A drug-addled, sociopathic megalomaniac with a messiah complex and all the power that hundreds of billions of dollars can buy probably sees himself as a man among ants, a protagonist among non-player characters. But he may still hear words uttered by other men who are nearly as obscenely wealthy as he is, so maybe this will leave a mark:
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” [Bill] Gates told the Financial Times. The Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency has led to the decimation of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has previously provided billions in funding for everything from vaccines for children to emergency food assistance.
Good for Gates, who plans to give away his $200B fortune by 2045 — and hopes to live to see it.
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates wrote in a statement.
Respect to Gates for that. It takes a lot of effort to spend that much money. I’m dumb as a stump in math, so it’s hard to wrap my mind around vast sums. I suspect a lot of other people are too, which makes it challenging to communicate just how lopsided wealth distribution is right now.
Also, I’m 100% with Jamelle Bouie on this:
once again my full throated support and endorsement for any democrat who pursues criminal legal accountability for the DOGE boys. and i’d be fine with shipping these guys to the Hague
— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) May 8, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Yep. Send the DOGE goons and their boss to the Hague and nationalize SpaceX. Let’s go.
Speaking of corrupt, unaccountable billionaires, CNN has an explanation for Trump’s incredibly tone-deaf rambling about dolls, and if true, it’s even dumber than I imagined:
CNN — The president wants to make two things clear: His tariffs are the most important reordering of global trade the world has ever seen. And his tariffs are not that big of a deal, if you’re man enough.
It’s just one of the many manosphere-coded talking points coming out of the White House and its right-wing media fans to defend radical tariffs that Trump claims will revive rugged, traditionally male-dominated jobs in factories.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, between rounds of congressional testimony, went on Fox News — where hosts have spun Trump’s tariffs as the “ultimate testosterone boost” — to reiterate Trump’s suddenly very pronounced opinions about the appropriate number of toys children should have.
Trump probably wasn’t supposed to admit on camera that his signature economic policy would cause prices to go up. But rather than spin it, Trump and Co. have doubled down.
“All I’m saying is that a young lady, a 10-year-old girl, 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. Earlier, he told NBC News’ Kristen Welker: “I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs — that’s 11 years old — needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable.”
But the administration’s emphasis on toys for girls is no gaffe. It is an attempt at misdirection that’s squarely in line with the MAGA right’s obsession with traditional, binary gender expressions.
Good lord. It’s like nesting dolls of stupid and greed.
Open thread.
Baud
Reposting from below, if this chart is accurate, the DOGE cuts to foreign aid will hurt a lot of people abroad.
Baud
Regarding dolls, maybe little girls need more women president dolls because the existing electorate seems to think women presidents have cooties.
S Cerevisiae
I get back from a wonderful trip to a beautiful, peaceful democracy to this fucking shit again. We are being ruled by the very worst. I wish I could have stayed in Costa Rica with the Quetzals.
StringOnAStick
Reposted from below:
There’s reports today that Canadians trying to cross into the US are getting 5 year travel bans to the US because when asked by CBP what they think of tRump, and answering with “I don’t like him”. CBP acting like the gestapo they want to be. The correct answer to get through customs here is “I’m not into politics” or “I’m not that political”. Meet their angry accusations with indifference.
The border crossing advice I just read is to turn off your facial recognition and fingerprint password protection on your phone; they can make you look at or touch your phone, but they can’t legally make you type in your password.
Matt
Imagine the all-channels freakout if Bernie proposed that “rich kids should have a few less toys, so that we can have a decent society”
scav
But but but, if the beautiful little girls aren’t rigorously trained into caring for thirty baby-dolls simultaneously, how will our brave new quiver-full population-producing sandwich makers live up to their patriotic duty of bearing Elon’s legions?
Omnes Omnibus
What if we call them action figures?
piratedan
I believe that the lack of accountability is what is driving the despair. We’ve been raised/indoctrinated to believe in our system, while flawed is at its roots, is kinda sorta fair. The little guy gets a chance, we all deserve and are supposed to have due process. Government takes time, cuts/reorgs have to be negotiated, voices get heard. Now for a bunch of young kids that believe that due to their selection by God’s Greatest Poseur they know more than anyone else and can just remain anonymous and destroy millions of lives because of whatever isn’t even supported by the “change right now” crowd and no “one easy trick” is going to solve the destruction.
Unsure that there’s unfuck button to press because these tools have been using such broad brushes to “blackout” government infrastructure.
Baud
@Matt:
I’m so old I remember the freakout when Harris proposed a price gouging law.
Radio Dave
Yes, This!
S Cerevisiae
There is a big sign at La Selva research station in Costa Rica that says “funding from USAID and the American people “. I saw that and my blood still boils that an amazing place where major research is done is in danger because of a bunch of adolescent boys. They should all stumble onto a nest of bullet ants.
Captain C
@StringOnAStick: Perhaps in addition to FFOTUS, Elon, and the DOGE/Project 25 crew, we should put at least a large portion of the ICE and CBP assholes on a nice, extremely slow barge to the Hague as well. Perhaps by way of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where they can be left to drift for several decades.
eclare
@StringOnAStick:
The World Cup is going to be a shitstorm.
Betty Cracker
@S Cerevisiae: Oh man, it’s my dream to see a Resplendent Quetzal!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Women of all demos except for one, voted for women Presidents in 2016 and 2024. So #notallwomen.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T, but Habemus papam.
StringOnAStick
@Captain C: You know, my late BIL was always a law and order guy, wanted to be a cop since childhood but couldn’t because he was colorblind. His last job was corrections officer, better known as prison guard (they hate that term). He worked with functional illiterates who made the less senior write their reports for them because they couldn’t read. I think it was a sad awakening to him about just how stupid, illiterate and tribal his fellow officers were. He had always wanted to be “part of the Brotherhood”, and after finally experiencing it, he admitted that he wished he’d become a firefighter instead, and only because of finally working closely with these losers.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud: At about 1.2% of federal outlays (in 2023), foreign aid is money very well spent. Should be more if we were a true Christian nation.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Whoa. Let’s hope it’s someone not reactionary.
ETA: It’s hard being without cell phones.
Betty Cracker
@eclare: The Olympics too. Athletes will risk it because they’ve worked too hard to have that shot, but can you imagine coming to a place where deranged leaders and incompetent officials might arbitrarily decide to throw you in a foreign gulag as a tourist?
StringOnAStick
@eclare: I wonder if by the time it happens, there are so few people coming to watch that the venues and sponsorships all collapse financially. If a team or team members get arrested at the border and disappeared into our red white and blue gulag, well, let’s just say that footie fans are way, way more fanatic than these idiots realize.
eclare
@SiubhanDuinne:
Wow, that was fast!
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
Agreed.
Steve LaBonne
@piratedan: Now you see why a presidential constitution is a catastrophe waiting to happen. There is no way for the government to fall before January 2028 and Christ only knows what will be left of this country by then.
RaflW
(Rarely do I use this overworked term, but) Breaking News: White smoke in Rome. New Pope news comin’ soon
eta: Props to Subaru Diane.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
I know nothing of his theological proclivities, but I hope it’s Pierbattista
PizzaballoPizzaballa. What a great name!Edited
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
He’d have to take on a new name though. Pope Bob I, probably.
raven
Father Guido Sarducci Named Himself the Pope
JoyceH
Trump’s staff shouldn’t let him talk about little girls because every time he does he sounds like a pedophile. (Hmmmmm. Wonder why?)
Omnes Omnibus
@JoyceH: Sounds like?
raven
Find the Pope in the Pizza
comrade scotts agenda of rage
All this discussion of dolls makes one wonder how many dolls did Hair Furor’s daughters have growing up?
Betty Cracker
@JoyceH: He really does.
So weirdly specific about ages, as if recalling past visits to Epstein’s pedophile island.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Finda da pope inna da Pizzaballa.
Edit: Curse you at #31 for getting there first!
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Maggie Haberman is pope?
Trivia Man
@Radio Dave: i haven’t heard ANY questions to muskrat asking about HIS government subsidies. Is anyone asking him?
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Bella!
trollhattan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Eva Braun Barbie not one of their best sellers.
Elizabelle
Have to carve down Trump’s pardoning ability. DOGE belongs in prison, along with a lot of the Cabinet. ICE Barbie fer sure.
suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: White smoke…. I guess we’ll find out soon….
RaflW
JustRuss
The Hague? For these guys, El Salvador.
raven
All you dagos get offa da grass!
frosty
@StringOnAStick:
Source? I may be going to Canada later this year.
Old Man Shadow
@Baud: I confess that I am surprised China has stepped in yet to build their own soft power and advantages that come with it.
Captain C
@eclare: Assuming FIFA doesn’t just yank it from us. I’m pretty sure Mexico and Canada could handle co-hosting on their own.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Fingers crossed it is someone humane, like Pope Francis.
Bring on the next powerful man in a dress.
eclare
@Captain C:
Same.
Elizabelle
@RaflW: funny.
And. #No More Ratzingers.
Trivia Man
@SiubhanDuinne: that was fast
Old Man Shadow
@Betty Cracker: “You know if these girls are too well off, they won’t be looking for older men to buy them things.”
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus: I like Barbie action figures especially since the Barbie coat I have is a racing jacket with her in her race car on the back.
Old Man Shadow
@JustRuss: Alabama prison in August.
scav
@Captain C: Yeah, and it’d be sold here as a testosterone enhancement as real football is overlarge men running at each other in pads and retiring to dementia.
SiubhanDuinne
@RaflW:
LOL
raven
The Swiss Guard is on the case!
cain
@eclare:
Not really. It will just be filled with Americans. Nobody else is going to show up. The businesses are going to be pissed as they were probably banking on an uptick of tourism.
trollhattan
Colbert had Guido Sarducci on to discuss choosing da new-a pop-a.
https://youtu.be/mmRVuB5exLM?si=DqPhr7ZhykpS7i2L
raven
@cain: Just like the Olympics in LA and Atlanta!
SiubhanDuinne
Someone on MSNBC was just introduced as a “papal analyst,” and maybe it’s just me but that job title sounds ever so slightly weird.
(And typing that out, I noticed that it’s only one letter off from “papal anal cyst.” No offence to the RCs among us.)
Fair Economist
@SiubhanDuinne:
2/3rd majority on the second ballot? Wow.
I can hope the selectee must be a pretty good guy, at least for a Cardinal?
Mike E
@raven: puff puff, pass the pape!
Gin & Tonic
Respect to Bill Gates. Long time ago there was pretty loud criticism of him (and some others) in the tech community for their stinginess WRT charitable causes. That seems pretty foolish now.
Peale
@RaflW: Yeah. He got over 65% of the vote with that group.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: My grandfather in Chicago put his foot down and said NO MORE RC!
cain
@Elizabelle:
The young DOGE guys don’t know that eventually there will be consequences. Their casual cruelty should be rewarded a 1000 fold.
Of course the system is so fucked that our media will be writing edgy articles saying the Dems should pardon everyone for the sake of unity etc etc etc. The older Dems will grip their covers at night thinking about it while younger ones will be howling at the older Dems.
cain
@raven: lol – right? Hell, we don’t even know if the athletes will show up! Can you imagine if they were deported?
raven
Will the new pope be a switch hitter?
Peale
@Fair Economist: Or some idiot voted for “Trump” on the first ballot and everyone else realized that they were in for a long, long, conclave unless they all voted for the equivalent of Joe from Office Support Services and call it a day.
Juju
@SiubhanDuinne: I read that as PayPal analyst and thought it even more weird.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
What about the Moon Pie?
raven
@cain: Or imported!!!
Fair Economist
@Steve LaBonne:
Given the grip Trump has on the Republican party, I don’t think it would be different if we had a Prime Minister instead. It might be worse, because we wouldn’t have midterms. The problem is the social and media environment that allowed such a monster to gain power.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: No but maybe peanuts!
Belafon
@raven: “145% tariff on all Chinese athletes. They must take 1.5 Americans.”
Peale
@cain: One of the reasons that I don’t think Newsome should run is that the Olympics is going to be a major fuck up and I don’t want to spend the summer having to listen to Trump blaming it all on Newsome. My guess is that he’ll demand that the opening ceremonies be all about having the athletes bow down to him. The tanks that they use in the stadium for the parade will tear up the track and we’ll end up with the gold medalist in the 100M clocking in at 20 seconds as he was the only one not injured in the previous rounds.
suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne:
“Are you forgetting that I was a professional twice over— an analyst and a therapist. The world’s first analrapist!”
Sure Lurkalot
This morning’s example of obsequious self-humiliation (via Aaron Rupar Bsky):
Excellent rejoinder
trollhattan
I’ll say this, not just anyone can rock the Swiss Guard uniform. Imagine wearing it to Walmart.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: My maternal grandfather’s family was RC. When one of his brothers was ill and the family was paying his medical bills instead of tithes, they got a visit from the parish priest who told them not to come back until they paid up. And that was it for Catholicism.
rikyrah
@cain:
Phuck unity
Throw the book at those phuckers😡😡😡
raven
@Peale: ”
Jim Thorpe was an American (also native American) decathlete who won gold in the decathlon. At the medal presentation, King Gustav of Sweden announced to Thorpe, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world!”. Thorpe’s two word reply:
Thanks, king.
kermode
@StringOnAStick: I mean, that’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it? :D
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: just swell
Peale
I was watching a Thai TV series this weekend and one of the characters is a high schooler who is a little, IDK, fashion exuberant. His outfit this week centered around an Milwaukee Brewers Ugly Christmas Sweater. Based on the logo, it would have been something that got produced for Christmas in the 2010s. The kind of thing you see in Wal Mart or Target in Wisconsin or on on sale MLB.com for one season. Somehow, this sweater made its way to Thailand so a character could wear it on a class field trip for an episode.
Having the discourse being about dolls and “cheap household decorations” and colored pencils and “Dollar Stores” and not “sports team branded shit that now take up more than 1/2 the men’s clothing department” is so precious. Also the manosphere telling their dweebs that “consumption is girly” when they are all about promoting nutritional supplements, sports cars, and houses with two swimming pools (that you too could have if the world weren’t so woke) is so outrageous that I can’t even.
Anyway, I hope that the tariffs are so high on this kind of stuff that the only sports branded crap available is from off market Thai volleyball teams and professional Chinese football that can only be found at 3rd hand stores for them. The world doesn’t need to cater to US sports fans if we can’t pay the bills.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
They still do. The Gates Foundation spends less than half the interest the Foundation’s assets accrue, annually.
In 2020, it’s asset holdings were $69 billon, in 2025, $112 billion.
Now it could be that classic Billionaire Dilemma, where the money comes pouring in faster that you can give it away, but I doubt that.
Captain C
@Peale:
Every race becomes a steeplechase.
kindness
And the new Pope has chosen a name. He will be known as Pope Fucktrump.
Don’t I wish.
Jeffro
Seconded on the Bouie approach, for three reasons:
Oops, a fourth
4. There’s the possibility that some MAGA GOP kkklowns might actually end up in jail
Jay
@Sure Lurkalot:
Paul Krugman noted that it’s not a “Trade Deal”, it’s a “Concept of a Trade Deal”.
One of DJTdiot’s “beefs” with the EU and UK, is American Beef. Watched a YouTube explainer on why the UK and the EU don’t buy much American beef. Basically, growth hormones. Only 10 farms in the US meet the UK/EU requirements and certifications, amounting to 0.01% of all the beef produced in the US.
While there are many other producers that claim to be raise growth hormone free beef, they can’t actually “prove” it.
Jeffro
<gag>
here’s hoping #ETTD strikes Lutnick, and soon
(but it can hit Vought and Miller first)
Bill Arnold
Wikipedia is fast. I’m refreshing this every few minutes: Pope Leo XIV
Undergrad mathematics degree, interesting:
JoyceH
Trump of course is going to assume that he can tell an American pope what to do.
Betty Cracker
Wow, the Pope is an American?
Marc
For years, places like Mexico, Central and South America, some islands in the Caribbean, and much of Southern and Central Africa, have had signs all over the place for infrastructure projects with the both the national and PRC flags, with “CHINA AID” and “Ministry of Commerce, People’s Republic of China” prominently displayed.
LeonS
Not that it should be a factor, but worth noting that the DOGE boys, unlike, say, a Republican Congressman have no natural constituency. I’m pretty sure whatever is left of the Republican party in a situation where we could prosecute the DOGErs would happily throw them under the bus.
Gin & Tonic
@Bill Arnold: I like that they call it a Bachelor of Science. I think more universities that grant mathematics degrees do it as Bachelor of Arts.
mapanghimagsik
@Peale:
One of the reasons I didn’t think Newsome should run is because he’s a piece of shit.
bookworm1398
@gin and tonic.
Many universities offer both. A BS in Math indicates you took more, higher level classes than a BA
Miss Bianca
@StringOnAStick: I’m feeling just vengeful enough to root for it, but there are a lot of people and places that don’t deserve that kind of shafting, so I can’t do so whole-heartedly.
cmorenc
@Captain C:
I had always thought the problems with bringing the WC to the US would be that too many Americans might still be contemptuous of soccer as inferior to more “manly” games like NFL football, and besides they are baffled by and think soccer rules are silly, especially the offside rule. And not because teams from other countries might get arrested on entry to the US and sent to a gulag in Libya or El Salvador.
Steve in the ATL
Easily remedied: just tell people that the sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.
You’ll be the same math genius as the Scarecrow!
topclimber
@Steve in the ATL: Any DOGE types offered you juicy intel yet on your union opponents from their NLRB hack?
You can say they offered it to a friend, not you.
Citizen Alan
@Fair Economist: This. The problem is that the GOP is a fascist, white supremacist death cult. Trump as Prime Minister would be better than Trump as President only in the sense that he might be subject to removal more frequently than once every 4 years, but so long as the GOP controls the government and he controls the GOP, I don’t think we’d be much better off in a parliamentary system.
Like I’ve said since 2016, Trump is only a symptom. The disease is those 70+ million voters Davis X. Machina spoke of who squat in their metaphorical cardboard boxes plotting to kill us all.
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker: I just had another Left Behind flashback over the ascension of an American Pope. Because one of the Antichrist’s minions in that awful series is the first American Pope: Cardinal Robert Mathew, who later becomes Pope and oversees the entire Catholic Church getting folded into the Antichrist’s One World Religion. His predecessor, John XXIV, had served for five months before getting Raptured, one of the few Catholics of any prominence to to taken in that event This is apparently because Pope John XXIV was a fan of Martin Luther and favored policies to basically turn the Catholic Church towards Protestantism, thereby proving his worthiness to enter into Heaven.
Glory b
@Matt: I thought that was his entire platform.
Steve in the ATL
@topclimber: no such luck! Though all my info was in there as well, so maybe the unions are getting MY intel….
Moondoggus
@Baud:
Trump’s concept of a trade deal excludes tariffs on Rolls Royce cars. Tariffs for children’s toys, no tariffs for rich people’s toys.
i know you think this isn’t a winning strategy, but you should admit that this administration of plutocrats, by plutocrats, and for plutocrats, is the most inviting environment for “Tax The Rich “ in 100 years.
DMcK
@StringOnAStick:
You really should give us a source for this. The only references I could find to an uptick in 5-year travel bans on Canadian travelers were from 2019, and had to do with stricter enforcement of existing laws.
Andrya
@kindness: Essentially, you got your wish. The previous pope Leo was Leo XIII in the 1890’s who wrote an encyclical (Rerum Novarum) which says that Catholic ethics require a welfare state where everyone, even the poorest, has a decent standard of living and all the necessities of life. (Also, the right to organize labor unions.) By taking the name Leo XIV, the new pope is explicitly staking out a position in direct opposition to the Republican party.
Steve in the ATL
@Moondoggus:
The judges would also accept “Eat the Rich”