QOTD: Don't Expect Improvements At DHS

 

The Guardian's Moira Donegan looks at what lies ahead for the Department of Homeland Security, now that Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem was canned (apparently along with her alleged paramour Corey Lewandowski) and has moved on to a made-up job in the regime.  Her orders came from the sick bigot Stephen Miller, and her replacement is a muscle-headed goon who can be expected to carry out orders from the White House, too:

"Noem was incompetent, corrupt, and seemingly indifferent to both the law and to human suffering. But in this, she was not so much a liability for the Trump administration as a perfect embodiment of Maga governance. Her rule over DHS was marked by an aggressive pursuit of the mass deportation and ethnic cleansing campaign that Trump campaigned on heavily in 2024; she seems to have been heavily influenced in her decision-making by the advice of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff who is known for his hardline views on immigration and racial supremacy. “'Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,' she is said to have told one interlocutor.

Noem’s departure, then, seems unlikely to ring in a new era of responsibility, legality or professionalism at the department. In his post firing her, Trump said that Markwayne Mullin, a Republican senator from Oklahoma and a former MMA fighter, would be the next DHS secretary; technically, such an appointment requires Senate approval, but Mullin’s nomination seems unlikely to face much meaningful resistance in the Republican-controlled upper chamber. Mullin, a close Trump ally and immigration maximalist, is unlikely to mark much of a departure from Noem, either in policy substance or managerial savvy. The mass deportations, self-dealing and aggressive, even seemingly contemptuous approach to citizens and their rights seems likely to continue for as long as Trump, Miller and their allies control the vast apparatus of the DHS."  (our emphasis)

Mullin won't undo the damage done by the Malignant Fascist's cruel and illegal campaign of terror against immigrants; he'll continue it, perhaps only with some greater attention than his predecessor to the bad publicity it generates. The bad times will continue.

BONUS: Here's Markwaynesworld. Feel safe?

Meet the new Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin:

[image or embed]

— Home of the Brave (@ofthebraveusa.bsky.social) March 5, 2026 at 6:13 PM

(photos: Out with the old, in with the old/ Getty Images)

 

QOTD: Trump's Menace And Animus

 

In this morning's The Guardian, some excerpts from Rachel Leingang:

"Trump’s tone, as many have noted, is decidedly more vengeful this time around, as he seeks to reclaim the White House after a bruising loss that he insists was a steal. This alone is a cause for concern, foreshadowing what the Trump presidency redux could look like. But he’s also, quite frequently, rambling and incoherent, running off on tangents that would grab headlines for their oddness should any other candidate say them. [snip]

Watching a Trump speech in full better shows what it’s like inside his head: a smorgasbord of falsehoods, personal and professional vendettas, frequent comparisons to other famous people, a couple of handfuls of simple policy ideas, and a lot of non sequiturs that veer into barely intelligible stories. [snip]

You not only see the truly bizarre nature of his speeches when viewing them in full, but you see the sheer breadth of his menace and animus toward those who disagree with him.

His comments especially toward migrants have grown more dehumanizing. He has said they are 'poisoning the blood' of the US – a nod at Great Replacement Theory, the far-right conspiracy that the left is orchestrating migration to replace white people. Trump claimed the people coming in were 'prisoners, murderers, drug dealers, mental patients and terrorists, the worst they have'. He has repeatedly called migrants 'animals'”.  (our emphasis)

Please read Leingang's entire article, in which she details the increasingly depraved words of the Malignant Loser, and the existential danger to our nation and our freedom that he represents. 

 

Ex-KGB Spy: Trump Cultivated As Asset Over 40 Year Period

 

 

Former KGB Maj. Yuri Shvets, in a story published today in The Guardian, fills in some of the details on Moscow's cultivation of incompetent insurrectionist Donald "Mango Mussolini" Trump over a 40 year period.  It's an interesting perspective coming from a former KGB official that confirms, once again, how Mango Mussolini was viewed and used by Russia over much of his adult life:

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.

Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war.

Now 67, Shvets is a key source for American Kompromat, a new book by journalist Craig Unger, whose previous works include House of Trump, House of Putin. The book also explores the former president’s relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.  [snip]

Unger describes how Trump first appeared on the Russians’ radar in 1977 when he married his first wife, Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech model. Trump became the target of a spying operation overseen by Czechoslovakia’s intelligence service in cooperation with the KGB.

Three years later Trump opened his first big property development, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel near Grand Central station. Trump bought 200 television sets for the hotel from Semyon Kislin, a Soviet émigré who co-owned Joy-Lud electronics on Fifth Avenue.

According to Shvets, Joy-Lud was controlled by the KGB and Kislin worked as a so-called “spotter agent” who identified Trump, a young businessman on the rise, as a potential asset. Kislin denies that he had a relationship with the KGB.

Then, in 1987, Trump and Ivana visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Shvets said he was fed by KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into the politics.

The ex-major recalled: “For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.

“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.”

The flattery worked on the clueless narcissist, who was soon parroting Russian propaganda about sharing the defense costs of NATO and other allies (sound familiar?).  Of course, the Russians loved it and couldn't believe their luck.

Fast forward to the 2016 election and Mango Mussolini's election, with help from Russia, and the Mueller investigation:

Shvets, who has carried out his own investigation, said: “For me, the Mueller report was a big disappointment because people expected that it will be a thorough investigation of all ties between Trump and Moscow, when in fact what we got was an investigation of just crime-related issues. There were no counterintelligence aspects of the relationship between Trump and Moscow.”

He added: “This is what basically we decided to correct. So I did my investigation and then got together with Craig. So we believe that his book will pick up where Mueller left off.”

Unger, the author of seven books and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, said of Trump: “He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we’re going to develop this guy and 40 years later he’ll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people.”

“Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election.”

If there's more evidence needed to keep this treasonous, ignorant, desperate, wannabe despot from receiving intelligence briefings, we don't know what that would involve.  As Shvets mentions, it also begs a thorough, transparent intelligence community investigation into his actions regarding Russia while president, including his private discussions with Russian thug Vladimir Putin and the influence of various actors in Mango Mussolini's orbit.

Morning Read: The Media And The Critical Fight To Stop Trump

Editorial in the U.S. edition of The Guardian:

Much of the US mainstream media seem unable or unwilling to get to grips with his candidacy. The sort of detailed scrutiny that has destroyed the ambitions of previous candidates seems lacking. Who remembers Gary Hart, whose presidential hopes sank without trace in 1988 when his reputation as a womaniser caught up with him on a yacht called Monkey Business – and the newspapers exposed all? Who does not recall the media pursuit of Bill Clinton, especially after the Monica Lewinsky affair came to light?

There are exceptions. The New York Times published an investigation into Trump’s misogynistic and abusive treatment of women employees and colleagues. But much of the coverage of his personal and business life, policy U-turns and self-contradictions, offensive and gauche remarks, and plain ignorance of the big issues facing the US and the world has been flaccid to the point of fawning. Even when the ugly truth is told, it somehow does not seem to damage him.

There's more on the critical need to stop Trump ("not a fit and proper person to occupy the White House") -- and the media's fear of taking this monster on.