Adam touched on this last night, but I think it bears repeating. Not that anyone who’s paying attention needs it, but yesterday we got confirmation straight from the horse’s ass that the President of the United States has been running interference for Vladimir Putin:
It’s shameful because no U.S. president should be caping for a blood-gargling sociopath like Putin, ever. It’s stupid because though the dim bulb doesn’t realize it, Trump just confirmed the worse suspicions aroused by his consistently sycophantic behavior toward Putin.
On top of that, Trump hurling the toys out of his pram above scans as impotent whining because that’s what it is. The self-described dealmaker who alone could fix it got nothing from Putin, and he tried so hard, hence the tantrum
He got nothing for the repulsive attempt to bully Zelensky in the Oval Office. He got nothing after sending a clueless toady to frame a “peace deal” that was a giveaway to the Russian dictator.
After all that, Trump got nothing from Putin on Ukraine except further escalations that indiscriminately murder Ukrainian civilians while making Trump look weak and pathetic on the world stage. Because he is.
***
Speaking of water boys, the Bezos Post caught up with Trump’s top campaign donor, Elon Musk, who was back in Texas yesterday to preside over another rapid unscheduled disassembly. The Post says Musk “appeared reflective,” but he sounded as whiny as Trump.
STARBASE, Tex. — Elon Musk, returning to SpaceX on Tuesday for a test flight of his Starship spacecraft, said in an interview that slashing the size of federal government proved far tougher than he expected and lamented the intense criticism leveled at the U.S. DOGE Service, which he has led…
He said repercussions over DOGE cuts had been severe. “DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he said. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”
He also expressed dismay over the reputational hit his companies took: “People were burning Teslas. Why would you do that? That’s really uncool.”
Boo-fucking-hoo. But no one should buy the walk-back:
Eager to demonstrate that his attention is now rededicated to his companies, Musk returned here ahead of a test flight Tuesday of Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket and a key part of NASA’s plan to return to the moon and Musk’s quest to send people to Mars…
Gone was the Dark MAGA cap, the black blazer, the belligerence toward his perceived foes in Congress and the Washington press corps. For now, there will be no more Cabinet meetings or unsuccessful forays into political races…
Even so, he vowed that his work with the U.S. DOGE Service was not done. He said he plans to focus DOGE’s efforts on improving the federal bureaucracy’s computer systems, a less-controversial goal than taking a chainsaw to the workforce.
That goal might be a good deal more controversial than the Post currently deems if people understood that “improving the federal bureaucracy’s computer systems” entails giving unvetted DOGE chuds an opportunity to exfiltrate everyone’s personal data and place it in the hands of a group of ultra-rich weirdos who are building a dystopian panopticon.
So while Trump is looking weak and pathetic on the world stage and his benefactor is feigning a butt-hurt retreat to his companies, the billionaire weirdos are creating a domestic surveillance system that will live on when Trump is Cheeto dust. Unless we stop them. Can we? Fuckifino.
***
To end on a more positive note, I saw this cool Roseate Spoonbill a couple of days ago.
Not a great pic because it was across the river, but I was happy to see it. This morning, I saw two massive alligators swimming upriver. They were so big they left a wake as they swam — my guess is they were at least 10-footers, maybe more.
I also saw a marsh bunny scampering around the vegetation at the water’s edge. No pic because the dogs spotted it too, and they are allowed to bark at rodents, so their furious woofing and snarls sent poor bunny careening into the thicker brush — away from the gators.
Open thread.
