I Went to the Farmers Market Today

 And I picked up a button. 

Even Using the Trump Administration's Figures

The U.S. economy was pretty week in the 4th quarter of 2025, even as Trump's Treasury Secretary, and poster child for smug assholes, Scott Bessant was suggesting robust growth

The number is even worse when you realize that a huge portion of economic activity are AI fraudsters setting money on fire. 

The U.S. economy slowed sharply at the end of 2025 to cap a volatile year in which consumer spending and an A.I. investment boom helped keep growth on track despite tariffs, uncertainty and the longest government shutdown in history.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the final three months of the year, the Commerce Department said on Friday. That was down from a 4.4 percent rate in the third quarter, partly because of the prolonged shutdown.

It was a fittingly messy end to a year in which the economy proved more resilient than many forecasters feared, but fell far short of the revival that President Trump promised on the campaign trail.

Inflation, which Mr. Trump promised to end “on day one,” picked up in 2025. The trade deficit in goods, which Mr. Trump promised to shrink, hit a record high. The manufacturing sector, which Mr. Trump promised to restore, shed jobs.

Not good. 

Tariff-Ic!

You've probably heard the news already, but in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump does not have the power to unilaterally enact taxes, in particular tariffs.

Trump is saying that he will be using alternate laws to continue this, but given the Supreme Court ruling, it is likely that federal courts will enjoin this, and the Supreme Court is far less likely use the shadow docket to allow those policies to continue until a full court decision is made.

Any further efforts by the Trump administration to do this is likely to run afoul of the , "Bull Durham Rule," which states that the quickest way to get thrown out of a game is to call the umpire a c%$#-sucker.

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that President Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner, a major setback for his administration’s second-term agenda.

The court’s 6-3 decision has significant implications for the U.S. economy, consumers and the president’s trade policy. The Trump administration had said that a loss at the Supreme Court could force the government to unwind trade deals with other countries and potentially pay hefty refunds to importers.

The three dissenters, Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh, had to bend themselves into knots to ignore Congress' plenary powers over taxation, but that is the norm for those corrupt bastards.

Mr. Trump is the first president to claim that a 1970s emergency statute, which does not mention the word “tariffs,” allowed him to unilaterally impose the duties without congressional approval.

He is the first, because his legal justification is complete bullsh%$.

………

The decision on Friday left uncertain the extent to which those who paid tariffs might be able to obtain refunds, with Justice Kavanaugh warning that any refund process could be a substantial “mess.”

The United States “may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid” the tariffs, he wrote, “even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.”

That is an issue that falls firmly in the category of, "Not the Supreme Court's problem."

It will be interesting to see what cockamamie legal argument the Trump administration will put out next. 

^*Not my bon mot. DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS came up with it.

I Hope That Someone Makes a Movie About This

For various reasons, the water infrastructure in Osaka, Japan is relatively old, and as such is in need of maintenance.

Someone donated ¥560,000,000 ($3.6 million) to the city to support these repairs.\

Nice story, but the interesting bit was that this anonymous donation was made in the form of 21kg of gold bars.

I want to know the rest of the story.

Osaka has received a hefty gift of gold bars worth 560m yen (£2.7m) from an anonymous donor and a request for its specific use: to fix the Japanese city’s dilapidated water pipes.

The gold bars, weighing a total of 21kg (46lb), were given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau in November by the donor who wants to help improve ageing water pipes, the mayor, Hideyuki Yokoyama, told reporters on Thursday.

“It’s a staggering amount and I was speechless,” Yokoyama said. “Tackling ageing water pipes requires a huge investment, and I cannot thank enough for the donation.”

The mayor said the city –Japan’s third largest, with 2.8 million people – would respect the donor’s wishes and use the gift to improve waterworks projects.

Most of Japan’s main public infrastructure was built during the rapid postwar economic growth, but urban development in Osaka, a regional commercial hub, started earlier than many and its water pipes and other infrastructure are ageing earlier, the city’s waterworks official, Eiji Kotani, said.

Osaka needed to renew 160 miles (260km) of water pipes, he said. Renewing a 1.2 mile segment would cost about 500m yen, Kotani said.

If I had to venture a guess, I would think that this might be someone from the Yakusa, as making such a donation in gold does seem to imply that some sort of money laundering was involved, and doing this is very much a Yakusa sort of thing.

I'll Bet Someone Said the Name of The Scottish Play in the Theater

During a performance of Shakespeare's Richard III in Berlin, an actor lost his grip on a sword during a fighting scene, and an audience member was struck in the head.

Luckily, the audience member was struck by the grip, and not the blade, and she left the theater after some minor treatment.

I'm wondering if other bad stuff has been going on in this production? Sometimes productions just have bad mojo.

Sometimes a front-row seat can be a little too close to the action.

On Thursday evening, during the final scene of a performance of “Richard III” at the Schaubühne theater in Berlin, a sword slipped out the cursed king’s hand and struck an audience member in the head.

Luckily for the woman it hit, she was whacked by the sword’s grip, not its blade. Although she sustained a light injury, she walked out of the theater after being treated on site.

The accident occurred when the actor playing the title role, Lars Eidinger, was battling his demons during the production’s sweaty, physical conclusion.

………

According to the Berlin Zeitung, a daily, which was the first to report on the accident, Eidinger immediately interrupted the performance, apologized to the woman and then asked for the house lights to be turned on.

The theater’s doctor treated the woman, and no ambulance was needed, according to Johanna Lühr, a spokeswoman for the theater. She added that Eidinger had a phone call with the woman on Friday to make sure she was on the mend.

Lühr said that the scene had been designed with a stunt coordinator and was practiced regularly. Despite the slip-up, the theater plans to continue with its regular schedule of shows, she said.

I do hope that she got to keep the sword though.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And we have the latest unemployment numbers.

Initial claims fell sharply, but continuing claims continue to rise.

I find the latter number more significant than the latter.

Applications for US unemployment benefits fell by the most since November, adding to evidence of stabilization in the labor market.

Initial claims decreased by 23,000 to 206,000 in the week ended Feb. 14, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. That was lower than all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

In the past year, new applications have fallen below the 210,000 mark only a handful of times. That level of weekly filings is a sign that layoffs widely remain low. The data also suggest that people who were temporarily unable to work due to a severe winter storm that spanned the country in late January have returned to their jobs.

However, continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.87 million in the previous week, the highest since early January. 

………

Separate data out Thursday showed the US trade deficit widened in December, capping a year marked by erratic tariff policy. 

 I think that we are already in a recession, and that it will get much worse, but what the hell do I know.

Well, this is a first for me

Nearly 2 years ago, around the time of Charles' coronation, I add the whole British Royal Family to my list of, "They who must not be named."

For the first time ever, I have to bring someone back, specifically, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the artist formerly known as Prince Andrew, who has been arrested for allegedly transmitting insider information to Jeffrey Epstein. 

I think that this is significant enough for me to comment on this.

King Charles has insisted “the law must take its course” after detectives took the unprecedented step of arresting his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Police took him to Aylsham police station in Norfolk on Thursday morning for questioning about allegations he shared confidential material with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In the evening he was pictured in the back of a car being driven away from the police station shortly after 7pm.

Thames Valley police said he was released under investigation, and searches at a property in Norfolk, Andrew’s home on the Sandringham estate, had concluded. Searches at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, Berkshire, his former address, were continuing.

On an extraordinary day that could have profound effects for the royal family, unmarked police cars and plainclothes officers from the Thames Valley force were seen at Mountbatten-Windsor’s residence at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate at about 8am. They searched the Norfolk property as well as his former home in the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park.

Hours later Charles gave his unqualified backing to the police investigation into his brother, who was arrested on his 66th birthday. The king said the “law must take its course”.

One of the things that people have missed about the whole Epstein affair is that even if one does not consider his child sex trafficking, (Apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?) Epstein was a crook, who hung out with crooks, all of whom saw their wealth as a shield against accountability.

Accountability?  How quaint.

Good Lawyering

Les Wexner’s attorney did not like his answers to the questions during the House Oversight Committee deposition.

He told Wexner: “I’ll fucking kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, ok?” pic.twitter.com/XZQqzl7hMu

— Reese Gorman (@reesejgorman) February 19, 2026

Seriously good lawyering 

Also, funny as hell.

Sometimes, microphones capture something that they shouldn't.

When pedophile co-conspirator Les Wexner was testifying before Congress about Jeffrey Epstein.

His lawyer, who had clearly wanted Wexner to keep it short and sweet in his testimony, was less than pleased with his performance, and when his client became excessively loquacious he had (whispered) words with his client.

BTW, except for speaking a bit loudly, I think that Wexner's attorney, Michael Levy, did a pretty good job there. 

 

Today in Democratic Party Psychopaths

I am referring, of course to Washington State Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. (Ecch/Twitter link here, the comments are ……… interesting.)

To be fair Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez, in addition to being a psychopath, she is also a f%$#ing moron.

Even a cursory study of of the state of the salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest show where the problems are, agricultural runoff, real estate development driven pollution, pollution and genetic contamination from aquaculture in Puget Sound, hydro-power, and (of course) over-fishing.

For Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, all that matters is that power companies, big agriculture, real estate developers, and other polluters can write a campaign donation check, and sea lions cannot.

For the love of God, someone primary her. 

Adding to My List

I reserve the right to continue this GIF though Specifically, I am adding Shia LaBeouf to my list of They Who Must Not Be Named.

I really hope that he does not get elected to a federal office, or even less likely gets an Oscar, which would require me to drop him from the list. 

Invite Ted Cruz on Your Show, Stephen

Streisand Effect Applies 

So, the FCC Chairman sent a threat to CBS regarding Stephen Colbert's interview with US Senate candidate James Talarico, saying that he might change the rules to  on interview shows to require equal time.

Stephen Colbert should call the bluff, and announce an invitation for the Republican candidate, Ted Cruz, to appear on his show. 

It's a win-win for the late night host: Ted Cruz refuses, and Colbert gets to taunt him until May, or Ted Cruz accepts, and then Stephen Colbert gets to fillet him like an overfed catfish.

I would pay good money to see Colbert taking down Cruz. 

My One Regret During Our Little Snow Storm

We got about 8 inches of snow in late January, and it was followed immediately some freezing rain, so we had about 3 inches of frozen snow atop about 5 inches of powdery snow.

It would have been perfect snow for an igloo.

I could have cut blocks of ice out with a knife, and used the powder as a mortar and insulation.

I wish that I had thought of this earlier.

I have been in an igloo, when I was 6 in Anchorage at some sort of a winter fair.  I recall it being much warmer than the outside. (I also saw the start of a sled dog race that was not the Iditarod, and went on my first roller coaster.) 

I do not expect to see a similar sort of snow in the next few years.

I Have Not Written About This Because I Just Can't

Refusing to make eye contact with Epstein victimsI am referring, of course, to Pam Bondi's  epic meltdown in front of the House Judiciary Committee.

Let me be clear, this is not because it is too emotionally painful for me, I have watched various videos with no small amount of amusement.

This is because this sh%$ is so  meshugana that I lack the communication skills to address this.

Coming from a people who have as many words for crazy as almost any other people, (meshugana, furshlugginer, verklempt, farmisht, farblunjet, etc.) this is a rather telling admission.

Here's one video, there are many, many, others: 

I Would Have Paid to Hear Him Read a Phone Book

Actor Robert Duvall has died at the age of 85.

A marvelous and elegant actor who could convey with his eyes what might take another actor a soliloquy to convey.

He is my favorite John Watson, having played against Nicol Williamson's paranoid drug-addicted Sherlock Holmes in  The Seven Percent Solution.  (I always hated Nigel Bruce's buffoonish portrayal)

Also, go and watch The Judge, it's a great film.

Robert Duvall, who drew from a seemingly bottomless reservoir of acting craftsmanship to transform himself into a business-focused Mafia lawyer, a faded country singer, a cynical police detective, a bullying Marine pilot, a surfing-obsessed Vietnam commander, a mysterious Southern recluse and scores of other film, stage and television characters, died on Sunday. He was 95.

His death was announced in a statement by his wife, Luciana Duvall, who said he had died at home. She gave no other details. He had long lived on a sprawling horse farm in The Plains, in Fauquier County, Va., west of Washington.

There is a void in the theater world.

Today in Gay Bashing

Trump administration officials pulled down the Gay Pride Flag from the Stonewall National Monument, since (of course) we cannot have any LGBTQ symbolism at the birthplace of the gay liberation movement.

Orwell and Kafka are spinning in their graves right now.

Some local officials are pledging to restore the Stonewall National Monument’s large Pride flag after a Trump administration directive this week removed it from the only national park site dedicated to LGBTQ+ history.

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal shared a photo of the bare flagpole at the West Village park on social media Monday evening, along with a screenshot of the U.S. Department of the Interior memo to the National Park Service that led to its removal.

The federal directive states that in most cases, the National Park Service can only fly the U.S. flag, the Department of the Interior flag and the Prisoners of War flag in the public spaces it maintains. The policy makes limited exemptions, such as when a flag would “provide historical context” to a site, or when a site is co-managed with another entity “that may fly that state’s or city’s relevant flag.” But the parks service said in a statement that “changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance.”

In an interview on WNYC’s "Morning Edition," Hoylman-Sigal said protests are being organized for Tuesday, with plans to fly the flag again as soon as Thursday.

I'd also suggest that it might be a good idea for the local LGBTQ community to organize s 24 hour watch on the flag pole to ensure that anyone trying to take down the flag is confronted. 

 

About El Paso

It turns out that the 10 day (rescinded after a few hours) airspace shut-down over El Paso was a party balloon, not any real sort of security threat.

Don't worry though, they shot it down with a laser. 

The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.

Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”

But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said. 

I'm going to give these incompetent idiots the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that it was one of the shiny silver Mylar balloons, which, because of their aluminum coating, are readily picked up on radar.

The level of incompetence here is stunning. 

 

Would That This Were True

Over at Gizmodo, they have an article titled, "Dems Want to Ban Surveillance Pricing at Big Grocery Stores," which discusses a bill submitted by Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) to ban personalized digital price gouging by grocery stores.

Call me a cynic, but I think that this is more about extorting campaign donations to water down or kill the proposal than anything else.

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, introduced legislation Thursday that would ban so-called surveillance and surge pricing in grocery stores. Officially known as the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act of 2026, the Senate legislation is modeled on a 2025 bill in the House.

The new bill would require stores to disclose their use of facial recognition technology and would ban electronic shelf labels (ESL) in large grocery stores. ESLs are controversial because they allow retailers to change the price of a given item remotely, opening up the possibility that they could be tied to algorithms which raise and lower prices based on conditions in the store or who’s trying to buy something. 

Hypothetically, stores can charge different prices at different times of day or rely on different inputs, right down to personalizing the price based on an individual who was looking at a given item, spotted with facial recognition tech. The concern is that factors like race, gender, and income level could be used to determine how much people are charged. A 2025 study found that Instacart was charging customers different prices for the same products, sometimes as much as 23% more. A few weeks after the study received negative press coverage, Instacart announced it was pulling the plug on its AI-powered pricing.

………

The Biden administration launched an investigation into surveillance pricing in 2024 with FTC chair Lina Khan initiating a study on the ways it may harm U.S. consumers. But after President Donald Trump took power in 2025, his administration killed the study. 

I am not suggesting that either Senator Luján or Merkley are doing this solely to extract campaign donations from large retailers.  For all I know, they are completely sincere about this.

What I am suggesting is that the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is planning to use this proposal as a way to extort campaign donations from the industry., and once they get their vigorish, they will kill or emasculate the legislation.

There Is Bad Food, and Then There Is………

Scottish food, which may qualify as a crime against humanity, at least in the case of, "Pizza Crunch," which appears to be an affront to all that is holy.

I bet you thought that I was going to diss English food, but not this time.

Bring on the jellied eel, bubble and squeak, stargazy pie, frogspawn pudding, or mushy peas before I eat that Scottish abomination.

So, It Was Jared Kushner, Huh?

We now know who the, "Senior Trump Administration Official," who was mentioned in an intelligence intercept between two foreign officials.

You know, the one subject to a whistleblower complaint after DNI Tulsi Gabbard sat on this information rather than passing it up the chain as required by law. 

According to the WSJ, it was Jared Kushner, whose primary role in the Trump administration is arranging foreign bribes for Donald Trump.

Not a surprise.

The highly classified whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

It couldn’t be determined which country the foreign nationals are from or what they discussed about Kushner. But the connection to Kushner sheds further light on the top-secret whistleblower complaint that bureaucratically stalled within Gabbard’s agency for eight months and was kept locked in a safe until it reached Congress in heavily redacted form last week.

………

The Wall Street Journal and others reported last week that the complaint was based on a foreign-intelligence conversation collected by the National Security Agency. The conversation included a discussion about a person close to Trump and at least in part concerned issues related to Iran, the Journal reported. 

………

A heavily redacted version of the complaint was seen by select lawmakers in Congress last week after the Journal first reported on its existence and that it had stalled within Gabbard’s office. Democrats have questioned why the complaint was held up for eight months and indicated it raises national-security concerns that deserve more investigation. Republicans have defended Gabbard and said the attention on the complaint has been orchestrated to undermine the Trump administration.

This is a significant story only because Gabbard suppressed this. 

Had it been sent to the White House, it would never have been an issue.

It's always the politics that get you. 

Headline of the Day

Unable to Reach Mars, Musk Does the Most Musk Thing Possible

— Gizmodo on the announcement from the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ that he is abandoning Mars for the moon

Musk is giving up on Mars because his claims of saving humanity by creating a Martian city have become so transparently laughable that even his normal fanbois are losing interest. 

The old grift has gotten stale, so he creates a new one.

Elon Musk built SpaceX on his dream of colonizing Mars. For decades, he kept the company on a strict path toward achieving that goal, arguing just last year that using the Moon as a stepping stone to the Red Planet would be a “distraction.” Now, he’s singing a very different tune.

In an X post on Sunday, Musk said SpaceX has “shifted focus toward building a self-growing city on the Moon.” Achieving this new goal, he said, will potentially take less than a decade, whereas colonizing Mars would take more than 20 years.

As usual, it's rally all about getting government money to further enrich himself.

………

This pivot comes as SpaceX is racing against Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to deliver a lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, which will be the first to land astronauts on the surface of the Moon in over 50 years. NASA awarded SpaceX the contract in 2021, but that never stopped Musk from criticizing the agency’s Moon-to-Mars trajectory. 

NASA originally planned to launch Artemis 3 in 2024 but has since pushed the mission to 2028, partly due to uncertainty over when a crew lander will be ready. SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) has faced significant developmental delays in recent years, prompting the agency to reopen the contract in October. Now, Musk has apparently gotten on board with the whole Moon-to-Mars thing.

Considering the basic architecture of Musk's moon lander, it's no wonder that Bezos is nipping at his heels.

The lander weighs 6 times that of the Apollo LEM and requires multiple in orbit refuelings, and his rockets are still blowing up and their payload capacity seems to be shrinking with each new test.

His rockets are unlikely to make it to either the Moon or Mars. 

Has the NRA Tried to Make Hay Out of This Yet?

As you know, there was a mass school shooting in Canada, a country which has what could be described as sane gun laws.

I am waiting for the ammosexual lobby to exploit the tragedy to argue against gun regulations.

They will argue that it happens in Canada, gun control does not work.

Truth be told, if one looks at the numbers, this is the first mass shooting in Canada this year, and the 8th since January 2025. 

By comparison, there have been 37 mass shootings in the United States this year, and 462 since January 2025.

God Bless America. 

 

Birnam Wood Comes to Dunsinane

I did not watch the Superb Owl this year.

I've never watched the half time show, except to see the ads.

That being said, the right wing melt down over Bad Bunny's half time show.

Specifically about how this show, particularly the walking bushes, parallel a quote from Shakespeare's Scottish Play. (We don't say the name of the play in our family, too many superstitious theater people.)

You know the quote, "……… shall never vanquish’d be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him."

I'm wondering if there is a modern analogue to the downfall of what is arguably theater's greatest villain.

Maybe Great Birnam wood is coming for Donald Trump. 

No Posting Tonight

 Funerals are exhausting.

On the Way to Manhattan

Stopped at Waffle House (breakfast for dinner) and blogging. 

I love going to New York, but not for a funeral.

Light Posting for a While

 Heading to New York tomorrow afternoon for the funeral of my Wife's uncle, who died today.

Chickens Finally Come Home to Roost.

A jury just found the Gypsy Cab ride sharing company liable for a woman's rape by one of their drivers 

Their business model has always been to take the money and offset the costs on their drivers and passengers, and that includes safety.

The jury decided that it was worth $8-½ million.

Hopefully, this is the first of many such verdicts.

A federal jury in Phoenix on Thursday ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to a passenger who said one of its drivers had raped her, setting the stage for thousands of similar cases around the country.

The ride-hailing giant has long maintained that it is not liable for the misconduct of drivers on its platform, whom it classifies as independent contractors, not employees. But the jury rejected that defense, providing a road map for more than 3,000 pending sexual assault and sexual misconduct lawsuits that accuse the company of systemic safety failures.

The lawsuit was brought by Jaylynn Dean, who said her Uber driver raped her in November 2023 during a ride to her hotel from her boyfriend’s apartment in Tempe, Ariz.

………

Uber fended off other claims in the case, including that it was negligent in its safety practices and that its app was defective.

The jury’s award fell far short of the $144 million that Ms. Dean’s lawyers had requested in damages. The jury did not dish out heavier penalties in part because it did not find that the company’s actions were “outrageous, oppressive or intolerable” or that they created substantial risk or significant harm.Uber fended off other claims in the case, including that it was negligent in its safety practices and that its app was defective.

………

Uber faces increasing scrutiny across the country as lawmakers, investors and others move to hold the company accountable for a pervasive pattern of sexual violence during rides.

Ms. Dean’s case is a bellwether in federal court proceedings that have consolidated thousands of the sexual assault lawsuits against Uber, allowing for certain procedural matters to be presented before the same judge while each case is tried individually. The verdict is not binding on the other cases, but it offered a “real-world test” of the arguments in front of a jury, said Nora Freeman Engstrom, a professor at Stanford Law School.

………

Over three weeks, jurors weighed the harrowing personal account of Ms. Dean as well as testimony from Uber executives and thousands of pages of internal company documents, including some showing that Uber had flagged her ride as a higher risk for a serious safety incident moments before she was picked up. Uber never warned her, with an executive testifying that it would have been “impractical” to do so.

"Impractical," huh?  More like unprofitable.

Lawyers for Ms. Dean introduced documents suggesting that Uber resisted introducing safety features such as in-car cameras because it believed these measures would slow corporate growth. 

There really needs to be a concerted effort to criminally prosecute executives who blithely approve policies which endanger the general public.

Once they start getting frog marched out of their offices in handcuffs, they and their fellow sociopaths will think twice about continuing their behavior.

Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. 

Go China

At least on car safety, where China has announced a ban on hidden car door handles.

This is not a surprise.

They make it difficult for first responders to make a rescue, and, in the case of Teslas at least, they do not function if electrical power is lost.

There is talk about similar regulations in the United States, but I'm not holding my breath, since they have allowed the pedestrian box grater known as the Cybertruck on the roads.

China will soon ban concealed door handles on electric vehicles (EVs), becoming the first country to do so after several deadly incidents triggered global scrutiny of the controversial design first popularised by Tesla.

According to regulations announced on Monday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, cars sold in China will now be required to have a mechanical release on both the inside and outside of every door except the boot.

The new regulations will “improve the level of automotive safety design”, it said.

Due to take effect on 1 January next year, the regulations stipulate every car should provide hand-operable space measuring at least 6cm by 2cm by 2.5cm in order to manually release the door. Within the vehicle, there must also be signs showing occupants how to open the door.

The flush-mounted pop-out door handle was first popularised by Elon Musk’s Tesla Model S, released in 2012. The design integrates the handle into the door and uses electrical signals to activate the latch. Such door handles provide a slight boost to efficiency by reducing drag.

 

Snark of the Day

According to a new puff profile in Politico, the senator has “main character energy.” Of course, so did Gilligan and Mr. Ed.

—The Indispensable Charlie Pierce in Esquire about the soft ball piece from Tiger Beat on the Potomac.

Oh, Wilbur! 

An Unexpected Outburst of Honesty

Musical Accompaniment

With a majority of the lawyers for the US Attorney resigning because they believe that the actions of ICE and CBP, the remaining lawyers are overworked and starting to crack.

I give you the case of Julie Le, who completely lost it in the court room.

She was fired, of course.

At least 3,000 federal agents have spent the last several months roving through Minneapolis-area neighborhoods, abducting anyone they accuse of being an immigrant, and brutalizing anyone who gets in the way. And as arrests have surged, so too have court cases that aim to get detainees released. But as of January 28, the administration has violated at least 96 court orders in at least 74 of these cases. On Tuesday, federal district court judge Jerry Blackwell held a hearing to remind the government that following court orders is not optional, and to demand that the Trump administration answer for its noncompliance.

The lawyer representing the administration, Julie Le, responded by telling Blackwell that she is very tired. “The system sucks, this job sucks,” she said. “Sometimes I wish you would just hold me in contempt, Your Honor, so that I can have a full 24 hours sleep.”

Le went on to explain that she was new to the job: An ICE attorney within the Department of Homeland Security, she had decided to volunteer—“stupidly,” she told Blackwell—to work with the local U.S. Attorney’s Office because they were “overwhelmed” by habeas cases, and she wanted to help. As Chris Geidner reported at Law Dork, this past January, there were 253 federal habeas petitions filed in Minnesota’s federal district court. Last year, in January 2025, there were six.

But since volunteering in early January, Le said, she had received “no guidance or direction” from the Justice Department on litigating in federal court. She was nevertheless assigned to more than 80 cases in the past month, according to NBC News. “When you showed up, they just throw you in the well, and then here we go,” she told Blackwell.

Blackwell did not grant Le’s request for a nap, and noted that, as overwhelmed as she may be, the detainees have it worse. “On the other side of this is someone who should not have been arrested in some instances, who’s being held in jail, put in shackles for days if not a week after they’ve been ordered released,” he said. (The transcript was originally posted online by Minneapolis attorney Daniel Suitor.)

Le’s courtroom breakdown reflects a Justice Department that is coming apart at the seams, hemorrhaging attorneys at the same time as Trump’s immigration policies are causing caseloads to explode. Six federal prosecutors resigned from the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office in mid-January in response to the administration’s immigration directives, including instructions to block a state investigation of the immigration officer who killed Renee Good, and to open a federal investigation into Good’s widow instead.

Another eight prosecutors left that office just a couple weeks later, when the Trump administration again asked them to stymie an investigation—this time, into the immigration officer who killed Alex Pretti—and again asked them to file criminal charges against protesters without evidence of any crimes. There are usually at least 50 lawyers working on criminal cases in the office, according to The Minnesota Star Tribune. Now there are fewer than 20.

Well, this is what you get when the US government demands that its lawyers aggressively support criminal acts. 

I do hope that Ms.Le lands on her feet. 

Another Blue Circle Fighter Jet

If you are not a plane nerd who remembers British procurement in the 1980s, I will mention a rather peculiar moment in British procurement history, when the British variant of the Tornado strike fighter was delivered without radar because it was not ready.

Instead, it was delivered with concrete ballast in the nose.

The aircraft, or its radar depending on contemporaneous accounts, was nicknamed, "Blue Circle," after a popular brand of concrete at the time. 

Well it appears that the latest configuration of the F-35 is being delivered with ballast in place of radar.

This is not because the new APG-85 radar is not ready, but rather because these aircraft were made with mounts for the older APG-81 radar.

The whole JSF program really is a complete cluster-f%$#:

Radar mountings in the nose of the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter are different for the current AN/APG-81 by Northrop Grumman and the future AN/APG-85 radar, also by Northrop Grumman–a difference which has helped complicate fielding of the new radar which was to deliver with F-35 Lot 17 but may now instead deliver later, possibly in Lot 20 in the next two years.

“The APG-81 is different than the APG-85, and therefore delivering the aircraft, as currently configured, with an APG-85 radar versus an APG-81 radar is challenging,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said in an interview off the House floor on Feb. 3.

“The bulkhead configuration is key because for both of the radars, they are very different,” he said. “Remember, the bulkhead configuration allows the placement of the radar towards the attitude of the array, and the attitude of the array makes all the difference in the world about how the radar operates.”

A dual mount to accommodate either the APG-85 or the APG-81 would take two years to field, a source told sister publication Defense Daily.


“I know all about it, but the delivery of the aircraft is classified,” Wittman said when asked whether he knew if it were true that Lockheed Martin has been delivering F-35s to the military services since last June without radars, including all F-35As. “I can’t speak to the condition of the aircraft so you’ll have to go to the Air Force, the customer, and ask them about that.”

 To say that this is f%$#ed up and sh%$ is an understatement.

 

Buck Fezos

The Washington Post just laid off 30% of its reporters, shuttering its sports desk, it's Middle East offices, it's Silly Con Valley offices.

Amazon Bezos never wanted the paper as anything beyond a political bargaining chip that would allow him to generate legislation to facilitate his rent seeking at Amazon. 

If you recall the story of the frog and the scorpion, the question as to why he would do this is simple, it is his nature.

In August of 2019, Senator Bernie Sanders faced negative coverage of his Presidential campaign by a vaunted national newspaper, the Washington Post. This publication was revered in D.C., having broken the Watergate scandals and brought down Richard Nixon in the 1970s. It had delivered a host of important stories over the decades since, seen as a public trust so important that Steven Spielberg made a movie about the publisher’s decision to help publish the Pentagon Papers. But like most newspapers, it had stumbled in the early 2010s.

………

In 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million. Local elites in D.C. were immensely grateful to Bezos. The paper adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” and took on a sharp edge against Donald Trump. Bezos had deep pockets, and had saved the town’s pride.

Six years later, Sanders, running for President against what he called the billionaire class, did something unusual in polite liberal society. He said Bezos had an incentive to shade coverage of politicians he didn’t like. Sanders had been discussing how Amazon doesn’t pay enough in taxes.

………

And that comment created a bitter reaction within D.C. towards the populist politician. The executive editor of the Washington Post, a deeply respected man named Marty Baron (played by Liev Schreiber in the 2015 film “Spotlight”), responded the way all of D.C. felt. He called Sanders a conspiracy theorist.

………

What a difference six years makes.

Yesterday, the Washington Post engaged in layoffs across the organization, getting rid of the Middle East team, war correspondents, its entire sports department, and everyone in the West coast office who covers big tech. Local coverage will be cut to just 12 people. Overall, Bezos is firing 300 out of 800 reporters, decimating what is widely regarded as a key newspaper covering government in America. “It’s an absolute bloodbath,” said one employee.

Importantly, the paper also fired the reporter tracking Amazon. The stated reason is that the company is losing money due to a loss of local market power, falling ad revenue, and generative AI. 

………

As Louis Brandeis once said, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.”

That is a lesson Jeff Bezos is helping to impart to all of us, once again. 

The power of these people needs to be broken, period, full stop.

Well, This Is a First

In Oregon, Federal Judge Mustafa Kasubhai threw out a lawsuit by the Federal government demanding that Oregon turn over their voter roles.

At the core of his reasoning is that the DoJ no longer has the, "Presumption of regularity,"which is another way of saying that they are lying through their teeth.

A federal judge in Oregon issued a sweeping rebuke of the Justice Department’s nationwide push to seize state voter rolls, ruling that the department can no longer be presumed to be acting in good faith and warning that its conduct threatens voters and states’ rights.

And the judge cited a recent letter sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi linking the voter roll crusade to the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota as one reason to doubt the department’s truthfulness.

In a sharply worded opinion released Thursday, U.S. District Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai concluded that the department’s public statements and actions stripped it of the trust courts typically afford federal law enforcement agencies.

Kasubhai had already announced from the bench — on two separate occasions — that the DOJ’s lawsuit seeking Oregon’s unredacted voter registration data would be dismissed.

“The presumption of regularity that has been previously extended to Plaintiff that it could be taken at its word — with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes — no longer holds,” Kasubhai wrote. “When Plaintiff, in this case, conveys assurances that any private and sensitive data will remain private and used only for a declared and limited purpose, it must be thoroughly scrutinized and squared with its open and public statements to the contrary.”

The short version is that Attorney General Bondi's letter to Minnesota demanding complete voter rolls in exchange for ICE thugs standing down shows them to be dishonest.

………

Kasubhai pointed specifically to the letter to Minnesota from Bondi that tied federal immigration enforcement to demands for voter data as the smoking gun, saying it cast doubt on the DOJ’s stated motives.

“The context of this demand within a letter about immigration enforcement casts serious doubt as to the true purposes for which Plaintiff is seeking voter registration lists in this and other cases, and what it intends to do with that data,” he wrote.

While the judge was explicit that the case could be dismissed on the law alone and had already planned to dismiss the case before the Minnesota letter was drafted, he went out of his way to say DOJ’s public conduct now undermines the “presumption of regularity” it has long enjoyed.

So basically, he said that they could not be trusted, and also noted that even if they did, their case was complete bullsh%$.

His ruling is already being cited in other jurisdictions. 

 

Well Played, The Nation, Well Played

That journal of progressive politics has announced that they are nominating the city of Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize| The Nation.

You have to appreciate the quality of the trolling that they are throwing at Donald Trump here. 

The editors of The Nation magazine are in the process of formally nominating the city of Minneapolis and its people for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. The following nomination statement, which is addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the five-member body that is charged by the Parliament of Norway with selecting the recipient of the Peace Prize, has been prepared for submission on Friday.

TO: The distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee

As longtime observers of struggles to establish peace and justice in the United States and around the world, and as the editors of a magazine that is proud to have included several Nobel laureates on our editorial board and masthead—including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—we are honored to nominate the city of Minneapolis and its people for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

While individuals and organizations have been granted this prize since its inception in 1901, no municipality has ever been recognized. But, in these unprecedented times, we strongly believe that the case can be made that Minneapolis, the largest city in Minnesota, has met and exceeded the committee’s standard of promoting “democracy and human rights, and work aimed at creating a better organized and more peaceful world.”

In December 2025, President Donald Trump and his administration deployed thousands of armed and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement and United States Border Patrol agents to Minneapolis, a beautifully multiracial and multiethnic city of nearly 430,000 people. These agents have targeted the city’s diverse immigrant communities and struck fear into all of its residents. As Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in late January, the campaign has been “more about tragically terrorizing people than it is about safety” and has been guilty of “discriminating only on the basis of race.”

The people of Minneapolis have suffered countless abuses, including harassment, detention, deportation, and injury. And, in incidents that shocked the world, federal agents have killed multiple residents, including poet and mother of three Renee Nicole Good and intensive care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti.

In response to these horrific developments, elected officials, clergy, and labor leaders in Minneapolis and Minnesota have called for nonviolent protest, in accordance with the US Constitution’s promise that Americans have a right to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances. The people of Minneapolis and neighboring communities have answered that call with peaceful mass demonstrations that have drawn tens of thousands of protesters to the streets in frigid weather. They have coupled their cry for federal agents to withdraw from Minneapolis with chants that declare, “No hate, no fear… immigrants are welcome here!”

The people of Minneapolis have also engaged in mutual support and care for neighbors who have been targeted because of the color of their skin or the language they speak. They have delivered groceries to residents who are afraid to leave their homes and provided financial support to neighbors who haven’t been able to go to their places of work because of the federal assault on their rights and humanity. 

(emphasis original)

You can read the rest at the link.

According to Snopes, the submitter was made, and it met all the requirements for an official nomination, and was accepted by the committee.

If they get it, Trump's head will explode.

Well, You Don’t Have to Spell It Out

I guess actually, you do, when you are writing in the snow with your urine.  To snaps up to Gus Kenworthy, Olympic athelete for the UK team and, exemplar of penmanship for his comment on ICE.

Team GB skier Gus Kenworthy has launched a blistering attack on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers by urinating the words “Fuck Ice” on the snow just before the start of the Winter Olympics.

In a post on Instagram the 34-year-old, who will compete for Team GB in the free-ski half-pipe in Milano Cortina, also urged Americans to write to their senators to “rein in” ICE and border patrol.

………

“Innocent people have been murdered, and enough is enough,” said Kenworthy. “We can’t wait around while ICE continues to operate with unchecked power in our communities. 

In what will probably my last Olympic related post for a while, I will also note note that VP, and couch f%$#er, JD Vance, was booed by most of the stadium when his picture appeared on the Jumbotron.

Maybe there is something about the spirit of the games after all. 

This is a Complete Mind-F%$#

I saw this on Zuck's monster.



I saw this movie with my pre-teen kids.

It's kind of shocking, and then I remember the specifics of the unexpurgated versions of Grimms' Fairy Tales, Snow White's stepmother is made to dance in red hot iron shoes until she drops dead, for example, and I realize that this is the norm, not the exception.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We have a few bits of news, first unemployment numbers where, initial claims jumped by 22,000 to 231,000, and continuing claims rose from 1.82 million to 1.84 million, which is obviously bad news.

Applications for US unemployment benefits rose by more than forecast last week, when severe winter weather gripped much of the country.

Initial claims increased by 22,000 to 231,000 in the final week of January, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. Claims exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, increased to 1.84 million in the previous week.

Business disruptions tied to severe winter weather may have prompted more Americans to seek unemployment assistance. Initial claims figures have generally showed that companies are largely reluctant to reduce headcount amid solid economic growth.

………

Those reductions contributed to more than a doubling in the number of US announced job cuts in January from a year earlier, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Hiring intentions also softened, the outplacement firm’s data showed earlier on Thursday.

Also we have the largest number of job cuts in a January since 2009, at the the height of the great recession. 

US companies announced the largest number of job cuts for any January since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, according to data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Companies last month announced 108,435 job cuts, a 118% increase from a year earlier. The report on Thursday also showed hiring intentions slid 13% from a year earlier to 5,306 — marking the weakest total for any January in the firm’s records back to 2009.

“Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January,” said Andy Challenger, the company’s chief revenue officer. “It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026.”

Finally, US job openings hit a 5 year low in December.

US job openings dropped to the lowest level in more than five years in December and data for the prior month was revised lower amid a softening in labor market conditions at the end of 2025.

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, decreased by 386,000 to 6.542m by the last day of December, the lowest level since September 2020, the labor department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or Jolts report, on Thursday.

Data for November was revised down to show 6.928m job openings instead of the previously reported 7.146m. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 7.20m unfilled jobs. Hiring increased by 172,000 positions to a still-low 5.293m in December.

If I hadn't called recession a few months back, I'd be calling it now. 

I Had Not Considered This

When one looks at the whole Jeffrey Epstein affair, one thing is clear:  He had a very specific role among the moneyed elites, he was their pimp.

That role did not die with him.

So, who is their new pimp?

As sometime contributor DanfromTo points out, Epstein performed “necessary” tasks for the elite: control thru blackmail and the provision of experiences many of them genuinely want to have. Power is allowed to people who can be trusted with it by other members of the elite, who will do what the elites want: whether that be bailing out rich people or committing genocide.

………

Epstein wasn’t the first pimp to rich people and he won’t be the last. Almost no one who fucked under-age women (or performed worse acts, there are indications of murder and cannibalism in the files) has actually suffered any consequences. There’s no real reason for American elites to stop and Israel, certainly, needs collars on new members of the elite. 

Cui bono?

This is Not Going to End Well

The Trump administration has decided to roll back environmental regulations on new nuclear power plant designs.

Considering that some of these plants use an explosive material (molten sodium) as a coolant, this decision concerns me.

The Department of Energy says advanced nuclear reactor designs - many of which have so far existed mainly at the experimental, testing, or demonstration stage - generally pose limited environmental risk and can qualify for a streamlined environmental review for future projects.

The DoE announced the "categorical exclusion" for advanced nuclear reactors (ANRs) in a Federal Register filing on Monday, establishing a pathway that can allow ANR projects to proceed without a full environmental assessment or environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), provided specific conditions are met. The move follows Trump's executive orders directing agencies to streamline environmental reviews for nuclear reactors in order to accelerate their deployment.

A categorical exclusion means that a covered category of actions "normally does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment and therefore does not require preparation of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement," the filing says. In this case, that's referring to ANRs, which include Generation III+ reactors, small modular reactors, microreactors, and stationary and mobile reactors.

Authorization, siting, construction, operation, reauthorization, and decommissioning of ANRs are all included in the categorical exclusion.

BTW, did I mention that the sodium cooled reactor is founded by Bill "Blue Screen of Death" Gates? 

Absolute nightmare fuel this is. 

Good News Everyone!

I invented a device that makes you read this in your head using my voice!

It appears that despite their best efforts, the Supreme Court could not find an adequate bit of hypocritical mental/legal gymnastics to shut down California's redistricting while approving the Texas redrawing of Congressional boundaries, so California's redistricting stands.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed for now a new California voting map that could help Democrats gain up to five seats in Congress, the latest twist in a national fight between liberals and conservatives seeking advantage in this year’s midterm elections.

The justices cleared the state to use a map pushed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and approved by voters that was intended to offset a redistricting effort by Republicans in Texas sought by President Donald Trump. The Texas map could net the GOP up to five additional seats.

The high court’s ruling will remain in effect while a lawsuit challenging California’s map works its way through the courts. The Supreme Court ruled in December that the Texas map was constitutional, so many legal experts expected the justices to approve the California map as well.

The justices did not provide a rationale for their decision in the brief order. There were no noted dissents.

The corrupt 6 right wing Justices could not figure out a way to pit a fog leaf on the naked partisanship involved with making different decisions based on party affiliation,

At least they haven't so far. 

History Rhyming

The delinquency rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities has hit 12.3%, almost 1 in 8.

This is higher than it was in the worst parts of the Great Recession. 

Fasten your seat-belts, we are in for a bumpy ride. 

The delinquency rate of office mortgages that have been securitized into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) spiked by over a percentage point in January to 12.3%, once again the worst ever, and 1.6 percentage point above the worst moments of the Financial Crisis, according to data by Trepp , which tracks and analyzes CMBS.

The CMBS were sold to institutional investors around the world, such as pension funds, bond funds, insurers, etc. The banks that originated the loans are off the hook.

High vacancy rates in new fancy office towers allow companies to move from an old tower to a new tower when the lease expires, thereby upgrading and downsizing at the same time. This “flight to quality” is pulling the rug out from under older office buildings.

 This game of musical chairs is about fail catastrophically.