I’ve been getting more sleep than usual lately, but my chronic insomnia kicked in last night. I got almost no sleep. I’m really not ready to face another day with Trump and his antics, but I’ll do the best I can.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply weakened a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act, a ruling that limits the consideration of race in drawing voting maps and could usher in Republican gains in the House.
The decision could touch off a scramble by Republicans to redraw minority-majority districts, especially in the South. New districts could shiftthe balance of power in Congress by imperiling the reelection prospects of some Black Democrats, possibly as soon as November’s midterms in some instances.
Samuel Alito (with Neil Gorsuch in the background on the left.)
The ruling also carries significant symbolic weight, effectively scaling backthe last major pillar of a 60-year-old law long considered one of the marquee achievements of the civil rights era. The Voting Rights Act bans discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes, and has helped greatly increase minority representation in state and federal offices.
The ruling also carries significant symbolic weight, effectively scaling backthe last major pillar of a 60-year-old law long considered one of the marquee achievements of the civil rights era. The Voting Rights Act bans discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes, and has helped greatly increase minority representation in state and federal offices.
In an ideologically divided 6-3 ruling, the conservative justices created a higher bar for the law’s powerful provision that allows states to use race to draw maps that help minority communities elect candidates of their choice. Section 2, as it is known, is aimed at combating discriminatory gerrymandering that weakens the power of Black, Latino, Native American and Asian voters.
States must walk a careful line when drawing maps for voting districts. The Voting Rights Act directsstates to consider race to some degreewhen redistricting to ensure that racial minority groups have an opportunity to elect representatives who reflect their priorities. Maps explicitly drawn along racial lines, however, violate the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting practices.
Specifically:
The court’s conservative majority found Louisiana unlawfully discriminated by race when it created a second majority-Black congressional district to comply with the VRA. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the opinion for the majority.
“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act … was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” Alito wrote. “Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s [Section] 2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”
The decision came over the sharp objections of the court’s three liberals. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the dissent from the bench, signaling strong disagreement.
“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote in the dissent.
The Roberts Court finally achieved its years-long goal of killing the Voting Rights Act Wednesday, publishing a ruling that, the liberal justices say, will make proving racial discrimination in redistricting virtually impossible.
“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent.
“Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic,” she continued. “The majority claims only to be “updat[ing]” our Section 2 law, as though through a few technical tweaks. But in fact, those ‘updates’ eviscerate the law…”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by all five other justices inthe bench’s right wing. Kagan was joined in her dissent by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Clarence Thomas also wrote a concurrence joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Alito defangs the law by unilaterally cancelling out congressional fixes to it — primarily, that plaintiffs bringing claims of racial vote dilution no longer have to prove that the legislators drawing the maps did so to purposefully discriminate. This bar had proved so difficult to overcome, especially as legislators became more adept at using facially neutral language, that Congress adopted amendments to the VRA asserting that if the maps have a discriminatory effect, that’s enough. Chief Justice John Roberts, then working in the Reagan administration, spearheaded the unsuccessful effort to doom the passage of those amendments.
Alito hand waves this history away, in part, by echoing Roberts’ reasoning in an earlier decision that eviscerated the VRA’s preclearance requirement, which required jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination in voting to submit changes in election laws to the federal government for clearance before they could take effect. Roberts, in Shelby County v. Holder, said that the country had made such great strides in racial equality that the preventative measure was no longer necessary — ushering in a flood of new voter restrictions, particularly in the states that comprised the old Confederacy.
Read the rest at TPM.
Trump has insomnia too, it seems. He posted an idiotic message to Iran at an ungodly hour:
President Donald Trump warned Iran “better get smart soon” Wednesday, as he weighed military options for the Strait of Hormuz with peace talks at an impasse.
Members of Trump’s national security team presented him with multiple options this week for how to handle the continuing bottleneck in the strait after negotiations failed to reopen the critical waterway, a U.S. official and a person familiar with the meeting told NBC News.
The standoff between Washington and Tehran, including the continued U.S. naval blockade, means the key trade route has been effectively blocked for two months.
The threat of prolonged disruption to the global economy has sent energy prices soaring — gas price averages in the U.S. reached $4.23 a gallon,the highest level in nearly four years, while the international benchmark price for oil, Brent crude, surged to $115 a barrel early Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Iran’s national rial currency hit a record low against the dollar, as Tehran’s economy also showed growing signs of strain.
The options discussed during Monday’s meeting in the Situation Room included whether the U.S. military presence in the strait should change — either increase or decrease — and whether the military should become more aggressive in conducting operations there, the U.S. official said.
Trump has not made any decisions about the way forward, the sources said, and it’s not clear when he might make a decision.
They don’t even note that the warning from Trump came in an idiotic Truth Social post until paragraph 11!
Trump and other top administration officials met with a group of energy industry executives on Tuesday, discussing possible next steps in continuing the blockade of Iran’s ports “for months if needed” and how to minimize impacts on American consumers, a White House official told NBC News.
The meeting was hosted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent included executives from Chevron, Trafi, Vitol and Mecuria, among other companies.
The U.S. showed little immediate enthusiasm for a new Iranian proposal that would end the war and reopen the strait without resolving the impasse over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program — a key stumbling block in the stalled peace talks.
President Donald Trump is quietly telling administration insiders to prepare for an “extended” blockade of Iran as negotiations to end the war with the regime drag on.
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing “U.S. officials,” that Trump has told his aides that the blockade of Iran will continue, as the two sides remain far apart on Trump’s stated goal of getting the regime to give up its nuclear arms capabilities altogether. The report followed a meeting in the Situation Room on Monday, where Trump administration officials reviewed an offer to end the war from the Iranian regime that included reopening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for delaying talks about nuclear weapons.
The report also suggests that Trump appears to be digging in and trying to tighten the screws on Iran’s economy.
“In recent meetings, including a Monday discussion in the Situation Room, Trump opted to continue squeezing Iran’s economy and oil exports by preventing shipping to and from its ports,” according to the report. “He assessed that his other options—resume bombing or walk away from the conflict—carried more risk than maintaining the blockade, officials said.”
“Yet continuing the blockade also prolongs a conflict that has driven up gas prices, hurt Trump’s poll numbers and further darkened Republicans’ prospects in the midterm elections,” it continued. “It has also caused the lowest number of transits through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began.”
The decision by the United Arab Emirates to leave the OPEC oil cartel shook up the 65-year-old alliance that produces some 40% of the world’s crude oil and exerts major influence over the price of energy around the globe.
OPEC countries
The UAE said in the announcement Tuesday that when it leaves OPEC this Friday, it plans to carry on with its long-held goal of increasing crude production “in a gradual and measured manner, aligned with demand and market conditions.”
Right now, that’s academic as far as oil prices go, since Iran is still blocking the Strait of Hormuz, which means much of the oil from Persian Gulf producers such as the UAE cannot be exported. But the departure could have long-term effects on oil prices….
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was formed in Baghdad in September 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. It has 12 members — counting the UAE — that hold more than 80% of the world’s proven oil reserves. Other members are Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria and the Republic of the Congo….
The group, headquartered in Vienna, aims to regulate oil prices by coordinating increases or decreases in production.
The goal has been to keep prices high enough so member governments can balance their budgets and reap the benefits of their natural resources — but not so high as to cause a recession in consuming countries or to halt energy-consuming activity, a phenomenon known as demand destruction.
Donald Trump is learning first-hand about the perils of mission creep.
The US-Israel war in Iran has just passed its eighth week – twice as long as the president predicted it would take when US warplanes launched their joint attack with Israeli forces to decapitate the Iranian leadership and paralyse its military. The military attacks were successful. The predictions about the political cause-and-effect to follow were not.
Iran has survived the initial strikes and remains defiant, closing the strait of Hormuz in a move that has blocked off a fifth of the global oil trade. The US has responded with its own blockade to lock in Iranian oil, inflicting losses of an estimated $500m daily on Tehran and threatening the country’s long-term energy production – but negotiations have stalled and it is not clear if the White House is willing to withstand the pain of a sustained economic war or the risk of a military operation to open the strait.
“This has gone from being a war of choice to a war of necessity,” said Aaron David Miller, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment and a former US diplomat and Middle East negotiator.
The war had transformed from a conflict involving Iran, the US and Israel to a “global economic crisis which shows no signs of abating”. Just this week, petrol prices in the US approached a four-year high, and they are expected to continue to rise before a crucial midterm election that could allow the Democrats to retake congress.
“The status quo is not tolerable … there has to be a fix to it,” Miller said. “It strikes me that the administration is in a very tough spot.”
But the solution remains elusive. One option would be to negotiate a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz but to delay nuclear talks on the fate of the more than 400kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) – as well as the country’s right to enrich uranium in the future.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
Yesterday the “Justice” Department indicted James Comey for the second time. The indictment is unbelievably stupid. He is accused of threatening to assassinate Trump because he posted on social media a photo of some seashells spelling “86 47.”
On April 28, 2026, the United States Department of Justice indicted former FBI Director James Comey over a mildly sassy arrangement of seashells. The charge is preposterous and no competent or honest prosecutor would bring it. It represents a betrayal of the professional and ethical obligations of every U.S. Department of Justice attorney involved, and reflects the complete collapse of the Department’s credibility and independence in favor of a cultish and cretinous devotion to Donald Trump.
The indictment concerns James Comey’s May 25, 2025 post to his Instagram account remarking “Cool shell formation on my beach walk” and showing shells arranged to spell out “86 47.” [….]
Based on this, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina — the venue of the sassy beach stroll — secured an indictment against Comey for two federal felonies: threatening the President of the United States in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 871 and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce in violation of Title 18, United States Code, 875(c). In both counts, the government asserts that “a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of intent to do harm.” That is, of course, a preposterous lie….
Let’s look at what the government would have to prove to convict Comey of these offenses, using cases from the Fourth Circuit, which governs this district. To prove a threat against the President in violation of Section 871, the prosecution must offer “(1) the proof of “a true threat” and (2) that the threat is made “knowingly and willfully.”“ United States v. Lockhart, 382 F.3d 447, 449-450 (4th Cir. 2004). To prove a threat in interstate commerce in violation of Section 875(c), the government must prove that “(1) that the defendant knowingly transmitted a communication in interstate or foreign commerce; (2) that the defendant subjectively intended the communication as a threat; and (3) that the content of the communication contained a “true threat” to kidnap or injure.” United States v. White, 810 F.3d 212, 220-21 (4th Cir. 2016). For purposes of both statutes, a “true threat” is a statement which an “ordinary, reasonable recipient who is familiar with the context in which the statement is made would interpret it as a serious expression of an intent to do harm.” White, 810 F.3d at 221.
Prosecutions for threats against the President played a substantial role in developing the First Amendment doctrine of “true threats,” which separates bluster and rhetoric from actual threats to do harm. In Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969), the United States Supreme Court took up the conviction of an 18-year-old man who said this during an anti-draft protest during Vietnam: “They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L. B. J. . . . . They are not going to make me kill my black brothers.” The Court articulated the core of the “true threat” doctrine, noting that political rhetoric, hyperbole, and robust debate that does not convey an intent to do harm is protected by the First Amendment:
“But whatever the “willfullness” requirement implies, the statute initially requires the Government to prove a true threat. We do not believe that the kind of political hyperbole indulged in by petitioner fits within that statutory term. For we must interpret the language Congress chose “against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964). The language [**1402] of the political arena, like the language used in labor disputes, see Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers of America, 383 U.S. 53, 58 (1966), is often vituperative, abusive, and inexact. We agree with petitioner that his only offense here was “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President.” Taken in context, and regarding the expressly conditional nature of the statement and the reaction of the listeners, we do not see how it could be interpreted otherwise. Watts, 394 U.S. at 708.”
No minimally rationally person could possibly conclude, seeing James Comey’s beachside dad joke, that he was expressing a sincere intent to harm the President. Nobody could look at it and conclude that Comey intended to convey that message. In evaluating whether a threat is “true,” the trier of fact must consider the context. Here the context is seashells. The context is the former Director of the FBI, a lifetime member of law enforcement, who is a well-known critic of the President and a target of the President’s wrath, using a campy mechanism to express opposition to the President, using slang for “ditch” or “eject” or “get rid of.” No rational person could see that and say “the former director of the FBI is saying he’s going to kill the President”!”
I could now cite to you a legion of cases for that proposition, finding rhetoric far more concerning than this protected by the First Amendment, analyzing language and context to show this is protected. But it wouldn’t matter, would it? If you are a minimally rational person, you don’t need to see the precedent, and if you’re a cultist, no amount of precedent matters to you.
He does go on; read the rest at the link above.
From Blanche’s press conference yesterday:
Q: Should we expect more indictments of this sort? For example, in 2020 Gretchen Whitmer did a TV hit with "8645" in the background." Would you pursue that?BLANCHE: As far as other instances of threats against the president — those will be investigated
I hope Blanche doesn’t have plans to continue legal work in the future. I don’t think he’s going to have a license. The same goes for the lawyers who prosecute this case.
Republicans hoping their party’s standard-bearer will stay focused on voters’ priorities heading into the November midterms caught no relief on Tuesday as the Trump administration announced charges against former FBI director James B. Comey and an aide to former chief medical adviser Anthony S. Fauci, as well as a review of Disney’s broadcast licenses.
The latest instances of turning government power against President Donald Trump’s critics and pursuing years-old grievances added to frustrations felt by Republicans who say the president isn’t doing enough to address the signature issues that won him a second term.
Two-thirds of Americans said Trump hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems in a CNN survey conducted late last month, up from 52 percent in February 2025 and higher than at any point in his first term.
“No Republican wants to run on ‘I stand with Donald Trump’s retribution tour’” while gas prices are so high, said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona. “There is no doubt that the vast majority of non-MAGA voters want Trump to focus on anything but his personal animus toward a wide variety of people.”
The White House said the Comey prosecution has no bearing on Trump’s efforts to bring down costs — moves that include signing a tax-cut bill, adding discounted drugs to a government-run portal, expanding domestic beef production, releasing oil reserves and easing restrictions on tankers moving fuel between U.S. ports.
“The idea that President Trump and his Cabinet agencies cannot execute multiple actions simultaneously is so laughably false,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. “The insinuation that a grand jury returning an indictment is mutually exclusive with the administration’s strong efforts on the economy is objectively false.”
Other Republicans, however, asked about the administration’s priorities. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned whether the Comey case was the best use of time and resources for the acting U.S. attorney from his state who brought the charges, W. Ellis Boyle. Trump renominated Boyle to the position in January after the Senate took no action on his nomination last year.
This is just who Trump is. We can only hope the Democrats will win the House and Senate and impeach him.
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
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Hey, today I’ve got some cartoon and memes for you. I know that Dakinikat went over several points of the weekend “assassin attempt” in her post yesterday. So some of the things below will be sort of a repeat.
Odd, how a lone gunman failed to even enter a targeted room and no one was harmed—and Republicans go HYSTERICAL over the “tone” of Democrats. And yet heavily armed and masked fascists murdered two people at point-blank range in the streets of Minneapolis—and not a peep about the “tone” of the right.
“President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Chuck Grassley, laments not attending the ill-fated White House Correspondents Dinner. A President Grassley would be something to behold.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Another day, another fishy attempt at assassinating Trump. I’ll just put my hypothesis right up top, then provide the analysis and details from the media about the weirdness surrounding the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting Saturday night. We know the details about the shooter and have gotten a chance to review his manifesto. We also know the Secret Service had an unusually insecure setup to guard the large number of high-value targets present for what was supposed to be Trump’s first visit to the event after hating on the press continually.
JJ, Boomer, and I discussed the situation via text chat as the entire scene unfolded. I’m finding that a large number of friends and colleagues share my view. Here’s one that eloquently aligns with my hypothesis about the entire show from fellow New Orleanian Louis Maestros, who owns and runs Old Arabi Lighthouse Records and Books with his wife and cat. It’s just one of those places that you should visit.
Well, that is the most lucid and thoughtful shooter “manifesto” I’ve ever read.
I now am under the impression that the complete lack of security was meant to invite some kind of attack just to make the supposedly less vulnerable magic ballroom seem like a good idea after all. Which would be an incredibly stupid and reckless thing to do, and completely on brand.
Here’s JJ’s take from Saturday night via the group text.
I guess what I am trying to say, is I don’t think the man was put in there as a fake setup. But I do think that he was organically there…however, they knew about him, and chose not to do anything until the last minute.
Here’s something from me.
Just think we could’ve had Chuck Grassley as president today.
But I already put my real take on a discussion with some of my old high school friends. I called shenanigans because I have experience from my time at the Fed, with 10 days of pre-Clinton and pre-Greenspan visits to the New Orleans Fed. The Secret Service Swarms the venues and the hotels for more than a week.
BB was observing those left behind to fend for themselves.
I just watched the video and Vance was rushed out first. Then they went to Trump. Melania got pushed aside and ended up crawling out lol
They took RFK Jr out and left his wife to fend for herself
My favorite Trumper exit was Steven Miller using his wife as a human shield while copping a feel of her breast.
One thing that we started discussing was this Washington Post Article about the security situation. “Correspondents’ dinner lacked highest security level despite presence of top officials. The White House correspondents’ dinner, attended by the president and several Cabinet members, was not given top security status that would have unlocked the full weight of federal resources.”
The Trump administration provided a lower level of security for the White House correspondents’ dinner than it has for other gatherings of high-ranking officials, even though the president and many Cabinet members were in attendance, according to officials familiar with the plan.
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were quickly evacuated to safety Saturday when a gunman charged the security perimeter and attempted to storm the ballroom at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Others in attendance included Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The concentration of high-ranking leaders in one ballroom left the nation unusually vulnerable as the would-be assassin raced past Secret Service before he was apprehended. A worst-case scenario might have resulted in passing the power of the presidency to the senior-most senator of the majority party, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who was not at the event and is third in line to the presidency behind Vance and Johnson.
When so many officials gather in one place for official functions such as an inauguration or State of the Union address, the secretary of homeland security typically puts the Secret Service in charge of coordinating all security through a formal designation known as a “National Special Security Event.”
There was no such designation on Saturday night at an event also attended by thousands of journalists and other government officials, according to local and federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss security details. The suspected gunman, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, wrote a statement saying he wanted to target members of the Trump administration and ridiculed what he called lax security at the hotel, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the writings. He said Iranian agents could easily have brought more dangerous weapons to the venue, according to the text.
The White House referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Washington Hilton said in an email that the Secret Service “led security for the event.”
In the old days, we’d have had this discussion across several blog threads, with lots of people joining the conversation. Old school blogging is not what it used to be. JJ found this analysis at MEDIAITE. I considered it data to support my thesis that the Secret Service was either just or deliberately inept. Sean James has the analysis. “WHCD Shooter Couldn’t Believe How Bad Security Was Before Trying to Shoot Trump: ‘Incompetence Is Insane.”
The man suspected of attempting a mass shooting while targeting President Donald Trump and members of his administration at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night wrote he was shocked at how bad the security was at the venue.
“Like, this level of incompetence is insane,” Cole Tomas Allen wrote in a manifesto obtained by the New York Post. “And I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.”
That was part of an entire section in his manifesto dedicated to describing the terrible security at the Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C., where the annual event took place.
“PS: Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone,” Allen wrote. “Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.”
Instead, he said there was:
No damn security.
Not in transport.
Not in the hotel.
Not in the event.
Allen went on to say if he was an Iranian agent he could have easily smuggled in a weapon with ease. He also said the security at the hotel was entirely focused on protesters outside the event and seemingly had not considered that a wannabe assassin could check into the hotel the day before.
He added he felt a “sense of arrogance” from the hotel, as if its guests couldn’t possibly be attackers.
The Post obtained his manifesto the morning after Allen fired multiple shots in the hotel lobby, minutes after the event kicked off. It was set to be Trump’s first appearance at the dinner since he became president, but instead he was rushed off the stage by Secret Service, along with First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is due to give birth any day now.
The video clearly shows the First Escort hiding under the table.
Doomsday Scenario, this morning. “The Trouble with Trump’s Bunker and Ballroom. Is he building it to sustain an attack — or the end of democracy?” If anything, it was crystal clear that the entire Trump performance on Saturday night was to secure his Ballroom by showing that any other place would be insecure. However, the Correspondent’s dinner is associated with a professional society, and it’s difficult to see how it connects directly to Trump’s plea.
All of which brings me to the other weird unfolding current story about presidential security: Trump’s pet project of building a new presidential ballroom. In his remarks Saturday evening from the White House and in social media posts and court filings since, President Trump has used the shooting to attempt to justify and jumpstart his construction of a giant White House ballroom. The construction of the above-ground portion of the ballroom has currently been stopped by a court order, and the Justice Department moved over the weekend to dismiss the lawsuit citing the now-pressing-and-obvious national security implications.
Trump’s argument, reinvigorated since Saturday and immediately sock-puppeted by all manner of right-wing influencers, is two-fold: First, the president needs a secure facility — unlike the Washington Hilton! — where the president can host grand gatherings, and, second, that the (re)construction of now-destroyed East Wing will enable the creation of a giant secure presidential bunker.
It’s clear that the ballroom is the thing that Donald Trump cares about more than anything in his presidency — or the world. The Wall Street Journalreported earlier this month that he even gets distracted in war-planning meetings by talking about his ballroom.
I’m less interested in the debate over the purpose of the ballroom — except, to say that I don’t buy the justification for a moment — and plenty of others have taken on that directly. The shortest possible objection is that we can’t possibly believe or agree that the world is too dangerous for the elected leader of a democracy to ever leave his compound and that all supplicants must come to him in order to have an audience (plus Trump’s ballroom is still way smaller than the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, so it’s not like it’s an actual replacement for hotel galas.)
But I did want to talk a bit today about the bunker side of the story.
Loyal readers of RAVEN ROCK will know the short history of the White House bunker: FDR first had a facility created in World War II, to guard against surprise attack by German bombers, and then the bunker was dramatically enlarged and rebuilt for the early Cold War by Harry Truman when he embarked upon the massive renovation of the White House in 1948. The expectation was that in the event of a surprise attack, a president could be rushed down into the bunker until a special rescue mission could arrive to remove the president from the rubble. A special helicopter unit — codenamed OUTPOST MISSION — was for decades based in Pennsylvania to respond to the White House and excavate and evacuate the president. The pilots carried special dark visors and lead-shielded flight suits to protect themselves and officials from the flash and effects of a nuclear blast.
Today, the facility is known as the PEOC — the Presidential Emergency Operations Center — and is run by the White House Military Office. The facility has only been used a handful of times — including on 9/11, when it was where Vice President Cheney, the First Lady, and other administration leaders gathered and oversaw the government’s response through the day. “I was hustled inside and downstairs through a pair of big steel doors that closed behind me with a loud hiss, forming an airtight seal,” Laura Bush remembered later. “We walked along old tile floors with pipes hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of mechanical equipment.”
As with everything else we excerpt here, this article has a lot more content and is worth reading. Paul Waldman, writing at Public Notice, has this analysis. “A more secure ballroom will not stop the madness. This is the age of chaos Trump has made.”
Alternative angle of Trump and others being rushed off stage at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Just to remind you what Orange Caligula really thinks about reporters and such, here’s a headline from Politico. This is reported by Eli Stokols. “Trump lashes out at ‘60 Minutes’ anchor for reading alleged gunman’s manifesto. Any detente between the president and the press after the shared horror of Saturday’s dinner appears to be short-lived.”
President Donald Trump lashed out at CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell in an interview Sunday for quoting from the manifesto of the suspected gunman who tried to storm the White House Correspondents Dinner less than 24 hours earlier.
But when O’Donnell, during an interview recorded at the White House on Sunday, quoted from the accused gunman Cole Allen’s apparent manifesto — “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” she read — Trump, who’d been relatively subdued in his responses, flashed a familiar anger.
“I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people. Horrible people,” Trump said. “Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
O’Donnell interjected, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?”
But the president blew past her question, declaring, “I’m not a pedophile.”
Trump bristled at what he seemed to deem an insinuation about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who was not mentioned by name in the manifesto or by O’Donnell. “You read that crap from some sick person,” the president said. “I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated.”
O’Donnell had just asked Trump if he thought the experience at the dinner would change his experience with the press. He answered obliquely, asserting that the press corps was largely left-leaning and opposed to his policies on immigration and crime.
But his scathing response to her moments later offered a much clearer answer.
“You should be ashamed of yourself for reading that, because I’m not any of those things,” Trump said. “You shouldn’t be reading that on ‘60 Minutes.’ You’re a disgrace.”
The fact-checkers must be having a heyday with that one. Oh well, he’s the Liar and Cheat. What does anyone expect from those who interview him?
Just one more headline and then I’m out to take the box to Cox Cable, which used to provide me with online news. This is from my local NBC affiliate, WDSU. This news shouldn’t surprise you at all. “Man accused in correspondents’ dinner shooting charged with attempted assassination of Trump. “Cole Allen, charged in the attack at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, allegedly targeted President Trump and his administration, according to authorities.”
The man who authorities say tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with guns and knives has been charged with the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump. He appeared in court Monday to face charges in a chaotic encounter that resulted in shots being fired, Trump being rushed off the stage and guests ducking for cover underneath their tables.
Cole Tomas Allen was taken into custody after the shooting on Saturday night and is being charged in federal court in Washington. Authorities say an officer wearing a bullet-resistant vest was shot in the vest but is expected to recover.
Allen, of Torrance, California, is being represented by lawyers with the federal defender’s office and sat beside them in court in a blue jail uniform.
Prosecutors have not revealed a motive, but in a message reviewed by The Associated Press that authorities say was sent by Allen to family members minutes before the attack, Allen referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” made repeated references to the Republican president without naming him and alluded to grievances over a range of Trump administration actions.
Investigators are treating the writings, along with a trail of social media posts and interviews with family members, as some of the clearest evidence of the suspect’s mindset and possible motives.
As usual, a lot more detail in that news report, and more will come.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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U.S. Vice President JD Vance is escorted out by Secret Service followed by agents surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump after an incident at the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner on April 25, 2026 (Footage by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)www.gettyimages.com/detail/video…
Social media users highlight the irony after Karoline Leavitt urges viewers to tune in, saying Donald Trump will bring the heat and there will be “shots fired.”
Shots fired, the Secret Service rushes in, and they let Trump continue to sit there? And now they’re going to resume the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and Trump still plans to deliver a speech?I’m not saying this was staged to boost Trump’s tanking approval numbers, but it looks odd.
Joy Harmon, who needed only three minutes, a bucket of soapy water and a housedress held together with a safety pin to sear herself into Hollywood history as a chain-gang prisoner’s fantasy come to life in the classic 1967 film “Cool Hand Luke,” died on April 14 in Los Angeles. She was 87.
She died in hospice care after contracting pneumonia in recent weeks, her daughter Julie Gourson Matthews said.
Ms. Harmon never achieved leading-lady status. Still, she tallied more than 30 screen and television credits, often popping up in an episode or two of popular 1960s and early ’70s TV shows like “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Monkees,” “Batman,” “Bewitched” and “The Odd Couple.”
Onscreen, she was hard to miss, with her pinup figure, platinum hair and ice-blue eyes. “Gosh, you have the bluest eyes!,” she recalled Paul Newman, the star of “Cool Hand Luke,” once saying to her — no small praise coming from an actor known for his own dazzlingly blue eyes….
Ms. Harmon, listed in the credits as the Girl, appears about 23 minutes into the movie and is gone before minute 27. But she makes the most of her screen time.
Emerging from a farmhouse, bucket in hand, she languidly scrubs down a 1941 DeSoto in full view of the sweat-drenched, shirtless prisoners digging a roadside ditch nearby.
“Hey, Lord, whatever I’ve done, don’t strike me blind for another couple of minutes,” Dragline (George Kennedy), the alpha dog of the chain gang, says.
While the prisoners wipe their brows and gawk, the amply endowed Ms. Harmon nearly bursts out of her skintight dress as she bends to scrub hubcaps or sprawls across the hood, occasionally pausing to squeeze her sponge so that the suds cascade down her torso.
“Oh, God, she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” one lustful prisoner says.
“She knows exactly what she’s doing,” Luke responds. “She’s driving us crazy and loving every minute of it.”
A bit about Harmon’s life:
Patricia Joy Harmon was born on May 1, 1938, in Flushing, Queens, the elder of two daughters of Homer Harmon, a promotional director at the Roxy Theater in Manhattan, and Bernice (Hopmann) Harmon. (Many accounts cite her birth year as 1940, but she shaved two years off her age once she was in Hollywood, her daughter said.)
She grew up in Wilton, Conn., and began modeling at an early age. At 17, she was a runner-up in the Miss Connecticut beauty pageant.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi departed Islamabad on Saturday evening local time, according to Iranian sources familiar with the discussions, after meetings in the Pakistani capital to discuss a truce with Washington and consult key allies in the region.
It was not initially clear where Araghchi would travel next, but the Iranian Foreign Ministry previously said he would also visit Oman and Russia during the trip.
Lindsay, by Linda Lee Nelson
Some background: Araghchi landed in Islamabad on Friday evening for a flurry of meetings with Pakistan’s top leadership, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the country’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, who has served as a key mediator between Tehran and Washington.
Pakistani ministers are trying to facilitate a second round of talks between US and Iranian officials, after lengthy discussions in early April failed to alleviate the thorniest diplomatic hurdles between the warring parties.
The White House said Friday that a US delegation would travel to Islamabad this weekend, but Iranian media had denied reports that Araghchi would directly negotiate with Washington during his trip, leaving the status of talks uncertain.
Trump has just called off the trip to Pakistan by Witkoff and Kushner.
The New York Times published a fascinating article about Iran’s leaders this week. It appears that the Revolutionary Guards are actually in control of the government, and it’s not clear if the men doing the negotiating actually have the power to make final decisions.
When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled Iran as the supreme leader, he exerted absolute power over all decisions about war, peace and negotiations with the United States. His son and successor does not play the same role.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the son, is an elusive figure who has not been seen and whose voice has not been heard since he was appointed in March. Instead, a battle-hardened collective of commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and those aligned with them are the key decision makers on matters of security, war and diplomacy.
In the Garden, by Thomas Little
“Mojtaba is managing the country as though he is the director of the board,” said Abdolreza Davari, a politician who served as senior adviser to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he was president and knows Mr. Khamenei.
“He relies heavily on the advice and guidance of the board members, and they collectively make all the decisions,” Mr. Davari said in a phone interview from Tehran. “The generals are the board members.” [….]
Mr. Khamenei, who was selected by a council of senior clerics as the new supreme leader, has been in hiding since American and Israeli forces bombed his father’s compound on Feb. 28, where he also lived with his family. His father, wife and son were all killed. Access to him is extremely difficult and limited now. He is surrounded mostly by a team of doctors and medical staff who are treating the injuries he sustained in the airstrikes.
Senior commanders of the Guards and senior government officials do not visit him, fearing that Israel may trace them to him and kill him. President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is also a heart surgeon, and the minister of health have both been involved in his care.
Though Mr. Khamenei was gravely wounded, he is mentally sharp and engaged, according to four senior Iranian officials familiar with his health. One leg was operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic. He had surgery on one hand and is slowly regaining function. His face and lips have been burned severely, making it difficult for him to speak, the officials said, adding that, eventually, he will need plastic surgery.
Just a bit more:
Mr. Khamenei has not recorded a video or audio message, the officials said, because he does not want to appear vulnerable or sound weak in his first public address. He has issued several written statements that have been posted online and read on state television.
Messages to him are handwritten, sealed in envelopes and relayed via a human chain from one trusted courier to the next, who travel on highways and back roads, in cars and on motorcycles until they reach his hide-out. His guidance on issues snakes back the same way.
The combination of concern for his safety, his injuries and the sheer challenge of reaching him has resulted in Mr. Khamenei’s delegating decision making to the generals, at least for now. Reformist factions, as well as ultra-hard-liners, are still involved in political discussions. But analysts say that Mr. Khamenei’s close ties to the generals, whom he grew up with when he volunteered to fight in the Iran-Iraq war as a teenager, have made them the dominant force.
President Trump has said that the war, along with the killings of layers of Iran’s leaders and security establishment, has ushered in “regime change” and that the new leaders are “much more reasonable.” In reality, the Islamic republic has not been toppled. Power is now in the hands of an entrenched, hard-line military, and the broad influence of the clerics is waning.
“Mojtaba is not yet in full command or control,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa for Chatham House who has contact with people in Iran. “There is, perhaps, deference to him. He signs off or he is part of the decision-making structure in a formal way. But he is presented with fait accompli presentations right now.”
So it appears that the Generals are actually running things in Iran now. You can use the gift link to read the whole article. It’s very interesting.
Back in the USA, the DOJ has withdrawn the charges against Fed chair Jerome Powell, but the damage is done.
The Justice Department’s criminal investigation of the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome H. Powell, appears to be over. But the ramifications for the central bank are likely to prove much longer lasting.
Nine months after President Trump made a hasty visit to the Fed’s Washington headquarters and promised to “take a look” at a costly renovation, the administration has concluded its inquiry with seemingly nothing to show. Far from the criminal charges that they once pursued, prosecutors left in their wake a dark cloud over the institution and the person Mr. Trump has chosen to next lead the central bank.
The about-face has removed, for now, the immediate threat of a further escalation against the Fed. It has also potentially cleared a path for Mr. Trump’s nominee for Fed chair, Kevin M. Warsh, to succeed Mr. Powell, whose term ends on May 15.
By Richard Williams
What will be far harder to recoup is confidence in the Fed’s ability to operate independently from a White House that has shown little restraint in its efforts to bully the central bank into slashing interest rates.
Even as Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, announced that the investigation was shutting down, she warned that she would “not hesitate” to reopen the inquiry if warranted. Ms. Pirro added that she had asked the Fed’s inspector general to take over the investigation, even though the internal watchdog had been looking into the matter since July….
Kathryn Judge, a Columbia Law School professor who was a Supreme Court law clerk for Justice Stephen G. Breyer, said she feared “lasting damage” from the investigation into Mr. Powell — not only for the Fed but for policymakers across government.
Until now, she said, officials did not have to worry about repercussions from “taking a strong stance on policy issues in ways that are inconsistent with the president’s agenda.” But that was the sort of pressure that Mr. Powell faced as Mr. Trump sought to force rates down.
There’s some news about Trump’s corrupt case against the IRS.
A federal judge is asking the Justice Department and President Donald Trump’s private attorneys to explain whether his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, an agency he oversees as president, is the type of dispute federal courts can hear.
In a Friday order, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams questioned whether an actual disagreement exists, writing that a case can only stand if there is “adverseness” between the parties.
“Typically, adverseness is found in a situation where one party is asserting its right and the other party is resisting,” Williams wrote. “Consequently, if there is no adverseness, there is no case or controversy.”
The Constitution’s “case or controversy” clause says federal courts may only hear actual “controversies.”
The judge ordered both parties to explain “whether a case and controversy exists” by May 20. Williams set a hearing on the matter for May 27 in Miami.
The order comes as both sides seek to resolve the dispute. Attorneys representing Trump and the IRS asked a federal court in a joint filing last week to pause proceedings for 90 days while the parties hold talks to find a resolution.
How the hell can they resolve a “dispute” when Trump is the boss?
Trump sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in January alleging that the agency was at fault for the unauthorized release of his tax documents by a government contractor who shared them with news outlets. Trump argued that the IRS did not take the necessary steps to prevent the actions of the contractor, Charles Littlejohn, who was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024 following a guilty plea.
In her order, Williams did recognize that Trump sued the IRS in “his personal capacity,” rather than as president, but wrote that “he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.”
The corruption in this administration is beyond belief.
Some good news–it looks like Trump’s “SAVE” act is dead.
Senate Republicans have sidelined the SAVE America Act, arguing that it shouldn’t be anywhere near the top of the party’s priority list, especially amid the Iran war and growing economic woes.
Quiet Day by Yuriy Sultanov
Republican leaders this week were forced to remove the proposal as pending business in the chamber as they shifted gears to pass the budget resolution. That effectively benched the bill — which has been championed by President Donald Trump and considered a top agenda item — after an extensive pressure campaign by conservative members and influencers.
The necessary move, however, was greeted with a sigh of relief by a number of Republicans who, while supportive of the measure, believe it’s time to move on to more pressing matters. They also believe the pro-SAVE America Act blitz, led by Sen. Mike Lee and like-minded conservatives, did little to help the case, and may have backfired. Members are ready to bid it adieu as they near the final six months before the midterms.
“They’ve convinced themselves that the longer it hangs around, the more popular it gets. The reality is — I’m quite certain they haven’t gained a single vote, and may have lost a few with time,” one Senate Republican told NOTUS. “There’s some things that aren’t possible, and this is one of them.”
The member noted that while key parts of the bill — which requires voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote — poll well with wide swaths of Americans, including Democrats, it is hardly considered a leading issue for voters.
“When put in a lineup of the top 100 things people are thinking about every day, it doesn’t get very high on the list,” the senator continued. “We’re spending a lot of the precious resource of time and energy on something that’s not top-of-mind awareness to voters.”
I already had to produce a photo ID and prove my citizenship when I registered to vote. Good riddance to this idiotic bill.
Sarah Fitzpatrick, The Atlantic investigative journalist behind last week’s bombshell story about FBI Director Kash Patel, has said she has since been “inundated” with messages from new sources corroborating her reporting.
Fitzpatrick’s story alleged that Patel drinks to excess – so much so that, in one instance, breaching equipment was ordered to break into a locked bedroom when he did not respond to inquiries about his well-being. The profile and also characterized him as deeply paranoid about being fired by President Donald Trump.
Patel claimed the stories were false and has filed a ludicrous lawsuit.
Speaking to the Radio Atlantic podcast one week after the article, Fitzpatrick was asked about the director’s retaliatory moves and said she was undaunted.
“My response is that I stand by every single word of this report,” she said. “We were very diligent. We were very careful. It went through multiple levels of editing, review, care.
“And I think one of the things that has been most gratifying, after – immediately after the story published was, I have been inundated by additional sourcing going up to the highest levels of the government, thanking us for doing the work, providing additional corroborating information.”
Fitzpatrick said that she used more than two dozen sources for her original report, characterizing the officials she spoke to as “people who felt that not only was this conduct embarrassing, unbecoming, but that it was a national security vulnerability, and that Americans were perhaps less safe as a result.”
Asked about some of the more shocking details in her report, she said: “I had never heard anything like this as a reporter, and I think I spent a very long time, a very diligent amount of time checking it out because it was so explosive.
“And I think the fact that this was known throughout the FBI, throughout the Justice Department, that it reached the White House is because it was so alarming. And people were really frightened.”
There’s more at the link.
Those are the stories that caught my attention today. What’s on your mind?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Here’s JJ’s take from Saturday night via the group text.
My favorite Trumper exit was Steven Miller using his wife as a human shield while copping a feel of her breast.
In the old days, we’d have had this discussion across several blog threads, with lots of people joining the conversation. Old school blogging is not what it used to be. JJ found this analysis at 
The video clearly shows the First Escort hiding under the table.
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