Ted Sloan

[John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz]

We’ve seen this movie a few hundred times before.
This green, murky, algae-besieged pool on the National Mall is simply the latest sequel to the grotesque and now predictable ten-year body of work from this arrogant, incompetent, prolific bed-shitter.

The script is always the same:

1. Sense an encroaching political reckoning, be hounded by a damning news story that refuses to die, feel public support among your once-rabid but shrinking base waning, feel the winds of public opinion shifting.

2. Identify a problem that does not exist (or greatly exaggerate one that does), forecasting doom, prophesying disaster, and declaring the sky to be imminently falling, trafficking in misinformation, hyperbole, and abject lies.

3. Approach the invented emergency not with the care and expertise of those most equipped and trained to address the supposed threat, but instead, impulsively unleash a legion of the most inexperienced, least qualified, most morally inverted accomplices to wreak havoc.

4. Pull from among the vast, bottom-feeding cadre of grifters, convicts, and career sociopaths you’ve surrounded yourself with and become beholden to, rewarding them with the undeserved spoils of power and wealth, with no accountability or oversight.

5. Watch with perverse glee at the ensuing chaos of poor planning, bad decisions, wild overspending, and the wanton disregard for science, humanity, and common sense.

6. Continually declare a situation fully under control, while costs skyrocket, consequences metastasize, irreparable damage is done, and preventable destruction takes place.

7. Attempt an ever-more ridiculous and costly series of completely useless, if not downright mess-exacerbating solutions to the consequences you claim were impossible to foresee, though predicted by anyone with a fourth-grade reading level.

8. When the grim and embarrassing reality of your total failure can no longer be distracted from or covered by propaganda, pivot to blaming your political adversaries and dissenting citizens, cultivating conspiracy, stoking division, and perpetuating discord.

9. Watch as your cultic disciples fall over themselves in an effort to praise you for ending a crisis that you are the sole author of, celebrating the end of disastrous firestorms you set to begin with, basking in the adoration of the ignorant and hateful who’ve long ago abandoned critical thinking.

10. Begin preparing the next manufactured emergency to avoid the accountability and criticism that are coming for your latest curated disaster.

The Reflecting Pool debacle is not an aberration, and sadly, it is not going to be the curtain call for our lame duck wannabe dictator. It is simply the latest example of this vile, unrepentantly horrible planetary punchline doing something wasteful, stupid, and unnecessary, and trying to claim victory after spending vomit-inducing amounts of taxpayer money, only to leave everything much worse than it was before he arrived.

This 14-million-dollar exercise in governmental malpractice is tame by comparison to the other vast atrocities in his portfolio: the obscenely expensive and deadly wars of distraction, the Gestapoesque thugs unleashed as a diversion from his depravity, the stifling concentration camps housing unthinkable horrors, the nonsensical tariff wars with our allies, and the demolition of the White House campus.

The only small comfort is that, unlike a hundred other preventable disasters he has dragged this nation and the planet into for his own gain and self-preservation, at least there in the thick, green sea teaming with algae and dotted with garish blue paint iceberg slabs, no one will starve, or be tortured, or be murdered by a missile we paid for.

This time, we got off easy.

https://t.co/YlHOfst6Wp

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

If DOD needs $80b to replenish stocks and pay for Trump’s unauthorized, unwise, and unsuccessful war, every cent should come out of the bloated appropriation for ICE and border patrol for Trump’s awful mass deportation project.

[John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz]

The Republican Party is committing elder abuse.

[John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz]

Real presidents don’t have time for social media posts.

[John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz]

The Reflecting Pool debacle is not an aberration, and sadly, it is not going to be the curtain call for our lame duck wannabe dictator.

It is simply the latest example of this vile and unrepentantly horrible planetary punchline, doing something wasteful, stupid, costly, and unnecessary, and trying to claim victory after spending vomit-inducing amounts of taxpayer money, only to leave everything much worse than it was before he arrived.

https://t.co/YlHOfst6Wp

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

The Lessons I Learned from My Dad

I am not the man my father is.
I am trying. Some days closer. Some days farther.
He never sat me down and explained these lessons. He lived them. I’m still learning them.

Show up.
The kitchen table. The hospital room. The funeral. The picket line. The call from the son who won’t answer.
Show up.
Most days that’s the whole job.
My whole life I watched him do it. Not for cameras. Not for headlines. Not because there was something in it for him. He showed up because someone needed him.

I learned that grief doesn’t make you special.
My father buried a wife and daughter. He buried a son. Yet he never treated grief as a claim on other people’s sympathy. Instead, it made him notice theirs.
A mother who lost a child. A father sitting beside a hospital bed. A kid scared about what comes next. A son who lost his mother, his sister, his brother.
He always noticed.

I learned that power is not the point.
The people who chase power eventually confuse the office with themselves.
My father never did.
Whether he was a county councilman, a senator, vice president, or president, he was the same man.
The title changed.
He didn’t.

I learned that family comes first.
The train from Wilmington wasn’t symbolism.
It was every night.
He read to us. Showed up to games. Sat through hospital rooms. Waited up for children who were lost.
And when the day came that the country and the family could not both have him at full strength, he chose family. He relinquished the last chapter of how he wanted to be remembered. And he never complained about it.

Most of all, I learned that love is not soft.
Love is discipline.
Love is showing up at one in the morning when nobody is watching.
Love is answering the phone.
Love is staying.
Love is getting back up after life knocks you down and doing it all again tomorrow.
That love saved my life.
I’ve failed at many of these lessons, sometimes in very public ways.
He loved me anyway.

That’s the last lesson.
I am not trying to become my father.
I am trying to carry what he gave me.
And if I can do that, even imperfectly, that will be enough.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.

[Jessica Tarlov @JessicaTarlov]

So the MOU was exactly what everyone said it was. And it’s a disaster for us.

[Jessica Tarlov @JessicaTarlov]

The MOU is all carrots, no sticks. And the administration lied all week claiming the leaked versions weren’t the actual deal because they knew it was so terrible. Trump’s only choice is to blame Vance, which he’ll happily do.

Ben Shapiro called it a “disaster.” Bill Cassidy called it “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”

The agreement includes sanctions relief, oil export waivers, the release of frozen assets, and a $300 billion reconstruction commitment, while many of the administration’s original objectives remain unresolved or discarded. It’s bad!

[PoliticsGirl @IAmPoliticsGirl]

Donald Trump needs California, and he just can’t get us. So he is turning all his attention to destroying us.
@DemocracyDocket
Watch the entire conversation on PoliticsGirl YouTube, or listen where you get your pods! https://t.co/70AVUMUalk

[John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz]

Trump fails at everything.

[Andy Beshear @AndyBeshearKY]

It's time for Trump to resolve the conflict in Iran, open the Strait of Hormuz and start remembering his "America first" promise so our people can actually get ahead.

[John Yarmuth 🥃 @JohnYarmuth]

Racist administration 🤬

[Patrick Gaspard @patrickgaspard]

First black 4 star General in US Military history who flew 179 combat missions in 2 wars for this nation. We all know why Hegseth is doing this and what he’s in the service of. We need to name it in our politics and stop hiding behind polite euphemisms.

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

Here’s the connection to be made: The administration bit off more than it could chew when it indicted SPLC, a group with national support. So now it will try to intimidate folks on the ground, small local groups who are supporting our right to vote. We must not let that happen.

[Democrats @TheDemocrats]

Most corrupt administration in American history.

[Jim Acosta @Acosta]

Trump’s team BS’d a judge last night in asking for time to remove Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center. It was a delay tactic so the scaffolding and tarp could be ready in the wee hours to block the public’s view of the removal. Once the tarp was up the name came down in minutes.

[Charles Booker @Booker4KY]

No one should be a trillionaire. No one should have to sleep on the streets. The fact that we have both in the United States is an abject failure.

The economy is rigged against working people. WE ARE ALL BEING ROBBED!!

Let’s flip this Senate seat, tax the mega wealthy, and finally drain the fucking swamp.

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

Trump: "[Graham Platner] is like a pig…He's worse than any human being that's ever run for office."

Trump: "Grab them by the pussy…I did try to fuck her. She was married."

[Jessica Tarlov @JessicaTarlov]

Everyone keeps telling me the war is over and Iran’s military is decimated and yet, Iran is shooting down American aircraft…

[ProPublica @propublica]

New: The Trump administration has said immigration officers don’t target children with tear gas or pepper spray, but we found many children — in their homes, cars or walking to school — harmed by these chemicals, which pose a particular threat to kids. https://t.co/bKIylPiCni