Worrying Windmills and Winds of War

the Windbag whiffles onward

Attribution: Trump As Don Quixote by Malcolm McGookin, CagleCartoons.com

[Malc McGookin is a Brit/Australian whose cartoons are published all over the world. A former animator, amongst other projects, he worked on Danger Mouse, Count Duckula and The BFG feature movie He also directed and scripted series for Childrens Television Workshop (the Sesame Street people). He draws for the Sunday Mail in Brisbane; he’s drawn for Prospect and Private Eye as well as the now defunct News Of The World and many other Fleet Street papers.]

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Author: patd

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

100 thoughts on “Worrying Windmills and Winds of War”

  1. BTW for purposes of this thread from AI copilot: “The term “whiffle” means to blow unsteadily or in gusts.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-spirals-out-of-control-over-windmills-biggest-hoax-of-them-all/ar-AA1JAQqs?ocid=BingNewsSerp

    President DonaldTrump is in a spin yet again over “windmills,” calling them ”the biggest Hoax of them all.”
    The president has a long-standing issue with turbines, dating back to a dispute in 2006, and a resulting court battle in 2013. “I want to see the ocean, I do not want to see windmills‚” he said after finding out about the Scottish government’s plans to construct a wind farm near his golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland.
    He has returned to the issue many times, and after his trip this week to his links on the northeast coast of Scotland, he is enraged again.
    On Truth Social on Wednesday, he referenced an appearance by Mandy Gunasekara, a Project 2025 co-author and climate denier, on Fox Business’ Varney & Co, where she discussed what Trump called the “Environment Scam.”
    “Wow, she really gets it, including the biggest Hoax of them all, WINDMILLS!” he wrote, adding: “We won’t be approving any of those money losing monstrosities in the Trump Administration. Great job Mandy!”
    It comes after Trump promptly reignited his war on windmills as soon as he arrived in Scotland last week. “Stop the windmills! You are ruining your countries. I really mean it,“ he told reporters on the tarmac at Glasgow’s Prestwick Airport on Friday.
    “It’s so sad. You fly over and you see the windmills all over the place ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds, and—if they are stuck in the ocean—ruining your oceans,” he went on.
    He was at it again on Sunday, ranting about the renewable energy source in front of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
    “And the other thing I say to Europe: We will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States, they’re killing us,” Trump said. “They’re killing the beauty of our scenery, our valleys, our beautiful plains—I’m not talking about airplanes, I’m talking about beautiful plains.”
    During another Truth Social meltdown in June, Trump raged against Democrats, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, and… Chinese-made windmills.
    His hatred for the structures reached its zenith in 2019 when he claimed, without evidence, that windmills cause cancer.
    “And they say the noise causes cancer,” he said at a Republican fundraiser, before mimicking the noise of the swooshing turbine arms.
    In 2012, he was posting online (again without evidence) about “bird-killing wind turbines” that the Chinese were “illegally dumping” offshore.
    In 2006, when the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group was constructing an offshore wind farm near his course, Trump wrote in an angry letter to Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister at the time.
    “With the reckless installation of these monsters, you will single-handedly have done more damage to Scotland than virtually any event in Scottish history,” he raged.
    “I have just authorized my staff to allocate a substantial amount of money to launch an international campaign to fight your plan to surround Scotland’s coast with many thousands of wind turbines,” Trump continued.
    Trump lost the argument; 11 turbines were built and, in 2019, a court ordered Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd to pay the Scottish government’s legal bills.


  2. The EPA is seeking to scrap limits on greenhouse gas emissions, America’s fertility rate hit an all-time low, and the president’s son weighed in on the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle eugenics controversy.

  3. speaking of the ways winds and windbags are blowing these days here’s an origins story from the daily show yesterday

    From his humble beginnings in Newark to his scrappy days in Boston, Joe Rogan has always pushed his brains to the limit. Rogan’s stand-up comedy led him to a career in television, eventually inspiring him to start his own podcast where he could ask the really important questions, like, “Wouldn’t it be crazy if a wolf wore a fedora?” This is The Daily Showography of Joe Rogan. #DailyShow #JoeRogan #Podcast #Comedy …

  4. Count Duckula and Danger Mouse! Favorites of my children, and me.

    Much of what is showing up on twit lately is interesting. The russian bots are running into all sorts of problems bucking up krasnov, the usual attack scripts are failing to get any results. magats are not getting traction. Looking like there are non-liberal actors putting together the goodbye party for mangomoron.

    Vance’s name pops up, but not a lot of actual Vance. It is kinda of like a fan dance, you gets a glimpse of something, but you cannot be sure it was really skin.

    The deterioration of sfb is so evident now even the magats have to see it, even if they dismiss it. Possibly the 2025 group is going to let stupid do a drop and room temperature instead of an overt replacement.

  6. So WaPo looks at late night.

    Late night isn’t dead. Yet.
    But its future, which was never exactly bright, might be cratering. The hoary format’s downward slide has, up until this point, been comparatively slow, with advertising dollars dwindling and viewership declining as audiences drift to faster, more casual platforms. But the financial pressures, together with a vengeful president and a corporate culture willing to appease him, might be more than the genre can withstand.

    The occasion for this pre-mortem is, of course, the firing of Stephen Colbert, who announced two weeks ago that Paramount Global, CBS’s parent company, is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” The talk show will end in May, and so will the whole “Late Show” franchise that began with David Letterman when he decamped from NBC (where he hosted “Late Night”) to CBS in 1993. It is, in other words, the end of a TV institution.

    How much this matters depends on one’s attachment to Colbert’s show and to late night generally. The latter has endured as a genial American cultural tradition laced with just enough residual Protestantism to be bold but also unreasonable: It requires groundbreaking, brilliant, irreverent comics to amuse us with middlebrow material while wearing respectable suits. The significance of losing that tranche of reliable, half-scripted infotainment depends, too, on one’s interpretation of Colbert’s cancellation. There are two complementary narratives, and they’re not easy to disentangle. One concerns the aforementioned slow collapse of broadcast television, which is real: The ad revenue for all the late-night shows was $220 million in 2024, down from $439 million in 2018. The other is the president’s (considerably speedier) mission to silence, persecute, harass or punish his critics.

    Neither narrative, however, bodes well for late night….

    That pretty much sums it up as I see it, but there’s more.

    I’ve focused here on the men in suits because they’re the only ones left. While Netflix has renewed Letterman’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” for two more seasons (no word on “Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney”), the streamer has cut the cord on a slough of productions including Hasan Minhaj’s “Patriot Act,” “The Break With Michelle Wolf” and Chelsea Handler’s “Chelsea.” TBS canceled “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” Hulu canceled “I Love You, America With Sarah Silverman,” Comedy Central canceled “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore,” and Facebook Watch discontinued Jada Pinkett-Smith’s “Red Table Talk.” Other casualties include Robin Thede’s BET show “The Rundown,” “The Amber Ruffin Show” on Peacock and NBC’s “A Little Late With Lilly Singh.”

    The withering of late night is not, in other words, new. TBS reduced the length of O’Brien’s talk show, “Conan,” to a half-hour in 2019 before the show ended in 2021. CBS canceled “The Late Late Show” in 2023, when James Corden — who succeeded Craig Ferguson — left the network. CBS also canceled “After Midnight,” its “Late Late Show” successor, after comic Taylor Tomlinson decided to leave earlier this year.
    “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on NBC and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” have managed to hang on in an increasingly hostile and competitive multiplatform media environment. They survived the rise of smartphones, the YouTube-ization of comedy into shareable clips and the onslaught of social media, which (in its infancy, anyway) gave users the kind of thrilling unfiltered access to celebrities that late night couldn’t deliver. They survived the pandemic and Twitter and friendly, talented, supercharged, Emmy-gobbling usurpers like “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.” They’ve even survived TikTok and Jon Stewart’s return to “The Daily Show.”
    But the format is labor-intensive, expensive and slow compared with platforms like YouTube. The interviews are too formal and scripted to compete with freewheeling celebrity-on-celebrity podcasts like “WTF With Marc Maron,” “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” and “SmartLess” with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett. Many of the viewers advertisers most value have decamped from broadcast television to streaming.

    And the pivot to political commentary, largely spearheaded by Meyers and Colbert, gave the shows some urgency (and virality, via YouTube). Colbert’s ratings started taking off once he started getting really political. It wasn’t a universally admired move; former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno inveighed against the influx of politics in late night just this month in an interview with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “I like to think people come to a comedy show to get away from the pressures of life,” he said. “I don’t understand why you would alienate one particular group.” But there was a reason, as Leno himself pointed out back in 2017. Fallon, his successor, who at that point was still refraining from doing much political humor, was suddenly (and surprisingly) losing viewers to Colbert. “We live in an era now where if you don’t take sides, both sides hate you,” Leno said then…

    It’s a long piece, but interesting if you’re at all interested in the format and its streaming successors, for whom it’s no day in the park either.

  8. After college I rarely watched anything late unless it was a weekend. There were times when I was on midnights or 24/7 callout when I might catch some TV time, but those were rare. Having jobs that required me to be out of the rack by 0400 or 0500 made staying up to watch nearly impossible. Looking back I don’t think I missed much.

  10. Since I stream Paramount +, I rarely watch Colbert until the morning after the night before. While I enjoy him, the format is a disappointment as anything following the monologue is usually nothing more than advertising for upcoming films or TV.

    Harking back to the good old days, Steve Allen and Johnny Carson were mainly guests who moved down the couch and engaged in actual conversations. They were also at least 90 minutes in length.

    What Craig is fiddling with of cut and paste individual or group chats to create a You Tube show could well be on the way of a combination that some group could use to garner advertising dollars, particularly if it can mix in music without violating copyright. Just ball parking here …

  11. Speaking of the Way Back Machine, Steve Allen had a wonderful public TV Show: Meeting of Minds. He and his wife Jayne Meadows plus other actors played historical characters gathering for a roundtable discussion. Here is the first show.

  13. “bird-killing wind turbines”

    Since when did Dodo give a shit about birds ❓

  15. when he started this windmill obsession in campaign rallies last year i looked into where it comes from — it started when he got into a huge nasty fight with Scotland over wind turbines they placed (or were planning to place) within eyesight of his golf course. Don’t remember how that turned out but he’s been ranting about them ever since

  16. Enjoyed your cheese comment, Poobah. I love American cheese (some of it, anyway). If I’m going cheddar, Vermont cheddar (sharp or extra sharp, thank you) is my go-to. Ironically enough, with an Italian wife Mozzarella features large in our cheese larder. Even more ironic, the Fresh Mozz Mrs. P loves is a Wisconsin product (Bel Gioioso), made in the Italian way – with cultures rather than lemon juice to make it tangy. Even more ironic, the Italian brand we buy of regular Mozzarella is 40% cheaper per oz. than the American brand. ($.31 vs. $.50/oz, and even cheaper if we get it at Sam’s – $.20/oz). Now we’re not talking Brie or Gruyere, but in fairness, one VERY good Italian Mozzarella we occasionally think about but pass on is $1.35/oz. And of course there’s Pecorino Romano (aged Italian with Sam’s brand on it is $.625/oz versus American at over $1.00/oz.) You can do the math. The guy who criticized liberals for buying expensive foreign cheese is as my Italian MIL would say, is talking out of his paper ass.

  17. Scotland told him to take a hike. They would put up the wind turbines where they were needed. It might be his golf course, but it was their ocean.

  19. Per NOAA there is no scientific evidence that noise resulting from offshore wind site characterization surveys could potentially cause whale deaths. There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.

  20. And MIT answers the question, “Do wind turbines kill birds?”

    Yes—but only a fraction as many as are killed by house cats, buildings, or even the fossil fuel operations that wind farms replace.

    Updated December 12, 2023

    Wind turbines have long garnered scrutiny for killing birds that fly into their spinning blades or tall towers. Much of the data about bird deaths at wind facilities in the United States comes from studies published in 2013 and 2014. Those studies gave a wide range for the number of birds that die in wind turbine collisions each year: from 140,000 up to 679,000.1 The numbers are likely to be higher today, because many more wind farms have been built in the past decade.2

    Those numbers are not insignificant, but they represent a tiny fraction of the birds killed annually in other ways, like flying into buildings or caught by prowling house cats, which past studies have estimated kill up to 988 million3 and 4 billion4 birds each year, respectively. Other studies have shown that many more birds—between 12 and 64 million each year—are killed in the U.S. by power lines, which connect wind and other types of energy facilities to people who use the electricity.5

    Other sources of electricity are also more lethal for birds than wind energy. A 2012 study found that wind projects kill 0.269 birds per gigawatt-hour of electricity produced, compared to 5.18 birds killed per gigawatt-hour of electricity from fossil fuel projects.6 That’s in part due to collisions with equipment (wind turbines aren’t the only energy infrastructure birds can fly into), but mostly because of the environmental impact of fossil fuels. ..
    [Continues]

    Footnotes

    1 Loss, Scott R., Tom Will, and Peter P. Marra, “Estimates of bird collision mortality at wind facilities in the contiguous United States.” Biological Conservation, Volume 168, 2013, doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2013.10.007; Erickson, Wallace P., et al., “A Comprehensive Analysis of Small-Passerine Fatalities from Collision with Turbines at Wind Energy Facilities.” PLoS ONE, Volume 9, Issue 9, 2014, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0107491; Smallwood, K. Shawn, “Comparing bird and bat fatality-rate estimates among North American wind-energy projects.” Wildlife Society Bulletin, Volume 37, Issue 1, 2013, doi:10.1002/wsb.260.
    2 U.S. Energy Information Administration: “Wind Explained.” Accessed August 17, 2023.
    3 Loss, Scott R., et al., “Bird–building collisions in the United States: Estimates of annual mortality and species vulnerability.” The Condor, Volume 116, Issue 1, 2014, doi:10.1650/CONDOR-13-090.1.
    4 Loss, Scott R., Tom Will, and Peter P. Marra, “The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States.” Nature Communications, Volume 4, 2013, doi:10.1038/ncomms2380.
    5 Loss, Scott R., Tom Will, and Peter P. Marra, “Refining Estimates of Bird Collision and Electrocution Mortality at Power Lines in the United States.” PLoS ONE, Volume 9, Issue 7, 2014, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0101565.
    6 Sovacool, Benjamin K., “The avian benefits of wind energy: A 2009 update.” Renewable Energy, Volume 49, 2013, doi:10.1016/j.renene.2012.01.074.

    Didn’t Dumbass brag about his familial tie to MIT? Why, shouldn’t this change his mind? (Sorry, I think I just peed myself a little).

  21. I will be getting in the virtual studio after lunch playing with some bells and whistles. Would like to experiment with sharing youtube music videos and discussing. Would appreciate suggestions and participation.

  24. Could they paint a pattern on one blade of turbine and reduce bird deaths? Also, not a huge cause of bird deaths. Also, what about avian flu; no cares about that from this administration and it impacts humans as well as egg prices.

    Also, when I got an 8-5, I videotaped late night and soap operas, but didn’t have time to watch them. After fast-forwarding through them for a short while, I just stopped. The Daily Show was on at 10, and was only 39 minutes, so I could stay up for that. Sometimes, I would stay up for Letterman’s monologue and top ten list.
    Never cared much for most interviews, and care even less now. Back in the covered wagon days, it was a treat to see someone on Carson. Over-exposure, selling their own branded stuff, the realization that they are more lucky than special and don’t look good naturally. Celebrities aren’t celebrated anymore; that’s not a bad thing.

    ->Also, and this also is important, a Ron Wyden piece from the Senate Finance Committee airs on YouTube out tonight about the MONEY trail of the Epstein files.

  26. That’s an updated version from Fall Out Boy (1989-2023), but someone could do a remake on just the last election until today. Maybe they have, but I just don’t know about it.

    And since my phone caused the static, I’ll stay off. I heard it too, but not until Jack joined in, so maybe my phone reacted to a 4th person. IDK

  27. we’re fact checking Trump’s bird claims now?

    He just doesn’t wanna talk about Epstein, which I have to admit, stinks more and more as new information is made public

    Trump doesn’t give a shit about birds, by the way, he doesn’t even give a shit about people

  28. here I have a song for you sung to the tune of Willie and the hand jive

    Bird claims
    Bird claims
    Bird claims
    Make those crazy claims

    know some people who chat online
    rarely think that all is fine
    they’re good folks yeah they’re really sweet
    but they get distracted by every tweet

    bird claims
    bird claims
    bird claims
    parse them crazy claims

  29. Talking Heads tried to warn us about climate change and such, but it’s same as it ever was, although the World Court says otherwise. (Mid-song, there are graphics with statistics that are surely much worse now.)

  31. Yes we watched the entire Billy Joel documentary. Didn’t mean too but it was surprisingly riveting. Hey, just like here we don’t always have to talk politics in this video chat thingie

  32. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/world-court-climate-opinion-turns-up-legal-heat-governments-2025-07-29/

    THE HAGUE, July 29 (Reuters) – A landmark opinion delivered by the United Nations’ highest court last week that governments must protect the climate is already being cited in courtrooms, as lawyers say it strengthens the legal arguments in suits against countries and companies.

    The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, last Wednesday laid out the duty of states to limit harm from greenhouse gases and to regulate private industry.

    While not specifically naming the United States, the court said countries that were not part of the United Nations climate treaty must still protect the climate as a matter of human rights law and customary international law.

  33. I don’t watch TV news or listen to that much news these days, I just read, so I hadn’t seen or heard the Trump press conference that maybe you all did, but Olbermann played clips from it in his last show and it sure sounds like a certain person that we all talk about a lot admitted to minor sex trafficking in that clip

    He wasn’t trying to admit to minor sex trafficking, but it sure sounded like he did!

  34. TACO Don is at it again.

    News Alert: Trump announces agreement to pause higher tariffs on Mexico for 90 days

    President Donald Trump announced on Thursday he’s extending the existing tariffs with Mexico, America’s largest trading partner, and he will pause higher tariffs that were set to go into effect Friday.

    That means the status quo will continue, in which goods from Mexico are taxed at 25%, unless they are compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal Trump signed under his first term. In those instances, goods won’t face any tariffs, barring certain sectoral tariffs in place.

  35. This is an amazing song and video. Maybe the first 30 seconds and the last thirty seconds, although the last is a different song and probably in public domain by now.

  37. Georgia detainee with prosthetic legs who objected to flooded cell sent to solitary
    Rodney Taylor placed in ‘restrictive unit’ for refusing to enter flooded cell because his prosthetic legs can’t get wet

    so inhumane

    these thugs won’t treat you or i any better if and when they come for us

    in fact, I think they’d get a real kick out of abusing me

    “well what do we have here a comedian, huh?”

  39. Having traveled through western Kansas and seen many wind mills. Ya know, they don’t spin very fast and it would take a real dumb bird to fly into one of them. So I really don’t believe this urban legend, you can if you want.
    BTW, I’m in the camp, if there is a problem, there is an easy fix.
    Mean while instead of going on about Trump’s brain power you might want to talk about how wind power is bringing money to struggling farmers in the great plains. Ya know one of those places where if Democrats can get 30% of the vote, they can flip the state of Kansas.
    Just sayin’

    Jack

  40. BiD – If the bird-brained birds fly into buildings, which don’t move, I doubt painting the vanes on windmills, which do move, will make any difference. (And with figures as broad as 140,000 – 679,000, it’s hard to say there’s any accuracy at all to those estimates). It’s similar to Jack’s comments about AI – GIGO. But at least there are numbers.

  41. Anon, here’s your Epstein.

    The House Oversight Committee is made for viral moments. It deals with some of the testiest issues on Capitol Hill, and many of the dramatic confrontations that make the rounds on social media are from the committee. It once again thrust itself into the spotlight after one of its subcommittees voted to subpoena the Justice Department’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, going further on the case than Republican leadership seemed willing to go.

    Enter Rep. Robert Garcia (California), the second-term Democrat selected by his party to lead them on the committee — and the man who bypassed the committee’s Republican leadership to subpoena the files.

    Garcia has been the top ranking Democrat on the committee since June. He’s using the position to model how Democrats can push back on the Trump administration as voters repeatedly implore Democratic lawmakers to be more aggressive.

  42. Because of the way birds see, the painting of one spoke on the turbines does seem to decrease bird kills. This is already being used in Europe. Of course, figuring out how to stop window reflection on tall buildings would save a lot more.

  45. Jamie
    On the tall buildings Probably if they would just build in artwork into the glass. But given the taste of developers like Trump , that could be a garish mess too.
    There may be no solution, except smarter birds and will come as evolution improves them.

    Jack

  47. Kamala shouldn’t have accepted the nomination if she didn’t wanna be a leader

    infuriating

    history will be kinder to Neville Chamberlain than her and Biden

    purge the party, primary them all

  48. https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2025/07/19/red-carpet-rolls-out-chief-war-premiere-with-jason-momoa/

    Momoa plays Ka’iana, an alii of Kauai in the historical drama about King Kamehameha the Great’s unification of the Hawaiian islands in the late 19th century.

    “We can talk about Hawaiian history in a way that is appropriate,” Sibbett told Hawaii News Now. “When have we ever been able to have that conversation?”

    The nine-part Apple TV+ series has been years in the making, with filming in New Zealand and Hawaii, with several local actors in leading roles.

    *This will open eyes like “Roots” did in the 1970s. It needs to happen more often, so the message sticks.

  50. funny, fetterman is as dumb as as he looks

    great job Pennsylvania

    “you know what Democrats need? a big dumb palooka!”

    great job Dems

  51. Wind Farms and Birds Are Learning to Coexist

    Built as the world’s first nature-positive wind farm, Fryslan incorporates a number of innovative measures to reduce collision risks to birds, including radar systems to monitor bird movements through the turbine array, and even several man-made islands that provide breeding habitat for seabirds such as the Common Tern, Sterna hirundo.

    A 2016 study estimated that the total number of birds killed by wind farms in North America was in the region of 140,000 to 328,000 birds per year. That may sound like a lot, but it pales in comparison with the 16 to 42 million birds per year killed by collisions with buildings. And it is still fewer than the estimated 512,000 birds killed annually by the direct impacts of generating electricity from coal, oil and gas.

    One of the best ways to minimize conflict between birds and renewable energy infrastructure is to produce collision risk maps. Producing these maps at regional, country or continent scale can help developers and planning authorities avoid the most high-risk areas for birds in relation to wind farms and power lines.

    *I worked in a building with huge windows around the front of the building, I would estimate 16-18 ft. around the lobby. It was a single-story building, with too high ceilings in the front and a drop ceiling toward the offices; not energy-efficient. Many birds hit those windows. The problem wasn’t that they flew into the building, but flew into the windows.

  52. “suit up, we are going to war!”

    “who will be our leader?”

    “a stroke victim!”

  53. Anon – Fetterman’s personality changed after his stroke, but I wonder if he’s siding with Republicans because Orange Adolf threatened to deport his wife and kids.

  54. there were birds
    In the air
    But I never saw them winging
    No, I never saw them at all
    Until I was implicated in the Epstein scandal

  55. “there were minors
    oh so many minors
    worked for me in massage*
    oh no
    did i
    just say that out loud
    oh shit”

    that’s the bridge, it’s clumsy but i didn’t write it 🤷‍♂️

    *yes a “prominent figure” actually said that (paraphrasing, artistic license, all posts under this handle are satire!)

  58. you can literally hear Trump silently think “oh shit” when he admits Virginia Guiffre worked in his spa at Mar-a-Lago and then say how good Mar-a-Lago‘s massages were

    I will have to suffer through re-listening to it to get the exact phrasing. It’s more damning than I can express.

    it’s in this episode

  59. Senate Republicans Vote to Allow Trump to Keep Gifted Qatari Jet After Leaving Office

    On Thursday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said on X/Twitter that he offered an amendment to the Appropriations Committee to “prohibit the Qatari jet that was gifted to Trump” to be transferred to him after his presidency.

    “The fight against corruption has to be ceaseless,” Murphy added.

    Update: “I offered the amendment,” he said. “Not to refuse acceptance of the Qatari jet; just to prohibit Trump from taking it with him when he leaves office – after the taxpayers spend $1 billion to retrofit it.

    “Failed 14-15. Every single Republican voted to allow Trump to take the jet.”

    *FFS! It was gifted to the US, it’s costing US taxpayer a billion dollars to upgrade, and now he’s stealing it in his way out. I hope he goes down to his watery grave in that thing, if he’s still alive by the time they’re fine with it. He seems to be decaying before our eyes.

  60. I was poised to pose the question where is all the university extortion money going but the answer seems obvious, same place as the retrofitted jet.

  61. I enjoyed my week with family. They don’t want to talk about politics anymore. Guess the shame and guilt is finally getting to them.

  62. i’m on the white side of town and everybody’s speeding in a fast expensive car

    The black guy got pulled over

    🇺🇸

  63. Every single Republican voted to allow Trump to take the jet.

    The US in under a fully Authoritarian regime, elected republicans are astoundingly spineless, should be ashamed of themselves if they were capable of it

    maybe I shouldn’t attribute to cowardice what may be simply aspirational greed

  64. After destroying and paving over the Rose Garden, sfb is going to destroy the East Wing of the White House. It is like he does not understand or care about history of the building. Even more exciting is the White House was rebuilt before, and there have been more internal changes over the years. The changes are to “harden” the place against things that go boom, to reduce electronic listening or invasion, and generally make it hard to destroy. He wants to replace it with a ball room. A totally useless piece of junk. Cheeseburger for the win, trip and fall for spectacle.

  67. Jamie, my understanding is that there are 2 on order that are being built up to USAF specs for AF-1 that should certainly be finished and ready for delivery when Dumbass flies to MAL for good. That will be the justification of the MAGAts for him to keep the Qatari flying palace.

    From a Feb. 20, 2025 article in AirandSpaceForces.com:

    Boeing has been working on a replacement for the current VC-25A “Air Force One” jets since 2015. During Trump’s first term, he took a keen interest in the program, first expressing displeasure with the price, then announcing a new deal worth $3.9 billion for two aircraft in 2018 and revealing plans for a new paint scheme in 2019.

    The program continues to suffer delays, however. The Air Force settled on two Boeing 747-8 airframes and hired Boeing to be the systems integrator for the many extensive modifications needed to transform a basis commercial jetliner into a “mobile West Wing.”…

    In its latest budget request, the Air Force projected initial operational capability for the first aircraft in mid-2028, and some media outlets have reported that date might slip further, to 2029. That would put the program five years behind its original timeline and drag out to 14 years the time from program start to delivery of just two jets.

    Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in media interviews in recent weeks that Elon Musk—the billionaire owner of SpaceX and a close adviser to Trump—is working with the company to help deliver the VC-25B faster.

    Let’s see how he fucks with that.

  68. If the Qatari jet will jet him off to permanent exile in Qatari, I’m all for it. ✈️

  69. Ha, given Musk success with his rockets, I wouldn’t want to be the first passenger to fly on it. A good chance it might blowup on the runway.

    And just what does having Musk looking over their shoulder do to speed things up?
    I suspect part of the reason everything is behind schedule is too much supervision and too many “can we just change this” requests.

    Jack

  70. There will be a massive de-nazification needed after he’s gone. It will take a decade or more.

  72. Oh no, what next?

    Justin Timberlake has revealed he has Lyme disease and opened up about the health challenges that have come with it.

    In a post on Instagram Thursday, the pop singer, who wrapped up his two-year tour yesterday, called the tick-borne illness “relentlessly debilitating.”

    “If you’ve experienced this disease or know someone who has — then you’re aware: living with this can be relentlessly debilitating, both mentally and physically,” Timberlake, 44, wrote. “When I first got the diagnosis I was shocked for sure. But, at least I could understand why I would be onstage and in a massive amount of nerve pain or, just feeling crazy fatigue or sickness.”

    Early symptoms of a Lyme disease can include headache, fatigue, muscle aches, joint aches or stiffness, chills, fever and swollen lymph nodes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says early diagnosis and proper antibiotic treatment is important to prevent the illness from getting worse.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justin-timberlake-lyme-disease-diagnosis/?

  73. Jack’s interesting guitar work link doesn’t show up for me and I’m one of those who likes that sort of thing

  76. “Every single Republican voted to allow Trump to take the jet.”

    *And when I relayed that info to family after they seemed appropriately disgusted by the $200 million golden, WH being wasted money, the response was that “he can’t keep that plane; it’s against the rules.” Rules? He’s operating without rules. They still don’t effing get it. FFS!

  77. lol “rules”

    they are in an alternate media ecosystem

    they will never give you the satisfaction, give up

  81. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/31/nx-s1-5487590/trump-ballroom-white-house

    The renderings are complete, the architects and contractors have been hired. After at least 15 years of talking about it, President Trump is building a ballroom at the White House. According to the White House, the work will begin this September, with a price tag of $200 million.

    “President Trump is a builder at heart and has an extraordinary eye for detail,” said White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in a statement on Thursday.

    *He likes gaudy crap. He wants a presidential palace. King Dumbass!

  82. I was so polite to the McDonald’s employees they gave me an extra patty on my burger 😊

    The difficult customer giving them shit might’ve helped in my favor

    ty ivy

  86. If there’s any credence to this 2020 Mother Jones exposé it may be that pizzaQ@maggers were onto the case but sniffing up the wrong trail. I’ll be interested to know where Senator Wyden’s money trail leads.

    Jeffrey Epstein goes like this: He was indeed operating a child sex ring; he was videotaping members of the global elite engaged in sex acts with underage girls on his private island; and he was using this footage to blackmail them, either for his own personal enrichment or on behalf of any number of intelligence agencies. The Epstein-as-intelligence angle posits either that he was conducting the sex trafficking at the governments’ request or that he was already doing the trafficking when governments took notice and started using him as an asset. The theory neatly justifies both his untraceable wealth and outlandish special treatment in the criminal justice system, and there is some compelling evidence to go along with it: When prosecutors raided his home in 2019, a safe was found containing multiple CDs with the label “Young [Name] + [Name].” Also found was a fake Austrian passport containing his photograph and a spoofed name that listed his residence as Saudi Arabia (this safe also contained 48 loose diamonds and $70,000 in cash). In August 2019, citing a friend of Ghislaine Maxwell, Vanity Fair reported that Epstein and Maxwell had the island home “completely wired for video,” and that they were videotaping their guests as a form of blackmail.

    I Called Everyone in Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Black Book

  87. Ivy – I posted that a couple of nights ago. It’s a long read, and I was disgusted by the folks around Epstein who knew what was going on (like that old art dealer), based on the conversations with that journalist. There are also parts of the story I wish I could un-read.

  88. I posted that a couple of nights ago. It’s a long read

    i got halfway through when you did, good read, author has a good style

  89. Smithsonian caves to nazification.

    The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in July removed references to President Donald Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit display. A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the change came about as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director.
    A temporary label including content about Trump’s impeachments had been on display since September 2021 at the Washington museum, a Smithsonian spokesperson told The Washington Post, adding that it was intended to be a short-term addition to address current events. Now, the exhibit notes that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2025/07/31/trump-impeachment-smithsonian/?

  90. i got halfway through when you did, good read, author has a good style

    Thanks, BiD & Anon, it took me three days to get through it. Something in 2020 I would have completely by-passed even though I had a MoJo subscription then.

  91. https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/alabama-sex-trafficking-rescue-kids-bunker/

    Authorities in Bibb County, Alabama, rescued at least 10 children from an alleged sex trafficking ring run out of an underground bunker.

    The investigation into the case, which involved the abuse of young children and animals, began in early February and ended at the underground bunker in Brent, Alabama, about an hour from Birmingham.

    Authorities say at least 10 children were drugged and taken to the bunker. Victims ranged from three to 15 years old, according to officers, and multiple suspects have been accused of paying to abuse them.

    *No punishment is enough for these monsters, and Maxwell needs to serve every
    day of her sentence and then have a miserable rest of her days, may they be few.

  92. That was a horrific story, BiD. I just hope Alamaggers won’t escape the obvious comparisons.

  93. 📊 STAT DUDE STRIKES AGAIN
    When the polls slip, he spirals — and America gets the graphs it deserves.
    This isn’t a dip. It’s a sinkhole with a podcast.

  94. https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-oversight-democrat-addresses-going-after-steve-bannons-secret-jeffrey-epstein-tapes/

    The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee said he and his fellow lawmakers are “absolutely” going to subpoena people with connections to Jeffrey Epstein, potentially including Steve Bannon.

    The former Trump White House strategist has about 15 hours of unreleased video footage of Epstein that was shot in 2019, before the disgraced financier was arrested on sex-trafficking charges, according to Epstein’s brother Mark.

    The two were working together on a documentary to rehabilitate Jeffrey Epstein’s reputation, his brother said. Bannon has since released a two-minute trailer for The Monsters: Epstein’s Life Among the Global Elite, which he now says will be released as a five-part series early next year.

    Before breaking for the August recess, the House Oversight Committee defied Republican leadership and voted to subpoena the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.

    Garcia said that Rep. James Comer, the House Oversight chair, now needs to issue that subpoena, but that committee members are also trying to get material from Epstein’s estate—including a 2003 book of birthday letters allegedly featuring a vulgar drawing by Donald Trump—and are encouraging whistleblowers to come forward with information.

    *Not sure I can watch Senator Wyden’s live YouTube interview tonight, but I hope it’s not just rehashing what he said on the floor.

  96. Trump Welcomes NFL Hall of Famer Arrested for Statutory Rape: ‘Nobody Like Him’

    As President Donald Trump continues facing questions about his relationship with deceased child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, on Thursday he welcomed NFL Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor to the White House.

    The former New York Giants linebacker and several other famous athletes were on hand at the White House for a bill-signing ceremony. The legislation Trump signed reinstates the Presidential Fitness Test, which commenced in the 1950s and was discontinued in 2013.

    “Lawrence, you wanna say a few words?” Trump asked Taylor. “Come on up.”

    “I’m just proud to be on this team,” Taylor told ceremony attendees.

    “Nobody like him,” the president said.

    Taylor, now 66, was arrested in 2010 for statutory rape at a Holiday Inn in upstate New York. Police at the time said the victim was 16 years old and had been imprisoned against her will by another man, who was also arrested. Taylor claimed he did not know the girl was 16 and that she told him she was 19. In 2011, Taylor pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct and patronizing a prostitute, both misdemeanors.

    *Victim blaming; but she said she was 19. Did she? Just thinking back to my friends at ages 16 and 19, and there’s no way a junior in high school looks like a sophomore in college. She talked to the police, so she wasn’t OK with what he did.

  97. Also there, Chief’s kicker and misogynist, Harrison Butker, who gave a college commencement address and told the females the most worthwhile thing they could do is have babies.

    “I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” Butker proclaimed. “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

    He urged the men in the graduating class to be “unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men.”

    https://www.irishstar.com/sport/other-sports/donald-trump-harrison-butker-compliment-35655567

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