A lot has happened over the past couple of days, and I’m feeling overwhelmed again. But I do want to say something about Pam Bondi’s, um, performance yesterday in front of the House Judiciary Committee. I’ve never before in my life wanted to see someone tarred and feathered as much as I did yesterday.
I understand Trump expressed approval of the debacle, but I’m not sure she did him any favors. Even some voices on the Right were disturbed at what went on yesterday. You may remember Erick Erickson from his RedState days. I take it he’s moved on to cushier venues, but he’s still solidly Right.
When the Attorney General of the United States is asked why she has prosecuted no one related to Jeffrey Epstein and this is her answer, she should be fired or resign. But neither will happen, which is another reason the Democrats are going to have a good election year. pic.twitter.com/IahqskOAHW
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) February 11, 2026
I’ve been idly wondering what sort of career Bondi will have when her current gig ends. They may hire her on Fox News, but I can’t imagine a real law firm or law school hiring her to do anything other than sort mail or make coffee. She is older than I thought she was, though — she was born in 1965 — so maybe she’ll just retire.
But the Department of Justice has effectively been gutted. I understand Bondi has fired more than 230 career attorneys and other employees. At least 6000 more have resigned. And of course these were the best, most experienced people. At the same time, lawyers are not exactly lining up to apply for jobs. The DOJ is getting desperate to hire people. See also Once-Elite DOJ Is Now Desperate For Lawyers, Resorts To ‘Forward This To A Friend’ Recruiting at Above the Law.
Federal judges selected Donald Kinsella, a veteran litigator, as the top federal prosecutor in Upstate New York to replace a Trump appointee who was disqualified from the role.
But just hours later, after judges swore Kinsella in during a private ceremony, a White House official fired him.
“Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, [the president of the United States] does,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a social media post. “See Article II of our Constitution,”
“You are fired, Donald Kinsella,” Blanche added.
Trump keeps trying to appoint unqualified but loyal attorneys to federal prosecutor jobs — think Lindsey Halligan and Alina Habba. So along with being unqualified they were not properly appointed and confirmed to their jobs, and their prosecutions were being challenged for that reason, along with the many other reasons.
Trump keeps preferring these incompetent wonders over actual lawyers. He wants U.S. attorneys who will do what he wants and bring bogus criminal charges against people he doesn’t like. This is not going well. Yesterday a Grand Jury failed to indict the six senators who made the “don’t obey illegal orders” video. That failure goes to Jeanine Pirro, who is turning into the “failure to indict” queen. I bet she’s sorry she left Fox News. But Trump can’t see that loyalty is not competence, and all of this legal thrashing around makes him look weak.
Further, the firing of Donald Kinsella may not hold up.
The law governing U.S. attorney vacancies at times allows district judges to appoint an official to serve until a vacancy is filled through the normal Senate confirmation process. But it remains an open question whether the president can dismiss those appointed by the federal judiciary.
Peter Shane, a leading constitutional and administrative law scholar at the New York University School of Law, said in a social media post Wednesday evening that he believed Trump’s dismissal of Kinsella was likely unlawful.
So we’ll see what happens. But this brings us to the larger issue of how Trump is his own worst enemy. His second administration is a massive failure already, and most of the nation knows it even if he doesn’t. See also The less voters knew, the more they liked Trump in 2024. Not Anymore at Strength in Numbers.
In other law-related news, a judge has temporarily blocked the Pentagon’s action against Mark Kelly over the illegal orders video.
In TACO news, ICE Goon Czar Tom Homan has announced the “conclusion” of the immigration operation in Minnesota. He says there will be a “significant drawdown” of federal agents. I’ll be impressed when they’re gone entirely.
Senate Democrats have blocked a DHS funding bill, meaning DHS is likely to run out of funding this weekend.
500 quatloos she gets a professorship at the Scalia Law School at George Mason.
I don’t know. That was the most unprofessional, un lawyer-like, disengenuous performance I have ever seen for someone at that level in a congressional hearing. Bondi embarrassed herself, as a lawyer and as a government official with her over the top combative, snarky, juvenile performance. She is tasked with doing the devils work, and has to rely on lies to get it done, but she showed zero ability to use legal knowledge or skill, no finesse, etc. She might get a job at someplace like Liberty Law school or some Christian Nationalist outfit, but I cant see her working at a law firm or anywhere in a legit, high profile legal role after that. When she leaves office her only alternative will be some form of wingnut welfare. But they do pay well.
She's ca. 2 years older than me? How much frickin' plastic surgery has she had?
In my book, Minnesota is the top news of the week. It is a defeat for Trump in that the objective was federal dominance over a blue state, concentrated in Minneapolis as a "sanctuary" city. The first serious surge was LA – Governor Newsome has the resources to fight in court, and he relishes the fight to launch a bid for the presidency. I think Trump does not want to elevate someone who may run against Trump who will make a bid to keep the presidency to avoid jail – again. Miller saw an easier target in Minnesota, but the people organized against ICE in an epic fashion. They lost lives, and many were injured, but they kept it peaceful and large, sustaining the pressure for WEEKS!
There's a MLK quote I will paraphrase – that by mobilizing media attention on non-violent protests, the civil rights movement brought America face to face with itself. Tens of thousands of people with their phones out captured video of violence and murder, not by illegal alienes but by ICE. They put the names and faces of the American citizens who were victims on social media and in the news. ICE ramped up the violence and the protesters hung in there, putting life and limb on the line for strangers they would never meet! Trump lost the battle of social media – the polls saw Trump’s dominance in immigration become a huge liability.
This is a withdrawal from the battlefield on a par with General Lee at Gettysburg. As then, the war with ICE is not over, but ICE is fighting a defensive battle wherever they deploy with racist tactics. Minneapolis showed us the tactics that work. NIMBY will come back to haunt ICE even in Red states when locals with no criminal history are targeted, and citizens who are not bigots react.
IMO, the strategy with ICE was to provoke violence. Riots and looting were the planned and expected reaction to an attack on citizens and immigrants of the wrong complexion. White middle-class citizens were supposed to sit on the sidelines and allow it. Angry minorities were supposed to duplicate Watts. (Some of you are too old to remeber the insurrection.) In the 60s, racial bias was institutional, even in California. Voting rights, school integration, and federally enforced affirmative action hadn't begun. So people below the bottom rung of the social ladder exploded because they had nothing to lose. This time, "woke" people, including middle-class white citizens, responded to the injustice in large numbers. IMO, that's why riots didn't happen. Riots that didn't happen left Trump in a weak position to call out troops, his primary goal. Neither the courts nor most people see the need for martial law.
Do NOT underestimate the American people.
So, a military laser weapon loaned to border patrol was fired at party ballons misidentified as drones misidentified as belonging to a Mexican drug cartel. Those are a couple of big misses. No one said if they hit or missed the party balloons. They did, we hope, miss air traffic in the area before the air space was closed.
Who gave the OK to give the border patrol high tech weapons like that. I would hesitate to issue them sling-shots and rocks.
That had to be the biggest miss of all. The poorest misjudgment award goes to?
Bondi lights me up, I can't watch her. But people who saw it said she made a fool of herself. She couldn't even turn around and acknowledge the Epstein survivors behind her, she's that big of an a$$. Erick Erikson and how many other Republicans were peeled away because of her stunt? I'm all for that.
There’s a joke she helped start. A cop pulls you over, for some infraction, and you start talking to the officer: “The DOW just reached 50,000!”
She'll land on her feet somehow. There's always a need for pit bull attorneys. That is, if she still has her law license. My hope is that she ends up in prison for awhile.
I am glad 6 Republicans joined with the Democrats to repeal 45's tariffs on Canada. That's progress. Donnie is melting…
CBC reports that Bondi was a registered lobbyist one of whom's clients was the billionaire owner of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit Michigan and Windsor Ontario. Just coincidentally he opposes the new Gordie Howe Bridge that Trump is trying to steal from the Gov'ts of Canada and Michigan.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/trump-gordie-howe-moroun-bridge-lobby-ambassador-ballard-9.7085529
She, probably, go back to lobbying though it look s like it may have been Howard Lutnick who got the Orange Julius moving this time.
Hat tip to Jared Moskowitz:
Score!!!
The funniest thing was seeing the reaction of the two staffers behind Bondi. They must have been the ones who assembled the burn binder. They looked pissed and embarrassed at Moskowitz's humor.
Just imagine where Trump's approval rating could be, and how worse off we might be as a result, if he wasn't such a dumb, spoiled, evil, narcissistic bigot, with no moral compass and no real ideology except hate and corruption. Everything Trump touches dies, even his own evil plans don’t always bear the corrupt fruit he expects, because he is his own worst enemy, and thank God for that. He screws up everything, from Greenland to Canada to the EU; the tariffs and the economy; Ukraine, the Nobel, Venezuela, because he lacks any semblance of respect, self-control, interest in governing, and awareness of historical precedence. Trump built a brownshirt political paramilitary force, and in a fit of vengeance, intended to showcase the power he thought he had in MN. His goons were apparently told they had a free hand to abuse regardless of the law, they overstepped and had their power used against them when Trump mistakenly thought they would be cowed into obedience by upping the ante in jiu jitsu like move by the heroic citizens of MN. His entire presidency ends up adversely afflicted by his own whims and the ignoramuses he has working for him, his best people, which either make no sense at all or are untethered from present realities. He's either stepping on his own message or making unforced, unnecessary errors out of ignorance and sheer stupidity.
"TACO news"?
Years from now, people will look back at this Trump period in bafflement that so, so many people took this misanthrope seriously about anything, so seriously that they actually voted for such an idiotic buffoon.
I mean, seriously, what idiocy possessed so many of our fellow citizens to look at this overgrown two-year-old simpleton and see a "president"? When he ran the first time, I figured that it was a stunt to suck up some cash from low I.Q. patsies, and that he'd lose, but profit handsomely, and then go away. I had watched Trump pretty much from his rise in Manhattan and laughed my ass off at the crude P.T. Barnum act.
I have since seen, of course, that there are literally millions of my fellow citizens who should not be trusted with sharp implements or unfilled ballots. One born every minute? No, there are thousands and thousands of my fellow citizens who can't be trusted out of doors, or with voter registrations. We are a nation of mentally challenged ignoramuses.
And they run the place.
A harsh statement, though really too kind, as really no one admits to running a train wreck. We have multiple near simultaneously occurring train wrecks going on.
Take party-balloon-gate mentioned in my comment above. Not a responsible soul to be found.
Of course, safety concerns needed to be addressed some involving other agencies. Or did they?
So here we go. Authority but not responsible authority. That could be a problem.
The saga continues and yes Hegseth is named. I won't spoil it more than that.
Inside the Debacle That Led to the Closure of El Paso’s Airspace – The New York Times
Quote of the day:
"There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!"
Another one bites the dust….
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/13/tech/amazon-ring-flock-partnership-ice
Another one bites the dust… (Second time)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/top-ice-contractor-geo-set-to-erase-all-trump-trade-gains/ar-AA1WeajD
And another one's down, and another one's down….
https://www.salon.com/2026/02/14/right-wing-media-turns-on-kash-patel-over-nancy-guthrie-case/
https://news.sky.com/story/epstein-survivors-accuse-pam-bondi-of-lacking-humanity-and-integrity-after-fiery-justice-committee-testimony-13506633
Bragging about the Dow is cheering the prosperity of the same class that exploited Epstein's recruitment and intimidation of children for sex as tokens – call them crypto-humanity, to be traded for influence and government secrets. Even the right is calling her on it.
Lil Marco stood in front of European leaders and lectured them on their liberal immigration policies saying it would lead to "stark prospect of civilizational erasure". He is essentially saying saying what white racists have said for decades that the intermingling of races will dilute the white race and that mass immigration will erase “white culture”, has anyone told little Marco that he isn't white?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/europeans-reject-u-s-claims-after-rubios-address-in-munich
Quote of the day:
Schumer on DHS reforms: "I believe Republicans will have no choice but to go along with us because it's so common sense"
I love the Olympics, I really enjoy watching almost all of the competition, it does my sixty-five-year-old heart good to see these youngsters competing and almost all of them are such good sports even when they don't win with a few exceptions. One sport I can't really watch though is curling, it's almost as boring as shuffleboard but this year the curlers have found a way to inject some excitement, they started cheating and it's getting a whole bunch of attention. I'm expecting fisticuffs any day now!
Curling controversy at Winter Games widens with Britain accused of infraction | AP News
In honor of President's Day I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post. When the horse dies Rule # 1 …Dismount!
Let us never again elect a leader from the Epstein Class, a new class for me as there were only the upper, middle, and lower classes when I took Sociology.
I checked my horoscope in the Post after I unsubscribed, and it said to get busy on my great idea which had which I had already done.
I think a good idea – but then- they have sold out to He who speaks only in superlatives.