“Meanwhile… in a land far, far away… a desperate plea…” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The family that stands securely at the forefront of ensuring that people in other countries see us all as the quintessential Ugly American, sure made their point this last week. That reference comes from a 1958 book and film written by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer that basically shows how inept the American Diplomatic corps was back then. Lederer was a Captain in the U.S. Military and saw action in the Pacific theatre in World War 2. Burdick was a political scientist who served in Vietnam. The novel was so compelling that it caused then-President Eisenhower to order an investigation, and it became a central theme during JFK’s run for President.
When my family started visiting Europe in my mid-teens, I tried desperately to avoid being tagged as an American. I remember on my last trip to rural England, there was an elderly couple from Fresno, California, whom we had to eat breakfast with at the B&B. They were textbook Ugly American Tourists. As soon as they left the table, I apologized to everyone there. If they were still alive, my guess is they would shamelessly pander to the Trumps.
So, ProPublica just exposed Don Jr and his bride, whatever woman, with severe body dysmorphia, had a huge wedding in May, paid for by one of Putin’s rich thugs. “Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas Wedding Was Secretly Bankrolled by Russian Oligarch Close to Putin. The oligarch Umar Kremlev spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large group of other Russian guests.” There were quite a number of reporters sharing the lede on this one. It’s quite the read.
On May 24, Donald Trump Jr. was celebrating in the Bahamas, as scantily clad dancers in stilettos and sailor caps performed for him and his guests. It was the last night of his wedding, a lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands. A five-tier funfetti cake had been airlifted in from Florida, and helicopters and seaplanes descended on the islands before guests settled into their oceanfront villas. That night on the beach, Trump Jr. lifted his bride into the air while fireworks launched from a barge over the sea.
“It was everything we dreamed of and more,” his wife later wrote on Instagram.
That dream was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.
Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a scandal-plagued sports group that has beenfinanced by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.
The guest list numbered around 50. It included Trump Jr.’s brother-in-law Jared Kushner, Eric Trump — and Kremlev, an imposing man with a shaved head who speaks limited English. The oligarch was part of a large group whose presence puzzled other attendees. They sometimes stood off by themselves, speaking Russian.
“It was really small, like, just really close friends,” Trump Jr. later said on his podcast. “Tried to keep it really tight. And it was just awesome.”
Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term.
If you want some shock and awe for your Monday afternoon, read this. Or, read The Great Gatsby.
As for the Grifter-in-Chief, he was out making a fool of himself in Ireland. Always, gracious, the Irish helped him in that quest. He bumbled through the entire thing and probably pissed off his legal wife by joking about her absence. He pissed off the Irish and the UK at the same time by mentioning how gung-ho he was about Irish Unification. Of course, he was mostly there to open a new Golf Course. Goddesses forbid he actually be there for an actual diplomatic meeting. But let’s go straight the diplomatic mess he made. This is from PBS News. “Trump touches a nerve while in Ireland by saying reunification would be ‘fantastic’.”
U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that a unified Ireland would be “fantastic” as he waded into a complex and politically charged subject during a weekend visit to a tournament at his Irish golf course.
At a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin in Dublin, Trump said he would love to see the reunification of the Republic of Ireland with the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland.
“I don’t want to cause any problems but I’d love to see it unified,” Trump told a reporter who sought his opinion on the issue. “It’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now.
“I think it would be a fantastic thing,” the Republican president said, adding that “the U.K. will have something to say about it, obviously.”
At his next stop, Trump acknowledged there is “no good answer” to the reunification question as he addressed business leaders from both countries gathered at the U.S. ambassador’s residence.
Competing visions of Northern Ireland — whether Irish or British — drove decades of violence in the six-county region that has a Protestant majority and has remained part of the U.K.
Previous American presidents, including Democrat Joe Biden, who has strong emotional ties to Ireland, have avoided commenting directly on the subject.
Ireland, long dominated by its bigger neighbor Britain, became a self-governing Catholic-majority country a century ago. Northern Ireland was split between two main communities: nationalists, most of them Catholic, who desired union with the rest of Ireland, and largely Protestant unionists, who wanted to stay British. Tensions eventually exploded in the Troubles involving paramilitary groups on both sides and British troops.
A 1998 peace accord that the United States was instrumental in negotiating largely ended the violence, but left Northern Ireland’s ultimate status unresolved. That agreement allows for a vote on unification if it appears likely a majority of people would vote for it. U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Wednesday that the U.K. would only consider allowing a referendum “when public opinion has changed to the point where the call has to be considered.” Burnham’s office referred back to that comment when asked about Trump’s statement.
Trump’s comments Saturday, along with recent statements about the Falkland Islands, a small British overseas territory in the South Atlantic Ocean that Argentina calls Las Malvinas, could also be viewed as a dig at Britain, given his anger over London’s refusal to be drawn into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
So, does anybody think there was any kind of strategy to that move or was it just his usual blather linked to something in the past he’s garbled up. The true winner of the Ireland Visit was its President Catherine Connolly. The picture of Orange Caligula over there having to sign something on a desk so small it would cramp a 4th grader was the cheekiest move I’ve seen in probably forever. This is from The US Sun. “Catherine Connolly takes thinly-veiled swipe at Donald Trump with 3 gifts containing pointed message on global issues”. I still laugh every time I read this. As obvious as it all was, including a firm speech, it probably went right over his awful hairdo. This was visit was labelled a brief courtesy call even though Dementia Don wouldn’t know what a courtesy is let alone perform one.
IRISH President Catherine Connolly presented Donald Trump with a St Brigid’s Cross – recognised as a symbol of peace – during his brief courtesy call.
He was also given a collection of poems which contained the famous Michael Longley sonnet Ceasefire.
Considering Connolly was a long-standing critic of Trump before she took up office, the choice of gifts may be considered as pointed.
Connolly, an independent TD before she was elected president, had previously accused Trump of being “volatile” and “acting like a bully”, and was critical of his actions in the Middle East.
For his part, Trump mistakenly referred to Ms Connolly as “he” when asked about critical comments she made against him in relation to the US-Israeli war against Iran in the Oval Office on St Patrick’s Day this year.
Considering the context, the meeting of the two presidents on Saturday morning was always likely to present her most substantial diplomatic test since assuming office.
As it was, the engagement, heavy on ceremony, passed off without major incident.
Trump’s substantial motorcade rolled through Phoenix Park shortly after 9am.
He emerged from his car to shake Ms Connolly’s hand before the pair smiled while briefly posing for photographs.
I have to mention this part since Don Jr. was in tow but not Melania. Also, the protests in Dublin were first class. You can watch some of that below too. Wow! What a delegation!
“Trump then introduced Connolly to his delegation, including his son Donald Jr and some of his grandchildren.”
The best gift was this one, however. As it was directly targeted to his unconstitutional and likely criminal plan to rid the country of immigrants of color.
Another targeted gift, this time relating to immigration, came with the choice of Navigatio Sancti Brendani – The Voyage of St Brendan.
This Latin text tells the story of a sixth-century monk from Kerry who sailed into the Atlantic on a seven-year search for the Promised Land of the Saints.
The Aras said it “comes from an era when the Irish were a people of departure”.
A translated version with an introduction was given to Trump.
I have to say, that was a classy way of calling the bugger out for what he really is. As always, I’m proud of my Scotch/Irish roots and both the Scotch and the Irish took to the streets and give him a what for. Meanwhile, there are signs the U.S. economy is becoming more troubled. As for me, with my doctorate in economics, my proof in the pudding is the price of gas and groceries. But, I’ll sure this one with you because long-term Treasury bonds are are the proverbial canary in the coalmine to the financial sector and the FED where both my Grandfather and me spent some time making sure the auctions happened come the hell of two world wars or Mardi Gras, in my case. This headline is from CNBC. 10-year Treasury yield hits 5% before reversing as traders await Fed meeting. I bet trading desks all over the world are working overtime today.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury note yield moved lower after reaching a multiyear high on Monday ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve interest rate decision.
The benchmark rate — which influences mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt — was last down 2 basis points at 4.955%. It had earlier reached 5.014%, its highest level since October 2023.
The 2-year Treasury note yield, the most sensitive to short-term Federal Reserve interest rate policy, fell less than 2 basis points to 4.626% after it touched the highest since July 2024 last week.
The yield on the longer-dated 30-year Treasury bond, more sensitive to geopolitical risks, were down more than 2 basis points at 5.328%.
One basis point equals 0.01%, and yields and prices move in opposite directions.
The latest moves come after August consumer price index data reported on Friday matched expectations while remaining far above the Fed’s goal of 2% inflation, as it has for the past five years.
Last week’s CPI report was the final inflation indicator the Fed will see before it holds its policy meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Odds that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point at its policy meeting now stand at 90%, according to the CME Group FedWatch tool.
“Hiking would be the cleaner decision based on the data and current market expectations,” said Jay Woods, chief market strategist at Freedom Capital Markets. “I believe the market has priced that in and may rally with a hike. No change may cause a negative market reaction as it screams once again the Fed is behind the curve.”
And you know how Orange Caligula loves the FED and high interest rates. Once he wakes up, they’ll be some snorting and insults I’m sure. He’ll be steamed about that and then this headline.
JUST IN: A Trump-appointed judge blocked sweeping new USPS mail-ballot rules, warning they could cause delays, errors and disenfranchisement weeks before the midterms.
This is from Meidas News‘ Brett Meiselas. “Trump-Appointed Judge Blocks His Mail-Ballot Rules Weeks Before Midterms. A Trump-appointed judge blocked sweeping new USPS mail-ballot rules, warning they could cause delays, errors and disenfranchisement weeks before the midterms.” The delays, errors, and disenfranchisement is the plan, your honor. Thank you!
A federal judge late Sunday blocked the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing sweeping new requirements governing mail ballots, finding that the agency likely exceeded the authority Congress gave it and warning that implementing the system weeks before the midterm elections could result in voters being unable to cast ballots.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols granted preliminary injunctions sought by multiple groups challenging the Postal Service’s recently finalized ballot-mail rule.
“The Postal Service could issue (and enforce) the Rule only if Congress gave it the authority to do so,” Nichols wrote. “But here no statute grants the Postal Service the power to issue key parts of the Rule.”
Nichols, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump, concluded that the challengers were likely to prevail on their claim that major portions of the rule were ultra vires, meaning beyond the Postal Service’s lawful authority.
The ruling is another major legal obstacle for a policy that the Trump regime is simultaneously asking the Supreme Court to revive in a separate case.
Trump issued an executive order on March 31 directing USPS to develop new requirements for absentee and mail-in ballots used in federal elections.
The Postal Service finalized those requirements in August. They include new standards for ballot envelopes and unique Intelligent Mail barcodes, as well as a newly created “Federal Ballot Mail Portal.”
I frankly believe the “Federal Ballot Mail Portal” probably uses Elon Musk’s SpaceX to send those ballots to a black hole, somewhere out there in space, the final frontier. So, I slept a lot last night because it finally got cooler here and the AC got a break. I’m still waiting for the electric bill. So, all this talk about an Irish woman getting the better of Trump has made me quite cheeky today. Yes, I’m bold and disrespectful, but today I hope it came off more amusing with the thought of hearing my Irish Grandmother sing me to sleep with Toora-Loora-Looral.
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Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again. John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Orange Caligula woke up to bad reviews this morning for his latest failed production. At least this one didn’t involve ruining the grounds of the White House or bedecking the streets of the District with military parades and tanks. The Shindig in Dallas was a raging failure like everything else he’s done. Also, no one died or was sent to a gulag with this one. It wasn’t unconstitutional, but it was a bit odd.
Let’s check the headlines today.
Andrew Egger of The Bulwark suggests we “Stick a Fork in Him.” Their ‘Morning Shots’ headline was brutal, too. “Out of Gas. Out of Ideas. Out of Time. The Republicans’ window to stave off a blue wave has all but closed.” Couldn’t happen to a nastier group of protohumans.
Ever since Democrats’ major overperformance in last year’s off-year elections, I’ve been saying over and over: time is a finite resource for Donald Trump and his party. If they wanted to stave off disaster in the midterms, they would need to get moving fast to woo back disaffected members of their 2024 coalition. Every day spent failing to achieve that goal was a day wasted.
Now, in the afterglow of this week’s ludicrous, somnambulant GOP midterm convention, I’m about ready to call it. Republicans are out of ideas and out of time. They have no plan to reassemble their base, no bright ideas to reassure Americans that the Trump show has brought anything but chaos and expense to their country, no reason even to hope that material conditions won’t be worse in November than they are today. The midterms are still two months away, but the MAGA GOP is a dead party walking.
Over and over again, the convention hammered home the two central truths of the party’s disastrous plight: Trump is a senile old villain whose necrotizing brain is leaking out of his ears, and Republicans’ electoral chances now rest entirely on convincing the public otherwise.
Nobody was going to tell Trump “no” about anything: If he wanted to natter on for nearly two hours on Wednesday night and then make a (mercifully much shorter) speech Thursday rehashing the same points, he’d get to. Somehow, Trump genuinely seems to think this is the ticket to winning everybody back: All he needs to do is get in front of Americans to make the case himself.
But he had nothing on offer but hours of the same reheated slurry we’ve long since grown accustomed to. There were, of course, the bald-faced lies. “Look at that,” Trump said, looking out over the half-full convention stadium. “The highest rafter, no empty seats.” There were the endless hallucinations about the American Golden Age that exists nowhere but in his own mind. “Our country has never done better,” he said. “We’re taking in trillions, trillions of dollars. There’s never been any country, not even close, that’s come anywhere near.” There were the ridiculous pie-in-the-sky promises, stripped of all pretense: “If we win, it’s $5,000 for every adult. We love our adults. It’s about time we take care of our adults.” Sometimes he was begging. “Pretend I’m on the ballot.” (More on that below.) Other times he was threatening. At one point, he led the crowd in a bizarre repeat-after-me oath in which they pledged they would show up and vote. “You know what happens if you don’t vote?” Trump said. “You go to Hell.”
Meanwhile, out in the real world, things are crashing down around Trump’s ears. Even the softest of softball interviews, like one he did yesterday with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, are now impossible for him to get through without embarrassment. On those $5,000 checks, for instance: “Why not just give the money now?” Ingraham asked. “If you have the money, why not give it now?”
Yes. We’re being bribed to vote Republican, again. This is from The New York Times‘ James Poniewozik.
Donald J. Trump has long operated on the principle that there is no problem so big that it cannot be solved by more Donald J. Trump on TV. That apparently applies even when the problem, arguably, is Donald J. Trump.
With the midterms approaching, prices rising and the war in Iran dragging on, the president’s low approval ratings have worried the Republicans running to preserve his congressional majority. Mr. Trump’s answer: a “midterm convention,” a two-night extravaganza by, for and starring himself, live from Dallas.
As in many turbulent TV productions, there were differing impulses behind its creation. It was the pet project of the president, made on the theory that he has a hold on low-propensity voters who will go to the polls only for him. The counterargument is the president’s ratings among other voters, who might go to the polls against candidates who embrace him.
Thus we got Schrödinger’s Convention, made in the paradoxical hope that it would be both watched and not watched. It was carried in its entirety on C-SPAN and in considerable part by conservative outlets including Fox News and Newsmax. It was also up against high-profile N.F.L. games each night, which one could see as a challenge or a blessing. Surely at least some Republicans would have been just as happy if no one watched.
For better or worse, some of us did. What we saw was the culmination of the decades-long trend that has turned conventions from substantive political events into pure long-form TV ads.
There was no convention in this convention. No one was nominated, no ballots cast, no running mates picked. It was pared down to the state signs, novelty costumes — the president shouted out “Mr. Wall,” a supporter wearing a suit of trompe l’oeil bricks — and hour upon hour of speeches.
In good times and bad, Mr. Trump has always been able to produce a spectacle. His 2016 convention had the chaotic energy of his first campaign. In 2020 — well, it was Covid and things were weird, but his media team still assembled a highly produced package. And his renomination in 2024 combined the emotional charge from the recent assassination attempt on him with a pro-wrestling air of belligerence.
But this? This lacked oomph, especially when the guest of his own honor was offstage. There were few celebrity guests, other than the perennial G.O.P. serenader Lee Greenwood (twice) and Jimmy Kimmel’s former “Man Show” compadre Adam Carolla. Arguably the biggest non-Trump speaker of the first night was a Democrat, Senator John Fetterman, who recorded an introduction for his Pennsylvania colleague, Senator Dave McCormick.
The strongest energy onscreen was negative, the speeches more warning than promise, the jeers for Democrats rivaling the cheers for the G.O.P. The praise of the administration’s record was received politely but not as loudly as the scarifying about communism, open borders and gender transition.
Oh, but it gets better. This is from HuffPo. Jennifer Bendery has the story. “Trump’s Weird Convention Just Tied Every GOP Candidate To His Sagging Popularity. Good luck in November!”
Saddled with abysmal approval ratings and the growing likelihood of an electoral wipeout in the midterm elections, President Donald Trump staged a bizarre two-day “convention” that served to link himself even more closely to Republicans on the ballot in November.
Trump was the keynote speaker both nights, but by the second night, even he seemed over it. From the beginning of his meandering, 25-minute speech, which didn’t even start until after 10 p.m. EST, Trump said he didn’t feel much like talking “because I’m getting a little bit tired of politics,” and teased bringing out an opera singer to entertain everyone.
But Trump plodded on, sharing whatever thoughts crossed his mind – boasting about the crowd size, mocking Texas Senate Republican nominee Ken Paxton’s clothes – and occasionally returning to his script to rattle off accomplishments from the past two years. He touted his role in driving up the stock market, his administration banning diversity initiatives in the government and his efforts to prevent the “mutilization” of transgender children.
By the end, after telling the crowd to vote in November in what felt like an afterthought to his remarks, Trump stood on stage soaking up the applause as balloons fell from the ceiling and tenor Christopher Macchio sang “Nessun dorma.”
If the point of this strange event was to pump up Republican voters ahead of the midterms, the real question is what it actually achieved.
Trump forced this convention on his party and made prominent GOP leaders play a central role. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Vice President JD Vance were among those who gave speeches, as were Republican candidates in very competitive races. Reps. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) participated, along with Senate candidates like Paxton and Mike Rogers of Michigan.
All of the convention’s participants tied themselves to Trump, and for anyone watching at home, the grand takeaway was that Republicans want to be associated with a president whose approval rating is at a historic low, who has dragged the country into a deeply unpopular war and who has left Americans nationwide struggling to afford the cost of living.
Meanwhile, Trump is still attacking woman reporters. He’s as nasty as every.
Trump Lunges at Female Reporter Asking About Those Supposed $5K ChecksDonald Trump can’t handle even simple questions about his midterm bribe.
This is from Malcolm Ferguson at The New Republic. “Trump Lunges at Female Reporter Asking About Those Supposed $5K Checks, Donald Trump can’t handle even simple questions about his midterm bribe.” The immaturity and mean are over-the-top. This happened a few days ago.
President Trump got in the face of ABC’s Rachel Scott after she asked him a question about the rationale behind his national midterm voter bribe.
“Mr. President, on the checks: The U.S. is still $40 trillion in debt. If your economic policies are working, why do you need an incentive for people to turn out to vote?” she asked Thursday night.
“I didn’t do it for turning out the vote, I did it as a reward for people having to put up with five years and four years of a horrible situation caused by Biden,” Trump replied. “You look at the border, you look at the crime…. It’s almost a reward for the people having to put up with Biden’s policies.”
“But you also offered checks through—”
“Not you. Not you!” Trump snapped, leaning in threateningly close to Scott. “Hey, not you,” he said again with a snarl. “Your network … you’re the worst.”
This is not the first time Trump has crashed out after being asked a tough question by a woman. In April, he yelled “Quiet, quiet, quiet!” at CNN’s Kristen Holmes, calling her disrespectful for asking a pertinent question about U.S. relations with North Korea. He’s lobbed transphobic attacks at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, and last year told Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey, “Quiet, Piggy!” He’s also lashed out at Scott before, calling her “stupid” after she dared ask about gas prices.
His angry response to Scott yet again displays his disdain for female journalists and his lack of preparedness for even the most straightforward questions.
As you can see, he’s only getting worse and more intense with his attacks and bad temper. It’s begging to take it’s toll. This is from ABC News. “Joe diGenova, loyalist tapped by Trump to oversee controversial DOJ probe targeting his foes, resigns: Sources. DiGenova had been probing officials involved in past investigations of Trump.”
A Trump loyalist who had been tapped to oversee a sprawling and controversial DOJ conspiracy investigation targeting political foes of President Donald Trump abruptly resigned Thursday, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Joe diGenova submitted his resignation to Attorney General Todd Blanche amid what sources described as growing frustrations from Trump and senior DOJ officials regarding his work on the so-called “grand conspiracy” investigation based out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida.
Sources said diGenova had pitched himself to the president as someone who could potentially ramp up the conspiracy investigation, which thus far has resulted in no criminal prosecutions despite dozens of subpoenas issued over the past year to various officials involved in past investigations of Trump.
“I resigned by letter today at 3 o’clock,” diGenova told ABC News on Thursday. “It was an honor and a privilege to serve the president and the department.”
“I’m not going to say anything further. I wish them well,” he said.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
The investigation, as detailed by Justice Department officials and other allies of the White House, purports to be examining intelligence officials and others who have investigated the president and his inner circle dating back from his 2016 campaign to the criminal probes he faced after leaving office in 2021.
I’m certainly glad things are not going well with Trump.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
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“Given trump’s track record of hiring Fox News pundits. Maria Bartiromo, come on down!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The end of the week is always good for a little drama. It’s not that I want to go all gossip rag, but anytime something weird happens to a hyper Trumper, especially one kicked from Fox News, I’m all in. Fox News is not worth watching, but what it does is always of interest. It’s still the home of blatant right-wing propaganda.
Maria Bartiromo used to be a business reporter with a following on the normal Fox Business schedule. Now, she’s been inexplicably booted from Fox. It is always interesting to watch the back-and-forth relationships between the network that flies its freak flag continually and what’s going on in the current West Wing. This is so weird that I can’t help but follow it.
This head line comes from Status News. It’s written by Oliver Darcy, a former CNN senior Media Reporter. “Bartiromo’s Fox Betrayal. Fox News offered no explanation for Maria Bartiromo’s abrupt firing. But Status has learned what happened behind the scenes and why it put the longtime host at odds with her own network.”
On Thursday afternoon, Fox News issued a press release that reverberated through the media and political worlds. In a terse statement, the network announced that it had severed ties with Maria Bartiromo, the once-respected business journalist who in recent years became consumed by right-wing conspiracy theories. “We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 ½ years and wish her all the best on her next chapter,” Fox News said.
That was it. The Rupert Murdoch-controlled network offered no explanation for parting ways with the high-profile host, who is known to be very close to Donald Trump. It didn’t even explicitly say that Bartiromo had been fired—though make no mistake, she was. In the hours that followed, insiders wondered what had gone awry. What had Bartiromo done to get pink-slipped by the outlet she had called home for more than a decade?
Status has learned that Bartiromo’s termination stems from an incident, which has not previously been reported, that occurred in July. After Trump delivered his unhinged prime time speech in which he pushed more conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, this time making a number of allegations against China, I am told that Fox issued guidance to senior employees instructing them to steer clear of giving credence to Trump’s delusional claims. I’m told that the guidance was issued in writing.
Indeed, the day after Trump’s prime time address, Fox conspicuously avoided covering the debunked claims the president had pushed. The lack of coverage raised eyebrows among media observers at the time. It also appears to have caught the attention of the White House.
It’s unclear whether Trump or someone at the White House inquired with Bartiromo about the lack of coverage. But ultimately Bartiromo spilled the secret, Status has learned, divulging to the White House that Trump’s speech had received scant coverage on the channel because network bosses had ordered it so. I’m even told the text message in which Fox Business brass offered their guidance was shared by Bartiromo with the White House. In doing so, Bartiromo not only effectively betrayed her employer, but also disclosed confidential company information, violating the terms of her employment agreement.
Well, isn’t that interesting. The Hill has this analysis. “Trump: Fans ‘will not be happy’ Bartiromo out at Fox News.” The reporter on this story is Mira Bhakta.
President Trump said late Thursday that Maria Bartiromo’s fans will not be happy that the host is out at Fox News.
“I can’t believe Maria Bartiromo is no longer going to have her great show(s) on FoxNews/Business,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Three different shows, always number one. Maria is a total professional, and a true warrior.”
“Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy. God bless you, Maria,” he added.
Bartiromo worked at Fox Business for just more than 12 years and grew to be one of Trump’s most vocal supporters on the network. Before that, she worked as a financial journalist for 20 years at CNBC, where she won an Emmy Award for a documentary about Google.
Fox abruptly announced that the final episode of “Mornings with Maria” aired Thursday morning and that the show would be called “Mornings with Fox Business” beginning Friday and feature rotating hosts.
The network will also rename “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” to “FBN’s Wall Street,” with a new host.
Fox News gave few details on what led to Bartiromo’s departure.
Hot Air‘s Ed Morrissey has this new headline up this afternoon. “War? Bartiromo Gets Boot From Fox, Lawyers Up.”
Reporters live by the leak. Sometimes, they die by the leak too … if they’re the leaker. Allegedly.
“Word leaked out yesterday that Fox Business Channel and longtime host Maria Bartiromo had parted ways. At first, observers expected to hear that she had left to replace Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary. However, her former booking producer Breanna Morello made it sound as though Fox cut ties with Bartiromo rather than the other way around:
Fox Corp is parting ways with Maria Bartiromo. As her former booking producer, I can say she is the hardest-working journalist at the company. Bartiromo has given everything to her 12 years of work at Fox Corp. She worked six days a week and has a presence on their platforms seven days a week. She was always a class act and embodied what journalism should be. I look forward to seeing what she does next.
As I noted in last night’s Final Word, the situation was confusing enough to become a topic in Vice President J.D. Vance’s press briefing at the White House. When asked about it, Vance seemed surprised to hear the news, calling her a “very very dear friend.” Vance also said he didn’t think she would be coming into the White House …
Well, more of the worst economic policy ever is likely on the way. This is from CNBC. “Trump doubles down on threat to halt trade with top partners unless Fed cuts rates.” This story is reported by Kevin Breuninger.
President Donald Trump on Friday doubled down on his threat to cut off trade with countries that have surpluses with the U.S. unless the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates.
“What I’m saying, very simply, is that we should be paying the lowest interest rate in the world,” Trump said in the Oval Office Friday afternoon. He had been asked about his Truth Social post earlier in the day declaring, “LOWER THE RATE OR I’LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT.”
Trump issued that sweeping ultimatum after urging the Fed and its chairman, Kevin Warsh, to “get smart” and cut rates following a much-stronger-than-expected monthly jobs report.
Read Trump’s full post:
Great jobs number just announced, breaking all estimates (except mine!) by double and triple – And you haven’t seen anything yet! EMPLOYERS ADDED 162,000 JOB IN AUGUST. Lower the interest rates because the U.S.A. is a much stronger credit than it was just a short time ago! A STRONG COUNTRY MEANS A LOWER INTEREST RATE – IT’S A BETTER CREDIT…Very simple! We should have the LOWEST RATE of any country in the World, like “the old days.” Without the United States agreeing to allow them their big surpluses, and we could stop that immediately, they would no longer be considered financially ELITE! LOWER THE RATE OR I’LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT, which the U.S. Supreme Court, in its ridiculous and very costly Tariff decision, strongly acknowledged “the President” has an absolute right to do. IT’S BETTER THAN TARIFFS! The Fed Board, with its great new leader, must get smart – BE PATRIOTS for a change. High interest rates put the U.S.A. at a very unfair disadvantage, and I won’t allow that to happen! President DONALD J. TRUMP
The Fed declined to comment on Trump’s post.
It’s likely also one the reasons for this phenomenon. This story is reported by Catherine Rampell writing at The Bulwark. “Europe’s Gold Fled the Nazis. Now It’s Fleeing Trump. Our allies once trusted America to safeguard their reserves. Now they worry the president might freeze them.”
NEARLY A CENTURY AGO, our European allies evacuated their gold to America to safeguard it from the Nazis. Today, some European countries are taking it back—apparently to protect it from Donald Trump.
I wish this were a gag about our president’s garish tastes.
It is not.
In a frightening sign of just how much trust has been lost between the United States and its erstwhile allies, billions of dollars of gold reserves are being repatriated or otherwise moved out of Trump’s reach.
Yesterday, the Dutch central bank announced that it had shifted about $12 billion of gold reserves held mostly in New York over to London vaults instead.1 This follows a similar move by France’s central bank, which recently sold off about $15 billion of bullion held in New York, replacing it with gold bars stored in Paris instead. And for the past year, Germany and Italy—the second- and third-largest holders of gold reserves, respectively, after the United States—have been debating whether to pull their gold from U.S. vaults, too.
Paul Krugman has even more frightening details to outline on his SubStack. “Ingots We No Longer Trust. America’s word is as good as gold — that is, unreliable.” This really sends a bad signal to every one.
For the most part, monetary gold — gold held as reserves by national central banks — is a lot like the stones of Yap. Central banks own trillions of dollars’ worth of gold, which they sometimes sell to each other to settle international payments. But these transfers rarely involve physically moving gold across borders. A large fraction of the world’s gold reserves actually sits in a vault underneath the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, although the New York Fed does move ingots between compartments when transfers take place.
And why not? The sanctity of nations’ ownership of gold stored in New York is guaranteed by the word of the U.S. government — a government that is utterly reliable, because it honors the role of law.
Or anyway, that’s the country we used to be.
“Rule of law” is not a phrase often applied to the Trump administration. And the administration has special contempt for international law. Many of Trump’s tariffs have been ruled illegal under U.S. law, but more or less all of those tariffs were and are in clear violation of past agreements solemnly signed by previous U.S. presidents, including Trump himself.
So the idea that the U.S. government might devise some excuse to seize gold held in the Fed’s vault is no longer far-fetched. And nations are taking precautions. Earlier this week the Dutch central bank announced that it was shifting about $12 billion in gold from the vault in New York to the Bank of England’s vault in London. This follows a move by the French central bank to shift an even larger sum from New York to Paris. Other countries are considering similar moves.
The direct economic or financial impact of these actions will be minimal. There won’t even be large trans-Atlantic gold shipments: foreign central banks will sell their New York gold to private buyers in America and replenish it with purchases from private sellers in Europe.
But the symbolism is chilling. America is no longer trusted. Foreign governments can no longer count on us to obey the most basic rules, like the commandment that thou shalt not steal other people’s gold.
A federal prosecutor investigating the murder of a man by an ICE office is under investigation. This is scary and shows how out of control the DOJ has become. This is from CBS News. There a quite a few reporters on this story. “Federal prosecutor fired after investigating ICE officer for civil rights offenses in Minnesota shooting, sources say.” Violating civil rights of people is evidently A-OK with the Trump Regime’s war on the U.S. Constitution.
A federal prosecutor in Minnesota who was investigating an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer for possible civil rights crimes has been fired, four sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Evans was investigating ICE officer Christian Castro over the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant earlier this year. The Justice Department ultimately charged Castro this week with making false statements about the incident, but the indictment remains sealed, CBS News has previously reported.
Earlier this week, ProPublica reported that Evans told attorneys for the man who was shot, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, and other victims to prepare for Castro to only be charged with making false statements, which would carry lesser penalties than criminal charges that he violated people’s constitutional rights under color of law.
ProPublica quoted directly from an email it said Evans had sent to the attorneys.
“This is being directed by the Main Justice and the US Attorney,” the email from Evans reportedly said. “I objected in the strongest possible terms and fought it as hard as I could. It wasn’t enough.” (CBS News has not obtained the email reviewed by ProPublica.)
Three sources told CBS News that Evans is under investigation by the Justice Department. Two sources said the investigation focuses on allegations of leaking.
This country is a cesspool. The elected officials that we vote for and count on to ensure the Constitutionality of actions taken here are sadly missing. But the, look at this headline, and you’ll see that clearly. This is Politico‘s take on a Wall Street Journal Investigation. “‘Too lazy to do the job’: Democrats dump on Fetterman after WSJ report. The Wall Street Journal’s story recounted multiple instances of Sen. John Fetterman refusing to meet with constituents in Washington even for scheduled meetings.” Gregory Svirnovskiy has the lede.
A swath of Democrats denounced Sen. John Fetterman in the aftermath of a Wall Street Journal report that showed the Pennsylvania Democrat routinely ducking meetings with constituents, skirting committee hearings and contemplating skipping a police funeral in his home state.
“John Fetterman is a disgrace,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) wrote Thursday night on X. “Our state deserves better than a lazy trust fund baby who is too lazy to do the job.”
“There is a lot I could say about this report of John Fetterman’s pathetic behavior as a Senator,” Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) wrote on the platform Friday morning. “But between the laziness, disrespect, and willingness to carry water for a foreign government, it shows us something we already know: this man has no sense of duty. He is not up for the high office he was elected to — and we in Pennsylvania will do something about it in 2028.”
The Journal’s story recounted multiple instances of Fetterman refusing to meet with constituents in Washington, even for scheduled meetings. In one case, he canceled on three paralyzed military veterans in his office, telling his staff that he was feeling unwell. But Fetterman came into the office shortly thereafter to prepare for a live hit with Fox News.
I have a feeling he’s not alone. Many of our elected officials are not doing their jobs. I certainly hope the midterms are based on change. I’d like to believe our democracy is still recoverable.
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“The new White House Press Secretary is a hoot!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m pretty sure this craziness with our neighbors to the north is more tap dancing to get our minds off the Epstein files, the failed Israeli/US war on Iran, and basic affordability. Look at dat! Look at dat! Look over there with jazz hands isn’t flying with most of us. Who the hell still believes all this? But it tends to distract the mainstream media, which is really bad. Very bad stuff is hiding behind all of this. Let me show you today.
If you’ve known me long enough, you know I have a serious love affair with our nation’s National Parks. I’ve camped and hiked around more than I can remember, but that’s only because some of the big ones are so amazing they took this little girl’s heart to the point she still reminds me what it means to see wild animals in the wild and breathtaking views. As I got older, my sketchbook filled with every place we camped and explored. They also remind you of our indigenous peoples and the glory of endless wilderness.
That’s why my blood pressure took off when I read this. “Trump’s Quietly Working to Give Part of Yosemite to a Private Developer. The National Park Service is under pressure to make an unprecedented deal that cedes a quarter-mile strip of the park.” The article can be found atNOTUS and is written by Anna Kramer. Yosemite is one of the nations’ oldest and most glorious examples of American landscapes. He’s totally dedicated to the idea of selling stuff off to support his Trumpify every historical place in the District.
For more than a year, the National Park Service has been quietly working to fulfill an unprecedented directive from Trump officials: Parcel off a corner of Yosemite National Park to give to a private developer.
National Park Service staff in California and Washington, D.C., are trying to arrange a land exchange between a Nevada-based company and the federal government, according to four people directly familiar with discussions, as well as agency documents reviewed by NOTUS.
Since the spring of 2025, the Trump administration has been looking into ways it could cede a roughly quarter-mile strip of land inside Yosemite to a company that, through a web of limited-liability companies, is operated by real-estate developer and investment firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital. Officials are proposing the Park Service give up the land or “interest” in the land in the form of an easement, and in return receive land of equal value somewhere in California that has yet to be decided.
The private developers own an 83-acre plot of land just outside the western boundaries of Yosemite, about five miles from one of the park’s defining ancient sequoia groves. Jeff Pori, the CEO of Kingsbarn, wants to build a short road connecting the property to one of Yosemite’s central thoroughfares. The new road would give the land exceptionally rare private access to a park that is otherwise almost entirely buffered by national forests.
The property’s current access road is more than 10 miles from an entrance to the park, and much further from Yosemite’s most iconic sights. Without a new road, visitors to the property — whether it be developed into a hotel, resort or private residence — would need to drive an hour and a half in a circuitous route to reach the popular Yosemite Valley.
This is an unprecedented move and a dangerous one.
If the deal goes through, the Trump administration would be breaking with 150 years of American precedent at the birthplace of the national park system. The federal government has historically strived to expand the crown-jewel national parks, not give up land within them.
“The national park idea started in Yosemite with Abraham Lincoln’s preservation of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias,” said Cicely Muldoon, a 40-year veteran of the Park Service who served as Yosemite’s superintendent for about five years. Muldoon retired from Yosemite shortly after President Donald Trump took office in 2025.
“Our basic purpose in the national parks is to preserve these places unimpaired for future generations, not letting go of that for the purpose of private profit,” she said Interior’s advocacy for the deal is a significant reversal of a pledge Secretary Doug Burgum made in his 2025 confirmation hearing: “The national parks, absolutely we need to support and protect every single inch of those,” he said.It also contravenes the presidential message Trump shared on Aug. 24 of this year, to announce the beginning of National Park Week: “My Administration is committed to protecting every acre of our lands and preserving the cleanest air and water in the world.”And it goes against the agency’s past position on this specific piece of land. The Park Service has received this privatization request before, and it has rejected it repeatedly for over two decades.
Don’t even get me started on Trump trying to rename Lake Ontario. But you don’t have to take my word on it try this at Business Insider. The internet has gone into full meme mode over Trump’s Lake Ontario name change. The story is reported by Joshua Nelken-Zitser.
President Donald Trump renamed Lake Ontario as Lake America, and it’s making waves on the internet.
After tense trade talks between the US and Canada collapsed and the US imposed new 50% tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Canadian goods, Trump turned to another tool in his arsenal: rebranding.
On Thursday, Trump issued an executive order to rename Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes that straddles the US-Canada border, as Lake America. As the Canadian Prime Minster Mark Carney wrote on X, the name predates the Confederation of Canada and the US Declaration of Independence. “The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘”the lake is beautiful, the lake is big’,” he wrote.
The name change follows a similar move Trump made last year when he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, a change that Mexico and other countries, including the UK and China, have refused to adopt.
After Thursday’s executive order, it didn’t take long for the internet to respond with memes. Here are the 10 best.
Go check them out!
Trump tries over and over again to remove all the settled cases against him. Most courts remain firmly on the side of the settled case based on settled law. Here’s yet another Trump failure to ditch responsibility for all his crimes. This is from local TV station Spectrum News NY1. “Trump loses again in bid to erase his N.Y. hush money conviction.” You may remember that this is the payment to Stormy Daniels.
A federal judge on Friday once again spurned Donald Trump’s effort to erase his hush money conviction, rejecting the president’s bid to move the state court case to federal court and have it dismissed on presidential immunity grounds.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein reiterated his earlier finding against Trump, saying that the reasons Trump cited for renewing his request were “neither new nor legally sufficient.”
The judge added: “He has failed to show good cause and diligence.”
It is the third time Hellerstein has blocked Trump from having the U.S. District Court in Manhattan seize control of the case from the New York court where he was tried and convicted.
And, like before, Trump will appeal, according to a spokesperson for his legal team who called Hellerstein’s ruling “baseless and lawless.”
“The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be removed to federal court, and immediately overturned and dismissed,” a statement issued on behalf of the legal team said. “President Trump will be filing a powerful appeal, and will continue defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn.”
The guilty verdict, reached in May 2024 while Trump was between terms, made him the first former — and now current — U.S. president to be convicted of a crime. Trump is also challenging his conviction through the state court appellate process, which is pending.
Hellerstein’s decision came after a federal appeals court last year ordered him to reconsider his prior denial. The judge previewed his ruling during oral arguments in February, slamming Trump’s lawyers for legal maneuvers that amounted to taking “two bites at the apple.”
State prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stormy and E. Jean are high on my list of tough and amazing women for see these cases through. We can only hope we get the Epstein files released and we see more women damaged by Trump receive justice and compensation. And speaking of the Stormy case, this headline yesterday from Raw Storyis an eye opener. There most be a line as wide as big as the country itself of co-criminals waiting for Trump Pardons. “Explosive motive unmasked by DOJ insiders as Michael Cohen crawls back to Trump: report.” Travis Gettys has the story.
The Department of Justice has discussed using former attorney Michael Cohen – who has seemingly come crawling back – as a witness to build new criminal cases against President Donald Trump’s legal adversaries, according to a new report.
Zeteo’s Asawin Suebsaeng, who has a personal history with Cohen, the president’s longtime personal attorney and fixer, reported that Trump administration officials are hoping to leverage his testimony to bring criminal prosecutions against New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – both of whom successfully battled Trump in court.
“Bragg’s case, of course, is the reason Trump became America’s first felon president, a label Trump bitterly resents,” Suebsaeng wrote.
That’s why the president wants revenge against them both, Suebsaeng said, and he’s apparently dangling a pardon to Cohen as leverage for his testimony.
“Cohen had previously posted on Substack that he felt ‘pressured and coerced’ to be those prosecutors’ star witness against Trump, though Cohen has been publicly very coy about claiming whether he was ‘coerced’ to give false testimony,” Suebsaeng wrote.
DOJ does have the authority to charge prosecutors with coercing false testimony, although that almost never happens, but Trump officials are considering it now.
The headlines from independent media sources never fail to amaze. Even local government officials have trouble with Trump’s ignorance of how things are done in American. He abuses his position and ignores well-settled law over and over.This is from the New York Times. “Wyoming Governor Objects to ‘Very Odd’ D.O.J. Election Monitoring. Governor Mark Gordon, a Republican, said he was concerned by the behavior of election observers who visited a polling station in Cheyenne.” This story comes from the keyboard of Tim Balk.
Mr. Trump has often returned to such conspiracy theories in his second term, arguing that widespread fraud could affect this year’s elections. As president, he has deployed the resources of the federal government, notably the Justice Department’s, to investigate his unsubstantiated claims, sowing more doubt in the nation’s elections and raising alarm among state officials about whether he will try to intervene if Republicans lose their congressional majorities in November.
Governor Gordon, a low-key, term-limited Republican who leads one of the country’s most conservative states, said at a meeting with state election officials on Wednesday that he had been concerned by the behavior of the election observers.
“I feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking our guns — I don’t like that,” Mr. Gordon said at the meeting. “And I don’t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes, either.”
The monitors ultimately visited six polling places, showing their credentials only when asked for them, Mr. Gordon said in the interview, describing their behavior as “very odd.” He said he had asked the state attorney general, Keith Kautz, to investigate the matter.
The observers had cited statutes related to the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act, Mr. Gordon said.
This year, the Justice Department’s observers have visited polling places in other states, including politically tense regions such as the Minneapolis area. The agency said on Tuesday that it had sent 80 monitors to seven states during primary season.
But the requests to interview voters and gain access to machines in Wyoming were unusual. And they come at a moment when the Justice Department has been locked in an intense legal battle with roughly 30 states, demanding their private, unredacted voter rolls in a hunt for evidence of noncitizen voting.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Trump is still convinced that noncitizens vote. Most allegations turn out to be baseless. There has to be something sketchier in Trump’s election interference. It’s more likely he’s trying to ‘monitor’ polls to intimidate certain classes of voters not known to vote Republican. He is hot for voter suppression.
This is my favorite headline for the day. It comes via from Public Notice. “Are voters finally realizing GOP presidents are disasters? Michael Tomasky makes the case that they are.” I could make the case easily for their economic policy. I’m pretty certain that others in other areas could do that as well. Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson share the lede.
“Trusting the Republicans more on the economy at this point is like trusting Sean Combs to be your babysitter,” writes Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic, in his recent piece headlined, “At Long Last, Americans Are Starting to See the Truth About the GOP.”
“For decades now, the Republican Party has built its electoral success on myths and lies,” Tomasky adds. “Ronald Reagan was the last Republican president who your average person would say left the country better off than he found it.”
One could quibble about the legacy of George H.W. Bush, but it’s hard to dispute that the last two Republican presidents easily rank among the worst in American history. Their successors have each been handed a flaming bag of economic and cultural ruin and did commendable jobs putting out the fire, only to hand the reins to the man who will unequivocally go down as our worst president of all time (so far!), Donald J. Trump — whose second term is shaping up to be even more disastrous than the one that ended with mass death amid a pandemic he badly mismanaged.
Tomasky argues Democrats are missing a golden opportunity by not campaigning more aggressively on the obvious truth that from the presidency on down, the Republican Party has a cataclysmic record when it has power, especially in the 21st century. But messaging aside, he says he’s heartened by recent polling showing voters may finally be seeing the light.
“Jobs are just one factor. The performance of the stock market under Democrats is much, much stronger than under Republicans. The increases in median household income and amount by which they’ve reduced the deficit are much greater,” Tomasky told Public Notice. “The comparisons aren’t close, but you never hear any Democrats talk about it.”
“Why this is changing now is really simple and straightforward: The economy is bad, and there’s a Republican president,” he added.
Trump has basically wrecked the idea that Republicans are better at foreign policy and wars. There’s no way any of his health policies via the nuts he put in Health and Human Services can be seen as anything but charlatans. And, the DOJ is a laugh. So much for law and order. Since the Republic party continues to enable all of this mess, I can’t understand that anyone other that a member of the Orange Caligula Cult could tolerate what’s going on these days.
Okay, this is my last suggested read for the day. It comes from Balls and Strikes and is written by Jay Willis. “The Trump DOJ Is Running Out of Ways to Humiliate Itself In Public. Another week, another argument from your federal government that would be kind of embarrassing if a high school sophomore tried to make it.” Sounds about right.
For some time now, I have been tracking the Justice Department’s alarminglyrapidtransformation from one of the legal profession’s most prestigious employers into a clubhouse for semiliterate dunces whose primary qualification for the job is a willingness to sign their names to legal filings that resemble lightly edited Truth Social posts. This week’s addition to the canon comes in the course of President Donald Trump’s relentless pursuit of what is somehow among the highest-priority items on his second-term policy agenda: slapping his name on the Kennedy Center before his time in office runs out.
The legal fight began back in December 2025, when the Kennedy Center’s Trump-aligned board of trustees first tried to shoehorn the words “THE DONALD J. TRUMP AND” above existing Kennedy Center signage. A federal court ordered the removal of Trump’s name in June, but the board remains committed to fulfilling the president’s wishes. Its latest proposal would append a “RENOVATED AND RESTORED BY PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” inscription to the side of the building, beneath the Kennedy Center signage this time around. The board also wants to name the grounds on which the Kennedy Center sits the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” like an enterprising NFL team selling a secondary set of stadium naming rights to whichever corporate behemoth is desperate enough to pay for it.
In a new court filing, the Trump Justice Department is warning about what might happen if its client does not get his way: According to Brantley T. Mayers, a lawyer in the Civil Division, prospective donors will not open their wallets unless the renovation plans include “prominent recognition” of Trump’s involvement. And without those renovations, Brantley says, the “dilapidated” and “crumbling” Kennedy Center will “deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure,” and may even have to be “taken down” in order to avoid “collapse or calamity.” In other words, the Justice Department’s official position is that without the addition of an (apparently load-bearing) “RENOVATED AND RESTORED” inscription, the Kennedy Center will be at risk of falling down and killing everyone inside.
“The Board recognizes that President Trump’s efforts and prestige provide the sole hope for the Center’s financial survival, and structural renewal,” Brantley writes. “The Trump Administration, and President Donald J. Trump, should, therefore, be given the respect and dignity of acknowledgement.” (All weird comma placements in original.)
How is this even a legal issue? Anyway, this country is so fucked-up under Trump that it’s hard to recognize. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
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“Shouldn’t the new US Attorney General be prosecuting Reflecting Pool Vandals instead of spinning on the Sunday News Shows?” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Regurgitating the past is so Trumpian. He’s the very model of a relic, an anachronistic trope. This week was full of reminders of how detached he is from reality. Once again, Orange Caligula tried to get the case brought by E. Jean Carroll overturned. Even the Supreme Court didn’t buy it. He may be able to control many of the folks he appointed to executive office, but his manipulation of U.S. democracy still only goes so far.
This is from NBC News‘ Lawrence Hurley. “Supreme Court turns away Trump’s latest bid to block E. Jean Carroll award. President Donald Trump filed an unusual request asking the justices to reconsider a decision they made not to hear his case several weeks ago.” E. Jean and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, are real American heroes.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined for a second time to take up President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a jury verdict that awarded $5 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for alleged sexual abuse and defamation.
In an unusual move, the president had asked the court to reconsider its decision from June that rejected Trump’s initial appeal. The court almost never grants such requests.
The case arose from a federal lawsuit Carroll filed in New York City alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a department store in 1996. The defamation claims relate to statements he made about her after his first term in office, in which he described her claims as a “con job” and “hoax.”
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has said he does not know Carroll.
Trump has a separate appeal at the Supreme Court concerning a different defamation case in which Carroll won an $83 million judgment. That case concerns comments Trump made as president during his first term and has been tied up in litigation over whether he can claim immunity.
The court is not set to act on that appeal until later this year.
Good news. E. Jean Carroll spent a decade in court fighting one of the most powerful men in the world.She fought with tenacity and grace — and she won. She is one of my personal heroes.We owe her a debt of gratitude.https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/17/trump-supreme-court-e-jean-carroll.html
And of course, he argued presidential immunity. This is from Politico.
Trump’s Supreme Court challenges to both verdicts argued in part that the verdicts were flawed because they relied on statements Trump made in 2019 about Carroll while he was serving as president and those statements should be considered immune from legal liability under the high court’s 2024 ruling granting presidents immunity for many acts they take while in office.
I wonder when the new AG is going to jump wily-nily into the case? I wrote a lot on Monday about the current treatment of the US Service members deployed to the Iran-Israeli/US war and their deplorable conditions. I mentioned that historically, Orange Caligula has shown mostly contempt for anyone who served in the military, voluntarily or not. My family has served this country since the Revolution, and I really don’t take kindly to the implications that my dad, uncles, or cousins, or any of the others that fall into the multiple greats, did so because they’re “suckers and losers”.
Public Notice‘s Noah Berlatsky takes on his constant denigration of the many who served. This happened after a Fox News “journalist,” Joey Jones, earned this headline from The Independent. “Fury erupts at Fox host who blasted ‘weak’ sailors on USS Abraham Lincoln: ‘Put him on that ship’. The former Marine Corps staff sergeant compared the carrier crew’s living conditions to his own deployment in Afghanistan.” The outrage over this continues. Here’s the take from Berlatsky: “Suckers and losers” as policy. The plight of the USS Lincoln lays bare Trump’s disdain for the troops.”
The Navy Times reported last week, based on interviews with family members, that multiple sailors have recently tried to jump overboard from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln — a ship has been deployed for 250 days as part of President Trump’s war of choice against Iran.
Food is deteriorating and being rationed, there are water shortages, the laundry facilities are broken. And the psychological toll has been brutal.
Trump started a war without provocation and has prolonged it because he does not want to admit he lost. But when questioned on Friday about conditions on the Lincoln, he responded not with compassion or regret, but with callous vindictiveness.
Asked if the deployment had lasted too long, he replied, “No. Not nearly long enough.”
Q: The family members of US service members are concerned about the conditions on the USS LincolnTRUMP: No they're notQ: Has the deployment gone on too long?TRUMP: No no no. Not nearly long enough.
Trump also claimed that a carrier was moving to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln. That appears to be true. Still, his belligerent denial of the suffering of service members is shocking.
“Shocking,” though, does not mean surprising.
Over the last decade, Trump has consistently insulted and mocked US troops. His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has made clear that he sees service members as props in his endless battle to win culture war accolades from Nazi bloggers and right-wing talking heads.
The fact that real men and women are experiencing mental health crises and are dying in service of their ill-informed and vindictive whims doesn’t trouble Trump or Hegseth. It should more than worry everyone else though.
In yet another deranged Orange Caligula moment, we see his priorities. This is from the AP. “Trump blames vandals for damaged grass in the same spot where he held his big July 4 celebration.” WTAF? Is this paranoia or some odd brain fart? He’s done more damage to the District than the British ever did!
President Donald Trump on Sunday said vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the same spot where Trump had a stage built and hosted crowds for his July 4 celebration.
Trump made the accusation in a social media post without saying why he believes it’s the work of vandals instead of trampled turf from the Independence Day festivities. He posted a photo showing a once-grassy area by the World War II Memorial, now patchy and brown across much of the sprawling turf.
“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!” he added.
Trump has been obviously obsessed with World War II and its generals recently. Does he want to be Eisenhower now? Does he really think starting WW III would be a terrific idea to cement his place in history? I just don’t get any of this. Can someone please stop this madman before the country declines beyond repair?
In a truly bizarre move, Trump decided joint military exercises with South Korea should be ended because he’s such a good friend of the bizarro leader of North Korea. This is from the New York Times‘ Helene Cooper. “Trump Orders Pentagon to Curtail Military Exercises With Ally South Korea. In a social media post, the president scolded South Korea for not helping denuclearize Iran, and also praised North Korea and its leader.”
President Trump said on Sunday that he had instructed the Pentagon to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally and a linchpin of America’s national security strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.
The announcement may heighten growing worries among Asian allies over what the United States is now willing to do to deter China, given the enormous distraction and resource drain of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. The United States is running low on critical weapons and has been moving military resources out of Asia to the Middle East.
In a convoluted social media post, Mr. Trump complained that Seoul did not “join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In the same post, he said that North Korea under Kim Jong Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” while he has been president.
In his post Mr. Trump did not mention a rift in relations in 2017, when the North Korean leader called him a “mentally deranged dotard” after Mr. Trump delivered a speech at the U.N. threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea if the United States had to defend itself or its allies.
Now Mr. Trump is speaking only of what he on Sunday called his “very good relationship” with North Korea and its leader. In his post, he said that because of those ties, he was “not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military exercises with South Korea.”
“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Mr. Trump said in his post.
Mr. Trump said that because it was too late to cancel the exercises entirely, he had asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” U.S. participation.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries have held joint exercises for more than 70 years, since 1955, after the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
The South Korean Defense Ministry confirmed that the joint military exercises had begun on Monday as scheduled. In a statement last week, the allies emphasized that the 11-day annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises were “defensive in nature” and aimed at enhancing the countries’ readiness and capabilities by “incorporating realistic threats, including lessons learned from recent conflicts.”
But North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Friday had reiterated its condemnation of the drills, branding them “a rehearsal for an aggressive war.” In response, the country conducted two ballistic missile tests off its east coast this month, vowing to “respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent.”
I don’t know about you, but I think having a President so totally located in a completely different reality, in charge of things — especially the military — is an extremely dangerous place to be.
So, let’s end this on hope, a wing and a prayer. This is from Axios‘ Mike Zapler and Ben Berkowitz. “Even some Republican voters sour on Trump.” I would hope they could. How can you live in this country today and afford anything? How could you have draft-age children or grandchildren and not be worried?
High prices, a persistent war and anxiety about corruption are quickly eroding President Trump’s support among Republicans, a warning sign for the White House with less than 80 days to the midterms.
Why it matters: Democrats look likely to take control of the House already, but Trump’s weakness could cost Republicans more seats and further endanger the Senate.
The loss of one or both chambers would guarantee two years of scrutiny and gridlock for the end of Trump’s presidency.
By the numbers: Three surveys out in the last week paint a clear picture of growing dissatisfaction among the president’s base.
📉 An Economist/YouGov poll out Tuesday had Trump’s approval rating among Republicans at a second-term low of 79 percent — a decline of 12 points from shortly after he took office.
In that time, the percentage of Republicans who “strongly approve” of Trump’s performance has dropped more precipitously —by 20 points (from 68 to 48 percent).
Trump is barely above water among non-MAGA Republicans, who make up about 30 percent of the party. Only 51 percent approved of his performance, vs. 47 percent who disapproved. The positive rating among non-MAGA Republicans fell 13 points in one week.
⬇️ A Financial Times poll out this weekend had Trump’s net approval rating among Republicans off 8 points from just a month prior.
💰 Republican consumer sentiment fell 9.5 points in August from July, per the University of Michigan monthly survey out Friday — one of the largest declines the decades-old project has ever recorded. The Republican decline was more than double the overall headline number.
Driving the news: It’s no secret what’s behind the numbers: the war in Iran, high gas prices and stubborn inflation.
These recent findings come on the heels of polls that show rising Republican skepticism of the war and GOP wariness over whether Trump is using his office for personal profit.
The intrigue: Trump’s political strength has long derived from outsized loyalty among Republicans, so even a slight slippage could be consequential.
I also was under the delusion that Republicans were deficit hawks. But, I guess that was just another gaslighting session. If you have time, check this one out by Max Boot from the Washington Post. Too bad it took some of these assholes so long to figure things out. “I’m a hawk. I’m shocked by a $1.5 trillion defense budget. The request would top World War II spending while funding boondoggles and sweetheart deals.”
So, anyway, it’s another hot, humid Monday down here in New Orleans, and I have to go water the small patch of sod that is now the middle of my small backyard. I’m still trying to teach folks economics and finance, but nothing fits the reality these days. The entire Data Center thing and the supposed “financing” of it are totally outside my realm, as a PhD in Financial Economics. Call me churlish, but this looks more like the Command-and-Control economics and policies of the old Soviet Union than those of the United States. Then there’s this, which is so far outside the bounds of legality I can’t even think straight about it. “Trump family crypto business World Liberty gets preliminary approval to establish a bank.” The flunky he appointed as Comptroller of the Currency has already approved it. Let’s see how he manipulates the Federal Reserve System and the SEC! Don’t even get me started on RFK Jr’s latest romp through medicine and the vaccines that have saved so many people.
As usual, more at the links.
Anyway, I can’t believe what’s going on. I really can’t. None of this should be happening. Let me know what you think. As usual, more on any of this can be found at the links.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
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If you want some shock and awe for your Monday afternoon, read this. Or, read The Great Gatsby.
So, does anybody think there was any kind of strategy to that move or was it just his usual blather linked to something in the past he’s garbled up. The true winner of the Ireland Visit was its President Catherine Connolly. The picture of Orange Caligula over there having to sign something on a desk so small it would cramp a 4th grader was the cheekiest move I’ve seen in probably forever. This is from The US Sun. “Catherine Connolly takes thinly-veiled swipe at Donald Trump with 3 gifts containing pointed message on global issues”. I still laugh every time I read this. As obvious as it all was, including a firm speech, it probably went right over his awful hairdo. This was visit was labelled a brief courtesy call even though Dementia Don wouldn’t know what a courtesy is let alone perform one.
I have to say, that was a classy way of calling the bugger out for what he really is. As always, I’m proud of my Scotch/Irish roots and both the Scotch and the Irish took to the streets and give him a what for. Meanwhile, there are signs the U.S. economy is becoming more troubled. As for me, with my doctorate in economics, my proof in the pudding is the price of gas and groceries. But, I’ll sure this one with you because long-term Treasury bonds are are the proverbial canary in the coalmine to the financial sector and the FED where both my Grandfather and me spent some time making sure the auctions happened come the hell of two world wars or Mardi Gras, in my case. This headline is from CNBC. 10-year Treasury yield hits 5% before reversing as traders await Fed meeting. I bet trading desks all over the world are working overtime today.
Yes. We’re being bribed to vote Republican, again. This is from The New York Times‘ James Poniewozik.
Oh, but it gets better. This is from HuffPo. Jennifer Bendery has the story. “Trump’s Weird Convention Just Tied Every GOP Candidate To His Sagging Popularity. Good luck in November!”
As you can see, he’s only getting worse and more intense with his attacks and bad temper. It’s begging to take it’s toll. This is from ABC News. “Joe diGenova, loyalist tapped by Trump to oversee controversial DOJ probe targeting his foes, resigns: Sources. DiGenova had been probing officials involved in past investigations of Trump.”
Well, isn’t that interesting. The Hill has this analysis. “Trump: Fans ‘will not be happy’ Bartiromo out at Fox News.” The reporter on this story is Mira Bhakta.
Hot Air‘s Ed Morrissey has this new headline up this afternoon. “War? Bartiromo Gets Boot From Fox, Lawyers Up.”
Well, more of the worst economic policy ever is likely on the way. This is from CNBC. “Trump doubles down on threat to halt trade with top partners unless Fed cuts rates.” This story is reported by Kevin Breuninger.
It’s likely also one the reasons for this phenomenon. This story is reported by Catherine Rampell writing at The Bulwark. “Europe’s Gold Fled the Nazis. Now It’s Fleeing Trump. Our allies once trusted America to safeguard their reserves. Now they worry the president might freeze them.” 
Paul Krugman has even more frightening details to outline on his SubStack. “Ingots We No Longer Trust. America’s word is as good as gold — that is, unreliable.” This really sends a bad signal to every one.
A federal prosecutor investigating the murder of a man by an ICE office is under investigation. This is scary and shows how out of control the DOJ has become. This is from CBS News. There a quite a few reporters on this story. “Federal prosecutor fired after investigating ICE officer for civil rights offenses in Minnesota shooting, sources say.” Violating civil rights of people is evidently A-OK with the Trump Regime’s war on the U.S. Constitution.
This country is a cesspool. The elected officials that we vote for and count on to ensure the Constitutionality of actions taken here are sadly missing. But the, look at this headline, and you’ll see that clearly. This is Politico‘s take on a Wall Street Journal Investigation. “‘Too lazy to do the job’: Democrats dump on Fetterman after WSJ report. The Wall Street Journal’s story recounted multiple instances of Sen. John Fetterman refusing to meet with constituents in Washington even for scheduled meetings.” Gregory Svirnovskiy has the lede.
That’s why my blood pressure took off when I read this. “Trump’s Quietly Working to Give Part of Yosemite to a Private Developer. The National Park Service is under pressure to make an unprecedented deal that cedes a quarter-mile strip of the park.” The article can be found at NOTUS and is written by Anna Kramer. Yosemite is one of the nations’ oldest and most glorious examples of American landscapes. He’s totally dedicated to the idea of selling stuff off to support his Trumpify every historical place in the District.
This is an unprecedented move and a dangerous one.
Don’t even get me started on Trump trying to rename Lake Ontario. But you don’t have to take my word on it try this at Business Insider. The internet has gone into full meme mode over Trump’s Lake Ontario name change. The story is reported by Joshua Nelken-Zitser.
Stormy and E. Jean are high on my list of tough and amazing women for see these cases through. We can only hope we get the Epstein files released and we see more women damaged by Trump receive justice and compensation. And speaking of the Stormy case, this headline yesterday from Raw Story is an eye opener. There most be a line as wide as big as the country itself of co-criminals waiting for Trump Pardons. “Explosive motive unmasked by DOJ insiders as Michael Cohen crawls back to Trump: report.” Travis Gettys has the story.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Trump is still convinced that noncitizens vote. Most allegations turn out to be baseless. There has to be something sketchier in Trump’s election interference. It’s more likely he’s trying to ‘monitor’ polls to intimidate certain classes of voters not known to vote Republican. He is hot for voter suppression.
Trump has basically wrecked the idea that Republicans are better at foreign policy and wars. There’s no way any of his health policies via the nuts he put in Health and Human Services can be seen as anything but charlatans. And, the DOJ is a laugh. So much for law and order. Since the Republic party continues to enable all of this mess, I can’t understand that anyone other that a member of the Orange Caligula Cult could tolerate what’s going on these days.
And of course, he argued presidential immunity. This is from Politico.
In yet another deranged Orange Caligula moment, we see his priorities. This is from the AP. “Trump blames vandals for damaged grass in the same spot where he held his big July 4 celebration.” WTAF? Is this paranoia or some odd brain fart? He’s done more damage to the District than the British ever did!
Trump has been obviously obsessed with World War II and its generals recently. Does he want to be Eisenhower now? Does he really think starting WW III would be a terrific idea to cement his place in history? I just don’t get any of this. Can someone please stop this madman before the country declines beyond repair?
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