Tt is a condition of the Trump era, and particularly of this war, that we regularly, every day, every hour, see things online so ridiculous or obscene that they merge with images we’ve encountered in novels, Hollywood films, and TV satires. Heightening the disorientation, the Trump administration has spliced together real-life footage of bombings and scenes from action movies to make maniacal snuff films, something even the social critic Christopher Lasch could not have imagined. The videos provoke a cognitive confusion, a reflexive desire to dismiss what must not be real.

Hegseth in particular, with his cowboy arms and crispy gelled hair, is a parody come to life. “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly as it should be,” he said in his first press briefing about February’s attack on Iran. And on the same occasion: “We have only just begun to hunt.” He loves to use the word “hunt” and to recite weapon names. He also frequently invokes God and Jesus, especially when talking about killing; in a Christian prayer service at the Pentagon, he called for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy…. We ask [this] with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.” He compares Trump to Jesus and journalists to the Pharisees. He has fired or forced into retirement subordinates with significant expertise—as many as twenty-four top military officers, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the army. He has openly targeted black officers and women officers. He has also, according to numerous reports, routinely abused alcohol, and in 2020 he paid off a woman who said he had sexually assaulted her. Congress knew that when it confirmed him as secretary of defense.

Extreme though Hegseth may be, he is a recognizable type: a jockish, puerile white man, a boy you knew in your public high school, if you went to one. He is the Jersey Shore as much as he is Kansas, Florida, Texas, and Oregon. You may recall him as the guy who shoved queer kids into trash cans in the cafeteria and said things about girls like “You’d need a crowbar to get her legs open.” As an adult, Hegseth is a man whom people have described leaving a bar, shit-faced, chanting “No means yes!” and “Kill all Muslims!” He is what the world thinks some Americans are, the bleakest caricature. But like the violence in the administration’s videos, Hegseth is real, and he is American, which means we have no choice but to ask what to do with him, and what to do with ourselves.

This is a person produced by a culture, a society, and a history. He speaks with a deliberate viciousness, a desecration of humanity that recalls centuries of slavery and the American Indian Wars. He is heir to a tradition handed down from the Founders—not the noble, revolutionary ones in the history books but the ruthless, ragged genocidaires who went west. He practices that nasty Christianity. “Break the teeth of the ungodly,” he said at the Pentagon prayer service; Bull Connor comes to mind. So many of Trump’s men—Gregory Bovino, Markwayne Mullin, Tom Homan—resemble the primeval thugs of the heartland, who openly desire the submission of the most vulnerable.

These men are ignorant of many things, but certainly of foreign societies. In 2014 I took a trip to Iran with two friends, during which we had a cheerful young tour guide who also functioned as a minder of sorts. Together we road-tripped around the country, from Shiraz to Yazd to Isfahan to Qom to Tehran, and saw mosques, palaces, museums, and archaeological sites—we even passed the Natanz Nuclear Facility on the highway; it was right there, visible from the car.We attended a dinner party in a Tehran apartment and went to an artists’ space where young people gathered. In Isfahan the local people let us go up a minaret of the famous Shah Mosque and view that exquisitely designed city from the latticed wooden carriage at the top, a delight so extreme I felt like a child. For over a decade I spoke of those ten days in Iran as the best trip of my life. What I know about the dangerous American ignorance in men like Hegseth and Trump is that it prevents them, on some elemental level, from understanding that Iran is a real country full of real people.

What has allowed this worldview to persist? The systemic oppression of another people always deforms the oppressors in turn, and although slavery ended and civil rights were won, America has continued to pioneer new varieties of oppressor degradation: Little Boy and Fat Man, destroying to save in Vietnam, CIA-backed military coups, Abu Ghraib, ICE warehouses, Gaza. Hegseth is a repository of the cold war, the end of history, and the so-called war on terror. Anyone his age understands the particular environment in which his ideology took shape. A tour through his life and his actions in the last few years reveals forms of degradation that are fundamental to the Trump administration but not unique to it. If we are to have a renunciation of who or what is terrorizing the world, it will not only be a renunciation of these men.

I can understand if you think this photo is from the 1860’s, but, no, it’s from yesterday.  There are morons everywhere and they all vote for Trump.  Notice they are wearing face coverings.

— Regular gas: $4.56.9/gal
— Mid-Grade: $4.86.9/gal
— Premium: $5.26.9/gal

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used his West Point commencement address to criticize former leaders, accusing them of turning the armed forces into a “woke Princeton” and weakening the American spirit through DEI policies.

In the rain on Saturday at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York, Hegseth told graduating cadets that past leadership and reforms had weakened the military, accusing previous officials of turning the academy into what he described as a misguided academic environment.

“We saw woke and weak leaders trying to make West Point look like woke Princeton, which happens to be my long-lost and lost alma mater,” Hegseth said.

“They tried to introduce diversity and inclusion studies. They hire professors who advocated for anti-American ideologies right here in these halls, but no more,” he said to a muted response from the crowd, arguing that West Point is “special” and “above politics.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/hegseth-west-point-graduation-speech-b2982557.html

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COMMENT

Hegseth is a moron.  He was released from the National Guard at the rank of major because he was unfit for further service, and now he’s a former part-time Fox weekend host who thinks he is the Secretary of Defense.

I guarantee every graudating West Point cadet has a GPA and an education far superior to anything Hegseth has ever achieved.  I suspect the entire Corps of Cadets went back to their barracks and immediately started mocking Hegseth as the fool that he is.

 

 

Over at her Substack, the cartoonist and writer Aubrey Hirsch took a look at Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded “anti-weaponization” slush-fund and did something that should make every Republican in Washington squirm. She started doing the math. What if, she asked, we put that money toward something other than enriching Trump, his family, and the mob he summoned to the Capitol on January 6th, 2021?

Her list is devastating. With that $1.776 billion we could, she writes, replace 150,000 lead pipes in hundreds of communities, build 10,000 new affordable housing units, establish hundreds of community-owned grocery stores in food deserts, fully fund 70 community mental health clinics for a decade, support tens of thousands of foster youth aging out of care, erase all the school lunch debt in this country for the next nine years, or pay the salaries of 2,500 new teachers for ten years.

Instead, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche blatantly refused to rule out paying chunks of this money to January 6 rioters who assaulted police officers or to Trump himself, and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, sentenced to serve 22 years for seditious conspiracy until Trump pardoned him, told Reuters he’s planning to apply for between $2 and $5 million.

Two Capitol Police officers who defended the building that day have sued to block the payouts, describing the fund as a “taxpayer-funded slush fund” for Trump followers who engaged in violence against cops.

Aubrey’s framing got me researching what else $1.8 billion in actual public money could do. Let me extend her list, because the media is failing entirely to put this into a meaningful context.

— That $1.8 billion could cover the average cost of weatherizing and insulating roughly 200,000 low-income homes, dropping monthly heating and cooling bills for working families through the kind of winters Louise and I weathered up in Vermont, New Hampshire, Michigan, and now here in Oregon.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Jeff Bezos to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

— It could fund a year of high-quality universal pre-K for roughly 144,000 three- and four-year-olds, the single most cost-effective investment we know of for closing achievement gaps and giving working parents a fighting chance.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Elon Musk to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

— It could cap the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at zero for every Type 1 diabetic in America for years, ending the rationing that is killing young people whose parents can’t choose between rent and a vial.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Mark Zuckerberg to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

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— It could pay for a full course of trauma-informed counseling for every one of the roughly 400,000 American children currently in foster care, with money left over to pay the social workers who are quitting in droves because their caseloads have become unmanageable.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Miriam Adelson, the casino heiress who gave more than $100 million to put Trump back in the White House, to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

— It could fund the entire National School Lunch Program’s free-and-reduced shortfall for a generation of poor kids, ending the practice of stamping a child’s hand or throwing their tray in the trash because Mom is two weeks behind on the cafeteria bill.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Timothy Mellon, the reclusive railroad heir who gave $165 million to elect Donald Trump, to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

— It could let the EPA replace something on the order of 380,000 lead home water pipes at the agency’s $4,700 average cost, getting toxic plumbing out from under hundreds of thousands of homes whose kids are right now being poisoned every time they drink from the tap.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the Uline shipping magnates who poured over $133 million into MAGA-aligned causes in 2024, to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

— It could retrofit every elementary school in America that still has lead paint, asbestos tile, or a roof that leaks every time it rains, the buildings where we are right now sending kids to learn to read.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Ken Griffin, the hedge-fund billionaire who spent $12 million just to kill a marijuana legalization initiative in Florida, to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

— It could let the VA hire enough mental-health professionals to clear the appointment backlog for every veteran in this country, the men and women we sent to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and then expected to wait six months for a counselor.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Peter Thiel, the PayPal and Palantir founder who personally manufactured the political career of J.D. Vance, to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

— It could buy enough domestic-violence shelter beds, hotline funding, and transitional housing to clear the wait list that every shelter in this country runs every single night, the battered women and abused children currently sleeping in cars because there’s no room and no money.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Stephen Schwarzman, the Blackstone CEO who has spent tens of millions propping up the Republican Party while his firm gobbles up American housing stock and rents it back to working families at extortionate rates, to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

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— It could extend rural broadband to every last farm, hollow, and reservation in America that still doesn’t have it, the kind of investment Dwight Eisenhower would have signed in a heartbeat and that today’s Republicans have repeatedly blocked.

But Republicans won’t do that, because it would require finally forcing Jeff Yass, the trading-firm co-founder who gave more than $100 million to Republican causes in 2024 and who happens to hold a major stake in TikTok’s parent company, to pay income taxes like the rest of us do.

That’s the choice in front of us, and it is not theoretical. A real $1.8 billion sits in a real account, taken from real taxpayers, and it’s going to be handed to people who tried to violently overthrow an American election.

It’s not being handed to the children currently drinking lead in Newark and Flint and Chicago, or the working mother in Louisville who skipped her insulin doses last month, or the veteran in Phoenix who hanged himself in March while waiting for a VA appointment.

The Trump regime and the GOP have made a choice, openly, brazenly, on camera, and the choice is to compensate the rioters and let the rest of us drink the lead.

The fix isn’t complicated, and the ProPublica reporting is now five years old and still ignored. When the twenty-five wealthiest Americans grew their wealth by $401 billion over five years and paid a true federal income tax rate of 3.4 percent, the money to do all of this exists.

It’s sitting in unrealized capital gains the IRS isn’t allowed to touch, in family trusts and step-up-in-basis loopholes, and offshore shell companies. It’s the money that built the slush fund (Lawrence O’Donnell calls it a “Thug Fund”) that Trump is about to hand to his rioters, and it’s the money our kids are not getting because the Mellons and Adelsons and Uihleins and Yasses paid for a Republican-controlled Congress that promised it would never come for them and their money bins.

Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and tell your senators and representative that you do not want one penny of your tax money paid to the people who beat Officer Brian Sicknick and the four other cops who died as a result of the riot.

Tell them you want a billionaire wealth tax of the kind Bernie Sanders and economists Saez and Zucman have already costed out. Check your registration at vote.org, find your state lawmakers at openstates.org, and start showing up, because the 2026 midterms are coming and this is the fight.

An east Tennessee school board member who told a teenage girl, “God – you’re hot,” on video at a public meeting in April has been charged with assault.

State prosecutors on 18 May charged 59-year-old Keith Ervin under a Tennessee statute that outlaws “intentionally or knowingly [causing] physical contact with another [that] a reasonable person would regard … as extremely offensive or provocative”.

Tennessee considers that offense a class B misdemeanor, which upon conviction can carry up to six months in jail and a maximum $500 fine.

Ervin’s charge came after his participation in a 2 April meeting of the Washington county school board to which he was first elected in 2006. At that gathering, in plain view of a camera capturing video for the public board’s YouTube channel, Ervin gazed at a female student seated next to him, placed his left hand on her right shoulder, and said, “God – you’re hot. Did you know that? Damn.”

She laughed uncomfortably as he leaned in and wrapped his left arm around her shoulders, continuing, “Where do you go to school at?” She provided the name of her school, and he rejoined, “All right.”

Other people in the room could be heard laughing at the end of the exchange. And the Washington school district’s superintendent, Jerry Boyd, visibly smiled while on the other side of the student.

Local media reports describe the girl as a high school senior and a student representative on the board. Her father later went on social media and criticized Ervin’s behavior as “disturbing and inappropriate”.

In that statement, reported by Tennessee news outlet WJHL, the girl’s father said neither he nor her mother believed Ervin “should be anywhere near students” – and he expressed incredulity that the moment passed “without immediate accountability”.

Ervin provided his own statement to WJHL in which he contended he was not “always good with words”. He also maintained that he would not purposefully offend anyone, though he acknowledged the video of him and the girl looked bad.

A Change.org petition almost immediately calling for the dismissals of Boyd and Ervin from their roles has since gathered more than 7,400 signatures. Ervin’s fellow school board members voted to censure him during a special meeting called on 8 April as outrage surrounding his filmed remarks spread beyond Washington county.

The female student at the center of the assault case addressed the county school board directly at a 7 May meeting – and she let its members know she was unimpressed with their handling of the matter, Tennessee’s Knoxville News Sentinel reported. She accused board members of cowardice while rejecting apologies from them, saying: “I do not forgive you.”

She added, “Thank you for teaching me that no one will stand up for me besides myself. Thank you for showing this community what you believe it means to protect our children.”

After he was charged in Washington county circuit court, Ervin was served with a criminal summons ordering him to appear at a hearing tentatively scheduled for 7 August.

Ervin did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

His Washington school district biography says he is a self-employed dairy farmer by trade. The biography also notes that Ervin has two daughters who previously graduated from the school attended by the student listed as the victim in his pending assault case.

‘Get ready for the handcuffs’: No nonsense district attorney puts Trump allies on notice

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner made it crystal clear on Thursday that any Donald Trump ally — or any federal government agent — who attempts to interfere at polling locations in November will quickly be arrested and prosecuted. He then added that they will be facing state charges putting them beyond the reach of any possible Trump pardon.

Speaking with MS NOW host Chris Jansing, the blunt-speaking Krasner noted that he is calling for an army of poll-watchers armed with folding chairs and phone cameras to provide him with evidence of MAGA criminality that will then be used in court. Pointing to like-minded DA’s who have joined his efforts to secure local polling places, Krasner said, “The reality is he’s [Trump] got a real problem with state court prosecutors. We have gotten together, we are associating with each other, we’re ready to go.”

“And in the same way that my office and the offices of these other members of this group have successfully prosecuted civilians and also prosecuted law enforcement, we will prosecute federal agents who try to interfere with elections,” he warned. “That’s a crime in almost every jurisdiction, to engage in election interference under state law and they better they better get ready for the handcuffs and the jail cell.”

He continued, “You know, really the best plan is that there is a massive turnout of civilians on Election Day in the same way we’ve had large, peaceful, lawful protests with No Kings and other organizations. They turn out in enormous numbers on Election Day in November, and they turn out in a peaceful, nonpartisan way to monitor the polls.”

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/ice-november-polls/?utm_source=superhead

 

 

 

“Bain & Standard Chartered’s 2026 SE Asia Green Economy Report: data centres, EVs & green industrial parks will drive 100+ TWh of new power demand in 3-4 years, requiring $200B+ in investment. $540B in announced green spending is on a credible path to deployment.

@JavierBlas on Odd Lots today: everyone expected oil at $200+ with 60+ days of Hormuz closed. We’re not there because bypass pipelines, SPR drawdowns, and inventory burns have cushioned the shock. But the biggest surprise? ~5% demand destruction that nobody saw coming.

Where did that 5% oil demand destruction come from? Not just EVs — it’s price-driven behavioural change, Asia absorbing the sharpest hit, and crucially: countries with existing clean energy infrastructure simply felt less pain. The energy transition was quietly doing work.

The inventory math is now getting scary.

• JPMorgan warns OECD commercial inventories hit operational minimums by end of May.
• Rapidan says product stocks go critical July-August.
• Hormuz now cannot reopen before the end of the summer.
• Oil spikes once buffers are gone.
• Goldman: 12-week Hormuz scenario = $150-154. $200 “no longer an outlier.”

The 5% demand destruction Blas flagged has been the only thing keeping the lid on. Buffer is gone by July, and the energy crisis gets a lot worse, fast.

Clean energy supply chains will be sold out.