Doesn't get the concept. Q: You said Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire, but both sides said they have not agreed to that TRUMP: Well they agreed, you know why? Because I said 'you agree.' That's why. [image or embed]— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 12 October 2026 at 22:05

Not quite, but absent the arrival of a giant alien squid invasion, the path to the November elections is pretty much set. The results aren't predetermined, but while individual campaigns might have some drama, basic campaign messages have been decided and ads have been purchased. Everybody whose livelihood and reputation depends on the result will start putting in their excuses early, just in case things go a bit wrong. And if things go right, look for the puff pieces about the geniuses who made it happen. I am not even sure who the 2026 "Rahm Emanuel (2006)" is,  but I am sure that someone will step up to take credit, and some journalists will hitch their wagons to him (probably a him, it is usually a him). Sure that all sounds a bit cynical, because I am a bit cynical about the people who work in politics professionally. The well-meaning dogooders tend to be driven out by the self-serving self-promoters, the ones who always have one eye on the next job, the next payday. Then the presidential primary begins. Personnel decisions are good early signals.

We can debate precisely how this is best communicated, but "we are not going to put up with this shit, we are not going to move on, you fuckers will pay as soon as we are back in power" needs to be understood.

A lot of Americans imagine they are Italian or Irish or whatever, occasionally with some justification, but I am a bit curious about where Trump imagines these Italian-American voters are. With fuel prices surging and the war with Iran dragging on, President Trump’s popularity has slipped among nearly every demographic group. So on Friday — three days before Columbus Day and less than four weeks before the midterm elections — he made his pitch to Italian Americans. “As you know, the radical left communists hate Columbus and they want to abolish Columbus Day,” Mr. Trump told a group of several hundred Italian Americans he had gathered in the East Room of the White House. “These lunatics that are running,” he continued, “they’re all against Christopher Columbus. But I’ll tell you what, we’re going to be here almost two-and-a-half years. He’s going to be so protected, like nobody’s ever been protected before.” Spoiler: northern Mid-Atlantic and southern New England (mostly). I suppose there are a few swingy congressional districts in there, but I suspect they are mostly not the 2026 battlegrounds.  

It's pretty hard to be too corrupt for the Trump administration, though being a woman helps of course (one does not have to see her as a feminist cause to observe this). President Donald Trump is weighing whether to dismiss Kimberly Guilfoyle from her position as US ambassador to Greece after a string of reports about misconduct, a person familiar with the matter said Sunday. Trump has been monitoring reports claiming Guilfoyle, who was engaged to Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr. for four years, accepted lavish gifts as ambassador and sought money in exchange for providing access to administration figures before she was confirmed. People say her problem is making it too obvious, getting caught, but these fuckers get caught every day!  Honey badgers of corruption, usually.

I bet most Republican members of Congress, when asked about this, will claim ignorance and never be asked again. WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents searched Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home on Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, according to people familiar with the matter. The search was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations agents, said the people, who were not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. More details about the investigation were not immediately clear.

Just another...

Something's coming... Monday!

I am starting to think that most of his deals aren't. 

Weekending

Genuinely curious if Trump does or doesn't know that the amount of diesel coming from Russia (supposedly) is small enough to not matter at all, to the US at least. It obviously benefits Russia in various ways. Also what of our good friend Lindsey Graham? Have we forgotten that titan of US foreign policy already?  Has a reporter asked his sister about this?

Sunday funday

Get happy

I'm sure this stuff has some genuine uses, but like a lot of this type of thing, it's much more for messing about on the computer for people who like messing about on the computer than it is actually useful for normal people. And the examples they come up with - the best examples! - are usually pretty bad. The simplest kind of shortcut is just an action (or a series of actions) that happens when you trigger it. You can add a button to trigger a shortcut on your home screen, in the Control Center, or in the screen that pops up when you share something. Some of the most helpful shortcuts work across Apple’s apps. For example, you can set an often-used timer or add a line to the end of a specific note in the Notes app without having to open the associated app. Always late? Make a shortcut button on your home screen to text your boss and say that you’re on the way. The next step up from a shortcut is an automation, which runs automatically when your phone determines that certain conditions are met. You can create an automation to run at a specific time, such as sending a text to a loved one every morning at 9 a.m., or when you change location, such as sending a text when you leave work. There are more than 20 kinds of triggers, including when your phone’s battery level reaches a certain level, when you open a specific app, when you connect to a certain Bluetooth device, when you take a screenshot, or when you connect or disconnect your phone from power. I'm really not sure which "loved one" is going to appreciate this automated daily text. Pretty sure that's what the block button was invented for. Even the "automatically text when you leave work" is obviously prone to errors - what if you just pop out for a quick coffee late in the day! - which will annoy everyone involved. Of course you can probably modify it, and then modify it again, and then modify it again, to stop any such possibilities! As I said, fun for people who like messing about on the computer. At every stage in technology development, there are always tools and software that promise various "life hacks," and while some of these things get adopted widely and we just stop thinking about them, most of them are just time wasters for people who like wasting time that way. There's nothing wrong with playing around on the computer, if that is fun for you, but very often these timesaving things are actually time sinks.

Their beliefs aren't always... consistent with reality... but generally "putting evil chemicals in our" food, if poorly defined, is something they're supposed to be against. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing to expand a controversial loophole to allow some of the world’s most toxic chemicals to be added directly to food without a safety review.

All rungs of society, in all societies, are populated with people who, at best, are indifferent to the extermination of others. Positions of power attract people who are not even indifferent.  On the film (which I have not seen and likely won't) NAZA.But the dispassionate, technical and calm tone of the 24 men and women, as they describe in great detail the killing of people in Gaza, who are just as human as those in the surrounding buildings, brought back other associations – with men like Best and his ilk. It is the disjuncture between the familiar and intimate, on the one hand, and the coldly efficient and murderous, on the other, that makes this film unforgettable and an important statement about the world we currently inhabit. When modern societies engage in extreme violence, they rely on two types of people: those who beat, torture and kill at close quarters, and those who plan, organize and order the killing at a safe distance from the actual gore of it all. Many people prefer to believe the brutes and the sadists are responsible, largely because they are not like “us”. But modern genocide is the product of those who belong to the second category: the technocrats, bureaucrats and cold planners of extermination, who don’t get their hands dirty. There are many people in power who I think of as cowardly serial killers. They don't want to do it themselves, but they love making it happen.

Slacker Saturday

Get happy 

The man knows how to pretens to solve the problems he created by creating even bigger ones.

Brenden Cuni.

I suppose the incoherence of our foreign policy is funny, at least. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says relations between Tehran and Moscow are expanding, according to a report by the Iranian news agency IRNA. After meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Turkmenistan, Pezeshkian noted that trade, economic ties and communication between the two countries are progressing positively. He added that Iran was determined to expand its relations with Russia in line with the two nations’ joint strategic roadmap and the present time was the most appropriate for Russia and Iran to deepen and expand that cooperation. Trump has been less obviously on Putin's side that one might have expected, but he isn't exactly in the category of our greatest enemy, Iran. I just remembered that Bush called him Pootie-Poot. How did we get here? Was it left wingers who fucked things up? At a historic summit in Moscow this week, President George Bush will mark what he claims is the final putting to rest of the cold war, by shaking hands with his new best friend, Pootie-Poot. That, according to today's issue of Time magazine, is the president's nickname for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. At times of tension between the two countries, we are told, Mr Bush is known to tell his staff: "Get me Pootie-Poot on the phone."

They'd better start stockpiling some cash now before their cards stop working. The Nobel Peace Prize has gone to human rights pioneer Navi Pillay. The South African was integral to the anti-apartheid movement, served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and recently led the UN commission that concluded Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. They certainly make some hilariously bad choices, but this one will anger all the right people.

First two paragraphs, no pulling punches. Pentagon officials said on Thursday that the Army officer convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting would be executed in public, a practice that ended in the United States nearly a century ago and is most commonly carried out in a handful of countries, including Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan. The Pentagon said in a statement that the military execution, scheduled for Dec. 3, would also be broadcast via livestream. Such a broadcast has little precedent, and releasing video of executions is most often associated with extremist militant groups like the Islamic State.

First two paragraphs, no pulling punches. Pentagon officials said on Thursday that the Army officer convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting would be executed in public, a practice that ended in the United States nearly a century ago and is most commonly carried out in a handful of countries, including Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan. The Pentagon said in a statement that the military execution, scheduled for Dec. 3, would also be broadcast via livestream. Such a broadcast has little precedent, and releasing video of executions is most often associated with extremist militant groups like the Islamic State.

Don't you dare call it a Clanker. That is a hate crime. Anthropic is making changes to its usage policy for the first time in over a year to reflect new and high-risk cases of misuse — including election interference, weapons development, surveillance, and health and financial uses. But one of the most significant changes prohibits “sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior” toward Claude. Clippy's gonna get legally enforced human rights before humans do.

I got nothin'

The first sentence here does at least suggest that it's an odd thing to do. President Donald Trump said Thursday that the United States will not attack Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm election, explicitly tying the timing of potential further military action to the domestic political calendar. “We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, adding that the U.S. was having “productive discussions” with Tehran. Trump’s declaration came after he told reporters late Wednesday that his administration was considering renewed strikes against Tehran before the election. I suppose we can somewhat appreciate that he says stuff out loud that you aren't supposed to say out loud. Sometimes.

Q: How do you define socialism personally? JD VANCE: I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is you want to replace American workers with foreigners workers, and you want boys to play in girls' sports [image or embed]— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 8, 2026 at 4:05 PM

Trump: You wanna see trauma? I said it the other day. Let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles. [image or embed]— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) October 8, 2026 at 1:21 AM

A lot could be said about why our glorious media is very uninterested in the not very hidden views of the people in the administration and their pals. That he is close to Vance is known. He gets photo shoots and profiles which fail to mention this stuff. It isn't hidden!

Theocracy Thursday

get happy

Not a new observation, but the man still has no understanding of paying money and getting stuff in return. You know, trade. Trump: "If we decided not to buy watches from Switzerland, they wouldn't be elite anymore and we would save about $40 billion" [image or embed]— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 7 October 2026 at 18:48 I suspect there isn't a $40 billion Swiss watch trade though I could be wrong.

That is also something that "we" will rediscover right about the time the presidential primary season begins. I would place money (not a guaranteed win, but a reasonable bet) on the first question at the first major Dem primary debate being something like:Congresswoman, what would you do to get government spending under control?

He is angry, but we aren't hearing all that much about it. U.S. Treasury yields climbed Wednesday, trading back around multiyear highs, as traders braced for the sale of 10-year notes at a time when rising yields have rattled investors around the world. His prophets will get louder and louder as Dems grow closer to power. 

I know we have an endless supply of such things, but if a prominent (or even not so prominent) Dem politician ever suggested doing away with (violently or not) a "red" portion of the country, we'd never stop hearing about it. And that wouldn't just be because Republicans wouldn't shut up about it, it'd be because head-in-a-jar CarvilleDroid would be on the HoloTv  in 2054 explaining that this comment, made in 2026, was the reason Dems were losing the election to AI Entity MechaHitler4488.

Worthwhile Wednesday.

Once again

This type of thing was obvious and inevitable, and all the highly paid smart boys told Dems to avoid these issues.We know because we have once again done what the government hasn’t: We have tallied and cataloged every case we can find of an immigration agent holding a citizen during the current administration. More than 500 cases. There are quite a few people I think deserve to to be "accidentally" detained and deported.

Nothing good can come from this merger, but this is funny. Weiss was initially promised CNN when she took over CBS News, but Ellison subsequently concluded “her current role is more than she can handle,” a person with knowledge of the situation previously told The Post.  I suspect this is because she sucks and only works 2 hours per day. 

Megan Kelly.

I wonder who the foreign powers are.Former German spy chief August Hanning has been arrested on suspicion of espionage, treason and obtaining classified information for a foreign power, the German Federal Prosecutor's Office says. Hanning headed the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) from 1998 to 2005 and has since been working as a private consultant. Prosecutors allege that he used classified intelligence to "draft an analysis" for one foreign intelligence service and maintained contact with another foreign spying service. Investigators have not disclosed which foreign powers were involved. I bet there is quite a lot of this type of thing, not in the Cold War spy movie version of ideological defectors, but more the world of corporate influence peddling. People are peddling information for money, and the line between corporation and state is a bit fuzzy!  I don't know what is going on here, of course.

NYT: Speaking at a Republican political rally in Nebraska, the president sought to justify the Iran war as necessary for “keeping the world safe.” He then suggested there could be strikes on the United States, including the Democratic-led Californian cities. “They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” It was not immediately clear what Mr. Trump meant, but his comments were met with anger from officials in California, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the president “deranged and dangerous.”

Tearful Tuesday

 The man has a point sometimes

Get happy

 Aaron Bernstine

I suspect that if the former Dem Speaker of the House had been disgraced (disgraced themselves) in this fashion, "we" would have never stopped hearing about it. Former Rep. Dennis Hastert, who served eight years as speaker of the House — longer than any Republican in U.S. history — and then spent more than a year in prison after he left Congress for scheming to cover up sexual abuse allegations, died over the weekend, according to Kendall County Coroner’s Office in Illinois. Maybe Trump will give him a State funeral. 

John Solomon had a good run as a "real" journalist. From 1987 until 2006, Solomon worked at the Associated Press, where he became the assistant bureau chief in Washington, helping to develop some of the organization's first digital products, such as its online elections offering.[17][5][6] In 2007, he served as The Washington Post's national investigative correspondent. He was one of those people that the rabid lambs of the internet would complain about, pointing out that he was who he obviously was.  Journalists refused to listen to any criticism from The Left back then, so here we are. U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart says, “If you want to get a message to the president, talk to" John Solomon and Amanda Head

I maintain my stance that there was no "terrorism plot" - just some fuel thieves  - and that everything that is happening is to maintain Donald Trump's delusional reality. The United States rushed over the weekend to withdraw all 12 B-1 Air Force bombers from an air base in southern England after commanders received new threats about an Iran-backed plot against the installation, two U.S. officials said on Sunday. And it isn't very HIGH T to retreat, is it.