Shapiro, Rufo, and Rogan are three of the most important figures of the modern right. That they’ve all started sounding like comedy “hot dog men” of late suggests the right has a genuine problem on its hands.
Finally Friday Reads: State of Exhaustion
Posted: July 3, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, Cheater in Chief, Democracy Backsliding, Trump Family Crime Syndicate, Trump Grift Rodeo | Tags: @repeat1968. John Buss, Democracy Backsliding, Passport application process, The Trump Family Crime Syndicate, Trump Family Grift Rodeo, Trump grifting 5 Comments
“You know Hegseth is chomping at the bit to annihilate something for the Dear Leader.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m sorry I am so late, but I had to do some errands, including getting a new passport, which was way more complicated than the last time I did it. I wanted to get it done for several reasons, but top of the list was avoiding getting a passport with Orange Caligula’s nasty picture on its cover. I also do not want to be used as a tool of that ish that is Freedom 250.
The weird thing was that while I was cheerfully smiling in my last passport, they told me I could no longer smile. I have to look neutral, which comes off as grim. The Postal worker actually said they want it to look like a mug shot now. I hope that doesn’t portend anything for the future. But, frankly, the look on my face basically says I’m a very unhappy American.
I thought I had given my PDF copy of my application a look through last night, but it was nothing compared to what they expect to see now. I had to do a handwritten version after the consensus was that my middle name was no longer needed. They also took my last passport. My first passport was part of a family passport. They no longer have those, I guess. I brought the one prior to that, when I was married, but much like my interest in all that, they weren’t the least bit interested. The Postal workers were sighing about the entire mess as much as I was. I have no idea what started all this, but I have DOGE and AI in mind as the primary hypothesis.
The majority of us are pretty broke right now. So, I’m not planning on a vacation at the Riviera. Part of me really wants the passport again in case things get any worse around here. Day after day, our democracy seems to be backsliding more quickly than ever. Trump, however, has a bigger grift going than ever. This New York Times story is worth checking out. It’s reported by Jason Horowitz. “Trump’s Huge Windfall Has Few Known Global Precedents. President Trump’s earnings in office are at a level once unimaginable for any leader of a liberal democracy, particularly a sitting American president.”
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and billionaire mogul who died in 2023, is often considered to have set the mold for President Trump with his mastery of the news media, gilded taste and, above all, legislative maneuvers that drew accusations of conflicts of interest.
Mr. Berlusconi passed laws that appeared tailor-made to protect and benefit his family’s vast business empire. And his annual earning disclosures showed he had been paid tens of millions of dollars while serving as prime minister.
This week, new financial disclosures suggested that Mr. Trump has broken that mold by making at least $2.2 billion in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses.
Mr. Trump’s profits are a haul once unimaginable for any leader of a liberal democracy, particularly a sitting American president. No modern Western leader has ever publicly disclosed such big windfalls while in office.
The Trump family’s earnings, experts said, have moved him into an echelon of enrichment more associated with strongmen in Russia and Turkey.
His gains were all the more striking because the United States has long positioned itself as a standard-bearer for financial regulation, anti-graft measures and the rule of law. Yet his cryptocurrency earnings highlight an unusually glaring conflict: As president, Mr. Trump oversees the regulation of an industry that, as a businessman, he also greatly profits from.
The White House has denied that Mr. Trump or his family had engaged in conflicts of interest and he has personally brushed aside such concerns, saying this week: “I never speak to any of the people that run the money.”
That reluctance to acknowledge any conflict now makes it harder, experts said, for anti-corruption investigators in countries big and small to combat behavior that the United States, until Mr. Trump’s presidency, once condemned.
“How the U.S. behaved was quite influential in shaping international norms,” said Professor Liz David-Barrett, director of the Center for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex.
Now, Mr. Trump’s windfall has undermined the idea “that there is a standard to which we should all be aspiring,” she said. It was now easier for other global leaders to ask “‘why should I regulate my behavior?’ when the greatest power in the world” is not regulating its president, she added.
Newsweek has more numbers and analysis under this headline. “Trump Says Family Faces Constant ‘Conflict’ Under White House Spotlight.” The Trump Family Crime Syndicate knows no boundaries.
Questions surrounding the Trump family’s business interests have followed the president throughout both of his administrations, but critics say those concerns have intensified during his second term as the family’s portfolio expands into areas including cryptocurrency, international real estate and private investments.
Trump’s latest financial disclosure report drew particular attention because it showed substantial income tied to crypto ventures associated with the family. The filing included hundreds of millions of dollars connected to World Liberty Financial and related businesses.
Supporters of the president say that Trump has complied with applicable ethics requirements and note that federal conflict-of-interest laws do not require presidents to divest personal assets. Trump underscored that point in the CNBC interview, saying there was “nothing illegal” or improper about the family’s business activities.
Ethics watchdogs, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), along with Democratic lawmakers and former government ethics officials, have argued that the Trump family’s expanding business ventures create actual or perceived conflicts of interest.
Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee, accused Trump of “brazen crypto corruption” this week after the financial disclosures revealed his family’s cryptocurrency ventures made more than $1 billion since his return to office.
“The crypto legislation heading to the Senate floor must prevent the president, vice-president, senior administration officials, members of Congress, and their families from profiting off the crypto industry,” said Warren in a statement. “If it does not, it will only turbocharge Donald Trump’s brazen crypto corruption.”
It’s not the first time Warren has issued a warning over Trump’s financial dealings with his family. In May 2025, Warren and Sen. Chris Van Hollen sent a letter to President Trump urging him and his family to divest from World Liberty Financial. They wrote that: “Your personal financial entanglements with foreign governments threaten to undermine U.S. national security.”
There’s a lot of information in it about Trump’s sperm discharges.
The brothers have significantly expanded their business portfolio in recent years. Their highest-profile ventures include co-founding World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance platform that has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family through token sales and a stablecoin business. They also launched American Bitcoin in March 2025, a cryptocurrency mining company, and have backed ventures through 1789 Capital, where Donald Jr. is a partner investing in defense, AI and technology companies.
They have pursued international Trump-branded licensing agreements in countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, India and Romania, while expanding into firearms retail, drone technology and politically aligned consumer brands.
According to Forbes, Donald Jr.’s net worth increased six fold since between the presidential election in November 2024 and the end of Donald Trump’s first year back in office, in December 2025, jumping from $50 million to $300 million.
Something sure smells rotten. This is from The New Republic. “Kleptocracy Is Trump’s Most Lucrative Business Venture. His investments make money even when his ventures fail! ” Timothy Noah has the story.
Being president of the United States is by far the most lucrative business venture of Donald Trump’s checkered business career. The June 30 release of his financial disclosure report makes this official. Trump has turned the American presidency into an extractive industry. In 2025, Trump mined more than $2.2 billion in income from being president, most of it from crypto, from which he extracted $1.4 billion. That’s all the more remarkable when you remember that crypto entered a slump last year and that investors in Trump’s crypto ventures who were not members of the Trump family lost $2.3 billion, according to a June 9 investigation by Tom Bergin of Reuters. It’s almost as if Trump’s ability to draw income from business ventures did not depend on those ventures being successful!
A cynic might observe that Trump’s special treatment is no different from that of American chief executives in the private sector who are similarly insulated from failure. But Trump’s payday puts theirs in the shade. The only CEO whose compensation exceeded Trump’s last year was Elon Musk, who (for now) is a category of one. Musk’s $158 billion pay package from Tesla last year was more than 15 times larger than the combined pay packages of the other 391 chief executives surveyed in late June by The Wall Street Journal.
If we set Musk aside, the highest-paid chief executive in the Journal’s ranking was Shankh Mitra, chief executive of Welltower, “a real estate investment trust focused on senior housing and healthcare.” Let’s leave for another day the ethics of harvesting a vast personal fortune from the physical and mental decline of one’s fellow human beings. My point here is that Mitra’s obscene pay package last year of $821 million was less than half of Trump’s $2.2 billion. Plus, I bet Mitra had to put in at least some actual work.
I observed a year ago that Trump is America’s first rentier president. A rentier is someone who makes his money through the possession of assets rather than the exertion of labor. Rentiers are capitalism’s nepo babies. Prior to Trump, the main rentier occupations were real estate and finance. Trump himself was a classic rentier capitalist, a rich kid who joined the family real estate business, exaggerated his success to a credulous tabloid press, and inherited $413 million from his more successful father. Trump moved the family business from dowdy apartment buildings in Brooklyn and Queens to luxury apartments and hotels in Manhattan and beyond, but many of these went bankrupt. In 2018, The Economist concluded Trump would have made more money had he been a more conventional rentier and invested daddy’s money in index funds.
The rentier presidency is a much more lucrative proposition than rentier capitalism, and one with which index funds can’t possibly compete. Crucially, there is no index fund that lets you acquire a stake without investing money or labor. During the 2024 presidential campaign the Trump family acquired a 60 percent stake in World Liberty Financial and was granted 75 percent on net revenues from token sales. (The Trump family stake in the company, the less valuable part of this deal, has since fallen to 38 percent.) Trump did not pay for these privileges, yet last year he earned more than $594 million from them. Neither is there any evidence, according to Reuters’ Bergin, that Trump ever paid for his stakes in the crypto firms ALT5 Sigma, American Bitcoin, or Celebration Coins. This last alone netted Trump more than $636 million last year.
One more short article before I ruin your Independence Day weekend. This is from Democracy Defenders Action.
Following is a statement by Amb. Norm Eisen (ret.), co-founder and board member of Democracy Defenders Action and Richard W. Painter, former associate counsel to President George W. Bush, regarding President Trump’s newly released financial disclosures. Amb. Eisen was the White House ethics czar for President Obama.
“President Trump’s financial disclosure reveals he is capitalizing on the presidency for personal gain on a staggering scale never seen in American history.
“Worse, he’s doing this while his administration refuses to regulate the very industry making him a billionaire several times over, leaving Americans exposed while his own meme coin soars. His cronies and family are up to their eyeballs in the grift.
“Make no mistake. His billions in personal profit don’t come out of thin air. Every dollar extracted from these schemes comes at a cost imposed directly on the American people—whether through weaker consumer protections, trust sold to the highest bidder or otherwise.
“Congress has the power to enact legislation now to prevent these types of conflicts of interest for the president, vice president and members of Congress themselves. They should also investigate and hold him accountable. By refusing to act, they are complicit.
“The American people will not tolerate this shocking greed. And they will hold accountable those who enabled it.”
I’m not sure about the American people’s inability to tolerate his shocking greed. I’m more worried they won’t pay attention to all the warnings and will not vote.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Supreme Justice
Posted: June 29, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, 2026 SCOTUS Decisions, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, MIA Mitch McConnell, Polycrisis, Refugees | Tags: #Where's Mitch?, 2026 Supreme Court Rulings, Counting Late Ballots, FED governor Lisa Cook, Hapless Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Amy 10 Comments
“Old man seen wandering around Washington DC babbling to an imaginary crowd.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The Supreme Court of the United States released some interesting decisions today. For a change, some of them are likely to frustrate Orange Caligula. My guess is he’ll be on social media all day ranting. At least, we don’t have to hear the ongoing lies about that failure of a fair he did over the weekend.
One case sent mixed messages. I’ll start with that.
This is from Politico. “Supreme Court widens Trump’s power to fire agency leaders — except the Fed. The exception for the Federal Reserve is a blow to Trump’s efforts to prod the central bank to lower interest rates.” At least he won’t be able to increase the inflation rate through that nonsense.
The Supreme Court on Monday granted President Donald Trump sweeping power to control executive branch agencies, while effectively exempting the Federal Reserve.
The justices voted 6-3, along ideological lines, to scuttle a 91-year-old precedent that said Congress can limit the president’s ability to fire Senate-confirmed leaders to instances of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
But in a separate ruling, the high court voted 5-4 to rebuff Trump’s bid to carry out his firing Lisa Cook, a Fed member appointed by President Joe Biden. The decision, which allows Cook to remain in her post while litigation continues over the effort to dismiss her, is a blow to Trump’s efforts to prod the Fed to lower interest rates.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinions in both cases.
The court’s conservative majority has been whittling away for years at the 1935 ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor, which allowed Congress to limit presidents’ power to fire the leaders of certain agencies.
The justices finished off Humphrey’s Monday in a case brought by Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump attempted to fire in March 2025.
“If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, we overrule it,” Roberts wrote. “This is not a close case….The FTC unquestionably exercises executive power, and must therefore be controlled by the Chief Executive, in whom such power is vested. It follows, then, that Slaughter served as the President’s subordinate at the FTC—and that the President was entitled to cut her tenure short.”
When the White House dismissed Slaughter last year, it provided no detailed reason, simply telling her in an email that she was terminated effective immediately because her continued service was “inconsistent with Administration’s priorities.”
Did I mention that Roberts is probably the worst Chief Justice ever? He’s not the least transparent about his politics, which include racism and the destruction of checks on the executive branch that are centuries old. This analysis is by Melissa Quinn of CBS News. “Supreme Court expands presidential firing power, overturning 90-year-old ruling.”
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission are unconstitutional and overturned a 90-year-old decision that allowed Congress to shield members of certain independent agencies from being fired by the president at will.
The decision from the high court expands the president’s power over many independent boards and commissions, which Congress had insulated from political pressure by saying their members could only be removed by the president for cause.
In a 1935 decision in a case known as Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which involved removal protections for the FTC, the Supreme Court said Congress could restrict the president’s ability to fire officials from multi-member agencies at will.
But the ruling from the high court’s conservative majority in the case Trump v. Slaughter overturns that 90-year-old decision and marks the culmination of a years-long weakening of the New Deal-era precedent.
The ruling was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority, joined by the other conservative justices. The three liberals dissented, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor read a summary of her dissent from the bench, a rare occurrence that signals strong disagreement with a decision. Roberts wrote that limits on the president’s ability to fire those who wield executive power on his behalf infringe on his constitutional authority.
The FTC of today, the court’s majority found, “unquestionably” exercises executive powers and therefore must be under the president’s control.
“Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work,” Roberts wrote. “Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.”
And, of course, all this diddling with election laws and voting access basically limits the accountability of said President to said people. That’s my major takeaway. And, of course, Orange Caligula is already ignoring the parts he doesn’t like. This is from the New York Times. “Trump Renews Threat to Fire Fed Governor in Wake of Court Loss. The president promised to “take appropriate action immediately” against Lisa D. Cook, a Fed governor.”
President Trump renewed his intention to try and fire Lisa D. Cook from the Federal Reserve on Monday, saying he would look for a way to oust her after the Supreme Court blocked his previous attempt to fire a sitting governor at the central bank.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump described the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision as “procedural,” adding that he would “take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”
Mr. Trump took the extraordinary step of trying to fire Ms. Cook from the Fed last year, claiming that she had misrepresented her finances in order to obtain more favorable mortgage terms. Ms. Cook has not been charged with a crime, and has denied any wrongdoing.
She challenged her firing in court, as her lawyers sought to argue that the attempted dismissal fit a pattern by Mr. Trump, who has sought to pressure the Fed into lowering interest rates. In late September, a federal judge allowed Ms. Cook to continue serving in the role as she contested the legality of the firing, prompting the administration to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The opinion, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., kept that decision in place. The majority found on Monday that the president had not properly afforded Ms. Cook the ability to respond to the allegations against her.
But the decision still left much unanswered. While the justices emphasized the uniquely important nature of the Fed as an independent body, they did not clearly define the conditions under which Mr. Trump could fire a Senate-confirmed governor.
“To be clear, the ultimate question of whether the president can remove Cook for cause will depend in part on the underlying facts,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority.
“In this opinion, we have not addressed the facts, as they have yet to be found or analyzed under the relevant legal standards,” he continued. “Rather, we have simply addressed the parties’ arguments about the appropriate legal standards under which the facts must be evaluated.”
It’s just a matter of time before Trump starts raging on this decision, as covered by the AP. “Supreme Court rules states can count late-arriving mailed ballots, rejecting Trump-led challenge.” Mark Sherman has the lede on this.
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.
The 5-4 decision rejected a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
In just over half those states, the more forgiving deadlines apply only to ballots cast by military and overseas voters.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the court’s majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberal justices.
Federal laws setting a single Election Day “leave open when those votes must be received,” Barrett wrote.
Congress could change the law, she said. “If varied deadlines for ballot receipt similarly call for a national solution, the American people must choose it through their elected representatives,” Barrett wrote.
So, Orange Caligula’s latest hissy fit this morning about the court’s decisions is this one, as reported by Politico‘s Emilio Perez Ibarguen. Maybe with all this ranting, he’ll blow a gasket and join Mitch McConnell in whatever ether he’s disappeared into. “Trump doubles down on SAVE America Act after Supreme Court loss on mail voting. The president’s desire for a signature elections bill has all but frozen Hill Republicans’ agenda.”
President Donald Trump intensified his efforts to pass his signature elections bill on Monday after the Supreme Court handed the president a loss in his push to add restrictions to mail voting.
The decision — where the Supreme Court ruled that states may choose to count ballots that arrive after Election Day, so long as they are either postmarked before then or otherwise deemed cast on time — sparked a flurry of activity Monday among the president and his allies.
“In light of the tremendous loss in the Supreme Court today concerning Voter’s Rights, and the fact that ‘people’s’ votes are allowed to be counted LONG AFTER an Election is over, it is more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump has advocated for severely restricting mail voting, which he has claimed without evidence is responsible for widespread fraud.
The Trump administration has also sought to empower the Postal Service to withhold ballots if states don’t hand over their voter rolls, though an executive order instructing the agency to do so was batted down by a federal judge.
A core tenet of the SAVE America Act, according to the president, would be to drastically limit when voting by mail is available to citizens with few exceptions, alongside requiring voters to present photo identification and proof of citizenship
The president has fixated on the SAVE America Act, even as some Senate Republicans insist the legislation simply does not have enough votes. Trump called out five senators as “Hold Outs” on the bill, naming Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Monday’s ruling upheld a Mississippi law allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day. A bipartisan mix of over a dozen states allow at least some ballots that arrive after Election Day to still be counted so long as they are postmarked before then. More states extend that grace period to certain military and overseas voters.
Okay, so my big question today is where the fuck is Mitch McConnell? Why aren’t we getting any status reports on his health? Is the Republican Party hiding something? We have to go to the local news just to get a hint of why he’s not voting this week, and whether he’s even alive at this point. This is from the Lexington Herald Leader. “Few details known on Mitch McConnell’s health 2 weeks after hospitalization.” This is reported by Hannah Pinski.
The public has received few details surrounding Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health condition after he was admitted into the hospital two weeks ago. A spokesperson for McConnell’s office did not have any updated information regarding the Kentucky senator’s health to share as of Monday.
McConnell, 84, was hospitalized June 14, but his staff did not give details about his condition at the time, other than to say he was receiving “excellent care.” During the Republican Party of Kentucky’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Lexington June 20, Rep. Andy Barr told reporters after the event that he’d exchanged text messages with McConnell, saying “he’s good.” McConnell’s office has not confirmed whether he is still hospitalized. On June 22, spokesperson Stephanie Penn said he would not vote in the Senate that week but is working “closely” with staff as his health continues to recover. As of Wednesday, the Senate is not in session and will reconvene July 13. McConnell has held his Senate seat since 1985 and is in his seventh term. From 2007 to 2025, he served as the leader of the Senate GOP. He is not seeking reelection this year.
The reason that this is important and is leading to conspiracy theories about proof of life is that his death or resignation would mean a special election would need to be held. This would drain Republican Resources away from the Midterm elections and possibly further endanger their chances of holding on to majorities in both houses. I’m not into conspiracy theories, but all this is extremely suspicious IMHO.
There are more decisions coming tomorrow. The Hill‘s Jack Schonfeld has the list and the associated ramifications. Let me just add that these are big and also controversial topics. “Supreme Court to hand down final decisions Tuesday: Here’s what’s left.”
Here’s what the court will hand down beginning 10 a.m. EDT Tuesday:
Birthright citizenship
President Trump’s banner immigration policy hangs in the balance.
The Supreme Court is set to decide whether Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship can stand, or if they are unconstitutional.
It’s a major test for the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to all persons born on U.S. soil and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
The president’s executive order, which has not gone into effect amid legal challenges, limits birthright citizenship to children with at least one parent with citizenship or permanent legal status.
It upends the conventional understanding that the 14th Amendment leaves room for only narrow exceptions, like babies born on enemy warships and the children of foreign ambassadors.
The president, who attended the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in the case, hasn’t sounded optimistic about the case.
“This decision by the Supreme Court is a very big one,” Trump said in the Oval Office last month. “They’ll probably rule against me, because they seem to like doing that.”
Transgender athlete bans
The Supreme Court is preparing to say its piece on the national debate surrounding school sports and transgender athletes.
…
Campaign finance
The Supreme Court will rule on a GOP-backed challenge to a campaign finance provision.
At issue is how much money candidates can spend in coordination with their political party.
It’s going to be a busy conscientious week.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: When Will It Ever End?
Posted: June 26, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, Broligarchy, Constitutional Crises, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, corruption, Watergate | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Elon Musk NAZI, JD Vance NAZI, John Bolton Crook, Richard Nixon Crook, Stephan Miller NAZI 9 Comments
“Should have just went with this in the first place. Honest Don reflects on his achievements.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Every time we think about Orange Caligula, we have to think about what comes after him if he doesn’t make it through his second term. It’s not likely that someone reasonable will take his place in a party that no longer goes by reason. For all intents and purposes, we still have to put the Shillbilly at the top of that list. I’m not really feeling good about that at all.
This is a headline from the New York Times this morning. “Vance Downplays Watergate and Compares Himself to Nixon. The vice president said that the scandal that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency would be “like a 12-hour news story” if it happened today and that the “deep state” had taken down Nixon.” Be afraid. Be very afraid. Emily Davies has the story.
Vice President JD Vance downplayed the significance of the Watergate scandal during a speech on Thursday, saying that the controversy that toppled President Richard M. Nixon would be “like a 12-hour news story” if it happened today.
“The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” Mr. Vance added, saying he had been joking backstage about the scandal before his appearance at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif.
Mr. Vance, who is widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender, compared himself to Nixon, who resigned in disgrace after his administration tried to cover up its involvement in a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
“Young senator, vice president, writes some best-selling books, is hated by the media,” Mr. Vance said. “It kind of sounds like JD Vance. I’ve always liked Richard Nixon.”
Mr. Vance also conspiratorially compared the political forces that pushed Nixon out of office to President Trump’s opponents.
“If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon,” Mr. Vance said, “it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions, tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”
Mr. Vance’s remarks were notable in part because of how Mr. Trump and his administration have pushed to expand presidential power and test the boundaries of the law. Mr. Vance, a critic of Mr. Trump’s during his first presidential bid in 2016, has become a fierce loyalist and stood by the president through many controversies, casting him as the victim of an unjust political system.
The vice president’s defense of Nixon followed a similar playbook, seeking to rewrite the historical narrative of a scandal-scarred president so that he becomes the target of a witch hunt instead of the perpetrator of wrongdoing.
A spokesman for Mr. Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Vance was in California in part to promote his new memoir, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith” and in part to raise money for the Republican Party.
I never thought I’d see the day when a candidate desperately seeking the presidency would give an all hail to Nixon. Those of us that remember all findingof those Senate hearings know that finding any one that supported him, especially once the cover-up became clear, were clearly few and far between.
This headline from the AP headline has me shaking my head that I may need a neck brace. “Vance says Watergate would be a ’12-hour news story’ today. Vice President JD Vance said the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon would have been a 12-hour blip in today’s news cycle, and he drew parallels between Nixon and President Donald Trump — arguing both were targeted by “deep state” forces.”
Yup, Arlen Specter was about as deep state as you could get. Excuse me while I choke on laughter.
It’s obvious that these people have no respect for our Republic or it’s rule of Constitutional Law. This is democracy backsliding at its jaded worst. This is the analysis by the Washington Post. “Vance dismisses Watergate scandal, says ‘deep state’ went after Nixon. The vice president said he admired Nixon and drew parallels between the past president, who resigned amid pressure in 1974, and Trump today.” This is fascist level over-reach.
Vice President JD Vance on Thursday expressed sympathy for former president Richard M. Nixon, suggesting that Nixon was wrongly forced out as president in 1974 and comparing his political travails decades ago to those facing President Donald Trump now.
“As I joked … backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Vance said in remarks at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
A spokesperson for Vance did not immediately respond to questions about whether the vice president was being facetious and how he was defining Watergate.
… Naftali, a Columbia University presidential historian, referenced tapes that contained thousands of hours of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations.
“You can hear him suborn perjury on the tapes. He’s telling an intermediary, what to tell someone who’s about to be interviewed by the FBI, what to say and what not to say,” said Naftali, who oversaw the Nixon library’s Watergate exhibit. “You can hear Nixon being told that money had been found to hire teamsters to go and break the bones of demonstrators. That’s all illegal.”
“It’s not as if it’s a matter of partisan interpretation. The evidence is overwhelming,” Naftali said, offering additional examples of Nixon’s efforts to subvert legal protections. “If he does know all of this, he’s telegraphing the kind of president he hopes to be.”
Again, I’m just gobsmacked. How do you even get through university or high school, let alone law school and come up with this shit of an interpretation of Nixon? Speaking of Orange Caligula and his tendency to pick lying bags of scum who are only interested in power and grifting, here’s an NBC headline to bring back some memories of his last ugly term. “Ex-Trump adviser John Bolton pleads guilty to mishandling classified information. Bolton served as White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term.”
Former national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to mishandling classified information related to his work during the first Trump administration.
Bolton, who served as White House national security adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term and has since been a frequent critic of the president, appeared Friday morning for a re-arraignment in Greenbelt, Maryland, before Judge Theodore D. Chuang, an appointee of then-President Barack Obama.
Bolton pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized retention of national defense information out of the 18 with which he was initially charged. He faces a prison sentence of up to 60 months and has agreed to pay $2.25 million, prosecutors said. He is set to be sentenced Oct. 28.
Abbe Lowell, Bolton’s attorney, said in a statement Friday that the former national security adviser and U.N. ambassador “did what real leaders do. He took responsibility for a mistake he made, thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information.”
Hayden O’Byrne, acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s national security division, said in a statement that the plea agreement “ought to send a message to other public officials whom the public has entrusted with classified, national defense information. If you willfully mishandle these state secrets, the Department of Justice, led by the National Security Division, will investigate and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
Bolton was originally indicted in October 2025, charged with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges and faced up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine per count, and three years of special release.
Sigh, “special release.” Why to punish this truly evil people courts! Then there’s this guy. This is from PBS News. “WATCH: Stephen Miller says ‘America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers’ after Supreme Court rulings.”
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 on Thursday to allow the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.
The Department of Homeland Security can now end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
The Supreme Court also voted 6-3 to clear the way for the Trump administration to potentially revive an immigration policy once used to turn back migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The court overturned a lower court order blocking the practice that limited the number of people who could apply for asylum each day.
EThis crap doesn’t reflect the American Values I grew up with. This makes the Guilded Age look like a Socialist Picnic. “Elon Musk’s zero accountability life. Elon Musk goes berserk if you talk about USAID.” This is from the magazine The Argument. Kobe Yank-Jacobs provides the news and analysis.
Elon Musk really doesn’t want you to say he’s responsible for the deaths of millions.
Earlier this week, Musk threatened to sue Rep. Ro Khanna for charging him with destroying the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and putting millions of lives at risk around the world:
“There needs to be accountability for Elon Musk,” Khanna said. “You know, they’re celebrating that he created 4,400 millionaires [with his SpaceX IPO], but they don’t talk about the 4.5 million children around the world who he possibly sentenced to death by dismantling USAID.”
In response, Musk called Khanna a liar, threatened to sue, and said he should be in prison.
But Khanna is making a perfectly reasonable claim here. In that quote, he is (carefully) citing a peer-reviewed study that estimated the effects of dismantling USAID. It found that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will result in 14 million deaths overall by 2030, of which 4.5 million will be children under the age of 5.
This is probably a high-end estimate, but even lower end projections with different methodologies sit between 670,000 and 1.6 million annual deaths compared to a fiscal year 2023 baseline.
In other words, the toll from USAID cuts by seems to be at best around two-thirds of a million people annually1; that’s about as many people as were killed during the Civil War. At worst, Musk is tied to the deaths of 14 million.
If DOGE had managed to cut tens of billions of dollars from the federal budget, Musk and his defenders would certainly have taken credit. It’s bizarre then to disclaim responsibility for the tragic consequences of the cuts they did make.
Yet Musk and his defenders insist that Khanna is somehow slandering him.
There are a couple of interlocking issues worth separating here: one is the factual question of what actually happened to USAID, where Musk is now downplaying his actions. A second question is what is likely to happen out in the real world to real people without USAID. And the final issue is whether Musk should be subject to basic Congressional oversight for wrecking whole government agencies as an outside adviser to the president.
So, I’m cutting it short today because frankly, I can’t read any more of this myself, and I’m still working on the house. I just hope the election is as clean as possible and that people come out in droves. I’ve really had enough of this.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Chaos Information
Posted: June 22, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, MAGA Chaos, Republican Chaos, Trump Chaos | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, chaos, Chaos Supreme Court, Sen. John Cornyn, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Republicans, Trump Chaos 6 Comments
“Saboteurs be damned! The Situation Room is locked and loaded to eliminate the threat of the Green Newest Scam.” @repeat1968, John Buss
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Well, I have the perfect read and lede to reinforce my repetitive sub-headings for my post. Burgess Evertt of Semaphor quotes outgoing Senator John Cornyn in his latest. Either everyone reads me, or we all finally notice the trend. “‘The president seems to revel in chaos’: Cornyn goes his own way.” Ya think?
A few days after losing his Senate runoff, John Cornyn did something unusual for him: He used his leverage against his own party.
The Texas Republican was frustrated by a nearly year-long delay in getting his state reimbursed by the Trump administration for more than $10 billion in border security spending that Congress had already approved. Cornyn had something valuable to withhold as lawmakers prepared to take up President Donald Trump’s $70 billion immigration spending bill.
“Basically, I told Senator Barrasso and Senator [John] Thune: ‘There’s a price for my vote, and it is to get the administration to release the money,’” Cornyn told Semafor in a recent interview in his hideaway office on the Capitol’s third floor. “Next thing I got is a call from [White House budget director] Russ Vought, and Russ said, ‘we’ll put a notice of funding.’”
Cornyn added a reminder that, with more than six months left in office and a sophisticated understanding of the Senate, he’s positioned to play more hardball if he has to: “That’s one example I think of what you can do when you have some cards to play.”
The four-term incumbent is already setting some conditions on his critical undecided vote for Trump’s attorney general pick, Todd Blanche. Cornyn has returned to the candor he displayed for years in the Senate halls, offering withering assessments of Trump’s Iran deal and legislative strategy — a pattern he might continue on Wednesday, when the president visits GOP senators in person.
See? We basically have to vote them out of office to act in the interests of the country and the people they serve. To continue that train of thought, a reference to my soon-to-be-gone senator was also put into the analysis
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., also ousted by Trump in May, told Semafor that he and Cornyn are “like-minded in the sense that we’re both not returning, and that gives a certain focus. And he’s conveyed he’s got no illusions about the president.
“But you know,” Cassidy added, “it’s not like we sit around in a smoke-filled room, plotting the strategy.”
It just amazes me that Trump manages to get his way as long as they hold office and positions. Then, they suddenly rotate to the right thing.
What does it take to act like an actual American leader these days? This headline at VOX got me thinking, also. “The MAGA stars freaked out by their own movement. The right’s leading lights are looking for anyone to blame for the right’s growing extremism — except themselves.” This analysis is written by Zach Beauchamp.
It’s a real-life version of the famous sketch on Tim Robinson’s show I Think You Should Leave, where a hot-dog-shaped car crashes into a storefront and a man in a hot dog suit says, “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.”
The “hot dog men” — and yes, they’re almost all men — are easy to mock. But their growing ranks point to something serious: that right-wing political machine is spinning out of control in ways that even some of its most aggressive and radical voices recognize as dangerous. And as the right searches for new leadership before Trump himself fades into history, nobody on their side has shown any proven ability to contain or redirect its worst impulses.
In the absence of post-Trump leaders both willing and able to address the real problems, the future of the right — and, thus, in some sense, America — is dangerously unclear.
If that’s the metaphor, then the reality on the ground is even more bizarre.
Indeed, there are plenty of other examples.
Mark Levin, the Fox News and talk radio provocateur with Trump’s ear, unironically complains about “podcasters” who are “not about informing or educating,” but rather profiting off being “crazier” than their competitors. Rod Dreher, a right-wing writer who has long promoted a famously racist anti-immigration novel, has been expressing deep concern about rising bigotry on the young right. And even Dinesh D’Souza — a commentator who has spent literally decades spreading increasingly toxic, racially tinged conspiracies — is now warning that right-wing racism may prompt “mass desertions of blacks, Latinos and other minorities from the GOP.”
All of these men openly helped build the right-wing political culture that got us here. Now they’re all trying, desperately, to find the guy who did this.
The examples provided make for a long read, but a good set of evidence for the hypothesis. This article comes with all the details on all the nasty stuff that fed the MAGA tourists and the Elephants at the Republican Zoo. You have to pay a bit to read this, but you will come away with a deeper understanding of the people we ignored for way too long. The conspiracy theorists and provocateurs are reaping what they sowed. I especially liked the story of Candice Owens, who always seemed like an over-the-top Con Artist and turn-coat.
You can also read more on the infighting via MSNOW’s Mychael Schnell.” ‘It’s awkward for everybody’: Inside the Trump-Thune relationship. The president and the majority leader are increasingly finding themselves in standoffs.” Trump is still doing a lot of damage, however, so I wonder if this is actually affecting any real change. Is minimal change doing anything?
On June 4, as Senate Republicans finally began debating their immigration enforcement bill, President Donald Trump called Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., with a demand: Attach the SAVE America Act to the legislation.
During the call — according to a source familiar with the conversation — Thune told Trump there wasn’t enough support for the hardline voting bill. But, as a concession to the president, he said Republicans would try again.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., drafted an amendment exactly as Trump requested. And Republicans put it on the floor for a vote.
It failed 48-50, with four Republicans joining Democrats in opposition.
Despite one of those stubborn realities in the Senate — math — Trump has continued pressing for the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and photo identification to vote while sharply restricting mail-in voting.
Trump’s insistence on pursuing a bill that lacks enough support, and his tendency to fault Thune when it fails, has only deepened tensions between the president and the Senate majority leader.
One GOP senator, who requested anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics, said Trump and Thune “have an awkward relationship.”
“It’s awkward for everybody,” the lawmaker said.
Sources stressed that Trump and Thune still maintain a functional working relationship. One person familiar with their interactions said they don’t speak every day, but “when they need to talk, they talk a lot.”
Still, the limited communication is increasingly becoming a problem.
One of the clearest signs of that dynamic came last week, when Trump instructed his director of national intelligence nominee not to show up for a confirmation hearing, prolonging a lapse in U.S. spying authority. That morning, Thune said he hadn’t heard from Trump.
When Thune was asked last Wednesday why Trump had unexpectedly derailed his nominee’s hearing, the South Dakota Republican’s frustration was palpable.
“Good question,” he said.
Part of Trump’s discontent with Thune appears to be rooted in the contrast with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. While Johnson often advances Trump’s priorities through the simple-majority House, Thune must navigate a Senate where most major legislation requires 60 votes. As a result, Thune frequently finds himself delivering unwelcome news about what can and can’t pass.
“Thune and the speaker obviously have different ways of communicating with Trump, both in style and in substance,” the source familiar with the Trump-Thune dynamic said.
“When it comes to Thune, he doesn’t sugarcoat the truth,” this person added. “He tells the president exactly what he needs to know — the raw and unvarnished truth — even if it isn’t always the answer the president wants to hear.”
This Washington Post analysis (gifted) shows Orange Caligula’s troubles extend to the Supreme Court. “Why Trump has been attacking the Supreme Court, with 3 key rulings ahead. As the court prepares to rule on several of the president’s priorities, tensions are running high — even with his own appointees.
One recounted how Gorsuch became upset when Davis lashed out at Justice Amy Coney Barrett, calling her a “rattled law professor” for siding with the court’s liberals in a pair of rulings against Trump. The other said Davis was angered by Gorsuch’s vote to block Trump’s use of a wartime authority to deport Venezuelans.
The people differed on whether Gorsuch had asked Davis not to come to his clerks’ gathering or he chose not to. Either way, the rift highlighted the growing conflict between Trump, his MAGA allies and the justices, which has burst more fully into public view in recent months.
That turbulence makes for a tense backdrop in the waning days of the Supreme Court’s 2025-26 term, as the justices prepare to rule on three signature Trump initiatives: limiting birthright citizenship, firing the heads of independent agencies and reshaping the Federal Reserve.
Many legal experts believe that the justices have signaled they will rule against Trump on two out of the three, blocking his bid to deny citizenship to those who were born to parents here illegally or lacking permanent residency, as well as his effort to remove a governor of the Fed board.
“It seems like almost 100 years since you’ve had a clash approaching this level between the president and the court,” said Jeffrey L. Fisher, a law professor at Stanford University. “You’d have to go back to the New Deal to have any kind of an analogue.”
During the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the court by expanding it from nine justices to 15after the court struck down key parts of the New Deal. The plan ultimately failed, but not before the court began upholding some policies that Roosevelt championed, possibly in response to his threats to add justices.
Davis, who declined to comment on his relationship with Gorsuch, said in an interview that if the court rules against Trump on birthright citizenship,
“When the Supreme Court gives Chinese birth tourists birthright citizenship, it’s going to destroy its legitimacy with a broad swath of the American public,” Davis said, referring to people who ostensibly travel to the United States to have American children. “They are following politics and vanity projects instead of the law.”
Defenders of birthright citizenship note that the 14th Amendment says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
In another major case on Trump policies, the court will decide whether the president can remove without cause the heads of roughly two dozen independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, that Congress set up to be insulated from political influence.
In addition, the justices will rule on whether Trump can fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook while a lawsuit over her removal plays out in the courts. A ruling for Trump would give the president far greater control over the powerful central bank.
These rulings, and other major decisions, are likely to come in the next week or so as the justices sprint toward the end of the term in late June or early July.
The disaffection with the Supreme Court among Trump’s allies is notable because the president reshaped the court in his first term with three staunchly conservative appointees, who have delivered major victories for conservatives on abortion, affirmative action, religious rights and more.
This term, the justices have handed the administration a string of wins on the emergency docket, allowing Trump policies on limiting immigration, freezing foreign aid and dismantling the Education Department to move forward for now.
Trump appointed Gorsuch, who did not respond to a request for comment, along with Brett M. Kavanaugh and Barrett.
The wins have not satisfied Trump, who has attacked the court — including his own nominees — in increasingly caustic and personal terms that legal scholars say have little historical precedent; Trump has called the justices “bad,” “stupid,” “weak” and other epithets.
All three of these articles are long reads. I’m not sure if they give me a glimpse of hope, given all the idiots involved, but I do feel the more Trump feels he’s under attack by his own, the more he’ll turn his mind from other things, like the ridiculous crap he’s done at the White House. I don’t know, though. I am fully aware that I might be wrong on that. It may be just chaos without meaning or impact.
Here are some other things that truly depress me. This is via CNN this morning. “Exclusive: Trump administration plans to use homeland security funds to pressure states into election changes.
The Trump administration is threatening to withhold tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funds from states unless they adopt a sweeping set of election changes, according to multiple sources and internal documents obtained by CNN.
The move is part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to root out alleged voter fraud — despite studies showing it’s far rarer than he claims — and exert more federal influence over how elections are run. It comes as multiple states have passed laws that seek to prevent the federal government from interfering with elections.
Under new rules governing several homeland security grant programs, states must take a number of steps, including phasing out certain electronic voting systems and moving to hand-marked paper ballots. They must also run their voter rolls through a controversial Department of Homeland Security citizenship verification database.
If not, states would lose out on some funding from DHS. These grants, expected to total more than $1 billion in the current fiscal year, are one of Washington’s main vehicles for helping state and local governments prevent terrorism, protect infrastructure and prepare for major disasters.
For years, the DHS grants, which states apply for, have required that at least 3% of the funds be spent broadly on election security. But the new guidelines, which CNN obtained and are expected to go out to states later this month, impose a set of mandatory reforms and steep penalties for noncompliance. States that refuse would lose 20% of the grant money — potentially millions of dollars in security funds.
This is more bad news via NPR. It’s more garbage from SCOTUS. “Supreme Court allows a ruling that ends a tool to protect minority voters in 7 states.” Hansi Lo Wang has the lede.
By declining to take up a lower court ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has dealt another blow to the Voting Rights Act.
The court announced Monday that it will not review an Arkansas-based lawsuit, leaving in place a 2025 appeals panel ruling that ends a long-used tool for protecting minority voters from discrimination under the landmark law in seven mainly Midwestern states.
That ruling found that in the states covered by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota — private individuals and groups do not have the right to sue to enforce what’s known as Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which generally allows voters with a disability or inability to read or write to get help with voting from a person of their choice.
The Supreme Court’s move comes almost two months after its conservative supermajority issued a major ruling that further weakened the Voting Rights Act, setting off a groundswell in redistricting across the country.
When will the press stop calling these people “conservative”? This has nothing to do with conserving anything traditionally Constitutional in this country. Okay, this is all I can handle on Monday. May the week ahead give us more hope. I’m going to go watch more soccer games and hope for the best.
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.
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