“We all know why Todd Blanche was sworn in as the U.S. Attorney General behind closed doors in the Oval Office.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
As we continue Joint Operation Chaos with Israel in the Middle East, it’s becoming apparent that more money and thought are going into Project Glitz up the White House than into taking care of our all-volunteer army. The headlines this week and today have been disgraceful. The latest weird decision by the peerless leader, which put others’ lives in danger as he escaped in a food cart to a different plane, is to spend billions of dollars on the US Navy to restore old technology.
It’s also becoming apparent that almost all the ships at sea have deplorable living conditions. Trump has never had respect for those serving in the military, but this is over the top. It goes beyond calling them all “suckers”. It endangers their lives. Senator Mark Kelly has a lot to say about this today. This report is at The Hill and covered by Finya Swai. “Mark Kelly on aircraft carrier catapult order: ‘Donald Trump knows nothing about this stuff’.” I hate to think that the U.S. Military is one of the things Trump touches that dies.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) blasted President Trump on Thursday for ordering the U.S. Navy to revert to older catapult systems on its aircraft carriers, arguing the change would be costly while questioning Trump’s qualifications to make such a call.
“He’s a marginally failed real estate developer with multiple bankruptcies,” Kelly said in an interview with MS NOW. “He shouldn’t be weighing in on systems, on aircraft carriers.”
Trump earlier Thursday directed the Navy to return to steam-powered catapults and hydraulic systems on its Ford-class aircraft carriers, ditching the newer electromagnetic technology.
The order would require changes to future carriers, including the USS Doris Miller, which is currently under construction and already slated to use the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS).
Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot and NASA astronaut who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned the move would force the Navy to redesign ships that are well into development and are “probably going to cost billions of dollars.”
The Arizona Democrat has said that despite his own experience in hundreds of career takeoffs and landings, his degree in aeronautical and marine engineering and his work as a test pilot, he still would not tell Navy engineers how to design a carrier.
“Donald Trump knows nothing about this stuff,” the senator continued in the interview. “Not in any world would I suggest to the Navy to change the design of some system on a ship at this point.”
He added, “I mean, does the guy know nothing about the way our government is supposed to work and how it’s supposed to be managed?”
As usual, Orange Caligula is always thinking like it’s still the late 20th Century. This is from the AP. “Trump orders the Navy to return to an older system of launching jets off aircraft carriers.” It’s reported by Konstantin Toropin.
President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.
The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.
The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier’s electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.
The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.
Trump’s memo directs the fourth Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, to be the first ship to include the new changes. That will leave the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as the forthcoming USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise, untouched.
However, redesigning an already finalized ship for such a major system change will not be an easy task.
MS NOW interviewed the wife of the sailor who recently jumped ship. “‘The boat is finally getting to me’: Wife of USS Abraham Lincoln sailor who jumped overboard shares texts. The sailor’s wife told MS NOW her husband expressed his mental health concerns to leadership during his long deployment on the aircraft carrier in the Iran war, but was brushed off.” Lindsey Pipia and Priya Sridhar share the lede.
The wife, who was granted anonymity to describe sensitive mental health issues, said she was not contacted by Navy officials about the incident until four days after her husband jumped off the ship on Aug. 3.
“I think that it was handled very poorly because they didn’t inform me and they didn’t want me to know, and they’re just trying to cover this up,” she told MS NOW as she awaits her husband’s arrival back to San Diego after he was medically evacuated off the ship.
She learned about what she described as a suicide attempt after one of her husband’s friends on the ship messaged her that someone from his squadron went overboard, she said. Later, that friend told her it was her husband, according to messages reviewed by MS NOW. Unable to reach him, she reached out to the ship’s ombudsman in hopes of receiving more information.
Her account contradicts what Navy leadership told family members of the sailors and Marines serving on the Lincoln during tense in-person and virtual town hall meetings last week. Navy officials said they could not comment on the medical records of individual service members, to protect patient privacy.
Many family members are concerned about potential exhaustion, low morale and the mental health of those on board, as the aircraft carrier’s deployment at sea appears to have been extended twice during the ongoing Iran war, with no clear end in sight.
MeidasTouch continues to investigate the conditions on the USS Lincoln and has expanded its research to other ships. This is the report by Aaron Parnas. “Not Just the Lincoln: Families Describe Human Waste, No Food, No End in Sight Across Multiple Ships.” Well, that certainly isn’t a good approach to maintaining morale.
One parent whose son recently returned from eleven months aboard the Lincoln, after finishing five years with an F/A-18 fire squadron known as the “Top Hatters,” described conditions that had deteriorated badly by the time he got off the ship.
Early in the deployment, the ship’s water system went down entirely, leaving sailors unable to shower or wash their clothes. When the system was eventually restored, showers had to be tightly rationed. Supplies ran low repeatedly, made worse when resupply ships were unable to bring materials back to the carrier. By the time this sailor left the ship, the parent said, toilets had backed up and overflowed, leaving roughly half a foot of human waste across restroom floors used by around 200 sailors at any given time.
There are many more stories included in the lengthy piece. It’s basically horrifying. Meanwhile, Cadet Bonespurs is threatening Iran again. This is from Reuters. “Hormuz traffic slows further after US threatens more economic pressure on Iran.” The lede is shared by Jonathan Saul, Phil Stewart, and Idrees Ali.
Transit through the Strait of Hormuz appeared to grind to a near standstill on Friday after two more ships were attacked there and the United States said it could maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely.
A senior Iranian source said on Wednesday that there had been no progress in talks to build on a June agreement to end the war. Since the ceasefire renewed in the June deal broke down, Iran has resumed attacks on ships it accuses of trying to transit the strait without its permission.
The United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said two of its vessels were attacked transiting the strait on Thursday evening. The UAE government blamed Iran, which made no immediate comment.
Two vessels passed through the narrow waterway on Friday, according to analysis from ship tracking firm Kpler: a grain ship entering Iranian waters and an empty dry bulk ship going in the other direction.
A separate empty liquefied petroleum products tanker was sailing into the Gulf via the strait, the data showed. There were no crude oil shipments visible on Friday.
Nine vessels passed through the strait on Thursday, up from five on Wednesday but below the average of 12 for August.
I’d say there’s no Nobel Peace Prize for Cadet Bonespurs this year. So, what exactly are Trump’s priorities? Lawrence Hurley at NBC Newshas this report. “Trump asks Supreme Court to allow White House ballroom construction to continue’. The president wants the justices to act before a court ruling that would block construction goes into effect.”
President Donald Trump on Friday asked the Supreme Court to allow him to continue construction of a sprawling ballroom adjacent to the White House.
The emergency application follows an Aug. 7 ruling by an appeals court in Washington upholding a federal judge’s decision that would block abovegroundwork on site while litigation moves forward.
“If allowed to go into effect, the injunction would wrongfully install a single district judge as sole arbiter of what further construction is ‘strictly necessary’ to protect the safety of the President, his family, staff members, and visitors to the White House, including foreign dignitaries, and presidents and prime ministers of other countries,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the filing.
The appeals court decision has yet to go into effect, meaning construction continues while the Supreme Court decides what to do next. The deadline for the justices to act is Aug. 21, with Sauer asking the court to act immediately.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld an injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon.
Leon said that the White House could move forward with below-ground construction of security and medical facilities, but not the ballroom itself.
The administration immediately appealed, and his ruling has not gone into effect.
One key issue in the case is whether the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which brought the underlying lawsuit, has legal standing to sue based on its members being harmed by construction of a building they object to on aesthetic grounds.
Well, the same agenda as ever. He wants to build himself a Wonderland of monuments and buildings in the District. He wants his name on everything. He wants freedom to grift at will. He wants to live forever in the White House. We need to stop all of this, now!
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
We know the answer to this question.
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The cartoons are extra funny today…so enjoy them. Via Cagle:
renowned cartoonists from 19 different countries to reflect on the state of democracy around the globe in 2026. The Charles F. Kettering Foundation is proud to share this collection.kettering.org/the-state-of…
Yesterday, the news broke that Trump used a plane packed with cabinet members and journalists as a decoy in order to protect himself from an Iranian assassination threat that emerged while he was in Turkey for the NATO Summit in July.
He pretended to board Air Force One with everyone else and then was secretly taken off that plane and moved (hiding in a catering vehicle!) to a military plane, along with some other close advisers, leaving everyone on Air Force One in danger of being shot down by the Iranians.
Trump blames the Secret Service for what happened, but he certainly could have arranged things differently. He could even have had the press plane grounded in Turkey until the other two planes landed in Great Britain. After all, he is (supposedly) the President of the United States! Or has Stephen Miller taken over that role now?
The Iranian threat that prompted President Trump’s secret Air Force One swap last month emerged as he was heading into his last day at the NATO summit in Turkey on July 8.
According to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the threat, U.S. intelligence picked up multiple streams of information. They knew that there was a specific threat of a surface-to-air missile against Air Force One, meaning whichever plane was carrying the president, and that someone in the vicinity of the NATO summit had been spotted with a shoulder-fired missile. And the Iranians knew specifically where Mr. Trump was staying in Ankara, including which floor of the building, the officials said….
The information was deemed sufficiently credible to lead Mr. Trump and senior members of his administration to engage in an extraordinary decoy effort to get him out of Turkey. He boarded the older Air Force One in front of the cameras, which he had announced he would be taking “for old time’s sake,” before sneaking off in an airport catering container and taking a military jet out of the country.
On the final day of the NATO summit in Turkey, Mr. Trump walked up the stairway to the plane that was supposed to carry him on the first leg of his journey home. He briefly waved to the cameras and disappeared inside one of the iconic, baby blue 747s that have served as Air Force One for decades. Then he secretly exited the aircraft, hidden inside a catering container.
Mr. Trump was next taken to a military jet for a clandestine flight out of Turkey. The 747, filled with journalists, White House officials, aides and others, took off despite what was deemed a credible threat from Iran against Air Force One….
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was integral to assessing the threat and deciding how to respond. General Caine is no stranger to subterfuge: His last job was Pentagon liaison to the C.I.A., and he helped devise the diversion tactics during Operation Midnight Hammer, when U.S. forces struck Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025.
Air Force One sits on the tarmac in Ankara with an airport catering container adjacent to the body of the aircraft on July 08. (Reuters)
Not everyone who rode on the plane without Mr. Trump was in the dark. Secretary of State Marco Rubio knew about the threat and flew on the old plane after helping to plan the operation to spirit the president out of Turkey, according to two U.S. officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
Other senior officials who traveled on the plane without the president included Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; Steven Cheung, the White House communications director; and Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff; as well as several other White House staff, according to a senior U.S. official. It was not clear whether they all knew about the threat.
Whether or not the passengers on the plane that Mr. Trump left behind knew about the threat, they were exposed to risks that the Secret Service deemed too great for the president to face.
Trump claims he had nothing to do with these decisions.
On Tuesday evening, in his first public comments about the secret evacuation, Mr. Trump said the decision was not his.
“It’s really just up to Secret Service,” he told reporters after returning from Ohio. “I just follow what they like to do. So I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go in a different flight, a different plane for safety.”
Is he the President or not? Since when does the President of the United States take orders from the Secret Service? They advised him of the danger, and he could have insisted on different ways of handling the situation.
The article is very detailed. You can read the whole thing using the gift link.
As President Donald Trump secretly left an Air Force One jet on a catering truck last month in response to a potential Iranian assassination threat in Turkey, he was accompanied by some of his most loyal and longest-serving aides but no Cabinet officials.
Other passengers on the truck included Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant; and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, according to a U.S. official familiar with the operation and corroborating material reviewed by The Washington Post.The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
A catering truck is parked at Air Force One on the tarmac at the Ankara international airport as the motorcade carrying President Donald Trump arrives in July. (Alex BrandonAP)
A few lower-profile aides also were present, but the group did not include Secretary of State Marco Rubio or other officials at the highest level of the government, according to the official and the material. Together, those aboard the catering truck moved under concealment from the legacy Air Force One aircraft to a smaller Air Force C-32A before flying to Britain separately from the White House press corps and senior officials.
The account adds a new level of understanding to a July 8 operation that was first reported by The Post on Monday and has triggered calls from congressional Democrats for an immediate briefing. White House officials withheld the secret move from journalists traveling with the president that day and for more than a month afterward.
Among those on the smaller jet was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who boarded the C-32A using external stairs in a manner that made him look like the senior-most official on the flight, The Post reported Monday.
Scavino, Harp and Nauta were among an inner circle of supporters who worked for Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida during the four years between his presidencies, after many other officials who served in the first Trump White House distanced themselves following his two impeachments and multiple criminal investigations.
Other senior administration officials, military personnel, Secret Service agents and journalists remained on the legacy Air Force One plane, which had been deemed too risky for the president’s travel.
Natalie Harp, the “human printer,” and the woman who left love notes in Trump’s private rooms, according the the book Regime Change, by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, was seen as more deserving of protection than Trump’s cabinet and closest political advisers!
Donald Trump made sure he brought his favorite White House aide with him when he escaped from Air Force One to travel in a decoy jet via a catering truck.
Natalie Harp, 35, is never far from the 80-year-old president, and it has emerged that the young blonde aide was among a select group of Trump’s inner circle he took with him as he fled a NATO summit on a military flight because of a credible Iranian assassination threat.
Natalie Harp
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, also joined Trump inside the catering truck to move to the decoy plane, The Washington Post reported.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the Air Force 32-A via its staircase “in a manner that made him look like the senior-most official aboard the flight,” the Post reported.
Other top officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, top White House aide Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, remained on Air Force One after Trump was made aware of the potential Iranian assassination threat.
The threat to Air Force One was seen as so dire that they sneaked President Trump off the jet in a catering container to keep him safe. But the same dire threat did not stop them from then sending Air Force One into the skies anyway with a planeful of senior officials, government employees, reporters and military personnel serving as decoys, some unwittingly.
If the Iranians were trying to shoot down the presidential plane last month, as U.S. officials concluded at the time, then the subterfuge in Ankara, Turkey, that protected the president also may have made targets of dozens of others who flew aboard the jet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the senior aides Stephen Miller and Steven Cheung.
Diagram of the plane swap
The government has on rare occasions engaged in sleight of hand to safeguard presidents from possible jeopardy, particularly for journeys to hazardous locations, such as when George W. Bush or Barack Obama flew to Iraq during days of war or when Bill Clinton made a brief visit to Pakistan with its history of terrorism. The Trump team’s ruse in Ankara, however, stands out not only for its misdirection but also for the way it shifted the evident peril to others and was kept secret long after Mr. Trump was out of harm’s way.
“They just didn’t seem to give a second thought to anybody but the president and the few people who were with him,” said Joe Lockhart, who served as White House press secretary to Mr. Clinton during his 2000 trip to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. “We went out of our way to make sure the maximum number of people, especially civilians, were protected and not human shields. They didn’t even think about it. And to me, that’s the big difference.”
But other veterans of risky White House trips said there were times that extreme measures were justified to protect the president. Joseph W. Hagin, who as a top adviser to Mr. Bush helped organize his war zone trips and later served as Mr. Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff in his first term, said he would not second-guess the decision in Ankara.
“I understand there is concern for those flying on what was assumed to be the primary aircraft,” Mr. Hagin said, “but when you go to work at the White House or travel with the president, you are accepting a not-insignificant degree of risk. Telling everyone what’s up in an operation like this would have obviously jeopardized the president’s safety.”
When Mr. Bush or Mr. Obama brought staff members and reporters with them to war zones, Mr. Hagin added, those were dangerous moments, too. “This was no different than the trips to Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “You add up all the risks and figure out the tactics that give you the safest option, regardless of whose toes get stepped on or feelings get hurt.”
The government officials and reporters who traveled with presidents to war zones, of course, knew they were doing so, while those left on Air Force One in Ankara last month were not told of the increased threat. Journalists traveling in the back of the plane were instructed while still on the ground to keep their window shades closed during the July 8 flight from Ankara to Britain, where Mr. Trump landed secretly in another military plane. The president was then sneaked back onto Air Force One so that he could disembark in front of cameras as if he had been onboard all along.
Read more using the gift article, if you’re interested.
When President Bill Clinton deplaned in Islamabad, Pakistan, the sleight of hand became clear.
A decoy jet with all of the markings of Air Force One touched down in view of the news media, and a Secret Service agent resembling the president emerged. Then, an unmarked plane landed, and the real president disembarked.
It was March 2000, and Susan Page, a White House reporter covering the trip for USA Today, was one of a small group of people who knew about the ruse.
President Bill Clinton disembarks from an unmarked jet in Islamabad, Pakistan, in March 2000. Stephen Jaffe AFP,Getty Images
Before the India-to-Pakistan flight, White House officials called Page, then the White House Correspondents’ Association president, and summoned her for an off-the-record conversation. There, White House press and security officials explained the operation, informing her of the president’s location and safety measures in place for journalists on the trip, Page said in messages with The Washington Post.
“They told me about the extraordinary security procedures being taken because of the dangers in flying there, including use of the decoy plane,” she said. “Of course, the dangers threatened the journalists covering the trip as well as President Clinton.”
Page’s briefing, which has not been previously reported, meant at least one journalist in the traveling press corps knew the president would not be aboard Air Force One.
More than 25 years later, the White House faced a similar security dilemma — but handled the press very differently.
Historian Garrett Graff wrote about this episode today. His article is too long to excerpt well, but if you want more on this topic, I recommend reading what he has to say: The Five Scandals Within the “Air Force One” Scandal. Here’s the introduction:
I sometimes believe that the Trump administration’s parade of horribles has left me unable to be surprised any more, but I gasped Monday evening at news that President Trump had been secretly snuck out of the NATO summit in Turkey last month due to an Iranian threat.
That departure in early July had generated a lot of speculation and coverage at the time because something weird was clearly going on — President Trump had, with much fanfare, arrived in Turkey aboard his newly painted presidential jet, gifted by Qatar, and then, with much less explanation, departed Turkey aboard one of the older blue-and-white 747s that have long served as Air Force One. There had been vague mentions of a possible threat, and how the new Qatari-gifted plane lacked some of the defensive measures of the longstanding presidential plane, which in turn led to a Justice Department leak investigation of the five New York Times reporters who broke that story.
Now, though, the Washington Post has added some fascinating and disturbing new wrinkles: He wasn’t aboard the blue-and-white plane at all when it departed Ankara.
I’ve written extensively about presidential travel, security, and continuity of government over the years — I wrote the literal book on continuity of government, in fact — and in the 24 hours or so since the Washington Post broke the story, have given interviews to outlets as varied as the Post, the Associated Press, and the BBC.
I want to try to break down why, specifically, this decoy Air Force One is so troubling. To me, the secret flight out of Turkey represents a Russian nesting doll of scandal, one that exposes at least five levels of scandal, ranging from foreign influence to corruption to national security compromises to inappropriate geopolitical gambles.
Yes, there is other news, but I think the story is important and deserves the amount of attention that is being paid to it. Of course, we already knew that Trump doesn’t give a shit about the press or their well-being, but apparently, he doesn’t care about most of his cabinet members either. When it comes right down to it, he chooses to save Dan Scavino, his former golf caddy, Walt Nauta, his former body man, and Natalie Harp, the “human printer.” (and more?), and Whiskey Pete Hegseth.
Yes, there is other news. Here are some links to to more interesting stories:
I'm a polio survivor. NO sadistic sociopathic malignant narcissistic sexual assaulter & accused pedophile or his roadkill eating, toilet cocaine sniffing, prior heroin addict, brain worm damaged jester should ever have control of anyone's health. We should be protected from damaged men like these.
I can’t believe this needs to be said, but please don’t take vaccine recommendations from Donald Trump or RFK Jr. Work with your pediatrician.This is so dangerous and will not result in reduced cases of autism.
Important: Trump’s executive order is NOT legislation. Though the executive order promotes more misinformation about vaccines, nothing has changed about the availability of childhood vaccines. For evidence-based guidance, please follow and share American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations.
So Trump used a bunch of journalists and even some of his own staff as human decoys to possibly get murdered in mid-air so he could live on and make more money
Joe Biden took an hours-long secret train ride into war-torn Ukraine, and Trump got hustled away in a catering truck to get out of a friendly nation. OK.
Trump secretly changed planes using a catering container before flying out of Turkey last month due to an assassination threat from Iran, the Washington Post reports.A smaller C-32A aircraft flew Trump to Britain, report saysu.afp.com/SHd4
If Trump thinks the story is bad now… imagine if Air Force One had been somehow destroyed with all souls aboard, and as the world was absorbing this, he then emerged unscathed from a C-32A
h/t @svdate.bsky.social on the other site: “In other words everyone aboard the real 747 AF1 — crew, guests, press pool — was considered expendable.”what a story
NEW: Internal National Park Service records obtained by MeidasTouch’s Scott MacFarlane reveal more than $400 MILLION has been steered toward Trump’s White House and D.C. projects, while funding for major national parks is being slashed.
Nine people have been infected and five have died this year after coming into contact with warm seawater, where the bacteria naturally live, according to Louisiana health officials.
That’s not self-awareness…he is just as clueless as always.
Some terribly sad news out of California:
I personally have been following Jackie for years. She has been an inspiration for me and countless others around the world. That she has died is heartbreaking. Please take a look at these videos. They are Instagram stories so you may have to reload the page to see them.
“I’ve been called a dumb motherf*ker by MAGA over 6,000 times in the last 24 hours. Every comment and message spelled it with a b. I think President Trump lied to us. Yesterday’s cartoon has over 20,000 replies if you think I’m exaggerating.” John Buss, @repeat1968 (dkat: this is the cartoon)
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
As we close in on the midterms, the country’s political landscape couldn’t be crazier if it tried. You would think that a “mature” democracy could rise to discourse above name-calling and jingoism. If you can’t run on the progress you’ve made, then I guess that’s all that’s left to you. You also need a lot of jazz hands to cover up what’s really going on. The two top headlines for me today should be beyond belief, but remember how so much of this has managed to push the Iran/Israeli/USA War off the front pages.
This first article is from The Guardian, which has been my go-to newspaper since high school. “Greenland issues ‘strong warning’ as Trump-linked oil firm prepares to drill. Island’s government says no approval given after Greenland Energy brings kit ashore for exploratory drilling.”
An American oil company connected to Donald Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities.
As the US president renews his threats to claim the vast Arctic territory, materials to prepare for drilling were brought ashore in recent days on Greenland’s eastern coast.
That has prompted Greenland’s government to issue a “strong warning” that no approval had been granted to land the kit. “All future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority – before they are carried out,” the government said in a statement.
Two days later, Trump made his latest menacing post on Truth Social, showing himself looming over a Greenlandic village.
Executives of Greenland Energy, a Texas company set up last year, have claimed that $1tn of crude may lie beneath the Jameson Land region. They announced plans to spend $60m drilling two wells to find out.
Although Greenland stopped issuing new oil licences in 2021 on environmental grounds, a UK company called 80 Mile had secured exploration rights in Jameson Land. Greenland Energy’s corporate filings say it will take a majority stake in the project in exchange for funding the exploration, though it still needs government permission to proceed.
Greenland Energy has retained Phil McGraw, better known as Dr Phil, a prominent rightwing former chatshow host who served on Trump’s religious freedom commission, to make a documentary series that will “capture the mission of these modern-day wildcatters”.
It has also appointed as a director a US navy veteran who is working on Golden Dome, the missile defence plan for which Trump says controlling Greenland is “vital”.
Larry Swets, Greenland Energy’s chair and a big shareholder, appears to enjoy access to Trump’s circle. He has said the oil project is “not related to American annexation”.
After a company representative falsely claimed at a Jameson Land community meeting in June that it had permission to land drilling equipment, Swets said: “Our enthusiasm for the project led us to communicate in a way that created confusion.”
But the next month, local people in the sparsely populated region noticed a tug pulling a barge shorewards and unloading a dozen containers. “The goal was to get the equipment onshore at Nunap Qeqqa [Jameson Land] in connection with planned oil exploration drilling,” the Greenland government’s statement said.
The Danish investigative outlet Danwatch quoted the head of the shipping company as confirming the delivery was for Greenland Energy.
Greenland Energy has declined to respond to questions from the Guardian. A letter it sent to shareholders on Thursday said: “Recent high-level meetings between project leadership and Greenlandic regulatory and oversight authorities have been constructive, and we continue to be encouraged by the progress being made toward the remaining approvals required for drilling.” It said that after those discussions, just one well would be drilled to begin with.
There’s a lot more at the link if you’re interested. As I mentioned before, the campaign mood this year is peak mud slinging. This Rex Hupke Op-Ed at USA Today sums it up well. We’re not only into colonialism these days, but we’re also seeing the Red Scare tactics. I can’t imagine this appealing to anyone under 80, but who knows these days? “Democratic extremism? GOP spent a decade riding extremism to power. Republicans have spent the past decade worshiping the most extreme president in our nation’s history, a man with an almost impossibly long history of loathsome behavior and malicious dishonesty.”
Between now and the midterm elections, and probably well beyond that, you’ll hear endless chatter about “Democratic extremism,” and it will be Hilarious with a capital “H,” because it will all come from the mouths of Republicans.
“The Democrats want to destroy America!” they’ll holler.
“The Democrats are all socialists!” they’ll rail, unable to define socialism if their lives depended on it.
Oh my, the horror! Someone pull up my fainting chair, I seem to have caught the vapors!
Let’s put this nonsensical rhetoric to bed right now. Republicans have spent the past decade worshiping the most extreme president in our nation’s history, a man with an almost impossibly long history of loathsome behavior and malicious dishonesty. While doing so, they have embraced some of the most extreme political views and policies imaginable, shattering political norms and leveraging hate and division to gain power.
Reelecting Donald Trump was about as extreme as it gets
There’s plenty more where that comes from at the link. Scott McFarland, writing at his SubStack Scott MacFarlane Reports, has the headline: “Trump Turns National Parks into Piggybank, Cutbacks and Setbacks Hammer America’s National Parks in the Shadow of Trump’s Vanity Projects.”
There are enormous canyons.
Geysers.
Majestic cliffs.
Waterfalls and wildlife.
Rainforests and reindeer.
But in America’s national parks under President Trump, the most dramatic sight might be the rapid shifting of taxpayer and donor money.
Internal park service records obtained by Scott MacFarlane Reports reveal a controversial and overwhelming re-routing of money to Trump vanity projects.
The topline dollar figures are astounding, according to multiple sources inside the US Department of Interior, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to news media.
The records show more than $323 million have been made available for upgrades and projects on the White House grounds this year.
That’s a dramatic, nearly 5000 percent increase from the $7.5 million spent on White House grounds projects in 2024.
On the National Mall in Washington, nearly $100 million was made available for projects this year. That’s more than ten times larger than the $9 million provided for the Mall in 2024.
The internal park service records show declines in the money allotted to – or projected for use at – dozens of other major U.S. parks this year. There were multi-million dollar reductions in funds for Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks, which are some of the flagship attractions of America’s National Park Service.
“The National Park Service is being used as a piggy bank for Trump’s vanity projects,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which advocates on behalf of current and former parks employees. Whitehouse said, “The National Parks Service and the Department of Interior are giving Trump all of the money that he wants.”
The shifting of funds slows – or delays – a range of projects big and small at National Park facilities, while expediting work on Trump’s pet projects in Washington, D.C.
“That’s costing the American people,” Whitehouse said, “That’s hurting the rest of our country.”
There’s so much bad policy and actions coming from Orange Caligula’s orders and policies that the press doesn’t appear to be able to keep up with it. I just recently read an article on the delegalization. This is a racist, xenophobic move by the Trump administration to remove immigrants here legally from the country. This is from Mother Jones. It’s from last fall, but the article I tried to read about the current situation with Haitians was behind a paywall at The New Yorker. I was unaware of what was going on. Again, we need a lot more people reporting on these pogroms. This is the headline from Isabela Dias’ reporting. “Trump Is Making Thousands of Rule-Abiding Immigrants Undocumented. Inside the largest delegalization campaign in modern US history.”
Nathaly Maestre has tried to follow her doctors’ instructions to the letter. Her obstetrician and perinatologist were clear: At 40, eight months into a high-risk pregnancy, and after a miscarriage last year, she has to avoid unnecessary stress.
But that has become impossible. In May, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip temporary legal protection from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the United States. Overnight, Maestre and her partner, Luis Guillermo, found themselves without status—despite following all the rules.
“You try not to think so much about what’s happening outside,” Maestre told me in Spanish, her voice breaking. But it is hard “with all these sudden, abrupt changes.”
Fleeing persecution from pro-government militias in Venezuela, Maestre and Luis Guillermo came to the United States on tourist visas in September 2021 and later applied for asylum. In the fall of 2023, another option became available: Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. This stopgap shield from deportation for people who cannot safely return to their countries of origin because of armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other extraordinary circumstances has protected roughly 600,000 Venezuelans—until now.
President Donald Trump’s termination of TPS for Venezuelans is part of the largest delegalization campaign in modern US history. “A single act of stripping immigration status in one fell swoop,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney with the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy representing TPS holders in a lawsuit against the government. The plan, he added, is central to the administration’s mass deportation goals as it scrambles to scale up US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests to an improbable 3,000 a day. “This is a community that has recently provided information to the government about their whereabouts, rendering them all vulnerable to deportation, [which] gives the government the opportunity to go after a lot of them—very quickly.”
Adelys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan-American Caucus, has received thousands of messages from Venezuelans who have lost status under Trump, wondering what to do. Some have had panic attacks. Many lack travel documents because they can’t simply go to a nearby Venezuelan consulate and renew an expired passport—all services have been paused since 2023. “You have a whole community feeling hunted,” she said, “feeling persecuted all over again.”
Again, please read more at the link. And I hate to be the bearer of Fox News, but this is today’s headline on that subject. “US State Department has yanked more than 175k visas under Trump administration so far. ‘The majority of these visas were revoked due to law enforcement encounters for a range of criminal activity… ‘ the department noted.” Yeah, right, I believe that. I’m not actually going to print any of the story or show the film, because it’s the usual bugaboo stereotype. I’m certain a more reasonable analysis of the data will come later from other sources. Or at least I hope so.
Well, that’s all I can stand to talk about today.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
As usual, Orange Caligula is always thinking like it’s still the late 20th Century. This is from the AP. “Trump orders the Navy to return to an older system of launching jets off aircraft carriers.” It’s reported by Konstantin Toropin.
There are many more stories included in the lengthy piece. It’s basically horrifying. Meanwhile, Cadet Bonespurs is threatening Iran again. This is from Reuters. “Hormuz traffic slows further after US threatens more economic pressure on Iran.” The lede is shared by Jonathan Saul, Phil Stewart, and Idrees Ali.
y at NBC News has this report. “Trump asks Supreme Court to allow White House ballroom construction to continue’. The president wants the justices to act before a court ruling that would block construction goes into effect.”
There’s a lot more at the link if you’re interested. As I mentioned before, the campaign mood this year is peak mud slinging. This Rex Hupke Op-Ed at USA Today sums it up well. We’re not only into colonialism these days, but we’re also seeing the Red Scare tactics. I can’t imagine this appealing to anyone under 80, but who knows these days? “Democratic extremism? GOP spent a decade riding extremism to power. Republicans have spent the past decade worshiping the most extreme president in our nation’s history, a man with an almost impossibly long history of loathsome behavior and malicious dishonesty.”
There’s plenty more where that comes from at the link. Scott McFarland, writing at his SubStack Scott MacFarlane Reports, has the headline: “Trump Turns National Parks into Piggybank, Cutbacks and Setbacks Hammer America’s National Parks in the Shadow of Trump’s Vanity Projects.”
There’s so much bad policy and actions coming from Orange Caligula’s orders and policies that the press doesn’t appear to be able to keep up with it. I just recently read an article on the delegalization. This is a racist, xenophobic move by the Trump administration to remove immigrants here legally from the country. This is from Mother Jones. It’s from last fall, but the article I tried to read about the current situation with Haitians was behind a paywall at The New Yorker. I was unaware of what was going on. Again, we need a lot more people reporting on these pogroms. This is the headline from Isabela Dias’ reporting. “Trump Is Making Thousands of Rule-Abiding Immigrants Undocumented. Inside the largest delegalization campaign in modern US history.”
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