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BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
30 May 2026
Judge Orders President’s Name Off Kennedy Center, and He Reacts With Fury & Trump says judge who ruled against him on Kennedy Center ‘should be brought up on charges’ 29&30MAI26
There are few things I'm looking forward to more this summer than watching Trump's name get torn off the Kennedy Center. It's going to be Epic.
I, along with the vast majority of the nation, am loving this takedown of NOT MY pres drumpf / trump. THANK YOU REP JOYCE BEATTY D-OH for having the courage and moral fortitude to take on drumpf / trump and his butt kissing sycophants! I really do admire you and Judge Cooper for your actions, thank you both! Now the real fun begins because we get to watch this gross narcissist throw a childish tantrum because somebody told him no. Please somebody, invoke the 25th Amendment!!! This from the New York Times and the Independent.....
Published May 29, 2026Updated May 30, 2026, 3:36 p.m. ET
What We’re Covering Today
Kennedy Center: A federal judge in Washington ruled on Friday that President Trump’s name was illegally added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, writing that the law establishing the center made “crystal clear” that only Congress could change it. Mr. Trump wrote on social media that the judge, who also temporarily blocked the center from closing for renovations, should be “ashamed of himself.” Read more ›
Kennedy Center
In a social media post on Friday, President Trump railed against a federal judge’s order that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts remove the president’s name from its marble facade. He wrote that the judge, who also temporarily blocked the center from closing for renovations, should be “ashamed of himself.”
“Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life,” he wrote of the performing arts center.
Trump took over the performing arts center at the start of his second term, but this order seems to have prompted him to rethink his role. “I cannot be involved with a situation where danger to the Public is allowed to flourish in plain and open sight,” he wrote in the post.
Julia Jacobs and Zach Montague
Julia Jacobs reported from New York, and Zach Montague from Washington.
Julia Jacobs and Zach Montague
Julia Jacobs reported from New York, and Zach Montague from Washington.
The Kennedy Center must remove Trump’s name from the building, a judge orders.
A federal judge ordered on Friday that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts remove President Trump’s name from the building’s facade and all official branding and temporarily blocked the institution from shuttering this summer for renovations.
Mr. Trump railed against the judge’s ruling in an incensed social media post, suggesting that he was considering casting the Kennedy Center aside as one of his personal projects. The president wrote that unless he was free to decide the center’s trajectory, he had “no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey.”
“Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life,” he wrote.
Judge Christopher R. Cooper, of the Federal District Court in Washington, determined that the board’s decision to add Mr. Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center violated a law passed by Congress in 1964 that made “crystal clear” the institution was to be named for former President John F. Kennedy.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” the judge wrote in a 94-page opinion. He ordered that the 18 letters added to the center’s front portico be removed within two weeks.
The center’s board of trustees, a vast majority of whom are allies of Mr. Trump, voted in December to add the president’s name to the performing arts center. Less than a day later, new lettering was added to the building’s marble facade, which now reads: “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
Roma Daravi, a spokeswoman for the center, said that it would appeal the ruling, signing her statement as the “Trump Kennedy Center Vice President of Public Relations.”
“We are confident that on appeal the court will uphold the board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center,” she said.
The judge’s order came in response to a lawsuit by Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, who is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. She objected to both the renaming and the plans to close the institution, which her lawyers argued was in fact a decision “designed to hide their embarrassment about declining ticket sales.”
Judge Cooper found that the board had been “derelict” in considering the possible consequences to programming when shuttering the center, as well as its legal responsibility to maintain the center as a memorial to the slain president. His order did not make any specific directives for reinstating programming as the board reassesses its renovation plans.
Ms. Beatty said in a statement celebrating the ruling that “the Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump.”
In a parallel ruling in a separate lawsuit on Friday, Judge Cooper, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, stopped short of blocking the center from beginning renovations after preservationist groups said they had been undertaken without the required permits.
While that coalition of groups had argued that the administration appeared intent on remaking the center in Mr. Trump’s image, and potentially demolishing the structure entirely, Judge Cooper found that possibility too remote for now. But he warned that he would re-evaluate if the facts on the ground changed, saying there was a “paucity of concrete details as to the project’s scope.”
“If the work is, say, more transformative than present testimony suggests or requires permits that the center has yet to acknowledge or secure, the court’s legal analysis might look substantially different,” the judge wrote.
After shunning the Kennedy Center in his first term, Mr. Trump has staged a wholesale takeover of the institution in his second. He stocked the center’s board with loyalists, who installed him as chairman, ushering in a period of upheaval as many artists boycotted the increasingly politicized institution.
In Mr. Trump’s social media post on Friday, he indicated that he was now interested in giving up responsibility for the Kennedy Center, writing that he had instructed the Commerce Department to “transfer this failing Institution” to Congress. It was not immediately clear what he meant; the programming is run through a nonprofit, but Congress allots federal funds to maintain the building.
Mr. Trump announced in February that the center would be closing in July, calling the building “dilapidated” and in desperate need of renovations. Kennedy Center officials have asserted that it would have been irresponsible to keep the building open while addressing its maintenance needs, which they say includes widespread water damage and corrosion, outdated stage equipment and necessary security updates.
The Kennedy Center’s executive director, Matt Floca, defended the decision to shutter the building during testimony in court in the case brought by the preservation groups. Mr. Floca, a facilities professional whom Mr. Trump promoted in March, testified that there were “very clear efficiencies” — including financial — that came with deciding to temporarily close the institution.
But he acknowledged that there had been no studies comparing the cost of construction on a shuttered building with one that remained open.
“There is no need to,” Mr. Floca testified.
The board approved the plan in March, but the judge found that it had not done its due diligence in assessing the practical and legal questions surrounding such a major decision. He noted that although Mr. Trump had said in a social media post that there had been a one-year review of the issue involving contractors and “musical experts,” there was no evidence that such a review had taken place.
“None of the board members had sufficient information in advance of the March 16 meeting to make a well-considered decision to close the center,” the judge wrote.
Judge Cooper noted that his decision did not prevent the center’s board from deciding to close the institution for renovations in the future, but he urged it to prepare itself with “sufficient information to make a considered, independent decision, taking account of its obligation to both maintain and operate” the arts venue and “its solemn duty to memorialize a fallen president.”
The judge ordered the sides to file an update by June 5, proposing next steps for how to proceed.
In anticipation of the Kennedy Center’s closure, its performance calendar has largely been stripped bare. Several Broadway productions that were set for runs at the center were forced to cancel. The National Symphony Orchestra, which is attached to the center, has had to search for other local venues for their performances. Officials also began laying off staff members, saying that only a bare-bones work force would be retained during the closure.
In her statement, Ms. Daravi, the Kennedy Center spokeswoman, indicated that the center would push forward with what she described as an “urgent and significant restoration.”
“With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress,” she said, “the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”
Trump says judge who ruled against him on Kennedy Center ‘should be brought up on charges’
Trump accused the judge of ruling against him ‘because his wife probably told him to do so’ and went on to accuse him of having a conflict of interest because of his wife's politics
Graig Graziosi in Washington, D.C.President Donald Trump is calling for a federal judge who ruled against his Kennedy Center renaming and renovation plans to face charges.
On Saturday, Trump issued a more than 700-word screed on Truth Social, lamenting a ruling the previous day by U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper temporarily blocking his planned renovations at the Kennedy Center and demanding that his name be removed from the structure.
“The Kennedy Center's organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board's unilateral say-so,” Cooper ruled. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Trump accused Cooper of ruling against him "because his wife probably told him to do so" and went on to accuse him of having a conflict of interest because of his wife's politics.
“Cooper’s wife, Amy Jeffress, who doesn’t use the 'Cooper' name because they, as a couple, don’t want people to know that she has a Conflict of Interest with an important Judge, is a Radical Left Democrat, who worked as a Federal Prosecutor and Counselor to Obama Attorney General, Eric Holder,” Trump said.
He then said the alleged conflict of interest should result in charges being brought against Cooper.
“Amy is totally wired into the Left System, from her husband down, and it is impossible for me to be treated fairly. He has a total Conflict of Interest, and should be brought up on charges for not revealing these facts,” Trump wrote. “That is why The Kennedy Center will soon be closed, probably never to open again.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump offered an exaggerated view of the Kennedy Center, painting it as a dilapidated hovel that is "in a potential state of collapse, rusted, rotted, and rat and bug infested."
“The marble is in terrible shape, the pipes are gone, the air conditioning and heating systems are 65 years old, and no longer functioning. It was all being torn out to be replaced by brand new Carrier Equipment, at the highest standard,” Trump said of his plans.
He continued, saying the renovation will be stalled now “because a Judge, whose wife is an anti Trump Hater, and he is too, decided, unprecedentedly, to not allow a desperately needed Building Renovation to go forward.”
“On top of that, he said, 'Rip his name off the Building, he’s got 20 days to do so,' even though a large Board of some of the most distinguished people in the Country voted unanimously to put the name up. I didn’t do it, the Board did because they thought it would be good for this dying Institution,” Trump said.
The Board he is referring to is the new Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, which he appointed after firing the previous board. His hand-picked board — which includes White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scovino, Vice President JD Vance's wife, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's wife, and Trump himself — were the ones who chose to add his name to the building.
Since the renaming, more than a dozen major acts have canceled their performances at the Kennedy Center in protest.
The Kennedy Center said it planned to appeal the judge's ruling on Friday.
“We will review the decision carefully though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges,” Kennedy Center Vice President of Public Relations Roma Daravai said, according to NPR.
“With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy,” the statement said.
Ona Judge Escaped From Slavery While George Washington Was Busy Eating Dinner Inside. Now, a New Mural Honors Her Legacy 28MAI26
ONA JUDGE was quite the lady and I am glad Smithsonian Magazine published her story in spite of the fascist drumpf / trump-vance administration's desire to "sanitize" American history for our semiquincentennial. NOT MY pres drumpf / trump, NOT MY vp vance, SHE'S NOT A LADY melania , and that entire no class evil drumpf / trump ( and kushner ) brood will be documented and exposed as the worst things that happened to America since the civil war.
Ona Judge Escaped From Slavery While George Washington Was Busy Eating Dinner Inside. Now, a New Mural Honors Her Legacy
The artwork in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shows Judge arriving in the city after her journey from Philadelphia in May 1796. She remained a free woman until her death in 1848
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On May 21, 1796, George Washington and his family sat down for dinner at the President’s House in Philadelphia, enjoying one of their last meals in the city before returning to Mount Vernon for the summer. As the Washingtons dined, an enslaved woman named Ona Judge made her escape, slipping out of the mansion to freedom.
“Whilst they were packing up to go to Virginia, I was packing to go, I didn’t know where,” Judge recalled in an 1845 interview. “For I knew that if I went back to Virginia, I never should get my liberty.”
After Judge fled, she made her way north, securing passage on a ship bound for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Despite Washington’s unyielding efforts to track her down, Judge evaded capture, dying in 1848 as a free woman. Two centuries later, Judge’s harrowing account of her escape offers a rare glimpse into the challenges faced by fugitives from slavery in the nascent United States. Her story is also of note for its connection to the nation’s first commander in chief, a man who privately questioned the institution of slavery yet still owned 123 men, women and children.
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Last week, just over 230 years after Judge’s self-emancipation from slavery, the nonprofit Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire unveiled a mural in Portsmouth that honors her memory. Created by artist Manuel Ramirez, the work shows Judge soon after her arrival on the city’s waterfront, clad in a green dress and a straw bonnet.
“As we unveil this mural, we unveil memory, we unveil history, we unveil the truth,” JerriAnne Boggis, the nonprofit’s executive director, said at the May 23 ceremony, per Seacoast Online’s Jane Murphy. “We unveil the courage of a young woman who chose freedom despite all the odds. This mural ensures that Ona’s story will no longer remain hidden.”
No known images of Judge survive today, so the team used artificial intelligence to generate a likeness informed by a description in a runaway ad. Published by a Philadelphia newspaper three days after Judge’s escape, the notice stated that she was “a light mulatto girl, much freckled, with very black eyes and bushy black hair. She is of middle stature, slender and delicately formed, about 20 years of age.”
Ramirez filled in the details from there, drawing on research conducted by the nonprofit’s staff to ensure historical accuracy in the 13-by-15-foot scene. As historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of the 2017 book Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge, tells the Boston Globe’s Steven Porter, the mural is an “authentic” representation of its subject based on the available information. The nonprofit, for its part, notes, “Many artists have imagined what she might have looked like, and ours is yet another interpretation.”
Who was Ona Judge?
The daughter of an enslaved seamstress and a white tailor, Judge was born at Mount Vernon around 1774. She started working as Martha Washington’s lady’s maid at age 10, tending to her mistress’ needs by mending her clothing, helping her bathe and dress, and organizing her belongings.
When Washington was elected president in 1789, Judge was one of seven enslaved people selected to accompany the family to their new home in New York. The next year, when the family relocated to Philadelphia, Judge went with them. (The cornerstone for the White House was laid in 1792; John Adams, the nation’s second president, was the first commander in chief to take up residence in the Washington, D.C. mansion.)
As the first lady’s “preferred” maid, Judge “received a fancier wardrobe than most enslaved people,” historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky wrote in a 2019 essay for the White House Historical Association. Her clothing was viewed “as an extension of Martha’s status,” projecting the family’s wealth and privilege to other Philadelphians.
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In 1780, Pennsylvania had passed an act that gradually abolished slavery in the state. Under the terms of this law, adults enslaved by long-term visitors to Pennsylvania would be automatically freed if they remained in the state for more than six months.
Washington had no intention of abiding by this provision, so he found a legal loophole: moving the individuals he enslaved out of Pennsylvania each time the deadline approached. “In essence,” Dunbar wrote for the New York Times in 2015, the president “reset the clock,” adopting “a canny strategy that would protect his property and allow him to avoid public scrutiny.”
Ona Judge’s escape from slavery
Washington genuinely believed that the people he enslaved “were better served and cared for in his possession,” as Dunbar explains in Never Caught. But he was also aware of the risks posed by exposing these men and women to Philadelphia’s vibrant free Black community. “The idea of freedom might be too great a temptation for them to resist,” Washington wrote in a 1791 letter.
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Judge reached this point of no return after learning that the Washingtons intended to bequeath her to Elizabeth Parke Custis, Martha’s granddaughter, as a wedding gift. According to Never Caught, Custis was infamous for “her stubbornness and complete disregard for protocol”—qualities that would likely make her a difficult mistress. As the Granite Freeman newspaper reported in 1845, Judge had two main reasons for fleeing when she did: First, she simply “wanted to be free,” and second (in reference to Custis), “she was determined never to be her slave.”
To plan her escape, Judge enlisted the help of the city’s free Black community, although she never revealed these individuals’ identities. The 1845 article is scant on details, skipping ahead to her journey to Portsmouth on a ship commanded by John Bowles, whose name Judge kept secret until his death.
Washington quickly jumped into action after noticing Judge’s absence. The runaway ad placed by the president’s steward expressed indignation at her decision to flee, noting, “As there was no suspicion of her going off, nor no provocation to do so, it is not easy to conjecture whither she has gone or, fully, what her design is.” The steward correctly speculated that Judge would try to travel north “by water,” adding that she would probably “attempt to pass for a free woman and has, it is said, wherewithal to pay her passage.” In exchange for Judge’s return, the Washingtons offered a $10 reward.
Ona Judge’s life in New Hampshire
In Portsmouth, Judge found lodging and employment as a domestic laborer. Compared with her duties as a lady’s maid, this work would have been much more demanding. As Dunbar writes in Never Caught, “That Judge elected to become a domestic, that she chose to endure physically punishing work in New Hampshire, rather than remain a slave, says everything we need to know about how much she valued freedom.”
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After the ad failed to lead him to Judge, Washington resorted to other strategies. He learned of Judge’s location from a senator’s daughter who’d spotted the escapee in Portsmouth, then recruited a local customs collector to attempt to negotiate with her on his behalf. As he wrote in an October 1796 letter to Washington, Judge maintained that she would “rather suffer death than return to slavery and [be] liable to be sold or given to any other persons.”
Judge said she would, however, consider returning to the family’s service if the president would agree to her eventual emancipation. (Dunbar argues that Judge simply told the man whatever he wanted to hear, with no intention of keeping such promises.) When the customs collector relayed these stipulations, Washington wrote:
To enter into such a compromise, as she suggested to you, is totally inadmissable, for reasons that must strike at first view: For however well disposed I might be to a gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of people (if the latter was in itself practicable at this moment), it would neither be politic or just to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference.
The president urged the customs collector to persist in his efforts to re-enslave Judge, though he cautioned the man to take care to avoid inciting anger among abolitionists in the city. Whether the negotiator followed through on Washington’s request is unclear, but Judge remained a free woman. In early 1797, she married a free Black sailor named Jack Staines. Together, they had three children. Staines died in 1803. Judge outlived both of her daughters, but her son’s fate is unknown.
Washington’s last recorded attempt to recapture Judge took place in August 1799, four months before his death at age 67. The former commander in chief asked Burwell Bassett Jr., Martha’s nephew, to persuade Judge to return. She declined, telling him, “I am free now and choose to remain so.” When Bassett failed to achieve his goal through persuasion, he decided to resort to force. Luckily for Judge, the governor of New Hampshire caught wind of this plan and distracted Bassett while she and her child fled to safety at a free woman’s home outside of the city.
As Judge later recalled, Washington’s family “never troubled me anymore” after his death in December 1799. In his will, the president outlined provisions for the 123 people he enslaved to be freed upon his wife’s death. (Judge wasn’t included in this group, as she was technically the property of the Custis estate, which Martha had a one-third share in through her first husband.) Martha freed these individuals early, not out of principle, but rather because “she did not feel as though her life was safe in their hands, many of whom would be told that it was [in] their interest to get rid of her,” fellow first lady Abigail Adams wrote in a letter.
Judge spent the rest of her life in New Hampshire, still considered a fugitive under the law. She only spoke publicly about her escape from slavery in her later years. Despite the difficulties she’d faced, Judge never regretted her decision to leave the first family. Asked “if she was not sorry she left Washington, as she has labored so much harder since than before,” according to the 1845 interview, she replied, “No, I am free, and have, I trust, been made a child of God by the means.”
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Editor's Note, May 29, 2026: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of JerriAnne Boggis.
Did you know? Harry and George Washington
- Harry, a Black man enslaved by Washington, fled from Mount Vernon twice, first in 1771 and again in early 1776.
- After making his escape, Harry enlisted in the British Army, responding to a proclamation by Virginia’s royal governor that offered enslaved people freedom in exchange for joining the crown’s cause.
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