Gang leader Gregory Bovino, the “Commander Op At Large CA” above, who is going to every city Trump has specifically targeted to cos-play some kind of robo-cop fantasy, says everyone, including citizens, must carry immigration documents. What?
Do you have any immigration documents? I don’t. Apparently, a Real ID doesn’t suffice. Do we all have to carry passports? Does it even matter since they are refusing to even look at them until they can get you into their special, federal, bio-data collection system?
This all stems from Kavanaugh’s ridiculous opinion that stopping people based on their looks constitutes probable cause because it’s no big deal to be brutalized, detained and terrorized if you are a U.S. citizen. Get used to it.
I fully expect that this authoritarian crackdown will be upheld because of this embarrassing dynamic. The Supreme Court majority has no more seriousness, integrity or dignity than the lowliest podcaster, influencer, or Fox News propagandist. Where they once proved themselves to be partisans they are now no better than shit posters on Twitter.
The 25th anniversary of Bush v Gore was yesterday. The modern vote suppression movement (as opposed to the earlier vote suppression of Jim Crow) got its mojo from that Supreme Court decision, learning for the first time that the partisan Supreme Court would have their backs. Virtually everything bad that has happened in this country over the past quarter century can be traced to that moment.
Dave Roberts of Volts, (who I’ve been following on social media for 20 years and who is one of the most insightful curmudgeons on BlueSky — a man after my own heart 😉 wrote this about that moment:
In terms of US politics, Bush v. Gore is the defining event of the century. It set the template: a ruthless right that instinctively seeks power & doesn’t give a shit about rule of law…and a bunch of hapless, feckless octogenarian Dems worried about the good opinion of centrist opinion columnists.
It was like waving a giant white flag and announcing, “the people on the side of rule of law, democracy, and decency WILL NOT FIGHT AS HARD AS THEIR OPPONENTS. They don’t have the grit or guts for it. Act accordingly.” And readers … they have acted accordingly.
Back in 2001, the right-wing takeover of US media was still a ways off. “Right-wing media” was still a distinct, separate thing. Nonetheless, the conservative browbeating of “MSM” voices had been loud enough, long enough, to suppress the natural civic horror at GOP cheating in the election.
This, more than anything, is what the right realized in the wake of the 2000 election: in a moment of chaos or crisis, they can do anything — *anything*, no matter how overtly criminal or gross — & just smooth it over later with “both sides” pablum. “Let’s not fight, let’s look forward,” etc.
They applied that lesson again & again in subsequent years. Bush II was basically a criminal administration, even aside from its world-historical blunders — allowing 9/11, f’ing up Afghanistan, f’ing up Iraq, f’ing up Katrina, f’ing up the economy — but after it was over it took a matter of *months* before the media had collectively smudged & smeared the whole thing, “ah, there were many fights, who can say, let us come together & look forward rather than backward,” etc. Crime –> no consequences. Greater crime –> still no consequences. And so on, still today.
I was still in the throes of anger about the Clinton impeachment in which the media had sided with the Republicans and then this happened. (Remember Sally Quinn and “the village”?) I will never get over being told to “get over it” by Wolf Blitzer on CNN in the days after the decision. I screamed at the TV, “who do you think you are????” It radicalized me.
And, once again, Democrats were crawling over each other to capitulate and “move on.” It’s been a long standing problem that hasn’t fully resolved itself yet. With Trump’s billionaire buddies trying to buy up all of U.S. Media, I’m just hoping that independent media will be able to keep the flame burning.
This right wing has been batshit for a very long time and institutions have also been blowing down to it. It isn’t new. Trump came along and was ignorant enough that he didn’t even understand the basic compact we still had left and just bulldozed his way through the remnants. Now there’s almost nothing left.
Maybe I’m just grateful for decency and compassion these days. Maybe I’m just desperate to be reaffirmed in my belief that we are not as racially divided as the right wing insists we are. But that video made me choke up a little bit.
I think we need to see more of this in the media. It gives you hope. And God knows, we need hope.
Humans made fires as early as 400,000 years ago, pushing the timeline of this crucial human innovation back a staggering 350,000 years, reports a study published on Wednesday in Nature.
Mastery of fire is one of the most significant milestones in our evolutionary history, enabling early humans to cook nutritious food, seek protection from predators, and establish comfortable spaces for social gatherings. The ability to make fires is completely unique to the Homo genus that includes modern humans (Homo sapiens) and extinct humans, including Neanderthals.
Lots of uses, fire. Cooking, heat, defense, light to make cave paintings by. Mastery of fire helped us get this far.
“This is a 400,000-year-old site where we have the earliest evidence of making fire—not just in Britain or Europe, but in fact, anywhere else in the world,” said Nick Ashton, an archaeologist at the British Museum who co-authored the study, in a press briefing held on Tuesday.
“Many of the great turning points in human development, and the development of our civilization, depended on fire,” added co-author Rob Davis, also an archaeologist at the British Museum. “We’re a species who have used fire to really shape the world around us—in belief systems, as well. It’s a very prominent part of belief systems across the world.”
Artifacts have been recovered from Barnham for more than a century, but the remnants of this ancient hearth were identified within the past decade. The researchers were initially tipped off by the remains of heated clay sediments, hydrocarbons associated with fire, and fire-cracked flint handaxes.
One hundred thousand years in the future, archaeologists mey be tipped off to our presence by layers of plastic and styrofoam in soils infused with carbon emisssions.
But the real smoking gun was the discovery of two small fragments of iron pyrite, a mineral commonly used to strike flint to produce sparks at later prehistoric campfires such as the French Neanderthal sites.
“Iron pyrite is a naturally occurring mineral, but through geological work in the area over the last 36 years, looking at 26 sites, we argue that pyrite is incredibly rare in the area,” said Ashton. “We think humans brought pyrite to the site with the intention of making fire.”
The fire-starters were probably Neanderthals, who were known to be present in the region at the time thanks to a skull found in Swanscombe, about 80 miles northeast of Barnham. But it’s possible that the fires were made by another human lineage such as Homo heidelbergensis, which also left bones in the U.K. around the same period. It was not Homo sapiens as our lineage emerged in Africa later, about 300,000 years ago.
Donald Trump is really, really proud of his genes. We know how old he is. Wonder how old they are?
I’m a behind-the-scenes guy. But extraordinary times, y’know? I’ve held signs on streetcorners and an overpass during rush hours 4-5 days a week since August. I see neighbors, anxious and frightened, thankful to see people standing up to the authoritarian turn of our country. Twice, women turning off Merrimon Ave. stopped mid-turn. “That is so sweet,” said a college-age woman out her passenger window, replying to the top [sign] and feeling seen. A 30-ish woman last week stopped, looked out her window and said, “Thank you! Thank you for what you’re doing” in reply to the second [sign]. To supporters, I offer a talking point. To the undecided, a thought for the drive home. To opponents, something to piss them off. The smiles, honks, and thumbs-up make this feel like public service.
(The photos above are from weekly street protests with 30-40 others.)
On the overpass I use larger one-sided signs (lit after dark with a 160-LED video light on a tripod). Last night I went with this on.e The 400 pt, 4-inch type is readable from 75-100 ft away.
MAGAs know what they were promised, what they voted for, and what they didn’t get. They really don’t like being reminded. I got a frantic thumbs down from a woman in a red Lexus and a stiff middle finger from a guy in a pickup. Gotcha!
Timothy Snyder is on TV live right now with Rachel Maddow and saying there will always be people who say there is no point to what you are doing in terms of resistance. Hold that thought.
I had a good session on the overpass tonight. Atmospheric conditions cooperated. There was enough cloud cover that I was not backlit (and thus visible to westbound traffic on my downtown overpass or else drivers would be squinting into the setting sun). It was cold but not too cold. Traffic was heavy. Two more women stopped on the bridge to photograph the sign. The neighborhood pedestrian traffic is youth-heavy, so I play a 30+ song, 21st-century-only playlist on a pair of Bluetooth speakers to keep me pumped. Yes, I am the idiot dancing with a sign on the overpass on Fridays at rush hour. This is an attention economy. Get some or go home.
Who knew I’d be teaching a workshop this morning?
The groceries message speaks to most everyone. Last night I got not just lots of honks, smiles, and thumbs up, but vigorous two-handed waves from lots of cars passing below. (I’m a familar presence by now.) They get it. They feel it. For the first time in four months, I realized that when traffic temporarily comes to a halt, I have a captive audience and time to spin the sign around to display the backside:
How d’you like that double tap. OMG, the honks exploded.
Some grisled older guy walking by asked what I was up to.
“I don’t own a television station,” I said. “But I can send a message to 4,700 pairs of eyes an hour here for free.”
“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said and walked off.
One of my regular pedestrians, Christina, laughed it off. She gets it.
I’m a trusted messenger now because I’m there every week. I’m not knocking their doors. The “doors” are coming to me. Asking them to vote comes later. For now, don’t tell them what policies and party to support. Make them feel seen.
President Donald Trump claimed that he is granting a “full pardon” to Tina Peters, a former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk who was sentenced to nine years on state-level charges related to election interference during the 2020 election.
However, the president does not have jurisdiction over state charges, and Colorado officials are pushing back, contending that the president’s promise of a pardon is unconstitutional. Trump’s announcement, which he made on social media Thursday, now likely sets up a legal battle for Peters, who has been seeking a pardon from Trump.
Peters was convicted in August 2024 for giving an individual affiliated with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a Trump ally, access to the election software she used for her county. Screenshots of the software appeared on right-wing websites that promoted false theories that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
What??? Is he just doing this to make himself feel good? It’s completely meaningless.
At least I assume it is. This will obviously create some sort of court case that they believe the Supreme Court will take up and declare something inane that states have no jurisdiction over election crimes or that the president’s pardon power covers all pardons, state and federal (and maybe foreign, why not?) I don’t know that they’ll completely abandon their belief in federalism but nothing they do would surprise me at this point. They do seem determined to make the president a full-fledged king.
By the way, here’s the lovely gal herself:
In honor of Trump's pointless Tina Peters pardon, here's the video of her going full Karen when she got arrested. pic.twitter.com/zzjMhP3uYC
The estate released over 90,000 pictures to the House Oversight Committee and a few were released today. There are several of Trump, Dershowitz, Bill Gates, Richard Branson,Woody Allen, Bill Clinton and others.
There are also pics of sex toys and pornography and from what we can gather, those are the tamest ones. (I’m not here to judge adults’ sexual behavior but if these were used on underage girls it’s pretty gross.)
Get a load of this, though. It appears to have been taken when Bannon was doing a project with Epstein and helping with PR in 2018 and 2019. It’s impossible to believe that anyone associating with Epstein during that period didn’t know what he was up to.
Take a look at this creepy thing:
BREAKING: Zoom into this disgusting photo just released of Bannon and Epstein.
Note Steve Bannon was the CEO of the 2016 Trump Campaign, White House Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to the President. pic.twitter.com/axpF9lGV51
It appears that he had a picture of a women naked from the waist down lying on a couch appearing to be passed out? Is that what we’re really seeing there? Bannon surely saw it.
There’s trouble in MAGA paradise on this:
Trump has actually said that he cut off Epstein in 2007. And there’s some evidence that he wasn’t actually cut off at all, at least according to Epstein’s emails.
There’s been bad blood between Stone and Bannon for years and Stone (along with Elon Musk) has been saying for quite some time that Bannon is featured heavily in the Epstein files. Last month Stone challenged him to a bare-knuckles fight. “In the unlikely event that Steve wins, he can pay back the Epstein estate for the millions they paid him to rehabilitate his Pedo buddy’s image,” Stone wrote.
It’s getting hard to keep track of who hates who in the MAGA universe and I would guess it’s even more confusing for addled old Trump.
Stay tuned. The government’s files are supposed to be released next week.
THERE ARE MANY ITEMS on President Trump’s agenda that are hurting the U.S. economy: the pointless trade wars, the socialization of the private sector, the mass deportations, and much more.
But in the long run, the most damaging policy of all might be one that’s gotten scant attention, at least from non-finance-nerds: Trump’s quest to crush the Federal Reserve. If Trump succeeds, he may doom the United States to high inflation for years, if not decades, to come.
Bullying the Fed has long been one of Trump’s favorite pastimes. Way back in 2019, he called Jerome Powell, the Fed chair whom he had appointed the year before, an “enemy.” He’s continued the broadsides during his second term, repeatedly musing about firing Powell—including earlier this year. It got press coverage at the time, due to the resulting market wobbles—and a truly awkward visit Trump made to the Fed headquarters as some sort of intimidation tactic. But the firing never came. And when the threats stopped, most of the media moved on.
They shouldn’t have.
The threats to Fed independence have continued, and got darker this week. We may now be at an inflection point, as the Trump administration tacitly threatens to purge not Powell but other officials who set interest-rate policy. If he’s successful, Trump could seize direct control of the money supply and turn America into Venezuela.
For those of you of a certain age, as I am, this is a frightening prospect. People on fixed incomes do very badly in these situations. Not that the young do any better but they at least have the ability to work two jobs as I did back in the late 70s and early 80s. (Assuming the jobs are available…) Old people can’t. Someone needs to tell the elders who are still voting for the orange madman that they are showing the seeds of their own financial demise if they keep supporting him.
I’m still hopeful that the Fox News brain-rotted Supremes, who have shown themselves to be nothing more than rank partisans in almost every way, will draw the line at Trump taking over the Fed. Their wealthy benefactors can’t be happy at that prospect. Trump could kill everyone’s golden goose. Even today, most Masters of the Universe aren’t billionaires.
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