40 Years In The Desert

Linkage

2026-05-14T05:43:00.000-04:00

The “Messy” Plaintiffs Behind So Many Anti-Abortion Lawsuits (Mother Jones) By, "Messy," they mean plaintiffs with long histories of domestic abuse who should not be able to file under the Texas law.
Once Again, Trump Looks To Get Out Of Paying E. Jean Carroll By Having The DOJ Substitute In For Himself (Techdirt) If there is any justice in the world, Donald Trump should spend the rest of his life in prison.
To Trump voters with regrets, progressives should say 'you hurt yourself – don't do it again' (The Editorial Board) It might be more productive than, "You arrogant ass, you killed us!" but I'm still gonna say the latter.
Simulation Suggests Viking Sunstones of Legend Could Have Worked (Smithsonian Magazine) It appears that high purity calcite (Iceland spar) can polarize light, allowing the sun to be located through clouds for navigation.
Study shows aluminum adjuvants in vaccines are safe (Skeptical Raptor) There are issues with aluminum and toxicity, just not at the levels used in vaccines.
South Africa Used AI To Write Its Now Withdrawn AI Policy. The Citations Were Fake. (Techdirt) Of course it did.
Study: Infrasound likely a key factor in alleged hauntings (Ars Technica) Ultra low frequency sounds create sensations akin to hauntings. (Not a surprise. I read an lfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators book around 1970 where infrasound created a creepy feeling)
New Wikipedia Clone Made Entirely of AI Hallucinations (Futurism) I know that this is a parody site, but Osama take me now!

He is wrong. Palantir has ALWAYS been toxic:

DoJ Opposes Legal Ethics

2026-05-13T21:53:00.000-04:00

The recent lawsuit filed against the D.C. Bar in response to their investigating ethics complaints against Trump administration officials is entirely consistent with past behavior.

The Justice Department on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia Bar over its efforts to discipline Trump administration lawyers, escalating the department’s feud with legal ethics authorities.

The lawsuit defends Jeffrey Clark, a government lawyer in the first Trump administration who sought to undo the results of the 2020 presidential race, and Ed Martin, a current senior Justice Department official. The suit was filed by Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, and Stanley E. Woodward Jr., the No. 3 official at the Justice Department.

………

That position — that lawyers at the Justice Department or other federal agencies are above scrutiny by legal ethics officials — is likely to be challenged by a host of legal profession entities.

The lawsuit centers on the long-running battle over the D.C. Bar’s effort to disbar Mr. Clark, an environmental lawyer who had no formal role in investigating elections, over his push to promote Mr. Trump’s baseless assertions of fraud in Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory in 2020.

While the lawsuit is focused on Mr. Clark, Justice Department leaders in the suit also argued in defense of Mr. Martin. Two months ago, the D.C. Bar filed disciplinary charges against Mr. Martin over what it cast as his misconduct in seeking to punish Georgetown University’s law school.

I rather expect this to end up at the Supreme Court, where they will shut it down with a shadow docket decision.

I Like It

2026-05-13T19:35:00.000-04:00

Hawaii has an interesting approach to dealing with corporate money following the Supreme Courts infamous Citizens United decision.

Rather than attempting to regulate corporate money, Hawaii is on track legislation to redefine corporate power in the state as a way of preventing corporate campaign donations.

Sweet idea, but I am pretty sure that the Supreme Court will overturn this in a 6-3 vote before the ink is dry.

The corrupt 6 want corporate money distorting democracy, and Citizens United was always a corrupt partisan ruling.

When Hawaii drafted its constitution for eventual statehood in 1950, the delegates made very explicit the principle that runs through the laws of the 49 states that preceded it into the Union. “The power of the State to act in the general welfare shall never be impaired by the making of any irrevocable grant of special privileges or immunities,” reads Article I, Section 21 of the Hawaii Constitution.

Sixteen years after Citizens United started laying waste to America’s elections, the Hawaii legislature is poised to put that tool to unusually good use. S.B. 2471—a bill under which Hawaii would no longer grant artificial entities, including corporations, the power to spend in Hawaii’s politics—has passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support. It is in conference committee now, one step away from Gov. Josh Green’s (D) desk.

Gov. Green has said he will sign a good bill that meets constitutional muster. That is the right test. S.B. 2471 meets it.

The bill, which is based upon the Center for American Progress’ “Corporate Power Reset,” is not a regulation of speech. It is a redefinition of corporate power. Aviam Soifer, former dean of the University of Hawaii’s law school, has studied the measure closely and concluded that it is squarely constitutional.

………

While this state authority is not new or novel, it is dusty; no state legislature has redefined corporate powers this directly in roughly a century. It is natural that questions have arisen, including from Gov. Green, Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez, and some legislators.

………

The bill redefines the powers Hawaii grants to the corporations that operate within the state. It does not regulate what corporations say. It does not regulate what they spend. It defines what powers they have in the first place—and the powers Hawaii grants would no longer include the power to spend in Hawaii’s politics.

Natural persons like you and me keep every political right they have today.

Political committees remain governed by existing campaign finance law. This bill applies to corporations, LLCs, partnerships, and similar artificial persons—entities that operate in Hawaii only because Hawaii law creates them or empowers them to do so.

A note here, the registration of corporations and the powers that they have have always been left to the states, and in order for the Supreme Court to overrule this, they would reverse this, which would mean that Congress has this power. (It also means that corporate shell company states like Delaware and Wyoming would likely be much more tightly regulated)

My guess is that SCOTUS will use some sort of hypocritical slight of hand to strike this down.

Gee, Ya Think?

2026-05-13T18:31:00.000-04:00

This is my shocked face Santa Clara county, California is suing the criminal enterprise formerly known as Facebook™ for knowingly profiting from advertising scams.

Given the decades long history of Facebook actively harming its users for a few books by allowing dishonest and fraudulent advertisements, (remember Cambridge Analytica?) this development not a surprise at all.

California’s Santa Clara county has sued Meta Platforms, alleging it has profited from Facebook and Instagram ads promoting scams in violation of California’s false advertising and unfair business practices laws.

The lawsuit – filed on Monday in Santa Clara county superior court on behalf of all California residents – accuses the social media giant of tolerating fraudulent advertising on a global basis. The suit seeks restitution, civil damages and an order prohibiting Meta from engaging in unfair business practices.

Citing leaked internal documents first reported by Reuters last year, the complaint alleges that the company earned as much as $7bn in annual revenue from so-called “high-risk” scam ads which show clear signs of being fraudulent.

Rather than undertaking a broad crackdown on fraudulent advertisers, the county alleges, Meta largely tolerated the misconduct and even established “guardrails” to block scam reduction efforts if they cost the company too much money.

I live for the day when Mark Zuckerberg is frog-marched out of his home in handcuffs.

Don't Expect the New Fed Chair to Cut Rates

2026-05-12T22:32:00.000-04:00

Not with US inflation rising to 3.8% last year and more inflation in the pipeline from energy disruptions as a result of the US-Iran war.

We are in for a bumpy ride.

US inflation jumped to 3.8% in April as the war in the Middle East continued to drive energy prices and everyday costs for Americans.
Prices rose 3.8% over the last year, according to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest jump since 2023.
This is the second official measure of the consumer price index, which measures the price of a basket of goods and services, since the start of the war with Iran. In March, prices rose 3.3%, up from 2.4% in February.

And consumer sentiment is falling as well. Go figure.

Decimated, Huh?

2026-05-12T21:55:00.000-04:00

Well, if you use the original definition of decimated, to remove ⅒, that appears to be what the US military has done according to a report from the The New York Times.

The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.

Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.

Yep, that sounds like the original definition of that word.

Here is the money quote, "The findings underscore the dilemma Mr. Trump would face if the fragile month-old cease-fire in the conflict collapses and full-scale fighting resumes. The U.S. military has already depleted its stocks of many critical munitions, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot interceptor missiles, and Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, and yet the intelligence suggests that Iran retains considerable military capability, including around the vital Strait of Hormuz."

Not to worry though, I'm sure that Army Detachment Steiner will be able to sort things out.

My Bagels!!!!!

2026-05-12T21:52:00.000-04:00

New York state is set to ban bromated flour because bromine is a carcinogen. (Also why Bromo-Seltzer no longer contains bromine)

The use of bromated flour is ubiquitous among New York City bagel shops. (When I made bagels, I used non-brominated and malt free flour, [family allergies] and they turned out OK.)

The additive in question potassium bromate (KBrO3) is a slow acting oxidizing agent, and as such, it makes the dough springier more quickly.

There are techniques and other additives (ascorbic acid comes to mind) and mixing and kneading the dough for a longer time can ameliorate the effects as well. (For my bagels, I added additional gluten directly, but use a stand mixer with a dough hook. My hands hurt for 3 days afterwards)

The recipe for Utopia Bagels has remained unchanged since the popular bakery opened in Queens in 1981. Louie and Ernie’s Pizza in the Bronx has used the same ingredients in its slice for nearly as long.

But if lawmakers in Albany prevail, these bakers and thousands of others in New York State will have to stop using a key component, bromated flour, potentially raising costs and changing the character of their breads, bagels and pizza crusts.

Last month by a wide margin, legislators passed the Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act, which bans potassium bromate (along with propylparaben and Red Dye No. 3) from any food sold in the state. The bill now goes to Gov. Kathy Hochul; a spokeswoman said only that the governor “will review” it.

Used by an estimated 80 to 90 percent of commercial bakeries in the state, bromated flour makes doughs springier, stretchier and more consistent. Sam Silverman, a New York bagel evangelist who runs tours, classes and an annual gathering called BagelFest, said that after bromated flour became widely used in the 1940s, it helped create the signature modern New York bagel: tall and fluffy, with significant chew. In pizza, it produces an airy crust with enough structure to hold sauce and cheese, and enough pliability to be folded in half.

………

But since the 1980s, when studies first linked potassium bromate to thyroid and kidney cancers in rats, it has gradually been removed from the food supply in most of the world. It’s banned in China, Canada, India, the European Union and many other countries. Starting next January, it will be illegal in California, as part of the so-called “Skittles ban” signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023.

This is not actually a big deal, and my guess will be that after 6 months or so, the bakers will find a combination of other proofing agents and techniques to address this.

Today in Bat Sh%$ Inane

2026-05-12T21:34:00.011-04:00

First, we have Trump calling for Barack Obama's arrest again, basically, "Yadda, Yadda, Yadda, Russiagate," which these days is not particularly remarkable, and then we have elements of the Trump administration calling Tucker Carlson and Nuck Fuentes terrorists.

As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know."

Two right-wing figures — Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes — have been named by the White House as possible domestic terrorists, according to the Trump administration’s top counterterrorism official.
Sebastian Gorka, himself a former right-wing influencer turned National Security Council principal, has been making his rounds on conservative media, describing the meaning and purpose behind the President’s new National Counterterrorism Strategy (which I reported on previously).
Between grandiose monologues about his vision of a crusade to save Western civilization from “anti-American” and “anti-Christian” extremism, Gorka let slip that the administration’s war on “domestic terrorism” isn’t just aimed at the left. It targets anyone who isn’t in line with the broader MAGA agenda. While Trump’s national security directive NSPM-7 explicitly singles out the left with its list of so-called terrorism indicators, many of them could describe people on the right as well.
………
Asked by Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow if there’s any “right-wing terror” or “right-wing extremism” threat, Gorka replied by pointing to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and streamer Nick Fuentes — both of whom have become vocal critics of the Trump administration — arguing they aren’t actually conservatives anyway. Here’s the exchange:
MARLOW: “ I wanna get your thoughts on any right-wing terror … Do you regard it as a threat at all or anything that's important to be considering right now?”

GORKA: “…I'm not sure that Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are conservatives. If you are lauding Sharia law, if you are saying that there are Muslim states that seem to be better qualitatively than America in terms of freedom and prosperity, I'm not sure that means you're part of the conservative movement. So if you remove those individuals and you understand that they're not conservatives, what's left?”
Gorka’s charge that Carlson lauds Sharia law is, to put it lightly, ridiculous.

To be fair, Carlson and Fuentes have been promulgating stochastic terrorism, wherein they realize that someone in their large audience will take matters into their own hands, but what Gorka is talking about is the idea that any criticism of Dear Leader is terrorism.

We really need to make sure that everyone in this corrupt administration sees the inside of a courtroom as a defendant.

A Good Start

2026-05-11T20:04:00.001-04:00

French prosecutors hhave announced their intention to file preliminary charges against Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino in response to Grok's child porn generator function, Nazi propaganda, etc.

French prosecutors who are investigating Elon Musk and his social media platform X have summoned the billionaire to France to face preliminary charges. The investigation is now officially a criminal probe, according to French officials.

France opened a probe in 2025 to investigate whether X has violated French law, an investigation that has expanded following incidents last year when Musk’s AI chatbot Grok started denying the Holocaust, praising Hitler, and allegedly generating child sexual abuse material when prompted by users.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been asked to travel to France to face preliminary charges. As the Journal explains, after preliminary charges have been filed in France, an investigating magistrate starts a process that can take months and doesn’t necessarily mean a trial will be held. It’s entirely possible that the case could ultimately be dropped.

French authorities are looking into the “complicity” of Musk in creating sexual abuse images of minors and sexually explicit deepfakes, according to the Associated Press. Grok also allegedly spread misinformation in French, including a claim that Auschwitz wasn’t a death camp during the Holocaust but was used for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus.”

If Yaccarino ends up in the hands of French prosecutors, my guess is that she will sing like a canary, and I would not be at all surprised if she points the finger at Musk. (It's also the truth)

Pass the popcorn..

The Supreme Court Gets One Right

2026-05-11T18:28:00.002-04:00

I should have discussed this earlier, but inCox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment, the Supreme Court ruled (9-0) that simply providing internet access to someone is not contributory infringement of copyright.

This is a good ruling.

Sony and other major record labels recently suffered a thorough defeat at the Supreme Court in their attempt to make Internet service providers pay huge financial penalties for their customers’ copyright infringement. Sony’s loss is certain to have wide-ranging effects on copyright lawsuits, offering protection for ISPs, their customers, and potentially other technology companies whose services can be used for both legal and illegal purposes.

In Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment, the Supreme Court ruled that cable Internet firm Cox is not liable under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) when its customers use their broadband connections to download or upload pirated materials. Music copyright holders claimed that once Cox was informed that specific users repeatedly infringed copyrights, it should have terminated their accounts.

A jury agreed with Sony in 2019, hitting Cox with a $1 billion verdict. While the damages award was overturned by an appeals court in 2024, that court gave Sony a partial win by finding that Cox was guilty of contributory copyright infringement—a type of secondary liability for contributing to others’ infringement.

Cox was facing the prospect of another damages trial until the Supreme Court took up its case and unanimously ruled in its favor on March 25 of this year. The court found that Cox isn’t liable for its customers’ misdeeds because it did not induce them to infringe copyrights and did not “tailor” the broadband service so that it could be used for infringement.

………

While the Cox ruling’s most immediate effect is on other ISPs that were also sued by record labels, one of the attorneys who represented Cox at the Supreme Court told Ars that the decision seems to apply broadly to all other kinds of technology platforms.

“I think it applies to any technology provider. I didn’t see any basis in the opinion or its reasoning for limiting it only to a particular type of technology provider,” attorney Christopher Cariello said. Whether Cox applies to another case “basically just depends on if it’s the same configuration, providing technology that someone else uses for infringement, then it’s the same analysis,” he said.

………

Sony itself laid the groundwork for its 2026 defeat in 1984 when it convinced the court that the Betamax was capable of noninfringing uses and that selling it did not constitute contributory infringement. The 1984 Betamax case and the 2005 ruling in MGM Studios v. Grokster both factored heavily into the Cox decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas.

A Sony victory against Cox could have made it easier for copyright owners to sue companies whose offerings have both legitimate and illegitimate uses. The firm’s loss will surely make such cases more difficult. As Thomas wrote in Cox, a service provider can be held contributorily liable “only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement.” Such intent “can be shown only if the party induced the infringement or the provided service is tailored to that infringement,” he wrote.

This means that when a service is capable of “substantial” or “commercially significant” noninfringing uses, its provider can worry a bit less about being held liable for infringement. Users of those services can also worry a bit less about the service provider aggressively terminating accounts.

I think that this is an indication of a cultural shift, where even institutions like SCOTUS are thinking that the current IP regime is way over its skis.

I could not imagine such a ruling even a decade ago.

Gee, You Think

2026-05-11T18:15:00.000-04:00

This is my shocked faceRather unsurprisingly, it appears that solar, wind, and hydro are way cheaper than carbon capture of fossil fuels.

Also, the technology for renewables is more mature, and less likely to be a source of rents for Wall Street ……… Oh, NOW I get it.

To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the global community must rapidly transition to renewable energy while also expanding carbon dioxide removal—technologies that literally pull this greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. Both endeavors will be costly, but a new study strongly suggests the U.S. should prioritize investing in renewable energy over expensive, energy-intensive direct air capture schemes.

The findings, published Monday in Communications Sustainability, show that renewable energy is far more cost-effective than direct air capture—a growing carbon removal strategy—at reducing atmospheric carbon. Across nearly every U.S. region through 2050, money spent deploying wind or solar power will deliver a greater combined climate and public health benefit than if it is spent on direct air capture, according to the study.

Yes, but they present less opportunities for looting by the banksters.

No nice things for you, the Wall Street guy has a mistress he needs to buy coke for.

Headline of the Day

2026-05-11T18:01:00.000-04:00

To Protect And Swerve: NYPD Cop Has 547 Speeding Tickets Yet Remains On The Force

—Streetsblog New York City, on the serial (to the point of being surreal) traffic offender NYC police officer

The fact that this guy has been caught multiple times speeding on residential streets, school zones, etc. yet remains a police officer indicates a problem.

I'm a bit of a cynic, but my guess is that he's used his law enforcement connections to get out of paying fines.

Conservatively, the total fines for those speeding tickets is something north of 30 Grand.

Is this public enemy #1?

James Giovansanti lives and works on Staten Island. Since 2022, traffic cameras have caught his pickup truck blasting through school zones or running red lights 547 times in that one borough. He received 187 camera-issued tickets in 2025 alone — an average of one every other day.

That record makes Giovansanti the second-most-reckless driver in the city. Because he pilots a 4,800-pound RAM 1500 truck at more than 41 mph across the island, he poses a unique danger to himself and his neighbors. Ticket data show a pattern of dangerous driving in a wide arc from Pleasant Plains to Tompkinsville.

And here’s what makes him a true enemy of the public: Giovansanti is an officer in the New York City Police Department — the agency supposedly in charge of keeping New Yorkers out of harm’s way.
………
Activists say that Giovansanti is a poster child for the urgency of passing the “Stop Super Speeders Act,” a pending bill in Albany that would force the worst repeat speeders to install a speed limiter in their vehicles. If such a law was already in place, Giovansanti’s truck would have been rendered unable to speed on Aug. 7, 2022, just months after he bought it.
………
Records show that James Giovansanti, 33, reserves the bulk of his speeding for the borough’s densely populated North Shore. A traffic camera on Richmond Avenue and Monsey Place — the same block as P.S. 22, an elementary school that enrolls more than 700 students — issued 25 speeding tickets to the truck.

Another camera on Richmond Terrace and John Street ticketed the truck 50 times. A third camera on Richmond Terrace and Nicholas Avenue ticketed the truck 55 times. Those last two cameras are located just north of Port Richmond High School, which enrolls more than 1,500 teens.
………
Giovansanti’s choice of car dramatically heightens these risks. An unmodified 2022 RAM 1500 weighs at least 4,775 pounds, measures at least 77 inches tall, and features an enormous, boxy and flat-faced hood. This design limits the driver’s ability to see pedestrians and cyclists and makes it far more likely they will drag a crash victim beneath their car’s chassis instead of throwing them onto its hood.

We could not determine whether Giovansanti has ever harmed someone by speeding. But the circumstantial evidence is not reassuring: The right side of his truck is visibly damaged, and he refused to answer a straightforward question about his collision history.

Support your local police.

I Saw The Sheep Detectives Last Night

2026-05-10T21:21:00.000-04:00

I was impressed by the the movie.

The concept is kind of silly, sheep that can talk to each other but not to humans solve a murder, but it's well played and does not take itself too seriously.

Additionally, the CGI seemed to be understated and well executed.

It's smart, funny, I laughed out loud, and genuinely surprised when the murderer was exposed.

It was definitely worth the price of admission, though, full disclosure, my eldest bought the tickets as a Mother's Day gift for Sharon*.

Our local theater now has a bar in the lobby, so you could drink beer and watch the movie, which seems to be to be a bad thing.

One of the rites of passage in my day was teenage movie-goers smuggling food and booze in.

F%$#, I'm old.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Because They Are Cowards and Hypocrites

2026-05-10T19:51:00.001-04:00

Over at The Nation, they are asking, "Why Do the Democrats Keep Expanding the Institutions They Claim to Oppose?"

How's that a simple answer for a simple question?

In January, the senseless killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti briefly forced many Americans to confront the brutalities of state violence. Millions took to the streets nationwide to express their anger and outrage over the murders of a 37-year-old mother and poet and a 37-year-old nurse who cared for veterans. The idea that ICE is beyond reform and should be abolished was no longer confined to the left. Even prominent conservative pundits began saying openly what many progressives have known for years: This agency cannot be restrained by norms, oversight, or exposure.

But as the administration’s “shock and awe strategy” advances, launching a war with Iran and generating new crises domestically, public attention has largely moved on from ICE violence to other outrages. Meanwhile, the deportation operations have not stopped. ICE has continued making hundreds to more than a thousand arrests daily, with more than 32,000 people booked into ICE detention in March alone. Tens of thousands of community members continue to cycle through a detention system operating at full scale, largely out of public view, and increasingly untethered from any coherent claim of public safety.

Instead of endorsing popular calls to abolish ICE in this critical moment, establishment Democrats have again sprinted in the opposite direction. In headline after headline, Democrats are described as standing firm—blocking funding, demanding reforms, holding the line. But look closer at what that “line” is: They are not fighting to shrink the enforcement state. They are negotiating the terms under which it continues.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is corrupt and incompetent. They need to be completely turfed out of politics.

Peak Elon

2026-05-10T17:52:00.001-04:00

A judge has ruled that the DOGE was stupid and bigoted when it revoked thousands of grants.

Short version: They looked for words which implied non-white, non-mail, and non-Christian using AI, and when this turned up a positive result, they canceled it with no further review.

The Department of Government Efficiency’s cancellation of over $100 million in grants was unconstitutional, according to a ruling on Thursday. In the 143-page decision, US District Judge Colleen McMahon cites DOGE’s process for eliminating grants, which involved using ChatGPT to determine if something is related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

The ruling, which stems from a 2025 lawsuit filed by humanities groups, says “it could not be more obvious that DOGE used the mere presence of particular, protected characteristics to disqualify grants from continued funding” from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Judge McMahon cites several instances in which DOGE appeared to use ChatGPT to scan and eliminate grants using their relation to characteristics like race, national origin, religion, and sexuality.

Here's a thought: The statute of limitations for the over-broad and frequently misused RICO statutes is 4 years.

If the 2028 election goes the Dem's way, they would have about 4 mohths to file charges, take them into custody, and ship them to Gitmo.

Today in the Presumption of Regularity

2026-05-10T17:08:00.000-04:00

Once again Federal Judge Judge James Boasberg has ruled against the Trump DoJ.

In this case, he has ruled that the Trump administration's demands for records from pro-trans organizations was retaliation for protected speech.

Basically, he's calling the government lying sacks of sh%$.

Last night, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted preliminary injunctions in two parallel cases—Endocrine Society v. FTC and World Professional Association for Transgender Health v. FTC—enjoining the Federal Trade Commission from enforcing civil investigative demands against the two leading medical organizations on transgender health. The judge ruled in both cases that the FTC likely violated the organizations' First Amendment rights and engaged in unlawful retaliation against them for their protected speech supporting gender-affirming care. Boasberg further found that the Trump administration and the FTC had pursued the organizations based on "extensive evidence of animus" and "wafer-thin justifications" for their demands. For now, the private communications, internal deliberations, and member information of these two organizations are protected from the Trump administration's escalating campaign of government censorship and retaliation against the medical institutions that support transgender people.
"On this preliminary record, with extensive evidence of animus and wafer-thin justifications lacking evidentiary support, [the Court] finds that WPATH is likely to demonstrate a causal link between its protected speech and the FTC's issuance of the CID,” said the judge in the WPATH ruling. In the parallel Endocrine Society ruling issued the same day, the judge went likewise found similar violations: "The Court finds the same systemic targeting of proponents of medical treatment for gender incongruence at work here. The Society is the latest casualty in some Executive Branch agencies' bid to investigate hospitals, medical providers, and charitable organizations that support transgender health. The CID's focus on academic and medical speech, combined with the FTC's paucity of logic or evidence pointing to a genuine investigation, confirms the conclusion that the CID was likely issued for a retaliatory purpose."
The cases center on Civil Investigative Demands—administrative subpoenas the FTC issued to both organizations in January 2026, demanding sweeping and unprecedented access to their internal operations. The FTC ordered the organizations to turn over decades of internal communications about their clinical guidelines on gender dysphoria, every educational and advocacy material, every financial record, and the names of every member who had ever helped develop claims about gender-affirming care—potentially thousands of people. The CID to WPATH alarmingly reached back to 1979, the year WPATH was founded. The CIDs are part of a sprawling Trump administration campaign to suppress speech about transgender people and crush the institutions that provide it: the Kennedy Declaration, which drove more than 40 hospital systems to shutter their trans youth programs before a federal judge vacated it as unlawful last month; CMS proposed rules that would bar Medicare and Medicaid-receiving hospitals from providing such care entirely; and DOJ subpoenas to hospitals across the country, which federal judges have repeatedly quashed as "smokescreens" for retaliation. The FTC's CIDs were the latest weapon in that campaign.

We really need Nuremberg style tribunals when this is all done.

Clearly, the Problem is Criticism of the Supreme Court

2026-05-10T16:48:00.001-04:00

In writing his opinion emasculating the Voting Rights Act, Samuel Alito used fraudulent data.

I would argue that this should embarrass the Supreme Court Justice, except that:

Alito has no shame.
He doesn't care, and likely know that it was bogus.

The claims Samuel Alito, a supreme court justice, made about voter turnout in Louisiana in a landmark Voting Rights Act case were based on a misleading data analysis, a Guardian review has found.

In his opinion gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act last week, Alito said that Black voter turnout had exceeded white voter turnout in two of the five most recent presidential elections, both nationally and in Louisiana. Alito’s claim was copied almost verbatim from a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the justice department. It was a critical data point Alito used to make the argument that the kind of discrimination that once made the Voting Rights Act necessary no longer exists.

“Vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, where many Section 2 suits arise,” Alito wrote in a majority opinion in the case, which concerned Louisiana’s congressional map, joined by the five other conservative justices on the court. “Black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate, even turning out at higher rates than white voters in two of the five most recent Presidential elections nationwide and in Louisiana.”

But a review of turnout and racial data in Louisiana reveals that assertion relies on an unusual methodology. The justice department brief that Alito cited calculated Black and white voter turnout in Louisiana as a proportion of the total population of each racial group over the age of 18. Such an approach is not preferred by experts in calculating statewide turnout because the general over-18 population may include non-citizens, people with felony convictions and others who cannot legally vote. But it does yield Alito’s conclusion that Black voter turnout exceeded white voter turnout in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in Louisiana.

The widely accepted approach is to consider voter turnout as a proportion of the citizen voting age population or the voter eligible population, the latter of which excludes non-citizens as well as people who cannot vote because of a felony conviction or because they have been deemed mentally incapacitated. When the Guardian analyzed turnout numbers in Louisiana using the citizen voting age population, it found that Black voter turnout in Louisiana only exceeded white voter turnout in the 2012 presidential election.

This is not the first time that Alito has cited fraudulent data, and it will not be the last. He is a corrupt hypocrite.

Linkage

2026-05-10T05:30:00.004-04:00

Two tonnes of mascarpone and 19,000 eggs: chefs make world's longest tiramisu – video | Guinness World Records (The Guardian) To quote Styx, "Too much time on my hands."
Homer’s "Iliad" Found Stuffed Into Egyptian Mummy’s Wrappings (Gizmodo) Nos there's a book lover.
Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone (The Register) Some slightly less evil alternatives.
Lost Copy of the Oldest-Known English Poem Discovered in a Rome Library (Gizmodo) For the history geek out there.
Egyptian Archaeologists Find Perfectly Circular Temple Tied to Ancient Water Cult (Gizmodo) You know all those people who say that the ancients could not do things? They are wrong, the ancients could do this.
Lost Pages of a Medieval Manuscript Recovered, Revealing New Testament Text (Medievalists.net) Impressions of prior text on reused parchment.
Scientists make breakthrough in solving mystery of volcanic lightning (The Guardian) Carbon, silicon, violent updrafts.

Sourdough or Shoggoth? (H/T JR at the SP BBS)

The Front Fell Off?

2026-05-09T19:34:00.000-04:00

My bad, it's not the front of a ship falling off, it's Tesla Cybertrucks wheels falling off.

I am shocked that such a thing could happen on the immaculate engineering masterpiece that is the Swastikar.

Tesla is recalling some Cybertrucks over concerns that their wheel studs could separate, potentially causing drivers to lose control.

The recall affects certain 2024 to 2026 Cybertrucks that were equipped with 18-inch steel wheels either during production, beginning in August 2025, or later during service, according to a report filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In total, the recall covers just 173 vehicles.

The issue centers on the trucks’ brake rotors. According to the report, rough road conditions and cornering could strain the stud holes in the wheel rotor and cause cracks to form. If those cracks spread with continued driving, a stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub. Tesla said early signs of the problem could include vibrations or noises audible from inside the truck.
………

The recall also offers a glimpse at demand for Tesla’s short-lived, cheaper rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck. The NHTSA filing noted that production of the affected vehicles stopped in November because of “limited demand of Cybertrucks equipped with 18-inch steel wheels.”

Several outlets have connected that line to Tesla’s cheaper rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck, which launched in April 2025 and was discontinued later that year. That version started at around $70,000 and omitted several features found on more expensive Cybertrucks. It also came with either 18-inch or 20-inch wheels.

Considering the recall affects only 173 vehicles total, it appears Tesla sold very few Cybertrucks with the 18-inch steel wheel setup before pulling the plug.

It ain't just the Incel Camino though. A few miles from my house there is a parking lot for a former Walmart that is has hundreds of cars parked in it.

None of the cars are selling.

Gee, You Think?

2026-05-09T18:55:00.001-04:00

When you read a headline like, "Maine Dems Angry About DCCC Interference in House Primary," you know that the story is incomplete.

The a more complete story would have the hed, "Main Dems Angry About Democratic Establishment in House and Senate Primaries," and a truly complete story would have the hed, "Main to Democratic Party Establishment, F%$#-Off You Incompetent Losers."

Among Democrat Party members, the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is about as popular as bleeding hemorrhoids.

Locals in Maine are bridling at the decision by a powerful Washington Democratic group to throw its weight behind one candidate in the contested primary race for the House seat in the state’s 2nd Congressional District.

On Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued a coveted endorsement of state Sen. Joe Baldacci in the primary race, prompting angry protests from the three other candidates in the race to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Jared Golden.

In response to the endorsement, the Penobscot County Democratic Committee — in Baldacci’s home county, which includes the city of Bangor — will vote Saturday on a measure to condemn the endorsement. The language of the proposal, which was put forward by former Maine state Senate President Charles Pray, denounces the endorsement as being in “total disregard and willfully ignoring” local party rules that bar the Democratic state and county chapters from backing a candidate in a primary.

The Democratic Party base is sick and tired of the professional losers who constitute the party leadership.

Like Having Your Mother-in-Law Driving off a Cliff in Your Brand New Car

2026-05-09T18:32:00.001-04:00

I was once a student, and any disruption of finals is not good for them, but its cause, the hack of the widely loathed ~~spyware~~ education software platform Canvas.

Everyone who is actually directly involved in education, so not school board members or IT staff, hates it with a passion.

Chaos erupted at schools and colleges throughout the US on Thursday as a cyberattack disrupted online learning platform Canvas just as students were due to take final exams.

Canvas parent company Instructure said that as of Friday morning, the platform was back online. Instructure said it temporarily took Canvas offline on Thursday after identifying unauthorized activity in its network. The threat actor was the same one responsible for a data breach that Instructure disclosed a week ago. Data accessed included user names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages exchanged on the platform. The company said it has no indication that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information were involved.

Here's an idea. Don't use programs where your data is stored with a 3rd party who monetizes that data.

Gee, You Think?

2026-05-09T17:11:00.000-04:00

Following their drubbing in local elections, many in labor are pressuring Keir Starmer to step down.

Considering that he just got his ass kicked by the English version of Fred Flintstone, Homo heidelbergensis specimen Nigel Farage, their arguments carry a lot of weight.

While Starmer has achieved his goals, purging the Labour Party of actual Labour and prostrating the party before the alter of Neoliberalism, it turns out that this is not what the voters want.
Keir Starmer is under pressure to set out a timeline for his departure after a crushing defeat in elections across Britain prompted senior Labour MPs to call for him to step down within a year.

In a disastrous set of results, Labour had lost control of more than 25 councils and more than 1,000 council seats in England by Friday night, many to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which made large gains across the Midlands and the north as well as taking seats from the Tories in the south.

After more than a century of domination, Labour has faced near-wipeout in Wales, where the party’s first minister, Eluned Morgan, lost her seat. Labour could slump to third place in Scotland behind the SNP and Reform. In London, a Green surge meant Labour lost control of councils it had dominated, including Hackney and Waltham Forest.

While the prime minister appeared to have avoided an immediate coup, there was a furious response to the results among senior MPs and the unions, with some warning him to change course or risk electoral oblivion. By Friday evening, 10 more MPs had called for him to set out a timetable for departure from No 10.

It seems that the campaign slogan, "Better things are not possible," is not a winner.

Headline of the Day

2026-05-09T16:49:00.001-04:00

Patel’s Proving A Heavy Bourbon for Trump
—The Status Kuo, Ka$h Patel's many excesses during his tenure at the FBI.

Quoting the old Japanese proverb, "バカにつける薬はない." (There is no medicine for stupidity.)

As I wrote about last month, The Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick published a blockbuster investigation of FBI Director Kash Patel based on over two dozen current and former FBI officials, detailing what the magazine described as his “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences.” The report alleged that meetings were delayed because of late-night drinking, that senior Justice Department officials were alarmed by his conduct, and that Patel was often unreachable.

Patel’s allies said it was all fabricated. The FBI pushed back. And a reasonable person might have thought, “Okay, lay low. Let it blow over. Don’t make it worse.”

Kash Patel is not a reasonable person.

The account gets far weirder from there.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (On Friday)

2026-05-08T20:04:00.016-04:00

So, initial unemployment claims are up slightly but remain low, and continuing claims fell:

Applications for US unemployment benefits rebounded slightly after falling in the previous week to near the lowest levels in decades, signaling layoffs remain muted despite recent job-cut announcements.

Initial claims rose by 10,000 to 200,000 in the week ended May 2, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 205,000 applications.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, fell to 1.77 million in the previous week, a new two-year low.

Also, the monthly jobs numbers came out. And notwithstanding claims that it is exceptional, the number is actually rather anemic, with about 115,000 jobs added to the work force.

The U.S. job market blew past expectations again in April, buoyed by gains across industries including retail, transportation and warehousing, and healthcare. The results were a sign that the labor market remained resilient so far in the face of the Iran war.
The numbers
The American economy added 115,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department said Friday, far exceeding expectations.
That was down from a net gain of 185,000 in March. But it was much better than the 55,000 jobs that analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see for April.
The unemployment rate stayed unchanged at 4.3%, as economists had expected.

Not a bloody clue as to that the f%$# is going on here.

What I do know is that we are about 2-4 weeks into when ships stopped at the Strait of Hormuz should have arrived at their destinations and that oil reserves fell off of a cliff in April

Global oil reserves plunged at a record pace in April, as the conflict in the Middle East strains supplies and raises the risk of a further sharp jump in prices ahead of the summer travel season.
Stockpiles of crude fell by nearly 200mn barrels, or 6.6mn barrels a day, estimated S&P Global Energy, even as higher prices triggered a collapse in demand of about 5mn b/d, the sharpest ever fall outside of the Covid-19 pandemic.

That fall in economic demand is driven by a fall in economic activity.

Things are going to get a lot worse.

Charles "Doofenschmirtz" Saroff Will Take Over the Entire Tri-State Area!

2026-05-08T19:45:00.001-04:00

We know what he says it is, a lab project for Electronics & Instrumentation II (Mechatronics), but we all know what this REALLY is.

It's his evil plan to take over the entire Tri-State Area.

Behold the Metronominator !!!

Yes, I'm bragging about my kid, dads gotta dad.

In any case, here is his vid:

Kids these days with their Arduinos and their 3D printing.

In my day, we had to machine everything with flint tools!

FUUUUUUUUUUKKKKKKK!!!

2026-05-08T18:05:00.004-04:00

The Virginia State Supreme Court has struck down the new redistricting map.

Their legal reasoning sounds completely bonkers, unless there is some sort of provision in the state constitution that specifically calls this out:

The problem, the court’s majority suggested, was that the first vote on the amendment in the General Assembly, which would authorize Democrats to redraw the map, occurred days before last fall’s legislative elections — meaning that some Virginians who cast their ballots early did so without knowing how their state lawmakers would vote on the new map.

How the Fuck is this a thing?

A representative vote in a way that the voter does not anticipate when foting is kind of like the foundation of representative democracy!

Headline of the Day

2026-05-08T17:08:00.018-04:00

John Roberts Is George Wallace With A Harvard Law Degree
Crooks and Liars

It's pretty on point, and remarkably accurate.

The core of John Roberts' entire career can be summed up with the phrase, "N*****s should not vote."

………
But the Court didn’t destroy the Civil Rights Act in a day. It was part of a lifelong mission by John Roberts to do so.

Starting as early as 1981, as a 26-year-old lawyer just three years out of Harvard Law School, Roberts began his campaign to undermine the Civil Rights Act. He got himself a job as Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General William French Smith. Congress was about to amend the Civil Rights Act to provide that state laws would be illegal if they had a racially discriminatory effect, without having to prove that they had a racially discriminatory intent—something almost impossible to prove.

Roberts zealously took on the assignment coming up with arguments against the Amendment. Roberts wrote over 25 memos opposing the Amendment. In one, he argued that the Civil Rights Act was “the most intrusive interference imaginable by federal courts into state and local processes.”

This is his life's mission.

The New Definitive Definition of Chutzpah

2026-05-07T20:31:00.000-04:00

Rudolph "Noun, a verb, and 911" Giuliani is asking to have his health care covered from the fund that pays for healthcare for workers who were exposed to toxins at the 9/11 site.

I would note here a fact from one of hizzoner's divorces, his wife claimed that he spent over $12,000.00 on cigars in the span of 5 months.

And now he wants money from the fund that is support the workers that he betrayed.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who has been diagnosed with pneumonia, is applying for free medical care through a federal program for emergency workers and others exposed to toxins following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to his lawyer.
More than 152,000 people have been enrolled in the initiative, the World Trade Center Health Program, which pays for medical research and provides free medical care to people affected by the terrorist attacks. Beneficiaries have access to doctors who specialize in Sept. 11-related illnesses, and the patients don’t face co-payments or deductibles.
………
The federal health program paid out more than 600,000 medical claims in the past year, at a cost of nearly $350 million. Many of the claims relate to cancer, while others covered treatments for respiratory ailments.
Getting approval to receive care through the health care fund could allow Mr. Giuliani or his family members to seek further compensation through a separate fund for 9/11 victims.

Every time I think that they cannot go any lower, they exceed my wildest imaginings.

Cancel Your Subscription

2026-05-07T20:23:00.002-04:00

It appears that the OP/ED section of the Washington Post can get even worse than it was under the stewardship of the late and (IMNSHO) unlamented Fred Hiatt.

They just put out an opinion piece criticizing Zohran Mamdani for being too mean to the billionaires who are ruining New York City.

Thank you Jeff Bezos.

I believe that I have stated before, that I would not wish cancer on anyone, and I stand by that.

I still want Jeff Bezos to get Fatal Familial Insomnia, which is much, MUCH, worse. (I'm not a good person)

This is a Feature, Not a Bug

2026-05-07T19:40:00.001-04:00

Is anyone surprised that police are using automated license plate readers to stalk their former romantic partners?

I'm not.

Police have routinely done this with other data sets going back decades.

In fact, I would argue that giving cops the ability to do this is a large part of why police like Flock cameras and their ilk so much.

The cops never change. Only the tech toys do.
That’s the upshot of this report from the Institute for Justice, which has been tracking what cops have been tracking now that they have always-on access to massive networks of security cameras, including Flock Safety’s controversial offerings, which also include automatic license plate readers (ALPR).

The proliferation of police surveillance has led to repeated abuse. One shockingly common form: police officers using ALPR camera networks to keep tabs on their romantic interests, including current partners, exes, and even strangers who unwittingly caught their eye in public.

An Institute for Justice review of media reports has identified at least 14 cases nationwide of officers allegedly abusing ALPR data this way, with the bulk of those incidents happening since 2024.
This is the same stuff that cops have been doing for years. Access to criminal databases, drivers license info, and anything else swept up by government entities has resulted in numerous cases of abuse.

Maybe what cops need is not better spying tech, maybe what cops need is better people on the force.

Trying to Kill Us

2026-05-07T18:35:00.000-04:00

I am referring, of course, to the Food and Drub Administration which just suppressed studies showing the Covid and Shingles vaccines are safe and effective.

RFK, Jr. is a cancer on the American body politic.

Officials at the Food and Drug Administration have blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used vaccines against Covid-19 and shingles in recent months, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed.

The studies, which cost millions of dollars in public funds, were conducted by scientists at the agency, who worked with data firms to analyze millions of patient records. They found serious side effects to be very rare.

In October, the scientists were directed to withdraw two Covid-19 vaccine studies that had been accepted for publication in medical journals. In February, top F.D.A. officials did not sign off on submitting abstracts about studies of Shingrix, a shingles vaccine, to a major drug safety conference.

The withdrawal of the studies is the latest step by the administration to try to limit access to vaccines. It has sharply cut research funding for vaccine development, released unvetted information casting doubt on vaccines, and blocked other information supporting their safety, most recently a paper on Covid vaccine effectiveness by career scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These folks need to spend the rest of their lives in prison.

They’d none of them be missed.

Headline of the Day

2026-05-07T18:08:00.003-04:00

The Justice Department Sides With the Ku Klux Klan
—The New Republic, on the disgraceful and corrupt prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center

As an FYI, the DoJ is accusing the SPLC of lying to donors because they used their money to pay confidential informants, which literally everyone who donated to the organization knew that they did this.

Also, they accused the SPLC of creating false racist organizations and false racist acts because there is no racism anymore, except against rich white guys.

It's like a perverted version of Gilbert and Sullivan:

Ko-Ko. Not yet. You see, flirting is the only crime punishable with decapitation, and married men never flirt.

This is an accurate description of that behavior.

The United States did not always have a Department of Justice. President Ulysses S. Grant founded it in 1870 to help suppress the Ku Klux Klan in the Southern states and enforce federal civil rights protections for formerly enslaved Americans. On Tuesday, Justice Department officials announced what may be the first Klan-friendly prosecution in the department’s history.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, is one of the most influential civil rights groups in the nation. Founded in 1971, it has spent the last five decades monitoring, documenting, and exposing hate groups and violent extremists. The group rose to national fame in the 1980s by financially breaking the modern Klan through strategic lawsuits on behalf of its victims. The SPLC’s most persistent targets have been white nationalist groups like the Klan and various neo-Nazi gangs, but its work has expanded over the years, as well. (More on that later.)

Trump Justice Department officials struck a much different note about the SPLC’s work when announcing the indictment. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed on Tuesday that the SPLC was “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

This is what happens when lawlessness is excused in the name of, "Looking forware, not back."

Headline of the Day

2026-05-06T20:12:00.000-04:00

Looks Like A Police State To Me, Says Federal Judge Handling Migrant Detention Cases
—Techdirt, quoting Judge Sanket Bulsara of the Eastern District of New York.

Money quote:

And that leads to the judge comparing ICE’s actions to those of a police state:
This practice of after-the-fact arrest warrants can be called many things—illegal, improper, and unconstitutional, among them. But whatever label one wishes to apply, the practice is fundamentally at odds with and offensive to lawful, constitutional behavior in this country. “An arrest is not justified by what the subsequent search discloses[.]” A contrary rule—the one that the USAO here defends by backing detention and opposing release—“would obliterate one of the most fundamental distinctions between our form of government, where officers are under the law, and the police-state where they are the law.”
Police and law enforcement cannot operate as roving bands, detaining individuals, figuring out the reasons later, and papering over their failures afterwards. This sadly is the practice in many other parts of the world. But in the United States, the law prohibits such conduct.

(Emphasis original)

Everyone involved at any level in these actions should be barred from law enforcement and the legal profession for the rest of their life.

So Now What

2026-05-06T19:54:00.001-04:00

Now that a jury had determined that Live Nation illegally monopolized event ticketing, what happens next?

My guess is not much, beyond a tiny hit to profits for a quarter, but I am a cynic.

A jury in a high-stakes antitrust trial found Wednesday that Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market.

Jurors delivered the verdict in federal court in New York City after around five weeks of trial, which featured testimony from dozens of witnesses. The jury began deliberating Friday.

Personally, I'd like to see criminal charges filed against the executives, but likely we will see a minor financial award and some toothless remedies.

Taxpayers on the Hook for That F%$#ing Ballroom

2026-05-06T19:44:00.000-04:00

Yeah, Congress is proposing to allocate $1,000,000,000.00 for the construction of Trump's monstrous White House addition.

No, just no.

Senate Republicans late Monday proposed $1 billion to pay for new White House security measures, with lawmakers and White House officials disagreeing over whether the legislation would cover President Donald Trump’s planned ballroom.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, laid out a funding package for security upgrades related to the “East Wing Modernization Project,” the Trump administration’s name for its planned 90,000-square-foot project to rebuild the East Wing that Trump demolished last year.
The proposed legislative text says the money would be used for both aboveground and underground security features that the administration has declined to fully detail. The text explicitly says the money could not be used for “non-security elements” of the project, a reference to Trump’s planned ballroom.
“This bill does not fund ballroom construction,” Grassley spokeswoman Clare Slattery said in a statement. “It provides funds for Secret Service enhancements that will ensure all presidents, their families and their staffs are adequately protected.”

I believe that the technical term for Ms. Slattery's statement is, "Bull-sh%$."

………
White House officials said Tuesday that the legislation, if enacted, would authorize the entire project — including the above ground ballroom.

“Congress has rightly recognized the need for these funds,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement, citing the high-profile incident last month when a gunman stormed through the security checkpoint outside the White House correspondents’ dinner. “The proposal would provide the United States Secret Service with the resources they need to fully and completely harden the White House complex, in addition to the many other critical missions for the USSS.”

And there is the reality. Such a provision would, "Authorize the entire project — including the above ground ballroom."

That's the real purpose.

Shut it down.

They Cannot Do Any Worse Than the Incumbents

2026-05-06T19:07:00.000-04:00

I am hopeful that the celebrity gossip news org TMZ has opened a Washington, DC office will improve journalism in the nation's capitol.

This says all you need about the sorry state of, "Real," journalism inside the beltway.

Even before Bezos destroyed the Washington Post, the media there sucked.

The three members of TMZ’s new Washington, D.C., bureau arrived at Capitol Hill last Monday ready and eager to stick their cameras in lawmakers’ faces and ask them uncomfortable questions. But they were surprised to find that members of the House wouldn’t be returning to work for another day. “I was laughing — ‘Oh, just wait until you see how infrequently these people work,’” said one congressional reporter. “It’s, like, a maximum four-day week.”
The celebrity-gossip outlet’s Washington operation had started off with a bang. The partial government shutdown had enraged TMZ founder Harvey Levin, who thought he might shame Congress back into session by publicizing how lawmakers were spending their recess while federal workers went without pay. The photos did not disappoint. There was a khaki-clad Lindsey Graham at Disney World, holding a bubble wand and boarding Space Mountain. There was Ted Cruz scrolling in his Economy Plus seat. There were members of Congress touring Edinburgh Castle while on a trip to Scotland. “The reaction in D.C. was, ‘Oh, that’s just a codel,’” said Washington communications veteran Nu Wexler, referring to a congressional delegation. It wasn’t clear TMZ understood the distinction or if it cared. “Stories like that will grab people,” said Wexler.

TMZ’s lack of familiarity with Washington’s weird ways is both a drawback and a strength. Its D.C. reporters do not seem to have experience covering Washington. And they are now crowdsourcing their way through the learning curve, asking for help finding bathrooms and restaurants and interview subjects. They’ve also printed out the pictures of House members to study their faces. But as the political paparazzi photos show, they can unearth stories that more jaded reporters have passed over as business as usual. The recent scandal over Eric Swalwell’s much-rumored creepiness and previously unreported sexual misconduct underscored that there is plenty of room for different newsgathering sensibilities.

Here's hoping that they deliver on the promise of a different kind of coverage.

If the entire DC press corps(e) was replaced by monkeys pounding away at typewriters, the quality of the journalism would improve.

More Fruit of the Poisonous Antivaxx Tree

2026-05-06T18:44:00.000-04:00

An increasing number of newborns are dying from intestinal and cranial bleeds because parents are refusing the once-routine vitamin K injection, because ……… anti-vaccine vibes.

They entered the world the way babies should, with piercing cries announcing their arrival. They passed their newborn screening tests. Some made it to their 2-week wellness visits without concern.

Then, without warning, their systems began to shut down. A 7-week-old boy in Maryland developed sudden seizures. An 11-pound girl in Alabama stopped breathing for 20 seconds at a time. A baby boy in Kentucky vomited before becoming lethargic. A brown-haired girl in Texas, not yet 2 weeks old, bled around her belly button.

Desperate to save them, records show, doctors inserted tubes into their airways and hooked them up to IVs. They ordered blood transfusions. They spent half an hour trying to resuscitate one boy until his parents told them they could stop. They shaved another boy’s soft locks to embed a needle directly into his skull to reduce the pressure in his brain.

None of it was enough.

At the morgue, the babies were brought in with their diapers and blankets and with their hospital ID bracelets still wrapped around their tiny ankles. The pathologists’ findings were like those you would typically see in ailing adults, not newborns — the kind of bleeding seen during strokes or brain tissue loss similar to what happens when radiation is administered to treat cancer.

Their autopsies, which took place over the last several years, all came to the same conclusion: The deaths were caused, in whole or in part, by a rare but potentially fatal condition known as vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

In almost every case, the babies’ deaths could have been prevented with a long-standard vitamin K shot. But across the country, families — first in smatterings, now in droves — are declining the single, inexpensive injection given at birth to newborns to help their blood clot.

RFK, Jr. and Andrew Wakefield should spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

My Thoughts and Prayers for That Innocent Brown Recluse Spider

2026-05-06T18:12:00.001-04:00

It appears that spree-killer Kyle Rittenhouse has been hospitalized following a bite from the highly venomous arachnid.

I can only imagine the agony of the spider when it encountered that much evil, bigotry and bile in its mouth.

Surprisingly Good News

2026-05-05T21:31:00.005-04:00

The US Senate has adopted a rule forbidding its members from betting in prediction markets.

Since this is a Senate rule, and not legislation, this goes into effect without a vote of the House or a Presidential signature.

Now, how about banning the whole corrupt enterprise?

US senators voted unanimously to ban themselves from making bets on prediction markets yesterday, about a week after Kalshi said it caught three congressional candidates betting on their own campaigns.

The resolution to prohibit senators from trading on prediction markets passed yesterday by unanimous consent. The action amends the Senate’s conflict-of-interest rules and does not require approval by the House of Representatives. The House has a pending resolution that would impose a similar rule on its own members.

“United States Senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck, period,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who introduced the resolution. “Serving in Congress should never be about finding new ways to profit; it should be about delivering results for the American people.”

Moreno’s resolution applies broadly to all bets on prediction markets, not just those related to events of which a senator has inside knowledge. The Senate also adopted an amendment submitted by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), which extends the trading ban to Senate officers and employees. Padilla said in a statement that the rule as amended “is a commonsense step to ensure that senators and their staff cannot use their positions of public trust to line their own pockets.”

The only question now is how lackadaisical the Senate will be in actually enforcing this.

We Are F%$#ed

2026-05-05T20:29:00.001-04:00

It looks like the collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is even more imminent than previously thought.

The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system and was already known to be at its weakest for 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis. Scientists spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021 and know that the Amoc has collapsed in the Earth’s past.

Climate scientists use dozens of different computer models to assess the future climate. However, for the complex Amoc system, these produce widely varying results, ranging from some that indicate no further slowdown by 2100 to those suggesting a huge deceleration of about 65%, even when carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are gradually cut to net zero.

The research combined real-world ocean observations with the models to determine the most reliable, and this hugely reduced the spread of uncertainty. They found an estimated slowdown of 42% to 58% in 2100, a level almost certain to end in collapse.

This would upend weather and climate in Western Europe and across the globe.

This is real end of the world stuff, and the actual situation is likely worse, since every major prediction regarding anthropogenic climate change has been too conservative.

It might happen in my lifetime.

Parasite

2026-05-05T19:12:00.003-04:00

Steven Roth, the CEO of Vornado Realty Trust has declared that calling for taxing the rich is hate speech.

So, paying the costs of the society that makes your obscene wealth is evil.

Steven Roth, the chief executive of Vornado Realty Trust, used an earnings call on Tuesday to castigate Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York for his “tax-the-rich” rhetoric, which he likened to a racial slur or a pro-Palestinian rallying cry.

“I must say that I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ — quote, tax the rich — when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase, ‘from the river to the sea,’” Mr. Roth said, referring to the pro-Palestinian phrase that some Jews believe amounts to a call for ethnic cleansing.

You were born on 3rd base and believed that you have hit a triple.

You are a worthless person, and the world would be better without you.

He Murdered 400,000 Children

2026-05-05T19:00:00.000-04:00

I am referring, of course, to the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™, who used DOGE to shut dow USAID because they were investigating his corruption.

The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande.

Gawande—a surgeon, author, and distinguished professor in residence at Ariadne Labs, which he co-founded—served in the Biden administration as the assistant administrator for global health at USAID. He wrote a Nov. 5 article in the New Yorker about the devastating impact of the loss of USAID funds around the world. He was also featured in an accompanying short documentary called “Rovina’s Choice,” which he co-executive produced, that told the story of how one mother living in a Kenyan refugee camp tried to save her severely malnourished daughter after U.S. support dried up.

In the article, Gawande cited an analysis in The Lancet that estimated that USAID assistance—aimed at combatting diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and polio, reducing maternal and child deaths, and fighting malnutrition—had saved 92 million lives over two decades.

The dismantling of USAID, according to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children,” Gawande wrote. He noted that the toll will continue to grow and may go unseen because it can take months or years for people to die from lack of treatments or vaccine-preventable illnesses—and because deaths are scattered.

(emphasis mine)

Elon does not care. These are just NPCs to him.

What a Delicate Snowflake

2026-05-05T18:53:00.001-04:00

Samuel Alito has a sad because Ketanji Brown Jackson called out his negligence and hypocrisy in her dissent on the Voting Rights Act.

Go f%$# your self Sammy.

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito raged at his liberal colleague’s “baseless and insulting” dissent in an unusual ruling that speeds up the timeline of a decision benefitting Republicans.

Normally, the parties in a Supreme Court case must wait 32 days for a ruling to be certified and sent back to a lower court.

But on Monday, the court’s conservative justices granted an extraordinary request from Louisiana Republicans, allowing them to immediately take advantage of last week’s ruling gutting the Civil Rights Act, as they seek to eliminate the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts in time for November’s midterm elections.

In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the court’s decision to upend its default procedures and “facilitate Louisiana’s midstream redistricting rush,” despite primary ballots having already gone out to military and overseas voters.

Normally, the court frowns upon last-minute changes to election procedures, but in this case, it “dives into the fray” in a way that’s “unwarranted and unwise,” she wrote.

In a concurring decision, Alito fumed that Jackson’s dissent had accused the majority of “an unprincipled use of power,” which he claimed was “baseless and insulting” as well as “a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.”

“The dissent accuses the Court of ‘unshackling’ itself from ‘constraints.’ It is the dissent’s rhetoric that lacks restraint,” he fumed.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Today in Corruption

2026-05-05T01:20:00.002-04:00

It appears that the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ and the Securities and Exchange Commission have cut a corrupt deal, with a $1.5 million dollar slap on the wrist for Elon Musk's Twitter stock fraud.

Elon Musk’s trust has agreed to pay $1.5mn to settle a case in which the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused him of failing to properly disclose stakes in Twitter, a fraction of the sum it claimed the billionaire gained by breaching regulations.
The SEC and the Elon Musk Revocable Trust asked a federal judge in a joint filing on Monday to accept the deal, after which the agency said it would file a dismissal of Musk that would “entirely” resolve the case. The regulator initially alleged the billionaire wrongfully profited by at least $150mn.
Musk’s proposed settlement comes after the SEC showed leniency towards several figures and businesses with ties to the Trump administration, notably dismissing cases against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken, both of which have donated to the president.
………
The deal filed on Monday was made possible by an unusual procedural step earlier in the day, when the SEC amended its complaint to add the trust, through which Musk bought his Twitter shares in 2022, as a defendant.
As part of the proposed deal, the trust does not need to acknowledge any wrongdoing, and Musk faces no personal penalties.

We really need to start frog-marching these rat-bastards out of their offices in handcuffs.

Looks Like Someone Is Getting Tired of Florida's 2nd Most Worthless Citizen

2026-05-04T19:59:00.000-04:00

And by, "Someone," I mean Republicans in the Florida House, and by, "Florida's 2nd most worthlesss citizen," I mean Governor Ron DeSantis, who just had his initiative to block vaccine requirements in the state shut down.

I think that someone out there believes that goose-stepping in lock-step with the Governor is antithetical to reelection.

The anti-vaccine sugar rush that has infected some portions of the country, largely thanks to the profane appointment of RFK Jr. to head HHS, is incredibly frustrating. That makes it all the more important when the movement receives not just pushback when trying to enact absurd policy based on conspiracy theories, but specifically when that pushback comes from the same party engaging in the absurdity.

Earlier this year, flanked by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, announced that the state government was seeking to end all vaccine requirements for school children in the state. And, because Ladapo is a hack, he postured this move in the silliest way possible.
Ladapo said the Florida Department of Health would be working with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office to end all mandates in state law, at the event at Grace Christian School in Valrico, located just east of Tampa.

“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said of vaccine mandates.

As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know."

He really did say that.

………
DeSantis, for his part, stated that some vaccine requirements could be removed immediately, while others would require state legislation. But the legislation drawn up to achieve that has hit a major roadblock, and that roadblock is Florida’s House GOP.

Just minutes into a special session on Tuesday, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez announced that the Republican-led chamber would not take up a proposal from DeSantis to allow children to opt out of certain school vaccination requirements. The move effectively killed the proposal, which had been backed by the Senate.

I do not think that Republicans have suddenly ended their opposition to the basic concept of public health, it's just a political calculus about how Trump, Kennedy, et al have become so toxic even among the Republican base.

Quote of the Day

2026-05-04T19:31:00.001-04:00

Software Simulacrum Is Not True Consciousness, the Stripper at the Strip Club Doesn’t Actually Love You, and Nearly All of the Biggest Problems with “AI” Have Very Ordinary Human Origins.

—Karl Bode, commenting on Richard Dawkins' recent statement that Claude is sentient.

It should be noted here that Dawkins is a complete prat.

I Did Not Expect This From Alito

2026-05-04T18:35:00.000-04:00

My assumption is that he thought that allowing the ban on mail to go into immediate effect would have such a negative impact on Republican electoral chances that a temporary stay should be called.

The Supreme Court on Monday restored nationwide access to a widely used abortion medication in a temporary order that will, for now, allow women to once again obtain the pill mifepristone by mail.

In a brief order, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. paused a lower-court ruling from Friday that had prevented abortion providers from prescribing the pills by telemedicine and shipping them to patients, causing confusion for providers and patients. The one-sentence order imposes a pause until at least May 11. He requested that the parties file briefs by Thursday, and then the full court will determine how to proceed.

The state of Louisiana sued the Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to mifepristone, saying the availability of the medication by mail has allowed abortions to continue in the state despite its near-total ban.

(Emphasis mine)

………
Justice Alito’s order, known as an administrative stay, was provisional and expected, but an important interim step for women seeking to obtain mifepristone in the next week. The order does not signal how the full court may eventually handle the case.

Justice Alito acted on his own at this stage because he is the justice assigned to handle emergency applications from the region of the country covered by the Fifth Circuit.

I would not expect this from Alito. I would expect to see delays until the last possible moment, because he is a corrupt son of a bitch.

Also, the case is complete pants, with the state of Louisiana basing its standing on the complete falsehood that mifepristone is so dangerous that it costs them tax money. (It doesn't)

Also, this argument could be used, and would be true, for a state wanting to ban Acetaminophen, which is the most dangerous FDA approved OTC medication, with about 500 deaths and about 26,000 hospitalizations a year.

Good News Everyone!

2026-05-03T19:54:00.004-04:00

The forces of evil have failed in their efforts to emasculate Colorado's right to repair laws.

I am pleased and shocked by this.

A controversial bill in Colorado that would have undone some repair protections in the state has failed. The bill had been the target of right-to-repair advocates, who saw it as a bellwether for how tech companies might try to undo repair legislation more broadly in the US.

Colorado’s landmark 2024 repair law, the Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment, went into effect in January 2026 and ensured access to tools and documentation people needed to modify and fix digital electronics such as phones, computers, and Wi-Fi routers. The new bill, SB26-090, would have carved out an exception to those repair protections for “critical infrastructure,” a loosely defined term that repair advocates worried could be applied to just about any technology.

SB26-090 was introduced during a Colorado Senate hearing on April 2 and was supported by lobbying efforts from companies such as Cisco and IBM. It passed that hearing unanimously. The bill then passed in the Colorado Senate on April 16. On Monday evening, the bill was discussed in a long, delayed hearing in the Colorado House’s State, Civic, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee. Dozens of supporters and detractors gave public comments. Finally, the bill was shot down in a 7-to-4 vote and classified as postponed indefinitely.

It's rare to get a pleasant surprise these days.

There is Fail, There is F%$#ing Fail, and then there is

2026-05-03T19:35:00.001-04:00

Fail so bad that Ted Cruz condemns your actions.

America's most loathsome Senator has condemned the FCC for its witch hunt against Jimmy Kimmel.

Jimmy Kimmel has acquired an unexpected defender amid his feud with Donald Trump: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

The MAGA Republican, who famously clashed with the president during the 2016 primaries before supporting him, bashed the administration’s attempts to pressure Disney and ABC News into firing Kimmel.

“It is not the government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” Cruz told Punchbowl News of the Federal Communication Commission’s move to force ABC to file for license renewals.

Stopped clock time, I guess.

Mind Officially Blown

2026-05-03T18:58:00.001-04:00

Heinz Doofenshmirtz as a good parent who has turned aside his own trauma to be a loving father and family man?

He's right, and I am shocked.