Next up, time for Idiot of the Week. I was afraid I'd have to go with Convicted Felon Donald Chump again; however, Markwayne Markwayne Mullin managed to sport a ton of stupidity. This week, he testified before Congress is a subcommittee hearing and nearly popped his stress ball from squeezing it so hard so often to get through the hearing. ATLANTA BLACK STAR NEWS' Shelby Erdman reports:
The
confrontation happened Thursday, June 25, during testimony before the
House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security as DeLauro was
questioning Mullin on the Trump administration’s handling of children
separated from parents who have been detained by federal immigration
officials.
“Thirty-nine hundred children were separated from their families,” DeLauro began but was then quickly interrupted by Mullin.
“Four-hundred
and fifty thousand kids were lost under the Biden administration, and
you didn’t say a word,” Mullin claimed as DeLauro tried to get her time
back.
“Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, do not interrupt,” an angry DeLauro demanded.
“Don’t you point your finger at me,” a disrespectful Mullin threatened.
“I will point my finger at you,” the congresswoman shot back.
“Don’t you be a hypocrite,” a heated Mullin interjected again.
“Thirty-nine hundred children,” DeLauro began again.
“You should be as upset about the 450,000 kids that were lost,” he insisted.
“I am upset,” the Democrat responded.
But a rudely disdainful Mullin continued, “You didn’t say a word about it.”
That’s when DeLauro turned to the committee chair, Republican Mark Amodei, for assistance in getting Mullin under control.
“Mr. Chairman, can you put him in his place?” she asked.
Mullin exploded, “You should be put in your place.”
Social media descended into a furious backlash against Mullin.
“So contempt of Congress isn’t a thing anymore, I guess…” a Threads user noted.
Another
alluded to Mullin’s history of emotional and aggressive rhetoric and
even physical challenges during congressional hearings in the past.
“Mullin
is too emotional to be in a leadership position. Find me a male leader
in this administration that this sentence does not apply to.”
And he here he is getting his lunch served to him by US House Rep Lauren Underwood.
President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin brought along some support for his tense hearing with the House Appropriations Committee: a stress ball.
Mullin
repeatedly grabbed hold of and squeezed the ball as he testified about
DHS oversight on Thursday. It was particularly noticeable as he clashed with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT).
At one point, DeLauro snapped, "Don't interrupt me!" as she pointed her finger at the secretary.
"Don't
you point your finger at me," he clapped back, pointing his finger at
her as he simultaneously clutched the stress ball. "Don't be a
hypocrite."
He frantically squeesed his stress ball. He's such a joke.
Friday, June 26, 2026. Chump's partisan celebrations passed off as
national celebrations continue to underwhelm, his corruption is only
matched by his administration's, a member of Congress calls for the
impeachment of the Secretary of Labor, Health and Human Services
Secretary Junior is caught lying to Congress and attempting to use his
government position to influence whether candidates run for office or
not, Katie Phang wins in court on The Epstein Files, and much more.
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes the failure that was Chump's MAGA State Fair yesterday.
One of the only nice things about downtown Washington, D.C.
is the fact that anyone can stroll freely through the Mall. Now that’s
been ended. To celebrate America, security fencing has been erected and
entry is restricted to a couple of access points that are manned by
heavily armed National Guard, Metro Police, Park Police, Capitol Police,
U.S. Marshals, Secret Service, TSA, and anyone else capable of carrying
a gun and doing seemingly nothing at all. All of this to access a space
that consists of: sod. The grass is nice. Unbroken by a single tree,
its greenness under the broiling sun is a nod to the golf course style
that is fascism’s highest aesthetic.
“When you walk around Washington, D.C.,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, one of the night’s warmup acts, “not
only is it safe again. It’s beautiful again.” As she spoke, a line of
black-clad snipers were clearly visible on the roof of the Agriculture
Department headquarters across the street. Their rifles commanded the
entire field of sweltering sod. These square blocks of our nation’s
capitol, from 12th to 14th
street, have been made both safe and beautiful, simply by fencing them
off, filling them with soldiers, and redesigning them as a suburban
lawn. First, these blocks, and next, the world.
You might already know the humiliating backstory of this
entire event: first it was announced as a big concert, and then the
announced acts — all the way down to Milli Vanilli and Bret Michaels—pulled out in fear of public backlash, prompting a petulant President Donald Trump to declare that he would “take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’
and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward.” So the unlucky
planners of the event were forced to cobble together a show plausible
enough to satisfy the president’s ego, without the benefit of any
actual celebrities.
The resulting event leaned heavily on speeches by
second-tier members of the cabinet and music from the Marine Corps band,
giving it the air of a boss who threw a birthday party and required his
employees to attend. To honor the total capture of America’s
institutions by cronyist incompetence, Alexis Wilkins, the country
singer girlfriend of podcaster-turned-FBI Director Kash Patel, sung the
national anthem. Christopher Macchio, a Trumpian crooner, did a cruise
ship version of “Hallelujah.” The military band sent up uniformed singers and guitar players for karaoke-level covers of “Gloria” and “Walking on Sunshine.”
The whole thing felt like a show that might be inflicted
upon a desultory crowd of students at a reform school, forced by their
principal to listen to the hits of the past, with the threat of juvenile
hall looming over anyone who made a wisecrack.
Convicted Felon Donald Chump has surrounded himself with
crooks. Kristi Noem jetting around with her consort, Markwayne Mullen
now using the same luxury $70 million dollar Boeing 737 jet, Tom Homan taking a $500,000 bribe -- the list is
endless. And of course there's Junior. Junior has a long history of
ethical lapses and now a new one has emerged. Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports:
A
newly obtained audio recording shows that Health Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. personally pressured a Libertarian congressional candidate
in Iowa to abandon a competitive House race, urging him to step aside to
protect Republican control of Congress.
The Washington Post obtained
a recording of the 12-minute call in which Kennedy told Rick Stewart,
the Libertarian candidate in Iowa's 2nd Congressional District, that he
was acting as a "liaison" with the White House, and he warned that a
Democratic takeover of the House would derail President Donald Trump's
agenda and suggested he could help Stewart if he exited the race.
“I
can’t go into specifics because there’s legal prohibitions about that,”
Kennedy told Stewart in the June 11 call. “If it’s something that you
want to talk about, you know, you and I can talk about specifics.”
Stewart
said he interpreted the call as a clear, if carefully worded, attempt
at a quid pro quo. "He was very careful about the words that he used,
but the whole implication is: You help us, we'll help you," Stewart
said, adding that he has no intention of dropping out.
Marco
Battaglia, a Libertarian running in Iowa's 3rd District, said Kennedy
made a similar, unrecorded appeal to him on June 8, warning that the
House could flip to Democrats if Battaglia stayed in the race. Battaglia
said he rebuffed Kennedy, invoking the legacies of Kennedy's father and
uncle.
Government ethics experts said the confirmed recording bolsters concerns that Kennedy's calls may have violated federal law.
Danielle
Caputo of the Campaign Legal Center said federal officials should not
be "tipping the scales, behind the scenes" by pushing candidates to
withdraw, though she noted proving a Hatch Act violation could be
difficult. Stanley Brand, a Penn State law fellow, said Kennedy could
face exposure under separate criminal statutes barring officials from
using their authority to interfere with elections or offering benefits
in exchange for political activity.
Junior
has disgraced himself yet again. He and his trashy wife have squeezed
just about everything that they could out of his late father's name.
Now Junior is left exposed as the grifting con artist he always has been
and always will be.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the Senate last year that a trip to
Samoa in 2019 right before a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do
with vaccines.” New evidence from The Guardiansuggests he may have lied.
In
emails between Kennedy’s team and Samoan officials, one of Kennedy’s
colleagues said they were on a “mission” to investigate the island’s
medical records. There had been a 10-month pause in vaccinations after
two infants died due to a tainted MMR vaccine, and anti-vaccine
activists gained interest in the island as a potential case study in the
health of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.
“The mission involves health informatics evaluation from
medical record data from all hospitals and clinics in Samoa to evaluate
outcomes associated with the recent discontinuity in vaccinations,” Dr.
Michael Graven, who worked at Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group Children’s
Health Defense, wrote in a 2019 email. “Mr. Kennedy asked me to join
this mission as I have performed health informatics initiatives in 48
other countries over 40 years.”
This stands in direct
contrast with how Kennedy repeatedly described his work to the Senate.
In response to questioning from Senator Ron Wyden during his
confirmation hearings last year, Kennedy said, “I went there, nothing to
do with vaccines. I went there to produce a medical informatics system
with digitalized records in Samoa and make health delivery much more
efficient.”
Let's
move back to Chump and the Republicans meeting on Wednesday. Because
while Wednesday appeared to show some strength on the part of
Republicans, Thursday popped up and there were some who were brought on
to have their spines removed.
Even
by our fully debased standard of grading President Donald Trump on a
curve, yesterday was a rolling catastrophe of astonishing political
blunders. Not even the kind that seem like gaffes to normies but
energize his base with high-fiving celebrations of owning the libs. No,
Trump didn’t own the libs yesterday. The only person he owned was
himself. And yet, Senate Republicans remain submissive, even after
showing small flashes of fight.
Voters
of both parties are worried and stressed about housing costs and
affordability, so any sane politician would seize the opportunity for a
photo op of his support for a bipartisan housing bill. Instead, Trump,
who lives in a gilded penthouse and private golf club when he’s not in
residence rent-free at the White House, which he is needlessly renovating with taxpayer money,
unexpectedly cancelled a scheduled signing ceremony (via Truth Social,
of course), saying he would not sign the bill unless Senate Republicans
passed the SAVE America Act,
a voter suppression bill. Wow, this guy really knows how to negotiate,
doesn’t he? As any viewer of Schoolhouse Rock knows, the housing bill
will become law without his signature, and then he will have missed the
opportunity to show everyone how much he cares. Instead, he hands
Democrats an opportunity to show voters how much he only cares about his
delusions and conspiracy theories, and not about addressing their
struggles to afford housing.
Headlines
about Trump’s lunch with Senate Republicans yesterday were dominated by
the shouting matches, especially with Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy,
triggered by the tensions he has stoked with his own party, stemming
from his SAVE America Act demands, his anger
over the passage of the Iran war powers resolution, and other matters.
While such a confrontation seemed to mark a new era in Trump-GOP
relations, definitively declaring a turning point was perhaps premature.
Late last night the Senate, with Cassidy switching his position, votedagainst
another war powers resolution in a procedural vote GOP leadership
brought to the floor for the sole purpose of assuaging Trump after his
blow-up with Cassidy earlier in the day. According to the Washington
Post, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and John Barrasso (R-WY)
successfully pressed Cassidy to change his vote.
Following
his Capitol Hill showdown, Trump met with NATO Secretary General Mark
Rutte in the Oval Office, where he reprised his conspiracy theories
about his botched reflecting pool renovation, insisting
there is photographic proof of “thugs” vandalizing it. “They took razor
blades and they cut patches like that, 350 feet long. A lot of them are
like a foot, a foot, a foot. They cut the lining and there’s pictures
of the guy bending over. I don’t know if anybody saw that, but there are
pictures of the guy,” he said. Reporters, of course, have asked the
White House, the National Parks Service, and the Department of the
Interior to see these photos for themselves. This is not just a “Trump
claimed, without evidence” moment. Trump is just making stuff up — not
unprecedented for him, but notable because the reflecting pool debacle
is such a huge, visible, and easily comprehensible tale of corruption
and incompetence that it will prove much more difficult for him to
bulls[**]t his way out of it.
Chump's actions are making it very hard for Republicans up for re-election to make a case to voters. Adam Lynch notes:
Former GOP U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn.) lamented
before a CNN panel at how eagerly President Donald Trump appears to be
trying to ruin Republicans’ chances in November, even when he’s
allegedly campaigning on their behalf.
Dent was responding to a recent comment about Trump from U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, (R-La.) comparing Trump to a child.
Trump
allegedly called Cassidy a ‘lunatic,’ in a recent war of words, which
prompted Cassidy to tell reporters: “Can I imagine that the President
called me things that would be said on a school playground? I can
imagine [that]”
But Dent said Republicans like Cassidy appear
to be late in showing their feelings as the midterm elections begin to
close in on them, with the public growing ever more frustrated at
Trump’s economic policies and his unilateral attack on Iran, which
inflated U.S. fuel and food prices in time for November.
“If I
wanted to lose a midterm election, I would do the things the President
is doing,” said Dent. “I would steal defeat from the jaws of victory on
this Housing Bill. I would obsess over a ballroom. I would obsess on a
pond — the reflecting pool — and an arch. I would say ‘I don't care
about Americans’ financial condition. I mean it's as if he's trying to
deliberately undermine his own party's electoral prospects.”
An interview with a former Donald Trump voter
from Rolla, Missouri, has gone viral on social media. The woman spoke
about how hard life is for poor people today. The interview aired on the
news channel MS NOW. The reporter was speaking with residents about
their views ahead of the midterm elections.
The woman said she believes the president’s policies are harming financially struggling families.
“I’m not into politics, but I know what’s right and wrong,” she said.
The
reporter then asked her what was wrong with the country right now. She
explained that the president does not understand what it is like to be
poor.
“The way Trump is treating us. Treating
us poor people. I mean, it’s just bad because he has never been poor. He
has always had that gold spoon in his mouth,” she said.
Donald Trump’s political magic may be wearing off, as some of his most devoted supporters have turned their backs on him.
The
president’s MAGA movement appears to be shrinking month by month as job
approval ratings dip well below 40 percent in national polls.
More signs of Trump’s slipping grip on his supporters emerged at a White House event he heavily promoted and headlined.
[. . .]
Trump thought everyone would enjoy the over-the-top attractions and having him as a headliner but that was not the case.
Footage
shows people leaving early from the State Fair, as the president was in
the middle of giving his final remarks on stage on Wednesday night.
“America
is now the largest producer of oil and gas on earth, larger than Russia
and Saudi Arabia by far combined,” Trump could be heard saying as
scores of attendees walked away.
Even some MAGA hat
wearers were seen abandoning ship just 16 minutes into Trump’s address.
Clips of the exodus sparked widespread ridicule of the POTUS.
“HOLY
S–T. People are flooding the [exits] right in the middle of Trump’s
speech. It FINALLY happened. Even his supporters are over his
nonsensical blabbing,” read a second tweet.
So
who did Trump manage to book for his big event? Who was the big name
they managed to lock in? Well, it’s Kash Patel’s 27-year-old girlfriend.
Get excited everybody.
The FBI director’s
27-year-old girlfriend is a featured performer at Trump’s big
celebration, which I’m sure was thrilling news for all of these 6,000
people who are following her budding country music career on Spotify.
I’m sure they are absolutely delighted.
But it
turns out well-known musicians are not the only ones dropping out of
Trump’s big state fair. The website for the event says it will feature
more than 150 exhibits from all 50 states and territories. Sounds good,
right?
Only it turns out that some of America’s
states and territories are just as reluctant to participate in this
thing as Milli Vanilli or one half of Milli Vanilli, to be exact,
because several states have now also announced that they are pulling out
of this event, too. According to various news outlets, at least 10
states have dropped out and will not have exhibits at the event.
Trump couldn’t even get all 50 states of the United States of America to attend the Great American State Fair.
And
he can’t even deliver on the food he promised for this event, it turns
out, because yesterday “Axios” reported that a local D.C. sandwich shop
that appeared on the event’s vendor list said they never agreed to
participate in the fair at all. Again, this is — this is supposed to be
the kind of thing that is easy for a president. It’s the kind of — kind
of the presidential equivalent of a local politician showing up at a
ribbon cutting ceremony, but Donald Trump can’t even pull this off.
And
Jen was right. In fact, as Ben reported in the video at the top of the
snapshot, thee food situation was much worse because some vendors did
show up . . . only to have the power go out and food get ruined. And
the Ferris wheel wouldn't work.
How much of
our tax dollars were wasted on that garbage? And don't pretend you want
the nation to come together and to unify when you've got Sean Duffy on
stage cursing at liberals or Chump onstage insisting that two years ago
the country was the laughing stock and blah blah blah. This was a
partisan event. This was not about unity, it was not about America.
Glory
was being sought. But not for this country. Not for its founding.
Not for the hope of what it can be. Everyone on stage was present to
glorify the Convicted Felon.
And, no, you're
not going to get even half the country willing to go along with that as a
celebration of 250 years of existence.
The
Make America Healthy Again movement that helped sweep Donald Trump back
into the White House is fracturing over his betrayal on pesticides —
and MAHA activists are now threatening to stay away from Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.
According to a report from MS NOW's Arielle Hixson, the Trump administration's decision to back Monsanto in the Supreme Court's Roundup
pesticide liability case is turning into a pivot point for the
administration. The company is fighting to shield itself from state
lawsuits claiming the herbicide should have carried cancer warnings. By
supporting Monsanto's legal team, Trump signaled whose side he's on—and
it's not the health-conscious base that carried him to victory.
According
to a report from MS NOW's Arielle Hixson, the Trump administration's
decision to back Monsanto in the Supreme Court's Roundup pesticide
liability case is turning into a pivot point for the administration. The
company is fighting to shield itself from state lawsuits claiming the
herbicide should have carried cancer warnings. By supporting Monsanto's
legal team, Trump signaled whose side he's on—and it's not the
health-conscious base that carried him to victory.
[. . .]
That
threat of voter disengagement represents a catastrophic risk to Trump
heading into 2026. MS NOW is reporting a Kaiser Family Foundation poll
found 41% of American adults support MAHA — voters who skew Republican
but whose loyalties are now visibly shaken.
Alexandra
Muñoz, a toxicologist working with the MAHA movement, warned that a
Monsanto victory would "strip accountability from a category of
chemicals that includes known carcinogens and could clear the way for
more hazardous pesticides to reach the market," according to the report.
Hannah
Dunning, the "Clean Clothing Chick," articulated the movement's
ultimatum, telling MS NOW, "If they want to be disrespectful to the
point where they're going to side with Big Chemical in the Supreme
Court, watch out for angry moms, because we're here; we're ready."
President Trump, facing a backlash from
supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allying
himself with the chemical industry, issued an executive order on Thursday aimed at reducing pesticides in the food supply and studying the health risks they pose.
The
order does not involve new federal funding, and does not call for new
regulations or legislation. Critics contended that it did little to
meaningfully address the consequences of pesticide use. Two White House
officials, speaking anonymously to preview the order before it was
announced, said it was timed to coincide with a dinner Mr. Trump was
hosting for farmers.
And it's not just independents, swing voters, Republicans and MAGA that Chump's losing, Nicole Charky-Chami (RAW STORY) reports even the tin foil hatters of QAnon are leaving Chump Land:
QAnon
believers have turned on President Donald Trump, and despite an attempt
from the White House to win them back, it has backfired among the
president's former allies, an analyst reported on Thursday.
Will Sommer, senior reporter at The Bulwark,
described how the Trump administration dropped a "bizarre QAnon-themed
social media campaign" this week. In posts on X, the White House used
slogans associated with QAnon, including “trust the plan” with a mock Q
design to try to promote Trump executive orders and references to
"quantum computing."
"There are several reasons why
QAnon believers are turning on Trump," Sommer wrote. "But the main
thrust boils down to this: After trying to block the release of the
Jeffrey Epstein files and failing to deliver deep-state arrests, some of
the movement’s dissatisfied stars think it’s a bit gauche, if not
insulting, that the president and his team are appropriating QAnon
culture."
QAnon John, a former movement personality, described the backlash over Trump's second administration and the online group.
“Now,
[sic] that Trump’s approval is in the toilet after endless broken
promises to the American people and blatantly Israel first policies,
they are using Q propaganda in a last ditch desperate attempt to reel
the deceived loyalists back in," he wrote.
Chump's reflecting pool nightmare continues but it's not the only damage he's physically done to the area. Vic Verbalaitis (DAILY BEAST) notes:
Yet another of President Donald Trump’s vanity projects has left a nasty scar on an iconic Washington, D.C. landmark.
The
White House South Lawn, the featured site of the president’s 80th
birthday bash, housed the 600-ton metal behemoth dubbed “The Claw” for
Trump’s birthday fight night, which ruined the historically pristine
green lawn in the process.
As can be seen in aerial
photos captured on Wednesday, workers have arrived to repair the grass
damaged by the UFC Freedom 250 event held on June 14.
[. . .]
Trump’s
other vanity projects, such as his botched Lincoln Memorial Reflecting
Pool renovation and his demolition of the White House East Wing to make
way for his $600 million ballroom, have irrevocably changed the historic
People’s House and its surrounding landmarks.
All
that money wasted on Chump's personal birthday. Corruption, corruption,
corruption. Chump can -- and does -- add to our national debt
constantly. He's just not very good when it comes to generating income
for the United States. Tristan Bove (FORTUNE) reports:
U.S.
colleges are dealing with plummeting international student enrollment,
and the consequences could go far beyond shrinking tuition revenue.
International
students have become less likely to pursue education in the U.S. since
President Donald Trump’s return to office. The administration has
introduced more restrictive anti-immigration policies, including
measures that explicitly target foreign-born students, and tightened rules about post-schooling employment for international graduates.
Last
fall, schools reported international student enrollment had dipped 17%,
according to NAFSA, an education nonprofit. Declining tuition spending
translated to $1.1 billion in lost revenue for universities, and almost
23,000 fewer jobs.
Those figures might just be a
drop in the bucket if international students end up permanently
absconding from U.S. schools. International enrollees disproportionately
pursue technical degrees, including in scientific, technology,
engineering, and mathematics domains, otherwise known as STEM. The
skills and the professions these lead to are cornerstones to U.S.
innovation and technological breakthroughs, which in turn bolster all
sorts of businesses and jobs. By cutting off those foreign-born grad
students and PhDs at the source, the U.S. risks gutting its own economy
years down the line.
That’s the finding of a paper
published Tuesday by researchers at the Peterson Institute for
International Economics. If the number of transplant STEM graduates
trained in the U.S. were to fall by a third over the next decade, the
blow to entrepreneurship, productivity, and business dynamism would claw
anywhere between $240 billion and $481 billion from the country’s GDP,
the paper found.
Whether it's the
White House lawn or the influx of money to the country from foreign
students, Chump destroys it all. He's a screw up, a loser, and always
has been.
Back
to his corrupt and criminal administration. The worst and the dimmest
that the nation has ever seen. Each one is a dirty joke. Linda
McMahon, for example, Linda's still part of the sex abuse case -- she
and her husband are accused of enabling the abuse of underage boys. The
most recent development in the case was a month ago. Max Everett (WRESTLING INC) reported:
Judge
James K. Bredar ordered that the plaintiffs in the Maryland lawsuit
against Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon, and WWE may continue under
anonymity for the time being.
The plaintiffs
sued the defendants, for their alleged role in covering up the child
sexual abuse they endured as WWE "ring boys" at the hands of senior
staff like Mel Phillips and Pat Patterson, under the Child Victims Act
of 2023 allowing historic child sexual abuse survivors to seek
reparation that had previously been unavailable to them.
While
the case is being litigated before a decision is made to go to trial,
the McMahons opposed an order granting the plaintiffs anonymity, citing
that they were unduly prejudiced as public figures while they went on
unknown to the public. The judge rejected those arguments and believed
that the risks are not great enough to outweigh the risk to the
plaintiffs if they were to have their identities known to the public.
Accused
of covering up sexual abuse of underage boys. And she's our Secretary
of Education. Not a lot of pride in the administration, is there? Well
she's in the news again and I guess anything's better than being
accused of being part of pedophile ring. Linda Jacobson (THE 74) reports:
Linda McMahon became the first U.S. education secretary to be the target of impeachment proceedings Thursday.
Rep.
Suzanne Bonamici, a member of the House education committee, filed
three articles of impeachment against McMahon, noting the secretary’s
“willful intent to unilaterally dismantle and eliminate the Department
of Education.”
[. . .]
The
resolution accuses McMahon of compromising the ability of the
department to fulfill its duties. That’s also the conclusion that the
department’s Inspector General reached in a report
released Wednesday detailing how the administration has slashed the
agency’s staff by 40% and canceled billions of dollars in grants and
contracts.
Miss Sassy
JD Vance is Vice President and part of the administration and deeply
corrupt and even more deeply stupid. Today on MS NOW's MORNING JOE,
they took on Vance's stupidity.
On Thursday, a federal judge based in Washington, D.C., ordered the
Justice Department to unredact additional pages of the Epstein files in a
suit brought by attorney and independent journalist Katie Phang.
The preliminary injunction orders redactions be removed in key
documents of interest in the files, including “at least eight email
exchanges with Mr. Epstein regarding a ‘torture video’ and sexual
activity with young women, including minors” as well as interviews with a
woman who said she was abused by President Trump as a minor.
“The Attorney General’s arguments are unpersuasive. First, Ms. Phang
has identified ‘some concrete consequences of not receiving the
information.’ She has identified ‘half a dozen stories she is currently
unable to report’ because the Attorney General has not disclosed the
information,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote in a decision that also found Phang had a right to bring the case under the Administrative Procedures Act.
He also rebuffed the idea that Phang could have simply requested the
documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), noting that the
department itself had previously said the Epstein Files Transparency
Act “directed a much broader and less redacted release of the files than
would have been made under the FOIA. Certain exemptions which may have
been made under FOIA were not made” in the Epstein Act release.
The Justice Department must either produce the documents or “show cause” as to why they cannot comply.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
The Wage Theft Prevention and Wage
Recovery Act would put money back in workers’ pockets by protecting
their right to fair pay, strengthening accountability for violations,
and improving recovery of stolen wages
One report estimates that roughly
$50 billion is being stolen from American workers via corporate wage
theft every year, potentially even more
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and U.S. Representatives
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House
Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education, and Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA-03), Ranking
Member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, reintroduced
their Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act,
comprehensive legislation that puts hard-earned wages back in workers’
pockets and cracks down on employers who unfairly withhold wages from
their employees. The proposed legislation would give workers the right
to receive full compensation for the work they perform and receive
regular paystubs and final paychecks in a timely manner.
Each year, wage theft denies workers tens of billions of dollars in
pay they have earned as employers commit a variety of minimum wage,
overtime, off-the-clock, tip, and meal-break violations. Wage theft
violations are pervasive at many large corporations. In fiscal year 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor recovered more than $259 million in
stolen wages on behalf of workers—representing just a small fraction of
wages stolen nationwide. These illegal practices disproportionately
hurt low-wage workers—amplifying poverty and inequality in America. As
many as 35% of tipped workers, and 17% of low-wage workers generally, report being paid less than the prevailing local minimum wage in their state—denying workers $50 billion annually from minimum wage violations alone, potentially even more.
“Wage theft is the biggest form of theft in America—but right now
giant corporations are robbing workers blind,” said Senator Murray.
“Workers
are robbed of an estimated $50 billion every year, and this
administration’s answer has been to slash enforcement to the lowest
level on record and give the green light for employers to steal from
workers—so I’m doing something about it. Our bill guarantees workers the
full pay they’ve earned, strengthens accountability, and makes sure
stolen wages actually get recovered. You do the work, you earn the
pay—that’s a very basic contract we should expect every employer to
uphold.”
“Americans are living paycheck to paycheck,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “Working
people are earning wages that have not kept pace with the cost of
living, and on top of that, our most vulnerable workers face the threat
of employers stealing or withholding their wages with little to no
consequence or ability to make themselves whole. This cannot stand—we
are in a cost-of-living crisis. Billionaires and corporations are
hoarding every cent they can from the working and middle-class which is
struggling to just break even under President Trump’s administration. I
am proud to partner with Senator Murray and Ranking Member Scott to
introduce legislation to end this theft and give workers the ability to
recoup their stolen wages. Americans deserve pay for all the hours they
work, including overtime and tips. The theft must end.”
“It is unacceptable that dishonest employers can steal
workers’ wages with little to no consequence. Each year, our most
vulnerable workers are cheated out of billions of dollars. We cannot
grow the middle class when we don’t even have adequate deterrents to
prevent wage theft,” said Ranking Member Scott. “Workers
and employers must be able to trust that our labor laws will hold
unscrupulous employers accountable for violating the law and help
workers recover the wages stolen from them. This bill would take
critical steps to help workers receive the full pay they’ve earned for
all hours worked, including overtime pay, and level the playing field
for law-abiding employers.”
Every day, workers across the country work long hours, expecting
proper compensation, only to have their employers withhold their wages.
While many employers act honestly and treat workers fairly, too many
others force their employees to work off the clock, refuse to pay the
minimum wage, deny them overtime pay after working more than 40 hours a
week, steal tips, and knowingly misclassify workers to avoid paying fair
wages.
The Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act would
strengthen fundamental protections to help ensure workers receive the
full compensation they have earned and crack down on corporations that
subject workers to these abuses. Taking these steps will put money back
in workers’ pockets and help ensure our economy works better for all
Americans, not just the largest corporations and wealthiest few.
Specifically, the bill would help combat wage theft and improve wage recovery by:
Strengthening workers’ right to fair pay and improving employer accountability
Requires employers to pay all wages owed to an employee.
Currently, under federal law, workers can only recover wages at the
minimum wage or for overtime worked; for example, an employee may be
hired at $9.00 per hour, but would only have the right to recover $7.25
of every $9.00 she was owed. This bill would allow workers to recoup the
full compensation that employers have taken from them.
Increasing deterrence of and penalties for wage theft violations
Bolstering recovery of workers’ stolen wages
In the Senate, the legislation is cosponsored by Senators Tammy
Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Maria
Cantwell (D-WA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), John
Fetterman (D-PA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Tim
Kaine (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ed Markey
(D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI),
Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Tina
Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sheldon
Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
In the House, the legislation is cosponsored by Representatives
Suzanne Bonamici (OR-1), Nikki Budzinski (IL-13), Andre Carson (IN-7),
Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10), Dwight Evans (PA-3), Jahana Hayes (CT-5),
Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Jim McGovern (MA-2),
LaMonica McIver (NJ-10), Ilhan Omar (MN-5), Andrea Salinas (OR-6), and
Mark Takano (CA-41).
The legislation is endorsed by AFL-CIO, Economic Policy Institute, National Employment Law Project, SEIU.
“EPI’s research has shown that employers steal billions of
dollars from workers’ paychecks each year — by misclassifying workers,
paying workers less than the minimum wage, stealing tips, or keeping
workers’ real hours off the books. Despite this, the federal agency
responsible for protecting workers’ paychecks lacks adequate staffing
and resources to investigate these violations at scale, and the
deterrent penalties in many cases are not strong enough to stop
employers from breaking the law in the first place. This bill would go a
long way towards cracking down on employers who violate the law,
ensuring workers have transparency to understand their rights, and
making sure that workers are able to get back the stolen wages they are
owed,” said Samantha Sanders, Director of Government Affairs and Advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Next up: Chump. The ridiculous, roly poly, elderly man. THE MIRROR notes,
"Donald Trump was left red-faced after supporters left during his key
address to an unenthusiastic crowd at the Great American State Fair on
the National Mall on Wednesday. Participants were seen leaving while Trump was still talking at the National Mall event, after he made a ludicrous claim." And they walked on him. Just walked away.
Numbers
at President Donald Trump’s much-hyped Great American State Fair
appeared underwhelming just moments before the president took the stage
on Wednesday night.
Reporting live from the
event was CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, who spoke to Anderson Cooper from
Washington D.C.’s National Mall. As O’Sullivan spoke to Cooper following
Alexis Wilkins’ performance of the national anthem, a relatively sparse
crowd could be seen in the background, with significant empty space
directly behind O’Sullivan with slightly over twenty minutes to go
before the president took the stage.
[. . .]
With
an hour to go before the president spoke, the Associated Press noted
that the grassy area on the National Mall was about half full, reporting
later that crowds increased closer to the president’s expected start
time.
Empty chairs could also be seen, both in
the background of O’Sullivan’s report and in a post shared by Secretary
of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who participated in the proceedings.
[. . .]
Reporting from The Bulwark also suggested that the crowd began to thin before Trump had finished speaking, with the outlet posting a video of people leaving the State Fair on X and noting, “Crowds flock towards the exit in the middle of Trump’s speech.”
Donald Trump was laughed at by Fox News viewers as he performed his famous dance moves at his Freedom 250 rally.
The
80-year-old president hosted the Washington, D.C. event on Wednesday,
June 24, as he bragged about what he described as his achievements in
office. Trump said these included securing a preliminary deal to end the
war in Iran and spearheading a crackdown on immigration.
Writing
in the I Paper, Washington-based commentator Simon Marks pointed to a
post that Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller published on X on
Wednesday: "Change the voters, change the country." Marks characterized
the message as one of the darkest threats to American democracy
articulated by a senior US official, arguing it revealed an effort to
tilt the rules in Republicans' favor.
"President
Donald Trump’s chief ideologue, Stephen Miller, is no longer even trying
to hide his determination to game the outcome of America’s midterm
elections in November," warned Marks.
Miller's
post landed shortly after Trump clashed with Republican senators behind
closed doors over the SAVE America Act, a voter ID and
proof-of-citizenship bill the White House is pushing.
Thursday, June 25, 2026. Chump and Republican US senators exchange
words, Chump's faithful turn out for a speech from the Convicted Felon
and large numbers leave half-way through the speech, the courts are
delivering some harsh verdicts for Chump, Pete Hegseth remains
unqualified to be the Secretary of the Defense, and much more.
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) brings us up to speed on the Iran War this morning.
Delusional and demented Donald Chump, Convicted Felon of the United States, no longer can recall what he said mere months ago. Reanna Smith (THE MIRROR) reports:
For more than 100 days, Donald Trump has reassured the American public that the war in Iran has effectively been won by the US.
He has repeatedly claimed victory in the conflict,
even going as far as declaring that it was achieved within the "first
hour" of the war. But now the president appears to have backpedaled on
those bold claims.
On Tuesday, 116 days after the
conflict began, he admitted Iran is only now "on the 'ropes,' ready to
go down for the fall." The president took to Truth Social to boast about
the achievement as he complained about the US Senate approving a War
Powers Resolution demanding that he halt hostilities against Iran and
seek congressional approval before continuing any military action.
[. . .]
The post suggests that the US had not already achieved the victory Trump had previously declared.
It
started with Trump demanding to know why anyone would vote for a
resolution to end the war in Iran, as four Republicans had done on
Tuesday, despite ongoing peace negotiations.
“He
asked, ‘Why would anybody vote for the War Powers Act?’ As he
continued, I said, ‘Is that a rhetorical question, or would you like to
really know?’ He said, ‘I’d like to know,’” [Senator Bill] Cassidy told
reporters after the meeting.
“I stood and
said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on. It was
supposed to last four weeks, it’s lasted four months. Our original
objectives have not been achieved, and I want to know what’s going on.’”
Cassidy
said he told the president he’d continue voting for resolutions to end
the war until the administration gives lawmakers a briefing. He said the
account was not necessarily verbatim, but other senators confirmed
there’d been a testy exchange.
“As I recall,”
Cassidy continued, “he did not particularly care for my comments, raised
his voice. I lost my temper — that’s inappropriate, it’s the Irish in
me — but I again matched his tone and his volume, and it went back and
forth, but at some point, my guys said, ‘All right, Bill, sit down,’ and
so I sat down and tried to de-escalate.”
The
more-than-hourlong meeting with Mr. Trump focused mostly on the Iran
war and the War Powers Resolution. On Tuesday, the Senate approved a
Democrat-led resolution to keep the president from ordering further
military action in Iran. Four Republicans voted in favor of the
concurrent resolution, which is symbolic and does not carry the force of
law.
A source directly
familiar with the meeting told CBS News Mr. Trump expressed his
discontent with Republicans, including Cassidy, who had worked with the
Democrats on the resolution.
The president
also shared his disdain for Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. "It was very
awkward when she walked in right after he said that," the source said.
Murkowski
arrived at the meeting late, telling reporters that she had a
previously scheduled event. Afterward, she questioned his decision not
to sign the housing bill.
"If he chooses to
hold up his own agenda because he wants action on the SAVE Act, that's —
I guess — his call. It is not helpful to him. It's not helpful to the
country, and it's not moving the needle," Murkowski told reporters. "If
you don't have the votes, sir, you don't have the votes."
Sen.
John Kennedy (R-La.) described Trump as “mad as a murder hornet” about
the Iran vote, while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) described the scene
as “very much like a hospital board meeting, when a bunch of doctors are
yelling at each other.”
Marshall added that “at the end of the day, we'll figure out a way to get along.”
Another
GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the lunch
“very intense.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), deploying some go-to
congressional lingo for heated encounters, called it “spirited,” “frank”
and “candid.”
And the two also note Chump's inability to move past the Save America Act:
Instead,
Trump’s surprise declaration, which appeared to catch even some of his
own staff off guard, became the latest curveball for Senate Republicans —
following a surprise request for White House ballroom security funding
and the announcement of a Justice Department “Anti-Weaponization Fund”
that overshadowed and delayed passage of a GOP immigration enforcement
bill.
Since then, Trump also has thrown a key
surveillance program into limbo and upended the confirmation plans for
his own nominee for director of national intelligence.
Most
persistently, he has fixated on Senate Republicans passing the SAVE
America Act — including by eliminating the filibuster — even though
Thune and other GOP senators have said repeatedly that there aren't the
votes to do that.
“There is a huge group of
people who really appreciate what the president is doing right now and
it's the Democrat party,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. ”And we’ve got
to get our act together and stop surprising people and stop having
conflicting messages.”
Meanwhile, Chump's name has been removed from The John F.
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. But the removal was done
behind a tarp and the tarp remains obscuring the title of the
building. Mike Scarcella (REUTERS) reports:
A
federal judge on Wednesday ordered U.S. President Donald Trump's
administration to explain why it placed a tarp over the Kennedy Center's
façade after the Republican leader's name was removed from the building
under a court order.
U.S.
District Judge Christopher Cooper said the administration must report
by July 31 "the purpose and status of the tarp and scaffolding" now in
place at the iconic building.
Last
month, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper found that the president
had illegally put his name on the performing arts center when it was
added in December. Further, the Obama-appointed judge ruled that only
Congress had the power to change the name of the Kennedy Center,
formally known as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
But it seems Trump’s team isn’t taking that well.
On
June 13, workers complied with the judge’s order, removing Trump’s name
from the once-storied performance center. But in its place, they
erected scaffolding and a tarp that almost completely obscures the name
on the building.
The scaffolding and tarp
extend almost entirely up the side of the building. Crews even ensured
that the doors to the center below the sign remained accessible,
suggesting the cover-up would stay in place for some time.
Cooper,
for his part, appears to have caught on. On Wednesday, the federal
judge ordered a status report by the last day of July detailing “the
purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding that Defendants have
erected on the front portico of the Center, to the extent they remain at
that time,” Deadline reported.
A federal judge in California on Tuesday issued
a nationwide block against the Trump administration’s policy of making
arrests at immigration courts, putting an end to a practice that
garnered national attention.
Last year,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement began detaining migrants in
courthouse hallways across the country, sometimes moments after pleading
their cases. The move raised alarm among attorneys and advocates who
said the practice was turning immigration courts from places of due
process into zones of fear and punishing people who were following the
rules.
[. . .]
In a 71-page
ruling, Judge P. Casey Pitts acknowledged the “chilling effect” of ICE’s
policy, finding that it was “arbitrary and capricious.”
“For
the avoidance of doubt, simply extending the 2025 courthouse-arrest
policies to cover immigration courthouses would not cure those policies’
fatal defects. As the Court has previously detailed, the policies
entirely fail to address the chilling effect of courthouse arrests on
noncitizens’ attendance at court proceedings, which is both a critical
factor underlying ICE’s 2021 guidance and an ‘important aspect of the
problem’ in its own right,” Pitts said.
Elliot Spagat (INDEPENDENT) adds, "This
ruling marks the second judicial setback for courthouse arrests,
following a May decision by a federal judge in New York. However, while
the earlier order applied only within New York, Judge Pitts' latest
decision invalidates the policy nationwide." And, as Betty noted last
night in "Hateful Chump gets blocked in his attacks on trans people," a judge stood up to Chump on medical records. AP's Larry Neumeister notes, "A
judge temporarily blocked federal prosecutors in Texas from getting
access to the medical records of transgender patients treated at New
York hospitals on Wednesday, saying they were part of an improper
government effort to “demonize and eradicate an entire population of
transgender” people." Neumeister reports:
At
a Tuesday hearing, Failla was critical of the federal government,
saying executive orders addressing transgender issues contained
“language some people might consider inflammatory.”
She
said it seemed from an “atmospheric perspective” that the government
was “rounding up” vulnerable individuals by finding out the most
personal information about them and then “giving them no comfort they're
not going to be ostracized or even harmed.”
“There
are episodes of this in our history and they are not nice episodes,”
Failla said. “Some may see it as a rounding up of people for all bad
purposes.”
Most major medical groups say access
to gender-affirming care is important for people with gender dysphoria.
Transgender teens, parents and providers have described it as
life-saving for children who are depressed or suicidal because their
gender identities do not match the gender assigned them at birth.
A
divided federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Justice
Department is not entitled to Michigan's voter registration list
containing sensitive information from voters in the state.
The
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit is now the first appeals
court to weigh in on the Trump administration's efforts to obtain the
unredacted voter rolls from more than two dozen states. At issue in the
case decided by the 6th Circuit is the Justice Department's demand for
the information from Michigan.
In a 2-1 decision, the
6th Circuit said a provision of federal civil rights law does not
entitle the government to Michigan's voter registration list, which
contains the names, birth dates, driver's license numbers and partial
Social Security numbers of all registered voters in the state, among
other information.
Chump,
of course, is used to bad news. He takes it and then lies about it to
make himself look better. Yesterday, he spoke in DC and even a crowd
that turned out for him wasn't interested as evidenced by their
departing while his speech was far from over.
Watch the crowd disperse while Donald continues speaking and droning on.
This after his trip earlier this week to Pennsylvania attracted only a small crowd.
He is suffering from an enthusiasm gap, to say the very least.
With
midterms approaching, Republicans in Congress should be taking note.
But even when they do something that could help the country -- and help
them get re-elected -- Chump has a way of screwing that up. From last night's THE NEWSHOUR (PBS).
Amna Nawaz:
Welcome to the "News Hour."
President Trump has
upended Congress' plans for a major housing bill, refusing to sign
legislation that passed with veto-proof majorities as he tries to force
action on his voting reform agenda.
Geoff Bennett:
The tactic is familiar.
Earlier this year, the
president derailed a bipartisan deal on intelligence and surveillance
legislation while pressing lawmakers to adopt that controversial voting
bill known as the SAVE Act. Now he's using a housing package that many
lawmakers expected would be signed into law today as a new point of
leverage.
Andrew Desiderio covers the Senate for Punchbowl News and joins us now.
Andrew, always great to see you.
So,
the White House had prepared for this signing ceremony. Lawmakers were
gathered there on Capitol Hill, and then President Trump says via social
media that he's not going to sign the bill after all. You have to tweet
up on the screen right there. You were there with the news broke. How
did Republican senators react?
Andrew Desiderio, Punchbowl News:
They were shocked, I mean, dumbfounded.
As you
mentioned, the president has done this a lot lately where he has
blindsided Republican leaders. But a signing ceremony usually happens at
the White House. This one was set up in the Capitol Building itself
here in what's known as Statuary Hall. They had a stage set up. They had
the presidential emblem there, a desk for him to sign it.
And
just about an hour before he was supposed to leave for the Capitol, he
put this message on TRUTH Social, saying that he wasn't going to sign it
into law until the Senate and the House sent him, as you mentioned, the
SAVE America Act, which is legislation that has virtually no chance of
passing either chamber, frankly, at this point, but especially in the
Senate, where the filibuster exists.
And what's fascinating about
this particular rift between Senate Republicans and the president is
that the president was already scheduled to attend a lunch meeting with
Senate Republicans right after the signing ceremony, which he came to
anyway.
And the conversation ended up devolving into mostly an
argument between himself and Senator Bill Cassidy over the Iran war. And
the president really didn't open it up for Q&A at all about the
SAVE America Act issue and the fact that he's blocking now the
bipartisan housing and affordability bill, which, by the way, got 85
votes in the Senate and nearly 400 votes in the House.
Geoff Bennett:
Right, bipartisan, veto-proof majority. What leverage does the president really have at this point as it relates to this bill?
Andrew Desiderio:
Well, he has leverage in the sense that he could just hold out in not signing it.
But
there is a 10-day clock that starts to run, but only when the speaker
of the House officially transmits the bill to the White House. Speaker
Johnson, of course, a close ally of President Trump, has not officially
done that yet.
So, if he doesn't actually transmit this bill to
the White House, that 10-day clock doesn't start to run. And if he does,
then the 10-day clock runs, and, at the end of it, the bill
automatically becomes law without the president's signature.
Now,
if the president were to get the bill eventually and then veto it,
Congress could vote on overriding that veto, but it takes two-thirds in
both chambers. If you take into consideration the fact that it got huge
margins in both chambers to begin with, you would think that they would
be able to easily override this veto.
But veto override votes tend
to be very interesting, in the sense that a lot of members back off of
their initial support for a piece of legislation when it comes to a veto
override because they don't want to be seen as crossing the president.
So
who knows, honestly, what's going to happen with this bipartisan
housing affordability bill, which Republicans really, really want to
focus on, because they know that affordability is the number one issue
for voters in the midterms.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, yes, let's talk more about that, because the
president dismissed this housing bill as being of minor importance. That
was the phrase that he used. But housing costs, affordability remain a
top issue for voters heading into November.
So, how much of a political vulnerability does this open up for Republicans?
Andrew Desiderio:
It's a major political vulnerability.
The
president's poll numbers are already at historic lows. Voters are
already saying that they in these surveys are very dissatisfied with the
state of the U.S. economy, the cost of living, again, affordability
concerns, and they want to see Congress and the president addressing
that.
And, instead, what we're seeing is, of course, the president
having this fixation, this obsession on the SAVE America Act, which, as
I mentioned before, has virtually no chance of actually becoming law.
And it's something that Republican leaders think they can use against
Democrats to show that they're against voter I.D., for example, which is
usually an 80/20 issue in this country, right?
So what the
president is also doing is, he's preventing Republicans from even
seeking political benefit from that issue on its face. And so it really
is not just blindsiding them, but dumbfounding the Republican leadership
up here, to the point where I have Republican senators coming to me and
openly questioning whether this president is intentionally,
deliberately trying to blow up their congressional majorities.
MS
NOW host Jen Psaki on Tuesday interviewed South Carolina congressional
candidate Nancy Lacore, a three-star admiral and former chief of the
Navy Reserve who was fired last year by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Psaki
had the pleasure of informing Lacore on the air that she had won the
Democratic nomination, but only after the dismissed U.S. service member
chronicled her journey into politics following Hegseth’s purge last year
of senior military officials.
“It was an abrupt
end,” recalled Lacore. “I was one year into what is normally a four-year
job, you know, was notified that I was being relieved, effective
immediately. I walked out of the Pentagon an hour later — and I
struggled to figure out what was next for me.”
She
continued, “But the one thing I couldn’t shake was this feeling that I
wasn’t done serving. I thought I was going to be in uniform serving for
three more years and decided there’s too much at risk. I can’t sit on
the sidelines. I can serve differently.”
Lacore launched her campaign in January.
She
will now be running in the general election for South Carolina’s 1st
Congressional District, held by Rep. Nancy Mace (R), after defeating Mac
Deford. Before learning that she had won the nomination, Lacore
explained why a Democrat could be a popular choice.
“I
think the fact that every day we turn the TV on and this administration
is doing something that harms Americans helps, right?” Lacore said.
“People are fed up with this administration. And … I focus on what
matters to everybody in this district … the cost of living,
affordability.”
President Donald Trump frequently dismisses widespread affordability concerns and has launched a costly and deeply unpopular war with Iran. Lacore said her district has “a huge veteran population” of “fed up” people who approach her about these issues “in tears.”
She is only one of many qualified people that Hegseth has
fired. Along with firing, his 'leadership' has also led to a number of
people deciding to leave. Konstantin Toropin (INDEPENDENT) reports:
General
Christopher Donahue, the commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe and
Africa, is unexpectedly stepping down after only 18 months, the Army
confirmed late Tuesday.
Donahue, famously the
last American soldier to depart Afghanistan in 2021, will relinquish his
command on July 2. His departure marks the latest in a series of nearly
two dozen top military leaders who have either retired or left their
positions early under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who advocates for
"less generals, more GIs" in an effort to streamline the military's
senior ranks.
[. . .]
An
Army official, speaking anonymously due to the sensitive nature of the
discussions, indicated that Donahue’s departure coincides with internal
discussions about downgrading the US Army Europe and Africa Command from
a four-star to a three-star position.
This
potential change comes amid ongoing criticism from Hegseth regarding
European allies. Last week, Hegseth informed NATO allies that he would
initiate a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe,
designed "to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward
Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the
defense of Europe." He added, "It’s a review that some countries will
fail and others will pass with flying colors."
The
command Donahue now leads is also set to be downgraded from a four-star
command to a three-star post, according to another U.S. official, part
of Hegseth’s broader push to shrink the number of generals across the
force.
Officers serving as four-star generals
are only eligible to hold a position of that rank. If there are no other
slots available, then the only option left for them is to retire.
Idiot Hegseth was noted last week due to vaccines and his waiving them:
Lawmakers
are now pointing fingers directly at the Department of Defense.
Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren, Mark Kelly, and Kirsten Gillibrand
sent a harsh letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The
politicians are demanding answers after a drone strike killed six
American service members in Kuwait. The incident occurred during the
opening hours of the conflict with Iran.
“We are concerned that this is part of a larger pattern in which this
administration has failed to protect Americans in the region from
Iranian retaliation,” the letter stated, according to Daily Beast.
Senator
Warren did not hold back her criticism. Speaking to ABC News, Warren
insisted that Hegseth “must be held accountable” for the tragedy.
She
added that “Hegseth’s leadership has been one betrayal after another.”
The letter argued there were insufficient “plans to prevent possible
harm from foreseeable attacks,” including acts “like retaliation with
drone strikes.”
Hegseth
is notorious for so many things -- most of them hideous. That would
include his refusal to wash his hands. Hygiene isn't a big thing with
Hegseth nor are vaccines. And that's coming back to haunt him. Greg Jaffe and Maggie Haberman (NEW YORK TIMES) report:
A
major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force
Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated
for the flu, defense officials said.
The
outbreak at the base in San Antonio raced through an Air Force Basic
Military Training wing, where new recruits sleep on bunk beds in open
bays and share meals at large communal tables.
A
trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on
Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said
in a news release. It was not immediately clear whether the death of
the trainee, Keon McDaniel, was related to the flu outbreak.
A comprehensive medical review into his death is underway to determine the cause, according to the Air Force.
In the weeks since Mr. Hegseth’s vaccine policy took effect on April 21,
only about 40 percent of Air Force trainees have opted to take the
vaccine, which had previously been mandatory, an Air Force official
said.
And this is happening right now. Imagine what awaits come winter. Hegseth, ruining America just a little bit more each day.
There's an update on that story, the number has risen to 222.
Military
branches are reintroducing flu shot requirements as an outbreak has
been growing at Lackland Air Force Base, where new recruits are trained.
Secretary
of Defense Pete Hegseth ended flu shot mandates for the military in
April, ending a mandate that had been in place since 1945. Hegseth said
at the time that it should be a service member’s personal decision
whether to get vaccinated or not.
But
you can't do that with the flu vaccine and the military. It impacts
readiness. You'd think even an idiot like Hegseth would have realized
that but, no, he didn't.
Zachary notes:
Approximately
40% of new recruits in San Antonio had flu vaccinations earlier this
month, according to ABC News. Now, however, it appears Hegseth’s rule is
being walked back as Pentagon officials say new recruits for the Army,
Navy, and Air Force will now be required to get flu vaccinations. The
current crop of recruits will be vaccinated and all recruits going
forward.
There will be reportedly be far more
exceptions to Hegseth’s optional rule put in place soon, too, which will
lead to vaccination mandates for deployed troops, healthcare personnel,
and more.
In a functioning
administration, Hegseth would have grasped his last straw several major
mistakes ago. In Chump land, he's just another screw up who screws up
repeatedly.
Lets wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
The government website
directs women to Option Line, a finder tool for unregulated, often
nonmedical anti-abortion facilities that has exposed the sensitive data
of pregnant women.
“Moms.gov is not about
promoting women’s health—it is an attempt to use HHS resources to
further strip women of their rights and privacy.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.), along with Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), pressed President Donald Trump
and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the Trump Administration’s new
website, Moms.gov, which directs pregnant women and their loved ones to
unregulated and often nonmedical anti-abortion facilities known as
crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).
“This raises profound concerns about the health, safety, and privacy
of people who access this government website at a time when women’s
health and reproductive rights face increasing attacks,” wrote the senators.
On Mother’s Day, the Trump Administration launched Moms.gov
as “a groundbreaking website for new and expecting mothers,” purporting
to “offer[] guidance and information to support the health and
well-being of mothers and their families.” Rather than connect people
with licensed health care providers and evidence-based resources, a
button reading “Find Pregnancy Centers Near You” steers them to an
external site called Option Line, a CPC finder tool that collects data
on pregnant women.
CPCs receive at least tens of millions of dollars in federal funding
and, though advertised as legitimate care providers, do not provide
comprehensive reproductive care and are not bound by federal privacy
protections, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which protects “sensitive health information from disclosure without patient's consent.”
CPCs have been known to cause dangerous delays in medically necessary
care, putting women’s health and lives at risk. In recent cases, CPCs
in Massachusetts and Texas
allegedly failed to identify life-threatening ectopic pregnancies,
leading to emergency surgeries. These incidents are especially troubling
in light of reports that a major CPC support organization advised
affiliated centers to avoid providing ultrasounds that could reveal
ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages, raising serious concerns about
patient safety.
The website also includes a direct link to Option Line, a collection
tool operated by Heartbeat International, an anti-abortion organization
with a history of data breaches. Option Line collects sensitive personal
information and may share it with third parties, posing serious privacy
risks. In one breach,
Heartbeat International compromised the privacy of thirteen people by
reportedly uploading an unencrypted training video to the internet
revealing their names and medical histories.
“At a time when reproductive health data is being used to criminalize
women, the Administration’s use of federal funds to direct women to a
private data-collection system, operated by an anti-abortion
organization known to collect and share personal data unrestrained by
federal privacy guardrails, is cause for alarm and warrants significant
scrutiny,” wrote the senators.
“In this hostile environment, women deserve a government that will
work tirelessly to ensure that they have access to health care that
improves their lives, receive accurate medical information from
legitimate health care providers, and that their private health
information will be protected. Instead, the Trump administration
continues to advance policies that restrict reproductive freedom and
block access to care,” concluded the senators.
The letter, sent on the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade,
demands that HHS remove the crisis pregnancy center link from Moms.gov,
stop using federal resources to direct women to anti-abortion CPCs, and
provide answers to a set of questions regarding how it will protect the
health and data privacy of the women who enter this site.
This letter was also signed by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tammy
Duckworth (D-Ill.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Tina Smith
(D-Minn.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), and
Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
This letter is endorsed by Reproductive Freedom for All, National
Partnership for Women and Families, National Women’s Law Center, and
Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
“Anti-abortion centers—so-called crisis pregnancy centers—push
misinformation, rely on deceptive tactics, and endanger pregnant people
by delaying access to legitimate care,” said Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju.
“These centers cannot be trusted to protect people’s sensitive
reproductive health data any more than they can be trusted to protect
their health. We thank Senator Warren, Senator Hirono, and Leader
Schumer for their leadership in demanding answers about Moms.gov’s
alarming promotion of these centers and their history of endangering
people’s health and data privacy.”
“Moms.gov is propaganda for anti-abortion extremism, plain and
simple,” said Katie O’Connor, senior director of federal abortion policy
at the National Women's Law Center Action Fund.
“Moms.gov is taking advantage of the fear and confusion caused by the
constantly shifting landscape of abortion access to direct pregnant
people to dangerous anti-abortion centers, which are known to spread
false and misleading information in an effort to dissuade people from
getting abortion care. We are grateful to Senator Warren for her
leadership in calling out the dangers of this website and demanding more
information from the administration about why they are directing people
to resources that could put women’s health at risk.”
"The Trump Administration is using Moms.gov to push a coercive,
pronatalist agenda by promoting crisis pregnancy centers, or fake
clinics, over actual reproductive healthcare providers,” said Rosann
Mariappuram, Director of Reproductive Health and Rights at the National
Partnership for Women & Families.
“Fake clinics seek to deter pregnant people from obtaining abortion
care through lies and deceptions. They are known for reckless data
practices that endanger the privacy of the women and girls who walk
through their doors or visit their websites. Directing people to
Moms.gov is one of many tactics anti-abortion extremists are employing
to surveil pregnant people. We join Senator Warren in calling on HHS to
remove the pregnancy center link from Moms.gov and instead use federal
resources to help people get the care they need without fear or
judgment."
Senator Warren has led the fight to protect women’s reproductive rights:
In May 2026, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy Baldwin
(D-Wisc.), Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.),
Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) led the entire Senate
Democratic caucus in reintroducing a resolution affirming that the abortion medication mifepristone is safe and effective
and underscoring that law and policy related to the medication must be
equitable, transparent, and based on the best available peer-reviewed
evidence-based science.
In May 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth
(D-Ill.), and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) led 12 senators in pressing the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on the Commission’s efforts to weaken a rule affirming employment protections for workers undergoing fertility treatments.
In March 2026, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); Ron Wyden,
Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee (D-Ore.); and Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) led 23 colleagues in publishing a new report
revealing the harm Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have caused
to Americans in the six months since their dangerous provision to
“defund” Planned Parenthood, buried in their Big, Beautiful Bill, went
into effect.
In November 2025, ahead of the Senate Finance Committee’s
confirmation vote for Thomas M. Bell, Donald Trump’s nominee for Health
and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General (IG), U.S. Senator Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.) exposed Bell’s flip-flopping and slammed his extreme anti-abortion views.
In July 2025, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Michael Stuart, nominee for General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),
on his dangerous anti-vaccine views, staunch anti-abortion advocacy,
and more. Ahead of his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate
Finance Committee later today — at which Senator Warren will question
Stuart — Senator Warren sent Stuart a letter outlining her key concerns
with his nomination.
In February 2025, Senators Warren and Duckworth pressed Dr. Mehmet Oz,
President Trump’s then-nominee for the Administrator of the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), on his hostile anti-abortion
record.
In December 2024, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) reintroduced the Health and Location Data Protection Act, legislation banning data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive personal information.
In September 2024, at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Elizabeth Warren highlighted the dangerous consequences women faced after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
In January 2024, on the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) spoke on the floor of the United States Senate about the fight ahead to restore abortion rights and protect reproductive freedom.
In December 2023, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) led 40 other lawmakers in introducing a resolution in support of equitable, science-based policies governing access to medication abortion.
In May 2023, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy
Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) expanded their investigation
into the effects of state abortion bans on women, as the country neared
the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe
v. Wade.
In March 2023, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Mazie
Hirono (D-Hawaii), along with Senators Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Richard
Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), sent a letter to Walgreens CEO Rosalind Brewer,
expressing concern regarding recent reports that the company would not
dispense medication abortions in 21 states where Republican Attorneys
General have threatened the company.
In January 2023, United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Cori Bush (D-Mo.) sent a letter to the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) in
support of their October proposed rule on employee status, which would
help reclassify potentially thousands of misclassified workers.
In November 2022, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy
Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.)
released a new report:
Post-Roe Abortion Bans Threaten Women’s Lives: Health Care Providers
Speak Out on the Devastating Harm Posed by Abortion Bans and
Restrictions. The 23-page report – based on information provided by
leading health care providers – reveals the devastating consequences of
state abortion bans and restrictions enacted by right-wing legislatures
and the impacts of Senate Republicans’ extreme proposal to ban abortion
nationwide after 15 weeks.
