... The Supreme Court's decision to block Trump's plan to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterms left him fuming at his first-term appointees on the top bench, whom he slammed as "a shell" of their former selves.
... A lower court again frustrated Trump's bid to renovate the Kennedy Center.... Everyone knows this is really about him trying to muscle his own name onto the living memorial to an assassinated president.
The president's authority took another dent Tuesday when the GOP-led House voted to require him to end his war with Iran, as three more Republicans swelled the list of party heretics to seven.
Trump's big midterm offer of a $5,000 check for every American if Republicans win in November, meanwhile, looks dead in the water after Capitol Hill GOPers distanced themselves from the idea. And Speaker Mike Johnson, a close Trump ally, chose to send House lawmakers home Wednesday — a day earlier than planned — to avoid a potentially embarrassing vote on whether to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Wednesday brought another implied rebuke to Trump when the Federal Reserve, under Trump's handpicked new Chair Kevin Warsh, raised interest rates for the first time since July 2023 in a sign of central bank independence. Trump has spent months demanding large cuts to the cost of borrowing, ignoring the specter of rising inflation that his trade and war policies exacerbated.
The president reacted to the Fed's move with a new outburst of exasperation on Truth Social. He advanced his idiosyncratic economic assessment that the country is booming and therefore US rates should be at 1%, rather than the new benchmark in the range of 3.75% to 4%.
Trump's vision of unchallenged US power abroad is also being undermined.
In a stunning development, Canada, a third of the mighty North American trading bloc, was just offered associate membership in another group, the European Union, as it seeks new friends following Trump's sovereignty threats and tariff attacks.
And Trump's waffling over when the Iran war will end can't cover up a worsening situation. Tehran-backed Houthi rebels just seized land in and around the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, potentially giving them leverage over another critical oil exporting route while the US is still struggling to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
... These are turbulent times, but it shouldn't be surprising when Supreme Court justices uphold the Constitution, which gives control of elections to the states. Their lifetime tenure also means they'll be forging their own legacies long after Trump leaves office.
... But a week in which power has tangibly ebbed from a president with an approval rating in the 30s can't be ignored.
Once an aura of invincibility fades, political authority can erode quickly.
In the weeks leading up to his resignation last year, the first architect on the White House ballroom clashed with President Donald Trump over design features that the architect believed violated building safety codes, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions and corroborating documents reviewed by The Washington Post. James McCrery II withdrew from the project last October after warning repeatedly that Trump was insisting on a preliminary design that did not provide adequate emergency exit routes or fire-containment measures, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.
Trump brushed off McCrery's concerns, they said, and the president countered that no building codes apply to White House construction. "I am the code," Trump said.
Eamus Catuli~AC 000000000101010202020303010304 020405....Ahhhh, forget it, it's gonna be a while.
It was meant to be one of the most important foreign policy speeches of his presidency—the first since launching his war in Iran and the last before November's midterm elections.
But as Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, one world leader was caught scrolling on his phone, another top diplomat looked like they were struggling to stay awake, and two member countries walked out as Trump threatened to annihilate one nation and dominate the other....
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose country remains locked in a trade war with Washington, was caught scrolling on his phone throughout the address....
A delegate from Bosnia and Herzegovina rubs his face as Trump speaks.
... The president's remarks appeared to misunderstand how the free press works in America.
While Trump has prevented three outlets from entering the White House grounds by revoking their hard passes, he can not simply ban the media from covering him at a public or global gathering, no matter how much he dislikes them.
"The United Nations let us in," Collins explained, confirming that CNN had been credentialed by the organizing body.
Idiot.
... He also had his first face-to-face meeting with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, and was due to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the grinding war against Russia again high on the agenda.
"We will get that one done," he claimed, again referring to ending a war he promised to resolve on "day one" of his presidency.
"It's going to happen, I think, more quickly than people understand."
Dipshit.
The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off
-- Gloria Steinem
1312. ETTD. 86 47.
Along the line of a broken clock being right twice a day, I don't disagree with Trump about the "artificial intelligence". I don't know that it has to be called "intelligence" at all but it needs a better designation than AI.
Along the line of a broken clock being right twice a day, I don't disagree with Trump about the "artificial intelligence". I don't know that it has to be called "intelligence" at all but it needs a better designation than AI.
More:
Opps.
