Gromnir

am gonna try and ignore most pope news for a bit as am already nauseated by the thought o' all the expert opinions on robert prevost/leo xiv from people who couldn't pick him outta a police lineup last week. that said, am gonna go out on a limb despite our already admitted ignorance and posit that not trump is a win o' sorts. ... if the universe punishes us for our hubris, we will be maximal disappointed. HA! Good Fun!

yeah, this ain't even the most terrible time in US history... which is part o' what makes it so disappointing. for gawd's sake, the last time the alien enemies act were used were ww2 when we sent japanese american citizens to internment camps, sometimes for years. the Court at the time said doing so were okie dokie (only three dissents) and the move was popular with the US public. is so much bad and forgotten history. the patriot act were passed overwhelming and bipartisan in 2001, 'cause when people is afraid, they cheerful hand over freedom. the unfair lending practices which quietly has led to massive income disparity 'tween races in this country were only final made illegal in the seventies and while it persists in many places even today, much o' it were curbed by the 80s... so we likely only need a few more generations to see fundamental change as home ownership leads to generational wealth and you functional need wait for the death of home owners to see any kind o' change. too terrible to believe, not so long ago, the government were doing coercive sterilizations o' native american women. as recent as the 70s we had the weather underground and a smidge previous were that little kerfuffle at the pentagon. how does people not know just how bad were race relations in the 60s? heck, if you are too lazy to learn history, then maybe go ahead and watch mississippi burning. mccarthyism. american nazis holding rallies at madison square garden on the eve of ww2. the use of the sedition and espionage acts. the great depression. chinese exclusion. company towns and union busting. and yeah, we already survived a civil war, although we are still dealing with the scars and the never-healed wounds. in fact, the only part o' all this which genuine shocks us is that we never thought americans would accept trumpism w/o major economic upheaval or a war. bunch o' snowflakes. 'course with trump trying to make stagflation great again, we might just get the economic upheaval. have mentioned more than once just how similar our current situation is to the 1920s. post global pandemic we saw massive income disparity and social unrest with people afraid o' change. at the time, many people, unable to make ends meet, were being told how fantabulous were the economy, and that cheesed 'em off more than a little. to fix things, Congress imposed stoopid across the board protective tariffs... take as bad news or good news, but we have been here before, and more than once. HA! Good Fun! ps and the point o' a few o' these appointments has gotta be pretty much nothing but an effort to punk the libs.

well, the reapers is gonna return relative soon, so is all moot anyway. heck the reaper cycle is a mere 50,000 years. HA! Good Fun!

Some Giant Law Firms Shy Away From Pro Bono Immigration Cases Fearing the wrath of President Trump, some elite law firms are declining pro bono work on lawsuits challenging the administration’s policies. "Lawyers from Gibson Dunn explained that it was afraid of incurring Mr. Trump’s wrath if the firm was associated publicly with a lawsuit that sought to restore legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children, the five people said. Gibson Dunn is not the only large law firm shying away from immigration litigation." ... "Groups like the Amica Center have long relied on big law firms to provide legions of young lawyers and paralegals who can help prepare cases free of charge. Traditionally, pro bono work has been intended to help the poor and defenseless." ... "Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a nonprofit that litigates cases for immigrants and pushes for their rights, called the large firms’ recent pivots “part of the chilling effect” of Mr. Trump’s executive orders. “It has gotten much harder to get law firms to take a case on pro bono,” Ms. Shebaya said." ... from a may 1 post by yours truly" "so even if trump keeps losing in court, he has effective reduced the pool of potential lawyers willing to take on cases, which makes future trump loses less likely. who do you think is representing the undocumented immigrants in most o' the fed cases? you might be surprised to learn just how much o' pro bono work the big firms do, and the big washington and new york firms trump targeted is known for taking on a noteworthy proportion o' immigration cases as part o' their pro bono portfolios." am aware that the stoopid of trump and his most visible cronies, coupled with repeated examples o' trump 2.0 buffoonery, has made a few people dismissive of this administration's efforts to dismantle a system which took 250 years to build, a democratic republic which were only recent approaching the promise of founding documents such as the declaration of independence and the bill of rights. the sh!te going on in plain view is serious, sinister and surprisingly well organized. hopefully the all too numerous indifferent, cynical and uninformed US citizens wake up before they realize that what is broken cannot always be fixed. and no, biden requesting and scotus allowing the fed to regulate ghost guns is so not analogous to what is going on in trump 2.0... just in case @Guard Dogis still following this thread. maybe gd don't like what biden did and he likely disagrees with the outcome by the Court, but the feds didn't resort to dirty tricks and the Court didn't create new law just to punish gd. so not the same. and speaking of... Federal court rules Rümeysa Öztürk must be transferred to detention in Vermont trump 2.0 has been using bs excuses to transfer detainees to louisiana and texas where there is judges more accommodating o' the administration. by physical moving individuals such as rumeysa, asap and just before judges and lawyers in ny, maryland and vermont may react, trump 2.0 has been, until now, successful avoiding the jurisdictional limits o' court orders. am knowing that with all the bad news coming day after day, forcing the return o' the tufts student to vermont doesn't feel like a major win, but it is a bigger deal than it seems, particular if other courts follow suit. the trump 2.0 habeas shell game shennanigans were something we foresaw, but perhaps courts will prevent that kinda thing from happening henceforth. HA! Good Fun!

keep in mind that Gromnir is old, so is maybe not a shock that when trump shared his thoughts on the need for doll sacrifice... ...we recollected an old bloom county contribution. and by the way o' explanation, in an earlier bloom county release, trump's brain had been transplanted into the body o' a cat. by education and experience am personal embracing free market ideology far more than am seeing any kinda benefit from trump's central planning model. even so, am recognizing that given the rampant corruption o' this administration coupled with how outta touch is folks like djt and musk, we would not be surprised if all the young people who currently thinks crypto fueled get rich quick schemes and tate brother tutorials is the future will wake up to terrible reality and go to the other extreme... am not even convinced such would be a bad outcome. HA! Good Fun! ps @Azdeus kudos to sweden where tesla sales for the year has dropped by 81%.

*sigh* the sun's luminosity is increasing even as we speak, albeit so slow it would take a prohibitive number of lifetimes to notice the difference. regardless, the sun is getting brighter & hotter. in fact, long before the sun starts transitioning to a red giant and expands enough to engulf the earth (~5 BILLION years,) it is gonna be hot enough to cook off all the oceans from the surface o' our planet. due to luminosity increases, we probable got 1 billion years before the sun's natural life cycle renders the earth uninhabitable for human life. the sun swallowing the earth will be complete irrelevant as a threat to life on the planet, 'cause all animal and plant life will have been burned beyond ashes billions of years previous to that happening. sun expanding is so not a real concern regardless o' musk's busted timeline. but... @Gorth is the guy who should speak on this as 'posed to Gromnir, but the dinosaurs (other than birds) were wiped out 66 million years past and our earliest primate ancestors show up on the scene 100,000 years later. it is our recollection that the first plant life appeared on earth more than 450 million years ago. is gonna be a whole lotta mass extinction events and ice ages 'tween now and the elapse of 1 billion years, much less five billion. there will be no human beings 1 billion years from now... period. am so not claiming expertise on such, but am also not seeing anyway that even if a direct human descendent were to miraculously survive one billion years, it would even remote resemble the humans o' 2025. give musk the most generous benefit of the doubt and ignore his other silliness and focus only on, "several hundred million years," observation. first homo am not sure how accurate the video is, but regardless, the human ancestor in question showed up earth less than three million years past. three. am knowing the reality o' hundreds of millions and billions o' years elapsing is difficult for anybody to genuine conceive, but musk is kinda ignorant for a s'posed science guy. HA! Good Fun! ps late edit to add h. habilis

shadow docket, so we got no explanation for the Court's decision. unlike the situation where venezuelans were on buses heading to an airport or to halt an imminent execution, am not seeing the exigent circumstances regarding trump's desired transgender ban for the military. the status quo were that transgendered people could serve in the military and am having heard no genuine argument that the presence o' a very small percentage o' trans people in the military somehow threatened situational readiness o' the armed forces. even if you think that trans people shouldn't serve in the military, do you honest see the kinda emergency scenario akin to executing an innocent woman or "deporting" people sans due process when the government insists there is no practical way to retrieve those people post "deportation"? again, justices alito and thomas were baffled and outraged 'caues the Court granted emergency habeas relief to venezuelans who had been loaded on buses and were headed to an airport. nevertheless, somehow they sees tragedy inducing exigency if trump's trans ban were halted while the ordinary and admitted slow legal process worked in its usual manner. full oral argument before the appellate court with possible appeal to scotus in regards to the trans ban woulda resulted in an irreparable injury to the federal government? how? am knowing am having said this a few times, but the new scotus reliance on the shadow docket to avoid accountability is one o' those under-the-radar issues we believe deserves attention. aside, for those hopeful the Court stands up to the trump administration, am warning that history is not on your side. there is a long and storied/sordid history o' scotus cowardice. if there is genuine fear a chief executive will ignore or undermine a Court decision, the safe money bet is that the Court will cave. every american school kid hears about marbury v. madison at least a couple times before they finish mandatory education. the detail from marbury which is glossed over or poor remembered is that the Court in that case surrendered to thomas jefferson, arguable our nation's first authoritarian wannabee. anybody recall who were marbury? john adams, the President before thomas jefferson, made a whole lotta last minute judicial appointments before he left office, more than fifty, which considering the size of the fed government at the time, that was a noteworthy amount. william marbury were one o' the individuals who had received a late term appointment from john adams, but he were amongst a not insignificant number o' appointees who, while they had been gained senate approval, had not physical received their commission. thomas jefferson refused to deliver the commission to marbury... and he also threatened to undermine the Court in a number o' creative if they tried to order him to do what he did not wish to do. John Marshall bravely stands up to thomas jefferson and establishes judicial review. "Judicial review is the idea, fundamental to the U.S. system of government, that the actions of the executive and legislative branches of government are subject to review and possible invalidation by the judiciary . Judicial review allows the Supreme Court to take an active role in ensuring that the other branches of government abide by the Constitution." huzzah. that means marbury received his commission and served as a judge, right? nope. Justice Marshall found a standing argument which simultaneous allowed him to establish judicial review, but also extricated the Court from the danger o' needing order President jefferson to deliver the commision to marbury and others like him. actually, james madison as secretary o' state woulda been ordered to deliver marbury's commission, but that is kinda beside the point. regardless, one o' the most well known scotus decisions were an example o' the Court finding a technicality which would allow them to avoid a direct confrontation with the chief executive. as such it should come as no surprise that the Court routine finds a way to knuckle under when a direct confrontation with the President is threatened. expecting J. Roberts to be one o' the few Chief Justices in US history to show real courage is not a safe bet... God help us all. HA! Good Fun!

and if you were wondering why trump wants to kill npr and pbs... A Maryland town backed Trump's cost-cutting pledge. Now it's a target Emmitsburg voted overwhelmingly for President Trump in November. NPR interviewed about two dozen people here. Almost all of them voted for Trump, and many said his plans to cut federal spending were a key attraction. Now, they say they are puzzled as to why the administration would cancel national training for firefighters. HA! Good Fun!

Federal judge orders NC to certify Riggs as winner in Supreme Court election “This case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals,” he wrote. “This case is also about whether a state may redefine its class of eligible voters but offer no process to those who may have been misclassified as ineligible. “To this court, the answer to each of those questions is ‘no.’” ... is not over, but keep in mind that meyer don't need to win for republicans to win. am suspecting litigation has already cost judge riggs ~$1 million, or perhaps a bit more. trump is threatening law firms who might ordinary take on such cases, so the pool o' attorneys to represent democrats is shrinking particular as the field o' election integrity is pretty freaking specialized. furthermore, republicans is able to target a handful o' high population districts in each state to challenge elections, 'cause is higher population and urban districts where democrats ordinary have the best voter turnout-- same is not true in reverse. even if democrats tried to flip the dirty trick playbook being used by republicans, chances are that targeting one or two districts in a statewide election won't benefit democrats 'cause when republicans win they get a multitude o' all those low population rural voting districts. there is some good news, well good news beyond the obvious that riggs keep winning. The Many Lawyers of Hannah Dugan more than a handful o' conservative legal superstars is stepping up to represent clients dealing with the trump administration. paul clement am realizing mr. clement is not a household name, but he is arguable the best in his field, and he is as conservative as they come, so it means something when he steps forward to represent judge hanna dugan as well as law firms facing trump executive orders. not all republicans is being cowards. HA! Good Fun!

am suspecting you got a better chance with aclatraz than you would with adx florence trump's desire to make prisons great again, ignores the fact that the US doesn't have some kinda national shortfall of correction facilities. ... what kinda lunatic romanticizes sing-sing and alcatraz? am genuine curious how long alcatraz and the movie tariff silliness, imposed on an emergency basis for national security reasons, is gonna be sane-splained by fox and the legion o' maga pundits before they shift to criticizing lefties for fixating on alcatraz and movie tariffs when there is more important issues confronting real americans... like trans athletes and the inability to purchase raw milk at local supermarkets. late edit: ok, am admitting trump's alcatraz insanity ain't complete bad as it gives an excuse to post an old phil hartman clip. HA! Good Fun!

our first thought were similar, that he had seen The Rock and thought it were kewl, but am suspecting the truth were more like disinfectant and sunlight for covid. probable some staffer or fox personality popped off about how the US needed a true terror prison 'cause regardless o' effectiveness, the point is to frighten people, and alcatraz is somehow both scary and kewl? trump hears or sees something, then has an epiphany and 'cause his uncle was an mit professor, all o' trumps ideas is necessarily genius, yes? the reason why Alcatraz were closed, the main reason, were 'cause it were something like 3x more expensive to run than any other fed prison. @Hurlshortmaybe took the tour within the last few decades, dunno. am suspecting he were told details 'bout alzatraz closing. so, the doge guy who cuts money for the pepfar program and for va cancer treatment trials 'cause is all 'bout cutting down on waste, now wants to reopen a money sink prison. brilliant. stoopid. the thing is, am predicting you are gonna now see a multitude o' maga pundits defending trump's impulse control. 'course our sundowning President didn't limit his sunday dumb to alcatraz. Trump threatens a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, saying the movie industry in the US is dying ... anything which takes the focus off of trump's recent court losses, his "deportation" blunders, and the serious diminished port activity in places such as los angeles, effectively work in his favour even if am suspecting he doesn't plan his bouts o' bad idea diarrhea as an actual ploy to distract; he is just that stoopid. HA! Good Fun!

y'know how many times am having made same point to gd regarding his need to find false equivalency 'tween trump and other administrations... and that were pre trump 2.0. ... and am gonna admit am extreme disappointed not just in gd but in most americans insofar as cecot is concerned. if cecot were in the US, could trump send people there indefinite w/o a full criminal trial? hell no, and am suspecting even gd recognizes such. am not sure how trump has managed to dr. mesmer so many into thinking the fundamental question is about whether or not the people being sent to el salvador is tren de aragua. w/o due process necessary to prove andry hernandez romero and neri jose alvarado borges is tren de aragua, it were wrong to deport 'em... but they weren't just deported for chrissakes. 5th and 6th Amendments guarantee the right to a criminal jury trial if the government is gonna punish, and is no way gd or anybody else is gonna reasonable argue that being held indefinite in cecot ain't a punishment. what is happening is not just deportations. maybe it comes as a surprise to some, but when the government goes before judges they is not trying to legitimize cecot by claiming those being sent to el salvador is gang members. the government has not offered ANY proof in court that those sent to cecot is gang members; is trump, jd vance, and marco rubio who keep bringing up gang membership when talking to the press. according to the government, invoke the AEA means trump don't need to prove gang membership. now bring up burisma or some other whatabout nonsense? the thing is, there is a dozen or so trump 2.0 issues that got us near as angry as cecot. am ashamed that the freaking oval office meeting with zelensky probable doesn't make our top ten, and most of the tariff stuff, while it is the kinda thing which is most likely to anger americans, bothers us less than the blatant authoritarianism o' many other actions... tariffs is another situation where the real problem is Congress being cowardly and unwilling to stop clear Presidential overreach. regardless, gd and his false equivalency fantasies is at least a decade old. am not sure how he convinces himself that trump 2.0 is no worse than biden, but am not at all surprised. as should be obvious by now, and contrary to @Lexx fever dreams, am having for a long time been warning that institutional limits on trump are not genuine obstacles. is nothing too illegal or improbable when speaking o' trump. as such am not surprised by trump, save insofar as the recognition too many americans are ok with any trump excess. trump may be corrupt. he may be a criminal. he may have tried to overturn the 2020 election. but maybe he can get trans people outta sports and perhaps he can lower the cost of eggs, so am willing to ignore the bad stuff. serious? HA! Good Fun!

Company Boasts Spending Up To $20 Million On Trump Crypto Coin To Buy Influence they ain't even hiding the corruption anymore. HA! Good Fun!

we didn't have any doubt. he did the false equivalency stuff from the moment trump took office in jan 2017, embracing far-right talking points and conspiracy theories. gd convinced self that such were ok 'cause he knew in his bones that the libs wanted a state run police force that would take away his guns and round up dissenters in fema camps... if they just got a chance to do so. biden comes to office and just like during obama, none of his nightmares came true... so we get more o' the false equivalency and conspiracy theories; he needed to believe the biden administration were just as bad as trump. we could literal be here all day listing the ways in which trump 1.0 were orders of magnitude more o' a threat to the US Constitutional order than biden's tepid embrace o' wokeism and his, in retrospect, ordinary incompetence. we did so for freaking years... and for f&%$'s sake, how do these people keep with the memory hole nonsense? now, faced with a mere 100 days o' trump violations o' morality and law which somehow managed to be worse than Gromnir's predictions, folks like gd need convince self that kamala woulda' been just as bad, 'cause they are all bad. gd needs to believe such silly 'cause is folks like gd, voting 3rd party or not voting at all, who put us in this situation. am actual less anoyed with the complete disconnected and uneducated folks who voted for trump 'cause they thought he would lower the price of eggs. given the conspiracy theories gd would routine share as proof and defense o' his peculiar brand o' wacky, we were certain he were absorbing questionable sources o' information to fuel his world view. moving to rural wisconsin, a battleground state, so weren't gonna improve the chances o' him having some kinda epiphany. if you literal cannot see a fundamental difference 'tween trump authoritarianism and the biden administration, then... *shrug* yeah, am seeing the black humor in the recognition that now, when many of his worst predictions 'bout they is being realized in real time, gd feels comfortable ignoring politics. that said, we do hope he is doing well in terms o' health. HA! Good Fun! ps (edit): brain fart... had "jan 2016"

am sooper happy you finally found your zen after a decade o' hyperbolic efforts to convince us they is all equal bad. *shrug* even so, am indeed hopeful you are doing well/better. edit: a quick clarification on jav v. trump-- scotus use o' the political question doctrine to avoid ruling against trump would be weak, cowardly and bad law. trifecta. however, weak, cowardly and bad law is what were the immunity ruling. am also recognizing J. Roberts may feel the need to go to extremes in his efforts to avoid a Constitutional crisis. we mentioned the political question option for scotus not 'cause am thinking it is a good legal argument but 'cause am recognizing the political question doctrine does provide the Court with a minimally plausible basis for deciding in favor of trump. HA! Good Fun!

having now read the case a few times, am less optimistic. from the start, we assumed if this reached scotus, the political question doctrine might be the sticking point. as some might be aware, the US President don't have Constitutional power to declare war. Congress declares war. Congress has granted the President the capacity to respond quickly to emergency situations, including invasions... and tariffs, but that is a different issue... sorta. the point is that Congress is the Constitutional authority on war. if there is a question as to whether or not we are functional at war with tren de aragua, Congress likely gets the final say-so as 'posed to the Court, though paradoxical, the Court gets the final say-so on whether Congress in this case gets final say-so... which probable seems a bit confusing. there is two functional ways for trump to get around what looks on its face to be a smackdown from a trump appointed district judge in texas: 1) the Court demurs. scotus may simple says that whether or not the US is at war with tren de aragua is a political question not suitable for judicial review. Congress has options to declare that trump is exceeding his authority and it is up to that branch o' government to exercise their Constitutional authority, if they wish to do so. silence by Congress would functional = acquiescence. if scotus says the issue is a political question and not a legal one, then trump wins. 2) trump follows the sneaky advice of the district court. the district court appeared to criticize trump, but it also told him how to cure the defect in his invocation o' the AEA. ... lie to me such were the practical advice o' the judge. the judge observed that the executive needed to provide legal sufficient facts supporting AEA invocation, but that in his capacity he could not challenge the veracity of trump's provided facts. as such, trump needs to provide facts which support the claim that tren de aragua is a foreign invader (e.g. describe forces on the ground in aurora or wherever, directed by a foreign power to undermine the US national government,) but the judge will not question the validity o' such facts provided. the court will assume the facts provided is true and decide if such provided facts is legal sufficient to justify the use of the AEA. trump lies = trump wins. another example o' being beat to death with the three wise monkeys? with any other administration one might assume it would be political impossible to get away with outright fabrication o' lies made in Court which claim a gang, at the behest o' a foreign power, is murdering US citizens and holding american soil as part o' a plan to undermine the national sovereignty o' the United States of America. now go ahead and convince self that such would be a bridge too far for trump. we dare you. HA! Good Fun!

am suspecting it were less about guts and more a matter o' common sense. until our freshman year in college, our knee-jerk reaction when dealing with law enforcement were to respond with snark... and if am being complete self-honest, barely disguised disdain. poor judgement on our part. were not US, but we once did need undergo a strip search and a rather unpleasant interrogation in an asian country, and were not even our scintillating personality which provoked the unpleasantness. simple misunderstanding. am s'posing the most shocking part o' the incident is that we received an apology, which we were informed almost never happened. regardless, in spite o' the wisdom which comes with age and experience, we nevertheless need tamp down an extreme strong desire to respond to any predictable stoopid law enforcement query with snark. am in our freaking fifties and even so am finding that we need take a deep breath and count to at least five before responding to any kinda cop question 'cause am knowing our reflex and unfiltered response will not benefit us in anyway. anyways, our point is that while it shouldn't be difficult to distinguish bravery from abject stoopid... HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!

just as an fyi, for those unaware, the general inadmissibility o' hearsay is overcome by admission. hearsay is an out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted, and that definition is way more complex than it first appears, way too complex to full explain in a post. the arcane nature o' the hearsay rule is made more eye-roll worthy as there is also a whole lotta exceptions to the rule, including but not limited to death bed utterances and various statements which is collected in the ordinary course o' public and medical record keeping. statements against the speaker's interest, and more specific, admissions, is also gonna result in an exception. cops always ask you if you are aware o' why you were pulled over in the hopes of eliciting an admission. HA! Good Fun!

am knowing trump ms13 tattoo misunderstanding has justifiably received the most attention, but the portion highlighted by the daily show from 5:59-7:01 might be our favorite. HA! Good Fun!

complete separate issue trump appointed judge says we aren't being invaded by tren de aragua 36 pp ain't that long, but am admitting am not an expert on the case law, so is gonna take time for us to review-- cases is from ~1800 or ww2 and even when we were representing gang members for a living, the alien enemies act were not considered relevant. recommended: steve vladek's blsky and https://www.justsecurity.org/ will likely have useful input before we do. HA! Good Fun! ps the decision from the texas federal court applies only to venezuelan detainees in the southern district of texas. extreme limited and easy for the fed to ignore from a practical perspective.

the only two people in the trump administration who am certain is pro tariff is trump and peter navarro. of particular note, watch from ~53 sec to 1:23. navarro explains how the .3% contraction of the gdp is good news 'cause but for tariffs, we woulda' seen 3% growth. ... so, trump tells us he can't be blamed for bad gdp numbers 'cause is still biden's economy, but his personal tariff whisperer then goes out and explains that but for tariffs, the economy were doing supercalifragilistic? and that's good news? the tariffs were a man-made disaster... a man-made disaster attributable to one person, but the trump folks messaging is so undisciplined that they is sometimes telling the truth by accident. the thing is, on fox news and elsewhere, navarro, lutnick, bessent and trump messages is being massaged 'til they fit a useful maga narrative. oh, and for the folks who is still convinced doge is anything other than a scam so that elon musk can get his hands on more data to bolster his ai aspirations, trump 2.0 has spent more than biden did in his first 100 days. am knowing many has already memory hole'd 2021, but just a reminder, we were still dealing with a global pandemic at the time. so much for cutting enough waste, fraud and abuse to cover the proposed new tax cuts for the rich, eh? Despite Trump's promised cuts, U.S. spent more than $200 billion more in first 100 days than last year DOGE's website claims the task force has already saved that much, at $160 billion, between canceling grants, contracts and leases and making cuts to the federal workforce. On its "wall of receipts" site online, the office reports the largest reductions so far come from the Department of Health and Human Services, General Services Administration, Department of Education, Department of Labor and Office of Personnel Management. Only about $60 billion, or less than 40%, of that alleged savings are itemized on the office's online "wall of receipts" and even those itemizations have included errors and lax documentation. In his work at the American Enterprise Institute, Malkus said his review indicates the savings is more likely to be around $80 billion. ... and btw, since we weren't around to pontificate on the matter, cutting legislative and executive branch programs because they is woke or dei is not addressing fraud, waste and abuse. pay two different organizations to do same thing is wasteful. pay an organization $10 million to deliver widgets but only get $10 thousand in widgets, with the rest o' the money being pocketed by organization administrators is likely fraudulent. but those aren't the kinda things doge cuts. maybe you thinks funding sesame street for middle eastern broadcast is stoopid. and perhaps you feel that saving malnourished kids in the sudan, or supplying south african expectant mothers with aids medicines is bad policy, but cutting those programs ain't necessarily addressing fraud, waste or abuse. those is policy choices and Congressmen, when they pass budgets, can stop funding o' such programs if they want to do so. some o' these programs is executive branch exclusive, and the President don't need to supply a reason to cut 'em, but describing as the elimination o' waste, fraud and abuse is misleading at best if what is actual happening is that elon and trump is getting rid of programs they don't like, even if those programs is being run efficient and effective. if some lib ne'er-do-well were getting rich off o' plumpynut, and the kids in the sudan were not actual receiving the lifesaving nutritional supplement, that would be an example o' addressing waste, fraud or abuse. if narcan didn't actual do anything, if it were somekinda snake oil, then we would cheer doge narcan cuts. ... with two exceptions, we gotta give trump 2.0 credit, 'cause the project 2025 folks and other did an impressive job o' wargaming this sh!te out. example: going after law firms in the way trump 2.0 has done so shocked us 'cause it didn't even need to be successful to have the desired effect. the mergers and acquisitions folks at these firms made a calculated decision to cave to trump demands particular after they saw that other firms not targeted by trump were trying to peel off clients from targeted firms. many o' the firms gave up w/o a fight even though they knew they would win in a fight in large part 'cause most o' their business were actual related to government contracts. if you is a multimillion or billion dollar client who has an sec issue you need handled, why would you stick with a firm trump had effectively declared persona non grata? so even if trump keeps losing in court, he has effective reduced the pool of potential lawyers willing to take on cases, which makes future trump loses less likely. who do you think is representing the undocumented immigrants in most o' the fed cases? you might be surprised to learn just how much o' pro bono work the big firms do, and the big washington and new york firms trump targeted is known for taking on a noteworthy proportion o' immigration cases as part o' their pro bono portfolios. another example: cecot. f*&%^. honest, am conceding a complete failure o' imagination insofar as the deal trump brokered with el salvador... and looks like rwanda might be the next el salvador. yeah, we assumed that the fed would play habeas corpus shenanigans by moving potential deportees asap to the most friendly court districts imaginable, but again, we saw deportation as the goal. we actually thought the alien enemies act would be invoked day 1, and we were surprised by the absence o' initial executive orders making use o' the alien enemies act. we so did not foresee that instead o' deporting those aurora colorado gang members who had taken over the city, trump would send 'em to prisons controlled by friendly governments as a way to avoid due process. just 'cause we loathe what trump is doing to undocumented immigrants don't mean we need ignore how ruthlessly clever were some o' the planning which went into stuff such as cecot. am bringing up the almost reptilian cunning o' the trump folks in implementing their schemes 'cause doge were a noteworthy exception. in truth, we sees two HUGE exceptions: doge and tariffs. am assuming doge were mostly an elon musk pet project, and so it weren't part o' the pre inauguration project 2025 planning. shouldn't be a surprise doge were implemented in the same haphazard manner musk used when he took over and fixed/broke twitter. tariffs were, am guessing, something most o' project 2025 were hopeful clearer heads could convince trump to embrace reason, as happened when trump wanted to tariff mexico during his first term. we posted in 2019 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/447374-trump-plans-to-declare-new-national-emergency-to-impose-tariffs/ a couple days later, trump had already caved. not that it matters at this point, but am not sure why trump keeps conflating tariffs and trade deficits, but he sees those two things as inextricable linked. beyond reason he believes that the US is getting screwed by any nation with whom we have a trade deficit, and he only sees a trade deficit on goods as relevant, complete ignoring services. point is, am thinking there were no real plan for widespread tariffs on any and all nations with whom we has a goods trade deficit, as well as those penguins, 'cause the wargaming for such tariffs were predictable. see, brought it back to tariffs. am trying to do the trump weave. HA! Good Fun! ps we noted the charlie fox o' doge and tariffs, but we did skip trump's top appointees. when kash patel, tulsi, rfk jr., pete hegseth and pam bondi got their positions in trump 2.0, we were outraged that those folks were partisan to a comical degree, with conflicts of interest and character flaws which woulda' torpedoed any past administration's efforts to have 'em gain senate approval. in retrospect, perhaps we should be relieved, 'cause one o' the few obstacles to project 2025 successful implementation is the incompetence o' trump's top loyalists.

apologies for the double https://www.instagram.com/stopicenet/reel/DI5r8cRRtv4/ americans might be surprised to learn the feds likely don't need an arrest warrant for these kinda situations. am suspecting one reason why the guy in the vid is being detained at a courthouse is to avoid needing to have to deal with judges and warrants. arrest at home? yeah, then you need a warrant. it often makes sense to get an arrest warrant when you are arresting sans non exigent circumstances, but you do not necessarily need such. but why the plain clothes? why the refusal to show badges? why the balaclava ski mask? and no offense to mr. man-bun in the video, but am having met a whole lotta cops over the years and these guys don't seem like cops-- attitude is wrong and behavior is... weird. these "cops" seem far too anxious to be police with any kinda experience. am knowing it sounds ridiculous, but our thought on watching the vid were, "is homeland security deputizing rando office personnel?" and again, why the refusal to show badges? even if you secret squirrel your way into explaining the plain clothes, then why don't they display badges when making their arrest? and the ski mask? serious? everything about the arrest just looks wrong and am seeing so much potential for accident. HA! Good Fun! ps am certain almost nobody will watch, but... in the linked vid, trump is talking to a room full o' financial experts about the economy and inflation. almost every time trump said something outrageously stoopid, the people in the audience cheered/applauded. am gonna suggest that everybody in that audience who applauded knew trump were either lying or stoopid... or both, but they cheered anyway. those folks in the audience wanted a 2025 extension o' the previous trump tax cuts and they wanted more deregulation, so they not only ignored trump lies/stoopid, but they cheered. as such, is hardly a surprise politicians can get away with distorting economic realities. late edit to avoid double and

Secret Deals, Foreign Investments, Presidential Policy Changes: The Rise of Trump’s Crypto Firm A Times examination of World Liberty’s rapid ascent from fledgling startup to international force — and Mr. Trump’s conversion from crypto skeptic to industry cheerleader — highlights the range of conflicts of interest trailing the company: World Liberty has directly benefited from Mr. Trump’s official actions, such as his announcement of a federal crypto stockpile that would include a digital currency the firm has invested in. The president’s announcement caused a temporary jump in the value of World Liberty’s holdings. World Liberty has sold its cryptocurrency to investors abroad, including in Israel and Hong Kong, according to interviews and data obtained by The Times, establishing a new avenue for foreign businesses to try to curry favor with Mr. Trump. Several investors in World Liberty’s coin managed firms that the federal government accused of wrongdoing. They include an executive whose fraud case was suspended after he invested millions of dollars in World Liberty. Other investors and business partners, some of whom haven’t been publicly identified before, are looking to expand in ways that will require the Trump administration’s approval. World Liberty proposed swapping cryptocurrencies with at least five start-ups, and often used the Trump name to solicit steep payments as part of the deals. Even in an industry with a disreputable history, the deals raised alarm among veteran executives. ... one other portion... “It’s one of the more successful things we’ve ever done,” Eric Trump, the president’s son who runs the family business, said in an interview this month at the Trump Doral golf course in Florida. He and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., are actively involved in World Liberty, though they rely on three partners to oversee the daily operations. Two of them, Mr. Folkman and Chase Herro, have a mixed track record in crypto. The other is Zach Witkoff, the son of Mr. Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who is also a World Liberty founder. In recent days, Zach Witkoff, Mr. Folkman and Mr. Herro were in Pakistan meeting with the country’s prime minister, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, and other top government officials to discuss World Liberty. The trip, complete with limousines, a dance performance and police escorts, seamlessly blended the president’s business interests with the trappings of a state visit. (Mr. Wachsman said no U.S. government officials were involved in the meetings.) President Trump has noted that conflict of interest laws do not apply to him, and that he has broad immunity for official actions he takes as president. ... is paywall, but we now get a free repeating three-day subscription via our public library and am suspecting many other folks in the US may do the same. most americans don't know what trump is doing, and so many o' the rest is whatabouting themselves into knots with invocations o' nanacy pelosi insider trading stories and the hunter biden laptop that nothing will come o' stories such as this no matter how lurid the details. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna concede we added the link at the last second before posting when a thought occurred to us: the only person am certain is gonna get this is amentep. HA! Good Fun!