Trump Pushes White Nationalist Fantasy in Front of Embarrassed King Charles

King Charles of the U.K. sat awkwardly yesterday as convicted felon Donald Trump delivered a racist, blood-and-soil speech to “welcome” him to the White House.  In a bizarre and deeply uncomfortable moment during the visit of King Charles III, Donald Trump delivered a rambling, race-tinged tribute that sounded more like 19th-century white supremacist rhetoric than a modern presidential address.  In the first few minutes of his remarks (which surely must have been written in part by white nationalist Stephen Miller), Trump unleashed the following: 

Long before Americans had a nation or a constitution, we first had a culture, a character, and a creed. Before we ever proclaimed our independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts: moral courage, and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the sea. For nearly two centuries before the revolution, this land was settled and forged by men, women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and Great Britain’s distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride, and that’s what it is: glory, destiny, and pride.

The American patriots who pledged their lives to independence in 1776 were the heirs to this majestic inheritance. Their veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right, good, and true.

In recent years, we’ve often heard it said that America is merely an idea, but the cause of freedom did not simply appear as an intellectual invention of 1776. The American founding was the culmination of hundreds of years of thought, struggle, sweat, blood, and sacrifice on both sides of the Atlantic.

Let me first say that "moral courage" in the United States didn't come solely from a "small but mighty kingdom from across the sea."  It also came from America's indigenous peoples, African slaves and Mexican immigrants, whose descendants are an integral part of the American culture.  In his ignorant mind, Trump was arguing that "America" was the result of “hundreds of years of thought, struggle, sweat, blood and sacrifice on both sides of the Atlantic” –  implying that America’s greatness comes from white European bloodlines.

 

His attempt to shoehorn in a paraphrase of Churchill at the end fell completely flat and came off as awkward and forced in context. Trump, who often comically claims he’s the “least racist person” in the room, is nonetheless standing beside the King of England, pushing a vision of American identity rooted in racial and ethnic purity rather than the ideals of liberty, equality, and democracy that actually define this country.

 

It was embarrassing, ahistorical, and revealing.  Trump isn’t celebrating America’s founding values. He’s pushing a white nationalist fantasy that has no place in 2026.

 

Keystone Kash and His FBI Not Sure Who Shot Who at the Hilton

Three days after the White House Correspondents’ dinner, Keystone Kash's FBI is still unsure who shot a Secret Service officer during the assassination attempt outside the Hilton ballroom. The Secret Service officer was wearing a bulletproof vest, but sources say investigators haven’t found the fragment that pierced it — and can’t definitively say whether it came from the suspect.  Bottom line: investigators are still unable to say for certain whether the armed attacker shot the officer or how he was injured.

Law enforcement agents on the scene Saturday initially believed Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect who breached the dinner’s final checkpoint, fired his shotgun and struck the officer with buckshot from his weapon.  A check of Allen’s shotgun showed that he discharged one shell but did not reload, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Monday. 

In its review, a Secret Service team estimated that Allen was running nine miles an hour and then stumbled somehow and fell a few yards past the checkpoint. That raises the question among law enforcement professionals of how a person moving that fast could have stopped, turned around, and fired his weapon at an officer behind him.

At a Monday news conference, Blanche said Allen had been charged with discharging a firearm during a crime of violence because the FBI determined he fired a single shell from the shotgun he was carrying.  But he said authorities were not prepared to say whether that was the shot that hit the Secret Service agent’s body armor.

Blanche said investigators also determined that the agent who was shot fired five rounds at Allen, none of which hit the suspect. He said they could not be sure those were the only rounds fired by law enforcement officers.  But this contradicts the Secret Service, who said its investigators collected the firearms of all Secret Service officers and agents on the scene and found no evidence that anyone else fired their weapons, a law enforcement official said.

Hopefully, the FBI will get its act together before tomorrow's hearing. 

 

Hypocrisy of the The Slovenian Sphynx

Melania Trump's criticism of Jimmy Kimmel has been met with calls of hypocrisy – and social media users have the receipts that show it.  In a post on social media, the first lady tried to criticized Kimmel’s “hateful and violent rhetoric”, labeling him a “coward” and called for the TV network to “take a stand.”

Last week, late-night TV host made a joke about the first lady, suggesting she had “a glow like an expectant widow”.  On his Monday night show, Kimmel explained the joke was in relation to Melania and Donald Trump’s age difference (56 and 79, respectively), and was “not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination.”  As if anybody with half a brain needed an explanation of the obvious!

It didn’t take long for people to point out that the rhetoric coming from none other than her own husband is pretty violent itself. 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, back at the office . . .

Trump's Monster

 

Madonna - I Feel So Free

As If You Needed Another Reason to Avoid Tesla

When Tom LoSavio bought hisTesla Model S in 2017, he thought he was buying a car that would one day drive itself.  LoSavio paid more than $100,000 for the luxury sedan, including $8,000 for lifetime access to its most advanced driver-assistance features. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said that the hardware in the company’s cars would eventually allow all of its cars to drive themselves.  “My wife and I talked about what a great thing it would be if we could just get in a car and have it drive us places,” LoSavio told The Wall Street Journal.

In the nine years since, LoSavio said it has become clear that Tesla took him for a ride. He is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit that alleges that Tesla charged customers thousands of dollars in pricey upgrades for a product that didn’t, and still doesn’t, exist.  LoSavio alleges that Musk and Tesla have made repeated claims that were false about the self-driving capabilities of these vehicles and misled consumers who paid extra because they believed the company’s marketing. His lawsuit is one of several ongoing efforts by Tesla owners looking to hold the company accountable for overpromising and under-delivering on its Full Self-Driving (FSD) product.

Tesla is facing mounting legal issues in Netherland and Australia, over charges that the company misled customers about the cars’ capabilities. The matter calls into question Musk’s decade-long marketing pitch that Tesla’s autonomous vehicles were just around the corner. That promise kept Tesla’s stock near all-time highs—and with a market cap that exceeds most other automakers combined—even as its share of the electric-vehicle market has eroded.

The lawsuits and European campaign represent just thousands of Tesla customers. Wall Street analysts, however, estimate that there are millions of Teslas on the road with the outdated hardware no longer capable of running the most sophisticated version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software.  LoSavio won class-action status for his lawsuit in September. The class represents approximately 3,000 people in California, a figure that excludes the many Tesla owners who have signed arbitration agreements with the company that prevent them from suing. 

Tesla started including early versions of its self-driving tech in its vehicles in 2014. By 2015, Musk was publicly claiming that Tesla vehicles could drive themselves entirely within two years. Then in 2016, Tesla announced that all new cars built from then on had the hardware required for full self-driving. Musk told the press that a Tesla would drive itself from Los Angeles to New York City by the end of 2017.

But it was all bullshit.  Eventually Tesla’s plans required a more sophisticated computer and cameras than were installed in LoSavio’s car. In 2020 and 2021, it started offering customers upgrades to the third edition of its computer and camera set. Some customers like LoSavio, who paid upfront for lifetime access, got complimentary upgrades from Tesla. Others who wanted to use the FSD/self-driving technology but paid monthly could pay $1,000 for the upgrade.

Then in 2023, Tesla upgraded its hardware for the fourth time and started selling new cars with its latest chip. That meant that customers like LoSavio, who got updated to the third-edition computer a few years prior, once again had outdated equipment. The company hasn’t made any moves since January 2025, when Musk told investors that the company would have to do yet another computer upgrade for customers who bought the lifetime FSD (Full Self-Driving) package.

 

Earth Day Revisited

Keystone Kash Paranoid About Being Fired

On Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log into an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”  News of his emotional outburst ricocheted through the bureau, prompting chatter among officials and, in some corners of the building, expressions of relief. The White House fielded calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI.  It turned out that the answer was Patel-- he had not been fired. The access problem, two people familiar with the matter said, appears to have been a technical error, and it was quickly resolved. “It was all ultimately bullshit,” according to one FBI official who spoke with the Atlantic.

But Patel, according to multiple current officials, is deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy. And he has good reasons to think so—

Meanwhile, Back at the Office . . .

Dozens of Sloths Die at Shady Roadside Zoo Operation

On a busy tourist strip in Orlando, behind noisy bars and souvenir shops, 21 sloths in crates arrived at a warehouse at the end of a grueling international trip.  Soon, they would all be dead.

The new home of the tree-dwelling mammals was the off-site facility of a new roadside attraction called “Sloth World,” a $49 animal encounter marketed as a conservation-focused center scheduled to open soon.   Nothing could have prepared the sloths for this. Until recently, they lived wild in the forest canopies of Guyana.  The animals' new home wasn't ready to receive them.  There was no running water. No electricity. The space heaters meant to keep them warm were plugged in with extension cords running from another building, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission incident report that Inside Climate News obtained through an open-records request. But the heaters repeatedly tripped the fuse and shut off. At least one night in December 2024, the agency said, the sloths were left alone in the cold warehouse without heat.   One by one, they died. 

List of Missing/Dead Scientists Linked to American Secrets Grows

The ominous web of U.S. scientists and lab employees who have died or gone missing continues to grow as two more cases have been linked to the disturbing trend. 

NASA scientist Frank Maiwald died on July 4, 2024 in Los Angeles at the age of 61, but the cause of death has never been made public and officials confirmed that an autopsy was never performed.  Maiwald had been a prominent researcher at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) since 1999 and worked on multiple projects tied to advanced satellite technology that could scan Earth and other planets.

In June 2023, just 13 months before his death, Maiwald was the lead researcher on a breakthrough that could help future space missions detect clear signs of life on other worlds, including Jupiter's moon Europa, Saturn’s moon Enceladus, or the dwarf planet Ceres.  Despite Maiwald being a JPL Principal, an award given to scientists 'making outstanding individual contributions' in their fields, NASA has never commented publicly on the scientist's death, and the only public record marking his passing was an obituary posted online.  The online obituary set up for Maiwald did not mention any health issues before the 61-year-old's death, and NASA JPL would neither confirm nor deny that Maiwald had been employed there for decades despite records of his achievements listed on their website. 

Lady Gaga & Doechii - Runway

O Holy Doctor!

DUI Hire Pete Kegsbreath Targeting Women and Minorities in DOD

Despite the conflict with Iran and other recent military activity overseas, the Pentagon seems focused on purging minorities and women. Last week, NBC News reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had intervened to block or delay the promotions of more than a dozen Black and female senior officers. 

The process within the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines is structured to ensure the most qualified officers get promoted. Hegseth’s decision to intervene in the process has raised concerns among some officials within those military branches and the White House, the nine U.S. officials familiar with the situation said.  “There is not a single service that has been immune to this level of involvement by Hegseth,” one of the U.S. officials said. 

According to both NBC and The New York Times, some officials are concerned that officers are being targeted because of their race, gender, or perceived political affiliation. In one instance last year, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Ricky Buria, bluntly stated that “President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events,” the Times reported.

Two officials said that among the attributes Hegseth has cited for removing officers from promotions are past support for Covid vaccines or mask mandates for troops, or whether officers were affiliated with DEI programs, or assigned to worke on such initiatives. Those same officials said an officer’s association with former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley (whom Trump still views as a political enemy) can also make an officer who is up for a promotion susceptible to scrutiny from Hegseth’s office.  “There is not consistency being applied to the standards” for promotions, another of the U.S. officials said.

Hegseth blocked three Marine officers (two women and a Black man) who were expected to be promoted or appointed to new roles, despite being recommended by Marine leadership. None of the three Marines were the subjects of internal investigations that might raise concerns about moving forward with their promotions, according to two of the officials.  

Army chief of staff, General Randy George had recently asked to meet with Hegseth to discuss Hegseth's blocking of promotions for some Army officers, which seemed to focus on women and Black men, but Hegseth refused to meet or discuss his decisions, according to two additional U.S. officials.  Soon thereafter, Hegseth fired George instead.  George's term was expected to serve in his position an additional year and a half,  George, the Army’s top officer, was senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden administration.  Also during Hegseth’s tenure, several top military officers have been removed, including former Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown Jr., a Black man, and former Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti, a white woman.

A retired senior military officer described the promotion process as rigorous and said any meddling by the defense secretary could diminish trust in it.  “Our officer corps trusts our promotion process,” the retired officer said, adding that intervention in the process without an explanation “will certainly cast a shadow across our officer corps that everything they have said, done and written about during their careers could be politicized in a career-ending manner with the stroke of a pen.”

 

Todd Blanche's DOJ Now Going After Low-Level Staffers in Pursuit of Trump's Revenge Agenda

Remember Cassidy Hutchinson?  She was the 25-year-old administrative aide to Mark Meadows that was subpoenaed by Congress to testify at the 2022 House hearings on the January 6 insurrection.   Everything she said at her four (legally-compelled) appearances was corroborated by Secret Service agents and other White House personnel.

There are now reports that Todd Blanch's Justice Department has assigned its civil rights division to investigate Hutchinson-- due to Trump's anger at anyone perceived to have done him wrong, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The decision is in keeping with the administration’s bid to find new ways to use the powers of the federal government to target convicted felon Donald Trump’s political opponents. Those efforts persist even though the department has struggled to carry out the president’s demands for retribution and has increasingly hit roadblocks from judges, grand juries and even some of its own prosecutors.

Blanche demonstrated his complete ignorance of DOJ's mission (to be an independent arm of the justice system) when he said (at a press conference last week) that Trump had “the right,” even “the duty,” as president to call for investigations of anyone [the President] believed deserved them.

 

Does Trump Think Catholics Are a Bunch of Fucking Morons?

Shortly after posting a hateful screed against Pope Leo XIV, convicted felon Donald Trump posted an image that depicted him as a Jesus figure, which quickly drew rare criticism from the religious right, prompting allegations of blasphemy. 

The post also came mere hours after Chicago's Cardinal Cupich lambasted the Trump administration for posting “sickening” social media content about the Iran war during an interview on 60 Minutes.  The CBS show interviewed Cupich and two other high-ranking American Catholics (Newark's Cardinal Tobin and Washington DC's Cardinal McElroy) days after Pope Leo XIV ramped up his criticism of the war. 

The shocking image posted by Trump was in the style of a painting, depicting him in a long white robe with a red cloak draped around his shoulders. In one hand was an orb glowing with light; Trump’s other hand rested on the forehead of a man in what resembled a hospital bed — light beaming from the man’s head as Trump appeared to pray for his healing. Patriotic symbols including an eagle, fireworks and the Statue of Liberty filled the frame.

Before the post was deleted, evangelical and Catholic allies called the image blasphemous in a rare public break from a base that has largely stood by Trump.  “I don’t know if the President thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy,” wrote Megan Basham, a prominent conservative Protestant Christian writer and commentator. “But he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God.” 

Isabel Brown, a Catholic podcaster with the Daily Wire outlet and a conservative influencer allied with the Trump White House, spoke out against it.  “This post is, frankly, disgusting and unacceptable, but also a profound misreading of the American people experiencing a true and beautiful revival of faith in Christ in the midst of our broken culture,” Brown wrote.  

Faced with such quick backlash, Trump attempted to explain that he thought he was being depicted as a "doctor."  “I thought it was me as a doctor, and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker, which we support,” Trump said.  “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better,” Trump continued. “And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”  Trump added “only the fake news” could suggest he was depicting himself as Jesus, ignoring the criticism he received from his own religious supporters.  Last year, Trump shared a picture of himself dressed in full papal robes after joking that he would “like to be pope”, an image that also sparked widespread attention and debate online.

The new image and the subsequent reaction echoed a Truth Social post Trump ultimately deleted earlier this year, a video that at the end briefly showed Barack and Michelle Obama depicted as apes. The post was deleted after roughly 12 hours, but not before the White House press secretary dismissed criticism and urged the news media to “stop the fake outrage.”

 

Embarrassment for ICE Barbie as Trump Kicks Her to the Curb

I couldn't let this jaw-dropping piece of news pass by.  Kristi Noem, the fired former head of the Department of Homeland Security, suffered another round of embarrassment upon exiting the Trump administration.  The Daily Mail reported that Noem's husband is a cross-dresser who wears large fake breasts and hot pants while messaging with online adult entertainers.

According to the report, Bryon Noem sent at least $25,000 to interact with fetish models, whom he communicated with using a phone number that easily identified him as the now-former DHS secretary's husband.

Experts say his behavior opened his wife up to blackmail that could have endangered U.S. national security.  “If a media organization can find this out, you can assume with a high degree of confidence that a hostile intelligence service knows this as well," former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos told the Daily Mail.

And given that his wife appears to be openly cheating on him with sleazeball former Trump administration aide Corey Lewandowski, who can blame Bryon for working out his kinks on the side?  We can however, throw some shade his way for pretending to be some holier-than-thou Christian who claimed to have stayed with his wife because of “his calling from God to support her,” as an unnamed family member told the New York Post earlier in March.  We can also shame him for apparently being so careless and sloppy with his communications with the models, since it could’ve endangered American national security.

It's hard to feel bad for ICE Barbie Kristi Noem, who wasted millions of taxpayer dollars to fly around the country with her alleged fuck-buddy so she could film ads promoting herself and stage stunts to torture immigrants.  Noem’s detractors also are accusing her of lying about her knowledge of her husband’s reported fetish, saying it’s something that’s been openly known in Trump world for years.

Good riddance to basic white trash and the hillbilly-style drama that seems to follow her wherever she goes. 

The Slovenian Sphinx Speaks!

 

Alex Warren - Fever Dream

Artemis II Returns to Earth Today

 

Iran Now Charging Tolls on the Strait of Hormuz-- Trump Trying to Save Face

In yet another sign that Iran got the upper hand on Trump, there are now reports that Iran is charging some ships millions of dollars to pass through the Strait of Hormuz (according to NBC News).

Shipping traffic through the strait has plummeted since the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran in February. But some ships have been getting through.  

Ships carrying Iranian oil or goods have been allowed to pass freely, according to The Wall Street Journal. Ships from friendly nations have been paying a toll of $1 million or more, while ships from unfriendly countries have been blocked.  The situation has been dubbed “the Tehran toll booth” by shipping industry experts, according to NBC.

“The Strait of Hormuz is no longer a chokepoint,” Athens-based Xclusiv Shipbrokers said in a recent report, according to the Journal. ”It’s being reshaped into a controlled corridor where access is conditional, selective, and increasingly political.”

Although some ships have been forced to pay, it does not appear Iran has a consistent policy, according to NBC. State media reported the Iranian parliament was preparing legislation to formalize the tolls.

Ceasefire mediators say the current status quo (Tehran's tolls) in the strait is unlikely to change, especially in light of the confusion over the terms of the so-called ceasefire.  Iran and Pakistani mediators say that the ceasefire included Lebanon-- but with Israel continuing to bomb its northern neighbor Iran says that the terms of the ceasefire have been violated.

Trump claimed in an interview with ABC News that he’s considering a “joint venture” with Iran to manage tolls in the Strait of Hormuz.  But it's obvious to everyone that Trump is only trying to salvage his reputation as a dealmaker-- as Iran will almost certainly refuse to share tolls with the U.S. and Trump will not want to be seen as the one who called off the ceasefire.  What a mess!

 

Trump Threatens to Commit War Crimes, Then Backs Off After Accepting Iran's 10-point Ceasefire Plan

Yesterday, convicted felon Donald Trump threatened the death of Iran’s civilization, an escalation of his ongoing threats to commit international war crimes against that nation. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric validated long-running warnings from the Democratic Party about Trump issuing illegal orders to the U.S. military.

In a post to Truth Social Trump wrote, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” He added, “47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

Trump’s threats come just a few days after he said the U.S. would be targeting Iran’s civilian infrastructure, hitting facilities like energy plants, water treatment centers, and key roads and bridges. Targeting such structures is a war crime.

Of course, Taco Don backed off from his threats late last night, when he announced that a ceasefire was in effect.   Trump tried to portray the ceasefire agreement as a "total victory," but this was quickly refuted by public statements issued by the Iran government.  Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi released a statement saying that Iran's military will coordinate safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire, and that Washington had accepted “the general framework” of Iran’s 10-point proposal “as a basis for negotiations.” Iran's Supreme National Security Council (the country’s top security body) released a statement that confirmed the ceasefire but also portrayed the agreement as an Iranian victory.  

Iran said that talks with the U.S. would take place in Islamabad and laid out key parts of Tehran’s 10-point plan. It included regulating passage through the Strait of Hormuz; terminating attacks on Iran and its regional proxy forces, the withdrawal of US forces from the region, compensation to Iran, the lifting of international sanctions and unfreezing of assets as well as and a binding UN resolution to secure any ultimate peace deal.  

A senior White House official told CNN that Israel is part of the ceasefire and had agreed to also suspend its bombing campaign while negotiations continue.  But this was also quickly revealed to be a lie, as an Israeli military spokesperson confirmed that Israel was still carrying out strikes in Iran, despite reports of a "ceasefire." 

 

MAGA World Hates Flaws in Women

A photograph of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has been purged from photo services. Why? Because it was supposedly taken at an unflattering angle.  According to Status, the photo—which shows Leavitt holding her son during a White House Thanksgiving event—was removed from AFP and Getty Images archives. The disappearing photo is just the latest example of the administration’s zeal to control its image—and the media playing along.

But shortly after the photo was removed from the archives, it began surfacing online, where it was reproduced by the official Democrats social media account.

A representative from AFP admitted that it was removed after the White House made the service “aware” of its displeasure. The photo clashes with the “correct” image of women that has been pushed by the MAGA movement. Outlets like Fox News have argued that conservative women are superior to their liberal counterparts because they purportedly embrace beauty treatments like hair dye and lip filler and put greater emphasis on women serving merely as vessels for producing babies.

But this isn’t the Trump administration’s first clash with unapproved photography.  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth barred photographers from attending war briefings at the Pentagon after supposedly “unflattering” images of the former Fox News host were taken earlier this month.

And last year, a Vanity Fair photo shoot with several members of the senior Trump team, including Leavitt, went viral after it highlighted their physical imperfections—again running counter to the administration’s misogynistic messaging about women.

President Donald Trump has argued for years that media outlets that do anything other than regurgitate his own lies and propaganda are “fake news,” and the administration has attacked and suppressed journalism that refuses to fall in line.  The choice by AFP and Getty to purge unapproved images shows that mainstream media continues to be subservient to Trump rather than focus on informing the public. 

 

Tony "Squeeze My Balls" Gonzales Still in Office

How is this creep still in office?

Explicit text messages published by the the San Antonio Express-News show GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales repeatedly asked his then-campaign director for nude photos and sex in 2020, years before admitting his 2024 affair with a congressional staffer who later died by suicide.

The previously unreported exchanges containing hundreds of messages were obtained by the newspaper. The messages, which the newspaper reported date from when Gonzales was a first-time Republican candidate in June 2020, show him escalating a late-night conversation with his campaign’s political director into explicit sexual requests over several days.

Within hours of initially discussing her dating life and complimenting her as a “smart girl,” the text messages show that Gonzales asked what she wore to bed, what kind of underwear she was wearing, and requested nude photos. The messages go on to describe how he wished to have sex with her and have her “squeeze my balls.”   

“I know what I want and won’t stop until I get it,” one message reads, according to the report.  When the campaign director declined his requests multiple times, he replied: “47 nos is about my limit.” The texts then include multiple requests for photos in the following days.  Despite the exchanges, the aide, granted anonymity, told the newspaper that no physical relationship occurred and that the pair “didn’t so much as touch.”

The revelations add to mounting scrutiny over Gonzales’s conduct following a separate 2024 affair with 35-year-old congressional aide Regina Santos-Aviles, which he publicly acknowledged as “a mistake” and “a lapse in judgment.” Santos-Aviles died by self-immolation in September 2025 after her husband discovered the messages.  Revelations related to that relationship prompted backlash from House Republican leaders and led Gonzales to abandon his bid for a fourth term. He is set to leave office in January. 

The former campaign director who shared the texts with the Express-News said she chose to come forward after learning of Santos-Aviles’s death in 2025. “He obviously pursued, pursued, pursued her like he did with me,” she said. “I never took him serious… It wasn’t until this poor girl died that I thought, ‘No, this guy is pure evil.’”

“This behavior needs to stop,” she added.

Happy Easter!

 

UAE Cracks Down on Social Media in an Effort to Maintain Its Phony Image

Dubai has been struggling to maintain its image as a safe and picturesque locale since the region has been under attack during the Trump-Iran war.  But early on, as Iranian missiles began to fall on Dubai (the largest and most ostentatiously luxe city in the United Arab Emirates) the facade began to crack.   The city once touted as one of the safest places in the world is now no longer a peaceful haven. And the UAE government has rushed to try and control the narrative, prompting a huge crackdown on anyone sharing photos of missile attacks and their aftermath. Instead, content creators have been posting weirdly similar photos and videos full of praise, parroting buzzwords about the city’s strong, stable leaders.

Satellite images of Dubai show smoke from areas damaged by air strikes

How can influencers continue to portray the “Dubai dream” online, when the whole world knows that the city has been mired in conflict? And what about the ordinary people who are being detained for sharing photos and videos that go against the official line?

Paul McCartney - Days We Left Behind

Pam's New Career as a Relationship Advisor

 

Don't Be April Fooled: Jonathan the Tortoise is Still Alive

Reports of the death of the world’s oldest living land animal — a nearly 200-year-old tortoise — were greatly exaggerated.  Jonathan (believed to be 193) is still kicking — albeit slowly — on the island of St. Helena.

“It was a hoax,” Anne Dillon, head of communications on the island, said.  “I don’t have all those details, I can just assure you that he is very much alive.”

News of the tortoise’s demise spread rapidly on social media on April Fool’s Day.  A social media  account, falsely claiming to be that of Joe Hollins, a veterinarian who had worked with the reptile on the island west of Africa in the south Atlantic Ocean, said he was heartbroken to announce the death of the “gentle giant” that “outlived empires, wars, and generations of humans.”  The post quickly accumulated over a million views, mostly an outpouring of condolences.  But Hollins later said on Facebook that he didn't have an X account and something more sinister was afoot.  “This  is a hoax — The hoaxer is asking for crypto donations. It’s a con,” Hollins wrote.

Guinness World Records lists Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise, as the oldest living land animal and oldest tortoise ever. He was believed to be about 50 years old when he was brought to St. Helena in 1882.  Dillon said the tortoise was still roaming the grounds of the governor’s residence, which was the place Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to following his defeat by the British at Waterloo in 1815.   Bonaparte died there in 1821, about a decade before Jonathan is believed to have taken the first steps in what would become a very long life.