#trumps-arch — Public Fediverse posts

Lazy Caturday Reads

Good Afternoon!!

Midday, by Xi Pan

The disastrous floods in Nepal have been dominating the news for the past few days. This is a tragic story that has implications for all of us, because of what it tells us about the effects of global warming. Meanwhile, Trump promotes fossil fuels and tries to stop the development of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar.

Britt Clennett, Karson Yiu, and Ivan Pereira ABC News: ‘It stood like a serpent right there staring at us’: American who survived deadly Nepal flood tells her story.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL — Anjana Raja had long dreamed of traveling to Nepal as part of a spiritual journey to Mount Kailash ever since she was a teenager, she said.

When she and her husband finally got to make that dream a reality this month, the California mom of two told ABC News she could not have imagined that trip would force them into survival mode as they found themselves nearly swept up in the deadly landslide flood that hit the region Wednesday.

Raja recalled sitting on a bus with her husband traveling to the Chinese border on Wednesday when, all of a sudden, the driver and front passengers fled the bus and she saw the landslide coming toward their vehicle.

“It was water mixed with the mud that was a good 50 to 60 feet high. It stood like a serpent right there staring at us,” Raja told ABC News. “Like a cobra’s head staring at you.”

Raja said she didn’t hesitate and grabbed her sling bag and turned to her husband, Pattabiraman Venkatesan.

“I grabbed him by the collar, and I said, ‘Run, we need to go right now,'” she said.

“I didn’t even give time to act. I just said, ‘Leave the bus right away or we’re gonna die,'” Raja added….

Faced with the huge wall of water and mud, the couple and other bus passengers ran to a camp right next to the bus and made their way to higher ground as the water hit and completely flooded the streets, she said.

“We just blindly…climbed. We didn’t even know what direction … There was no guide for us, there was nobody, we were just frantically running. Running, literally running. It was slushy, it was muddy, we were climbing rocks, which was slippery. We just ran for our life,” she said.

“When we reached the second level … I saw the water come up to the slope and move our bus. I told my husband ‘That’s it, we’re gone. We’re going to die,'” she said.

They ultimately made their way up to the third level of the camp and they watched in shock as the wall of water rushed past them.

From their point they could see vehicles, objects and even people be taken in by the water’s power, although the water never reached their level.

“It just came like a roar, it sucked a bunch of buses, SUVs, people, the basecamp, everything — took it in, turned it, turned it all upside down and dumped it into the ground,” Raja said.

That’s a vivid and terrifying description. There’s more at the ABC link.

Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Gourav Pokharel at The Guardian: ‘Their whole village has disappeared’: frantic hunt for survivors in Kathmandu hospital.

Posters of missing people line the wall of the hospital, the glue still fresh beneath. A schoolgirl smiling in her uniform; a beaming, chubby-cheeked baby; a couple smiling on their wedding day; a young man, hands on hips, atop a mountain peak; a young girl with flowing hair, peaking out from behind a door.

These faces are just a fraction of the thousands who have not been seen since deadly flash floods coursed through the Himalayas and wiped away entire villages. By Saturday morning, the toll of the missing had risen to almost 3,000, in both Nepal and Tibet.

Woman with a cat, by Lina Rivo

So far, Nepal has recovered 669 bodies, but many remote areas have only been accessed by army helicopters on the hunt for survivors. Rescuers said it was too difficult to assess how many more people might be buried beneath the mud….

The task of identifying the dead is also gargantuan.

In the Nepalese city of Chitwan, the morgues have been overrun by the sheer number of bodies and a makeshift building has been set up to house the dead.

Some of the bodies were carried so far down the river by the force of the floods, they were recovered in neighbouring India.

At Tribhuvan University teaching hospital in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, desperate relatives gathered in the hope of news. Four days on since the disaster struck, people continued to crowd round the police desk to register the names of missing family members. Hundreds of the injured are recovering in the hospital’s wards and people were frantically checking lists of patients, desperate to find a sign that their loved ones were still alive.

In the absence of information and with affected areas almost completely cut off, many families have resorted to making posters to appeal for information. Yavraj Lama said his sister, her husband and their two children were missing after their village of Jaydada, in Rusawa district, had been entirely washed away.

His eyes filled with tears as he glued a photo of one-year-old Sijan Tawang, a baby in the arms of his mother, to the hospital wall. A picture of 12-year-old Sahil, his brother, hung next to it.

“We are numb, we don’t have words to say how sad and distraught we are,” said Lama. “Our main focus is trying to find baby Sijan. He was so sweet and innocent; it’s impossible for us to think he is not with us any more.

“But their whole village has disappeared,” he added, “so we have no hope left that any of them survived.”

What caused this terrible tragedy? Stuti Mishra & Maryam Zakir-Hussain at The Independent: What triggered Nepal flash floods? And why are experts worried a second flood is ‘imminent’?

The Himalayan flash floods that killed at least 675 people and left over 3,000 missing across Nepal and Tibet were not triggered by an earthquake, contrary to initial reports, but by a glacier collapse so violent that it produced its own seismic signal, the United States Geological Survey said.

The agency initially recorded a magnitude 4.4 earthquake along the Nepal-China border, north of Kathmandu, at about 8.37am local time on Wednesday, before revising its assessment in a statement issued that evening.

It said the seismic signal had come from “a glacial collapse and debris flow” rather than a tectonic quake, and that the collapse alone had caused the catastrophic flooding downstream. Once reclassified, the event registered at magnitude 5.2, a measure of the force of the ice and rock striking the valley floor rather than of any movement underground.

An initial study of satellite imagery from Planet Labs showed a large section of the lower end of a glacier breaking away at an altitude of about 5,200m and falling roughly 1,200m onto the valley floor, gathering rock and debris as it went.

By Bobbie Russon, British artist

The resulting avalanche struck the Lhende river in Tibet, about 20km northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing with Nepal, temporarily damming the water before the barrier gave way and released a powerful flood downstream.

The surge fed into the Bhote Koshi river and crossed into Nepal at around 9am local time, then continued into the Trishuli river, where water levels rose by as much as nine metres in just half an hour.

Officials were caught off guard because there had been no rain, according to local news reports, and some residents ignored early warnings from neighbours precisely because the danger did not resemble the monsoon flooding they were used to.

On fears it could happen again:

Why are experts worried a second flood is coming?

Both Nepal and China have issued warnings about fresh flooding in the Himalayas as two lakes that have developed on either side of their border threaten to burst.

Experts were assessing whether debris from the flood had temporarily blocked Nepal’s Trishuli river at a narrow section, forming a landslide dam, the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development said.

Such a blockage can create a secondary hazard if impounded water is suddenly released.

“With a blockage still lodged upstream on the Nepal-China border, authorities warn a second flood is imminent,” Qianggong Zhang, head of climate and environmental risks at ICIMOD, said.

He added that evacuation orders were in place for Jilong Port along the border based on the risk of a second wave of flooding.

Let’s face it. We are not doing enough to deal with climate change. Nicholas Riccardi, Jennifer McDermott, and Leah Willingham at AP: The Earth is sizzling, but climate isn’t a hot topic for Democrats in this year’s campaigns.

BOSTON (AP) — Climate change has been the backdrop to Charles Hughes’ entire life, from kindergarten lessons about disappearing habitats to wildfire smoke billowing through the air he breathed while growing up in Colorado. But now that he’s a college student in Massachusetts, he said global warming is rarely a top issue.

“Honestly, it doesn’t come up as much,” said Hughes, who chairs the state’s chapter of the College Democrats.

What a difference six years makes.

Willem den Ouden (NL 1928) Ferry with cat, 1964

During President Donald Trump’s first term and especially during the Democratic primaries to determine who would run against him in 2020, Democrats spoke constantly about climate change. They used it to rally young voters such as Hughes, fueling protests and sweeping demands to remake the economy with proposals like the Green New Deal.

But there has been a national shift in the conversation that is sharp enough for some researchers to coin the term “climate hushing” to describe it. The Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, urged the party to stop mentioning climate change because it is not a priority for voters. The Sunrise Movement, a left-wing group that pushed global warming as a top issue for young people, switched its mission last fall to a broader mandate of fighting the Republican president.

The shift is encapsulated by the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts on Tuesday as the incumbent, Ed Markey, 80, tries to fend off a challenge from U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, 47. Although Markey still talks about sponsoring the Green New Deal, his campaign is more focused on other issues to burnish his left-wing bona fides and prove to voters that he is not too old for the job.

It is the latest example of how climate change has been eclipsed by issues such as affordability, U.S. support for Israel and, above all, how to confront Trump.

“Six years ago, Green New Deal was every phrase out of Ed Markey’s mouth every chance he got. That is not the case now,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a veteran Democratic strategist in Massachusetts. “It’s about who’s best to fight. Period, full stop. Everything falls under that.”

Because we’re stuck with an insane authoritarian thug in the White House and that’s a more immediate emergency. There’s more at the link.

Our focus lately has been on Trump and the damage he is doing to democracy as well as his obsessive efforts to remake Washington DC in his own image.

Thanks to JJ for a heads up on this truly tragic story by Rick Maese at The Washington Post (gift link): Trees are coming down by the dozen as Trump’s D.C. golf makeover nears.

Across East Potomac Golf Links, amid golfers squeezing in late-summer rounds and wondering what will become of the beloved D.C. course, newly cut stumps and bare patches of dirt mark the places where dozens of trees recently stood.

The Trump administration’s promised overhaul of the course has not officially begun. The trees, however, have been coming down for weeks.

Woman and Cat Stretching, after Edouard Manet’s Woman With A Cat of 1880, Holly Frean

President Donald Trump said June 28 that work on the historical public golf facility would begin Sept. 1, but days before that date, his administration has released no final design, construction schedule or estimated cost. Officials have not said whether the course will close next week, what work might begin, or what golfers and other visitors to the national parkland should expect.

An informal count Thursday found that more than 60 trees appeared to have been removed in recent weeks. Many were around the perimeter and parking lot, but others had been removed from playing corridors on the Blue, Red and White courses.

Among the most conspicuous was a cherry tree near the 14th green of the Blue Course, one of East Potomac’s most picturesque holes, framed by cherry trees near the southern end of Hains Point. Nearby, two large sycamores had been removed around the fourth hole.

Tree removal is common in major golf course renovations, often to widen playing corridors, improve sight lines, and allow more sunlight and air to reach the turf. But the Interior Department characterized the activity as routine maintenance and did not connect it to the proposed redesign, nor did it answer questions about whether notice of the work had been provided to the federal court overseeing a legal challenge to the administration’s plans.

Naturally, Trump just ignored instructions from the judge in the case.

During a May hearing in the lawsuit, brought by preservationists seeking to block the course overhaul, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes declined to stop the government from performing necessary maintenance but warned administration lawyers against presenting the court with a fait accompli. She said she wanted advance notice before the government removed more than 10 trees or brought equipment larger than a sedan onto the property.

That direction was delivered orally and was not included in a formal written order. A person familiar with the legal proceedings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, said the government has not notified the plaintiffs or the court about the recent tree work.

Use the gift link to read the rest, if you’re interested.

And then there’s Trump’s ugly ballroom construction. Naturally, he lied to the Supreme Court justices about it.

Sarah Blaskey, Jonathan O’Connell, Dan Diamond, and Jarrett Ley at The Washington Post: The White House says its ballroom is 65% complete. Its documents suggest otherwise.

The Trump administration told the Supreme Court two weeks ago that construction of a new White House East Wing was “65% finished,” part of its argument that the work was too far along for the court to halt.

But by the White House’s own standard for measuring the project’s progress, established in a confidential agreement with contractor Clark Construction that was reviewed by The Washington Post, work on the controversial project was far less complete.

Barbara Perrine Chu

The agreement, finalized before Clark began demolition last October, stipulates that payments to the contractor be proportional to the amount of work completed, and that work cannot begin until the government approves spending for it. Based on that, if 65 percent of the work has been done, then the government should already have paid 65 percent of the total cost of the project.

Publicly available appropriations data shows that as of the end of July, the White House budget office had approved $144 million in spending from an account used to pay for the East Wing and other White House projects. Even if that entire amount were spent on the East Wing, it would come to only about 24 percent of the $600 million estimated construction cost that Clark provided the White House in March. The Post has previously reported that cost estimate.

In the same mid-August court filing in which the administration claimed 65 percent of the project was done, it said that it had already spent “around $200 million.”

If the government had spent $200 million on the East Wing project, the work would be just 33 percent complete, based on the $600 million budget estimate….

The 65 percent claim was made in a sworn declarationby Joshua Fisher, the director for White House Management and Administration, who is overseeing the construction project. In the declaration, Fisher did not explain how the percentage was calculated but said, “Work has progressed too far to go back to the drawing board.”

His assertion came as the administration asked the Supreme Court to allow work on the ballroom to continue after lower courts ruled that the project was probably illegal without congressional approval and that construction must stop. The administration argued in part that stopping work while courts considered the merits of the case brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation would cause “chaos in service of nothing” because the project had already progressed “beyond the point of judicial intervention.”

Just looking at photos of the mess Trump has made at the White House, it sure doesn’t look like the project is 65 percent done. Trump lied. So what else is new?

An then there’s the Trump arch. At NOTUS, Marissa Martinez reports: National Park Service Green-Lights Trump’s Arch.

The National Park Service released a report Friday in support of President Donald Trump’s proposed arch, while acknowledging the adverse effects the new monument could have on the district’s most iconic memorials and landmarks.

The arch project is part of Trump’s push to reshape D.C. in his image by leaving a visible mark on the nation’s capital. Critics of the arch and Trump’s other beautification initiatives have argued that the renovations obstruct the district’s sightline — concerns validated throughout the agency’s report — while Democratic lawmakers say the president is bypassing necessary congressional approval to proceed with construction.

NPS’ review was mandated by the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires agencies to evaluate how proposed new construction could directly or adversely affect any nearby landmarks and provide solutions to minimize future harm.

The proposed 250-foot arch will be located at Memorial Circle, near Arlington National Cemetery, and the agency analyzed the surrounding 3.5-mile radius as part of its study. The 133-page report says its construction will likely disturb dozens of historic sites in the area, including the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial and the National Mall.

The monument will adversely affect six out of 31 National Historic Landmarks in the proposed area, including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon — though the effects will mostly stem from altered sightlines and plans to light the area at night, rather than physical damage, the report noted.

While the panel acknowledged the “sensitive” nature of building an arch in the Memorial Circle landscape, the area’s significance makes it an “historically appropriate location” to build, the agency wrote.

This is all so sickening. Trump is acting like a tin-pot dictator. And here’s more proof. Normal presidents don’t kidnap a country’s leader and then strong-arm the new government into giving up the country’s natural resources.

Rebecca F. Elliott, Simon Romero, and Edward Wong at the New York Times (gift link): Trump Says U.S. Has Deal for Control of Large Share of Venezuela’s Oil.

President Trump said late Friday that the United States had struck a deal to take majority control of a huge portion of Venezuela’s oil reserves, pointing to a sweeping effort to assert U.S. dominance over energy in the Western Hemisphere.

Gertie Young, Hanging About

The agreement amounts to a highly unusual foray into another country’s oil fields through a partnership with a private company, the State Department said through a U.S. official.

That firm is affiliated with a Venezuelan businessman, Alejandro Betancourt López, according to two people familiar with the partnership.

The deal would give the United States control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, Mr. Trump said in a social media post. That is almost as much as all of the proven reserves in the United States, which is the world’s biggest oil producer.

Venezuela’s president, Delcy Rodríguez, said the “historic” agreement would involve developing 17 oil fields and have a “significant impact on our nation’s revival.”

The aim of the deal, Ms. Rodríguez said, is “putting our immense reserves at the service of national development.” It would draw more than $100 billion of investment, she said, and generate an estimated $209 billion for Venezuela’s strapped government, which has been struggling to improve living conditions after earthquakes in June left more than 6,500 people dead.

Details were sparse, however, and the text of the agreement was not immediately available. Mr. Betancourt did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the State Department did not respond to questions about Mr. Betancourt’s potential role in the arrangement.

Inside Venezuela, Mr. Betancourt is often called a “bolichico” or “Bolivarian boy” — a term used to refer to Venezuelan businessman who are favored by the government, and who have profited immensely during the country’s socialist revolution. (The government named the revolution for the country’s independence hero Simón Bolivar.)

A bit more:

Previous U.S. leaders often shied away from any suggestion that gaining sway over another country’s natural resources was a primary objective of U.S. military and foreign policy, wary of the international backlash, doubts over the legality of doing so and the potential for such moves to generate security threats against the United States.

But Mr. Trump and some of his top advisers have made it clear that oil is an important part of their foray into Venezuela.

Even before the removal of Mr. Maduro, American officials bluntly claimed that the United States had created Venezuela’s oil industry and that the country’s government had effectively stolen U.S. oil fields through nationalizations.

Trump is a gangster and a thug. We have to get rid of him.

Those are my recommended reads for today. What are your thoughts? What else is on your mind?

Lazy Caturday Reads

Good Afternoon!!

Midday, by Xi Pan

The disastrous floods in Nepal have been dominating the news for the past few days. This is a tragic story that has implications for all of us, because of what it tells us about the effects of global warming. Meanwhile, Trump promotes fossil fuels and tries to stop the development of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar.

Britt Clennett, Karson Yiu, and Ivan Pereira ABC News: ‘It stood like a serpent right there staring at us’: American who survived deadly Nepal flood tells her story.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL — Anjana Raja had long dreamed of traveling to Nepal as part of a spiritual journey to Mount Kailash ever since she was a teenager, she said.

When she and her husband finally got to make that dream a reality this month, the California mom of two told ABC News she could not have imagined that trip would force them into survival mode as they found themselves nearly swept up in the deadly landslide flood that hit the region Wednesday.

Raja recalled sitting on a bus with her husband traveling to the Chinese border on Wednesday when, all of a sudden, the driver and front passengers fled the bus and she saw the landslide coming toward their vehicle.

“It was water mixed with the mud that was a good 50 to 60 feet high. It stood like a serpent right there staring at us,” Raja told ABC News. “Like a cobra’s head staring at you.”

Raja said she didn’t hesitate and grabbed her sling bag and turned to her husband, Pattabiraman Venkatesan.

“I grabbed him by the collar, and I said, ‘Run, we need to go right now,'” she said.

“I didn’t even give time to act. I just said, ‘Leave the bus right away or we’re gonna die,'” Raja added….

Faced with the huge wall of water and mud, the couple and other bus passengers ran to a camp right next to the bus and made their way to higher ground as the water hit and completely flooded the streets, she said.

“We just blindly…climbed. We didn’t even know what direction … There was no guide for us, there was nobody, we were just frantically running. Running, literally running. It was slushy, it was muddy, we were climbing rocks, which was slippery. We just ran for our life,” she said.

“When we reached the second level … I saw the water come up to the slope and move our bus. I told my husband ‘That’s it, we’re gone. We’re going to die,'” she said.

They ultimately made their way up to the third level of the camp and they watched in shock as the wall of water rushed past them.

From their point they could see vehicles, objects and even people be taken in by the water’s power, although the water never reached their level.

“It just came like a roar, it sucked a bunch of buses, SUVs, people, the basecamp, everything — took it in, turned it, turned it all upside down and dumped it into the ground,” Raja said.

That’s a vivid and terrifying description. There’s more at the ABC link.

Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Gourav Pokharel at The Guardian: ‘Their whole village has disappeared’: frantic hunt for survivors in Kathmandu hospital.

Posters of missing people line the wall of the hospital, the glue still fresh beneath. A schoolgirl smiling in her uniform; a beaming, chubby-cheeked baby; a couple smiling on their wedding day; a young man, hands on hips, atop a mountain peak; a young girl with flowing hair, peaking out from behind a door.

These faces are just a fraction of the thousands who have not been seen since deadly flash floods coursed through the Himalayas and wiped away entire villages. By Saturday morning, the toll of the missing had risen to almost 3,000, in both Nepal and Tibet.

Woman with a cat, by Lina Rivo

So far, Nepal has recovered 669 bodies, but many remote areas have only been accessed by army helicopters on the hunt for survivors. Rescuers said it was too difficult to assess how many more people might be buried beneath the mud….

The task of identifying the dead is also gargantuan.

In the Nepalese city of Chitwan, the morgues have been overrun by the sheer number of bodies and a makeshift building has been set up to house the dead.

Some of the bodies were carried so far down the river by the force of the floods, they were recovered in neighbouring India.

At Tribhuvan University teaching hospital in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, desperate relatives gathered in the hope of news. Four days on since the disaster struck, people continued to crowd round the police desk to register the names of missing family members. Hundreds of the injured are recovering in the hospital’s wards and people were frantically checking lists of patients, desperate to find a sign that their loved ones were still alive.

In the absence of information and with affected areas almost completely cut off, many families have resorted to making posters to appeal for information. Yavraj Lama said his sister, her husband and their two children were missing after their village of Jaydada, in Rusawa district, had been entirely washed away.

His eyes filled with tears as he glued a photo of one-year-old Sijan Tawang, a baby in the arms of his mother, to the hospital wall. A picture of 12-year-old Sahil, his brother, hung next to it.

“We are numb, we don’t have words to say how sad and distraught we are,” said Lama. “Our main focus is trying to find baby Sijan. He was so sweet and innocent; it’s impossible for us to think he is not with us any more.

“But their whole village has disappeared,” he added, “so we have no hope left that any of them survived.”

What caused this terrible tragedy? Stuti Mishra & Maryam Zakir-Hussain at The Independent: What triggered Nepal flash floods? And why are experts worried a second flood is ‘imminent’?

The Himalayan flash floods that killed at least 675 people and left over 3,000 missing across Nepal and Tibet were not triggered by an earthquake, contrary to initial reports, but by a glacier collapse so violent that it produced its own seismic signal, the United States Geological Survey said.

The agency initially recorded a magnitude 4.4 earthquake along the Nepal-China border, north of Kathmandu, at about 8.37am local time on Wednesday, before revising its assessment in a statement issued that evening.

It said the seismic signal had come from “a glacial collapse and debris flow” rather than a tectonic quake, and that the collapse alone had caused the catastrophic flooding downstream. Once reclassified, the event registered at magnitude 5.2, a measure of the force of the ice and rock striking the valley floor rather than of any movement underground.

An initial study of satellite imagery from Planet Labs showed a large section of the lower end of a glacier breaking away at an altitude of about 5,200m and falling roughly 1,200m onto the valley floor, gathering rock and debris as it went.

By Bobbie Russon, British artist

The resulting avalanche struck the Lhende river in Tibet, about 20km northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing with Nepal, temporarily damming the water before the barrier gave way and released a powerful flood downstream.

The surge fed into the Bhote Koshi river and crossed into Nepal at around 9am local time, then continued into the Trishuli river, where water levels rose by as much as nine metres in just half an hour.

Officials were caught off guard because there had been no rain, according to local news reports, and some residents ignored early warnings from neighbours precisely because the danger did not resemble the monsoon flooding they were used to.

On fears it could happen again:

Why are experts worried a second flood is coming?

Both Nepal and China have issued warnings about fresh flooding in the Himalayas as two lakes that have developed on either side of their border threaten to burst.

Experts were assessing whether debris from the flood had temporarily blocked Nepal’s Trishuli river at a narrow section, forming a landslide dam, the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development said.

Such a blockage can create a secondary hazard if impounded water is suddenly released.

“With a blockage still lodged upstream on the Nepal-China border, authorities warn a second flood is imminent,” Qianggong Zhang, head of climate and environmental risks at ICIMOD, said.

He added that evacuation orders were in place for Jilong Port along the border based on the risk of a second wave of flooding.

Let’s face it. We are not doing enough to deal with climate change. Nicholas Riccardi, Jennifer McDermott, and Leah Willingham at AP: The Earth is sizzling, but climate isn’t a hot topic for Democrats in this year’s campaigns.

BOSTON (AP) — Climate change has been the backdrop to Charles Hughes’ entire life, from kindergarten lessons about disappearing habitats to wildfire smoke billowing through the air he breathed while growing up in Colorado. But now that he’s a college student in Massachusetts, he said global warming is rarely a top issue.

“Honestly, it doesn’t come up as much,” said Hughes, who chairs the state’s chapter of the College Democrats.

What a difference six years makes.

Willem den Ouden (NL 1928) Ferry with cat, 1964

During President Donald Trump’s first term and especially during the Democratic primaries to determine who would run against him in 2020, Democrats spoke constantly about climate change. They used it to rally young voters such as Hughes, fueling protests and sweeping demands to remake the economy with proposals like the Green New Deal.

But there has been a national shift in the conversation that is sharp enough for some researchers to coin the term “climate hushing” to describe it. The Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, urged the party to stop mentioning climate change because it is not a priority for voters. The Sunrise Movement, a left-wing group that pushed global warming as a top issue for young people, switched its mission last fall to a broader mandate of fighting the Republican president.

The shift is encapsulated by the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts on Tuesday as the incumbent, Ed Markey, 80, tries to fend off a challenge from U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, 47. Although Markey still talks about sponsoring the Green New Deal, his campaign is more focused on other issues to burnish his left-wing bona fides and prove to voters that he is not too old for the job.

It is the latest example of how climate change has been eclipsed by issues such as affordability, U.S. support for Israel and, above all, how to confront Trump.

“Six years ago, Green New Deal was every phrase out of Ed Markey’s mouth every chance he got. That is not the case now,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a veteran Democratic strategist in Massachusetts. “It’s about who’s best to fight. Period, full stop. Everything falls under that.”

Because we’re stuck with an insane authoritarian thug in the White House and that’s a more immediate emergency. There’s more at the link.

Our focus lately has been on Trump and the damage he is doing to democracy as well as his obsessive efforts to remake Washington DC in his own image.

Thanks to JJ for a heads up on this truly tragic story by Rick Maese at The Washington Post (gift link): Trees are coming down by the dozen as Trump’s D.C. golf makeover nears.

Across East Potomac Golf Links, amid golfers squeezing in late-summer rounds and wondering what will become of the beloved D.C. course, newly cut stumps and bare patches of dirt mark the places where dozens of trees recently stood.

The Trump administration’s promised overhaul of the course has not officially begun. The trees, however, have been coming down for weeks.

Woman and Cat Stretching, after Edouard Manet’s Woman With A Cat of 1880, Holly Frean

President Donald Trump said June 28 that work on the historical public golf facility would begin Sept. 1, but days before that date, his administration has released no final design, construction schedule or estimated cost. Officials have not said whether the course will close next week, what work might begin, or what golfers and other visitors to the national parkland should expect.

An informal count Thursday found that more than 60 trees appeared to have been removed in recent weeks. Many were around the perimeter and parking lot, but others had been removed from playing corridors on the Blue, Red and White courses.

Among the most conspicuous was a cherry tree near the 14th green of the Blue Course, one of East Potomac’s most picturesque holes, framed by cherry trees near the southern end of Hains Point. Nearby, two large sycamores had been removed around the fourth hole.

Tree removal is common in major golf course renovations, often to widen playing corridors, improve sight lines, and allow more sunlight and air to reach the turf. But the Interior Department characterized the activity as routine maintenance and did not connect it to the proposed redesign, nor did it answer questions about whether notice of the work had been provided to the federal court overseeing a legal challenge to the administration’s plans.

Naturally, Trump just ignored instructions from the judge in the case.

During a May hearing in the lawsuit, brought by preservationists seeking to block the course overhaul, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes declined to stop the government from performing necessary maintenance but warned administration lawyers against presenting the court with a fait accompli. She said she wanted advance notice before the government removed more than 10 trees or brought equipment larger than a sedan onto the property.

That direction was delivered orally and was not included in a formal written order. A person familiar with the legal proceedings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, said the government has not notified the plaintiffs or the court about the recent tree work.

Use the gift link to read the rest, if you’re interested.

And then there’s Trump’s ugly ballroom construction. Naturally, he lied to the Supreme Court justices about it.

Sarah Blaskey, Jonathan O’Connell, Dan Diamond, and Jarrett Ley at The Washington Post: The White House says its ballroom is 65% complete. Its documents suggest otherwise.

The Trump administration told the Supreme Court two weeks ago that construction of a new White House East Wing was “65% finished,” part of its argument that the work was too far along for the court to halt.

But by the White House’s own standard for measuring the project’s progress, established in a confidential agreement with contractor Clark Construction that was reviewed by The Washington Post, work on the controversial project was far less complete.

Barbara Perrine Chu

The agreement, finalized before Clark began demolition last October, stipulates that payments to the contractor be proportional to the amount of work completed, and that work cannot begin until the government approves spending for it. Based on that, if 65 percent of the work has been done, then the government should already have paid 65 percent of the total cost of the project.

Publicly available appropriations data shows that as of the end of July, the White House budget office had approved $144 million in spending from an account used to pay for the East Wing and other White House projects. Even if that entire amount were spent on the East Wing, it would come to only about 24 percent of the $600 million estimated construction cost that Clark provided the White House in March. The Post has previously reported that cost estimate.

In the same mid-August court filing in which the administration claimed 65 percent of the project was done, it said that it had already spent “around $200 million.”

If the government had spent $200 million on the East Wing project, the work would be just 33 percent complete, based on the $600 million budget estimate….

The 65 percent claim was made in a sworn declarationby Joshua Fisher, the director for White House Management and Administration, who is overseeing the construction project. In the declaration, Fisher did not explain how the percentage was calculated but said, “Work has progressed too far to go back to the drawing board.”

His assertion came as the administration asked the Supreme Court to allow work on the ballroom to continue after lower courts ruled that the project was probably illegal without congressional approval and that construction must stop. The administration argued in part that stopping work while courts considered the merits of the case brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation would cause “chaos in service of nothing” because the project had already progressed “beyond the point of judicial intervention.”

Just looking at photos of the mess Trump has made at the White House, it sure doesn’t look like the project is 65 percent done. Trump lied. So what else is new?

An then there’s the Trump arch. At NOTUS, Marissa Martinez reports: National Park Service Green-Lights Trump’s Arch.

The National Park Service released a report Friday in support of President Donald Trump’s proposed arch, while acknowledging the adverse effects the new monument could have on the district’s most iconic memorials and landmarks.

The arch project is part of Trump’s push to reshape D.C. in his image by leaving a visible mark on the nation’s capital. Critics of the arch and Trump’s other beautification initiatives have argued that the renovations obstruct the district’s sightline — concerns validated throughout the agency’s report — while Democratic lawmakers say the president is bypassing necessary congressional approval to proceed with construction.

NPS’ review was mandated by the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires agencies to evaluate how proposed new construction could directly or adversely affect any nearby landmarks and provide solutions to minimize future harm.

The proposed 250-foot arch will be located at Memorial Circle, near Arlington National Cemetery, and the agency analyzed the surrounding 3.5-mile radius as part of its study. The 133-page report says its construction will likely disturb dozens of historic sites in the area, including the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial and the National Mall.

The monument will adversely affect six out of 31 National Historic Landmarks in the proposed area, including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon — though the effects will mostly stem from altered sightlines and plans to light the area at night, rather than physical damage, the report noted.

While the panel acknowledged the “sensitive” nature of building an arch in the Memorial Circle landscape, the area’s significance makes it an “historically appropriate location” to build, the agency wrote.

This is all so sickening. Trump is acting like a tin-pot dictator. And here’s more proof. Normal presidents don’t kidnap a country’s leader and then strong-arm the new government into giving up the country’s natural resources.

Rebecca F. Elliott, Simon Romero, and Edward Wong at the New York Times (gift link): Trump Says U.S. Has Deal for Control of Large Share of Venezuela’s Oil.

President Trump said late Friday that the United States had struck a deal to take majority control of a huge portion of Venezuela’s oil reserves, pointing to a sweeping effort to assert U.S. dominance over energy in the Western Hemisphere.

Gertie Young, Hanging About

The agreement amounts to a highly unusual foray into another country’s oil fields through a partnership with a private company, the State Department said through a U.S. official.

That firm is affiliated with a Venezuelan businessman, Alejandro Betancourt López, according to two people familiar with the partnership.

The deal would give the United States control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, Mr. Trump said in a social media post. That is almost as much as all of the proven reserves in the United States, which is the world’s biggest oil producer.

Venezuela’s president, Delcy Rodríguez, said the “historic” agreement would involve developing 17 oil fields and have a “significant impact on our nation’s revival.”

The aim of the deal, Ms. Rodríguez said, is “putting our immense reserves at the service of national development.” It would draw more than $100 billion of investment, she said, and generate an estimated $209 billion for Venezuela’s strapped government, which has been struggling to improve living conditions after earthquakes in June left more than 6,500 people dead.

Details were sparse, however, and the text of the agreement was not immediately available. Mr. Betancourt did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the State Department did not respond to questions about Mr. Betancourt’s potential role in the arrangement.

Inside Venezuela, Mr. Betancourt is often called a “bolichico” or “Bolivarian boy” — a term used to refer to Venezuelan businessman who are favored by the government, and who have profited immensely during the country’s socialist revolution. (The government named the revolution for the country’s independence hero Simón Bolivar.)

A bit more:

Previous U.S. leaders often shied away from any suggestion that gaining sway over another country’s natural resources was a primary objective of U.S. military and foreign policy, wary of the international backlash, doubts over the legality of doing so and the potential for such moves to generate security threats against the United States.

But Mr. Trump and some of his top advisers have made it clear that oil is an important part of their foray into Venezuela.

Even before the removal of Mr. Maduro, American officials bluntly claimed that the United States had created Venezuela’s oil industry and that the country’s government had effectively stolen U.S. oil fields through nationalizations.

Trump is a gangster and a thug. We have to get rid of him.

Those are my recommended reads for today. What are your thoughts? What else is on your mind?

Mostly Monday Reads: State of Disunion

“A new, overheard at the corner bar. Not sure what the latest MAGA perceived transgression is, something about hotdogs, I think.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The GOP Senate folded, collapsed, and surrendered to the will of Orange Caligula and his crony, Todd Blanche. I’m not sure what they gain from this in reality. I’m pretty sure this will offend those of us with enough information and education to make a decision concerning all the taxes we pay, and the taxes he never pays. It’s truly a sad day when the Department of Justice folds so easily. The big outrage is that it is political.

I’ll just start with all the outraged headlines that convey “Sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Ever since I was in fifth grade, I could come up with something from Shakespeare that stood up in modern times. Let’s start with The Bulwark. I really felt this one. “GOP Sheep to the Midterm Slaughter. Todd Blanche’s confirmation will be bad for the country—and a gift to Senate Democrats.” This first subtitle and analysis is written by William Kristol. “Of Lemons and Lemonade.” None of this will ever reach the eyes of die-hard MAGA mental midgets.

Here’s the first short blurb. We’re getting yet another eyesore that will wipe out our history.

How much of an eyesore will Donald Trump’s coveted Triumphal Arch be? A National Park Service assessment found that the planned 250-foot arch will intrude on the views from “dozens of historic sites around the capital,” per new reporting from the Washington Post. But look on the bright side: Think of all the flexibility you’ll have finding a good seat to watch them knock it down later. Happy Monday.

Back to Mister Kristol.

Late last night, the American people were handed a lemon: A capitulation by Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina that makes confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general likely. Blanche provided them a fig leaf, a written order formally rescinding the proposed $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of political prosecutions and a statement allegedly limiting the provision of the agreement that shields Trump, his sons, and their businesses from tax claims.

These assurances will presumably be enough for Blanche to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday on a straight party-line vote. He’s then likely—though not certain—to get the 50 votes he’ll need to be confirmed by the whole Senate, probably at the end of the week.

So this lemon will be added to a whole bushel of other lemons in Trump’s cabinet. Todd Blanche will join Jay Clayton, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and Markwayne Mullin as confirmed leaders of the key national security agencies of Trump’s executive branch. Having loyal and determined apparatchiks like them in positions of real power for the next two and a half years is not a good thing.

On the other hand: There is lemonade to be made here. Trump’s polls have been sinking. Republicans are almost certain to lose the House this fall, and the Senate majority is up for grabs. Democratic control of both houses would help check Trump’s authoritarian schemes. And the fact that the entire Senate Republican conference will have to cast a high-visibility vote to confirm Todd Blanche can help in turning the Senate Democratic

.This is from Axios’ Andrew Pantazi. “Blanche poised for confirmation vote after he kills Trump’s fund.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will likely advance to a full Senate confirmation vote after he rescinded the order setting up President Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund Sunday.

Why it matters: Blanche’s Sunday order has won over Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who had held out on voting for Trump’s pick.

The latest: Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement that they will vote to advance Blanche’s nomination.

• The senators said they had negotiated a “legally enforceable document” that ends the anti-weaponization fund and limits protections against audits.
• “We look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” the senators said in the statement.

Catch up quick: The fund grew out of a May settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the disclosure of his tax records.

• The settlement promised an apology to Trump and his sons, and it created the fund for individuals claiming they suffered from government “lawfare.”
• Another agreement released Trump, his family and the Trump Organization from certain IRS claims and audits.

Of note: Blanche’s new order rescinds one from May implementing the nearly $1.8 billion fund, but not the settlement provision requiring the attorney general to create the fund.

• The settlement’s terms can only be changed via a written agreement from the Trumps and the government. Sunday’s order was signed by Blanche but not by Trump, his sons or the Trump Organization.
• At his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Blanche acknowledged that the settlement was enforceable and that Trump’s lawyers could try to enforce it or claim the DOJ breached the agreement by refusing to operate the fund.

Blanche also clarified the sweeping protections Trump received from tax audits on Sunday.

• In a statement released with the order, Blanche said the protections only apply retroactively and only to the lawsuit’s named plaintiffs: Trump, some of his family, and the Trump Organization. The earlier agreement said it extended to any “related or affiliated” individuals, companies and other organizations.

Reality check: While the Trump protections Blanche lists are without precedent, they also reflect the reality that Trump’s administration will not criminally investigate him anyway.

• Before he leaves office, Trump is expected to hand out sweeping pardons to administration officials and allies. That would render any effort to prosecute Trump, his family or his companies doubly moot.

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo puts it this way. “Faux Deal Ends Faux Fight Over Blanche Nomination. Wet Noodle Award: Cornyn and Tillis.”

Trump is Lucy. GOP senators are the football. D.C. political reporters are Charlie Brown.

For a decade now, the illusion that Republican senators in whole or in part would rise up against the outrages of the Trump presidencies has animated political reporting even as the Senate GOP conference has chronically failed to rise to the occasion.

The farcical effort required to sustain the illusion has required a willing disbelief and feigned innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

So while the urge to pile on Senate Republicans like John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina for not driving a hard bargain with Trump over the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general is warranted, it must also be acknowledged, as painful as it is, that their pretend resistance actually works at yielding the headlines and reputational burnishing they’re looking for.

Most of this morning’s coverage of the overnight development bears this out.

After weeks of resistance, Blanche finally put in writing, in documents he posted to X, that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund is dead and that the IRS immunity for Trump is retroactive only. It was a limited concession, but it was enough for the two Senate holdouts, Tillis just confirmed on X.

The news coverage hailed this as a “formal” act by Blanche of rescinding the “anti-weaponization” fund. Some managed to cover the development without reference to Blanche’s disastrous anti-democratic run at a DOJ used as tool of retribution for the Trump White House.

This came after President Trump over the weekend continued to escalate his insistence that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund should still move forward. We’re supposed to belief Trump’s former personal lawyer and underling, not the president himself.

Seriously, this is what America’s all about these days. Keeping Orange Caligula happy and enabling the Trump Family Crime Syndicate. It’s hard to take these buffoons seriously, but unfortunately, an entire group of idiots fell for the scam and loved the racism. So the anti-weaponization fund is gone, but the rest of the hoopla stays. So just to let you know how much the entire Republican Party relies on bigoted, ignorant voters, here’s the newest “policy.” This is from Politico‘s Rebecca Carballo. “Trump administration asks colleges to commit to education overhaul. Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s letter contains some similarities to a compact offered to and rejected by a small group of schools last year.”

The Education Department is asking university leaders to publicly commit to a series of institutional changes, many of which are in line with the Trump administration’s higher education agenda, by the end of the year.

The agency’s letter asks these leaders to address grade inflation, improve transparency about the costs of attending their schools and curb foreign donations. It also asks them to hire faculty of “all relevant perspectives,” with the Trump administration previously arguing schools are too left leaning and suppress conservative voices.

The letter contains some similarities to the college compact the administration sent to a select group of universities last fall, none of which agreed to sign the compact. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology publicly rejected the compact, arguing that some of its provisions would restrict freedom of expression and the school’s independence. A few schools that were not in the initial group the compact was sent to volunteered to sign it.

The administration’s latest letter appears to be less restrictive than the compact. Monday’s letter does not include some of the more controversial asks in the compact, including a 15 percent cap on international undergraduate enrollment and a five-year tuition freeze. It also does not offer the incentives featured in the compact, including a potential leg up in federal contracts and grants.

So, back to the Trump Arch because destroying historical sites just makes me ill. He so wants to be taken seriously, but all he does is create edifices to his idocy. This is from the New York Times. “Park Service Finds Trump’s Arch Could Detract From Dozens of Historic Places, The 250-foot-tall edifice would alter views across Washington and Arlington Cemetery.”  This report is by Emily Badger.

President Trump’s proposed 250-foot-tall triumphal arch would change the skyline of Washington to such an extent that it would intrude on views at dozens of historic sites around the capital, according to an assessment by National Park Service staff.

It would disrupt the symbolic relationship between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, obstruct sightlines from the Kennedy Gravesite and Robert E. Lee’s home, and alter what official documents call “one of the most magnificent” views in Washington at the National Cathedral four miles away, the Park Service said.

The assessment of the arch’s impact on surrounding historic properties is a key step the administration must complete before the project can receive final approval by the National Capital Planning Commission, which could come as soon as its next meeting on Sept. 3.

The Park Service is supposed to seek ways to reduce such “adverse effects” on historic sites under the National Historic Preservation Act. But the arch is expected to move forward with little change given that Mr. Trump has shown no interest in the most obvious remedies — scaling down the project, or building it somewhere else.

I’m going to slip this in just so we know out there somewhere, there are people who know who he really is.

Sarah Matthews on Trump’s fixation with 2020 election loss, January 6th and the sycophant’s who currently support him. #Pinks

— Jules⚖️📨 (@northjules.bsky.social) 2026-08-03T11:27:20.093Z

Let’s just leave on this note. I hope he reads it because I know a bunch of us want everything he built and did to be completely erased from history. We should bulldoze all those things he destroyed and put them right again. This is from G. Elliot Morris and his numbers for the elections in his blog Strenght in Numbers. “Democrats strongly favored to take the House, Senate tilts Democratic in our new election forecast (crosspost). Our brand-new election forecast for the 2026 congressional midterms puts Democrats at above even odds to take control of both chambers. Please, please don’t screw this up!

Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. If you’re reading this, that means we finished dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s and just published our shiny, state-of-the-art 2026 congressional election forecast over at FiftyPlusOne. 🎉

As of 6:00 AM Eastern on August 3, 2026, we give the Democrats an 85% chance to win the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and a 55% chance to win control of the Senate (which we define as 51 seats or more, unless an independent wins in Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, or South Dakota — unlikely, but not impossible).

Because our forecast simulates elections for both chambers in one unified model, we can also calculate the probabilities of either party controlling both chambers after Nov. Democrats win control of both the House and Senate in just over 50% of simulations, whereas Republicans prevail in less than 12%.

Of course, there are graphs, so go check it out!

So, I’ll stop right now because I’m now watering sod in my backyard, with the leftover planted on the neutral ground across the street, twice a day. I’m hoping for a big celebratory election party back in the back with all the fixin’s.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

And no, I have no idea what happened to the font here. I’m just going to roll with it.

Mostly Monday Reads: State of Disunion

“A new, overheard at the corner bar. Not sure what the latest MAGA perceived transgression is, something about hotdogs, I think.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The GOP Senate folded, collapsed, and surrendered to the will of Orange Caligula and his crony, Todd Blanche. I’m not sure what they gain from this in reality. I’m pretty sure this will offend those of us with enough information and education to make a decision concerning all the taxes we pay, and the taxes he never pays. It’s truly a sad day when the Department of Justice folds so easily. The big outrage is that it is political.

I’ll just start with all the outraged headlines that convey “Sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Ever since I was in fifth grade, I could come up with something from Shakespeare that stood up in modern times. Let’s start with The Bulwark. I really felt this one. “GOP Sheep to the Midterm Slaughter. Todd Blanche’s confirmation will be bad for the country—and a gift to Senate Democrats.” This first subtitle and analysis is written by William Kristol. “Of Lemons and Lemonade.” None of this will ever reach the eyes of die-hard MAGA mental midgets.

Here’s the first short blurb. We’re getting yet another eyesore that will wipe out our history.

How much of an eyesore will Donald Trump’s coveted Triumphal Arch be? A National Park Service assessment found that the planned 250-foot arch will intrude on the views from “dozens of historic sites around the capital,” per new reporting from the Washington Post. But look on the bright side: Think of all the flexibility you’ll have finding a good seat to watch them knock it down later. Happy Monday.

Back to Mister Kristol.

Late last night, the American people were handed a lemon: A capitulation by Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina that makes confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general likely. Blanche provided them a fig leaf, a written order formally rescinding the proposed $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of political prosecutions and a statement allegedly limiting the provision of the agreement that shields Trump, his sons, and their businesses from tax claims.

These assurances will presumably be enough for Blanche to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday on a straight party-line vote. He’s then likely—though not certain—to get the 50 votes he’ll need to be confirmed by the whole Senate, probably at the end of the week.

So this lemon will be added to a whole bushel of other lemons in Trump’s cabinet. Todd Blanche will join Jay Clayton, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and Markwayne Mullin as confirmed leaders of the key national security agencies of Trump’s executive branch. Having loyal and determined apparatchiks like them in positions of real power for the next two and a half years is not a good thing.

On the other hand: There is lemonade to be made here. Trump’s polls have been sinking. Republicans are almost certain to lose the House this fall, and the Senate majority is up for grabs. Democratic control of both houses would help check Trump’s authoritarian schemes. And the fact that the entire Senate Republican conference will have to cast a high-visibility vote to confirm Todd Blanche can help in turning the Senate Democratic

.This is from Axios’ Andrew Pantazi. “Blanche poised for confirmation vote after he kills Trump’s fund.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will likely advance to a full Senate confirmation vote after he rescinded the order setting up President Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund Sunday.

Why it matters: Blanche’s Sunday order has won over Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who had held out on voting for Trump’s pick.

The latest: Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement that they will vote to advance Blanche’s nomination.

• The senators said they had negotiated a “legally enforceable document” that ends the anti-weaponization fund and limits protections against audits.
• “We look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” the senators said in the statement.

Catch up quick: The fund grew out of a May settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the disclosure of his tax records.

• The settlement promised an apology to Trump and his sons, and it created the fund for individuals claiming they suffered from government “lawfare.”
• Another agreement released Trump, his family and the Trump Organization from certain IRS claims and audits.

Of note: Blanche’s new order rescinds one from May implementing the nearly $1.8 billion fund, but not the settlement provision requiring the attorney general to create the fund.

• The settlement’s terms can only be changed via a written agreement from the Trumps and the government. Sunday’s order was signed by Blanche but not by Trump, his sons or the Trump Organization.
• At his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Blanche acknowledged that the settlement was enforceable and that Trump’s lawyers could try to enforce it or claim the DOJ breached the agreement by refusing to operate the fund.

Blanche also clarified the sweeping protections Trump received from tax audits on Sunday.

• In a statement released with the order, Blanche said the protections only apply retroactively and only to the lawsuit’s named plaintiffs: Trump, some of his family, and the Trump Organization. The earlier agreement said it extended to any “related or affiliated” individuals, companies and other organizations.

Reality check: While the Trump protections Blanche lists are without precedent, they also reflect the reality that Trump’s administration will not criminally investigate him anyway.

• Before he leaves office, Trump is expected to hand out sweeping pardons to administration officials and allies. That would render any effort to prosecute Trump, his family or his companies doubly moot.

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo puts it this way. “Faux Deal Ends Faux Fight Over Blanche Nomination. Wet Noodle Award: Cornyn and Tillis.”

Trump is Lucy. GOP senators are the football. D.C. political reporters are Charlie Brown.

For a decade now, the illusion that Republican senators in whole or in part would rise up against the outrages of the Trump presidencies has animated political reporting even as the Senate GOP conference has chronically failed to rise to the occasion.

The farcical effort required to sustain the illusion has required a willing disbelief and feigned innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

So while the urge to pile on Senate Republicans like John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina for not driving a hard bargain with Trump over the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general is warranted, it must also be acknowledged, as painful as it is, that their pretend resistance actually works at yielding the headlines and reputational burnishing they’re looking for.

Most of this morning’s coverage of the overnight development bears this out.

After weeks of resistance, Blanche finally put in writing, in documents he posted to X, that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund is dead and that the IRS immunity for Trump is retroactive only. It was a limited concession, but it was enough for the two Senate holdouts, Tillis just confirmed on X.

The news coverage hailed this as a “formal” act by Blanche of rescinding the “anti-weaponization” fund. Some managed to cover the development without reference to Blanche’s disastrous anti-democratic run at a DOJ used as tool of retribution for the Trump White House.

This came after President Trump over the weekend continued to escalate his insistence that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund should still move forward. We’re supposed to belief Trump’s former personal lawyer and underling, not the president himself.

Seriously, this is what America’s all about these days. Keeping Orange Caligula happy and enabling the Trump Family Crime Syndicate. It’s hard to take these buffoons seriously, but unfortunately, an entire group of idiots fell for the scam and loved the racism. So the anti-weaponization fund is gone, but the rest of the hoopla stays. So just to let you know how much the entire Republican Party relies on bigoted, ignorant voters, here’s the newest “policy.” This is from Politico‘s Rebecca Carballo. “Trump administration asks colleges to commit to education overhaul. Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s letter contains some similarities to a compact offered to and rejected by a small group of schools last year.”

The Education Department is asking university leaders to publicly commit to a series of institutional changes, many of which are in line with the Trump administration’s higher education agenda, by the end of the year.

The agency’s letter asks these leaders to address grade inflation, improve transparency about the costs of attending their schools and curb foreign donations. It also asks them to hire faculty of “all relevant perspectives,” with the Trump administration previously arguing schools are too left leaning and suppress conservative voices.

The letter contains some similarities to the college compact the administration sent to a select group of universities last fall, none of which agreed to sign the compact. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology publicly rejected the compact, arguing that some of its provisions would restrict freedom of expression and the school’s independence. A few schools that were not in the initial group the compact was sent to volunteered to sign it.

The administration’s latest letter appears to be less restrictive than the compact. Monday’s letter does not include some of the more controversial asks in the compact, including a 15 percent cap on international undergraduate enrollment and a five-year tuition freeze. It also does not offer the incentives featured in the compact, including a potential leg up in federal contracts and grants.

So, back to the Trump Arch because destroying historical sites just makes me ill. He so wants to be taken seriously, but all he does is create edifices to his idocy. This is from the New York Times. “Park Service Finds Trump’s Arch Could Detract From Dozens of Historic Places, The 250-foot-tall edifice would alter views across Washington and Arlington Cemetery.”  This report is by Emily Badger.

President Trump’s proposed 250-foot-tall triumphal arch would change the skyline of Washington to such an extent that it would intrude on views at dozens of historic sites around the capital, according to an assessment by National Park Service staff.

It would disrupt the symbolic relationship between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, obstruct sightlines from the Kennedy Gravesite and Robert E. Lee’s home, and alter what official documents call “one of the most magnificent” views in Washington at the National Cathedral four miles away, the Park Service said.

The assessment of the arch’s impact on surrounding historic properties is a key step the administration must complete before the project can receive final approval by the National Capital Planning Commission, which could come as soon as its next meeting on Sept. 3.

The Park Service is supposed to seek ways to reduce such “adverse effects” on historic sites under the National Historic Preservation Act. But the arch is expected to move forward with little change given that Mr. Trump has shown no interest in the most obvious remedies — scaling down the project, or building it somewhere else.

I’m going to slip this in just so we know out there somewhere, there are people who know who he really is.

Sarah Matthews on Trump’s fixation with 2020 election loss, January 6th and the sycophant’s who currently support him. #Pinks

— Jules⚖️📨 (@northjules.bsky.social) 2026-08-03T11:27:20.093Z

Let’s just leave on this note. I hope he reads it because I know a bunch of us want everything he built and did to be completely erased from history. We should bulldoze all those things he destroyed and put them right again. This is from G. Elliot Morris and his numbers for the elections in his blog Strenght in Numbers. “Democrats strongly favored to take the House, Senate tilts Democratic in our new election forecast (crosspost). Our brand-new election forecast for the 2026 congressional midterms puts Democrats at above even odds to take control of both chambers. Please, please don’t screw this up!

Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. If you’re reading this, that means we finished dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s and just published our shiny, state-of-the-art 2026 congressional election forecast over at FiftyPlusOne. 🎉

As of 6:00 AM Eastern on August 3, 2026, we give the Democrats an 85% chance to win the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and a 55% chance to win control of the Senate (which we define as 51 seats or more, unless an independent wins in Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, or South Dakota — unlikely, but not impossible).

Because our forecast simulates elections for both chambers in one unified model, we can also calculate the probabilities of either party controlling both chambers after Nov. Democrats win control of both the House and Senate in just over 50% of simulations, whereas Republicans prevail in less than 12%.

Of course, there are graphs, so go check it out!

So, I’ll stop right now because I’m now watering sod in my backyard, with the leftover planted on the neutral ground across the street, twice a day. I’m hoping for a big celebratory election party back in the back with all the fixin’s.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

And no, I have no idea what happened to the font here. I’m just going to roll with it.

Mostly Monday Reads: State of Disunion

“A new, overheard at the corner bar. Not sure what the latest MAGA perceived transgression is, something about hotdogs, I think.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The GOP Senate folded, collapsed, and surrendered to the will of Orange Caligula and his crony, Todd Blanche. I’m not sure what they gain from this in reality. I’m pretty sure this will offend those of us with enough information and education to make a decision concerning all the taxes we pay, and the taxes he never pays. It’s truly a sad day when the Department of Justice folds so easily. The big outrage is that it is political.

I’ll just start with all the outraged headlines that convey “Sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Ever since I was in fifth grade, I could come up with something from Shakespeare that stood up in modern times. Let’s start with The Bulwark. I really felt this one. “GOP Sheep to the Midterm Slaughter. Todd Blanche’s confirmation will be bad for the country—and a gift to Senate Democrats.” This first subtitle and analysis is written by William Kristol. “Of Lemons and Lemonade.” None of this will ever reach the eyes of die-hard MAGA mental midgets.

Here’s the first short blurb. We’re getting yet another eyesore that will wipe out our history.

How much of an eyesore will Donald Trump’s coveted Triumphal Arch be? A National Park Service assessment found that the planned 250-foot arch will intrude on the views from “dozens of historic sites around the capital,” per new reporting from the Washington Post. But look on the bright side: Think of all the flexibility you’ll have finding a good seat to watch them knock it down later. Happy Monday.

Back to Mister Kristol.

Late last night, the American people were handed a lemon: A capitulation by Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina that makes confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general likely. Blanche provided them a fig leaf, a written order formally rescinding the proposed $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of political prosecutions and a statement allegedly limiting the provision of the agreement that shields Trump, his sons, and their businesses from tax claims.

These assurances will presumably be enough for Blanche to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday on a straight party-line vote. He’s then likely—though not certain—to get the 50 votes he’ll need to be confirmed by the whole Senate, probably at the end of the week.

So this lemon will be added to a whole bushel of other lemons in Trump’s cabinet. Todd Blanche will join Jay Clayton, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and Markwayne Mullin as confirmed leaders of the key national security agencies of Trump’s executive branch. Having loyal and determined apparatchiks like them in positions of real power for the next two and a half years is not a good thing.

On the other hand: There is lemonade to be made here. Trump’s polls have been sinking. Republicans are almost certain to lose the House this fall, and the Senate majority is up for grabs. Democratic control of both houses would help check Trump’s authoritarian schemes. And the fact that the entire Senate Republican conference will have to cast a high-visibility vote to confirm Todd Blanche can help in turning the Senate Democratic

.This is from Axios’ Andrew Pantazi. “Blanche poised for confirmation vote after he kills Trump’s fund.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will likely advance to a full Senate confirmation vote after he rescinded the order setting up President Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund Sunday.

Why it matters: Blanche’s Sunday order has won over Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who had held out on voting for Trump’s pick.

The latest: Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement that they will vote to advance Blanche’s nomination.

• The senators said they had negotiated a “legally enforceable document” that ends the anti-weaponization fund and limits protections against audits.
• “We look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” the senators said in the statement.

Catch up quick: The fund grew out of a May settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the disclosure of his tax records.

• The settlement promised an apology to Trump and his sons, and it created the fund for individuals claiming they suffered from government “lawfare.”
• Another agreement released Trump, his family and the Trump Organization from certain IRS claims and audits.

Of note: Blanche’s new order rescinds one from May implementing the nearly $1.8 billion fund, but not the settlement provision requiring the attorney general to create the fund.

• The settlement’s terms can only be changed via a written agreement from the Trumps and the government. Sunday’s order was signed by Blanche but not by Trump, his sons or the Trump Organization.
• At his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Blanche acknowledged that the settlement was enforceable and that Trump’s lawyers could try to enforce it or claim the DOJ breached the agreement by refusing to operate the fund.

Blanche also clarified the sweeping protections Trump received from tax audits on Sunday.

• In a statement released with the order, Blanche said the protections only apply retroactively and only to the lawsuit’s named plaintiffs: Trump, some of his family, and the Trump Organization. The earlier agreement said it extended to any “related or affiliated” individuals, companies and other organizations.

Reality check: While the Trump protections Blanche lists are without precedent, they also reflect the reality that Trump’s administration will not criminally investigate him anyway.

• Before he leaves office, Trump is expected to hand out sweeping pardons to administration officials and allies. That would render any effort to prosecute Trump, his family or his companies doubly moot.

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo puts it this way. “Faux Deal Ends Faux Fight Over Blanche Nomination. Wet Noodle Award: Cornyn and Tillis.”

Trump is Lucy. GOP senators are the football. D.C. political reporters are Charlie Brown.

For a decade now, the illusion that Republican senators in whole or in part would rise up against the outrages of the Trump presidencies has animated political reporting even as the Senate GOP conference has chronically failed to rise to the occasion.

The farcical effort required to sustain the illusion has required a willing disbelief and feigned innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

So while the urge to pile on Senate Republicans like John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina for not driving a hard bargain with Trump over the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general is warranted, it must also be acknowledged, as painful as it is, that their pretend resistance actually works at yielding the headlines and reputational burnishing they’re looking for.

Most of this morning’s coverage of the overnight development bears this out.

After weeks of resistance, Blanche finally put in writing, in documents he posted to X, that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund is dead and that the IRS immunity for Trump is retroactive only. It was a limited concession, but it was enough for the two Senate holdouts, Tillis just confirmed on X.

The news coverage hailed this as a “formal” act by Blanche of rescinding the “anti-weaponization” fund. Some managed to cover the development without reference to Blanche’s disastrous anti-democratic run at a DOJ used as tool of retribution for the Trump White House.

This came after President Trump over the weekend continued to escalate his insistence that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund should still move forward. We’re supposed to belief Trump’s former personal lawyer and underling, not the president himself.

Seriously, this is what America’s all about these days. Keeping Orange Caligula happy and enabling the Trump Family Crime Syndicate. It’s hard to take these buffoons seriously, but unfortunately, an entire group of idiots fell for the scam and loved the racism. So the anti-weaponization fund is gone, but the rest of the hoopla stays. So just to let you know how much the entire Republican Party relies on bigoted, ignorant voters, here’s the newest “policy.” This is from Politico‘s Rebecca Carballo. “Trump administration asks colleges to commit to education overhaul. Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s letter contains some similarities to a compact offered to and rejected by a small group of schools last year.”

The Education Department is asking university leaders to publicly commit to a series of institutional changes, many of which are in line with the Trump administration’s higher education agenda, by the end of the year.

The agency’s letter asks these leaders to address grade inflation, improve transparency about the costs of attending their schools and curb foreign donations. It also asks them to hire faculty of “all relevant perspectives,” with the Trump administration previously arguing schools are too left leaning and suppress conservative voices.

The letter contains some similarities to the college compact the administration sent to a select group of universities last fall, none of which agreed to sign the compact. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology publicly rejected the compact, arguing that some of its provisions would restrict freedom of expression and the school’s independence. A few schools that were not in the initial group the compact was sent to volunteered to sign it.

The administration’s latest letter appears to be less restrictive than the compact. Monday’s letter does not include some of the more controversial asks in the compact, including a 15 percent cap on international undergraduate enrollment and a five-year tuition freeze. It also does not offer the incentives featured in the compact, including a potential leg up in federal contracts and grants.

So, back to the Trump Arch because destroying historical sites just makes me ill. He so wants to be taken seriously, but all he does is create edifices to his idocy. This is from the New York Times. “Park Service Finds Trump’s Arch Could Detract From Dozens of Historic Places, The 250-foot-tall edifice would alter views across Washington and Arlington Cemetery.”  This report is by Emily Badger.

President Trump’s proposed 250-foot-tall triumphal arch would change the skyline of Washington to such an extent that it would intrude on views at dozens of historic sites around the capital, according to an assessment by National Park Service staff.

It would disrupt the symbolic relationship between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, obstruct sightlines from the Kennedy Gravesite and Robert E. Lee’s home, and alter what official documents call “one of the most magnificent” views in Washington at the National Cathedral four miles away, the Park Service said.

The assessment of the arch’s impact on surrounding historic properties is a key step the administration must complete before the project can receive final approval by the National Capital Planning Commission, which could come as soon as its next meeting on Sept. 3.

The Park Service is supposed to seek ways to reduce such “adverse effects” on historic sites under the National Historic Preservation Act. But the arch is expected to move forward with little change given that Mr. Trump has shown no interest in the most obvious remedies — scaling down the project, or building it somewhere else.

I’m going to slip this in just so we know out there somewhere, there are people who know who he really is.

Sarah Matthews on Trump’s fixation with 2020 election loss, January 6th and the sycophant’s who currently support him. #Pinks

— Jules⚖️📨 (@northjules.bsky.social) 2026-08-03T11:27:20.093Z

Let’s just leave on this note. I hope he reads it because I know a bunch of us want everything he built and did to be completely erased from history. We should bulldoze all those things he destroyed and put them right again. This is from G. Elliot Morris and his numbers for the elections in his blog Strenght in Numbers. “Democrats strongly favored to take the House, Senate tilts Democratic in our new election forecast (crosspost). Our brand-new election forecast for the 2026 congressional midterms puts Democrats at above even odds to take control of both chambers. Please, please don’t screw this up!

Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. If you’re reading this, that means we finished dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s and just published our shiny, state-of-the-art 2026 congressional election forecast over at FiftyPlusOne. 🎉

As of 6:00 AM Eastern on August 3, 2026, we give the Democrats an 85% chance to win the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and a 55% chance to win control of the Senate (which we define as 51 seats or more, unless an independent wins in Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, or South Dakota — unlikely, but not impossible).

Because our forecast simulates elections for both chambers in one unified model, we can also calculate the probabilities of either party controlling both chambers after Nov. Democrats win control of both the House and Senate in just over 50% of simulations, whereas Republicans prevail in less than 12%.

Of course, there are graphs, so go check it out!

So, I’ll stop right now because I’m now watering sod in my backyard, with the leftover planted on the neutral ground across the street, twice a day. I’m hoping for a big celebratory election party back in the back with all the fixin’s.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

And no, I have no idea what happened to the font here. I’m just going to roll with it.

Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump Ruins Everything

Good Day Sky Dancers!!

Carl Wilhelm Wilhelmson, The Black Cat, 1922

We, the people who never wanted Trump as president, have been forced to deal with his lies, his clownish nonsense, and his rage-filled public behavior since he came down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy on June 16, 2015–nearly 11 years ago.

There really wasn’t a break in the madness after he lost the 2020 election. He constantly found ways to make himself the center of attention, and then we had our hopes raised with all the prosecutions, most of which ended up failing because–incredibly–he was elected for a second time.

Speaking for myself, it has been a long hard road. Even if he actually leaves the White House in January, 2029, he will likely still find ways to keep himself in the news. I wonder if I will live to see the day when he is really gone.

For the past few days, we have waited for his name to be removed from the Kennedy Center building, while he fought repeatedly in the courts to keep it there. I think it has finally been taken down now, but I’m not really sure, because the huge tarp covering the front of the building is still in place.

PBS News: Trump’s name removed from the Kennedy Center building following court-ordered deadline.

The curtain started to come down for President Donald Trump at the Kennedy Center on Saturday.

After a day of legal maneuvers and thunderstorms, workers began the process in the early morning hours of removing the letters spelling out the Republican president’s name from the facade of the iconic performing arts venue. They were a few hours past a court-ordered deadline and did their work shrouded by a tarp, much to the frustration of onlookers who had gathered for hours hoping to witness a dramatic moment symbolizing the limits of Trump’s power.

As the sun rose over Washington, the tarp remained in place, leaving it impossible to determine whether all the letters had been removed. Shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Center asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon EDT, citing the storms for delaying the work. The court agreed to that request Saturday morning.

The removal of Trump’s name closes one of the more unusual chapters in the history of the Kennedy Center, which began construction in 1964 and was dedicated to the memory of the slain president, Democrat John F. Kennedy. At what is typically one of the few relatively nonpartisan spaces in Washington, Trump has wielded tremendous influence over the venue during his second term.

Though he rarely discussed the Kennedy Center during his 2024 campaign, Trump moved quickly to oust the institution’s leadership when he returned to office in January 2025 and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. His name was quickly added to the building.

Why did Trump want his name on a memorial created by Congress for a president who was assassinated? Trump is a year older than I am. He was alive when Kennedy was murdered and the nation mourned. Did he know what happened? Did it have any effect on him? Apparently not.

Albert Anker, Girl with her cat

And check this out: the Trump-controlled board of  the Kennedy Center stole money that was donated to support the national opera company. Julia Jacobs at The New York Times: Opera Company Sues to Collect $17 Million From the Kennedy Center.

The Washington National Opera, which recently severed its longstanding relationship with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has filed a lawsuit that demands more than $17 million from the center that the opera company estimates it is owed.

The suit, filed Thursday, says that since the opera company struck out on its own this year, Kennedy Center officials have refused to release the money, which the court papers say includes endowment funds, other donations and income that was collected for the company’s benefit.

“W.N.O. reluctantly files this case to preserve its future and to protect its donors and artists,” lawyers for the opera said in court papers, which identify the funds as donor gifts received over years that are “critical” to its operations.

In a statement responding to the lawsuit, Roma Daravi, a spokeswoman for the center, said that the relationship with the opera company “financially burdened” the center for more than a decade. The statement noted that taking into account the company’s endowment, an external accounting firm had calculated that the company had “accumulated a $72 million deficit to the center” between 2011 and 2026, the years it was an affiliate of the institution….

The opera left the center in January, nearly a year after President Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center led to an exodus of audiences, artists and donors. Officials at the center said then that they had decided to part ways with the opera, which had played there since 1971, “due to a financially challenging relationship.”

The opera’s lawsuit, filed in the United States Court of Federal Claims, details the tensions that arose before the company’s departure. It lists the federal government as the defendant because the center was established by Congress….

The lawsuit says that the day before the separation announcement, Donna Arduin, the Kennedy Center’s chief financial officer, told leaders of the opera company that money in a fund containing bequests and other contributions to the opera had been used as collateral for a line of credit.

The suit says Ms. Arduin asserted that those funds belonged to the center, but the opera company contends they were expressly reserved for its benefit. The suit did not specify how much money was said to have been used as collateral.

Unbelievable. They took funds that were donated specifically for the opera company and spent it on something else–just like Trump is stealing money that Congress has allocated for specific purposes and using it for his ballroom, his arch, and who knows what else. For Trump, taxpayer money is nothing more than an ATM for him to withdraw funds from.

By Suzanne Valadon, 1920

Trump is so self-centered that he probably doesn’t know the names of all of his grandchildren. Nothing seems to matter to him except for his personal desires and his rapidly changing attitudes toward people and institutions, based whether they praise him and bend to whatever his wishes are at any moment in time.

He covered the Oval Office in gold, paved over the Rose Garden (Melania had already wrecked it in his first term), and turned the West Colonnade into a “Presidential Walk of Fame,” with gold-framed photos and gold-lettered plaques, with insulting descriptions of the presidents he dislikes. He even put up idiotic gold signs to designate these places–as if no one knows where the Oval Office or Rose Garden are.

Then he tore down the East Wing of the White House with no warning, and began building an illegal “ballroom.”

Tomorrow, Trump is going to force the country to deal with a UFC fight on the White House lawn. We’ve already had to watch him turn the White House into an embarrassment worthy of the Beverly Hillbillies. The White House grounds looks like a junk yard, as he prepares for a public UFC fight on his birthday.

The UFC installation has already caused problems.

Aaron Parnas a Midas News: White House UFC Event Lighting Nearly Blinded Flight Crew on Approach to Reagan National.

A commercial airline pilot that spoke to MeidasTouch this evening has filed aviation safety reports after powerful lighting used during the construction and testing of the UFC octagon on the White House grounds allegedly shone directly into their cockpit during a nighttime approach into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), creating what the pilot described as one of the most severe visibility disruptions they have experienced in their career.

The pilot, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the incident, was flying into Reagan National on a recent flight when aircraft on approach encountered intense white light associated with the UFC event held on the White House South Lawn.

According to the pilot, the lights illuminated the cockpit during the final stages of landing, a critical phase of flight when pilots rely heavily on visual references. The pilot described the incident as “10 times worse than any laser illumination event” the pilot ever experienced.

While laser strikes on aircraft are a known aviation hazard, the pilot emphasized that this incident did not involve lasers. Instead, it involved powerful white event lighting that they said created a similar, and potentially more dangerous, effect by overwhelming pilots’ vision during approach.

Following the incident, the pilot filed reports with both the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), a confidential reporting program used by aviation professionals to document safety concerns and hazards.

We are supposed to be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but Trump has ruined that by turning the anniversary into a celebration of himself. I hope there are thunderstorms tomorrow. And bugs.

The Independent: Rain could wash out Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 birthday fight at the White House.

Rain and lightning could end up being an uninvited opponent at Sunday’s UFC fight at the White House.

AccuWeather warns that on Sunday, Washington looks like it will be hit with a “a heavy thunderstorm late in the afternoon,” in which “downpours and lightning could impact the events at the White House.”

By Indira Baldano

The temporary stadium built on the White House lawn includes a roof arching over the UFC’s famous Octagon arena itself, but guests watching from the stands will not be fully covered.

Making matters worse, the hot and humid conditions, paired with the bright lights of a UFC fight, could attract swarms of bugs.

“This event is going to draw a big crowd,” University of Maryland entomologist Michael Raupp told Axios. “But guess what? There are going to be even more bugs joining.”

And the bugs will attract bats.

“If you have this banquet of small flying insects,” Raupp added, “the bats are going to say, ‘Oh, baby!'”

UFC boss Dana White has acknowledged that weather (and wildlife) could be an issue.

“The three big problems, as far as I am seeing right now, are rain, lightning and a ton of bugs,” White told The Hollywood Reporter last week, recalling a recent White House dinner where guests were bothered with “clusters” of gnats.

He added that’s he’s worked with his production team to prepare for these potential issues.

We’ll see about that.

Farrah Tomazin at The Daily Beast: Creepy Threat to Trump’s Big Birthday Extravaganza.

The biggest threat to Donald Trump’s lavish UFC birthday bash may not be a lawsuit, a heatwave, or Americans outraged by the spectacle at the White House.

It might be the bugs.

As crews put the finishing touches to the sprawling outdoor arena erected for UFC Freedom 250, organizers are grappling with a problem that every Washingtonian knows all too well: summer insects descending on bright lights in the nation’s swampiest city.

The latest weather forecast has Washington, D.C. at a temperature high of 91 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, with “hot with intervals of clouds and sun; a thunderstorm in spots late in the afternoon.”

“Downpours and lightning could impact the events at the White House,” says the ominous warning from AccuWeather, a global weather tracking service that boasts “superior accuracy”.

But AccuWeather’s bug tracking may be even more concerning for the president as he celebrates his 80th birthday watching burly men ground-and-pound in a cage fight.

“Warm weather and the metabolic rate of insects increases causing bugs to invade homes and gardens in search of food. With a rise in rain, notice an increase in mosquitoes, stink bugs, roaches and termites,” the site says, warning of “extreme” risk on Sunday.

All this could be somewhat unpleasant for the fighters gasping for air in an already slippery octagon splattered with sweat and blood, as well as UFC boss Dana White, who has made it clear over the years how much he dislikes outdoor fight cards because you can’t control the elements.

By Richard Williams

Tara Dublin writes at Raw Story: This plan will make Trump’s birthday his most miserable yet.

Dublin recalls the Bicentennial celebration in 1976. She was 7 years old, but she still recalls that everyone was excited. To her “it felt like something out of a movie.” The main thing I remember from the Bicentennial is that someone in government made Boston put up more street signs so tourists could tell where they were.

On the 250the anniversary, Dublin writes:

And here we are again, on the brink of celebrating America’s 250th birthday, and it’s going to yet again be like something out of a movie.

Except that movie is called Idiocracy.

The White House is currently obscured by a giant UFC Octagon ahead of Toddler Trump’s 80th birthday party on Sunday. Of all the mortifying things Trump has done, this has brought the kind of global embarrassment that can’t be calibrated by even the most advanced of scientific instruments. Shirtless men are going to beat the crap out of each other in front of what’s supposed to be a symbol of leadership.

Now, it’s the White Trash House.

It looks like the three-ring circus it is. It breaks my heart every time I look at it. Because, despite everyone joking about it and making clever memes about it, Trump has deliberately destroyed the People’s House because he hates America….

None of this destruction should have been allowed. He could’ve built it on his own property, and it would even be on brand for Florida. But instead, he used who-knows-whose money (not his) and turned the South Lawn into a Carny Paradise. The attendees will revel in the spectacle of shirtless men beating the crap out of each other as a birthday present for an 80-year-old criminal fraud at the center of the biggest political cover-up in American history.

We’re still learning even more about the Epstein Files cover-up, something our Founders never could have imagined when they created this non-Christian nation conceived in liberty. While Trump was fixating on turning DC into Mar-A-Lago on the Potomac, his entire staff was meeting in the Situation Room to figure out how to keep protecting him, instead of giving the victims the justice they all deserve. They’ve all known for far too long what’s in those files, and they’ve done nothing about any of it.

Marcel Leprin, Suzanne Valadon and her Cat

You can read more at the link, but here’s what Dublin is hoping for tomorrow:

There’s been terrible weather in Washington all week, with thunderstorms predicted on Sunday to make Trump’s party a literal washout. You can almost believe in divine intervention when the weather seems this targeted….

If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere with great weather on Sunday, No Kings protest marches are scheduled all across the country to make sure Trump has the most miserable birthday of his entire life. It’s going to be 92 degrees here in Portland, and along with the main march downtown, there’s going to be a more family-friendly carnival-type thing in a park with A LOT of trees providing shade. I think I might opt in for that instead of baking in the streets and feeling mad.

Speaking of Portland, I’m extra proud to be an Oregonian after learning that our state was the first to drop out of Trump’s dumb “America 250” State Fair. I’m sure Oregon won’t be the last Blue state to drop out. It’ll be just like when all of the artists dropped out of Trump’s dumb “America 250” concert, which is now just him and Vanilla Ice. The “State Fair” will probably just be Alabama by the time July 4th rolls around.

One last bit of good news: Democrats now have an 82% chance of taking back the House in November!

Trump’s next big project is the giant arch he wants to build in his own honor that critics say will block views of Arlington Cemetery. But that’s not the only problem.

Heather Richards at Politico: Trump’s massive arch could snarl traffic for years.

Construction crews building the massive triumphal arch proposed by President Donald Trump would work in two 10-hour shifts daily until the monument celebrating the nation’s military history is complete, according to a new assessment released by the National Park Service.

Erecting the 250-foot-tall arch in a traffic circle at the head of the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River would take two to three years on the proposed schedule, according to the documents released earlier this month. The plan suggests a sizable disruption along a major thoroughfare in the nation’s capital.

Girl with Cat, by Merle Keller

The year-round construction schedule emerged from the NPS’s initial review of the arch’s impacts required under the National Historic Preservation Act. The Trump administration has fast-tracked the review process, which examines how historic properties and the Washington landscape would be reshaped by the towering project. The administration is aiming to commission the monument in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday this year.

According to the NPS review, construction would begin with several months of site excavation. Drilling rigs would be deployed to construct a foundation system, and caissons would be installed to 75-foot depths to reach bedrock.

“Continuous heavy equipment operations would occur during this period,” the agency said.

After the foundation is completed, crews are expected to take nearly one year building the concrete body of the arch, deploying 320-foot cranes. In the final phases, granite cladding would be fixed to the concrete exterior and golden statues would be installed on the arch’s roof, including a 60-foot-tall winged figure resembling Lady Liberty. Landscaping would complete the exterior design.

The White House claims to have a solution to any traffic problems.

A White House spokesperson Friday said the NPS worked with the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to develop traffic plans for the circle.

“In an effort to increase pedestrian and vehicle safety as well as efficient movement for both, we have conducted detailed traffic modeling and simulations to better understand the impacts of different contemplated traffic flows,” the official said in a statement. “After construction of the Arch, traffic delays will be minimized to the time needed to safely accommodate pedestrian crossings and the flow of traffic.”

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery near the arch’s proposed location, said Friday the construction outlook is a “nightmare in the making.”

“The Trump administration is pursuing an aggressive construction schedule that would require years of lane closures and major disruptions along one of the most heavily traveled transportation corridors connecting D.C. and Northern Virginia,” Beyer said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News. Beyer last month asked the Interior Department to disclose any traffic and transportation research it has completed.

“The public deserves a full and transparent accounting of its impacts on traffic, parking, recreation, and access to existing sites like Arlington National Cemetery,” he said Friday. “The disruption this project would cause is only compounded by this rushed process and these unanswered questions.”

There’s more at the link.

Is Trump satisfied with all these self-aggrandizing projects? Probably not. He’s always coming up with new ways to make everything about him.

I suppose I should include some serious news in this post, but there isn’t much happening except that Trump is still claiming a deal with Iran is on the verge of happening. This time the Iranians sound a bit more interested, but we’ll have to wait and see.

I hope you all are having a nice weekend.

Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump Ruins Everything

Good Day Sky Dancers!!

Carl Wilhelm Wilhelmson, The Black Cat, 1922

We, the people who never wanted Trump as president, have been forced to deal with his lies, his clownish nonsense, and his rage-filled public behavior since he came down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy on June 16, 2015–nearly 11 years ago.

There really wasn’t a break in the madness after he lost the 2020 election. He constantly found ways to make himself the center of attention, and then we had our hopes raised with all the prosecutions, most of which ended up failing because–incredibly–he was elected for a second time.

Speaking for myself, it has been a long hard road. Even if he actually leaves the White House in January, 2029, he will likely still find ways to keep himself in the news. I wonder if I will live to see the day when he is really gone.

For the past few days, we have waited for his name to be removed from the Kennedy Center building, while he fought repeatedly in the courts to keep it there. I think it has finally been taken down now, but I’m not really sure, because the huge tarp covering the front of the building is still in place.

PBS News: Trump’s name removed from the Kennedy Center building following court-ordered deadline.

The curtain started to come down for President Donald Trump at the Kennedy Center on Saturday.

After a day of legal maneuvers and thunderstorms, workers began the process in the early morning hours of removing the letters spelling out the Republican president’s name from the facade of the iconic performing arts venue. They were a few hours past a court-ordered deadline and did their work shrouded by a tarp, much to the frustration of onlookers who had gathered for hours hoping to witness a dramatic moment symbolizing the limits of Trump’s power.

As the sun rose over Washington, the tarp remained in place, leaving it impossible to determine whether all the letters had been removed. Shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Center asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon EDT, citing the storms for delaying the work. The court agreed to that request Saturday morning.

The removal of Trump’s name closes one of the more unusual chapters in the history of the Kennedy Center, which began construction in 1964 and was dedicated to the memory of the slain president, Democrat John F. Kennedy. At what is typically one of the few relatively nonpartisan spaces in Washington, Trump has wielded tremendous influence over the venue during his second term.

Though he rarely discussed the Kennedy Center during his 2024 campaign, Trump moved quickly to oust the institution’s leadership when he returned to office in January 2025 and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. His name was quickly added to the building.

Why did Trump want his name on a memorial created by Congress for a president who was assassinated? Trump is a year older than I am. He was alive when Kennedy was murdered and the nation mourned. Did he know what happened? Did it have any effect on him? Apparently not.

Albert Anker, Girl with her cat

And check this out: the Trump-controlled board of  the Kennedy Center stole money that was donated to support the national opera company. Julia Jacobs at The New York Times: Opera Company Sues to Collect $17 Million From the Kennedy Center.

The Washington National Opera, which recently severed its longstanding relationship with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has filed a lawsuit that demands more than $17 million from the center that the opera company estimates it is owed.

The suit, filed Thursday, says that since the opera company struck out on its own this year, Kennedy Center officials have refused to release the money, which the court papers say includes endowment funds, other donations and income that was collected for the company’s benefit.

“W.N.O. reluctantly files this case to preserve its future and to protect its donors and artists,” lawyers for the opera said in court papers, which identify the funds as donor gifts received over years that are “critical” to its operations.

In a statement responding to the lawsuit, Roma Daravi, a spokeswoman for the center, said that the relationship with the opera company “financially burdened” the center for more than a decade. The statement noted that taking into account the company’s endowment, an external accounting firm had calculated that the company had “accumulated a $72 million deficit to the center” between 2011 and 2026, the years it was an affiliate of the institution….

The opera left the center in January, nearly a year after President Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center led to an exodus of audiences, artists and donors. Officials at the center said then that they had decided to part ways with the opera, which had played there since 1971, “due to a financially challenging relationship.”

The opera’s lawsuit, filed in the United States Court of Federal Claims, details the tensions that arose before the company’s departure. It lists the federal government as the defendant because the center was established by Congress….

The lawsuit says that the day before the separation announcement, Donna Arduin, the Kennedy Center’s chief financial officer, told leaders of the opera company that money in a fund containing bequests and other contributions to the opera had been used as collateral for a line of credit.

The suit says Ms. Arduin asserted that those funds belonged to the center, but the opera company contends they were expressly reserved for its benefit. The suit did not specify how much money was said to have been used as collateral.

Unbelievable. They took funds that were donated specifically for the opera company and spent it on something else–just like Trump is stealing money that Congress has allocated for specific purposes and using it for his ballroom, his arch, and who knows what else. For Trump, taxpayer money is nothing more than an ATM for him to withdraw funds from.

By Suzanne Valadon, 1920

Trump is so self-centered that he probably doesn’t know the names of all of his grandchildren. Nothing seems to matter to him except for his personal desires and his rapidly changing attitudes toward people and institutions, based whether they praise him and bend to whatever his wishes are at any moment in time.

He covered the Oval Office in gold, paved over the Rose Garden (Melania had already wrecked it in his first term), and turned the West Colonnade into a “Presidential Walk of Fame,” with gold-framed photos and gold-lettered plaques, with insulting descriptions of the presidents he dislikes. He even put up idiotic gold signs to designate these places–as if no one knows where the Oval Office or Rose Garden are.

Then he tore down the East Wing of the White House with no warning, and began building an illegal “ballroom.”

Tomorrow, Trump is going to force the country to deal with a UFC fight on the White House lawn. We’ve already had to watch him turn the White House into an embarrassment worthy of the Beverly Hillbillies. The White House grounds looks like a junk yard, as he prepares for a public UFC fight on his birthday.

The UFC installation has already caused problems.

Aaron Parnas a Midas News: White House UFC Event Lighting Nearly Blinded Flight Crew on Approach to Reagan National.

A commercial airline pilot that spoke to MeidasTouch this evening has filed aviation safety reports after powerful lighting used during the construction and testing of the UFC octagon on the White House grounds allegedly shone directly into their cockpit during a nighttime approach into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), creating what the pilot described as one of the most severe visibility disruptions they have experienced in their career.

The pilot, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the incident, was flying into Reagan National on a recent flight when aircraft on approach encountered intense white light associated with the UFC event held on the White House South Lawn.

According to the pilot, the lights illuminated the cockpit during the final stages of landing, a critical phase of flight when pilots rely heavily on visual references. The pilot described the incident as “10 times worse than any laser illumination event” the pilot ever experienced.

While laser strikes on aircraft are a known aviation hazard, the pilot emphasized that this incident did not involve lasers. Instead, it involved powerful white event lighting that they said created a similar, and potentially more dangerous, effect by overwhelming pilots’ vision during approach.

Following the incident, the pilot filed reports with both the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), a confidential reporting program used by aviation professionals to document safety concerns and hazards.

We are supposed to be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but Trump has ruined that by turning the anniversary into a celebration of himself. I hope there are thunderstorms tomorrow. And bugs.

The Independent: Rain could wash out Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 birthday fight at the White House.

Rain and lightning could end up being an uninvited opponent at Sunday’s UFC fight at the White House.

AccuWeather warns that on Sunday, Washington looks like it will be hit with a “a heavy thunderstorm late in the afternoon,” in which “downpours and lightning could impact the events at the White House.”

By Indira Baldano

The temporary stadium built on the White House lawn includes a roof arching over the UFC’s famous Octagon arena itself, but guests watching from the stands will not be fully covered.

Making matters worse, the hot and humid conditions, paired with the bright lights of a UFC fight, could attract swarms of bugs.

“This event is going to draw a big crowd,” University of Maryland entomologist Michael Raupp told Axios. “But guess what? There are going to be even more bugs joining.”

And the bugs will attract bats.

“If you have this banquet of small flying insects,” Raupp added, “the bats are going to say, ‘Oh, baby!'”

UFC boss Dana White has acknowledged that weather (and wildlife) could be an issue.

“The three big problems, as far as I am seeing right now, are rain, lightning and a ton of bugs,” White told The Hollywood Reporter last week, recalling a recent White House dinner where guests were bothered with “clusters” of gnats.

He added that’s he’s worked with his production team to prepare for these potential issues.

We’ll see about that.

Farrah Tomazin at The Daily Beast: Creepy Threat to Trump’s Big Birthday Extravaganza.

The biggest threat to Donald Trump’s lavish UFC birthday bash may not be a lawsuit, a heatwave, or Americans outraged by the spectacle at the White House.

It might be the bugs.

As crews put the finishing touches to the sprawling outdoor arena erected for UFC Freedom 250, organizers are grappling with a problem that every Washingtonian knows all too well: summer insects descending on bright lights in the nation’s swampiest city.

The latest weather forecast has Washington, D.C. at a temperature high of 91 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, with “hot with intervals of clouds and sun; a thunderstorm in spots late in the afternoon.”

“Downpours and lightning could impact the events at the White House,” says the ominous warning from AccuWeather, a global weather tracking service that boasts “superior accuracy”.

But AccuWeather’s bug tracking may be even more concerning for the president as he celebrates his 80th birthday watching burly men ground-and-pound in a cage fight.

“Warm weather and the metabolic rate of insects increases causing bugs to invade homes and gardens in search of food. With a rise in rain, notice an increase in mosquitoes, stink bugs, roaches and termites,” the site says, warning of “extreme” risk on Sunday.

All this could be somewhat unpleasant for the fighters gasping for air in an already slippery octagon splattered with sweat and blood, as well as UFC boss Dana White, who has made it clear over the years how much he dislikes outdoor fight cards because you can’t control the elements.

By Richard Williams

Tara Dublin writes at Raw Story: This plan will make Trump’s birthday his most miserable yet.

Dublin recalls the Bicentennial celebration in 1976. She was 7 years old, but she still recalls that everyone was excited. To her “it felt like something out of a movie.” The main thing I remember from the Bicentennial is that someone in government made Boston put up more street signs so tourists could tell where they were.

On the 250the anniversary, Dublin writes:

And here we are again, on the brink of celebrating America’s 250th birthday, and it’s going to yet again be like something out of a movie.

Except that movie is called Idiocracy.

The White House is currently obscured by a giant UFC Octagon ahead of Toddler Trump’s 80th birthday party on Sunday. Of all the mortifying things Trump has done, this has brought the kind of global embarrassment that can’t be calibrated by even the most advanced of scientific instruments. Shirtless men are going to beat the crap out of each other in front of what’s supposed to be a symbol of leadership.

Now, it’s the White Trash House.

It looks like the three-ring circus it is. It breaks my heart every time I look at it. Because, despite everyone joking about it and making clever memes about it, Trump has deliberately destroyed the People’s House because he hates America….

None of this destruction should have been allowed. He could’ve built it on his own property, and it would even be on brand for Florida. But instead, he used who-knows-whose money (not his) and turned the South Lawn into a Carny Paradise. The attendees will revel in the spectacle of shirtless men beating the crap out of each other as a birthday present for an 80-year-old criminal fraud at the center of the biggest political cover-up in American history.

We’re still learning even more about the Epstein Files cover-up, something our Founders never could have imagined when they created this non-Christian nation conceived in liberty. While Trump was fixating on turning DC into Mar-A-Lago on the Potomac, his entire staff was meeting in the Situation Room to figure out how to keep protecting him, instead of giving the victims the justice they all deserve. They’ve all known for far too long what’s in those files, and they’ve done nothing about any of it.

Marcel Leprin, Suzanne Valadon and her Cat

You can read more at the link, but here’s what Dublin is hoping for tomorrow:

There’s been terrible weather in Washington all week, with thunderstorms predicted on Sunday to make Trump’s party a literal washout. You can almost believe in divine intervention when the weather seems this targeted….

If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere with great weather on Sunday, No Kings protest marches are scheduled all across the country to make sure Trump has the most miserable birthday of his entire life. It’s going to be 92 degrees here in Portland, and along with the main march downtown, there’s going to be a more family-friendly carnival-type thing in a park with A LOT of trees providing shade. I think I might opt in for that instead of baking in the streets and feeling mad.

Speaking of Portland, I’m extra proud to be an Oregonian after learning that our state was the first to drop out of Trump’s dumb “America 250” State Fair. I’m sure Oregon won’t be the last Blue state to drop out. It’ll be just like when all of the artists dropped out of Trump’s dumb “America 250” concert, which is now just him and Vanilla Ice. The “State Fair” will probably just be Alabama by the time July 4th rolls around.

One last bit of good news: Democrats now have an 82% chance of taking back the House in November!

Trump’s next big project is the giant arch he wants to build in his own honor that critics say will block views of Arlington Cemetery. But that’s not the only problem.

Heather Richards at Politico: Trump’s massive arch could snarl traffic for years.

Construction crews building the massive triumphal arch proposed by President Donald Trump would work in two 10-hour shifts daily until the monument celebrating the nation’s military history is complete, according to a new assessment released by the National Park Service.

Erecting the 250-foot-tall arch in a traffic circle at the head of the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River would take two to three years on the proposed schedule, according to the documents released earlier this month. The plan suggests a sizable disruption along a major thoroughfare in the nation’s capital.

Girl with Cat, by Merle Keller

The year-round construction schedule emerged from the NPS’s initial review of the arch’s impacts required under the National Historic Preservation Act. The Trump administration has fast-tracked the review process, which examines how historic properties and the Washington landscape would be reshaped by the towering project. The administration is aiming to commission the monument in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday this year.

According to the NPS review, construction would begin with several months of site excavation. Drilling rigs would be deployed to construct a foundation system, and caissons would be installed to 75-foot depths to reach bedrock.

“Continuous heavy equipment operations would occur during this period,” the agency said.

After the foundation is completed, crews are expected to take nearly one year building the concrete body of the arch, deploying 320-foot cranes. In the final phases, granite cladding would be fixed to the concrete exterior and golden statues would be installed on the arch’s roof, including a 60-foot-tall winged figure resembling Lady Liberty. Landscaping would complete the exterior design.

The White House claims to have a solution to any traffic problems.

A White House spokesperson Friday said the NPS worked with the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to develop traffic plans for the circle.

“In an effort to increase pedestrian and vehicle safety as well as efficient movement for both, we have conducted detailed traffic modeling and simulations to better understand the impacts of different contemplated traffic flows,” the official said in a statement. “After construction of the Arch, traffic delays will be minimized to the time needed to safely accommodate pedestrian crossings and the flow of traffic.”

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery near the arch’s proposed location, said Friday the construction outlook is a “nightmare in the making.”

“The Trump administration is pursuing an aggressive construction schedule that would require years of lane closures and major disruptions along one of the most heavily traveled transportation corridors connecting D.C. and Northern Virginia,” Beyer said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News. Beyer last month asked the Interior Department to disclose any traffic and transportation research it has completed.

“The public deserves a full and transparent accounting of its impacts on traffic, parking, recreation, and access to existing sites like Arlington National Cemetery,” he said Friday. “The disruption this project would cause is only compounded by this rushed process and these unanswered questions.”

There’s more at the link.

Is Trump satisfied with all these self-aggrandizing projects? Probably not. He’s always coming up with new ways to make everything about him.

I suppose I should include some serious news in this post, but there isn’t much happening except that Trump is still claiming a deal with Iran is on the verge of happening. This time the Iranians sound a bit more interested, but we’ll have to wait and see.

I hope you all are having a nice weekend.

Friday Reads: Trump Is Not a Manly Man. Manly Men are Not Obsessed With Redecorating

Good Morning!!

It’s Friday, and I’m filling in for Dakinikat. I had another one of my sleepless nights last night, so please forgive me if this post is a little weird.

I know this isn’t politically correct, but I’ve always thought that Trump was a bit effeminate–in his looks and his behavior. How many “manly men” are obsessed with interior decoration even in the middle of a war?

Not to mention that he’s in an apparently loveless marriage. His wife doesn’t sleep with him or even live with him, and reportedly has to be paid to appear in public with him. Maybe Melania is just a beard.

It seems that I’m not alone. Ashley Parker of The Atlantic agrees with me (gift article): The King of Queens. President Trump loves “handsome” men, especially the muscular ones.

President Trump delights in playing what he calls “the gay national anthem” whenever he wants to rev up a crowd. He’s obsessed with Elton John, was once friendly with Liza Minnelli, and has a Liberace-esque flair for gilded interiors. One of his favorite sports to watch—mixed martial arts—is basically sweaty, semi-naked dudes. And he is a deep and vocal admirer of the physique of fellow men, often announcing which ones he would cast in a movie: “They’re perfect specimens,” he said last year of the military pilots who had visited him in the Oval Office; “He looks like the Marlboro Man,” he cooed about a former Iowa state senator; “Young, handsome guy. It’s always nice to be young and handsome,” he complimented the president of Paraguay.

Some of Trump’s allies note that years before gay marriage was legalized, Trump had gay friends, took pro-gay stances, and allowed gay people to join his private club in Palm Beach starting in the mid-1990s. Ric Grenell became the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet position when Trump appointed him acting director of national intelligence. Grenell, who is now the president’s envoy for special missions, once called Trump “the most pro-gay president in American history,” a title that Trump said he was honored to have.

Trump “dancing” to YMCA.

To be clear: Trump says he is attracted only to women and, in fact, has been married to three of them. He once hosted the Miss Universe pageant, was caught on tape saying that he loves to grab women “by the pussy,” and was found civilly liable for sexually abusing a woman. Loads more have accused him of sexual misconduct. (Trump has denied the accusations.) “Women—I like. Men—no, I don’t have any interest,” Trump affirmed at a Board of Peace meeting earlier this year.

But there’s also little doubt that Trump has unabashedly embraced the aesthetic—the je ne sais quoi—of a certain kind of gay man. Some who are sympathetic to the president have gone even further. Blaze Media, a conservative outlet started by the talk-radio host Glenn Beck, ran a story in 2024 headlined “Donald Trump: Our First Gay President,” much in the way people talked about Bill Clinton as having been the first Black one. The story notes, in a section titled “Queen of Queens”: “He blows kisses to Hulk Hogan, weighs in on Fashion Week (‘used to be so glamorous and exciting! No stars, no fun—just boring’), and his rivalry with lesbian Rosie O’Donnell remains a gem of the catty naughties social feuds.” Pod Save America, a liberal podcast started by former aides to President Obama, declared that Trump would be a gay icon, if only he had “liberal social values.” The president, the episode’s title observes, “DEMANDS a Ballroom at the White House, Loves Musicals, & Wears Make-up.”

James Kirchick, the author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, told me that Trump’s personal story, a guy from Queens making it big in Manhattan, tracks with the “typical gay story” of men of his era. In another life, he continued, the 79-year-old could be a classic aging gay, “living in Wilton Manors, sitting at a bar, making bitchy comments to everyone who comes in.” (Of course, Trump’s perch from the Oval Office confers much more power than a bar stool does, and his comments have moved markets and sent allies reeling.) “It’s a gay man frozen in amber in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before AIDS,” Kirchick said, referring to the type of gay man he believes Trump would embody. “It’s a certain age and a certain era. It’s very campy.”

The comedian and podcaster Caleb Hearon deemed Trump to be of the “old-school-gay” era, “because, you know, gay guys used to be mean before media training,” he said in an interview with Ziwe Fumudoh on her YouTube comedy show. The president, Hearon continued, should have become “a red-carpet fashion adviser,” the sort who would say things like: “That dress, honey. I don’t think so!” “That would have been amazing. I would have watched every night,” he said. “Instead, he ran for office on a platform of mass deportation, so that’s where things got tricky, obviously.”

A little bit more:

Trump’s continued patter about men’s bodies has also drawn attention. As my colleague Marie-Rose Sheinerman and I dug into examples of these corporeal appraisals, we were surprised by their sheer quantity and just how much Trump seems to delight in complimenting other men. He has given the compliment of “handsome” at least 68 times so far in his second term—or 69 times, if we count the two Thanksgiving turkeys he also collectively described as such. He is unapologetic in his preference for Cabinet members and administration officials who seem to come out of “central casting”; he praised Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is gay, for his Hollywood-worthy bona fides, before appreciatively noting that “under that beautiful exterior is a killer.”

He can almost never resist commenting on the physique of brawny men: “Look at the muscles on this guy!” he said, gazing upon a young cadet while delivering the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy last week. Two days later, he took pains to praise the New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart, calling him a “beautiful guy” and waxing poetic about his “legs like tree trunks.” And speaking about the golfer Arnold Palmer in 2024, Trump managed to both reassert his preference for women while also remarking on the legend’s masculinity: “I love women, but this guy—this guy—this is a guy that was all man.” (He also noted Palmer’s powerful swing with “stiff-shafted clubs,” and his, um, alleged other assets: “When he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there—they said, Oh my God, that’s unbelievable.”)

I wonder if Trump would have acted on his attraction to men if he had grown up in a less repressed era? Check this out:

Paul Baker, the author of Camp!: The Story of the Attitude That Conquered the World, told me over email that when it comes to Trump, making the distinction between camp and campy is important. The latter is the more self-conscious, ironic adoption of camp. But Trump is “the original, pure form—it’s when someone’s behaviour is outrageous, excessive, subversive and unintentionally funny,” he said. “The person doesn’t realise they’re funny or that they’re camp. They’re just being themselves.”

OK, I’d better not quote any more of that article.

This piece is by Julie Sidivy at Politico, dated October 25, 2016: Donald Trump Talks Like a Woman.

In the 2016 presidential contest, there has been one thing that supporters and detractors of Donald Trump have agreed on. The chest-pounding real estate mogul from New York has emerged as the quintessentially masculine candidate. Love him or loathe him, Trump’s campaign has been defined by the ways he has asserted his maleness—mocking his opponents for their low energy, bullying his critics, sneering at perceived weakness, boasting of his sexual prowess, vowing to hit back twice as hard as he’s been hit.

But academic research has picked up something that thousands of hours of campaign punditry has missed completely: Donald Trump talks like a woman. He might be preoccupied with grading women’s looks, penis size and “locker room talk,” but the way he speaks and the actual words he uses make for a distinctly feminine style. In fact, his speaking style is more feminine by far than any other candidate in the 2016 cycle, more feminine than any other presidential candidate since 2004.

More than just a comical curiosity, this fact about Trump’s mode of communication might help explain how a candidate who has been so extensively rebuked for his mean-spirited attacks on immigrants, women, the disabled and even prisoners of war has managed to attract support from millions of voters who adore the way he says openly what they feel. To some, Trump’s ascent is evidence that society still prizes the masculine over the feminine, but what’s happening is more complex, and Trump’s style has qualities that go beyond mere blustery aggression. Research has shown that the more feminine a speaker’s style, the more likable and trustworthy he seems. For Trump, who has been derided for his multiple contradictions and outright lies, that advantage might well have persuaded his supporters to listen to him and not the chorus of media fact checkers.

It’s not just a lazy stereotype that men and women speak differently. In fact, researchers who have sifted through thousands of language samples from men and women have identified clear statistical differences. Some of these differences are exactly what you’d expect—men are more likely to swear and use words that signal aggression, while women are more likely to use tentative language (words like maybe, seems or perhaps) and emotion-laden words (beautiful, despise). But other patterns are far from obvious. For example, contrary to the common stereotype that men can’t resist talking about themselves, women are heavier users than men of the pronoun “I” whereas the reverse is true for the pronoun “we”; women produce more common verbs (are, start, went) and auxiliary verbs (am, don’t, will), while men utter more articles (a, the) and prepositions (to, with, above); women use fewer long words than men when speaking or writing across a broad range of contexts.

Jennifer Jones, a doctoral candidate of political psychology at the University of California at Irvine, has combined these statistics into an index capturing the ratio of “feminine” to “masculine” words, and applied it to the language of 35 political candidates over the past decade. Hillary Clinton’s language falls above the average on this index—more feminine than George W. Bush’s, but less so than Barack Obama’s.

But Donald Trump is a stunning outlier. His linguistic style is startlingly feminine, so much so that the chasm between Trump and the next most feminine speaker, Ben Carson, is about as great as the difference between Carson and the least feminine candidate, Jim Webb. And Trump earns his ranking not just because he talks a lot about himself or avoids big words (both of which are true); according to Jones, he also shows feminine patterns on the more subtle measures, such as his use of prepositions and articles. The key then is not what Trump talks about—making Mexico pay for the wall or bombing the hell out of ISIL—but rather how he says it.

There’s much more at the Politico link.

Here we are in the middle of a war that Trump started, and he seems much more interested in his decorating projects than what is going on in his conflict in the Middle East. Some examples:

Dan Diamond at The Washington Post: Trump fumes at Congress and courts for holding up his ballroom.

President Donald Trump has made little secret that his planned White House ballroom is a top priority, invoking the project more frequently than most other issues. And in recent weeks he has raged at anyone — including a federal judge, a Senate official and a local historian — whose actions threaten to slow construction.

On Monday, the president shared on social media a copy of a legal filing that closely resembled his own words and contended that the weekend’s shooting outside the White House campus proved the need for a ballroom.

Trump at the ballroom construction site.

“Without the construction of this great Project, the President cannot safely conduct the business of the United States,” acting attorney general Todd Blanche and two other senior Justice Department officials lawyers wrote, urging a federal judge to dissolve his order that could soon halt construction. “This is a terrible, tremendously harmful case to the United States of America, and all it stands for!”

The filing also mocked the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has sued to halt the project, claiming that the group had been “defunded by Congress due to a total lack of respect for them.” Trump posted all six pages of the filing on his Truth Social platform.

Trump’s ballroom project has embodied executive power and its limitations.

The president was able to rapidly bulldoze the East Wing last year, clearing space for his planned 90,000-square-foot addition.Trump has remade independent federalcommissions — firing holdovers and installing loyalists, including his executive assistant — that have swiftly approved his project.He’s raised vast sums of money that he says can be put toward the ballroom’s estimated $400 million cost.

But so far,he has been constrained — barely — by the courts and Congress.

And it’s obvious that the ballroom means much more to him than the war or the struggling US economy.

Tiago Ventura at Time: House Democrats to Introduce Bill to Block Trump’s Triumphal Arch Amid Backlash Over ‘Vanity’ Projects.

House Democrats are set to introduce legislation aimed at blocking the construction of President Donald Trump’s planned 250-ft triumphal arch nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

“Trump’s vanity project would waste taxpayer money, brazenly violate existing law, and become yet another vehicle for his corruption,” Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said in a statement Wednesday. “The Administration has also given no consideration to potential harmful effects on the region including impacts on air safety and traffic on major roadways.”’

Trump holds up a model of his Arc de Trump.

Alongside Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada, Beyer plans to introduce what has been tentatively titled the “‘Arlington National Cemetery Viewshed Protection Act” on Friday, just days after the designs were approved by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a panel made up of Trump appointees.

The bill seeks to prohibit the construction of the arch and the use of any federal funds for the project. Additionally, it would prohibit the construction of any triumphal arch exceeding 50-feet on any National Park Service lands within the capital region “except by express authorization of Congress.”

Democrats have argued that the proposed arch, which is set to include a public viewing deck, is an unnecessary financial expenditure, especially given the ongoing affordability crisis impacting many Americans.

“As President Trump strips away the necessary safety nets from Americans who are struggling to afford their basic needs like groceries and healthcare, he builds his unauthorized, grandiose Triumphal Arch,” said Titus. “While destroying historical monuments and artefacts important to our American identity, he is erecting monuments to honor himself.”

Unfortunately, Trump couldn’t care less about the public good. He only cares about building memorials to himself.

Trump dreams up new renovation projects nearly every day. Here are the latest ones we’ve heard about:

Will Weissert and Michelle L Price at AP, via ABC News: Trump plays mayor at Cabinet meeting, showcasing his DC renovations.

He boasted of fixing city fountains and power-washing a local pool — making careful distinctions between sandblasting versus pebble-blasting — and detailing efforts to repair brick walkways in a public park.

But this wasn’t a small-town mayor assuring a few dozen community members at a town hall that municipal improvement efforts would be completed in time for Little League season.

This was President Donald Trump — channeling his decades as a high-profile real estate developer — regaling his assembled Cabinet and a nationally televised audience on Wednesday with the ins and outs of beautification projects around Washington.

“I love construction. It’s very exciting,” Trump said, maintaining that the face-lift he’s helped oversee to the nation’s capital means “D.C. is looking beautiful.”

His aside lasted 10 minutes and was far more comprehensive than anything said about the other major issues discussed during the meeting, including the war in Iran. There were also only passing references to gas prices nationwide that have spiked and fears about a weakening economy that could hurt Trump’s Republican Party in its push to retain control of Congress after November’s midterm elections….

The president also said that, under his watch, construction crews were working to improve 28 fountains, then bragged about a push to renovate the “reflecting lake” or “reflecting pond” — actually the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — which he said had been steam-cleaned, fumigated and coated with “American flag blue” paint.

“Over the years, I built hundreds of pools,” Trump said, recalling his days as a construction mogul in 1970s and ’80s New York. “I always like to build Olympic-sized swimming pools.”

The president noted that, as part of the revamp, cleaning crews had removed “more than 10 dumpsters of garbage.”

More projects described at the link.

Sarah Ewall-Wice at The Daily Beast: Trump Reveals Latest Vanity Project in Unhinged Pool Rant.

President Donald Trump wants to paint the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., blue after slapping blue paint on the Reflecting Pool.

Trump, 79, revealed the latest memorial he wants to get his hands on during a nearly 10-minute rant about renovations he’s been focused on throughout the nation’s capital at the White House while surrounded by members of his Cabinet.

Trump says he wants to paint the fountain of the WWII Memorial as seen from the top of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 2, 2026.

“Now we’re looking at the World War II fountain because that’s also in pretty bad shape,” Trump declared.

He revealed he wanted to “duplicate” the fountain’s bottom with paint in a “slightly different color.”

“Actually, we’ll go with a lighter color, but Doug and I have a lot of fun doing it,” Trump told the room, referring to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

The WWII Memorial includes a series of stone and bronze sculptures surrounding a pool of water on the National Mall just down from the Reflecting Pool.

The president’s comment came after he rambled for several minutes about his administration slapping a fresh coat of paint on the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

Trump called it the “reflecting lake” and said “nobody has ever seen anything like it” while also giving it the wrong dimensions and claiming it was longer than the tallest building in the world, which it is not.

He is insane, utterly insane.

I just heard about this project yesterday. Anna Kramer at Notus: The Trump Administration Is Spending $5 Million to Coat Horse Statues in Gold.

Four massive bronze horses positioned along the roads surrounding the Lincoln Memorial still shine in the sun from their first restoration in the 1970s. But their gold-toned coating is faded and patchy, and their heavy stone bases are cracked and dirty.

The Trump administration wants them glittering with a fresh coat of gold in time for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4. So in mid-April, the National Park Service handed a $5 million contract to a gilding studio in Maryland to repair the statues and cover them with a thick layer of 23.75-karat gold leaf.

It awarded the project without a full competition, according to NPS documents reviewed by NOTUS.

Four bronze horses surrounding the Lincoln Memorial are getting a glow-up for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4. Kainaz Amaria, NOTUS

As Trump hurries to put his stamp on a city he’s long denigrated as crumbling and ugly, his administration has doled out tens of millions of dollars for contracts with short timelines and little oversight.

In total, the Interior Department is spending at least $95 million in taxpayer funds for new D.C. beautification projects, according to a NOTUS review of government spending data. All of the projects identified by NOTUS were initiated between December 2025 and April of this year. About $20 million in contracts, including the gilding of the four horses, have not previously been reported.

“It is within the realm of reason to say: It’s the 250th anniversary that’s coming up, and instead of spending a hundred million dollars we normally spend on the District of Columbia, we want to spend $250 million. That’s perfectly normal,” said one former General Services Administration official, making up the dollar amounts to illustrate their point. “What is not normal is the lack of transparency.”

In mid-April, the National Park Service hired The Gilders’ Studio in Maryland to restore the 80,000-pound statue pairs, known as the Arts of War and Arts of Peace. According to agency documentation, the gilding company is covering the statues in an unusually thick layer of nearly pure gold — heavier and purer than even the “extra-thick” gold the same studio used to refinish the exterior of the Wyoming state capital dome seven years ago.

The $5 million contract includes more work than just the gold leafing, although the gold itself is certain to be a significant part of the cost, with the price of gold essentially doubling over the last several years.

And who is paying for all of Trump’s vanity project? Maxine Joselo and Andrea Fuller at The New York Times: National Park Entrance Fees Are Funding Trump’s D.C. Projects.

The National Park Service is using at least $67 million worth of park entrance fees to help fund President Trump’s beautification projects in Washington, according to a New York Times analysis of federal records.

Nearly $60 million in fees paid by visitors to national parks across the country is funding repairs to nine of the capital’s ornamental fountains, the analysis found. The government is putting another $7 million worth of entrance fees toward the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which costs $13.1 million overall, according to an internal Park Service document reviewed by The Times.

The National Park Service is spending millions in fees paid by visitors to parks across the country, like Yosemite National Park in California, to pay for restoration of nine ornamental fountains in Washington, D.C, AP

The analysis was based on a federal contracting database. The $7 million for the Reflecting Pool has not previously been reported.

Mr. Trump has proposed a host of initiatives to remake Washington in his own style and wants these projects completed by July 4, the 250th anniversary of American independence.

Some conservationists criticized the Trump administration for steering so much money to projects in Washington that appeared to be cosmetic fixes rather than urgent upgrades. National parks outside the capital have long maintenance backlogs, including repairs to deteriorating roads and water systems that threaten visitor safety.

“Our parks and public lands have been underfunded for decades, and there are many genuinely urgent projects in need of funding across the country,” said Aaron Weiss, the executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group. “Instead, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is determined to divert millions of dollars to projects that President Trump can see out his window.”

The spending is legal. Under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004, at least 80 percent of revenue from entrance fees must stay in the park where the fees were collected. But the other 20 percent can be used to improve sites that do not collect fees, such as the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington.

Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, which includes the Park Service, did not respond to specific questions but defended the spending in general.

“The National Park Service has not only been focused on beautifying the district but has also been working on many deferred maintenance projects throughout the country,” Ms. Martin said in an email, adding that “we should all be grateful” for Mr. Trump’s focus on projects in Washington.

I for one am not grateful.

That’s my post for today. I hope it isn’t too weird. I just couldn’t spend time today reading about the war and elections.

Friday Reads: Trump Is Not a Manly Man. Manly Men are Not Obsessed With Redecorating

Good Morning!!

It’s Friday, and I’m filling in for Dakinikat. I had another one of my sleepless nights last night, so please forgive me if this post is a little weird.

I know this isn’t politically correct, but I’ve always thought that Trump was a bit effeminate–in his looks and his behavior. How many “manly men” are obsessed with interior decoration even in the middle of a war?

Not to mention that he’s in an apparently loveless marriage. His wife doesn’t sleep with him or even live with him, and reportedly has to be paid to appear in public with him. Maybe Melania is just a beard.

It seems that I’m not alone. Ashley Parker of The Atlantic agrees with me (gift article): The King of Queens. President Trump loves “handsome” men, especially the muscular ones.

President Trump delights in playing what he calls “the gay national anthem” whenever he wants to rev up a crowd. He’s obsessed with Elton John, was once friendly with Liza Minnelli, and has a Liberace-esque flair for gilded interiors. One of his favorite sports to watch—mixed martial arts—is basically sweaty, semi-naked dudes. And he is a deep and vocal admirer of the physique of fellow men, often announcing which ones he would cast in a movie: “They’re perfect specimens,” he said last year of the military pilots who had visited him in the Oval Office; “He looks like the Marlboro Man,” he cooed about a former Iowa state senator; “Young, handsome guy. It’s always nice to be young and handsome,” he complimented the president of Paraguay.

Some of Trump’s allies note that years before gay marriage was legalized, Trump had gay friends, took pro-gay stances, and allowed gay people to join his private club in Palm Beach starting in the mid-1990s. Ric Grenell became the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet position when Trump appointed him acting director of national intelligence. Grenell, who is now the president’s envoy for special missions, once called Trump “the most pro-gay president in American history,” a title that Trump said he was honored to have.

Trump “dancing” to YMCA.

To be clear: Trump says he is attracted only to women and, in fact, has been married to three of them. He once hosted the Miss Universe pageant, was caught on tape saying that he loves to grab women “by the pussy,” and was found civilly liable for sexually abusing a woman. Loads more have accused him of sexual misconduct. (Trump has denied the accusations.) “Women—I like. Men—no, I don’t have any interest,” Trump affirmed at a Board of Peace meeting earlier this year.

But there’s also little doubt that Trump has unabashedly embraced the aesthetic—the je ne sais quoi—of a certain kind of gay man. Some who are sympathetic to the president have gone even further. Blaze Media, a conservative outlet started by the talk-radio host Glenn Beck, ran a story in 2024 headlined “Donald Trump: Our First Gay President,” much in the way people talked about Bill Clinton as having been the first Black one. The story notes, in a section titled “Queen of Queens”: “He blows kisses to Hulk Hogan, weighs in on Fashion Week (‘used to be so glamorous and exciting! No stars, no fun—just boring’), and his rivalry with lesbian Rosie O’Donnell remains a gem of the catty naughties social feuds.” Pod Save America, a liberal podcast started by former aides to President Obama, declared that Trump would be a gay icon, if only he had “liberal social values.” The president, the episode’s title observes, “DEMANDS a Ballroom at the White House, Loves Musicals, & Wears Make-up.”

James Kirchick, the author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, told me that Trump’s personal story, a guy from Queens making it big in Manhattan, tracks with the “typical gay story” of men of his era. In another life, he continued, the 79-year-old could be a classic aging gay, “living in Wilton Manors, sitting at a bar, making bitchy comments to everyone who comes in.” (Of course, Trump’s perch from the Oval Office confers much more power than a bar stool does, and his comments have moved markets and sent allies reeling.) “It’s a gay man frozen in amber in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before AIDS,” Kirchick said, referring to the type of gay man he believes Trump would embody. “It’s a certain age and a certain era. It’s very campy.”

The comedian and podcaster Caleb Hearon deemed Trump to be of the “old-school-gay” era, “because, you know, gay guys used to be mean before media training,” he said in an interview with Ziwe Fumudoh on her YouTube comedy show. The president, Hearon continued, should have become “a red-carpet fashion adviser,” the sort who would say things like: “That dress, honey. I don’t think so!” “That would have been amazing. I would have watched every night,” he said. “Instead, he ran for office on a platform of mass deportation, so that’s where things got tricky, obviously.”

A little bit more:

Trump’s continued patter about men’s bodies has also drawn attention. As my colleague Marie-Rose Sheinerman and I dug into examples of these corporeal appraisals, we were surprised by their sheer quantity and just how much Trump seems to delight in complimenting other men. He has given the compliment of “handsome” at least 68 times so far in his second term—or 69 times, if we count the two Thanksgiving turkeys he also collectively described as such. He is unapologetic in his preference for Cabinet members and administration officials who seem to come out of “central casting”; he praised Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is gay, for his Hollywood-worthy bona fides, before appreciatively noting that “under that beautiful exterior is a killer.”

He can almost never resist commenting on the physique of brawny men: “Look at the muscles on this guy!” he said, gazing upon a young cadet while delivering the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy last week. Two days later, he took pains to praise the New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart, calling him a “beautiful guy” and waxing poetic about his “legs like tree trunks.” And speaking about the golfer Arnold Palmer in 2024, Trump managed to both reassert his preference for women while also remarking on the legend’s masculinity: “I love women, but this guy—this guy—this is a guy that was all man.” (He also noted Palmer’s powerful swing with “stiff-shafted clubs,” and his, um, alleged other assets: “When he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there—they said, Oh my God, that’s unbelievable.”)

I wonder if Trump would have acted on his attraction to men if he had grown up in a less repressed era? Check this out:

Paul Baker, the author of Camp!: The Story of the Attitude That Conquered the World, told me over email that when it comes to Trump, making the distinction between camp and campy is important. The latter is the more self-conscious, ironic adoption of camp. But Trump is “the original, pure form—it’s when someone’s behaviour is outrageous, excessive, subversive and unintentionally funny,” he said. “The person doesn’t realise they’re funny or that they’re camp. They’re just being themselves.”

OK, I’d better not quote any more of that article.

This piece is by Julie Sidivy at Politico, dated October 25, 2016: Donald Trump Talks Like a Woman.

In the 2016 presidential contest, there has been one thing that supporters and detractors of Donald Trump have agreed on. The chest-pounding real estate mogul from New York has emerged as the quintessentially masculine candidate. Love him or loathe him, Trump’s campaign has been defined by the ways he has asserted his maleness—mocking his opponents for their low energy, bullying his critics, sneering at perceived weakness, boasting of his sexual prowess, vowing to hit back twice as hard as he’s been hit.

But academic research has picked up something that thousands of hours of campaign punditry has missed completely: Donald Trump talks like a woman. He might be preoccupied with grading women’s looks, penis size and “locker room talk,” but the way he speaks and the actual words he uses make for a distinctly feminine style. In fact, his speaking style is more feminine by far than any other candidate in the 2016 cycle, more feminine than any other presidential candidate since 2004.

More than just a comical curiosity, this fact about Trump’s mode of communication might help explain how a candidate who has been so extensively rebuked for his mean-spirited attacks on immigrants, women, the disabled and even prisoners of war has managed to attract support from millions of voters who adore the way he says openly what they feel. To some, Trump’s ascent is evidence that society still prizes the masculine over the feminine, but what’s happening is more complex, and Trump’s style has qualities that go beyond mere blustery aggression. Research has shown that the more feminine a speaker’s style, the more likable and trustworthy he seems. For Trump, who has been derided for his multiple contradictions and outright lies, that advantage might well have persuaded his supporters to listen to him and not the chorus of media fact checkers.

It’s not just a lazy stereotype that men and women speak differently. In fact, researchers who have sifted through thousands of language samples from men and women have identified clear statistical differences. Some of these differences are exactly what you’d expect—men are more likely to swear and use words that signal aggression, while women are more likely to use tentative language (words like maybe, seems or perhaps) and emotion-laden words (beautiful, despise). But other patterns are far from obvious. For example, contrary to the common stereotype that men can’t resist talking about themselves, women are heavier users than men of the pronoun “I” whereas the reverse is true for the pronoun “we”; women produce more common verbs (are, start, went) and auxiliary verbs (am, don’t, will), while men utter more articles (a, the) and prepositions (to, with, above); women use fewer long words than men when speaking or writing across a broad range of contexts.

Jennifer Jones, a doctoral candidate of political psychology at the University of California at Irvine, has combined these statistics into an index capturing the ratio of “feminine” to “masculine” words, and applied it to the language of 35 political candidates over the past decade. Hillary Clinton’s language falls above the average on this index—more feminine than George W. Bush’s, but less so than Barack Obama’s.

But Donald Trump is a stunning outlier. His linguistic style is startlingly feminine, so much so that the chasm between Trump and the next most feminine speaker, Ben Carson, is about as great as the difference between Carson and the least feminine candidate, Jim Webb. And Trump earns his ranking not just because he talks a lot about himself or avoids big words (both of which are true); according to Jones, he also shows feminine patterns on the more subtle measures, such as his use of prepositions and articles. The key then is not what Trump talks about—making Mexico pay for the wall or bombing the hell out of ISIL—but rather how he says it.

There’s much more at the Politico link.

Here we are in the middle of a war that Trump started, and he seems much more interested in his decorating projects than what is going on in his conflict in the Middle East. Some examples:

Dan Diamond at The Washington Post: Trump fumes at Congress and courts for holding up his ballroom.

President Donald Trump has made little secret that his planned White House ballroom is a top priority, invoking the project more frequently than most other issues. And in recent weeks he has raged at anyone — including a federal judge, a Senate official and a local historian — whose actions threaten to slow construction.

On Monday, the president shared on social media a copy of a legal filing that closely resembled his own words and contended that the weekend’s shooting outside the White House campus proved the need for a ballroom.

Trump at the ballroom construction site.

“Without the construction of this great Project, the President cannot safely conduct the business of the United States,” acting attorney general Todd Blanche and two other senior Justice Department officials lawyers wrote, urging a federal judge to dissolve his order that could soon halt construction. “This is a terrible, tremendously harmful case to the United States of America, and all it stands for!”

The filing also mocked the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has sued to halt the project, claiming that the group had been “defunded by Congress due to a total lack of respect for them.” Trump posted all six pages of the filing on his Truth Social platform.

Trump’s ballroom project has embodied executive power and its limitations.

The president was able to rapidly bulldoze the East Wing last year, clearing space for his planned 90,000-square-foot addition.Trump has remade independent federalcommissions — firing holdovers and installing loyalists, including his executive assistant — that have swiftly approved his project.He’s raised vast sums of money that he says can be put toward the ballroom’s estimated $400 million cost.

But so far,he has been constrained — barely — by the courts and Congress.

And it’s obvious that the ballroom means much more to him than the war or the struggling US economy.

Tiago Ventura at Time: House Democrats to Introduce Bill to Block Trump’s Triumphal Arch Amid Backlash Over ‘Vanity’ Projects.

House Democrats are set to introduce legislation aimed at blocking the construction of President Donald Trump’s planned 250-ft triumphal arch nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

“Trump’s vanity project would waste taxpayer money, brazenly violate existing law, and become yet another vehicle for his corruption,” Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said in a statement Wednesday. “The Administration has also given no consideration to potential harmful effects on the region including impacts on air safety and traffic on major roadways.”’

Trump holds up a model of his Arc de Trump.

Alongside Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada, Beyer plans to introduce what has been tentatively titled the “‘Arlington National Cemetery Viewshed Protection Act” on Friday, just days after the designs were approved by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a panel made up of Trump appointees.

The bill seeks to prohibit the construction of the arch and the use of any federal funds for the project. Additionally, it would prohibit the construction of any triumphal arch exceeding 50-feet on any National Park Service lands within the capital region “except by express authorization of Congress.”

Democrats have argued that the proposed arch, which is set to include a public viewing deck, is an unnecessary financial expenditure, especially given the ongoing affordability crisis impacting many Americans.

“As President Trump strips away the necessary safety nets from Americans who are struggling to afford their basic needs like groceries and healthcare, he builds his unauthorized, grandiose Triumphal Arch,” said Titus. “While destroying historical monuments and artefacts important to our American identity, he is erecting monuments to honor himself.”

Unfortunately, Trump couldn’t care less about the public good. He only cares about building memorials to himself.

Trump dreams up new renovation projects nearly every day. Here are the latest ones we’ve heard about:

Will Weissert and Michelle L Price at AP, via ABC News: Trump plays mayor at Cabinet meeting, showcasing his DC renovations.

He boasted of fixing city fountains and power-washing a local pool — making careful distinctions between sandblasting versus pebble-blasting — and detailing efforts to repair brick walkways in a public park.

But this wasn’t a small-town mayor assuring a few dozen community members at a town hall that municipal improvement efforts would be completed in time for Little League season.

This was President Donald Trump — channeling his decades as a high-profile real estate developer — regaling his assembled Cabinet and a nationally televised audience on Wednesday with the ins and outs of beautification projects around Washington.

“I love construction. It’s very exciting,” Trump said, maintaining that the face-lift he’s helped oversee to the nation’s capital means “D.C. is looking beautiful.”

His aside lasted 10 minutes and was far more comprehensive than anything said about the other major issues discussed during the meeting, including the war in Iran. There were also only passing references to gas prices nationwide that have spiked and fears about a weakening economy that could hurt Trump’s Republican Party in its push to retain control of Congress after November’s midterm elections….

The president also said that, under his watch, construction crews were working to improve 28 fountains, then bragged about a push to renovate the “reflecting lake” or “reflecting pond” — actually the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — which he said had been steam-cleaned, fumigated and coated with “American flag blue” paint.

“Over the years, I built hundreds of pools,” Trump said, recalling his days as a construction mogul in 1970s and ’80s New York. “I always like to build Olympic-sized swimming pools.”

The president noted that, as part of the revamp, cleaning crews had removed “more than 10 dumpsters of garbage.”

More projects described at the link.

Sarah Ewall-Wice at The Daily Beast: Trump Reveals Latest Vanity Project in Unhinged Pool Rant.

President Donald Trump wants to paint the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., blue after slapping blue paint on the Reflecting Pool.

Trump, 79, revealed the latest memorial he wants to get his hands on during a nearly 10-minute rant about renovations he’s been focused on throughout the nation’s capital at the White House while surrounded by members of his Cabinet.

Trump says he wants to paint the fountain of the WWII Memorial as seen from the top of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 2, 2026.

“Now we’re looking at the World War II fountain because that’s also in pretty bad shape,” Trump declared.

He revealed he wanted to “duplicate” the fountain’s bottom with paint in a “slightly different color.”

“Actually, we’ll go with a lighter color, but Doug and I have a lot of fun doing it,” Trump told the room, referring to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

The WWII Memorial includes a series of stone and bronze sculptures surrounding a pool of water on the National Mall just down from the Reflecting Pool.

The president’s comment came after he rambled for several minutes about his administration slapping a fresh coat of paint on the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

Trump called it the “reflecting lake” and said “nobody has ever seen anything like it” while also giving it the wrong dimensions and claiming it was longer than the tallest building in the world, which it is not.

He is insane, utterly insane.

I just heard about this project yesterday. Anna Kramer at Notus: The Trump Administration Is Spending $5 Million to Coat Horse Statues in Gold.

Four massive bronze horses positioned along the roads surrounding the Lincoln Memorial still shine in the sun from their first restoration in the 1970s. But their gold-toned coating is faded and patchy, and their heavy stone bases are cracked and dirty.

The Trump administration wants them glittering with a fresh coat of gold in time for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4. So in mid-April, the National Park Service handed a $5 million contract to a gilding studio in Maryland to repair the statues and cover them with a thick layer of 23.75-karat gold leaf.

It awarded the project without a full competition, according to NPS documents reviewed by NOTUS.

Four bronze horses surrounding the Lincoln Memorial are getting a glow-up for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4. Kainaz Amaria, NOTUS

As Trump hurries to put his stamp on a city he’s long denigrated as crumbling and ugly, his administration has doled out tens of millions of dollars for contracts with short timelines and little oversight.

In total, the Interior Department is spending at least $95 million in taxpayer funds for new D.C. beautification projects, according to a NOTUS review of government spending data. All of the projects identified by NOTUS were initiated between December 2025 and April of this year. About $20 million in contracts, including the gilding of the four horses, have not previously been reported.

“It is within the realm of reason to say: It’s the 250th anniversary that’s coming up, and instead of spending a hundred million dollars we normally spend on the District of Columbia, we want to spend $250 million. That’s perfectly normal,” said one former General Services Administration official, making up the dollar amounts to illustrate their point. “What is not normal is the lack of transparency.”

In mid-April, the National Park Service hired The Gilders’ Studio in Maryland to restore the 80,000-pound statue pairs, known as the Arts of War and Arts of Peace. According to agency documentation, the gilding company is covering the statues in an unusually thick layer of nearly pure gold — heavier and purer than even the “extra-thick” gold the same studio used to refinish the exterior of the Wyoming state capital dome seven years ago.

The $5 million contract includes more work than just the gold leafing, although the gold itself is certain to be a significant part of the cost, with the price of gold essentially doubling over the last several years.

And who is paying for all of Trump’s vanity project? Maxine Joselo and Andrea Fuller at The New York Times: National Park Entrance Fees Are Funding Trump’s D.C. Projects.

The National Park Service is using at least $67 million worth of park entrance fees to help fund President Trump’s beautification projects in Washington, according to a New York Times analysis of federal records.

Nearly $60 million in fees paid by visitors to national parks across the country is funding repairs to nine of the capital’s ornamental fountains, the analysis found. The government is putting another $7 million worth of entrance fees toward the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which costs $13.1 million overall, according to an internal Park Service document reviewed by The Times.

The National Park Service is spending millions in fees paid by visitors to parks across the country, like Yosemite National Park in California, to pay for restoration of nine ornamental fountains in Washington, D.C, AP

The analysis was based on a federal contracting database. The $7 million for the Reflecting Pool has not previously been reported.

Mr. Trump has proposed a host of initiatives to remake Washington in his own style and wants these projects completed by July 4, the 250th anniversary of American independence.

Some conservationists criticized the Trump administration for steering so much money to projects in Washington that appeared to be cosmetic fixes rather than urgent upgrades. National parks outside the capital have long maintenance backlogs, including repairs to deteriorating roads and water systems that threaten visitor safety.

“Our parks and public lands have been underfunded for decades, and there are many genuinely urgent projects in need of funding across the country,” said Aaron Weiss, the executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group. “Instead, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is determined to divert millions of dollars to projects that President Trump can see out his window.”

The spending is legal. Under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004, at least 80 percent of revenue from entrance fees must stay in the park where the fees were collected. But the other 20 percent can be used to improve sites that do not collect fees, such as the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington.

Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, which includes the Park Service, did not respond to specific questions but defended the spending in general.

“The National Park Service has not only been focused on beautifying the district but has also been working on many deferred maintenance projects throughout the country,” Ms. Martin said in an email, adding that “we should all be grateful” for Mr. Trump’s focus on projects in Washington.

I for one am not grateful.

That’s my post for today. I hope it isn’t too weird. I just couldn’t spend time today reading about the war and elections.