“In this all-hands-on-deck, wartime context, Chevron needed to produce more crude oil as quickly as possible to facilitate more avgas refining, including its own,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.
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?
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?
Finally, Friday Reads: Continued Chaos in Congress and American Policy
Posted: April 17, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, 2026 MidTerm elections, Big Oil, Foreign Affairs, MAGA Republican Theology, Republican politics, U.S. Economy, Women's Rights | Tags: 2026 midterms, @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Big Oil and SCOTUS, MAGA and Congress turn on TRUMP?, Mikie Sherrill, Pete Hegseth weirdo sexual assaulter, SAVE America Act, Trump Theological Weirdness 15 Comments
“So, since Trump has defeated Venezuela and Iran. Is the Vatican after Cuba, or is that Greenland? So hard to keep track.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’d like to thank JJ again for covering for me on Monday. I’m not sure what’s been going on with my stomach, but the daily news sure doesn’t help! Today’s biggest headline for me is a decision that will impact Louisiana and likely any part of the country where big oil continues to wreck the environment and sicken and murder people with their business practices. It’s a discouraging decision. I have always thought my own bout with an extremely rare form of cancer was due to oil leaking into the drinking water in Ponca City, Oklahoma, where I was born.
This story is from the Washington Post. “Supreme Court hands win to Chevron, Big Oil in environmental damage case. The decision puts into question a $745 million judgment against Chevron to help restore coastal wetlands in Louisiana that were damaged as long ago as World War II.” As you may know, the damage to the wetlands down here is immense, and it’s one of the reasons hurricane season is quite frightening. The industry is deadly for all forms of life. Julian Mark reports on the decision.
This decision seems to say that if they did what they did for a war the government ran, then it’s okay if they ruin our lives. That’s pretty frightening in my estimation. What other things could this apply to? What would it have done to the Agent Orange victims in our military?
The Supreme Court on Friday sided with oil giant Chevron, ruling that it can fight an environmental damage lawsuit in federal court — a decision that could affect the outcomes of nearly a dozen other lawsuits that make similar allegations about the oil and gas industry.
The unanimous decision puts into question a $745 million state court judgment against Chevron to help restore coastal wetlands in Louisiana that were damaged as far back as World War II. Chevron had asked the Supreme Court to order the case moved to federal court.
At the heart of Chevron’s case was the argument that during World War II, the firm’s predecessors played a key role in the refinement of aviation gas, or avgas, to meet the demands of the war. Because the work was on behalf of U.S. government interests, the company and its backers have argued, claims regarding the actions at the time should be heard in a federal court rather than at the state level. The high court agreed.
Chevron applauded the decision. “As the Court recognized, the plaintiffs’ claims are related to activities that Chevron and other energy companies performed under federal supervision during World War II,” company spokesman Bill Turenne said in a statement. “Those claims are flawed as a matter of both state law and federal law, and Chevron looks forward to litigating these cases in federal court, where they belong.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. did not participate in the case. Shortly before arguments in January, he recused himself, citing financial interests in ConocoPhillips, the parent of Burlington Resources Oil & Gas, a party in a related case.
Just a side note: ConocoPhillips was responsible for all the oil that leaked into my small Oklahoma hometown. This story is breaking, so be sure to follow up later as more analysis becomes available.
Lots of weirdness is happening in Congress this week as Democrats put a toe in the water to test the chances of yet another impeachment process. However, there is more afoot. Heather Cox Richardson discusses some of these issues on her Substack today.
Congress is back in session, and there is a frantic feel in the air. Republicans appear to be assessing the fall of Hungarian prime minister Victor Orbán, Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior along with his abysmal job approval numbers, rising prices, and an unpopular war in Iran that currently does not appear to have a solution that will not result in the U.S. losing face.
In Hungary, incoming prime minister Péter Magyar is setting a bar as he appears to want no part of playing business as usual with Orbán’s cronies. A center-right politician, Magyar appeared as a guest on state television after his party’s dramatic win—Orbán’s state media had not let him appear on it before the election—and said he intended to suspend the station’s news service because state media does not provide the journalism that the country deserves. He said that he would end the state subsidies for Orbán’s right-wing-allied university and that Hungarian president Tamas Sulyok, a close ally of Orbán, was “unfit to serve as the guardian of legality” and “must leave office immediately.”
Republicans appear to be trying to grab all the turf they can before the midterm elections.
Today the Senate passed House Joint Resolution 140, a bill that overturns a 20-year mining ban upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) in Minnesota. Representative Pete Stauber (R-MN) introduced the measure, which passed the House in January. It clears the way for a subsidiary of Chilean mining giant Antofagasta to engage in copper-sulfide mining, which produces sulfuric acid, above the pristine BWCA. Those waters include 1,175 lakes and over 1,200 miles of rivers and streams. According to outdoor writer Wes Siler, about 165,000 people visit the BWCA annually, generating $1.1 billion in economic activity and supporting 17,000 jobs.
The Republicans’ attack on the BWCA for the benefit of a foreign billionaire feeds President Donald J. Trump’s ongoing crusade against Minnesota. Trump’s secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, is targeting New York today as well, saying that the federal government will withhold $73.5 million from the state because it has refused to review the commercial driver’s licenses of almost 33,000 immigrants. New York officials say they are complying with federal law.
Trump is also continuing to try to exert his personal power over the government, threatening again to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, whose term as chair ends in May but who has said he will continue on the board until the administration drops its trumped-up criminal investigation of him over alleged cost overruns on the renovations of Federal Reserve* buildings.
As Jacob Rosen and Olivia Gazis of CBS News noted, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is supporting Trump’s attacks on those he perceives to be his enemies by sending to the Department of Justice two criminal referrals yesterday. One is for the former government official who was the whistleblower over the July 2019 phone call in which Trump told Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky he would release money the U.S. Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s 2014 incursion…but only after Zelensky did him the “favor” of smearing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The whistleblower told the intelligence community inspector general: “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals.”
Gabbard’s second referral is for the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, who found the complaint “credible” and “urgent” and set in motion the process of sharing it with the congressional intelligence committees, which led to Trump’s first impeachment.
As Representative Jim Himes (D-CT), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, noted, the effort to criminalize whistleblowing from 2019 for what was Trump’s well-established behavior is most likely an attempt to chill future whistleblower complaints.
There certainly appears to be concern on the part of MAGA loyalists that they are in danger of losing power, and that might mean legal repercussions. Testifying before the Senate Budget Committee today, Director of Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought denied that he had held back funds Congress had appropriated. Doing so is called “impoundment,” and it is illegal, but the administration has been engaged in it since it took office in January 2025.
There is a hell of a lot more in this piece, and it’s worth reading. I’m fairly jaded by now, so I don’t think it will actually amount to much. I’m still relying on voters. to come through. I’m into more election-related victories, including this one in New Jersey reported in Politico. “Progressive Analilia Mejia coasts to victory in New Jersey special House election. The Democratic will fill the seat held by Gov. Mikie Sherrill.” Madison Fernandez has the analysis.
Progressive organizer Analilia Mejia will succeed Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, adding to a run of party victories that suggest voter dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump ahead of the midterms.
Mejia defeated Republican Randolph Township Councilmember Joe Hathaway in Thursday’s special election, according to the Associated Press.
In a victory speech, Mejia labeled her opponent and Republicans such as Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, “radicals who are willing to upend our democracy, subvert our Constitution and act with impunity.”
“We must stop them,” she said. “These radicals will watch Rome burn with all of us within, and they are simply cowards — cowards unwilling to stand up to this madness. But we stand up, we resist, we will not allow it to continue.”
Hathaway conceded defeat but said he intends to challenge her again since there will be a regular primary in June and general election in November. He said he will keep a close eye on her voting record in the meantime and “will continue fighting for affordability, public safety, accountable government, and I will continue to stand up for the families of NJ-11.”
Mejia entered as the favorite for the affluent, blue-leaning North Jersey seat after an unexpected victory in February’s Democratic primary — a race that featured nearly a dozen candidates, including many who spent more and had higher name ID than Mejia.
In the primary, hefty outside spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee against former Rep. Tom Malinowski in part helped propel Mejia to a win. But outside groups on both sides of the aisle largely stayed out of the special general election — money that could have otherwise made the race more competitive.
Republicans — who are looking to rebuild after brutal losses in the state last year — tried to make the argument that Mejia was too far to the left of the district. Sherrill, a moderate Democrat, first flipped the seat in 2018 and won reelection handily in the years after that; former Vice President Kamala Harris won by around 9 points in 2024. Like in other races across the country, the GOP was eager to refer to Mejia as a “socialist” — a label she did not identify with — and compare her to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
But that message didn’t land among the electorate, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 60,000. Mejia also garnered support from Democrats across the ideological spectrum in her general election campaign.
Turnout is always key. Also, I have a feeling women voters will be hitting the polls hard between the Epstein files and the rampant misogyny in the Republican line-up. It’s likely why our votes are threatened by the Save America Act. Here’s some analysis by Al Jazeera. “What is Trump-backed SAVE America Act and what could it mean for US vote? Senate resumes debate on controversial bill requiring more proof of citizenship, which Trump calls top priority.” Yes, it attacks all immigrants, but it also threatens women who can’t document the name changes from birth to marriage(s).
Here’s what to know.
What would the SAVE America Act do?
The version of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act passed by the House in February would require voters to provide proof of citizenship – a birth certificate or passport – when registering to vote. It would also implement stricter voter identification requirements for individuals casting ballots, whether by mail or in person.
Under the US Constitution, states administer elections, and currently have different processes for registering voters and confirming citizenship. Voting by noncitizens is already illegal, and all people registering to vote attest they are US citizens under threat of perjury.
The bill does not provide any funding for the new verification processes, which would be effective immediately upon the bill being signed into law.
The legislation would also require all states to run their voter rolls through a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) “Alien Verification Eligibility” system to identify potential noncitizens already enrolled.
What has Trump said about the SAVE Act?
The US president has long maintained that elections in the country are marred by widespread fraud, including noncitizen voting, despite there being no evidence to support these claims.
Even the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has influenced many of Trump’s policies, has found only exceedingly rare instances of voter fraud over decades of US elections.
Trump’s focus on election administration dates back to his 2020 loss to former US President Joe Biden, which he continues to maintain was the result of the vote being “stolen”. Again, no evidence has emerged to back those claims.
The president has called the SAVE America Act “one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress, and America itself”.
Screenshot
Pete Hegseth is letting his freak fly over the incredible amount of negative media and public response to the Iran War. This is from NBC News. “Pete Hegseth attacks ‘unpatriotic’ media and compares reporters to Jewish biblical group. The defense secretary has frequently attacked the media over Iran war coverage.” It’s really surprising to me how Orange Caligula and his weirdo cabinet members seem to think they know biblical texts better than anyone else, including the Pope. This analysis is written by Rich Schapiro. Also, aren’t the Pharisees supposed to be the bad guys in the Jesus story? At least, that’s what the Presbyterians taught me.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth escalated his attacks on the media Thursday, comparing reporters covering the Iran war to the Pharisees, the biblical Jewish group that opposed Jesus.
The comments came at a Pentagon press briefing in which Hegseth first described the American media as “incredibly unpatriotic.”
“I just can’t help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage you cannot resist peddling, despite the historic and important success of this effort and the success of our troops,” Hegseth said, referring to the Iran war.
“Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on,” he added.
Since the fighting began in late February, Hegseth, who is Christian, has frequently used religious rhetoric at news conferences and attacked the media over its coverage. But he went further Thursday by doing so with religious overtones.
Hegseth said he was at church on Sunday when his pastor read a Bible passage that described Jesus healing a man in front of the Pharisees, “the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time.”
“Our press are just like these Pharisees — not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press. Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,” he said.
Hegseth added: “The Pharisees scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative. The hardened hearts of our press are calibrated only to impugn. I would ask you to open your eyes to the goodness, the historic success of our troops, the courage of this president.”
Hegseth was a member of the media — a Fox News host — before President Donald Trump tapped him to lead the Defense Department. Like some other members of the Trump administration, his use of Christian rhetoric in public statements is a departure from the language used by his predecessors.
In celebration of my goal of better emotional and mental health, I have canceled my cable TV news subscription. I can no longer stand to watch any of these idiots speaking and moving around like they’re live human beings or something. I’m strictly sticking to the places where I can get a timeline without sacrificing my eyes and stomach. I’m hoping this helps the tummy and the budget, which is tighter than I’ve ever had it.
Wired is one media outlet that is on my keep list. David Gilbert writes this analysis today. “MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged. Conspiracy theories about the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting have ramped up in recent weeks as once steadfast Trump supporters turn on the president.”
Are they really waking up? Finally?
In recent weeks, as criticism of President Donald Trump from his own supporters has reached a fever pitch, a new conspiracy theory has taken hold: Some of the president’s biggest supporters are now claiming, without evidence, that Trump staged the assassination attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024 and is covering it up.
During an open-air campaign rally on July 13, 2024, Trump survived an attempted assassination when a bullet fired by a 20-year-old on a roof nearby clipped the top of his ear. Corey Comperatore, a Trump supporter sitting near the president, was shot and killed. The shooter was later killed by Secret Service agents. Conspiracy theories around the Butler assassination quickly permeated the internet, but for many Trump supporters, his survival was seen as a sign from God that he was the chosen one.
As Trump’s hold over MAGA has waned, though, an increasing number of his supporters have begun to push the narrative that the entire incident was staged.
“I think that maybe it was staged,” Tim Dillon said on his show last weekend about the assassination attempt. Dillon, who was previously a staunch Trump supporter, went on to share that Trump should now come out and say, “Some people are going to be upset by this, but we staged the assassination attempt in Butler to show people how important it was to vote for me and how far I was willing to go for them.”
Some of these claims began months ago. In November, former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson promoted the idea that the FBI was somehow involved in covering up the shooting, writing on X that the “FBI lied” about the shooter’s online footprint.
A day later, conservative pundit Emerald Robinson went further, posting on X that the FBI “did it.” (In the same post, Robinson claimed that the agency was responsible for everything from the January 6 attack on the Capitol to “Jeffrey Epstein’s blackmail tapes” and the “Gov. Whitmer fake kidnap plot.”)
But the claims that Trump had staged the entire thing really picked up steam when former US National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent appeared on Carlson’s podcast last month, one day after he resigned from his position over the Iran war.
During the interview, Carlson and Kent discussed the failure of the Trump administration to provide more details about the Pennsylvania shooter. Kent claimed, without providing any evidence, that investigations into the shooting had been shut down before they finished.
Kent also claimed that this vacuum of information about the incident would lead to more conspiracy theories. “If you don’t want to address that question, then you just go silent and say you can’t ask that question,” he said. “Which then creates people who come out of nowhere and they start drawing their own conclusions.” (This is in fact, experts say, one basic dynamic behind conspiracy theorizing.)
“If you cannot look at this story and use critical thinking skills and have at least some questions, you are the problem and we need you to snap out of it,” Trisha Hope, a GOP national delegate from Texas and former Trump supporter, posted on X about Butler this week.
As usual, more to read at all the links!
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Egg on its Face
Posted: April 6, 2026 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: #Fartus #DeportUs, #Impeach Trump Again, Cadet Bonespur's Iran War, Orange Caligula, Pam Bondi, Trump Dementia, Trump's Crazy Easter Rant 5 Comments
“While preparing to spend the day at his golf course, Trump tweeted his heartfelt and compassionate Easter morning message to the world.”John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day Sky Dancers!
Easter Sunday is one of those days when nearly every American Christian heads to church. There’s a big ol’ Gay Easter Parade down here in New Orleans, and if I am out at all, that’s likely where I am. Easter has always been about finding the best hat for some folks. I slept in, then woke up to the weirdest headlines I think I’ve ever seen. Orange Caligula used the F-Bomb, followed by “Praise Allah” in his Easter rant. I want to see how the Evangelicals deal with that. The Pope spoke out, so that’s a bit of blowback.
The Guardian has this headline. “‘Unhinged madman’: US politicians react to Trump’s expletive-laden threat to Iran. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Bernie Sanders among those responding with alarm to Trump writing ‘open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards.’ I wonder if anyone will still argue that #FARTUS is the second coming?
Some US politicians have reacted with alarm and questioned the US president’s mental state after Donald Trump issued an abusive, expletive-laden threat to Iran in which he called on the regime to “open the fuckin’ strait [of Hormuz], you crazy bastards”, as he threatened to further attack the country’s energy and transport infrastructure.
The US president wrote on his Truth Social platform: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
It comes as the Trump administration hurtles towards another self-imposed deadline – this time, Tuesday evening – for Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz. One of the world’s most critical shipping lanes for oil and gas, the strait has been effectively shut since the US and Israel launched war on Iran at the end of February, causing oil prices around the world to skyrocket to record highs.
Trump has threatened Tehran with several deadlines in a bid to reopen the key maritime corridor, and has fixated his frustration on European and Nato allies who have rejected the legality of the US-Israeli war on Iran and refused to intervene in the strait of Hormuz crisis – prompting Trump to threaten to withdraw the US from Nato.
Mehdi Tabatabaei, deputy for communications at the Iranian president’s office, said on Sunday that Iran would only open the strait after receiving compensation for war damages, paid via a “new legal regime” based on transit fees.
He added that Trump, with his threats to attack Iran’s civil infrastructure over the strait’s closure, had “resorted to obscenities and nonsense out of sheer desperation and anger”.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former staunch ally turned Trump critic, said everyone in the Trump administration who claims to be a Christian needs to “beg forgiveness from God” and intervene in the president’s “madness”.
Yesterday’s New York Times had some strange adjectives for Orange Caligula’s mad rant. “In New Threats, Trump Seems Emboldened by a Successful Rescue. In an expletive-filled social media post, Mr. Trump said Iran should open the Strait of Hormuz, or he will bomb bridges and power plants.” The word ’emboldened’ does not quite fit the rant, imho. I’d like to ask writer David Snanger if he had any say in the headline.
After celebrating the recovery of a lost airman from the mountains in Iran on Saturday night, President Trump began Easter morning with a blistering threat to Iran that he would begin bombing its electric grid and bridges starting Tuesday morning, using an obscenity to punctuate his demand that the government in Tehran reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr. Trump has never shied away from threats and occasional vulgar language on social media, but this post would have stood out on any day, much less on what most Christians consider the holiest day of the year.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” he wrote a little after 8 a.m. “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH. Praise be to Allah.”
The president has swerved in the past week between claiming that the strait is not his problem, because the United States barely purchases oil flowing through the 21-mile-wide passage, and threatening to go after civilian infrastructure if Iran continues to restrict which ships can pass — and to charge $2 million tolls to those few ships it lets through.
On Sunday morning he was back in threatening mode, with a vengeance.
Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, called Mr. Trump’s comments “completely utterly, unhinged” in a post on X.
“He’s already killed thousands,” Mr. Murphy wrote. “He’s going to kill thousands more.”
Under the Geneva Conventions, striking power plants and bridges that are used primarily by civilians is off limits; they are not considered military targets. Administration officials are already beginning to make the argument that hitting them would not be a war crime because they are also crucial to the missile and nuclear programs. But that loophole could apply to almost any piece of civilian infrastructure, even water supplies.
Mr. Trump’s vehemence may well underscore to the Iranians how powerful a tool control of the strait remains, perhaps their most effective surviving weapon after the loss of their navy, their air force and much of their arsenal of missile and launchers. The strait is not only the passageway for about 20 percent of the global oil supply, it is critical for fertilizer and for helium, which is critical to the manufacture of semiconductors.
I’d also like to think there’s a more apt word for ‘vehemence’. Here’s another happy Easter Story from the Trump Regime and the New York Times. It’s straight from my home state, Louisiana, the prison capital of the USA. “ICE Agents Detain Newlywed Spouse of Soldier Training to Deploy. The 22-year-old wife of an Army staff sergeant came to the U.S. as a toddler. She was taken from a military base where the couple planned to live.”
A U.S. Army staff sergeant and his wife arrived at his base in Louisiana last week, expecting to begin their life together as newlyweds.
The couple checked in at the visitor center, identification in hand, ready to complete the steps that would allow her to move into his home on the base.
Within hours, that plan had unraveled.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered the base and detained his wife, an undocumented Honduran immigrant who was brought to the U.S. as a toddler. By nightfall, she was in a detention facility with hundreds of women facing deportation as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The detention came just days after Annie Ramos, 22, a college student with no criminal record, and Matthew Blank, 23, celebrated their marriage with family and friends. Sergeant Blank, who enlisted more than five years ago, is assigned to a brigade at Fort Polk, La. that is set to begin training at the end of the month for deployment.
The soldier is likely to be deployed to the Iran War Zone area. I have Joyce Vance’s latest Substack to offer you today. “The president of the United States greeted the country with this Truth Social post about his intentions in Iran on Easter Sunday: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.
No one seems to have got so far into the post as to notice that he said “Praise be to Allah,” which he would most certainly say was a jest, if asked. But imagine Joe Biden, or worse still, Barack Obama, saying that “in jest” and how Republicans would have responded. Trump is completely off the rails and Republicans are turning a blind eye, pretending it’s not happening.
Earlier this week, Trump’s “spiritual advisor” Paula White-Cain compared him to Jesus. Trump, too, was “betrayed and arrested and falsely accused,” she said. No one in the Republican Party seems to have believed they need to strenuously resist that characterization.
And so, we enter the new week with an unstable president at the helm in wartime. Meanwhile, at home, there are plenty of issues mounting. But Trump seems to have largely gotten away with knocking his connection to Jeffrey Epstein and allegations about his personal conduct off the front burner.
I’m pretty sure the press are distracted by the war, because they’re always ready to cover a war, in my experience over the last few years. However, I really think the people have given up on getting justice for the victims of Epstein. We’ll just have to see. This read shows more about exactly how terrible the DOJ has become in this second term of Orange Caligula, with the now-gone Bondi at the helm. The source is Wired. “The DOJ Misled a Judge About How It’s Using Voter Roll Data. The acting head of the DOJ’s voting section told a judge last week that the agency had not touched the nonpublic voter roll data it has collected. That wasn’t true.”
Last week in Rhode Island, in a hearing over the Trump administration’s efforts to access the state’s unredacted voter lists, US district judge Mary McElroy asked a Department of Justice lawyer what the agency had been doing with the voter roll data it already amassed from other states in recent months.
“We have not done anything yet,” said Eric Neff, the acting chief of the agency’s voting section, a core part of the DOJ’s civil rights division that focuses on enforcing federal laws that protect the right to vote. Neff added that the data the DOJ collected from states—which can include Social Security numbers, drivers licenses, dates of birth, and addresses—was being kept separate.
“The United States is taking extra concern to make sure that we’re complying with the Privacy Act in every conceivable way,” Neff added. The Privacy Act of 1974 regulates how government agencies collect and use personally identifiable information about US residents.
But Neff was not telling the truth: The DOJ, he later admitted, was pooling the data and already analyzing it to identify voting irregularities.
In a court document filed on March 27, Neff walked back his claims. “The United States represented that each data set was stored separately,” Neff wrote. “The United States also stated that no analysis had yet been conducted on the data. To correct and clarify the record, preliminary internal data analysis of the nonpublic voter registration data has begun. In particular, the Civil Rights Division has begun the process of identifying and quantifying the number and type of duplicate and deceased registered voters in each state.”
The revelation confirms what was widely speculated, which is that the DOJ appears to be pooling the data and using it to identify potential issues with suspected voting irregularities ahead of the midterms, which is a core part of Trump’s broad attack on elections.
Really, this stuff is not only embarrassing, but it’s also an ongoing signal of democracy’s backslide. I would like to think a lot of these ‘lawyers’ will get disbarred in short order when we finally get rid of Trump. From what I’ve read, Bondi is indictable and can be called to appear before Congressional hearings. I guess we’ll see. PBS has this headline for the day’s reads. “What’s next for the Justice Department after Bondi’s firing?”
“President Trump has ousted the second member of his Cabinet in less than a month. Attorney General Pam Bondi will be leaving after just 14 months. Bondi faced criticism for her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and the president himself expressed frustration over her lack of prosecutions of his political enemies. Ali Rogin discussed what’s next for the Department of Justice with Mary McCord.
…
Ali Rogin:
Fourteen months in, what is Pam Bondi’s legacy going to be as attorney general?
Mary McCord:
Well, I think probably the things that people will remember her for the most probably is the debacle of the Epstein investigation. I mean, way back early in Donald Trump’s tenure, she really promised that the client files were on her desk.
That had to have just been made up, because it was only months later that she said, we don’t have anything here. I’ve investigated this along with the FBI director. There’s no criminal cases coming out. There is no client list.
And then, of course, we’ve seen what has happened since then. There are so many other things that she did that I feel like she should be remembered for. And these are mostly not good things at all, completely undermining the independence of the Department of Justice from the White House, saying famously in the Great Hall the first time she addressed the men and women of the department that she was so pleased to be working under the direction of the president of the United States.
And that’s really complete anathema to the prosecutors who, in order to show the American people that justice is not being used for political purposes, want to keep that distance.
Ali Rogin:
Why do you think this is happening and why now?
Mary McCord:
I have actually thought for some time that this was going to happen. And it’s getting in — Donald Trump’s minds about when he — mind about when he decides to do something is difficult to do. It’s usually tied to a news cycle or to try to distract from news, I think.
And so, today, it’s not clear. He had a bad day in the Supreme Court yesterday with the birthright citizenship argument, which had really nothing to do with Pam Bondi, but still perhaps he wants a distraction. Now, whether this is the kind of distraction he wants, I don’t know.
The Epstein matter, this all — what this really will do is bring that back into the fore of discussion, even while people were starting to discuss other things, because, again, I think that’s really one of the things she’s most known for.
It’s a crazy country we live in right now, creating crazy news and stressful days for us and the world. Even Bill Kristol agrees that now would be a great time for another impeachment. You can read this in The Bulwark today. “Impeach Him Again. And create friction against him within the executive branch.”
“How are we going to make it through thirty-three more months of this?” a friend asked yesterday.
“This” is of course the presidency of Donald J. Trump. The query from my normally calm and composed friend was prompted by Trump’s Easter Sunday post:
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
One might minimize the importance of this one post. Perhaps the president merely got carried away at his keyboard, as one does. But later in the morning, Trump told ABC News that if there were no deal immediately to open the Strait of Hormuz, “We’re blowing up the whole country.” He repeated to Axios that “if they don’t make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there.” And of course this post is merely one item in a long train of assaults on decency and sanity by the current president.
The simple fact is that we have a president who is irresponsible, reckless, and indeed unhinged. And he’s all the more dangerous because he is unconstrained by both his subordinates in the executive branch or by Congress.
What’s to be done? Let me offer two suggestions, one having to do with those subordinate officials in the executive branch, and one with Congress. I offer both of them in a spirit of tentativeness and as an invitation to further discussion. They may seem to be radical ideas—even desperate ones—but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The first proposal is that we think seriously about the case for internal resistance within the executive branch. When the head of the executive branch shows a repeated willingness to enrich himself, to lie to the public, to break the law, senior officials can appropriately recall that the oath they take is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. They can remind themselves that they are obliged to obey the law rather than the illegal wishes of their boss or their boss’s boss.
In current circumstances, this means that serious people within the executive branch have to think soberly about what they can do every day to minimize Trump’s damage to the rule of law. Senior officials do have discretion. They can move quickly or slowly. They can act privately or more publicly. They can make life more difficult for their political masters who are seeking to engage in misconduct or abuses of power.
Even if such resistance doesn’t stop but merely exposes illicit schemes, it would be doing a service. And if conscientious public servants find they cannot stay in their positions, they need not resign politely and then keep quiet. They could—and should—rather force their political bosses to fire them for standing up against impropriety, and then should speak up about what they have seen inside.
I still can’t say I thought I’d ever live in a reality where I consistently agreed with Bill Kristol, but again, these are dark times that we live in. Even though we differ on what constitutes a democracy, we both believe in democracy.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlolatina
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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