Press Revolt.
Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment. The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future. The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably. That’s why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting. The WHCA calls on the administration to immediately restore our colleagues’ access.
Jacqui Heinrich, WHCA President
In a really remarkable event, the broadcast media is boycotting the Trump Administration after it banned some press outlets from covering King Donald.
Donny loves, and feeds on, the attention, and it'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Yesterday the White House blew the coverage on the opening use of the helipad so that nobody could really hear what King Donny had to say.
Today King Donny's admin tried to pass off the press ban as being in the interest of national security, which recently has been his default position on everything. That's why King Donny is building a ballroom, that's why we need a Triumphal Arch.
The bloom may be off the red stinkweed of Trumpism as by and large, the public just isn't buying it at all.
Good for the press to finally find its courage. It's been lacking. This Week expresses addressed the Trump ban.
Dr. John trotted out.
The GOP hauled out the uninspiring Dr. John Barrasso, majority whip, to justify the GOP's malfeasance.
Dr. John is a pretty uninspiring speaker. This was no exception. He attempted to justify the press ban saying that the press had an obligation to report fairly.
That's a really dangerous position for a local politician to take, quite frankly. He didn't sound like he really meant it as he knows that they do report fairly. What he also knows is that they don't report, locally, too deeply, at least they haven't until recently. They're starting too thanks to the online journals which have been a lot more proactive in digging things up than the print media ever was.
Barrasso is turning out to be a worthless Senator for the state. He has four more years to serve. My suspicion is that this will be his last term, if the 74 year old Senator lives through it. I think people are tired of him and he won't want to go down in defeat. He'll retire and move somewhere else, as he was never really from here to start with.
Dr. John was in Iowa where he was campaigning for a Republican candidate there. Wow, the Midwest must really like bland if somebody thinks Dr. John is going to help. Asked about what is going on, the doctor mustered up this reply:
Well, people all around the country are feeling the pain. I’m hearing it in Wyoming with our farmers and ranchers as well. But people vote about what’s going on in their life and their future. And we know we need to do more. We need to get more money into people’s pockets. That’s what Republicans want to do. But let’s talk about what we have done. And that is we’ve prevented a $4 trillion tax increase. We’ve gotten rid of taxes on tips and social security and on overtime. And we know what the Democrats would do if they were able to take over. They would put all those taxes back on for the purpose of paying for health care for illegal immigrants. So they want to put on taxes on waitresses, on nurses who work overtime, firefighters, and on our seniors. I mean, there’s a huge difference between where Republicans want to take this country and where Democrats want to take this country. Those Democrats that are so unpopular in your poll, why? They want to eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They want to defund the police. They want to get rid of the military. They want to open the borders. They talk about opening the prisons and putting these prisoners back in our communities. That doesn’t make us safer, it doesn’t make us more prosperous. And that is the difference between common sense and the craziness. And I think that’s what this election is going to be about.
And
Well, we’re always looking for ways to put more money in people’s pockets. And I hear it in Wyoming all the time at the grocery store, at the gas station, people are paying more. And we need to do more. And that’s why we need more American energy production, we need to get rid of regulations, we need to do more with permitting. That’s legislation we’re working on now. The president and the Republicans are focused on all of those things at the time that Democrats have gone so far to the left that they don’t want to do those sorts of things. And I’ll tell you, once this war in Iran is over, diesel prices are going to go down and stay down under President Trump. But they would stay up forever under the Democrats and specifically diesel in Wyoming, I was in Meeteetse, Wyoming last week, talking to ranchers and farmers there, diesel’s over $6 a gallon now. But in California, it’s over $8 a gallon. And the difference is the rules, the regulations, all the climate issues in California. If the Democrats took over, prices would go up to those levels which are over $2 higher in California than they are in Wyoming right now.
So, inflation is going up and fuel prices are killing us, but the Democrats are bad because Dr. John says so.
Not very inspiring.
Not only that, but Barrasso has joined the GOP liars club. Raise taxes so we could give healthcare to illegal immigrants. Bullshit. Taxes do need to be raised, but because we aren't paying for the government.
It's almost as if Dr. John had a list of things he had to say, so he made sure he said them all as quickly as possible.
And diesel being $6.00/gal in Wyoming isn't made better by it being $8.00/gal in California. Oh, we feel so good about that here.
Beef
A popular Trump line right now is that you don't mind paying more for fuel as you don't want Iran to have a nuke.
M'eh.
Secretary Rollins took a similar tone on the price of beef.
Instead of eating less beef as the price continued to rise, Americans began to eat more beef. And even though the price of a pound of ground beef was $6.50, most Americans say, 'I'm good with that. I want this protein for my family.' So they continue to buy.
Um, sure.
When, by the way, did everyone start calling meat "protein". Knock it off.
Huge
The video footage of the helipad unveiling reveals it to be huge.
I didn't really have an appreciation of its size until I saw the video.
I really don't know what to make of the helipad. In some ways it makes sense and it was well done. I also think that the President doesn't need a giant Sikorsky helicopter and that all the prior Marine Corps 1 helicopters were gigantically overblown as well. One of the smaller business helicopters would be plenty large enough, quite frankly.
They wouldn't have all the countermeasures, I know. Well, too freaking bad. The President is supposed to be the chief executive of limited powers, not an emperor. Flying around in an armored helicopter just gives that much more of a delusion of the opposite.
Speaking of monumental works, I had an exchange, on Twitter, with a MAGA over the ballroom. It was interesting, as her mind was so completely closed and she was utterly incapable of realizing it.
Besotted
She was convinced that anyone opposed to the ballroom had to be a "liberal" who "hated" Trump. I'm opposed to it. I hate what Trump is doing to the country, but I don't hate a living soul. We are required in Christianity to exhibit agape towards our enemies, and frankly Trump is the enemy of decency in a lot of ways. We should pray for his well-being and salvation.
In the exchange I gave my reasons for opposing the ballroom. Well, some of them, not all of them. The list would be large.
The principal reasons I detest the ballroom, I'll note, is because of the illegality of its construction and the illegality of the destruction of the wing where it is located. I'm not a fan of the wings of the White House in general. I think the whole thing ought to be restored to some prior appearance.
I also think the bunkers that were put in and those being built ought to go. As with the helicopter, building a bunker is something that shouldn't be done unless it's done for every single American.
I didn't go into it but I also detest the overblown size and the intended interior embellishments are in horrifically bad taste.
The latter, of course, can and will be removed, if the monstrosity stands.
Anyhow, while I have very wide ranging views, I'm generally very conservative. Indeed, Trump and the MAGAs are not conservatives at all. At this point, they're populist of the fascist variety.
Her argument, lifted from Trump, was that the ballroom would benefit future Presidents. I asked how, and she couldn't provide how. Even though I don't believe it will benefit a living soul, and that it will rightfully be blown to the ground by a future administration, I could make up reasons to support that argument.
Most revealing, however, is that her basic worldview, which came through very clearly, is that if you claim to be an American you have an absolute duty to love Donald Trump. If you don't, you are a traitor.
During World War Two there was a Marine Corps officer who received the Silver Star for heroism. He was later killed in the war. He was also a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and was an admitted communist.
I have no doubt he loved his country.
For that matter, Sterling Hayden, the famous actor, also was a Marine Corps officer, and a member of the OSS, who was briefly a member of the Communist party.
I have no doubt that he loved his country.
I doubt that Donald Trump loves his.
And I know that those who love Donald Trump so much they see everything he does as correct do not love their countrymen. And if you hate your countrymen because of their political beliefs, you hate your country.
Fairytale balls
One of the interesting things about the "benefitting future Presidents" line is that it fits into the Trump narrative perfectly. Trump sees himself as a sort of monarch and the White House as a palace.
It's just supposed to be a house.
No. 10 Downing Street doesn't have a ballroom. 24 Sussex Drive doesn't have one either. The Hôtel Matignon doesn't have one either. Even the Novo-Ogaryovo Estate doesn't have one, and its quite lavish.
The Kremlin does. So does Buckingham Palace.
Hmm. . . . .
That really shows us a glimpse of Trump's mindset. And contrary to what MAGAs like to imagine, no prior President has ever asked for a dedicated ballroom.
It's all just a weird fantasy and a glimpse into the American inferiority complex. We may have rebelled against a king, but in some ways we never got over being besotted by them. Even to this day we follow what the British royal family is doing as if it matters to us at all.
So here you have it.
Back during Roman times, the Senate could issue a decree of abolitio nominis, although it's pretty unclear to me if they called it that. It was an abolition of a leader's name to the full extent possible.
The Roman Senate well knew that it couldn't really erase an Emperor's name from history, so it was symbolic. But it is worth noting that some very early societies effectively nearly did achieve just that. The purpose was to express maximum public disdain for the disgraced person.
It's easy to think the US never attempted anything like that, but perhaps it slightly has in the case of the removal of Confederate monuments which started some years ago, and then generally stopped under Trump, whose world outlook doves relatively well with a lot of Confederates or at least Dixiecrats, which is what he really is. At the time, I was of mixed view as erasing history bothers me, and that reflected the history of the attempt at reviving Confederate reputations. I find that effort horrific, but I thought having a reminder of it served a purpose. And, also, quite frankly as times change the views of various persons from the past change as well. Thomas Jefferson was a great man, for instance, but it's pretty clear that he was also screwing his late wife's enslaved half sister when she was only 14. He was 44. She was his youngest daughters nanny. The children from the illicit union were born into slaver.
That's warped.
So, suffice it to say, leaders of the past have some warts on them.
But things like rebelling for slavery or ignoring the legalities of things while in office that are open and obvious at the time are another matter. Jefferson was a domestic creep, and there's no defending that, but the weird mores of his culture made that less weird than it would seem now, although there were plenty of rumors at the time and it's hard not to regard the liasons as starting off, at least, as a type of rape. Anyhow, the Confederate monuments came up mostly in the 1910s. It's my view now they ought to all come down. Trump has brought me to that.
Trump is such a horrific person that some sort of decree of abolitio nominis needs to be made when he's gone. The American instinct is always "well, let's all reconcile".
Let's not.
Recognizing mistakes is one thing. Lots of MAGAs who should have known better are now crossing over into sanity as their own wallets are looted by Trump's policies. I don't care what brings them back into some sort of reality, I think they ought to be welcomed back. But diehard MAGAs and people who are going to serve Trump until the last days of his administration, not so much. Karoline Leavitt, for example, can be forgiven, but not readmitted to decent society. Vance and Rubio should be made to retire from politics.
But because Trump has shown such disdain for the law, he should be made an example of. And the first part of that is to declare his second presidency a legal nullity. Given his status as an insurrectionist, there's a legal grounds to do that. Every order, commission, appointment and whatever that depended on his signature should be immediately declared to be null, void, and of no effect by the next President, irrespective of the impact. Every "agreement" entered into should be declared a nullity, including agreements with foreign powers. The ballroom should be blown down, and the triumphal arch as well, but the next administration immediately.
Yes, it's extreme, but the correction to fascism is extreme.
Real balls
The first inaugural ball was held for George Washington in 1789 in New York. Washington D.C. did not exist yet, of course. It was an unofficial ball which, if we must have these, is how they should be in my view.
The first official one was in 1809 for James Madison. It was held at Longs Hotel. Balls didn't occur at all in 1853, 1913, 1921, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 2021. I don't think they should be held at all anymore, but when they are, there are numerous official balls. Clinton had fourteen one year, which is absurd.
Inflation
The GOP is seriously worried about inflation as everyone is seriously worried about it. It's flopping around like a fish on the deck trying to explain high fuel prices to MAGA bases like agriculture and truck transportation.
It's not going to work.
It took hitting their own pocketbooks but all of a sudden truck drivers are mad at Trump. Well, they ought to be, but it's too late. Trump's not able to help.
Farmers and ranchers, who started to be angry a while back, are angry once again for the same reason, and in the case of farmers they're upset about potash, most of which comes from Canada, now being tariffed.
Oops.
King Donny tried to claim that we were going to get potash from Belarus. That claim survived a few hours until the Belarusians said, nope, we don't have any to sell you.
The claim on fuel, of course, is that it'll all go down when the war is over. Given as the war is getting worse, not over, there's not much stock that can be put in that claim. And the potash situation can only be solved by not being an asshole to Canada.
Even there, the diehard MAGAs are convinced that the Canadians have been picking on us for decades. This is just flat out false. The border was basically duty free until Trump came in and tore up the very deal that he'd arrived upon with Canada during his first term.
The entire thing has caused now desperate Republicans to ponder taking extreme measures on topics they don't grasp. There's a move, for example, to ban the exportation of diesel fuel.
The refining of petroleum products doesn't work the way people think it does and the price is very heavily dependent upon the cost of the raw product. The refractions that become diesel and jet fuel are there no matter what. There's pretty good reason to believe that banning the export of diesel fuel doesn't do anything to its price, and might just raise it.
We may, of course, get to find out.
Frankly, at this point, my prediction is fuel prices are never coming down. The wars gone on too long, and too much damage has been done to Middle Eastern infrastructure to change that.
This might have some good side benefits, however. One might be the acceleration of the switch to electric vehicles. I actually overheard somebody whose family is employed in the petroleum industry discussing a desire to get an electric vehicle yesterday. Another may be a switch to rail transportation, which is a much better means of transporting goods in the first place. In agriculture, there are means of relying on petroleum less, and that may start to occur more and more in livestock production at least. A lot of the television farmers and ranchers that are interviewed look like they've never walked a day in their life, they might start to. The end of ATVs and driving everywhere may start to arrive.
Maybe a slight "think this out" trend might start to. Truckers and farmers who voted for Trump are getting exactly what they deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us have been dragged along with them.
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