Even the New York Times headline suggests that the Supreme Court somehow approved of Trump’s Executive Order requiring the creation of lists of federally “approved” citizens and prioritizing the prosecution of state officials who fail to comply.
SCOTUSblog was even worse.
Reality TV star cum Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy misunderstood. After Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected tariff negotiations that would lead to a trade war, he thought he meant a real war with guns and bombs, and so he opined that Canada would certainly lose because it doesn’t have a military.
Sean Duffy on Canada: “It’s a country that doesn’t have a military … they have record high euthanasia rates. And so to think that they’re gonna go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the US, I think it’s foolish on their part.” pic.twitter.com/YfMwn6KovY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 23, 2026
Carney made clear at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the old world order was no longer viable. Continue reading
According to the New York Times, there are 250 workers working 20 hours a day, seven days a week. This isn’t how government projects are done,* except for the ballroom. At the outset, it was supposed to cost $200 million, paid for by donations by companies that stood to benefit from Trump. It’s now projected to cost $600 million, which will be paid by taxpayers.
Neither the demolition of the East Wing, the construction itself, nor the use of public funds was approved by Congress. And worst of all, it is being built to suit Trump’s “aesthetic,” his love of gold and grandiosity better suited for the excesses of Versailles than the humility of the White House. Versailles was built for a king. The White House was built for a president. This distinction is lost on Trump. Continue reading
These days, you can’t step foot outside without someone either telling you about Flock Cameras or seeing the goddamn things in public. Depending on who you ask, the controversy over Flock’s Automatic License Plate Readers and their databases are either the most heinous violations of privacy in the last 150 years or the whole mess is just a big conspiracy theory designed by blue-haired pot-smoking libertarians.
Here’s my stance on the fucking things: So what?
Yes, they take pictures of your car. Yes, they do so on a regular basis. Yes, people have been caught abusing the hell out of Flock’s searchable databases that allegedly let someone look for a white guy with a tattoo of a dead fish on his right forearm (not that anyone needs to care about such things). Yes, they’re probably tracking your every single movement.
Why do YOU care?
Let’s be honest about this. Brutally, transparently honest. The majority of you complaining about Flock cameras probably have an Amazon Echo in your home, at least one camera pointing at your face daily either on your TV or on your computer, and you probably have an Instagram page that documents everything you ate or did for the rest of the world.
You take photos on your iPhone 16 pro max, ask for directions using Apple or Google Maps, and have at least six AI bots set up in Claude or something similar to handle your emails and family schedules.
And let’s not forget how many times you’ve asked Chat GPT if a particular celebrity had “work done,” or who would win in a fight between Batman and Goku from Dragonball Z.
Most of you are using Gmail accounts and have a Twitter Premium account that gives you access to Grok, which is probably monitoring all the shit you do on Elon’s platform anyway.
And NOW you’re going to tell me you’re big mad about an invasion of your privacy?
No. You’re mad because someone with access to camera technology and AI came up with an idea, lots of police departments bought into the idea, and now you want to claw back some of your precious privacy because ACAB or something.
Guess what, muffin cakes? You’re being tracked everywhere you go. There’s Ring cameras on every door these days. You’ve got houses loaded up with more cameras than Afroman when the Adams County Sheriff’s Department raided his house. And when you go take a shit in a gas station bathroom? I’ve got news for you: they’re probably tracking whether or not you wiped.
Photo obtain via FOIL from FBI file on Seaton, Christopher.
But because a few cops tracked their significant others who were stepping out on them you think it’s okay to start sounding an alarm about how this is the technology that will send us all to hell if we don’t rid ourselves of it.
Everyone wants to pound their little fists into tables just because they don’t like the idea of someone taking pictures of them. No, they want to post that shit themselves on Instagram, TikTok, or whatever the social media shithole of choice is these days.
No, we’ve created this surveillance state ourselves. It wasn’t the Flock CEO who caused this mess, nor was it anyone from any specific federal agency. We’ve been pissing away our privacy for decades going back to when we agreed to let grocery stores track our purchases with their blessed loyalty cards just so we got a few extra cents off gas here and there.
And those of you who are just becoming privacy hawks now? You’re doing it out of fear of something you probably use daily. So chill out. It’s not as bad as you think.
So relax, pour yourself a glass tonight* and remember this: no matter how bad your week’s been, at least county executives in East Tennessee haven’t publicly stated America won’t be great until you’re hung on Main Street.
Which totally happened to someone from Flock recently.
Talk amongst yourselves and be good to each other. See y’all next time.
He can’t help it. Everything he does is the biggest, greatest, best, worst, ever. If he didn’t talk in absurd superlatives, he wouldn’t be Trump. But this time, he really means it.
No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a Deal than me. TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it. Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale. Their navy is gone, their air force is destroyed, their military factories are now rubble, their currency is worthless, and their country is hanging by a thread. Today, I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences. Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies — It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are. This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat. These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide. IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. President DONALD J. TRUMP
How many federal criminal laws and regulations are there? Nobody knows. It’s not for lack of trying. It’s because nobody in government has the time needed to go through more than three billion words in the federal register. And then there are the multitude of state and municipal laws and regulations, which are often far worse.
Every year, the Federal Reserve’s board of governors sends Congress a report on the Presidential $1 Coin Program. Federal law demands it, even though the coins stopped being minted for circulation in 2011. Since then, the Fed has asked — without success — each year to be relieved of the exercise.
Nobody in Congress sends out a flyer promoting their repeal of archaic, pointless and counterproductive laws as part of their re-election bid. Yes, it can be an achievement if you care about such matters, but most people want forward looking accomplishments to appeal to voters. Cleaning up what’s become known as “policy sludge” just isn’t very sexy, and is really hard work that mostly concerns nerds and policy wonks. Continue reading
Some learn the hard way that no matter how big a bribe you pay to buy “peace” from someone whose feelings are so fragile, so easily hurt, and so shamelessly dishonorable, capitulation is not going to work. ABC did not learn that lesson easily.
First, there was the $16 million payoff to Trump for George Stephanopoulos saying that Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll, a position approved by Judge Lewis Kaplan, noting that while New York criminal law limited rape to the insertion of a penis into a vagina, most legal definitions were broader and included the insertion of any body part, or other physical item. Stephanopoulos’ statement was not just defensible, but accurate. Still, ABC paid Trump off, believing it would buy Trump’s mercy. Continue reading
The issue had already been decided by eight other circuits, but that’s not good enough in the very self-important Second Circuit Court of Appeals. So when the question arose in Massimino v. Benoit, it appeared that there would finally be an answer to the pressing question of whether there was a First Amendment right to record police activity and, under the specific facts of the case, the exterior of police buildings from a publicly accessible sidewalk.
The court answered the question with a resounding “yes,” even if the court simultaneously granted the officers qualified immunity because no reasonable police officer could have possibly known that there was a clearly established right to exercise free speech after the eight other circuits held exactly that. Continue reading
Canada hates us. Our former NATO allies no longer trust us. But at least we still have our good, old, 70-year ally in the Pacific, South Korea, providing us with a home base to stand as a bulwark against Chinese and North Korean aggression, right? Oh crap.
This, apparently, popped into Trump’s head all by his lonesome. Continue reading
It’s one thing to redecorate the Oval Office with garish gold doodads superglued to the walls and fireplace surround. It’s another to build a ballroom to rival the gaudy excesses of the Palace of Versailles, or to have gold gilt applied over statues that were intended to be bronze. Tasteless and wastefully expensive, for sure, but arguably within the constraints of the president’s aesthetic choices. After all, elect a boy from Queens as president and you get the tackiness that comes with him.
But aircraft carriers? Yes. Even aircraft carriers.
The U.S. Navy is considering a major redesign of its new aircraft carriers to better match President Donald Trump’s preferred aesthetic for the warships, according to seven current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Continue reading
