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Citing the value of “keep(ing) the flame of democracy burning," the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for (her) people." Machado called the award an “immense recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans." With their usual grace, MAGA-ites blasted the choice of "some lady in Venezuela" and not a mad king terrorizing brown people, siccing troops on his citizens, and murdering fishermen. America: Fuck that guy.
Machado is a key but divisive figure in Venezuela: She's been called "the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine" and CAIR has blasted her for supporting Israel's right-wing Likud Party and anti-Muslim fascists. She's also faced years of political persecution under Maduro’s regime while building a powerful grassroots democracy movement from a once-fragmented opposition. A 58-year-old industrial engineer, she was blocked by the courts from running against Maduro in 2024; facing death threats and bogus charges, she has been living in hiding since then.
The Nobel Committee praised Machado as "a brave and committed champion of peace" struggling "to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” They also called her a symbol of civilian courage and "a beacon of hope for Latin America." Possibly sending a message to those of us facing growing autocracy, they affirmed the value of “keep(ing) the flame of democracy burning during a growing darkness" and said she "has shown that the tools of democracy are also the tools of peace.”
International leaders praised Machado's "tireless struggle for freedom and democracy (that) has touched hearts and inspired millions"; the EU Commission's Ursula von der Leyen called the award a tribute to her courage and “every voice that refuses to be silenced.” She joins the ranks of other distinguished women honored in recent years for championing human rights, including Iran's Narges Mohammadi, Myanmar's Daw Aung San Suu Ky - both still imprisoned - Tawakkol Karman of Yemen and Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, joint recipients in 2011.
Announcing this year's award, the Nobel Committee seemed to especially take note of and aim at the looming threat posed by Trump. "When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist," they wrote. "Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended - with words, with courage, and with determination." (And, sometimes, blow-up animals costumes."
Told the news before the announcement in an emotional, early morning call from Kristian Berg Harpviken, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Machado sounded shocked and tearful. "Oh my God, Oh my God," she repeatedly exclaimed. "I have no words." She quickly added, "I hope you understand this is a movement, this is an achievement of a whole society. I am just, you know, one person. I certainly do not deserve this." Harpviken graciously assured her that both she and the movement did deserve the honor.
In grotesque contrast were the denizens and Narcissist-In-Chief of MAGA land, outraged the prize was not awarded to a racist, lying, vindictive despot who's busy threatening political opponents, ordering violent roundups of immigrants, deploying his military against cities whose leaders disagree with him, cracking down on dissent and undertaking extrajudicial killings of fishermen in the Caribbean who may not have done anything wrong while boasting about "ending" several imaginary wars and whining that not winning the award would be "a big insult to our country."
Somehow, shamefully, some mainstream media took seriously Trump's longtime, petulant claim to deserve what many consider the world's most prestigious prize - for many, proof of how low American media have fallen during the reign of a guy who still boasts about his "perfect score" on a basic cognitive test that requires naming a camel and lion, who is arguably more likely to win a Heisman Trophy or Miss Teen U.S.A., and who now joins the estimable ranks of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Putinm, and "all the Kims" to rightly fail to win a Nobel.
With discomfiting, possibly strategic generosity, Machado later dedicated her prize not only to "the suffering people of Venezuela," but to Trump for "his decisive support of our cause." Trump giddily twisted that mention into claims he'd “been helping her along the way,” she accepted the prize "in his honor," and he was "happy because I saved millions of lives." Still, MAGA officials and fans were pissed, and a White House statement charged the Committee "proved they place politics over peace" by rejecting Trump, who "has the heart of a humanitarian."
Supporters called the decision "unbelievable," "a disgrace," "an utter joke," "woke bullshit." "They hand it to someone nobody's (aka I've) ever heard of," said one. "The prize is garbage now, a Crackerjacks prize." Right-wing activist Laura Loomer called the choice "an absolute joke." "Everyone knows President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize," she said. "More affirmative action nonsense." From The MAGA Voice: "Some random person that nobody knows... TRUMP COULD HAVE CURED CANCER" (if he hadn't halted cancer research.)
"Dear Snobs, Accredited Clowns and TDS-driven socialists of the European elite," wrote one Sebastian Adlercreutz, whose bio reads, "No woke lefties...Jesus is my Lord." "You have yet again managed to turn the Nobel Peace Price into a worthless trinket." Several GOP Reps raged online: One argued, "The Nobel Peace Prize does not deserve Trump," one proposed Congress give Dear Leader their own Nobel Peace Prize - it's unclear how that might work - and one thought they should create their own Trump Peace and Prosperity Award as a sort of participation trophy.
"TOTAL FIX," fumed a Truth Social post evidently from Trump. "Norway - a tiny country with expensive fjords and weak politicians - has the nerve to lecture AMERICA...Their leader (is) a LIBERAL lightweight and globalist puppet, a clowen in Oslo's palace, and his Nobel cronies are a disgrace." Announcing 100% tariffs on Norwegian goods, it charged "they RIGGEDED the nobel to embarass ME" and declared, "We will FIGHT. We will EXPOSE them. Norwegian Marxists will not humiliated AMERICA and get away with it!" Eventually, it turned out the post was a parody. We think.
Armed terrorism by the White House escalates - What stage of fascism is it when the fuhrer defies the courts to send in troops anyway? - as does the batshit rhetoric about left-wing "terrorism" to hide their own, the fever dream agitprop to buttress the fantasy, and the deranged push for retribution against dissent, by anyone. "Trump has pardons and tanks - what do you have?" asks one troubled patriot. We the people, righteous judges, Portland's frog, Pritzker's rage, D.C. wiseguys' revived pedo besties - and the facts.
Two months ago, the United States made the Human Rights Watch list for the first time in 249 years; rights advocates cited a nation "sliding deeper into the quicksands of authoritarianism" with peaceful protests met with military force, critics treated as criminals, journalists targeted, and support slashed for civil society. Despite a core principle that America's military not be turned against fellow citizens, they noted, we've seen an invasion of ill-trained, hyped-up ICE thugs - and now presumably more professional National Guard - representing an ominous "line that democratically elected leaders aren’t meant to cross.” Add to that a vengeful, demented manchild raving about "the enemy within" making bad, lethal decisions based on fake tee vee news - "Portland is burning to the ground...All you have to do (is) turn on your television" - and it's clear, says Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, "The only threat we face is to our democracy - and it is being led by President Trump."
That threat got worse Monday as Trump, who's long been keen to sic the troops on us all, suggested he's open to invoking the Insurrection Act "to put down future civil unrest," aka continue inventing fake crises to "bulldoze what's left of constitutional restraints" in an "unhinged despotism" free of pesky democratic guardrails. For now, he and his rabid flunkies - cue Press Barbie vowing he'll "end the radical left reign of terror in Portland once and for all" - settled for embarking on a witless weekend "game of whack-a-mole,” frantically conspiring to send National Guard troops from whatever state they could get away with it to whatever city they decided "needs a little terrorizing," a brazen end-run around the ruling by Trump-appointed Oregon Judge Karin Immergut, who he whined "lost her way" by blocking the deployment of Oregon troops to Portland after arguing his characterization of "a burning hellhole," which he's never visited, was "simply untethered to the facts."
So okay, they figured, we'll send 300 troops from California, a cool two-fer against mouthy Newsom, who swiftly called the move "a breathtaking abuse of the law and power," and sued. Immergut was not amused: "How could bringing in federalized National Guard from California not be in direct contravention to the temporary restraining order I issued yesterday?” she asked, politely noting the move "appears (intended) to circumvent" her ruling. After learning the regime was already looking to send 400 Guard members from Texas (Albania was their next choice), she called bullshit, cited Oregon police reports that protests were small and subdued - "8 to 15 people, mostly sitting in lawn chairs and walking around" - and blocked "deployment, reassignment or relocation" from any state, given "neither the facts on the ground (nor) the claimed legal base for the deployments had changed." Damn, irksome facts again. Still, Stephen Miller called the ruling a "legal insurrection.”
And, really, when you look at the Portland protests, it's understandable. While a handful of people have peaceably gathered - and sometimes done the cha cha cha - on the legal side of a blue line outside the largely tranquil ICE facility since June, their forces often included the terrorist, blow-up Portland Frog, who In one recent tussle was pepper-sprayed in their vent by infuriated ICE agents. Now, the stalwart spicy Frog is back; asked about the assault in an interview, they cheerfully dismissed it with, "I kinda coughed a bit, but that was about it...Just a little pepper - I've tasted spicier." At that point, a phalanx of ICE thugs emerged together and pointlessly fired off clouds of teargas toward the handful of protesters; the Frog danced and sang, "You put your left foot in..." As the troops carefully, ridiculously backed away, the protesters yelled, "Fucking losers" and "We're supposed to love each other." The Frog kept dancing. He also shimmied. Truly a burning hellhole.
Having failed in their attempts to liberate Portland, the regime turned its sights on equally offensively blue Chicago, where 400 Texas National Guard members are being deployed despite the opposition of Gov. JB Pritzker, who vowed, "Illinois will not let the Trump administration continue on their authoritarian march without resisting." The action comes a week after hundreds of ICE agents staged a draconian, jack-booted raid on a South Side apartment building - Pritzker: "They are the ones making it a war zone" - rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters, tossing smoke bombs, busting down doors, zip-tying sleepy residents, including crying naked children and U.S. citizens. Later, ICE Barbie released a histrionic, Call-of-Duty-esque video, martial music pounding, presumably to showcase their heroism in the face of terrified children. Text on one version threatened, "To every criminal illegal alien: Darkness is no longer your ally. We will find you." A second one read, "Chicago, we’re here for you.”
Maybe because even some of the regime's sociopaths have a discomfiting sense they're on the wrong side of history and feel the need to compensate - or because, per Patriot Takes, it's "a complete clown show" - their weird, incendiary agitprop keeps coming. A baffling meme shows race cars on a track that promises, "Victory is within reach. Recapture our national identity." Say what? A collage of Democratic leaders, including Biden, proclaims, “THE PARTY OF HATE, EVIL, AND SATAN.” Oregon Republicans posted a flashy image of rows of police riot shields against a smoke-filled, blood-red night sky to celebrate Trump saving "burning-to-the-ground" Portland with California troops, except he was blocked because it was illegal and didn't, and the image is fabricated, combining two earlier, real-life photographs in South America, nearly a decade apart, of riot police in Ecuador and Brazil respectively.
Still, nothing approaches the awful - the inhumane, the sadistic, the sick - of Kristi Noem's Homeland Security's obscenities, which keep proliferating. Ever since her grotesque performance before an El Salvador prison cell packed with unfortunates - which led to charges of her "sadistic eroticization of power" - and echoing her famed, makeup-slathered photo-ops - Barbie firefighter, Barbie cow-girl, Barbie-fake-ICE-agent-holding-a-gun-aimed-at-her-colleague's head - she's seemed to revel in the theatrical glitz of a once-pedestrian job, turning every atrocity into a chintzy action movie. In that, shamelessness is her super power: She seems so proud of her Chicago assault on an apartment building of sleeping families she keeps returning to it. One eerie new video mixes scenes from it with other arrests as singers declare, "We''re having an All Night Revival." Another shows multiple heroic thugs seizing their victims with the text, "Bag it. Tag It. Take it down." Yes: human beings.
Then there's the cruel insanity of an AI video using Blue Oyster Cult's “Don’t Fear the Reaper" to portray Project 2025's Russell Vought as the government shutdown's Grim Reaper declaring, "Now their time has come...Here comes the reaper....He wields the pen, the funds, and the brain" as Trump plays cowbell and Vance plays drums in their deathly band. It also features presumably DOGEd or furloughed federal workers - fraud, waste, and abuse all - as zombies hurtling past an unemployment office, and Democrats speaking as so much, "Blah blah blah blah." Veterans of the U.S. national security community, part of The Steady State: "A president posting a video depicting his opponents as prey for the Grim Reaper and zombies outside the unemployment office is the opposite of what we expect in a healthy democracy.” George Conway: "We elected a pathology."
Along with weird cosplay, we also elected a party of brazen, relentless liars. Facing anger over the shutdown and spiking health insurance costs, MAGA Mike announces he'll "look right into the camera" and tell you the GOP is "working around the clock every day to fix health care" when, in fact, he sent the House home until Oct. 14 and they're cutting CHIP and Medicaid. Armed with canned attacks, a bellicose, amnesiac Pam Bondi just lied and blustered through four hours of testimony. Trump told sailors "we will get our service members every last penny" (not) during a shutdown he blamed on Democrats, randomly posted: "JUST OUT: Good news for the holiday season. EARLY PRICES ARE DOWN," though they don't exist, with "NO INFLATION," and told reporters, "You have Black women with MAGA hats on in Chicago. All over the place. They want the Guard to come in."
@independent Donald Trump stars in a Grim Reaper-themed AI-generated video posted to his Truth Social account mocking Democrats. The clip features a cover of Blue Öyster Cult’s "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", with Russell Vought portrayed as the mythological character. It came as the president threatened to use a temporary lapse in government funding to enact permanent cuts to the federal workforce as a way to punish workers at agencies he believes are staffed by people who did not vote for him or his party. Click the link in bio for more 🔗 #DonaldTrump #AI #USNews #news
Elsewhere, America pushes back. In Chicago, Gov. Pritzker declared, “We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion.” Citing armed, "rogue, reckless" goons roaming the city, Mayor Brandon Johnson established "ICE free zones" that forbid them from using city-owned land as staging areas: "If Congress won’t check this administration, Chicago will." On the South Side, residents and passersby honked, hassled, wrestled and ran off - "Get the fuck outta here" - a couple of ICE thugs trying to detain a guy. In New York, the Bar Association vowed to legally pursue regime officials justifying attacks on Venezulean boats that constitute "illegal summary execution," or "murder." In D.C, The Secret Handshake resurrected their prancing Epstein/Trump statue "to stand gloriously on the National Mall"; when a second permit was suddenly, temporarily revoked before they got their third, the group released 3D-printable versions of the statue online.
In a searing, 161-page ruling, District Judge William Young, an 85-year-old Reagan appointee, blasted the regime for violating the 1st Amendment rights of pro-Palestinian and other protesters, charging they targeted a few people for speaking out and then used "the full rigor" of immigration laws to deport those few and silence others; Young specifically slammed "the President’s palpable misunderstanding" that he cannot simply "seek retribution for speech he disdains." Marcy Wheeler reminded listeners that, "The main scene of crime in Washington, D.C. is the White House,” that Vance, Miller, Noem, Patel, Bondi are all "working hard to paint Trump opponents as violent terrorists to distract from the crimes they're committing (as) part of a criminal conspiracy" run by Trump, "a career criminal." At Public Notice, Lisa Needham echoed her: "The terrorism is coming from inside the government." And someone, somewhere, flipping the GOP's florid AI script, made this paean to resistance.
Whew. Our authoritarian theater lurches on into a nascent police state forged by an avenging despot, equally deranged and malignant, who conflates lies, raves, phantasms - see wacko AI videos - with reality. The five-time draft-dodger, with his neo-Nazi Secretary of War Crimes, just rabidly urged a roomful of silent generals to join a "war from within" against their own citizens, for now in Portland. Reviews of his new reality show: "Fat Man and Little Boy bombed." Also, "The commander-in-chief is not okay."
Despite his manifest unfitness and underwater approval ratings- "People hate this mad king shit" - he and his vile cohorts are busy erasing rights and building an internal legal and military force aimed at silencing skeptics, opponents and "terrorist networks," aka most of us, in the time-honored name of "national security." This week he also got to play peacemaker with a war criminal, spewing "fatuous bleats" as he proclaimed "one of the great days ever in civilization" at the signing of a Gaza "peace plan" that included no Palestinians, leans hard into Israel's genocidal vision, and puts a bloody "stamp of legitimacy" on their effort to "achieve through politics what the war of extermination could not achieve on the ground." Hamas must take it or leave it: "There is no negotiation here. There is an American plan." If Hamas rejects it, Israel will "finish the job" thanks to the plan's convenient loopholes; Trump eagerly affirmed they'd "have our full backing to do what (you) have to do."
Mostly, the alleged master of the art of the deal has just been refusing to negotiate at home. The current shutdown is the unsurprising result of a so-called president who in response to queries about discussions of differences, said one official, "read (sic) all the shit they’re asking for, and said, ‘On second thought, go fuck yourself'"; then he reversed himself, talked to Jeffries and Schumer, but seemed unaware of the ACA health insurance stalemate that largely triggered the crisis. The last few days, as his party literally ran away "on vacation" rather than try to hammer out an agreement, he helpfully contributed to the discourse on keeping government open by posting a series of what-the-actual-fuck, "straight-up-Orwell's-1984" deep fake videos, each more bizarre and offensive than the last, thus confirming the widespread belief that, "Donald Trump has always lived in his own world of lies and ignorance and growing misinformation - he has no idea what reality is."
Thus, his batshit post announcing, “MEDBED HOSPITALS: THE NEW ERA IN HEALTHCARE," offering us all magic, imaginary "medbeds" that cure cancer, reverse aging, regrow body parts, and keep a zombie JFK Jr. alive. The news grew from a longtime QAnon conspiracy theory that government elites have been hoarding this medical marvel in tunnels for themselves so, say, after a hard day of trafficking children out of a pizza parlor, Hillary Clinton can go home, lie on her medbed, and regrow her missing limbs. No more: Now, "Every American will soon receive their own MedBed card," with grifters selling $11,000 "medbed generators." This, to be clear, as Trump and the GOP actively work to gut health care protections for millions. His post was deleted after about 12 hours, long enough for many to wonder, "Is it bad when the leader of a country is so cognitively impaired he can no longer determine what's real?" and for Gavin Newsom to re-post with, "DONALD TRUMP HAS LOST IT."
That was premature. There was more. Soon after, there was Trump's re-post of a video titled, “The Great Replacement is no longer conspiracy theory!” Based on a Newsmax segment, it blamed Dems for encouraging hordes of undocumented migrants to come here to vote, with over two million getting illegal Social Security numbers. That was followed by a now-infamous, grotesquely racist, staggeringly juvenile post, "one of his most demented ever" and National Embarrassment #742, featuring a deep fake (Jewish) Schumer and (African-American) Jeffries, with inexplicable Mexican music, sombrero, waxed moustache, telling reporters,. “We have no voters left because of all of our woke, trans bullshit." Etc. America: "This is sick." Jeffries: "Next time you have something to say to me, say it to my face." He noted House and Senate Dems "are here, on duty, ready to fund the government. Bigotry will get you nowhere. Do your job." Then he posted a photo of the pedo besties with, "This is real."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Speaking of: In more weirdness, pardoned Jan.6 QAnon shaman Jacob Chansley sued Trump - also Musk, Israel, the NSA, IMF, World Bank etc - for $40 trillion, claiming he's the rightful president, and at this point why not; he also trashed Trump for not releasing the Epstein files. Meanwhile, Trump's so out of it he thought Whiskey Pete's Warrior Fest was for other countries' top brass: "Isn't it nice people are coming from all over the world to be with us?" Then he veered to "It's just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily." Maybe that's because Kegseth is reportedly both "crumbling" and out of control: Spooked, paranoid, "even more manic, dude is crawling out of his skin" since Kirk's killing; into vain "total princess shit"; throwing "full-blown tantrums" if challenged - on his "pussy-ass-bitch" Department of War name swap, extra-judicial killings of fishermen in the Caribbean, critics deeming his ideas for change "myopic and potentially irrelevant." Each time, "He just WENT OFF."
So sure, great to see a loose cannon and "drunken freak" Secretary of Bravado with the power to unilaterally summon to Quantico from around the world, at the cost of millions of dollars, over 800 U.S. generals and admirals with much-decorated decades in the service and unequaled command expertise to serve as extras for a MAGA pep rallED talk/ lecture about meritocracy, "warrior ethos" and "a return to the highest male standards" from a greasy, unqualified former Major in the National Guard and ex-host of a Fox News weekend program with a messy history of alcoholism, incompetence, sexual infidelity, rape, and threatening national security by butt-dialing classified information to a reporter - all of which could have been "accomplished," a term doing a lot of lifting here, in a simple email or leaked Signal chat. No wonder, standing before a gaudy massive flag like a knock-off of George C. Scott in Patton, the ignoble Pete "gave off a lot of small dick energy."
Once he opened his mouth, it got worse. Lamely citing Trump's "Liberation Day" for his botched tariffs, Hegseth declared. "Today is another Liberation Day - the liberation of America’s warriors." Decrying "the insane fallacy that diversity is our strength" and reciting a list of tired grievances, he vowed no more DEI, identity months, "frivolous complaints" about abuse, "dudes in dresses," "climate change worship," "stupid rules of engagement...We are done with that shit!” "Every day, we have to be preparing for war, not defense. We're training warriors, not defenders. We fight wars to win, not defend," he raved. "We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy...We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country." And no more Mr. Nice Legal Guy. "You kill people and break things for a living," he snarled. "You are not politically correct, and don’t necessarily belong (in) polite society.” So: Let your bigot flag fly. Make war crimes, sexual assault, hazing great again.
And if you don't like it, resign. Given the stony silence, many didn't, especially once he went after the beardos - usually Black and/or Muslim men - and the fatsos, warning of new physical fitness standards: “If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard (work outs), so can every member of our joint force." The reviews - this is a reality TV show, right? - were brutal. "Hegseth brought the generals before him to fat shame them (and brag that he can do push-ups)...I fucking want my money back, asshole," read one. Also, "Pete will always be a National Guardsman assigned to a civil affairs unit who got a bunch of Crusader tattoos in his 40s because he wants you to think he's a cool, war-criming operator instead of an online wife-beating loser saying what it means to be a WARFIGHTER to a roomful of legit guys who all outrank him," and, "I would posit it’s more unacceptable to see a Christo-fascist, tattoo-festooned Fox dunk-tank clown in the halls of the Pentagon, frankly, but maybe that’s just me."
Military critics called his appearance "embarrassing,” “ridiculous,” "shocking," "insulting," "offensive," "self-aggrandizing." Jamelle Bouie called it "some of the most loser shit I have ever seen." A veterans advocate noted "people (who) have served 20 or 30 years in uniform do not need (Hegseth) to tell them about warrior ethos" or "lethality": "He's barely qualified to host Fox News. Has he no honor?" Navy commander Bobbby Jones tore into a sleazy "Sec bro" who thinks push-ups can replace "critical thinking under pressure...honor, courage and commitment." On his bigoted, divisive views on race, gender, DEI: "WHAT?! You're kidding me. You have the nerve to think you have the right to be the arbiter if someone of color or a woman deserves to be there? When you weren't even good enough to make my rank? And you try to erase their history? You need to take the example of the people you tried to lecture today and hopefully live your life more like them. The world will be better off."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
You'd think it couldn't get more cringe after Hegseth ended with a histrionic, Dr. Strangelove-like, "WE ARE THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR! GODSPEED!" (Cue, "There's no fighting in the War Room!") Improbably, it did when the world's most famous five-time draft dodger, criminal and pedophile lumbered onstage to join "a middle manager dry drunk cosplaying tough to lecture US generals on the Constitution and loyalty." "A drunk and a rapist walk into a bar..." noted one online sage. Another: "Hegseth: No fatties in the chain of command! Trump: Waddles onto stage." The seemingly heavily sedated Private Bonespurs spoke slowly, slurring words in "an unusually meandering speech," "a disgraceful and unnerving performance" and "a nakedly partisan appeal that violated every standard of American civil-military relations." It was also "an inexcusable strategic risk (to) convey an inane message" and "a waste of time for people who emphatically had better things they could and should be doing."
He insulted Biden 11 times: "They looked at him falling down stairs every day," with a long weird detour about stairs and how Obama - "I had zero respect for him" - would "bop down those stairs. I’ve never seen it. Da-da, da-da, bop, bop." There was his love of the word “tariff," America becoming "rich as hell," "PEOPLE COMING IN FROM INSANE ASYLUMS," the wars he ended and “millions and millions of lives” he saved, the rigged election, the autopen, the fecking Gulf of America, "the concept of battleships" like in Victory At Sea, the “beautiful paper, the gorgeous paper, with the real gold writing" when he signs things: "Everyone loves my signature." Most significantly, he "told a roomful of silent generals to join a war from within," that "we're under invasion," it's a "big part of war now," "we should use some of these dangerous (blue) cities as training grounds for our military," and their first priority is "defending the homeland," which has a vague Germanic ring to it we can't quite place.
Takeaways: "The president told the military American citizens are the enemy and he wants them to practice war on them. I think this is called Treason." "We want you to wage war on your fellow Americans. Also in 13 hours you aren’t getting paid." "Bad actors, bad movie. The director should be ashamed. 0/10." “He billed the taxpayers millions to fly every general to Washington to hear this weirdo drivel." "The commander in chief is not okay," wrote Tom Nichols of his "farrago of fantasy, menace, and autocratic peacocking." "It's one thing to serve it up to an adoring MAGA crowd, but another to aim this kind of sludge at military officers" used to treating presidents with respect, and assuming they're "basically normal. You have to wonder who will shield them from the impulses of the person they just saw on stage." Then Nichols cites a famed moment in 1973 when an Air Force nuclear-missile officer asked in a training, "How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?”
One of many cartoons about Hegseth's Warrior JamboreeFrom Democratic Underground
And here we are. The stoic, professional top brass in Quantico sat dead silent, stone-faced, through the madness. At its end, some limply applauded but most remained silent; in the limited images released, they look pissed, as if "'Bitch, please' were a photo." Still, with or without their approval, the regime's "war from within" goes on apace. On Sept. 27, Trump announced he would "provide all necessary Troops to protect War-ravaged Portland" and any ICE Facilities "under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists" with "Full Force, if necessary." He was reportedly hepped up from watching an earlier bogus segment on Fox showing two hostile scenes in Portland that turned out to be from 2020 BLM protests. But who needs facts? "I didn't know that was still going on," he yammered. "Portland is unbelievable - the destruction of the city. These are paid agitators...What they’ve done to that place...They just burned the place down. It's just, it’s like living in hell." JD nods along.
Hours after announcing the deployment of 200 National Guard to hellish Portland, city and state officials sued Trump, Hegseth, and ICE Barbie to block their "patently unlawful" move based on "wildly hyperbolic pretext...Their characterization of Portland as ‘war-ravaged’ is pure fiction." Portland Mayor Keith Wilson on their "fruitless show of force: The number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city...The president will not find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it." The threat drew several hundred protesters - far more than the handful that have been turning up for months - overseen by federal snipers on rooftops. "We are average, everyday citizens tired of (Trump's) illegal actions," said the wife of a veteran, who called the deployment "a moral injury." Around then the addled, reality show nitwit who makes policy based on what he sees on biased, bigoted, fantastical Fox News was dumbfounded to learn that he might be...wrong.
In an interview, he described talking to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, who tried to set him straight. "I said, 'Wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?'" he exclaimed. "My people tell me different. They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place...it looks like terrible.” Reality bites, and #WarRavagedPortland bit back. Last weekend, residents - "Stay safe, stay weird" - flooded social media with images of their hellish life: Gardens, picnics, drummers, runners, street fairs, cherry blossoms, food, bikes, dancing, Taco trucks, dystopian bread lines, pastry-filled farmers markets, blissed-out dogs rolling in grass: "Here’s our dog writhing in agony on the killing fields of war-ravaged Portland." There were trees wrapped in multi-hued knitting - "We knit at dawn" - marauding hordes amidst sun-dappled roses - "Oh, the demise of humanity!" - and a brave beer in a koozie: "It's unsafe to even walk your beer down the street without protection!"
Chilling tales emerged of violent kittens attacking toilet paper - "WAR AND DEVASTATION HAPPENING IN PORTLAND! KITTENS DESTROYING VERY EXPENSIVE TP !" - long lines for brunch - "Hellscape doesn't begin to describe it" - and "leaves not staying on the trees anymore from so much violence. Good God, it's horrific." At an outdoor fair, "kids were chasing geese, people were selling tie-died shirts, and one sick son of a bitch was selling Nepalese food. It was crazy." Video revealed an empty, silent ICE building "under siege" - "By that definition, my house is under siege"; one from Sen. Ron Wyden showed the same placid scene, with a few protesters across the street. One harried victim described "sipping my iced pumpkin latte and strolling past historic Victorians, boutiques selling $300 clogs, women in Eileen Fisher cardigans debating olive oil varieties (and) too many options for artisanal cheese, and so many dogs who eat better than I do. I couldn’t help but wonder - if this is war, where do I enlist?"
Survivors from other cities sent thoughts and prayers: From "war ravaged DC," "post-apocalyptic Los Angeles," "the liberal hellscape of Denver, where they're eating the dogs!" Many sent moral support - "The Portlish are a strong and noble people. We stand with you" - and one eager citizen said she "can't wait for the National Guard to come clean up Seattle - there is litter everywhere." There were searing war dispatches. "We barely survived today. Everything is in chaos. We began the day with huckleberry pancakes...They were terrifyingly delicious." "Dearest Mother, I write to you from the front lines (where) our batallion bravely holds the line between the artisanal kombucha stand (and) the enemy, armed with reusable tote bags and passive-aggressive signage. Our oat milk rations are low." "My dearest wife, These barbarians will not yield...We have severed the cords of their latte machines but they are making cowboy coffee in their camps...A Golden Retriever has stolen my ammo belt."
On Wednesday, Trump announced 200 National Guard troops were "now in place" at a small protest at Portland's ICE facility, and they have "begun restoring LAW AND ORDER." But NBC News affiliate KGW reported "none can be seen," and lawmakers said they'd been told troops still need a few days to prepare, maybe by wending their arduous way through the artisanal breads. Guard officials say the deployment, expected to cost at least $3.8 million, is to "protect federal facilities," a slight discrepancy from a White House release shrieking troops would "crush violent radical left terrorism" in the tranquil city. "I know this isn't easy," Oregon's adjutant general told Guard members of a mission neither they nor residents seem enthused about. "We don't get to pick and choose." For now, five Portlanders, some in bathrobes, held a pastry protest - "We're here for the hellscape" - as other stalwarts struggled to endure the war's hardships. "They have forced us to listen to music and revel in community," they said. "Pray for us."
In honor of Friendship Month and his stupendous speech at the UN, wherein he raved, bloviated and browbeat world leaders that their countries are "going to hell" but he's "really good at this stuff," some patriots have erected a new statue in D.C. of Trump and his "closest friend" Jeffrey Epstein happily twirling and sharing "another wonderful secret." Residents praised the artwork as "glorious," "Amazeballs" and a "sliver of hope," arguing, "This is why we have to protect the arts." Now with updates.
"Angry Old Man Yells At U.N" was a fitting headline for the mad king's appearance at their annual General Assembly in New York City, where, one account dutifully reported, "his total ignorance of world events was on full display." Other reviews: shambolic, bizarre, embarrassing, unhinged, "ranting, raving, rambling," and "one of the most embarrassing speeches of his presidency," which says a lot. Some of the delirium, punctuated by Adderall sniffs, was likely fed by a malfunctioning teleprompter (along with brain) which he repeatedly carped about after complaining he should have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize:: "All I got from the UN was an escalator (that) stopped in the middle and a teleprompter that didn't work. Thank you very much." Later, it turned out an aide was in charge of it, and another had inadvertently halted the escalator.
Wildly winging it for almost an hour, over three times his allotted time, he then launched into his usual flood of wild lies and narcissistic delusions about saving the world and "the renewal of American strength." "Grocery prices are down," he declared. "Inflation has been defeated." NOT. "More than $17 trillion is being invested in the United States - it's pouring in from all parts of the world." Ditto. "In a period of seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars," he claimed, adding one to the usual fiction and, ever gracious, whining he had to do it all by himself: "I never even received a phone call from the UN." Never a fan of the multilateralism the UN represents -in his first few days he pulled the US out of multiple international organizations - he then lit into the august body.
Boasting about his own "bold action" to illegally terrorize, arrest and deport large numbers of innocent brown people, he blasted immigration in Europe as part of a "globalist migration agenda" by unnamed perfidious players. "Your countries are going to hell," he yammered. "It's time to end the failed experiment of open borders...I can tell you, I'm really good at this stuff." (Cue facepalm seen around the world.) In case he hadn't waxed racist enough, he tossed an incendiary slur at London's (Muslim) mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, "a terrible, terrible mayor...Now they want to go to sharia law." (Aghast groans added to facepalm.) Fox News said he "unfurled raw truth." The rest of the world said his "erratic," "reckless" claptrap was "hard to distinguish from reality TV."
Finally, knowingly - his uncle taught at MIT! - he dismissed climate change as "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world," argued "all the predictions were wrong" except if anything they were too optimistic, and trashed windmills, his bird-and-whale-killing nemesis, as "so pathetic and so bad." "The United States is now thriving like never before," he raved. "We're getting rid of the falsely named renewables. They are a joke. They don't work. The wind doesn't blow." Magically, he bundled up the failures of windmills and diplomacy to highlight his own stable genius: "If you don't get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail. And I'm really good at predicting things...I've been right about everything. One foreign diplomat texted, "This man is stark, raving mad."
It was to honor all his nonetheless remarkable achievements - and Friendship Month, begun by The Grand United Order of Oddfellows Friendly Society (GUOOFS), founded in 1730s England to give "everyone 30 exciting days (to) celebrate everything that is amazing about Friendship!" - that the new art installation appeared Tuesday on the National Mall. The 12-foot, faux-bronze statues of a giddy Trump and Epstein prancing and holding hands is by The Secret Handshake; their earlier creations include a "Dictator Approved" giant thumbs-up crushing Lady Liberty's crown, and turds honoring the Jan. 6 "brave men and women who broke into the U.S. Capitol (to) loot, urinate and defecate throughout these hallowed halls in order to overturn an election.”
The new work, said a spokesperson for the anonymous group, was born of "the widespread, bipartisan interest" in Epstein and their wish to put their friendship "on full display" in tribute to Friendship Month, even though nobody's heard of it. "We wanted to celebrate what is presumably, at least publicly, Donald Trump’s only true friend," said their representative. "Trump has had many business associates, but very few people have gone on the record as being his actual ‘friend.' Jeffrey Epstein, who is the rare exception, stated that he was the President’s 'closest friend.'" Thus does one of three plaques accompanying the statues read, "We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend’ Jeffrey Epstein."
Another plaque quotes Trump's 50th birthday message, shaped like a nude female body, to Epstein. It reads, in part, "A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret," followed by the singular Trump signature. Trump, of course, had called Epstein "a terrific guy" who was "a lot of fun to be with," a sentiment others have widely interpreted as, "We are definitely both pedophiles who are friends and do pedophile things together." "These two people had an affinity for each other," noted the group's rep, "and they also seemingly had an affinity for abusing women." On the "uproar" over the release of the Epstein files: "We have nothing to do with that. The information about their bond (says) a lot.”
There were critics of the work, of course; there always are. A White House spokesperson denounced it with, "Liberals are free to waste their money however they see fit – but it’s not news that Epstein knew Donald Trump, because Donald Trump kicked Epstein out of his club for being a creep." Another lie: he kicked him out for having "stolen" one of the young women working in Trump's spa, doing God knows what tasks. But The Secret Handshake isn't quibbling; they even said they'd "be happy" to donate the art to Trump's new $200 million. ballroom. Other critics nitpicked: Trump's statue isn't fat enough, his hands should be smaller, his tie should be longer, no way he can stand on one foot, why do both men still have their pants on?
Mostly, onlookers and passersby loved it. They called it "fantastic," "hilarious," "beautiful," "highly appropriate," "Art History in the making," "By far the most realistic depiction of our President that I've seen." They said, "Thank you project mayhem" and, "This is true patriotism." They fake-mourned, "Unfortunately, we cannot take this statue down. That would be erasing our history and heritage." They proposed making mass small duplicates of the art work, for fundraising or Christmas ornaments. Many wondered who'd made it; one sage responded, "Nobody. It's part of the universe manifesting truth." A patriot crooned, "Sometimes I love this country so damn much." "Protect the arts," many urged. And, "This art is the prettiest art of all the art."
Update: But not for long. Though the monument creators had a permit allowing it to stay up till Sunday night, a National Parks crew, aka regime minions, arrived before dawn Wednesday morning to topple, break and haul it away with no prior warning. They told Handshake reps, who'd heard rumors of the raid and turned up, the artwork was "not in compliance" with the permit, allegedly exceeding its allowed size by three feet. Silly artists: Everyone knows you have to obey the law.
More updates: Because the manchild king is not only stark raving mad but exceptionally petty, may have realized he made a complete ass of himself the day before, and is now likely desperately trying to deflect from his own clownfuckery, he is now charging the UN with "triple sabotage" for several minor mishaps during his appearance. Citing a malfunctioning escalator, teleprompter and sound system - all of them reportedly under the supervision of either the White House or U.S. delegation, not the UN - he is now insisting "this wasn't a coincidence" and demanding "an immediate investigation" into those "three very sinister events," which were "A REAL DISGRACE." "The good news," he went on, "is the Speech has gotten fantastic reviews...Very few people could have done what I did." True, that.
Ivanka wears Trump's birthday card to Epstein.Meme from Bluesky