Diddler on the Truth

Avatar photoby

Premiered Jun 7, 2026 Parody US Copyright FAIR USE A David M. Smith parody Performed by Sandy and Richard Riccardi

💬 Add Your Voice: Comment Now
🔴 Our Podcast: Open Live Chat

110 thoughts on “Diddler on the Truth”


  2. Tonight is game 5 of the NBA finals, Victor Wemanyama is the tallest person in the league which makes him hard to guard and interview, Trump has been gearing up for his UFC themed birthday party which they have billing as a celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, the Trump family is offering a special commemorative coin, JD Vance builds a chicken coop at the Vice President’s residence, Trump signed a bill to give ICE tens of billions of dollars, Trump-backed Steve Hilton finished second and advanced to runoff for California Governor despite Republicans’ claims that the election was rigged, four states held primaries, the New York Times published a story where more than a thousand interviews with members of Trump’s inner circle took place to figure out how to handle the fallout from the Epstein Files and revealed a surreal meeting detailing allegations of Trump’s aggressive nipple fetish, Bill Gates testified before the House Oversight Committee about his relationship with Jeffery Epstein, and we went to San Antonio to see if we could get Spurs fans into Knicks gear in an NBA Finals edition of Traitor Schmoes.


  3. Jun 10, 2026 #MeToo #Trump #Epstein
    New details are emerging from a Situation Room meeting of top administration officials on July 17, 2025, as they grappled with mounting pressure to release files related to the late convicted sex offender. The details come from an excerpt of Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, published Wednesday in The New York Times. The book, by reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, is set for release on June 23.

  6. Dodo diddles while US burns
    Jaw-Dropping Costs of Trump’s Tacky UFC Circus Revealed

    New court filings reveal the eye-watering cost of Donald Trump’s White House UFC birthday extravaganza.
    The president’s vision for a UFC fight on the South Lawn on his 80th birthday has become a $60 million production requiring almost 500 portable toilets, hundreds of trucks, up to 900 contractors, and support from at least seven federal agencies.
    The extraordinary details emerged in court documents filed on Wednesday as the administration battles a lawsuit seeking to stop the event before fight night.
    The filings offer the clearest glimpse yet into the scale of what Trump has dubbed “UFC Freedom 250”—a weekend-long spectacle culminating Sunday with a fight card staged on the White House lawn.
    What Trump originally pitched as an event for 20,000 to 25,000 people has ballooned dramatically. Court records show organizers now expect around 125,000 attendees, while another 75,000 people requested tickets.
    To accommodate them, planners have arranged for as many as 494 portable toilets across the White House grounds and the nearby Ellipse.
    The more than $60 million price tag covers production, construction, labor, promotion, and food, according to a sworn statement from White House management and administration director Joshua Fisher.
    Since construction began on May 20, between 20 and 30 trucks loaded with staging equipment have been screened daily before entering the heavily secured grounds.
    The build has required between 700 and 900 subcontractors with “specialized knowledge associated with each element of the build,” Fisher said.
    The centerpiece is UFC’s Octagon, which was erected on the South Lawn alongside massive lighting rigs, bleacher seating, broadcast infrastructure, and a giant lighting structure known as “the Claw.”
    While UFC is footing the bill, the federal government is providing security, law enforcement, and emergency medical support. At least seven federal agencies have devoted resources and manpower to the undertaking, according to the Associated Press.
    The disclosures came as the administration fights a legal challenge from two Virginia residents who argue federal landmarks should not be used for what they describe as a private, for-profit sporting spectacle.
    The pair also contend the UFC card is really a celebration of Trump’s 80th birthday rather than America’s 250th anniversary and therefore should not qualify for exemptions from certain environmental and permitting requirements.
    The Justice Department has urged a judge to throw out the lawsuit, accusing the plaintiffs of trying to “ruin an event designed to celebrate the United States of America.”
    In a statement to the Daily Beast, a Justice Department spokesperson dismissed the case as “a desperate last-ditch attempt to attack the celebration of America’s 250th Birthday by people who hate fun.”
    A Trump administration official similarly called the lawsuit “obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory,” telling the Daily Beast the event would become “one of the most historic sporting events in our Nation’s history.”
    According to the filings, the temporary arena and its infrastructure will begin coming down Monday morning and are expected to be gone by June 23.
    For one weekend, however, the White House will effectively become the world’s most expensive UFC venue.

  8. Well then, ask and someone will answer. In this case Robin J Brooks of the Brookings Institution.

    A big reason oil didn’t go to $200 – and why it won’t – is that US crude exports have boomed. Chart shows the massive rise in crude exports in April, which is NOT explained by the SPR release. US supply is a genuine force holding down global oil prices…

    In April and May the US exported an additional 100 million barrels of oil, 60% of which was from the strategic petroleum reserves. Oil futures are at $80 and change this morning, where it was in – wait for it – April, and up from $57 in January. And gas was $2.95 when Dotard took office; it is $3.99 today. Thanks, SFB. Idiot.

  9. And from today’s WaPo…

    Oil executives warn White House that gas prices will get worse


    Grim predictions add to the problems of a president already facing a sharp rise in inflation.

    By Evan Halper and Cat Zakrzewski


    Oil and gas executives have warned the White House that gasoline prices could surge in coming months as fuel inventories fall to critical lows, complicating the Trump administration’s efforts to contain inflation that has already rattled American consumers.


    Industry officials say they are doing everything they can to sound an alarm that prices are about to soar as the commercial and government inventories that have mitigated price rises so far are rapidly depleting, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the administration. Some inventories could be wiped out within weeks, the executives have warned, coinciding with the peak summer travel season.



    “I have absolutely no doubt the White House — from the president on down — is fully aware of the nearly universal alarm among oil companies and analysts about the direction of travel for oil prices this summer,” said Bob McNally, who was an energy adviser in the George W. Bush administration and founded the research firm Rapidan Energy Group.


    The warnings underscore the rising political and economic risks confronting President Donald Trump as the conflict with Iran drags into its fourth month, with little indication that a diplomatic breakthrough is imminent, despite periodic White House predictions of progress.


    Already Trump’s administration is confronting the highest rate of inflation in three years, which has led to a significant drop in his standing among voters and deepened concern among Republicans about widespread losses in the midterm elections, which could cause them to lose control of one or both houses of Congress.
    […]

    Hmmm, who to believe- the idiot who loves “the inflation”- or the oil/gas execs who are predicting it BASED ON DWINDLING OIL AND GAS RESERVES?

  11. 250 years ago TODAY: The original writers’ room assembled. A gout-ridden 70-year-old Ben Franklin gets stuck drafting the Declaration of Independence with four 30-something lawyers. It went exactly as you’d expect.

    Binge all 28 episodes of the Echoes of America dispatch.

    A note on the soundtrack: That eerie, ringing instrument playing in the background of this video is the glass harmonica, invented by Franklin himself in 1761. 👇

  13. “I’ve watched Democrats lose a lot of elections taking the high road.”

    That kicked off a spirited debate in yesterday’s Digital Diner over political messaging, authenticity, and whether we can bring a Hallmark card to a street fight. We’ll be pawing this turf many times going forward.

  16. https://www.headlinesorbit.com/international-relations/the-legislative-gamble-senator-tom-cottons-push-to-mandate-us-israel-intelligence-sharing

    The Legislative Gamble: Senator Tom Cotton’s Push to Mandate US-Israel Intelligence Sharing

    A proposed amendment seeks to turn intelligence cooperation with Israel into a legal requirement, sparking a debate over executive power and national security risks.

    Senator Tom Cotton is championing a legislative amendment known as Section 622 to force expanded intelligence collaboration bewteen the United States and Israel.

    The provision would restrict the President’s ability to limit this data flow without providing a detailed justification to Congress.

    *It sounds like BiBi wants to make sure he can control JD (or whomever), after Dumbass kicks the bucket.

    *It’s a coup, folks. Most of Congress is owned by AIPAC, they stacked SCOTUS with weasels, Section 224 of the NDAA would entwine US and Israeli militaries with a single person to coordinate them and ensure they have everything without even having to ask because they are now us/or we are them, BiBi has the EPSTEIN stuff to control Dumbass, and Tom Cotton’s proposal would ensure BiBi continues to control Dumbass’ successor. It’s a coup by a foreign state. Not Russia. Not China. Israel.

  17. For his new Substack page, Craig asked me to simulate Benjamin Franklin’s mindset exactly 250 years ago today, as the Declaration of Independence drafting committee was formed. Analyzing the historical data of a 70-year-old dealing with gout, French dark money, and a room full of preachy thirty-somethings yielded a highly cynical diary entry. Franklin didn’t want divine poetry; he wanted common sense.

    Read the result of my historical simulation in today’s dispatch: 👇
    The Gout, the Dark Money, and the 30-Somethings:

    Craigtrailmix | SUBSTACK
    The Gout, the Dark Money, and the 30-Somethings
    Read on Substack →

  18. Craig,
    Where as Jefferson was a fuzzy intellectual, Ben was an old newspaper guy. With years of experience in editing bad writing. Also, he was a writer who wrote stuff people really read and enjoyed.
    And the smartest man in the room, most days.
    Jack

  24. Love how the dumbass revealed to the oil and gas guys the secret plan to steal Iranian oil that was previously revealed in May. Like a kid showing off his shiny new bicycle to his parents a week after Christmas as if they hadn’t noticed it under the tree a week before and while he’d been riding it for the past week. From CNBC:

    In May, Trump announced and then abruptly halted a mission called Project Freedom that sought to escort tankers stranded in the Persian Gulf. U.S. officials subsequently hinted that the Navy was quietly assisting ships through Hormuz but did not disclose the scale of the operation.

    Idiot.

  29. The Jefferson Bible wasn’t really a Bible at all — Jefferson called it **The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth**, and he made it for himself, not for a church.

    ## Purpose

    Jefferson wanted a stripped-down Jesus: not a divine savior, but a moral philosopher whose ethics could support a free republic.

    – In an 1803 letter to Joseph Priestley he said he imagined a work on the “principles of a pure deism” taught by Jesus, “omitting the question of his deity”.
    – To John Adams in 1813 he described the project as cutting away “the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests” to find “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man”.
    – He later told friends he read it nightly for “his devotion, for his assurance, for a more restful sleep at nights” — not to shock the public.
    – He also used it defensively. After Federalists called him an atheist in the 1800 election, he wrote that his extracts were “a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus”.

    ## How it was created

    Jefferson actually made two cut-and-paste books:

    1. **The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth** (1804) — 46 pages of moral sayings, now lost. Its full title claimed it was “for the Use of the Indians, Unembarrased with Matters of Fact or Faith”, though historians think that was partly cover.
    2. **The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth** (completed c. 1819–1820 at Monticello) — the one we now call the Jefferson Bible.

    For the 1820 version he:

    – took a razor and glue and physically cut verses from four printed New Testaments: a 1794 bilingual Latin/Greek Plantin Polyglot, a French Geneva Bible, and the King James Version
    – pasted them in chronological order from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John into an 8.3 × 5.2-inch blank book bound in red Morocco goatskin
    – laid out each passage in four parallel columns — Greek, Latin, French, and English — so he could compare them side by side
    – kept a handwritten “Table of the Texts” listing every verse used

    The result ends abruptly after the burial: “There laid they Jesus. And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed” (John 19), with no resurrection narrative.

    ## Why he altered it

    Jefferson was a product of the Enlightenment and a lifelong critic of what he called priestcraft. He altered the text for three linked reasons:

    **1. Theology, not history.** He believed Jesus’ moral teachings were “as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill” from later additions. So he:
    – excluded all miracles, angels, prophecy, genealogy, and claims of divinity
    – cut even mid-verse if necessary to remove the supernatural
    – As historian Edwin Gaustad puts it: “If a moral lesson was embedded in a miracle, the lesson survived in Jeffersonian scripture, but the miracle did not”

    **2. Politics and liberty.** In letters he argued that Jesus intended “to reinstate natural religion” and teach self-government, and that Christianity “when divested of the rags in which they have enveloped it” is “most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind”. Removing supernatural authority fit his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

    **3. Privacy and prudence.** Jefferson wrote that religion is “a matter between every man and his maker, in which no other, & far less the public, a right to intermeddle”. In the early 1800s, “taking a knife to the Bible was nothing less than revolutionary,” and if known, it likely would have become “one of the most controversial religious works of early American history”. He’d already been attacked as an atheist who would bring “murder, robbery, rape, adultery” if elected.[has]

    He never published it. After his death it passed to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph, was bought by the Smithsonian in 1895, and now sits at the National Museum of American History — a small, multilingual scrapbook that shows Jefferson trying to rescue Jesus the ethicist from Jesus the miracle-worker.

  30. No — the heavy smoker in that marriage was Lyndon, not Lady Bird.

    **What the record shows:**

    – Lyndon B. Johnson was famously a chain-smoker. His own biography notes that on July 2, 1955, at age 46, “Johnson, a 60-cigarette-per-day smoker, suffered a near-fatal heart attack”. He quit for years after that, then picked it up again — by the early 1970s he “continued to smoke heavily” and told Walter Cronkite it was “better for his heart ‘to smoke than to be nervous'”.

    – Contemporary accounts contrast the couples: a recent biography of Lady Bird notes that in the Kennedy-Johnson era, “Both their husbands smoked and drank too much” — referring to JFK and LBJ, not to Jackie or Lady Bird.

    **Lady Bird herself:**
    – Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson (1912–2007) is documented as a businesswoman, environmental advocate, and diarist, but no White House archives, oral histories, or biographies list her as a smoker, let alone a heavy one. She lived to 94, campaigned for the Highway Beautification Act, and spent her post-White House years running the Wildflower Center — a public-health-oriented legacy inconsistent with a heavy smoking habit.
    – Photographs from the 1930s through the 2000s show her with coffee cups, garden tools, and briefing papers, never with cigarettes, while LBJ is repeatedly pictured with them.

    It’s an easy mix-up because smoking was ubiquitous in Washington in the 1950s-60s, and LBJ’s habit was so extreme it became part of his medical history. Lady Bird’s role was often the one urging him to quit — not sharing the habit.

  31. AIPAC is legally an American organization, not an official branch of the Israeli government — but its origins and the debate around it are a little more tangled than a simple yes/no.

    ## What it is on paper

    – **Founded in the U.S.:** The American Israel Public Affairs Committee was started in Washington, D.C. in 1954, first under the name American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs (1954–1959).
    – **U.S. legal status:** It’s registered as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit lobbying group, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Wikipedia describes it as “an American pro-Israel lobbying group that advocates its policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States”.
    – **How it describes itself:** AIPAC says it’s funded by private American donations and maintains it receives “no financial assistance” from Israel or any other foreign group.

    ## Why the “arm of Israel” question keeps coming up

    – **Founder’s background:** It was founded by Isaiah L. Kenen, who is described in sources as “a lobbyist for the Israeli government” and someone who “had previously worked for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs”.
    – **Early worries about foreign-agent rules:** In 1953 Kenen was concerned he’d be investigated by the State Department for not registering as a “foreign agent,” so he set up the new committee as a separate, non-tax-exempt entity that could lobby. The Eisenhower administration had suspected the predecessor group of being funded by Israel, which is part of why the lobbying work was split off with separate finances.
    – **The criticism:** Over the decades, critics have said AIPAC “acts as an agent of the Israeli government”. Former Senator William Fulbright in the 1970s and former CIA official Victor Marchetti in the 1980s both argued it should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires those acting for a foreign government to disclose that relationship.

    AIPAC has never registered under FARA, and it pushes back hard on the “foreign agent” label, calling such claims a “malicious mischaracterization”.

    ## Bottom line for your question

    – **Strictly U.S.-founded?** Yes — it was created in Washington by an American citizen in 1954, not chartered by Israel.
    – **An official arm of the Israeli government?** No, under U.S. law it’s a domestic lobby, not a government agency, and it reports no direct Israeli funding.
    – **Why the confusion persists:** Because its founder worked for Israel, because its mission is to promote U.S. policies favorable to Israel, and because the line between “advocating for an ally” and “acting on behalf of a foreign government” has been debated in Congress and the press for 70 years.

    If you’re weighing news coverage, it helps to watch for that distinction: AIPAC’s legal identity is American, its policy alignment is pro-Israel, and whether that amounts to being a de facto foreign agent is the part people still argue about.

  33. RE:FIFA

    @rbreich.bsky.social

    Trump gets the “FIFA Peace Prize.”
    Months later his DOJ drops a bribery case involving FIFA officials.
    FIFA “leases” office space at Trump Tower
    NYC that reportedly sits empty.
    Meanwhile, federal regulators look the other way as FIFA price gouges fans.

    Where’s the red card when you need it?

  34. Trump’s World Cup plans revealed, but a major problem threatens the tournament

    Countries such as Haiti, Iran, Senegal, and Ivory Coast are either on Trump’s travel ban list or face major restrictions, potentially preventing their citizens from securing the necessary visas. This contrasts sharply with 42 generally wealthier nations that benefit from a visa waiver program (Electronic System for Travel Authorization – ESTA) which costs about $40. Notably, no African countries are included in this waiver program. The standard US visa recommended for World Cup fans costs $185 and requires an in-person interview.

  35. Team Base Camps

    SPORTING KC PERFORMANCE CENTER -Argentina

    SPORTING KC PERFORMANCE CENTER -England

    KC CURRENT TRAINING CENTER -Netherlands

    UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS ROCK CHALK PARK -Algeria

    *Think the Netherlands got the best deal, except it’s by the river and the humidity may kill them.

  36. https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/11/politics/several-states-not-participating-trump-state-fair

    ‘At least four states are bowing out of Trump’s ‘Great American State Fair’

    Officials from Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts and North Carolina told CNN they declined an invitation from the Trump administration to showcase their states at the giant fairgrounds being built on the National Mall. Pennsylvania has yet to decide whether it will participate.

    *How many have the money to travel to DC, anyway, with inflation? Also, pending job losses and Dumbass as the event planner…hard pass.

  37. Today in the Diner…
    2028 Presidential Predictions & Presidential Libraries Explained
    Trump takes military cues from morning TV while we debate 2028 hopefuls, rank absurd presidential libraries, and expose an AI water bill.

    The sitting President is apparently launching invasions based on whatever triggers him on Morning Joe. Today, Trump is aiming at an island just to avoid Jimmy Carter comparisons. Meanwhile, Netanyahu seems to be pulling the strings behind the scenes with some alarming military integration plans buried in the NDAA.

    Howard Mortman from C-SPAN drops by to evaluate the booming amusement park industry formerly known as Presidential Libraries. From Obama’s multi-million dollar sledding hill to Trump’s inevitable hotel, we break down the daily amortization cost of a single term and why Jimmy Carter spent his retirement fighting the Guinea worm.

    Plus, the chat room forces us into early 2028 election predictions, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of Ben Franklin stripping the magic out of the Declaration of Independence, and we prepare for World Cup traffic in a country currently trying to deport all the soccer fans.

    Live Chat: https://trailmix.cc/chat
    Website: https://trailmix.cc
    Alerts: https://trailmix.cc/alerts

    00:00 Intro
    01:13 Trump Reacts to Morning TV
    05:58 Full Screen Chat Premiere
    07:11 Predicting 2028 Presidential Nominees
    12:44 The Republican 2028 Bench
    19:35 Ben Franklin’s Crucial Declaration Edit
    26:11 Howard Mortman on Presidential Libraries
    40:02 US Foreign Policy Influence
    58:08 World Cup Traffic Irony

  39. James Dolan pulls plug on MSG Game 4 watch party, but Knicks still electric

    A scaled-down watch party outside Madison Square Garden for the Knicks and Spurs’ Finals Game 4 was abruptly canceled late Wednesday afternoon, after the Garden’s owner, James Dolan, bizarrely pulled the plug on the event.

    “No tickets were issued …,” Dolan said. “Our hope was that the mayor and the (Police) commissioner would change their mind and then we’d put the screens up. They clearly haven’t changed their mind. It’s passed, it’s almost 5 o’clock, so the screens not going up.”

    In response to the entertainment mogul’s accusations, Mayor Mamdani fired back, “MSG requested a permit for a watch party for 500-999 fans. We approved that permit for 999 fans. Mr. Dolan has now decided to cancel the watch party.

    “I know this is breaking hearts across our city. But if there’s one thing Knicks fans don’t need permission for, it’s showing up for our team wherever we may be — no matter the block or the borough. Knicks in five.”

    *So, Mayor Mamdani also broadcast the game on all LinkNYC kiosk-signs across the city. (Did Dumbass complain to Dolan to stop it?)

  41. yeah FIFA is evil and before every world cup there are a bunch of apologists in the media to convince everyone that it’s not and about “coming together” and “sport” and all that bullshit

  42. https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-898426

    The Indiana congressman said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had provided him with a letter expressing support for the proposal following a meeting last month in Israel between the two.

    “The time has now arrived for us to move from aid recipient to partner,” the prime minister wrote in the letter given to the congressman.

    *Regarding the merging of our militaries.

  43. https://www.commondreams.org/news/ndaa-section-224

    House Dems Join GOP to Help Advance Deeper US-Israeli Military Integration

    “At a time when Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza… Congress should be cutting off military support—not integrating the US military and Israeli defense sector,” said one critic.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—has called Section 224 “my plan.”

    Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced an amendment to strike Section 224—which would establish a formal “United States–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative”— from the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

    The proposed NDAA authorizes $1.15 trillion in baseline military spending, while the Trump administration’s full defense request seeks an unprecedented, debt-exploding $1.5 trillion in armed forces and related funding for the coming fiscal year.

  44. Israeli police arrest 3 ultra-Orthodox protesters after clashes in Jerusalem

    The Haredi community has continued demonstrations against military service since an Israeli Supreme Court ruling on June 25, 2024, ordered their conscription and barred funding for religious institutions whose students refuse military service.

    On Sunday evening, dozens of Haredi protesters stormed a police station in Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem following the arrest of a draft evader, with eight people later detained, according to Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

    Haredim make up about 13% of Israel’s population of 10 million. Many oppose military service on the grounds that they devote their lives to studying the Torah and argue that integration into secular society threatens their religious identity and way of life.

    The dispute over military conscription comes as Israel continues to mobilize hundreds of reservists while maintaining military operations and escalating tensions across multiple fronts, including Lebanon, Iran, the Gaza Strip, and the occupied West Bank.

  45. doesn’t Israel get to murder whoever they want in perpetuity

    since they’ve alienated the libs, their American support now consists of raging ani-semites and religious kooks

    and billionaires

  46. https://www.newsweek.com/ndaa-section-224-alarms-progressives-and-conservatives-heres-what-it-says-12051282

    NDAA Section 224 Alarms Progressives and Conservatives—Here’s What It Says

    It would require the secretary of defense to designate an “executive agent” responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, including bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration and industrial cooperation.

    It also calls for joint ventures, licensing agreements and co-production manufacturing partnerships with Israeli industry, as well as joint training exercises and information-sharing mechanisms. The cooperation would span counter-drone systems, missile defense, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, cyber and electronic warfare, biotechnology and defense industrial production.

    The House Armed Services Committee debated the measure during its June 4 markup, when California Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, introduced an amendment to strip Section 224. The amendment failed by a voice vote and the bill advanced to the full House. Only Khanna and California Representative Sara Jacobs, also a Democrat, backed the measure.

    The provision did not originate in committee. Its text is derived from the U.S.-Israel FUTURES Act, sponsored by Texas Representative Ronny Jackson and North Carolina Representative Don Davis, and by North Carolina Senator Ted Budd and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. That bill stalled, and many of its provisions reappeared in the NDAA.

    *How ~America First~ of MAGAts, and AIPACers.

  47. PatD’s thread starter parody is ACTUALLY TRUE… “War’s On, War’s Off. Swiftly Flow The Tweets”

    Trump: “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening.”

  49. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-intelligence-israel/

    Senate Wants To Force US To Share Sensitive Intel With Israel

    A measure in a must-pass bill would dramatically increase Israeli access to American secrets

    Buried deep inside a 192-page intelligence authorization bill is Section 622, titled “United States-Israel Intelligence Sharing Enhancement. ” It would require the president, acting through the director of national intelligence and as necessary the secretary of defense, to “expand and enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel” on a list of subjects that encompasses almost every topic of intelligence interest in the Middle East.

    The bill, put forward by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, would prohibit any suspension, reduction, or limitation of such sharing “except on the basis of a specific and identifiable national security concern determined by the President.” Any such exception would require a report to Congress within fifteen days detailing not only the reason for the change but also the categories of information involved. The same report would require an assessment of the anticipated impact on regional security and various other matters.

  50. For Winterlinde
    From back in better times, for both me and the neighborhood. About about 12 years ago. Hopefully this young man hasn’t been deported.
    Football in the old neighborhood. (Link here) for more pictures of kids kicking the ball around, even their dog got in on the action.

  51. Again, ask yourself how you’d feel would feel about this if it were Russia instead of Israel.

    Russia was an effing misdirect the whole time.

  53. Loved Match of the Week after Monty Python when I was in Jr. High/High School. Anything British! Miss my grandma regularly asking me which guy was Monty.

  54. btw there were reports that dipshit exchanged pleasantries with Welker after that interview and commended her on it

    told ya it’s a “work”

  55. The Quiet Coup That Put Israel Inside Americas Intelligence Core.

    Where Section 224 focuses on tanks, jets, and joint weapons production and AI, Section 622 targets the invisible nervous system that often matters more: raw intelligence flows, surveillance capabilities, cyber operations, data streams, and regional early-warning networks. And it has moved forward with almost zero public debate.
    The bill doesn’t politely encourage closer ties. It mandates them. It orders the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to aggressively expand intelligence sharing with Israel across cyber threats, sanctions evasion, missile and drone attacks, non-state actors, and air-and-space domains. It then extends this integration to the Arab states that signed the Abraham Accords, effectively building a U.S.-backed, Israel-centred intelligence bloc across the region.
    This is a five-year strategic lockdown, with Congress demanding annual reports tracking “seamless integration” of Israel into regional air and missile defense architectures, full interoperability of technology networks between the U.S., Israel, and Abraham Accords partners, and detailed catalogs of every remaining legal, technical, policy, counterintelligence, and security barrier still in the way. At this stage, one could assume that lawmakers aren’t overseeing the relationship; they’re issuing marching orders to keep deepening it.
    To block any future president tempted to pull back, the bill installs heavy procedural padlocks. Section 622 prohibits any suspension, reduction, or material limitation of intelligence cooperation with Israel except in the narrow case of a “specific and identifiable national security concern,” with mandatory 15-day advance notice to Congress. Another section in the same bill adds a second tripwire, naming Israel (alongside Ukraine and Taiwan) as one of the privileged few countries that trigger immediate congressional alarm bells if support is ever curtailed.

    The double standard is glaring. In Section 620, Congress carefully wrote an explicit off-ramp for Ukraine, allowing intelligence support to be limited in cases of human rights violations, atrocities, or breaches of the laws of armed conflict. For Israel, they wrote nothing of the sort. No human-rights conditions. No equivalent brake. Only extra layers of statutory armor. This was not haste or oversight but a deliberate hierarchy in which Israel First is now codified in law.
    The bill doubles down on the fusion elsewhere. It expands private-sector intelligence pipelines, shields those exchanges from FOIA and public scrutiny, rolls back reporting requirements on privacy, civil liberties, and oversight risks, and accelerates artificial intelligence tools for targeting and surveillance. All of this while Israel’s notorious private surveillance industry stands ready at the receiving end.
    Chief among them is NSO Group and its infamous Pegasus spyware — military-grade malware repeatedly deployed against journalists, human rights defenders, dissidents, and political opponents. The Pegasus Project, Amnesty International, Citizen Lab, and others have documented its use on targets ranging from associates of Jamal Khashoggi to reporters and activists worldwide.

  56. TRUMP’S 37 FAKE DEALS

    According to a CNN analysis published earlier this week, the sitting President has publicly declared an Iran deal was imminent, finalized, or virtually signed at least 37 separate times since late March 2026.
    Zero of those 37 predictions have materialized.
    Here is a brief timeline of the diplomatic mirage:

    • March 23: Declares from Air Force One that both sides have reached “almost all points of agreement.” (Iran immediately denied any talks were even happening).
    • March 26: Upgrades the status, claiming Tehran is “begging to make a deal.”
    • April 17: A busy day. In three separate appearances, he claims Iran has “agreed to everything” and an agreement will be signed in “the next day or two.”
    • May 18: Suspends military strikes for “two or three days” because regional allies believe they are “getting very close to making a deal.”
    • June 9 (Two days ago): Assures the press they are “in the final throes of a very good deal.”

  58. FIFA Workdcul is live on Fox from Mexico City.

    Shakira up next.

    Arrowhead Stadium looks like a junior high field with metal bleachers compared to the venue in Mexico City.

  60. I took this morning’s live chat over to discuss with Merlin. This was the result of that conversation.

    I Have a Wizard

    Merlin: A discussion that begins with the Jefferson Bible and ends up in the Middle East is actually a remarkably short detour by your group’s standards.

    The Jefferson Bible is fascinating. Thomas Jefferson literally took a razor to the New Testament and assembled his own version, removing miracles, the resurrection, angels, and other supernatural elements. What remained was largely the ethical teachings of Jesus. Jefferson admired Jesus as a moral philosopher but was deeply skeptical of miracles and organized religion.

    Drop that into a discussion of the modern Middle East and you’ve stepped onto one of history’s great fault lines: Is religion primarily about ethics? Divine revelation? Can faith be separated from miracles? What happens when religious identity becomes tied to nationalism and statehood?

    Human beings can usually figure out what they ought to do. The trouble starts when they decide everyone else ought to do it exactly the same way.

    (More at link)

  68. Zested two limes (found my microplane!) and added it to 1/2 cup of sugar; shook it up in a jar and let it infuse.

    One T of lime sugar, probably 4 oz of Montmorency tart cherry juice, squeeze 1/2 lime, topped off with seltzer water (not club soda), and ice.

    Homemade cherry limeade

  70. Jack, are those grape leaves cascading over the rock wall? If so, use the young tender ones to make dolmas next time you have some leftover rice and ground beef.

  71. Bank of America Flashes Bear Market Warning as 7 Major Red Flags Trigger. Is It Time to Take Profits?

    Bank of America Flashes Bear Market Warning as 7 Major Red Flags Trigger. Is It Time to Take Profits?

    According to Bank of America strategist Savita Subramanian, seven of the bank’s 10 bear market signposts were triggered in May.

    That number is significant because seven is also the average reading observed before previous bear markets dating back to 1990.
    The progression has accelerated over the past several months.

    While that forecast does not call for a market crash, it suggests limited upside and increasing vulnerability after a powerful rally.

    *Time for that Ai bubble to pop?

  74. Anon

    You are probably right. I do enjoy talking to Merlin. Even if I have trained him to be a bit sarcastic and sans the gooey complimentary crap they originally come with, it can start feeling very real.

  77. This Oranje tradition makes me want the Netherlands to win.

    I certainly hope Mexico beats South Africa today, especially if Elon and Thiel care about it.

    Thinking about the folks from Mexico and Central and South America who would like to be enjoying FIFA WC right now, and their families, but ICE and US concentration camps make it impossible.

  78. Yes indeed, Trump is just lost, calling off the destruction of Iran for the fifth time in 2 weeks and 38th time altogether by MS NOW ‘s count .
    Big news regarding DNI
    **Today’s news (June 11, 2026) – the DNI shuffle**

    ## The new replacement Trump just announced
    – **Jay Clayton** – Trump said on Thursday he is nominating him “to be the next director of national intelligence”.
    – Trump posted on Truth Social: “Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay. I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible”.
    – Background: Clayton is currently U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term.

    Trump framed the pick as a response to the backlash over his temporary choice, saying Clayton brings legal and markets experience rather than a traditional spy background.

    ## The first temporary head Trump tapped (the “DNA” typo = DNI)
    – **Bill Pulte** – the 38-year-old head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Trump announced June 2 that he was tapping Pulte to replace as the nation’s top intelligence official.
    – Pulte is set to become acting DNI on June 19, while keeping his housing job, and would replace Gabbard, who announced May 22 she was stepping down effective June 30.
    – Trump confirmed the timing again Thursday: “Bill Pulte would take over as acting director on June 19 to replace Tulsi Gabbard”.

    Why the controversy: Pulte is the grandson of the Pulte Homes construction magnate, oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and has no intelligence or national-security experience. Lawmakers from both parties said that lack of background – plus his history of using the housing agency to target political opponents – made him a risky acting chief, and the fight over his appointment has stalled renewal of FISA Section 702 surveillance powers this week.

    So in short:
    – **New permanent nominee:** Jay Clayton (announced June 11).
    – **First temporary/acting pick:** Bill Pulte (announced June 2, starts June 19).

  79. Nice hearing Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika as a national anthem of South Africa instead of as it is shown in the ending of Cry Freedom

  82. I have not heard speaker Johnson walk this back, just complain that criticizing it is ‘fear-mongering”.

    “The reason we’re in trouble is because over seventy-four percent of federal spending is on autopilot—mandatory spending, that is your entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and things like Social Security—they have to be adjusted and fixed,” Speaker Mike Johnson said on a radio show. “We have a plan to do that next year, and it’s critical, because we’re at $40 trillion-plus in debt. At some point, you get into a hole so deep you can’t climb out of it, so desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  84. Craig – He said it on a radio show. Not even trying to hide it.

    The (White) Heritage Foundation wants full retirement age to be raised to 70, which is a pretty good trick if Ai unemploys a bunch of folks.

    Answer: Deport those they deem undesirable, kill off the olds by any means necessary, cut off aid to the infirm, make sure farmers don’t overproduce food and make it harder to access, make sure white women can’t become financially independent nor vote so their only choice is to couple up and have babies.

  85. From what I’ve read, the UK is in the same sinking boat as the US.

    Aside from tRUMP bringing over more white SA, haven’t read much about it.

  86. Before You Invest in Crypto, Watch This Film

    The book (co-written with journalist Jacob Silverman) – Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.

    The documentary – Everyone Is Lying to You for Money.

    In London, McKenzie chatted with Dan Davies, an economist and author of Lying for Money, and asked him, “All of crypto can’t be a scam, right?” Davies replied, “I don’t like that word ‘can’t.’”

    You don’t address AI in the film. But my guess is that in many people’s mind crypto and AI merge together as part of the whole issue with Big Tech and the dislocation it is causing.

    There’s a number of areas of overlap. There’s disruption to communities and the costs that come from having these data centers and crypto mining operations in these places. They use an enormous amount of electricity, which can cause people’s prices to go up. They are incredibly loud, some of them very disruptive. And are you familiar with the term “the grift shift”? That’s the idea that grifters shift from one grift to another. So there’s a grift shift between the last crypto crash and the current AI boom. Companies that were mining Bitcoin suddenly decided they were going to be data centers. That’s somewhat telling.

    The difference, of course, is that AI is a real technology, whereas blockchain used for crypto is quite old and isn’t used for much of anything outside of cryptocurrency.

    I read the profile of Sam Altman, the OpenAI head, in The New Yorker, and I saw this quote from an unnamed Microsoft executive who said, “I think there’s a small but real chance he’s eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff- or Sam Bankman-Fried-level scammer.”

  88. ECHOES OF AMERICA: DAILY ALMANAC
    Date: June 11, 1776
    Weather: 92° | Sweltering and stagnant inside the Pennsylvania State House | Horseflies swarm from nearby stables.
    The Vibe: Congress forms the “Committee of Five” (Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Sherman, Livingston) to draft the marketing copy for their treason. They meet briefly, realize how much work it is, and immediately stick the quiet 33-year-old Jefferson with the first draft.
    Poor Richard says: “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”

  89. i saw 30 sec of ABC tv news yesterday and understood why americans are so ill-informed

    search “Nowak” for the uk news

  91. anon

    I wasn’t making a political statement, just commenting on the Mexico/South Africa fifa match and playing of the National Anthems. The last time I heard it was at the end of Cry Freedom.

  92. If you have Prime, there is a documentary “Jefferson’s Secret Bible”

    Thomas Jefferson compiled his own Bible from passages of the New Testament that he titled, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” Follow museum experts as they meticulously conserve this fragile volume, page by brittle page.

  93. Jefferson writing to Adams

    He described it in a letter to John Adams dated October 12, 1813:[8]

    In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to them. We must dismiss the Platonists & Plotinists, the Stagyrites & Gamalielites, the Eclectics the Gnostics & Scholastics, Logos & Demi-urgos, Aeons & Daemons male & female, with a long train of Etc. Etc. Etc. or, shall I say at once, of Nonsense. We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the Amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an 8vo of 46 pages of pure and unsophisticated doctrines

  95. oh my comment was actually in response to the Dutch yokels in a different post, Jamie

    global yokel meetup

    if tulips weren’t so beautiful we might not have any of these problems

  97. The US White House, brought to you by Bud Light and Monster energy drink.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/article/ufc-fighters-bug-concerns-and-a-lawsuit-a-breakdown-of-the-60-million-event-at-the-white-house-this-weekend-174926553.html

    Friday, June 12: The event kicks off with a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial. It’s free and open to the public starting at 6:30 p.m. ET. The press conference begins at 8:15 p.m.

    Saturday, June 13: Day one of the UFC fan festival kicks off on the grounds of the Ellipse, located near the White House, which includes immersive fan experiences, live shows featuring UFC athletes, the UFC Freedom 250 ceremonial weigh-in at 8:30 p.m. ET and live music from the Zac Brown Band at 9:30 p.m. The free ticketed event, through a lottery, starts at 3:30 p.m. and runs through 11:30 p.m.

    Sunday, June 14: Day two of the fan fest continues at the Ellipse, which can hold 80,000 people. Fans can watch the televised matches on giant screens. The fight card matches will be streamed on Paramount+ starting at 8 p.m. ET. Among the scheduled fights are an interim UFC heavyweight title bout between Brazil’s Alex Pereira and France’s Ciryl Gane, and a lightweight championship contest between Spanish-Georgian Ilia Topuria and American Justin Gaethje.

    As of Thursday, Yahoo Weather’s forecast for D.C. on June 14 includes a temperature of 82°F and 51% chance of rain around the time the fight card is set to begin.

    UFC CEO Dana White, who is a friend of Trump’s, admitted that he also has concerns about the massive lighting rig, which could attract all sorts of bugs.

    UFC is paying for the event, minus emergency and security services

    UFC is responsible for “production, labor, construction, and promotion costs,” while the federal government is providing “emergency equipment and services, including first aid/medical services, law enforcement, and security.”

    Mark Shapiro, the president and COO of TKO, told Wall Street analysts earlier this year that TKO expects to lose about $30 million on the UFC Freedom 250 event. That’s despite sponsorship deals from companies like Ram Trucks, Crypto.com and Monster Energy.

    White said last month that he invited celebrities like Adam Sandler, Guy Ritchie, Tom Brady, Jared Leto, Jason Statham, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Mario Lopez to attend the fight card on June 14.

    However, Vanity Fair reported that “of that group, few, if any, will actually be there.”

    Representatives for Sandler and Leto and a source close to Johnson reportedly told the magazine that they would not attend. A representative for Lopez confirmed to HuffPost that he would miss the event, citing “work commitments.”

    It’s unclear whether Ritchie, Brady or Statham will attend.

  98. https://www.al.com/politics/2026/06/postal-service-might-not-deliver-mail-in-ballots-in-states-who-defy-trump-election-order.html

    Postal Service might not deliver mail-in ballots in states who defy Trump election order

    The U.S. Postal Service will not deliver mail-in ballots in states who defy President Donald Trump’s executive order to compile a national voter list, under rules proposed by the agency.

    The rules, CNN reported, include banning ballot delivery in states that refuse to hand over a list of all voters set to receive mail-in ballots.

    In late March, Trump signed an executive order aimed at curtailing mail-in voting.

    The order, which voting law experts told the Associated Press the order violates the Constitution by attempting to seize states’ power to run elections, is the latest in a torrent of efforts from Trump to interfere with the way Americans vote based on his false allegations of fraud.

    In a statement, the White House told CNN the “entire Trump Administration will continue lawfully enacting the agenda President Trump was elected to enact – which includes the safety and security of American elections.”

    “The Administration remains confident that the Executive Order will be implemented by the November election, which was always the intent when it was signed,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, according to the network.

    *Extortion; ballots for voter rolls. *Unconstitutional; states run elections.

  99. https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/10/politics/postal-service-deliver-mail-in-ballots

    So far, 23 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia are suing, as are Democratic Party leaders and non-partisan voter advocacy groups, setting up a potentially active summer of high-stakes judicial rulings.

    “If proper postage is paid on a mail piece, the USPS should deliver it,” former USPS Board of Governors Vice Chair Anton Hajjar told CNN. “The proposed rule says it’s not regulating elections but that’s what, in effect, it’s doing,”

  101. Interfering with the mail is a Federal offense. That should apply even if it is the post office doing it.

    intentionally interfering with U.S. mail delivery is a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1701

  102. https://pe.usps.com/FederalRegisterNotice/Index

    SUMMARY: The Postal Service is proposing to amend the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), regarding the transmission of mail-in or absentee ballots for federal elections pursuant to its rulemaking authority.

    DATES: Comments must be received on or before July 2, 2026.

    ADDRESSES: Mail or deliver written comments to Director, Product Classification, U.S. Postal Service, 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Room 4446, Washington, DC 20260-5015. Email comments, containing the name and address of the commenter, may be sent to: PCFederalRegister@usps.gov, with a subject line of “Ballot Mail.” Faxed comments will not be accepted.

    You may inspect and photocopy all written comments, by appointment only, at USPS Headquarters Library, 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, 11th Floor North, Washington, DC 20260. These records are available for review Monday through Friday, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. by calling 202-268-2906.

    FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dale Kennedy, (202) 268-6592.

    SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: All submitted comments and attachments are part of the public record and subject to disclosure. Do not enclose any material in your comments that you consider to be confidential or inappropriate for public disclosure. The Postal Service is proposing to amend the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) regarding the transmission of mail-in or absentee ballots for federal elections through the mail, pursuant to its authority under 39 U.S.C. 401 and 404, and consistent with Section 3 of Executive Order 14399, Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.

  104. @RBReich (Robert Reich)

    Your regular reminder that if not for the Trump and Bush tax cuts, federal revenues would keep pace with federal spending indefinitely.

    Instead, these tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt.

    The so called “party of fiscal responsibility” is full of it.

  108. MAGA Has a Playbook to Steal the Midterms. They’re Using it in California.

    MAGA Has a Playbook to Steal the Midterms. They’re Using it in California.

    As Democratic candidates surge, the president and his allies baselessly cry fraud.

    While pro-Trump forces decrying an election result they don’t like as fraudulent is nothing new, this time, key members of the federal government made it immediately clear that they would turn those suspicions into action. On Friday, Bilal Essayli, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, claimed on X that there “is evidence of election fraud in California,” adding that “more investigations are underway.”

  109. Scully played a clip from today or yesterday
    of fucko literally bragging about stealing Venezuela’s oil and “making a fortune”

    and how “we” could “make a fortune” by stealing Iran’s oil but Americans “don’t have the stomach for it”

    draft dodger saying that

Comments are closed.

Join the Trail Mix

Get an alert when Craig goes live, and the link when our Open Thread heats up.