A mystery disease in Congo has killed over 50 people—half within 48 hours of getting sick and it’s spreading rapidly.
We don’t need no stinking NIH or CDC or WHO. We’re done with all that. Don’t worry, Donald Trump and Bobby Jr will lead us through it. They’re geniuses. Eat some organic grapes and drink a Diet Coke. You’ll be fine.
A case in point, his continued insistence that tariffs are not paid for by a country’s own businesses and consumers.
Reporter: Americans who are concerned about higher prices believe, as most people do, that tariffs are paid by consumers and importers when they import things into this country.
Trump: ….It's a myth that's put out there by foreign countries that really don't like paying… pic.twitter.com/uWGK9QevWq
It’s a lot. One of the main questions I get about what’s going on is a simple, “why are they doing this?” It seems inexplicable that anyone would think such a chaotic, disorganized, slipshod assault on necessary government functions makes sense in a complex world in which millions of lives are dependent upon them working. There is nobody in America, even the most fervent Trump voters, who could have expected that he would essentially turn the government over to Elon Musk and allow him to take it apart with a chainsaw in the first months of his presidency. So why are they doing it?
Trump’s campaign was based upon restoration. He was going to finish the job he started before the Democrats rigged the election and stole the White House from him. His issues weren’t much different than the first time he ran. Immigration topped the list, tariffs were going to solve every economic problem, foreigners were going to pay up and he was going to end whatever the fever swamp culture war issue of the day happened to be, in this case “DEI” and transgender people. He said he’d bring costs down with “drill, baby, drill” and would initiate the usual GOP roll back of regulations and tax cuts. And he somehow convinced millions of Americans that they had been rich when he was president before and vowed to make them prosperous and happy once more.
Many of us were aware that there was another agenda, a very detailed one, called Project 2025, which Trump said he hadn’t read and disavowed. I think we knew that it was likely going to be at least attempted because many of the people involved were Trump insiders but it was unclear whether they’d be able to accomplish their goals especially since Trump didn’t seem particularly interested in massively cutting government. Whenever he was asked about the deficit or downsizing government services, with a few exceptions, he waved it away because he was going to bring in so much money with the tariffs a that it would all be taken care of. He believed that voters weren’t all that interested in details and he was right.
Yes, he originally wanted to become president again to stay out of jail but the Supreme Court took care of that last summer so it became a moot point. And of course he wants to accumulate as much money as possible and is quite successful at doing that as president. So far, he’s shown that he no longer cares at all about the appearance of corruption and is openly trading in Crypto schemes and foreign investment partnerships as president. So it’s not making money that’s making him do what he is doing and it certainly isn’t ideology because he has none. No, the motive that is driving him to do everything he’s doing is simple: vengeance.
That was the one issue that Trump never failed to bring up on the campaign trail and it’s the one, I believe, that motivates everything he is doing today. I’ve written about his philosophy of retribution extensively over the years because he’s never tried to hide it and it clearly is one of the single greatest clues to his character. But it’s now gone far beyond his desire to hurt individuals — he’s now intent upon seeking revenge against the country itself, maybe even the whole world.
Trump is seething with anger and resentment at having been officially exposed as a sexual predator, a fraud, a coup plotter and a thief. He’s still upset about the Russia Investigation, which he even brought up again on Thursday explaining that he and Vladimir Putin were bonded over it which is why he feels he can trust him. Imagine the fury and frustration he feels at people knowing, no matter how much he says otherwise, that he lost the 2020 election and couldn’t admit it. The damage to his fragile psyche is overwhelming and all he wants now is to wreak revenge on his enemies.
And this goes beyond his well-known desire to go after the Department of Justice and the FBI. This week he signed an executive order pulling security clearances from a private law firm that is representing former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith. He couldn’t be more clear about his motives. Note the steely ire in his voice as he talks about how he’s been “targeted.”
President Trump to a legacy media reporter on the order suspending security clearances for employees who engaged in lawfare with Jack Smith:
“I've been targeted for four years… I was the target of corrupt politicians for four years. Don't talk to me about targeting.” pic.twitter.com/Zzc6IfKTJG
For example, he’s angry at the leaders of the military for refusing to carry out his illegal and unprincipled orders so he installed a gadfly with no respect for them or military traditions as the Defense Secretary and he’s fired anyone who would attempt to thwart him in the future. He doesn’t like Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau because he’s young and good looking so he’s pushing the inane idea of annexing his country as the 51st state. He’s abandoning Ukraine, which he irrationally hates, probably because he associates it with his humiliating first impeachment.
Here he says that the EU was formed to screw the United States so he’s going to screw them back with huge tariffs. But in reality on some level he knows that he’s in over his head and that they know it too.
Even his allowing the violent, misogynist brothers, Andrew and Tristan Tate back into the country is a metaphorical slap in the face to all the women who spoke up about his assaults, Stormy Daniels and the enduring humiliation of being caught on that Access Hollywood tape as a predatory creep.
Finally, consider that Elon Musk’s wrecking crew is really a way of punishing America for failing to love him the way he believes he should be loved — unambiguously and unanimously. If his own MAGA supporters have to pay as well, that’s their own fault for not working harder on his behalf.
Donald Trump is 78 years old and he’s been frustrated his whole life that he couldn’t ever seem to get the respect he believed he deserved. Now, having been restored to this position of power with no one to stop him, he’s settling accounts.
Think you’ve seen everything? N.C. Republicans propose that future voter registration drives be conducted with sample forms — facsimiles, not official forms. The sample forms shall be “for informational purposes only and shall not provide spaces for an individual to fill in the individual’s personal information.” So, Republicans would like to see voter registration drives that don’t actually register voters, just provide information on how someone might register on their own.
Anyone who uses a genuine form in their voter registration drive shall be a Class 2 misdemeanor under proposed House Bill 127.
Of course, there is a lot of heat coming down over N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin’s Trumpish attempt to steal a state Supreme Court seat. (Did I mention that Griffin’s accomplices in this election-stealing are Troy Shelton, Craig Schauer & Mike Dowling of the Dowling Firm, and Phil Thomas of Chalmers, Adams, Backer & Kaufman?) So maybe Republicans in the legislature simply drafted HB 127 as an outrage-generating distraction.
Nah.
David Pepper calls states like North Carolina “Laboratories of Autocracy.” But I might argue that the Tar Heel State is not just “First in Flight” but “First in Autocracy.” It’s said that much of U.S. social and technological innovation starts in California and works its way east. Not when it comes to election fuckery.
Did I mention that Cleta Mitchell lives in North Carolina?
A grassroots movement is calling on all Americans to abstain from shopping with major retailers — including Amazon — tomorrow, February 28, as part of an “economic blackout.”
The purpose is to send a clear message: We have the power. We don’t have to accept corporate monopolies. We don’t have to live with corporate money corrupting our politics.
We don’t have to accept more tax cuts for billionaires. We don’t have to pay more of our hard-earned cash to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or the other billionaire oligarchs.
We don’t have to reward corporations that have abandoned their DEI policies to align themselves with Trump’s racist, homophobic, misogynistic agenda.
We have choices.
I attended the local Indivisible’s “Here We Go!” 2025 Kickoff meeting last night. Had to park two blocks away. It looked like this. Standing room only and a wait to get in. May your local resistance efforts be as well-attended. Today’s blackout was on the agenda.
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” — Arendt
Forget the myths the media’s created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand. — Deepthroat, “All The President’s Men”
Air traffic controllers are required by law to retire at 56. It is a high-stress, high-intensity job that requires intense focus. The retirement rules are there to keep us all safe. But sure, let’s put some retired, elderly air traffic controllers whose skills are obviously rusty back on the job.
By the way, this has been put on hold and Musk has already fired hundreds of FAA support staff that helps the ATCs do their job efficiently. Of course.
Meanwhile, Kash Patel is getting right to work:
According to a Thursday report from ABC News, Patel wants to partner with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) mixed martial arts league to help up the fitness standards of FBI agents. Purely coincidentally, the UFC is headed by pro-Trump businessman Dana White, who regularly appeared alongside the president at campaign events, donated heavily to the president’s reelection effort, and even spoke alongside him at his Election Night acceptance speech. Again. It’s coincidental.
I guess if that’s the worst most useless thing he’s doing we can breath a sigh of relief.
How about this?
The Trump administration touted a nearly $1 billion plan Wednesday to combat the spread of avian flu and mitigate skyrocketing egg prices as the outbreak rips through poultry flocks across the United States.
But the measures come as the Agriculture Department is struggling to rehire key employees working on the virus outbreak who were fired as part of the administration’s sweeping purge of government workers. Roughly a quarter of employees in a critical office testing for the disease were cut, as well as scientists and inspectors.
Aaaand:
White House official threatens to redraw Canadian border
A top White House official has threatened to redraw the Canadian border amid Donald Trump’s ambition to turn the country in America’s “51st state”.
Peter Navarro, one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, is pushing US negotiators to discuss reworking the border with their Canadian counterparts, The Telegraph can reveal. “Navarro recommended revising the Canada-US border, which is just crazy and dangerous,” a source close to negotiations told The Telegraph.
Tip o’ the iceberg. People are now dying overseas and soon will be here, possibly in large numbers. But all across the board we’re seeing those quotes being illustrated in vivid, living color.
According to Philip Bump the data shows that this idea that a bunch of young, white Andrew Tate/ Joe Rogan dudes were the key to Trump’s victory in November is simply not correct. In a way, its something much more disturbing:
YouGov has been tracking Trump’s favorability since early 2016 as part of the work it does for the Economist. The polling firm shared quarterly averages of the president’s numbers since then. What we see is that there has been an upward trend of support among younger U.S. citizens, while the views of older Americans have remained fairly flat.
The increase since early 2021 has been higher among young men than women (18 points vs. 11 points) but that is again a function of race. White men under 30 have gotten three points more favorable to Trump than White women in that age range. Non-White men now view Trump 29 points more favorably, a jump that’s more than 20 points bigger than the increase among non-White women.
He points out that the younger generation is much less white in general which means that these shifts have a larger effect o the overall population of young people than the rest of us but the partisan shift is interesting as well, particularly when it comes to gender:
Since 2016, White men under the age of 30 have gotten 17 points more Republican on net while young White women have stayed about the same. The gap in partisan identity among young White men peaked in 2021 and has since declined, landing just above where it was in 2003.
The shift among young non-White men has been much larger — more than 30 points since 2016. That’s true of both those under 30 and those aged 30 to 44. The shift among younger non-White women has been 25 points on net in favor of the Republican Party since 2016.
Younger non-White Americans, though, remain much less Republican than younger White Americans. We’re describing the change, not the end point. In the 2024 Gallup data, about 58 percent of young White men said they were Republican or Republican-leaning. Among young non-White men, 39 percent did. Among young non-White women, that figure fell to 28 percent.
Ok, that’s good. But why the shift among non-white young people toward Trump in any case? It’s not a gender gap apparently and it’s not about issues:
If we look at policy views — rather than ones centered on politics — the argument that there’s been a significant divergence on gender erodes further.
[…]
“The bottom line is we don’t see a ton of evidence of a rightward shift among 18-29 year olds in this data,” Schaffner said in an email. “Perhaps that’s occurring on other issues that we aren’t capturing here, but even when you look at questions about racial attitudes and sexism there still isn’t anything too dramatic.”
The same holds for recent polling from The Post. On a question about Trump’s efforts to exceed his authority since returning to office, young men are less likely than men overall to say that he was acting within his authority, and the gap between men and women under the age of 30 was lower than any group of respondents aged 40 or over.
[…]
That non-White Americans (and, as the VoteCast and Edison exit polls suggest, Hispanics in particular) shifted to the right in the Trump era is not new. What the data presented above suggests is that the decline in racial polarization explains more of the shift among younger people than does gender.
I find that incredibly depressing and I have no explanation for it. These particular kids aren’t voting like their parents which I guess may be understandable but why in the world are they so enamored of Trump? They don’t agree with him and it doesn’t seem to be about young men going for the macho party or the macho dude. Even the younger Black and Latino women have moved toward him. Is it just because they, like many of their white counterparts, now see him as normal and are just going along for the ride? I don’t get it.
Even if one of his minions actually wrote that under his name, he knows about it because the media here and all over the world picked it up. It was incredibly provocative and caused a huge amount of consternation. His smug look says it all.
It has apparently been decided that the toddler in chief has to be allowed to swing his very tiny hands around so they’ve come up with a framework for a”deal” that will put the revenue from the extracted rare earth minerals into some kind of an investment fund to be shared between the two countries. There are no details and it really adds up to nothing at least at the moment. Trump will say that he won’t offer any security guarantees and treat Zelensky like shit in the meeting if he wants to while loudly proclaiming that he’s the greatest deal maker the world has ever known.
In the end it adds up to nothing new. We knew that when Trump won he would leave Ukraine out to dry and give Russia whatever it wanted and that’s basically what’s happening. But in order to keep him from making things even worse everyone has to pretend that he’s a genius and a God so here we are.
I will say that Trump is so driven by malice at this point that I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulls something worse to stab Ukraine, and specifically Zelensky, in the back before it’s all done. I don’t think he’s done with them yet.
As they deport innocent children, they invite psychopaths back into the country:
Self-proclaimed misogynist social media influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan have been allowed to leave Romania on a private jet bound for the U.S. despite facing rape and human trafficking charges that are still pending, CBS News’ partner network BBC News and the French news agency AFP reported Thursday. Citing sources in Romania, the outlets said the Tates, who are dual U.S.-British nationals, were flying to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Prosecutors in Romania have alleged for years that Andrew, 38, and his brother Tristan, 36, set up a criminal enterprise in the country and in Britain in 2021, along with two women, and used it to sexually exploit multiple people.
As you can see by that video, Andrew Tate is a psychopath who has made his name as a violent misogynist. Trump has intervened to bring him home:
The Financial Times reported earlier this month that the Trump administration was pushing Romanian authorities to return the Tate brothers’ U.S. passports and allow them to leave the country.
Romania’s Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu told the Euronews outlet recently that Mr. Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell had raised the case with him at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February, but denied that he was pressured.
Even some Republicans are appalled:
Governor Ron DeSantis says the Tate brothers aren’t welcome in the state, and his attorney general is exploring legal options:
You may recall, he has a particular advocate in the Trump inner circle:
Trump counselor Alina Habba to Andrew Tate: “Nice to meet you. I’m a big fan” (Andrew Tate is facing trial in Romania for rape and human trafficking.) pic.twitter.com/jtKOmt7xPS
Trump is so insane with anger and resentment that he’s going out of his way to show that there are no limits to his depravity as he seeks his revenge. This one’s for E. Jean Carroll and the other women who accused him. It’s one big fuck you to all of them.
Update: This from Tristan Tate right after the election says it all:
People have been convinced that “woke” is the big problem in our culture. Really???
Supreme Court of North Carolina (Photo: nccourts.gov)
All Jefferson Griffin wants to do is this: he just wants to find 735 votes, which is one more than he needs because he won the state. Got it?
The N.C. Supreme Court is playing a John Roberts hand in overturning the last unsettled election from 2024. The contest is for a seat on their own court. Incumbent Justice Allison Riggs (D) won reelection by 734 votes after multiple recounts. But since Republicans had an overturn strategy in their back pocket for use in case Donald Trump narrowly lost North Carolina, they deployed it instead to ask courts to overturn state Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin’s (R) loss to Riggs. Citing the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the state constitution, they are challenging the validity of 65,000 early or absentee ballots already counted. The bulk of Griffin’s challenges are based on alleged incomplete voter registrations of voters, some of whom (like most of you) have voted for decades.
This obscure race may seem unimportant to where you live. It is not, because “if Republicans succeed in stealing Riggs’s seat based on HAVA, they will deploy the same tactic wherever and whenever they lose elections going forward.”
The three buckets of contested ballots included those cast by overseas voters who did not submit a copy of their photo IDs, voters who never previously resided in North Carolina and individuals whose voter registrations were allegedly incomplete. Opponents of Griffin maintain that the challenges are baseless and emphasize that affected voters complied with all of the state’s voting rules as required.
A Wake County superior court ruled for Riggs in early February, throwing out Griffin’s protest after the state Board of Elections rejected his vote challenge along party lines. And then last week:
The state Supreme Court has rejected a request to speed up the case Judge Jefferson Griffin brought against the state Board of Elections in his attempt to win a seat on the high court.
The State Board and Justice Allison Riggs wanted the case to go right from the trial court, where they won, to the Supreme Court, skipping the Appeals Court. Griffin opposed the move.
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Board and Riggs’ request in a 4-2 vote.
Riggs has recused. The case now goes from the trial court to the Court of Appeals for review.
Republicans hold a 12-3 seat margin on the Court of Appeals. Judges hear cases in teams of three.
If the Appeals Court rules in Griffin’s favor, and the Supreme Court splits 3-3, the Appeals Court decision will stand. In a previous order, three of the Republican Supreme Court justices indicated they are open to Griffin’s arguments.
If the Supreme Court had split 3-3 after agreeing to take the case directly from the trial court, the trial court’s decision in favor of Riggs and the Board would have stood.
Four Republican justices voted against having the case skip the Appeals Court.
In John Roberts fashion, the Republican justices don’t want their robes soiled by overturning a free and fair statewide election, especially by throwing out thousands of votes from a mix of Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliateds. They would draw national condemnation and ignite a firestorm locally. They prefer to let the state Appeals Court do the dirty work. That’s why they rejected the request by the State Board and Riggs to take the case directly. This gives the court conservatives a shot at a 3-3 split on a ruling that lets an Appeals Court decision in Griffin’s favor stand … after taking a Roberts court amount of time to prove how serious their deliberations were. Having the state Supreme Court take the case directly might have been Riggs’s best shot but a Supreme Court nightmare.
About those alleged incomplete registrations, Griffin, his attorneys, and consultants allege that the bulk of those 65,000 ballots were from voters “whose registration records lacked either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number,” reports WUNC. But do they? (emphasis mine)
Griffin’s lawyers have argued that counting the challenged ballots violates state laws or the state constitution. Lawyers for Riggs and the board have said the ballots were cast lawfully and that Griffin failed to comply with formal protest procedures. A board attorney recently said that at least half of the voters that Griffin challenged over driver’s license or Social Security numbers actually did provide one.
That data simply doesn’t appear in the voter database Griffin’s consultants searched.
NC Associate Justice Allison Riggs
The Student Voting Rights Lab at Duke and North Carolina Central Universities reached 23 students among the over 700 Duke and roughly 400 Central students whose votes Griffin challenges. They found an even higher percentage:
But research by the Student Voting Rights Lab into the voter registration histories of student voters reveals the absence of negligence on their part. We have thus far located 23 Duke students in the Griffin challenge who either retained copies of their original voter registration forms or who requested copies of them from the Durham County Board of Elections after learning they had been challenged.
Given the fact that all of them are listed as having incomplete voter registrations in North Carolina’s voter registration database, we expected most of them to have left the Social Security number section blank in their voter registration forms. What we discovered, however, was striking and consistent. Of these 23 students, 22 correctly listed the last four digits of their social security numbers. Our research is ongoing. But the compliance rate to the Social Security number requirement – at 96% — is stunning.
The 23rd student had provided her driver’s license number when she first registered. That makes 100% compliance in the small sample.
The lab’s founder and co-director, Gunther Peck, a Duke professor of history, said in a Feb. 17 interview that Griffin is trying to have it both ways. Griffin insists that overseas ballots are invalid for not including a photo ID that was not required for overseas absentees. But he’s also insisting that ballots from early voters whose digital records do not include a driver’s license or Social Security number are invalid even though those voters had to present their photo IDs to vote. Griffin wants them disenfranchised over clerical errors.
Griffin’s challege heavily targets four large North Carolina counties that lean heavily Democratic. For some reason, Peck notes wryly. Plus, his challenge offers challenged voters no remedy for addressing what he claims is a registration deficiency, just disenfranchisement in his race. The state certified the rest months ago.
Since his initial shotgun approach to mass voter disenfranchisement, Griffin has honed in on about 5,500 overseas military voters who did not submit a photo ID with their absentee ballots and roughly 500 eligible voting-age citizens born overseas who never lived in North Carolina. The latter are treated as residents under state and federal law based on where their parents last lived. Griffin wants them disenfranchised as nonresidents nevertheless. Conveniently for Griffin, these are voters not likely to testify in court.
In ruling against Griffin and for the State Board and Riggs regarding “Incomplete Voter Registrations,” the “Never Resident” voters, and the “Lack of Photo Identification for Overeas Voters,” the Wake County judges ruled in each category that “The Court concludes as a matter of law that the Board’s decision was not in violation of constitutional provisions, was not in excess of statutory authority or jurisdiction of the agency, was made upon lawful procedure, and was not affected by other error of law.”
What starts in Atlanta doesn’t stay in Atlanta
This scheme is coming soon to an election near you. Even if the Republican attempt to steal this North Carolina state supreme court seat fails, expect to see this tacic reappear in other close red state races.
What matters immediately is which slice(s) of voters the Appeals Court uses to rule for Griffin (if it does) and how many votes that shifts in his direction.
All Judge Griffin wants to do is this: he just wants to find 735 votes, which is one more than he needs because he won the state. Donald Trump premiered that shtick in Atlanta. It didn’t end there.
