Fri
Feb 7 2025
10:55 pm

Trump said in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt last month that he intended to fire Shogan, saying: “We will have a new archivist.”

The National Archives played a key role in the criminal case against Trump, alerting the Justice Department in 2022 that Trump had potentially mishandled classified documents after the president failed to return records that the agency had requested, something presidents are required to do after departing office.

Trump dismisses head of the National Archives

Fri
Feb 7 2025
04:51 pm
By: bizgrrl

The president will attend the gladiatorial contests on Sunday. The first U.S. president to interfere in the Super Bowl. Eleven presidents have held office since the first Super Bowl, none have attended the game.

Hail, Caesar! There's a new dictator in town.

Fri
Feb 7 2025
11:39 am

Sandra Clark said a year and a half ago,
"So why has East Tennessee elected a man who holds hearings on Bigfoot and UFOs, wears barnyard clothes to stand out and hangs with the loony fringe?"

It's gets better...
In a now deleted Facebook post,
"Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett has inquired with University of Tennessee System President Randy Boyd about a “Furry Club” at the university’s Knoxville Campus."
...
“The fact that ⁦the University of Tennessee even has a furry club is alarming. This isn’t the University of Tennessee that I know. Let’s leave that for the University of Texas,” Burchett wrote in the post."

However, he's not concerned that...

...the U.S. Military Academy at West Point ordering a dozen extracurricular and social clubs centered on gender, race and ethnicity to immediately
cease all activities.” Some of the clubs affected included the Society of Women Engineers and the National Society of Black Engineers Club.

February 5, 2025, updated 2:14 PM.
"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip," Trump said in a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We'll own it ... We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal ... the Riviera of the Middle East."

February 5, 2025, updated 10:20PM
Trump aides defend Gaza takeover proposal but walk back some elements.
"At a White House briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt hailed his Gaza proposal as historic "outside of the box" thinking but stressed that the president had not committed to putting "boots on the ground" in the territory. She declined, however, to rule out the use of U.S. troops there.
At the same time, Leavitt walked back Trump's earlier assertion that Gazans needed to be permanently resettled in neighboring countries, saying instead that they should be "temporarily relocated" for the rebuilding process."

February 6, 2025, 5:32AM
Gaza_20240206.jpg

Where all of those college student protesters now? Are they not concerned about the Palestinians getting kicked out of their country? They hurt Harris in the 2024 election. Are they afraid of Trump? Were they organized just to hurt Harris?

Fri
Feb 7 2025
06:51 am

The Treasury Department has given Elon Musk and representatives of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team access to the vast federal payment system responsible for handling trillions of dollars in government expenditures...

Now...

Thirteen attorneys general, including New York’s Letitia James, said in a statement that they were taking action “in defense of our Constitution, our right to privacy, and the essential funding that individuals and communities nationwide are counting on.”

“As the richest man in the world, Elon Musk is not used to being told ‘no,’ but in our country, no one is above the law,” the statement said. “The President does not have the power to give away our private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress.”

Joining [Letitia] James [New York attorney general] in the statement were the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.

UPDATE: The state attorney generals filed the lawsuit Friday, 2/8/2025. Now, 19 states are on the lawsuit.
In addition to New York, also on the lawsuit are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, and Wisconsin were added to the lawsuit after my initial post at 6:51 AM this morning.

Thankfully there are some areas in this country with a belief in our constitution and our rights.

Thu
Feb 6 2025
06:56 am

“Speaking of Greenland, there’s a question for you that I want to pose. What is the difference between Greenland and Donald Trump? Greenland is not for sale,” joked Sen. Amy Klobuchar
(D-Minn)
...

Thu
Feb 6 2025
06:43 am

The City of Sevierville is threatening legal action against an RV rental company, [Camping World], in Kodak for an American flag they say is too tall for its zoning area.
...
“I’ve had this flag in my family, since I was a little child. I was born in a foreign country, I had the blessing of being here in the United States where I can have a business and have employees,” said Lemonis. “This is my way to pay respect, not only the veterans of this country, but current and active military, and everybody else who just loves the country.”

He could pay respect by being a part of the community. What if everyone decided they should do whatever they want because they say they are "respecting" whatever?

“If we have a client come in and they’re married and they say that they’re going to harm their spouse, if this bill were to pass, we’re not allowed to ask, ‘Do you have firearms in the home?'” she told News 2. “If they are suicidal, we’re not allowed to ask questions about firearms. If we’re working with a teenager and they begin to talk about feelings of wanting to take things out on other people in the school and making threats, we can’t ask about firearms. It severely limits our ability to conduct our fiduciary duties of duty to warn.”

Protecting constitutional rights and public safety: Bill would prohibit doctors from asking about firearm ownership

Jacobs — an atmospheric scientist with a background in computer forecasting — led the agency on an acting basis during Trump’s first term. He was the chief in the chair during the so-called “Sharpiegate” weather scandal in 2019, when Trump drew with a Sharpie on a Hurricane Dorian track to suggest it would hit Alabama, contradicting the official federal forecast.

At the time, Jacobs and other top NOAA officials were ordered by the White House to double down on Trump’s false claim, which they ultimately did. A subsequent investigation into the incident found Jacobs had violated NOAA’s code of ethics.

I am surprised at this small number of staff....

There are 12 people who work in the National Hurricane Center’s specialist forecasting unit

Life-saving weather warnings are on the line as Trump and DOGE target America’s forecasting agency

Tue
Feb 4 2025
09:35 am

The Constitution, not that it seems to matter much these days, could not be clearer. Congress possesses the power of the purse. It alone controls how much of taxpayers’ money to spend, and on what. Spending is paramount among its enumerated powers: “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.”

The president’s job is to “take care” that these laws are “faithfully executed.” That means overseeing the spending of the money that lawmakers have appropriated.
...
Trump’s nominee to take the helm at OMB permanently, Russell Vought, ... believes the Impoundment Control Act, the 1974 federal law outlining how the president and Congress should handle spending disputes, is an unconstitutional encroachment on presidential power.
...
Trump, during the campaign, pledged to “do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court, and if necessary, get Congress to overturn it.”

The Impoundment Control Act was the outgrowth of a series of spending disputes between President Richard M. Nixon and Congress. Among other things, Nixon refused to spend merely half the money allocated to sewage treatment after Congress overrode his veto of the Clean Water Act — how quaintly targeted, in light of Trump’s broad order.

Nixon was forced to resign as President. We can hope the same happens to Trump

Tue
Feb 4 2025
08:48 am

Maryville Police officers ended January with a literal bang, responding to an accidental shooting at Gunny’s, 2208 East Broadway Avenue, on Friday.

According to the police report, officers arrived at the local gun range at 12:39 p.m. and found a 67-year-old [man], holding pressure to a small entry wound near his right upper thigh. [The man] reportedly told officers that the weapon had discharged into his leg when he went to holster it.

This isn't the first time someone shot themselves at Gunny’s gun store in Maryville. It also happened on March 22, 2023.

Hmmmm... What does this say about the kinds of people that like to carry guns?

Topics:

“This is a five alarm fire,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on social media.

“The people elected Donald Trump to be President ― not Elon Musk,” she continued. “Having an unelected billionaire, with his own foreign debts and motives, raiding US classified information is a grave threat to national security.”

Democratic members of Congress were denied entry Monday to the U.S. Agency for International Development, after billionaire Elon Musk, empowered by President Donald Trump, worked to close the nation’s humanitarian arm.
...
“We are not going to let this injustice happen. Congress created this agency with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and if you want to change it, you got to change that law,” Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia...

Say what!!!!

Mon
Feb 3 2025
07:23 am

USTreas_DataBeach20250203.jpg

SKBubba Bluesky

The Treasury Department has given Elon Musk and representatives of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team access to the vast federal payment system responsible for handling trillions of dollars in government expenditures, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The payment system -- which is essentially a checkbook for the entire federal government -- is a closely held operation run by career officials, with a limited number of people authorized to access the information given it contains sensitive information about hundreds of millions of Americans.
...
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said that any "politically-motivated meddling" in the payment systems "risks severe damage to our country and the economy."

UPDATE, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025: A federal judge early Saturday temporarily restricted access by Elon Musk’s government efficiency program to the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems, saying there was a risk of “irreparable harm.”

Mon
Feb 3 2025
06:50 am

Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth
There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
A-telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down

Mon
Feb 3 2025
06:45 am
By: bizgrrl

Import tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. The American people will pay more for products imported from these countries.

Economists across the political spectrum expect tariffs to increase what consumers pay for a range of goods, including vehicles, electronics, produce and lumber.

The president "said Sunday that Americans could feel “some pain” from the emerging trade war triggered by his tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, and claimed that Canada would “cease to exist” without its trade surplus with the United States."
...
“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” Trump said in a social media post. “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

Sun
Feb 2 2025
11:39 am


Parkland, Florida, high school shooting survivor David Hogg
won his bid to become one of three vice chairs during the Democratic National Committee election on Saturday.

“David Hogg represents exactly the kind of bold, dynamic and courageous leadership our party needs right now,” [Tim] Walz wrote on social media earlier this month. “He has a unique ability to connect with the American people and to speak to the strengths of our party. I couldn’t be happier to support him for DNC vice chair.

“I’m proud to endorse David Hogg for DNC vice chair because he has proven himself as one of the most fearless and effective organizers of his generations,” Eric Swalwell wrote online Friday.

Leaders from the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers also threw their support behind Hogg.

Someone to admire. I hope he does well.

Sun
Feb 2 2025
10:59 am
By: Mark Harmon

Here is the video of the Feb. 1, 2025, legislative forum. It says a lot about our state and our legislators.

Here

“It’s alarming that Elon Musk is attempting to gain access to the Federal Government’s critical payment system, which is responsible for delivering Social Security checks, tax refunds, and Medicare benefits to Americans across the country,” Warren said in a statement provided to CNN. “It is equally alarming that Musk and the Trump Administration drove out the most senior career official at Treasury as the agency is already taking extraordinary measures to avoid a US default.”

How an arcane Treasury Department office became ground zero in the war over federal spending

Sat
Feb 1 2025
07:03 am

Candace Parker and Peyton Manning, country crooners Tim and Faith McGraw and former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and First Lady Chrissy Haslam are pitching to bring a WNBA team to Nashville. The team will be the Tennessee Summitt.

Excellent!

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