“The Mitch McConnell saga continues to evolve. It is rumored FBI Director Kash Patel, while on a very early morning patrol of our Nation’s Capitol, made a grizzly discovery in the recently drained Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.” John Buss, @repeat1968
If Nixon was a crook, what on earth do we label Orange Caligula? He appears to be surpassing Bond and comic book villains. He doesn’t even appear cognizant enough to spell his name, and we know he can’t walk straight. What’s the deal then? My first guess is that Stephen Miller is really in charge of everything but decorating forays. However, there seems to be a lot more going on than just one wicked man could possibly do.
This is the headline today inLawfare. “Faithful Execution and the Removal Power. President Trump is exercising his removal power in ways that defeat his duty to faithfully execute the law.” Nick Bednar and Todd Phillips provide the analysis.
On July 9, President Trump removed or forced out all three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Congress established the commission to aid state governments in administering elections and to certify voting equipment. It consists of four members appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, who serve fixed four-year terms. Although its members lack statutory removal protections, Congress designed the commission with other devices commonly used to preserve independence from the president, including requirements that no more than two members be affiliated with the same political party and that three members agree to any action, a combination that necessarily requires all actions to be bipartisan.
In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court affirmed that Article II of the Constitution allows the president to remove principal officers—such as the members of the EAC—at will. The Supreme Court anchored its decision in the idea that the president must have adequate control over executive-branch officers to carry out his constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” As the current moment illustrates, however, the removal power also allows the president to undermine faithful execution by removing principal officers tasked with implementing the laws enacted by Congress.
We argue that removals of this kind exceed the president’s removal power. The Take Care Clause obliges the president to ensure the laws enacted by Congress are executed. A removal that leaves an agency legally incapable of acting prevents that execution. The Supreme Court was aware of the potential contradiction between expanding the removal power and the president’s obligation under the Take Care Clause in Slaughter, because we, the authors, filed an amicus brief alerting the Court to the issue. Courts can enforce this limit, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Cook—issued the same day as Slaughter—supplies the remedial tools. Enforcing the Take Care Clause would ensure that multimember commissions, such as the EAC, remain capable of enforcing the laws Congress has enacted.
Read the article for a full list of ramifications. It’s really worth it. Why is this suddenly an important issue? We know that Trump is doing everything inside and outside the power bestowed on the Presidency to throw the elections in his favor. He’s highly unpopular, and the polls are running against him and Republicans in General. So, with Trump’s bull shitting in deep fail, he’s decided to do whatever he wants. This is from NBC News. “Trump ousts remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission ahead of midterms. The dismissals hamstring a key bipartisan agency just months before the midterms.” Jane C. Timm and Jonathan Allen share the lede. It might be time to hit the panic button.
The White House ousted all three sitting members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Thursday, hamstringing the bipartisan agency ahead of the midterm elections.
The Democratic commissioners — Thomas Hicks and Benjamin W. Hovland — were fired by email, two people familiar with their terminations said. One of the sources also said Republican commissioner Christy McCormick received a call and was asked to resign.
“They will be replaced,” said a White House official who confirmed that all three commissioners are gone. Presidential appointments to the EAC are subject to Senate confirmation — by no means a quick process.
White House aide Morgan DeWitt Snow sent the Democratic commissioners a brief email of termination around 4 p.m. ET, one of the people familiar with the dismissals said.
“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I’m writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the person said the email read.
The EAC is a bipartisan commission that helps state and local officials run elections, certifying election equipment and working with other agencies to ensure state and local elections run smoothly. From 2018 to 2025, it distributed more than $1 billion in grants for election security, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Hovland, one of the Democratic commissioners, told NBC News he was returning from a work trip to a Missouri election office when he was fired.
The EAC, he said, has acted as a clearinghouse, sharing best practices between states and helping them use their limited resources to run elections. Taking away a key federal agency designed to help state and local election administrators will have a negative impact, Hovland said.
“When you’re asking more and more of people without giving them the necessary resources, you know, mistakes happen. And so there’s this real risk of like self-fulfilling prophecies in that way,” he said. “It feels much more like a death-of-1,000-cuts situation than there’s one particular thing that you’re concerned about.”
The commission normally has two Republicans and two Democrats; one Republican, Don Palmer, resigned this year, leaving it with just three members.
Is it time to hit the panic button yet? Are there any Senators and Representatives willing to combat this obvious overreach? Aaron Blacksberg of Just Securityasks this question in his headline. “What is the Election Assistance Commission With No Commissioners?”
Last night, President Donald Trump effectively relieved all three serving commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) of their positions. According to media reports, the Commission’s two Democratic members, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, were fired by email, while the one Republican member, Christy McCormick, was allowed to resign. All three commissioners were unanimously confirmed by the Senate – Hicks and McCormick in 2015 and Hovland in 2019. The EAC’s fourth commissioner and other Republican member, Don Palmer, previously resigned on April 29. In a statement to media, the White House referenced last week’s Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Slaughter, stating: “The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted. The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so.”
The EAC is a bipartisan, independent commission that was established by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002. It requires an affirmative vote by at least three of its commissioners to conduct official business or establish policy. Historically, the EAC has operated for extended periods without a quorum and for several years had zero sitting commissioners.
Since the EAC was created, the commissioners have worked in partnership with state and local election officials to advance the professionalization and integrity of the election profession. A fully functioning EAC is critical for promulgating the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) to certify voting equipment, serving as a clearinghouse of best practices and training support, disbursing HAVA Election Security Grants, and compiling the biennial Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) report.
So what does it mean for this Commission to have no commissioners? In the absence of the Senate confirming new commissioners – by law the EAC must have partisan balance and congressional leaders are tasked with making recommendations to the President – some business can and will continue.
Significantly, the EAC staff has authority to continue disbursing Election Security Grants to states – the primary source of federal election funding – and to continue certifying voting equipment under current standards. Below is an overview of who holds the remaining limited EAC authority and what that authority does and does not encompass.
Again, you can read the details at the link. Seeing it broken down into what can and can’t happen now is shocking for any of us well-schooled in the functioning of government. Our collective pants should be on fire. This Talking Points article, written by John Light, has a headline that gets straight to the point. “Trump Seizes on SCOTUS Decision to Mess With the Midterms.”
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court handed down a pair of decisions finding that 1. Trump could exert tremendous control over independent executive branch agencies, including firing their commissioners and 2. the Fed, also an independent agency, was different. Since then, the question of where Trump would strike first has lingered.
Now we know. Last night, Trump forced out all remaining commissioners atop the Election Assistance Commission — two Democrats and a Republican — just months before the midterms. In a statement to ProPublica, an unnamed White House official gestured toward the same logic the Supreme Court used, saying that Trump “reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.”
The agency largely does the fairly anodyne work of providing election security support for states and distributing funding. But it has figured prominently in Trump’s attempt at a federal takeover of voting.
In a sweeping 2025 executive order, Trump directed the EAC to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to voter registration forms. He also ordered the agency to use its power to distribute funds to pressures states to require that all ballots be received by Election Day, not simply mailed to officials by Election Day.
That executive order and another 2026 order on elections have largely been blocked by the courts.
The question, writes election law scholar Rick Hasen, “is what Trump might try to do with the EAC without commissioners. Most boldly (and I would argue illegally) Trump could try to direct the commissioner-less EAC to do his bidding, for example by stating that the EAC must amend the federal voter registration form that states must accept for federal elections to include documentary proof of citizenship.”
“If he tries anything like this, it will be high profile and very important litigation that will end up at the Supreme Court on the emergency docket over the summer,” Hasen added
And, as we know, the Surpreme Court can no longer be fully trusted to reflect the Constition and the laws passed in 250 years of Congress. Trump is also set on passing the so-called SAVE America Act. Fortunately, he’s not vetoing anything, but it should startle us all that he’s hell-bent on destroying voting as we know it in this democratic republic. This from The Hill. “Trump says he won’t sign housing bill in protest of SAVE America Act inaction.” Julia Manchester has the story.
President Trump said Friday he will not sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which is set to pass into law tonight, in protest of the Senate not passing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act.
“THE SAVE AMERICA ACT’S non-passage is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!” Trump exclaimed in a lengthy Truth Social post.
rump proceeded to call on Senate Republicans to terminate the filibuster in an effort to pass the legislation, warning that Democrats will eliminate the parliamentary procedure if they win back the majority in the chamber.
“The Dumocrats will TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, if and when they ever get the chance to do so, in their very first hour – And I will no longer be able to call them Dumocrats again! The title of DUMB will revert to the Republicans who allowed this horrible calamity to happen to our Party, and our Nation, itself!” the president said.
Trump’s comments come just hours before the bipartisan housing legislation, which was passed late last month, is automatically set to go into law at midnight if the president does not veto the bill.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said Trump will not stop the legislation even if he doesn’t sign it.
“He won’t veto the bill. We already know that. He’ll either allow it to just go into law, or he’ll put his signature on it and take partial ownership, and I hope he does the latter,” Johnson said in an interview with USA Today.
The president sent shock waves through Washington when he abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the bill at the Capitol last month, saying he would not sign the legislation until the SAVE America Act is passed.
This is what the pursuit of nothing but blind power, attention, and greed leads to when put in charge of a government. We no longer lead the world. We are not the “shining city on the hill” touted by Ronald Reagan. We are now anathema in the hearts of governments and people who once struggled to get the form of government that is being blown up by one narcissistic man with dementia, surrounded by idiots and living demons.
Ms Sparkles awaits her trip to the Vet so she’ll come back to her forever colony and meals healthy and spayed.
I’m late again today. I’ve been trapping the feral cats around my house and on my block. Today, very early, Ms. Sparkles, whom I captured yesterday afternoon, returned from her trip to be spayed and given shots. This picture is when I caught her. She jumped out of the cage, ran to the food bowl, and her tribe. Sparkles joined Onyx, Bobo, and Silver in their little corner of the Bywater.
I’ve worked with Trap Dat Cat before. When I first got my Kristal, I was hard-pressed for cash, and Nita Hemeter took her to a vet and had her spayed. I raised enough money from my friends on Facebook to pay for the costs. It’s really important to have feral cat colonies here because we’re really close to the ports lined up and down the Mississippi River. Rats and all kinds of things thrive in that ecosystem. The cats control them. The city even recognizes their role in keeping the restaurants and homes free from vermin.
There are still lots of cats living in the old, abandoned Navy Base that is now being turned into a living community with commercial space. As they flee to us, they have a chance to be rehomed or welcomed into a feral cat colony like the one that lives under the very old homes and piers, as my feral cats do.
If you want to get your fill of pictures of some really cute kittens and cats, take a look at the link. Donations are also always welcome. I know Kristal, and I am happy to have them.
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I’m going to write about Graham Platner today, because I am pissed off.
I have to believe that most women with any experience of abusive men could see right away that Platner was not going to be a good candidate for Democrats. I don’t live in Maine, so I haven’t even followed the stories about him that closely. Yet I could see this mess coming.
Frankly, I thought the Nazi tattoo was bad enough, but when I heard a about the racist, sexist, ableist social media messages and the sexting with other women soon after getting married, I thought this guy is a loser. I even hated his facial hair. The last thing we needed was another Eric Swalwell. I didn’t even know until yesterday that Platner served as a mercenary in Iraq. That would have been a red flag for me too. But Maine Democrats liked Platner, so nothing I could do about it.
Later I read the NYT article about women who found his behavior threatening and talked about his heavy drinking. I was not at all surprised to learn that a woman accused Platner of rape. The signs were all there. I don’t understand why so many people were supposedly shocked.
Since we learned last fall about the Maine Democratic senate candidate’s Nazi insignia tattoo, the personal revelations about the Marine veteran and oyster farmer have only gone downhill from there. But an initial instinct told me not to weigh in. Let the people of Maine decide for themselves, I thought. I watched from New York as the public learned about shitty stuff he’d posted online, his previous work for the private military contractor Blackwater, and the sexually explicit texts he sent to other women while married to his current wife (which were flagged by her to his campaign as a concern.) And when the New York Times published a story just a few days before the June primary detailing “unsettling” behavior alleged by three women Platner had dated in the past, while I weighed in on social media, I shied away from opportunities to explicitly spell out how dangerous I believed him to be. He went on to win the primary.
It turns out the instinct that kept me from vocalizing my opinion on Platner was the same as the one that prevented Jenny Racicot from coming forward with allegations of a 2021 rape—that is, until this week. “One of the reasons I didn’t come forward sooner was the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person,” Racicot, who had dated Platner a few years back, told Politico. My position is in no way analogous with Racicot’s, but I, too, had a latent feeling that turning on Platner was in some way turning on an opportunity to kick Republican Susan Collins out of the senate, and possibly regain control of the entire chamber.
While Racicot was one of the women in the NYT story, the stomach-churning details of her sexual assault were for whatever reason not reported then. But on Monday, she said it all: “I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me. I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’” She describes Platner letting himself into her home while “almost blackout drunk” and having sex with her against her will. Now that we have a fuller picture of Platner’s malfeasance, there is finally consensus around what has long been clear to many of us: he’s a dangerous man. If only the earlier evidence was enough.
Marisa Kabas
When the NYT story dropped on June 4th describing “unsettling” behavior alleged by three women Platner had dated in the past, people who I considered political heroes insisted continuing their support. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders stuck by Platner, even when there was already more than enough evidence that he was not fit to be the Democratic candidate. Both Warren and Sanders finally pulled their support this week after the rape allegations were published, but it shouldn’t take a woman sharing details about a grotesque intimate experience to knock a man off his pedestal.
Meanwhile, men (and some women) who I nominally considered allies not only defended Platner at the time, but disparaged anyone concerned by the allegations.
Read more at the link. The men Kabas names as allies are people I can’t stand, like Ryan Grim and John Favreau, but even so, she had no problem seeing that Platner was trouble. Her “progressive” male examples:
Ryan Grim, a progressive journalist and co-founder of Drop Site News, tried to undermine the allegations because one of the women from the story, Lyndsey Fifield, is a Republican. He then went on the progressive podcast Breaking Points and said the Platner situation was good because it was forcing Democrats to confront bigotry against white men. “The current cultural divorce between progressives and white men is so, like, stark that it is—it’s just culturally, morally, ethically wrong,” Grim said. “But also just pragmatically, from a political perspective, you can’t build a national party if you assume every white guy or every white guy with a deep voice who is a combat vet or whatever is, like, out to get you.”
Jon Favreau of Pod Save America defended Platner at every turn and mega-streamer Hasan Piker vocally stood by him. The Substack journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote that continuing to defend Platner showed that “People are done with the clean-cut types who’ve harbored ambitions for political office since they were on high school student council and have lived every waking moment accordingly. I call them smoothgroins: real-life barbie dolls with smooth plastic where a sexual organ should be.”
A woman who dated Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.
The woman, a 41-year-old Maine resident named Jenny Racicot, detailed the alleged incident to POLITICO in three interviews over the past two weeks. POLITICO also spoke with a man Racicot dated and confided in the years after the alleged incident, and reviewed documents, including emails between Racicot and her therapist and messages between Racicot and an acquaintance whom she warned against getting involved with Platner years before he ran for office.
Jenny Racicot
Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.
“I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” she said. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’”
Racicot previously described “reckless” and “unsettling” behavior by Platner to The New York Times, but says she didn’t go public with the specific assault claim because she didn’t want to be known as a rape victim.
Racicot said she later felt compelled to go public about her experience because the reaction to the Times story was dominated by controversy about another woman, Lyndsey Fifield, who alleged Platner mistreated her and faced attacks because of her ties to the Republican Party. (Contacted by POLITICO, Fifield stood by the allegations she made to the Times and declined to comment further.)
“My part of the story was just a read-over,” Racicot said in an interview. “And the story was Lyndsey, and the accusations of her being politically motivated.”
For many Platner supporters, that report crossed a line. But why was anyone surprised?
In interviews with The New York Times on Wednesday, several women [described] Mr. Platner as a fun and caring partner…saying they felt safe with him. Some remain friends with him to this day, years after their relationships ended.
But in extensive conversations over the past two months, three other women who had been romantically involved with Mr. Platner offered a far more complicated assessment, describing volatile and “toxic” relationships that were unsettling and at times emotionally wrenching.
Mr. Platner could be charming and charismatic, they recalled in interviews, but also demeaning to women and, in at least one case, even physically threatening. He drank heavily and was regularly unfaithful….
Lyndsey Fifield
Lyndsey Fifield, 40, a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns, recalled him as “cavalierly contemptuous of women’s emotions, of our ‘weakness.’” Ms. Fifield, who dated Mr. Platner from roughly 2013 to 2015, said that his offensive online posts “reminded me of just how much he hated women.”
Jenny Racicot, 41, a Maine Democrat, who said she dated him casually off and on between 2019 and 2021, said the posts deepened her belief that he did not respect women. “When I saw the old comments that he made online,” she said, “I recognized a version of him that I had experiences with.” […]
The women who described difficult relationships with Mr. Platner knew him at different points of his life. Ms. Fifield said she dated him starting when they were both in their late 20s in Washington, during a time Mr. Platner has described as challenging. Ms. Racicot knew him in Maine when they were in their mid-30s and he was living in Sullivan, Maine, and working on his oyster farm.
The third woman, a Democrat from Maine who spoke on the condition of anonymity, had a long-distance relationship with Mr. Platner on and off for years, as recently as 2016.’
The three described him in similar terms. Spending time with him could be exhilarating, they said. But they also recounted patterns of heavy drinking and womanizing. Asked to sum up how he treated her, the third woman said she felt like “collateral damage to the world that is his.”
It’s too bad that Racicot didn’t describe the rape for this earlier article–perhaps Platner would have lost the primary. But to me, Fifield’s experiences should have been enough.
Mr. Platner could be rough with her, Ms. Fifield said, particularly when they were drinking, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid. In the interviews, Ms. Fifield grappled with how to process her experiences. She was quick to note that he “never hit me, he never punched me.”
But she said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.
During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was “calm.” Eventually, Ms. Fifield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning.
“It hurt,” she said. But she added: “It didn’t cause an injury, it didn’t break my arm.”
Ms. Fifield also recalled that Mr. Platner’s displays of weaponry and discussions of violence sometimes left her uneasy.
Apparently, some people dismissed her story because she is a Republican. I thought it sounded authentic.
An ex-girlfriend of embattled Senate candidate Graham Platner told The Washington Post that he repeatedly removed protection without her consent when they were having sex.
Lyndsey Fifield, who said she dated Platner from 2013 to 2015 in D.C. and has previously accused him of physical abuse, said that she told Platner on multiple occasions that he had to wear condoms during sex because she was not on birth control.
“He would pull condoms off,” she said in an interview. “He would do it in a sneaky way. He wouldn’t tell me.”
Fifield, 41, is the second woman to allege this week that Platner engaged in nonconsensual sexual conduct. Jenny Racicot, 41, who said she previously dated Platner, told The Post and other outlets on Monday that he sexually assaulted her in late 2021, leading a growing number of allies to drop their endorsements and call on him to withdraw from the race for a Maine seat in the U.S. Senate….
Fifield initially told The Post about the alleged condom removal during a June 20 interview that was off the record. She said she decided to speak publicly about it Tuesday in part because, she said, she wanted to show that Racicot was not alone in experiencing issues with Platner involving sexual consent.
Removing a condom during sex without consent, known as “stealthing,” is classified as a form of sexual assault in several countries, including Britain, Canada and parts of Australia. In the United States, Maine, California and Washington state have laws that address the nonconsensual removal of condoms during sex. The alleged incidents involving Platner took place in D.C., Fifield said.
She estimated that Platner removed condoms without her consent at least six times when they had sex at both of their residences in D.C. during their two-year, on-and-off relationship. She said she told him that she was upset about it but that he would make light of the situation.
“I confronted him both during and after [sex] because he knew that I was not on birth control and how dangerous that was,” she told The Post in one interview. In another, she said: “He would act like cute about it, like ‘Oh sneaky me.’”
The guy is a complete asshole. I just can’t understand why Democrats supported him for so long.
They argued that his Nazi “Totenkopf” tattoo was a youthful indiscretion and parroted his ludicrous argument that he didn’t know the origins of the Nazi insignia that was on his chest for 18 years before he covered it up with more ink. They waved away his dozens of racist, misogynistic and, frankly, creepy Reddit posts. They said his sexting with as many as a dozen women soon after his wedding was between him and his wife. They insisted that he was the best candidate to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, even as polling showed him badly underperforming other Maine Democrats.
On Monday, they ran out of excuses and rationalizations.
Jenny Racicot’s story of Platner’s alleged assault is stomach-turning, and while some Democrats will seemingly excuse antisemitism, a Nazi tattoo and persistently bad behavior toward women, sexual assault is the line the party won’t cross.
Now Democrats are abandoning Platner in droves, but the signs were there all along. Cohen:
The first lesson is don’t fall in love with an unvetted political outsider — or, for that matter, any politician. When he announced his candidacy, Platner told a compelling story. He was a political outsider with no experience in electoral politics, a Marine combat veteran and an oyster fisherman in a state where working on the water is a badge of honor.
But as quickly as Platner emerged, so too did the stories of his past deeds — his controversial Reddit posts, his Nazi tattoo and an actual life story that didn’t quite match up with his campaign narrative.
Platner’s supporters claimed he’d grown and matured and that his bad behavior was the result of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered in Iraq….
Redemption and maturity are certainly attributes to be celebrated, but perhaps it would have been better for Platner to work out his personal issues in private, not under the harsh klieg lights of one of the most competitive Senate races in the country….
Second, where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.
With Platner, it wasn’t just one news cycle of bad stories. It was a constant drumbeat — and many of these allegations shared the same theme: Platner disassembling and distracting.
It turned out that, far from being a successful oyster fisherman, his biggest customer was his mother, who runs a restaurant. Platner’s claims of a hardscrabble youth were contradicted by stories of living off his parents’ generosity and stints at an elite private school.
When the New York Times published on-the-record accounts of him allegedly physically assaulting a former girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield, Platner and his allies dismissed the claim by arguing that Fifield is a Republican and thus can’t be trusted.
There’s more at the link. Again, the simple truth is the signs were there all along.
Graham Platner shows the tattoo he got to cover up the Nazi one.
Graham Platner’s campaign said it had reached out to the Maine Democratic Party to discuss the process for replacing him if he were to drop out of the state’s U.S. Senate race.
The acknowledgment came after the state party accused the campaign of improperly trying to influence that succession process, and it’s the clearest indication yet Platner is considering leaving the race after saying Monday he was “taking the time to reflect” on his bid for Senate.
Devon Murphy-Anderson, the party’s executive director, said in a Tuesday night press release and social media video that Platner’s campaign staff had repeatedly reached out to the state party in an attempt to “put their thumb on the scale” in selecting his replacement.
“We’ve repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, nor in determining what this process looks like,” Murphy-Anderson said. “We have also reiterated that Graham Platner must drop out of this race so that Democrats in Maine can focus on defeating Susan Collins this November.”
Read the rest at Politico.
Two more speculative posts on what comes after Platner:
Democrats are coming to realize Graham Platner will be a specter in Maine’s Senate race even if he ends his campaign.
Platner has denied the allegations of sexual assault and misconduct from former girlfriends that have ratcheted up pressure on him to drop his bid for the seat. Still, Democrats who anticipate he will be forced to end his run told NOTUS their party has a unique challenge: Democrats need a replacement candidate who is distant enough from Platner to avoid his toxicity, but not so far from his politics that they would undermine the Democratic primary voters who nominated Platner.
Given that this is playing out in one of the most competitive Senate contests in the country, any ties to Platner could become an issue for a potential alternative candidate — and the rest of the Democratic Party, they said.
It may be only a matter of time before Graham Platner drops out of the Maine Senate race.
If he does, it’s too soon to say who might replace him, but it’s not too early to suggest that his replacement would probably be a modest favorite against Susan Collins, the longtime Republican incumbent. The same couldn’t be said for Mr. Platner, even before he faced a rape accusation on Monday.
If the race does get a reset, it will be an enormous break for Democrats. Without a victory in Maine, their path to control of the Senate is extremely challenging — not just in 2026, but potentially even if they secure the tiebreaking vice presidency in 2028. It would be an exaggeration to say Mr. Platner was doomed before the latest allegation, but his candidacy was already in a lot of trouble.
To take one example from last week’s New York Times/Siena poll of Maine: Thirty percent of Mr. Platner’s own supporters said his various controversies were making them question whether they could support him. Although he led Ms. Collins in the poll by two percentage points, it was an open question whether he would be able to withstand another round of controversy — and another round seemed all but inevitable. The extraordinary speed with which Mr. Platner’s loyalists pushed him to withdraw after the allegation Monday is partly a reflection of how badly he was wounded. He was already near the breaking point….
If he drops out by next Monday, the Maine Democratic Party will get to choose his replacement. It would have until July 27 to select a new nominee, and my colleague Reid Epstein reports that Maine Democrats are considering several means of doing so, from a pop-up convention to a statewide caucus. Most of the likeliest Democratic replacements aren’t especially well known statewide or nationally, but in this political environment Ms. Collins would be in jeopardy against any one of them.
On paper, this is a race Democrats should win. Yes, Ms. Collins has won many times before, despite Maine’s Democratic lean, but that does not mean she should be expected to defy political gravity forever.
I think Platner should drop out today, and certainly before the weekend. Maine Democrats need to make sure it happens.
Sorry this isn’t a news post, but this is an important issue. Women need to pay attention to and call out the red flags that men just don’t seem to notice. Platner was poison from day one. Women in politics need to pay attention to the signs and speak out loudly.
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“Seems like for the estimated $10M midnight apocalyptic firework extravaganza for our Dear Leader, they could have afforded a T.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
While getting ready for the Netherlands v Mexico last night, I just happened to flick through some headlines and let out a loud ‘What the Hell?’ Loud enough to get a response from down the hall: “What now?” The hell was two headlines — one from the New York Times and the other from The Independent — that convinced me it was real. I posted excerpts in response to JJ’s post last night downthread.
It basically gave the world another good reason to hate us or laugh at what we’ve become under Orange Caligula. My thought is we’ve become a Mafia state. This is the headline from the NYT: “Trump Asked FIFA to Review U.S. Player’s Suspension. Now He’s Eligible to Play. The reversal of Folarin Balogun’s World Cup suspension is highly unusual. It was the first time since 1962 that FIFA has nullified a suspension for a red card received during the World Cup.”
It’s basically big news today, so I’ll lead with it. This time, he insulted our friend and ally, Belgium, so I’ll start with their response today as reported by the AP. It’s reported by Samuel Petraquin. Also, there are pictures of the offense that got the red card. “Belgian federation to challenge FIFA’s decision to let Folarin Balogun play in World Cup match.”
The Belgian soccer federation wants an explanation from FIFA about a decision to let U.S forward Folarin Balogun play at the World Cup despite getting a red card in his previous game.
Belgium takes on the United States later Monday for a spot in the quarterfinals.
The Belgian federation (RBFA) said it has still not received either “FIFA’s decision or any explanation regarding this matter. In these circumstances, it has no choice but to challenge the player’s eligibility for the upcoming match.”
It did not specify where it intends to appeal FIFA’s decision.
U.S. President Donald Trump intervened on behalf of star U.S. forward Balogun, whose red-card suspension was lifted in a decision that allowed him to play against Belgium.
The Belgian federation said it learned through media reports about the FIFA’s move and sent a letter to the governing body requesting a copy of the decision as well as an explanation of the process.
“As its only response, FIFA sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal,” it said. “No information whatsoever was provided by FIFA.
Politico reports this on the Trump maneuver. “Inside the White House push to get Folarin Balogun back on the field. President Donald Trump got involved minutes after the U.S. striker received a red card that would have banned him from a crucial match.” Sophia Cai has the lede.
The campaign to keep Folarin Balogun on the field for the United States’ World Cup run began just minutes after the team’s leading goal-scorer received a red card that would sideline him for the team’s next match.
Following Wednesday’s victory against Bosnia and Herzegovina, White House FIFA World Cup Task Force executive director Andrew Giuliani alerted President Donald Trump to Balogun’s punishment for a rash tackle — removal from the Bosnia match and a routine one-match suspension that would keep him out of a must-win encounter against Belgium.
Trump and Giuliani had been speaking regularly about the World Cup for months. During the planning stages for the tournament, the president received frequent briefings on logistics, security and the U.S. team’s prospects. Once the competition began in mid-June, those conversations accelerated to multiple times each week.
By Wednesday night, the White House had committed itself to taking action over Balogun’s red card, which some soccer analysts believed to be a harsh punishment for the infraction. Giuliani, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and senior U.S. Soccer Federation officials — all of whom had watched the Bosnia match in person at Levi’s Stadium near San Francisco — began activating plans to challenge the referee’s on-field decision to issue a red card. Successful appeals of World Cup red cards are exceedingly rare.
That kicked off four days of coordinated lobbying, legal maneuvering and diplomacy that stretched from the Oval Office to FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich — and underscored how invested Trump’s inner circle had become in the second World Cup hosted on U.S. soil and the fortune of the U.S. men’s national team competing in it. POLITICO spoke to a half-dozen U.S. government and soccer officials who were either directly involved in or briefed on the week’s events.
On Sunday, a day before the U.S. was due to face Belgium with Balogun on the bench, FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee announced that it was suspending Balogun’s one-match suspension for a year. Trump thanked FIFA for “doing what was right and reversing a great injustice.” The Royal Belgian Football Association and European confederation UEFA, of which Belgium is a member, are considering taking action against the FIFA ruling, according to a high-ranking UEFA official granted anonymity to discuss ongoing deliberations.
On Thursday, Trump placed a call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. The two men had built a friendship over nearly eight years, with Infantino becoming a frequent visitor to the Oval Office during Trump’s second term. They remained in contact even when events put U.S. government policy in conflict with FIFA’s objectives, according to people familiar with their relationship. That included when the Trump administration launched military strikes against Iran in February, jeopardizing the country’s ability to compete in the World Cup — a personal history that mattered when Trump dialed Infantino about the Balogun matter.
Trump asked about FIFA’s rules around the red card decision and the grounds for a suspension. Infantino listened carefully but made no promises about the outcome. FIFA declined to confirm any specific discussions but reiterated to POLITICO that the decision to suspend the one-match ban was made by an independent disciplinary committee.
As U.S. Soccer’s legal team formally prepared and submitted its appeal to FIFA, Giuliani and Lutnick also offered to make White House attorneys available to assist with legal analysis if needed, according to people involved in the discussions.
At the same time, Giuliani and Scott Goodwin — a hedge-fund manager who had helped to personally pay the salary of U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino — zeroed in on the officiating history of referee Raphael Claus, who made the red card call on Wednesday. Articles examining previous controversies involving the Brazilian referee circulated among senior government officials as they evaluated every possible argument that could bolster the appeal, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
Stephen Collinson of CNN has the story on what the rest of the world thinks about this shake-down.
For 24 days, the World Cup seemed to achieve a rare feat in America in 2026: It had almost nothing to do with Donald Trump.
But in an extraordinary twist following an appeal from the president, star US goal-scorer Folarin Balogun will play in the knockout clash with Belgium on Monday, despite being sent off in the previous match and earning a one-game ban.
“Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the president posted Sunday, taking a victory lap on Truth Social.
“I didn’t say, ‘You have to do this,’” Trump said in the Oval Office, adding that he didn’t think Balogun’s offense was even a foul.
Balogun’s reprieve rocked global soccer, triggering fresh speculation about the cozy relationship between Trump and the FIFA supremo.
Trump’s call to Infantino and FIFA’s ultimate decision lifted a controversy about soccer refereeing into an international incident surrounding the world’s most popular sporting showcase.
The subsequent drama raises concerns about political interference and the integrity of the tournament. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether Trump’s muscling into the issue was decisive. Just the impression that it was risks souring global perceptions of an event that had generated remarkably positive headlines.
Controversy is guaranteed at World Cup finals. Who could forget Diego Maradona’s “hand of God” goal for Argentina in 1986 or French star Zinedine Zidane’s 2006 World Cup final headbutt?
Read more on this controversy at any of the three links. Believe me, there are a lot more out there. So, here’s another headline that’s making me think doing all that ish to get my passport was a good idea. This headline is from Wired as reported by Maddy Varner. “ICE’s Internal Watchdog Is Now Investigating Online Critics. The Office of Professional Responsibility has opened more than 100 cases over what ICE officials call “incidents of doxing and threats” against ICE employees.” ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is set up to conduct internal investigations, but has recently begun investigating American Citizens.
OPR is supposed to act as an internal watchdog. It’s responsible for inspecting detention facilities, investigating allegations of employee and contractor misconduct, and processing security checks for new applicants. On its site, it says it also protects against “external threats” by managing badge access to buildings and maintaining the agency’s network security. But lately, court documents indicate, it appears to be pursuing more civilians like Gonyea for what they say online.
In a court declaration filed in April, an ICE official said that between January 2025 and March 2026, OPR investigated 131 cases involving “incidents of doxing and threats directed towards ICE employees nationwide.”
It’s unclear how many of those cases resulted in criminal charges. WIRED was able to identify only one instance when OPR was credited for its investigative work in a case where the Justice Department accused a California man of harassing an ICE attorney and her mother. The DOJ alleged that the man, who pleaded guilty, used to live in the same building as the mother and that he started his harassment campaign in January 2024, well before President Trump took office. ICE did not respond to questions about whether other cases have been brought based on OPR’s work or how many additional cases OPR has opened since March.
“It takes a lot to actually convict someone for their speech, and it’s only possible in very limited circumstances,” says Laura Moraff, a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “People do have a First Amendment right to criticize the government and to do that online and to do that anonymously.”
OPR was behind at least one of the flurry of administrative subpoenas sent to tech companies in recent months in an effort to unmask online critics. In court filings, lawyers for the poster argued that the subpoena, which asked for the poster’s name, address, telephone number, and other details, violated the poster’s right to free speech. The government withdrew the subpoena rather than trying to litigate its merits.
You may read some examples of U.S. citizens they’ve bothered by these claims in the article. You might recall this story via the article cited above.
… ICE agents arrived at a polling site in Syracuse, New York, during the state’s primaries in June. The agents were there to see Paigelynne Gonyea, a poll worker who says they were concerned about an Instagram post she had supposedly made in January, “doxing” an ICE agent.
So, who knows what they may be up to? Let’s hope the press stays on top of it. You may read a great update on the amount of nothing being done by the ICE Agent who killed Renee Good, who is at the root of the Paigelynne Gonyea OPR shenanigans. It’s at this link at The Atlantic. “The Death of Renee Good Has Yet to Be Properly Investigated. Six months after she and Alex Pretti were shot on the streets of Minneapolis, little has come of the probes into their killings.” Quinta Jurecic is the reporter for the story.
Nearly six months have passed since federal officers shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis. No one has been arrested, the Trump administration has provided no reason to believe that any serious investigation is taking place, and federal officials continue to stonewall state and local investigators in Minnesota.
This inaction was predictable. The day after Good’s death, Vice President Vance insisted at a press conference that the agent who shot her would face no criminal charges. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” Vance told reporters. “He was doing his job.” Soon, Stephen Miller doubled down on the message, announcing “to all ICE officers” that “you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.” Federal agents apparently received the message: The next day, an ICE agent fired a gun into a Minneapolis home, wounding a Venezuelan immigrant, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. The week after that, Pretti was killed outside a doughnut shop. The Department of Homeland Security called him a “domestic terrorist” and said that the officers who shot him had acted in self-defense.
Typically, after a contentious killing by a law-enforcement officer, the Justice Department would launch a criminal civil-rights probe. Following George Floyd’s murder, for example, DOJ conducted an investigation alongside Minnesota law enforcement, and both federal and state prosecutors brought separate charges against the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. So far, though, the federal government has succeeded in protecting immigration officers from serious consequences for the violence of what DHS termed “Operation Metro Surge.” But in promising a total shield from accountability, Miller and Vance may have been premature. Law-enforcement officials in Minnesota are—albeit haltingly—beginning to move forward with investigations and prosecutions on their own. Their efforts may become the locus of yet another clash between state and federal authority in the age of President Trump.
For the first few hours after the ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good inside her car, the mechanisms of accountability appeared to operate normally: The FBI began mobilizing to investigate the crime scene alongside the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state’s investigative agency. By the evening of the day she was killed, however, officials in Washington, D.C., had frozen out both Minnesota police and law enforcement in Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located. In a recent podcast interview, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty recalled joining a conference call after Good’s death with the FBI, federal prosecutors, and Minnesota investigators: “Everybody agreed this would once again be a joint investigation. And then suddenly the BCA was kicked off the case.” Minnesota abruptly found itself without access to any of the evidence collected at the scene. Even Good’s maroon Honda Pilot, the windshield pierced by Ross’s bullet, was bundled away by the FBI into a storage facility before state law enforcement could get a look at it.
DOJ was now the only agency able to conduct a full investigation into the shooting. But it had little apparent interest in doing so. According to The New York Times, Harmeet Dhillon, who leads DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, refused to open a criminal investigation into Ross. Instead, DOJ looked into the possibility of investigating Good, along with her widow, Becca Good. Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned in protest, as did an FBI agent in Minneapolis.
Bobo, who hangs out on the kitchen stairs waiting for friends and food.
The link is gifted and definitely worth the read.
So, that’s it for me today. I’m still working on trapping the feral cats living under my house, whom I feed and speak to daily. Work is progressing on the kathouse. The electrical work is mostly done. The A/C works again. The backyard no longer has a dilapidated pergula. It’s about to get a nice green space with a nice grill/smoker, a fire pit, many more plants, lighting, and Adirondack chairs. I look forward to the nice cooler fall days.
I’m off to set up traps for the infamous duo Bobo and Sparks.
Try to have a nice, quiet week. I was hoping the games would be a nice break, but then Orange Caligula can never let good enough alone. He has to get involved and ruin it for everyone. I still enjoy the openers where all the soccer kids come out with the players. Their looks make me realize we have to ensure the world is a better place before we leave it.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
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I had a procedure done on my right eye on Monday–a shot to treat macular degeneration–and something went wrong. I’ve been dealing with awful pain for days, and I still can’t see very well. Getting old is no picnic. Nevertheless, I’ll do my best to produce a post.
Today is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, Trump made the celebration all about him instead of our country. He ruins everything. Fortunately, cities around the country are holding their own 4th of July events.
Happy Fourth of July! It’s time for the 2026 Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular — in addition to other Independence Day events that are being held across the city on Saturday.
This year’s Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, scheduled for 7-9:30 p.m. at the Hatch Shell, is expected to be bigger than ever as part of the ongoing celebration of America’s 250th birthday, with performances from Lainey Wilson, Chance The Rapper, Trombone Shorty and Megan Hilty, with Jane Lynch serving as host.
The free event, which anchors a multi-year, statewide commemoration of Massachusetts 250, will conclude with a fireworks display illuminating the Charles River and choreographed with music performed by the Boston Pops, beginning at 9:15 p.m.
“Massachusetts is where the American Revolution began, and this July 4, we’re proud to welcome people from across the state and country to celebrate 250 years of our nation’s history right here in Boston,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. “From the incredible lineup of artists including the Boston Pops and fireworks over the Charles River, this year’s Spectacular will honor our past while celebrating the energy, creativity and diversity that define Massachusetts today. We’re excited to share this special moment with millions of people here in Boston and watching around the world.”
“This year’s Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular will be an unforgettable celebration for our residents and visitors from around the world, honoring Boston’s revolutionary history, the courage of our communities, and the traditions that bring us together,” Mayor Michelle Wu added. “Boston’s July 4th festivities are a cherished opportunity for friends and family to come together in celebration. We are proud to host this iconic event and to provide a memorable experience for all.”
In a speech marking America’s 250th anniversary, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani rejected President Donald Trump’s view of the nation, and especially of its immigrants, without naming him directly.
Mamdani criticized Trump’s immigration policies from City Hall while sitting behind a desk that once belonged to George Washington and flanked by recently naturalized U.S. citizens, rebuking the view held by “the powerful” that America “becomes less the more people it welcomes.”
“America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are. How weak, how unoriginal,” the mayor said.
“The irony” of American exceptionalism, he said, was that the country’s history was often written “by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.”
Mamdani was surrounded by some of America’s newest citizens waving U.S. flags, the same week that the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, dealing a major blow to Trump’s immigration agenda.
“The work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures, and it belongs to us all. It belongs, too, to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized,” Mamdani said.
“Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel, the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American, too,” said Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2018.
Four months before tough midterm elections, President Trump used the backdrop of Mount Rushmore one night before the nation’s 250th birthday to characterize his political opponents as “godless,” “evil” communists.
“We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish stupid and unwise,” he said on Friday, demanding that Congress pass his so-called SAVE America Act, which would impose stricter voter ID rules that would make it harder to vote. He called for terminating the filibuster.
The larger purpose of the speech was hard to miss. He was sharpening a line of attack that the White House has started to use to head off a newly insurgent progressive wing of the Democratic Party that appears to be resonating with liberal voters.
Mr. Trump read from an apocalyptic script as the stony faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln looked on. He said the word “communism” so many times, you might’ve thought the Cold War was still on.
He was not subtle. Communism, he said, “is the enemy of July 4, 1776.” He called it a bigger threat than Pearl Harbor and even 9/11. He name-checked Karl Marx.
A bit more:
The speech began on an upbeat note. The president painted a proud and optimistic portrait of the United States, describing it as nothing short of the greatest society in the history of civilization. The whole first half of his speech boiled down to this line: “You live in a very special place — congratulations, everybody.” The crowd ate it up.
He soon began to pivot. There were people out there who didn’t want English to be the dominant language of the United States, he warned. There were people out there who wanted to take away everyone’s guns, he warned. He promised never to let that happen.
He warned of “newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.”
It was not the first time he’d used this backdrop to make a speech like this. Six years ago to the day, he spoke here at the end of his first term, when he was campaigning unsuccessfully for a second. Back then, the country was in the throes of the pandemic and gripped by civil unrest after the death of George Floyd, which inspired a national debate about statues and historical figures. Mr. Trump used his speech that night to warn of a “new far-left fascism” creeping up.
He switched ideologies in his second Rushmore speech on Friday.
“Communism is the exact opposite of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” he declared. “It’s death, tyranny and the pursuit of evil.”
Today marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a landmark moment in American and human history. Celebrations and fireworks aside, what does the Declaration mean two-and-a-half centuries later?
The Declaration is loaded with meanings, some of them inherently self-contradictory. Its opening paragraphs are spine-tinglingly profound, but the bulk of the document is a grievous rant. The document set a global standard for freedom and self-governance as naturally inherent human rights, yet bounded those rights to a privileged white, male minority. It is timeless yet also somewhat outdated for American politics today.
Unfortunately, the Declaration of Independence penned primarily by Thomas Jefferson allows self-interested parties to validate their agendas by importing into that sacred document their preferred interpretations of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Precisely because the Declaration is so ripe for political manipulation, having Donald Trump lead the nation during this semiquincentennial anniversary offers a fitting, if bleak, opportunity to litigate anew the Declaration’s political utility….
The litigants are many. Netflix, for example, has leaned heavily into the revolutionary moment by releasing two new documentaries, plus biographical docudramas about presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Produced and directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt, “The American Revolution” is a fantastic, six-part series that focuses almost exclusively on the war. Burns and his team deftly use war narratives as a trojan horse to subtly — and sometimes not-so-subtly — smuggle onto viewers’ screens the message that women, slaves, and Native Americans also played vital roles in the fight for independence.
When “Revolution” was released last autumn, Burns made the rounds on Capitol Hill, cozying up to Republicans in ways that alarmed some critics. From a purely strategic standpoint, he shrewdly played Washington politics the same way contemporary lobbyists do when building coalitions to protect their interests, which in Burns’s case is ongoing federal support for PBS programming.
Although “Revolution” avoids mentioning Trump, its inclusive set of narrators and topics delivers an implicit corrective to the white-washed histories of the founding moment. “Revolution” is Burns’s anniversary gift, carefully but not too obtrusively wrapped with a multicultural bow.
Then, last month Netflix released a five-part series called “The American Experiment.” Shepherded by nearly a dozen producers headlined by Tom Hanks and directed by Brian Knappenberger, “Experiment” mixes recreations with interviews from both notable colonial scholars and contemporary politicians to explain the principles contained in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. (The documentary includes an important, useful interlude about the failed and often forgotten first attempt at an American republic: the doomed Articles of Confederation.)
Read the rest at Public Notice. I think I’ll give those documentaries a try. They are bound to be a better alternative than Trump’s speech tonight.
Trump’s “Great American State Fair” has been a complete flop so far with very few people bothering to show up. Tonight Trump plans to give a political speech, and I’ll bet he’s nervous about the turnout.
US President Donald Trump will head to Washington DC’s National Mall on Saturday for what he has billed as a “spectacular rally” celebrating America’s 250th anniversary.
The event, taking place as a sweltering heatwave grips swathes of the eastern and central US, will include flyovers by hundreds of aircraft and a fireworks display organisers hope will be the biggest of all time.
Military flyovers over Washington DC will happen every hour between 13:15 local time (17:15 GMT) and sunset, the organisers said, and Trump’s new Air Force One will feature in one of the formations over the capital.
The president, however, has been accused by opponents of politicising the nation’s anniversary event and several music acts dropped out soon after being announced.
Extremely hot, humid temperatures of approximately 38C (100F) and a later-than-anticipated start time may also have an impact on the size of the crowd that attends.
The intense heat has already led to events being cancelled. On Friday, organisers of the National Park Service’s Independence Day Parade in Washington DC said they had cancelled the annual event over safety concerns. Some celebration events have also been cancelled from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland to as far west as Colorado.
There is also the potential for evening thunderstorms that could disrupt the events, which have been organised by a White House-backed public-private partnership….
The Washington DC event, formally known as the Salute to America 250 Celebrations & Fireworks – is due to begin at 19:00 local time, with Trump expected to speak a few hours later at approximately 21:45.
He has promised to make a “really long speech” at the Fourth of July festivities, despite the heatwave, “to show that I can do anything”.
An active-duty officer was placed into Air Force custody after he was arrested in uniform on Wednesday after an event in which he called for the impeachment, conviction and removal of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
The U.S. Capitol Police arrested the officer, Maj. Jason Watson, who identified himself as an active-duty service member, on the Capitol steps.
He was attending a news conference organized by the Removal Coalition, a grass-roots activist group. Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas, who has filed articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump at least six times, also attended the event.
During his speech, Major Watson, who said he was not a member of the Democratic Party, accused the president and vice president of violating both the Constitution and their oaths of office.
“Congress remains unconvinced of the urgency and necessity for them to honor their oath,” he said, “so we must persuade them, with our unrelenting, uncompromising civil resistance.”
Major Watson ended his speech, in which he criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies as well as its actions in Venezuela and Iran, by calling on Americans “to peacefully exercise your First Amendment rights.”
After the news conference, he stood on the Capitol steps holding a sign with the words “Impeach,” “Convict” and “Remove” stacked one atop the other. Shortly afterward, he was arrested on suspicion of “crowding, obstructing and incommoding,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement on Friday.
“It is generally against the law for the public to demonstrate on the House steps unless they are with a member of Congress,” the police said. The statement noted that Major Watson had been “escorted to the House steps by a member of Congress” and that after the member left, “our officers gave the man lawful orders to stop the illegal demonstration.”
A retired top general has landed a well-placed blow on President Trump and his use of the military.
Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., was one of three authors of an essay in the journal Foreign Affairs, published Friday, that slammed the politicization of the military.
Known for his balanced messaging and aversion to partisanship, Brown did not name Trump or Hegseth, but the targets of his words required little decoding.
“In the face of a genuine national disaster, the public will readily embrace the military’s help,” Brown wrote. “But when presidents use the armed forces for more politically contentious missions, such as addressing domestic crime in cities, the work of the military becomes more fraught.
“Resorting to a military solution rather than fixing the underlying incapacity or dysfunction in civilian institutions diverts the military from focusing on its primary combat mission,” he continued. “And as [George] Washington knew, it is not the military’s job to save the republic from political impasses. Indeed if you ask too much of the military, you risk the entire enterprise.”
The Department of Justice is refusing to hand over redacted information from investigative files connected to Jeffrey Epstein, despite an order from a federal judge to either release the documents or explain why they were withheld.
Hours before a deadline to turn over the materials, Associate U.S. Attorney General Stanley Woodward asked the judge to delay the deadline for another two months, or to dissolve the order entirely by accepting the Justice Department’s explanation for withholding those documents.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with journalist Katie Phang after she filed a lawsuit accusing Donald Trump’s administration of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which the president signed into law last year.
The lawsuit, which was filed against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, accuses the government of obstructing the public’s right to access materials connected to investigations into Epstein. The judge gave the Justice Department until Thursday to respond.
On Thursday night, Woodward wrote that the government is “committed to transparency and compliance” but “strongly disagrees” with the judge’s order.
Dozens of diamonds spell out two giant letter T’s next to the Stars and Stripes and “1776” and “2026.” Dozens more frame the numbers 45 and 47 in the shape of Superman’s logo. A diamond-winged eagle carries a ruby shield and clutches an olive branch of emeralds, below a radiant “250” and atop the phrase “250 YEARS USA” etched in 18-karat gold.
All told, 321 diamonds, 56 sapphires, 13 emeralds and six rubies encrust the watch-sized gold ring presented this week to Bill White, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, to give to U.S. President Donald Trump.
“A very special thank you to my friends from Antwerp for the magnificent Freedom 250 ring,” Trump said in a prerecorded video message during an event marking America’s 250th birthday in Brussels.
Isidore Mörsel, president of the Antwerp World Diamond Center, or AWDC, gifted the ring on behalf of the centuries-old diamond community in the Belgian port city, a central node in the worldwide trade of the precious stones that found itself struggling last year under the weight of Trump’s sweeping trade war.
The White House announced on Friday that President Trump had issued pardons to 11 men, most of whom had been convicted of crimes related to the Clean Air Act, a bedrock environmental law.
The president also pardoned Adam Kidan, a major donor to Republicans, including Mr. Trump. He had served about two and a half years in prison for his role in a fraud scheme involving the disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The Clean Air Act pardons benefited people who had sold or installed devices for diesel trucks that defeated their emissions controls, making them far more polluting. It was the latest move by the Trump administration to undermine laws intended to fight climate change and curb air pollutants that harm human health.
Republicans and their allies in the business community have cast enforcement of the Clean Air Act as a hindrance to commerce and an undue burden to those who rely on diesel engines.
Mr. Trump, in a social media post announcing some of the pardons on Friday afternoon, echoed that framing, minimizing the scale of the crimes and casting the law, which was first enacted in 1963, as a tool used by his predecessor to target political enemies.
“It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison, for ‘fixing their car,’” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Sickening. We have to get rid of him. This country can’t survive 2 more years of his blatant criminality.
That’s all I have for today. I know this isn’t much of a post, but it’s so difficult for me to see what I’m doing. Take care everyone, and I hope you enjoy the Independence Day weekend despite our fascist overlords.
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“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 Timesstory 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 Economistconcluded 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.
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You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Read the article for a full list of ramifications. It’s really worth it. Why is this suddenly an important issue? We know that Trump is doing everything inside and outside the power bestowed on the Presidency to throw the elections in his favor. He’s highly unpopular, and the polls are running against him and Republicans in General. So, with Trump’s bull shitting in deep fail, he’s decided to do whatever he wants. This is from 
Is it time to hit the panic button yet? Are there any Senators and Representatives willing to combat this obvious overreach? Aaron Blacksberg of 
Again, you can read the details at the link. Seeing it broken down into what can and can’t happen now is shocking for any of us well-schooled in the functioning of government. Our collective pants should be on fire. 
And, as we know, the Surpreme Court can no longer be fully trusted to reflect the Constition and the laws passed in 250 years of Congress. Trump is also set on passing the so-called SAVE America Act. Fortunately, he’s not vetoing anything, but it should startle us all that he’s hell-bent on destroying voting as we know it in this democratic republic. This from 
It’s basically big news today, so I’ll lead with it. This time, he insulted our friend and ally, Belgium, so I’ll start with their response today as 
Politico
Stephen Collinson of CNN
Read more on this controversy at any of the three links. Believe me, there are a lot more out there. So, here’s another headline that’s making me think doing all that ish to get my passport was a good idea. This headline is from 
You may read some examples of U.S. citizens they’ve bothered by these claims in the article. You might recall this story via the article cited above.
So, who knows what they may be up to? Let’s hope the press stays on top of it. You may read a great update on the amount of nothing being done by the ICE Agent who killed Renee Good, who is at the root of the Paigelynne Gonyea OPR shenanigans. It’s at this link at 
The Independent: DOJ refuses to hand over Epstein files after judge’s order.
The New York Times: Trump Pardons Violators of the Clean Air Act and a Major Donor.
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 
There’s a lot of information in it about Trump’s sperm discharges.
Something sure smells rotten. This is from 
One more short article before I ruin your Independence Day weekend. This is from 
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