Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and Trump toady signed motions to vacate convictions of Jan. 6 rioters including Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs.
As you will recall, Donald Trump attacked the pope, and then he posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ healing the sick.
The New York Times described it: The image had showed Mr. Trump dressed in white and red robes, with the president’s hands emitting shining lights. His right hand was touching the forehead of a man lying on a bed in a hospital gown, evoking religious art that depicts Jesus healing the sick.
In the image posted on Sunday, the man in the bed is surrounded by figures looking up at Mr. Trump, including a medical worker with a stethoscope, a praying woman and a man in a camouflage uniform. The background of the image includes the Statue of Liberty, a building resembling the Lincoln Memorial, fighter jets, eagles, fireworks and a billowing American flag. (snip-MORE, and it’s Hot!)
Note three: Jeanine Pirro just launched her latest bad idea. She has set up a tip line for people to call about crimes Eric Swalwell might have committed. Ok cool. We hope people use it. We also hope they let her know about the rapist piece of shit she works for. The number is 202-252-0809. (snip)
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 “attack the messenger” defense to a unpopular war going poorly.
It’s 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 today’s screed was striking for how it mixed the old worn-out reflexive questioning of the loyalty of reporters with biblical references that reflect Hegseth’s personal Christian nationalism:
“Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on,” Hegseth said. “It’s incredibly unpatriotic.”
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 — or any regime critics — harkens to earlier dark eras of America history and to authoritarian regimes worldwide. But Hegseth’s diatribe came with a strong Christian twist, as he compared journalists to the Pharisees who rejected Jesus in the Bible:
“The 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 didn’t matter,” Hegseth said.
“They 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,” he continued.
“I 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,” he added.
Hegseth — callow, reactive, driven by a warped theology of nationalism, and poorly grounded in history — 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 ‘trade over aid’ declaration
SCOTUS Watch
Justice Sonia Sotomayor apologized privately to Justice Brett Kavanaugh and followed up with a public apology released by the Supreme Court for remarks last week that, without naming him, attributed his defense of what have become known as “Kavanaugh stops” to his posh upbringing.
In a public appearance at Yale Law School, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the Roberts Court’s handling of its emergency docket.
In unusually pointed remarks carried live by CSPAN, Justice Clarence Thomas launched a broadside at progressivism.
Jan. 6 Never Ends
Trump lawyer and coup plotter John Eastman was officially disbarred in California after the state Supreme Court declined to take up his appeal.
Trump I White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is seeking reimbursement from the Trump DOJ of his legal fees incurred as a witness in both of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.
Must Read
Heather Cox Richardson draws a straight line from Lincoln’s assassination to Jan. 6 and the events of this week.
Do as We Say Not as We Do
NBC News: “Anti-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.”
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. TPM’s 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 “real” 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, I’m 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
“Hearing 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.”—Richard 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? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here. (snip)
Trump wrote, “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. He talks about ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside. I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA.” (snip-MORE)
I’m not religious so the fact that Trump posted an image showing himself as Jesus doesn’t personally insult me. But some of the criticism have described his actions as blasphemous, which I think is dangerous territory for a secular society. There are countries which have blasphemy laws that have led to horrendous murders, just because someone’s religious sensibilities have been offended. It has no place in a democracy. What Americans ought to be outraged about was the gaslighting response Trump gave to a reporter when asked about the image. Either he was lying through his teeth or his dementia is further along than I thought.
Here’s an cartoon from 2020 when Trump pandered to Christian voters by demanding governors open houses of worship during the Covid pandemic shutdown.
Yesterday, after posting a tirade against the Pope on Truth Social, Donald Trump shared an AI-created image of himself as Jesus Christ. A lot of people didn’t take kindly to this, probably because Donald Trump posted a picture of himself as Jesus Christ.
As The New York Times describes it, “The image had showed Mr. Trump (sic) dressed in white and red robes, with the president’s hands emitting shining lights. His right hand was touching the forehead of a man lying on a bed in a hospital gown, evoking religious art that depicts Jesus healing the sick.” (snip-MORE)
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 “The Man of Sin,” literally “The Man of Lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:3). He will disregard God’s Word and God’s 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 “the son of perdition,” meaning “son of destruction.” He will physically destroy those who oppose him; he will spiritually and eternally destroy all who believe him and follow him.
He Opposes God “He opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God” (v. 4). Well, that doesn’t help much, does it? Half the world oppose God and exalt themselves over Him. But what’s unique about this opposition is that the Antichrist opposes mainly by substitution.
He is a Substitute As “Anti” can mean “instead of” as well as “against,” Antichrist can mean “replacement Christ,” “instead of Christ,” “substitute for Christ.” Paul confirms this when he says that the Antichrist “sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (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 Christ’s titles, worship, and roles.
He is a Deceiver The only other person called “the son of perdition” 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, “Don’t be deceived!” Just as Satan rarely comes painted red with horns, a fork, and a pointy tail, the Antichrist will not come with a big “A” 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 John’s 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 John’s day, THE ultimate Antichrist will not deny everything about Christ, but just enough to undermine the power of Christ’s 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 Antichrist’s 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 sheep’s clothing will shed his fleece and bare his fangs.
Serious, scary stuff, isn’t 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) — 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 “have confirmed their intention to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall,” lawyers for the government and the groups wrote in a joint court filing.
The flag — one of several Pride banners at the 7.7-acre (3.1-hectare) park — won’t be removed, except for “maintenance or other practical purposes,” the filing said. (snip-details of position and measurements of the Pride flag)
We were told we couldn’t take a joke, and that social media isn’t 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. 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 – 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 “revenge porn”. Strange as it may now sound, though, “the internet” was still seen as separate from “real life”.
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 wasn’t real and didn’t count. If I didn’t 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 – 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 “incels” – 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 “journalistic ethics”. Quinn and other creators were driven from their homes, but the firestorm was already out of control. Over the next few years, as “incels” 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 “social justice warriors”. 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 “incels” and the furious fans triggered into mass social vandalism whenever they heard a story they weren’t the hero of. This slurry of half-formed fixations congealed into a coherent ideology of aggrieved entitlement, with its own language – “escaping the matrix”, “taking the red pill” – and their own logic of heroic victimhood in the face of women’s sexual power. The rage and alienation of men abandoned by post-crash capitalism was channelled towards a common cause – 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 “alt-right”. 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 Trump’s 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 – unless, of course, the violence was blamed on immigrants or on transgender people, at which point women’s 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 couldn’t take a joke. Under the posturing,cartoon frogs and memespeak, these were lost young men who deserved patience and understanding, and if we didn’t 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 – 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 “social justice warriors” 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 – 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 didn’t want to help – 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 – but it didn’t take long for the relationship to get serious. As Kurt Vonnegut writes in his anti-fascist masterpiece Mother Night, “we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be”.
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. There’s 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 – 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 substack Force of Culture
It was a yesterday’s Wonkette tab, but I just got to that email over lunch. It’s a horrible story. Of course, the hospital likely is understaffed thanks to policies and practices of our government, but still. Here is this-
Cara Lynn Shultz is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. Her work has previously appeared in Billboard and Reader’s Digest. People Editorial Guidelines
NEED TO KNOW
Conor Hylton’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yale New Haven Health-Bridgeport Hospital
The ICU where Hylton was treated had no on-site doctors and relied on off-site telehealth monitoring, the complaint alleges
A representative for the hospital tells PEOPLE, “We are unable to comment on pending litigation”
A dental student died in a Connecticut ICU where he wasn’t being cared for by an on-site doctor, but instead, was monitored remotely by an off-site physician via video.
The family of Conor Hylton has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yale New Haven Health-Bridgeport Hospital after the 26-year-old died in the Milford Campus’s intensive care unit. According to the complaint obtained by PEOPLE, the site is a “tele-ICU meaning there are no qualified ICU intensivists on site.” The complaint further states, “ICU intensivists are located off-site at a centralized remote location, purportedly monitoring critically ill patients through a video screen.”
In a statement to PEOPLE, a representative for the medical group said, “Yale New Haven Health is aware of this lawsuit and is committed to providing the safest and highest quality of care possible, however, we are unable to comment on pending litigation.”
Hylton first arrived at the hospital at 11:08 a.m. on August 14, 2024, with abdominal pain and vomiting, per the complaint, which says he was admitted and diagnosed with “pancreatitis, dehydration, metabolic acidosis, and alcohol withdrawal.” His condition “continued to change and deteriorate over the evening.”
At 4:30 a.m., the complaint says, “Mr. Hylton slid down in bed, his eyes rolled back and he became unresponsive and exhibited seizure-like activity, vomited, became bradycardic and code was called. He was intubated, but he could not be resuscitated, and he was pronounced dead.”
The complaint states that although the pronouncement of Hylton’s death was said to be made by an on-site doctor, it was actually done by a ‘tele-health’ provider on a video screen.”
According to the complaint, an on-site doctor was called to intubate Hylton, but “the provider summoned to perform the intubation did not know how to find the ICU and had to find someone else to show him where it was located. This led to a delay in [care].”
An expert medical opinion included with the lawsuit wrote, “no on-site doctor assessed Mr. Hylton from the time he was admitted to the ICU until after he exhibited seizure activity at 4:30 a.m.”
Joel T. Faxon, partner at Faxon Law Group, which is representing Hylton’s family, said in a press release: “It’s alarming to think in a supposedly intensive care setting: Where is a doctor? Where are the nurses? How does the emergency doctor not know how to get to the ICU to provide life saving care?”
Faxon confirmed to PEOPLE that neither Hylton nor his family were informed there were no on-site doctors at the ICU. As Faxon told PEOPLE exclusively, “If the Hylton family knew that their son was being placed in a fake icu with no doctor present they would have demanded he be transferred to a hospital that could properly treat him. They were never given that option and, tragically, Conor died as a result.”
Scottie's Playtime 
