60 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  2. Attribution: Trump´s militarization of D.C by Dario Castillejos, Oaxaca, Mexico
    [Dario Castillejos is a Mexican cartoonists and illustrator, and his work is syndicated internationally by Cagle Cartoons.]

  3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/08/16

    Republican-led states to send hundreds more National Guard troops to D.C.
    National Guard troops in Washington may soon carry weapons, a reversal of their initial orders.
    Updated
    August 16, 2025 at 11:09 p.m. EDTyesterday at 11:09 p.m. EDT

    Three Republican-led states, responding to a Trump administration request, said Saturday they will send up to 750 National Guard troops to join 800 already mobilized in D.C.
    South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said he would deploy 200 troops “to stand with President Trump as he works to restore law and order to our nation’s capital.” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he was sending 150 military police from the state’s National Guard. The Ohio Guard members are expected to arrive to D.C. in the coming days, DeWine said in a statement.
    They followed West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey, who said 300 to 400 National Guard troops would be called up.
    The new deployments, marking a major escalation of President Donald Trump’s efforts to take over law enforcement in the nation’s capital, came amid indications that the troops may soon be carrying weapons, a reversal of their initial orders.
    The troops are still awaiting written instructions from senior Defense Department officials, one of several people familiar with the planning said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the fluid situation.
    Initial deployment orders specified that National Guard personnel, while wearing body armor, would leave their weapons at the armory. “They will not be armed, nor will they have weapons in their vehicles,” an Army statement said Thursday.
    A White House official, responding to questions, said that the National Guard troops “may be armed, consistent with their mission and training, to protect federal assets, provide a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests, and deter violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence.”
    “The National Guard is not making arrests at this time,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the White House.
    A D.C. National Guard spokesman, Capt. Tinashe Machona, referred questions about a change in weapons policy to the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which referred questions back to the National Guard.
    Machona said that while “we are aware that other states want to participate,” he had no specifics regarding their number or when they would be deployed.
    In announcing the D.C. National Guard deployments, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters Thursday that the troops will not be conducting law enforcement activities during their mobilization in D.C.
    Protests over the deployment of National Guard troops in D.C. have been sporadic. On Saturday, a group confronted some service members on Constitution Avenue with signs and chants of “Free D.C.” before police separated the crowd from the troops.
    […]
    For the most part, the D.C. troops deployed over the past several days have positioned themselves outside federal buildings and monuments and Union Station, and have rarely been seen in the vicinity of Department of Homeland Security and FBI officers who have become highly visible on the street, clearing homeless encampments and making what the Justice Department said Saturday have been 189 arrests, including 75 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
    D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) denounced the deployments on social media Saturday night, stating, “American soldiers and airmen policing American citizens on American soil is #UnAmerican.”
    In South Carolina, Sen. Deon Tedder (D) criticized the governor’s decision to send state National Guard troops to the nation’s capital during hurricane season, calling it “reckless and morally responsible.” McMaster, the state’s governor, said the Guard members would be recalled immediately in the case of a hurricane or natural disaster.
    Morrisey, the West Virginia governor, said Saturday that his state’s National Guard deployment to D.C. will be funded at the federal level and that troops will be provided with mission-essential equipment and specialized training.
    “West Virginia is proud to stand with President Trump in his effort to restore pride and beauty to our nation’s capital,” Morrisey wrote in a statement Saturday. “The men and women of our National Guard represent the best of our state, and this mission reflects our shared commitment to a strong and secure America.”
    DeWine said Guard members from his state would “carry out presence patrols and serve as added security,” adding that none of them were currently serving as law enforcement officers in Ohio.

  4. sorry about the length but good food for thought this morning from John Stoehr at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trolling-the-president-how-the-myth-of-trump-s-mental-fitness-has-finally-been-revealed-opinion/

    You may have noticed something. I used to talk about the president’s dementia pretty regularly, but haven’t in months. That’s because I’ve lost faith. I used to believe the Washington press corps would see the plainly obvious. I no longer believe that. The hypocrisy is too baked in.
    The double standard that prevents political reporters from seeing Donald Trump’s totalitarianism is the same double standard that prevents them from seeing his dementia. He doesn’t make choices. Only Democrats do. He can’t be held responsible for what he says.
    President Joe Biden tried to get his facts straight, because he believes in speaking truthfully and because he took seriously his role as an honest broker. But he sometimes stumbled over this or that word. He’s old. He’s a stutterer. Old stutterers sometimes mangle what they say. He was held responsible, anyway, and ultimately driven from office.
    Trump can’t be arsed when it comes to facts. He lies with confidence and “authority,” though what he says is often insane. No one says he has dementia. No one asks. Anyone who has seen it up close likely wonders why it seems like no one sees what’s plainly obvious.
    In the absence of questions about his brains falling out of his ears, Trump looks strong. That’s his MO: do whatever you want, whenever you want, to whomever you want, safe in the knowledge that no one has the will to stop you. Therefore, if no one in the press corps has the will to doubt his mental fitness, then – voila! – he’s mentally fit, and every single unchallenged confabulation stands like a pillar of truth.
    As long as the Washington press corps looks away from Trump’s dementia, he will never seem demented. And they will continue to look away, because they are incentivized to. They need attention. Trump brings attention, even when, or especially when, his statements are insane. As long as they do that, his insanity will seem like strength.
    “Clearly trolling the president”
    This is where Gavin Newsom comes in. I know virtually nothing about his record, but I do know the California governor has been pursuing a media strategy that is a model for other ambitious Democrats to follow. It also has the potential to expose the president’s weakness.
    First, some context. Yesterday, Gavin Newsom held what he called a “big beautiful press conference” in which he announced his intention to ask voters in California to approve a plan to redraw that state’s congressional districts in response to Texas’ bid to do the same.
    He put the coming midterms in the context of insurrection. “We’re here, because Donald Trump on January 6 tried to light democracy on fire, tried to wreck this county, tried to steal an election,” he said. “And here we are, in open and plain sight, before one vote is cast in the 2026 midterm elections, and here he is, once again, trying to rig the system.”
    Newsom added: “He doesn’t play by a different set of rules. He doesn’t believe in the rules. And as a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done. It’s not enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be. We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt.
    We have got to meet fire with fire.”
    While Newsom was making these remarks, the president’s secret police showed up outside. ICE agents reportedly arrested at least one person. The LA Times would later call the episode a “show of force.” “Right outside, at this exact moment, are dozens and dozens of ICE agents,” Newsom said at the presser. “Do you think it’s coincidental? … He’s a failed president. Who else sends ICE at the same time we’re having a conversation like this? Someone who’s weak. Someone who’s broken. Someone whose weakness is masquerading as strength.”
    After the presser, Newsom took questions from reporters. One asked about the ICE agents outside. “It’s pretty sick and pathetic,” the governor said. “It’s everything you need to know, the setting we’re under. They chose the time, manner and place to send [ICE’s] district director outside, right when we’re about to have this press conference.
    “It’s everything you know about Donald Trump’s America,” Newsome said. “It was top-down. You know that for a fact. They’ll deny it, I’m sure. Maybe they won’t deny it. It’s everything you know about the authoritarian tendencies of the president of the United States. … Wake up, America. You will not have a country if he rigs this election. You will see a president running for a third term. Mark my words.”
    But it was only at the end of the presser that Newsom’s media strategy came to light. It was when a reporter asked about “posts on X that are clearly trolling the president?” As the redoubtable Jamesetta Williams said, it was a brilliant strategy. “He knows if he trolls the president by posting the way he does, the press will give him scrutiny that Trump escapes, allowing him to give this kind of compelling answer,” she said.
    Sounding like a demented old man
    What answer?
    “I hope it’s a wake up call for the president of the United States,” he said. “I’m just following his example. If you have issues with what I’m putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns with what he’s putting out, as president. To the extent that it’s gotten some attention, I’m pleased, but I think the deeper question is how have we allowed the normalization of his tweets and Truth Social posts over the course of the last many years to go without similar scrutiny and notice.”
    See what’s going on here?
    First, let’s note what he’s not doing. Newsom is not playing by the old playbook saying Democrats should not go low, where the Republicans always go, for fear of bringing every discussion down to their level. Newsom is playing two levels at the same time: calling for America to wake up before a despot completely takes over as well as mercilessly mocking said despot by using the same tone and tenor he uses daily.
    Second, Newsom is counting on the press corps to be exactly what it is: an amoral group of attention-seekers that is happy to play along with Trump’s authoritarianism if it’s convenient, even if that means sacrificing their credibility by holding the Democrats to the highest standard while holding the Republicans to none at all. For the last week, Newsom’s office has been trolling Trump (see the top image for an example), as Trump trolls everyone, and yesterday, a reporter wanted to know why, which is a question Newsom can predict will come from reporters who are oblivious to their double standard.
    Third, he can comment on that double standard and raise awareness of it not only among people who consume the news but among people who produce it. It’s one thing for Newsom to say Donald Trump is weak and “broken” (that’s Newsom’s code word for dementia), and that his “weakness is masquerading as strength.” It is another to level those allegations while suggesting reporters have conspired for years in the masquerade. He suggests: You notice my trolling? You notice it sounds like I’m a demented old man yelling at clouds? But not Trump? Why?
    And while all that is happening, Newsom is demonstrating what real strength is by calling on voters to defend their democracy while the president sends his goons to silence him. To be honest, Newsom could not have bought better staging of the message he was trying to send.
    And with this trolling, I think Newsom paves the way for something even more powerful. Trump has convinced lots of Americans that the press corps is against them, because the press corps is liberal, and lots of reporters do backflips trying to prove they are not. But by trolling Trump – by speaking in the voice of an old man who has lost his mind – and by baiting the press corps into asking him about it, Newsom creates conditions in which it’s possible to see that the press corps protects Trump from the people by hiding the truth about him.
    Donald Trump wants people to see the media through the lens of us-versus-them. Newsom is flipping that around, and I’m all for it.
    Indeed, I think he should drop the other shoe.
    Show up for his next press conference wearing a suit that’s too big, a tie that’s too long, pants that are pulled up too high, and a tan that obviously comes out of a spray can, all while bragging about how he’s the manliness man to ever walk the earth, despite falling in love with any man who flatters him, or chickening out at the sight of conflict.
    I would love to hear questions about that.

  5. Once selection Jack. My sister played clarinet as a kid. I don’t remember it sounding like that.

    In his stupid backdrop, Alaska 2025 Pursuing Peace, Dumbass left off the most critical word for him … Prize.

  6. A long time back a man named George Macdonald Fraser wrote a series of books which purportedly pick up the story of the bully Harry Flashman after he is expelled from school for drunkenness
    in the book TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS. In so doing he has also painted a perfect personality portrait of the current orange taco.

  9. Ah my Mom played Clarinet — but as she said, “only good enough to get a band uniform”

    Yes damn time for Mozart — i’m putting in a request for sometime in the future, something by his forgotten rival Salieri (i once played him in civic theater)

  10. Something very interesting is happening in Europe. As reported krasnov “requested” President Zelensky to show up at the White House on Monday (wearing a suit). He said okiedokie. Over the weekend a few European leaders decided they would like to tag along, kind of like support crew to the big guy. I am sure sfb and his minions, and puttie, are sputtering in their chockacola’s.

    It looks like whatever rubio, puttie, miller, and stupid had planned to try to do to Ukraine leader is now an old script. I doubt they know what the new script is.

    Cloooud |🇺🇦
    @GloOouD
    ·
    2h
    🇺🇸🇺🇦🇪🇺Currently confirmed members of President Zelensky’s delegation who will visit the White House tomorrow:

    – 🇺🇦President Volodymyr Zelensky
    – 🇪🇺NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte
    – 🇪🇺President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen
    – 🇩🇪Chancellor Friedrich Merz
    – 🇮🇹Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
    – 🇫🇷President Emmanuel Macron
    – 🇬🇧Prime Minister Keir Starmer
    – 🇫🇮President Alexander Stubb

  12. Now departing Palisade, CO. A little Napa Valley with peaches. Many many peaches. And a good deal of grapes and wine.

  18. I’ve spent part of most mornings setting out in my back yard enjoying the summer and reading. Having worked outside most of my life, if you get out in either the heat or cold your body adjusts. Of course there are the extremes, below zero and above 100, that is on the F scale. Today is starting to look like one of them. It is going to be a real August summer day, it is hot and dry out there.
    Jack

  21. Jack – If you need some humidity, we’ve got all we can handle. Cool front in a few days. The almanac says an early winter, like wet snow at the end of September, I hope not.

  23. Are the n@zis aka Peter Thiel/Heritage Foundation going to push Adolf out to put the Epstein question away? Or, are they going to release the files to get rid of Adolf? Peter Thiel has ties to Epstein, and maybe some of the old coots at Herirsgr do, too.

  24. If you can handle the macabre, “Wednesday” is very good, she made a Salieri reference on the last episode

  25. Melania Trump’s Weird, Vague Letter to Putin

    In a letter first published by Fox News on Saturday, the First Lady wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin begging him to protect unnamed “children”—without specifying which children or what, exactly, she wants Putin to do to support them.

    The letter seems to be concerned with Ukrainian children—but never acknowledges the litany of indignities that they have suffered since Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    “Dear President Putin,” the First Lady’s letter begins, “Every child shares the same quiet dreams in their heart, whether born randomly into a nation’s rustic countryside or a magnificent city-center. They dream of love, possibility, and safety from danger.”
    The president reportedly hand-delivered the letter to Putin prior to their Friday summit in Anchorage, Alaska, according to Fox.

    The letter, which Melania Trump also posted on her social media accounts Saturday night, proceeds to state that parents have a “duty to nurture the next generation’s hope” and that leaders have a “responsibility to sustain our children.”

    “A simple yet profound concept, Mr. Putin, as I am sure you agree, is that each generation’s descendants begin their lives with a purity—an innocence which stands above geography, government, and ideology,” the letter continues. “Yet in today’s world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, untouched by the darkness around them—a silent defiance against the forces that can potentially claim their future. Mr. Putin, you can singlehandedly restore their melodic laughter.”

    *ps (I assume) – I don’t really care. Do you?She didn’t write it. Putin had no heart and she knows that. Was spy code embedded in it?

  26. As Feds Flaunt Trump’s Takeover, DC Pushes Back

    In a small park in northwest Washington on Friday, a group of what appeared to be eight federal agents posed for a picture in front of an anti-ICE banner. Then they tore down the sign and departed with it. In its place, they appeared to have left a dildo.

    We can’t be sure how much thought the feds gave to their actions. But by removing a banner because they didn’t like what it said, then depositing a rubber dick in a park frequented by children, they crisply conveyed what Donald Trump’s occupation of DC is really about.

    Craig -Maybe your park?

  29. I don’t know how to describe how historic this is. The big 4 in the European union all coming to the aid of Ukraine, in the defiance of the USA. This will be a historical marker of when the world order changed.
    From WAPO:

    Leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland are rallying around the Ukrainian president after his exclusion from Trump’s summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their pledge to be at Zelenskyy’s side at the White House on Monday is an apparent effort to ensure the meeting goes better than the last one in February, when Trump berated Zelenskyy in a heated Oval Office encounter .

    I’m still trying to get my head around this one.
    Jack

  30. get my head around this one.

    we are a kleptocratic global-nuisance state now

    It’s funny, Macron is not terribly popular in France like Trump is not terribly popular here, and similarly to here is kept in power by the political incompetence of his rivals

    We need him right now, France, thank you

  31. none of you individually have a responsibility to depose this government and foster a better society, but we all have that responsibility collectively

    If the people will settle for a kleptocratic global nuisance state, that is what we will have

    succinctly, Americans suck. buncha lazy dummies

    I honestly don’t understand how we tolerate roving bands of masked terrorist thugs kidnapping and disappearing people off the streets, it’s insane

    and all those government workers and all those military people who sold us a bill of goods this whole time about how virtuous they are, rolling out red carpets for murderous dictators and bending over backwards for a thieving one here

    The lie has been exposed and now we are all fucked. Trump is going to have gladiators beat each other’s brains out at the White House rose garden for Christ’s sake, and no one is up in arms about it

  32. Well, if they can’t get Ukraine an official NATO membership, but they stand together, they are sending a message of solidarity. Maybe it’s just for optics, but they know Putin will keep pushing toward them, so they have everything to gain & to lose based on the outcome.

  34. https://www.newsweek.com/melania-trump-vladimir-putin-letter-ukraine-russia-abducted-children-2114616

    Democrat strategist, Keith Edwards, said in a post to X the letter “says a whole lot of nothing,” and “may have been written by AI.” Chris Jackson, a long-time supporter of former president Joe Biden and Democrat activist, said in his own social media post that he had run the letter through AI, which had deemed the message to the Kremlin AI-generated.

    Grok, a tool developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, said the letter “shows strong signs of AI generation” with “minor human edits for tone.”

    *Melania doesn’t really care, but maybe Grok does…but I think Grok would tell us if it was Grok’s work. Grok not human, but Grok not total, lying scumbag.

    The International Criminal Court in March 2023 issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, for being “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

    *Hmmm

    UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said earlier this year that children had been subject to “summary executions, arbitrary detention, conflict-related sexual violence, torture and ill-treatment” in the four regions of Ukraine Russia claimed to have annexed in fall 2022.

    The Kremlin declared Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were part of Russia after referendums widely condemned as a sham. Russia had seized Crimea, to the south of the mainland, from Ukraine in 2014.

    “In protecting the innocence of these children, you will do more than serve Russia alone – you serve humanity itself. Such a bold idea transcends all human division, and you, Mr. Putin, are fit to implement this vision with a stroke of the pen today. It is time.”

    *Protect the children? It is time? Is she telling Vlad to release the Epstein tapes or to go hide in his bunker?

    The first lady has released an audiobook touted as “created entirely with artificial intelligence audio technology.” The seven-hour-long audiobook is narrated by Melania Trump’s “official AI voice.”

    *Melania seems to be a fem-bot.

  36. Revealed: What Melania Trump’s handwriting reveals about her personality, according to an expert

    Melania Trump’s signature is stylized and practiced, like a logo, and its verticality looks similar to his [Donald’s]. But it is tight and cramped and lacks any sign of generosity of spirit.

    We also see signs of self-deceit. She shows signs of intuition, which she may not trust and seldom uses. Her signature is half the size of his.

    ***

    President Trump’s signature is markedly different from his printed handwriting.

    His pointy signature is stylized, skyscraper tall, and overpowers anybody else’s. This is sign of extreme vanity. Such extreme vanity means that the writer inflates her or his self-esteem and brags that it’s even bigger to others.

    The signature also shows the wigwam-like structures of unlimited stubbornness. The fierce shapes of his signature are meant to be overpowering and intimidating. Its behemoth size dwarfs any and all of the signatures on the Declaration of Independence and of any previous American president.

  38. On the road in Moab, Utah

    rub it in whydoncha!

    have fun! love that place

    or “did”, before social media

  43. I’m still wondering what happened in Alaska to make Peter Alexander describe Witkoff and Leavitt as “anxious” and almost “ashen” after the meeting with Putin/right before Vlad’s speech to the world.

  45. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-of-what-putin-trump-said-in-alaska/

    “So when we’ve met, when I came out of the plane and I said, ‘Good afternoon, dear neighbor. Very good to see you in good health and to see you alive.’ I think that is very neighborly. I think that’s some kind words that we can say to each other. We’re separated by the strait of Bering, though, there are two islands only between the Russian Island and the U.S. Island. They’re only four kilometers apart. We are close neighbors, and it’s a fact.”

    *Every bit of that sounds like a threat.

    “As I’ve said, the situation in Ukraine has to do with fundamental threats to our security. Moreover, we’ve always considered the Ukrainian nation, and I’ve said it multiple times, a brotherly nation. How strange it may sound in these conditions. We have the same roots, and everything that’s happening is a tragedy for us, and terrible wound. Therefore, the country is sincerely interested in putting an end to it.”

    On to the capitalist pig section of the speeches.
    Putin: “I expect that today’s agreements will be the starting point, not only for the solution of the Ukrainian issue, but also will help us bring back business-like and pragmatic relations between Russia and the U.S.”
    “Russia and the U.S. can offer each other so much in trade, digital, high tech and in space exploration. We see that arctic cooperation is also very possible, in our international context. For example, between the far east of Russia and the West Coast of the U.S.”

    tRUMPsky:
    “We also have some tremendous Russian business representatives here. And I think, you know, everybody wants to deal with us. We’ve become the hottest country anywhere in the world in a very short period of time, and we look forward to that. We look forward to dealing- we’re going to try and get this over with.”

  46. I’m sure it’s completely different from when I was there Ivy- a lot of growth in Colorado and Utah since

    Glad I saw it all before that though

  47. After the Labor Day protests all over on the 1st, there’s another protest in DC on the 2nd to ~welcome~ Congress back to work.

  52. Anon, yep, The Russian monarchy was the white trash of European Nobility. Nothing too shiny/glittery. It is why Trump attracts the maga, they are all culturally alike.

    Jack

  54. In the Flashman book is a Pretty good description of Major General Wm Elphinstone’s attempted retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad, January, 1842 during the first Anglo-Afghan war. One of the worst debacles in military history.

  59. Wobbly pretty much describes everything, except someone like Zelensky. Nobody can put up a front for that long unless there’s some internal fortitude to back it up.

    ps – I hope Macron pulls Adolf in close and brings up the Epstein files when they are doing that weird handshake.

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