Christa Damron

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

🚨 A STUNNING CLAIM.

According to a legal analyst, DOJ never filed a single motion opposing Trump's lawsuit before negotiating a settlement.

Not one filing contesting the case.

Not one motion asking the court to reject the claims.

In a normal lawsuit involving the federal government, government lawyers typically defend the government's position in court.

Here, critics argue that never happened.

Instead, they say DOJ moved directly into negotiations.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Ossoff: This war in Iran is the worst foreign policy blunder since Iraq. And just like the Iraq War, it's a war built on lies. Let’s update the record:

On day one, the president said it was running ahead of schedule. On day 10, he said it was very complete . Day 21, getting very close . Day 32, leaving very soon . On day 39, the President of the United States said a whole civilization will die…

And on the next day, day 40, he declared total and complete victory . Day 67, great progress. Day 79, the clock is ticking. Today is day 92 . And on day 92 Iran's ballistic missiles and drones have not been destroyed. The Strait of Hormuz, which was opened before the war is still closed. The regime is intact along with its stockpile of highly enriched uranium—a stockpile Iran only built after President Trump shredded President Obama's Iran deal

[Suzie rizzio @Suzierizzo1]

Don’t forget when Rome was collapsing emperors would use Gladiator fights to distract the people from the Corruption of the State at that time! This is all starting to make sense now. Who agrees?

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

All this trash and destruction of the area was caused by only 2 homeless people in California

They have been allowed to live here for so long you can see they actually excavated stairs into the hillside

You can see they have clearly stolen probably every bike from the surrounding neighborhood

This is because of Mayor Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom

People should not be allowed to live in encampments like this, stop letting it be normalized

[Christa Damron @DCcorpse72]

!!!!

[Shawna 🇺🇸 @shawna_a_vet]

A UFC fight on the White House lawn is THE MOST redneck, trailer trash, idiocratic way to celebrate Independence Day.

[Emoluments Clause @Emolclause]

#BREAKING: Psaki: “…I have to start tonight with a story that in any other administration, would be grounds for opening an impeachment inquiry, because today ProPublica reported that the White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to President Trump’s adult son @DonaldJTrumpJr…the deal in question involved a startup focused on rare earth magnet production called Vulcan Elements and last Summer, Don Jr’s venture capital firm took an undisclosed stake in that company, and wouldn’t you know…three months later, the Pentagon announced that it was giving Vulcan Elements a $620 million loan.”🙄🤦‍♀️

[𝔏𝔢𝔫𝔞 🎀 @clusterbitch_]

it’s crazy how we have both the World Cup and America 250 this year and almost no one cares about them because the administration has wholly sucked the joy out of even momentous national events

[Thrilla the Gorilla @ThrillaRilla369]

The middle class is the most expensive place to live, and no one talks about it. Lower income households get assistance. The wealthy use tax strategies and loopholes. But the middle class pays full taxes, full tuition, full healthcare, full everything. So you work 50 hours a week just to stay in the same place and fund everyone’s life except yours.

[Christa Damron @DCcorpse72]

🙏🙏

[Gianl1974 @Gianl1974]

I really miss this kind of America.

Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford ran against each other in 1976.

When Ford passed away, Carter gave the eulogy at his funeral.

When Carter passed away, Ford’s son Steve spoke at Carter’s funeral.

Barack Obama and John McCain ran against each other in 2008.

When McCain passed away, Obama gave the eulogy at his funeral.

They disagreed. They debated. They fought hard for what they believed in.

But at the end of the day, they still saw each other as human beings. As Americans.

That is the part we have lost.

Somewhere along the way, disagreement turned into hatred. Politics turned into teams. And people forgot that respect does not mean you agree with someone on everything.

I still believe we can get back to this.

Not because it will be easy. Not because everyone will suddenly think the same.

But because America is supposed to be better than this.

Bipartisan respect used to be possible.

And someday, I pray we remember how to do it again. 🇺🇸💙

[MJdowntheshore @MJdowntheshore]

And that's the truth.

[Farm Girl Carrie 👩‍🌾 @FarmGirlCarrie]

Straight talk from Mike Rowe as he explains why our country’s focus must be on training our young people for trades rather than pushing them into a college degree they may never be able to use.

“We’ve got 7.2M men not participating in the workforce, and not looking for work.

We have $1.7 T in student loan debt on the books.

We’ve got 7.6M positions that don’t require a 4 yr degree, and yet we keep lending money to kids who are never going to be able to pay it back; to train them for jobs that don’t exist anymore.

If we want to close the skills gap,
we need to make a more persuasive case.”

[Thrilla the Gorilla @ThrillaRilla369]

Friendly reminder

Oil takes months to extract, refine, and ship worldwide. Yet, a conflict starts overseas and gas prices spike the very next day. The fuel at your local station was purchased months ago. That immediate price hike is a completely rigged monopoly.

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: NOT SO FAST! Federal judge reopens Trump’s IRS case and demands to know if her court was defrauded.

Judge Kathleen Williams has had enough.

In a brief but devastating order Friday, the federal judge in Miami reopened Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS — a case Trump had voluntarily dismissed last week specifically to avoid her scrutiny — and ordered Trump's lawyers to explain by June 12th why she shouldn't find that the entire scheme was a fraud perpetrated against her court.

The judge's language was pointed and precise. She said she wanted to investigate "grievous allegations" that the deal to resolve the case was "premised on deception." She asserted that she was "empowered to investigate serious misconduct" and demanded answers to two devastating questions: was "the court the victim of a fraud," and did Trump collude with his own government to settle the case specifically "to avoid judicial scrutiny"?

The answer to both questions, based on everything that has already been reported, appears to be yes.

Judge Williams had been circling this case for weeks before Trump pulled it. She had openly questioned how Trump could sue an agency he controls, with government lawyers who answer to him, producing a settlement negotiated with officials he appointed. She ordered both sides to explain whether they were actually adversaries or secretly colluding. Trump dismissed the case the day before those briefs were due.

Then, after she closed it, the Justice Department released not one but two extraordinary agreements — a $1.776 billion fund to compensate Trump's allies, and a separate one-page document permanently barring the IRS from ever auditing Trump, his family, or his businesses. Agreements that had apparently been negotiated while the case was supposedly active before her court.

Judge Williams cited the New York Times report revealing that the IRS had prepared a 25-page memo outlining strong defenses against Trump's suit — defenses the Justice Department never raised in court, never filed, never mentioned.

Her order came directly in response to the filing by 35 former federal judges — appointed by presidents of both parties — who called the scheme a fraud and urged her to reopen the case.

She listened.

"We stand ready to work with the court as it investigates this matter," said Norman Eisen, who represented the former judges.

Trump tried to flip the table before she could see the cards. She just put them back on the table.

If you can’t wait to see the Justice Department try to explain itself, please like and share this post everywhere.

[Lemma the Optimist @DoctorLemma]

I came across this story from Japan and it sent me down a small rabbit hole. The player is Yuji Nishida. At a volleyball event in Kobe this February, he misfired a serve, accidentally hit the courtside line judge in the back, and then did this.

What he is doing has a name. It is called a dogeza. In Japan it is the deepest apology a person can physically make. You drop to your knees and lower your forehead toward the ground, so the other person ends up literally above you. It is not a casual sorry. Traditionally it is reserved for serious remorse, for asking a real favour, or for showing deep respect to someone far above your station.

What made me curious is whether other cultures have their own version of this. A single physical gesture that means “I lower myself completely before you.” Does yours have one?

[MeidasClips @MeidasClips]

Francis Maxwell: "The one thing America needs at this moment while a war is going on and affordability crisis is here is an octagon on the South Lawn — cage fight, at the White House, for Trump's birthday. Just take a second and imagine you were in a coma before 2016 and woke up to that sentence. It's just madness."

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

On Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the brave men and women in uniform who gave their lives for this country that we love. It is a debt we can never fully repay, but we must never stop trying. I’ll always be grateful to our fallen heroes and their families, whose sacrifice reminds us of what it means to live for something greater than ourselves.

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

This is Lord Rothermere the owner of the Daily Mail.

He lives in a massive mansion in the English countryside, but he pays no tax here because he identifies as French.

While the Daily Mail is registered in Bermuda and pays no tax anywhere.

That is his ‘Patriotism’.

[Christa Damron @DCcorpse72]

@LakotaMan1 Awesome!! 👏 😜

[Acyn @Acyn]

Katie Phang visits the Donald J. Trump Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, an exhibition that displays the 3,437 volumes of The Epstein Files.

“Each of them weighs about 5 lb. … 3.5 million files bound into 800-page volumes. Altogether, it weighs about 17,000 lb.”

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Trump called ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott a bitch, and I think we’re long past the point where anyone with a functioning conscience should be expected to shrug and mutter, “Well, that’s just Trump being Trump.” No. That phrase has done enough damage already. It’s the anesthetic we’ve used to numb ourselves to behavior that would have politically incinerated any other president in modern American history. Two professional lip readers independently confirmed what the video appeared to show: as Trump walked away from the press gaggle at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, he muttered, “She’s a bitch,” in Rachel Scott’s direction. The White House, naturally, offered no clarification. No apology. No denial worth taking seriously. Just the usual strategic silence that follows whenever this man says the quiet part out loud and hopes the outrage cycle burns itself out by dinner.
And what exactly provoked His Fragile Majesty this time? Journalism. Rachel Scott did her job. She asked an entirely legitimate question about why this administration appears preoccupied with beautification vanity projects while Americans are dealing with spiking gas prices against the backdrop of yet another Trump-fueled geopolitical mess in Iran. A straightforward question. The kind reporters are supposed to ask. Trump’s response was the usual slurry of grievance and invented drama, claiming Scott “probably don’t see dirt,” insisting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool had been some sort of national biohazard requiring “11 or 12 truckloads of garbage” to be hauled away, as though the place had been abandoned since the Eisenhower administration. That’s nonsense. The reflecting pool undergoes regular maintenance, including draining and cleaning, as part of standard federal upkeep. But facts have always been optional when Trump needs a dramatic set piece for his performance of wounded masculinity.
This is not just about one ugly muttered insult. This is about a man with a long, unmistakable record of directing particular venom toward Black women who dare challenge him publicly. Maxine Waters? “Low IQ.” Kamala Harris? “Low IQ.” April Ryan. Yamiche Alcindor. Abby Phillip. And now Rachel Scott. The pattern is not subtle enough to require forensic analysis. When Black women do their jobs with intelligence, composure, and precision in Trump’s orbit, he does not engage on substance. He lashes out. He demeans. He attempts to diminish. It’s the behavioral vocabulary of a man who sees confident women, particularly Black women, not as professionals doing their jobs, but as threats to be put back in their place.
And here’s the truly pathetic part: Black women are statistically among the most educated demographics in this country, which makes Trump’s lazy insult repertoire not just racist and misogynistic, but spectacularly ignorant. The man who confuses confidence with insolence and accountability with disrespect continues to reveal exactly who he is, and yet somehow we are still asked, by some corners of this exhausted country, to treat each new offense like an isolated misunderstanding instead of what it plainly is: a character flaw so deeply embedded it has become governing style.
No. We are done normalizing this.
This is not “Trump being Trump.”
This is a president of the United States behaving like a bitter, insecure bully every time an intelligent woman refuses to play decorative furniture in his presence. And yes, that matters.
—Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition