swampbot

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Trump's Agriculture Secretary tries to blame the resurgence of the New World Screwworm on Biden despite Trump and DOGE slashing funding for Screwworm monitoring programs

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[John Collins @Logically_JC]

This is the craziest, most delusional framing ever.

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Jimmy Kimmel: We have the right guaranteed by the Constitution to criticize and satirize our leaders. This is a right that I took for granted until last year when the FCC delivered a very unpleasant surprise. But then I watched as millions of people objected because they refuse to allow our freedoms to be bulldozed like the East Wing of the White House. We will not stand by when comedy and journalism are censored and criminalized.

[Aaron Blake @AaronBlake]

George Washington declined to be featured on currency when he was living, fearing it would be reminiscent of a monarch.

Congress in 1866 passed the Thayer amendment, which stated "no portrait or likeness of any living person shall be engraved or placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes, or postal currency of the United States."

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

Trump is now reportedly responsible for roughly 27.7% of the entire U.S. national debt accumulated under all presidents combined.

That is an astonishing figure historically.

The national debt just crossed $39 trillion.

President Trump has added roughly $12–13 trillion to the debt across his two terms in office.

That’s approximately 30% of ALL U.S. national debt accumulated since 1789.

In 2016, Trump said he would pay down the national debt “over a period of eight years.”

Instead:

- First term: +$7.8 trillion
- Second term: roughly +$4–5 trillion already

And yes, COVID affected first-term spending.

It does not explain adding another trillion dollars every five months without a pandemic.

A political movement built on:
“fiscal conservatism”
“small government”
“balanced budgets”

has now overseen the largest debt expansion tied to any single presidency in American history.

[swampbot @trgill]

My @paramountplus subscription is now cancelled. #startrek #colbert

[swampbot @trgill]

Wow.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Maddow: So in January, Trump buys hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Nvidia. Then a week later, his commerce department approves the sale of Nvidia chips to China. 

Also in January, Trump buys between 50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in AMD. One week after he buys it, his commerce department approves AMD doing business in China as well. 

The following month, in February, Trump buys millions of dollars worth of stock in Dell. Nine days after he buys millions of dollars worth of stock in Dell, Trump veers off script in a speech in Georgia to tell the crowd literally, quote, go out and buy a Dell computer. 

Then in March, Judd Legum at Popular Information reports that Trump repeatedly buys up Thermo Fisher stock, and then he goes and visits Thermo Fisher on a presidential visit and praises the company.

That same day, Trump bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Apple. And then that same day he bought the stock, he did another event where he singled out Apple and Apple CEO Tim cook for praise. Apple a great company.

Then after that, Trump buys Micron stock. The very next day, he calls into the Fox News channel and tells them Micron is one of the hottest companies.

CNBC reporting Trump makes seven separate purchases of Palantir stock. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Palantir stock. Then he gets on truth social and praises Palantir.

[Richard Stengel @stengel]

George H.W. Bush kept his assets in a blind trust, as did Bill Clinton. Neither Obama nor Biden traded stocks or bonds while in office. 3,700 trades is probably more than all the trades of all the presidents until now. And he is trading stocks that are affected by his decisions. A walking conflict of interest, at the least, and perhaps insider trading. Just as members of Congress should not be able to trade stocks, so too the president. https://t.co/yDqVXWfDgc

[swampbot @trgill]

@Astropartigirl But we can test much of the docking interfaces on the ground using approaches from what was done with the ISS even without putting the vehicles in the same building preflight. Hoping they do that.

[swampbot @trgill]

That’s the right set of hardware for Artemis III. Good scope for that mission.

[Spaceflight Now @SpaceflightNow]

In an update from NASA this morning, the agency outlines the following for Artemis 3:

• The SLS rocket will use a spacer, not the ICPS upper stage
• The mission will be LEO only; no high Earth orbit
• Astronauts "could potentially enter at least one lander test article"
• Artemis 3 will be longer in duration than 9 days
• Upgraded heat shield demonstration

Remaining unknowns include:

• Launch date/window
• Timeline for naming astronauts
• Precise orbit (altitude/inclination)
• Exact mission duration
• What science will be onboard
• Whether Artemis 3 will include AxEMU spacesuit-lander interface demo

https://t.co/Jhz3plbIws

[Cenk Uygur @cenkuygur]

This is just a robbery. The president sues his own government and then pressures them to settle. He wants them to give him billions… of our money. This might be the worst case of corruption ever. A president directly robbing the citizens he’s supposed to serve and protect.

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

Trump took $59 million from 590,000 Americans for a phone that may never exist.

Then quietly updated the terms:

“No guarantee a phone will be produced or sold.”

The crypto coin. The sneakers. The Bible. The gold card. The ballroom. The phone.

Every single time the same pattern.

Take the money. Change the terms. Walk away.

[Covie @covie_93]

The people who promised to fix everything on day 1 are still out here blaming Joe Biden on day 467.

[Zach Abolverdi @ZachAbolverdi]

Choose your fighter

[swampbot @trgill]

I just wrote a @endangered letter: 🚨 URGENT: Tell Congress to Reject Westerman’s Attack on the Endangered Species Act 🚨. Write one here: https://t.co/7TQd146sEd

[Alison Craig @lawandchocolate]

You mean like calling Canada the 51st state? Like that?

[swampbot @trgill]

@briandalebrown I had 85,000 ahead of me at the start!?

[swampbot @trgill]

@hecallsmePP Yikes

[Covie @covie_93]

Marco Rubio on Tuesday: "Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics."

The White House Thursday: