Author: Ophelia Benson

  • This level

    What level of hate? What hate? It’s not hate to say that a man is not a frog or a lampshade or a car or Albania or sunset over the Pacific. It’s not hate to say that people are not something they are very obviously not – it’s just stating the obvious.

    It can of course be cruel to tell people they are ugly or boring or a nuisance, but saying that a man is a man isn’t like that. If there’s any cruelty in this conflict it’s the cruelty of men trying to usurp even being a woman. It’s not hate to tell men they can’t join a group that’s specifically and explicitly for women, and it’s not hate to tell them they’re not women. They may not like it, but that’s another matter.

    It’s a kind of egotism, this puffing up ordinary expressions of reality into “cruelty” and wounded feelings and sleepless nights and whole piles of handkerchiefs soaked with tears. Maybe it’s time to grow up now? Hmm?

  • He needs to be moved away from the nuclear trigger

    Medics think Trump’s rotting brain could get us all fried.

    A group of medical experts has sounded the alarm over what they’ve described as President Donald Trump’s deteriorating health and warned he needs to be removed from being so close to the nuclear trigger.

    The three dozen medical professionals have different backgrounds and political leanings, including neurologists, psychiatrists, and other physicians with extensive experience diagnosing cognitive disorders and evaluating patients.

    While they have not specifically examined the 79-year-old president face-to-face, they’ve been closely following his statements and behaviors over the past year and have warned he’s “mentally unfit” and must be removed from office “with the greatest urgency” amid the escalating tension around the world.

    They warned that the U.S. has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads at the ready to launch on Trump’s order, and no one now has the authority to stop him.

    He’s the General Jack D. Ripper of our time.

    They listed some of Trump’s observable serious medical issues, such as “Marked deterioration in cognitive functioning, evidenced by disorganized and tangential speech, rambling digressions, factual confusions, unexplained sudden changes of course in strategic matters, both national and international, episodes of apparent somnolence during critical public proceedings.”

    The group pointed to what they called the president’s “grandiose and delusional beliefs,” noting that he posts imagery of himself as the pope and as a combat pilot on Truth Social. They also observed signs of “severely impaired judgment and impulse control” in his “reckless threats of violence, advocacy of lethal force against civilians,” and more.

    It comes as the president has taken to posting on social media at all hours of the night while appearing to struggle to stay awake during his pubic events. The medical experts described it as “seemingly compulsive, manic-like late-night communications” with as many as 150 posts in one night.

    Mad energy in the middle of the night and falling asleep on the job during the day. Mind you, it would be great if he slept 24 hours a day, but these midnight tantrums could turn deadly.

    They’ve also raised concerns about the president getting stuck on the same thoughts and being unable to move on from a subject like his ”fixation on perceived enemies, persecutory ideas, and prolonged, disproportionate attacks on specific individuals and institutions.”

    The president has repeatedly attacked the same perceived Democratic political foes, including former President Joe Biden, as he continues to obsess over the 2020 election years later.

    Perseveration. It’s not a healthy sign.

  • To discourage the others

    Well you see it’s only women, so it doesn’t matter.

    Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion in 2021, ProPublica found in a first-of-its-kind data analysis.

    The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found. The surge in this life-threatening condition, caused by infection, was most pronounced for patients whose fetus may still have had a heartbeat when they arrived at the hospital.

    ProPublica previously reported on two such cases in which miscarrying women in Texas died of sepsis after doctors delayed evacuating their uteruses. Doing so would have been considered an abortion.

    Remember Savita Halappanavar? That’s how she died at University Hospital Galway. The hospital stood by and let her die.

    The new reporting shows that, after the state banned abortion, dozens more pregnant and postpartum women died in Texas hospitals than had in pre-pandemic years, which ProPublica used as a baseline to avoid COVID-19-related distortions. As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, ProPublica found, it rose substantially in Texas.

    ProPublica’s analysis is the most detailed look yet at a rise in life-threatening complications for women losing a pregnancy after Texas banned abortion. It raises concerns that the same pattern may be occurring in more than a dozen other states with similar bans.

    Because women are just machines for making more humans. Men are people, but women are just the mechanism by which babies are manufactured. It doesn’t matter if they die of sepsis.

    The standard of care for miscarrying patients in the second trimester is to offer to empty the uterus, according to leading medical organizations, which can lower the risk of contracting an infection and developing sepsis. If a patient’s water breaks or her cervix opens, that risk rises with every passing hour.

    Sepsis can lead to permanent kidney failure, brain damage and dangerous blood clotting. Nationally, it is one of the leading causes of deaths in hospitals.

    While some Texas doctors have told ProPublica they regularly offer to empty the uterus in these cases, others say their hospitals don’t allow them to do so until the fetal heartbeat stops or they can document a life-threatening complication.

    When in doubt, let the woman die.

  • Charged

    Ship operators involved in Baltimore bridge collapse charged with misconduct and obstruction

    Good. There were six guys on that bridge when the container ship rammed it. They were fixing potholes on the night shift, and they were all killed.

    The 900-foot ship Dali lost power twice and slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the early hours of March 26, 2024, as a work crew was fixing potholes.

    Six construction workers died when the bridge went crumbling down into the Patapsco River. Another construction worker fell into the waters below and sustained serious injuries but survived, while an inspector working as a subcontractor for the Maryland Transportation Authority escaped the collapse without injuries. The nearly two dozen crew members on the ship survived, along with two pilots who were helping the vessel navigate the harbor.

    The construction workers were Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, Carlos Daniel Hernandez Estrella, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, Jose Mynor Lopez, Miguel Angel Luna, Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval and survivor Julio Cervantes Suarez.

    I didn’t know there was a survivor.

    NOVA did a good program on the collapse last year.

    “Alejandro, Miguel, Dorlian, Maynor, Carlos and Jose were making our roads safer when they lost their lives on that fateful day in March 2024,” said Jimmy Paul, a special agent in charge with the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office.

    And they were doing it at night. Six guys with Spanish names doing heavy work in the middle of the night.

    “The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge was a preventable tragedy of enormous consequence,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement announcing the charges. “This indictment is a critical step toward holding accountable those whose reckless disregard for maritime safety regulations caused this disaster. Six construction workers lost their lives, critical infrastructure was destroyed, pollutants were released into the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay, and the economic damage now exceeds five billion dollars.”

    “This Department is committed to securing justice for the victims and ensuring those responsible are held to account,” he said.

    Even Trump’s DoJ. They can work around him sometimes.

  • Quietly updated

    Oops.

    A year after followers of President Donald Trump put down $100 deposits for a Trump-branded gold phone, not one has shipped, and a recent change in the fine print has some worried they may never arrive.

    Last month, the company behind Trump Mobile, T1 Mobile LLC, quietly updated its preorder terms and conditions to clarify that it “does not guarantee that a Device will be produced or made available for purchase.”

    “A preorder deposit provides only a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale,” the most recent terms, dated April 6, read.

    Purchasers like tech content creator Carter Ryan, who goes by CarterPCs online, were quick to call out the company’s vague language.

    “I’m paying $100 for the chance to maybe give you more money in the future, if you decide to make the product that I’m paying for in the first place?” he said in a post on TikTok.

    Again I wonder why people paid $100 in advance in the first place. Who does that? And what for? But of course that goes x 1000 when the vendor is Trump. I suppose if it’s a real Maker of Objects people make a deposit so that they’ll get their Object a few minutes sooner than everyone else, and they’re loony enough to think that’s worth doing. But this is Trump. You don’t give Trump a single thin dime until you have the Object in your hand. Yes, that means you don’t order it, you have to go to a Retail Outlet and buy it over the counter.

    The terms change comes as the $500 phone, dubbed the “T1,” has had its release pushed back several times. The phone was first set to ship to depositors in August 2025. The launch was then pushed to November, then December. At the end of last year, customer service representatives for the company told Fortune the phone would arrive in “mid to late January,” and that it was delayed because of the government shutdown at the time. 

    No no it was because of gremlins in the factory. No, it was the weather in one of the states no more than 500 miles from the factory. No, it was because one of the factory employees had a headache that day.

    The phone, which was originally advertised as being made in America, will now be “designed with American values in mind,” the website states. 

    Oh thanks, that was a great laugh. Cleared out my sinuses. The phone will be spiritually American despite being made by prisoners in Somalia.

    While the Trump phone remains unreleased, Trump Mobile is selling refurbished Samsung phones and iPhones that connect to its network and its so-called 47 Plan—a $47.45-per-month service that pays homage to Trump’s distinction as both the 45th and 47th president.

    Words fail me.

  • Not at, but near

    More Polanski work history fictionality.

    Zack Polanski falsely claimed to have worked at the Ministry of Justice while campaigning for elected office, The Telegraph can reveal.

    The Green Party leader said on his official campaign website in 2020 that he was “currently working at the Ministry of Justice on their training & diversity programmes”.

    The Telegraph, however, understands that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has no record of Mr Polanski ever working for the department.

    But he said at, not for. If you say “at” it can mean you hung around outside the building while doing something workish.

    When challenged over the discrepancies, the Green Party leader eventually admitted that, rather than working at the Ministry of Justice, he had been hired through an agency that supplied actors for role-play scenarios to a quango responsible for interviewing would-be judges.

    As part of the recruitment process, judicial candidates take part in mock courtroom exercises in which actors play criminals, prison guards and lawyers.

    Kreate, the agency Mr Polanski was signed up to, supplied those actors. Kreate, which also provides actors and dancers for PR stunts and “high profile events”, describes its actors as a “diverse bunch of lovelies from all walks of life”.

    Erm. That’s really not even like hanging around outside the building, is it. Quite different. More like if Martin Sheen claimed to be a former prez of the US.

  • What level?

    Wait.

    She is correct – but there are human beings here that feel that they are a woman, and I’m not saying that they’re right or they’re wrong what I’m saying is when you introduce this level of hate into a debate

    Wait.

    What “level of hate”?

    Where is the connection between knowing that a man is a man and “this level of hate”?

    There isn’t a connection. What there is, is one of those cartoons where Bugs or WileE or whoever it is slams to a screeching halt at the edge of a cliff.

    There is a huge and absolute gap between knowing that a man is a man and this or any level of hate.

    Knowing what things are is not hate.

    Can we get clear on that for a change?

    There are plenty of true facts that it can be rude or cruel to state or insist on or make a big noise about.

    But here’s the shocker: saying that men are men is not one of them.

    Is telling a particular man (who claims to be a woman) that he’s a man one of them?

    That’s a tough one.

    But the issue is telling men who claim to be women in general that they’re men, rather than telling individual men that one at a time. It’s not rude or cruel or any kind of hate to refuse to repeat the lie that men are women if they say they are.

  • In the midst

    Missing.

    No quick dispatching of disease investigators. No televised news conference to inform the public. No timely health alerts to doctors.

    In the midst of a hantavirus outbreak that involves Americans and is making headlines around the world, the U.S. government’s top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been uncharacteristically missing in action, according to a number of experts.

    That, of course, is because Trump and Evil Kennedy have gutted it.

    “The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. “I’ve never seen that before.”

    …

    At their first briefing, held Saturday by telephone only for invited reporters, officials pledged to be transparent in updating the public but said the media could not cite the speakers by name under rules set by aides to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They did not directly answer a question about whether the American passengers could leave the university medical facility when they wanted.

    The CDC’s diminished role in this outbreak is an indicator the agency is no longer the force in international health or the protector of domestic health that it once was, some experts said.

    Is that how we make America great again?

    The hantavirus outbreak is “a sentinel event” that speaks to “how well the country is prepared for a disease threat. And right now, I’m very sorry to say that we are not prepared,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

    And we’re not prepared because that’s how Evil Kennedy wants it and because Trump does not care.

    For decades, the CDC partnered with the WHO in such situations. The CDC acted as a mainstay of any international investigation, providing staff and expertise to help unravel any outbreak mystery, develop ways to control it and communicate to the public what they should know and how they should worry.

    Such actions were a large reason why the CDC developed a reputation as the world’s premier public health agency.

    And Trump and Kendoll just threw that away, because they are destructive and brainless.

    The administration has laid off thousands of CDC scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency’s ship sanitation program.

    As this was playing out, Kennedy said he was working to “restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency.”

    By getting rid of thousands of its scientists and health professionals. My trust is not rebuilt.

  • Diminished role

    Oh who needs disease control anyway – nobody but a bunch of wimps.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed it is sending a team to Spain’s Canary Islands, where the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is expected to arrive on Sunday, and US passengers will be evacuated to an airbase in Nebraska. However, experts say the US is unprepared for such a disease threat.

    The CDCs limited role in responding to the hantavirus outbreak is raising questions, including whether it now has a diminished role in responding to health scares. Most of the response has been led by the World Health Organization (WHO), of which the US is no longer a member.

    Well now why would it have a diminished role? Sure, Trump gutted it, but what difference does that make?

    It wasn’t until Thursday that the CDC activated its 24/7 emergency center in Atlanta to monitor the recent hantavirus outbreak and classified it at its lowest activation level.

    It was busy doing more important things.

    At the CDC’s first briefing, held on Saturday by telephone only for invited reporters, according to the Associated Press, officials pledged to be transparent in updating the public but said the media could not cite the speakers by name under guidelines issued by aides to the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

    Transparent but…not that kind of transparent.

    Bhattacharya added that the “CDC has the world’s leading experts on hantavirus and is lending its technical expertise when coordinating with interagency partners, state health offices, and international authorities on response and repatriation planning”.

    But experts and former government health officials say the response by the CDC has been feeble compared with how it dealt with similar outbreaks in the past.

    “The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University, told the AP. “I’ve never seen that before.”

    Oh stop whining. We’re getting a new blue lining for the reflecting pool, what more do you want.

    The hantavirus outbreak is “a sentinel event” that speaks to “how well the country is prepared for a disease threat. And right now, I’m very sorry to say that we are not prepared,” said Dr Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

    The CDC’s response is not typical for an agency that has in the past been at the forefront with the WHO in comparable infectious disease mysteries, both in developing ways to control them and communicate to the public what they should know and if they should be concerned.

    “I don’t think this is a giant threat to the United States,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center. But how this situation has played out “just shows how empty and vapid the CDC is right now”, she said. The agency has laid off thousands of scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency’s ship sanitation program.

    To pay for the ballroom.

  • A patriotic alternative scam

    Hilarious.

    Nearly 600,000 Trump supporters paid £74 ($100) each towards a gold smartphone that, nearly a year on, does not exist.

    The Trump Mobile T1 phone was announced in June 2025 by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump as a patriotic alternative to Apple and Samsung, retailing at £370 ($499) and promising a ‘Made in the USA’ build.

    An estimated 590,000 buyers paid a £74 ($100) deposit to secure one, collectively handing the venture roughly £43.7 million ($59 million). As of May 2026, not a single confirmed customer has received the device. Now, a fresh wave of anger is spreading across MAGA forums after buyers received communication making clear that their money is, for all practical purposes, gone.

    Why would you do that? Put down a deposit on something you could just buy (in a different version)? Why would you even put down a deposit on something you couldn’t currently buy because it’s not finished yet? Why wouldn’t you just wait until it was finished? Why put a deposit on some future piece of manufactured crap? On a house, yes, since there’s only one of it and there may be rival buyers, but on a small consumer item, no, because wtf.

    And then of course that times a thousand when the source is a Trump. Of course they’re going to take your money and then shrug. That’s who they are. How dumb do you have to be to send them 100 bucks for a future piece of junk they will end up not making anyway?

    Oh well, we know the answer to that.

  • Settlement negotiations

    It gets worse

    A sadistic transgender pedophile serving his sentence in a women’s prison has entered into settlement negotiations with the New Jersey Department of Corrections after suing officials for denying him access to “Wiccan religious items.” Marina Volz is currently serving a 25-year sentence for horrific sexual crimes he committed against his own 7-year-old daughter.

    Reduxx is not using the word “sadistic” there as a generalized description but as a precise name for the actions of this man. It’s not that he’s a big meany, it’s that he used his own very young daughter for sadistic porn movies.

    As previously reported by Reduxx, Volz, born Matthew, was first sentenced on charges of human trafficking, aggravated sexual assault, conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child on May 2, 2022. The conviction stemmed from a lengthy investigation into Volz and three of his associates.

    A search warrant was executed at his home in 2019 after the New Jersey Department of Child Protection received a tip indicating that a child was present in a premises where sexually explicit material was being filmed. Volz, along with another trans-identified male named Ashley Romero, had been operating a “transgender fetish porn” business from the home, and concerns had been raised that Volz’s 7-year-old daughter had been exposed to indecent material.

    But after his electronic devices were seized, the investigation took a decidedly darker turn. Several sexually-explicit photos and videos of the child were found after forensic examination. As the investigation continued, it became clear that the child had been repeatedly sexually abused to create sadistic bondage pornography that Volz distributed through his network.

    And that’s the point where one starts to wish one were a different species.

    Investigators learned that Volz had taken the child from her mother in 2018, traveling cross-country with Romero to transport her from Oregon to New Jersey for the explicit purposes of using her in child sexual abuse material. It is believed the girl’s mother, an ex-partner of Volz’s, struggled with addiction issues, making it easy for the two men to take the child without her full knowledge of what was happening.

    Some of the media found by police featured Romero sexually abusing the girl with another man. Romero lived in the residence with Volz and with two other individuals; Sean Allen, who had also sexually abused the child on film, and Dulcinea Gnecco, who acted as a domestic assistant.

    We’re a mistake. Humans are a mistake.

  • Advice not requested

    “Yeh women are women who are either born women or who’ve transitioned to be women.”

    Yeh and snakes are snakes who are either born snakes or who’ve transitioned to be snakes. Snakes who’ve transitioned to be snakes are totally valid. Never mind if they have four limbs sticking out of their bodies, and thick fur, and the ability to bark or meow or baa, they are snakes nevertheless.

  • Slebs

    Lifestyles of the rich and famous.

    The owners of a football club have appeared in court charged with multiple offences including rape, sexual assault and modern slavery trafficking for sexual exploitation.

    Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 57, and his husband Scott, 32, of Southwood Chase, Danbury, allegedly targeted and groomed young males.

    …

    Prosecutor Serena Berry said the pair owned businesses in Essex and abroad, and could be described as “celebrities, who live multi-million [pound] lifestyles”.

    For a glimpse of their view of the world we have this:

    If only all women were actually men.

  • Either born a woman or

    Did she not spell it out clearly enough? It seems pretty damn clear to me.

  • Deliberate calculated insult

    More on Harriet Harman.

    But she’s not a strong advocate for women and girls, because she can’t be, because she thinks men and boys are women and girls if they say so.

    I’m committed to tackling structural misogyny that is a barrier for too many women and girls. I look forward to working with Harriet to drive forward action on this important issue.

    No you’re not. You’re just mouthing the words, right after insulting all women and girls by appointing a magic gender advocate as an advisor on women and girls. She doesn’t even know who they are.

  • But she won’t

    Starmer brings in Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman to ease pressure on him to resign

    Brown to advise on global finance, while Harman will focus on social and economic improvements for women and girls

    How is Harman going to do that when she thinks men can be women?

    To put it another way, why the fuck did Starmer put a gender loony in charge of anything to do with women and girls? Why is it always men who pretend to be women who win and women who lose?

    Harman, who was Labour’s deputy leader under Brown, will be the prime minister’s adviser on women and girls, focusing on tackling violence and improving economic opportunities.

    But she thinks men can be women and boys can be girls so how in hell is she going to do that?

    A No 10 statement said Harman would “advise the PM on how to galvanise government to deliver for women and girls”.

    It added: “She will work with ministers across government to drive an impactful agenda focusing on tackling violence against women and girls, unlocking economic opportunity and improving representation.”

    No she won’t, because she can’t, because you can’t believe that men can be women while tackling violence against women. The two cancel each other out.

  • Ordered to rescind the cuts

    Oh good. Outstanding.

    DOGE’s Termination of Humanities Grants Is Ruled Unconstitutional

    A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration’s cancellation of more than 1,400 previously approved grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities violated the Constitution, while also creating a broad “chilling effect.”

    The ruling, issued by Judge Colleen McMahon of Federal District Court in Manhattan, addressed two lawsuits brought by scholarly groups and individual grant recipients. The plaintiffs had argued that the cuts, carried out by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, violated the First Amendment and, by singling out work relating to particular groups, the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment.

    In her 143-page ruling, Judge McMahon ordered the agency to rescind the cuts while saying the plaintiffs had suffered “irreparable injury.”

    “The injury is not limited to the loss of money,” Judge McMahon said. “It includes the disruption of protected expression, the interruption of ongoing research and publication, the cancellation or suspension of humanities programming, and the chilling effect caused by the government’s use of viewpoint-based and unauthorized criteria to terminate federal grants.”

    And, I would add, the alienation and despair of those of us who think the humanities are a good thing and should not be shut down by an inflated ignorant buffoon from the outerest outer borough.

    In April 2025, a few weeks after DOGE arrived at the agency, its newly appointed acting chair, Michael McDonald, canceled most grants approved during the Biden administration, telling recipients only that funding was being shifted “in furtherance of the president’s agenda.” The cuts, totaling more than $100 million, threw organizations and projects across the country into disarray, causing some to shut down entirely.

    In the meantime, the agency began limiting some grant programs to projects relating to “Western civilization” while also directing funds to Trump-backed projects like the National Garden of American Heroes, a planned patriotic sculpture garden.

    We can imagine who those heroes would be. Confederate officers, conservative plutocrats, greedy self-dealing tycoons, big game hunters…

    The lawsuits challenging the grant cuts drew wide attention this spring, when the plaintiffs filed documents showing that two DOGE employees had used ChatGPT to flag grants that violated Mr. Trump’s executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

    The two employees, Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox, also used keywords like “L.G.B.T.Q.,” “BIPOC,” “equality,” “immigration” and “citizenship” to draw up a list of the “craziest” grants, which DOGE later publicized online.

    Yes how dare we prattle of equality and citizenship.

    The men, both in their late 20s and recently recruited from jobs in technology and finance, said that they had no background in the humanities or government but that they believed in DOGE’s broader goal of shrinking “useless small agencies,” as Mr. Cavanaugh put it.

    That is, they share Musk’s contempt for 99.9% of humans.

    In her ruling on Thursday, Judge McMahon said that Mr. McDonald had improperly ceded authority to DOGE and that the cuts had departed significantly from the agency’s typical procedures, as well as its 1965 founding legislation passed by Congress.

    That law, she wrote, “does not authorize the wholesale revocation of grants already awarded simply because a new administration disagrees with the decisions of a previous administration or prefers to redirect funds elsewhere.”

    …

    Joy Connolly, the president of the American Council of Learned Societies, said in a statement that the ruling was a victory for the Americans in all 50 states who are served by programs the endowment supports.

    “The humanities are not a luxury,” she said. “They are how a democracy understands itself. Today’s decision is a step toward honoring the will of Congress and our mission as a nation — to seek the truth, know ourselves and build a better future on that knowledge.”

    Goddam right. Without the humanities you get trumps.

  • The 22‑foot colossus

    Golden calf pig.

    A towering gold statue of Donald Trump was unveiled at the president’s golf course in Doral, Florida, during an emotionally charged ceremony presided over by an Evangelical pastor.

    Placed on a pedestal in a clearing of palm trees, the 22‑foot colossus depicts the president thrusting his fist into the air, echoing his defiant gesture after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.

    I wonder if it ever occurred to anyone involved in this that putting up a statue to yourself is…erm…not exactly a reputable way to go about things.

    At Wednesday’s dedication ceremony, the sculpture was draped in white and blue fabric, resembling a Greek toga. It was encircled by a few dozen guests seated in chairs, as Pastor Mark Burns — a member of Pastors for Trump — spoke at a podium.

    “Today at Trump National Doral Miami, we witnessed an unforgettable moment,” Burns wrote on social media before emphasizing that the gilded effigy was not a false idol.

    Excuse me excuse me pastor sir – yes it is. If ever anything could be called a false idol it’s a giant statue of the worst human being on the planet.

    The statue, of course, is both hideous and laughable. His paunch is neither concealed nor minimized.

    The statue — which rises 15 feet atop a 7-foot base — was commissioned and bankrolled by a collective of crypto investors seeking to boost visibility for their memecoin, $PATRIOT, according to The Daily Beast.

    Oh I see, so it’s basically a commercial.

    Feast your eyes.

  • Permission to appeal granted

    Yessssssssssss

    …full consideration. They warrant full consideration, is how the tweet ends. The more in “see more” is just one word. Whatevs.

  • Just barely

    Lining up the obstacles:

    When President Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election, the institutional guardrails of American democracy held — but just barely.

    If faced with the same tests today, those guardrails and the people who held the line would largely be missing, a ProPublica examination found.

    At least 75 career officials who once held roles at federal agencies related to election integrity and safety are gone. Two dozen appointees — including many who either actively worked to reverse the 2020 vote or are associates of such people — have been hired to replace them. And once-fringe actors now have access to vast powers.

    But Trump can’t run again. What are they planning here? A coup that looks kind of sort of legal?

    Mind you, Trump won’t be on the ballot in two years anyway; he hasn’t got that long.

    Since the start of his second term, Trump and his appointees have made significant changes at federal agencies tasked with helping to safeguard elections. In all, at least 75 career officials who’d played important roles in elections work at DHS, the Department of Justice and other agencies have left, been fired or been reassigned, ProPublica found.

    In their place are roughly two dozen people Trump has installed in positions that could affect elections. Ten of them actively worked to reverse the 2020 vote, and the rest are associates of those people. In some cases, ProPublica found, officials have been hired from activist groups that are pillars of the election-denial movement.

    So who is the Trump Chosen Successor?

    It won’t be anyone Trump chose or endorsed, because he clearly thinks he will live forever, but his enablers must have someone in mind, to go to all this trouble.

    Officials at DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency had provided research to the first Trump White House that disproved many theories claiming that the 2020 election had been hacked. CISA also played a crucial part in publicly countering these claims by producing a “Rumor Control” website to rebut them.

    Then, only weeks into Trump’s second term, DHS leadership put employees focused on countering disinformation and helping safeguard elections on leave. They also froze CISA’s other election security work, which included assessing local election offices for physical and cybersecurity risks. Eventually, all CISA employees specializing in elections were fired or transferred.

    Get all the truth-finders out. Replace them with liars. Result: Trump in the job for all eternity.

    FBI Director Kash Patel dismantled the agency’s public corruption team, which had previously been deployed to help monitor possible criminal activity on Election Day. The Foreign Influence Task Force, which aimed to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics, was also disbanded.

    (An FBI spokesperson said the bureau “remains committed to detecting and countering foreign influence efforts by adversarial nations.”)

    The voting section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division had enforced federal laws that protect voting rights, particularly those that combat racial discrimination. But now, nearly all of the section’s roughly 30 career lawyers have resigned or been moved. Trump then filled the section with conservative lawyers, including at least four who participated in challenging the 2020 vote or have worked with people who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.

    Conservative lawyers are one thing and Trump-assisting lawyers are quite another. There’s nothing conservative about Trump. He’s destructive rather than conservative, and corrupt more than he’s anything else.

    We’re so screwed.

    H/t Mostly Cloudy