Rahmanullah Lakanwal

Borrowed from the internet from Phil McLaughlin, if there really is such a person. 

Breaking….late 26Nov

The accused shooter is an Afghan national who was airlifted to the U.S. in 2021 under Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome, but his individual asylum claim was not approved until April 2025 under the current Trump administration, after a fresh round of vetting. That’s the uncomfortable, documented truth Republicans are working very hard not to say out loud right now. 

What actually happened 

The suspect has been identified as 29‑year‑old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, arrested after two West Virginia National Guard members were shot in a targeted attack near the White House. He was evacuated from Afghanistan to the U.S. in 2021 as part of the Biden‑era evacuation and resettlement effort following the fall of Kabul, under Operation Allies Welcome. 

The asylum timeline 

After arrival, he lived in the U.S. for several years and formally applied for asylum in late 2024, which triggered a new, case‑specific security and eligibility review. That asylum application was approved in April 2025, explicitly under the Trump administration, following additional vetting steps that are separate from the original 2021 evacuation screening. 

So the factual chain is: evacuated and initially screened under Biden in 2021, then granted asylum and protection from deportation by Trump’s DHS in April 2025. 

What Trump is saying 

In his public remarks, Trump called the shooting “an act of evil” and “an act of terror,” and ordered even more National Guard troops into Washington, D.C. in response. He has framed the suspect broadly as a product of “Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal,” demanding a full review of “every alien” who entered from Afghanistan under Biden and suggesting that the prior administration’s vetting was too weak. 

Notice what he is not saying: that his own administration reviewed this man’s file this year and chose to approve his asylum claim in April. 

What the right‑wing ecosystem is pushing 

Pro‑Trump and right‑wing outlets and influencers are hammering a simple story line: Biden “flooded” the country with dangerous Afghan refugees, this shooter is proof, and therefore mass crackdowns, re‑interviews, and revocations are necessary. In a lot of that coverage, the detail that his asylum was actually approved in 2025 under Trump is either buried or simply left out altogether. 

The result is a narrative where Biden is blamed for “bringing him here,” but the Trump‑era decision to formally grant him asylum this spring is treated as a footnote or not mentioned at all. 

Why this split reality is so dangerous. 

When the president and his media allies aggressively simplify or distort a case like this, they’re not just shading the truth; they’re training millions of people to associate an entire category of people (Afghan refugees, immigrants, Muslims) with terrorism, even when the full record is more complicated and shared across administrations. 

That scapegoating becomes raw material for policy: mass re‑screenings, status revocations, and deportations aimed at large groups who went through years of vetting, all justified by a single horrific crime and a dishonest telling of who actually signed what and when. 

In a moment when trust in institutions is already brittle, this split reality—one side working from a documented timeline, the other from a weaponized story—pushes the country closer to a place where facts simply do not matter, only tribe and fear do. And that is exactly the environment in which abuses of power and violence against vulnerable communities flourish.

Rick Wilson

Rick Wilson was a long-time Republican who saw Trump for what he really was and wanted no part of him in the GOP. He formed "The Lincoln Project" back in 2019 (check) with fellow Republicans Steve Schmidt and George Conway to lobby against Trump. Rick, like so many others today, has a Substack where he writes frequently. The column below first appeared on Substack.

MAGA Is A Foreign Influence Op

Trump isn't Vladimir Putin's only American sucker.

RICK WILSON

NOV 27, 2025

MAGA is a foreign influence operation.

Not “incidental to MAGA,” not touching it,” not “nudging it,” not “occasionally exploiting it.” MAGA is a foreign influence operation, root and branch.

While pundits spent more time this weekend than anyone should on RFK Jr.’s, uh, erotic poetry to Olivia Nuzzi (and by that, I mean SWEET JESUS BLEACH IT FROM MY BRAIN), we learned foreign influence operations are at the tweeting, bleating heart of the MAGA moment.

MAGA is not just a political movement of goateed, 50-ish white dudes who all rock that same avatar of them copping what they imagine is an expression of manly vigor in the front seat of their behind-on-the-payments Ford F-350.

It’s a delivery system.

A supply chain for chaos that starts in Moscow and Tehran and Beijing, runs through bot farms in industrial parks outside St. Petersburg or the Pardis Technology Park north of Tehran, or some Nigerian click farm, or a Chinese-criminal-owned social media and tech scam prison in the wilds of Burma, bounces off a rage-merchant influencer “from Ohio” who has never set foot in America, and ends up in your pissed off MAGA uncle’s Facebook feed as a “patriotic truth.”

It’s tempting to call MAGA the most gullible cohort of political suckers, mooks, rubes, and slowcoaches ever to blight this nation. I want to tell you I’m going to resist that temptation, but that would be as big a lie as the thousands of MAGA accounts with AI avatars who look and sound like American patriots, flooding social media platforms from their lairs abroad.

MAGA is the most gullible cohort of political suckers, mooks, rubes, and slowcoaches ever to blight this nation.

If that sounds harsh, good.

Original.

Facts?

This one was a little hard to see in the right column, so I thought I'd post it here also.

James Carville

James Carville is not my favorite Democratic strategist, but I still listen to what he has to say. Usually. Found this one in Alternet.

'Pure economic rage': DC insider plots path out of the MAGA 'abyss' in scathing editorial

Lesley Abravanel

November 24, 2025 | 06:59AM ET

In his latest opinion piece in The New York Times, Democratic party strategist James Carville says the only thing that will persevere until next year's midterm elections is economic pain, which is the reason the Democrats swept November's elections.

Democrats "Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill — even down-ballot Georgia Democrats — all won with soaring margins because the people are p-----," Carville writes.

This anger, he says, is what drives election wins.

"And the people always point their anger at the party in charge. Rent is out of control. Young people can’t afford homes or pay student debt. We’re living through the greatest economic inequality since the Roaring Twenties," Carville says.

And because President Donald Trump has done "nothing to curb the cost of what it requires to take even a breath in America today, the centerpiece promise of his 2024 campaign, the people are revolting, and they have been for some time," he says.

"This offers Democrats the greatest gift you can have in American politics: a second chance," he adds, saying that "Yet it is abundantly clear even to me that the Democratic Party must now run on the most populist economic platform since the Great Depression."

The 81-year-old widely known for his leading role in former President Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign, sees the path to Democratic victory.

"It is time for Democrats to embrace a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic and altogether unmistakable platform of pure economic rage. This is our only way out of the abyss," he explains.

Just as we did in 2018 and even in 2022, it’s all but certain that Democrats will turn out urban and suburban voters in the midterms, specifically the kind of people who vote regularly," he explains.

"At this point, it’s a damn near guarantee for our party, and we must continue to surge these voters. What we must also do is build a platform that helps us permanently uproot the Republican advantage in more rural regions. This can be done only with good old-fashioned economic populism, both in message and measure," he adds.

It really is the economy, stupid, Carville explains, saying that "raging against the rigged, screwed-up, morally bankrupt system that gave us the cost of living crisis must be the centerpiece of every Democratic campaign in America. Unless you’re the top 1 percent, this touches everybody. Even lifelong Republicans know this economy isn’t working."

He adds that Democrats must angrily oppose the system that has prevented younger voters from buying homes, the system that has jacked up utility bills, and the one that has kept grocery prices astronomical.

"It is vital that Democrats, with some big ol’ cojones, rail against the unjust economic system that has created these conditions. Otherwise, we will continue to be viewed as part of it," he writes.

The Republican Party's greatest weapon, he explains, is its ability to get people to turn on each other, so the Democrats have to be focused on this message.

"The era of performative woke politics (ok, now that's BS) from 2020 to 2024 has left a lasting stain on our brand, particularly with rural voters and male voters," he notes.

"We can no longer be a party with a whiff of moral absolutism. We can correct this only by looking toward the future, always, in every situation possible, and pivoting to a form of economic rage as our response," he adds.

Carville also says the message needs to be a simple one.

"With all this rage, we must also have a bold, simple policy plan — one that every American can understand," he writes.

"In the richest country in the history of our planet, we should not fear raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, which had a 74 percent approval rating in 2023. We should not fear an America with free public college tuition, which 63 percent of U.S. adults favored in a 2021 poll. When 62 percent of Americans say their electricity or gas bills have increased in the past year and 80 percent feel powerless to control their utility costs, we should not fear the idea of expanding rural broadband as a public utility," he explains.

He also says the Democrats need to double down on these policies and promises.

"When 70 percent of Americans say raising children is too expensive, we should not fear making universal child care a public good. And darn it, we should not fear that running on a platform of seismic economic scale will cost us a general election. We’ve already lost enough of them by being afraid to try. The era of half-baked political policy is over," he notes.

As Trump and his cronies continue to line their pockets and the American people suffer, Carville says, a change is and must be in the air, as previously noted in history books.

"If you’re a student of history, the French Revolution is in the American wind. While the stock market soars, Mr. Trump and decades of corrupt and morally bankrupt Republican economic agendas have splintered the very heart of the American economy," he writes.

"The few are getting vastly richer while a crushing tide drowns the many. Yet even as Mr. Trump’s approval sinks to a low point of his second term, Republicans continue to place their faith in an economy built on pillars of sand, while the people scrape by day after day. This can change. It’s time we as a party do, too," he adds.

Original.

Signal Press

OK, I will say up front that the claim central to the Signal Press post below, that Trump proclaimed he'd have a bigger crowd at his funeral than Dick Cheney had at his, was made up by Andy Borowitz. That is what Andy does, reports with satire and sarcasm. Sometimes people are too quick to believe something they read online, even IF this particular claim seems right in line with Trump's lack of integrity, morals and self-awareness. We are used to Trump acting this way, so it is somewhat believable. But it does appear Trump never said it. Regardless, the rest of the column is worthy of reprinting, so I will do that.

The Signal Press

Sunday, November 23, 2025

Don't Think That This Small-Minded, Spiteful, Insufferable Pettiness Isn't a Reflection on the United States of AmericaDon't Think That This Small-Minded, Spiteful, Insufferable Pettiness Isn't a Reflection on the United States of America

It's been a long time since I've considered using the term "stupid idiot" in either conversation, or in my writing and expressing my thoughts.  Free speech gives us a lot of latitude, but restraint can sometimes be a sign of a level of intelligence, self-respect and simple courtesy.  Then there are times when something happens, and we are left without words to express the depth of our feelings about it. 

That's where I am right now.  

Where else could I be, after seeing the President of the United States publicly declare that the crowd at his funeral will be a lot larger than the one Dick Cheney got at his.  The fact that this man actually uttered these words is irrefutable proof that every criticism of him, every bad word spoken about him, every word spoken that was critical of his total lack of character and morality has been right on target. 

He is a stupid idiot.  And so is every American citizen who voted for him either time he ran for President.  We are a nation of half-witted dumb-asses, or at least, half of us are.  We have not always had some of the best and brightest individuals in our country find their way into the White House, and maybe that's due to some unique quirks in our history.  But we've never, until now, elected someone who bears no resemblance at all to competent, effective leadership.  Or whose character and person is so lacking in human character that it has, indeed, become a national embarassment, and a detriment to his ability to serve.

And the fact that enough Americans used their popular sovereignty, and cast a ballot to put him back in as President, makes them as bottomlessly stupid, ignorant and petty as he is. It takes some serious mental illness and a measure of insanity for a human being to step so far out of the boundaries of normal behavior, understanding the kind of character that is expected of the nation's President to publicly whine about the size of the crowd at Dick Cheney's funeral, and claim his own will be larger.    

This is the man who holds the nuclear codes in his hands, people.  

No Comparison Between Dick Cheney and Donald Trump

Donald Trump is no Dick Cheney.

I was not a fan of Dick Cheney, not at any point in his political career.  The man who served both Bush Presidencies bears a measure of responsibility for the colossal failures of both, particularly those of Dubya, under who he served as Vice-President, and for whose failed policies he was responsible.  The economy tanked, Bush made a muddled mess of a war that should have been quick, cut and dried, and which took place under false pretenses.  And most of that is on Cheney.  

Cheney was a hard line right winger, not a man of the people.  He wasn't exactly easy to get along with, and he was a politician, not a humanitarian.  I wasn't invited to attend his funeral, and wouldn't have gone if I had been, simply because he wouldn't have been someone for whom I'd make an effort to honor his life at his passing.  To those who knew him, he may have seemed to be a "good man," and I'm not going to question those personal perspectives.  My way of paying my respects is to acknowledge his passing, out of respect for the office he held, and that's that.  

But Cheney, by any standard of measurement, was certainly a much better person than the sitting President, by a long shot.  

There Are Consequences We All Must Suffer For the Breakdown of the Support for Constitutional Democracy

And the words that keep tumbling out of the man's mouth, and off his fingertips, every day, show us how big a mistake it was to ever elect him to public office, and how we must all bear the responsibility, and suffer the consequences, because we have somehow created circumstances which allowed America's most stupid idiot to become its President.  Or, which allowed the most stupid idiots in America to have control of the political steering wheel, overcoming the safeguards of a free press and an educated electorate and allowing ignorance to reign.

Not only did we elect the politicians who support this madness, a sad and costly departure from warnings given to us from as far back as Washington's Farewell Address, but we also elected other politicians who don't seem to have the same convictions, fortitude, or courage that those among the American people who see and have responded to what is happening are now exhibiting.  

We need a whole lot more Jasmine Crocketts and Mark Kellys, and Eric Swalwells, who will, like governors Gavin Newsom and J. B. Pritzker, get right in Trump's face and take his fragile ego down.  He's backed down, in Illinois and in California, we've beaten him.  The Texas National Guard, which never actually set foot in the city of Chicago, has gone back to Texas defeated and disoriented and demoralized. And bankrupt. That's what happens when this guy uses things.  They burn up during the process. 

The threats that come out of this man's mouth are signs of his weakness, his inept incompetence and lack of any sort of emotional strength or common sense.  They are indications of his complete and total moral bankruptcy, and of his absolutely horrific lack of any sense of humanity or decency, which are necessities for serving in the Presidency.  

The integrity, decency, humanity of those who have now become his opposition, a group which should include almost all of the American people, but which sadly only numbers somewhere around 60% of us, if we still believe polls and trust their ability to truly gauge the national will, binds us to support the Constitution's means of making a change in office for the benefit of the American people.  We are not like the British parliament, which can call for elections when it is clear that the coalition government isn't working.  So we have to depend on the most partisan and politically ineffective and morally bankrupt Congress that we've ever had to do its job, follow through on their responsibility to impeach him on any of dozens of felony charges for the crimes he's committed, and then vote to remove him from office.  

Every senator or representative that stands in the way of doing this is fighting against American values, the American Republic, American Constitutional Democracy and popular sovereignty, "We, the people."

Original.

running dry

So it looks like Tehran, Iran, is the first major, huge city, to run out of water. They have mercilessly pumped the groundwater, depleting their aquifers, and, now what? Move the capital Tehran to another location with more water?

Other major metros around the world are in similar, worsening situations. It's happening here in deep South Texas too. They have been pumping so much water from the local aquifers that aquifer levels are dropping, water rates are climbing and authorities are searching for alternatives. The Rio Grande River used to supply all the water needed for the Rio Grande Valley, but we've sucked that one almost dry. New Mexico, far upstream on the Rio Grande, also takes tons of water from it and is close to rationing. And I think we all have heard about the issues with the Colorado River and the mega cities that it supplies. We humans are a wasteful species. It's only when a crisis is on the horizon, or on our doorsteps, that we take action to conserve and be responsible.

Iran’s Capital Is Moving. The Reason Is an Ecological Catastrophe

The decision to move Iran’s capital is partly driven by climate change, but experts say decades of human error and action are also to blame

BY HUMBERTO BASILIO EDITED BY CLAIRE CAMERON

NOVEMBER 21, 2025

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Amid a deepening ecological crisis and acute water shortage, Tehran can no longer remain the capital of Iran, the country’s president has said.

The situation in Tehran is the result of “a perfect storm of climate change and corruption,” says Michael Rubin, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

“We no longer have a choice,” said Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian during a speech on Thursday.

Instead Iranian officials are considering moving the capital to the country’s southern coast. But experts say the proposal does not change the reality for the nearly 10 million people who live in Tehran and are now suffering the consequences of a decades-long decline in water supply.

Since at least 2008, scientists have warned that unchecked groundwater pumping for the city and for agriculture was rapidly draining the country’s aquifers. The overuse did not just deplete underground reserves—it destroyed them, as the land compressed and sank irreversibly. One recent study found that Iran’s central plateau, where most of the country’s aquifers are located, is sinking by more than 35 centimeters each year. As a result, the aquifers lose about 1.7 billion cubic meters of water annually as the ground is permanently crushed, leaving no space for underground water storage to recover, says Darío Solano, a geoscientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who was not involved with the study.

“We saw this coming,” Solano says.

Other major cities such as Cape Town, South Africa, Mexico City and Jakarta, Indonesia, as well as parts of California, are also facing day zero scenarios as they sink and run out of water.

This is not the first time Iran’s capital has moved. Over the centuries, it has shifted many times, from Tabriz to Isfahan to Shiraz. Some of these former capitals still thrive while others exist only as ruins, Rubin says. But this marks the first time the Iranian government has moved the capital because of an ecological catastrophe.

Yet, Rubin says, “it would be a mistake to look at this only through the lens of climate change.” Water, land, and wastewater mismanagement and corruption have made the crisis worse, he says. If the capital moves to the remote Makran coast in the south, that could cost more than $100 billion. The region is known for its harsh climate and difficult terrain, and some experts have doubts about its viability as a national center. Relocating a capital is often driven more by politics than by environmental concerns, says Linda Shi, a social scientist and urban planner at Cornell University. “Climate change is not the thing that is causing it, but it is a convenient factor to blame in order to avoid taking responsibility” for poor political decisions, she says.

Editor’s Note (11/21/25): This article was edited after posting to correct the date of Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian’s quoted statement and the link to the recent study on the sinking of Iran’s central plateau.

ORIGINAL.

Lucian Truscott

Lucian Truscott wrote this piece several days ago when the government shutdown was ending and I wanted to post it then, but Spectrum decided to "upgrade the system" about that time, making doing anything online virtually impossible, unless you had access to LTE or something like it. 

LUCIAN has COVERED EVERYTHING FROM THREE WARS, A FEW PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS, THE STONEWALL RIOTS AND THE ROLLING STONES. THIS COLUMN REFLECTS THAT HISTORY AND IS ABOUT POLITICS, CULTURE, PERSONAL STORIES, AND THE NATION'S DESCENT INTO ANTI-DEMOCRATIC MADNESS.

After the Dems finally ended the shutdown, there was much anger and vitriol aimed at the Democrats, and not much directed to the real culprits, the GOP. Some suggested the Dems should have continued the shutdown for just one more week, so that Thanksgiving travel would be guaranteed to be a total fucking mess. As if every traveler's anger would automatically be directed at the GOP? Not necessarily. Anyway, I'm glad it's over, and the Dems made it quite clear to anyone affected by the shutdown (which is practically everyone) that the GOP wants to double, triple your health insurance premiums. Hell, the GOP wants to kill your healthcare outright. More people soaked up that message during this shutdown. 

Don’t lose sleep over the shutdown deal

LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

NOV 10, 2025

Do not pass “Go.” Do not collect $200. Take your anger over the result of this shutdown directly to November, 2026, when we’re going to kick their asses and take back the House and Senate both.

Republicans, following the instructions of Donald Trump as they always do, allowed Democrats to make the fight over financing the government about one issue: Health care subsidies for Affordable Care Act. Trump thought, oh, they want to hold out for a big Obamacare giveaway? Let them. People hate Obamacare!

The people he knows, maybe, but not even all of them. Fifty fucking percent of Republicans favor extending the ACA health care subsidies, according to a KFF poll take during the middle of the shutdown. Democrats? 94 percent, natch. Do you think we might need some votes from independents to win next November? 76 percent of them want the ACA extensions.

With RFK Jr. defunding the CDC, cancelling vaccine research, and promoting cod liver oil to “cure” measles, we own the health care issue. Refusing to vote to reopen the government unless the ACA subsidies are extended is maybe the single most popular thing Democrats have done since…jeez, I don’t even know when. It was smart to begin with, it was smart yesterday, and thanks to blinkered Republican small-minded shitweasal idiocy, it will be popular when they vote against the subsidies in December, it will be popular at the time the same fight comes up in January when we go through this whole charade again, and it will be even more popular by next November after Trump has spent the better part of a year screeching that he wants to kill Obamacare altogether.

Senate Republicans will line up like penguins and vote down the subsidies in December, and the House won’t even bother to hold a vote. By that time millions will have received notices of what their new health insurance bills will be. They will be very, very unhappy consumers of what Republicans are selling to them.

Health care is the one issue that every American has a stake in. Well, not every American. Bezos and Zuckerberg and other trillionaires will have their “concierge” care on their private hospital floors and even on their yachts, so they don’t give a shit. But even ordinary run of the mill millionaires could have an entire lifetime’s worth of savings and current income wiped out if what Republicans want to do with health insurance comes to pass, and they know it.

It’s a fucking gift, is what this shutdown has been. We own the health insurance issue thanks to Barack Obama and every Democrat before him and after him, and you would think that Republicans would take a look at these polls and the way that health care is working for us, and they’d try to find a way in, but noooooo.

Trump isn’t going to leave anything for Republicans to run on by the middle of next year. Ending wars thousands of miles from home? Hell, he’s got a whole fleet off the coast of Venezuela, and he’s rocketing boats on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of South and Central America. He’s threatening Nigeria with “guns-a-blazing” over “our CHERISHED Christians,” such an off the wall crock of testostero-mania that even fundamentalist loons like Ted Cruz were shocked and alarmed.

Who knows what the White House will look like by election time next year? He’s torn down the East Wing. That’s not polling well for him at all among independents and even some Republicans. He’s slapping those gold-leafed whorehouse squiggles all over the back of the White House above every door and window. Just wait: He won’t be able to resist turning the front of the White House into a low-rent copy of one of his Atlantic City casinos. He’s demanding the new RFK stadium in Washington be named for him. 

How long before he insists that the Washington Monument get some gold-leaf appliques and be renamed “Trump Monument?”

He’s losing it, folks. I saw my sister Susan over the weekend. She’s been a senior nurse for more than 30 years, and she told me his whole nodding-off during meetings and press conferences is a classic symptom of a man with severe sleep apnea who refuses to wear the nighttime mask in order to get decent sleep. The body makes up for sleep lost at night with sleep during the day. When he can’t afford to nod off, like the speech to the generals in Quantico and his recent traipse through Asia, they’re shooting him up with B-12 and amphetamines to keep him vertical.

It can’t go on like that. He’s going to fall down, like the billionaire pharma guy did in the Oval Office, and that’s going to crack The Great Gold Façade. He’ll look weak. For Donald Trump, appearing weak isn’t just dangerous to his image as Ruler of the World. It’s deadly.

None of this is to say we haven’t got a fight on our hands. We do. We didn’t need more than 40 days to show how much we mean it when we say we’re for making health care affordable. They were even stupid enough to give us the issue of feeding hungry children by attempting to shut down SNAP and school lunches.

We’ve got issues coming out of the proverbial bugunda. Grocery prices, anybody? 

Electric bills? Rents? Tried to find a house to buy lately? Paying for college loans?

Trump and the Republicans are turning citizenship into indentured servitude. That is what the “affordability” issue is really about. People are tired of paying everything they’ve got to The Man and watching him get on his Gulfstream and fly off to the Bahamas to count his Ponzi-gotten crypto while he pays a tax rate lower than a substitute teacher.

The Republican Party is way ahead of the intergalactic dreams of Elon Musk. They already live on a different planet from us.

We’ve got solid issues to run on. We’ve got energy. Democrats don’t phone it in.

There’s a slogan for you.

Lucian on Substack