5/31/25: DURING
Donald Dumpling’s first term in office, it was possible to follow every illegal
or incompetent twist and turn. In his second go at playing president, the
burden is too great for any one blogger. May proved to be a wild month with Donald’s
crimes and lunacies coming fast and furious.
The best
I can offer is a list of:
HOT/NOT
HOT
HOT: Donald campaigned on the brag that only he could end the Ukraine War, and claimed he could end it in one day, even without taking office! All we had to do was elect him.
And presto…
NOT HOT
– Calendars. As the last moments of May fade, two hundred-and-seven days have passed
since a majority of voters (for the first time) chose Donald and rejected Kamala.
Trump is back to calling it “Biden’s War,” and insists he may “walk away” from negotiations, which
is definitely not the same as ending the fighting.
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Ukrainian drone strikes Russian bomber base. |
NOT HOT: The busy Leader of the Free World took time out this month to attack Taylor Swift. On Truth Social, he posted, “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”
Most males would disagree.
NOT HOT: If Swift isn’t hot, neither is Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, former reality TV show star and Fox News host. On Sunday, May 11, for the third time in less than two weeks, the air traffic control systems at Newark Liberty International Airport went dark.
Duffy blamed Joe Biden.
On May 11-12, the traffic control systems at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport also failed.
President Trump blamed Taylor Swift.
(Okay, that last is a joke – but would you be surprised if it
wasn’t?)
NOT HOT – Maturity in the White House. Donald Dumpling, as we like to call him, decided to waste even more valuable presidential time, and post a video of himself hitting Bruce Springsteen with a golf shot. This came after the musician warned, the “America that I have written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt incompetent and treasonous administration [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].”
Donald replied in typical, petty fashion: “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy.”
(It is estimated that Springsteen has sold 140 million albums, worldwide.)
(For that matter, Ms. Taylor’s last tour sold $2 billion in tickets.)
HOT – Trump family finances!!! As NBC has noted, Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur, won a contest to sit at a table with the president, during a “crypto-focused gala” at Trump’s private golf club in Virginia. We now know that Mr. Sun invested $75 million in $TRUMP meme coins, which means Donald and his family may have banked $56 million, from just Mr. Sun’s transactions.
HOT – Pardons. Sun had been charged with market manipulation and selling unregistered securities in 2023. Miraculously, the Trump “Department of Justice” has now dropped all charges.
(See below, for even more on the crypto-focused gala.”)
HOTTER –
Pardons! Again! The president has announced that he will pardon former reality TV stars, Todd
and Julie Chrisley. The two were convicted of fraud and tax evasion. Todd
was sentenced to a dozen years in prison, Julie seven. They had been ordered to
pay $17.8 million in restitution.
HOTTEST – Cheating on taxes. Paul Walczak has also been pardoned, after his mother attended a $1 million-per-plate dinner at Mar-a-Lago. (We hope attendees received free drinks.) A former nursing home executive – and who doesn’t want crooks running homes for grandma and grandpa – Walczak had been ordered to serve 18 months behind bars and cough up $4.4 million in restitution. He was found guilty of skimming $10 million from workers’ wages – supposedly to pay Social Security taxes – but used the loot to buy a $2 million yacht and finance an extravagant lifestyle.
NOT HOT - Justice. The judge in Mr. Walczak’s case had told him that there was no “get-out-of jail-free card” for the superrich. He failed to consider a $1 million plate of steak and beans.
HOT – More pardons! Damn! Donald has saved another convicted crook from the necessity of going to jail. This time, it’s Culpepper County, Virginia Sheriff Scott Jenkins. The sheriff was convicted by a jury in December 2024 on one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services fraud, and seven counts of bribery related to federally funded programs. Or: a dozen felonies.
Jenkins took
at least $75,000 in bribes.
HOT – the Babbitts. The Department of Justice has settled with the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed during the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. Her parents will be awarded $5 million.
NOT HOT:
That $5 million will come out of the pockets of America’s taxpayers! (Taxpayers
are already on the hook for $3 million in damages caused by the January 6 mob –
with Trump having pardoned all the rioters who were supposed to pay damages.)
NOT HOT: Families of five police officers who died in the wake of the riot (four by suicide) have not been awarded a dime.
NOT HOT: Neither have the 140 officers injured during that attempt to thwart a basic function of democracy.
NOT HOT
– Breonna Taylor’s family. The DOJ has decided to drop an investigation
into her killing, after Memphis police started shooting after entering her
apartment, and a stray bullet killed Ms. Taylor, who was doing some “criminal sleeping.”
NEVER GOING TO BE HOT – January 6 criminals such as Emily Hernandez. She was sentenced, just ten days after the president granted her pardon, to ten years in prison for felony drunk driving leading to the death of another driver; Daniel Ball, arrested again on charges of being a felon in possession of a gun (Ball had a previous felony conviction for domestic violence and battery by strangulation; Matthew Huttle, killed by police during a recent traffic stop; and Zachary Alam, arrested again, this time on a charge of felony residential burglary.
(This is but a sampling of the disreputable characters Trump has
pardoned.)
HOT – Hungry grizzlies and litter. In another “brilliant” DOGE move Republicans are proposing $1.2 billion in cuts to spending on national parks. That would represent a 25% reduction. Services, from timely trash removal to rescue of hikers threatened by grizzlies, will be curtailed.
FISCALLY NOT HOT – Moody’s U.S. credit rating. With evidence growing that Trump and the Republicans will fail to cut the federal deficit (again!) Moody’s has downgraded the nation’s credit rating to Aa1.
First time ever.
HOT: The change in the nation’s credit rating is expected to drive interest rates higher, such as on home and auto loans.
HOT – Magic gasoline prices. Mt. Trump keeps insisting that he has brought down prices at the pump to under two dollars a gallon. According to AAA the national average on May 22 was $3.19 per gallon.
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Gas prices: Glendale, Ohio, May 16. |
HOT: Money! Donald Trump Jr. is charging $500,000 for anyone who wants to join his private club, which will meet at a restaurant or maybe a secret clubhouse in Washington D.C.
In case you’re missing simple realities, the club will be called the “Executive Branch,” and if you pay, the head of the actual executive branch might do you some favors. (See: Paul Walczak, above.)
(Clubhouse password phrase: “Show me the money!”)
SUPER HOT – Massive money!! On May 22, the president tends to a little personal business when he invites 220 lucky investors in $Trump meme coins to dine with him at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. First, he flies in on a military helicopter, at taxpayer expense. Then he gives a little welcoming speech from behind a lectern bearing the presidential seal. Finally, he promises to boost the crypto currency business while – of course – boosting his personal stake.
How were the lucky 220 chosen? Donald and his business partners created a “leader board” to show which investors bought the most $Trump coins – and top buyers received the “most EXLUSIVE INVITATION in the World.”
Here’s how it worked. You bought meme coins which had no intrinsic value – and you got to sit at the president elbow – and Donald promised to scratch your back, businesswise, since you had scratched his backside, where he keeps his wallet.
NOT HOT: For the love of God, can we just get online depictions of the president looking like he does in real life?
In fact, there was a second level of bribing.
An exclusive reception:
As The New York Times explains: “A meme coin is a type of digital currency tied to an online joke or mascot; it typically has no function beyond speculation [emphasis added]. But Mr. Trump’s coins have become a vehicle for investors, including many foreigners, to funnel money to his family.”
Sangrok Oh, a Korean crypto king, wasn’t bashful when asked why he had flown halfway round the world to break bread with The Dumpling.
“It’s kind of a fund-raiser” for Mr. Trump, he told reporters. “And he’ll always be good to his sponsors.”
Not to mention, good to himself:
A
business entity tied to the Trumps sits on a large stash of the $TRUMP
cryptocurrency and collects fees every time the coins change hands. So far, the
coin has generated at least $320 million in fees [emphasis added], which
the Trumps share with their business partners, according to Chainalysis, a
crypto analytics firm.
So, you can see that business, for the man who is supposed to focus on being President of the United States, was very, very good. And it was only going to get better in the next three-plus years.
Cha-ching!
Cha-ching!!
Cha-ching!!!
HOT: Melania also has a meme coin! When the coin was first offered, sales were gang busters. She made a bundle.
FRIGID:
It didn’t take long for people who invested to figure out that, no matter how
much they loved all things-Melania, hawking coins with no intrinsic value was a
Ponzi scheme – but legal, because investors weren’t being cheated.
They were mostly just dumb.
Once worth $7.43, you can now buy a Melania coin for 35¢. That would mean original buyers had lost 92.9% of their money.
HOT: Still fetching at 55, Mrs. Trump can afford plenty of big hats, to keep her husband’s pouty lips at a safe assured distance. Amazon is paying $40 million to make a documentary about her life.
NOT HOT: Mr. Trump’s sex life (unless he’s banging Laura Loomer on the side, which some suspect).
On May
9, The New York Times reported that the First Lady had been seen at the
White House “less than fourteen days,” out of Donald’s first 108 in office.
Sources told the Times that Melania sometimes “vanishes from view for
weeks at a time.”
HOT – Planet Earth: But you may not notice. The Trump administration is firing all the scientists who were studying climate change, and the threat a warming world poses for humanity.
NOT HOT – Coal miners. Behind the scenes, Elon and his DOGE Boys pushed federal agencies to fire as many people as possible. That included more than experts working on improving health outcomes for retired and current coal miners, including screening for black lung disease.
MT. VESUVIUS HOT: Republican lawmakers in West Virginia were livid when they realized DOGE had demolished a program constituents loved, simply because it helped save loved ones’ lives. The Center for Disease Control has since ordered most of those experts reinstated, and various cabinet members have been busy trying to blame each other for the firing fiasco.
ICE COLD
– Homeland Security Babe Kristi Noem. Secretary Noem loves to pose in makeup,
with hair done up in waves of curls, while holding large automatic weapons, and
watching ICE agents handcuff children.
This month she proved entirely clueless when asked to explain why habeas corpus was important – and should not be suspended as Neo-Nazi Boy Wonder Stephen Miller has suggested.
The right of habeas corpus (literally: “you shall have the body”) guarantees that governments can’t just charge you with crimes and lock you up until they feel like getting around to giving you a trial.
Such as: Never.
Instead, the government is ordered to produce the prisoner in court and show cause why that prisoner should not be released, for example, on bail.
This is simple stuff – which many of the blogger’s former seventh grade students may well remember.
Noem? Not so much. Asked by Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) during Senate testimony, to define “habeas corpus,” poor Kristi might as well have answered by making gargling sounds. The secretary responded: “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”
(Damn, girl! You would have been better off farting a reply.)
HOT – Burner accounts. Staffers for Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a rampaging MAGA starlet, have been tasked (at taxpayer expense) with creating “burner accounts” and fake social media profiles. Mace herself is accused of joining the fun. Mace “would allegedly order her underlings to identify criticism of her on social media; a slew of fake accounts would then pile on the offending account.”
“We were congressional staff, and there were actual things we could be doing to help the constituents,” one staffer admitted.
NOT HOT
– Honest public servants. Two officials at the National Intelligence Council
ran into trouble when they reported that the president’s rational for
deporting illegal immigrants under the Alien Enemy Act was flawed. Director of
National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired them both.
HOT – Judge Jeanine Pirro. The president nominates the Fox News host to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
NOT HOT - Pirro. The free press reminds us that Judge Jeanine once asked a friend in law enforcement to bug her family’s 26-foot-long boat, so she could catch her cheating husband. Even more fun: The man she asked to plant the bug was himself under federal investigation and went to prison.
We are also
reminded that Pirro pushed “stolen election” lies after Trump got his ass
kicked in 2020. Behind the scenes, her own producers summed up her rants
saying, “This is completely crazy.”
HOT – The term “groceries.” Donald has been waxing eloquent regarding bagged food items. Or, as he put it recently: “An old-fashioned term that we use – groceries. I used it on the campaign. It’s such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Groceries. It says a bag with different things in it.”
(Yes, Donald. Sometimes even multiple bags!)
NOT HOT – Grilling. With arrival of Memorial Day weekend, Fox News was forced to admit that grocery prices were not falling. Instead, consumers might have “sticker shock” when they saw beef prices. Prices for steak, roasts and ground beef were at all-time highs. Price reductions might “not be coming anytime soon.”
HOT – Flip-flopping.
On May 8, the president suggested that Republican lawmakers raise taxes on
multi-millionaires and billionaires. The idea was to create a new, higher tax bracket for individuals earning $2.5
million per year, or couples earning $5 million. The top tax rate would rise
from 37% to 39.6%.
HOT - Sean Hannity. The Fox News host earns an estimated $45 million per year by playing a blowhard on TV. He exploded at the news he might have to pony up a few more dollars, to support the U.S. military, clean up national parks, or pay his share of the Babbitt family’s big cash settlement.
HOT –
More flip-flopping. On May 9, the president changed course and agreed that Republicans should not raise taxes on the
richest of the rich. Whoever said they should was a communist and an idiot.
HOT – Cartoon
intelligence briefings! Donald has been too busy posting on Truth Social to
attend daily intelligence briefings. According to an analysis of public
records, as of May 9, Donald had attended only 12 briefings.
In fact, Director Gabbard is said to be struggling with ways to get Donald to read his reports – because, frankly, he’s an incurious dolt.
Currently, the president’s daily briefing (PDB) is,
a written digital document with pictures, [but] there
is a feeling Trump is not invested with one insider admitting, “The problem
with Trump is that he doesn’t read. He’s on broadcast all the time.”
With
that in mind, NBC News is reporting there have been suggestions about
converting his briefing into one “made to look and feel like a Fox News
broadcast,” according to multiple sources.
“Under
that concept as it has been discussed, the national intelligence director’s
office could hire a Fox News producer to produce it and one of the network’s
personalities to present it; Trump, an avid Fox News viewer, could then watch
the broadcast PDB whenever he wanted,” the report states before adding, “A new
PDB could include not only graphics and pictures but also maps with animated
representations of exploding bombs, similar to a video game, another one of the
people with knowledge of the discussions said.”
 |
Pay attention, President Numbskull! |
HOT: Still more flip-flopping. According to President Trump, slapping tariffs on imports will be great for America, and the U.S. will collect billions of dollars every hour of every day, and extra during Leap Years, and the federal government will soon be seen to be wallowing in cash.
NOT HOT – American babies. It turns out that 98% of all car safety seats for infants and toddler are made in China, and tariffs may drive up costs by 30%. Which will suck even more if you have twins or triplets!
HOT:
Large banners showing Trump’s glowering mug, hanging from the United States
Agricultural Building. The banner reads: “USAD: Growing America since 1862.”
Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins assures everyone that the president is “ushering
in a Golden Age for our farmers.”
HOT: Sales of George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, in which an authoritarian government plasters pictures of the leader of the nation, captioned, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING” on every street corner.
(See above.)
NOT HOT: Elderly Americans. While you are busy watching Giant-Poster-Donald watching you, COVID continues to kill 350 Americans weekly. That would be 18,200 deaths annually.
HOT: Measles!! Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reports that as of May 25, the U.S. had recorded 1,168 known cases of measles, a disease once considered eradicated in this country.
NOT HOT: Secretary Kennedy insists that he would never fire “working scientists” at federal agencies under his control.
This would be “news” to key scientists working on bird flu at the Center for Veterinary Medicine.
Also: scientists at Centers for Disease Control, who researched traumatic brain injuries.
Also: CDC scientists fired after their entire lab tracking sexually transmitted infections and hepatitis outbreaks was axed.
HOT – PFAS. The Trump administration is rolling back rules which would reduce levels of cancer-causing “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, in drinking water.
More
toxic substances in every gulp!
NOT HOT – Child dental care! Team Trump and his anti-science pals want to ban fluoride in drinking water. The American Dental Association says that it “recognizes the use of fluoride and community water fluoridation as safe and effective in preventing tooth decay for both children and adults.
HOT – Cavities.
NOT HOT – Donald Trump. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the president cannot deport everyone he wants without due process.
HOT – Donald’s temper. “The result of this decision will let more CRIMINALS pour into our Country, doing great harm to our cherished American public,” the president howls. “The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do.”
STONE COLD – Donald’s feeble grasp of the role of the federal courts in our three-branch system of government.
The
courts do not exist to let him “do what he was elected to do.” Their job is to interpret
the law and if a president oversteps constitutional bonds (see for
example, Richard Nixon and the Watergate tapes), let him know.
HOT – Chief Justice John Rodgers. The Chief Justice can smell a skunk when he sniffs one, and he warned that the rule of law in this country was now “endangered,” and cautioned against “trashing the justices.”
In fact,
he told an audience at Georgetown Law:
__________
“The
notion that rule of law governs is the basic proposition. Certainly, as a
matter of theory, but also as a matter of practice, we need to stop and reflect
every now and then how rare that is, certainly rare throughout history, and
rare in the world today.”
__________
HOT – Military tribunals. On Truth Social Donald reposts a call for former President Obama to…well…:
“ALL ROADS LEAD TO OBAMA... RETRUTH IF YOU WANT PUBLIC MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
(If you don’t sniff fascism here, your sniffer is broken.)
.jpg)
NOT HOT – North Carolina. When Joe Biden was president, Candidate Donald lambasted him because rebuilding efforts in North Carolina, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, weren’t going fast enough.
Trump has now “completed” federal cleanup efforts by telling North Carolina he’s not going to provide any more money.
NOT HOT:
At least half of all mothers – since most women in all three elections
where Donald ran have voted for the other person. Trump’s lovely Mothers’ Day
sentiments were here expressed:
HOT: Prevarication. The president has been telling all true MAGA believers that raising tariffs won’t hurt consumers. According to Mr. Trump other countries will pay the tariffs and importers will absorb the extra cost. Walmart has now announced that they won’t.
You will.
EVEN COLDER: Other companies that have warned tariffs will drive up prices for consumers, include AutoZone, Best Buy, Ford, Macy’s, Nikon, Nintendo, Proctor & Gamble, Stanley Black & Decker, Target, and Volkswagen.
HOT: Tacos. Every time Trump announces new, punitive tariffs the stock market tanks, and he loses his nerve and delays implementation – referring to his on again/off again flip-flopping as “negotiating.”
Wall Street investors have instead slapped a new name on his policies, using the anacronym: “TACO.”
Or: “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
NOT HOT – Reviews for the president’s May 25 speech to graduates at West Point. In a weird, politicized address, Donald:
1. 1. Wore his favorite “Make America Great Again” hat while babbling.
2.
Said that no one wanted to join the military until he returned
to office (even though the entire graduating class had in fact signed up in
2021, when President Biden was in office).
3.
Warned graduates to avoid “trophy wives,” because sometimes
that “doesn’t work out so well.”
4.
Left before shaking hands or passing out diplomas,
because he said he had to deal with Russia and China.
5.
Was seen later that day, riding in a golf cart, at
Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
HOT: Golf. We don’t know if Mr. Trump played golf later that day; we do know he has begun his first term the same way he finished his first – by playing golf with alarming regularity.
NOT HOT: Vladimir Putin. It has taken Donald Trump a decade to figure out that the Russian dictator is a ice-cold killer. But on the same day he leaves West Point early, he posts on Truth Social:
NOT HOT: The DOGE dopes came up with a new fraud-detecting system at Social Security. Sadly, zero fraud was found, but the new system caused massive delays for anyone new, including the 16,500 individuals who try to sign up daily for benefits.
As one former high-ranking official explained, “People lacked the fortitude to tell DOGE there was no fraud because they were afraid to lose their jobs. They knew there was no fraud.”
(See: Tulsi Gabbard firings, above.)
NOT HOT: Kid Rock. The musician may love everything about Donald and his policies, including deporting all the illegal immigrants we can find and shipping them to El Salvador. Except we now know a Nashville restaurant Kid owns was one of several that had to close kitchens early, recently, in an attempt to avoid losing all their workers in an ICE raid.
HOT: Conspiracy thinking. At dinner at the Kennedy Center, where Trump is now the head, Donald again insisted that Democrats cheated him out of the win in 2020. “And then they rigged the election, and then I said, ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll run again and I’ll shove it up their ass.’”
NOT HOT:
Presidential class.
NOT HOT #2: Trump mocks France and our other Allies for celebrating the end of World War II, bragging that we really won the whole war. “We love France, right,” he told an audience of American troops during a visit to a base in Qatar. “But I think we did a little more to win the war than France did, do we agree?”
He continued: “You know. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But when Hitler made his speech at the Eiffel Tower, I would say that wasn’t exactly ideal.”
Trump noted that “"Russia was celebrating, France was celebrating, everybody was celebrating but us. And we’re the ones that won the war. We won the war. And they helped, but without us they don’t win the war. We’re all speaking German. You know that, right? Without us, they’re speaking German, maybe a little Japanese too.”
He also announced that – with himself at the helm – Americans will be proud of our victories again. From now on, we shall celebrate “World War II Victory Day” every year, on May 8, marking what he says is the anniversary of the end of World War II. We will celebrate, he adds, because “we did more than any other Country, by far, in producing a victorious result.”
This May 8 party will be news to people who recall that the Japanese did not surrender until September 1945.
(Also: Hitler never gave a speech at the Eifel Tower.)
Mr. Trump has also decided to rebrand Veterans’ Day, November 11, which will now be called “World War I Victory Day.”
The blogger would urge him to celebrate April 9, as “We Kicked Confederate Ass Victory Day” every year; but that might irk his base.
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Fans of losing flags. |
HOT – More conspiracy thinking. According to President Trump, Joe Biden doesn’t really have cancer. In fact, there’s no need to “investigate” Biden staffers or his doctor about his declining health in office.
Because…Joe was “executed” in 2020. As USA Today reports, “The false claims, made by another user on Truth Social and reposted by Trump on May 31, also included that ‘clones doubles & robotic engineered soulless mindless entities’ have since substituted for the ex-commander-in-chief.”
NOT HOT: Unless you enjoy threats against the free press – in which case you’re like the Nazis.
When NBC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander asks The Dumpling about the gift of a jet from Qatar, during a meeting with the leader of South Africa, President Trump erupts.
You
know, you ought to get out of here. … You are a terrible reporter. Number one,
you don’t have what it takes to be a reporter. You are not smart enough. But
for you to go on to a subject about a jet that was given to the United States
Air Force, which is a very nice thing. … You ought to go back to your studio at
NBC, because Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to
be investigated [emphasis added]. … No more questions from you.
HOT – Donald, personally. During a Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery, Donald couldn’t help but put the focus where it belonged.
On himself!
After insisting that he really won the 2020 election, he waxed eloquent on his good fortune. Now, he told his audience, “We have the World Cup and we have the Olympics. Can you imagine, I missed that four years [when Robot Biden was in the White House] and now look what I have, I have everything. Amazing the way things work out. God did that.”
NOT HOT: The fallen heroes buried in all those graves, who did not “have everything” and whom, by Trumpian logic, it would seem, God killed.
NOT HOT: Americans on Memorial Day who didn’t vote for Donald, and don’t kiss his posterior at every chance they get. Classless yet again, the president posts this hateful diatribe on Truth Social:
HOT – Old-fashioned racism. After Shiloh Hendrix goes viral for repeatedly calling a boy at a playground, and then the boy’s father when he objects, “n-----s,” she faces a storm of criticism. She appeals to MAGA World; and on the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo she manages to raise $670,000.
NOT HOT – Water: With the president gabbling on and on about how he needs high-flow showerheads because of his hair – and the EPA getting rid of regulations to curtail water waste by washing machines, dish washers, toilets and – yes – showerheads – the Colorado River Basin is drying up.
Researchers warn that the region has “lost 27.8 million acre-feet of groundwater” since 2003. That would be enough to fill Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir. Even worse, the decline in groundwater has been accelerating.
We can also report that the Great Salt Lake in Utah is slowly disappearing, which would be an environmental disaster.
But, hey, Donald’s hair is the issue.
HOT: Melting glaciers. Scientists warn that over the next several centuries, almost all the world’s glaciers will vanish. Even if climate change can be halted, today’s temperatures spell doom. Still, we can limit the damage, says one expert. “With ambitious climate measures, we can save a lot of ice.”
HOTTER: Mount Everest. Kami Rita Sherpa, the record-setting guide who recently completed his thirty-first successful climb, warns that climate change is making climbing more dangerous.
Asked what he meant, he told a reporter:
Changes are
visible in the entire mountain region, not just Everest. It’s because of
climate change. Snow is melting faster than expected, and that has made
climbing more difficult and riskier.
In the early days, at Camp II [a higher elevation on the mountain], we could walk over ice until the first week of June. We never saw streams coming down from that area. But on Tuesday, one of our fellow guides drowned because melting ice created a stream there. It was up to my waist.
NOT HOT: Leonard Leo. Once upon a time, President Trump loved Leonard Leo and asked the head of the conservative Federalist Society help pick judges for all kinds of places on the federal bench. Now, many of the judges Donald appointed are ruling against him, mostly because so many of his ideas are nutty and dangerous.
After a three-judge panel temporarily blocked “Dumps” from implementing new tariffs, Donald exploded. Leo, he insisted, was a “real ‘sleazebag’” and a “bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America.”
(Have you ever
noticed how many people Donald claims “hate” America?)
HOT: Waffles. ICE agents made America “safer” recently when they arrested Carol, who waited tables at John’s Waffle and Pancake House in Kennett, Missouri. Carol, whose legal name is Ming Li Hui, had been filling up coffee cups, and cleaning houses around town for twenty years, since coming to America from Hong Kong.
In fact, said one city councilwoman, “Everyone knows Carol.” But she had overstayed a tourist visa, probably by almost twenty years, and now to “Make America Great Again,” it was time to deport her, and she could wave goodbye to her two American-born sons, one of whom had just graduated from eighth grade.
She missed the ceremony because she was in jail.
“No one voted to deport moms,” said Vanessa Cowart, Carol’s friend from church. “We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.”
(Fooled you,
Vanessa.)
NOT HOT: “MAHA”. While you were eating your third bowl of Fruit Loops® last Tuesday morning, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was out with his “Make America Healthy Again” report. It was full of good science. Such as: The cereal companies are trying to kill you by adding more and more sugar to your breakfast favorites.
The problem with the report was that it turned out that health suggestions offered by the MAHA crew were based on scientific reports that…um…did not exist. I think the first clue was when a footnote identified Dr. Bigfoot as the author of a key study on healthy exercise, such as taking long walks in the woods.
Kennedy had promised that his report would be the “gold standard” for good health for all Americans. Sadly, its looking more like the “tin standard,” or worse. For example, a cited study by epidemiologist Katherine Keyes which is said to have examined anxiety in adolescents was not written by Keyes, nor, apparently, anyone else. It does not exist. The New York Times was good enough to suggest that all Americans read the report. Then reporters started digging and found a variety of scientists and experts who said, “Yes, we did write the studies the MAHA folks say we did.”
Which is good.
“Only, we didn’t come to the conclusions that the MAHA folks say we did.”
Which is bad.
Dr. Ivan Oransky,
who teaches medical journalism at New York University, told the Times he
suspected that “generative
artificial intelligence” may have been used to compile the report. Which is even
worse.
(The MAHA mess is
not nearly as funny as the pathetic legal
brief filed
by MAGA Mike Lindell in his battle to prove the 2020 election was stolen.)
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