For those that celebrate I wish you all a great Easter.

Also people are waiting to see if the rumor is true.

Another marvelous week in the sun of the Trump Administration….and the silliness just keeps rolling on….and by the truck loads.

Little Donny has gone full Stalin….

My blogging buddy Pete over at https://beetleypete.com/ left me a comment about this thing where Trump wanted supporters to wear lapel pins of his likeness and before I confirm another blogging buddy John over at  https://jrliming.blog/ posted a piece about the same thing…

In early April 2025, claims (archived) circulated that U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered his cabinet, Republican congresspeople and other supporters to wear golden lapel pins depicting the president’s face.

However, it was unclear at the time of this writing whether Trump or his administration had ordered anyone to wear golden Trump lapel pins.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/11/trump-head-lapel-pin/

If you are interested this can be obtained from Amazon.

The Magic Sharpie was at it again….this time it is about showers….

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order to immediately reverse water conservation standards, with the White House saying in a press release that the order will “end the Obama-Biden war on water pressure and make America’s showers great again.” The Obama-era standards restricted water flow through showerheads and household appliances; Trump also reversed them during his first presidential term, but President Biden then reversed them right back, the AP reports. Trump argued that the restrictions actually forced people to use more water and energy, and his order instructs Energy Secretary Chris Wright to rescind the “overly complicated federal rule.”

“I like to take a nice shower, take care of my beautiful hair,” he said when signing the order, but “I have to stand in the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. Comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous. What you do is you end up washing your hands five times longer, so it’s the same water. And we’re going to open it up so that people can live.” The Hill notes Trump promised such a move on day one of his current term. But the Appliance Standards Awareness Project says Biden-era standards reduced utility bills and helped the environment, and the organization’s executive director says consumer reviews consistently rate current showerheads highly. The director says no significant changes were made by any major showerhead manufacturers during Trump’s first term, and he doubts any will be made this time around either.

And EOs just keep rolling along….what a colossal waste to time and ink.

But wait!  There is more from the Magic Sharpie….

The highest form of freedom in a democracy isn’t just the right to vote or protest—it’s the right to speak truth to power. To call out corruption. To challenge lies. To stand firm when the powerful demand silence. This is the freedom that sustains all others.

When he signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to investigate Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor—two public servants whose only crime was telling the truth—Trump didn’t just abuse his office. He weaponized the government against honesty itself.

This wasn’t law enforcement: It was political vengeance. This wasn’t democracy: It was a warning shot from the edge of autocracy. And if we let this slide—if we treat it as just another Trump headline—we are inviting the next strongman to do the same, only worse.

The freedom to speak truth to power is either sacred, or it’s gone.

https://newrepublic.com/article/193854/trump-justice-dept-executive-order-taylor-krebs-authoritarian

Atta boy, crush the right to an opinion.

(How many EOs is this now…..200, more?)

Then there is Elmo, the sharp end of the Magic Sharpie….this douche shows no sympathy….

As billionaire Elon Musk continues to ravage the government’s budget with the help of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, sources inside the White House are increasingly getting fed up with his antics.

As Rolling Stone reported today, some senior State Department officials have come to call him “Crazy Uncle Elon,” a nod towards his grating persona. But the story contained another alarming revelation: the depth of Musk’s antipathy toward the people’s whose lives he’s been turning upside down.

…

But to Musk, the massive amount of hurt he’s inflicting on all those people has come as a source of amusement. According to Rolling Stone, the billionaire has been reacting with laugh-crying emojis to reports of federal staffers’ lives being upended.

The reporting highlights the richest man in the world’s active disdain for federal employees. Case in point, earlier this year, Musk retweeted a post that blamed the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong on public sector workers.

https://futurism.com/elon-musk-lives-destroyed-respond-laugh-cry-emojis

BTW did you know that the volatile market made Elmo about $134 billion?  It is good to be in the pocket of the king.

If you are an iPhone geek and are worried about the price of the next version that you want to stand in line for hours to obtain….then you can relax Donny has come to your rescue…

The Trump administration said late Friday that it would exclude electronics like smartphones and laptops from “reciprocal” tariffs, a move that could help keep the prices down for popular consumer electronics that aren’t usually made in the US. It would also benefit big tech companies like Apple and Samsung and chip makers like Nvidia, reports the AP. US Customs and Border Protection said items like smartphones, laptops, hard drives, flat-panel monitors, and some chips would qualify for the exemption. Machines used to make semiconductors are also excluded. That means they won’t be subject to the current 145% tariffs levied on China or the 10% baseline tariffs elsewhere.

“Setting up domestic manufacturing would take years,” notes Bloomberg. Trump previously said he would consider exempting some companies from tariffs. The move takes off “a huge black cloud overhang for now over the tech sector and the pressure facing U.S. Big Tech,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a research note. Neither the White House, Apple, or Samsung responded to a request for comment early Saturday. Nvidia declined to comment.

A sigh of relief from the nerds for Donny’s waffling (like he always does).

Some maybe good news but I do not think it will go too far….

The agency known as the congressional watchdog is reportedly taking a close look at DOGE. Wired, citing sources and government records, reports that the Government Accountability Office has been auditing DOGE since last month after requests from congressional leaders. Records suggest the GAO audit is focusing on DOGE’s adherence to privacy and data protection laws. “The reports of untrained people rummaging around databases changing code, scraping data—who knows what they’re doing?—were pretty alarming,” a congressional aide tells Wired.

Wired reports that records show the GAO—which describes itself as an “independent, non-partisan agency that works for Congress”—will carry out a “granular review” of every system DOGE operatives have accessed at dozens of federal agencies.

• GAO asked the Department of Labor to explain how DOGE was accessing systems and information and to describe the processes and safeguards in place to ensure DOGE is “appropriately protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the agency systems and information as required by applicable laws and guidance.”
• Elon Musk’s teams have accessed data with the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans, and in court filings reviewed by Rolling Stone, Trump administration lawyers have been unable to explain exactly why DOGE needs it.
• Wired‘s sources say the review will be made publicly available after it is completed in late spring.
• “GAO has received requests to review actions taken by DOGE across multiple agencies,” GAO spokesperson Sarah Kaczmarek tells Wired. “The first thing GAO does as any work begins is to determine the full scope of what we will cover and the methodology to be used. Until that is done, we cannot provide any additional details or estimates on when the work will be completed.”
• Two House Democrats, meanwhile, have introduced a bill aimed at making DOGE more transparent. Axios reports that the DOGE Accountability and Transparency Act introduced by Reps. Brad Schneider and Stephen Lynch would require DOGE to submit a report to Congress every week, explaining the legal basis for its actions and detailing “all firings, budget cuts, policy changes, physical alterations to federal buildings or relocations, and data accessed by the department’s staff.”

This will probably be no more than a fart in a hurricane but at least someone is trying.

The government wants to groom a generation of informants similar to those used by the East German, the Stasi,…..

The latest development in the Trump administration’s ongoing push to eradicate gender-affirming care: a portal where the public can submit tips regarding providers offering such care. The form, which can be found on the Department of Health and Human Services website, is called “Whistleblower Tips and Complaints Regarding the Chemical and Surgical Mutilation of Children,” and the department has also offered an extensive outline of why the so-called whistleblowers shouldn’t worry about disclosing protected health information, or being retaliated against for making a report.

As Erin in the Morning reports, people are encouraged to submit a report of any care that might be in opposition to President Trump’s anti-transgender executive order, which aims to cut federal funding for gender-affirming care for anyone under age 19, or research into the topic—whether or not that care allegedly violates state or federal law. The executive order has been blocked by multiple judges, but federal agencies are still working to enforce it.

As for the promised protections for “whistleblowers” in this case, Erin in the Morning notes that it appears to be an exception for this administration: “Trump has waged war on whistleblowers in almost every other circumstance—including by firing the head of the government watchdog agency established to protect them.”

How far will Donny and his band of thugs go with this policy?

The last thing for this week’s edition…..

His majesty has a new monument to himself….

A businessman and former GOP New York congressional candidate wanted to make an impression on President Trump, and he certainly has, with his “Defiance Monument”: a 7-foot bronze statue in Trump’s likeness, which Anthony Constantino says will now be a “permanent fixture” at the commander in chief’s Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, reports the Daily Beast. Constantino says Trump “was in a happy, joking mood” during Constantino’s visit to the club on Saturday, posting a photo of himself and Trump posing in front of the statue, which shows Trump raising his fist in the air.

Constantino says the statue, which sits atop a stone pedestal with Constantino’s name engraved on it, was made in Colorado by sculptor George Lundeen, and that it will remain between the clubhouse and the first hole of the golf course. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has the scoop (and reaction) on FCC Chair Brendan Carr recently posting pictures and video of himself sporting a gold lapel pin bearing Trump’s head, right in the spot where many politicians often wear American flag pins. “How is this not a cult?” one observer asked on Reddit. BuzzFeed notes that “the historical context of this stunt makes it even more concerning, as world dictators have historically had their own face pins.” The site points out that Trump’s pin is “eerily” similar to one once used for Chinese tyrant Mao Zedong.

He always thought of himself as larger than life….at least, for now, it is on Florida and not the entrance to the White House.

See you guys next week.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”