Showing posts with label bad government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad government. Show all posts
Apr 16, 2026
Apr 14, 2026
The Oil
The Stoopid-Fuck-in-Chief continues to fuck up his fuckup - because he's too much of a fuckup to know what a fuckup he is.
Dunning-Kruger is a real thing.
Apr 11, 2026
A Nerd Thing
From a while ago - not sure if I've posted this before, but it seems pretty important.
It'd be nice if I could count on my government to put my money where it helps, instead of always making sure it goes to parasite billionaires and vampire corporations.
Google AI summary:
As of early 2026, MIT faces significant funding reductions due to federal cuts, particularly with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) slashing support for university research. These cuts, which include a 15% cap on indirect costs, could reduce MIT’s funding by $30–$35 million annually, threatening research into cancer, Alzheimer's, and other diseases.
Key Impacts on MIT Cancer Research:Reduced Funding:
The NIH, under the second Trump administration, has targeted reductions in indirect costs—essential for lab infrastructure, safety, and operational costs.
Impact on Research and Staff:
The funding cuts are disrupting ongoing projects and creating a potential, significant impact on scientific output.
Broader Context:
These cuts are part of a broader federal push to reduce NIH funding by roughly 40% in fiscal year 2026.
Massachusetts Impact:
Massachusetts, which receives the largest share of NIH funding per capita, is seeing major reductions, with around 5,783 projects potentially affected.
Proposed Cuts & Opposition: While the administration has proposed drastic budget cuts to science agencies, some legislative efforts are exploring alternative funding levels.
These reductions pose a risk to the ongoing cancer research, which has been crucial in advancing treatments.
Further Exploration:
Proposed Cuts & Opposition: While the administration has proposed drastic budget cuts to science agencies, some legislative efforts are exploring alternative funding levels.
These reductions pose a risk to the ongoing cancer research, which has been crucial in advancing treatments.
Further Exploration:
Read an in-depth analysis of the impact of these cuts on cancer research from The ASCO Post.
View a detailed report on the federal funding cuts and their impact on research in Massachusetts from STAT.
See a comprehensive overview of the proposed science funding cuts in the second Trump administration from Wikipedia.
Apr 8, 2026
Their Next Gambit
It's always a matter of coercion or outright force for these assholes.
Trump’s border chief threatens to close customs at top US airports
Markwayne Mullin said officers in some Democrat-run ‘sanctuary’ cities could not be relied upon to enforce immigration policy
President Trump’s new homeland security secretary has suggested he will withdraw customs officers from the airports of Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” that protect undocumented migrants.
The proposal from Markwayne Mullin, who was appointed to the role last month, would affect international travellers at many of the busiest airports in the United States, including JFK in New York, Los Angeles international airport and Denver international airport.
“If they’re a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city?” Mullin said on Fox News in his first interview since taking up the role.
Sign up for The Times’s weekly US newsletter
His words are seen as an attack on local sanctuary policies, which typically limit police co-operation with federal immigration authorities.
“Right now remember the Democrats are wanting to defund Customs and Border Patrol,” Mullin added, misnaming Customs and Border Protection. “Well, who processes those individuals when they walk off the plane?
“If they’re a sanctuary city and they’re receiving international flights, and we’re asking them to partner with us at the airport, but once they walk out of the airport they’re not going to enforce immigration policy? Maybe we need to have a really hard look at that, because we need to focus on cities that want to work with us.”
Twelve states and 18 cities are recognised as sanctuary jurisdictions by the US government. Their status has survived a number of legal challenges.
New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Denver, Boston and Chicago are all on the list. Each of those cities has a big airport.
Mullin, a former Oklahoma senator, replaced Kristi Noem as head of the department after Trump fired her last month. She had carried out the president’s mass-deportation agenda for more than a year.
Model was ‘paid $25 a minute to talk dirty with Kristi Noem’s cross-dressing husband’
Experts said Mullin, a longstanding ally and friend of Trump, was unlikely to go through with the customs proposal as it would devastate the aviation industry, but still expressed concern.
“I did some research. By administration’s own definitions this would end international air travel at US airports where about 58 per cent of international traffic happens,” Todd Schulte, president of the pro-immigration political advocacy organisation FWD, wrote on X, “so would crash economy (hence won’t happen). [But] it’s very bad it even gets floated!”
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and a possible Democratic presidential contender for 2028, also condemned the idea. “If you thought the economy was bad with Trump’s war driving prices at the pump up … just wait until international travel is halted at some of the busiest airports in the world,” he said on X. “Talk about a stupid idea (no wonder it’s being considered by the Trump admin).”
California Governor Gavin Newsom gestures during a press conference on law enforcement efforts targeting illicit fentanyl in San Diego.
Gavin Newsom called the proposal “stupid”
Federal funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed on February 14, triggering a partial government shutdown and a prolonged stand-off between Democrats and Republicans over immigration enforcement funding.
The Trump administration has long fought a legal and political battle with sanctuary jurisdictions. Last year a federal judge in San Francisco issued an injunction prohibiting the White House from retaliating against sanctuary cities by withholding federal funding.
They don't get what they want with persuasion and negotiation, so they try to muscle their way through.
Fuckin' bullies. Weak shit bullying pussies.
Markwayne Mullin said officers in some Democrat-run ‘sanctuary’ cities could not be relied upon to enforce immigration policy
President Trump’s new homeland security secretary has suggested he will withdraw customs officers from the airports of Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” that protect undocumented migrants.
The proposal from Markwayne Mullin, who was appointed to the role last month, would affect international travellers at many of the busiest airports in the United States, including JFK in New York, Los Angeles international airport and Denver international airport.
“If they’re a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city?” Mullin said on Fox News in his first interview since taking up the role.
Sign up for The Times’s weekly US newsletter
His words are seen as an attack on local sanctuary policies, which typically limit police co-operation with federal immigration authorities.
“Right now remember the Democrats are wanting to defund Customs and Border Patrol,” Mullin added, misnaming Customs and Border Protection. “Well, who processes those individuals when they walk off the plane?
“If they’re a sanctuary city and they’re receiving international flights, and we’re asking them to partner with us at the airport, but once they walk out of the airport they’re not going to enforce immigration policy? Maybe we need to have a really hard look at that, because we need to focus on cities that want to work with us.”
Twelve states and 18 cities are recognised as sanctuary jurisdictions by the US government. Their status has survived a number of legal challenges.
New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Denver, Boston and Chicago are all on the list. Each of those cities has a big airport.
Mullin, a former Oklahoma senator, replaced Kristi Noem as head of the department after Trump fired her last month. She had carried out the president’s mass-deportation agenda for more than a year.
Model was ‘paid $25 a minute to talk dirty with Kristi Noem’s cross-dressing husband’
Experts said Mullin, a longstanding ally and friend of Trump, was unlikely to go through with the customs proposal as it would devastate the aviation industry, but still expressed concern.
“I did some research. By administration’s own definitions this would end international air travel at US airports where about 58 per cent of international traffic happens,” Todd Schulte, president of the pro-immigration political advocacy organisation FWD, wrote on X, “so would crash economy (hence won’t happen). [But] it’s very bad it even gets floated!”
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and a possible Democratic presidential contender for 2028, also condemned the idea. “If you thought the economy was bad with Trump’s war driving prices at the pump up … just wait until international travel is halted at some of the busiest airports in the world,” he said on X. “Talk about a stupid idea (no wonder it’s being considered by the Trump admin).”
California Governor Gavin Newsom gestures during a press conference on law enforcement efforts targeting illicit fentanyl in San Diego.
Gavin Newsom called the proposal “stupid”
Federal funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed on February 14, triggering a partial government shutdown and a prolonged stand-off between Democrats and Republicans over immigration enforcement funding.
The Trump administration has long fought a legal and political battle with sanctuary jurisdictions. Last year a federal judge in San Francisco issued an injunction prohibiting the White House from retaliating against sanctuary cities by withholding federal funding.
Apr 2, 2026
On Bondi's Departure
Like FemDom Barbie Noem, Pammy Jo isn't getting fired so much as she's being moved to some other slot.
Mar 24, 2026
Holy Fuck
Where do we find these fuckin' people?
The only thing the guy in charge of our country's health and well-being loves more than spreading measles is mutilating dead animals.
It’s impossible to imagine a world without Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—not just for launching the U.S. back to 1905, where everyone died of measles, but because every third headline about him is the most twisted jumble of fever-dream reporting.
Over the weekend, the New York Post published an excerpt from its investigative reporter Isabel Vincent’s upcoming book RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise, out April 14. The angle being that Vincent got access to three of his secret journals in 2013, and has since been digging through 1,200 pages of RFK’s life and his “deepest thoughts.”
Among these journal entries, he apparently wrote about chopping off a raccoon’s penis. Yeah. We’re not really sure what to say either. The excerpt reads:
It would foreshadow Bobby’s later life — such as when he scooped up a road-killed bear on a New York State highway in 2014, dumping it in Central Park when he realized he needed to catch a plane. In his diary, he writes about cutting off the penis of a road-killed raccoon in 2001, while his “kids waited patiently in the car,” so that he could examine it later.
Unfortunately, it’s not made clear what exactly Kennedy did with the fur bandit’s penis, but Google says raccoon penile bones are also known as “mountain man toothpicks,” so do with that what you will. Who knew a raccoon and a Fox News host could have so much in common?
The rest of the excerpt focuses on RFK’s three “father figures,” or the “trio of surrogate fathers” that helped him become who he is after his own was assassinated in 1968. They were Lem Billings (his dad’s childhood best friend); Skip Lazell (his high school, right-wing, biology teacher); and Harvard professor Robert Trivers (who has alleged ties to Epstein).
The poor road-killed raccoon also marks the umpteenth known instance of RFK Jr. needlessly mutilating an animal: There’s the bear he dumped in Central Park, the whale whose head he chopped off and strapped to the roof of his car, and the countless baby chickens and mice he allegedly ground up in a blender to feed his hawks. At this rate, it feels like we’re going to get a new RFK Jr. Did Weird Shit to Another Animal story every six months.
I guess I don’t know what I expected from a never nude who wears jeans in a hot tub.
Mar 12, 2026
WTAF
Bingo card, schmingo card - what the fuck are we doing?
Markwayne Mullin Reportedly Fingered Nostrils of Colleagues and Their Spouses During Visit to Israel
A former House Republican and his wife claimed that in 2015, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) – then a congressman – took photos of himself putting his finger up the noses of sleeping lawmakers and their spouses during a visit to Israel.
Mullin made waves this week when he tried to pick a nose physical fight with Teamsters President Sean O’Brien during a Senate hearing.
The source of the story is former Rep. David Trott (R-MI), whose account was relayed in Friday’s edition of Politico’s Playbook:
Wednesday night, after a full day of coverage of Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-Okla.) near-fisticuffs with a Teamsters leader — and his subsequent unapologetic victory lap of media appearances — we got an email from former Rep. David Trott (R-Mich.), who served with Mullin in the House: “My wife and I have a story about Senator Mullin if you’re interested.”
Consider our interest piqued.
We called up the former congressman, who told us about an AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel in August 2015 that he remembered about 40 members attending, plus many spouses. Among those spouses was his wife, Kathleen "Kappy" Trott.
At this point, he handed the phone over to Kappy. She told us about the flight to Israel, which was hampered by layovers and delays. Though they were promised a quick shower in the hotel upon arriving, that schedule was revised on the fly: Instead, they’d immediately board buses to see an Iron Dome installation and a kibbutz.
“We were in the clothes we’d been wearing for like 24 hours,” Kappy says. “We get on this bus, and it’s a couple-hour bus ride and people were kind of leaning on their spouse’s shoulder and falling asleep. And this idiot starts walking up and down the bus with his camera and anyone who fell asleep, he would put his finger in their nose and take a picture.”
“I said [to myself, ‘If] that idiot comes near me when I fall asleep, I’m going to punch him,’” Kappy told us. “And I said to Dave: ‘This is a U.S. congressman?’”
That congressman? Markwayne Mullin.
“Some people were mad, and some people were laughing. There were a couple of women who were mad,” Kappy said. “You’re trying to fall asleep, somebody you don’t know has his finger … It was just middle school. And we were in Israel, and we’re going to go see the Iron Dome and go to a kibbutz. Just didn’t seem appropriate.”
They said that Mullin’s recent round of publicity jostled their memory. Contemporary press reports verify that Mullin was, in fact, on this 2015 trip to Israel.
Politico stated it reached out to Mullin’s staff multiple times, but did not receive a response.
A former House Republican and his wife claimed that in 2015, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) – then a congressman – took photos of himself putting his finger up the noses of sleeping lawmakers and their spouses during a visit to Israel.
Mullin made waves this week when he tried to pick a nose physical fight with Teamsters President Sean O’Brien during a Senate hearing.
The source of the story is former Rep. David Trott (R-MI), whose account was relayed in Friday’s edition of Politico’s Playbook:
Wednesday night, after a full day of coverage of Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-Okla.) near-fisticuffs with a Teamsters leader — and his subsequent unapologetic victory lap of media appearances — we got an email from former Rep. David Trott (R-Mich.), who served with Mullin in the House: “My wife and I have a story about Senator Mullin if you’re interested.”
Consider our interest piqued.
We called up the former congressman, who told us about an AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel in August 2015 that he remembered about 40 members attending, plus many spouses. Among those spouses was his wife, Kathleen "Kappy" Trott.
At this point, he handed the phone over to Kappy. She told us about the flight to Israel, which was hampered by layovers and delays. Though they were promised a quick shower in the hotel upon arriving, that schedule was revised on the fly: Instead, they’d immediately board buses to see an Iron Dome installation and a kibbutz.
“We were in the clothes we’d been wearing for like 24 hours,” Kappy says. “We get on this bus, and it’s a couple-hour bus ride and people were kind of leaning on their spouse’s shoulder and falling asleep. And this idiot starts walking up and down the bus with his camera and anyone who fell asleep, he would put his finger in their nose and take a picture.”
“I said [to myself, ‘If] that idiot comes near me when I fall asleep, I’m going to punch him,’” Kappy told us. “And I said to Dave: ‘This is a U.S. congressman?’”
That congressman? Markwayne Mullin.
“Some people were mad, and some people were laughing. There were a couple of women who were mad,” Kappy said. “You’re trying to fall asleep, somebody you don’t know has his finger … It was just middle school. And we were in Israel, and we’re going to go see the Iron Dome and go to a kibbutz. Just didn’t seem appropriate.”
They said that Mullin’s recent round of publicity jostled their memory. Contemporary press reports verify that Mullin was, in fact, on this 2015 trip to Israel.
Politico stated it reached out to Mullin’s staff multiple times, but did not receive a response.
Mar 9, 2026
Consumer Tariffs
Not to worry though. I'm sure those checks will be on their way in about 2 weeks.
Consumers Paid Tariffs on Overseas Items. Now They Want a Refund.
The Trump administration has yet to announce a process to return fees paid by companies and shoppers for tariffs now deemed illegal.
Dr. Andrew Angel, a physician from Cambridge, Mass., paid a tariff on a $345 pendant he bought last year from an eBay seller in Japan.
Now, after the Supreme Court ruled that one of President Trump’s most widely used tariffs was unlawful, Dr. Angel said he was entitled to a refund.
“The principle is obvious,” he said. “If it was illegal to collect my money, I would certainly like to have my illegally collected money returned to me.”
Like many other shoppers who bought goods overseas in recent months, Dr. Angel paid his tariff to the shipping company that delivered the item, in his case DHL. The company charged him $67 for the customs duty on the pendant, which was a birthday present for his wife, Dr. Irina Angel.
“She loves it. It’s a keeper,” he said.
For years, Americans who bought items from overseas did not have to pay tariffs on items worth $800 or less. Last year, Mr. Trump took away that loophole, known as the de minimis exemption, and shipping companies started demanding that shoppers pay their tariffs before they got their goods. The shipping companies have been paying the duties on behalf of the shoppers to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that collects tariffs.
Dr. Angel and many like him have the paperwork to prove that they paid tariffs.
That is not case for shoppers who paid higher prices because retailers or other businesses included all or some of the tariff in the final cost of goods. Such shoppers did not pay the customs duties themselves and, according to lawyers, would therefore find it hard to make a claim.
Costco, which has sued the government for its own tariff repayment, signaled during a quarterly earnings call last week that it could cut prices should the company receive a refund.
From the end of August until late November, Customs and Border Protection said, it collected about $400 million in tariffs on the lower-value items that were previously exempt from tariffs. The agency did not provide a more recent tally.
It also did not say how much of those funds came from the tariff that the Supreme Court said was unlawful, known as the IEEPA tariff because Mr. Trump introduced it under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. On all types of imports, the IEEPA tariff has collected over $100 billion, according to U.S. Customs data.
The Supreme Court did not lay out ways in which the government could make tariff repayments, something that lawyers say has been left for lower courts to decide. The Trump administration has tried to slow down the legal fight over refunds, angering those who opposed the tariff.
“That money does not belong to Washington. It belongs to the American people who earned it,” Sara Albrecht, the chairman of the Liberty Justice Center, which represented a set of small-business plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case, said in a statement.
In an interview, Ms. Albrecht said Customs and Border Protection had long had processes to make tariff refunds and could most likely make smaller refunds speedily.
“Those refunds will go out pretty quickly and seamlessly as long as they have good records,” she said.
Because of the legal wrangling, the courts and the government have yet to determine a process to give out refunds. Shipping companies say they will provide details on how to get a refund once they have legal clarity.
In a statement, Isabel Rollison, a spokeswoman for FedEx, said the company would provide both “shippers and consumers” with information on how to get refunds “once next steps are clarified by the government and the court.” FedEx is suing the government to get its refund of the IEEPA tariff.
Natasha Amadi, a spokeswoman for United Parcel Service, said the company would support customers in obtaining refunds of IEEPA tariffs once a legal framework was established, adding that this applied to “customers of all sizes.”
In a statement, Glennah Ivey-Walker, a spokeswoman for DHL, said that when there was legal guidance for the refund process, the company would “communicate with our customers and take appropriate actions.” She declined to comment on Dr. Angel’s tariff payment.
Some shoppers paid tariffs to overseas sellers — not to shipping companies — when buying their goods.
Cynthia David, a retired librarian from Amherst, N.H., bought a paperweight decorated with a harvest mouse on a bramble from an eBay seller in Britain last year. She paid an import charge of 79.50 pounds ($107) — a large sum for an item that cost £160 ($214), but one she was willing to pay because it was a one-off item, she said.
“I love it,” Ms. David said. “It’s dead center in my collection.”
She said she would try to get a refund if eBay made it possible. It is not clear how American shoppers could try to get refunds of tariffs paid to foreign sellers on eBay or other platforms. EBay’s tariffs webpage does not say anything about getting the IEEPA levy repaid, and the company did not respond to requests for comment.
Consumers who have paid tariffs may be able to join class-action lawsuits.
Morgan & Morgan, a law firm, is seeking class-action approval for a suit it filed against FedEx. The suit contends that consumers are entitled not just to tariff refunds from FedEx but also to repayment of the fees the company charged for processing the levy. And it is seeking repayment even before FedEx gets its own tariff refund from the government.
FedEx “collected from us a fee that’s now been determined to be unlawful,” said John A. Yanchunis, a lawyer at Morgan & Morgan. “We’re entitled to that back.”
Ms. Rollison of FedEx did not respond directly to the lawsuit but instead referred to an earlier company statement on tariff refunds that said, in part, “If refunds are issued to FedEx, we will issue refunds to the shippers and consumers who originally bore those charges.”
The Trump administration has yet to announce a process to return fees paid by companies and shoppers for tariffs now deemed illegal.
Dr. Andrew Angel, a physician from Cambridge, Mass., paid a tariff on a $345 pendant he bought last year from an eBay seller in Japan.
Now, after the Supreme Court ruled that one of President Trump’s most widely used tariffs was unlawful, Dr. Angel said he was entitled to a refund.
“The principle is obvious,” he said. “If it was illegal to collect my money, I would certainly like to have my illegally collected money returned to me.”
Like many other shoppers who bought goods overseas in recent months, Dr. Angel paid his tariff to the shipping company that delivered the item, in his case DHL. The company charged him $67 for the customs duty on the pendant, which was a birthday present for his wife, Dr. Irina Angel.
“She loves it. It’s a keeper,” he said.
For years, Americans who bought items from overseas did not have to pay tariffs on items worth $800 or less. Last year, Mr. Trump took away that loophole, known as the de minimis exemption, and shipping companies started demanding that shoppers pay their tariffs before they got their goods. The shipping companies have been paying the duties on behalf of the shoppers to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that collects tariffs.
Dr. Angel and many like him have the paperwork to prove that they paid tariffs.
That is not case for shoppers who paid higher prices because retailers or other businesses included all or some of the tariff in the final cost of goods. Such shoppers did not pay the customs duties themselves and, according to lawyers, would therefore find it hard to make a claim.
Costco, which has sued the government for its own tariff repayment, signaled during a quarterly earnings call last week that it could cut prices should the company receive a refund.
From the end of August until late November, Customs and Border Protection said, it collected about $400 million in tariffs on the lower-value items that were previously exempt from tariffs. The agency did not provide a more recent tally.
It also did not say how much of those funds came from the tariff that the Supreme Court said was unlawful, known as the IEEPA tariff because Mr. Trump introduced it under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. On all types of imports, the IEEPA tariff has collected over $100 billion, according to U.S. Customs data.
The Supreme Court did not lay out ways in which the government could make tariff repayments, something that lawyers say has been left for lower courts to decide. The Trump administration has tried to slow down the legal fight over refunds, angering those who opposed the tariff.
“That money does not belong to Washington. It belongs to the American people who earned it,” Sara Albrecht, the chairman of the Liberty Justice Center, which represented a set of small-business plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case, said in a statement.
In an interview, Ms. Albrecht said Customs and Border Protection had long had processes to make tariff refunds and could most likely make smaller refunds speedily.
“Those refunds will go out pretty quickly and seamlessly as long as they have good records,” she said.
Because of the legal wrangling, the courts and the government have yet to determine a process to give out refunds. Shipping companies say they will provide details on how to get a refund once they have legal clarity.
In a statement, Isabel Rollison, a spokeswoman for FedEx, said the company would provide both “shippers and consumers” with information on how to get refunds “once next steps are clarified by the government and the court.” FedEx is suing the government to get its refund of the IEEPA tariff.
Natasha Amadi, a spokeswoman for United Parcel Service, said the company would support customers in obtaining refunds of IEEPA tariffs once a legal framework was established, adding that this applied to “customers of all sizes.”
In a statement, Glennah Ivey-Walker, a spokeswoman for DHL, said that when there was legal guidance for the refund process, the company would “communicate with our customers and take appropriate actions.” She declined to comment on Dr. Angel’s tariff payment.
Some shoppers paid tariffs to overseas sellers — not to shipping companies — when buying their goods.
Cynthia David, a retired librarian from Amherst, N.H., bought a paperweight decorated with a harvest mouse on a bramble from an eBay seller in Britain last year. She paid an import charge of 79.50 pounds ($107) — a large sum for an item that cost £160 ($214), but one she was willing to pay because it was a one-off item, she said.
“I love it,” Ms. David said. “It’s dead center in my collection.”
She said she would try to get a refund if eBay made it possible. It is not clear how American shoppers could try to get refunds of tariffs paid to foreign sellers on eBay or other platforms. EBay’s tariffs webpage does not say anything about getting the IEEPA levy repaid, and the company did not respond to requests for comment.
Consumers who have paid tariffs may be able to join class-action lawsuits.
Morgan & Morgan, a law firm, is seeking class-action approval for a suit it filed against FedEx. The suit contends that consumers are entitled not just to tariff refunds from FedEx but also to repayment of the fees the company charged for processing the levy. And it is seeking repayment even before FedEx gets its own tariff refund from the government.
FedEx “collected from us a fee that’s now been determined to be unlawful,” said John A. Yanchunis, a lawyer at Morgan & Morgan. “We’re entitled to that back.”
Ms. Rollison of FedEx did not respond directly to the lawsuit but instead referred to an earlier company statement on tariff refunds that said, in part, “If refunds are issued to FedEx, we will issue refunds to the shippers and consumers who originally bore those charges.”
Mar 5, 2026
And The Hits Keep On A-Comin'
If Markwayne Mullin takes the gig at DHS, he'll assume the office on April 1st.
Trump ousts DHS secretary Kristi Noem and replaces her with Republican senator
Noem’s tenure was marked by killings of US citizens by federal agents, a rumored affair and $220m spent on ads
Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, after the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents and mounting reports of her questionable personal conduct attracted bipartisan criticism.
It was the first major personnel shakeup of Trump’s second term, and in a post on Truth Social, the president said Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma senator, would take over from Noem starting on 31 March. The secretary, who he said “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)” would become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a security initiative Trump said he planned to launch over the weekend.
A Republican former congresswoman and governor of South Dakota, Noem was considered a potential running mate for Trump as he sought re-election in 2024, but ultimately passed over after she admitted in a memoir to killing a dog she owned. The president instead nominated her to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the border patrol and other agencies that took to the streets of major US cities during Trump’s second term to carry out his mass deportation agenda.
Noem became a public face of the crackdown, which ensnared immigrants with documentation and without as well as US citizens, appearing regularly on conservative television networks as well as in promotional material on DHS social media accounts.
After federal agents deployed to Minneapolis killed Renee Good and then, weeks later, Alex Pretti, Noem accused both US citizens of being involved in “domestic terrorism”. But the allegation appeared to fly in the face of what was known about both’s participation in anti-ICE protests, and Democrats along with some Republicans called for Noem to resign after Pretti’s death.
Simultaneously, reports began to emerge of Noem and Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager who was her senior adviser, engaging in a personal relationship, despite both being married, amid turmoil at the department.
In February, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy report into her leadership of the DHS that found Noem and Lewandowski had done little to obfuscate their personal relationship, while berating staff and administering polygraph tests to those they did not trust.
The pair had been traveling on a luxury 737 Max jet equipped with a private cabin, which the department has been seeking to acquire for around $70M for “high-profile deportations”. In one instance, Lewandowski fired a US Coast Guard pilot who left a blanket belonging to Noem on a plane, but then reinstated him because there was no one else to fly them back.
Democrats excoriated Noem when she appeared before the House and Senate judiciary committees in early March. She refused to retract her comments calling the US citizens killed in Minneapolis “domestic terrorists” while dismissing a question about whether she was having “sexual relations” with Lewandowski as “tabloid garbage”.
But even some Republicans signaled concerns with her leadership, with Louisiana senator John Kennedy questioning why the DHS gave $220M to a firm linked to Noem’s former spokesperson to produce advertisements in which the secretary was featured prominently.
Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of the few Republicans who had called for Noem’s resignation, threatened to hold up Senate business if he did not get responses from her to a slew of questions, while accusing her of obstructing investigations by the department’s inspector general.
He also took her to task for killing both a dog and a goat, as she documented in her book, saying: “Those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened in Minneapolis.”
And there's nothing more on-brand than that for this stupidly fucked up "administration".
Noem’s tenure was marked by killings of US citizens by federal agents, a rumored affair and $220m spent on ads
Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, after the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents and mounting reports of her questionable personal conduct attracted bipartisan criticism.
It was the first major personnel shakeup of Trump’s second term, and in a post on Truth Social, the president said Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma senator, would take over from Noem starting on 31 March. The secretary, who he said “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)” would become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a security initiative Trump said he planned to launch over the weekend.
A Republican former congresswoman and governor of South Dakota, Noem was considered a potential running mate for Trump as he sought re-election in 2024, but ultimately passed over after she admitted in a memoir to killing a dog she owned. The president instead nominated her to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the border patrol and other agencies that took to the streets of major US cities during Trump’s second term to carry out his mass deportation agenda.
Noem became a public face of the crackdown, which ensnared immigrants with documentation and without as well as US citizens, appearing regularly on conservative television networks as well as in promotional material on DHS social media accounts.
After federal agents deployed to Minneapolis killed Renee Good and then, weeks later, Alex Pretti, Noem accused both US citizens of being involved in “domestic terrorism”. But the allegation appeared to fly in the face of what was known about both’s participation in anti-ICE protests, and Democrats along with some Republicans called for Noem to resign after Pretti’s death.
Simultaneously, reports began to emerge of Noem and Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager who was her senior adviser, engaging in a personal relationship, despite both being married, amid turmoil at the department.
In February, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy report into her leadership of the DHS that found Noem and Lewandowski had done little to obfuscate their personal relationship, while berating staff and administering polygraph tests to those they did not trust.
The pair had been traveling on a luxury 737 Max jet equipped with a private cabin, which the department has been seeking to acquire for around $70M for “high-profile deportations”. In one instance, Lewandowski fired a US Coast Guard pilot who left a blanket belonging to Noem on a plane, but then reinstated him because there was no one else to fly them back.
Democrats excoriated Noem when she appeared before the House and Senate judiciary committees in early March. She refused to retract her comments calling the US citizens killed in Minneapolis “domestic terrorists” while dismissing a question about whether she was having “sexual relations” with Lewandowski as “tabloid garbage”.
But even some Republicans signaled concerns with her leadership, with Louisiana senator John Kennedy questioning why the DHS gave $220M to a firm linked to Noem’s former spokesperson to produce advertisements in which the secretary was featured prominently.
Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of the few Republicans who had called for Noem’s resignation, threatened to hold up Senate business if he did not get responses from her to a slew of questions, while accusing her of obstructing investigations by the department’s inspector general.
He also took her to task for killing both a dog and a goat, as she documented in her book, saying: “Those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened in Minneapolis.”
Mar 3, 2026
HCR
There is no "end game" other than domination - dare I say 'dominion'.
without a world-ending
conflagration in the middle east
there can be no rapture
Feb 13, 2026
About That Swamp
A wastewater spill into the Potomac River that began last month now appears to be one of the largest in American history.
DC Water, a local water utility, said in a press release last week that part of a sewer system known as the Potomac Interceptor collapsed along the Clara Barton Parkway on Jan. 19. In that same release, the utility said it “estimates that approximately 243 million gallons of wastewater has overflowed from the collapse site.”
On Monday, DC Water said there had been a “significant overflow” Sunday amid a “high flow period,” with some bypass pumps not in service at the time.
Potomac Riverkeeper Network, a local environmental advocacy group, claimed in a Facebook post Wednesday that the sewage spilled had topped 300 million gallons.
Dean Naujoks, who holds the title of Potomac Riverkeeper, told The Baltimore Sun in an article published Tuesday that the only other spill he could compare in size had occurred in 2017 on the U.S.-Mexico border, leaking 230 million gallons.
“The Potomac River is a shared natural treasure, and any event that threatens its health understandably causes concern, frustration, and a sense of loss. Those feelings are not only valid – but they are also shared by all of us at DC Water,” DC Water CEO David L. Gadis said in a Wednesday open letter.
When asked about the scale of the Washington sewage spillage, Gussie Maguire, a Maryland staff scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation compared it to annual sewage spillage in Baltimore.
“The way that I put it into perspective for myself and for people before, is I compared it to annual sewage overflow amounts,” Maguire told The Hill in a Thursday interview. “You don’t really necessarily want to think about it, but there are a lot of sewage overflows going on in any particular year.”
“I follow happenings in Baltimore pretty closely, and their largest volume of sewage spilled in a year. … The largest year that they’ve had in terms of volume in the last — in recent memory is from 2018, and they had right around 260 million gallons over the course of the entire year, or 250.”
Maguire also said the area where the rupture occurred was set for upgrades by DC Water, with the utility having already “allocated over $600 million.”
The sewage spill was “a single event, but the circumstances that led to it are not unique, according to Maguire, who also pushed for a continued stream of money to go to infrastructure upgrades and repairs, calling taking that kind of action, “really, really important, so that we don’t see this sort of large-scale spill become a regular occurrence.”
University of Maryland researchers have said they found levels of E. coli bacteria at a Potomac River site that topped Environmental Protection Agency recreation standards by 10,000 times two days after the Jan. 19 rupture. A week later, according to the researchers, the bacteria levels had dropped to 2,500 times over standards.
Feb 6, 2026
Feb 3, 2026
Jan 27, 2026
Death By Government
We won't remember them for long, and that's understandable given the probability that there will be many more before we get our shit squared away.
I just think I can stop for a minute and acknowledge their existence.
Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
Heber Sanchez Dominguez
Luis Beltran Yanez–Cruz
Parady La
Victor Manuel Diaz
Geraldo Lunas Campos
Keith Porter
Renee Good
Alex Pretti
Shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good are two of at least nine deaths related to immigration law enforcement in US.
The killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good by federal immigration agents this month has shocked the United States, prompting protests across the country and igniting calls for accountability.
But Pretti and Good are far from the only deaths linked to immigration law enforcement.
At least six immigrants have died in the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency already in 2026, and a seventh person was fatally shot by an off-duty ICE officer.
Last year, 32 deaths were reported in ICE custody.
While most of the deaths were due to health complications, some of the late detainees’ families have made accusations of abuse and medical neglect against ICE.
Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was killed by immigration officers on Saturday morning in Minneapolis. Good was shot on January 7, also in Minneapolis, after she tried to drive away from federal agents who surrounded her car.
Here are the stories of the others whose death is linked to immigration law enforcement:
Keith Porter
On New Year’s Eve, an off-duty ICE agent shot Porter, 43, to death in Los Angeles.
The exact circumstances of the shooting remain contested, and there are no known videos of the incident.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described Porter – who was Black – as an “active shooter”, but his family insists that he was merely firing his gun to welcome the new year, which is an illegal but widely observed US tradition.
“No parent should ever have to bury their child, and the pain of this loss is something I would not wish on anyone,” Porter’s mother, Franceola Armstrong, said in a statement on an online fundraiser.
“My son leaves behind two beautiful daughters, ages 10 and 20. They were his heart. Everything he did, every plan he made, was for them.”
No charges have been filed in the case.
DHS has pushed to justify the shooting, accusing Porter of shooting at the officer.
The department said the agent went outside his apartment complex to investigate the sound of gunshots, and when he encountered Porter, he ordered him to drop his weapon.
“When the subject refused to comply, the officer fired defensively with his service weapon at the subject to disarm him. The subject fired at least three rounds at the officer,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
The ICE agent was not harmed in the incident.
Porter’s family lawyer has raised questions over the DHS account, calling for evidence that the slain father of two fired at the officer.
Jamal Tooson, the lawyer, also criticised the ICE agent for confronting Porter with his weapon instead of involving the local police, who are well-trained and familiar with the community.
“Had he just stayed in his apartment for five minutes, Keith would be with us,” Tooson said in a news conference.
Geraldo Lunas Campos
Earlier this month, ICE announced that Cuban immigrant Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, died on January 3 at the agency’s largest detention facility – Camp East Montana in Texas.
Since then, contradicting details have emerged about his death, which a medical examiner has ruled as a homicide – meaning caused by another person.
ICE initially said Lunas Campos “became disruptive while in line for medication and refused to return to his assigned dorm” and was placed in segregation.
He then became distressed, according to the agency.
“Medical staff responded, initiated lifesaving measures, and requested emergency medical services. Lunas was pronounced deceased by EMS,” ICE said in a January 9 statement.
The agency repeatedly highlighted Lunas Campos’s criminal record.
The authorities later changed their own story, claiming that Lunas Campos tried to kill himself.
“Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life,” DHS’s McLaughlin said. “During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness.”
But an autopsy report found that Linas Campos was killed by someone.
“Based on the investigative and examination findings, it is my opinion that the cause of death is asphyxia due to neck and torso compression,” Adam Gonzalez, deputy medical examiner for El Paso County, said in the report, according to The Washington Post.
“The manner of death is homicide.”
Lunas Campos’ three children have filed a legal petition aiming to block the deportation of any detainees who may have witnessed the incident, as they prepare to file a wrongful death lawsuit.
“According to an eyewitness to Mr Lunas Campos’s death, guards at the facility choked him to death,” the petition said.
Victor Manuel Diaz
Since then, contradicting details have emerged about his death, which a medical examiner has ruled as a homicide – meaning caused by another person.
ICE initially said Lunas Campos “became disruptive while in line for medication and refused to return to his assigned dorm” and was placed in segregation.
He then became distressed, according to the agency.
“Medical staff responded, initiated lifesaving measures, and requested emergency medical services. Lunas was pronounced deceased by EMS,” ICE said in a January 9 statement.
The agency repeatedly highlighted Lunas Campos’s criminal record.
The authorities later changed their own story, claiming that Lunas Campos tried to kill himself.
“Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life,” DHS’s McLaughlin said. “During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness.”
But an autopsy report found that Linas Campos was killed by someone.
“Based on the investigative and examination findings, it is my opinion that the cause of death is asphyxia due to neck and torso compression,” Adam Gonzalez, deputy medical examiner for El Paso County, said in the report, according to The Washington Post.
“The manner of death is homicide.”
Lunas Campos’ three children have filed a legal petition aiming to block the deportation of any detainees who may have witnessed the incident, as they prepare to file a wrongful death lawsuit.
“According to an eyewitness to Mr Lunas Campos’s death, guards at the facility choked him to death,” the petition said.
Victor Manuel Diaz
Immigration authorities arrested Nicaraguan immigrant Victor Manuel Diaz on January 6 in Minneapolis as part of their immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Eight days later, he died in ICE custody at Camp East Montana in Texas.
“Contract security staff found Diaz unconscious and unresponsive in his room,” ICE said in a statement. “He died of a presumed suicide; however, the official cause of his death remains under investigation.”
But Diaz’s family is questioning the government’s story.
“I don’t believe he took his life,” Diaz’s brother Yorlan told ABC News. “He was not a criminal; he was looking for a better life and he wanted to help our mother.”
The family has also raised concerns over how the authorities are handling the investigation.
According to several US media reports, Diaz’s body was transferred to William Beaumont Army Medical Center for an autopsy, instead of the county medical examiner.
“This, taking of the body and doing the autopsy report and not letting the medical examiner do it? You’re then having the fox guarding the henhouse,” Randall Kallinen, the family’s lawyer, told the local outlet KTSM.
“It was with the federal government where the individual was staying and where he was killed. And now it’s the federal government who is controlling the investigation and the information included in the autopsy report.”
Parady La
Cambodian immigrant Parady La, 46, had been in the US since 1981. He had come to the US legally as a child but lost his Green Card due to criminal convictions.
Immigration authorities arrested him on January 6 and sent him to the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in Philadelphia, where he started experiencing “severe drug withdrawal” symptoms, according to ICE.
“The next day, La was found unresponsive in his cell. FDC officers immediately administered CPR and several doses of NARCAN and called for medical assistance,” the US agency said.
NARCAN is a drug used for people experiencing a drug overdose, not withdrawals.
La was transferred to a hospital and diagnosed with “anoxic brain injury, post-cardiac arrest, shock and multiple organ failures” before he died, ICE said.
But La’s family is voicing scepticism about the level of care he received.
His nephew, Michael La, said ICE’s version of the events leading to his uncle’s death “didn’t add up”.
“As we keep fighting for information, we’re finding out that there’s like levels of information that just become locked, you know?” Michael La told local public radio WHYY. “We’re still fighting for answers and still trying to figure out what’s going on.”
Luis Beltran Yanez–Cruz
A father of three, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, 68, had been in the US for more than 20 years when ICE picked him up in New Jersey in November and transferred him to a detention centre in California.
He died on January 6 of “heart-related health issues” after being transferred to a hospital.
But his family has said that he was feeling ill for weeks and was only given pain medication.
“As a father, he was an excellent dad,” his daughter, Josselyn Yanez, told the news website northjersey.com. “As a grandfather, the best grandfather of all. We hoped our father would get out of that place, that he would come out alive – not the way he did.”
Heber Sanchez Dominguez
Seven days after ICE picked up Heber Sanchez Dominguez, the 34-year-old Mexican national was found dead in his cell at the Robert A Deyton (RAD) Detention Facility in Georgia on January 14.
“RAD medical staff discovered Sanchaz (sic) hanging by the neck and unresponsive in his sleeping quarters at approximately 2:05 am,” ICE said in a statement.
The lack of details has prompted calls for investigation, including from Mexican officials.
Sanchez Dominguez was arrested in Georgia for driving without a licence before being transferred to ICE custody.
“In coordination with the relevant US authorities, the Consulate General has requested that the circumstances of the incident be clarified and is cooperating in the necessary steps to ensure that the investigation is carried out promptly and transparently,” Mexico’s consulate in Atlanta said after Sanchez Dominguez’s death.
The Clayton County Democratic Committee in Georgia also called on state officials to push for an investigation.
“We further demand the immediate release of all records and documentation related to Mr. Sanchez Dominguez’s detention, medical treatment, and the events leading up to his death. Transparency is not optional, it is a moral and legal obligation,” the group said in a statement.
Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
ICE has said that Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, a 42-year-old immigrant from Honduras, died on January 5 at a hospital in Houston, Texas, after being admitted for “chronic heart-related health issues”.
Nunez did not have a criminal record, but he had entered the country irregularly. ICE nabbed him during an immigration enforcement operation in November 2025 and transferred him to the Joe Corley Processing Center in Texas.
“ICE is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments,” the agency said in a statement, after Nunez’s death.
“Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay.”
Jan 25, 2026
Liam
(cribbed and paraphrased from a FB post by Richard Ojeda)
I look at my own sons now - grown and busy building their lives - and I have to think about how much has been possible only because they got to grow up safe, protected, and never afraid of the people who were supposed to be there to help.
That’s why the story of a five-year-old boy being detained by ICE, pulled out of a car in his own driveway and held hostage in order to lure his family out of their home, hits me like I've been kicked in the stomach. No parent should ever have to imagine their kids being put in that position, and no child should ever be forced to carry that kind of fear.
I’ve been around for quite a while, I've seen what real threats look like, and a kindergartener with a backpack, wearing a bunny hat, is not one of them.
Using a child to project power or to make a point isn’t law enforcement - it’s cruelty. And it violates everything this country claims to stand for.
When my kids were little, their biggest concerns were all about being on time for the school bus and playing and wondering if they could talk me into fixing their favorite chicken enchiladas for supper - feeling loved.
Liam’s world was shattered in an instant by masked agents who decided terrorizing a child was an acceptable tool for achieving a fucked political goal.
If we allow this to be normalized - if we look away because it’s happening to someone else’s kid - then we’ve already lost something fundamental about who we are.
Terrifying times. pic.twitter.com/iN7Z3US9Xk
— Harry Eccles (@Heccles94) January 24, 2026
Jan 24, 2026
Game Recognizes Game
When the Germans are saying you look like a Nazi, you look like a Nazi.
So the question is: Who are you trying to impress with that shit?
Jan 6, 2026
Stephen Miller
The guy's a fuckin' lunatic.
And he says it out loud - "our hemisphere"
One question remains: "How did he escape that bunker in Berlin?"
And then his wife posted this:
Chippin' Away
I'd never heard of him, but I'm sorry the guy's dead, and I feel for the family on losing a patriarch.
What really galls me is that Trump, while announcing the guy's death to GOP members today, couldn't help but turn it into something about him.
Trump praised LaMalfa for his work on water rights before adding, “You know, he voted with me 100% of the time.”
Translated: I didn't know that schmuck from Adam's off-ox, but he voted with me, therefor he liked me, therefor he was an OK guy.
Trump continues to demonstrate that he's a graceless, worthless slug with no regard for anything or anyone but himself.
And that's not "Trump Derangement Syndrome". That's direct observation of provable fact.
So now, with the resignation of MTG, Mike "The Flaccid" Johnson has a majority of exactly 218. On any vote that requires a House majority, he can't afford even one defection. Not that we were looking forward to much of anything getting done this year, but it does bring up some interesting brain bits.
Key Areas of Legislation (per Google search)
- Appropriations: Finalized spending packages for Fiscal Year 2026, covering the Interior Dept., EPA, and Energy Dept., were recently unveiled.
- Health & Safety: Bills address e-cigarette regulation, accountability for organ procurement, and methamphetamine response.
- Technology & Education: Discussions include combating misinformation in schools, reporting adversarial education contributions, and federal data standardization.
- Immigration: Legislation aims to eliminate the H-1B visa program and mandate photo ID for federal elections.
- Government & Economy: Bills focus on reducing red tape, ensuring qualified civil service, and improving federal employee benefits.
Things aren't likely to get any better for Mr Johnson.
Other than the reconciliation bill, House Republicans say they have little to show for their time controlling Washington.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published last week, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., declared 2025 “a great year” for House Republicans, calling it “one of the most productive first years of any Congress in our lifetimes.”
But in interviews with more than a dozen House Republicans last week, a far less rosy picture emerged. And as lawmakers prepare to return for what could be the final year of unified Republican control in Washington during Donald Trump’s presidency — if current polling holds — some members are already talking privately about new House leadership in the next Congress.
For Johnson, the case for GOP success rests almost entirely on one accomplishment: the reconciliation bill. Republicans passed the legislation this summer, with Trump signing it into law on July Fourth. In his op-ed, Johnson highlighted the package’s tax cuts, the billions in new border enforcement funding and the more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid.
The House Republicans who spoke to MS NOW agreed the reconciliation bill was a major accomplishment for their party. (It’s worth noting that no Republican took issue with any of the policies that became law in the reconciliation bill, like the tax cuts that are projected to reduce tax revenue by $4.5 trillion over the next decade or those Medicaid cuts that are projected to cause 10.9 million Americans to lose health insurance coverage over that same time period.) But many of these Republicans wondered what the GOP had accomplished since.
Beyond overseeing the longest government shutdown in history and passing a few mandatory bills, many Republicans said they have little to show for their time controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress.
“The latter half of the year, in particular, starting with the speaker’s baffling decision to keep the House out of session for two months while the country was mired in a very harmful shutdown, that did not really match the tone of the op-ed,” Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley of California told MS NOW.
Kiley, a frequent Johnson critic, said the low productivity during the second half of the year was a consequence of the speaker choosing to keep the House out of session during the historic 43-day government shutdown.
“The decision to absent the House from Washington for two months and cancel six great weeks of session,” Kiley said, “I’m not sure the speaker or the House really recovered from that at the end of 2025.”
A second House Republican, who spoke to MS NOW on the condition of anonymity, said the tax cuts delivered through the reconciliation bill were good. “But other than that, like, what else have we done?” the member asked. “Like, I can’t tell you, because we haven’t.”
This GOP lawmaker added that Trump had been very productive, particularly calling out what the Treasury Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department had been doing. “Quite the opposite story when you get to both chambers of Congress,” this member said.
“I understand the point Johnson is trying to make here,” another House Republican told MS NOW, “but I don’t think his claims ring true for most Americans. With all due respect, this characterization does not reflect the reality facing the American people.”
This member added that Trump won “a resounding victory in 2024 with a clear mandate,” and yet now, Congress’ approval rating is near all-time lows and the American people are “rightly frustrated that we have not delivered more boldly on that mandate.”
And asked for their thoughts on Johnson’s op-ed, another House Republican called it “a very rosy way of writing their own story.”
The frustration isn’t particularly surprising, given the lack of legislative progress in the second half of last year. But what may be notable, however, is that Republicans are now discussing new leadership in the next Congress.
Yet another House Republican, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the sensitive conversations, told MS NOW that the current GOP leadership team “is generally viewed as weak, reactive and unintelligent.”
“It is the increasing sense across the entire continuum of the Republican Conference, from the Freedom Caucus to the Tuesday Group, that there is a need to elect an entirely new leadership team in the 120th Congress,” this member said, referring to the hard-line conservative and moderate GOP groups.
“Expect the silent majority in the GOP conference to push for entirely new faces, and an entirely new approach, in the next Congress,” this lawmaker added. “We are already hearing from those who will move to force the legacy figures to step aside at the end of this Congress, and replace them with new, fresh faces — new ideas and a new approach.”
While these conversations are mostly happening behind the scenes — with little appetite to change leadership in the middle of this Congress — some of the chatter has been making its way into public view.
In early December, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a member of House GOP leadership and a close Trump ally, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that Johnson “certainly wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow.”
Of course, there isn’t a vote tomorrow. And if Johnson loses the House majority, he would obviously face challenges to retain his position as the No. 1 Republican. But if the GOP were to somehow hold on to the majority, removing Johnson would be difficult.
Still, another GOP lawmaker agreed with Stefanik’s assessment that Johnson would lose a vote tomorrow: “A good attorney. A good man. A bad politician,” this member said.
Kiley said there were “definitely frustrations” with Johnson’s leadership among a cross section of the conference. “I don’t discount how challenging the job is, but he seems to have done the one thing that frustrates pretty much everyone in our conference, by simply making the House of Representatives a lot less relevant in recent months,” Kiley said.
That decaying relevance has come as Johnson has deferred much of Congress’ power to the executive branch. The legislative branch’s reduced role in the checks-and-balances system of government came into greater focus over the weekend, when Trump bombed Venezuela and put U.S. boots on the ground to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro — without congressional authorization.
Where congressional leaders of previous eras might take issue with the president conducting offensive strikes without authorization — or at least insist on congressional input — Johnson applauded the president Saturday for a “decisive and justified operation that will protect American lives.”
“President Trump is putting American lives first, succeeding where others have failed, and under his leadership the United States will no longer allow criminal regimes to profit from wreaking havoc and destruction on our country,” Johnson wrote on X.
Johnson has seemed to grasp that his power as a Republican leader depends greatly, if not entirely, on Trump’s approval. And as Trump has seized power from the legislative branch — through tariffs, through impoundments, through executive orders, through emergency declarations and by his administration ignoring congressional orders — Johnson has been an enthusiastic partner of the president.
Reached for comment, the speaker’s office referred MS NOW to the message in the op-ed and the more than 100 influential conservative and industry and community leaders touting the House GOP’s accomplishments in 2025.
Still, the numbers paint a more humble picture.
With Republicans controlling the House, Senate and White House, 38 bills became law this year — exactly half of the 76 bills that were enacted under full Democratic control in 2021 and far short of the 74 bills that were signed under full GOP control in 2017. (In 2009, when Democrats also had unified control of Congress and the White House, they passed 115 bills into law.)
Johnson wasn’t without defenders. Several Republicans pointed out that Johnson was grappling with a razor-thin majority — decreasing to a two-vote cushion at one point — which makes passing major legislation difficult.
Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., a second-term lawmaker who is part of the Freedom Caucus, called 2025 “one of the best years Congress has had.”
“While we may not have passed a bunch of individual bills, the amount of legislation, and good legislation, that was passed in the ‘one big, beautiful bill’ is quite a bit,” Burlison said.
He did, however, push back on Johnson’s description of 2025 as “one of the most productive first years of any Congress in our lifetime.”
“I don’t know if you’d say the most productive,” Burlison said. “I’d say it’s the best in at least a generation. And by best, I mean we didn’t pass a bunch of swampy things; we passed really good legislation.”
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a retiring moderate, similarly touted the breadth of policy in the reconciliation bill, as well as the annual defense policy bill, which Congress has passed every year for more than six decades.
“If you just look at the number of bills passed, it’s easy to say, I guess, that’s a low production, but I think if you have a little bit of nuance, it was probably more than just that low number, because the reconciliation bill had tons of tax policy in it,” Bacon said, though he added that “the real answer” is that “I sure wish we could have got more done.”
Notably absent from the list of accomplishments? A fix for health care, as Obamacare subsidies expired, driving up prices for tens of millions of Americans.
“Substantively, what we’ve done, the biggest thing is that ‘big, beautiful bill,’” one of the previously quoted lawmakers said. “And the biggest deficiency is certainly the health care.”
At the end of his op-ed, Johnson said “the best is yet to come.” But some House Republicans are just wishing for some normalcy.
Asked what they were most hopeful for in the second half of the 119th Congress, another one of the previously quoted lawmakers had a modest ambition: “Little or no drama.”
Jan 2, 2026
From John Fugelsang
(with a tiny bit of editing because I'm egotistical, and I need to "make things a little better")
Here’s the dirty little secret we came to understand in 2025, and it’s not as depressing as it seems:
Losing faith in institutions isn’t nihilism.
It's discernment. It's an informed response by an adult with a living thinking brain to watching dudebro arsonists assume control of the fire department.
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