Dear Everybody:
Today, one of the people who writes Daily Kos’s Good News column said it was getting harder to write the columns because “there is a constant drumming of awful from that terrible, terrible man and the terrible, terrible men who surround and enable him. That’s certainly true today, with lots of awful:
One of the awful-est in an avalanche of awful is what Trump’s doing in Yosemite National Park:
–Trump plans to give a strip of land inside the national park to a private developer. The strip of land would provide private access from the park to a luxury resort. The access would run near an ancient sequoia grove.
–The Park Service would reserve land of equal value somewhere else inCalifornia.
–The National Parks Conservation Association said it strongly opposes the plan, and rightfully so. It sets a TERRIBLE precedent, and paves the way (sorry for the pun) to any number of developers. I’ll give you some forest if you’ll let me have Old Faithful, etc.
It’s not the only awful thing Trump’s doing, though:
–Trump is threatening to oppose the UK’s sovereignty over the Falklands if UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham doesn’t increase defense spending.
–Trump announced that they’ve taken control of 65 billion barrels of oil reserves in Venezuela, or, in other words, stole 65 billion barrels from them.
–Trump called journalist Maggie Haberman a scammer and “an unattractive person inside and out” for reporting on his refusing to go to New York for 9-11 because they won’t let him make a speech and said she is “a stalker” and that she should be forced to give him all the money she earns for reporting on him.
–Trump pushed the idea of “Freedom Fuel,” which sells for below cost and which he took full credit for. Now it develops that it was stolen. A company named KRSM acquired over 1 million gallons of fuel from a Sunoco terminal which cost $4 million dollars–and then never paid for it. There is currently a lawsuit demanding payment and charging them with fraud.
–Trump’s lawyers lied to the Supreme Court. They told the justices that the ballroom construction was 65% done, and therefore, it would be impossible to stop construction now. That was a flat-out lie. Lying to a court is a big deal. Lying to the Supreme Court is UNHEARD OF.
But the absolute awful-est has to be the announcement that the FBI has eased their vetting standards for new FBI agent recruits:
–The FBI previously automatically disqualified applicants who had frequented prostitutes, stolen from an employer, or engaged in bestiality. Yes, you heard me: BESTIALITY!!! According to the new standards, these are no longer automatic disqualifiers.
–The new standards are that they’ll still be considered if they’ve hired no more than 3 prostitutes and not within the past decade and if they only engaged in bestiality as a minor.
–The change in standards is supposedly because they are having trouble recruiting agents, (gosh, I wonder why?) although some people are suggesting this is a cover-your-ass move because they have already hired people with a history of frequenting prostitutes and or BESTIALITY, and they’re afraid that will come out.
–Tom Nichols: “Who the hell was the constituency for this?”
–Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel: “Kash Patel’s FBI, where bestiality is not a deal breaker.”
–Noelle Cook: “A promising new career path for far too many of you.”
–chidm252: “In the Trump cult, bestiality and pedophila are fine, I guess. Just don’t be trans. What a weird, weird time we are living in.”
In Canadian trade war/Lake America news:
–The Canadians don’t seem a bit intimidated by Trump’s threat to rename Lake Ontario. Ontario Premier Doug Ford: “This guy (Trump)’s a loser. He’s always gonna be a loser. It’s as simple as that. I have more courage and brains in my baby toe than he has in his entire body…I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so he has a lot of room to kiss my ass.”
–Governor Kathy Hochul of New York refused to change Lake Ontario’s name on any state documents, saying among other things that by changing the name, the mnemonic device for remembering the names of the Great Lakes (HOMES) would now be SHAME.
–Trump: “Governor Kathy Hochul is for Canada, a country that has been ripping off New York State for years, especially under her Administration, instead of the good old United States of America. Can you imagine her saying she won’t respect or acknowledge LAKE AMERICA?”
—Miles Taylor, on Canada standing its ground against Trump: “Trump’s victims are no longer coming to the negotiating table. They’re flipping the table over. The moment a target stands their ground, Trump starts to come apart. He over-corrects. He crashes the clown car into the median. And when it’s all said and done, he defeats himself.”
–Trump claims his trade war with Canada will help affordability.
–Trump’s tariffs on Canada have already cost Michigan $5,619 per household (higher than any other state. And he’s just getting started.)
–Trump: “I would say of all countries, Canada is the worst to deal with on trade.”
In the Iran War news:
–Trump and Hegseth have taken money earmarked for service member payrolls and moved it to cover war costs in Iran. A Pentagon memo just warned of shortfalls in payroll.
–Retired Navy official Harlan Ullman: “The piggy bank is broken.”
–This is in addition to the news that they have depleted the supply of defensive weapons and missiles so badly that our troops, Ukraine, and NATO troops don’t have enough weapons to defend themselves–and Russia and China both know it.
–Another former military officer said, “They’re fucked, they shot all their weapons, they trashed all their ships, they ran out of their money.”
–(Note: This should be an ENORMOUS scandal, especially in light of how they’re mistreating their sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln and other ships.)
–Instead, Trump is declaring “Mission Accomplished.” There has been lots of response to his declaration, none of it good:
–Ted Lieu: “This is the white flag of surrender by Trump. He’s not even trying anymore. He’s now simply declaring to his MAGA base Mission Accomplished in Iran.”
–Covie: “Was the mission to give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz and raise gas prices?”
–Josephus: “Strait of Hormuz control given to Iran? CHECK. Gas prices up 28%? CHECK. Missiles completely depleted? Yup! CHECK. Embarrassment on a global scale? DONE.”
In ICE news:
–Now ICE has arrested one of Trump’s former lackeys, Milo Yiannopolous, who credited himself with putting Trump in office in 2016, and is holding him in detention after arresting him at the airport in New Orleans. He had since turned on Trump, saying, “I lost everything helping to put Trump in office.”
–He’s a British far-right provocateur, and he has apparently overstayed his visa. ICE won’t say where he is being held.
–Milos was working for Kanye West, who is performing in New Orleans on Saturday.
–But here’s where it gets interesting. Apparently Laura Loomer, another Trump lackey, ratted him out to ICE and is behind his arrest. Loomer claims she reported Yiannopoulos to ICE and the FBI.
–Loomer announced her part in the arrest hours before the news of it broke: “I was the first person to report on the fact that Milo was in the US illegally where he incited violence against President Trump and worked for Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
–Loomer: “Milo is getting deported, but more importantly, Milo is getting LOOMERED. We asked for more deportations and ICE is delivering.”
–Before his arrest, Yiannopolous was online ranting that millions more needed to be deported and demanding that federal agents be allowed to deport anyone who could not prove legal status on the spot, but he has now changed his tune. (“How did I know the Leopard-Eating-Faces Party would eat my face?”)
–Milo: “If ICE has 90,000 employees, and all we are asking for is 10,000 deportations a day, that’s 9 agents per illegal. More than enough to cover investigation, apprehension, and removal. What are they all waiting for?”
–Milo: “I can’t wait for the vigilante squad to start gunning journalists down on sight.”
–He defended sex with underage girls.
–SomaSailor9: “The surest sign that MAGA is dead is the fact they are all turning on each other like starving wolves.”
–Mehdi Hasan posted a photo of Milos’s mugshot with the caption, “This guy once loved Trump so much he called him ‘Daddy.’”
–People had a hard time knowing how to feel about this. On the one hand, it was nice to see a Trumper get caught up in their own net. On the other hand, the idea that someone can have someone else deported (including someone with a high public profile) for purely personal reasons is terrifying. Very East German Stasi-esque.
–Update: Milo Yiannopolous has now been deported back to the United Kingdom.
In They’re Trying to Kill Us All news:
–In an interview this week, RFK, Jr. both downplayed and denied the measles deaths in Pennsylvania, calling them “so-called measles deaths” and saying, “In 10 years there have been 3 measles deaths in America. There are now about 1.2 million deaths every year from food-induced illness. The media and certain demagogic personalities are constantly trying to scare us about infectious diseases.”
–Sue Finn: “AND they were ALL while he’s in charge!”
–David Stone: “Isn’t he responsible for the recent outbreaks of food induced illnesses? What is this? Some sort of Jedi mind trick?”
–(Note: He had both the numbers of deaths from measles and food-borne illness deaths wrong. 5 people have died from the measles since he began implementing his anti-vaccine agenda, not 3, and if 1.2 million people had died from food-borne illnesses, that would be 1 in 300 Americans. This administration just makes up numbers.)
–RFK, Jr. also said, “Our soldiers are getting high-quality food for the first time in history.” (The sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln would have something to say about that, I think, after all the stories about inedible meals and lack of sufficient food.)
–In addition to the lettuce, popsicles, and jalapenos there are now recalls of frozen buffalo chicken wings, salsa and guacamole products, and two kinds of cat food–Shelter’s Choice and Breeder’s Edge Feline Milk Replacers.
–Trump has now announced that ranchers will be able to process their own cattle without any regulations or USDA oversight. (What could possibly go wrong?)
–And here’s what we’re up against: Jason Selvig of Comedy Central interviewed a MAGA woman who said, “I’m totally against all vaccines.” Jason: “All vaccines?” MAGA woman: “Absolutely. 100%. Every single one of them. They’re poison.” Jason: “What about the polio vaccine?” MAGA woman: “There hasn’t been a case of polio in how many years? Since 1960?” Jason: “Since the vaccine.” MAGA woman: “Yeah.”
–Mike Drucker: “One of the keys to understanding stupidity in the current world is that A LOT of people think that if you solve a problem, it was never a problem to begin with, and therefore solving it was pointless.”
In Where’s Mitch? news:
–There have been two developments in the Mitch McConnell story in the last couple of days.
–Workmen were spotted delivering medical lift recliners to the McConnell house. (These power-assist recliners mechanically stand people up from sitting when they’re unable to do so themselves.) According to his office (and Scott Jennings) McConnell has supposedly been doing rigorous rehab, but these recliners would seem to point to his not being mobile at all.
–A new video has emerged of McConnell on the Senate floor ten days before the incident where he was taken to the hospital. It is, I think, surveillance video from the Senate, and it covers 18 hours of time, time during which McConnell seems completely catatonic. The video has been speeded up to show the entire length of time in a manageable viewing time. During it, there are a couple of moments when an aide leans over McConnell and speaks to him, and then he raises his hand to vote, including one in which he raises his hand for yes, the aide speaks to him again, and he then indicates he wants to vote no. Except for that, he sits in a wheelchair and doesn’t move at all.
–His office was asked about both incidents and refused to comment. They said they had “nothing to add” to the statement they made three weeks ago.
–McConnell has now been missing for 76 days.
In Trump dementia/madness news:
–Trump posted a photo of workmen working on the sidewalk at the White House with the caption, “Cleaning and re-grouting the Granite for the first time in 63 years, at the White House North Entrance.”
–A few months ago, revered historian Arthur Schlessinger spoke with 55 historians and then produced a chart showing the greatest American presidents, and apparently Trump couldn’t stand his being at the bottom on that chart, so he has now posted his own.
–The chart has a picture of him at the top, with the title, “The Greatest.” Under that is “Great” and pictures of Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Wilson, Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. Beneath that is “Near Great,” with pictures of Teddy Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland (Cleveland?) John Adams, and Polk (POLK????)
–Then there are the Average Presidents and under them the “Failures,” which are (surprise, surprise) Biden, Obama, Ulysses S. Grant, Harding, and Carter.
–A bunch of presidents didn’t even make the chart, including Nixon, both Bushes and Ronald Reagan.
In other news:
–3000 people are now missing in Nepal because of that terrible flash flood/landslide and 600 have been declared dead.
–A Florida state grand jury found the DeSantis administration misappropriated taxpayer money, moving $10 million dollars from a Medicaid settlement to Hope Florida (run by DeSantis’s wife) and from there to a Republican PAC.
–Michael Boren, an Undersecretary of Agriculture, is under investigation because he used his authority to pull firefighting resources from a major wildfire to come protect his own home.
In good news:
–A federal appeals court rejected Trump administration efforts to seize medical records of transgender youth in New York City.
–A judge denied Trump’s attempt to transfer the New York criminal case that resulted in his 34 felony convictions to federal court. The judge said Trump’s latest arguments are “neither new nor legally sufficient.”
–Jared Kushner was slapped with a notice from the House Judiciary Committee, warning that his conduct tied to a resort in Albania and to drug money exposed him to liability under a federal anti-bribery law.
And in really good news:
–The Boundary Waters is the most-visited wilderness in America. In addition, the Ojibwe tribe depend on the water from it. In 2023, Biden’s Interior Department issued a 20-year mining ban in the area.
–In April of this year, Trump’s Senate ripped away the protections and Trump signed the bill and gave permission to Twin Metals (a Chile-based company) to mine for copper upstream of the lakes.
–650,000 people wrote to the Department of the Interior and the governor of Minnesota protesting the move.
–Minnesota Governor Tim Walz just signed an executive order restoring the protections. In addition, Minnesota won’t rent the mining company land or give them permits, and they are now reviewing every existing lease on the land line by line. (When we fight, we win.)
Best meme of the day: “Welcome to the FBI, where the men are men and the sheep are nervous.”
Best comment of the day, from NY Attorney General Letitia James: “Sixty-three years ago, thousands gathered at our nation’s capital for the March on Washington to peacefully demand racial justice, including voting rights. Today, those same voting rights are still under attack. I will never stop fighting to protect our democracy.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
