pernicious cunt

If you’re here ⤵️

5/ Whether I have a seat tomorrow is TBD. Standby has a specific industry meaning: you do not have a confirmed seat. Using it any other way to sell upgrades isn’t a wording problem. It’s consumer fraud. This should be high on @DeptTransport and Sean Duffy’s list, now that his Great American Road Trip is over. RT if this happened to you.

This is getting wild now 👀 So I started looking at the ballroom after digging into the Reflecting Pool yesterday. I’m starting to see some patterns. The playbook works like this. Pick your contractor personally. Invoke “Unusual and Compelling Urgency” to skip competition. Use the 250th anniversary as the justification. Inflate the price. Don’t disclose who’s actually doing the work. Repeat. Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. $13.1M. No bid. No competition. Justification: “Unusual and Compelling Urgency” 250th anniversary. Contractor: Atlantic Industrial. Zero prior federal contracts. No pool or monument experience. The subcontractor doing the actual work doesn’t appear anywhere in the justification documents. Now the ballroom. Trump personally selected Clark Construction to build his $400M White House ballroom. Clark is already on site with people and equipment. Then NPS quietly awards Clark a separate $17.4M no-bid contract to fix two fountains in Lafayette Park directly across the street. Never posted publicly. Never competitively bid. The justification? Clark was already nearby. That’s it. The original estimate for those fountains in 2022 was $3.3M. The consultant who wrote that estimate said the administration literally took his cover page and added millions with no itemization. Final price: $17.4M. Same urgency exemption. Same 250th anniversary justification. Both contracts bypassed competitive bidding. Both used the same urgency exemption. Both cited the same 250th anniversary. Both awarded to contractors with direct Trump connections. The Lafayette Park contract was never posted in public federal spending databases. The Reflecting Pool contract was posted but the subcontractor doing the primary work appears nowhere in the paperwork. Combined taxpayer bill: over $30 million. Combined competitive bids received: zero. This urgency exemption has been used in less than 1% of NPS contracts over the past decade. They used it twice in the same year. For birthday decorations. Senator Blumenthal is already demanding answers on the Lafayette Park contract by May 15th. The Reflecting Pool has a Cabinet secretary photographed on site and a subcontractor with an expired federal registration that isn’t mentioned anywhere in the contract documents. This isn’t two separate stories. This is one story. The 250th anniversary isn’t just a celebration. It’s a billing mechanism. And taxpayers are footing the bill with zero say in who got the work or why..

A new ProPublica investigation found blood transfusions during first-trimester miscarriage ER visits in Texas surged 54% after abortion became a felony. Women are being sent home hemorrhaging instead of receiving standard care. This is cruel, dangerous, and preventable. propublica.org/article/texas-…

A sitting member of Congress brutally beat his wife. He threw boiling water at her. He burned her. In front of their young daughter. The House of Representatives needs to immediately expel Rep @MaxMillerOH (R-OH). No man who throws boiling water on his wife in front of their daughter is fit for office. #ExpelMaxMiller #ExpelMiller yahoo.com/news/articles/…

People convicted of fraud who received pardons from Trump this year: • Jason Galanis — $200M+ fraud • Joseph Schwartz — $38M scheme • Lawrence Duran — $205M Medicare fraud billing • Carlos Watson — $60M investor scam • Trevor Milton — $20M+ investor losses • Todd & Julie Chrisley — $30M bank fraud • Devon Archer — $60M bond fraud scheme • George Santos — multiple fraud cases ($44K–$1M+) • Michele Fiore — charity fraud • Brian Kelsey — campaign finance fraud • Scott Jenkins — bribery and fraud scheme • Paul Walczak — $10M+ tax fraud • Adriana Camberos — counterfeit/fraud operation

NEW: The number of kids placed in foster care because immigration agents detained or deported their parents increased by nearly 49% in the 2025 fiscal year. notus.org/immigration/tr…

The replies to this person's tweet lack a nuanced understanding of aesthetics. Let me tell you why I don't think this room works. First, the gold decorations make the room look like an ersatz Versailles. Go to Getty Images and type in "Oval Office." Then zoom in on the gold decor. You'll notice that the lines are very blunted and muddied; they lack the sharp lines and fine detailing that you'd expect on something made by an artisan. Hence why some people have suggested these decorations are from Home Depot (true or not, that's the impression). You can see the difference between the first and second photos. The first, of course, is of the Oval Office; the second is the reception room from the Hotel de Cabris in France, which was made during the 18th century under the direction of Louis XVI. Even at this distance, the second image looks much better because it was designed and executed by artisans working within a coherent visual language. You can really see the crisp lines and detailing. Second, the White House was designed by James Hoban, an Irish architect who migrated to the US for economic opportunities (what a great American story!). He originally designed it in the Neoclassical style, drawing on Palladian and Georgian influences. Neoclassicalism was a reaction against the Rococo movement, which reactionaries saw as overly ornate and frivolous. A bit of gold used sparingly and strategically can look fine in a Neoclassical building, but the amount Trump used has so radically encrusted the room that it's now in Rococo territory, making it look like a mismatch of aesthetics. You can see an example of gilded Rococo architecture in the third slide. Although it's not my thing, the effect is totally different because it's coherent. IMO, architecture sets the terms for you can decorate a space. Modernist furniture looks best in modernist buildings, just as Craftsman furniture looks best in Craftsman homes (see fourth slide). You don't have to do period recreations — sometimes mixing two aesthetics, or old and new, can make a space feel more natural — but having a sense of aesthetic history (art, architecture, furniture, fashion) can help you create better aesthetics. The Oval Office offends on at least three levels: the ersatz nature of the decor, the way it grates against Hoban’s Neoclassical vision, and the way it misunderstands the classical-republican symbolism that the White House was meant to project in the first place. As others have noted, this is the kind of decor you'd expect from dictators who rob their own country.

ICE take 10 year old boy to court to deport him—all alone without even a lawyer. He urinated on himself and wet all his clothing—no one offered him a change for many hours. "I was scared because it was my first time in court," he said. Separated from his mom for 4 months now after she was detained during a traffic stop. Wilfredo and his mother are originally from Venezuela with a pending asylum case. ICE is now trying to deport him alone without legal representation to Ecuador—a country he's never been to and does not know a single person. He is temporarily staying with his mom's former boss in Houston, Texas.

@retardinho66 @OrevaZSN It used to be that way, and people (especially women & minors) suffered from low wages, unduly long hours, and poor working conditions. Switzerland doesn’t have a FEDERAL minimum wage, but it is regulated by cantons. And it’s a totally different political landscape.

@OrevaZSN Well then it's set a lot too high nearly every place this has one, as you can live on a hell of a lot less. But why not let the free market set this rate? Switzerland, the country with the HIGHEST average and median wages has NO minimum wage imposed by the state after all.

The minimum wage is meant to be the lowest wage you can live on and afford housing. So, for everyone saying "it's not meant to be that," yes, it is. That's why it's called the minimum wage.

@AndyBillyions @godprobhatesme @OrevaZSN Before the FLSA, Children worked to support their families. The FLSA made it so minors and women were paid fair wages, not to keep children from making enough money to afford housing. Quite the opposite. britannica.com/procon/minimum…

@AndyBillyions @godprobhatesme @OrevaZSN The purpose of the federal minimum wage, introduced during the Great Depression, was to ensure employees could afford food and housing. The Fair Labor Standards Act established the federal minimum wage, a 44 hr workweek, and prohibited oppressive child labor.

@KevinParsley75 @JayMoore555 @ChrisVillegas88 @watchkeep Then shut the fuck up, Kevin.

@JayMoore555 @ChrisVillegas88 @watchkeep Sorry I don’t have all the details.

Former MLB Astros and Rockies player-registered child sex offender- now a homeschool kids baseball coach in Texas. His name is Thomas (Tommy) Whiteman. He also owns a baseball training facility and lists biblical counseling as a service. He lives in Keller, Texas. watchkeep.org/2026/04/former…

The insider trading suspicions looming over Trump's presidency bbc.in/4tkKWyi

Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Cutting Plea Deal In Child Porn Case tmz.me/tUGgONC

This is the most important story of the year so far. ProPublica found 75 officials in key election protection roles across federal agencies have been fired, resigned, or reassigned. They've been replaced by two dozen political appointees – 10 tried to reverse Trump's 2020 loss.

Unpause RHOM immediately, do you hear me @Andy?!

“Trump isnt in the file-“ But he is ma.

DACA was created in 2012 by executive action for people brought here as children, with no criminal record, who met education or military service requirements. The program has never been struck down. It has survived multiple court challenges. Over 580,000 people have active DACA status. The Trump administration is treating active DACA holders as deportable. Not because the law changed. Because the enforcement posture changed. 260 detained. 80 deported. The court cases protecting DACA are still in progress. The detentions are happening anyway. The man in this story was not arrested for a crime. He was not subject to a deportation order that had been validated through the court process that DACA recipients were told would protect them. He was arrested while delivering milk to his premature daughter in the NICU. The constitutional law professor whose work Mother Jones cited earlier in this session described ICE as "the face of a prerogative state, emerging or actual." The prerogative state does not announce itself and does not wait for the law to change. It moves into the gap between what the law says and what the enforcement apparatus does, and it finds the people most vulnerable to that gap. A NICU is where premature babies fight to survive. It is where their parents bring them milk and touch their hands through incubator slots and wait. That is where ICE found this man, and that is where his daughter is still waiting.

@TomStrawmy12141 @AnnvanKeulen @jamesdeanthedre @LongTimeHistory Get a life, loser.

@AnnvanKeulen @jamesdeanthedre @LongTimeHistory Not really, but it's all good. I hate those Israeli idiots, so we can agree on that for sure! 😁 I'm just kinda fucking around anyway. I gives no fucks about the shit on TV and the media. They lie and I don't watch it anymore. It's fun to poke the bear and have people cuss me.😁

ICE deports U.S. citizen to Mexico—racially profiled driving to work. Agents refused to look at his birth certificate or social security card—or even medical records proving born in U.S. hospital. Then they threatened him with 5 years in prison for fraud—accusing him of lying to federal officers about his citizenship. Brian Morales was born in Denver, Colorado—he was detained as part of a construction crew in Fredericksburg, Texas. ICE deported him just days later to a state in Mexico that he had never been to—far away from even distant relatives. Lidia Terrazas is a National Correspondent for N+ Univision—their flagship news network.