Just don’t call it a cult We’re hearing this an awful lot these days. But I do appreciate old Mel making it clear that the Daddy cult is an explicitly violent, abusive one.
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Yesterday, Trump pardoned a whole bunch of people who had been prosecuted for violating the FACE act by obstructing people’s access to abortion clinics. Some of them assaulted workers and patients in the process. So it’s not surprising that the anti-abortion zealots are feeling their oats. Check this out: Dear Acting Attorney General McHenry: We are writing to urge the Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce the anti-abortion trafficking rules in the so-called “Comstock Act” by (1) rescinding the Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) Memorandum Opinion, Application of the Comstock Act to the Mailing of Prescription Drugs That Can Be Used for Abortions (2022) and (2) taking immediate action to enforce the mail-order abortion prohibition within the Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461‒62. These laws prohibit the distribution of abortifacient matter—including the abortion pill regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol—through the United States Postal Service, express companies, common carriers, and interactive computer services.
President Donald Trump made clear during his campaign that he wanted little to do with Project 2025, the sweeping and controversial conservative policy blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation. But just days into his second term, many of Trump’s early actions align with the Project 2025 agenda. An analysis by TIME found that nearly two-thirds of the executive actions Trump has issued so far mirror or partially mirror proposals from the 900-page document, ranging from sweeping deregulation measures to aggressive immigration reform. Democrats had seized on Trump’s connection to Project 2025 during the campaign, pointing out that many of the playbook’s contributors previously worked for Trump or had connections to his orbit.
He’s talking about taking over Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory and Denmark is our long time ally. He doesn’t give a damn. He will do it whether they like it or not just to prove his shriveled manhood is still working. He is drunk with power and out of his mind. Donald Trump had a fiery phone call with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen over his demands to buy Greenland, according to senior European officials. Speaking to the Financial Times, officials said that Trump, then still president-elect, spoke with Frederiksen for 45 minutes last week, during which he was described to be aggressive and confrontational about Frederiksen’s refusal to sell Greenland to the US. The Financial Times reports that according to five current and former senior European officials who were briefed on the call, the conversation “was horrendous”. One person said: “He was very firm. It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious and potentially very dangerous.” Another person who was briefed on the call told the outlet: “The intent was very clear. They want it.
In Trump 2.0, suffering is a directive Digby covered this guy on Wednesday, but Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, merits (I use that term loosely) more time in disinfecting sunshine. Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, has a lot of federal employees living in his state. People with families, Americans trying to do a good job and make ends meet. Kaine questioned Vought, an architect of Project 2025, about his authorship of a budget proposal titled “A Commitment to End Woke and Weaponized Government” that Vought produced for the Center for Renewing America where Vought was its president. Vought, an avowed Christian nationalist, proposed deep cuts to the SNAP program (food stamps) and Medicaid. Quoting from the Bible, Kaine had questions for Vought about that and about what programs he considers “woke” during his Senate confirmation hearing. Hafiz Rashid writes at The New Republic: “Is providing nutrition assistance to low-income kids ‘woke and weaponized’?
Mike Pompeo was one of Trump’s most aggressive loyalists during his tenure in the first term. Now he’s on the hit list. No good deed goes unpunished: President Trump revoked security protection for his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and a former top aide, Brian Hook, despite warnings from the Biden administration that both men faced ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Mr. Trump’s behalf, four people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook had been part of an aggressive posture against Iran during the first Trump presidency, most notably the drone strike that killed the powerful Iranian general Qassim Suleimani in early 2020. Mr. Trump also remains under threat because of that action, and his advisers have regularly stressed the seriousness of the situation in the years between his two terms in office. Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook had their security details, which were believed to be provided by the State Department, pulled on Tuesday, one of the people briefed on the matter said. A day before, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. Secret Service detail of John R. Bolton, who was Mr.
So far the Democrats are all over the place but there are a few who have found their voices. I wrote about Chris Murphy’s excellent twitter videos the other day. But no one does it like AOC. The following is from Evan Hurst at Wonkette: This week AOC, as she is known in the world of initials, hopped on Insta Live, and it sounds like she’s going to do it every week in this new era, maybe more. We watched every bit of it, and we think it may be our first weekly assignment of the era of Stupid Hitler, to help keep us connected, to keep us focused, and to keep us sane. This is part of what she said: This is the United States of America. And I don’t care what Elon Musk is doing behind a presidential seal. In this country, we hate Nazis. Kind of like a foundational, defining thing. Two of probably the most foundational, defining things about American history is that we beat the Confederates and we beat the Nazis. And I don’t know what side people may be on today, but I still am not rocking with anyone sympathetic to Nazis. And I will do that until I am six feet in the ground. Like, kind of foundational to me as a human being.
And get a whole lot louder in the right spaces It’s going to be a long several years until the nation collapses. Or Trump does and VP Elegy takes over. Or the world somehow survives. A couple of posts to flag. Rude Pundit (Lee Papa) notes that hardcore MAGA types are beyond reaching. “Most,” anyway. Democrats trying to placate them, policy-wise, will win no points with them. Democrats need to do they best they can policy-wise to pursue their own agenda without compromising in the mistaken belief it will help their electoral prospects in Trump country. They cannot oppose Trump by trying to play nice with him and prove they are the adults in the room. It only makes the weak appear weaker. Nobody wants to vote for that. And even if they do, they won’t turn out to vote for that. Will Stancil has sharper words on pushing back visibly. For all their experience, the Democrats’ gerontocracy is bringing 20th-century knives to a 21st-century gun fight. Too many learned politics in the 1980s. Even if they could learn new tricks, they’re not the ones to bring it now. The Trump-oligarch alliance is not your grandfather’s country-club Republican Party.
As I have been saying for months, now that Trump has received (in his mind) vindication and restoration — and stayed out of jail — there are only two things he really wants: vengeance and money. Nothing else interests him. I think it’s clear he plans to leave office a vastly wealthier man than he enters it. He’s well on his way. And then there’s this from Axios. Did they think he was joking? By the way, the revenge tour is not just aimed at DC politicians. He is seeking revenge in various ways against all of blue America. None of us are exempt.
Mike Johnson is an extreme Bible thumping super-Christian who talks about it at every opportunity. When he was first elected speaker he said this: During an interview Thursday evening with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Johnson said he has been asked by members of the media for his positions on myriad issues. In response, he has told them to turn to Scripture to truly understand his perspective on the matters of the day. “Someone asked me today in the media, they said, ‘It’s curious, people are curious: what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’” he explained. “I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it — that’s my worldview.’ That’s what I believe, and so I make no apologies for it.” Maybe he hasn’t gotten to the Jesus part yet. If he had, what Budde said would have been very familiar.