Blog: If I understand this

The Trump administration will pay the German energy firm RWE $1.22 billion to abandon plans to build wind farms off the coasts of New York, California and Louisiana, the company announced on Thursday.  More forward thinking from the Trumpers!

Under the agreement, RWE will voluntarily surrender three leases it owned for wind farms in federal waters.  If this sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. In March, the Republican administration announced that it had agreed to pay a foreign company almost $1 billion in American taxpayer money to abandon two wind farm projects that would have produced enough electricity to power more than 1.3 million homes and businesses across New York, New Jersey and North Carolina. – From MSNOW

Dontcha know coal fired plants are better? 

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Following appeals court loss, Trump tries to rebrand his ballroom as a ‘military center’

The president seems to think rebranding his controversial vanity project could help make it happen. He’s likely to be disappointed.

Oh, easy, just rename it!

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Tech firm’s $50 million Trump library gift preceded massive federal land deal

The Tokyo-based company confirmed its donation was made two months before the Trump administration approved its Ohio-based data center, expected to be the largest in the world.

“Are we expected to believe it’s a coincidence that two months after SoftBank donated $50 million to the Trump library, his administration announced a massive lease deal for SoftBank’s data center?” Warren said in a statement.

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From Snopes.com: 

Republicans criticized Dr. Fauci for invoking the Fifth Amendment over 100 times to the Senate. That prompted some to look at a past Trump deposition.

Trump invoked the Fifth over 400 times in 2022 deposition, judge said

–Wait, that’s Trump, so that’s . . .  you know . . . different!

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So, Hegseth and our Pentagon now have what is in effect a “suggestion box” for soldiers to submit ideas on how to end the Iran War . . . .

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From Robert Reich, re: Fauci:

Fauci is an American hero. He gave invaluable advice to seven presidents — from Reagan to Biden — through anthrax attacks, Ebola outbreaks, SARS scares, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He devised the U.S. global attack plan against AIDS. George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work on HIV and AIDS.

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Saw an article about concert conductors.  Having played in several concert bands in school, like the Florida All-State Orchestra, it is my opinion that the real work of conducting is done in practice.  The performances are just that – kind of showing off.  Most orchestras, even in high school, can complete a piece on their own, with little to no difference to the audience.  The first chair violin/clarinet could start it, and as long and the drummers keep good time, they will get to the end just fine.  I think that the applause and adulation for the conductor is his/her reward for all the work and talent that comes before.

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A warning from MSNOW:  As midterms approach, a growing number of election deniers are running for offices that oversee the very elections they have sought to undermine. “This is part of a very well-planned thing by Donald Trump,” warns Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory, who was in office during the FBI’s raid of the election office. “This is about retaining power for not only Donald Trump, but a party that will allow him to dismantle the Constitution.” 

And from same:  Dwight D. Eisenhower’s massive and indiscriminate 1954 deportation campaign, ‘Operation Wetback,’ (real name) is one Trump has said he wants to emulate. That model relied on military-style tactics to round up what the Administration says was more than a million people. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Maria Hinojosa, says the difference between now and then? It’s us. It’s our ability to see with our own eyes what the Trump Administration is doing – that “they’re not deporting criminals — they’re taking anybody.”

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Per NPR (they’re still around? I thought we got rid of them):  America’s two largest private prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, are reporting a combined $1.4 billion in quarterly revenue over the spring as immigration detention closes in on record levels.

Those revenues announced Thursday do not include net proceeds of $1.6 billion made by CoreCivic after the recent sale of four of their facilities to the Department of Homeland Security. Patrick Swindle, CoreCivic’s President and CEO, told investors on an earnings call that that works out to an average rate of $307,000 per bed.

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You ever take one of those online quizzes you think is “history,” then it turns out it is mostly about TV shows?  Worse is when you do it anyway, and you get most all of them correct.  Make you think you watched too much TV as a kid?

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Q: What do you call a fake noodle?

A: An im-pasta

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From FactCheck.org:  August 11, 2026

In signing an executive order about childhood vaccines, President Donald Trump falsely suggested that the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine was unsafe and that splitting up the combination shot would reduce the number of children with autism. There’s no evidence for those claims, and the vaccine has been well-studied for several decades.

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President Donald Trump is being sued over a new service from his social media platform, Truth Social, that charges customers up to $100,000 for early notifications to his posts, with plaintiffs arguing “the scheme is extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional.” –MSNOW

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From Time mag re: executive orders: Executive orders are a way for presidents to communicate with federal agencies. They can instruct agencies on how to enforce existing laws, but they aren’t laws themselves, Reiss says. – Maybe don’t tell Republicans this.

Federal vaccine recommendations are also developed through a separate legal process, never by executive order.

And so, Trump supporting parents, you now will have to drag your progeny to the doctor three times instead of one, for a common vaccine.  Well, if you’re a real Trumper, you won’t go at all!  Ain’t that special?

Another view:  MS NOW senior medical analyst Dr. Vin Gupta warned about the dangers of President Donald Trump’s executive order to roll back federal childhood vaccine recommendations, blasting the new plan as “incoherent,” “callous” and “not rooted in actual evidence.”

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What could go wrong?  The ICE says it will outfit its agents with shock gloves, that is, gloves that can give you an electric shock.  Well, there is a button you have to push, so you know that these highly-trained, carefully-selected lawmen will use the utmost discretion.  And maybe by the time they are handed out, they’ll have body cameras and know how to turn them on?

Per MSNOW:  A new electric-shock glove would allow ICE agents to hurt people in ways that could leave no marks and may be impossible for observers to notice or document.

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The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted Thursday to add President Trump’s name to the facade of the performing arts center, more than two months after a judge ordered its removal, according to a House Democrat who sits on the center’s board (which Mr. Trump filled with his allies).  Well, hell, what judges say are like speed limits — just suggestions, right?  Unless they agree with Trump that is.

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All take care,

Kevin