Balloon Juice - Trumpery Archives

Open Thread: RETVRN (to the Religious Wars)

by Anne Laurie| April 3, 20266:03 pm| 182 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Religion, Trumpery

Eh, I grew up Catholic, it's not like we make a fuss about Good Friday or anything, I'm sure no one will be upset.

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— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) April 3, 2026 at 1:46 PM

I’m sure things have changed a bit over the last 50 years, but when I was growing up In The Church, we not only had mandatory Good Friday mass, it was a special extra-long ceremony where the presiding priest marched all around the chapel, trailed by altar boys, marking all 14 Stations of the Cross with a (mumbled) recitation of horrors…

To all the people and AI bots online insisting that no Catholic church holds Mass on #GoodFriday, I give you the literal Pope officiating at Mass on Good Friday.
I also suggest people engage their brains before they speak/post, but yeah, I know, good luck with that. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuNM…

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— Kat4Obama (@kat4obama.bsky.social) April 3, 2026 at 3:12 PM

Turns out these guys really do respect some traditions of Western Civilization! Sure, they hate art, culture, self-reflection, civic responsibility, and democracy, but they're game for some good old Catholic/Protestant conflict.

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— Max Kennerly (@maxkennerly.bsky.social) April 3, 2026 at 3:07 PM

Catholic converts from evangelical Christianity born after 1980 have their own self-contained culture and aesthetic that basically looks like “Lord of the Ring” to cradle Catholics and associated ethnic whites.

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— Sarah Archer (@sarcher.bsky.social) April 3, 2026 at 2:04 PM

The big MAGA Catholics are increasingly anti-Vatican, I wouldn’t be surprised if Vance etc spin off their own thing with the MAGA evangelicals.

Not a single one of these smartphone catholics is even remotely catholic and I’ve been going insane pointing it out for over a decade. They are just mean snobby big city evangelicals who think megachurches are for hicks

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— Patrick Cosmos (@veryimportant.lawyer) April 3, 2026 at 2:21 PM

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Open Thread: RETVRN (to the Religious Wars)Post + Comments (182)

Open Thread: Banger Memes, Dude

by Anne Laurie| April 3, 20269:49 am| 92 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Trump Crime Cartel, War

Interesting how many "Pete fucked this up" stories are coming out rn.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) April 2, 2026 at 11:14 PM

(Scheduling this post in the early hours… )

If they go to the trouble to say it, then I'm suspicious why

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— Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom.bsky.social) April 2, 2026 at 5:22 PM

Mr. Nichols, like our own Adam Silverman, is a professional military explainer. “Hegseth’s War on America’s Military” [Gift link]:

The United States is in the middle of a major war, but that didn’t stop Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Thursday from firing General Randy George, America’s most senior Army officer. George was the Army’s Chief of Staff, and he was cashiered along with another four-star general, David Hodne, and Major General William Green, Jr., the top Army chaplain, in what has been a rolling purge by Hegseth of senior officers—particularly those close to the Secretary of Army, Dan Driscoll.

Why were these men fired while U.S. forces are fighting overseas? The Defense Department has given no official reason for their dismissals, but likely they are the latest victims of Hegseth’s vindictive struggles with the Army, which he feels treated him poorly—the service “spit me out” he said in his 2024 book—as he struggles in a job for which he remains singularly unqualified.

Hegseth began his tenure by acting against what he sees as a Pentagon infested with DEI hires. He pushed for the removal of the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, C.Q. Brown, who is Black, and he fired a raft of female military leaders, replacing them all with men. But dumping the Army Chief of Staff in the middle of a war, without explanation, is a reckless move even by Hegseth’s standards. George is a decorated combat veteran who was slated to stay in his job until 2027, and he has never publicly feuded with Hegseth—despite having good reason to do so.

Trump and Hegseth have been on a clear mission to politicize the U.S. military, and to turn it into an armed extension of the MAGA movement. Hegseth regularly proselytizes, both for Trump and for his right-wing evangelical beliefs, from the Pentagon podium. He has intervened in Army promotions, recently culling four colonels—two Black men and two women—from the list for advancement to brigadier general. (This may be the tip of the iceberg: NBC is now reporting that Hegseth has also cancelled the promotions, across multiple services, of at least a dozen minority and female officers.) When two Army helicopters buzzed a political rally and then flew to MAGA favorite Kid Rock’s house, Hegseth short-circuited the Army’s suspension of the pilots and squashed an investigation into their actions. In keeping with the best American civil-military traditions, George and other senior military leaders have been remarkably disciplined in keeping their thoughts out of the public eye…

“A second senior White House official who is also closely involved in the video-making effort described it as a collegial, creative endeavor. ‘We’re over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude.'”
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— Matt Zoller Seitz (@mattzollerseitz.bsky.social) March 18, 2026 at 11:08 PM

Related Politico story from March — “Inside the White House plan to sell the Iran war online”:

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President Donald Trump’s hype campaign for the Iran war has demolished decades of presidential decorum around wartime messaging — and is mortifying former defense officials and members of Congress.

The White House is loving it.

The administration’s TikTok-style mash-up videos of missile strikes spliced into movie clips and video games — along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attack-style language at Pentagon press conferences — have gobsmacked those with a more traditional view of how a government should sound during a time of war. But this modern media strategy is achieving what the White House appears to prioritize: audience engagement.

“Over a four day period, the videos that we put out had over 3 billion impressions,” said a senior White House official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the administration’s communications strategy. “That blows away anything we’ve ever done in the second term.”…

No previous administration ever tried to sell a war by making a video of legendary bowler Pete Weber landing a strike using computer-generated bowling pins to represent Iran’s military — all to a Lynyrd Skynyrd soundtrack. But past administrations didn’t exist in the age of incessant group chats, TikTok and AI.

A second senior White House official who is also closely involved in the video-making effort described it as a collegial, creative endeavor. “We’re over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude,” said the person, also granted anonymity to speak candidly. “There’s an entertainment factor to what we do. But ultimately, it boils down to the fact that no one has ever attempted to communicate with the American public this way before.”…

Pentagon officials have also taken a bombastic tone, attempting to dunk on MAGA critics, journalists and the Iranian regime in a seeming extension of the White House’s viral communications strategy. Hegseth has said the U.S. would give “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” an indication that troops should not spare the lives of their enemies, a potential war crime. Hegseth also referred to rules of engagement as “stupid” and to Iranian leaders as “rats” who are “cowering” underground….

And when ‘banger memes’ are no longer enough entertainment, Trump will inevitably find some scapegoat to shove under the bus. Not as though Whiskey Pete is gifted with foresight, tho!

Wait, Hegseth fired the ARMY CHAPLAIN too? That’s a career-defining scandal for any cabinet secretary in any other era. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/u…

this is the chaplain btw. wonder why he was fired.

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— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) April 2, 2026 at 8:39 PM

Pete Hegseth sent U.S. troops to fight and die in Iran. Was he trying to cash in on the war behind closed doors?
This would be a massive betrayal.
I’m pressing for a full investigation NOW.

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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) April 2, 2026 at 9:39 AM

Trickster God forbid:

There is a predictable way that this ends and Hegseth owns it

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— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) April 2, 2026 at 7:05 PM

"Biden used the military to try and STOP aggression, and that has limited our ability to START aggression" is a thing one can say. Yes, one can say it and then have it played back in The Hague, but one can indeed say it.

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— Malaclypse the Middle (@malaclypse.bsky.social) March 20, 2026 at 7:09 AM

Open Thread: Banger Memes, DudePost + Comments (92)

Trumpery Open Thread: April’s Fool

by Anne Laurie| April 2, 20267:30 pm| 203 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Trumpery

After Trump’s speech, Americans could be forgiven for being even more concerned now about the war in Iran than they were only a few days ago, @radiofreetom.bsky.social argues:

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— The Atlantic (@theatlantic.com) April 2, 2026 at 10:30 AM

Gift link:

… Trump’s critics (including me) have castigated him for refusing to go on television and provide a comprehensive explanation of the war to the American people. But given his performance this evening, perhaps he had the right instinct. His address did not come across as a wartime speech but instead was a disjointed series of complaints, brags, and exaggerations (along with a few outright lies) delivered by a man who looked and sounded tired. After his 19 minutes on the air—brisk by Trump’s standards—Americans could be forgiven for being even more concerned now than they were only a few days ago.

A speech that should have been a clear explanation of why the United States is fighting a nation of 92 million people began instead in shambolic style. He discussed the operation that captured the president of Venezuela, perhaps hoping to make listeners believe that the Iran war will be a similarly short operation. He then said that Iran has taken losses never seen “in the history of warfare”—as if the destruction of, say, the Axis in World War II had never happened.

Trump offered little that was new, instead repeating the same lines from a short video presentation the night that he ordered attacks on the Islamic Republic, more than one month ago. He listed—rightly and correctly—the various offenses that the fanatical Iranian regime has perpetrated against the United States and other countries for nearly a half century. But he couldn’t help himself: He patted himself on the back for killing the Iranian terror mastermind Qassem Soleimani in his first term, and for canceling the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama. (“Barack Hussein Obama,” of course.) The United States, Trump claimed in a strange moment, had emptied out all the banks in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia as part of that deal—“all the cash they had”—to send that “green, green” currency to Iran.

But back to the war: What is America fighting for? Trump insisted that Iran must never be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. Almost no one would disagree with this general point—certainly I don’t—but Trump presented no evidence that Iran was nearing the nuclear threshold. Instead, he simply asserted that the Iranian mullahs were going to get a nuclear weapon and that the United States had to stop them: In other words, he admitted to launching a preventive war based on something that might happen one day…

… The reality, as best we can tell, is that Trump fully expected the Iranian regime to collapse in a matter of days or weeks, and he is now flummoxed to find out that a major war is a lot more complicated than he—or Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—realized. The president’s delivery tonight was hardly a confidence-building exercise. He was, as he himself might say, low energy—mumbling and lapsing into the repetitive phrases that come out when he’s riffing on a point instead of reading the speech in front of him. (I lost count of how many times he said “like nobody’s ever seen” and “decimated” and “never before.”)

The president seems lost. Perhaps he should have stayed off the podium for a bit longer, rather than display how adrift he is to the American public and the world.

Politico, sensing a murmuration of the media starlings, “‘What the hell did he just say?’ GOP Iran worries build after Trump speech”:

President Donald Trump’s primetime address on Iran did little to relieve rising alarm from plugged-in Republicans in key states across the country who see the war as pushing costs higher and their midterm chances ever-lower.

Trump declared Wednesday night that the U.S. offensive in Iran is “nearing completion” but warned that military operations would intensify over the “next two to three weeks.” He attempted to clarify his goals for the war — to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities — and insisted it was never about regime change. And he shrugged off the spike in oil and gas prices as a “short-term increase.”

To a number of GOP strategists and local party leaders involved in key congressional and gubernatorial races, the message was too little, too late and too jumbled…

Trump’s decision to attack Iran, and the subsequent spike in oil and gas prices, are the latest sources of heartburn for Republicans who were already feeling queasy about public opinion that has turned against Trump’s domestic agenda. They heard little new information Wednesday night from the president that signaled a course correction.

Conversations with more than half a dozen operatives and party chairs across seven battleground states revealed their anxiety that the prolonged conflict is overshadowing the White House’s affordability message and could hurt their chances of holding onto power this November…

Trump social media team: Uhhh… psyche?

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Trumpery Open Thread: April’s FoolPost + Comments (203)

Open Thread: Birthright Citizenship vs the Bigots

by Anne Laurie| April 1, 20266:38 pm| 100 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Immigration, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Trumpery

Just so you understand, this is as if you prepared for argument in front of a panel that included Cookie Monster, and Cookie Monster asked you a question about cookies, and you had not thought about cookies in advance.

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— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:16 AM

From what I’m seeing on BlueSky, and in the news, Gorsuch wins Clip of the Day (barring something *exceptionally* stupid from Trump’s network speech this evening)…

here's the clip of Gorsuch on "Roman law sources"

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 1, 2026 at 11:04 AM

Sauer’s argument had a resentful “excuse me, but I was told that you were on our side, and that it didn’t matter that our arguments were stupid” tone.

— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:22 AM

Go Cecilia!

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— Gillian Branstetter (@gbbranstetter.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:21 AM

KAVANAUGH: If we agree with you on how to read Wong Kim Ark, then you win. That could be just a short opinion, right?
WANG: Yes
SCOTUS CROWD: *laughs*

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 1, 2026 at 12:05 PM

Succinct explaination from David Cole, at the NYRB:

Who are we? On April 1 the Supreme Court will take up that question when it hears oral arguments in a challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order of January 20, 2025—the first day of his second term—denying citizenship to children born in the United States to foreign nationals who are not lawful permanent residents. That order has never gone into effect, because multiple courts have declared it unconstitutional. But the Trump administration has appealed and is now asking the Supreme Court to radically narrow the scope of what is commonly known as birthright citizenship.

The issue pits a xenophobic administration against a well-established understanding that virtually all persons born here are US citizens regardless of their parents’ status. No lower court has sided with the Trump administration on the merits of the case. For the Supreme Court to do so would require it to repudiate the Constitution’s text, the Court’s own precedents, and the enduring understanding of all three branches and of the American people. But more than that, it would literally change our identity as a nation that welcomes all who are born here.

The case, Trump v. Barbara, is governed by the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, which provides that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The immediate purpose of this citizenship clause was to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) that the children of freed slaves were not citizens of the US. The amendment’s drafters sought to make crystal clear that citizenship extended equally to all those born here.

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While the amendment’s specific target was Dred Scott, it was written more broadly, not merely to prohibit racial discrimination or to make the newly freed slaves citizens but to declare citizenship a constitutional right of everyone born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Like the Fourteenth Amendment more generally, the citizenship clause was a guarantee of equality. Citizenship, after all, is the foundation of one’s belonging to and status in a political community, and it is the source of important rights. Equal citizenship is the foundation of democracy, and the framers sought to prevent politicans from eroding that foundation…

…[T]here have always been some who viewed this rule as too permissive and advocated for limiting citizenship to children of US citizens. In the 1890s, when the Chinese Exclusion Act barred entry to Chinese nationals, the federal government sought to exclude Wong Kim Ark, a young man who had been born in the US to Chinese parents. The government argued that he was not a citizen because his parents were Chinese foreign nationals. The Supreme Court rejected that argument and instead interpreted the citizenship clause to apply the English and American common law described above. The decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) exhaustively reviewed the legal precedents and repeatedly noted that the only two exceptions to birthright citizenship under English common law were children born to foreign ambassadors or those born in hostile occupied territories. It reasoned that the American common law adopted the same exceptions, with a single addition for the children of Native Americans on tribal land. The Court treated Native Americans as having a status similar to that of ambassadors: they were physically within US territory but considered subject to a foreign sovereign’s jurisdiction. (Congress subsequently extended birthright citizenship to all Native Americans by statute in 1924.)…

Though there were two dissenters in the Wong Kim Ark case, the question has been considered settled for many generations. The Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration took the view that children of even temporary visitors were entitled to citizenship by birth, and the Justice Department has long maintained that position. Congress enacted legislation in 1940 and 1952 that incorporated wholesale the language of the citizenship clause, thereby endorsing the view that had been established in Wong Kim Ark and long applied by the federal government. The Trump administration’s brief explains, however, with typical Trumpian modesty, that everyone has been “mistaken” for all these years, and that Trump has now corrected the mistake.

But the established consensus is no mistake. It reflects a fundamental commitment to equality. By guaranteeing that everyone born in the country is equally a citizen, the framers overruled Dred Scott and sought to enshrine citizenship in a simple fact—birth in the US—that could not be manipulated to deny equal treatment. In Wong Kim Ark, the Court reaffirmed that principled commitment to equality in the face of widespread anti-Chinese prejudice. Today a government that fans the flames of prejudice against those deemed different from us seeks once more to deny this guarantee of equality. Against it is arrayed the Constitution’s text, history, and original understanding as well as the long-standing position of all three branches. That should be more than enough for the Supreme Court to tell Trump no.

Alito is now bringing up Iranians. He's basically asking about "sleeper agents," the conservative belief that babies of immigrants can be raised as Manchurian Americans who will somehow turn on us when they are *activated* at a later date.

— ElieNYC (@elienyc.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:44 AM

Wang hits him back with "that means that children of Irish, and ITALIAN immigrants would also not be a citizen."
Alito is the son of Italian immigrants.

— ElieNYC (@elienyc.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:45 AM

Even Chief ‘Just Us’ Roberts is scurrying away from the Trump argument:

SAUER: We're in a new world where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who's a US citizen.
JOHN ROBERTS: It's a new world. It's the same Constitution.

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 1, 2026 at 11:03 AM

We are ruled by morons and it makes me want to light my law degree on fire

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— T. Greg Doucette (@gregdoucette.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:00 AM

I mean, good, but it’s still a sign of profound dysfunction if this isn’t 9-0. A justice who will sign off on this is effectively announcing there’s nothing too flagrantly unconstitutional to get their blessing if a Republican president does it.

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— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 11:41 AM

Lots of good coverage of today’s argument to choose from, like @elienyc.bsky.social or @atrupar.com or @mjsdc.bsky.social. A few points.
First: it looks good for the rule of law winning, but I thought that before the immunity decision, so I am not 100% sure.
/1

— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 12:51 PM

/2 Second: it’s a travesty this bullshit was treated this seriously — and it did real harm to the nation and democracy that it was indulged.
Third: It’s a very bad sign how many absolute amoral shameless hacks are willing to conjure up bullshit to support it.

— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 12:51 PM

/4. Fourth: Advocacy does have a moral component. Lying about law and history in an effort to make millions of people stateless is not “doing law the right way.” The notion that advocacy is morally neutral or even inherently good if performed according to cultural ritual remains vapid and harmful.

— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 12:53 PM

/5 To expand on Point Four: the enemies of democracy and freedom are not just hacks like Wurman and Barnett, it’s also the people who demand that we treat Wurman and Barnett as good-faith commentators because they talk in law review articles or NYT editorials. Call evil evil.

— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 12:55 PM

Just so everyone knows, the Solicitor General straight up lied about the 1921 law review article he kept talking about. quick thread:

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— Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof (@evanbernick.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 3:13 PM

Here’s the part that Sauer highlighted, to make it look like contemporaries understood Wong Kim Ark to contain a domicile requirement. Note the “however“ at the beginning of the next sentence…

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— Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof (@evanbernick.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 3:14 PM

Here’s the transcript. Sauer is just… lying.

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— Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof (@evanbernick.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 3:19 PM

This is so clear cut. Ok done.

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— Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof (@evanbernick.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 3:20 PM

This wasn’t the only time, but it’s illustrative. He sounded like he had an answer for a lot of things, but only because he made things up.

— Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof (@evanbernick.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 3:23 PM

“The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact,” like “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater,” is a vapid content-free bromide that translates to “my policy preferences override the constitution.” It doesn‘t mean a Goddamned thing and never has.

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— A New And More Reasonable Popehat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 2:47 PM

Donald Trump didn't make it through the entire Supreme Court oral argument on birthright citizenship, leaving before they were over, per White House pool.

— Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” (@ryanjreilly.com) April 1, 2026 at 11:29 AM

Even if the Supreme Court rules to uphold Birthright Citizenship, and I suspect it will, Trump will still have succeeded in politicizing an issue that has largely gone unquestioned by most Americans. To that extent he will have weakened–perhaps permanently–another pillar of our democracy.

— Kevin M. Levin (@civilwarmemory.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 9:34 AM

loud dumb and wrong, that’s the donald trump guarantee

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— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) April 1, 2026 at 1:21 PM

"Here is how the constitution should understand citizenship" says man selling American citizenship for $1 million.

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— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 10:19 PM

Open Thread: Birthright Citizenship vs the BigotsPost + Comments (100)

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| April 1, 20269:02 am| 234 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Iran, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Trumpery

The world is stupid, but I just watched a squirrel break into a car in the parking lot below me, steal a package of crackers, and escape to a nearby tree. So at least somebody is winning.

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— Surprised Eel Historian, PhD (@greenleejw.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 8:19 PM

It’s the night before oral arguments at the Supreme Court and the ACLU is projecting all the names of the 300,000+ people who signed their petition to save birthright citizenship on the side of a huge church. It’s so gorgeous and so is our inclusive, pluralistic society. Long may it last.

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— Jess Craven ❌👑 (@jesscraven101.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 11:53 PM

There are no solutions you can enact without a veto-proof majority. Your job will be to thwart, delay, investigate, provide oversight, expose, cut funding when possible, and impeach when necessary.
Which will be often.
Trump is historically unpopular. Anti-Trump is fine.

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— Radley Balko (@radleybalko.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 12:05 AM

Elections expert says Trump's new executive order on elections “will be blocked by the federals courts before the ink is dry."

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— Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” (@ryanjreilly.com) March 31, 2026 at 6:14 PM

Polymarket.

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 12:49 PM

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It brings me no end of joy to know how many people are gearing up to deface money that has Trump’s signature on it. Making/ordering stamps, planning their strategy, etc.
I’m going to collect as much of it as I can and set up the world’s tiniest protest graffiti art museum in my wallet.

— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD (@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 1:53 PM

It is illegal to deface US currency, "with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued" (18 USC § 333). So writing "Pedophile" under his signature should be OK.
Disclaimer: Not legal advice.
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru…

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— I-270, Exit 1 (@i270exit1.bsky.social) March 29, 2026 at 10:05 AM

Whoever the front runner for Dem president is must publicly declare, ideally while Trump is alive, that his administration will take Trump’s name off of everything EXCEPT the Epstein Files.

— Now is the Time of Monsters (@tom-rooney-3.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 3:35 PM

CRAZIFICATION FACTOR REACHED!

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— Malaclypse the Middle (@malaclypse.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 6:06 PM

The Secretary of Defense is worried about how Trump's political base feels about the unnecessary war he started that's spiraling out of control

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— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha1.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 9:04 AM

> @reuters.com

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 10:55 AM

The same son-in-law who told him Covid wouldn't be a big deal because it was only affecting blue states.

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— Frank Dugan (@frankdugan.bsky.social) March 29, 2026 at 12:34 AM

for the first time in recorded history somebody decided to punch donald trump in the mouth and he is fucking confused like michael spinks putting his mouthpiece in backwards. i mean he’s always confused but this a different concussed.

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— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) March 26, 2026 at 2:56 PM

Another moment of "maybe we shoulda thought about this before we started bombin them ngl."

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 26, 2026 at 12:16 PM

A significant % of why the world bad now rolls up to
*a small group of mediocre white guys
*who were told for decades that they were the once-in-a-lifetime geniuses who would invent the flying car future
*who didn't invent shit except ways to middleman gig workers
*who now need a scapegoat

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— The Pumpkin Dipshit (@pumpkinpal.bsky.social) March 27, 2026 at 12:03 PM

and not even for other people! They need someone to blame *for their own egos, too*
we don't have warp drives and mars colonies by now, and it can't be that those things are impossible, and it can't be their fault for working on rent-seeking apps instead, it has to be *our fault, and the government*

— The Pumpkin Dipshit (@pumpkinpal.bsky.social) March 27, 2026 at 12:05 PM

Wednesday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (234)

Open Thread: ‘An Elaborate Phaoronic Tomb’

by Anne Laurie| March 31, 20265:14 pm| 154 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Trumpery

Gooood!….
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202…

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— Anne Laurie (@annelaurie.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 4:56 PM

(Gift link)

Trump is mad online about the ballroom

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 31, 2026 at 3:30 PM

"Under budget"

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— Albany Cheshire ❌👑 (@albanycheshire.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 3:41 PM

I may be preaching to the choir here but…
Absolutely no one wants a $400,000,000 White House ballroom.
Amen to the judge who paused it.
Now let’s see which private donors will reallocate that money for the public good.

— Larry Hochman (@larryhochman.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 4:29 PM

I'm guessing it's really just an elaborate pharaonic tomb.

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— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 1:10 PM

Mr. Pierce, at Esquire — “The White House Ballroom Is Already a Monstrous Disaster”:

… It is now plain that El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago plans to leave his architectural spoor all over the district, a living celebration of his two catastrophic presidencies. I remember when people ridiculed Grover Norquist’s Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, an ambitious plan to raise memorials to Reagan in every county in the country. That was how we got Reagan National Airport and the Reagan Building, the biggest office building in D.C. It also slapped or tried to slap the former president’s name on a highway in Alabama, a mountain in New Hampshire, a missile site in North Dakota, a shipyard in Pago Pago, and dozens of other roadways and elementary schools around the country.

Reagan at least had the good grace to let other people aggrandize him. This president wants to crown himself, over and over again, like Napoleon on an endless loop. I wonder how many sledgehammers you can buy between now and January 2029?

Hell, the next President should set up a booth, rent out those sledgehammers at $5 a swing, and pay off the GOP’s swollen national debt!

Open Thread: ‘An Elaborate Phaoronic Tomb’Post + Comments (154)

Open Thread: Battle of the Titan(ic Egos)

by Anne Laurie| March 30, 20265:20 pm| 78 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Trump Crime Cartel, Trumpery, War

Cartoon by @billbramhall.bsky.social.

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— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) March 29, 2026 at 8:24 PM

".. The war is turning into the ultimate test of an operating principle that has guided Trump for decades: construct a narrative, declare it to be true and relentlessly force the world to submit to it."
@theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026…

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 8:09 AM

The emperor has no clothes (and his carcass is pretty saggy). David Smith at the Guardian — “‘Battle of the titans’: Trump’s distorted reality on Iran war runs into a brick wall”:

“Let me say, we’ve won,” he told a rally in Kentucky on 11 March. “I think we’ve won,” he said on the White House south lawn on 20 March. “We’ve won this war. The war has been won,” he said in the Oval Office on 24 March. “We are winning so big,” he promised a fundraising dinner on 25 March.

Donald Trump keeps declaring victory in Iran. But saying it over and over does not make it so. While the US president insists that his military campaign in the Middle East is a historic success, the world is bracing for a conflict that continues to metastasize and could wreak havoc on the global economy.

The war is turning into the ultimate test of an operating principle that has guided Trump for decades: construct a narrative, declare it to be true and relentlessly force the world to submit to it. It has proved effective in Manhattan boardrooms, on reality television and even at the heart of power in Washington.

But in Iran, Trump’s unique brand of “truthful hyperbole” has collided with the truthful truth. His reality distortion field has run into a brick wall…

A month into the conflict, Trump is in trouble. It has already cost 13 US lives and billions of dollars. Yet there is little sign of the Iranian regime losing its grip. Instead, as many observers predicted, Tehran has triggered a global energy crisis by blocking the strait of Hormuz. Opinion polls show the war is already unpopular with US voters and a ground invasion would be even more so. There is no obvious exit strategy.

Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate, believes that Trump has finally met his match. Noting Iran’s proud culture and unwillingness to bend the knee, she said: “He has zero interest in their history; they have zero interest in his fame…

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It is a battle with deadly geopolitical consequences. Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, argues that Trump’s belief in his own mental supremacy fundamentally misunderstands the mechanics of warfare. “Trump clearly is a real believer in the power of the mind to control events and to shape how people perceive events and shape reality,” Rubin said.

“The problem with that in the case of the war is the Iranians don’t have to bend to that. There are time-tested ways to win wars and end wars through force of arms or diplomacy that have nothing to do with the mind and willpower and willing it because the other side will do what we want. He’s going to buck up against that and the sooner he relies not just on the reality of military power but the reality of diplomatic power the more likely he is to be successful.”

Media reports suggest that Trump is getting “bored” of the war and looking to move on. If and when that happens, the president and his allies will once again face the challenge of spinning it as an overwhelming victory that only he could have achieved. Some political commentators are not buying this carefully curated omnipotence.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “Iran is Trump’s Waterloo. This is the demolition of the Donald Trump myth. His supporters rave about his instincts and his improvisational style but the other interpretation is that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, that he hasn’t taken care to investigate the devastating consequences of his actions and so he’s digging himself deeper and deeper into a quagmire. This is plain to all.”…

I tried the @ivanthek.bsky.social technique of holding the latest Truth up to the light

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— George Pearkes (@peark.es) March 30, 2026 at 7:31 AM

These objectives, quite frankly, are lies. They were not the reason the U.S. attacked Iran, they were only trotted out after it became clear the Iranian regime was not collapsing. None of them are actually “strategic” in nature, but only meaningful as means to an end which is still unclear.

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— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 3:49 PM

It is actually possible to imagine a scenario in which all four “objectives” laid out here are achieved but the U.S. and its interests in the Middle East are worse off than before the war.

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 3:55 PM

Today’s Baghdad Bob played by Scott ‘President of the Most Punchable Face Club’ Bessent:

How

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— Secretary of Defense Rock (@sodrock.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 9:27 AM

Open Thread: Battle of the Titan(ic Egos)Post + Comments (78)

different-church-lady on Friday Night Open Thread (Apr 3, 2026 @ 10:21pm)

Scout211 on Friday Night Open Thread (Apr 3, 2026 @ 10:20pm)

JerseyBeard on Friday Night Open Thread (Apr 3, 2026 @ 10:19pm)

kalakal on Friday Night Open Thread (Apr 3, 2026 @ 10:18pm)

Jay on Friday Night Open Thread (Apr 3, 2026 @ 10:18pm)

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

“woke” is the new caravan.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

This blog will pay for itself.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Open Thread: RETVRN (to the Religious Wars)

Open Thread: Banger Memes, Dude

Trumpery Open Thread: April’s Fool

Open Thread: Birthright Citizenship vs the Bigots

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Open Thread: ‘An Elaborate Phaoronic Tomb’

Open Thread: Battle of the Titan(ic Egos)