In the past few months, Trump has managed to turn the White House, its grounds, and nearby areas into a giant mess. Is it possible for the damage the South lawn caused by the cage matches to be repaired by July 4–the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence? And what about the reflecting pool? What a boondoggle that turned out to be! And it looks like the East Wing mess is going to be there for a long time, as Trump battles in court to build his imitation-Versailles ballroom.
Trump is obsessed with remaking Washington DC to resemble the Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower aesthetic, with gold plating and marble everywhere. And of course, every project will involve heavy duty corruption as Trump hands all the jobs to old cronies and political donors.
Of all the memes circulated about the American President, the toddler in diapers or giant baby playing with toy bombers in the Iranian LEGO videos probably comes closest to the spectacle inside the gilded bunker. But Trump thinks of himself as a Builder not a warrior. He has spent his life trying to live up to the unmet expectations of Fred Trump, a man who knew foundations and concrete and actually had put hammer to nail. Donald grew up at that man’s side, costumed in hard hat but with hands destined to remain forever soft. He learned the profane patois of New York and New Jersey contractors but farmed out the rest of it.
Trump’s second term is remarkable for more aberrances than we can track. But chief among them are the mysterious, unnecessary projects to demolish East Wing, re-coat the Reflecting Pool, affix gold decorations to the Oval Office with super glue and until stopped, tear down and re-do the Kennedy Center. An arc-de-Trump waits on the drawing board.
The only reasonable explanation for this orgy of wasteful brick and mortar is that the handlers need toys and games to keep the old man from disrupting the serious business of making war, destroying the sciences, defunding humanitarians, filling concentration camps, and wrecking alliances – matters attended to with great devotion by Vought, Miller, Kegseth, Kennedy and Wiles – and nameless administration elves whose allegiances are most definitely not to the American people.
One sure sign that the Bob the Builder projects exist to placate and distract the Old Man is the near total lack of transparency around the contracting processes. Normally, federal agencies like the National Park Service would oversee the reflecting pool, and the National Capital Planning Commission would sign off on the East Wing project. Contracts normally overseen by the federal General Services Administration (GSA) were presented directly by the Executive Residence of the White House. There is no known evidence of GSA oversight.
These baffling, expensive boondoggles seem to serve two purposes. They keep the old man occupied and open the spigot on taxpayer funds for the claque in New York, Jersey and Florida who have either done business with the old man over the years or ponied up for a Mar a Lago membership.
Susie and the Cats,, by Angela Thomson
The peeling algae-choked disaster of the $14 million Reflecting Pool improvement made news this weekend. The White House gave a no-bid $6.9 million contract to a company, Atlantic Industrial Coating….
Atlantic then brought on a subcontractor from Oklahoma, Mid-America Industrial Coatings whose truck was seen at the pool. Reporter Gabe Sanchez tweeted in May that he called Atlantic to inquire about the subcontract. The owner “became evasive and shut down the conversation,” Sanchez reported, stating “That’s none of your business.” And it wouldn’t be the Epstein class-infested administration if a former chief operating officer of the Mid-America didn’t also have multiple felony convictions for child sex abuse.
There there’s the man hired to keep the reflecting pool clear and free of algae: John J. Cafaro, a Taftian cigar chomping dandy with a Hitler haircut and ‘stache, another in a long line of individuals and events that suggest America passed through a wormhole into a Marvel Comic alternative universe around 2016.
Cafaro owns the aptly named Green Water Solutions. He bagged the no-bid $1.6 million contract despite – or because of? – a record of pleading guilty to bribing public officials. There is now more algae on the pool than there was before the project.
President Donald Trump’s makeover of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool ahead of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations is not going according to plan.
Then, the new Trump-branded “American flag blue” color was short-lived as algae turned the pool green, causing the administration to send crews to dump hydrogen peroxide into the expansive pool to deal with the problem.
In recent days, NBC News spotted some blue paint chipping off the surface, with strips of it peeling away and floating atop the pool for visitors and passers-by to see as the busy summer tourist season in the nation’s capital gets underway.
On the west side of the pool Thursday, a small section of the blue painted surface appeared to be lifting away, exposing the darker unpainted layer underneath. A strip of detached paint could be seen floating beneath the water’s surface.
Algae still remain visible along the edges of the pool despite ongoing cleaning efforts. The developing deterioration drew the attention of onlookers who stopped to take a closer look.
The Trump administration is hardly the first to struggle to clean up the Reflecting Pool. But the algae-infused green color has drawn significant attention in recent days after the president slammed the pool earlier this year as “filthy” and “dirty,” promising to make it “beautiful” and blue at minimal expense.
For days, workers have been trying to rid the Reflecting Pool of algae after a more than $14 million renovation that President Donald Trump said was “done properly” and “could last for 100 years.”
But now workers have another problem to contend with: peeling paint. On Thursday, a sheet of the pool’s surface — painted in “American Flag Blue,” a color selected by the president — was seen floating in the water on the north side of the pool. It undulated in the water as curious tourists gathered, some of whom had come to see the green algae.
Pause, by Rosie Phillips
At 5:35 p.m. on Thursday, a worker came to remove the sheet of pool surface, telling a Washington Post photographer not to photograph it, despite being on public land.
The Interior Department did not immediately respond to questions about the paint and why the pool surface is separating. The agency said in a statement on Wednesday that it is treating the pool with hydrogen peroxide and “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to effectively cut off the algae’s food supply.
Steve Goodale, a swimming pool expert who viewed footage of the peeled sheet of paint, believes the pool’s surface may have been improperly prepared for the treatment.
“If there are any deficiencies with the surface prep, the surface can fail just like you see here,” he said, via email, “sheets and chunks peeling off.” Another culprit, he added, could be groundwater or pool water seeping underneath the lining.
Hydrogen peroxide can affect a pool’s surface, too, but not in the same way: “Less of a sheet peeling off and more like fading, hazing or breakdown of the material,” he said.
A bit more from the article:
On Thursday, the Interior Department press office posted on X that “the Reflecting Pool water is crystal clear, and our National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool — just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf.”
Indeed, some areas of the Reflecting Pool were looking cleaner compared with earlier in the week. Workers in chest-high waders stood in the middle of the pool and vacuumed the algae. The neon green-tinted water could be seen pouring out of tubes into nearby drainage grates. The center of the pool, though, was still neon green, and residual algae remained in the cleaned portions of the pool.
$14.6 million for this mess, and now the taxpayers will have to foot the bill for the efforts fix it. Trump has handed out another no-bid contract to another crony for the clean-up.
The federal government awarded a company owned by a Trump donor a $1.7 million contract to install a new water cleaning system for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, federal records show, as President Trump pushes to overhaul the pool — and struggles with a bout of algae and a peeling paint job.
The no-bid contract to install a “Nano Bubble” filtration system went to Green Water Solutions, an Ohio-based company whose owner is listed on federal contracting documents as “JJ Cafaro Investment Trust.” The president and CEO of that trust is identified as John J. Cafaro on Federal Election Commission filings.
Prisac Nicholai, Self portrait with my cat
Cafaro has donated to several GOP candidates and conservative causes in recent years. He has donated extensively to Mr. Trump’s campaign and to Trump-linked groups, giving $250,000 to the Trump Victory fundraising committee at one point in 2020. FEC records show he also made donations to Democrats at various points.
A businessman and real estate developer, Cafaro pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in 2010 over donations to his daughter’s congressional campaign. Nearly a decade earlier, he pleaded guiltyto conspiring to bribe Democratic Rep. James Traficant, and cooperated with prosecutors.
Cafaro and his wife own a home in Palm Beach, Florida, less than a mile from the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Green Water Solutions is also known as Greenwater Services. Inquiries to Cafaro did not yield a response, and the company referred CBS News to the National Park Service, a division of the Department of the Interior. The New York Times was first to report on Cafaro’s involvement in the Reflecting Pool project.
On its website, Green Water Solutions describes its specialty as purifying water to remove algae, bacteria and other contaminants using a system that injects ozone-infused “nano bubbles” into the water.
Lets hope it works.
Last night, Trump decided to blame his reflecting pool on “vandals.”
“It’s called ‘New Pond Syndrome,'” says Steve Goodale, a Canadian swimming pool specialist known online as “Swimming Pool Steve.” “It’s a known thing that happens when you take a natural, clear body of water like this that sits in an open air environment and you try to start it up, very often you end up with green water almost immediately.”
Goodale says the process took longer — a matter of days — to unfold in this case likely due to the sheer size of the pool, which measures 2,030 feet long and has a surface area of approximately 338,000 square feet….
Rosalina Stancheva Christova, a professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University in Virginia, took water samples from the pool on Tuesday. She confirmed the algae belongs to the genus Desmodesmus, which she said is “growing in excessive amounts” but is not toxic or harmful.
Christova says this kind of common green algae is found all over the region, especially this time of year. The reflecting pool in particular provides “excellent conditions” for algae growth, she said: shallow, stagnant water, strong sunlight and no shade.
“It could happen every single summer,” she added. “But it seems that the disturbance of the pond during the renovations [is] accelerating this process.”
Christova said last month’s renovations may have affected the balance of nutrients in the pool, potentially accelerating the algae blooms. Goodale similarly views the resurfacing as one of several contributing factors.
“The new, darker interior surface is going to absorb more sunlight,” Goodale says. “It is going to result in water that’s warmer, and that ultimately is going to lead to more prolific algae growth.”
As National Park Service workers poured gallons of hydrogen peroxide into Donald Trump’s newly overhauled Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, observers worried about the families of nonvoters that actually use the water: ducks and their ducklings.
It’s a “bad day to be a duck,” remarked a NOTUS reporter on X this week while watching the desperate bid to control blooming algae with chemicals. Some people on social media claim to have seen dead ducks in the pool….
A little girl in peasant dress, playing with a cat by Danish-Norwegian artist Peder Severin Krøyer.
A 3 percent concentration is generally considered safe. Containers of hydrogen peroxide being poured into the Reflecting Pool were marked as a “12 percent” solution, Common Dreams reported. A 12 percent solution is strong enough to “cause problems if inhaled and burns if the chemical touches the skin,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has detailed warnings and suggestions for “medical management” of the chemical.
Hydrogen peroxide is “not absorbed by the skin, but can cause systemic toxicity when inhaled or ingested,” notes the CDC. It’s also a “powerful” oxidizing agent; when it comes in contact with organic material, spontaneous combustion can occur,” the agency warns.
It’s not known how much of the bleaching chemical is being dumped into the Reflecting Pool that many ducks use as a pond. In addition, at this time of year several tiny ducklings are trailing their moms in the water. Their size could make them more vulnerable to toxins.
President Donald Trump on Friday claimed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was intentionally vandalized and said law enforcement is actively investigating, as the administration has scrambled to fix the pool’s recent deterioration just days after Trump’s nearly $15 million renovation.
“We’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool,” Trump said in a late night post on Truth Social without providing evidence. “The algae is 75% gone, and the condition will soon be completely remedied, and the area that was vandalized, fortunately, is just a small area of damage, and will be fixed early next week.”
The post comes one day after blue material at the bottom of the pool began peeling off. The Reflecting Pool was painted blue and refilled in recent weeks as part of the pricey renovation ordered by Trump.
The president linked the alleged vandalism at the Reflecting Pool to the mysterious etching of “8647” into the grass on the National Mall days prior.
Johannes Albert Neuhuys, A girl playing with the cat 1877
“Just like three days ago, they destroyed the grass outside of the Pool, they’ve also done everything possible to hurt the inside surface that was just installed. No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work,” Trump claimed.
When used as slang, the number 86 can refer to getting rid of or tossing something out. Trump is currently the 47th president. The phrase has recently been used to signal opposition to Trump.
A new image shows the numbers appearing even bolder than when they were originally discovered etched in the grass on the National Mall in Washington, DC more than a week ago.
Keep telling yourself that, you demented old geezer. Don the Builder has created this tremendous mess with a relatively small project. Can you imagine how bad it could get when when he really gets going with the ballroom and his idiotic arch?
Yesterday Trump held an event to display another renovation project: his new Airforce One plane, which he somehow grifted from the government of Qatar.
President Donald Trump on Friday officially unveiled his new Air Force One jet that was contentiously given to him by the Qatari government, declaring it would be used during a ceremonial flyover in Washington on July 4 to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States.
Trump welcomed the delivery of the luxurious Boeing 747 in an appearance at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington that began with him exiting the aircraft and walking down the steps.
Decked out in a red, white and dark-blue blue color scheme — a departure from the lighter blue on the previous model — the jet is set to be used by Trump during events marking the nation’s landmark anniversary.
“Nobody tops this one, and that’s the way we have to have it for our country. Nobody even comes close,” Trump said.
The jet will lead a flyover — “the likes of which we’ve never seen before,” Trump said — involving various other military planes on July 4.
He repeatedly praised the plane, calling it “the largest and the greatest in every aspect.” It will be a “flying White House at a level of luxury no one has ever seen before,” he added.
The plane is estimated to be worth $400 million, but the U.S. government has likely spent substantially more to make it ready for use.
Meanwhile, Americans are struggling to pay for gas, groceries and health care.
And what is going on with the Kennedy Center? Trump was ordered by a judge to remove his name from the building and cancel his plans to shut it down for 2 years. Workmen came and did something, but no one can tell if the Trump name has really been removed, because he is hiding the front of the building with huge tarps.
In the early hours of June 13, in an action that turned out to be news around the world, workers hung massive tarps from scaffolding across the front of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and under court order removed President Trump’s name from the marble facade.
Or did they?
Natalie and Persik, by Daniel Pagán
True, the center’s operations chief, Matt Floca, filed a sworn declaration with a federal court later that day saying that Mr. Trump’s name had been removed. And true, a New York Times photographer captured evidence through an opening in the tarp that the letter “A” came off. Another photographer recorded evidence of the demise of a “D.”
But in a downer denouement for Mr. Trump’s critics, a week later the tarps are still there, prompting some to wonder whether at least some of the letters are, too. As of Friday evening, there was no visual evidence that the letters splashed across the building had been restored to “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
Peering behind the tarps is impossible because they now lie tight against the building’s front.
“I don’t know if they took down the sign, because I can’t see it,” said Luna Woo, a violinist visiting from Portland, Ore., as part of the National Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Institute. She and other young musicians in the program have been trying to see behind the tarps from a practice room overlooking them. No luck.
So when will the tarps come down?
A Kennedy Center spokeswoman, Roma Daravi, emailed a terse response:
“The scaffolding and tarp will remain up as crews address maintenance needs of the marble and soffit panels. Best, Public Relations.”
I know this seems like a lightweight post, but these are the issues that our “president” is focused on. I’m not sure if the country can survive 2-1/2 more years of this chaos–not to mention the grifting and outright corruption.
Anyway, I hope you are all enjoying the weekend, despite the insanity in Washington DC.
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We, the people who never wanted Trump as president, have been forced to deal with his lies, his clownish nonsense, and his rage-filled public behavior since he came down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy on June 16, 2015–nearly 11 years ago.
There really wasn’t a break in the madness after he lost the 2020 election. He constantly found ways to make himself the center of attention, and then we had our hopes raised with all the prosecutions, most of which ended up failing because–incredibly–he was elected for a second time.
Speaking for myself, it has been a long hard road. Even if he actually leaves the White House in January, 2029, he will likely still find ways to keep himself in the news. I wonder if I will live to see the day when he is really gone.
For the past few days, we have waited for his name to be removed from the Kennedy Center building, while he fought repeatedly in the courts to keep it there. I think it has finally been taken down now, but I’m not really sure, because the huge tarp covering the front of the building is still in place.
The curtain started to come down for President Donald Trump at the Kennedy Center on Saturday.
After a day of legal maneuvers and thunderstorms, workers began the process in the early morning hours of removing the letters spelling out the Republican president’s name from the facade of the iconic performing arts venue. They were a few hours past a court-ordered deadline and did their work shrouded by a tarp, much to the frustration of onlookers who had gathered for hours hoping to witness a dramatic moment symbolizing the limits of Trump’s power.
As the sun rose over Washington, the tarp remained in place, leaving it impossible to determine whether all the letters had been removed. Shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Center asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon EDT, citing the storms for delaying the work. The court agreed to that request Saturday morning.
The removal of Trump’s name closes one of the more unusual chapters in the history of the Kennedy Center, which began construction in 1964 and was dedicated to the memory of the slain president, Democrat John F. Kennedy. At what is typically one of the few relatively nonpartisan spaces in Washington, Trump has wielded tremendous influence over the venue during his second term.
Though he rarely discussed the Kennedy Center during his 2024 campaign, Trump moved quickly to oust the institution’s leadership when he returned to office in January 2025 and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. His name was quickly added to the building.
Why did Trump want his name on a memorial created by Congress for a president who was assassinated? Trump is a year older than I am. He was alive when Kennedy was murdered and the nation mourned. Did he know what happened? Did it have any effect on him? Apparently not.
The Washington National Opera, which recently severed its longstanding relationship with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has filed a lawsuit that demands more than $17 million from the center that the opera company estimates it is owed.
The suit, filed Thursday, says that since the opera company struck out on its own this year, Kennedy Center officials have refused to release the money, which the court papers say includes endowment funds, other donations and income that was collected for the company’s benefit.
“W.N.O. reluctantly files this case to preserve its future and to protect its donors and artists,” lawyers for the opera said in court papers, which identify the funds as donor gifts received over years that are “critical” to its operations.
In a statement responding to the lawsuit, Roma Daravi, a spokeswoman for the center, said that the relationship with the opera company “financially burdened” the center for more than a decade. The statement noted that taking into account the company’s endowment, an external accounting firm had calculated that the company had “accumulated a $72 million deficit to the center” between 2011 and 2026, the years it was an affiliate of the institution….
The opera left the center in January, nearly a year after President Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center led to an exodus of audiences, artists and donors. Officials at the center said then that they had decided to part ways with the opera, which had played there since 1971, “due to a financially challenging relationship.”
The opera’s lawsuit, filed in the United States Court of Federal Claims, details the tensions that arose before the company’s departure. It lists the federal government as the defendant because the center was established by Congress….
The lawsuit says that the day before the separation announcement, Donna Arduin, the Kennedy Center’s chief financial officer, told leaders of the opera company that money in a fund containing bequests and other contributions to the opera had been used as collateral for a line of credit.
The suit says Ms. Arduin asserted that those funds belonged to the center, but the opera company contends they were expressly reserved for its benefit. The suit did not specify how much money was said to have been used as collateral.
Unbelievable. They took funds that were donated specifically for the opera company and spent it on something else–just like Trump is stealing money that Congress has allocated for specific purposes and using it for his ballroom, his arch, and who knows what else. For Trump, taxpayer money is nothing more than an ATM for him to withdraw funds from.
By Suzanne Valadon, 1920
Trump is so self-centered that he probably doesn’t know the names of all of his grandchildren. Nothing seems to matter to him except for his personal desires and his rapidly changing attitudes toward people and institutions, based whether they praise him and bend to whatever his wishes are at any moment in time.
He covered the Oval Office in gold, paved over the Rose Garden (Melania had already wrecked it in his first term), and turned the West Colonnade into a “Presidential Walk of Fame,” with gold-framed photos and gold-lettered plaques, with insulting descriptions of the presidents he dislikes. He even put up idiotic gold signs to designate these places–as if no one knows where the Oval Office or Rose Garden are.
Then he tore down the East Wing of the White House with no warning, and began building an illegal “ballroom.”
Tomorrow, Trump is going to force the country to deal with a UFC fight on the White House lawn. We’ve already had to watch him turn the White House into an embarrassment worthy of the Beverly Hillbillies. The White House grounds looks like a junk yard, as he prepares for a public UFC fight on his birthday.
A commercial airline pilot that spoke to MeidasTouch this evening has filed aviation safety reports after powerful lighting used during the construction and testing of the UFC octagon on the White House grounds allegedly shone directly into their cockpit during a nighttime approach into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), creating what the pilot described as one of the most severe visibility disruptions they have experienced in their career.
The pilot, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the incident, was flying into Reagan National on a recent flight when aircraft on approach encountered intense white light associated with the UFC event held on the White House South Lawn.
According to the pilot, the lights illuminated the cockpit during the final stages of landing, a critical phase of flight when pilots rely heavily on visual references. The pilot described the incident as “10 times worse than any laser illumination event” the pilot ever experienced.
While laser strikes on aircraft are a known aviation hazard, the pilot emphasized that this incident did not involve lasers. Instead, it involved powerful white event lighting that they said created a similar, and potentially more dangerous, effect by overwhelming pilots’ vision during approach.
Following the incident, the pilot filed reports with both the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), a confidential reporting program used by aviation professionals to document safety concerns and hazards.
We are supposed to be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but Trump has ruined that by turning the anniversary into a celebration of himself. I hope there are thunderstorms tomorrow. And bugs.
AccuWeather warns that on Sunday, Washington looks like it will be hit with a “a heavy thunderstorm late in the afternoon,” in which “downpours and lightning could impact the events at the White House.”
By Indira Baldano
The temporary stadium built on the White House lawn includes a roof arching over the UFC’s famous Octagon arena itself, but guests watching from the stands will not be fully covered.
Making matters worse, the hot and humid conditions, paired with the bright lights of a UFC fight, could attract swarms of bugs.
“This event is going to draw a big crowd,” University of Maryland entomologist Michael Raupp told Axios. “But guess what? There are going to be even more bugs joining.”
And the bugs will attract bats.
“If you have this banquet of small flying insects,” Raupp added, “the bats are going to say, ‘Oh, baby!'”
UFC boss Dana White has acknowledged that weather (and wildlife) could be an issue.
“The three big problems, as far as I am seeing right now, are rain, lightning and a ton of bugs,” White told TheHollywood Reporter last week, recalling a recent White House dinner where guests were bothered with “clusters” of gnats.
He added that’s he’s worked with his production team to prepare for these potential issues.
The biggest threat to Donald Trump’s lavish UFC birthday bash may not be a lawsuit, a heatwave, or Americans outraged by the spectacle at the White House.
It might be the bugs.
As crews put the finishing touches to the sprawling outdoor arena erected for UFC Freedom 250, organizers are grappling with a problem that every Washingtonian knows all too well: summer insects descending on bright lights in the nation’s swampiest city.
The latest weather forecast has Washington, D.C. at a temperature high of 91 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, with “hot with intervals of clouds and sun; a thunderstorm in spots late in the afternoon.”
“Downpours and lightning could impact the events at the White House,” says the ominous warning from AccuWeather, a global weather tracking service that boasts “superior accuracy”.
But AccuWeather’s bug tracking may be even more concerning for the president as he celebrates his 80th birthday watching burly men ground-and-pound in a cage fight.
“Warm weather and the metabolic rate of insects increases causing bugs to invade homes and gardens in search of food. With a rise in rain, notice an increase in mosquitoes, stink bugs, roaches and termites,” the site says, warning of “extreme” risk on Sunday.
All this could be somewhat unpleasant for the fighters gasping for air in an already slippery octagon splattered with sweat and blood, as well as UFC boss Dana White, who has made it clear over the years how much he dislikes outdoor fight cards because you can’t control the elements.
Dublin recalls the Bicentennial celebration in 1976. She was 7 years old, but she still recalls that everyone was excited. To her “it felt like something out of a movie.” The main thing I remember from the Bicentennial is that someone in government made Boston put up more street signs so tourists could tell where they were.
On the 250the anniversary, Dublin writes:
And here we are again, on the brink of celebrating America’s 250th birthday, and it’s going to yet again be like something out of a movie.
The White House is currently obscured by a giant UFC Octagon ahead of Toddler Trump’s 80th birthday party on Sunday. Of all the mortifying things Trump has done, this has brought the kind of global embarrassment that can’t be calibrated by even the most advanced of scientific instruments. Shirtless men are going to beat the crap out of each other in front of what’s supposed to be a symbol of leadership.
Now, it’s the White Trash House.
It looks like the three-ring circus it is. It breaks my heart every time I look at it. Because, despite everyone joking about it and making clever memes about it, Trump has deliberately destroyed the People’s House because he hates America….
None of this destruction should have been allowed. He could’ve built it on his own property, and it would even be on brand for Florida. But instead, he used who-knows-whose money (not his) and turned the South Lawn into a Carny Paradise. The attendees will revel in the spectacle of shirtless men beating the crap out of each other as a birthday present for an 80-year-old criminal fraud at the center of the biggest political cover-up in American history.
We’re still learning even more about the Epstein Files cover-up, something our Founders never could have imagined when they created this non-Christian nation conceived in liberty. While Trump was fixating on turning DC into Mar-A-Lago on the Potomac, his entire staff was meeting in the Situation Room to figure out how to keep protecting him, instead of giving the victims the justice they all deserve. They’ve all known for far too long what’s in those files, and they’ve done nothing about any of it.
Marcel Leprin, Suzanne Valadon and her Cat
You can read more at the link, but here’s what Dublin is hoping for tomorrow:
There’s been terrible weather in Washington all week, with thunderstorms predicted on Sunday to make Trump’s party a literal washout. You can almost believe in divine intervention when the weather seems this targeted….
If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere with great weather on Sunday, No Kings protest marches are scheduled all across the country to make sure Trump has the most miserable birthday of his entire life. It’s going to be 92 degrees here in Portland, and along with the main march downtown, there’s going to be a more family-friendly carnival-type thing in a park with A LOT of trees providing shade. I think I might opt in for that instead of baking in the streets and feeling mad.
Speaking of Portland, I’m extra proud to be an Oregonian after learning that our state was the first to drop out of Trump’s dumb “America 250” State Fair. I’m sure Oregon won’t be the last Blue state to drop out. It’ll be just like when all of the artists dropped out of Trump’s dumb “America 250” concert, which is now just him and Vanilla Ice. The “State Fair” will probably just be Alabama by the time July 4th rolls around.
One last bit of good news: Democrats now have an 82% chance of taking back the House in November!
Trump’s next big project is the giant arch he wants to build in his own honor that critics say will block views of Arlington Cemetery. But that’s not the only problem.
Construction crews building the massive triumphal arch proposed by President Donald Trump would work in two 10-hour shifts daily until the monument celebrating the nation’s military history is complete, according to a new assessment released by the National Park Service.
Erecting the 250-foot-tall arch in a traffic circle at the head of the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River would take two to three years on the proposed schedule, according to the documents released earlier this month. The plan suggests a sizable disruption along a major thoroughfare in the nation’s capital.
Girl with Cat, by Merle Keller
The year-round construction schedule emerged from the NPS’s initial review of the arch’s impacts required under the National Historic Preservation Act. The Trump administration has fast-tracked the review process, which examines how historic properties and the Washington landscape would be reshaped by the towering project. The administration is aiming to commission the monument in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday this year.
According to the NPS review, construction would begin with several months of site excavation. Drilling rigs would be deployed to construct a foundation system, and caissons would be installed to 75-foot depths to reach bedrock.
“Continuous heavy equipment operations would occur during this period,” the agency said.
After the foundation is completed, crews are expected to take nearly one year building the concrete body of the arch, deploying 320-foot cranes. In the final phases, granite cladding would be fixed to the concrete exterior and golden statues would be installed on the arch’s roof, including a 60-foot-tall winged figure resembling Lady Liberty. Landscaping would complete the exterior design.
The White House claims to have a solution to any traffic problems.
A White House spokesperson Friday said the NPS worked with the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to develop traffic plans for the circle.
“In an effort to increase pedestrian and vehicle safety as well as efficient movement for both, we have conducted detailed traffic modeling and simulations to better understand the impacts of different contemplated traffic flows,” the official said in a statement. “After construction of the Arch, traffic delays will be minimized to the time needed to safely accommodate pedestrian crossings and the flow of traffic.”
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery near the arch’s proposed location, said Friday the construction outlook is a “nightmare in the making.”
“The Trump administration is pursuing an aggressive construction schedule that would require years of lane closures and major disruptions along one of the most heavily traveled transportation corridors connecting D.C. and Northern Virginia,” Beyer said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News. Beyer last month asked the Interior Department to disclose any traffic and transportation research it has completed.
“The public deserves a full and transparent accounting of its impacts on traffic, parking, recreation, and access to existing sites like Arlington National Cemetery,” he said Friday. “The disruption this project would cause is only compounded by this rushed process and these unanswered questions.”
There’s more at the link.
Is Trump satisfied with all these self-aggrandizing projects? Probably not. He’s always coming up with new ways to make everything about him.
I suppose I should include some serious news in this post, but there isn’t much happening except that Trump is still claiming a deal with Iran is on the verge of happening. This time the Iranians sound a bit more interested, but we’ll have to wait and see.
I hope you all are having a nice weekend.
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The endless “holiday season” will be over soon, and it will be 2026. Nothing will have changed. We’re still stuck with Trump and he is still a psychopathic malignant narcissist with dementia. Here are the stories leading the news on this final day of 2025.
Trump and Venezuela
Trump blabbed about a secret CIA strike inside Venezuela. He just can’t keep his mouth shut.
The CIA reportedly carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a dock in Venezuela that the United States has alleged is a port for trafficking drugs, marking a major escalation of the Trump administration’s military actions in the Caribbean.
The U.S. government believed the site was used by members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store and ship drugs overseas, according to CNN.
No one was present at the port at the time of the strike, according to the network’s source. Still, the operation allegedly destroyed the facility, even if it represented just one of many such docks along Venezuela’s coastline that might be used by smugglers. The strike is the first known U.S. operation inside the country.
President Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge the operation during an interview Friday, saying U.S. military assets struck a “big facility where ships come from.”
Asked again on Monday, the president said American forces had attacked “the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.”
“So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” the president added. “It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.” [….]
So the President did disclose a CIA drone strike inside Venezuela.And this does cross a red line of violating the UN Charter — where the boat strikes on high seas had not.www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/p…
President Donald Trump has thrust the country into a significant new phase in his showdown with Venezuela with a CIA strike on a port facility.
But as he approaches grave new decisions on even greater escalations, his team has not yet spelled out a clear consistent public rationale for its actions.
Nor has it prepared the country for what might come next.
Top officials haven’t explained how long the massive naval buildup in the Caribbean will last or what US service members will be asked to do in an operation that is already raising legal and constitutional alarms.
If the goal really is to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, as recent comments from top officials and the logic of the deployment imply, there’s been no White House effort to show Americans the administration is planning for the aftermath. This is an especially relevant point given the quagmires that developed after US military action to topple the rulers of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Trump doesn’t recognize any responsibility to inform the American people of is plans, if there are any. He sees himself as a dictator.
A bit more from Collinson:
Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar Tuesday that the CIA attack was a significant sharpening of US pressure and raised a knot of thorny questions.
“Where it goes from here, I think, is the thing to be concerned about, because Trump clearly wants to drive Maduro from power,” Smith said, arguing that boat strikes and other means of duress didn’t seem like they would have the intended effect. If they don’t, Smith continued, “What is Trump prepared to do next? How far is he willing to take this effort at regime change in Venezuela?”
Perhaps Trump’s fogginess is deliberate. If the buildup and steady escalations are part of a psychological operations campaign to wrong-foot Maduro or to persuade his regime cronies they’d be safer without him, confusion and disorientation could act as weapons. Even from the outside, it’s obvious the CIA strike on the port facility — in which, sources said, no one was killed — is a performative warning that far greater US capabilities can be brought to bear.
Yet the more serious the situation gets — especially now the US has crossed the threshold into land attacks — the more acute is the obligation to inform Americans of the administration’s plans. The founders never envisaged presidents being able to wage war on a whim. And large and intractable conflicts have sometimes started with discrete actions that mushroom into consequences that can cascade out of control. Take Vietnam as an example.
A thunderous boom rang out through the windless late-afternoon air. Seconds later, smoke began rising out of the sea as if the horizon were on fire.
Watching from the shore on Nov. 6, Erika Palacio Fernández whipped out her phone, she said, unwittingly recording the only verified and independent video known to date of the aftermath of an airstrike in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it calls “narco-terrorists.”
Two days later, on that same shore, a scorched 30-foot-long boat itself would wash up. Then, two mangled bodies. Then charred jerrycans, life jackets and dozens of packets that were observed by The New York Times and were similar to others that have been found after anti-narcotics operations in the region. Most packets were empty, though traces of a substance that looked and smelled like marijuana were found in the lining of a few.
The assortment of singed flotsam appears to be the first physical evidence of the U.S. campaign, which has destroyed 30 vessels and killed more than 100 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Every other struck boat is presumed to have sunk along with its crew and cargo. The U.S. military has offered no evidence that the boats it has destroyed were transporting illicit substances or belong to criminal networks.
Remains of a burned boat on the beach near Puerto López on the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia.
A Times analysis matched the wreckage of the boat to the one in a video posted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the night of Nov. 6, hours after Ms. Palacio took her video. Mr. Hegseth described the strike as having targeted a vessel in the Caribbean operated by an unnamed “designated terrorist organization.” He said the strike killed three people and took place in international waters.
The Times analysis of Ms. Palacio’s video indicates the strike took place in the Gulf of Venezuela, where Colombia and Venezuela have long disputed their maritime boundary. The analysis could not determine the exact location of the strike.
The shape of the wreckage, a slender design typical of speedboats, matches that of the boat targeted in the video shared by the Defense Department, the Times analysis found, and shows damage to the boat’s hull and interior structure consistent with the impact of an airstrike. The military video shows the boat exploding and on fire beneath a large plume of smoke.
That such rare, tangible evidence is coming to light nearly two months after the early November strike is a testament both to the remoteness of the Guajira Peninsula, where the wreckage was found, and the lack of a sizable presence of the Colombian state in the area. The region is governed semiautonomously by an Indigenous community, the Wayuu, whose more than half a million people straddle the border between Colombia and Venezuela.
So Trump and Hegseth are blowing up boats carrying Marijuana–a substance that is legal in 24 states and more for medical use.
More artists have announced they are backing out of upcoming dates at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in protest of President Donald Trump’s takeover, and recent potentially illegal renaming of the institution as the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Jazz supergroup The Cookers announced on its website it will not be performing across a series of two New Year’s Eve concerts.
“Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice,” the group wrote in a statement. “Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us.”
“I would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name (and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture,” Billy Harper, a saxophonist in the group, reportedly added in a statement to Jazz Stage.
The Doug Varone and Dancers troupe on Monday added that it will not carry out a planned April performance at the center.
The group wrote in a statement on Instagram that while it opposed the president’s decision to replace the center’s bipartisan board in February with a group of allies who later installed him as chairman, it initially still planned to carry out the engagement. That changed when center’s board voted earlier this month to rebrand the institution the Trump-Kennedy Center, according to the statement.
“We can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution,” the statement said. “The Kennedy Center was named in honor of our 35th President who fervently believed that the arts were the beating heart of our nation, as well as an integral part of international diplomacy. We hope in three-year’s time, that the Center and its reputation will return to that glory.” [….]
The wave of cancellations follows the news that drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd canceled a longstanding Christmas Eve jazz concert at the center in protest of the name change.
The Kennedy Center adopted bylaws earlier this year that limited voting to presidentially appointed trustees, a move that preceded a unanimous decision this month by board members installed by President Donald Trump to add his name to the center.
The current bylaws, obtained by The Washington Post, were revised in May to specify that board members designated by Congress — known as ex officio members — could not vote or count toward a quorum. Legal experts say the move may conflict with the institution’s charter.
Days later, on Dec. 18, the board voted to add the president’s name to the institution, and within 24 hours it was on the website and the building itself: “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” [….]
The Kennedy Center lists 34 presidentially appointed board members, including Trump himself as chair, and 23 ex officio seats. The center’s president, Richard Grenell, is also an officer of the board.
The federal law that established the Kennedy Center designates specific government and federal positions — including the librarian of Congress; the mayor of Washington, D.C.; the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate — to serve as ex officio members.
The law identifies them as part of the board of trustees, which it directs to maintain and administer the facility as a living memorial. But it does not distinguish between voting and nonvoting members, which has been a point of ambiguity in the days following the vote to rename the Kennedy Center….
A former Kennedy Center staffer with knowledge of board proceedings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, told The Post that ex officio members were “always included in debate and discussion” during their tenure, but the person did not recall a time when those members’ votes were counted.
“Theoretically they could vote, but our practice was not to have them vote or count toward quorum,” the person said, noting they were not aware of the new leadership’s practices at the center.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are planning to spend $100 million over a one-year period to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, part of what the agency called a “wartime recruitment” strategy it said was critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post.
The spending would help President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation agenda dominate media networks and recruitment channels, including through ads targeting people who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear, according to a 30-page document distributed among officials in this summer detailing ICE’s “surge hiring marketing strategy.”
Uncle Sam looms large on ICE’s recruitment site.
The Department of Homeland Security has spoken publicly about its fast-tracked effort to significantly increase ICE’s workforce by hiring more than 10,000 new employees, a surge promoted on social media with calls for recruits willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.” The agency currently employs more than 20,000 people, according to ICE’s website.
But the document, reported here for the first time, reveals new details about the vast scale of the recruitment effort and its unconventional strategy to “flood the market” with millions of dollars in spending for Snapchat ads, influencers and live streamers on Rumble, a video platform popular with conservatives. Under the strategy, ICE would also use an ad-industry technique known as “geofencing” to send ads to the phone web browsers and social media feeds of anyone who set foot near military bases, NASCAR races, college campuses or gun and trade shows.
The document was also distributed among ICE officials in the days after the agency published a request for bids seeking contractors who could use “precise audience targeting, performance media management, and results-driven creative strategies” to “accelerate the achievement of [its] recruiting goals.” The language in the published bid closely mirrored language in the strategy document. That same month, DHS awarded two marketing firms nearly $40 million to support ICE’s public affairs office “recruitment campaign,” according to federal awards data.
It’s unclear how much of the spending and strategy have been carried out. But the plans outlined in the document have coincided with a rush of recruitment ads online seeking Americans who will “answer the call to serve.”
The rapid-recruitment approach is unlike anything ICE has ever pursued, said Sarah Saldaña, a director of ICE during the Obama administration, who recalled the agency filling its open positions through local police departments and sheriff’s offices with appeals to officers’ interests in federal public-safety work.
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Trump wants to cancel the Constitution
Heather Cox Richardson at Letters from an American: December 30, 2025
The hallmark of the first year of President Donald J. Trump’s second term has been the attempt of the president and his cronies to dismantle the constitutional system set up by the framers of that document when they established the United States of America. It’s not simply that they have broken the laws. They have acted as if the laws, and the Constitution that underpins them, don’t exist.
As soon as the 2024 election results were clear, billionaire Elon Musk, who had supported Trump’s campaign both through his purchase of Twitter—now X—and with $290 million in cash, posted on social media: “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” Latin for “New World Order.” Although he won with less than 50% of the vote, Trump announced that he had an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” Musk would head a new “Department of Government Efficiency” that Musk vowed would cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget.
Musk and his operatives muscled their way into government offices and gained access to computer systems. With strokes of a keyboard they eliminated jobs and programs, including, as Musk put it, feeding “into the wood chipper” most of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government agency aimed at combating disease and malnutrition around the globe. That dismantling has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, recently concluded that while the Department of Government Efficiency did not actually reduce spending, it did cut almost 10% of federal employees, a key goal of Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, a key author of Project 2025.
And, crucially, it put operatives in virtually all government departments and agencies, where they gained access to privileged information about Americans, including citizens, legal residents, and undocumented immigrants.
Musk and DOGE also established the idea that the unelected officials in the Trump administration could do whatever they wished, without regard to the laws or the Constitution. The Constitution, judicial precedent, and the 1974 Impoundment Control Act all make it very clear that the power of the purse belongs to Congress. As the elected representatives of the American people, only members of the House of Representatives and the Senate can determine how the nation’s money is spent. Then the president must “take Care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Democrats objected to the administration’s dramatic usurpation of the power of Congress, but Republicans did not complain. Most backed the administration’s claims it was eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Although Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress, meaning that Trump should have been able to get any legislation he wanted, he continued to try to get around the Constitution by declaring nine “emergencies” that would permit him to act without congressional oversight. This reliance on emergencies reflected the ideas of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, whose writings were followed by right-wing leaders, including billionaire Peter Thiel and the man who influenced him, Curtis Yarvin. Schmitt argued that power belongs to the leader who can exploit emergencies that create exceptions to the constitutional order, enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law.
That was part of President Trump’s explanation in October of his executive order that purports to criminalize burning the American flag. Though his words fail as a constitutional rationale, they inadvertently distill many of his efforts at smothering dissent during the past 11 months.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump and his administration have tried to undermine the First Amendment, suppress information that he and his supporters don’t like and hamstring parts of the academic, legal and private sectors through lawsuits and coercion — to flood the zone, as his ally, Steve Bannon, might say.
Some examples are well known, such as when ABC briefly took Jimmy Kimmel off the air after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, objected to a reference in one of Mr. Kimmel’s monologues about the killing of Charlie Kirk. Other examples received less attention, but by my count, this year there were about 200 instances of administration attempts at censorship, nearly all of which I outline in a new report.
Mr. Trump’s playbook isn’t random. It employs several recurring modes of attack.
The president has tried to cow the press. His administration banned Associated Press reporters from certain parts of the White House and Air Force One because the outlet uses “Gulf of Mexico” rather than the term Mr. Trump prefers, “Gulf of America.” It tried and failed to force some of the nation’s biggest news organizations to agree to restrictions on coverage of the Pentagon. He has said critical coverage of his initiatives is “really illegal.”
A journalist from El Salvador, Mario Guevara, was arrested while reporting on a No Kings protest in Georgia; he was detained for more than three months, then deported. At an Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, an ABC News correspondent, Mary Bruce, asked about the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Mr. Trump replied by berating her at length, at one point describing one of her questions as “insubordinate” — a characterization that upends the entire notion of a free press.
The administration has used immigration status to try to suppress political speech. In March, Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Columbia campus, was arrested and detained by immigration officials for several months. That month, Rumeysa Ozturk, a student visa holder, was arrested by immigration officials and detained for several weeks, apparently because she was an author of an opinion essay criticizing Tufts University for its response to the Israel-Hamas war.
It seems almost no one is beyond the scope of administration efforts to muzzle views or decisions that conflict with Mr. Trump’s agenda: After Federal District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled against the administration in a case involving the deportation of Venezuelans to El Salvador, Mr. Trump called for the judge to be impeached. A trainee was dismissed from the F.B.I.’s academy, apparently for having displayed an L.G.B.T.Q. Pride flag. The F.B.I. also appears to have fired agents for kneeling during George Floyd protests.
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Those are my recommended reads for today. I still can’t see very well, so please forgive any mistakes. Take care everyone!
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I’m having some serious eye problems that I’m being treated for. I can’t see that well on the computer, but I’m going to do my best to post a few stories along with some lovely watercolor cat art.
#5. TODD BLANCHE. Most of the worst abuses in multiple areas by DOJ are orchestrated by Blanche. While Bondi and Patel have gotten most of the public blame and scrutiny, Blanche is the architect of it all. Blanche was Trump’s criminal defense lawyer before he became president, and has acted as his criminal defense lawyer while running DOJ. He met privately with Ghislaine Maxwell in prison, then had her moved to a minimum security Club Fed. He has repeated lies about the contents of the Epstein files and is the point person for covering them up with delays and redactions. He ended investigations and dropped charges against some of America’s worst criminals for political reasons. While Bondi and Patel are bad, Blanche is even worse.
#4. RUSS VOUGHT. The man who orchestrated the comprehensive right-wing policy blueprint for this admin called ‘Project 2025’, this zealot keeps a lower profile than others – preferring tangible results with ruthless efficiency behind the scenes as OMB Director. Vought is the brains behind Stephen Miller’s evil bombast, organizing the policy agenda that controls the administration. During the 4 years Trump was out of office, Vought organized and drafted 350 different executive orders and regulations to implement if Trump got a second term – most of the ones he issued came from Vought – including the plan to invoke emergency powers and national security to justify bypassing Congress in a variety of areas. In fact, most of the agenda Vought devised was specifically intended to find ways an authoritarian-minded president could implements things while ignoring Congress, or reversing legislative acts by executive order.
#3. PETE HEGSETH. Chaos ensuedalmost immediately after the drunken fool former Fox host took over an office that he was unfit and unqualified for. He divulged war plans and classified info in a Signal chat which included a reporter, but then tried to cover himself by claiming he declassified it. He fired his own senior advisors because of his paranoia over press leaks, then ousted the Pentagon press corps with onerous rules that abused their first amendment rights. He gleefully released videos of nearly 100 people on boats he has murdered, without providing any evidence of their guilt or due process. He alienated allies with an insane speech in Europe that resulted in the admin sidelining him from giving any more. He ousted seasoned career officers and made it clear he has no use for women serving in the military in any role other than support positions, or for rules of engagement designed to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties. He summoned hundred of Generals and Admirals from their commands around the world to DC so he could give them a deranged speech they found utterly ridiculous and juvenile. He constantly gives partisan political speeches to active-duty troops in violation of laws and regulations, which he mixes with a healthy dose of christian nationalism. It is hard to imagine how Trump could have found a worse person for one of the most important jobs on the planet.
Cat’s Promenade Yuliya Podlinnova
#2. HOWARD LUTNICK. The architect of so many corrupt, shady and misguided policies of the Trump admin while serving as Commerce Secretary – including tariffs and selling citizenship in the form of ‘Trump Gold Cards’. Lutnick is a shameless habitual liar and flip-flam huckster, constantly hyping his policies with fantastical claims while moving the goalposts weekly on his predictions. In a different century he’d be selling miracle cures out of tent at a carnival. In this century, he’s a billionaire. Lutnick is the prime mover behind the admin’s embrace of data centers, AI, and Stalinist moves like the government ownership of companies. Even Trump has grumbled behind the scenes to aides that Lutnick is a “manipulator”, but despite that he continues to adopt each of his worst ideas. Trump constantly had to reverse himself on catastrophic tariff announcements after disastrous consequences ensued – which resulted in the moniker ‘TACO’ for caving so much. All of those disastrous announcements came directly from Lutnick, with Bessent, Musk and others seeking reversal from Trump.
Note – I fully realize Bessent should probably be in this Top 25 somewhere, but I left him off simply because there is a lot of reporting that he has reversed some of the worst ideas behind the scenes despite his repugnant public persona. Go ahead and yell at me if you want – I personally can’t stand the guy either. But I have read comments from a lot of people I respect who say that without Bessent pushing back on some things behind the scenes we would be far worse off economically than we already are because everyone else is much worse. I guess I will buy that he might be the voice of reason behind the scenes, but time will tell.
#1. STEPHEN MILLER. This was the easiest selection, and there was probably never any doubt from most of you that he would be first. He is the WH policy director who is really running the US govt while Trump plays golf, receives awards, puts gold of everything, trolls social media, and builds his ballroom. Most of the policies aren’t Miller’s original ideas because he really isn’t that smart, but he knows how to implement them with a ruthlessness not seen since 1930s Germany. He has made the 2nd most TV appearances this year after Homan, much to the chagrin of Republicans running for election in swing districts. We know all the things that make Miller the worst person to ever serve in a senior position in US history, so there is no point in cataloguing them or this column would go on forever. The hate, the racism and bigotry, the phobias – he’s the personification of political evil. Trump is the only person who would even consider putting this twisted misfit in a position of authority. But he has, and as dementia takes hold and the old man plays with this trophies, ballrooms and golden baubles, Stephen Miller is running the country. Trump is President In Name Only.
God help us.
Check out the rest at the Meidas+ Substack.
Filipkowski’s next project: “Tomorrow, I will begin my list of the ‘500 Worst Things Trump Did in 2025’, with my first 100 in chronological order beginning with things he did in January 2025 and continuing to present.”
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with missiles and drones early Saturday morning, killing one person and wounding 27, a day before talks between Ukraine and the U.S., authorities said.
Porter and Sully, by Dora Hathazi Mendes
Explosions boomed across Kyiv for hours as ballistic missiles and drones hit the city. The attack began in the early morning hours Saturday and was continuing as day broke.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks on ending the nearly 4-year-old war. Zelenskyy told reporters he was on a plane en route to Florida on Saturday afternoon, and would stop in Canada on the way to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Zelenskyy said he and Trump plan to discuss issues including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions….
Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed airports in Lublin and Rzeszow near the border with Ukraine for several hours during the Russian attacks, the country’s armed forces command said on X. There was no violation of Polish airspace, it said. Civil aviation authority Pansa said the two airports had since resumed operations. It was unclear what caused the alert in Poland when the Russian attacks were focused on Kyiv, which is far from the border.
As President Trump prepares for an expected meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Sunday, he is facing some pressure from within his party to take a tough approach to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Three Republican senators joined five of their Democratic colleagues in issuing a statement on Thursday that described Mr. Putin as a “ruthless murderer who has no interest in peace” and who “cannot be trusted.” It decried Russian attacks on Ukraine that continued over the Christmas holiday.
The statement was signed by the Republican senators John Barrasso of Wyoming, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. It did not criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and it was not joined by the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and a close Trump ally, nor by most of the G.O.P. members on that committee. (Mr. Risch’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.) Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the committee, led the statement.
Still, the statement took a harsher tone toward Mr. Putin than Mr. Trump has often used. Although Mr. Trump has at times berated Mr. Putin on social media, urging him to stop his military assault on Ukraine, he has also boasted about their positive relationship, saying he gets along well with the Russian leader. He has repeatedly threatened severe sanctions on the Russians to urge them to make peace, but he has followed through only occasionally.
“It bears repeating that President Zelensky agreed to a Christmas truce, but Putin declined, yet he directs soldiers to continue to commit brutal crimes of aggression on one of Christianity’s holiest days,” said the statement, which was also signed by Senator Angus King, a Maine independent, and by Senators Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Chris Coons of Delaware, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, all Democrats.
Abuja, Nigeria — A day after part of a missile fired by the United States hit their village, landing just meters from its only medical facility, the people of Jabo in northwestern Nigeria are in a state of shock and confusion.
Suleiman Kagara, a resident of this quiet and predominantly Muslim farming community in Tambuwal district of Sokoto state, told CNN he heard a loud blast and saw flames as a projectile flew overhead at around 10 p.m. on Thursday.
Soon after, it came crashing down, exploding on impact with the ground and sending the villagers fleeing in fear.
“We couldn’t sleep last night,” Kagara said. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
White Liza, by Roman Franta
Kagara did not realize it at the time, but what he was witnessing was part of a US strike that President Donald Trump would later refer to as a “Christmas present” for terrorists.
Not long after the impact in Jabo, Trump declared on Thursday that the US had carried out a “powerful and deadly strike” against ISIS militants in the region, who he accused of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!”
According to US Africa Command, the operation neutralized multiple ISIS militants.
But Trump’s explanation has left Kagara and his fellow villagers scratching their heads.
While parts of Sokoto face challenges with banditry, kidnappings and attacks by armed groups including Lakurawa – which Nigeria classifies as a terrorist organization due to suspected affiliations with Islamic State – villagers say Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority.
But Trump is supposedly the “peace president.”
Trump’s plan to build giant battleships is being panned by folks who actually know what they are talking about.
President Donald Trump announced Monday the Navy will build a new class of battleships called the Trump class, with the first ship to be named USS Defiant (BBG-1).
The ship will displace more than 35,000 tons and be capable of speeds exceeding 30 knots, according to the Navy. The battleship will carry nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, electromagnetic railguns and directed energy weapons. Navy Secretary John Phelan said Trump plans to begin with two ships and eventually build 20 to 25 battleships.
The announcement marks the first battleship construction plan since 1944, when the USS Missouri was delivered to the Navy. The Missouri was the last active battleship in U.S. service before it was decommissioned in 1992.
Trump claimed the new battleships will be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” The claim is factually incorrect. In fact, the American Iowa-class battleships of World War II were larger by 15,000 to 20,000 tons.
Japan’s battleship Yamato, launched in 1940, displaced 72,000 tons and remains the largest warship ever constructed and put to sea. Trump’s proposed battleship is less than half Yamato’s size. American carrier aircraft sank Yamato in 1945, proving bigger is not better.
Historically speaking, battleships have been obsolete since at least 1921, when a simple bombing demonstration off Virginia’s coast proved the large warships are vulnerable to air attack. That vulnerability has been validated repeatedly through World War II and ever since as aircraft, submarines and cruise missiles systematically demonstrated that bigger and more expensive warships are easier to sink.
Once symbols of naval might with their massive guns, battleships have long since been eclipsed by aircraft carriers and modern destroyers armed with long-range missiles.
While labeling the new surface combatants as “battleships” could be a misnomer, defense experts say that there remain several gaps between Trump’s vision and modern naval warfare.
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, dismissed the idea, writing in a Dec. 23 commentary that “there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail.”
Cats and Fruit by Mary Fedden, 1990
He contended the program would take too long to design, cost far too much and run counter to the Navy’s current strategy of distributed firepower.
“A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water,” Cancian said.
Bernard Loo, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, described the proposal as “a prestige project more than anything else.”
He compared it to Japan’s World War II super-battleships Yamato and Musashi — the largest ever built — which were sunk by carrier-borne aircraft before playing a significant role in combat….
He added that the size of the proposed battleship — displacing more than 35,000 tons and measuring more than 840 feet, or a little over two football fields long — would make it a “bomb magnet.”
“The size and the prestige value of it all make it an even more tempting target, potentially for your adversary,” Loo said.
The “president” is a moron. But we already knew that.
Trump apparently thinks his economy will win the 2026 midterms for Republicans.
President Donald Trump says he believes the 2026 midterm elections will center on “pricing” as Republicans head into a critical period with control of Congress on the line.
And he told POLITICO Friday night that he is confident Americans will be receptive to his economic message: that his administration is cleaning up the mess he inherited from former President Joe Biden.
“I think it’s going to be about the success of our country. It’ll be about pricing,” Trump said in an exclusive interview. “Because, you know, they gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down. Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.”
Trump’s comments follow a string of favorable economic reports over the last two weeks showing inflation is cooling and the economy is hotter than expected. The White House is keen to tout the latest data as it confronts cost-of-living concerns that have underpinned a string of Democratic overperformances across the country.
Still, polls show Americans are struggling. Nearly half of respondents said they find groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation difficult to afford, according to The POLITICO Poll conducted last month by Public First.
Trump’s acknowledgment that 2026 will focus on “pricing” underscores the administration’s concern that the Democrats have, for the moment, a popular message. After insisting that affordability was a Democratic “con job”, Trump over the last few weeks has repeatedly sought to reframe the issue, arguing that it was the Democrats under Biden who caused prices to increase and that he is bringing them down.
Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.
At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010.
Companies cited inflation and interest rates among the factors contributing to their financial challenges, as well as Trump administration trade policies that have disrupted supply chains and pushed up costs.
But in a shift from previous years, the rise in filings is most apparent among industrials — companies tied to manufacturing, construction and transportation. The sector has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s ever-fluid tariff policies — which he’s long insisted would revive American manufacturing. The manufacturing sector lost more than 70,000 jobs in the one-year period ending in November, federal data shows.
By Hiroki Takeda
Consumer-oriented businesses with “discretionary” products or services, such as fashion or home furnishings, represented the second-largest group. This contingent usually tops the list and includes many retailers, and its retrenchment is a signal that inflation-weary consumers are prioritizing essentials….
Economists and business experts say the trade wars have pressured import-heavy businesses, which are reluctant to raise prices by too much for fear of alienating consumers. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Though inflation is currently lower than many economists expected — prices climbed at an annual pace of 2.7 percent in November — many businesses still are eating new costs themselves to hold the line on prices for buyers, experts say. That’s leading to a certain culling of the herd as already-fragile companies struggle to keep up.
“These companies are acutely aware of the affordability crisis confronting the average American,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale University’s school of management. “They are doing their best to offset the cost of tariffs and higher interest rates but can only do so much. Those with pricing power will pass on the costs over time … others will fold.”
Not content with completing his takeover of the Kennedy Center by slapping his own name on the building, President Donald Trump has revealed the next phase of his current redesign obsession.
The 79-year-old president hinted on Truth Social that the ’60s modernist building in Washington, D.C., would be getting the Mar-a-Lago special with a gold and marble interior refit, starting, of course, with the theater’s armrests.
“Potential Marble armrests for the seating at The Trump Kennedy Center. Unlike anything ever done or seen before!” Trump announced on Friday evening.
Accompanying images show the hard-stone armrest examples that Trump apparently wants to install in the chairs of the center’s three main theaters.
It’s just the latest round in the president’s ongoing commandeering of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a “living memorial” to the 35th president, who was assassinated in 1963.
See photos of the ugly proposed armrests at the link.
That’s it for me today. I hope you found something worthwhile to read here.
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“Rob Reiner was right about everything.” John Buss. @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m really late today! I started the first day of Winter Break. Additionally, I’ve been watching movies mostly over the last few days because the news has been too stressful to handle lately. So, let’s catch up on the week so we can all have a peaceful weekend. The latest revolting development from the rotter in the White House and his appointed stooges is the renaming of the Kennedy Center, which is actually against the law.
This is from the New York Times. “As Trump Puts His Brand on Washington, the Kennedy Center Gets a New Name. The board for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that it would now be named the Trump-Kennedy Center, although a formal change may have to be approved by Congress.” The story is reported by White House Correspondent Shawn McCreesh.
President Trump’s takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts reached its inevitable apogee on Thursday afternoon when it was announced that the center’s board of trustees had voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Even though Mr. Trump had already been calling it that for months in trollish posts online, he acted shocked that his handpicked board had thought to do this for him.
“I was honored by it,” he told reporters at the White House. “The board is a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country, and I was surprised by it. I was honored by it.”
Earlier that day, he had called into a meeting of the board, which is now made up almost entirely of people who are loyal to him. (By law, there are a handful of members of Congress from both parties who sit on the board, as well.)
Unusually, the meeting was taking place not at the Kennedy Center but at the Palm Beach home of the casino magnate Steve Wynn, whose wife, Andrea, sits on the board.
Richard Grenell, the center’s Trump-appointed president, was there, and so was Lee Greenwood, who performed “God Bless the USA” at the meeting.
Another member who was in Palm Beach for it was Sergio Gor, a longtime aide to the president who was recently nominated to be the ambassador to India. It was Mr. Gor who proposed the name change.
But there was at least one person who was not down with the idea: Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, who had called in to the meeting.
“It was such a surprise to me when they said we’re going to rename it,” she recounted in a phone interview. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and pushed my button. But then I was muted.”
She added: “Everything was cut off, and then they immediately said, ‘Well, it’s unanimous. Everybody is for it.’”
Ms. Wynn claimed in a phone interview that she was not aware that Ms. Beatty had been muted, and that she did not know who was responsible for it. As for how the president reacted to the name change?
“I think he was very happy,” she said.
Ms. Beatty described the meeting this way: “Everything was regurgitated about how awful anything with the center was, how run down it was, how everything was humiliating, and now they had come in as the great saviors of it.”
She added that the other members took turns praising Mr. Trump, who then pretended to be surprised when they voted to rename the joint after him. “He said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you all were going to name it after me!’” she said.
There is a law that actually has very strict rules about things like renaming the center. It was signed by LBJ. The Center opened in 1971 featuring Leonard Bernstein’s composition Mass. My cousin Mary Bracken Phillips was one of the soloists. I remember all this very well. We were all musicians at the time. It was a very exciting time and performance. I’ve linked to her solo, and you can hear more of the original performances at the link.
This is from the AP. “Trump’s handpicked board votes to rename Washington performing arts center the Trump Kennedy Center.
Congress named the center after President John F. Kennedy in 1964, after his assassination. Donald A. Ritchie, who served as Senate historian from 2009-2015, said that because Congress had first named the center it would be up to Congress to “amend the law.”
Ritchie said that while Trump and others can “informally” refer to the center by a different name, they couldn’t do it in a way “that would (legally) stick.”
But the board did not wait for that debate to play out, immediately changing the branding on its website to reflect the new name.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has made the center a touchstone in a broader attack against what he has lambasted as “woke” anti-American culture.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that a name change requires legislative action.
“Only Congress can rename the Kennedy Center,” said the New York Democrat, who serves on the board as an ex officio member because of his position in Congress.
This is the headline from the Washington Post. “Kennedy Center adds Trump’s name to building. The new signage follows a vote by the board of trustees to rename the arts complex the “Trump Kennedy Center,” a dramatic change for the presidential memorial.
The Kennedy Center installed President Donald Trump’s name on its exterior Friday morning, a dramatic change to a building
On Thursday, the center’s board, made up of loyalists with Trump as chair,voted to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
A blue tarp was stretched across a portion of the building the next morningas a small team on scaffolding started the work. Loud drilling could be heard nearby. Inside the building, large letters spelling “Trump” could be seen on the floor of the entry hall, according to a photograph obtained by The Washington Post. Signage elsewhere around the exterior of the institution remained unchanged.
This is an affront on so many levels that it’s hard for me to put it into words. First and foremost, it disrespects the legacy of the late President Kennedy, whose name is relegated to an afterthought behind Trump’s. It disrespects all those involved in making the Kennedy Center a reality, including the artists who performed there and those honored there. It disrespects the goals of the Center and those who have worked to keep it as a shining beacon of American creative excellence. We have already seen the crap that happens there now that Trump has his vulgar fingers in it. It disrespects the best of our culture. The vulgar should not get these honors.
During his legendary tenure at the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969, Leonard Bernstein composed only two works, Symphony No. 3: Kaddish (1963) and Chichester Psalms (1965). He had dedicated Kaddish to the memory of John F. Kennedy shortly after his assassination, and when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis asked Bernstein to compose a piece for the 1971 inauguration of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., he was eager to honor the occasion with a new, large-scale work because he knew he had always wanted “to compose a service of one sort or another.” The son of Russian-Jewish parents, a social liberal, and lifelong activist, Bernstein made a surprising choice: the Roman Catholic Mass. But instead of a straightforward, purely musical setting of the Latin liturgy, he created a broadly eclectic theatrical event by placing the 400-year-old religious rite into a tense, dramatic dialog with music and lyrics of the 20th century vernacular, using this dialectic to explore the crisis in faith and cultural breakdown of the post-Kennedy era.
There’s some good news coming from the Justice System today. Let’s shift to the latest on that. First, we have this headline from The Hill. “Trump’s win streak on Supreme Court emergency docket breaks.” This is reported by Zach Schonfeld. It’s a significant headline, given the current composition of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court refused to intervene Friday in a battle concerning immigration judges’ speech restrictions, for now, snapping the Trump administration’s months-long winning streak on the court’s emergency docket.
It marks the first time since the spring that the court has rejected one of the administration’s emergency appeals. No justice publicly dissented, but the order left the door open for the government to try again once the case progresses further.
“At this stage, the Government has not demonstrated that it will suffer irreparable harm without a stay,” the one-paragraph order reads.
The case stems from restrictions on what immigration judges can say publicly. The restrictions require the judges, who are part of the executive branch, to obtain prior approval for speeches when the subject directly relates to their official duties.
The National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) claims the policy violates the First Amendment.
Those free speech issues weren’t yet before the justices, however.
The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court to try to halt an order allowing the lawsuit to proceed before a federal district judge. The administration argues it must go before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), a specialty body that oversees certain federal employee disputes.
That question poses wider implications for other federal workers’ cases, too. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices the lower ruling would “indefinitely thwart the MSPB.”
“The answer to such prolific contravention of the Court’s precedents should not be to wait and see just how much instability will ensue,” Sauer wrote in court filings.
The lower court had acknowledged the MSPB’s purview. But in allowing the lawsuit to proceed, it pointed to President Trump’s firing at the board that left it for some time without a quorum, saying it raises “serious questions” about whether the MSPB “continues to function as intended.”
This also happened. “Federal judge temporarily blocks HUD permanent housing cuts for homeless. The U.S. district judge questioned whether “chaos” is the point in homelessness funding overhaul.” This article is from Politico. It is reported by Cassandra Dumay.
HUD had withdrawn the new, transitional housing-focused notice before a court hearing last week, but the department said at the time it was “fully committed” to making reforms to the program and would reissue another version with “technical corrections.”
A HUD spokesperson said in a statement after the hearing that the department “remains committed to program reforms intended to assist our nation’s most vulnerable citizens and will continue to do so in accordance with the law.”
McElroy’s decision requires HUD to maintain the status quo in its funding for the Continuum of Care program, which partners with local organizations to connect people experiencing homelessness to housing and resources, until a new notice is released following a process that fits congressional statutes. The judge found that the plaintiffs, a coalition of 20 states as well as 11 local governments and nonprofits that sued HUD, had demonstrated they’re likely to succeed in challenging the department’s procedure for the policy change.
McElroy said HUD’s November decision to revoke the previous notice of funding and issue a new one that dramatically cut permanent housing grants likely conflicted with requirements under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. She said the law reflected Congress’ “prioritization of permanent housing and renewal stability and the formula based allocation scheme.” She also said HUD’s action last month likely conflicted with the statutory deadline for the issuance of a notice of funding.
One last thing. We have yet another reason to think Bernie Sanders is a punk. This is from The Bulwark. It’s written by Sam Stein. “A Milestone Pediatric Cancer Bill Fails at the Hands of Bernie. The Vermont senator is holding out for a bigger health care package. Advocates are asking: Is the price worth it?” Why on earth would any one punk kids with Cancer whose name isn’t Trump?
FOR YEARS, THE PEDIATRIC CANCER COMMUNITY has tried to pass a single piece of legislation that would allow for more comprehensive drug treatments to be given to young patients.
The process has involved agonizing setbacks, intense private negotiations, and a sudden, unexpected change in fortune thanks to the advocacy of a dying child.
On Wednesday night, this long, laborious journey appeared close to ending with what advocates anticipated would be a triumph. The Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act (named after that dying child) was heading to the Senate floor, where it was expected to be passed by unanimous consent. Having already passed the House, it would then head to Donald Trump’s desk. And there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the president would sign the measure and—as is his wont—take personal credit for it.
Pediatric cancer advocates scrambled to get to the Senate to watch the moment. Reporters who had covered the issue, including this one, were given the heads-up about its imminent passage. At least three kids who are bereaved siblings of cancer victims and one pediatric cancer survivor sat in the Senate gallery.
And then, it failed. A single senator stood in the way. It was Bernie Sanders.
In a dramatic, heated exchange on the Senate floor—caught by the C-SPAN cameras but largely missed by the news-consuming public—Sanders announced his opposition to quick passage for the bill. He did so not because he disagreed with its objective—which is to give the FDA the authority to push pharmaceutical companies to study combination drug therapies—but because he worried that extraneous provisions attached to it would make it harder to achieve other priorities. He argued that the Senate ought to be passing similarly important, bipartisan-supported health care measures along with it. His staff insisted to me that they would revisit the bill soon, and they seemed confident it would all get done in the new year.
But that’s not at all clear to the pediatric cancer community, which was left stunned by the vote.
“Everyone was just so exhausted and deflated and sad when we exited the gallery,” one member of the community told me. “It was a feeling of abandonment and confusion.”
The entire episode has raised a larger question about the motivations of lawmakers: What are their political and moral obligations in moments like these? Put another way: When is incremental legislative progress worth more than the continued pursuit of a bigger goal?
Read more at the Link about that last question.
So, I’m going to try to spend my Winter Break getting my house in order. I hope you have a peaceful, warm, and gentle weekend.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Suprise he did do the Trump part in tacky gold lettering or neon. Still makes me want to throw up, though.
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This is an affront on so many levels that it’s hard for me to put it into words. First and foremost, it disrespects the legacy of the late President Kennedy, whose name is relegated to an afterthought behind Trump’s. It disrespects all those involved in making the Kennedy Center a reality, including the artists who performed there and those honored there. It disrespects the goals of the Center and those who have worked to keep it as a shining beacon of American creative excellence. We have already seen the crap that happens there now that Trump has his vulgar fingers in it. It disrespects the best of our culture. The vulgar should not get these honors.
There’s some good news coming from the Justice System today. Let’s shift to the latest on that. First, we have this headline from 
This also happened. “Federal judge temporarily blocks HUD permanent housing cuts for homeless. The U.S. district judge questioned whether “chaos” is the point in homelessness funding overhaul.” This article is from 
One last thing. We have yet another reason to think Bernie Sanders is a punk. This is from The Bulwark. It’s written by Sam Stein. “A Milestone Pediatric Cancer Bill Fails at the Hands of Bernie. The Vermont senator is holding out for a bigger health care package. Advocates are asking: Is the price worth it?” Why on earth would any one punk kids with Cancer whose name isn’t Trump?
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