Trump's "National Security" clowns --
Our knee- bending, normalizing media (Politico Playbook edition) -
Before the poorly educated voters threw it all away --
Trump's thugs strike again --
Make America Sick Again --
What's that Musk-y smell? Buying a Wisconsin Supreme Court election --
Greenlanders remove the welcome mat for Mrs. Vance --
Republican sex crime blotter, the reckoning --
Opening Day (R.I.P. Bob Uecker) --
Yesterday, dog-shooting, Trump ass-kissing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi "Border Barbie" Noem donned her Mar-a-Lago makeup, law enforcement cap, a tight fitting white top and tight gray pants to tour the El Salvadoran CECOT maximum security prison where Venezuelan deportees and likely some innocent men were sent. In her latest cosplay, she delivered a video message after parading in front of cages full of tattooed men wearing only shorts. The Associated Press has the story of Noem's visit to the concentration camp-style prison:
"Noem’s trip to the prison — where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside — comes as the Trump administration seeks to show it is deporting people it describes as the 'worst of the worst.'
The Trump administration is arguing in federal court that it was justified in sending the Venezuelans to El Salvador, while activists say officials have sent them to a prison rife with human rights abuses while presenting little evidence that they were part of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.
Noem notably dodged questions by the press about if the Venezuelan deportees were going to be in the prison indefinitely and if the Venezuelans could ever be brought back to the U.S. if a court orders the administration to do so.
'We’re going to let the courts play out,' she told reporters following the visit.
Noem toured an area holding some of the Venezuelans accused of being gang members. In the sweltering building, the men in white T-shirts and shorts stared silently from their cell, then were heard shouting an indiscernible chant when she left." (our emphasis)
We can imagine they were reacting to Border Barbie's provocative looks and attire, with the chant probably suggesting that she would be welcome to join them.
Sadly for Noem and the Malignant Fascist, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's order to temporarily block deportations under the ancient Alien Enemies Act while arguments are heard. Families of some deportees deny their loved ones were gang members, being arrested for just having tattoos, including a Venezuelan soccer player with a tattoo of the Real Madrid soccer team's emblem. There's this horror story, too, about a paperwork error that sent a married father to CECOT. That's of no concern to camera hogging Border Barbie and the Malignant Fascist's crew, whose immigration dragnet has scooped up the guilty and innocent in a way that disregarded due process. For Noem, it's on to the next staged photo op.
BONUS: Balloon Juice's Betty Cracker rates the performance --
Noem’s $60K Rolex and sporty, moisture-wicking LL Bean hiking togs are calculated to form a fetching contrast to the stacks of half-naked prisoners with shaved heads in the background. At the sight of this set piece, angry, recliner-bound, Fox News-viewing shut-ins nationwide likely experienced a frisson that reminded them of the last natural boner they experienced decades ago.
Is this peak degeneracy? Friends, I doubt that very much. We’re just over two months into a four-year nightmare...
(photo: Alex Brandon / AP)
Yesterday, the economically illiterate Malignant Fascist imposed a 25% tariff on auto imports, a move that will not just damage our main trading partner, Canada, but will damage American consumers and car dealers with higher costs and, along with the moron's other tariffs, lead to higher inflation. The moron madman is calling it "Liberation Day." Here's how our friend and ally Canada is properly reacting:
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs are a “direct attack” on his country and that the trade war is hurting Americans, noting that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low.
Trump said earlier Wednesday that he was placing 25% tariffs on auto imports and, to underscore his intention, he stated, “This is permanent.” [snip]
Autos are Canada’s second-largest export. Carney noted the sector employs 125,000 Canadians directly and almost another 500,000 in related industries.
“Canada will be there for auto workers,” he said. [snip]
The president has plunged the U.S. into a global trade war — all while on-again, off-again new levies continue to escalate uncertainty.
The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its U.S consumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9, the fourth straight monthly decline and its lowest reading since January of 2021.
“His trade war is hurting American consumers and workers and it will hurt more. I see that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low,” Carney said earlier while campaigning in Windsor, Ontario ahead of Canada’s April 28 election.
The tax hike on auto imports starting in April means automakers could face higher costs and lower sales. [snip]
Trump previously placed 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products — as well as on all of America’s trading partners — on April 2.
“He wants to break us so America can own us,” Carney said. “And it will never ever happen because we just don’t look out for ourselves, we look out for each other.”... (our emphasis)
Please note that vehicles made in Canada (and Mexico and China) include American brands, too, which will be subject to the tariff.
The trend on the consumer confidence index Carney pointed to looks like this:
Meanwhile, expectations for inflation, based on the Malignant Fascist's aberrant actions and policies have shot up:
Carney continues with the facts about the cross- border impact:
Carney, a former two-time central banker in Canada and the U.K., made the earlier comments while campaigning against the backdrop of the Ambassador Bridge, which is considered the busiest U.S.-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25% of all trade between the two countries. It plays an especially important role in auto manufacturing.
Carney said the bridge carries $140 billion Canadian dollars ($98 billion) in goods every year and CA$400 million ($281 million) per day.
“Now those numbers and the jobs and the paychecks that depend on that are in question,” Carney said. “The relationship between Canada and the United States has changed. We did not change it.”
In the auto sector, parts can go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province has the bulk of Canada’s auto industry, said auto plants on both sides the border will shut simultaneously if the tariffs go ahead.
“President is calling it Liberation Day. I call it Termination Day for American workers. I know President Trump likes tell people ’Your fired!” I didn’t think he meant U.S. auto workers when he said it,” Ford said.... (our emphasis)
Of course, our auto- exporting friends and allies in Europe and Asia will also suffer similar impacts on their auto industries and will almost certainly take retaliatory measures.
You couldn't plan a better way of sabotaging our economy and that of your friends and allies if Putin was drawing it up in the Kremlin... Oh, right ...
(Photo: Chrysler vehicles made in Canada crossing the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario/ via CNN)
The wonderful Jimmy Kimmel delves deeper into the evolving Signalgate screw up, exposing MAGA hypocrisy on classified information, DUI Hegseth's childish meltdown, Oops Waltz's ridiculous conspiracy theory, and Marjorie Taylor Traitor Greene's continuing absurdities over the Gulf of Mexico and more.
(click on images to enlarge)
(Bill Bramhall, New York Daily News)
(Scott Stantis, Chicago Tribune)
(John Deering, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
(Chris Britt, Creators.com)
(R.J. Matson, CQ/Roll Call)
(Matt Davies, Newsday)
(Jeff Koterba, caglecartoons.com)
(Daniel Boris, @EandPCartoons)
(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)
(Walt Handelsman, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
(Michael Ramirez, Las Vegas Review-Journal)
(Matt Wuerker, Politico)
(Peter Kuper, The New Yorker)
"OPerational SECurity" brought to us by lying, war crime clowns --
Our knee- bending, normalizing media --
Paying off the January 6 brownshirts --
Rebutting Republican lies about "censorship" --
What's that Musk-y smell? "'Musk b-gone' air freshener covers the scent of fascism" --
Americana folk artist Jason Isbell is one of the most respected singer-songwriters performing today. His lyrics are passionate and poetic, and he identifies Bob Dylan and Neil Young as major influences on his writing. With his backing band, The 400 Unit, he's won 6 Grammy awards and 9 Americana Music Honors awards. Isbell is a supporter of women's reproductive rights, gun safety laws, and LGBTQ rights, and performed at the 2024 Democratic Convention. His newest album, "Foxes In The Snow," is the first since his divorce from musician Amanda Shires, who played fiddle on many of his recordings. The title song from that album is our choice today.
The Daily Beast's David Rothkopf gives us his perspective on the revealing of top secret war plans on a Signal chat, and why it's not the biggest scandal produced by this clown car of "national security" incompetents and Russian tools:
... This incident is appalling in its own right—but it hardly is the administration’s biggest foreign policy blunder. Rather, it is emblematic of a dangerous pattern. Indeed, if doing damage to America’s national security interests is not the primary goal of the Trump team (and I’m not sure it’s not), it is certainly a clear consequence of many of their actions.
In just the past two months, we have seen them systematically undermine virtually every major U.S. foreign policy goal stretching back decades. We have launched trade wars and threatened the stability of an international trading system of which we were the primary architect and champion. We have gone further, threatening to invade and illegally annex the territory of allies like Canada and Denmark and of friends like Panama. We have turned our back on another friend, Ukraine, in its courageous fight to defend itself from Russian aggression.
Top administration officials have parroted Russian propaganda—as in Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff’s recent televised statement that the people of eastern Ukraine had expressed a desire to be part of Russia. The president himself has set the tone for such outrageous lies by suggesting Ukraine was at fault for Russia’s invasion, and with his public humiliation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a disastrous Oval Office meeting.
Indeed, perhaps the most egregious foreign policy disaster among all those that have taken place under Trump’s malignant, myopic leadership is that the United States has abandoned the North Atlantic alliance it helped create—along with it, the championing of democracy and the rule of law—and, instead, has thrown in with Russia and new axis powers who seek to promote ethno-nationalist, anti-democratic despotism.
In addition, the Trump administration has made a series of decisions to weaken our defenses against our rivals—by shutting down key programs across the government and, essentially, America’s entire foreign aid apparatus, a rollback that will not only lead to the death of millions worldwide but one that will produce hostility against the U.S.
The result of these moves is the most shocking international relations turnabout in our history. (And let’s not get into the dangers associated with firing the people in charge of assuring the security of our weapons of mass destruction, or those who play a critical role in defending us against both epidemics and biowarfare.) [snip]
Perspective remains critically important, yes, but we must not get too caught up in the story of the day. Rather, let’s be clear: This egregious national security breach, involving virtually every senior natsec official in the Trump administration, is deeply shocking and profoundly stupid. But it is probably only the twentysomething-worst foreign policy move they’ve made so far. (our emphasis)
It's no secret to us and to most sentient observers that the greatest benefactor of all of the above is the war criminal Putin and his anti-American, anti-Western democracy regime. We don't believe the Malignant Fascist's actions taken that have weakened America and its allies while benefiting Russia are all "blunders." In our opinion, many are the moves of actors taking their cues directly or indirectly from the Kremlin, actors who've been compromised or who are in ideological agreement with the revanchist, fascist Russian state or are just cowardly, lickspittle MAGAt worshipers of their Golden Calf (or all of the above). Now that the point's been made abundantly clear, what are those in a position to do something about it prepared to do, or is that going to be yet another task for a grassroots movement?
BONUS: Christopher Bates ("Z") at Electoral-vote.com adds "consequences":
... We propose above that, with the possibility of someone being thrown under the bus to protect Trump from the consequences of Signalpot Dome, the people involved in this fiasco will suffer no consequences.
That does not mean that we believe there will be no consequences, however. It was already the case that the leaders of other nations believed (with good reason) that Hegseth and Waltz are unqualified buffoons, while Gabbard (and possibly Trump himself) may be Russian assets. They also knew that this president is so lax, he literally leaves highly classified information laying around in his bathroom, where all visitors to his house potentially could see it.
Now, in addition to all of this, foreign leagers know that all (or nearly all) of the highest-ranking defense and intelligence officials in the U.S. government have a careless and cavalier attitude about intelligence, and that they are prone to stupid mistakes. Those leaders also presumably suspect, quite reasonably, that this was far from the only time that sensitive matters were discussed over exceedingly inappropriate and unsecured channels. And finally, those leaders know that when there's a huge screw-up, the response from the White House is a shrug and the observation that stuff happens.
How can any nation share anything sensitive or important with the U.S. right now? It's one thing for Americans to put Americans at risk. It's another thing for Americans to put Britons at risk, or Canadians, or Australians, or Japanese people. And the less the U.S. knows about what's going on in the world, the greater the risk of a military disaster, a terrorist attack, etc.
How, indeed.
More later today in "Skeets of the Day."
(Image: keeping him on a short leash)
In a hopeful (but not predictive) sign, Democrats have been performing extremely well in special elections since the Malignant Loser and his co-President Musk have been in office. Here are some recent results and potential indicators:
Democrat James Malone is projected to win a special election for Pennsylvania’s 36th state Senate district on Tuesday night, narrowly triumphing in a district President Donald Trump won by 15 percentage points in November.
Malone’s victory over Republican Josh Parsons is a significant upset, and an encouraging sign Democrats’ coalition of highly engaged, highly educated voters continues to give them an advantage in low-turnout but crucial special elections. It’s also an early but small sign of growing voter anger with Republicans.
Before the election, Malone told local media that voters in the county were frustrated with the role billionaire Elon Musk has played in the Trump administration.
“Josh Parsons might be OK with that, but I’m not,” Malone told Lancaster Online. “On Tuesday, you’ll get to make the choice between more Musk, or Lancaster values.”
Malone led Parsons 50% to 49%, a lead of less than 500 votes, according to results posted by the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. The district includes most of Lancaster County, a rural county in the south central part of the state best known for its Amish population. [snip]
Malone’s victory shrinks the GOP advantage in the state Senate to 27-23. In a separate election outside Pittsburgh, the Democratic candidate ran well ahead of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ margins in a Democratic seat to maintain the party’s narrow 102-101 advantage in Pennsylvania’s state House...
Here's more --
Republican leaders have grown privately alarmed about the massive fundraising disparity their candidate, Randy Fine, faces in a special House election in a deep-red Florida district and have swooped in to help resuscitate his campaign at the eleventh hour.
House GOP leaders have in recent days been calling donors to plead for financial help in the race to fill the seat previously held by Mike Waltz, who is now President Donald Trump's national security adviser, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. In addition, Fine, a state senator, has made personal pleas to Florida-based lobbyists and donors for a quick infusion of cash before the April 1 election, according to two sources familiar with those conversations. [snip]
Fine has been significantly outraised by his Democratic opponent, teacher Josh Weil, who has raised a whopping $9.7 million to Fine’s $561,000, according to fundraising reports filed last week with the Federal Election Commission. Fine also just started airing his first TV ad last week as part of a joint ad buy with the Florida Republican Party, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact...
Iowa Democrats have flipped a state Senate seat vacated earlier this year by Chris Cournoyer, who resigned to become the state's new lieutenant governor.
Democrat Mike Zimmer has defeated Republican Kate Whittington in the special election for Senate District 35.
According to unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State's website, Zimmer won with 52% of the vote to Whittington's 48%. [snip]
Senate District 35 spans Clinton County, as well as parts of Jackson and Scott counties. It encompasses the cities Clinton, DeWitt, Camanche, Wheatland, Maquoketa and Princeton.
We should note an important off- year election for a vacant seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, pitting Susan Crawford against Malignant Fascist- endorsed Brad Schimel:
On April 1, Wisconsin voters will decide the ideological bent of their state’s Supreme Court in an election that has drawn the attention and cash of Elon Musk. The two candidates vying for a ten-year term are liberal trial court judge Susan Crawford and former Republican attorney general and current trial court judge Brad Schimel.
The election is technically apolitical—the candidates don’t run as Democrats or Republicans—but in reality it’s anything but. The election comes after the retirement of liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley last year. Since a 2023 Supreme Court election, the court has had a liberal majority for the first time in over a decade. Now, Justice Bradley’s retirement and the upcoming election threaten to throw that balance back to conservatives.
The consequences of a conservative majority on the court would be wide-ranging, potentially handing conservatives victories on abortion, elections, and organized labor. That’s why the election is being flooded with cash by the world’s richest man. All in all, the election has seen more than $66 million in spending, with $13 million of that coming from groups associated with Musk. The majority of the cash, $36 million, is benefiting Schimel. Some campaign finance experts have anticipated as much as $100 million will be spent, on an off-year state Supreme Court election.
With the massive flow of national money into a state race, it’s clear that this election has consequences that will likely reverberate across the country. Political observers are also looking at the election as a referendum on the Trump administration, Elon Musk, and the Democratic Party’s ability to hold onto power in a critical swing state...
Every vote counts, and this election has consequences far beyond Wisconsin. Get out and vote, Badgers!
The oblivious 47th "president," the Malignant Fascist, has proudly announced the name of the newest U.S. fighter jet: it's the "F-47." Yes, we heartily agree! Eff 47! Eff you, you Malignant Fascist!
Somehow, a "picture" of the "prototype," looking like it had a lot of input from co-President Musk, has been taken:
(Credit: Well done, Todd Lambert)
BONUS: These warplanes have names like F-15 Eagle and F-22 Raptor. There wasn't a name for the "F-47" mentioned, so we can suggest a few:
F-47 Bonespur
F-47 Democracy Destroyer
F-47 Felon
Have at it!
(click on images to enlarge)
(Dave Whamond, caglecartoons.com)
(David Rowe, Financial Review, Sydney)
(Christopher Weyant, Boston Globe)
(Pat Byrnes caglecartoons.com)
(Peter Brookes, The Times, London)
(Jimmy Margulies, King Features)
(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)
(Ben Jennings, The Guardian, London)
(Jeff Koterba, caglecartoons.com; context here)
(Dave Granlund, politicalcartoons.com)
(R.J. Matson, CQ/Roll Call)
(Paul Noth, @paulnoth)
Social Security "engulfed in crisis" with worse to come 🚨--
The real national security scandal and DUI hire "Whiskey Pete" Hegseth's smug faceplant ... --
... as another "national security threat" gets rounded up under Rubio's order --
Trump's "Plastic Barbie" is eliminating FEMA --
We need more Gov. Pritzkers --
How to wage war, with a cast of clowns 🤡 --
