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I’m Just Passing This Whole Thing On

From All Hat No Cattle:

…The Wall Street Journal published a story on Thursday about Marko Elez, a “key DOGE staff member who gained access to the Treasury Department’s central-payments system” and resigned “after he was linked to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics.”

Even if they stopped—full stop, right now,—the damage is already done and it will take years and years to fix.

I guess we know why Musk was so angry about his team’s identity being shared. – Alex Cole
Pam Bondi is disbanding the Foreign Influence Task Force – the FBI team that is charged with combatting foreign meddling in US elections. 
Worth asking how this makes us more safe in any way, shape, or form. ~Angry Staffer

Trump Cancels News Subscriptions For Executive Branch

Ironic how Marco Rubio’s parents fled a fascist dictator in Cuba – only to have little Marco serve a fascist dictator in America. ~ anyonewantchips

 

The first stage of Trump’s Gaza plan should be him personally clearing the place of unexploded munitions. – Andy Borowitz

 

I want to live in boring times. Give me mundane. Give me trivial. – John Collins

They’re Trying To Kill Us, Plain & Simple

There isn’t anti-Christian bias in America, there’s anti-Jesus bias in American Evangelical Christianity. – John Pavlovich

 

Schatz Takes Direct Shots At Derelict Democrats
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) had some pointed remarks for Democratic strategists who have been advising the party’s elected officials to pick their battles carefully against President Donald Trump…“I’m not going to let some pundit dictate whether or not I exercise my obligations as a member of the Article I branch,” Schatz said. “David Axelrod, James Carville. I mean, those guys have not been in the trenches legislatively or electorally in a full generation. And there’s a cottage industry out there of Democratic strategists. But in order to be a Democratic strategist, you actually have to do politics currently and not just podcast about it.”

Hearing nonsense that Ds are threatening a shutdown. False. Entire matter is in GOP hands. What’s happening is that Rs are coming hat in hand to Ds for help because they can’t agree among themselves. Ds shld have a simple demand. No help until the criminal conduct stops. – Josh Marshall

USAID purchases over $2b of American soy and grain products annually.
Red State farmers are deep into FAFO.

Business/Tech News

Musk says he’s spending $40M of his own money on five, 30 second Super Bowl ads, revealing government waste that his DOGE hackers have supposedly found. ~ Molly Ploofkins

The Richest Man and the Most Powerful Man In The World Join Hands To Hurt The Most Vulnerable In The World

 

I hope they boo the s**t out of Trump at the superbowl. – Dave Matt

Sorry for the formatting nightmare on this one – I don’t have the patience today to try and correct it.

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How The British Got Trump Right

A British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump I’ve ever read:

“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

-Nate White

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And So It Begins…

Pretty much everyone on earth understands that The Felon’s trade war is going to be a disaster, except for The Felon. When we say pretty much everyone, that even includes Fox News. That’s right, the normally pro-Felon propaganda network is admitting that The Felon’s tariffs are going to raise prices on numerous consumer goods in the United States:

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A Rant. (Hey, It’s Something Other Than The Felon!)

This townhouse development started going up at some point after we left the neighborhood after the fire. At the time we left, this was a vacant lot that had once (long before we moved back to Phoenix) been occupied by a rambling single-family house that was bulldozed at some point. For years it sat vacant and overgrown with weeds.

I was heading to lunch after visiting one of our west-side offices about three years ago and was surprised to see this going up. It looked interesting in a stark, brutal modernist sort of way and I was looking forward to seeing it completed.

Sadly, even after we moved back it seemed construction had stalled, and I cursed the developer every time I rolled over the huge steel plates covering underground sewer work that had literally been in place for over a year after our return.

Then, one day the plates were removed, holes filled, and paving was replaced. Construction stalled again a couple months later and the property was broken into. Work finally resumed (I guess the City lit a fire under the developer to get it finished) and a year later they’re finally finished, but apparently unsellable. They were originally on the market for around $300K, but folks weren’t exactly beating the doors down to buy at that price point because they’re now up for rent—and even now no one seems to want to live there.

It’s not surprising. While they have a nice view of the golf course across the street, they’re at the corner of a noisy, very well-traveled intersection, and the only vehicular entrance to the property—and the units’ garages in the back—is a single entrance that’s accessed either by a right turn going east or an impossible left turn going west (necessitating pulling into the left turn lane of the intersection on the street immediately to the north of the property.  There’s a paved alley out back that could be used for access but they’d have to drive a block down 19th Avenue and then double back.

From a couple years ago, but still illustrates the ridiculously designed entrance these units were given.

There’s no private space (which from the looks of it could’ve easily been accomplished out front with some fenced patios), no protection from the elements above the front doors, and absolutely no guest parking. And oh, did I mention…there’s no street parking on either of the roads bordering the property? Even if the chained and padlocked gates in the fence that surrounds the property are one day opened, there’s no place for trucks to deliver without pulling into the bus stop immediately out front. It’s no wonder they can’t give them away…

*I stand corrected…apparently are still for sale…at an absolutely ridiculous price for this neighborhood. And at least one is for rent…at an equally ridiculous rate.

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Incompetent Imbecile Sabotages California’s Water Supply

From Jeff Tiedrich:

Millions Of Gallons Gone, For A Pointless Photo-Op

Donny Convict believes a lot of stupid shit. for instance, that magnets stop working when they get wet. seriously, here’s a thing Donny actually said while campaigning last year.

“all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.”

that’s just unbelievably idiotic, and so easy to disprove — but just try talking Donny out of it. you could walk up to him and stick two wet magnets together, right in front of his big, dumb pumpkin face — and it wouldn’t make a dime’s worth of difference. Donny knows what he knows, and fuck you if you think you’re going to change his mind.

last Thursday, two of Donny’s favorite misconceptions came together to spectacularly fuck up Central California’s water supply.

here’s what we’re dealing with: first, there’s Donny’s nonsensical insistence that there’s one ginormous building-sized faucet somewhere that controls allof California’s water. secondly, there’s Donny’s childlike belief that the Army Corps of Engineers is a combat outfit. make no mistake, they’re not. while the ACoE is technically part of the Army, they’re about 96% civilian — and they don’t do combat. the Corps does infrastructure shit. they deal with roads and bridges, and maintain water distribution systems.

but don’t try to explain any of that to Donny. all he sees is the word “army” is in the title, and right away he imagines the big strong soldiers with the tears of gratitude and the massive biceps.

the reality is that they’re a bunch of civil engineers in hardhats.

but when Donny directs the ACoE to do something, he literally believes that he’s sending in GI Joe and his commandos to fuck shit up.
where’s that fuckin’ spigot?

that’s why when the Corps did some routine water pump maintenance in California recently, Donny breathlessly announced that he had ‘sent in the military.’

last Thursday, Donny ordered GI Joe and his Hardhat Commandos to open relief valves at two of California’s dams — and then the reckless imbecile took a victory lap. you’re welcome, California!

“Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California. Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons. Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago – There would have been no fire!”

Donny imagines that he has somehow ‘saved’ Los Angeles by letting ‘billions of gallons of water’ pour down into Southern California.

in reality, he accomplished none of that shit. what he did do was seriously fuck up Central California’s water reserves — and now there’s a strong possibility that farmers won’t have the water they’ll need for their crops this summer.

in typical Donny style, there was no forethought or planning — because fuck that. who needs planning when you know more about water management than all the water managers? Donny doesn’t plan — that shit’s for losers. he just picks up the phone and starts barking orders.

Water managers said they got about an hour’s warning from the Army Corp’s Sacramento office to expect the Tule and Kaweah rivers to be at “channel capacity” by Thursday night.

Channel capacity means the maximum amount of water a river can handle. For the Kaweah, that’s 5,500 cubic feet per second and for the Tule, it’s 3,500 cfs.

Those levels were last seen, and surpassed, during the 2023 floods, which destroyed dozens of homes and businesses and caused significant damage to infrastructure.

an hour’s warning! imagine that. you’re at the office, enjoying a hot cuppa and shooting the shit with your coworkers — and the phone rings. “hi, this is GI Civil Engineer Joe. we’re on our way over to flood your farmland. ok bye!”

here’s what happened the last time those rivers were at ‘channel capacity’:

panicked local officials managed to get the Corps to ease off.

“We were able to get them to back off that,” said Eric Limas, General Manager of the Lower Tule River and Pixley irrigation districts, of the Army Corps. “They’ll still be releasing water sometime tonight, but it will be a smaller amount, which will increase tomorrow.”

“We’re still trying to wrap our minds around the numbers that made this happen,” Fukuda said. “We haven’t received much information from the Army Corps, just very vague answers.”

just ‘vague answers’ — because the Corps probably didn’t know anything either, except that some ignorant asshole in Washington was screaming at them to get it done.

but the thing is, none of that water ended up anywhere near Los Angeles — because that’s not how Central California’s water system works.

Tulare County water managers were perplexed and frustrated, noting both physical and legal barriers that make it virtually impossible for Tulare County river water to be used for southern California fires.

First, it would have to be pumped at great expense across the San Joaquin Valley to get to the California Aqueduct and then travel hundreds of miles south.

fuckity-bye, water!

farmers were depending on that water to grow crops this summer —and now it’s gone. wasted for a photo op, so Donny could pretend he’d accomplished something. you’re welcome, California!

“This is the wrong time of year to be releasing water from these reservoirs. It’s vitally important that we fill our reservoirs in the rainy season so water is available for farms and cities later in the summer,” Gleick said. “I think it’s very strange and it’s disturbing that, after decades of careful local, state and federal coordination, some federal agencies are starting to unilaterally manipulate California’s water supply.”

when you can’t find oranges in your supermarket later this year, you can blame Donny.

The two dams are considered important reservoirs of water for farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, which is known for its “Citrus Belt” that produced more than four million tons of citrus fruits — particularly Mandarin, Navel and Valencia oranges, along with grapefruits and lemons — in the 2020-2021 season alone.

locals can’t fucking believe what just happened.

“A decision to take summer water from local farmers and dump it out of these reservoirs shows a complete lack of understanding of how the system works and sets a very dangerous precedent,” said Dan Vink, a longtime Tulare County water manager and principal partner at Six-33 Solutions, a water and natural resource firm in Visalia.

now here’s the quote of the day.

“This decision was clearly made by someone with no understanding of the system or the impacts that come from knee-jerk political actions.”

no fucking shit.

by the way, here’s that clip of Donny having no clue how magnets work. it’s just another one of those stunningly crazypants moments that have to be heard to be believed.

in another clownfuckingly stupid move, Donny’s put ruinous tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports. even the Wall Street Journal called it “the dumbest trade war in history.”

there will be a lot to say about this in the days to come, as the shit hits the economic fan — but for now, here’s something you probably never thought would happen: Canadian hockey fans booing America’ National Anthem.

do you have any idea just how badly you have to fuck up to get Canada mad at you?

let’s go out on a high note. here’s a suburban mom chasing some Patriot Front fucksticks out of her neighborhood by using a bullhorn to scream YOU BETTER RUN, BITCHES! at them.

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