In her new letter, Warren observes that failure on the SEC’s part to investigate the FT allegations would undermine “the confidence investors around the world place on the integrity of our markets.” Granted, Hegseth’s broker was not able, the FT reported, to complete the offending insider trade. But securities law, Warren points out, doesn’t just ban securities fraud; it also bans attempted securities fraud. The relevant language is “whoever knowingly executes, or attempts to execute” (italics mine) the fraud in question.
If the FT story is true (and I think probably it is), why would Hegseth do anything so very stupid? If I’m right that the FT’s three sources were all at BlackRock, it shouldn’t be hard for a determined investigator to locate them. Also, if Hegseth’s request was flagged internally at BlackRock, that probably means there’s a paper trail just waiting for some government official to subpoena. Even if Hegseth defied Garcia and tossed all communications with his broker into a bonfire, he’d still be screwed. This is not a difficult investigation. So, I ask again: How could Hegseth be so stupid?
Finally Friday Reads: War! Good God Y’all!
Posted: July 31, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, American Cold Civil War, Foreign Affairs, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, American Cold Civil War, Senate Hearings, Todd Blanche, US Israel Iran War, War Pigs 2 Comments
“Gotta get something out of the billions of dollars spent on the Three Day Special Military Operation!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The chaos continues on nearly all fronts of both federal domestic and foreign policy. On the state level, we see the fight to disenfranchise or re-enfranchise voters unlikely to support Republicans. I believe we’re in a cold civil war. There have been academic arguments about its existence for quite some time, with arguments on both sides of the political spectrum. Discussions today harken back to the idea put forth by Martin Luther King in 1967 about “Two Americas.” I also believe that the Trump administration purposefully pits us against each other as a strategy to distract from the damage coming from just about everything horrible it’s done. That includes the very hot war involving Israel and Iran.
I’ll give you a few suggested reads here on the idea of an American Cold Civil War from both sides of the political spectrum. This first article comes from a 2024 article at The American Prospect written by David Dayen. D-Day considers himself a progressive. “The Cold Civil War. States have always diverged on policies, but it’s grown more intense. And for red states, that’s not enough.” This article reflects on the COVID-19 period. It’s based on comparing red- and blue-state policies.
Over the last 30 years, a state government’s partisan orientation is the overwhelming predictor of the policies it will adopt.
Policy extremism has eroded quality of life in America. As much as half of the gap between the states in life expectancy is due to geographic variation. A 2023 study found that more liberal policies on tobacco, labor, immigration, civil rights, and the environment correspond to a one-year increase in how long a state’s residents live. (In this special issue, Kalena Thomhave takes a closer look at Oklahoma and Connecticut, which had the same life expectancy in 1959 and a 4.7-year spread as of 2019.)
Of the ten states with the highest rates of uninsured residents, seven are controlled fully by Republicans. Of the ten with the fewest uninsured, seven are controlled fully by Democrats. The ten worst health systems in the country, according to the Commonwealth Fund, are all in red states. Eight of the ten states with the most COVID-19 deaths are Republican-led; so are ten of the 12 states with the highest rates of smoking-related cancer deaths. Firearm deaths are lower in blue states and higher in red states. Even obesity levels show this correlation: Ten of the 12 states with the highest percentage of obese residents have Republican trifectas.
Where you live, in short, can determine how long you live.
This wide gulf between healthy and ailing America is bad enough. But red states in particular want their policy preferences to be reflected across the nation, and have engaged in numerous aggressive tactics to make that a reality.
I highly recommend you read D-Day and also this one from the perspective of a Right-Wing mover and shaker in the political and academic arena, Charles R. Kesler. His vitae includes all the groups that have been funding and guiding the Republican party since Reagan’s time. This is an interesting article from 2018, when the right was obsessed with Obama. There are many operational definitions in there, as well as insights into the other end of the spectrum. It was published in Imprimus. You’ll recognize the practical application of both philosophies in Dayen’s piece. This next read shows the Ivy Tower view approach that gets hammered into political decisions, which include important federal appointments.
In the Claremont Review of Books, we have described our current political scene as a cold civil war. A cold civil war is better than a hot civil war, but it is not a good situation for a country to be in. Underlying our cold civil war is the fact that America is torn increasingly between two rival constitutions, two cultures, two ways of life.
Political scientists sometimes distinguish between normal politics and regime politics. Normal politics takes place within a political and constitutional order and concerns means, not ends. In other words, the ends or principles are agreed upon; debate is simply over means. By contrast, regime politics is about who rules and for what ends or principles. It questions the nature of the political system itself. Who has rights? Who gets to vote? What do we honor or revere together as a people? I fear America may be leaving the world of normal politics and entering the dangerous world of regime politics—a politics in which our political loyalties diverge more and more, as they did in the 1850s, between two contrary visions of the country.
One vision is based on the original Constitution as amended. This is the Constitution grounded in the natural rights of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution written in 1787 and ratified in 1788. It has been transmitted to us with significant Amendments—some improvements and some not—but it is recognizable still as the original Constitution. To simplify matters we may call this “the conservative Constitution”—with the caveat that conservatives have never agreed perfectly on its meaning and that many non-conservatives remain loyal to it.
The other vision is based on what Progressives and liberals, for 100 years now, have called “the living Constitution.” This term implies that the original Constitution is dead—or at least on life support—and that in order to remain relevant to our national life, the original Constitution must be infused with new meaning and new ends and therefore with new duties, rights, and powers. To cite an important example, new administrative agencies must be created to circumvent the structural limitations that the original Constitution imposed on government.
As you can see, this is based on the idea of “originalism”. However, these arguments seem trite today when you look at what’s happening in the states and on the streets. The arguments are also resplendent in state and federal courts and have been since the Reagan years. The craziness with Fauci witch trials is probably the most obvious bit of news that shows how rabid those discussions/arguments have become since Trump came onto the political scene. The American Cold Civil War has amped up in ways that impact everything these days. Mostly because Orange Caligula has a strong need for public attention and worship, but also because he has so much baggage that he needs to hide behind distractions.
Today’s headlines on the mess in the Middle East were created by Trump and Netanyahu, both with their own delusions of greatness. The other can be seen in Trump’s battles to appoint weak and compliant stooges to important offices. All of this creates more battles in the American Cold Civil War. We’re seeing such weirdness today with the embattled DOJ and the appointment of Trump’s personal lawyer, Todd Blanche. Oh, where do we start with this one? Politico‘s Chris Marquette and Jordain Carney share the lede on this headline. “Faced with Blanche dilemma, Trump chooses revenge. The president’s willingness to sacrifice his attorney general’s confirmation shows how deep his contempt for his enemies goes.”
President Donald Trump has a choice: allow changes to a controversial court settlement and secure the confirmation of his former personal lawyer as attorney general, or thumb his nose at a pair of his few remaining Republican critics in Congress.
True to form, he is giving no ground.
Trump’s decision Thursday to signal he would rather pull the nomination of Todd Blanche, his pick to lead the Justice Department, rather than give in to the demands of Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis demonstrated that the president’s desire to thwart his enemies does not end with the demise of their political careers.
Both Republican senators will leave Congress at the end of the year after running afoul of Trump, and both have found a degree of independence since becoming untethered from needing to keep in his good graces.
But their efforts to exert leverage and seek to curtail a controversial settlement agreement reached in May between Trump and the IRS only prompted the president to double down. He announced in a Truth Social post that Blanche would remain as acting attorney general “in any event” and that he would potentially withdraw and resubmit the nomination “after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office” in January. He went on to needle Cornyn again Friday.
Tillis, who announced he would not seek reelection last year after clashing with Trump over Medicaid cuts in his home state of North Carolina, betrayed little surprise when asked about Trump’s reticence to bargain over the IRS settlement.
“Look up the definition of recalcitrant,” he said.
Cornyn, who lost his bid for renomination to a fifth term representing Texas in May after Trump endorsed a scandal-prone opponent, brushed off the accusation that he was simply seeking revenge by blocking Blanche.
He called Trump’s claim “a convenient excuse, but it’s certainly not true.” And he warned the president that trying to wait him out would be a “gamble.”
“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” he said.
Orange Caligula strongly believes in his side and only his side. This is from Axios. Hans Nichols and,
Stef W. Kight reported this story. “Inside Trump’s Senate playbook”.
President Trump has three go-to moves for GOP senators who frustrate him: persuade them when he can, ignore them when he must and bully them at will.
Why it matters: The approach doesn’t always produce results. But it almost always provides drama.
Persuade: Trump dispatched two top deputies to the Senate GOP lunch on Wednesday to make the case, in person, for a third reconciliation bill with elements of the SAVE Act.
- Then he sent in the big guns. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles huddled with the Senate GOP leaders shortly after their lunch.
- When Trump faced a Senate rebuke over the Iran conflict last month, the White House aggressively lobbied wavering Republicans to flip their votes.
Ignore: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche doesn’t need Senate confirmation to do the job, Trump declared on Truth Social on Thursday.
- He can serve as acting attorney general indefinitely. Problem solved.
Bully: Trump began the week by demanding that Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) scrap the filibuster and pass the SAVE Act.
- “Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!” Trump wrote.
What we’re watching: Bullying appeared to be Trump’s preferred tactic this week. By Wednesday, he was openly questioning whether Thune should remain majority leader.
-
Thune’s best defense was to downplay his own powers.
-
“He thinks I can wave the magic wand,” Thune told Politico. “I wish it were that easy.”
-
Trump’s penchant for bullying has emboldened some senators to stand their ground — such as John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who have blocked Blanche’s nomination. Both will be out of the Senate in January.
This take is from CNN’s Kit Maher. “Trump further muddies Blanche negotiations, saying he wishes ‘anti-weaponization’ fund weren’t dead.”
President Donald Trump is further complicating negotiations as White House and Justice Department officials try to unstick Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, saying Friday that a controversial fund behind the holdup is “dead” but that “I wish it weren’t.”
Key GOP senators — John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina— have indicated they’ll withhold their needed votes to confirm Blanche until they get written assurances that the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund won’t be resurrected, along with certain commitments about tax investigations.
Trump defended the fund at length during a Cabinet meeting Friday, echoing comments posted on Truth Social earlier that day in which he called for Blanche to “be immediately approved” as his permanent pick for for the role. Just a day earlier, the president had said he wouldn’t object to “temporarily withdrawing” Blanche’s nomination until Tillis and Cornyn leave Congress early next year.
Tillis responded on X Friday morning that Trump’s comments were reaffirming why he and Cornyn needed the assurances in writing.
“The President made it clear today that the so-called Anti Weaponization Fund is still alive, which is exactly why we are attempting to formally end it,” Tillis wrote.
Blanche has already said the controversial fund is “dead” and the Justice Department told courts the program was abandoned, but officials have previously declined to put the commitment in writing. The fund, originally established by a settlement agreement between the Internal Revenue Service and Trump’s personal lawyers, would have offered taxpayer money to those who claimed they were victims of weaponization by the federal government — including those involved with the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot.
Cornyn has been adamant that he also wants Blanche to clarify an addendum to that agreement that offers the president and members of his family tax immunity. The senator wants Blanche to explicitly acknowledge that it only applies to past tax investigations against the president and those listed in the lawsuit that was settled.
The demands have left Blanche in a difficult place since putting limits on the tax addendum could anger the president.
Are we having fun yet? The meeting a few days ago between Trump and Netanyahu was interesting to say the least. Did it resolve anything? This is the take from The Independent. This is what happens when two narcissists/sociopaths try to work together. “Trump claims Board of Peace has reached ‘historic’ Gaza deal to disarm Hamas and withdraw Israeli troops. The deal would see Hamas completely disarm itself and hand political and security control in Gaza over to international troops, a new Palestinian police force and a transitional government body of nonpartisan experts.” This analysis is provided by Josh Marcus. Peace in the Middle East. Right. Where have I heard that before?
The parties in the Israel-Hamas war have agreed to a “historic” framework paving the way to rebuild Gaza and remake its government, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday.
The deal includes the “COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Hamas communicated via mediators that it has agreed to the terms of the multi-step road map, U.S. and Board of Peace officials told The Independent.
The deal will eventually see the group hand security and political control to an international stabilization force of troops, a newly trained Palestinian police force and a transitional group of technocratic experts overseeing basic services, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the officials said.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, will pull back its troops from Gaza in phases, according to President Trump.
“One year ago there was a violent raging war, humanitarian crisis and hostages kept in brutal captivity,” he wrote in his post outlining the alleged agreement. “We have made historic progress and there is still much work to do.”
Each phase of the deal would be verified by a committee that certifies compliance on all sides before additional changes would take place, the U.S. officials said.
The disarmament process would include the handover of personal weapons, the decommissioning of heavy military hardware in Gaza and the disclosure and destruction of hidden Hamas tunnels, the officials added.
And, I have a bridge right by me over the Mississippi River that I’d like to sell you. Or would you prefer one in Brooklyn?
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: SAVE Shennanigans
Posted: July 27, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, 2026 FIFA, 2026 SCOTUS Decisions, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Deadly US Boat Strikes, Greedy Corporate Amazon and Walmart, It's too darn hot!, SAVE Act, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senator John Kennedy 7 Comments
“It’s incredible watching Donald The Prophet profiting.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The headlines today are full of failed policies. Orange Caligula hasn’t quite found a distraction to take the voters’ minds off everything he’s done this term. We have a failed war and an economy choked by inflation. His main focus is on rigging the election and disenfranchising minority voters and women. He’s been after Senator John Thune to get his SAVE Act passed. However, the more people know about it, the less they like it. So, it’s time to start lighting up your Congressional Critters’ phones.
This is the headline from Politico‘s Jordain Carney. “Trump tells Thune to keep Senate in session to pass SAVE America Act. The president also again urged the Senate GOP leader to nix the filibuster.” Republicans are always keen on the filibuster until it’s used against them.
President Donald Trump ramped up pressure Monday on Majority Leader John Thune, telling him to keep the Senate in session until a GOP election bill passes.
“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday.
Democrats, he added, will nix the filibuster themselves when they regain power “and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership. Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!”
Trump’s Truth Social post comes after he urged supporters last week to call Thune about the SAVE America Act, then said Friday that he wanted Senate Republicans to adopt a blueprint for a $95 billion party-line spending bill, which would include some election-related funding, before they leave town for the August recess as planned on Aug. 6.
Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said over the weekend that they believed the Senate should stay in town until the election bill is passed. Lee has previously called for the Senate to stay in session through prior recesses to pass the SAVE America Act but has not forced the issue on the floor.
Despite Trump’s pressure campaign, the elections bill doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate and there isn’t enough support within the Senate Republican conference for nixing the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to advance.
When Trump says he has a dream, it’s basically to ensure Black Americans can’t get to the polls. There’s no better time than this midterm to turn out and punch that voting machine selection with your middle finger. This analysis at The Hill has part of the explanation why Republican Senators can’t find their spines to buck the MAGA agenda. Alexander Bolten has the lede.
Senate conservatives, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), are calling on Senate Majority Leader John Thune
(R-S.D.) to cancel the August recess so they can debate the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, a sweeping election reform bill that President Trump has made his No. 1 legislative priority.
Lee warned in a social media post to Thune last week that he would “object to any effort to put the Senate into recess in August — at least until such time as the Senate has passed the SAVE America Act” and requested a roll call vote to adjourn the Senate for five weeks over most of August and early September.
Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), who’s up for reelection in November, said she would prefer to stay in Washington in August instead of returning to her home state for an extended period to meet with constituents.
“I didn’t come to the United States Senate because I needed something to do. I’m serving because there are things we need to get done for the American People. The Senate needs to stay in session until we can get the SAVE America Act to the floor and passed,” Moody posted on X.
Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), another Trump ally, said he’s ready to cancel the five-week recess to debate the SAVE America Act, which has already failed several times on the Senate floor.
“I’m all for it. We don’t need a recess. Let’s pass the Save America Act. It’s more important than taking a break, taking a recess,” Banks told Fox News.
“I’m back in Indiana for the weekend, I head back to Washington tomorrow. I’ve heard from people everywhere I go, from the diner this morning to the grocery store, ‘Pass the SAVE America Act.’ We have to get it done,” he said.
The Senate has already spent several weeks of floor time debating the SAVE America Act, which would require people to show documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote and show photo identification when voting, and it would restrict mail-in ballots.
Down here in the yahoo state, we have Senator Kennedy to go all Hee-Haw on us. Samuel Chamberlin has this headline (deep breath) from the New York Post. “GOP Sen. John Kennedy warns John Thune is ‘being too cautious’ as Trump agenda hangs in the balance.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) needs to get to work on passing the rest of President Trump’s agenda with fewer than 100 days to go before the midterm elections, a key member of the GOP’s rank-and-file warned Sunday.
“Look, I mean no disrespect. I love John Thune. He’s my leader. He’s got a big brain. He’s better looking than me, but I think he’s just being too cautious,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” adding that the majority leader “wants to spend the rest of our time talking with [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer about shutting down government, and the Graham Platner wing of the [Democratic] party is, his party, is not going to let Schumer agree with us.
“They already want to give Schumer a bathrobe, a Popsicle, and an early bedtime, and have him retire. I don’t think Chuck can agree with us,” Kennedy predicted. “I think he’s going to shut down government.”
“We need to put the, the House budget resolution on the floor,” Kennedy told host Margaret Brennan. “It’s the only chance we have to get money to defense, the farmers, and to take another crack at the SAVE Act. We need to add Iran to the [Lindsey] Graham Russian sanctions bill and vote on it. We need to put the cryptocurrency market structure bill on the floor and vote on it.”
Before leaving for its August recess last week, the House of Representatives passed a stopgap measure that would fund the government until Dec. 4. Some Senate Republicans, including Kennedy, want to tack the Trump-endorsed SAVE America Act, which would require Americans to show proof of citizenship before registering to vote and provide photo identification before casting a ballot, onto the budget resolution.
Currently, a shutdown is set to begin at 11:59 p.m. ET Sept. 30.
It’s amazing how people with perfectly good educations and seemingly functional minds can go all bat shit crazy when they get themselves elected/appointed to anything within the Beltway. I’ve been around here long enough to remember when Foghorn Leghorn was a member of the Democratic Party. He switched parties in August 2007.
Meanwhile, we’ve finally uncovered a bit more truthiness from our human cost in Trump’s war against Fishing Boats. (Psst, have you sent the FBI to your sons, Orange Caligula, if you really want a successful coke bust? This is from the Washington Post. “Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say. The president says Operation Southern Spear has virtually ended drug trafficking by sea. Pentagon and DEA analysts have concluded otherwise.”
The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.
In a recent assessment reviewed by The Washington Post, DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire. In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told lawmakers the strikes in international waters off South and Central America had not reduced its purity.
Traffickers are also relying more on aircraft, which take off from clandestine airstrips along the Colombian-Venezuelan border and head east to Guyana and Suriname to avoid U.S. forces, according to the DEA assessment.
“When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side,” one DEA official told The Post. “They always find the weak spots and exploit them.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Meanwhile, giant corporations are getting rich at what they do best. As usual, they’re cutting costs by denying their workers a living wage, so those workers must rely on public assistance. This strategy is one of America’s worst legacies. This is from Popular Information. Judd Legum has the story.
American taxpayers are spending billions every year providing Medicaid benefits to hundreds of thousands of employees of Amazon and Walmart, a new analysis by Popular Information reveals.
Amazon and Walmart are two of the largest and most profitable companies in the country — collectively generating $100 billion in profits in 2025 — but many of their employees still qualify for Medicaid because their take-home pay hovers around (or below) the poverty line.
As taxpayers keep their workers afloat, the wealth of the two companies’ largest shareholders is increasing exponentially. The Walton family, the largest shareholders of Walmart, saw their collective wealth increase from $238 billion in 2021 to $513 billion at the end of 2025. Meanwhile, Amazon founder and current executive chairman Jeff Bezos saw his net worth increase from $187 billion to $255 billion over roughly the same time period.
Popular Information calculated the public subsidy to Amazon and Walmart by cross-referencing several publicly available data sources. Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report examining the top 25 employers of Medicaid enrollees in six states: Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. This provided state-level Medicaid enrollment for Amazon and Walmart workers in all six states, with the exception of Amazon in Maine.
Popular Information compared these figures to the total number of employees working for Walmart and Amazon in each state, sourced from company disclosures, to establish an average Medicaid enrollment rate for each company. The average Medicaid enrollment rate was then used to establish an estimated Medicaid enrollment for employees of each company in the remaining states.
Finally, the estimated number of employees receiving Medicaid in each state was multiplied by that state’s average annual cost of a non-elderly, non-disabled Medicaid enrollee, as published by the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC).https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/26/us-heat-wave-dome-weather
Using this methodology, Popular Information estimates that, nationwide, over 156,000 Walmart employees are enrolled in Medicaid at an annual cost to taxpayers of approximately $1.04 billion.
Of course, you can read more at the links. The weather all over the country continues to break records and be miserable. I hope you’re managing to avoid the worst of it. I’ve developed a keen fashion sense that includes cotton under shirts and cut-off jeans, accentuated by bare feet. I can’t make iced tea fast enough, nor can I keep the animals’ water bowls filled with water and a few ice cubes. This article from The Guardian shows the widespread phenomenon. JJ and I are under a “heatwave dome.” BB sent me her forecast, which really is wild. “Super El Niño Could Combine With Rare Atlantic Niña: See MA Impacts.”
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Of Manifestos and Wannabe Monarchs
Posted: April 27, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, Orange Caligula's Ballroom Dreams, Trump Assassination Attempts Hypotheses, U.S. Politics | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Cole Allen, Trump Assassination attempt #3, White House Correspondents' Dinner 6 Comments
“President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Chuck Grassley, laments not attending the ill-fated White House Correspondents Dinner. A President Grassley would be something to behold.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Another day, another fishy attempt at assassinating Trump. I’ll just put my hypothesis right up top, then provide the analysis and details from the media about the weirdness surrounding the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting Saturday night. We know the details about the shooter and have gotten a chance to review his manifesto. We also know the Secret Service had an unusually insecure setup to guard the large number of high-value targets present for what was supposed to be Trump’s first visit to the event after hating on the press continually.
JJ, Boomer, and I discussed the situation via text chat as the entire scene unfolded. I’m finding that a large number of friends and colleagues share my view. Here’s one that eloquently aligns with my hypothesis about the entire show from fellow New Orleanian Louis Maestros, who owns and runs Old Arabi Lighthouse Records and Books with his wife and cat. It’s just one of those places that you should visit.
Well, that is the most lucid and thoughtful shooter “manifesto” I’ve ever read.
I now am under the impression that the complete lack of security was meant to invite some kind of attack just to make the supposedly less vulnerable magic ballroom seem like a good idea after all. Which would be an incredibly stupid and reckless thing to do, and completely on brand.
Here’s JJ’s take from Saturday night via the group text.
I guess what I am trying to say, is I don’t think the man was put in there as a fake setup. But I do think that he was organically there…however, they knew about him, and chose not to do anything until the last minute.
Here’s something from me.
Just think we could’ve had Chuck Grassley as president today.
But I already put my real take on a discussion with some of my old high school friends. I called shenanigans because I have experience from my time at the Fed, with 10 days of pre-Clinton and pre-Greenspan visits to the New Orleans Fed. The Secret Service Swarms the venues and the hotels for more than a week.
BB was observing those left behind to fend for themselves.
I just watched the video and Vance was rushed out first. Then they went to Trump. Melania got pushed aside and ended up crawling out lol
They took RFK Jr out and left his wife to fend for herself
My favorite Trumper exit was Steven Miller using his wife as a human shield while copping a feel of her breast.
One thing that we started discussing was this Washington Post Article about the security situation. “Correspondents’ dinner lacked highest security level despite presence of top officials. The White House correspondents’ dinner, attended by the president and several Cabinet members, was not given top security status that would have unlocked the full weight of federal resources.”
The Trump administration provided a lower level of security for the White House correspondents’ dinner than it has for other gatherings of high-ranking officials, even though the president and many Cabinet members were in attendance, according to officials familiar with the plan.
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were quickly evacuated to safety Saturday when a gunman charged the security perimeter and attempted to storm the ballroom at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Others in attendance included Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The concentration of high-ranking leaders in one ballroom left the nation unusually vulnerable as the would-be assassin raced past Secret Service before he was apprehended. A worst-case scenario might have resulted in passing the power of the presidency to the senior-most senator of the majority party, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who was not at the event and is third in line to the presidency behind Vance and Johnson.
When so many officials gather in one place for official functions such as an inauguration or State of the Union address, the secretary of homeland security typically puts the Secret Service in charge of coordinating all security through a formal designation known as a “National Special Security Event.”
There was no such designation on Saturday night at an event also attended by thousands of journalists and other government officials, according to local and federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss security details. The suspected gunman, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, wrote a statement saying he wanted to target members of the Trump administration and ridiculed what he called lax security at the hotel, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the writings. He said Iranian agents could easily have brought more dangerous weapons to the venue, according to the text.
The White House referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Washington Hilton said in an email that the Secret Service “led security for the event.”
In the old days, we’d have had this discussion across several blog threads, with lots of people joining the conversation. Old school blogging is not what it used to be. JJ found this analysis at MEDIAITE. I considered it data to support my thesis that the Secret Service was either just or deliberately inept. Sean James has the analysis. “WHCD Shooter Couldn’t Believe How Bad Security Was Before Trying to Shoot Trump: ‘Incompetence Is Insane.”
The man suspected of attempting a mass shooting while targeting President Donald Trump and members of his administration at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night wrote he was shocked at how bad the security was at the venue.
“Like, this level of incompetence is insane,” Cole Tomas Allen wrote in a manifesto obtained by the New York Post. “And I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.”
That was part of an entire section in his manifesto dedicated to describing the terrible security at the Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C., where the annual event took place.
“PS: Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone,” Allen wrote. “Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.”
Instead, he said there was:
No damn security.
Not in transport.
Not in the hotel.
Not in the event.
Allen went on to say if he was an Iranian agent he could have easily smuggled in a weapon with ease. He also said the security at the hotel was entirely focused on protesters outside the event and seemingly had not considered that a wannabe assassin could check into the hotel the day before.
He added he felt a “sense of arrogance” from the hotel, as if its guests couldn’t possibly be attackers.
The Post obtained his manifesto the morning after Allen fired multiple shots in the hotel lobby, minutes after the event kicked off. It was set to be Trump’s first appearance at the dinner since he became president, but instead he was rushed off the stage by Secret Service, along with First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is due to give birth any day now.
The video clearly shows the First Escort hiding under the table.
Doomsday Scenario, this morning. “The Trouble with Trump’s Bunker and Ballroom. Is he building it to sustain an attack — or the end of democracy?” If anything, it was crystal clear that the entire Trump performance on Saturday night was to secure his Ballroom by showing that any other place would be insecure. However, the Correspondent’s dinner is associated with a professional society, and it’s difficult to see how it connects directly to Trump’s plea.
All of which brings me to the other weird unfolding current story about presidential security: Trump’s pet project of building a new presidential ballroom. In his remarks Saturday evening from the White House and in social media posts and court filings since, President Trump has used the shooting to attempt to justify and jumpstart his construction of a giant White House ballroom. The construction of the above-ground portion of the ballroom has currently been stopped by a court order, and the Justice Department moved over the weekend to dismiss the lawsuit citing the now-pressing-and-obvious national security implications.
Trump’s argument, reinvigorated since Saturday and immediately sock-puppeted by all manner of right-wing influencers, is two-fold: First, the president needs a secure facility — unlike the Washington Hilton! — where the president can host grand gatherings, and, second, that the (re)construction of now-destroyed East Wing will enable the creation of a giant secure presidential bunker.
It’s clear that the ballroom is the thing that Donald Trump cares about more than anything in his presidency — or the world. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that he even gets distracted in war-planning meetings by talking about his ballroom.
I’m less interested in the debate over the purpose of the ballroom — except, to say that I don’t buy the justification for a moment — and plenty of others have taken on that directly. The shortest possible objection is that we can’t possibly believe or agree that the world is too dangerous for the elected leader of a democracy to ever leave his compound and that all supplicants must come to him in order to have an audience (plus Trump’s ballroom is still way smaller than the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, so it’s not like it’s an actual replacement for hotel galas.)
But I did want to talk a bit today about the bunker side of the story.
Loyal readers of RAVEN ROCK will know the short history of the White House bunker: FDR first had a facility created in World War II, to guard against surprise attack by German bombers, and then the bunker was dramatically enlarged and rebuilt for the early Cold War by Harry Truman when he embarked upon the massive renovation of the White House in 1948. The expectation was that in the event of a surprise attack, a president could be rushed down into the bunker until a special rescue mission could arrive to remove the president from the rubble. A special helicopter unit — codenamed OUTPOST MISSION — was for decades based in Pennsylvania to respond to the White House and excavate and evacuate the president. The pilots carried special dark visors and lead-shielded flight suits to protect themselves and officials from the flash and effects of a nuclear blast.
Today, the facility is known as the PEOC — the Presidential Emergency Operations Center — and is run by the White House Military Office. The facility has only been used a handful of times — including on 9/11, when it was where Vice President Cheney, the First Lady, and other administration leaders gathered and oversaw the government’s response through the day. “I was hustled inside and downstairs through a pair of big steel doors that closed behind me with a loud hiss, forming an airtight seal,” Laura Bush remembered later. “We walked along old tile floors with pipes hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of mechanical equipment.”
As with everything else we excerpt here, this article has a lot more content and is worth reading. Paul Waldman, writing at Public Notice, has this analysis. “A more secure ballroom will not stop the madness. This is the age of chaos Trump has made.”
Just to remind you what Orange Caligula really thinks about reporters and such, here’s a headline from Politico. This is reported by Eli Stokols. “Trump lashes out at ‘60 Minutes’ anchor for reading alleged gunman’s manifesto. Any detente between the president and the press after the shared horror of Saturday’s dinner appears to be short-lived.”
President Donald Trump lashed out at CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell in an interview Sunday for quoting from the manifesto of the suspected gunman who tried to storm the White House Correspondents Dinner less than 24 hours earlier.
Trump had initially expressed a sense of camaraderie with members of the press corps who hosted him at their annual dinner and experienced the same initial panic when armed law enforcement agents stormed into the ballroom.
But when O’Donnell, during an interview recorded at the White House on Sunday, quoted from the accused gunman Cole Allen’s apparent manifesto — “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” she read — Trump, who’d been relatively subdued in his responses, flashed a familiar anger.
“I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people. Horrible people,” Trump said. “Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
O’Donnell interjected, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?”
But the president blew past her question, declaring, “I’m not a pedophile.”
Trump bristled at what he seemed to deem an insinuation about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who was not mentioned by name in the manifesto or by O’Donnell. “You read that crap from some sick person,” the president said. “I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated.”
O’Donnell had just asked Trump if he thought the experience at the dinner would change his experience with the press. He answered obliquely, asserting that the press corps was largely left-leaning and opposed to his policies on immigration and crime.
But his scathing response to her moments later offered a much clearer answer.
“You should be ashamed of yourself for reading that, because I’m not any of those things,” Trump said. “You shouldn’t be reading that on ‘60 Minutes.’ You’re a disgrace.”
The fact-checkers must be having a heyday with that one. Oh well, he’s the Liar and Cheat. What does anyone expect from those who interview him?
Just one more headline and then I’m out to take the box to Cox Cable, which used to provide me with online news. This is from my local NBC affiliate, WDSU. This news shouldn’t surprise you at all. “Man accused in correspondents’ dinner shooting charged with attempted assassination of Trump. “Cole Allen, charged in the attack at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, allegedly targeted President Trump and his administration, according to authorities.”
The man who authorities say tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with guns and knives has been charged with the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump. He appeared in court Monday to face charges in a chaotic encounter that resulted in shots being fired, Trump being rushed off the stage and guests ducking for cover underneath their tables.
Cole Tomas Allen was taken into custody after the shooting on Saturday night and is being charged in federal court in Washington. Authorities say an officer wearing a bullet-resistant vest was shot in the vest but is expected to recover.
Allen, of Torrance, California, is being represented by lawyers with the federal defender’s office and sat beside them in court in a blue jail uniform.
Prosecutors have not revealed a motive, but in a message reviewed by The Associated Press that authorities say was sent by Allen to family members minutes before the attack, Allen referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” made repeated references to the Republican president without naming him and alluded to grievances over a range of Trump administration actions.
Investigators are treating the writings, along with a trail of social media posts and interviews with family members, as some of the clearest evidence of the suspect’s mindset and possible motives.
As usual, a lot more detail in that news report, and more will come.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: False Ethos and Pathos rule the Media and Politics
Posted: April 24, 2026 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Republican politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Drunk Kash Patel, Federal Reserve Bank, Jerome Powell, Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, RFK Jr Zoophilia Weirdo 11 Comments
“Meanwhile, early this morning somewhere near Nashville…” John Buss, repeat1968,
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The headlines are yet another mash-up of feelings run amok and logic gone awry. Another week has passed, and I don’t regret getting rid of cable and most forms of TV news. It’s just all one big tabloid of rampant stupidity. Here’s a great headline from The Intercept about our nation’s FBI Director. “Kash Patel Got Arrested for Public Urination After a Night of Drinking. The FBI director was arrested twice in his youth for alcohol-related incidents that he said were “not representative of my usual conduct.”
It’s another sign of why Republicans never do any due diligence when running committee hearings to affirm Federal Office holders in the highest offices in the nation. They’re a psychiatrist’ nightmare.
Eventually, some independent news agency catches up to them, and we read about it on the internet news stream, which is a hash of conspiracy theories and the hard work of a few good reporters. This story is reported by Trevor Aaronson.
FBI Director Kash Patel was twice arrested in incidents involving alcohol, once for public intoxication and once for public urination after leaving a bar, he admitted in a 2005 letter about disclosures on his Florida Bar application.
The letter obtained by The Intercept was part of Patel’s personnel file at the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office, where he once worked. The document, written “per instructions of my employer,” describes incidents of alcohol-related indiscretions not uncommon for those in their teens and twenties.
Two decades later, as Patel pushes back against allegations that drinking is impairing his leadership of the nation’s top law enforcement agency, these arrests show how Patel’s alcohol use has been subjected to scrutiny before in his professional life.
One incident recounted by Patel occurred in 2005, about four months before he wrote the letter. At the time, he was a law student at Pace University in New York celebrating with friends.
“We went to a few of the local bars and consumed some alcoholic drinks,” he wrote.
When they walked home, they made a bad decision.
“In a gross deviation from appropriate conduct, we attempted to relieve our bladders while walking home,” Patel said in the letter. “Before we could even do so, a police cruiser stopped the group. We were then arrested for public urination.”
Patel paid a fine after the incident, he wrote in the letter.
That’s still nothing compared to the stories we heard about dead animals and RFK Jr. This is from one of last week’s editions of The Guardian. I suppose I no longer need to explain that when I write these blog posts, they are surrounded by political cartoons, not beautiful artwork or actual photos anymore. I prefer animated Scheudenfrade. “RFK Jr once cut penis off ‘road-killed raccoon’ in New York, new book reveals. Health secretary in a diary entry said his kids were in the car as he cut off animal’s genitals in 2001 to ‘study them later’.”
Don’t worry, I’ll keep this brief. Buddha bless the entire Guardian staff that had to work on this one.
Robert F Kennedy Jr once cut the penis off a road-killed raccoon in an incident that is just one of several involving dead animals that the controversial US health secretary has been involved in.
A new book called RFK Jr: The Fall and Rise was published this week and reveals a diary entry for Kennedy that describes the prominent vaccine critic and leader of the “Make America healthy again” (Maha) movement stopping his car on a New York highway on 11 November 2001.
“I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be,” Kennedy wrote in the journal.
He added: “My kids waited patiently in the car.”
Isabel Vincent, the author of the new book, told People that he took the raccoon’s genitals so he could “study them later”.
Kennedy has long had a fascination for animal bodies, especially those he finds dead which he sometimes collects and studies. Elsewhere in the book, the author notes that a journalist traveling with Kennedy in Long Island in 2001 reported that he was fascinated by dead seagull corpses.
“I’d like to pick up some of these dead seagulls for my skull collection,” the book quotes Kennedy as saying, though his schedule on the day did not allow him to pause his journey and harvest the bones.
There have been numerous stories involving Kennedy and his treatment of dead animals.
Environmental groups were outraged over a story which revealed the former presidential candidate once severed the head of a washed-up deceased whale with a chainsaw and strapped it to his car’s roof. He also once confessed to dumping a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park, attempting to make it look like the creature was killed by a bicyclist.
Meanwhile, hardworking, competent Federal officials get the nuisance-lawsuit treatment. This is from the Associated Press. “Justice Department drops criminal probe of Fed chair Powell, likely clearing the way for Warsh.” It’s really difficult to see how normal people stay sane and hold their offices in this environment.
The Justice Department has ended its investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, clearing a major roadblock to the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as his successor.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeannine Pirro said on X on Friday that her office was ending its probe into the Fed’s extensive building renovations because the Fed’s inspector general would scrutinize them instead.
The move could lead to a swift confirmation vote by the Senate for Warsh, a former top Fed official whom President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated in January to replace Powell. Powell’s term as chair ends May 15. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, had said he would oppose Warsh until the investigation was resolved, effectively blocking his confirmation.
Republicans praised Warsh during a Tuesday hearing even as Democrats questioned his independence from Trump, the lack of transparency around some of his financial holdings, and what they said was his flip-flopping on interest rates. Still, Trump’s previous appointment to the Fed’s board of governors, Stephen Miran, was approved by the full Senate just 13 days after his nomination.
Investigation lacked evidence, a court says
The probe was among several undertaken by the Justice Department into Trump’s perceived adversaries. For months it had failed to gain traction as prosecutors struggled to articulate a basis to suspect criminal conduct. Other efforts by the department to prosecute Trump’s adversaries, including New York state Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, and former FBI Director James Comey, have also been unsuccessful.
A prosecutor handling the Powell case conceded at a closed-door court hearing in March that the government hadn’t found any evidence of a crime, and a judge subsequently quashed subpoenas issued to the Federal Reserve. The judge, James Boasberg, said prosecutors had produced “essentially zero evidence” to suspect Powell of a crime. Boasberg branded prosecutors’ justification for the subpoenas as “thin and unsubstantiated.”
Speaking of the Republican-based press, base, and politicians peddling one conspiracy theory after another, we see that Tucker Carlson may have gone one too far. I would have never thought that possible, given their depths of depravity and idiocy. This is from The Hill. The analysis and opinions are provided by Matt Lewis.”Trump lived by the conspiracy theory — now he pays the price.” This is basically a class in Karma 101.
A truism of life — right up there with “don’t read the comments” — is that what goes around comes around. Put another way, if you live by the sword, you will eventually die by the sword.
For more than a decade, these maxims didn’t seem to apply to President Trump — a man who once strongly suggested that Barack Obama had not been born in America, that the 2020 election was stolen, and that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating dogs and cats, just to name a few of his whoppers.
To be sure, Trump defenders will note that Democratic conspiracy theories (“Russia-gate,” for example) have also been aimed at Trump. Yes, but Trump legitimately invited scrutiny, and credible analyses rejected the most extreme conclusions anyway — for example, the existence of a “pee tape” or the notion that Russia somehow manipulated election results or otherwise rigged the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.
Regardless, we have entered a new and possibly ironic phase of the timeline: Trump is finally discovering what it’s like to be on the losing end of a conspiracy theory.
Trump’s failure to release Epstein files was probably the inflection point. But more recently, the conspiratorial thinking about Trump has metastasized.
After Trump cast himself as Jesus on a Truth Social post, some corners of his own political ecosystem began speculating that he might instead be the Antichrist.
Tucker Carlson, for example, went on his podcast and asked, “Could this [Trump] be the Antichrist? Well, who knows? At least that’s my conclusion: Who knows?”
Others settled on demonic possession, which in internet discourse is considered the moderate position.
Michelle Goldberg, writing for the New York Times, has the Tucker story. This from her is an Op-Ed today. “The Conspiracy Theory Behind Tucker Carlson’s Apology.” Who among us ever thought the word apology and Tucker Carlson would appear in the same headline?” He must need money or something.
Tucker Carlson, you might have heard, is sorry. Early this week he posted a long conversation with his brother, Buckley, a former Trump speechwriter, in which they tried to make sense of the wreckage of the second Donald Trump presidency.
“We’re implicated in this, for sure,” said Tucker. A few moments later, he added: “It’s a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be, and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people.”
For those of us who have spent the past 10 years horror-struck at the mass delusion that Trump is a great man rather than a singularly rapacious and volatile charlatan, Carlson’s words might seem cathartic.
Over the past decade, conservatives have been angrily insisting that our mad emperor is elegantly clothed rather than obscenely naked. Now, finally, there’s growing agreement about his obvious unfitness. Indeed, some former Trump superfans are suddenly wondering if he might be the Antichrist.
I’m all for embracing converts to the anti-Trump cause. But if you listen to the dialogue between Tucker and his brother, it’s clear that rather than honestly reckoning with their role in America’s derangement, they’re developing a new conspiracy theory to explain it away.
Trump, they strongly imply, has been compromised — maybe even blackmailed and physically threatened — by Zionist or globalist forces seeking the deliberate destruction of the United States. On Tucker’s podcast, Buckley described a systematic undermining of America through the George Floyd protests, mass migration and now the war with Iran.
“It can’t be a confluence of random events,” Buckley said. “It is clearly by design. It’s clearly been a long-term plan.”
Can any of you come up with an explanation or some elucidation on WTF is going on here? My vote goes for the rats are leaving the ship. So what better mission for the insane Orange Caligula to come up with during these headlines than yet another way to fuck up yet another National Monument of the utmost historical importance?
Will the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool be his next act of cultural devastation? This is from NBC News. “Trump says he’ll renovate ‘filthy’ reflecting pool on National Mall. At an Oval Office event, the president said he’s planning to pour a new surface for the 2,000-foot reflecting pool, giving it an “American flag blue” hue.” Well, at least it isn’t piss gold. Kyla Guilfoil has the lede.
President Donald Trump touted plans Thursday to coat the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool in an “American flag blue” hue, one of his latest construction efforts to refashion government buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C.
Trump said he was inspired to oversee renovations after a friend visited from Germany and noted its decay.
“He said, ‘it’s filthy, dirty. The water is disgusting looking. It’s not representative of the country,'” Trump recalled during a White House event Thursday on drug prices.
He posted a video speaking about the renovation of the more than 2,000-foot-long pool on Truth Social, shortly before his White House event with reporters.
“Right now, it’s got no water in it because it was in terrible shape. It was filthy, dirty, and it leaked like a sieve for many years,” Trump said in the video. “So I actually went over, went with Secret Service and a group of people, and I took, took a look at it.”
The president said there were initial plans to remove the granite in the pool and replace the stone, but that process would have cost $300 million and taken more than three years to complete.
Once again, I sit at my desk and shake my head. It’s a good thing day-drinking was never my thing.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Still No News Fit to Print
Posted: April 20, 2026 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Foreign Affairs, U.S. Politics | Tags: Cadet Bonespur's Iran War, Dementia Donald Trump, Drunk Kash Patel, Insider Trading Pete Hegseth, Iran War, Trump Toadies 4 Comments
“Trump’s imaginary negotiations with Iran are going well…. for some.” John Buss, @repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Today’s headlines about the series of ongoing crises created by Orange Caligula and his Cabinet of Imbeciles continue. It’s hard to miss the chaos surrounding the Iran War. This headline from The Bulwark says it all. “Trump’s Not Paying Attention to His Own War. But then again, do we want him to be?” There’s a good explanation for that, too.
As the Iran crisis spirals back out of control, it’s a big day for the president of the United States: His official schedule suggests he will have “Executive Time” all morning until 1:30 p.m., followed by a ninety-minute policy meeting and a closed-press session to sign executive orders. Heavy is the head.
Of course, these leaves Pete Hegseth pretty much on his own. That’s not a good thing either. This is from The New Republic today. “Does the SEC Care Whether Hegseth Is Killing Iranians To Get Rich? Senator Elizabeth Warren has requested an insider-trading probe of the defense secretary.” Timothy Noah has the lede.
Last month, I considered whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used what he knew about the imminence of the Iran war to expand his stock portfolio with a little blood money (“Is Pete Hegseth Killing Iranians To Get Rich?”). That was the thrust of a shocking Financial Times report, based on three anonymous sources, that said Hegseth’s Morgan Stanley broker approached BlackRock in February about making a “multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager’s Defense Industrials Active ETF.” An ETF, or exchange-traded fund, is a financial instrument comprised of multiple stocks and/or bonds that are bundled together and sold as a single stock.
According to the FT, Hegseth’s broker’s request was flagged internally at BlackRock, presumably because it so obviously threatened to trigger an insider-trading investigation. (I’m guessing the FT’s three sources all worked at BlackRock.) Ultimately, BlackRock denied the request on the technicality that its Defense Industrials Active ETF was not yet available to Morgan Stanley clients. Whether Hegseth found some other way to profit from the Iran war remains an open question. (A Pentagon spokesperson called the FT report “entirely false and fabricated” and denied that Hegseth or any Hegseth representative approached BlackRock.)
This is a matter that demands immediate investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and this morning Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, sent SEC chair Paul Atkins a letter requesting him to do just that.
It says a lot about our current scandal-rich environment that the FT story hasn’t dominated the news these past three weeks. But congressional Democrats certainly didn’t forget it. The day after the story broke, the House Committee on Government and Oversight Reform’s ranking member, Representative Robert Garcia of California, and the ranking member of its Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs, Representative Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia, sent Hegseth a letter instructing him to preserve “all documents, records, and communications” on his financial transactions back to November 1, 2024. Regrettably, no investigation by their committee is likely, because its chair, James Comer of Kentucky, is perhaps the most shamelessly partisan hack in the entire Republican House majority. As I write, Comer is trying to justify Pam Bondi’s evading a committee subpoena in its Jeffrey Epstein investigation despite the fact he previously voted to hold the Clintons in contempt for defying committee subpoenas in the same investigation.
Two days after the FT story broke, Warren and three other Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee pointed out, in a letter to Hegseth, that even in peacetime Hegseth would be prohibited by federal law “from owning any stock in Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls, Boeing, RTX Corporation, and L3Harris Technologies.” Stakes in all of these companies were bundled into the ETF his broker reportedly tried to buy. It would be illegal for Hegseth to buy a Defense Industrials Active ETF because—duh—these are defense companies, and Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense.
He just is naturally stupid as well as drunk stupid. I think we all should now that now. NPR’s Liz Landers has this headline today. “Trump tells PBS News that ‘lots of bombs start going off’ if Iran ceasefire expires.”
President Donald Trump told PBS News on Monday morning that if the ceasefire with Iran expires Tuesday, “then lots of bombs start going off.”
The statement came during a phone call with White House correspondent Liz Landers focused on the Iran war, as a U.S. delegation is preparing for more peace talks.
Here are highlights from the call.
PBS News: What happens if the ceasefire expires tomorrow evening?
Trump: Then lots of bombs start going off.
Is Iran still participating in the talks that will be happening in Islamabad? Will they still be there?
I don’t know. I mean, they’re supposed to be there. We agreed to be there, although they say we didn’t. But no, it was set up. And we’ll see whether or not it’s there. If they’re not there, that’s fine too.
What do you want from the negotiating team in Islamabad?
No nuclear weapons. Very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Very simple.
[Jared] Kushner has a lot of business and financial interests in the Middle East region, from Saudi Arabia and other countries. Is it appropriate for him to be negotiating there, do you think?
Well, he was there before, long time before, and he’s purely negotiating for the fact that they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. Whether you have business or not, everybody knows that’s the right thing. He’s a very good negotiator …
So you see no …
No, I mean, we’re not negotiating anything other than the fact that they will not have a nuclear weapon. And that’s pretty basic when you get right down to it. So you know, that’s it. I sent an A-team. I sent my A-Team, he’s done an excellent job. He doesn’t participate with Saudi now, as you know. He’s taken… He doesn’t do that. He has a business but he doesn’t participate now.
Today’s Trump Toady meltdown goes to Kash Patel. This report at Politico is by Cheyanne M. Daniels. “Kash Patel files defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic. Patel is seeking $250 million in damages for an article that alleges he has a drinking problem.” The photos that accompany these articles are pretty damning so I can’t figure out what he thinks he’s doing with lawsuit other than follow his leader’s examples of frivolous losing lawsuits. “Kash Patel files defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic. Patel is seeking $250 million in damages for an article that alleges he has a drinking problem.”
Kash Patel has filed a defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic, accusing the magazine and its reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick of defamation over an article that alleged the FBI director has a drinking problem.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday, refers to an article published April 17 that claims Patel has a habit of “excessive drinking and unexplained absences,” among other recurring behavioral patterns.
The suit argues that Fitzpatrick’s reporting is part of an ongoing pattern from The Atlantic to “damage Director Patel’s reputation and force him from office.”
The Atlantic on Monday defended its reporting.
“We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit,” The Atlantic said.
The article, citing about two dozen anonymous sources, details Patel’s alleged “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences;” claims the director is often “away or unreachable, delaying time-sensitive decisions needed to advance investigations;” and that Patel is “deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy.”
POLITICO has not independently corroborated The Atlantic’s reporting.
Patel’s lawsuit states that the unnamed sources had “obvious axes to grind,” and highlights that the White House, Department of Justice and Patel himself all denied the allegations in the article. It also alleges that a pre-publication letter sent to The Atlantic went “ignored.”
This headline in The Nation by Jeet Heer gave me the giggles. “We Could Do Worse Than Kash Patel Being a Drunken Buffoon. If the FBI director’s alleged intoxication prevents him from carrying out Trump’s agenda, that might not be such a bad thing.
Normally, SWAT teams rely on specialized “breaching equipment” to break down the doors in an emergency where criminals are hunkered down in a heavily fortified bunker. But last year, FBI agents reportedly almost used breaching equipment not to capture a dangerous lawbreaker but to try to wake up their boss, Kash Patel.
On Friday, Sarah Fitzpatrick, writing in The Atlantic, reported that the FBI director has frequently been so incapacitated by heavy drinking that he has been unable to do his job. According to Fitzpatrick, “On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated…. A request for ‘breaching equipment’…was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors.”
Fitzpatrick’s article, which is based on interviews with numerous government officials who were granted anonymity, paints a detailed and troubling portrait of a senior public official prone to “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences.” Fitzpatrick notes,
Several officials told me that Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff. He is also known to drink to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights, six current and former officials and others familiar with Patel’s schedule told me.
Both the White House and Patel have disputed the entirety of Fitzpatrick’s reporting, and on Monday morning, Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic over her piece. But even before the Atlantic story, there was already ample public evidence that Patel is wildly unfit for the job. He has repeatedly damaged high-profile cases, such as the Charlie Kirk murder investigation, by making premature and false statements in an attempt to hog the media spotlight. He has also been accused of using a FBI jet for private business, including meetings with his girlfriend.
There is no question that Patel is a buffoon. The only factual uncertainty is whether he is an often-soused buffoon or a largely sober one.
“As we await further escalation of Trump’s forever war, one of the members of his Liquor Cabinet hits the news circuit to defend his beseeched honorable service to our nation.” John Buss, @repeat1968
I leave this post on a hopeful note. This is from the New York Times‘ Nate Cohen. “Why a Democratic Senate, Once Unthinkable, Is a Real Possibility. Helped by a favorable national environment and strong candidate recruitment, Democrats are tied or ahead in four Republican-held seats, polls show.” It’s all in the numbers
At the start of the 2026 election cycle, the Senate looked far out of reach for the Democrats. The House always seemed competitive, but retaking the Senate would require flipping at least four Republican-held seats — including at least two seats in states that President Trump won by double digits in 2024. In today’s polarized era, Democrats would need everything to break their way.
So far, everything is breaking the Democrats’ way. With Mr. Trump’s approval rating falling and inflation rising, along with the uncertainty of a war in the Middle East, it’s not hard to imagine a Democratic tsunami in November. A blue wave is not guaranteed, of course, and Democrats would not be assured to flip two reliably Republican states even if it were. But a feasible path for the party to win the Senate is coming into focus.
In recent polls, Democrats appear tied or ahead in four Republican-controlled seats — the number they would need to take the Senate. These include Maine and North Carolina, where the likely Democratic nominees hold clear leads, as well as Ohio and Alaska, where Democrats have recruited strong candidates in states Mr. Trump won by double digits in 2024. There are also signs that Republicans could be in danger in two more states where Mr. Trump won by double digits: Iowa and Texas.
Over the last few weeks, the betting markets have shifted to make the Senate a tossup, though some analysts haven’t gone quite so far. Whether the Senate is a tossup or not, it’s clearly competitive — and that’s something that might have been hard to imagine a year ago.
In the Trump era, Democratic Senate candidates haven’t had much success at winning in red states. They failed to flip vigorously contested seats in Texas, Tennessee and Montana in 2018 and 2020. And most Democratic red-state incumbents — including those in Florida, Indiana, North Dakota and Missouri — lost re-election. Today, every Democrat in the Senate represents a state that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
Looking even further back, no party has managed to flip two states that leaned so much toward the other party since 2008. Only one such seat (Illinois in 2010) was flipped in a regularly scheduled election; two more flipped in memorable special elections (Massachusetts 2010 and Alabama 2017). Most of these victories took extraordinary circumstances, like a criminal conviction, a child molestation allegation or a bank seizure.
This time, Democrats aren’t benefiting from anything as unusual as a criminal conviction.
Instead, they’re counting on a favorable national political environment, strong candidates and the possibility that several of these states may not be quite as Republican-leaning as they seem.
Read more on all of these items on the links. My top suggestion is the Heer article on Hegseth. It would be nice to get an actual hearing on that during the midterms, especially combined with high gas prices.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
I’m adding this and basically speechless. WTF does this mean? Bibi is running our country now?
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