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MELANIA, THE MOVIE: The reviews are in — could be the worst movie ever made, stinks up the place.

MELANIA, THE MOVIE:  THE REVIEWS ARE IN!!!!!!!!!!!

 

“MELANIA IS THE WORST MOVIE i’VE EVER SEEN”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/natashajokic1/melania-movie-review

Last night, I left an empty chickpea can on my counter. When I came back 30 minutes later, small, black bugs had swarmed the tin and were crawling over my sink. I would rather relive that moment a hundred times over than have to watch another minute of the movie Melania.

To say that Melania is a hagiography would be an insult to hagiographies. This is a film that fawns so lavishly over its subject that you feel downright unpatriotic not gushing over it. Fittingly, it was directed by Brett Ratner, whose feature film career was derailed in 2017 after numerous sexual assault allegations that he has denied. But like many unsavory people associated with Donald Trump, he’s apparently received a pardon.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/melania-review-brett-ratner-melania-trump-documentary-1236489604/

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/01/melania-trump-documentary-review/685829/

Melania the book wasn’t an autobiography so much as a highly priced brochure. Melania the movie isn’t a documentary; it’s a protection racket. It’s a reminder that the richest people in the world are investing in entertainment brands not because they care about art but because the public does, and because all of these vanity projects and capitulations are a way to consolidate their own power and fortune. It is galling to think about Jeff Bezos (whose wife is a former TV news anchor) deciding to invest so much money apparently to buy the president’s good graces while reportedly preparing to cut hundreds of jobs at The Washington Post. (Amazon reps have insisted that the company invested so heavily in the movie purely “because we think customers are going to love it.”) It is also galling—to me at least—that Apple CEO Tim Cook attended the premiere of Melania this week while the Trump administration’s militarized forces are killing Americans and detaining preschoolers. Melania Trump really doesn’t seem to care about the optics of launching her $75 million show reel while the country is in such profound crisis—that much she has always made clear. But most Americans do. And the particular details of the past week—the demonstrations and the tear gas in Minneapolis, the Melania ads covering the Sphere, the themed macarons at the White House, the scurrying-away of many who were professionally involved with this documentary—should be remembered long after the film itself is forgotten.

 

 

 

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Face it: Trump is demented, insane, and very sick

Needless to say, Trump is insane…deranged…unhinged…bigoted…ignorant…you name it, just a horrendous, disgusting person. And yes, the 37% who still support him should, but probably never will, do some serious soul searching, because WTF are they even thinking??? Here Trump is, riffing on how Abigail Spanberger got elected last November (see video, below, courtesy of the invaluable Aaron Rupar).

“I don’t I don’t know how they get elected. They get elected because they cheat. You want to know the truth? If they didn’t cheat, if they didn’t cheat, they’d have no chance. They have horrible policy, transgender for everyone. They have the little thing about open borders so that the world’s prison population and mental hospitals could be emptied into our country. It’s just a crazy men playing in women’s sports. Roger, are you a fan of men playing in women’s sports? Only as a better. You’d like to bet you not. You’re not a big You’re not a big fan. I don’t think so. I don’t I don’t want to get him in trouble, but I think he joins at 99% of They say it’s an 80/20 issue. I think it’s a maybe …99/1.”

As for the Virginia gubernatorial election, Sam Shirazi correctly points out that “Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Earle-Sears, and Jason Miyares were responsible for overseeing the Virginia elections.” So if there’s cheating, that’s 100% on them (plus the Republican majorities on the Virginia and local electoral boards).

But of course there wasn’t any cheating in the 2025 Virginia elections (which Abigail Spanberger won by 15 points, which VA House Democrats won in a massive landslide, etc.); or in the 2020 election, the one that Trump lost to Joe Biden. So as usual, Trump is a nutjob, makes no sense at all, is basically the crazy guy on the corner ranting and raving, the one you make a wide berth around because you never know if he could be dangerous, but you absolutely know that he’s unpleasant and wacked out.

As for policy, in fact, polling shows that voters strongly support Democratic policies on almost every issue. That apparently includes transgender issues; check out the new Fox “News” poll, which found that by a 60%-38% margin, voters think that *Democrats* “would do a better job on” transgender issues.  And no, essentially zero Democrats support “open borders,” nor is there any truth at all to Trump’s insane, repeated claim that the “world’s prison population and mental hospitals could be emptied into our country.”

Bottom line: Trump is wildly wrong about the crap he spews out in this riff (see video, above), just as he’s wrong about pretty much everything. And yes, America had one job to do in 2024 – to elect the smart, competent, ethical, sane woman and reject the felonious traitor – and as a country, we massively/disastrously failed. So now, we’ll see if we can survive three more years of this, or if we can ever recover (doubtful) even if we survive until 2029.

P.S. Also worth noting is that Trump never endorsed Winsome Earle-Sears, even held a telephone rally right before the election in which he didn’t mention her by name! Note how Trump left out that small detail? LOL

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Kristi Noem: “I was just following orders.”

Noem needs to check out how well the plea “I was just following orders.” worked at Nuremberg.

Noem Says ‘Everything I’ve Done’ Has Been Directed by Trump and Stephen Miller: Report

Source: MEDIAite

Jan 27th, 2026, 5:50 pm

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is chalking up her actions in office to the direction of President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller.

Noem, Miller, and others in the administration have faced backlash over their description of the circumstances surrounding federal agents shooting and killing 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. Noem and others claimed Pretti wanted to “massacre” agents before the confrontation. Administration officials have pointed to the fact that Pretti was armed as proof of his malicious intentions, but Second Amendment activists have consistently pushed back against this.

Pretti’s death followed an ICE agent shooting and killing 37-year-old mother Renee Good in the same city earlier this month. The city is currently suing the administration over ICE’s deployment.

Miller previously referred to Pretti as an “assassin.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Miller one of the president’s closest allies amid rumors of a rift between Noem and Miller.

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/noem-says-everything-ive-done-has-been-directed-by-trump-and-stephen-miller-report/

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Minnesota v. Trump, MAGA, et al: Minnesota wins

Terrific piece from Adam Serwer about how a community under attack from the federal government has proven the assumptions of its would-be overlords wrong:

I don’t know what the feds expected when they surged into Minnesota. In late November, The New York Times reported on a public-benefit fraud scheme in the state that was executed mainly by people of Somali descent. Federal prosecutors under the Biden administration had already indicted dozens of people, but after the Times story broke, President Trump began ranting about Somalis, whom he referred to as “garbage”; declared that he didn’t want Somali immigrants in the country; and announced that he was sending thousands of armed federal immigration agents to Minneapolis. This weekend, he posted on social media that the agents were there because of “massive monetary fraud.” The real reason may be that a majority of Minnesotans did not vote for him. Trump has said that “I won Minnesota three times, and I didn’t get credit for it. That’s a crooked state.” He has never won Minnesota.

Perhaps the Trump-administration officials had hoped that a few rabble-rousers would get violent, justifying the kind of crackdown he seems to fantasize about. Maybe they had assumed that they would find only a caricature of “the resistance”—people who seethed about Trump online but would be unwilling to do anything to defend themselves against him.

Instead, what they discovered in the frozen North was something different: a real resistance, broad and organized and overwhelmingly nonviolent, the kind of movement that emerges only under sustained attacks by an oppressive state. Tens of thousands of volunteers—at the very least—are risking their safety to defend their neighbors and their freedom. They aren’t looking for attention or likes on social media. Unless they are killed by federal agents, as Pretti and Renee Good were, other activists do not even necessarily know their names. Many use a handle or code name out of fear of government retaliation. Their concerns are justified: A number of people working as volunteers or observers told me that they had been trailed home by ICE agents, and some of their communications have already been infiltrated, screenshotted, and posted online, forcing them to use new text chains and code names. One urgent question among observers, as the videos of Pretti’s killing spread, was what his handle might have been.

Then there are the people who load up their car with food, toiletries, and school supplies from churches or schools to take to families in hiding. They also help families who cannot work meet their rent or mortgage payments. In addition to driving around with Olsen, I rode along with a Twin Cities mom of young kids named Amanda as she did deliveries (she asked me to use only her first name). Riding in her small car—her back row was taken up by three child seats and a smattering of stray toys—she told me that she’d gotten involved after more than 100 students at her kids’ elementary school simply stopped coming in. Parents got organized to provide the families with food, to shepherd their kids to school, and to arrange playdates for those stuck inside.

Amanda’s father and husband are immigrants, she said, and she speaks Spanish. “I can be a conduit between those who want to help and those who need help,” she told me. She calls each family before knocking on the door, so they don’t have to worry that they are being tricked by ICE. At one home, a woman asked us to go around back because a suspicious vehicle was idling out front. At another home, a little girl in pigtails beamed as Amanda handed her a Target bag full of school supplies.

The decency and solidarity on display in Minnesota is such a striking contrast to the Stephen Miller impressionists who find such concepts incomprehensible.

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Tennessee moves to keep kids ignorant . . . producing good Republican voters . . . pulls 3,000 library books

3000 Tennessee library books pulled: topics of slavery, the Holocaust, menstruation, ancient history, unclothed animals

Library books on slavery, Holocaust pulled in Rutherford County
Books featuring topics of slavery, the Holocaust, menstruation, ancient history, unclothed animals were flagged as potential violations of state and federal legal standards.

Books were flagged by librarians for possible violations such as:

“unclothed anthropomorphic animals, violence”

“Adam and Eve nude in the Garden of Eden; Violence”

“underpants shown during cartwheel”

“An image capturing an affectionate gesture where a girl gives a boy a kiss on the cheek on the school bus during Valentine’s Day.”

“Fictional male rabbits get married”

“Civil War Hero, Mary, dresses in pants, history of undergarments present and modeled by chickens”

“Kissing”

“Words “ass” appears for donkey and “cock” for rooster”

“2 male neighbors speaking to one another, one has a rainbow and his produce bag**”**

“LGBTQIA+ rights”

“implied breastfeeding”

“nude mummified body”

“classroom discussion of book bans and censorship”

“discussion of teen getting period”

“woke”

Popular titles flagged and pulled include Aesop’s Fables, two Magic Treehouse books by Mary Pope Osborne, multiple Harry Potter books by J.K Rowling, and a Charlie Brown book by Charles Schultz.

https://archive.ph/4Dmxf

Key Points
A letter from Secretary of State Tre Hargett prompting public libraries across the state to submit a review of their collections has led to the removal of nearly 3,000 books in one county.
The letter asked public libraries to complete a review of their entire juvenile collections within 60 days and provide a report to Hargett’s office to avoid the risk of losing funding.
The letter sent libraries across the state scrambling over the holiday season, even as state officials deny it was ever an order.
Books on slavery, racism and the Holocaust are among the nearly 3,000 pulled from public library shelves across Rutherford County following a letter from State Secretary Tre Hargett prompting a review of juvenile collections across nearly all state public libraries.
Four Anne Frank biographies, more than 30 books focused on the Bible, five books on women’s history and suffrage and numerous books on ancient civilizations were among those removed for review.

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Gestapo chief Bovino pulled out of Minnesota

Hitler wannabee Bovino escorted out of Minnesota, back to his home base in California.  Reportedly he will retire.

Here is an article from The Atlantic describing Bovino’s firing.

Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.

Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the killing Saturday of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents under Bovino’s command.

Earlier today, President Trump appeared to signal in a series of social-media posts a tactical shift in the administration’s mass-deportation campaign. Trump wrote that he spoke with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—whom the White House has blamed for inciting violence—and the two men are now on “a similar wavelength.” Tom Homan, the former ICE chief whom Trump has designated “border czar,” will head to Minnesota to assume command of the federal mobilization there, Trump said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski, who were Bovino’s biggest backers at DHS, are also at risk of losing their jobs, two of the people told me.

For the past seven months, Bovino has been the public face of a traveling immigration crackdown on cities governed by Democrats. Noem and other Trump officials gave Bovino the “commander” title and sent him and his masked border agents to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and then Minneapolis. Bovino became a MAGA social-media star as he traveled the country with his own film crew and used social media to hit back at Democratic politicians and random critics online. Veteran ICE and CBP officials grew more and more uneasy as Bovino worked outside his agency’s chain of command and appeared to relish his role as a political actor.

In Minneapolis, the Trump administration used Bovino as its lead spokesperson, scheduling daily press conferences where he defended agents’ rough tactics and cast blame on protesters and local officials. Border Patrol commanders typically avoid engaging in political arguments with elected officials.

Bovino’s fall comes two days after Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis fatally shot Pretti, an intensive-care nurse who worked with veterans. Hours after the shooting, Bovino appeared at a press conference and echoed statements by the Department of Homeland Security alleging Pretti sought to “massacre” the federal agents. Bovino repeatedly claimed that Border Patrol agents, not Pretti, were the victims.

Videos of the encounter showed no evidence for his claims. Pretti, who was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, did not draw a firearm or attack the agents. The videos show one agent disarming Pretti in the moments just before another agent shot him in the back.

DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials did not immediately respond to questions about Bovino’s departure from Minnesota and his current role. Asked about Bovino and Noem, a White House spokesperson referred to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s statement today that Noem has the president’s “utmost confidence and trust.”

In another post, Trump said he also spoke with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. “Lots of progress is being made!” the president wrote. “Tom Homan will be meeting with him tomorrow in order to continue the discussion.”

COMMENT

Of course, the problem is not Bovino, Homan, Noem, or Patel.

The problem is TRUMP and his mob consiglieri Stephen MILLER — the fish rots from the head and at the head the Trump administration is rotten.