Ironically enough, Kash Patel at FBI might, might turn out to be resistance

 

FBI Nominee Kash Patel Warned Elon Musk Is Becoming "One Ginormous Trust"

Kash Patel ripped into Elon Musk in unearthed podcast episodes

 

... “So, what scares me is, like,” Patel continued, “you wanna talk about a monopoly? It is the ultimate monopoly. Is he going to execute the businesses and allow others to compete? On free speech platforms, that is? Is he just going to buy everything up, and then become one ginormous trust—for lack of a better word, a monopoly—which is supposedly illegal under antitrust laws?” MAGA stalwarts such as Vice President J.D. Vance have been vehemently against monopolistic behavior and Trump even ran on a quasi-anti-trust platform. ... 

 

 “What's he going to do with all the data? That's my concern,” Patel said. “The data collection — he's got a global wifi satellite system, in space, for the world: Starlink. He has Tesla, he has, as I said, the SpaceX program, and now he'll have Twitter.” ... 

 

“Do you allow the CCP to have backdoors? Like other companies, like TikTok, has done in the past, and sell Americans’ data? Or provide Americans data directly to the CCP for future use against American and American interests? Those are questions that people should be asking, I think, rather than fixating on the ups or downs of Elon buying Twitter,” Patel said. ...

 

In one post from July 2023, Patel accused Musk of being “big tech colluding with our government to censor our elections,” adding: “Your cheap Titter [sic] posts and your Mickey Mouse clown droppings do not absolve you,” as first reported by The Daily Beast. “You are as bad as FBI/DOJ n you and are making millions from the disinformation campaigns. You are a complete and total fake who cares only about $.” ...

 

 

Kash Patel Tells FBI Staff To Ignore Elon Musk's Demand: Report

The new Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Kash Patel has reportedly told the agency's staff to ignore Elon Musk's request to justify their work or lose their jobs.

"For now, please pause any responses," reads a message sent by Patel on Saturday to all FBI personnel, calling for employees to wait for a coordinated response from the bureau. ...

 

 

 

Now the Trump administration is imitating the most odious revolutionary rhetoric of the Obama administration

 

WH's Karoline Leavitt: Trump "Is Fundamentally Transforming Our Country For The Better"

 

We are fundamentally transforming our country for the better, truly restoring our government, the 27-year old know-nothing says, when they're actually gutting it. 

These people all think they're so smart.

 

They think they're cutting something down to size which is already on its knees. Federal employment today has hardly been lower as a percentage of civilian population in the post-war. The low point was achieved already in 2018. The Leviathan State is a complete myth.

 

If Trump truly restored our government, he'd be hiring dramatically, not firing. 

For all of Trump’s and Musk’s talk of efficiency, their policies will likely slow down the government. The state needs capacity to perform core tasks, such as collecting revenue, taking care of veterans, tracking weather, and ensuring that travel, medicine, food, and workplaces are safe. But Trump seems intent on pushing more employees to leave and making the civil service more political and an even less inviting job option. He bullies federal employees, labeling them as “crooked” and likening their removal to “getting rid of all the cancer.” A smaller, terrified, and politicized public workforce will not be an effective one.

To start, let’s dispense with the notion that the government is too big. It is not. As a share of the workforce, federal employment has declined in the past several decades. Civilian employees represent about 1.5 percent of the population and account for less than 7 percent of total government spending. According to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, seven out of 10 civilian employees work in organizations that deal with national security, including departments—such as Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security—that the public supports.

The reality is that the federal government has long faced a human-capital crisis. ...

More.

The country is $36 trillion in debt because it is not taxing enough, and hasn't been taxing enough since Ronald Reagan. We pretend we can borrow to infinity for what we want, but we can't afford it all anymore. That is why they're surrendering to Putin, and taking a meat cleaver to DC.

This is not a serious country, otherwise a South African wouldn't be running it.

 

 

 

 

 

In his Feb 21 debate with the conservative historian Niall Ferguson, J. D. Vance said Trump was trying to achieve a lasting piece of Ukraine lol

 A very unfortunate but accurate Freudian slip.

And the idea that "we're not going to telegraph our negotiating posture" is just laughable on its face. The administration has publicly said Ukraine won't get any land back and will not become part of NATO, both of which are concessions before negotiations have even begun.

These people are a joke, a very bad joke.

 

 

Elon Musk's own version of AI, called GROK, says he is the biggest source of disinformation on X lol

 

The Putin-Trump Piece Plan demonstrates that neither Russia nor America has any respect whatsover for Ukraine's property

Left is, finally and above all, lack of respect for property.

-- Oswald Spengler, The Hour of Decision, 1934

 

Canada beat America 3-2 in 4 Nations Hockey Face-Off final, Gulf of America renamed

 Connor McDavid scores in OT to give Canada 3-2 win over United States in 4 Nations Face-Off final

 

Donald Trump has Zelenskyy's back

 

J. D. Vance says we'll help freedom fighters everywhere . . .

 . . . to surrender.

 

A purported descendant of Patrick Henry and James Madison blasted The Tyrant Trump in GA-7 townhall represented by Rich McCormick

 

Town Hall Erupts At Blistering Anti-Trump Rant Torching ‘Tyranny’ — Gets Standing Ovation In Trump District:

 

A town hall in a plus-thirty GOP district erupted in a sustained standing ovation over a blistering rant calling President Donald Trump a “tyrant” who “named himself king.”

Trump’s first weeks in office have been characterized by a string of successful Cabinet nominations and a relentless testing of executive power and governing norms. Many critics saw Trump’s social media declaration “Long live the King!’ as emblematic of that approach.

That was certainly the case when Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) — who endorsed Trump in 2024 after first supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) — faced constituents at a town hall meeting in Roswell, Georgia on Thursday.

A woman named Virginia Lim prefaced her scathing question to McCormick by referencing her familial connection to the Founding Fathers — then laid into Trump:

VICTORIA LIM: Thank you so much, Congressman, for taking my question. I do so appreciate it.

I’m a direct descendant of Susanna Henry Madison, one of Patrick Henry’s younger sisters and a cousin by marriage of James Madison.

Do you know who Patrick Henry was? And James Madison, sir? (NODS)

I’m so glad to hear that. While arguing the need for the American Revolution, Patrick Henry said “A king is a tyrant. If a wrong step is made now, the Republic will be lost forever and tyranny will rise.”.

I believe you know the rest of his speech. Something about “give me liberty.”.

It’s clear from all the writings of our Founding Fathers that our great Republic was never meant to be ruled by a dictator, nor a king.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

So. So you can imagine my shock and pure horror when I woke up to find that our president had given himself unprecedented executive powers, and then, within a few days, named himself King to his followers. (APPLAUSE).

Tyranny. Tyranny—!

MODERATOR: Virginia. Do you have a question for the congressman?

VICTORIA LIM: I do, I do. Thank you. Tyranny is rising in the white House, and a man has declared himself our king. So I would like to know. Rather the people would like to know what you, congressman, and your fellow congressman are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House.

(CROWD STANDS AND CHEERS).

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you!

REP. RICH MCCORMICK: Thank you. I’m not going to give you my best Foghorn Leghorn response to that. But what I was — so you can go ahead and sit down — thank you.

The — when you talk about tyranny, when you talk about presidential power, I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elected.

(JEERING).

The funny thing is, the funny thing is —

(JEERING CONTINUES).

The funny thing is, you’re sitting here in your body, you would probably say those January 6ers who were yelling just as loud as you, who were upset just like you, and not listen —

(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)

MODERATOR: Hey, hey, hey, let’s restore some order! Let’s restore some order! Hey hey hey, let’s restore some order!

REP. RICH MCCORMICK: So yelling, yelling at me is not going to get any answer, okay? Hey, like I said, like I said, we’re not going to give order right now.

MODERATOR: Let’s get through this. Congressman.

AUDIENCE: Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!

REP. RICH MCCORMICK: I’ve seen Game of Thrones, too. Thank you.

Eventually, McCormick cited the so-called REINS Act, claiming it “reins in executive power” — but the bill actually has to do with rule-making at federal agencies.

 

America is gone: Like Hitler and Stalin carving up Poland in 1939, Trump and Putin carve up Ukraine in 2025

 

This is wild: This morning we learned Judge Ali again ruled that all foreign aid must be distributed, tonight Judge Nichols says it's OK for Trump to fire all the employees at USAID who do that

That doesn't make any sense!

Judge gives go ahead for Trump administration to gut USAID’s workforce

A federal judge Friday paved the way for the Trump administration to move forward with plans to remove thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers from their jobs.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols denied a request from labor groups to issue a preliminary injunction after the Trump administration said thousands of USAID employees would be placed on administrative leave and ordered agency personnel abroad to return to the U.S. within 30 days. ...

 

 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: To watch our ally of 80 years, the USA, turn on us with ferocity and blithely team up with our declared enemy really is the end of days

 

Trump’s embrace of Putin is a Molotov-Ribbentrop crisis for Europe:

The new regime in Washington is testing pro-American sympathies to breaking point

 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard20 February 2025 6:50pm GMT

We are at that moment in Animal Farm when the gentle carthorse Clover looks through the window to see the pigs playing cards and drinking a toast with men.

The pigs are all perfectly at ease and sitting back in chairs around a table, no doubt a rougher surface than the luxurious polished table used to host America’s Marco Rubio and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia this week. The Russian press reports that the meeting was a love-fest of jokes and bonhomie, with a “very tasty lunch”.

George Orwell’s scene was an allegory of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, when Europe’s great power alignment suddenly and violently shifted. The liberal democracies woke up on Aug 23 1939 to discover that the Soviet Union had reached a non-aggression deal with Nazi Germany. Days later, Hitler and Stalin carved up Eastern Europe between them. The Nazis could then turn their concentrated fury on France and Britain without having to worry about a second front.

Britain had started to re-arm as early as 1935. Neville Chamberlain hurled money at the Royal Air Force in the late 1930s, with Spitfire squadrons arriving just in time. Defence spending had risen to 9pc of GDP by 1939.

This time, Europe’s democracies have indulged the same pacifist illusions as they did in the run up to 1939 but have milked the peace dividend even longer. Military spending by EU states was 1.9pc of GDP in 2024, a full 17 years after Vladimir Putin declared political war on liberal civilisation and all its works at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 – “a good speech” said one Angela Merkel, audibly, in the front row.

He then set about restoring the tsarist empire to the borders of Catherine the Great with an unswerving consistency. Austria is not even part of Nato and behaves accordingly.

Some are rising to the challenge. Denmark has given its stock of munitions to Ukraine and even the trade unions back a war tax to raise defence spending to 4pc of GDP. “We are in a very, very critical period in world history,” said Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister.

Poland’s military budget is already up to 4.7pc. “We’re that afraid,” said his Polish counterpart Radosław Sikorski at last week’s Munich forum.

Lithuania aims for 5pc to 6pc of GDP by next year, alarmed by intelligence warnings that Putin may seize the Suwalki Gap, which runs through its territory from Belarus to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

They all know that Putin has a narrow window of time to attack if the Ukraine war is quickly settled on Russian terms. His advantage is temporary: a greatly enlarged army heading for 1.5m by 2026 and an industrial war economy firing on all cylinders but untenable for much longer.

Fears are growing that Donald Trump will order the US military to pull its Nato tripwire forces out of the Baltics in order to seal the “deal of the century” with the Kremlin. Will he swallow the bait as the smooth McKinsey-trained head of Russia’s investment fund, Kirill Dmitriev, dangles the offer of hydrocarbon riches – real or imagined – in Russian Arctic waters?

The issue runs deeper in any case. Maga America has a greater natural affinity for Putin’s Right-wing cultural Weltanschauung than it does for the liberal democracies. After the battering of the last two weeks, some of us are forced to conclude that Britain and Europe are now the real enemies for this new Washington and, furthermore, that the US is anything but isolationist under Donald Trump.

He will not let us carry on being different. He will force-feed us his Maga ideology. His oil-fracking energy secretary was in London this week describing our renewables as “sinister”. Will we face sanctions for trying to do something about CO2 emissions? Perhaps, yes. Particularly for that.

I do not wish to dissect every post by Trump on Truth Social, or dwell on the speech by JD Vance. I think Britain should repeal all its hate legislation and stop misusing police resources on thought crimes. It should stop dividing us into categories and return to colour-blind liberalism. But one can agree with elements of Vance’s anti-woke critique while entirely rejecting the larger message behind it.

We are told repeatedly by Trump’s circle that he does not really mean what he says, or that we should not overreact to what he is very clearly doing. Let us hope they are right, but it is becoming harder by the day to have confidence in such assurances, or to believe that either Republicans or plutocrats will lift a finger to stop him – and I say this as a defender of Pax Americana for half a century.

Sir Keir Starmer is right to stay calm and try to defuse this terrifying inter-allied crisis on his visit to the White House. But we of The Telegraph parish, readers and writers alike, will all have to look into our souls if, as now seems painfully plausible, Britain is singled out for tariff warfare along with Europe on the pretext of our VAT taxes.

Worse yet if Trump does this while reaching a cosy commodity deal with Putin along with a grand bargain with Xi Jinping to protect Elon Musk’s interests in China. That would test one’s pro-American sympathies to breaking point.

Europe shares much of the blame for the disintegration of the Western alliance system. It failed to re-arm after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Germany rewarded Putin months later by launching the Nord Stream 2 project, which had no purpose other than depriving Kyiv of strategic leverage by re-routing Siberian gas through Baltic pipelines. In return, Germany enjoyed a sweetheart gas deal at sub-market prices.

Britain could have rebuilt its military hardware at ultra-low borrowing costs during the secular stagnation of the 2010s, when it had ample spare capacity. It could have rebuilt its decaying infrastructure and revived its economy at the same time. The multiplier effect would have let us do these things without pushing the debt ratio any faster. Britain pursued austerity instead. Now it faces a greater task, in a hostile bond market.

Europe was even more destructive. Germany cut public investment and military spending to the bone for 15 years. It relied on mercantilist export surpluses of 8pc of GDP to drive growth, a policy that has left Germany in the cross-hairs of Trump’s trade warriors.

The eurozone debt crisis – self-inflicted because the European Central Bank did not then have political approval to back-stop debts – turned into a wider depression because Brussels over-egged austerity and used bailouts to impose drastic spending cuts. There was no exemption for military spending.

Defence as a share of GDP in 2015 was Hungary 0.5pc, Belgium 0.8pc, Germany 1.0pc, Spain 1.0pc, Italy 1.2pc, France 1.8pc –and that was after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Military budgets crept up slowly thereafter but not enough to prevent further disarmament.

Europe thought it could keep free-riding on Uncle Sucker forever, despite warnings that this would end badly. There was much talk along the way of a European army and endless euro-speak meetings about procedures, modalities and the architecture of EU defence, but never anything real. That is why Europe today finds itself utterly naked.

But nobody expected it to end this badly and this suddenly. To watch an ally of 80 years turn on us with ferocity and blithely team up with our declared enemy really is the end of days.

Mad King Ludwig to say Russia not the aggressor, Putin not a war criminal, and leave the 40-nation coalition forming the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine

My country is dead to me.

Trump to abandon Russia war crimes prosecution:

Washington signals end to pursuit of Putin as third anniversary of Ukraine invasion looms

 

Joe Barnes

 21 February 2025 6:02pm GMT

The US has signalled that it could leave an international effort to prosecute Russia for invading Ukraine, The Telegraph can reveal.

US envoys refused to label Russia as an “aggressor” at a meeting of a “core group” of countries preparing a Nuremberg-style tribunal to try Vladimir Putin for his war crimes, according to Western officials.

Washington is similarly refusing to co-sponsor a United Nations statement that supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and demands Moscow to withdraw its forces from the war-torn nation.

Mr Trump’s administration has also refused to sign off a planned G7 statement calling Russia the “aggressor” in the war with Ukraine to mark the third anniversary of the conflict on Monday.

The US president has blamed Ukraine for starting the war, branded Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” and pushed for Russia to be invited back to the alliance of industrialised nations.

European officials fear Mr Trump’s flattery of Putin could lead to the Russian despot being let off the hook for his invasion as part of any peace settlement.

This stance has put preparations for the final meeting of the “core group” next month in doubt. The group is leading a 40-nation coalition to form a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, modelled on the response to Nazi war crimes after the Second World War.

It would involve the US and other countries joining Ukraine to grant jurisdiction to a dedicated criminal tribunal to investigate both the perpetrators of the crime of aggression and those complicit in that crime.

The crime of aggression cannot be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

“Unless they acknowledge it’s an aggression, they can’t participate,” an official said of US opposition to the labelling of Russia as an aggressor.

Losing Washington’s backing for the tribunal will be a major blow to the project’s international reputation and standing. 

“This is quite a drastic shift,” a European diplomat told The Telegraph. “Rewriting history and pretending that Russia wasn’t the one who started this war is something that we simply cannot and will not agree to.”

The US has not yet officially withdrawn from the scheme and is expected to attend its next meeting next month in Strasbourg, France.

A diplomatic note seen by The Telegraph revealed that European officials were “shocked” at US claims at a series of international meetings that Russia should be invited back into the “civilised world”.

European capitals are now holding talks over a possible collapse of the special tribunal if the US does walk away as feared.

The latest US position marks a significant shift in policy between Joe Biden and Mr Trump. 

The former president had branded Putin a “war criminal” and signed off a series of international statements that described Russia as the aggressor state.

Washington is now pushing for the almost three-year war to be called the “Ukraine conflict” in discussions with international allies.

A State Department readout of the meeting between Marco Rubio, the US state secretary, and Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, twice described the war as “the conflict in Ukraine”.

This is a dictator, this is just . . .

 

THIS IS A DICTATOR                                                                                               THIS IS JUST A DICK

US District Judge Amir Ali stops just short of holding Trump administration in contempt for failing to comply with court's order allowing disbursement of foreign aid

 

Trump administration hasn’t complied with order to halt foreign aid freeze, judge says

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week ordered the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance after hearing claims from federal contractors challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.

Ali determined that a “blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated foreign aid” had caused irreparable harm to the contractors and was likely not allowed under the Administrative Procedure Act. ...

“By enjoining Defendants and their agents from implementing any directives to undertake such blanket suspension, the Court was not inviting Defendants to continue the suspension while they reviewed contracts and legal authorities to come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension,” Ali wrote. ...

"to the extent Defendants have continued the blanket suspension, they are ordered to immediately cease it.”

The judge stopped short of holding the administration in contempt.

 

 

AKA The Bay of New Spain . . . among the better educated

 

An English nautical chart dated 1775 labels it "the Bay of Mexico", now glossing "Mexico" as an alternative name for New Spain:

 

 

Kash Patel confirmed to FBI by the US Senate 51-49

 

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 just now checking the gold inventory at Fort Knox for some reason

 

Trump says his administration will check Fort Knox ‘to make sure the gold is there’

 

“We’re going to go to Fort Knox, the fabled Fort Knox, to make sure the gold is there,” Trump said Wednesday on Air Force One.

 

 

 

Not even ass-kisser Mark Levin can take the Ukraine BS from Trump

 Levin almost never disagrees with Trump. It's very revealing of Mark's priorities, which include the absolute rectitude of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.

 

Mark Levin Defies Trump By Backing Zelensky and Trashing Putin — Bashes ‘Sick’ and ‘Un-American’ Foreign Policy

... I’m waiting for the first free election for Vladimir Putin. I mean, this is almost comical in a sick way that Putin is demanding an election. Why is he demanding an election in Ukraine when he doesn’t have free and real elections in his own country? ... I don’t know why there are people that not only oppose Zelensky, but seem to support Putin,” said Levin, attributing said position to a handful of pseudo-intellectuals” pushing “policies that in many ways are un-American in my view, and policies that if they had espoused these policies not that long ago, people would have wondered if they were on the take, or who they’re working for, something like that. Not that they are, but they would wonder.” ...

Levin sounds like Democrats at the end there, getting uncomfortably close to their charge that Trump has always been on the take from Putin, working for Putin, "something like that" lol.

Somebody should check the audio though, because, holy smokes, this whopper was in there:

There is no peace without slavery.

 

 

Gold makes tenth record high of 2025: $2,954.69

 CNBC here.

It's a tag team of wacko birds at Real Clear Politics tonight: Donald Trump and his national security advisor Mike Waltz attack Ukraine, blame the victim of Russian aggression

The most disgusting thing I've seen in a long time.

 

Maybe Democrats in the US House and Senate need to sue Elon Musk because they are the injured party

 Judge Tanya Chutkan correctly ruled that the Attorneys General who sued Musk demonstrated no harm to their states.

The interests of Congress are harmed, however, regardless of party, even if most Republicans are too stupid to realize it. Their constitutional prerogatives have been usurped. Being in the majority, however, and servile to Trump, Republicans don't care. Democrats, in the minority, have no other remedy. 

Of course this is partly a political matter, in which the court might refuse to meddle, and that is arguably correct. The remedy is political in that it is to be settled at the ballot box in two years. But that seems like an awful long time to wait for the system to correct itself, and it might not.

It might take a Democrat White House lording it over congressional Republicans in the minority in the future to demonstrate to them what they seem incapable of grasping now, but of course if this stands that will be too late for them to do anything about it.

What goes around comes around, in politics as in life.

What this really is is a constitutional matter. It is about the executive branch using a novel scheme to infringe on the powers specifically reserved to the Congress. Democrats should make that their case. The court system is the traditional place to adjudicate such things.

But given outright Democrat hostility to the constitution, e.g. to the Electoral College among other things, they may just not have the heart for it.

Sad!

 

Judge Chutkan rejects call from Democratic AGs for temporary restraining order blocking DOGE’s access to federal data

... But Chutkan said that the states hadn’t shown “that they will suffer imminent, irreparable harm absent a temporary restraining order.”

“The court is aware that DOGE’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion for Plaintiffs and many of their agencies and residents,” she wrote in the 10-page ruling. “It remains ‘uncertain’ when and how the catalog of state programs that Plaintiffs identify will suffer.”

Chutkan went on to say that even though the states’ larger case against Musk is “strong,” their arguments at this stage in the litigation were not good enough to satisfy the standard that must be met to warrant emergency action by the court.

“Plaintiffs raise a colorable Appointments Clause claim with serious implications. Musk has not been nominated by the President nor confirmed by the U.S. Senate, as constitutionally required for officers who exercise ‘significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States,’” she wrote. “But even a strong merits argument cannot secure a temporary restraining order at this juncture.”...

Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, pompous, and behaving like an ass

 

Congressional Republicans are unhappy with imprecise and rash spending cuts and personnel reductions, resulting in violations of the law, mistakes, and human carnage in their districts and states

 Trump faces growing DOGE revolt from GOP lawmakers

... "We all want efficiencies, there is a way to do it, and the way these people have been treated has been awful in many cases. Awful." ... some are quietly fuming that their Constitutional role in controlling federal funds could be steamrolled in the process. The House Republican who spoke anonymously warned that many conservatives are "very constitutionalist" and may be inclined to protect Congress' power if forced to do so. "Even though it's our guy in the White House, if there's a lot of executive overreach, we want to protect the institution of Congress," they said. ...

Victim blaming: Trump says Ukraine's Zelenskyy, attacked by 25-year dictator Vladimir Putin, is the dictator

 When you've lost Sent Defender, you've lost.

Victim blaming: Trump says Ukraine started the war with Russia

 Didn't he do this to women who accused him?

 

 

Democrat Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) is correct: Elon Musk is an unelected interloper, with no authority and no legitimacy who makes a mockery of the appropriations process

 

 Musk exercises nonexistent dictatorial line-item-veto powers over spending and personnel as a "super cabinet" official who was never confirmed by the US Senate like the other cabinet members he now tells what's what.

The whole scheme is illegal and unconstitutional, which is why Trump is now all of a sudden denying that Musk is head of the so-called DOGE, just like Trump hastily made Musk a special government employee after lawsuits were filed on February 3 questioning Musk's authority.

It's an end run around the constitution no less serious than the National Popular Vote Compact, which seeks to neuter the Electoral College.

Trump has been making this bullshit up as he goes and has been since Musk endorsed Trump after the July assassination attempt and then became part of Trump's circle of intimates in August.

The tech oligarchy got front row seats at the inauguration for a reason.

Congress closing in on shutdown deadline with no clear plan 

“We cannot come to a deal where you hammer out gains, losses, but you come to a conclusion and you come to a meeting of the minds,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters. “That should not be subject to some third party deciding that that’s not what they want.”

“We had a deal last year, all of us and so forth, and then there was an interloper with no authority, no legitimacy, nonelected, who said, ‘Don’t vote for it,’” DeLauro said, as Democrats have continued to zero in on tech billionaire Elon Musk, the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Another Trump MO is his perverse demand for reimbursement from totally wrecked countries which we "helped"

 

Trump's MO is to cut people out of negotiations: He's cutting out Ukraine just like he cut out the Afghans and negotiated directly with the Taliban

"Watch me hand over Ukraine to Putin like I handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban."

 

 

Ukraine should just surrender to Putin and join the East, given Trump's immoral treatment of Ukraine

 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for The UK Telegraph:

Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold

Panic in Kyiv as US president demands higher share of GDP than Germany’s First World War reparations

 

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. ...

Trump said the US had spent $300bn on the war so far, adding that it would be “stupid” to hand over any more. In fact the five packages agreed by Congress total $175bn, of which $70bn was spent in the US on weapons production. Some of it is in the form of humanitarian grants, but much of it is lend-lease money that must be repaid. ...

Talk of Ukraine’s resource wealth has become surreal. A figure of $26 trillion is being cast around for combined mineral reserves and hydrocarbons reserves. The sums are make-believe.  ...

Ukraine cannot possibly meet his $500bn demand in any meaningful timeframe, leaving aside the larger matter of whether it is honourable to treat a victim nation in this fashion after it has held the battle line for the liberal democracies at enormous sacrifice for three years. Who really has a debt to whom, may one ask? ... 

[Zelensky] has to pick between the military violation of Ukraine by Putin, and the economic violation of Ukraine by his own ally.

If you think Trump is a nutball with this Napoleon stuff, Luigi Mangione announces that in himself we have now finally achieved the classless society of which red diaper doper babies everywhere have long dreamed

The mental illness problem in America is much worse than I thought.