Was it Peter or Bobby on The Brady Bunch that was trying to be Humphrey Bogart and kept saying "pork chops and apple sauce?" Looked it up on YouTube, it was Peter.
I thought of that when I read Marci's e-mail where she noted Primavera Kitchen's Pork Chops with Apples and Onions:
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil divided
3 boneless pork chops
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste the pork chop
2 cloves garlic minced
3/4 cup low sodium chicken stock
1 tsp Dijon mustard use yellow mustard for Whole30
1 tbsp fresh sage chopped
1/2 tsp fresh thyme chopped
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 medium apples sliced (I used Honey Crisp)
1 small red onion thinly sliced
Instructions
Season the pork chops (both sides) with salt and pepper, and set aside.
In a large cast iron skillet, add 1 tbsp olive oil and heat over medium.
When
the skillet is really hot, add the pork chops. Sear until golden, about
3-5 minutes per side. Pork will be mostly done, but it will continue
cooking in the sauce.
Remove pork chops to a plate.
In a small bowl, mix together the garlic, chicken stock, and mustard. Set aside.
Add 1 tbsp of olive oil to the same skillet, and then add apples and onions.
Cook
for about 3-4 minutes (time will depending on the thickness of the
apple slices). Don’t forget to stir occasionally. Season with salt,
pepper and sage.
Pour in stock mixture over the apples and onions. Gently scrape the bottom of the pan to release any brown bits.
Return pork chops back into the pan.
10. Cook for 2 minutes, until pork chops are finished cooking and liquid has reduced by half.
11. Top with fresh sage before serving.
I'd
noted my son's recent car accident and how I'd fixed pork chops for him
for protein -- when his car got hit, he got a lot of cuts on his face
-- and she thought that might be a good one. That is a good one, thank
you, Marci.
Democrats
in the Texas legislature were able to delay the Republicans’ mid-decade
redistricting scheme, but only temporarily. The partisan gambit to
redraw the state’s district lines to give the GOP an even greater
advantage is now advancing in Austin and appears on track to reach Gov.
Greg Abbott’s desk in the coming days.
There
is effectively nothing Democrats in Texas can do to derail the scheme,
but Democrats in California have a response in mind: If Republicans in
the Lone Star State can rig their map to give the GOP five more
congressional seats, then Democrats in the Golden State will do the same
thing for their side.
That effort, which is
being spearheaded by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, has now received an
endorsement from the party’s most popular and most influential voice.
NBC News reported:
“I’ve had to wrestle with my
preference, which would be that we don’t have political gerrymandering,
but what I also know is that if we don’t respond effectively, then this
White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the
country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in
this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy,” Obama said at the
event.
I
agree with Barack Obama 100%. If the GOP isn't going to follow the
rules, we can't just ignore that. They did it. They redistricted Texas
this year. So California and New York should redistrict this year as
well.
This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for Thursday:
Thursday, August 21, 2025. Chump and his national security stooges are giving us new grounds for impeachment, Chump's fading in the polls, a judge rebukes Chump for his efforts to distract from his failure to release the Epstein files, Chump continues his war on immigrants, and much more.
We have a lot to cover regarding Chump's war on immigrants but let's start with polling. Alex Henderson reports:
Trump,
according to the Miami Herald, won 32 percent of Hispanic voters in
2020; in 2024, that number increased to 46 percent — much to the
frustration of Democratic strategists.
But according to the Herald's Brendan Rascius, polls are showing his approval among Latinos falling.
In an article published on August 19, Rascius cites polling data from Reuters/Ipsos poll,
The Hill and Gallup and explains, "Conducted over six days in August,
the (Reuters/Ipsos) poll found 40 percent of respondents approve of
Trump's job performance so far. This figure, while the lowest recorded
since Trump's inauguration, is unchanged from July. But it is down 7
points from January, when a record-high 47 percent of Americans approved
of Trump."
Dementia Donnie on the decline. Rex Huppke (USA TODAY) observes:
While the top issues for most Americans are high prices,
inflation and health care, our increasingly unpopular president is
laser-focused on things nobody cares about. Like downplaying exhibitions
on the history of slavery at the Smithsonian.
On the same day a new poll by The Economist/YouGov showed Donald Trump’s disapproval rating hitting a new high,
the president took time to post this on social media: “The Smithsonian
is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our
Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden
have been.”
How bad slavery
was? I’m not quite sure what that implies, but suffice it to say the new
poll didn’t find “See less about how slavery was bad” to be a priority
for American voters watching the costs of beef and vegetables skyrocket.
A pair of new national polls gave Donald Trump the kind of data no president wants to see.
Just 31% of Americans find Trump trustworthy, a new low for him and down from 38% at the start of his second term in January, according to an Aug. 12 Economist/YouGov survey.
And a Pew Research Center survey released Aug. 14
showed that just 38% of Americans approve of Trump's performance as
president, with significant majorities disapproving of his signature
"One Big Beautiful Bill," his approach to tariffs and changes he has
made to the federal government.
Americans
dislike just about everything Trump brags about. And the more he touts
what he sees as major accomplishments, the less America likes them – and
him.
He's just not trust worthy -- or likeable. Ailia Zehra notes:
Journalist
Tara Pameri said Tuesday President Donald Trump and his administration
are "pushing deadlines back" when it comes to the documents related to
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, only giving out "small pieces to
appease their base."
During an appearance on
CNN Tuesday, Palmeri, who has been reporting on the Epstein controversy,
said, "I would think that these documents are going to be very limited.
I obviously would love to see all of the gigabytes that they’re holding
on to: The evidence, the surveillance, the photos that I’ve been told
of from senior law enforcement sources that they are holding on to."
She
continued: "But, as you have heard and see from your own reporters and
reporting, they are kicking this down — they’re kicking the can down the
road. They’re pushing deadlines back. They’re releasing limited amounts
of files, and we just know that this is —this is happening in private."
She
added that these should be public hearings where everyone is called on
to speak, including FBI director Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi,
and even Trump.
"If they’re calling the former
president, Bill Clinton — they should be calling him [Trump] as well,
since he’s also in the files. So I just think, this just seems like
they’re giving out small pieces to appease their base, but really, they
need to come clean right now," Palmeri said.
She added that former labor secretary Alex Acosta’s deputy, Marie Villafana, would be "an excellent person to call."
They
should call Villafana but, please note, they won't even Alex Acosta and
he's the one who gave Epstein the sweetheart deal -- the one that
Ghislaine Maxwell's new deal is starting to look a lot like -- and Chump
gave Maxwell her sweetheart deal. Matthew Chapman notes:
House
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has moved forward with a
plan to partially release information from the Jeffrey Epstein sex
trafficking case — but House Democrats, including ranking member Robert
Garcia (D-CA), are not satisfied with this limited production.
And
furthermore, Garcia told MSNBC's "The Weeknight" panel on Tuesday,
they've left out a massively important witness from all this: President
Donald Trump's former Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, who as a former
federal prosecutor, helped Epstein escape justice in the first place.
"James
Comer's spokesperson, responded today to you," said anchor Eugene
Daniels. "They said, you're trying to invent a crisis where none exists.
And at the end, they said former Attorney General Bill Barr testified
that he never saw any evidence suggesting President Trump committed a
crime. Now, they have been very specific about committing a crime, but
are they lying in that statement based on what you heard?"
"Without
actually commenting on exactly that statement, I will say that's a very
— that's a very creative crafting of a statement," said Garcia. "And I
think that if they have nothing to hide, they should release the
complete transcript or video of the Bill Barr deposition. So let's do
that and let's let the American public make their own judgments."
Letting
the American people make their own judgment? Donald Chump would rather
do some actual work than let that happen. And, as Lawrence O'Donnell
noted last night, Chump does not like to work.
Especially not on a day when a court exposes him as a liar.
As
Lawrence noted, the moment Chump was in hot water over not releasing
the Epstein files as he'd promised to do, suddenly Chump tried to
distract by calling for the Grand Jury transcripts to be released.
Lawrence called that out immediately noting that it was a kick-the-can
tactic because Grand Jury testimony does not get released. Chump was
hoping his announcement would make the Epstein story go away and that
when verdicts emerged on releasing the testimony, everyone would be
focused on something else. Chump did manage to delay but public
attention has not waned. Yesterday the third verdict on this from a
judge came out.
Each judge cited longstanding grand jury secrecy rules and concluded that the government did not meet any of the extraordinary exceptions under federal law that could justify making them public.
They also noted that the Justice Department has voluminous records related to Epstein that aren't covered by grand jury secrecy rules. Berman wrote that the scant information contained in around 70 pages of Epstein grand jury transcripts "pales in comparison to the Epstein investigative information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice," which he said totals around 100,000 pages.
"The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein Files," Berman wrote in an apparent reference to the Justice Department's refusal to release additional records. He said the request to release grand jury records "appears to be a 'diversion' from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government's possession."
The Justice Department had informed Berman that the only witness to
testify before the Epstein grand jury was an FBI agent who, the judge
noted, "had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose
testimony was mostly hearsay." The rest of the grand jury presentation
consisted of a PowerPoint slideshow and a call log.
Berman noted that
the Justice Department's files on Epstein dwarf those stemming from the
grand jury. Proceedings before grand juries are typically kept secret.
"A significant and compelling reason to reject the Government's position in this litigation is that the Government has already undertaken a comprehensive investigation into the Epstein case and, not surprisingly, has assembled a 'trove' of Epstein documents, interviews, and exhibits. And, the Government committed that it would share its Epstein investigation materials with the public," Berman wrote.
"The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein Files. By comparison, the instant grand jury motion appears to be a 'diversion' from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government's possession," Berman wrote, quoting a decision by another judge in New York who denied the government's move to unseal material in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges.
"The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice," he concluded.
For more on this, you can stream Nicole Wallace's report . . .
. . . and Ari Mebler's report.
As the judge noted, this was a distraction. And Chump's efforts to change the topic have not gone unnoticed by the people nor is this story going away.
A letter to the editors of THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH:
Shame on Gov. Mike DeWine for sending our Ohio National Guard to Washington, D.C. at the whim of our president, who has conjured up another "emergency" in our country.
President Donald Trump has accomplished one thing by doing this. No one is mentioning the Epstein files.
Gov. DeWine, don't be complicit. Bring the Guard home.
Victoria Reidy, Columbus
From a letter to the editors of THE PALM BEACH POST:
Prosecutors
[led by then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta and then-Palm Beach County State
Attorney Barry Krischer] intentionally kept the victims and their
lawyers in the dark because they knew these young women would never
allow such a sweetheart deal to stand.
Let’s
be clear — this was not just negligence. It was a betrayal. By cutting
this backroom deal in secrecy, the government told these girls their
pain didn’t matter, their voices didn’t matter, and their futures didn’t
matter.
They were victimized once by Epstein and Maxwell, and then victimized again by their own government. Enough with the excuses.
The victims deserve better, and the public deserves the truth. Release the files, expose the liars, and the truth for the world to see what actually happened.
Spencer T. Kuvin, Esq., West Palm Beach
As an attorney, Spence Kuvin has represented some of the survivors of Epstein and Maxwell's assaults and abuse.
Let's turn to immigration and start with this from Ben at MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.
On the six-year-old noted in the video above, Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) reports:
A
six-year-old girl and her mother, who were seeking asylum in the United
States, have been deported to Ecuador after being arrested in New York
City and held in immigration detention for a week.
The
second-grade student went to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement
check-in appointment with her mother and older brother in lower
Manhattan on August 12 when they were detained by federal agents.
New
York officials confirmed that the young girl and her mother, who had
been living in Queens, were deported on Tuesday morning. The girl’s
19-year-old brother is still locked up in an immigration detention
center in New Jersey.
The case of another New
York City public school student being targeted has drawn renewed
scrutiny and outrage over the practice of arresting immigrants at
routine check-in appointments and court hearings.
The
child’s arrest appears to be the first known ICE arrest of a New Yorker
under the age of 18 during Donald Trump’s administration.
New
York City schools saw increased enrollment driven, in part, by families
who had sought asylum during the Biden administration. New York Gov.
Kathy Hochul weighed in on the family’s behalf, and school officials are
working to assure students that schools will remain a welcoming place.
“She
had no power to decide which country she would be living,” said Astrid
Avedissian, a lawyer for one of the student's siblings, who is 16. "She
had no power to decide which border she would be crossing."
[. . .]
On
Aug. 19, New York City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan and state
Assemblymember Catalina Cruz, both representatives in Queens, confirmed
the student and her mother were deported. ICE records show her brother,
Manuel, 19, is still in custody.
"Deporting a
6-year-old child two weeks before she is supposed to start school,
separating her and her mother from their family, is cruel," Krishnan and
Cruz said in a joint statement. "It is a shameful stain on our
country's history and conscience."
Meanwhile, Billal Rahman (NEWSWEEK) reports:
A
Colombian man seeking asylum was arrested by federal agents while
attending a routine immigration appointment in Tennessee, his girlfriend
told Newsweek.
Morgan Bowser, 28, said
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained her partner,
John Ever Pineda Calderón, 35, a hotel renovation worker seeking asylum,
inside the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) Office in
Memphis.
Bowser said she was waiting in the parking lot as the arrest unfolded on August 7 around 10 a.m.
An
ISAP appointment is a scheduled check-in that immigrants are required
to attend while their immigration cases are being processed.
Bowser,
who described waiting for hours without knowing what had happened to
Calderón, said she was left heartbroken after receiving a call from him
confirming he had been detained and transferred.
These are horrible stories. They go against democracy, they go against what we're supposed to value in the United States. David Kurtz (TPM) notes:
I
usually cast President Trump’s anti-immigrant mass deportation agenda
as a rule of law story. But it is of course so much more than that. It
is fundamentally a story about racism, xenophobia, and othering. It’s
about preying on our fears, differences, and prejudices to create a
villainous foe whom he can easily vanquish in repeated set-pieces. It’s
about letting loose the worst of our impulses to heighten and sustain
divisions among us.
The mass
deportation agenda is just one part of a larger agenda in which white
Americans are fronted as the real America and everyone else is
second-class, unless they individually demonstrate in lavish ways a high
enough degree of fealty to Donald Trump.
It’s
against this backdrop that much of this week’s news is taking place:
Trump’s minimizing of chattel slavery; the federalization of D.C. police
and the deployment of red state national guards to a plurality Black
city; the phasing out of support for non-native English speakers in
school; new hoops for legal immigrants to jump through; and a gauntlet
of other indignities and slights that preference white citizens.
[. . .]
The
mass deportation agenda is just one part of a larger agenda in which
white Americans are fronted as the real America and everyone else is
second-class, unless they individually demonstrate in lavish ways a high
enough degree of fealty to Donald Trump.
It’s
against this backdrop that much of this week’s news is taking place:
Trump’s minimizing of chattel slavery; the federalization of D.C. police
and the deployment of red state national guards to a plurality Black
city; the phasing out of support for non-native English speakers in
school; new hoops for legal immigrants to jump through; and a gauntlet
of other indignities and slights that preference white citizens.
Students
are attacked -- college students and children -- and mothers are
attacked -- even nursing mothers have been separated from their
children, the elderly are attacked, an immigrant who was a police
officer gets attacked, the list is endless. It's not about
immigration. Dan Gooding (NEWSWEEK) reports:
A
Los Angeles teacher whose student was detained by federal agents while
he walked his dog has told Newsweek that she believes mistaken bounty
hunters plucked him off the street.
Lizette
Becerra, who works within the Los Angeles Unified School District
(LAUSD), visited Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, 18, in Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention on Sunday.
"For
about seven days, he could not change, he was in his pajama shorts and
slippers. He couldn't bathe. He couldn't brush his teeth. He was
sleeping next to a toilet where he had to wake up every time someone
went so that he wouldn't get urinated on," Becerra said.
"It
wasn't until Saturday morning that he was finally able to shower and
was issued clothes," she said, adding that he told her he lost weight,
as well.
Guerrero-Cruz
is currently being held in the Adelanto Detention Facility, on the edge
of Victorville outside of L.A. Before that, Becerra said, he had been
moved between two other facilities in the city itself since his arrest
around two weeks ago.
"He says about 15 men,
plain clothes with vests that said: 'Immigration Police' on them, in
three SUVs, came up to him and just grabbed him and started calling him
by another name," Becerra said, adding that the teen tried to tell the
men he was not the person they were looking for.
ICE
has carried out their thug tactics with no real oversight. Chump has
given them powers they've never had before and these are thugs. They're
the worst of the worst. Most probably couldn't get into the military
(or, in some cases, back into the military) without a conduct waiver. Melissa Gira Grant (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
The beatdown in broad daylight in Washington, D.C., on Saturday was caught on video.
Two masked men in tactical vests grappled with a delivery worker. One
tased him, and he fell to the ground. A third man piled on, and then a
fourth, a fifth, and a sixth, all in similar vests with faces covered.
Pinning the worker face down on the pavement, agents tased him again and
punched him repeatedly in the head. “Get the f**k out of this city!” a
bystander’s voice yelled out at the masked men. “Why are you guys here?”
The masked men’s vests only identified them as “police,” as is often the
case with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and later, their
arrest—in the upscale Logan Circle neighborhood—was confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security. It was part of the escalation in the federal law enforcement occupation ordered
by Trump, with multiple agencies patrolling neighborhoods, stopping
residents at checkpoints, and making arrests. Throughout, these federal
agents have met opposition from countless bystanders and witnesses, who record them, jeer at them, and demand they leave their city.
In that sense, nothing about the assault on Saturday stood out so much as it captured all these dynamics in the span of three minutes. It laid bare too how this takeover of an American city—the nation’s capital, no less—has been brewing in the far-right imagination for a long time. “You guys are ruining the country,” said one of the bystanders to the masked agents, and one of them responded, “Liberals already ruined it.” Once, it was far-right groups who flooded cities in the summertime, in masks and tactical vests, looking for a fight; now, those groups have no need to be in the streets, with ICE and other federal agents carrying out their mission for them. As one Proud Boy organizer said at a Portland, Oregon, rally in 2018, “For all the illegals trying to jump over our border, we should be smashing their heads into the concrete.”
What we are seeing now flows from those dramatic street confrontations, brought on by groups such as Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys nearly a decade ago, when they made Portland their target and Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson pledged, “The stench-covered and liberal-occupied streets of Portland will be CLEANSED.” Gibson was running as a Republican for the Washington state Senate at the time, and the Portland Police Bureau was in close contact with Patriot Prayer organizers, as reporting by Willamette Week exposed. The police regarded them as “much more mainstream” than leftist counterprotesters, arresting more of the latter than Proud Boys or Patriot Prayer members—even as the far-right groups were advocating the murder of immigrants and leftists.
[. . .]
Seeing how ICE in particular have conducted themselves over the last few months, some people have feared that the masked agents Trump has unleashed might be the same people he pardoned for their involvement in the January 6 insurrection. Had they now infiltrated or been secretly hired into ICE and other agencies? A former assistant ICE director told Slate in July that he was “very worried” that “Proud Boys and other insurrectionists and hoodlums” would be hired at ICE, because, “What self-respecting person who wants a meaningful career in law enforcement would go to work [for Enforcement and Removal Operations] right now?
On the dangers to students, Salvador Rivera (NEWS NATION) reports:
Union
del Barrio, a migrant advocacy organization with offices throughout
Southern California and New York City, says it has trained hundreds of
teachers on how to intervene and interact with federal immigration
agents who might be trying to detain a student or parent near a school.
On
Tuesday morning, some members of Union del Barrio, some of whom are
also teachers from across San Diego County, staged an educational
campaign outside Lincoln High School, handing out flyers to parents as
they dropped off their children.
“What this is
really about is showing solidarity to the familias, to the students, to
ensure they feel there’s a community behind them, that they are welcomed
here and they should be coming to school in spite of with this threat
of ICE coming to schools and drop-offs,” said Erendira Ramirez, educator
and member of Union del Barrio.
People
are rightly speaking out and protesting. We can do other things as
well. Such as? Pull our business from those who are backing this
war. Oliver Laughland, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Raima Amjad (GUARDIAN) report:
A
Sheraton hotel in Louisiana has been used by immigration officials to
hold people who are being deported, in what appears to be a
contradiction of a position Sheraton’s parent company, Marriott, took in
2019 when it said its properties would not be used in cooperation with
Ice.
The Intercept first reported
that the hotel, located on MacArthur Drive in Alexandria, Louisiana,
near a major deportation hub and airport used by Ice, had been used by
immigration officials earlier this month to hold a father and his
teenage son for four days after their arrest in New York. They were then
deported to Ecuador. The Intercept cited phone-tracking evidence that
had been shared with the publication and was later seen by the Guardian.
The
evidence corroborates the account of a source with knowledge of hotel
operations in Alexandria, who told the Guardian that they believed the
venue had been used to detain immigrant families and unaccompanied
children since it was renovated in late 2023. The source observed Ice
contractors known to assist in the transfer of unaccompanied minors
operating at the Sheraton as recently as June of this year.
The source added that other hotels in the area have also been used to hold immigrant families.
It
is not clear whether Marriott has a formal contract with Ice or what
the company knows about Ice’s use of the Sheraton in Alexandria. In one case that emerged last year,
Marriott sued a New York-based franchise after the hotel entered a
partnership with the city for it to be used as an immigrant shelter,
saying it had done so without Marriott’s consent.
Marriott needs to immediately clarify what took place. And we need to support those who refuse to let ICE rip them off. Jacob Gardenswartz (SCRIPP NEWS) informs:
A
growing number of U.S. corporations and pop culture artists are
publicly distancing themselves from the Department of Homeland Security
and criticizing the agency for utilizing their content in posts and
branding aimed at immigration enforcement activities and new officer
recruitment.
In
recent weeks, companies including INDYCAR, Penske Truck Rental and Ford
Motor Company have all said that their content was used by DHS without
permission or in violation of company policies. Popular bands and
artists including Semisonic, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (BRMC), Jess
Glynne, Thomas Kinkade and Morgan Weistling have similarly asked DHS to
stop using their work or take down posts.
Reached
by Scripps News, a DHS spokesperson declined to answer questions about
the process by which DHS identifies and clears intellectual property,
nor would the official state how the agency is responding to the
companies’ criticisms. The agency said in a statement only that, “DHS
will continue using every tool at its disposal to keep the American
people informed as our agents work to Make America Safe Again.”
There are thousands of horror stories about ICE attacking people. But? Some horror stories prompt no tears from many of us. Billal Rahman (NEWSWEEK) reports on someone whining when they got what they deserved:
A
United States combat veteran and Trump voter has told Newsweek his wife
was detained by federal immigration agents at the Nogales port of entry
while attempting to renew her in-country travel permit.
Eddie
J. Rosa, 43, a USPS electronics technician and veteran of the U.S.
Marine Corps, U.S. Army Reserves, and the Ohio National Guard, said his
wife, Mireya Alexandra Blancarte Marquez, was arrested on August 11.
Rosa goes on to whine:
Rosa,
who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom,
described his wife being handcuffed, perp-walked, and paraded in front
of the public "like a common criminal."
"My
wife has absolutely no criminal record of any kind in this country or
Mexico. As a fervent believer in our constitutional republic, I felt
violated and disrespected," Rosa told Newsweek in a statement.
You got what you deserved, stop whining you little cry baby.
Please
note, if he was decrying his vote now and calling Chump out? Okay, he
made a mistake in voting for Chump and realizes that. Live and learn,
let's work together. But that's not the case. He says he doesn't
regret his vote for Chump. So he'd vote for him again. This is the
signature policy Chump's second administration will be remembered for.
If you support Chump now -- even though your wife's been taken into
custody and you've been humiliated -- you got what you deserve. If FAFO
doesn't bring you to your senses, do the country a favor and STFU
because you're too stupid for a conversation in the public square.
We were talking about conduct
waivers earlier and that makes me wonder if Loose Lips Hegseth is still
using weight wavers? People who are not physically fit getting into the
US military on a waiver for their weight. (They're called medical
waivers, but I'm referring to the ones granted specifically to
candidates who should not qualify due to their weight.) Hegseth's in the
news. He and all the security post holders should be in the news.
Trashy Garbage (Trina's name for Tulsi Gabbard) is not qualified for her
post as the head of DNI. That post was created post-9/11 to protect
Americans. It's a highly important job and she's not qualified. We've
noted from the day after Hegseth was nominated to be Secretary of
Defense that he wasn't qualified. No one holding a post that's supposed
to protect Americans is qualified. And that's a serious issue.
Let's do Tulsi and we'll then go onto Pete. Callum Sutherland (TIME) reports, "The
Trump Administration has revoked the security clearances of 37 current
and former U.S. government officials. Director of National Intelligence
Tulsi Gabbard publicly shared a memo confirming the revocation and the
reasoning behind it, stating that it was carried out under the direction
of President Donald Trump." This being the unqualified Tulsi, things
were, of course, a bit more complicated. Ewan Palmer (DAILY BEAST) explains:
Tulsi
Gabbard may have broken the law by publicly identifying dozens of
current and former officials while revoking their security clearances,
according to a national security lawyer.
Gabbard
revealed that 37 people have been targeted in the clearance purge
ordered by President Trump, accusing them without evidence of
“politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified
intelligence without authorization, and/or committing intentional
egregious violations of tradecraft standards.”
Gabbard
made the announcement—which comes after Trump stripped the security
clearance of his political opponents—by posting a memo from her office
on X. The list of 37 individuals targeted includes intelligence
officials who concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential
election, as well as those accused by far-right activist Laura Loomer of
lacking loyalty to Trump, according to Axios.
Mark
Zaid, an attorney who represents intelligence officers and who is suing
the Trump administration to have his own stripped security clearance
restored, suggested Gabbard may have landed herself in legal trouble by
making the memo public.
Oh,
Trashy Garbage, couldn't you even get that right? Seriously. And is
this really the time -- when Chump has staffed his administration with
so many inept people in security positions -- for them to be purging
experienced officials? Doesn't that put us even more at risk? Another
9/11 could happen. If happens under Chump's watch, we'll all have to
face the reality of just how unqualified he and his appointees were.
Now let's bring in Loose Lips Hegseth. Joe Sommerlad (INDEPENDENT) reports:
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth’s security requirements are so extensive that it
is placing a strain on the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division,
according to a report.
The Washington Post
reports that the CID, which is responsible for protecting top Pentagon
officials as well as serving as the Army’s law enforcment arm, has been
forced to draft agents who would otherwise be investigating criminal
offenses concerning members of the Armed Forces to help watch over
Hegseth’s family and their properties in D.C., Minnesota and Tennessee.
“I’ve never seen this many security teams for one guy,” one official told the newspaper. “Nobody has.”
The CID reportedly maintains around 1,500 agents in total, around 150 of whom are typically assigned to VIP security details.
But
since Hegseth took office in January, the number shifted over into
personal protection roles has risen to between 400 and 500, according to
two differing estimates the paper received.
One
CID official quoted by the Post expressed their frustration with the
situation by saying agents were being prevented from “doing what we are
supposed to be doing” in order to “sit on luggage” or “sit in the cars
on the driveway.”
Others complained of having to shepherd the secretary’s children to school or patrol the perimeter of his properties.
“It
is literally taking away from [CID’s] law enforcement mission,” they
said. “You are taking hundreds of people out of the field to provide
this level of protection.”
Are
we surprised that the little coward who hid behind his Mommy during his
confirmation process would turn out to be the biggest coward in the
administration and demand multiple guards to protect him? The
candy asses of the administration need extra protection. And planes!
Don't forget they all seem to need their own personal plane. Yeah, we're talking Kristi Noem. In addition, Kelly Rissman (INDEPENDENT) reports:
Homeland
Security Secretary Kristi Noem blamed the media for her decision to
move to a rent-free military home, a space usually reserved for the top
Coast Guard official.
Speaking on Fox News’
Hannity on Monday evening, Noem argued that she had to leave her
apartment in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, D.C. because of
the threats she’d received after news organizations published details
about her two-bedroom condo.
The Daily
Mail first reported she was living at a Navy Yard condo in April and
published photos outside the building. Last week, the Washington Post
revealed that the Homeland Security secretary pays no rent at her new
living arrangement: Quarters 1 at the Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in
D.C., used to house the Coast Guard Commandant.
What
a bunch of wasteful, corrupt, idiotic so-called public servants. If a
terrorist attack takes place on US soil, we should all remember how
security officals were doing everything but their jobs and draining our
intelligence resources. We should especially remember this reported by AP yesterday:
The
Office of the Director of National Intelligence will dramatically
reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million
annually, the Trump administration announced Wednesday.
Director
of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement, “Over the
last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the
intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks
of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of
intelligence.”
Again, an attack
on US soil could take place during Chump's administration -- especially
the way he antagonizes so many other countries. If it does, the first
points we all need to remember is that (a) unqualified people are
serving in security posts in this administration, (b) they have diverted
needed resources for their own comfort and (c) they've cut our
intelligence budget and our intelligence workforce. There is no excuse
for this. Second set of points should include that these three steps
are high crimes and misdemeanors and grounds to impeach Chump.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Alex Padilla's office:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and California’s former Secretary of State, issued the following statement after President Trump attacked mail-in voting and America’s election systems:
“Donald Trump is now taking advice on voter suppression from a murderous dictator who rigs elections, jails political opponents, and persecutes dissent. Trump knows the MAGA agenda is unpopular: raising your grocery prices and hiking up your health care premiums, all while handing out tax breaks to billionaires. So he’s resorting to desperate schemes to cling to power.
“Even his preferred news outlets, Newsmax and Fox News, have been forced to answer for pushing conspiracies about voting machines. They admitted what Trump won’t — he lost the 2020 election, and mail-in voting is secure. Fortunately, Trump doesn’t have the power to unilaterally end mail-in voting. But Congress must stand up for free and fair elections as he continues his assault on our democracy.”
###
The following sites updated:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
No, Chump, you are not going to heaven8 hours ago
-
-
A good ruling from Judge Fred Biery8 hours ago
-
-
-
-
ICEing the U.S. Economy1 day ago
