Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Creeps Max Miller, Don Jr. and Mike Lindell

 First up, Katie Phang.



Next, let's note some James Bond related news.  Andrew Gladman (TV LINE) reports:

Ian Fleming is best known for creating legendary super spy James Bond, but his involvement in the "Bond" film franchise once cost the author the opportunity to launch another iconic spy series. Fleming was an early contributor to "Solo," the show that became "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," and his role was originally set to be the show's major selling point. It was Fleming who came up with the suave spy Napoleon Solo as the series' protagonist, resulting in the show initially being pitched as "Ian Fleming's Solo." 
Following the recent success of the first "Bond" film, "Dr. No," producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman pushed for Fleming's withdrawal from the TV series. The MGM producers didn't want the author behind their then-fledgling "Bond" movie franchise tied up in a project with a similar premise on television. On June 26, 1963, Fleming formalized his withdrawal from "Solo" in a letter to producer Norman Felton. He assigned all rights to Napoleon Solo and any TV show featuring the character to Felton, in exchange for one pound.

It was Felton who first had the idea for the espionage series and, when it was suggested to him that the premise was similar to Bond, he met with Fleming to discuss the concept further. Following Fleming's exit, the show's development and production duties fell to Felton and series co-creator Sam Rolfe. Rolfe was the one who proposed that Solo's employer be the fictional organization known as U.N.C.L.E., leading to the show's eventual rebrand.

Okay, back to politics.  Laura Esposito (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:

New details about a MAGA congressman’s alleged history of violence and domestic abuse have come to light.
A bitter custody battle between Rep. Max Miller and his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, has unearthed a trove of court filings filled with accusations of violent and erratic behavior against the Ohio lawmaker, Mother Jones reported.
The roughly 2,000 documents detail a closed investigation into Trump-endorsed Miller after his 2-year-old daughter landed in the emergency room, along with allegations of drug abuse, violence against multiple women, and even threats against his former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno. Miller, a former White House aide during Trump’s first term, has strenuously denied the allegations against him. The Daily Beast has reached out to Miller’s spokesperson for comment on the new claims.
According to the court filings, law enforcement opened an investigation after Miller’s daughter broke her collarbone unexplainedly.

“The bruising surrounding the clavicle fracture made the injury suspicious,” an Ohio detective who summarized a Zoom meeting between another detective and a physician about the injury wrote. Later, a child protection specialist alleged the bruising resembled a “handprint,” according to Mother Jones.

Moreno, a Republican operative at the America First Policy Institute, told investigators that their 2-year-old daughter warned her that “Daddy’s house is scary,” the outlet reported.

What a prince Miller is, right?  He's running for re-election when he should be publicly apologizing to his ex-wife and their daughter.  Some men never really grow up.  I'd call him a boy but that would be insulting to boys.  They know better than doing the crap that Miller is doing. In other news, Ellie Abraham (INDY 100) notes:

A resurfaced tweet from Donald Trump Jr has since gone viral after he mocked people for saying his father would get the US into a war with Iran.

Despite campaigning on a platform that promised “no new wars”, in February, a little over a year after taking office for the second time, US president Trump launched strikes on Iran without congressional consent, thus beginning the Iran war which continues to rumble on today.
The war has contributed to the vast rise in fuel prices and the decline of Trump’s approval rating as most Americans oppose the war that appears to have no conclusion in sight.

So, it is rather ironic that in April 2024, when Trump was on the campaign trail ahead of the November presidential election, Donald Trump Jr. wrote: “Remember when they said Trump would get us into a full-blown war with Iran?

“Times like these should make us all realize how lucky we were to have Trump, his strength and his resolve.”

Shut up, Don Jr., you never know what you're talking about.  He's about as smart as Mike Lindell. Matt Nahan (LAW & CRIME) notes:

After Mike Lindell was held in civil contempt and hit with a $500-per-day fine for 103 days for refusing to pay sanctions he's owed Smartmatic for years, a federal judge has given the MyPillow CEO exactly one month to pay an "extra penalty" for his defiance.

In late June, Smartmatic asked U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to clarify whether the voting machine conspiracy theorist would pay some of the contempt penalty to the company or if the sum was to be paid directly to the court. The judge, a Donald Trump appointee, answered that question on Monday by entering a judgment in favor of Smartmatic and giving Lindell until Aug. 21 to "pay the total daily contempt penalty of $51,500" to the "Registry of the Court."
"'When a sanction is designed to coerce a recalcitrant party to comply, the sanction should be payable to the court, rather than to the opposing party,'" Nichols explained in a footnote, quoting case law. "[T]he Court imposed the daily civil contempt penalty to coerce compliance, not to compensate Smartmatic[.]"

By the way, Lindell is running to be governor of Colorado.  Turns out, he can't vote for himself.  He's registered to vote in Texas.

Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Tuesday, July 21, 2026.  Chumps caught hiding the number of US service members wounded in his war, Chump's economy continues to shed jobs as the Iran War goes broader on inflation, and much more. 





Chump did not serve in Vietnam.  Nor did he protest the war.  He had his father buy him out of the war.  He has no idea what it's like to serve.  And he doesn't care.  That's why he's been lying about the number of US troops injured in his Iran War  Eric Schmitt (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:


In the week leading up to the Iranian attack on Friday that killed two U.S. soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against U.S. forces in the country.

Those attacks injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

The Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted. Yet later on Monday on social media, its chief spokesman said that the number of U.S. military casualties from Iranian attacks since July 7 had risen to nearly 100.



They are hiding the wounded.  They are also hiding the dead.  When Ben notes that it said 18 had died in the war and now its dropped down to 17?  The 18th is the remains of the service member that were found over the weekend.  

We called out Bully Boy Bush for many things during the Iraq War but w didn't have to call him out for hiding the number of wounded or dead.  





The United States and Iran moved closer to all-out war over the weekend, as the exchange of attacks on civilian and military structures continued to escalate and with at least three and possibly four U.S. service members killed since combat resumed a week ago.

The U.S. Central Command launched another wave of attacks against military sites in Iran on Sunday night that it said was designed to “further diminish Iran’s ability to attack” commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. President Donald Trump told reporters after landing at Joint Base Andrews following the World Cup final that the attacks were retribution “in honor of the … great patriots who were killed.”
On Monday morning, the Pentagon identified two U.S. service members killed in action Friday at a base in Jordan as 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. It said the incident was under investigation.

Centcom also said Sunday that unidentified remains of a third person had been found at the base in Jordan. Separately, it reported that a U.S. service member in northern Iraq was killed in action on Saturday during a “controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance” from a downed Iranian drone.
[. . .]
“The U.S. is planning for a wider war,” said one U.S. official familiar with internal administration discussions.
But the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, cautioned that the expansion of U.S. operations will be limited by dwindling stockpiles of air defense and long-range munitions and constraints on the ability to surge more troops and aircraft into the area because of battle damage.
“We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official said.
Military experts have said that in addition to the toll taken on U.S. equipment and munitions stocks, the U.S. is unprepared for possible ground operations inside Iran, which Trump last week refused to rule out.


The White House is not aware of that?  They are not aware of so many things. Jessie Williams and Clare Walsh  (THE I PAPER) note:

As Donald Trump hunts for a way out of his unpopular war, he faces a conundrum: take a massive risk and escalate – or stand down once more in what he would see as an embarrassing surrender.

The US President is frantically looking for a route out of renewed conflict with Iran after his fragile memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed only weeks ago, officially collapsed following Tehran’s attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Since then the US has renewed strikes on targets across Iran and reimposed a blockade of Iranian ports. Meanwhile Tehran has escalated its campaign against tankers in the vital maritime corridor, sending oil prices skyward again, and launched deadly attacks on US allies across the region.

At least three US troops have been killed in Jordan and Iraq over the past few days, putting more pressure on Trump – who was elected on a promise of no more “forever wars” – to bring the conflict to a resolute end.

As the November midterm elections tick closer, Trump is frantically looking for a way out that saves face. But as more US service personnel die, his options are getting slimmer.

And the American people didn't want the war and don't want the war.  That's been true from the start.  But Chump doesn't care.  Harry J. Kazianis (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) writes:


Donald Trump entered the Iran war with more opposition than support, and nearly five months of fighting have made the political problem worse. The president still holds the loyalty of most MAGA Republicans, but polling since early March shows independents, non-MAGA Republicans, and voters focused on household costs moving away from his strategy.
A March 3 YouGov survey found that 48 percent of Americans disapproved of the initial U.S. attacks, while 37 percent approved. Independents were more than twice as likely to oppose the operation as to support it. Trump never received the broad rally-around-the-flag effect that sometimes follows the opening of a military campaign.
The resistance held through the spring. Pew Research Center found in March that 59 percent believed using force was the wrong decision, and 61 percent disapproved of Trump's handling of the conflict. A second Pew survey completed in late April produced almost identical results, while the share saying the campaign was going badly increased.
By July, the gap had widened. The latest Economist/YouGov poll found that 57 percent called the war the wrong decision and 27 percent called it right. A Reuters/Ipsos survey found that 79 percent expected prolonged American involvement, only 37 percent approved of the strikes, and 60 percent expected gasoline prices to worsen.
[. . .]
Foreign policy rarely dominates a midterm election for months without connecting to daily life. Iran has made that connection through gasoline, shipping, inflation, and federal spending. A June Reuters/Ipsos poll put Trump's approval at 35 percent and found that 70 percent disapproved of his management of the cost of living.
The economic link is politically dangerous because the war is reaching voters through household expenses, not only through television coverage from the Gulf. Republicans planned to campaign on tax cuts and affordability. Higher fuel costs and another request for war funding make that argument more difficult.
The White House still has several possible exit paths, but none offer a quick political reset. A settlement that looks weak could anger Trump's base. Continued fighting keeps the risk of costs and casualties alive. A larger operation around Hormuz would increase the military and economic burden.




Sean Williams (THE MOTLEY FOOL) notes, "The Fed's July forecast implies that Iran-war-driven inflation has spilled over into the broader economy and is about far more than just energy prices. If that's the case, FOMC policymakers may have no choice but to raise interest rates to stabilize prices." Our nation's 12 Federal Reserve members may be forced to raise interest rates." 



It's the Chump economy.  David Wainer (WALL STREET JOURNAL) reports:

America’s biggest food companies have tried everything to win shoppers back. They’ve cut prices, ramped up marketing and added protein to everything from Cheerios to Goldfish.

It hasn’t worked.

Profits are falling at flagship names such as General Mills and Kraft Heinz as consumers turn away from their legacy products. Management mostly blames a strained consumer and insists conditions will improve. The market has reached a harsher verdict: These businesses are shrinking and don’t know how to stop.

[. . .]

Then there’s the K-shaped economy, which squeezes from both ends. Affluent shoppers are getting more health-conscious and trading up, often to smaller brands. Meanwhile, lower-income households are counting every dollar and trading down, increasingly to private labels. (Premium private label is also a competitive threat at the higher end.) The pressure has only intensified as food-stamp aid has been cut.

Walmart's gotten a lot of credit for lowering prices in recent weeks.  Have they?  I asked that in the gina & krista round-robin and I've gotten replies from community members most of who repeat what Sabina (Dallas, TX) said in the round-robin: She buys small packs of chips like you'd put in a lunch box.  She gets plain Lays and the queso flavored Ruffles.  Two weeks ago, they were 49 cents a package at Walmart, as they'd been for a few years.  One week ago, they went up to 65 cents.  This is while Walmart's getting credit for supposedly cutting prices on beef and other items.


Jules Rimmer (MARKETWATCH) explains inflation is broadening out:

During his Congressional testimony last week, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh emphasized that one of his primary responsibilities was to ensure that individual price spikes, of which there have been many in recent years, “don’t broaden out.”

The bad news is that on the whole they are. The good news is that they are nowhere near as bad as the inflation crisis of 2022.
One Goldman Sachs economist examined the risk of those price spikes becoming normalized. Jessica Rindels published a report examining whether inflationary trends are widening across sectors.

She calculated the numbers using a few key filters: first, she used personal consumption expenditure, the Fed’s stated preferred measure of inflation.

Then she aggregated them over the six-month annualized change. And finally, she categorized either by their weights in the PCE or by treating each category individually.

Rindels discovered that on a scale of 0-10 (where the 1990-2019 average was zero and peak inflation in 2022 was 10), the share of categories with inflation above 3% is 6 on a weighted basis.

Unweighted — that is, category by category — the imbalance is a more muted reading of 2 on the 0-to-10 scale.

Those categories where the price rises are fastest are in video/ audio, financial services, medical services and airfares/ transportation.


It's a bad economy for most Americans.  But  for low paid workers in this Chump economy, it's even worse. Sasha Rogelberg (FORTUNE) notes:


The last time the U.S. raised the federal minimum wage, Apple’s Siri hadn’t even been invented yet.

July marked the 17th full year in which the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25, the think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) noted in a recent post. Apple would introduce its AI iPhone bot two years after the current wage was set. The base pay staying the same as inflation continues to rise means today’s wage floor is at its lowest value in 70 years, with a purchasing power lower than its 1968 peak.
“We are currently in the longest period of inaction on the federal minimum wage since its inception in 1938,” CEPR senior economist Sylvia Allegretto wrote. “In fact, today the federal wage floor is officially a poverty wage.”

Indeed, last year the federal minimum wage became a “poverty wage,” meaning a full-time, year-round job paying $7.25 an hour would fall under the $15,650 poverty threshold created by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Minimum wage has reentered the national spotlight amid an ongoing affordability crisis marked by increased inflation from tariffs and the Iran war, as well as stubbornly high home prices and childcare costs. Among the bleak economic markets for Americans is stagnating wage growth, which has declined from its peak of 6.7% in July 2022 to 3.6% as of last month, according to Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta data.

You can work full time for minimum wage and you will be making poverty wages.  How is that possible?  


The U.S. economy has delivered a confusing message in 2026. Stock markets have continued to price in growth, corporate profits remain resilient, and headline unemployment data has not triggered widespread panic. But beneath the surface, a different picture is emerging. 
The labor market is losing participation at a pace that deserves investor attention because consumer spending, economic growth, and corporate earnings all depend on Americans earning paychecks. A job market can appear healthy when viewed through one metric while quietly weakening through another.
The Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database, which tracks data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), shows a troubling trend: the number of Americans outside the labor force reached an all-time high in June.

The number of people who are neither employed nor actively looking for work increased by 832,000 during the month, reaching 105.8 million Americans. That figure is not simply a new record. It is higher than the worst period of the pandemic shutdown.

In 2020, when businesses closed, travel stopped, and millions of jobs disappeared, the number of Americans outside the labor force peaked at roughly 103.6 million. Today’s figure is 2.2 million higher. The trend has accelerated in 2026. Since the start of the year, 2.5 million Americans have exited the labor force.


And everywhere you look, companies are shedding jobs.  Luke James (TOM'S HARDWARE) notes, "Samsung has cut jobs across its U.S. consumer electronics business as it prepares to move Samsung Electronics America's headquarters from New Jersey to Texas by the end of the year, with a WARN notice listing 739 affected roles at its Englewood Cliffs offices and roughly 100 workers let go at its Plano, Texas, site, according to a Reuters report."

It's a chump economy because it's Chump's economy.  He took our economy that Joe Biden had moved into recovery and Chump destroyed it -- first with tariffs and then with the Iran War.  And now gas prices are going back up again.  Chris Isidore (CNN) observes, "The average price US drivers pay for a gallon of gas hit $4 on Monday, as fighting between the United States and Iran intensified, further disrupting oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The average price is now just above $4 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association, or AAA. Gas first crossed the $4 mark, a psychologically important threshold, on March 31, a month into the conflict."  Eleanor Pringle (FORTUNE) notes:


So far, U.S. households have managed to navigate the latest wave of cost-of-living increases, though UBS’s top economist, Paul Donovan, warns that “economic gravity” will catch up with families at some point.

In a note shared with clients this morning, Donovan wrote that “while oil costs are rapidly being passed to consumers, the response is to cut monthly savings rather than non-oil consumption.” However, “this cannot be sustained indefinitely if oil prices remain elevated—in the Wile E. Coyote scenario, economic gravity eventually exerts itself—but it could easily be sustained for the remainder of this year.”

Donovan is referring to the famous Road Runner cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff-edge without realizing, hangs motionless in the air in a moment of disbelief, before crashing down to earth.

It will be painful for U.S. households—already stretched after sticky inflation for the past few years—to suffer the same fate. Even over the past few weeks, the reignition of conflict in the Middle East has begun to stretch their wallets once again.



When former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as President Donald Trump's new Secretary of Homeland Security, he stated that his key goal was that "we’re not in the lead story every single day.”

According to Jonathan Derbyshire of the Financial Times, he has failed utterly in this goal, as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement killings have continued to generate public outrage, and DHS has continued to skirt all accountability for it.
Multiple ICE agents were involved in shooting deaths in the past few weeks in Texas and Maine. Shortly after, "ICE suspended vehicle stops in the wake of the shootings," with border czar Tom Homan calling it a "short pause just to make sure we're doing the right thing" — only for Trump to decree the pause over hours later on Truth Social.

Part of the issue for Mullin, said the report, is that he has done little to change the toxic hiring culture at the agency that is setting ICE up for abuses of power. "In January, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had hired more than 12,000 officers and agents in less than a year and that it had received 'more than 220,000 applications to join ICE from patriotic Americans'" noted the report — but an Associated Press investigation suggests "many of those applying, and indeed a significant number of those who ended up getting hired, were unsuitable for the job."


Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:


ICYMI: Murray Blasts Trump and McMahon’s Decision to Abandon Students with Disabilities & the Administration’s Legal Responsibility to Protect Students’ Civil Rights

Murray calls on Republican colleagues to join her in stopping illegal transfer of ED’s offices of special education and civil rights

Murray made clear she will not let any legislation that seeks to abolish the Department of Education make any progress in the Senate

*** WATCH PRESS CONFERENCE HERE, DOWNLOAD HERE***

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee, held a virtual press conference to sound the alarm on Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s plan to illegally transfer the responsibilities of the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through Inter-Agency Agreements (IAA).

Senator Murray was joined by Katy Neas, CEO of the Arc and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the U.S. Department of Education under the Biden administration; Stephanie Smith Lee, Policy & Advocacy Co-Director for the National Down Syndrome Congress and former Director of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) at the U.S. Department of Education under the George W. Bush administration; Catherine Lhamon, Executive Director for the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at UC Berkeley and former Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama and Biden administrations; Dr. Lanya Elsa, Special Education Researcher, Family Support Professional, and mother from Washington state of two sons who are deafblind; and Luisa Sparrow, special education teacher at Oliver Hazard Perry School and 2025 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year.

“I have believed for a long time we need to be doing a lot more for students with disabilities. Programs like IDEA are not funded at nearly the level they should be,” said Senator Murray. “Just talk to any parent of students with disabilities—they’ll tell you the system is not perfect. But what Trump is doing threatens to make things so much worse. We have seen how this administration operates—it’s been haphazard and totally destructive. The agencies taking over these programs simply do not have the expertise and so many of the experts who oversaw these programs were fired or pushed out by Trump already. If Trump breaks the programs our kids with disabilities rely on, the outcomes will be grim… America has to stand up for kids with disabilities right now. This is not a partisan issue… I am calling on my Republican colleagues to listen to the parents of kids with disabilities. Listen to the teachers in our schools. Dismantling the Department of Education—continuing on this path—will be devastating for kids with disabilities in America.”

“A student who is denied services, disciplined for disability-related needs, or blocked from an accessible classroom needs one federal education system that can see the whole picture and act,” said Katy Neas, CEO, The Arc of the United States and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the U.S. Department of Education under the Biden administration. “Moving special education to HHS and civil rights enforcement to DOJ would split apart the offices responsible for making disability rights real in schools, leaving families chasing answers across the federal government instead of getting accountability from one education agency.”

“Families are counting on Congress to reject the misguided notion that dismantling the U.S. Department of Education will reduce bureaucracy,” saidStephanie Smith Lee, Policy & Advocacy Co-Director for the National Down Syndrome Congress and former Director of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) at the U.S. Department of Education under the George W. Bush administration. “I joined a bipartisan group of former officials who led federal special education under Republican and Democratic presidents since the Nixon Administration in urging Congress to stop the transfer of special education to another department. For decades, Congress has repeatedly reaffirmed that the Department of Education should oversee special education because students with disabilities need strong federal leadership, accountability, and oversight. Congress should not abandon that bipartisan commitment in favor of a disruptive experiment that creates confusion for families, burdens states and school districts, and adds more bureaucracy—not less.”

“After returning millions of dollars rather than spend it on civil rights protections for students in schools, terminating more than half of civil rights enforcement staff, and resolving a historic low in cases leaving students dangerously unprotected, now the Department of Education commits to a system designed to fail by agreeing to transfer its core civil rights enforcement functions to another agency with insufficient staff or expertise to meet the volume of need our nation’s students experience in their education journeys,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, Executive Director of the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at University of California, Berkeley School of Law and former Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama and Biden administrations. “This move, if unchecked, will at best only further delay justice and relegate students to federal afterthoughts rather than treating them like the valuable learners they are, who deserve Congress’ promise that they will not experience the ugly discriminatory harms our laws protect them against.”

“As both a special educator and the mother of two sons who are deafblind, I have seen firsthand what fifty years of federal protections and educational expertise have made possible for children with disabilities,” said Dr. Lanya Elsa, Special Education Researcher, Family Support Professional, and mother of two sons who are deafblind from Washington state. “My sons are now a college graduate and a college-bound student—but fifty years ago, children like mine were often segregated or institutionalized. We cannot turn back that progress. Special education deserves to remain within the Department of Education, overseen by leaders who understand that children like mine are not problems to be fixed—they are students who belong in our schools, alongside their peers. Moving special education programs to HHS and fragmenting civil rights enforcement puts at risk the expertise and accountability that families depend on. This is no longer about my sons. It is about every child coming behind them, and we owe those children the same opportunities to learn, thrive, and belong.”

“Students with disabilities have a civil right to the supports that will help them learn as much as possible in school, in learning spaces that include their general education peers,” said Luisa Sparrow, special education teacher at Oliver Hazard Perry School and 2025 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year. “I’m here to advocate for my students, and for all students with disabilities, by highlighting the harm caused by moving special education to the Department of Health and Human Services. Isolating special education from general education in this way sends a damaging message that special education is about meeting healthcare needs rather than learning needs, and that it is separate from the main purpose of school.”

OCR is charged with enforcing federal civil rights laws to protect students’ rights in the classroom, and the Department of Education Organization Act of 1979 mandates the existence of the Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department to carry out these responsibilities.

Last year, the Trump administration thoughtlessly eliminated more than half of the staff in the Office for Civil Rights and closed half of the regional field offices, and in the time since, there has been a precipitous drop-off in the resolution of students’ cases. In 2025, the Department reached the lowest number of resolutions in 12 years and reached zero resolutions for students facing serious incidents including sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion, restraint, racial harassment, and discriminatory school discipline. Senator Murray has mobilized against the administration’s efforts to hollow out OCR, called out how it’s hurt students and families, and she’s repeatedly pressed Secretary McMahon on the issue.

OSERS is charged with implementing and enforcing the Rehabilitation Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which mandate that students with disabilities get the free appropriate public education and independence they deserve. In April, Senator Murray pressed Secretary McMahon on her plans to potentially offload OSERS’ responsibilities and told McMahon: “That is exactly why these parents and advocates are spitting mad because what they want to make sure is that their child with a disability has an education.”

Senator Murray has aggressively pushed back against Secretary McMahon’s efforts to dismantle the Department, including through the illegal use of IAAs, and she fought to insert ironclad language in the fiscal year 2026 funding bill for the Department that would bar Secretary McMahon from using IAAs to dismantle the Department—but Republicans refused to include new, binding language that would block arrangements like the ones announced in June. Last week, Senator Murray blasted House Republicans for working to advance a slate of legislative proposals to rubberstamp the administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education—Murray made clear she will not let any legislation that seeks to abolish the Department of Education make any progress in the Senate.  

Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:

“Thank you for joining us today. I am really pleased to be here today with a parent, a teacher, and some experts from both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“We all know that public education in America is not going to get better by dismantling the Department of Education. But Trump is determined to raze it to the ground. Instead of helping kids get a great education, instead of supporting the unique needs of all our children, the Trump administration is spending its time, its energy, and your tax dollars on illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education.

“Now I am fighting tooth and nail against any efforts to dismantle the Department of Education, but I am especially concerned about what this could mean for all students, especially students with disabilities in America.

“Trump and Linda McMahon have fired and pushed out over 2,000 staff at the Department, and with them decades of institutional knowledge and that includes the staff they need to enforce our civil rights laws for students with disabilities. They have created absolute chaos and pandemonium for school districts across the country by holding up federal funding that our communities rely on, and last month, they announced they are illegally scattering federal education programs that support students with disabilities all over the government with different agencies managing programs that they have no business or expertise running.

“And you know who gets left behind? Students and their parents, who break their backs and lose sleep worrying about how to make sure their kid with a disability gets the individualized support they need.

“It is outrageous and completely unacceptable that Donald Trump and Linda McMahon want to pass off the essential work of the Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice, and specifically to a division at DOJ that is being run by a right-wing extremist. And it is outrageous they are abandoning their obligation to manage the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and handing it over to RFK Jr at HHS—everyone who is here today knows these offices are critical, but they are especially important for students with disabilities.

“I have believed for a long time we need to be doing a lot more for students with disabilities. Programs like IDEA are not funded at nearly the level they should be. Just talk to any parent of students with disabilities—they’ll tell you the system is not perfect. But what Trump is doing threatens to make things so much worse. We have seen how this administration operates—it’s been haphazard and totally destructive. The agencies taking over these programs simply do not have the expertise and so many of the experts who oversaw these programs were fired or pushed out by Trump already. If Trump breaks the programs our kids with disabilities rely on, the outcomes will be grim.

“For far too long, these kids were outright denied the education they need and deserve right here in America. Most Americans don’t realize that as recently as the 1970s schools in the United States only educated about one in five children with disabilities, and a whole lot of states had laws excluding certain students, including kids who were deaf or blind or had some kind of intellectual disability.

“That is so wrong, and while progress has not been perfect—we have made tremendous progress since then. Over 50 years ago, parents and educators fought to enshrine basic protections in federal law to guarantee their right to a quality education—and to create mechanisms in law to right wrongs when they are denied the resources or support they deserve. That victory and many others since have ushered in a lot of hard-won progress—but instead of building on it, this administration is intent on rolling back the clock to a much darker time.

“It’s enough to make your blood boil. We cannot go backwards, but that’s exactly where this administration is taking us.

“Thanks to the Trump administration there is already a massive backlog of cases at the Office for Civil Rights and that list will just get longer. And under this administration, if a kid with disabilities is discriminated against, they are almost certainly not going to have their rights protected. Last year, OCR reached nearly 80 percent fewer disability discrimination resolution agreements compared to 2024. That’s not by accident, it’s by design–thanks to Trump’s staffing cuts and dismantling of the Department of Education.

“And it gets even worse. Let’s talk about RFK Jr. RFK Jr. should have nothing to do with making sure students with disabilities are getting the high-quality public education they deserve and are entitled to. The idea of him being put in charge of special education for our kids is absolutely appalling. Earlier this year, RFK Jr. went on a sick and offensive tirade spreading lies and taking cheap shots at kids with Autism. He said ‘autism destroys families’ and is an ‘individual tragedy as well.’ He talked about how kids with autism would never have a job, pay taxes, write a poem, or even go on a date. Those remarks are horrifying, and they are simply false. And they display a total lack of respect for the dignity, the humanity, and the limitless potential every child possesses to make their own way in this world.

“No way should RFK Jr. be in charge of programs meant to help students with disabilities learn, grow, and thrive.

“Look, as Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee, I have a lot of say over how we spend taxpayer dollars—and you can bet I will fight to protect funding for the Department of Education. I have also fought to outright stop Trump from spinning off these critical education programs to other departments that have zero relevant expertise. But we are still deep in the minority, and in last year’s funding bills, Republicans refused to work with us to stop Trump’s destruction of the Department of Education. But with Trump and McMahon’s latest efforts to undercut the programs students with disabilities rely on, I am really hoping we can rally parents, teachers, and communities across America—in red states and blue.

“America has to stand up for kids with disabilities right now. This is not a partisan issue.

“So, I am desperately hoping this will be a wake-up call to my Republican colleagues who I know do care deeply about students with disabilities. I can fight to increase funding for special education in our spending bills—absolutely. But I can’t wave a magic wand on my own to stop the illegal transferring of special education to RFK Jr.’s HHS and student civil rights protections to DOJ.

“So what can we do? Well, a lot actually. With enough Republican support we could undo some of this destruction, whether in our funding bills or otherwise. I am calling on my Republican colleagues to listen to the parents of kids with disabilities. Listen to the teachers in our schools. Dismantling the Department of Education—continuing on this path—will be devastating for kids with disabilities in America.

“Join me in putting a stop to this before it’s too late.

“Finally, I want to address legislation we’ve seen in the House of Representatives that would rubberstamp much of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. As long as this former preschool teacher is a United States Senator, every one of those bills is dead on arrival. I’m very pleased to be joined by some of those very parents and teachers that every member of Congress ought to be listening to.”

###







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    • Posted by at

    Monday, July 20, 2026

    Creeps Maher, FettyCrap and Chump

    First up, Katie Phang.




    Now for the disgusting Bill Maher.  Katie Francis (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:

    Bill Maher has lashed out at Democrats for falling short of his very high expectations.

    The comedian-turned-poltical commentator spoke to host Jon Karl on ABC’s This Week Sunday, and stated: “Democrats are cowardly. They’re cowardly. Their party is being taken over now.”

    “Every day I hear about a new radical. I feel very good about ten—whenever—years ago, I did lose fans because, you know, I wan’t going to go along with some of this crazy stuff on the left, too.”

    He lost fans because he wasn't a Democrat.  He was never a Democrat.  He was a Libertarian and he was a loud mouth.  Arianna Huffington gave him cover because she wasn't a Democrat either.  She started as a Republican and then she became a leftist.  What she is now?  Who knows.  But Maher was always a sexist and still is.  He's also an Islamaphobe.  What was that crazy man's name, he used to have an MSNBC show in the early mornings.  Don Imus.  When Don Imus fell, Bill Maher became the new Don Imus.  He's friends with Kid Rock, that's all you need to know about Maher. 

    Another fake ass trying to fool people into thinking he's a Democrat?  Fettycrap.  Robert Davis (RAW STORY) reports:

    Sen. John Fetterman's (D-PA) appearance on Fox News on Sunday was roundly mocked by analysts, especially for a remark the senator made about feeling an undying "love and devotion" for a country that is not the United States.
    Speaking to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures," Fetterman expressed condolences for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who died last weekend because of an aortic dissection after returning home from a trip to Ukraine. Fetterman claimed that he and Graham had become "good friends" and shared a special bond over their "love and devotion" for Israel.
    Fetterman's comments were mocked far and wide across social media.
    "Every day he is on Fox, every day he is talking about Israel. Beyond parody, at this point," Mehdi Hasan, founder of Zeteo News, posted on X.
    "Just laughable to hear from centrists that the left never talks about anything aside from Israel anymore and then to consistently talk about their obsession with protecting a rogue foreign nation," Nate Blouin, a state senator in Utah who is running for a Congressional House seat, posted on X.
    "Meetings of the Genocide Caucus have only one item on the agenda," Hemant Mehta, a "Jeopardy!" champion, posted on X.
    Some analysts expressed concern about a sitting senator who claims to be switching parties to become a Republican and shows such fealty to a nation that is not the U.S.
    "If you’re an American conservative, are you really comfortable with members of the Senate talking about their 'love and devotion' to a foreign country instead of America?" Jaid Jilani, a political writer, posted on X.

    FettyCrap is such an embarrassment.  Ryan Mancini (THE HILL) reports:

    Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) on Sunday said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) should “sit down” after floating the possibility of arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his upcoming visit to the U.N. General Assembly.
    “Well, [he’s] such a tough guy to say that kind of thing. He has no way to do that. Of course, obviously, America’s not even part of that corrupt court,” Fetterman said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News, referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
    Fetterman said if he were mayor, he “would just sit down and focus on other … problems that they have in New York. That’s really not your purview.”
    “You and I know that,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said. “Sit down.”


    FettyCrap, maybe it's you who should "sit down."  Or maybe just get back on your meds.  


    A recent report has drawn attention to the high cost of Donald Trump’s second-term golf trips, revealing millions in taxpayer funds spent since his return to the White House.
    HuffPost has been tracking Trump’s golf trips since he retook office, and the outlet says the President’s time on the links has cost the American taxpayers $101.2 million dollars since Trump kicked off his second term at the end of January 2025. 
    The absolutely astonishing amount of money that Trump’s golf trips have cost Americans in security and expenses is already roughly two-thirds of the amount Washington spent on Trump’s golf excursions during his first term, and things are set to get worse. 
    HuffPost reported that the country was on track to spend roughly $300 million dollars on Trump’s golf trips by the end of his second term. However, that isn’t the only astonishing fact about the President’s penchant for spending time golfing. 
    On March 28th, Trump reportedly visited his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The visit marked the 56th time the President has played golf at his West Palm Beach course since his second inauguration. However, again, the situation gets worse. 
    According to Huffpost, the President’s March 28th golf trip was the 110th day that Trump has spent on a golf course that he owns since his return to office, which the outlet noted means Trump has spent over a quarter of his time back in office golfing. 
    “At a time when gas prices are spiking, and Americans across the country find themselves in an ever-worsening affordability crisis, the president has burned through over $100 million in taxpayer money in order to make promotional appearances at his golf courses and hobnob with millionaires and billionaires,” explained Jordan Libowitz. 
    Libowitz is Vice President of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that monitors the government to hold it accountable to the American people. He added that if Trump’s “goal were to help struggling Americans out, one thing he could try is stop spending their money going to his golf courses.”


    Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


    Monday, July 20, 2026.  3 US service members killed in the Iran War, gas prices increase again, Chump is presented with options for more war, ICE remains a menace, the Justice Dept will no longer be reviewing ICE's actions in cases of violence per a new Chump proposal. and much more. 




    As Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes in the video above, 3 US service members were killed in the war.  John Ismay, Aaron Boxerman and Leily Nikounazar (NE W YORK TIMES) reported:


    Two U.S. soldiers were killed and a third service member was missing after an Iranian attack on a base in Jordan on Friday, the U.S. military said. The American troop deaths were the first from hostile fire since a truce in early April.

    The Jordanian base came under fire from Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, according to a statement on Saturday from U.S. Central Command. Sixteen U.S. service members have been killed since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran in February.

     

    Greg Jaffe, Julian E. Barnes and Jonathan Swan (NEW YORK TIMES) observe:


    The Iranian attack that killed two U.S. soldiers and left one service member missing on Friday was the fourth in five days on U.S. forces in Jordan, multiple American officials said. Taken together, the attacks have wounded dozens of U.S. service members and damaged a number of helicopters.

    The flurry of attacks and the losses they have caused are a sign that Iranian forces not only still have ample missile stocks but have also become more adept at evading U.S. air defense systems, said the U.S. officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

    Jordan, which hosts major U.S. air bases, grew in importance in the run-up to and the early days of the war, as the Pentagon shifted a number of troops from Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to relatively more secure locations in Jordan and Israel. The country’s role in U.S. operations has only increased as other American allies in the region have restricted Washington’s ability to base troops in and fly aircraft over their territories, the U.S. officials said.



    The Pentagon said on Sunday that a third member of the American military had died during a weekend of intense exchanges of attacks with Iran, as the war escalated and the United States began sending more warplanes to the Middle East.

    The soldier was killed in northern Iraq during the disposal of a downed Iranian attack drone on Saturday, the Pentagon said. There was no sign of diplomacy between the two sides, and the U.S. military said Sunday evening Eastern time that it had begun conducting a new wave of strikes against Iran for the ninth consecutive night.

    American officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the United States was sending more military jets to the Middle East, a move that was in the works even before the recent deaths.

    The fatalities raised to 17 the number of U.S. military personnel confirmed to have been killed in the war. On Friday, two soldiers were killed in an Iranian missile barrage in Jordan that left another soldier missing. A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said on Sunday that remains recovered at scene were believed to be those of the missing soldier.


    Chump's war is costing lives and it is destroying the US economy.  Katie Robertson (NEW YORK TIMES) notes:

    After a brief respite, the price of gas is back on the rise.

    On Monday, the average price at the pump in the United States climbed to $4 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, as the war with Iran reignited, halting most shipping and pinching already-depleted global refineries.

    The price has surged 13 cents higher from a week ago, when it averaged $3.87 across the country.


    Chump doesn't care.  And he doesn't really pay attention.   He takes his eye off the ball constantly as he gets bored or disappointed with the way his war is going.  Michael Tomasky (THE NEW REPUBLIC) weighs in noting:

    The war in Iran—so recently “ended” to the back-slapping acclaim of the administration that started it—is definitely back on. Iran attacked an air base in Jordan and other sites over the weekend, killing a total of three American soldiers (another service member was missing as of Sunday). The United States retaliated; Iran retaliated back. The New York Times described the countries as having “edged closer to a wider war.”
    Donald Trump actually makes a fair point when he reminds people that Vietnam lasted a decade and cost 58,000 American lives (and two million Vietnamese ones, which he doesn’t mention as often). Iran isn’t close to being a “quagmire” just yet—not even a Dubya-style one. People can get a little overwrought when discussing these things.

    Having said that, though, the future looks pretty grim. I mean, we’ve got Trump doing the one thing he said he’d never do: running a war. Knowing what we know about his attention span, his decision-making process, his willed ignorance of history, his refusal to read briefing papers, and his habit of responding to the last thing he saw on Fox News or Newsmax, we have plenty of reason to be worried here—and by “we” I don’t mean liberals or Democrats or even Americans. I mean the world.

    Let’s sort through the possible scenarios. Granted, they are extremely unlikely to involve 58,000 American deaths. But Vietnam was probably the largest military tragedy in the history of this country. There are other, less costly ways to lose a war. The United States lost around 4,400 service members in Iraq. That’s miniscule compared to Vietnam, but it’s still a war we largely lost (the military objective of toppling Saddam Hussein was achieved, but at a huge and off-the-books financial cost, and Iraq today is at best a kinda-sorta democracy). 


    Chump's being presented with many plans from subordinates.  Most of them call for more war.  Andre Damon (WSWS) notes:

    The Wall Street Journal reported July 15 that Trump “is leaning toward expanding U.S. military operations in Iran,” with options including “sending ground forces to seize Iranian islands near the Strait of Hormuz.” The Journal reported that a White House Situation Room meeting was held “to discuss the potential seizure of Kharg Island and other territory along the Strait of Hormuz using U.S. troops.” The journalist Seymour Hersh reported June 10 that Trump asked whether using low-yield nuclear weapons against Iran’s underground missile plants “was doable.”

    “The U.S. is planning for a wider war,” a US official familiar with internal administration discussions told the Washington Post in an article published Sunday. The official said the Pentagon is sending more warplanes to the region, but warned that the military is running low on air-defense missiles and long-range strike weapons, and that battle damage limits how many more troops and aircraft can be brought in. “We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official said.


    Let's move over to ICE and let's start with this from Kate Randall (WSWS): 

    Nearly a week after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent David Brouillette shot and killed Johan (Joan) Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, new details have emerged about the shooter’s history of violence, even as President Donald Trump has restored the very traffic-stop practices that led to Guerrero’s death.

    Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian immigrant working legally in the United States with an active asylum case, was shot multiple times through the windshield of his car shortly after 7 a.m. on July 13 at the intersection of Pool and Hill Streets, a block from his home. ICE agents were conducting surveillance related to a warrant for someone else entirely. Durán Guerrero was not the target of the operation. As he tried to drive away, an agent opened fire, killing him in front of neighbors who ran outside to find his wife and young daughter screaming over his body. None of the agents on the scene wore body cameras.

    Durán Guerrero’s death came less than a week after ICE agents killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston under nearly identical circumstances, gunning him down as he drove to a construction job with coworkers. Neither man was the target of the operation that killed him.

    The back-to-back killings briefly forced Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to order ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division to suspend most vehicle stops while agents received additional training. The pause lasted barely a day.

    Trump, who was reportedly not informed of the pause before it was announced, became furious after conservative media personalities cast the decision as a retreat. Steve Bannon used his “War Room” program to denounce Mullin, with guest Mike Davis declaring on air, “You work for President Trump, you don’t work for Senate Democrats, you don’t work for Susan Collins.” Fox personality Tomi Lahren and disgraced former Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino piled on as well.

    By Wednesday morning, Trump had posted on Truth Social that ICE’s traffic stops were among agents’ “most important and effective Crime Fighting tools” and ordered them resumed. He declared, “The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch.”

    Mullin, who days earlier had ordered the pause, promptly reversed himself, insisting he and Trump were “on the same page.” The about-face came as ICE faced internal pressure to meet Trump’s target of 2,000 arrests a day.

    Durán Guerrero’s wife, Karolina Rojas Alvarez, spoke publicly for the first time Thursday at a news conference at the Lincoln Hotel in Biddeford, flanked by her husband’s sister Daniela and Keyko Torres of the immigrant rights group Presente! Maine. Speaking through a translator, with attorney Ben Gideon at her side, she described a devoted partner and father.

    “My soul is broken. He was everything to me. He never let me worry about anything,” she said. “He always made me feel like a queen. I never wanted for anything. He gave me more than I ever dreamed of.”

    She recalled how her husband doted on their three-year-old daughter from the day she was born, saying, “From the moment he held her in his arms and held her tiny hand, he never let her go.” Now, she said, she cannot bring herself to explain his absence to their daughter. “Now my daughter asks for Papá, and I don’t have the strength to tell her that Papá isn’t coming, that she can’t hug him anymore or tell him, ‘Papi, I love you.’”

    All that remains, she said, are photographs and a blanket printed with the three of them together that he had given his daughter weeks before he was killed.

    ICE has refused to officially confirm the identity of the agent who killed Durán Guerrero, with a spokesperson describing press efforts to name him as “doxxing.” But the shooter has been identified through multiple independent channels as David Michael Brouillette, 37, of Manchester, Maine. His own ex-wife corroborated reports that he was the killer, saying that he called her to admit he had fired the shots and to ask her to “lie for him” and “cover for his character.”


    Elaine covered ICE Friday night in "ICE hires and trains poorly -- to put it mildly:"


    ICE has not had any standards.  Not in training, not in hiring, not since Chump was sworn in.  That is how you get all these abuses and, in fact, one whistle blower has noted that they are trained to ignore the Constitution.  So we have had three deaths this month as a result of ICE.  In the most recent one, Florida, a man ran out into the street to avoid ICE and was run over.  In Texas and Maine, ICE shot two people dead in their cars.  On the Maine shooting, Dan Gooding (INDEPENDENT) reports:

    An Army veteran with a history of violence and serious mental health issues was the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer who fatally shot a 25-year-old Colombian man in Maine on Monday, the Associated Press (AP) reports, citing court records and interviews with his family.
    David Brouillette acknowledged in a Facebook call that he killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette told the AP.

    Their 18-year-old daughter, Madison Brouillette, also told the AP that her father also told her that he fired the shots that killed Durán Guerrero in the Colombian national’s car near his home in the coastal city of Biddeford.

    Ashley Brouillette said her ex-husband has a long history of psychiatric issues and was physically abusive following the birth of their daughter. When he told her late last year he had been hired by ICE, she assumed he was experiencing a mental health episode and didn’t believe him, she told the AP.

    Family court records obtained from the Augusta District Court clerk’s office detail years of allegations of physical and verbal abuse raised by his second ex-wife on behalf of herself and his daughters, the AP reported.

    You may remember that ICE said Johan was attempting to use his car as a weapon to ram them with.  Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) notes:

    ICE initially tried to run with this account of what happened, but this was contradicted by video evidence that clearly showed the agents were walking alongside Guerrero's car as it moved at slow speeds, and at no point did he attempt to run them down with it. They dragged his body out of the vehicle after shooting him and placed handcuffs on it.


    Ava and C.I. began calling out the lies of ICE like this in May of last year at THIRD. C.I. has noted with the three deaths this month that ICE has lost the benefit of the doubt and that, due to their pattern of lying, every one of their statements must be treated as suspect unless proven otherwise.  



    Democratic members of Congress demanded answers about Homeland Security's vetting and training of immigration enforcement agents after it was disclosed Thursday that the ICE officer involved in a deadly shooting this week in Maine had a history of mental health issues and violent behavior.
    [. . .]
    The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said Brouillette’s history of violence and mental health issues, as well as the death in Maine, “directly call into question the supposed vetting and training ICE does of its recruits.”

    “This senseless tragedy must be investigated and the officer responsible should be taken off our streets and face justice for his actions,” Thompson said in a statement to the AP.

    Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who led a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year as Democrats tried to impose restraints on immigration enforcement operations, said the consequences of failing to put guardrails on ICE are now being measured in lives.


    As ICE becomes more and more entangled in crimes, Devlin Barrett and Hamed Aleaziz (NEW YORK TIMES) report on a new move by the administration: 


    Federal agents around the country were told in recent days that the F.B.I. would no longer investigate confrontations with immigration agents — cases that sometimes yield evidence that could be used to prosecute Department of Homeland Security agents implicated in violent encounters, according to people briefed on the decision.

    If enacted, such a change would sharply limit law enforcement scrutiny of immigration agents, as the Trump administration draws mounting criticism over killings at the hands of federal officers. In the last two weeks, two fatal shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Texas and Maine have thrust the government’s tactics back into the spotlight.

    F.B.I. managers around the country received a written notice informing them of the change on Thursday, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal communications. The same day, some ICE agents around the country were notified by their F.B.I. counterparts.

    The guidance shared with them said that the bureau would stop investigating claims of assaults against Department of Homeland Security agents, the people said. Even though such investigations are intended to determine whether the officers were in fact attacked, they can provide a crucial means of gathering evidence implicating the agents themselves.


    Isn't that something Todd Blanche should have brought up Wednesday when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee?  Instead, he and the administration have kept this on the down low.  Sarah N. Lynch (CBS NEWS) adds:


    When HSI was tasked with leading the federal investigation into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January, with the help of the FBI, the decision raised questions among current and former federal law enforcement officials. 

    After concerns were raised, the FBI and the Civil Rights Division were ordered to take the lead on the probe. That investigation remains ongoing.

    HSI is not typically tasked with investigating officer-involved shootings and is not structured or equipped to handle core elements of such cases, including ballistics analysis, forensic processing, firearm examinations, video review and large-scale witness canvassing.


    No, Homeland Security should not be investigating themselves and, no, they are not trained for these kind of investigations.  This is yet another attempt to bury and skirt responsibility.  These are mistakes and errors that are owned by Markwayne Mullen who has been Secretary of Homeland Security since March.   


    Not content merely to attack immigrants, Chump's ICE killing machine is back to attacking protesters.  Alex Nguyen (MOTHER JONES) reports:


    An ICE detention center employee shot a woman on Thursday night after a protest outside an ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado, according to an Aurora Police Department statement released Friday afternoon. The center is operated by the private prison firm GEO Group, the largest recipient of private contracts with ICE to run immigration detention centers.

    A GEO Group employee, Brandon Booth, was arrested on suspicion of attempted second-degree murder and other charges. The woman, who investigators said was part of the protest, was injured and taken to the hospital but is expected to survive. Another woman who was with her was not hurt.

    According to the Aurora Police Department, Booth and other GEO Group staff were unable to enter the facility due to the protest. The two women argued with the employees and began walking away after taking photos of their cars. Booth then took out a personal firearm and fired one shot at the two women, hitting one of them in her lower body, before getting back into his car and driving away.


    Josh Marcus (INDEPENDENT) notes:


    He was subsequently arrested on probable cause on suspicion of attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon.

    [. . .]

    Magistrate Judge Kyle Martelon set Booth’s bond at $500,000.

    “To say this is a grave risk to our community would be a vast understatement,” Martelon reportedly said in court. 


    Attacking protesters also includes hauling them into court on trumped up charges.  Saturday, Mike McIntire, Danny Hakim, Alexandra Berzon, Jazmine Ulloa and Lauren McCarthy (NEW YORK TIMES) reported:


    In its nationwide immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has charged hundreds of people with assaulting or impeding federal agents. President Trump has branded them “insurrectionists,” “animals” and “thugs,” part of a broader effort by his administration to cast protesters and immigrants as violent criminals.

    But a close examination of those cases reveals that in its rush to meet White House demands for deportations, federal law enforcement has engaged in extensive misconduct — ranging from attacking protesters to destroying evidence and misrepresenting facts in court.

    The New York Times found that the Trump administration has filed assault charges against more than 550 people who were caught in its immigration dragnet — far more than previously known. Of the more than 400 cases resolved so far, nearly half have unraveled: Juries acquitted defendants, judges threw out charges, or prosecutors withdrew them.

    The record is abysmal by the typical standards of federal prosecutions: The Justice Department seldom loses criminal cases, with more than 90 percent of defendants pleading guilty or being convicted at trial.


    Border czar Tom Homan appeared on FACE THE NATION (CBS) Sunday where he was questioned by host Margaret Brennan. 


    MARGARET BRENNAN: Mr. Homan, we saw that two immigrants were shot in the span of a week. There was that one in Maine that was fatal just days after another one in Houston. We also saw that man fleeing agents in Florida, who then was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer.

    I know you've been trying to keep the department out of the headlines ever since that streak in Minnesota that was deadly. How do you respond to those who say, what's happening now looks like very little has changed?

    TOM HOMAN: Well, you know, first of all, we'll wait and see what the investigations – how they play out, right. Because, you know, I don't want to get ahead of an investigation on who's at fault, what exactly happened because we all know, when these investigations happen, there's going to be cell phone video, there may be city cameras, and, of course, then you got witness statements and affidavits from the officer and witnesses. So, we've got to let the investigations play out. So I don't really want to comment on the investigations themselves.

    "I don't want to get ahead of an investigation on who's at fault," he declares before going on the blame the dead civilian drivers and insist that they should have stopped due to the flashing lights.  Brennan noted that in the videos, there were no flashing lights at which point Homan admits he didn't see the videos.


    But he's talking about the situation as though he did and doing so afere he says "I don't want to get ahead of an investigation on who's at fault."  


    MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. But these were fatal shootings, of course, in Houston and in Maine. And in Houston, it was an unmarked car. So, when you're saying, don't resist, these individuals who were chasing the man who died, they didn't have markings on that vehicle that would allow for him to know that they were ICE. It just looked like a car coming after them in the videos.

    TOM HOMAN: No. They have emergency lights. Officers have insignia. So, when they get out of that car and approach the car, you can clearly see they're law enforcement officers. They can't – this is – these people –

    MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, in the video that has been public, it's not a marked car.


    Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

    Murray: “People choose Traditional Medicare because they want to make their health care decisions with their doctor—not with a private company that’s out to make a profit.”

    ICYMI: Murray, Cantwell Introduce Resolution to Overturn A.I.-Driven Program That’s Overruling WA Doctors & Delaying Care for Seniors

    ***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full speech***

    Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), spoke on the Senate floor ahead of a vote on her Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to overturn a new pilot program implemented by the Trump administration that’s using artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct prior authorization in Traditional Medicare to deny or delay certain procedures for seniors.

    In December last year, Senator Murray introduced the Seniors Deserve SMARTER (Streamlined Medical Approvals for Timely, Efficient Recovery) Care Act, legislation that would prohibit the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) from implementing the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) model that began on January 1, 2026 and is set to last for six years in six selected states, including Washington state.

    Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:

    “I wanted to talk today about not just how Republicans are making health care more expensive, but also how they are making it just plain worse for seniors. President Trump came into office saying that he wouldn’t cut Medicare. But that was clearly a lie. Because right now, his administration is trying to privatize Medicare—in part, by putting AI between Medicare beneficiaries and their health care!

    “In January of this year—under Secretary Kennedy’s and Dr. Oz’s leadership—CMS began this pilot program that uses AI to require prior authorization in Traditional Medicare. For the first time ever. And it is set to run for 6 years. They call it the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model—well, they got the wasteful and inappropriate part right!

    “The ‘WISeR’ Model uses AI to deny vulnerable seniors the care they need and that their doctors recommend. Not only that, but the for-profit contractors that conduct this prior authorization are paid a percentage of the cost of care that they deny. They are literally incentivized to rip health care away from seniors because that is better for their bottom line. When your business model relies on denials, denials are what seniors are going to get—and that is perverse.

    “WISeR was rolled out in the beginning of this year in my home state of Washington and five other states, without safeguards, and without any transparency, and without the best interest of Medicare beneficiaries at the heart of the program.

    “President Trump is saying: forget the doctors who went to medical school and took an oath to do no harm—AI knows better when it comes to health care decisions for our seniors. The consequences of that poor judgement are real and they are life threatening.

    “I hear from Medicare patients in Washington state all the time who are suffering in debilitating pain for weeks because they are not getting the care they need, thanks to this harmful model.

    “Patients like Joanne—she’s a Medicare beneficiary from Quilcene, Washington. She went to her doctor for severe pain and an MRI showed that a herniated disc was pressing on her sciatic nerve. Joanne’s doctor prescribed an epidural injection to help ease that pain. This was standard, routine care—care that, before this year, she would have been able to get quickly after it had been recommended by her doctor.

    “But because of this WISeR model, she had to wait 6 weeks to get approval. That means that thanks to WISeR, Joanne had to deal with unnecessary, un[treated] pain for six weeks. Because of this nonsense delay, her day-to-day life was disrupted—and the burden fell on her then to fight for the care she needed.

    “This is simply outrageous! But that is also WISeR working by design. And that is a direct impact of the Trump administration’s actions. 

    “We’ve seen way too many stories like Joanne’s from states that have been selected for this pilot program—no way should an algorithm decide if seniors should get the care that they need.

    “That’s why I joined my colleagues in introducing a resolution to overturn this model. And I want all of my colleagues to join me in voting for it so we can make sure seniors in my state and all over this country can once again receive their health care on time, without interruption.

    “Let’s just use our common sense: it is clear as day that some AI model should never be at the wheel making health care decisions left and right.

    “And it’s not just patients I hear from, I’ve met with health care providers all over my state. Whether it’s a rural hospital or a doctor in Seattle—no one has had anything good to tell me about prior authorization in Traditional Medicare. 

    “Now I ran for office exactly because I believe regular people deserve a say in how their government is run—and that is especially true when it comes to the government deploying AI technology.

    “I don’t know any senior, Republican or Democrat, who asked President Trump to let AI decide if their doctor-recommended treatment was necessary. Of course, AI can help make things more efficient or do good things, but that’s not what the WISeR model is doing!

    “So, let’s get to the crux of it, as a country, we make a promise to American seniors: if they paid their taxes throughout their careers, they earned their Medicare coverage. Full stop. WISeR breaks that promise to seniors with these senseless, AI driven prior authorizations that deny and delay care.

    “Let me be clear, many seniors choose traditional Medicare over other options because traditional Medicare rarely requires prior authorizations. People choose traditional Medicare because they want to make their health care decisions with their doctor—not with a private company that’s out to make a profit.

    “Simply put, the WISeR model—which again delays and denies necessary care to Medicare patients—it is reckless and irresponsible.

    “I want my Republican colleagues to join us in voting to get rid of WISeR once and for all, because M. President, this should not be a partisan issue.

    “We all have seniors in our states that deserve the highest level of care, without having to deal with red tape and delays. Thanks to Trump, AI is getting in between seniors and their health care: in Arizona, in New Jersey, in Ohio, in Oklahoma, in Texas, and my state of Washington.

    “We have an opportunity to stop this harmful, experimental pilot program before more seniors are harmed. No senior in America should have to appeal their pain and suffering to a machine.

    “To my colleagues, if it was your spouse or parent who needed care, who would you want to decide if they get their treatment? Their doctor or a for-profit algorithm? Would you want them to suffer in pain for weeks for care they are entitled to?

    “I know what my answer is. Let’s maintain the promise of Medicare. Let’s pass this resolution.”

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