Oy

All these big bad alpha male Republicans sure act like a buncha whiny-butt little pussies when things don't go exactly the way they want.

Is This A Bad Time?

Where all my ammosexuals at?

Told Ya

They intend to come for it all.

Blanche assures anti-abortion supporters that Dobbs will be ‘permanent in every single state’

The acting attorney general made the remarks during a private call with faith leaders.

As his confirmation to lead the Justice Department hung by a thread last week, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told faith leaders on a private call that he was preparing to take action to roll back abortion access nationwide.

On a recording of the call posted online Thursday by the religious group Intercessors for America and hosted by the White House Faith Office, Blanche lamented that the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict abortion are “taking longer than we want” but said the Justice Department was “working hand in hand” with federal health agencies and the White House “so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the federal abortion protections of Roe v. Wade and allowed states to either ban or protect the procedure, created a national patchwork of access. To the consternation of abortion opponents, the number of abortions has increased since then despite dozens of states enacting restrictions.

“We don’t have complete victory yet, but we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and and and it will be permanent,” Blanche vowed.

In addition to those broad pronouncements, Blanche appeared to suggest specific restrictions were coming on telehealth prescription and mail delivery of abortion pills, saying the administration is “putting practices and policies in place” to stop shipment of the medications to states where they are banned.

Blanche’s remarks — made days before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Tuesday morning vote on his nomination — go far beyond the actions on abortion he promised during his confirmation hearing. They also conflict with promises President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail to keep the federal government from enforcing restrictions on the pills.

Asked to explain what Blanche meant by “victory” and by making the high court decision “permanent in every single state,” the Justice Department said his comments were made solely “with respect to mail order abortion drugs” and did not elaborate further.

On the call, Blanche referenced the increase in blue-state doctors operating under shield laws prescribing the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol to patients living under bans and mailing the medications across state lines, and he promised to put a stop to the practice.

“If states have said, ‘We are going to protect the unborn and we’re going to protect every life from the moment of conception,’ we’re putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations can’t attack that,” he said. “They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs.”

Blanche did not tell the religious activists on the call whether he planned to block patients’ access to the pills using Food and Drug Administration drug safety regulations or the Comstock Act — a 150-year-old, long-dormant anti-obscenity law that some anti-abortion activists and elected officials have pushed as a tool for cutting off access to all drugs and surgical instruments used for abortion.

The distinction is meaningful. The FDA is considering reimposing restrictions on mifepristone, one of two pills needed to terminate a pregnancy. It is not looking at doing the same for the second pill, misoprostol, which is also widely used for treating ulcers and other health issues. Should the agency decide to cut off telehealth prescription and mail delivery of mifepristone, doctors and activists have contingency plans to continue prescribing and mailing misoprostol, which can cause an abortion on its own.

Invoking the Comstock Act, however, could block patients’ access to both pills through the mail throughout the U.S., though how the government would enforce the 1873 law to stop postal delivery of the medications to private homes remains unclear.

The Biden administration’s Justice Department in 2022 asserted that doctors could not be prosecuted for mailing abortion pills under the Comstock Act, arguing that since both pills are legal in every state for non-abortion purposes — such as treating miscarriages and postpartum bleeding — it wasn’t possible to prove that they were being mailed for an illicit purpose.

The Trump administration has yet to formally overrule that legal opinion. A Justice Department spokesperson said Monday that the opinion is now undergoing “a thorough review.”

When running for president in 2024, Trump angered anti-abortion groups by vowing not to use the Comstock Act to restrict access to abortion pills and arguing that “the federal government should have nothing to do with this issue.”

Blanche’s promises of imminent action to the activists on the call conflict with that pledge and surpass what the nominee said publicly in his confirmation hearing in mid-July.

Under questioning by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other GOP committee members, Blanche agreed to “carefully evaluate every lawful action available to ensure the faithful enforcement of the Comstock Act,” but did not commit to any particular enforcement steps.

Blanche was also pressed multiple times during the hearing on the administration’s ongoing legal battle with Louisiana over mail-order abortion pills. In the leadup to the hearing, he faced demands from some conservative senators on the Judiciary Committee for a promise to settle the case — a move that could also lead to nationwide restrictions on mail delivery of the drugs. But he demurred when GOP senators pushed him publicly, saying: “I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about our litigation strategy here.”

In the leadup to September, when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear Louisiana’s case against the FDA, anti-abortion activists have railed against the Trump administration for siding with the FDA over the conservative state in a case that could determine who can access mifepristone and how.

Blanche suggested in his confirmation hearing that the FDA’s ongoing review of mifepristone’s safety — which more than 100 peer-reviewed studies have confirmed — could give the administration the ammunition it needs to side with Louisiana in rolling back telehealth access to the drugs.

“We have to have studies that we can defend in court,” he said. “We have to be able to say to a judge … that our change was not arbitrary or capricious.”

During the White House Faith Office call last week, Blanche told the religious activists he shared their values and concerns, calling himself “a preacher’s kid.” He also apologized for being late, saying he was “updating President Trump on a few things, and when he calls, I answer.”

The acting attorney general’s conversation with Trump appears to have taken place just hours after the president publicly mused about pulling Blanche’s nomination and instead trying to push through a fund that could be used to compensate Jan. 6 rioters and others who claim to have been persecuted by the Biden administration.

Announcements at the beginning and end of the Intercessors for America call stated that it was “not intended for press purposes.” A speaker told attendees that the call was “not on the record” and directed any journalists on the line to hang up.

POLITICO was not on the call on Thursday when it took place and did not agree to any limits on reporting. Audio of the session was posted on YouTube by Intercessors for America, which calls itself “the largest national prayer ministry dedicated to praying for our government and leaders.”

As of Monday, the recording remained publicly accessible.

Breathe

Dr Jess

Erika Jordan

I get it - pass the popcorn

Overheard

• Data centers are bot farms
• Bot farms can manipulate opinion
• Manipulated opinion can sway elections
• Billionaires are in a big hurry to build data centers

Questions?

Belle

Mr Global

The Dirty Fuels Cartel cares nothing for silly things like governments, or national borders, or the lives of ordinary people who they believe can only do small things for them.

And in case you needed reminding, no - there is no honor among thieves.

Inside The Secret Russian-Iranian Military-Energy-Pipeline Laundering Machine

• Russian and Iranian crude is being blended into Kazakhstan’s CPC oil exports, allowing sanctioned barrels to reach Europe under Kazakh documentation.
• Discounted Iranian oil is financing Russian military supplies to Tehran, including missiles and surveillance technology, through an alleged oil-for-arms arrangement.
• Russia and Iran are reportedly preparing to exploit the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from 2027, potentially routing 600,000–750,000 bpd through the corridor to circumvent Western sanctions.

As has been proven time and time again in multiple scenarios: ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way around any sanctions’ and, despite looming deadlines to end all Russian oil and gas imports -- with promises to keep reducing them before that -- the European Union (EU) appears to be continuing to play a sanctions-skirting game with Moscow. Under the strict terms of Regulation (EU) 2026/261, a hard legal cliff drops on 1 January 2027, completely banning all long-term Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, followed by a total phase-out of remaining piped gas and crude exemptions by the end of that same year. On paper, the West’s regulatory chokehold on the Kremlin’s war machine in Ukraine is reaching its absolute zenith. In reality, however, a massive, highly sophisticated infrastructure back door has been swung wide open for Russia and Iran to exploit, but which keeps European grids alive through a toxic, sanctions-busting military-energy swap between Moscow and Tehran.

In terms of Russian crude oil exports continuing to be transported specifically via pipeline to Europe -- which the EU has committed to completely phase out by 31 December 2027 -- the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) is the primary, active corridor through which the EU effectively evades its own sanctions framework, and that of the U.S., as managed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). While the EU has officially banned seaborne imports of Russian crude, the ‘CPC Blend’ crude oil stream -- which terminates at and ships from the Russian port of Novorossiysk -- was granted a specific legal exemption by Brussels on 3 June 2022. This carve-out was justified on the grounds that the underlying volumes originate in Kazakhstan. Since that date, annual throughput of this supposedly Kazakh-only crude oil has surged from 52 million metric tonnes -- around 1.04 million barrels per day (bpd) -- to a record-breaking 72 million metric tonnes: a massive 38.5% increase. However, over that period, Kazakhstan’s actual domestic oil production has grown less than 2%, with its true crude oil output this year having fallen significantly due to operational disruptions and strict OPEC+ quota limits. According to a very senior EU source in its energy security complex exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com last week, the huge discrepancy between the crude oil volume rise in the CPC over the period and Kazakhstan’s own oil output volume over the period represents the active ‘ghost volume’ where a heavily discounted cocktail of Russian crude -- mixed with Iranian oil -- is being quietly blended and laundered straight to European destinations completely outside the G7-monitored Russian shadow fleet.

This is not merely an energy laundering operation -- it is a direct, infrastructure-backed financing mechanism for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its terrorist proxies around the world. Deeply embedded in the trade is Khatam al-Anbiya, the engineering and industrial wing of the IRGC, alongside the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Because Tehran cannot easily conduct transactions via Western financial networks, for reasons fully analysed in my latest book on the new global oil market order, it is allocating massive tranches of crude directly to the IRGC and its proxies to cover expenses and to pay Moscow for advanced Russian military hardware and software. This includes specialised air-to-air missiles, ‘Verba’ man-portable air-defence systems and real-time Russian orbital surveillance and satellite data that directly aids the IRGC in tracking Western and regional military installations, among many others. According to the EU source, this Iranian crude is transferred to Russia at a staggering discount of 35% to 42%, and then seamlessly integrated into Russia’s domestic pipeline matrix via a rapidly expanding fleet of non-aligned tankers in the secure, unmonitored waters of the Caspian Sea. It is then pushed into the CPC network under forged Kazakh certificates.

As devastating as this active CPC loophole is for Western policy credibility, things are set to become much worse. With Russia (and therefore Iran) facing an imminent capacity crunch as the EU’s statutory 31 December 2027 phase-out date approaches, the EU source highlights that Moscow and Tehran are organising a clandestine operational pivot to integrate the highly strategic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline into this exact Russian-Iranian-Kazakh mix. To lay the groundwork for this upcoming shift, Moscow, Tehran, and Astana are already utilising the public corporate media to build a plausible cover story. The official press release frames this as a purely commercial diversification strategy by state energy giant KazMunayGas (KMG) to mitigate the ‘geopolitical instability’ of the Russian-controlled CPC route. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s energy ministry director of oil transportation and refining, Daulet Arykbayev, stated on 1 October that Kazakhstan aims to increase its crude supply through the BTC pipeline, which runs from Azerbaijan to Turkey, to 7 million metric tons per year (mtpy). To put that into context, Kazakhstan exported 1.2 million mtpy of oil via the BTC in 2025 and around 700,000 metric tons in the first half of this year, according to KazTransOil.

“That’s clearly a huge increase -- more than five-fold -- from a country whose domestic oil production is declining, and which never sent anywhere near that amount through the BTC,” said the EU source. “We believe this sudden, aggressive pivot to the BTC corridor starting in February [2027] is specifically timed to act as the primary, next-generation relief valve for the heavily discounted Russian-Iranian military-energy swap,” he told OilPrice.com. Indeed, the clandestine blueprint centred on the Northern Corridor -- the trans-Caspian land and sea route that physically links Iran and Russia through the Caspian Sea, connecting them directly into the South Caucasus transit grid -- aims to pump a staggering 600,000 to 750,000 bpd through the BTC by March-April 2027. That is a volume equivalent to nearly half of Kazakhstan’s entire OPEC+ national production quota, which is currently locked at 1.628 million bpd. “Kazakhstan’s target is highly improbable, given existing infrastructure limits, meaning the massive deficit can only be met by the illicit introduction of heavily discounted oil from the Russian-Iranian crude swap,” he concluded.

Ultimately, the upcoming February 2027 pipeline pivot exposes the official Western sanctions timeline as little more than political theatre. As the front doors to Russian and Iranian energy are legally bolted shut, the infrastructure of the South Caucasus is being systematically re-engineered to absorb the overflow. For global oil markets, the message is clear: the volume will always find a way to flow. By the time the EU officially celebrates its total detachment from Russian crude at the end of 2027, the illicit, heavily discounted flows running through Ceyhan will have already become the global market’s worst-kept and most lucrative open secret.

Oops

It's not unreasonable to worry - a lot actually - about the nefarious intent of the Trumplefucks, but so far, the saving grace has been that they're just not very good at actually doing the shitty things they want to do. That, plus the fact that they have so much money to throw at their problems, they seem pretty willing to pile some of it in a random driveway and set fire to it.

GOP Group Spends Thousands to Help Susan Collins—in Wrong Portland

The people of Portland, Oregon, were probably very confused about why they were being flooded with information about the Maine Senate race.

A Republican super PAC sent at least $20,000 to Portland, Oregon, in support of Senator Susan Collins’s reelection campaign. Collins is a senator from Maine.

This multithousand-dollar gaffe was made by the Defending Main Street Super PAC Inc, which sent a commercial calling Collins’s Democratic opponent Troy Jackson “taxin’ Troy Jackson.” Too bad virtually none of the people who will see it can vote in that election.

Republican Main Street Partnership President Sarah Chamberlain told NBC News Monday she was “absolutely furious” and blamed the ad buyer, Cross Screen Media, for a “ridiculous” error.

“The buyers made a mistake on one of the placements. It’s down now and they’re running it in Portland, Maine,” Chamberlain said. “It has nothing to do with us. I would never run an ad in Portland, Oregon, for Susan Collins, for Christ’s sake.”

Collins certainly could’ve used that money, as multiple polls have the incumbent slightly behind Jackson in the upcoming November election.