Democrat News

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For months, we had to endure the whining about the price of eggs, among other things. Then for weeks, we had to contend with the false claims that the Orange Felon lowered the price of eggs.

Well, The Orange Felon’s great eggscapade isn’t all that it cracked up to be. Egg prices are going back up and the Orange Felon has no one to blame but himself:

First it was the avian flu outbreak, and now it is tariffs that are causing egg prices to rise.

Vital Farms Inc, which bills itself as the top U.S. brand of pasture-raised eggs, said Thursday that while it was relatively insulated from the tariffs announced by the Trump administration, it won’t be totally immune.

The tariffs will raise costs by increasing prices of various commodities, including steel, and could also affect the purchasing behavior of its customers, the company said.

“We’ve announced to our retailer partners a modest, low-double-digit percentage-price increase for our shell-egg products that will go into effect this month,” Chief Executive Russell Diez-Canseco said, according to a FactSet transcript of the company’s earnings call with analysts.

In other words, The Orange Felon just FAFOed himself! He lost a talking point and it’s all his own damn fault! It is to laugh! The yolk’s on him!

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This may be great news for people with disabilities. I hate that NaziMusk is involved.

The company is taking early steps to enable people to control their iPhones with neural signals captured by a new generation of brain implants. It could make Apple devices more accessible to tens of thousands of people who can’t use their hands because of severe spinal cord injuries or diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

Apple is looking forward to a day, still some years away, when implants developed by Elon Musk’s Neuralink and its rivals receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Such implants, known as brain computer interfaces, have already been safely placed in a handful of patients.

Will Elon Musk take total control?

Will he have access?

And then there’s the bugs, er, I mean, the features:

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump met Wednesday with Syria’s new leader, praising him as a “young, attractive guy” and urging him to rid his country of “Palestinian terrorists.”

Trump also urged Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa to sign onto the historic Abraham Accords brokered during Trump’s first term.

The meeting in Riyadh came as Trump concluded the Saudi Arabian leg of his Middle Eastern trip and headed to Qatar, the second destination of what has so far been an opulence-heavy tour of the region.

The meeting with Al-Sharaa, which lasted roughly half an hour and was the first time in a quarter of a century that the leaders of the two nations have met, marks a significant victory for Al-Sharaa’s fledgling government, coming one day after Trump’s decision to lift long-standing sanctions from the war-ravaged country.

It also lends legitimacy to a leader whose past as an Al Qaeda-affiliated jihadi leader — Al-Sharaa severed ties with the group in 2016 — had made Western nations keep him at arm’s length.

The sanctions were imposed on Syria in 2011, when the now-deposed President Bashar Assad began a brutal crackdown to quell anti-government uprisings.

Al-Sharaa headed an Islamist rebel coalition that toppled Assad in December, but the Trump administration and other Western governments conditioned the lifting of sanctions on his government fulfilling certain conditions.

Yet as is his custom, Trump cut through protocol and relied on personal relations, lifting the sanctions at the urging of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a long-time supporter of Syria’s rebellion, who joined the meeting via phone.

Speaking on Air Force One en route to Qatar, Trump described Al-Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”

“He’s got a real shot at holding it together,” Trump added. “I spoke with President Erdogan, who is very friendly with him. He feels he’s got a shot of doing a good job. It’s a torn-up country.”

Syrians gather at Umayyad Square in Damascus to celebrate after Trump announced Tuesday he will lift all U.S. sanctions on Syria.

(Bakr Al Kasem / Anadolu via Getty Images)

According to a readout shared by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on X, Trump urged Al-Sharaa to sign onto the Abraham Accords, tell “foreign terrorists” to leave Syria and deport “Palestinian terrorists,” help the U.S. in preventing Islamic State’s resurgence and assume responsibility for detention centers in northeast Syria housing thousands of people affiliated with Islamic State.

The Abraham Accords were the centerpiece of Trump’s foreign policy achievements in his first term. Brokered in 2020, they established diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — without conditioning them on Palestinian statehood or Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.

Under Assad, Syria maintained a decades-old truce with Israel, despite hosting several Palestinian factions and allowing Iran and affiliated groups to operate in the country.

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The Trump sycophants on Fox’s The Five prove once again that there’s nothing too vile or toxic that this administration can do that they won’t defend.

Here’s the mind-numbing exchange from the end of this Tuesday’s show, where co-host Marie Harf asked the rest of the panel what they thought of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking his grandchildren for a swim in water with warnings of danger from high levels of bacteria.

Here’s to hoping Watters and Pavlich join him every single week for a swim in that water. If we’re lucky they might all end up with E.coli, hepatitis and maybe a skin infection to boot that the makeup people can’t hide at Fox so it keeps their rotten lying asses off of the air for a while.

The “party of family values” is now defending a whack job endangering his grandkids. This is what the Republican party and their propagandists enabling them have become.

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During the segment on Fox News’ The Five, the panel discussed the harrowing incidents at Newark Airport and the issues facing the FAA, and air traffic controllers when co-host Greg Gutfeld veered off and reminded their viewers Sean Duffy’s qualification for being Transportation secretary was being on the tv show, Real World.

Jesse Watters was not expecting this question and just broke out laughing because he had no response queued up to defend Duffy’s appointment.

WATTERS: It’s pretty bad at Newark, at least.

GUTFELD: You know, Jesse, Sean Duffy, obviously a veteran of real world San Francisco.

How does the experience from being on real world San Francisco translate into this job?

WATTERS: San Francisco, you say?

GUTFELD: Yes.

WATTERS:Well, he’s following up for Mayor Pete.

I don’t know…

(Cue laughter)

Duffy’s only requirement for the job is to blame President Biden for every issue confronting the Trump administration. His other qualification was to defend Trump on television.

Marie Harf explained earlier that Trump was president during COVID and could have tried to fix the problems within the FAA, but didn’t.

It’s no coincidence that the problems at our airports began cropping up as soon as Trump took office and started cutting jobs throughout the federal government with no forethought.

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Even Trump gal pal and special presidential adviser Laura Loomer knows the $400 million “gift” from Qatar to her beloved is a bribe. “I would take a bullet for him,” she wrote, but “We cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.”

Apparently, she’s just not connected enough to God. At least, that’s what the self-described MAGA prophet and all-around hate monger Hank Kunneman would seem to think.

Right Wing Watch caught Kunneman defending Trump’s “gift” on Monday:

“You’re never going to please everybody,” Kunneman said, “and I believe it’s just a sign, again, of just God’s favor.”

More likely, it’s a sign of Trump’s coming favors to Qatar.

Kunneman went on to claim that the “liberal media” would have gushed had Qatar given President Joe Biden such a gift. Yeah, that definitely would have happened – not.

“But no, because Trump is, his name’s attached to it, oh, everybody’s having a freak out,” Kunneman continued.

Next, Kunneman compared Trump’s plane to Jesus getting a new donkey. According to Right Wing Watch, this is a reference to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as per the gospels. “I’m sure some people were upset when they saw the one donkey coming in. ‘Oh my gosh. I can’t believe that Jesus is having a new donkey.’ You know, there’s always somebody that has to criticize and yet God wants to bless,” Kunneman said.

Sure, just the same.

“I think it’s a sign into our country that we are in a great spot right now,” Kunneman added. “We’re going to continue to see more and more things like this coming.”

Unfortunately, he probably got that last part right.

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SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2025-26 revised budget proposal reneges on his signature policy to provide free healthcare coverage to all low-income undocumented immigrants as costs exceed expectations and the state anticipates challenging economic times ahead.

Newsom’s office said the governor’s spending plan, which will be released late Wednesday morning, calls for requiring all undocumented adults to pay $100 monthly premiums to receive Medi-Cal coverage and for blocking all new adult applications to the program as of Jan. 1.

The cost share will reduce the financial burden on the state and could lower the total number of people enrolled in the healthcare program if some immigrants cannot afford the new premiums. Freezing enrollment may prevent the price tag of the program from continuing to balloon after more people signed up for coverage than the state anticipated.

The governor’s office said the changes will save a combined $5.4 billion through 2028-29, but did not detail the cost savings in the upcoming fiscal year that begins July 1.

Newsom is expected Wednesday to project a deficit for California in the fiscal year ahead, which includes higher than expected Medi-Cal costs, and more significant shortfall estimates in the following years. In the current budget year, the governor and lawmakers approved a $2.8-billion appropriation and took out a separate $3.4-billion loan just to pay for extra expenses for Medi-Cal through June.

The rising costs have drawn criticism from Republicans and added pressure on Democrats to consider scaling back coverage for immigrants. A recent poll found strong support among California voters for offering free healthcare to undocumented children. Just over half of voters supported providing the healthcare to eligible immigrants 50 years old or above, and a plurality — 49% — favored providing the coverage to adults between the ages of 18 and 49.

Medi-Cal, the California offshoot of the federal Medicaid program, provides healthcare coverage to eligible low-income residents. After the Republican Congress this year passed a budget blueprint that includes billions of dollars in spending reductions, fears also persist that cuts to federal Medicaid funding may be looming.

California became the first state in the nation to offer healthcare to all income-eligible immigrants one year ago after the expansion was approved by Newsom and the Democratic-led Legislature.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed a bill in 2015 that offered Medi-Cal coverage to all children younger than 19.

Newsom grew the Medi-Cal coverage pool to include all income-eligible immigrants in California under a multiyear expansion by age categories that began in 2020 and concluded in 2024.

California’s new budget shortfall comes in addition to $27.3 billion in financial remedies, including $16.1 billion in cuts and a $7.1-billion withdrawal from the state’s rainy day fund, that lawmakers and the governor already agreed to make in 2025-26.

The deficit marks the third year in a row that Newsom and lawmakers have been forced to reduce spending after dedicating more money to programs than the state has available to spend. Poor projections, the high price tag of Democratic policy promises and a reluctance to make long-term sweeping cuts have added to the deficit at a time when the governor regularly touts California’s place as the fourth-largest economy in the world.

On Tuesday afternoon, Newsom’s office said President Trump’s tariff policies have also hurt California’s financial standing and projected that the state will lose out on $16 billion in revenue from January 2025 through June 2026 because of the levies on imported goods and the effect of economic uncertainty on the stock market.

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Ed Martin, the extremist whack job who is so crazy, even Trump couldn’t get him confirmed as D.C.’s U.S. Attorney, has instead been named as the head of the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group.” He says he plans to “name” and “shame” individuals the department determines it can’t indict. Via NBC News:

“There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people. And if they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them,” Martin said. “And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed. And that’s a fact. That’s the way things work. And so that’s, that’s how I believe the job operates.”

During Trump’s first tenure, the justification given for Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey was that Comey had given a press conference in which he released “derogatory information” about then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously,” then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote in a memo, adding that he believed Comey had given a “textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”

Trump announced last week that he was naming Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney following Martin’s 120-day tenure, instead making Martin the pardon attorney, associate deputy attorney general, and director of the “Weaponization Working Group” that Attorney General Pam Bondi established at the Justice Department in response to one of Trump’s executive orders.

Oh, the pardon attorney! That should be lucrative.

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Yambo described it as a “free putt” and said nobody says no to a free putt! But retrofitting the Qatari-offered replacement for Air Force One could cost as much as a billion dollars to install the necessary security equipment, communications and defensive capabilities for it to be safely used, current and former officials said. Via NBC News:

Converting a Qatari-owned 747 jet into a new Air Force One for President Donald Trump would involve installing multiple top-secret systems, cost over $1 billion and take years to complete, three aviation experts told NBC News.

They said that accepting the 13-year-old jet would likely cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over time, noting that refurbishing the commercial plane would exceed its current value of $400 million. The project might also not be completed by the end of Trump’s term in 2029, at which time the plane is expected to be handed over to Trump’s presidential library foundation.

Richard Aboulafia, an analyst and consultant on commercial and military aviation, said he thought turning the Qatari jetliner into Air Force One would cost billions and take years.

“You’re taking a 747, disassembling it, reassembling it, and then jacking it up to a very high level,” said Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, a consulting firm.

You don’t say! Trump is usually so concerned about saving federal dollars! And always on top of complex details!

Aviation experts refer to Air Force One as the most complicated aircraft on the planet. The plane is meant to serve as a secure communication center in the sky — including command and control of nuclear weapons — and allow the president to issue orders to military and government agencies in the event of war or other emergency.

Experts said the idea made no financial or practical sense given that Boeing is already deep into a multiyear effort to convert two 747s to replace current Air Force One planes. They said that the contract for refurbishing the Qatari 747 would likely go to Boeing as its original manufacturer.

“Since you’re also disassembling and reassembling the jet for security reasons, you’re probably going to go with the people who know it better,” Aboulafia said. “If you have to rip the plane apart, that’s more of a Boeing job.

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Kudos to the folks at the Library of Congress. They showed the courage and cojones billionaires with a lot more clout failed to muster.

You may recall that Felon 47 recently fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden with a trumped up excuse. Since then, President Please Bribe Me, who probably hasn’t read a book since high school, if even then, also fired the director of the Copyright Office. Then Trump declared Todd Blanche, his former personal attorney and now the deputy attorney general, as the acting librarian. Two other DOJ officials were declared deputy librarian and acting director of the Copyright Office. They were Brian Nieves and Paul Perkins, respectively.

But those plucky workers at the Library of Congress knew a Trump con when they saw one and refused to be bamboozled. More specifically, they refused to allow Nieves and Perkins to enter the building:

From The New York Times:

Around 9 a.m. [on Monday], the two Justice Department officials arrived at the library’s James Madison Memorial Building and sought access to the U.S. Copyright Office, which is housed there. They brought a letter from the White House declaring that Mr. Blanche was the acting librarian and that he had selected the two men for top roles at the agency.

…

Staff members at the library balked and called the U.S. Capitol Police as well as their general counsel, Meg Williams, who told the two officials that they were not allowed access to the Copyright Office and asked them to leave, one of the people said.

Mr. Perkins and Mr. Nieves then left the building willingly, accompanied to the door by Ms. Williams. The library’s staff is recognizing Robert Newlen, the principal deputy librarian who was Dr. Hayden’s No. 2, as the acting librarian until it gets direction from Congress, one of the people familiar with the situation said.

In a brief email to the staff on Monday, Mr. Newlen noted that the White House had named a new acting librarian and suggested that the matter was still unresolved.

“Currently, Congress is engaged with the White House, and we have not yet received direction from Congress about how to move forward. We will share additional information as we receive it,” he wrote, signing the note as the “acting librarian of Congress.”

We can probably count on the Republican-controlled Congress rolling over for Trump again. But delaying and disrupting the MAGA authoritarianism is a tactic we regular folks can and should use.

A round of applause for the librarians!