Mostly Labor Day Monday Reads

Posted: September 1, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: "presidential immunity", #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, 2025 What Fresh Hell? | Tags: , , , | 14 Comments

“The trumps are laboring.” John Buss @repeat1968

Happy Labor Day, Sky Dancers!

Labor Day is the unofficial day that America leaves its summer to start all things Autumn. This is a particularly notable Labor Day because there are ongoing attacks on workers and unions, as well as universities and public schools that are opening up to greet a new fall term. Fall is the time for harvesting. This year’s harvest is full of the results of extremist policies and plots. It’s time to start campaign season with an eye to ridding ourselves of the sources.

I live in New Orleans, which is well known as America’s most European city, and I’m glad of that. It’s surrounded by the Deep South and many rural areas. Things are not going so well there. Resources have been pulled from many of the country’s outlands when they need them badly. I’ll start with this analysis from AXIOS. “Rural South, West states have highest violent crime rates: FBI.”  Contrary to the belief of this racist regime, the nation’s outlands have the worst violent crime rates. Watching what’s become of our Nation’s Capital City sickens me. People feel invaded and demonstrate daily. Our National Guard, needed in their own states, our literally picking up garbage.

Rural states in the American South and West had some of the nation’s highest violent crime and homicide rates in 2024, driven by violence in small communities, according to an Axios analysis of FBI data.

Why it matters: A state-by-state comparison paints a complex picture of U.S. crime trends as President Trump threatens to send the National Guard to Democrat-controlled cities in blue states over concerns about violent crime.

The big picture: The president has already dispatched the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and is threatening to send troops to Chicago, Oakland, Calif., and Baltimore.

  • Now Trump is facing questions about whether he’ll send troops to communities in red states — many of them largely rural — where crime rates are actually higher than the areas he’s targeted.
  • “Sure, but there aren’t that many of them,” Trump said last week.

By the numbers: The southern states of Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and South Carolina were among the national leaders in both violent crime and homicide rates last year, an Axios review of FBI data found.

  • All had violent crime and homicide rates well above the national average.
  • Alaska, the country’s most rural state, led the nation with the highest violent crime rate of 1,194.3 per 100,000 residents. That’s more than three times the national average of 359.1.
  • New Mexico, another rural state, was second with a violent crime rate of 757.7 per 100,000 residents, more than two times the national average.

Big states such as California and New York, both targets of Trump, ranked high in total violent crime numbers because of their large populations, but their per-capita rates were similar to those of Arkansas and Tennessee, the Axios review found.

Zoom out: Alaska and New Mexico also led the nation in homicide rates with 11.3 homicides per 100,000 residents each, more than twice the nation’s homicide rate of 5 per 100,000 residents.

  • Pennsylvania was third nationally with a homicide rate of 10.1, followed by Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee.
  • Illinois, home to Chicago, which Trump has called a “killing field,” had a homicide rate of 6 per 100,000 residents, ranked 20th in the nation.

Zoom in: Big-city crime often receives the most attention in political discourse, but an Axios analysis of rural states found that violence in small towns is driving some of the nation’s highest crime rates.

  • For example, Fairbanks, Alaska, population roughly 32,000, had a violent crime rate of nearly 700 per 100,000 residents, about twice the national average.
  • McKeesport, Pa., a city of 18,000 outside Pittsburgh, had a violent crime rate of 1,693.7 and a homicide rate of a whopping 32.5 per 100,000 people. It consistently ranks among the most dangerous cities in the country, a situation officials have largely attributed to a long-term decline in its industrial economy.
  • Dyersburg, Tenn., a community of 16,000, has a violent crime rate of 1,256.5 and a homicide rate of 18.8.

What they’re saying: “If Washington, D.C., (were) a state, it would have the highest homicide rate of any state in the nation,” the White House said in a statement on Aug. 11 before dispatching the National Guard.

  • D.C.’s homicide rate was 25.9 per 100,000 residents in 2024.

Yes, but: D.C. isn’t a state, it’s a city. Among the cities with the highest homicide rates in the U.S., Washington is ranked 11th, according to an Axios review of cities with 100,000 people or more with high homicide rates.

  • Jackson, Miss., population about 141,500, had the nation’s highest homicide rate last year — nearly 78 per 100,000 residents. That’s more than 15 times the national average. There has been no national discussion about sending troops there to combat crime.

Between the lines: Rural crime often gets overlooked because most media outlets are centered in urban areas and focus just on crime there, Ralph Weisheit, a criminal justice professor at Illinois State University, tells Axios.

  • The reasons for crime in rural areas vary, but Weisheit said in many cases, communities have been ravaged by drug addiction.

Mike Johnson really needs to pay more attention to his constituents than he does #FARTUS. The consensus among many analysts is that Trump is militarizing large democratically run cities to terrorize their citizens into not voting. It’s also why he’s so interested in stopping early and mail-in voting.

This is from The Brennan Center for Justice. “Crime as a Cover. The claim that troops are needed to fight local crime is nothing but a pretext.”  The analysis is reported by Michael Waldman. Trump is doing everything he can to become a despot.

President Trump has threatened to send troops to Chicago to “straighten that one out.” New York City, he says, might be next.

Already, armed National Guard regiments are patrolling the streets of Washington, DC. All this on top of the deployment of troops to Los Angeles earlier in the summer.

The deployment of out-of-state troops to occupy cities cannot plausibly promote public order. It’s blunt force, a brutal power grab. It runs afoul of the Constitution and the proper role for states.

I write history books and consider myself an expert on the presidency. I can think of few analogies — not in this country, anyway — for such a move by a chief executive.

Why is this particular turn so alarming? After all, public safety is important, and fighting crime is a worthy goal. My colleague Liza Goitein explains the legal and constitutional issues:

Trump is on even thinner legal ice with this plan than he is in Los Angeles and DC. Unlike in the capital, the president doesn’t command the Illinois National Guard unless he calls them into federal service (i.e., “federalizes” them). There are various laws that authorize him to federalize the Guard, but none of them would apply here.

In Los Angeles, Trump is relying on a law (Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code) that authorizes federalization when “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States,” meaning federal law. Immigration law is federal law. Trump claimed that the protests rendered him “unable . . . to execute” ICE raids. Although dozens of raids happened during the protests and the administration did not cite a single raid that was thwarted, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals deferred to Trump’s assessment.

But that law simply wouldn’t apply to the type of crime Trump has cited in Chicago — essentially, violent street crime. The laws that are implicated are largely those of Illinois and Chicago, not the “laws of the United States.”

Even under the Insurrection Act — which is the main exception to the law barring deployment of the military for domestic law enforcement — the president may deploy troops to execute the law only in situations involving either federal laws or those state laws designed to protect the constitutional rights of classes of people (basically, civil rights laws).

Nor can Trump ask other states’ governors to send their Guard forces into Chicago, as he did in DC under a law known as Section 502(f), which authorizes governors to voluntarily use their Guard forces for missions requested by the president or secretary of defense. Under this law, presidents have asked governors to deploy Guard forces within their own states, in other states that consent, or (as only Trump has done) in DC without local consent. No governor has sent Guard troops into another state that did not consent, as would be the case here. That’s because Guard forces deployed under this law remain state officers as a legal matter. And under the Constitution, states are sovereign entities vis-à-vis one another. That means one state cannot invade another, even at the president’s request.

If the president wants to send one state’s National Guard forces into an unwilling state, he must federalize them first. But to federalize them, he needs statutory authority. And there is no statutory authority to federalize the Guard to police local crime.

The Pentagon reportedly sees its planned military deployment in Chicago as a model for other cities. And of course, the other cities Trump has name-checked in this context are governed by Democrats: Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, and Oakland.

Flooding “blue” cities with soldiers on the pretext of fighting crime would be an unprecedented abuse of power that would violate states’ rights and threaten our most fundamental liberties. The plan is profoundly un-American. And it is illegal.

Public safety matters greatly. But facts belie the (ever shifting) rationale. New York, for example, remains one of the nation’s safest large cities. As Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday, crime has dropped dramatically, even this year. Fighting crime is not a rationale — it’s a pretext.

The cities targeted so far have two things in common: a Black mayor and a fusillade of presidential rhetoric denouncing them as “hellholes.”

Bill Kristol, founder of The Bulwark and a longtime prominent Republican, surveyed the past week and put it this way: “What we are seeing is not merely a ‘slide toward authoritarianism.’ It’s a march toward despotism. And it’s a march whose pace is accelerating.”

What can be done to push back? Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker warned federal forces, “Do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here.” Trump, in turn, mused, “They say . . . ‘He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator.’ A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’” He added, “I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator.” (As presidential quotations go, it’s about as reassuring as Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”)

Pritzker and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul can play pivotal roles. States and cities can go to court — an epic legal battle. They can rally the public in their states and around the country. They can monitor and document the conduct of deployed forces.

We must all speak out when our Constitution is under threat.

Get some rest this Labor Day. It’s going to be a busy fall.

I still see most of these actions as enablements of the Supreme Court. I’m not the only one. This is from Justin Jouvenal writing for The Washington Post. “The Supreme Court has expanded Trump’s power. He’s seeking much more. The president’s firing of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and other cases could serve as major tests of how far the high court is willing to go.” Removing the independence of the FED is another way of turning us into a Banana Republic.

The Supreme Court has already expanded President Donald Trump’s authority in a string of emergency rulings, but he’s signaling in his firing of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and other issues likely headed to the court that he continues to seek broader powers for the executive branch.

The cases could serve as major tests of how much further the nation’s high court is willing to go to bless the president’s assertion of executive authority. They differ from previous showdowns because of the sheer magnitude of the authority Trump is seeking to wield and because he wants greater control over powers the Constitution ascribes to another branch of government.

In addition to Cook’s lawsuit, which could make its way to the high court after she sued last week, a blockbuster case over Trump’s tariffs is expected to arrive at the high court soon after an appeals court struck them down. The Trump administration’s pushto withhold tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid appropriated by Congress could also end up in the court.

Peter Shane, a law professor at New York University, called Trump’s assertions “breathtaking.”

“Other presidents have tried to use their authority aggressively, but usually it’s been done through aggressive interpretations of statutory law and in a pretty targeted way,” Shane said.

Each of the presidential powers being contested by Trump, he said, “is a challenge to what I think heretofore would have been regarded as a core power of Congress.”

The high court has already signaled openness to broad presidential authority to replace some heads of independent agencies.

The justices handed Trump a major victory in May when they allowed him to remove the leaders of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board while legal challenges play out over their firings. Trump gave no reasons for the dismissals.

The court’sconservative majority ruled the Constitution vests all executive power in the president, so Trump could fire the agency heads “without cause” even though Congress set up the agencies to be insulated from political interference.

There it is. The direct attacks on labor. This is a guest Op-Ed in the New York Times (gift article) by labor historian Erik Loomis.”Trump Is Wiping Out Unions. Why Are They So Quiet?”

This is a most unfortunate Labor Day for labor. The labor movement has taken it on the chin repeatedly in the last several decades, but President Trump is the most ruthlessly anti-labor president since before the Great Depression.

If the labor movement does not fight harder than it has since Mr. Trump regained the presidency, its future will be dire.

Mr. Trump and his administration have unilaterally stripped collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers. At the Department of Veterans Affairs alone, 400,000 workers, or 2.8 percent of America’s unionized workers, have lost their collective bargaining rights because of an executive order that will eventually affect more than one million federal workers. Mr. Trump ushered in Labor Day weekend on Thursday by continuing his assault of federal unions, adding the Patent Office, NASA and the National Weather Service to his list of targeted agencies.

Despite this assault on their very existence, we have barely heard a peep from unions. Where is organized labor in the public fight to maintain union jobs, stop the stripping of the safety net and lead the fight for democracy? Other than some statements and angry speeches, the movement has been muted.

If the labor movement wants to fight for its survival, it must return to mass mobilization tactics, reminding Americans that their rights come through working together — not through supporting a president who talks about helping American workers while slashing worker safety regulations, supporting tariffs that raise the cost of consumer goods and stripping workers of their legal rights to contracts.

All this is happening at a time when Americans’ approval of unions is the highest it has been since the mid-1960s.

One cannot overstate the significance of Mr. Trump’s attacks on government workers. Public sector work has become organized labor’s power base, allowing the total workforce’s union membership rate to remain at around 10 percent, despite less than 6 percent of private sector workers having unions.

Based on actions Mr. Trump has taken this year — and without any notable public pushback from supposedly pro-labor Republicans like Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio — it is unlikely that there will be any unionized federal workers outside of policing agencies by the end of his term in 2029.

Mr. Trump has attacked workers in other ways. He has gutted the Department of Labor through cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency. He is also rolling back Labor Department rules from the Obama and Biden administrations that allowed home care workers to earn overtime and farmworkers to campaign for better working conditions. And he has severely undermined the National Labor Relations Board, which handles thousands of union matters every year by firing its head and nominating corporate-friendly figures to steer its operations away from supporting workers.

“Hurry Sundown.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Read more about the reasons at the link. Russia is getting more brazen, given that Putin has reason to believe the United States will enable his attacks on democracy. This is from CNN. “Plane carrying EU’s top leader targeted by alleged Russian GPS jamming.” This is reported by Ivana Kottasová.

A plane carrying the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was targeted by GPS navigation jamming while trying to land in Bulgaria on Sunday, a spokesperson for the commission told CNN.

The commission received “information from Bulgarian authorities that they suspect this blatant interference was carried out by Russia,” said European Commission Deputy Chief Spokesperson Arianna Podestà.

The plane landed safely, the spokesperson said. A source familiar with the situation told CNN the pilots landed the plane using paper maps.

Von der Leyen and the commission have been staunch supporters of Ukraine as Kyiv tries to defend itself against Russia’s unprovoked aggression. She was one of the European leaders who attended US President Donald Trump’s summit on Ukraine last week and has consistently urged EU member states to allocate more resources to helping Ukraine.

The incident occurred as the president was about to land at the Plovdiv International Airport in the south of Bulgaria, part of her tour around member states in the eastern part of the bloc to rally support for Ukraine.

“This incident underlines the urgency of the President’s current trip to frontline Member States, where she has seen first hand the every day threats from Russia and its proxies,” Podestà told CNN.

Not only are Russia and China getting brave, but India’s Modi has been driven straight into their arms by Trump. This is an alarming headline from Christian Shepherd writing for The Washington Post. “China tries to use Trump turmoil to unite leaders against U.S.-led order. Twenty leaders — including from Russia, Iran and India — are in China for a summit designed to promote Beijing as a reliable counterweight to the U.S.”  This is happening as Trump cuts more foreign aid and Kari Lake disables the Voice of America. I thought Yam Tits considered them his buddies?

Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday called on the leaders of countries including Russia, Iran and India to integrate their economies and build an “orderly multipolar world,” as he tried to unite them in their shared grievances with the U.S.-led global order and the policies of President Donald Trump.

Xi used the platform of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit here, 90 miles southeast of Beijing, to implicitly criticize Trump’s policies — without naming him or mentioning the United States.

He urged the 20 foreign leaders in attendance to “seek integration, not decoupling” and “unequivocally oppose power politics.”

Member countries should “serve as a cornerstone for the promotion of a multipolar world” and join a China-led “global governance initiative,” he said in closing remarksafter a day in which leaders put on shows of chumminess and met for private talks on the sidelines of the mostly scripted event.

The Chinese leader’s new initiative will help provide stability at a time of rising turbulence and end “the monopoly of global governance by some countries,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a news briefing Monday night after Xi’s remarks.

Xi held a bilateral meeting with India’s Narendra Modi Sunday and will hold a one-on-one with Vladimir Putin of Russia on Tuesday.The three were filmed holding hands and smiling as they chatted on Monday.

Xi also proposed deepening economic ties to take advantage of the group’s “mega-sized market,” including by establishing a SCO development bank. China has already invested $84 billion in member countries and would provide another $1.4 billion in loans over the next three years, he said.

The forum is a key part of China’s campaign to be seen as a reliable partner and a counterweight to U.S. unpredictability in an increasingly multipolar world. Modi’s attendance in particular — his first visit to the country in seven years — is a milestone in Beijing’s attempt to mend ties with an influential U.S. partner that has been alienated by Trump’s tariffs.

California’s Governor Newsom is still trolling Trump. It may not be classy, but it sure is funny! “Gavin Newsom continues to troll Trump by blasting ‘I’m a Survivor’ in post about president’s health. Donald Trump’s bruised hands mocked by California governor in Instagram video bringing together some of the president’s most embarrassing moments.”  This is from The Independent and reported by Joe Summerlad.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has continued his trolling campaign against Donald Trump, this time posting a video on Instagram making light of the president’s health complaints.

The montage, set to the 2001 song “I’m a Survivor” by country music star Reba McEntire, pulls together some of Trump’s most embarrassing gaffes in the public eye, from tripping on the steps to Air Force One to recoiling in horror from a squawking eagle and being bumped in the chin by a rogue reporter’s microphone.

“He’s trying,” the post is captioned.

Drawing an ironic contrast between the president’s opulent lifestyle and the song’s lyrics about a “single mom who works two jobs,” the clip also pays particular attention to the bruises spotted on Trump’s hands in recent months.

The commander-in-chief was recently diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency but speculation about his wellbeing raged well before that and has not abated since the condition was revealed.

JJ has informed me that you must turn off your location before going to Instagram, as they are posting it on MAPS.

I hope you got some rest and relaxation this weekend. I’ve been hanging in the house trying to avoid reality.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: Escaping Today and 20 years Ago

Posted: August 29, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: "presidential immunity", #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, 2025 What Fresh Hell?, American Fascists, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Constitutional Crises, kakistocracy | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“How dare they!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I’m moving quite slowly today. I thought I had mentally prepared myself for the 20th Katrinaversary. Emotions have check-mated all that. I’m glad for the 4-day weekend because I need more solitude than usual. I evacuated with Miles, my cat, and my labs, Honey and Karma, to join the Grad students who were staying in a Lake Charles Motel.  I had told them to evacuate even though my original plan was to stay. I grabbed the craziest things before heading out in the mighty mustang. The last thing I did was try to cover my grandmother’s Steinway parlor grand with an orange tarp. It took me all day, in mostly stopped traffic, to get to Lake Charles. I slept on a futon on the floor with two grad students. I drove to Dallas, where they could catch a plane and a bus to safety. I headed to Omaha, where my oldest daughter had just started Med School, and my youngest was finishing up high school. I really wanted to avoid talking about it today. But it is what it is.

My late friend Jane took me in, and I spent a lot of time glued to CNN reports. All I heard was the devastation in the Ninth Ward. They did not figure out that there were upper and lower 9. I finally saw my house on Google’s satellite. It was there, roof and all. When I got home and realized that buying a house on the “sliver by the river” was the best decision I ever made. I had minor wind damage and some damage caused by the neighbor’s roof hitting my house. When I was finally able to see the real damage up close, I developed survivor’s guilt as well as PTSD. I relive that annually. I’ve made my short trips to the Gulf Coast since then. Every time I drove to the lower 9 to show friends and family the devastation up and beyond Thanksgiving, they were still pulling bodies from buildings. Never forget the incompetence that let this happen and killed so many.

I never thought I’d see an administration as incompetent as Dubya Bush. But here we are.  Let’s review today’s disaster. I planned to start with RFK Jr., but then Yam Tits did something astoundingly awful today. This is from Politico. “White House declares $4.9B in foreign aid unilaterally canceled in end-run around Congress’ funding power. The administration is setting up clash with Capitol Hill over its use of the “pocket rescission.”

President Donald Trump threw a grenade Friday into September government funding negotiations on Capitol Hill, declaring the unilateral power to cancel billions of dollars in foreign aid by using a so-called pocket rescission.

Escalating the administration’s assault on Congress’ funding prerogatives, the White House budget office announced Friday morning that Trump has canceled $4.9 billion through the gambit that Congress’ top watchdog and many lawmakers argue is an illegal end-run around their “power of the purse.”

The move to unilaterally nix money previously approved by Congress raises tensions on Capitol Hill as lawmakers face an Oct. 1 deadline to avoid a government shutdown, pitting Republicans at the White House against GOP lawmakers and increasing pressure on Democrats to force a funding lapse unless Trump stands down.

Democrats and Republicans alike have warned that a pocket rescissions request would hamper cross-party talks to avert a shutdown at the end of September, while fulfilling White House budget director Russ Vought’s wish that the process of funding the government be “less bipartisan” to accommodate a raft of conservative priorities.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hinted Friday that Democrats could refuse to offer the votes to get a government funding bill through the chamber before funding lapses late next month if congressional Republicans don’t push back against Trump’s latest funding move.

“Republicans don’t have to be a rubber stamp for this carnage,” Schumer said, adding that “if Republicans are insistent on going it alone, Democrats won’t be party to their destruction.”

Yet three congressional Republicans, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they expect Vought to send additional requests to revoke funding between now and the end of the current fiscal year, which would only inflame tensions.

“Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law,” the Senate’s top Republican appropriator, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, said in a quick and clear rebuke of the Trump administration’s gambit.

But the Trump administration is embracing the strategy boldly and without apology, while also signaling it intends to stare down any legal challenges that may come its way as a result: “Congress can choose to vote to rescind or continue the funds — it doesn’t matter,” an official from the White House budget office said in a statement. “This approach is rare but not unprecedented.”

I’m seriously waiting for the Democratic Congress Leadership to respond to this. Talking Points Memo has that angle on this story. “Democrats Predict Shutdown After Trump Tries to Snatch Congress’ Most Important Power.” We’ll see. This is reported by Kate Riga.

Congressional Democrats point to skyrocketing odds of a government shutdown Friday after President Trump announced that he’ll unilaterally take back money Congress had already appropriated for foreign aid, according to multiple outlets.

“As the country stares down next month’s government funding deadline on September 30th, it is clear neither President Trump nor Congressional Republicans have any plan to avoid a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement.

The move forces members of Congress to confront a question that has lingered over the legislative branch all year: What is the point of the two parties negotiating a federal budget if the executive branch insists it has the power to unilaterally determine what funds get spent? In this case, the administration seeks to make use of a loophole it claims it has discovered to refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress.

The unprecedented gambit goes even further than what unfolded in July, when the White House sought to cancel money Congress had already approved. Then, at least, lawmakers voted on the rescission, which required only 50 votes and passed with only Republican support. This time, Trump isn’t bothering to get congressional Republicans’ sign-off. This new so-called pocket rescission totals $4.9 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

“Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the Senate’s head appropriator, said in a Friday statement. She pointed to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finding that pocket rescissions are illegal under the Impoundment Control Act, as well as Congress’ power of the purse. The GAO, an independent watchdog agency within the legislative branch, has repeatedly stated that pocket rescissions are illegal.

“Republicans should not accept Russ Vought’s brazen attempt to usurp their own power. No president has a line item veto — and certainly not a retroactive line item veto,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the head Democratic appropriator, said in a statement, calling it an “absurd, illegal ploy” to “steal” lawmakers’ congressional power.

Vought, the director of the OMB, has led the charge on pocket rescissions, telegraphing for months his intention to request the rescission once the clock wound down on the fiscal year. Under the administration’s untested theory of the case, the timing loophole lets the President zero out any already allocated funds he chooses.

“I refuse to label Vought’s gambit a ‘pocket rescission’ because it gives his unlawful attempt to steal the promises Congress enacted an air of legitimacy it does not deserve,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the head Democratic appropriator in the House, said in a Friday statement.

Experts are dubious that even this ultra-conservative Supreme Court will sign off on such a brazen defiance of the separation of powers, with one telling TPM he doubts the gambit will get “a single vote” from the justices.

The move also strips the minority of what little power it usually has to demand concessions in exchange for votes during the appropriations process.

Now, we may switch to the conspiracy theorist who runs Health and Human Services, and specifically the CDC.  RFK Jr. is in a race with Yam Tits to win the crown for the most insane person in this regime. This analysis is from Don Monyihan’s Substack, Can We Still Govern? “RFK Jr. is bad for your health. Public servants are trying to warn us that state capacity is being undermined. The Centers for Disease Control shitshow is a microcosm of the mismanagement of the Trump era. It also demonstrated some extraordinary courage among principled public servants, who were willing to lose their jobs to draw attention to damage being done to public health.”

The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an anti-vax crank. He should never have been confirmed to any sort of public health position. He lied to the Senate about how he would manage vaccines if confirmed, and most Republican Senators, including physician Dr. Bill Cassidy, chose to believe him and ignore his record.

While much of RFK Jr.’s work at HHS is meaningless photo-ops with food providers promising to remove food dyes here, or add beef tallow there, he has invested real effort in exactly the place his record suggested: targeting vaccines. He has fired all members of the CDC vaccine advisory committee, baselessly accusing them of conflicts-of-interest, and replacing them with fellow vaccine skeptics.

To be clear, this goes beyond Covid vaccines: childhood vaccines to stop the spread of preventable diseases are now in the crosshairs, even after Kennedy assured Senator Cassidy that they would not be touched. Kennedy has defunded research on mRNA vaccines, ensuring that the world will less ready for the next pandemic. He is encouraging states to weaken vaccine requirements.

On Monday, RFK Jr. told the CDC Director, Susan Monarez, in place for just over a month, to accept two conditions if she wanted to keep her job.

First, he wanted her public support for his policies to limit access to vaccines. Monarez is an infectious disease scientist who has served in government for a long time. In effect, RFK Jr. was asking that she lend her personal credibility as a scientist, and the credibility of CDC, to his anti-vax policies. She demurred, saying she needed to talk to senior staff at CDC.

Second, Kennedy ordered her to fire those staff. Since they are career civil servants, it would be illegal to fire them without cause, although this has become the norm now in the Trump administration. For example, career officials at FBI were fired for refusing to fire their fellow civil servants without cause.

Monarez refused both requests.

To be clear, RFK Jr. can implement these vaccine policies without the blessing of Monarez. What he wants is for public health officials to lie to the public. What he wants is to purge medical doctors and infectious disease researchers with decades of public health experience if they don’t go along with his woo-woo medical theories.

Elizabeth Cooney has this analysis at STAT. “Crisis within CDC is spilling into real world, experts say. From food safety to vaccine availability, loss of trust and talent threaten health: ‘We are in much worse shape’”

The implosion of leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention threatens the agency, its mission, and the trust people place in public health, medical experts told STAT Thursday, a day after Director Susan Monarez refused to dismiss top scientists only to be ousted herself.

The crisis in the agency, which has been battered by personnel and policy changes ordered by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is spilling into real-world harms, the experts said. They are seeing uncertainty from the public about vaccine recommendations and availability, in light of new Covid-19 vaccine policies announced by Kennedy, as well as deeper concerns about emergency preparedness for the inevitable next challenge to the nation’s health.

“I’m worried that CDC will not be there with the full capacity that’s necessary to help us with the next big threat,” Georges Benjamin, a physician and executive director of the American Public Health Association, told STAT. “But I’m also worried about the current threats that we have today.”

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that a statement from Monarez’s lawyers “made it clear she was not aligned with the president’s mission to make American health again,” so Kennedy asked for her resignation.

“The president and Secretary Kennedy are committed to restoring trust and transparency and credibility to the CDC by ensuring their leadership and their decisions are more public-facing, more accountable, strengthening our public health system and restoring it to its core mission of protecting Americans from communicable diseases, investing in innovation to prevent, detect, and respond to future threats,” Leavitt said.

Budget cuts ordered by President Trump have steadily hammered at jobs and programs, in some cases erasing entire sectors of the agency’s public health activity. That list includes air quality as well as individual diseases like HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, and tuberculosis. There has been an erosion of the study of gun violence.

In other news, we have some more craziness by the Orange Caligula. First, from the New York Times, this piece on the continuation of Trump’s resurrection of traitors of the Lost Cause.  Greg Jaffee reports this. “Pentagon Is Reinstalling Portrait of Confederate General at West Point Library. The Pentagon is putting back up a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee at the military academy, as the Trump administration seeks to restore honors for American figures who fought to preserve slavery.” Trump still continues to argue that slavery wasn’t that bad.

The Pentagon is restoring a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, which includes a slave guiding the Confederate general’s horse in the background, to the West Point library three years after a congressionally mandated commission ordered it removed, officials said.

The 20-foot-tall painting, which hung at the United States Military Academy for 70 years, was taken down in response to a 2020 law that stripped the names of Confederate leaders from military bases.

That legislation also created a commission to come up with new base names. In 2022, the commission ordered West Point to take down all displays that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.” A few weeks later, the portrait of General Lee with his slave in the background was placed in storage.

It was not clear how West Point could return General Lee’s portrait to the library without violating the law, which emerged from the protests that followed George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police officers in 2020.

This is from the AP. “Trump ends ex-Vice President Harris’ Secret Service protection early after Biden had extended it.”

President Donald Trump has revoked former Vice President Kamala Harris’ Secret Service protection that otherwise would have ended next summer, senior Trump administration officials said Friday.

Former vice presidents typically get federal government protection for six months after leaving office, while ex-presidents do so for life. But then-President Joe Biden quietly signed a directive, at Harris’ request, that had extended protection for her beyond the traditional six months, according to another person familiar with the matter. The people insisted on anonymity to discuss a matter not made public.

Trump, a Republican, defeated Harris, a Democrat, in the presidential election last year.

His move to drop Harris’ Secret Service protection comes as the former vice president, who became the Democratic nominee last summer after a chaotic series of events that led to Biden dropping out of the contest, is about to embark on a book tour for her memoir, titled “107 Days.” The tour has 15 stops, including visits abroad to London and Toronto. The book, which refers to the historically short length of her presidential campaign, will be released Sept. 23, and the tour begins the following day.

CBS News reports this headline. “Joni Ernst won’t seek reelection to Senate in 2026, sources say.”

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa has told confidantes she plans to reveal next week that she won’t seek reelection in 2026, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.Ernst’s announcement is scheduled for Thursday, the sources said. Ernst, 55, has served in the U.S. Senate since 2015.

Spokespeople for Ernst did not reply to requests for comment.

Some Iowa Democrats have already jumped into the race, including state Sen. Zach Wahls, state Rep. Josh Turek, and Des Moines School Board chairwoman Jackie Norris.

Ernst has been evasive about whether she would run for a third term in 2026, but in public remarks earlier this month, predicted continued GOP control of Iowa.

This is from Zoe Schiffer writing at WIRED. “The White House Apparently Ordered Federal Workers to Roll Out Grok ‘ASAP’. A partnership between xAI and the US government fell apart earlier this summer. Then the White House apparently got involved, per documents obtained by WIRED.”  You may remember this AI disaster went on full metal NAZI meltdown a few months ago.

The White House appears to have instructed leaders at the General Services Administration (GSA) to add xAI’s Grok chatbot to a list of approved vendors “ASAP,” according to an email sent by agency leadership earlier this week, which WIRED obtained.

“Team: Grok/xAI needs to go back on the schedule ASAP per the WH,” states the email, sent by Josh Gruenbaum, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service. “Can someone get with Carahsoft on this immediately and please confirm?” Carahsoft is a major government contractor that resells technology from third-party firms.

“Should be all of their products we had previously (3 & 4),” the email continued, seemingly referring to Grok 3 and Grok 4. The subject line of the email was “xAI add Grok-4.”

Sources say Carahsoft’s contract was modified to include xAI earlier this week. Grok 3 and Grok 4 both currently appear on GSA Advantage (an online marketplace for government agencies to buy products and services) as of Friday morning. Now, following some internal reviews, any government agency can roll Grok out to federal workers.

The White House and GSA did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED.

The email comes after a planned partnership with xAI fell apart earlier this summer following Grok’s widespread praise for Hitler and the spouting of other antisemitic beliefs on X, WIRED previously reported.

One last one as Yam Tits moves to take over more big American Cities beyond L.A. and the District. This is from Reuters and written by Tom Hals. ”

As President Donald Trump began his push to send the National Guard and Marines to U.S. cities, military leaders privately questioned whether the troops had received proper training and warned of the “far-reaching social, political and operational” risks of aiding law enforcement, according to a Reuters review of military records disclosed in court.

U.S. Army officials planning an operation in MacArthur Park during the June deployment in Los Angeles determined that using troops to protect agents carrying out Trump’s immigration crackdown posed an “extremely high” risk to civilians, troops and the military’s reputation, according to an internal document.

Officials warned that the operation could attract protests and spiral into a riot with potential for “miscommunication and fratricide” as well as accidental harm to civilians, including children, the operation planning document said.

The trove of internal military reports and messages, disclosed during a trial to resolve a lawsuit by California Governor Gavin Newsom, offers a rare inside look at concerns from commanders after Trump broke a long-standing tradition against using the military in support of domestic law enforcement over the objections of local officials.

Since deploying 4,000 National Guard and 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to quell protests against immigration arrests, Republican Trump has sent National Guard troops to Washington and is considering expanding the military presence in other Democratic-run cities.

To mitigate the risks of the Los Angeles deployment, military lawyers drafted rules for using force and de-escalation that troops could access on their phones and that warned of the high stakes of the deployment.

The very nature of domestic operations — American military forces operating in U.S. communities — has such significant implications that the mistakes of a few soldiers can have far-reaching social, political, and operational effects,” according to an undated document titled “Los Angeles Civil Unrest SRUF.” The acronym means Standing Rules for the Use of Force.

Louis Caldera, Army Secretary to Democratic former President Bill Clinton, said in an interview that deploying the military domestically threatens to put soldiers and civilians at risk, undermines recruitment and erodes public support.

Trump has broken a lot of norms,” said Caldera. “His predecessors would not use the military in this way.”

I hope you have a great Labor Day Weekend. I plan to stay away from the news and throw myself into movies, books, and games which reflect a reality different from the horrible one we find ourselves in now. Hang tough! The resistance is growing.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

 

Finally Friday Reads: “The thing that’s extra damaging now is the craziness.”

Posted: August 22, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Drew this last Sunday, envisioning a trump renovation of the Lincoln Memorial as he “cleans up” DC. Wake up to find South Park had the same idea. Should have posted it sooner. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I have to admit that my heroes have always been Nobel Prize Winners in Economics. Between hearing family stories about living through the Great Depression and my own experience of inflation and stagflation, I just totally fell into my economics major. It was practical, scientific, and consensus-seeking. I have an early copy of Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that was my father’s economic textbook after the War. I also have my own copy of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. As a Financial Economist, I have strong roots as a monetarist. 

As I reached out to study Trade Theory in search of what all countries needed in place to have a stable, growing economy and financial system, I became drawn to Paul Krugman. The headline up top is straight from him. This year, I’ve watched just about everything we’ve learned since the Great Depression on how to stabilize and grow an economy, from all these wise people, being thrown to the wind. I’m opening with the current Krugman critique of the “craziness.”  It will be followed by some excellent analysis of what’s passing as policy these days, which is anything but a market economy. You can make a good case that we are moving in the direction of a Soviet-style command and Control system and heading straight into a Maoist one. This is how our regime rolls these days, and as Krugman says, it’s crazy.

I start with Thor Benson’s interview with Dr. Krugman at the Substack Public Notice.

Paul Krugman’s publication here on Substack has quickly become a vital resource for explanatory (and entertaining) coverage of Trump’s self-destructive economic policies. In fact, the Nobel Prize winner recently triggered Trump himself, with the president howling that Krugman is a “Trump Deranged BUM” in an unhinged Truth Social screed.

So with economic indicators weakening and talk of stagflation in the air, we connected with Krugman for a wide-ranging conversation about tariffs, inflation, why the AI bubble is reminiscent of the late 1990s, Trump’s teetering economy, and more.

“I think there’s a high likelihood of what we used to call a ‘growth recession’ or a jobless recovery — a situation where the economy isn’t plunging, but in fact unemployment is going up,” Krugman told us. “The economy is growing too slowly right now to generate enough jobs and there’s real weakness, which we’ve already seen in the data.”

“The thing that’s extra damaging now is the craziness. Nobody knows what the tariff rates will be in six months. Businesses making investment decisions want to know what things are going to be like over the next five years, but nobody has the faintest idea.”

The key to the crazy car is indeed tariffs.  The damage, like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act Congress imposed in 1929, made the Great Depression what it turned out to be.  The media has pushed the idea that the current tariff regime has been limited because of the TACO craziness. Read Krugman’s thoughts on that.

Thor Benson

Why haven’t tariffs inflicted more damage on the economy already? There were a lot of dire warnings in the lead-up to Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement nearly five months ago.

Paul Krugman

The scale of Trump’s tariffs is beyond the highest expectations people had. When he was talking about 10 percent tariffs globally, people thought, “Well, he won’t really do that.” In fact, it looks like we’re going to end up with an average tariff rate of around 18 percent, which is huge. We knew the reaction would be delayed, and it’s been even more delayed than expected, but it’s starting to show now.

The first thing to say is that, in general, protectionism is bad, but people tend to overstate the case. I’ve written about that a few times. It sounds important, because it has global effects, but it gets overhyped. Our screwed-up healthcare system does way more damage to the economy than Trump’s tariffs. Reasonable estimates of the long-run impact of these tariffs is a 0.4 or 0.5 percent cut to GDP — not trivial, but not apocalyptic.

In terms of the inflationary impacts of tariffs, there was a lot of front-running. Companies that import stuff rushed to do so earlier this year before the tariffs kicked in. To some extent, we’re still living off inventory that was built up in that period, and you can see it in the data. There was a huge surge in imports early in the year and then a huge drop after the tariffs finally kicked in. We’re still living off inventory that was brought in at much lower tariff rates.

It’s also important to note that the TACO thing is wrong. Trump did not chicken out. We’ve got 15 percent tariffs on the EU and Japan and iron tariffs on a number of countries.

The fact that people kept thinking we were gonna have trade deals and the tariffs were going to come back down meant that companies were reluctant to pass price hikes into stores, because they didn’t want to make customers mad and lose market share. It’s only now really sinking in that this is for real, and so the “let’s eat the tariffs for a while” thing is fading out.

It’s happening a little slower than expected, but for the most part we’re pretty much right in line with what economists were saying earlier this year.

Professionals are fleeing the U.S. Treasury.  “Treasury Department’s No. 2 official is leaving. Michael Faulkender oversees the department’s operations and has a broad policy portfolio that spans tax, international finance, sanctions, and financial regulation.”  The adults are leaving the room.

The rest is under a paywall, but you get the general gist of it. So, all of this tariff shit is not coming out of Congress, as it should. That is what led to this very important article in Fortune. You may read all of it. The first author, Jeffrey Sonnenfield, is a Yale University Business Professor. The rest of the authors are equally impressive.  There are CEOs of Top Companies as well as other academics, including Distinguished Professor Laura Tyson, a former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, back when we really were doing economic policy. Here’s the headline, folks!  “Is MAGA going Marxist and Maoist? Trump’s assault on free-market capitalism.”

As many CEOs understandably grew horrified last month at the prospect that New York City, the capital of capitalism, is on the brink of going socialist with the mayoral momentum of the inexperienced candidate Zohran Mamdani, they were ignoring the greater assault on free market capitalism that has already overtaken the nation in the Republican Party. While we agree that Mamdani’s solutions to affordable housing and grocery prices threaten to undermine free markets by bowing to the appeal of populist anger, President Donald Trump has already begun doing so, but to suit his own grandiose political agenda instead.

Unlike any leader of any free-market economy around the world, President Trump has seized control of private enterprise’s strategic decision-making and investment policies while invading corporate board rooms so that he may dictate leadership staffing, punish corporate critics, and demand public compliance with his political agenda. This is far more dangerous to capitalism than a city-run grocery store.

Many free-market economists and business leaders who have long worshipped the free-market ideals of Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman should be aware that their idols would be rolling in their graves right now, as rather than pursue standard laissez-faire conservative economic policies, MAGA has gone Marxist and even, increasingly, Maoist

That sounds dour, doesn’t it?

As Greg Ip warned this week in The Wall Street Journal, “The US marches toward state capitalism with American characteristics … President Trump is imitating [the] Chinese Communist Party by extending political control ever deeper into the economy.”  Ip pointed out that in the past, crisis-driven government bailouts of the banking and automotive sectors, such as TARP, were acute, targeted assistance, with brief and bipartisan rescue aims. Similarly, government incentives to drive investments in chips manufacturing, oil exploration, space exploration, internet development, agricultural vitality, cancer detection, disease treatment, and clean energy were not ownership deals with preferred companies or corporate cronies.

Indeed, Ip’s warnings mirror our own, as we were the first to accurately, presciently warn—over a year ago—that many of Trump’s economic positions more closely resemble communism than capitalism, as part of what we called “the coming MAGA assault on capitalism.” It certainly looks like MAGA is going Marxist if not even Maoist, especially across Trump’s vicious personal targeting of individual business leaders; government crackdown on business freedom of expression; weaponization of government powers; apparent extortion of businesses; and insertion of government into an unprecedented, outsized role in private sector strategic investment, capital flows and business decision-making.

Marxism and Maoism were both, of course, expressions of the communist theory that spilled forth from Karl Marx’s pen in the 19th century, brought to life in the brutal one-party states of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China under its leader Mao Zedong, before it evolved into “capitalism with Chinese characteristics” starting in the 1970s, around the time of President Richard Nixon’s fateful visit to Beijing.

Both Marxism and Maoism claimed to champion “ordinary people” against corrupt or exploitative elites, while both targeted intellectuals, bureaucrats, and traditionalists, and purged institutions to enforce ideological purity, especially during Stalin’s “Great Terror” and Mao’s “Cultural Revolution.” Both centralized leadership to the point of creating a cult of personality, demanding intense loyalty and the glorification of the sole figure who could fix the country’s problems. Both prized loyalty over expertise, sidelining critics and dissenters in favor of a tightly controlled political narrative. Sound familiar?

The essence of market capitalism is that owners—shareholders and the management they appoint share in the profits. These deals give share of profits to government in return for favors. Friedman said that federal government should never own anything—that it should not run a surplus because it would have funds to invest in the private sector. What strategic decision-making rights would the government have in such deals, then?

So, I have studied all of these things in both comparative economic systems and comparative political systems, as well as Russian and Chinese history courses. If you ever did any of this, you would be as scared as I am.  You may also watch the latest South Park episode, where all these institutional leaders line up and gift solid gold and silver gee-gaws to Yam Tits. Once again, dark humor mimics a dark regime.

You may read all the listed evidence at the link. This is not normal. This is heavy-handed interference in all our markets. Evidently, regulation is good if it’s the #FARTUS openly demanding he be cut in on all deals. There are so many things going on that are not normal; all alarms should be blaring loudly by now. “Trump’s FBI Raid of John Bolton’s Home Looks Like a ‘Five-Alarm Fire. Thus far, little is known about Friday’s law enforcement action against a top Trump critic. But we’re seeing an escalation of authoritarian power on many fronts that has grown unmistakable.” This is from the New Republic. It’s written by Greg Sargent.

Whatever we end up learning about the rationale for the FBI’s early-morning raid on former national security adviser John Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home on Friday, there’s plainly a major escalation underway in President Donald Trump’s use of law enforcement to persecute his perceived enemies and entrench his authoritarian power. Consider the pattern:

Assaults targeting individual business leaders

Trump has a long history of targeting individual CEOs in highly vicious, personal terms for perceived offenses. This week, Trump called for the firing of Goldman Sachs’ renowned economist Jan Hatzius who accurately called the 2008 financial crisis over the economist’s concern regarding the tariff overhand on the US economy. He also attacked a top-performing financier, David Solomon, the non-partisan CEO of Goldman Sachs, telling him to quit and just be a disc jockey. (Solomon has a famous side hustle as an electronic dance music DJ, known as DJ D-Sol.)

  • The targeting of Bolton, a major critic of Trump, appears to have been personally authorized by Kash Patel. An apparently official leak to the New York Post deliberately underscored Patel’s involvement, probably to make sure it’s understood by Trump’s other enemies. Remember: Trump installed Patel as FBI director for this very purpose. Patel had openly declared in 2023 that “the conspirators,” that is enemies of Trump and MAGA, must be prosecuted, and also that more loyalists with the resolve to see this through would be recruited to carry this out. Bolton was on Patel’s enemies list.
  • Trump is now targeting Fed governor Lisa Cook, another proclaimed enemy, and he’s escalating the use of law enforcement and the manipulation of the bureaucracy to do so. Trump loyalist William Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is alleging that Cook committed mortgage fraud, and this has been referred to the Justice Department. Whether or not there’s anything to the fraud claims, they’re minor at best, and it’s already highly suspect that Pulte, an agency head, has taken such an active interest in investigations into individual mortgages that happen to belong to Trump’s highest-profile enemies. Given that Trump personally promoted an article about the referral of the Cook matter to DOJ, Pulte’s move looks even more suspect.
  • Tellingly, Trump also heavily promoted the news of another supposedly fraudulent mortgage held by an enemy, Senator Adam Schiff. Schiff flatly denies the charges, yet DOJ is now criminally investigating them. Here again, Trump loyalist Pulte was directly involved in the manufacturing of the pretext for this, and experts say the process employed was dubiously manipulated. The same tactic has been used against New York Attorney General Letitia James, another major Trump foe. The question now is whether the White House is directing Pulte to rummage through the mortgages of Trump enemies for material that can serve as a pretext for potential DOJ prosecutions. It’s hard to imagine something of this magnitude proceeding without the White House’s blessing.
  • After protests broke out over Trump’s attempted takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force and his deployment of the National Guard there—which is itself a major escalation—White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller expressly declared that protests would be met with a surge of additional law enforcement and/or military resources. Notably, there’s been no serious effort to reassure Americans that Trump’s militarization of the city, or of Los Angeles, is rooted in benign intentions. In fact, this week Trump suggested he would personally ride through the city with the National Guard. Though he scrapped the plan, that was probably for logistical reasons, and he plainly wants all this military activity in urban centers to be seen as affirmative confirmation of his ongoing consolidation of power.
  • Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon explicitly declared the other day that ICE officers will indeed be employed during the 2026 midterm elections in large numbers to monitor voting booths, again floating undocumented voters as the bullshit pretext to justify it. Bannon is not in a position to compel this, of course, but it’s clear the MAGA movement now sees Trump’s militarization of cities as a precursor to the use of law enforcement and/or the military to intimidate voters in large numbers, or foment a crisis atmosphere designed to help the GOP, or both.
  • Last but not least, as we reported, a recent internal Department of Homeland Security memo outlines the hopes of senior DHS officials for substantially escalated military involvement in domestic law enforcement going forward. It even declares that military operations like the one in L.A. may be needed “for years to come.”

The raid of Bolton’s home was authorized by a court, and it is seeking to “determine whether he illegally shared or possessed classified information,” according to The New York Times. Trump told reporters Friday that he’d been unaware of the raid, but responded to it ominously.

WTF is going on? This is not normal. This is not democratic. This is not how our republic is supposed to work. Meanwhile, Donald’s dash for the Nobel Peace Prize is dashed again.  Put so played him. This is from Politico. “Trump’s peace bid flops as Kremlin says no plans for Putin-Zelenskyy summit. Moscow obfuscates again in new remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.” Well, inadequate Yam Tits strike again and cost the country more of our hard-earned dollars.

Russia’s top diplomat said Friday the Kremlin is “not ready at all” for a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pouring cold water on U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to set up a summit.

Trump announced Monday on social media that he was arranging a bilateral meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, following crunch talks with European leaders at the White House — but gave scant details.

But Moscow has since been reluctant to commit to a confab between the two leaders, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying Tuesday such a meeting would need to be prepared “step by step, gradually, starting from the expert level and then going through all the necessary stages.”

He sowed further doubt Friday, claiming that Zelenskyy was the one not willing to negotiate by refusing to rule out joining NATO or concede to the Kremlin’s maximalist territorial demands.

“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov told U.S. channel NBC.

“Zelenskyy said no to everything. … How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?” he added.

While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week the Russian ruler had agreed to a face-to-face meeting, touting his supposed openness to talks as a breakthrough, European diplomats and leaders have voiced skepticism that Moscow is really interested in ending the war and willing to negotiate in good faith.

“We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession, and they are the ones who are the aggressor here,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday.

Zelenskyy accused Moscow on Friday of dragging out peace talks in a bid to hold off punishing American sanctions, which Trump has threatened to impose on Russia and its trading partners if the Kremlin does not participate.

#FARTUS is the most corrupt and inept president we’ve ever had. I have no idea how we’re going to survive much more of this. More things from Memeorandum to check out:

Don’t forget, Trump is destroying the Smithsonian, the entire White House, and just about every check and balance enumerated by the U.S. Constitution.  You may gag over the Oval Office Changes at Business Insider.  His future architectural destruction is outlined in USA Today. It includes the Lincoln Bedroom, and he’s specifically interested in its bathroom.  That’s a lot of gag for your buck.

We’re certainly going to get more proof that everything Trump touches dies.

I can’t watch the news much anymore. I think I’ll go watch the Disney Channel now.

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

Mostly Monday Reads: Educating Donald

Posted: August 18, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, Finland, Foreign Affairs, France, Germany, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United Nations | Tags: , , | 7 Comments

“Last-minute shopping,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Orange Caligula’s Reign of Terror and Tackiness continues. Oh, and we can’t forget that he’s busy rigging elections, ruining the economy, occupying cities, kidnapping immigrants, and fending off Epstein stories. President Zelenski is once more headed to the White House to ensure the US keeps the promises it made to the people of Ukraine. This time, Zelenski is bringing back-up from Western Europe. You’ll remember the last time he came, he brought out the bully in the childish Trump, who focused on Zelensky’s military uniform as a wartime president wearing a soldier’s uniform. Yam Tits hates to be upstaged and was hostile during that entire summit.

I don’t think that the Europeans can rescue the world from the Grandiose Narcissist, but they can make him look pathetic. As I write this, the Chancellor of the German Republic has arrived. This brief summary by AXIOS puts the occasion into perspective. Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo have this headline today. “Trump-Zelensky summit: The suit question, again.” Let’s see how he does when the premier leaders of Europe gang up on the infamous bully. Trump’s pettiness is likely to ruin the day.

Andrea Mitchell has just stated that President Zelenski is wearing a suit. Our embarrassing President is welcoming him and, of course, mentions his fetish partner, Putin. He’s thanking Yam Tits. I guess Zelenski got the message JD Dank sent him last time. And Trump’s calling Putin’s attack on Ukraine as “Biden’s War.” The man just can’t keep himself from lying. Here’s some perspective on the Trump/Putin bromance event last week in Letters from an American.

On the heels of President Donald J. Trump’s Friday meeting with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, Trump will meet with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky Monday afternoon at the White House. According to Barak Ravid of Axios, Trump called Zelensky from Air Force One on the way home from Alaska. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff were also on the hour-long call. The leaders of the European Commission, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United Kingdom then joined the call for another half hour.

In the call, Trump embraced Putin’s view of the conflict, telling Zelensky and European leaders that Putin does not want a ceasefire. Trump indicated that he is abandoning his own demand for a ceasefire and adopting Putin’s position that negotiations should take place without one. Zelensky insists on a ceasefire before negotiations. After the call, Trump posted on social media that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.” “All” is doing a lot of work in that sentence: it appears to mean Putin, with the possible agreement now of Trump.

Key unanswered questions from Friday’s summit were why it ended so abruptly, with the cancellation of a planned luncheon and more discussions, and why Trump immediately told Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity, “Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about [further sanctions on Russia] now. I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don’t have to think about that right now.”

The abrupt cancellation could mean that U.S. officials sent Putin packing without lunch because he would not agree to a ceasefire. But it seems worth keeping on the table that Trump has recently exhibited both an inability to focus on any topic, and a need to live in a carefully constructed world that ignores reality and assures him he is the best and the brightest. A high-stakes meeting with principals about a very real situation might have been too much for him to manage for a full day.

At the press conference following the summit, NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander reported that what struck him was “the looks on the faces of a lot of the American delegation here. Karoline Leavitt…, Steve Witkoff, who came into the room, then left quickly, then came back in. Leavitt appeared to be a bit stressed out, anxious. Their eyes were wide, almost ashen at times.”

At 8:31 this morning, Trump posted one word, “bela,” on his social media account. California governor Gavin Newsom’s social media account, which has been trolling Trump by imitating his boastful, insulting, all-caps posts, wrote: “We broke Donald Trump.”

As of midday Sunday, there appeared to be no mention of the Alaska meeting on the State Department’s website, although it has been updated since Friday to acknowledge Indonesia Independence Day and the Gabonese Republic National Day.

What is clear from the summit, though, is that Trump and Putin badly miscalculated the nature of power in democracies.

While Trump came out of the White House to greet Zelinski, the situation was different for our European Allies. This is from The Daily Beast. “Trump Snubs Greatest Allies With Greeting From Fox News Host. European leaders arriving at the White House were met by the Chief of Protocol, Monica Crowley.”

After rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, President Donald Trump did not directly greet European leaders arriving at the White House on Monday.

Seven European leaders including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte, have all flown to Washington to show a united front as Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A gathering of so many European leaders at the White House at one time with such little notice is unprecedented in recent times.

As they started arriving at the White House, European leaders were greeted by the Chief of Protocol and former Fox News personality Monica Crowley rather than the president.

While Trump did not step out to meet European leaders who hastily flew to Washington, he did acknowledge that their visit for the summit is a big deal.

“We have never had so many European Leaders here at one time. A great honor for America,” he wrote on Truth Social.

And Yam Tit’s speaking about himself in third person again, and how the Press underrates him. He’s also bragging about the “success” of the District occupation. Well, I can’t hear his voice without feeling like I’m going to vomit. He’s still ass-kissing and performing for the Nobel Peace Prize. He just hates that Obama got one. I just turned the TV off, and I’ll end here. We know he’s outnumbered in the brain department. Let’s just hope they can break through that Narcissistic Personality Disorder and get him to do what’s necessary for the good of all the democracies in the world.

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

Finally Friday Reads: Only the Very Worst People

Posted: August 15, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, Putin Alaska Summit, Trump's worst hires at work | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“I feel safer already,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

While we’re waiting for Putin to take what’s left of Yam Tits’ scalp in Alaska, let’s focus on what he’s trying to pass off as serious hires for all levels of the Federal Government. I’m going to start with the last target of South Park’s wonderful new season, ICE Barbie. This is from the Washington Post. “Kristi Noem is living free of charge in Coast Guard commandant’s home. A DHS spokesman said Noem must live on the military base because she had been “so horribly doxxed and targeted that she is no longer able to safely live in her own apartment.” I find it more than slightly ironic that the head of  “Homeland Security” doesn’t feel secure in her own home.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem is living for free in a military home typicallyreserved for the U.S. Coast Guard’s top admiral, officials familiar with the matter said. The highly unusual arrangement has raised concern within the agency andfrom some Democrats, who describe it as a waste of military resources.

Noem recently moved intoQuarters 1, a spacious waterfront residence at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Southeast Washington where the Coast Guard commandant typically resides. She did so because of concerns over her safety after the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, published photographs in April of the area around Noem’s residence in Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin described Noem’s time at the commandant’s residence as temporary. She did not specify how long thesetup would last or how long Noem has lived there.

Noem pays no rent to live in the commandant’s house, according to an official familiar with the matter granted anonymity to speak candidly. That’s a departure from how other Cabinet secretarieshave handled similar arrangements. Other Cabinet officials, including during both Trump administrations, have paid to use military housing that otherwise would be occupied by top generals and admirals.

Noem’s housing has raised eyebrows from current and retired Coast Guard officials, as well as Democrats, who warn that Noem risks creating the perception that she is exploiting the perks of her position as DHS secretary, in which she supervises the Coast Guard. They say her decision could set off a chain reaction that could displace other senior members of the service in a situation with limited housing.

Current and former Coast Guard members have also cited Noem’s frequent use of a Coast Guard Gulfstream aircraft as a point of tension. Agency guidelines require the DHS secretary to use a plane with secure communications for both personal and professional business, though they are required to reimburse the government for personal travel. McLaughlin said that Noem had reimbursed “tens of thousands of dollars” for the air travel, after publication of the story.

Noem faced scrutiny for her expenses when she served as governor of South Dakota. She spent $68,000 in taxpayer funds to refurbish the governor’s mansion with a sauna, chandelier and other amenities, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported in 2021. And South Dakota picked up the tab for at least $150,000 in campaign and personal travel for Noem related to her security when she was governor, the Associated Press reported this year.

Noem’s housing arrangement could create the impression that she is exploiting her position of authority over the Coast Guard to accrue perks for herself, said Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning watchdog nonprofit.

“What are the optics?” Brown said. “And is this taking advantage of your individual position as a government official to benefit unduly?”

So, I wonder if her neighbors hide their dogs? It’s amazing to me that the law and order crowd can’t seem to actually figure out either. Let’s continue with people who don’t know how to do their jobs.  “US Attorney Pirro’s office admits grand jury refused ICE interference charges — twice. Federal prosecutors told a judge they had failed twice to secure an indictment against Sydney Lori Reid for allegedly assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE arrest.” I have to confess that I can’t listen to or watch any interviews with her. Her voice is disturbingly grating. She also looks like something out of a horror film. I pity the poor jury that has to deal with this. This much body dysmorphia in one administration is a sign of something. You may discuss that amongst yourselves. The story comes from the local news station at WUSA9.

Federal prosecutors twice sought a grand jury indictment against a D.C. woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE inmate transfer — and were twice rejected, the U.S. Attorney’s Office admitted in court Thursday.

Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey revealed the denials to attorneys for Sydney Lori Reid and later granted their request to remove all bond conditions and release her on her own recognizance over prosecutors’ objections. He will resume a preliminary hearing on Friday afternoon to determine whether to dismiss the case entirely.

“Two presentations to the grand jury returned no bill both times,” Harvey said. “Suggesting the evidence is wanting, given the standard for indictment is probable cause. Suggesting the government may never get an indictment.”

Grand juries are tasked with deciding only whether there is a reasonable basis to support charging someone with a crime – a much lower burden for prosecutors than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard of criminal juries – and typically make their decisions after hearing evidence only from the government. At the federal level, grand juries return indictments, or “true bills,” in the vast majority of cases.

Reid, 44, was charged last month with an enhanced felony version of an assault charge that requires inflicting bodily injury on a federal officer and carries a maximum sentence of up to eight years in prison. The charge is the same offense filed this week against a former DOJ employee accused of throwing a sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.

In a press release last month, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office accused Reid of trying to impede the transfer of two alleged members of the 18th Street gang who were being arrested by ICE outside the D.C. Jail prior to transfer to the custody of the FBI.

Federal prosecutors declined to call the injured FBI agent or any of the ICE officers involved in the incident during Thursday’s hearing, however. Instead, they had an investigator with the U.S. Attorney’s Office testify about his review of video of the incident and brief conversations with the officers. The investigator, Special Agent Sean Ricardi, said he’d had no involvement in the case until he was asked to prepare for testimony Thursday morning.

Video played by prosecutors shows Reid approaching the ICE officers while holding up her phone, which she says is for her protection. She is then later seen being held by multiple officers against a wall while she asks, “How do you feel about stealing f***ing people?”

Even the first soft porn star is getting into the headlines. You know, I really hate to slut slam or pick on woman for their looks. I love Stormy Daniels. She’s as sweet as pie, and she helped feed the neighborhood animals during our last hurricane. I’m always happy to see her when she visits. But, there’s a crossed Rubicon at some point with some behavior. Melania whiffed with this one. This story is from The Guardian. “Melania Trump demands Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to Jeffrey Epstein. First lady threatens to sue Joe Biden’s son after he said sex offender Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump. I can’t wait to read the testimony on the Trumps explaining their relationships with Epstein, frankly.

Melania Trump has demanded that Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and has threatened to sue if he does not.

Biden, the son of the former president Joe Biden, alleged in an interview this month that Epstein had introduced the first lady to Donald Trump.

The statements were false, defamatory and “extremely salacious”, Melania Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, said in a letter to Biden. Biden’s remarks were widely disseminated on social media and reported by media outlets around the world, causing the first lady “to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm”, he added.

Biden made the Epstein comments during a sprawling interview with the US journalist Andrew Callaghan in which he lashed out at “elites” and others in the Democratic party who he said had undermined his father before he dropped out of last year’s presidential campaign.

I’m sorry, but I just keep laughing at the “reputational harm” part. It’s not like you were “modelling” for some wannabe Picasso. We’ve seen the pictures, honey.

“Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep,” Biden said in one of the comments that the first lady disputes. Biden attributed the claim to the author Michael Wolff. Donald Trump has accused Wolff of making up stories to sell books.

Biden responded to the lawsuit on Thursday, speaking again to Callaghan, this time from a holiday location, and in effect doubled down on his unsubstantiated claim.

Asked if he wished to apologize, Biden said: “Uh, fuck that, not going to happen.”

“What I said is what I have heard and seen reported and written primarily from Michael Wolff, but also dating back to 2019.” He cited a number of publications, including the New York Times and Vanity Fair, as sources of his information.

The first lady’s threats echo a favoured strategy of her husband, who has aggressively used litigation to go after critics. Public figures such as the Trumps face a high bar to succeed in a defamation lawsuit.

The president also responded to the issue, accusing Biden of fabricating stories to denigrate the first lady. Trump told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday morning that he had encouraged her to sue.

“I said go forward. You know, I’ve done pretty well on these lawsuits lately … and Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and introducing,” he told Kilmeade.

“But they do that to demean, they make up stories. I mean I can tell you exactly how it was and it was another person actually … but it wasn’t Jeffrey Epstein. “I told her go ahead and do it.”

Yes, my goodness, Yam Tits! You never tell tall tales or make up stories! I bet it hurts your virgin ears to hear that kind of talk! I mean, it must’ve been so challenging to sneak around with her behind your second wife’s back, even though you had all that practice sneaking around behind your first wife’s bank. Pete Hegseth would be so proud of you! This Guardian article on Trump begging the Norwegian Finance Minister for a Nobel prize just had me spitting out my morning tea with laughter. “Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize. The US president told Norway’s finance minister he wants the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Norwegian press.” He just can’t stand that former President Obama got one! “Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize. The US president told Norway’s finance minister he wants the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Norwegian press.”  What? Ruining the Kennedy Center honors and wrecking the U.S. economy wasn’t enough for you?

Donald Trump cold-called Norway’s finance minister last month to ask about a nomination for the Nobel peace prize, Norwegian press reported on Thursday.

The Norwegian outlet Dagens Næringsliv, citing unnamed sources, reported: “Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called … He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs.”

The outlet added that it was not the first time that Trump had raised the question of a Nobel peace prize nomination to Stoltenberg.

In a statement to Reuters, Stoltenberg, the former Nato secretary-general, said the call focused on tariffs and economic cooperation ahead of Trump’s call with Jonas Støre, the Norwegian prime minister.

“I will not go into further detail about the content of the conversation,” Stoltenberg said, adding that several White House officials including the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, were on the call.

Each year, the five-member Norwegian Nobel committee reviews hundreds of candidates before choosing laureates. The committee members are appointed by Norway’s parliament according to the will of Alfred Nobel, a 19-century Swedish industrialist. Laureates are announced in October.

Trump has previously complained multiple times about not receiving the Nobel peace prize, an award which four of his predecessors, including Barack Obama, have received.

In his most recent tirade, Trump took to Truth Social in June, saying: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

How about a little whine with that Skrei Yam Tits? So, I just had to put up this article by Mother Jones. It’s about the deluge of propaganda we get daily and its impact. “The Official Voice of the US Government Is Cruel, Gross, and Weird. What Is That Doing to Us? Joking memes about imprisonment, deportation, and death by alligator are designed to radicalize and desensitize.”

In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a woman they accused of drug trafficking and entering the country illegally. Standing in a parking lot, they photographed her, weeping, eyes half-closed in anguish, her arms cuffed behind her back. And then—in a cruel innovation specific to the Trump administration—the White House’s official Twitter account used an AI tool to make a cartoon illustration of her crying and handcuffed, in the style of the beloved Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli. The tweet got 155,000 likes, a mix of outraged and delighted responses, and, as it was designed to, a lot of attention: it’s so far been viewed 76 million times. On Twitter, many users posted positive responses declaring that the image was exactly what they had voted for.

This is, at the moment, the official voice of the US government: a rancid mixture of trolling, cruelty, propaganda, and crass jokes about the human suffering they’re creating, an effort, as Wired’s Tess Owen recently put it, to turn actions like mass deportation into “one big joke.” On Instagram and Twitter (their largest audience), government entities including the White House, ICE, and the Department of Homeland Security attempt to surf viral trends to expanded public attention: They twist memes and sounds popular on TikTok, repurpose South Park’s parodies for their own self-promotion, and blend it all with images that draw on or directly reproduce classical art and Americana paintings that are designed to stir nostalgia for an imagined past. (The use of some of this art, as the Washington Post has written, has stirred the ire of the artists themselves or their representatives; it’s not easy to extract a stern condemnation from the estate of treacly pastoral painter Thomas Kinkade, but this government managed to do it.)

A lot of the trends are specifically designed to appeal to young white men, like one that repurposes a 1970s-looking ad for a van to ask, “Want to deport illegals with your absolute boys?” Another ICE recruitment effort asks, “Which way, American man?” in front a befuddled-looking Uncle Sam gazing at a crossroads post labeled with signs including “INVASION,” “CULTURAL DECLINE” pointing one way, and, pointing the other, “SERVICE,” “OPPORTUNITY”; in Uncle Sam’s hands lies “LAW AND ORDER.” The phrase “Which way, American man?” is a barely altered reference to the phrase “Which way, Western man?,” the title of a book by white nationalist author William Gayley Simpson that’s been popularized by the far right as a meme. In this case, the white supremacist undertones are more like overtones.

While the government uses social media to bolster its philosophical choices on issues like mass deportations, it also deploys it to prop up support for deeply unpopular aspects of its plans, like “Alligator Alcatraz”—an immigration detention camp, trolling opportunity, marketing bonanza for amoral swag-sellers, including Florida’s attorney general. Before the tent prison was even officially open, Trump administration officials and their proxies in right-wing media bragged about the camp, joked about escapees dying by alligator and python, and made AI-generated images of President Trump standing alongside alligators wearing ICE hats.

Disinformation researchers and experts on propaganda have followed the sludge and bile emanating from these governmental accounts with alarm.

“What you have is this desire to get people to buy into the fun of sadism,” says Jason Stanley; he’s a philosopher, author, and professor at University of Toronto who’s in the process of leaving the United States because of, as he baldly puts it, “concerns over fascism.”

You may read more at the link. So, everyone knows that Pam Bondi is in over her Miss Clairol Fox Blonde dye job head. She’s also doing things not in keeping with the role of the Attorney General. This is from Law Dork‘s Chris Geidner. “NEW: D.C. officials sue Trump admin over Bondi order claiming D.C. police powers. D.C.’s A.G. asserts that Bondi’s order — purporting to make the DEA administrator D.C.’s “Emergency Police Commissioner” — is “unlawful.” A lawsuit followed.”

A Thursday night order from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi caused the Washington, D.C. officials — who have responded cautiously to the Trump administration’s efforts to exert more control over D.C. — to declare that the administration had gone too far.

[Update, 11:00 a.m.: The D.C. government sued the Trump administration on Friday morning, asserting that the administration was violating the Home Rule Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and separation of powers. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is seeking a temporary restraining order to block Bondi from enforcing her order.]

[Update, 11:30 a.m.: The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, and she has scheduled a hearing for 2 p.m. Friday to address D.C.’s TRO request.]

In the order, Bondi purported to have significant control over the Metropolitan Police Department — D.C.’s police force. Most significantly, she claimed that she had the authority to announce that “Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terrence C. Cole shall serve as MPD’s Emergency Police Commissioner.”

She also purported to rescind a Thursday morning order from MPD’s chief of police, in addition to suspending three other MPD orders, all relating to immigration enforcement.

She also announced that D.C. police are to enforce D.C.’s law against crowding streets or sidewalks “enforce, to the maximum extent permissible by law.“

In a final section, Bondi purported also to rescind “any existing MPD directives” that conflict with her order.

You may read this along with the associated part of Bondi’s order. We’ll see how that jives with the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act. It is also known as the Home Rule Act. Meanwhile, everyone not associated with Putin is hoping that FARTUS will not give away the farm in Alaska today due to his advanced dementia, his Putin Fan Girl status, and his basic ignorance of history and diplomacy. This is from the New York Times. “Russia and Ukraine Agree: A Trump Summit Is a Big Win for Putin. The talks on Friday in Alaska pull the Russian leader out of diplomatic isolation from the West, and Ukrainian and European leaders fear it gives him an opening to sway the American president.” Andrew Higgins and Nataliya Vasilyeva share the byline.

President Trump has spent the week setting the bar extremely low for his high-stakes U.S.-Russian summit on Friday in Alaska. Hardly anyone expects him to make much progress in halting the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, given how far apart their views of the conflict are.

But those two warring countries do seem to agree on at least one thing. Merely meeting with Mr. Trump is a big win for President Vladimir V. Putin, bringing the Russian leader out of a diplomatic deep freeze and giving him a chance to cajole the American president face to face.

“Putin’s visit to the U.S.A. means the total collapse of the whole concept of isolating Russia. Total collapse,” Kremlin-controlled television crowed after news of the hastily arranged summit broke last weekend.

For Russia, “this is a breakthrough even if they don’t agree on much,” said Sergei Mikheyev, a pro-war Russian political scientist who is a mainstay of state television.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, iced out of the Alaska talks about his own country’s future, has come to the same conclusion, telling reporters on Tuesday: “Putin will win in this. Because he is seeking, excuse me, photos. He needs a photo from the meeting with President Trump.”

But it is more than a photo op. In addition to thawing Russia’s pariah status in the West, the summit has sowed discord within NATO — a perennial Russian goal — and postponed Mr. Trump’s threat of tough new sanctions. Little more than two weeks ago, he vowed that if Mr. Putin did not commit to a cease-fire by last Friday, he would punish Moscow and countries like China and India that help Russia’s war effort by buying its oil and gas.

This editorial cartoon is by Michael de Adder .

This is another fine mess that  #FARTUS (Felon Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor of the United States) has gotten us into. The world is expecting Putin to eat him for lunch. My favorite magazine, The Economist, has this headline. “The real collusion between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It may be scarier than their critics long suspected.”

To DEFY Donald Trump is to court punishment. A rival politician can expect an investigation, an aggravating network may face a lawsuit, a left-leaning university can bid farewell to its public grants, a scrupulous civil servant can count on a pink slip and an independent-minded foreign government, however determined an adversary or stalwart an ally, invites tariffs. Perceived antagonists should also brace for a hail of insults, a lesson in public humiliation to potential transgressors.Vladimir Putin has been a mysterious exception. Mr Trump has blamed his travails over Russia’s interference in the 2016 election on just about everyone but him. He has blamed the war in Ukraine on former President Joe Biden, for supposedly inviting it through weakness, and on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for somehow starting it. Back when Russia invaded in February 2022, Mr Trump praised Mr Putin’s “savvy”.

For months, as Mr Putin made a mockery of Mr Trump’s promises to end the war in a day and of his calls for a ceasefire, the president who once threatened “fire and fury” against North Korea and tariffs as high as 245% against China indulged in no such bluster. He has sounded less formidable than plaintive. “Vladimir, STOP!” he wrote on social media in April. His use of the given name betrayed a touching faith that their shared intimacy would matter to his reptilian counterpart, too.

When Mr Putin kept killing Ukrainians, Mr Trump took a step that was even less characteristic: he admitted to the world that he had been played for a fool. “Maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along,” he mused on April 26th. A month later, he ventured that his friend must have changed, gone “absolutely CRAZY!” Then on July 8th he acknowledged what should have been obvious from the start: “He is very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” Mr Trump threatened secondary sanctions on Russia but then leapt at Mr Putin’s latest mixed messages about peace, rewarding him with a summit in America.

Why, with this man, has Mr Trump been so accommodating? Efforts by journalists, congressional investigators and prosecutors to pinpoint the reason have often proved exercises in self-defeat and sorrow. The pattern seemed sinister: Mr Trump praised Mr Putin on television as far back as 2007; invited him to the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow in 2013 and wondered on Twitter if he would be his “new best friend”; sought his help to build a tower in Moscow from 2013 to 2016; and tried unsuccessfully many times in 2015 to secure a meeting with him. Then came Russia’s interference in the election in 2016, including its hack of Democrats’ emails to undermine the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. Some journalists fanned suspicions of a conspiracy—“collusion” became the watchword—by spreading claims Mr Putin was blackmailing Mr Trump with an obscene videotape. The source proved to be a rumour compiled in research to help Mrs Clinton.

Nine years later Mr Putin’s low-budget meddling still rewards America’s foes by poisoning its politics and distracting its leaders. Pam Bondi, the attorney-general, has started a grand-jury investigation into what Mr Trump called treason by Barack Obama and others in his administration. The basis is a misrepresentation of an intelligence finding in the waning days of Mr Obama’s presidency. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, has said that because Mr Putin did not hack voting machines, the finding that he tried to help Mr Trump was a lie. The conclusion under Mr Obama was instead that Mr Putin tried to affect the election by influencing public opinion.

The exhaustive report released in 2019 by an independent counsel, Robert Mueller, affirmed on its first page that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome.” Mr Mueller indicted numerous Russians, and he also secured guilty pleas from some Trump aides for violating various laws. But he did not conclude the campaign “conspired or co-ordinated” with the Russians.

To wade through the report’s two volumes is to be reminded how malicious the Russians were and how shambolic Mr Trump’s campaign was. It is also to lament the time and energy spent, given how little proof was found to support the superheated suspicions. And it is to regret how little Mr Trump was accorded a presumption of innocence. In the final words of the report, Mr Mueller noted that while it did not accuse Mr Trump of a crime, it also did “not exonerate him”. One might understand his bitterness.

The puzzle of Mr Trump’s admiration for Mr Putin may have been better addressed by psychologists. Certainly Mr Putin, the seasoned KGB operative, has known how to play to his vulnerabilities, including vanity. Mr Trump was said to be “clearly touched” by a kitschy portrait of himself Mr Putin gave him in March.

Indeed, no one expects Trump to prevail in this discussion. I love to follow these things on the BBC. They’re updating live, as are most media outlets. “Will Trump achieve his aims? It remains to be seen.”  This news analysis is provided by Gary O’Donoghue.”

It has proved incredibly hard for US President Donald Trump to make any progress on the Ukraine war whatsoever.

Bearing in mind, he’s sent his envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow five times now.

The only real thing that’s come out of that is a few pretty low level meetings in Istanbul, between Ukrainians and the Russians, some prisoner swaps – but really very little progress.

Typically with these sorts of summits, all of the work has already been done – all the preparation and agreements have been ironed out. Usually this would be a ceremonial moment.

But what is happening in Alaska is that the two countries are starting pretty much from a blank sheet of paper.

We don’t know exactly what either side is really trying to achieve here, other than President Trump saying he wants to stop the killing.

That’s a noble aim. These talks are about life and death, war and peace – these things do matter.

But, we don’t know how Russian President Putin and President Trump will get from their positions now to where Trump wants to be.I

I will try to keep the blog feed updated as we move through the day. As usual, Trump has been met with protestors.

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

 

A massive show of solidarity in Anchorage today as hundreds—some estimates put numbers at around 1,000—gathered in the streets waving Ukrainian flags and chanting “Ukraine and Alaska — Russian never again!” ahead of the Trump–Putin summit. No deal for War Criminals! #SlavaUkraini 💙💛🇺🇦

— MadGreek 🧿 (@madgreek2024.bsky.social) 2025-08-15T17:31:57.797Z

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