I’m still on my Gone Fishing break. I may have eaten the best anchovies in my life yesterday.
But I thought I’d post an open thread.
Among other things, consider that Marc Caputo, who always faceplants when he tries to write about the law, was among the first to report the Jim Comey subpoena. In this case, Caputo described the John Ratcliffe report as if it were true.
But then, much of the coverage of Trump’s invasion of Iran, such as this David Sanger piece treating Trump’s disavowal of the Israeli strikes on Iran’ soil fields, treats Trump’s claims as if they are true, too.
Discuss!
If anyone imagines the Trump regime is managing well their war against Iran, I encourage them to read retired Lt. General Mark Hertling’s piece a few days ago:
Iran Gets a Vote in This War.
A lot of the same themes were pointed out by Tom Nichols in his article in The Atlantic a few weeks ago:
Operational Excellence, Strategic Incompetence.
We can only hope the long-term fallout from this whole thing won’t be totally catastrophic. Trump’s hubris might have finally fucked America on a scale large enough that even his die-hard supporters will eventually notice.
Tom Nichols has something out in The Atlantic, today:
Trump Had No Plan B for Iran And it shows.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-iran-war/686470/
Tom Nichols March 20, 2026
https://bsky.app/profile/radiofreetom.bsky.social/post/3mhin6sehy227
9:37 AM · Mar 20, 2026 [GIFT link here]
Trump had no Plan A for Iran, either.
He doesn’t have a clue, AFAICT: he wants to send more ships and Marines, but he also wants it to wind down.
I’ve been troubled all along by a sense of the plan that Trump has always been following being to provide an opportunity for Putin (and Xi along with him) to ride in like knights in shining armor to ‘rescue’ the world from ‘Trump.’
It’s a ‘geopolitical’ variation of the old steal your wallet & ‘help’ you find it. (I’ve been waiting for Republicans to get around to that number since 2015).
How that might play out in the Strait of Hormuz should be self-explanatory at this point. It’s beginning to appear before our very eyes now. “We’ll see how it goes,” as Trump put it.
I think Putin never had the kind of control over Iran that he would prefer, and he (and Xi) successfully played the far-right in USA and Israel as a half-witting proxy toward that end. His intelligence agencies have long exploited certain Republican and Likud susceptibilities (and vice versa, big time) to give themselves a shot at it.
His plan B was to threaten war crimes, promising to bomb Iranian power plants if they didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz. I’m relieved he backed down… for now, at any rate. Next week, who knows?
EW,
Mark Caputo is, your phrase, an access-journo data mule, for Trump. Jason A Quinoñes AUSA SDFL
along with Fed Judge Aileen Cannon have no tether to principles. 11th Circuit overrule of numerous SDFL decisions from Judge Cannon in service too and in favor of Trump’s bathroom storage and continued possession of Gov’t classified documents.
Stop, for a moment, and try to imagine yourself in US. aviation uniform staring at a live action aviation radar screen onboard AWACS in the near sky and you see racing across your screen, jets, flying bombing run formation, over Iranian,South Pars gas fields. Do you believe for one second, that you and your command structure, tasked with targeting and defending Iranian airspace for US jets flying bombs over Iranian territory, that you did not receive advance notice from Israel, to protect their pilots and planes and mission, that their planes were going to be in the air over Iran to bomb South Pars gas fields? Trump was warned prior to South Pars attack if for no other reason than to protect Israel aircraft from our air defenses.
Lie’s are easier when there are no principled constraints.
And speaking of no constraints, I think we have to consider the possibility Trump was blackmailed into this war by Netanyahu, just as he’s being blackmailed by Russia into withdrawing most support for Ukraine. Part of what may be hidden in the Epstein files are Epstein’s ties to Russian and Israeli intelligence, possibly through Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father was thought to be an agent of both. If that’s true, then Israel has the same Epstein-linked dirt on Trump that Russia does, dirt that Trump is frantic to keep hidden, especially now with the Epstein media storm far from over. Really reassuring, right? Our president may be owned by not one, but two foreign leaders.
Not only Iran but Israel get a vote and it’s pretty obvious that they are doing their own thing and don’t give a monkey’s what is good for Trump unless it helps them first. Netenyahu will be happy with total chaos in Iran. The longer he keeps the war going, the longer he doesn’t have to face his corruption charges. Maybe he thinks he can rehabilitate himself as a hero who saved his country.*
And then there are the Gulf states who (apart from the Saudis) didn’t ask for any of this and must be mad as hell at both Netenyahu and Trump.
This is spiralling way out of Donnie’s control, however much bluster he musters. Yes, it might take attention away from the Epstein stuff but it’s going to have economic impacts which are going to make him look very, very bad. Strongly bad.
*Trump wanted the Nobel Peace Prize. Not getting that, he seems to be going for the Nobel for War, and he’s fucking that up, too. Because, well, he’s a moron, and he’s greedy, and he’s a moron.
Hertling’s article is so painful as it clearly calls out this administration’s lack of seriousness.
Not My quote but great
When you smack a hornet’s nest THEY decide when it’s over.
When you kill a guy’s father, wife and system, he’s bound to get over it quickly!
As Trump flails away at allegedly trying to keep oil prices down, he is planning to lift sanctions on IRANIAN oil, while simultaneously being at war with Iran.
I would imagine this is one of the first times that a war leader took the strategic step of helping to finance the enemy he is at war with.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/19/us-sanctions-iranian-oil-hormuz
Being an open thread, I would like to go back a couple weeks to the neck rash our President had. And how healthy his ear looked in the photos.
To my totally untrained eye, it looked like he wasn’t grazed leading up to the last Republican convention. Although, maybe it heals normal, or plastic surgery??
I think they replaced Trump’s head before the convention with a realistic rubber sculpture with the lips operated robotically by Stephen Miller. After all, his head has never been where he does his “thinking” anyway.
I’m sorry but it’s not hard at all to get cut in ways that result in ample bleeding without longterm scarring, especially when it involves sharp objects moving quickly.
To take this conspiracy theory seriously, we have to believe that Trump in concert with his people would have decided to somehow ensure that the shooter got on the roof, FIRED AN ACTUAL SHOT VERY CLOSE TO THE PRESIDENT THAT KILLED A RALLY ATTENDEE, and then deployed some blood gimmick in a brief scrum in the midst of multiple pro cameras and countless cell phones.
Do I think this admin is above accepting human loss of life as a means to further the administration’s ends? No. But I do find the sequence of discussions, choices, and events that would have had to play out to make Eargate a thing to be bananapants.
“To take this conspiracy theory seriously, we have to believe that Trump in concert with his people would have decided to somehow ensure that the shooter got on the roof, FIRED AN ACTUAL SHOT VERY CLOSE TO THE PRESIDENT THAT KILLED A RALLY ATTENDEE.”
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it does occur to me that Trump’s campaign saw an opportunity in the incident you reference & made his “injury” more than it really was. They might not have planned it or expected it.
The thing that makes me suspicious that *something* is weird is that he got up immediately to pose for pictures – you know, the fist pumping in front of the flag and supposedly saying “fight, fight, fight.” Two things about that: (1) he is the biggest coward that ever lived; and (2) how did they all know there wasn’t a threat anymore. It seems to me that his cowardice would have made him want to be hustled to the nearest bunker. And his security detail is grossly incompetent if they weren’t accounting for the possibility that it wasn’t a “lone gunman.”
I don’t know exactly what, but something is off about the whole episode.
I noted that the flag was lowered immediately so as to lend pictorial mirroring to raising the flag at Iwo Jima.
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snowdog —
your hunches are not far off the mark.
WaPo is reporting that the Russians are proposing a similar assassination attempt to boost Orban’s chances in the up-coming Hungarian election.
https: //www.washingtonpost.com/ world/ 2026/03/21/ hungary-election-interference-russia-orban/ (link broken with spaces)
Not only was that crane-operated flag being lowered into place for the photo op immediately after the “assassination” attempt highly suspect, but also a staffer, or a security person, immediately moving photographers from one side of the stage to the other so as to get them into position to get the “fight” pic from the “correct” side so as to have the flag in the background of the shot. Highly suspicious that people were poised to take coordinated action. And then lack of coverage of the shooter.
Re: “He (Trump) is planning to lift sanctions on IRANIAN oil, while simultaneously being at war with Iran.” There is an historical analog – Trump IS Alcibiades. He betrayed Athens to Sparta while they were at war. Fled to Sparta. Where he betrayed Sparta to Persia. Fled to Persia. If only we could get him into that whole “fled” thing.
I haz anchoas españolas envy…
I was struck by Anne Applebaum’s recent piece in The Atlantic:
He has no foresight, no ability to plan.
He has little ability to execute follow-through based on if-then systems thinking.
He has little memory.
Add his confabulations and false claims.
Trump certainly acts like someone with dementia well advanced beyond mild cognitive impairment and even someone like Applebaum who has spent so much time writing about Trump with specificity about his failings dances around it.
Her essay was picked up and republished by Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung; I can see Europeans in my timeline nodding in agreement with what she said but it’s as if they, too, refuse to acknowledge the man is deeply unwell and shouldn’t be permitted to dictate any portion of global geopolitics.
The title of Applebaum’s essay is Everyone but Trump Understands What He’s Done — and yet if everyone knows and understands, none of them are willing to say it.
Can Trump be demented without having dementia?
I vacillate between thinking Trump has age-related dementia and thinking that this is who he has always been and we are just seeing him now unchained. If Trump were some retired bloated rich guy sitting with friends in a country club after cheating at golf, we could regard his ranting and raving as just a racist ignoramus spouting off among long-time friends. Maybe his dementia manifests as him talking and acting like he is in his country club where what he says has no real world consequences.
Diagnosis aside, both Applebaum and Sanger describe a man with characteristics who should not be in a position of power and responsibility. This should be obvious to anyone around him (with the exception of true lunkheads like Hegseth).
The Donalds’s father, after he discovered that Donald was messing with gangs in Manhattan, sent him to the New York Military Academy. There an instructor how to act and get what he wants without being physical, and the advantages of that approach. Later, of course his mentor for a decade or more was Roy Cohn, Cohn, a ‘lawyer’ taught him to never relent and always attack….and after that of course decades with Jeffrey. Its not dementia, its a well trained single mindedness of ‘Me First’.
Dementia makes attributes acquired in youth much worse because it removes social filters. If his narcissism was bad before, it’s worsened with dementia.
Can it be both though. Trump has always been a narcissist and all, but can also be on the path to dementia. My father and mother both have Alzheimer’s. My father’s is less than my mother’s but I can see the sign in Trump. He is losing words, he is losing situational awareness. No one takes that many cognitives tests so close together without the doctor being worried about dementia. And Trump is so situationally impaired that he is bragging about it.
My father is also on blood thinners and has the same dark splotches on his hands. Trump has many health problems he is not fessing up to and any one of them could be making the dementia worse.
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Google Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). Seems to fit Trump.
It is possible he does have dementia, but that does not consider the fact that he has been like this for much of his life – at least as long as I can remember him (from the ’80’s) and his niece, Mary indicated that he has always been the way he is today. It is likely he has damage to his prefrontal cortex. His disorder was known as psychopathology. The DSM has changed the term to Antisocial Personality Disorder. Mary Trump noted that he has several disorders, so it is hard to pigeonhole him. Psychopaths don’t trust anyone that is why they are transactional. They are delusional and that is why they are completely immoral – they believe that the most moral person is putting on a show. They use and manipulate people. They don’t care if they harm others because they deserve it. They are charming to your face if they think they can con you, but are happy to stab you in the back if you don’t do what they want you to do. The only reason he is not in jail is that he inherited $400m. If you can get your hands on a PCL-R, read the questions – the answers for him are consistently and resoundingly “yes”. Many are “Oh yeah!” It may not be memory problems you are seeing, it could be that he is using someone differently and keeps most of his motives hidden. At 79, anyone would have a hard time remembering all of his schemes. I believe Stephen Miller is keeping a ledger.
Most experts have diagnosed Trump with frontal temporal disease as opposed to Alzheimer’s dementia. We’ve watched him confabulate, where before he just lied knowingly. Recently, his impulse control and inhibition centers are deteriorating, and he’s talking about things he shouldn’t be talking about. Like Neal Dunn’s health. Or the constant insistence he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Add in his narcissistic personality disorder, and I think demented is a pretty good description.
He’s now mad at Spain. [https://www.reuters.com/business/trump-says-us-will-cut-all-trade-with-spain-2026-03-03/ ]
And “Trump issues executive order requiring CFP to avoid broadcasting conflicts with Army-Navy game” [https://apnews.com/article/trump-army-navy-game-cfp-05a8a6888b21f1f6bac3feee8f34cef6 ]
Needs to take a long vacation somewhere with no phone service. And locked outside doors.
Well, he has admitted that a) he’s allowed to do whatever he wants and b) he makes decisions based on his feelings and c) he’s not going to heaven. He’s surrounded by clapping seals like Mike Johnson. He has Bondi running interference for him with the Epstein files. He has few guardrails, he knows it, and he’s taking advantage of it. He has, as they say, zero fucks to give. He expects others to deal with his mess (e.g., Strait of Hormuz, gas prices).
The Dow was last at 50,000 on February 12 but Trump is still bragging about it.
“The Dow was last at 50,000 on February 12 but Trump is still bragging about it.”
This may be another example of his short-term memory loss, and perhaps another feature my mother’s form of dementia displays: a loss of time consciousness. He is no longer fully aware of the passage of time except that it’s morning/not morning, evening/not evening. He might remember the day of the week, he might not, and if he does he may have had several reminders not just from his phone.
He has even fewer fucks to give because he can’t recall ever being punished in the recent past. There are no guardrails because he can’t remember any. And all of his staff around him have either internalized this or they are protecting their own asses by ensuring Trump’s ass is covered.
The one thing he’s still sensitive to is threats to his ego. This is timeless, has been with him his entire life; he fears being a loser because it destroys the fabrication he sustains in lieu of a real self. News media doing real reporting with candid statements could hit him where it hurts the most but with so much of media owned by people who are intent on propping him to preserve their own interests, there won’t be any prolonged messaging that reaches through his loss of memory and his loss of time orientation. I can tell you the local media market serving West Palm Beach never offers deep and serious coverage of Trumpian failures so he won’t see any attacks to his ego even if he had to watch local cable or broadcast TV.
There are two bubbles that must be popped: the one protecting his ego, and the one protecting those who grift with or in tandem with Trump, among which are some GOP members of Congress.
Rayne,
Trust me, I get what you’re saying about dementia symptoms. You could be right.
It could also be because he just does not care how nuts he sounds because he knows plenty of people still believe him. After all, he is still claiming he won 2020. He claimed he did not write that letter to Epstein and that it wasn’t his signature. Claimed he didn’t know E. Jean Carroll. He says facts are fake news. Ad nauseum. Blatant gaslighting. Also, he has his Paula Whites praying over him and telling him he is doing God’s work. Maybe he believes the hype.
Make that a lot of members of Congress and not just Republicans.
Reply to wild bill 99 on March 21, 2026 at 5:00 pm —
If there was a vote right now in both houses of Congress, which party would overwhelmingly vote to impeach, convict, and remove Trump? There may be less than 20 Dems who wouldn’t, unlike the GOP.
Put the emphasis and blame where it belongs: if the GOP wasn’t stuck on kneepads before their demented orange king, Trump would already be gone.
There’s a GIFT Link to that Applebaum essay here:
https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social/post/3mhcogderd22o
12:43 AM · Mar 18, 2026
Thanks, harpie. My German’s not good enough to read the other version linked to above (I couldn’t get past the pop-up which was something about cookies and subscribing).
The short term thinking is a consequence of narcissistic personality disorder Trump picked up early on. The nature of the disease is that a Traumatic Event in his youth locked him in flight or flight. That event never gets processed as a memory, because his brain runs away from it, making his mid brain think that the traumatic event is still happening right now – a lifetime later.
What the event was doesn’t matter that much to the diagnosis. The event just needs to be something bad enough that the conscious brain runs away from it. That IS narcissism.
That fight or flight bit makes him literally live in the moment. He can’t conceive of the future when triggered, and hasn’t learned (is too stupid?) to calm and intellectually review his decisions when calm. (That is a coping method that mitigates the short term thinking narcissists are prone to). Also, he is almost perpetually triggered as can be seen in his constant posting, stream of consciousness nonsense he shares.
Any dementia can exacerbate his condition, but isn’t necessary to explain both his short term thinking and inability to back down. Now that he is surrounded by yes people, there is no constraint on him, and we get to live with unconstrained narcissism. The flight part is less engaged when he feels powerful – so we live with fight.
The need for adoration is tied to his constant striving to be safe. His body thinks he is under attack, so people adoring him make him feel safer. Any disagreement is an attack, and the attacker is better destroyed, not just pushed away.
Attacking Iran is a display of power, feeling powerful chases away the attackers (real and hallucinated) he thinks are always circling him. Bibi has convinced him that other presidents were too scared to attack, so the attack shows that he is really really powerful, more than even other presidents.
As his war begins to unravel, he will start blaming others. This may (only may) break his belief that Bibi is a peer tough guy. If Bibi criticises him, it WILL happen, but even if Trump just thinks Bibi lead him into a mistake, it will be enough.
It might be possible that the dementia could lessen his narcissism, if the part of his brain holding the trauma is damaged. His calmness on occasion during press questioning is a good sign.
It is a totally fascinating case study, and the scientist in me is fascinated, but the humanity in me would rather not have that study subject in that position.
Being surrounded by people like Stephen Miller who subscribes to the neocon notion that the US is an empire and empires create their own facts doesn’t exactly help ground Trump in realty.
Trump is a narcissist and may have dementia but he is also a marketing genius. He may recognize his own cognitive decline but manages it with public relations flair. Who else could be somewhat successful at turning his rambling digressions into a positive by calling it “The Weave”.
Whether he is demented by his pathological narcissism or by dementia or by both, he is demonstrating worrisome lack of mental rigor and emotional control in a wartime environment. Congress and the 4th Estate should demand better.
Maybe that explanation is behind the obvious fact that he has no capacity for self-awareness. I just thought him an a..hole and never considered him as otherwise-damaged goods. Doesn’t excuse his actions as President, though.
Trump’s comment to the P.M. of Japan was just beyond the pale of things. I heard the t.v. and yes he said it but really can’t remember any head of state saying something like that to another head of state. The man should not be President of the U.S.A. or a pop stand. He has lost his filter, its part of the dementia for some people.
Memory hole, a friend and I were laughing about that, Iran selling oil to finance their end of the war. Like we’ve heard of countries paying war reparations after a war is over, but that is about it. guess this is another one of Trump’s great business moves. Well given all the times he has gone bankrupt guess this is just another thing to add to the list of: how crazy is the President of the U.S.A.
You’d think some one would have a chat with Trump. Not only is the war costing a shit load of money and killing a lot of innocent people but its creating an environmental disaster.
Some are saying, things will change after the mid terms but only if the Democrats win and if Trump plays with the voting and counting they may not “win”.
The news reported a 19 yr old man died in one of the concentration camps. They suggested it might have some thing to do with the stuff the guards are spraying on people. The also took a Canadian citizen and small child into custody and they are now in a camp but no charges, all her papers are in order, she lives with her American husband and oh, right the child is autistic. Upp what is that song, its starting to sound a lot like spring, but in this case I’d suggest its starting to look a lot like Nazi Germany. And all those good religious Republicans are ever so good with all of it. All those born again fakes, I’d suggest they burn in hell but having been an atheist since I was 9 or 10 don’t see that happening. Mind you I wouldn’t mind having the Cabinet and a number of senior Republican politicians being placed in a couple of those reallllllly unpleasant concentration camps with no fresh air, lack of health care, mould on the food along with the bugs.
Glad you’re enjoying eating the fish. Herring season starts here shortly but the fishers are going to have competition from some of the usual seals, sea lions and of course the whale types.
My two-cents plain: Trump’s gratuitous reference to Pearl Harbor had little to do with love of country and everything to do with his abiding, corrosive sense of having been repeatedly diddled by Japanese businessmen in the 1980’s & 90’s. Having been outbid any number of times, on everything from a piano that was featured in Casablanca to “iconic” midtown NY properties, he has harbored a personal grudge against Japan wrapped in faux-patriotic twaddle about the US being ripped off ever since. Back then (1988, ), he included the Saudi’s and Kuwait in his diatribes. Since then, times have changed and billions of dollars have found their way into Trump Inc. pockets, but his resentment concerning Japan abides.
“This is something that has been stuck in his craw since the ’80s,” said Dan DiMicco, a former steel executive who helped draft Trump’s trade policy during the 2016 campaign. “It came from his very own core belief.”
NYT 05/15/2019
There was a period of time in the ’90’s in which there was a lot of chatter about Japan buying up US real estate, as if there was anything wrong with that (there isn’t) or that the US gov’t has any right to refuse private property sales to citizens of Japan (it doesn’t), or that it would end up with Japan owning the US (it didn’t).
Trump surely has an opinion about that, and that’s all that matters to him.
Japanese were buying up Manhattan in the late 80’s because Japanese banks were providing negative leverage. Trump was mad because he was bankrupt when the fire sales happened and he couldn’t pick up places like Rockefeller Center on the cheap, like Tishman Speyer did – making them bigger and more important NYC real estate players (still) and crushing Trumps ego
plus, the Japanese PM is a WOMAN! he hates that.
“Operational Excellence”
Oh please. Trump is wasting the ‘cream’ of our military’ in the first few weeks.
I must say, Trump has whim of iron. Wait til he needs more troops. Then minoprities and immagrants will be our most valuable citizens. Sure, fight for Trump, and get citizenship!
How I wish Japan’s prime ministress had retorted to Trump ‘Tell you about Pearl Harbor? If you had half-decent intelligence you couldn’t help but know about it. Everybody in Japan knew. But your bigotry prevented the US from seeing what was right in front of your nose! We sure as hell knew what was going on in Pearl. “East wind, rain” sucker.’
Here’s VIDEO of that:
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mhgfj7joct2p
12:14 PM · Mar 19, 2026
Transcript:
“Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?”
Well, you mean “me” as in “me=FDR”, or “me=USA”, or what? Somehow, this sentence would have been cringe but understandable if he had said “why didn’t you tell us about Pearl Harbor?” but “me” is very weird.
The Japanese Embassy was supposed to deliver the message before the attack started. The typists were gone for the night and the ambassador had to type the translation up himself, and he was not a skilled typist, so it took much longer than expected.
The Japanese are going to remember that “joke” for a long, long time. It was grossly impolite and Japanese culture is based upon politeness. Trmp screwed the pooch on that one and with a politically conservative politician who tends to support a lot of Trmp’s policies.
One might think, in a reflective moment, that equating the Iran attack with Pearl Harbor would make the U.S. as outrageously dangerous as we took the Japanese to be, following Dec. 7. Not exactly my idea of positive spin.
RE: FBI / PATEL on 3/19/26
1] Aaron Rupar reports: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mhgawyde732y
10:53 AM · Mar 19, 2026 [Congressional Hearing]
2] Chris Geidner reports: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3mhgo3cm7hk2j
2:48 PM · Mar 19, 2026
3] Kyle Griffin reports: https[:]//bsky.app/profile/kylegriffin1.bsky.social/post/3mhgrbpfj2k2l
3:45 PM · Mar 19, 2026 [This is the Axios article Marcy links to above]
4] Devlin Barrett [NYT] reports: Patel Says Agents Who Worked Mar-a-Lago Case Were Fired for Ethics Violations The assertion by the F.B.I. director to a House committee is likely to be challenged in court. https[:]//www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/us/politics/patel-fbi-mar-a-lago-trump.html Devlin Barrett March 19, 2026 Updated 3:31 p.m. ET
harpie, Tulsi Gabbard has gotten the (feeble and unqualified) lion’s share of coverage for those hearings. Thank you for filling in what went on with Patel, who should never be allowed to escape scrutiny–ever. For anything.
I think in the long term, his actions are more disastrously consequential than hers.
I worked in HI for 8 years toward the end of my construction career, the last two on the windward side of Oahu, in Maunawili, above Kailua. I worked for the publisher of what would soon be the former Honolulu Weekly, and she helped me get acquainted with the area when I pulled in.
There was a natural food store on the outskirts of Kailua called Down To Earth, that I began using. When my client heard about it she was pretty adamant that it was a bad place to give my business to, because it was run by the cult that the Gabbards belonged to. And her opinion of the Gabbards clan was that “you can’t trust them as far as you can drop-kick them.”
I’d moved back to ME before Tulsi began her political machinations, and when she got the nod as Dem candidate in HI-2, I was cautiously optimistic given her stances expressed at that time, whereas my former customer was adamant: “She’s a snake. Just you watch her, going forward.”
You’re welcome, Ginevra…there’s just SUCH a LOT to try to keep track of.
[RATCLIFFE was there, too]
Heather Cox Richardson has a good run-down of that Hearing at yesterday’s
Letters From An American
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-19-2026
Re: SAVE Act:
[Apparently Heritage Foundation [!!] was able to find only 77 cases in 24 years…
ALL of which were investigated by the authorities.]
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mhg3zyky4m2p
9:25 AM · Mar 19, 2026
Re: Iran / Dignified Transfers / TRUMP Social Media on 3/18/26
1] https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mhdwihboam2e
12:40 PM · Mar 18, 2026
2] Dover AFB, De 1:39 PM ET FOX News:
3] Trump Releases Dignified Transfer Photos Despite Families Requesting Private Ceremony
White House posts transfer case photos to social media https[:]//meidasnews.com/news/trump-releases-dignified-transfer-photos-despite-families-requesting-private-ceremony J.D. Wolf 3/18/26
4] Inside the White House plan to sell the Iran war online
The administration is bucking decades of decorum by depicting the Iran war as a violent video game.
https[:]//www.politico.com/news/2026/03/18/white-house-iran-game-online-00834373
Eli Stokols, Ben Johansen, Jack Detsch and Paul McLeary 03/18/2026 05:00 PM EDT
The above dignified transfer sm posts came after this from 3/13/26:
Trump fundraising email uses photo from soldiers’ dignified transfer
and promises ‘private national security briefings’
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/13/politics/trump-fundraise-email-soldier
Andrew Kaczynski 3/13/26
[These photos are from when TRUMP wore his campaign merchandise USA hat.]
That should be illegal. Or at least shut down by actual national security.
MAGA has been swooning over a beautiful Army soldier and her pro-Trump message.
She is AI The account is an example of how artificial intelligence is being used to push political agendas in wartime https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/maga-ai-us-soldier-instagram-account-trump-b2942600.html Rhian Lubin Friday 20 March 2026
Here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DcGKmkZT3Rg Sal has all the ugly because of Hormuz blockade, 20,000 sailors stranded on ships with water and food issues, 15 stuck vehicle carriers when normally 20 to 25 going through daily causing a mess in supply chain all the way to production, to US allowing Iran to, like Russia, sell crude.
How does this get Trump dethroned?
Maybe the merchant class will do the rational thing and revolt, cutting off his supply of toilet paper, bronzer and hair colorant.
Just spitballin’.
DOJ’s new proposed rule to oversee state bar disciplinary processes is out for comment:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/05/2026-04390/review-of-state-bar-complaints-and-allegations-against-department-of-justice-attorneys
Let them know how you feel! I found it cathartic. You need not say much beyond, e.g., it makes you want to vomit.
Bondi wants DoJ to have veto power over state bar investigations for ethical misconduct by ANY PAST OR PRESENT DOJ ATTORNEYS. Technically, the rule would allow the DoJ to “request” that state bar authorities suspend their investigation, pending the conclusion of any parallel DoJ investigation, which could take forever, or at least long enough to make relevant evidence stale.
Bondi says this is needed to end “the weaponization of the bar complaint and investigation process.” Just the opposite.
Bondi and Blanche have increasingly forced their lawyers to take frivolous positions that invite prompt state bar proceedings. This comes after a NJ district court judge recently threw out of court a senior AUSA for failing to file an appearance and refusing to shut up after multiple warnings. It comes after a flood of immigration cases have stretched DoJ staff to the breaking point. It comes after several courts have thrown out illegally appointed Trump USAs, like Alina Habba. It comes after Bondi attempted to install her brother as head of the DC bar’s disciplinary process.
Nominally an attempt to immunize DoJ attorneys from the consequences of their frivolous positions, it’s really an attempt to immunize the DoJ’s top leadership, including Bondi & Blanche, who should lose their law licenses many times over.
Public comments due by April 6th, 2026.
Cannon Folderol
From the great Atlantic Ocean
to the wide Pacific shore,
From the green ol’ Smoky Mountains
to the south lands we adore,
High-and-mighty gall and tantrum
hurts more than just a stall,
It’s a reckless combination,
We’re harmed by Cannon folderol.
She knows how to grumble,
to jumble, tug-of-war,
As she rides along a grandstand
with its trolls and even more,
Her almighty crush of circumvention,
Her ever loathsome stonewall
jeopardizes our defenses
with Cannon folderol.
Our eastern states are dandy,
so the people always say,
From New York to St Louis
with Chicago by the way,
From the hills of Minnesota
where the rippling waters fall,
but dangers there are present
due to Cannon folderol.
Now here’s to Special Counsel,
May the work steadfast command,
And justice be remembered
in the courts throughout the land,
That work is not yet over,
Please, rule of law don’t fall
as we press our way to victory
against Cannon folderol.
10/9/22; rev. 5/7/24
https://youtu.be/yaU2ptzGZX8
“Wabash Cannonball (Instrumental)”
Since you’re into entertaining us, have you been entertained by rapper Afroman videos of the cops that raided his home, trial, etc?
If you want to only watch highlights, Daily Show of last night had a good package on it.
Videos of trial are on youtube, hilarious.
Yum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xxK5yyecRo
“Afroman – Lemon Pound Cake (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)”
For more on Afroman:
Afroman’s Defamation Trial Is Going About As Well For The Deputies As Their Original Raid Did https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/18/afromans-defamation-trial-is-going-about-as-well-for-the-deputies-as-their-original-raid-did/
Wed, Mar 18th 2026 Mike Masnick [from the lemon-pound-cake dept]
Trigger warning: I can’t believe the female deputy is put on the stand by her attorney from 1:45:00 for 13 minutes to cry in the first day of the trial as video of her sexual preferences by Afroman is playing, but that’s my take.
Not only that, but since it’s a recent video and Slapp laws have recently changed it may not even be in play in the trial,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6cMRIR8wRbE
To xyxyxyxy:
Yeah, that sure changes things. My opinion is definitely changed. I’m thinking of some specific laws…
To ALL!: I am so sorry! I didn’t read, watch the whole thing. ugggh
Maybe Maureen Comey’s tell all book will have an effect on any of this?
Is there one scheduled or is this a hope?
Hope!
Maureen Comey cannot say anything about either case (Epstein or Maxwell) because of a few different laws and ethical standards.
Ethnical standards for everybody except for the administration. Aaaaahhhhhh
Maurene Comey does have a lawsuit in process against the Trmp administration but it seems to have hit a roadblock.
The financial markets are the big enchilada. Well so too still are the Saudis. The appearance of regularity in the markets is fraying. The mechanisms of money are stupendous and powerful. For a year the demand for mountains of Treasury debt has been sustained by artificial means, repos and basis trades. Who knows maybe the markets can keep chugging along but less energy=less economic output. Period.
Even when they print. The Fed is going to have to print like mad eventually. That’s what everyone wants Trump, most of all. Pray it will happen to late to save him.
“The American people need to know that the president of the United States is fundraising for his political campaign and his PAC using images of American service members killed in action, and it’s a disgrace.” Senator Ossoff
‘You’re evading a question,’ Sen. Ossoff tells Gabbard about her intelligence role
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi1JnyY2VIU)
I want to know fundraising for what political campaign?
He’s always campaigning. He filed the papers for his 2020 campaign finance committee right after he took the oath in 2016.
I love anchovies, at times though, the salt tastes extreme.
In what manner were the anchovies you had different than usual?
I am just guessing as to where our esteemed proprietor is located but Cantabrian Anchovies are indeed more excellent than your typical.
I’ve only had anchovies once and, yes, too much salt.
And I say that as somebody who buys a fish supper in my local chippy regularly. But I suppose it’s what you’re used to. And the context. I recall that some of the ew lot like Kerry Gold Butter. Too salty for my taste, that’s why I favour Lurpak, heh.
Yes, we have a metric fuck ton of political fodder to jab. But – open thread?
Heh….
A bear walks into a bar and plops down on a barstool.
“Barkeep – give me a beer.”
Barkeep: ‘we don’t give beers to bears in this here bar.’
“Barkeep – I am one badass bear – give me a beer on this barstool.”
Barkeep: ‘told you – we don’t give beers to bears in this here bar even if they are badass.’
“If you don’t give me a beer in this here bar on this here barstool I will show you how badass a bear I can be.”
Barkeep: ‘begone bear – not only did I tell you we don’t serve beers to bears on barstools in this here bar I do not care if you show me how badass you are, bear.’
“You see this bitch on this here barstool in this here bar? If you don’t get me a beer in this here bar I will bite her off that barstool all gone!”
Barkeep: (exasperated…) ‘bear – begone, boyo. We don’t serve beers to bears on barstools in this here bar even if they are badass and even if they bites that bitch off that barstool.’
[at this point the bear turns and with one massive bite eats the entire bitch off the barstool in one huge gulp – and burps.]
“All right barkeep – you see what a badass bear I am and will bite a bitch off a barstool if you do not give me a beer in this here bar!”
Barkeep: (nonplussed…)’last time bear – begone boyo – we don’t serve beers to bears on barstools in this here bar even if they are badass and even if they bites bitches off barstools – ESPECIALLY bears on drugs.’
“Drugs?”
Barkeep – ‘yeah, that was a bar bitch u ate…’
I’ll step in for a *groan*…. quite the shaggy bear set-up!
#tu
Me, too…[out loud! lol] but with a smile!
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
– Oh my!
I can’t speak for Marcy, but I am wondering if she might be in Spain (or even in NY, lol.) Here is what an anchovy connoisseur says:
“These Anchovies Are So Good, You’ll Want to Eat Them Straight From the Tin” – October 11, 2025
https://www.seriouseats.com/premium-tinned-anchovies-11826848
Which reminds me, Bove rhymes with anchovy! For old times sake:
Bondi, Blanche & Bove
It’s Bondi, Blanche & Bove
Imperious and Rove-y
Deliberately cozy
What happens: Tragedy
In-house is no good reason
For Constitutional depletion
Addicted to their seizin’
What happens: Tragedy
Cheat
Bleat
Browbeat
It’s time to call foul ball on
the lies that they recall on
Tear down their wherewithal on
What happens: Tragedy
It’s Bondi, Blanche & Bove
Imperious and Rove-y
Deliberately cozy
What happens: Tragedy
Stained
Disdained
What happens: Tragedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_oQpqduEi4
Addams Family Theme for Solo Piano (original 1964 version)
6/26/25; rev. 7/16/25
OH! I remember this one! [Bove Anchovy LOL!] <3
A couple of notes about the Epstein files and H.R.4405.
(1) With a few exceptions, GOP house members are withdrawing from this issue. This presents an opportunity to hold their feet to the fire because they voted for H.R.4405.
(2) There is no harm in releasing the duplicate files if there are such files. Let the congressional investigators sort it out. If “duplicate” is just the term for sustaining the moat of unreleased files, then I hope the Congress acts in a focused way.
(3) Question: at what point is violation of H.R. 4405 actionable?
(4) opinion without evidence: I suspect there has always been a white hot core of Epstein files that nobody is ever to know about.
(5) Trump of course knows exactly what he did.
One wonders how much money Caputo would need to lose on Madoff mutual fund or Enron sticks to start doubting…
Senator Ossoff is caring, compassionate and conscious man. Insightful interview.
American Conversations: Senator Jon Ossoff and Heather Cox Richardson
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSKKjD3H6Ho)
Is short term memory loss sometimes a stand alone affliction, or is it always part of a broader suite of “dementia” symptoms? (Apologies if this has been discussed before.) No, seriously.
OT but God I love anchovies!
Anchovies are not just for salads and pizza!
When I lived in Andorra, I frequented the Costa Brava, enjoying the sights, the amazing Tapas bars in Barcelona, Girona, Figueras, and skydiving in Empuriabrava. One of my favorite meals was a “Catalan breakfast”. Fresh anchovies served on toasted bread. The bread was soaked with juice from a squeezed tomato, toasted on a wood fire, smothered in Anchovies, then lightly covered with olive oil; occassionally including a Spanish tortilla (omelette) and fresh squeezed orange juice complete with 2 sugar packets and killer coffee.
Be careful what you (trump) wish for. He has never let go of his various conspiracy theories and trying to punish his political enemies. The Comey subpoena in Florida will backfire. Comey can claim the 5th amendment since there is still a criminal indictment pending against him. The. Florida prosecutor is trying to tie trump’s conspiracy theories together to extend the statute of limitation. The Judge is Aileen Cannon.
Now for something not completely different, one of my granddaughter’s songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvwfOYOtEwM
She’s a pretty good poet. And I like what she did with the word “time” in that song.
Came across this here:
Contraception services dropped after ‘defunding’ provision hit clinics [Wisconsin Examiner]
Results as desired by the Grand Old Patriarchy.
Includes link to the full Democratic senators’ report.
We have wine import friends who branched out into olive oil and anchovies.
These (from Catalonia) are delish:
Callol Serrats has been making artisanal hand-packed anchovies from L’Escala since 1847.
Today I found a document on our Iran debacle, written by military planners a week or so before action began. It had an incredibly expansive strategic premise on the acceptable end-state for (our) cessation of attacks, most of which seemed to be unrealistic and without the, as discussed here and in other forums, consideration that Iran gets a vote. That premise was probable provided by the White House and the professional military planners had to make the best from it. I did not see any wavering or push back.
However, when the planners created and prioritized the strategic to tactical tasks they thought were required to achieve the strategy, they put controlling the Straits of Hormuz near the top and strikes to achieve regime change near the bottom. This would have started the request for forces (RFF) process to provide the means to achieve these tasks. My guess would be that both a carrier strike group (CSG) and an amphibious assault group (ARG) would have been dispatched to be very close to the SOH before attacks began.
When Bibi and / or the CIA found where and when the Iran leadership was meeting, airstrike fever moved regime change to the top and narrowed their vision toward that goal. This outran the planning and RFF process for the SOH, thereby creating an air campaign instead of a sea campaign. Nobody bothered to pause after the leadership strike and reassess tactics or ask Iran to negotiate. The faucet of testosterone had fully opened.
I can guess that fired or DOGE’d professionals within the DoD, State Dept, or on a functional National Security Council might have asked to pause and reassess, but they would have been labeled DEI or worse epithets.
So, here we are.
Gotta link?
Trigger warning for sexual violence.
There’s a video on BlueSky posted by TikTok user twistingtango. In it, she says she is another survivor of Epstein and of Trump. She claims to have been abused by Trump between the ages of 8 months and 16 months. She says Putin has pictures and Epstein gave them to him. Congress also has the pictures. Her manner is believable and doesn’t seem to be obviously AI.
Horrific if true.
Gotta link?
I didn’t post it because I’ve no idea of its provenance. You can search TikTok user twisting tango.
Now wart?— Stringer from New Mexico here. — Shocking to me that so much is being done in NM concerning the Epstein Zorro Ranch. What seemed bafflingly neglected to me is now actively being investigated by an official Truth Commision. Rep. Melanie Stanisbury all gung ho with Senators Lujan an Heinrich on board too. Meanwhile AG Raul Torrez seems to have more spine than former AG Hector Balderas who let go of a state investigation in 2019 at behest of FBI. Epstein then died in jail. Meanwhile Zorro Ranch never investigated by FBI. WTF. (Pursue the ownership rabbithole!) Recently bought by a newly formed LLC of MAGA Texas Comptroller candidate Donald Huffines and supposedly being turned into a “Christian retreat” but the new excavation seems to be digging up up something or burying something under odd circumstances. Allegations of bodies buried! The best reporting is by substacker Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. (Check her out!) Who has a strange report of Zorro Ranch winning Texas lottery to tune of $85M Powerball jackpot on July 2, 2008 by ranch manager who has since disappeared. Sheesh! All of this will be in news for quite awhile here.
https://sourcenm.com/2026/02/16/new-mexico-house-unanimously-enacts-epstein-truth-commission
Not surprisingly, the Trump family is making a killing, both financially, and actual killing through the war.
Trump’s sons have become heavily invested in drone companies. Trump banned Chinese drones to create more opportunities to grift the taxpayers. A newly created drone company has Eric and Don Jr. as “notable investors”.
And now Trump wants to spend another $200 billion on war supplies
The Trump Organization responded to ABC News by saying in part, “Drones are clearly the wave of the future”.
https://rachelandthecity.com/the-war-is-a-product-launch/
Financial killing, “offering a derivatives exchange and prediction market which offers event-based contracts relating to sports, election, and entertainment related events” from “Nevada restricts Trump Jr.-advised Kalshi prediction market with court order”
https://www.the-express.com/news/us-news/202724/nevada-restricts-trump-jr-advised-kalshi-prediction-market-court-order
And while looking into “exact terminology” for above, came across this article “Trump dances into Mar-a-Lago and gives Iran war update to cheering crowd” from this morning,
“So, you know, I didn’t know I was going to be here tonight,” he said. “I’m supposed to be prosecuting [what?] a war but the war’s going very well. They have no navy, they have no air force. They have no anti-anything. We’ll be fine,” he says about Iran.
https://www.the-express.com/news/us-news/202733/trump-dances-into-mar-a-lago-gives
Iran isn’t defenseless. The Felon Guy is wishing again.
That company wants to buy some of the ones in Ukraine doing the actual work.
I hope that the grifters get told “hell to the no!”
I saw a funny AI video someone made of Trump calling a bunch of world leaders begging for help in Hormuz.
Everyone hung up on him with a no.
The last one was Zelensky. He told Trump, “You don’t have the cards”, and hung up laughing.
Here’s a true story on the subject of short term memory loss that some may find instructive.
About a year before my mother died (at age 96) I was spending some time at her home where my youngest sister and her husband were looking after her, and another sister would come by once a week to spend time with her.
One late afternoon she looked up from her recliner and said, “I just read the most interesting article in the New Yorker!”
“Oh, really? What was it about.”
“I can’t remember!”
“And if you could remember, what was it about?”
Oh, well, it was about the March on Washington and the neighborhoods of Washington, D.C.”