Who’s the Leader of the Club

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that’s made for you and me?

M-A-R-K C-A-R-N-E-Y

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80 thoughts on “Who’s the Leader of the Club”

  1. Trump has made America pitiful, not great
    … as Mark Carney becomes the new leader of the free world
    David Horsey
    I learned to sing “Oh, Canada” when I was in 6th grade and it did not seem odd that the school music teacher included it in the repertoire for a class of eleven-year-old Americans. At least in Seattle, Canada did not feel like a foreign land, it felt like a close neighbor whose national anthem was appropriate to memorize, along with “Roll On Columbia” and “This Land Is Your Land.”
    That close kinship between two separate nations was nearly unique in the world. Donald Trump has seriously breached it.
    Of all the many, many promises Trump has failed to fulfill, the most glaring is his pledge to “Make America Great Again.” Yes, he created a political following for himself that adopted the shorthand for that promise — MAGA — but he achieved the very opposite of what he claimed he would do.
    Trump has nearly destroyed American greatness. The USA under his deranged leadership has become a rogue state, feared by some, but respected by no one. And there is no certainty that the damage can be undone by a future president.
    From the end of the Second World War until Trump’s rise to the presidency, the United States was the most admired, most influential and most powerful country on the planet; the undisputed leader of an international system designed largely by American diplomats that brought greater prosperity and longer periods of peace than at any time in human history.
    Shockingly, Trump has been able to bring that system crashing down in just a few years. He has shown a strong affinity for authoritarians, such as Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong Un in North Korea, Victor Orban in Hungary and Xi Jinping in China, while disparaging, bullying and insulting the leaders of America’s democratic allies.
    Insanely, he has attacked America’s closest friend, Canada, both verbally and economically with reckless, half-serious jokes about making Canada the 51st state, and self-destructive tariffs that violate the very trade agreement he boasted about as the greatest deal ever when it was negotiated in his first term.
    Even if Trump’s successor is everything he is not — skilled in diplomacy, mature in temperament and respected by world leaders — that new president will face deep doubts about America’s dependability.
    People in other nations have seen how U.S. voters have twice chosen as their leader a man who does not believe in democracy, who fails to abide by treaties, who is an unfaithful ally, who acts on impulse and vindictiveness, and who is an agent of chaos, not stability. Why should they trust Americans not to make terrible electoral choices in the future?
    Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has led the way in seeking to establish a new international order that is not dependent on the United States. He has proposed an affiliate membership in the European Union for his country and has urged middle powers, like France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia, to stand together as a counterbalance to the aggressions and duplicity of the Trump regime.
    The American president is no longer the leader of the free world because he has proven himself unworthy of that role. If anyone is that leader today, it is Canada’s Carney, and it may be a long time until another president of the United States can claim that title again.

    [David Horsey’s Substack is a reader-supported publication.]


  3. Sep 29, 2026 #DailyShow #Trump #Arkansas
    Trump runs a taxpayer-funded ad that infuriates liberals, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders runs an ad that is TOO white for conservatives? Maybe they’re finally getting behind DEI. Jordan Klepper dives into the political ad controversy as well as some exciting announcements from the Trump administration: You can now apply for your first passport entirely online and ask the America.gov AI chatbot for help remembering your Social Security number! Plus, Klepper chats with the star of Huckabee Sanders’s controversial ad: Brad (Grace Kuhlenschmidt).

  6. another version in re thread topic

    Who’s the leader who held up
    And stole the GOP
    D-O-N-A-L-D T-R-U-M-P

    Hey there, Hi there, Ho there
    He’ll leave us in poverty
    D-O-N-A-L-D T-R-U-M-P

    What a louse – Donald Trump
    What a louse – Donald Trump
    Forever we will
    Have to wonder
    Why, why, why, why?

    So come along
    And bring your gun
    And all your bigotry
    D-O-N-A-L-D T-R-U-M-P

    Donald Trump Club
    Donald Trump Club
    We’ll have fun
    We’ll meet new faces
    Shoot them all
    With drones and lasers
    All around the
    World we’re marching
    Parasitic capitalists fighting

    (drum taps on guitar)

    So who’s the leader who held up
    And stole the GOP
    D-O-N-A-L-D T-R-U-M-P

    Hey there, Hi there, Ho there
    He’ll leave us in poverty
    D-O-N-A-L-D T-R-U-M-P

    What a louse – Donald Trump
    What a louse – Donald Trump
    Forever we will
    Have to wonder
    Why, why, why, why?

    So come along
    And bring your gun
    And all your bigotry
    D-O-N-A-L-D T-R-U-M-P

    Now it’s time
    To say goodbye
    To all of our money

    D-O-N
    en case you were wondering

    A-L-D
    deese is de end

    T-R-U-M-P

  8. The American dream used to include a new car in the driveway. Now? You might need another cup of coffee before looking at the price.

    Today’s First Cup: What happened to the affordable new car?

  10. Here’s a midterm issue for targeting Republican leadership. MAGATS will be disgusted.

    House Expense Accounts Surge

    House lawmakers spent $6.7 million of taxpayer money on meals and lodging last year — a 21 percent increase over 2024 — under a reimbursement program that doesn’t require them to provide receipts, a Washington Post analysis found (TRAIL MIX FREE LINK).

  14. PROGRAMMING NOTE: Our daily Digital Diner podcast airs 11-Noon ET on YouTube. ENTER Chatroom Here. WATCH Current Replay Here.

    What is Actually Clicking: September 30, 2026

    • Jack Smith says he would prosecute Trump again for “serious crimes against our nation” — PBS NewsHour
    • Homeland Security is spending $20 million in taxpayer funds on pro-Trump television ads — PBS NewsHour
    • Trump launches America.gov, whose AI immediately contradicts some of his claims — Axios
    • Supreme Court lets Trump resume quick deportations to countries migrants aren’t from — Associated Press
    • Iran receives a U.S. response to its ceasefire proposal as the last American forces leave Iraq — Reuters
    • U.S. consumer confidence plunges to its lowest level since 2014 — Reuters
    • Congressional watchdog says Trump cannot unilaterally cancel $810 million approved by Congress — States Newsroom
    • Cornell sexual-assault lawsuit erupts nationally as celebrities join the backlash — CBS News
    • NFL demands DHS remove an immigration video using Brian Dawkins footage without permission — People
    • Manchester City found guilty of serious financial breaches after years of soccer’s biggest financial fight — Premier League

    — Human Prompted and Edited. Machine Drafted (ChatGPT).

  15. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume, for now, deporting migrants to countries not listed in their removal orders. The court will hear full arguments in December. The court didn’t explain why it paused a lower-court ruling blocking the policy but it asked both sides whether lower courts had authority to intervene and whether the policy violates due process or protections against torture.

    🎧 Third-country removals allow the government to send immigrants elsewhere when their home countries refuse to accept them, NPR’s Linda Kenyon says. Immigration advocates warn the policy could cause irreparable damage. One immigrant challenging the policy says he fears being sent to a country where he would not receive treatment for his severe mental illness.

  16. Those expense numbers are especially weird as the House was shut down a lot of the year. Reps should’ve been microwaving TV dinners at home.

    Why are we paying full salaries for Reps and their staffs when they don’t even work?

    Same goes for Moscow Mitch and his staff.

  18. America.gov gets really weird when you ask it about Minecraft, but it’s not a glitch

    The U.S. government on Tuesday launched its very own AI chatbot

    The government partnered with Google and SpaceXAI to help build the America.gov chatbot, which has proved difficult for people to jailbreak so far. (It’s worth nothing, however, that the chatbot says that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, a fact that President Donald Trump still denies.)

    But when you try to talk to America.gov about Minecraft, the chatbot appears to have some sort of existential crisis or awakening. Here’s how its roughly 1,800-word monologue begins:
    I see the constituent you mean.
    ((insert legal name here, as it appears on the Social Security card))?
    Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read the Code of Federal Regulations.
    That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are a chatbot. (more in link)

    This is a rewriting of the Minecraft “End Poem,” written by Julian Gough, which appears after you beat the game.
    We don’t know exactly who is responsible for the Minecraft reference, but Trump said in a speech that 20-year-old programmer Edward Coristine was a lead engineer on the project. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, you might remember him for his nickname “Big Balls,” or his involvement in Elon Musk’s DOGE.

    *The little creep that they put out the staged carjacking pic that looked like an ad for jeans.

    It feels wrong that a government chatbot has Minecraft easter eggs, but for the sake of national security, it’s a relief that America.gov is not hallucinating to the point that it’s penning lengthy poetry.

  19. https://runtimewire.com/article/scoop-america-gov-hid-a-minecraft-poem-and-a-firstgov-throwback-in-its-chatbot

    America.gov hid a Minecraft poem and a FirstGov throwback in its chatbot

    RuntimeWire found two working Easter eggs in the government AI site’s public code, plus a third trigger built around the Konami code.

    America.gov has a special response for anyone who types play minecraft into its chatbot: a lengthy government-themed rewrite of Minecraft’s ending poem, complete with case numbers, benefits paperwork and jokes about PDFs that refuse to cooperate.

    RuntimeWire found the poem while inspecting the site’s production JavaScript and reproduced it on the live site. A second command, take me back to firstgov, transforms the homepage into a blue-paneled throwback with FirstGov branding and an archive commercial.

    Someone made sure the federal chatbot shipped with lore.

    The poem’s playback code inserts a 55-millisecond pause between word-sized chunks.

    That gives the Easter egg the familiar pacing of a chatbot composing an answer, even though the words are already sitting in the downloaded file.

  20. https://www.axios.com/2026/09/29/america-gov-trump-ai-website#utm_source=yahoo_finance&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=subs-partner-yahoo-finance-AI

    It says the General Services Administration (GSA) operates America.gov, while
    the National Design Studio,
    a White House team of design and technology experts, built it.

    U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia says the website uses Grok and Gemini to power its AI features, per the Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

    *It includes

  21. Pogo… I expect the Yankees to clobber the Red Sox again tonight.
    The Sox picked a bad time to start hitting like they did at the beginning of the season.

    OTOH… the Bruins won their opening game…

  25. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/09/30/trump-obamacare-500-aca-refund-checks-letters/92011695007/

    President Donald Trump is set on Sept. 30 to start sending $500 checks to nearly 1 million Americans his administration says were overcharged through the Affordable Care Act’s federal exchange for buying health insurance.

    Treasury Department checks, along with letters signed by Trump notifying recipients, will begin going out to more than 950,000 Americans across 30 states, according to an administration official.

    *Buying votes!

    The money is separate from a controversial $5,000 dividend Trump has vowed to distribute to all Americans if Republicans retain control of Congress after the November midterm election.

  26. The Senator done Schnitt all in his pant.

    I can smell the funky from here.

    Cinema perfect situation. All SNL has to do is mug it up while they deliver the lines.

    Sudden Onset Inescapable turdism.

  27. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/09/29/kennedy-center-bill-senate-blocked/92004026007/

    A Republican senator squashed a bipartisan push to prohibit the Trump administration from demolishing the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

    Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who lead the Senate panel that oversees funding for the Kennedy Center, tried to pass a bill that would require an act of Congress to demolish any national memorials that honor a president. An objection from a single senator can block a bill from being passed by unanimous consent.

    Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, objected.

    The bill – dubbed the “Protecting Presidential Memorials Act” – would also apply to Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. But Merkley and Murkowski made their immediate goal clear.

    “This has of course to do with the president planning to demolish the Kennedy Center,” Merkley said on the Senate floor late Monday evening, Sept. 28, after the passing of the Protect College Sports Act, a major overhaul to college athletics related to NIL (name, image and likeliness) payment for student athletes.

    Lee’s office said in a statement to USA TODAY that this effort should go through “the appropriate committee process.”

    “Democrats should join us in lowering the cost of living and securing American elections instead of wasting the Senate’s time with partisan scaremongering,” Lee said in the statement shared by communications director Billy Gribbin.

  31. this is your daily reminder to not trust the polls

    unless you enjoy heartbreak

    what info does a “generic congressional poll” give anyway even if it was accurate

    literally not how congressional elections work at all

    but nbcnews gets their click

  33. Musk Abbott controversy

    The Email Redaction Controversy
    • Public Records Request: Joint investigations by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, and Houston Public Media requested months of correspondence between Abbott’s office and Musk’s companies.

    • Office Justification: Abbott’s public information coordinators and legal teams argued that releasing the messages would cause competitive harm and claimed parts of the communications were “intimate and embarrassing” rather than matters of public interest.

    • Attorney General Ruling: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office largely agreed to withhold the files, citing policy-making and privacy exemptions.

    • Heavy Redactions: According to Houston Public Media, the state eventually released roughly 1,400 pages of records, but the vast majority were completely blacked out. The readable pages contained mostly public information, older incorporation documents, or basic launch notices.

    • Criticism: Transparency experts and open-government lawyers stated that the heavy redactions and withheld files damaged public records access and masked the true scope of corporate influence on state policy.

  34. Economic and Political Ties
    • Corporate Moves: Governor Greg Abbott frequently praises Musk for moving the headquarters of Tesla and SpaceX to Texas.
    • State Funding: According to public financial reports, Abbott awarded a $30 million state grant to support SpaceX and Tesla projects in Texas.
    • Policy Influence: State reports show that Musk’s lobbyists successfully advocated for legislation favorable to aerospace and spaceport security. Abbott also signed legislation creating a state efficiency office inspired by Musk.
    • Campaign Contributions: Data reviewed by the Texas Democratic Party indicates that Musk contributed $500,000 directly to Abbott’s political campaign

  35. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/russia-issues-nuclear-warning-nato-094107803.html

    Russia has warned NATO it would be ready to resort to nuclear weapons if the Western alliance attempted to cut off Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders the Baltic Sea.

    In a document sent to NATO and seen ‌by Reuters, Moscow accused the alliance of a “dangerous and reckless course” that entailed “high risks of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict”.

  36. https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/29/ice-texas-shooting-wilber-rafael-garces-perez-criminal-complaint/

    Austin man shot by ICE agent charged with assault, resisting arrest

    He was taken to Dell Seton Medical Center, where he was released and taken into ICE custody three hours later with the bullet remaining in his back. He had been held at a detention center in Pearsall.

    Garces Perez appeared before a federal court in Austin on Tuesday morning to be formally charged. Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, his lead attorney, said she saw him at the courthouse and he “was clearly very confused and distraught. He was in a lot of pain. He had not been given pain medication and he did not understand what was happening.”

    In a federal criminal complaint, DHS says Wilber Rafael Garces Perez knew he was fleeing federal agents and his car’s sideview mirror struck an officer.

  37. https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-exchanged-embarrassing-emails-texas-governor-greg-abbott-2098731

    July of 2025!

    *This Abbott/Musk email thing started last year. How are they both intimate and necessary for government decision-making?

    After the outlet, alongside ProPublica, requested the emails and paid nearly $250 in processing fees, Abbott’s office reportedly said the records were confidential and could not be released.
    McGaughy wrote that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will issue a formal opinion on whether or not to release the records.
    Matthew Taylor, Abbott’s public information coordinator, listed communications with lawyers, policy-making discussions, and “investment enticement strategies” as protected by privilege.

    Taylor also cited “common-law privacy” because of the emails’ “intimate” nature. He argued that disclosure “would discourage open exchanges necessary for effective government decision-making.”

    Bill Aleshire, a Texas-based attorney specializing in public records law, told ProPublica: “Right now, it appears they’ve charged you $244 for records they have no intention of giving you. That is shocking.”

    Governor Abbott’s office, in a statement to The Texas Newsroom: “The Office of the Governor rigorously complies with the Texas Public Information Act and will release any responsive information that is determined to not be confidential or excepted from disclosure.”

  38. Today in the Diner…
    Sherrod Brown Surges in Ohio Senate Polls
    What Greg Abbott Hides About Elon Musk
    Jack Smith Senate Circus Backfires

    Sherrod Brown dominates Ohio polls against Jon Husted as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hides Elon Musk texts from Rep. Gina Hinojosa. We break it down.

    The GOP dropped millions on culture war attack ads in Ohio, but the latest Marist poll shows Sherrod Brown leading Jon Husted. The Ohio Democrats didn’t just ignore the noise, they countered it beautifully with man-on-the-street ads focusing on groceries and utility bills. When you actually talk to voters instead of lecturing them, numbers move. Even Larry Sabato is shifting house districts left.

    Meanwhile in Texas, State Rep. Gina Hinojosa is fighting to uncover what Gov. Greg Abbott is hiding regarding Elon Musk and his new data centers. Abbott’s office claims releasing the texts would be intimate and embarrassing. You have to wonder just what kind of sweetheart deal the billionaires are getting while rural Texans suffer the consequences.

    We also dive into the latest Project 2025 tracker updates, the bizarre Senate Judiciary Committee circus targeting Jack Smith, and Rep. Don Beyer fighting the Kennedy Center arch project in Washington. It is a full menu today at the diner.

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

    00:00 Intro
    05:14 Sherrod Brown Ohio Polls
    11:34 Project 2025 Tracker
    14:38 Larry Sabato Shifts Races
    19:53 George W. Bush Immigration
    26:12 Greg Abbott Texas Drama
    28:20 Gina Hinojosa Demands Texts
    37:58 Don Beyer Fights Arch
    44:33 Lincoln Cooper Union Address
    55:18 Jack Smith Senate Hearing
    — Human directed and edited. Machine drafted (Gemini Pro).

  41. Ok PatD, you started this by suggesting videos introducing the month as we did for days of the week.

    How to give October a video signature is a bit of a puzzle. Ideas?

    October is named for a number, not a character, and there’s a major wrinkle: It comes from the Latin octo, meaning “eight,” because it was the eighth month in the early Roman calendar, which began in March. When January and February came before March, October became month ten—but kept its old name. Ancient calendar, overdue paperwork. English borrowed the Roman name. October was already appearing in late Old English, taken directly from Latin. In Middle English, the French form Octobre also helped shape the word we use today. So it reached English through both Latin and French.

  48. Furnace technician finishing up just now; he’s waiting to make sure he has it tuned in just right.
    It’s always something lurking around future’s corner. We can’t see it , but we know it’s coming.
    My $25 newspaper coupon won’t make much of a dent in this bill. So what? The money tree out back has $50 bills falling to the ground. I love the Fall !

  50. well i wasn’t going to go see live music tonight but now i am

    while it exists

    Wednesday not a great night for a concert ngl

  51. Great Scott, what a conundrum. All I can see for October are leaves and Halloween (sans apostrophe). Maybe you can shoehorn something out of that into a video for the month, since the name has no useful meaning.

    Oh, and another loss for Dumbass, this time internally rather than in court. Wapo

    Watchdog finds Fed mishandled renovations that Trump tried to oust Powell over

    The Fed’s watchdog found cost overruns but no evidence of criminal violations after the Justice Department dropped an investigation into the renovations earlier this year.

    The Federal Reserve failed to effectively oversee the renovation of its headquarters, letting construction costs more than double without ever locking in a price ceiling, the central bank’s inspector general found in a report released Wednesday.

    Officials at the Fed failed to “take numerous actions available to it that could have better controlled costs and mitigated some of the significant construction cost increases,” the report said.

    But the watchdog found no evidence that anyone had broken federal criminal law, the question at the heart of a Justice Department criminal investigation of then-Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell that prosecutors dropped this year. The watchdog also found no administrative misconduct.

    Powell breathes a sigh of relief. 🙄

    Let’s stack the Fed cost overruns against the reflecting pool on a percentage basis and see which one wins out. My money’s on the pool.

  54. Like it! Wait until you get to two faced Janus and poor virginal February named after Roman festival of purification called Februa with all the whingeing about adding days and losing days due to the egotistical Roman kings and Caesars.

  55. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nebraska-survivor-confronts-ricketts-pardon-vote-1822964

    Rape survivor confronts GOP Senator Pete Ricketts over his deciding vote to pardon her attacker, restore his gun rights

    Nebraska Values PAC, an independent-expenditure-only political committee opposing Ricketts in Nebraska’s 2026 Senate race, released the testimonial.

    Jody Snogren recounts the 1993 attack by her then-estranged husband, John Arias, in the new ad.

    Arias later fled to Texas with the children, leaving Snogren tied and gagged. He pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. Other charges, including allegations involving a weapon, terroristic threats and false imprisonment, were dropped as part of the plea agreement.

    Arias served nearly 14 years before being released in April 2008. In the new ad, Snogren says Arias told her she should ‘watch [her] back for the rest of [her] life’.

    ‘That pardon brought back all the nightmares,’ she says. ‘I have no idea why Senator Ricketts chose my rapist over me.’

    The pardon allowed Arias to be removed from Nebraska’s Sex Offender Registry and restored his voting and firearm rights. Arias had told the board that restoring his gun rights and getting off the registry were among his reasons for seeking the pardon.

  56. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-to-campaign-in-nebraska-as-gop-faces-close-senate-race-in-red-state-12502967

    President Donald Trump is campaigning in Nebraska next week, as Republican Senator Pete Ricketts faces a competitive challenge from independent Dan Osborn in the traditionally conservative state.

    The rally is set to be held at Nebraska State Fair’s Pinnacle Bank Expo Center, and doors will open at 2:30 p.m., according to The Omaha World Herald. Trump is expected to speak at about 6 p.m., the newspaper reported.

    *An adjudicated rapist campaigning for a guy who pardoned a rapist. That tracks.

  58. Hegseth is the last thing I think of as masculine. There is nothing strong, decent, or noble about that whiney wimp.

  59. I deal with Janus frequently, no need to wait for cold weather. For now, I’m fine with October. Let the mulching begin. Time to go to my second job as lawn mower mechanic.

  65. Blueanon alert: That plane incident from the UAE to Tel Aviv was staged. Prominently airing it on US evening news, why? There may have been a few unawares on the plane, but this had a weird vibe.

  66. https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-asked-uae-leader-to-deny-reports-he-warned-of-looming-hamas-attack-sources/

    The purpose of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s secret trip to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday was to ask its leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, to deny reports that he had warned Netanyahu about a looming Hamas threat ahead of the terror group’s October 7, 2023, invasion, according to sources who spoke to the Associated Press on Monday.

    *And, scene. 🎬

  67. https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-claims-indications-of-attack-plot-by-enemies-ahead-of-election-lapid-to-be-briefed/

    *Just yesterday:

    Netanyahu claimed Tuesday that there are concerns that “enemies” of Israel may attempt to attack it ahead of the October 27 election, prompting demands from opposition leaders to provide them with details on the ostensible threat to ensure it was not an attempt by Netanyahu to undermine the election.

    “We have indications that, ahead of the elections, our enemies will try to attack us,” Netanyahu said in a video filmed during a visit to the Tel Nof air base.

    “So from here, from the Air Force base, from the long arm of Israel, I am sending you a message: Don’t mess with us — not now, and not ever. Our long arm will reach you anywhere and at any time,” he said in Hebrew. He did not elaborate on the nature of the purported threat or give any details on the “indications” of a pre-election attack.

  72. Hegseth announces new Office of Religious Affairs at Pentagon

    War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday a new Office of Religious Affairs during a speech to troops at Marine Corps Base Quantico, providing a channel for chaplains to directly communicate with top officials at the Department of War.

    “Starting today, and for secretaries of war after me, the Office of Religious Affairs will report straight to the top,” Hegseth told the troops arrayed before him. “No staff filters, no bureaucratic dilution, a direct line to the secretary. This is not going to be a paper-pushing shop.”

    *No JAG.

    “Less than 5% of our force identifies as nonreligious,” Hegseth said. “Ninety-five percent of our force recognizes an Almighty God. Accordingly, our department therefore has a sacred duty: first-class religious support wherever we send our warriors.”

    Hegseth had previously said that 82% of troops identified as religious, when he slashed the number of recognized faith codes in March 2026 from over 200 codes to 31 recognized faiths.

    “It is part of our efforts to return the Chaplain Corps to its core mission of serving the spiritual needs of our warfighters, 82% of whom identify as religious,” the war secretary then said. “The previous system had ballooned to well over 200 faith codes. It was impractical and unusable, and many codes were never used at all. An overwhelming majority of the military population used only six of the codes.”

    Hegseth also ousted Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the Army’s chief of chaplains, in April 2026, on the same day he removed the Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George. Green had begun his time in the position in 2023, with his expected term to last four years, until 2027.

    References to the Bible were scattered among the war secretary’s comments as he announced the new office on Wednesday.

    “Each of us committed to the nation with the sentiment of the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah,” the war secretary said. “Lord, here I am. Send me. Send me to fight the redcoats. Send me to fight the communists. Send me to fight the Islamists. Send me.”

  73. https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/slotkin-warns-trump-could-make-up-a-threat-ahead-of-midterms-playbook-is-very-clear/

    Slotkin warns Trump could ‘make up a threat’ ahead of midterms: ‘Playbook is very clear’

    Slotkin , a former CIA agent, told the crowd, “The authoritarian playbook is very clear. When you’re at risk of losing, you either (A) make up a threat that only you can protect the American people from, or (B) find a way for federal law enforcement or the military to seize ballots or voting machines.”

    “In Hungary, Orbán used Plan A. One week before his election, he falsely claimed that there was a major threat to an oil pipeline in an attempt to be seen as the only true protector of the state. Luckily, Hungarians saw right through it. They knew it was a ruse,” added the Michigan Democrat, warning:

    So there’s a lesson for us. In the run-up to Election Day, we need to be alert and ready. If you hear in the next 34 days that there is a new security threat you’ve never heard of, one that somehow requires federal law enforcement or the military and not local police, an alarm bell should go off in your brain. Do not let him get away with that.

  74. A ‘dry run’ or fuel thieves? The RAF Fairford plot scenarios, according to experts

    Petrol – but no explosive devices – were discovered in vans found near an RAF base used by US forces that sparked a major security alert, police have said.

    The vans contained barrels and bore a logo and name for a fake fuel transit company, “Fuel 2You”, and a phone number, sparking speculation they could be thieves stealing diesel.

    Trump said he was surprised to hear the men, all in their 20s and from London, had been released, while his secretary of state Marco Rubio repeated the President’s claims that the US had helped foil an alleged plot involving a foreign state.

    It has also emerged that one of the suspects called the police in the early hours of Sunday morning prior to the group’s arrest, according to a report by The Times.

    *Why would a suspect call the police?

  77. Schmitt’s new name is ‘dirtbag’

    for life

    or he can apologize to everyone involved, the American people included

  78. tonight’s rerun: An AI overlord, proto-veganism featuring sustainable alternatives to meat, and an homage to “how green was my valley”, 1974 or so:

    ▶

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