Tonight's grifter? Dancing fool Kash Patel. Didn't
realize he was as corrupt as the others. I was hoping that he was just
not very bright. But, no, to serve in the Chump administration, one
must be a crook desperate to use corruption to advance one's self. Nick Cleveland-Stout (Responsible Statecraft) reports:
FBI
Director Kash Patel promised that he wouldn’t touch any work related to
the country of Qatar — until very recently, a lucrative client of his.
Now, only a few months into the job, he’s had a change of heart and is
already handling official FBI business related to the Gulf country.
After
his confirmation hearing, Patel revealed that he worked as a consultant
for the Embassy of Qatar until November. Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, Acting
Vice President of Policy & Government Affairs at Project on
Government Oversight, explained to RS that federal regulations stipulate
that executive branch employees should recuse themselves on issues
related to their former employers for a period of one year.
However,
employees can avoid this requirement by simply obtaining a waiver — or,
as Hedtler-Gaudette put it, “activating the escape hatch.”
According
to the new disclosure filing, Patel received this waiver from his
agency’s ethics officer for a particular matter related to Qatar on
March 4. The new disclosure does not specify what work or case Patel’s
waiver is for — but if official FBI business involving Qatar is landing
on the Director’s desk and it’s worth asking for a waiver over, it’s a
good sign the work carries some weight.
In his
ethics disclosure from before his confirmation hearing, Patel pledged to
avoid actual and apparent conflicts of interests; “I will not
participate personally and substantially in any particular matter
involving specific parties in which I know a former client of mine is a
party or represents a party for a period of one year after I last
provided service to that client or until the client satisfies any
outstanding bill, whichever is later, unless I am first authorized to
participate.”
It turns out those last seven words did most of the heavylifting.
“This
waiver should never have been granted,” Craig Holman, Government
Affairs Lobbyist for Public Citizen, told RS. “There is no reason why
Patel has to address whatever specific issue this is relating to Qatar
when he can just delegate it to someone else in the FBI.”
Really,
Kash? Again, I had hopes that you were misguided and uninformed and
had a mind that wasn't made to question. I had no idea that you were
just as crooked and corrupt as basically everyone else in the
administration.
This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
Tuesday, June 3, 2025. Dementia Donald's lies keep getting tripped up
by reality, his latest plan is to bring the likes of Blackwater onto US
streets, Alien Musk continues to fail non-stop, and much more.
Company-specific
tariff threats will likely face legal problems, especially after a
decision late Wednesday by the US Court of International Trade
questioned the president’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs
without action by Congress – a decision that was put on hold by a Court
of Appeals decision on Thursday.
[. . .]
SpaceX has previously blamed space weather for botched launch attempts of its Starlink satellites.
Convicted Felon Donald Chump continues his attempts to terrorize the US economy and tax payer. Chris Isidore (CNN) reports:
President Donald Trump is using his love of tariffs to threaten high-profile American companies.
Over
the past month, Trump has said he’d like to target two specific and
very different companies – Apple and Mattel – with tariffs aimed at
their key products over comments by their CEOs.
He's
a stooge. Sometimes the press is as well. I said Walmart was not
going to eat the tariffs. I said that was a lie. But the press ran
with it as truth. It was a lie. Leave it to THE NEW YORK POST and Ariel Zilber to point that reality out:
Walmart
has quietly been hiking prices on items ranging from toys to office
supplies, with some markups reportedly climbing more than 100% — despite
President Trump’s demand for retailers to “eat the tariffs.”
Photos
circulating online, particularly on the Walmart subreddit, have
documented the dramatic price hikes since the White House imposed a 145%
tariff on imports from China in early April, before lowering the levy
to 30% last month.
The price of toys, the bulk of which are made in China, were particularly impacted.
A
“Jurassic World” T. rex rose from $39.92 on April 27 to $55 by May 21 —
an increase of nearly 38%. Price tracking site AisleGopher shows the
same item cost $29.74 in November.
A “Baby
Born” doll jumped from $34.97 in March to $49.97 in May, a roughly 43%
rise, while a Lite Brite Magic Screen set moved from $14.97 to $21.97
(up nearly 47%). The popular Etch A Sketch jumped from $14.97 to $24.99 —
nearly a 67% increase.
The price on some
office supplies also surged, with a roll of tape that previously sold
for $4.24 soaring to $9.94, a 134% spike.
Other
notable hikes include a heating pad rising roughly 25%, from $19.98 to
$24.96, and a fishing reel surging from $57.37 in April to $83.26 in
May, a 45% increase. That same reel was listed for $51.12 as recently as
mid-March, according to AisleGopher.
Here's Jay Reed reporting on it yesterday:
And here we are dropping back to May 19th:
--------- start of excerpt ------------
As we were noting on Friday, Walmart's announcement was huge news:
Lets start with something major. Eleanor Tolbert (THE MIRROR) reports:
President Donald Trump's tariffs may affect your daily grocery trips.
Walmart says it must raise prices due to tariff costs after posting solid first quarter sales, the Associated Press reported. In the quarter one earnings call Thursday, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said that even at reduced levels, higher tariffs will result in higher prices.
I
half-watched a report on this last night. I wasn't impressed with the
report which basically just stated what the above does and then moved
on.
Maybe they assumed everyone gets how important the above is? I don't think everyone does.
Walmart
isn't just a minor store that a few states have. It is global. But
let's just focus on the US aspect because it's all over the United
States with an estimated 95% of Americans shopping there at least twice a
year. Let's note DEMANDSTAGE's stats:
Walmart Statistics 2025: Top Highlights
- Walmart attracts 255 million customer visits each week.
- Walmart has 10,660 stores globally.
- The U.S. has 4,606 Walmart stores and 600 Sam’s Club locations.
- Walmart operates 5,454 stores internationally.
- Walmart’s revenue reached $500.4 billion in the first three quarters of fiscal year 2025.
- Walmart employs around 2.1 million people worldwide.
How Many Customers Does Walmart Have?
Walmart sees 255 million customer visits each week across its global network.
This is a notable increase from 2023, when 240 million customers visited weekly, reflecting a rise of 15 million visits between January 2023 and January 2024.
The following table displays the number of weekly customer visits to Walmart stores worldwide over the years.
| Year | Weekly Customer Visits |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 255 million |
| 2023 | 240 million |
| 2022 | 230 million |
| 2021 | 240 million |
| 2020 | 265 million |
| 2019 | 275 million |
| 2018 | 270 million |
| 2017 | 260 million |
Source: Business Insider, Statista.
Here are some additional statistics about Walmart Customers:
- Nearly 19 out of 20 Americans visit Walmart at least twice a year.
- The average Walmart shopper makes 67 trips annually, including visits to Sam’s Club.
- On average, Walmart shoppers spend $54 on 13 items per trip.
- The typical Walmart customer is a white baby boomer with an annual income of less than $80,000.
- Walmart earns over $1.56 billion daily by serving millions of customers.
- Every second customer worldwide spends an average of $15,288 at Walmart.
Does that impress upon you how many people this is going to impact?
That was Friday morning and we went into more of it and noted how various outlets had treated it Thursday night as a brief headline if they noted it at all. It was big news and it remains big news.
CBS NEWS reported Saturday:
President Trump ripped into Walmart, saying on social media Saturday that the retail giant should "eat the tariffs" instead of blaming the duties on imported goods imposed by his administration for its increased prices.
Walmart on Thursday warned that everything from bananas to children's car seats could increase in price despite the softer tariffs on China.
"We can control what we can control," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on the company's first quarter earnings call Thursday. "Even at the reduced levels, the higher tariffs will result in higher prices," he added.
The price hikes are expected to go into effect later this month.
As Mr. Trump has jacked up import taxes, he has tried to assure a skeptical public that foreign producers would pay for those taxes and that retailers and automakers would absorb the additional expenses.
The administration dispatched bad liar Scott Bessent to lie on NBC's MEET THE PRESS.
KRISTEN WELKER:
It's wonderful to have you on after a long foreign trip. Thank you for being here. Let's start right there with Moody's downgrading the nation's credit rating. And they do cite the debt. I want to read you a little bit of what Moody's says. It says, quote, "If the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is extended, which is our base case, it will add around $4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade." Several Republicans, Mr. Secretary, are citing similar concerns. Does the president's tax bill need to do more to address the nation's debt and deficit?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
Well, Kristen, first – first of all, I – I think that Moody's is a lagging indicator.
And we edit there. I don't like liars and he's lying. Please note, he's had this habit all of his life, when he starts a lie, he stammers. He starts repeating the same word. It's his tell. I-I? He's lying.
Back to the transcript.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Fair enough. But under President Trump's first administration he added $8 trillion to the nation's debt in his first term. So there's plenty of blame to go around. Let me –
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
No, no, no, no, no.
His repeated "no"s inform that he's lying. We're not posting his lies.
KRISTEN WELKER:
It did include the – the tax cuts as well. But let me ask you about Walmart, this big news from Walmart. It says it will start raising prices on its consumers, Mr. Secretary, as early as this month due to the tariffs. Now, President Trump out with a very stern warning on social media saying Walmart, quote, "should eat the tariffs," adding the company made far more than expected last year. Is the president asking American companies to be less profitable?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
I – I was on the phone with Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart
Lying.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, you know, in my conversation with former Vice President Mike Pence, he says he sees tariffs as a tax. How far, Mr. Secretary, is the president, is the administration willing to go to prevent CEOs from increasing prices?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
Well, I – I think what we are hearing here
Again, he's lying and we don't have the time.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But the Federal Reserve has said that tariffs are inflationary. Just to be very clear, you said you called Walmart. Is that what CEOs can expect, that you, that the president, that other members of the administration will apply pressure to try to prevent them from passing on these prices to CEOs?
SEC. SCOTT BESSENT:
I – I didn't apply any pressure.
Scott's a liar and he lied to try to stop the bleeding.
The truth? Richard Luscombe (GUARDIAN) reports:
The US retail giant Walmart will “eat some of the tariffs” in line with Donald Trump’s demands, the president’s treasury secretary Scott Bessent insisted on Sunday, claiming he received the assurance in a personal phone call with the company’s chief executive, Doug McMillon.
A spokesperson for Walmart said the company would not comment on conversations between its executives and administration officials. However, a source familiar with the conversation said the phone call between Bessent and McMillon was arranged many days prior to Trump’s post – and that the company’s position had not changed.
Walmart said this week it had no alternative to raising prices for consumers beginning later this month because it could not absorb the cost of the president’s tariffs on international trade, which have caused turmoil in international markets.
Again, this was a huge story the moment that it broke and it's a real shame that so many outlets were sleeping on the job Thursday evening and Thursday night and didn't see it for the big story -- more than a mere headline -- that it was. Other retail outlets will follow suit. We covered it all on Friday.
--------------end of excerpt ----------------
It was a lie, it was always a lie And the press should have been skeptical instead of going along with Chump's lie.
Last night on MSNBC's THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE, Stephanie addressed the bond market.
Why?
"Because if there is any guardrail that might convince President Trump
to back off some of his more extreme policies, it is the almighty bond
market."
Let's move to another Chump disaster: Immigration. Brandon Bolte and Isabel Skinner (THE HILL) explain:
Homeland
Security Secretary Kristi Noem incorrectly defined habeas corpus during
a recent congressional hearing, augmenting serious doubts that top
White House administration officials understand and are willing to
respect the rule of law and legal rights of civilians on U.S. soil.
Indeed,
Noem oversees the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has
been “forcibly disappearing” undocumented immigrants, international
students and permanent residents off the streets. ICE officers
frequently wear masks, which could help them avoid accountability for
tactics like warrantless arrests, “knock and arrests” and smashing car
windows.
In practice, ICE operates with
relatively little oversight, but in principle, it is accountable to the
federal government and has been subject to extensive civil litigation in
the courts.
Yes, ICE is deeply flawed, but there is a real risk of something far worse.
Over
the past few months, Erik Prince, former head of the private military
company Blackwater (now known by the name Constellis), has pitched
multiple proposals to the White House to help with mass deportations.
Prince has argued that achieving President Trump’s aggressive
deportation goals will require the government to “supplement” ICE’s
capabilities. According to one of his proposals, a new Prince company,
2USV, would train and deploy an army of as many as 100,000 armed and
deputized citizens.
The
administration has not yet decided to implement the plan, though Trump
said he “wouldn’t be opposed to it, necessarily.” As academic experts on
non-state armed groups like militias and on immigration, we are alarmed
at this possibility.
This is because
scholarly research on the type of group Prince would mobilize suggests
three key patterns. First, these groups are often tasked with committing
human rights violations in pursuit of the government’s political goals.
Second, the current domestic political environment in the U.S. is
conducive to their formation. Lastly, employing groups like this would
allow federal government officials — including the president ◊ to evade
accountability for illegal or inhumane tactics.
Prince’s
proposed “army” would be a “pro-government militia,” which the academic
literature defines as an organized, armed group that is
government-sponsored and not part of regular security forces.
We're
going to allow Erik Prince to terrorize people on US streets? The same
way he did in Baghdad? Have we forgotten that? Have we forgotten all
the people Blackwater -- Erik's company -- killed? Innocent people.
The Nisour Square Massacre was not the only incident but it was the most
infamous. September 16, 2007, escorting some never publicly named US
official, they refused to remain -- as told -- in the Green Zone and
took to the streets of Baghdad on a shooting spree that left 17 Iraqi
civilians dead and another twenty injured.
Let's , let's refresh via the September 18, 2007 snapshot:
Turning
to the subject of US mercenaries. Blackwater's latest slaughter
continues to garner attention. On Sunday, Blackwater fired into crowds
and they've repeatedly changed their story ever since. Are the
mercenaries in our out? Martin Fletcher (Times of London) notes
that any effort to eject them from Iraq -- any Iraqi effort -- "would
be resisted strenuously by the US Government, whose security
arrangements will be thrown into chaos if Blackwater can no longer
operate in Iraq." Which is why US Secretary of State and Anger Condi
Rice spent 15 minutes on the phone with puppet of the occupation Nouri
al-Maliki. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) noted that
"several contractors predicted Monday that it was unlikely the Iraqi
government would carry through with the threat to expel Blackwater."For
all intents and purposes they belong to the [U.S.] Department of State,"
one contractor said of Blackwater employees". Kim Sengupta (Independent of London) reports
on "an extraordinary telephone news conference, the US embassy
spokeswoman could not answer whether the company was still working for
the Americans inside the Green Zone, or what its legal position was
along with similar foreign contractors within Iraq." Sengupta also
notes the ever changing story of Blackwater for why the opened fire
on unarmed Iraqi civilians killing at least 8 on Sunday. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) notes
that Ali Dabbagh spoke to the press in Baghdad and noted that the Iraqi
investigation "had found that guards with the private security company
Blackwater USA had fired without provocation on a Baghdad traffic
circle, killing eight people and wounding 13" and that a child was
among the dead. As Leila Fadel, Joseph Neff and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) point out,
"Whether the Iraqi Interior Ministry will be able to enforce its
decision to ban North Carolina-based Blackwater Security from operating
in Iraq is likely to be a major test between the government of Prime
Minister Nouri al Maliki and the United States. Blackwater, founded by a
major Republican Party benefactor, is among the most prominent -- and
most controversial -- of dozens of companies that provide security to
both government and private individuals in Iraq. In 2003, the U.S.-led
Coalition Provisional Authority exempted the companies and their
employees from prosecution under Iraqi law, but Iraqi officials disputed
whether that exemption remains in effect, and U.S. officials declined
to comment."
That's what Chump wants to put on US streets?
Three
Blackwater employees were convicted in a US court; however, on his way
out of office in December 2020 -- after he lost the US presidential
election the month before to Joe Biden -- Dementia Donald pardoned them.
That
matters for a number of reasons. The primary one being Erik Prince's
employees were allowed to skate on their crimes. Now there is talk of
unleashing these mercenaries on American streets. So when they kill 17
American civilians, will we see Chump rush to do pardons again?
We're not done with Chump's pardons yet. But let's stay on immigration for a little bit more.
Demian Bio (LATIN TIMES) reports on one group that will be patrolling inside the US:
The Trump administration is reportedly set to send
hundreds of border agents to the U.S. interior to help Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) counterparts arrest migrants there.
CBS News reported that
the effort is expected to involve around 500 agents, including some
tasked with intercepting the unlawful entry of migrants and drugs. It is
expected to start as early as this week.
The
administration has already tapped agents from the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the DEA, the FBI and the IRS to help
ICE with its tasks. The outlet added that DHS officials have also asked
the Pentagon to allow tens of thousands of National Guard troops to be
involved as well.
The report was published
before Kenneth Genalo, the ICE official leading the branch in charge of
arrests and deportations left his post last week. The development was
part of a shakeup that also saw Robert Hammer stop being the head of
ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
So
Chump would just be tossing aside The Immigration and Nationality Act
287(a)(3) which governs where border agents are allowed to work within
the US? My understanding was that they had to be within 100 miles of an
international border. An international border is not, for example, the
border between the states of Nebraska and Kansas.
Now let's return to pardons. On
Sunday, an attack took place in Boulder, Colorado. The prime suspect
is an Egyptian male, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who is alleged to have
yelled "Free Palestine!" while mowing down people who are demonstrating
for the release of Israeli hostages (held since October 7, of 2023) with
a flame thrower and tossing two Molotov cocktails. If true, the man's a terrorist and deserves to face the full extent of the law. There is no justification for this.
There
is also no justification for the attack that Cuck Stephen Miller has
been making at Joe Biden. Miller's embarrassed because everyone's
trying to figure out if his wife is cheating on him and left with Musk
for that reason or if it was a thruple and they just decided Miller was
unnecessary -- as sort of happened on the second season episode of
ELSBETH "Hot Tub Crime Machine." So he blathers on at the mouth that
the man got into the US on a travel visa and, when it expired, he
applied for a Green Card and that all of this took part under Joe Biden.
Stephen
Miller wants you to really believe that he could satisfy his wife --
the one who's leaving him and the White House to work for Musk. He also
wants you to believe that Joe Biden is personally reviewing travel
visas and Green Card applications.
Again,
Joe's not responsible. Now if you don't like that he pardoned someone,
Joe's responsible there. He did review the people he considered
pardoning. And if he made a mistake there, Stephen, let's call it out.
I
don't see one. But then I generally am pro-pardon and think the
presidents should be issuing many more pardons than they have.
But don't step out of the room, Stephen, we're not done yet.
By the same token, Donald Dementia is responsible for the pardons he issued. You never want to talk about that, Stephen.
The pardons for the January 6th insurrectionists. Many already had criminal records but Chump didn't care about that.
Stephen, let's talk about Andrew Taake. Chump pardoned him January 20th. Mere months ago. Robert Downen (TEXAS TRIBUNE) reported mere weeks after Chump pardoned Taake:
A
Houston man who was recently pardoned by President Donald Trump for his
role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection has been arrested on an
outstanding child sex crimes charge.
Andrew
Taake, 36, was taken into custody on Thursday after spending more than
two weeks as a fugitive, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office
said. He had previously been charged with online solicitation of a minor
stemming from a 2016 incident in which he allegedly sent sexually
explicit messages to an undercover law enforcement officer who was
posing as a 15-year-old girl.
Taake was among
the roughly 1,600 people, including 120 Texans, who were charged for
their roles in the U.S. Capitol riot, which ultimately resulted in five
deaths, injuries to 140 police officers, at least $2.8 million in damage
and roughly 1,575 federal criminal cases.
Federal
prosecutors said Taake used bear spray and a metal whip to assault
officers, and that he was caught after bragging about the incident to a
woman he met on an online dating app. Screenshots of his messages to the
woman, who later alerted law enforcement, show that he sent a selfie of
himself to the woman that he said was taken “about 30 minutes” after
the incident, according to court records.
Little dick energy Stephen, we're not done with you yet.
Phil Helsel (NBC NEWS) reported ten days after Chump's January 20th pardons:
A
Missouri woman convicted in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and recently
pardoned by President Donald Trump was sentenced to 10 years this week
for killing a mother of two in a drunken-driving crash.
Emily
Hernandez was seen holding the broken nameplate of then-House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., after the mob of Trump supporters attacked the
Capitol in 2021. She served 30 days in federal prison and was released.
On
Wednesday, she was sentenced in Missouri state court to 10 years in
prison for a 2022 drunken-driving crash that killed Victoria Wilson and
seriously injured her husband, Ryan Wilson, court records show.
What about this from Ana Faguy (BBC NEWS):
An
Indiana man who was pardoned by US President Donald Trump over the US
Capitol riot was killed by police during a traffic stop days later.
Matthew
Huttle, 42, was shot and killed on Sunday when police pulled his
vehicle over, and he allegedly resisted and ended up in an "altercation"
with an officer, an Indiana State Police (ISP) statement said.
It
remains unclear what he was being arrested for. Police added that
Huttle had a firearm in his possession during the traffic stop.
Theodore Middendorf was charged in Illinois for predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, per records obtained by NPR. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
He is registered as a sex offender in Indiana for the crimes against a 7 year old in 2018.
Peter Schwartz had a "jaw-dropping criminal history of 38 prior convictions going back to 1991," prosecutors said.
The convictions included assault with a deadly weapon, battery, terroristic threats and domestic violence.
His now-scrubbed Jan. 6 sentence of 14 years was among the highest of defendants.
These
are people Chump pardoned on January 20th. And you want to go to town
on people who got into this country when Joe was president? You know we
can use that same category on your man Chump right? We didn't though.
We played fair. We only brought up people that he pardoned which means
he's supposed to have reviewed every part of their history. And his
pardons make clear that Donald Chump supports pedophiles.
Maybe
next time, Stephen, you can just shut your mouth? Probably be for the
best. "It was like he was tossing rope." That's only one of the many
things I've been told your wife is blabbing who will listen. You were
tossing rope. Now I haven't met her but I would interpret that to mean
that you couldn't get it up. Is that the case? I have no idea. I'm
just repeating the DC gossip.
Following
a horrific attack against Boulder, Colorado, protesters calling for the
release of Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas, President Donald
Trump is blaming the alleged act of terrorism on the immigration
policies of the Biden administration.
"Yesterday's
horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the
United States of America," Trump wrote on Truth Social. The president
added that the suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, "came in through Biden's
ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly. He
must go out under ‘TRUMP' Policy.'"
She
notes that Miss Sassy JD Vance and Karonline Leavitt have joined
Stephen and Chump in trying to blame this on Joe. Curious. When did
Donald Dementia ever blame the 9/11 hijackers being admitted to the US?
Because 15 of the 19 hijackers arrived in the US after the 2000
election -- that would mean the bulk of them came into the country when
Bully Boy Bush was in charge.
Check
the archives, I've blamed Bully Boy Bush for 1 million and 1 incidents
over the year. I've never blamed him for the 15 hijackers that came
into the US while he was occupying the Oval Office.
Equally
true, Dementia Donald will blame Joe for any and everything but, as
Ruth noted last night, when it comes to taking accountability for his
own actions, Chump never does that. It's never his fault, as Ruth
noted.
Still on immigration, Madeline Sherratt (INDEPENDENT) notes:
President
Donald Trump is planning on resettling “thousands” of white South
Africans in the U.S., a State Department official has revealed in a new
report.
Earlier this month, Trump granted a
group of 59 white South Africans entry to the United States as
“refugees.” Afterwards, Trump was accused of ambushing South African
President Cyril Ramaphosa with claims of a “white genocide” by flashing
articles and videos of alleged violence against white farmers in the
country.
Several pieces of evidence that Trump provided were found to be misleading, incorrect, or entirely unrelated to his claims.
Now,
a government official has told that the number of white Afrikaner
refugees is expected to surge “towards the second half of summer.”
“We won’t be talking about dozens of arrivals, but hundreds and perhaps thousands,” the official told the outlet.
Donovan Wilson (THE HILL) hands out a report card to Musk on DOGE:
Peer
past the sometimes-frustrating bureaucracy, and one finds hard-working
individuals supporting the vital missions for the American people.
By
DOGE’s own estimates, Musk’s team will fall short of its stated goal of
cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget. Of course it will. Without
changes to defense spending and entitlement reform, it was always just a
pipe dream.
Instead, the real unstated mission
of DOGE was to make working for the federal government untenable.
Unfortunately, on that front, Musk had more success. Morale among the
federal workforce gets understandably low when the next email could be
notice to clear out your desk and vacate the building.
DOGE’s reforms come at the expense of functional government and to the harm of the American public.
Exactly.
And we must never forget how some encouraged this and applauded this.
That would include our left 'buddy' Ben Cohen. Never forget that. He
applauded DOGE and cheered it on and has yet to apologize for that
reality. Government is not a business. For decades and decades people
have tried to insist that government should be run like a business.
Nope. A business is a for-profit enterprise. That's not a government.
A government has obligations that must be met, it has made promises to
various citizens -- seniors and veterans for example. Government's have
stakeholders, not stockholders. Musk never understood that because he
was so poorly educated K-12. Teo Armus (WASHINGTON POST) reports:
It
would have been hard to see much of a crisis brewing at the Arlington
Mill Community Center, given the joyful stream of middle-schoolers
bolting inside last month.
But it was there in the way 11-year-old Mason Soto greeted his teacher, Andrew Gelsinger.
“Mr. Andrew!” yelled Mason, running into the classroom. “You’re still here!”
Less
than a week had passed since Gelsinger abruptly lost his position at
the free after-school program in Northern Virginia — one of tens of
thousands of roles funded by AmeriCorps that were slashed in cuts to
that federal agency.
Gelsinger sat in the
classroom with his students, some of them weeping, as they were told
they would not be able to come back to Aspire Afterschool Learning to
start their homework, grab a snack or play volleyball.
Just
a few days later, Gelsinger’s bosses tapped into surplus funds to bring
him and most other teachers back through the summer. How much the
nonprofit’s budget could stretch after that, though, was uncertain.
In
April, the Trump administration’s U.S. DOGE Service canceled nearly
$400 million in AmeriCorps grants, effectively firing service members at
Aspire and more than 1,000 other organizations across the country.
Those groups were told the lost funding “no longer effectuates agency
priorities.”
Aspire was
created in 1994 to serve families that fall outside the more widely
known image of Arlington County, a wealthy D.C. suburb that is home to
lobbyists, federal workers and the Pentagon.
The
Arlington parents who send their children to the nonprofit — at no cost
— are the nurses, day laborers and janitors who make this community
function for everyone else. Many of them can’t afford tutors or summer
camps. In some cases, recently arrived immigrant parents rely on
Aspire’s teachers to help their children pick up English.
Over
the past three decades, the organization has grown from a shoestring
operation inside a church basement to a nonprofit with a dedicated space
in a county community center, where a group of largely Black and Latino
students — most of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — come
after school for extra lessons in math, reading and writing.
Juan
Jose Soto, Mason’s father, said it was an easy decision to send the
11-year-old and his older brother there, given the difficulties in
finding someone to watch them. He and his wife worried about them
walking home alone after the older son, Joseph, was hit by a car while
heading back from the bus stop by himself.
“Work
doesn’t allow us to be on top of them all the time,” Soto said. “They
don’t have anyone to watch over them. They’re safer here.”
Mason
would get distracted easily at school, but at Aspire he was able to
catch up and pushed his grades toward a mix of A’s and B’s.
A
big part of that, Soto noted, was the teachers. Most classrooms had a
pair of them, and in this case Gelsinger and his co-teacher, Dakota
Yoon, managed to coax a restless kid who often blurted out comments in
class to jot down his thoughts in a notebook instead.
So
you've got a program producing results, helping kids and parents and
along comes Musk -- cheered on by the disgusting Ben Cohen -- and it's
snip, snip, snip at the safety net. Hannah Natanson (WASHINGTON POST) is also handing out a report card:
The results seem to run counter to the goal of efficiency.
At air traffic control towers at two dozen West Coast airports, officials are unable to easily pay to have the windows washed and shades cleaned, said a Federal Aviation Administration employee. A DOGE-ordered overhaul of the payments system means FAA staffers must write statements justifying all expenditures, the employee said — not just for window-washing, but also elevator maintenance and even pens and pencils, the employee said. Purchase orders that used to take 15 or 20 minutes to fill out now consume 1 or 2 hours for each tower.
“These are things that people don’t think about, but clean windows are crucial for controllers,” the employee said. Because he is so often busy with purchase justifications, he has fallen behind on landscaping, fire alarm safety and pest control, all of which are “staples in the air traffic towers,” he said.
The added reviews extend beyond financial issues to questions of policy and political speech, including press releases.
Tech
billionaire Elon Musk, whose time as a special government employee came
to an end on Friday, said in a Sunday interview that he doesn’t want to
“take responsibility” for all actions of the Trump administration.
In
an interview on CBS News’s “Sunday Morning,” Musk said he disagrees
with some moves President Trump has made, though he hesitated to discuss
them in more detail, saying that doing so might create “a bone of
contention.”
“It’s not like I agree with everything
the administration does,” Musk said in the interview. “I mean, I agree
with much of what the administration does, but we have differences of
opinion. You know, there are things that I don’t entirely agree with.”
“But it’s difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention,” Musk continued.
Let's
see, you agree with what DOGE did, you agree with racism, sexism,
homophobia and transphobia. I think the only thing you disagree with is
tariffs. That might endear you to some but I'm not that stupid. I
know a lot of stupid people made Alien Musk -- Alyssa Milano and others
who rushed to applaud him.
I
never got taken in. I upset people when I would note that I don't
trust Charlize Theron. Don't care. She's a White woman who grew up
under apartheid and she never dencouned it or the harm it did to South
Africa's Black population. Sorry, kids, I fought that battle years ago,
as I've shared here many times over the years. We had student on
campus. He was an athlete. He was an exchange student. He was White.
He was from South Africa. And he got to go on and on in a supposed
journalism article in the student paper about how wonderful life was for
Blacks in South Africa. And blah blah blah. I called it out in a
letter to the editors that ran in the next edition. And it unleashed a
war. I was attacked, I was savaged. And this when I was sleeping with
the editor, by the way. Didn't find out until months later that the
editor was one of many stabbing me in the back. So what ended up
happening is that they attacked the wrong person on the wrong issue.
They used sock puppets to attack me in the edition after my letter ran.
Then all these letters came in -- including from professors -- saying
that I had captured the reality of South Africa in my letter and that it
was journalistic malpractice to have printed the story they did where
they repeated the lies as truth and never noted the reality of
apartheid.
It was a teachable moment.
And
it demonstrated for me that White South Afrikaners would lie. That
they knew how outrageous their government was and they benefited from it
so they would lie. So, no, I never got taken in by 'good lefty' Alien
Musk.
Now there were White
people in South Africa who fought against apartheid. And I am thrilled
when ever I meet one of them and, here's the thing, no one I've ever met
who fought against it was shy about saying that. The only Whites from
South Africa that I've met over the years -- especially after apartheid
finally fell -- that don't want to talk about apartheid are the ones who
supported it.
Again, I never fell for Alien Musk. It's a shame so many others on the left did.
And
now that Musk is known as a racist who championed apartheid and has
implemented and glorified racism on Twitter, he can't escape that. He's
stupid for thinking he can. And for thinking disagreeing with Chump on
tariffs is going to make a difference in how people see him. In other
problems for Musk, Anthony Cuthbertson (INDEPENDENT) notes:
Eruptions
from the Sun are causing SpaceX’s Starlink satellites to fall to Earth
“faster than expected”, according to Nasa scientists.
A
team from the US space agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center made the
discovery after investigating the impact of solar activity on the
lifespan of satellites in low-Earth orbit.
Their
findings revealed that Elon Musk’s space internet constellation is
particularly prone to the effects of geomagnetic storms, which heat up
the planet’s atmosphere and increase the drag on satellites.
The
study coincides with the Sun reaching the peak of its 11-year activity
cycle, known as the solar maximum, which has seen large amounts of
geomagnetic storms and other extreme space weather.
“Our results indisputably show that satellites reenter faster with higher geomagnetic activity,” the researchers said.
“We
clearly show that the intense solar activity of the current solar cycle
has already had significant impacts on Starlink reentries.”
Imagine that, Musk got it wrong. All his life.
Is that why SpaceX has been such a huge failure for Musk? Because it continues to be a failure as Mark R. Whittington (THE HILL) documents:
As video blogger Ellie Sherrif pointed out that
although the failures of the seventh and eighth flights seemed to be
similar in that the Starship exploded soon after it separated from the
Super Heavy first stage, they had completely different root causes,
which SpaceX attempted to address for the ninth flight.
Then the question arose: Had SpaceX fixed the problems that had caused failures for both the eighth and seventh tests?
The
good news is that SpaceX fixed those problems. Starship did not explode
soon after separation from the Super Heavy. But, as so often happens
during test flights of cutting-edge rockets, other problems arose.
The
ninth test flight of the Starship was a good news/bad news event. The
good news: The Starship did not explode over the Gulf soon after
separating from the Super Heavy. And the Super Heavy first stage was a
reused rocket from the seventh flight. Proving reusability was a big
deal toward making SpaceX’s monster rocket a viable launch vehicle.
Unlike in previous tests, all of the engines in the Super Heavy remained
lit during the ascent phase.
But, as Ars Technica reported,
plenty of bad news occurred during the most recent flight as well. The
Super Heavy, tested during descent to the limits, did not touch down in
the Gulf but instead exploded.
The bad news continued as the Starship cruised through space toward its planned controlled landing in the Indian Ocean.
First, a test involving the deployment of Starlink simulators failed when the bay doors did not open.
Then,
Starship began tumbling when the rocket lost attitude control due to a
fuel leak. It broke apart over the Indian Ocean. SpaceX was unable to
relight one of the Starship’s Raptor engines in space. Reentry data from
the reusable heat tiles on the rocket was lost.
Let's wind down with the unqualified Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Ewan Palmer (DAILY BEAST) notes:
A
veteran Pentagon correspondent used a Fox News appearance to savage
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for attempting to restrict media access
at his department.
Barbara Starr, who spent
more than 20 years as CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, claimed Hegseth is
ending journalists’ access to certain areas at the Pentagon because he’s
“embarrassed” by the chaos engulfing his time in the Trump
administration.
“Hegseth is embarrassed,” Starr
said on Fox’s MediaBuzz Sunday. “He’s embarrassed by this—so much
exposure to information, classified by all accounts, that he posted on Signal about
that air attack in Yemen. He’s embarrassed that information came out
that he was going to meet with Elon Musk and brief him on China.”
Starr
added that Hegseth should be more concerned with how the U.S. will
react if Russia’s President Vladimir Putin responds to Ukraine’s
large-scale drone attack against Russian military bombers in Siberia,
rather than focusing on “the PR structure, if you will, of his press
operation.”
The following sites updated:
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We Are No Longer a Serious Country1 hour ago
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Donald's dementia worsens8 hours ago
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Court losses8 hours ago
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Weekend box office8 hours ago
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Musk is Chump and Chump is Musk9 hours ago
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