Ah, so Trump is The Decider now lol, becomes more like George W. Bush every day

 

Trump Says He Decides What ‘America First’ Means

Michael Scherer, The Atlantic

 

... “America First” means whatever he says it does.

 

“Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that,” Trump told me. ...

 

Still an ignoramus after all these years, but he's still right about Iran, contra Tucker Carlson:

 

“For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace.” ... 

“Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, very simple. Regardless—Israel or not Israel—Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb,” Trump told me. ...            

And that makes him exactly like old Georgie:

“Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations,” the president said. “For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

 

 

 

NBC News: Trump behaved himself at the Army parade, for which the weather did not cooperate

... Prone to delivering long, boastful speeches, Trump kept his remarks brief and made the military the focus. Beforehand, critics had warned he would politicize the event for his own purposes. ...

 

The winds picked up and a light drizzle commenced just as the tanks were about to roll.

The parade was supposed to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET, but it was moved up a half hour in deference to the weather, a Secret Service official said. Army tanks, their treads squeaking against the pavement, trundled along Constitution Avenue under an intermittent drizzle. Hundreds of people were still stuck in line, even as the parade was coming to a close two hours later. 

Some of the planned flyovers had to be canceled. Still, the crowd gathered on the National Mall looked up appreciatively as helicopters flew overhead in formation.

The parade came on the 250^th anniversary of the Army and, as it happens, Trump’s 79^th birthday. ...

More. 

 

TACO Trump strikes again

 Trump always chickens out, aka paper tiger, etc.

(June 2) Trump administration pauses Social Security benefit cuts over defaulted student loans

 Social Security recipients do not need to worry about their benefits being garnished due to their defaulted student loans, at least for now. The development is an abrupt change in policy by the administration, which had announced in April that it would be resuming collection activity on defaulted student loan borrowers. The Education Dept. had said that Social Security benefit offsets could begin as early as June.

(June 3) Deutsche Bank raises S&P 500 forecast on ‘TACO’ theory: ‘We will get further relents’

(May 29) 10 times Trump has threatened, then backtracked on, tariffs as 'TACO trade' jab gains traction

(May 31) Trump Raises Steel Tariffs To 50%—Here Are The 21 Times He’s Changed His Mind

(May 28) Trump was asked about the "TACO" trade and called it a "nasty question." Here's what it means.

(The guy who started TACO May 2) The US market’s surprise comeback, and the rise of the ‘Taco’ trade theory

... the US administration does not have a very high tolerance for market and economic pressure, and will be quick to back off when tariffs cause pain. This is the Taco theory: Trump Always Chickens Out. ...     

(June 2):

US extends tariff pause on some Chinese goods through to August 31

 

Impeach him a hundred times if we have to: Trump lies that jury trials are needed for immigration cases

 Trump, asked if he has to 'uphold the Constitution,' says, 'I don't know': Trump said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that he’s following lawyers’ advice as he tries to execute rapid deportations, arguing that giving immigrants due process is time-consuming

 

... "We’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials", he said. ... That would not require full trials, as Trump suggested. ...

This is the same slow-walking of the law and trying an end run around the law and fundamental disrespect for the law that we see all too often and increasingly from presidents from both political parties.

 

We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer America.

 

Sick of this bullshit.

Federal judge orders US authorities to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador by April 7

 A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States after he was accidentally sent to a notorious megajail in El Salvador.

U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the government must return Garcia by April 7 at 11:59 pm.

Garcia, a protected legal resident who has been living in Maryland since 2011 and is originally from El Salvador, was sent back to El Salvador on March 15 because of what the Trump administration called an “administrative error” in court filings Monday. ...

More.

Trump encourages unpopular marksmanship training idea

 

Trump won’t rule out seeking a third term in the White House, tells NBC News ‘there are methods’ for doing so

 

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson wants to straight up demolish an entire US federal district court in retaliation against judges who issue rulings he doesn't like, just because he can

 

... "We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things." ...

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said eliminating a district court would create "massive, massive backlogs". ... 

Reported here.

Trump lets Putin select America's negotiating team, removes Keith Kellogg from Ukraine-Russia negotiations after objections from Putin, objections which may have been transmitted by Steve Witkoff

 Kremlin told U.S. it didn't want Trump's Ukraine-Russia envoy at peace talks

President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia was excluded from high-level talks on ending the war after the Kremlin said it didn't want him there, a U.S. administration official and a Russian official told NBC News. 

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg was conspicuously absent from two recent summits in Saudi Arabia — one with Russian officials and the other with Ukrainians — even though the talks come under his remit.

“Together,” Trump said in announcing Kellogg’s nomination in November, “we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”

But Kellogg did not attend U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Feb. 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he was too pro-Ukraine, a senior Russian official with direct knowledge of the Kremlin’s thinking told NBC News. ...  

Hey look! Root causes are back in the news again after a brief hiatus

 The root cause of the Ukraine war is Vladimir Putin and the root cause of the illegal immigration problem was Joe Biden.

 

 

Imbeciles Trump and Musk claim millions over the age of 100 get Social Security when it is 89,106 people in December 2024 lol

Trump loves Whoppers.

Smell the farts of nothing has changed.

In 2015 Trump used Rush Limbaugh Math and came up with 42% unemployed lol. "Not in labor force" is not a measure of unemployment.

These Social Security claims are loonier than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris saying 200 million and more had already died of COVID in the United States during their campaign for president-vice president in 2020. Joe corrected himself eventually. Trump and Musk WILL NOT.

... The [Social Security] issue has been repeatedly identified by inspectors general at the agency, but the Social Security Administration has argued that updating old records was costly and unnecessary.

Per the agency’s online records, just 89,106 people — not tens of millions — over the age of 99 received retirement benefits in December 2024, out of the more than 70 million people who receive benefits each year.

It’s a “humiliating mistake for anyone else to make, but they’re doubling and tripling down on it,” said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank that addresses government spending. ...

More.

Meanwhile the US population 65 years old and older was only about 59 million in 2023. Hello.

 

Mitch McConnell, hated by ungrateful MAGA, won't run in 2026 after 40 years in the US Senate

 

Mitch McConnell announces he will retire, ending his decades-long Senate career

 

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the longest-serving Senate leader in history, announced Thursday on his 83rd birthday that he won’t seek re-election next year, bringing an end to his four-decade career in the chamber.

McConnell, first elected in 1984, climbed his way up to the Senate Republican leader position in 2007 and remained there until early 2025, serving during four administrations in the majority and the minority. ...

McConnell supported Trump’s presidential bids in 2016 and 2020. He made a crucial decision in early 2021 to vote to acquit Trump on impeachment charges of inciting an insurrection, even as he blasted Trump as “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” calling his actions a “disgraceful dereliction of duty.” Despite his misgivings, he went on to endorse Trump for president again 2024 after he clinched the Republican nomination for a third successive election. ...

McConnell oversaw Trump’s three Supreme Court confirmations during his first term, as part of a sweeping set of 234 judges inked over those four years — most of them young conservatives who will serve for generations — which he has regarded as his proudest achievement. ...

 

Senators Gary Peters of Michigan and Tina Smith of Minnesota have also announced that they will not run in 2026.

Trump's deportation fantasies hit the big brick wall of reality

 Meanwhile at ICE, Vitello told agents in January to aim to meet a daily quota of 1,200-1,400 arrests. According to numbers ICE has posted on X, the highest single day total since Trump was inaugurated was just 1,100, and the number has fallen since that day. On Tuesday of this week, arrests of immigrants were over 800, according to a source familiar with the numbers. But last weekend, there were only about 300 arrests, another source told NBC News.

In order to fulfill Trump’s Inauguration Day promise of “millions and millions” of deportations, the Trump administration would have to be deporting over 2,700 immigrants every day to reach 1 million in a year. 

And, as NBC News has reported, arrests do not always equal immediate detentions, much less deportations. Of the more than 8,000 immigrants arrested in the first two weeks of the Trump administration, 461 were released, according to the White House. 

More.

They were supposed to end catch and release on day one. They can't do even that.

 

 

The Trump administration is no different than the Bush 43 administration: You're either with us or against us

The oh so precious little commie Alex Soros fears the Trump bullies when it's the GOP Senate which Trump still can't completely intimidate.

Alex is worried that Marx was wrong about the tragedy coming first lol. 

Don't worry, Alex. It's only Farce, part deux.

 

The US House passed a continuing spending resolution through March 14, 2025 at 5:59PM yesterday, the US Senate passed it this morning at 12:23AM, averting a federal government shutdown

 

 The House roll call vote (366-34-1-29nv) is here. 34 Republicans voted Nay.

The Senate roll call vote (85-11-4nv) is here. 10 Republicans voted Nay, as did pinko commie Bernie Sanders.

The continuing spending resolution includes NO extension of the suspended debt ceiling time limit demanded by president-elect Trump, who now gets to waste his precious time trying to primary all 170 Republicans in 2026 who just voted for this

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL,

something he had threatened on Wednesday.

170 House GOP just told Donald J. Trump Nay Nay by voting Yea, proving once again that he is just a paper tiger.

Meanwhile the debt ceiling and the income tax remain chief among the failed gimmicks of the Progressive Era, dating to 1917 and 1913. The one hasn't stopped the debt from exploding to $36 trillion, and the other hasn't paid that bill. 

The continued existence of these gimmicks serves to remind us, but only periodically, of the lies we tell ourselves, which is why we have to keep them.

Ted Cruz predicted it would happen in August

 

Republicans float a quiet conspiracy theory that Biden won't be on the ballot

“So here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps the most likely and most dangerous,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on his podcast last month. “In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama.”

“I view this as a very serious danger,” he said.

 

 

 

More than 13,000 convicted illegal alien killers now walk among us, NBC/CNBC pretend it's not just a problem for Biden-Harris, omitting that they more than doubled the "non-detained docket" in the US to more than 7.5 million

 

It is not clear when the first migrant of the 13,000 crossed into the U.S. Two law enforcement officials familiar with the data told NBC News many of the migrants on ICE’s non-detained docket, including serious criminals, crossed into the U.S. under previous administrations, including former President Donald Trump’s. ... There are currently more than 7.5 million immigrants on ICE’s “non-detained” docket, meaning they have pending immigration cases but are not currently in detention.

More.

Fox has the truth:

The agency provided data to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, about illegal immigrants with criminal charges or convictions. The data, as of July 2024, is broken down by those in detention and those who are not in detention, known as the non-detained docket. 

The non-detained docket includes noncitizens who have final orders of removal or are going through removal proceedings but are not in ICE custody. 

There are more than 7.4 million people on that docket, up from around 3.7 million when former President Trump left office.

NBC's Lester Holt says Trump had it coming for expressing fierce views about Haitians

 

ABC's Jon Karl pretends that Kamala Harris wasn't for ending private health insurance and that she's changed her position despite zero evidence of that

 

Justin Amash told us he was going to mop the floor with Mike Rogers lol

The loss is sad, but the hubris is sadder.

Meanwhile phony Joe protests he's not an extremist

 

I Have Not Engaged in Extreme Rhetoric, Trump Has

President Joe Biden, NBC News

 

President who labeled half of the country extremists now appeals for unity

 “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Mr. Biden said in a fiery Independence Hall speech on Sept. 1, 2022, looking to shape the midterm elections. “And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.”

He continued: “MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies. And yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.” ...

“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today,” he lamented. “What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time.”