Good morning. I have a boatload of cartoons for you today. I Highlighted the one up top because I thought it was so clever…and right in point!
So here is a bunch of cartoons from the Cagle website:
I see Trump in that restaurant sign…I see his face in a lot of different places. He haunts me everyday!
Why can’t that muttherfuker just die already?
Oh and get this little nugget:
Click ⬆️ to open link
“…recent court filings that an analysis from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal law enforcement agency, could not conclusively connect a bullet fragment recovered during an autopsy to the rifle found near the scene.”
“Donald and his Trumplican digital army chime in on the worldwide No Kings protests. The attempted pushback is comical. There’s something about electing a clown…” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It really takes a lot of fortitude to check the headlines today. I can only imagine the effort it takes to be an actual reporter in this environment. I don’t know how anyone could forgive themselves for voting or approving these people. So, buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride today.
Greg Sargent at The New Republic has written some stomach-churning stuff on Pete Hegseth today. “Pete Hegseth Just Revealed the Real Roots of His Sadism and Rage. Does God want America to kill as many of our enemies as we can—in as violent a fashion as possible? We have a defense secretary who apparently thinks so. Why do radical right-wing religious movements always think their messiahs and god think murdering people is righteous?
When Pete Hegseth talks to God, he asks the Almighty to help him kill people—as violently and ruthlessly as possible.
In a potential violation of the separation of church and state, Hegseth has ordered monthly prayer meetings at the Pentagon, and in his first such gathering since launching the war against Iran, the defense secretary pleaded for divine assistance in mowing down the Iranian foe.
“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our nation,” Hegseth intoned to a military audience, reciting a prayer previously given by a military chaplain before the Venezuela raid and applying it to American troops in Iran.
“Give them wisdom in every decision,” Hegseth continued, “endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
Hegseth’s prayer service attracted only scattered media attention. But it helps explain the real impetus behind a development that deserves far more notice: The appointed leader of the world’s most powerful military regularly speaks about his capacity to rain terror and death on the enemy with an undisguised relish that should unsettle us all.
Hegseth appears to be a devotee of Christian Reconstructionism, a theology preached by influential far-right pastor Douglas Wilson that aims to reshape all earthly endeavors around the dictums of what his disciples claim is God’s law. As scholar-of-religion Julie Ingersoll explains on Sarah Posner’s podcast, Wilson believes that “all authority belongs to God,” rendering the state’s authority wholly subordinate to a “higher category of biblical law.” A Pentagon spokesman has confirmed that Hegseth recently met with Wilson and is his “admirer.”
What does this say about Hegseth’s conduct in the Iran war? A lot, it turns out.
During his prayer extolling “overwhelming violence,” Hegseth expanded on this by reading from Scripture. “I pursued my enemies and overtook them,” Hegseth preached, quoting King David recounting his wars against Israel’s ancient foes and likening them to the Iranian enemy. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.
Not exactly the stuff I was taught in Sunday School as a kid. Moving right along, how about the absolute things you never wanted to know about Kash Patel, ripped straight from his files by eager Iranian hackers? This bit of information is from Politico, but the actual images of him doing all kinds of weird, narcissistic things are out there. I’m not sure if any of the Trumperz will be dazed by it, but I found it rather gross and vomit-inducing. Watch it if you dare. “FBI confirms hackers targeted Kash Patel’s personal emails. Iran-linked hacking group Handala posted documents and photos they claimed to have stolen from the FBI director.”
The FBI on Friday confirmed that hackers targeted the personal emails of Director Kash Patel, hours after an Iranian government-linked hacking group posted documents and images online, claiming to have stolen them from Patel.
In a statement, the FBI confirmed the agency was “aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information, and we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity.”
“The information in question is historical in nature and involves no government information,” the FBI added. The statement did not include details on who was behind the attack. “The FBI will continue to pursue the actors responsible, support victims, and share actionable intelligence in defense of networks,” it said.
Earlier in the day, Iran-linked hacking group Handala claimed to have hacked Patel’s email and published several pictures of the director, including one showing him brandishing a cigar and another that appears to be his personal resume. Most emails are dated between 2012 and 2014, though there is at least one from 2022, according to files posted by Handala on Telegram and reviewed by POLITICO.
Is it malicious if this guy really did this shit and kept it with some obvious liking of it all? So, let’s just take a look at the entire set of Republican values here with this bit of news from AXIOS. “GOP weighs health care cuts to pay for Iran war.” This analysis is by Peter Sullivan.
Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement.
Why it matters: New efforts to rein in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to election-year attacks that they’re cutting health care to pay for an unpopular war.
Driving the news: Top House Republicans are looking at health care offsets addressing fraud in federal programs, as they did during last year’s debate over the budget law that made deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending and imposed first-time work requirements.
“There’s other items we’re looking at right now, especially in the areas of fraud and waste and abuse that we’re working through with our members,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told Axios.
House Budget Committee chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) is reviving an idea that was considered last year to fund Affordable Care Act payments known as cost-sharing reductions.
The Congressional Budget Office previously found the move would lower overall benchmark ACA premiums by 11% but result in 300,000 more uninsured people.
It would cut the subsidy amount that some enrollees receive, thereby increasing out-of-pocket premium costs, while saving the government over $30 billion.
Between the lines: Discussions still are in the early stages, and it’s not clear exactly how the goal of fighting fraud would translate into legislative language.
The driving force is the need to pay for the war in Iran and fund ICE, the latter of which triggered the partial government shutdown. Democrats oppose both, leaving Republicans ready to use the party-line process known as reconciliation to get around a Senate filibuster.
Many Republicans want any bill to be fully paid for, which is where potential health care changes come in.
There is some discussion in that article of what “moderates” might do which could be limited, imho, to they cave and/or then decide not to run for office again at best. At least current election polls show they’re on the run. They’re getting all their benefits and heading for the private sector. This is from The Hill. It’s reported by Sudiksha Kochi. “House Republicans flee Congress in record numbers amid growing dysfunction.”
An unprecedented number of House Republicans are opting to retire or pursue other offices, complicating Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) bid to fend off a potential blue wave in the 2026 midterms and preserve his razor-thin majority.
So far, 36 House Republicans — including the most recent, Rep. Sam Graves (Mo.) — have announced they will leave their seat at the end of their term, pointing to legislative gridlock, family commitments or a wish to make room for the next generation of leaders.
That total exceeds the record set in the 2018 midterm cycle, when 34 House Republicans chose not to run for reelection and Democrats regained control of the lower chamber under President Trump’s first term.
By comparison, 21 House Democrats are not seeking reelection this year.
But the number is only likely to grow in the weeks ahead, as Republicans reassess their roles in Washington amid a Trump 2.0 era and the expectation that the president’s party historically faces losses in a midterm year.
Graves said in a statement Friday that his decision to leave his seat wasn’t an easy one, but the “right one.”
“I believe in making room for the next generation. It’s time to pass the torch and allow a new guard of conservative leaders to step forward and chart a path forward for Missourians,” he said, adding that public service “isn’t easy.”
He joins a roster of Republicans across the ideological spectrum who have also called it quits in Congress, including high-profile conservatives such as Texas Reps. Chip Roy,Jodey Arrington, and Michael McCaul, as well as battle-tested moderates such as Rep. Don Bacon (Neb.), who has repeatedly run for reelection and won in a competitive district.
Meanwhile, the incoherent #FARTUS still can’t explain the Iran War situation. This is from the AP. Nothing Trump says these days is coherent or grounded in reality. “Trump again threatens widespread destruction in Iran if a deal is not reached ‘shortly’.”
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday threatened widespread destruction of Iran’s energy resources and other vital infrastructure, potentially including desalination plants that supply drinking water, if a deal to end the war is not reached “shortly.”
Iran meanwhile struck a key water and electrical plant in Kuwait, and an oil refinery in Israel came under attack. Israel and the U.S. launched a new wave of strikes on Iran, as the war raged with no end in sight.
Trump’s new threat came in a social media post. Earlier comments to the Financial Times suggested American troops could seize Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub. Trump has repeatedly claimed to be making diplomatic progress— though Tehran denies negotiating directly — while ramping up his threats and sending thousands more U.S. troops to the Middle East.
Trump told the New York Post that the U.S. is negotiating with Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. The former Revolutionary Guard commander, who has taunted the U.S. on social media, dismissed the talks facilitated by Pakistan as a cover for the latest American troop deployments.
In a social media post, Trump said “great progress is being made” in talks with Iran to end military operations. But he said if a deal is not reached “shortly,” and if the Strait of Hormuz is not immediately reopened, the U.S. would broaden its offensive by “completely obliterating” power plants, oil wells, Kharg Island and possibly even desalination plants.
The strait is a crucial waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime.
The laws of armed conflict allow attacks on civilian infrastructure such as energy plants only if the military advantage outweighs the civilian harm, legal scholars say. It’s considered a high bar to clear, and causing excessive suffering to civilians can constitute a war crime.
We might as well flip a coin on the decision that come from the White House. No matter what the toss portends, we all lose. What would we do without a day that racism comes into play. This is from what’s left of theWashington Post. “Trump officials cite white supremacists in bid to end birthright citizenship. An argument heading to the Supreme Court is built in part on a post-Civil War campaign that scholars say was steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism.” The link has been gifted.
Alexander Porter Morse, a Confederate officer during the Civil War and a Louisiana attorney, argued for legalized segregation inthe landmark 1896 Supreme Court case that established the “separate but equal” doctrine and buttressed Jim Crow laws.
He is again playing a key role in a monumental case to be argued before the justices Wednesday: The Trump administration has tapped Morse as an authority in its push to upend long-settled law that virtually everyone born in the United States is a citizen.
Over a century ago, Morse was among a trio of thinkers who spearheaded a failed effort — steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism — to erase birthright citizenship. The Trump administration is reviving their arguments to make its case today, some legal scholars say.
The administration is citing arguments “built on a racist foundation,” Justin Sadowsky, an attorney for the Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance (CALDA), wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief.
Lucy Salyer, a University of New Hampshire history professor who has written on Morse and others, said she was struck that the Trump administration had chosen to elevate those figures and their ideas: “If you know the history and the broader context of what they were trying to achieve, it does ring alarm bells.”
The case, which could redefine who is considered an American, centers on the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
When asked for comment about relying on Morse and his compatriots, the Trump administration pointed to a brief in which it wrote “this Court has repeatedly cited their work in other contexts.” Some legal scholars also argued their stance on birthright citizenship was shared by a number of prominent politicians who did not have racist views.
The Trump administration argues the 14th Amendment does not apply to people in the country illegally or on temporary visas. If the high court agrees, and reverses the long-held interpretation, it could render hundreds of thousands of children born to immigrant parents stateless.
And then, we find out more details about Trump and that 13-year-old girl at the Daily Beast. “Accuser, 13. More information given by the woman has been backed up.” This story is reported by Cameron Adams.
A new investigation has backed up evidence given by a woman who has accused Donald Trump of sexually abusing her when she was 13, according to a report.
The woman conducted four interviews with the FBI in 2019 in which she detailed alleged abuse by Trump and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Her interviews referencing Trump were initially withheld by the Department of Justice.
A report from South Carolina newspaper The Post and Courier released on Sunday has now corroborated key personal details given by the woman about a third man she claims also sexually assaulted her—named Jimmy Atkins. Those details are not directly related to her accusations against Trump, but suggest that she was truthful about other matters she raised with the FBI.
The White House has called the woman’s claims against Trump “completely baseless,” while the president has always denied any involvement in Epstein’s crimes.
The woman claimed Epstein started abusing her and trafficked her to several men when she was aged between 13 and 15. She had met Epstein after he responded to an advertisement for babysitting that her mother, a real estate agent in South Carolina, had given to her clients.
The Post and Courier report says Atkins moved to Hilton Head, South Carolina, in the mid-’80s and took over Harbour Realty and Rentals. That was where he met the teenage girl who would later claim to the FBI during interviews in 2019 that Atkins and Epstein assaulted her.
The Daily Beast is not disclosing the woman’s identity in accordance with its policy on sexual assault victims.
The Post and Courier scoured records to match the woman’s testimony of Atkins’ affiliation with a college in Ohio, as well as his age, hair color, physical appearance, and his employment in Hilton Head.
Today, I’m hoping that all those No Kings protests really got into what’s left of Orange Caligula’s brain.
What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action lists today?
And I’m definitely with Snoopy on this:
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Springsteen: Well, this past winter federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis. They picked the wrong city. Your strength and your commitment told us that this is still America. And this reactionary nightmare and these invasions of American cities will not stand.
Millions are expected to gather across the country and around the world on Saturday for a third round of “No Kings” protests against President Donald Trump. Organizers predict that it will be the “single largest non-violent day of action” in American history.
Saturday’s “No Kings” marches, of which there are more than 3,200 planned across all 50 states and several continents, come as Trump faces increasing scrutiny over the war with Iran, the rising cost of gas and how his administration has executed its mass deportation agenda.
“Since the last No Kings [protests], we’re seeing higher gas prices and groceries, all while there’s an illegal war in Iran,” Sarah Parker, a national coordinator for the group 50501, told reporters Thursday on a national press call previewing Saturday’s events.
“We’ve also seen our neighbors executed, American citizens executed, and our children carrying the burden of owning their own power and walking out of school in defiance,” Parker added. “The people of America are pissed. They are the ones demanding for no kings.”
A national NBC News poll from earlier this month found that majorities of registered voters in the U.S. disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration, Iran and inflation and the cost of living.
Saturday’s nationwide demonstration was planned in the wake of the deaths of two Americans — Alex Pretti and Renee Good — in January in Minnesota at the hands of federal agents. Immigration officers were deployed to the state to carry out mass deportations and faced scrutiny over their brutal tactics toward immigrants and protesters.
Organizers, who hail from left-leaning groups including Indivisible, Public Citizen, MoveOn, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Action Network, expect the third No Kings day of protest to be far larger than the first two. More than 7 million people rallied across the country and around the world during October’s No Kings day of action.
Thousands of Americans plan to gather on Saturday for No Kings protests across the country. They have a simple message: People are tired of a government that protects the powerful and abandons ordinary Americans.
They are tired of fighting costly and illegal overseas wars while we face an affordability crisis at home. They are horrified by the Trump administration’s cover-up of the Epstein files and the lack of accountability for the rich and powerful who crossed lines. And they are sick of Immigration and Customs Enforcement terrorizing our communities.
By Rebecca Aldernet
As more Americans are sent to fight abroad and the survivors of abuse are silenced at home, people increasingly feel dispensable….
For too long, Americans have seen our leaders fight harder for the Epstein class than for the working class. They have watched our system shield elites instead of delivering fundamentals such as affordable health care, housing and education.
The fight to release the Epstein files exposed not only a broken justice system, but also a deep economic and moral divide.
Jeffrey Epstein built a network of elite and powerful individuals, some of whom believed they could abuse young girls and women — many from working-class backgrounds — without consequences. Many survivors of Epstein’s abuses have courageously spoken out, and over the past year, sparked a moral reckoning in our country. They have exposed a two-tier system of justice that protects the wealthy and powerful and fails those who have been abused.
The administration’s failure to hold accountable those involved in Epstein’s abuses has fueled deep distrust in our government and its ability to deliver for the public good.
Will the protests change anything? Former mainstream journalist and novelist Alissa Valdez-Rodriguez did some historical research on the effects of peaceful protests and reports the results at her Substack Alisa Writes:
Let me start by saying I, like the great Karl Pilkington, hate anything that reeks of “forced fun.” I’m not a joiner. I never had school spirit. I don’t enjoy parades. My idea of hell is karaoke night with coworkers. Come to think of it, my idea of hell might just be coworkers, period. The farther I am from people and, worse, crowds of people united in their quest to All Be Doing Something The Same Way, the happier I am.
But today, like tens of thousands of other cerebral introverts who’d rather be reading in a hammock, I’m lacing up my sneakers, picking up a handmade sign, and throwing myself into a throng of People Who Are Just Fucking Done With This Shit, as I attend one of the 29 No Kings protests scheduled here in New Mexico. I will need days and days in the forest to recover.
I’m going because it’s important. I didn’t used to think it was. I was one of those cynics who’d ask: Does protest actually do anything? But rather than just assume the worst, I decided to do what I always do, and research the answer before spewing an opinion. Imagine my surprise when I was proven wrong by, you know, facts.
Massive nonviolent protest works.
It works a lot better than armed protest.
Really?
In 2011, Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth published what became one of the most cited works in the study of political change. She had started her research expecting to prove the opposite — that armed resistance was more effective than nonviolent campaigns. The results upended everything she thought she knew. According to Chenoweth and her co-author Maria Stephan, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. Their dataset of 323 major campaigns showed that 53 percent of nonviolent campaigns succeeded — against just 26 percent of violent revolutions.
Chenoweth also found a threshold, what she called the 3.5 percent rule: every movement that mobilized at least 3.5 percent of a country’s population was uniformly successful. In the United States today, that number is roughly 11.5 million people. The No Kings movement is moving in that direction, faster than most movements in American history.
The question isn’t whether protest works. The question is whether we have the patience and the creativity to see it through. And as we’re facing what amounts to a rising fascist dictatorship backed by American intelligence operations, it might make sense to see how some of our hemispheric neighbors have handled something similar in the past.
Read details about the research at the link above. There’s no paywall.
Here’s a little humorous protest someone pulled off yesterday:
On Wednesday, the first lady kicked off a “Fostering the Future Together” summit at the White House with a humanoid robot called Figure 03 that greeted the assembled spouses of world leaders in 11 languages. As the robot loped awkwardly, the first lady walked beside it with a deliberate, poised foot-over-foot gait that brought to mind her past as a model.
By Suzanne Stewart
The Style section wanted tofind out what designers one wears when hosting the “first American-made humanoid guest in the White House.” So we called the White House.
But as the phone rang, the name on thescreen attached to the number read “Epstein Island.”
It was not a wrong number. That’s what the phone displayed when some Washington Post journalists called the White House switchboard.
Those who saw “Epstein Island” were using Android phones from Google’s Pixel brand. Calling the White House from iPhones did not show a name on the screen.
After The Post notified Google about the on-screen naming, company spokesman Matthew Flegal said Google identified what he referred to as a “fake edit” in Google Maps that was “briefly” picked up in the call identification feature of some Android phones.
Flegal said that the company reversed the edit. He said it violated Google’s policies, and that the user responsible was blocked from making further edits.
Hahaha!
Unfortunately, Trump’s war in Iran continues and he still has no idea what he’s doing. He’s also bored with the war, according to White House insiders. Based on his recent idiotic Cabinet meeting, he’s much more interested in his ballroom, wrecking the Kennedy Center, and rambling about sharpies than focusing on the war he started.
It’s been less than a month, and President Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran has unleashed a cascade of consequences for countless human lives and the globaleconomy that are far from resolved—but he is reportedly getting tired of the illegal war he started.
MS NOW reported on Friday that White House sources believe that Trump is “getting a little bored” with the Iran war and “wants to move on” to other initiatives.
MS NOW’s report on Trump’s feelings about the war was echoed by The Wall Street Journal, which on Thursday reported that the president has told associates that he wants to wrap up the war in the coming weeks and avoid a protracted conflict.
The problem, sources told both MS NOW and the Journal, is that there is no simple way to wrap up the conflict given that Iran is continuing to block passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which is sending global energy costs spiking.
And while Trump has shown the ability to simply lie about his achievements in the past and have his supporters believe them, one former Trump official told MS NOW that just won’t work if Americans keep paying $4 per gallon of gas.
Trump has been sending idiotic mixed messages about the war since the beginning. Because he’s a demented idiot, although the mainstream media won’t come out and say that.
President Trump was fresh off the golf course, and his fury was building.
It was March 21, and as he settled back into his Mar-a-Lago estate for the evening, he was reading another news account about how, for all the military success the United States had in Iran, he had yet to achieve his political objectives.
Otar Imerlishvili, The Girl with the Book
At 7:44 p.m., the president made his frustration known with an extraordinary ultimatum: If Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours and allow much of the world’s oil and gas to flow through, he would bomb Iran’s civilian electric power plants. It was the kind of attack that could constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
But just hours before the Monday deadline expired, Mr. Trump delayed his threat by five days, easing fears of an imminent escalation with profound military, diplomatic and economic implications.
Still, he warned that “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out” if Iran would not make a deal, and as the week progressed he made new threats that left allies off balance and spooked the markets. So on Thursday afternoon, after stocks on Wall Street suffered their largest daily decline since the start of the war, he added another 10 days to the clock, again seeking to ease the fears ignited by his own hard-line positions.
“Bombing our little hearts out.” Can you imagine FDR saying that?
It is too soon to know whether the extra time will result in productive diplomacy. But it is already clear that Mr. Trump’s wild swings — from optimism to frustration and anger, from de-escalation to escalation — have combined to give his management of the war an erratic, make-it-up-as-it goes feel.
Ever since the United States, alongside Israel, launched the war on Feb. 28, Mr. Trump has vacillated between chest-thumping about U.S. military superiority and deep frustration that the tactical achievements on the battlefield did not seem to be producing the strategic outcome he predicted.
Although the supreme leader and many top military and intelligence leaders have been killed, the regime in Tehran remains in control. Iran’s leaders have all but sealed off the Strait of Hormuz, sending gas prices skyrocketing and rattling investors. And Iran retains control of the material it would need to produce a nuclear weapon, the main threat cited by Mr. Trump in taking the nation into the war in the first place.
Mr. Trump has said he understands there will be short-term pain from the war, which he accepts as a necessary price to ensure that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And the president’s allies have always said that his unpredictability is his superpower, and that it keeps his enemies guessing.
Really? I don’t think it’s working.
Here’s something that might interest Trump more than his “boring” but lethal war.
President Trump is prioritizing taking control of the Strait of Hormuz as he grows frustrated with the lack of help from allies to force open the crucial waterway. And once Trump ends Iran’s reign of terror over the shipping route, he’s considering rechristening it the “Strait of America” or even naming it after himself, sources told The Post.
“We are taking the Strait back. It’s guaranteed, and they will never blackmail us on that strait,” one senior administration official said. “You can take it to the bank.”
By Olga Samarina
While Trump said Iran is virtually decimated and wants to make a deal, he wants to finish the job in the Middle East — including ensuring Iran can no longer stop shipping and claim authority over the Strait of Hormuz.
“He does believe that if we’re going to guard it, if we’re going to take care of it, if we’re going to police it, if we’re going to ensure free safety through it that, why should we call it that [Hormuz]?” the senior official said.
“Why don’t we call it, you know, the Strait of America?”
Trump told a Saudi investor forum Friday evening in Miami that he might decide to call the Strait after himself, rather than America.
“They have to open up the Strait of Trump — I mean Hormuz,” Trump said….
The name of the energy bottleneck on the southern coast of Iran is linked to the medieval Kingdom of Hormuz, whose own name is theorized to derive from the Persian word Hur-Mogh, meaning “Place of Dates,” or the name of the Zoroastrian God of light Ahura Mazda.
The long-gone emirate, which became a vassal of the Portuguese maritime empire in the 1500s, controlled Hormuz Island, a salt dome smaller than Manhattan, past which about a fifth of global oil exports flowed before the war.
The renaming concept gained traction by unlikely means — after an image of an apparently phony Truth Social post purportedly authored by the president showed a map of the strait with the new name.
I’m making myself sick with this stuff.
Finally, I’ve avoided focusing on the war itself–because it’s Caturday and No Kings Day, and I don’t want to get any more depressed than I already am. But here is the latest from the war:
At least 15 U.S. service members were wounded Friday in an Iranian strike on a Saudi air base that hosts American troops, according to the Associated Press, including at least five in serious condition. The missile and drone strikes targeted Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air base, located outside the capital Riyadh.
A U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told NPR that some aircraft were apparently damaged as well.
Iran released Chinese satellite photos of what they say are burning aircraft at the base. It said one of the tankers, which refuel fighter jets in the air, was destroyed and three others damaged.
The Middle East conflict escalated sharply overnight, as the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched their first missile toward Israel since the war began and Tehran attacked a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia.
The strike followed days of signaling from the Houthis that they were preparing to enter the conflict, raising renewed concerns about the security of the Red Sea shipping corridor, vital for global trade already disrupted by previous attacks….
In a video statement on Saturday, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the rebels’ attacks targeted “sensitive Israeli military positions” and came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.” He indicated that strikes would continue.
Authorities in Abu Dhabi said falling debris from a missile interception injured six people. The United Arab Emirates said its forces were intercepting missile and drone attacks from Iran.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told G7 foreign ministers on Friday that the war with Iran will continue for another two to four weeks, three sources with direct knowledge tell Axios.
Why it matters: This is the first time a senior U.S. official suggested the war would continue beyond the four to six-week timeframe President Trump has discussed since the war started.
Rubio also claimed during Friday’s meeting in France that the U.S. was close to holding serious negotiations with Iran. At the same time, thousands more troops are heading to the region and the administration is considering escalatory options that would involve ground forces.
Rubio stressed that the U.S. is determined to achieve all of its objectives in the war.
Inside the room: Rubio told his G7 counterparts that the U.S. is still communicating with Iran through mediators, rather than directly, the three sources said.
He said there is uncertainty about who is actually making the decisions in Tehran at the moment.
Rubio added that there are two Iranian officials who want to hold negotiations with the U.S., but they need approval from the top leadership.
Rubio said it’s hard for the mediators to communicate with Iranian officials because they are staying away from their phones out of fear they will be located and assassinated. That has slowed the pace of communications, Rubio said, according to the sources.
Zoom in: One of the sources said Rubio stressed the U.S. doesn’t need G7 countries to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but wants its allies to join a maritime task force to police the strait after the war is over.
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
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“One thing really stands out about trump’s latest Cabinet Love Fest, which can only be interpreted one way, he actually said something factual!” John Buss. @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
You don’t need to be a mental health expert to realize that something is very wrong with Orange Caligula’s brain. As usual, I didn’t watch or listen to his displays of dementia, narcissism, and stupidity because it’s its own form of torture. But I did see some cuts and takes on various social media outlets. I think it’s important to see just exactly how far his deterioration has gone and how that’s impacting policies that are extremely damaging for our country and the world.
The Guardian’s Andrew Feinberg reports the debacle this way. “‘Could only happen to Trump’: President hijacks Cabinet meeting to cry about lawsuits over his radical DC plans. President launches into extended stemwinder of grievances ranging from lawsuits over the Kennedy Center to the Justice Department’s failure to bring sham charges against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.”
President Donald Trump spent roughly 15 minutes of a cabinet meeting on Thursday complaining about a historic preservation group’s efforts to block him from shutting down the Kennedy Center for a purported preservation and grousing about the Justice Department being unable to prosecute the chairman of the Federal Reserve over their renovation.
The president was in the middle of a long soliloquy about fixing up the Washington, DC-based arts center — which was built in honor of assassinated President John F. Kennedy — when he began to claim the controversial renovation would be “under budget, ahead of schedule” and unfavorably compared the project to the long-running rehab of the nearly century-old Federal Reserve headquarters.
He quickly pivoted to airing a related grievance about the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a congressionally chartered nonprofit that has filed multiple lawsuits against his administration to block the construction of his planned White House ballroom after he ordered the historic East Wing reduced to rubble last fall.
“Everything I do, I get sued. Under budget, ahead of schedule, I get sued over a ballroom that’s going to be the most beautiful ballroom in the country … we get sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. They don’t know what they’re doing,” he said.
He also complained that he’d separately been facing litigation over the Kennedy Center project and suggested the lawsuit was only attributable to the center’s board — made up of loyalists he appointed after taking office and sacking the previous leadership — adding his name to the name of the organization.
“Then I just found out we got sued by that group and another group … I guess on the fixing up of again, I’ll use the old name Kennedy Center — it’s going to be beautiful when you add the name Trump,” he said.
“But we got sued, and all I’m doing is fixing it up. We’re fixing broken marble. We’re putting on a roof because it leaks like a sieve. We’re fixing steel that’s broken. Same building, same exact building we’re fixing. It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be so beautiful and safe … but think of it. I get sued because I’m fixing up the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re going to make it gorgeous and safe. We’re fixing new windows, do this, but just all fix up. I got sued by preservationists.”
“This could only happen to Trump,” he added.
The president eventually pivoted back to attacking the Federal Reserve renovation and the central bank’s chairman, Jerome Powell, with whom he has spent years feuding over Powell’s failure to keep interest rates low to help Republicans’ electoral prospects.
This PBS News headline shows the lies Trump’s spreading on the Iran War. “WATCH: Trump says in Cabinet meeting he doesn’t ‘know if we’re willing’ to make a deal with Iran.”
President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that Iran is “begging” to make a deal.
Watch in our video player above.
The president, speaking at the start of a Thursday Cabinet meeting, said he wanted to “set the record straight” that he isn’t the one pushing for a deal.
“They’re begging to make a deal, not me,” Trump said.
Iranian officials have denied that they’re negotiating with the U.S. as the war continues in its fourth week. Trump insisted they are.
“Anybody would know they’re talking,” he said. “They’re not fools, they’re very smart actually in a certain way. And they’re great negotiators. I say they’re lousy fighters but they’re great negotiators.”
What kind of crazy does it take to negotiate with this kind of language? Lousy fighters? Read more about the meeting at the link. People Magazinereports an incident that sounds like the sounds like the strawberry incident in The Caine Mutiny. “Trump Rambles About Sharpie Pens for 5 Straight Minutes During High-Level Cabinet Meeting amid Iran War. The president said he was sharing “a business story” near the end of his lengthy tangent.”
Donald Trump embarked on an unrelated and rambling story about Sharpie pens during a Cabinet meeting this week.
At one point, Trump broke into a story about his use of Sharpie-brand pens while discussing renovations that are ongoing at the Federal Reserve. He blasted the project as being unnecessarily expensive, saying that he could have done it for much less and that “it would be better” than the current project.
After blaming “incompetent people” in the government for “a lot of problems” currently affecting the United States, he picked up a Sharpie on the table and started his story.
“See this pen right here? This pen is an interesting example. It’s the same thing. So, this pen is very inexpensive, but it writes well. I like it. But I can’t have the pen the way it was. You know what it is; I don’t want to give too much publicity, but they do treat me well. Sharpie,” he said.
Trump said that when he came to the White House they had “$1,000 pens” [of a different brand] and that he’d often give them away to as many as 30 or 40 people while signing autographs.
“They were $1,000 a piece. Beautiful pen. Ballpoint. Thousand. It was gold, silver, gorgeous. But I’m handing them out to kids that don’t even know what they … ‘What’s this, mommy?’ These kids, they’re getting a pen for $1,000. They have no idea what it is,” he said, adding that he felt “guilty” that he wasn’t saving the government money.
On top of being expensive, the pens “had another problem,” he said. “They didn’t write well. So I take it out, and I sign and there’s no ink. And I’ve got all you people [the assembled press] looking, and you’re saying, ‘There must be something wrong with Trump.’ And I’m signing and there’s no ink the pen and it costs $1,000.”
Irritated by what he implied was government waste, he said that he reached out to Sharpie and said he’d “like to use your pen, but I can’t have a gray thing with a big ‘S’ on it.’ “
Meanwhile, what does it say when you’re base want’s you impeached?
CPAC speaker: How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings?Crowd: *cheers*CPAC speaker: No. That was the wrong answer. Let me try it again…
Lisa Needham, writing for Public Notice, asks this great question. “What do you do when you can’t trust the government? The haze of contradictions and confusion is a feature, not a bug.”
We’re a month into President Donald Trump’s increasingly disastrous Iran war, and we have no idea what’s really going on.
In part, that’s because Trump is now nothing but a creature of pure id surrounded by enablers, running the country like an enormous out-of-control toddler. But it’s also because the administration is not at all interested in providing the American people with objective, reliable information.
That erasure of truth leaves us unmoored.
Trump’s increasing instability was always going to lead to chaotic, contradictory statements about the war, blurting out whatever ideas have taken hold in the nest of spiders inside his head.
TRUMP: "This war has been won"TRUMP MINUTES LATER: "People don't like me using the word 'war,' so I won't"ALSO TRUMP DURING SAME EVENT: "They call it a war. I call it a military operation"
These constant reversals about what he plans to do next aren’t always random or delusional, but the sheer volume of Trumpian proclamations that seem divorced from reality does a terrific job of obscuring when something is deliberate.
That was the case at least until earlier this week, when Trump decided to use the Iran war to engage in a little light market manipulation. Well, some pretty hefty market manipulation, actually.
Heather Cox Richardson has some even more damning evidence at her SubStack.
In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Singapore’s minister for foreign affairs, Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, put in bald language the change in the world order instigated by President Donald J. Trump.
“For 80 years,” Balakrishnan explained, “the US was the underwriter for a system of globalisation based on UN Charter principles, multilateralism, territorial integrity, sovereign equality.” That system “heralded an unprecedented and unique period of global prosperity and peace. Of course there were exceptions. And of course, the Cold War was still in effect for at least half of the last 80 years. But generally, for those of us who were non-communists, who ran open economies, who provided first world infrastructure, together with a hardworking disciplined people, we had unprecedented opportunities.
“The story of Singapore, with a per capita GDP of 500 US dollars in 1965. Now, [it is] somewhere between 80,000 to 90,000 US dollars. It would not have happened if it had not been for this unprecedented period, basically Pax Americana and then turbocharged by the reform and opening of China for decades. It has been unprecedented. It has been great for many of us. In fact, I will say, for all of us, if you look back 80 years.
“But now, whether you like it or not, objectively, this period has ended…. Basically, the underwriter of this world order has now become a revisionist power, and some people would even say a disruptor. But the larger point is that the erosion of norms, processes, and institutions that underpinned a remarkable period of peace and prosperity; that foundation has gone.”
In its place, as scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder said to me in a YouTube conversation yesterday, Trump is aligning himself with international oligarchs like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), and China’s Xi Jinping. Because of his position as the president of the United States of America, this means he is aligning the United States of America with this oligarchical axis as well, abandoning the country’s democratic principles and traditional allies.
Our foreign policy was never pristine. All you have to do is look at the CIA during the post World War 2 years to see adventurism in South America, Africa, and Southeastern Asia to see that. However, we did assert some global leadership that created some stability, peace, and trade agreements. Now, all bets are off with us under Trump.
The craziness just continues and the disruption to what once was a mostly functioning democratic republic is obvious. How about this bit of narcissim? This is from today’s New York Times. “Trump’s Signature Is Set to Be Added to America’s Currency. President Trump is poised to be the first sitting president to have his signature appear on the U.S. dollar.”
Or just another story coming about some asshole cabinet member. This one from the head of the “Department of War.” It’s also from the New York Times. “Hegseth Strikes Two Black and Two Female Officers From Promotion List, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s highly unusual decision to remove officers from a one-star promotion list has spurred allegations of racial and gender bias.”
They’re rewriting the script on every value this country has held.
Well, I’m off to the long, wretched task of reworking my mortgage just so I can fix somethings on my house. As a person who has been a banker on all kinds of levels from the FED to a communithy bank I can tell you that I have never seen such a mess. I’m certain I have all this AI shit to thank for it. The documentation requirements are just unbelievable.
I hope your weekend goes well and that you can manage to stay above the news and the national fray.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Sweet Goddesses, I miss performaning this song in the Quarter. I need to go back to gigging. Anything’s better than teaching Economics in this damn environment.
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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.
Not exactly the stuff I was taught in Sunday School as a kid. Moving right along, how about the absolute things you never wanted to know about Kash Patel, ripped straight from his files by eager Iranian hackers? This bit of information is from 
There is some discussion in that article of what “moderates” might do which could be limited, imho, to they cave and/or then decide not to run for office again at best. At least current election polls show they’re on the run. They’re getting all their benefits and heading for the private sector. This is from 
Meanwhile, the incoherent #FARTUS still can’t explain the Iran War situation. 
We might as well flip a coin on the decision that come from the White House. No matter what the toss portends, we all lose. What would we do without a day that racism comes into play. This is from what’s left of the
And then, we find out more details about Trump and that 13-year-old girl at the 
This 
What kind of crazy does it take to negotiate with this kind of language? Lousy fighters? Read more about the meeting at the link. 
Heather Cox Richardson has some even more damning evidence at her
Our foreign policy was never pristine. All you have to do is look at the CIA during the post World War 2 years to see adventurism in South America, Africa, and Southeastern Asia to see that. However, we did assert some global leadership that created some stability, peace, and trade agreements. Now, all bets are off with us under Trump.
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