Shapiro, Rufo, and Rogan are three of the most important figures of the modern right. That they’ve all started sounding like comedy “hot dog men” of late suggests the right has a genuine problem on its hands.
Mostly Monday Reads: As the Senate Churns
Posted: July 13, 2026 Filed under: just because | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Confirmed Bachelor Lady Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Senator Lindsey Graham Obituaries 12 Comments
“Mitch McConnell isn’t messing around in his new leadership role.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
We’ve been playing Where’s Mitch for about a month now, when Republican Senator Lindsey Graham died suddenly of an Aortic Dissection. The Republican Senate Majority is already a close call without the current situation, and polls show a good possibility of a switch to Democratic Leadership, given the chaos of this Trump Term. Given the headlines and the accompanying stories, I think we can safely say that whatever respect Graham may have had, he sacrificed it to serve Orange Caligula.
Here’s the story that grabbed me first, today. This is an Op Ed at Public Notice from Tom Schaller. “Lindsey Graham and the rot of modern conservatism. From Gingrich to Trump, Graham was a fixture as the GOP became increasingly malignant.” Sounds right to me.
The sudden death this weekend of Lindsey Graham at age 71 — young, by today’s gerontocratic standards — is a personal parable for the changes within the conservative movement and modern Republican Party during Graham’s political career.
Indeed, few national elected officials so perfectly bridge the rapid rise of the Newt Gingrich-led GOP to the steady gutting of American conservatism by Donald Trump over the past decade.
Graham is not the sole member of that bridge generation; the career of fellow Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, for example, spans back further, to the days when Barry Goldwater remained conservatism’s intellectual beacon. But Graham perfectly embodies the post-1990s morphing of conservatism into the malignant force that, today, animates Eric Hoffer’s famous observation that every great cause “begins as a movement, becomes as business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
The analysis is a long, winding road of the shifting malignancy that became Senator Lindsey Graham. A few examples stood out to me. As we all know and remember, Graham never met a military excursion he didn’t support. Schaller’s conclusion, however, makes all the prior evidence add up completely.
Lindsey Graham died a coward. His three-decade career in national politics should be remembered for more than his shameless, pusillanimous capitulations — but not, unfortunately, for some noble pursuit or purpose he used his chameleon-like political skills to secure. He should instead be remembered for using his power to bow and scrape, to change his political colors, largely if not solely in service to himself.
Conservative figures like the deathly-ill Mitch McConnell or Chief Justice John Roberts have been described as destroyers and “gravediggers” of American democracy. But at least they have wielded their shovels to bury America’s constitutional traditions and safeguards in pursuit of their own pinched and petty political philosophies.
Lindsey Graham, American chameleon, did nothing of the sort. He cowered and capitulated for three decades in Congress merely to be at the center of power. From 1994 revolutionary to 2026 poltroon, he embodies the movement-to-business-to-racket transformation of modern conservatism. He lived for nothing and died the same way.
May he rest in pusillanimity.
That’s pretty much the consensus from all sorts of media contributors. Of course, we do have the major trad media that’s doing its best to make the proverbial sow’s ear into a purse. Take CBS, for example, Puleeze. “Breaking down Lindsey Graham’s key accomplishments. Tributes are pouring in for longtime South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died Saturday at 71 from an aortic dissection, according to the medical examiner’s preliminary findings. CBS News‘ Fin Gomez breaks down some of his key accomplishments.” Do not watch the messiness they put on air with a full stomach. I’m not sure being a leader on ‘stronger, more muscular’ on military and diplomatic fronts is a positive thing.
The Washington Post, another legacy media outlet, has this headline today. “Graham’s journey with Trump embodies how the Republican Party has changed.” He was definitely a follower of whatever the current craze was, that’s for sure. Dan Merica wrote this analysis.
Lindsey Graham was not always a fan of Donald Trump.
But the late senator, whose death was announced on Sunday, so forcefully came around on the president that Trump was likely one of the last people to speak with the South Carolina Republican on Saturday.
That shift — from outspoken critic to unyielding confidant — exemplifies how Trump has transformed the Republican Party so completely in his own image, turning one-time skeptics into true believers while exiling those who refused to bend to his will.
Consider this: Graham went from calling Trump a “jackass” who would cost the party the presidency in 2016 to saying Trump was “not far behind God” a decade later.
Graham and Trump’s relationship began, in earnest, during the Republicans’ 2016 presidential primary, decades after Graham entered Congress as part of the Republican revolution of 1994. Graham’s campaign was short-lived; he entered the race in June 2015 and ended it six months later without fanfare. Two weeks after Graham’s announcement, however, Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower and, well, never exited.
Graham was one of Trump’s harshest critics during his brief campaign, highlighted by the then-GOP frontrunner giving out the senator’s cell phone number at an event and Graham later calling Trump a “jackass.” Trump routinely mocked Graham’s low standing in the polls and called him “one of the dumbest human beings I have ever seen.” And Graham vented about the way Trump spoke about Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona).
After exiting in December 2015, Graham first endorsed former Florida governor Jeb Bush, then got behind Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed,” Graham wrote on Twitter in May 2016 when Cruz dropped out. “And we will deserve it.”
Graham didn’t even vote for Trump in 2016, deciding instead to stand on the platform of the proverbial Trump train and vote for independent Evan McMullin.
What a difference a decade makes.
I believe that Graham morphed quicker than that. He went from the old McCain corner of voice of reason to the voice of treason pretty quickly. He was the most overt opportunist I think I’ve ever witnessed. The only thing he was consistent on was war mongering. He never heeded the warnings from Lincoln or Eisenhower about the threat of the military-industrial complex.
Politico now reports that Trump wants his seat to go to his sister. “McMaster, Trump look to Graham’s sister for Senate. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to announce the interim replacement later Monday.”
President Donald Trump said Monday he wants South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to appoint Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to serve the remainder of the late senator’s term.
One Republican familiar with McMaster’s plans said the governor intends to appoint Nordone to serve in the Senate for the rest of the year. This person was granted anonymity to discuss the decision.
McMaster is expected to announce his decision about who will replace Graham during a press conference later Monday afternoon.
“I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina,” Trump said in a post on social media. “This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!”
Even if she’s appointed, it’s unclear if Nordone would want to run for the full term. A number of South Carolina Republicans have already expressed interest in taking over Graham’s seat since his death Sunday, including Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).
Trump’s word carries significant weight in deeply conservative South Carolina, and his preference for a caretaker appointment triggers a wide-open primary to take Graham’s place as the Republican nominee for Senate.
The Republican Party has now made me unable to stomach voting for their women. The story behind the two of them is endearing. This story is from Yahoo! News. “Inside the family life of Lindsey Graham, the senator who helped raise his little sister. Graham, who died Saturday at 71, became his sister Darline’s legal guardian after their parents died 15 months apart. He never married, and called her the closest person in his life.” Jack Brewster has the story. It does include a few comments about a gay man and his commitment to undermining his own identity. Again, opportunism seems to rule his decisions.
Lindsey Graham was one of the rare U.S. senators who never married and had no children. But the South Carolina Republican, who died Saturday at 71 after a brief and sudden illness, did not consider himself a man without a family.
“I’ve never married. I guess I attribute that to timing, too,” Graham wrote in his 2015 memoir. “The opportunity never presented itself at the right time, or I never found time to meet the right girl, or the right girl was smart enough not to have time for me. I haven’t been lucky that way. But I have a family.”
That family was, above all, his younger sister, Darline Graham Nordone.
I tend to fall more in line with what Jeer Heet offers in his Graham Obit at The Nation today. “Lindsey Graham Chose Evil. Conspiracy theorists liked to say that Graham’s Trump sycophancy was a result of blackmail. But the truth is worse: He stuck with Trump to keep the US war machine going.” I think he will be mostly remembered for his war mongering and his complete reservation on Trump.
Although Senator Lindsey Graham, who died unexpectedly on Saturday at 71, was one of the most odious figures in American public life, he does deserve a partial defense from a strangely pervasive calumny directed against him by liberal critics. In the last decade of his life, Graham underwent a dramatic political transformation. In 2015 and early 2016, Graham became a no-holds-barred foe of Donald Trump, whom he lambasted as “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who “represents the worst in America.” But Graham started to warm to Trump once the insurgent candidate won the Republican primary on May 4, 2016. This process accelerated after Trump was elected president in November, when Graham became, against stiff competition, the president’s most obsequious lackey.
Graham’s metamorphosis was all the more startling because his earlier disdain for Trump sprang logically from his political history. Prior to 2016, Graham was best known as the ultra-hawkish ally of fellow war-happy senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman (their noxious nickname for themselves was the “Three Amigos”), which made him a natural opponent of candidate Trump’s isolationist foreign policy. Further, Graham had a history of bipartisanship, working with Democrats on immigration reform and campaign finance and casting the sole Republican vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nominations. This gave Graham a profile, on domestic matters at least, more mainstream than Trump’s burn-it-down populism.
What explains Graham’s quick change of political identity? One theory popular among Resistance liberals and Never Trump conservatives was that the senator, who was widely rumored to be a closeted gay man, had been blackmailed by Trump, perhaps with kompromat provided by Vladimir Putin. In 2019, for instance MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle dropped a heavy-breathing hint along this line by suggesting that Trump knows “something pretty extreme about Lindsey Graham.”
The blackmail theory was never grounded in evidence and suffered the further disadvantage of making Graham seem like a victim rather than someone making affirmative choices about his life. The actual story of Graham’s ideological conversion is much worse than any conspiracy, because he gave us his principles for the worst of reasons: to stay close to the center of power, stave off MAGA primary challenges, and bring Trump around to Graham’s deeply militarist worldview.
It’s hard for me to spend so much time and energy on Graham, but he was always along for every political ride, one way or another, grabbing onto any diatribe he could. I hope these next few days will at least raise questions about the idea of “to thyself be true.” He confused me. He denied being a gay man, but sure rode his own interests into some disturbing behaviors and politics. I bet he’d love to see all this attention he’s generated by dying so unexpectedly and young.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: To the Depths of Depravity and Beyond!
Posted: July 10, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, 2026 MidTerm elections, Faithful Execution | Tags: 2026 midterms, @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Faithful Execution, Faithful Execution and the Removal of Power, Help America Vote Act (HAVA), SAVE America Act, stray cats, U.S. Election Assistance Commission 9 CommentsGood Day, Sky Dancers!
“The Mitch McConnell saga continues to evolve. It is rumored FBI Director Kash Patel, while on a very early morning patrol of our Nation’s Capitol, made a grizzly discovery in the recently drained Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.” John Buss, @repeat1968
If Nixon was a crook, what on earth do we label Orange Caligula? He appears to be surpassing Bond and comic book villains. He doesn’t even appear cognizant enough to spell his name, and we know he can’t walk straight. What’s the deal then? My first guess is that Stephen Miller is really in charge of everything but decorating forays. However, there seems to be a lot more going on than just one wicked man could possibly do.
This is the headline today in Lawfare. “Faithful Execution and the Removal Power. President Trump is exercising his removal power in ways that defeat his duty to faithfully execute the law.” Nick Bednar and Todd Phillips provide the analysis.
On July 9, President Trump removed or forced out all three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Congress established the commission to aid state governments in administering elections and to certify voting equipment. It consists of four members appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, who serve fixed four-year terms. Although its members lack statutory removal protections, Congress designed the commission with other devices commonly used to preserve independence from the president, including requirements that no more than two members be affiliated with the same political party and that three members agree to any action, a combination that necessarily requires all actions to be bipartisan.
In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court affirmed that Article II of the Constitution allows the president to remove principal officers—such as the members of the EAC—at will. The Supreme Court anchored its decision in the idea that the president must have adequate control over executive-branch officers to carry out his constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” As the current moment illustrates, however, the removal power also allows the president to undermine faithful execution by removing principal officers tasked with implementing the laws enacted by Congress.
We argue that removals of this kind exceed the president’s removal power. The Take Care Clause obliges the president to ensure the laws enacted by Congress are executed. A removal that leaves an agency legally incapable of acting prevents that execution. The Supreme Court was aware of the potential contradiction between expanding the removal power and the president’s obligation under the Take Care Clause in Slaughter, because we, the authors, filed an amicus brief alerting the Court to the issue. Courts can enforce this limit, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Cook—issued the same day as Slaughter—supplies the remedial tools. Enforcing the Take Care Clause would ensure that multimember commissions, such as the EAC, remain capable of enforcing the laws Congress has enacted.
Read the article for a full list of ramifications. It’s really worth it. Why is this suddenly an important issue? We know that Trump is doing everything inside and outside the power bestowed on the Presidency to throw the elections in his favor. He’s highly unpopular, and the polls are running against him and Republicans in General. So, with Trump’s bull shitting in deep fail, he’s decided to do whatever he wants. This is from NBC News. “Trump ousts remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission ahead of midterms. The dismissals hamstring a key bipartisan agency just months before the midterms.” Jane C. Timm and Jonathan Allen share the lede. It might be time to hit the panic button.
The White House ousted all three sitting members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Thursday, hamstringing the bipartisan agency ahead of the midterm elections.
The Democratic commissioners — Thomas Hicks and Benjamin W. Hovland — were fired by email, two people familiar with their terminations said. One of the sources also said Republican commissioner Christy McCormick received a call and was asked to resign.
“They will be replaced,” said a White House official who confirmed that all three commissioners are gone. Presidential appointments to the EAC are subject to Senate confirmation — by no means a quick process.
White House aide Morgan DeWitt Snow sent the Democratic commissioners a brief email of termination around 4 p.m. ET, one of the people familiar with the dismissals said.
“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I’m writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the person said the email read.
The EAC is a bipartisan commission that helps state and local officials run elections, certifying election equipment and working with other agencies to ensure state and local elections run smoothly. From 2018 to 2025, it distributed more than $1 billion in grants for election security, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Hovland, one of the Democratic commissioners, told NBC News he was returning from a work trip to a Missouri election office when he was fired.
The EAC, he said, has acted as a clearinghouse, sharing best practices between states and helping them use their limited resources to run elections. Taking away a key federal agency designed to help state and local election administrators will have a negative impact, Hovland said.
“When you’re asking more and more of people without giving them the necessary resources, you know, mistakes happen. And so there’s this real risk of like self-fulfilling prophecies in that way,” he said. “It feels much more like a death-of-1,000-cuts situation than there’s one particular thing that you’re concerned about.”
The commission normally has two Republicans and two Democrats; one Republican, Don Palmer, resigned this year, leaving it with just three members.
Is it time to hit the panic button yet? Are there any Senators and Representatives willing to combat this obvious overreach? Aaron Blacksberg of Just Security asks this question in his headline. “What is the Election Assistance Commission With No Commissioners?”
Last night, President Donald Trump effectively relieved all three serving commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) of their positions. According to media reports, the Commission’s two Democratic members, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, were fired by email, while the one Republican member, Christy McCormick, was allowed to resign. All three commissioners were unanimously confirmed by the Senate – Hicks and McCormick in 2015 and Hovland in 2019. The EAC’s fourth commissioner and other Republican member, Don Palmer, previously resigned on April 29. In a statement to media, the White House referenced last week’s Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Slaughter, stating: “The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted. The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so.”
The EAC is a bipartisan, independent commission that was established by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002. It requires an affirmative vote by at least three of its commissioners to conduct official business or establish policy. Historically, the EAC has operated for extended periods without a quorum and for several years had zero sitting commissioners.
Since the EAC was created, the commissioners have worked in partnership with state and local election officials to advance the professionalization and integrity of the election profession. A fully functioning EAC is critical for promulgating the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) to certify voting equipment, serving as a clearinghouse of best practices and training support, disbursing HAVA Election Security Grants, and compiling the biennial Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) report.
So what does it mean for this Commission to have no commissioners? In the absence of the Senate confirming new commissioners – by law the EAC must have partisan balance and congressional leaders are tasked with making recommendations to the President – some business can and will continue.
Significantly, the EAC staff has authority to continue disbursing Election Security Grants to states – the primary source of federal election funding – and to continue certifying voting equipment under current standards. Below is an overview of who holds the remaining limited EAC authority and what that authority does and does not encompass.
Again, you can read the details at the link. Seeing it broken down into what can and can’t happen now is shocking for any of us well-schooled in the functioning of government. Our collective pants should be on fire. This Talking Points article, written by John Light, has a headline that gets straight to the point. “Trump Seizes on SCOTUS Decision to Mess With the Midterms.”
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court handed down a pair of decisions finding that 1. Trump could exert tremendous control over independent executive branch agencies, including firing their commissioners and 2. the Fed, also an independent agency, was different. Since then, the question of where Trump would strike first has lingered.
Now we know. Last night, Trump forced out all remaining commissioners atop the Election Assistance Commission — two Democrats and a Republican — just months before the midterms. In a statement to ProPublica, an unnamed White House official gestured toward the same logic the Supreme Court used, saying that Trump “reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.”
The agency largely does the fairly anodyne work of providing election security support for states and distributing funding. But it has figured prominently in Trump’s attempt at a federal takeover of voting.
In a sweeping 2025 executive order, Trump directed the EAC to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to voter registration forms. He also ordered the agency to use its power to distribute funds to pressures states to require that all ballots be received by Election Day, not simply mailed to officials by Election Day.
That executive order and another 2026 order on elections have largely been blocked by the courts.
The question, writes election law scholar Rick Hasen, “is what Trump might try to do with the EAC without commissioners. Most boldly (and I would argue illegally) Trump could try to direct the commissioner-less EAC to do his bidding, for example by stating that the EAC must amend the federal voter registration form that states must accept for federal elections to include documentary proof of citizenship.”
“If he tries anything like this, it will be high profile and very important litigation that will end up at the Supreme Court on the emergency docket over the summer,” Hasen added
And, as we know, the Surpreme Court can no longer be fully trusted to reflect the Constition and the laws passed in 250 years of Congress. Trump is also set on passing the so-called SAVE America Act. Fortunately, he’s not vetoing anything, but it should startle us all that he’s hell-bent on destroying voting as we know it in this democratic republic. This from The Hill. “Trump says he won’t sign housing bill in protest of SAVE America Act inaction.” Julia Manchester has the story.
President Trump said Friday he will not sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which is set to pass into law tonight, in protest of the Senate not passing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act.
“THE SAVE AMERICA ACT’S non-passage is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!” Trump exclaimed in a lengthy Truth Social post.
rump proceeded to call on Senate Republicans to terminate the filibuster in an effort to pass the legislation, warning that Democrats will eliminate the parliamentary procedure if they win back the majority in the chamber.
“The Dumocrats will TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, if and when they ever get the chance to do so, in their very first hour – And I will no longer be able to call them Dumocrats again! The title of DUMB will revert to the Republicans who allowed this horrible calamity to happen to our Party, and our Nation, itself!” the president said.
Trump’s comments come just hours before the bipartisan housing legislation, which was passed late last month, is automatically set to go into law at midnight if the president does not veto the bill.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said Trump will not stop the legislation even if he doesn’t sign it.
“He won’t veto the bill. We already know that. He’ll either allow it to just go into law, or he’ll put his signature on it and take partial ownership, and I hope he does the latter,” Johnson said in an interview with USA Today.
The president sent shock waves through Washington when he abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the bill at the Capitol last month, saying he would not sign the legislation until the SAVE America Act is passed.
This is what the pursuit of nothing but blind power, attention, and greed leads to when put in charge of a government. We no longer lead the world. We are not the “shining city on the hill” touted by Ronald Reagan. We are now anathema in the hearts of governments and people who once struggled to get the form of government that is being blown up by one narcissistic man with dementia, surrounded by idiots and living demons.
Ms Sparkles awaits her trip to the Vet so she’ll come back to her forever colony and meals healthy and spayed.
I’m late again today. I’ve been trapping the feral cats around my house and on my block. Today, very early, Ms. Sparkles, whom I captured yesterday afternoon, returned from her trip to be spayed and given shots. This picture is when I caught her. She jumped out of the cage, ran to the food bowl, and her tribe. Sparkles joined Onyx, Bobo, and Silver in their little corner of the Bywater.
I’ve worked with Trap Dat Cat before. When I first got my Kristal, I was hard-pressed for cash, and Nita Hemeter took her to a vet and had her spayed. I raised enough money from my friends on Facebook to pay for the costs. It’s really important to have feral cat colonies here because we’re really close to the ports lined up and down the Mississippi River. Rats and all kinds of things thrive in that ecosystem. The cats control them. The city even recognizes their role in keeping the restaurants and homes free from vermin.
There are still lots of cats living in the old, abandoned Navy Base that is now being turned into a living community with commercial space. As they flee to us, they have a chance to be rehomed or welcomed into a feral cat colony like the one that lives under the very old homes and piers, as my feral cats do.
If you want to get your fill of pictures of some really cute kittens and cats, take a look at the link. Donations are also always welcome. I know Kristal, and I am happy to have them.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Trump goes all Mafia on FIFA
Posted: July 6, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, 2026 FIFA, Trump Mafia Moves | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, FIFA 2026, ICE, ICE Thugs, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Trump Crime Syndicate, Trump ruins everything for nearly everyone 12 Comments
“Seems like for the estimated $10M midnight apocalyptic firework extravaganza for our Dear Leader, they could have afforded a T.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
While getting ready for the Netherlands v Mexico last night, I just happened to flick through some headlines and let out a loud ‘What the Hell?’ Loud enough to get a response from down the hall: “What now?” The hell was two headlines — one from the New York Times and the other from The Independent — that convinced me it was real. I posted excerpts in response to JJ’s post last night downthread.
It basically gave the world another good reason to hate us or laugh at what we’ve become under Orange Caligula. My thought is we’ve become a Mafia state. This is the headline from the NYT: “Trump Asked FIFA to Review U.S. Player’s Suspension. Now He’s Eligible to Play. The reversal of Folarin Balogun’s World Cup suspension is highly unusual. It was the first time since 1962 that FIFA has nullified a suspension for a red card received during the World Cup.”
It’s basically big news today, so I’ll lead with it. This time, he insulted our friend and ally, Belgium, so I’ll start with their response today as reported by the AP. It’s reported by Samuel Petraquin. Also, there are pictures of the offense that got the red card. “Belgian federation to challenge FIFA’s decision to let Folarin Balogun play in World Cup match.”
The Belgian soccer federation wants an explanation from FIFA about a decision to let U.S forward Folarin Balogun play at the World Cup despite getting a red card in his previous game.
Belgium takes on the United States later Monday for a spot in the quarterfinals.
The Belgian federation (RBFA) said it has still not received either “FIFA’s decision or any explanation regarding this matter. In these circumstances, it has no choice but to challenge the player’s eligibility for the upcoming match.”
It did not specify where it intends to appeal FIFA’s decision.
U.S. President Donald Trump intervened on behalf of star U.S. forward Balogun, whose red-card suspension was lifted in a decision that allowed him to play against Belgium.
The Belgian federation said it learned through media reports about the FIFA’s move and sent a letter to the governing body requesting a copy of the decision as well as an explanation of the process.
“As its only response, FIFA sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal,” it said. “No information whatsoever was provided by FIFA.
Politico reports this on the Trump maneuver. “Inside the White House push to get Folarin Balogun back on the field. President Donald Trump got involved minutes after the U.S. striker received a red card that would have banned him from a crucial match.” Sophia Cai has the lede.
The campaign to keep Folarin Balogun on the field for the United States’ World Cup run began just minutes after the team’s leading goal-scorer received a red card that would sideline him for the team’s next match.
Following Wednesday’s victory against Bosnia and Herzegovina, White House FIFA World Cup Task Force executive director Andrew Giuliani alerted President Donald Trump to Balogun’s punishment for a rash tackle — removal from the Bosnia match and a routine one-match suspension that would keep him out of a must-win encounter against Belgium.
Trump and Giuliani had been speaking regularly about the World Cup for months. During the planning stages for the tournament, the president received frequent briefings on logistics, security and the U.S. team’s prospects. Once the competition began in mid-June, those conversations accelerated to multiple times each week.
By Wednesday night, the White House had committed itself to taking action over Balogun’s red card, which some soccer analysts believed to be a harsh punishment for the infraction. Giuliani, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and senior U.S. Soccer Federation officials — all of whom had watched the Bosnia match in person at Levi’s Stadium near San Francisco — began activating plans to challenge the referee’s on-field decision to issue a red card. Successful appeals of World Cup red cards are exceedingly rare.
That kicked off four days of coordinated lobbying, legal maneuvering and diplomacy that stretched from the Oval Office to FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich — and underscored how invested Trump’s inner circle had become in the second World Cup hosted on U.S. soil and the fortune of the U.S. men’s national team competing in it. POLITICO spoke to a half-dozen U.S. government and soccer officials who were either directly involved in or briefed on the week’s events.
On Sunday, a day before the U.S. was due to face Belgium with Balogun on the bench, FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee announced that it was suspending Balogun’s one-match suspension for a year. Trump thanked FIFA for “doing what was right and reversing a great injustice.” The Royal Belgian Football Association and European confederation UEFA, of which Belgium is a member, are considering taking action against the FIFA ruling, according to a high-ranking UEFA official granted anonymity to discuss ongoing deliberations.
On Thursday, Trump placed a call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. The two men had built a friendship over nearly eight years, with Infantino becoming a frequent visitor to the Oval Office during Trump’s second term. They remained in contact even when events put U.S. government policy in conflict with FIFA’s objectives, according to people familiar with their relationship. That included when the Trump administration launched military strikes against Iran in February, jeopardizing the country’s ability to compete in the World Cup — a personal history that mattered when Trump dialed Infantino about the Balogun matter.
Trump asked about FIFA’s rules around the red card decision and the grounds for a suspension. Infantino listened carefully but made no promises about the outcome. FIFA declined to confirm any specific discussions but reiterated to POLITICO that the decision to suspend the one-match ban was made by an independent disciplinary committee.
As U.S. Soccer’s legal team formally prepared and submitted its appeal to FIFA, Giuliani and Lutnick also offered to make White House attorneys available to assist with legal analysis if needed, according to people involved in the discussions.
At the same time, Giuliani and Scott Goodwin — a hedge-fund manager who had helped to personally pay the salary of U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino — zeroed in on the officiating history of referee Raphael Claus, who made the red card call on Wednesday. Articles examining previous controversies involving the Brazilian referee circulated among senior government officials as they evaluated every possible argument that could bolster the appeal, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
Stephen Collinson of CNN has the story on what the rest of the world thinks about this shake-down.
For 24 days, the World Cup seemed to achieve a rare feat in America in 2026: It had almost nothing to do with Donald Trump.
But in an extraordinary twist following an appeal from the president, star US goal-scorer Folarin Balogun will play in the knockout clash with Belgium on Monday, despite being sent off in the previous match and earning a one-game ban.
“Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the president posted Sunday, taking a victory lap on Truth Social.
Trump added more rhetorical rocket fuel to the controversy on Monday, confirming that he’d called FIFA President Gianni Infantino to ask him to review the suspension.
“I didn’t say, ‘You have to do this,’” Trump said in the Oval Office, adding that he didn’t think Balogun’s offense was even a foul.
Balogun’s reprieve rocked global soccer, triggering fresh speculation about the cozy relationship between Trump and the FIFA supremo.
Trump’s call to Infantino and FIFA’s ultimate decision lifted a controversy about soccer refereeing into an international incident surrounding the world’s most popular sporting showcase.
The subsequent drama raises concerns about political interference and the integrity of the tournament. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether Trump’s muscling into the issue was decisive. Just the impression that it was risks souring global perceptions of an event that had generated remarkably positive headlines.
Controversy is guaranteed at World Cup finals. Who could forget Diego Maradona’s “hand of God” goal for Argentina in 1986 or French star Zinedine Zidane’s 2006 World Cup final headbutt?
Read more on this controversy at any of the three links. Believe me, there are a lot more out there. So, here’s another headline that’s making me think doing all that ish to get my passport was a good idea. This headline is from Wired as reported by Maddy Varner. “ICE’s Internal Watchdog Is Now Investigating Online Critics. The Office of Professional Responsibility has opened more than 100 cases over what ICE officials call “incidents of doxing and threats” against ICE employees.” ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is set up to conduct internal investigations, but has recently begun investigating American Citizens.
OPR is supposed to act as an internal watchdog. It’s responsible for inspecting detention facilities, investigating allegations of employee and contractor misconduct, and processing security checks for new applicants. On its site, it says it also protects against “external threats” by managing badge access to buildings and maintaining the agency’s network security. But lately, court documents indicate, it appears to be pursuing more civilians like Gonyea for what they say online.
In a court declaration filed in April, an ICE official said that between January 2025 and March 2026, OPR investigated 131 cases involving “incidents of doxing and threats directed towards ICE employees nationwide.”
It’s unclear how many of those cases resulted in criminal charges. WIRED was able to identify only one instance when OPR was credited for its investigative work in a case where the Justice Department accused a California man of harassing an ICE attorney and her mother. The DOJ alleged that the man, who pleaded guilty, used to live in the same building as the mother and that he started his harassment campaign in January 2024, well before President Trump took office. ICE did not respond to questions about whether other cases have been brought based on OPR’s work or how many additional cases OPR has opened since March.
“It takes a lot to actually convict someone for their speech, and it’s only possible in very limited circumstances,” says Laura Moraff, a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “People do have a First Amendment right to criticize the government and to do that online and to do that anonymously.”
OPR was behind at least one of the flurry of administrative subpoenas sent to tech companies in recent months in an effort to unmask online critics. In court filings, lawyers for the poster argued that the subpoena, which asked for the poster’s name, address, telephone number, and other details, violated the poster’s right to free speech. The government withdrew the subpoena rather than trying to litigate its merits.
You may read some examples of U.S. citizens they’ve bothered by these claims in the article. You might recall this story via the article cited above.
… ICE agents arrived at a polling site in Syracuse, New York, during the state’s primaries in June. The agents were there to see Paigelynne Gonyea, a poll worker who says they were concerned about an Instagram post she had supposedly made in January, “doxing” an ICE agent.
So, who knows what they may be up to? Let’s hope the press stays on top of it. You may read a great update on the amount of nothing being done by the ICE Agent who killed Renee Good, who is at the root of the Paigelynne Gonyea OPR shenanigans. It’s at this link at The Atlantic. “The Death of Renee Good Has Yet to Be Properly Investigated. Six months after she and Alex Pretti were shot on the streets of Minneapolis, little has come of the probes into their killings.” Quinta Jurecic is the reporter for the story.
Nearly six months have passed since federal officers shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis. No one has been arrested, the Trump administration has provided no reason to believe that any serious investigation is taking place, and federal officials continue to stonewall state and local investigators in Minnesota.
This inaction was predictable. The day after Good’s death, Vice President Vance insisted at a press conference that the agent who shot her would face no criminal charges. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” Vance told reporters. “He was doing his job.” Soon, Stephen Miller doubled down on the message, announcing “to all ICE officers” that “you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.” Federal agents apparently received the message: The next day, an ICE agent fired a gun into a Minneapolis home, wounding a Venezuelan immigrant, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. The week after that, Pretti was killed outside a doughnut shop. The Department of Homeland Security called him a “domestic terrorist” and said that the officers who shot him had acted in self-defense.
Typically, after a contentious killing by a law-enforcement officer, the Justice Department would launch a criminal civil-rights probe. Following George Floyd’s murder, for example, DOJ conducted an investigation alongside Minnesota law enforcement, and both federal and state prosecutors brought separate charges against the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. So far, though, the federal government has succeeded in protecting immigration officers from serious consequences for the violence of what DHS termed “Operation Metro Surge.” But in promising a total shield from accountability, Miller and Vance may have been premature. Law-enforcement officials in Minnesota are—albeit haltingly—beginning to move forward with investigations and prosecutions on their own. Their efforts may become the locus of yet another clash between state and federal authority in the age of President Trump.
For the first few hours after the ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good inside her car, the mechanisms of accountability appeared to operate normally: The FBI began mobilizing to investigate the crime scene alongside the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state’s investigative agency. By the evening of the day she was killed, however, officials in Washington, D.C., had frozen out both Minnesota police and law enforcement in Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located. In a recent podcast interview, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty recalled joining a conference call after Good’s death with the FBI, federal prosecutors, and Minnesota investigators: “Everybody agreed this would once again be a joint investigation. And then suddenly the BCA was kicked off the case.” Minnesota abruptly found itself without access to any of the evidence collected at the scene. Even Good’s maroon Honda Pilot, the windshield pierced by Ross’s bullet, was bundled away by the FBI into a storage facility before state law enforcement could get a look at it.
DOJ was now the only agency able to conduct a full investigation into the shooting. But it had little apparent interest in doing so. According to The New York Times, Harmeet Dhillon, who leads DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, refused to open a criminal investigation into Ross. Instead, DOJ looked into the possibility of investigating Good, along with her widow, Becca Good. Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned in protest, as did an FBI agent in Minneapolis.
Bobo, who hangs out on the kitchen stairs waiting for friends and food.
The link is gifted and definitely worth the read.
So, that’s it for me today. I’m still working on trapping the feral cats living under my house, whom I feed and speak to daily. Work is progressing on the kathouse. The electrical work is mostly done. The A/C works again. The backyard no longer has a dilapidated pergula. It’s about to get a nice green space with a nice grill/smoker, a fire pit, many more plants, lighting, and Adirondack chairs. I look forward to the nice cooler fall days.
I’m off to set up traps for the infamous duo Bobo and Sparks.
Try to have a nice, quiet week. I was hoping the games would be a nice break, but then Orange Caligula can never let good enough alone. He has to get involved and ruin it for everyone. I still enjoy the openers where all the soccer kids come out with the players. Their looks make me realize we have to ensure the world is a better place before we leave it.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: When Will It Ever End?
Posted: June 26, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, Broligarchy, Constitutional Crises, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, corruption, Watergate | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Elon Musk NAZI, JD Vance NAZI, John Bolton Crook, Richard Nixon Crook, Stephan Miller NAZI 9 Comments
“Should have just went with this in the first place. Honest Don reflects on his achievements.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Every time we think about Orange Caligula, we have to think about what comes after him if he doesn’t make it through his second term. It’s not likely that someone reasonable will take his place in a party that no longer goes by reason. For all intents and purposes, we still have to put the Shillbilly at the top of that list. I’m not really feeling good about that at all.
This is a headline from the New York Times this morning. “Vance Downplays Watergate and Compares Himself to Nixon. The vice president said that the scandal that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency would be “like a 12-hour news story” if it happened today and that the “deep state” had taken down Nixon.” Be afraid. Be very afraid. Emily Davies has the story.
Vice President JD Vance downplayed the significance of the Watergate scandal during a speech on Thursday, saying that the controversy that toppled President Richard M. Nixon would be “like a 12-hour news story” if it happened today.
“The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” Mr. Vance added, saying he had been joking backstage about the scandal before his appearance at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif.
Mr. Vance, who is widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender, compared himself to Nixon, who resigned in disgrace after his administration tried to cover up its involvement in a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
“Young senator, vice president, writes some best-selling books, is hated by the media,” Mr. Vance said. “It kind of sounds like JD Vance. I’ve always liked Richard Nixon.”
Mr. Vance also conspiratorially compared the political forces that pushed Nixon out of office to President Trump’s opponents.
“If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon,” Mr. Vance said, “it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions, tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”
Mr. Vance’s remarks were notable in part because of how Mr. Trump and his administration have pushed to expand presidential power and test the boundaries of the law. Mr. Vance, a critic of Mr. Trump’s during his first presidential bid in 2016, has become a fierce loyalist and stood by the president through many controversies, casting him as the victim of an unjust political system.
The vice president’s defense of Nixon followed a similar playbook, seeking to rewrite the historical narrative of a scandal-scarred president so that he becomes the target of a witch hunt instead of the perpetrator of wrongdoing.
A spokesman for Mr. Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Vance was in California in part to promote his new memoir, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith” and in part to raise money for the Republican Party.
I never thought I’d see the day when a candidate desperately seeking the presidency would give an all hail to Nixon. Those of us that remember all findingof those Senate hearings know that finding any one that supported him, especially once the cover-up became clear, were clearly few and far between.
This headline from the AP headline has me shaking my head that I may need a neck brace. “Vance says Watergate would be a ’12-hour news story’ today. Vice President JD Vance said the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon would have been a 12-hour blip in today’s news cycle, and he drew parallels between Nixon and President Donald Trump — arguing both were targeted by “deep state” forces.”
Yup, Arlen Specter was about as deep state as you could get. Excuse me while I choke on laughter.
It’s obvious that these people have no respect for our Republic or it’s rule of Constitutional Law. This is democracy backsliding at its jaded worst. This is the analysis by the Washington Post. “Vance dismisses Watergate scandal, says ‘deep state’ went after Nixon. The vice president said he admired Nixon and drew parallels between the past president, who resigned amid pressure in 1974, and Trump today.” This is fascist level over-reach.
Vice President JD Vance on Thursday expressed sympathy for former president Richard M. Nixon, suggesting that Nixon was wrongly forced out as president in 1974 and comparing his political travails decades ago to those facing President Donald Trump now.
“As I joked … backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Vance said in remarks at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
A spokesperson for Vance did not immediately respond to questions about whether the vice president was being facetious and how he was defining Watergate.
… Naftali, a Columbia University presidential historian, referenced tapes that contained thousands of hours of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations.
“You can hear him suborn perjury on the tapes. He’s telling an intermediary, what to tell someone who’s about to be interviewed by the FBI, what to say and what not to say,” said Naftali, who oversaw the Nixon library’s Watergate exhibit. “You can hear Nixon being told that money had been found to hire teamsters to go and break the bones of demonstrators. That’s all illegal.”
“It’s not as if it’s a matter of partisan interpretation. The evidence is overwhelming,” Naftali said, offering additional examples of Nixon’s efforts to subvert legal protections. “If he does know all of this, he’s telegraphing the kind of president he hopes to be.”
Again, I’m just gobsmacked. How do you even get through university or high school, let alone law school and come up with this shit of an interpretation of Nixon? Speaking of Orange Caligula and his tendency to pick lying bags of scum who are only interested in power and grifting, here’s an NBC headline to bring back some memories of his last ugly term. “Ex-Trump adviser John Bolton pleads guilty to mishandling classified information. Bolton served as White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term.”
Former national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to mishandling classified information related to his work during the first Trump administration.
Bolton, who served as White House national security adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term and has since been a frequent critic of the president, appeared Friday morning for a re-arraignment in Greenbelt, Maryland, before Judge Theodore D. Chuang, an appointee of then-President Barack Obama.
Bolton pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized retention of national defense information out of the 18 with which he was initially charged. He faces a prison sentence of up to 60 months and has agreed to pay $2.25 million, prosecutors said. He is set to be sentenced Oct. 28.
Abbe Lowell, Bolton’s attorney, said in a statement Friday that the former national security adviser and U.N. ambassador “did what real leaders do. He took responsibility for a mistake he made, thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information.”
Hayden O’Byrne, acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s national security division, said in a statement that the plea agreement “ought to send a message to other public officials whom the public has entrusted with classified, national defense information. If you willfully mishandle these state secrets, the Department of Justice, led by the National Security Division, will investigate and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
Bolton was originally indicted in October 2025, charged with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges and faced up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine per count, and three years of special release.
Sigh, “special release.” Why to punish this truly evil people courts! Then there’s this guy. This is from PBS News. “WATCH: Stephen Miller says ‘America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers’ after Supreme Court rulings.”
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 on Thursday to allow the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.
The Department of Homeland Security can now end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
The Supreme Court also voted 6-3 to clear the way for the Trump administration to potentially revive an immigration policy once used to turn back migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The court overturned a lower court order blocking the practice that limited the number of people who could apply for asylum each day.
EThis crap doesn’t reflect the American Values I grew up with. This makes the Guilded Age look like a Socialist Picnic. “Elon Musk’s zero accountability life. Elon Musk goes berserk if you talk about USAID.” This is from the magazine The Argument. Kobe Yank-Jacobs provides the news and analysis.
Elon Musk really doesn’t want you to say he’s responsible for the deaths of millions.
Earlier this week, Musk threatened to sue Rep. Ro Khanna for charging him with destroying the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and putting millions of lives at risk around the world:
“There needs to be accountability for Elon Musk,” Khanna said. “You know, they’re celebrating that he created 4,400 millionaires [with his SpaceX IPO], but they don’t talk about the 4.5 million children around the world who he possibly sentenced to death by dismantling USAID.”
In response, Musk called Khanna a liar, threatened to sue, and said he should be in prison.
But Khanna is making a perfectly reasonable claim here. In that quote, he is (carefully) citing a peer-reviewed study that estimated the effects of dismantling USAID. It found that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will result in 14 million deaths overall by 2030, of which 4.5 million will be children under the age of 5.
This is probably a high-end estimate, but even lower end projections with different methodologies sit between 670,000 and 1.6 million annual deaths compared to a fiscal year 2023 baseline.
In other words, the toll from USAID cuts by seems to be at best around two-thirds of a million people annually1; that’s about as many people as were killed during the Civil War. At worst, Musk is tied to the deaths of 14 million.
If DOGE had managed to cut tens of billions of dollars from the federal budget, Musk and his defenders would certainly have taken credit. It’s bizarre then to disclaim responsibility for the tragic consequences of the cuts they did make.
Yet Musk and his defenders insist that Khanna is somehow slandering him.
There are a couple of interlocking issues worth separating here: one is the factual question of what actually happened to USAID, where Musk is now downplaying his actions. A second question is what is likely to happen out in the real world to real people without USAID. And the final issue is whether Musk should be subject to basic Congressional oversight for wrecking whole government agencies as an outside adviser to the president.
So, I’m cutting it short today because frankly, I can’t read any more of this myself, and I’m still working on the house. I just hope the election is as clean as possible and that people come out in droves. I’ve really had enough of this.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Chaos Information
Posted: June 22, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, MAGA Chaos, Republican Chaos, Trump Chaos | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, chaos, Chaos Supreme Court, Sen. John Cornyn, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Republicans, Trump Chaos 6 Comments
“Saboteurs be damned! The Situation Room is locked and loaded to eliminate the threat of the Green Newest Scam.” @repeat1968, John Buss
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Well, I have the perfect read and lede to reinforce my repetitive sub-headings for my post. Burgess Evertt of Semaphor quotes outgoing Senator John Cornyn in his latest. Either everyone reads me, or we all finally notice the trend. “‘The president seems to revel in chaos’: Cornyn goes his own way.” Ya think?
A few days after losing his Senate runoff, John Cornyn did something unusual for him: He used his leverage against his own party.
The Texas Republican was frustrated by a nearly year-long delay in getting his state reimbursed by the Trump administration for more than $10 billion in border security spending that Congress had already approved. Cornyn had something valuable to withhold as lawmakers prepared to take up President Donald Trump’s $70 billion immigration spending bill.
“Basically, I told Senator Barrasso and Senator [John] Thune: ‘There’s a price for my vote, and it is to get the administration to release the money,’” Cornyn told Semafor in a recent interview in his hideaway office on the Capitol’s third floor. “Next thing I got is a call from [White House budget director] Russ Vought, and Russ said, ‘we’ll put a notice of funding.’”
Cornyn added a reminder that, with more than six months left in office and a sophisticated understanding of the Senate, he’s positioned to play more hardball if he has to: “That’s one example I think of what you can do when you have some cards to play.”
The four-term incumbent is already setting some conditions on his critical undecided vote for Trump’s attorney general pick, Todd Blanche. Cornyn has returned to the candor he displayed for years in the Senate halls, offering withering assessments of Trump’s Iran deal and legislative strategy — a pattern he might continue on Wednesday, when the president visits GOP senators in person.
See? We basically have to vote them out of office to act in the interests of the country and the people they serve. To continue that train of thought, a reference to my soon-to-be-gone senator was also put into the analysis
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., also ousted by Trump in May, told Semafor that he and Cornyn are “like-minded in the sense that we’re both not returning, and that gives a certain focus. And he’s conveyed he’s got no illusions about the president.
“But you know,” Cassidy added, “it’s not like we sit around in a smoke-filled room, plotting the strategy.”
It just amazes me that Trump manages to get his way as long as they hold office and positions. Then, they suddenly rotate to the right thing.
What does it take to act like an actual American leader these days? This headline at VOX got me thinking, also. “The MAGA stars freaked out by their own movement. The right’s leading lights are looking for anyone to blame for the right’s growing extremism — except themselves.” This analysis is written by Zach Beauchamp.
It’s a real-life version of the famous sketch on Tim Robinson’s show I Think You Should Leave, where a hot-dog-shaped car crashes into a storefront and a man in a hot dog suit says, “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.”
The “hot dog men” — and yes, they’re almost all men — are easy to mock. But their growing ranks point to something serious: that right-wing political machine is spinning out of control in ways that even some of its most aggressive and radical voices recognize as dangerous. And as the right searches for new leadership before Trump himself fades into history, nobody on their side has shown any proven ability to contain or redirect its worst impulses.
In the absence of post-Trump leaders both willing and able to address the real problems, the future of the right — and, thus, in some sense, America — is dangerously unclear.
If that’s the metaphor, then the reality on the ground is even more bizarre.
Indeed, there are plenty of other examples.
Mark Levin, the Fox News and talk radio provocateur with Trump’s ear, unironically complains about “podcasters” who are “not about informing or educating,” but rather profiting off being “crazier” than their competitors. Rod Dreher, a right-wing writer who has long promoted a famously racist anti-immigration novel, has been expressing deep concern about rising bigotry on the young right. And even Dinesh D’Souza — a commentator who has spent literally decades spreading increasingly toxic, racially tinged conspiracies — is now warning that right-wing racism may prompt “mass desertions of blacks, Latinos and other minorities from the GOP.”
All of these men openly helped build the right-wing political culture that got us here. Now they’re all trying, desperately, to find the guy who did this.
The examples provided make for a long read, but a good set of evidence for the hypothesis. This article comes with all the details on all the nasty stuff that fed the MAGA tourists and the Elephants at the Republican Zoo. You have to pay a bit to read this, but you will come away with a deeper understanding of the people we ignored for way too long. The conspiracy theorists and provocateurs are reaping what they sowed. I especially liked the story of Candice Owens, who always seemed like an over-the-top Con Artist and turn-coat.
You can also read more on the infighting via MSNOW’s Mychael Schnell.” ‘It’s awkward for everybody’: Inside the Trump-Thune relationship. The president and the majority leader are increasingly finding themselves in standoffs.” Trump is still doing a lot of damage, however, so I wonder if this is actually affecting any real change. Is minimal change doing anything?
On June 4, as Senate Republicans finally began debating their immigration enforcement bill, President Donald Trump called Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., with a demand: Attach the SAVE America Act to the legislation.
During the call — according to a source familiar with the conversation — Thune told Trump there wasn’t enough support for the hardline voting bill. But, as a concession to the president, he said Republicans would try again.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., drafted an amendment exactly as Trump requested. And Republicans put it on the floor for a vote.
It failed 48-50, with four Republicans joining Democrats in opposition.
Despite one of those stubborn realities in the Senate — math — Trump has continued pressing for the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and photo identification to vote while sharply restricting mail-in voting.
Trump’s insistence on pursuing a bill that lacks enough support, and his tendency to fault Thune when it fails, has only deepened tensions between the president and the Senate majority leader.
One GOP senator, who requested anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics, said Trump and Thune “have an awkward relationship.”
“It’s awkward for everybody,” the lawmaker said.
Sources stressed that Trump and Thune still maintain a functional working relationship. One person familiar with their interactions said they don’t speak every day, but “when they need to talk, they talk a lot.”
Still, the limited communication is increasingly becoming a problem.
One of the clearest signs of that dynamic came last week, when Trump instructed his director of national intelligence nominee not to show up for a confirmation hearing, prolonging a lapse in U.S. spying authority. That morning, Thune said he hadn’t heard from Trump.
When Thune was asked last Wednesday why Trump had unexpectedly derailed his nominee’s hearing, the South Dakota Republican’s frustration was palpable.
“Good question,” he said.
Part of Trump’s discontent with Thune appears to be rooted in the contrast with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. While Johnson often advances Trump’s priorities through the simple-majority House, Thune must navigate a Senate where most major legislation requires 60 votes. As a result, Thune frequently finds himself delivering unwelcome news about what can and can’t pass.
“Thune and the speaker obviously have different ways of communicating with Trump, both in style and in substance,” the source familiar with the Trump-Thune dynamic said.
“When it comes to Thune, he doesn’t sugarcoat the truth,” this person added. “He tells the president exactly what he needs to know — the raw and unvarnished truth — even if it isn’t always the answer the president wants to hear.”
This Washington Post analysis (gifted) shows Orange Caligula’s troubles extend to the Supreme Court. “Why Trump has been attacking the Supreme Court, with 3 key rulings ahead. As the court prepares to rule on several of the president’s priorities, tensions are running high — even with his own appointees.
One recounted how Gorsuch became upset when Davis lashed out at Justice Amy Coney Barrett, calling her a “rattled law professor” for siding with the court’s liberals in a pair of rulings against Trump. The other said Davis was angered by Gorsuch’s vote to block Trump’s use of a wartime authority to deport Venezuelans.
The people differed on whether Gorsuch had asked Davis not to come to his clerks’ gathering or he chose not to. Either way, the rift highlighted the growing conflict between Trump, his MAGA allies and the justices, which has burst more fully into public view in recent months.
That turbulence makes for a tense backdrop in the waning days of the Supreme Court’s 2025-26 term, as the justices prepare to rule on three signature Trump initiatives: limiting birthright citizenship, firing the heads of independent agencies and reshaping the Federal Reserve.
Many legal experts believe that the justices have signaled they will rule against Trump on two out of the three, blocking his bid to deny citizenship to those who were born to parents here illegally or lacking permanent residency, as well as his effort to remove a governor of the Fed board.
“It seems like almost 100 years since you’ve had a clash approaching this level between the president and the court,” said Jeffrey L. Fisher, a law professor at Stanford University. “You’d have to go back to the New Deal to have any kind of an analogue.”
During the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the court by expanding it from nine justices to 15after the court struck down key parts of the New Deal. The plan ultimately failed, but not before the court began upholding some policies that Roosevelt championed, possibly in response to his threats to add justices.
Davis, who declined to comment on his relationship with Gorsuch, said in an interview that if the court rules against Trump on birthright citizenship,
“When the Supreme Court gives Chinese birth tourists birthright citizenship, it’s going to destroy its legitimacy with a broad swath of the American public,” Davis said, referring to people who ostensibly travel to the United States to have American children. “They are following politics and vanity projects instead of the law.”
Defenders of birthright citizenship note that the 14th Amendment says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
In another major case on Trump policies, the court will decide whether the president can remove without cause the heads of roughly two dozen independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, that Congress set up to be insulated from political influence.
In addition, the justices will rule on whether Trump can fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook while a lawsuit over her removal plays out in the courts. A ruling for Trump would give the president far greater control over the powerful central bank.
These rulings, and other major decisions, are likely to come in the next week or so as the justices sprint toward the end of the term in late June or early July.
The disaffection with the Supreme Court among Trump’s allies is notable because the president reshaped the court in his first term with three staunchly conservative appointees, who have delivered major victories for conservatives on abortion, affirmative action, religious rights and more.
This term, the justices have handed the administration a string of wins on the emergency docket, allowing Trump policies on limiting immigration, freezing foreign aid and dismantling the Education Department to move forward for now.
Trump appointed Gorsuch, who did not respond to a request for comment, along with Brett M. Kavanaugh and Barrett.
The wins have not satisfied Trump, who has attacked the court — including his own nominees — in increasingly caustic and personal terms that legal scholars say have little historical precedent; Trump has called the justices “bad,” “stupid,” “weak” and other epithets.
All three of these articles are long reads. I’m not sure if they give me a glimpse of hope, given all the idiots involved, but I do feel the more Trump feels he’s under attack by his own, the more he’ll turn his mind from other things, like the ridiculous crap he’s done at the White House. I don’t know, though. I am fully aware that I might be wrong on that. It may be just chaos without meaning or impact.
Here are some other things that truly depress me. This is via CNN this morning. “Exclusive: Trump administration plans to use homeland security funds to pressure states into election changes.
The Trump administration is threatening to withhold tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funds from states unless they adopt a sweeping set of election changes, according to multiple sources and internal documents obtained by CNN.
The move is part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to root out alleged voter fraud — despite studies showing it’s far rarer than he claims — and exert more federal influence over how elections are run. It comes as multiple states have passed laws that seek to prevent the federal government from interfering with elections.
Under new rules governing several homeland security grant programs, states must take a number of steps, including phasing out certain electronic voting systems and moving to hand-marked paper ballots. They must also run their voter rolls through a controversial Department of Homeland Security citizenship verification database.
If not, states would lose out on some funding from DHS. These grants, expected to total more than $1 billion in the current fiscal year, are one of Washington’s main vehicles for helping state and local governments prevent terrorism, protect infrastructure and prepare for major disasters.
For years, the DHS grants, which states apply for, have required that at least 3% of the funds be spent broadly on election security. But the new guidelines, which CNN obtained and are expected to go out to states later this month, impose a set of mandatory reforms and steep penalties for noncompliance. States that refuse would lose 20% of the grant money — potentially millions of dollars in security funds.
This is more bad news via NPR. It’s more garbage from SCOTUS. “Supreme Court allows a ruling that ends a tool to protect minority voters in 7 states.” Hansi Lo Wang has the lede.
By declining to take up a lower court ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has dealt another blow to the Voting Rights Act.
The court announced Monday that it will not review an Arkansas-based lawsuit, leaving in place a 2025 appeals panel ruling that ends a long-used tool for protecting minority voters from discrimination under the landmark law in seven mainly Midwestern states.
That ruling found that in the states covered by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota — private individuals and groups do not have the right to sue to enforce what’s known as Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which generally allows voters with a disability or inability to read or write to get help with voting from a person of their choice.
The Supreme Court’s move comes almost two months after its conservative supermajority issued a major ruling that further weakened the Voting Rights Act, setting off a groundswell in redistricting across the country.
When will the press stop calling these people “conservative”? This has nothing to do with conserving anything traditionally Constitutional in this country. Okay, this is all I can handle on Monday. May the week ahead give us more hope. I’m going to go watch more soccer games and hope for the best.
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