Have Buck, Will Pass

The buck stops somewhere else: A look at Trump’s tendency to avoid blame when things go awry

WASHINGTON (AP) — It is among the most famous phrases in presidential history: “The buck stops here.” Except with President Donald Trump, it almost never does.

Concerns about a weak economy and still-high inflation? His predecessor, Joe Biden, saddled him with that, he says, even though the Democrat has been out of office for 18-plus months and despite Trump once promising an immediate turnaround.

The problem-plagued revamp of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool? That was marred by vandalism, the Republican president insists, even though the office of a prosecutor he put in the job has said the damage was due to shoddy workmanship.

The increasingly unpopular war in Iran that has kept oil prices high, Trump’s approval rating low and sent shock waves through the global economy? Actually, this was Trump making up for timid earlier presidents who, he argues, squandered nearly 50 years of opportunities to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Pithy slogans aside, all modern presidents shift responsibility onto others to some degree, frequently blaming the commander-in-chief who preceded them, Congress — or both. But Trump has taken it to a new level, effectively embracing a de facto political strategy of being in charge of everything but responsible for nothing when things go badly.

“Taking responsibility being a characteristic of presidential leadership — or any kind of leadership — is absolutely true,” said Nicole Anslover, a history professor at Florida Atlantic University and author of “Harry S. Truman: The Coming of the Cold War.”

Trump’s tendency to point fingers at others is increasingly in the spotlight before November’s midterm elections, when Republicans are trying to retain control of Congress. His unwillingness to accept blame sometimes leads him to deny that there are problems at all, and could leave GOP leaders in tight races with little reassurance for voters that their concerns are being addressed.

The White House counters that Trump is working to correct long-festering challenges, not simply throwing up his hands and ignoring them.

The president is “rightfully addressing the failures of his predecessors while taking action to deliver big wins for the American people,” spokesperson Taylor Rogers said, pointing to a series of policies that she said Republicans can run on, including tax cuts, efforts to lower prescription drug prices, cracking down on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border, increasing domestic energy production and a strong stock market.

Ducking responsibility dates to Trump’s first term

Truman famously kept a “The Buck Stops Here” sign on his desk as president. That came from “pass the buck,” which, according to Truman’s presidential library, dates to frontier times, when poker players would pass a buckhorn handle knife to the person whose turn it was to deal the cards.

“The president, whoever he is, has to decide,” Truman said during his farewell address in 1953. “He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.”

The understanding of the phrase has broadened over the years to include taking responsibility for the outcome of tough decisions. Trump used to espouse similar beliefs, saying back in 2013 that in running a business, “Whatever happens, you’re responsible. If it doesn’t happen, you’re responsible.”

Accepting the 2016 presidential nomination, Trump said, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” But as president, he has often suggested that the solution and blame rest elsewhere.

“The buck stops with everybody,” Trump said in 2019, during a lengthy government shutdown. In 2020, on the same day he declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, he said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for a lack of COVID-19 testing.

Anslover said Truman took full responsibility for dropping atomic bombs on Japan even though he was not informed that the U.S. was developing such weapons until his predecessor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, died.

John F. Kennedy saw his approval ratings rise after he acknowledged he was to blame for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. Ronald Reagan said he was sorry for any involvement he may have had in the Iran-Contra scandal even while saying he wasn’t sure he was to blame. “The buck stops here with me,” he said then.

At his final news conference in early 2009, George W. Bush listed a series of mistakes he had made, including failing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. His successor, Barack Obama, said, “I screwed up,” after his nominee for health chief, Tom Daschle, withdrew because of unpaid back taxes.

Presidents before Trump “really usually take accountability,” Anslover said.

‘We inherited a total catastrophe,’ Trump says

The president acknowledged in a recent Punchbowl interview that voters are angry, but he said they are not mad at him but at congressional Republicans.

Trump believes his party can hold its congressional majorities after November, but he was clear that if Republicans lose, it won’t be his fault — echoing his comments before the 2018 midterms that he would not accept blame if his party lost control of the House, which it did.

Trump’s approval rating on the economy, once seen as among his strongest issues, has fallen throughout his time in office, from 40% in March 2025 to 32% in July, according to Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say Trump’s economic policies have made economic conditions worse, according to Pew Research Center polling.

“The public certainly expects the president to be concerned about, and focused on, making life more affordable,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz said.

Trump instead points to Biden, under whom inflation hit a four-decade peak of 9.1% in 2022 as the pandemic was still roiling the world economy, before declining to 2.7% by November 2024. Last month, pressured by the Iran war, it was 3.4%.

“When we took office, we inherited a total catastrophe,” Trump said at a recent rally, later adding, “I inherited those high prices, just so you understand.”

Andrew Bates, a Democratic strategist and former Biden White House spokesperson, noted that Trump no longer mentions his campaign promise to “immediately end inflation” on Day One.

“He may not remember having made those promises, but swing voters sure as hell do,” Bates said.

Trump has shown the same pattern with Iran and the Reflecting Pool

The president has characterized the Iran war as “a little excursion” or “detour.” To play down how long it has lasted, he frequently notes that U.S. wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan dragged on for years, though the Iran conflict — which he initially said would be over in four weeks to five weeks — is now in its sixth month with no clear end in sight.

Trump has sought to shift blame to the past on the Reflecting Pool, falsely suggesting that Biden and Obama spent “hundreds of millions of dollars” trying unsuccessfully to fix it.

But Trump’s main defense has been vandalism. And, so far, at least four cases alleging that, including the most prominent case against an Olympic canoeist, have been dropped because of a lack of evidence.

Anslover said that, after 11-plus years in politics, Trump has proved he is not afraid to violate norms of presidential comportment. Lots of his core supporters do not seem bothered.

“For many Americans, it has either been a shift in how they view the presidency, or, like with so many things, they just feel empowered to say, ‘These are my priorities. My priority is not the facts,’” she said.

It's The Money, Stupid

The red lights are working overtime, and still unable to flash as brightly and as frequently as the situation seems to indicate.

And as if all this doom-n-gloom isn't enough, the CBO has revised its estimate of the US federal budget deficit, which is projected to reach approximately $2.1 trillion for fiscal year 2026, reporting a 10-month shortfall of $1.8 trillion through July.

So much winning.

The ingredients are coming together for a US financial crisis

Trump could trigger a disaster as markets lose faith in Washington’s economic management

A dangerous view is creeping into the markets that the US has already gone so far down the path of a debt compound trap that it dare not raise interest rates to control inflation.

The US treasury has become acutely dependent on short-term funding from hedge funds, many tapping the $8.3tn (£6.2tn) money market and some operating with up to 100 times leverage. The share of purchases coming from stable lenders such as foreign central banks and sovereign wealth funds has been drying up.

Steven Blitz, the chief US economist at TS Lombard, says the Federal Reserve cannot tighten hard without risking a chain reaction. Financing costs would “explode”.

“Raising rates today immediately impacts the cost of nearly 25pc of the federal debt, where issuance is growing fastest,” he said.

The US treasury has to roll over $6tn of debt every three months in an increasingly sceptical market, as well as issuing $2tn of new debt annually to cover the worst structural deficit in US peacetime history.

Annual gross financing needs – the key warning metric watched by rating agencies and bond funds – was 26pc of GDP in 2010. The International Monetary Fund says the figure will reach 45pc this year and is on track for 60pc by the early 2030s on current policies. No great power has long endured at that sort of level.

Scott Bessent, the poacher-turned-gamekeeper now in charge of the US treasury, has been concentrating ever more borrowing on short-term bills. It is a way to keep a lid on the spiralling interest cost of the US national debt, which has quadrupled to $1tn in a decade, now exceeds the US defence budget and is fast heading towards uncharted waters above 4pc of GDP.

But trying to defer America’s fiscal reckoning by monkeying with debt instruments is the trick used by broken hegemons through the ages. It is a Faustian pact.

We know how worried Bessent is about soaring bond yields – approaching a two-decade high – by the way he intervened alongside Japan earlier this month to halt speculation against the yen. He activated an obscure mechanism known as the FIMA Repo Facility to let Japan pawn a chunk of its $1.1tn of US Treasuries in exchange for dollar loans rather than selling these bonds on the open market.

He joined the action by mobilising the treasury’s holding of euros, without first telling the European Central Bank – a shocking breakdown of central bank etiquette. All this screams desperation.

Hedge funds have become the marginal buyers of US debt, doubling their share to 9pc of total US Treasury purchases over the last four years. They have been borrowing with extreme leverage on the repo market – a core part of financial plumbing – in order to extract arbitrage gains.

Both the IMF and the Bank for International Settlements have warned that this structure is an accident waiting to happen. It amplified a spiral of forced selling and a near meltdown of the US Treasury market in the Covid panic of March 2020. The critical point is that the whole US financial and fiscal system has never been so sensitive to short-term interest rates.

Kevin Warsh, the untested new Fed chairman, faces an invidious choice. The indecent manner of his appointment degraded his credibility before he even started. Markets know that Trump persecuted his predecessor for refusing to cut rates and refusing to become the infamous Arthur Burns of our age. They also know that Warsh’s billionaire father-in-law is a close Trump confederate and a key author of the Greenland grab.

Warsh struggled to articulate a coherent intellectual argument after the most recent policy meeting for why he was not raising rates. He could not explain how he intends to bring stubborn US inflation back towards the 2pc target when it is clearly going the other way.

“Sternly staring at inflation until it melts before our withering gaze is not an option,” said fellow Fed board member Christopher Waller.

Warsh faced the unusual rebuke of three voting dissenters and some have been outspoken to the point of contempt. The market verdict has been lapidary.

Warsh argues that AI is deflationary and therefore overrides the Phillips Curve, making it possible to combine blistering growth with low inflation. I am friendly to this line of thinking but it is not entirely convincing coming from Warsh, who used to be a chest-beating “inflation nutter”. Many suspect that he has latched on to this idea as a pretext for doing Trump’s bidding.

Reports that he talks to Trump “all the time” confirm the fears. Jerome Powell’s working code was always that the proper level of intercourse between the US president and the Fed chairman is “zero”.

The Dornbusch adage in the markets is that fiscal and financial crises take longer to happen than you think possible but then happen faster than you ever imagined.

We know that US federal debt is compounding at a rate of 3.5pc of GDP each year. The mechanical rise in entitlements – ie, middle-class welfare – has been part of the landscape for a long time. Trump 1.0 tax cuts, Covid and Joe Biden’s Rooseveltian New Deal together pushed the envelope a lot further. Trump 2.0’s One Big, Beautiful Bill tests the limits.

The IMF forecasts a US general government deficit of 7.4pc of GDP or higher every single year from 2026 to 2031. Now Trump wants to raise the Pentagon budget by 60pc and fritter away $275bn on his “golden fleet” of Trump-class battleships – an idée fixe ever since he watched the 1950s telly series Victory at Sea.

It takes a serious trigger to detonate a crisis of financial confidence in a great power with deep economic strengths and a world reserve currency. Military overstretch is usually to blame, the cause of imperial Spain’s default in 1575 and Britain’s convertibility crisis in 1947.

The ingredients for some sort of American financial crisis are falling into place, disguised for now – but also compounded – by the AI bubble. The global market no longer has full faith in the management of the US treasury and the Fed.

The US has stopped upholding free trade and open navigation, switching sides to become the chief instigator of piracy and world disorder. It has squandered much of its arsenal on an ill-planned war that it cannot end without accepting humiliation and that has shown the US to be a weaker military power than we all thought. It has further wrecked US alliances and largely played into the hands of Xi Jinping’s revanchist China.

The disaster is nearly complete. Now we await the US mid-term elections. Should the democratic transfer of power in Congress be obstructed by meddling with the results in swing states, we may have our trigger.

Here It Comes

Plutocracy rising.

A fully coin-operated government is one of the main goals of this latest iteration of the Daddy State.

They're intending to strip down the government to three main functions:

1. Defend commercial interests abroad
2. Keep the domestic rabble in line
3. Settle contract disputes

That's it - everything else is strictly Fee-For-Service. And of course, we need to leave the way open for "entrepreneurs" to step in and sell us "insurance" against the disasters that their fuckery is already causing.

And won't it be so fucking peachy when the fire departments and emergency services are run by the Suits and the Bean Counters, the same way health insurance is being run now. Where they'll have almost as many people working to deny your claims as they do people who're supposed to be saving your ass from the hurricanes and wildfires.

Yup - gonna be loads of fun.

JoJo From JerZ

Trump's gotten away with it, so why am I supposed to think it's anything but a free fly zone?

GOP In Disarray

GOP infighting erupts as Thune warns of legislative ‘train wreck’

Internal squabbles erupted in the Senate Republican Conference on Wednesday as GOP senators battled each other and the White House over a variety of issues, prompting Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to warn that his colleagues face a potential legislative “train wreck.”

Senate Budget Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) clashed with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) over Johnson’s relentless push for a vote on a budget resolution to begin moving a third reconciliation bill before the August recess, according to GOP sources familiar with the meeting.

Collins, who is perhaps the most vulnerable Senate Republican up for reelection this year, told colleagues that diving into a floor debate and vote-a-rama on amendments to a budget resolution would be politically unwise.

The budget reconciliation process would allow Republicans to circumvent a Democratic filibuster, but it would also give Democrats the chance to force votes on an unlimited number of potentially embarrassing amendments.

Johnson warned colleagues Wednesday that as many as 10 or 11 Senate committees could receive reconciliation instructions, which could make a wide array of amendments germane and viable for adoption at a simple-majority threshold, according to a senator who attended the meeting.

“If we vote yes on the motion to proceed” to the budget resolution and “we got on it, we’d have to do vote-a-rama, and that’s what people are worried about,” said a GOP senator, who requested anonymity to discuss pushback from Republican colleagues to trying to pass a budget resolution before the August recess.

The senator said Collins pointed out those potential pitfalls.

“Can you imagine how many amendments that would be?” the senator said, noting Republicans might have to vote on proposals to restrict Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or to permanently ban the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate MAGA allies prosecuted under former President Biden.

Several other GOP senators, in addition to Collins, pushed back hard against Johnson’s proposal to initiate a messy budget reconciliation process before the August recess.

Collins has said for weeks that she would prefer to provide funding for the Pentagon and farmers who are struggling because of low commodity prices through the regular congressional appropriations process.

She declined to comment on the arguments she made to colleagues at Wednesday’s conference meeting.

“I’m not going to discuss what happened at lunch,” she told The Hill.

Johnson, however, said after the contentious lunch meeting that he’s “still working” to advance the budget resolution before the Senate adjourns for the August recess.

Thune confirmed after the lunch meeting that attempting to move another budget resolution would drag “a bunch” of other committees into the process, which would open up the floor to votes on all sorts of controversial issues.

Asked if he would even have the votes to proceed to a budget resolution, Thune replied, “Probably hard to say.”

Thune also must navigate internal Republican disagreements over a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government until Dec. 11 and a bill championed by Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to reform the rules for compensating college athletes.

“It’s kind of a train wreck, isn’t it?” Thune quipped to reporters as he arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday morning.

GOP senators battled with White House legislative staff at Wednesday’s lunch meeting over language the White House added to the CR that would delay the implementation of a ban on hemp-derived THC products such as delta-8 until December.

Republicans in the meeting described the discussion as heated after the White House blindsided GOP lawmakers with the addition.

Some Republican senators want to delay the ban on hemp-derived THC products, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has argued that it unfairly targets Kentucky’s hemp industry.

Paul on Wednesday accused Republican colleagues of exaggerating the potential harm of those popular products.

“These busybodies in there that want to ban everything are jumping up and down. It’s like they watched ‘Reefer Madness’ in 1937 and they believe the whole world’s going to be hooked on marijuana,” Paul told reporters for The Associated Press and “PBS NewsHour” after the meeting.

But other GOP senators are adamant about stripping the White House-backed hemp language from the government funding bill.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) is pressuring GOP leaders to allow a vote on an amendment to the stopgap measure to strip the provision.

“Let me be clear: I will not back down. I will not waver. I will not stop until this life-threatening hemp loophole is closed permanently. We must strip this amendment from the [continuing resolution] & regulate these harmful substances for what they are—not what the industry wants to call them,” Budd posted on the social platform X.

Other Republicans say they don’t want to have another fight over it right before Christmas.

Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) indicated they would support Budd’s amendment.

“I’d rather have the fight now than during the holidays,” Rounds said. “I can’t see why we should include semisynthetic hemp as a part of hemp itself as something that moves forward in the future. Let’s just call it what it is.”

Rounds said he doesn’t understand why the White House is trying to delay the ban on hemp-derived THC products.

“If I don’t know and nobody’s got a good reason for it, let’s take it out of the bill and then let’s get on with the CR,” he added.

Thune also has to referee a Republican-versus-Republican fight over the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill drafted by Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to create new regulations for compensating college athletes for the use of their name, image and likeness.

Thune on Wednesday filed a cloture motion to advance the bill, but it faces an objection from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

Hawley warns the legislation could overturn state-enacted bans on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports.

“I’m concerned about that,” Hawley said of Thune’s effort to move forward on the college sports bill.

“I filed amendments to the bill. Listen, I’m against men in women’s sports, and Missouri has a law that bans men in women’s sports that applies to collegiate eligibility,” he said.

“My concern is that this [bill] as it’s currently drafted would overturn Missouri law. Twenty-seven states have similar bans. This is something that needs to be fixed,” he added. “We cannot overturn 27 state laws that ban men in women’s sports.

“That’s just unthinkable,” he declared. “Can you imagine a Republican Congress overturning Republican state laws that ban biological men in women’s sports?”

Cruz, however, disputed the criticism that the bill would undermine state bans on transgender athletes in women’s sports.

“That’s simply inaccurate. The legislation explicitly has language, number one, that nothing in the bill alters Title IX in any way. And, number two, it explicitly says on eligibility that you can be blocked from eligibility for violating a state law,” Cruz said. “That was written very deliberately to avoid disturbing the 27 states that have acted to protect women’s sports.”

Title IX is the civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program.

Thune said he hopes the fight over the college sports reform bill won’t stop it from passing before the August recess.

“I’m hoping it can be worked out. I know what it’s about and I think … some of our members have pretty good answers to some of the questions he’s raising,” Thune said of Hawley’s objection. “I’m hopeful that we’ll have the bipartisan votes to get on the bill.”

Thune also filed a cloture motion Wednesday to advance the House-passed ban on members of Congress trading stocks.

The legislation includes a provision that would require voters to show photo identification for federal elections.

Some GOP senators want to consider the House-approved stock-trading ban before the recess if they can’t make progress on a budget resolution to pave the way for $10 billion in funding for states to tighten voting rules.

The Stop Insider Trading Act passed the House last month 232-198.

“It’s a vote that a lot of members thought would be a good one to have. We’re just teeing some things up,” he said. “How it all unfolds is still a little bit up in the air.”

The Chill Factor

Trump's silly Reflecting Pool story masks something serious

Donald Trump's renovations for the Reflecting Pool haven't worked out.

Trump could blame himself — he's the one who ordered it. Instead, he offered stories about vandals.

We're used to Trump falsehoods. When they are turned into federal charges — like this one did — it should freak us out.

On July 2, federal prosecutors charged David Hearn, a 67-year-old former Olympian, with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.

Hearn had made a "a violent effort" to damage the pool, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said.

A month later, Pirro's office told the court she wanted to drop the case.

It turns out, Pirro said in a court filing late Friday, that the pool's well-documented problems probably weren't a result of vandalism. Instead, they were likely because of "hasty and botched work" performed by a contractor.

A standard news management rule of thumb is that you put out embarrassing news right before the weekend, when it's least likely to get noticed. And most of the coverage of the Hearn case has indeed focused on the embarrassment it is generating for the Trump White House. Primarily because up until now, Pirro has been a loyal Trump supporter.

But if we treat this story like a standard-issue optics narrative for the Trump White House, we're doing it wrong. Because this is something much more important: It's the Trump White House using federal prosecutors as a tool to punish perceived enemies.

In a normal administration, this would be a giant story. The fact that we're treating this like business-as-usual should be a giant story, too.

The story of the Reflecting Pool, and Trump's obsession with it, has been well told. The shortest version is that last spring, the Trump administration ordered a poorly conceived renovation using contractors without experience doing that kind of work. So instead of a clear pool with an "American flag blue" bottom, the pool became an algae-infested bog.

But Trump wouldn't acknowledge that his plan hadn't worked. Instead, he insisted that rogues had attacked the pool with a box-cutter and somehow gouged a "300-foot slit" in the pool's lining.

That made the pool a "Trump says thing that's obviously not true" story — the kind that initially seemed unique back in 2017, when he insisted that his lightly attended inauguration was actually the world's biggest. Now that kind of tall and easily disprovable tale just elicits shrugs.

Last month, Pirro turned Trump's fibs into something much more serious by using them as the basis for a felony charge (her office later charged three other Americans with misdemeanors for similar theoretical offenses).

In Pirro's motion to dismiss the charge against Hearn, she argues that she was misled by Trump's Department of the Interior, which oversees the pool. The DOI initially provided "less than fulsome information" about the case, Pirro said. So her office didn't really understand what had happened until late July — weeks after a grand jury had indicted Hearn.

That's silly. Throughout the spring, story after story from mainstream news outlets reported that Trump's attempt to transform the pool was misguided, poorly executed, and had made things worse. Just as important: Trump's claims about vandalism weren't remotely plausible.

So, again: It's one thing not to correct Donald Trump when he says things that aren't true (Trump continues to insist that VANDALS are the cause of the pool's problems, as he argued on Truth Social this weekend; when I asked his press office for comment Monday, they referred me back to his post. He told reporters Monday that Pirro "made a mistake.")

It's another thing to tell stories about the president that don't seem to be true. But turning a Trump falsehood into a federal criminal charge is something very different.

It's also not the first time we've seen federal prosecutors turn themselves into Trump-branded prosecutors. The New York Times, for example, has documented hundreds of flimsy charges the administration has filed against immigrants and protesters during its ICE crackdowns in the last year. Almost half of those have fizzled, the Times reports: "Juries acquitted defendants, judges threw out charges, or prosecutors withdrew them."

The Times itself has been the subject of a Trump legal campaign — last month Trump's Department of Justice filed subpoenas against Times reporters who'd written about security issues with Trump's new Air Force One, then dropped them after getting scolded by a federal judge.

In the Hearn case, it's tempting to brush this aside: After all, Pirro dropped the charges. The system worked, right?

But Hearn, whose case attracted support from prominent allies, should never have had to face a felony charge — and to take on the legal, reputational, and financial obligations fighting that charge entails — in the first place.

So the fact that the federal government has seemingly conceded that it brought a bogus case shouldn't give anyone comfort. It should make you wonder how many dubious charges Donald Trump's prosecutors have filed so far — and how many more we'll see while he's in office.

Squabbles

We've got millions of people having to decide between paying the utility bills or the insurance premiums - putting gas in the car or food on the table - medication or mortgage - and and and.

And what's going in our "government" looks like an endless WWE promo for the next episode of one big stupid cat fight.

Sick of this shit.

Trump blasts Pirro after she refutes his claim that Reflecting Pool was damaged by vandals

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday sharply criticized U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s assessment that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction and not the work of vandals, as he claims.

Pirro’s office, in a court filing on Friday, moved to drop criminal charges against a former Olympian, David Hearn, who had been accused of deliberately damaging the pool after it underwent a renovation ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday celebration last month.

Trump, in a posting on social media, acknowledged that there “may have been some contractor difficulty” in the installation of a new pool liner. But he continues to insist “the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”

“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool,” Trump added in his post.

The dismissal was an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had previously echoed Trump’s claims and billed the prosecution as accountability for damage at a Washington landmark, a pet project of Trump. Pirro’s decision to drop the case is also a rare moment during Trump’s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him.

The president, without providing any clear new evidence, continued to allege on Saturday that the majority of the damage to the pool was caused by vandals.

Government lawyers in their 20-page court filing on Friday said that additional documents provided by the Interior Department since the indictment of Hearn show that the damage was the result of a botched installation by a contractor as well as “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”

In addition, a recent visual inspection revealed damage throughout the pool, including in the middle — where prosecutors say a vandal would not likely have attempted to peel the lining.

Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, was accused of pulling up a two-foot square piece of the pool’s lining.

“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” Pirro, a Trump appointee, said in her filing, which asked a judge to formally dismiss the case.

Pirro in the court filing also blamed the Interior Department for providing “less than fulsome information at the outset of the case.”

The filing added that had “DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment.” It was a jarring turn in position from Pirro, who claimed the government’s case was built on “tremendous evidence” when she announced the indictment against Hearn last month.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a posting on X appeared to push back against Pirro’s criticism, claiming some of the acts of vandalism were captured on video.

“We also provided the U.S. Attorney’s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for in the requested time line detailing each area of damage at the pool,” Burgum added.

Hearn’s legal team on Saturday criticized both Trump and Pirro and said it was weighing “legal remedies” on behalf of their client.

“Trump is mad at Pirro because she finally admitted what we made clear in our legal filings all along: Trump’s botched renovation was responsible for the damage — not Davey Hearn,” the legal team said in a statement. “However, her claim that she and her office were previously duped by Interior is nonsense. Starting immediately after the arraignment, our motions repeatedly proved that the administration was to blame for the Reflecting Pool failures, not Davey.”

Trump on Saturday also posted a nearly four-minute video that appears to have been taken from a security camera, in which three individuals can be seen with their hands in the pool, including one for an extended period.

The president claimed the video shows “material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see!”

It’s not clear from the video, which appears to be shot from some distance, that any vandalism occurred. Workers can also be seen standing nearby and don’t appear to notice the people sticking their hands in the water.

In May, Trump announced plans to beautify the Reflecting Pool this spring. Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded a $14.7 million no-bid contract to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor.

Atlantic Industrial Coatings did not respond to requests for comment.

Water was drained and Trump directed that the bottom be painted with what he called “American flag blue.”

But problems emerged within days of the project’s completion, with chunks of the new liner peeling off.

Trump was quick to blame vandals. And the National Park Service reported to the U.S. Park Police a June 9 incident in which it claimed a sharp knife or razor cut the pool’s new liner.

The work on the Reflecting Pool is just one of a number of projects Trump has spearheaded across the nation’s capital. Most prominently, he demolished the White House’s East Wing to build a $400 million ballroom and plans to build a towering arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The War

It can't come as any kind of surprise to anyone that Trump would jigger the numbers.

During the pandemic, when it was obvious there were a lot more cases being reported than Trump wanted to admit to, he said we should just stop testing so much.

When the jobs reports weren't to his liking, he fired the lady who was doing the reporting.

If there's a "bright side", it lies in the fact that there are good and decent professionals working in the government who know what they're doing, and who know it's ridiculously important to tell us the truth about what goes on when we're in a fuckiing war.

Pentagon reports more than 600 Iran war casualties in quiet database update

Figures are source of dispute as US defense department days ago reduced record of troops killed and wounded

The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”.

According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action.

These figures have been a point of contention after the Pentagon previously reduced the totals from 18 deaths and 482 wounded that had been recorded just days earlier.

The dispute comes after the collapse of the ceasefire with Iran and the resumption of near-daily airstrikes beginning on 6 July. Analysts and officials have questioned whether casualties from the renewed fighting should be counted separately from Operation Epic Fury, a move that would be unprecedented.

The Trump administration is seeking to classify the renewed military campaign as separate from Operation Epic Fury, the US military’s official name for the Iran conflict.

The change is tied to the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires the president to end military operations within 60 days unless Congress authorizes an extension. The Trump administration has argued that the April ceasefire with Iran paused the clock on 1 May for the conflict’s initial period. The separate casualty count beginning on 7 July follows that interpretation.

The shift became apparent earlier this week when the Pentagon’s official online list of service members killed in the ongoing Iran war did not include the four soldiers who died during renewed fighting over the weekend. Their names, however, were included in a Pentagon press release announcing the formal transfer of their remains back to the US on Wednesday.

Lawmakers from both parties have challenged the administration’s interpretation of the War Powers Act timeline.

Thomas Massie, a Republican House member from Kentucky, responded to the updated numbers in an X post, writing: “Let me explain this absurd ruse: The Pentagon is pretending there have been two Iran wars separated by a brief cease-fire.

“The reality: By going more than 90 days without congressional authorization,” the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, “IS BREAKING THE LAW and must be held accountable”.

Capt Mestyanek

Gardens Of Stone - the dialog (at about 35:50) between James Caan, James Earl Jones, and a gung ho DB Sweeney. Sweeney is arguing in favor of volunteering for Vietnam, saying the VC have nothing but bows and arrows. "How do you beat a helicopter with bows and arrows?"

James Caan rebuts with, "How're you gonna beat an enemy who's willing to fight helicopters with bows and arrows?"

If just 3½% of a population simply stand up and say no, even the most hardass regime will fall.

Erika

Turns out "Idiocracy" was actually a training film.

Tulsi's Brother

Tulsi Gabbard is not Tulsi Gabbard's brother, so I'll defend her on that point.

But - and it's a big but - the fact that her family has strong ties to the cult Science Of Identity Foundation - the cult she was raised in - should have given everybody ample reason to suspect her, especially as pertains to her obvious ties to Putin. She's exactly the kind of person susceptible to manipulation.

So while her brother's nutball behavior is his own, how are we supposed to ignore the probability that Tulsi could be just as flaky as he is - just in a different way?

We have to insist on better vetting. And yes, the Republicans get to own whatever damage she did while she was DNI, as she was confirmed with only Republican votes.

Tulsi Gabbard's brother arrested after attempting to entice kids back to his hotel room using cash and gum

Tulsi Gabbard's older brother was arrested after he allegedly tried to lure children into his Hawaii hotel room using cash and gum.

Bhakti 'Batarti' Gabbard, 55, is accused of approaching several children, including a nine-year-old boy, near the pool at a hotel in Waikīkī on July 12, according to Honolulu police.

He asked for their names, wrote them in a notebook, and offered them money and chewing gum in exchange for accompanying him to his room, witnesses told police.

The children refused and Gabbard allegedly walked away. A 42-year-old woman then reported the 'stranger danger' incident to authorities.

Gabbard was arrested on Friday afternoon and charged with second-degree custodial interference. He has not yet entered a plea.

His father, Hawaii state Sen Mike Gabbard, said the 55-year-old is suffering from a mental health episode and has been 'acting erratically.'

Gabbard was sleeping on the streets, gave his car away to a homeless person, and has been using drugs, his father said in a statement to KITV.

He was admitted to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation on a 72-hour hold while his care team and family work to determine next steps, the statement added.

Gabbard was also arrested for theft on Thursday. He appeared before a court Friday morning and pled not guilty to the charge.

He was released after the hearing and is due back in court on August 14.

No court date has yet been set for his custodial interference charge.

Gabbard has battled mental health issues for many years, but his parents claim he was 'doing well for the last 10 years,' Sen Gabbard's statement said.

His erratic behavior began several days ago 'as a result of smoking pot,' the lawmaker and his wife, Carol, claimed.

'His wife kicked him out of the house, so he's been sleeping on the streets. He gave away his car to a homeless person; lost his ID and phone and has no money,' the couple told the news outlet.

'He's renamed himself, Batarti, and also Jim Morrison Jr., as he's having delusions of being a rock star.'

The Daily Mail can reveal that just hours before the alleged hotel incident, Gabbard took to social media to promote his music career.

He urged his followers to have a 'sneak listen' of his new sound 'before it goes viral.'

'Namaste family,' he wrote. 'Super excited about getting into the Sessions recording studio tomorrow to record some life-altering music to offer to the Lord.'

He continued: 'Aloha and I welcome all of you to join me on this crazy ride Lord Krishna has in store for me. Fame and fortune is imminent, but I intend to use both to help the world discover Bhakti-yoga by using mantras in the choruses of my singles.

'Look forward to seeing you all soon at one of my shows.'

After Gabbard was released from custody Friday, a family member took him to the emergency room at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu.

During his intake, he allegedly told the doctor that a blood test would reveal that he had cocaine, ice and pot in his system.

Gabbard's wife of nearly a decade, Kimberly, has since filed a petition for a protective order, alleging that she feared for her safety.

She claimed that on July 11, the day before the incident at the hotel, that Gabbard was 'gravely disabled (psychotic break),' according to a petition reviewed by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Kimberly described how Gabbard was allegedly singing loudly on the main stage at the Ala Moana Center shopping mall, disrupted others and was forced to leave the facility by security.

She said that after the incident she tried to stop him from driving, but he got angry and refused.

A family court judge denied the petition on Friday.

His wife also claimed on the court filing that Gabbard was previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features, as well as narcissism.

Mike and Carol Gabbard have five children including Bhkati and former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

The Daily Mail has not received a response to its request for comment from Tulsi or Mike Gabbard. Calls to a phone number associated with Kimberly went unanswered.

The senator, however, told Fox News on Saturday night: 'We love him, and asked him to follow the protocol at the hospital, which he says he will do.

'We're praying for his speedy recovery, and would appreciate the prayers of others.'

Shitshow

What could be more indicative of this stoopid fuck's idea of a quality production?

Trump’s Freedom 250 stage falls apart while dancers rehearse on it — with one piece narrowly missing a performer

Video from the rehearsal shows a group of dancers freezing mid-routine as a piece from the top of the structure detaches and slams onto the stage

A portion of the main stage built for Donald Trump’s upcoming July 4th Freedom 250 celebration collapsed during a rehearsal session, nearly striking a performer.

Footage circulating on social media shows a group of dancers rehearsing their routine to music, then abruptly stop as a piece of the overhead structure breaks off from the top and falls onto the stage below.

The mishap follows weeks of complaints about the multi-day event, which attendees and critics have labeled a mess. The fair has faced persistent issues with delayed infrastructure, low attendance and poor organization from the start.

Organizers have not yet released an official statement regarding what caused the overhead piece to detach or whether the main stage will require safety inspections ahead of the scheduled July Fourth festivities.

Formally known as the Great American State Fair, the multi-week exposition on the National Mall was established by Freedom 250, a task force created by the Trump administration to lead the nation’s semiquincentennial celebrations. Critics have accused the administration of hijacking the national milestone to create a partisan, campaign-style event.

The fallout has extended to the fair’s programming and infrastructure. Several scheduled musical acts, including Martina McBride and The Commodores, pulled out of the event at the last minute after stating they were not informed of its political tone. In addition, 11 states led by Democratic governors declined to participate in the state pavilions, citing both costs and the event’s partisan nature.

Those who have attended the fair since its opening on June 24 have reported a heavily cordoned-off National Mall cluttered with half-built plywood structures, long security lines and vast stretches of empty space. Beyond a single 110-foot Ferris wheel and a scaled-down replica of a triumphal arch, the grounds have drawn heavy criticism for a lack of attractions despite massive federal funding.

The lack of public interest has reportedly infuriated Trump. According to CNN, the president became “livid” and “enraged” after being shown aerial photographs revealing sparse turnouts at the fair’s kickoff event.

White House staff quickly scrubbed the aerial photos from their social media accounts, while Trump claimed on Truth Social that the event was “packed to the brim” with “at least 45,000 people.” News estimates, however, indicated the actual crowd size was nowhere near that figure, consisting largely of administration officials and supporters in MAGA-branded attire.

The low turnout has sparked panic within the administration as Trump prepares for his primary Fourth of July address, which he has billed as a massive celebration featuring flyovers, fireworks and military bands.

White House officials now fear that empty fields will overshadow the speech. To avoid a repeat of the opening night, organizers plan to distribute tickets for the viewing section directly in front of the stage to guarantee the immediate area looks full.

Trump demanded that his White House bathroom be covered in carpet, book authors claim
White House deleted State Fair crowd photos after Trump’s meltdown
Here’s How Much A 1-Day Bathroom Remodel Costs In Denver

However, officials privately acknowledge that ticket holders may still choose not to show up, particularly with high temperatures forecasted for the outdoor event. When asked about the setbacks by The Independent, White House spokesman Davis Ingle pointed to a Truth Social post where Trump questioned whether his predecessors could have pulled off the event.

You Expected Something Else?

DOGE Cut Off Small Town America’s 250th Birthday Money

Then Trump redirected the money for his own beautification projects.

A local Ohio historical society had hoped to go big for America’s 250th anniversary. It settled on what it could afford: a limited “passport” project to encourage people to visit and engage with local history sites.

President Donald Trump wanted a splashy, ambitious and unparalleled semiquincentennial. Local libraries and historical associations across the country were instead forced to abandon planning for ambitious history and civics initiatives when his administration axed federal funding for state and local humanities projects last year.

“There’s certainly things that we could have done for America 250 if the funding was available. That just didn’t work out how we thought it could have,” said Meghan Reed, the executive director of the Trumbull County Historical Society.

In Trumbull County, Ohio, even the “passport” project had to be kept small because the historical society did not get the funds to print more booklets.

Ohio Humanities, the council that distributes federal small-dollar grants to the states’ local historical societies and community groups, was just embarking on funding history projects for the 250th when DOGE axed its funding last year. So too were the humanities councils in West Virginia, Alabama and Washington state, the leaders of all three told NOTUS.

In nearly every state and territory across the country, the official humanities nonprofits created by a congressional mandate to help make history and literature accessible to all Americans had to give up their anniversary planning when DOGE pulled their federal funding, according to people involved with the councils at both the federal and state level.

“It means that we are not able to do things that are extra, things that are bigger projects. A lot of humanities organizations would have had some incredible projects that none of us have been able to complete,” said Jessica Cyders, the executive director of the Southeast Ohio History Center, another group that could have been a candidate for a 250th anniversary Ohio Humanities grant.

“This is a pretty significant national event,” Cyders said. “Look, I’m probably not going to be alive for the 300th anniversary.”

By the time Elon Musk walked away from DOGE last year, state humanities councils were left with just enough cash to keep them from going under. Then, the Trump administration redirected tens of millions of dollars from the DOGE cuts toward the president’s plans for a triumphal arch and a statuary garden of “American heroes” in Washington, D.C. In the end, Trump’s focus on the nation’s landmark birthday made it harder for local groups across the country to plan their own celebratory projects.

“As the director of Ohio Humanities, I don’t take any sort of position about those particular projects. But what I do think is important is that Americans have access to funding and have access to history and humanities experiences in their own communities,” said Rebecca Brown Asmo, the executive director of Ohio Humanities. “And we’re missing that as a result of now a second year of this funding being held back.”

“These are taxpayer dollars that are intended to go to local communities. And right now, they’re being held back and funneled to projects in Washington, D.C.,” she said.

The state humanities councils find themselves in a situation strikingly similar to the one facing the bipartisan America250 commission created by Congress. When the Trump administration took money Congress originally intended for America250 and redirected it toward Trump’s Freedom 250 pet projects, the America250 commission had to shrink its plans and adapt to a new funding reality.

The critical difference between the two situations? While America250 is now asking Congress for more money to fill a funding shortfall, Congress has already responded to last year’s DOGE cuts by funding state humanities councils at their normal levels for the 2026 fiscal year.

The Trump administration just hasn’t dispersed those funds. As of June, the administration has only given the councils less than half of what Congress appropriated — and told them not to expect the rest, council leaders told NOTUS.

Now with the 250th anniversary just days away, the councils have been unable to fund anniversary projects. The Federation of State Humanities Councils, after a year of litigation against the Trump administration, just asked a federal judge in Oregon to declare that Trump is in violation of basic constitutional separation of powers rules by refusing to fully distribute what Congress intended.

Meanwhile,Trump’s plans for the redirected humanities funding have only grown more extravagant, expensive and time-consuming. In some cases, his projects haven’t even started.

No organization has publicly received public dollars to build statues for the “Garden of American Heroes,” a NOTUS review of federal spending and financial-assistance databases found. Several statue projects were supposed to start in October of last year and wrap up in time for the semiquincentennial.

The National Endowment for the Humanities did not respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration’s budget request for the next fiscal year claims that some grants for statues were awarded in 2026 and that more will be awarded in 2027. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

At the local level, projects of a much smaller — and less glitzy — scale have been put on ice.

“There’s not really a lot of cultural infrastructure in West Virginia. Where most of the cultural work is done is in regional centers, community centers, small museums, county historical associations. So the people who really got hurt were those small organizations across the state,” said Eric Waggoner, the head of the West Virginia Humanities Council.

The West Virginia council had planned to set aside 250th project funding for organizations of every size, from small regional museums to local libraries to West Virginia University.

“I’m sad to say we had to scrap it,” Waggoner said. “Since we’re the only organization that does this kind of grant-making in West Virginia, without us, there’s really not much.”

Congress created the humanities councils around the time of the American bicentennial in the 1970s, as one piece of the larger National Endowment for the Humanities. While the national-level NEH funds bigger civics, history and philosophy projects, the state-level councils were designed to distribute federal money to smaller-scale efforts.

“Ninety percent of our grantees tell us that we are the only place they could have gone for funding,” said Chuck Holmes, the executive director of the Alabama Humanities Alliance.

While both the state of Alabama and private donors are distributing money for Fourth of July celebrations in a range of communities, Holmes worries that very little funding has been directed toward the “deep-dive discussions about democracy and history” that he had hoped to be able to foster this year.

The Trump administration’s federal-level NEH is still funding 84 semiquincentennial projects across the country, costing $75 million. Those funds are both separate from what state councils are supposed to receive and are for significantly larger projects than any of the local community work, multiple community and state leaders told NOTUS.

And the competition for that money is steep. “Anybody and everybody” is asking the same question, Cyders said: “How do we get funding for anything related to July 4?”

Rich

87% of House Republicans have voted with Trump 100% of the time.

Blind obedience does not an Alpha make.

That's Rich

This guy's writing just gets better.

Chickens And Roosting

And one is dead, though they have it "under investigation".

Maybe it was because of the flu, and maybe they need to attribute it to something else so they don't get their asses sued off, which would be bad for morale, and very bad for the recruitment quotas.

I hate this shit.



Nearly 160 sick with flu at US air force base after Hegseth ends mandatory vaccines

Reports say Texas recruits ill from outbreak, which comes weeks after defense secretary made flu vaccine optional

An influenza outbreak has reportedly sickened more than 150 recruits in training at Lackland air force base in San Antonio, Texas.

The outbreak comes just weeks after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ended mandatory flu vaccination for the military, citing the need for bodily autonomy for servicemembers.

“We’re seizing this moment to discard any absurd overreaching mandates that only weaken our war fighting capabilities,” said Hegseth in an April social media video. “In this case that includes the universal flu vaccine and the mandate behind it.

“Your body, your faith and your convictions are not negotiable,” said Hegseth.

At least 159 recruits have fallen ill, according to the New York Times and ABC News. After Hegseth made influenza shots optional, only about 40% of recruits opted to get vaccinated, air force officials told the New York Times.

About 46% of adults were vaccinated against influenza in the 2025-26 cold season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Lackland is located inside Joint Base San Antonio, a 70,000-member installation sometimes called Military City. Recruits at Lackland live in communal settings, eating together and sleeping in dormitories. Such settings are known to be vulnerable to outbreaks of airborne illness.

It is not clear whether the recent death of a basic military trainee was related to the outbreak. Keon McDaniel died on 16 June after experiencing a “medical emergency”. The cause is under investigation, according to an air force press release.

Air force officials said recruits at Lackland had been ordered to be vaccinated against the flu as part of containment efforts, according to the Times.

A spokesperson for the Pentagon directed the Guardian to the air force press office.

The air force press office did not immediately respond.

The Fight Thing

Giving serious Idiocracy vibes.

Trump UFC fight live: Storms threaten White House event as president’s allies lavish him with 80th birthday wishes

Stage is set for Trump’s birthday bash as the president’s DC-wide makeover includes massive MMA event on the south lawn

The fight is on, but a pair of unexpected environmental threats are looming. A federal judge has rejected an attempt to block Donald Trump’s UFC cage match from taking place after a lawsuit accused the administration of a “deeply corrupt” scheme to line the pockets of his allies.

Instead, the immediate danger to the event now comes from the sky, as both severe thunderstorms and “extreme” insect swarms threaten to disrupt Sunday’s fight.

A hulking superstructure is taking over the White House lawn for Sunday’s fight, coinciding with the president’s 80th birthday and marking the first-ever private sports event held there. Crews have finished installing a 92-foot-tall “Claw” above the octagon-shaped stage for UFC’s Freedom 250, surrounded by arena-style seating and plastered with brand names and company logos, including Polymarket and Bud Light.

The event — in tandem with a White House-backed celebration of the nation’s 25th anniversary — will hold more than 4,000 people, and a nearby park is expected to hold more than 120,000 visitors for a watch party.

A federal lawsuit threatened to derail the event before it started. The last-minute lawsuit accused the administration of giving the UFC “unfettered access” to turn public landmarks into profitable billboards.

UFC committed $60 million to the event, according to court filings. The event is expected to draw multi-million dollar sponsorships as well as revenue through a broadcast agreement with Paramount +, a streaming platform operated by Trump allies.

White House officials say the UFC is covering costs for the unprecedented production, but several federal agencies have “allocated significant resources and manpower,” officials say.

Another Trump Folly

Anybody in the mid-Atlantic states with a backyard party pool coulda told this fuckin' idiot what was going to happen before they even got done filling the thing up again.

• Shallow water
• Hot humid weather
• No filter
• No circulatiing pump
• No Chlorination

And the water starts to turn gunky green the next day?

Huh. Whooda thunk it.

Trump’s $14M Reflecting Pool Project Couldn’t Stop Algae From Blooming In The DC Heat

President Donald Trump’s $14 million Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation couldn’t stop algae from blooming in the D.C. heat and turning the water a murky shade of green once again.

The unsightly hue plagued the pool just in time for an estimated 125,000 people to descend on Washington for Trump’s “Freedom 250” UFC fights on the White House lawn for his birthday on Sunday — despite work crews spreading chlorine pellets to try to deter algae growth.

The Washington Post reported that the bloom “expanded between Wednesday and Thursday amid wet and warm weather.”

Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said in a statement, “What you are seeing is residual algae from the supply lines which have been sitting dormant for eight weeks while construction has been taking place. It’s part of the normal startup process.

“We are removing the algae, and the nanobubblers will maintain the pool and keep it algae free. President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who has fixed the Reflecting Pool for good unlike the failed and extremely costly attempt by Obama and Biden.”

Whether the pool remains algae-free remains to be seen, however.

As Trump was having the pool bottom coated a shade of “American flag blue” to show off the “beautiful, clean water,” The New York Times raised concerns about what the renovation project was lacking.

According to the paper, the project ignored a “major underlying problem” with old, leaky pipes that it said would still allow algae to grow and cover up its new blue shade.

Experts told the Times that unless the underlying problem with the leaky pipes was fixed, “the algae could come back.”

“If that happens, the pool’s newly waterproofed blue floor could again be invisible under a layer of green murk,” the report said, a prediction that came true just days after the pool was refilled.

During Trump’s first term, the Park Service said, “the only solution was to replace thousands of feet of pipe. But it has still not done so,” the report said, adding, “The Trump administration has said it plans to have that work begin in the fall, but has declined to give details.”

The administration offered a no-bid contract to a Virginia company that hiked the prices from $1.8 million to $13.1 million in an effort to finish the job before the country’s birthday celebrations. The final price was closer to $14.2 million.

To help justify the cost, Trump claimed that the blue coating will last for 40 or 50 years and “there’ll be no leaks, there’ll be no anything.”

Get 'Em

Homes Etc

There's a number of reports that seem to conflict - some saying home sales are up, and the number of pending deals is up, and jobs are up, and the markets are up, and all kinds of happy talk stories, while at the same time, Americans are going deeper into debt trying to pay the bills, and US Treasury bonds aren't selling well.

Debt struggles are hitting consumers at all income levels - it’s a ‘tipping point...’

Americans are ‘entrenched’ in financial stress amid debt and price pressures

Car payments squeeze Americans as auto debt hits $1.68 trillion, report finds

It's weird and getting weirder.

Sellers are pulling homes off the market at the fastest pace since 2020

Key Points

• Nationwide, 5.8% of all home listings were pulled off the market in April, according to Redfin.
• Delistings were up 3.8% compared with March.
• Atlanta saw the most homes taken off the market as higher mortgage rates and elevated gas prices weigh on housing.

More frustrated home sellers were giving up, right in the midst of the all-important spring market, according to new data.

Nationwide, 5.8% of all home listings were pulled off the market in April, according to Redfin, a real estate brokerage. That ties with December for the highest share of homes delisted since March 2020, when the pandemic hit and the housing market froze. Delistings in April were up 3.8% compared with March.

The increase comes as higher mortgage rates, elevated gas prices and weaker consumer confidence take their toll on housing demand. Sellers are no longer in the driver’s seat and aren’t getting the prices they want.

Atlanta saw the highest share of homes come off the market in April, with 1 in 10 delisted. San Jose, California, followed with roughly 9% pulled, then Los Angeles (7.8%), Dallas (7.8%) and Seattle (7.7%).

Mortgage rates had been falling at the start of this year, with the 30-year fixed briefly touching the 5% range at the end of February, according to Mortgage News Daily. They then jumped sharply when the war with Iran started and have remained elevated since then.

“Buyers know they have negotiating power, often offering under the asking price and completing inspections, but some sellers just won’t budge,” said Patricia Ammann, a Redfin agent, in a release.

Home prices have been easing, but are still higher than they were a year ago and have even begun to strengthen more recently.

“Markets that depend more heavily on traditional mortgage financing and rate-sensitive buyers are seeing prices stay relatively flat,” said Selma Hepp, chief economist at Cotality, in a release. “Overall, fewer markets posted year-over-year price declines in April than in prior months, pointing to continued stabilization across the housing market.”

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Signed contracts on existing homes, so-called pending sales, did rise very slightly in April, up 1.4% from March, according to the National Association of Realtors. That is likely due to higher inventory, which was up nearly 6% from March.

Listings in some parts of the country are starting to pile up, as new ones come on the market and other ones sit. Homes are sitting on the market longer, causing some buyers to simply give up as the all-important spring season draws to a close.

Some homeowners who pulled their homes off the market over the past year relisted them in April, according to Redfin, hoping to take advantage of the spring market, despite higher mortgage rates. The report found 2.5% of the homes on the market in April were relistings, tied with the prior two months for the highest share since mid-2020 when there was a sudden surge in housing demand.