Extreme Commanders

That's a nice pickup and hopefully a harbinger of things to come. The ad almost looks like an 8th grader made it, yet it's very impactful because the idea of seeing someone staring up at you from the bottom of the stall has to be universally creepy.

The Sisko wrote: Wed May 14, 2025 8:00 pm

The ad almost looks like an 8th grader made it, yet it's very impactful because the idea of seeing someone staring up at you from the bottom of the stall has to be universally creepy.

Funnily enough the average reading level across the American adult population is 8th grade. But that in part is due to the more educated raising the average score. 54% of American adults read at 6th grade level or below.

Corcaigh wrote: Thu May 15, 2025 9:55 am

The Sisko wrote: Wed May 14, 2025 8:00 pm

The ad almost looks like an 8th grader made it, yet it's very impactful because the idea of seeing someone staring up at you from the bottom of the stall has to be universally creepy.

Funnily enough the average reading level across the American adult population is 8th grade. But that in part is due to the more educated raising the average score. 54% of American adults read at 6th grade level or below.

We probably should use median instead of average, but then 54% of the people wouldn't understand the difference.

'Most Transparent’ White House In History Keeps Majority Of Trump’s Remarks Secret

If you’re interested in finding Donald Trump’s precise words as he lied about his failed coup attempt in his Jan. 20 remarks at the U.S. Capitol soon after his inaugural speech, good luck with that.

Same with his Feb. 12 thoughts in the Oval Office on how magnetism, in his view “a new theory,” doesn’t work on the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford.

Or his statements in the Feb. 28 meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, berating the Ukrainian president and empathizing with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin instead.

Ditto with his April 14 explanation of how well he is doing with “the cognitive” compared to previous occupants of the White House.

The self-proclaimed “most transparent” White House in history, as it turns out, has little interest in making the vast majority of Trump’s speeches and interactions with journalists readily accessible to the public whose taxes pay for their transcription, publishing just 29 transcripts of the 146 public remarks Trump made in his first 100 days in office.

Click on the link for the full article

Airlines Are Selling Your Data to ICE

A massive aviation industry clearinghouse that processes data for twelve billion passenger flights per year is selling that information to the Trump administration amid the White House’s new immigration crackdown, according to documents reviewed by the Lever.

The data — including “full flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain” for past and future flights — is fed into a secretive government intelligence operation called the Travel Intelligence Program and provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies, records reveal.

Details of this program were outlined in procurement documents released Wednesday by ICE, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

Privacy and travel industry experts interviewed by the Lever said that law enforcement’s access to such a vast database — with little information on what privacy or other restrictions are in place — raises serious civil liberties concerns.

“This is probably the single most significant aggregated repository of data about American air travelers,” said Edward Hasbrouck, an expert in travel data privacy. “That the government has gotten access to it is a very big deal.”

When a passenger buys a flight through a travel agency — including via common online booking sites like Booking.com or Expedia — the transaction is fed through the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), which acts as an intermediary between travel agencies and airlines.

So, although most airline passengers have never heard of the ARC, there’s a good chance that their data has, at some point, passed through the company. Its dataset includes information on 54 percent of all flights taken globally, according to the company’s website.

In a statement to the Lever, a spokesperson for the company said that the Travel Intelligence Program “was established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to provide certain data to law enforcement . . . for the purpose of national security matters” and criminal investigations.

The spokesperson declined to answer questions about whether clients outside the US government have access to the data.

Click on the link for the full article

‘Deeply creepy’: Enormous brooding banner of Trump now hangs next to Lincoln outside Department of Agriculture

There’s a new addition to the streetscape outside the Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C., causing a stir online.

Looming down from the pillared front of the neo-classical facade is an enormous, brooding picture of President Donald Trump, adapted from his official presidential portrait.



Click on the link for the full article

Corcaigh wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 4:07 pm

zSkins wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 1:48 pm

I am enjoying some healthy gains today.

U.S. stocks roared back on Monday after the U.S. and China agreed to temporarily slash tariffs following negotiations over the weekend in Switzerland, raising hopes a trade war won’t push the economy into a recession.

The broader US market is still down more than 5% since the clown started with his tariff shenanigans a few months back.

The only people for whom this is good news are short-term traders who have inside knowledge on when Trump is going to screw around.

You mean like Pam Bondi?

Pam Bondi sold millions of dollars worth of Trump media shares on ‘Liberation Day’ – before the stock tanked

Attorney General Pam Bondi sold millions of dollars in shares in Trump Media on the same day President Donald Trump unveiled widespread tariffs on allies and foes alike, according to a government ethics transaction report.

In the days following the announcement of the “Liberation Day” tariffs, which caused the stock market to plummet, Trump Media dropped 13 percent, before rising again. The company operates the Truth Social social media platform.

The president unveiled the tariffs on April 2 after the markets had closed. According to Bondi’s disclosure forms, she sold between $1 million and $5 million of shares in Trump Media on April 2, but the forms didn’t state if the sales took place before or after the markets closed.

Click on the link for the full article

Trump White House Reportedly Threatens Politico-Business Insider Over Critical Report About Don Jr.

The Trump White House is reportedly considering a probe into the parent company behind Politico and Business Insider after the latter published a report this week comparing Donald Trump Jr.’s business ventures to those of Hunter Biden.

According to a report published by The Bulwark on Tuesday, the White House is “sending aggressive signals about launching a potential federal investigation” into Axel Springer, the German media conglomerate that owns both outlets.

On May 6, Business Insider’s Bethany McLean published a report that was headlined, “Don Jr. Is the New Hunter Biden.”

McLean highlighted Trump Jr.’s joining of the venture capital firm 1789 Capital. She quoted a source reportedly close to the Trump family who said, “What they’re doing is selling access to the president via the back door.”

The piece noted Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, had his business dealings scrutinized for years and was accused of essentially running a White House access racket operation.

The Business Insider report apparently angered the White House, according to The Bulwark’s Will Sommer.

Sommer cited an exclusive follow-up report from Breitbart News to McLean’s piece. In that story, the outlet’s Matthew Boyle quoted an unnamed White House adviser who described Axel Springer as a “German influence operation.”

The adviser told Boyle that Politico and Business Insider’s reporting could constitute “illegal foreign political meddling.” The person adding that Axel Springer could face federal scrutiny.

Boyle attached both Politico and Business Insider to an attempt by Germany to put its hand in American politics and said the company had “grabbed the attention of the White House and senior administration officials.”

Click on the link for the full article

The Supreme Court keeps a temporary block on using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans.

The Trump administration will not be allowed to deport a group of Venezuelan detainees accused of being members of a violent gang under a rarely invoked wartime law while the matter is litigated in the courts, the Supreme Court said on Friday.

The justices sent the case back to a federal appeals court, directing it to examine claims by the migrants that they could not be legally deported under the Alien Enemies Act, the centuries-old wartime law invoked by the Trump administration. The justices said the appeals court should also examine what kind of notice the government be required to provide that would allow migrants the opportunity to challenge their deportations.

The court said its order would remain in place until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled and the Supreme Court considered any appeal from that ruling.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote a dissent. He was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.

Click on the link for the full article

Of cours Alito and Thomas dissented. They'd like to trash the Constitution to uphold the Project 2025 agenda.