Lazy Caturday Reads: Stupid Foreign Policy, Endless Corruption, and Deliberate Cruelty

Posted: May 23, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Good Day!!

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and there’s not a whole lot of exciting news today. We’re still dealing with the most corrupt president and cabinet in history. Trump is still evil and certifiably insane. Here’s what’s happening today.

Trump snubbed his eldest son by refusing to attend his wedding this weekend. He usually spends his weekends playing golf and was scheduled to go to his golf club in New Jersey his weekend; but after the announcement that he wasn’t going to the wedding, trump decided to stay in DC.

The Daily Beast: Trump Scrambles After Awkward Wedding Snub to Own Son.

President Donald Trump has returned his eldest son’s wedding RSVP with only a day’s notice, announcing to Truth Social that he will not attend.

Trump, 79, officially snubbed Donald Trump Jr. in a Friday afternoon post—then quickly changed his weekend schedule to show he was no longer planning on golfing in New Jersey as his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., says “I do.”

“While I very much wanted to be with my son, Don Jr., and the newest member of the Trump Family, his soon to be wife, Bettina, circumstances pertaining to Government, and my love for the United States of America, do not allow me to do so,” Trump claimed. “I feel it is important for me to remain in Washington, D.C., at the White House during this important period of time. Congratulations to Don and Bettina!”

A public schedule for the president initially said he intended to spend the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey—more than 200 miles away from the White House. However, Axios reported shortly after Trump’s announcement that he will now spend the holiday weekend in Washington.

Don Jr. and Bettina Anderson, who began dating after the younger Trump dumped Kimberly Guilfoyle in late 2024, will tie the knot on a private island in the Bahamas on Saturday in front of a small group of family and friends.

Sprung with a question about the wedding in the Oval Office on Thursday, the president hinted that he could not make the trip because of the war with Iran.

“He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small little private affair, and I’m going to try and make it, I’m in the midst—,” Trump said before cutting himself off. “I said, ‘You know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.’”

According to NBC News, Don and Bettina have already gotten married in Florida.

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, married socialite Bettina Anderson on Thursday in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to Palm Beach County records.

A private wedding celebration is expected to take place Saturday in the Bahamas, Page Six reported. President Donald Trump indicated Thursday that he will not be in attendance, saying the date “was not good timing for me,” citing the ongoing war in Iran and other presidential matters. The president was initially scheduled to be in Bedminster, New Jersey, this weekend but is now expected to be at the White House….

Anderson comes from a prominent Palm Beach family. Her father is Harry Loy Anderson Jr., a banker and philanthropist.

Fun facet: Bettina’s father Harry Loy Anderson wrote a letter of recommendation  for Jeffrey Epstein in 1999, calling Epstein “a gentleman of the highest integrity” to help him get big tax breaks in the Virgin Islands…”.

Is Trump actually planning military actions this weekend? He has been threatening more strikes in Iran and is suggesting the possibility of regime change in Cuba.

The New York Times (gift article): Trump Weighs His Options in Carrying Out New Strikes in Iran.

President Trump was in the Oval Office on Friday morning with his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, in what appeared to be a review of military options for potentially resuming the bombing campaign against Iran.

The existence of the meeting was revealed by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a graduation ceremony at the Naval Academy. While he said nothing about the substance of the meeting, the timing was notable, as negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and its blockage of the Strait of Hormuz appear to have hit a dead end.

There is no shortage of targets, should Mr. Trump, in coordination with Israel, decide to resume the assault on Iran that paused on April 8. There are energy facilities left untouched after about 38 days of bombing, the deep underground nuclear storage site at Isfahan where Iran’s supply of near-bomb-grade uranium is already under rubble, and missile sites that were attacked back in March but appear to have been dug out.

And after weeks of declaring that an agreement was near, and then that the Iranians were “dangling” him, negotiations seem to be at a standstill. Mr. Trump announced on Friday that he was skipping the wedding this weekend of his son and namesake, Donald Trump Jr., because of “circumstances pertaining to the Government, and my love of the United States of America.” [….]

Now he has to deal with the reality that after five weeks of war and six weeks of cease-fire, he has failed to force Iran’s leaders to relent. Mr. Trump frequently notes — accurately — that Iran’s navy has been sunk and its air force destroyed, and that many of its missile sites and military bases have been reduced to rubble or badly damaged. But the destruction has not translated into victory.

Crucially, the near-bomb-grade nuclear uranium remains where it has been since Mr. Trump ordered a bombing raid on three nuclear sites nearly a year ago, deep underground at Isfahan. Iran’s missile capability has been degraded, but not destroyed. And the Strait of Hormuz has fallen under Iran’s control, even as the U.S. Navy intercepts shipments headed into or out of Iranian ports.

If Mr. Trump orders new combat operations, the political risks are high. Already gas prices are over five dollars a gallon in some parts of the country, and renewed military activity could send them even higher. Popular sentiment is clearly against the war, a range of public opinion polls show, and Mr. Trump’s approval ratings have plummeted to around 37 percent.

You can use the gift link to read about Trump’s options for military action in Iran.

BBC News: Trump is putting pressure on Cuba – why and to what end?

The relationship between the United States and Cuba – already strained and fragile for decades – has been rapidly deteriorating in recent weeks.

Accusing Cuba of posing a national security threat, the US has hit it with an oil blockade, sanctions and now an unprecedented murder indictment against former leader Raúl Castro.

Washington is also warning that a peaceful agreement with the Caribbean nation is unlikely, while Cuba says the US is using a “fraudulent case” to justify military intervention….

Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has made clear his desire to change Havana’s leadership and has openly mused that Cuba is “ready to fall”.

In March, he suggested the country was in “deep trouble” as he threatened a “friendly takeover”.

There has been no announcement of plans for any military intervention but Cuba is on edge, especially as surveillance activity in the Caribbean increases.

Over the past week, the US military has been publicly broadcasting the location of its aircraft near Cuba on plane-tracking websites.

Leaving the flight transponders on “is likely deliberate”, said UK drone expert Dr Steve Wright, with the US intending to send “a clear message it has eyes in the sky to maintain the squeeze”.

Meanwhile, US news site Axios, citing classified intelligence, reported that Cuba possessed 300 drones and was discussing striking nearby US targets – including Guantanamo Bay, Key West in Florida, and naval vessels.

It also quoted a US official who said the intelligence – which it characterised as a potential pretext for US military intervention – suggested Iranian military advisers were in Havana.

There’s much more at the BBC link.

CBS News: CIA director brought paramilitary leader involved in Maduro capture to Cuba meeting, sources say.

When CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Havana last week for a rare meeting with senior Cuban officials, he brought along one of the operators involved in the U.S. mission to capture then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, multiple people familiar with the matter told CBS News.

Venezuela and Cuba were allies before Maduro’s arrest, and the Cuban government has said 32 of its military and police officers were killed in the January operation to extract Maduro.

Ratcliffe made a point of introducing the paramilitary leader to the Cubans as the one who killed their people in Venezuela, several sources said.

The presence of a paramilitary officer who was involved in capturing a key partner of the Cuban government just months earlier may have been intended to send a signal….

Ratcliffe’s visit followed months of pressure on Cuba. The administration has threatened steep tariffs on any countries that export oil to the island nation, leading to severe fuel shortages.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the country needs to make fundamental economic and political reforms, and President Trump has floated a “friendly takeover” of the island, which has vexed U.S. administrations since Cuba’s communist movement rose to power in 1959.

Hours after the Maduro raid, Rubio pointed to Cuba’s ties to Venezuela, telling reporters that Venezuela’s “whole spy agency” was “full of Cubans.”

“If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned, at least a little bit,” he said.

Here’s hoping there won’t be any US bombs dropped anywhere this weekend.

More foreign intervention news: Trump is still meddling in Greenland. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, who is also Trump’s “envoy” to Greenland showed up there this week.

NBC News: Trump’s envoy went to Greenland to make ‘friends.’ They were left unimpressed.

President Donald Trump’s envoy to Greenland says he got a warm welcome on his first visit this week. But the mood on the Arctic island was decidedly frostier, with one of its most prominent lawmakers calling the visit “appalling” and “offensive.”

Pipaluk Lynge, who chairs Greenland’s foreign and security policy committee, slammed Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s trip as “a clear attempt to divide us” during the sensitive negotiations on the future of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

She singled out his attempts to offer chocolate chip cookies to a group of Greenlandic children, seen by some as a surreal effort to win approval despite grown-up Greenlanders saying no to American advances.

“I think it’s remarkable that they feel welcome even though they weren’t invited,” Lynge said in an interview with NBC News.

Trump has caused outrage in Greenland and Europe by suggesting he could use force to seize the island, which has vast mineral resources and is strategically positioned in a region increasingly contested between the United States, Russia and China. Most officials and experts agree that were the U.S. to invade a fellow NATO member, it would spell the end of the troubled military alliance.

While Trump has rowed back these explicit militaristic threats, his designs on Greenland have not gone away. Arriving this week, Landry said his mission was to “make friends” but also that it was time for Washington “to put its footprint back” on the Arctic territory.

There was little evidence of any friendliness on the street, with the governor being heckled by people shouting “Don’t come here” and others giving him the finger.

Trump administration corruption news:

Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News: Jan. 6 prosecutor, Trump administration targets sue over ‘weaponization’ fund.

A fired Jan. 6 prosecutor and a law professor acquitted in a federal criminal case brought by the Trump administration are among the plaintiffs who sued Fridayto block a $1.8 billion dollar fund established to give payouts to allies of President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleges that the “anti-weaponization” fund creates a politically discriminatory process that excludes individuals like the plaintiffs, who say they were mistreated by Republican officials and administrations.

“By its own terms, the Anti-Weaponization Fund is available only to claimants who assert that they were targeted by ‘Democrat’ administrations, even though the current administration has weaponized the awesome power of the federal government against its perceived political opponents like no other administration before it,” the suit states.

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Floyd, a career federal prosecutor who had been a deputy in the Capitol Siege Section and was fired by former Attorney General Pam Bondi in June 2025, is one of the plaintiffs.

“First, hundreds of people attacked the foundation of an ordered society by trying to stop the results of a free and fair election—committing serious assaults on law enforcement and other crimes as they did so,” Floyd said in a statement, referring to the failed effort by Trump supporters to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s win on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Then, this administration pardoned them — removing the accountability that had been hard earned by victims, witnesses, law enforcement, and prosecutors and imposed by impartial jurors and judges. Now they are asking taxpayers to illegally reward them for their crimes,” he said.

Another plaintiff is Cal State Channel Islands professor Jonathan Caravello, who was acquitted of an assault on law enforcement charge over an incident last summer in which he picked up a tear gas canister that had been deployed by federal agents during a protest against an immigration raid at a California cannabis farm.

The city of New Haven, the National Abortion Federation and the watchdog group Common Cause also joined the suit. All the plaintiffs are represented by Democracy Forward, a progressive nonprofit legal group that filed more than 150 lawsuits in the first year of Trump’s second term.

Read more details about the lawsuit at the NBC link.

Ryan J. Reilly and Kyla Guilfoil at NBC News: Justice Department deletes press releases on charges against Jan. 6 rioters.

The Justice Department has removed press releases detailing the charges against hundreds of individuals who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot from its website, the department confirmed Friday.

“Nothing ‘quiet’ about it,” the DOJ Rapid Response X account said in a post replying to allegations that the Justice Department had deleted press releases related to Jan. 6.

“We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration,” the post continued. “We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.”

A review by NBC News found that the vast majority of press releases pertaining to Jan. 6 defendants have been removed from the DOJ website as of Friday evening.

The move to wipe hundreds of press releases from the official government site is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to reframe the Jan. 6 siege and to paint the rioters who participated in it as victims.

On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump mass pardoned the rioters. Soon after, Justice Department officials and FBI agents who were a part of the Jan. 6 investigation and prosecutions were fired.

And this week, the Justice Department announced a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund aimed to compensate those who “suffered weaponization and lawfare.”

After acting Attorney General Todd Blanche did not rule out Jan. 6 rioters’ eligibility to be paid by the fund, outrage swelled from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

It appears that Trump is losing support among Senate Republicans after announcing this naked attempt to steal nearly $1.8 billion from US taxpayers. Acting AG Todd Blanche met with GOP Senators yesterday, and it did not go well.

Brennan Leach and Kyla Guilfoil at NBC News: Ted Cruz says GOP senators were ‘screaming’ at Todd Blanche during ‘anti-weaponization’ fund briefing.

Screaming, yelling and accusations of self-dealing.

That’s how Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Friday described a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that’s drawn bipartisan opposition.

On his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” the Texas senator described the meeting as “one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.”

“Fiery does not begin to cut it,” Cruz said. “My guess is there’re probably 45 senators in the room, at least half of them were blasting the attorney general, and they were pissed.”

Senate Republicans met with Blanche on Thursday to discuss the fund, which ultimately derailed a vote on a Republican bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, NBC News previously reported.

Cruz said several of his GOP colleagues felt that they could not politically defend the fund because it appeared as though President Donald Trump “cut a deal with himself.”

“There were multiple senators yelling at the attorney general, saying this feels like self-dealing,” Cruz said.

“I got to tell you, the Republican senators were pissed — people were the entire meeting. They were screaming at the acting attorney general, and he was trying to lay out the legal basis,” Cruz said, adding “the legal basis is quite sound.”

A bit more:

Cruz said on his podcast that if the Senate had gone forward with planned series of votes pertaining to the ICE and Border Patrol bill Thursday night, roughly half of the Republican caucus would have voted with Democrats in favor of amendments seeking to rein in the fund.

He emphasized “the degree of the jailbreak of Republicans who were bolting, who were saying we’re going to vote with the Democrats.”

Cruz warned that if the administration does not modify the anti-weaponization fund by the time Congress comes back into session, “they’ve got a full-on revolt in the Senate.”

More corruption by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik. The New York Times: Lutnick Donated $5 Million to House Republicans Before Epstein Testimony.

Howard Lutnick, President Trump’s secretary of commerce, made a $5 million donation last month to a committee supporting House Republicans, an unusually large contribution for a sitting cabinet secretary.

The donation was made on April 1, four weeks after the House Oversight Committee arranged to interview Mr. Lutnick about his ties to the sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. The closed-door interview took place on May 6.

Mr. Lutnick gave the money to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC behind House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson, according to a new filing made public on Thursday. Mr. Lutnick has recently been a major Republican donor, but this was his first contribution since being named commerce secretary. It ties his largest-ever federal donation, $5 million he gave to Mr. Trump’s super PAC in 2024….

Federal employees are permitted to make donations, but it is rare to see such a high-ranking official donate such a significant amount. Mr. Lutnick is the first Trump cabinet official to make a seven-figure disclosed federal donation after being confirmed to a post, according to a review of federal election filings.

The closest analogue in Mr. Trump’s administration was the role played by Elon Musk during his stint as a part-time government employee, during which he continued to donate millions to conservative causes.

Lutnik should be fired.

Before I wrap this up, here are two significant immigration stories:

The Washington Post: Judge drops criminal case against Kilmar Abrego García, deeming it vindictive.

A federal judge on Friday dismissed the Justice Department’s human-smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego García, ruling that the Trump administration improperly brought it to punish him for successfully challenging his illegal deportation last year.

U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. in Tennessee wrote that “evidence before this Court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power.”

The decision delivered an extraordinary defeat for the administration, which marshaled the resources of multiple federal agencies to publicly malign Abrego after court rulings concluded that officials had unlawfully deported him to his native El Salvador, in violation of a 2019 immigration court order.

Crenshaw’s ruling also marked the first time a judge validated what has become an increasingly common defense raised by high-profile defendants targeted by the Justice Department in Trump’s second term: the claim that they are being prosecuted not in pursuit of justice but rather for political revenge.

In a decision released Friday afternoon, the judge acknowledged the incredibly high bar defendants must meet to warrant a case’s dismissal on those grounds. It requires defense attorneys to prove that charges would not have been brought but for improper, vindictive motives on the part of government attorneys.

Crenshaw, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote that in Abrego’s case, it was clear that the investigation into him was tainted “with a vindictive motive.”

This is outrageous. NPR: Trump administration to force foreigners in the U.S. to apply for a green card abroad.

Foreigners in the U.S. who want a green card will need to leave and apply in their home country, the Trump administration announced Friday, in a surprise change to a longstanding policy that sowed confusion and concern among aid groups, immigration lawyers and immigrants.

For over half a century, foreign nationals with legal status have been able to apply for and complete the entire process for permanent residence in the United States — including individuals married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and political asylum seekers, among others.

The announcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said foreigners who are in the U.S. temporarily and who want to apply to become lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, have to return home and apply there, except in “extraordinary circumstances.” USCIS officers would decide whether applicants meet those.

“Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process,” the agency said in a statement.

That isn’t true. People have always been able to apply for Green Cards here in the US. For example, there are probably thousands of people working in important jobs at universities waiting to get Green Cards. These people are making valuable contributions to society. They may have married US citizens and had children. And now they are supposed to leave their jobs and families in order to get a Green Card? Back to the NPR story:

It is the latest step by the Trump administration making legal immigration more difficult for foreigners already in the U.S. and for those hoping to come here.

Hundreds of thousands apply for green cards from the U.S. each year

“The goal of this policy is very explicit. Senior officials in this administration have said over and over that they want fewer people to get permanent residency because permanent residency is a path to citizenship and they want to block that path for as many people as possible,” said Doug Rand, a former senior advisor at USCIS during the Biden administration, who added that about 600,000 people already in the U.S. apply each year for a green card.

USCIS did not say when the change would come into effect, whether individuals would be required to remain in another country throughout the entire process, or whether the policy impacts foreigners whose green card applications are already underway.

Wednesday Reads: Loss of a Good Guy and Trump’s Staggering Corruption

Posted: May 20, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Good Day!!

I’ll get to the depressing news from Trump world, but first, we’ve lost one of the good guys.

Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank has died at 86. It was expected; he’s been in hospice care, but still it’s a sad day.

He was the opposite of Trump: he was good humored, funny, honest as the day is long, and he truly cared about our country and its people.

I’m devoting the remainder of this post to the incredibly corrupt bargain Trump has struck with his own “justice” department and IRS.

Kathryn O. Seelye at The New York Times: Barney Frank, Gay Pioneer and Liberal Stalwart in Congress, Dies at 86.

Barney Frank, the brassy, lightning-quick former Massachusetts representative who for decades was the most prominent gay politician in the country and who was an author of the most significant overhaul of the nation’s financial regulations since the Great Depression, died on Tuesday at his home in Ogunquit, Maine. He was 86.

His friend James Segel confirmed the death. Mr. Frank said last month that he had entered hospice care with congestive heart failure.

Mr. Frank, a liberal Democrat who represented a diverse suburban Boston district for 32 years, starting in 1981, was the first gay member of the House to come out voluntarily; others had been outed in scandals. His public declaration of his sexual orientation in 1987 — spurred by a fear of being outed, by the death of a closeted colleague and by his own determination to show that homosexuality was nothing to be ashamed of — helped normalize being openly gay in public life.

“Prejudice is based on ignorance,” Mr. Frank told The Boston Globe in 2011, as he prepared to retire. “And the best way to counterbalance it is with a living example, with reality.”

A Harvard-trained lawyer, Mr. Frank bristled with intellectual firepower, acidic turns of phrase and a zest for verbal combat.

Barney Frank

His shivs were often cloaked in wit. Referring to the Moral Majority, the conservative Christian organization that opposed abortion but also opposed child nutrition programs and day care, Mr. Frank said in 1981: “From their perspective, life begins at conception and ends at birth.” Of the flawed intelligence behind the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that led to nearly a decade of combat, he said the problem “is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.”

In Washingtonian magazine’s annual poll of Capitol Hill staffers, he was frequently voted the “brainiest,” “funniest” and “most eloquent” member of the House.

His most significant legislative achievement was in the realm of financial regulation. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which he sponsored with Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, tightened rules on the financial industry as part of the government’s response to the housing crisis of 2007 and the global financial meltdown the next year.

Signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, the measure sought to prevent the nation’s biggest banks from engaging in excessively risky behavior and to protect consumers from unfair practices by banks and lenders. Congress watered it down in 2018, chiefly by exempting smaller and midsize banks from stricter oversight, but it remained largely intact.

Mr. Frank was also known for championing gay rights, civil rights and women’s rights. He did so by force of personality and by example. He insisted that his male partner be invited to all events to which the spouses of other representatives were invited. In 2012, at age 72, he married Jim Ready and became the first sitting member of Congress to wed someone of the same sex.

He also worked quietly behind the scenes to advance his causes. In one of many examples, according to his memoir, “Frank: A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage” (2015), he helped persuade President Bill Clinton not to appoint Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia as secretary of state because of his track record of homophobia.

One more on Barney Frank by Daniel Arkin at NBC News: Former Rep. Barney Frank, champion of Wall Street reform and LGBTQ trailblazer, dies at 86.

Barney Frank, the quick-witted Massachusetts congressman and liberal lion who helped overhaul Wall Street regulations after the 2008 financial crisis and made history as one of the first openly gay members of Congress, died Wednesday, his sister confirmed to NBC Boston.

He was 86. He had entered hospice care at his home in Maine last month.

“He was, above all else, a wonderful brother. I was lucky to be his sister,” Frank’s sister Doris Breay told NBC Boston.

Frank represented southern Massachusetts in the House for 32 years and established himself as a leading voice in debates over banking, affordable housing and LGBTQ rights. He chaired the Financial Services Committee amid the 2008 meltdown and co-authored the milestone Dodd-Frank Act, a sweeping law that sought to put Wall Street firms under tougher scrutiny.

He blazed a trail for other openly gay American elected officials, and in 2012, he became the first member of Congress to enter into a same-sex marriage, tying the knot with his longtime partner, Jim Ready.

“It was life-changing, lifesaving for me,” Frank told NBC News in a phone interview in last month.

“I think the key to our having made the enormous progress we made in defeating anti-gay prejudice had to do with us all coming out and people discovering the gap between our reality and the way we were painted,” he added.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the former House speaker, who served with Frank for more than 25 years, described him as progressive and an idealist in an interview with NBC News last month.

“He has been about idealism and pragmatism to get the job done,” said Pelosi, who was speaker when Frank shepherded Dodd-Frank through Congress. Frank called Pelosi last month to inform her that he was receiving hospice care, she said.

“He was a real mentor to so many of us here,” Pelosi said. “I was with him” on the Banking Committee “in the beginning. I learned so much.”

What a contrast he was to the bunch of crooks we’re dealing with today.

A couple of days ago, the White House announced a “settlement” of Trump’s $10 million lawsuit against his own IRS. He created an “anti-weaponization fund” to pay out reparations to the thugs who attacked the Capital on January 6, as well as anyone who thinks they were wrongly prosecuted during Joe Biden’s presidency. Then yesterday we learned that, as part of the “settlement,” Trump and his entire family are forever exempt from past IRS investigations. This is obviously illegal, unconstitutional and most likely an impeachable offense, but so what? Trump does whatever he wants.

Ray Brescia at MSNOW on the “settlement”: Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ is simply indefensible.

After filing a highly unusual lawsuit in which President Donald Trump sued his own administration’s Internal Revenue Service, he settled it through his acting attorney general — also his former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche — setting up a team of “volunteers” to dole out nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money out of what the Department of Justice calls “The Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

The president did so in a way to avoid any judicial oversight of his or the Justice Department’s actions. It is hard to imagine a situation more susceptible to fraud, grift, corruption and abuse. And the lawsuit itself was probably unconstitutional to begin with.

The lawsuit came after a report from The New York Times revealed that Trump had only paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. The complaint against the IRS, filed by Trump, two of his adult sons and the Trump Organization, said the leak caused the plaintiffs “reputational and financial harm” and “public embarrassment.”

Judge Kathleen Williams

The judge assigned in the case, Kathleen Williams of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, issued an order last month pointing out the strange nature of the lawsuit and expressing fear that it did not exhibit the type of “adversity” that is typically an essential ingredient of any federal lawsuit, a requirement of the U.S. Constitution.

Citing relevant and consistent precedent on this point, she wrote that a “key characteristic of the case or controversy requirement” in the Constitution “is the existence of adverseness, or ‘a dispute between parties who face each other in an adversary proceeding.’” She noted that there must be an “‘an honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual against another, which is neither feigned nor collusive.’” She added: “It is unclear to this Court whether the Parties are sufficiently adverse to each other so as to satisfy Article III’s case or controversy requirement.” [….]

…Judge Williams asked the parties to submit their written arguments to the court by May 20, 2026, and indicated she would hold a hearing on this question on May 27, 2026.

Whether this means the settlement will not face legal challenge remains to be seen. For now, the administration appears poised to create a nearly $1.8 billion slush fund set up by the administration and capitalized with taxpayer dollars. It will be administered by individuals chosen only by the administration, outside any sort of review.

Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Danny Nguyen on the latest outrage: Justice Department expands Trump settlement to cover his tax audits.

The Justice Department on Tuesday expanded the just-announced settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the leaking of his tax returns to include a pledge that the IRS will no longer pursue any claims it may have against Trump, his family members and his companies over unpaid taxes.

The nine-page settlement agreement DOJ released Monday, setting up a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of alleged weaponization of law enforcement, did not mention any resolution of disputes over Trump’s tax returns, which he has repeatedly claimed were under protracted audits by the IRS.

However, a one-page document posted on the DOJ website early Tuesday includes a sweeping release under which the IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing “examinations” of Trump, “related or affiliated individuals,” and related trusts and businesses.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed the addendum, dated Tuesday. It does not bear the signature of any representative of the IRS or any current Trump lawyers. Metadata attached to the document indicates it was prepared or scanned at 7:50 a.m. Tuesday.

Blanche did not sign the original settlement agreement, which was signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, IRS CEO Frank Bisignano and Trump attorney Daniel Epstein….

“This is only with respect to existing audits, not future,” the DOJ statement added.

John Koskinen, the former IRS commissioner from 2013 to 2017, said the expanded settlement set a “terrible precedent” that could effectively generate a windfall for Trump.“It makes you wonder what the President has to hide in those tax returns. He’s apparently been actively trading in the stock market and, since he knows a lot more about situations than the average investor, he’s probably generated significant taxable earnings,” he said in an emailed statement. “Not auditing his returns is the same as giving him an easy way to, in effect, receive money from the government.”

Danny Werfel, the former IRS commissioner from 2023 to 2025, said he was “unaware of a single precedent where the IRS has agreed in advance to permanently forgo examination of previously filed tax returns for a specific person or business.”

Joyce Vance at Civil Discourse: Almost as good as a pardon.

There is corruption. And then there is the second Trump administration.

Monday night I wrote to you about kleptocracy. This evening, we pick up the same thread. It has to do with the $1.776 billion slush fund we discussed last night (get it? so cute that number, 1776; such an homage to the Founding Fathers). That fund, the money that Trump is trying to “give” to his most vociferous, even violent, supporters, was created to settle the lawsuit he brought against the IRS. Today, there is more news about the terms of that settlement. Kleptocracy. Corruption.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche

Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General, testified before the Senate today. In one remarkable exchange, Delaware Senator Chris Coons asked Blanche:

“Has it ever happened that a sitting president sued his own government for $10 billion dollars and then directed the settlement of the case and the establishment of a payout fund?”

Blanche responded: “No, but there’s a lot of things that President Trump is the first of.”

Another one of those firsts happened today. Not a good one. Without fanfare, DOJ posted a settlement document on its website in the case. It was unexpected, because we’d already seen a settlement agreement in this case, the one we looked at last night. There was no reason to expect anything additional would be forthcoming. When it showed up, the addendum came without any title, just a date at the top….

It’s a pardon on steroids for Trump, Trump’s family, and Trump businesses. The government agrees in this document, signed by Blanche, that it will never prosecute or pursue any civil claims against any of the Trumps, “whether presently known or unknown” that could have been brought as of the date of the settlement agreement. That date is yesterday. The IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing “examinations” of Trump, “related or affiliated individuals,” and related trusts and businesses. Any proceeding over “tax returns filed before the effective date” of the settlement is now off limits. Any crimes committed before Monday, whether prosecutors were aware of them or not, are off the table. It’s a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card, and also a get-out-of-debt one.

I’ve seen a lot of settlement agreements, but never one like this where the government is giving the store away and getting nothing in return. As we discussed last night, the underlying lawsuit was on life support, most likely about to be dismissed because of legal flaws. Now, it’s become a vehicle for protecting Trump from all problems, criminal and civil, and not just tax matters—the subject of the lawsuit—but all matters. Any sins he may have committed or debts he owed but didn’t pay before now are forgiven.

You can read the rest along with the previous post at Civil Discourse.

Alan Feuer at The New York Times: Prison to Pardons to Payouts: Jan. 6 Rioters Are Elated at Trump’s $1.8 Billion Fund.

Antony Vo was at a friend’s house on Monday morning when a fellow pardoned Jan. 6 rioter sent a message: The Trump administration had just created a fund to benefit people who believed they had been wronged by the federal government — including those, like him, who had stormed the Capitol five years ago.

Mr. Vo, who briefly fled the country to avoid his prison sentence stemming from the riot, said he did not know at first that the fund had come about as part of a larger deal by President Trump to withdraw an extraordinary lawsuit filed against the Internal Revenue Service. But the origins of the fund, he said, were less important than how it made him feel: surprised, relieved and grateful all at once.

“I’m glad it turned into something,” he explained, “that could help people who have been hurting for quite a while now.”

That reaction, it turns out, appeared typical among the so-called Jan. 6ers who have long joined Mr. Trump in claiming that the efforts to hold them accountable for disrupting the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election amounted to mistreatment by the criminal justice system.

Some felt that the fund validated their self-image as victims of the government. Others felt elated — albeit somewhat stunned — at the prospect of a payout. And not a few felt a bit confused at how the process of filing claims and receiving checks could play out.

“So many questions,” said Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys who was sentenced to 22 years on a seditious conspiracy conviction arising from the riot. “But it’s a good direction.” [….]

The possibility that people who ransacked the Capitol, smashing windows and fighting with the police, could get money from the same federal government they attacked was the latest head-spinning twist in the effort to rewrite the history of Jan. 6. At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, did not rule out violent rioters receiving payouts from the fund.

It has not been lost on many Jan. 6ers that by deeming them worthy of reparations, the most powerful officials in the country have effectively validated their claims of having been wronged by the federal government — claims that, in many instances, were roundly rejected by the judges of both parties who oversaw their cases.

“This is the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE acknowledging the possibility that Americans were targeted through political abuse of government power,” Tommy Tatum, a Mississippi man who was charged with civil disorder for interfering with the police on Jan. 6, wrote on Monday in a post on social media. “That is historic.”

It’s obvious at this point. Trump is going to pay these people to do it again. He has no intention of leaving in 2029. If the second insurrection doesn’t work, then he’ll barricade himself in the basement of his precious ballroom.

Are Congressional Republicans just going accept this monumental level of corruption from Trump? Hailey Fuchs, Jordain Carney and Josh Gerstein at Politico: Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘lawfare’ fund is making Republicans nervous.

Senate Republicans are greeting the Justice Department’s announcement of a new “Anti-Weaponization Fund” with concern, confusion and questions — and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is offering up little clarity on how it will work.

At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday morning, Blanche fielded queries from members of both parties about the logistics of the $1.8 billion account, who would have oversight and whether it could function as a “slush fund” for individuals who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Democrats are, predictably, enraged by the terms of the settlement for President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the government for the leak of his tax information, which resulted in the creation of this account to benefit targets of “weaponization and lawfare.”

But Republicans are also signaling deep discomfort with the arrangement, as well as frustration that they weren’t given the answers they were looking for.

“I’ve got more questions than I’ve heard answers for, and … I didn’t hear anything that gave me certainty in terms of how this all comes together,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), after attending the hearing with Blanche. “Can the president just say $1.87 billion? … I don’t know enough about it to feel comfortable.”

Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jerry Moran of Kansas — the top Republicans on the full Appropriations committee and the panel that oversees DOJ funding, respectively — both pressed Blanche at the hearing to explain how payouts from the fund would be managed and who might receive them.

If Democrats can manage to win he House and Senate, the first order of business must be to impeach and remove Trump. We can’t allow him to remain in office for the rest of his term, or we’ll never get rid of him.

There has already been some pushback. Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News: John Adams quote projected on DOJ building in protest of $1.8B fund.

Opponents of a $1.776 billion taxpayer-backed “anti-weaponization” fund projected a quotation from one of the Founding Fathers onto the Justice Department building in protest.

“A government of laws, not of men,” read the quotation from John Adams, the second president.

The quotation was shown over one of the large banners of President Donald Trump that were set up in February at the Justice Department headquarters, known as “Main Justice.”

Stacey Young, a former Justice Department employee who founded the group Justice Connection, which projected the phrase onto the building, told NBC News that the “$1.8 billion slush fund” was “appalling.”

“We are standing up for department’s integrity and the rule of law,” Young said outside the building. The Justice Department is operating “as an arm of the White House” and doing Trump’s bidding by protecting his allies and going after his enemies, she said.

“That is an extraordinary abuse of power, and it’s a sign that the rule of law is crumbling before our eyes,” Young said.

Justice Connection said the Trump administration “shifted the country away from a system of laws and toward an era of lawlessness,” citing the firing of prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases and “cash payments” to Capitol riot defendants it expects the Trump administration to pay out.

One more from Josh Gerstein at Politico: Jan. 6 police officers sue to block Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization fund.’ 

Police officers who came under attack by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to halt President Donald Trump’s plan to set up a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of “weaponization” and “lawfare.”

In the new lawsuit, former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges contend that Trump intends to use the massive bankroll to pay people who organized and participated in the riot.

“Dunn and Hodges did not back down on January 6. Instead, they held the line to defend democracy and the rule of law. They bring this case to do so once again,” the lawsuit says.

That’s all I have for today. What’s on your mind?

Wednesday Reads: Everything is Awful and Stupid.

Posted: April 29, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Good Day!!

I’ve been getting more sleep than usual lately, but my chronic insomnia kicked in last night. I got almost no sleep. I’m really not ready to face another day with Trump and his antics, but I’ll do the best I can.

This news just broke from the Supreme Court:

The Washington Post (gift link): Supreme Court limits key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply weakened a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act, a ruling that limits the consideration of race in drawing voting maps and could usher in Republican gains in the House.

The decision could touch off a scramble by Republicans to redraw minority-majority districts, especially in the South. New districts could shiftthe balance of power in Congress by imperiling the reelection prospects of some Black Democrats, possibly as soon as November’s midterms in some instances.

Samuel Alito (with Neil Gorsuch in the background on the left.)

The ruling also carries significant symbolic weight, effectively scaling backthe last major pillar of a 60-year-old law long considered one of the marquee achievements of the civil rights era. The Voting Rights Act bans discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes, and has helped greatly increase minority representation in state and federal offices.

The ruling also carries significant symbolic weight, effectively scaling backthe last major pillar of a 60-year-old law long considered one of the marquee achievements of the civil rights era. The Voting Rights Act bans discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes, and has helped greatly increase minority representation in state and federal offices.

In an ideologically divided 6-3 ruling, the conservative justices created a higher bar for the law’s powerful provision that allows states to use race to draw maps that help minority communities elect candidates of their choice. Section 2, as it is known, is aimed at combating discriminatory gerrymandering that weakens the power of Black, Latino, Native American and Asian voters.

States must walk a careful line when drawing maps for voting districts. The Voting Rights Act directsstates to consider race to some degreewhen redistricting to ensure that racial minority groups have an opportunity to elect representatives who reflect their priorities. Maps explicitly drawn along racial lines, however, violate the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting practices.

Specifically:

The court’s conservative majority found Louisiana unlawfully discriminated by race when it created a second majority-Black congressional district to comply with the VRA. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the opinion for the majority.

“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act … was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” Alito wrote. “Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s [Section] 2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

The decision came over the sharp objections of the court’s three liberals. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the dissent from the bench, signaling strong disagreement.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote in the dissent.

Kate Riga at Talking Points Memo: Alito Pens Decision That ‘Eviscerates’ The Voting Rights Act.

The Roberts Court finally achieved its years-long goal of killing the Voting Rights Act Wednesday, publishing a ruling that, the liberal justices say, will make proving racial discrimination in redistricting virtually impossible.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent.

“Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic,” she continued. “The majority claims only to be “updat[ing]” our Section 2 law, as though through a few technical tweaks. But in fact, those ‘updates’ eviscerate the law…”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by all five other justices inthe bench’s right wing. Kagan was joined in her dissent by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Clarence Thomas also wrote a concurrence joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Alito defangs the law by unilaterally cancelling out congressional fixes to it — primarily, that plaintiffs bringing claims of racial vote dilution no longer have to prove that the legislators drawing the maps did so to purposefully discriminate. This bar had proved so difficult to overcome, especially as legislators became more adept at using facially neutral language, that Congress adopted amendments to the VRA asserting that if the maps have a discriminatory effect, that’s enough. Chief Justice John Roberts, then working in the Reagan administration, spearheaded the unsuccessful effort to doom the passage of those amendments.

Alito hand waves this history away, in part, by echoing Roberts’ reasoning in an earlier decision that eviscerated the VRA’s preclearance requirement, which required jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination in voting to submit changes in election laws to the federal government for clearance before they could take effect. Roberts, in Shelby County v. Holder, said that the country had made such great strides in racial equality that the preventative measure was no longer necessary — ushering in a flood of new voter restrictions, particularly in the states that comprised the old Confederacy.

Read the rest at TPM.

Trump has insomnia too, it seems. He posted an idiotic message to Iran at an ungodly hour:

Trump posted this insanity at 4 in the morning

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-29T13:17:33.611Z

He is such an embarrassment! Of course the corporate media report this as if it’s perfectly normal. Here’s the latest on the Iran situation:

NBC News: Trump warns Iran ‘better get smart soon’ as he weighs military options over Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump warned Iran “better get smart soon” Wednesday, as he weighed military options for the Strait of Hormuz with peace talks at an impasse.

Members of Trump’s national security team presented him with multiple options this week for how to handle the continuing bottleneck in the strait after negotiations failed to reopen the critical waterway, a U.S. official and a person familiar with the meeting told NBC News.

The standoff between Washington and Tehran, including the continued U.S. naval blockade, means the key trade route has been effectively blocked for two months.

The threat of prolonged disruption to the global economy has sent energy prices soaring — gas price averages in the U.S. reached $4.23 a gallon,the highest level in nearly four years, while the international benchmark price for oil, Brent crude, surged to $115 a barrel early Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Iran’s national rial currency hit a record low against the dollar, as Tehran’s economy also showed growing signs of strain.

The options discussed during Monday’s meeting in the Situation Room included whether the U.S. military presence in the strait should change — either increase or decrease — and whether the military should become more aggressive in conducting operations there, the U.S. official said.

Trump has not made any decisions about the way forward, the sources said, and it’s not clear when he might make a decision.

They don’t even note that the warning from Trump came in an idiotic Truth Social post until paragraph 11!

Trump and other top administration officials met with a group of energy industry executives on Tuesday, discussing possible next steps in continuing the blockade of Iran’s ports “for months if needed” and how to minimize impacts on American consumers, a White House official told NBC News.

The meeting was hosted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent included executives from Chevron, Trafi, Vitol and Mecuria, among other companies.

The U.S. showed little immediate enthusiasm for a new Iranian proposal that would end the war and reopen the strait without resolving the impasse over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program — a key stumbling block in the stalled peace talks.

There’s quite a bit more information at the link.

Raw Story: Trump quietly telling insiders to prepare for ‘extended’ blockade of Iran: report.

President Donald Trump is quietly telling administration insiders to prepare for an “extended” blockade of Iran as negotiations to end the war with the regime drag on.

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing “U.S. officials,” that Trump has told his aides that the blockade of Iran will continue, as the two sides remain far apart on Trump’s stated goal of getting the regime to give up its nuclear arms capabilities altogether. The report followed a meeting in the Situation Room on Monday, where Trump administration officials reviewed an offer to end the war from the Iranian regime that included reopening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for delaying talks about nuclear weapons.

The report also suggests that Trump appears to be digging in and trying to tighten the screws on Iran’s economy.

“In recent meetings, including a Monday discussion in the Situation Room, Trump opted to continue squeezing Iran’s economy and oil exports by preventing shipping to and from its ports,” according to the report. “He assessed that his other options—resume bombing or walk away from the conflict—carried more risk than maintaining the blockade, officials said.”

“Yet continuing the blockade also prolongs a conflict that has driven up gas prices, hurt Trump’s poll numbers and further darkened Republicans’ prospects in the midterm elections,” it continued. “It has also caused the lowest number of transits through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began.”

In other Middle East news, the UAE is leaving OPEC. AP: The UAE’s departure from OPEC shakes up the alliance that influences oil prices worldwide.

The decision by the United Arab Emirates to leave the OPEC oil cartel shook up the 65-year-old alliance that produces some 40% of the world’s crude oil and exerts major influence over the price of energy around the globe.

OPEC countries

The UAE said in the announcement Tuesday that when it leaves OPEC this Friday, it plans to carry on with its long-held goal of increasing crude production “in a gradual and measured manner, aligned with demand and market conditions.”

Right now, that’s academic as far as oil prices go, since Iran is still blocking the Strait of Hormuz, which means much of the oil from Persian Gulf producers such as the UAE cannot be exported. But the departure could have long-term effects on oil prices….

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was formed in Baghdad in September 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. It has 12 members — counting the UAE — that hold more than 80% of the world’s proven oil reserves. Other members are Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria and the Republic of the Congo….

The group, headquartered in Vienna, aims to regulate oil prices by coordinating increases or decreases in production.

The goal has been to keep prices high enough so member governments can balance their budgets and reap the benefits of their natural resources — but not so high as to cause a recession in consuming countries or to halt energy-consuming activity, a phenomenon known as demand destruction.

Trump has really screwed us and the rest of the world with his illegal Iran war. Analysis by Andrew Roth at The Guardian: Trump in tough spot as he tries to avoid deal that highlights US failures in Iran.

Donald Trump is learning first-hand about the perils of mission creep.

The US-Israel war in Iran has just passed its eighth week – twice as long as the president predicted it would take when US warplanes launched their joint attack with Israeli forces to decapitate the Iranian leadership and paralyse its military. The military attacks were successful. The predictions about the political cause-and-effect to follow were not.

Iran has survived the initial strikes and remains defiant, closing the strait of Hormuz in a move that has blocked off a fifth of the global oil trade. The US has responded with its own blockade to lock in Iranian oil, inflicting losses of an estimated $500m daily on Tehran and threatening the country’s long-term energy production – but negotiations have stalled and it is not clear if the White House is willing to withstand the pain of a sustained economic war or the risk of a military operation to open the strait.

“This has gone from being a war of choice to a war of necessity,” said Aaron David Miller, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment and a former US diplomat and Middle East negotiator.

The war had transformed from a conflict involving Iran, the US and Israel to a “global economic crisis which shows no signs of abating”. Just this week, petrol prices in the US approached a four-year high, and they are expected to continue to rise before a crucial midterm election that could allow the Democrats to retake congress.

“The status quo is not tolerable … there has to be a fix to it,” Miller said. “It strikes me that the administration is in a very tough spot.”

But the solution remains elusive. One option would be to negotiate a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz but to delay nuclear talks on the fate of the more than 400kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) – as well as the country’s right to enrich uranium in the future.

Read the rest at The Guardian.

Yesterday the “Justice” Department indicted James Comey for the second time. The indictment is unbelievably stupid. He is accused of threatening to assassinate Trump because he posted on social media a photo of some seashells spelling “86 47.”

This Comey indictment should be in Comic Sans

— Tim Dickinson (@timdickinson.bsky.social) 2026-04-28T21:09:18.050Z

Attorney Ken White AKA Popehat wrote about it at The Popehat Report: The Comey Threat Indictment Is A Grave Embarrassment To The United States Department of Justice And The Rule of Law.

I wrote up the Comey indictment.www.popehat.com/p/the-comey-…

— 8647 Hat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) 2026-04-28T21:37:00.166Z

On April 28, 2026, the United States Department of Justice indicted former FBI Director James Comey over a mildly sassy arrangement of seashells. The charge is preposterous and no competent or honest prosecutor would bring it. It represents a betrayal of the professional and ethical obligations of every U.S. Department of Justice attorney involved, and reflects the complete collapse of the Department’s credibility and independence in favor of a cultish and cretinous devotion to Donald Trump.

The indictment concerns James Comey’s May 25, 2025 post to his Instagram account remarking “Cool shell formation on my beach walk” and showing shells arranged to spell out “86 47.” [….]

47 is Donald Trump, the 47th President of the United States, and “86” is slang for ditch, get rid of, or discard.

Based on this, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina — the venue of the sassy beach stroll — secured an indictment against Comey for two federal felonies: threatening the President of the United States in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 871 and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce in violation of Title 18, United States Code, 875(c). In both counts, the government asserts that “a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of intent to do harm.” That is, of course, a preposterous lie….

Let’s look at what the government would have to prove to convict Comey of these offenses, using cases from the Fourth Circuit, which governs this district. To prove a threat against the President in violation of Section 871, the prosecution must offer “(1) the proof of “a true threat” and (2) that the threat is made “knowingly and willfully.”“ United States v. Lockhart, 382 F.3d 447, 449-450 (4th Cir. 2004). To prove a threat in interstate commerce in violation of Section 875(c), the government must prove that “(1) that the defendant knowingly transmitted a communication in interstate or foreign commerce; (2) that the defendant subjectively intended the communication as a threat; and (3) that the content of the communication contained a “true threat” to kidnap or injure.” United States v. White, 810 F.3d 212, 220-21 (4th Cir. 2016). For purposes of both statutes, a “true threat” is a statement which an “ordinary, reasonable recipient who is familiar with the context in which the statement is made would interpret it as a serious expression of an intent to do harm.” White, 810 F.3d at 221.

Prosecutions for threats against the President played a substantial role in developing the First Amendment doctrine of “true threats,” which separates bluster and rhetoric from actual threats to do harm. In Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969), the United States Supreme Court took up the conviction of an 18-year-old man who said this during an anti-draft protest during Vietnam: “They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L. B. J. . . . . They are not going to make me kill my black brothers.” The Court articulated the core of the “true threat” doctrine, noting that political rhetoric, hyperbole, and robust debate that does not convey an intent to do harm is protected by the First Amendment:

“But whatever the “willfullness” requirement implies, the statute initially requires the Government to prove a true threat. We do not believe that the kind of political hyperbole indulged in by petitioner fits within that statutory term. For we must interpret the language Congress chose “against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964). The language  [**1402]  of the political arena, like the language used in labor disputes, see Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers of America, 383 U.S. 53, 58 (1966), is often vituperative, abusive, and inexact. We agree with petitioner that his only offense here was “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President.” Taken in context, and regarding the expressly conditional nature of the statement and the reaction of the listeners, we do not see how it could be interpreted  otherwise. Watts, 394 U.S. at 708.”

No minimally rationally person could possibly conclude, seeing James Comey’s beachside dad joke, that he was expressing a sincere intent to harm the President. Nobody could look at it and conclude that Comey intended to convey that message. In evaluating whether a threat is “true,” the trier of fact must consider the context. Here the context is seashells. The context is the former Director of the FBI, a lifetime member of law enforcement, who is a well-known critic of the President and a target of the President’s wrath, using a campy mechanism to express opposition to the President, using slang for “ditch” or “eject” or “get rid of.” No rational person could see that and say “the former director of the FBI is saying he’s going to kill the President”!”

I could now cite to you a legion of cases for that proposition, finding rhetoric far more concerning than this protected by the First Amendment, analyzing language and context to show this is protected. But it wouldn’t matter, would it? If you are a minimally rational person, you don’t need to see the precedent, and if you’re a cultist, no amount of precedent matters to you.

He does go on; read the rest at the link above.

From Blanche’s press conference yesterday:

Q: Should we expect more indictments of this sort? For example, in 2020 Gretchen Whitmer did a TV hit with "8645" in the background." Would you pursue that?BLANCHE: As far as other instances of threats against the president — those will be investigated

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-28T20:49:30.385Z

I hope Blanche doesn’t have plans to continue legal work in the future. I don’t think he’s going to have a license. The same goes for the lawyers who prosecute this case.

One more from The Washington Post: Prosecutions of Trump’s foes add to GOP’s headaches in midterms.

Republicans hoping their party’s standard-bearer will stay focused on voters’ priorities heading into the November midterms caught no relief on Tuesday as the Trump administration announced charges against former FBI director James B. Comey and an aide to former chief medical adviser Anthony S. Fauci, as well as a review of Disney’s broadcast licenses.

The latest instances of turning government power against President Donald Trump’s critics and pursuing years-old grievances added to frustrations felt by Republicans who say the president isn’t doing enough to address the signature issues that won him a second term.

Two-thirds of Americans said Trump hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems in a CNN survey conducted late last month, up from 52 percent in February 2025 and higher than at any point in his first term.

“No Republican wants to run on ‘I stand with Donald Trump’s retribution tour’” while gas prices are so high, said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona. “There is no doubt that the vast majority of non-MAGA voters want Trump to focus on anything but his personal animus toward a wide variety of people.”

The White House said the Comey prosecution has no bearing on Trump’s efforts to bring down costs — moves that include signing a tax-cut bill, adding discounted drugs to a government-run portal, expanding domestic beef production, releasing oil reserves and easing restrictions on tankers moving fuel between U.S. ports.

“The idea that President Trump and his Cabinet agencies cannot execute multiple actions simultaneously is so laughably false,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. “The insinuation that a grand jury returning an indictment is mutually exclusive with the administration’s strong efforts on the economy is objectively false.”

Other Republicans, however, asked about the administration’s priorities. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned whether the Comey case was the best use of time and resources for the acting U.S. attorney from his state who brought the charges, W. Ellis Boyle. Trump renominated Boyle to the position in January after the Senate took no action on his nomination last year.

This is just who Trump is. We can only hope the Democrats will win the House and Senate and impeach him.

That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?

 

Wednesday Reads: The Demolition of U.S. Democracy

Posted: October 22, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Good Morning!!

This looks like a war zone.

I’m heartsick about what Trump is doing to the White House. The White House belongs to the American people, not to the current president. But Trump is doing whatever he wants to our government and to “the people’s house.”

Yesterday, at his substack, Law Dork, Chris Geidner posted the clearest photos of Trump’s demolition I have seen so far. From the photos, it’s clear that either the entire East Wing or most of it will be destroyed. The first photo shows the destruction of the front of the building, and the second shows the damage from above, show how far back the damage to the roof goes. I can’t post the photos here–they are protected–but you can see them at the link.

From the article:

Exclusive: Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing is nearly complete.

Photos obtained exclusively by Law Dork on Tuesday show that President Donald Trump is completely demolishing the East Wing of the White House as part of his stated plan to build a ballroom befitting his standards on the White House grounds.

Although Trump earlier had said the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,“ this week it became abundantly clear that was a lie. And, this dramatic change to the governmental building, Trump says, is happening care of private money and outside of any governmental — and transparent — funding process.

After The Washington Post first reported on Monday that demolition had begun, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday night that Treasury Department employees next door to the demolition were told to “refrain from taking and sharing photographs of the grounds, to include the East Wing, without prior approval from the Office of Public Affairs.“

On Tuesday, Law Dork obtained these photographs taken of the ongoing demolition.

Although the Post’s initial story detailed the “East Wing facade“ being demolished and that teams on Monday were “demolishing a portion ofthe East Wing,“ the Tuesday photograph obtained by Law Dork makes clear that most if not all of the entirety of the East Wing is being demolished.

A second photo obtained by Law Dork from another angle shows the extent of the demolition has already reached all but the western and northern walls of the East Wing.

Geider links to this piece by Ryan Gottleib at ENR East: White House Ballroom Build Advances as Oversight Gaps Emerge.

Demolition crews began work Oct. 20 on the East Wing of the White House to clear space for a privately funded 90,000-sq-ft ballroom addition valued at roughly $200 million at the behest of President Donald Trump

The project, announced July 31 by the White House, will be built by Clark Construction Group with AECOM as engineer and McCrery Architects as designer.

Officials said it will create a larger venue for state and ceremonial events, financed entirely by the president and “patriot donors.”

The addition marks the most substantial change to the Executive Residence since the Truman reconstruction of 1948-52. Renderings depict a limestone-clad structure with tall arched windows, ballistic-resistant glazing and interiors described by the White House as “ornately designed.” [….]

The design calls for the addition to remain structurally distinct from the residence while echoing its neoclassical form. The press office said the ballroom “will be substantially separated from the main building… but its theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical.”

As for Trump gaining approval for the project, he took care of that by appointing a sycophant.

Regulatory filings show that as of Sept. 4 no submission had been made to the National Capital Planning Commission, which reviews major federal projects in the capital region.

 

Commission Chairman Will Scharf, who also serves as White House staff secretary, said during a public meeting that “what we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” explaining why demolition and site-preparation work began before commission review. The interpretation leaves design oversight unresolved, even as groundwork proceeds.

Under the Presidential Residence Act, the White House is managed by the National Park Service and operated by the Executive Office of the President’s Facilities Management Division.

While Section 107 of the act exempts the executive residence from mandatory review, Executive Order 11593, issued in 1971, directs federal agencies to consult with the U.S. Interior Dept. before altering historic structures.

Past administrations have voluntarily submitted major projects for review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. These measures, while not legally binding, form the preservation framework that has guided White House alterations for decades and remains relevant even for privately funded work.

More information on Trump’s vanity project from The Washington Post (gift article): White House expands East Wing demolition as critics decry Trump overreach.

A demolition job that began Monday with the disappearance of the White House’s eastern entrance advanced Tuesday with the destruction of much of the East Wing, according to a photograph obtained by The Washington Post and two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the scene.

Photos of construction teams knocking down parts of the East Wing, first revealed by The Washington Post on Monday, shocked preservationists, raised questions about White House overreach and lack of transparency, and sparked complaints from Democrats that President Donald Trump was damaging “the People’s House” to pursue a personal priority.

“They’re wrecking it,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist and professor emeritus at Towson University in Maryland. “And these are changes that can’t be undone. They’re destroying that history forever.”

A White House spokesman said that the “entirety” of the East Wing would eventually be “modernized and rebuilt.”

WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 20: Workers demolish the facade of the East Wing of the White House on October 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit created by Congress to help preserve historic buildings, sent a letter Tuesday to administration officials, warning that the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom “will overwhelm the White House itself,” which is about 55,000 square feet.

“We respectfully urge the Administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes,” Carol Quillen, National Trust’s CEO, said in a statement, citing two federal commissions that have traditionally reviewed White House additions.

White House officials dismissed the criticism as “manufactured outrage,” arguing that past presidents had pursued their own changes to the executive campus as necessary. They said that the privately funded ballroom will be a “bold, necessary addition” to the presidential grounds.

You can read more using the gift link.

After the backlash, Trump has decided to submit his plans for review–now that the work is in progress.

Reuters: White House says it will submit ballroom plans for review, with demolition already under way.

The White House said on Tuesday it will submit plans for President Donald Trump’s $250 million White House ballroom project to a body that oversees federal building construction, even though demolition work began earlier this week.

Trump reveled on Tuesday in the demolition sounds by construction workers for the ballroom addition to the White House, the first major change to the historic property in decades.

But critics, aghast about images of the White House walls crumbling after Trump had pledged the project would not interfere with the existing landmark, said a review process should have taken place before the work began.

This schematic from the Washington Post article shows the planned layout of the new White House complex.

The White House still intends to submit those plans to the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees federal construction in Washington and neighboring states, a White House official told Reuters

“Construction plans have not yet been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission but will be soon,” the official said, adding that the NCPC does not have jurisdiction over demolition work.

The commission is now led by Will Scharf, a White House aide.

Asked why the demolition of East Wing walls was occurring despite Trump’s promise that it would not affect the existing building, the official said modernization work was required in the East Wing and changes had always been a possibility.

“The scope and size was always subject to vary as the project developed,” he said.

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt thinks the critics of the East Wing teardown are just jealous.

The Daily Beast: Karoline Leavitt Gives Wild Defense of Trump Destroying the White House.

Karoline Leavitt thinks Democrats are just jealous that Donald Trump is building a swanky $250 million ballroom at the White House.

The White House press secretary says that’s the only way to explain the “fake outrage” after part of the White House’s iconic East Wing was demolished to make way for the 90,000-square-foot structure.

The Trump administration has received widespread backlash for starting work on the event space that will eventually dwarf the White House itself. “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posted on X.

But Trump officials have attempted to convince the public that it’s what presidents, administrations, and White House staff have longed for, for 150 years.

“Are the Democrats jealous that Trump is building this big beautiful ballroom?” Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Leavitt on Tuesday.

Leavitt replied that it “certainly appears that way.”

“I believe there’s a lot of fake outrage right now because nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own,” she added.

I’m speechless at this point.

Another Trump outrage from yesterday: Trump is demanding that he be paid $230 million for the prosecutions against him.

The New York Times (gift link): Trump Said to Demand Justice Dept. Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases.

President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.

The situation has no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims. It is also the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president’s former lawyers atop the Justice Department.

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general; Attorney General Pam Bondi; and Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, with President Trump in the Oval Office last week.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Mr. Trump submitted complaints through an administrative claim process that often is the precursor to lawsuits. The first claim, lodged in late 2023, seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the F.B.I. and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the claim has not been made public.

The second complaint, filed in the summer of 2024, accuses the F.B.I. of violating Mr. Trump’s privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents. It also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution in charging him with mishandling sensitive records after he left office.

Asked about the issue at the White House after this article published, the president said, “I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity.”

He added, “I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.”

A bit more:

Lawyers said the nature of the president’s legal claims poses undeniable ethics challenges.

“What a travesty,” said Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University. “The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.”

He added: “And then to have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him deciding whether he wins or loses. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”

The president also seemed to acknowledge that point in the Oval Office last week, when he alluded vaguely to the situation while standing next to the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche. According to Justice Department regulations, the deputy attorney general — in this case, Mr. Blanche — is one of two people eligible to sign off on such a settlement.

Unbelievable.

Arizona’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday.

NBC News: Arizona AG sues to force House Speaker Johnson to seat Democrat Adelita Grijalva.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to try to force House Speaker Mike Johnson to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who won her late father’s seat in a special election nearly one month ago.

Johnson, R-La., has said he will seat Grijalva once Senate Democrats agree to reopen the government. But the two parties haven’t been talking for weeks, and there is no indication when the shutdown might end.

The lawsuit, which Mayes threatened in a letter to Johnson last week, argues that the speaker’s delay is depriving the 813,000 residents living in Arizona’s 7th District of congressional representation. It lists the state of Arizona and Grijalva herself as plaintiffs and the U.S. House, as well as the House clerk and sergeant at arms, as defendants.

“Speaker Mike Johnson is actively stripping the people of Arizona of one of their seats in Congress and disenfranchising the voters of Arizona’s seventh Congressional district in the process,” Mayes said in a statement. “By blocking Adelita Grijalva from taking her rightful oath of office, he is subjecting Arizona’s seventh Congressional district to taxation without representation. I will not allow Arizonans to be silenced or treated as second-class citizens in their own democracy.”

As he left the Capitol on Tuesday evening, Johnson blasted the Arizona lawsuit as “patently absurd.”

Mayes, he said, has “no jurisdiction.”

We’ll see what the judge has to say about it.

At the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth (Secretary of War) tells military officials they can’t talk to Congress without his approval.

AP: Hegseth changes policy on how Pentagon officials communicate with Congress.

Leaders at the Pentagon have significantly altered how military officials will speak with Congress after a pair of new memos issued last week.

In an Oct. 15 memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his deputy, Steve Feinberg, ordered Pentagon officials — including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — to obtain permission from the department’s main legislative affairs office before they have any communication with Capitol Hill.

The memo was issued the same day the vast majority of Pentagon reporters exited the building rather than agree to the Defense Department’s new restrictions on their work, and it appears to be part of a broader effort by Hegseth to exert tighter control over what the department communicates to the outside world.

According to the memo, a copy of which was authenticated by a Pentagon official, “unauthorized engagements with Congress by (Pentagon) personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives.”

More from NBC News: Pete Hegseth cracks down on Pentagon staff speaking to Congress.

It’s a departure from current practice; previously, Defense Department agencies were free to manage their own interactions with Capitol Hill.

But under Hegseth, the department has sought stricter control over messaging coming out of the Pentagon. Dozens of reporters turned in their badges and left the building last week, when most news agencies refused to sign unprecedented restrictions Hegseth imposed that threatened consequences for journalists who reported information he had not approved for release, even if it was unclassified.

The new directive, which would further curb information flow from the Pentagon to Congress, is designed “to achieve our legislative goals,” Hegseth and his deputy wrote in the memo.

“Unauthorized engagements with Congress by DoW personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives,” the memo says, using the initialism for the “Department of War,” the Defense Department’s secondary but unofficial name used by the Trump administration.

Why is Hegseth so paranoid? Is it because he’s incompetent and realizes the competent DOD people know that?

Two more articles to check out:

The Washington Post (gift link): Health insurance sticker shock begins as shutdown battle over subsidies rages.

Millions of Americans are already seeing their health insurance costs soar for 2026 as Congress remains deadlocked over extending covid-era subsidies for premiums.

The bitter fight sparked a government shutdown at the start of October. Democrats refuse to vote on government-funding legislation unless it extends the subsidies, while Republicans insist on separate negotiations after reopening the government. Now lawmakers face greater pressure to act as Americans who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act are seeing, or about to see, the consequences of enhanced subsidies expiring at the end of the year.

Healthcare.gov — the federal website used by 28 states — is expected to post plan offerings early next week ahead of the start of open enrollment in November. But window shopping has already begun in most of the 22 states that run their own marketplaces, offering a preview of the sticker shock to come.

Premiums nationwide are set to rise by 18 percent on average, according to an analysis of preliminary rate filings by the nonpartisan health policy group KFF. That, combined with the loss of extra subsidies, have left Americans with the worst year-over-year price hikes in the 12 years since the marketplaces launched.

Nationally, the average marketplace consumer will pay $1,904 in annual premiums next year, up from $888 in 2025, according to KFF.

The situation is particularly acute in Georgia, which recorded the second-highest enrollment of any state-run marketplace this year and posted prices for 2026 earlier in October. About 96 percent of marketplace enrollees in Georgia received subsidies this year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank that supports extending the subsidies.

Now Georgians browsing the state website are seeing estimated monthly costs double or even triple, depending on their incomes, as lower subsidy thresholds resume.

Use the gift link to read more.

It’s a shame this didn’t get more publicity. CNN: Democratic senator protests Trump’s ‘grave threats’ in marathon overnight floor speech.

Sen. Jeff Merkley has been speaking on the Senate floor for more than 12 hours after announcing he would protest what he called President Donald Trump’s “grave threats to democracy.”

The Oregon Democrat began his remarks at 6:24 p.m. ET Tuesday and was still speaking as of Wednesday morning.

Senator Jeff Merkley

“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells. We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War. President Trump is shredding our Constitution,” he said at the start of his remarks.

The senator’s marathon speech stands as a symbolic show of Democratic resistance as his party remains in a standoff with Republicans over health care subsidies amid the government shutdown. The shutdown is expected to drag on with the impasse entering a fourth week Wednesday. Democrats have so far held their position, blocking the GOP stopgap bill to reopen the government 11 times until their demands are met.

Merkley in his speech pointed to the Trump administration’s previous halting of research grants for universities in its battle over campus oversight as well as the recent indictments of several of the president’s political opponents as well as his push to deploy National Guard troops to Portland.

“President Trump wants us to believe that Portland, Oregon, in my home state, is full of chaos and riots. Because if he can say to the American people that there are riots, he can say there’s a rebellion. And if there’s a rebellion, he can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on our nation,” he said.

Read the rest at CNN.

Those are my offerings for today. Sorry there’s not more good news.

Lazy Caturday Reads: Just Another Crazy Day in the USA

Posted: September 27, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Sophia and her kitten, by Lena Revo

It’s just another crazy day in the USA. Our “president” is a madman who has surrounded himself with sycophants and assorted insane groupies. The news today is just as insane as it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that. What else can I say? Here’s what’s happening as of this morning.

The top story is still the Comey indictment.

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Overcame Internal Dissent to Get His Case Against Comey.

President Trump asked advisers directly last week: Where were the prosecutions that he wanted to see?

He had been hearing from allies that the Justice Department wasn’t moving aggressively against the people who had investigated and prosecuted him, according to people familiar with the matter. Chief among them was former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey.

Senior Justice Department officials told him the evidence against Comey wasn’t a slam dunk, and prosecutors in Virginia didn’t want to bring the case. Other White House officials worried that such a case could end badly.

Trump told the DOJ officials to make the best case they could, officials said. He said any lack of evidence was just like what he faced in his own criminal cases, the people said.

On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi delivered, extracting from a grand jury a two-count indictment against Comey related to five-year-old congressional testimony. Comey says he is innocent. The grand jury appeared to have some doubts, rejecting one additional count against Comey.

In the process, Bondi has effectively transformed the Justice Department in Trump’s second term, from an independent enforcer of the law into an extension of the White House that has pursued Trump’s foes and their associates with relish.

The Comey family is in Trump’s crosshairs.

Comey, who oversaw the initial 2016 investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia that dogged much of the president’s first term, has emerged as one of the Justice Department’s biggest targets for retribution along with his family.

In July, it fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, who had been a star federal prosecutor in Manhattan, with a supervisor telling her only that the decision “came from Washington.” On Thursday, Troy Edwards Jr., a son-in-law married to another daughter, resigned from the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, saying that he was doing so to uphold his oath to the Constitution.

“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said in a video after his indictment. The longtime Republican served as a senior Justice Department official in the administration of President George W. Bush and was nominated as the FBI director by President Barack Obama, before Trump fired him in 2017….

…Comey’s indictment thrust the Justice Department into uncharted territory, with Trump’s clearest breach yet of rules designed to insulate the agency from partisan pressure after the Watergate scandal roiled the agency more than five decades ago.

Tensions over the case came to a head last week after some administration officials, including Ed Martin, a Justice Department official pursuing cases of interest to Trump, privately told the president that the Justice Department was slow-walking cases against Trump critics, people familiar with the discussions said.

The Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, had told colleagues he didn’t see a case against Comey or Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, people familiar with the matter said.

Last Thursday, an administration official called Siebert and told him he would likely be fired.

Kat, Cat, by Katherine Ace

According to the WSJ, AG Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche defended Siebert, but to no avail. Trump replaced Sibert with Lindsey Halligan, an insurance lawyer who had never prosecuted a case. Halligan then presented the case to a grand jury by herself and obtained 2 indictment of Comey. Only 14 of 23 grand jurors voted to indict him on 2 of 3 counts. Apparently, Bondi is in the Trump’s dog house now, although he’s telling people he still likes her. Trump said yesterday he expected and hoped for more indictments of his political enemies.

CBS News: Judge who reviewed James Comey’s indictment was confused by prosecutor’s handling of case, transcript shows.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lindsey Vaala expressed confusion and surprise at some points during the seven-minute court session when a federal grand jury impaneled in Alexandria, Virginia,  returned the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey Thursday night.

According to a transcript of the proceedings obtained by CBS News, Judge Vaala asked the newly named interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan — a former Trump personal lawyer — why there were two versions of the indictment.

A majority of the grand jury that reviewed the Comey matter voted not to charge him with one of the three counts presented by prosecutors, according to a form that was signed by the grand jury’s foreperson and filed in court. He was indicted on two other counts — making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding — after 14 of 23 jurors voted in favor of them, the foreperson told the judge.

But two versions of the indictment were published on the case docket: one with the dropped third count, and one without. The transcript reveals why this occurred.

“So this has never happened before. I’ve been handed two documents that are in the Mr. Comey case that are inconsistent with one another,” Vaala said to Halligan. “There seems to be a discrepancy. They’re both signed by the (grand jury) foreperson.”

Halligan didn’t know why two versions had been published and claimed she had only seen the one with two indictments–which she had signed herself, presumably because no line prosecutor had been willing to do so. The questioning went on for awhile.

I wonder who Halligan will find to prosecute the case? Will she do it herself? Comey has a very good attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, remember him? He was the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case during the George W. Bush administration.

Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney at Politico: Why the case against James Comey may end in humiliation for Trump’s DOJ.

The indictment of James Comey, ordered up by President Donald Trump in a breathtaking breach of Justice Department independence, is being welcomed with glee in MAGA circles.

But the case against the former FBI director and longtime Trump nemesis may quickly end in disappointment — and even humiliation — for the prosecutor who was conscripted by the president to bring the charges.

Nataliya Bagatskaya, A Glass of Milk

The bare-bones indictment secured by that prosecutor, Trump loyalist Lindsey Halligan, is exceptionally weak, former prosecutors and legal experts say. Fundamental problems with the case itself — as well as the unusual events that preceded the indictment — will make it difficult to bring Comey to trial, let alone secure a conviction.

Former federal terrorism prosecutor Andy McCarthy called the charges “poorly done” and predicted they will be thrown out by a judge well before any trial.

“The whole thing is just bizarro,” McCarthy said. “This is the kind of thing that should never ever happen. … This case should never go to trial because it’s obvious from the four corners of the indictment that there’s no case.”

The issues that could doom the case include the overt political pressure by Trump to bring the indictment, Halligan’s own inexperience, peculiarities in the indictment itself and even a five-year-old technology issue.

Read all the details at Politico.

Alan Feuer at The New York Times (gift link): Trump’s Repeated Attacks May Undercut Case Against Comey.

Even before James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, was indicted this week, legal experts were already questioning whether the case might be vulnerable to an uncommon but powerful legal attack: allegations that President Trump, who has long called for Mr. Comey to be jailed, had pushed the Justice Department into opening an improper vindictive prosecution.

Such speculation gained at least a little steam this week after Mr. Trump weighed in on the charges, which center on whether Mr. Comey lied to Congress, in a manner that seemed to prejudge his guilt.

“Whether you like Corrupt James Comey or not, and I can’t imagine too many people liking him, HE LIED!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday morning. “It is not a complex lie, it’s a very simple, but IMPORTANT one. There is no way he can explain his way out of it.”

The remarks by Mr. Trump were not the first time he had shared — or over-shared — his opinions about whether Mr. Comey should be prosecuted, evincing what defense lawyers may seek to argue was a political animus by the Justice Department.

By Stu Morris

Last weekend, in an even more pointed social media post, Mr. Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to immediately get to work prosecuting Mr. Comey and two of his other enemies, Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, and Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California.

“They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” Mr. Trump wrote, adding, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

While vindictive prosecution motions are notoriously difficult to win, the president’s voluble vitriol and his incessant need to be on the attack could provide defense lawyers with an avenue to protect the very people he most wants to punish.

“Ironically, by demanding the prosecutions, Trump may have undercut any possibility of success by providing the people on his ‘enemies list’ with a built-in defense,” Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, wrote in a recent blog post on the subject.

Use the gift link to read the rest if you’re interested.

Trump has chosen the next city to get his fascist beatdown–Portland, Oregon.

AP: Trump says he’ll send troops to Portland, Oregon, in latest deployment to US cities.

President Donald Trump said Saturday he will send troops to Portland, Oregon, “authorizing Full Force, if necessary” to handle “domestic terrorists” as he expands his controversial deployments to more American cities.

He made the announcement on social media, writing that he was directing the Department of Defense to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland.”

Trump said the decision was necessary to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, which he described as “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for details on Trump’s announcement, such as a timeline for the deployment or what troops would be involved. He previously threatened to send the National Guard into Chicago without following through. A deployment in Memphis, Tennessee, is expected to include only about 150 troops, far less than were sent to the District of Columbia for Trump’s crackdown or in Los Angeles in response to immigration protests….

The ICE facility in Portland has been the target of frequent demonstrations, sometimes leading to violent clashes. Some federal agents have been injured and several protesters have been charged with assault. When protesters erected a guillotine earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security described it as “unhinged behavior.” [….]

“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland,” he said, describing them as “professional agitators and anarchists.”

The Washington Post: Trump deploys troops to Portland, authorizing ‘full force’ if necessary.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he will send troops to Portland, Oregon, and to immigration detention facilities around the country, authorizing “Full Force, if necessary” and escalating a campaign to use the U.S. military against Americans that has little modern precedent….

Portrait with Cat by Arsen Kurbanov

Portland has been a target of right-wing politicians for the way it has handled racial-justice protests as well as its homeless population, tolerating encampments in the central part of the city. But Trump will again encounter the dynamic he did when he deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles — a military deployment in a state run by a Democratic governor who objects to the decision and will have grounds to fight it in court.

It was not immediately clear whether Trump plans to deploy active-duty troops, National Guard members, or both, to Portland. As was the case in similar discussions in other cities, there are legal limits to how he can do so.

One official familiar with the discussion on Saturday said defense officials were seeking clarity on what Trump desires in this situation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about private planning.

wweek.com Portland: Federal Agents Amass in Portland, Local Officials Say.

President Donald Trump has dispatched federal agents to Portland, local elected officials said in a hastily scheduled press conference on Friday night. Those agents have amassed at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on the South Waterfront and have been observed in other locations across the city, officials said.

“We now have a sudden influx of federal agents in our city,” Mayor Keith Wilson said. “We did not ask for them to come. They are here without precedent or purpose.”

Over and over, officials described the agents’ arrival as an attempt to goad residents into a confrontation that would give the president a pretext for a military crackdown.

“This is the ‘Don’t take the bait’ press conference,” said U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). “Their goal is to create an engagement—an engagement that will lead to conflict. President Trump has one goal. His goal is to make Portland look like what he’s been describing it as. Let’s not grant him that wish.”

The phalanx of local officials assembled at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Northeast Portland—ranging from the majority of city councilors to two members of Congress—admitted they weren’t sure whether the federal ingress into Portland consisted of military officers or merely agents from the Federal Protective Service.

More details at the link.

We may soon learn how much damage Trump has done to the National Weather Service.

Hannah Natanson and Brady Dennis at The Washington Post (gift link): National Weather Service at ‘breaking point’ as storm approaches.

Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a “buddy system,” in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions. Still others are jettisoning services deemed not absolutely necessary, such as making presentations to schoolchildren.

The Trump administration’s cuts to the Weather Service — where nearly 600 workers,or about 1 in every 7, have left through firings, resignations or retirements — are pushing the agency to its limits, according to interviews with current and former staffers.

By Ramy Salah Hefny

The incoming head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has promised to prioritize filling those jobs, and the White House recently granted the Weather Service an exemption from a government-wide hiring freeze. But as the Atlantic hurricane season peaks and wildfires ramp up in the West, hundreds of positions remain vacant, staff said. Forecasters are currently watching two storms, including one that could pose a threat for the eastern United States by early next week.

So far, exhausted employees have maintained weather monitoring and forecasting almost without interruption, staff said. But many are wondering how much longer they can keep it up. If the government shuts down next week when funding runs out, many employees could also find themselves working without pay, at least temporarily.

“We have a strained and severely stretched situation,” said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, the union that represents the agency’s workers. The Weather Service has a famously dedicated workforce, he said, but workers can put in only so many long hours and extra shifts. “There’s a breaking point.”

Fahy said two offices — one in California’s Central Valley and another in western Kansas — no longer have enough staffing to operate around the clock. And, he added, “there are still a dozen offices across the country that are operating on reduced staffs.”

Use the gift link if you want to read more.

Pete Hegseth’s power play

I’m sure you’ve heard about the weird meeting Pete Hegseth has order hundreds of top military officers to attend in person.

Natasha Bertrand and Alayna Treen at CNN: Hegseth’s surprise gathering of top military brass is to deliver speech on ‘warrior ethos,’ sources say.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s surprise gathering of hundreds of generals and admirals in Virginia next week is being called so he can describe the administration’s reinvention of the Department of Defense as the “Department of War” and outline new standards for military personnel, according to half a dozen people familiar with the planning.

“It’s meant to be a show of force of what the new military now looks like under the president,” a White House official told CNN.

The meeting is expected to resemble “a pep rally” where Hegseth will underscore the importance of the “warrior ethos” and outline a new vision for the US military, said three of the sources. He is expected to discuss new readiness, fitness and grooming standards the officers are expected to adhere to and enforce.

“It’s about getting the horses into the stable and whipping them into shape,” said a defense official familiar with the planning. “And the guys with the stars on their shoulders make for a better audience from an optics standpoint. This is a showcase for Hegseth to tell them: get on board, or potentially have your career shortened.”

WTF?!

Hegseth’s team is planning on recording his speech and releasing it publicly later, three of the sources said, and the White House is planning to amplify it, the White House official said.

As of Friday, there were no plans for Hegseth to make a major national security-related announcement as part of the meeting, all of the sources said, making it even more surprising that he has ordered the officers to attend in person and leave their posts for what will essentially be a major speech.

By Ektarina Yastrebova

As of now, there isn’t expected to be a weapons showcase for the officers as President Donald Trump suggested, according to the White House official and one of the sources familiar with the planning. Trump is not currently planning to be involved or attend the meeting on Tuesday, two officials told CNN.

The original idea for the unprecedented gathering of generals and admirals was Hegseth’s, the White House official and one of the sources familiar with the planning said. Hegseth later let the White House know about the plans, but Trump himself knew very little about the details when he was asked about it in the Oval Office on Thursday, the White House official said.

I’m no military expert, but isn’t it kind of dangerous to have our enemies know that all those top generals and admirals will be in one room for an hour or so?

The Guardian: US military brass brace for firings as Pentagon chief orders top-level meeting.

US military officials are reportedly bracing for possible firings or demotions after the Trump administration’s Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, abruptly summoned hundreds of generals and admirals from around the world to attend a gathering in Virginia in the upcoming days.

The event, scheduled for Tuesday at Marine Corps University in Quantico, is expected to feature a short address by Hegseth focused on military standards and the “warrior ethos”, according to the Washington Post.

The order to attend the meeting, which has been described as unusual and unprecedented, was reportedly issued with little explanation – and prompted military personnel stationed overseas to have to make last-minute travel arrangements.

A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the upcoming gathering to the Guardian, saying that Hegseth “will meet with his senior military leaders”, but did not provide any further details.

According to the Times, the Pentagon informed congressional committees overseeing the military on Friday that Hegseth intends to use the gathering to share with “most senior service members his intent for the department”, including new guidance on “military fitness standards and several other areas of interest”.

Sources cited by the Post say that Tuesday’s address will be the first of three short lectures by Hegseth. The second, the Post reported, will reportedly focus on the defense industrial base, and the third on deterrence.

More stories of possible interest

The New York Times: Trump Fired a U.S. Attorney Who Insisted on Following a Court Order.

Shuyler Mitchell at Mother Jones: “Extremely Disturbing”: What Does Trump’s “Antifa” Executive Order Actually

Do?

Claire McCaskill at MSNBC: Hegseth’s mystery military meeting broadcasts a damaging message of U.S. instability.

The New York Times: F.B.I. Fires More Agents, Including Those Who Knelt During Racial Justice Protests.

CNN: ‘I’m absolutely terrified’: Federal workers brace for potential government shutdown, mass layoffs.

That’s it for me. What’s on your mind today?

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