My laptop decided to stop working today and is now at a repair shop. Wish me luck. I am laboriously tapping this post out with one finger on my Kindle. But it is too aggravating to write much this way. It’s also not letting me add a title. So Mahablog is temporarily out of order, Do keep commenting, though. I hope to be back in business by Monday if not tomorrow. If anyone wishes to donate toward repairs — and I don’t know what this will cost yet — the donate buttons on the right should work.
The Mahablog
Politics. Society. Group Therapy.
This proves how ignorant Stump and his administration and supporters are. This doctored photo looks so fucking obviously fake it makes you wonder how anyone could really be so fucking stupid. This looks like something someone would have done with the windows 95 version of paint photo editor, unreal!
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-touts-seemingly-doctored-photo-of-abrego-garcias-hand-in-attempt-to-prove-maryland-man-is-gang-member/
Some small tidbits of interest. Trump is introducing evidence, like uncledad mentioned, with a disclaimer… "seems to be authentic." or something equivalent. The problem is that Senators are visiting Mr. Lopez and can testify to the tattoos. SO that's Trump, pitching to MAGA.
Second, a day or two after the dictator of El Salvador visited the WH to play marionette to Trump's obvious string-pulling, Trump said (re a question on Mr. Lopez, "I have nothing to do with that." That's a tell that Trump dol doesn't want to be too closely married to a lost cause.
It seems Mr. Lopez has been transferred to a different detention facility, which has to be an improvement and MAY suggest that El Salvador does not want to bear the future brunt of US anger if anything happens to Mr. Lopez. IMO, Trump would love for Lopez to die so Trump does not suffer a legal defeat, but El Salvador may have enough sense to not take sole responsibility to solve Trump's screw-up when the punishment from the US might last decades.
Last night, the USSC handed down a temporary stay to prohibit any expulsions under the wartime act. No, it's not a final decision but it undermines the absolute authority Trump wants to claim.
The foreign student from Tufts who got abducted to LA will have to be returned to Vermont for a hearing. Her crime was an op-ed against Israel for the genocide in Gaza. Note to trolls: Israel is a country, not a religion. It's not antisemitic to oppose genocide.
From what I read, the Ivy-league colleges have agreed to coordinate against attempts by the administration to force compliance to their racist policies.
Hope you didn't take it to the same shop where Hunter Biden took his … don't want to see you in front of a House committee answering questions about your activities in Kiev or your investments in Bulgarian bitcoin deals.
Well old hoghead has been caught in a second "signal chat" bragging about his attack plans in Yemen. This time on his personal phone and with his wife, brother and personal lawyer. This behavior is pretty typical of a poser like Pete. When I was in the Army I saw plenty of these types, they joined the military only to wear the uniform, it filled some sort of empty space. They were not interested in service or money for college (my only reason) or "defending the nation". They just wanted to wear the uniform and brag that they were in the military. That is all Pete is, he's a phony flag waiving poser. I'm sure this incident will follow the GOP playbook, never admit any wrong doing and blame it on the media. Pete's going to have to get a few soldiers killed before he's ever held accountable.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/20/politics/hegseth-second-signal-chat-military-plans/index.html
Lucky for him the Pope has died so our corporate media may just let this one go?
I put a few shekels in the paypal for the laptop repair!
Well old hoghead has been caught in a second "signal chat" bragging about his attack plans in Yemen. This time on his personal phone and with his wife, brother and personal lawyer. This behavior is pretty typical of a poser like Pete. When I was in the Army I saw plenty of these types, they joined the military only to wear the uniform, it filled some sort of empty space. They were not interested in service or money for college (my only reason) or "defending the nation". They just wanted to wear the uniform and brag that they were in the military. That is all Pete is, he's a phony flag waiving poser. I'm sure this incident will follow the GOP playbook, never admit any wrong doing and blame it on the media. Pete is going to have to get a few soldiers killed before he's ever held accountable.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/20/politics/hegseth-second-signal-chat-military-plans/index.html
In the subject of operational security (and family)… in WWII my mother and my aunt both worked for different companies connected with the war effort. Both became involved with aspects of supplying the Manhatten Project. Yeah, the bomb. They knew the US was working on a bomb that would use the energy of the atom. The thing is, neither of them told the other until after the bombs were dropped on Japan. That's civilians (and women if you think they are more inclined to gossip) who understood the importance of security.
Almost all the Trump appointees scare me for their lack of competence and basic understanding of the principles of democracy.
On day one this all started, the blitzkrieg of stupidity. We are not yet through the first 100 days, and the future has never looked this dark and foreboding. It is fear and loathing on steroids beyond our wildest expectations with no relief in sight.
One would guess that this is like what the great dinosaurs felt many eons ago when that big space chunk hit the earth. This might be worse though, as the dinosaurs did not do the space chunk collision to themselves. What we are dealing with is a giant self-inflicted catastrophe as the masses fell for a con job. Who could have seen that as a critical flaw of democracy?
Common sense was to prevail yet who could have guessed it would shrink to a characteristic beyond the capacity of the average American. Common sense just fails to be common enough to be counted upon. OK fine. But then did we really need to go for a blitzkrieg of stupid on steroids? There had to be other choices.
Laptop is still in the shop. I called and they said they got it working (it wouldn't start after a reboot) but they were still doing something so maybe tomorrow. Do keep commenting. What about that stock market, eh?
Get that blacksmith away from that Rolex! Or at least the Fed Chairman.
I pulled all my cash out of the markets when I retired. And based on what I see going on now that was a good decision, Stump is fucking the markets up for sure but the rapid swings up and down just show that the whole fucking thing is a house of cards, no thanks.
Looks like Trump blinked on China. Exact numbers not announced but Trump suggested he will be reducing tariffs.
The judge trying to sort out the return of A. Garcia is in the verge of calling the administration out for contempt of court.
Tesla earnings reported for the quarter – down 71%.
I'm so tired of winning.
I have been playing phone tag with the techie working on my laptop, but I got some information. The hard drive was only partly working and has to be replaced. I was told they did back up my data. But now they are waiting for delivery of the replacement hard drive. I still don't know what this is going to cost.
I talked to my computer guy this week. My laptop refused to charge. It's on its last legs and I wanted Eric's opinion about a reconditioned laptop. He said that's all he buys. About half the price of new with a warranty. He can bring over everything from the old drive and it will boot like the laptop I have. I'm just passing that along for what it's worth.