Finally Friday Reads: Chaos Times
Posted: June 12, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, 2026 Elections, 2026 MidTerm elections, Are we a democracy?, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Constitutional Crises, Crimes against Children, Delaney Hall Detention Facility Strike, Incontinentia Buttocks Cabinet picks, Iran War, j6 Slush Fund, kakistocracy, polling | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Bogus Autism treatment, FBI Raid on Voting Rights Organization, ICE and Delaney Hall Strike, RFK jr and autistic children, Senator John Cornyn, The Chicks Not Ready to Make Nice, Trump J6 Slush fund, Trump sinks in Polls, Trump trying to negate two impeachments 14 Comments
“We’re on the cusp of discovering how the battle against the Deep State is progressing. Who controls the weather? The day formally known as Flag Day, now recognized as The Birthday All Will Celebrate, is fast approaching. Last year, a rather lame and uninspiring parade left us underwhelmed. This year, really sweaty men will do battle for the pleasure of our Grifter in Chief under the threat of severe weather.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Headlines today show that everything Trump touches does, indeed, turn to shit. The Iran War is still hot, but Trump insists there’s peace in the making. Our Nation’s Capitol has turned into a gross example of what it looks like to destroy a planet, a culture, and a democracy. The real death and destruction come into play with the policies thought up by the most hapless group of people ever appointed to lead a department. Meanwhile, government spending, inflation, and stock markets are providing us with numbers to worry about. The polls show the people hate it all. But, will they turn out to vote the people responsible out of office?
The New Republic has a take on those polls. “Trump Hits Record-Breaking Low in Polls as Aides Leak: He’s ‘Furious.’ As Trump arrives at a negative poll milestone that no other president has reached, a Democratic strategist explains how we’ll know it if his travails start translating into a serious midterm rout.” The analysis is provided by Greg Sargent and his guest, Christina Reynolds, in the podcast linked below.
Donald Trump’s polling just crashed to new lows. He’s hit a net approval on inflation of negative 50 points in numerous surveys, something no other president has done—ever. Trump also is at 80 percent disapproval on gas prices. And this is the first time Democrats have led Republicans on inflation since the 1970s. It’s no accident that this comes as sources around Trump tell CNN that he’s “furious” because the media didn’t make his latest Iran bombing look strong and powerful. These stories are linked: His failure to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is causing the very cost spikes that are tanking his approval and his party’s chances in the midterms. We talked to Democratic strategist Christina Reynolds, who has extensive experience in midterms. She explains how Trump’s travails are translating into new pickup opportunities in surprising places, parses a new poll showing Democrats up 10 in the generic House matchup, and explains why 2026 reminds her of Democratic routs in 2006 and 2018. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.
An interesting take on this, Trump’s growing unpopularity, is provided by outgoing Senator John Cornyn from Texas. “After Senate Loss, Cornyn Predicts ‘Miserable’ Final Two Years for Trump. In his first extensive interview since his defeat by a Trump-backed challenger, the Texas Republican said the Senate was in for a “bumpy ride” as he and others flex new political freedom.” The interview is reported today in the New York Times by Carl Hulse.
Senator John Cornyn was not consoled when President Trump professed on social media that the senior Republican from Texas would “remain my friend for a long time to come” after the president had enthusiastically endorsed the man who defeated Mr. Cornyn, ending his Senate career.
“If that’s the way friends treat you, you wonder about his enemies,” Mr. Cornyn said this week in his first extensive interview since his loss two weeks ago to Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, an opponent Mr. Cornyn labeled corrupt and unfit for the Senate.
Mr. Cornyn said he had come to terms with his defeat, a stinging loss he attributed in part to public disillusionment with extreme partisan politics that led to low voter turnout. Now the Trump administration might find itself having to come to terms with Mr. Cornyn as he flexes new political freedom, joining a handful of other Senate Republicans not seeking re-election or defeated in primaries at Mr. Trump’s behest who now have added room to maneuver.
“I think it is going to be a pretty bumpy ride for the next seven months,” Mr. Cornyn said during a wide-ranging conversation in his Capitol office as he reflected on the tumultuous Texas election and his nearly quarter-century in Washington.
“It does give some of us a little more freedom, and certainly leverage,” he said, before invoking Mr. Trump’s notoriously heated Oval Office meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine last year. “As the president told President Zelensky when he was in his office a year or so ago — he said, ‘You don’t have any cards.’ Well, we’ve got some cards to play.”
Mr. Cornyn said he is not a “wounded bear” seeking retribution or revenge. He is determined that Republicans hold the Senate because he said he feared they would lose the House in November.
But in the interview, he gave voice in starkly candid terms to a growing sentiment among Senate Republicans that Mr. Trump was hurting his own party with self-serving decisions and his insistence on “slavish” loyalty, ultimately setting himself up for a midterm “disaster” that would pave the way for “the most miserable two years of his life.”
And in the interim, Mr. Cornyn said, he reserves the right to choose “where I’m going to — or going to not — defer” to Mr. Trump.
One of those areas appears to be the special protection from I.R.S. scrutiny that the Justice Department granted Mr. Trump and his family and businesses as part of a settlement of a lawsuit over the leak of his tax data, an exemption Mr. Cornyn said needed to be overturned.
At least most of the Judges on the federal benches have held the line. Michael Kunzelman has this headline for the AP. “Judge extends block on Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’.”
A federal judge agreed on Friday to extend a court-ordered block on the Trump administration’s creation and operation of a $1.8 billion settlement fund for compensating people who claim to be victims of a weaponized government.
Earlier this month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress that the government is scrapping its plans for the fund in the face of a fierce bipartisan backlash, and government attorneys have argued that lawsuits challenging the fund are now moot. But plaintiffs’ attorneys aren’t satisfied by Blanche’s assurances that the fund won’t move forward.
Neither was U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who ruled that the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” will remain blocked until further notice from the court.
“The (government’s) mootness argument, in my view, doesn’t go anywhere,” the judge said.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has not publicly and unequivocally endorsed the fund’s cancellation. He has continued to express support for it in remarks to reporters.
Brinkema gave the parties a week to negotiate an agreement for Trump administration officials, including Blanche, to submit a sworn declaration that the administration won’t revive the fund.
Brinkema previously agreed to temporarily block the administration from proceeding with the fund for at least two weeks. Her May 29 order was due to expire on Friday.
Trump’s Republican administration created the fund to resolve his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
Plaintiffs who sued to block fund payouts argue that the government can’t legally divert taxpayer money into what they argue is a slush fund for compensating Trump’s allies.
In a separate case on Wednesday, a different judge in Washington, D.C., rejected a government watchdog’s parallel request for a court order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from forging ahead with the fund. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said he accepts Blanche’s representation that the fund is now moot.
This next attempt to twist rulings and laws is simply astounding. I’m not shocked, but wow, how obviously corrupt and butt-hurt can one old man be? This is from Lawyers, Guns, and Money. “Trump trying to “void” his first two impeachments.” Paul Campos has the analysis.
A couple of days ago I was asked to comment on the possibility of impeaching Trump after the midterms. I hadn’t really thought about that at all, and I concluded that it was hard to say whether it’s going to happen, given the fecklessness of Jeffries and Schumer. This new report from the WSJ highlights why this very much should happen, whether or not the Guardians of the Guardrails want it to:
U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies have discussed pushing lawmakers to pass a resolution aimed at voiding his first-term impeachments, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. . . . The Journal reported that Trump and his team want lawmakers to pass a resolution aimed at voiding the impeachments.
White House officials have strongly urged forward progress on this issue, the White House official told reporters. . . . the resolution would allow Trump to claim a symbolic victory on a matter that has dogged him since his first term, but would have little legal significance since the Constitution provides no procedure for undoing an impeachment.
“Little” here means “none.”
This absurdity illustrates how narcissistic injury is something that somebody like Trump can’t ever escape or overcome, which is all the more reason to injure him in the same way again, not to mention that he deserves to be impeached on the merits for almost countless reasons at this point. As a matter of principle I personally would put the ongoing war crime that is the Iran “excursion” at the top of the list, recognizing of course that as a pragmatic political matter there are far more attractive options for impeachment resolutions. But this very much needs to happen early in 2027.
We all realize that the Constitution and laws are meaningless to Trump, the judges that he’s appointed, and those in his administration. This is one of the most significant acts of social justice you can sign on to. The strike, as reported by the Guardian, is growing.
Dozens of women detained inside the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility in New Jersey announced their participation in a hunger and labor strike, advocates announced on Thursday.
The women, detained in unit 1 of the contentious privately run facility, also released a new list of demands. They are calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release women under 21, women with medical conditions and mothers. They are also demanding improved conditions inside the facility and for their immigration cases to proceed more quickly.
The Delaney Hall detention facility, run by the private prison company Geo Group, has in recent weeks become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s efforts to engage in mass deportations. A group of more than 300 men launched a hunger and labor strike last month, leading to demonstrations in support of the strikers and an aggressive police response.
The announcement that detained women in Delaney Hall were engaging in a strike came just one day after Trump signed a $70bn spending bill for immigration enforcement agencies and as immigrants in other detention centers participate in strikes of their own.
On Thursday morning, advocates, religious leaders and family members with detained loved ones gathered in front of the Delaney Hall facility to announce nearly 40 women were signing on to the strike. A series of speakers decried the conditions inside.
“Today, we stand with the women demanding release, safe living conditions, medical care, legal representation, family visitation, safe drinking water and protection from abuse,” said Archange Antoine, a minister with the Clergy Coalition for Liberation. “These are not radical demands – these are demands rooted in basic human rights.”
On 22 May, a group of detained men inside Delaney Hall announced a hunger and labor strike, making a list of demands including meeting with the New Jersey state governor, improved conditions, the release of sick and elderly detainees and for their cases to proceed in immigration court. At the time, a few women inside the facility joined in that effort, advocates told the Guardian.
Soon after the 22 May strike was announced, protesters outside the facility gathered in support of the striking detainees. Lawmakers have also come out in support of the striking detainees and to conduct oversight visits.
ICE officers responded to the protests by deploying pepper spray and using Tasers and batons. But later, amid national attention on the heated protests, New Jersey’s governor and Newark’s mayor deployed the state and local police forces who deployed teargas and arrested dozens in an effort to disperse the protesters.
Carol Leonnig of MS NOW reports that “FBI raids Ohio voting rights organization. Sources tell MS NOW that agents also fanned out across the state, showing up at staff members’ homes.” Shouldn’t they be working on something real, like the victims and perpetrators listed in the Epstein Files?
FBI agents on Thursday raided the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a pro-democracy organization that helps register voters in that state, three people briefed on the search told MS NOW.
Agents also fanned out across the state, showing up at the homes of the group’s leaders and staff members, carrying some subpoenas and seeking information and electronic devices, according to the three people briefed, two of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive ongoing investigation. Members of the group contacted lawyers on Thursday to determine their legal options, the people said.
Prentiss Haney, a board member of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, told MS NOW Thursday night that agents approached people with connections to the group, including some who had performed basic canvassing and volunteer work, and pressed them for information.
Agents were “basically trying to fish for information,” Haney said.
“They had agents all across the state going to civil rights leaders’ and community leaders’ doors intimidating them, coming and demanding that they talk about literally anything they would ask,” Haney said, adding that agents “asked them if they’re committing voter fraud, just on their doors, in front of their houses with their children, and just following them to work and school.”
Some of the people said the agents approached without warrants, according to Haney.
“Just straight-up intimidation tactics,” he said.
Spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday night.
The sources briefed on the search said they are concerned this new effort in Ohio is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to sow doubt and distrust in voting integrity in key swing states ahead of the midterm elections.
Here’s another horrifying action by RFK jr to turn health care into just another way to kill people. This is from the Guardian and reported by Ed Pilkington. “Autistic children being injected with unapproved stem cell treatments supported by RFK Jr. Desperate US parents paying up to $20,000 a session for a procedure scientists say could be bogus.”
Autistic children as young as 18 months old are being injected with human stem cells derived from umbilical cords in unapproved, unproven and potentially harmful “treatments” that scientists warn are proliferating across the US under the active encouragement of the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Clinics in Florida, Texas and other states are selling what they bill as “regenerative medicine” to families with autistic children who have intensive care needs. Parents who have taken their children through the process talked to the Guardian about their hopes and fears for a therapy that appears to be gaining ground in the US.
The procedure, which can involve the child being sedated with ketamine before receiving intravenous doses of millions of stem cells, costs up to $20,000 each treatment. Families are often advised to return for regular top-ups.
Profoundly stressed parents are being wooed to the clinics with promises that a high-dose infusion of umbilical cord stem cells can lead to dramatic improvements in their children’s ability to speak, socialise, or avoid aggressive or self-harming behaviour. Yet there is no scientific evidence that the procedure works – the most comprehensive clinical trial staged so far, a placebo experiment conducted by Duke University, found insignificant benefits for most of the 180 children tested.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) directly cautions parents that if they are being offered stem cell treatments outside an approved clinical trial, “you are likely being deceived and offered a product illegally”.
Though the Duke trial found minimal safety concerns with properly administered stem cell infusions, authorities continue to highlight the potential risks of under-regulated therapies.
The FDA warned in 2021 that it had received reports of complications following applications of umbilical cord stem cells and other related unapproved products leading to “blindness, tumor formation, infections and more”.
In his 16 months as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services within the Trump administration, Kennedy has undercut established scientific endeavors. He has fired thousands of federal health officials, dismissed longstanding scientific advisers, defunded $31m in autism-related research and attempted to shrink the recommended list of childhood vaccinations.
At the same time, largely unnoticed, he has given his backing to alternative health providers moving to fill the gap. Kennedy appeared by video link at the first two annual summits held in San Diego by Autism Health, a leading advocate of stem cell infusions for autistic kids.
At the summit last year, he told the audience that “your issue is no longer on the fringe”. At this year’s gathering in April, he promised to “create opportunities that extend across a lifetime” and to work with the stem cell providers “to drive solutions together”.
Those providers included Mike Chan, a Malaysian physician who presented the San Diego summit with a protocol that he practices from his clinic in Bangkok. It involves injecting autistic children in the buttocks with high doses of stem cells extracted from slaughtered sheep and rabbits.
I do not believe that anyone could come up with a Trump appointment that actually knows what they’re doing in the job they’ve been given. It’s pathetic and dangerous. Anyway, there are more headlines out there about the administration and the Iran War that could fill at least one post. This is all I can handle for the day. Have a peaceful weekend.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Chaos Media Matters
Posted: June 8, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, Are we a democracy?, Denaturalization attempts, Don't be a Kyle or a Donald | Tags: Denaturalization attempts, Immigrant Rights, Naturualization, Power to the people, The Donald vs. The US Constitution, Trump-Welker interview Meet the Press, US States Voting Process and Protection, voting rights 7 Comments
“New York loves mr. trump.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Sunday’s Meet the Press brought back memories of my oldest daughter’s Montessori preschool days when this kid named Kyle — who couldn’t express much verbally — would bite anyone who dared to tell him off or tried to stop him as he terrorized the class. The well-trained teachers, faithfully doing their jobs, were not used to this kind of toddler resistance.
Montessori kids are taught to show respect to the point that, if they want to watch a kid doing their thing on their well-defined rug space, they hold their hands behind their back and ask if it’s okay to observe. That was one of the things I liked about her classmates. It made them a joy to have in the playroom in the basement compared to the kids allowed to run loose in our suburban Omaha neighborhood. But not Kyle.
Most politicians are used to being grilled by the media. They’re used to tough questions and continued follow-up, if granted a session with a well-schooled journalist in a situation any public figure would crave. But not Donald. I can only wonder what his teachers and classmates put up with before he got shunted to Military School.
So this is Forbes‘ Mark Joyella, today, explaining what could only be described as Trump’s Toddler Temper Tantrum. “‘You’re Either Crooked Or You’re Stupid’: Trump Walks Out After Kristen Welker Fact-Checks Him.” This is not the language of a mature adult. It should not be the language or tone of the leader of a large, powerful nation. However, I am completely beyond being shocked by his demeanor, acts, and speech. He’s definitely a Kyle.
An angry Donald Trump walked out of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker after an extraordinary exchange in which the president angrily insisted—without offering any proof—that “elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked…and so is ABC and CBS and CNN.”
The interview, airing on NBC Sunday, turned confrontational when Welker asked Trump about his idea to use $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for a “weaponization fund” to compensate people who believe they were unfairly targeted by a federal government “weaponizing” the justice system against them.
“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve,” Trump said. “People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. Many suicides, think of it. People have committed suicide because a bunch of thugs went after them.”
‘Where’s The Evidence?’
As the president made a series of claims about people he believed were falsely prosecuted, Welker pushed back, noting repeatedly that Trump had offered no evidence to support his claims.
“Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the weaponization fund,” Trump said as he shifted to comment on the news media and Welker. “I love the idea, because people like you, the fake dirty press, the crooked press, people like stupid Biden, he’s not smart enough to know what’s going on, but people that surrounded him, surrounded his beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, what they did to the lives of people, they destroyed people. They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong.”
Trump has long accused the news media of being “crooked” or “fake news” and even “enemies of the people,” but has rarely done so in such an angry and personal way, as Welker, who remained calm and professional despite the president’s personal criticisms, repeatedly pressed Trump to back up his sensational claims:
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: The election was rigged. It was a dirty election.
KRISTEN WELKER: Mr. President –
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: And it’s happening again right now in California.
KRISTEN WELKER: – you’ve never presented evidence –
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: It’s happening right now in California
KRISTEN WELKER: – that the 2020 election was rigged.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Right now, it’s look at what’s happening in California.
KRISTEN WELKER: Where’s the evidence to that?
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: It’s four days –
KRISTEN WELKER: The Republicans are doing well in California.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: In California, it’s, no they’re not. They’re dropping fast because it’s a rigged election. Let me tell you, it’s four days and they aren’t even close to coming up with the –
KRISTEN WELKER: That’s how they count the votes in California.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election.
KRISTEN WELKER: There’s – What? Do you have evidence to support that?
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: It’s– all I have to do is look. All I have to do is look.
KRISTEN WELKER: But that’s not evidence.
‘To Be Fair, I’m Not Crooked’
When Trump insisted—again, without any evidence—that the slow counting of votes in California indicated election fraud, Welker pushed back, saying “but sir, that’s not evidence, and that’s how they count the votes in California.”
This seemed to make the president even angrier, calling Welker “crooked,” which she immediately responded to. “To be fair, I’m not crooked,” Welker said. “But let’s continue.”
There’s more at the link. Coupled with the following headline, I worry about this country. I really do. This analysis is from the AP. “Fewer Americans say democracy is central to country’s identity, AP-NORC poll finds.” I bet they’re all home-schooled or schooled in those right-wing christian madrasas.
As the U.S. prepares for an extravagant celebration of its founding principles, fewer Americans see their country as exceptional, a new poll finds.
The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research highlights many Americans’ feeling of unease over the future of its representative government — particularly among young people. It presents a jarring contrast as communities around the country commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Only about one-quarter of Americans say the U.S. stands above all other countries in the world, the new poll found, while 44% say it’s one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others. About 3 in 10 say there are better countries than the U.S., an increase from 19% in an AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2016.
Americans remain divided about whether diversity is an essential feature of the U.S.’s identity, and agreement about other aspects of the country’s underlying character appears to be eroding, the survey found. Americans are less likely to see a democratically elected government as “extremely” or “very” important to the United States’ identity as a nation than they were just a few years ago. About two-thirds of U.S. adults now say a democratically elected government is highly important to the U.S.’s identity as a nation, down from 80% in 2021.
“It’s not that the democracy part is not working,” said Derricka Wall, 24, of Chickasaw, Alabama. “It’s the people that are actually being put in office that is the problem.”
Meanwhile, it’s confirmed once again that it’s not the Press or the People leaving our democratic voting processes in the wind. This is from Jose Pagliery writing for NOTUS. “The Justice Department Hasn’t Taken Its Usual Steps to Protect the 2026 Election. The DOJ appears to be quietly scrapping its typical “command center” that would monitor Election Day emergencies.”
President Donald Trump says “if you don’t have honest voting, you can’t really have a nation.”
But five months out from the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress, his Justice Department has canceled election-integrity training sessions for prosecutors and FBI agents, deleted a 281-page guide to prosecuting election offenses, fired most of the lawyers in its Public Integrity Section and failed to replace the director of its Election Crimes Branch.
Moreover, the DOJ has not taken the usual steps to establish a “command center” to monitor and address the typical emergencies that pop up around Election Day, three sources with knowledge of the situation told NOTUS. A command center team would address things like voter intimidation and targeted disinformation meant to hinder a fair process.
These actions — and inactions — have alarmed current and former prosecutors, who say the Justice Department is not prepared to deal with threats to election integrity in the November elections.
“That’s really concerning,” said Ryan Crosswell, a former public corruption prosecutor who recently ran for Congress as a Democrat. “Obviously, the command center and training are something that anybody who wants to protect election integrity would want. And this just feeds into the fear that rather than protect elections, the DOJ may try to interfere with them. That’s pretty scary.”
The DOJ did not provide any answers before publication to detailed questions about the training cancellations and the election command center, but a department spokesperson issued a statement that its top priorities are now “ensuring the integrity of U.S. elections and protecting Americans against voting fraud and civil rights violations.”
Former DOJ attorneys described the command center as an intense, around-the-clock operation at FBI headquarters. Investigators direct law enforcement responses nationwide, while public corruption prosecutors take long shifts answering phone calls about possible crimes and confusing situations. The anticipated emergencies are taken so seriously that department leadership has normally kept an auxiliary team of specialized prosecutors on standby back at DOJ headquarters. Everyone orders pizza and sits tight for shifts that span eight-plus hours.
“It spoke to how seriously we took this stuff,” Crosswell noted.
Does that mean we simply watch everything melt into fascism as our 250th birthday as a nation stands before us? I certainly hope not. Stories like these give me hope. Madiba K. Dennie writes this analysis for Balls and Strikes about the ongoing purge of immigrants and naturalized citizens in our nation. “The Delaney Hall Strike Is Exposing a Massive Thirteenth Amendment Crisis. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery, except “as a punishment for crime.” But people in immigration detention haven’t been convicted of anything—and are still being forced to work for nothing.”
For the past several weeks, hundreds of detainees at Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, have been on a labor and hunger strike. Participants in the strike are refusing to perform their work assignments or eat meals in protest of what they describe, in a series of handwritten letters smuggled out of the facility, as “unlawful and forced detention” and “inhumane treatment” that violates their constitutional rights. Among the myriad “injustices and irregularities” named in the letters are rotten food riddled with worms; persistent “unresolved issues” with bathrooms in “terrible and inhumane” condition; and detainees being forced to work for practically pennies or, more often, for no pay at all.
Delaney Hall was the first immigration detention center to open during President Donald Trump’s second term in office. And like almost all immigration detention facilities, Delaney is owned and operated by a private prison corporation. GEO Group, a company valued at approximately $3.3 billion, signed a 15-year contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February 2025, providing ICE with the facility and “support services” like security, maintenance, and food services, in exchange for over $60 million annually.
But it is the detainees—not GEO Group—who actually do that work.
“We were the ones who shoveled the snow during the winter,” said one Delaney Hall detainee, in a statement provided to The American Prospect last week. “We are the ones serving the food, we are the ones who clean the units, we are the ones who clean the bathrooms.” American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-founded social justice organization working with the immigrants at Delaney Hall, also said in a press release that detained workers can go months without receiving even the pittance they were promised, if they are compensated at all.
Forced labor practices like these are pervasive throughout ICE detention centers. In February, for example, the Supreme Court ruled on an immigrant labor case involving a GEO Group-operated facility, in Colorado. The company’s “so-called Sanitation Policy,” as Justice Elena Kagan referred to it in her majority opinion, required detainees to clean all of the facility’s common areas without pay or risk increasingly severe punishments, including solitary confinement. Additionally, “the so-called Voluntary Work Program” offered detainees a dollar a day for other necessary work like preparing food and doing laundry.
Former detainees had sued, arguing that these policies violated the forced labor provision of a federal anti-trafficking law, as well as Colorado’s prohibition on unjust enrichment. And GEO Group tried to get the case dismissed, claiming it was following directions from the government, so the trial cannot proceed. The Supreme Court didn’t buy it, which means that the case, GEO Group v. Menocal, can at least proceed to a jury trial.
Among the reasons GEO Group does not like trials: Trials can be very expensive for GEO Group, cutting into the money they make by coercing detainees to work for free. In a 2017 case involving another GEO Group-run ICE facility, the state of Washington and migrants detained at a detention center in the state both sued the company for violating Washington’s Minimum Wage Act. GEO Group fulfilled its contractual obligations with ICE by relying heavily on detainees whom it paid only one dollar a day, which GEO Group estimated saved it from having to hire 85 additional full-time employees. In 2021, a jury awarded the detainees roughly $17.3 million in back pay, and the court awarded $5.9 million in unjust enrichment to the state. GEO Group appealed, but the Ninth Circuit affirmed the ruling last year.
Since Trump’s return to office, the legal landscape has started to shift. Last year, in early January, the National Labor Relations Board filed a formal complaint against GEO Group. The NLRB alleged that GEO Group violated the rights of workers detained at an ICE facility in California by punishing the organizers of a labor and hunger strike with solitary confinement and transfers out of state. Within a few weeks of the complaint’s filing, however, Trump reentered the White House and fired members of the NLRB, and the remolded agency withdrew the complaint.
There is also this information reported by Camilo Montoya-Galvez at CBS NEWS. “Trump administration launches largest-ever effort to denaturalize U.S. citizens accused of fraud or other crimes.”
The Trump administration on Monday announced it is seeking to revoke the citizenship of 17 U.S. citizens accused of immigration fraud, expanding its unprecedented denaturalization campaign.
CBS News exclusively reported about the plans before they were unveiled by the Justice Department.
Officials said the move represents the largest-ever effort by the U.S. government to use its denaturalization powers, which were rarely invoked before President Trump returned to the White House last year with promises to launch a historic deportation blitz. Between 1990 and 2017, the Justice Department filed an average of just 11 legal complaints per year seeking to denaturalize American citizens, historical figures indicate.
Federal law has long allowed the government to try to denaturalize foreign-born U.S. citizens who officials believe committed fraud to obtain their citizenship, such as by concealing information, like criminal conduct, on their immigration applications. But the process has been historically lengthy, complex and seldom exercised, requiring officials to persuade judges to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship in civil or criminal proceedings in federal court.
The Trump administration has sought to vastly escalate denaturalization efforts as part of its larger crackdown on illegal and legal immigration. In 2025, the Justice Department broadened the categories of naturalized citizens who should be prioritized for denaturalization. Last month, officials announced a dozen denaturalization cases, at the time the largest such effort in years.
Some of the 17 citizens targeted in the latest denaturalization campaign were convicted of violent or serious crimes, including sex offenses against children. Others were convicted of fraud crimes or accused of committing immigration fraud.
In federal court complaints filed across the country in recent days, Justice Department officials argued that the individuals concealed their criminal activity when they applied for U.S. citizenship or were otherwise ineligible to be naturalized, including because they lacked a “good moral character,” one of the requirements in the naturalization process.
Those targeted in the latest round of denaturalization cases include a Haitian immigrant who allegedly sexually abused his daughter; a man from the former Yugoslavia convicted of sexually abusing a child under the age of 15; an immigrant from Mexico convicted of receiving sexually explicit images of minors; a former Catholic priest born in Colombia accused of child sex abuse; and a Filipino-born man who pleaded guilty to a child sex crime.
The group also includes an Indian immigrant accused of filing fraudulent H-1B visa petitions; the daughter of a Colombian drug trafficker accused of money laundering; a man born in Jamaica convicted of wire fraud; and a Cuban-born woman accused of defrauding a tribal casino. Other naturalized citizens were accused of using false identities.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department would have “zero tolerance” for abuse of the naturalization process.
“Criminal aliens are lying about their past crimes, including drug dealers, sexual predators, and fraudsters,” Blanche said.
And, again, we, the people, voting Orange Caligula out is essential to our nation’s future as a democracy. This analysis is from Vote Beat. “The Trump administration’s multiple investigations of the 2020 election may have more to do with 2026. Some experts say the FBI’s probes in Wisconsin and elsewhere could be a test run to challenge future election results. The lede for this story is by Dion Nissenbaum Alexander Shur.
The FBI agents arrived at David Bolter’s Milwaukee home on a cool, cloudy Wednesday morning in late May. They were armed with a list of questions for the 2020 poll worker, who had raised concerns about the way local officials handled the 2020 election, Bolter told Votebeat.
President Donald Trump relied on Bolter’s claims in an unsuccessful 2020 lawsuit that sought to throw out more than 220,000 votes. That would have been more than enough to move Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes from Democrat Joe Biden, who won the state, to Trump. Though courts, several election reviews, and many audits rejected Trump’s claims, the Republican never stopped believing that he was cheated out of the presidency in 2020.
That appears to be why, last month, the FBI sent agents back to Milwaukee to question Bolter as part of an expanding national effort by the second Trump administration to investigate long-debunked claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
The investigation into the 2020 election appears to be relying on already disproven allegations from people like Bolter. Bolter declined to divulge more about his conversation with the FBI, which has not been previously reported, but allegations from Bolter’s 2020 affidavit were central to some conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. For example, he alleged that somebody in Milwaukee’s absentee ballot counting facility announced around midnight on Election Day that a “huge truckload of ballots” was going to be delivered — an accusation for which there has so far appeared to be no additional evidence.
Around the same time Bolter says he talked to the FBI, two plainclothes agents with FBI badges showed up at the apartment of a former Milwaukee resident and 2020 poll worker about an affidavit she submitted, according to the former poll worker, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Christine, to give her the freedom to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Christine had also submitted an affidavit about the 2020 election, saying election workers had been told that all votes were counted, but she then saw workers continuing to count ballots around midnight. That affidavit was the focus of the agents’ questions, Christine told Votebeat.
“I suspected wrongdoing, but I’m not saying that it actually happened,” she said. “I’m just one lowly person that was working there.”
During the interview, she added, an agent showed her a photograph of Claire Woodall, the former Milwaukee election chief, asking her if she recognized the former election official who has been central to false allegations about the 2020 election. She identified her by name. Woodall didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Caroline Clancy, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Milwaukee office, declined to comment.
So, it’s hard to say we’re crawling out of this appalling man’s reign of terror. That doesn’t mean we have to roll over and take it. Look at how the cities that were invaded by ICE managed to drive them out. Look at the courts. Many Judges are still doing their jobs to protect the Constitution. We can do that whatever we can where we are. Support a candidate financially or with your feet. Show up at a protest. Talk to your neighbors. Just Do IT! Oh, and don’t be Kyle or Orange Caligula.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: Chaos Examiner
Posted: June 5, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, Agency Purges, Breaking News, Disappearing Constitutional Rights, Disappearing Immigrants, Donald Trump | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Bill Pulte, Department of Defense delisting religions, Get up, Grads are booing their commencement speakers, Heather Cox Richardson, Is the United States beyond Hope?, Social Security Administration delisting live people, Stand up for Your Rights 3 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m going to start with something a little different. This is Heather Cox Richardson’s conversation today. The Historian’s headline caught my eye. She was asked a question and provided her answer. “What would have to happen for me to concede that the United States is beyond hope?” Her answer was simple. “The end of the world.” She explained that we have the ability to try to make the world a better place. I agree.
She’s right to argue that democracy and humankind have always been deeply flawed. And yet, we persist. In the long term, from a historical perspective, our ancestors have persisted. I always feel that I would fail the six direct relatives of mine who signed the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington, whose stepson is also a direct relative of mine. The Custis family has always been a group of fighters, and they were right there in the movement and the war to free slaves. I think about them a lot these days. Perhaps it is because of my age. More likely, it’s because I need to remind myself that it’s my turn to protect the family. I do not want to leave this shit to my grandchildren or anyone else’s.
In fact, I wonder what the world would be like if all these however great-grandfathers of mine had just shrugged it off. Or the farthest back, however, great-grandfather MacDuff had not killed Macbeth. For that matter, I have my father who bombed NAZIs out of France and Belgium to help liberate Europe from Fascism, or the great-great-grandfathers and uncles that fought for the Union during the Civil War. What about all the women who fought the war by doing everything their sons and husbands couldn’t help with anymore? And yet, they all persisted. So, I can and must too.
I hope her words give you the motivation to carry on.
And now, more on what we’re fighting against!
This is from the Washington Post. Meryl Kornfield has this essential read today. “Trump officials planned to mark 2.7 million living people as dead, whistleblower claims. A former Social Security executive said the plan, which was not carried out, would have used a death database to pressure immigrants to leave the country.”
The Trump administration had plans to classify 2.7 million living people — including some U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents — as dead as part of its immigration enforcement efforts, according to a former senior Social Security executive.
The previously unreported plan, which the Social Security Administration said was not carried out, would have used one of the government’s most consequential identity databases to effectively erase people from the financial system, potentially cutting them off from wages, banking, government benefits and other services.
Jeremiah Schofield, who worked at Social Security for 25 years and helped lead the agency’s IT modernization efforts before leaving in October, said he refused to help implement the plan after agency lawyers warned that falsely marking living people as dead could violate federal law. Schofield said he realized the plan’s possible intent — to intimidate and worsen the finances of immigrants — as well as its potential unlawfulness after taking a sample of people from the 2.7 million and discovering they were all alive. Some were U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, teenagers and senior citizens, including one widow who was a legal permanent resident receiving survivor benefits.
Schofield has provided details on the plan in a 49-page whistleblower disclosure to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is on the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The disclosure was reviewed by The Washington Post, and it offers the most detailed account yet of howofficials from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service sought to use Social Security data in service of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
In an interview with The Post, Schofield said he is speaking publicly for the first time because he believes Americans need to understand how government data can be misused and, in some cases, already has been.
Social Security carried out a smaller version of such an effort last year, The Post previously reported, moving 6,100 immigrants into its “Death Master File” — a database used by banks, employers and government agencies to determine whether someone is alive. Some of those people later showed up at Social Security field offices to prove they were alive and were restored in agency records.
In a written statement, a Social Security spokesperson who did not provide their name said the agency “did not add a list of 2.7 million names to the Death Master File. SSA maintains the highest level of internal controls. This includes having all appropriate policies and procedures in place to maintain the integrity and accuracy of agency records.”
Schofield’s whistleblower complaint describes a tumultuous period inside Social Security, as career officials questioned the legality of such efforts and watched DOGE officials gain access to some of the government’s most sensitive databases. In one meeting, Schofield said, a DOGE official working with the Department of Homeland Security described the goal of declaring 2.7 million living people dead: making immigrants so miserable that they self-deported or went to Social Security offices for help, where they could be arrested.
“That call was one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career,” Schofield told The Post. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
CNN has this disturbing headline this morning. “Trump’s intel choice had no intel experience. He didn’t even have security clearance.”
Before he was announced as President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US intelligence community, Bill Pulte did not have a security clearance granting him access to highly-classified information – meaning he lacked what has long been considered a basic prerequisite for the job he will soon occupy, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
On Thursday, days after Trump’s announcement that Pulte would serve as acting director of national intelligence, the office he is expected to lead – at least temporarily – initiated the vetting process for his security clearance by requesting a background investigation, one of the sources told CNN.
Pulte — a wealthy businessman who was confirmed as Federal Housing Finance Agency director last year— already appeared to be an unusual choice for acting DNI given his lack of demonstrated experience in national security matters. A staunch Trump loyalist, Pulte played an extraordinary role in pushing the Justice Department to pursue some of its most eye-popping cases against the president’s personal foes.
Evidence that Pulte did not have access to classified material before he was announced as Trump’s top intelligence official this week underscores just how atypical his credentials are compared to nearly every other DNI that came before him.
“The director of national intelligence has access to all of our most classified intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, told CNN.
There is no evidence that Pulte “would respect those classifications,” Warner said.
Sources told CNN there is no evidence that Pulte previously maintained even the lowest form of security clearance before he was tapped as acting DNI.
Incompetence and lack of basic knowledge of your job are not even part of the vetting process for Orange Caligula. Wicked amounts of blind loyalty and eye-popping stupidity appear to be.
And of course, it wouldn’t be Trump if he wasn’t out to destroy every American monument, institution, and historical and nature-based asset of the country. This is from Torrence Banks writing at NOTUS. “Trump Is Eyeing Control of Smithsonian’s Budget. The administration is creating a conflict with how Congress intended its money be spent.” He can’t stand anything that’s not saturated by his presence. He also has no respect for the separation of powers. Feeding his narcissism and insecurity is the basis of all decisions.
A directive from the Office of Management and Budget could force the Smithsonian Institution to change its spending plans to match President Donald Trump’s priorities — or risk not getting some of the money Congress appropriated for its operations.
An apportionment — documents that direct federal agencies on how to spend congressionally approved money — approved by OMB in May is aimed at compelling the Smithsonian to spend congressionally appropriated funding in a way that’s “consistent with the FY 2026 President’s Budget” in order to receive it. The president’s budget differed widely from what Congress ultimately chose to fund.
OMB also instructed the Smithsonian to submit a request “specifying each activity and the associated estimated federal obligation amount.”
Trump has repeatedly tried to reshape the Smithsonian, insisting its prior offerings were too “woke” and insufficiently patriotic. The May directive puts the Smithsonian in a major bind, creating hurdles to access congressional funding, experts said.
“The budget guys at the Smithsonian, it puts them in a ridiculous position,” a former Hill staffer and appropriations expert who would only talk on the condition of anonymity told NOTUS. “If they spend money that OMB tells them to spend, then they’re in violation of the Antideficiency Act, which dates back to the Civil War. It involves an agency or a person spending money that’s not been appropriated, and it has criminal fucking penalties, man.”
“And if they don’t spend money Congress told them to spend, then they’re in violation of the Impoundment Control Act, which does not have criminal penalties. But it’s a pretty good constitutional crisis.”
Speaking of Constitutional amendments, check this one out. This is from The Religious News Service. “Defense Department to drop atheists, pagans, 175 others from list of military faiths. The new list includes 31 recognized faiths, most of them Christian denominations.” Weird cultural indoctrination, anyone? Adelle M. Banks and Yonat Shimron share the lede.
The Department of Defense is substantially reducing the number of religions it officially recognizes, reportedly excluding atheists, pagans, humanists and New Age faiths, an independent military-focused news website reports.
The reduction of recognized faith groups represents the first time the military has revised the list since 2017, when it vastly expanded the list of recognized faith groups to about 211. The new list includes 31 recognized faiths, as first reported by Military.com on Thursday (June 4).
The outlet said its report was based on a May 20 memorandum it obtained after it was issued by the undersecretary of defense.
The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request from RNS for additional information, including the specifics of who was included on the list and how such decisions would affect military members of other faiths who might desire assistance from a chaplain.
But the report seems to reflect developments previously announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
In a March video, he introduced upcoming Pentagon plans relating to reforms of the chaplain corps and recognition of religions.
“The previous system had ballooned to well over 200 faith codes,” Hegseth said. “It was impractical and unusable, and many codes were never used at all.”
“Our internal review committee recommended that going forward the department use 31 religious affiliation codes,” he added.
Molly Jong-Fast put a smile on my face with this Op Ed at the New York Times. “It’s No Wonder Grads Are Booing Their Commencement Speakers.” Now there’s our sweet freedom of speech value.
Commencement address season hasn’t been going well — for the commencement speakers.
I’m sure you’ve seen the videos on social media. The big shots who have been brought in to inspire a next generation of graduates have used their speeches as opportunities to extol the limitless possibilities that artificial intelligence will bring. They’re speaking to graduates who are entering a shaky job market and are already burdened by tens of thousands of dollars of student debt. However, companies of all stripes are using A.I. as an excuse to slow entry-level hiring and lay off workers. Tech executives have been warning (though it sometimes seems as if they are bragging) that their technologies will be job destroyers.
Gloria Caulfield, a real estate executive who spoke at the University of Central Florida’s College of Arts and Humanities, told graduates that “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.” Scott Borchetta, the chief executive of the record label Big Machine, told the graduates of Middle Tennessee State University that “A.I. is rewriting production as we sit here.” In each case, the students expressed their displeasure at the speakers’ blatant A.I. boosterism the best way they could: with loud boos.
When Eric Schmidt, a former chief executive of Google, told graduates at the University of Arizona about their A.I.-shaped future, the shouting got so intense that he paused and said that graduates feared “that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.” Mr. Schmidt told them to make the best of it. “The question is not whether A.I. will shape the world. It will. The question is whether you will help shape artificial intelligence.”
Mr. Schmidt’s solution to world-upending technological change is … what? To pull yourself up by your bootstraps? His approach is peak billionaire brain, directed at the young people who have, for the better part of a decade, been treated as woke, lazy, avocado-toast-eating snowflakes. All these speakers just don’t get it. The problem isn’t woke; the problem is work. It’s a lack of social mobility. It’s that college may no longer elevate a graduate to the middle class. It’s that nobody even bothers to pretend that a house, a good job and the ability to start a family are at all guaranteed.
Think of this from the graduates’ perspective: Wealthy old people telling you your future is being pulped by acres and acres of electricity-sucking, water-guzzling data centers feels dystopian because it is. Companies are trying to automate your future away. No wonder you’re furious.
Young people are facing what M.I.T. Technology Review calls a “looming crisis in entry-level work,” and college, once assumed to be a prerequisite for a secure job, no longer feels worth it. The general gestalt coming from a certain sliver of affluent Americans is that college graduates are more liberal trouble than they’re worth and perhaps could be replaced by bots. Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and G.O.P. megadonor, mused to Joe Rogan that a bot “never gets drunk, never gets sick, never gets high” and “never files H.R. complaints.” (It never boos a smug commencement speaker, either.)
I highly recommend reading this thought-provoking Op-Ed. The link is gifted. I also proffer this. The only expendable thing in this country that matters right now is Orange Caligula.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
This video performance features Keith Richards and my dear friend and neighbor, Washboard Chaz. His dog and Temple are bestest of buddies, too.
“Get Up, Stand Up! Stand up for your Rights! Get up, Stand up! Don’t give up the Fight!
Mostly Monday Reads: The Chaos Standard
Posted: June 1, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, Grifting America 250, Politicizing Science | Tags: Cadet Bonespur's Iran War, Grifting 250. Trump and John Roberts, Trump destroying America's diplomacy, Trump politicizing Science, Trump Vandalizing the Nation's House and Monuments 9 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
With so much winning, you have to wonder when it’s going to end! Today’s top headline shows we’re seriously losing Cadet Bonespur’s Iran Adventure. We’ve attacked Iran again, and this time we’ve managed to stop missiles aimed at Kuwait. This war got hot really quickly.
Don’t be distracted by all the bulldozing going on around the White House and the amazing number of has-beens that refuse to sing at his shindig. Although, damn, who asked for all this tacky shit like a Mixed Martial Arts Arena on the White House lawn or another Kid Rock concert? Doesn’t the Reflecting Pool look like it’s been filled with blue Gatorade? Why are we paying for shit we do not need or want? We are just funding Orange Caligula’s wet dreams!
Okay, let’s try Iran first. This is from CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger. I now have a daily ritual of being thankful I don’t have a car, while living on a bus line in an urban area. “Iran stops negotiations with U.S., vows to ‘completely’ block Strait of Hormuz: State media.” This is winning?
Iranian negotiators will stop exchanging messages with the U.S. through intermediaries, and Tehran will move to fully close the Strait of Hormuz, in retaliation for ongoing ceasefire violations, Iran’s state-affiliated news outlet Tasnim said Monday.
The report, in a translated post on the social media site Telegram, homed in on Israel’s military operations in Lebanon against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah.
“No dialogue will take place” until Israel fully withdraws from occupied areas in Lebanon and stops all attacks in both Lebanon and Gaza, per Tasnim.
“Also, the resistance front and Iran have resolved to completely block the Strait of Hormuz and activate other fronts including the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, in order to punish the Zionists and their supporters,” the report said.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a trade chokepoint that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
Oil prices leapt more than 7% higher following Tasnim’s report, which signaled a breakdown in efforts to reach a diplomatic end to the war that is now in its fourth month.
The AP reports that Iran sent bombs towards Kuwait, just as US Bombs were dropped on some of Iran’s military sites. “US bombs Iranian military sites, then downs missiles Tehran fired at troops in Kuwait.” Jon Gambrell has the lede.
The United States said Monday that it bombed radar and drone sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American drone over the weekend. Iran then said it targeted American soldiers in Kuwait with missiles, which the U.S. says it shot down.
The nominal ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. has been repeatedly tested with such back-and-forth attacks, even as officials from both countries try to negotiate an end to the war. It’s not clear how close they are to a deal — and there is always the risk that an attack could derail those talks.
In the meantime, Iran has maintained its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies and driving up the price of fuel around the world, with far-reaching consequences. A cargo ship came under attack off Iraq Monday afternoon, the British military said.
Fighting has also escalated between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, despite their nominal ceasefire. Israel has extended its occupation deep into Lebanon, and Hezbollah — which joined the war in support of its main backer, Iran — continues to launch drones into Israel.
The fighting in Lebanon could threaten the emerging deal to extend the Iran war ceasefire. Tehran wants any agreement to include Lebanon.
Are we winning yet? You may read the details of all this at the link. Let’s move over to Slate where Dahlia Litwick and Mark Joseph Stern partner up with a story that’s a must-read. Thank goodness for the independent press. “The John Roberts vs. Donald Trump Story Conceals Something More Sinister.” See what hides behind all that destruction of our nation’s house and its norms?
This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court. The best way to support our work—and unlock exclusive legal analysis—is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)
On this week’s episode of Amicus, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern kicked off Opinionpalooza by discussing the court’s dangerous game of enabling the president right up until he imperils its own prerogatives. An excerpt of their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Dahlia Lithwick: The Supreme Court keeps aligning with Donald Trump on this maximalist view of the imperial presidency, both in front of the curtain and behind it. For every case on the merits docket that gives Trump a big win in public, there are shadow docket cases that do the same in secret. It feels like any appearance of conflict between the president and the court is stage-managed, with lots of invisible wires we don’t always pay attention to
The Supreme Court has entered its final stretch of the term, with about two dozen opinions to hand down before the justices flee for their summer break at the end of June. At Slate, we call this mad dash to the finish line “Opinionpalooza,” and we approach it with equal parts fascination, skepticism, and dread every year. These remaining cases have massive implications for democracy, civil liberties, and the fundamental question of who gets to be an American; they include disputes over birthright citizenship, voting rights, immigration, and executive authority. Many will test Donald Trump’s ability to collapse the separation of powers into an autocratic presidency with no real limits on his rule. The justices will likely impose some restraints on Trump’s supersized monarchical ambitions in the weeks ahead, especially when they threaten judicial supremacy. All told, however, they will still hand him more victories in his larger assault on constitutional constraints. And where the ambitions of the MAGA wing of the court dovetail with Trump’s goals, Trumpism will run the table.
Mark Joseph Stern: This is one reason why, if the justices do strike down his attack on birthright citizenship, nobody should say: “Look, they’re putting Trump in his place! He’s really not a king!” Because there are so many other cases where the court is absolutely making him a king. It’s allowing him to consolidate so much power in the executive branch and specifically in the person of the president, and to run roughshod over all of these checks and balances that Congress enacted to prevent a monarchical or authoritarian president from abusing his power. And the Supreme Court is almost entirely aligned with Trump on this stuff, especially over the shadow docket, where that consolidation continues.
John Roberts does this magic trick: Do something small, get people accustomed to it, then do it big. We’ve seen this pattern in cases over the years where the Supreme Court makes a tiny tweak to prepare the country for when you later do the big thing. Then it’s less of a surprise and almost looks like it flows logically from when the court did it in a lesser way. The shadow docket has become the way you do that now, right? You seed the ground on the shadow docket and say: “Well, this is the law now.” This process used to take four or five years—do it small, wait a couple terms, then do it big. Now, with the shadow docket, you can do it within the same term, and make it look as though it’s inevitable or inexorable.
It leads to this interplay between the shadow docket and the merits docket. Roberts’ great gift is that he’s a master of optics and PR. He must know there was a huge outcry against the incredibly fast pace with which questions were being decided on the shadow docket: If Trump wanted something, the court saw it as an emergency; it assumed the president was always harmed, but ignored harm to the other parties. This second half of the term, there has been a pumping of the brakes on deciding big, existential questions over the shadow docket. Why is that?
I have a very cynical view of this: It’s less that the court has learned its lesson or become more solicitous toward lower court judges, and more that the court already accomplished a huge amount of what it wanted in terms of giving Trump what he sought. Trump came in and had expansive ideas about the scope of his executive power—impounding federal funds, firing executive officials, rewriting immigration laws—and by and large, the Supreme Court let him do it. The conservative supermajority issued all these shadow docket orders clearing the way for that to happen. Now it has happened; Trump’s takeover of the federal government is largely complete. So I just don’t think the court needs to issue nearly as many shadow docket orders as it did during that shock-and-awe campaign; it has already achieved its objectives.
You may head to Slate and catch all of the opinions on this very important subject. I have to mention the absolute shit show that was to be Trump’s Freedom 250 music concert. Social Media is just full of all the musicians who were listed but never contacted, dead but couldn’t be contacted, and, of course, wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything positive for Orange Caliguala. It’s meme heaven on there on this topic. Public Notice has this headline up. Paul Waldman has the story. “Trump’s ‘Freedom 250’ concert implodes spectacularly. His quest to dominate culture the way he dominates politics keeps going badly.”
It was going to be so beautiful: A spectacular concert to celebrate 250 years of freedom and democracy, featuring some of the greatest musical acts this nation has produced.
Okay, maybe not the greatest, but they were definitely musical acts! Depending on whether you count Milli Vanilli, or more accurately, one of the two guys who pretended to sing in Milli Vanilli. Along with a guy who was in C+C Music Factory. And Bret Michaels of Poison. For anyone itching to stand outside in the baking Washington summer sun to hear some guys in their 60s wheeze their way through “Girl You Know It’s True” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” the disappointment must be crushing.
It now appears that this concert, part of the Freedom 250 celebration and the most awe-inspiring assemblage of talent since your local middle school’s last Battle of the Bands, will not be taking place after all. One after another, the 1990s-era performers pulled out, many saying that when they booked the event they didn’t know it was going to be political.
In other words, once they realized the event was all about Donald Trump, most of them wanted nothing to do with it.
Despite the fact that Vanilla Ice was still planning to perform, Trump announced on Saturday that he was pulling the plug, and would instead make the event just another Trump rally:
Does this sound like someone who is grounded in reality or sanity?
Max Boot sure has changed since his days of being a staunch movement conservative. He wrote this Op-Ed for the Washington Post. “Trump is taking a wrecking ball to U.S. alliances around the world. Trashing America’s European partners while undermining its Asian allies’ security.” This should be obvious to everyone. But here we are back with the legacy media, finding that they’ll publish something harsh ever so often.
The “secret sauce” of American power in the post-1945 era has been the country’s network of alliances. The Soviet Union had satrapies in Eastern Europe, but few real friends. Russia doesn’t even have satellite states anymore, aside from Belarus. It does have an increasingly warm but still wary relationship with China. Beijing, in turn, is close to just a handful of other countries; North Korea is its only treaty ally.
The United States, by contrast, has 51 treaty allies all over the world. Advantage, America. But good news for America’s enemies: President Donald Trump appears intent on doing to U.S. alliances what he has already done to the East Wing of the White House. Let’s take a tour of the world to see the damage he is inflicting with his wrecking-ball diplomacy.
Start in Europe. Trump did possibly irreparable damage to the transatlantic alliance when he threatened to annex Greenland. In January, Denmark, a NATO ally, was getting ready to fight U.S. troops if they invaded Greenland. After backing off, Trump is now making fresh demands — such as guaranteeing U.S. troops access to Greenland even if it becomes independent — that Greenland officials view as a major imposition on their sovereignty.
Trump has also ratcheted up his attacks on NATO for not doing more to support the reckless war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran. He focuses on countries such as Italy and Spain that have blocked access to their bases, while ignoring NATO countries such as Britain and Germany that remain major hubs of the U.S. war effort. He has even demanded that NATO countries reopen the Strait of Hormuz — a mission the U.S. Navy hasn’t dared to take on. In late March, Trump said of NATO: “Why would we be there for them, if they’re not there for us?”
Since then, his administration has announced plans to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany and canceled the deployment of a brigade to Poland, although Trump subsequently said he would send more troops to Poland, perhaps from Germany. There are also reports that the administration wants to substantially reduce the number of U.S. warplanes and warships committed to Europe in a crisis. Trump has blocked new U.S. aid for Ukraine, and hasn’t condemned Vladimir Putin’s recent missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian civilians — and now on an apartment building in Romania. He doesn’t even call out Putin for helping Iran target U.S. forces. How could anyone have any confidence that, if Russia were to start a war with NATO, the U.S. would come to its defense?
This is my last offering, although wow, this week’s headlines are sure to continue to shock and awe the globe. Don Monihan has this analysis up on his SubStack about the War against Science. This is, again, an important subject. We can always drain the Reflecting Pool of its Blue Gatorade after he’s gone. “The Creep of Politicization. A new assault on science highlights a broader pattern.”
The White House proposed new policies governing the federal funding of American science. You’ve already heard about the funding cuts, de facto impoundments of funds, funding freezes to disfavored universities, and cancelation of grants that include the long list of the Trump’s forbidden words.
So how much worse can the new policy be? Scientists are using apocalyptic terms, like “the end of American science as we know it.”
I think the level of alarm is appropriate, but I also want to place it into a broader context. Instinctively, scientists know this policy is not a stand-alone, but the ratcheting of the vice-grips of politicization. Trump has assembled five distinct tactics of politicization that are now starting to work in tandem with one another.
As Trump’s politicization tactics operate together, they begin to generate more interactive effects, reinforcing one another. The creep of politicization seeps into every office and decision, choking any views other than those of Trump and his army of loyalists.
Politicization can mean different things. The classic pre-Trump and mostly bipartisan Presidential tactics of politicization are:
Tactic #1: Centralization of policymaking into the White House, moving power from agencies
Tactic #2: Strategic use of political appointees, moving power away from distrusted career employees
Trump has developed new modes of politicization by adding three tactics:
Tactic #3: Building a personalist regime centered on loyalty to a single person.
Tactic #4: Governing by fearvia conspiratorial messaging and threat.
Tactic #5: Weakening the protections of civil servants to effectively make them at will employees.
The nature and the scale of these tactics is really without parallel in US history, even in the spoils era. In the spoils era there was real and endemic corruption. That is occurring now, but in a more damaging and extractive way, disproportionately favoring an inner circle looking to get rich(er), not just the loyal partyman looking for a job.
The US government is also doing a lot more now than it was in the spoils era. Science is a good example. The current US scientific empire is the result of the post World War II set of arrangements that Trump and Vought are now seeking to control and corrupt for their own ends.
You may read more at the links. It’s going to be a long, hot summer. I’ve got to get my backyard peace garden into shape. I’m hoping for a more traditional 4th of July with neighbors and friends.
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Katurday Reads: Associated Chaos
Posted: May 30, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, DOJ destroys evidence, j6 Slush Fund, The Justice System v Trump | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Cats Against Trump, DOJ evidence erasure, j6 Slush Fund, The Kennnedy Center, Where's Orange Caligula's medical report? 5 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
You’re seeing me today because of three days of fasting and a dreaded hospital procedure. Nothing serious. Just no fun at all. It’s kind of like living in this country under Orange Caligula’s craziness. Thankfully, BB came to my rescue yesterday! Now my doctor has to determine the intent of five polyps. She’s not expecting anything bad. Too bad we can’t say the same about the Trump Administration.
We still have a mostly functioning Judicial System. This New York Times headline is a keeper. “5 Takeaways From a Kennedy Center Ruling That Angered Trump. A federal judge ordered the Kennedy Center to take President Trump’s name off the building. What happens next?” Too bad we can’t get some court to stop the damage to the White House and the surrounding grounds. This analysis is by Zach Montague and Julia Jacobs.
In his ruling that President Trump’s name must be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a federal judge turned his attention to the statute passed by Congress in honor of the slain president.
Signed into law in 1964, only two months after Kennedy was assassinated, the legislation renamed what was first known as the National Cultural Center after a leader who had championed the performing arts.
“The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, designated by this Act,” the law read in part, “shall be the sole national memorial to the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy within the city of Washington and its environs.”
In his ruling on Friday, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington found that the president’s effort to rebrand the building after himself flew in the face of lawmakers’ original intent. He ordered that the 18 new letters added to the center’s white marble facade — which currently reads the “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” — be removed.
The order also temporarily blocked the center from beginning a two-year closure for renovations, drawing a scathing rebuke from Mr. Trump, who has made the institution a centerpiece of his effort to transform Washington’s cultural landscape.
Here’s what the ruling, the result of a lawsuit by a U.S. representative, may mean for the future of the Kennedy Center:
Congress must be consulted on any name change.
The judge’s decision — released on Kennedy’s birthday — boiled down to a straightforward application of the 1964 law.
“Congress made clear that the Kennedy Center would serve as both the nation’s premier performing arts center and a living memorial, the sole one dedicated to the late president in the Washington, D.C. area,” Judge Cooper wrote. “The center has played those roles for over five decades.”
But as with other projects championed by Mr. Trump, such as a ballroom for which he ordered the demolition of the East Wing of the White House, the plans to overhaul the Kennedy Center did not receive the approval of lawmakers.
While the ruling left open the possibility that the president could pursue and support some aesthetic changes at the center, it professed little doubt about the law surrounding its name, which Judge Cooper said was “crystal clear.”
It’s a long read but well worth it. The link has been gifted, so you may read the entire thing. Another bit of Trump overreach is going back to court. This is from Politico. “Judge launches inquiry into Trump-IRS settlement that led to ‘anti-weaponization’ fund. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams asked Trump’s lawyers to respond to a call for her to explore the deal that led to the $1.8 billion fund.” The job market must be booming for lawyers. The leded here is shared by Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein.
A federal judge is demanding answers to allegations that President Donald Trump defrauded her court by filing a lawsuit against the IRS as a pretext to reach a settlement that resulted in a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to make payouts to his political allies.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams launched the inquiry Friday, after closing the lawsuit on her docket last week. The Miami-based Obama appointee cited a request by 35 former federal judges who urged her to reopen the case to determine whether Trump’s effort amounted to “serious misconduct” and an abuse of the court system.
It’s the latest wrinkle in a developing scandal that has drawn bipartisan outrage on Capitol Hill, multiple lawsuits aimed at blocking the “anti-weaponization” fund and demands for further investigation by government watchdogs and courts.
Earlier this year, Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns by a private contractor in 2019 and 2020. The lawsuit immediately triggered questions about conflicts of interest: How could the Justice Department and IRS now controlled by Trump appointees defend against a lawsuit brought by their boss?
But before the lawsuit advanced, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed that a settlement had been reached. Instead of a payout to Trump, the settlement would result in the establishment of the nearly $1.8 billion fund to make payouts to people described in the settlement as victims of government weaponization.
The announcement generated particular excitement among hundreds of people Trump pardoned for their roles in storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with many announcing their intention to pursue payouts. Police officers who defended the Capitol and former Justice Department prosecutors who pursued Jan. 6 defendants sued to block the fund altogether, with another judge earlier Friday ordering a two-week pause on its establishment.
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In her four-page order Friday, Williams indicated that she’s considering reopening the case. She also noted the former judges’ suggestion that Trump’s attorneys knew from the start that their lawsuit had no merit and filed it solely to justify a purported settlement that the administration wanted to announce.
This doesn’t mean that the J6 rioters are paying any attention to this ruling. This headline is from the AP. “Capitol rioters clamor for payouts from Trump’s new ‘anti-weaponization’ fund despite backlash.” Michael Kunzelman has the story.
David Johnston was a licensed attorney when he illegally entered the Capitol with a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. More than five years later, the South Carolina man is offering to help fellow “J6ers” apply for payouts from the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion new fund for people claiming to be victims of a weaponized government.
He’ll do it for a 10% cut of any award, capped at $5,000 apiece.
“I think the narrative is changing” about how the history of that day is being told, Johnston said in a video he posted to social media. “I think good things are happening for us.”
Hundreds of Trump loyalists pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol, admitting under oath that they broke the law. Now pardoned by Trump, many hope to capitalize on their crimes by tapping into the $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate the Republican president’s allies who believe they were politically prosecuted.
A bipartisan backlash to the fund and a legal roadblock have not dimmed the celebratory response from Jan. 6 rioters clamoring for a share of the taxpayer money. Some are staking claims even though the government has not established an application process and a judge has frozen the fund’s formation, at least temporarily.
As usual, you may read more at the link. The Orange Caligula slush fund continues to horrify most Americans. This analysis is provided by Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson writing for Public Notice. “A new low” — watchdog sounds off on Trump’s J6 slush fund. “It’s an effort to signal to the violent element of his base.”
As a weekend bonus for subscribers, we connected with Donald Sherman, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), for his take on President Trump’s most corrupt move yet — the theft of nearly $2 billion from taxpayers for an insurrectionist slush fund he can operate with impunity.
Sherman characterized Trump’s self-dealing “settlement” with his own government as “corruption on a scale without precedent in America,” and argued its purpose is to incentive political violence.
“It’s an effort to absolve himself and his supporters from the insurrection he incited and to signal to the violent element of his base that if you engage in violence in support of him, you will not just be safe from prosecution, but made whole and then some,” he said. “So it’s not just backward-looking, it’s forward-looking. And it follows his pardoning of the January 6ers, which was another signal.”
This is the article upon which the interview was based. It’s from Citizens for Ethics. The investigation was led by Miru Osuga and Caitlin Moniz. There’s absolutely nothing that the Trump Grifting Syndicate can’t try to monetize.
In the first fourteen months of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Trump Store launched at least 622 products, costing nearly $43,000 all together, to profit off the presidency. This is an unprecedented level of monetization of the presidency, even by the standards of Trump’s own first term.
The Trump Store’s launch during his first year in office in 2017 immediately attracted ethics scrutiny as the Trump Organization—the for-profit Trump empire that directly benefits Trump and his family—found another avenue to profit off the presidency. And if sales are any indication, it’s now a well-oiled grifting machine, with Trump’s last released financial records showing that in 2024, the store brought in approximately $8.8 million, more than double the amount the store made in 2023—and more than 17 times the amount it made in its first full year of operation.
While the red “Make America Great Again” hats may now seem like the store’s obvious cash cow, during the first Trump term, these hats and others that referenced the presidency were only sold through the campaign store–a largely symbolic separation between Trump the president and Trump the businessman. But after Trump lost the 2020 election, any appearance of separation, slight as it may have been, was shattered as the store began to stock MAGA hats and never stopped.
A supporter now could buy one of each currently in-stock product and spend $91,145.12 on 1,492 items. They would receive at least 99 items that include reference to the presidency costing $7,511.28, with additional items commemorating actions that Trump took as president like a $55 “Space Force” hat or a $50 “Gulf of America – Yet Another Trump Development” ballcap.
More concerningly, they would also receive a number of items that sell the idea of an unconstitutional third presidential Trump term, including a “Four More Years!” hat, “Trump 2028” hats and can coolers, and “Trump 2028 (Rewrite The Rules)” shirts. The body of a Trump Store marketing email with the subject line “Four More Years | Trump 2028” reads: “Manifesting the future…Four More Years…A Hat for the Next Term.” There’s really only one way to take the explicit calls for a “next term” and “four more years” one year into a second presidential term: as a call for an unconstitutional third term.
You should read this article and then proceed to the interview. It’s really exceptional journalism and nothing you’d see in the legacy media these days.
We’ve all wondered about Trump’s obviously failing health. This CNN News article should not be a surprise. “White House breaks from precedent by not releasing Trump’s medical report.” Adam Cancryn has the lede.
The White House has yet to release any results from President Donald Trump’s most recent physical exam, a break from its own past practice that’s likely to fuel further questions about his health and fitness.
Trump, who is the oldest president to be inaugurated, declared on social media that he was in perfect health following an hourslong visit on Tuesday to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
But despite promising to provide a summary of the checkup in “the next day or so,” the White House has since offered no additional information — nor has it confirmed that Trump’s physician plans at any point to offer a public readout.
The three-day silence marks a departure from the White House’s handling of Trump’s prior physical exams. After a visit to Walter Reed last April, personal physician Dr. Sean Barbabella summarized the results in a memo released two days later. When Trump returned for another exam in October, Barbabella’s declaration that he remained in “exceptional health” was published later the same day.
This time, Trump has so far served as the only source of information about his own health just weeks out from his 80th birthday.
“It’s unimaginable to me that the White House would not release a statement about the president’s health — even the most basic statement,” said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor at The George Washington School of Medicine & Health Sciences who was the longtime cardiologist for former Vice President Dick Cheney. “It’s going to really spark concerns about the president’s fitness for office if the White House refuses to disclose his medical report.”
Trump has long been cagey about any personal health problems, placing a great deal of value on portraying himself as a pinnacle of strength and vitality. On the campaign trail and in the Oval Office, Trump has made his vigor core to his political identity, boasting frequently about his mental and physical well-being. Past medical readouts often reflected this attitude: In Trump’s first term, then-presidential physician Dr. Ronny Jackson effusively praised his “incredible genes” during an hour-long press conference solely about Trump’s health, held at the president’s insistence.
But as he approaches his eighth decade, Trump’s visible signs of aging — and at-times erratic behavior — have nevertheless intensified scrutiny of his health and demands for more disclosure. And after intense doubts swirled about the mental acuity of former President Joe Biden, the American public is perhaps particularly sensitive nowadays to questions about the commander-in-chief’s physical and cognitive health.
So, it’s business as usual on steroids at the White House. This story in Lawfare isn’t shocking in Trump time, but wow, would it be unusual under any other President? “The Justice Department Erases History; Lawfare Restores It. Last week, the Justice Department deleted thousands of press releases related to the Jan. 6 insurrection and other matters. Here they are.” Tyler McBrien, Michael Feinberg, and Benjamin Wittes show us their homework.
Last week, the Justice Department began systematically removing material from its web sites regarding the many indictments and convictions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The operation started without fanfare or formal announcement and proceeded largely unnoticed. Until, that is, journalists such as the Washington Post’s Meryl Kornfield took notice of certain press releases and other materials that had conspicuously disappeared from http://www.justice.gov.
“The Trump admin is quietly deleting info about the Capitol attack from the DOJ website as it prepares to give funds to J6ers,” Kornfield posted. “This week, DOJ deleted a press release about one man with an ongoing child solicitation case who came to the Capitol with bear spray.”
Then, with typical bombast, the Justice Department responded by taking issue with one particular aspect of Kornfield’s characterization. “Nothing ‘quiet’ about it,” the DOJ Rapid Response account replied. “We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.”
We are not erasing history quietly, the Justice Department seemed to suggest. We are erasing history loudly and proudly.
At Lawfare, we have restored the vast bulk of what was deleted. We have also started to preemptively archive a raft of material that has not yet been deleted but probably will be, given its thematic relationship to the material that was 86ed.
The Jan. 6 investigation was one of the largest investigations and collections of prosecutions in Justice Department history. In the FBI’s Washington Field Office alone, agents and analysts worked shifts to maintain a 24/7 posture identifying perpetrators. For more than a month after Jan. 6, there was never a time during day or night when roughly a third of the office was not investigating the insurrection or analyzing evidence.
All other FBI field offices, while not dealing with the same volume as the Washington Field Office, also surged agents to help identify, investigate, and apprehend any participants who had traveled to Washington, taken part in the insurrection, and then left town. Record numbers of leads and tips were provided to the FBI, and every single one of them was examined—and if merited—used to predicate a case.
For its part, the Justice Department stood up an entire new branch of prosecutors tasked specifically with these events. Assistant United States attorneys were also brought in from around the country to augment efforts.
This is the record the Justice Department is now trying to delete.
Any effort to erase history and replace it with lies warrants concerted pushback. In this case, the department has deleted a large repository of accessible public information about the storming of the Capitol and the individuals who did it. That data, unlike the court documents that lay beneath them, are in lay language. They are easily digestible by anyone interested. And they contain fair-minded summaries of evidence that—in the overwhelming majority of cases—was either proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt or pleaded to by defendants who ultimately conceded their truth.
Again, please read the details at the link. I’m pretty sure all this J6 build-up has something to do with the midterms and the next presidential election. Are they planting the seeds for more insurrection? Your guess is as good as mine!
Well, that’s it for me today. Time to get back to work on the kathouse! Hope you have a great weekend!
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