LSR has been away for several weeks. Travel and a simple disinclination to pay close attention to the news has kept us apart.
Let's dive in.
Epstein just won't die...
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| Chris Britt |
Last I wrote, the Epstein Files Affair was heating up: Has Supermanipulator Found his Kryptonite?
That was 4 weeks ago, and it hasn't cooled down.
More and more photos and videos were shared of the two scumbags partying together. The Repugs are having a hard time justifying the specter of Dear Leader as Pedophile.
At one point The Groper-in-Chief tacitly admitted to unsavory practices when he said that 16-year-old Virgina Giuffre, the most recognizable Epstein victim who died by suicide earlier this year, was "stolen" from Mar-a-Lardo's spa:
For the record, office supplies are stolen. People are trafficked.
This toad is just disgusting.
Here's a different take on the whole mess. As usual, one should follow the money. There are $1.5 billion in transactions to and from Epstein – including a Russian connection. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore) wants records released. We could learn a whole lot about the players.
The Felon asked that the Grand Jury transcripts of Ghislaine Maxwell's case be released. It was a false flag of course; grand jury records are secret and are never released. Sure enough, a judge disallowed unsealing the transcripts.
We are still waiting for all the files to be released.
Nobody is letting it go...
We will not forget about Epstein and IMPOTUS.
From MSNBC:
From "The Daily Show." A deep dive in three parts.
Jordan Klepper of "The Daily Show" is great at illustrating MAGAts' poor grasp of current events.
Birds of a Feather
It's always a Repug.
Remember this guy?
Well....
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| Read article in The New Republic |
And another one....
And another one....
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| Read the article at The Daily Beast |
These are just a few of the most recent ones.
Notice a pattern?
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| It's true. |
Speaking of Wayward Pee-Pees...
You gotta hand it to Trey and Matt, who once again speak truth to power and skewer those who could use a good skewering.
In a clever move, the day after they signed a $1.5 billion deal with Paramount (the same corporation who capitulated to the Dick-tator, paying him millions and citing "financial reasons" when bribing him by cancelling "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert"), the makers of "South Park" released arguably their most brilliant episode, and followed up with their second-most brilliant episode.
As much as I want to boycott Paramount, I really want to see what will <ahem> pop up from Matt and Trey.
Watch South Park on Paramount+ or Comedy Central. ...Mm'kay?
Season 27, Episode 1: Sermon on the 'Mount
Season 27: Episode 2: Got a Nut
Rigging the Election in Texas
This is bad.
TACO directed Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to draw in five more GOP Congressional seats pronto. WTAF?!
Congressional districts are redrawn every 10 years, at each census. Even then, there is a lot of Rethug gerrymandering to draw spaghetti lines that will disenfranchise Blue voters. They know they can't win, so they must cheat.
It's urgent that they cheat now. The midterm election is less than 15 months away. The Traitor Tot knows that the Democrats will get back Congress. His days are numbered, so he must cheat and cheat hard.
Texas Democrat state representatives aren't having it. They decided to resist, big time. They left the state en masse to prevent a quorum. JB Pritzer, Gov of Illinois, offered to put them up in his family's hotels. They are receiving donations from Texas constituents and from around the country.
Gov. Abbott blew a fuse and put out a "warrant for their arrest." Stupid! Breaking quorum not illegal in the least, and is in fact the lawmakers' right.
Watch three Texas representatives talk about the situation here (thanks for the link, Sister Resister Anne!). I'm so happy that Texas has such patriots! Worth the watch, and please remember their names. I'm sure we will hear from these brave people in the future.
California's Gov. Newsom wasn't taking any of Abbott's crap either. He is moving to have California do some of its own redistricting if (and only if) Abbott goes ahead with SCROTUS's plan.
The reality isn't as easy as the wish. Democrats have historically tried to make things exceedingly fair, and this means legislation in Blue states that disallows such cheating tactics. Still, with the voters' consent in November, it may be able to happen.
Let's hope Texas's governor comes to his senses before California's move is triggered.
If you want to help fund the Texas Dems' unexpected trip out of the state, you can donate with Powered by People here.
Here's my governor, Gavin Newsom, trolling again. I love this man.
Here's today's press conference. Hear labor leaders, state representatives, U.S. Senators, and Governor Newsom speak about California's role in leading the charge against cheating. Governor Daddy starts at 50:00.
Meeting with Putin .... in Russia?
Hair Furor is set to meet with fellow dictator and criminal Vladimir Putin this Friday. Mr. Dementia can't seem to remember that the United States bought Alaska from Russia way back in 1867. When he announced the meeting, he said this. Not once, but twice. When did we give Alaska back? Or is that part of the "land swaps" he mentions?
That press conference was a doozy. Not only was it a bunch of glaring authoritarian shite, it was another striking example of his dementia (more about that later).
He was really off the rails.
He has made up a crisis out of whole cloth. He asserted that Washington, D.C. is a squalor of crime and filth. He is bringing in the National Guard to police the city. This decision came after poor widdle Big Balls got carjacked.
The trouble is, despite its history, D.C. has a rapidly declining crime rate. Supermanipulator is lying lying lying.
This is what it is, in my estimation. One, he is a little boy with big toys. He is doing it because he can. Two, he desperately needs a distraction from Epstein. Thirdly, and most importantly, he is rehearsing for using the Guard to take over cities come November, 2026.
It's easy in D.C.; without representation, there is no push-back. He does not have to go through a governor because there is no governor. He can see how far he can push it, and he can test out bringing the regular military as well. Hey! Let's dry-run martial law!
"He can only take control for 30 days!" you may retort. Yes, but if Congress gives consent, he will continue. What do you think will happen?
MSNBC found their cajones and fact-checked him in real time.
One thing is true; there has been violence in D.C. Remember the historic violence on January 6, 2021? Does anyone remember what happened to the over 1,000 violent criminals that were convicted for their actions on that day?
There are notorious criminals that live in D.C., too. Elon Musk's AI bot Grok got it right:
47 assembled the Usual Suspects to blather in front of the "press." They popped their numbing solution and they stood there for 90 minutes listening to him slur and huff through the lies.
His breathing is labored; he is out of breath often. His speech is imprecise.
The breathing? I'm convinced it's part of his congestive heart failure which also accounts to his cankles. No, it's not "chronic venous insufficiency."
Watch it below if you have the stomach. To be honest, I did not. I skipped through and heard bits and pieces. It's the same old shit with the same old windbags in the gallery throwing softball questions at him.
The whole meeting with Putin thing got kinda lost in all the other offal. The meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, without Ukraine having a voice. We'll see what comes of it. I don't think anything good. I betcha Putie and Mrs. Putie will have a private, undocumented meeting at some point.
The Dementia is Strong in This One
A couple small notes about his progressing dementia.
Today's topics: Confabulation and Perseveration.
Confabulation
It's happening more. I've mentioned his confabulation before. Confabulation is making up stories. Not lying to get something out of it, but lying because you think it's the truth. Of course, any confabulation here is compounded by the man's natural inclination to lie about everything. It's hard to tease apart, but I mention this version of lying because confabulation is a hallmark of dementia.
A couple recent examples:
He recently told about his uncle John Trump, a professor at MIT who had degrees in "nuclear, chemical, and math" and who had the Unabomber in his class. The part about MIT was about the only true part. The uncle did teach there, but his degrees were in electrical engineering and physics. That can be forgiven, perhaps, as the Twitiot does not do science stuff. But the rest is harder to wave away. Ted Kaczynski went to Harvard, not MIT, and was identified as the Unabomber in 1996. Uncle John died in 1985.
What about his assertion that he lowered drug prices by 1500% - 600% - 1000%? Yeah, his brain is just glitching. As much as I wish it were true, Big Pharma is not going to pay us to take their drugs. He is confused and confabulatory.
What about when he goes on his stories about dying by batteries in a sinking boat vs. a shark in the water? It's apropos of nothing; it does not have anything to do with the policies he wants to push. You just sit there and think, "Huh?"
Same with the faucet in the North that officials can simply turn and water will flow into thirsty California. He probably heard half of an explanation about water works and his brain just took it and ran with it.
In fact, all of his "weaves" and tangents are part of the confabulation behaviors. His brain just fills in the space with what he believes is rational truth. It just keeps happening. Unfortunately, no one in the legacy media talks about it, and no one has the balls to contradict him (except for a few, like Jerome Powell. More below).
Is the below confabulation or just a regular everyday lie/disinformation?
And what the fresh hell is this?
Perseveration
The batteries vs. sharks story is a good example of perseveration. Perseveration is when an idea or a word gets repeated over and over. The brain holds on to it and it keeps coming up again. He told this story repeatedly during the campaign. It had nothing to do with anything, but he loved to tell it.
The battery vs. shark nonsense? His brain worked hard to make it up; it's not going to let it go easily. Same with the laundry list of grievances about Obama, Hilary, and Biden. You can often see him pivot out of nowhere to those go-to concepts. And sometimes he mixes them up, calling out Obama for a policy that Biden put into place. His failing brain just can't keep all the facts straight, so it just makes them up. And then, it holds on to them.
His multiple uses of "hot country" and "Thank you for your attention to this matter!" fall into the category of perseveration.
What the hell is this 26 minutes of nonsense? All of it is confabulation and perseveration.
And they are not hiding their Christian Nationalism propaganda:
Here is Ali Velsher's response on MSNBC. "Bat poop crazy!"
Here are a few of my notes from listening to a small part of that shitshow.
He wants a "thank you" for the money sent to Gaza for food. He mentioned it several times. What about the aid to Gaza that was cancelled as part of your ripping up USAID, you moron?
He also lied about other nations not sending aid. Many other countries have sent aid! Of course they have!
And speaking of the tragedy in Gaza, here is how he described an interaction with a family member:
"Sir, please get my son back."
"How is your son doing?"
"Well, he's dead."
*heavy sigh* (mine)
At one point, he had a dementia moment when he said (talking again about Gaza), "Whoever was the prime minister at the time, who I know who it was..."
Dude. You do not know who it was.
He did speak true at one point when he said, "The whole thing is a con job. We have a lot of con jobs going." Ain't that the truth!
If you want your brain to itch, go ahead and watch the whole thing, along with the other one about pulling the National Guard into D.C.
Scottish Allies!
FUCK ICE!
The Gestapo has slowed its operations in California, but they are still wreaking havoc.
ICE Barbie and her team have changed the requirements for joining ICE.
The age requirements have loosened, and there is a shit-ton of money available for new hires, thanks to the Big Bloated Billionaire Bill.
People like actor Dean Cain, who played Superman on TV for a jot, can join, as can school counselors like Mr. Mackey, mm'kay?
How 'bout the font on their recruiting materials? Nothing is a mistake, folks.
Not enough people are talking about the chilling subtext and imagery in the messages being sent by the official DHS accounts
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) August 10, 2025 at 6:02 PM
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They are appealing to young men, and doing it well, who feel disillusioned and cynical, unheard and frustrated. They are the Joe Rogan listeners who have found their tribe. They watch YouTube videos and ignore the real news. We've got to find a way to pull these young men back!
ICE is continuing to commit atrocities
It's really hard for me to face the repulsive acts that the gestapo is committing, but we must look at them, know them, and get angry.
A few of the latest brutalities:
- They are still snatching U.S. citizens, like "Blue" Wong and two others from the San Diego area. Wong was taken away while standing peacefully after an ICE raid. She was held in solitary confinement while detained.
- Children and teenagers are being snatched up and deported. So much for going after "criminals."
- A tamale lady in the LA area suffered a heart attack after she was pounced upon without warning, let alone a warrant. ICE officers did nothing; a bystander called 911 for medical help.
- Just this week, ICE traumatized a 15-year-old with disabilities, putting him in handcuffs as he was arriving to school in Los Angeles. In what universe is this ok?
- Also in Los Angeles, ICE assholes rented a Penske truck, posing as people looking for day laborers at a Home Depot. When laborers looking for an honest day's work went toward the truck, the ICE agents opened the back doors, jumped out, and arrested them. They themselves called it "Operation Trojan Horse." So breathtakingly disgusting.
- How 'bout this one? The owner of Trump Burger, a chain of restaurants around Houston, got detained. He is a non-immigrant visitor from Lebanon who overstayed his visa, and was arrested in May.
You wonder why they wear masks? Because they are horrible people, and so that their atrocities are done anonymously. When they forget their mask, they are actually able to be held to account for their crimes. There was an agent who arrested a United States citizen in an ICE raid. Unmasked, he happened to be photographed. Later, he assaulted a LA police officer in an unrelated matter. It didn't take long to identify him from the photograph. Read in LA Taco and on the Los Angeles County D.A.'s website.
- Raids in Texas have been ramping up, causing many to stay home and avoid any activities, including for necessary medical care.
FUCK for-profit prisons
There are many who are getting hot for building new detention centers concentration camps. These profiteers have dollar signs in their eyes. Stocks in private prisons are skyrocketing.
Wait a minute. I thought we were deporting people, not sending them to concentration camps!
It's bad, and these prisons won't be going away. They are being built in economically depressed rural areas. The jobs that they create will be valuable, and once they are established, it will be very difficult to remove them.
Watch for more "Alligator Alcaraz" type atrocities in other states.
Empty Gee... talking sense?
Statistics aren't Real!
When you don't like what the numbers are telling you, fire the person who compiled the numbers. Change the numbers. Cast suspicion on alllll the numbers.
When a jobs report showed numbers that Jabba the Trump did not like, he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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| Kevin Kallaugher (KAL) |
We cannot let this kind of shit stand! This dictator crap is wearing on my nerves!!
Facts aren't Real!
- He erased impeachment notes from the Smithsonian's American History Museum, deleting his own two – count 'em two – impeachments from the impeached presidents display.
- He erased whole sections of the Constitution from the Library of Congress site. They called it a "coding error." Riiiiiight.
- And of course, he made up crime statistics and rejected labor statistics as we're already seen.
Friends, we aren't approaching authoritarianism. We are enveloped by it.
Stephen Miller is the lowest of the low
Here is how he was in high school.
Bonkers Bits
It is physically impossible for me to catch up on every bonkers crap nugget that flies out. So, take these bits n pieces.
There is no bottom
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) August 1, 2025 at 6:30 PM
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"All we're doing is giving Trump cover."
🤔
The FIFA Fiasco: So much wrong happened at the FIFA World Cup championship ceremony. First, Donold overstayed his welcome at the presentation of the championship trophy. He had to be physically moved to the rear so that the athletes could have the spotlight and celebrate together as they deserve. Here is the video, which also shows him pocketing a medal.
Then, he stole the trophy and took it back to the Whitewash House. "They actually made a new one for [Chelsea]," he said.
If he wants something, whether it's the limelight or a trophy, he simply takes it. The entitlement is astounding.
More entitlement from the Couch F*cker: Prince Smarming took his family to vacation in Ohio. They wanted to spend some time on the Little Miami River in kayaks. So, the level of the river was raised. I just can't with these people.
This is your Rose Garden today. Yes. He paved paradise and put up a park-your-butt lot.
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@another.mike.gen.x “Are we GREAT yet 🤔.”#TariffTrouble #Layoffs #ElectionsHaveConsequences #TradeWar #SteelTariff #JobLoss#LIVEIncentiveProgram #LIVECanBeEasy #PaidPartnership ♬ original sound - Gen X
Listen to this toxic rhetoric!
Gutfeld: “You know what? I've said this before, we need to learn from the blacks. The way they were able to remove the power from the n-word word by using it. So from now on it’s: What up, my Nazi? Hey, what up, my Nazi? Hey, what's hanging, my Nazi?”
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) July 15, 2025
Kennedy: “Nazi, please!”… pic.twitter.com/GC76xmTbSK
Resistance
- Los Angelenos are pushing back. They are protesting often, taking back the streets, and the parks.
- Los Angeles Union School District is moving to protect immigrant schoolchildren and their families
- Also in Los Angeles, a federal judge ordered ICE to stop "indiscriminately rounding up" people by profiling them by the color of their skin. The ACLU brought the lawsuit.
- The ACLU is also suing ICE for detaining immigrants that show up to their lawful court hearings. Please, if you can, throw the ACLU a few bucks. Their work is important.
- These Ohioans linked hands and stood for eight miles against ICE activities.
@thetnholler OHIO… Thousands link arms to form human chain 8 miles long to protest mostly against ICE…
♬ original sound - The TN Holler
- Jerome Powell stood next to Shitler and corrected several points that the Liar-in-Chief made. We need more of this! Real-time fact checking! Please watch.
The only reason Jerome Powell can get away with it is that the markets (the only thing TACO cannot control) would go ape-shit if Powell were fired. Stay strong, Jerome Powell!
- The courts are trying hard to push back. A federal judge ordered the regime to restore funding to UCLA after he froze grants for science funding due what he calls antisemitism on campus. An appeals court allowed the regime to suspend billions of dollars in foreign aid through USAID. This case was not decided on the merits, however. Watch for SCOTUS to take up the case.
I still want to get into the courts' response to all of his illegal orders. There are a lot of cases, and sometimes the results are buried on page four of the newspaper. I believe the courts is at the heart of our resistance, though. If this third branch of government can hold, our democracy can hold. For now, you can peruse this tracker from Just Security.
- Citizens at Town Hall meetings are giving it to their Members of Congress. Here's just a couple recent ones. Meet Rep. Mike Flood in Nebraska. Go, citizens! Go!
And Doug LaMalfa in a deep-red part of California:
And lastly, these guys!
Just a note about writing and language
John McWhorter is a linguist, and he often writes about language and race. I love his podcast "Lexicon Valley." He writes here about Ketanji Brown Jackson's down-to-earth writing in her dissents. I cannot love Justice Jackson any more. Read in the New York Times.
John McWhorter is a linguist, and he often writes about language and race. I love his podcast "Lexicon Valley." He writes here about Ketanji Brown Jackson's down-to-earth writing in her dissents. I cannot love Justice Jackson any more. Read in the New York Times.
The Hope
Please continue to have hope and joy. The resistance is holding, and the regime is disorganized and chaotic. Give in your your joys and hold them tight! Here are some words from Annie Lemott (thanks, Anne!)
Here is the LA Times piece without the ads:
As the psychiatrist Dr. Melfi says to Tony in the pilot episode of “The Sopranos,” “Hope comes in many forms.” I was reminded of this the other day when I found my finger glued to the hand of another woman.I had set out that morning to celebrate all the indications that the political plates of the Earth had shifted — millions of people at the No Kings marches, all the court cases that the White House keeps losing and Trump’s Epstein nightmare.I wanted to immerse myself in the headway. Something’s happening here. Those in charge want us to give up until the next election, but of course we are not going to, because we have children and nieces and nephews. The dark forces must be childless.They are not concerned about squeezing the life out of the Constitution, the rising oceans and the re-emergence of diseases long eradicated, because they are so bottomlessly stupid and greedy. And they are unaware of what happens when the autocracy overreaches. Every time. Think pitchforks. Tick-tock. This gives me a little hope.Hope comes in many forms: When I hear the songs of the civil rights movement at our marches, a soft gong sounds. The poet Jack Gilbert wrote, “We must admit that there will be music despite everything.” Ever since I heard the author Caroline Myss say that when darkness and evil go nuclear, love and hope must go nuclear too, I started getting occasional manicures with glittery polish, to remind me.There was a nail salon in the first strip mall I passed. I went in. It seemed crowded, and I turned to leave. But the nearest manicurist said, “Pick a color.” I said, “No, no, you seem busy.” “Pick a color!” she demanded, so I leapt to the polish station and picked a sparkly pale pink. An old woman came lumbering out from the back room toward me with a bowl of water. I dutifully fished out $25 from my purse, five of it tip, and put the fingers of one hand into the bowl of warm water.When one hand free, I scrolled through the links on my phone — the usual stuff, the government taking away health insurance from the poor and protecting American jobs by causing mass starvation around the world.The salon had grown incredibly hot. What hasn’t? I smiled remembering Sen. Jim Inhofe tossing that snowball around on the Senate floor as proof that there is no global warming. God, the absurdity.Absurdity! A light bulb went on over my head in that salon. That’s what we’re missing. I realized that this was one solution to the cruel mess and the endless, depressing analysis. Yes, we will take to the streets at every opportunity, care for the poor and pick up litter. But we also, desperately, need to begin laughing again. And who does absurdity better than Monty Python?Monty Python says what we already know, that yes, it is all hopelessly stupid, cruel and unfair, but their making it silly delivers joy and buoyancy. We can grip our heads, fight back and laugh at it and them. And nothing agitates narcissists more than people laughing. Think of how confused our most prominent bullies get when people laugh at them.Bullies rule by fear. Humor is fearless, a bubbly form of hope. Remember the “Upper Class Twit of the Year” award? And “Self-Defense Against Fruit”? Aren’t people in flag-draped lines voting to lose their health insurance and their basic rights reminiscent of folks queuing for crucifixion in “Life of Brian”? The cheery, “Line up on the left, one cross each”?Laughter and those jaunty songs break up the armor that we think protects us. When we’re softened and jiggled, we’re open to a shift from tight and clenched to the recognition of shared humanity, and underneath that a glimmer of shared possibility. When we don’t see anything on the menu that we like, we can at least remember — as Monty Python taught us — that the Spam, egg, sausage and Spam sandwich has not got nearly as much Spam in it.I smiled, hearing the Spam song, right before my manicurist cut the skin at the base of the nail. I yelped. We both looked down at a drop of blood that was growing. She wrapped my finger in a Kleenex and pulled out a tiny tube I assumed was a styptic, and rubbed it over the cut. Then she pinched my finger between hers to stem the bleeding. After a minute, she tried to let go, which was the point at which I realized that this tube was super glue and that my finger was glued to her hand.She couldn’t pry her fingers off. She started swabbing us with nail polish remover — not ideal for an open cut. I mewed like a kitten. It took a painful, burning minute to get us unglued. The bleeding was slowing down, and she stroked my hand while looking into my eyes kindly. Kindness is the antivenom.So we proceeded. I assumed that, the way things are going, I would die one day later this week of a fungal infection that went septic, but at least I would have beautiful nails, and Monty Python.I left her a second $5 tip. Hope comes in many forms: If you want to have hopeful feelings, do hopeful things. She touched her heart when she saw.Maybe I don’t always remember my doctor’s name, or how to spell the fuchsias that my husband grows, but I remember every word of “The Lumberjack Song,” and of “Every Sperm Is Sacred.”I hope we don’t go crazy with the craziness around us. I can’t remember a more terrifying time. I hope that we can keep centered, keep sharing what we have, help each other keep our spirits up, sing, register voters and rally, and maybe these are all we’ve got these days, but deep in my heart, I do believe that led with infinite dignity by the Ministry of Silly Walks, they will see us through.
Memes n Such
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| Guy Richards Smit |
Robin Williams from 2012:
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| Gotta love The Onion |
