I was especially interested in the Justice Clarence Thomas comments, which I read, then became disinterested for reasons you’ll get if you read them. Lots of news of the day here.
A thin-skinned and prickly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went off on journalists in his press conference this morning, resorting to the classic โattack the messengerโ defense to a unpopular war going poorly.
Itโs not the first time Hegseth has succumbed to blaming a lack of patriotism among reporters for unfavorable headlines and critical reporting on a Middle East conflict ignited by the Trump administration. But todayโs screed was striking for how it mixed the old worn-out reflexive questioning of the loyalty of reporters with biblical references that reflect Hegsethโs personal Christian nationalism:
โSometimes itโs hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on,โ Hegseth said. โItโs incredibly unpatriotic.โ
In the decades since the Vietnam War, the Pentagon had haltingly moved away from the defensive crouch it often took in the face of criticism toward a more transparent and self-reflective public response to bad news. It was not always consistent and the backsliding was dramatic during periods of sustained setbacks, like in Iraq during the aughts, but the general trajectory was away from the kind of knee-jerk circle-the-wagons approach that Hegseth rolled out this morning.
Questioning the loyalty of journalists โ or any regime critics โ harkens to earlier dark eras of America history and to authoritarian regimes worldwide. But Hegsethโs diatribe came with a strong Christian twist, as he compared journalists to the Pharisees who rejected Jesus in the Bible:
โThe Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to record, but their hearts were hardened, even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didnโt matter,โ Hegseth said.
โThey were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him, how to destroy him,โ he continued.
โI sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees, not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,โ he added.
Hegseth โ callow, reactive, driven by a warped theology of nationalism, and poorly grounded in history โ personally represents a dramatic break from decades of training, education, and refining of a professional officers corps. In 15 months in office, Hegseth has done more to politicize the military than any secretary of defense in at least the last half century.
Third Boat Strike in Three Days
The accelerated pace of unlawful strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats continued in the eastern Pacific, with the third such strike in the last three days. Three people were killed in the 51st strike of the U.S. campaign, bringing the death toll to at least 177 people.
What Trump Foreign Policy Looks Like
USA Today: Pentagon ramps up planning for possible military ops in Cuba
WSJ: Pentagon Approaches Automakers, Manufacturers to Boost Weapons Production
WaPo: Trump administration pushes nations to sign โtrade over aidโ declaration
SCOTUS Watch
Justice Sonia Sotomayorย apologizedย privately to Justice Brett Kavanaugh and followed up with aย public apologyย released by the Supreme Court for remarks last week that, without naming him, attributed his defense of what have become known as โKavanaugh stopsโ to his posh upbringing.
In a public appearance at Yale Law School, Justice Ketanji Brown Jacksonย blastedย the Roberts Courtโs handling of its emergency docket.
In unusually pointed remarks carried live by CSPAN, Justice Clarence Thomasย launched a broadsideย at progressivism.
Jan. 6 Never Ends
Trump lawyer and coup plotter John Eastman wasย officially disbarredย in California after the state Supreme Courtย declinedย to take up his appeal.
Trump I White House chief of staff Mark Meadows isย seeking reimbursementย from the Trump DOJ of his legal fees incurred as a witness in both of Special Counsel Jack Smithโs investigations.
Must Read
Heather Cox Richardson draws a straight line from Lincolnโs assassination to Jan. 6 and the events of this week.
Do as We Say Not as We Do
NBC News: โAnti-abortion advocates met with Justice Department officials Wednesday, just hours after the Trump administration fired prosecutors it accused of coordinating too closely with abortion-rights advocacy groups during the Biden administration.โ
Election-Year Islamophobia
When all else fails and their election prospects look dire, Republicans fall back on various forms of racist appeals to solidify their base and wrong-foot Democrats. This year, top Texas Republicans have landed on Islamophobia as the racist appeal of choice. TPMโs Josh Kovensky reports on the ground from Grapevine, Texas, where he talks to right-wing activists who are back again to warning about Sharia law and portraying Muslims as an external threat to โrealโ Americans.
Too often, gullible national media outlets treat these racist effusions like an organic upwelling of nativism, rather than a calculated election year strategy. TPM, Iโm proud to say, has never been suckered in.
Thread of the Day
The Corruption: Bitcoin Jesus Edition
ProPublica offers a casebook study in the erosion of white-collar crime prosecutions under Trump II that includes the intervention of DOJ political appointees and the retention of a former Trump criminal defense attorney to outright kill one of the largest-ever cryptocurrency tax fraud cases.
Creepy Text of the Day
โHearing u/r in town. Wishing you would let me know. I could have made some excuses to get out and show u around. Please keep this private.โโRichard Chavez, father of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, in a text to a young female staff member working for his daughter
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights?ย Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methodsย here. (snip)
There’s gotta be something each of us wants to know, and likely are things we need to know but may not be covered by traditional or partisan news outlets. It’s long, of course.
Today, we will look at yesterdayโs congressional resignations, President Donald Trumpโs criticism of Pope Leo, and other news spanning each continent.
Letโs get to it.
United States
-Both Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell and Republican Congressman Tony Gonzalez resigned from the House of Representatives yesterday amid a slew of ethical and legal controversies related to sexual misconduct.
The House Clerk read their respective resignation letters on the floor, which were met by bipartisan applause.
Their departures leave the lower chamber with 216 Republicans and 213 Democrats.
-California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation yesterday setting the date for a special election to fill the remainder of Swalwellโs term for August 18.
-House Democrats introduced a bill that would establish a commission to assess whether President Donald Trump should be removed from office.
-Wholesale inflation rose to 4% in March, a four-year high, according to new data released yesterday.
The uptick was fueled by a 15.7% rise in gasoline prices, accounting for half of the increase due to the war in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the average U.S. gas price stood at $4.11 yesterday, according to AAA.
-Senate Majority Leader John Thune said yesterday that Republicans โwould be prepared to confirmโ a nominee to the Supreme Court in the event of a retirement ahead of the midterm elections.
For weeks, rumors in Washington have circulated around whether Justice Samuel Alito could retire in the next several weeks.
The 76-year-old conservative has been on the Court since 2006 and is the second-oldest on the high court, behind Clarence Thomas.
-The Senate Banking Committee is expected to hold a confirmation hearing next Tuesday on Trumpโs nominee to lead the Federal Reserve.
-Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that Trump is readying an executive order that would mandate U.S. banks to collect citizenship information.
-The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Connecticut and the city of New Haven over its sanctuary policies.
-The Republican National Committee (RNC) ended February with $109 million, seven times as much as its Democratic counterpart.
-Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper raised more than $13.8 million in the first quarter of the year.
-Trump said that he was โnot a big fanโ of Riley Gaines after the conservative activist criticized his posting of an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus.
-Streamer Hasan Piker called the Republican Party the โbiggest domestic terroristโ group in the country on Pod Save America.
The comment comes as Democrats wrestle with whether to welcome or distance themselves from the content creator ahead of this yearโs elections.
-Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a prospective 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, will be honored by the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund in Washington this weekend.
-Former President Joe Bidenโs official portrait was unveiled yesterday at Syracuse University.
-Authorities in Nigeriaย apprehended a 33-member gangย allegedly responsible for abducting 38 people at a church in the countryโs central Kwara state in November.
The arrest is part of the central governmentโs crackdown on criminal groups.
-Libyaโs eastern- and western-based administrations participated in military exercises hosted by the United States for the first time on Tuesday.
Since the ouster of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the North African country has been rocked by civil conflict and divided government authority, with competing geographic factions vying for territorial control since 2014.
-On this day in 1958, the First Conference of Independent African States was held in Accra, Ghana, bringing together the leaders of the eight independent African nations at the time to coordinate their opposition to colonialism and foster continental unity.
At the gathering, the leaders designated April 15 as โAfrican Freedom Day.โ
In 1963, the Organization of African Unity moved the date to May 25.
In 2023, civil war broke out in Sudan after the countryโs army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) descended into a battle for control of the capital, Khartoum.
Since then, the country has been gripped by widespread death and disease.
According to some estimates, there have been at least 150,000 deaths since the war broke out, with some 14 million more people having been displaced.
According to the United Nations, an estimated 19 million people, or about 41% of the population, are facing โhigh levels of acute food insecurity.โ
-Brazilian President Luiz Inรกcio Lula da Silvaย calledย for the extradition of former spy chief Alexandre Ramagem after he was apprehended in the United States.
Ramagem fled Brazil after he was convicted of his role in plotting a coup with now-former President Jair Bolsonaro following his 2022 election defeat.
Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison term.
-On this day in 1959, Fidel Castro visited the United States, just four months after successfully leading a revolution that toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
-North Korea carried out another test of its strategic cruise and anti-warship missiles on Sunday as relations between Pyongyang and South Korea continue to deteriorate.
-Five countries in the Indo-Pacific will participate in U.S.-led military exercises in the region starting next week.
The drills, which will run from April 20 to May 8, come as U.S. allies in the region worry that Washingtonโs strategic focus has shifted from Asia to the Middle East amid its conflict with Iran.
Australia, Canada, France, the Philippines, and New Zealand will contribute forces to the multilateral effort.
-Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. did a few rounds of jumping jacks in a bid to dispel rumors of his failing health.
-The United Nations said that around 250 people are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea due to heavy winds.
-On this day in 1998, Pol Pot died in his sleep.
During his four-year rule over Cambodia, his Khmer Rouge regime carried out a genocide against the Cambodian people, killing an estimated 1.5 to 3 million people, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the Southeast Asian nationโs population.
-Days after President Trump criticized Pope Leo for his opposition to Washingtonโs war against Iran, the Vatican issued a statement warning the advanced democracies risked sliding into โmajoritarian tyranny,โ a seemingly veiled shot at Trumpโs populist movement.
-In an interview with an Italian newspaper, Trump said that he was โshockedโ by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloniโs opposition to his decision to launch a military operation against Iran, representing a break between the conservative allies.
In response to Meloni calling his attacks on the Pope โunacceptable,โ Trump said, โItโs her whoโs unacceptable.โ
-Trump called on the United Kingdom to drill oil from the North Sea to offset surging global energy prices.
-U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will once again skip a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group today. Instead, the Pentagonโs policy chief, Elbridge Colby, will attend in his place.
A meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in June 2022.
The grouping of over 50 defense chiefs seeks to coordinate military assistance to Ukraine as it wards off invading Russian forces.
The forum was established in April 2022 just after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since assuming office, the Trump administration has delegated its leadership role in the body.
-French President Emmanuel Macron said he would seek a coordinated approach to ban minors from using social media across the 27-member European Union.
-On this day in 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was born in Italy.
In 1912, the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic.
Shortly after the U.S. and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran on February 28, the Israeli military began striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, ending a teetering ceasefire agreement.
According to estimates, the fighting has killed around 2,000 people and displaced over one million people in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, President Trump said yesterday that talks with Iran could resume as early as this week.
Last weekend, Vice President JD Vance led a U.S. delegation for talks with Iranian officials in Pakistan. After those talks broke down, Trump said that he would impose a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz in a bid to get Iran to agree to a long-term agreement to settle the war and to place limits on its nuclear program.
Vance appeared on Fox News on Monday to discuss the talks.
It is believed that Iran has planted mines in the strategic waterway, and Tehran has threatened to attack ports belonging to Arab Gulf states if its ports are attacked.
Prior to the recent war in the region, the Strait served as a conduit for 20% of the worldโs daily oil consumption.
The 76-year-old, who has dominated politics in Israel for the better part of the past two decades, is expected to seek another term in office in parliamentary elections due by late October.
Last week, a long-running public corruption trial against Netanyahu restarted after pausing due to the war.
-On this day in 1993, President Bill Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the Oval Office to discuss the Middle East peace process.
Later that year, Clinton would host Rabin, along with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, at the White House for the signing of the Oslo Accords, establishing a framework for the eventual settlement of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
In 1995, Rabin was assassinated as he departed a peace rally in Tel Aviv by an Israeli radical angry over Rabinโs peace overtures to the Palestinians.
Speaking at Rabinโs funeral service in Jerusalem, Clinton said, โYour Prime Minister was a martyr for peace, but he was a victim of hate. Surely we must learn from his martyrdom that if people cannot let go of the hatred of their enemies, they risk sowing the seeds of hatred among themselves.โ
This is a doctor working in Gaza.ย He describes the conditions. The Israelis are sniping World Health doctors. Israelis are moving the “yellow line” that they are claiming is the new boundary line between Israel and Palestinians.ย They are slowly moving the line deeper ad deeper into Gaza.ย The Israeli snipers were shooting the young boys in different areas on different days, now they are using drones to fire on young children alone with horrific results. Remember from the last clip he was saying how Israel is blocking and destroying the medical supplies and equipment. Israel is deliberately shooting and killing children.ย They want the chaos it causes, they like the fear it promotes, and they like that no new generations of Palestinians are growing. The doctor spoke of other atrocities that Israel is inflicting daily on the Palestinians.ย Israel is a criminal nation doing a genocide, and much of our democratic leadership is deeply in the pockets of AIPAC.ย Notice that Hakeem Jeffries was also at the same event.ย People here have asked why I am so anti-democratic leadership; this is one of the reasons why. They are beholden to the big money donors and lobbies doing their bidding while ignoring the desires and will of the people they are supposed to represent, not rule over.ย Hugs
Senate Minority Leaderย Chuck Schumerย has emphasized his commitment to maintaining pro-Israel sentiments within theย Democratic Party. In recent statements,ย Schumerย articulated that his role is to ensure that the left remains supportive of Israel, a position he conveyed during an interview withย The New York Times. This assertion reflects a broader concern regarding the changing dynamics of the Democratic Party’s support for Israel and Jewish causes. Schumer’s comments have sparked discussions about the implications of this shift, particularly in light of the party’s historical alignment with pro-Israel policies. Opinion pieces have noted that Schumer views the preservation of American institutions as integral to protecting religious minorities, highlighting the intersection of Jewish identity and political advocacy.ย https://deepnewz.com/middle-east/chuck-schumer-emphasizes-role-keeping-left-pro-israel-says-job-to-keep-the-left-f0ff217c
โI have many jobs as [Senate] leader… and one is to fight for aid to Israel โ all the aid that Israel needs,โ Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.
โI will continue to fight for it.,โ Schumer continued. โWe delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, than ever, ever before.โ
According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks whileย reportingย forย The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his โbaby.โย https://www.commondreams.org/news/schumer-israel-aid
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on Sunday that one of his most important jobs as Senate minority leader is to โfight for aid to Israel,โ as the Trump administrationโs masked federal agents continue their deadly raids of the U.S. with little to no pushback from Democrats.
Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubaniโs Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare projects.
Last year I posted about this, because of the consensus of attendees that they should prepare for war. Gee whiz they called that! A lot of people ignore this, because it’s all a buncha rich people who think they run the world. Well, it is a buncha rich people, and no doubt they do run some parts of the world, but all the wee little people all have free will, and they use it. Bilderberg prepares those with all the money for what appears will happen due to free will’s this, that, and the other thing. I don’t care who wore what, or even who was there, but the tiny things within the name-dropping matter; that tells us what they come away with as info for keeping their interests safe. So, in case I’m not the only one, here is this.
This yearโs conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, but itโs a mystery why the press fails to talk about it
The 72nd meeting of the Bilderberg group, the elite and secretive policy conference that is the longtime subject of endless conspiracy theories, was held at the weekend in Washington DC. A security cordon went up around the opulent Salamander hotel for the notoriously media-shy summit, which was packed as ever with prime ministers, military leaders, tech billionaires and the heads of giant investment companies.
Bilderberg, which since the 1950s has been the intellectual engine room of Nato, took place this year at a time of immense crisis and uncertainty for the alliance. In recent weeks, with Trump threatening at every turn to withdraw from the โpaper tigerโ of Nato, the โTrans-Atlantic Defence-Industrial Relationshipโ (as itโs called on the agenda) has reached a strained breaking point.
The head of Nato and Bilderberg regular Mark Rutte arrived at the conference fresh from a โvery frankโ conversation at the White House. But away from Trumpโs bluster, and for all his rhetoric about abandoning Nato, there were no signs that the Americans are withdrawing from Bilderberg. Far from it โ the Americans were there in force.
Wall Street titans, including the CEOs of KKR and Lazard, and the heads of huge corporations like Pfizer, met behind closed doors with a delegation of senior politicians close to the president. Big business lobbying in private is Bilderbergโs speciality, and this secretive mix of the private and public sectors fits perfectly with Trumpโs brand of crony-capitalism.
Trumpโs trusted secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, was attending, alongside his favourite trade guru, Robert Lighthizer. They were joined by Trumpโs economic ally Jason Smith, the chair of the influential House ways and means committee, and his secretary of the army, Dan Driscoll, known as Trumpโs โdrone guyโ.
It was no surprise with the conflict in Iran dominating the global news cycle that this yearโs conference had a wartime flavour: with the โFuture of Warfareโ on the agenda, and a participant list including the four-star admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command. From the private sector there was a healthy contingent of military contractors and drone manufacturers, led by the Bilderberg insider Eric Schmidt, whoโs the former head of Google and a keen evangelist for drone warfare.
Earlier this year, Schmidt told the FT that โfuture wars are going to be defined by unmanned weaponsโ, with โswarms of drones operated remotely and increasingly automated with AI targetingโ. Thriving in this rich overlap between drones and AI are companies like Anduril Industries, whose co-founder and CEO, Brian Schimpf, is attending the Washington conference, alongside his collaborator in Trumpโs โGolden Domeโ project, Palantirโs CEO, Alex Karp.
Karp is close to fellow billionaire tech-bro Peter Thiel, whose name, remarkably, is absent from this yearโs participant list. Thiel has been a member of the groupโs steering committee since 2008, and it was unheard of for him to miss a Bilderberg. Thielโs reach runs deep into the Trump administration, and his influence within Bilderberg has also been growing through the years. Through the American Friends of Bilderberg Inc, he largely funds the lavish Washington-based meetings, alongside fellow steering committee member and billionaire Schmidt.
Thiel operates in the powerful liminal area between big finance and big intelligence โ most notably, he set up Palantir with the help of funding from the CIA. This shady intersection was the birthplace of Bilderberg, and is baked into its history: the group was set up by British and American intelligence, and thereโs always a handful of spy chiefs at the conference. This year, three intelligence directors were present, including the head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli. It is a fascinating backstage world which Thiel will now miss along with the strategising, the talent spotting and the big ideological discussions on โChinaโ and โthe westโ.
It was no small thing for the arch-networker Thiel to skip Bilderberg. After all, Bilderberg is all about the chance to stay three steps ahead with all that lovely, off-the-books access to policymakers such as breakfast with the president of Finland, tea with the head of the IMF, and cocktails with the King of Holland.
Quite why the press fails so spectacularly to talk about Bilderberg, such a major annual summit with so many senior politicians present, is an enduring mystery. This yearโs conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, not least the presence of Vivian Motzfeldt, the former Greenlandic foreign minister and ex-speaker of the Inatsisartut (Greenlandโs parliament).
Motzfeldt was the first Greenlander to appear at Bilderberg, and her presence was a clear signal to the Trump administration that Greenland has powerful allies within the Trans-Atlantic partnership. Motzfeldt no doubt contributed to the session on โArctic Securityโ, and might even have been moved to quote the final sentence of Trumpโs recent anti-NATO vent: โREMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!โ
But as there was no press oversight for this conference, it is something that we will probably never know.
Because this is important history that we really ought to review, because the leopards who were “only” going for certain parts of the population are going for all the population, these days.
“Not all Republicans are racist, but racists vote Republican, and they do it for racist reasons.”
While the explicit nature of the โmonkeyโ and โcannibalโ slurs is jarring, it sits within a long, documented tradition of presidential prejudice that has shaped the nationโs policies.
History always has a funny way of spinning the block, and every once in a while, we run into something that refuses to stay buried no matter how much time has passed. Recordings reported byย CBSย revealed a deeply disturbing discussion between former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reaganโand you guessed it, itโsย super racist.
Per the news outlet, former President Richard Nixon was speaking with then-California Governor Ronald Reagan following a United Nations meeting to recognize the Peopleโs Republic of China. While global attention shouldโve been centered on the diplomatic shift, Reagan reportedly phoned Nixonโs White House to voice his frustration over African delegates who celebrated the decision. At one point, Reagan flat out called them โmonkeysโโand it only went downhill from there.ย
Before we get to that, hereโs the real question: Why is anyone shocked? To treat these recordings as a singular, shocking โglitchโ in the American presidency is to ignore the very fabric of the office. Yes, the explicit nature of the โmonkeyโ and โcannibalโ slurs is jarring, but it sits within a long, documented tradition of presidential prejudice against Black folks that has shaped the nationโs policies for decades.
Long before Reagan and Nixon shared a laugh at the expense of African diplomats, Woodrow Wilson was busy re-segregating the federal workforce and praising the post-Civil war Ku Klux Klan as an โInvisible Empire of the South,โ perย History. Andrew Jackson publicly framed Native Americans as an โinferior raceโ to justify the brutal displacement of the Trail of Tears. Even Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act, was notoriously recorded using the N-word in private to describe the very people he was legislating forโoften viewing civil rights through the lens of political leverage rather than inherent humanity.
When we look at the timeline, Nixonโs own history of referring to Black people as โgenetically inferiorโ or Reaganโs later โwelfare queenโ trope arenโt outliers; they are the quiet parts being said out loud. So, as these clips circulate on social media, the most revealing part of the story isnโt the racism itselfโitโs our collective lack of surprise that it happened at all.ย
Letโs get back to the audio. Reagan told Nixon โLast night, I tell ya, to watch that thing on television as I did. To see those monkeys from those African countries, damn them. Theyโre still uncomfortable wearing shoes.โ
Laughter is heard on the other end of the call after the disgusting statement. But thatโs not all.ย
After Reaganโs reckless and racist phone call, Nixon later spoke with William Rogersโthen Secretary of Stateโand doubled down on Reaganโs racist remarks. And if you thought the last phone recording was badโฆ just wait, it gets worse.
(snip-embedded TikTok; click the story title above to go to the page, if you wish)
โHe saw these cannibals on television last night, and he says โChrist, they werenโt even wearing shoes, and here the U.S. is going to submit its fate to thatโฆโ Nixon said.
Later that month Nixon had a laugh with his long time best friend, former Florida banker and businessman Charles โBebeโ Rebozo. And as you may have expected, the racist banter continued to roll.
โThat reaction on television was that it proves how they ought to be still hanging from the trees by their tails,โ Rebozo said with a laugh during his call with Nixon.ย
Tiktokโs comments section was riddled with folks asking, โWhereโs the surprise?โ and โThe way my jawย did notย drop,โ alongside emojis. And letโs be real, we get it.ย
While thereโs certainly shock value in hearing these recordings, none of this is entirely surprising. This is a country built on Black labor and Black sufferingโone where federal power has long been used to contain Black political movements, includingย COINTELPRO, which targeted organizations like the Black Panther Party and other Black-led groups working toward progress and self-determination.
That said, these tapes donโt feel like an isolated incident, but rather a reminder of how deeply racism has been woven into political life at even the highest levels. And while the exposure of this kind of rhetoric may be unsettling, it ultimately tells a familiar reality of Black folksโ lived experience in America.
Hello All. I have not had a lot to say for a while, but there are some things that just can’t be unseen, some events that just can’t be ignored any longer. I’ve asked before, any who would support him, Just what will it take? Just how far can he go before it’s too far? Please forgive me for reposting such a vulgar picture, but I think it gives credence to what follows. Sorry to spoil your dinner.
I promised Judy that I would delete the very offensive pic of the very offensive ass-clown. You all likely saw the pic, it was the one where this putz placed himself in the position of Jesus. I agreed with Judy that it was extremely offensive and asked for one day to make my point before I removed it. This one is still likely to spoil your dinner.
By now, everyone has seen this pic. For me, no – this was not the final straw, I just have to hope it is for others. So, does this ass-clown meet the full representation of the Biblical Anti-Christ? I think so. The following was written in February of 2014, so no, it is not a set up. Here is the link: (link) It is absolute plagiarism, unabashed shameless copying, purposefully done, so they aren’t my words or my prejudices. It was written before said ass-clown was in office for the first time, before he was a politician. I think there are plenty of examples for each of these seven characteristics, and I am sure any reader of the blog can find plenty of examples of their own. And, while some may not believe in the Christian Bible much less that representation of what the Anti-Christ will look like, simple logic would show he’s extremely unfit. Ok, here we go…
So what are we looking for?
He is Lawless Paul calls him โThe Man of Sin,โ literally โThe Man of Lawlessnessโ (2 Thess. 2:3). He will disregard Godโs Word and Godโs law and replace it with his own arbitrary laws. He will re-define what is evil and what is good. He will promote doctrinal and ethical lawlessness.
He is a Destroyer In the same verse, Paul names Antichrist as โthe son of perdition,โ meaning โson of destruction.โ He will physically destroy those who oppose him; he will spiritually and eternally destroy all who believe him and follow him.
He Opposes God โHe opposes and exalts himself against all that is called Godโ (v. 4). ย Well, that doesnโt help much, does it? Half the world oppose God and exalt themselves over Him. But whatโs unique about this opposition is that the Antichrist opposes mainly by substitution.
He is a Substitute As โAntiโ can mean โinstead ofโ as well as โagainst,โ Antichrist can mean โreplacement Christ,โ โinstead of Christ,โ โsubstitute for Christ.โ Paul confirms this when he says that the Antichrist โsits as Godย in the temple of God, showing himself that he is Godโ (2 Thess. 2:4). This is not necessarily an enemy from outside the church, but from inside it. He opposes Christ by replacing him, by taking Christโs titles, worship, and roles.
He is a Deceiver The only other person called โthe son of perditionโ was Judas (John 17:12). Under cover of professing to be a friend of Christ, He tried to destroy Christ. This theme of deception is taken up by Jesus, Paul, and John when describing the Antichrist. In fact, the dominant message from passages dealing with the Antichrist is, โDonโt be deceived!โ Just as Satan rarely comes painted red with horns, a fork, and a pointy tail, the Antichrist will not come with a big โAโ on his forehead. Like Satan, he will come with false signs, wonders, and miracles; he will be so plausible and persuasive that, if it were possible, He would deceive even the elect (Matt. 24:24).
He is a Heretic Johnโs main concern with the Antichrist is his promotion of false doctrine surrounding the person and work of Christ (1 John 4:3; 2 John 7). Just like the mini-antichrists in Johnโs day, THE ultimate Antichrist will not deny everything about Christ, but just enough to undermine the power of Christโs gracious salvation.
He is a Politician While Daniel and Revelation confirm and expand upon these six characteristics, their main emphasis is on the political nature of the Antichrist. He will head up a kingdom, even an empire, similar to other nation states or empires. These books also make clear that this aspect of Antichristโs work will become clearer and clearer nearer the end of time. Deception will be replaced with destruction, fraud will give way to force, the wolf in sheepโs clothing will shed his fleece and bare his fangs.
Serious, scary stuff, isnโt it?
Serious, yes. In that way may I ask: Seriously, Republicans, Democrats, Supreme Court Justices; just what the hell is it going to take?
NEW YORK (AP) โ The Trump administration said Monday it will resume flying a rainbow Pride flag on a federal flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, reversing course two months after removing the banner from the first national monument commemorating LGBTQ+ history.
The government revealed the decision in court papers as it agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by advocacy and historic preservation groups who had sought to block the Feb. 9 removal. A judge approved the deal.
The Interior Department and National Park Service โhave confirmed their intention to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall,โ lawyers for the government and the groups wrote in a joint court filing.
The flag โ one of several Pride banners at the 7.7-acre (3.1-hectare) park โ wonโt be removed, except for โmaintenance or other practical purposes,โ the filing said. (snip-details of position and measurements of the Pride flag)
We were told we couldnโt take a joke, and that social media isnโt real life. Now the misogyny of early chatrooms and Gamergate has reached the White House
Harrison Sullivan, known as HSTikkyTokky, in Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere.ย Photograph: Netflix/PA
Why has it taken so long for us to treat misogyny as a political problem? The modern manosphere has been metastasising for many years โ and for years, mainstream culture has responded with a helpless shrug. There was nothing unusual about men hurting women, even if the technology was new.
In the early aughts, angry and alienated men began indulging in recreational misogyny online, bombarding women and girls in the public eye with threats, insults, harassment, hacking, and hideous โrevenge pornโ. Strange as it may now sound, though, โthe internetโ was still seen as separate from โreal lifeโ.
That, at least, was what I was told the first time I went to the police about the death threats I was receiving as a young columnist. Nothing could be done, because what happened on social media wasnโt real and didnโt count. If I didnโt like it I should get offline, and presumably continue my work via rotary phone and fax. Those of us who were early targets of what would become the manosphere did not have the luxury of ignoring the issue. For us, it was easy to see that this was something new and serious, easy to understand how the tactics used against us might be deployed elsewhere โ and how quickly matters could escalate.
Which is what happened in 2014. In May of that year, the terrorist Elliot Rodger killed six people and brought global attention to โincelsโ โ young men radicalised by sexual resentment.
Three months later came Gamergate, a global orgy of online harassment targeting women in the video game industry. It all started when up-and-coming game creator Zoe Quinn was attacked by a bitter ex-boyfriend in a book-length tirade of sexual and professional jealousy. The non-scandal became a lightning rod for tens of thousands of gamers furious that women were intruding on a medium that was meant to be their personal power fantasy.
On anonymous forums like 4chan, men coordinated an extraordinary campaign of abuse dressed up as concern for โjournalistic ethicsโ. Quinn and other creators were driven from their homes, but the firestorm was already out of control. Over the next few years, as โincelsโ continued to carry out acts of mass murder, every entertainment industry, from comics and publishing to film and TV, was besieged by obsessive trolls casting themselves as brave rebels against illiberal โsocial justice warriorsโ. The more they got away with it, the more they treated it like a game.
Gamergate brought together the disparate strands of what we now call the manosphere: the grifting pickup-artists, the Christian nationalists, the bitter โincelsโ and the furious fans triggered into mass social vandalism whenever they heard a story they werenโt the hero of. This slurry of half-formed fixations congealed into a coherent ideology of aggrieved entitlement, with its own language โ โescaping the matrixโ, โtaking the red pillโ โ and their own logic of heroic victimhood in the face of womenโs sexual power. The rage and alienation of men abandoned by post-crash capitalism was channelled towards a common cause โ one ripe for co-option by the worst possible actors.
Throughout the mid-aughts, mainstream media continued to underestimate the manosphere.The fringes of the right did not make the same mistake. Gamergate was the proving ground for some of the central propagandists of the new โalt-rightโ. Steve Bannon, the political svengali and co-founder of Breitbart News, saw the potential in this cohort of cranks. He went on to run Donald Trumpโs first presidential campaign, helping to deliver that key demographic to a president who personified everything the new cult of male supremacy most admired, as he crowed about sexual violence and held the notionally free world hostage to his every emotional spasm.
In hindsight, it is startling that all of this was normalised for so long. It was apparentlyinconceivable that violence against women could constitute a crisis โ unless, of course, the violence was blamed on immigrants or on transgender people, at which point womenโs safety suddenly shot to the top of the political agenda. When feminists and others in the infected eye of the storm tried to raise the alarm, we were told we were exaggerating for attention, or that we couldnโt take a joke. Under the posturing,cartoon frogs and memespeak, these were lost young men who deserved patience and understanding, and if we didnโt offer it we were heartless, humourless killjoys.
Identical arguments were used to dismiss the rise of Maga until it was far too late. The playbook tested out on feminists and on Black, queer and female creators in the mid-aughts was replicated in far-right movements across the global north โ as was the response of muted both-sidesism. Then as now, politicians, pundits and industry leaders officially disapproved of the worst excesses of the manosphere, but declined to take an explicit stand, terrified that any display of moral integrity would alienate their base.
As the 2010s turned into the 2020s and the manosphere continued to expand, funnelling its recruits towards ever more extreme, explicitly racist ideas, it became fashionable to cast โsocial justice warriorsโ as the pressing danger to human freedom. Politicians and public figures seemed far more concerned about the #MeToo movement, which seemed proof positive that feminists had gone too far โ and deserved, perhaps, to be punished for it. After the third or fourth time a documentary crew came to interview me about all the death threats, I realised that they didnโt want to help โ they wanted to watch.
Lots of people did. After Gamergate, bigotry became a growth industry for enterprising young lads unburdened by conscience. As a journalist, I interviewed many young far-right men who admitted that what they really wanted was to be influencers and film-makers. For clicks and views they courted controversy and flirted with the far right โ but it didnโt take long for the relationship to get serious. As Kurt Vonnegut writes in his anti-fascist masterpiece Mother Night, โwe are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to beโ.
Today, nobody is pretending that this is a joke any more. Trump, in his deranged dotage, is openly courting the manosphere, and the young men of gen Z are veering towards the far right en masse. Thereโs a clear line from the social vandalism of Gamergate to the mega-grifting male supremacists, scamming their followers with the promise of a reality where women and girls are non-player characters, to be defeated, exploited or traded for tokens in a brutal marketplace of human value. Many young men have lived their entire lives in the shadow of this weaponised misogyny โ and so have young women. And that sinister ideology is still gnawing at the heart of power.
A few weeks ago, in a break from encouraging his deranged president to take over Greenland, White House adviser Stephen Miller found time to post a tweet on X that appears to be mocking the new Star Trek series for being too diverse. Elon Musk emerged from his fug of racial conspiracy theories and transphobia to agree. This is embarrassing, and not just because any half-literate nerd knows that Star Trek has been woke since 1966. Because even after turning the world into their personal thunder dome, the representatives of aggrieved white male power are still unsatisfied, still demanding we cater to their every petty whim. They will continue to do so until the rest of us, at last, refuse to tolerate their nonsense.
Laurie Penny is a journalist, author and screenwriter. They write the substackย Force of Culture
On this day in 1831, nearly 80 newly discovered chess pieces were exhibited at Edinburgh’s Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. No one knew how they had ended up in the sand bank on the Isle of Lewis where they were found, though the mystery only added to their charm. It’s generally thought today that the pieces are Norwegian and were carved in the late 12th or early 13th century. They shed light on the medieval spread of chess across Europe.
tRump treats the White House the official residence and working office of the president.ย The longest any resident may live there is normally 8 years or 10 years if the vice president takes over after 2 years of the president’s term. A federal judge told tRump’s administration that he was only holding the White House in trust for the people and next person to hold the office.ย It did not give him the right to change it or do what he wanted with it as if it was Mar-a-Lago or one of his other properties.ย That judge ordered a stop to the ballroom until congress authorized it, which the people do not want at a time when all their social services are being cut.ย tRump is deluded into thinking the more gold in a room the fancier and wealthier the person seems.ย He is trying to keep up with other dictators palaces. Now he is talking about replacing the front of the white house, the iconic columns.ย It is almost like he thinks he won’t be leaving. And that every other president will share his clearly in his mind superior tastes in decorating. However most people will see it as tacky and pretentious, which both describe tRump.ย Hugs
President Trump has discussed turning the White House Treaty Room, historically a meeting place for diplomats and statesmen, into a guest bedroom with an en suite bath.ย He has added gold flourishes to the East Room of the Executive Residence in a style similar to the gilded trimmings he installed in the Oval Office. And he has affixed โchallenge coinsโ that celebrate his presidency โ including the newest medallions in red and gold โ to the walls inside the West Wing.
The Treaty Room is one of the most historic rooms in the White House.ย ย Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley used it as a Cabinet room, and it was where the Spanish-American War peace protocol of 1898, and the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963, were signed. Once known as the โMonroe Room,โ because it was where President James Monroe worked, it also has been the setting for major wartime addresses by presidents George W. Bush and Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The sharply conservative Supreme Court that Trump's three appointees remade is the first since at least the 1950s to reject civil rights claims in a majority of cases involving women and minorities, according to a detailed analysis conducted for The Washington Post.
Scottie's Playtime 