Katie Phang started her lawsuit against the Department of Justice to release the remaining 3 million Epstein files back on April 27th. It's been a sparring match between Katie as the plaintiff and Todd Blanche as the defendant ever since. Just a week ago, Rep. Thomas Massie introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act II to create fines and penalties. It was introduced on July 15th, but the text of the bill is still not available. Massie has a complete description of what it does on his Congressional website. Victims would be able to sue the Department of Justice for their ineptitude in redacting their names, personal information, and photos, among other liabilities. This was all missing in the first Epstein Files Transparency Act, which the Department of Justice still has not fulfilled when required to on December 19, 2025.

For the umpteenth time in their filings, the DOJ says that the judge didn't actually order that the files be released, just that they had to show cause why they aren't releasing them, and they don't even do that. Katie's suit has teeth in it. If the DOJ doesn't produce the 3 million documents, then she wants a fine of $1,000 a day until they do. You can read all the documents in the case at Court Listener here. I won't bother quoting from the latest DOJ reply because it says absolutely nothing in an attempt to delay, delay, delay.

Here's Katie Phang's take on the latest DOJ response:

The “baby floaties” remark got a laugh out of me. But, she's right. They are being so totally unprofessional that there should be sanctions. DOJ lawyers should be referred to the bar for producing such poor work and not responding to the questions that were put forth. They amount to slightly better than Donald Trump's Truth Social whines.

The Trump administration keeps acting like if they can continuously delay producing the other 3 million Epstein files, that the problem will just go away. It won't. Every day there are hearings in the Senate and House with people mentioned in the files that could be collaborators with Epstein, and victims seeing how the Department of Justice never talks to them. How many prosecutions have come out of examining the files that are there already? None, and Blanche’s last testimony in his confirmation hearing said that none were planned or even being investigated.

There are six more lawsuits against the Trump administration over the Epstein files, including one called Jane Doe 1 v. United States. You can read up on them here at Just Security, along with the 900 other federal cases against the Trump administration. The Department of Justice should have already released the 3 million documents Katie Phang is demanding, but her lawsuit is there to make sure it happens.

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I really hope that the young man stays unidentified. MAGA internet sleuths will be doing their best to identify him and dox him, unless, of course, they're stupid enough to think that he is honoring Trump.

Behind Trump's back, the mocker cracks up a lot at what Trump is saying in this silent version:

There's only so much vetting that Trump rally organizers can do. When Trump spoke at Fort Bragg, the complete military audience was screened so when Trump made insulting remarks about Joe Biden, they laughed and clapped. This time, the vetters failed. Trump has not yet reacted to it, and his handlers are probably telling him not to say anything because he already was looking like a fool at the rally.

What Trump was supposed to be talking about was Trump Accounts. This are $1,000 IRAs set up for newborn children that in reality, come from taxes the parents pay. It's like giving them back their own money, but, untouchable until they are 18 years old. Such a deal, not.

The streets of Marietta on the way to the high school were lined with protesters to let Trump know coming and going how they felt about him.

The mocker did another routine while Donald Trump was talking about his new ballroom.

The student is going to become an internet hero. It's almost as good as mocking him directly to his face. I hope it inspires others to do the same in the future because Trump is so thin skinned that he can't take a joke. Tomorrow we get a replay of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that had to be rescheduled because of the assassination attempt at the Washington DC Hilton Hotel. This time it's going to be at the Waldorf instead. I hope the journalists take the opportunity to rake Trump over the coals like they should. In the meantime, the Marietta Mocker reigns supreme.

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The International Criminal Court investigates and prosecutes crimes against humanity, including genocide and aggression, when national courts are unable to do so. Jack Smith was a prosecutor for the Court before he became the Special Counsel investigating Donald Trump for his actions on January 6th and his handling of classified documents. The United States, as well as Israel, are not signatories to the Rome Statute that created the court. The reasoning US administrations have not become signatories to supporting the ICC is because they don't want American servicemen to be under their jurisdiction and don't want international courts to supersede our own courts. On Nov. 21, 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and using starvation as a war tactic in Gaza.

Donald Trump issued an executive order on February 6th, 2025, imposing sanctions on the ICC. The order attempted to freeze assets and made travel restrictions on members of the ICC and their families. On Monday, Marco Rubio published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal starting a campaign to dismantle the ICC, saying that they were interfering with United States military and law enforcement operations at the risk of American sovereignty. Rubio also put out a video:

Listen to Ambassador Jeffrey Bartos, U.S. Representative for U.N. Management and Reform, at the UN Security Council on July 15th.

Accusations of interference with no detail. It's simply an attack because Donald Trump doesn't like the ICC having issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was thinking about having Netanyahu arrested, but then found that he couldn't, but said that Trump should do it federally.

This call for Netanyahu's arrest is exactly what Rubio was talking about in challenging the United States sovereignty, except it's not. It’s about Israel and Netanyahu.

“If we stand idle, all of them will be at the mercy of foreign judges, thousands of miles away – facing the constant risk of prosecution and even imprisonment for the so-called ‘crime’ of defending their own country,” Rubio warned in a companion video posted to X.

The Guardian describes Rubio's plan:

The State Department plans to “dismantle” the ICC will involve pressuring other nations to abandon the court, according to CNN. “Nations that refuse to reject the ICC’s false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny,” an official told the outlet, adding that possible punishments could involve sanctions, travel bans and visa revocations.

Rubio’s attack doesn’t just underscore US hypocrisy, but undermines access to justice across the globe, from Ukraine to Sudan and could amount to obstruction of justice, a crime under the Rome statute in and of itself,” Raed Jarrar, Dawn’s advocacy director said in a statement on Monday. “It is not the ICC that Rubio is dismantling brick by brick – but the rules-based international order that grew out of the ashes of world war two.”

So far, this Trump's sanctions against the ICC have involved members of the court and their families. He has not gone to sanctioning everyone associated with the court. Two US advocacy groups say the current sanctions themselves are illegal.

Two US advocacy groups sued the Trump administration on July 15th, alleging that sanctions targeting Palestinian rights organizations, International Criminal Court (ICC) officials, and a UN expert have unlawfully violated Americans’ first amendment rights.

The sanctions are a part of a campaign to chill the protestation of crimes against the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza.

“The Trump administration is using the blunt instrument of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights defenders but to police the political expression of millions of Americans,” said Omar Shakir, executive director of Democracy in the Arab World Now (Dawn), a Washington-based advocacy group focused on US foreign policy in the Middle East. Dawn joined the New York-based Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide in Wednesday’s lawsuit.

If an American helps or puts information before the International Criminal Court, they could be subject to Trump's executive order. That's where the First Amendment comes into play.

“I had to stop certain aspects of my work supporting affected populations around the world,” said Akila Radhakrishnan, an international human rights lawyer who sued the administration last year for halting her work advising the ICC on sexual and gender-based violence claims. “The US attacks have disrupted the ecosystem for international justice, devastating victims’ prospects for justice the world over.”

“It is bad enough that the Trump administration is using extraordinary powers to protect Israeli officials from efforts to bring them to justice for their genocide and war crimes,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “But it is blatantly unconstitutional for Trump to threaten American citizens and residents for assisting such efforts.”

The other claim is that Trump has overstepped his power using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. Trump already got knocked down once using the IEEPA unconstitutionally by imposing his reciprocal tariffs in April 2025.

If the Executive is permitted to blow past constitutional and statutory restraints here, there is little to stop it from weaponizing IEEPA to target other disfavored viewpoints,” the lawsuit says. “A future president could, for example, declare a ‘national emergency’ over high energy prices, designate foreign environmental groups that campaign against fossil fuel extraction, and cut off American climate advocates from their overseas partners … The list of potential abuses is virtually endless.”

Trump is constantly declaring national emergencies for whatever his current authoritarian agenda needs. I don't want to give Trump any ideas, but he could declare a national emergency over anti-semitism and conflate that with protests and criticisms against Israel and Netanyahu. He could easily go that far, and how much of the country would say it was political garbage? He has gotten so much traction and leverage over his bogus anti-antisemitism crusade that he could easily do it.

The ICC warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant are hardly the only ones on the table. Destroy the ICC and they also can't go after Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for kidnapping Ukrainian children and then indoctrinating them into learning Russian and Russian history. Those warrants were issued in March of 2023. So, cripple the ICC’s ability to operate, and criminals that the whole world agrees on go unpunished. But, Maybe Donald Trump wants the Vladimir Putin to go free. That would explain a lot of things.

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Pete Hegseth had a completely negative performance, which got even worse at the end when he got into a shouting match with Senator Gary Peters:

Hegseth conflates criticism of him with criticism of the military. Peters made it quite clear that the failure was Pete Hegseth, not the servicemen of the United States. Any criticism of Hegseth and the war is labeled as being unpatriotic when the point is to save the lives of Americans.

Earlier, Sen. Jon Ossoff ripped Hegseth apart:

It's just so easy to use Hegseth and Trump's own words against them. Hegseth makes public relations claims that don't pan out. Decimated, obliterated, winning, won, no missiles, no planes, no navy, all are shown to be lies and all Hegseth can do is squirm in his seat and claim that the military follows orders and is successful in doing so. That's not a defense for the amateur handling of the war. It's not a defense for starting a war of whim and a war of choice.

Security escorted out multiple Code Pink and anti-war protesters who repeatedly disrupted the session, shouting slogans such as "Your hands are bloody with 17 Americans.”

It was in the best tradition of anti-war protests. Today, there will be a dignified transfer of the four latest casualties in Donald Trump's War. Maybe that's what we need to start calling it, instead of the war in Iran or the Iran War. It's Donald Trump's War. Maybe Trump will be dignified also and not be wearing a campaign baseball cap. Even if he does, Fox News will edit it out or show a previous transfer like they've already done before.

All reporting says that Hegseth's claim that the war has only caused $37.5 billion so far is way off. Not only that, but the Pentagon already has the money it needs.

“Well, you’ve told this committee that you’ve barely spent half of the $150 billion in reconciliation funding, and if you still have $75 billion available, why are you asking the American people to absorb the cost of a war they don’t support instead of asking for transfer authority for unspent reconciliation funding,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) asked Hegseth.

Hegseth said the funding had already been earmarked for Trump administration priorities such as building a “Golden Dome” missile defense system and scaling up production of hypersonic weapons.

The Golden Dome is a defense contractors dream slush fund for a system that will work for a short time before ways to get around it are produced by our enemies. It's time for Congress to shut that boondoggle down.

Republicans control both houses, so the vote is likely to go in favor of the Pentagon, even with all the garbage answers Hegseth gave. It's hard to say no when the claim is made that it needs to pay the troops. But that's not the truth, either. The Pentagon already has the money. Use it for the right thing.

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In the lead up to the FIFA World Cup finals, Donald Trump was upset over the Canadian wildfire smoke that was stretching across a swath of the country, including New Jersey where the World Cup final took place on Sunday. The smoke blew away in time, but Trump was still upset anyway.

Transactional Trump always thinks someone owes him money, not the United States, just him. He complained about help from Canada fighting our wildfires costing us money when there is a reciprocal agreement that goes both ways. We charge Canada for helping them. Trump always wants things to go only one way, in his favor. That's not how agreements work. That's how Trump is bogging us down in a war of whim in Iran. He just doesn't understand negotiations and agreements.

Trump followed through on Monday with a whopping 50% tariff on many types of goods that weren't included in the United States Mexico Canada Agreement, USMCA, which Trump has said the United States is pulling out of, but it's still lasts until 2036 when it is set to expire. The US Trade Representative put out a post that blamed the whole thing on Canadian imports of United States alcoholic beverages. Canadians stopped stocking and buying them after Trump's repeated threats against Canada, the 25% tariffs, and talking about making Canada the 51st state. This is not new.

If I were Canadian, I wouldn't be buying US alcohol or any United States products that could be purchased from Canadian manufacturers. I wouldn't take vacations in the United States. Trump just doesn't understand that when people don't need to buy products from the United States and he pisses them off, they naturally boycott them, and they have every right to.

On WhiteHouse.gov, there are several new proclamations and a fact sheet to support them about the new tariffs. Italic sections are from the fact sheet on the proclamations.

“DEFENDING AMERICAN WORKERS AND ENSURING FAIR TRADE: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed three Proclamations pursuant to Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose additional 50% tariffs on certain goods of Canada in response to Canada’s discriminatory treatment of American products. By doing so, President Trump is offsetting the burden and disadvantage on U.S. commerce from Canada’s discriminatory treatment of U.S. commerce and is leveling the playing field for crucial American exports—cars, alcohol, and dairy.”

Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1338) is a long-standing U.S. trade statute that empowers the President to impose punitive duties of up to 50% on imports from any foreign country deemed to be discriminating against or unequally burdening American commerce.

Unlike other trade mechanisms (such as Section 301 or Section 232), Section 338 does not require lengthy formal investigations by the USTR or national security determinations, making it a fast-acting executive tool.

This is the first time the statute has been used in nearly a century. The lack of modern precedent creates massive legal uncertainty, meaning the courts will be entering uncharted territory if challenged by Canadian officials or affected Canadian Industries.

Several Democratic lawmakers have already pushed to repeal Section 338, citing its potential for economic disruption. Furthermore, because the tariffs do not take effect for 30 days after signing, they are widely viewed by analysts as a massive bargaining tool intended to force Canada to the negotiating table before the levies officially begin.

So, what is Donald Trump's end game here? He's been complaining about cars being assembled in Canada along with Canadian parts being made for American cars since last year. Same thing for dairy and alcohol. None of this is new. Everyone drew a sigh of relief when he got rid of the 25% tariffs on car parts and cars going over the Canadian and Mexican borders because Donald Trump does not understand the car industry either.

These Section 338 tariffs will not apply to energy, potash, products subject to tariffs under Section 232, and certain other goods, such as fish or critical minerals. Electricity, oil and gas, and fertilizer are exempted, but there are still tariffs on them. Just not 50%. More likely, it's just the 10% that has been slapped on all imports. But the complaints listed in the fact sheets are all about cars, dairy products, and alcohol.

The Section 338 tariffs imposed today make America wealthier and stronger, offsetting the burden and disadvantage on U.S. commerce from Canada’s discriminatory treatment of U.S. commerce. Trump still does not understand that it is US citizens who pay tariffs, not foreign countries. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick doesn't dare tell him the truth.

President Trump has taken actions under Section 232 to protect and strengthen U.S. manufacturing critical for our national and economic security, including imposing tariffs on key goods such as steel, aluminum, copper, trucks and automobiles, timber, lumber, and pharmaceuticals. Great. Now, everything that uses steel, aluminum, copper, and wood goes up in price. Sort of everything but food.

Canadian officials and companies have 30 days in which to file lawsuits against the imposition of the tariffs. Based on the ruling of the United States International Court of Trade on Trump's reciprocal tariffs, which were deemed unconstitutional, this time the court might impose an injunction to stop them instead of letting the tariffs take effect while the decision plays out in the court of appeals. Trump just loves taking away Americans' earnings because he just doesn't care. He only cares about are displays of power. All it took to trigger him were the Canadian wildfires.

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When I first read Trump's Truth Social post, I thought it was just another whine about climate change and how he has no concept of it or believe in it. That's why he still pushes fossil fuels to make money for his billionaire buddies. He's going after the National Academy of Sciences because of the information they publish that judges use in climate change cases. But, he's not just saying they're wrong. He wants to defund the National Academy of Sciences by taking away all their government contracts that fund the organization by as much as 70%-85% each year.

This is still another time that Trump is ruling by fiat by saying, "With this TRUTH.” Notice the capitalization. Whatever Trump says is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. His social media platform should have been named Lies Social instead.

“Of course, the Academy has been run by Radical Left Dumocrats who, it turns out, published fraudulent, biased, and misleading Manuals on Climate Change.” Trump doesn't understand how government works, how the judiciary works, how the world works, and he certainly doesn't understand science at all. He is the most ignorant president in history, especially about science. Abraham Lincoln signed the charter for the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.

Approximately 11% of the people of the United States think that the world is flat. I'm willing to bet the majority of them are Trump MAGA followers.

“These bogus Manuals were used by Judges to decide massive ‘Climate Change’ Cases, and have created huge losses across our Country. These Manuals have been totally DISCREDITED.” No, they haven't. Understanding climate change is a way to save the Earth from becoming a scorched, dead, ball of fire rotating around the Sun. More people are dying from heat every year because of climate change. Trump is out to make the United States the "hottest country in the world,” literally. He says it all the time in his ridiculous speeches. Trump is just angry because being responsible businesses costs them money in the short run. The long run benefits are both for the company and the people.

“Our Nation’s Federal Judges deserve Facts and Science, not Political Fraud and False Science on Climate.” This is the massive problem with Trump's thinking. Science is not political. Science is facts. Trump just wants to continue his belief in alternate facts that he creates in what is left of his mind.

“With this TRUTH, I hereby order Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials to review this conduct. Our Taxpayers should not be funding Climate Fraud, and Judges should never have relied upon it.” There really are Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials.

Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials (SDOs) are agency executives who administratively exclude contractors and grant recipients from receiving government contracts, subcontracts, or financial assistance. These non-punitive actions are enacted to protect the government by ensuring it only does business with "presently responsible" individuals and entities.

Trump looks at everyone claiming that climate change exists as irresponsible individuals and entities. Even criminal. Now he's trying to change trial decisions in favor of businesses instead of people by defunding the National Academy of Sciences, because they produce works that judges use in helping direct and rule on climate change cases. Trump doesn't agree with the science, so that must make it invalid. He probably believes in a flat Earth, and that the sun revolves around the Earth. Enriched uranium is nuclear dust. Lightning never strikes in the same place twice. Ostriches bury their head in the sand when threatened. Dropping a penny from the type of the Empire State Building will kill someone. Lemmings commit mass suicide. But, Trump just might have Tourette syndrome because he does randomly shout out swear words. And an important one for Trump: McDonald hamburgers will rot given the proper conditions of water and warmth for microbes to develop and break the food down.

Science is based on facts, and ignoring them doesn't make them false. Trump wants to ignore everything that doesn't fit into his brain or prejudices. Speak up for the National Academy of Sciences before it's too late.

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The title quote was from Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, on the right in the picture. It was about Markwayne Mullins threats to prosecute state officials that didn't cooperate with his demands to to scrub voter rolls. But, I'm going to use it to talk about Donald Trump and his popularity.

The latest Washington Post/IPSOS poll shows Donald Trump's job approval rating at 37%. This is the same from a week ago. Other polls have Trump as low as 33%. Why isn't it 0%? Or 1%, for the 1% of the nation that benefited from Donald Trump's Big Ugly Bill? How could anyone be happy with the job Donald Trump is doing?

Approximately 19% to 27% of the voting population identifies as MAGA, depending on the specific poll and time frame. They seem not to stand for anything except white male supremacy. Women seem to have no problem being subservient. Don Lemon explains it all:

MAGA will follow Donald Trump off cliff like lemmings. 71% to 86% approve of his handling of the war in Iran, when they voted for Trump to never get into unnecessary forever wars. It's like they just forgot what they wanted because it's being done by Donald Trump. MAGA also approve of Donald Trump's handling of the Epstein files at 73%, when releasing them all and convicting the participants in the sex trafficking ring was a major reason of their vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Again, they seem to have forgotten what they wanted because it's Donald Trump.

Let's move on to the rest of that 37% that's still approve of what Donald Trump is doing. How can people look at rising prices for food, gas, and housing along with inflation in general, and still think that their lives are better? What about health care?

Then, look at what Trump has done to rural white voters and farmers. Trump's United States Postal Service has to cut their losses, so they're going to shut down rural post offices and delivery all over the place. This means that sometimes people will have to drive 100 miles to get their mail. They're also going to find that it may cost them as much as $1,000 to get to a place where they can register to vote, much less voting itself. Farmers are going bankrupt all over the place because of Trump's tariff policies and now the war against Iran has made the cost of fertilizer to shoot through the roof. Most of all of these people were ones who voted for Trump. They thought they were voting for what they wanted with Trump and then discovered that Trump doesn't give a damn about them, just his billionaire buddies.

So, how does Donald Trump still get a 37% approval rating? Damned if I know. They must be living in bomb shelters eating MREs, with no internet access, cable tv, or over the air broadcast receivers. Some of MAGA has woken up, as evinced by characters like Marjorie Taylor Greene, but, the majority of them are still Trump's cult members. Their own self-destructive behavior will eventually reduce their numbers.

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The Trump administration needed a boogeyman to go after representing left-wing organizations that protest against Donald Trump and his policies, so they came up with Antifa. There is a flag that protesters use, but there is no centralized Antifa organization as Trump would have you think. It's all a ploy to attack any nonprofit that opposes Trump. They don't want to just take away their tax exempt status, they want to jail them. So the White House put out essentially a fact sheet as a press release titled: Trump Administration Unleashes Global Campaign to Crush Radical Left Terrorism. Just in time to knock out the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center before the midterms.

“Secretary Rubio detailed the transnational nature of the threat: ‘Antifa militants and their comrades travel from across Europe and to the Americas to participate in each other’s attacks, to funnel propaganda and training, materials, and target information through shared encrypted channels — moving through underground networks of safe houses, and finance and sustain their operations through transnational funds.’” Like I said. They're looking for boogeymen. Remember, it was Antifa being blamed when Tesla cars were being burned when Elon Musk ran DOGE and did the Nazi salute. Paid protesters, just like me, not. Notice the use of the word comrades, as though Antifa are also communists.

“Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced powerful tools to combat illicit funding: ‘At President Trump’s direction, Treasury is expanding its efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance. We are examining where tax-exempt status has been exploited, where charitable entities have become financial conduits for foreign influence activity…’” Couldn't be any clearer. Charities and nonprofits who have any relation to protesting against Trump will be attacked.

“Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller made clear there must be no retreat: ‘One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pre-textual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence… When the leftist — who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordinary notion of justice — protests that we are violating his rights, understand the he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has perpetrated against him. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.’” Enemies of civilization. How much more like a Nazi can you talk? Stephen Miller looks like Joseph Goebbels, and he wants to emulate him in all the ways possible. If you're for civil liberties, you must be Antifa. If you're against Donald Trump's policies, you must be Antifa.

“This is a sustained campaign to eradicate a violent ideology that targets police, civilians, and the very foundations of free societies. Last year, President Trump designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization and unleashed a relentless campaign to dismantle the left-wing terrorism and bring its perpetrators to justice. Their funding is now being cut off, and international partners are now coordinating to shut down their safe havens, propaganda channels, and cross-border operations.” Anything left-wing is left-wing terrorism. Whatever happened to the real threat of right-wing terrorism? That is never talked about. Why should it when Trump just pardons them all when they commit real crimes?

Everything Trump and the Trump administration do and say is propaganda. But, we aren't allowed to call it that. It's just political speech. The left is not allowed to call out the fact that it is propaganda. They no longer have the freedom of speech in this age of Trump. Censorship abounds. The enemies list gets longer and longer each day Donald Trump is in power. When the satirist paper Charlie Hebdo was the victim of a terrorist attack in France, all news organizations put out headlines that said “We are all Charlie Hebdo.” Today we should all be saying “We are all Antifa,” in protest. “… and then there was no one left to speak for me.”

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Not giving any support to Palestinians in the 2024 election campaign probably cost Kamala Harris the election on that point alone. Support for Israel is complicated. You can say that Israel has a right to exist, but you are against their policies of what they are doing in Gaza, their own war against Iran, their war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the illegal settlements (according to international law) in the West Bank, and now new ones are planned in the territory they've taken over in southern Lebanon and in Gaza. Being against all these things does not make you anti-semitic. It does not make you anti-Israel. Being against giving Israel weapons to kill Palestinians is not being anti-semitic. Being for a Palestinian homeland that they rule themselves, without Israeli occupation, is not being anti-semitic or anti-Israel. It's the only way there will ever be peace in the Middle East.

When enough time had passed after the October 7th, 2023, attacks by Hamas against Israel for them to have claimed revenge, young people, especially on college campuses, protested the continued war against the Palestinians in Gaza. That gave Trump the right to trot out claims of anti-semitism on college campuses and to start his campaign at trying to control what is taught on college campuses starting with Harvard. Trump has used his bogus anti-antisemitism crusade to get what he wants.

If there was a Palestinian homeland in the Middle East, there would be no reason for Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations to exist. The problem is Israel and its right-wing politics represented by Benjamin Netanyahu. Every political analyst has determined that Netanyahu played Trump for a fool and dragged the United States into an unnecessary war. Trump is differential to every strong man he meets from Putin, Xi, Erdoğan, Bukele, and Netanyahu.

What caught my eye was that JD Vance is not happy with US relations with Israel. He now thinks that Israel is manipulating American public opinion in order to prolong the war.

In an interview published on Wednesday, Vance told conservative podcaster Joe Rogan that while he trusts some people within the Israeli government, there are others "who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely".

"I definitely think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal," he said, adding there is "exact evidence" that some Israeli leaders "hate the deal".

Netanyahu wants Israel to be in continual war as an excuse to keep him out of jail from his corruption trials. National security is always quoted as the reason why he can't testify or let the trials come to a conclusion.

The West Bank should be the Palestinian homeland, but Israel keeps building new settlements within the territory. There are constant clashes between settlers and Palestinians, theft of land, theft of olive trees, burning olive trees, and attacks on Palestinian occupied infrastructure. Israel keeps doing it over and over again. They just announced three Israeli settlements that will be built in Gaza totally against everything promised and international law. Israeli elections are scheduled for October 27th, and Netanyahu and his party are trying to garner favor with these new settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

As you can see, there are Israeli settlements all over the West Bank. The only way the West Bank could become a Palestinian state is to move all the Israeli settlers out, just like the Palestinians were moved out of Israel when it was created back in 1949. The Israeli government would never go for this as a solution. There are many in the right wing who think all Palestinians should be killed. This is definitely not a path to peace.

There is a part of the National Defense Authorization Act that melds the Pentagon and the IDF. It's a crazy and stupid idea that would allow the IDF to dictate US policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Just to show how little the Israeli idea of thinks of the United States, listen to Rep. Ro Khanna's visit to the West Bank. He obviously has the wrong skin color to avoid interference.

There is no a much larger portion of Congress who thinks that military funding for Israel needs to end. Politicians and pundits have talked for years that presidents had never used the leverage of the weapons being delivered to Israel as leverage to get them to change their tune. Donald Trump doesn't care about the Palestinians, so he would never withhold munitions to Israel. Congress has to act, but it must not pass the NDAA that has the military technology melding and a combination of forces.

There's a reason that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. There are now more than 70,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza. IDF estimates 20,000 of those were Hamas. So you've got 50,000 innocent Palestinians who were collateral damage. The International Criminal Court calls that genocide. Pope Leo is just one step away from calling it that.

Don't fall into Trump's trap that being against Israeli policies is being anti-semitic. It's not that simple, and neither is creating a homeland for the Palestinians. The only one who benefited from the new wars is Benjamin Netanyahu. As Rep. Jasmine Crockett said, Netanyahu is a more intelligent version of Donald Trump, and not to be trusted.

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Trump's physical appearance wasn't any better than the speech. His eyes were puffy and never opened much. He stared straight at the teleprompter the whole time. He changed his head angle as he spoke, as he always does.

Even before his speech, there were controversies about how and who was going to cover the speech. NBC and ABC decided not to air it live. MSNOW cut away after 16 minutes because the lies had piled up too much to bear without correcting with facts. Democratic pundit James Carville said that everyone should have presented the speech live in its entirety in order to show how crazy Donald Trump is. Trump started the morning patting himself on the back. Great reviews? Where?

It was only after 30 seconds into the speech starting with his greatest hits that he repeated one of his constant stump speech claims.

Trump: … with millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, including criminals of all types, and 11,888 murderers, many of whom killed more than one person. The 11,888 number has become fixated in his mind, and every time he talks about undocumented immigrants being criminals, he uses this number. Also that many killed more than one person. Most of the time, he uses 50% of the murderers killed more than one person.

Trump: We had transgender for everybody, men in women's sports, crime ravaging our cities, and the whole world was laughing at us as a nation, but not anymore. Two years ago, our country was dead. Now, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. America is respected like we have never been respected before. We've heard this all before, over and over again. It's like a mantra Trump uses to convince himself that he's an effective president when he's a defective president.

He touted TrumpRx.gov as a way to save money on prescription drugs, claiming it had reduced the cost by 70%, 80%, and 90%. The fact is that you can buy all the drugs they list cheaper online. TrumpAccounts followed that. There have been donations to fund the accounts, like Michael Dell's $6 billion, but the rest is all taxpayer money. The money isn't a gift. You pay for it.

Trump: We won in Venezuela, which is now working with us to produce millions and millions of barrels of oil. We didn't win anything in Venezuela, and Trump initially controlled the money from the sale of the oil he steals through a bank in Qatar. Now it's in a US Treasury account. Venezuela can only use it to buy American made goods, supposedly.

Trump: Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes, like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference. Voting machines are not connected to the internet, and voter rolls from states are available for sale to anyone. Senator Mark Warner, after the speech, said that he had bought voter rolls for his state to use for fundraising. Trump put this into a Truth Social post before giving the speech yesterday:

The White House set up a website so you can get the documents. But, they are contained in compressed files that you have to extract first. It's not like there were so many of them that they couldn't set up a list of them, like with the Epstein files and the UFO documents. The ploy is to have you just read their summaries instead of actually reading the documents, which, as expected, are raw uncorroberated reports. They are also heavily redacted, with some pages where every line is blacked out.

Trump: … the White House Government Transparency Task Force, a great group of people, along with the staff of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, supported by our top intelligence agency chiefs who have all personally reviewed the findings we are presenting this evening and fully confirmed their authenticity. The only thing they confirmed is that the raw and uncorroborated documents exist. There was no cover up, there was simply no verifiable information. Accusations can be made up by anyone.

Trump: The documents cover five major areas of concern. First, they show that, over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files. As I said before, anyone can buy voter registration rolls from the states. Just not the ones that Trump wants to force states to turn over, which include personal private information such as Social Security numbers. This was the start of a big chunk of Trump's speech blaming election interference by China. He never mentioned the actual interference and influence by Russia with collusion by his 2016 campaign organization and staff. The Russia, Russia, Russia hoax that wasn't a hoax, investigated by Robert Mueller.

Trump: Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the Deep State -- a very, very famous group of people, in many cases -- in our intelligence agency, worked to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China's sinister election meddling, covering it up from both the president and the American people like nobody thought was possible. Deep State. Famous group of people. It and they do not exist. This is just another regurgitation of conspiracy theories. Trump has been claiming for some time that "they” were behind his 2020 election loss, along with people on his enemies list.

Trump: US spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020, when they discovered that tens of millions of voter data -- think of that, tens of millions of voters data -- in 18 states have been bought, stolen or hacked by China. What about the other 32 states? Also, how do 18 states make up 220 million voters? Trump is making up numbers as he goes, as he always does.

Trump: As the documents we are releasing show, CIA reporting explicitly stated, and I quote, in mid-2018, the Chinese Communist Party's policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the US president in an effort to reduce the US president's votes and make him resign or prevent his reelection. I really want to know how the Chinese were going to get Trump to resign. If they've got a better method than showing Trump's participation with Epstein's sex trafficking ring and his daily additions to corruption by himself and his family, please, China, bring it on.

Trump: Going on this document says, and this is by the CIA, the strategy included efforts to use Chinese contacts with big US companies to influence US business leaders to turn against the president of the United States of America. Absolute balderdash. Paranoia. He needs to cite what document he's talking about so others can confirm. He just speaks in generalities like this throughout the speech.

Trump: The Chinese government sought to identify US journalists who had reported negatively on the US president and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him, as many as they could and they didn't care what they said. The Chinese government wanted US president to lose the next election. It was the Russians who paid podcasters millions of dollars to spout Russian propaganda and try to help Trump win the election in 2024. They wanted an idiot to be president who was easily manipulated. Trump has proved to be a friend of Russia over and over again. The Chinese are simply smarter than Trump, and he can't handle that.

Trump: These are exact quotes from the CIA reporting. The name of the person doing the quote is now under review, but it gets even worse. Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden. Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. There's a lot to unpack there. “The person doing the quote is under review.” Trump could actually have been talking about himself. Then he gives away the game by saying that it is raw intelligence he is using. Raw intelligence means uncorroberated. You don't put raw intelligence into a presidential briefing. You verify it first. If nobody thinks it's real, it never gets passed along.

Trump : Another official inside the FBI wrote that she was running, quote, a shadow government, unquote, to keep intelligence about China's election meddling from becoming known and to keep it away from the honorable press. This makes no sense at all. How would one woman in the FBI run an entire shadow government? Since when was there an "honorable press” to Donald Trump. Everything is always fake news.

Trump: Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags information, and this is a group of bags that were used to destroy information, given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned, it was supposed to be burned. He kept speaking about the burn bags but never said what was in them. Somehow, now Obama is part of the conspiracy against him.

Trump: Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela, and that's exactly what happened conspiring to digitally rig their own country's elections in 2020. And that's what they did. Okay, what does that have to do with elections in the United States? There were conspiracy theories that Venezuela had switched over votes from Trump to Biden in the 2020 election, but that's all they were, conspiracy theories.

Trump: According to the DHS review, state voter rolls, and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democratic states refuse to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that. It's not even possible. The numbers are made up or created by misreading some sort of information. Non-citizens who have attempted to vote are under 100 for the last 25 years. So, these were all from Republican states, not Democratic states. Trump needs to go after the Republican states.

Trump: As one example of the insanity, California's recent election for mayor of LA and governor, was held on June 2nd, long time ago, but it was just completed a few days ago, on July 10th. Think of that, much more than one month. California has the largest state population in the United States, and they have always admitted that it takes a long time to tally all the votes. With mail-in ballots, as long as it is postmarked on the day of the election, however long it takes for the US Postal Service to deliver them, they're still valid and have to be counted.

Trump: In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about because of the fact that they don't like the topic because they know how corrupt our system is and they don't want to reveal it. They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to keep it going. They want to protect the radical left. They can't have a great country, and that's true; you can't have a great country without free and fair elections. Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses. They use our public multibillion dollar in value airways for absolutely no money. The networks don't have licenses. Their owned and operated broadcast stations do. They do pay license renewal fees. Not carrying Trump's speech is a conspiracy. A plot against him. It's still another sign of paranoia. They're out to get him. The network's no longer give Trump a free ride because of the last speech before this one, which was riddled with misinformation and served no purpose in informing the public. This one was even worse. He may even have fewer carrying a speech with the next one he tries to foist upon the public, unless they follow James Carville's advice to let the world see him for what he is.

Trump: Tomorrow, the Secretary of Homeland Security will hold a briefing to outline his department's recent work confirming cyber vulnerabilities in our electronic voting systems. Markwayne Mullin did indeed hold a news conference on Friday where he went further than Donald Trump and said that voting machines had a vulnerability that could be hacked. Doesn't make much sense when they aren't connected to the internet. Hacking implies that. The intelligence community has said that it has never happened. He went further than Trump, who said that there were 278,000 non-citizen voters. Mullin said that there were 400,000 dead people on voter rolls. Mullin threatened state election officials with fines, penalties, and even prison time if they refused to cooperate with federal efforts to vet and scrub voter rolls. Ridiculous. This is like when, in 2020, Donald Trump threatened the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, with criminal charges if he didn't find him the 11,780 votes.

Trump: This landmark bill requires that all voters must show photo voter ID. How simple is that? Could I have your photo, please? Photo voter ID. All voters must provide proof of citizenship. Are you a citizen of our country, please? And hopefully there will be no corrupt mail-in ballots, which, if you watched California and so many other places, mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt. So, you would have no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel if you're going away on business or vacation. Trump himself uses mail-in ballots, which he did in the last elections and primaries in Florida. He could have voted in person because he was there at the time, but he didn't. Good enough for me, but not for thee. Trump keeps talking about the SAVE America Act like he knows what it says and its consequences. The major problem are the requirements to register to vote in the first place requiring proof of citizenship, which amounts to a birth certificate or a passport, which most United States citizens do not have in their possession. Married women won't have a birth certificate to match, even if they have one, so it disenfranchises women right off the bat.

Trump continued pleading for people to call up their Representatives and Senators to demand that they vote for the SAVE America Act. He ended by blessing the people of the United States, but probably not the Democrats, and the United States itself. I have passed on counting how many lies he spouted and how many lies per minute. You will probably watch a number of clips showing how stupid and crazy Trump was, but if you want to read the full transcript, which will seem even more crazy, you can read it here at Roll Call.

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Ironically, on the same day as Trump is due to give his speech on election interference, there was a House hearing on election integrity.

The White House put out a statement that nobody knows yet what Trump will say in his address to the nation. Karoline Leavitt followed that up by saying that Trump was going to put out evidence with facts.

The only question is whether fact checking will be done in real time or piled on after his speech because there will be no facts with provable evidence. Donald Trump doesn't know how to do that. He's going to use raw whistleblower complaints and uncorroborated information that Bill Pulte just dug up as the acting Director of National Intelligence.

Trump is going to talk about the 2020 election, over and over again. Which has been proved over and over again that he lost. He is simply a sore loser, nothing else, besides being an illegitimate tyrant. Here's a good question by Kaitlin Collins:

Kaitlin Collins nailed Levitt again on why, after 540 days in office, if there was voting fraud in 2020, why hasn't anyone been charged?

Republicans are desperate to move on from 2020, but Trump is fixated on his loss. Trump will also probably go back to the 2016 election where his campaign colluded with the Russians, which Trump calls the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Ana Navarro had some words about all the things Trump is doing to create doubt in elections:

Now, to cut to the chase. Will major networks actually carry Trump's post live? Trump's last primetime appearance was absolute garbage. It was not to address a current crisis or actually anything coherent to say.

Major broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—along with cable outlets including Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC have remained silent on whether they intend to preempt regular programming to carry the speech, the Daily Beast reported Thursday morning.

Journalist Jim Acosta said, "The networks have a choice in the country, and they should absolutely, positively not air this madman on Thursday night.”

The president posted on Truth Social that he would deliver remarks at 9 p.m. Thursday, offering no initial explanation for the broadcast. Subsequent reporting indicated he planned to discuss voting machine security and reveal declassified intelligence allegedly documenting foreign interference in the 2020 election.

Karoline Leavitt says you have to watch to find out. I want to count how many lies he tells, and how long the speech is to figure out how many lies he tells per minute. His last primetime speech taped out at 18 minutes. This is far below his normal hour to 2 hour ramble at meetings and rallies. He actually stayed on teleprompter that time. It didn't help at all. It was still garbage. Just like the Department of Justice has lost the veneer of regularity, Donald Trump has lost the trust that he will say something of timely importance. If the networks carry him, they should cut him off at the first already proved lie. CBS has been bought and paid for, so they probably won't dare not televise Trump. Republican's will hope that Donald Trump doesn't say something stupid, but we know he will. Democrats will be able to use what he says in clips that will show how each lie is a lie.

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Ulysses S. Grant was the first president to set aside public lands when he created Yellowstone National Park. Teddy Roosevelt greatly expanded on that by creating 18 national monuments and five national parks. In total, Roosevelt set aside 230 million acres of public lands for federal protection. Trump wants to reverse course for the oil and gas and lumber industries. He greatly reduced Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments with the Governor of Utah Spencer Cox standing right behind him.

Grand Staircase-Escalante was reduced from 1.87 million acres to 181,500 acres. Bears Ears was cut from 1.36 million acres to 121,100 acres. Why?

From the Fact Sheet on the orders:

The specific landmarks, structures, and objects of historic and scientific interest that the Antiquities Act and monuments safeguard will continue to be protected, while the surrounding lands not relevant
to such protected landmarks, structures, and objects will now be available for multiple-use, sustained-yield management. “Multiple-use, sustained-yield management” equate to raping the land for commercial interests.

The Antiquities Act requires that objects protected by a monument be of
historic or scientific interest, and that the area reserved for the monument to protect the objects be the smallest area compatible with their proper care and management.

Many of the features and resources noted in the proclamations establishing these national monuments are not objects of historic or scientific interest, or they are already covered by numerous other Federal laws that provide enhanced protections on federal lands. Trump wants it to mean that if it isn't Mount Rushmore, a true physical monument, or one with statues on it or the like, it doesn't apply anymore. Consider this a warning that national parks and protected public lands are under attack for commercialization.

Immediately upon returning to office, President Trump signed an Executive Order to Unleash American Energy that opened hundreds of millions of acres Federal lands and waters to energy development, and streamlined the permitting process to increase production of reliable and affordable energy. I told you. It's all about raping public lands for the oil and gas industry. It will also include timber and mines. Old growth will be gone, and the land will be polluted by the mines.

President Trump’s Department of the Interior rescinded the BLM’s Public
Lands Rule, reaffirming the commitment to restoring balance in Federal land management by prioritizing multiple use access, elevating local decision-making, and supporting responsible energy development, ranching, grazing, timber production, and recreation. Doug Burgum is the Secretary of the Interior, and his billionaire background is in the oil industry. It's like putting the wolf in charge of the flock.

In May 2026, President Donald Trump rescinded Executive Order 11644 and
Executive Order 11989, which together required agency heads to manage off-road vehicle use on public lands under a set of outdated and subjective criteria. Right. We need more ATVs destroying wildlife habitat and damaging the environment. Designated walk trails are one thing, but we don't need to increase ATV use.

This is just one of all of Trump's bad decisions where he doesn't consider the consequences, or he does, and he knows that it's for his billionaire buddies. In his first term, he did pretty much the same thing. He set up new protected lands, and eliminated others. The balance of the designations was more on the side of elimination, as you would expect from Donald Trump. This specific change to the Bear's Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Minuments are all in the negative. We deserve better.

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The Reflecting Pool was drained yesterday for repairs to be done. There is no flag blue coating now. If the people paid on a no-bid contract to do the repairs had ripped it totally up to redo it, there would be lots of pictures of them doing that. There aren't any. But, that is exactly what should be done and then grinding the concrete slabs so they're smooth again to reduce the ability of algae to attach. Trump just can't stop lying about everything because his whole project, and himself, are a total failure.

Claiming that there was damage by vandals allows him to pay more money on no-bid contracts rather than making the original contractor fix the problems they created.

“The slashes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs.” Trump has gone back down to 300 yards, after first saying it was 250 yards, and then landing on 350 yards. “Great force,” like strong or powerful. Trump relies on those adjectives over and over again. There is absolutely no evidence of anyone slashing the pool, and the case against the Olympic canoeist David Hearn will be thrown out, I predict.

“These Country hating sleazebags should pay a big price for the damage done.” Trump's life goal seems to be creating hate and divisiveness instead of love and unity. Trump and Jeanine Pirro want to put people in jail for 10 years for touching the water and touching the detached pool coating. Idiots.

Trump could have attacked every single news outlet, except for Fox news, in reporting his lies about the contractor, the quality of the pool coding, the algae, and his imaginary slashes. But, he decided to attack David Muir and ABC News alone.

Referring to the peeling pool coating as paint coming off is incorrect as what it really is is a polyurea membrane that had blue pigment added. The biggest problem was that they didn't put a sealant on first, and then the coating. They mixed it all together and did it as a single stage job that obviously hasn't worked.

“… (there is no paint, it was slashed with a knife, or box cutter, high grade colored waterproofing liner - it was VANDALISM!)” No, we all know it was a defective product and defective work. I'm surprised that Trump hasn't blamed it on this guy:

“… Algae Blooms (also caused by Vandals, but removed long ago!).” Hardly. You can see dead and brown algae on the bottom of the pool that is drained.

“In other words, the story was FAKE NEWS, but heavily slanted away from the real cause of the problem, Vandalism.” Trump keeps repeating vandals and vandalism as much as he's yelling communists and communism these days. It doesn't work except for rabid MAGA cult members.

“60 monuments and fountains have been cleaned and fully renovated in D.C., and crime is at record lows!” The connection between cleaned and renovated monuments leading to a reduction in crime doesn't work. But, Donald Trump thinks he can make that correlation. The people of Washington DC are still angry about the National Guard still patrolling areas that never had crime in the first place.

So, what is the new money being paid to fix something that was defective in the first place going to do? It's no longer blue, and if they just spray the coating on it again, the peeling will be even worse than the first time. It's now uglier than before Trump ordered the job to be done. It's not blue. It's not even the gray concrete it was before. It's just ugly as hell, but I suppose that matches Donald Trump.

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U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams wrote a scathing decision that has little comparison. In 56 pages she cited a fraud committed on the court so bad that she referred Trump's lawyers to disciplinary action. Even Todd Blanche could be subject to disbarment. This is really serious, and so was the judge. If this doesn't sink Trump's nomination of Blanche to be the Attorney General of the United States, I don't know what else would be needed. His handling of the Epstein files and Ghislaine Maxwell should nail the coffin. Republicans are going to have a very hard time defending him.

“The non-party movants highlighted the atypical way the litigation had unfolded and argued that the purported settlement reached in this matter ‘is a product of collusion.’” That was just on the first page. Let Donald Trump try to claim no collusion as he did with Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“The Parties here are not private actors to a mine-run dispute, recounting their proficiency in the art of the deal they negotiated. Lead Plaintiff and Defendants are public servants—the pinnacle of the Executive Branch—sworn to uphold the law, faithfully perform the duties of their office,and protect the interests of the American public. The issue before the Court is whether, instead, they ignored ethical norms, court rules, and legal authority to manipulate the judicial process. The issue is whether they did so to gild their efforts to gain unprecedented access to the public fisc with the patina of legitimacy.” That was just the beginning of the decision. It gets worse for the lawyers, Blanche, and Trump.

“On June 2, 2026, in testimony before the United States House of Representatives, Acting Attorney General Blanche advised that the Anti-Weaponization Fund would not be moving forward. He did not, however, commit to a similar termination of the audit and immunity protections set forth in his Release Order. Six days later, President Trump nominated Mr. Blanche to permanently serve as Attorney General of the United States.” Blanche should not only never become Attorney General of the United States, he should lose his law license in whatever state he practices, starting with New York and Florida.

Judge Williams shows that Trump is in direct control of both sides of the case. The IRS with Scott Bessent as the Secretary of the Treasury and Blanche on the other side in control of the Department of Justice. She even quotes an executive order Trump signed on February 18th, 2025 that makes it abundantly clear that that's exactly what his executive authority is.

“Before he went to the DOJ, Associate Attorney General Woodward represented several individuals charged in connection with the events of January 6, 2021, at the United States Capitol. He also represented Walt Nauta, who was President Trump’s personal aide and a co-defendant in the criminal matter involving the return of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Before his appointment to the DOJ, Acting Attorney General Blanche served as President Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney in several high-profile matters. See, e.g., United States v. Trump, No. 23-cr-80101 (S.D. Fla. 2023) (“Mar-a-Lago Documents Case”); United States v. Trump, No.23-cr-00257 (D.D.C. 2023) (the criminal case charging President Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and for attempting to obstruct with the election’s results before, during, and after January 6, 2021); People v. Donald J. Trump, No. 71543-23 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. N.Y. Cnty. Dec. 3, 2024) (the “hush money” case that raised allegations of President Trump falsifying business records). Right. Todd Blanche is Trump's personal attorney, and should have no role at all in the Department of Justice.

“Moreover, the Release Order, signed only by Acting Attorney General Blanche, extends a blanket grant of immunity to all Plaintiffs and their families and ‘affiliates,’ and precludes all ‘current or possible’ investigations or actions before any other agencies or departments. The Release Order also purports to bar the IRS from conducting any future tax audits of President Trump, his sons, and their entities. This provision directly contravenes 26 U.S.C. § 7217, titled ‘Prohibition on executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations,’ which states: It shall be unlawful for any applicable person to request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.” In other words, it's illegal for Trump to be on both sides of the case.

The judge then cites Blanche’s testimony in front of Congress, where he said that the $1.776 billion slush fund would not be pursued, yet he refused to put that in writing. The judge chastises him for that lack of professionality because it would be simple to put it in writing. One page or less would do. She then follows with how their filing only to pursue a settlement was a fraud on the court. On page 41, Judge Williams starts listing why the lawyers should be subject to sanctions.

1. Plaintiffs’ Attorney Alejandro Brito is REFERRED to The Florida Bar for its consideration, review, and determination as to whether any disciplinary action is appropriate in light of the findings and rulings made in this Order. The Clerk of Court is DIRECTED to mail a copy of this Order to The Florida Bar, of which Attorney Alejandro Brito is a member (No. 98442).

2. All future applications by Daniel Z. Epstein for admission pro hac vice in the Southern District of Florida will be DENIED for one year or until further order of this Court.

3. The Parties are prohibited from referring to the purported “settlement agreement,” or using, offering, admitting, or citing any of its provisions in any judicial, administrative, regulatory, arbitration, or any other official proceeding as evidence of a ‘settlement’ reached in this matter, Case No. 26-cv-20609-KMW (S.D. Fla. 2026). ‘Plaintiffs’ means the named Plaintiffs in this lawsuit: President Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, the Trump Organization, LLC and includes any of their agents, representatives, officers, directors, employees, partners, corporate agents, subsidiaries, affiliates, or any other person acting in concert with the party or under the party’s control, whether directly or indirectly. ‘Defendants’ means the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Department of the Treasury. In other words, the case can never be used or referred to in any legal proceedings ever. Case closed.

Judge Williams goes on for several pages to explain why she has the power to impose substantial fines, yet does not do so. The sanctions on the lawyers are formidable enough. She didn't refer Todd Blanche for disbarment, but she hinted that if he does not put the dissolution of the idea of the slush fund in writing, she may. She also said he needed to void his order that gave Trump immunity from IRS audits and penalties. That one is so patently illegal, it really doesn't need to be explained.

The Department of Justice has lost its veneer of regularity, the principle that the United States government wouldn't pursue frivolous actions or vindictive prosecutions. Trump's personal lawyers have lost that also, and they're now starting to pay the price. It means that the justice system still works, however slowly.

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Trump says the Strait of Hormuz is open, it's not. Iran is still in control. Trump can reinstate the blockade of Iranian ships, but now he wants to impose a toll of 20% of the value of the cargo of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz as compensation for the cost to the United States for keeping the Strait open. This directly contravenes everything foreign nations, and Trump, had said about the operation of the Strait of Hormuz. No tolls.

But Trump is still a transactional idiot. Just like he thinks that NATO should be compensating the United States for bases that we operate and troops that are stationed there, he thinks that because we're spending money to keep the Strait open, that we should be compensated. 20%? That is Trump as a mob boss saying, “It would be a shame if something happened to your profit margin.”

“The process and formation will begin immediately.” Even if this was legal, it would take time to set up a payment system and a way of gauging the value of merchandise and oil. A 20% toll could be the whole profit margin. This isn't the Panama Canal, where there are rates that are standard and known, and there is a reason for charging them. The Iranians think that Trump is an idiot.

It seems insane that Donald Trump is setting up the same system that he was complaining about Iran doing. But, because it's the United States doing it, suddenly it's okay. It's not. The only way for the Strait of Hormuz to operate is as it was before Trump started his war of choice. Whoever put this idea in Trump's mind needs to be fired. If it was Trump who did it all on his lonesome, the firing still applies.

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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has expanded a probe into the Kennedy Center under Donald Trump, from newly given whistleblower information. The whistleblower told Whitehouse about the contract for painting the columns and replacing a bathroom floor because Trump didn't like it, went for $8 million on another no-bid contract. No-bid seems to be the way the Trump administration does business, against federal regulations that require multiple bids. That's the only way the government can save money by seeing who has the lowest bid and who will do the best job.

The support columns on the outside of the building were originally painted bronze, or "fake gold,” and were supposed to represent instrument strings. There was no need for the columns to be repainted, other than Trump didn't like the color. You would think with Trump's fetish for gold, he would have had them gilded, or repainted with a better gold paint. Instead, he had them painted white, and then the steel underneath the paint rusted, causing unsightly spots. It's still another Trump beautification project that failed.

A reflecting pool at the center may have to be now ripped out and rebuilt thanks to Donald Trump and contractors cutting corners. Much of the work was done in haste in order to have the appearance up to Trump's standards before accepting the bogus FIFA World Peace Prize. Rush jobs are the way Trump wants things done, calling them emergencies, giving no-bid contracts, and getting bad work as a result. The work at the Kennedy Center is much like Trump's success with the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Whitehouse also said whistleblowers alleged that the Kennedy Center “rewrote its own contracting rules in a post hoc effort to justify the no-bid contracts awarded to facilitate the rushed renovations”.

The allegations, Whitehouse said, raise “serious questions about the
Center’s leadership and the Board’s financial management of the Kennedy Center and whether the Center’s representations to Congress were made in good faith”.

The voting board members who Trump replaced immediately after taking office were able to loot the Kennedy Center.

Sen. Whitehouse told The Guardian that when the administration took control of the center, its “first instinct was to loot it for their own benefit and hire their friends and put people up in fancy rooms at the Watergate and let favored organizations get free access and it was all part of a MAGA party atmosphere.”

An ex officio member of the center’s board, the senator provided documents that allegedly show the institution funneled contracts to Trump allies and spent “tens of thousands” of dollars on luxury hotel rooms, lavish meals and entertainment for friends and new staff.

It was that subservient board that decided to break with tradition to rename the Kennedy Center by putting Donald Trump's name on top. That led to a huge financial downturn to the Kennedy Center through artists pulling out of performances and potential attendees not buying tickets.

A month after the name change, Trump announced that the center would close on July 4th of 2026 for 2 years of renovations. That generated lawsuits in addition to the ones already about the name change. Trump's name has been taken off, but the tarp still remains to literally cover up Trump's mismanagement and destruction of the Kennedy Center. Courts have now told the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees that they can not close the center. Trump threw a hissy fit when the court said his name had to be taken off the Kennedy Center, and said he was walking away from control of it, but he has still not given up being Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Rep. Joyce Beatty has a lawsuit against the Trump Administration and the Board of Trustees, which includes the demand to remove the tarps and scaffolding covering up Trump's name removal.

Sen. Whitehouse will continue digging into the corruption at the Kennedy Center and getting the Board of Trustees to operate as they should with the direction of Congress, which controls the funding and created the center. It doesn't just honor John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It's a Center for the Performing Arts, and that's why that's part of its name. Trump's understanding of the arts is limited to memes showing himself as Jesus, Superman, and any sort of strong man, when his morals match none of those, and he is the weakest, most corrupt, president ever. There needs to be a new Chairman of the Board and trustees that know how to honor JFK.

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We all know that Donald Trump is trying to rewrite history, but now he is living in ancient history. Trump takes 453 words to whine about an election he won.

He complains that reporting of the election doesn't highlight all the aspects of his election win. He complains about reporters like Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan from the New York Times.

“All I do is WIN, often against all odds but, after the Big Election Success, there’s no, ‘Gee, he won, he did a great job!’” The job is being president. Obviously, his campaign staff did do a good job. He won the Electoral College because it seems to be designed to make it easy for Republicans to win, where the popular vote was much closer.

“There’s no saying, ‘Maybe we were wrong about him, the people were right…’” The people have discovered that they made a huge mistake. Trump has even lost most of his MAGA support. There are still the cult members who will jump into hell for him, but those are dying off.

“No, but after I won the Election FOR THE THIRD TIME, the same people start immediately, all over again…” Trump trying to prove that he did not lose the 2020 election takes up half of his time, and the other half with all his vanity projects that do nothing to help the people of America. Trump then spends many words on insulting news media that report the truth, which he calls fake news, before getting to calling Democrats being communists.

“The Dumocrats don’t have what it takes, their Policies are wrong, and they are, generally, stupid people. They are going COMMUNIST because they are a desperately ‘sinking ship,’ and there’s not a thing they can do about it.” How can Donald Trump not realize that there is a rising tide, no, tsunami, that is going to wipe out the Republican party in November? This labeling of Democrats as being communists is only being propagandized by Fox News. All the mainstream media are much more intelligent, and don't fall for it, except reporting on how stupid it, and he, are.

“Instead of writing inaccurate, false articles, for over 10 years now, shouldn’t it be time that they say, ‘We give up, we can’t beat him, there seems nothing we can do.’” Now, Trump wants to write copy for the news media. He wants a complete surrender to his will.

“Isn’t it time they say, ‘TRUMP IS THE BEST POLITICAL ATHLETE OF ALL TIME! CONGRATULATIONS, MR. PRESIDENT. YOU HAVE BEATEN US FOR 10 YEARS, AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO WASTE OUR TIME FIGHTING YOU ANY LONGER. WE CAN’T WIN. DO A GREAT JOB, SIR, RUNNING OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’” Tell me the man doesn't need his head examined. It's not 10 years, it's five and a half, but he still counts Biden's presidency like it was his own. The resources Trump is using to support his 2020 election lies is substantial, and harming national security. Taxpayer money is being spent on goose chases. Remember that. Trump is spending your money to fix his fragile ego. America can become great again after Trump leaves office. Impeachment starts in January of 2027, if not before. Unless the 25th Amendment is used to remove him from office first. He should eat all those capitalized words. It's the only way to stop him from talking.

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Maggie Haberman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the New York Times. Her latest book, Regime Change, has reporting that has Trump livid in anger. One of the big revelations was about JD Vance in the Situation Room trying to figure out a plan to cover up the Epstein files. There were so many direct quotes that the White House was fearing that people were taking recording devices into the Situation Room. Her latest reporting is about Trump's excuse to send the Qatari 747 Air Force One to the mildenhall Air Force Base in the UK so servicemen could see it as being a lie.

It was the sentence, “If she ever wrote the true story about me, it would actually be quite boring, but loaded with lots of SUCCESS.” which got me started this time. So, if Maggie wrote another book about him that was the truth and included his successes, the successes would be boring also. He just can't keep his story straight. When you tell a web of lies, it's hard to remember what you told earlier.

“I don’t mind bad press, if they are right.” According to Trump, bad press is always fake news, and he minds it a lot. He keeps saying that either 93% or 97% of the news about him is negative. With those percentages, it can't all be fake news.

Trump can't keep track of his time frames. First he says Haberman has been reporting about him for 10 years, and then later he says it's 11 years.

“… like she’s done for eleven years, with only one aim in mind, to have Trump lose Elections…” Trump continues to show his dementia by speaking about himself in the third person. His persecution complex rears its ugly head again.

“Also, I just finished a perfect physical at Walter Reed, I do it every six months…” Right. Trump takes his annual physical every 6 months.

“… and I requested another Cognitive Test, the only President to do so, three times, and I aced them all — Got every question right.” Cognitive tests are cognitive tests. This should have been number four, because he had been saying he had taken three for over a year. So, he failed a cognitive test by talking about a cognitive test. They aren't intelligence tests like Donald Trump keeps saying. You take them if a doctor thinks something is wrong with you. And, all the elements are not questions. Recognizing what is an elephant is not a question, and putting the hands on a clock to represent a certain time isn't a question either.

“Few people in Washington, D.C., could do so, including Maggot and her flunky associate, Jonathan Swan. I would be willing to bet they couldn’t get 50% of the questions right. Anyway, don’t buy their book, it’s garbage!” Wow! Only 50%? The book is a brilliant expose of Donald Trump's authoritarian regime. Trump's last book was from 2024, and it's all photographs with his scribbled captions. Trump has never written a book himself. They've all been done by ghost writers. Trump doesn't like to read, because he probably can't do it anymore. Grandpa can only watch Fox News for input. The only reason he knows about Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s book is because someone else told him about it. He only knows about their reporting in the New York Times because somebody else read it for him.

Trump threatened to include Haberman in his lawsuit against the New York Times, but hasn't done so. It's for $15 billion for articles written in the lead up to the 2024 election that Trump claims are defamatory. The original 80 page complaint read like a whiny Trump Truth Social post and the judge told Trump's lawyers to rewrite it. They did so, and the case continues, but the New York Times is going to win because there's nothing that they did that could be defamatory when it's all based on facts. Trump and other Republicans seem to think that they can live in their own alternate reality and impose it on others. Judges, juries, the news media, and reporters aren't buying it.

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When Trump put out his Truth Social post that he was sending the new Qatari 747 Air Force One to a base in the UK to let servicemen look at it, I immediately guessed that it was a cover story for the fact that the jet was inadequate to be an Air Force One. Boeing got the contract to create two new Air Force Ones in 2018. Trump wisely made Boeing sign a fixed contract of $2 billion a piece for the 747s. They've been working on them for 8 years, and now the scheduled delivery is in 2028, so it's not surprising that after only 10 months of modifications that the Qatari Air Force One isn't up to snuff.

I figured that it didn't have a secure communications command and control center, and inadequate countermeasures against things like missile attacks. According to many news outlet reports, that's exactly the problem. Now, the New York Times has been subpoenaed over an investigation into leaks about those very facts.

There's still another difference between the old, and the new 747 Air Force Ones, as well as the Qatari Air Force One. None of them are able to refuel in flight like the old Air Force Ones. On the new Boeing rebuilds, it was decided not to have the refueling in flight option in order to save money. While the newer planes have a longer range, they can't stay in the air forever like the old ones.

The subpoenas issued Friday seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday, the paper said, adding that federal agents delivered some subpoenas to the reporters at their homes.

There was no immediate response from the White House or Department of Justice to requests for comment on Saturday.

“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, said in a statement.

The newspaper, citing anonymous sources, reported the switch had come at the urging of the Secret Service and that the newer plane lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities.

Trump denied any security concerns, posting on social media that the stop in Mildenhall was so that service members there could view the new jet. During the flight, Trump denied to the reporters accompanying him that security concerns involving Iran were a factor in flying two planes home. Asked if he was aware of any credible threats against Air Force One by Iran, Trump brushed off the question.

The cover story about Trump sending the plane to the UK Air Force Base was an obvious lie. The servicemen were not given a tour of the plane as was implied. They could only view it from far, far, away.

According to Trump, he flew it there as a request by the Air Force personnel. Right. We're really going to believe that.

“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff,” spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal — including distraction and misdirection — to address those threats.”

Carol Leonnig had previously been a reporter for the Washington Post, now working for MSNOW. There was no comment to the New York Times, AP News, or MSNOW. Cheung just can't stand being caught in a lie, and lashes out with the fake news claim just like Donald Trump would.

Schmidt is one of the New York Times reporters who has been subpoenaed.

Preventing leaks of information has been a top priority for the Trump administration. Pete Hegseth is well known to have required polygraphs on people close to him. So has Kash Patel. According to the reporting, it was a combination of the Pentagon and the Secret Service requiring the change in jets.

Donald Trump is never going to admit to the truth because he already lied about the Qatari jet not costing the US public anything. The retrofit has already caused $400 million, and when completed, it'll be $1 billion, or more. Then, at the end of his term, Trump is going to take the jet home with him. This will be the single biggest emoluments clause violation in history. But, no one is going to stop him, because Trump always gets away with violating the law.

The story about the Qatari 747 Air Force One will continue. The Trump administration will discover that it becomes a bigger story than ever because of the subpoenaing of the New York Times reporters. Then, it will become a story about Trump lying about the whole thing. If Biden did it …

New York Times story July 9th

New York Times story July 8th

New York Times story July 11th about reporters being subpoenaed

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He's really an intergalactic warrior, not a knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He previously appeared as Lord Buckethead, but had to drop that name because it was copyrighted. The comedian behind the character is Jonathan David Harvey, a British scriptwriter and author. He's running a comedic campaign for a minister of parliament seat left behind by Nigel Farage, who resigned after revelations about personal and campaign financing. Trump likes Farage, so if you guessed that he was a right-wing politician, you'd be right. Farage resigned in order to avoid the investigation, but he can still run for his same seat. But everyone is boycotting, so he's running against Count Binface and has to prove why he's better than a trash can.

The United States used to have a sense of humor. Comedian Pat Paulsen ran for president of the United States several times. He actually got some real votes, too.

There are many more clips of Pat Paulsen from earlier in his campaign. I couldn't find the one where he's standing at a lectern and reaches down and pulls up a setup for the right and left of it with battery operated fans blowing small American flags that flip up on springs.

America has lost its sense of humor because of Donald Trump. Comedians are under attack for their use of the freedom of speech because Trump has such a thin skin and such a fragile ego. We need to take note of the British sense of humor. We need another Pat Paulsen to make this November's ballot a joke on Donald Trump. We'll see how well Count Binface does against Nigel farage on August 13th.

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