Trump Goes After Endangered Species. I’m surprised he waited this long:
The Trump administration repealed a crucial part of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Friday, finalizing a new rule that will open habitats of imperiled wildlife to development, logging, mining and other uses.
For the last 50 years, the landmark environmental law included a broader understanding of the word “harm”, which ensured that not just the plants and animals themselves were protected but also the places that are critical to their survival. The inclusion of habitat in the “harm” definition was upheld by the supreme court in 1995, which ruled in support of old-growth forest protections relied on by endangered spotted owls.
But despite widespread public support for a strong ESA – and hundreds of thousands of public comments submitted opposing the change – the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce reframed the definition as “regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights” and announced it would be rescinded.
Advocates are already preparing to challenge the new interpretation of harm.
“Let’s be clear: there is no support for the Trump Administration’s rule – no scientific support, no legal support, no public support,” Boyles said. “We will see the Trump Administration in court.”
Poor Rethugs–Trump Denies Them An Election-Year Photo Op:
“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, referring to the elections bill.
The bill, known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, was poised to deliver congressional Republicans a significant victory ahead of November’s midterm elections, as they try to blunt Democrats’ attacks over rising costs.
But Mr. Trump clouded the achievement. Hours before a planned signing ceremony at the Capitol last month that he abruptly canceled, he dismissed the bill as “of minor importance” and said he would sign it only if Congress passed the voting measure.
Guess Who Stopped Monitoring ‘Explosive Diarrhea’ Parasite. Correct!:
The country is in the midst of a nationwide outbreak of explosive diarrhea caused by a parasite the CDC stopped surveilling at the federal level in July 2025.
That’s around the same time the Trump administration began haphazardly attacking and defunding federal health and science agencies under the guise of “government efficiency,” with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. separately also pushing out critical federal scientists and researchers.
Prior to that date, a collaborative CDC program called FoodNet helped federal and state regulators track eight foodborne pathogens.
Among them was cyclospora, a heat-loving spherical parasite that’s sickened 1,000 people in an ongoing outbreak in Michigan (the state’s worst), with similar illnesses cropping up in 28 other states.
In addition to cyclospora, surveillance of campylobacter, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia was cut. FoodNet now only regularly monitors two diseases: Salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.
In addition to the ongoing cyclospora outbreak, Trump administration cutbacks made under the guise of “government efficiency” also brought back a flesh-eating parasite that favors cattle, accidentally fired scientists managing the bird flu outbreak, accidentally fired the FDA’s medical device reviewers, and pulled research funding to protect pregnant women from domestic violence, among other things.
A random quote from President Stable Genius:
“Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Ask yourself this simple question, ‘DO YOU THINK THAT OBUMA OR SLEEPY JOE BIDEN COULD HAVE DONE IT?’ THE ANSWER IS NO!”
Ho-kay.
Deportee Airlines–Coming Soon?:
The Trump administration is planning on building a fleet of government-owned planes specifically to perform 24-7, short-notice deportations as part of its all-out effort to make Trump’s delusions of one million deportations per year a reality.
The Department of Homeland Security is currently looking for a private company to operate a fleet of at least nine large jets both at home and abroad, providing the DHS with pilots, nurses, and security, Bloomberg reports. In addition to last-minute deportations, the planes will also carry the upper echelon of the administration’s staff on diplomatic trips. (Betcha not on the same trip, though…)
Although the government has yet to disclose how much its 24-7 fleet would cost, it spent about $140 million on six Boeing deportation jets last year. And the Federal Aviation Administration has recently noted that multiple jets from Avelo—an aircraft company that has already worked closely with DHS—are now owned by DHS.
The MAGA-verse generally celebrated the news. Owning its own fleet would make it easier for the government to carry out deportations, perhaps the key tenet of the administration’s agenda. Yet the administration is still no closer to reaching its unrealistic goal of one million deportations per year.
DHS estimates that a contract would begin in summer of 2027 and continue through 2032.
2032, eh? Right at the end of Trump’s third term…
Who Is Running Venezuela? Hint–Not a Venezuelan:
President Trump was sitting in the Oval Office earlier this year with Secretary of State Marco Rubio when an idea came to him.
Maybe he should dispatch Mr. Rubio permanently to Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, where U.S. commandos had carried out the proudest foreign policy achievement of Mr. Trump’s second term: the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president.
Mr. Rubio could be the next leader of Venezuela, Mr. Trump suggested. And while the president’s aides say he was joking — and that he frequently teases Mr. Rubio about an overseas assignment — the fact is that Mr. Rubio does not need to move to Caracas.
He already runs Venezuela from Washington.
In the six months since U.S. forces blew open Mr. Maduro’s bedroom door and snatched him in the dead of night, Mr. Rubio has become the de facto viceroy of Venezuela, holding sway over a sovereign nation in a way that no American official has since L. Paul Bremer III arrived in Baghdad in 2003 to run U.S.-occupied Iraq.
Mr. Rubio now effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources and its government, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials and people close to both governments in Washington and Caracas, who provided details about his involvement in steering the country’s policies. Many spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private interactions and internal discussions.
While he has not visited Venezuela in person since the U.S. took over, the secretary of state is deeply involved in the country’s day-to-day operations, keeping in close contact with Delcy Rodríguez, who was Mr. Maduro’s vice president and now leads her country on an acting basis, with the imprimatur of the United States. The two exchange messages in Spanish on WhatsApp, trading gossip, birthday greetings and selfies.
Despite the banter, the relationship between Mr. Rubio and Ms. Rodríguez is far from a partnership. It is a manifestation of Trump-era American power, in which the winner takes all regardless of sovereignty and international law.
Let that sink in for awhile. And you were wondering why disaster relief from the earthquake was lacking…
What do you want to talk about?
Kind of funny that Americans think they can run other countries when they can’t even run their own. But then, they aren’t “running the country” in an sense beyond giving orders. They’re actually doing the same thing there they’re doing here, looting the treasury, just like their idol Putin does in Russia.
Hang them all.