Wednesday, November 19, 2025

The National Embarrassment


People, at least those not taken over by PTDS (Pro-Trump Derangement Syndrome) are justifiably perturbed by this:


 SHOCKING: In a disgusting moment, Trump shouted personal insults at a reporter asking him about incriminating evidence in the Epstein files, shouting "Quiet! Quiet Piggy."

Facing little blowback, it was time to pick it up a notch.

MB: Is it appropriate, Mr. President, for your family to be doing business with Saudi Arabia while you're President. is that a conflict of interest? And Your Royal Highness, US intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9/11 families are furious. Why should Americans-  

DT: Who are you with?

MB: ABC News, sir.

DT: Fake News. ABC News, one of the worst in the business. But I'll answer your question.

After lying about is involvement in the family business, Donald added

As far as this gentleman is concerned, he's done a phenomenal job. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about, whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen but he ne knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that.

After the Saudi autocrat feigned concern about Jamal Khashoggi's "death," Trump

criticized Bruce for asking the prince a “horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question.” He laced into her after a third query, about why the White House is waiting for congressional action to release more details about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s correspondence. “Why not just do it now?” Bruce asked.

“It’s not the question that I mind,” Trump said. “It’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions.”

After addressing the Epstein question, he returned to Bruce, saying that “people are wise to your hoax.”  

In October of 2018, The New York Times reported

Saudi agents were waiting when Jamal Khashoggi walked into their country’s consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. Mr. Khashoggi was dead within minutes, beheaded, dismembered, his fingers severed, and within two hours the killers were gone, according to details from audio recordings described by a senior Turkish official on Wednesday…

American intelligence officials say they have growing circumstantial evidence that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi, who entered the consulate in Istanbul more than two weeks ago to obtain a document for his coming wedding and did not emerge.

Despite leading Saudi officials denying involvement in the murder, they "reiterated their conclusion that a team of 15 Saudi agents, some with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed, was waiting for Mr. Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate the moment he arrived, at about 1:15 p.m. on Oct. 2." 

The following month, the C.I.A. concluded that the murder of Mr. Khashoggi was ordered by the man whom Trump on Tuesday praised for having "done a phenomenal job." Khashoggi needed documents to prove that he was divorced in order to marry his fiancee.  Mohammed bin Salman, according to the C.I.A., told his brother, the Saudi ambassador to the USA, to tell Khashoggi to go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul the following day to obtain the documents, There he was assassinated.


 


Khashoggi was a citizen of Saudi Arabia and resident of the USA, in voluntary exile from the Kingdom while writing columns for The Washington Post urging moderate reform of the monarchy.   Although not an American citizen, the journalist was a graduate of Indiana State University and at least two of his adult children are citizens of the USA.

He deserved better from the President of the USA. Yet, so did Mary Bruce and Catherine Lucey, the White House correspondent for Bloomberg labeled "piggy" by the leader of the Free World, who much prefers the noun to the object of that preposition. They deserve much better. We deserve much better.

Yet, the American press proceeds as usual, as if it is unaware that the President is determined to suppress not only dissent, but only questioning. "Don't embarrass our guest," says the guardian of the most powerful military in world history, who asserts power and influence over American citizens while frightened even to question heads of state of large dictatorships. He is both aggressively domineering and, when national interests demand strength, a pathetic coward.


 


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Monday, November 17, 2025

Anti-Transparent Transparency



As Politico notes

Capitol Hill Republicans are rapidly falling in line behind a bill that would force the disclosure of Justice Department files concerning Jeffrey Epstein after President Donald Trump signaled Monday he would sign it.

Two prominent House committee chairs said they planned to support the bill compelling the release of materials related to the late convicted sex offender, and GOP leaders are exploring whether to advance the measure under special fast-track rules later this week.

The French say, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."  The more things change, the more they stay the same. The President advocated release of the files, then continually called the documents a "hoax" and lobbied House Republicans to oppose their release, and now has called for their release.

Chris Cillizza (video below) understands Republicans are thinking "it's time to move on" and "there is a recognition by Republicans that the more time they spend talking about Jeffrey Epstein, the worse." 

He understands that Trump can count votes, realizes that the vote in the House and then in the Senate will pass, and doesn't want to be on the losing side. Additionally, there is this from The Bulwark's anti-Trump veteran GOP strategist:

That is Trump's M.O. Recall that in in 2022

Former President Donald Trump on the eve of the Missouri primaries gave his much-coveted endorsement in the Republican primary for Missouri's open Senate seat, but there was some confusion about who had been selected.

"I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!" Trump wrote in a statement Monday night.

And with that, Trump apparently rejected anyone in the field of 19 who is not named Eric. There are two leading candidates who share the first name: Attorney General Eric Schmitt and former Attorney General Eric Greitens, and one candidate trailing them.

(Eric won.)

Cillizza fears, realistically, that (emphasis his) "even if he signs this into law and says "the Department of Justice needs to release all its files on the Epstein investigation, I think the DOJ could come back and say "well, we're in the midst of some ongoing investigations- we can't release all that stuff."

Unfortunately, there probably is another, more sinister and dangerous, reason, first divulged by Illinois senator Dick Durbin.  The Times of India reports

An old report has brought back a question Donald Trump's team hoped would disappear: did the FBI work through the night to remove his name from the Jeffrey Epstein files before saying there was nothing left to release? The timing is important as Trump has suddenly reversed his stance on making the documents public.

Trump announced on Truth Social: "House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide." It marked a sudden U-turn after months of resisting pressure from both parties. His shift only came once it became clear that the house was preparing to move forward without him.

The move was surprising given that Trump had previously dismissed the Epstein issue as a  Democratic "hoax" despite having campaigned on transparency in 2024. Bloomberg reported in August this year that an FBI FOIA team had already blacked out Trump's name from the documents during an exhaustive internal review. 

Sources familiar with the process told Bloomberg "We know from news reports that Trump's name was in the Epstein files. But what hasn't been reported is that an FBI FOIA team redacted Trump's name and the names of other prominent public figures from the documents."

The review involved up to 1,0000 FBI agents and staff working through more than 100,0000 documents.

The White House referred questions about the redactions to the FBI. The FBI declined to comment and the Justice Department offered no response. In July, DOJ and the FBI said they had collected more than 300 gigabytes of Epstein-related evidence but concluded that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted."

In a fitting choice of words, the publication observes "downplaying the gravity of the situation, Trump has now pivoted...."  

As is the case with most organizations and individuals, public officials need to be nimble and there is no one more skilled than Donald Trump at pivoting from one side to the other and back again. Democrats must adjust to the new reality that the files, in one manner or another, are likely to be released.

 Presumably, there will be little mention of Donald Trump other than to highlight his unequaled humility, manly dedication to women and girls, and existential greatness.  How Democrats respond to the release and their contents may define the remainder of President Trump's second term. They need to devise a strategy to address the false narrative which will be depicted because, whether the impact is direct or indirect, nothing less than democracy's future is at stake.


 



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Saturday, November 15, 2025

J.D. Vance, Again Feigning Ignorance



A podcaster who is running for the US House of Representatives from Missouri is right about immigrants and investors and wrong about a remark being complete nonsense. The Cato Institute, which is as a libertarian organization is wrong about almost everything
On the blog of the Cato Institute, as a libertarian organization wrong about almost everything, points out

As a libertarian organization, the Cato Institute is wrong about almost everything. However, one of its bloggers notes that a disproportionate percentage of immigrants works in the construction industry but

all immigrants demand housing. Even immigrants who work in construction increase housing demand first before they can construct more housing. That increase in demand drives up prices and incentivizes new supply through further construction, renovation, or increasing the supply of rental units through other means. However, the marginal immigrant increases housing demand more than he increases housing supply.

Thus, immigrants do place some upward pressure on housing prices. However, the tweeter without a first name is correct:

         


These, and several other, are the reasons for our chronic shortage of housing. Please inform J.D. Vance. 


Name-checking Springfield, Ohio, Vance argued also during the presidential campaign that the demand for housing by illegal immigrants is pushing upward the cost of homes. Nobody asked him how those individuals without a Social Security card were able to obtain a home mortgage loan. Nor is it likely they'd be able to pay for a house with cash, no matter how much they were saving on food bills in Springfield with their cat-focused diet.



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Friday, November 14, 2025

Americans Last

I suppose tomorrow I need to destroy m unexpired D size Duracell batteries manufactured in the USA.

There is a split in MAGA land, one aside from disagreement over Israel, the high cost of living, and release of the Epstein files. Though less visible and contentious, it goes to the heart of what Donald Trump is.:


That segment from Laura Ingraham's interview of President Donald Trump on Fox News on November 12, 2025 illustrates a difference in attitude toward the American people.


DT: No, you don't have- you don't have certain talents and people have to learn. You can't take people off an unemployment line and say "I'm going to put you into a factory where we're going to make missiles or I'm going to put you into-

LI: Why did we ever do it before- when you and I were growing up?

DT: Well, I'll give you an example. In Georgia, they made it because they wanted illegal immigrants, uh. They had people from South Korea. They made batteries all their life. You know, making batteries is a very complicated- it's not an easy thing to- it's very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like five or six hundred people, early stages to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country- you don't need that here, Laura. 

I know you and I disagree on this. You can't just say a country's coming in, they're going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and you know, take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years and they're going to start making their missiles. It doesn't work that way.


Bless her heart. Laura Ingraham apparently was under the misapprehension that Trump's trade policy, characterized by off-and-on, bobbing and weaving tariffs has had something to do with expanding the USA's manufacturing basis.

It never was. The "what's in it for me" President may have varied motives for the games he has played with trade, including blackmailing or rewarding some businesses. Less than a month into the tariffs, Pro Publica reported 

.... the White House released a list of more than a thousand products that would be exempted.

One item that made the list is polyethylene terephthalate, more commonly known as PET resin, the thermoplastic used to make plastic bottles.

Why it was spared is unclear, and even people in the industry are confused about the reason for the reprieve.

But its inclusion is a win for Reyes Holdings, a Coca-Cola bottler that ranks among the largest privately held companies in the U.S. and is owned by a pair of brothers who have donated millions of dollars to Republican causes. Records show the company recently hired a lobbying firm with close ties to the Trump White House to make its case on tariffs.

Whether the company’s lobbying played any role in the exemption is unclear. Reyes Holdings and its lobbyists did not respond to questions from ProPublica. The White House also did not comment, but some industry advocates say the administration has rebuffed requests for exemptions.

Perhaps Trump has been eager to impose a high tariff against a nation and then after negotiations, lower them, proving again that he's the awesome dealmaker he always claims to be. The President does see the world as a zero-sum game, in which everything begets a winner and a loser. If a leader elsewhere is hurt or harmed, Donald believes, he is helped by the same degree.

But it has nothing to do with a country Donald clearly doesn't like. Whether he's calling the USA "evil," its people generally "fat, bloated, and disgusting," or dishonoring deceased or active members of the Armed Services, he has made contempt for Americans clear. 

And now, while millions of Americans- with Trump's help- are losing access to food they can afford:


Maybe the key is in "nothing American about this at all."  Donald makes policy based on what helps him and his family., with extra points if it hurts others. Tariffs never had anything to do with rebuilding the country's manufacturing base because Donald Trump has about as much regard for American workers as, well, nations of the Middle East have for Palestinians.



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Thursday, November 13, 2025

The Right Enemies



Finally, common sense.

No, not Karoline Leavitt, press secretary of President Donald Trump, but one BBC reporter who notes a not-odd couple.


The London Economic reports

Broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby has defended the BBC by pointing to who the most vocal critics of the corporation are.

On Sunday, director general Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness both announced their resignations, following criticism over a the way a Panorama documentary edited Donald Trump’s infamous January 6 speech in 2021.

A leaked 19-page memo on impartiality by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, ruled the broadcaster gave the impression that he told supporters he would march with them to the US Capitol to “fight like hell.”

Trump has subsequently threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn in damages if the corporation doesn’t issue a full apology and retraction of the programme.

America isn’t the only foreign power to have attacked the BBC.

A statement from Israel’s London embassy on Monday stated: “For years, we have repeatedly warned about the BBC’s consistent failures to uphold the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity expected from a public broadcaster.”

Wait for it; wait for it-

Meanwhile, the Russian embassy shared a post on X on Tuesday which said BBC journalists “manipulate facts & censor information that does not align with their partisan editorial stance.”

It added: “Ideological dogma has replaced journalistic ethics there, distorting the very principles of media independence & freedom of information.”

Following all this, former BBC journalist Jonathan Dimbleby has suggested criticism from states run by Putin, Trump and Netanyahu might be the perfect defence for the corporation.

Speaking to LBC, he said: “If you’ve got the combination of Netanyahu, Putin and Trump denouncing the BBC, there must be something quite good about it.”

He continued: “The one salvation of the BBC will be that as we gain a little bit more perspective, people will recognise that it is actually the most trusted and impartial broadcasting institution in the world.”

As to Israel, your mileage may vary. However, it's only appropriate that Donald Trump and the government of Vladimir Putin hold a similar view of press freedom. The enemy of both is the free press. In few instances has the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" been more applicable. 



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Tuesday, November 11, 2025

Dangerous Misconception(s)


Oh, yes. Sure, Joe!

As the saying from last decade goes, that (comment) didn't age well.


Trump was offered a platform to repeat, and reinforce, some of his go-to lies. He was set up with the non-question "We'd love to hear your thoughts about where we are as a nation, how we're doing."  The President replied

Well, we're doing  great and recruitments is doing phenomenally and, uh, people have spirit, the stock market hit an all-time high, prices are coming down. We inherited a mess, prices are coming way down, and I'll tell you, our country has over $17 trillion they have invested, which is a record. So we're doing great.

So great that his party, north, south, east, and west, was pummeled on on Election Day. Military recruitment in fact has been on the rise, since before Trump was re-elected. Prices are increasing, not decreasing. And the $17 trillion figure Trump has cited periodically is far larger than the $8.8 trillion claimed in the White House website, which itself is a gross exaggeration. Even the rise in the stock market is shaky, with most economists believing it is built on a foundation of sand, with the artificial intelligence craze leading the way. Things are not "great" or even good.

Nonetheless, the danger is not in what Trump says but that the media generally has been fine with it, notwithstanding Rogan's imagination. 

For what seems several years but has been far less, we have heard "Russia. Russia. Russia." as a dismissive reference to the investigation of Donald Trump for the interference by Russia in the 2016 presidential election.  Yet, in his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Special Counsel Robert Mueller identified

accounts of dozens of contacts between senior members of the Trump campaign and several Russians, including those who said they were Russian government agents, for the purpose of electing Donald Trump and defeating Hillary Clinton. It includes reports of secret meetings with campaign officials, including two members of the Trump family, which Mueller concludes violate campaign finance laws.

Mueller did not accuse anyone of "collusion" because "collusion" is not a legal term and is not in itself a federal crime.

Moreover, Mueller remarked "(I)f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment." That sounds a lot like "we suspect he did but proving it beyond a reasonable doubt in court would be uncertain."

Approximately 17 months after the Mueller report was released, the Senate Intelligence Committee- chaired Marco Rubio of Florida- revealed, as explained here

how the Trump campaign willingly engaged with Russian operatives implementing the influence effort. For instance, the report exposes interactions and information exchanged between Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. According to the report, campaign figures “presented attractive targets for foreign influence, creating notable counterintelligence vulnerabilities.” (Manafort was later convicted of tax and bank fraud.)

Yet, Trump would continually refer to the controversy as a "hoax," His acolytes consistently followed suit. As recently as twelve months ago, a statement by the Ohio Senate majority referred to "the same Democrats who pushed the Russia collusion hoax" and claimed- dishonestly- that the Steele dossier "was debunked by the Mueller report."  It did no such thing.

And still it goes on. However, broadcast media still allows Republicans of all sort to go on the air, call "Russia, Russia, Russia" a hoax, assert that the Mueller report found there was no collusion, and that the Steele dossier has been debunked.

Only one item in the Steele dossier- a collection of uncorroborated intelligence reports intended to be just that- has been shown to be false. Trump attorney Michael Cohen did not meet in Prague during the 2016 campaign.

And yet, even the august New York Times ran an article in 2021 entitled- inaccurately- "why the discredited dossier does not undercut the Russia investigation." Cut to 2025 and President Trump is blaming Ukraine for defending itself against aggression by Moscow, but somehow the Steele dossier is routinely slammed as "debunked" or "discredited," and the media goes along as if the critic has remarked something as innocuous as "it's hot in Miami in August."

This is not old news or moot. Much of Donald Trump's political success and power stems from his claim that he was cheated out of becoming your, and my, President by Democratic shenanigans, assisted by the media, in 2016. Add to that refusal of the media to label as a "lie" Trump's obviously false statements. And his rapidly declining health (video below from Australian television). Further, there is the conventional wisdom that Mr. Trump was hit by a bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, 2024.


    


As of this past April, Donald was prescribed two medicines for cholesterol reduction, one for a skin condition, and aspirin.

Well, yes, aspirin, a de facto drug which prolongs bleeding time and inhibits platelet aggregation. And yet, struck by a bullet or a bullet fragment- the FBI's conclusion- the victim did not even require stitches. It is unknown exactly how long he bled because hospital doctors did not issue a statement or hold a news conference, nor was a medical report ever released.

Nonetheless, an AP article nearly two weeks after the crime was entitled "FBI says Trump was indeed struck by bullet during assassination attempt." In the minds of most Americans, that reads "bullet," not "bullet or bullet fragments."  

Aware of all that- more likely, not aware of all that- Joe Rogan appears convinced that the media has ceaselessly victimized Donald Trump. This self-delusion, shared by the vast majority of Trump supporters, will continue while Republicans uniformly embrace the President, Democrats don't question the zombie lies, and the media has no incentive to own up to their pro-Trump, pro-GOP bias.


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Sunday, November 09, 2025

Don't Hold Your Breath


Free money! You can't beat that.


Not so fast:


As the discussion on ABC's This Week turned to tariffs, Bessent stated

And then, finally, in terms of the general tariffs, we are doing these trial deals that would not be possible. We were at a tipping point in terms of the economy, in terms of our trade balance, and we are re-balancing successfully.

When Stephanopoulos responded "Do you have a proposal, a formal proposal, to give a $2,000 dividend to every American?", the Treasury secretary replied 

I haven't spoken to the president about this yet, but, you know, it could -- the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms, in lots of ways, George. You know, it could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president's agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. Deductibility of auto loans. So, you know, those are substantial deductions that, you know, are being financed in the tax bill.

Investopedia describes "dividends" as "a percentage of a company's earnings paid to its shareholders as their share of the profits. Dividends are generally paid quarterly, with the amount decided by the board of directors based on the company's most recent earnings."

A tax decrease, a tax credit, or a tax deduction is not a "dividend." However, the media is less likely to question a "dividend" than "free money" because "dividend" sounds, well, so Republican. It also bears a resemblance to the $2,000 which President Trump recommended, and Congress approved, as COVID relief funding during Mr. Trump's lame duck period.

So Bessent is lying. Trump is, also, but in a major upset, not about everything. Tariffs revenue is approximately $350 billion, not "trillions of dollars," at an annualized pace. However, Trump's estimation of a national debt of $37 trillion is reasonably accurate. Credit where credit is due.

Consequently, on November 9, 2025, President Trump made one honest statement.  It was truly a wondrous day even though, as we learned again, the Treasury secretary is a pile of green slime.



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