Posted: July 25, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: cat art, caturday, Cyclospoiasis, cyclospora, Donald Trump, Maine coon cats, Mitch McConnell disappearance, Qatar gifted Air Force One, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, White House Correspondents' Dinner |
Good Afternoon!!
Last night was the make-up date for the White House Correspondents Association Dinner. I didn’t know it was happening, and I can’t imagine why the journalists felt it was necessary. The first one–in April–was cancelled because of Cole Thomas Allen, who supposedly attempted to assassinate Trump, but didn’t get anywhere near him.
One possible reason for the redo was the awards that were handed out–mostly for negative coverage of Trump. Trump had to sit there and pretend to be a good sport. The top award–the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability–went to The Wall Street Journal for the story on Trump’s crude 50th birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein. The photography award went to Andrew Harnik of Getty Images for the famous photo of Trump standing staring into space after a guest collapsed in the oval office. You can see the photo and the rest of the awards here.
AP via NPR: Trump returns to correspondents’ dinner 3 months after shooting.
President Donald Trump returned to the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night, delivering a rambling, hour-long speech that praised some journalists, took potshots at others, made jokes about public figures’ weight and intellect, and quipped about a third presidential term….
Trump’s return to the correspondents’ dinner — and his promise to come back next year as well — represented a notable moment in his relationship with the news media, which he has attacked, sued and taken administrative action against since he began his second term early last year. Among the audience members were reporters he had denounced and barred from events.
Trump’s sometimes off-color speech, which lasted just over an hour, was full of vague potshots directed at individuals he doesn’t like — from Jane Fonda to Bruce Springsteen to “Barack Hussein Obama.” The audience, reacting at first with some friendly laughs, slowly quieted to scattered titters as the insults piled up.
Among other targets of Trump’s humor: Late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel; Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; California Gov. Gavin Newsom; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Trump’s own speechwriters, whose jokes he sometimes criticized even as he delivered them. Some of the comments flirted with racism.
The president also spent some time expressing pride in the ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, formerly the Trump International Hotel. “It’s great to be back at a place that I know very well, because I built it,” Trump said….
He made a brief mention of the Iran war and several remarks about the ballroom he is building at the White House. He also used the occasion to joke about the possibility he would serve a third term — something barred by the U.S. Constitution’s 22nd Amendment.
“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better,” the president quipped. “And the third time will be better yet.”
He added: “I’m only kidding.” Then, at the end, he donned a red cap that said “Trump 2028” and delivered the “scoop” that he was running again.
The Guardian published more of Trump’s unfunny insults: Trump forced to play good sport at correspondents’ dinner – but it couldn’t last.
As often happens with his stump speeches these days, the president lost his audience. Phones were gazed at, silence ensued. Never more so than when he embarked on a tiresome bigoted diatribe against the Democratic representative from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, one of his frequent targets….
Instead of the vast auditorium at the Washington Hilton – the dinner’s venue for several decades and once the site of an attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan – the Astoria Waldorf was chosen to stage a drastically scaled-down dinner, with just 700 guests attending, compared with the 2,600 who were at the original event in April….
Trump, when he spoke – after being forcibly humbled by the dishing out of awards to a succession of journalists for their unflattering portrayal of his presidency – quickly established that humility would not feature strongly in his speech.
His first comment on the changed venue was to observe that he had once owned it, when it was the Trump International Hotel.
“This has not been an easy evening. All these awards. Do I have a say?” he asked. “But it’s great to be back at a place that I know very well because I built it, and I’m very proud of it because I built it for $2.9bn less than the Federal Reserve Building, which is a lot smaller, by the way.”
More from Trump’s speech:
From there, it was on to the insults, taunts, jokes – and grievances. Some of it was amusing and drew laughter, notably when he jested at the expense of the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
“I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire, very delicious beef tenderloins, very special beef,” he said. “And I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy, who’s right here, personally ran over the cow and he cut it
up, and he brought it here for you to eat tonight. Bobby also suggested appetizer featuring his favorite cut of male raccoon roadkill, but we drew the line at that.”
Adam Schiff, the Democratic senator for California and a particular Trump bete noire, was mocked as “watermelon head because he has the largest head I’ve ever seen with the smallest pencil neck”.
Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, all comedians who have mocked Trump unceasingly, were derided as “people without talent”….
“I hope you all know that I believe in the free press more than anyone in this room,” Trump told the gathering later, overlooking the fact that his administration had filed subpoenas for several New York Times reporters and their relatives after the paper had reported on security breaches on the new Air Force One jet, gifted by Qatar.
“You people have no idea how lucky you are. When I’m gone, you’re all going to be broke. There’s not going to be anybody to report on.”
Has there ever been a more malignant narcissist?
The New York Times has another story today by Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Maggie Haberman that will probably enrage Trump (gift link): Inside the Rushed Effort to Get Trump His New Air Force One.
President Trump was entranced. It was a few weeks into his second term, and he was on the tarmac of the Palm Beach airport, getting a tour of a luxury Boeing 747-8 that had been flown from Doha for his perusal.
The double-decker jet, which had been outfitted for the Qatari royal family, had a spacious bedroom adorned with leather and wood and a lounge featuring a chandelier and another with suede seats.
Two planes being built by Boeing to replace the aging Air Force One fleet were years behind schedule, and Mr. Trump’s team had asked the Air Force to find a temporary aircraft. This was the one, the president decided.
Mr. Trump’s February 2025 tour of the Qatari jet led to a frantic sprint inside the White House and the Pentagon. The administration sought to upgrade the plane in time to meet his demand for it to be ready by the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, with an accelerated retrofit.
An investigation by The New York Times found that the president’s push to get the luxury aircraft quickly led to ballooning costs and trade-offs in safety features that potentially left Mr. Trump and others who travel with him on Air Force One vulnerable.
Some of the findings of the investigation:
— Mr. Trump was personally engaged in making decisions about the retrofitting of the donated plane, giving the final approval on the features and security measures that would be included, according to people familiar with his role. They and others interviewed for this article described the sensitive information about the process and the plane on the condition of anonymity.
— Several key security and safety features on the Boeing planes that have been used for decades as Air Force One are not visible on the upgraded jet, including a lower-level exit for high-risk situations, additional backup power capacity and an advanced antimissile system, public Air Force records and photographs examined by The Times show. The planes currently being built to serve as the permanent presidential fleet are all set to have such features, federal records show.
— The 747-8 plane was overhauled on a compressed timeline of just about eight months. Experts said the jet would have needed several years for a full upgrade.
— Because the Qatari jet was being pushed into service so quickly, some White House officials initially expected it would only be used for domestic travel or to visit allied countries with U.S. military bases.
–The government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase equipment needed to train pilots to fly the 747-8 plane so quickly, on top of the approximately $400 million cost of the upgrades that the administration has publicly acknowledged. The Pentagon has tried to mask the total price tag — including from Congress — by taking the funds from a classified budget for nuclear modernization.
I hope Congress will prevent him from taking the plane with all those secret security upgrades with him. How can that possibly be permitted?
This is unbelievable from Kyla Guilfoil at NBC News: Trump orders signage warning visitors of ‘inaccurate information’ at Smithsonian.
The president on Friday ordered that “warning” signs be placed in front of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to inform visitors of the “inaccurate information presented in the Museum.”
The executive order comes after a White House report released July 4 claimed the museum “cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic.”
Trump said in March 2025 that he intended to force changes at the Smithsonian Institution, signing an executive order that sought to target federal funding for programs that present “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.”
In his order on Friday, Trump wrote that the “Smithsonian leadership does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society.”
He wrote that the leadership of both the institution and of the museum “cannot be trusted to tell America’s story with honesty and gratitude.”
What the new order says:
Trump directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to work alongside the National Park Service to install “temporary signage along the NPS-maintained sidewalks and walkways used by the public to access the Museum.”
The signage will “inform visitors” of the July 4 report and Trump’s demand that the report findings be enforced in accordance with his March 2025 executive order, Trump wrote.
Trump said that the signage will correct “inaccurate information presented in the Museum” and direct visitors to “locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history.”
The president directed that Burgum, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and the administrator of the General Services Administration alongside the assistant to the president for domestic policy shall “use all available authorities” to promote the order’s policies.
It’s going to take decades to repair all the damage Trump is doing.
Yesterday, in a press availability in the oval office, Trump was asked when it will be safe to eat lettuce again. His response was
“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. It’s the first time I’ve been asked that question.
“Well I think what we’re going to do is we’re gonna put a major tariff on Mexico because of the lettuce, and we’re going to put a big tariff on Canada because of the smoke.”
There is usually some lettuce on those fast food burgers he likes. Regardless of Trump’s uncaring attitude, the Cyclospora situation is getting very serious.
Marcia Brown at Politico: Trump’s former top food official: Cyclospora outbreak ‘approaching catastrophic’ level.
President Donald Trump’s former top food safety official is calling for an independent review of the federal government’s response to a cyclospora outbreak that has sickened thousands of people this summer.
“This one deserves a lot of questions, and it is starting to approach a catastrophic level in terms of how mismanaged it’s been on multiple fronts,” said Frank Yiannas, who served as the Food and Drug Administration’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response during both Trump and former President Joe Biden’s administration from 2018 to 2023.
He pointed to the outbreak’s magnitude, the widespread consumer confusion and the “lack of strong federal leadership” as well as what he described as uncoordinated messaging from federal authorities.
“My point is not to find fault, but to find facts on how we can further strengthen the system,” Yiannas told POLITICO. “It’s not being critical of any particular agency, but it is being critical of the system. In some respects, I think there’s been some dismantling of the system.”
Yiannas’ call for an independent review of the government’s response adds to pressure facing the FDA since the agency scrambled to do damage control this week after announcing a positive lab test linked a new batch of Taylor Farms lettuce to the outbreak — only to reverse course to say final test results contradicted the initial finding.
Well, I’m not sure I trust that report of a false positive. The Wall Street Journal reported today on Taylor Farms efforts to control the narrative. I can only post a brief section of the story since it’s behind the paywall:
Sabrina Siddiqui, Jesse Newman, and Josh Dawsy: Taylor Farms Called White House to Try to Delay Cyclospora Recall.
Representatives for produce giant Taylor Farms contacted the White House with an urgent plea: the company wanted to delay announcing a recall tied to one of the largest foodborne illness outbreaks in U.S. history.
The call, during which the company asked for more proof and more time before being linked to the outbreak, illustrates how one of the country’s largest produce suppliers sought to limit its exposure to a public-relations nightmare, while grappling with a costly and complicated recall. Over the past several weeks, health officials have been scrambling to contain the outbreak of cyclospora, which can cause explosive diarrhea. Some current and former government officials have criticized the handling of the outbreak, both by the administration and Taylor Farms.
One more on this topic from Erika Edwards at NBC News: Cyclosporiasis outbreak expands to 9 states.
The massive, multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis has expanded to nine states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
Outbreaks in Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania have now been connected to cases in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, as well as hard-hit Michigan.
The discovery doesn’t necessarily mean that cases are accelerating, but it provides a clearer picture of what’s been so unusual about the record-high number of cyclosporiasis cases this summer.
“We’re getting more complete case data that covers the range of the outbreak,” said Gwen Biggerstaff, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases. “States are completing interviews with people, and we’re filling in the data.”
The CDC has confirmed 1,947 cases in those nine states. Shredded iceberg lettuce sourced from Taylor Farms de Mexico is the likely source, the Food and Drug Administration said last week. The company voluntarily recalled the product from the U.S. market.
“We know it went to many states, to many points of sale,” said Kari Irvin, deputy director of the FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation Network. The FDA watches the CDC’s confirmed case counts closely, she said, “because it will help tell us if the recall is enough, that they’ve recovered all products that need to be removed from the market.”
The clue that linked cases to Taylor Farms came from interviews with people who got sick. Many said they’d eaten at Taco Bell in June, before the waves of cases took off. The restaurant chain pulled lettuce from its menu ahead of the recall from Taylor Farms.
Irvin said FDA investigators are working to determine whether additional growers might have played a role. “The data that we have now really continues to home in on growers that were already identified,” she said.
I hope it stays away from Massachusetts. In any case, I will never buy anything from Taylor Farms. I’ve seen their products when ordering on-line, but have never bought them.
Mitch McConnell is still missing and it’s unclear whether he is alive, brain dead, or dead as a doornail. We have no idea what hospital he is supposedly in, and no indication when he might be back at work in the Senate. Here’s the latest:
Theodoric Meyer at The Washington Post (gift link): McConnell faces growing questions about absence nearly six weeks after fall.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is facing growing calls to be more transparent about his health nearly six weeks after he was hospitalized.
McConnell, 84, has been absent from the Senate since he said he suffered a fall June 14. His office shared a photo of McConnell holding The Washington Post on July 12, and McConnell said in a statement that he had left the hospital and moved to a rehabilitation center — but he did not say when he planned to return, offering only that he would not “be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet.”
Those scant details have not quieted rampant rumors and online speculation about McConnell’s condition.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said last week that he had heard nothing from McConnell since he was hospitalized, despite sending a letter seeking an update on his condition. He urged McConnell to call into a news station for a few minutes or put out a short video to reassure his constituents.
“When you’ve been in a hospital for a month and you’ve missed all the votes … you owe your boss, like anybody else out there who works, an explanation of what’s been going on and when you’ll get back,” Beshear said.
Scott Jennings, a longtime McConnell ally who worked on some of his reelection campaigns, urged McConnell on Thursday to “routinely update his constituents on how he’s doing” and be transparent about the work he’s doing while recovering. He said he expected McConnell to share an update on how he’s doing in the coming days.
“Truthfully, I think a little transparency on the front end here would have saved him a whole lot of grief,” Jennings told CNN’s “The Arena with Kasie Hunt.” “But that didn’t happen and they are where they are now.”
When even ultra-sycophant Scott Jennings is telling McConnell to stop hiding, you know it’s getting serious. You can use the gift link to read more.
I’ll end there. What do you think about all this? What other stories are you interested in?
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Posted: July 15, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Donald Trump, ICE murders, ICE traffic stops, Iran War, Paul Krugman, Strait of Hormuz, Todd Blanche |
Good Afternoon!!
Trump’s war with Iran is on again, and he is threatening war crimes and insane plans to take control the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is frankly making no sense. He’s obviously frustrated that his war has become a total fuck up, and he has no idea what to do about it. He also doesn’t have any intelligent, experienced advisers–at least none who have the guts to oppose him.
A group of people stands in shallow water as a cargo ship appears anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, June 30, 2026. Amirhosein Khorgooi, ISNA via AP
Here’s the latest from Reuters: Iran war live: US launches new wave of strikes and Tehran threatens to close shipping routes.
- The US military said it had carried out a fresh wave of strikes on Wednesday, hours after carrying out a fourth night of attacks on Iran
- Iran has threatened to block more energy routes, after President Donald Trump reinstated the US blockade of Iranian shipping
- Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait came under attack again on Wednesday after Iran vowed to continue retaliation on US military assets, leaving an interim ceasefire in tatters
- Trump renewed his threat to hit Iranian power plants and bridges if Tehran does not return to negotiations to end the war started by US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28
At Axios, Barak Ravid, the designated receiver of leaks from the Trump goons, reports: Trump held Situation Room meeting on massive new Iran strikes.
President Trump held a Situation Room meeting Tuesday to discuss a massive offensive in Iran that will be wider in scope than the current strikes around the Strait of Hormuz, three sources with knowledge said.
Why it matters: Trump appears willing to escalate the war to cause enough damage that the Iranian regime will open the Strait of Hormuz and accept Trump’s nuclear demands.
Driving the news: Trump convened the meeting as the U.S. military conducted strikes in the Strait of Hormuz area and along the southern coast of Iran for the fourth day in a row.
- Most of the targets were air defense and radar systems, anti-ship missile positions and drone launch sites.
- U.S. officials said the aim of the strikes was to significantly degrade Iran’s ability to conduct attacks against ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
- Iran retaliated by continuing to launch missiles and drones at U.S. bases in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain.
- On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports went into effect.
- The commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, said in a statement that over the last week Iran “has intentionally targeted civilians across the region by attacking seven commercial ships resulting in nearly a dozen civilian crew members killed, missing, or injured.”
- Despite the attacks, the U.S. military managed to coordinate the transit of 300 ships through the strait over the past week, U.S. officials said.
Inside the room: Trump was joined in the Situation Room by his top national security team, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House envoy Steve Witkoff and other senior officials, the sources said.
The sources said the meeting focused on new plans for devastating strikes on strategic targets in Iran, in addition to the strikes against Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s behavior over the last couple of days has been out of control. Whether it’s dementia or not, he doesn’t seem to have any filters left. He just says whatever comes into his moth-eaten brain.
BBC: Trump threatens to bomb bridges and power plants unless Iran resumes talks.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to strike Iran’s bridges and power plants next week if the country does not return to talks.
The comments, made in a Fox News interview, aired as the two countries exchanged fire for the fourth day in a row.
A view of a billboard depicting US president Donald Trump in Tehran, Iran. Anadolu, Getty Images
Trump earlier reversed a threat of a 20% fee on all Strait of Hormuz cargo shipping but resumed blockading Iranian ports.
“Next week it gets really bad for them,” Trump said. “We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”
Back in April, Trump threatened to bomb civilian infrastructure in Iran, including bridges and power plants.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk responded at the time by saying: “Under international law, deliberately attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime.”
The 1949 Geneva Conventions on humanitarian conduct in war prohibit attacks on sites considered essential for civilians.
Nahal Toosi, Paul McLeary and Megan Messerly at Politico: No end in sight for new Iran war.
As the U.S. war with Iran resumes, there is little sign that diplomacy can stop it.
Efforts by Arab, Pakistani and other mediators to revive negotiations or restore a ceasefire have shown no public signs of progress, and the overall feeling in the Middle East and beyond is that the fighting will simply continue for now, according to two analysts and a person familiar with the situation.
The White House is “not really sure where this is headed,” said a former U.S. official in touch with Trump administration staffers, who, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to describe sensitive conversations. “This could go on for some time. There’s no trust between Iran and the U.S., and that’s kind of the basis for any kind of diplomacy.”
The renewed fighting includes a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian shipping and Tehran launching multiple attacks on U.S. allies.
President Donald Trump has made clear Tehran must relinquish control of the vital energy shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran has weathered previous assaults and still managed to threaten oil shipping with drones and missiles, and it’s not clear how this latest campaign would eliminate that threat.
“I think the president will try to destroy Iran’s capabilities threatening the strait,” said Fred Fleitz, Trump’s former National Security Council chief of staff and vice chair of the American First Policy Institute’s American Security. “I think that we will have to take a so-called mowing the grass strategy, where the U.S. and Israel will respond militarily to provocations, then maybe we simply have to wait until the Iranian people take their country back.”
Trump did offer a concession of sorts on Tuesday when he reversed himself and said the U.S. would not impose a 20 percent fee on countries shipping goods through the strait. Instead, he said the Navy would assist ships through the waterway in exchange for investment deals with the United States.
“Iran made a deal, and they broke it” said White House spokesperson Olivia Wales. “While President Trump’s preference is always peace and diplomacy, the deal is performance-based, and Iran’s actions constitute failure to live up to their commitments.”
The latest about-face is a hallmark of the president’s decision-making process and the minute-by-minute governing policy he favors.
Trump has no authority to impose fees on shipping. But these journalists won’t just say that. And his “minute-by-minute governing policy” is hardly a “policy.” He has no ability rein in any of his impulses control what he says in public.
Peter Baker at The New York Times (gift article): In Iran, Trump Has Found an Opponent He Cannot Easily Dominate.
On the 136th day of his war against Iran, President Trump came up with a new plan. He would impose tolls on ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for protecting them from Iranian forces.
But that was then. On Day 137, he had another new plan. No tolls after all.
Mr. Trump’s 180-degree reversal on Tuesday in the face of protests from his Arab allies who were not so excited about paying tolls reflected how adrift he seems to be in prosecuting his war against Iran. What was supposed to be a clean four-to-six-week operation is now in its messy 20th week. Improvisation and impulse are not working.
A banner in Tehran last week threatening President Trump. Credit…Arash Khamooshi, Polaris for The New York Times
A president who has made flexing his power on the world stage a hallmark of his second term has found in Iran an opponent that so far will not bend to his will and a geopolitical conflict that cannot be won through nasty social media posts or tariff threats. The memorandum of understanding that he brokered with Tehran last month to halt the fighting turns out to have been a memorandum of misunderstanding, and Mr. Trump now seems to have neither a clear military nor diplomatic strategy.
“He’s encountered a country that is not willing to play by his set of rules, which is you bend and kiss the ring and tell him how great he is and try to get whatever concession he’s willing to give,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies who has advised presidents and secretaries of state on the Middle East.
Mr. Trump’s no-end-in-sight venture in the Middle East has become a fresh lesson in why the region has been a sinkhole for presidential ambition for generations. The instruments of power that help advance U.S. interests elsewhere around the globe do not necessarily work there, as many of Mr. Trump’s predecessors have discovered.
It has been especially frustrating for Mr. Trump, who has reveled in getting his way since returning to office last year and even boasted that he might be the most powerful man in world history. But while he has successfully pressured NATO allies into increasing military spending, extracted concessions from trading partners and essentially took over Venezuela with a one-night surgical commando raid, it is not clear that he can get his way in the Persian desert.
A bit more:
John Hannah, a former national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and now a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, in the past has supported the limited use of military force to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon. But he said that by going for “a massive decapitation strike,” Mr. Trump had clearly underestimated the theocratic power structure that took power in the 1979 Iranian revolution and overestimated American capacity to topple it.
“In retrospect, this was clearly a war based on fatally flawed assumptions,” Mr. Hannah said, “none more damaging than the president’s apparent conviction that Iran’s revolutionary regime was a flimsy house of cards ready to collapse in a hail of American airstrikes and bellicose Truth Social posts.”
“Compounding the error,” he added, “there was no rigorous national security apparatus around the president prepared to speak truth to power and subject his wrongheaded assumptions to systematic questioning based on the knowledge and experience of real foreign policy, defense and intelligence professionals.” [….]
Mr. Trump seems uncertain how to proceed. He has turned back to the use of military force and ordered the resumption of a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. He has threatened to take “a nice, big fat shot” at Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified site near one of Iran’s main nuclear facilities. But with popular opinion against the war, he has given little indication that he is willing to resume the sort of full-fledged bombardment that marked the beginning of the war.
At the same time, he has suggested there will be further negotiations but has not articulated how talks that failed before could succeed now. In fact, he has expressed deep skepticism that they could, although of course that might simply be a way of lowering expectations. Instead, Mr. Trump seems to think that he can outlast the Iranians because their economy is in dire shape while the Iranians seem to think that they can outlast him because of the politics of gas prices heading into midterm elections at home.
We are in deep trouble. Remember we don’t have that many weapons left after Trump and Hegseth’s previous bombing raids.
One more on Iran from Paul Krugman at his Substack (This is a transcript of a podcast): The Forever War Gets Scary.
The war with Iran has just reached a very scary phase, and I’m not talking about the bombs and the drones….
If you’re following the news, you know that the sort-of ceasefire with Iran has been called off. Trump has reinstated the blockade. The Iranians are back to hitting things with their drones and missiles.
The U.S. position has been wildly erratic. First, Trump said he was going to impose a 20% toll on all shipping, basically turning the Strait of Hormuz into a U.S. toll booth, which would have been wildly illegal and irresponsible, aside from being impossible. Now he says, no, he’s going to demand that countries invest in the United States, which is also actually wildly illegal. But in any case, it’s never going to happen.
Paul Krugman
And yet, this is extremely scary. The reason to be afraid is not that I think the war is going to come to America. It’s not even that I think the United States is going to seriously try to occupy Iran. We don’t have the troops. We don’t have the missiles. Trump depleted a large share of our weaponry in the course of his failed war so far. So this is likely going to be punitive strikes, maybe some war crimes along the way, but that’s all.
But what is really frightening here is that it does appear as if Trump has given up on trying to extract something that looks like victory. If we go back just a few days ago, it appeared that what was going to happen was that Trump was going to de facto pull out, give up on the project, take advantage of falling oil prices because the strait was sort of kind of open — and try to spin the story about this was truly, this was actually an American victory and the economy is great and look at the stock market.
And, you know, just it was a little bit — more than a little bit —stupid and doomed. It was also kind of amazing because a serious attempt to end the conflict would have required facing up to reality, saying, OK, this war didn’t go well, but America remains great. Sorry about that.
But that was apparently not something Trump emotionally could bring himself to do. He just cannot admit that this venture failed. He can never admit that anything failed. We’re going to be searching for the saboteurs of the reflecting pool for the remainder of his presidency.
But what is really frightening here is that it does appear as if Trump has given up on trying to extract something that looks like victory. If we go back just a few days ago, it appeared that what was going to happen was that Trump was going to de facto pull out, give upon the project, take advantage of falling oil prices because the strait was sort of kind of open — and try to spin the story about this was truly, this was actually an American victory and the economy is great and look at the stock market.
Please read the rest. The point is that now Trump is likely to double down on his “election fraud” story. He’s announced an address to the nation tomorrow night, supposedly about election fraud in 2020, specifically in Georgia. Back to Krugman:
I don’t know how this is going to play out. But we are really now at the point where it’s pretty clear that Trump and the people around him have given up on actually winning the election. They’ve decided instead that somecombination of propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, and possibly massive illegality is their way forward.
And don’t say they wouldn’t do that. That has been famous last words every step of the way. The proposition that there were some things that even Trump and company would not do has been the best way to be wrong about everything, every step of the Trump administration.
So in a peculiar way, the fact that Trump is back to bombing Iran is really bad news, not because of the bombs. Yes, it’s terrible and all that, But not because I have any real fear that America is going to be at risk from a foreign power, but because I think it signals an enormous risk to us from our own president, our own government.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Now to the war within–between Trump’s ICE shock troops and the American people.
Yesterday, ICE announced there would be no more traffic stops, after ICE agents gunned down two more innocent people. AP: Trump administration orders ICE to suspend most vehicle stops after 2 deadly shootings.
BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — Trump administration officials told Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to suspend most vehicle stops after two deadly shootings within a week, people familiar with the decision said Tuesday.
The policy change came after an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian driver Monday in Maine and a week after one shot and killed a motorist in Houston, renewing criticism of the agency’s enforcement tactics that were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.
In Florida on Tuesday, a third man in roughly a week died during an encounter with immigration officers. This time, a 28-year-old man was killed after he was hit by a tractor trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers, authorities said.
The suspension of vehicle stops allows room for exceptions when executing a criminal warrant or working with partner agencies, according to a person who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive law enforcement operations. Matthew Felling, a spokesperson for Maine Sen. Angus King, said the senator’s office was also told by the Department of Homeland Security that ICE was suspending stops.
But Trump didn’t like that. The Hill: Trump says ICE can’t give up traffic stops: ‘Important and effective.’
President Trump on Wednesday said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should continue utilizing traffic stops, calling the tactic one of the agency’s “most important and effective” enforcement tools.
“The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, praising the agency’s efforts to enforce his deportation agenda and taking a swipe at the previous administration’s border policies.
“CRIME IS WAY DOWN IN AMERICA, in many cases with numbers that haven’t been seen in decades,” he said, later adding that “we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands.”
“The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch. I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job,” Trump said.
So apparently, the murders will continue, never mind that ICE has no legal authority to make traffic stops. They aren’t police.
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a confirmation hearing on Todd Blanche’s appointment to be Attorney General. Here’s what’s happening so far:
The Washington Post: Trump ally Blanche vows to regain senators’ trust at AG confirmation hearing.
Acting attorney general Todd Blanche defended his tumultuous record as the temporary head of the Justice Department on Wednesday as he faced bipartisan scrutiny of his bid to become the nation’s Senate-confirmed chief law enforcement officer.
Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former defense lawyer tapped last year to serve as the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, has held the department’s top job on an interim basis since April, when the president fired his predecessor, Pam Bondi.
Acting attorney general Todd Blanche takes his seat to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Evelyn Hockstein Reuters
In that time, he has accelerated investigations of the president’s political rivals; defended and then abandoned a controversial plan to create a nearly $1.8 billion fund to pay those who claim they were targeted by political prosecutions; and pushed forward with probes aimed at finding evidence to support Trump’s long-held, baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Though Blanche’s tenure has drawn bipartisan pushback at times and prompted even some Republican senators to question whether they will vote in support of his nomination, he told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that his ultimate goal is to make America safer.
“I am here today to earn your trust once more,” Blanche said at the top of his confirmation hearing. He added: “In recent years, Americans watched as the Justice Department turned against many of you and a former president, and it damaged the public’s faith in justice. We are fixing that.”
Democrats on the committee, who are unified in their plans to reject Blanche’s nomination, signaled that trust has beenirrevocably broken during Blanche’s months at the Justice Department’s helm.
Sen. Dick Durbin (Illinois), the committee’s ranking Democrat, lambasted Blanche as a “yes-man” who has overseen a hollowing-out of department personnel and never stopped viewing his job as protecting Trump.
“This nation deserves an attorney general who loves the Constitution more than he loves any single president. An attorney general who is focused on keeping Americans safe and combating corruption — not satisfying the president’s personal grievances and filling his bank accounts,” Durbin said.
Blanche also committed a little oopsie:
Blanche, himself, briefly stumbled when describing his relationship to Trump and whether he considers the president a friend.
“I’m his lawyer,” Blanche said, before quickly correcting his statement. “Was his lawyer.”
One more from Politico: Todd Blanche says he can’t meet directly with Epstein victims.
Todd Blanche fended off questions about his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files at his confirmation hearing Wednesday morning, telling members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that “when it comes to victims of his horrible man, we will never, never not talk to victims.”
But pressed by the top Judiciary Committee Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, to meet with 10 victims present in the hearing room, Blanche suggested he is personally prohibited from meeting directly with them and instead offered to have them meet with one of his deputies.
Durbin replied: “I think you ought to be in the room because you ought to hear this. You have a singular responsibility for these files.”
Earlier in the hearing, Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) handed Blanche an opportunity to defend his work overseeing the disclosure of the files. Blanche told the committee that “if we learn today, if we learn next week, if we learn next month that there’s an individual that we can investigate, indict and prosecute out of the Epstein files, you better believe it we will.”
I’ll believe that when I see it.
That’s it for me today. What stories grabbed your attention today?
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Posted: July 11, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Air Force One, cat art, caturday, cyclospora, Donald Trump, explosive diarrhea, first amendment, freedom of the press, Iran threatens revenge against Trump, Iran War, Kash Patel, Mitch McConnell dead or alive, Mojtaba Khamenei, NYT reporters subpoenaed, Qatari-donated Air Force One, Strait of Hormuz |
Good Day!!
By Yulia Sidneva
The news is as crazy as usual today. Remember when weekends used to be quiet? Here’s what’s happening:
The Justice Department has subpoenaed 4 New York Times journalists who reported on security issues related to Trump’s new Air Force One. The administration’s attacks on the First Amendment are getting out of hand.
Michael M. Grynbaum at The New York Times: Times Journalists Subpoenaed as Trump Escalates Pressure on Media.
The Trump administration issued subpoenas on Friday to several journalists for The New York Times, after the news outlet reported this week on security concerns involving President Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.
The subpoenas — which seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday — were an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations.
In some cases, the subpoenas were delivered by federal agents who showed up at reporters’ homes.
The Times denounced the administration’s actions.
“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” said David McCraw, The Times’s top newsroom lawyer, in a statement on Friday evening.
“Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used,” Mr. McCraw wrote. “This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”
The subpoenas contain few specifics, asking only that the journalists testify “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” They were issued by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. Mr. Clayton, who leads one of the country’s most prominent law enforcement offices, was recently nominated by Mr. Trump to serve as director of national intelligence.
Representatives for the White House and the U.S. attorney in Manhattan did not respond to inquiries on Friday evening.
The Times journalists who received subpoenas included Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, who reported on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had departed Turkey on the old Air Force One as a security precaution at the urging of the Secret Service. On Thursday, The Times reported that the new Air Force One, a Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. Both articles cited sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.
Before the Wednesday article was published, a senior official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation contacted a reporter and a senior editor at The Times to ask that the article be held, calling it an issue of national security, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The F.B.I. official declined to explain the security issue. The official also asked The Times to disclose its sources for the article; the newspaper refused to do so. (A spokesman for The Times, Charlie Stadtlander, confirmed the account.)
This is really frightening. Fortunately, The Times has deep pockets and can defend their journalists.
By Miroco Machiko
Ashraf Khalil and Will Weissert at the AP: New York Times reporters are subpoenaed after Air Force One reporting, newspaper says.
The Trump administration has subpoenaed several New York Times journalists after their report on security concerns involving the new Air Force One, according to the paper.
The new jet, which President Donald Trump received as a gift from Qatar, entered service last week.
The subpoenas issued Friday seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday, the paper said, adding that federal agents delivered some subpoenas to the reporters at their homes.
There was no immediate response from the White House or Department of Justice to requests for comment on Saturday….
Issuing subpoenas represents a major escalation in the Republican president’s effort to threaten independent new organizations by leveraging the power of the federal government against them. It is also part of a systematic pattern by Trump to attempt to undermine press freedom in order to shield him from negative coverage.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department issued subpoenas seeking to compel testimony from reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. In both cases, the department later withdrew the subpoenas.
During his first term, Trump suggested that the press constituted an “enemy” of the American people. Since returning to the White House last year, he has waged an aggressive campaign against the media unlike any in modern U.S. history.
Trump’s pattern of attacks against news outlets and media figures he believes are overly critical of him has included filing lawsuits against outlets whose coverage he dislikes, threatening to revoke TV broadcast licenses and seeking to bend news organizations and social media companies to his will.
This is the article the Times published on Wednesday that so outraged Trump and his goons.
Tyler Pager Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt, and Eric Lipton at The New York Times (gift article): Security Precaution Led Trump to Use Old Air Force One in Leaving Turkey.
President Trump flew out of Turkey on Wednesday night on the old Air Force One instead of his new Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8 as a security precaution related to the resumption of hostilities with Iran, according to people briefed on the plans, who said the change came at the urging of the Secret Service.
The swap deepens questions about whether the new plane, which the president had pressed to be ready as soon as possible, was retrofitted with sufficient security measures over the last year. Lawmakers and some officials have raised concerns about whether the expedited timeline allowed for the addition of an advanced missile defense system and other modifications used to protect the president.
By Jacquie Hughes
In a statement, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said that “the new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff.” [….]
But people briefed on the new plane’s capabilities, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues, said the new plane does not have all the features of the older plane. The switch in the president’s aircraft when he departed Turkey was a precautionary measure made at the advice of the Secret Service and not because of a specific threat, they said.
Mr. Trump, who has marveled at the luxury touches of his new jet, flew on it on Monday night to go to Turkey for a NATO summit. After his arrival, the conflict with Iran reignited, and the United States launched a series of strikes against that country while Mr. Trump and NATO leaders were about 1,000 miles away in Ankara.
The president on Wednesday denied that the change in his aircraft was made because of security concerns. Instead, he asserted that the swap was so the new jet could leave early and make stops at U.S. military bases to show it off to the troops because the aircraft is “magnificent.”
But when pressed by reporters in Ankara about the reason for the change, Mr. Trump also repeatedly noted that he was Iran’s No. 1 target, and referred at one point to having seen or been briefed on a list of Tehran’s targets in recent days.
You can use the gift link to read the rest.
So Trump’s on again off again war with Iran is back on. Iran apparently fired on some ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump ordered some retaliatory strikes on Iran while he was overseas. Iran is also threatening to assassinate Trump and he is again threatening them with war crimes.
AP: US demands Iran publicly state that Strait of Hormuz is open and Tehran won’t attack ships anymore.
The U.S. is demanding that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and that ships crossing the vital corridor won’t be attacked anymore, senior U.S. officials said Friday, adding that internal Tehran power struggles have made it difficult to reach and keep a deal.
The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners trying to sabotage the ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.
It comes as U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated on social media Friday that he views the interim ceasefire deal as “OVER!” But he said the U.S. would continue talks aimed at putting a permanent end to the war.
The officials said Friday that Trump is giving U.S. negotiators limited time to reach a deal with Iran, but, in a sign of the challenges ahead, they underscored that the president had a wide range of options if talks fall apart. They also said a power struggle was playing out in real time in Iran after U.S. and Israeli strikes at the start of the war killed its longtime leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei….
The U.S. is working on pressing Iran to make a public statement that the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for world energy markets, is open and free to ships to transit, the officials said.
By Tetsuo Takahara
Barak Ravid at Axios: Iran’s supreme leader pledges revenge for his father’s assassination amid Trump death threats.
Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei announced on Saturday that revenge for his father’s assassination “will most certainly be carried out.”
Why it matters: The statement was published after the burial ceremony for his father, former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Throughout the weeklong funeral procession, there were massive public calls for the death of President Trump.
Mojtaba Khamenei, who didn’t appear inI public during the funeral ceremonies, didn’t specifically mention Trump. But earlier this week, Israel gave the U.S. information that suggested Iranian officials recently discussed the idea of assassinating Trump, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
- On his way back from Turkey on Wednesday, Trump traveled in the old Air Force One plane rather than the new plane that the U.S. received from Qatar. The New York Times reported that security concerns prompted the mid-trip switch in planes.
What he’s saying: Mojtaba Khamenei — who was seriously wounded in the attack that killed his father, and hasn’t appeared in public since — pledged on his Telegram channel to “avenge your pure blood and the blood of all those martyred in these two wars by bringing the criminal and dishonorable killers to justice.”
-
“This revenge is the demand of our nation, and it will most certainly be carried out. These criminals — whose names are known from top to bottom — will take to their graves the unfulfilled wish of dying peacefully in their beds. They should know that this does not depend on my personal presence or that of any other official,” he wrote.
-
Khamenei added that whether he is alive or dead, the revenge for his father’s death “will be accomplished,” and stressed that “soon, freedom-loving people throughout the world will each carry out part of this divine mission.”
Read more at Axios.
Kathleen Culliton at Raw Story: Trump’s ‘incredibly vulgar’ threat reveals secret tactic: Ex-State official.
President Donald Trump’s promise to “decimate and destroy all areas of Iran” stunned a former Obama administration official Saturday morning.
Richard Stengel, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, shared his alarm over Trump’s recent Truth Social threat with MS NOW viewers.
By Miroco Machiko
“The fact of an American president threatening genocide against the whole people in case he’s assassinated is more than unseemly,” Stengel said. “It’s it’s incredibly vulgar and undiplomatic language.”
Stengel was responding to Trump’s own reaction to the Wall Street Journal report earlier this week that a new Iranian plan to assassinate him may have been uncovered by Israeli intelligence.
Late Friday night, Trump responded with a direct threat.
“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran,” wrote Trump, “with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!”
He is such an idiot.
Late yesterday, MSNOW reported that Kash Patel was called on the carpet at the White House to respond to reports of his using his job as FBI director to gain access to luxury travel.
Carol Leonnig, Jacqueline Alemany, Ken Dilanian, Vaughn Hillyard and Jake Traylor at MSNOW: Kash Patel called to White House on heels of continued questions over his behavior.
FBI Director Kash Patel abruptly cancelled a planned flight Friday to see his girlfriend in Chicago this weekend, after top administration officials frustrated with Patel summoned him to the White House, according to two people with knowledge of the change.
The precise reasons that Patel’s political bosses demanded he cancel his trip and report to the West Wing are unclear, but several people said top Trump deputies were disturbed by a range of actions by Patel. Some found it confounding that the FBI director was leaving town amid the recent revival of the war with Iran and alleged threats against the president’s life, according to a person familiar with efforts to help Patel rebuild trust with the White House. For this article, people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive internal matter.
Others cited two unforced errors by Patel that created bad optics for the Trump administration, the first being his early morning tweet bashing MS NOW for its coverage of his high-flying lifestyle, they said, in which Patel boasted: “my jet ski is gold plated…dumbass.”
By Shozo Ozaki
The second misstep, the people said, was that extensive reports by MS NOW and other news outlets about taxpayers footing the bill for Patel’s globe-trotting ultimately spurred formal questions from Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, a critical ally of President Trump’s.
On Thursday, MS NOW reported exclusively that Grassley had first asked Patel in a May letter about his use of the FBI jet and his decision to purchase luxury armored BMWs so he could travel more discreetly in the Washington, DC area. In a separate letter, Congressional Democrats said they had received information that Patel was demanding that FBI staff arrange special perks on his official trips, including a jet ski excursion and a helicopter tour. The FBI has disputed that, and said Patel had complied with federal rules pertaining to his travel.
White House spokespeople denied the report, but…
Patel cancelled his flight to Chicago just as he was preparing to leave on Friday morning, according to three people briefed on his move. But the trip to Chicago was already stirring anger and controversy inside the FBI, multiple current and former law enforcement officials told MS NOW. He was planning to attend his girlfriend Alexis Wilkins’ performance Saturday at a country music festival held in the parking lot of a major Chicago stadium, the three people said. Patel’s staff had arranged for the director to make an office visit Friday to the Chicago field office to coincide with his trip, according to two other people with knowledge of the director’s schedule.
Several FBI agents complained internally that this office visit was belatedly-added cover to justify Patel flying the director’s jet — which is estimated to cost tens of thousands of dollars for such domestic trips — to enjoy a weekend in Chicago with his girlfriend, the people said.
“Patel was coming (to Chicago) today for a fake office visit for his girlfriend’s country concert this weekend,” one of the sources briefed on the trip said. The source noted Patel “cancelled the trip while on the tarmac at Andrews” and was “summoned to the White House immediately,” adding that it was “apparent panic” and “believed to be in response to his morning tweet today.”
Read he rest at MSNOW.
We still don’t know whether Mitch McConnell is alive or brain dead. Since it was reported that he was found unconscious and given CPR, I think it’s most likely that he was intubated and is still on life support. The chances of an 84-year-old man recovering after CPR outside a hospital and very slim. It’s also odd that his wife would leave for a trip to China if there was any hope of McConnell regaining consciousness anytime soon.
David Smith at The Guardian: Mitch McConnell mystery deepens as health questions remain unanswered.
Mystery surrounding Senator Mitch McConnell’s health is deepening as the US Congress prepares to return from recess next week.
McConnell, 84, has not been seen in public since he was admitted to hospital in the Washington area on 14 June. Nearly a month later, the Kentucky Republican’s office has released only sparse updates, saying he is “continuing to improve” and remains engaged with Senate business, while refusing to disclose the nature of his illness or explain why he remains hospitalised.
Emergency dispatch audio obtained by media outlets indicates that first responders were sent to his home following reports of an unconscious person and that CPR was under way. On Friday, CNN released video footage that showed a person on a stretcher being wheeled towards an ambulance, though their face was not visible.
The senator’s office has neither confirmed nor denied the reports, leaving a vacuum that has been filled with fevered speculation, based on circumstantial evidence, about McConnell’s condition.
“I think he’s dead,” opined Malcolm Nance, a career counter-terrorism intelligence officer, in an interview with Amy McGrath, who lost to McConnell in the 2020 election, on the Truth in the Barrel podcast. “It’s very clear. I heard that 911 tape and I was an EMT when I was in the military at one point and you know we used to do CPR a lot. One of the things that teach you about CPR is the probability of coming back from CPR is very, very, very small.”
By Maki
McGrath, a former marine fighter pilot, replied: “Well, it’s an interesting take. We’ll see what happens there as well.”
The Senate returns on Monday for a four-week legislative session dominated by defence spending, national security and government funding bills. McConnell’s continued absence threatens to complicate Republican efforts to advance those measures with only a narrow 53-47 majority.
McConnell chairs the Senate rules committee and a defence appropriations panel, which is crucial in shaping Pentagon funding and where Republicans hold only a one-seat advantage.
Without him, partisan disputes over annual appropriations could become even harder to resolve ahead of the 1 October deadline for new federal spending. Congressional leaders are already signalling that another temporary spending measure may be needed to avert a government shutdown.
Read more at the Guardian link.
Have you heard about that horrible stomach virus that is going around? It comes from a parasite called cyclospora that the CDC used to closely monitor.
Ryan Grenoble at HuffPo: CDC Stopped Monitoring Parasite Now Causing Explosive Diarrhea Across The Country.
The country is in the midst of a nationwide outbreak of explosive diarrhea caused by a parasite the CDC stopped surveilling at the federal level in July 2025.
That’s around the same time the Trump administration began haphazardly attacking and defunding federal health and science agencies under the guise of “government efficiency,” with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. separately also pushing out critical federal scientists and researchers.
Prior to that date, a collaborative CDC program called FoodNet helped federal and state regulators track eight foodborne pathogens.
Among them was cyclospora, a heat-loving spherical parasite that’s sickened 1,000 people in an ongoing outbreak in Michigan (the state’s worst), with similar illnesses cropping up in 28 other states.
In addition to cyclospora, surveillance of campylobacter, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia was cut. FoodNet now only regularly monitors two diseases: Salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.
A list of CDC talking points seen by NBC News last summer clearly blamed funding for the program’s drastic cutback.
“Funding has not kept pace with the resources required to maintain the continuation of FoodNet surveillance for all eight pathogens,” the talking point read.
More at the link.
Those are the stories that caught my attention today. What’s on your mind?
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Posted: July 4, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: 4th of July, Antwerp World Diamond Center, Clean Air Act, Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump, Epstein Files, General Charles Q. Brown, Independence Day, Jr., Maj. Jason Watson, Mt. Rushmore, Trump Corruption, Trump Pardons, Zohran Mamdani |
Good Day!!
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.
Here in Boston, there will be the usual outdoor concert with even more fireworks than usual. NBC10 Boston: Here’s what to know about the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular today.
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.
People celebrating at the event are being held off the Charles River Esplanade until later in the day this year, however, due to the extreme heat our region has been experiencing. The gates will open to the public at 4 p.m. It was previously scheduled for 12 p.m.
Temperatures are expected in the mid-90s with heat indices running around 100-105 for Saturday’s display, and public health officials have stressed the importance of celebrating safely, drinking water and finding shade.
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.”
The City of Boston is also hosting a series of events on Saturday, July 4, including an Independence Day Parade at 9 a.m. starting at Copley Square, a reading of the Declaration of Independence from the Old State House Balcony at 10:15 a.m. and an Independence Day Oration at Faneuil Hall at 11 a.m., featuring special guests including Nathaniel Sheidley, president and CEO of Revolutionary Spaces; award-winning writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates; and Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston.
I’m sure there will be celebratory events where you live too. I’m too old and I can’t tolerate crowds and, but I like the idea of it.
In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave a wonderful, inclusive speech. NBC News: Mamdani offers a contrast to Trump’s vision for America in a 250th anniversary address.
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.
Read more at the link.
Last night Trump gave a speech at Mt. Rushmore that, predictably, was angry and partisan. Shawn McCreesh at The New York Times: At Mount Rushmore, Trump Veers From Patriotism to ‘Communism.’
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.”
Trump has no clue what communism is.
Tom Schaller offers an alternative point of view on the Declaration at Public Notice: Declaring War on The Declaration. How Trump is shredding our founding document 250 years later.
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.
BBC News: Fireworks, flyovers and a ‘really long’ Trump speech ahead as US celebrates 250th.
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”.
A few news stories:
The New York Times: Air Force Detains Officer Who Called for Trump’s Impeachment at Capitol.
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.”
The Daily Beast: Top Retired General Issues Scathing Trump Takedown.
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.
Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have tried to deploy the National Guard in blue cities, successfully in Washington, D.C., while simultaneously carrying out a purge of top generals.
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 Independent: DOJ refuses to hand over Epstein files after judge’s order.
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.
PBS News: A Belgian diamond group is gifting Trump a lavish ring after that industry won tariff relief.
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.
Disgusting.
The New York Times: Trump Pardons Violators of the Clean Air Act and a Major Donor.
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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