complex global struggle for colonies, resources, and prestige—a struggle that the Americans (and Butler personally) had been parties to. The older empires, especially the British, were filled with anxiety over new competitors to their global supremacy. The Germans, as the United States’ fellow latecomers to global expansion, were reading Alfred Thayer Mahan’s tracts on sea power and empire when they declared: “We demand a place for ourselves in the sun.”
- The brass was so pleased with Butler’s administrative skill that they awarded him both the Army and Navy Distinguished Service Medals—the former pinned on him personally by General Pershing.
- Philadelphia’s police department was founded in 1854, making it one of the oldest in the United States. Until then, the streets of William Penn’s city, like most in the North, had been patrolled by ad hoc committees of night watchmen and private guards, charged at first with keeping Native Americans from venturing into town. (In the South the first organized law enforcement patrols were built on similarly racist grounds: hunters tracking Black people trying to escape slavery.)
- As residents of MOVE’s new middle-class neighborhood accused the group of harassing and beating them, the mayor called the commune “terrorists” and promised to take action.43 A renewed standoff ensued. On the late afternoon of May 13, 1985, Police Lt. Frank Powell dropped a bomb of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex out of a helicopter. It exploded on impact, igniting drums of gasoline the commune stored on the roof. Police commissioner Gregore J. Sambor—a former Army Reserve major who had risen to power under Rizzo—gave the order: “Let the bunker burn.” Veterans compared the inferno to scenes they had witnessed in Korea and Vietnam. By morning, two city blocks were destroyed. Six adults and five children were found charred to death in the wreckage of the home.
- Furious and betrayed, Sun wrote an open letter in which he asked the question that had reverberated through Havana and Manila decades before: “When we first started our revolution … the United States was our model and inspiration. Now we wonder … has the nation of Washington and Lincoln abandoned the ideal of liberty and regressed from a liberator to an oppressor?”
- As the months wore on, the U.S. envoy in Beijing, MacMurray, insisted the Marines be ready to fight their way in and evacuate his staff if the old imperial capital fell to the Nationalists. Butler publicly demurred. “I shall consider our expedition to have been entirely successful only if we finally withdraw from China without the spilling of any blood, either American or Chinese,” he told a New York Times correspondent. “This country belongs to the Chinese, and I tolerate no clashes between my men and the Chinese people. If a man so much as slaps a rickshaw coolie or lays a hand upon a servant, he gets a general court-martial.”
- The lack of action left his younger Marines confused. “We didn’t know what the mission was,” David M. Shoup, a future Marine commandant, later recalled thinking as a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant in China. “But we landed at the Standard Oil docks and lived in Standard Oil compounds and were ready to protect Standard Oil’s investment. I wondered at the time if our government would put all these Marines in a position of danger, where they might sacrifice their lives in defense of Standard Oil. Later I discovered that of course it would, and did.
- Why do we expend so much time and money preserving the memory of the short-duration wars in which European powers were involved; and so little, relatively speaking, remembering the kind of wars Butler fought—protracted, decades-long conflicts in the Americas, Asia, and Africa that have been the most common mode of warfare throughout U.S. history? And why does America celebrate its generals who oversaw death and destruction on a massive scale, while forgeting the exceptional few who spent their later years trying to stop them?
- The story he told was essentially a parable: the bankers and the industrialists were among the racketeers. The American people—the “lads in the trenches,” the loved ones worried sick at home—were the dupes and victims. The racket could only be smashed, Butler concluded, “by taking the profit out of war.”
- A year later, in 1941, Franklin Roosevelt imposed an oil embargo on the Japanese in retaliation for their invasion of the French colonies in Indochina. That gave Emperor Hirohito two choices: give up on his dreams of becoming the dominant empire in East Asia and the Pacific, or seize the oil reserves in the Dutch East Indies, risking war with the United States and Britain. His war cabinet decided to strike first, simultaneously bombing Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and the British garrisons in Malaya, Hong Kong, and Singapore on December 7 and 8, 1941.
-
Gangsters of Capitalism
Author: Jonathan M. Katz
Completed: July 2025 (Full list of books)
Overview: The story of the pacifist Quaker who joined the Marines and rose to the rank of Major General only to become one a the loudest anti-war voices in the run up to World War 2 was long and winding. I remembered many of the entanglements the US was involved in at the turn of the twentieth century in Central America and Asia but was a bit surprised that one man happened to be in almost all of them. His insight from all those battles was that much of the US fighting was based on what was best for monied/corporate interests. A century later, despite so many protests against this fact, it seems little has changed as we invade Venezuela and Iran mainly for their oil.
Highlights:
- “Imperialism,” on the other hand, is a foreign-sounding word. It brings up images, if it brings any at all, of redcoats terrorizing Boston, or perhaps British officials in linen suits sipping gin and tonics in Bombay. The idea that the United States, a country founded in rebellion against empire, could have colonized and conquered other peoples seems anathema to everything we are taught America stands for.
- “Imperialism,” on the other hand, is a foreign-sounding word. It brings up images, if it brings any at all, of redcoats terrorizing Boston, or perhaps British officials in linen suits sipping gin and tonics in Bombay. The idea that the United States, a country founded in rebellion against empire, could have colonized and conquered other peoples seems anathema to everything we are taught America stands for.
- As a candidate and then as president, Donald Trump preyed on American anxieties by combining the worst excesses of those early-twentieth-century imperial chestnuts—militarism, white supremacy, and the cult of manhood—with a newer fantasy: that Americans could reclaim our sense of safety and supremacy by disengaging from the world we made; by literally building walls along our border and making the countries we conquered pay for them.
- In 1741, the British vice admiral Edward Vernon captured the bay and renamed it Cumberland Harbour. Vernon’s crew was full of sailors from Britain’s North American colonies who wrote home encouraging their friends and relatives to rush down to the bay—“now or never for a plantation on the island of Cuba.” Disease and local resistance ended the brief occupation. But one of Vernon’s crewmen, Lawrence Washington, was so inspired by the voyage that he named his new Virginia plantation after its commander. Washington died soon after; the plantation—Mount Vernon—ended up in the hands of his half brother George.
- American society was becoming particularly obsessed with manhood. The United States was transforming from a country of manual laborers into one where people rode machines to office jobs. Electricity and plumbing would soon mean less chopping and hauling at home. The Civil War generation was retiring, taking tales of courage and honor with them. Women were campaigning for, and in a few states had already won, the right to vote. As the historian Kristin L. Hoganson has argued, male leaders feared that all these trends portended national feminization and ruin. “War, they believed, would return the nation to a political order in which strong men governed and homebound women proved their patriotism by raising heroic sons.”
- Clouds of steam were evaporating off the lights. It was like the empire in which we’d trapped ourselves and millions of others in places like that a century before: Too dangerous to turn off. Too dangerous to keep on.
- Knowing Congress was unlikely to approve a third overseas war in two years, McKinley made a fateful decision: he became the first president in U.S. history to order the full-scale invasion of a sovereign country without seeking legislative approval.10 Congress did not challenge him.
- Before going to war, Butler had dreamed of getting shot—“not too seriously, but sufficient to leave a scar.”30 He hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.
- American soldiers chasing these guerrillas were pulled ever deeper into the hinterlands. Along the way, they picked up local words. Bundók—Tagalog for “mountain”—was given an American twang and made into slang for any wild and remote place. It was only by going to the “boondocks,” the soldiers learned, that you could get the measure of a country.2
- To finance the insurgency, the soldiers on Luzon seized the supply of the islands’ most valuable export: a strong, flexible fiber harvested from a cousin of the banana plant known as abacá. Americans called it “Manila hemp,” and before synthetics came along, it drove the global economy. Shipbuilders used its fibers to weave ropes and sails. Electric companies ran abacá belts through their city-powering generators. The oil boom minting millionaires in Texas and California depended on miles of “Manila drilling cable” pulsing through the derricks. Even the people counting the money needed abacá to make their office supplies: they’re called “manila envelopes” for a reason.
- The U.S. government formally recognized Panama the next afternoon. It took longer than that for most on the isthmus to learn they were living in a new country.
- They called themselves Sandinistas, in honor of their anti-imperialist hero. The name was itself an act of rebellion, Baltodano told me, because the dictator had tried not only to bury Sandino’s body but “to make his story disappear as well.” The story of Sandino’s resistance had been rediscovered by Carlos Fonseca, a radical librarian who became a leader of the anti-Somoza uprising.
- the number ultimately needed for construction was equivalent to more than one-eighth the new republic’s entire population. That left the U.S. government to rely, as the French had, on workers from the Caribbean. Their stories are mostly absent from the better-funded museums, which focus on celebrating the technological feats and leaders involved. But in the humid basement of the Afro-Antillean Museum, at a table covered with a vinyl cloth, the librarian handed me a bound blue volume. The faded gold embossing on the cover read: Letters from Isthmian Canal Construction Workers.
- They tried to pressure the Canal Zone’s governor, Maj. Gen. Robert J. Fleming, U.S. Army, into rescinding the order. But Fleming had neither the power nor inclination to do so. He had come to resent the chauvinism of the Americans he oversaw. “They’ve been isolated so long they’ve developed a reactionary mentality,” Fleming told the Saturday Evening Post. “It’s the perfect place for the guy who’s 150 percent American and 50 percent whiskey.”
- The future president lied profligately about the history of the canal, claiming falsely that “our Navy did not intervene to bring about the secession of Panama,” that the Panamanians “knew what they were doing” when they let Bunau-Varilla give away their rights in the Zone, and implied that Americans—as opposed to Caribbean conscripts—had done the actual digging.47 (Conservative Republican Senate candidate S. I. Hayakawa said, more cheekily: “I think we should keep it. We stole it fair and square.”
- On the other side of the water stood the skyscrapers of the Panama City financial district. The banking system housed in those towers—the system first set up in Panama by financiers such as Ramón Arias and their American friends—ultimately eclipsed the value of the canal itself. The bankers who occupy those buildings have outdone Noriega, not to mention the gangs of El Chorrillo, in brazenness: much of an estimated $7.6 trillion in worldwide hidden offshore holdings—8 percent of the world’s wealth—flows across the isthmus under the cover of generous bank secrecy laws.
- In an attempt to build a stable coalition, the victorious Madero appointed some of Díaz’s technocrats to be his advisers and ordered his revolutionary army to lay down its arms. The commanders who had helped Madero oust Díaz in the name of land reform and redistribution felt betrayed. The most radical—Francisco “Pancho” Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south—declared the revolution would continue against him. But just as the rebels were preparing to move against Madero in February 1913, he was overthrown by someone else—the belligerent conservative Gen. Victoriano Huerta.
- But, as Huerta would not be the last to learn, the trouble with doing business with the United States was that, while Americans subverted democracy abroad, they still practiced a limited form of it at home.
- But concern had risen over the high numbers of opium addicts among the U.S. soldiers occupying the Philippines. Lawmakers were also looking for ways to criminalize new behaviors to feed an increasingly profitable system of underpaid prison labor, which had arisen in part to replace the free labor provided by enslaved African Americans. In that atmosphere, rumors spread freely that drugs such as cocaine would lead some, especially Black people in the South, to “disregard the barriers that society had established between different races,” as the Mexican historian Gabriela Recio has written.
- Butler would tell a radio audience around 1935. “But I feel it more to the point, in these times, to look for the oil deposits when you are trying to get at the bottom of deep international intrigue.”
- Throughout late 1914, the Navy Department drew up detailed plans for an invasion and occupation of Haiti, down to where to build the baseball fields that off-duty Marines would use and where to buy rum. Taking over foreign cities had become so old hat for the U.S. military that it was developing an actual template: some of the plans were simply repurposed from the recent invasion of Mexico, with instructions reading: “REWRITE LETTER INSERTING PORT AU PRINCE FOR VERA CRUZ, MEXICO WHEREVER IT APPEARS.”
- Butler’s insights became the key to securing America’s imperial foothold in Haiti. Though Butler did not realize it at the time, he was helping invent a new approach to warfare. It would eventually be dubbed counterinsurgency: the combination of military, political, and psychological methods employed by an occupying power with the goal of holistically defeating an armed resistance.
- Most of the carnival-goers were understandably not happy to see the invaders. Someone offered them food; another warned, too late, that the bread had been poisoned. Over the next few days, as Marines fell ill, the flying column temporarily decamped to the nearby plantation of the American-owned Central Ansonia Sugar Company. All recovered. But for the rest of the trip, Butler wrote, “my stomach was absolutely no use to me.”
- The border on Hispaniola is proof of the political philosopher Frantz Fanon’s dictum that “the colonial world is a compartmentalized world.”36 It was drawn at the behest of an imperial power, formalized in the interests of foreigners, and consecrated in blood by a dictator empowered and trained by the Marines. Those officials knew, as do their successors today, that for capital and elites to flow freely, subject peoples cannot. Fears of uncontrolled movement are why, a century after Butler complained about the lack of a clear border on Hispaniola, the U.S. government still helps fund, train, and equip border patrols across the world, from Jordan to Kenya to Peru.
- covering his tracks, Butler ensured there would be no accountability for the occupation’s actions from either the Haitian or American publics, and that the story would be pushed to the margin of both countries’ histories for generations to come. With the legislature now abolished, the U.S.-written constitution was placed before a popular plebiscite in the summer of 1918. Polling places were overseen by Butler’s rifle-toting Gendarmes, who were encouraged to actively campaign for the constitution’s passage.27 Less than 5 percent of Haiti’s population voted. It passed overwhelmingly. In addition to the key clause permitting foreigners to own land, the final draft vested the legislative powers of the dissolved parliament in a “Council of State” appointed by the puppet president. It also contained a special article declaring: “All the acts of the Government of the United States during its military occupation of Haiti are ratified and legal.”
- But in 1990, the first free election since the occupation was held. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an anti-Duvalierist Catholic priest who promised land and economic redistribution, won—only to be overthrown by the army nine months later. Several of the putschists had been on the CIA’s payroll. At least two of the coup’s leaders were trained by the U.S. Army.
- Butler could not see the irony: that the imperialism he had helped foster was a direct catalyst of the World War.4 The conflict erupted in 1914 as a fight between empires: Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side; Britain, France, and Russia on the other. All had spent decades in a complex global struggle for colonies, resources, and prestige—a struggle that the Americans (and Butler personally) had been parties to. The older empires, especially the British, were filled with anxiety over new competitors to their global supremacy. The Germans, as the United States’ fellow latecomers to global expansion, were reading Alfred Thayer Mahan’s tracts on sea power and empire when they declared: “We demand a place for ourselves in the sun.”
- The brass was so pleased with Butler’s administrative skill that they awarded him both the Army and Navy Distinguished Service Medals—the former pinned on him personally by General Pershing.
- Philadelphia’s police department was founded in 1854, making it one of the oldest in the United States. Until then, the streets of William Penn’s city, like most in the North, had been patrolled by ad hoc committees of night watchmen and private guards, charged at first with keeping Native Americans from venturing into town. (In the South the first organized law enforcement patrols were built on similarly racist grounds: hunters tracking Black people trying to escape slavery.)
- As residents of MOVE’s new middle-class neighborhood accused the group of harassing and beating them, the mayor called the commune “terrorists” and promised to take action.43 A renewed standoff ensued. On the late afternoon of May 13, 1985, Police Lt. Frank Powell dropped a bomb of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex out of a helicopter. It exploded on impact, igniting drums of gasoline the commune stored on the roof. Police commissioner Gregore J. Sambor—a former Army Reserve major who had risen to power under Rizzo—gave the order: “Let the bunker burn.” Veterans compared the inferno to scenes they had witnessed in Korea and Vietnam. By morning, two city blocks were destroyed. Six adults and five children were found charred to death in the wreckage of the home.
- Furious and betrayed, Sun wrote an open letter in which he asked the question that had reverberated through Havana and Manila decades before: “When we first started our revolution … the United States was our model and inspiration. Now we wonder … has the nation of Washington and Lincoln abandoned the ideal of liberty and regressed from a liberator to an oppressor?”
- As the months wore on, the U.S. envoy in Beijing, MacMurray, insisted the Marines be ready to fight their way in and evacuate his staff if the old imperial capital fell to the Nationalists. Butler publicly demurred. “I shall consider our expedition to have been entirely successful only if we finally withdraw from China without the spilling of any blood, either American or Chinese,” he told a New York Times correspondent. “This country belongs to the Chinese, and I tolerate no clashes between my men and the Chinese people. If a man so much as slaps a rickshaw coolie or lays a hand upon a servant, he gets a general court-martial.”
- The lack of action left his younger Marines confused. “We didn’t know what the mission was,” David M. Shoup, a future Marine commandant, later recalled thinking as a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant in China. “But we landed at the Standard Oil docks and lived in Standard Oil compounds and were ready to protect Standard Oil’s investment. I wondered at the time if our government would put all these Marines in a position of danger, where they might sacrifice their lives in defense of Standard Oil. Later I discovered that of course it would, and did.
- Why do we expend so much time and money preserving the memory of the short-duration wars in which European powers were involved; and so little, relatively speaking, remembering the kind of wars Butler fought—protracted, decades-long conflicts in the Americas, Asia, and Africa that have been the most common mode of warfare throughout U.S. history? And why does America celebrate its generals who oversaw death and destruction on a massive scale, while forgeting the exceptional few who spent their later years trying to stop them?
- The story he told was essentially a parable: the bankers and the industrialists were among the racketeers. The American people—the “lads in the trenches,” the loved ones worried sick at home—were the dupes and victims. The racket could only be smashed, Butler concluded, “by taking the profit out of war.”
- A year later, in 1941, Franklin Roosevelt imposed an oil embargo on the Japanese in retaliation for their invasion of the French colonies in Indochina. That gave Emperor Hirohito two choices: give up on his dreams of becoming the dominant empire in East Asia and the Pacific, or seize the oil reserves in the Dutch East Indies, risking war with the United States and Britain. His war cabinet decided to strike first, simultaneously bombing Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and the British garrisons in Malaya, Hong Kong, and Singapore on December 7 and 8, 1941.
-
Gangsters of Capitalism
Author: Jonathan M. Katz
Completed: July 2025 (Full list of books)
Overview: The story of the pacifist Quaker who joined the Marines and rose to the rank of Major General only to become one a the loudest anti-war voices in the run up to World War 2 was long and winding. I remembered many of the entanglements the US was involved in at the turn of the twentieth century in Central America and Asia but was a bit surprised that one man happened to be in almost all of them. His insight from all those battles was that much of the US fighting was based on what was best for monied/corporate interests. A century later, despite so many protests against this fact, it seems little has changed as we invade Venezuela and Iran mainly for their oil.
Highlights:
- “Imperialism,” on the other hand, is a foreign-sounding word. It brings up images, if it brings any at all, of redcoats terrorizing Boston, or perhaps British officials in linen suits sipping gin and tonics in Bombay. The idea that the United States, a country founded in rebellion against empire, could have colonized and conquered other peoples seems anathema to everything we are taught America stands for.
- “Imperialism,” on the other hand, is a foreign-sounding word. It brings up images, if it brings any at all, of redcoats terrorizing Boston, or perhaps British officials in linen suits sipping gin and tonics in Bombay. The idea that the United States, a country founded in rebellion against empire, could have colonized and conquered other peoples seems anathema to everything we are taught America stands for.
- As a candidate and then as president, Donald Trump preyed on American anxieties by combining the worst excesses of those early-twentieth-century imperial chestnuts—militarism, white supremacy, and the cult of manhood—with a newer fantasy: that Americans could reclaim our sense of safety and supremacy by disengaging from the world we made; by literally building walls along our border and making the countries we conquered pay for them.
- In 1741, the British vice admiral Edward Vernon captured the bay and renamed it Cumberland Harbour. Vernon’s crew was full of sailors from Britain’s North American colonies who wrote home encouraging their friends and relatives to rush down to the bay—“now or never for a plantation on the island of Cuba.” Disease and local resistance ended the brief occupation. But one of Vernon’s crewmen, Lawrence Washington, was so inspired by the voyage that he named his new Virginia plantation after its commander. Washington died soon after; the plantation—Mount Vernon—ended up in the hands of his half brother George.
- American society was becoming particularly obsessed with manhood. The United States was transforming from a country of manual laborers into one where people rode machines to office jobs. Electricity and plumbing would soon mean less chopping and hauling at home. The Civil War generation was retiring, taking tales of courage and honor with them. Women were campaigning for, and in a few states had already won, the right to vote. As the historian Kristin L. Hoganson has argued, male leaders feared that all these trends portended national feminization and ruin. “War, they believed, would return the nation to a political order in which strong men governed and homebound women proved their patriotism by raising heroic sons.”
- Clouds of steam were evaporating off the lights. It was like the empire in which we’d trapped ourselves and millions of others in places like that a century before: Too dangerous to turn off. Too dangerous to keep on.
- Knowing Congress was unlikely to approve a third overseas war in two years, McKinley made a fateful decision: he became the first president in U.S. history to order the full-scale invasion of a sovereign country without seeking legislative approval.10 Congress did not challenge him.
- Before going to war, Butler had dreamed of getting shot—“not too seriously, but sufficient to leave a scar.”30 He hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.
- American soldiers chasing these guerrillas were pulled ever deeper into the hinterlands. Along the way, they picked up local words. Bundók—Tagalog for “mountain”—was given an American twang and made into slang for any wild and remote place. It was only by going to the “boondocks,” the soldiers learned, that you could get the measure of a country.2
- To finance the insurgency, the soldiers on Luzon seized the supply of the islands’ most valuable export: a strong, flexible fiber harvested from a cousin of the banana plant known as abacá. Americans called it “Manila hemp,” and before synthetics came along, it drove the global economy. Shipbuilders used its fibers to weave ropes and sails. Electric companies ran abacá belts through their city-powering generators. The oil boom minting millionaires in Texas and California depended on miles of “Manila drilling cable” pulsing through the derricks. Even the people counting the money needed abacá to make their office supplies: they’re called “manila envelopes” for a reason.
- The U.S. government formally recognized Panama the next afternoon. It took longer than that for most on the isthmus to learn they were living in a new country.
- They called themselves Sandinistas, in honor of their anti-imperialist hero. The name was itself an act of rebellion, Baltodano told me, because the dictator had tried not only to bury Sandino’s body but “to make his story disappear as well.” The story of Sandino’s resistance had been rediscovered by Carlos Fonseca, a radical librarian who became a leader of the anti-Somoza uprising.
- the number ultimately needed for construction was equivalent to more than one-eighth the new republic’s entire population. That left the U.S. government to rely, as the French had, on workers from the Caribbean. Their stories are mostly absent from the better-funded museums, which focus on celebrating the technological feats and leaders involved. But in the humid basement of the Afro-Antillean Museum, at a table covered with a vinyl cloth, the librarian handed me a bound blue volume. The faded gold embossing on the cover read: Letters from Isthmian Canal Construction Workers.
- They tried to pressure the Canal Zone’s governor, Maj. Gen. Robert J. Fleming, U.S. Army, into rescinding the order. But Fleming had neither the power nor inclination to do so. He had come to resent the chauvinism of the Americans he oversaw. “They’ve been isolated so long they’ve developed a reactionary mentality,” Fleming told the Saturday Evening Post. “It’s the perfect place for the guy who’s 150 percent American and 50 percent whiskey.”
- The future president lied profligately about the history of the canal, claiming falsely that “our Navy did not intervene to bring about the secession of Panama,” that the Panamanians “knew what they were doing” when they let Bunau-Varilla give away their rights in the Zone, and implied that Americans—as opposed to Caribbean conscripts—had done the actual digging.47 (Conservative Republican Senate candidate S. I. Hayakawa said, more cheekily: “I think we should keep it. We stole it fair and square.”
- On the other side of the water stood the skyscrapers of the Panama City financial district. The banking system housed in those towers—the system first set up in Panama by financiers such as Ramón Arias and their American friends—ultimately eclipsed the value of the canal itself. The bankers who occupy those buildings have outdone Noriega, not to mention the gangs of El Chorrillo, in brazenness: much of an estimated $7.6 trillion in worldwide hidden offshore holdings—8 percent of the world’s wealth—flows across the isthmus under the cover of generous bank secrecy laws.
- In an attempt to build a stable coalition, the victorious Madero appointed some of Díaz’s technocrats to be his advisers and ordered his revolutionary army to lay down its arms. The commanders who had helped Madero oust Díaz in the name of land reform and redistribution felt betrayed. The most radical—Francisco “Pancho” Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south—declared the revolution would continue against him. But just as the rebels were preparing to move against Madero in February 1913, he was overthrown by someone else—the belligerent conservative Gen. Victoriano Huerta.
- But, as Huerta would not be the last to learn, the trouble with doing business with the United States was that, while Americans subverted democracy abroad, they still practiced a limited form of it at home.
- But concern had risen over the high numbers of opium addicts among the U.S. soldiers occupying the Philippines. Lawmakers were also looking for ways to criminalize new behaviors to feed an increasingly profitable system of underpaid prison labor, which had arisen in part to replace the free labor provided by enslaved African Americans. In that atmosphere, rumors spread freely that drugs such as cocaine would lead some, especially Black people in the South, to “disregard the barriers that society had established between different races,” as the Mexican historian Gabriela Recio has written.
- Butler would tell a radio audience around 1935. “But I feel it more to the point, in these times, to look for the oil deposits when you are trying to get at the bottom of deep international intrigue.”
- Throughout late 1914, the Navy Department drew up detailed plans for an invasion and occupation of Haiti, down to where to build the baseball fields that off-duty Marines would use and where to buy rum. Taking over foreign cities had become so old hat for the U.S. military that it was developing an actual template: some of the plans were simply repurposed from the recent invasion of Mexico, with instructions reading: “REWRITE LETTER INSERTING PORT AU PRINCE FOR VERA CRUZ, MEXICO WHEREVER IT APPEARS.”
- Butler’s insights became the key to securing America’s imperial foothold in Haiti. Though Butler did not realize it at the time, he was helping invent a new approach to warfare. It would eventually be dubbed counterinsurgency: the combination of military, political, and psychological methods employed by an occupying power with the goal of holistically defeating an armed resistance.
- Most of the carnival-goers were understandably not happy to see the invaders. Someone offered them food; another warned, too late, that the bread had been poisoned. Over the next few days, as Marines fell ill, the flying column temporarily decamped to the nearby plantation of the American-owned Central Ansonia Sugar Company. All recovered. But for the rest of the trip, Butler wrote, “my stomach was absolutely no use to me.”
- The border on Hispaniola is proof of the political philosopher Frantz Fanon’s dictum that “the colonial world is a compartmentalized world.”36 It was drawn at the behest of an imperial power, formalized in the interests of foreigners, and consecrated in blood by a dictator empowered and trained by the Marines. Those officials knew, as do their successors today, that for capital and elites to flow freely, subject peoples cannot. Fears of uncontrolled movement are why, a century after Butler complained about the lack of a clear border on Hispaniola, the U.S. government still helps fund, train, and equip border patrols across the world, from Jordan to Kenya to Peru.
- covering his tracks, Butler ensured there would be no accountability for the occupation’s actions from either the Haitian or American publics, and that the story would be pushed to the margin of both countries’ histories for generations to come. With the legislature now abolished, the U.S.-written constitution was placed before a popular plebiscite in the summer of 1918. Polling places were overseen by Butler’s rifle-toting Gendarmes, who were encouraged to actively campaign for the constitution’s passage.27 Less than 5 percent of Haiti’s population voted. It passed overwhelmingly. In addition to the key clause permitting foreigners to own land, the final draft vested the legislative powers of the dissolved parliament in a “Council of State” appointed by the puppet president. It also contained a special article declaring: “All the acts of the Government of the United States during its military occupation of Haiti are ratified and legal.”
- But in 1990, the first free election since the occupation was held. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an anti-Duvalierist Catholic priest who promised land and economic redistribution, won—only to be overthrown by the army nine months later. Several of the putschists had been on the CIA’s payroll. At least two of the coup’s leaders were trained by the U.S. Army.
- Butler could not see the irony: that the imperialism he had helped foster was a direct catalyst of the World War.4 The conflict erupted in 1914 as a fight between empires: Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side; Britain, France, and Russia on the other. All had spent decades in a complex global struggle for colonies, resources, and prestige—a struggle that the Americans (and Butler personally) had been parties to. The older empires, especially the British, were filled with anxiety over new competitors to their global supremacy. The Germans, as the United States’ fellow latecomers to global expansion, were reading Alfred Thayer Mahan’s tracts on sea power and empire when they declared: “We demand a place for ourselves in the sun.”
- The brass was so pleased with Butler’s administrative skill that they awarded him both the Army and Navy Distinguished Service Medals—the former pinned on him personally by General Pershing.
- Philadelphia’s police department was founded in 1854, making it one of the oldest in the United States. Until then, the streets of William Penn’s city, like most in the North, had been patrolled by ad hoc committees of night watchmen and private guards, charged at first with keeping Native Americans from venturing into town. (In the South the first organized law enforcement patrols were built on similarly racist grounds: hunters tracking Black people trying to escape slavery.)
- As residents of MOVE’s new middle-class neighborhood accused the group of harassing and beating them, the mayor called the commune “terrorists” and promised to take action.43 A renewed standoff ensued. On the late afternoon of May 13, 1985, Police Lt. Frank Powell dropped a bomb of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex out of a helicopter. It exploded on impact, igniting drums of gasoline the commune stored on the roof. Police commissioner Gregore J. Sambor—a former Army Reserve major who had risen to power under Rizzo—gave the order: “Let the bunker burn.” Veterans compared the inferno to scenes they had witnessed in Korea and Vietnam. By morning, two city blocks were destroyed. Six adults and five children were found charred to death in the wreckage of the home.
- Furious and betrayed, Sun wrote an open letter in which he asked the question that had reverberated through Havana and Manila decades before: “When we first started our revolution … the United States was our model and inspiration. Now we wonder … has the nation of Washington and Lincoln abandoned the ideal of liberty and regressed from a liberator to an oppressor?”
- As the months wore on, the U.S. envoy in Beijing, MacMurray, insisted the Marines be ready to fight their way in and evacuate his staff if the old imperial capital fell to the Nationalists. Butler publicly demurred. “I shall consider our expedition to have been entirely successful only if we finally withdraw from China without the spilling of any blood, either American or Chinese,” he told a New York Times correspondent. “This country belongs to the Chinese, and I tolerate no clashes between my men and the Chinese people. If a man so much as slaps a rickshaw coolie or lays a hand upon a servant, he gets a general court-martial.”
- The lack of action left his younger Marines confused. “We didn’t know what the mission was,” David M. Shoup, a future Marine commandant, later recalled thinking as a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant in China. “But we landed at the Standard Oil docks and lived in Standard Oil compounds and were ready to protect Standard Oil’s investment. I wondered at the time if our government would put all these Marines in a position of danger, where they might sacrifice their lives in defense of Standard Oil. Later I discovered that of course it would, and did.
- Why do we expend so much time and money preserving the memory of the short-duration wars in which European powers were involved; and so little, relatively speaking, remembering the kind of wars Butler fought—protracted, decades-long conflicts in the Americas, Asia, and Africa that have been the most common mode of warfare throughout U.S. history? And why does America celebrate its generals who oversaw death and destruction on a massive scale, while forgeting the exceptional few who spent their later years trying to stop them?
- The story he told was essentially a parable: the bankers and the industrialists were among the racketeers. The American people—the “lads in the trenches,” the loved ones worried sick at home—were the dupes and victims. The racket could only be smashed, Butler concluded, “by taking the profit out of war.”
- A year later, in 1941, Franklin Roosevelt imposed an oil embargo on the Japanese in retaliation for their invasion of the French colonies in Indochina. That gave Emperor Hirohito two choices: give up on his dreams of becoming the dominant empire in East Asia and the Pacific, or seize the oil reserves in the Dutch East Indies, risking war with the United States and Britain. His war cabinet decided to strike first, simultaneously bombing Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and the British garrisons in Malaya, Hong Kong, and Singapore on December 7 and 8, 1941.
-
Guess what R. F. (Rat Fucker) #Kennedy Jr. gives as his excuse for being a passenger - TWICE - on #JeffreyEpstein ‘s ‘#LolitaExpress ‘?
#RFKjr said: “I’m in New York for most of my life. You run into everybody in #NewYork. I mean, I knew Harvey Weinstein. I knew Roger Ailes. I knew, O.J. Simpson came to my house. Bill Cosby came to my house.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-f-kennedy-jr-jeffrey-epstein_n_65e97c45e4b024897f7b80ea
#VoteBlue to #SaveAmerica from creeps and crooks! #USpol
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Democrats release new Epstein photos ahead of DoJ transparency deadline
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/18/jeffrey-epstein-estate-files-photos
---
***Images, undated and uncaptioned, include Vladimir Nabokov lines written on women and show Bill Gates and Noam Chomsky***
Democrats on the House oversight committee have released a new batch of photos from the estate of convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, as the deadline for the justice department to release its files related to Epstein looms.
The images, released on Thursday, are undated and lack captions or context. Among them are photographs of what appear to be lines from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita written on different parts of a woman’s body.
In a statement after the release Robert Garcia, a US representative and ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform, said that “oversight Democrats will continue to release photographs and documents from the Epstein estate to provide transparency for the American people.”
“As we approach the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these new images raise more questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession,” he said.
---
Press release: https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-robert-garcia-statement-after-oversight-democrats-release
Official dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/cl62lochkdzdalbzzqgq8/ADJIDEfLD1oQZrKmNeae2So?rlkey=y7529bx9tl7db6zf279jp3cyu&e=2&st=8o7kizhr&dl=0
Catbox archive:This.
https://files.catbox.moe/j8jg6o.zip#politics #usa #epsteinfiles #epsteinphotos #epsteinballroom #ghislainemaxwell
-
To my tiny little music obsessed brain, new music from David Gilmour is practically a religious experience. It had been almost exactly nine years since last he gave us an album of new material (2015’s Rattle that Lock) and the expectations for last Friday’s (four days ago) release of Luck and Strange were exceptionally high.
I started listening to it on Friday morning but it wasn’t until just a few minutes ago (on Tuesday afternoon) that I managed to listen to the whole record in one sitting. Mr. Gilmour* claims that it’s the best record he’s made since Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I mean… I love you, David but no one is going to mistake this for Dark Side. Having said that though, it is really fantastic.
There isn’t a whole hell of a lot of variety here, but that’s okay. Basically it’s a collection of moody, groovy, mid-tempo, mezzo piano songs with excellent vocals and stupendous melodic guitar playing. Basically what you expect from David Gilmour: an excellent singer and a phenomenal guitar soloist. There is also a bit of a family band vibe here. Normally when my aging rock heroes start hiring their kids to play in their bands it sort of rubs me the wrong way. Guys like Steve Howe and Jack Bruce had their kids in their bands and while they were all incredibly talented people I just didn’t want that. There were exceptions, of course, Teddy Thompson singing duets with Richard Thompson sounds incredible but might that be because his mother, Linda, was in Richard’s band at the beginning and he was just filling the gap that was left when she exited? Who knows.
In this case though, I am actually digging it. His wife has been co-writing songs with him for decades, going all the way back to Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell, so maybe that’s why the vibe is different here. One of his kids sings lead on one song and I guess also plays the harp. Like… a real harp, not a harmonica. I think a couple of kids sing backups on another song, and one kid also contributed some lyrics. Like I said, a bit of a family band thing. I am not put off by it at all this time. Maybe it’s because I have a family of my own now? I don’t know.
What I will say about this album though is that Gilmour hasn’t lost a speck of magic in the guitar soloing category. He was never the technical guy. He’s basically just a blues guitarist playing in a very non-blues setting. All pentatonics and bend notes and things like that. He’s not going to shred like Steve Howe. He’s not going to redefine technique like Robert Fripp. He’s not going to invent entirely new styles of playing like Steve Hackett. Nope, he’s just Dave Gilmour improvising perfect melodic passages and nailing them to staggering, passionate, perfection. This album is flooded with such playing. It’s everywhere. From the first note of the record to the last. It is littered with signature moments. Allow me to give particular notice to the song Scattered which literally gave me chills the first time I heard it. I was in the car driving home from the grocery store yesterday and I thought I was going to have to pull over and wait for the feeling to pass.
So there you have it. My fanboy review of one of my all time favorite musician’s new album. Go give it a spin. Luck and Strange by David Gilmour. Enjoy.
Hey, King Charles. Don’t you think it’s time Mr. Gilmour became Sir David? Let’s get on that, pretty please.
https://robertjames1971.blog/2024/09/10/finally-finished-listening/
#albumReview #classicRock #davidGilmour #luckAndStrange #Music #PinkFloyd #review
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CW: Why did CNN do it? - Robert Reich Yet another example of the obscenely wealthy owning media to shape our democracy into what they really want which is a lapdog that gives them tax and regulation breaks and control over our country
They bought/groomed the GOP into their lapdog and they are doing the same with the media, all in an attempt to undermine our democracy and disinform the voting public. These obscenely wealthy, insecure, selfish, greedy, and power-hungry jerks, want to impose their will and views on our country as if it were theirs alone.
Why did CNN do it? - Robert Reich https://robertreich.substack.com/p/after-last-night-anyone-still-trust?
#TheyWantTheirSerfsBack
#TheRichHateDemocracy
#CNNIsNowFoxLite"Why in hell did CNN give Donald Trump a full hour of prime-time television before an audience of ardent supporters who applauded every lie and laughed at every sexist insult?
The germ of an answer could be found last August, when Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman and CEO, canceled Brian Stelter’s Sunday show, “Reliable Sources,” which had been a reliable source of intelligent criticism of Fox News, right-wing media in general, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican party.
Licht also fired Stelter and his staff.
The show had been commercially successful. It was doing better than several of CNN’s prime-time shows.
Around the same time, Licht told CNN staff they should stop referring to Donald Trump’s “big lie” because the phrase sounded like a Democratic party talking point. Licht also told the staff he wanted more “straight news reporting,” along with more conservative guests.
Why?
Follow the money. CNN’s new corporate overseer is Warner Bros. Discovery Inc, whose CEO is David Zaslav.
Zaslav has been pushing Licht to reposition CNN to be a network preferred by “everybody … Republicans, Democrats.”
But CNN was never going to be the network preferred by Republicans. Fox News has that sewn up.
Besides, facts, data, and logic are no longer relevant to the Republican base.
The anti-democracy movement in America is among the biggest issues confronting America today. Is reporting on it considered “straight news” or “opinion?” Wouldn’t failing to report on it in a way that sounded alarms be a gross dereliction of duty?
...
So, what’s motivating Zaslav? Keep following the money.The leading shareholder in Warner Bros. Discovery is John Malone, a multibillionaire cable magnate. (Malone was a chief architect in the merger of Discovery and CNN.)
Malone describes himself as a “libertarian” although he travels in right-wing Republican circles. In 2005, he held 32% of the shares of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. He is on the board of directors of the Cato Institute. In 2017, he donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration.
Malone has said he wants CNN to be more like Fox News because, in his view, Fox News has “actual journalism.” Malone also wants the “news” portion of CNN to be “more centrist.”
It’s unlikely that Malone instructed Zaslav to tell Licht to fire Stelter. Power isn’t exercised that clumsily in large corporate media bureaucracies.
It’s more likely that Licht knew what Zaslav wanted, and Zaslav knew what Malone wanted. A source told Deadline’s Dominic Patten and Ted Johnson that even if Malone didn’t order Stelter’s ouster, “it sure represents his thinking.”
When you follow the money behind deeply irresponsible decisions at the power centers of America today, the road often leads to right-wing billionaires.
...
Last August, on his last show, Stelter said:“It’s not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue. It’s not partisan to stand up to demagogues. It’s required. It’s patriotic. We must make sure we don’t give platforms to those who are lying to our faces.”
Precisely.
Sadly, there are still many in America — and not just billionaires like Malone — who believe that holding Trump accountable for what he has done (and continues to do) to this country is a form of partisanship, and that such partisanship has no place in so-called “balanced journalism.”
This belief is itself dangerous.
After I first criticized Licht for the direction he was pushing CNN, he phoned me. He was angry that I doubted his motives, and said he took the top job at CNN because he “believes in journalism.”
When I mentioned the particularly challenging time American journalism now finds itself in — with Trump, most of the Republican Party, and most Republican candidates for office denying that the 2020 election was won by Joe Biden, thereby on the way to undermining America democracy — Licht agreed that it’s challenging. He said, emphatically, that this was why he is so deeply committed to restoring CNN’s credibility as an “unbiased” source of news that “people can feel they can trust.”
Well, Chris, after what you did last night, you can forget the public’s trust in CNN."
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Wednesday Reads: Social Security, Measles, and Government Shutdown
Good Afternoon!!
Fool on the Hill, by Dave LeBow
I have a nasty cold, so I don’t know how much I can do today. As always, everything is endlessly crazy. Trump is causing chaos with his on-again, off-again tariffs, but I’m not going to deal with that today. I want to begin with the latest on Social Security. There is quite a bit of news on it today. Next, news on the spreading Measles outbreak and then the possible government shutdown.
Social Security News
ProPublica got ahold of a recording of the acting director of the Social Security Administration: “The President Wanted It and I Did It”: Recording Reveals Head of Social Security’s Thoughts on DOGE and Trump.
Since the arrival of a team from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security is in a far more precarious place than has been widely understood, according to Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration. “I don’t want the system to collapse,” Dudek said in a closed-door meeting last week, according to a recording obtained by ProPublica. He also said that it “would be catastrophic for the people in our country” if DOGE were to make changes at his agency that were as sweeping as those at USAID, the Treasury Department and elsewhere.
Dudek’s comments, delivered to a group of senior staff and Social Security advocates attending both in person and virtually, offer an extraordinary window into the thinking of a top agency official in the volatile early days of the second Trump administration. The Washington Post first reported Dudek’s acknowledgement that DOGE is calling the shots at Social Security and quoted several of his statements. But the full recording reveals that he went much further, citing not only the actions being taken at the agency by the people he repeatedly called “the DOGE kids,” but also extensive input he has received from the White House itself. When a participant in the meeting asked him why he wouldn’t more forcefully call out President Donald Trump’s continued false claims about widespread Social Security fraud as “BS,” Dudek answered, “So we published, for the record, what was actually the numbers there on our website. This is dealing with — have you ever worked with someone who’s manic-depressive?”
Throughout the meeting, Dudek made alarming statements about the perils facing the Social Security system, but he did so in an oddly informal, discursive manner. It left several participants baffled as to the ultimate fate of the nation’s largest and most popular social program, one that serves 73 million Americans. “Are we going to break something?” Dudek asked at one point, referring to what DOGE has been doing with Social Security data. “I don’t know.”
But then he said, in a more reassuring tone: “They’re learning. Let people learn. They’re going to make mistakes.”
Dudek embodies the dramatic whipsawing of life as a public servant under DOGE. For 25 years, he was the ultimate faceless bureaucrat: a midlevel analyst who had bounced between federal agencies, ultimately landing at the Social Security Administration and focusing on information technology, cybersecurity and fraud prevention. He was largely unknown even within the agency. But in February, he suddenly vaulted into the public eye when he was put on leave for surreptitiously sharing information with DOGE. It appeared that he might lose his job, but then he was unexpectedly promoted by the Trump administration to the position of acting commissioner. At the time, he seemed unreservedly committed to the DOGE agenda, writing — then deleting — a bellicose LinkedIn post in which he expressed pride in having “bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done.”
Now, only weeks into his tenure, he was taking a far more ambivalent posture toward not just DOGE but Trump. On multiple occasions during last week’s meeting, according to the recording, Dudek framed the choices that he has been making in recent weeks as “the president’s” agenda. These choices have included planned cuts of at least 7,000 Social Security employees; buyouts and early retirement offered to the entire staff of 57,000, including those who work in field offices and teleservice centers helping elderly and disabled people navigate the program; cuts to disability determination services; the dissolution of a team that had been working to improve the user experience of the ssa.gov website and application process; a reduction of the agency’s footprint across the country from 10 regional offices to four; the terminations of 64 leases, including those for some field office and hearing office space; proposals to outsource Social Security customer service; and more.
“I work for the president. I need to do what the president tells me to do,” Dudek said, according to the recording. “I’ve had to make some tough choices, choices I didn’t agree with, but the president wanted it and I did it,” he added later. (He didn’t name specific actions that Trump did or did not direct.)
Center for American Progress: Cuts to the Social Security Administration Threaten Millions of Americans’ Retirement and Disability Benefits.
In January 2025, 73 million people—more than 1 in 5 Americans—received benefits from the Social Security Administration (SSA). But the agency that gets those benefits into bank accounts to buy groceries and pay bills is now under attack, putting beneficiaries at risk of dangerous disruptions and delays. Recently, the SSA announced that it would cut approximately 7,000 jobs—a 12 percent reduction in the agency’s staffing. At the same time, the SSA is shutting down six of its 10 regional offices, while posts to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website spark fears of upcoming field office closures around the country.
These assaults on the SSA threaten Americans’ ability to access the benefits they rely on to get by.
The Social Security Administration has been doing more with less for years, providing benefits to a rapidly growing number of beneficiaries despite its shrinking staff. Under congressional restrictions on administrative spending, agency capacity has stretched to the breaking point, with staff levels approaching a 25-year low in fiscal year 2024. Under these conditions, former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley warned that DOGE-led cuts to an already skeletal agency may lead to “system collapse and an interruption of benefits.”
Any delay or interruption in payments would be catastrophic. More than 7 million Americans 65 and older receive at least 90 percent of their income from Social Security.* For many of these seniors, even a few days’ delay in receiving Social Security benefits would pose an immediate threat to their ability to pay rent and buy food. Payments made even later, or missed, would irreparably harm many more: In a January 2025 survey, 42 percent of Americans 65 and older reported “I would not be able to afford the basics, such as food, clothing, or housing [without Social Security retirement benefits].”
Disabled people and their families, likewise, would face dire straits. More than 11 million disabled Americans under the age of 65 rely on benefits administered by the SSA through either Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or both. Most SSDI recipients can’t work due to their disability, while others work limited hours and can only earn very limited amounts without forfeiting their benefits. For SSI claimants, even when they are able to work, they can only hold a few thousand dollars in gross assets without losing their benefits, subject to limited exceptions, making it essentially impossible to save. As a result, too many SSDI and SSI recipients are one missed or late payment away from not making rent or putting food on the table.
There is much more information at the CAP link.
Nathaniel Weixel at The Hill: Trump, Musk fuel fears of Social Security cuts with ‘fraud’ talk.
President Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk are ratcheting up false rhetoric about Social Security, repeatedly claiming the program wastes hundreds of billions of dollars in fraudulent payouts that need to be eliminated.
Their position is confounding experts and worrying advocates, who fear the claims are a pretext for massive cuts to the program down the road.
Trump, Musk and the administration’s allies insist they are targeting waste, fraud and abuse and are not going after benefits as a whole.
In an interview Monday with Larry Kudlow, who served as Trump’s chief economic adviser in his first term, Musk suggested Social Security and other entitlement programs are rife with fraud and a prime target for cuts.
“Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that’s the big one to eliminate,” Musk said on Kudlow’s Fox Business show, adding there’s possibly $500 billion to $700 billion in potential cuts there.
Musk also said they’re trying to put a stop to “stolen” and “fake” Social Security numbers.
What’s their evidence for this fraud and waste?
Economists say the levels of fraud talked about by Trump and Musk just don’t exist.
A report by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general last year found the agency made nearly $72 billion in improper payments from fiscal 2015 through fiscal 2022 — less than 1 percent of benefits paid out during that period.
“I’m a firm believer in the perpetual inefficiency of government. But if I had to pick one place in the federal government that is more efficient than most, Social Security would be one of them,” said Chuck Blahous, a senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a former top economic adviser in the George W. Bush administration.
Representatives from DOGE have reportedly gained access to sensitive taxpayer data collected by the Social Security Administration (SSA).
According to a declaration in a federal lawsuit from Tiffany Flick, the SSA’s former acting chief of staff, DOGE staffers seemed to want the data to search for evidence of alleged benefits fraud.
Flick wrote that she thought the DOGE team’s concerns were “invalid and based on an inaccurate understanding of SSA’s data and programs.”
Musk also claims that “illegal” immigrants are getting Social Security benefits. Of course, that’s impossible, since these people can’t get Social Security numbers.
One more on Social Security from CNBC: Senators to Trump Social Security nominee: ‘You will be responsible’ if benefits are interrupted.
Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon are warning Frank Bisignano, the nominee to lead the Social Security Administration, that he will be responsible if staff cuts interfere with the agency’s ability to process and disburse benefit checks.
President Donald Trump has nominated Bisignano, chief executive of payments and financial technology company Fiserv, to serve as commissioner of the agency, which is responsible for sending monthly benefit payments to more than 72 million Americans.
“As President Trump’s nominee for SSA Commissioner, you will be responsible if the Trump Administration’s attacks on the program result in failures or delays in getting Americans their Social Security checks — in other words, a backdoor cut to benefits,” Warren and Wyden wrote in a March 11 letter to Bisignano, shared exclusively with CNBC.
Bisignano’s Senate confirmation hearing is expected to take place later this month, according to a source familiar with the situation.
In the interim, the agency is under the leadership of acting commissioner Lee Dudek, who according to reports publicly stated before his appointment that he had been put on administrative leave after helping representatives of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Dudek replaced former acting commissioner Michelle King, who stepped down following reported disagreements with DOGE over access to sensitive data.
The Measles Outbreak
Measles is spreading around the country, and RFK Jr. isn’t dealing with what’s happening.
The Washington Post: Texas measles outbreak grows, while New York and California report new cases.
Los Angeles County in California, Suffolk County in New York and Howard County in Maryland detected their first confirmed cases of measles this year, while Oklahoma reported two possible cases, local health authorities said this week.
The spread of the highly infectious disease comes as an outbreak of more than 200 cases has continued to grow in Texas, and as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned health-care workers and potential travelers to “be vigilant” ahead of spring and summer travel.
Health officials in Los Angeles County — the most populous county in the United States — reported a case Tuesday in a resident who may have been exposed onboard a China Airlines flight that landed at Los Angeles International Airport on March 5.
The New York state health department announced on Tuesday its first known case of measles outside New York City this year. The patient, who under 5 years old, lives in Suffolk County on Long Island.
In Howard County, just west of Baltimore, health authorities on Sunday reported a confirmed case in a resident who recently traveled abroad and was at Washington Dulles International Airport on March 5.
Two individuals in Oklahoma reported symptoms consistent with measles and had potential exposure to outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, the Oklahoma Health Department said Tuesday. It praised the individuals for “immediately excluding themselves from public settings.” [….]
In Canada, at least 146 confirmed cases have been detected this year up to March 6, along with 22 probable cases.
CBS News: Philadelphia officials warn of possible exposure to highly infectious measles.
Health officials in Philadelphia are warning residents of potential exposures to the highly infectious measles virus at multiple health facilities in the city over the past week.
The person exposed to the virus was present at the following locations in the city at these times, according to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health:
- The South Philadelphia Health and Literacy Center, 1700 South Broad Street. The building includes the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Pediatric Primary Care unit in South Philadelphia, the health department’s Health Center No. 2 and the South Philadelphia library, but no one in the library is at risk.
- The person was in the building on Friday, March 7, between 10:45 a.m. and 2:40 p.m. The next day on March 8, the person was there between 9:05 a.m. and 1:20 p.m.
- The CHOP Emergency room at 3401 Civic Center Boulevard on Monday, March 10 between 7:55 a.m. and 10:15 a.m.
The person was exposed to measles while traveling abroad and officials do not believe it is connected to a recent case that occurred in Montgomery County.
ABC Los Angeles: .Measles case confirmed in LA County resident who visited many local businesses, traveled through LAX.
A case of measles has been confirmed in a Los Angeles County resident who recently traveled through the Los Angeles International airport, the county’s Department of Public Health announced in a statement Tuesday.
It is the first confirmed case of measles in a LA County resident in 2025, according to the department.
Passengers assigned to specific seats that may have been exposed on China Airlines flight CAL8/ CI8 that arrived in Los Angeles on March 5 will be notified by local departments of health in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control.
Additionally, individuals who were at the following locations on the specified dates and times may be at risk of developing measles due to exposure to this individual:
— Wednesday, March 5 between 7 p.m. to 10:40 p.m.: Tom Bradley International Terminal (Terminal B) at the Los Angeles International (LAX) Airport
— Friday, March 7, between 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Cloud 9 Nail Salon, 5142 N. Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601
— Monday, March 10 between 8:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.: Superior Grocery Store, 10683 Valley Blvd., El Monte, CA 91731
So what is the head of Health and Human Services doing?
The Daily Beast: RFK Jr.: It Would Be Better if ‘Everybody Got Measles.’
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared to suggest getting measles is the best defense against the disease, as a Texas outbreak spreads across the U.S.
More than 220 people in the state have been diagnosed with the infectious virus, and California, New York, and Maryland have also reported cases of late. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sweating over the outbreak, warning health-care workers and travelers to “be vigilant.”
While RFK Jr. recently shifted his stance to concede that vaccinations are actually pretty useful, he has still stopped short of urging skeptics to go and get it. And in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday night, he appeared to still favor natural immunity through exposure to the virus.
“It used to be, when I were a kid, that everybody got measles. And the measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection,” he said, then taking a swipe at the vaccine. “The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people it wanes.”
In Texas, uptake of the vaccine is lower than in other states, partly fueled by COVID skepticism. The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine offers 93 percent protection against measles if the recipient has one dose, and 97 percent after two doses, according to the CDC.
HuffPost via Yahoo News: RFK Jr. Makes More Alarming Comments About Measles Amid U.S. Outbreaks.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity broadcast Tuesday, Kennedy said “natural immunity” after getting a measles infection is more effective at providing lasting protection against the disease. However, Kennedy left out that the dangers of catching the disease outweigh the advantage of immunity, according to doctors….
Despite Kennedy’s claims, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the majority of people who have had the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccines will be protected for life. The CDC also has guidance for people it recommends should be revaccinated.
Prior to the introduction of the vaccine in 1963, about 500,000 cases and 500 measles deaths were reported annually, while the real number of cases was suspected to be much higher, the agency said. Since then, incidence of the disease has fallen by over 95%, it said.
Kennedy added that he would make sure that “anybody who wants a vaccine can get one,” noting that he is against forcing people to take it.
“I’m a freedom of choice person,” Kennedy said. “We should have transparency. We should have informed choice. And — but if people don’t want it, the government shouldn’t force them to do it. There are adverse events from the vaccine. It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause.”
The CDC has stressed the measles vaccine is safe and effective. Its website lists extensive information about the vaccine, including potential side effects and warnings for people who shouldn’t get vaccinated.
Government Shutdown
Yesterday, the House passed their continuing resolution with devastating cuts to Medicaid. Now, Democrats in the Senate have to decide whether to filibuster and possibly shut down the government.
David Dayen at The American Prospect: Senate Democrats’ Choice: Block the Republican Spending Bill or Dissolve Congress.
Democrats were actually quite pleased with the clown show that was Congress in the last two years. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had no ability to pass anything without Democratic votes, as he was simply not in control of the far-right elements of his caucus. Democrats welcomed the perception that they were government’s rescuers, the adults in the room, who would save Johnson’s bacon and functionally control the House.
This is no longer true. Donald Trump’s looming presence has whipped Republicans in line, and Johnson has recognized an important truth: So-called “moderate” Republicans will swallow anything, so he only has to negotiate with the far right, and if he can satisfy them, he’ll win any vote. Such was the case with a partisan seven-month “continuing resolution” that passed the House on Tuesday 217-213, with only one defection by libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who doesn’t really believe in government funding at all. (One Democrat voted for it, Maine Blue Dog Jared Golden.)
It is somewhat remarkable that dozens of House Republicans who have vowed never to pass stopgap bills to fund the government in their political careers caved on this one. But that’s why I put “continuing resolution” in quotes. In reality, this is a hastily arranged partisan Republican budget that achieves much of their anti-government, anti-immigrant, pro-military agenda while paving the way for Trump to nullify whatever spending he deems unworthy. It doesn’t just tilt spending in a far-right direction, it actually abdicates congressional responsibility as the branch of government that makes federal spending decisions.
Yet several Senate Democrats are thinking about passing it anyway.
Without the luxury of Republicans falling apart, Democrats in the Senate need to decide whether to prevent a dangerous and harmful budget that shrinks the power of Congress in the government. Since operating on principle goes against their “adults in the room” mindset, they are wavering on what to do. But it should be an open-and-shut case.
A normal continuing resolution funds the government at the same level as the previous budget. This bill does not. It cuts non-defense discretionary spending by $13 billion below last year’s level, while increasing military spending by $6 billion. It zeroes out funding for programs that fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse. It cuts health care funding for clinics and hospitals, emergency preparedness for communities, clean water projects, and tribal assistance. Meanwhile, it adds money for mass deportations, just as Immigration and Customs Enforcement has illegally detained a green card holder for his political beliefs.
Read the rest at the link above.
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: Here Are the Arguments for Why Senate Ds Should Vote Yes and Why They’re Wrong.
Over the last week a few TPM Readers have written in with contrary arguments about how to deal with the “continuing resolution” that just passed the House and will soon be voted on in the Senate. These weren’t critical or acrimonious letters but frank constructive counters, which I appreciate. I wanted to discuss them because they line up pretty closely with the arguments that seem to have strong advocates in the Senate Democratic caucus.
Let me summarize them briefly.
- Democrats are in a tough messaging environment and they’ll get blamed for the shutdown. Trump might even get to blame a recession on them.
- The White House will get to control the pace of the shutdown. In other words, the executive gets flexibility in just how things get shut down, things that will get more or less helpful press attention. Thus he’ll be able to engineer lots of bad press cycles for the Democrats.
- Quite simply, Trump’s presidency and the economy are imploding. Why rush in to make ourselves the story when every day is a bad day for Trump?
- It’s too soon. The public isn’t engaged enough yet. By the fall the economy will likely be in recession and it will be a debate on Medicare, Medicaid, etc. — that’s the time to have the fight.
- Trump and Musk probably want a shutdown. After a shutdown goes on for 30 days, the law opens up new legal avenues for layoffs. A shutdown is actually what they want and they will use it to accelerate the process, get people used to it. In other words, risking a shutdown is a trap because nothing would make them happier.
I’ve thought a lot about each of these arguments. On their own a number of them are compelling and point to very real risks. Indeed, last week I briefly started questioning my own position because Democrats had done nothing to lay any groundwork for why they were choosing this confrontation. And that makes a fight much, much harder.
But I think each of these arguments is mistaken. Indeed, as a whole it’s a bit like sitting in the mess hall in Treblinka planning an escape when someone says, “But if we try to escape they’ll kill us all!”
First, I think Republicans are going to get wrecked in the midterms. I think that’s highly likely whatever happens. As a narrowly electoral calculus I think there’s a decent argument Democrats should just let everything happen, let Trump and Musk go wild. In this sense, James Carville’s argument that Democrats should just do nothing is right, by a narrowly electoral calculus. But there’s more than just an electoral calculus. Trump and Musk are methodically dismantling the republic day by day. Absent some major change in the trajectory of events the government Democrats might half-inherit in a midterm sweep would be all but unrecognizable, a smoldering heap of faits accompli. Democrats need to take some real risks to at least slow the process of destruction and reshape the trajectory.
Read the rest at TPM.
Michael Cohen at Truth and Consequences: Shut It Down! Senate Democrats are in a difficult spot with a government shutdown looming, but their course of action is clear.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through September 30 and avert a government shutdown on Friday. Now, the bill moves to the Senate, where, if Democrats want to stop Donald Trump’s assault on the federal government, they must filibuster it.
I get that the politics of this are complicated, but this isn’t even a close call.
First, Republicans didn’t even bother negotiating with Democrats on this bill. As a result, there are no provisions requiring Trump to actually spend the money Congress is appropriating. This is important because Trump and Elon Musk have run roughshod over congressional prerogatives for the past two months, slashing government spending that Congress has already appropriated.
Republicans are, in effect, daring Democrats to block it and risk taking the blame for a government shutdown (that’s how Speaker Mike Johnson got all but one of his fractured caucus to vote for the bill). On the merits, the bill is bad but not egregiously awful. It keeps spending levels essentially flat while increasing defense spending by $6 billion. However, it would force the District of Columbia to cut its budget by more than $1 billion, which would be devastating. In addition, it includes a provision that strips the House of the ability to stop Trump’s recent declarations of national emergencies on immigration and the border, which has allowed him to place sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
But the real problem with the House-passed CR is that if Democrats allow it to become law, they will be handing Trump and Musk a blank check and the congressional authority to wreak further havoc on the federal government.
Handing Trump more money — with no provision for how he spends it — is an explicit surrender to his and Musk’s lawlessness. Unlike regular spending bills, continuing resolutions do not explicitly tell the executive branch how it should allocate the money appropriated. So, if Senate Democrats allow this bill to pass, they would give Trump even greater discretion in how he spends money authorized by Congress — and more congressional leeway for taking a wrecking ball to the federal government.
In an interview with the New Republic’s Greg Sargent, former New Jersey congressman Tom Malinowski captures the dynamic at play here.
This is a bizarre situation in which the president of the United States and this billionaire are already shutting down the government. So if I’m a Democrat in Congress, why do I vote for a continuing resolution to fund programs that are not continuing? It really is just a blank check. It’s like giving Trump and Musk a trillion dollars and saying, Spend it as you like.
Democrats cannot be complicit in Trump and Musk’s evisceration of the federal government. Even if Senate Republicans try to eliminate the filibuster to thwart Democrats’ shutdown tactics, even if Trump ignores Congress and (unconstitutionally) keeps the government open, and even if an extended shutdown boomerangs politically against Democrats, Democrats still need to hold the line.
Click the link to read the rest.
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
#governmentShutdown2025m #LelandDudek #measlesOutbreak #RobertFKennedyJr_
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Lazy Caturday Reads: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Happy Valentine’s Day!!
This morning, Steven Beschloss posted the following discussion question for his readers at his Substack “America America”: Is Love More Powerful Than Hate?
I had in mind to write about villainy. It’s a fact of our public life that the Trump regime is thick with this dark force and overloaded with people who revel in it. The villains come easily to mind: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Russel Vought, Greg Bovino (to name a few) and of course their ringleader, Donald Trump. They have motivated countless others to join their hateful cause to reject the Constitution and demolish democracy in America.
But on this day—Valentine’s Day—I want to turn this over and look at the flip side. Because behind this discussion of villains and villainy is my belief that their dark force can be defeated with the force of light and love. I don’t mean the biblical advice to “love your enemies,” although that may be a mindset that others more merciful than I can conjure.
I’m thinking more about the guidance found in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the topic of love. Let me share four shining examples:
- “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.”
- “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
- “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
- “I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
There are days that these insights—these deeply held convictions—may seem inadequate to confront the horrors we witness committed by men and women who have lost their moral compass, assuming that they once possessed one. But I’d like to suggest that the more powerful our revulsion toward the regime’s acts of villainy, the more we are influenced by the inverse.
I returned to yesterday’s essay, “Pam Bondi’s Utter Contempt for Justice,” to test this notion. If you read it and thought that I am horrified by her villainous behavior this week, you would be right. But let’s look at the basis for my horror in three sentences from the first several paragraphs: “It’s hard to imagine someone more overtly hostile to justice and more utterly incapable of basic human compassion…This person is responsible for serving the people…But when asked for the most basic show of humanity, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.” Behind the obvious criticism of her hateful action is love: For justice, for basic human compassion, for serving the people, for humanity.
My point is that in our articulation of the horrors, we can find the light that can inspire us to stay in the fight and overcome this dark chapter. “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos,” King wrote. In other words, love is more powerful than hate and, as King also insisted, “the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
Bad Bunny sent a similar message with his Super Bowl performance. Is it true? Can love conquer hate? Food for thought on Valentine’s Day.
Now for the news, which is again filled with hate and fear.
Trump appears to be planning some sort of attack on Iran.
Reuthers: Exclusive: US military preparing for potentially weeks-long Iran.
The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.
The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Saturday that while Trump’s preference was to reach a deal with Tehran, “that’s very hard to do.”
Meanwhile, Trump has amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action. U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.
Trump, speaking to U.S. troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, openly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, saying it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people.”
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump said.
Trump has long voiced skepticism about sending ground troops into Iran, saying last year “the last thing you want to do is ground forces,” and the kinds of U.S. firepower arrayed in the Middle East so far suggest options for strikes primarily by air and naval forces.
The New York Times: Trump Says Regime Change Would Be the ‘Best Thing’ for Iran.
President Trump said on Friday that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen,” as he continued to threaten military action against the country.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” he told reporters after visiting troops at Fort Bragg. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has called for new leadership in Iran, and The New York Times reported in January that he was mulling whether regime change would be a viable military option.
But his latest comments are, perhaps, Mr. Trump’s most overt endorsement of regime change, even as U.S. officials concede that ousting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be much more complex than the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, then the leader of Venezuela.
Still, officials have said that Mr. Trump had not made a final decision and was considering a range of military options.
The Trump administration has been steadily building up its military capabilities in the Middle East as Mr. Trump considers whether to strike the country again. Mr. Trump threatened last month to attack Iran if its government did not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear program….
But senior U.S. officials remain skeptical that the Iranians will agree to a deal that satisfies Mr. Trump, who has shown a growing impatience with the negotiations. This month, Omani officials mediated talks between Iran and a U.S. delegation that included Steve Witkoff,
A bit more on possible attack plans:
Mr. Trump has been weighing a range of military actions, including targeting Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to launch ballistic missiles. He is also considering sending American commandos to go after Iranian military targets, among other moves, the officials said.
To prepare, the Pentagon has been building up an “armada,” as Mr. Trump calls it, in the region. It includes the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, eight guided missile destroyers that can shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, land-based ballistic missile defense systems and submarines that can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iran.
And on Thursday, the crew of a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, was told it would leave the Caribbean, where the ship joined the U.S. operation last month to seize Mr. Maduro, and deploy to the Middle East as part of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign.
Yesterday, Trump posted a photo of a U.S. aircraft carrier on Truth Social, perhaps as a foreshadowing of his plans for Iran.
The Caribbean boat strikes are back.
NBC News: U.S. strikes alleged drug boat in Caribbean, killing three.
The U.S. Southern Command said it struck a vessel allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean on Friday, killing three people.
“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” Southern Command said in a post on X, adding that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
“Three narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” the post said.
The U.S. has not provided evidence supporting its allegations about the boat, passengers, cargo or the number of people killed.
This latest strike comes after the U.S. on Monday struck a vessel also alleged to be transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor.
A few days ago, there was a disturbing incident in Texas in which DHS used a powerful laser weapon with out notifying other parts of the government. It caused the FAA to close the air space over El Paso, Texas for a time. I have been curious about how this happened.
The New York Times, Feb. 11: Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser.
The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.
The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.
Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”
But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said….
The military has been developing high-energy laser technology to intercept and destroy drones, which the Trump administration has said are being used by Mexican cartels to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States.
The airspace closure provoked a significant backlash from local officials and sharp questions by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, who expressed skepticism about the administration’s version of the events.
This country is being run by morons.
NBC News: CBP shot down party balloons with anti-drone tech before FAA closed El Paso airspace, sources say.
The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.
The testing of U.S. military-owned laser technology was taking place in the proximity of the airport. The FAA responded by issuing a “temporary flight restriction notice,” which was to shut down the airspace for 10 days. It prevented flights, including helicopters used for medical transport, below 18,000 feet. The airport is a major hub for the region, with more than 50 flights scheduled every day.
The airspace was reopened several hours later Wednesday morning. The decision prompted confusion and finger-pointing inside the Trump administration over who was to blame….
One of the people familiar with the testing said the Defense Department has a working relationship with Homeland Security, where CBP is headquartered, that allows its personnel to use certain military equipment for its objectives, testing, evaluation and use along the southern border.
Recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the use of the weapon for CBP, the people said. Spokespeople for CBP referred questions to the White House, which did not elaborate beyond initial statements.
It figures Hegseth would be involved in this mess.
From military expert Mark Hertling at The Bulwark: The El Paso Balloon Incident Could Have Been a Disaster.
AFTER PROLONGED CONFUSION, we may have some clarity on what caused the emergency restriction on the airspace around El Paso International Airport: Someone used a sophisticated anti-air laser against what they thought was a drone launched from Mexico, but turned out to be a party balloon. Understandably, the first suspects were the Army units at Fort Bliss, which abuts El Paso and the airport. But it wasn’t the Army that fired the weapon.
According to the New York Times, Customs and Border Protection personnel fired an experimental anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense at what they thought was a cartel drone—without sufficient coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration. That prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace around the airport up to 18,000 feet in an extraordinary emergency move.
But focusing on the harmlessness of the target obscures the deeper issue: Why was this weapon employed without the discipline that governs every legitimate use of force in the military?
Fort Bliss sits on the edge of El Paso. While it’s a large post, and it has a very isolated desert training area, it borders a large city with hospitals, businesses, highways, civilian neighborhoods, and a relatively large international airport.
The post is home to the 1st Armored Division, an organization I once commanded. Like every major installation in the Army, Fort Bliss operates under detailed standing operating procedures governing weapons employment—whether on a live-fire range, during air-defense exercises, or in any activity that could affect surrounding airspace or population centers.
Those procedures are not bureaucratic red tape. They are necessary safety barriers. They exist precisely because military commanders understand various immutable facts: weapons are dangerous, coordination for any training event is critical, citizens live nearby, and mistakes do not stay contained.
It’s therefore unsurprising—though deeply concerning—that reports indicate the Fort Bliss commander and the command and staff of Northern Command were as alarmed as the FAA by the balloon shoot-down. That’s because they know any uncoordinated weapons use is not merely unsafe; it is unacceptable.
Please go read the rest at The Bulwark, if you’re interested. Personally, I find this incident deeply disturbing. There are simply too many incompetent–even stupid–people running our government. Eventually there is going to be a serious disaster.
More disturbing Trump Administration/DHS news–this time involving the Social Security Administration:
Wired: Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE.
Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information about in-person appointments with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WIRED has learned.
“If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time,” an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person. This applies to people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need a sign language interpreter, or if someone needs to change their direct deposit information. Noncitizens are also required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.
Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country. In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit.
The order to share information, which was recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices, marks a new era of collaboration between SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency….
The SSA has been sharing data with ICE for much of President Donald Trump’s second term. In April, WIRED reported that the Trump administration had been pooling sensitive data from across the government, including from the the SSA, DHS, and the Internal Revenue Service. By November, WIRED learned that the SSA had made the arrangements official and had updated a public notice that said the agency was sharing “citizenship and immigration information” with DHS. “It was shockingly clear that there was interest in getting access to immigration data by [the] Trump administration,” a former SSA official tells WIRED. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.
This is from the Professional Development Academy: ‘Suicide is only one option’: Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training.
The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox.
SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency’s finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.
As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona.
“It’s important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”
Employees at the training, which occurred on Jan. 26 for benefits authorizers and post-entitlement technical experts, were taken aback by the comment and asked their supervisors for clarity. One employee at the training said there was “disbelief that it was just said” among those in the room.
Caitlin Thompson, a clinical psychologist who spent eight years at the Veterans Affairs Department as a clinical care coordinator on the Veterans Crisis Line and later as the department’s national director of suicide prevention, said SSA’s approach did not follow commonly accepted best practices.
“It’s not a normal thing to say,” Thompson said. “No. That’s not the thing you say to somebody who might be suicidal.”
Instead, SSA would be better suited telling employees to ask callers if they feel safe in the immediate term and if they say no, to tell the caller that they will work with their supervisor to get them in touch with a crisis line.
Read more at the link.
I’ll end with this update on Trump’s ballroom obsession.
The Washington Post (gift link): New images of White House ballroom show clearest look yet at Trump project.
New renderings shared Friday offer the clearest look yet at President Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom addition — a project advancing even as it is challenged in court and questioned on Capitol Hill.
Shalom Baranes Associates, the firm handling the project, shared the renderings with the National Capital Planning Commission, a committee charged by Congress with overseeing major federal construction projects in the region. The renderings include various angles of the ballroom building, an approximately 90,000-square-foot addition that would also include offices for White House staff. The White House has dubbed the project its “East Wing Modernization.”
The images reveal at least one significant change from earlier designs: the removal of a large triangular pediment above the ballroom’s southern portico. Rodney Cook Jr. — a Trump appointee who chairs the Commission of Fine Arts, another federal panel reviewing the project — had warned in January that the pediment was “immense” and pressed the architects about whether it could be reduced.
Despite the revisions, the proposed addition would remain the same height as the White House at its highest point — a priority for Trump and a major concern for outside architects and historical preservationists. Critics have warned the project could overshadow the iconic main mansion and alter long-protected sightliness around the complex. The new renderings indicate the building could block views of the White House residence from certain viewpoints, such as locations on 15th Street NW, according to the designs shared Friday.
Bruce Redman Becker, an architect who was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by former president Joe Biden and removed by Trump last year, said the renderings show “a poorly proportioned pseudo-neoclassical structure that is completely out of scale with the White House.” He also said that the images shown in the renderings did not comply with decades-old guidelines developed by the National Park Service for construction projects at the White House and its neighboring park, which call for new additions to be compatible with the historic structure.
“The design team clearly ignored these guidelines, and should be asked to revise and resubmit plans that follow the guidelines,” Becker said.
You can use the gift link to read more and see the renderings.
That’s it for me today. What are your thoughts on all this? What else is on your mind?
#AntiDroneLaser #BorderPatrol #CaribbeanBoatStrikes #catArt #caturday #DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #DonaldTrump #ElPasoAirSpace #IranAttackPlans #Jr #LoveAndHate #MartinLutherKing #partyBalloon #PeteHegseth #SocialSecurityAdministration #TrumpSBallroom #ValentineSDayCats -
Lazy Caturday Reads: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Happy Valentine’s Day!!
This morning, Steven Beschloss posted the following discussion question for his readers at his Substack “America America”: Is Love More Powerful Than Hate?
I had in mind to write about villainy. It’s a fact of our public life that the Trump regime is thick with this dark force and overloaded with people who revel in it. The villains come easily to mind: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Russel Vought, Greg Bovino (to name a few) and of course their ringleader, Donald Trump. They have motivated countless others to join their hateful cause to reject the Constitution and demolish democracy in America.
But on this day—Valentine’s Day—I want to turn this over and look at the flip side. Because behind this discussion of villains and villainy is my belief that their dark force can be defeated with the force of light and love. I don’t mean the biblical advice to “love your enemies,” although that may be a mindset that others more merciful than I can conjure.
I’m thinking more about the guidance found in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the topic of love. Let me share four shining examples:
- “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.”
- “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
- “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
- “I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
There are days that these insights—these deeply held convictions—may seem inadequate to confront the horrors we witness committed by men and women who have lost their moral compass, assuming that they once possessed one. But I’d like to suggest that the more powerful our revulsion toward the regime’s acts of villainy, the more we are influenced by the inverse.
I returned to yesterday’s essay, “Pam Bondi’s Utter Contempt for Justice,” to test this notion. If you read it and thought that I am horrified by her villainous behavior this week, you would be right. But let’s look at the basis for my horror in three sentences from the first several paragraphs: “It’s hard to imagine someone more overtly hostile to justice and more utterly incapable of basic human compassion…This person is responsible for serving the people…But when asked for the most basic show of humanity, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.” Behind the obvious criticism of her hateful action is love: For justice, for basic human compassion, for serving the people, for humanity.
My point is that in our articulation of the horrors, we can find the light that can inspire us to stay in the fight and overcome this dark chapter. “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos,” King wrote. In other words, love is more powerful than hate and, as King also insisted, “the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
Bad Bunny sent a similar message with his Super Bowl performance. Is it true? Can love conquer hate? Food for thought on Valentine’s Day.
Now for the news, which is again filled with hate and fear.
Trump appears to be planning some sort of attack on Iran.
Reuthers: Exclusive: US military preparing for potentially weeks-long Iran.
The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.
The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Saturday that while Trump’s preference was to reach a deal with Tehran, “that’s very hard to do.”
Meanwhile, Trump has amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action. U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.
Trump, speaking to U.S. troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, openly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, saying it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people.”
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump said.
Trump has long voiced skepticism about sending ground troops into Iran, saying last year “the last thing you want to do is ground forces,” and the kinds of U.S. firepower arrayed in the Middle East so far suggest options for strikes primarily by air and naval forces.
The New York Times: Trump Says Regime Change Would Be the ‘Best Thing’ for Iran.
President Trump said on Friday that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen,” as he continued to threaten military action against the country.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” he told reporters after visiting troops at Fort Bragg. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has called for new leadership in Iran, and The New York Times reported in January that he was mulling whether regime change would be a viable military option.
But his latest comments are, perhaps, Mr. Trump’s most overt endorsement of regime change, even as U.S. officials concede that ousting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be much more complex than the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, then the leader of Venezuela.
Still, officials have said that Mr. Trump had not made a final decision and was considering a range of military options.
The Trump administration has been steadily building up its military capabilities in the Middle East as Mr. Trump considers whether to strike the country again. Mr. Trump threatened last month to attack Iran if its government did not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear program….
But senior U.S. officials remain skeptical that the Iranians will agree to a deal that satisfies Mr. Trump, who has shown a growing impatience with the negotiations. This month, Omani officials mediated talks between Iran and a U.S. delegation that included Steve Witkoff,
A bit more on possible attack plans:
Mr. Trump has been weighing a range of military actions, including targeting Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to launch ballistic missiles. He is also considering sending American commandos to go after Iranian military targets, among other moves, the officials said.
To prepare, the Pentagon has been building up an “armada,” as Mr. Trump calls it, in the region. It includes the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, eight guided missile destroyers that can shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, land-based ballistic missile defense systems and submarines that can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iran.
And on Thursday, the crew of a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, was told it would leave the Caribbean, where the ship joined the U.S. operation last month to seize Mr. Maduro, and deploy to the Middle East as part of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign.
Yesterday, Trump posted a photo of a U.S. aircraft carrier on Truth Social, perhaps as a foreshadowing of his plans for Iran.
The Caribbean boat strikes are back.
NBC News: U.S. strikes alleged drug boat in Caribbean, killing three.
The U.S. Southern Command said it struck a vessel allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean on Friday, killing three people.
“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” Southern Command said in a post on X, adding that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
“Three narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” the post said.
The U.S. has not provided evidence supporting its allegations about the boat, passengers, cargo or the number of people killed.
This latest strike comes after the U.S. on Monday struck a vessel also alleged to be transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor.
A few days ago, there was a disturbing incident in Texas in which DHS used a powerful laser weapon with out notifying other parts of the government. It caused the FAA to close the air space over El Paso, Texas for a time. I have been curious about how this happened.
The New York Times, Feb. 11: Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser.
The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.
The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.
Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”
But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said….
The military has been developing high-energy laser technology to intercept and destroy drones, which the Trump administration has said are being used by Mexican cartels to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States.
The airspace closure provoked a significant backlash from local officials and sharp questions by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, who expressed skepticism about the administration’s version of the events.
This country is being run by morons.
NBC News: CBP shot down party balloons with anti-drone tech before FAA closed El Paso airspace, sources say.
The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.
The testing of U.S. military-owned laser technology was taking place in the proximity of the airport. The FAA responded by issuing a “temporary flight restriction notice,” which was to shut down the airspace for 10 days. It prevented flights, including helicopters used for medical transport, below 18,000 feet. The airport is a major hub for the region, with more than 50 flights scheduled every day.
The airspace was reopened several hours later Wednesday morning. The decision prompted confusion and finger-pointing inside the Trump administration over who was to blame….
One of the people familiar with the testing said the Defense Department has a working relationship with Homeland Security, where CBP is headquartered, that allows its personnel to use certain military equipment for its objectives, testing, evaluation and use along the southern border.
Recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the use of the weapon for CBP, the people said. Spokespeople for CBP referred questions to the White House, which did not elaborate beyond initial statements.
It figures Hegseth would be involved in this mess.
From military expert Mark Hertling at The Bulwark: The El Paso Balloon Incident Could Have Been a Disaster.
AFTER PROLONGED CONFUSION, we may have some clarity on what caused the emergency restriction on the airspace around El Paso International Airport: Someone used a sophisticated anti-air laser against what they thought was a drone launched from Mexico, but turned out to be a party balloon. Understandably, the first suspects were the Army units at Fort Bliss, which abuts El Paso and the airport. But it wasn’t the Army that fired the weapon.
According to the New York Times, Customs and Border Protection personnel fired an experimental anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense at what they thought was a cartel drone—without sufficient coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration. That prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace around the airport up to 18,000 feet in an extraordinary emergency move.
But focusing on the harmlessness of the target obscures the deeper issue: Why was this weapon employed without the discipline that governs every legitimate use of force in the military?
Fort Bliss sits on the edge of El Paso. While it’s a large post, and it has a very isolated desert training area, it borders a large city with hospitals, businesses, highways, civilian neighborhoods, and a relatively large international airport.
The post is home to the 1st Armored Division, an organization I once commanded. Like every major installation in the Army, Fort Bliss operates under detailed standing operating procedures governing weapons employment—whether on a live-fire range, during air-defense exercises, or in any activity that could affect surrounding airspace or population centers.
Those procedures are not bureaucratic red tape. They are necessary safety barriers. They exist precisely because military commanders understand various immutable facts: weapons are dangerous, coordination for any training event is critical, citizens live nearby, and mistakes do not stay contained.
It’s therefore unsurprising—though deeply concerning—that reports indicate the Fort Bliss commander and the command and staff of Northern Command were as alarmed as the FAA by the balloon shoot-down. That’s because they know any uncoordinated weapons use is not merely unsafe; it is unacceptable.
Please go read the rest at The Bulwark, if you’re interested. Personally, I find this incident deeply disturbing. There are simply too many incompetent–even stupid–people running our government. Eventually there is going to be a serious disaster.
More disturbing Trump Administration/DHS news–this time involving the Social Security Administration:
Wired: Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE.
Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information about in-person appointments with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WIRED has learned.
“If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time,” an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person. This applies to people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need a sign language interpreter, or if someone needs to change their direct deposit information. Noncitizens are also required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.
Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country. In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit.
The order to share information, which was recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices, marks a new era of collaboration between SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency….
The SSA has been sharing data with ICE for much of President Donald Trump’s second term. In April, WIRED reported that the Trump administration had been pooling sensitive data from across the government, including from the the SSA, DHS, and the Internal Revenue Service. By November, WIRED learned that the SSA had made the arrangements official and had updated a public notice that said the agency was sharing “citizenship and immigration information” with DHS. “It was shockingly clear that there was interest in getting access to immigration data by [the] Trump administration,” a former SSA official tells WIRED. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.
This is from the Professional Development Academy: ‘Suicide is only one option’: Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training.
The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox.
SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency’s finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.
As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona.
“It’s important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”
Employees at the training, which occurred on Jan. 26 for benefits authorizers and post-entitlement technical experts, were taken aback by the comment and asked their supervisors for clarity. One employee at the training said there was “disbelief that it was just said” among those in the room.
Caitlin Thompson, a clinical psychologist who spent eight years at the Veterans Affairs Department as a clinical care coordinator on the Veterans Crisis Line and later as the department’s national director of suicide prevention, said SSA’s approach did not follow commonly accepted best practices.
“It’s not a normal thing to say,” Thompson said. “No. That’s not the thing you say to somebody who might be suicidal.”
Instead, SSA would be better suited telling employees to ask callers if they feel safe in the immediate term and if they say no, to tell the caller that they will work with their supervisor to get them in touch with a crisis line.
Read more at the link.
I’ll end with this update on Trump’s ballroom obsession.
The Washington Post (gift link): New images of White House ballroom show clearest look yet at Trump project.
New renderings shared Friday offer the clearest look yet at President Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom addition — a project advancing even as it is challenged in court and questioned on Capitol Hill.
Shalom Baranes Associates, the firm handling the project, shared the renderings with the National Capital Planning Commission, a committee charged by Congress with overseeing major federal construction projects in the region. The renderings include various angles of the ballroom building, an approximately 90,000-square-foot addition that would also include offices for White House staff. The White House has dubbed the project its “East Wing Modernization.”
The images reveal at least one significant change from earlier designs: the removal of a large triangular pediment above the ballroom’s southern portico. Rodney Cook Jr. — a Trump appointee who chairs the Commission of Fine Arts, another federal panel reviewing the project — had warned in January that the pediment was “immense” and pressed the architects about whether it could be reduced.
Despite the revisions, the proposed addition would remain the same height as the White House at its highest point — a priority for Trump and a major concern for outside architects and historical preservationists. Critics have warned the project could overshadow the iconic main mansion and alter long-protected sightliness around the complex. The new renderings indicate the building could block views of the White House residence from certain viewpoints, such as locations on 15th Street NW, according to the designs shared Friday.
Bruce Redman Becker, an architect who was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by former president Joe Biden and removed by Trump last year, said the renderings show “a poorly proportioned pseudo-neoclassical structure that is completely out of scale with the White House.” He also said that the images shown in the renderings did not comply with decades-old guidelines developed by the National Park Service for construction projects at the White House and its neighboring park, which call for new additions to be compatible with the historic structure.
“The design team clearly ignored these guidelines, and should be asked to revise and resubmit plans that follow the guidelines,” Becker said.
You can use the gift link to read more and see the renderings.
That’s it for me today. What are your thoughts on all this? What else is on your mind?
#AntiDroneLaser #BorderPatrol #CaribbeanBoatStrikes #catArt #caturday #DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #DonaldTrump #ElPasoAirSpace #IranAttackPlans #Jr #LoveAndHate #MartinLutherKing #partyBalloon #PeteHegseth #SocialSecurityAdministration #TrumpSBallroom #ValentineSDayCats -
Lazy Caturday Reads: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Happy Valentine’s Day!!
This morning, Steven Beschloss posted the following discussion question for his readers at his Substack “America America”: Is Love More Powerful Than Hate?
I had in mind to write about villainy. It’s a fact of our public life that the Trump regime is thick with this dark force and overloaded with people who revel in it. The villains come easily to mind: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Russel Vought, Greg Bovino (to name a few) and of course their ringleader, Donald Trump. They have motivated countless others to join their hateful cause to reject the Constitution and demolish democracy in America.
But on this day—Valentine’s Day—I want to turn this over and look at the flip side. Because behind this discussion of villains and villainy is my belief that their dark force can be defeated with the force of light and love. I don’t mean the biblical advice to “love your enemies,” although that may be a mindset that others more merciful than I can conjure.
I’m thinking more about the guidance found in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the topic of love. Let me share four shining examples:
- “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.”
- “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
- “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
- “I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
There are days that these insights—these deeply held convictions—may seem inadequate to confront the horrors we witness committed by men and women who have lost their moral compass, assuming that they once possessed one. But I’d like to suggest that the more powerful our revulsion toward the regime’s acts of villainy, the more we are influenced by the inverse.
I returned to yesterday’s essay, “Pam Bondi’s Utter Contempt for Justice,” to test this notion. If you read it and thought that I am horrified by her villainous behavior this week, you would be right. But let’s look at the basis for my horror in three sentences from the first several paragraphs: “It’s hard to imagine someone more overtly hostile to justice and more utterly incapable of basic human compassion…This person is responsible for serving the people…But when asked for the most basic show of humanity, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.” Behind the obvious criticism of her hateful action is love: For justice, for basic human compassion, for serving the people, for humanity.
My point is that in our articulation of the horrors, we can find the light that can inspire us to stay in the fight and overcome this dark chapter. “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos,” King wrote. In other words, love is more powerful than hate and, as King also insisted, “the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
Bad Bunny sent a similar message with his Super Bowl performance. Is it true? Can love conquer hate? Food for thought on Valentine’s Day.
Now for the news, which is again filled with hate and fear.
Trump appears to be planning some sort of attack on Iran.
Reuthers: Exclusive: US military preparing for potentially weeks-long Iran.
The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.
The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Saturday that while Trump’s preference was to reach a deal with Tehran, “that’s very hard to do.”
Meanwhile, Trump has amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action. U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.
Trump, speaking to U.S. troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, openly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, saying it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people.”
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump said.
Trump has long voiced skepticism about sending ground troops into Iran, saying last year “the last thing you want to do is ground forces,” and the kinds of U.S. firepower arrayed in the Middle East so far suggest options for strikes primarily by air and naval forces.
The New York Times: Trump Says Regime Change Would Be the ‘Best Thing’ for Iran.
President Trump said on Friday that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen,” as he continued to threaten military action against the country.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” he told reporters after visiting troops at Fort Bragg. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has called for new leadership in Iran, and The New York Times reported in January that he was mulling whether regime change would be a viable military option.
But his latest comments are, perhaps, Mr. Trump’s most overt endorsement of regime change, even as U.S. officials concede that ousting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be much more complex than the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, then the leader of Venezuela.
Still, officials have said that Mr. Trump had not made a final decision and was considering a range of military options.
The Trump administration has been steadily building up its military capabilities in the Middle East as Mr. Trump considers whether to strike the country again. Mr. Trump threatened last month to attack Iran if its government did not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear program….
But senior U.S. officials remain skeptical that the Iranians will agree to a deal that satisfies Mr. Trump, who has shown a growing impatience with the negotiations. This month, Omani officials mediated talks between Iran and a U.S. delegation that included Steve Witkoff,
A bit more on possible attack plans:
Mr. Trump has been weighing a range of military actions, including targeting Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to launch ballistic missiles. He is also considering sending American commandos to go after Iranian military targets, among other moves, the officials said.
To prepare, the Pentagon has been building up an “armada,” as Mr. Trump calls it, in the region. It includes the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, eight guided missile destroyers that can shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, land-based ballistic missile defense systems and submarines that can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iran.
And on Thursday, the crew of a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, was told it would leave the Caribbean, where the ship joined the U.S. operation last month to seize Mr. Maduro, and deploy to the Middle East as part of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign.
Yesterday, Trump posted a photo of a U.S. aircraft carrier on Truth Social, perhaps as a foreshadowing of his plans for Iran.
The Caribbean boat strikes are back.
NBC News: U.S. strikes alleged drug boat in Caribbean, killing three.
The U.S. Southern Command said it struck a vessel allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean on Friday, killing three people.
“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” Southern Command said in a post on X, adding that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
“Three narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” the post said.
The U.S. has not provided evidence supporting its allegations about the boat, passengers, cargo or the number of people killed.
This latest strike comes after the U.S. on Monday struck a vessel also alleged to be transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor.
A few days ago, there was a disturbing incident in Texas in which DHS used a powerful laser weapon with out notifying other parts of the government. It caused the FAA to close the air space over El Paso, Texas for a time. I have been curious about how this happened.
The New York Times, Feb. 11: Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser.
The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.
The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.
Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”
But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said….
The military has been developing high-energy laser technology to intercept and destroy drones, which the Trump administration has said are being used by Mexican cartels to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States.
The airspace closure provoked a significant backlash from local officials and sharp questions by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, who expressed skepticism about the administration’s version of the events.
This country is being run by morons.
NBC News: CBP shot down party balloons with anti-drone tech before FAA closed El Paso airspace, sources say.
The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.
The testing of U.S. military-owned laser technology was taking place in the proximity of the airport. The FAA responded by issuing a “temporary flight restriction notice,” which was to shut down the airspace for 10 days. It prevented flights, including helicopters used for medical transport, below 18,000 feet. The airport is a major hub for the region, with more than 50 flights scheduled every day.
The airspace was reopened several hours later Wednesday morning. The decision prompted confusion and finger-pointing inside the Trump administration over who was to blame….
One of the people familiar with the testing said the Defense Department has a working relationship with Homeland Security, where CBP is headquartered, that allows its personnel to use certain military equipment for its objectives, testing, evaluation and use along the southern border.
Recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the use of the weapon for CBP, the people said. Spokespeople for CBP referred questions to the White House, which did not elaborate beyond initial statements.
It figures Hegseth would be involved in this mess.
From military expert Mark Hertling at The Bulwark: The El Paso Balloon Incident Could Have Been a Disaster.
AFTER PROLONGED CONFUSION, we may have some clarity on what caused the emergency restriction on the airspace around El Paso International Airport: Someone used a sophisticated anti-air laser against what they thought was a drone launched from Mexico, but turned out to be a party balloon. Understandably, the first suspects were the Army units at Fort Bliss, which abuts El Paso and the airport. But it wasn’t the Army that fired the weapon.
According to the New York Times, Customs and Border Protection personnel fired an experimental anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense at what they thought was a cartel drone—without sufficient coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration. That prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace around the airport up to 18,000 feet in an extraordinary emergency move.
But focusing on the harmlessness of the target obscures the deeper issue: Why was this weapon employed without the discipline that governs every legitimate use of force in the military?
Fort Bliss sits on the edge of El Paso. While it’s a large post, and it has a very isolated desert training area, it borders a large city with hospitals, businesses, highways, civilian neighborhoods, and a relatively large international airport.
The post is home to the 1st Armored Division, an organization I once commanded. Like every major installation in the Army, Fort Bliss operates under detailed standing operating procedures governing weapons employment—whether on a live-fire range, during air-defense exercises, or in any activity that could affect surrounding airspace or population centers.
Those procedures are not bureaucratic red tape. They are necessary safety barriers. They exist precisely because military commanders understand various immutable facts: weapons are dangerous, coordination for any training event is critical, citizens live nearby, and mistakes do not stay contained.
It’s therefore unsurprising—though deeply concerning—that reports indicate the Fort Bliss commander and the command and staff of Northern Command were as alarmed as the FAA by the balloon shoot-down. That’s because they know any uncoordinated weapons use is not merely unsafe; it is unacceptable.
Please go read the rest at The Bulwark, if you’re interested. Personally, I find this incident deeply disturbing. There are simply too many incompetent–even stupid–people running our government. Eventually there is going to be a serious disaster.
More disturbing Trump Administration/DHS news–this time involving the Social Security Administration:
Wired: Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE.
Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information about in-person appointments with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WIRED has learned.
“If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time,” an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person. This applies to people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need a sign language interpreter, or if someone needs to change their direct deposit information. Noncitizens are also required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.
Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country. In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit.
The order to share information, which was recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices, marks a new era of collaboration between SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency….
The SSA has been sharing data with ICE for much of President Donald Trump’s second term. In April, WIRED reported that the Trump administration had been pooling sensitive data from across the government, including from the the SSA, DHS, and the Internal Revenue Service. By November, WIRED learned that the SSA had made the arrangements official and had updated a public notice that said the agency was sharing “citizenship and immigration information” with DHS. “It was shockingly clear that there was interest in getting access to immigration data by [the] Trump administration,” a former SSA official tells WIRED. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.
This is from the Professional Development Academy: ‘Suicide is only one option’: Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training.
The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox.
SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency’s finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.
As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona.
“It’s important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”
Employees at the training, which occurred on Jan. 26 for benefits authorizers and post-entitlement technical experts, were taken aback by the comment and asked their supervisors for clarity. One employee at the training said there was “disbelief that it was just said” among those in the room.
Caitlin Thompson, a clinical psychologist who spent eight years at the Veterans Affairs Department as a clinical care coordinator on the Veterans Crisis Line and later as the department’s national director of suicide prevention, said SSA’s approach did not follow commonly accepted best practices.
“It’s not a normal thing to say,” Thompson said. “No. That’s not the thing you say to somebody who might be suicidal.”
Instead, SSA would be better suited telling employees to ask callers if they feel safe in the immediate term and if they say no, to tell the caller that they will work with their supervisor to get them in touch with a crisis line.
Read more at the link.
I’ll end with this update on Trump’s ballroom obsession.
The Washington Post (gift link): New images of White House ballroom show clearest look yet at Trump project.
New renderings shared Friday offer the clearest look yet at President Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom addition — a project advancing even as it is challenged in court and questioned on Capitol Hill.
Shalom Baranes Associates, the firm handling the project, shared the renderings with the National Capital Planning Commission, a committee charged by Congress with overseeing major federal construction projects in the region. The renderings include various angles of the ballroom building, an approximately 90,000-square-foot addition that would also include offices for White House staff. The White House has dubbed the project its “East Wing Modernization.”
The images reveal at least one significant change from earlier designs: the removal of a large triangular pediment above the ballroom’s southern portico. Rodney Cook Jr. — a Trump appointee who chairs the Commission of Fine Arts, another federal panel reviewing the project — had warned in January that the pediment was “immense” and pressed the architects about whether it could be reduced.
Despite the revisions, the proposed addition would remain the same height as the White House at its highest point — a priority for Trump and a major concern for outside architects and historical preservationists. Critics have warned the project could overshadow the iconic main mansion and alter long-protected sightliness around the complex. The new renderings indicate the building could block views of the White House residence from certain viewpoints, such as locations on 15th Street NW, according to the designs shared Friday.
Bruce Redman Becker, an architect who was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by former president Joe Biden and removed by Trump last year, said the renderings show “a poorly proportioned pseudo-neoclassical structure that is completely out of scale with the White House.” He also said that the images shown in the renderings did not comply with decades-old guidelines developed by the National Park Service for construction projects at the White House and its neighboring park, which call for new additions to be compatible with the historic structure.
“The design team clearly ignored these guidelines, and should be asked to revise and resubmit plans that follow the guidelines,” Becker said.
You can use the gift link to read more and see the renderings.
That’s it for me today. What are your thoughts on all this? What else is on your mind?
#AntiDroneLaser #BorderPatrol #CaribbeanBoatStrikes #catArt #caturday #DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #DonaldTrump #ElPasoAirSpace #IranAttackPlans #Jr #LoveAndHate #MartinLutherKing #partyBalloon #PeteHegseth #SocialSecurityAdministration #TrumpSBallroom #ValentineSDayCats -
Lazy Caturday Reads: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Happy Valentine’s Day!!
This morning, Steven Beschloss posted the following discussion question for his readers at his Substack “America America”: Is Love More Powerful Than Hate?
I had in mind to write about villainy. It’s a fact of our public life that the Trump regime is thick with this dark force and overloaded with people who revel in it. The villains come easily to mind: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Russel Vought, Greg Bovino (to name a few) and of course their ringleader, Donald Trump. They have motivated countless others to join their hateful cause to reject the Constitution and demolish democracy in America.
But on this day—Valentine’s Day—I want to turn this over and look at the flip side. Because behind this discussion of villains and villainy is my belief that their dark force can be defeated with the force of light and love. I don’t mean the biblical advice to “love your enemies,” although that may be a mindset that others more merciful than I can conjure.
I’m thinking more about the guidance found in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the topic of love. Let me share four shining examples:
- “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.”
- “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
- “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
- “I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
There are days that these insights—these deeply held convictions—may seem inadequate to confront the horrors we witness committed by men and women who have lost their moral compass, assuming that they once possessed one. But I’d like to suggest that the more powerful our revulsion toward the regime’s acts of villainy, the more we are influenced by the inverse.
I returned to yesterday’s essay, “Pam Bondi’s Utter Contempt for Justice,” to test this notion. If you read it and thought that I am horrified by her villainous behavior this week, you would be right. But let’s look at the basis for my horror in three sentences from the first several paragraphs: “It’s hard to imagine someone more overtly hostile to justice and more utterly incapable of basic human compassion…This person is responsible for serving the people…But when asked for the most basic show of humanity, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.” Behind the obvious criticism of her hateful action is love: For justice, for basic human compassion, for serving the people, for humanity.
My point is that in our articulation of the horrors, we can find the light that can inspire us to stay in the fight and overcome this dark chapter. “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos,” King wrote. In other words, love is more powerful than hate and, as King also insisted, “the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
Bad Bunny sent a similar message with his Super Bowl performance. Is it true? Can love conquer hate? Food for thought on Valentine’s Day.
Now for the news, which is again filled with hate and fear.
Trump appears to be planning some sort of attack on Iran.
Reuthers: Exclusive: US military preparing for potentially weeks-long Iran.
The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.
The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Saturday that while Trump’s preference was to reach a deal with Tehran, “that’s very hard to do.”
Meanwhile, Trump has amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action. U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.
Trump, speaking to U.S. troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, openly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, saying it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people.”
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump said.
Trump has long voiced skepticism about sending ground troops into Iran, saying last year “the last thing you want to do is ground forces,” and the kinds of U.S. firepower arrayed in the Middle East so far suggest options for strikes primarily by air and naval forces.
The New York Times: Trump Says Regime Change Would Be the ‘Best Thing’ for Iran.
President Trump said on Friday that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen,” as he continued to threaten military action against the country.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” he told reporters after visiting troops at Fort Bragg. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has called for new leadership in Iran, and The New York Times reported in January that he was mulling whether regime change would be a viable military option.
But his latest comments are, perhaps, Mr. Trump’s most overt endorsement of regime change, even as U.S. officials concede that ousting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be much more complex than the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, then the leader of Venezuela.
Still, officials have said that Mr. Trump had not made a final decision and was considering a range of military options.
The Trump administration has been steadily building up its military capabilities in the Middle East as Mr. Trump considers whether to strike the country again. Mr. Trump threatened last month to attack Iran if its government did not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear program….
But senior U.S. officials remain skeptical that the Iranians will agree to a deal that satisfies Mr. Trump, who has shown a growing impatience with the negotiations. This month, Omani officials mediated talks between Iran and a U.S. delegation that included Steve Witkoff,
A bit more on possible attack plans:
Mr. Trump has been weighing a range of military actions, including targeting Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to launch ballistic missiles. He is also considering sending American commandos to go after Iranian military targets, among other moves, the officials said.
To prepare, the Pentagon has been building up an “armada,” as Mr. Trump calls it, in the region. It includes the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, eight guided missile destroyers that can shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, land-based ballistic missile defense systems and submarines that can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iran.
And on Thursday, the crew of a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, was told it would leave the Caribbean, where the ship joined the U.S. operation last month to seize Mr. Maduro, and deploy to the Middle East as part of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign.
Yesterday, Trump posted a photo of a U.S. aircraft carrier on Truth Social, perhaps as a foreshadowing of his plans for Iran.
The Caribbean boat strikes are back.
NBC News: U.S. strikes alleged drug boat in Caribbean, killing three.
The U.S. Southern Command said it struck a vessel allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean on Friday, killing three people.
“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” Southern Command said in a post on X, adding that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
“Three narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” the post said.
The U.S. has not provided evidence supporting its allegations about the boat, passengers, cargo or the number of people killed.
This latest strike comes after the U.S. on Monday struck a vessel also alleged to be transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor.
A few days ago, there was a disturbing incident in Texas in which DHS used a powerful laser weapon with out notifying other parts of the government. It caused the FAA to close the air space over El Paso, Texas for a time. I have been curious about how this happened.
The New York Times, Feb. 11: Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser.
The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.
The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.
Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”
But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said….
The military has been developing high-energy laser technology to intercept and destroy drones, which the Trump administration has said are being used by Mexican cartels to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States.
The airspace closure provoked a significant backlash from local officials and sharp questions by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, who expressed skepticism about the administration’s version of the events.
This country is being run by morons.
NBC News: CBP shot down party balloons with anti-drone tech before FAA closed El Paso airspace, sources say.
The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.
The testing of U.S. military-owned laser technology was taking place in the proximity of the airport. The FAA responded by issuing a “temporary flight restriction notice,” which was to shut down the airspace for 10 days. It prevented flights, including helicopters used for medical transport, below 18,000 feet. The airport is a major hub for the region, with more than 50 flights scheduled every day.
The airspace was reopened several hours later Wednesday morning. The decision prompted confusion and finger-pointing inside the Trump administration over who was to blame….
One of the people familiar with the testing said the Defense Department has a working relationship with Homeland Security, where CBP is headquartered, that allows its personnel to use certain military equipment for its objectives, testing, evaluation and use along the southern border.
Recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the use of the weapon for CBP, the people said. Spokespeople for CBP referred questions to the White House, which did not elaborate beyond initial statements.
It figures Hegseth would be involved in this mess.
From military expert Mark Hertling at The Bulwark: The El Paso Balloon Incident Could Have Been a Disaster.
AFTER PROLONGED CONFUSION, we may have some clarity on what caused the emergency restriction on the airspace around El Paso International Airport: Someone used a sophisticated anti-air laser against what they thought was a drone launched from Mexico, but turned out to be a party balloon. Understandably, the first suspects were the Army units at Fort Bliss, which abuts El Paso and the airport. But it wasn’t the Army that fired the weapon.
According to the New York Times, Customs and Border Protection personnel fired an experimental anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense at what they thought was a cartel drone—without sufficient coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration. That prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace around the airport up to 18,000 feet in an extraordinary emergency move.
But focusing on the harmlessness of the target obscures the deeper issue: Why was this weapon employed without the discipline that governs every legitimate use of force in the military?
Fort Bliss sits on the edge of El Paso. While it’s a large post, and it has a very isolated desert training area, it borders a large city with hospitals, businesses, highways, civilian neighborhoods, and a relatively large international airport.
The post is home to the 1st Armored Division, an organization I once commanded. Like every major installation in the Army, Fort Bliss operates under detailed standing operating procedures governing weapons employment—whether on a live-fire range, during air-defense exercises, or in any activity that could affect surrounding airspace or population centers.
Those procedures are not bureaucratic red tape. They are necessary safety barriers. They exist precisely because military commanders understand various immutable facts: weapons are dangerous, coordination for any training event is critical, citizens live nearby, and mistakes do not stay contained.
It’s therefore unsurprising—though deeply concerning—that reports indicate the Fort Bliss commander and the command and staff of Northern Command were as alarmed as the FAA by the balloon shoot-down. That’s because they know any uncoordinated weapons use is not merely unsafe; it is unacceptable.
Please go read the rest at The Bulwark, if you’re interested. Personally, I find this incident deeply disturbing. There are simply too many incompetent–even stupid–people running our government. Eventually there is going to be a serious disaster.
More disturbing Trump Administration/DHS news–this time involving the Social Security Administration:
Wired: Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE.
Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information about in-person appointments with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WIRED has learned.
“If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time,” an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person. This applies to people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need a sign language interpreter, or if someone needs to change their direct deposit information. Noncitizens are also required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.
Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country. In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit.
The order to share information, which was recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices, marks a new era of collaboration between SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency….
The SSA has been sharing data with ICE for much of President Donald Trump’s second term. In April, WIRED reported that the Trump administration had been pooling sensitive data from across the government, including from the the SSA, DHS, and the Internal Revenue Service. By November, WIRED learned that the SSA had made the arrangements official and had updated a public notice that said the agency was sharing “citizenship and immigration information” with DHS. “It was shockingly clear that there was interest in getting access to immigration data by [the] Trump administration,” a former SSA official tells WIRED. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.
This is from the Professional Development Academy: ‘Suicide is only one option’: Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training.
The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox.
SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency’s finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.
As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona.
“It’s important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”
Employees at the training, which occurred on Jan. 26 for benefits authorizers and post-entitlement technical experts, were taken aback by the comment and asked their supervisors for clarity. One employee at the training said there was “disbelief that it was just said” among those in the room.
Caitlin Thompson, a clinical psychologist who spent eight years at the Veterans Affairs Department as a clinical care coordinator on the Veterans Crisis Line and later as the department’s national director of suicide prevention, said SSA’s approach did not follow commonly accepted best practices.
“It’s not a normal thing to say,” Thompson said. “No. That’s not the thing you say to somebody who might be suicidal.”
Instead, SSA would be better suited telling employees to ask callers if they feel safe in the immediate term and if they say no, to tell the caller that they will work with their supervisor to get them in touch with a crisis line.
Read more at the link.
I’ll end with this update on Trump’s ballroom obsession.
The Washington Post (gift link): New images of White House ballroom show clearest look yet at Trump project.
New renderings shared Friday offer the clearest look yet at President Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom addition — a project advancing even as it is challenged in court and questioned on Capitol Hill.
Shalom Baranes Associates, the firm handling the project, shared the renderings with the National Capital Planning Commission, a committee charged by Congress with overseeing major federal construction projects in the region. The renderings include various angles of the ballroom building, an approximately 90,000-square-foot addition that would also include offices for White House staff. The White House has dubbed the project its “East Wing Modernization.”
The images reveal at least one significant change from earlier designs: the removal of a large triangular pediment above the ballroom’s southern portico. Rodney Cook Jr. — a Trump appointee who chairs the Commission of Fine Arts, another federal panel reviewing the project — had warned in January that the pediment was “immense” and pressed the architects about whether it could be reduced.
Despite the revisions, the proposed addition would remain the same height as the White House at its highest point — a priority for Trump and a major concern for outside architects and historical preservationists. Critics have warned the project could overshadow the iconic main mansion and alter long-protected sightliness around the complex. The new renderings indicate the building could block views of the White House residence from certain viewpoints, such as locations on 15th Street NW, according to the designs shared Friday.
Bruce Redman Becker, an architect who was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by former president Joe Biden and removed by Trump last year, said the renderings show “a poorly proportioned pseudo-neoclassical structure that is completely out of scale with the White House.” He also said that the images shown in the renderings did not comply with decades-old guidelines developed by the National Park Service for construction projects at the White House and its neighboring park, which call for new additions to be compatible with the historic structure.
“The design team clearly ignored these guidelines, and should be asked to revise and resubmit plans that follow the guidelines,” Becker said.
You can use the gift link to read more and see the renderings.
That’s it for me today. What are your thoughts on all this? What else is on your mind?
#AntiDroneLaser #BorderPatrol #CaribbeanBoatStrikes #catArt #caturday #DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #DonaldTrump #ElPasoAirSpace #IranAttackPlans #Jr #LoveAndHate #MartinLutherKing #partyBalloon #PeteHegseth #SocialSecurityAdministration #TrumpSBallroom #ValentineSDayCats -
“Of course.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The new theme in the media these days is how to do a political outreach to misunderstood young men. I’m not exactly sure why they think young men–and, of course, they tend to favor the vanilla flavor–are so disenfranchised and depressed about facing competition in markets for jobs, houses, and social relationships. The media is obsessed with the outreach campaign to get these downward-facing dudes to get out and vote for the guy who was handed everything. Perhaps they need a lesson that women have had it with toxic masculinity. But, everything in the DonOld world is wrong-side up. I feel like I’m just watching endless reruns of men with Daddy issues.
It’s been a relief not to experience Tucker Carlson and his continual cosplay to be less of a bottom broadcasted all over the media. I was horrified by his latest performance, which I saw far too many times on TV news last night. Today, it’s got print media. This is from The Guardian. “Tucker Carlson is fantasizing about Daddy Donald Trump spanking teenage girls. The former Fox host once said he hated the ex-president. Now his display of serious daddy issues is striking a terrifying chord.” The story is written by Arwa Mahdawi. I will say it was more comically horrifying in video format.
Welcome to another normal day in Magaland. The sun is shining, the leaves are falling, and the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is fantasizing about “daddy” Donald Trump spanking teenage girls.
This fresh hell comes via Duluth, Georgia, where Carlson was warming up a Trump rally on Wednesday night. Which is notable in itself because Carlson hasn’t always been a big fan of the former president. Last year a bunch of Carlson’s private text messages were made public as part of the $1.6bn defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems and they made his real feelings about Trump very clear.
“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson texted an undisclosed recipient on 4 January 2021. “I truly can’t wait.” He added: “I hate him passionately.”
Rather than ignoring Trump, as he was once so excited to do, however, Carlson – who was booted from Fox News last year – seems to have become a confidant of the ex-president and is now making disturbing speeches on his behalf. During the rally Carlson, who has three adult daughters, compared the US under Trump to a naughty girl being disciplined by her father. “If you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it,” Carlson said. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home.” At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.
Believe me, as someone who has taught middle school and high school kids as well as young college freshmen, there’s a lot more worrying to be done about hormone-addled boys than girls just slamming the door on their uncool parents. I also have two daughters, and I was relieved they were girls when they were born. I’m sure I can get some witnesses here. The Carlson rant, along with its response, shows this sick side of America’s misogyny,
“Dad comes home and he’s pissed,” Carlson continues. “He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them … And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”
Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don”. Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.
James Singer, a Harris campaign spokesman, declared the speech “fucking weird”. And for a lot of people, it certainly was. But for Trump’s cult-like supporters, Carlson’s spanking fantasy encapsulates everything they love about the presidential candidate: the paternalism, the toxic masculinity, the lust for violence and thirst for revenge.
Meanwhile, Daddy Don’s former employees continue to open up about how truly awful he would be if he got back in. General Kelly’s interview has created quite a stir, and other staff members are joining the chorus to out the fascist. Praising Hitler should be an automatic disqualification for anyone seeking office in this country. As I say always and forever, my Daddy, who was the sweetest man I’ve ever known, bombed NAZIs. My Dad enlisted. He was neither a sucker nor a loser and would talk about his service all the time in his golden years. I remain forever proud to be his daughter.
This is from NBC News. “13 former Trump administration officials sign open letter backing up John Kelly’s criticism of Trump. Kelly told the New York Times that Trump meets the definition of a fascist and also said he observed the former president on multiple occasions praising Adolf Hitler.”
Thirteen former Trump White House officials signed an open letter backing up former Trump chief of staff John Kelly, who told the New York Times that Trump fits the definition of a fascist.
“We applaud General Kelly for highlighting in stark details the danger of a second Trump term. Like General Kelly, we did not take the decision to come forward lightly,” the letter said. “We are all lifelong Republicans who served our country. However, there are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments.”
Politico was first to report on the letter.
The letter, released by the Harris campaign, is signed by former officials including former press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor, and Olivia Troye, former national security adviser to Mike Pence. All three former Trump administration officials have become high-profile critics of his after his presidency ended.
Troye and Grisham spoke at the Democratic National Convention this year. Troye was also one of the signatories of a letter in August from over 200 Republican officials backing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
In his interview with the Times, released Tuesday, Kelly also said he observed Trump on multiple occasions praising Adolf Hitler. His comments came on the same day the Atlantic reported that Trump said he wished he had generals like Hitler.
In their letter, the former Trump officials said Kelly’s claims were “disturbing and shocking.” They added that “because we know Trump and have worked for and alongside him, we were sadly not surprised by what General Kelly had to say. This is who Donald Trump is.”
He continually has shown us who he is when he insults service members and our fallen soldiers, when he talks gleefully about pussy grabby, when he shows preferences for ruthless dictators over our democratic allies who have repeatedly stood beside us in our fight for freedom, and when he is so addled he speaks gibberish. An ABC Poll shows that “Half of Americans see Donald Trump as a fascist: POLL. Nearly two-thirds also say Trump often departs from the truth, the poll found.” Why do we still have to deal with him? He should be in jail already!
Half the country sees former President Donald Trump as a fascist, amplifying concerns raised in recent days by Vice President Kamala Harris and past members of Trump’s own administration. Far fewer in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll level the same charge against Harris.
Nearly two-thirds also say Trump often departs from the truth, again more than say so about Harris. But Harris gets more criticism than Trump for pandering for votes by promoting policies she doesn’t intend to carry out — underscoring challenges for both candidates as the fur flies in their increasingly heated presidential race.
Responding to one of the more incendiary salvos, 49% of registered voters in the national survey say Trump is a fascist, defined as “a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents.” Fewer than half as many, 22%, see Harris as a fascist by this definition.
Harris on Wednesday said Trump is a fascist, a week after agreeing with an interviewer that his campaign is “about fascism.” A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former chief of staff to Trump and a former defense secretary in his administration have been quoted recently also as describing Trump as a fascist, and the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden thinks so, too. Trump, for his part, repeatedly has called Harris a fascist, as well as a Marxist and a communist.
I completely agree with Eugene Robinson on this. Here’s his Op-Ed at the Washington Post. “The double standard for Harris and Trump has reached a breaking point. One candidate can rant about gibberish while the other has to be perfect.”
Something is wrong with this split-screen picture. On one side, former president Donald Trump rants about mass deportations and claims to have stopped “wars with France,” after being described by his longest-serving White House chief of staff as a literal fascist. On the other side, commentators debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris performed well enough at a CNN town hall to “close the deal.”
Seriously? Much of a double standard here?
Somehow, it is apparently baked into this campaign that Trump is allowed to talk and act like a complete lunatic while Harris has to be perfect in every way. I don’t know the answer to the chicken-or-egg question — whether media coverage is leading public perception or vice versa — but the disparate treatment is glaring.
…
Let’s review: First, Harris was criticized for not doing enough interviews — so she did multiple interviews, including with nontraditional media. She was criticized for not doing hostile interviews — so she went toe to toe with Bret Baier of Fox News. She was criticized as being comfortable only at scripted rallies — so she did unscripted events, such as the town hall on Wednesday. Along the way, she wiped the floor with Trump during their one televised debate.
Trump, meanwhile, stands before his MAGA crowds and spews nonstop lies, ominous threats, impossible promises and utter gibberish. His rhetoric is dismissed, or looked past, without first being interrogated.
Imagine if Harris were promising to end the war in Gaza on her first day in office but wouldn’t say how. Imagine if she were proposing a tariffs-based economic plan that economists say would destabilize the world economy and cost the average family $4,000 a year in higher prices. Imagine if she were promising a “bloody” campaign to uproot and deport millions of undocumented migrants who are gainfully employed and paying taxes. And imagine if Harris were vowing to use the military to go after her political opponents, as Trump repeatedly pledges
Meanwhile, these headlines are just plain fucking disturbing. First, there’s this one from David Folkenflik, writing for NPR. “‘Washington Post’ won’t endorse in White House race for the first time since the 1980s.”
Even though the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remains neck and neck, The Washington Post editorial page has decided not to make a presidential endorsement
That came over this news yesterday about the LA Times. This is from The Wrap. “2 More LA Times Editorial Writers Quit Over ‘Chickens–t’ Owner’s Block of Kamala Harris Endorsement | Exclusive. Karin Klein and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene follow editorial editor Mariel Garza, who resigned Wednesday.” It’s obvious that rich, old men own these papers and prefer tax cuts over anything else. I just hope every woman of voting age takes the amount of rage that I have to the voting booth, drags every one of her friends with her, and pulls the lever for Kamala and Tim.
The Los Angeles Times has lost two more longtime editorial writers, the latest in a growing exodus to protest owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s interference with the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, TheWrap can exclusively report.
On Thursday, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene both quit; their exits come just one day after Editorial Editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest on Wednesday.
Greene has not yet spoken publicly about his exit, but in a statement posted to a private forum that was subsequently shared with TheWrap, Klein laid her reasons for quitting.
Channeling Harris’ campaign slogan “we’re not going back,” Klein called Soon-Shiong a “chickens—” who threw the editorial team “under the bus,” and argued, essentially, that the decision to stop the endorsement was itself an endorsement of sorts for Harris’ opponent, Donald Trump.
Soon-Shiong, Klein wrote, has as owner the “right to interfere with editorials; that is the one place where he can ethically do so.” But, by shooting down this particular editorial, she said he had actually created one of his own. “A wordless one, a make-believe-invisible one that unfairly implies that [Harris] has grievous faults that somehow put her on a level with Donald Trump.”
In fact, she argued, the timing itself can only be seen as a direct attack on the Democratic candidate “that hits just at the time when she cannot afford hits.”
Klein also specifically called out Soon-Shiong’s dissembling statement Wednesday night that attempted to blame the editorial board itself for the debacle, while at the same time effectively confirming he had indeed blocked the endorsement.
On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Soon-Shiong wrote that “the editorial board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the positive and negative policies by each candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation.”
This is from the Commonwealth Times of Virginia. “Black women, Kamala Harris face a double standard.”It is written by Julianna Brown.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is known for her prominence in politics, not only as the country’s first Black female vice president, but also for her service as a California senator. Despite her years of experience, she still faces judgment based on aspects of her identity that do not correspond to her career.
Kamala identifies deeply with her Black heritage as half-Jamaican and still faces crude comments on her ethnicity.
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” said former President Donald Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists convention on July 31.
This comment essentially associates being Black as a title that she chose to elicit attraction, rather than the race she was born as. Trump further makes it seem as if Harris has no choice but to choose between two deeply rooted parts of herself because of her mixed background.
It is common knowledge that there is diversity within the Black community, so it is perfectly normal for Harris to be considered Black despite having Indian heritage.
What is odd is that her identity has become so much of an obsession that people have even investigated her birth certificate for proof of her Black background, and in some cases non-Black people have even accused Jamaican people of not being Black at all.
Black people should not have to prove their culture to be accepted by people who have no knowledge of the community. The truth is, if Harris were not in a position of power, her ethnicity would not be questioned to this degree.
Since some feel threatened by her status, her identity is completely picked apart to distract from her great accomplishments as both a politician and prosecutor.
Something that really sets the vice president apart is her lively personality. Rather than keeping a serious demeanor 24/7, Harris is often seen smiling or laughing. This may seem like an innocent expression of positivity, but she has received a number of judgments for her bubbly manner.
For example, a video in which she is happily dancing was regarded by many as “inappropriate” for someone of her title. Trump is a convicted felon running for president, yet it is Harris dancing to music she enjoys that is deemed unprofessional?
Yep — that sounds about right. Since Trump’s white identity does not hold him to the same standards, his inappropriate behavior is permissible in most instances. Harris, however, can never slip up because she represents so much more.
The double standard towards Black women is one that has been around for ages, and is why Harris can not make so much as one mistake without causing uproar.
I’m going to cover one more thing that should have the entire country on edge, and that is how cozy Musk is now with Trump and how they both are so cozy with Russia’s Vladamir Putin. Musk’s companies get billions of dollars from the U.S. government, and his contracts in dealing with Space are strategic. Both these guys have been communicating with the Russian dictator recently. This is from the AP. “Here’s a look at Musk’s contact with Putin and why it matters.” This analysis is provided by David Kleeper and Lisa Mascaro.
Today, CNN’s Shania Shelton reports that the “NASA chief calls for investigation into report that Musk and Putin have spoken regularly.”Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of major government contractor SpaceX and a key ally of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the last two years, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A person familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, confirmed to The Associated Press that Musk and Putin have had contact through calls. The person didn’t provide additional details about the frequency of the calls, when they occurred or their content.
Musk, the world’s richest man who also owns Tesla and the social platform X, has emerged as a leading voice on the American right. He’s poured millions of dollars into Trump’s presidential bid and turned the platform once known as Twitter into a site popular with Trump supporters, as well as conspiracy theorists, extremists and Russian propagandists.
Musk’s contacts with Putin raise national security questions, given his companies’ work for the government, and highlight concerns about Russian influence in American politics.
Here’s what to know:
Musk and Putin have spoken repeatedly about personal matters as well as business and geopolitics, The Journal reported Thursday, citing multiple current and former officials in the U.S., Europe and Russia.
During one talk, Putin asked Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite system over Taiwan as a favor for Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose ties to Putin have grown closer, the Journal reported. Putin and Xi have met more than 40 times since 2013.
Russia has denied the conversations took place. In 2022, Musk said he’d only spoken to Putin once, in a call 18 months earlier focused on space.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said Friday that it was “not aware of the specifics” of any requests made by Putin on China’s behalf.
There was no immediate response to messages left with X and Tesla seeking Musk’s comment.
What the talks mean for national security
Musk’s relationship with Putin raises national security questions given the billions of dollars in government contracts awarded to SpaceX, a critical partner to NASA and government satellite programs.
Trump also has vowed to give Musk a role in his administration if he wins next month.
The head of any large defense contractor would face similar questions if they held private talks with one of America’s greatest adversaries, said Bradley Bowman, a former West Point professor and Senate national security adviser who now serves as senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based defense think tank.
Bowman said the timing of the calls as reported by The Journal and Musk’s changing views on Ukraine was a “disturbing coincidence.”
“The policy of the U.S. government is to try to isolate Vladimir Putin, and Elon Musk is directly undercutting that,” Bowman said. “What is Putin doing with Musk? He’s trying to reduce his international isolation and impact American foreign policy.”
The request from Putin on Starlink as a favor to China is also likely to get attention, given U.S. support for Taiwan and concerns about the growing partnership between the Kremlin and Beijing.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Friday called for an investigation into a Wall Street Journal report that SpaceX founder and Donald Trump ally Elon Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been in “regular contact” since late 2022.
The report, which said the SpaceX founder has discussed “personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions” with the Russian leader, raises national security concerns as SpaceX’s relationships with NASA and the US military may have granted Musk access to sensitive government information and US intelligence.
“I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” Nelson told Semafor’s Burgess Everett. “If the story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”
Musk, whose Tesla operates Gigafactory Shanghai, has developed a close relationship with China’s top leaders. His remarks about China have been friendly, and he has suggested Taiwan cede some control to Beijing by becoming a special administrative region.
Moscow has growing ties to other American adversaries. The U.S. has accused Russia of sending ballistic missiles to Iran and said North Korea sent troops to Russia, possibly for combat in Ukraine.
On Ukraine, Musk’s views have shifted since he initially supported Kyiv following Russia’s invasion in 2022 and provided it with his Starlink system for communications.
Musk then refused to allow Ukraine in 2023 to use Starlink for a surprise attack on Russian soldiers in Crimea.
He also floated a proposal in 2022 to end the war that would have required Ukraine to drop its plans for NATO membership and given Russia permanent control of Crimea, which it seized in 2014. The plan infuriated Ukrainian leaders.
All I can say is, WTF is wrong with all these people who cannot see what a danger both Musk and Trump are to this country? Again, my hair is on fire. Call everyone you know and send them to the Polls for Kamala and Tim before we no longer have a democracy and a judicial system. As for me, I’m still standing at the moment, although extremely anxious. I hope y’all are hanging in there.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup – May 2025
Hi,
Welcome to the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup covering May 2025! Thanks for visiting my blog, and hope you’ll enjoy the read.
At the time of writing it is now June 1st and a new month lies ahead of us. Who knows what it will bring to the world of the Amiga? Will we see development starting on bringing AmigaOS 4 to the Mirari board?
Time will show.
As of now, MorphOS is now booting and working to some degree on it. Whenever I visit Discord or forums, it looks like there are updates on their progress porting it.
I’m very impressed by the work of the Mirari team, and also the MorphOS group, and look forward to following their work in the coming months. It will be very interesting to see what will happen in the AmigaOS 4 camp when boards are available to their developers.
With that said, let us now move on to the news from May. 🙂
Software News
AmigaGPT is a versatile ChatGPT client for AmigaOS 3.x, 4.1, and MorphOS. It is being developed by Cameron Armstrong a.k.a. Nightfox. This powerful tool brings the capabilities of OpenAI’s GPT to your Amiga system, enabling text generation, question-answering, and creative exploration. AmigaGPT can also generate stunning images using DALL-E and includes support for speech output, making it easier than ever to interact with AI on your Amiga. Designed to integrate seamlessly with your system, AmigaGPT delivers modern AI technology while embracing the timeless Amiga experience. Version 2.6.0 is now available for download from OS4Depot.
PolarPaint is an experimental paint program made in Hollywood by Anbjørn Myren. Version 1.057 was uploaded to OS4Depot and became available on May 7th. If you are interested in checking it out, please click here. Another version called PolarPaint Small can be downloaded via this link. A list of changes can be found on OS4Depot.
Video Slot Machine is a game developed by Juan Carlos Herran Martin. An interesting addition is that you can customize the slot machine with your videos and watch them when you earn money from your spins. The latest version, 1.20, includes new background graphics and melodies, bug fixes, and Spanish language support.
Fractal Nova is a real-time Mandelbrot / Julia fractal calculated by the GPU requiring the Warp3D Nova library version 54. It is being developed by Juha Niemimaki and version 1.1 is now available on OS4Depot.
An update to Report+, a ReAction-based utility with nine functions, has been released by James Jacobs. It was made available on OS4Depot on May 19th. This tool can help you with generating Aminet- and OS4Depot-style readme files, performing batch processing on icons, and much more. Recent changes since 8.65 include miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes. More detailed information can be found on OS4Depot.
Kjetil Hvalstrand has been working on improving the Classic Amiga emulation package E-UAE. Version 1.1.1 has been released and includes several improvements:
- Fixed two issues with bdsocket.library
- Fixed issue with stretching in 16-bit AGA screens
- Created accelerator.library
Download is available here.
Maijestro of the Amiga Retro Channel on YouTube gave this one a run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaCmVbtItOI
RdrPrep is a program that prepares an ASCII file for submission to a Hercules virtual card reader. It reads the input file, and provides a mechanism to include other (ASCII or EBCDIC) files. It is being developed by James M. Morrison.
TMSColor is a converter from BMP to TMS9928 format developed by Oscar Toledo G. Version 3.1 is now available on OS4depot.
Steffen Häuser a.k.a. MagicSN is working hard on bringing RetroArch, a modular emulation system that can emulate a wide range of systems, to AmigaOS 4. On OS4Depot you can now find cores for the soon-to-be-released emulation package.
There you’ll find the following cores:
- PicoDrive
- GenesisPlus GX
- SNES9x 2010
- MAME 2003
The Amiga Retro Channel follows the development close and has recently published a video of the beta version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJY5gWPYAtQ
On May 29th, DRIDI released version 7.342Final of the Arabic Console Device, which contains a bug fix. It can be downloaded from OS4Depot.
Version 2.5.2 of the WHD-Load front-end iGame was released in May. The AmigaOS 4 port is maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a. Walkero. This is a front-end application for launching WHDLoad games and demos. Changes are as follows:
Fixed
- Fixed the execution of whdload that broke on v2.5.1 for those that use an old icon library
iGame 2.5.1 – [2025-05-29]
Added
- Added a file requester in the Properties window, which can be used to set a different WHDLoad slave file for an item. This is useful when a game/demo changed place on the hard disk. (#174)
- Based on the selected file by the new field, the tooltypes text is updated, enabled/disabled, based if the selected file is a WHDLoad slave one.
Changed
- Moved the Properties window code to its own files
- Added the “Open game folder” menu in the MorphOS version, that was missing
- Disabled the gamepad usage on MorphOS because it was reported giving problems while playing a game
Fixed
- Fixed starting WHDLoad games in MorphOS using WHDLoadopener (#253)
iGame 2.5.0 – [2025-05-12]
Added
- Added a new “Information” window that includes the “Released date”, the “Released by”, the “Chipset”, the links to external websites and most of the fields from the properties window.
- Added the option to use repositories based on assigns (fixes #240)
Changed
- The “Properties” window has only the tooltypes of the selected item available to change.
Fixed
- Fixed a potential crash on exit, happening mostly on AmigaOS 3.1 systems (fixes #239)
BreakHack is a small, roguelike game. It was developed by Linus Probert. You can find it for various platforms on Steam. This game was ported to AmigaOS 4 by George Sokianos, also known as Walkero. The new version contains the following changes:
[4.2.1r1] – 2025-05-31
Changed
- Updated to the latest upstream code and now it uses SDL3
FrozenAt is a utility developed by Kjetil Hvalstrand. It is a small command line tool to find out where a program is hanging. Version 1.1 is now available for download.
Michael Trebilcock has uploaded a vast amount of updates to libraries and more to OS4Depot! It is a huge list, so I recommend you visit there and have a look. Here is the link.
Screenshot from an older version.Version 34.2 of AmiArcadia for AmigaOS 4, a Signetics-based machines emulator, has been released by James Jacobs.
According to the documentation, AmiArcadia supports the following systems:
- Emerson Arcadia 2001 console family (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) (c. 1982);
- Interton VC 4000 console family (Acetronic, Cabel, Fountain, Hanimex, Interton, Prinztronic, Radofin, Rowtron, Soundic, Voltmace, Waddingtons, etc.) (c. 1978);
- Elektor TV Games Computer (1979);
- PIPBUG- and BINBUG-based machines (EA 77up2, EA 78up5, Signetics Adaptable Board Computer, Eurocard 2650, etc.) (1977-1978);
- Signetics Instructor 50 trainer (1978);
- Signetics TWIN minicomputer (1976);
- Central Data 2650 computer (1977);
- PHUNSY computer (c. 1980);
- Ravensburger Selbstbaucomputer aka 2650 Minimal Computer trainer (1984);
- Hofacker MIKIT 2650 trainer (1978);
- Astro Wars, Galaxia, Laser Battle and Lazarian coin-ops by Zaccaria (1979-1981);
- Malzak 1 and 2 coin-ops by Kitronix (c. 1981);
- AY-3-8500/8550/8600-based Pong systems (Coleco Telstar Galaxy, Sheen TVG-201, etc.) (1976-1977);
- VTech Type-right machine (1985)
It is packed with features, far too many to list here. Examples include ReAction GUI, load/save snapshots, and windowed and fullscreen modes. Other features are CPU tracing, trainer, and drag and drop support. Additionally, it offers graphics scaling, PAL/NTSC modes, and frame skipping, among many other features!
Here is a summary of the changes since the last version:
Changes since V34.31:
Summary:- TWIN, PHUNSY, Selbstbaucomputer: added “Settings|Input|Queue
keystrokes?” toggle. - Miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes.
Please click here to be taken to the download page.
Amiga-news.de reports that that “The Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) multimedia library is now available for AmigaOS 4 in versions 2.32.6 and 3.2.14.” More information is available on their website here.
Miscellaneous News
A new issue of Amiga Future has been released! This time it is number 174.
More information is available here. You can order the magazine from your favorite Amiga shops or directly from the publisher.
Trixie of the Rear Window blog has published a new post. It looks at the SATA PCI card from Rabbit Hole Computing.
YouTube
The Norwegian musician Helge Kvalheim has returned with two new songs for us to enjoy! He creates his music on an AmigaOne X5000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy6i10WWl3g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGQZvQGPWPM
A video from CLASS 2025 features Robert Bernardo. He is the organizer of the show and leader of the Fresno Commodore User Group and the Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network. The video shows AmigaOS 4 demos running on an AmigaOne 1222+.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rvKvziBB8
He also did a presentation of the A1222+:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeL2OKtxFLw
Ghettofinger Gaming is back again and this time with a new unboxing video! From Relec in Switzerland comes his second A1222+ in form of The Red One. I must say that this computer looks very, very nice. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAe5K1K4Qwg
He also made a video showing his two systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QMlamwfkkE
Anouk33 has created a video showing a comparison of AmigaOS 4.1 and MorphOS 3.19 on a Pegasos 2 in relation to Petunia and Trance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L-bYMQvQnI
AmigaWave episode 393 includes a comparison between AmigaOS 4.1 and MorphOS. It is in Spanish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdtLk3bYk-A
TheLostC is back with a new video, this time about updating UBoot on his Sam460cr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny0QfSqkgWY
Until next time
You’ve now reached the end of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup for May 2025.
Thanks as always to all readers and supporters out there. Thanks for visiting my blog and see you in the next roundup! 🙂
Best regards,
Puni
Rate this:
#239 #240 #Amiga #AmigaNews #AmigaOne #AmigaOS4 #PowerPC #PPC
-
AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup – May 2025
Hi,
Welcome to the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup covering May 2025! Thanks for visiting my blog, and hope you’ll enjoy the read.
At the time of writing it is now June 1st and a new month lies ahead of us. Who knows what it will bring to the world of the Amiga? Will we see development starting on bringing AmigaOS 4 to the Mirari board?
Time will show.
As of now, MorphOS is now booting and working to some degree on it. Whenever I visit Discord or forums, it looks like there are updates on their progress porting it.
I’m very impressed by the work of the Mirari team, and also the MorphOS group, and look forward to following their work in the coming months. It will be very interesting to see what will happen in the AmigaOS 4 camp when boards are available to their developers.
With that said, let us now move on to the news from May. 🙂
Software News
AmigaGPT is a versatile ChatGPT client for AmigaOS 3.x, 4.1, and MorphOS. It is being developed by Cameron Armstrong a.k.a. Nightfox. This powerful tool brings the capabilities of OpenAI’s GPT to your Amiga system, enabling text generation, question-answering, and creative exploration. AmigaGPT can also generate stunning images using DALL-E and includes support for speech output, making it easier than ever to interact with AI on your Amiga. Designed to integrate seamlessly with your system, AmigaGPT delivers modern AI technology while embracing the timeless Amiga experience. Version 2.6.0 is now available for download from OS4Depot.
PolarPaint is an experimental paint program made in Hollywood by Anbjørn Myren. Version 1.057 was uploaded to OS4Depot and became available on May 7th. If you are interested in checking it out, please click here. Another version called PolarPaint Small can be downloaded via this link. A list of changes can be found on OS4Depot.
Video Slot Machine is a game developed by Juan Carlos Herran Martin. An interesting addition is that you can customize the slot machine with your videos and watch them when you earn money from your spins. The latest version, 1.20, includes new background graphics and melodies, bug fixes, and Spanish language support.
Fractal Nova is a real-time Mandelbrot / Julia fractal calculated by the GPU requiring the Warp3D Nova library version 54. It is being developed by Juha Niemimaki and version 1.1 is now available on OS4Depot.
An update to Report+, a ReAction-based utility with nine functions, has been released by James Jacobs. It was made available on OS4Depot on May 19th. This tool can help you with generating Aminet- and OS4Depot-style readme files, performing batch processing on icons, and much more. Recent changes since 8.65 include miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes. More detailed information can be found on OS4Depot.
Kjetil Hvalstrand has been working on improving the Classic Amiga emulation package E-UAE. Version 1.1.1 has been released and includes several improvements:
- Fixed two issues with bdsocket.library
- Fixed issue with stretching in 16-bit AGA screens
- Created accelerator.library
Download is available here.
Maijestro of the Amiga Retro Channel on YouTube gave this one a run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaCmVbtItOI
RdrPrep is a program that prepares an ASCII file for submission to a Hercules virtual card reader. It reads the input file, and provides a mechanism to include other (ASCII or EBCDIC) files. It is being developed by James M. Morrison.
TMSColor is a converter from BMP to TMS9928 format developed by Oscar Toledo G. Version 3.1 is now available on OS4depot.
Steffen Häuser a.k.a. MagicSN is working hard on bringing RetroArch, a modular emulation system that can emulate a wide range of systems, to AmigaOS 4. On OS4Depot you can now find cores for the soon-to-be-released emulation package.
There you’ll find the following cores:
- PicoDrive
- GenesisPlus GX
- SNES9x 2010
- MAME 2003
The Amiga Retro Channel follows the development close and has recently published a video of the beta version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJY5gWPYAtQ
On May 29th, DRIDI released version 7.342Final of the Arabic Console Device, which contains a bug fix. It can be downloaded from OS4Depot.
Version 2.5.2 of the WHD-Load front-end iGame was released in May. The AmigaOS 4 port is maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a. Walkero. This is a front-end application for launching WHDLoad games and demos. Changes are as follows:
Fixed
- Fixed the execution of whdload that broke on v2.5.1 for those that use an old icon library
iGame 2.5.1 – [2025-05-29]
Added
- Added a file requester in the Properties window, which can be used to set a different WHDLoad slave file for an item. This is useful when a game/demo changed place on the hard disk. (#174)
- Based on the selected file by the new field, the tooltypes text is updated, enabled/disabled, based if the selected file is a WHDLoad slave one.
Changed
- Moved the Properties window code to its own files
- Added the “Open game folder” menu in the MorphOS version, that was missing
- Disabled the gamepad usage on MorphOS because it was reported giving problems while playing a game
Fixed
- Fixed starting WHDLoad games in MorphOS using WHDLoadopener (#253)
iGame 2.5.0 – [2025-05-12]
Added
- Added a new “Information” window that includes the “Released date”, the “Released by”, the “Chipset”, the links to external websites and most of the fields from the properties window.
- Added the option to use repositories based on assigns (fixes #240)
Changed
- The “Properties” window has only the tooltypes of the selected item available to change.
Fixed
- Fixed a potential crash on exit, happening mostly on AmigaOS 3.1 systems (fixes #239)
BreakHack is a small, roguelike game. It was developed by Linus Probert. You can find it for various platforms on Steam. This game was ported to AmigaOS 4 by George Sokianos, also known as Walkero. The new version contains the following changes:
[4.2.1r1] – 2025-05-31
Changed
- Updated to the latest upstream code and now it uses SDL3
FrozenAt is a utility developed by Kjetil Hvalstrand. It is a small command line tool to find out where a program is hanging. Version 1.1 is now available for download.
Michael Trebilcock has uploaded a vast amount of updates to libraries and more to OS4Depot! It is a huge list, so I recommend you visit there and have a look. Here is the link.
Screenshot from an older version.Version 34.2 of AmiArcadia for AmigaOS 4, a Signetics-based machines emulator, has been released by James Jacobs.
According to the documentation, AmiArcadia supports the following systems:
- Emerson Arcadia 2001 console family (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) (c. 1982);
- Interton VC 4000 console family (Acetronic, Cabel, Fountain, Hanimex, Interton, Prinztronic, Radofin, Rowtron, Soundic, Voltmace, Waddingtons, etc.) (c. 1978);
- Elektor TV Games Computer (1979);
- PIPBUG- and BINBUG-based machines (EA 77up2, EA 78up5, Signetics Adaptable Board Computer, Eurocard 2650, etc.) (1977-1978);
- Signetics Instructor 50 trainer (1978);
- Signetics TWIN minicomputer (1976);
- Central Data 2650 computer (1977);
- PHUNSY computer (c. 1980);
- Ravensburger Selbstbaucomputer aka 2650 Minimal Computer trainer (1984);
- Hofacker MIKIT 2650 trainer (1978);
- Astro Wars, Galaxia, Laser Battle and Lazarian coin-ops by Zaccaria (1979-1981);
- Malzak 1 and 2 coin-ops by Kitronix (c. 1981);
- AY-3-8500/8550/8600-based Pong systems (Coleco Telstar Galaxy, Sheen TVG-201, etc.) (1976-1977);
- VTech Type-right machine (1985)
It is packed with features, far too many to list here. Examples include ReAction GUI, load/save snapshots, and windowed and fullscreen modes. Other features are CPU tracing, trainer, and drag and drop support. Additionally, it offers graphics scaling, PAL/NTSC modes, and frame skipping, among many other features!
Here is a summary of the changes since the last version:
Changes since V34.31:
Summary:- TWIN, PHUNSY, Selbstbaucomputer: added “Settings|Input|Queue
keystrokes?” toggle. - Miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes.
Please click here to be taken to the download page.
Amiga-news.de reports that that “The Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) multimedia library is now available for AmigaOS 4 in versions 2.32.6 and 3.2.14.” More information is available on their website here.
Miscellaneous News
A new issue of Amiga Future has been released! This time it is number 174.
More information is available here. You can order the magazine from your favorite Amiga shops or directly from the publisher.
Trixie of the Rear Window blog has published a new post. It looks at the SATA PCI card from Rabbit Hole Computing.
YouTube
The Norwegian musician Helge Kvalheim has returned with two new songs for us to enjoy! He creates his music on an AmigaOne X5000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy6i10WWl3g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGQZvQGPWPM
A video from CLASS 2025 features Robert Bernardo. He is the organizer of the show and leader of the Fresno Commodore User Group and the Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network. The video shows AmigaOS 4 demos running on an AmigaOne 1222+.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rvKvziBB8
He also did a presentation of the A1222+:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeL2OKtxFLw
Ghettofinger Gaming is back again and this time with a new unboxing video! From Relec in Switzerland comes his second A1222+ in form of The Red One. I must say that this computer looks very, very nice. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAe5K1K4Qwg
He also made a video showing his two systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QMlamwfkkE
Anouk33 has created a video showing a comparison of AmigaOS 4.1 and MorphOS 3.19 on a Pegasos 2 in relation to Petunia and Trance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L-bYMQvQnI
AmigaWave episode 393 includes a comparison between AmigaOS 4.1 and MorphOS. It is in Spanish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdtLk3bYk-A
TheLostC is back with a new video, this time about updating UBoot on his Sam460cr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny0QfSqkgWY
Until next time
You’ve now reached the end of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup for May 2025.
Thanks as always to all readers and supporters out there. Thanks for visiting my blog and see you in the next roundup! 🙂
Best regards,
Puni
#239 #240 #Amiga #AmigaNews #AmigaOne #AmigaOS4 #PowerPC #PPC
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“Never tell me the odds!”*…
How likely is it that one will be born on a Leap Day? That one will find a pearl in an oyster? That one will solve Wordle on the first guess? That one will die on a tornado? That two people will share the same fingerprint?
The good folks at R74n (@r74n.com) have these probabilities– and so many more: “What Are The Odds?”
(Image above– and tutorial on the odds ratio: source)
* Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in Star Wars: Episode V– The Empire Strikes Back
###
As we place our bets, we might spare a thought for Harvey Kurtzman; he died on this date in 1993. A cartoonist and editor, he is best know for writing and editing the parodic comic book Mad from 1952 until 1956. Kurtzman scripted every story in the first twenty-three issues. (The New York Times‘ obituary for Kurtzman in 1993, alluding to the role of publisher William Gaines, said Kurtzman had “helped found Mad Magazine.” This prompted an angry response to the newspaper from Art Spiegelman, who complained that awarding Kurtzman partial credit for starting Mad was “like saying Michelangelo helped paint the Sistine Chapel just because some Pope owned the ceiling.”)
Kurtzman, who mentored many younger cartoonists (including Terry Gilliam and Robert Crumb), is considered, with cartoonists like Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, and Carl Barks, one of the defining creators of the Golden Age of American comic books. The prestigious Harvey Awards (for achievement in comic books) are named in his honor.
#culture #HarveyAwards #HarveyKurtzman #history #Mad #MadMagazine #Mathematics #Odds #Probability #R74n #RobertCrumb #Science #TerryGilliam #whatAreTheOdds -
Wednesday Reads
Good Afternoon!!
I was going to write about how the Democrats actually won the government shutdown. But bigger news has broken. I’ll get to the shutdown story after that and then some news about Kash Patel, Trump’s incompetent FBI director.
It looks like the Epstein shit is about to hit the fan.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
James Hill, Lauren Peller, Katherine Faulders, and Jay O’Brien ABC News: House Democrats release new Epstein emails referencing Trump.
Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein referred to Donald Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked” and told his former companion Ghislaine Maxwell that an alleged victim had “spent hours at my house” with Trump, according to email correspondence released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote in a typo-riddled message to Maxwell in April 2011. “[Victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
“I have been thinking about that … ” Maxwell replied.
That email exchange — which came just weeks after a British newspaper published a series of stories about Epstein, Maxwell and their powerful associates — was one of three released by the Democrats from a batch of more than 23,000 documents the committee recently received from the Epstein Estate in response to a subpoena.
The other messages are between Epstein and author Michael Wolff.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you–either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote to Epstein in December 2015, six months after Trump had officially entered the race for the White House.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop” [….]
Wolff in a phone interview on Wednesday said of the 2015 exchange that he couldn’t remember “the specific emails or the context, but I was in an in-depth conversation with Epstein at that time about his relationship with Donald Trump. So I think this reflects that.”
“I was trying at that time to get Epstein to talk about his relationship with Trump, and actually, he proved to be an enormously valuable source to me,” Wolff said. “Part of the context of this is that I was pushing Epstein at that point to go public with what he knew about Trump.”
You can read the original emails along with more context at the ABC link.
A bit more from the emails from Hailey Fuchs at Politico: Jeffrey Epstein, in newly released email, says Trump ‘knew about the girls.’
Also in the emails released by Oversight Democrats Wednesday, Wolff wrote in a 2015 message to Epstein that he heard Trump – then a presidential candidate – would be asked by CNN about the convicted sex offender. Epstein asked Wolff what he thought an ideal response from Trump would be.
Michael Wolff
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff responded. If [Trump] says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.
“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you,” Wolff continued, “or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”
Wolff added that Trump could potentially praise Epstein when asked. Wolff’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The materials were received by the House Oversight Committee last Thursday, meaning the move by Democrats to release the materials was likely timed to coincide with the House’s return from a lengthy recess to vote Wednesday evening on ending the prolonged government shutdown.
Michael Gold at The New York Times (gift link): Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct.
House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged….
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA)
…Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men. In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure….
“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
The three separate email exchanges released on Wednesday were all from after Mr. Epstein’s 2008 plea deal in Florida on state charges of soliciting prostitution, in which federal prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges. They came years after Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein had a reported falling out in the early 2000s.
See the ABC story above for descriptions of the emails.
House Democrats, citing an unnamed whistle-blower, said this week that Ms. Maxwell was preparing to formally ask Mr. Trump to commute her federal prison sentence.
The emails were provided to the Oversight Committee along with a larger tranche of documents from Mr. Epstein’s estate that the panel requested as part of its investigation into Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges.
Republicans argued that Democrats omitted context from the emails they released.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee accused Democrats of politicizing the investigation. “Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate clickbait that is not grounded in the facts,” a committee spokeswoman said. “The Epstein Estate has produced over 20,000 pages of documents on Thursday, yet Democrats are once again intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials.”
The Republicans also identified the victim whose name was redacted in the emails as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April. Ms. Giuffre had said that Ms. Maxwell recruited her into Mr. Epstein’s sex ring while she was working at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, as a teenager.
In a 2016 deposition for a civil case, Ms. Giuffre was asked if she believed Mr. Trump had witnessed the sexual abuse of minors in Mr. Epstein’s home. “I don’t think Donald Trump participated in anything,” she said.
“I never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in those acts, but was he in the house of Jeffrey Epstein,” Ms. Giuffre added. “I’ve heard he has been, but I haven’t seen him myself so I don’t know.”
Use the gift link to read the whole article.
This afternoon at 4:00, Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) will finally be sworn in. She will then sign the discharge petition to require the DOJ to release all of the Epstein files.
Kaanita Iyer at CNN: Rep.-elect Grijalva says she plans to confront Johnson at long-delayed swearing-in ceremony.
Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who is set to be sworn in on Wednesday, said she will confront House Speaker Mike Johnson after waiting nearly 50 days to be seated as a member of Congress.
“I won’t be able to like sort of move on if I don’t address it personally and we’ll see what kind of reaction he has,” Grijalva, a Democrat, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Tuesday.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
“I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to say,” Grijalva added but said she will stress that Johnson refusing to swear her in for over a month is “undemocratic.”
“It’s unconstitutional. It’s illegal. Should never happen — this kind of obstruction cannot happen again,” Grijalva said.
Grijalva won a special election on September 23 to replace her father, longtime Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.
The House has been out of session since September 19 and Johnson refused to swear in Grijalva in the chamber’s absence amid the government shutdown.
One more on the Epstein story from Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Nicholas Wu at Politico: Here’s how the House battle over the Epstein files will play out
The monthslong bipartisan effort to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force the release of all Justice Department files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is kicking into high gear this week, setting up a December floor battle that President Donald Trump has sought to avoid….
The process of doing so will begin around 4 p.m., when Johnson swears in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva right before the House votes to end the government shutdown — ending a 50-day wait following the Arizona Democrat’s election. Shortly afterward, Grijalva says she will affix the 218th and final signature to the discharge petition led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to force a vote on the full release of DOJ’s Epstein files.
That in itself will be the culmination of months of drama that blew up into a full crisis for Johnson this summer, with a GOP mutiny grinding the floor to a halt and forcing leaders to send the House home early for August recess. The uproar over a possible Epstein cover-up faded but never disappeared entirely.The completion of the discharge petition, a rarely used mechanism to sidestep the majority party leadership, will trigger a countdown for the bill to hit the House floor. It will still take seven legislative days for the petition to ripen, after which Johnson will have two legislative days to schedule a vote. Senior Republican and Democratic aides estimate a floor vote will come the first week of December, after the Thanksgiving recess.
The discharge petition tees up a “rule,” a procedural measure setting the terms of debate for the Epstein bill’s consideration on the House floor. This gives the effort’s leaders greater control over the bill, which will still require Senate approval if it passes the House.
Senate Republican leaders haven’t publicly committed to bringing up the Epstein measure if the House passes it. Republicans expect it will die in the Senate, but not before a contentious House fight.
Could Johnson stop the petition from getting a vote in the House?
While Johnson has options to short-circuit the effort before it gets to the floor, he said in an interview last month he would not seek to do so. Republicans on the Rules Committee have also warned Johnson they will not help him kill the bill in the panel, and he’s in turn privately assured some of them the Epstein measure will get floor consideration if the petition reaches 218 signatures.
At that point, the speaker can only defeat it if he siphons away enough Republican votes — a tall order in a majority where Johnson has only a two-vote margin after Grijalva is sworn in. GOP leaders don’t plan to formally whip against the Epstein vote when it gets to the floor, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
“I’m certain the House vote will succeed,” Massie said in an interview. “Some Republican members who are not signers of the petition have told me they will vote for the measure when the vote is called. I suspect there will be many more.”
Read about which members might end up voting for the release of the files at the link.
Next, did the Democrats really lose the shutdown?
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Give Chuck a Break. It Could Have Been Worse.
Like Dr. Strange, I have seen all six possible endgames from the shutdown fight and I’m here to tell you that yes, Democrats could have done better. They probably should have done better. But they exit this event in a stronger position than they entered. And also: They could have done much worse.
We’re going to rank the shutdown endgames from best to worst and then I’m going to make the case simultaneously that (a) Democrats played their hand poorly from the start, but that (b) they were ultimately bailed out by Trump’s obsession with dominance, and (c) we ought to appreciate the bad stuff that didn’t happen here.
You’ll need to go to the link to read the possible endgames; I can’t copy that much from the post. But here’s the final argument:
Here’s what Democrats should have said from the start:
- Republicans control the White House, the House, and the Senate. They have the votes to pass this budget any time they want. They do not need a single Democratic vote.
- All Republicans have to do is repeal the filibuster.
- If Republicans are so inept that they can’t find the votes to repeal the filibuster or to pass their legislation, then they should feel free to come to the minority and ask for help.
- But the Democrats have no offer. The voters gave Republicans unified control of government. If Republicans are incapable of governing, voters deserve to see that.
The problem isn’t that Democrats caved on the shutdown. Just objectively speaking, they emerge from this fight in a slightly better position than they entered it.
- They prolonged the longest government shutdown in history.
- This shutdown damaged Trump politically. (Just look at the polling.
- They centered health care costs as a major issue for 2026.
- The fake concession they got from Senate Republicans—a meaningless future vote on extending the ACA subsidies—will (a) put Republican senators on the spot and (b) create a point of vulnerability for House Republicans when they refuse to take up the bill.
- They avoided the worst-case outcome. Which is not nothing.
Please read the whole thing at The Bulwark link.
Annie Karni at The New York Times: What if Democrats’ Big Shutdown Loss Turns Out to Be a Win?
At first blush, the deal that paved the way to end the government shutdown this week looked exactly like the kind of feeble outcome many Democrats have come to expect from their leaders in Washington.
After waging a 40-day fight to protect Americans’ access to health care — one they framed as existential — their side folded after eight defectors struck a deal that would allow President Trump and Republicans to reopen the government this week without doing anything about health coverage or costs, enraging all corners of the party.
But even some of the Democrats most outraged by the outcome are not so certain that their party’s aborted fight was all for naught.
They assert that in hammering away at the extension of health care subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of next month, they managed to thrust Mr. Trump and Republicans onto the defensive, elevating a political issue that has long been a major weakness for them….
It may turn out that the long-term outcome of the longest government shutdown in history will be a grand-scale political and policy defeat for Democrats. The head-scratching end to a fight they were not willing to see through to victory deflated the party and deepened long-simmering divisions ahead of next year’s critical midterm elections. But in the shorter term, there could be benefits.
Senate Democrats believe that they held together long enough for Mr. Trump to reveal a new level of callousness in his refusal to fund food stamps for 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. And they believe all of that helped contribute to a mini-blue wave last week, one that could continue if Democrats can keep the right issues at the forefront.
In my opinion, the shutdown fight demonstrated to many voters who don’t usually pay attention to politics that Trump doesn’t care one bit about their concerns.
Kash Patel’s Reign at the FBI
The Wall Street Journal has a piece by Sadie Gurman, Aruna Viswanatha, Josh Dawsey, and Jack Gillum about Trump’s FBI director: Kash Patel’s ‘Effin Wild’ Ride as FBI Director.
On Halloween morning, FBI Director Kash Patel had a big announcement to make: “The FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack,” he said in a 7:32 a.m. social-media post that referenced arrests in Michigan.
There was one problem: No criminal charges had yet been filed and local police weren’t aware of the details. Two friends of the alleged terrorists in New Jersey and Washington state caught wind of the arrests and moved up plans to leave the country, according to court documents and law-enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.
Justice Department leaders complained to the White House about Patel’s premature post, saying it had disrupted the investigation, administration officials said.
In his nine months on the job, Patel has drawn flak from his bosses in the Justice Department and from his underlings at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he has fired dozens of agents deemed hostile to Donald Trump or to conservative ideals.
But the Halloween announcement wasn’t the biggest controversy to envelop the director that week. Patel hit the news for taking an FBI plane to attend a wrestling event where his girlfriend, a country western singer, performed, and then to her home in Nashville. A former FBI agent, Kyle Seraphin, publicized the trip and called the taxpayer funded travel in the middle of a shutdown “pathetic.”
After that, Patel visited a Texas hunting resort called the Boondoggle Ranch, according to flight records and people familiar with the trip, which hasn’t been previously reported.
Patel’s travel has frustrated both Justice Department officials, who complained to the White House about it, and the White House itself, which had told cabinet officials months ago in writing to limit their travel, particularly if it was overseas or unrelated to Trump’s agenda, according to an administration official. Details about Patel’s trips to visit his girlfriend and an August trip to Scotland have been passed around the White House in recent days, officials said.
The FBI director is required by law to take the bureau’s private plane instead of commercial flights in order to have access to secure communications. If the travel is personal, the director is required to reimburse the government for the cost of a commercial flight—typically far less than the actual costs of private-jet use.
A bit more:
Last month, Patel gave Trump an unusual public presentation in the Oval Office, where he credited the president for the bureau’s successes on everything from drug seizures to the arrests of several most-wanted fugitives.
“We are absolutely crushing violent crime like never before and defending this homeland, sir,” Patel said, gesturing toward large poster boards showing a surge in arrests this summer.
Patel’s presence at the bureau has been something of a culture shock for a buttoned-up workforce, used to wearing suits and ties. Instead, Patel has appeared at events in hooded sweatshirts, jeans or hunting vests, and often speaks colloquially, calling agents “cops,” and telling podcaster Joe Rogan that the job of FBI director was “effin wild.”
He has also handed out an oversize commemorative coin to colleagues resembling the logo of the Marvel “Punisher” character, who came to embody a general distrust of the U.S. justice system. The coin also has a large number nine on it, in a reference to himself as the FBI’s ninth director.
Patel’s supporters say he is trying to present himself as down-to-earth and accessible to the workforce. He “wants the Bureau to get back to focusing on field and agent work vs. an elitist D.C. culture,” FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said. The FBI declined to discuss Patel’s plane travel, citing safety concerns. Justice Department and FBI representatives said the two agencies closely coordinated plans for the terrorism operation in advance.
The story is behind a paywall, but I was able to get through by clicking the link at Memeorandum.
The New York Times (gift link): F.B.I. Director Is Said to Have Made a Pledge to Head of MI5, Then Broken It.
At a secret gathering in May, south of London, the head of Britain’s domestic security service asked Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, for help.
British security officials rely on the bureau for high-tech surveillance tools — the kind they might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, asked Mr. Patel to protect the job of an F.B.I. agent based in London who dealt with that technology, according to several current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode.
Kash Patel and girlfriend Alexis Wilkins
Mr. Patel agreed to find funding to keep the posting, the officials said. But the job had already been slated to disappear as the White House moved to slash the F.B.I. budget. The agent moved to a different job back in the United States, saving the F.B.I. money but leaving MI5 officials incredulous.
It was a jarring introduction to Mr. Patel’s leadership style for British officials. They had long forged personal ties with their U.S. counterparts, as well as with three other close allies, in an intelligence partnership known as the Five Eyes.
The relationships among the organizations matter because many top national security officials view trust and reliability as paramount to sharing critical information with allies — vital for communication between agency directors, and hard to restore once lost.
On the same day in 1946 that Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech in the United States, Britain and the United States secretly signed the pact that formed the basis for their intelligence alliance. It was an outgrowth of their collaboration during World War II. The partnership expanded during the advent of the Cold War to include other countries — Australia, Canada and New Zealand — earning it the name Five Eyes.
All rely heavily on American intelligence to help keep their countries safe. Though the F.B.I. is a criminal investigation agency, it is also a major part of the Western intelligence-gathering community. Alongside other U.S. agencies like the C.I.A., the F.B.I. has offices in embassies around the globe.
Mr. Patel’s inexperience, his dismissals of top F.B.I. officials and his shift of bureau resources from thwarting spies and terrorism have heightened concerns among the other Five Eyes nations that the bureau is adrift, according to the former U.S. officials and other people familiar with allies’ reactions to the bureau changes.
Five Eyes officials have watched with alarm as Mr. Patel has fired agents who investigated President Trump and invoked his powers to investigate the president’s perceived enemies. The officials and others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Use the gift article to read the rest.
A few more interesting stories:
The Guardian: UK pauses intelligence-sharing with US on suspected drug vessels in Caribbean.
The Guardian: Venezuelans sent by Trump to El Salvador endured systematic torture, report finds.
The New Republic: Damning Video Shows DHS Agents Pepper-Spray a Baby.
Politico Magazine: ‘He’s Actually Weakening the Economy’: Why Trump’s Strategy May Fail. A top economist says Trump is doing industrial policy all wrong.
NBC News: Trump’s Pentagon name change could cost up to $2 billion.
Those are my recommended reads for today. What’s on your mind?
#ChuckSchumer #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #FBI #GhislaineMaxwell #governmentShutdown2025 #JeffreyEpstein #KashPatel #MichaelWolff #RepAdelitaGrijalva #RepRobertGarcia
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Wednesday Reads
Good Afternoon!!
I was going to write about how the Democrats actually won the government shutdown. But bigger news has broken. I’ll get to the shutdown story after that and then some news about Kash Patel, Trump’s incompetent FBI director.
It looks like the Epstein shit is about to hit the fan.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
James Hill, Lauren Peller, Katherine Faulders, and Jay O’Brien ABC News: House Democrats release new Epstein emails referencing Trump.
Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein referred to Donald Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked” and told his former companion Ghislaine Maxwell that an alleged victim had “spent hours at my house” with Trump, according to email correspondence released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote in a typo-riddled message to Maxwell in April 2011. “[Victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
“I have been thinking about that … ” Maxwell replied.
That email exchange — which came just weeks after a British newspaper published a series of stories about Epstein, Maxwell and their powerful associates — was one of three released by the Democrats from a batch of more than 23,000 documents the committee recently received from the Epstein Estate in response to a subpoena.
The other messages are between Epstein and author Michael Wolff.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you–either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote to Epstein in December 2015, six months after Trump had officially entered the race for the White House.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop” [….]
Wolff in a phone interview on Wednesday said of the 2015 exchange that he couldn’t remember “the specific emails or the context, but I was in an in-depth conversation with Epstein at that time about his relationship with Donald Trump. So I think this reflects that.”
“I was trying at that time to get Epstein to talk about his relationship with Trump, and actually, he proved to be an enormously valuable source to me,” Wolff said. “Part of the context of this is that I was pushing Epstein at that point to go public with what he knew about Trump.”
You can read the original emails along with more context at the ABC link.
A bit more from the emails from Hailey Fuchs at Politico: Jeffrey Epstein, in newly released email, says Trump ‘knew about the girls.’
Also in the emails released by Oversight Democrats Wednesday, Wolff wrote in a 2015 message to Epstein that he heard Trump – then a presidential candidate – would be asked by CNN about the convicted sex offender. Epstein asked Wolff what he thought an ideal response from Trump would be.
Michael Wolff
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff responded. If [Trump] says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.
“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you,” Wolff continued, “or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”
Wolff added that Trump could potentially praise Epstein when asked. Wolff’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The materials were received by the House Oversight Committee last Thursday, meaning the move by Democrats to release the materials was likely timed to coincide with the House’s return from a lengthy recess to vote Wednesday evening on ending the prolonged government shutdown.
Michael Gold at The New York Times (gift link): Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct.
House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged….
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA)
…Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men. In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure….
“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
The three separate email exchanges released on Wednesday were all from after Mr. Epstein’s 2008 plea deal in Florida on state charges of soliciting prostitution, in which federal prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges. They came years after Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein had a reported falling out in the early 2000s.
See the ABC story above for descriptions of the emails.
House Democrats, citing an unnamed whistle-blower, said this week that Ms. Maxwell was preparing to formally ask Mr. Trump to commute her federal prison sentence.
The emails were provided to the Oversight Committee along with a larger tranche of documents from Mr. Epstein’s estate that the panel requested as part of its investigation into Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges.
Republicans argued that Democrats omitted context from the emails they released.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee accused Democrats of politicizing the investigation. “Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate clickbait that is not grounded in the facts,” a committee spokeswoman said. “The Epstein Estate has produced over 20,000 pages of documents on Thursday, yet Democrats are once again intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials.”
The Republicans also identified the victim whose name was redacted in the emails as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April. Ms. Giuffre had said that Ms. Maxwell recruited her into Mr. Epstein’s sex ring while she was working at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, as a teenager.
In a 2016 deposition for a civil case, Ms. Giuffre was asked if she believed Mr. Trump had witnessed the sexual abuse of minors in Mr. Epstein’s home. “I don’t think Donald Trump participated in anything,” she said.
“I never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in those acts, but was he in the house of Jeffrey Epstein,” Ms. Giuffre added. “I’ve heard he has been, but I haven’t seen him myself so I don’t know.”
Use the gift link to read the whole article.
This afternoon at 4:00, Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) will finally be sworn in. She will then sign the discharge petition to require the DOJ to release all of the Epstein files.
Kaanita Iyer at CNN: Rep.-elect Grijalva says she plans to confront Johnson at long-delayed swearing-in ceremony.
Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who is set to be sworn in on Wednesday, said she will confront House Speaker Mike Johnson after waiting nearly 50 days to be seated as a member of Congress.
“I won’t be able to like sort of move on if I don’t address it personally and we’ll see what kind of reaction he has,” Grijalva, a Democrat, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Tuesday.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
“I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to say,” Grijalva added but said she will stress that Johnson refusing to swear her in for over a month is “undemocratic.”
“It’s unconstitutional. It’s illegal. Should never happen — this kind of obstruction cannot happen again,” Grijalva said.
Grijalva won a special election on September 23 to replace her father, longtime Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.
The House has been out of session since September 19 and Johnson refused to swear in Grijalva in the chamber’s absence amid the government shutdown.
One more on the Epstein story from Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Nicholas Wu at Politico: Here’s how the House battle over the Epstein files will play out
The monthslong bipartisan effort to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force the release of all Justice Department files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is kicking into high gear this week, setting up a December floor battle that President Donald Trump has sought to avoid….
The process of doing so will begin around 4 p.m., when Johnson swears in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva right before the House votes to end the government shutdown — ending a 50-day wait following the Arizona Democrat’s election. Shortly afterward, Grijalva says she will affix the 218th and final signature to the discharge petition led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to force a vote on the full release of DOJ’s Epstein files.
That in itself will be the culmination of months of drama that blew up into a full crisis for Johnson this summer, with a GOP mutiny grinding the floor to a halt and forcing leaders to send the House home early for August recess. The uproar over a possible Epstein cover-up faded but never disappeared entirely.The completion of the discharge petition, a rarely used mechanism to sidestep the majority party leadership, will trigger a countdown for the bill to hit the House floor. It will still take seven legislative days for the petition to ripen, after which Johnson will have two legislative days to schedule a vote. Senior Republican and Democratic aides estimate a floor vote will come the first week of December, after the Thanksgiving recess.
The discharge petition tees up a “rule,” a procedural measure setting the terms of debate for the Epstein bill’s consideration on the House floor. This gives the effort’s leaders greater control over the bill, which will still require Senate approval if it passes the House.
Senate Republican leaders haven’t publicly committed to bringing up the Epstein measure if the House passes it. Republicans expect it will die in the Senate, but not before a contentious House fight.
Could Johnson stop the petition from getting a vote in the House?
While Johnson has options to short-circuit the effort before it gets to the floor, he said in an interview last month he would not seek to do so. Republicans on the Rules Committee have also warned Johnson they will not help him kill the bill in the panel, and he’s in turn privately assured some of them the Epstein measure will get floor consideration if the petition reaches 218 signatures.
At that point, the speaker can only defeat it if he siphons away enough Republican votes — a tall order in a majority where Johnson has only a two-vote margin after Grijalva is sworn in. GOP leaders don’t plan to formally whip against the Epstein vote when it gets to the floor, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
“I’m certain the House vote will succeed,” Massie said in an interview. “Some Republican members who are not signers of the petition have told me they will vote for the measure when the vote is called. I suspect there will be many more.”
Read about which members might end up voting for the release of the files at the link.
Next, did the Democrats really lose the shutdown?
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Give Chuck a Break. It Could Have Been Worse.
Like Dr. Strange, I have seen all six possible endgames from the shutdown fight and I’m here to tell you that yes, Democrats could have done better. They probably should have done better. But they exit this event in a stronger position than they entered. And also: They could have done much worse.
We’re going to rank the shutdown endgames from best to worst and then I’m going to make the case simultaneously that (a) Democrats played their hand poorly from the start, but that (b) they were ultimately bailed out by Trump’s obsession with dominance, and (c) we ought to appreciate the bad stuff that didn’t happen here.
You’ll need to go to the link to read the possible endgames; I can’t copy that much from the post. But here’s the final argument:
Here’s what Democrats should have said from the start:
- Republicans control the White House, the House, and the Senate. They have the votes to pass this budget any time they want. They do not need a single Democratic vote.
- All Republicans have to do is repeal the filibuster.
- If Republicans are so inept that they can’t find the votes to repeal the filibuster or to pass their legislation, then they should feel free to come to the minority and ask for help.
- But the Democrats have no offer. The voters gave Republicans unified control of government. If Republicans are incapable of governing, voters deserve to see that.
The problem isn’t that Democrats caved on the shutdown. Just objectively speaking, they emerge from this fight in a slightly better position than they entered it.
- They prolonged the longest government shutdown in history.
- This shutdown damaged Trump politically. (Just look at the polling.
- They centered health care costs as a major issue for 2026.
- The fake concession they got from Senate Republicans—a meaningless future vote on extending the ACA subsidies—will (a) put Republican senators on the spot and (b) create a point of vulnerability for House Republicans when they refuse to take up the bill.
- They avoided the worst-case outcome. Which is not nothing.
Please read the whole thing at The Bulwark link.
Annie Karni at The New York Times: What if Democrats’ Big Shutdown Loss Turns Out to Be a Win?
At first blush, the deal that paved the way to end the government shutdown this week looked exactly like the kind of feeble outcome many Democrats have come to expect from their leaders in Washington.
After waging a 40-day fight to protect Americans’ access to health care — one they framed as existential — their side folded after eight defectors struck a deal that would allow President Trump and Republicans to reopen the government this week without doing anything about health coverage or costs, enraging all corners of the party.
But even some of the Democrats most outraged by the outcome are not so certain that their party’s aborted fight was all for naught.
They assert that in hammering away at the extension of health care subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of next month, they managed to thrust Mr. Trump and Republicans onto the defensive, elevating a political issue that has long been a major weakness for them….
It may turn out that the long-term outcome of the longest government shutdown in history will be a grand-scale political and policy defeat for Democrats. The head-scratching end to a fight they were not willing to see through to victory deflated the party and deepened long-simmering divisions ahead of next year’s critical midterm elections. But in the shorter term, there could be benefits.
Senate Democrats believe that they held together long enough for Mr. Trump to reveal a new level of callousness in his refusal to fund food stamps for 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. And they believe all of that helped contribute to a mini-blue wave last week, one that could continue if Democrats can keep the right issues at the forefront.
In my opinion, the shutdown fight demonstrated to many voters who don’t usually pay attention to politics that Trump doesn’t care one bit about their concerns.
Kash Patel’s Reign at the FBI
The Wall Street Journal has a piece by Sadie Gurman, Aruna Viswanatha, Josh Dawsey, and Jack Gillum about Trump’s FBI director: Kash Patel’s ‘Effin Wild’ Ride as FBI Director.
On Halloween morning, FBI Director Kash Patel had a big announcement to make: “The FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack,” he said in a 7:32 a.m. social-media post that referenced arrests in Michigan.
There was one problem: No criminal charges had yet been filed and local police weren’t aware of the details. Two friends of the alleged terrorists in New Jersey and Washington state caught wind of the arrests and moved up plans to leave the country, according to court documents and law-enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.
Justice Department leaders complained to the White House about Patel’s premature post, saying it had disrupted the investigation, administration officials said.
In his nine months on the job, Patel has drawn flak from his bosses in the Justice Department and from his underlings at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he has fired dozens of agents deemed hostile to Donald Trump or to conservative ideals.
But the Halloween announcement wasn’t the biggest controversy to envelop the director that week. Patel hit the news for taking an FBI plane to attend a wrestling event where his girlfriend, a country western singer, performed, and then to her home in Nashville. A former FBI agent, Kyle Seraphin, publicized the trip and called the taxpayer funded travel in the middle of a shutdown “pathetic.”
After that, Patel visited a Texas hunting resort called the Boondoggle Ranch, according to flight records and people familiar with the trip, which hasn’t been previously reported.
Patel’s travel has frustrated both Justice Department officials, who complained to the White House about it, and the White House itself, which had told cabinet officials months ago in writing to limit their travel, particularly if it was overseas or unrelated to Trump’s agenda, according to an administration official. Details about Patel’s trips to visit his girlfriend and an August trip to Scotland have been passed around the White House in recent days, officials said.
The FBI director is required by law to take the bureau’s private plane instead of commercial flights in order to have access to secure communications. If the travel is personal, the director is required to reimburse the government for the cost of a commercial flight—typically far less than the actual costs of private-jet use.
A bit more:
Last month, Patel gave Trump an unusual public presentation in the Oval Office, where he credited the president for the bureau’s successes on everything from drug seizures to the arrests of several most-wanted fugitives.
“We are absolutely crushing violent crime like never before and defending this homeland, sir,” Patel said, gesturing toward large poster boards showing a surge in arrests this summer.
Patel’s presence at the bureau has been something of a culture shock for a buttoned-up workforce, used to wearing suits and ties. Instead, Patel has appeared at events in hooded sweatshirts, jeans or hunting vests, and often speaks colloquially, calling agents “cops,” and telling podcaster Joe Rogan that the job of FBI director was “effin wild.”
He has also handed out an oversize commemorative coin to colleagues resembling the logo of the Marvel “Punisher” character, who came to embody a general distrust of the U.S. justice system. The coin also has a large number nine on it, in a reference to himself as the FBI’s ninth director.
Patel’s supporters say he is trying to present himself as down-to-earth and accessible to the workforce. He “wants the Bureau to get back to focusing on field and agent work vs. an elitist D.C. culture,” FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said. The FBI declined to discuss Patel’s plane travel, citing safety concerns. Justice Department and FBI representatives said the two agencies closely coordinated plans for the terrorism operation in advance.
The story is behind a paywall, but I was able to get through by clicking the link at Memeorandum.
The New York Times (gift link): F.B.I. Director Is Said to Have Made a Pledge to Head of MI5, Then Broken It.
At a secret gathering in May, south of London, the head of Britain’s domestic security service asked Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, for help.
British security officials rely on the bureau for high-tech surveillance tools — the kind they might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, asked Mr. Patel to protect the job of an F.B.I. agent based in London who dealt with that technology, according to several current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode.
Kash Patel and girlfriend Alexis Wilkins
Mr. Patel agreed to find funding to keep the posting, the officials said. But the job had already been slated to disappear as the White House moved to slash the F.B.I. budget. The agent moved to a different job back in the United States, saving the F.B.I. money but leaving MI5 officials incredulous.
It was a jarring introduction to Mr. Patel’s leadership style for British officials. They had long forged personal ties with their U.S. counterparts, as well as with three other close allies, in an intelligence partnership known as the Five Eyes.
The relationships among the organizations matter because many top national security officials view trust and reliability as paramount to sharing critical information with allies — vital for communication between agency directors, and hard to restore once lost.
On the same day in 1946 that Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech in the United States, Britain and the United States secretly signed the pact that formed the basis for their intelligence alliance. It was an outgrowth of their collaboration during World War II. The partnership expanded during the advent of the Cold War to include other countries — Australia, Canada and New Zealand — earning it the name Five Eyes.
All rely heavily on American intelligence to help keep their countries safe. Though the F.B.I. is a criminal investigation agency, it is also a major part of the Western intelligence-gathering community. Alongside other U.S. agencies like the C.I.A., the F.B.I. has offices in embassies around the globe.
Mr. Patel’s inexperience, his dismissals of top F.B.I. officials and his shift of bureau resources from thwarting spies and terrorism have heightened concerns among the other Five Eyes nations that the bureau is adrift, according to the former U.S. officials and other people familiar with allies’ reactions to the bureau changes.
Five Eyes officials have watched with alarm as Mr. Patel has fired agents who investigated President Trump and invoked his powers to investigate the president’s perceived enemies. The officials and others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Use the gift article to read the rest.
A few more interesting stories:
The Guardian: UK pauses intelligence-sharing with US on suspected drug vessels in Caribbean.
The Guardian: Venezuelans sent by Trump to El Salvador endured systematic torture, report finds.
The New Republic: Damning Video Shows DHS Agents Pepper-Spray a Baby.
Politico Magazine: ‘He’s Actually Weakening the Economy’: Why Trump’s Strategy May Fail. A top economist says Trump is doing industrial policy all wrong.
NBC News: Trump’s Pentagon name change could cost up to $2 billion.
Those are my recommended reads for today. What’s on your mind?
#ChuckSchumer #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #FBI #GhislaineMaxwell #governmentShutdown2025 #JeffreyEpstein #KashPatel #MichaelWolff #RepAdelitaGrijalva #RepRobertGarcia
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#Charles #Koch, perhaps the most legendary Republican financier of recent decades,
has never backed Trump, either.The political network affiliated with him and his late brother #David remained officially neutral in the Presidential races of 2016 and 2020,
and spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat Trump in this year’s Republican primaries,
-- much of it supporting Haley.When she dropped out, the Koch network concentrated on down-ballot races.
But Kochworld, like the Republican Party more broadly, remains divided.
“There are a lot of donors in that network lobbying Charles from the perspective of,
I know you don’t like him,
but he’s better than the alternative,”
Marc Short, who worked for a Koch-affiliated group
and later served as Vice-President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said.Nevertheless, neither Koch nor Pence is supporting Trump this fall
—a remarkable rift, given the role that each of them has played in Republican politics.At the same time, Trump has cultivated a new group of what might be called #maga #megadonors.
A study conducted for The New Yorker by the campaign-finance expert Robert Maguire,
of the nonprofit good-government group #crew,
found that, as of this summer,
more than forty of the G.O.P.’s biggest super-pac donors during Romney’s 2012 campaign had never given to a pro-Trump super pac,
including Oracle’s co-founder #Larry #Ellison,
the Dallas real-estate tycoon #Harlan #Crow,
and the hotel magnate J. W. #Marriott, Jr.Meanwhile, nearly sixty pro-Trump donors in the study,
including #Lutnick, #Mellon, #Perlmutter, and the Wisconsin shipping magnates #Richard and #Elizabeth #Uihlein, had given nothing to the pro-Romney super pac.Others have significantly increased their giving.
The #Adelsons, for example, donated $53 million to the pro-Romney super pac in 2012 and $90 million to support Trump in 2020,
when they were the largest individual donors of the cycle.By the end of September, Miriam Adelson had given $100 million to back Trump in 2024.
With such sums at stake, Trump has pursued what the former Bush Pioneer called a “high touch” approach to the Republican billionaire class.
🔥The ex-President has all but invited donors to view their contributions as business investments,
telling oil-and-gas executives who went to see him in April at Mar-a-Lago, for example, that,
💥because he would allow unrestricted drilling,
🧨they should raise $1 billion for his campaign
—a statement redolent of Sondland’s “quid pro quo” that soon leaked to the Washington Post.The campaign’s strategy, another longtime fund-raiser told me,
was essentially to let Trump be Trump:“He talks the same book to everybody.”
Oliver, the former Bush finance director, observed that the difference between the model of the Bush campaigns and Trump’s is the difference between having a large pool of “institutional investors” which had been built up in the course of years, and a series of ad-hoc “transactional” dealings with a relatively small group of the ultra-rich.
Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton University, offered another key distinction. Trump’s billionaires—many of whom have made their fortunes as hedge-fund managers, activist investors, and corporate raiders—tend to be highly motivated ideologues and individual operators. “It’s transactional, but their end of the bargain is a lot different than just having access to the President of the United States,” Wilentz told me. “They see Trump as their instrument. This is an investment for them to take power.” Wilentz noted that, unlike the “traditional corporate conservative élite” dating back to the Gilded Age, this new “class of the super-rich” appears both more numerous and less civic-minded. “The other guys might have been robber barons,” Wilentz said. “These guys are oligarchs.”
-
#Charles #Koch, perhaps the most legendary Republican financier of recent decades,
has never backed Trump, either.The political network affiliated with him and his late brother #David remained officially neutral in the Presidential races of 2016 and 2020,
and spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat Trump in this year’s Republican primaries,
-- much of it supporting Haley.When she dropped out, the Koch network concentrated on down-ballot races.
But Kochworld, like the Republican Party more broadly, remains divided.
“There are a lot of donors in that network lobbying Charles from the perspective of,
I know you don’t like him,
but he’s better than the alternative,”
Marc Short, who worked for a Koch-affiliated group
and later served as Vice-President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said.Nevertheless, neither Koch nor Pence is supporting Trump this fall
—a remarkable rift, given the role that each of them has played in Republican politics.At the same time, Trump has cultivated a new group of what might be called #maga #megadonors.
A study conducted for The New Yorker by the campaign-finance expert Robert Maguire,
of the nonprofit good-government group #crew,
found that, as of this summer,
more than forty of the G.O.P.’s biggest super-pac donors during Romney’s 2012 campaign had never given to a pro-Trump super pac,
including Oracle’s co-founder #Larry #Ellison,
the Dallas real-estate tycoon #Harlan #Crow,
and the hotel magnate J. W. #Marriott, Jr.Meanwhile, nearly sixty pro-Trump donors in the study,
including #Lutnick, #Mellon, #Perlmutter, and the Wisconsin shipping magnates #Richard and #Elizabeth #Uihlein, had given nothing to the pro-Romney super pac.Others have significantly increased their giving.
The #Adelsons, for example, donated $53 million to the pro-Romney super pac in 2012 and $90 million to support Trump in 2020,
when they were the largest individual donors of the cycle.By the end of September, Miriam Adelson had given $100 million to back Trump in 2024.
With such sums at stake, Trump has pursued what the former Bush Pioneer called a “high touch” approach to the Republican billionaire class.
🔥The ex-President has all but invited donors to view their contributions as business investments,
telling oil-and-gas executives who went to see him in April at Mar-a-Lago, for example, that,
💥because he would allow unrestricted drilling,
🧨they should raise $1 billion for his campaign
—a statement redolent of Sondland’s “quid pro quo” that soon leaked to the Washington Post.The campaign’s strategy, another longtime fund-raiser told me,
was essentially to let Trump be Trump:“He talks the same book to everybody.”
Oliver, the former Bush finance director, observed that the difference between the model of the Bush campaigns and Trump’s is the difference between having a large pool of “institutional investors” which had been built up in the course of years, and a series of ad-hoc “transactional” dealings with a relatively small group of the ultra-rich.
Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton University, offered another key distinction. Trump’s billionaires—many of whom have made their fortunes as hedge-fund managers, activist investors, and corporate raiders—tend to be highly motivated ideologues and individual operators. “It’s transactional, but their end of the bargain is a lot different than just having access to the President of the United States,” Wilentz told me. “They see Trump as their instrument. This is an investment for them to take power.” Wilentz noted that, unlike the “traditional corporate conservative élite” dating back to the Gilded Age, this new “class of the super-rich” appears both more numerous and less civic-minded. “The other guys might have been robber barons,” Wilentz said. “These guys are oligarchs.”
-
#Charles #Koch, perhaps the most legendary Republican financier of recent decades,
has never backed Trump, either.The political network affiliated with him and his late brother #David remained officially neutral in the Presidential races of 2016 and 2020,
and spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat Trump in this year’s Republican primaries,
-- much of it supporting Haley.When she dropped out, the Koch network concentrated on down-ballot races.
But Kochworld, like the Republican Party more broadly, remains divided.
“There are a lot of donors in that network lobbying Charles from the perspective of,
I know you don’t like him,
but he’s better than the alternative,”
Marc Short, who worked for a Koch-affiliated group
and later served as Vice-President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said.Nevertheless, neither Koch nor Pence is supporting Trump this fall
—a remarkable rift, given the role that each of them has played in Republican politics.At the same time, Trump has cultivated a new group of what might be called #maga #megadonors.
A study conducted for The New Yorker by the campaign-finance expert Robert Maguire,
of the nonprofit good-government group #crew,
found that, as of this summer,
more than forty of the G.O.P.’s biggest super-pac donors during Romney’s 2012 campaign had never given to a pro-Trump super pac,
including Oracle’s co-founder #Larry #Ellison,
the Dallas real-estate tycoon #Harlan #Crow,
and the hotel magnate J. W. #Marriott, Jr.Meanwhile, nearly sixty pro-Trump donors in the study,
including #Lutnick, #Mellon, #Perlmutter, and the Wisconsin shipping magnates #Richard and #Elizabeth #Uihlein, had given nothing to the pro-Romney super pac.Others have significantly increased their giving.
The #Adelsons, for example, donated $53 million to the pro-Romney super pac in 2012 and $90 million to support Trump in 2020,
when they were the largest individual donors of the cycle.By the end of September, Miriam Adelson had given $100 million to back Trump in 2024.
With such sums at stake, Trump has pursued what the former Bush Pioneer called a “high touch” approach to the Republican billionaire class.
🔥The ex-President has all but invited donors to view their contributions as business investments,
telling oil-and-gas executives who went to see him in April at Mar-a-Lago, for example, that,
💥because he would allow unrestricted drilling,
🧨they should raise $1 billion for his campaign
—a statement redolent of Sondland’s “quid pro quo” that soon leaked to the Washington Post.The campaign’s strategy, another longtime fund-raiser told me,
was essentially to let Trump be Trump:“He talks the same book to everybody.”
Oliver, the former Bush finance director, observed that the difference between the model of the Bush campaigns and Trump’s is the difference between having a large pool of “institutional investors” which had been built up in the course of years, and a series of ad-hoc “transactional” dealings with a relatively small group of the ultra-rich.
Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton University, offered another key distinction. Trump’s billionaires—many of whom have made their fortunes as hedge-fund managers, activist investors, and corporate raiders—tend to be highly motivated ideologues and individual operators. “It’s transactional, but their end of the bargain is a lot different than just having access to the President of the United States,” Wilentz told me. “They see Trump as their instrument. This is an investment for them to take power.” Wilentz noted that, unlike the “traditional corporate conservative élite” dating back to the Gilded Age, this new “class of the super-rich” appears both more numerous and less civic-minded. “The other guys might have been robber barons,” Wilentz said. “These guys are oligarchs.”
-
#Charles #Koch, perhaps the most legendary Republican financier of recent decades,
has never backed Trump, either.The political network affiliated with him and his late brother #David remained officially neutral in the Presidential races of 2016 and 2020,
and spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat Trump in this year’s Republican primaries,
-- much of it supporting Haley.When she dropped out, the Koch network concentrated on down-ballot races.
But Kochworld, like the Republican Party more broadly, remains divided.
“There are a lot of donors in that network lobbying Charles from the perspective of,
I know you don’t like him,
but he’s better than the alternative,”
Marc Short, who worked for a Koch-affiliated group
and later served as Vice-President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said.Nevertheless, neither Koch nor Pence is supporting Trump this fall
—a remarkable rift, given the role that each of them has played in Republican politics.At the same time, Trump has cultivated a new group of what might be called #maga #megadonors.
A study conducted for The New Yorker by the campaign-finance expert Robert Maguire,
of the nonprofit good-government group #crew,
found that, as of this summer,
more than forty of the G.O.P.’s biggest super-pac donors during Romney’s 2012 campaign had never given to a pro-Trump super pac,
including Oracle’s co-founder #Larry #Ellison,
the Dallas real-estate tycoon #Harlan #Crow,
and the hotel magnate J. W. #Marriott, Jr.Meanwhile, nearly sixty pro-Trump donors in the study,
including #Lutnick, #Mellon, #Perlmutter, and the Wisconsin shipping magnates #Richard and #Elizabeth #Uihlein, had given nothing to the pro-Romney super pac.Others have significantly increased their giving.
The #Adelsons, for example, donated $53 million to the pro-Romney super pac in 2012 and $90 million to support Trump in 2020,
when they were the largest individual donors of the cycle.By the end of September, Miriam Adelson had given $100 million to back Trump in 2024.
With such sums at stake, Trump has pursued what the former Bush Pioneer called a “high touch” approach to the Republican billionaire class.
🔥The ex-President has all but invited donors to view their contributions as business investments,
telling oil-and-gas executives who went to see him in April at Mar-a-Lago, for example, that,
💥because he would allow unrestricted drilling,
🧨they should raise $1 billion for his campaign
—a statement redolent of Sondland’s “quid pro quo” that soon leaked to the Washington Post.The campaign’s strategy, another longtime fund-raiser told me,
was essentially to let Trump be Trump:“He talks the same book to everybody.”
Oliver, the former Bush finance director, observed that the difference between the model of the Bush campaigns and Trump’s is the difference between having a large pool of “institutional investors” which had been built up in the course of years, and a series of ad-hoc “transactional” dealings with a relatively small group of the ultra-rich.
Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton University, offered another key distinction. Trump’s billionaires—many of whom have made their fortunes as hedge-fund managers, activist investors, and corporate raiders—tend to be highly motivated ideologues and individual operators. “It’s transactional, but their end of the bargain is a lot different than just having access to the President of the United States,” Wilentz told me. “They see Trump as their instrument. This is an investment for them to take power.” Wilentz noted that, unlike the “traditional corporate conservative élite” dating back to the Gilded Age, this new “class of the super-rich” appears both more numerous and less civic-minded. “The other guys might have been robber barons,” Wilentz said. “These guys are oligarchs.”