FBI Director Kash Patel is expected to be sworn in early this week as the acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to Justice Department officials familiar with the matter.
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It is unclear what President Donald Trump’s long-term plans are for ATF — a 5,000-person agency that is responsible for regulating the sales and licensing of firearms and whose agents often work with local law enforcement to solve gun crimes.

But for now, Patel will have the unusual responsibility of operating two large and consequential agencies that are part of the Justice Department. The people who spoke about his added role did so on the condition of anonymity to discuss a plan that had not yet been announced.

Patel was sworn in Friday as the director of the FBI despite concerns from every Democratic senator and two Republican senators who voted against his nomination over concerns that he lacked the temperament and experience needed for such a powerful law enforcement role.

During the first month of the Trump administration, Justice Department officials have fired or pushed out top leaders in the FBI and have suggested they could terminate more. On Patel’s first day leading the bureau, FBI managers were told Friday that up to 1,500 staff and agents would be transferred out of the bureau’s Washington headquarters to satellite offices across the country.

There haven’t been as many shake-ups yet at ATF. But on Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi fired the general counsel at the agency. She later touted that move, saying in an interview on Fox News that “these people were targeting gun owners. Not going to happen under this administration.”

WTF

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BALCH SPRINGS, Texas (KTVT) - A small memorial and a sense of sadness remain outside the Texas home where a 19-year-old woman with autism was found dead on Valentine’s Day.

Police say they found 19-year-old Delilah Villegas, who had autism and was nonverbal, dead Feb. 14 inside a home in Balch Springs.

WARNING: This story contains graphic details that may be disturbing to some readers.

Investigators say her mother, Crystal Canales, called 911 that afternoon to report her daughter was having trouble breathing. When officers arrived, they smelled something foul coming from Villegas’ bedroom and found her dead in a near-fetal position.


Medical personnel determined Villegas had been dead for at least six and possibly up to 24 hours. After closer examination, authorities discovered signs of severe malnutrition, multiple wounds and exposed bones on the victim’s body.

“They thought she was probably 13 and didn’t realize she was 19 years old. It was, as described, skin to bone. There was large lacerations exposing decaying limbs,” said Balch Springs Officer Pedro Gonzalez at a Saturday news conference. “She looked like she was in a mummified state on the floor.”


Crystal Canales, is facing charges after her 19-year-old daughter, Delilah Villegas, was found dead on her bedroom floor. The young woman had autism and was nonverbal.(Source: Balch Springs Police, KTVT via CNN)
When asked about Villegas' injuries, Canales said she did not seek medical care for her daughter. Detectives concluded the mother’s failure to do so likely constituted reckless conduct, leading to serious bodily injury to a disabled person — a second-degree felony. She was arrested Friday.


Investigators say Villegas’ grandmother and great-uncle also live in the Balch Springs home. The grandmother claimed not to have seen the 19-year-old in several weeks and the great-uncle claimed not to have seen her for a year, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

The affidavit also says police found a deadbolt and lock on Villegas’ bedroom door. Inside the room was a single mattress on the floor and two pallets of comforters, sheets and pillows.

Neighbor Denise Gomez, who knew the victim, says she feels crushed over what happened.

“We never saw the girl come out. If you didn’t live over here for a while, you would never know that she was there,” Gomez said. “I hope she can rest in peace because nobody deserves to be suffering like that.”



This undated photo shows Delilah Villegas, who had autism and was nonverbal. She was found dead in her bedroom on Valentine's Day.(Source: KTVT via CNN)

In addition, a woman who didn’t want to be identified shared photos of Villegas. She says her daughter went to school with the young woman, and she often saw her from 2014 to 2020. Since she hadn’t seen her in nearly five years, she assumed the family had moved.

Villegas’ grandmother and great-uncle don’t face charges in the case at this time.

Are pretty much all great. I watch lots of shows on other streaming services, but Apple is killing it. Does it have the best series?
I say yes.
Agree or disagree?
I’ve enjoyed every series I’ve watched, in no particular order.
Silo
Shrinking
Slow Horses
Ted Lasso
Mythic Quest
Severance
Foundation
For All Mankind
Dark Matter
Bad Monkey
Loot
Lessons in Chemistry
Sunny
Invasion
Monarch Legacy of Monsters
The Reluctant Traveler
Omnivore

People are freaking out about it on Reddit.

I know, CSB.

Impressive!

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Is that a bot?

1. 40 minutes of hell.
2. Yep, that was the shot.
3. Don't blame the referees.

FREE:

Professional Pickleball Association's Carvana Mesa Cup Championship matches on FS 1 right now...

1. Women's Doubles
2. Men's Doubles
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Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.
At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.
We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.

Women’s college basketball has arrived!
Way to go, Kim Mulkey, four-time NCAA championship coach, two-time championship player and the head coach of the defending champion LSU women’s team.
You’ve done it.



Your unhinged rant about the alleged, impending, never-before-seen, purported ‘‘hit job’’ on you coming from the Washington Post was magnificent. It looked as though you were testifying before a Senate crime committee.
You’ve put women’s hoops up there with the big boys. Up there where every supporter has said the sport must go for fairness, equity, scrutiny, the American way.
Indeed, nothing says ego, entitlement and status like a furious diatribe from a coach at a news conference about a piece of unseen journalism. And nothing guarantees more viewers of the alleged upcoming story.
To refresh your memory: On Saturday, Mulkey, who dresses for games like a Mardi Gras reveler or human candy cane, ripped into the writer who, as she noted, has been working on a story about her for two years. The writer allegedly tried to talk with ‘‘disgruntled’’ former players, and he already had written about LSU football coach Brian Kelly in 2022. Man, did that story make Mulkey mad. So mad that she has refused every request the writer has made to talk with her for two full years.

The writer, by the way, is veteran sports journalist Kent Babb, whose piece about Kelly — titled ‘‘In Baton Rouge, There’s a $100 Million Football Coach and Everyone Else’’ — was absolutely spot-on. As detailed in Babb’s piece, Kelly makes $24,657 per day, while the median income for people living near the football stadium is $24,865 per year.
Mulkey, who recently signed a 10-year contract extension for $32 million, was very upset about that expose. The nerve of these writers. Kelly is King of the Swamp. Mulkey perceives herself as the Swamp Queen.
Part of me thinks that this whole thing was staged, that Mulkey and the NCAA gleefully and quietly plotted this PR gem for years. The timing was perfect: Go after a scribe (and his arrogant media outpost), play victim, play martyr, tell the world this is why nobody trusts the media, remind your team that the whole world is against us.
Then Mulkey’s cherry on top from Saturday, to let everybody know she’s a fighter: ‘‘I’ve hired the best defamation law firm in the country, and I will sue the Washington Post if they publish a false story about me. Not many people are in a position to hold these kinds of journalists accountable, but I am. And I’ll do it.’’


This is where you start chuckling. A tip here, Coach: Facts and opinions are not ‘‘false’’ things. You’re a public figure. Unless a piece was written with reckless disregard for the truth, knowingly false and still printed, it ain’t libel or slander. It’s called journalism.
Facts are true things.
But if Babb and the Post print lies, then sue ’em back to the Stone Age, Coach. Absolutely. While you’re at it, have fun with your own discovery and depositions. Have fun talking under oath about how you are not loved by the gay community. How you didn’t support your gay former star Brittney Griner, who led your Baylor team to a 40-0 season and a national championship. How you barely spoke about her while she was imprisoned in a Russian gulag.
Tell them how in March 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, you said the NCAA Tournament should ‘‘dump’’ its COVID testing.

Tell them about being suspended from the 2013 NCAA Tournament for your comments about officials.
Tell them why you called Babb — a nationally honored sportswriter whose book ‘‘Across the River,’’ about an inner-city New Orleans high school football team, is one of the best and most passionate sports books I’ve ever read — ‘‘sleazy.’’
And, above all, remind us why ESPN writer Kate Fagan said on a podcast: ‘‘Kim Mulkey is my dark horse for person in sports that you never want to cross. She might just be the No. 1 person in sports that is terrifying.’’
Oh, that lawsuit will never happen. Not a chance.


But women’s college hoops has stars such as Caitlin Clark, who dresses down like Mike Tyson entering the ring, and Angel Reese, who dresses up like a fashion shoot is breaking out, and the whole sport is rocketing upward.
So good work, Kim Mulkey. As we know, every great drama needs a bad guy. You got it.

Those are the reports I have been reading from various outlets.

Does this action show the beginnings of some balls by other Repubs? Repub Sen Tillis has at least really spoken out against Trump's ideas and whims about putin and that war.

Yankee players will finally be allowed to have facial hair.

https://www.mlb.com/amp/news/yankees-change-facial-hair-policy.html

For wolves right now.

Nice little run here in the 1st Q. Moving great around the court. Should get some time tonight.

Great to see the max effort guy repping the Hawks.

31-23 OKC

The Situation on Wednesday stared American betrayal of Ukraine in the face.

Let’s close the week with 19 statements of facts pertaining to the week that has passed, to which I will attach minimal commentary but which a reasonable person might deem related to that whole rule-of-law thing:

1. Kash Patel is now the director of the FBI.
2. Only two Republican senators were persuaded that a man who writes children’s books fantasizing about deploying that Justice Department against his foes is an appropriate figure to supervise a 35,000 person agency—for now, anyway—with guns and arrest power that is responsible for enforcing the law against American citizens.
3. Patel is also the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, because running the FBI is apparently only a part-time job.
4. The acting deputy attorney argued to a federal court this week that dismissing a case against a corrupt official in exchange for a policy quid pro quo would be no problem: “I don’t concede that, even if there was a quid pro quo, that there would be an issue with this motion,” Emil Bove said of his motion to dismiss the charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
5. At least seven career officials and one acting U.S. attorney—of quite diverse politics—took a different view of the matter and resigned from the Justice Department because they considered this position ethically indefensible and were unwilling to file the motion. As one of them wrote, “I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”
6. A federal court found this week that the USAID was not in compliance with its order that the government stop freezing foreign aid funds while it reviews grants: “Defendants have continued their blanket suspension of funds pending review of agreements, the very action that the [court] enjoined pending the parties’ requested briefing schedule and the Court’s prompt resolution of whether to issue a preliminary injunction,” the court wrote.
7. The acting U.S. attorney in Washington—Edward R. Martin Jr.—is sending letters to politicians who criticize DOGE and Elon Musk and Supreme Court justices implying that he might investigate them for making threats.
8. President Trump is now nominating that same acting U.S. attorney in Washington, a Stop the Steal organizer, for the permanent job as U.S. attorney.
9. While DOGE is funded and acts in many ways like a government agency, the White House is shielding it from transparency and other rules agencies must follow.
10. It is still unclear whether Musk is the administrator of DOGE, or if he’s not, who actually is.
11. The attorney general has disbanded an FBI task force responsible for combating foreign malign influence operations. Employees at CISA responsible for countering foreign influence were put on administrative leave. And the Justice Department announced that it will roll back enforcement of criminal statutes penalizing foreign malign influence.
12. The federal government “accidentally” fired USDA employees working on avian bird flu and Energy Department employees working on nuclear safety, then tried to hire them back. Oops.
13. The Associated Press remains barred from the White House because it refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” despite a letter from dozens of news organizations including Fox News, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. The AP filed suit on Friday.
14. Apple and Google put TikTok back in U.S. app stores, in light of the president’s non-enforcement policy toward Congress's ban notwithstanding a clear federal statute that forbids the presence of the app in such app stores.
15. On Wednesday, the president issued an executive order asserting that it provides “authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch,” making these interpretations “controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties,” and forbidding independent agencies from any legal interpretation that diverges from those views.
16. That same order introduced measures requiring independent agencies to “submit for review all proposed and final significant regulatory actions” to a White House office for review. The affected agencies would include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.
17. The president declared in a tweet that “He who saves his country does not violate any law.”
18. Lawfare’s traffic, whether measured by visits, active users, or new users, is up more than 100 percent in the past 30 days over the 30 days before that—and more than that over this same period last year. One of those hundreds of thousands of new or returning readers, Ezra Klein, said recently, “I will say, I feel like it’s always a bad sign when I’m reading Lawfare a lot.”
19. The President Friday purged at least six top military officers, including the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

Republicans used to denounce the violent insurrectionists of January 6. Their rhetoric is no longer operative.
By Annie Joy Williams


Donald Trump promised his supporters that if he won the presidency again, he would pardon at least some of the January 6 rioters who have been prosecuted. “Tonight I’m going to be signing on the J6 hostages pardons to get them out,” he told the crowd at Capital One Arena on Monday night. “And as soon as I leave, I’m going to the Oval Office, and will be signing pardons for a lot of people.”

Many prominent Republicans seem to agree with Trump’s view that the January 6 insurrectionists, including men convicted of assaulting police officers, are government “hostages.” The view seems to be that Democrats are using the events of January 6 as an excuse to carry out what Trump calls a “witch hunt.”

Prominent Republicans weren’t always blasé about January 6. Immediately following the attack on the Capitol, and even into the following year, many leading Republicans condemned the attack on the Capitol and the police officers assigned to protect it.

As an antidote to amnesia, here is an incomplete compilation of remarks about the January 6 violence made by Republicans who now are seeking Cabinet-level positions in the new Trump administration, or are otherwise in Trump’s inner circle.

---

Elise Stefanik, United Nations Ambassador-Designate, January 6, 2021 (press release now deleted): “This is truly a tragic day for America. I fully condemn the dangerous violence and destruction that occurred today at the United States Capitol. Americans have a Constitutional right to protest and freedom of speech, but violence in any form is absolutely unacceptable and anti-American. The perpetrators of this un-American violence and destruction must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State nominee, January 6, 2021: “There is nothing patriotic about what is occurring on Capitol Hill. This is 3rd world style anti-American anarchy.”

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Secretary nominee, January 6, 2021 (tweet now deleted): “We are all entitled to peacefully protest. Violence is not a part of that. What’s happening in the Capitol right now must stop.”

Doug Burgum, Interior Secretary nominee, January 6, 2021: “We support the right to peacefully protest. The violence happening at our nation’s capitol is reprehensible and does not represent American values, and needs to stop immediately.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, Department of Government Efficiency co-leader, September 13, 2022: “It was a dark day for democracy. The loser of the last election refused to concede the race, claimed the election was stolen, raised hundreds of millions of dollars from loyal supporters, and is considering running for executive office again. I’m referring, of course, to Donald Trump.”

Kevin McCarthy, then–Speaker of the House, January 13, 2021: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action from President Trump—accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest, and ensure that President-Elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term. And the president’s immediate action also deserves congressional action, which is why I think a fact-finding commission and a censure resolution would be prudent. Unfortunately, that is not where we are today.”

WHO: #3 UCLA Bruins (25-1, 13-1 Big Ten)
WHEN: 1:00 PM CT (Sunday, February 23, 2025)
WHERE: Carver-Hawkeye Arena (Iowa City, IA)
TV: peacocktv.com ($)
RADIO: Hawkee Radio Network (Rob Brooks, Kathryn Reynolds)
MOBILE: peacocktv.com ($)
ONLINE: peacocktv.com ($)
FOLLOW: @HawkeyeBeacon | @IowaWBB | @IowaonBTN
LINE: UCLA -8.5 (total of 139.5)

Can lightning strike twice? Iowa already pulled off one top-5 upset at CHA, knocking off USC in a thrilling upset three weeks ago. Now #3 UCLA comes to town. The Bruins have been defeated just once this season (by USC) and they bring a hugely formidable team to Iowa City. UCLA has the Big Ten's stingiest defense and one of its top offenses as well. The star of the show for the Bruins is Lauren Betts, a 6'7" post averaging 19.7 ppg and 9.7 rpg. She's missed a few games recently, but is expected to play today.

Tip-off is at 1 PM; TV is available only on Peacock today.

Fire this loser already.

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Utterly deplorable. What a POS Trump is:

President Trump lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, saying he did not think it was important for Zelensky to attend negotiations about the war in Ukraine.
Trump acknowledged in a Fox News Radio interview with Brian Kilmeade that Russia attacked Ukraine but still suggested former President Biden and Zelensky shared blame for failing to talk down Moscow.




“I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards,” Trump said of Zelensky. “He has no cards. And you get sick of it.”
“So, I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you,” Trump added. “He makes it very hard to make deals.”
Trump suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine. He claimed Putin did not necessarily have to negotiate a ceasefire, because if he wanted, he’d get “the whole country.”
“Every time I say, ‘Oh, it’s not Russia’s fault,’ I always get slammed by the fake news,” Trump told Kilmeade. “But I’m telling you, Biden said the wrong things. Zelensky said the wrong things. They got attacked by somebody that’s much bigger and much stronger.”

I had gotten back into it 5-6 years ago but LIV-PGA split has pretty much killed it for me.

It all feels subpar - like watching exhibition or spring training. Disappointing not to have all the best players out there every week.