WEAKLINGS, SUCK-UPS AND HUMILIATED CLOWNS

These lying pieces of shit need to be stopped from gaslighting the country about this issue.

 These lying pieces of shit need to be stopped from gaslighting the country about this issue.

 

Karoline Leavitt just confirmed the SAVE act will force married women who changed their name to re-register before they can vote, seconds after claiming the bill doesn’t block anyone.

She called it “simple”. She called it “common sense”.

Here’s what it actually is: a sweeping new barrier for millions of eligible Americans. Around 69 million Americans have a birth certificate that no longer matches their married name.

Political scientist Martha Johnson put it bluntly: the act would “without a doubt decrease the number of women able to vote in the US” and appears intentionally designed to discourage married women from participating in elections.

Why? Because married women increasingly support Democratic candidates while men shift towards Republicans, so reducing  women turnout directly benefits MAGA.

This isn’t about election security. It never was. It’s about rigging elections.

The Brennans Center research shows around 21 million Americans lack  ready acces to documents like birth certificates or passports, the very documents this bill demands. More than half of all Americans don’t have a passport.

And this entire bill is based on a lie. Utah reviewed its entire voter registration list over nearly a year and found exactly one confirmed case of noncitizen registration, and zero cases of noncitizen voting.

Trump told house Republicans at his Doral resort (at taxpayer expense) that this bill would guarantee the midterms. Think about that. A voter suppression bill that solves a problem that doesn’t exist, and he’s telling you it’ll guarantee his party wins.

He’s not even trying to hide it anymore.

Heather Cox Richardson - 3-11

 

March 11, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 12, 2026

In a brief call with Barak Ravid of Axios today, President Donald J. Trump said “The war is going great. We are way ahead of the timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period.” He added that the war against Iran will end “soon” because there’s “practically nothing left to target.” “Little this and that... Any time I want it to end, it will end,” he said.

In fact, according to Patrick Wintour of The Guardian, Iranian officials have rejected two messages from Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff calling for a ceasefire. Wintour writes that Iran’s leaders “sense it is not losing the war and the US president is at the minimum feeling the political pressure.” Iranian officials intend to make the economic, political, and military costs of the war so high that Trump will not attack Iran again.

For his part, Trump appears to be panicking over yesterday’s news that Iran is laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers transport about 20% of the world’s oil through a two-mile-wide (3.2 km) shipping channel. (Twenty percent of the world’s oil is about 20 million barrels, and a barrel is a unit of measure equal to 42 U.S. gallons or 159 liters.) Threats from Iran have bottled up oil in the Persian Gulf, and suppliers are shutting down operations because their storage facilities are full. The average price of gasoline in the U.S. has jumped nearly 60 cents a gallon since Trump launched attacks against Iran.

As Morgan Phillips of Fox News notes, naval mines are cheap, as little as a few thousand dollars, and can incapacitate or sink a $2 billion U.S. destroyer. They can be deployed by small vessels like hard-to-spot fishing craft at night.

The U.S. destroyed sixteen inactive Iranian mine-laying ships yesterday; today three merchant ships sustained minor damage after being struck in or near the strait. Today Trump claimed the U.S. has hit “28 mine ships as of this moment,” prompting Chris Cameron of the New York Times to note that “[t]he president sometimes exaggerates or is imprecise when giving figures.”

A spokesperson for Iran’s military command, Ebrahim Zolfaqari, said: “Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel, because the oil price depends on regional security, which you have destabilised.” Today Iran struck oil storage facilities in Oman and Bahrain.

While a few Iranian ships are traversing the strait, they are the only ones. Retired French vice admiral Pascal Ausseur told the Associated Press: “In today’s context, sending warships or civilian vessels into the Strait of Hormuz would be suicidal,” adding that a ceasefire with Iran “would move the situation from suicidal to dangerous.” At that point, escorts of oil vessels by military ships could begin.

Today Trump told Leonardo Feldman of Newsweek that the project of reopening the Hormuz Strait is “working out very well, and I think you are going to see that.” Trump has said prices will “drop very rapidly when this is over,” but oil industry analysts say reopening production could take at least a month even if Trump could declare the war over immediately, and there is no indication Iran would agree to an instant ceasefire.

Aarian Marshall of Wired reports that half of the ships that usually travel through the Strait of Hormuz carry oil, but the other half carry raw materials that are made into fertilizer, plastics, precision instruments, machinery, electrical parts, and electronic components, all of which could jump in price.

Jon Gambrell of the Associated Press suggested that the war with Iran boils down to a single question: “Who can take the pain the longest?” Iran is being hammered with air strikes by both Israel and the U.S. Those strikes now include Israeli strikes on targets in Lebanon Israel says are connected to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, killing more than 600 people and turning as many as 800,000 into refugees. For the regime, Gambrell notes, victory means staying in power and outlasting the bombing.

It is unclear what victory looks like for the U.S. The administration has offered a range of justifications for its war without suggesting what an endgame looks like. David Brown of the Wall Street Journal reported today that the U.S. and Israel appear to disagree about how long the war should last, with Israeli officials wanting to continue the war by decimating Iran’s oil industry and targeting top Iranian officials.

The pain for the U.S. is already becoming clear. Yesterday, after Reuters reporter Phil Stewart reported that as many as 150 U.S. troops had been wounded so far in the Iran conflict, the Pentagon publicly revised its estimate of fewer than a dozen U.S. service members wounded upward to about 140. The wounds include brain trauma, shrapnel wounds, and burns. Seven service members have died.

Lawmakers and their aides expressed frustration that the Pentagon had not announced the casualty numbers without prodding. “Just own it and be transparent,” a congressional aide told Alex Horton of the Washington Post. “You owe it to the service members.”

Bora Erden and Leanne Abraham of the New York Times reported today that at least seventeen U.S. military sites and installations across the region, including air defense systems, have been struck since the war began. Iran has also struck diplomatic sites, including U.S. embassies in Kuwait City, Kuwait, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. consulate in Dubai.

The eye-watering cost of the conflict is also hitting home. Officials from the Pentagon told members of Congress this week that the military used up $5.6 billion worth of munitions in the first two days of the war, a much higher burn rate than the administration had previously disclosed. Lawmakers are concerned that Trump’s Iran attack, along with his strikes on Nigeria, Somalia, Iraq, Venezuela, the small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, and the Houthis in Yemen, is cutting into U.S. readiness for unexpected conflicts.

Lawmakers are also unhappy about the administration’s expected upcoming request for more money to fight the war. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times reported that Pentagon officials told lawmakers yesterday the first six days of the war had cost more than $11.3 billion, not including the buildup of personnel and military hardware for the initial strikes.

Today Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt, Tyler Pager, Malachy Browne, and Helene Cooper of the New York Times reported that, according to a preliminary report by military investigators, the U.S. is responsible for the February 28 strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh girls elementary school that Iranian officials say killed at least 175 people, most of them children. The school building had been part of an adjacent Iranian military base years ago, and it appears the U.S. used outdated information in their targeting of the building.

As the journalists wrote, “Striking a school full of children is sure to be recorded as one of the most devastating single military errors in recent decades.”

On Saturday, when asked about the possibility the U.S. was responsible for the strike, Trump answered: “No. In my opinion and based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran…. We think it was done by Iran. Because they’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.”

On Monday, when a reporter noted that it was likely a Tomahawk missile that hit the school and asked if the U.S. would accept responsibility, Trump responded that “the Tomahawk…is sold and used by other countries,” and suggested that Iran “also has some Tomahawks.”

On Tuesday, a reporter asked why Trump said Iran had Tomahawks when only three other U.S. allies and the U.S. have them. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt answered: “The president has a right to share his opinions with the American public, but he has said he’ll accept the conclusion of that investigation, and frankly, we’re not going to be harassed by the New York Times, who’s been putting out a lot of articles on this making claims that have just not been verified by the Department of War, to quickly wrap up this investigation because the New York Times is calling on us to do so.”

Today a reporter confronted Trump, saying: “A new report says that the military investigation has found that the United States struck the school in Iran. As commander-in-chief, do you take responsibility for that?”

Trump answered: “I don’t know about it.”

Tonight, Iranian boats full of explosives hit two tankers carrying Iraqi fuel oil and set them ablaze about 30 miles (48 kilometers) off the Iraqi coast. According to Iraqi state media, Iraqi oil ports have “completely stopped operations.” Jon Gambrell of the Associated Press reported that one of the key measures of oil prices, Brent crude, jumped above $100 a barrel.

ICE BARBIE IN HOT WATER

“ICE Barbie” accused of BLOCKING watchdog probe into $220 million ad deal linked to political allies.

 

Kristi Noem’s tenure at the Department of Homeland Security just got even messier.

A federal watchdog investigating Noem’s staggering $220 million “self-deportation” ad campaign is now raising alarms that her department may be blocking investigators from accessing key evidence — sparking accusations of retaliation and possible corruption.

 The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has been digging into the massive ad buy for weeks, trying to determine how taxpayer money was handed out to a network of politically connected firms. And the details are raising serious eyebrows.

One of the biggest contracts — worth $143 million — reportedly went to a company that had been incorporated less than two weeks earlier, with no office, no website, and no history of federal contracting.

Another $77 million contract went to a firm tied to Republican strategist Jay Connaughton, who previously worked with longtime Trump political operative Corey Lewandowski — a top Noem adviser and rumored romantic partner. Meanwhile, subcontracted work flowed to a company linked to the husband of Noem’s own DHS spokesperson. You can see why investigators want answers.

But according to the inspector general, his office has faced “systematic obstruction” from DHS leadership while trying to pursue multiple investigations — including the probe into Noem’s ad campaign. The watchdog even warned Congress that the department’s actions could undermine critical oversight during a time of major national security concerns.

 Inside DHS, some officials now fear the obstruction is retaliation — potentially aimed at slowing down investigations that could implicate Noem or her close political circle.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are already demanding documents from the companies involved. And the controversy reportedly played a major role in Donald Trump’s decision to remove Noem from her post, with her departure expected by the end of the month.

 In other words, the questions surrounding this $220 million taxpayer-funded ad blitz are only getting louder. Because when huge government contracts start flowing to political allies, campaign operatives, and personal associates — and watchdogs say they’re being blocked from investigating it — Americans deserve to know exactly what’s going on.

 

HARRY KRAEMER

 

I tried not to be too vocal, but it is no longer possible

Posted by Harry Kraemer | Feb 23, 2026 | 7  |     

 

Going all the way back to 2015 when Donald Trump first announced that he was running for president of the United States, I was tempted to share my personal opinion. I had read a lot about his behavior, and more importantly, had carefully listened to his speeches, talks, and interviews.

Prior to the 2016 election I had always been labeled as a strong moderate Republican. That was a fair characterization since I had never voted for a Democrat in a presidential election. However, given that I spend the majority of my working life teaching “values based leadership,” I felt there was no way I could vote for Donald Trump. Nonetheless, I decided to not be very vocal for the reasons listed below:

1.               I truly believe in our democratic system, and if the majority of my fellow Americans voted to make him president, I felt the right thing to do was try to be supportive despite the personal difficulty.

2.               An important part of my faith and religious beliefs that I was taught beginning in first grade was to love everyone, not to judge others and give people the benefit of the doubt. I was taught that there may be reasons for someone’s questionable behavior that could be understandable if I was closer to the situation.

3.               When I asked friends who actually supported Donald Trump whether what he was doing was the right thing to do, the response was often: “Harry, look at what Obama did, or what Clinton did, or what Biden did. They were much worse.” While I found this an interesting rationalization, once again, I tried to give Trump the benefit of the doubt.

So why now? Maybe it is becoming a grandfather and really worrying about the next generation. Maybe it’s because I love our country, and I’m worried about the direction in which we are headed. Maybe it’s because I have many friends around the world who are constantly asking me questions that I don’t have an answer for. Maybe it is President Trump’s response when asked if anything limits his presidential power: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.”

Here’s a list of the “top 10 questions” I am constantly asked by my students, friends, and colleagues from around the world:

1.               Harry, why does your president call people derogatory names and make fun of them?

2.               Harry, why does your president feel the need to add his name to the Kennedy center and have airports named after him?

3.               Harry, you teach values based leadership. Is it right for your president to be involved in business transactions the generate billions of dollars for his family while he is president? (Some friends will say, look at what President Biden and Hunter did…. Yes, very bad but I don’t think it was billions of dollars.)

4.               Harry, why does your president want to make Canada the 51st state? Isn’t Canada an ally of the United States?

5.               Harry, why is your president demanding to purchase Greenland? Isn’t Denmark an ally? Don’t you already have military bases in Denmark that you can expand at any time?

6.               Harry, why would your President state that NATO never supported the US in Afghanistan and Iraq when more than 1500 Europeans died supporting the US in those conflicts? How would you like to be the spouse or parent of one of those killed?

7.               Harry, isn’t the United States’ relationship with NATO during the past 80 years one of the key reasons why there has not been a third World War? If so, why does your president say that NATO doesn’t matter?

8.               Harry, why would your president and vice president accuse the president of Ukraine of starting the war with Russia and not saying thank you for American support?

9.               Harry, I understand that past administrations did a horrible job of protecting your US borders that enabled millions of illegal immigrants to the US. I also understand that some of them are serious criminals. However, why would the current administration accuse virtually all immigrants of being “serious criminals” with the severe treatment that resulted in several deaths in Minnesota? Is this behavior consistent with the values of your country during the past 250 years?

10.           Harry, isn’t one of the most important parts of the American system of government the three independent branches? Why does it appear that your president totally ignores the legislative branch as well as the Supreme Court?

In addition to the above questions, I found the situation that developed last Friday raised additional questions. If you didn’t notice, the Supreme Court in a 6–3 vote ruled that President Trump did not have the legal right to impose “reciprocal tariffs.” The court found that Trump had overstepped Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which summarizes the powers granted to Congress: “The Framers gave ‘Congress alone’ the power to impose tariffs during peacetime,” the Court’s majority opinion stated.

Since I am not a lawyer, I am not close enough to know the right legal answer on the tariff issue. However, I believe it is not my responsibility to know the right answer. That is the reason we have a Supreme Court, and under our three branch system, when the Supreme Court makes a ruling, I was taught they are the final judge until the law changes.

So what happened? Instead of accepting the decision, our president called the judges who voted against his wishes “a disgrace to our nation,” and he further stated about Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gotsuch (whom he appointed during his first term), “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth, the two of them.” Really? I find this lack of respect for our legal system and the Supreme Court to be way beyond unacceptable

Okay, well, as I said, I have really tried to be less vocal, but I guess we all have limits. I know there are many people who will completely disagree with my opinion, and that is fine. That is part of your right as Americans. This just happens to be my opinion.