Claire

Living in rural Yorkshire and having a nice time.
Personal views here only.

[Claire @Welfrington]

@KFC_UKI got this fillet tower burger from your Mount Pleasant Hull drive through no sauce or lettuce I'm unable to provide receipt details as I wasnt given one. It was ordered before 12pm today as part of a meal and the order also included a 2 piece chicken meal too.

[Danny Boy @Care2much18]

American far-right, assisted by the British far-right, spent the last week asserting three young women were "murdered" in Brighton.

Many of the posts suggested an "illegal immigrant" did the murders.

I'll go through how they exploited the information deficit to sew division. /1

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

President Donald Trump sued his own government for ten billion dollars. He settled with himself. The fund created from that settlement is $1.776 billion. The number is not arithmetic. It is encoded with the year of American independence.

On May 18, the Justice Department announced the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” a $1,776,000,000 compensation pool drawn from the federal judgment fund. The pool exists because President Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization agreed to drop their $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the 2019 leak of Trump’s tax returns.

In exchange for that dismissal, plus the withdrawal of administrative claims related to the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago and the Russia investigation, the DOJ created a fund to “redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.” The President himself is ineligible to claim from it. His pardoned allies are not.

The judgment fund is a perpetual appropriation. It does not require new congressional authorization. Congress allocated unlimited spending authority for legal settlements decades ago, and the DOJ is using that mechanism to create what House Democrats call a $1.7 billion slush fund. No congressional vote took place. The fiscal authority for $1.776 billion was already on the books. The administration applied an existing rule to a settlement of a lawsuit the President filed against himself.

The Acting Attorney General who signed the settlement is Todd Blanche. Two years ago, Blanche was Trump’s lead criminal defense attorney in the hush-money case that ended in 34 felony convictions, and in the federal cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Within two weeks of Blanche becoming Deputy Attorney General in March 2025, the Justice Department’s top ethics lawyer formally instructed him to recuse from cases involving Trump in his personal capacity. The ethics lawyer was fired four months later.

Blanche became Acting Attorney General in April. The defense attorney now runs the department that settled his former client’s lawsuit against itself.

The federal judge overseeing the case, Kathleen Williams, issued an order stating she was “stripped of jurisdiction” because the settlement was never docketed. The court could not review what was never filed with the court.

The settlement evaded judicial scrutiny by being executed outside the docket. Williams ordered the case closed.

Approximately 400 pardoned January 6 defendants have already filed Federal Tort Claims Act applications seeking between one and ten million dollars each. In March, the DOJ paid Michael Flynn $1.25 million to settle a malicious prosecution suit that a federal judge had previously dismissed in its entirety.

The Flynn payment was the prototype. The Anti-Weaponization Fund is the system. The fund will be administered by a five-person commission appointed by the Attorney General. The President can remove any commissioner. The fund stops processing claims in December 2028, weeks after the next presidential election.

The same week, the 30-year Treasury auctioned at 5% for the first time since 2007. The President was in Beijing with seventeen CEOs carrying burner phones. Meta announced it would fire 8,000 people to fund $145 billion in AI capex. Google disclosed the first AI-developed zero-day. And a federal compensation fund was named for the year 1776 and structured to pay the people the President pardoned, using money Congress approved decades ago for purposes that did not include this.

The settlement is the architecture. The number is the message.

https://t.co/fab6uEjMay

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

Trump just got exposed for running the biggest insider trading operation in American history.

Nancy Pelosi traded $5 million in stocks and Congress lost its mind.

Trump literally executed $750 MILLION worth of stock trades in ONE quarter while being President.

His ethics filing just dropped and the numbers are genuinely unprecedented in history:

Between January and March 2026, Donald Trump personally executed 3,700 individual stock transactions worth between $220 million and $750 million.

That's roughly 60 trades PER DAY.

While signing executive orders, meeting foreign leaders, and making policy decisions that directly impact the companies he's buying and selling.

Now here's where it gets really insane:

On February 10, Trump bought between $1 million and $5 million worth of Dell stock.

Three months later, on May 8, he stood at a Mother's Day event at the White House, thanked Michael Dell by name, and told Americans to "go out and buy a Dell."

Dell stock surged 14.6% that day to an all-time high of $263.99.

Since Trump's February purchase, Dell is up 96%.

And 5 months BEFORE Trump bought Dell stock, Michael and Susan Dell donated $6.25 billion to Trump Accounts, one of the largest philanthropic commitments to a sitting president's signature program in modern history.

So the timeline goes: Dell donates $6.25 billion to Trump's program -> Trump buys Dell stock ->Trump tells America to buy Dell from the White House podium -> Stock hits all-time high

And that's just ONE stock...

The same filing shows Trump bought Nvidia stock on February 10. One week later, Nvidia announced a massive chip deal with Meta.

He bought more Nvidia stock one week BEFORE his own Commerce Department approved the sale of Nvidia chips to Saudi Arabia.

He bought Intel stock starting in March 2026. The US government already owned a 9.9% stake in Intel worth over $41 billion. On April 30, Trump posted on Truth Social praising Intel, writing that "Intel Stock continues to rise."

Intel jumped 3% in after-hours and is now up 140% year-to-date.

He bought Palantir stock while his administration was actively handing them billion-dollar government contracts for immigration enforcement and defense.

He bought Robinhood stock while his own Trump Accounts program uses Robinhood as the broker.

He's currently sitting on over 100% profit on AMD, Intel, Bloom Energy, Marvell Technology, and at least 10 other positions.

Every single president since Lyndon B. Johnson has used a blind trust to avoid exactly this situation. But Trump didn't.

His assets sit in a trust controlled by his own children, and the filings show a broker acted as agent on several trades.

The White House says the portfolio is "independently managed."

But here's what independently managed looks like:

Buy Dell stock. Three months later, publicly endorse Dell from the White House. Stock hits all-time high.

Buy Nvidia stock. One week later, your own government approves their chip sales. Stock rips.

Buy Intel stock. Post about Intel on Truth Social. Stock jumps. The government you run already owns a 10% stake.

Buy Palantir. Hand them contracts. Buy Robinhood. Route a federal program through their platform.

Nancy Pelosi got absolutely destroyed for her husband's stock trades.

Her husband's total disclosed trades in his most controversial year were worth roughly $5 million.

Trump just disclosed up to $750 MILLION in a single quarter.

While making the actual policy decisions that move these stocks.

This isn't a left or right issue.

We're talking about the President of the United States averaging 60 stock trades per day in companies his own administration regulates, contracts with, and publicly endorses.

What do you think?

[Claire @Welfrington]

@TrooperBenKs Agree with other comments and what about folks who don't have the disposable income in the bank they are penalized for being poor as they cannot get the discount on the day.

[Emma 💛💙🇩🇰🇬🇧🇪🇺 @MonkEmma]

So no, he wasn't struck off for asking a Muslim woman to remove her veil.

He was struck off for multiple counts of serious misconduct, including lying during an official investigation, followed by working 17 times while suspended, and THEN refusing to engage with the GMC about returning to work

[Claire @Welfrington]

@soigomaa Same

[Claire @Welfrington]

@officialsammyuk People also work full time and get universal credit

[Claire @Welfrington]

@urbanmel @1goodtern @MindFeast622 Quick Goole for article with heavy recreational use over 5 years ‘K‑cramps’ and bladder damage: Young users warn of ketamine risk - BBC News https://t.co/P0Gou0QGVQ

[Claire @Welfrington]

@vitt2tsnoc I did it myself

[Gianl1974 @Gianl1974]

“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

[Claire @Welfrington]

@MartinSLewis I am due to fly to Cyprus wed am 4/3 and my travel insurance company can't tell me if I'm covered or not due to previous drone attack which could mean I've travelled regardless of risk &unless the fcdo ban all but essential travel I get holiday refund but if not I've no recourse

[Claire @Welfrington]

@DiBrander @keithdunn Took 10 years to get the first finisher from inception

[Claire @Welfrington]

@1goodtern Horrified

[Claire @Welfrington]

@1goodtern NHS staff at a trust local to me weren't offered covid vaccination this year only flu - not sure if this is gvt or local decision

[Claire @Welfrington]

@Channel4 what happened to made for love? I had been watching series 2 then today it says no episodes available. Didn't notice an expiry date on the series.

[Claire @Welfrington]

Love that I have a spare bed to sleep in when I can't be arsed to make my actual bed #blessed

[Claire @Welfrington]

@JillBugs41570 @MailOnline It does in the article second paragraph

[Claire @Welfrington]

@StarbucksUK should my americano with coconut milk look like this? It's the second time....

[Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu]

Britain's productivity "puzzle"