Wiley Hodges, a 22-year veteran of Apple product marketing, who retired in 2022, in an open letter he sent to Tim Cook:
I don’t know where this leaves me as an Apple customer, but I do know that it upsets me as an Apple shareholder. I am asking you and your team to more clearly explain the basis on which you made the decision to remove ICEBlock — and how the government showed good faith and strong evidence in making its demand of Apple, or that you reinstate the app in the App Store.
I hope that as a man of integrity and principle you can understand how outrageous this situation is. Even more, I hope you recognize how every inch you voluntarily give to an authoritarian regime adds to their illegitimately derived power. We are at a critical juncture in our country’s history where we face the imminent threat of the loss of our constitutional republic. It is up to all of us to demand that the rule of law rather than the whims of a handful of people — even elected ones — govern our collective enterprise. Apple and you are better than this. You represent the best of what America can be, and I pray that you will find it in your heart to continue to demonstrate that you are true to the values you have so long and so admirably espoused.
When you give a bully your lunch money, they always come back for more.
The message Trump and his lickspittles surely took from Apple acceding to their “demand” regarding ICEBlock — a demand made without an iota of legal justification, nor any factual justification that the app was being used to put ICE law enforcements agents in harm’s way — is that when they make a demand to Apple, Apple will respond not with the four words “Fuck you, make me” (as they did in the 2016 San Bernardino case), but instead “Whatever you say goes”. It was, obviously, easier for Apple to stand on principle in 2016, when Barack Obama, a president who deeply respected the Constitution and the principle of rule of law, was president. But it’s more important to stand on those same principles with Trump — a would-be mad king with no respect nor even understanding of the Constitution or rule of law — in office.
If not now, when? Apple will, I believe, find out.
It can be tricky to diagnose dementia when it’s mild, because everyone occasionally forgets names and such as they get older. But what about when it’s not mild? What about when it’s so glaringly obvious and over the top that if a mafia boss on trial were behaving that way, you’d assume he was faking it? What about when a person exhibits clear cut signs of advanced dementia every single day that he’s in public view? And what about when that person just happens to be the current President of the United States?
Palmer Report has been documenting Donald Trump’s worsening dementia symptoms for quite awhile now. It was obvious back he was on criminal trial. It was more obvious throughout the 2024 campaign. It’s been glaringly obvious since he’s retaken office. So what’s it going to take for the mainstream media to finally start talking about the fact that the sitting President of the United States has end stage dementia? We may have finally turned the corner, thanks to a trifecta of utterly insane moments on Sunday.
First there was CNN’s attempt at an “interview” with Trump that ended up consisting of nothing but Trump texting his answers to the network. That’s a telltale sign that Trump was so far gone on Sunday, his babysitters were afraid of letting him on television, and instead opted to ghost write answers.
Then we got a taste of what condition Trump was actually in on Sunday, when he attempted to give a speech and ended up claiming that he predicted the 9/11 attack a year ago. This attack was twenty-four years ago, so what is he even saying here? Then he decided he predicted 9/11 a year before it happened. Then he appeared to suggest that he made the prediction to Pete Hegseth, who would have still been in college at the time. Then Trump claimed he made the prediction in his book, which he admitted he couldn’t remember the name of. This is over the top even by Trump’s recent dementia standards.
Then Trump admitted just how frail he’s become when he said “I have to be careful because one day I’m gonna probably fall. I always say walk down the steps nice and slow.” Does this sound like the Donald Trump we’ve always known and hated? This guy has always been in such narcissistic denial about his health that he’s hired quack doctors to lie about his weight and declare that he was in perfect health. Now he’s talking (for the second time of late) about how he thinks he’s going to fall down. This new dementia riddled version of Trump is so far removed from who he used to be, he doesn’t remember how narcissistic he’s always been. And he thinks 9/11 happened last year and he warned Pete Hegseth about it ahead of time. If that’s even what he was trying to say because it was so incoherent.
But the real story isn’t just that Donald Trump has end stage dementia. The real story is that Trump’s end stage dementia isn’t the story. I mean, where is it? A handful of online media outlets have, to their credit, finally begun pointing out Trump’s cognitive collapse. But the TV news networks are still unwilling to admit that Trump has dementia, even now that his dementia is making it impossible for them to interview him.
When is this finally going to change? The President of the United States is legitimately psychotic, he’s trying to invade American cities, and now the United States government is literally not in business anymore thanks to the shutdown. At every insane turn on this tragic Trump 2.0 ride, his dementia has been plainly obvious and has directly influenced all of these disastrous events – and the media has ignored it. But after what happened this weekend, will the media finally have to address it? One can hope.
During his recent lecture, Peter Thiel called Greta Thunberg the “Antichrist”—which is wild, because she was just detained on a flotilla delivering aid to the starving people of Gaza, while he sells software used to facilitate a genocide.
I’ll let you decide which one is worse.” – Jason Bassler
yesterday was the first day of the Republican shutdown of our government, and Republicans spent it doing what they always do: swanning about like utter fucking shitheads, and shitheading up a storm.
let us document some of the atrocities.
remember how Donny stood up in front of eight hundred admirals and generals at Piss-Drunk Pete’s Big Hunkin’ WarriorFest and told them all that they should be using America’s cities for ‘military training’?
what an awesome idea. sure, instead of boring old basic training, let’s tell our soldiers, ‘hey, you want to know how to shoot a gun and go to war and stuff? okay, go practice on Americans first.’
of course you remember. it was one of the evilest things ever to spew out of Donny’s rancid anus-mouth. it’s unforgettable.
oh no wait, there’s one guy who’s apparently in the dark. I guess he wandered away from the TV right at that moment.
I’m talking of course about Holy Mike Johnson, the limpest dick in Congress. he has no fucking clue what everyone’s so riled up about.
George Stephanopoulos: “Trump said yesterday that he wants American cities to be used as ‘training grounds’ for the military. is that the highest and best use of the military?”
Holy Mike: “I run the House. and what we need to be talking about today is real harm that the American people are going to feel because of what Schumer is doing.”
Stephanopoulos: “hold on a second. answer the question. as Speaker, do you believe it’s appropriate to use American cities as training grounds for the military, calling those people ‘the enemy within’?”
Holy Mike: “I’m not commenting on your characterization of what the president said.”
Stephanopoulos: “those are quotes. they are not characterizations.”
Holy Mike: “well you can take his quotes out of context, which you often do, and I don’t think that’s fair to the president.”
ah, there we go. that’s what all these cowardly Republican shitheads do when called upon defend one of Donny’s crazypants mouth-farts: whine about how it’s so unfair for Dear Leader’s words to be taken out of context.
taken out of what context? there’s only one context, that of a demented sadist horny to inflict suffering and death on cities that displease him.
but wait, Holy Mike’s not done being a shithead.
here’s a name you need to know: Adelita Grijalva.
Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona’s 7th district, was elected to the House last week. she replaces her father, the late Raúl Grijalva, who died while in office. here’s a fun, awesome fact about Adelita: once sworn in, she’ll be the 218th — and deciding — vote in favor of Thomas Massie’s discharge petition to release the full Epstein Files.
so, if she was elected a week ago, why the fuck hasn’t she been sworn in yet?
I just explained why, weren’t you listening? she hasn’t been sworn in specifically because she’s the deciding vote to force the release of the Epstein Files — and Holy Mike doesn’t want any of that shit to happen.
if Grijalva were a Republican, and a reliable no vote for Massie’s petition, Holy Mike would have sworn her in the moment her plane landed in DC. but she’s not.
so, Adelita sits and waits. what’s that old saying? oh yeah: justice delayed is justice denied. release the full, unedited Epstein Files, you fucking fucks.
here’s the next shithead on our list: Vice President Couchfuck McGee.
“if you’re an American citizen and you’ve been to the hospital in the last few years, you’ve probably noticed that wait times are especially large and very often somebody who’s there in the emergency room, waiting, is an illegal alien, very often it’s a person who can’t speak speak English. why do those people get healthcare benefits at hospitals paid for by American citizens? the answer is a decision made by the Biden administration.”
fact check: go fuck a couch.
the reason that any person can go to an emergency room and get treatment is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which was signed into law by that well-known commie marxist radical leftist lunatic, Ronald Reagan, in 1986.
but Couchfuck never passes up an opportunity to demonize immigrants. he wants you to imagine that you can’t get treatment, because ERs nationwide have all been overrun by swarthy hordes going ‘help me, doctor, I was eating my neighbor’s pets and I dropped the skillet on my foot, and now my big toe is all hurty.’
but I have a question: where was Donny? why wasn’t the Mad King out there, taking questions from the press? that fucker loves a camera.
and unless I missed something, I’m pretty sure even that didn’t happen — or, at the least, Donny signed orders without making a show of it in front of the press, which seems super fucking unlikely.
and there’s nothing public on Donny official schedule for today.
here we go again. the desperately-needy attention-trollop who can’t go fifteen minutes without finding a camera to stand in front of is missing in action, in the middle of the juiciest story of the year: a government shutdown. you would figure he would have endless bullshit to say about it — so where is he?
is Donny having another mysterious medical event that we’ll never get told about?
or maybe Preznit Fuckwit is out of sight because he’s hard at work bringing an end to the seventeen thousandth imaginary war — which, by the way, the whole fucking world is laughing at us over.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s geographic confusion was the butt of a joke between world leaders at a summit Thursday.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was filmed poking fun with French President Emmanuel Macron and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev at the European Political Community meeting in Copenhagen on Thursday.
“You should make an apology … to us because you didn’t congratulate us on the peace deal that President Trump made between Albania and Azerbaijan,” Rama told Macron, leading Aliyev to burst out laughing.
“all that bullshit is done, over, it’s finished. the gangbangers you deal with — they think they’re ruthless? they have no idea how ruthless we are. they think they’re tough? they have no idea how tough we are. they think they’re hardcore? we are so much more hardcore than they are.”
lighten the fuck up, tough guy. who’s ‘we’? Nosferatu McGoebbels is what would happen if ‘oh yeah? you and what army?’ became a real boy.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has played a leading role in directing US strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug boats, according to three people familiar with the situation. At times, his role has superseded that of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser.
I don’t know much about militarying, but I’m pretty sure that White House deputy chief of staff isn’t supposed to be part of the chain of command.
‘there’s a boat in the water? oh, I’m sorry, neither the president nor the secretary of state is available right now, but here’s the chief of staff’s assistant.’
yeah, let’s put an undead racist in charge of deciding which fishing boats get blown to fuck. what could possibly go wrong?
and now — because you’ve earned it by reading down this far — here’s your hero of the day: Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean.
Madeleine Dean: “the president is unhinged. he is unwell.”
Holy Mike: “a lot of folks on your side are, too.”
Dean: “oh my god, please. that performance in front of the generals?”
Holy Mike: “I didn’t see it.”
Dean: “it’s so dangerous! our allies are looking elsewhere. our enemies are laughing. you have a president who is unwell.”
did you catch that? when Dean said Donny was unhinged and unwell, Holy Mike didn’t say ‘no he isn’t’ — he said ‘a lot of folks on your side are, too.’
‘too.’
Republicans know their Mad King is fucking nuts. they all know.
let’s go. 25th Amendment now. after which, release the Epstein Files.
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:
practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.
we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.
During his recent lecture, Peter Thiel called Greta Thunberg the “Antichrist”—which is wild, because she was just detained on a flotilla delivering aid to the starving people of Gaza, while he sells software used to facilitate a genocide.
