IT DOESN’T STOP ON SATURDAY

“This is great. I love your blog. Keep at it.” - Stephen King (free subscriber on March 15, paid subscriber on April 28, and yes...)

So much winning!

There are 169 days to the mid terms.

Someone finally explained to Dilbert what “Thucydides Trap” means and it’s put him in a bad mood during his return flight from Beijing. He got particularly nasty to the NYT’s David Sanger over questions about asked about his war, er, excursion, er, whateverthefuck he’s calling it now. “You’re a fake guy, and guys like you write about it incorrectly!” He then told the Presidential Fantasy Tale again: No, I got... I, I had a total military victory. Not a military- But the fake news, guys like you- Nah ... writing incorrectly. You’re a fake guy. Guys like you write about it incorrectly. We had a total military victory. We knocked out in their entire navy. We knocked out their entire air force. We knocked out, uh, all of their anti-aircraft weaponry. We knocked out all of their radar. We knocked out all of their leaders, number one, and then we knocked out all of their leaders in the second division, and we knocked out numerous of their leaders in the third division, and they’re very confused. We’ve had a total victory, except by people like you that don’t write the truth. You should write the truth. I actually think it’s kind of treasonous, what you write. You and the New York Times, and CNN, I would say, are the worst. You should know better, you know better, you’re a professional. Your editors tell you what to write, and you write it. You should be ashamed of yourselves.” When another reporter interjected with another question, Trump refused to let things go, fuming, “I actually think it’s treason. When you write like they’re doing well militarily and they have no navy, no air force, no anti anything... By the way, we knocked out 85% of their manufacturing for missiles. We knocked out everything. Uh, we haven’t knocked out other than one bridge, and we did because they misbehaved, but we have bridges we could knock out. We could knock out their bridges and their electrical capacity. Within two days, we could knock out the whole thing. Mr- And then I read The New York Times, and they, they act like they’re doing well. Sir- And everybody knows that. That’s why your subscribers are way down. You know, the Times subscribers are way down because this fake news. Non- subscribers- Do you discuss Ukraine? Way down, way down. 13 million. Do you discuss Ukraine?. Everybody knows that’s why your subscribers are way down! Way down!” (FACT CHECK: According to the CIA, Iran still has 70% of its anti-shiping missiles and 90% of its launchers.) When a BBC reporter asked a question, he responded: “Who are you with?! Fake BBC! You mean the one who put AI in my mouth? The ones that had me saying a statement that they now admit was not true? The ones that put terrible words in my mouth, and then had to admit that it was fake? You’re with BBC? They’re another fake outfit!” (ANOTHER FACT CHECK: The BBC has since apologized for what it called an “error of judgment” over the show, which was commissioned from an external production company. Two of its senior executives resigned over the fallout, and the broadcaster has now vowed to fight Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit in court.)

Dilbert’s dumberer son Eric is also in a mood to go a-suing: Eric Trump said Friday he will sue MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, and host Jen Psaki after a monologue on her show questioned whether his business interests, combined with traveling with his father on a high-stakes trip to China, was a conflict of interest. Psaki said on her show “The Briefing” that ALT5 Sigma, a Las Vegas-based fintech company for which Eric Trump once served as a board observer, is seeking a “potential deal with a Chinese computer chip manufacturer to build AI data centers and a whole bunch of other AI-related stuff” connected to China’s government. She cited reporting by the Financial Times, writing on X:.“I intend to sue @jrpsaki and @MSNOWNews over the below clip. To be clear: Contrary to her monolog and blatant lies, I have NEVER been on the board of ALT5 - not now, not ever.” (FACT CHECK: Bloomberg first reported late last month that Eric Trump’s name and listing disappeared from ALT5’s leadership webpage.)

Taiwan responded to Dilbert’s hesitation Friday to back a U.S. arms sale to the island following two days of meetings with Emperor Xi. The island’s foreign affairs ministry emphasized the U.S.’s “long-standing and consistent policy toward Taiwan” in a statement released Friday morning. “Regarding arms sales to Taiwan, this is not only a security commitment to Taiwan explicitly stated in the Taiwan Relations Act, but also a joint deterrent against regional threats,” the ministry said. “Taiwan appreciates President Trump’s continued support for cross-strait security since his first term, with the previous announced arms sales reaching a record high. Close cooperation between Taiwan and the US has always been the cornerstone of peace across the Taiwan Strait.” Maladministration II has faced bipartisan pressure from Congress to follow through on a $14 billion arms deal to the island, a move opposed by the Chinese government. A group of eight Republican and Democratic senators urged Trump in a Monday letter to move forward with the sale. Dilbert said he has yet to decide on the future of this arms deal and that he would “make a determination over the next early short period.” He noted that he needs to speak to the leader of Taiwan first. “I think the last thing we need is a war. It’s 9,500 miles away. I think that’s the last thing we need. We’re doing very well.” (Or as Neville Chamberlain put it when he sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing?”) (FACT CHECK: Dilbert’s going to sell out Taiwan.)

A corrupt agreement is in the works between Trump and the TrumpDOJ and IRS that would settle his pending personal claims against the U.S. government by creating an unchecked $1.7 billion discretionary slush fund to pay his allies who have been “victims” of the Deep State, including the pardoned Jan. 6 defendants, according to ABC News. The “expected” settlement agreement would resolve Trump’s $10 billion claim over the criminal leak of his tax returns by an IRS contractor who was convicted and sentenced to jail time and his $230 million claim arising from the 2016 Russian collusion investigation and the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago. NYT reported this deal is on fast track to settle ahead of a May 20 deadline in federal court in Florida to file briefs showing that the case is legitimately adverse. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami has raised concerns that Trump and the IRS are essentially on the same side, which would mean there’s not a real legal dispute for her to adjudicate. A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team did not deny the ABC News report on the terms of the agreement, which would include a public apology from the IRS. The reported terms of the settlement agreement are mind-boggling in their corrupt resolution of the underlying claims; the pending agreement opens up a whole new avenue of corruption by placing $1.7 billion under Trump’s purview to dispense to his allies without any oversight, accountability, or recourse. The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have the total authority to hand out approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system, including the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as well as potentially entities associated with Trump himself. Trump would have authority to remove members of the commission running the fund without cause, and the commission would be under no obligation to disclose its procedures or decision-making process. Trump would reportedly be barred from personally receiving compensation from the slush fund for the pending claims being resolved, but “entities associated with Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claims.” ABC reports: All of the flaming red flags associated with this settlement “has led some administration officials to raise ethical concerns about the arrangement.” (Ya think?)

Trump still hasn’t secured enough Republican votes in the House and the Senate to secure $1 billion in taxpayer money for his dance hall. The White House’s pressure campaign is accelerating before the Senate presents its budget reconciliation bill as early as next week even as Republicans work to patch the other provisions that got “Byrd bathed” Thursday night. Senate and House Republicans seem to be looking for a way to get out of voting for Trump’s ballroom. Six Republican senators are staying noncommittal about the money until the parliamentarian rules. And there’s no guarantee the House can pass it either. The ballroom money doesn’t seem likely to pass the “Byrd bath” test as a budgetary measure, because Republicans are already on the verge of potentially losing the Senate majority, and even they aren’t willing to throw their careers down the drain to appease Trump,

So much for all the “love to travel” folks: Travelers booking summer flights are in for a sticker shock: and airlines are warning it could get worse. Summer domestic roundtrip airfare prices are up 27% compared to last year, and flights to Europe are even higher - up 45% to London and up 20-40% to Dublin, Paris and Rome. Airlines are raising prices in response to higher jet fuel prices, which surged 56% in March from February, according to Transportation Department data. Industry executives have warned tMaladministration that a prolonged conflict with Iran could squeeze strained carriers. Americans are still booking flights, but airlines are tightening operations: raising fares and baggage fees, cutting routes, and limiting perks. Airlines have canceled tens of thousands of flights globally, and budget airline Spirit has gone under. Other US carriers worry that they could be next.

Tina Peters, a former elections clerk who was the first local official convicted over efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election, will go free from prison after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) commuted her sentence on Friday. Polis told Colorado Public Radio (CPR) that he would cut her almost nine-year prison sentence to four and a half years. By June 1, she will have been in prison for more than 600 days. Polis fatuously added that Peters “did not interfere with any election, did not have to do with ballot counting, but it was illegal access to the computer room. She thought she was trying to back up the software before it was updated. She did it illegally. There’s no question about it. And she deserves to go to prison. And I think this is a more appropriate, even harsh, frankly sentence for that crime.” Another reminder why I’m glad I left Colorado 60 years ago.

A hypothetical cyber threat became real this week: A report Thursday revealed Anthropic’s new model, Mythos, cracked MacOS during testing. On Monday Google’s Threat Intelligence Group said it thwarted the first known case of cybercriminals using AI to discover and target a “zero-day vulnerability,” which gives developers no time to respond. “There’s a discussion now that says, ‘It’s coming, right?’” Google Threat Intelligence Group Chief Analyst John Hultquist told Semafor. “That’s a misinterpretation of facts. The new era is here.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is urging new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to step up readiness at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, imploring him in a letter to push the president to nominate a permanent director and asking him to present a plan to fight “frontier AI-enabled hacking” to Congress by July 1.

While Maladministration II blames everyone else for the cost of living, Gov. Abigail Spanberger is actually doing something about it. She signed a package of healthcare bills, including one capping the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 a month for 800,000 Virginians with diabetes. The package also requires insurers to offer plans with caps on monthly prescription drug costs, and cracks down on “prior authorization” abuses. That’s the racket where insurance companies overrule doctors, making patients wait weeks for treatments their physicians ordered. Every bill passed with bipartisan support. Every one rips money out of insurance company profits and puts it back where it belongs in people’s pockets.

David Young spent twenty years trying to get Donald Trump’s name on a skyscraper in Australia. He finally got the deal. It lasted three months. Young, CEO of Altus Property Group, announced Tuesday the 91-story Trump International Hotel & Tower is dead - a six-star hotel, Michelin-starred restaurants, and apartments starting at $3.5 million. All of it. Gone. He called the Trump brand “toxic to Australians” and told anyone who’d listen why: “With the Iran war and everything else, the Trump brand was increasingly unpopular in Australia.”

Partisan voting maps for we but not for thee: The Supreme Court refused Virginia Democratic leaders’ emergency plea to reinstate their congressional map on Friday in what would’ve been one of the party’s best opportunities to keep pace in the mid-decade redistricting war. Without any noted dissents, the justices declined to block a split decision from Virginia’s top court that Democrats didn’t follow the proper procedures in sending their proposal to voters. Virginia Republican leaders told the justices they had no authority to review that decision. It appears to be the final say on the monthslong legal battle for this election cycle, though Democrats could try to still redistrict in the future. Democrats hoped to enact a favorable 10-1 design that would add four pickup opportunities in the battle for the House this November. The U.S. Supreme Court can only review state court judgments if they raise a federal issue. Thetwo top Republican lawmakers in Virginia insisted the case didn’t and that holding otherwise would upend longstanding precedents. Their attorneys wrote in court filings“There’s a simple reason Applicants did not preserve any federal issues in this case: not one exists. From the outset, this case has concerned only state-law claims and state-law defenses. It is, after all, about the procedure for amending the Virginia Constitution.” Their Democratic counterparts insisted the lower decision misunderstands the federal definition of an election. They also argued it conflicts with the authority the U.S. Constitution gives to state legislatures to regulate elections. A few years ago, Democrats raised concerns that endorsing a maximalist view of that theory would hand unchecked power to state lawmakers. But only if they’re Republicans.

The latest MAGA “Kultur Krieg” object is the upcoming Christopher Nolan retelling of “The Oddyssey.” The attacks center on the casting of the central characters. Though the Trojan War, as described in the epic, really happened, there is no evidence that any of its characters actually existed. Nevertheless, Thursday evening Newsmax host Rob Finnerty went on in a long-winded rant over the film’s “rewriting of history.” His main complaint was, “The role of Achilles will reportedly be played by Elliot Page. Looks like a guy - formerly Ellen Page, meaning the most famous warrior in history, not just Greek history - all of history - Achilles is about to be played by a transgender woman in a brand new movie.” Over in RealityWorld - a strange, unknown territory to simple-minded fascist scum like embarrassment-to-Irish-people-everywhere Finnerty - Elliot Page’s role has not been confirmed. Confirmed cast members include Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita N’yongo, Robert Pattinson, and Charlize Theron. The casting of multiple-Oscar-winner Lupita N’yongo as “Helen of Troy”, known as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” is what has set off everybody’s favorite Afrikaner con artist as well as Dumb Fucking Mick Finnerty, who raved on about the news, saying, “A woman who was definitely white is going to be played by Lupita Nyong’o,” he added. “I’ve got nothing against Lupita. But I do have a problem with the complete rewriting of history. Helen of Troy was not Black. That’s not me being mean. That’s me telling the truth. The real actual truth, which we tend to do a lot of here, and Achilles was not a five-foot-one woman, but to the Left, this is all normal.” Again, over in mysterious Reality World, the genetic makeup of the humans living on the Greek peninsula in 1200 BCE is not actually known, since very few skeletal remains have been found and tested. What is known, however, is that they were not the same “Greeks” as the Greeks living in Greece today, who are descended from barbarian tribes that fought with the Roman Army on the eastern European frontier of the Empire. There is no certainty at all about the “Oddyssey” Greeks being “white.” Also, what little is known of these people is that the average height of males was around 5 feet 3 inches. That’s mostly going on the doorway sizes in ruins found in Greece associated with that time period. Nyong’o, 43, who was named People magazine’s “Most Beautiful Woman” shortly after her Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for “12 Years a Slave” in 2014, will also play Helen’s sister, Clytemnestra. Musk (I am going to love seeing him de-naturalized for his fraudulent citizenship application) has been trolling Nolan and the film since rumors swirled about N’Yongo’s casting in January. Since Nolan confirmed that on Tuesday, Musk, - who has been accused of manipulating the X algorithm to favor his posts - began replying “True” and reposting a series of posts denouncing the film and calling Nolan “racist” for casting the actress. He also called Page’s alleged casting as Achilles “One of the dumbest and twisted things I’ve ever heard.” Interestingly, “the Oddyssey” is so popular, it sold out all IMAX performances this summer last July.

Remember, you are not the crazy ones, and we were made for these times. Regardless of what you may feel right now, act as if you believe that and redouble your efforts.

“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.” - Abraham Lincoln

Sebastian

The current media scene is a stark reminder of the importance of independent journalism. No billionaires. No oligarchs. No corporate media. No dark money PACS. None of us can do it alone. You are not the crazy ones. These are truly the times that try men’s and women’s souls. This is the fight of our lifetimes, and the challenge of our generation. I realize times are getting harder, which is why some readers understandably didn’t renew their subscriptions. There are free subscribers who read TAFM daily according to the site stats. If you folks happen to be in a position to help make up the gap, please consider joining the other paid subscribers here at That’s Another Fine Mess to keep things going. Across Substack, authors like me need your help! It’s only 21 cents a day. I am deeply thankful to those who have done so. Remember, independent media brought down Viktor Orbán - we can bring down Trump, with your support. I hope you’ll join Stephen King - one of my favorite authors - in keeping TAFM operating. Thomas Jefferson said he’d rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers because he understood that a republic cannot survive without an adversarial press willing to challenge power. The new media of independent journalism has taken up the challenge in the midst of the failure of the billionair-owned corporate media. Your choice to become one of the building blocks we need to do this, by becoming a paid subscriber

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