User-Supported News Commentary Hosted by Craig Crawford
Stealing Upward
Author: craigcrawford
Trail Mix Host. Lapsed journalist, author & retired pundit happily promoting nothing but the truth for Social Security checks.
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78 thoughts on “Stealing Upward”
There’s nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get poorer
In the meantime, in-between time
Ain’t we got fun
“They were careless people, [today’s mega rich and their GOPer helpers]- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
-quote from Fitzgerald’s “the Great Gatsby” chapter 9 updated –
Attribution: Budget Bill =Tax Break For The Rich by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com
Let’s see if can stir up YouTube..
and don’t ya just love how they start a class war, and when we complain they accuse us of waging class war
Trump governing is despicable. It will take decades to reel this shit in.
Oh, good news – WV finally tops a list. We’re the laziest state in the country. Why am I not surprised?
And another couple pieces of good news – Mrs. P and I will contribute to what is forecast to be the biggest travel weekend ever – going ALLLLL the way to Deep Creek – (1 1/2 hours away) to spend the weekend in our own place. Lessee, grass cutting, pressure washing, barbequing, shooting the shit. I need that Rib recipe to see how blasphemous it is (I like a little blasphemy from time to time).
They’re arguing about how much to take from the already poor people to give to the already rich people.
The Rich are different
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
― F. Scott Fitzgerald
Report from Heather Cox Richardson
June 29, 2025 (Sunday)
There are four political stories people should know about tonight.
First, President Donald Trump’s tariff war and weaker consumer spending translated to a contraction of 0.5% in the U.S. economy in the first quarter, even more of a drop than the 0.2% economists expected. The economy Trump inherited from President Joe Biden led the world in productivity.
Second, John Hudson and Warren P. Strobel of the Washington Post reported today that intercepted communications showed that senior Iranian officials said the U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities caused less damage than they had expected and that they wondered why the strikes were so restrained.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo also called out that at a press conference in the Netherlands last Wednesday, Trump said he had given Iran permission to bomb a U.S. air base in Qatar in retaliation for the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons program sites. “They said, ‘We’re going to shoot them. Is one o’clock OK?’ I said it’s fine,” Trump said. “And everybody was emptied off the base so they couldn’t get hurt, except for the gunners.”
Marshall expressed astonishment that this admission has attracted very little attention. He suggested that, if it is true, it represents “the most shocking dereliction of duty one could imagine for the commander-in-chief,” and he wondered how Republicans would have reacted if a Democratic president had said he had let “a foreign adversary fire on an American military installation.”
Third, Jeff Stein of the Washington Post reported today that the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill makes the biggest cut ever to programs for low-income Americans. Those cuts have made many Republicans skittish about supporting the measure.
After Trump attacked him yesterday for not supporting the budget reconciliation bill, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has announced he will not run for reelection next year, indicating his unwillingness to face a primary challenger backed by Trump. This puts the seat in play for a Democratic pickup.
In a statement, Tillis said: “In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.” He wrote: “I look forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people of North Carolina to the best of my ability.”
Tonight, Tillis told the Senate: “What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys?… [T]he effect of this bill is to break a promise.”
Fourth, the Senate parliamentarian has told senators that several of the provisions added to the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill violate the rules for budget reconciliation bills. Those provisions include the ones added to the bill to win the support of Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Today, Trump pushed Republican senators to ignore the Senate parliamentarian, who judges whether proposed measures adhere to Senate rules. Trump posted on social media: “An unelected Senate Staffer (Parliamentarian), should not be allowed to hurt the Republicans Bill. Wants many fantastic things out. NO! DJT.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office today said the tax cuts in the budget reconciliation bill the Republican senators are trying to pass will increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over the next ten years despite the $1.2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other programs over the same period. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) called the measure “Robin Hood in reverse…stealing from the poor in order to give to the rich, this massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top…. This is socialism for the rich.”
Trump has demanded the measure’s passage by July 4, in part because the Department of Homeland Security has blown through its budget and needs the supplemental funding the bill will provide. That funding adds an astonishing $45 billion for migrant detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the current budget of $3.4 billion over the next five years, and $14.4 billion for transportation and removal on top of the current annual budget of $750 million.
After Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tried to slow the passage of the measure by forcing a reading of the entire 940-page bill in the Senate, senators will begin voting tomorrow on amendments in a procedure known as a “vote-a-rama” in which Democratic senators will put Republicans on the record on controversial issues.
Good timing. Celebrations leading up to the fireworks will keep the poor masses from realizing their pockets just got picked.
Here we are on the proverbial “Last Day of the Fiscal Year.”
AI says: June 30th is often the last day of the fiscal year for many entities, particularly in the context of school districts and some non-profit organizations. It’s also a common fiscal year-end for companies, though it’s not the only option.
Haven’t you heard Democrats did all the same things? I know that makes no sense but don’t I sound wise when I say it?
She didn’t have Medicaid
lol good post from Cox Richardson, Ivy?
Don’t you remember when Biden and Obama gave adversarial nations permission to strike us militarily? Me, neither! 😊
NYT Graph says it all — First, the costs
… and the savings
18th century French aristocracy: “let them eat cake”
21st century American Republicans: “fuck you, what you gonna do about it?”
I know we are told not to call trumpers stupid…. but I don’t know what else hits the nail as much as that word.
We got it! We caught the woodchuck in our trap last night. Rick released it about 4 miles from here on conservation land. Hey Mr. (or Mrs.) woodchuck… live a good woodchuck life…
stupid is fine. Do they have to be malicious?
😒
ok gotta finish sweating through these clothes, stay cool, flame-keepers ✌️
oh and tank that bill
today’s meme…
meme #2…
Kellyanne’s statement has no logic, perverted or otherwise.
So, they got all the way through “the reading of the Will?”
i’m curious about the agent in this video, just playing with his phone while his buddies try to kidnap the woman
The Trump administration has codified its efforts to strip some Americans of their US citizenship in a recently published justice department memo that directs attorneys to prioritize denaturalization for naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes.
At the center of the move are the estimated 25 million US citizens who immigrated to the country after being born abroad, according to data from 2023 – and it lists 10 different priority categories for denaturalization.
According to the memo, those subjected to civil proceedings are not entitled to an attorney like they are in criminal cases. And the government has a lighter burden of proof in civil cases than they do in criminal ones.
The memo claims such efforts will focus on those who are involved “in the commission of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses … [and] naturalized criminals, gang members, or, indeed, any individuals convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the US”.
That comes as the US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency registered its 13th in-custody death for the fiscal year beginning in October 2024. There had been 12 such deaths during the entire fiscal year that finished at the end of September 2024.
On Friday Jim Ryan, president of the University of Virginia, resigned amid an investigation by the justice department’s civil rights division. The investigation took aim at the university’s DEI programs and its continuing to consider race and ethnicity in various programs and scholarships.
The justice department also took the unusual step in recent days of suing 15 US district attorneys in Maryland over an order blocking the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removal.
“It is kind of, in a way, trying to create a second class of US citizens,” said Sameera Hafiz, policy director of the Immigration Legal Resource Center, to NPR.
*Buh-bye to MuskRat
too bad it’s a joke…
Sturg, hope you’re right. I hear the dumber son’s wife is considering running for Tillis’ seat. Know of anyone who CAN sing to run against her?
Olberman excoriates Gillibrand. Suits me.
TRUMP'S PROTECTION RACKET PRESIDENCY. What's worse? Blackmailing a Senator/bribing another? Or blackmailing Israel's courts with the threat to DE-FUND ISRAEL?Trick question. They're just two sides of the same corrupt Trump memecoinGET THE NEW COUNTDOWN PODCAST: tinyurl.com/2es5zyws
so for anyone that doesn’t know, the “Palantír” is the seeing-stone from Lord of the Rings that the Dark Lord Sauron used to surveil the good folk of middle earth and communicate with his henchmen
That’s where the surveillance/data mining company “Palantir” got its name, they are basically telling you they are evil right there in the name
… in the book it causes pain and torment to anyone of pure heart that touches it or tries to use it
More nerd stuff:
the conceit of “Lord of the Rings” is that it was Tolkein’s attempt to construct a mythological pre-history of THIS world with the same “Abrahamic” God, but pre-Biblical, as Tolkien was a conservative Catholic
The above inspired by today’s Olbermann episode posted by Sturge, if it seems out of left field, pardon me
According to this new memo, the DOJ is expanding its criteria of which crimes put individuals at risk of losing their citizenship. That includes national security violations and committing acts of fraud against individuals or against the government, like Paycheck Protection Program loan fraud or Medicaid or Medicare fraud.
“What struck me is the ripple effect that this would have on children who were naturalized through their parents,” he said. “ People who thought they were safely American and had done nothing wrong can suddenly be at risk of losing citizenship.”
*What about folks who were adopted from abroad as children, who are now adults and may have had a civil offense? Does someone get sent back to a country, with no ties, and not even able to speak the language?
Question for all deportations: What is happening to everyone’s personal property when they are abducted, never to be seen or heard from, again?
Now, if all three networks would just air even the first 30 seconds of Senator Whitehouse’s speech (or debate time, whatever) to get the attention of more folks.
Yesterday, I called seven Senators. I’ve only called three today. We just need a group of Republicans to be Fed up enough that they start telling the truth and working for their constituents.
Well, they need to stop treating big donors as their only constituents. We need to boycott companies of donors for anyone who votes for this garbage bill.
A general strike, protests, and massive boycotts, that’s what we need. Not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do something and the ripple effect will shut down the country.
Now here’s some weird shit- from Whitehall, just 12 miles NE of East Bumfuck. WV News
WHITE HALL, W.Va. (WV News) — A coal seam fire that officials said has been raging for years recently broke through the ground in White Hall, and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has been monitoring the situation.
According to a June 26 Facebook post made by the Valley Volunteer Fire Department, the fire had breached through a hole behind Winston Wheels and Tires in White Hall on June 23, leading crews to respond to the plume of smoke it unleashed.
The post said that the fire was 700 degrees at the surface, and that crews dumped 1,100 gallons of water and five gallons of foam into area. Despite the effort, the fire returned soon after.
The post also said that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection was on scene for the incident and is monitoring the area, which was confirmed by Marion County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Executive Director Chris McIntire.
“The Valley Volunteer Fire Department has been out there multiple times with it,” McIntire said. “It’s been (burning for) multiple years. It’s come out on a (nearby) hillside before, but this time it’s really close to a building, which makes it more unique.”
Neither the Valley Volunteer Fire Department nor the Town of White Hall were able to be reached for comment Friday afternoon.
Mrs. P & I lived in Whitehall for a year about 20 years ago, but a couple miles away. Our paralegal lives in a nice little subdivision a stone’s throw from that. I guess I could say that Whitehall is a hotter place to live than East Bumfuck.
…poor Centralia, PA, can’t even exclusively hold the title of “Dumbest Inextinguishable Mine Fire”
they started theirs burning garbage 🫤
(in a coal mine shaft 🫤 🫤 )
Watching the Senate “debate” is like watching a spelling bee with no alphabet.
The Senate’s budget measure has many moving pieces, but it largely aims to pay for tax cuts by making cuts to safety net programs, and the legislation would increase the national debt.
Oh, and dogs and cats are sleeping together – I agree with Ellon on the GBUB. It’s insane to incentivize old technologies and punish new ones, and I hope that he’s right that it’s politically suicidal for republicans.
Anon, since this fire has been burning for years it could be a bit of hyperbole, but the guy who owns the tire and custom wheel shop the fire has surfaced adjacent to says that if there’s methane down there it’s going to blow Whitehall off the map. Of course he’s a tire shop owner rather than a geologist.
So, Poobah, that rib recipe drops Wednesday? (I subscribed to LMC today). Does that mean some notice of new vids show up in my inbox? Since that survey (Mrs. P got a notice about it from Yahoo!) finding WV at the top of the heap among the laziest states, and for some reason I fit in a little too well, I’m looking forward to your blasphemous rib recipe.
Ha, Pog, just dropped my next hint
Pogo, one of YT’s many quirks is creators have no way to send notifications to subscribers. They decide when and whether to do that.
Today we doubled our Trail Mix YouTube subscriber count after crossing 100 just 3 days ago. Still far behind Lazy Man Cooks but it’s a few months older
Whitehall off the map
They evacuated Centralia decades ago. It’s still there.
…last time I was there, there was old one old man left in town refused who to sell to the government, I can’t imagine he’s still alive, but his house was there at the time, and he kept it up. He was mowing the yard that day.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Rick Scott are blasting former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for starting a D.C. consulting firm after saying he would not become a lobbyist after leaving the government.
“[T]his move is particularly disappointing because you made a clear promise during your nomination hearing to uphold the public trust,” the bipartisan duo said in a letter to Austin on Monday obtained by POLITICO.
“Such actions raise concerns that, less than six months after leaving your role as Secretary of Defense in the Biden Administration, you have taken a trip through the revolving door and begun cashing in on your public service,” the two said in the letter.
Prior to his stint as defense secretary from 2021 to 2025, Austin had his own consulting firm, Austin Strategy Group. He also worked at defense-focused investment firm Pine Island Capital and was on the board of Raytheon. He told Warren before his confirmation hearing that he had “no intent to be a lobbyist” after being defense secretary.
But Warren (D-Mass.) and Scott (R-Fla.) said there are “serious questions” about whether decisions Austin, a former four-star general, made while serving in the government benefited defense contractors that he may work for now.
The senators asked Austin whether he will register as a lobbyist for any companies and which entities he will be working for, including foreign entities. They also want to know how much he will be paid for his services and whether the companies hiring him have contracts with the Defense Department. Warren and Scott requested answers by July 8.
Warren and Scott usually disagree but they have worked together on Pentagon revolving door issues in the past.
“Donald Trump’s former close ally, Elon Musk, has issued a stark warning for lawmakers voting for the president’s Big, Beautiful Bill.
Musk, who has been a frequent critic of the spending and tax cut bill since leaving government, vowed to ensure any members of Congress “who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history” lose their primary next year.
“[They] should hang their head in shame!” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
*Yeah, Elon is totally getting denaturalized and deported, unless he has access to the Epstein tapes and can release them.
ps – Elon threw around a lot of money in Wisconsin, to no avail. I guess he could just endorse someone he wanted to take down, at this point, he’s so toxic.
Intriguing. I don’t often cook ribs in the oven, but I’ve eaten a lot of them that were oven cooked. I’m sure I’ve eaten a bad rib or two, but offhand I can’t think of one. I do know that I’ve had overcooked ones but that ‘s probably been decades ago. I have to confess I’m a bit of a rib snob, but that’s what eating Big John’s (RIP) ribs from Dreamland in Tuscaloosa will do to you. And I don’t prejudge ribs cooked this or that way. If they’re moist and tender, I’m down.
225F in the oven for 5-6 hrs is the only way to make ribs if you ask me
my friend does them at 215F
I may try corn ribs if I can find good sweet corn. I bought two ears at the store and it was a tiny bit too mature, but maybe that’s good for ribs. IDK.
Furious! Republicans lying about the big, awful bill, saying it’ll be the biggest tax cuts for Americans, ever. ONLY if you’re very wealthy. They should all be visited by three ghosts every night of their miserable lives.
Do you not make $400k a year? C’mon get with the program!
Roger on the 225. I do them in the smoker at 225. Shit, I do everything at 225 in the smoker. At my best buddies insistence, I bought a Thermo Pro four probe electronic continuous read thermometer for the smoker, and it changed my life. It’s an absolutely fantastic tool.
No matter where I wander experimenting with rib recipes I always return to the basics I grew up with. Low and slow on the grill.
Medicaid is not a money laundering scheme and you are a sorry excuse for a Senator, Lindsey.
Thanks, Jen Psaki. Don’t know why the others are letting Dodo bully the branding.
from what they say, nobody should want to smell like him
JD just ordered two bottles
Guessing they’ll cause a nasty rash in addition to smelling like grift, lies, and fascism.
ps -Epstein!
It’s exactly as the same as when Obama sold perfume as president
Republicans making good on Dodo’s campaign threats.
Warnings are for deaf ears. Didn’t covid prove already that magas don’t care who dies or how many?
I’m not the only one who is going to posit that the human mind did not evolve to process the type and amount of information it needs to in the current media reality
Republicans/conservatives exploited this cynically, Democrats/libprogs didn’t and seem determined to be two steps behind perpetually in that context
Dr. Heather’s lessons from history:
In 1890, the Republicans forced through Congress a similarly unpopular measure: the McKinley Tariff, the law President Donald Trump has spoken of as a model for his economic policies. Like today’s budget reconciliation bill, the McKinley Tariff skewed the country’s economy even more strongly toward the very wealthy, putting more money in the pockets of the richest Americans at the expense of the poorest.
The McKinley Tariff passed in a chaotic congressional session in May 1890, with members shouting amendments, yelling objections, and talking over one another. All Democrats voted against the measure, and when it passed in the House, Republicans cheered and clapped at their victory. “You may rejoice now,” a Democrat yelled across the aisle, “but next November you’ll mourn.”
Democrats were right. In the November 1890 midterm elections, angry voters repudiated the Republican Party, giving the Democrats a two-to-one majority in the House and preserving Republican control of the Senate only because three Republican senators had voted against the tariff.
More than creating a bad midterm for Republicans, though, the fight over the McKinley Tariff hammered home to ordinary Americans that the system was rigged against them. Since the 1880s, Americans had seen the rise of extraordinarily wealthy industrialists who built palaces on New York’s Fifth Avenue like Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt’s, which cost more than $44 million in today’s dollars. There, in 1883, she threw a famous costume ball where 1,200 guests, dressed as birds and hornets as well as knights and famous queens and kings, including Marie Antoinette, used golden spoons at their $25,000 meal.
The popular press closely followed the ball and the social competition that followed it. To workers surviving on pennies and farmers gouged by railroads, such lavish displays of wealth seemed not just outrageous but a sign that something had gone badly wrong in American society. Surely, they thought, a democratic government should not so obviously favor the wealthy.
The fight over the McKinley Tariff gave opponents proof that Congress was working for the rich. In the Alliance Summer of 1890, newspapers sprang up and speakers crisscrossed the plains reminding voters that the government was supposed to treat all interests equally. The famous farmers’ orator Mary Elizabeth Lease told audiences that “Wall Street owns the country…. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street.” She told farmers to “raise less corn and more hell.”
They did. In the 1890 elections, Alliance members backed Democrats who supported their cause, and they elected forty-four members of Congress, three senators, and four governors and gained control of eight state legislatures. Members of both parties listened to the developing anger over economic injustice and shared the fears of Alliance members that democracy was collapsing under an oligarchy of industrialists.
Their insistence that a democratic government should not favor any specific sector of society but should work for the good of all resonated with voters across parties, and lawmakers, especially younger ones eager to build a following, listened.
By 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, was leading the demand for fair government. He called for a “square deal” for everyone. The Boston Globe explained: “‘Justice for all alike—a square deal for every man, great or small, rich or poor,’ is the Roosevelt ideal to be attained by the framing and the administration of the law. And he would tell you that that means Mr. [J.P.] Morgan and Mr. [J.D.] Rockefeller as well as the poor fellow who cannot pay his rent.
As long as we have a popular State-sponsored propaganda network broadcasting lies, the magas will not have a clue what hit them even after it hits them like stars falling on Alabama.
On November 30, 1954, a meteorite crashed through the roof of a home in a then-unincorporated area near Sylacauga, Talladega County, striking resident Ann E. Hodges (1923-1972). The area was later incorporated as the town of Oak Grove. Hodges was the first person ever to have been injured by a meteorite, and the event caused a nationwide media sensation and a year-long legal battle. The meteorite, which weighs about eight and one-half pounds, is on permanent display at the Alabama Museum of Natural History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
“Stars Fell on Alabama” refers to the dramatic Leonid meteor shower of November 12-13, 1833. This event was so spectacular that it became a cultural reference point in Alabama, inspiring the title of Carl Carmer’s 1934 book and the popular jazz standard. The phrase evokes a sense of awe and wonder associated with that celestial event.
The abrupt cutoff of satellite data crucial for hurricane forecasting is delayed by one month, until July 31, according to a message posted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Monday.
The Defense Department will still maintain the Defense Meteorological Satellite program, but announced last week it would cease sharing the imagery with NOAA and NASA.
The decision, which was initiated by the Defense Department, caused an uproar among meteorologists, public officials and the media in the midst of hurricane season. The fear is that the missing information could degrade the accuracy of hurricane forecasts. The move comes in the wake of steep personnel cuts at the National Weather Service and other parts of NOAA.
The delay through July, both sources said, is the result of pressure from NOAA and NASA officials.
The one month delay does not solve the issue since hurricane season peaks in August and September, and there currently is no plan in place for resuming the flow of this data, even when a new Defense Department weather satellite begins operations in October.
*Maybe a ‘cane will go to West Palm Beach while Orange Adolf is on a taxpayer-funded golf outing & nobody will take shelter.
i always appreciate you contributions, Ivy! 🏆
Thanks, anon. I humbly accept your commendation. 🙏
The Trump Organization’s new mobile phone venture, Trump Mobile, has removed language from its website suggesting that its forthcoming smartphones will be made in the U.S.
…instead advertises the $499 phone as “designed with American values in mind.”
*LoL
“ JD I recognize that aroma, why are you wearing my signature women’s fragrance??”
“I must’ve mixed up the bottles, Sir! I keep mine um right next to my wife’s! Sometimes I, I mean, we, make the figurines of you on the bottle have conversations with each other! Should I stop talking now, sir?
put zinnias on your list for next year, BiD, easy to grow from seed
There’s nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get poorer
In the meantime, in-between time
Ain’t we got fun
“They were careless people, [today’s mega rich and their GOPer helpers]- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
-quote from Fitzgerald’s “the Great Gatsby” chapter 9 updated –
Attribution: Budget Bill =Tax Break For The Rich by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com
Let’s see if can stir up YouTube..
and don’t ya just love how they start a class war, and when we complain they accuse us of waging class war
Trump governing is despicable. It will take decades to reel this shit in.
Oh, good news – WV finally tops a list. We’re the laziest state in the country. Why am I not surprised?
And another couple pieces of good news – Mrs. P and I will contribute to what is forecast to be the biggest travel weekend ever – going ALLLLL the way to Deep Creek – (1 1/2 hours away) to spend the weekend in our own place. Lessee, grass cutting, pressure washing, barbequing, shooting the shit. I need that Rib recipe to see how blasphemous it is (I like a little blasphemy from time to time).
They’re arguing about how much to take from the already poor people to give to the already rich people.
The Rich are different
Report from Heather Cox Richardson
June 29, 2025 (Sunday)
There are four political stories people should know about tonight.
First, President Donald Trump’s tariff war and weaker consumer spending translated to a contraction of 0.5% in the U.S. economy in the first quarter, even more of a drop than the 0.2% economists expected. The economy Trump inherited from President Joe Biden led the world in productivity.
Second, John Hudson and Warren P. Strobel of the Washington Post reported today that intercepted communications showed that senior Iranian officials said the U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities caused less damage than they had expected and that they wondered why the strikes were so restrained.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo also called out that at a press conference in the Netherlands last Wednesday, Trump said he had given Iran permission to bomb a U.S. air base in Qatar in retaliation for the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons program sites. “They said, ‘We’re going to shoot them. Is one o’clock OK?’ I said it’s fine,” Trump said. “And everybody was emptied off the base so they couldn’t get hurt, except for the gunners.”
Marshall expressed astonishment that this admission has attracted very little attention. He suggested that, if it is true, it represents “the most shocking dereliction of duty one could imagine for the commander-in-chief,” and he wondered how Republicans would have reacted if a Democratic president had said he had let “a foreign adversary fire on an American military installation.”
Third, Jeff Stein of the Washington Post reported today that the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill makes the biggest cut ever to programs for low-income Americans. Those cuts have made many Republicans skittish about supporting the measure.
After Trump attacked him yesterday for not supporting the budget reconciliation bill, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has announced he will not run for reelection next year, indicating his unwillingness to face a primary challenger backed by Trump. This puts the seat in play for a Democratic pickup.
In a statement, Tillis said: “In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.” He wrote: “I look forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people of North Carolina to the best of my ability.”
Tonight, Tillis told the Senate: “What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys?… [T]he effect of this bill is to break a promise.”
Fourth, the Senate parliamentarian has told senators that several of the provisions added to the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill violate the rules for budget reconciliation bills. Those provisions include the ones added to the bill to win the support of Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Today, Trump pushed Republican senators to ignore the Senate parliamentarian, who judges whether proposed measures adhere to Senate rules. Trump posted on social media: “An unelected Senate Staffer (Parliamentarian), should not be allowed to hurt the Republicans Bill. Wants many fantastic things out. NO! DJT.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office today said the tax cuts in the budget reconciliation bill the Republican senators are trying to pass will increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over the next ten years despite the $1.2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other programs over the same period. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) called the measure “Robin Hood in reverse…stealing from the poor in order to give to the rich, this massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top…. This is socialism for the rich.”
Trump has demanded the measure’s passage by July 4, in part because the Department of Homeland Security has blown through its budget and needs the supplemental funding the bill will provide. That funding adds an astonishing $45 billion for migrant detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the current budget of $3.4 billion over the next five years, and $14.4 billion for transportation and removal on top of the current annual budget of $750 million.
After Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tried to slow the passage of the measure by forcing a reading of the entire 940-page bill in the Senate, senators will begin voting tomorrow on amendments in a procedure known as a “vote-a-rama” in which Democratic senators will put Republicans on the record on controversial issues.
Good timing. Celebrations leading up to the fireworks will keep the poor masses from realizing their pockets just got picked.
Here we are on the proverbial “Last Day of the Fiscal Year.”
AI says: June 30th is often the last day of the fiscal year for many entities, particularly in the context of school districts and some non-profit organizations. It’s also a common fiscal year-end for companies, though it’s not the only option.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year
Hope in South Carolina.
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
Yes, they have more money.
—E. Hemingway
The back story of a famous anecdote.
https://cunninghamjeff.medium.com/the-argument-fitzgerald-and-hemingway-never-finished-3128fda6c8f3
Waiting for that tinkle down economy
Haven’t you heard Democrats did all the same things? I know that makes no sense but don’t I sound wise when I say it?
She didn’t have Medicaid
lol good post from Cox Richardson, Ivy?
Don’t you remember when Biden and Obama gave adversarial nations permission to strike us militarily? Me, neither! 😊
NYT Graph says it all — First, the costs
… and the savings
18th century French aristocracy: “let them eat cake”
21st century American Republicans: “fuck you, what you gonna do about it?”
I know we are told not to call trumpers stupid…. but I don’t know what else hits the nail as much as that word.
We got it! We caught the woodchuck in our trap last night. Rick released it about 4 miles from here on conservation land. Hey Mr. (or Mrs.) woodchuck… live a good woodchuck life…
stupid is fine. Do they have to be malicious?
😒
ok gotta finish sweating through these clothes, stay cool, flame-keepers ✌️
oh and tank that bill
today’s meme…
meme #2…
Kellyanne’s statement has no logic, perverted or otherwise.
So, they got all the way through “the reading of the Will?”
i’m curious about the agent in this video, just playing with his phone while his buddies try to kidnap the woman
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/30/trump-birthright-citizenship-naturalized-citizens
The Trump administration has codified its efforts to strip some Americans of their US citizenship in a recently published justice department memo that directs attorneys to prioritize denaturalization for naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes.
At the center of the move are the estimated 25 million US citizens who immigrated to the country after being born abroad, according to data from 2023 – and it lists 10 different priority categories for denaturalization.
According to the memo, those subjected to civil proceedings are not entitled to an attorney like they are in criminal cases. And the government has a lighter burden of proof in civil cases than they do in criminal ones.
The memo claims such efforts will focus on those who are involved “in the commission of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses … [and] naturalized criminals, gang members, or, indeed, any individuals convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the US”.
That comes as the US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency registered its 13th in-custody death for the fiscal year beginning in October 2024. There had been 12 such deaths during the entire fiscal year that finished at the end of September 2024.
On Friday Jim Ryan, president of the University of Virginia, resigned amid an investigation by the justice department’s civil rights division. The investigation took aim at the university’s DEI programs and its continuing to consider race and ethnicity in various programs and scholarships.
The justice department also took the unusual step in recent days of suing 15 US district attorneys in Maryland over an order blocking the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removal.
“It is kind of, in a way, trying to create a second class of US citizens,” said Sameera Hafiz, policy director of the Immigration Legal Resource Center, to NPR.
*Buh-bye to MuskRat
too bad it’s a joke…
Sturg, hope you’re right. I hear the dumber son’s wife is considering running for Tillis’ seat. Know of anyone who CAN sing to run against her?
Olberman excoriates Gillibrand. Suits me.
Go Sheldon! The Senate today “is a crime scene”
so for anyone that doesn’t know, the “Palantír” is the seeing-stone from Lord of the Rings that the Dark Lord Sauron used to surveil the good folk of middle earth and communicate with his henchmen
That’s where the surveillance/data mining company “Palantir” got its name, they are basically telling you they are evil right there in the name
… in the book it causes pain and torment to anyone of pure heart that touches it or tries to use it
More nerd stuff:
the conceit of “Lord of the Rings” is that it was Tolkein’s attempt to construct a mythological pre-history of THIS world with the same “Abrahamic” God, but pre-Biblical, as Tolkien was a conservative Catholic
The above inspired by today’s Olbermann episode posted by Sturge, if it seems out of left field, pardon me
According to this new memo, the DOJ is expanding its criteria of which crimes put individuals at risk of losing their citizenship. That includes national security violations and committing acts of fraud against individuals or against the government, like Paycheck Protection Program loan fraud or Medicaid or Medicare fraud.
“What struck me is the ripple effect that this would have on children who were naturalized through their parents,” he said. “ People who thought they were safely American and had done nothing wrong can suddenly be at risk of losing citizenship.”
*What about folks who were adopted from abroad as children, who are now adults and may have had a civil offense? Does someone get sent back to a country, with no ties, and not even able to speak the language?
Question for all deportations: What is happening to everyone’s personal property when they are abducted, never to be seen or heard from, again?
Now, if all three networks would just air even the first 30 seconds of Senator Whitehouse’s speech (or debate time, whatever) to get the attention of more folks.
Yesterday, I called seven Senators. I’ve only called three today. We just need a group of Republicans to be Fed up enough that they start telling the truth and working for their constituents.
Well, they need to stop treating big donors as their only constituents. We need to boycott companies of donors for anyone who votes for this garbage bill.
A general strike, protests, and massive boycotts, that’s what we need. Not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do something and the ripple effect will shut down the country.
Now here’s some weird shit- from Whitehall, just 12 miles NE of East Bumfuck. WV News
Mrs. P & I lived in Whitehall for a year about 20 years ago, but a couple miles away. Our paralegal lives in a nice little subdivision a stone’s throw from that. I guess I could say that Whitehall is a hotter place to live than East Bumfuck.
…poor Centralia, PA, can’t even exclusively hold the title of “Dumbest Inextinguishable Mine Fire”
they started theirs burning garbage 🫤
(in a coal mine shaft 🫤 🫤 )
Watching the Senate “debate” is like watching a spelling bee with no alphabet.
This Plain Thought just dropped:
WaPo sums it up succinctly.
Oh, and dogs and cats are sleeping together – I agree with Ellon on the GBUB. It’s insane to incentivize old technologies and punish new ones, and I hope that he’s right that it’s politically suicidal for republicans.
Anon, since this fire has been burning for years it could be a bit of hyperbole, but the guy who owns the tire and custom wheel shop the fire has surfaced adjacent to says that if there’s methane down there it’s going to blow Whitehall off the map. Of course he’s a tire shop owner rather than a geologist.
So, Poobah, that rib recipe drops Wednesday? (I subscribed to LMC today). Does that mean some notice of new vids show up in my inbox? Since that survey (Mrs. P got a notice about it from Yahoo!) finding WV at the top of the heap among the laziest states, and for some reason I fit in a little too well, I’m looking forward to your blasphemous rib recipe.
Ha, Pog, just dropped my next hint
Pogo, one of YT’s many quirks is creators have no way to send notifications to subscribers. They decide when and whether to do that.
Today we doubled our Trail Mix YouTube subscriber count after crossing 100 just 3 days ago. Still far behind Lazy Man Cooks but it’s a few months older
They evacuated Centralia decades ago. It’s still there.
…last time I was there, there was old one old man left in town refused who to sell to the government, I can’t imagine he’s still alive, but his house was there at the time, and he kept it up. He was mowing the yard that day.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/30/austin-warren-scott-revolving-door-00433634
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Rick Scott are blasting former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for starting a D.C. consulting firm after saying he would not become a lobbyist after leaving the government.
“[T]his move is particularly disappointing because you made a clear promise during your nomination hearing to uphold the public trust,” the bipartisan duo said in a letter to Austin on Monday obtained by POLITICO.
“Such actions raise concerns that, less than six months after leaving your role as Secretary of Defense in the Biden Administration, you have taken a trip through the revolving door and begun cashing in on your public service,” the two said in the letter.
Prior to his stint as defense secretary from 2021 to 2025, Austin had his own consulting firm, Austin Strategy Group. He also worked at defense-focused investment firm Pine Island Capital and was on the board of Raytheon. He told Warren before his confirmation hearing that he had “no intent to be a lobbyist” after being defense secretary.
But Warren (D-Mass.) and Scott (R-Fla.) said there are “serious questions” about whether decisions Austin, a former four-star general, made while serving in the government benefited defense contractors that he may work for now.
The senators asked Austin whether he will register as a lobbyist for any companies and which entities he will be working for, including foreign entities. They also want to know how much he will be paid for his services and whether the companies hiring him have contracts with the Defense Department. Warren and Scott requested answers by July 8.
Warren and Scott usually disagree but they have worked together on Pentagon revolving door issues in the past.
I enjoy hearing stuff about Lord of the Rings.
https://www.newsweek.com/senate-set-kick-off-voting-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-2092461
“Donald Trump’s former close ally, Elon Musk, has issued a stark warning for lawmakers voting for the president’s Big, Beautiful Bill.
Musk, who has been a frequent critic of the spending and tax cut bill since leaving government, vowed to ensure any members of Congress “who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history” lose their primary next year.
“[They] should hang their head in shame!” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
*Yeah, Elon is totally getting denaturalized and deported, unless he has access to the Epstein tapes and can release them.
ps – Elon threw around a lot of money in Wisconsin, to no avail. I guess he could just endorse someone he wanted to take down, at this point, he’s so toxic.
Intriguing. I don’t often cook ribs in the oven, but I’ve eaten a lot of them that were oven cooked. I’m sure I’ve eaten a bad rib or two, but offhand I can’t think of one. I do know that I’ve had overcooked ones but that ‘s probably been decades ago. I have to confess I’m a bit of a rib snob, but that’s what eating Big John’s (RIP) ribs from Dreamland in Tuscaloosa will do to you. And I don’t prejudge ribs cooked this or that way. If they’re moist and tender, I’m down.
225F in the oven for 5-6 hrs is the only way to make ribs if you ask me
my friend does them at 215F
I may try corn ribs if I can find good sweet corn. I bought two ears at the store and it was a tiny bit too mature, but maybe that’s good for ribs. IDK.
Furious! Republicans lying about the big, awful bill, saying it’ll be the biggest tax cuts for Americans, ever. ONLY if you’re very wealthy. They should all be visited by three ghosts every night of their miserable lives.
Do you not make $400k a year? C’mon get with the program!
Roger on the 225. I do them in the smoker at 225. Shit, I do everything at 225 in the smoker. At my best buddies insistence, I bought a Thermo Pro four probe electronic continuous read thermometer for the smoker, and it changed my life. It’s an absolutely fantastic tool.
No matter where I wander experimenting with rib recipes I always return to the basics I grew up with. Low and slow on the grill.
BUB
Big Ugly Bill
Thanks, Jen Psaki. Don’t know why the others are letting Dodo bully the branding.
from what they say, nobody should want to smell like him
JD just ordered two bottles
Guessing they’ll cause a nasty rash in addition to smelling like grift, lies, and fascism.
ps -Epstein!
It’s exactly as the same as when Obama sold perfume as president
Republicans making good on Dodo’s campaign threats.
Warnings are for deaf ears. Didn’t covid prove already that magas don’t care who dies or how many?
I’m not the only one who is going to posit that the human mind did not evolve to process the type and amount of information it needs to in the current media reality
Republicans/conservatives exploited this cynically, Democrats/libprogs didn’t and seem determined to be two steps behind perpetually in that context
Dr. Heather’s lessons from history:
In 1890, the Republicans forced through Congress a similarly unpopular measure: the McKinley Tariff, the law President Donald Trump has spoken of as a model for his economic policies. Like today’s budget reconciliation bill, the McKinley Tariff skewed the country’s economy even more strongly toward the very wealthy, putting more money in the pockets of the richest Americans at the expense of the poorest.
The McKinley Tariff passed in a chaotic congressional session in May 1890, with members shouting amendments, yelling objections, and talking over one another. All Democrats voted against the measure, and when it passed in the House, Republicans cheered and clapped at their victory. “You may rejoice now,” a Democrat yelled across the aisle, “but next November you’ll mourn.”
Democrats were right. In the November 1890 midterm elections, angry voters repudiated the Republican Party, giving the Democrats a two-to-one majority in the House and preserving Republican control of the Senate only because three Republican senators had voted against the tariff.
More than creating a bad midterm for Republicans, though, the fight over the McKinley Tariff hammered home to ordinary Americans that the system was rigged against them. Since the 1880s, Americans had seen the rise of extraordinarily wealthy industrialists who built palaces on New York’s Fifth Avenue like Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt’s, which cost more than $44 million in today’s dollars. There, in 1883, she threw a famous costume ball where 1,200 guests, dressed as birds and hornets as well as knights and famous queens and kings, including Marie Antoinette, used golden spoons at their $25,000 meal.
The popular press closely followed the ball and the social competition that followed it. To workers surviving on pennies and farmers gouged by railroads, such lavish displays of wealth seemed not just outrageous but a sign that something had gone badly wrong in American society. Surely, they thought, a democratic government should not so obviously favor the wealthy.
The fight over the McKinley Tariff gave opponents proof that Congress was working for the rich. In the Alliance Summer of 1890, newspapers sprang up and speakers crisscrossed the plains reminding voters that the government was supposed to treat all interests equally. The famous farmers’ orator Mary Elizabeth Lease told audiences that “Wall Street owns the country…. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street.” She told farmers to “raise less corn and more hell.”
They did. In the 1890 elections, Alliance members backed Democrats who supported their cause, and they elected forty-four members of Congress, three senators, and four governors and gained control of eight state legislatures. Members of both parties listened to the developing anger over economic injustice and shared the fears of Alliance members that democracy was collapsing under an oligarchy of industrialists.
Their insistence that a democratic government should not favor any specific sector of society but should work for the good of all resonated with voters across parties, and lawmakers, especially younger ones eager to build a following, listened.
By 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, was leading the demand for fair government. He called for a “square deal” for everyone. The Boston Globe explained: “‘Justice for all alike—a square deal for every man, great or small, rich or poor,’ is the Roosevelt ideal to be attained by the framing and the administration of the law. And he would tell you that that means Mr. [J.P.] Morgan and Mr. [J.D.] Rockefeller as well as the poor fellow who cannot pay his rent.
As long as we have a popular State-sponsored propaganda network broadcasting lies, the magas will not have a clue what hit them even after it hits them like stars falling on Alabama.
https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/hodges-meteorite-strike-sylacauga-aerolite/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_Fell_on_Alabama
i always appreciate you contributions, Ivy! 🏆
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/30/weather/hurricanes-satellite-data-outage-delay
The abrupt cutoff of satellite data crucial for hurricane forecasting is delayed by one month, until July 31, according to a message posted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Monday.
The Defense Department will still maintain the Defense Meteorological Satellite program, but announced last week it would cease sharing the imagery with NOAA and NASA.
The decision, which was initiated by the Defense Department, caused an uproar among meteorologists, public officials and the media in the midst of hurricane season. The fear is that the missing information could degrade the accuracy of hurricane forecasts. The move comes in the wake of steep personnel cuts at the National Weather Service and other parts of NOAA.
The delay through July, both sources said, is the result of pressure from NOAA and NASA officials.
The one month delay does not solve the issue since hurricane season peaks in August and September, and there currently is no plan in place for resuming the flow of this data, even when a new Defense Department weather satellite begins operations in October.
*Maybe a ‘cane will go to West Palm Beach while Orange Adolf is on a taxpayer-funded golf outing & nobody will take shelter.
Thanks, anon. I humbly accept your commendation. 🙏
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5371442-trump-organization-removes-us-made-claims/
The Trump Organization’s new mobile phone venture, Trump Mobile, has removed language from its website suggesting that its forthcoming smartphones will be made in the U.S.
…instead advertises the $499 phone as “designed with American values in mind.”
*LoL
“ JD I recognize that aroma, why are you wearing my signature women’s fragrance??”
“I must’ve mixed up the bottles, Sir! I keep mine um right next to my wife’s! Sometimes I, I mean, we, make the figurines of you on the bottle have conversations with each other! Should I stop talking now, sir?
put zinnias on your list for next year, BiD, easy to grow from seed
✌️
NEW THREAD