POKING AROUND ON DAY 172

Today is day 172 of Grampaw’s assault on America. There are 483 days till we defeat these southern traitors.

At 10:30 a.m. Monday morning in Los Angeles, heavily armed masked agents in trucks, armored vehicles, a helicopter, on foot, on horseback, accompanied by a gun mounted on a truck showed up in MacArthur Park. Fox News Channel “reporters” were embedded with the goons and broadcast live throughout, which suggests the operation was designed as a show of force to intimidate opponents. CBP brought its own press team, who took photos of bystanders. All they found were children involved in urban summer camp playing in the park, who left immediately. Minutes later, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass arrived and confronted the goon, speaking with Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino, who was in command. She later held a news conference where she told reporters, “When I got to MacArthur Park, my purpose was one, to witness what was going on, but then when I got there, to do what I could to stop it. I asked the person from the custom and border patrol who was in charge. They put me on the phone with the individual. I said that this needed to end, what was the purpose in them being here, but it absolutely needed to end. He said that they would be leaving within minutes, and a few minutes later they left,” she added. Video was posted by a local Fox “reporter” that appeared to show Bass interacting with Bovino. Earlier, Bass featured a video in post on Xitter. In the video, a group of what appears to be uniformed authorities on foot and horseback move across what seems to be a park. “Minutes before, there were more than 20 kids playing — then, the MILITARY comes through. The SECOND I heard about this, I went to the park to speak to the person in charge to tell them it needed to end NOW. Absolutely outrageous.” Later, Bovino told Fox’s Bill Melugin, “I don’t work for Karen Bass. Better get used to us now, ‘cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.” The last time there was such a police presence in MacArthur Park was 2007, when it was the scene of the most recent LAPD police riot in response to a pro-immigration demonstration. Immigrants rights groups sued Bovino last week to block what they call an “ongoing pattern and practice of flouting the Constitution and federal law” during immigration raids. Shit’s gettin’ real here, folks.

On Monday, the ACLU Immigration Rights project presented in court a copy of a statement presented by the government of El Salvador to the United Nations in which the Salvadorans stated that the immigrants rendered into Salvadoran custody by Maladministration II are “under the control of the United States.” What this means is that the claims of the traitors that they can do nothing to bring back the immigrants they have illegally sent to these Turd World concentration camps and to countries like South Sudan which is in the midst of a bloody civil war because they no longer have “control” of these people is the complete and total Stephen Millier bullshit we always knew it was.

I really hate it when I end up agreeing with someone who posts as “Catturd,” but when it appears you’re right, you may indeed be right: Regarding Pam Bondi, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino and their announcement regardin the Epstein Files they say never existed, he post ed on Xitter: “This group of officials should get no benefit of the doubt on anything because they’ve already torched their own credibility. To sum up: Bondi claimed to have had the Epstein client list on her desk back in February, but now her own department says no such list even exists. Did it vanish? Was she lying then, or is she lying now? Bondi only came forward publicly about the over ten thousand videos and images depicting sexual acts against children when she was caught on tape talking about it privately. And now we’re to believe none of those videos has any adult other than Epstein himself in it, despite all the video surveillance equipment police witnessed in their 2005 walk-through of his Palm Beach home? To prove their assertion that Epstein died at his own hands, the government suddenly has a tape of the prison common areas showing no third party access to Epstein… but this is the first we’re hearing of it?”

The MAGA right - which was fed wild Epstein conspiracies for years by Patel and Bongino - is going ballistic over all this, for once justifiably. The announcement Monday morning really does have all the trappings of a massive cover-up. Epstein didn’t have a client list, didn’t blackmail anyone, and killed himself in prison. Meanwhile, Ghislaine Maxwell is still serving a 20-year sentence,apparently for trafficking nobody to anyone. MAGA influencer Chad Prather, who was among the right-wing figures given access to the batch of released Epstein documents at the White House, also lashed out at the update on the so-called Epstein list. “Where is the Epstein info the American people were promised? You handed us a notebook and promised more was on the way. You told us it existed and now you say it doesn’t? America deserves answers.” MAGA influencer Robby Starbuck added: “Pam Bondi said the Epstein client list was on her desk to review for release to the public just a few months ago. Now the DOJ she leads claims that there’s no Epstein client list. Sorry but this is unacceptable. Was she lying then or is she lying now? We deserve answers.” We now know Grampaw Shitstain is Number Uno in those files and that they do indeed exist. As Eric Swallwell pointed out, Gramps is the most litigious guy on the planet, and if those files really didn’t exist he would have sued everyone who ever said he was in them.

Showing all the urgency of a president who doesn't give a shit about the people who voted for him, Grampaw Shitstain spent the weekend golfing and eating ice cream as Texas suffered the most deadly flood in a century. A man who loves the attention of the media did not rush to hold a news conference. Gramps didn’t come back to Washington to speak to the nation. He gave the usual Republican bullshit “thoughts and prayers” when he finally signed a disaster declaration on Sunday. He didn’t let what is likely to be hundreds of people dead (it’s over 100+ as of Monday night), including dozens of children, interfere with his holiday weekend. Texas was flooded, and Dilbert went golfing and ate ice cream.

When he did hold a press conference to announce signing his emergency relief order t o Texas, reporters were quick to blame the calamitous toll on the administration’s overhaul of the federal government, which included staff cuts at the National Weather Service. “Democrats are blaming your federal cuts for the deaths over in Texas,” one reporter, who could be heard audibly projecting their voice, asked Gramps. Though the president leaned in to hear better, he decided to wave off the question. “I can’t hear you,” he said, as he moved on to another reporter. Asked later on if he had plans to look into whether the cuts at the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency left key positions vacant, Gramps and Howard Nutnicker shook their heads. “They didn’t,” Gramps said. “I’ll tell you: You look at that water situation, that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup. But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it either; I would just say this is a hundred-year catastrophe, and it’s just so horrible to watch.”

Karen’s kitty Taylor

Grampaw Shitstain announced Monday his administration would impose a 25 percent tariff on imports from South Korea and Japan beginning Aug. 1 as part of a batch of letters going out to foreign countries. He detailed the expected tariff rates in letters to the leaders of Japan and South Korea, also posting them to Truth Social. He had previously indicated he would send letters to roughly a dozen countries Monday. “Please understand this 25% number is far less than what is needed to eliminate the Trade Deficit disparity we have with your Country,” he wrote to both countries. “As you are aware, there will be no Tariff if Korea, or companies within your Country, decide to build or manufacture product within the United States and, in fact, we will do everything possible to get approvals quickly, professionally, and routinely – in other words, in a matter of weeks,” he wrote to South Korea’s president. He conveyed the same message to Japan’s prime minister. Grampaw announced 40% tariffs on Laos, 30% on South Africa, and 25% on S. Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Tunisia and Malaysia.When a reporter asked Trump when the tariff rates would change—if at all—the president didn’t seem to have a clue. What are you talking about?” he said, prompting the reporter to repeat herself. “They’re going to be tariffs. The tariffs are going to be the tariffs. I think we’ll have most countries done by July 9, either a letter or a deal.” Nutlicker swooped in to clarify: “Tariffs go into effect Aug. 1, but the president is setting the rates and the deals right now.” Bessent told CNN’s State of the Union, however, that it remains to be seen what happens next. “President Trump is going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don’t move things along, then on Aug. 1st, you will be boomerang back to your April 2nd tariff level,” he said. “I think we’re gonna see a lot of deals very quickly.”And then, Monday evening TACO happened: President Trump on Monday indicated there may be some wiggle room for nations to negotiate on trade despite his fresh threat of additional tariffs going into effect on August 1. “Is the August 1 deadline firm now? Is that it?” a reporter asked Gramps during his dinner with INetanyahu at the White House. He replied: “No, I would say firm, but not 100 percent firm. If they call up and they say ‘we’d like to do something a different way,’ we’re going to be open to that. But essentially that’s the way it is right now.” TACO TACO TACO!

Surprise surprise (not): Former Russian transport minister Roman Starovoit was found dead hours after he was fired by the Kremlin on Monday morning. He had joined Putin’s cabinet in May 2024 after serving as governor of the Kursk Oblast region. He entered the transportation role at a difficult time, with Ukrainian drone attacks disrupting air travel. The air transport situation worsened considerably on Saturday under a barrage of Ukrainian drones. Airlines had to issue 43,000 ticket refunds over the weekend, with an estimated daily cost to the country of 20 billion rubles. That chaos led to Starovoit’s firing early Monday morning, which the Kremlin announced in a brief decree titled “Roman Starovoit dismissed from post of Minister of Transport.” Starovoit was dogged by allegations of corruption in his inner circle. His successor as governor of Kurst, Alexey Smirnov, was detained in April for allegedly embezzling funds allocated for defense. Seven hours after Starovoit was fired, Russian media outlet Izvestiya reported that he had been found dead. The cause of death was reported as a gunshot wound. The details of his death remain murky. A source who spoke to Izvestiya claimed that Starovoit died in his home on the outskirts of Moscow. However, Newsweek cited a Telegram post from Russia’s Investigative Committee that said Starovoit had been found dead in his car. CNN, meanwhile, claimed that his death was under investigation, and the “main theory is suicide.” (Yeah, because it’s soooo easy to shoot yourself in the back of your head) Footage posted on Xitter showed a Tesla Model X, believed to be Starovoit’s, surrounded by yellow tape in a Moscow parking lot. Another local source reported that an award pistol, an honorary weapon given to Russian officials by the government, was found near his body. The murky details and timing of Starovoit’s death fueled speculation on social media that the Kremlin was involved in his death.

Ted Cruz was vacationing in Europe as floods ripped through Central Texas, killing at least 89 people, including 27 campers and counselors from a summer camp. The Texas senator was spotted visiting the Parthenon in the Greek capital, Athens, with his wife, Heidi, on Saturday evening. That was a day after Camp Mystic announced that more than 20 girls had gone missing in the floodwaters. “He was with his family and a lone security guard,” said an eyewitness at the Parthenon. “As he walked past us, I simply said, ‘20 kids dead in Texas and you take a vacation?’ He sort of grunted and walked on. His wife shot me a dirty look. Then they continued on with their tour guide.” While Cruz admired the Doric columns of the fifth century B.C. ancient Greek temple, emergency workers were still searching for summer campers and families caught in the flash floods that cascaded through Texas Hill Country and inundated the Guadalupe River. In 2021, Cruz took his family on a trip to Cancun, Mexico, after Texas was hit by a winter storm. At the time, he defended his sunshine flight by saying he wanted to be “a good dad” but returned because “it didn’t feel right.” Cruz is understood to have landed in Athens on Thursday, the day after the Texas Division of Emergency Management announced that it was activating state emergency response resources. On the day he landed in Europe, NPR reported that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick held a press conference warning of the “potential flooding“ that would hit overnight. It is believed that Cruz didn’t get a plane back to San Antonio, Texas, until Sunday. He was at the scene of the flooding in Kerrville Monday morning, where he said he was”constantly on the phone” with Abbot, Dan Patrick, and Grampaw Shitstain. He said, “There aren’t words to describe the grief that Texans are feeling. Pray for Texas and Kerr County.”

Bloomberg News: “Los Angeles was already struggling to revive its fragile economy after the most destructive wildfires in its history erupted 6 months ago. Now, immigration raids are driving workers crucial to the rebuilding into the shadows. Framers and landscapers are abandoning job sites. Renovations of retail shops have stopped midway. Real estate developers say they’re struggling to find crews to keep projects on track in a sector that relies heavily on immigrant labor.”

The Big Bad Bill has claimed its first victim: If you live in McCook in the southwest corner of Nebraska, your health care is about to get a lot worse. The Community Hospital, which serves the community south of the North Platte River, near the Colorado and Kansas borders, is closing down due to uncertainty over Medicaid cuts.The residents of McCook are the first community to lose their hospital over these cuts, but sadly, they won’t be the last. Five more hospitals in Nebraska alone could be shutting their doors.

Ha’aretz reports that on Monday, Hamas' Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip published an updated list of those killed in the war, a 1,227-page chart, arranged from youngest to oldest. Researchers say that the death toll in Gaza reported by the Palestinian Health Ministry understates the true scale of the crisis. Hunger, disease, and Israeli gunfire at food distribution centers have made the war in the Strip one of the bloodiest of the 21st century. The real death toll is twice what the Palestinians reported, being more than 100,000 dead. 100,000 dead out of a population of 2.2 million prior to October 7, 2023, is well into Genocide Territory. This is what the war criminal Netanyahu and his IDF managed to accomplish with America providing the bombs the Israelis dropped.

Speaking of genocide, a recent study published in The Lancet suggests that Maladmin istration II’s closure of USAID could lead to over 14 million additional deaths globally by 2030. This projection, which includes over 4.5 million child deaths under age 5, stems from the potential impact of defunding USAID's programs in health, nutrition, education, water, sanitation, and humanitarian relief. The study highlights that the cuts could have a ripple effect, potentially causing other international donors to reduce their support as well. This would further weaken the already vulnerable health systems in many low- and middle-income countries. The study emphasizes that these deaths are preventable and directly linked to the Maladministration II policy decision to reduce or eliminate USAID funding. This is also a number well into Genocide Territory. Trump and Elmo can now add the title “Mass Murderer” to their resumes.

Sticking with Genocide, Grampaw Shitstain’s Big Bad Bill will have a huge death toll, knocking as many as 17 million people off of healthcare coverage, denying access of millions more to care from hospitals that will themselves close as a result of the cuts, eliminating the ability of millions of Americans to get needed food aid, and exploding the federal deficit by many trillions of dollars. And it did all that to fund a vastly expanded armed police force to carry out the often illegal orders of the president. And - perhaps above all - to provide more tax cuts for the super-wealthy. Estimates of “excess death” resulting from the implementation of these cuts exceeds 100,000 by 2030. That number, too, is in Genocide Territory. Trump and the entire GOP congressional membership will be liable to a charge of crimes against humanity when the Trump War Crimes Trials convene in 2029.

Receiving less attention, but one of the most disturbing recent political developments, is the view now held by the White House and the Justice Department that Grampaw Shitstain has the power to unilaterally nullify laws. The idea, promoted by Maladministration II and MAGA, that the president may determine which laws to follow, which to ignore and which to violate, is the single most dangerous development in U.S. history since the Civil War. That the Supreme Court and the Congress have accepted it thus far is deeply ominous. A corollary to this conception of executive power - which immediately turns a president into a despot - is the idea that decrees of the president via executive order or social media post, have the power of law. Congress and the UnSupreme Court have offered their agreement explicitly, by silence or by inaction. The damage these ideas and their acceptance do to democracy and the rule of law in America is not merely profound. It will be fatal if it isn’t stopped.

Speaker Mike Johnson announced during an appearance on Fox News last Sunday that he wants to do two more reconciliation bills, one this fall and one next spring. After Johnson’s announcement, things started to make sense. House and Senate Republicans are going to try to claim credit for cutting Medicaid among their base, but they will also attempt to roll back those cuts before they take effect in 2028. Republicans are trying to have it both ways, but they are already on record as voting to take healthcare away from 17 million Americans, and the American people aren’t going to forget. The battle to prevent health insurance from being taken away from millions isn’t over. There are at least two more rounds to go.

Monday, US District Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary restraining order blocking the defunding of Planned Parenthood included in Grampaw Shitstain’s “Big Bad Bill.” The TRO covers Massachusetts and Utah. Of course Maladministation II has appealed.

During his dinner with Netanyahu, Grampaw Shitstain told reporters he would send Ukraine additional weapons. “We’re going to send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now. Defensive weapons, primarily, but they’re getting hit very, very hard. So many people are dying in that mess.” Grampaw has in recent days expressed frustration with Putin over a lack of progress in ending the war in Ukraine. The two men spoke on the phone last week. “I’m disappointed, frankly, that President Putin hasn’t stopped. I’m not happy about it either,” he said Monday. This is a “good” TACO.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has abandoned plans to cut more than 80,000 employees, scaling back that number to just under 30,000 after a massive outcry from veterans, advocate groups and lawmakers. In a Monday news release, the VA said it was on pace to reduce its total staff by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of this fiscal year due to “the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition.” That reduction eliminates “the need for a large-scale reduction- in-force” of up to 83,000. The announcement is a sharp turn for Maladministration II, which for months has sought to reduce the VA’s workforce to its 2019 size of less than 400,000 staffers as laid out in an internal memo sent to employees in March. At the time, VA Secretary Doug Collins also insisted that the move was tough but necessary and that the cuts would not affect health care or benefits to veterans and VA beneficiaries.

Finally, the agent for ESPN host Stephen A. Smith - who was recently signed to a big money deal with Sirius to do a show about politics despite the fact that he knows about nothing about politics - announced his client will not be running for president in 2028.

This is interesting for the fact it is interesting: Astronomers have confirmed the third interstellar object on record is dashing through our solar system. Dubbed 3I/ATLAS, it appears to be a comet and is thought to have flown in from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, where the central region of the Milky Way lies. It will not come closer than about 150 million miles from Earth and does not pose a threat. Currently, it is flying between the asteroid belt and Jupiter’s orbit. 3I/ATLAS is only the third object scientists have recorded in our planetary neighborhood from another star system. Its two predecessors were the cigar-shaped object Oumuamua in 2017 and the comet Borisov in 2019. The new object was discovered on July 1 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), a set of four NASA-funded telescopes that scan the night skies from Chile, Hawaii and South Africa. When astronomers then looked back at previous observations, they spotted it in data from as early as June 14.

Gordon Whitefoot (who is a “she”) in the bucket.

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