Trump’s brags about drug prices are “mathematically impossible”
Washington, DC. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Donald Trump claimed to be planning a massive reduction in drug costs for Americans, but critics were quick to point out his numbers don’t add up.
In a reception with members of Congress on Tuesday, Trump spoke about lowering drug prices for Americans at a time when cuts to programs like Medicaid are on the horizon.
In doing so, Trump promised some truly staggering figures.
“We will have reduced drug prices by 1000%, by 1,100%, 1,200%, 1,300%, 1,400%, 700%, 600%. Not 30% or 40% or 50%. But numbers likes of which you’ve never even dreamed of.”
“We’re gonna get the drug prices down,” Trump said. “Not 30% or 40%, which would be great. Not 50% or 60%. No, we’re gonna get them down 1,000%, 600%, 500%, 1,500%. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable.”
Trump’s comments left social media users scratching their heads. Users asked X’s AI chatbot Grok about Trump’s claims. Grok variously called them “mathematically impossible,” “hyperbolic,” and in one case, “total BS.”
Several accounts pointed to the impossibility of “negative numbers” for drug prices, along with the idea of “getting paid to take drugs.”
One user put it more bluntly: “Cant wait fill my next zpack at cvs and leave with a stack of their money”
Trump claimed that an executive order signed in May would pave the way for reduced drug costs by invoking “most-favored nation” status on drug prices. In theory, pharmaceutical companies could not charge Americans anymore for drugs than they were charging citizens in other countries.
However, talks between the Trump administration and pharmaceutical companies have been ongoing, with one executive calling them “inconclusive” by according to Bio Pharma Dive.
In his first administration, Trump touted a war on drug prices in the wake of COVID-19, but failed to deliver on price reductions, with members of his own party referring to the idea as “socialist price controls.”
The post Trump’s brags about drug prices are “mathematically impossible” appeared first on Salon.com.
Yes, Trump is not very smart when it comes to math clearly. With that said, if he can bring the price of prescriptions down, it would be a good thing and I'm not going to poke fun at that.
Of course, like all things it will be better if he did it instead of talked about it.
Last edited by mgh888; 07/24/2511:52 AM.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
I'm all for it myself. But it's hard for me to resist pointing out that someone that calls himself "a very stable genius" has no concept of how percentages work. But that's usually how things play out when someone feels the need to brag on themselves.
I doubt it ever happens because you will always have the..........
Quote
members of his own party referring to the idea as “socialist price controls.”
You know how that works. We see it on this very board. Anything that helps all Americans ends up being labeled socialist and evil somehow. One even labels such things treasonous.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
White House Slams ‘South Park’ Episode That Skewers Trump And Paramount Amid $1.5 Billion Streaming Deal, Skydance Merger ByConor Murray, Forbes Staff. Murray is a Forbes news reporter covering entertainment trends.
The White House slammed the “fourth-rate” Wednesday night season premiere episode of “South Park,” which took jabs at President Donald Trump and Paramount amid the company’s merger with Skydance, skewering the company over Stephen Colbert’s cancellation and Trump’s Jeffrey Epstein ties.
KEY FACTS
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told multiple outlets the show “hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention,” accusing the left of “hypocrisy” for previously criticizing “‘South Park’ for what they labeled as ‘offense’ content, but suddenly they are praising the show.”
In the season 27 premiere of “South Park,” writer-producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone skewer Trump for using lawsuits to silence opponents, depicting the president suing the entire fictional town of South Park after residents oppose the government’s plan to push Christianity in schools.
The episode depicts Jesus Christ visiting South Park, which he says he had to do because of the “lawsuit and an agreement with Paramount”—an apparent reference to Trump’s now-settled lawsuit against the company—as Jesus asks the townspeople, “Do you really want to end up like Colbert?” referencing the late-night show’s cancellation.
In multiple scenes from the episode, the cartoon Trump jumps in bed with Satan, who is depicted as his lover and in one scene rebuffs Trump, telling him someone commented on his Instagram that Trump is “on the Epstein list.”
“The Epstein list? Are we still talking about that?” the cartoon Trump responds, telling Satan to “relax”—a jab at Trump amid a firestorm of controversy, which has even riled members of his own base, over the Justice Department’s refusal to release more documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, which reportedly include Trump’s name.
The episode knocks Trump multiple times by depicting him with comedically small genitals, which frustrates Satan and enrages Trump when a portrait artist paints him with small genitals.
The episode concludes on a faux Trump public service announcement—an apparent knock at CBS and Paramount, whom Trump claimed will give him airtime for PSAs as part of a settlement—in which a lifelike, apparently AI-generated Trump wanders the desert nude as a voiceover says his genitals are “teeny tiny, but his love for us is large.”
WHY IS THERE TENSION BETWEEN “SOUTH PARK” AND PARAMOUNT?
The new “South Park” episode arrives less than 48 hours after Paramount and the show’s creators signed a deal reportedly worth $1.5 billion, under which Parker and Stone’s Park County company will produce 50 episodes over five years, while the entire series will stream on Paramount+. “South Park” was previously available to stream on HBO Max until the series’ deal with the streaming service lapsed in June. The deal followed tense negotiations in which Park County’s lawyers accused Jeff Shell, a former NBCUniversal executive who is set to become Paramount’s president if its merger with Skydance completes, of interfering with Park County’s negotiations with other potential buyers including Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery. Parker and Stone lashed out at Paramount in a statement on X earlier this month after the season 27 premiere was pushed back by two weeks. “This merger is a sh—tshow and it’s f—ing up ‘South Park.’ We are at the studio working on new episodes and we hope the fans get to see them somehow,” the creators said.
WHAT IS INCLUDED IN TRUMP’S SETTLEMENT WITH PARAMOUNT?
The “South Park” episode appeared to knock both Trump and Paramount, who earlier this month reached a settlement following Trump’s lawsuit against the company for allegedly modifying an interview with his former presidential opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris. The lawsuit was settled as Paramount seeks approval from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission to approve the merger. As part of the $16 million settlement, Trump claimed in a post on Truth Social he will receive “$20 Million Dollars more from the new Owners, in Advertising, PSAs, or similar Programming.” In the “South Park” episode, the concluding satirical Trump advertisement is introduced as “Pro-Trump PSA, 1 of 50.”
TANGENT
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday Attorney General Pam Bondi previously told Trump at a meeting his name is included among many in files the Justice Department reviewed concerning Jeffrey Epstein. The White House claimed the report is a “fake news story.”
Exclusive: ‘A more vulnerable nation’: FEMA memos lay out risks of plan to cut $1B in disaster and security grants
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has proposed cutting nearly $1 billion in grant funding that communities and first responders nationwide use to better prepare for disasters and to bolster security for possible terror or cyberattacks.
The proposed cuts, which still require approval from the White House budget office and Congress, would zero out funding for more than half of FEMA’s emergency management and homeland security grant programs, according to internal memos and two FEMA officials familiar with the plans.
This comes amid an overhaul of the disaster relief agency at the hands of the Trump administration, which seeks to drastically shrink FEMA’s footprint and shift more responsibility for disaster preparedness, response and recovery onto states. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, has looked at slashing grant funding as part of that effort.
In one memo signed by acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson, the cuts are described as a way to “focus on appropriate spending for the Agency’s core mission in emergency management.”
But the memos – signed by Richardson and approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem – also acknowledge in stark terms the potential risks of eliminating the programs.
The loss of one program that helps communities plan and train for disasters would “leave state and local governments more vulnerable to catastrophic incidents,” one memo states. Ending another that bolsters transportation infrastructure and terrorism protections would “contradict the administration’s commitment to a safer and more secure country,” the memo says.
Terminating the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) – the largest FEMA program on the chopping block, providing more than $500 million to prepare major cities for catastrophic emergencies – would create “a less secure nation, especially at the border and in some of the nation’s most targeted cities, including Miami, Washington DC, and Dallas,” the memo states.
The agency also plans to eliminate funding for the Next Generation Warning System initiative, which is designed to modernize and improve the nation’s public alert and warning capabilities for severe storms and other emergencies, after pausing the program earlier this year.
According to the memo, FEMA staff had suggested that instead of terminating the program, the money could be allocated “to high-risk flooding areas including Texas and New Mexico.” But Richardson signed off on eliminating it earlier this month.
Among the other impacts from the potential cuts, as outlined by FEMA, would be “undertrained firefighters,” “poor wildfire readiness,” more risk at “120 critical United States ports” and less homeland security training for cities hosting World Cup games. Axing another program “could increase the risk of terror attacks on passenger rail,” the memo says, and cutting off a violence and terrorism prevention program “results in a more vulnerable nation.”
DHS said the memos referenced in this story are “cherry-picked,” but acknowledged the department is looking to cut “unaccountable programs.”
“Secretary Noem and this Administration are focused on ending waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government - and FEMA is no exception,” a DHS spokesman said in a statement to CNN. “For years, taxpayer dollars have flowed to bloated grants, political pet projects, and groups with questionable ties. That ends now.”
This comes after FEMA shut down the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, halting more than $600 million intended to help communities prepare for natural disasters, prompting 20 states to sue the agency.
Due to the ongoing litigation, the memos state, FEMA will address the future of the BRIC program at a later date.
The cuts to disaster and security grants could have wide-ranging consequences for communities that depend on these funds. The National League of Cities, an advocacy group representing cities, towns and villages across the US, “strongly opposes” the proposed cuts, according to a statement provided to CNN by a spokesperson.
“Reducing or eliminating these programs would severely undermine the preparedness of our first responders and compromise the ability of local governments to effectively ensure the core capabilities necessary for prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery efforts,” the NLC spokesperson wrote.
FEMA’S deadline to get funds out the door
Congress allocated a total of more than $4 billion this fiscal year for FEMA to support these national preparedness programs, which state and local governments, emergency management agencies, and fire and police departments depend on for essential staffing, equipment, and training.
But in recent months, the disaster relief agency, at the direction of DHS, has largely halted the selection of new grant recipients so it could review the programs.
That has left emergency managers across the country waiting for FEMA to issue Notices of Funding Opportunities, or NOFOs, which allow local jurisdictions and organizations to apply for grants and are now more than two months behind schedule.
“We’ve been ghosted by FEMA,” a North Carolina official recently told CNN, expressing frustration over the lack of guidance on whether states can expect funding in the coming months.
Now federal and state emergency managers are increasingly concerned that large portions of this year’s funds will go unspent, as the funding streams expire unless allocated by the end of September.
FEMA chief grilled on funding concerns
At a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Richardson told concerned lawmakers, “We’re getting the NOFOs out the door as we speak.” The acting FEMA chief did not mention the looming cuts he had authorized in the memo he signed days before the hearing, though he criticized the agency’s grant programs.
“A lot of the grants sound good, and then you dig into them, and they’re not so good,” Richardson said, citing resilience projects “used for things like bike paths and shade at bus stops.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat, pressed Richardson about the status of UASI funding, emphasizing its importance for protecting Las Vegas from potential terror threats.
Richardson responded: “What I can commit to is that we’ve been doing due diligence on all of the grants.” He did not mention the program’s potential termination.
Responding to CNN’s new reporting Thursday, Titus said the plan to cut UASI is “deeply irresponsible and endangers our public safety.”
“These grants played a significant role in the response to the Harvest Festival shootings and are critical to protecting the public in all major cities and at big events such as the Super Bowl, Formula One races, and golf tournaments,” Titus said in a statement to CNN.
“I implore Secretary Noem to administer these public safety grants as Congress directed and ensure that our first responders and emergency personnel have the tools they need to address future threats in our communities.”
14 GOP Senators Urge Trump Administration To Release NIH Research Funds
A group of 14 Republican senators on Friday pressed the Trump administration to disburse critical research funding for the National Institutes of Health that Congress approved earlier this year aimed at tackling cancer, cardiovascular disease and rare pediatric disorders.
“We are concerned by the slow disbursement rate of FY25 NIH funds, as it risks undermining critical research and the thousands of American jobs it supports," the senators wrote in a letter to the White House. "Suspension of these appropriated funds — whether formally withheld or functionally delayed — could threaten Americans’ ability to access better treatments and limit our nation’s leadership in biomedical science."
The letter was authored by Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, where colleges stand to lose tens of millions of dollars in research funding as a result of the freeze. Several other notable Trump allies signed on, including Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott of South Carolina, Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, and John Boozman of Arkansas.
FEMA to send states $608 million to build migrant detention centers
FEMA is starting a “detention support grant program” to cover the cost of states building temporary facilities, according to an agency announcement.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to send $608 million to states to construct immigrant detention centers as part of the Trump administration’s push to expand capacity to hold migrants.
FEMA is starting a “detention support grant program” to cover the cost of states building temporary facilities, according to an agency announcement. States have until August 8 to apply for the funds, according to the post.
The Trump administration has been encouraging states to build their own facilities to detain migrants. This program provides a way for the administration to help states pay for it.
The funds will be distributed by FEMA in partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to the post.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said on Friday morning that the state would apply for FEMA reimbursement to pay for its new immigrant detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” DHS officials said this summer the facility will cost an estimated $450 million annually.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said DHS will tap FEMA’s $650-million shelter and services program to fund Florida’s facility. Congress during the Biden administration directed DHS to distribute the money to state and local governments to cover the cost of sheltering migrants. Nonprofits were also eligible. The funding stream was separate from money Congress set aside for FEMA to cover disaster relief.
FEMA declined to answer a question from Reuters about whether Florida would receive money from the detention fund.
Trump’s trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family’s business
EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — Lashed by cold winds and overlooking choppy, steel-gray North Sea waters, the breathtaking sand dunes of Scotland’s northeastern coast rank among Donald Trump’s favorite spots on earth.
“At some point, maybe in my very old age, I’ll go there and do the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen,” Trump said in 2023, during his New York civil fraud trial, talking about his plans for future developments on his property in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire.
At 79 and back in the White House, Trump is making at least part of that pledge a reality, landing in Scotland on Friday as his family’s business prepares for the Aug. 13 opening of a new golf course bearing his name.
Trump will be in Scotland until Tuesday, and plans to talk trade with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The Aberdeen area is already home to another of his courses, Trump International Scotland, and the Republican president is also visiting a Trump course near Turnberry, around 200 miles (320 kilometers) away on Scotland’s southwest coast. Trump said upon arrival on Friday evening that his son is “gonna cut a ribbon” for the new course during his trip. Eric Trump also went with his father to break ground on the project back in 2023.
Using a presidential overseas trip — with its sprawling entourage of advisers, White House and support staffers, Secret Service agents and reporters — to help show off Trump-brand golf destinations demonstrates how the president has become increasingly comfortable intermingling his governing pursuits with promoting his family’s business interests.
The White House has brushed off questions about potential conflicts of interest, arguing that Trump’s business success before he entered politics was a key to his appeal with voters.
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the Scotland swing a “working trip.” But she added Trump “has built the best and most beautiful world-class golf courses anywhere in the world, which is why they continue to be used for prestigious tournaments and by the most elite players in the sport.”
Trump family’s new golf course has tee times for sale
Trump went to Scotland to play his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018 while en route to a meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But this trip comes as the new golf course is already actively selling tee times.
“We’re at a point where the Trump administration is so intertwined with the Trump business that he doesn’t seem to see much of a difference,” said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It’s as if the White House were almost an arm of the Trump Organization.”
During his first term, the Trump Organization signed an ethics pact barring deals with foreign companies. An ethics frameworks for Trump’s second term allows them.
Trump’s assets are in a trust run by his children, who are also handling day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization while he’s in the White House. The company has inked many recent, lucrative foreign agreements involving golf courses, including plans to build luxury developments in Qatar and Vietnam, even as the administration negotiates tariff rates for those countries and around the globe.
Trump’s first Aberdeen course sparked legal battles
Trump’s existing Aberdeenshire course, meanwhile, has a history nearly as rocky as the area’s cliffs.
It has struggled to turn a profit and was found by Scottish conservation authorities to have partially destroyed nearby sand dunes. Trump’s company also was ordered to cover the Scottish government’s legal costs after the course unsuccessfully sued over the construction of a nearby wind farm, arguing in part that it hurt golfers’ views.
And the development was part of the massive civil case, which accused Trump of inflating his wealth to secure loans and make business deals.
Trump’s company’s initial plans for his first Aberdeen-area course called for a luxury hotel and nearby housing. His company received permission to build 500 houses, but Trump suggested he’d be allowed to build five times as many and borrowed against their values without actually building any homes, the lawsuit alleged.
Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable last year and ordered his company to pay $355 million in fines — a judgment that has grown with interest to more than $510 million as Trump appeals. Golfers-in-chief
Family financial interests aside, Trump isn’t the first sitting U.S. president to golf in Scotland. That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played in Turnberry in 1959. George W. Bush visited the famed course at Gleneagles in 2005 but didn’t play.
Many historians trace golf back to Scotland in the Middle Ages. Among the earliest known references to game was a Scottish Parliament resolution in 1457 that tried to ban it, along with soccer, because of fears both were distracting men from practicing archery — then considered vital to national defense.
The first U.S. president to golf regularly was William Howard Taft, who served from 1909 to 1913 and ignored warnings from his predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, that playing too much would make it seem like he wasn’t working hard enough.
Woodrow Wilson played nearly every day but Sundays, and even had the Secret Service paint his golf balls red so he could practice in the snow, said Mike Trostel, director of the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Warren G. Harding trained his dog Laddie Boy to fetch golf balls while he practiced. Lyndon B. Johnson’s swing was sometimes described as looking like a man trying to kill a rattlesnake.
Bill Clinton, who liked to joke that he was the only president whose game improved while in office, restored a putting green on the White House’s South Lawn. It was originally installed by Eisenhower, who was such an avid user that he left cleat marks in the wooden floors of the Oval Office by the door leading out to it.
Bush stopped golfing after the start of the Iraq war in 2003 because of the optics. Barack Obama had a golf simulator installed in the White House that Trump upgraded during his first term, Trostel said.
John F. Kennedy largely hid his love of the game as president, but he played on Harvard’s golf team and nearly made a hole-in-one at California’s renowned Cypress Point Golf Club just before the 1960 Democratic National Convention.
“I’d say, between President Trump and President John F. Kennedy, those are two of the most skilled golfers we’ve had in the White House,” Trostel said.
Trump, Trostel said, has a handicap index — how many strokes above par a golfer is likely to score — of a very strong 2.5, though he’s not posted an official round with the U.S. Golf Association since 2021. That’s better than Joe Biden’s handicap of 6.7, which also might be outdated, and Obama, who once described his own handicap as an “honest 13.”
The White House described Trump as a championship-level golfer but said he plays with no handicap.
We see such things as concerts tours, soccer teams and other commercial enterprises being "sponsored by". But this is the first time I recall something like this......
Trump's Scottish Golf courses. Sponsored in part by American tax payers.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
U.S. drilling rigs down for 12th time in 13 weeks, Baker Hughes says
The number of total oil and gas drilling rigs in the U.S. fell by 2 to 542, resuming their decline after last week's gain followed 11 consecutive weekly declines, Baker Hughes reported Friday in its latest survey.
Oil rigs dropped 7 to 415 this week, the lowest count since September 2021, while gas rigs added 5 to 122, their highest since August 2023, and the total rig count was down 47 rigs, or 8% below this time last year.
In Texas, the total rig count fell by 4 to 249, the lowest since October 2021; the total rig count in the Permian Basin - which also includes eastern New Mexico - fell by 3 to 260, the lowest since September 2021, and rigs in the Eagle Ford shale in south Texas shed 2 to 39, the lowest since October 2021.
It's quite remarkable how he routinely ventures to the four corners of the internet to find these things.
LOL - wasn't sure to put this in the political jokes thread - but since you've been spamming this thread and the Gabbard thread with these funny posts "from the four corners of the internet" I thought here would do.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
This is great news!!! Huge victory for the US and our economy.
There has not been any fact sheet sent out that I saw from the White House yet-but it isn't all good.
The EU is one of our largest trading partners-last year our imports had a 1.2% tariff-When this deal goes through, the tariffs on imports will be about 17.5%-Another tax on the American consumer.
And with the exports increasing the foreign sales of energy-I assume that he is mostly talking about LNG-With the deals made with Japan and the EU-Trump has already announced about 145% of our yearly LNG exports are already spoken for in (2) trade deals-Another thing that is great for the businesses that export-but not good for the consumer-With the requirements of AI and the infrastructure required to power the AI plants and data centers-the cost of natural gas in the US and then the cost of electricity is going to greatly increase-and probably rather quickly
But they love trump's self imposed tariff tax! But they won't admit that's exactly what it is. What it boils down to is he claims he's hurting other countries by inflicting it on us to pay more. It must be that new math everyone keeps talking about.
Somebody better start growing bananas, coffee and a lot of olives real soon. As of now we already import almost half of our fruits and vegetables. And also America grows about 5% of it's olive consumption. And some people pretend that toy and sock factories are going to just spring up everywhere! And that even if they do families struggling from paycheck to paycheck will be able to afford it.
But isn't that the way it works? They claim people working low level, low paying job shouldn't be paid more while trump purposefully sets out to raise prices on those very same people.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
OMG Trump cheats at Golf !! LMAO. I think everyone who knows ANYTHING about Trump including the MAGA crowd would probably say they would expect that.... and then they would go on to defend that somehow by claiming it's coz he trying so so so hard.
What a giant douche canoe.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
The issue for me is they claim it's liberals that "need video evidence". When they'll argue with you like a bull in a China shop if you don't provide video evidence to them. Even then sometimes they'll defend it or as per usual around here, ignore it. Then one of them even made the foolish claim that he address topics with substance. While he has avoided them like the plague. Sometimes that presents quite the conundrum. Should I laugh at them or have pity for them? Getting angry about it is a waste of time and energy. I outgrew that long ago.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
OMG Trump cheats at Golf !! LMAO. I think everyone who knows ANYTHING about Trump including the MAGA crowd would probably say they would expect that.... and then they would go on to defend that somehow by claiming it's coz he trying so so so hard.
What a giant douche canoe.
It's been reported that caddies at his golf resorts nicknamed him 'Pele' because of how often he was caught kicking his golf ball for a better lie.
OMG Trump cheats at Golf !! LMAO. I think everyone who knows ANYTHING about Trump including the MAGA crowd would probably say they would expect that.... and then they would go on to defend that somehow by claiming it's coz he trying so so so hard.
What a giant douche canoe.
It's been reported that caddies at his golf resorts nicknamed him 'Pele' because of how often he was caught kicking his golf ball for a better lie.
lmao
The GOAT!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
Donald Trump’s Latest Boast Breaks Math Brains Across The Internet
Donald Trump’s math on cutting drug prices didn’t add up. Again.
The president this weekend repeated his promise to get pharma companies to lower the cost of medications for Americans, who often have to pay much more for certain drugs than people abroad.
But the actual amount of the “tremendous drop” in cost that Trump boasted about had critics scratching their heads.
“You know, we’ve cut drug prices by 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, 1,500%,” Trump said.
“I don’t mean 50%. I mean 14, 1,500%,” he added.
But as many on social media pointed out, that would mean all drugs are free and people actually get paid to receive them.
Also, drug prices haven’t actually come down, despite Trump’s pressure on pharmaceutical companies. Trump appeared to acknowledge that when he later said, “We’ll be dropping drug prices ... by 1,200, 1,300 and even 1,400% and 500% but not just 50% or 25%, which normally would be a lot because the rest of the world pays much less for the identical drug.”
Reality is “eroding before our eyes,” said one critic. Others agreed.
I'm not sure what's so hard to grasp. All he's saying is that once he's gotten the deal done, we'll be paid to use these medications...
FREE MEDS.... Yeah President Trump!
Only a gullible idiot would believe anything this guy says.
I agree you can't reduce any price over 100%, at least from a retail standpoint.
The numbers he quoted are probably based on a difference between what we pay and what other countries pay. We very well could be paying 1200% more than someone else. I know I have seen charts showing what we pay for drugs over what other countries pay.
I haven't seen the whole clip so I don't know if that was explained to provide a context to a tarmac quick interview.
No matter, smart people use their brains to figure out what was said rather than just take a comment in a quick interview and just run with that, calling out the President for being a fool followed by fools.
Who's the fool?
JMO
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
Throwing this out there. I just want to point out that all the commentary included in this article is from Republicans, so this isn't a "Lib City" thing
Republicans fear Trump tariffs are cutting into economy
Republicans on Capitol Hill are feeling jittery about the economy after the latest jobs report showed the economy added far fewer jobs than previously estimated over the past three months.
President Trump and his economic team insist that the economy is going strong and poised for significant growth, but their bullish projections are meeting skepticism from some in the GOP who worry Trump’s trade regime is creating economic headwinds.
“It definitely is indicative of a weakened economy, an economy that’s not acting in a robust fashion. I’ve all along felt like there’s a lag between tariffs and actual economic downturn,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Trump announced a new round of tariffs, including steep tariff increases on Canada and Brazil, the same day the jobs report was released.
Paul argued the impact of tariffs are often delayed because companies usually sign contracts to set the prices of imports months in advance.
Once those contracts expire, the higher prices of imported raw materials or finished goods are then reflected in the next round of business agreements, he said.
“I’ve had retailers telling me that they think their prices will have to change in the fall. As their initial contracts change, their input price is higher [and] goods will go higher, too,” he said.
“I think it is worrisome and I do worry that the news has been relatively benign on tariffs so far,” Paul said. “The proof is really in the next couple months.
“I think there’s more to come. I don’t think we’ve seen the full impact of tariffs,” he said.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) warned that Trump’s fluctuating tariff rates are increasing costs for consumers and creating uncertainty among businesses and employers.
“My view is that there’s no question that consumers, Americans, pay a price for tariffs. It increases the price of the goods coming into the United States. The question is, ‘Is there a reason that tariffs in a temporary way can solve trade barriers that have been artificially created against our products going somewhere else?’” he said.
The Kansas senator said Trump’s tariffs could have “a beneficial outcome” if they can get other countries to open their markets to U.S. goods but cautioned “there’s no question tariffs are a tax on the cost of a product, a good.”
“A tax raises the cost of living for everybody,” he said.
Asked about the impact on job creators, Moran replied: “I know enough to know that certainty matters and at the moment there’s not very much certainty about what’s happening next.”
“Therefore, businesses delay decisions to expand, to hire, to spend money. So uncertainty creates a challenge for a growing economy,” he warned.
A third Republican senator who requested anonymity said Friday’s weak jobs report creates a significant political problem for Trump and Republicans in Congress.
“I don’t think that the administration can ignore them,” the senator said of the jobs report.
“You have to see that connection, that link” between the disappointing jobs report and Trump’s tariff policies, the senator said.
“I don’t think spinning it is good enough,” the source added.
The president responded to the negative jobs report by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Erika McEntarfer. The report revised down the number of jobs gained in May and June by 258,000.
But that move is also getting a skeptical response form some Republicans.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) warned that the shake-up at the data-reporting agency could undermine confidence in future economic data.
“The numbers are what the numbers are,” Tillis said. “If we get to a point to where BLS [and] all these organizations that are considered to be the gold standard for data, if we start undermining them or people start losing their jobs because we don’t like the result, that’s a big boo-boo.”
“There are a lot of government-reporting agencies that are like the gold standard for financial markets,” he said, warning “there better just be very clear evidence” of misconduct to support McEntarfer’s termination.
“If they don’t” provide that evidence, “I think they’re making a huge mistake,” he said.
Several major U.S. employers have reported substantial business losses in recent weeks.
Ford Motor reported last week a net loss of $36 million from April through June, compared with a profit of $1.8 billion a year ago. The automotive giant projects tariffs will cost it $2 billion this year alone.
Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway on Saturday reported that its earnings dropped by 4 percent compared with a year ago, in part because of tariffs.
The company warned in its second-quarter earnings report that the “adverse consequences” of international trade policies and tariffs “could significantly affect our future results.”
United Parcel Services’s stock dropped last week after it reported weaker-than-expected earnings. The company said it would no longer provide forward guidance on revenues and profits, citing the lack of certainty in the economic outlook for the rest of this year.
Appliance maker Whirlpool also announced disappointing second-quarter earnings and said it would lower its quarterly dividend payout.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have said for months that they could support tariffs for a short period of time to put pressure on foreign trading partners to negotiate better deals for U.S. exporters but warned against putting long-term tariffs in place.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) warned in April that “high tariffs in perpetuity” would be bad for the economy.
“I am not a fan of tariffs,” Cruz told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow at the time.
“My hope is these tariffs are short-lived and they serve as leverage to lower tariffs across the globe,” he said.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett dampened Republican hopes that high tariff rates would be transient when he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that many rates are already locked in
Asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker if Trump would change tariff rates if the financial markets dive, Hassett said: “I would rule it out because these are final deals.”
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
I'm not sure what's so hard to grasp. All he's saying is that once he's gotten the deal done, we'll be paid to use these medications...
FREE MEDS.... Yeah President Trump!
Only a gullible idiot would believe anything this guy says.
I agree you can't reduce any price over 100%, at least from a retail standpoint.
The numbers he quoted are probably based on a difference between what we pay and what other countries pay. We very well could be paying 1200% more than someone else. I know I have seen charts showing what we pay for drugs over what other countries pay.
I haven't seen the whole clip so I don't know if that was explained to provide a context to a tarmac quick interview.
No matter, smart people use their brains to figure out what was said rather than just take a comment in a quick interview and just run with that, calling out the President for being a fool followed by fools.
Who's the fool?
JMO
You need help man,.,,All you do is give cover to a man that lies constantly. This is a pile of BS.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
Are food prices down? Did he keep his hands off medicaid? Is the Ukraine war sorted? Did doge save us two trillion? Has he made any REAL trade deals? Dude is a mental midget in way over his addled head. Only promise he’s attempted to keep is mass deportation, but he promised only hard criminals. Nope, he is just cruel to keep the base bigots happy.
Again, he is talking in reference to the prices the drug companies and charging our country compared to other countries. The clip presented cut off when he started to talk about favored nation status.
I am sorry some of you don't understand or do understand but simply want to push a BS narrative.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
Again, he is talking in reference to the prices the drug companies and charging our country compared to other countries. The clip presented cut off when he started to talk about favored nation status.
I am sorry some of you don't understand or do understand but simply want to push a BS narrative.
Sorry Peen - but you are incorrect.
For 1 - the USA pays MORE for it's meidication/drugs than other industrialized/western/1st world nations. Period.
For 2 - I think it might be Mexico and some other country ruled by drug cartles where the cost of pharmacuticals is higher. 2A - do you want to compare the US to Mexico and another drug cartel run country? 2B - even if you comp the USA prices to the very worst of the other 3rd world countries the price **might** be 100% higher/lower depending in which direction you are doing the math. There isn't a 1500% saving to be found. It is not possible.
Here's a challenge for you, instead of trying to justify Trumps mental math incompetance with "maybe's" or "the clip cut short" - find one example, anywhere on the planet for any pharmacutical drug where the cost to the USA consumer/patient can be considered 1500% lower. I guess this is a challange I know you will avoid because it can't be done. Maybe you can dismiss it with a claim that posters don't post anything of substance while you yourself make claims that ware wholly and completely unsubstaniated AND not accurate when examined even in a little detail.
Last edited by mgh888; 08/06/2509:42 AM.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
And typical replies. It makes no sense to even try to post in a reasonable manner in this place.
Correct. You are wasting your time.
More than a little ironic given your spamming the board with conspiracy theories that date back 8 years and that have been debunked by Republicans. AND this nonsense waffle without any substance that Trump was right when he talked such poop about drug prices. I mean - we all know Trump has verbal Diarrhea and talks crap many times when he goes off script and free wheels. Just admit this was one such occaision... it's better than trying to say he was right. That simple smacks of how badly someone has been brainwashed.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
And typical replies. It makes no sense to even try to post in a reasonable manner in this place.
Correct. You are wasting your time.
Thank you so much to your valuable contribution to the content of the thread. As per usual these days. So for you as well as Peen let's just recap why people may be skeptical of your excuses pertaining to his 1400, 1500% comment.
First, he directly compared 50% to those numbers. I mean Peen liked to add what he said after that while ignoring the complete context of the sentence itself. This is exactly what he said.......... "Well, one of the things they're going to be talking about pretty soon are the tremendous drop in drug prices. You know, we've cut drug prices by 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, 1,500 percent. I don't mean 50 percent. I mean 14-, 1,500 percent," the president said.
That is the totality of his sentence. He compared 50% to 1500%. He had every opportunity to say "Not 50% but 70, 80 and by as much as 90%." But he either made the choice to be deceptive or isnt smart enough to understand what he was saying. Your choice.
This is the same man that thinks there in a country in Africa named Nambia. The same man that proclaimed the British had airports during the Revolutionary War. Trump, after saying “I know South Korea better than anybody,” declared that Seoul had a population of 38 million, overshooting the correct answer by 28 million. The list goes on and on.
Anything reasonable in reply? You know, about the topic and not a direct slam at the poster?
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Weather Service is now hiring back hundreds of positions that got cut in the DOGE chaos
The National Weather Service has received permission to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians just months after being hit hard by Department of Government Efficiency-related cuts and early retirement incentives.
The new hiring number includes 126 new positions that were previously approved and will apply to “front-line mission critical” personnel, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official told CNN.
The NWS cuts have spurred concerns over how well-prepared the country is to withstand hurricane season, which is just starting to heat up in the Atlantic. The staff reductions also have been scrutinized in the wake of the deadly Texas floods in July, with vacancies at weather service forecast offices there.
The cuts to probationary employees, as well as early retirement incentives, meant the nation’s front-line weather forecasting agency’s staffing levels fell by more than 550 people since the second Trump administration began, to below 4,000 total employees.
CNN has reached out to NOAA for comment.
Agency employees are greeting the news, unveiled at an all hands meeting on Monday, with guarded optimism and relief. Current employees have been working additional hours with additional responsibilities since the layoffs and retirements earlier this year, trying to maintain the 24/7 posture US extreme weather requires. The agency has also been functioning with less data from fewer, less frequent weather balloon launches.
The announcement was also met with frustration over the people the agency lost in the failed attempt at government savings.
“How much time/money is it going to cost to train a bunch of new people when we had already-trained people in place?” asked another NOAA official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. It is possible that some of the new hires will have been previously trained employees who were let go in the DOGE cuts.
The first NOAA official said there is going to be a focus on hiring in a smart, “asymmetric” way that is “based on workload.”
The NWS, aided by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, had been arguing for months for a public safety exemption from the federal hiring freeze. That exemption has been granted, and the agency now has direct hiring authority under the Office of Personnel Management, the official told CNN.
Direct hiring authority, according to OPM’s website, can be given to federal agencies “for filling vacancies when a critical hiring need or severe shortage of candidates exists.” It can help speed up the hiring process, the NOAA official said.
Him lowering drug prices is just another lie. Show me the paperwork. Where’s the bill or the order? His words are empty until you can prove he actually took actions to make them a reality. Show his work.
DOGE staffer attacked in DC, Trump says in threat to federalize city
The president said a member of DOGE was "beat up by a bunch of thugs," and called crime in D.C. "totally out of control."
President Donald Trump once again threatened a federal takeover of D.C., calling crime “totally out of control” and saying a member of DOGE was badly beaten recently.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump referenced a man who was beaten by “local thugs.” The post includes a photo of what appears to be a bloody victim.
Trump said Tuesday afternoon the victim in that incident was a member of the Department of Government Efficiency.
"By the way, I have to say that somebody from DOGE was very badly hurt last night,” he said. “You saw that. A young man who was beat up by a bunch of thugs in D.C. And either they're gonna straighten their act out in terms of government and in terms of protection, or we're going to have to federalize and run it the way it's supposed to be run."
Elon Musk weighed in on X, saying a member of DOGE was severely beaten while saving a woman being assaulted by a gang of young men.
Police identified the victim as Edward Coristine, known by the nickname "Big Balls," one of the original DOGE staffers.
It's unclear whether Coristine is currently a DOGE employee. The Social Security Administration announced in late June that it had hired Coristine as a special government employee. But the government agency did not respond to NBC News' question at the time about whether he was still reporting to DOGE.
Victim assaulted during attempted carjacking early Sunday
According to the Metropolitan Police Department, suspects approached victims standing next to a car in the 1400 block of Swann Street NW about 3 a.m. Sunday. The suspects demanded the car, then assaulted one victim.
The suspects fled when an MPD cruiser pulled into the block, police said. Two of the suspects — a 15-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl from Hyattsville, Maryland — were taken into custody and charged with unarmed carjacking.
D.C. Fire and EMS responded and treated the assault victim at the scene, police said.
“No one who lives, works or visits D.C. should experience this; it is horrific and disturbing,” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement. “I cannot comment on specific cases, but know that when MPD brings us cases with sufficient evidence of juveniles who have broken the law and hurt people, we will prosecute them and ensure they face consequences for their actions."
News4 is working to learn more about the incident the president referred to.
'Crime is going down' Pirro says at DC National Night Out event
Meanwhile, recently confirmed U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro seemed to tout D.C.'s reduction in crime Tuesday evening.
“Crime is going down in D.C.,” she said at a National Night Out event. “It’s going down in D.C. because of you. Because you as parents teach your kids respect, because of law enforcement who make sure that they follow cases until they’re solved, and because of our partners.”
D.C. police report that as of Tuesday, overall crime is down 7% and violent crime is down 26% compared to this date last year.
Pirro later clarified her remarks, saying, "The two are totally different. Tonight was about celebrating successes when community and law enforcement work together. My message at National Night Out was to congratulate kids and parents. But crime is not down enough — ask any crime victim. Now we need to end crime committed by those who are too young to prosecute. It’s time to stop coddling young criminals who assault and maim innocents. It’s time for this to end."
Earlier, Pirro posted on X that she met with Trump Tuesday.
“The president is very serious about making sure that as a prosecutor here that we not only fight crime with a vengeance, but make sure that there are consequences,” she said from outside the White House. “Make sure that we protect the victims and we make the criminals accountable.”
“Our job is to get guns off the street, drugs off the street, take care of those individuals who are threatening carjacking other people and make this city safe and clean again,” Pirro said.
News4 has reached out to city leaders for reaction.
During his presidential campaign, Trump made multiple threats to D.C. home rule.
In May, a Washington Post/George Mason University poll found a majority of D.C. residents were concerned about the president’s takeover threats.
One reason America pays more for drugs than other countries is that Medicare/Medicaid is prohibited from negotionatng drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Dems have tried to change this but the repubes keep blocking it
Am I perfect? No Am I trying to be a better person? Also no
Library of Congress Website Deleted Part of the Constitution That Trump Doesn't Like. Now They're Calling It a 'Coding Error' The removed portions of the Constitution include clauses that limit Congress' power to suspend habeas corpus and forbid titles of nobility in the United States
Rachel Raposas Wed, August 6, 2025 at 3:41 PM EDT
A section of the Constitution that has hindered the Trump administration was removed from the Library of Congress website
NEED TO KNOW
Portions of the Constitution were deleted from the Library of Congress' website after President Donald Trump ousted the longtime librarian from her role in May
The omitted portions of Article I cover limitations on Congress' ability to suspend habeas corpus and grant titles of nobility
After internet users noticed the quiet omission, the Library of Congress claimed it was a "coding error"
The Library of Congress removed two and a half sections of the Constitution from its website sometime after President Donald Trump ousted the library's longtime leader in May.
In recent days, internet users noticed that portions of Article 1 were missing from the Library of Congress' Constitution Annotated website: Sections 9 and 10, and part of Section 8. Article 1 appeared on the site in full at the start of the summer, according to internet archives.
On Aug. 6, the Library of Congress insisted that deletion of several clauses in Article 1 were the result of a website "coding error" and ensured the issue would be resolved in a timely manner. But despite the library's statement, some have continued to express suspicion given the timing of the removal and the specific clauses that were cut.
Article 1 of the Constitution establishes the legislative branch of the federal government and details the various powers of Congress.
Section 9, which focuses on the limitations of Congress' authority, notably includes a clause that Congress cannot suspend habeas corpus — which grants everyone in custody the right to challenge their detention in court — unless necessary for safety in moments of "rebellion or invasion."
Trump's White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters in May that the administration is "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus, per PBS, amid the government's mass detention and deportation of immigrants. Without habeas corpus, Trump's aggressive deportation program would have fewer roadblocks and move more quickly.
Another constitutional clause that was removed from the Library of Congress' website included a line that bars Congress from offering Americans titles of nobility — a limitation that sought to safeguard the United States government from being influenced by European monarchies.
During his second term starting in January, Trump has repeatedly referred to himself as a "king" multiple times, including through the White House's official social media. Trump's flirtation with the title inspired the sweeping "No Kings" protests on June 14 — Trump's 79th birthday — in opposition to his perceived abuse and wielding of government power.
Meanwhile Section 10 of Article 1, which was also removed, restricts U.S. states from engaging in certain actions that could undermine the federal government's authority.
The update to the Library of Congress' digital Constitution came shortly after Trump fired the longtime Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, in May.
Hayden was appointed to a 10-year term in the role by former President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in a 74-18 vote in 2016.
At present, it's disputed who is serving as the acting Librarian of Congress. Following the removal of Hayden, Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — his former criminal attorney — to the post, though the library staff chose to recognize Robert Newlen, who was functionally next in line for the job, as their new leader.
To the D.C. question....Congress can Federalize DC. They can't come for your city as has been implied. D.C. was under Federal control until the Nixon administration gave them more home rule in the 70's.
For some people, when they have nothing else, they just pound the table.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
One reason America pays more for drugs than other countries is that Medicare/Medicaid is prohibited from negotionatng drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Dems have tried to change this but the repubes keep blocking it
Gotta be because the republicans/MAGAs are in the pockets of the Drug Industry....
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
Trump, Apple CEO announce $100B US manufacturing investment President Trump and Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook announced Apple's additional $100 billion commitment to manufacturing in the US. Watch the video above to hear Trump's and Cook's remarks from the White House on Wednesday.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Yahoo Finance.
It bought them some time to remain in trump's good graces. Let me know when they deliver on it..........................
Trump plans 100% tariff on computer chips, unless companies build in US
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will impose a 100% tariff on computer chips, raising the specter of higher prices for electronics, autos, household appliances and other essential products dependent on the processors powering the digital age.
“We’ll be putting a tariff of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office while meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook. “But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge.”
The announcement came more than three months after Trump temporarily exempted most electronics from his administration’s most onerous tariffs.
The Republican president said companies that make computer chips in the U.S. would be spared the import tax. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a shortage of computer chips increased the price of autos and contributed to higher inflation.
Investors seemed to interpret the potential tariff exemptions as a positive for Apple and other major tech companies that have been making huge financial commitments to manufacture more chips and other components in the U.S..
Big Tech already has made collective commitments to invest about $1.5 trillion in the U.S. since Trump moved back into the White House in January. That figure includes a $600 billion promise from Apple after the iPhone maker boosted its commitment by tacking another $100 billion on to a previous commitment made in February.
To the D.C. question....Congress can Federalize DC. They can't come for your city as has been implied. D.C. was under Federal control until the Nixon administration gave them more home rule in the 70's.
For some people, when they have nothing else, they just pound the table.
It isn't congress that's threatening to do this. In case your memory is that foggy he didn't use congress to send troops into L.A. either. But you know how that works. When you have nothing else......
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Trump, Apple CEO announce $100B US manufacturing investment President Trump and Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook announced Apple's additional $100 billion commitment to manufacturing in the US. Watch the video above to hear Trump's and Cook's remarks from the White House on Wednesday.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Yahoo Finance.
Is that sarcasm? That is laughable!!! The voters overwhelming stated the country was on the wrong course. Biden's America was placing more value on illegals over the rights and privileges of his own people. His administration was making concerned parents out to be terrorists at local schools. They took confused perverted men and gave them ability to trample on the rights of women in privacy, in sports, etc... Making America Great Again is placing the rights and needs of American citizens over foreigners. Protecting American citizens from all sorts of criminals being illegals hunting women on college campuses, holding entire apartments for ransom, taking jobs from our citizens, placing perverts in our wives and daughters' private spaces. Putting America's needs above the rest of the world's needs. But thanks for the laugh.
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." Margarat Thatcher
Follow the bouncing ball here. Memphis posted that Apple made a promise to make a huge investment in America to trump thus avoiding tariffs. As if that was some great MAGA accomplishment. It was then pointed out that Apple made an almost identical promise to Biden. If it's a major accomplishment for trump then it was just as big of an accomplishment for Biden.
The fact that I even needed to explain that to you is just sad. But often it takes a much longer explanation for some than it does other. Such is the case here.
But thanks for the laugh. #triggered
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
“We’re going to beautify the city. We’re going to make it beautiful. And what a shame, the rate of crime, the rate of muggings, killings and everything else. We’re not going to let it, and that includes bringing in the National Guard maybe very quickly too,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
His truth social post; Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control. Local “youths” and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released. They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now! The Law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these “minors” as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14. The most recent victim was beaten mercilessly by local thugs. Washington, D.C., must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see. If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore. Perhaps it should have been done a long time ago, then this incredible young man, and so many others, would not have had to go through the horrors of Violent Crime. If this continues, I am going to exert my powers, and FEDERALIZE this City. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!.................
Meanwhile violent crime in D.C. is down just over 25% from last year.
For all the pain and the grief that people in my profession have taken for the sake of “tightening the purse strings” along with the absolute childish display of Elon on the stage with the chainsaw and all the other “DOGE savings” spectacle that was over promised and under-delivered, just like 90% of what POTUS always campaigns on, we are sitting here increasing our deficit figures.
I don’t think anything would have made me feel better off with all the nonsense that has occurred this year, but perhaps a small silver lining in the cloud could have presented itself if we started moving in the right direction. We’re not even doing that.
Honestly, I think I’d be most mad if I voted for this regime expecting them to follow through on their promises or at least logically trend in that direction. I’d be super mad. But I don’t think that’ll happen for those who did, because you let this guy off the hook again…and again…and again.
End rant.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
I have recently been informed that facts don't really matter and the only thing that does matter is the manner in which you present those facts. So I get it.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
I have recently been informed that facts don't really matter and the only thing that does matter is the manner in which you present those facts. So I get it.
LOL It doesn't work that way for me.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
It’s still ticking up. I do hope that it doesn’t rise. Nobody wants that to happen.
That being said, from all the chatter coming from industry, it sounds like companies have been shuffling the cards as much as possible to minimize tariff impacts, but that won’t be inevitable into perpetuity.
P&G already talked about raising prices potentially 25% because companies can’t keep absorbing those without passing on the costs. That’s just common sense.
When Elon ranted against Trump in his June tirade, he predicted the tariffs would cause a recession in the second half of this year. I don’t know about full blown recession, but I do think we look toward December of this year to see if the proverbial chickens begin to come home to roost.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
I guess we are really going to get good labor numbers now-Duh, I don't know nothing about project 2025.
President Donald Trump has named a Project 2025 architect to replace the labor statistics chief he fired earlier this month after receiving a disappointing jobs report.
Trump is nominating E.J. Antoni, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to serve as the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I guess we are really going to get good labor numbers now-Duh, I don't know nothing about project 2025.
President Donald Trump has named a Project 2025 architect to replace the labor statistics chief he fired earlier this month after receiving a disappointing jobs report.
Trump is nominating E.J. Antoni, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to serve as the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Meanwhile as things like this and telling all law enforcement officials including the National Guard "can do anything the want" on the streets of D.C, Chuck Schumer has fake friends.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
The way things are going, the tariffs won't even be in effect by December #artofthedeal
That could be true for some, especially China. In those cases, we’d have to look out further to see when then-current stockpiles are depleted to see what the pricing does.
Others have already taken effect, though. For product lines replenishing now-depleted stocks, we’d have to look and see what follow on wholesale pricing impacts there are, because you would figure those costs then snowball into the retail unit costs for the end consumer.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
It’s still ticking up. I do hope that it doesn’t rise. Nobody wants that to happen.
That being said, from all the chatter coming from industry, it sounds like companies have been shuffling the cards as much as possible to minimize tariff impacts, but that won’t be inevitable into perpetuity.
P&G already talked about raising prices potentially 25% because companies can’t keep absorbing those without passing on the costs. That’s just common sense.
When Elon ranted against Trump in his June tirade, he predicted the tariffs would cause a recession in the second half of this year. I don’t know about full blown recession, but I do think we look toward December of this year to see if the proverbial chickens begin to come home to roost.
Our main equipment supplier just sent us a note that they've tried to hold out on price increases as much as possible but now are putting in a 10% price hike.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
So.... Trump gets to smooze and accept a plane for a nation that sponsors Hamas.And then the US administration is telling the UK:
US state department says Labour government ‘repeatedly intervened to chill speech’ online after Southport attack
This was during riots and preventing people on social media from telling others where to got and set fire to accomodation where asylum seekers were detained.
They sure do have an agenda and it sure is uncannily similar to project 2025
The more things change the more they stay the same.
I also called him out as the "Midway Barker at the annual county/state fair."
I've not changed my tune since then, back in 2025.
He's still the same huckster, rolling out the same scams. The only thing that confounds me is the longevity of his schtick upon his marks.
This man is not, and has never been presidential material.
He knows it, in his heart of hearts. You & I know it. 35% of America disbelieves what the rest of us know.
They cannot be reached- because they are the same folks who annually attend the county fair- and plunk down their hard-earned money on the same midway gags that sucked their parents' money, a generation before.
Professional politicians have let us down. Of that, there can be no denial. But this F#ng dude is not, and never shall be The Solution.
On a more serious note, the article does give a taste on how tough it is to clearly/simply quantify something like overall inflation. Ignoring any and all intentional misleading that's gone on with these numbers, it's not hard to look at snippets of the data or pay extra attention to certain metrics over others and get a bad read on what's going on in the economy.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
Yeah, this is a data point and we still need to get the whole picture. I do like to look at this stuff, though, because I think it's good to do our best to examine all points that may accumulate to a "trend." This may be a one-off and may not be.
I also like to dig into this because all the contractors I negotiate utilize the PPI for their escalation figures. We are somewhat exempt from the tariff effects because our acquisitions are duty-free (which obviously makes sense), but we are making a big drive for commercial item acquisition as well. Anything that we procure that is considered "commercial" would not be duty-free, which gives me anxiety about what kind of long-term agreements our contractors would be willing to sign up for at this point. Those are more of a staple in military acquisition than people realize. If we now have to negotiate major systems on a more annual basis - with staffing figures that have been "DOGE'd" - this will have major impacts to acquisition timelines in addition to costs.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Wholesale prices rose 0.9% in July, much more than expected
Wonder if any MAGA posters van find some rando twitter post to tell us this is Biden's fault or maybe its not happening at all? Maybe we need to fire anyone who calculates or reports the inflationary numbers.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
If I'm looking at the right thing, these indices have steadily risen over the past 5 years.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
Do you mean when the entire globe was suffering from global inflation? I had no idea that trump's intentional tariffs could be compared to a global pandemic. But then I never actually thought about trump as a disease. Maybe I should have.
BTW- Inflation was heading significantly downward in 2023. And continued downward long after that.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
‘UNACCEPTABLE’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Shares Video of Woman in Tears Over Financial Stress Jennifer Bowers Bahney Aug 16th, 2025, 7:50 pm Share 556 comments
Marjorie Taylor Greene
MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), whose Republican allegiance has shown signs of slipping recently, re-posted a heart-wrenching video Saturday of a woman crying while recounting the financial stresses she’s been facing.
Although Greene didn’t mention congressional Republicans in her post, she did deride the current plight of the working class in 2025 America.
The video made by “diannaallen5” for TikTok was shared on X by @WallStreetApes to their 1 million X followers, writing, “Americans are breaking down, a grown woman crying because she can’t afford to live anymore.”
The woman in the video, who said she is from Illinois, was distraught and in tears as she spoke, saying that “gas prices and the electric bills and the prices of food is just so overwhelming.”
“I’m wondering if anybody else is feeling like they’re drowning and they can’t get out,” she said. “I work overtime, and I cannot get above water. I mean, I literally have no gas for next week.”
“I’m just wondering if anybody else feels like they’re drowning,” she said is despair.
MTG expressed fury in her retweet of the video, writing, “I’m seeing videos like this routinely. The hard working middle class is becoming the working poor.”
“This is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE,” Greene wrote.
Earlier this month, Greene threatened to leave the Republican party altogether, claiming that it’s working against average Americans who are trying to make ends meet.
“I don’t know if the Republican Party is leaving me, or if I’m kind of not relating to [it] as much anymore,” Greene told the Daily Mail. “I think the Republican Party has turned its back on America First and the workers and just regular Americans.”
Greene continued on about the much-touted DOGE cost-cutting initiatives and other campaign promises that she felt weren’t being met.
“Like what happened to all those issues?” she asked. “You know that I don’t know what the hell happened with the Republican Party. I really don’t.”
She added: “But I’ll tell you one thing, the course that it’s on, I don’t want to have anything to do with it, and I, I just don’t care anymore.”
There is a paragraph below about the cost of electricity is rising because of natural gas exports-in almost every one of trumps tariff agreements so far-part of the deal is the foreign country will buy our energy-which is good for the natural gas companies that export-but it is not good for our electricity rates-he has already promised more nat gas exports in the first few trade deals than we normally export in a typical year. Between the nat gas exports and the data centers, our electricity rates are set to really go up.
I saw a tik tok video from a gas and oil guy that "his take" was that we would be paying more for the nat gas and electric in 10 years to power our homes than our mortgage payments if this trend keeps up
Electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as inflation August 16, 20255:00 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday Scott Horsley 2010 Scott Horsley
4-Minute Listen Transcript
Ken Thomas Ken Thomas woke up this past Wednesday to find the power had gone out at his house in Boca Raton. A text message from his utility said a piece of equipment had failed at 2 a.m. By the time a repair crew showed up eight hours later, the hot, sticky Florida summer was already taking a toll.
"You just don't realize how important your power is until you don't have it," says Thomas, a retired air traffic controller. "In Florida's heat, you just can't live without air conditioning. And this time of year particularly."
Thomas has invested in energy-saving windows and insulation to keep his house comfortable. But in the heat of the summer, his power bills still top $400 a month.
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"It's painful to see that bill when it comes in," he says.
Across the country, electricity prices have jumped more than twice as fast as the overall cost of living in the last year. That's especially painful during the dog days of summer, when air conditioners are working overtime.
A bearded man wearing a baseball cap, glasses and a "Frontline Solidarity" T-shirt sits on a wooden bench outdoors. Business Factories from GE to Kraft Heinz lose immigrant workers, stressing those who remain More and more women are embarking on the journey of single parenthood. Economy Are you a single mom? We want to hear from you about your life experiences In Pembroke Pines, Fla., Al Salvi's power bill can reach $500 a month.
"There's a lot of seniors down here that are living check to check. They can barely afford prescriptions such as myself," says Salvi, who's 63 and uses a wheelchair. "Now we got to decide whether we're going to pay the electric bill or are we going to buy medication. And it's not fair to us. You're squeezing us between a rock and a hard place."
Al Salvi Earlier this year, the utility that serves both Thomas and Salvi, Florida Power & Light, applied for a rate increase that would have boosted bills for a typical South Florida resident by about 13% over the next four years.
The AARP launched a petition drive to oppose the rate hike, and quickly gathered tens of thousands of signatures.
"Our members are pretty upset," says Zayne Smith, AARP Florida's director of advocacy. "That's just another way people are getting nickel and dimed out of being able to afford to live here in Florida."
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Last week, Florida Power & Light announced a tentative agreement on rates with commercial and industrial customers. CEO Armando Pimentel said the deal would ensure, "we can continue to provide reliable electricity to power our fast-growing state while keeping customer bills low."
Details of the new rate proposal have not been made public.
It's not just Florida that's wrestling with high-priced power. Electricity prices have been rising rapidly across the country — thanks to a combination of factors tied to both demand and supply.
Power-hungry AI data centers are one factor driving high prices Power-hungry data centers have been popping up all over, to serve the boom in artificial intelligence. The Energy Department projects data centers and other commercial customers will use more electricity than households for the first time ever next year. That's a challenge for policymakers, who have to decide how to accommodate that extra demand and who should foot the bill.
"Regulators always play catchup," says John Quigley, senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. "The growth of data centers is far outpacing the response by grid managers, public utility commissions across the country, and they're racing to catch up."
Natural gas exports also push prices higher The soaring price of natural gas is also pushing power prices higher. More than 40% of electricity is generated using natural gas. As more gas is exported as liquid natural gas, the competition from foreign customers is driving up the price utilities have to pay here at home.
In this February 3, 2025, photo, many rows of new German cars are parked in the lot of a logistics center in Essen, Germany. A city skyline rises in the background. Business Automakers are eating the cost of tariffs — for now The Energy Department says the cost of gas used to generate power jumped more than 40% in the first half of this year compared to 2024. Another 17% increase is expected next year.
"Any way you look at it, gas-fired power is expensive," Quigley says. "It's going to be increasingly expensive as natural gas exports increase. The future is to make electricity cheaper and the way to do it is clean energy."
One in six households already struggles to pay for power Solar and wind power can be cheaper than gas-fired plants, even without government subsidies. But building new power supplies and the wires to carry it will cost money. And one out of six households already have trouble paying their current electric bills.
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"We're not questioning whether the grid needs to be rebuilt," says Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which advocates for low-income energy customers. "We're not questioning whether there needs to be new data centers built. But the problem is, for low income families and people living in poverty, they don't have the ability to pay any more than they're currently paying, without falling even further behind and getting into shut-off situations."
The federal government currently spends about $4 billion a year to help low-income families with energy bills. But Wolfe says that's not enough to cover rising cooling costs in the summer. And President Trump's proposed budget would end the assistance altogether.
In Boca Raton, Ken Thomas was grateful to have his power restored this week, after about ten hours with no air conditioning. At the same time, he's bracing for his August electric bill.
"I value my utility that I need to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter," he says. "But I also know that there is a limit to what we can afford to pay."
I think she's beginning to act out now because POTUS declined to endorse her for Senate in Georgia...an admittedly wise decision on his part. My supposition is that she's trying to change her tune in order to be more electable statewide and perhaps "go rogue."
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Trump blasts 'out of control' museums for teaching 'how bad Slavery was' in wild rant Sarah K. Burris August 19, 2025 3:10PM ET BeLoud Share Trump blasts 'out of control' museums for teaching 'how bad Slavery was' in wild rant U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (not pictured) and European leaders amid negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 18, 2025. REUTERS/Al Drago
President Donald Trump ranted on Truth Social that teaching about America's history of slaverery is unacceptable.
"The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of 'WOKE.' The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future," claimed Trump.
The Smithsonian Museum of African American History walks through the struggles of those who were kidnapped and brought to the United States to work as slaves. However, as one ascends the floors, the exhibits hold up the abolitionist movement, the successes of civil rights, and celebrate those who continue to fight for equal rights.
The GOP president went on to promise, "We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities, where tremendous progress has been made. This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the 'HOTTEST' Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums," he closes.
Trump's own campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," suggests that there was a time when America was not great.
lol Raw Story is about 20% more extreme than those who think Fox News is extreme or about 8% more left leaning that MSNBC. Basically, the website is a temper tantrum.
lol Raw Story is about 20% more extreme than those who think Fox News is extreme or about 8% more left leaning that MSNBC. Basically, the website is a temper tantrum.
lol Raw Story is about 20% more extreme than those who think Fox News is extreme or about 8% more left leaning that MSNBC. Basically, the website is a temper tantrum.
lol Raw Story is about 20% more extreme than those who think Fox News is extreme or about 8% more left leaning that MSNBC. Basically, the website is a temper tantrum.
Trump administration revokes security clearances of 37 current and former government officials
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Tuesday that it was revoking the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials in the latest act of retribution targeting public servants from the federal government’s intelligence community.
A memo from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accuses the singled-out individuals of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance personal or partisan goals, failing to safeguard classified information, failing to “adhere to professional analytic tradecraft standards” and other unspecified “detrimental” conduct.
The memo did not offer evidence to back up the accusations.
Many of the officials who were targeted left the government years ago after serving in both senior national security positions and lower-profile roles far from the public eye. Some worked on matters that have long infuriated Trump, like the intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf. And several signaled their concerns about Trump by signing a critical letter in 2019 that was highlighted on social media last month by right-wing provocateur and close Trump ally Laura Loomer.
The action is part of a broader Trump administration campaign to wield the levers of government against perceived adversaries, and reflects the president’s continued distrust of career intelligence officials he has long seen as working against his interests. The revocation of clearances has emerged as a go-to tactic for the administration, a strategy critics say risks chilling dissenting voices from an intelligence community accustomed to drawing on a range of viewpoints before formulating an assessment.
“These are unlawful and unconstitutional decisions that deviate from well-settled, decades-old laws and policies that sought to protect against just this type of action,” Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer whose own clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, said in a statement.
He called it hypocritical for the administration to “claim these individuals politicized or weaponized intelligence.”
Gabbard on Tuesday sought to defend the move, which she said had been directed by Trump.
“Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right,” she wrote on X. “Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold.”
The security clearance suspension comes amid a broader effort by Gabbard and other Trump administration officials to revisit the intelligence community assessment published in 2017 on Russian election interference, including by declassifying a series of years-old documents meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of its findings.
Multiple government investigations have reached the same conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in sweeping fashion, including through a hack-and-leak operation of Democratic emails and a social media campaign aimed at sowing discord and swaying public opinion.
But Trump has long resisted the assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in his favor, and his Justice Department has authorized a grand jury investigation that could bring fresh scrutiny to Obama-era officials.
Security clearances are important not only for current government workers but also former ones whose private-sector jobs require them to retain access to sensitive information. Stripping clearances from such employees could make it hard for them to do their jobs, though it’s unclear how many of the former officials still have or require one.
On his first day of office, Trump said he would revoke the security clearances of the more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation.”
He’s also revoked the clearances of former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, and he attempted to do the same for lawyers at a spate of prominent law firms but was rebuffed by federal judges.
Some of those who were targeted in the latest action were part of Biden’s national security team. Many only learned of the Gabbard action from news reports Tuesday, said two former government officials who were on the list. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity as they ponder whether to take legal action.
"After finding that Trump engaged in fraud by flagrantly padding financial statements that went to lenders and insurers,"
And being a found libel for rape.
And bragging about grabbing under age girls P***ies.
And being a pathological liar. And and and..... Its never ending all the clown stuff he has been found guilty of. All of which you and MAGA will continue to give a free pass to.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
He's still found guilty of long-term/systemic fraud.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
Trump again calls for release of ex-clerk guilty of Colorado election data breach
President threatened ‘harsh measures’ if Tina Peters – sentenced to nine years – isn’t released from prison
Thu 21 Aug 2025 10.40 EDT
Donald Trump again called for the release of a former election clerk in Colorado who was convicted for her role in breaching election data in a quest to find fraud, threatening he would take “harsh measures” if she was not let out of prison.
“FREE TINA PETERS, a brave and innocent Patriot who has been tortured by Crooked Colorado politicians, including the big Mail-In Ballot supporting the governor of the State,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election. She is an old woman, and very sick. If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!”
Peters did not find evidence of Democrats cheating in the election.
She was charged for allowing access to county voting equipment by an outside election activist, who was given security credentials under a different name. Materials and passwords were then published online on Telegram and on the rightwing outlet the Gateway Pundit.
She was found guilty by a jury in Mesa county in 2024 of seven counts related to misconduct, conspiracy and impersonation, four of which were felony charges. She was sentenced later that year to nine years in prison. Her attorneys had argued for probation instead of prison time.
In her sentencing, Judge Matthew Barrett said Peters had no’t shown remorse for her actions. He said she was “as defiant as a defendant that the court has ever seen” and that he was “convinced you’d do it all over again if you could”.
Peters’ release has become a rallying cry on the right, especially among election deniers. Voice messages from her have appeared on rightwing podcasts in which she continues to advance election conspiracies.
Peters’ attorneys have filed an appeal of her conviction and are seeking to get her out on bond while the appeal plays out, arguing in a federal habeas corpus petition that her bond denial stems from her exercise of first amendment rights. Her lawyer told Colorado Newsline that she “has been made to stay in prison because people are afraid of what she would say”.
Trump has previously called for Peters’ release, in May saying in social media posts that she was an “innocent Political Prisoner” who was part of a “Communist persecution by the Radical Left Democrats to cover up their Election crimes and misdeeds in 2020”.
Because Peters is convicted of state-level crimes, Trump cannot pardon her; the Colorado governor, Democrat Jared Polis, could. Trump’s justice department submitted a court filing in March saying it would be reviewing the case for potential “abuses of the criminal justice process”.
Dan Rubinstein, the Republican district attorney in Mesa county who prosecuted the case, noted in a statement to the Guardian that the county is one of Colorado’s most conservative, with an all-Republican board of county commissioners who requested to prosecute Peters.
“It is a gross mischaracterization of the facts of the case to claim Ms Peters did nothing wrong, after she cost the citizens of Mesa county, Colorado, more than a million dollars as a result of her criminal acts,” Rubinstein said. “Ms Peters was indicted by a grand jury of her peers, and convicted unanimously, with a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, at a trial by a jury of her peers that she selected.”
Trump yet once again using the power of the presidency to support his criminal allies by threatening punishment to those holding them accountable. Same old same old.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
You must have missed the fact that trump has both the ability and willingness to pardon convicted felons who serve his own interests. 100 Capital police officers, every juror in every one of the Jan. 6th cases and video footage can attest to that.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
BREAKING: The White House melts down and attacks music legend Jack White after he insults Donald Trump's "disgusting" and "vulgar" redecoration of the White House — prompting White to unleash a scathing takedown for the ages.
MAGA should have just left well enough alone...
“Jack White is a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career,” claimed White House spokesman Steven Cheung.
In truth, White is still enormously popular and successful, far more so than any of the actually washed up musicians and "celebrities" that MAGA likes to trot out as Trump supporters.
“It’s apparent [White]’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House,'” Cheung added.
The idea that agreeing with Trump's infamously tacky interior design sensibilities is a prerequisite for being a "real artist" is laughable. Donald Trump has always had awful taste in aesthetics.
Cheung's remarks led to White posting a lengthy screed on Instagram, in which he listed off Trump's staggering number of failures and scandals—
"Listen, I’m an artist and not a politician so I’m in no need to give my answer or opinion on anything if I’m not inspired or compelled, but how funny that it wasn’t me calling out trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc. his ridiculous 'wall' construction, his attacks on the disabled, his attempted coup and mob insurrection and destruction of the sacred halls of congress, his disparaging sexist and pedophilic remarks about women, his obvious attempts at distraction about being a close personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein and his inclusion in the Epstein files, his ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty, his attempts to dismantle healthcare, his obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un, his nazi like rallies, his attempts to sell merchandise and products like Goya beans through the office of the President, his fake 'gunshot to the ear' that he showed no medical records or photographs of, his constant, constant, constant lying to the American people, etc. etc. etc." White wrote.
"No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the f*cking DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults," he continued. "How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get? 'Masquerading as a real artist'? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here’s my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being."
"He’s masquerading as a christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy," he wrote. "He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole after loophole and grift after grift."
"His staff of professional liar toadies like Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt have been covering up and masking his fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis," White went on. "And I have 'ample time on (my) hands'? That orange grifter has spent more tax payer money cheating at golf than helping ANYONE in the country. Improve. Anything. There is no progress with him, only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy."
"So maga folk, enjoy your concrete paving over of the rose garden, your 200 million dollar ballroom in the White House, and your gaudy ass gold spray painted trinkets from Home Depot, cause he ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremacist country club rich idiot agenda," he continued."
"Wow, he hates who you hate....good for you, be proud of yourselves, how christian of you all," White went on.
"The only way you can support this conman is because you are a victim of the 2 party system and you 'defend your guy no matter what he does.'" he wrote. "No intelligent person can defend this low life fascist. This bankruptor of casinos. This failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc."
"This man and his goon squad have failed upwards for decades and have fleeced the American people over and over," wrote White. "This professional golf cheat, this grifter who has hundreds of thousands of deaths from his inaction of the pandemic on his hands, this man that the majority of the country somehow were fooled into supporting and voting into office (through the flawed electoral college) and their love of reality television stars."
"Being insulted by the actual White House that this particular conman leads is a badge of honor to me, because anyone who trump supports and likes is a villain who gives nothing to their fellow man, only takes what can benefit themselves," he continued.
"And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit, I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief," he concluded before signing his name.
In his Instagram post, White also shared a photo of Trump hawking his ugly golden sneakers, one of Trump selling MAGA merchandise at the White House, and memes about Trump scandals. He also wrote a caption—
"I was raised to believe that we defeated fascism in World War II and that we would never allow it again in the world. I don't always state publicly my political opinions, and like anyone I don't always know all of the facts, but when it comes to this man and this administration I'm not going to be like one of the silent minority of 1930's Germany. This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that's not an exaggeration, he's dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis, and we. all. know. it. -JW III... 'To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.' - Theodore Roosevelt"
By just about any metric, this is one of most brutal, comprehensive takedowns of Donald Trump to date. Let's hope that the White House hits back again, so that Jack White has an excuse to tear into him even more.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
Have to say that is a fairly succinct and damned near all encompassing summary of where we are with Trump. He's spot on and it's a shame not more politicians and people in leadership positions don't call it out like it is.
Last edited by mgh888; 08/23/2503:51 PM.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
BREAKING: The White House melts down and attacks music legend Jack White after he insults Donald Trump's "disgusting" and "vulgar" redecoration of the White House — prompting White to unleash a scathing takedown for the ages.
MAGA should have just left well enough alone...
“Jack White is a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career,” claimed White House spokesman Steven Cheung.
In truth, White is still enormously popular and successful, far more so than any of the actually washed up musicians and "celebrities" that MAGA likes to trot out as Trump supporters.
“It’s apparent [White]’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House,'” Cheung added.
The idea that agreeing with Trump's infamously tacky interior design sensibilities is a prerequisite for being a "real artist" is laughable. Donald Trump has always had awful taste in aesthetics.
Cheung's remarks led to White posting a lengthy screed on Instagram, in which he listed off Trump's staggering number of failures and scandals—
"Listen, I’m an artist and not a politician so I’m in no need to give my answer or opinion on anything if I’m not inspired or compelled, but how funny that it wasn’t me calling out trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc. his ridiculous 'wall' construction, his attacks on the disabled, his attempted coup and mob insurrection and destruction of the sacred halls of congress, his disparaging sexist and pedophilic remarks about women, his obvious attempts at distraction about being a close personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein and his inclusion in the Epstein files, his ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty, his attempts to dismantle healthcare, his obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un, his nazi like rallies, his attempts to sell merchandise and products like Goya beans through the office of the President, his fake 'gunshot to the ear' that he showed no medical records or photographs of, his constant, constant, constant lying to the American people, etc. etc. etc." White wrote.
"No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the f*cking DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults," he continued. "How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get? 'Masquerading as a real artist'? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here’s my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being."
"He’s masquerading as a christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy," he wrote. "He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole after loophole and grift after grift."
"His staff of professional liar toadies like Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt have been covering up and masking his fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis," White went on. "And I have 'ample time on (my) hands'? That orange grifter has spent more tax payer money cheating at golf than helping ANYONE in the country. Improve. Anything. There is no progress with him, only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy."
"So maga folk, enjoy your concrete paving over of the rose garden, your 200 million dollar ballroom in the White House, and your gaudy ass gold spray painted trinkets from Home Depot, cause he ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremacist country club rich idiot agenda," he continued."
"Wow, he hates who you hate....good for you, be proud of yourselves, how christian of you all," White went on.
"The only way you can support this conman is because you are a victim of the 2 party system and you 'defend your guy no matter what he does.'" he wrote. "No intelligent person can defend this low life fascist. This bankruptor of casinos. This failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc."
"This man and his goon squad have failed upwards for decades and have fleeced the American people over and over," wrote White. "This professional golf cheat, this grifter who has hundreds of thousands of deaths from his inaction of the pandemic on his hands, this man that the majority of the country somehow were fooled into supporting and voting into office (through the flawed electoral college) and their love of reality television stars."
"Being insulted by the actual White House that this particular conman leads is a badge of honor to me, because anyone who trump supports and likes is a villain who gives nothing to their fellow man, only takes what can benefit themselves," he continued.
"And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit, I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief," he concluded before signing his name.
In his Instagram post, White also shared a photo of Trump hawking his ugly golden sneakers, one of Trump selling MAGA merchandise at the White House, and memes about Trump scandals. He also wrote a caption—
"I was raised to believe that we defeated fascism in World War II and that we would never allow it again in the world. I don't always state publicly my political opinions, and like anyone I don't always know all of the facts, but when it comes to this man and this administration I'm not going to be like one of the silent minority of 1930's Germany. This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that's not an exaggeration, he's dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis, and we. all. know. it. -JW III... 'To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.' - Theodore Roosevelt"
By just about any metric, this is one of most brutal, comprehensive takedowns of Donald Trump to date. Let's hope that the White House hits back again, so that Jack White has an excuse to tear into him even more.
Only one problem, it’s too long to be my signature.
Guys, I am pleading with those of you who voted for this man to listen to any shred of objectivity that still exists within you. This is almost quite literally akin to crossing the Rubicon. Those of you that maintain conservative ideals - power to the states and local governments - how is this in line with that? How would this not be revenge politics at its worst?
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Trump mobilizing up to 1,700 National Guard troops in 19 states to widen crime and immigration crackdown Deployments reportedly set to take place largely in Republican-controlled states
Josh Marcus in San Francisco Saturday 23 August 2025 12:06 EDT 23
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The Trump administration reportedly plans to mobilize up to 1,700 National Guard troops across 19 states in the coming weeks to support its immigration and anti-crime crackdowns, a dramatic expansion of the controversial operation that’s seen federal agents and Guard troops carrying out activities across Washington, D.C.
The troops, who will largely be activated across Republican-controlled states, will serve in support of the administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, as well as other law enforcement priorities, according to comment from unnamed Pentagon officials and documents obtained by Fox News.
The Guardsmen assisting ICE will be carrying out tasks that may include “personal data collection, fingerprinting, DNA swabbing and photographing of personnel in ICE custody," an official told outlet.
The deployments will take place across the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, per Fox.
Texas is reportedly slated to have the largest deployment.
The Trump administration is reportedly expanding its crime crackdown by deploying up to 1,700 National Guard troops across 19 states in support of its immigration and crime crackdowns open image in gallery The Trump administration is reportedly expanding its crime crackdown by deploying up to 1,700 National Guard troops across 19 states in support of its immigration and crime crackdowns (AFP via Getty Images)
The Independent has contacted the reported states for comment, as well as the central National Guard leadership and the Department of Homeland Security.
The Guardsmen will be serving under Title 32 Section 502F authority, in which they technically remain under state command and control, but can assist with federal missions and are paid with federal funds. The status allows them to avoid running afoul of a federal law limiting military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
When asked about the reported operation, the Defense Department referred The Independent to a July announcement from the Pentagon changing the status of troops supporting ICE to Title 32 and adding 500 additional personnel to the mission, bringing it to a total of approximately 1,700 troops.
The statement said the troops could be involved in “direct interaction with individuals in ICE custody,” and that the mission stemmed from a May request from the Department of Homeland Security for assistance.
“The Virginia National Guard plans to mobilize approximately 60 Soldiers and Airmen with a mission to provide administrative and logistics support to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at locations across the state,” a spokesperson told The Independent. “VNG personnel will not conduct law enforcement functions, and VNG support will not include making arrests.”
National Guard operation in Washington has reportedly netted over 700 arrests alongside local and federal partners this month open image in gallery National Guard operation in Washington has reportedly netted over 700 arrests alongside local and federal partners this month (AP) Nevada officials pointed The Independent to a Tuesday announcement from Gov. Joe Lombardo, which described up to 35 Nevada National Guardsmen assisting DHS with “vital clerical, administrative, and logistical support — ensuring there will be no direct contact with detainees, no law enforcement duties, and no weapons involved.”
A spokesperson for the Idaho National Guard told The Independent the state’s contingent will feature 14 personnel providing three ICE offices with “administrative functions,” potentially including data entry, record keeping, creating and maintaining reports, and other clerical duties.
The apparent expansion in operations comes as President Trump threatened to send the “regular military” into Chicago for a similar crime crackdown, as well as potentially send troops to New York City.
“We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we'll straighten that one out, probably next that'll be our next one after this, and it won't even be tough,” Trump told reporters at The White House.
Nearly 2,000 Guard troops from Washington, D.C., and six states are deployed to the capital as part of the president’s anti-crime and immigration push.
Washington residents overwhelmingly oppose the federal law enforcement operation there, according to polling.
The operation has netted more than 700 arrests since beginning earlier this month, according to the Trump administration, though it hasn’t released in-depth information about the identities or alleged offenses that form this figure.
I think what bothers me the most about this move with the National Guard is that we all know, if this happened during the first term, Mattis marches right in and defies it, puts his resignation right on the desk. Even Pence would push back.
Now, we have a former talk show host acting as a henchman to someone who never served in the military, looking to deploy the most powerful military in the world into its own cities, against the will of the state and local government.
“I will send you a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love.”
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
I think what bothers me the most about this move with the National Guard is that we all know, if this happened during the first term, Mattis marches right in and defies it, puts his resignation right on the desk. Even Pence would push back.
Now, we have a former talk show host acting as a henchman to someone who never served in the military, looking to deploy the most powerful military in the world into its own cities, against the will of the state and local government.
“I will send you a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love.”
Let's dismiss the fact that something must be done to fight crime on the streets in the inner cities. Let's not let facts get in the way of your hatred.
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." Margarat Thatcher
I think what bothers me the most about this move with the National Guard is that we all know, if this happened during the first term, Mattis marches right in and defies it, puts his resignation right on the desk. Even Pence would push back.
Now, we have a former talk show host acting as a henchman to someone who never served in the military, looking to deploy the most powerful military in the world into its own cities, against the will of the state and local government.
“I will send you a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love.”
Let's dismiss the fact that something must be done to fight crime on the streets in the inner cities. Let's not let facts get in the way of your hatred.
Show me one place I dismissed that. Show me anywhere I dismissed fighting crime or said crime in cities is not a problem. I go to Chicago quarterly. Never had one issue. Ever. Stay downtown every time. It’s a beautiful city that is thriving with possibly the most beautiful architecture of any city in the US…maybe the world.
I’m not going to take your deflection bait, though. You are okay with sending troops into cities - only blue cities, in states that voted against POTUS - against the will of the state and the local governments, who have been democratically elected by the people in that area? How is that conservative again?
Also, please show me what “hatred”I have. Man, what a load of BS. I have hatred because I am against the executive of the federal government deploying the national guard to America’s third largest city that doesn't even want them there. Yeah, okay…I’m so hateful…or maybe you’re projecting.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Let's dismiss the fact that something must be done to fight crime on the streets in the inner cities. Let's not let facts get in the way of your hatred.
Wow. Just absolutely wow.
1. Gaslighting because no-one even hinted at what you just said.
2. More importantly - such a casual enablement and attempted justification for the Federal Government rolling into whichever city they choose in order to impose and dictate. To hell with States rights and small (Fed) government indeed.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
I think what bothers me the most about this move with the National Guard is that we all know, if this happened during the first term, Mattis marches right in and defies it, puts his resignation right on the desk. Even Pence would push back.
Now, we have a former talk show host acting as a henchman to someone who never served in the military, looking to deploy the most powerful military in the world into its own cities, against the will of the state and local government.
“I will send you a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love.”
Let's dismiss the fact that something must be done to fight crime on the streets in the inner cities. Let's not let facts get in the way of your hatred.
Show me one place I dismissed that. Show me anywhere I dismissed fighting crime or said crime in cities is not a problem. I go to Chicago quarterly. Never had one issue. Ever. Stay downtown every time. It’s a beautiful city that is thriving with possibly the most beautiful architecture of any city in the US…maybe the world.
I’m not going to take your deflection bait, though. You are okay with sending troops into cities - only blue cities, in states that voted against POTUS - against the will of the state and the local governments, who have been democratically elected by the people in that area? How is that conservative again?
Also, please show me what “hatred”I have. Man, what a load of BS. I have hatred because I am against the executive of the federal government deploying the national guard to America’s third largest city that doesn't even want them there. Yeah, okay…I’m so hateful…or maybe you’re projecting.
The Federal Government has a right to protect its people. Protecting its citizens from threats foreign or domestic is more of a federal government job than many tasks those with their hands out all of the time expect. If the State or local government will not do anything then it is a federal task. There are sections of Chicago that has been gang war zones for far too long. Soft on crime has not worked and putting head in the sand and pretending is not an answer either. Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result in insanity. I do not know if this National Guard deployment will work but something has to be done.
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." Margarat Thatcher
Yet crime is down in Chicago and it isn't even rated in the top 10 cities in murder rates or violent crime rates. Also there are cities with higher crime rates in some cities in Mississippi as Mississippi sent Guard troops to DC.
If violent crime were the real reason they would be hitting the cities with the highest crime rates first and working their way down the list. That's not what they're doing.
Stop repeating GOP talking points and own up to what they're really doing. Targeting cities in Democratic strongholds while ignoring where violent crime rates and murder rates are actually the highest.
But they wrap it up in a flag like usual to bait all the suckers.
Murica! Freedumb!
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
I’ve taken that oath. Jefferson, Madison and just about every precursor to the current Republican Party you can think of would push back on your notion. Jefferson would look at this and be enraged beyond belief. Same with Madison if you read his federalist papers.
You cannot point to one poll, one request, one inkling if a state, local or other petition in that area that. Calls for this move. It’s an abuse of power and stands strictly in contravention to the Tenth Amendment (Jefferson’s).
Also, you can point to crime in ANY major city. Should he deploy troops to Cleveland? Memphis? Jackson? Why not deploy to the Red States while we’re at it? Also, what’s the end game? Will this suddenly fix the problem sustainably? What’s the cost of all this? I thought we were trying to save money.
Any time the central, federal government seeks to mobilize its own military domestically, against the will of the people, it ends poorly.
Back to Ben Franklin: Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Also, let’s keep in mind this is the same guy who wouldn’t deploy the National Guard when the actual Capitol was being attacked and his own VP and everyone in Congress was asking for it. Now, nobody is asking for it in Chicago, but yeah, let’s go ahead and put plans in place…
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Hegseth fires general whose agency’s intel assessment of damage from Iran strikes angered Trump
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes angered President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.
Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Hegseth also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who is chief of the Navy Reserve, as well as Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, another US official said.
The reasons for their firings, the latest in a series targeting military leaders, were not clear Friday.
The Trump administration increasingly has moved against both the military leadership and the intelligence community. Some current and former national security officials saw their security clearances revoked this week in a tactic that the administration has used against perceived foes.
Critics say the administration’s actions could chill dissent and send a signal that the intelligence community should be careful in reaching conclusions at odds with Trump’s interests.
Kruse’s firing comes a few months after details of a preliminary assessment of US airstrikes against Iran leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Republican president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report.
In a news conference following the June strikes, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of Iranian nuclear production facilities.
“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was an historically successful attack,” Hegseth said then.
While the Pentagon has offered no details on the firings, Democrats in Congress have raised alarm over the precedent Kruse’s ouster sets for the intelligence community.
“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the administration to show why Kruse was fired or “otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear” within the intelligence community.
The firing of Kruse, Lacore, and Sands was earlier reported by The Washington Post.
Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration has also stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites.
The new firings culminate a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and shakeups to the military leadership. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence — which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including DIA — announced that it would slash its staff and budget.
The Pentagon announced this week that the Air Force’s top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, planned to retire two years early.
Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation.
The administration has fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navy’s top officer, the Air Force’s second highest-ranking officer, and the top lawyers for three military service branches.
In April, Hegseth fired Gen. Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO.
No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of these firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
They found there was still some honesty, integrity and intelligence left in the military and intelligence community they had previously overlooked. And we all know they can't have that. You're either a yes man or you have to go.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
If they're doing so well why is trump pushing them to rig the delegates ahead of the 2026 election? You see, winning by huge numbers in some places won't make up for close losses in other places. Maybe it's time Republicans rethink the popular vote in terms of electing a president?
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
You're equating voter registration differences to "Republicans converting Democrats".
Only ~64% of eligible voters cast a ballot in 2024. That's down from 66% in 2020, and up from just over 60% for the election prior to that. Well over 30% of the eligible population doesn't show up each election... and when you're talking about Kamala Harris being subbed in for Joe Biden, it's not hard (for most) to correctly understand why registrations tilted the way they did.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
Yet crime is down in Chicago and it isn't even rated in the top 10 cities in murder rates or violent crime rates. Also there are cities with higher crime rates in some cities in Mississippi as Mississippi sent Guard troops to DC.
If violent crime were the real reason they would be hitting the cities with the highest crime rates first and working their way down the list. That's not what they're doing.
Stop repeating GOP talking points and own up to what they're really doing. Targeting cities in Democratic strongholds while ignoring where violent crime rates and murder rates are actually the highest.
But they wrap it up in a flag like usual to bait all the suckers.
Murica! Freedumb!
Yet only Chicago has double digit killings every weekend. Your crime rate theory is a bunch of malarky. Businesses are closing and moving out of areas based on number of crimes and not the crime rate.
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." Margarat Thatcher
Yes, only in trumplandia are facts and statistics considered malarkey and theories.
I'll see of you can focus enough to address this once again. Why is trump going to a city that doesn't even rate in the top 10 of violent crime or murder rates in the country instead of cities with higher crime and murder rates?
Memphis TN. has the highest violent crime rate in America.
The Chicago Tribune indicates there were 254 homicides reported by mid-August. Earlier reports showed a significant decrease, with homicides down by about 33% in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2024. That's less than 10 killings a week much less per weekend. You really need to stop regurgitating everything you are being spoon fed.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Yes, only in trumplandia are facts and statistics considered malarkey and theories.
I'll see of you can focus enough to address this once again. Why is trump going to a city that doesn't even rate in the top 10 of violent crime or murder rates in the country instead of cities with higher crime and murder rates?
Memphis TN. has the highest violent crime rate in America.
The Chicago Tribune indicates there were 254 homicides reported by mid-August. Earlier reports showed a significant decrease, with homicides down by about 33% in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2024. That's less than 10 killings a week much less per weekend. You really need to stop regurgitating everything you are being spoon fed.
He should clean up Memphis and any other city that has a problem. The USA should not stand still and ignore the violent crime problem in our inner cities.
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." Margarat Thatcher
Yes, only in trumplandia are facts and statistics considered malarkey and theories.
I'll see of you can focus enough to address this once again. Why is trump going to a city that doesn't even rate in the top 10 of violent crime or murder rates in the country instead of cities with higher crime and murder rates?
Memphis TN. has the highest violent crime rate in America.
The Chicago Tribune indicates there were 254 homicides reported by mid-August. Earlier reports showed a significant decrease, with homicides down by about 33% in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2024. That's less than 10 killings a week much less per weekend. You really need to stop regurgitating everything you are being spoon fed.
They're trotting out the old 'total vs rate' argument.
They'd rather have a RB who gets 60 yards on 20 carries vs one who gets 50 on 10.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
Yes, only in trumplandia are facts and statistics considered malarkey and theories.
I'll see of you can focus enough to address this once again. Why is trump going to a city that doesn't even rate in the top 10 of violent crime or murder rates in the country instead of cities with higher crime and murder rates?
Memphis TN. has the highest violent crime rate in America.
The Chicago Tribune indicates there were 254 homicides reported by mid-August. Earlier reports showed a significant decrease, with homicides down by about 33% in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2024. That's less than 10 killings a week much less per weekend. You really need to stop regurgitating everything you are being spoon fed.
They're trotting out the old 'total vs rate' argument.
They'd rather have a RB who gets 60 yards on 20 carries vs one who gets 50 on 10.
Yeah, Chicago residents are angry because convenance stores are leaving areas of the city. Do you think the stores are leaving cause the crime rate is lower or are they leaving due to the number of times they were robbed?
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." Margarat Thatcher
Please do tell, how many Chicago residents have you spoken to? The next time you talk to them ask them how they feel about National Guard troops invading their city.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
He should clean up Memphis and any other city that has a problem. The USA should not stand still and ignore the violent crime problem in our inner cities.
Do you mean the violent crime rates in both Chicago and D.C. which have gone down dramatically?
Militarizing our cites isn't the answer. If trump is so concerned about crime spend that same money hiring more police officers to address crime. You know, the people whose actual job is to address crime on our nations streets.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Trump's plan to create Guard units to quell civil unrest alarms experts
One retired Guard vice chief calls the president's move 'extremely disturbing.'
President Donald Trump on Monday ordered the Pentagon to create National Guard units in Washington, D.C., and across the country that would be designated to tamp down civil protests and ensure public safety -- a job that historically and legally has belonged to civilian law enforcement.
Critics called Trump's desire to build a kind of rapid "reaction force" for civil unrest alarming, insisting his order pushes legal boundaries for the National Guard, an auxiliary force whose mission is to help fight foreign enemies abroad or aid Americans in times of extraordinary crisis like hurricanes and floods.
In an executive order signed Monday, Trump called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to designate Army and Air National Guard members in each state who could rapidly deploy to help federal, state and local law enforcement "in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate, as appropriate under the law."
The order also called on Hegseth to begin immediately training and equipping a "specialized unit" within the D.C. National Guard "that is dedicated to ensuring public safety and order in the Nation's Capitol." The order says members of the unit would be "deputized" to enforce federal law.
When asked for comment, the Pentagon said it’s reviewing the order and its requirements.
Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, a former acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau and vocal opponent of Trump's reliance on Guard troops to aid law enforcement, said Trump's orders were unnecessary and "100 percent political."
"The administration is trying to desensitize the American people to get used to American armed soldiers in combat vehicles patrolling the streets of America," Manner said.
Trump wants Guard units "whose purpose is to, quite frankly, dominate and police the American people. And that is extremely disturbing," he added.
Retired Maj. Gen. Linda Singh, who led thousands of troops in Baltimore, Maryland, during the 2015 riots after the death of Freddie Gray, said the National Guard already has the ability to respond to civil unrest in times of crisis.
But using activated military troops to conduct law enforcement for the long-term could have major consequences, including harming the well-being of Guard personnel if their own communities reject their mission, she warned.
"What happens if there's an escalation and civilians are killed? Or Guardsmen are killed? I don't think we have an answer for that," said Singh, a former adjutant general for the Maryland Army National Guard.
Without a plan to return policing power to local civilian authorities, "I think we are setting precedents we can't come back from," she added.
Trump's latest executive order comes after the president deployed some 2,200 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., declaring crime was "out of control" even as city officials insisted it was lower than it's been in decades.
Since their deployment began, troops have patrolled mostly lower crime areas, including the National Mall and several Metro rail stations. Armed with M17 pistols and some with M4 rifles, the troops are not conducting arrests, officials said. Instead, officials say, troops are calling in security incidents to local police.
Guard members also could be seen posing with tourists and picking up trash around tourist spots.
Administration officials have defended the move as enabling police to go into higher crime areas. Trump on Monday said he wants to replicate the deployment in other cities like Chicago.
"They should be saying, 'Please come in,'" Trump told reporters of Democratic governors who object to the president's use of the Guard in their states.
Under the law, known as Posse Comitatus, the military is barred from acting as law enforcement on U.S. soil. But there are rare exceptions. As in the case of D.C., troops deployed for a federal mission but kept under the command of governors -- under a law known as Title 32 -- are exempt from Posse Comitatus. The D.C. mobilization is reliant on six Republican governors who agreed to Trump's request to send troops from their states to help police in the city, where the White House commands troops.
Sending troops into states over the objections of the governor is more limited. In the case of California, Trump invoked a different law -- Title X -- which allows a president to use Guard resources to protect federal property and federal personnel.
The National Guard already has "quick reaction forces" in every state that are able to respond quickly in times of crisis. Manner said Trump appears to be calling for something different. Instead of the capability to respond to crisis, Trump appears to want units that specialize in quelling civil unrest, much as other units might specialize in intelligence or armor.
"They're going to be there to police Americans," Manner said.
The White House and Pentagon have not been able to provide a cost estimate on the National Guard deployment in D.C.
How do you say you're preparing to impose martial law on cities in Democrat states without saying you are preparing to impose martial law on cities in Democrat states? Just like this.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
This dates back to a realization I had during the Vietnam war. I was very young then but it became obvious when those soldiers came home and seeing how poorly they were treated. Soldiers and National Guard troops go into the military to serve their country. They don't have the option to choose what they are directed and ordered to do. That's beyond their control. And in many cases they are not comfortable with what they have been ordered to do. Yet once they sign on the dotted line, they are at the mercy of those above them.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
DOGE put Social Security data in ‘vulnerable cloud environment’: Whistleblower
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) put important Social Security data in a “vulnerable cloud environment,” a whistleblower with the Social Security Administration (SSA) said in a report Tuesday.
According to the whistleblower report, SSA Chief Data Officer Chuck Borges “has become aware through reports to him of serious data security lapses, evidently orchestrated by DOGE officials, currently employed as SSA employees, that risk the security of over 300 million Americans’ Social Security data.”
“What has not been reported are DOGE’s actions, in violation of SSA protocols and policies, under the authority” of SSA Chief Information Officer Aram Moghaddassi “to create a live copy of the country’s Social Security information in a cloud environment that circumvents oversight,” Borges’s attorneys said in the whistleblower report, which was first reported by The New York Times.
“This vulnerable cloud environment is effectively a live copy of the entire country’s Social Security information from the Numerical Identification System (NUMIDENT) database, that apparently lacks any security oversight from SSA or tracking to determine who is accessing or has accessed the copy of this data.”
The report states that the Numident database has “all data submitted in an application for a United States Social Security card” like names, races, birthdays and citizenship statuses.
“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost,” the report continues.
When reached for comment, an SSA spokesperson said “Commissioner [Frank] Bisignano and the Social Security Administration take all whistleblower complaints seriously.”
“SSA stores all personal data in secure environments that have robust safeguards in place to protect vital information. The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the internet,” the spokesperson continued.
The Hill was directed to the SSA by the White House.
An appeals court ruled earlier this month that DOGE could access millions of Americans’ sensitive federal data, going back on a temporary injunction from earlier this year.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled via a 2-1 decision that unions attempting to stop DOGE from getting into sensitive Treasury Department, Office of Personnel Management and Department of Education data were not likely to succeed on the merits as they argued the move would violate federal privacy laws.
When you go to the website of the Illinois National Guard, and you click on leadership, Gov. JB Pritzker is listed at the top of the food chain. He's authorized to deploy the National Guard, but there are exceptions.
At Congress.gov you'll find what's called The Posse Comitatus Act, which spells out the three instances when the president can utilize a state's National Guard: "to repel an invasion, suppress a rebellion, or execute federal laws when he is unable to execute them using the regular forces."
If the president activates the National Guard in Chicago, Gov. JB Pritzker has said he'll take this to court, arguing the Posse Comitatus exceptions were not met, but President Trump on Tuesday asserted he can send in the National Guard no matter what the governor wants.
"I would have much more respect for Pritzker if he'd call me up and say, 'I have a problem, can you help me fix it?' I would be so happy to do it," President Trump said. "I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States. If I think our country's in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it. No problem going in and solving his difficulties, but it would be nice if they'd call and they'd say 'Would you do it?' And we'd do it in conjunction."
Denmark summons US envoy over report on covert American ‘influence operations’ in Greenland
The US envoy to Denmark was summoned by the Danish foreign ministry on Wednesday, after the country’s public broadcaster reported that a number of American men have attempted to conduct “influence operations” in Greenland.
According to an investigation by Danish public broadcaster DR, at least three Americans with “ties” to US President Donald Trump are conducting active operations in Greenland, sparking concerns that they could be working to shift public opinion and push Trump’s desire to make Greenland a part of the US.
Greenland, a huge, resource-rich island in the Atlantic, is a self-governing territory of Denmark. Trump has repeatedly stated that he wants to annex the island, claiming that this is needed for security purposes. Both Greenland and Denmark are staunchly opposed to the idea.
“We are aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland and its position in the Kingdom of Denmark. It is therefore not surprising if we experience outside attempts to influence the future of the Kingdom in the time ahead,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a statement Wednesday.
According to the DR investigation, which was based off conversations with eight sources across Denmark, Greenland and the US, the three men are conducting the operations in an attempt to “infiltrate Greenlandic society.”
One of the American men involved has made a list of Trump supporters in Greenland, with the goal of later recruiting them to establish a secessionist movement on the island, according to the broadcaster.
The two other men have made contact with politicians, business people and other citizens, causing authorities to be concerned that they could be used to support Trump’s goal of annexing the territory, DR reported.
The broadcaster was unable to determine whether or not the men were acting under orders. CNN has reached out to the White House and the government of Greenland for comment.
“Any attempt to interfere” in Denmark’s internal affairs is “unacceptable,” Rasmussen said in Wednesday’s statement.
“The cooperation between the governments of Denmark and Greenland is close and based on mutual trust, just as there is close cooperation and dialogue between the relevant Greenlandic and Danish authorities,” he continued.
05, I hope you are well and I am glad your quarterly visits to Chicago have been safe. I also do not believe for a second you are dismissive of city crime. But do you think your quarterly visits to Chicago give you a true picture of local there for law abiding residents of the city.
You know the murder rate per capita in Chicago is higher than the murder rate of two of the three countries in the Northern Triangle, countries that we have taken thousands of applications for asylum from their citizens in the past 5 years because they were trying to escape the violence. So apparently we need to offer the residents of Chicago an opportunity to claim asylum too. lol
A weekend or two ago there were 35 shootings and 5 murders in Chicago. One weekend. I think if you would listen to the good folks of Chicago they would not consider your experience comparable to their live in Chicago.
I had some thoughts about another post of yours but I am out of time. I hope you are having a great day.
Yet Chicago isn't even rated in the top 10 of American cities in murder rates or violent crime rates. But it is in another democratic state ran by yet another black mayor. Memphis Tennessee is the city with the highest violent crime rate in the nation with a rate of 2,501 violent crimes per 100,000 people and a difference of +343.6% from the national rate. But trump has never mentioned it. Then again it's located in a red state.
Why don't you ask all of the citizens of Chicago how they feel about armed troops patrolling their streets?
If trump and his supporters are so worried about crime in our cites, why aren't they providing the funds to hire more cops rather than spending that money on deploying troops? You know cops. The people who are actually supposed to be enforcing the law on our nations streets.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
05, I hope you are well and I am glad your quarterly visits to Chicago have been safe. I also do not believe for a second you are dismissive of city crime. But do you think your quarterly visits to Chicago give you a true picture of local there for law abiding residents of the city.
You know the murder rate per capita in Chicago is higher than the murder rate of two of the three countries in the Northern Triangle, countries that we have taken thousands of applications for asylum from their citizens in the past 5 years because they were trying to escape the violence. So apparently we need to offer the residents of Chicago an opportunity to claim asylum too. lol
A weekend or two ago there were 35 shootings and 5 murders in Chicago. One weekend. I think if you would listen to the good folks of Chicago they would not consider your experience comparable to their live in Chicago.
I had some thoughts about another post of yours but I am out of time. I hope you are having a great day.
Hey Keith, hope you are doing well. Just wanted to add that I don’t live in Chicago, but my 23 year old nephew does. He hasn’t come across any problems and he lives closer to the south end of downtown, not in Wrigleyville or Lincoln Park. He was actually a Trump voter but is very much against this. As an OG conservative, I am too, and I am very concerned about Trump’s statements he made regarding his ability to “do anything he wants.” The Constitution also doesn’t convey this power to anyone as evidenced by the Posse Comitatus.
Chicago has been Chicago for a while now. Every major city has good and bad areas. It should never be up to the federal government to enact law enforcement at local or state levels, barring things like Civil Rights and desegregation federal law implementation in southern schools. It is a slippery slope we don’t ever want to go down, combine that with POTUS’ statements.
Last I checked, St Louis, New Orleans, KC and Memphis all had murder rates worse than Chicago, but there is no rhetoric regarding those locales from POTUS. I also don’t see the end game. We spent how much money and troops for decades placing them in areas they weren’t meant to be with almost no return on that investment. What makes us think placing troops in Chicago would have any better effect, especially over the long term? What’s the end game?
To me, it’s pretty easy to lift the shroud and see the true motivations here.
Hope you are also doing well, Keith. Keep in touch. Hope hurricane season is smooth for you this year.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
We’re all about to receive Trump’s planned economic pain amidst his blitzkrieg of American Dem cities…. Back to school prices are way up and schools will be hurting…. So much winning…
Actually, 05, the charts I saw showed Chicago with the greatest number of murders but more like 10-12 in per capita murders. St Louis was first and there were a number more listed before Chicago.
05, You have offered great concerns for what Trump is doing and I would like to offer a couple of thoughts on that. First, I totally support what The Pres is doing in D.C. There is a relationship between the Feds and the city that is unique. The home rule law passed in 1973 I think, grants the Pres the authority to take over the D.C. police. So if the admin deems it necessary they can do that. Obviously he can call up national guard if he needs to. This is our nations capital. Thousands of foreigners and millions of Americans visit every year. The are entitled to walk the streets of our capital without having to walk thru or around a bunch of tent cities and being accosted by homeless people. Without worrying about being mugged or shot. So what Trump is doing here I support. If you think he is doing something illegal or unconstitutional I just do not agree.
05, Where I agree with you is that I think this power is peculiar to the streets of D.C. In other cities law enforcement is the responsibility of primarily the locals. I don’t think horrible crime stats call for federal intervention. At some point the local voters need to act to remove pols who are contributing to the crime problem with their looney policies. So I hope wiser heads prevail and they back off .
I was flabbergasted when I heard an admin spokeswoman talk about doubling the number of Chicomm students we are taking. Insane idea. We should shut them completely out. Chicomms are our enemy and people need to realize that. I wish the Pres I vote for would do everything I would like but so far none have consulted with me.
I do sense a lot of irony that he is calling in the National guard in DC now and did not do so on J6. My concern is the “boiling a frog” approach. Why all of a sudden now in this point is he sticking the streets of DC with National guard? Because of what happened to Big Balls? Really? There is also a significant pushback to against what he is theorizing. Jose Andres came out today and said that attendance at restaurants has gone down, not up, and he chastised Trump for the fact that he is saying all these things, without actually having gone out into the city even to a restaurant for an appearance. Heck, even Boris Yeltsin had the the graciousness to look for pizza out in the city while drunk in the middle of the night
My biggest concern is that, even if it’s a power conferred to the President, I think a lot of us can agree that he has made an aggressive attempt during his administration to test the limits of his power. Putting troops in DC raises a lot of eyebrows, but people can eventually chalk it up to “Oh, well, he can.” Once desensitized to that, then it becomes “Oh, well the murder rate in Chicago is bad, and he already deployed troops to DC, so why not Chicago?!” Not saying you do that, but it’s a viable overarching strategy of which I remain very leery. At some point, we have to say here is the Rubicon and he is on the other side of it. In this case, perhaps it’s the Chicago River.
I don’t think there is ever a perfect candidate. I was no fan of Harris. It’s looking like Newsom will be the guy in ‘28 and I don’t like him either. I just find that Trump has an unparalleled level of danger about him that makes him more concerning to me than anyone else politically. I lived through the J6 fallout, the pardons, the Musk debacle, the Epstein about-face. There are no shortage of red flags. He has also rewritten the playbook of the party. It’s division and blutzkrieg castigation right now. DeSantis has adopted it, Vance did an about-face, same with Rubio. The McCain and Romney era is officially dead.
Edit - forgot to wish you a wonderful evening, good sir.
Last edited by dawglover05; 08/27/2509:13 PM.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
"I know way too many Americans don't care anymore, but Donald Trump is everything you teach kids not to be — cruel, ignorant, lawless, a bully, coward, cheat, narcissist, and liar. Shame on us for electing him again." – Joe Walsh Rep Congressman.
Well between Jack White and Joe Walsh they have it covered.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
"I know way too many Americans don't care anymore, but Donald Trump is everything you teach kids not to be — cruel, ignorant, lawless, a bully, coward, cheat, narcissist, and liar. Shame on us for electing him again." – Joe Walsh Rep Congressman.
Well between Jack White and Joe Walsh they have it covered.
05, I hope you are well and I am glad your quarterly visits to Chicago have been safe. I also do not believe for a second you are dismissive of city crime. But do you think your quarterly visits to Chicago give you a true picture of local there for law abiding residents of the city.
You know the murder rate per capita in Chicago is higher than the murder rate of two of the three countries in the Northern Triangle, countries that we have taken thousands of applications for asylum from their citizens in the past 5 years because they were trying to escape the violence. So apparently we need to offer the residents of Chicago an opportunity to claim asylum too. lol
A weekend or two ago there were 35 shootings and 5 murders in Chicago. One weekend. I think if you would listen to the good folks of Chicago they would not consider your experience comparable to their live in Chicago.
I had some thoughts about another post of yours but I am out of time. I hope you are having a great day.
This entire post was advocating for troops to go to Chicago.
Quote
I made no reference to soldiers in Chicago so go argue with somebody else.
Sure, right......
So per capita crime doesn't count. Which cities have the highest violent crime rates don't count. Let's just start with #8, #10, or #12 on the list and only cities in blue states. Try getting a firm grasp of the obvious here and stop making excuses.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
White House fires CDC director Monarez after she refuses to resign; 4 top health officials quit
The White House on Wednesday said it had fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez after she refused to resign. Four other top CDC officials announced they were quitting the embattled health agency.
The leadership crisis at CDC erupted the same day the Food and Drug Administration announced new limits on who can get the latest approved round of Covid vaccines in the U.S.
“Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” White House Spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to NBC News. “Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing [Health and Human Services Department] leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC.”
The statement comes hours after attorney Mark Zaid said he was representing Monarez and that she had not actually been fired yet or stepped down, adding that she would not resign.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” Zaid said in a statement. “For that, she has been targeted.”
Earlier on Wednesday, HHS said in a post on X that “Monarez is no longer director” of the agency.
Monarez, a longtime federal government scientist, was sworn in on July 31. She is the first CDC director to be confirmed by the Senate following a new law passed during the pandemic that required lawmakers to approve nominees for the role.
The Washington Post first reported her ousting on Wednesday.
At least four other officials also submitted their resignations on Wednesday in a massive shakeup at the agency: Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology.
Houry, in a resignation letter obtained by NBC News, wrote about the dangers of the spread of vaccine misinformation and said proposed budget cuts and reorganization plans would negatively impact the CDC’s ability to address conditions like hypertension, diabetes, cancer, overdoses and mental health issues.
In his resignation letter, also obtained by NBC News, Daskalakis said he was leaving the agency “because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health.”
Her departure comes at a tumultuous time for the agency, which is reeling from a gunman’s attack on its Atlanta headquarters on Aug. 8. A police officer died in the shooting.
Monarez on Friday canceled a meeting with CDC workers that had been scheduled for Monday, according to an email obtained by NBC News. She said she wanted to assure staff that the agency is working to restore their “trust in the safety and security of all CDC workplaces.”
President Donald Trump nominated Monarez after withdrawing his first pick to lead the CDC, former Republican congressman Dave Weldon, hours before his confirmation hearing. Weldon has been criticized for his views on vaccines.
"I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States.
"I'm not a dictator." - also Trump
It's difficult (and moreso as time goes on) to reconcile both of these types of statements he makes.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
Rather than make something up, aka lie, read my post of 7:16 last night, third paragraph. I explicitly stated my view on military in Chicago. Probably won’t prevent you from repeating the same bs, but oh well, I can only try.
So find somebody else to argue with about the military in the city. I’m done with you!!
I was referring to the post I quoted. Not the one you made later that appears to retract or change the focus of your message. But I'm certainly pleasantly surprised by what seems to be a different perspective from you on the topic.
And BTW- when you posted this.... "Chicago is higher than the murder rate of two of the three countries in the Northern Triangle"
Here is the problem. When you try to rationalize that using an entire country to compare to a city it holds no value. A county has much of its land in suburban, rural, lowly populated areas which go into the equation. A city is a concentrated population of people where no such circumstances exist. If you wish to make a point there you should compare their biggest cities to Chicago. That would at least be a somewhat accurate comparison.
Not a lot of violent crime going on in the jungle and on farms. I think you get it.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
"I know way too many Americans don't care anymore, but Donald Trump is everything you teach kids not to be — cruel, ignorant, lawless, a bully, coward, cheat, narcissist, and liar. Shame on us for electing him again." – Joe Walsh Rep Congressman.
Well between Jack White and Joe Walsh they have it covered.
And the conservative canned answer to why is. “I dont like Trump personally but I like his policies”. Which is ridiculous because his policies are cruel, ignorant, and lawless. Put forward by a coward, cheat narcissist liar.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
Trump Seizes Control of Train Station After Vance and Miller’s PR Stunt Humiliation Ewan Palmer Wed, August 27, 2025 at 9:49 AM EDT 3 min read
President Donald Trump’s administration is taking control of Washington D.C.’s Union Station after three of his top officials were loudly heckled during a botched PR stunt at the transit hub.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy—a former contestant in Road Rules—announced Wednesday that his department would reclaim management of the nation’s second-busiest rail terminal as part of the administration’s sweeping efforts to tighten control over the capital.
Duffy was at Union Station to launch a new fleet of high-speed Acela trains for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor route between D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston—trains which were first ordered under President Barack Obama in 2016, and which will benefit from infrastructure investments made as part of President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
The controversial federal takeover of D.C. has included deploying National Guard soldiers to patrol the streets, assisting police in tackling crime, and picking up trash.
“Instead of being a point of pride, Washington’s Union Station has fallen into disrepair,” Duffy said in a statement reported by The Washington Post. “By reclaiming station management, we will help make this city safe and beautiful at a fraction of the cost.”
The move came a week after Vice President JD Vance, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were booed and jeered with chants of “Free D.C.” as they attempted a photo op with National Guard troops stationed at Union Station, complete with boxes of cheeseburgers.
The officials were also greeted with shouts of “f---ing Nazi” and “get the f--- out of my city.” One heckler even called Vance a “couch f---er,” a reference to a baseless meme claiming the vice president wrote about having sex with a couch in his Hillbilly Elegy memoir, which became a meme during the 2024 election.
During the chaotic visit, Vance was asked by the press why troops were being stationed in the rail station instead of areas of the city with higher crime rates.
In response, Vance suggested Union Square, one of the country’s biggest rail hubs, was full of “vagrants, drug addicts, the chronically homeless and the mentally ill,” which makes visitors to the capital feel unsafe.
He said he had brought his children there “a couple of years ago” and claimed, “they were being screamed at by violent vagrants.”
The station had been badly hit in 2020 by the collapse of travel but has been recovering since. It is second only to New York Penn Station for passenger use although with 70,000 a day using it, it is small by international standards.
The nonprofit Union Station Redevelopment Corp manages Union Station. The Trump administration’s plans for a full takeover of Union Station are expected to be completed in September, according to Reuters.
The Department of Transportation now plans upgrades to lighting, elevators, and the roof as part of its takeover. However the nonprofit was already working on an expansion and upgrade using money from the Biden administration’s spending plans.
The ownership and management of the station was handed to the nonprofit in 1983 after the building underwent a major restoration. Since then it has been responsible for its upkeep while it is now policed solely by Amtrak Police, already under the command of Duffy.
A year ago, while Joe Biden was still president, the DOJ published an article on declining crime and homelessness at the station.
But this year MAGA supporter Scott Jennings witnessed a fatal shooting inside the terminal and posted about it to X, while the Washington Post reported
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