6ixStringJack: Oh. Looks like you're winning again today. Good for you, Second.  |
| second: Virginia voters yesterday agreed to a constitutional amendment that would temporarily redistrict the state if any other state redistricted for partisan reasons: that is, in retaliation for the partisan redistricting President Donald J. Trump launched in Texas in 2025 in an effort to retain control of the House of Representatives. [go to link] |
| second: There is an uncrazy argument to be made for calling for the removal of the brutal Iranian regime. But there is no uncrazy argument to be made for choosing to go to war without a plan for the day after. There are uncrazy, if unsound, arguments for protectionist tariffs, but none for a policy of tariffs by tantrum. [go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: $600 to $10 is a little more than 98% price reduction. |
| 6ixStringJack: second: RFK Jr. testifies to Congress on Trump’s budget today: "President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction." So, just to be clear, Trump math is just making numbers up. Got it. [go to link] They claim that Warren said there's a drug for $200 on Trump RX that is available for $16 at Costco. Why don't they say which drug so you can verify it? |
| second: "I’m a lifelong Republican. This is not what we voted for. . . . If the Republican Party continues down this path, it risks losing not just elections but the trust of those who once stood firmly behind it. I am one of them." [go to link] |
| second: Trump’s DOJ is aligning itself with the KKK and other extremists by indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center. Running a confidential informant program inside hate groups is expensive and dangerous work. For about four decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has done it anyway. Its work contributed to the dismantling of the Ku Klux Klan as a political force. The SPLC’s work is so important that it routinely shared what it learned with the FBI. On Tuesday, the Trump Justice Department indicted them for it. More at [go to link] |
| second: RFK Jr. testifies to Congress on Trump’s budget today:
"President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction."
So, just to be clear, Trump math is just making numbers up. Got it. [go to link] |
| second: Explosive claims have said that Donald Trump tried to use US nuclear weapons on Iran.
The President’s increasingly erratic behaviour, posts online and general attitude towards the war in Iran have become an issue his closest allies can no longer ignore.
‘One report coming out of that meeting at the White House is that Trump wanted to use the nuclear codes, and General Dan Caine stood up and said ‘No’ ’.
‘He invoked his privilege as the head of the military, so to speak. It was apparently quite a blow-up. There are some very bizarre things going on in DC.’ [go to link] |
| second: The Southern Poverty Law Center has been exposing the Ku Klux Klan for 55 years. Yesterday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who defended Donald Trump at his 2024 criminal trial, indicted the civil rights organization for paying those informants. Blanche accused SPLC of "manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose." Paying informants is how SPLC has mapped the American hate group infrastructure since the 1980s. Seven months after an executive order designated anti-fascism as domestic terrorism, the administration has moved from labeling the opposition to indicting it. [go to link] |
| second: Trump is considering using money from the U.S. Treasury to shore up the finances of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. Why? Because Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who controls the sovereign wealth of the United Arab Emirates, has directed hundreds of millions to Trump personally, buying 49% of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial. [go to link] |
| second: Last week, Trump took to the media to crow that Iranian leaders had “agreed to everything,” including the removal of its enriched uranium, and that “Iran has agreed never to close the Strait of Hormuz again.” He promised that Iran had agreed to end its nuclear program forever and that talks “should go very quickly.” Trump declared the breakthrough was “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!” and asked why media outlets questioning the alleged deal didn’t “just say, at the right time, JOB WELL DONE, MR. PRESIDENT?”
There is the unmistakable feeling that the wheels are coming off the MAGA bus.
[go to link] |
| second: The Most Corrupt War In US History. There is a series of obviously corrupt trades, using inside information that could only have come from the top of the US Government. [go to link] |
| second: How consequential will the Trump presidency be? On this measure Trump is in the Top 5 of American presidents, alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. However, Trump’s consequences have been aggressive efforts to unravel the ideas of the other four presidents. So much more at [go to link] |
| THG: Tucker Carlson apologizes for helping Trump win election. Says he is sick about it. |
| THG: Iran didn't even show up for these latest rounds of talks. Our president the clown says he has the upper hand. Yeah right... |
| second: Ukrainian negotiators suggested naming the bit of Donbas that Russia is trying to conquer after U.S. President Donald Trump, calling it "Donnyland" [go to link] Governments flatter Trump to secure Washington’s backing. |
| THG: MAGA 'teetering' as devotees realize this isn’t 'what they signed up for' |
| second: In his first term, Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal, a 159-page document signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and five other world leaders, even though international inspectors had verified Iranian compliance with its terms. Most of Trump’s advisers—as well as many Israeli military and intelligence officers (though not its right-wing ruling political leaders)—thought it was preferable to no deal at all. (Trump said he would negotiate a “better” deal but never even tried.) [go to link] |
| second: Trump Is Trying Nixon’s “Madman Strategy.” There Are Three Reasons It Won’t Work. [go to link] 1. It didn’t work for Nixon. 2. You can’t announce that you’re playing the Madman Theory game. 3. The whole idea is a half-witted distortion of fairly conventional deterrence theory. Alternatively, the Rational Leader Theory is demonstrate that you know what you want, have what it takes to get there, say what you mean, and mean what you say. This is a pretty straightforward list of qualities for leadership in any realm, but Trump has violated all of them. I have nothing but loathing for the Iranian regime, but its leaders have every reason to distrust anything Trump says, whether or not he’s wearing his Madman mask. |