The Conversation -- April 22, 2025
Katie Robertson & David Enrich of the New York Times: “A federal jury on Tuesday ruled against Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and Republican vice-presidential nominee, in her yearslong defamation lawsuit against The New York Times. The jury reached the verdict after two hours of deliberations. Ms. Palin sued The Times in 2017 after the newspaper published — and then swiftly corrected and apologized for — an editorial that wrongly suggested she had incited a deadly shooting in Arizona years earlier. The case became a bellwether for battles over press freedoms and media bias in the Trump era, with Ms. Palin’s lawyers saying they hoped to use it to attack a decades-old Supreme Court precedent that makes it harder for public figures to sue news outlets for defamation. This is the second time a federal jury has concluded that The Times was not liable for defaming Ms. Palin in its editorial. The case first went to trial in 2022, and both the jury and the judge ruled in favor of The Times. But last year, a federal appeals court invalidated those decisions.... Outside the court after the verdict, Ms. Palin ... declined to say whether she would appeal the verdict.”
Michael Grynbaum & Benjamin Mullin of the New York Times: “CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of '60 Minutes,' Bill Owens, said that he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program, citing encroachments on his journalistic independence. In an extraordinary declaration, Mr. Owens — only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history — told his staff in a memo that 'over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for “60 Minutes,” right for the audience.'... '60 Minutes' has faced mounting pressure in recent months from both ... [Donald] Trump, who sued CBS for $10 billion and has accused the program of 'unlawful and illegal behavior,' and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News. Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is eager to secure the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance.... She has expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump’s case, which stems from what the president has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on '60 Minutes.'” ~~~
~~~ Marie: You think Sarah Palin had a crap case against the NYT? Hah! Trump case against "60 Minutes" is completely without merit.
Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: “A day after Harvard sued the Trump administration over its decision to freeze billions in federal funds to the school, more than 220 higher education leaders from around the country signed a joint statement on Tuesday condemning the administration’s efforts to control universities. The government’s 'political interference' and 'overreach' is “now endangering higher education in America,” they wrote. The signers come from a variety of colleges and universities from across the country, as well as higher education associations, illustrating the breadth of the threat they say President Trump poses to academia. Joining in the statement were officials from large public research universities like the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and smaller private colleges such as Amherst and Kenyon.” The statement, with signatories, is here.
I know you're busy, but Jimmy Kimmel does a good job of covering Trump & the Trumpettes: ~~~
Can one malevolent dictator really mess up the entire world economy? Yes, yes, he can. ~~~
~~~ Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s trade war is expected to slow economic growth across the globe this year, in large part because his aggressive use of tariffs is likely to weigh heavily on the United States, the world’s largest economy. The economic projections were released on Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, in the wake of Mr. Trump’s decision to raise tariffs to levels not seen since the Great Depression. The president has imposed a 10 percent tariff on nearly all imports, along with punishing levies of at least 145 percent on Chinese goods that come into the United States. Mr. Trump also imposed what he calls 'reciprocal' tariffs on America’s largest trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, although he has paused those until July as his administration works to secure bilateral trade deals. Mr. Trump’s approach has created paralyzing uncertainty for U.S. companies that export products abroad or rely on foreign inputs for their goods, dampening output just as economies around the world were stabilizing after years of crippling inflation. China and Canada have already retaliated against Mr. Trump’s tariffs with their own trade barriers, and the European Union has said it is prepared to increase levies if the United States goes ahead with its planned 20 percent tax.”
Chris Megerian & Zeke Miller of the AP: “The infighting and backstabbing that plagued ... Donald Trump’s first term have returned as a threat to his second, with deepening fissures over trade, national security and questions of personal loyalty.” The reporters cite a number of examples of stupid.
Who needs a musty old State Department when you're planning to totally go it alone? ~~~
~~~ Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: “Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled a plan Tuesday to significantly reorganize the State Department, saying the redesign would reverse 'decades of bloat and bureaucracy' within the agency.... The effort targets some human rights programs and others focused on war crimes and democracy, according to internal documents shared with The Washington Post.... At least some of the envisioned reforms and cuts would probably require lawmakers’ consent, as they involve directives that have been mandated by Congress.” At 11:30 am ET, this is a developing story.
Courtney Kube & Gordon Lubold of NBC News: "Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The material Kurilla sent included details about when U.S. fighters would take off and when they would hit their targets — details that could, if they fell into the wrong hands, put the pilots of those fighters in grave danger. But he was doing exactly what he was supposed to: providing Hegseth, his superior, with information he needed to know and using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and classified information. But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app....
"The sequence of events ... could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified. In all..., less than 10 minutes elapsed between Kurilla’s giving Hegseth the information and Hegseth’s sending it to the two group chats, one of which included other Cabinet-level officials and their designees — and, inadvertently, the editor of The Atlantic magazine. The other group included Hegseth’s wife, his brother, his attorney and some of his aides." Update. The New York Times has a related story here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: We know Drunk Pete rushed out the top-secret stuff to friends & family to show off what a powerful guy he was. But that's an indication that he doesn't even know how to properly show off his new importance. Now, if I wanted to show off my secret for-my-eyes-only knowledge, I would boast, "Have to go. Just got top-secret info only I can address. Can't tell even youse guys what it is. I mean, it's super-duper top secret! Later, dudes!"
Where Is Ricardo Prada? ICE “Disappears” a Man. Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: “In late January, Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a Venezuelan immigrant working in a delivery job in Detroit, picked up an order at a McDonald’s. He was heading to the address when he erroneously turned onto the Ambassador Bridge, which leads to Canada. It is a common mistake.... But for Mr. Prada, 32, it proved fateful. The U.S. authorities took Mr. Prada into custody when he attempted to re-enter the country; he was put in detention and ordered deported. On March 15, he told a friend in Chicago that he was among a number of detainees housed in Texas who expected to be repatriated to Venezuela. That evening, the Trump administration flew three planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from the Texas facility to El Salvador, where they have been ever since, locked up in a maximum-security prison.... Mr. Prada has not been heard from or seen. He is not on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities.... 'He has simply disappeared,' said Javier, a friend in Chicago....
“Mr. Prada’s disappearance has created concerns that more immigrants have been deported to El Salvador than previously known. It also raises the question of whether some deportees may have been sent to other countries with no record of it. The U.S. authorities have confirmed that he was removed from the United States. But to where?”
The New York Times is live-updating developments in the Vatican in the wake of Pope Francis' death Monday.
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Say It Ain't So, Lee. Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: “The Trump administration is set to cancel tens of millions of dollars in grants to scientists studying environmental hazards faced by children in rural America, among other health issues, according to internal emails written by senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency. The planned cancellation of the research grants, which were awarded to scientists outside the agency, comes as ... [Donald] Trump continues to dismantle some of the E.P.A.’s core functions. The grants are designed to address a range of issues, including improving the health of children in rural America who have been exposed to pesticides from agriculture and other pollution; reducing exposure to wildfire smoke; and preventing “forever chemicals” from contaminating the food supply. An email sent by Dan Coogan, a deputy assistant administrator at the E.P.A., on April 15, and seen by The New York Times, said the agency leadership was directing staff to cancel all pending and active grants across a number of key programs, including Science to Achieve Results, known as STAR.” ~~~
~~~ Nevermind. Lee Lies. Lauren Irwin of the Hill (April 20): “Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin said he can 'absolutely' assure the public that the various deregulation efforts undergone by the agency will not harm the environment.... Environmentalists have sounded the alarm over the administration’s plans, but Zeldin remained confident that the public and environment would not be negatively impacted.”
From a report by Jason Horowitz , et al., of the New York Times: “On Monday..., [Donald] Trump told reporters at the annual White House Easter egg roll that [Pope] Francis 'loved the world, and he especially loved people that were having a hard time — and that’s good with me.' But moments later, he railed against the 'millions and millions' of migrants who have entered the United States. He also said that he and his wife, Melania, planned to attend the pope’s funeral.”
Dippity-Doo-Dah. Danielle Kaye & Kevin Granville of the New York Times: “Stocks slumped, bonds sold off and the U.S. dollar continued to lose ground on Monday as ... [Donald] Trump renewed his attacks on Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, unnerving already-anxious investors who see the independence of the central bank as critical to the health of the American economy. Wall Street began the day with a slump, but the sell-off gained steam after Mr. Trump targeted Mr. Powell in a social media post, calling him “a major loser” and urging the Fed to cut interest rates. Mr. Trump also suggested that an economic slowdown would be Mr. Powell’s fault. After a late recovery, the S&P 500 dropped 2.4 percent for the day. All of the major sectors in the index fell, with the technology, energy and consumer discretionary sectors hardest hit.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Paul Krugman: “What we’re seeing now is ... looking more and more like a 'sudden stop.' That’s what happens when a country that has relied on large inflows of foreign capital loses the confidence of international investors. The inflow of money dries up — and the economic consequences are usually ugly. Trump inherited an economy in remarkably good shape.... But Trump wasted no time in squandering the hand he’d been given. It’s not just the destructive tariffs. It’s also the chaos, as policy zigzags wildly, and the craziness.... We have some big structural advantages that, say, Portugal in 2011 or Argentina in 2001 lacked. Above all, America’s foreign debt is overwhelmingly in dollars. This means that a plunging dollar won’t cause the domestic-currency value of our debt to explode.... And U.S. businesses and individuals have large overseas investments that will become more valuable in dollar terms as the dollar falls.... On the other hand, Portugal in 2011 or even Argentina in 2001 had mostly sane leadership. We don’t.” ~~~
~~~ Read on. Krugman cite Lauren Boebert for a laugh. It's kinda amazing that you don't even have to tell jokes about these MAGA morons. They provide their own jokes and punchlines.
Alex Galbraith of Salon: "In an essay for the New York Times called 'My Dinner With Adolf,' [Larry] David took [Bill] Maher to task for attempting to soften the image of a fascist strongman. While David never mentions the 'Real Time' host by name, the timing of the piece and its main character's need to hear out all sides past the point of ludicrousness make the target clear. David's fictional meeting with Adolf Hitler echoes many of the points that Maher has made in the days since he dined with Trump. Maher, a crochety liberal-leaning comic who has grown more crochety and less liberal as societal norms have passed him by, marvelled at the fact that he could make the commander-in-chief laugh." ~~~
~~~ Larry David's New York Times op-ed is here.
Trump has a very good reason that alleged criminals can't be tried before being deported. ~~~
~~~ Trump: Due Process Is Impossibly Time-consuming. Rebecca Beitsch & Brett Samuels of the Hill: Donald “Trump on Monday complained of being 'stymied at every turn' by the courts, arguing the administration can’t hold trials for migrants it plans to deport amid accusations they are gang members.... Trump ... claim[ed] it was 'not possible' to hold trials for all migrants the administration wishes to deport, though those in the U.S. regardless of immigration status are entitled to due process and many wish to contest allegations they are gang members. 'We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years,' Trump added in his Truth Social post. 'We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of Illegals we are sending out of the Country. Such a thing is not possible to do. What a ridiculous situation we are in.'” MB: Bear in mind that nobody got more due process than Trump himself, who time-consumed his way out of serious criminal charges.
Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump threw his support behind Pete Hegseth on Monday and said any concern over his defense secretary’s decision to share military attack plans in a Signal group chat was a 'waste of time.' Speaking to reporters on the White House’s South Lawn after the Easter Egg Roll, Mr. Trump said he had full confidence in Mr. Hegseth. 'He’s doing a great job — ask the Houthis how he’s doing,' the president said, referring to the rebel group in Yemen that the United States targeted in military strikes last month.... Mr. Hegseth ... lashed out at reporters and television crews as he attended the annual Easter Egg Roll with members of his family. He dismissed the Times article as one of many 'hit pieces'” that aired accusations from 'disgruntled former employees.' He said he had spoken to Mr. Trump and they were 'on the same page all the way.'... Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth spoke on the phone on Sunday night, a few hours after the Times article was published.... The president told Mr. Hegseth that disgruntled 'leakers' were to blame for the report and made clear that he had the defense secretary’s back. Mr. Trump then instructed his team to publicly defend Mr. Hegseth....”
~~~ Joe Gould, et al., of Politico: “... Donald Trump 'stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth,' press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday morning, defending the scandal-plagued Defense secretary against escalating criticism from Democrats and former senior officials. Hegseth 'is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon,' Leavitt said in a 'Fox & Friends' appearance. 'This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change you are trying to implement.' Her comments came a day after The New York Times reported that Hegseth shared sensitive information about military operations in Yemen in a private chat on the Signal app that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer — the second reported instance of the secretary sharing operational plans in an unclassified chat.... 'We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk,' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. 'But Trump is still too weak to fire him.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Rachel Bade of Politico: “Rep. Don Bacon, a prominent Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, became the first sitting GOP lawmaker Monday to suggest ... Donald Trump should fire Pete Hegseth — calling the chaos at the Pentagon one reason why many Hill Republicans were privately uneasy with the Defense secretary’s nomination in the first place.... The Nebraska lawmaker also said that while he didn’t feel it was his place to call on Hegseth to resign, he wouldn’t stand for Hegseth’s mismanagement were he the occupant of the Oval Office.... Bacon, a former Air Force general who now chairs of the subcommittee on cyber issues, said..., ''Russia and China put up thousands of people to monitor all these phone calls at the very top, and the No. 1 target besides the president … would be the secretary of Defense.... Russia and China are all over his phone, and for him to be putting secret stuff on his phone is not right. He’s acting like he’s above the law — and that shows an amateur person.'”
~~~ Greg Jaffe, et al., of the New York Times: “In just three months in office, Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has ... produced a run of chaos that is unmatched in the recent history of the Defense Department. Mr. Hegseth’s inner circle of close advisers — military veterans who, like him, had little experience running large, complex organizations — is in a shambles. Three members of the team he brought with him into the Pentagon were accused last week of leaking unauthorized information and escorted from the building. A fourth recently departed member of Mr. Hegseth’s team, John Ullyot, who had been his top spokesman, accused Mr. Hegseth of disloyalty and incompetence in an opinion essay in Politico on Sunday.... The discord ... includes: screaming matches in his inner office among aides; a growing distrust of the thousands of military and civilian personnel...; and bureaucratic logjams that have slowed down progress on some of ... [Donald] Trump’s key priorities.... Adding to the dysfunction, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has set a loose target of slashing as many as 200,000 jobs from the Pentagon’s civilian work force of 750,000, a level of cuts Mr. Hegseth has warned would cripple some critical functions within the department.... Meanwhile, recent media reports that Mr. Hegseth disclosed sensitive military information about upcoming strikes in Yemen in two private Signal group chats have led some in Congress to call for him to resign.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: And let's not forget that meeting Pete arranged to brief Elon on the military's secret war plans against China; even Trump knew enough to put the kibosh on that. ~~~
~~~ BUT. Tom Bowman & Quil Lawrence of NPR: "The White House has begun the process of looking for a new leader at the Pentagon to replace Pete Hegseth, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly."
Oh, Lordy, how can gun-totin' Kristi keep us secure when she can't even secure her own handbag stuffed with cash? ~~~
~~~ Erin Doherty of CNBC: "A thief stole Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s purse while she was dining at a restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C., on Sunday night, two law enforcement sources confirmed to CNBC. Noem’s bag contained roughly $3,000 in cash, which she had withdrawn to treat her family to dinner and Easter gifts and activities, a DHS spokesperson said Monday. The bag also contained Noem’s passport, makeup, blank checks, her driver’s license, keys and medication, according to CNN, which first reported the theft. The U.S. Secret Service has reviewed security footage that shows an unidentified white male, who wore a medical mask, snatching the bag, CNN reported." The New York Times report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Akhilleus has a theory: "And who walks around with $3,000 in cash and keeps their passport in a pocketbook? Sounds more like someone’s making a run for it." ~~~
~~~ Luckily, before Kristi could execute her plan to go on the lam, she took the time to try to rid us of this dangerous woman -- a Pennsylvania-born Connecticult doctor and U.S. citizen -- to get out or ICE would send her off to a foreign country of their choice: ~~~
Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: “The American Civil Liberties Union asked the Supreme Court on Monday to broaden its extraordinary weekend order that temporarily blocked the Trump administration from using a wartime power to deport dozens of alleged gang members detained in Texas. Lawyers for the Venezuelan migrants say the Trump administration is not complying with an earlier Supreme Court directive to provide detainees with a real opportunity to challenge their planned deportations to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador. They want the Supreme Court to take up the broader question of whether the Trump administration can lawfully invoke the Alien Enemies Act when they say the United States is not actually at war with the targeted Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: “A state judge [-- Justice Mary Rosado of State Supreme Court --] temporarily blocked Mayor Eric Adams on Monday from allowing the federal government to open offices at the Rikers Island jail complex, delaying the mayor’s efforts to help ... [Donald] Trump with his immigration crackdown. The judge’s temporary restraining order came after the City Council sued the mayor last week in an attempt to stop an executive order that the Adams administration issued to allow federal immigration authorities into Rikers for the first time in more than a decade.”
Anvee Bhutani of the New York Times: “About 10 demonstrators chained themselves to Columbia University’s campus gates at 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in New York on Monday afternoon, protesting the detention of two Palestinian student activists by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. They were part of a larger contingent that sat down outside the gate. The protest followed the detention last week of Mohsen Mahdawi, who is finishing undergraduate studies in philosophy at Columbia.... Mr. Mahdawi was taken into ICE custody during his naturalization appointment in Vermont. Federal immigration officials detained Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs, last month. Both were organizers of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia. Demonstrators on Monday called for the immediate release of Mr. Mahdawi and Mr. Khalil.... A Columbia spokesperson said Monday that the university was 'monitoring a disruption' and that its public safety officers had cut the locks of about 10 demonstrators.... The New York Police Department said Monday evening that an unspecified number of people had been taken into custody and were being processed.”
Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: “The Department of Homeland Security denied Mahmoud Khalil permission to attend the birth of his first child, who was delivered at a New York hospital on Monday.... Instead, Mr. Khalil experienced the birth by telephone from Jena, La., more than 1,000 miles from the hospital where his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, gave birth to a son.”
The Fix Was In. It Always Was In. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: “The independent government agency charged with protecting federal workers’ rights will drop its inquiry into the more than 2,000 complaints that the Trump administration had improperly fired probationary employees, according to emailed notices received by five workers and reviewed by The New York Times. The agency, the Office of Special Counsel, told affected employees that it had concluded that it could not pursue the claims of unlawful termination in part because they were fired not for individual cause, but en masse as part of ... [Donald] Trump’s 'governmentwide effort to reduce the federal service.' The decision effectively eliminates one of the few avenues government employees had to challenge their terminations. It comes as Mr. Trump has forced out the office’s leader and replaced him for now with a loyal member of his cabinet, Doug Collins, the secretary of veterans affairs.... Experts in federal employment law said the justifications to end the investigations were baffling at best.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: An independent agency, my foot. The first employees should sue the administration for (a) being fired, and (b) denying them a mandated means of redress. Speaking of lawsuits: ~~~
~~~ Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: “Harvard, the world’s wealthiest university, sued the Trump administration on Monday, fighting back against its threats to slash billions of dollars from the school’s research funding as part of a crusade against the nation’s top colleges.... The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, accuses the government of unleashing a broad attack as 'leverage to gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard.' It also references other major universities that have faced abrupt funding cuts. The lawsuit names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary; Linda M. McMahon, the education secretary; Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the General Services Administration; Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi; and several other administration officials.” (Also linked yesterday.) The AP's story is here.
Guns 4 Kidz. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “The Supreme Court on Monday turned down an opportunity to weigh in on whether the government may restrict 18- to 20-year-olds from buying or carrying guns, a question that has divided the lower courts. The case concerned a Minnesota law that makes it a crime for people under 21 to carry guns in public. Last year, the Eighth Circuit struck down the law, ruling that the Second Amendment required letting those as young as 18 be armed. 'The Second Amendment’s plain text does not have an age limit,' wrote Judge Duane Benton, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.” (Also linked yesterday.)
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New Jersey. Tracey Tully of the New York Times: “Nadine Menendez was convicted on Monday of participating in a complex bribery conspiracy with her husband, Robert Menendez, a former senator from New Jersey who last year was also found guilty of trading his political influence for gold, cash and a Mercedes-Benz convertible. A Manhattan jury deliberated for roughly seven hours over two days before finding Ms. Menendez, 58, guilty of playing a central role in the yearslong bribery scheme and then trying to hide it after learning that she was a focus of a federal investigation. The judge, Sidney H. Stein of U.S. District Court, set a sentencing date of June 12 for Ms. Menendez, who faces a lengthy prison term. Ms. Menendez was indicted in September 2023 on bribery charges with her husband, but her trial was delayed for months so that she could be treated for breast cancer.”
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Reader Comments (23)
Okay kids, here’s a chin scratcher for you.
See if you can guess which absolutely abominable MAGA freak applauded the death of the Pope and called him EVIL??
You guessed MTG? Well, that wasn’t very hard after all, was it?
Speaking of actual evil, MAGA evil is way up there. The Pope cared for the poor and taught that everyone, including immigrants, should be treated with decency and respect.
Oh, geez! That’s a funny hat too far for the followers of Jesus Trump who preaches “And should your brother or sister of little babies seek shelter from gangs trying to murder them, just looking for a place to live quietly, work, have some kind of life, take them by the hand and toss them, bodily, into a moat full of poisonous snakes and alligators, where they may be eaten alive, and barring that, shoot them in the legs so they cannot run and can be easily captured and sent back to be tortured, killed, or trafficked. So says the Lard.”
Applauds the death of the Pope. She is next level disgusting.
No sooner did I post that about the abominable MTG, thinking, rather dimly, that she might be an outlier, I came across proof that cheering the death of the Pope is a regular thing for the MAGA monsters.
This is sickening:
“He died not in peace, but in fear, because he served Satan.
Good riddance. The world is a slightly better place without him.
****
Truer words have not been spoken.He served the Devil completely.
****
The communist Pope has left the stage!
****
To rot in Hell.”
It gets worse.
Seriously, what kind of human being sees someone like this Pope and thinks he should rot in hell because he doesn’t share their pathological hatreds?
No wonder they love Hitler. The old one and the new one. And if you can credit the fat one with anything, it’s his ability to mainstream such horrific hatred, to make it cool to hate, to make hate a necessary quality for MAGA membership, and to make it the number one reason he’s so popular with these disgusting examples of inhumanity.
Test, test, test…
To Do List
About that Article 5
Expect to see Boris and Natasha (thanks, Ken), aka Fatty and Melanie, elbow their way past actual world leaders, assorted cardinals, Vatican officials and members of the Holy See to the front row at the Pope’s funeral, which is, let’s be honest, just another junket and photo op for these two opportunistic grifters.
404 Media
"This ‘College Protester’ Isn’t Real. It’s an AI-Powered Undercover Bot for Cops
Massive Blue is helping cops deploy AI-powered social media bots to talk to people they suspect are anything from violent sex criminals all the way to vaguely defined “protesters.”
American police departments near the United States-Mexico border are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for an unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected drug and human traffickers, according to internal documents, contracts, and communications 404 Media obtained via public records requests."
And while we’re on the subject of horrible avatars of MAGA hatred, I give you the Doyen of Disgust, the Sultan of Slime, the Village Headman of Hatred, the Poobah of Repugnance, the Kahuna of Calamity, the Odin of Ossified Odium, the one—but not the only (god help us)—Stephen Pig Sucking Miller.
There’s been a lot of discussion about the lack of due process for the growing multitude being swept up with no criminal charges and whisked out of the country with not so much as ghostly image of due process. As Fat Hitler sez, “We can’t try them all!” (to which the Constitution says “Tough noogies, numb nuts, that’s the law”).
But here’s what the Dung Heap Nabob sez:
The poor J6 patriots got NO DUE PROCESS AT ALL! None of them got the due process afforded illegal aliens!!! Aieeee!!
Except…
“Every single January 6th defendant got full due process. Only the most violent people who assaulted police officers weren’t released pending trial. They had lawyers and access to all the evidence. Those who chose to plead innocent had full trials by jury and were allowed to present evidence at their sentencing. None of them were abducted off the street with no notice, sent to secret detention and shipped off to foreign gulag never to be seen again.”
They just make shit up. And crap like this shoots through the MAGA media system like mainlined heroin.
The reason that some of the January 6th insurrectionists were still awaiting their day in court 4 years later was because of that pesky due process issue. And every single one of the terrorists were allowed their day in court. It is one of the reasons that it took so long for Donald to get his own day in court since Garland decided to prosecute the foot soldiers before the leadership. And the limited resources available to prosecute and hold thousands of trials with individual evidence for each stretched the DOJ and justice system thin. And that was before the random mass firings and hiring freezes all over the government.
"See boys, Jesus wasn't the only one who got resurrected."
Celebrating Easter
"U.S. President Donald Trump holds a collectors card depicting the assassination attempt during the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 21, 2025 in Washington, DC."
@RAS: The Dan Aykroyd character Elwood would say, "I'm on a mission from God," that mission being the central plot of the movie "The Blues Brothers": Elwood & Jake are on a quest to get the Blues Brothers Band back together.
Of course all that was a big running joke. But Trump thinks the same thing, that he's on a mission from God. He doesn't seem to know just what that mission is, or perhaps he just changes it from day to day on whatever whim motivates his morning comb-over.
The "proof" of his mission is that he barely missed a bullet and whatever that "miracle" (I doubt the family of the man who was killed in the incident thinks it was a miracle) promised, it definitely involves Trump's being "the Anointed One" and probably never leaving the White House voluntarily.
It's sad when the POTUS* is dumber than Elwood. At least Elwood knew what his mission was. And he completed it.
Fatty shows little kids a picture of him being shot.
A regular Mr. Rogers. Such a way with kids. No wonder his are such monsters.
A big thank you to Larry David for puncturing that unctuous, self-satisfied gasbag Bill Maher.
I don’t have HBO so I can’t watch his show (luckily, since screaming at the TV is not good for one’s heart), but I get plenty whiffs of Maher’s smug superiority all over the internet. As Marie pointed out recently, when you start getting “Attaboys” from Trump, you’ve made a serious wrong turn somewhere. Likewise when creatures of the night on Fox start replaying your comments with glowing reviews, your Kool-Aid ingestion has brought on toxic shock.
You know what? I’m sorry, but with these evil pieces of shit there is no “on the other hand”, or “maybe they have a point”.
No. Both Sides is the same as saying MAGA forever.
This is not saying that the anti-MAGA forces never do or say something silly, or wrong, but to hold up those foibles now, in this climate, as some kind of proof that the MAGAts are right, and to congratulate yourself on your own magisterial impartiality puts you at the front of the line for the Axis Sally-Lord Haw-Haw Medal.
Congratulations, Bill. Here’s your very own swastika flag. Now go away.
@Akhilleus: I hate to tell you, but if you have CNN, you can catch Maher on Saturday nights on CNN. I've never watched. Don't intend to ever watch.
Marie,
My cardiologist says ixnay on illbay. But thanks.
Maher mentioned in his Dear Leader screed that his dear friend Kid Rock had helped set up the set up with Fat Hitler. And the coward that Bill is he had Pierce Morgan and Steve Bannon booked on his show that night to protect him from his delicate sensibilities being called into question. And right after FH was openly talking about throwing the home grown supposed criminals in the Salvadoran gulag. But Bill was impressed that FH didn't throw any ketchup while dining with a bunch of rich white guys that like to use the n word. Maher likes to use big words, but he has a small mind.
RAS,
It’s sad when someone runs out of steam because their sell-by date came and went five years ago.
When you have to start sleeping with the enemy (and in no possible universe could Fat Hitler and/or Steve Bannon be considered anything but, unless you also hate democracy, decency, morality, humanity, and the rule of law—Pierce Morgan is just a self obsessed wanker) to stretch out your faltering career, and pretend that ultra-calibrated “fairness” and gymnopaedic jumping jacks with felons will get you a few yucks, you’re all the way in the hole, that hole being the right-wing bung hole.
It’s not funny, it’s not “thoughtful engagement”, it’s not a higher order of political commentary, it’s chumming it up with soulless gangsters who would shiv you in the neck just for laughs.
I guess that would be funny.
I hadn't realized FH was so closely emulating AH's personal and political economic policies, but Timothy W. Ryback in The Atlantic describes
Hitler’s Terrible Tariffs
"From almost the moment Adolf Hitler took office as chancellor of Germany, tariffs were at the top of his government’s economic agenda. The agricultural sector’s demands for higher tariffs 'must be met,' Hitler’s economic minister, Alfred Hugenberg, declared on Wednesday, February 1, 1933, just over 48 hours into Hitler’s chancellorship, 'while at the same time preventing harm to industry.'
....
Hitler had what one might call a diffident, occasionally felonious disregard for financial matters. He owed 400,000 reichsmarks in back taxes. His understanding of economics was primitive. 'You have inflation only if you want it,' Hitler once said. 'Inflation is a lack of discipline. I will see to it that prices remain stable. I have my S.A. for that.'
And not to pound on a deceased nag, but the giveaway here is needing Kid fucking Rock to intercede for you with a rapist suffering from narcissistic dementia disorder. Did he wear his funky chicken suit when he approached the throne?
Laura,
Good point. I’m guessing that our Hitler is trying to get Jerome Powell to buy the other Hitler’s thinking on inflation just being a matter of mind over market. Fortunately for us, Mr. Powell studied actual economics, not the Nazi variety: “Bring prices down or it’s Auschwitz!”
Molly White describes herself as someone who "research[es] and write[s] critically about the cryptocurrency industry and technology more broadly in my independent publication, Citation Needed."
In her latest newsletter (recommened by Bulwark's Tim Miller) she goes into detail on the grifter's grifting activity.
Building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators
"In an unprecedented abuse of presidential power, Donald Trump is dismantling federal cryptocurrency oversight while building a sprawling family crypto empire worth billions.
....
Since Trump took office, federal agencies have issued a torrent of announcements stripping away long-established financial regulations and criminal oversight from crypto businesses — dismantling what little oversight existed in the already predatory and poorly regulated industry. As these guardrails fall, the Trump family has aggressively expanded their ventures, which now span nearly every corner of the cryptocurrency world.
....
The scope of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency conflicts illustrates a degree of corruption that makes the emoluments concerns of Trump’s first term seem quaint by comparison. Through his crypto ventures, Trump has created multiple avenues for personal enrichment: direct profits from cryptocurrency holdings and businesses, regulatory changes that boost his investments, potential insider trading, and opportunities for outside interests to buy favor through crypto “investments” that would be prohibited as campaign contributions. His dismantling of cryptocurrency oversight leaves consumers vulnerable to fraud and manipulation, while ensuring that neither he nor his benefactors will face meaningful scrutiny."
FMK: JD Vance edition.
On Your Own
"Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) pleaded with Trump to “reconsider” his denial of disaster relief after tornadoes hit Arkansas. Cotton joined the Arkansas delegation in writing a letter directly to Trump to support Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ request for funds.
On Friday, Sanders appealed the federal government’s denial in a letter telling Trump that her state was in “dire need of federal assistance.” However, Trump’s administration has refused to budge.
Cotton has a history of voting against disaster relief for other states. “I don’t think Arkansas needs to bail out the Northeast,” Cotton said in the aftermath of 2013’s Hurricane Sandy."