Already noted yesterday. This wins the prize, for this week certainly, maybe for the month or the year, demonstrating Trump’s idiocy and his cabinet’s obsequiousness. Covered widely today in the news and on Facebook.
The New Republic, 11 Mar 2026: Marco Rubio Roasted for Wearing Clown Shoes Trump Bought Him, subtitled “Donald Trump has bought everyone in his Cabinet the same pair of shoes—evidently without checking what size people wear.”
Just one day after The Wall Street Journal discovered that Donald Trump was urging everyone in his presidential Cabinet to wear the same style of Florsheim shoes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was caught red-footed in a pair of Florsheims about two sizes too big.
And
“All the boys have them,” said a female White House official.
“It’s hysterical, because everybody’s afraid not to wear them,” another official remarked.
Another view:
The emperor’s new clothes. No one dares to speak up.
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Another example, in a way. Republicans are all for states’ rights, except when they’re not, and want to impose their priorities. Example here about parental rights.
Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 11 Mar 2026: Republicans don’t care about parents’ rights, subtitled “The Supreme Court’s move against trans kids in California empowers MAGA to mess with all families”
When Republicans talk about parents’ rights, look for the child that is being harmed. This rule of thumb rarely fails. “Parents’ rights” is one of those phrases that sounds good on paper, encouraging people to imagine themselves — loving and protective parents who only want the power to do right by their child. But when conservatives invoke the term, their objective is to trump a child’s rights to be safe and healthy, despite what a toxic or even abusive parent wants to do to them.
That reality was revealed yet again last week, when the Supreme Court blocked a California law preventing teachers from outing trans kids to religious parents. The injunction is temporary, but most legal experts believe it is inevitable that the Christian right-favoring court will eventually rule against a child’s ability to decide when and with whom to share their gender identity — even if they fear being beaten, disowned or thrown out on the streets.
In conservative thought, parents rule or even own their children, who have no rights of their own. Marcotte ends:
Republicans only seem to care about “religious freedom” when conservative Christians flout laws or impose their beliefs on others. But they show no concern about policies that harm other religious groups, including liberal Christians. As we’ve seen with their attacks on schools and libraries, for instance, the GOP doesn’t hold much regard for parents who believe children should have freedom to think and learn beyond what the boundaries of the right’s narrow agenda for them.
The phrase “parents’ rights” sounds good in practice. In reality, it means taking away rights from kids and parents alike who don’t agree with conservative beliefs on child-rearing.
Conservatives just *know* what is right, and true.
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Short takes:
- The conservative inability to learn from history. Again, they just *know* what must be true.
- The Atlantic, Franklin Foer, 11 Mar 2026: The Obvious Is Taking Its Revenge on Trump, subtitled “The reasons other U.S. presidents avoided war with Iran are becoming all too evident.”
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In the least charitable—and probably accurate—view, President Trump went to war with Iran out of a delusional faith in himself. He believed that the worst-case scenarios that have deterred past presidents from attacking Iran wouldn’t come true for him, because he is Donald Trump.
- Beware certainty, yet again.
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- That photo of the prayer group in the Oval Office, posted a few days ago here, is being mocked in China. The rest of the world really does pay attention to what’s happening in the US, as I think MAGA does not realize (or care).
- JMG: WH Prayer Event Gets Viral Mocking Across China
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- JMG: FRC: The Bible “Clearly” Warns Against Socialism
- Nonsense. They’re seeing what they want to see. What did Jesus say? And they don’t realize the extent to which the US has already accepted ‘socialist’ ideas, like libraries and the interstate highway network.
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- Another example of a Trump plan that never happened, and his fans haven’t noticed, or care.
- Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla: Mark Meckler, Medical Ships, And The MAGA Media Bubble
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Perhaps the reason that people weren’t aware of this news is because it never happened. Like so much else with Trump, this was nothing more than a confusing announcement made by the president via social media. The entire idea was completely divorced from reality, rejected by Greenland, and never occurred, as the Wall Street Journal reported…
