Saturday Report 5/3/25 -- “Don’t fly into Newark; it’s not safe.”

The Best of the Rest of the News

Image by jürgen ihle from Pixabay

— Trump loyalist eyes new enemy list? The MAGA nutcase who posted on Xitter that, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” and “Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men,” is now Trump’s Acting Undersecretary of State. From that rarefied perch he’s now, according to Tom Nichols at The Atlantic, “build a blacklist of people who should be frozen out or even targeted by the administration as enemies.” Right. Nixon’s enemies list is back, and it’s being assembled by a white supremacist and apparent Neo-Nazi who, in 2018, had been asked to leave the first Trump administration after attending a white supremacist rally. Such behavior is apparently now just fine; just look at Big Balls, the teenager rummaging through your personal government information who Jim Stewartson writes “is a cybercriminal, who was a member of ‘The Com,’ a cyberstalking and hacking network that included ‘764,’ a Satanic Nazi pedophile cult, that extorts minors for illegal child sexual abuse material (CSAM) … [and] also had a website called ‘Tesla.Sexy’ which had links to CSAM, the KKK, and neo-Nazi content.” Even more shocking, though, is the stunning reality that none of our national mainstream news media seems to think any of this is worth covering; after all, it might piss off Dear Orange Leader, who must at all times be mollified and praised. Or maybe our nation’s reporters are afraid of Pam Bondi calling them traitors and trying to get them the death penalty?

— Hegseth basically declared war on Iran Thursday night with an unhinged X post. Just to be clear, the Secretary of Defense’s job is to run the Pentagon, oversee our military, and make sure our vets and folks in uniform are well taken care of. He has nothing to do with foreign policy and no right or power to be making foreign policy or war-like pronouncements; no SecDef before Hegseth has ever done such a thing, even the deranged Robert McNamara who lied LBJ into the Vietnam War. All foreign policy pronouncements should come from the president or the secretary of state, and only Congress can declare war. But here’s Hegseth in a Thursday night post to Xitter: “Message to IRAN: We see your LETHAL support to The Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the US Military is capable of — and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing.” Was he drunk? Or is he so incompetent and unaware of foreign policy protocols that he thinks this is normal and the right thing to do? Even MAGA whackjob Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who’s fond of posting pictures of himself and his children with AR15s, could figure this out. He posted to Xitter: “I support this administration, but the Secretary of Defense doesn’t have the Constitutional authority to declare war on a sovereign country. A planned military attack on Iran is an Act of War and requires a vote of Congress according to the US Constitution.” It’s time for Hegseth (and his wife and brother) to leave the employ of the federal government and go back to peddling white supremacist memes, hate, and hysteria on Fox “News.”

— Collapsing bird numbers in North America prompt fears of ecological crisis. Scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology report on their study of over 500 bird species in North America that we’re experiencing a major ecological collapse, as virtually all of the birds they studied are diminishing in numbers, some as much as 10 percent a year. I remember 15 or so years ago when a trucker called into my show and said that he used to have to clean the bugs off his windshield every few hours when driving through the central Midwest but hadn’t had to do that for almost a week; the phone lines lit up with people all over the country telling similar stories. It appears that the Insect Apocalypse is now extending to birds, which is a very, very bad sign for the future of life on Earth.

— Geeky Science: Now that we know gut microbiomes can regulate everything from obesity to depression, here’s some good news: you don’t need a fecal transplant, just a high-fiber, low-fat diet! Last week’s Nature published an amazing article on research that’s found that simply abandoning a high-fat, high-sugar, high-meat diet in favor of a high-fiber fruit and vegetable diet will rapidly recalibrate your gut’s bacteria, even when they’ve been largely wiped out by antibiotics. It’s pretty amazing news, given that repairing your microbiome can have impacts on weight loss, depression, and even overall energy and health levels. Eat your veggies! :)

— Courts, including one run by a judge Trump appointed, are standing firm against his unlawful and unconstitutional behavior. To invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, our nation must first be under “invasion” by a “predatory incursion” of foreign troops. Trump is thus lying that Venezuelan President Maduro has sent the TdA gang to America as an armed invasion force determined to take down our government, a claim that’s as preposterous as it is disingenuous. Yet, this is the basis of Trump’s legal assertion that he can deport Venezuelan “gang members” to El Salvador (even as it’s become apparent that most of his deportees were not even close to being affiliated with the gang). Now a Trump-appointed Texas federal judge has found the cajónes to call him out, ruling that: “[T]he plain, ordinary meaning of ‘invasion’ was an entry into the nation’s territory by a military force or an organized, armed force, with the purpose of conquering or obtaining control over territory. In a similar vein, the common usage of ‘predatory incursion’ and, to a lesser degree, ‘incursion,’ referenced a military force or an organized, armed force entering a territory to destroy property, plunder, and harm individuals, with a subsequent retreat from that territory.” For the