Finally Friday Reads: V is for Vendetta, Violence, Vengence, and Victims

“Call out the National Guard!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I never thought our democracy would collapse so easily and so quickly, yet here we are.  Our supposed checks and balances have fallen to incompetence, corruption, and the fear of a tribal cult. I don’t think anyone figured that the Supreme Court would be stacked by sycophants, one of the political parties would surrender its powers to a cult of fascists, and that the executive branch and its functions would be set on destroying itself. Nothing is more symbolic of this than the People’s House being turned into some tacky version of Versailles.

Yet, here we are. The HHS Secretary is crazy and wants to kill us with Voodoo. The DOJ has turned into a vehicle for vengeance.  Homeland Security has turned on our citizens and immigrants. Other departments like Education and the EPA are being dismantled. Voodoo economics would be a kind description of the craziness that passes for economic policy.

This is from CNN. “Justice Department opens investigation into New York attorney general who won civil fraud case against Trump.”

The Justice Department has subpoenaed New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office as part of a criminal investigation into President Donald Trump’s long-time adversary, according to multiple sources, in the latest example of the Trump administration taking on the president’s perceived enemies.

Two grand jury subpoenas were issued by the US attorney’s office for the Northern District of New York seeking information about James’ investigations into the Trump Organization and National Rifle Association, the sources said.

A grand jury investigation into James has also convened in Albany, New York, according to a source familiar. The grand jury probe into James is said to be looking into deprivation of rights, which means violating someone’s constitutional rights, against Trump.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the subpoenas and grand jury investigation.

Abbe Lowell, an attorney for James, said, “Investigating the fraud case Attorney General James won against President Trump and his businesses has to be the most blatant and desperate example of this administration’s carrying out the president’s political retribution campaign.”

Lowell added: “Weaponizing the Department of Justice to try to punish an elected official for doing her job is an attack on the rule of law and a dangerous escalation by this administration. If prosecutors carry out this improper tactic and are genuinely interested in the truth, we are ready and waiting with the facts and law.”

Politico‘s Kyle Cheney questions the strategy. “MAGA world swallows a difficult truth: Arresting Trump’s opponents is easier said than done. From the Epstein saga to Texas redistricting, the far right’s bluster about criminal consequences often leads to disappointment.”  Here’s hoping he’s right.

The calls from President Donald Trump’s MAGA base are getting noisier: Texas Democrats who fled the state to derail a hyperpartisan GOP redistricting maneuver should be criminally charged, arrested and dragged back to Austin.

Now, it appears the FBI is involved in the hunt.

But those screaming the loudest appear likely to wind up disappointed. There’s no known evidence that the absconding lawmakers have actually broken any federal or state laws, despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s strained suggestion that they may have committed bribery.

It’s a familiar refrain for Trump’s second term: The far right lusts to see prominent Democrats or Trump adversaries hauled off in handcuffs, only to be let down when their revenge fantasies run into reality.

“They voted for that and now they realize they can’t have retribution because it’s not legally sound,” said Gene Rossi, a white collar criminal defense lawyer who spent 30 years at the Justice Department.

This cycle — impetuous promises of criminal consequences followed by dejection when Trump’s enemies aren’t immediately arrested — has already happened with Jack Smith, with James Comey, even with Joe Biden and Barack Obama (and their top advisers). The Trump administration has ordered investigations of all these figures, but legal experts say the probes are largely performative and unlikely to prompt serious or legitimate criminal charges.

It’s also happening, perhaps most profoundly, with MAGA loyalists’ dissatisfaction over the Jeffrey Epstein saga. The base believed Trump would vindicate conspiracy theories about Democrats and other public figures being involved in Epstein’s sex trafficking, leading to a new wave of arrests and prosecutions. That hasn’t materialized.

Brash promises and MAGA backlash

Trump, of course, has long stoked his base’s hunger for criminal reprisals, even dating back to his 2016 “Lock her up” pledge against Hillary Clinton.

He escalated that rhetoric during the 2024 campaign. “I am your retribution,” he promised his supporters.

And ever since he returned to office, administration officials and influential MAGA figures have suggested that high-profile arrests are justified and imminent, often vowing that “justice is coming.”

But both Trump and his base are learning that it’s not simple to round up political opponents, even with Trump loyalists in charge of the Justice Department.

“I want arrest[s] not DOJ people making promises on Fox News,” said Trump-aligned podcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in a recent post on X, which appended a list of MAGA-fueled scandals that have not led to any notable legal consequences.

Jones isn’t alone. A cascade of Trump’s influential backers have wondered aloud why the president and his Justice Department have not delivered the arrests and indictments they crave.

The issue flared most prominently last month when the Justice Department and FBI made the whiplash-inducing admission that the so-called Epstein files do not contain a “client list” of celebrity sex traffickers. The existence of such a list has been an article of faith among MAGA influencers for years, and Trump aides’ efforts to unwind the conspiracy theories have plunged the administration into weeks of turmoil and recriminations.

“What’s the time? Oh look, it’s no-one-has-been-arrested-o’clock again,” Elon Musk wrote in a July 7 post on X.

There’s more of this analysis at the link.  All kinds of institutions are failing to hold Yam TIts’ government accountable, even though many court cases stall and constrain him. The Administration has taken to ignoring court orders.  Back in mid-July, the Independent provided a report of this strategy. “What order? Trump team ignoring 1 in 3 major judicial rulings against them, analysis finds. Federal judges have accused the Trump administration of resisting court orders in approximately 34 percent of cases.”

Multiple federal court judges have accused the Trump administration of deliberately defying court orders by being slow to respond, misrepresenting facts in filings, and not taking prompt action as President Donald Trump continues an unprecedented campaign to expand his executive authority.

In an analysis of 165 court orders filed against the Trump administration, the Washington Post found that it was accused of resisting court orders in at least 57 of those cases – approximately 34 percent.

Since taking office, Trump has sought to implement his agenda as swiftly as possible, particularly in cases involving his immigration policies and attempts to drastically reduce the federal workforce.

Despite multiple district court judges issuing temporary injunctions to stop the administration from deporting immigrants without due process or sending them to third countries they’ve never been to, filings indicate the administration has continued its efforts.

This has, most notably, occurred in the case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who was previously granted permission to remain in the U.S. by a court. The administration inadvertently sent Abrego Garcia to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, under accusations that he was a gang member.

Multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, ordered the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, yet officials made no swift efforts – leading to a judge’s admonishment.

“Defendants have failed to respond in good faith, and their refusal to do so can only be viewed as willful and intentional noncompliance,” Judge Paula Xinis, appointed by former president Barack Obama, said after the administration failed to provide updates on how it was returning Abrego Garcia.

It was just one of several immigration cases in which judges have raised concerns about the administration not following orders.

The DOJ’s arguments have not been able to breach the law. Now, the strategy is to stack the Federal Courts as badly as the Supreme Court. This is from NPR. It was published on the same day as the article above. “Is Emil Bove the face of a new MAGA judiciary?”  No wonder they also went after funding for NPR.  You may listen to the nine-minute analysis at the link. The Alliance for Justice created a huge list of reasons the man should be put on the bench. “10 Reasons Emil Bove Should Not Become a Judge (A Non-Exhaustive List).”  However, the Senate has become as bad as the House of Representatives and the man was put on the bench despite protest.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Chancellor Palpatine shattered the Jedi by taking Anakin Skywalker, a member of the Jedi Council, as his Sith apprentice, Darth Vader. In becoming Palpatine’s apprentice, Vader relinquished his commitment to peace and justice, bowed his knee to power, and became the Emperor’s attack dog. He then used his power to ruthlessly purge Jedis from the Galactic Empire.

In the here and now, fiction may forecast reality, as Emil Bove, a partisan henchman from Trump’s inner circle, is about to be elevated to a lifelong position on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals — not because he embodies qualities that a federal judge should possess, but because he has served as Trump’s personal hit man.

A judgeship on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is not an obscure role. The Third Circuit decides major cases on civil rights, voting, immigration, and more. Many of its decisions never even reach the Supreme Court. If confirmed, Bove will create a majority of Republican appointees on the Third Circuit, guaranteeing him many opportunities to impose his will on one of the most consequential courts in the country. And yet, the man Trump has nominated has a track record that should disqualify him outright.

Right at the top of the list is this. “He Used the Justice Department for Political Prosecutions,”  followed by “He Tramples on Free Speech and Due Process.”

Bove played a central role in turning the Department of Justice into a tool of political retribution. As a senior official under Trump, he helped orchestrate the sudden abandonment of a federal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams — reportedly because Adams agreed to help implement Trump’s mass deportation plan. At least 10 DOJ attorneys, including some affiliated with the conservative legal movement, resigned in protest of the apparent quid pro quo.

As the acting deputy attorney general at the DOJ, Bove demanded the names of FBI agents investigating the January 6 insurrection so he could punish them for “insubordination.” He also removed experienced prosecutors from the Jan. 6 investigation when they wouldn’t bend to political pressure. That kind of intimidation does not belong anywhere near a courtroom.

He did get appointed thanks to the cowardly acquiescence of Republican Senators. Republicans in Congress are also doing nothing about protecting our Veterans. This is from ProPublica. “Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump as Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals. Amid concerns about the stability of the agency, records show nearly 40% of the doctors offered jobs at the VA from January through March of this year turned them down — quadruple the rate of rejections for the same period a year earlier.” 

Veterans hospitals are struggling to replace hundreds of doctors and nurses who have left the health care system this year as the Trump administration pursues its pledge to simultaneously slash Department of Veterans Affairs staff and improve care.

Many job applicants are turning down offers, worried that the positions are not stable and uneasy with the overall direction of the agency, according to internal documents examined by ProPublica. The records show nearly 4 in 10 of the roughly 2,000 doctors offered jobs from January through March of this year turned them down. That is quadruple the rate of doctors rejecting offers during the same time period last year.

The VA in March said it intended to cut its workforce by at least 70,000 people. The news sparked alarm that the cuts would hurt patient care, prompting public reassurances from VA Secretary Doug Collins that front-line health care staff would be immune from the proposed layoffs.

Last month, department officials updated their plans and said they would reduce the workforce by 30,000 by the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. So many staffers had left voluntarily, the agency said in a press release, that mass layoffs would not be necessary.

“VA is headed in the right direction,” Collins said in a statement.

But a review of hundreds of internal staffing records, along with interviews with veterans and employees, reveal a far less rosy picture of how staffing is affecting veterans’ care.

After six years of adding medical staff, the VA this year is down more than 600 doctors and about 1,900 nurses. The number of doctors on staff has declined each month since President Donald Trump took office. The agency also lost twice as many nurses as it hired between January and June, records viewed by ProPublica show.

In response to questions, a VA spokesperson did not dispute numbers about staff losses at centers across the country but accused ProPublica of bias and of “cherry-picking issues that are mostly routine.”

Agency spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz said that the department is “working to address” the number of doctors declining job offers by speeding up the hiring process and that the agency “has several strategies to navigate shortages,” including referring veterans to private providers and telehealth appointments. A nationwide shortage of health care workers has made hiring and retention difficult, he said.

I watched the latest episode of South Park last night. At least we have them on our side. Here are two articles about the reactions from Noem and Vance.  Noem is very thin-skinned despite all the surgical and cosmetic enhancements.  This is from Daily Kos. “Poor Kristi Noem doesn’t like ‘South Park’ highlighting her awfulness.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is trying to play the victim after the satirical animated show “South Park” mercilessly mocked her on Wednesday night’s episode.

“It’s so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look. It’s only the liberals and the extremists who do that,” Noem told right-wing podcaster Glenn Beck on Thursday night, referring to how “South Park” made fun of her obviously Botox- and filler-filled face. “If they wanted to criticize my job, go ahead and do that, but clearly, they can’t. They just pick something petty like that.”

Of course, the show made fun of more than just Noem’s looks. It also ridiculed her cringeworthy cosplaying, the fact that she shot and killed her own puppy, and that she’s one of the biggest cheerleaders for President Donald Trump’s evil immigration plan.

But more than that, Noem claiming that only “liberals” make fun of how women look is insane, given that she works for Trump, the king of making crude and disgusting comments about how women look.

Over the years, he’s made fun of pop icon Cher’s plastic surgery, called actor Bette Midler “ugly,” said Angelina Jolie is “not a beauty,” said Rosie O’Donnell has a “fat, ugly face,” and accused MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski of “bleeding badly from a face-lift,” just to name a few.

Here’s JD Vance’s response via the Independent. “JD Vance responds to South Park’s brutal takedown of Trump admin. ‘Well, I’ve finally made it,’ Vance writes on X after mini-version of vice president seen waiting on Trump in animated episode.” They can dish it out, but they can’t take it, as the old saying goes.

Vice President JD Vance took to X on Thursday morning to respond to South Park’s brutal takedown of the Trump administration.

The South Park account shared an image of Vance and President Donald Trump with the caption “Welcome to Mar-a-Lago!”

“Well, I’ve finally made it,” Vance wrote.

The second episode of the 27th season of South Park took aim at the president and many of his colleagues and supporters. At one point, a mini version of the vice president is shown waiting on the president, who’s in bed with Satan.

The episode also includes a parody of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who became known for having shot her own dog. Meanwhile, Cartman imitates conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The episode outlines the financial struggles of Mr. Mackey after he was laid off from South Park Elementary. Mackey’s banker suggests that he join Immigration and Customs Enforcement because of their good salaries.

Mackey ends up joining ICE, watching an orientation video with Noem, which mocks the fact that she once confessed to killing her own dog.

“A few years ago, I had to put my puppy down by shooting it in the face, because sometimes doing what’s important means doing what’s hard,” she says in the episode before shooting a number of dogs during her ICE orientation speech.

Trump campaign alum Matt Mowers responded to Vance on X, saying being featured on South Park was “A key life milestone appreciated by any millennial.”

Meanwhile, our foreign policy stinks as bad as the domestic policies. Both Putin and Netanyahu feel empowered to take over whatever they want.  This is from Axios. “Even Republicans have questions about Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza City.” The analysis is by Alexand Solender.

Some congressional Republicans are raising questions about Israel’s planned occupation of Gaza City as pro-Israel Democrats push back on the operation with unusual ferocity.

Why it matters: Israel’s coalition of political allies in the U.S. has become scrambled in recent weeks amid a growing humanitarian crisis is Gaza — and a coinciding drop in U.S. public opinion toward Israel.

• Lawmakers sympathetic to Israel are warning that the plan could be a logistical nightmare and warning the country to tread carefully and avoid further alienating the international community.
• It’s not just Democrats questioning the plan. “I’d like to know who is actually going to run it,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee that oversees the Middle East, told Axios.
• Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), another member of the panel, told Axios: “Occupation for security also comes with the responsibility of providing humanitarian assistance and creating an economic future.”

State of play: The Israeli Security Cabinet on Thursday approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to have the IDF “take control” of Gaza City in an effort to defeat Hamas.

• In addition to occupying Gaza City, which is expected to take months and displace around 1 million Palestinian civilians, the IDF will also be charged with distributing humanitarian aid, Axios’ Barak Ravid reported.
• The IDF’s chief of staff pushed back during the Cabinet meeting, arguing the plan could endanger Israeli hostages in Gaza and lead to protracted Israeli military governance.
• President Trump, who has split with Netanyahu on allegations of famine in Gaza, is not planning to intervene to oppose the operation.

Driving the news: Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), the chair of the roughly 100-member New Democrat Coalition and a vocal pro-Israel centrist, called the plan “tactically questionable and strategically self-defeating.”

• “If implemented, the decision is more likely to play into Hamas’s original objectives in starting this war and further unite much of the world against Israel than it is to bring home the last surviving hostages and advance the security needs of the nation,” Schneider said in a statement.

• Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), one of Democrats’ staunchest Israel backers, said in a statement that Israel is the “ultimate arbiter of its own security” but that “the war in Gaza is in danger of becoming a quagmire.”

Trump is still looking to solve the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, but Putin has him by the balls. This is from Bloomberg. “US and Russia Plan Truce to Cement Putin’s Gains in Ukraine.”

Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia’s occupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter.

US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy-in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said.

Putin is demanding that Ukraine cede its entire eastern Donbas area to Russia as well as Crimea, which his forces illegally annexed in 2014. That would require Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to order a withdrawal of troops from parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions still held by Kyiv, handing Russia a victory that its army couldn’t achieve militarily since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Such an outcome would represent a major win for Putin, who has long sought direct negotiations with the US on terms for ending the war that he started, sidelining Ukraine and its European allies. Zelenskiy risks being presented with a take-it-or-leave-it deal to accept the loss of Ukrainian territory, while Europe fears it would be left to monitor a ceasefire as Putin rebuilds his forces

And for all of Trump’s lying about it, The Daily Beast reports that “White House Did Have Secret Talks on Epstein Crisis. Trump had forced JD Vance to deny that a meeting was taking place.”  This story is reported by Erikky Foster.

Turns out the Trump administration really did huddle behind closed doors to talk about the Jeffrey Epstein files, despite JD Vance’s public denial.

On Wednesday, the vice president dismissed mounting media reports claiming he was hosting secret Epstein talks at his house.

“It’s completely fake news,” Vance declared. President Donald Trump had told reporters, “I don’t know” and redirected them to the vice president.

Yet, top Trump administration officials did convene to map out next steps regarding the files on the late convicted sex offender, CNN reported, citing a source familiar with the logistics.

The meeting was reportedly relocated from Vance’s D.C. home to the White House. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel were also in attendance, according to MSNBC.

It’s unclear whether the talks included Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who were initially reported to be joining the dinner at the vice president’s Naval Observatory mansion.

Vance’s supposed involvement in the talks had drawn criticism. Ever since Watergate, the Justice Department has kept criminal investigations separate from White House influence, to prevent any appearance of political interference.

One last story and then I’ll leave you to your weekend. This one from VOX has me screaming. “The White House has a preferred alternative to PBS. It may already be in countless classrooms. How the right-wing network PragerU could fill the void left by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s defunding.”  They’ve stuck this abomination in Louisiana classrooms, and there’s nothing truthful in any of its materials.

Amid the stripping of these federal funds, last month, the White House debuted a new educational partner at its launch event for its new Founders Museum exhibit: PragerU, a nonprofit organization that specializes in creating right-leaning educational short videos for adults and children. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon introduced the partnership, followed by PragerU CEO Marissa Streit.

For the White House exhibit, PragerU created AI-generated videos of the Founding Fathers delivering patriotic accounts of the Revolution. In one, an AI-generated John Adams borrows a catchphrase from conservative pundit Ben Shapiro and tells the viewer, “Facts do not care about our feelings.”

Since its founding in 2009, PragerU has become a juggernaut in the conservative educational media space, with their videos reaching millions of followers across social media. The organization has helped launch the media careers of right-wing figures like Candace Owens. Their popular videos elevate narratives that have been sharply criticized as climate denialist, Islamophobic, and “misleading” about slavery.

PragerU’s partnership with the Department of Education is not the first time the conservative content mill has partnered with the government. Over the past few years, the organization has partnered with states and superintendents throughout the country to make their educational material widely available to public school children and teachers.

Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Laura Meckler, national education writer for the Washington Post, about how PragerU partnered with states to bring its content to the classroom and if the organization is poised to fill the educational void left by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

So, I agree with Rachel and Krugman. We’re a fascist state, and I don’t like it at all.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action List for today?